Laken Riley’s killer sentenced

Jose Ibarra, the “sick, twisted and evil coward” who was accused of murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, was convicted on all counts and sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, with an additional twenty-seven years tacked on.

“She fought for her life in dignity, and to save herself from being brutally raped,” Riley’s mother said. Ibarra, who is reported to be a member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, “showed no regard for Laken and human life. We’re asking the same be done to him.”

Riley’s high-profile murder inspired the Laken Riley Act, a bipartisan measure that “directly addresses one of the federal policy issues related to Laken Riley’s murder,” according to Congressman Mike Collins’s office. 

Riley, a University of Georgia student, was murdered in Collins’s district. “If local law enforcement had called ICE, and ICE issued a detainer and picked him up, Laken Riley would be alive,” his office noted.

Today’s verdict concludes an emotional trial, in which passages from Riley’s journal were read. “I can’t wait to love you in the best way I know how for the rest of my life,” she wrote to her future husband. 

John Phillips, Riley’s stepfather, pleaded that Ibarra, a repeat offender, be kept out of society for good. “I’m pleading with this court to protect the world from this truly evil person and sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for any reason, so he can never have the opportunity to do this to anyone ever else ever again.”

-Matthew Foldi

On our radar

MATT ATTACK Trump tapped former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker to serve as the US ambassador to NATO. Whitaker is currently the co-chair for the Center of Law & Justice at the America First Policy Institute. 

BIDEN DODGES REPORTERS President Joe Biden has been avoiding the media in the final days of his presidency, leading some reporters to literally beg him to stop and answer questions from the press gaggle. “Mr. President, happy early birthday! For your birthday, will you talk to us, sir?” one reporter shouted as Biden boarded Air Force One during a recent trip. The president turned eighty-two today.

CLOSE THE GAETZ The chairman of the House Ethics Committee announced that they would not release their report into sexual misconduct allegations against Representative Matt Gaetz. “There was not an agreement by the committee to release the report,” chairman Michael Guest claimed — an assertion contested by Democratic member Susan Wild.

Trans member of Congress bested in bathroom battle

Representative Sarah McBride, the first transgender person to serve in Congress, released a statement in the wake of Speaker Mike Johnson’s announcement that lawmakers would be required to use bathrooms matching their birth sex, affirming that McBride would use the male or single-sex restrooms. “Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson even if I disagree with them,” McBride wrote, but called the fight over bathroom use a “distraction” from real issues.

The tangle started when Representative Nancy Mace introduced a rules resolution to designate shared bathrooms for biological men and women only, respectively. Mace tweeted yesterday, “This isn’t up for debate. Men are not welcome in women’s private spaces,” and took her battle a step further by introducing legislation that would extend her bathroom protections to all federal buildings. 

–Amber Duke

MAGA versus Bannon?

The current and future vice presidents of the United States are not fans of Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, it appears.

Senator J.D. Vance lashed out in a since-deleted tweet at the show’s chief financial officer Grace Chong, in which he called her “a mouth-breathing imbecile” because she attacked him for missing a vote on a Biden judicial nominee. 

“You guys better show up and do your fricken job!!” Chong tweeted at Republican senators, including the outgoing Vance and Marco Rubio. Vance responded to the criticism by attacking her as someone who “attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful.

“I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” he wrote. “But that’s just me.”

It’s unclear how Vance’s shot across the bow at Chong will impact the incoming Trump administration’s plans to elevate outlets that could include War Room at events like its press briefings. 

–Cockburn