State Champ Radio Current Events
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President Joe Biden is on his way out of the White House, but before leaving office, the 46th president is keeping things in line with his administration’s moratorium on the federal death penalty by commuting the sentences of most inmates on federal death row. And because those death row inmates are disproportionately Black (38%) and Latino (15%), many view the move as a good look towards racial justice in a legal system where racial justice is scarce.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1871284742231822546
“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement announcing that he would commute sentences for 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row, according to thegrio. “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss.”
Biden, who vowed to abolish the death penalty during his 2020 presidential campaign, did not extend this slew of commutations to the violent white supremacists and terrorists who are currently on death row. Those excluded inmates include Dylan Roof, who was sentenced to death in 2017 after he massacred nine congregants at a historic Black church in South Carolina.
From thegrio:
Only three death row inmates did not receive commutations from the president: Dylan Roof, who fatally shot nine Black Americans inside Mother Emanual AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013; and Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 Jewish Americans at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Yeah — no matter what side of the death penalty issue you stand on, we should all be able to agree that certain offenders simply are not worth fighting on behalf of.
Of course, it’s worth mentioning that Rev. Sharon Risher, the daughter of Ethel Lance and the cousin of Susie Jackson and Tywanza Sanders, all of whom were killed by Roof, disagreed that everyone isn’t worth saving and actually requested that Roof’s life be spared as well.
“I learned that my mother and my loved ones were gunned down by a white supremacist trying to start a race war. He is not an innocent man on death row, but he is a man. He has humanity, and I have been willing and worked hard to give forgiveness to [him],” Risher said. “I do not want him to die. To spend the rest of his life in prison? Yes. But not for him to die in the name of my family. We are urging you, President Biden. I hope you hear my words. I hope you get to hear the pain in my voice.”
Many people would say it’s fortunate Biden decided not to give Roof his life back despite Risher’s request. Black America would have been outraged, and rightfully so.
Meanwhile, advocates for abolishing the death penalty are celebrating the decision as a win for civil rights, especially for Black prison inmates who statistically receive harsher punishments than their white counterparts who commit the same crimes.
“By commuting these sentences, President Biden has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness,” said Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged the president to commute the sentences of federal death row inmates. (thegrio noted that Donald Trump ordered the executions of 13 death row inmates during the final weeks of his first administration.)
Jamilla Hodge, CEO of Equal Justice USA, said President Biden’s commutation strikes a “blow against racism and a system that has always targeted Black people.”
“This action, aligned with your more recent pardons, reaffirms our shared belief in the dignity and value of all human life and the possibility of redemption in everyone,” Hodge continued.
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Elon Musk has publicly backed a far-right political party in Germany on X, formerly Twitter, causing alarm to many observers.
Tesla founder Elon Musk is once again causing controversy as he publicly backed the Alternative für Deutschland of Alternative For Germany Party (AfD) in Germany online. The tech billionaire did so by quoting a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday (Dec. 19) by a right-wing German influencer, Naomi Seibt. The original post was a video criticizing the Christian Democrats party leader Frederich Merz and praising the libertarian Argentinian President Javier Millei. Seibt claimed that the German people should listen to Musk and Millei more than Merz, who saw its parliament dissolved earlier this month after a no-confidence vote. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote. He got an immediate response from AfD head Alice Wiedel, who wrote: “Yes! You are perfectly right @elonmusk!”
The AfD is a far-right populist party that has gained support within the past few years, despite being classified as a “suspected extremist party” by Germany’s judiciary. They were called out for a meeting with an admitted Austrian neo-Nazi and had one of its rising leaders fined heavily for using Nazi slogans during campaign stops in the country. Its platform is dedicated to the expulsion of immigrants from Germany and constantly spews anti-Islamic rhetoric. The party has seen heavy support in what once was East Germany, which has experienced prolonged economic struggles.
Musk was called out indirectly by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin at a press conference. “We have freedom of speech here. That also applies to multimillionaires. Freedom of speech also means that you’re able to say things that aren’t right and do not contain good political advice,” Scholz said. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut was more pointed in his criticism in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Germany is set to hold elections Feb. 23, 2025. The AfD has nabbed the second position in election polls, but most of the nation’s parties have publicly vowed not to work in coalition with them. Musk’s post is another public foray into influencing another nation’s politics, after his exchanges with members of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party through X. It also comes as the U.S. is looking at a potential government shutdown after his demands of Republican politicians led to the failure of a revised bill in the House of Representatives.
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Shameik Moore got trolled across the social media-verse after Hailee Steinfeld and Buffalo Bills star quarterback Josh Allen got engaged over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. He can now add that engaged model/actress Laura Harrier called him out for some weird online behavior.
Laura Harrier, who just so happened to almost be the love interest of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming, had time for Shameik Moore, who is the voice of Miles Morales from the animated Spider-Verse films.
In a since-deleted video, Harrier, who admits she likes to keep things private, didn’t name Moore while addressing a post he shared, which featured an old video of the two of them together.
“Hey, so I never talk on this thing… I’m a really private person, so I don’t really like to talk about relationships publicly or anything really personal publicly, to be honest,” she began.
Harrier explained that she felt compelled to speak out about the post only because she kept getting tagged in it. This led many to speculate about a potential relationship between the two actors. The video in question features both Moore and Harrier posing for photos, which she explains was over a year ago.
“When he first posted that video, a friend sent it to me and was like, ‘Did you know he put this up?’ And I was like, no,” Harrier says in the video. “That was taken a year ago at a party when somebody asked us to take photos together. I guess somebody was filming it. Not sure why you would post that now.”
Harrier Says She Reached Out To Moore, Telling Him To Take The Post Down
She reveals that she reached out to Moore directly to tell him to take the video down. “I texted him… I said, ‘Hey, can you take this down? Not sure why you would post that. Also, I’m literally getting married, and I don’t like this insinuation that there’s something going on between us.”
Frustrated that her request for the video to be taken down was not being honored, she lashed out to Moore, “It’s still up, which is f***ing weird. You’re a f***ing weirdo. I’m sorry, you’re a f***ing weirdo, and I’m f***ing annoyed.”
Welp.
As expected, social media is once again trashing our friendly, and seemingly weird neighborhood Spider-Man.
Shameik Moore is soooo fucking weird for this. im so glad laura spoke up because what the fuck is this clout chasing loser thinking?? pic.twitter.com/wrOxOisIEk
— lany✮⁷ (@iluvvlany) December 21, 2024
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Let’s hope this is where it ends. We don’t need any drama to prevent the release of Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse’s release. The film has already had its wig pushed back numerous times already.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
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Lizzo is glad that she will not be bringing legal worries into the new year. She reveals she was totally blindsided by her former staff’s sexual harassment claims.
As spotted on Variety Magazine the singer received a favorable decision regarding a high profile lawsuit. Back in 2023 her ex stylist and dance troupe made some very damming allegations against her including sexual harassment, body shaming and fostering a toxic work environment. Earlier this month a California federal judge dismissed the case and ruled that her former dancers and stylist had no grounds to sue her (they are still pursuing damages from Lizzo’s touring company and payroll agency).
Naturally the “Truth Hurts” singer said very little about the lawsuit while the case was still open. Now that it is formally behind she is speaking up about the entire ordeal. She recently paid a visit to the This Is Keke Palmer podcast and she made it clearly she was just as surprised by the filing as everyone else was. “The hardest part about all this is that none of these things were true,” she explained. “I was completely surprised. I was very deeply hurt because these were three dancers; that I gave opportunities to. These were people that I liked and appreciated as dancers, respected them as dancers. So I was like, ‘What?!’ But then I heard all the other things, like sexual harassment, and I was like, ‘I don’t know what they’re trying to do,’ but these are the types of things that the media can turn into something that it’s not.”
In the lawsuit the troupe detailed an evening out in Amsterdam’s Red Light District where they claim Lizzo pressured them to interact with nude performers. While Lizzo denied that their account of the evening was factual, Keke responded objectively asking “Do you feel looking back on the situation that maybe your casual personality could have been misconstrued as ‘I got to do this, because this is my boss?’” Lizzo admitted that the experience has taught her how to move more tactfully when it comes to engaging with her staff. “I think that this experience taught me healthy boundaries, but to be real with you, it was such a fun night… I think there’s a time where there’s a difference between having boundaries and professional boundaries… It’s nuanced. It’s a new conversation in this industry.”
You can watch Lizzo discuss this and her upcoming new album below.
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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will appeal her disqualification from the election interference case against Donald Trump by the Georgia Court of Appeals.
Hours after the Georgia Court of Appeals announced that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from prosecuting the election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday (December 19), Willis’ office declared its intent “to petition the Supreme Court of Georgia” to appeal the decision in a motion filed with the court. There has been no further comment from Willis or her office.
Willis’ debarment from the highly intricate case came after the three-judge panel of the Georgia Court of Appeals overturned the trial judge’s decision earlier in the day, by a vote of 2-1. Judge Scott McAfee had ruled in March that Wills could remain on the case despite revelations that she had been in a romantic relationship with the lawyer she brought on to handle the prosecution, Nathan Wade. The defense attorneys in the case seized upon that information, forcing Willis to testify about the relationship in January of this year.
The three judges on the Court of Appeals panel are all Republicans. The Georgia Supreme Court is also predominately composed of Republican judges. Appealing the decision comes with a high risk – if the Georgia Supreme Court upholds the lower court’s decision, it would effectively scuttle the case which is the last standing prosecution against Trump. Sentencing in his “hush money” case in New York City has been delayed, and the Department of Justice opted to drop its cases against the president-elect citing the precedent of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Former Georgia prosecutor Chris Timmons said that “it’s a tough call to say whether the Court of Appeals got it right,” in an interview with the New York Times adding that “their reasoning was that the people lost confidence in the case.” But he also noted that Judge McAfee, who is a conservative, saw enough merit in Willis to continue on the case and cited Willis having “won re-election in a landslide, suggesting that Fulton County at least has confidence in her.”
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Tech billionaire Elon Musk is being hammered for using his influence and X, formerly Twitter, to force a government shutdown to aid Donald Trump.
Tech billionaire and Tesla founder Elon Musk is exerting outsized influence over President-elect Donald Trump, with some seeing him aiming to force a shutdown of the federal government. Democratic lawmakers and observers are pointing to how Musk has been using the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to amplify calls to do so as House Majority Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to get the stop-gap bill passed with two days to go. In a post on X, Musk wrote: “Shutting down” the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill.”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1869476312278286359
He would also post that any member of the House of Representatives who voted for it “deserves to be out in 2 years.” Musk was joined by former Republican presidential candidate and co-chair of the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Vivek Ramaswamy, who also blasted Johnson and the bill. The call to “kill the bill” was amplified by MAGA supporters, and Trump himself said he was against the bill to raise the debt ceiling on Wednesday (Dec. 18). When asked if those actions weighed on the GOP members, Arizona Representative Andy Biggs replied, “I think it’s having an effect on some people. I think it probably is.”
The moves by Musk have earned him scorn from Democrats. “If this is the type of power he has, then he is going to be the unelected co-president of this country and we’ve got to be super blunt about it,” said Florida Representative Maxwell Frost, who had a back-and-forth with Musk on X afterward. Vermont Representative Becca Balint echoed his statements. “I’m going to be talking to my folks back home in Vermont who voted for Trump: You thought you voted for Trump, but in fact, Trump just caved to Musk,” she said to Axios.
The pressure is now on Johnson to come up with a plan to satisfy conservatives – one proposal reportedly would include a “clean CR” and dropping $100 million in disaster aid and $30 billion for farmers. Both moves would greatly affect Trump’s base. Johnson’s position is also shaky with a slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives, as his vote to remain Speaker takes place Jan. 3.
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The former chief adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams and her son officially turned themselves in to face bribery charges.
On Thursday morning (December 19), Ingrid Lewis-Martin turned herself in to face corruption and bribery charges. She and her son, Glenn Martin II, were seen heading into the lower Manhattan offices of District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Lewis-Martin was the chief adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, but she resigned abruptly on Sunday, citing a wish to spend more time with her family.
The charges of bribery facing Lewis-Martin include her son being given a $100,000 loan to purchase a Porsche by two businessmen after she allegedly helped them resolve an issue they encountered with the city’s Department of Buildings while undergoing construction on a hotel property they owned. A lawyer for one of the businessmen, Mayank Dwivedi, said that his client had committed no wrongdoing. Martin, 38, is a professional DJ who has gained prominence working several events through the years thanks to his mother and Adams, including events at Brooklyn Borough Hall and at City Hall. Going by the name of “Suave Luciano”, he also performed as part of the city’s “Rise Up” concert series in 2022.
Lewis-Martin’s reporting to the district attorney’s office makes her the highest-ranking city official out of a dozen to date to face charges since Mayor Adams was himself indicted on federal corruption charges in September. “I’m being falsely accused of something,” she said in a press conference. “I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know that I was told that it’s something that’s illegal, and I have never done anything illegal in my capacity in government.” The 63-year-old politician has been a staunch ally to Mayor Adams for decades, remarking that she is his “sister ordained by God.” A press conference by the D.A.’s office is set for Thursday afternoon.
The situation takes place during a week that has seen Mayor Adams undergo difficulties related to his case. On Monday (December 16), the city’s campaign finance board denied his re-election campaign $4.3 million in public funding. The following day, his request to move his April 2025 trial date up was denied by a federal judge.
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Luigi Mangione, the suspected shooter of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was charged with terrorism for the act by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Luigi Mangione, the man suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan, was charged with first-degree murder and second-degree murder as an act of terrorism among the 11 counts in the indictment brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Bragg announced the indictment alongside New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch at a press conference Tuesday (Dec. 17). “This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation,” he said. “It occurred in one of the most bustling parts of our city, threatened the safety of local residents and tourists alike, commuters and businesspeople just starting out on their day.”
Thompson, 50, was shot at point-blank range reportedly by Mangione outside of a hotel on the morning of Dec. 4. The 26-year-old Mangione was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a manhunt that captured the attention of Americans who expressed sympathy for him and cheered him on to avoid being captured by law enforcement. Officers on the scene recovered a 3D printed weapon that matched the one found at the scene of the shooting, a silencer, and fake IDs along with a letter written by Mangione. “I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” the letter said according to reports. Many took the moment as an opportunity to express their own frustrations with the American healthcare system and its insurance companies overall.
The charge of terrorism was merited, prosecutors claimed, because Mangione’s actions were “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.” Commissioner Tisch condemned Mangione as well as those who expressed support for him. “We don’t celebrate murders, and we don’t lionize the killing of anyone, and any attempt to rationalize this is vile, reckless, and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice,” she said at the press conference.
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Former Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker has been chosen by Donald Trump as his ambassador to the Bahamas.
On Tuesday (Dec.17), President-elect Donald Trump picked the former football star and Republican political candidate Herschel Walker to be the American ambassador to the Bahamas. Trump announced the choice on his Truth Social online platform, citing his past athletic record and former role in his first administration as the co-chairman of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. “Herschel has spent decades serving as an ambassador to our nation’s youth, our men and women in the military, and athletes at home and abroad,” Trump wrote.
The position has been empty for over a decade, mainly due to the Senate failing to move forward with nominations for the role. President Joe Biden nominated Calvin Smyre in 2022, and both of Trump’s picks in his first administration were also stalled. The pick demonstrates Trump’s preference for those loyal to him to fill his Cabinet – former Georgia senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have also been appointed to positions, with the former chosen to run the Small Business Administration and the latter chosen as U.S. Ambassador to China. Trump’s ties to Walker go back to the running back’s time with the New Jersey Generals, the 1980s USFL team that the former president owned.
Walker’s most recent political foray was in 2022 when he challenged the incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia. The race was bogged down with scandal as Walker, who ran on a platform of anti-abortion, was revealed to have paid for the procedures for two girlfriends. He also was forced to disclose the identities of two other children who he hadn’t acknowledged – which came after his comments criticizing absentee fathers, pointedly in Black households. The former Heisman Trophy winner was also found to have lied about graduating from the University of Georgia at the top of his class and of having an elite role in law enforcement.
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Donald Trump met with the CEO of TikTok at his Florida estate, as the social media company is fighting a potential ban in the U.S.
On Monday (Dec. 16), President-elect Donald Trump met with Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The sit-down comes weeks before the social media company is set to undergo a potential ban in the United States. TikTok made an emergency request before the Supreme Court to block a law that would require the company’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell it off before Jan. 19, 2025. The law was signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year. “The Act will shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration,” TikTok’s lawyers said in the filing. “This, in turn, will silence the speech of Applicants and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern.”
The emergency application asked for a decision to be made by Jan. 6. Their reasoning for this was so that they could “coordinate with their service providers to perform the complex task of shutting down the TikTok platform only in the United States” if the justices decide to let the ban proceed. A 90-day extension could be enacted if the company is to be sold, but the Chinese government has protested the sale of the algorithm that powers the social media app, and TikTok says that such a sale is impracticable.
Trump previously supported a ban on TikTok but in a press conference later that day, he said that his incoming administration would review the situation. “We’ll take a look at TikTok,” he said. “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points. There are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that. TikTok had an impact.” Trump’s former solicitor general, Noel Francisco, has represented TikTok in court. Trump joined the platform in June, gaining millions of followers. But his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, did capture the majority of 18-to-29-year-olds who voted in the 2024 presidential election.
