Left Wing VOX Thinks Trump Case Will Be Thrown Out, AOC Made Death Threats with Secret Twitter Account? US Army Facing Obesity Crisis (The Five for 04/05/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Let’s dive into the news.
[one]
It’s tough what story to cover in the media flurry that is the Trump trial happening right now, but perhaps the most telling one is that far-left media outlet VOX doesn’t think the state of New York has much of a case here:
As Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office who played a significant role in the Trump investigation prior to his resignation in 2022, wrote in a recent book, a key legal question that will determine whether Trump can be charged under the felony version of New York’s false records law has never been resolved by any appellate court in the state of New York.
The felony statute requires Bragg to prove that Trump falsified records to cover up a crime. Bragg has evidence that Trump acted to cover up a federal crime, but it is not clear that Bragg is allowed to point to a federal crime in order to charge Trump under the New York state law.
The answer to this “gnarly legal question,” as Pomerantz put it, is simply unknown. So there is a serious risk that a New York judge will toss out the charges against Trump on technical legal grounds unrelated to the former president’s actual conduct.
The former POTUS and current Republican primary candidate is not due back in court until December to face charges, ensuring a nearly constant stream of coverage about this topic for the next nine months.
So there’s that to look forward to.
[two]
NY Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have been caught threatening members of the media with a “burner” Twitter account.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) faced a number of questions after someone claimed to have found a “burner” Twitter account connected to her.
Niko House (@realnikohouse) replied to a few tweets posted by Ocasio-Cortez and got responses from a seemingly random account (@zazasmoka). He quickly noticed that when that account replied back, the responses were framed in first-person perspective — as if the person responding was the congresswoman herself.
“YOOOOO!!! AOC has burned accounts. I responded to one of her posts reminding her that she sends money to Nazis, and some random account responded to me speaking in first person as if I attacked them. Then that same person DELETED the tweet.
Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to the tweets suggesting the account was hers — but if it was, she would certainly not be the first elected official to use an anonymous “burner account.” Senator Mitt Romney admitted to using a secret account — which Slate later reported was under the name Pierre Delecto — to “keep tabs on the political conversation.”
Elsewhere, the same account appeared to threaten conservative pundit Matt Walsh with murder.
If this is AOC’s “alt account,” she’s far from the only public figure to engage in this kind of (alleged) behavior online.
Which does not at all excuse public threats of violent retaliation and death.
[three]
The city with the highest murder rate in the country has once again elected an anti-police leader.
Brandon Johnson winning the election to become Chicago's next mayor was a significant moment for progressive organizations like the city's teachers' union, but a cause for concern among police who are worried about his policies on tackling crime.
Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, won a close race against Paul Vallas—a moderate Democrat backed by Chicago's Lodge 7 of the Fraternal Order of Police. During his campaign, Johnson was forced to defend past statements in support of "defunding" the police.
The new mayor will succeed Lori Lightfoot, who became the first incumbent in 40 years to lose a reelection bid after being criticized for her response to rising crime in the city.
The number of homicides in Chicago hit a 25-year high in 2021 with more than 800, according to the Chicago Police Department. That number decreased to 695 last year but is still far higher than when Lightfoot took office in 2019. Crimes including carjackings and robberies have also increased in recent years.
Johnson replaces Lori Lightfoot, the first mayor in Chicago to lose an election in my lifetime.
No word on Lightfoot’s political future, although I’m guessing she’s currently somewhere with this look on her face…
[four]
The timing is significant because it matches up with the oral histories of multiple Indigenous groups that recount their peoples had horses of Spanish descent before Europeans physically arrived in their homelands, perhaps through trading networks.
The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, involved more than 80 co-authors — including archaeologists and geneticists, as well as historians and scientists from the Lakota, Comanche and Pawnee nations.
Prior genetic research has shown that the ancestors of horses first evolved in North America millions of years ago, before making their way to the central plains of Europe and Asia, where they were domesticated. But those early horse ancestors disappeared from the American archaeological record around 6,000 years ago.
In the new study, scientists examined about two dozen sets of horse remains from sites ranging from New Mexico to Idaho to Kansas to establish that horses were ridden and raised by Indigenous groups by the early 1600s.
Previously, academics believed horses came to the Southwestern native tribes after the Pueblo revolted against Spanish rule, which contradicted the oral traditions of several tribes, who claimed to have horses earlier.
As is often the case with academics, they refused to even consider a plausible theory…until it was confirmed by other academics.
[five]
Finally, as the world hurdles towards potential regional or global conflict, much of the American armed forces are drastically out of “fighting shape”
New research found that obesity in the U.S. military surged during the pandemic. In the Army alone, nearly 10,000 active duty soldiers developed obesity between February 2019 and June 2021, pushing the rate to nearly a quarter of the troops studied. Increases were seen in the U.S. Navy and the Marines, too.
“The Army and the other services need to focus on how to bring the forces back to fitness,” said Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the research.
Overweight and obese troops are more likely to be injured and less likely to endure the physical demands of their profession. The military loses more than 650,000 workdays each year because of extra weight and obesity-related health costs exceed $1.5 billion annually for current and former service members and their families, federal research shows.
Until the next one,
-sth