WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Embattled Republican freshman U.S. Representative George Santos skipped his invitation to a White House reception on Tuesday evening and appears to have been joined by several hardline newcomers in snubbing President Joe Biden.

All first-time lawmakers were invited to the bipartisan reception hosted by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, but dozens of Republicans opposed to Biden’s policies were missing from the list of more than 40 registrants that was distributed by the White House for the event.

Among the missing were several who tried to block Republican Kevin McCarthy from being elected speaker earlier this month, before relenting once he offered them extensive concessions.

Those representatives were Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Eli Crane of Arizona, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee and Keith Self of Texas. Their spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment after normal business hours.

Santos, who has faced calls from fellow New York Republicans to step down over fabrications about his career and history, told reporters on Capitol Hill earlier on Tuesday: “I’m not going.”

Eleven Republican newcomers were expected to attend the White House event.

“Everyone is invited who is part of the new Congress,” said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday.

Biden is expected to soon launch his campaign for re-election to a second, four-year term in 2024, and he needs support in Congress to raise the debt limit, pass a new budget and help deliver on a host of promises to voters.

Many Republicans in the House have instead promised to block government spending and investigate Biden’s family and use of office.

Biden’s fellow Democrats have narrow control of the Senate, while Republicans won a slim majority in the House during the 2022 midterm elections.

McCarthy was elected as speaker only after agreeing to a demand by hardliners that any lawmaker be able call for his removal at any time. That will sharply cut the power the Californian will hold when trying to pass legislation.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California points to the newly-installed sign as he arrives at his office after he was sworn in as speaker of the 118th Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 7, 2023.

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rejected two democrats’ bids to be on the intelligence committee.
• McCarthy said that Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell were not fit to serve on the committee.
• The two democrats served on it from 2015 to 2019 and headed up impeachment efforts against Trump.

House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy announced that two prominent democrats would not be re-assigned with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in a bold partisan articulation of his new term.

McCarthy published a letter in response to House Minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on Tuesday, arguing that the two lawmakers had “severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions — ultimately leaving our nation less safe.”

Jeffries had rallied McCarthy on Monday to allow the two to serve on the committee, pointing out the “double standard” of allowing serial liar Rep. George Santos to gain committee assignments.

McCarthy, who was elected House majority speaker after a 15th grinding vote, said in his letter that he “cannot simply recognize years of service as the sole criteria for membership,” referring to Reps. Schiff and Swalwell’s previous terms on the committee from 2015 to 2019.

Both Schiff and Swalwell featured heavily in the impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Previously, McCarthy had argued that because of Swalwell’s past association with a Chinese spy, he should not serve on the committee. He claimed that Schiff “lied to the American public” about his knowledge of the whistleblower at the center of the first impeachment proceedings. McCarthy has claimed the move is not retaliatory 

The United States and Germany are poised to provide a significant boost to Ukraine’s war effort with the delivery of heavy battle tanks, sources said, support that Russia condemned as “blatant provocation”.

* While there was no official confirmation from Berlin or Washington by late on Tuesday, officials in Kyiv hailed what they said was a potential gamechanger on the battlefield.

* The United States is poised to start a process that would eventually send dozens of M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, two U.S. officials told Reuters.

* A Swiss parliamentary body proposed waiving a re-export ban that prevents ammunition it manufactures from being re-exported from another country to Ukraine.

* A delivery of tanks by the United States to Ukraine would be a “another blatant provocation” against Russia, Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador, said.

* Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev hit back at Western reports that Russia was running low on missiles and artillery, saying it had enough weapons to fight in Ukraine.

* Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia, said he had been asked to conclude a non-aggression pact with Ukraine, the BelTa state news agency reported.

* The United States has determined that some Chinese companies are providing non-lethal assistance to Russia for use in the Ukraine war and officials are noting their concern to the Chinese government, a source familiar with the matter said.

* President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fired a slew of senior officials in Ukraine’s biggest political shake-up of the war, saying he needed to clean up internal problems that were hurting the country.

* Ukraine’s ruling party drew up a bill aiming to boost transparency in defence procurement after an army food contract became the focus of high-profile corruption allegations, according to parliament’s website.

* Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers praised Ukraine’s government for taking swift action.

* President Vladimir Putin said there were shortages of some medicines in Russia and that prices had gone up, despite the production of more of its own drugs.

* The Kremlin said it wanted skilled workers based abroad to return to Russia and work to benefit the country, after hundreds of thousands of people fled abroad in the past year.

* Ukraine’s prime minister said his country has enough coal and gas reserves for the remaining months of winter despite Russian attacks on its energy system.

Related Galleries:

---

America was supposed to be a place of safety for Jose Romero when he arrived some two years ago to work on a California farm alongside other immigrants from Mexico and China.

Romero was killed on Monday, shot dead by a gunman along with six other farm workers in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco. Even in a nation all too familiar with gun violence, the shooting was stunning, coming just two days after another gunman opened fire at a ballroom in Monterey Park, an Asian American enclave outside Los Angeles.

In all, 18 people died in the back-to-back shootings, rattling two close-knit communities that had drawn immigrants seeking opportunities.

“You look to improve your life and then you end up with this,” said Romero’s cousin, Jose Juarez, quiet and sullen on Tuesday as he took a break from cooking at a Mexican taqueria in a Half Moon Bay strip mall.

That police said the attacks were carried out by assailants known within the community – Huu Can Tran, 72, frequented the Monterey Park dance studio and Chunli Zhao, 66, worked on a Half Moon Bay farm – only added to the sense of fear felt by immigrant groups that have been the targets of racist rhetoric and attacks in the United States.

As many as 32% of Asian immigrants and 23% of Latino immigrants in California say they are “very worried” about becoming victims of gun violence in their adopted home – three times the level of fear reported by people born in the United States, according to data gathered by the University of California, Los Angeles, and shared with Reuters.

The massacres heightened those concerns for some people.

Antonio Perez, who now lives in Half Moon Bay after moving from Mexico in 1983, said he feels stuck between cartel violence in his homeland and gun violence in the United States.

“We never expected this kind of extreme here,” Perez said, shaking his head. “What a tragedy.”

About 380 miles (610 km) south, in Monterey Park, residents expressed fears in the aftermath of the dance hall shooting that the poison of America’s gun culture and epidemic of mass shootings was infecting Asian-American communities.

“Americans can have guns, there are guns everywhere,” said Frank Hio, 36, who is originally from China. “It’s dangerous here.”

In the thriving suburb known for its Asian stores and restaurants, some people expressed anguish that the gunman came from within the community.

“The shooters are Asian, and the victims are Asian,” said Rolando Favis, 72, who moved to the United States from the Philippines 38 years ago.

But many also said they had been more fearful of their safety for several years, following the rise in hate crimes against Asians in the wake of the pandemic and rhetoric from then-President Donald Trump blaming China.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Asian American gun ownership increased. A third of those who owned guns said they carried weapons more frequently amid the anti-Asian incidents, and another third said they kept guns loaded or unlocked in their homes, according to a study by the University of Michigan.

At the Euro Arms Inc gun store in Alhambra, three miles (5 km) from the scene of the Monterey Park massacre, store assistant Wesley Chan said gun sales had risen since the start of the pandemic, including among Asian Americans in the area.

“Everyone was scared and wanted to protect themselves,” he said.

About 9.3% of Asian immigrants keep guns in their homes in California, compared with 5.6% of Latino immigrants and 12% of white immigrants, said Ninez Ponce, the lead researcher on the UCLA study. Overall, about 17.6% of Californians of all backgrounds keep a gun at home.

Both Tran and Zhao used semi-automatic pistols. Police have not said where or when they were acquired.

I’d like to tell you a story of being special – of being singled out for glory, realizing that you are in fact, one in a million. It all started with a single email. “You are NOT permitted to share this email with anyone.”

Everybody wants to be special. Being told one is unique, that they’re One in a million — can cause headiness. Endorphins are released in the brain of the anointed one. It can resemble a false high of sorts. Some people feel like they could move mountains, especially if the one remarking on their specialness is someone they look up to and count on.

“I’m emailing you today because I cannot do it alone.”

For the person reading these words, they may appeal right to the ego. They are designed to. And think of this lone person to whom this complimentary email is so lovingly sent. The emailer is telling the email recipient that they cannot do it alone, that they need, they crave the help of this recipient. “I need my top 47.”

OK — so it isn’t just them. There are 46 OTHER people receiving this email. But only 47 in a sea of millions? Surely, SURELY they’re being selected still means something. Surely it means they are unique. “The select few patriots in the official trump 47 club will be ones I rely on. And will provide me with the insight and support to RECLAIM America.”

Wow! He means ME! He wants to listen to me! I imagine a flush starts to spread over the email recipient’s face. It’s like Cupid shot his arrow, and now they’ve fallen in love with this rare and precious email. I’ll do anything I can to help, they may silently vow.

“Invitations like this don’t come around often, so please do NOT miss this.” Oh, the email has them now. They’re almost feverish with excitement. What is it you need? Anything, anything! “Please contribute $47 IMMEDIATELY, and you’ll instantly join the ranks as 1 of the 47 patriots to join the official Trump 47 club.”

This was the email waiting in my inbox. I am not one in 47. I am one of many millions. Being one in a million rarely happens, and when it does, it isn’t always a good thing. Only some do not understand this. And for the few who do NOT know this, I imagine Trump got a pretty hefty return.

The post What are the odds? appeared first on Palmer Report.

With Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland awaiting trial on domestic violence charges, the future of the animated comedy series has been hanging in the balance.

Now, Adult Swim, the network where Rick and Morty airs, has announced that it has cut ties with Roiland and will be recasting his voice roles on the show. Adult Swim’s decision arrives less than two weeks after NBC News first reported on Jan. 12 that Roiland had been charged with felony domestic violence in Orange County, Calif., in connection with a January 2020 incident involving an unnamed woman he was dating at the time. The news broke the same day that Roiland appeared in court for a pre-trial hearing in the case.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“Adult Swim has ended its association with Justin Roiland,” Marie Moore, senior vice president of communications for Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults, and Classics division, said in a statement on Tuesday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

What charges is Justin Roiland facing?

Roiland was charged in 2020 with one count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, or deceit following an alleged incident that year with an anonymous Jane Doe whom he was dating, according to a criminal complaint filed in May 2020 by the Orange County District Attorney. He was arrested and released on a $50,000 bond in August 2020 and arraigned in October 2020. A protective order was also filed in October 2020 that prevents Roiland from going within 100 feet of the alleged victim.

Roiland has pleaded not guilty and, in a statement, his attorney T. Edward Welbourn called the media coverage of the case “inaccurate.”

“To be clear, not only is Justin innocent but we also have every expectation that this matter is on course to be dismissed once the District Attorney’s office has completed its methodical review of the evidence,” Welbourn said. “We look forward to clearing Justin’s name and helping him move forward as swiftly as possible.”

In the days following the Jan. 12 hearing, multiple people came forward on social media with additional allegations of abuse—including predatory behavior toward minors—against Roiland.

The next pre-trial hearing is set for April 27.

What do Justin Roiland’s charges mean for the future of Rick and Morty?

As a co-creator, executive producer, and star voice actor of Rick and Morty, Roiland has played an outsize role in the massively popular series. The show’s sixth season, which brought in an average of 560,000 live viewers per episode, concluded in December 2022, and a seventh season is already on the way as part of a long-term deal for 70 new episodes commissioned by Adult Swim in 2018.

Now, Roiland’s voice roles, including those of the titular Rick and Morty, will reportedly be recast as the series, which is booked through season 10, moves forward. Roiland’s fellow co-creator, Dan Harmon, will be the lone showrunner.

Roiland still has two ongoing projects with Hulu, the animated comedy series Solar Opposites, which was renewed for a fifth season in October, and Koala Man, which debuted Jan. 9.

Once upon a time in the United States of America there was a thing called truth. Back then, truth was the scourge of every crooked, lying politician, and they often went to great lengths to hide that they didn’t believe in or practise the truth. As a matter of fact, those lying and crooked politicians pretended to be staunch defenders of the truth, just like Superman was when he defended “Truth, justice and the American way.”

Yes, and when those crooked politicians got caught practising something other than the truth it sometimes meant the end of their careers. Once in a blue moon they might get away with being caught shamelessly lying, but they never got away with it wholly unscathed. So they had to be very, very careful about concealing their deceptions. They had to make sure that nobody caught them telling lies, which was something they loved to do.

Here was their problem. Back then if a politician said he or she was going to do something and didn’t, or if they told a shameless lie and got caught, they’d get snitched on by the TV. That very night all four TV stations (back then there were only three network stations and a local channel) would broadcast the lie they told, and everybody would hate them for it. Some people who really liked the politician, like their moms for example, would choose not to believe what they said about the politician on the TV. But most people would believe it, because it was true. And that was that for their careers.

Today, of course, such a thing would be unheard of. Today politicians don’t just tell shameless lies on TV without any consequences. Today they openly declare that they’re going to steal money from old ladies and give it to their rich friends, they promote the use and sale of assault weapons even though children are being murdered by the dozens every day because of them, even though they get money from a big gun club called the NRA. They laugh at scientists who say the world is coming to an end because of fossil fuel use while shamelessly and openly taking money with both hands from fossil fuel companies. And dreadful stuff like that.

Some people, not too many but some, wonder how this could happen, how politicians in the United States of America could go from apparently loving the truth so much to not giving a crap about it in a single generation. They scratch their heads and they can’t figure it out. “What the heck happened?,” some of them say.

The answer, of course, was simpler than you might think. The answer was a man named Rupert Murdoch and a big bad monster he created named Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch was a man who was born looking 79 years old. But he never otherwise changed. He just got older and more evil, older and more evil. It’s as if he actually thrived on being evil. And he bought up TV stations all over the world and taught stupid people to watch the shows those TV stations broadcast. And they did.

Yes, and it turned out that Rupert Murdoch liked the politicians who loved lies and hated the truth. Those politicians, the ones that lived in America anyway, the ones who loved to lie, were called “Republicans.” And Rupert Murdoch told those politicians, those Republicans, that from now on it was okay for them to lie shamelessly any time they wanted to, because he was going to order his TV stations to never mention those lies.

They could even lie on Rupert Murdoch’s TVs if they wanted to, because the talking heads on those TVs would tell all the people watching that they weren’t actually lying at all. Instead, Rupert Murdoch ordered his TV stations to make up lies about politicians who mostly told the truth. Those politicians were called “Democrats.”

Yes, and it all turned out to work just fine, because the stupid people who watched Rupert Murdoch’s TVs never watched anything else. You’d think that the truth would leak out, that those stupid people would find out that their TVs were lying to them, that they’d get mad when they found out and stop watching them, but you’d be wrong. They never did, and any attempt to tell them otherwise got ignored. Like I said, they were stupid people.

And that, boys and girls, is why we are in the trouble we are in today. The monster called Fox News grew and grew and grew, and it got outside support from other evil people, people other than evil old Rupert Murdoch, people who noticed that a lot of money could be made in the lying business. There was plenty of money for all those evil people, and all those evil people got rich while they laughed and laughed and laughed at all the stupid people they robbed and swindled and murdered over the years.

So the moral of the story, boys and girls, is we have to learn all over again what the truth is. We have to stop letting evil people like Rupert Murdoch steal it from us. And we have to make sure our teachers teach us how to recognise the truth. Because without the truth, we are lost. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

The post A bedtime story appeared first on Palmer Report.

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) said on Tuesday it would invest more than $3.6 billion to expand its Nevada Gigafactory complex with two new factories, one to mass produce its long-delayed Semi electric truck and the other to make its new 4680 battery cell.

The cell plant would be able to make enough batteries for 2 million light-duty vehicles annually, including batteries using the 4680-type cell. The 4680 is key to Tesla meeting a goal of halving battery costs and ramping up battery production nearly 100-fold by 2030.

Together, the facilities will employ about 3,000 people, extending the electric vehicle maker’s complex east of Reno, where it runs a battery joint venture with Japan’s Panasonic Corp (6752.T) and makes vehicle parts and power backup systems.

Panasonic currently supplies cells to the gigafactory, and Tesla assembles them into battery packs there.

Tesla has struggled to ramp up production of the 4680 at its factories in Fremont, California, and Austin, Texas. Experts say the dry-coating technique used to produce the bigger cells in these batteries is new and unproven and the company has been having trouble scaling up manufacturing to the point where the big cost savings kick in.

The move suggests Tesla is finally committing to large-scale production of the Semi, which was initially supposed to begin rolling out of factory doors in 2019. Tesla made the first Semi deliveries in December to PepsiCo (PEP.O) but there is no sign of a high rate of output of the model.

Other customers that have ordered Semis include Brewer Anheuser-Busch (ABI.BR), United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) and Walmart Inc (WMT.N).

The Semi is a truck for 18-wheel semi-trailer vehicles and has a range of 500 miles (800 kilometers) on a single charge with a gross weight of 81,000 pounds (37 tonnes), including trailer and cargo. It may qualify for tax credits of $40,000 offered for clean commercial vehicles under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm said in November that Tesla might produce 100 Semis in 2022, but the company disclosed no figure for the model in its fourth-quarter production report.

The EV maker aimed to produce 50,000 Semis in 2024, Musk said on a post-earnings call in October.

Tesla’s Tuesday announcement “is the latest in more than $300 billion in private sector investment in clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing announced since the President took office,” Mitch Landrieu, senior advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden said.

American rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, may not be suitable for an Australian visa because of his history of anti-Semitic remarks, a government minister said on Wednesday, as pressure mounted to deny the award-winning rapper entry.

Minister for Education Jason Clare condemned Ye’s “awful” anti-Semitic comments involving Hitler and the Holocaust, saying others who had made similar statements had been denied visas.

“People like that who’ve applied for visas to get into Australia in the past have been rejected,” Clare said in an interview on Channel Nine. “I expect that if he does apply he would have to go through the same process and answer the same questions that they did.”

A spokesperson for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Local media reported that Ye would visit to Australia to meet the family of his partner, Bianca Censori, who grew up in Melbourne.

Ye has been dropped by major corporate partners, including Adidas (ADSGn.DE) and banned from Twitter because of anti-Semitic remarks and outbursts on social media against other celebrities.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, immigration minister under a previous government, said on Tuesday that he would be inclined to ban Ye but that it was a decision for the government.

“His anti-Semitic comments are disgraceful, his conduct [and] his behaviour are appalling,” he told 3AW radio. “He’s not a person of good character and the minister has the ability to stop somebody coming into our country of bad character.”

Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, met officials on Tuesday to argue for an entry ban.

“We had a sympathetic hearing,” Wertheim said on Sky News. “We’ve made the case that this particular individual does not meet the character test and that it would be in the national interest not to grant him a visa and we set out our reasons in some detail in that letter.”