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(The Epoch Times)—Despite being slapped down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for ordering a Jan. 6 probationer’s computer use be monitored for so-called “disinformation,” a senior federal judge in Washington D.C. appears ready to reimpose the restriction on Daniel Goodwyn of Corinth, Texas.

Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ordered Mr. Goodwyn to “show cause” for why the computer monitoring provision should not be reimposed. Judge Walton set a June 4 hearing date on the issue in Washington.

Defense attorney Carol Stewart said Mr. Goodwyn’s appeal and the Court of Appeals ruling include the statute and relevant case law that explain why computer monitoring in this case is unconstitutional.

“The matter should be closed in my view,” Ms. Stewart told The Epoch Times in a statement. “The First and Fourth Amendments have not been wiped out of the U.S. Constitution yet.”

Computer monitoring could only be relevant if Mr. Goodwyn’s single misdemeanor trespassing crime on Jan. 6 had anything to do with computer use, but since it didn’t, the measure cannot apply to him, she said.

“The application of computer monitoring conditions to conduct invasive searches is covered extensively by case law, where the computer had to be used for the crime,” Ms. Stewart said. “And use could not have just been incidental or casual. The computer had to be integral to the crime.”

There is no speech aspect of 18 U.S. Code 1752(a)(1), the statute that covers the plea deal Mr. Goodwyn agreed to in the case, she said.

‘Minister of Disinformation’

“I am unclear and curious who the judge thinks besides himself will be the Minister of Disinformation for the court if Mr. Goodwyn expresses any views that differ from what the judge believes,” she said. “And how will the judge prevent spying on Mr. Goodwyn’s journalism, support for, and access to, Stophate.com?”

Mr. Goodwyn said he went to Jan. 6 events as a citizen journalist for the website Stophate.com. He pleaded guilty to one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds on Jan. 6.

He entered the building through the Senate wing door at 3:32 p.m. and spent 36 seconds inside the Capitol, security video shows.

Mr. Goodwyn was arrested on Jan. 29, 2021, in Sherman, Texas. He was charged in a superseding indictment on Nov. 10, 2021, with obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

Mr. Goodwyn’s post-Jan. 6 speech caught the attention of Judge Walton when Mr. Goodwyn appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Fox News Channel.

Judge Walton, when imposing a 60-day prison sentence in June 2023, said Mr. Goodwyn spread “disinformation” during Mr. Carlson’s program on March 14, 2023.

Judge Walton ordered that Mr. Goodwyn’s computer be subject to “monitoring and inspection” by a probation agent to check if he spread Jan. 6 disinformation during the term of his supervised release.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a per curiam order vacating the monitoring provision.

The appeals judges wrote that Judge Walton “plainly erred in imposing the computer-monitoring condition without considering whether it was ‘reasonably related’ to the relevant sentencing factors and involved ‘no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary’ to achieve the purposes behind sentencing.”

A March 26 mandate that sent the issue back to Judge Walton said if he still wanted to impose computer monitoring, he must explain his legal reasoning, develop a record to support the provision, and ensure that what he orders follows federal supervised-release law and accords with constitutional protections.

Ms. Stewart said the logical course of action seemed clear after the Court of Appeals ruling.

“The judge had the option to simply change his sentencing judgement order to remove the computer monitoring special condition,” she said.

(The Epoch Times)—Epoch Times reporter Tom Ozimek recently wrote in these pages of former President Donald Trump’s encounter with Kayla Montgomery, a young Republican political consultant whose business is to “engage young, black professionals, students, and community members” in the Atlanta area. The ex-president and Ms. Montgomery met at a Chick-fil-A restaurant during an impromptu campaign stop in Atlanta. Ms. Montgomery was effusive in her praise of President Trump, saying, “I don’t care what the media tells you, President Trump—we support you!” A video of Ms. Montgomery and the former president hugging soon went viral, even as the media and Democrats quickly dismissed the interaction as “staged.”

Then, last week, President Trump left his trial in Manhattan to visit a bodega in Washington Heights, a mostly black and immigrant community on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and received a hero’s welcome from the working people there.

Whether the Chick-fil-A event was staged or not is open to debate. What is undeniable, though, is that polling shows Donald Trump has upended much of the black and Hispanic voting support Democrats have enjoyed since at least Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and, at least in some instances, back to FDR’s New Deal.

A Wall Street Journal poll showed that President Trump’s support among black men in swing states had moved to 30 percent earlier this month compared to just 11 percent of black men nationally in 2020. Among black women, those same percentages went from 6 percent in 2020 to 11 percent in April.

‘It’s the Economy, Stupid!’

Political pundits and editorial pages all seem flummoxed by President Joe Biden’s erosion of support among the traditional Democrat coalition.

But no one seems more upset by the erosion of black support than Democrat political strategist James Carville, “the Ragin’ Cajun,” who engineered Bill Clinton’s 1988 victory over incumbent George H.W. Bush. That’s ironic, because it was Mr. Carville who added the memorable phrase “It’s the economy, stupid!” to the American political lexicon when he pinpointed President Bush’s greatest vulnerability 36 years ago.

Between January 2021, when President Biden took his oath of office, up to March of this year, average rents have increased by 20 percent. By comparison, residential rents increased just 12 percent during President Trump’s entire term. The increased costs hit blacks and Hispanics disproportionately because of the vast disparity in home ownership, as illustrated below.

Blacks and Hispanic workers also disproportionately occupy positions in production and transportation/material moving jobs at higher rates (17.8 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively) than whites (12.1 percent). But those are the jobs most vulnerable to being taken by the influx of the purported asylum seekers who typically work for less and are less likely to join unions or file complaints with the authorities against their employer. The asylum seekers have exploded since President Biden lifted U.S. border restrictions.

As Well as Crime …

Blacks and Hispanics tend to be disproportionately affected as victims of recidivist criminals let go by criminal justice initiatives championed by leftist Democrat “progressives” in so-called “blue” states. As shown in the chart above, black victims of crime actually decreased during the Trump presidency. (The chart is from a study that has not been updated for later years.)

By the same token, black-owned businesses were among the many businesses looted and destroyed by “progressive” George Floyd rioters in 2020.

… and Education

President Trump made permanent a commitment of $255 million in annual funding for historically black colleges and universities, and he increased funding for the Federal Pell Grant program by signing the FUTURE Act.

Within the states, Republican legislators and governors have championed school choice and a “back-to-basics” approach to K-12 that even Democrats acknowledge. Jorge Elorza, the CEO of Democrats for Education Reform and its affiliate Education Reform Now, a think tank, said: ”We’ve lost our advantage on education because I think that we’ve failed to fully acknowledge that choice resonates deeply with families and with voters.”

Meanwhile, Education Week, the Left-leaning magazine for K-12 teachers, summarized President Biden’s policies as follows:

“[He] passed stricter rules for charter schools seeking federal grant funding; awarded $1 billion to boost school safety and students’ mental health; and proposed an overhaul of Title IX that would give LGBTQ+ students explicit protection under the landmark sex discrimination law and bar outright bans on transgender youth who want to join athletic teams that align with their gender identity.”

Summary

Black and Hispanic voters are moving toward President Trump for a simple reason: their pocketbook and their well-being. The viewpoints of mainstream media pundits—college educated, overwhelmingly white, and mostly liberal—have long maintained a soft bigotry of racial expectations without understanding much of the economy of people who work in blue-, pink-, and green-collar jobs. The pundits don’t understand that blacks and Hispanics, like the rest of the country, have experienced a near 20 percent cumulative erosion in the purchasing power of their dollar and rising crime. They see K-12 education policies that deny school choice and that serve teachers’ unions, special interests, and Democrat party gender identity dogma far more than children and parents.

Black and Hispanic voters have every reason to depart from their traditional voting patterns.

It’s common sense.

(DCNF)—Key documents lacking former President Donald Trump’s signature may pose issues for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case, criminal defense attorney Arthur Aidala told CNN on Monday.

Trump is confronting 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business documents relating to payments to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence regarding an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election. Aidala noted that Trump’s signature is present on a check while other key documents were never personally signed by the former president, suggesting the possibility a jury could find “reasonable doubt” over Trump’s involvement when compared to former attorney Michael Cohen, a key witness in Bragg’s case.

“You just have to attack, attack, attack those witnesses and look, what you’ve got to say is, Michael Cohen should be a co-defendant,” Aidala told host Anderson Cooper. “If you believe what the prosecutors just said, Michael Cohen should be a co-defendant, not a witness. He has so many reasons to lie, so many reasons to pin this on someone else, to keep himself out of jail, which he was unable to do in the federal case.”

Cohen, who is a crucial witness for prosecutors, pleaded guilty to giving false statements, as well as charges like tax evasion and campaign finance violations in 2018. Cohen first said he paid Daniels with his personal funds and that neither the Trump campaign nor the Trump Organization paid him back, but he subsequently testified to Congress that the former president directed him to make the payment, which he received reimbursement for, according to Reuters.

“I think [Cohen’s credibility] has a tremendous impact,” he added. “Look, there is paperwork that corroborates the people‘s evidence, and that‘s obviously hurtful for the president. But my understanding is, it’s not paperwork with Donald Trump‘s handwriting on it or his signature on it, except for a check. So the defense could merely be, hey, Michael Cohen did all of this. He never told his client. He just said, look, I need money for this, I need money for that. And you know, one of the witnesses who is going to testify at this trial testified for the feds and he said that the money that was given to Michael Cohen was for Stormy Daniels and for legal fees. That’s a reasonable doubt.”

Trump also faces charges for his handling of classified documents he allegedly kept despite requests to turn them over. The former president is also confronting election interference charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Trump was also indicted in June 2023 over his alleged mishandling of classified documents retained at his residence in Mar-a-Lago. In early August 2023, the former president was hit with another indictment over his alleged attempt to interfere in the 2020 election and alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

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(Daily Signal)—Nearly two years ago, mere months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the House of Representatives approved its second package of economic, humanitarian, and military funding for Ukraine. The $40 billion measure passed May 10, 2022, by an overwhelming margin of 368-57.

At the time, those 57 lawmakers voting against the bill represented a cohort of Republicans who were already skeptical of the U.S. strategy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict and frustrated by the lack of debate in Congress and oversight of taxpayer money.

Today, that number has doubled. There are now more Republicans in the House opposed to additional Ukraine funding than those who support it.

Even so, the latest Ukraine funding bill—totaling $60 billion—was approved Saturday with a 311-112 vote with the unanimous support of Democrats. All 112 lawmakers voting against the bill were Republicans. By comparison, 101 Republicans voted in favor of the bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who voted against the $40 billion Ukraine bill in May 2022, was a notable exception. He championed the Ukraine measure Saturday as part of a four-bill foreign aid package that totals $95 billion.

“I’d rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” Johnson told Newsmax. “We don’t want to have boots on the ground, and we can prevent that by allowing them to hold Putin at bay.”

The Swamp is too drunk on power to realize that this scene has become the symbol of everything that’s wrong in DC.

They fund other countries, but don’t protect our border.

They wave foreign flags and wear them on their lapels, but don’t protect our border.

And some shroud… pic.twitter.com/9twwhVAEfD

— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) April 21, 2024

In addition to the Ukraine funding ($60.84 billion), lawmakers also approved separate bills for Israel ($26.38 billion); the Indo-Pacific ($8.12 billion); and the 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act, a bill that would impose more sanctions on China, Iran, and Russia. They also adopted a measure requiring TikTok’s parent company to sever ties with the Communist Chinese government or cease operations within the United States.

With the full package of bills expected to pass the Senate in the coming days, it will mark the fifth time Congress has approved funding to help Ukraine.

Saturday’s vote, however, was the first by a Republican-led House. The four previous measures were adopted in 2022 when Democrats led the chamber and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was calling the shots.

The previous four funding bills provided a total of approximately $113 billion to Ukraine, averaging about $900 per American household. The number could really be as high as $125 billion, according to information Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and other lawmakers obtained from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Once the new $60 billion is added to the total, taxpayers will be on the hook for more foreign aid to Ukraine at a time when they are struggling to afford gas, groceries, and rent.

Republicans objecting to the latest Ukraine funding bill cited a variety of reasons for their opposition, although a dominant theme had to do with the failure to secure any meaningful changes to President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. border crisis and instead making foreign aid a higher priority.

But other questions remain about Ukraine and its notorious reputation for corruption.

Writing for The Hill last week, Heritage Foundation President Dr. Kevin Roberts noted that concerns conservatives began raising two years ago are now proving correct, including a failure to track military weapons supplied to Ukraine and embarrassing Pentagon accounting errors.

“Ukraine’s minister of defense was fired for questions around military graft. Billions in U.S. aid have flowed to economic aid rather than lethal weapons,” Roberts wrote. “More importantly, then as now, President Biden has presented no coherent strategy or plan for victory or peace in Ukraine to the American people, who are gradually losing patience with the bloody stalemate his administration has created.”

The $95 billion bill doesn’t have to pass.

It takes only 41 senators stop it.

There are 49 Republicans in the Senate—more than enough.

Where do your senators stand?

Please like and share if you agree that 41 Senate Republicans should unite to stop the $95 billion aid package. https://t.co/BVDCK45GB6

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) April 21, 2024

Two years ago, when the $40 billion foreign aid bill reached the Senate, 11 Republican senators voted against the Ukraine measure. This time, the foreign aid package will include money for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and other legislation included by the House, so determining if there will be a similar result to the House vote might be difficult to assess.

Still, the evolving outlook toward Ukraine reflects a changing mindset among conservatives about U.S. foreign policy. The implications of continuing to fund a foreign war, particularly in times of economic strain at home, will no doubt continue to animate conservatives and divide Republican lawmakers.

It has happened again, a once-promising Republican House Speaker has turned into a “Deep State” operative. Yes, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), has followed in the footsteps of former Republican House Speakers John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy.

All these former House speakers were once labeled “conservatives,” but after assuming the top position in Congress, their policies changed, resulting in grassroots anger. Unfortunately, none of these House Speakers cared about hard-working Americans, both Republicans and Democrats. Instead, they were far more concerned about doing the bidding of the “Deep State.”

Sadly, the same thing has happened to the current House Speaker. According to exiled whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Johnson’s change of heart is due to “a textbook case of Congressional capture.” He tweeted, “With a single briefing, the intelligence agencies routinely transform their most strident critics into the tamest of cheerleaders.”

At one time, Johnson was regarded as a staunch supporter of the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement. In fact, his nickname was “MAGA Mike.” His lifetime Heritage Action voting record was 90%, but, in this session of Congress, it has plummeted to 53%.

As House Speaker, Johnson supported the horrific omnibus spending bill, which fully funded the Department of Justice and the FBI, which has been weaponized against President Donald Trump and MAGA supporters. He was the deciding vote in extending FISA powers, allowing our intelligence services to spy on Americans without a warrant.

Previously, Johnson had railed against omnibus spending bills and extending FISA surveillance powers, but, in a stunning twist, his positions changed as House Speaker.

In his latest betrayal, Johnson supported a $95 billion aid package for Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine. The bulk of the package, $61 billion, was targeted to assist Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion, which began in February of 2022.

Previously, the United States has authorized $113 billion for Ukraine, more than the rest of the world combined. Once again, Johnson had previously opposed such funding. He also vowed to make sure that our border was secure before sending billions of dollars to secure the border of another country.

Sadly, on Saturday, with the help of Democrats and a minority of his Republican colleagues, Johnson rammed through the foreign aid package, which supported other countries, while providing zero assistance to our Border Patrol.

The spectacle disgusted Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council. He told Bill Melugin of Fox News, “We are beyond disappointed that the House would give aid to secure the borders of foreign countries but gave nothing to allow the Border Patrol to secure the safety of the United States. There’s nothing more backwards.”

In the raucous aftermath of the vote, Democrats celebrated the passage of the foreign aid package and the exclusion of border funding by waving Ukrainian flags on the House floor. This disgusting display just reinforced the feeling of many Americans that Congress is more concerned about foreign nations than American citizens.

At least some Republicans in Congress denounced this outrageous exhibition. U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted, “Ukrainian flags fly in the chamber of the UNITED STATES House of Representatives as they vote to send more of your hard-earned money to a corrupt foreign regime. And just like that they shout “UKRAINE! UKRAINE!” while happily working to secure Ukraine’s borders, not ours.”

Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) also condemned the Ukrainian flag celebration, referring to it as “the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson. Democrats are celebrating his total capitulation with no victory for securing our border.”

The optics of the Ukrainian flag waving was so nauseating that Congresswoman Kat Cammack (R-FL) promised to introduce legislation to prohibit such displays in the future. Referring to the House floor, Cammack tweeted, “If there is one room in our country that should only have the American flag present, it is this room.”

There were 101 Republicans who supported Ukrainian aid while 112 Republicans opposed the expensive package. Even though the majority of House Republicans dissented, Johnson ensured its passage. Resisting the will of most of his Republican colleagues, and millions of  GOP activists nationwide, has become a hallmark of Johnson’s tenure as House Speaker.

By supporting legislation that most Republicans oppose, Johnson is walking on thin ice politically. When Congress returns from their latest recess, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) could proceed with her “motion to vacate.”

She tweeted,  “Mike Johnson betrayed America once again. After doing nothing to secure America’s Southern border, reauthorizing FISA to spy on the American people without a warrant, fully funding Joe Biden’s DOJ that has indicted President Trump 91 times and giving Biden’s political Gestapo a brand-new FBI building bigger than the Pentagon, Speaker Johnson just sent $61 billion to fund the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. House Republicans and the American people would be stronger without his disloyalty and betrayal of his principles. Now it’s time for my colleagues to go home and hear from their constituents. We need a new Speaker of the House!”

Greene knows that Republicans will give their representatives an earful about this debacle. It could motivate more of them to support her motion. However, even if many Republicans favor her efforts to remove Johnson, the Democrats could very well save him.

For example, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) agreed with Johnson on the Ukraine aid package and condemned House Republicans who opposed the legislation. He said that “Some say…deal with our border first. The Ukrainian-Russian border is our border!” He tweeted, “we must stand shoulder to shoulder with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.”

What about our American “brothers and sisters” who live in border states like Texas? Do we care that they are being overrun by millions of noncitizens and the invasion has spread nationwide?

Tragically, for Connolly, Johnson, and other “Deep State” operatives in Congress, foreign wars take precedence over the needs of the American people.

Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America’s Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-11 a.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America’s Last Chance, and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com