Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard found Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, guilty on all ten counts of killing Riley outside of the University of Georgia’s campus on Feb. 22 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As the family pleaded for Ibarra to serve a life sentence without parole, Phillips read words Riley wrote in her entry on Jan. 17, 2023, where she promised to be a loving, God-fearing future wife and mother to her future family.
“I think one of her last journal entries dated 12/17/23 says it best, so here we go: ‘To my future husband, as silly as I feel writing this, my old small group leader once recommended it, so here I am,” Phillips read. “‘To my future husband, I want you to know that I’m thinking about you and working everyday to become the best wife I can be by working through my current relationships to best prepare me for ours and our kids one day. I’m focusing on God and what he defines as a faithful, Christian life and so that I can best embody those characteristics. I pray that you know that it is with my full faith and trust in God that I know that this relationship has been handcrafted by Him. I pray that we continue to glorify the Lord, prioritizing him in every aspect of our lives, and raise our family, our future family to be God-fearing Christians as well.’”
“‘I pray God is the singer of our relationship as it is a gift from Him, I thank Him for you before I even know you. I can’t wait to love you in the best way I know how for the rest of our lives,’” her stepfather read. “‘I pray you know and feel the importance of our love and hopes for our relationship. No matter what challenges we face, I pray that our trust in God and for one another overrules the obstacle. May our relationship last forever, Your future wife, Laken.’ That your Honor was our beautiful Laken. That your Honor is just a glimpse of what was tragically and brutally taken from her and us that day.”
The convicted murderer, who unlawfully entered in September 2022, abducted Riley while she was on a jog and murdered her by causing blunt force trauma to the head with an inanimate object. The judge found Ibarra guilty of malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, obstructing or hindering a 9-1-1 call, tampering with evidence and being a peeping tom.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that Ibarra had entered the U.S. illegally through an entryway near El Paso, Texas, and was released into the country on parole due to the lack of detention space at the time. He was later arrested for allegedly acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 years old in New York City, according to ICE.
His former roommate, Rosbeli Elisber Flores-Bello, testified during a Monday hearing that she and Ibarra traveled from New York City to Athens, Georgia, after requesting a “humanitarian flight” in September 2023, four months before Riley’s murder.
Jong-Fast wrote in a Vanity Fair column Monday that expressing outrage over Trump’s remarks about women and “wokeness” only satisfies his supporters and is less dangerous than what he may do during his administration. The “Morning Joe” guest argued the media focused too heavily on Trump’s rhetoric throughout his first administration, and stated they should instead focus on Trump’s alleged threat to democracy and American institutions.
“We are in it for 4 years, this is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint. We need to protect norms and institutions and not focus on the aesthetic problem of Trumpism,” Jong-Fast said. “The first time there was a lot of ‘he used vulgar language,’ you know, offended by things and more focus on the norms and institutions. So, the war on woke is vague. You saw reporting that had these people, Trump voters, saying Trump had defeated woke. So that’s vague. But the structural things that Trump might do to try and fight woke could end up undermining democracy. So I feel like, more focused on democracy, democratic values, norms and institutions, the structures that keep America, America, and less focused on the aesthetic problems of Trumpism.”
Jong-Fast wrote in her piece that Trump’s tweets during his first administration distracted from the “actually terrifying things” the then-president did. She argued that his possible “outrageous” remarks that will be made in the upcoming 4 years should not get the same reactions.
“Will I be outraged? Obviously, Trump will do outrageous things. But in entering likely one of the most perilous moments for our democracy, we must focus on the assault on essential norms and institutions, because without them, we are lost,” she wrote.
The media, including “Morning Joe,” spent the entirety of the 2024 election season warning that Trump is a “threat to democracy” and will govern as a dictator, even likening him to former Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Scarborough accused Trump of being the single biggest “threat to democracy since the Civil War” and compared him to Hitler during a Sept. 23 segment, while one of their guests Claire McCaskill claimed he is “more dangerous than Hitler” during a November 2023 segment on the program.
Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with Trump in Mar-a-Lago on Friday to discuss their concerns regarding policy issues, including abortion and illegal immigration.
The outlet claimed in a Wednesday editorial that the platform contains “disturbing content” that includes so-called “conspiracy theories” and “racism.” The editorial team has decided to promote their content elsewhere to avoid Musk’s alleged ability to “shape political discourse.”
“We wanted to let readers know that we will no longer post on any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly Twitter),” the editorial reads. “We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere. This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism.”
“The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse,” the editorial continued.
Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X https://t.co/j4fRgzSYde
— The Guardian (@guardian) November 13, 2024
The company’s staff will still be able to use X to promote their own work, and users are still permitted to post The Guardian’s content on the platform, the editorial team wrote. They alleged that X “plays a diminished role” in their goal to reach new audiences and prefers that readers obtain their content from their website.
“Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work. Our journalism is available and open to all on our website and we would prefer people to come to theguardian.com and support our work there,” the editorial continued.
President-elect Donald Trump’s victory led to a surge in users allegedly quitting X, most notably MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, who claimed she deleted her account as an act of “self preservation.” However, Wallace’s account appears to still exist.
Prior to Musk taking over X in April 2022, the platform locked the accounts of the New York Post and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany shortly before the 2020 election for sharing the outlet’s reporting that contained emails allegedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop indicating that he and his father, President Joe Biden, met with a Ukrainian executive from the oil company Burisma. Musk and journalists including former Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi detailed how the former executives of the platform intentionally suppressed the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop at the behest of the FBI.
The previous executives running the platform permanently banned Trump’s account for allegedly inciting or justifying violence at the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Rogan’s plans to conduct a one-on-one interview with Harris on his popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” fell apart after Rogan denied the Harris campaign’s request for him to travel out to the vice president and only interview her for the duration of one hour, the podcaster said on X. Khanna said Harris made a campaign mistake by not appearing on the podcast to make her platform known to Rogan’s millions of listeners.
“I’m confident we’re gonna rebuild in 2026 and we’ll win back the White House in 2028 and we gotta listen, we gotta go on some of these podcasts, I was just on “All In [with Chris Hayes] saying we should’ve done, in my view, Joe Rogan, go on all the podcasts and listen to what we need to know and and have a compelling economic message,” Khanna told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki. “But I’m still very hopeful about the party and our future.”
An undecided voter ultimately chose to support Trump over Harris because she did not appear on Rogan’s podcast, MSNBC correspondent Gadi Schwartz said Tuesday. Rogan’s show has over 14 million Spotify followers and 18.3 million YouTube subscribers, and has an audience of 80% male viewers, with 51% falling between the ages of 18-34, according to Edison Research.
President-elect Donald Trump appeared on the podcast for an Oct. 26 interview spanning nearly 3 hours, which garnered over 46.7 million views as of Thursday. Rogan endorsed Trump on Monday, just one day before the election.
The president-elect defeated Harris early Wednesday and currently holds 295 electoral votes, with Arizona and Nevada yet to be called.
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]]>Berman played an edited, trimmed down clip of Trump saying he will protect women “whether they like it or not” in reference to many women falling victim to rape and murder as a result of the border crisis. Donalds said the clip is “grossly inaccurate” and out of context, stating that Trump is promising to protect women from the various tragedies that have taken place as a result of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“John, that is grossly inaccurate what you just played. Play the full clip. Play it in its context,” Donalds said. “He’s talking about the tragedy at our southern border that led to the death of Jocelyn Nungaray. Jocelyn’s mother endorsed Donald Trump because she fully believes that if Donald Trump was president, her daughter would be alive. And so what he was talking about, I’m gonna protect women, I’m gonna protect children,’ and he was really telling a joke about how some of the staff said ‘no, no, don’t say you’ll protect women because they’ll take it out of context.’ Obviously, what CNN is doing right now, is taking it out of context.”
“No, no, no, you have the exact right context here, congressman,” Berman replied. “Congressman, you just explained the exact right context was with Donald Trump’s story was telling people how people close to him, his advisers were telling him not to use that type of language to say ‘I’m going to be your protector.’”
The CNN host pointed to former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticizing the Trump campaign for appealing to male voters and not sending a message that will win over women.
“John, you need to stop,” Donalds said.
“So you’re telling me there’s no concern from Nikki Haley or as clearly as Donald Trump said, from people close to him in his campaign, about the type of language that he’s using,” Berman said.
Donalds then named 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley and 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who all mercilessly died at the hands of illegal immigrants under the Biden-Harris administration.
“Donald Trump is going to protect women in our country. He is going to protect children in our country,” the congressman said. Under Kamala Harris, we have lost 350,000 children in the United States. We’ve lost them, John, talk about that. What I will tell you is once again, you’re gonna clip 5 seconds out of an hour speech and not provide context. This is why the American people frankly are frustrated with media because you guys play games, you take things out of context, you don’t explain them clearly, and you want to get caught up in some antics.
“The heart of what Donald Trump said, very clearly is, he’s gonna protect the women of our country because Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have refused to protect the women of our country and a president should protect women and all Americans and that’s what he’s gonna do,” Donalds continued.
The former president said during a Wednesday rally in Wisconsin that his advisers believed women would not like him promising that he would protect them, leading him to say at the rally that he will protect women anyways if he is reelected.
Federal immigration law under the Biden-Harris administration allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “parole” migrants instead of detaining them for “humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” which has been challenged by many Republican-led states. Illegal encounters exceeded 2 million in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, largely surpassing encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Trump administration, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
(DCNF)—Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds got into a near shouting match with CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin Monday as they debated Republican nominee Donald Trump’s rally in New York City.
Trump held a major rally at Madison Square Garden alongside several prominent figures Sunday night, which critics have compared to the 1939 pro-Nazi rally at the same arena. Donalds said on “Squawk Box” that these racism accusations are an attempt by the media to “fear monger” and argued no one at the rally agreed with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico being a “floating island of garbage.”
“To the New York Daily News: is it a racist rally if you have a black man from Florida who’s originally from New York speaking at the rally? I don’t think so,” Donalds said, referring to himself. “This is the problem with most media today. They’re too busy trying to fear monger everything instead of actually talking about the facts and the substance. It was a great rally that we had last night. Donald Trump obviously spoke last night, did he say something that was off color? No, he did not. I spoke. Did I say something off color? No, I did not. Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, did they say anything that was off color? No, they did not.”
The New York Daily News published a headline titled, “Trump’s MSG event turns into ugly racist rally, speakers insult Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Jews,” while The Associated Press wrote a headline called “Trump’s Madison Square Garden event turns into a rally with crude and racist insults.”
Co-host Rebecca Quick said many of the attendees and speakers at the rally have distanced themselves from Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, which Donalds said he and the campaign disagreed with.
“Okay, so The Associated Press, ‘Madison Square Garden event features crude and racist insults.’ That did happen. You may not have been the one making them, but that did happen,” Sorkin said.
“And [Quick] just said it, the campaign has distanced itself from it, they do not agree, I do not agree. Unfortunately, it was said, but nobody agrees with it,” Donalds replied.
Sorkin argued that many voters who agree with Trump’s policies oppose him because of his rhetoric, and accused those who do support the former president of being “willing to engage” in alleged “vitriol.”
“Kamala Harris spends half of her time talking about her rival as Hitler after he’s been, after the attempts on his life, not once, but twice. She’s doing it right now. Every Democrat official at these rallies refer to him as Adolf Hitler. You’ve got [former Democratic nominee] Hillary Clinton running out there hawking her book that nobody wants to buy frankly, and she’s talking about how this is akin to 1939. Are you out of your mind? If you want to talk about rhetoric, compare. But let me go back. We are talking about the comments of a comedian and everybody’s gonna forget it in 48 hours. The real joke in America is the terrible policies of Kamala Harris,” Donalds said, saying Puerto Ricans are struggling under Harris.
“I’m not disagreeing with you on that front. I’m just saying to the extent that you can speak to those people who are out there now watching saying, ‘I agree with the Trump policies, but I just can’t abide by reading headlines like that,’” Sorkin said.
Donalds said voters have to decide whether they want to believe the media who he accused of being “in the tank” for Harris or live under a continuation of the vice president’s policies.
(DCNF)—CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said Friday that Republican nominee Donald Trump may possibly “make history” on Election Day by winning the popular vote.
Trump’s recent edge over Vice President Kamala Harris in national polling has indicated that he may be in a position to win the popular vote, Enten said. In such a scenario, the former president would become the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win the popular vote.
“Trump may win the popular vote,” Enten said. “Everyone has been talking about this idea that Trump may win in the Electoral College but Kamala Harris will win the popular vote. But Trump may finally get his great white whale. Harris versus Trump national margin, you mention that New York Times [is] a tie, that’s actually right in the middle of the spectrum when we’re talking about recent polling data. You don’t have to look very far to find Donald Trump ahead nationally. He was up by 2 points in the CNBC poll, up by 3 [points] in the Wall Street Journal poll, very close races within the margin of error.”
“But the bottom line is, with the popular vote, which we really haven’t focused upon, a very, very tight race, John. Fact is Donald Trump is very much in a position [where] he could win the popular, which of course this is something he would absolutely love to do,” Enten continued.
Harris is leading Trump by an average of 1 point in national popular vote polls as of Friday, standing much lower than President Joe Biden’s 9-point lead or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 6-point lead in late October before the elections of 2016 and 2020. The vice president’s narrow lead in national polling indicates that the popular vote is “way too close to call,” Enten said.
“Harris in the average poll right now is up by 1, well within the margin of error. You go back four years ago, Joe Biden was well ahead of Donald Trump in the national popular vote polls. He was up by 9. Even Hillary Clinton was up by 6 points, so now Donald Trump’s in a position he really hasn’t been before at this point in the campaign where he could truly compete and can truly say at this point that the popular vote is way too close to call,” Enten said.
A Republican presidential nominee has not won the popular vote since former President George W. Bush won re-election in 2004. Bush was the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote in a presidential election since his father, George H.W. Bush, was elected in 1988.
“The fact that the polls are so close, the fact that Donald Trump has a legitimate shot of winning the popular vote is something I think a lot of folks, including in my line of work, really didn’t think could possibly happen when Donald Trump was running last time around. He could make history, not just for Donald Trump, but for a Republican candidate as well,” Enten continued.
The former president is faring well in California, New York, Florida and Texas, which is boosting his chances of winning the popular vote, though those states will not determine a victory in the Electoral College, Enten said.
Trump took the lead nationally over Harris with 47% to 45% in a Wall Street Journal poll published Thursday, while a new CNBC poll found the former president securing a 2-point lead nationally. The former president also held a 0.8 point lead against Harris across every swing state as of Friday, according to RealClearPolling averages.
(DCNF)—White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden believes Republican nominee Donald Trump is a “fascist.”
Trump’s longest-running chief of staff John Kelly told The New York Times Wednesday that the former president “met the definition of a fascist” and admired figures like former Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. The press secretary confirmed to CNN senior White House correspondent MJ Lee that Biden agrees with Kelly’s assessment about Trump, claiming that the former president plans to be a “dictator on day one.”
“You have heard from this president over and over again about the threats to democracy,” Jean-Pierre said. “And the president has spoken about that. You have heard from the former president himself that he is going to be a dictator on day one. This is him, not us, this is him. And it’s not just us the White House saying this, you’ve heard it from officials, former officials who worked for the former president say this as well. So, you know, do we agree , I know that [Vice President Kamala Harris] just spoke about this, do we agree about that determination, yes, we do.”
The press secretary pointed to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, in which she accused Trump of encouraging people to raid the Capitol and overturn the 2020 election results. She then accused Trump of “praising Adolf Hitler,” which she said is “dangerous” and “disgusting.”
“So just to be clear, when you said ‘we do agree,’ President Biden believes that Donald Trump is a fascist?” Lee said.
“I mean, yes,” Jean-Pierre replied. “We have said, he has said himself. The former president has said he is going to be a dictator on day one. We cannot ignore that. We cannot. And, we cannot ignore or forget what happened on January 6, 2021. That is real, real people were affected by this. Law enforcement who were trying to protect the Capitol, protect elected officials in the Capitol, congressional members, senators, House members. Their lives were ruined because of that day.”
The former president was threatened by two assassination attempts on his life in the span of two months, one in mid-July and the other in September. The second would-be assassin, Ryan Wesley Routh, wrote in an April 22 post on “X” that “democracy is on the ballot” and that President Joe Biden needed to protect Americans from Trump attempting to “make [them] slaves against master.”
The White House has repeatedly branded Trump and his supporters as “extremist threats to democracy” since early on in the administration. Jean-Pierre stated Trump is a “threat to our democracy” during a Sept. 17 press briefing, two days after the second assassination attempt.
(DCNF)—A CNN panel got into a heated debate Tuesday as the network’s senior political commentator Scott Jennings brought up second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s alleged mistreatment of women.
The panel discussed rapper Eminem’s harsh criticisms of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s during a rally in Detroit, Michigan, alongside former President Barack Obama. Jennings said that Eminem has said derogatory words about women and even allegedly promoted domestic violence, but yet the public continues to chastise Trump for his alleged treatment of women.
“I think this Eminem thing, I got to tell you. So everything that’s said about Donald Trump and his treatment of women and the gender gap in this campaign. This rapper, who I fully admit has sold a lot of records, if you’ve read some of the things he has said about the promotion of domestic violence against women,” Jennings said, leading commentator Bakari Sellers to interrupt. “No, no, Bakari, I listened to your entire filibuster, if you could just give me 13 seconds.”
Jennings then pointed to the allegations against Emhoff, who has been accused of slapping his ex-girlfriend, making “misogynistic” and “sexist” remarks to his former female staffers and of impregnating his nanny while married to his first wife, Kirsten. Sellers then interrupted Jennings to call his statements “B.S.,” while CNN host Abby Phillips falsely said Trump had been found liable of rape.
“So when you think about the things [Eminem] has said in order to sell those records, and you also consider some of the questions that are swirling around Harris’ own husband in this regard,” Jennings said, before being interrupted once again.
“Oh my god,” Sellers said. “Okay, you don’t even get 12 seconds. I’m not gonna let you go into the far end of B.S.”
“We’re gonna stop here for a second,” Phillips said. “Alright, but Scott, I just have to say, I’ll take those concerns seriously if you also express concerns about the allegations [against Trump]. He’s been found liable of rape, Donald Trump has. So that’s also true, so we’re not going to litigate those other things, but you can’t just pick and choose.”
Phillips referred to the case against Trump brought forth by former Elle Magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in 2023, who alleged that the former president raped her in 1995 or 1996 in a dressing room at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store. The jury in the case found Trump not liable of rape, but liable of defamation and sexual assault.
Emhoff admitted to having an affair with his children’s nanny while still married to Kirsten Emhoff, prompting his then-wife to end their 16-year marriage when she learned about the infidelity in 2009, according to the Daily Mail.
The second gentleman’s former colleagues alleged that he would make “inappropriate” and “misogynistic” remarks toward the women staffers at Venable’s Los Angeles Office, a law firm that he managed from 2006 to 2017, according to the Daily Mail. He allegedly would be flirty with the “young, pretty girls” and shout expletives at his staff.
Emhoff has also been accused of slapping his ex-girlfriend during an alcohol-fueled fight over whether she had flirted with another guy after a Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) charity event.
The second gentleman said all of these allegations coming to light are “all a distraction” by his political opponents during an Oct. 11 interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough.
President Joe Biden won Wisconsin by about 1 point, 49.6% to 48.9%, after leading Trump by 8 points in the final polls, indicating that the current polls may be overestimating Vice President Kamala Harris’ lead in the current polls weeks before the 2024 election, Enten said. Harris and Trump both have an over 80% chance of winning the election if they secure Wisconsin, he said, making it a “pivotal” state to win.
“One of the real questions I have is whether the polls are actually going to be any good this time around, because you’ll look in 2020, what you see in the final polls in Wisconsin, you saw Biden up by 8 [points],” Enten said. “The actual result was Biden by a point, now I’ll note, I rounded that number up, I think it was 0.63 percentage points. So the question is, are the polls actually gonna be right this time around or are they gonna, again, underestimate Donald Trump? If so, Donald Trump is in a very strong position in the Badger State.”
Harris has an 82% chance and Trump an 88% chance of securing the 270 electoral necessary to win the election if they are able to secure Wisconsin, making the state is “more pivotal” for Harris to win than it is for the former president, Enten added.
“Chance they win the election if they win Wisconsin, for Kamala Harris, if she wins Wisconsin, 82% chance she wins the election,” Enten said. “For Donald Trump, it’s an 88% chance if he wins the election because the bottom line is, for Kamala Harris, the state of Wisconsin is more pivotal than it is for Donald Trump. It’s part of, of course, that Great Lake wall.”
Harris is leading Wisconsin by a narrow 0.3%, 47.9% to 47.6%, according to FiveThirtyEight. The vice president is tightly leading in Michigan 47.7% to 47.1% and in Pennsylvania 48% to 47.5%, according to more FiveThirtyEight polling.
Biden won Michigan by about 3 points in 2020, though a FiveThirtyEight poll indicated he led Trump by nearly 8 points. He also won Pennsylvania 50% to 48.8%, though a FiveThirtyEight poll indicated he led the then-president by nearly 5 points.
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