02b U.S. Politics – Progressive
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WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has told senators it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, adding to what is already a sizable military spending boost being sought by President Donald Trump.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has yet to make a formal request to Congress. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill, including Monday evening. A top deputy defense secretary told senators about the Iran funding request last week, according to two people familiar with the situation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the developments.
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On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Brad Lander discussed his primary win over Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), which he stated “says Democratic voters want to reset the U.S. relationship with Israel,” and said he’s unsure Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) “is in our party any more, to be honest.”
Lander began by saying that Democratic voters “want leaders who are going to fight, not just Donald Trump, but the billionaires who are rigging the economy against us. And that’s what I think tonight’s election is about.”
He added that the candidates who have won prior primaries are progressive candidates “who say we want to see a Democratic Party that’s fighting harder. We shouldn’t be taking corporate PAC money from Wall Street and crypto and AI and AIPAC, we’ve got to fight harder for working families and have people see us fighting for them, and we have to reset the U.S. relationship with Israel.”
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Last July, a group of armed Antifa militants ambushed an ICE detention facility in Texas, bringing rifles, body armor, and military-style medical kits. During the attack, one officer was shot through the neck. On Tuesday, several Antifa militants who participated in the attack were sentenced — including one individual who was convicted of attempted murder.
But you might not necessarily glean that if you read the Washington Post’s headline of the story.
“Federal judges in Texas on Tuesday gave eight members of an alleged ‘antifa cell’ prison sentences as long as 100 years for their roles last summer in a protest that turned violent outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility,” Molly Hennessy-Fiske wrote. (The SEO headline for the piece states: “Alleged antifa members in Texas are sentenced for ICE protest”).
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London — Labour Party lawmaker Andy Burnham, who looks increasingly likely to be Britain’s next prime minister, has previously criticized President Trump, accusing the American leader of bringing “instability” to the world.
Current Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday that he would resign in the wake of disastrous local elections in May, and 20 resignations from his government.
As his Labour Party still has a large majority of seats in the U.K. parliament — won in the last national elections in 2024 — it gets to pick Starmer’s replacement, and Burnham is widely expected to get the job.
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A self-described socialist who previously called for abolishing police, seizing private property, eliminating borders, ending deportations, and nationalizing industries has defeated a five-term Democrat incumbent in New York City, marking another major victory for the growing far-left movement aligned with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old anti-American community organizer, doctoral student, and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won Tuesday’s Democratic Party primary in New York’s 13th Congressional District.
According to election results, Chevalier secured roughly 49.4 percent of the vote, defeating Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), who received approximately 45.9 percent.
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The Trump administration has tried to rig the midterm election with schemes that go way beyond gerrymandering.
At the heart of all the president’s plans are various illegal executive orders that he signed, all related to voting.
One of those executive orders required the Social Security Administration to turn over personal information so a database could be created to purge voters.
The scheme was clearly illegal, and U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked the database:
This case implicates two fundamental rights that protect Americans from government overreach: the right to privacy and the right to vote. In the past year, several federal agencies have joined forces to create a centralized federal database that contains the private information of United States citizens, including Social Security numbers, citizenship status, and other sensitive data. But decades ago, Congress put protections in place to prevent precisely this type of centralized data bank. And the record in this case shows that the federal agencies that created this database knew that the database violates those statutory protections.
The agencies were scrambling to comply with an Executive Order aimed at reshaping federal elections, which directed them to create a system for mass voter verification. So they haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable.
Since then, states have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information. All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.
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The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has a new problem: it’s starting to smell.
Washington, D.C., freelance photographer Joe Flood posted a photo on X on Monday of the pool being actively drained. “As they drain it, the Reflecting Pool is starting to smell,” he wrote.
President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Saturday that the pool would “probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs.”
The drain order came after a $14 million no-bid renovation cratered almost immediately. Workers painted the pool bottom “American flag blue” — then algae bloomed within days, turning the water green and sending the new paint peeling off in strips.
Trump blamed unnamed vandals, without offering evidence. United States Park Police separately arrested David Carter Hearn, 67, a three-time Olympic canoeist who says he stopped at the site out of curiosity and reached down to touch a piece of peeling paint. He was charged with misdemeanor destruction of government property.
“I was just a curious, concerned citizen,” Hearn told the Washington Post. “I guess I was there at the wrong place, wrong time.”
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As President Donald Trump and the Iranian government reached a written agreement to end the war, Democrats honed in on a section that appeared to promise hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars to Iran.
“With $300 billion, we could end homelessness, fund cancer research for 40 years, and give every child free pre-K for over 7 years,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in an X post. “Instead, Trump is sending it to Iran.”
Trump dismissed such concerns.
“There is no 300 Billion Dollar payment to Iran by the U.S.,” he said in a June 18 Truth Social post. “That’s Fake News! All there is for the U.S. is Success, Lower Oil Prices, and Victory.”
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Professor took part in anti-Israel protest that caused $3M in damage
An anti-Israel professor who was previously arrested for participating in violent protests on campus will teach “Politics of the Middle East” at the City University of New York this upcoming fall semester.
Corinna Mullin is “also slated to teach ‘Government and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa’ at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where she’ll talk about the Arab-Israeli conflict, political Islam, political Judaism, petro-politics and US foreign policy in the region,” the New York Post reported.
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An Ohio voting-rights group is insisting it did nothing to justify the “swarms” of FBI agents who fanned out across the state on June 12, searching offices and visiting the homes of employees and volunteers with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative.
Meanwhile, the FBI hasn’t given any public hint of its reasons for the action or shown that they were justified.
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Rev. Michael Harrison Sr., chairman of the collaborative’s board, said in an interview on MS Now. “In the midst of having done nothing wrong, there’s nothing to find, and there are no charges to be filed.”
The collaborative says it has registered more than 600,000 Ohioans to vote. It focuses particularly on traditionally disempowered groups. Its leader said the FBI effort didn’t come as a complete surprise.
“Whenever you’re doing the right thing, there will always be pushback,” he said during the MS Now interview. “Whenever you’re providing opportunity for the marginalized or left out, there will always be some level of pushback.”
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President Trump said on Tuesday that he would send the deal to end the war with Iran and open nuclear discussions with Tehran to Congress for approval. “I wouldn’t mind,” the president said when asked by a reporter during a bilateral meeting with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. “I mean,…
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President Trump’s deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting sanctions on Iran is getting strong pushback from Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill who warn that giving Iran’s theocratic regime access to billions of dollars in economic relief would be a major “blunder.” Some Republicans are warning that the likely outcome of…
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Donald Trump would never have been president without rural America. One of the greatest contradictions, or some would say con jobs, in American history was pulled off as a New York City creature passed himself off as relatable and sharing the concerns of rural America.
To anyone with a discerning eye, it was clear that Trump didn’t understand or care about rural America. Even rural Americans would admit this fact on occasion, but they liked Trump because he talked about them, and he played on their mistrust of elites by selling himself as an outsider who had been inside enough to confirm their suspicions about “the swamp.”
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s jobs may be at stake if they continue to oppose President Donald Trump’s Iran deal, a senior White House official warned.
The threat emerged in a report published Sunday by the right-leaning Israeli daily Israel Hayom, which detailed a bitter internal White House battle over the emerging memorandum of understanding with Tehran.
“The debate has been settled. Those who oppose it may pay a personal price,” a senior US official told the outlet.
According to the report, Vice President JD Vance, envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump envoy Jared Kushner have driven the push for a deal, arguing the Iranian regime is unlikely to collapse soon and that Gulf states — particularly Qatar — have pressed hard for an agreement.
Rubio and Hegseth argued the opposite: that Iran is buckling under economic pressure and Washington should tighten the screws, not ease them. The two men had been the public faces of that harder line — touting “Project Freedom,” a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, only for Trump to shelve it hours after they publicly praised it.
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President Donald Trump is touting a deal that would end the monthslong war with Iran — and potentially ease some of the political headwinds bearing down on Republicans.
GOP lawmakers still have lots of questions.
The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday left an information vacuum on Capitol Hill, where senators of both parties were left airing concerns about what the deal might entail.
Even most Republicans agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.
“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”
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Trump wants to go down in history as one of the great US presidents, but what is unfolding is one of the biggest presidential trainwrecks in American history. Through a series of bad policy decisions, Donald J. Trump has wrecked the economy. Corruption in this administration is approaching levels that haven’t been seen in the country since the 19th Century.
The president started a war with Iran, which he lost, and negotiated a ceasefire extension that he will not let Congress or the American people view.
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Democrats, who tell us it’s Normal Americans who are really the people doing all that mostly peaceful but fiery violence, continue to behave like rabid badgers. Worse, they behave like envious rabid badgers, which is never a good look. The Party of diversity and tolerance is anything but, and this time, the object of their hate is Elon Musk—still.
Musk was something of a Democrat ally until he did the unforgivable: he aligned himself with Donald Trump, exposed Democrat fraud and crimes, shut down their money funnels, and worst of all, bought Twitter and restored free speech on a platform they previously owned. So, Democrats vandalized and torched Teslas, the electric cars they previously loved, and discovered Musk was one of the billionaires who must “pay their fair share” of taxes, unlike Soros and other Democrat billionaires who must pay Democrats.
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Republicans in Georgia just proved that one thing can overcome the power of President Donald Trump’s endorsement: an endless stream of cash.
Health care executive Rick Jackson defeated Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday, with the help of over $100 million of his personal wealth.
Jones’ loss is a major upset for the president in a marquee battleground state, and it follows several high-profile Trump losses in 2022, when his candidates either lost their primaries or the general election. The result is also a rare blunder for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who joined Trump in endorsing Jones to be his successor ahead of Tuesday’s primary, after months of sitting on the sidelines of the race.
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ICE denies responsibility for Daphy Michel’s death by hypothermia.Mother Jones; Gina M Randazzo/ZUMA
Daphy Michel, a 31-year-old Haitian asylum seeker, was found dead of hypothermia at a Pittsburgh bus stop March 2, three days after being released from ICE custody 30 miles from her home.
This week, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office ruled her death a homicide.
Todd Blanche faces rocky Senate confirmation process for attorney general– thehill.com
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is headed for a rocky Senate confirmation process to take on the role permanently as several Republican senators raise concerns about his credibility and independence from President Trump. Blanche faced withering criticism from Senate Republicans during a private meeting last month at which more than 20 GOP lawmakers vented their…
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The House Freedom Caucus is suddenly confronting an unsettled future after more than a decade at the center of GOP politics on Capitol Hill.
Some of its most prominent members are leaving Congress next year after seeking higher office, including former chair Rep. Andy Biggs and several media-friendly voices like Reps. Chip Roy, Byron Donalds and Ralph Norman.
Meanwhile, the group’s current chair, Rep. Andy Harris, is term-limited.
Who will step in to fill the shuffling ranks and maintain the caucus’ role as a hard-right vanguard is very much in question — especially as the group faces a potential shift to a Democratic House majority, which has historically made them less pivotal, and the looming transition to a Republican Party without a President Donald Trump.
The group — which is no stranger to reinventing itself — has a number of relatively unknown members ready to become the new faces of the hard right in the House.
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First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli — President Trump’s loyalist federal prosecutor in Los Angeles — has not been shy in recent days about his intention to ferret out voter fraud in California’s primary election and criminally charge those responsible.
He has announced that his office “has multiple election fraud investigations underway” in coordination with the FBI, urged Californians on social media to submit evidence of “potential election fraud” directly to his office, and said flatly he “will be charging some people” with election fraud — just as soon as California certifies its vote count and his office “can prove some of the allegations.”
Essayli’s public callouts and promises are highly unusual and in direct conflict with Justice Department guidance on ballot fraud investigations at the federal level, which states federal prosecutors should not publicly pursue such claims amid of vote counting.
The Justice Manual — which regulates the actions of federal prosecutors nationwide — says the department “should not engage in overt criminal investigative measures in matters involving alleged ballot fraud until the election in question has been concluded, its results certified, and all recounts and election contests concluded,” in part because doing so “runs the risk of chilling legitimate voting and campaign activities and of interjecting the investigation itself into ongoing campaigns and the adjudication of any ensuing election contest.”