Progressive US

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A newly released NewsGuard/YouGov poll found that nearly one-quarter of respondents believe the assassination attempt targeting President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet at last month’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was staged. 45% believed it was real, and 32% were unsure.

Broken down by party affiliation, 34% of Democrats said they believed the incident was staged, compared with 23% of independents and 13% of Republicans.

The national survey of 1,000 Americans was conducted by YouGov from April 28 to May 4. It was commissioned and published by NewsGuard, a company that rates online media outlets for reliability.

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Agitators shouted “fascist” and obscenities over the weekend outside a Portland, Oregon, hotel where they believed FBI Director Kash Patel was staying, according to Fox 12 Oregon and several posts on social media. Patel was reportedly attending a friend’s funeral.

The agitators gathered outside the Sentinel Hotel in downtown Portland. Some of the videos were posted on social media on Saturday; others were posted on Sunday.

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Even if it wasn’t obvious before, it’s certainly been abundantly clear since the start of President Trump’s second term in office that Democrats have no qualms whatsoever about fanning the flames using outright lies and purposeful deception to the point it spurs their outrage mobs to take violent action in the name of  “democracy” and “social justice.”

 

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A protest sign outside Alabama’s statehouse on May 7.Kim Chandler/AP

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In a stunning act of political partisanship, the Roberts Court on Monday night discarded its own precedents to green-light a last-ditch effort by Alabama to use a gerrymandered congressional map for the 2026 midterms. The move, which comes less than two weeks after the court destroyed the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, will reduce Black representation.

Monday’s 6-3 order, divided along partisan lines, shows how Republican-controlled states can use the high court’s April 29 Callais decision as carte-blanche to shut Black representatives out of Congress. In Alabama’s case, precedent, court doctrine, and a damning lower-court ruling stood in the way of the state throwing out its current map containing two majority-Black congressional districts represented by Democrats. Monday night’s decision of the Republican-appointed justices to toss all that aside shows how the court has not only unleashed a new wave of racial and partisan gerrymandering, but is sweeping away any obstacles so that Republicans nab as many seats as possible this November—enough to potentially prevent Democrats from retaking the House.

“There’s something bizarre going on with the court making choices that seem to very heavily benefit one party.”

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A large group of teenagers on e-bikes allegedly ganged up on a man who was riding a scooter with his wife on the boardwalk in Huntington Beach, California, over the weekend — and kicked and stomped him and hit him in the face with a glass bottle, KTLA-TV reported.

The Huntington Beach Police Department confirmed to KTLA that a report was taken in connection with the incident, which occurred around 8 p.m. Saturday in the area of 103 Pacific Coast Highway.

‘Come here on Friday night, on Saturday night. … It’s chaos; it’s terror.’

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A cluster of high-profile political attacks in the U.S. spotlight the nation’s extreme divisions—but they don’t necessarily signal a broader uptick in politically inspired brutality, experts say.

Politicians, pundits and ordinary Americans are increasingly worried about political violence. The latest round of concern was sparked on April 25, when a 31-year-old man stormed the Washington Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C., during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where President Donald Trump was in attendance. Secret Service agents arrested the armed man before he could get to the ballroom where the event was being held. He has since been charged with attempted assassination of the president—which would represent the third serious attempt on Trump’s life since 2024. The man has pled not guilty to this and related charges.

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Democrats must stop conceding that the only answer for various racist voting laws is that Democrats just have to vote more and harder and better.

We try to keep despair out of these pages, tough as the times are. That’s why I didn’t write about Friday’s Virginia Supreme Court’s decision striking down new voter-approved congressional maps for extremely dubious reasons (read Virginia political expert Carolyn Fiddler’s awesome explanation of the ruling here).

Coming after the Supreme Court (of the United States) decision invalidating Louisiana’s congressional maps for taking race into account, the Bayou State’s immediately postponing upcoming elections as a result, and Tennessee’s swift move to use the SCOTUS ruling to wipe a majority-Black congressional district literally off the political map, last week was the worst for voting rights since the court’s 2013 Shelby v. Holder ruling struck down two vital sections of the Voting Rights Act. I admit to not seeing much light down this tunnel that afternoon.

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No one agrees on when, where, or how capitalism began, or whether it had a beginning at all, but everyone agrees that capitalism, the word, first appeared in the 19th century. Capital and capitalist slipped into use, unnoticed and unremarked, in the 13th and 17th centuries. Capitalism burst through the barricades of political argument in the 1830s, announcing immediately the hostility of its user. “Long live capital!” cried the French socialist Louis Blanc in 1839. “Long may we go on to attack capitalism, its mortal enemy, with even more intensity.” As much as the word named something, so did it identify its speaker—as a worker, a radical, a hater.

If capital was viewed as a thing and capitalists as people, capitalism was something else. Blanc described it as an act, the taking of collective wealth and turning it into individual or private profit. Proudhon claimed it was a citadel, casting medieval and military shadows across the land. Despite his obvious interest and extensive writing on the subject, Marx steered clear of the term.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht has announced his intentions to leave the Democrat Party. He accused them of being antisemitic. He stated, “… acquiescence to Jew-hatred is now disturbingly common among activists, leaders and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party. I can no longer abide this. So, I won’t. I am no longer registered with any political party,”

Go Deeper

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) stands accused of exposing top secret information on CBS News’ Face the Nation. He was reacting after having attended a Pentagon classified briefing on the Iran War’s impact on stockpiled weapons. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is seeking legal counsel on whether charges can be brought against Kelly or not.

He told Face the Nation, “… the numbers are, I think it’s fair to say it’s shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines, because this president got our country into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline, and because of that, we’ve expended a lot of munitions, and that means the American people are less safe, whether it’s a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted. You may have seen me ask the Secretary of Defense this question about how long it’s going to take to replenish. We’re talking about years.”

Go Deeper

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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) to be investigated over his public comments about a classified briefing.

In a Sunday appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Kelly said it was “shocking” how deeply the U.S. tapped into its interceptor missile stockpiles in the war with Iran, along with other criticisms based on the classified briefing. Hegseth suggested that the senator may have violated the law over his comments.

“‘Captain’ Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath…again?” Hegseth said in a post on X, adding that the Pentagon’s legal counsel would launch a review.

Kelly retorted in a post on X, saying his own comments reflected those made by the Secretary of War at a hearing last week.

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As star correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s future at “60 Minutes” remains unclear, journalists at the legendary news show are being careful not to offend their new boss.

Following Bari Weiss’ controversial hiring as CBS News’ editor in chief, compliance is the name of the game.

Attribution: APSharyn Alfonsi attends the CBS 2019 upfront at The Plaza on May 15, 2019, in New York.

A source close to the “60 Minutes” staff told Daily Kos the editorial team is hesitant to pick up the phone or answer texts from people critical of new management.

The nervousness isn’t unfounded. Alfonsi’s time with CBS has come into question after she openly spoke against Weiss and the editorial decisions coming from the top.

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Last week, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced it had gathered more than 1.5 million signatures—nearly double what it needed—to put a sweeping new wealth tax on California’s November ballot. The initiative is called the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.

The name is designed to make you stop reading. Don’t.

SEIU has spent months positioning itself as the champion of nurses, teachers and caregivers. What it has actually done is run a $24 million campaign to put a measure on the ballot that could eventually be used to tax virtually any Californian who owns assets—with no return trip to the ballot box required.

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Democrat Gov. Tim Walz is facing mounting scrutiny after Vice President JD Vance confirmed that federal authorities are investigating whether Minnesota officials failed to properly respond to massive fraud allegations tied to taxpayer-funded programs across the state.

The investigation follows a sweeping federal operation carried out across the Minneapolis area late last month.

FBI agents and federal investigators executed more than 20 search warrants targeting businesses connected to child care services, autism treatment programs, and other publicly funded operations.

Federal officials say the probe centers on allegations involving fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements, abuse of state and federal child care assistance programs, and broader misuse of taxpayer dollars.

Trump administration officials have suggested the total amount under investigation could ultimately reach into the billions.

“[Minnesota is] under investigation by our great vice president,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

“They’re finding a lot.”

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Turning Point USA Frontlines reporter Savanah Hernandez has filed a civil lawsuit against Christopher, DeYanna, and Paige Ostroushko after they were caught on video violently attacking her at an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, while the journalist was covering the event.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota, accuses the Ostroushko family of assault and battery stemming from the April 11 protest outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis. According to the complaint, Hernandez was “viciously and repeatedly attacked” while reporting on demonstrations connected to what organizers called “National F*ck ICE Day.”

Hernandez announced the civil suit on X, writing, “I promised to use every legal avenue to hold the Ostroushkos responsible and will be working with @MurdockJDF as we continue to pursue justice.”

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“We gonna have to resist with every fiber in our body. We gonna have to take this system on at every election.”

Democratic Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson compared the ongoing redistricting efforts in Southern states to a “second Civil War” as his state considers congressional map changes that could potentially eliminate his district. This follows the Supreme Court’s ruling that creating congressional districts based on the racial composition of its resident is unconstitutional.

“This is equivalent to a second Civil War,” Thompson said during an appearance on Al Sharpton’s MS NOW “PoliticsNation.”

“We’re gonna have to get our act together,” he added. “We gonna have to resist with every fiber in our body. We gonna have to take this system on at every election.”

Thompson later shared a clip of his remarks on social media, writing, “I don’t care what they say; we are committed to fighting this redistricting no matter what. There are more at stake than meets the eye, and we’ve come too far to ever turn around!”

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President Donald Trump called for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to be charged for the attempt against his life at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month.

“This lunatic, Hakeem ‘Low IQ’ Jeffries, should be charged with INCITING VIOLENCE! The Radical Left Democrats actually want to Destroy our Country,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

He attached a photo of Jeffries calling for “Maximum warfare” three days before the shooting, emblazoning the phrase over a picture of Trump.

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There’s no doubt that the fraud revelations that rocked Minnesota in late 2025, and into 2026, marked a mind-blowing scandal.

What do you mean Minnesota’s leadership somehow missed blatant — and costly — fraud happening right under their noses? That’s preposterous!

And yet, if you are a particularly disillusioned cynic, your response to the entire scandal might’ve been, “It’s a deep blue state run by Democrats. What did you expect?”

Well, Ohio is decidedly not a deep blue state — let’s call it nominally red or purple, for now — and yet the state and its Republican governor apparently missed some massive red flags that strongly suggested fraud in the Buckeye State.

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The Turning Point USA chapter on UVU campus has been targeted by these left-wing groups.

It has been revealed that left-wing groups at Utah Valley University have been celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk, targeting the campus Turning Point USA chapter, and called on activists to obstruct the federal immigration enforcement. UVU is where Charlie Kirk lost his life to a killer on Sept. 10, 2025.

A report from The Cougar Chronicle, a student-run newspaper at Brigham Young University, reveals screenshots from Discord chats and materials showing a network of left-wing students that have often engaged in extremism.

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a left-wing group on campus was formed called “The Civil Disobedience Club” (CDC). The Chronicle was able to obtain screenshots of messages shared in the group chat reveling in Kirk’s assassination.

 

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By now, it’s probably hard to find anyone in the United States with a political pulse who hasn’t heard about last week’s indictment of former FBI director James Comey. It asserts that Comey threatened “to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon” Donald Trump by posting “a photograph on the internet social media site Instagram which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47.’”

Trump, the nation’s 47th president, contends that “86” is a “mob term for kill him.” More benignly, restaurant workers use it to refer to running out of an item or getting rid of a dish from a menu. There’s even a restaurant in Palm Desert, California, called Kitchen 86. As professor Mary Anne Franks remarked, the “86 47” shell arrangement is “a very ambiguous statement at best.”

True threats of violence aren’t constitutionally protected. The US Supreme Court defines them as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” The Court has explained that “[t]he ‘true’ in [true threats] distinguishes what is at issue from jests, ‘hyperbole,’ or other statements that when taken in context do not convey a real possibility that violence will follow.”

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HBO’s John Oliver went on an especially nasty rant against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight for his recent majority opinion in Louisiana v. Callais. Oliver declared that Alito’s claim that the South isn’t as racist as it was in the 60s is “obviously horseshit” and suggested Alito supports segregation multiple times.

Oliver teed up a clip of a report from ABC’s Rachel Scott by claiming, “That ruling basically gutted Section Two of the VRA, which prohibits race-based discrimination when it comes to voting, including drawing election maps that dilute minority voting power, and in writing the opinion for the majority, Justice Alito took a bold swing.”