02 U.S. Politics

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Democrats desperately want to control the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections. However, their plan to wield power will likely doom their political future, but could give Republicans a golden opportunity.

An expert political strategist has issued a stark warning to the Democrats about their midterm prospects. If their plan succeeds, it would mean short-term gain but long-term pain for the embattled party.

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A Democratic mayor is under investigation for allegedly “aiding and abetting” the escape of illegal immigrants from custody, a Republican congressman has confirmed.

Freddie O’Connell, the progressive mayor of Nashville, is reportedly the target of an investigation exploring whether he provided material “aid” to illegal immigrants and obstructed an investigation by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.

Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) announced that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the House Judiciary Committee are investigating a potential “criminal enterprise” involving federal funds.

“We’ve heard it: the individuals that the mayor is standing with are murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, sexual predators, child traffickers…the list goes on,” Ogles said from the Tennesee State Capitol building on Monday.

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A federal judge has sided with the Trump administration, resolving a dispute with New York Attorney General Letitia James about the expansive scope of cost-cutters to examine U.S. Treasury payments that they claim are laden with wasteful spending.

James was among 18 Democratic attorneys general who filed suit to block an investigation by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency into the Treasury payment system. The coterie was dealt a severe setback on Tuesday when U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, for the Southern District of New York, lifted the last legal hurdle for the four DOGE employees tasked with carrying out the investigation.

An earlier order was also relaxed after the Trump administration showed evidence that it appropriately trained the four employees to safeguard sensitive taxpayer information during the probe. In April, Vargas granted access to one DOGE employee after they completed a similar training program.

Prior to those decisions, the judge, a Biden appointee, was mostly siding with the state prosecutors who argued that Treasury’s processes for granting access were poorly established, a likely violation of law.

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The Texas legislature has passed a bill protecting single sex spaces, such as girls’ locker rooms in schools, and mandating identification by biological sex on government-issued documents, including driver’s licenses and other photo IDs.

House Bill 229 passed in the Texas Senate early Wednesday by an exact party-line vote of 20 to 11, according to the Texas Tribune. The bill, which passed in the Texas House on May 12, defines “female” and “woman” as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova.”

The bill, sponsored by Republican Texas state Rep. Ellen Troxclair, also defines “male” or “man” as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.” The legislation also describes “sex” as “an individual’s biological sex, either male or female.”

Troxclair’s bill states that “there are legitimate reasons to distinguish” between men and women “with respect to athletics, prisons … domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, restrooms, and other areas where biology, safety, or privacy are implicated.”

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The Trump administration is implementing visa restrictions on foreign nationals with histories of censoring Americans, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday.

“For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,” Rubio wrote in an X post. “Free speech is essential to the American way of life — a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”

According to the secretary, this new policy “will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.” Any noncitizen “who work[s] to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country,” he added.

“Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over,” Rubio wrote.

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The Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision that allowed a public school in Massachusetts to prevent a 7th grader identified in court documents as “L.M.” from wearing a T-shirt that read, “There are Only Two Genders.”

The student was given the option of removing the shirt or going home. When he returned, he was wearing a shirt that read, “There Are CENSORED Genders.” Rather than miss more school, the student took off the shirt.

The parents sued on First Amendment grounds but were denied relief by an appeals court.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wrote a scorching dissent based on the First Amendment rights enjoyed by students. That right was codified in a 1969 decision, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, where the Supreme Court allowed students to wear a black armband to protest the Vietnam War.

Justice Abe Fortas famously wrote that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” The exception Fortas cited was “disruptive speech.”

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“ICE is removing illegal aliens from ALL states, communities, and worksites across this country… If you are here illegally, use the CBP Home app to self-deport. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”

On Tuesday morning, federal immigration authorities, led by ICE and supported by the FBI, DEA, ATF, and Coast Guard, swept through Nantucket, Massachusetts, detaining and deporting at least 12 individuals illegally residing in the country.

This operation was part of a larger federal sweep that also included Martha’s Vineyard and Hyannis, resulting in 40 total arrests. According to ICE, among those apprehended were a known MS-13 gang member and at least one convicted child sex offender. Federal agents also conducted vehicle stops on roads across mid-island, including Old South Road, Surfside Road, and Miacomet Road.

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“Public officials must protect the inalienable rights of all citizens, regardless of their faith or religious beliefs.”

On Tuesday, Paula White-Cain, head of the White House Faith Office, issued a strong statement condemning the violent disruption by Antifa of a Christian concert in a Seattle park on Saturday.

“The White House Faith Office condemns the violent disruption of Seattle’s MayDay USA worship event,” White-Cain said. “We affirm the fundamental rights to free speech and religious freedom for all Americans, as protected by federal law. Public officials must protect the inalienable rights of all citizens, regardless of their faith or religious beliefs.”

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Pope Leo XIV this week appointed Monsignor Renzo Pegoraro — longtime chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Life involved in a controversy over his 2022 comment suggesting contraception could be permissible in certain cases — as the academy’s new president.

Msgr. Pegoraro succeeds Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who became president in 2016. Msgr. Pegoraro studied in Padua and Rome, where he obtained a licentiate in moral theology and a diploma in advanced bioethics, according to the Academy for Life website. He was president of the European Association of Centers of Medical Ethics from 2010 to 2013, and he has served as a bioethics lecturer at the Theological Faculty of Trivento.

Pope John Paul II established the Pontifical Academy for Life in 1994, charging it with the task of “defense and promotion of the value of human life and of the dignity of the person,” according to its Vatican profile. Its main actions are to study problems related to promoting and defending human life; assist, through Catholic initiatives, the pro-life formation of persons; and inform Church leaders, the media, other organizations, and civil society in the findings of its research.

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Isn’t this kind of part of the problem with Harvard?

The Harvard Crimson reports:

In Trump’s Orders, Harvard’s Most International School Sees a Crisis

At the Harvard Kennedy School, the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s eligibility to enroll international students — temporarily blocked in court — could eliminate nearly 60 percent of the student body.

HKS is Harvard’s most international school, and the proportion of international students there has grown over recent years, reaching a record high of 59 percent in 2024. The announcement that international students might have to transfer or face deportation sent shockwaves across the Kennedy School — as students feared being displaced and faculty worried that the Kennedy School’s identity as a global center for public policy scholarship could hang in the balance.

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US embassies across the world have been ordered by the Trump Administration to put an immediate halt to visa interviews for foreign students.

According to reporting by US news site Politico, the US is planning to monitor social media posts of all foreign students planning to study in the country.

A briefing issued from Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent on Tuesday ordered embassies to stop arranging future interviews.

Trump administration halts US student visa interviews

The message sent by the state department said: “Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel (separate telegram), which we anticipate in the coming days”.

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GLENN: Carol Roth, the author of The War on Small Business and former investment banker who started to use her gifts for the good, instead of the evil, is joining me now. She’s also got a new book coming out, the week after mine. And they are great hand-in-glove books. You Will Own Nothing.

Could the dollar get knocked off the top spot, as the world’s reserve currency? Challenges are emerging, and history shows, that countries whose currency has dominated the globe, can fall from that global reserve, that top spot, pretty fast, even over the course of a few days. We didn’t luck our way into this position. Listen to me carefully, it was a carefully engineered plan that unfolded in the mountains of New Hampshire, nearly 80 years ago. At the time, the British pound sterling, was the international currency. A title it had held for texting. But Bretton Woods changed everything. Now, this is actually — these are not my words. These are the words of NPR. They just came out with this story. The US dollar conquered the world. Is it at risk of losing its top spot? I know because I’ve been talking about this for a long time. And everyone has said, that will never happen….

CAROL: Right now. It’s Russia. It’s China. It’s China courting Saudi Arabia. And we have issues, not just with reserves, but also that the key piece. Because you asked me this one time offline. It’s not just the reserves. The reserves allow us to finance debt cheaply at the government level, and create some arbitrage.

But really what is this pole position as well, is being a huge piece of the payments.

We dominate, dominate. And have not lost ground, by the way, on the payment side. But China.

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President Donald Trump has announced that Canada is “considering” a deal that would see the nation become America’s 51st state.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Canada is mulling an offer to join the United States in exchange for protection by the proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system at no cost.

“I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State,” Trump wrote.

“They are considering the offer!” he added.

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It seems quite clear that Iran’s leaders do not believe that President Trump will ever order a military strike on their nuke sites. While we don’t know all of the details of the U.S-Iran nuke negotiations, some of what is being reported is quite concerning. We are going to have to wait and see what happens. If Iran is allowed to enrich uranium, it will be able to build several nuclear bombs. Which it would surely attempt to do when President Trump is out of office. If not sooner.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered its missions abroad to stop scheduling new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants as the State Department prepares to expand social media vetting of foreign students, according to an internal cable seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the cable that the department plans to issue updated guidance on social media vetting of student and exchange visitor applicants after a review is completed and advised consular sections to halt the scheduling of such visa appointments.

The move comes as the Trump administration has sought to ramp up deportations and revoke student visas as part of its wide-ranging efforts to fulfill his hardline immigration agenda.

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The communist regime of North Korea published an outraged screed on Tuesday denouncing President Donald Trump’s plan to implement a “Golden Dome” missile defense system over the United States, and potentially other parts of North America.

President Trump campaigned throughout 2024 on investing in a missile defense system covering the entire United States designed to protect America from the threat of hypersonic, ballistic, and other advanced missiles, referring to it as akin to Israel’s “Iron Dome” system. A week after taking office for his second term, Trump issued an executive order requiring a plan from the incoming secretary of defense within 60 days for a missile defense architecture of this type.

The White House announced last week that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had indeed selected an architecture for the missile defense system, called the “Golden Dome.” President Trump described the system as featuring “next-generation technologies across the land, sea, and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors” and indicated that the scope of the project is so large that the government of Canada is also interested in participating in the project.

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The Trump administration asked a federal court late Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 gang member deported earlier this year under disputed circumstances, arguing the court has no jurisdiction to force his return to the United States.

Abrego Garcia and his family sued after he was removed from the U.S. despite a prior immigration court order granting him withholding of removal to El Salvador due to what Abrego Garcia claimed were gang-related threats to his safety in his home country. He is now detained there anyway and is seeking emergency relief to be brought back to the U.S.

Wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, second from left, joins a rally outside the U.S. Courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, where a federal judge will hear arguments Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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Last Friday, Democratic press secretary turned MSNBC host, Jen Psaki had on former FBI director James Comey to talk about his new book, a fictional story that centered on a right-wing influencer who directed his followers to commit violence. Psaki used biased questions and responses to validate Comey’s outrageous claims that right-wing podcasters were like Islam extremists and were “white supremacist adjacent,” not just in his book, but in real life.

Psaki asks the question:

  I think you’ve told me, you enjoy writing fiction. It — it’s fiction, but it centers around a right-wing influencer who directs his followers to commit violence. Which feels, it’s not exactly topical in this moment, but it feels like something we’ve been talking about for several years. What — what inspired you? Is there a specific moment or person that inspired you to write about that storyline?

This prompted Comey to suggest that right-wing podcasters were using the internet to reach and radicalize young men in a way akin to ISIS:

I’m trying to write stuff that grips people, but is also real. And this is a threat we’ve been dealing with since the Islamic State came on the scene in 2014 and was using the internet to reach troubled people and move them to violence. Well, that threat has now gotten much larger because podcasts are everywhere, and it’s a tool in white identity extremism trying to motivate young men. Especially to move towards violence because they’re being replaced, they’re being attacked, America is under assault. This is a real feature of the FBI’s work, and so I thought it would make an — a good setting for a crime novel.

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Former Congressman  Charlie Rangel passed away early Monday morning. Former Congressman Charlie Rangel passed away early Monday morning. While media reports generally portrayed him as an effective representative for his district, they often overlooked a significant aspect of his legacy: Rangel was also known for his corruption.

In their announcement of Rangel’s death, CBS reported, “Charles Rangel, the longtime U.S. congressman from New York City and the last surviving member of the ‘Gang of Four,’ has died at the age of 94.” Born in Harlem on June 11, 1930, Rangel served as a Democratic member of the House of Representatives for 46 years after unseating the legendary Adam Clayton Powell Jr. He was a Korean War veteran, served as the dean of the New York Congressional Delegation, and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

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They’ve got a lot to learn

Democratic donors and consultants have been meeting in luxury hotels to analyze the party’s inability to connect with male voters and propose alternative communications strategies. The results, according to the New York Times, have often resembled “anthropological studies of people from faraway places.” One liberal group is planning a $20-million campaign called “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan,” or SAM for short, that will “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality” in masculine-coded heteronormative communities.

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Two Secret Service agents were suspended after getting into a physical altercation last week that was captured on video and circulated online.

A Secret Service spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the video, which depicted two female officers getting into a physical fight while on duty. NBC News reported that the incident occurred outside of former President Obama’s home in Washington, D.C.

The spokesperson said the incident — which occurred early last Wednesday — is under internal investigation.

“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of an on-duty altercation that occurred between two Uniformed Division officers at approximately 2:30 a.m. on May 21,” the statement read. “The individuals involved were suspended from duty and this matter is the subject of an internal investigation.”

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A watchdog representing energy workers is raising red flags after conducting a review of significant executive orders signed by autopen under the previous administration and finding “no evidence” that President Biden was aware of them.

The startling revelations come as an official at the Department of Justice has reviewed potential “gatekeepers” controlling the White House during Biden’s tenure, insiders have revealed a covert “Politburo” was running the country, and the cover-up of his cognitive decline is being unfurled in public at an accelerated pace.

The nonprofit organization Power the Future penned a letter to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-KY) outlining their findings and demanding a more thorough investigation. They want to know who was wantonly signing orders while Biden was safely tucked away for nap time.

“Power The Future remains concerned that key policies of major economic and national security significance directed by the White House during the Biden administration may have been undertaken without presidential awareness and approval, but perhaps instead by a small coterie of staff,” the letter reads, according to Fox News Digital.

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The billionaires who control the left decided to make Elon Musk the boogeyman at the start of the Trump Administration. Anything that went wrong anywhere was the fault of Cousin Elon and DOGE. Low-information voters think Elon is stealing their health care, social security and personal information because that’s what Democrats lied about, knowing the media would swear by it. Nevertheless, he persisted because he felt the work DOGE was doing was important. His reward for taking on all the attacks and working twenty-hour days?

Republicans not doing anything to codify DOGE cuts into law, and then passing a big, beautiful bill that increased the deficit.

Welcome to the Tea Party circa 2010, Elon. We coined a phrase for this. “Failure Theater.”

I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing. I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.

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A vandal who appeared to be a UCLA student recently spraypainted — in broad daylight — several pro-life signs set up on campus by pro-life organization Justice For All.

Justice For All published a video of a young man wearing a “UCLA Law” baseball cap using  black spraypaint to cover images of unborn babies and pro-life messages. Onlookers — including one who said he himself did not agree with the pro-life messages — asked him to stop, but he ignored their requests.

“We’re having a discussion,” the onlooker can be heard saying in the recording.

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Two female Secret Service officers were suspended after being caught on camera fighting outside former President  Barack Obama’s Washington, D.C., home last week.

According to audio recording of the incident, one officer calls for a supervisor to come “immediately before I whoop this girl’s a**.”

Video shared by RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree on X also shows the moment things got heated between the two officers.

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“If we’re already below minimum safe staffing levels, and you’ve got these guys on the line who are getting assaulted by Antifa, and no mention from the mayor about the injuries on cops… we gotta buckle up for a long, long summer.”

Seattle is facing another public safety reckoning, and the city’s police officers are sounding the alarm. In a blistering interview on The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI, Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) President Mike Solan took direct aim at Mayor Bruce Harrell, accusing him of putting officers in harm’s way by siding with radical activists over his police force.

The controversy erupted after Antifa targeted a Christian concert on Saturday. Antifa militants injured several Seattle police officers, but Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell blamed the violence on Christian worshipers. Solan said officers were left without proper support or recognition, claiming that Harrell appeared more focused on managing political optics than ensuring the safety of those on the front lines.

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Conservative student said bias runs deep at Yale

A Yale University dean emailed the entire Divinity School a copy of his MSNBC essay criticizing President Donald Trump, according to an email recently obtained by The College Fix.

But the email is just the latest example of bias against conservatives, according to a concerned student.

“Trump’s USAID cuts are anti-Christian at the core,” Dean Gregory Sterling wrote in an opinion piece for MSNBC. The article criticized President Trump for downsizing the United States Agency for International Development, saying it went against the teachings of Christianity.

“Greetings. I am writing today to share a new commentary piece I have published at MSNBC,” the email stated. “The article represents my effort to call attention to the anti-Christian nature of efforts by our government to eliminate or drastically reduce humanitarian work domestically and abroad, and to reach the broad public with the message that Christianity is more than the picture they are probably forming from politics and media.”

The message ended with Sterling stating “I know that you share my concern.”

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NPR filed a delusional lawsuit on Tuesday against the Trump administration, arguing that it has a constitutional right to your hard-earned money.

The suit, brought by NPR and three Colorado-based public radio stations, alleges that Trump’s executive order cutting federal funding to the left-wing NPR and PBS violates their right to free speech, as well as provisions of the Public Broadcasting Act.

“The [Executive] Order’s objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radios across the country,” the suit states.

But as Texas Rep. Brandon Gill countered in a post on X: “NPR has a right to free speech. It doesn’t have a right to our tax dollars.”