Nikki Haley Is So Unhinged She Renamed Her Husband

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley is apparently willing to sacrifice just about anything for her political career—even her husband’s name.

In a true Selina Meyer move, the former South Carolina governor apparently decided that her then boyfriend’s name wasn’t fashionable enough for her political motivations.

“You may be wondering how ‘Bill’ became South Carolina First Gentleman Michael Haley,” Haley wrote in her autobiographical 2012 book, Can’t Is Not an Option: My American Story.

She then outlines how she suddenly decided he no longer looked like a Bill, opting instead to call him by his second name, Michael, which her friends quickly adopted.

“From that point on, I started calling him Michael, and all my friends did the same. When he transferred to Clemson his sophomore year, my friends became his friends, and before we knew it, he was universally known as Michael,” Haley wrote.

“He looks like a Michael,” she added.

U.S. House candidate Mayra Flores got caught up in a sticky situation on Wednesday when it became apparent that the Mexican-born politician has been ripping and reposting photos of Mexican food from other online accounts, all while claiming it as her own cooking.

The Texas Republican, who is running again for the seat she previously held from 2022 to 2023 representing Texas’s 34th congressional district, was called out in several posts on Twitter that tied photos of self-proclaimed, self-made grub from her Instagram account to other sources online.

“The ranch life with family is the best,” Flores captioned one photo of corn flour gorditas cooking over a wood-burning fire pit, although the photo was posted more than a year earlier to a Guyana tourism Facebook page.

In another post sharing a photo of eggs and tortillas, Flores claimed she was a “proud Latina who knows how to cook,” adding that “homemade Mexican food tastes better from a gas stove.”

Except that photo too was ripped from another source and was originally posted on Facebook in 2021 by Izabal magazine.

Flores has deleted at least one of the stolen photos since online sleuths began taking note.

In a text messaged statement, Flores told the The Texas Tribune it wasn’t her “intention to mislead.”

“The photo simply reminded me of my upbringing in Mexico and childhood,” she added. “I deleted the tweet to clear up any confusion. I actually spend my Christmas at ranch with my In-Laws. Happy New Year!”

When asked to specify which photos she was referring to, Flores told the Tribune to turn its attention toward the border.

It’s a strange twist for a politician who previously accused first lady Jill Biden of allegedly believing you can win over Latinos with food.

“[Democrats] think that by giving us tacos, playing Latin music, that’s all it’s going to take for us to vote for them. It’s not,” Flores told Fox Business in August 2022.

Ron DeSantis wants to bring back an extreme 1950s-era immigration policy that saw the mass deportation of up to 1.3 million migrants.

During a Wednesday night town hall, DeSantis floated the idea of resurrecting President Dwight Eisenhower’s racist-named “Operation Wetback.” That program sparked the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, as authorities employed military-style tactics to deport Mexican immigrants, some of whom had been naturalized.

When asked if every undocumented migrant would be deported, DeSantis said, “Everybody is subject to that.”

“We’re gonna do the Biden eight million, that’s a big task,” he continued, referring to the Republican estimate that eight million migrants have supposedly entered the country during Joe Biden’s time in office. “Eisenhower had a program in the ’50s, so we’re gonna do that.”

Anywhere from 300,000 to 1.3 million people were deported under Operation Wetback, which lasted for three months in 1954. Historians say it is impossible to know exactly how many people were forcibly removed, because some people reentered the U.S. and were deported again.

The policy disrupted families, communities, and U.S. business operations that relied on migrant labor. Tens of thousands of people were sent to random parts of Mexico, where they struggled to find their footing. The conditions in which they were detained and transported were brutal, and thousands of people died from sunstroke and disease.

DeSantis has promised repeatedly to crack down on immigration, often in cruel and inhumane ways. This is the second time he is raising the idea of bringing back Eisenhower’s policy. He also suggested in September that the United States shoot alleged cartel members on sight at the border. DeSantis offered no details on how to actually identify a cartel member by sight alone.

The Florida governor doubled down Wednesday on his terrible immigration policy ideas in an op-ed for the Des Moines Register. He promised to declare a national emergency over immigration, crack down on asylum requests, and to finish building the border wall and make Mexico pay for it. DeSantis also threatened consequences for Mexico and other Central American countries for letting so many migrants reach the U.S. border.

“Florida under my leadership has been a bulwark of immigration enforcement,” DeSantis bragged. “I sent illegal aliens out of Florida’s communities and to so-called ‘sanctuary cities,’ such as Martha’s Vineyard. And I signed the strongest anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country.”

He failed to mention that he has been accused of human trafficking by sending migrants to other states. Massachusetts officials are urging the Justice Department to look into Desantis’s actions.

Many of Florida’s new immigration laws have disrupted businesses, with farmers saying that migrant workers are avoiding the Sunshine State altogether. Backlash has been so bad that even Republican lawmakers have had to admit they messed up.

Six states received bomb threats to their state capitols on Wednesday morning, forcing them to stall their newly opened legislative sessions and evacuate their capitol complexes.

Those states included Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Connecticut, and Montana. No evidence of dangerous items were immediately found, officials said.

“There have been multiple bomb threats to state capitols around the nation. So far Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan & Montana,” said Georgia’s Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling in a statement on X. “Do not jump to conclusions as to who is responsible. There will be chaos agents sowing discord for 2024. They want to increase tensions. Don’t let them.”

While the mass threat against elected officials is certainly a shocking way to begin the year, it’s actually a part of a growing trend. Data reported by the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education, or NCITE, Center indicates that violent threats against public officials have been on the rise since they began collecting data in 2013.

In the last decade, 501 threats against public officials have resulted in federal charges, with 80 percent of those ending in convictions, according to NCITE.

“We have had an astounding number of threats against public servants for the last several years,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland told a Republican-controlled congressional committee in September.

“When they are singled out, this can lead to threats of violence and actual violence,” Garland said, referring to the armed attacker who attempted to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati office shortly after the federal law enforcement agency seized documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.

“We must not allow that to happen in this country,” he added.

Several of Donald Trump’s biggest fans seem increasingly frantic about a forthcoming list divulging the names of those who traveled on Epstein’s plane and visited his various international estates.

In social media posts and public appearances, several MAGA talking heads have made it clear that Trump’s highly anticipated presence on such a list, which is expected to contain nearly 200 names, is at the front of their minds.

On Tuesday, the former president’s son turned fingers toward Bill Clinton, who has also been photographed alongside the serial rapist.

“Everyone knows Bill Clinton was on Jeffrey Epstein’s [planes] and island a lot. Literally no one is at all surprised that he’s all over the release,” Don Jr. posted on X. “What we want to know is ALL THE OTHER NAMES that the government has been hiding & running cover for. That will actually be revealing!”

InfoWars host and Trump sycophant Alex Jones also made some noise on the issue, apparently having a hard time rationalizing how the known womanizer could have been associated with Epstein.

“I will say this, if it turns out Trump ever went to Epstein Island, I will remove any support from him,” Jones said. “But I know Roger Stone very well, and I know people that know Trump well, a lot of people, I’ll leave it at that. I know women that have dated Trump, prominent women.”

“He gets devoted to one woman at a time, gets totally obsessed with them, totally nice to them,” Jones continued, apparently ignoring the fact that Trump is due for a criminal trial this year on the basis of paying hush money to a porn star with whom he reportedly had an affair.

Other conservatives seemed equally flabbergasted at the anticipated unveiling, attempting to frame a new conspiracy to avoid confronting the reality of Trump’s behavior.

“High chance that the Epstein filings will include Donald Trump’s name. Out of context, the legacy media and TDS sufferers will pretend this isn’t because he gave willing testimony against Epstein when queried and will make believe that it makes him a pervert,” posted X user @Styx666Official to much conspiratorial head-nodding.

That’s compared to the dozens of instances in which Trump was captured in photos and vidos partying alongside Epstein and Maxwell. In one video from 1992, he is seen laughing with Epstein and pointing to young women dancing at a party.* Trump also once described the pedophile peddler as a “terrific guy.”

Other MAGA headliners were so upset by the list that they ceased making any sense at all, including Tomi Lahren, who insinuated that the list includes Trump only as a diversionary tactic.

“So, what do you think they’re going to go after Trump for next to bury the Epstein document dump and all the pedophiles on it?” Lahren posted on X. “Every time they want to cover their tracks, they go after Trump.”

The list of Jane and John Does, which was formed nearly nine years ago after Virginia Giuffre filed a defamation claim against Epstein’s girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, was originally set to be published on Tuesday but has since been postponed until after January 22, according to NewsNation.

Many of the names are expected to be publicly known Epstein associates, including employees of the financier. Other possible names to be unveiled could include Epstein’s victims as well as his clients and perpetrators. The latter will likely include some public figures who have already been explicitly tied to the sex trafficker, including British Prince Andrew and, of course, Donald Trump.

* This piece has been updated with a concrete example of Trump and Epstein being captured on camera together.