Michael Jackson metal? It almost happened, according to Thriller guitarist Steve Lukather

The judge who presided over President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal trial, Juan Merchan, is expected to issue a ruling Tuesday that could either turn the case on its head or put Trump on a collision course with sentencing. The long-awaited ruling on whether evidence shown at trial should have been shielded from jurors due to presidential […] The post Merchan Issues an Immunity Ruling In Trump Lawfare Case Today appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The AP is still refusing to concede the control of the US House of Representatives to Republicans. They clearly won, and they will win another seat. The GOP holds 219 seats and will win one more. Republicans were on track to win 221 seats, but Mike Garcia lost. This is where we stand now. It […] The post AP Refuses to Concede US House to Republicans: Election Map appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has invited Pennsylvania Republican Senator-elect Dave McCormick to the Senate orientation despite Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) holding out on a concession. On Thursday, the Associated Press projected that McCormick would win the race over Casey, but Democrats have refused to concede as ballots are still being processed. McCormick leads Casey by more than 35,000 votes, with 99% of the ballots counted. Schumer initially did not send invitations for Senate orientation to McCormick or Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego, but after pressure from colleagues, Schumer changed his mind, POLITICO reported. “Ruben Gallego and David McCormick have been invited to attend orientation,” a spokesman for Schumer said on Tuesday. Multiple outlets have yet to declare a winner in the Pennsylvania race, and Casey, a three-term senator, is still telling voters he is waiting for more ballots to be counted. “Our Commonwealth ran a free and fair election, and we are still waiting on the final results,” he wrote on Monday. “Our election officials will continue counting ballots and ensure that Pennsylvanians’ voices are heard.” Multiple senators, however, urged Schumer to extend the invitations to McCormick and Gallego. Outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) posted on X on Sunday, “In 2018 my race wasn’t called for 6 days. I jumped on a redeye to DC to make senate orientation-I learned so much & made lasting relationships that week. Dave McCormick & Ruben Gallego will be Senators for PA & AZ. They should be invited to orientation & start learning the job.” Some Republican senators said they would “personally escort McCormick into the building” if Schumer didn’t extend an invitation. “It’s an absolute outrage that Schumer is trying to exclude @DaveMcCormickPA from new-senator orientation,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) posted on X on Sunday. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ Schumer was also pushed by moderate Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME) to send an invitation to McCormick, The Hill reported. With McCormick’s win, Republicans will hold 53 seats in the new Senate, giving President-elect Donald Trump a comfortable Republican majority as he begins his second term on January 20. Republicans are also projected to keep their control of the House.

A judge will decide the future of President-elect Donald Trump’s New York criminal convictions on Tuesday as he considers throwing out the entire case. Trump’s legal team has argued that Judge Juan Merchan should dismiss the case and his 34 convictions on falsifying business records charges because of presidential immunity doctrine. The president-elect’s legal team has said that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg rushed the case for political reasons and did not consider presidential immunity when he brought the case to trial.  The case stems from Trump being accused of improperly masking reimbursements to repay his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence on an alleged extramarital affair by classifying them as legal expenses. A Manhattan jury convicted Trump in May on the charges. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said that Bragg was engaging in politically motivated “election interference.” The appeal from Trump’s legal team to dismiss the case refers to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. United States, which said presidents cannot be prosecuted for exercising core constitutional powers and are entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for official acts.  Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s lawyers, said that Bragg used testimony and evidence that should have been inadmissible during the trial. He said that Bragg “violated the Presidential immunity doctrine by using similar official-acts evidence in the grand jury proceedings that gave rise to the politically motivated charges in this case.”  MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ “The Presidential immunity doctrine recognized in Trump pertains to all ‘criminal proceedings,’ including grand jury proceedings when a prosecutor ‘seeks to charge’ a former President using evidence of official acts,” Blanche wrote in a filing earlier this year. If Merchan does not throw out the case or set a new trial, Trump is expected to be sentenced on November 26. The judge said in September that he moved sentencing until after the election to “dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.” Trump has also attempted to move the case away from Merchan to a federal court but has so far been rebuffed. In a statement to USA Today on the case, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said that Trump had been given “an overwhelming mandate to Make America Great Again.” “It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, so we can, as President Trump said in his historic victory speech, unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation,” Cheung said.

'A hardline immigration team'

A viral post shared on Threads claims Riley Gaines purportedly criticized Whoopi Goldberg on ABC’s daytime talk show, “The View.”   View on Threads   Verdict: False The claim is false and originally stems from an article published on the satire site “SpaceX Arena.” Fact Check: Goldberg said she was “still not going to say […]