x01a Research Archives

Judge Sparkle Sooknanan Blocks Trump Admin’s Voter-Screening Database › American Greatness amgreatness.com
News Source
EXCERPT:

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from implementing a voter-screening database that combined citizenship records with Social Security information. The ruling argued the effort violated federal privacy protections and resulted in inaccurate information being shared with states.

In a 75-page decision, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan halted the administration’s revised SAVE database, a system developed by the Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to strengthen election integrity and identify non-citizens on voter rolls.

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan wrote. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

People On Food Stamps Can Keep Buying Junk With Your Tax Dollars, Obama Judge Rules dailycaller.com
News Source
EXCERPT:

A federal judge on Monday struck down multiple state pilot programs that restricted Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients from using their benefits to buy unhealthy foods.

Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins incorrectly interpreted federal law when approving limits on what SNAP recipients could purchase with their benefits, Politico reported. The ruling impacts such pilot programs in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to the outlet.

“With her solicitation and approval of the pilot projects in this case, the Secretary purports to waive not just a mere administrative or technical obstacle, but the very definition of ‘food’ as it was laid down by Congress,” the ruling says, Politico reported. “Neither the [U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)] nor the states can force this square peg into a round hole to avoid the plain language of the statute and the requirements of 2026(k).”

The USDA did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

News Source
EXCERPT:

 

U.S. District Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz threw out subpoenas against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other officials regarding immigration.

“This course of events- in and of itself-establishes beyond reasonable dispute that the subpoenas were a part of a broader campaign to coerce state and local officials in Minnesota to assist the Trump administration in its enforcement of immigration laws,” wrote Schiltz. “And, of course, this campaign played out against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s well-established history of using criminal investigations to retaliate against and pressure the President’s political and personal adversaries.”

News Source
EXCERPT:

It’s been one of the most frustrating conundrums for conservatives in the second Trump era: they control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, yet they can’t get the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to produce proof of citizenship to register and provide a photo ID to submit a ballot, passed.

Although the SAVE Act has passed the House, Republicans are short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to get it done, and Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has refused to get rid of the filibuster, saying he can’t corral enough votes for that either.

As the Senate readies for another vacation, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13) and other conservatives have seen enough. She’s threatening to halt all House business until the Act is passed in the upper chamber.

She’s not playing games, she vowed:

“There’s going to be no votes this week, and it’s going to be as long as it takes,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., who is leading the effort, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

The hardball tactics led House Republican leadership to pull a series of votes on Wednesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is expected to put legislation that had already been teed up for a vote Thursday, but it is unclear whether he will be able to convince Luna and other conservatives to end their blockade, effectively freezing the House floor.

“The president’s been very clear,” Luna told Fox News Digital. “He’s not playing these games anymore, and I’m going to fully back him, and I have the votes to do it.”

News Source
EXCERPT:

The Los Angeles mayoral primary election raised an eyebrow for voters and onlookers alike. This is California, after all.

While incumbent Democratic Mayor Karen Bass secured her spot on the ballot for the city’s general election in November, Republican Spencer Pratt was not so fortunate.

Pratt lost out on the second-place spot needed to advance over Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The story of Pratt’s defeat unfortunately sounds all too familiar with positive results early on, only for mail-in ballots for Raman to come in just when they were needed.

It’s not just mere suspicion that something was off. One woman working in a ballot processing center spoke out on social media platform X about what she personally witnessed.

Jennifer Callahan made an X post with a few important notes.

“Signatures only need to be 40% accurate (!) this is the setting the machines are set at for LA County (called the ASV),” she wrote.

News Source
EXCERPT:

When a Supreme Court ruling causes the mainstream media and Democrat politicians to dissolve into tears of fury, you know the decision was much more in favor of We the People and the Constitution than of woke judicial activism. And with two major immigration decisions going for the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday, lefty media stooges are, of course, roaring like a Shakespearean tempest.

To clarify a few facts first, the majority opinion in Mullin v. Doe (which is causing particular fury) was in favor of acknowledging that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) should be just that — temporary. The Supreme Court also rejected the claim that the Trump administration was targeting certain racial groups or that hundreds of thousands of Haitians should receive TPS 16 years after the earthquake that triggered the designation. Syrians, likewise, face a concerning but different situation back home now than they did in 2012 when their TPS started. None of those facts is influencing the MSM and Democrat meltdown.

News Source
EXCERPT:

Vandals have repeatedly targeted the National Mall this summer, leaving “8647” markings, damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and, in one disturbing case, writing a message in blood on the Washington Monument, federal officials said.

The Department of the Interior warned that the incidents appear to be part of a growing trend as President Donald Trump’s restoration work on the National Mall draws left-wing protests and vandalism.

“Unfortunately, this summer has seen a significant increase in vandalism to the National Mall – for example, several 8647 markings, a person writing words in their own blood on the Washington Monument and the cutting of fuel lines around the Great American State Fair,” Interior Department communication director Katie Martin told Fox News Digital.

News Source
EXCERPT:

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised President Trump on Wednesday for degrading Iran’s nuclear capability, saying Tehran had been “basically getting its hands on” one. He also credited Trump personally for helping set that program back, remaining the true leader of the free world, and working to ensure Iran is unable to threaten Europe and other allies.

Rutte has been working hard to keep NATO unified since the Iran war, especially after tensions flared over Europe’s reluctance to back U.S. combat operations to open the Strait of Hormuz. Whether his praise is sincere or simply diplomatic damage control, the result is the same: even Trump’s critics have to acknowledge that the war’s bare minimum achievement was a meaningful degradation of Iran’s nuclear capacity.

News Source
EXCERPT:

Technology companies that propose to build data centers to provide the computing power for artificial intelligence would have to pay any costs to upgrade local power grids under a bill that took a step forward in the House on Wednesday

The Ratepayer Protection Act, H.R. 9340, would authorize states to charge companies building data centers the full cost of new power generation to support the electricity-gobbling centers and transmission upgrades.

The Subcommittee on Energy, a panel that is part of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, moved the bill, which had bipartisan support, forward. The full committee will now consider it.

News Source
EXCERPT:

“The View” co-host Joy Behar has defended Democratic Socialists, arguing that programs such as Social Security and public services, including fire departments, ambulances, and garbage collection, show that the far-left ideology already exists in American life.

Behar made the comments during a discussion on ABC’s daytime talk show after three congressional candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won Democrat primaries in New York.

The victories gave Mamdani and his Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) allies another show of strength inside the Democrats’ progressive wing.

News Source
EXCERPT:

An Obama-appointed federal judge has struck down most of President Donald Trump’s election integrity executive order, blocking key parts of the administration’s effort to tighten federal voting rules.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper ruled that Trump exceeded his authority by attempting to impose several election-related requirements through executive action, including a mandate requiring voters to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.

The decision makes permanent an injunction Casper issued last year in a lawsuit brought by Democratic attorneys general from 19 states.

News Source
EXCERPT:

Robert Jenrick has said it is “legitimate” for the media to ask questions about Nigel Farage’s £5m personal donation from a cryptocurrency billionaire, just days after the Reform UK leader told an interviewer it was “none of your business”.

Jenrick, who is Reform’s shadow chancellor, said voters on the doorstep were not asking about the money given to Farage by the Thailand-based British crypto investor Christopher Harborne.

However, he acknowledged it was not unreasonable for the media to have questions about the £5m, in contrast to Farage’s claim earlier this week that it was a private matter.

At the British Chambers of Commerce ann

News Source
EXCERPT:

This election season has included a lot of talk about the openly socialist candidates winning Democratic Party primaries in New York and other deep-blue regions of the country.

But in Texas, US Senate hopeful James Talarico is spewing many of the same far-left ideas from a package that might appear less extreme to some voters. 

Now that he’s facing GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a steady stream of those prior remarks are coming back to bite him.

As the Washington Free Beacon highlighted in a new report:

Talarico’s remarks came during a 2022 speech he delivered to a group of Texas inmates graduating from a high school diploma program. After approvingly quoting the prominent prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore—Talarico described her as an “anti-prison activist” who said “prisons are a catchall solution to our social problems”—he laid out his vision for a “world without prisons.”

“Prisons allow us to ignore the consequences of systemic racism and global capitalism,” Talarico said. “If we took just half of what we spent on wars, prisons, and policing and spent it on education, health care, and jobs, we could make prisons obsolete.”

“It’s hard to imagine a world without prisons,” he continued. “But it was also hard to imagine a world without telegrams and cassette tapes. Just because it was hard to imagine doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. We won’t build it overnight, but dreaming is the first step.”

News Source
EXCERPT:

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada is “preparing humanitarian assistance” for Venezuela following a pair of deadly earthquakes hit the country Wednesday evening.

In a post on X, Carney offered his “sincere condolences to the loved ones of those who were lost.”

“My thoughts are with everyone who has been injured or displaced and with the first responders working tirelessly to save lives.”

News Source
EXCERPT:

The Senate reversed course late Wednesday night from a day earlier on a resolution aimed at limiting President Donald Trump’s war powers in the Iran conflict, giving the president a legislative victory over congressional dissenters on how his administration is handling the military conflict with Iran.

The measure was initially introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and would have required the president to remove the U.S. military from engaging in combat “within or against Iran” unless a congressional vote granted him full authorization. On Tuesday, four Republican senators broke with the party to advance a resolution passed in the House of Representatives to limit the president’s war powers. Two Republicans, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) switched their votes on Wednesday night, and Kaine’s resolution failed to advance in a 47-50-1 vote. Paul voted present, and Cassidy voted against advancing it on Wednesday.

The vote came after Trump expressed anger with Tuesday’s adoption of the resolution that would have limited his war powers. Calling it a “poorly timed and meaningless” vote, Trump said it “provided aid and comfort” to the enemy, and hampered him in negotiations with the Iranians.

News Source
EXCERPT:

Like most professional sports, Major League Baseball players have been forced to promote the LGBTQ community — especially during Pride Month.

But this Pride Month things are changing, and gay baseball fans are not happy about it.

In one article for the magazine “Out Sports” titled “Gay Giants fan’s heartbreaking letter shows the cost of the team’s Pride Night failure,” a fan laments the actions of several San Francisco Giants players who chose to do their own thing on Pride Night.

News Source
EXCERPT:

The House Freedom Caucus is publicly calling on the Senate to return to work, as the upper chamber is now in a two-week Independence Day recess. President Donald Trump and many Republicans still want to find a way for the SAVE America Act to get passed in the Senate.

“The Senate sucks. I’m just going to come out and say it – they suck. This is not hard!” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) said during a Thursday news conference.

The federal elections bill already cleared the House, but it is struggling for support among a handful of Republicans and all Democrats in the Senate. Trump visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to advocate for the proposal in a lunch with Republican senators.

“The president did the right thing yesterday by canceling the bill signing, unless the SAVE Act was attached,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said.

News Source
EXCERPT:

House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Amodei (R-NV) intervened on behalf of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) during a particularly heated segment of a hearing with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Order at the committee broke down when DeLauro, the ranking member of the full House Appropriations Committee, began criticizing Mullin’s Department of Homeland Security over the separation of illegal immigrant children from their families. Mullin began defending himself while DeLauro was still speaking, triggering a yelling match.

Mullin first interrupted when DeLauro was condemning the loss of immigrant children under DHS care, contrasting it to dry cleaning when a tag gets you your clothes back, to which the homeland security secretary countered, “I wish the Biden administration would have done that.”

“Let me just say this to you, sir — again, it is my time — 3,900 children were separated from their family,” she said, prompting another interjection with Mullin pointing out the number of children lost under the Biden administration.

“Mr. Secretary, do not interrupt,” DeLauro yelled while pointing her finger at Mullin.

News Source
EXCERPT:

New York’s socialist wing is issuing warnings to the Democrat establishment after a sweeping primary victory gave NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his allies a stronger grip on the party’s future in the city.

Following Tuesday’s elections, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the Democratic Socialists of America signaled that the far-left movement intends to use its victories to pressure Democrat leaders and shape the party’s direction heading into the 2026 midterms.

In a post-election call clipped by Manhattan Institute analyst Stu Smith, a DSA leader said socialist politicians now represent more than three million New Yorkers across multiple levels of government.

News Source
EXCERPT:

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said Thursday that a cargo vessel was struck by an “unknown projectile” near the Strait of Hormuz, the latest security incident in one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.

According to the UKMTO, the incident occurred about 7.5 nautical miles southeast of Dahit, Oman.

“A cargo vessel has been hit on the starboard side by an unknown projectile, causing damage to the bridge,” the agency said in an advisory, adding that there were no reported casualties.

“Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO,” the advisory added.

News Source
EXCERPT:

Well, well, well.

After making opposition to voter ID requirements a plank of the Democratic Party platform, the Obama Presidential Library must be evil racists, massive hypocrites, or maybe even both.

The building, which honors the 44th president, opened last Friday in Chicago, Illinois. This imposing, grey structure cost $850 million for what looks more akin to a massive trash bin than a library.

Visitors and anyone checking the website were met with an interesting bit of information about their visit — you must show a valid photo ID to enter.

The website policy reads, “Must be able to provide proof of residency. Be prepared to show proof of residency at the Museum with a valid photo ID, Illinois driver’s license, state ID, or city-issued ID. Guardians must be able to provide proof of residency for accompanying children.”

News Source
EXCERPT:

Tech mogul Bill Gates told the House Oversight Committee he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s prior sex crime conviction but that he did not know Epstein was continuing to engage in misconduct at the time of their acquaintance, according to a transcript of his testimony.

In his transcribed interview with the panel earlier this month as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation, Gates recounted details of his dealings with Epstein over the years — which extended from 2011, when he was first introduced to Epstein, to 2014, when he realized Epstein would not make good on his promise to steer donors towards Gates’ philanthropic work.

“I was aware that he had a criminal conviction,” Gates said, according to the transcript. “I knew that it was of a sexual nature, but, no, I don’t think I … dug into the specifics, although I probably should have.”

News Source
EXCERPT:

A supercomputer in China now outranks its U.S. counterparts as the world’s most powerful, marking the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess

A supercomputer in China now outranks its U.S. counterparts as the world’s most powerful, marking the first time since 2017 that a Chinese computer has topped a list sometimes viewed as a measure of a nation’s technological prowess.

The LineShine computer in Shenzhen, China, displaced top-ranked U.S. computer El Capitan in the latest version of the TOP500 ranking announced Tuesday. It was the Chinese computer’s debut on the list.

News Source
EXCERPT:

The House appeared poised Tuesday to pass Congress’ most significant housing legislation in decades — a bid by both parties to show midterm voters that they’re paying attention to affordability concerns ahead of November’s election.

The legislation, which the Senate passed Monday, aims to boost the housing supply through dozens of targeted provisions whose effects are expected to be seen over the next several years. In California, measures to provide federal funding for housing production in big cities could be particularly significant.

The bipartisan agreement over the legislation, after weeks of negotiation, marks a highly unusual collaboration in the divided Congress. It reflects growing public pressure on Washington to address economic issues, at a time when Americans’ economic woes are deepening amid inflation, elevated gas prices and the ongoing effects of President Trump’s tariffs.

The bill aims to help housing supply by removing regulatory barriers to building affordable housing units, preventing large investors from buying up single-family homes and incentivizing housing production in cities with federal funding, among other measures.

News Source
EXCERPT:

“The last thing [unions] should do is violate the rights of the very people whose rights they exist to protect.”

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has opened an investigation into the National Education Association (NEA) following a discrimination charge alleging the nation’s largest teachers union subjected Jewish educators to antisemitic harassment, denied leadership opportunities, and fostered a hostile environment for Jewish members.

The charge was filed by The Louis D. Brandeis Center Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism, which alleges the NEA violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Jewish members based on religion, ancestry, and national origin. According to the complaint, the EEOC’s Washington Field Office has already begun gathering evidence and communicating with the Brandeis Center regarding the allegations.

“The last thing [unions] should do is violate the rights of the very people whose rights they exist to protect,” said Kenneth Marcus, chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education. Marcus said the organization is working with EEOC investigators to provide documents, witness information, and other evidence supporting what it describes as “pervasive anti-Semitism” within the union.