TV News LIES

The far-right influencer and US Senate candidate Jake Lang has been arrested after recording himself damaging an anti-ICE sculpture at Minnesota’s capitol amid the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s crackdown there.

On 5 February, Lang, who received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump over his role in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, posted a video on X of himself kicking down the sculpture, which was made from ice – as in, frozen water. His efforts changed it from reading “Prosecute ICE” to “Pro ICE”, referring to the federal agency.

Local authorities arrested Lang that same day and jailed the Florida resident on suspicion of criminal damage to property, which is classified as a felony.

A veterans organization, Common Defense, had commissioned the ice sculpture and installed it on the steps of Minnesota’s state capitol in St Paul. The group had obtained permits for the display.

“I gave eight years of my life in service to this country in the military,” Common Defense’s communications director, Jacob Thomas, said in a statement, as reported by the local news station Fox 9. Referring to the constitutional right to free speech, Thomas’s statement continued: “For a [January 6] insurrectionist to destroy our display is an attack on the First Amendment veterans like me fought to defend.”

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President Donald Trump shared a clip of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama appearing as apes in a late-night Truth Social post on Feb. 5 before taking it down the following day amid bipartisan pushback.

The roughly minute-long video centered on footage discussing unsubstantiated voter fraud allegations in the 2020 presidential election before briefly flipping to the clip of the Obamas.

The image of the Obamas, which appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence, showed the bodies of two apes whose faces have been replaced by that of the former president and first lady. They appeared to be in a jungle with apes flying in the background.

The White House initially dismissed criticism that the video was racist, and said it is from a meme depicting Trump and the Obamas as characters from the Lion King. Trump does not appear in the video, which he posted just before midnight on Feb. 5 with no accompanying text.

But by noon ET on Feb. 6 ‒ after the post had been up about 12 hours ‒ it no longer appeared on Truth Social. A White House official told USA TODAY on Feb. 6 a White House staffer had erroneously made the post and that it was taken down. Trump personally ordered the post be removed, a second White House official said.

The video was among more than 60 posts and reposts from Trump's Truth Social account made during a rapid flurry of activity that started at 10:36 p.m. ET on Feb. 5 and ended 12:25 a.m. ET. Yet a close Trump ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the president had no knowledge of the post and that a staffer let Trump down.

A small group of trusted White House officials have access to the president's social media accounts. A 2024 documentary, "Art of the Surge: The Donald Trump Comeback," showed Trump dictating to Natalie Harp, executive assistant to the president, what to write in one of his posts.

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A federal judge this week determined that a Texas state law that seeks to prevent state funds from being invested with financial firms that boycott fossil fuel companies is unconstitutional.

Texas federal Judge Alan Albright, an appointee of President Trump, found that state law S.B. 13 was a violation of the First and 14th amendments.

“SB 13’s application to protected speech is ‘substantial,’” he wrote in a decision published Wednesday, adding that this makes it “unconstitutional and unenforceable.”

He found the law to be too broad, saying it “permits the State to penalize companies for all manner of protected expression concerning fossil fuels.”

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The Trump administration on Thursday finalized a rule that gives it the power to more easily fire an estimated 50,000 federal workers who focus on policy, striking many civil service safeguards while also gutting their whistleblower protections.

The rule, dubbed Schedule Policy/Career, converts a wide swath of federal workers into a status similar to that of political appointees who can be fired at will.

Federal worker unions have staunchly opposed the switch, casting it as a way for President Trump to politicize a workforce tapped for its expertise to neutrally carry out their role across administrations.

The administration has been clear that the goal of the rule is to more easily fire workers it argues are hindering Trump policies — a nod to the president’s claims of a “Deep State” within the federal government trying to undermine him.

“This is not about people’s views or ideas. This is about whether they are refusing to actually affect their duties on behalf of the American people consistent with the objectives of this administration,” said Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which promulgated the rule.

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for her upcoming testimony before the House Oversight Committee to be made public in a congressional probe of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a pair of social media posts on Feb. 5, the former first lady and Democratic presidential candidate railed against the committee and Republican lawmakers whom she said had "ignored" previous testimony by her and former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton said that they had engaged with the committee in "good faith," but the goalposts kept moving in what she called "an exercise in distraction."

"We told them what we know, under oath," Hillary Clinton said on X, alluding to their submitted sworn statements to the committee in January, mentioned in a widely circulated letter about the couple's initual refusal to testify in person. "They ignored all of it."

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for California to use its new congressional map that adds up to five Democratic-leaning seats for the midterms, rejecting Republicans’ emergency bid to block it. 

Supported by the Trump administration, the California GOP has challenged the map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. They point to the mapmaker’s comments boasting about strengthened Latino voting power under the new design.

In a one-sentence order without any noted dissents, the Supreme Court declined the emergency application to halt the design for the midterms. It is not a final ruling, and the case could return to the justices and impact future election cycles.

The decision was not entirely surprising, given the court signaled in a separate ruling related to the use of Texas’s new GOP-favored House map ahead of 2026 that both Texas and California had drawn their new set of congressional lines for partisan gainCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called for the map after Texas Republicans began a mid-decade redistricting war by passing a new map that nets up to five GOP-leaning seats.

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