02 U.S. Politics

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President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is launching a criminal investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, accused of lying about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington opened the inquiry into Cuomo close to a month ago after senior officials in the DOJ called for the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams to be dismissed, The New York Times reported.

The inquiry followed a call from Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to prosecute Cuomo over statements he made to the committee investigating his management of the pandemic when the virus was running rampant in nursing homes.

In accordance with a Cuomo directive, more than 9,000 recovering COVID-19 patients were released from hospitals into nursing homes in New York state.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn’t just show up to Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing; he came loaded for bear. Ostensibly there to discuss the FY26 State Department budget, Rubio instead delivered a scathing indictment of China’s global con game and exposed shocking failures in America’s foreign aid system. What unfolded wasn’t routine testimony; it was a political thunderclap and a long-overdue reckoning.

As I’m sure you recall, Democrats have been having hissy fits over USAID cuts. They claim that the Trump administration was axing vital humanitarian aid when in reality, it was targeting waste, fraud, and abuse.

Just how bad is the waste, fraud, and abuse? Rubio revealed that under the old USAID model, only 12 cents of every dollar made it to the intended recipients. “That means that in order for us to get, you know, aid to somebody, we had to spend all this other money supporting this foreign aid industrial complex,” he said. In other words, U.S. taxpayers were funding bloated overhead while struggling nations got table scraps.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the creation of a special review panel on Tuesday to investigate the Biden administration’s “chaotic” 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.

“President Trump and I have formally pledged full transparency for what transpired during our military withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Department of Defense has an obligation, both to the American people and to the warfighters who sacrificed their youth in Afghanistan, to get to the facts,” Hegseth wrote in an agency memo released on Tuesday.

In his directive, Hegseth disclosed that the Defense Department has been conducting “a review” throughout the past three months of what the secretary described as a “catastrophic event in our military’s history.” Based on the probe’s findings, Hegseth “concluded that we need to conduct a comprehensive review to ensure that accountability for this event is met and that the complete picture is provided to the American people.”

The memo tasks Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and Senior Advisor Sean Parnell to “convene a Special Review Panel (SRP) for the Department who will thoroughly examine previous investigations.” As noted in a Defense Department press release, Parnell spent 485 days stationed in Afghanistan and was “wounded in action” along with many of his fellow soldiers.

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President Donald Trump, who seeks to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, wants to secure a new nuclear agreement with that country. Trump’s motive is honorable. Difficult diplomacy is preferable to military strikes on Iran. But numerous complications stand in the president’s way, and perhaps none of these complications is more significant than the growing threat of Iranian terrorist attacks.

Yes, formalizing a viable Iran nuclear agreement represents a big challenge in and of itself. For one, Iran has engaged in more than two decades of deceptive conduct via its covert research of nuclear warheads. Any deal would thus need to ensure prompt inspection access to any sites suspected of being used to conduct illicit nuclear weapons research. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action had woefully inadequate safeguards in this regard.

Another difficulty arises in the Trump administration’s new insistence that Iran suspend all nuclear enrichment, even at very low purity levels, in return for any deal. This demand conflicts with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s belief that his Islamic Republic should be allowed to engage in some enrichment as a matter of honor. Khamenei might well regard the risks of U.S. military action as less concerning than the loss of prestige and regime confidence that would go with suspending all enrichment activities. Allowing Iran to maintain its nuclear facilities, albeit in a nonoperational status, might allow the regime to save face. But probably not.

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The Biden administration “downplayed” and “delay[ed]” warnings about risks associated with receiving the mRNA Covid vaccines, according to a new congressional report released Wednesday.

Published by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the analysis’ findings are based on records forfeited by the Trump Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in compliance with requests issued by the subcommittee’s chair, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. As noted in the document, the interim report is “a culmination of a multi-year fight to overcome the obstruction of the Biden administration to get unredacted records and data about the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.”

According to the subcommittee, the more than 2,473 pages of records disclosed by the Trump administration show how Biden administration officials sought to “downplay and delay warning the public about the risks of myocarditis associated with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.”

A timeline laid out in the report documents how, throughout the early months of 2021, U.S. health officials began receiving data and reports about vaccinated individuals experiencing myocarditis and other cardiac-related adverse events after receiving the Covid shots. These reports came from domestic entities, as well as the Israeli Ministry of Health, which informed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “in late February 2021 of large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following the administration of the Pfizer vaccine.”

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Delaware Governor Matt Meyer, a Democrat, signed House Bill 140 into law on Tuesday.

The new law, deceptively named “The Ron Silverio/Heather Block End of Life Options Law,” opens the floodgates for state-sanctioned euthanasia by allowing terminally ill adults to request and self-administer life-ending medication — with full government and medical backing.

This radical measure was championed by far-left Democrats Rep. Paul Baumbach, Rep. David Bentz, Rep. Eric Morrison, and Sen. Bryan Townsend.

Under the new law, once a mentally competent individual is diagnosed with a terminal illness and deemed to have six months or less to live, doctors and advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) are empowered to prescribe death-inducing drugs.

According to Delaware Public, the end-of-life medication may only be prescribed to a terminally ill patient after they make two verbal requests and one written request themselves — a legal guardian or healthcare surrogate is not permitted to make the request on their behalf.

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A group of transgender activists raised a transgender pride flag Tuesday on the rock formation El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, California on Tuesday, according to a press release obtained by the Daily Caller.

The pride flag, at 55 feet by 35 feet, was the largest flag to be flown over the iconic rock formation, the project, called “Trans is Natural,” said. The action was done as an “act of solidarity” by a group of “transgender, queer, and ally climbers.”

A video published by a self-identified “environmentalist & drag artist” who goes by the name Pattie Gonia shows a group of rock climbers bringing the transgender pride flag up El Capitan and unfurling it over a crevice in the formation.

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Several vulnerable House Democrats representing swing districts held intimate meetings with former president Joe Biden at the White House during the same timeframe his senior aides were hard at work concealing his rapidly deteriorating mental acuity from the public. Most of those Democrats had nothing to say about Biden’s fitness to serve—even after his disastrous debate performance.

That includes Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D., Texas), who participated in three meetings with Biden at the White House in 2023 and 2024, including an eight-person meeting with the former president on June 4, 2024, archived visitor logs show. Biden’s rapidly deteriorating mental acuity was evident to the public and became impossible for the Democratic Party to ignore following his disastrous debate performance in late June. But Gonzalez told a different story to the public following his intimate meetings with the president.

Gonzalez praised Biden’s mental acuity in a Feb. 2024 statement, saying the former president “still seems pretty sharp and focused on the task of the day.” And later, in July, Gonzalez attacked the first House Democrat to call on Biden to drop his reelection bid, saying it was “ironic” that the elderly Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D., Texas) had lost faith in Biden’s fitness to serve following his debate against Trump.

“We have a 77-year-old asking an 81-year-old not to run,” said Gonzalez, who represents a toss-up district in southern Texas. “I really believe folks are jumping the gun.”

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At least a dozen migrants were reportedly deported to South Sudan this week, including illegal immigrants from Myanmar, Vietnam, and Mexico.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to maintain custody of criminal illegal immigrants who were allegedly flown to South Sudan.

Judge Brian Murphy held an emergency hearing Tuesday and issued an order instructing the administration “to maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.”

At least a dozen migrants were reportedly deported to South Sudan this week, including illegal immigrants from Myanmar, Vietnam, and Mexico, despite a standing court order restricting removals to third countries. Attorneys representing the migrants told the court that immigration authorities have sent people from various countries to Africa, potentially violating a prior ruling that guarantees migrants a “meaningful opportunity” to argue that deportation to a country other than their homeland would endanger their safety.

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The U.S. Army is moving toward its aim of separating transgender soldiers from the service with its new guidance that deems tranny soldiers as “undeployable” and therefore, useless to the service.

The Army is ramping up its efforts to dump soldiers with gender dysphoria because it has been determined that the condition is medically incompatible with military service. Pursuant to that, the Pentagon has released a series of memos directing the services to identify and remove them — whether voluntarily on not.

The new directives are in compliance with Commander In Chief Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order requiring the separation of tranny soldiers.

Per Gateway Pundit:

On February 26, 2025, the Department of Defense issued a memorandum titled “Additional Guidance on Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” formally disqualifying individuals with a current diagnosis, history, or symptoms of gender dysphoria from military service. The policy states that such conditions are incompatible with readiness, cohesion, lethality, and integrity, and affirms that all personnel must meet standards without special accommodations.

Under Executive Order 14168, the Department of Defense defines sex as an immutable biological classification, male or female, and requires all service members to serve in accordance with their sex. This designation now governs compliance with military standards, including physical fitness, grooming, uniforms, and access to bathrooms, showers, and berthing.

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WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission is setting its sights on the industry pushing transgender medical procedures on minors, documents show a potential major step in the Trump administration;s efforts to crack down on radical gender ideology.

The FTC, an agency tasked with protecting American consumers, will hold a day-long workshop in July on transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers, according to an internal memo. That;s a likely indicator of the agency’s intentions: the FTC often holds such events before initiating legal action against an industry to gain information, gather evidence, and solicit the input of affected Americans.

“Under the Federal Trade Commission Act, the FTC is provided broad authority to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive trade acts and practices,” the memo reads. “There is now considerable reason to believe that the doctors and medical providers pushing [gender-affirming care] on minors are knowingly deceiving parents by exaggerating [gender-affirming care’s] ‘benefits’ and downplaying its harmful side effects.”

The Trump-appointed chairman of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, reportedly pitched the president on using the agency to fight “against the trans agenda” before he was selected for the post, according to a document.

Ferguson believed the FTC could “investigate the doctors, therapists, hospitals, and others who deceptively pushed gender confusion, puberty blockers, hormone replacement, and sex-change surgeries on children and adults while failing to disclose strong evidence that such interventions are not helpful and carry enormous risks,” Punchbowl reported.

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The U.S. Department of Justice has intervened in a legal dispute to support Grace New England Church, a small congregation led by Pastor Howard Kaloogian in Weare, New Hampshire.

The church has gathered for worship on Pastor Kaloogian’s five-acre property every Saturday for several years, using a renovated barn that the pastor has also offered to the community for a variety of secular events, including political rallies, backgammon tournaments, and weddings.

The government has never had an issue with any gathering held anywhere in town or on Pastor Kaloogian’s private property — until a Weare zoning enforcement official named Tony Sawyer saw a promotional flyer for Grace New England Church’s Saturday worship event. Sawyer then went, uninvited, to Pastor Kaloogian’s house and informed him that he would have to complete a site plan application and a conditional-use permit in order to continue holding religious assemblies on his private property.

The town has since delayed permit applications, subjected the pastor to repeated inspections of his home, and threatened to fine him.

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As the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether parents have the right to opt their children out of reading books that promote gender ideology, a federal district court told a California school district that it cannot force children to read such books without parental notice and the opportunity to opt out.

The case centers on La Costa Heights Elementary School, located in the Encinitas School District near San Diego. The school runs a mandatory “buddy program” in which 5th grade students mentor kindergarteners.

Traditionally, this program involved art projects, gardening, and reading sessions — with books selected by the students themselves. Each week, parents received a newsletter detailing which book was being read in class.

The process changed when teachers selected My Shadow is Pink, a book promoting gender ideology. That week, no notice was sent to parents.

The book tells the story of a boy who enjoys wearing dresses and playing with toys typically associated with girls. Because he doesn’t “fit in,” his shadow is pink instead of blue. The central conflict revolves around his father’s initial discomfort and eventual embrace of his son’s pink shadow as not a phase but as a reflection of his “inner-most self.” By the end, the father joins his son and wears a dress.

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The Donald Trump-run Kennedy Center is hosting a free family screening of “The King of Kings” at the Concert Hall on June 1, according to a Wednesday press release issued to the Daily Caller.

The Christian film takes audiences on a “Journey through history alongside a young boy as he witnesses Jesus’ miracles, trials, and ultimate sacrifice.”

The film will screen at 3 pm and will feature free popcorn for attendees, the press release states.

The animated film is distributed by Angel, and features voice talent from Kenneth Branagh as Charles Dickens, Uma Thurman as Catherine Dickens, Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate, Mark Hamill as King Herod, Roman Griffin Davis as Walter Dickens, Forest Whitaker as Peter, Ben Kingsley as High Priest Caiaphas, and Oscar Isaac as Jesus Christ.

 

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One of President Donald Trump’s big promises on the campaign trail last November was to crack down on crime.

A frequent complaint heard from constituents and prospective voters was that Democrats were too soft on crime — and too anti-police.

Trump’s Department of Justice seems poised to tackle both of those issues in one fell swoop.

The DOJ, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, announced Wednesday that it is doing away with a number of restrictive investigations and lawsuits ushered in at the 11th hour by the administration of former President Joe Biden.

“Today, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is beginning the process of dismissing lawsuits against the Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis, Minnesota police departments,” the statement began.

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President Donald Trump’s offer to illegal alines of a thousand bucks and a free plane ride back to their homes has been put into motion and the first self-deportation flights have already begin.

The first flight lifted off on Monday as several dozen illegals took Trump up on his offer to help them go back where they belong.

Per The Blaze:

Citing an unnamed Department of Homeland Security official, Axios claimed that the first so-called “self-deportation” flight took off from Houston around 9:30 a.m. The plane reportedly carried 65 illegal aliens from Colombia and Honduras and took the individuals to their respective countries of origin.

Those on the flight apparently took advantage of an offer from the Trump administration known as “Project Homecoming.” In exchange for electing to “self-deport” through the CBP Home app, they each received a free ticket home plus $1,000 upon their arrival, Axios said.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has urged all immigrants in the U.S. illegally to participate in the program. “If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest, and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest,” Noem said in a statement on May 5.

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Until Democrats start naming names and apologizing for their reckless, craven conduct as it relates to Joe Biden, I don’t want to hear another word about Pete Hegseth’s Signal chats.

It was fine timing to get news over the weekend that the former president, a well established dotard, has an advanced and aggressive form of prostate cancer that has reached his bones. There’s a strong likelihood that Biden was diagnosed with some stage of the disease before he was even elected president, and he almost certainly had it while in office. Yet the public knew nothing until Sunday.

Prayers up for Biden, but this is an appalling scandal. And it comes just as the dying news media are finally acknowledging that, yeah, Biden’s brain was rapidly browning over as he sat in the Oval Office, where he was losing track of space and time as the commander of the United States military, the point person for nuclear war.

Recall that now-Republican Rep. Ronnie Jackson, when he was serving as Donald Trump’s first-term White House physician in 2018, rendered a medical summary on the president that more or less described Trump as in good health, if a little overweight and in need of some exercise. The dying media questioned him for an hour at a press conference. They were sure that Jackson was deceiving the public by not divulging some mental affliction that would have affirmed their feverish desire to see Trump removed from office by way of the 25th Amendment.

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Vice President JD Vance called Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’s comment that the role of the judiciary branch is to check both the executive and legislative branches of government “profoundly wrong.”

Speaking with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, Vance was asked about court cases that have hampered the Trump administration’s deportation efforts.

“I saw an interview with Chief Justice Roberts recently where he said the role of the court is to check the excesses of the executive,” Vance said. “I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment.”

Chief Justice John Roberts said earlier this month that the high court’s role is to “check the excesses of Congress or the executive” as an independent and coequal branch of government.

Vance disagrees.

“That’s one-half of his job,” Vance said on Douthat’s podcast. “The other half of his job is to check the excesses of his own branch.”

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The Canadian government’s Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has admitted to secretly tracking reports of sudden deaths and other adverse events among people who received Covid “vaccines.”

The government agency has been gathering the information in a massive database, which also includes thousands of scientific studies related to the dangers of the injections.

PHAC was forced to make the admission in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The agency has just complied with the FIOA request after it was sent in May 2024.

A successful complaint to the Information Commissioner forced PHAC to respond to the FOIA request after health officials ignored it for months.

PHAC had requested an extension of time to comply with this request, which the requestor felt was unreasonable.

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US President Donald Trump has unveiled a scheme to build a $175 billion (€154bn) missile defence system called the “Golden Dome”, claiming it could be “fully operational” by the end of his presidential term.

The announcement on Tuesday came roughly four months after Trump signed an executive order, instructing the Pentagon to draw up plans to defend the US against “catastrophic” aerial attacks.

Although the exact scope of the Golden Dome project remains unclear, Trump said the system would involve “next-generation” technologies, including space-based sensors and interceptors.

“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space,” Trump claimed.

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The deep blue state of Vermont has run into the inevitable brick wall that electric vehicle mandates always leads to and they have come to their senses by dumping the dreamy green mandates they had envisioned.

Vermont’s Democrat Governor Phil Scott issued an executive order this month halting enforcement of the state’s EV mandates, which demanded that 35 percent of all vehicles be electric by 2026.

Per Reuters:

Vermont is one of 11 states including New York, Maryland and Massachusetts that have adopted California’s zero-emission vehicle rules, which seek to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035. California’s rules require 35% of light-duty vehicles in the 2026 model year to be zero-emission models.

Scott cited warnings from automakers that they could limit supply of gas-powered vehicles to dealers in the state because of the EV rules.

“It’s clear we don’t have anywhere near enough charging infrastructure and insufficient technological advances in heavy-duty vehicles to meet current goals,” said Scott.

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The Take It Down Act, a controversial bipartisan bill recently hailed by First Lady Melania Trump as a tool to build a safer internet, is officially law, as President Donald Trump took to the White House Rose Garden today to put ink to legislative paper. It’s the first high-profile tech legislation to pass under the new administration.

“With the rise of AI image generation, countless women have been harassed with deepfakes and other explicit images distributed against their will. This is wrong, so horribly wrong, and it’s a very abusive situation,” said Trump at the time of signing. “This will be the first ever federal law to combat the distribution of explicit, imaginary, posted without subject’s consent… We’ve all heard about deepfakes. I have them all the time, but nobody does anything. I ask Pam [Bondi], ‘Can you help me Pam?’ She says, ‘No I’m too busy doing other things. Don’t worry you’ll survive.’ But a lot of people don’t survive, that’s true and so horrible… Today, we’re making it totally illegal.”

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A Christian youth camp in Colorado has filed a federal lawsuit against state officials, alleging that newly imposed gender identity policies violate its constitutional rights to religious freedom and free speech.

Camp IdRaHaJe, a ministry operating in Bailey, Colorado, since the 1940s, serves more than 2,500 children each summer through Christian-based programs and outdoor activities. The camp’s name is derived from the phrase, “I’d Rather Have Jesus.” Now, it finds itself at the center of a legal battle over the state’s licensing requirements for residential youth camps.

The lawsuit, Camp IdRaHaJe Association v. Roy, was filed on May 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Named defendants include Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and Carin Rosas, director of the Office of Early Childhood Licensing and Administration.

At issue is a Colorado regulation requiring licensed youth camps to allow campers to access bathrooms, showers, and sleeping quarters based on gender identity rather than biological sex. Camp IdRaHaJe argues that complying with the policy would force it to violate its sincerely held religious beliefs about human sexuality and gender.

 

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Tristan Hopper reported for the National Post on May 21 that Luc Fernandez, who co-hosts a radio talk show on 98.5 Montreal told his audience, on May 15 in French that:

doctor-assisted suicide could be a form of “liberation” for the mentally ill.

Hopper reported that Fernandez also stated that:

Quebec should enshrine “comité de sages” (committees of experts) to authorize assisted suicide “in cases where, for example, someone no longer has any parents, people who were abandoned … people who no longer receive visits … no longer have any joy in life, they have no more interest in living, who live in permanent suffering.”

Montréal disability rights group RAPLIQ responded by accusing Ferrandez of promoting a eugenic ideology and stated:

“To speak of euthanasia with logistical calm, as if it were a measure of social efficiency, is to deny the value of different lives,”

“It is to slip down a eugenic slope, the very same that has led history into the abyss.”