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Tag: Conservative

  • The Supreme Court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with key exceptions

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., ended the first year of President Trump’s second term with a record of rulings that gave him much broader power to control the federal government.

    In a series of fast-track decisions, the justices granted emergency appeals and set aside rulings from district judges who blocked Trump’s orders from taking effect.

    With the court’s approval, the administration dismissed thousands of federal employees, cut funding for education and health research grants, dismantled the agency that funds foreign aid and cleared the way for the U.S. military to reject transgender troops.

    But the court also put two important checks on the president’s power.

    In April, the court twice ruled — including in a post-midnight order — that the Trump administration could not secretly whisk immigrants out of the country without giving them a hearing before a judge.

    Upon taking office, Trump claimed migrants who were alleged to belong to “foreign terrorist” gangs could be arrested as “enemy aliens” and flown secretly to a prison in El Salvador.

    Roberts and the court blocked such secret deportations and said the 5th Amendment entitles immigrants, like citizens, a right to “due process of law.” Many of the arrested men had no criminal records and said they never belonged to a criminal gang.
    Those who face deportation “are entitled to notice and opportunity to challenge their removal,” the justices said in Trump vs. J.G.G.

    They also required the government to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported to El Salvador. He is now back in Maryland with his wife, but may face further criminal charges or efforts to deport him.

    And last week, Roberts and the court barred Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago to enforce the immigration laws.

    Trump had claimed he had the power to defy state governors and deploy the Guard troops in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Chicago and other Democratic-led states and cities.

    The Supreme Court disagreed over dissents from conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.

    For much of the year, however, Roberts and the five other conservatives were in the majority ruling for Trump. In dissent, the three liberal justices said the court should stand aside for now and defer to district judges.

    In May, the court agreed that Trump could end the Biden administration’s special temporary protections extended to more than 350,000 Venezuelans as well as an additional 530,000 migrants who arrived legally from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua or Venezuela.

    It was easier to explain why the new administration’s policies were cruel and disruptive rather than why they were illegal.

    Trump’s lawyers argued that the law gave the president’s top immigration officials the sole power to decide on these temporary protections and that “no judicial review” was authorized.

    Nonetheless, a federal judge in San Francisco twice blocked the administration’s repeal of the temporary protected status for Venezuelans, and a federal judge in Boston blocked the repeal of the entry-level parole granted to migrants under Biden.

    The court is also poised to uphold the president’s power to fire officials who have been appointed for fixed terms at independent agencies.

    Since 1887, when Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroad rates, the government has had semi-independent boards and commissions led by a mix of Republicans and Democrats.

    But Roberts and the court’s conservatives believe that because these agencies enforce the law, they come under the president’s “executive power.”

    That ruling may come with an exception for the Federal Reserve Board, an independent agency whose nonpartisan stability is valued by business leaders.

    Georgetown Law Professor David Cole, the former legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the court has sent mixed signals.

    “On the emergency docket, it has ruled consistently for the president, with some notable exceptions,” he said. “I do think it significant that it put a halt to the National Guard deployments and to the Alien Enemies Act deportations, at least for the time being. And I think by this time next year, it’s possible that the court will have overturned two of Trump’s signature initiatives — the birthright citizenship executive order and the tariffs.”

    For much of 2025, the court was criticized for handing down temporary unsigned orders with little or no explanation.

    That practice arose in 2017 in response to Trump’s use of executive orders to make abrupt, far-reaching changes in the law. In response, Democratic state attorneys and lawyers for progressive groups sued in friendly forums such as Seattle, San Francisco and Boston and won rulings from district judges who put Trump’s policies on hold.

    The 2017 “travel ban” announced in Trump’s first week in the White House set the pattern. It suspended the entry of visitors and migrants from Venezuela and seven mostly-Muslim countries on the grounds that those countries had weak vetting procedures.

    Judges blocked it from taking effect, and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, saying the order discriminated based on nationality.

    A year later, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and upheld Trump’s order in a 5-4 ruling. Roberts pointed out that Congress in the immigration laws clearly gave this power to the president. If he “finds that the entry of … any class of aliens … would be detrimental,” it says, he may “suspend the entry” of all such migrants for as long as “he shall deem necessary.”

    Since then, Roberts and the court’s conservatives have been less willing to stand aside while federal judges hand down nationwide rulings.

    Democrats saw the same problem when Biden was president.

    In April 2023, a federal judge in west Texas ruled for anti-abortion advocates and decreed that the Food and Drug Administration had wrongly approved abortion pills that can end an early pregnancy. He ordered that they be removed from the market before any appeals could be heard and decided.

    The Biden administration filed an emergency appeal. Two weeks later, the Supreme Court set aside the judge’s order, over dissents from Thomas and Alito.

    The next year, the court heard arguments and then threw out the entire lawsuit on the grounds that abortion foes did not have standing to sue.

    Since Trump returned to the White House, the court’s conservative majority has not deferred to district judges. Instead, it has repeatedly lifted injunctions that blocked Trump’s policies from taking effect.

    Although these are not final rulings, they are strong signs that the administration will prevail.

    But Trump’s early wins do not mean he will win on some of his most disputed policies.

    In November, the justices sounded skeptical of Trump’s claim that a 1977 trade law, which did not mention tariffs, gave him the power to set these import taxes on products coming from around the world.

    In the spring, the court will hear Trump’s claim that he can change the principle of birthright citizenship set in the 14th Amendment and deny citizenship it to newborns whose parents are here illegally or entered as visitors.

    Rulings on both cases will be handed down by late June.

    David G. Savage

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  • Supreme Court poised to strike down Watergate-era campaign finance limits

    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court’s conservatives signaled Tuesday they are likely to rule for Republicans and President Trump by throwing out a Watergate-era limit on campaign funding by political parties.

    The court has repeatedly said campaign money is protected as free speech, and the new ruling could allow parties to support their candidate’s campaigns with help from wealthy donors.

    For the second day in a row, Trump administration lawyers urged the justices to strike down a law passed by Congress. And they appeared to have the support of most of the conservatives.

    The only doubt arose over the question of whether the case was flawed because no current candidate was challenging the limits.

    “The parties are very much weakened,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “This court’s decisions over the years have together reduced the power of political parties, as compared to outside groups, with negative effects on our constitutional democracy.”

    He was referring to rulings that upheld unlimited campaign spending by wealthy donors and so-called super PACs.

    In the Citizens United case of 2010, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and four other conservatives struck down the long-standing limits on campaign spending, including by corporations and unions. They did so on the theory that such spending was “independent” of candidates and was protected as free speech under the 1st Amendment.

    They said the limits on contributions to candidates were not affected. Those limits could be justified because the danger of corruption where money bought political favors. This triggered a new era of ever-larger political spending but most of it was separate from the candidates and the parties.

    Last year, billionaire Elon Musk spent more than $250 million to support Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection. He did so with money spent through political action committees, not directly to Trump or his campaign.

    Meanwhile the campaign funding laws limit contributions to candidates to $3,500.

    Lawyers for the National Republican Senatorial Committee pointed out this trend and told the Supreme Court its decisions had “eroded” the basis for some of the remaining the 1970s limits on campaign funding.

    At issue Tuesday were the limits on “coordinated party spending.” In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress added limits on campaign money that could be given to parties and used to fund their candidates. The current donation limit is $44,000, the lawyers said.

    Washington attorney Noel Francisco, Trump’s solicitor general during his first term, urged the court strike down these limits on grounds they are outdated and violate the freedom of speech.

    “The theory is that they’re needed to prevent an individual donor from laundering a $44,000 donation through the party to a particular candidate in exchange for official action,” he said.

    If a big-money donor hopes to win a favor from a congressional candidate, the “would-be briber would be better off just giving a massive donation to the candidate’s favorite super PAC,” Francisco said.

    The suit heard Tuesday was launched by then-Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and other Republican candidates, and it has continued in his role as vice president and possibly a presidential candidate in 2028.

    Usually, the Justice Department defends federal laws, but in this instance, the Trump administration switched sides and joined the Republicans calling for the party spending limits to be struck down.

    Precedents might have stood in the way.

    In 2001, the Supreme Court had narrowly upheld these limits on the grounds that the party’s direct support was like a contribution, not independent spending. But the deputy solicitor general, Sarah Harris, told the justices Tuesday that the court’s recent decisions have “demolished” that precedent.

    “Parties can’t corrupt candidates, and no evidence suggests donors launder bribes by co-opting parties’ coordinated spending with candidates,” she said.

    Marc Elias, a Democratic attorney, joined the case in the support of the court limits. He said the outcome would have little to do with speech or campaign messages.

    “I think we’re underselling the actual corruption” that could arise, he said. If an individual were to give $1 million to political party while that person has business matter before the House or Senate, he said, it’s plausible that could influence “a deciding or swing vote.”

    The only apparent difficulty for the conservative justices arose over questions of procedure.

    Washington attorney Roman Martinez was asked to defend the law, and he argued that neither Vance nor any other Republicans had legal standing to challenge the limits. Vance was not a current candidate, and he said the case should be dismissed for that reason.

    Some legal observers noted that the limits on parties arose in response to evidence that huge campaign contributions to President Nixon’s reelection came from industry donors seeking government favors.

    “Coordinated spending limits are one of the few remaining checks to curb the influence of wealthy special interests in our elections,” said Omar Noureldin, senior vice president for litigation at Common Cause. “If the Supreme Court dismantles them, party leaders and wealthy donors will be free to pour nearly unlimited money directly into federal campaigns, exactly the kind of corruption these rules were created to stop.”

    Daniel I. Weiner, an elections law expert at the Brennan Center, said the justices were well aware of how striking down these limits could set the stage for further challenges.

    “I was struck by how both sides had to acknowledge that this case has to be weighed not in isolation but as part of a decades-long push to strike down campaign finance rules,” he said. “Those other decisions have had many consequences the court itself failed to anticipate.”

    David G. Savage

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  • Supreme Court sounds ready to give Trump power to oust officials of independent agencies

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservatives sounded ready on Monday to overrule Congress and give President Trump more power to fire officials at independent agencies and commissions.

    The justices heard arguments on whether Trump could fire Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Democratic appointees on the five-member Federal Trade Commission.

    The case poses a clash between Congress’ power to structure the government versus the president’s “executive power.”

    A ruling for Trump portends a historic shift in the federal government — away from bipartisan experts and toward more partisan control by the president.

    Trump’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the court should overturn a 1935 decision that upheld independent agencies. The decision “was grievously wrong when decided. It must be overruled,” he told the court.

    The court’s three liberals strongly argued against what they called a “radical change” in American government.

    If the president is free to fire the leaders of independent agencies, they said, the longstanding civil service laws could be struck down as well.

    It would put “massive, uncontrolled and unchecked power in the hands of the president,” Justice Elena Kagan said.

    But the six conservatives said they were concerned that these agencies were exercising “executive power” that is reserved to the president.

    It was not clear, however, whether the court will rule broadly to cover all independent agencies or focus narrowly on the FTC and other similar commissions.

    For most of American history, Congress has created independent boards and commissions to carry out specific missions, each led by a board of experts who were appointed with a fixed term.

    But the court’s current conservative majority has contended these commissions and boards are unconstitutional if their officials cannot be fired at will by a new president.

    Past presidents had signed those measures into law, and a unanimous Supreme Court upheld them 90 years ago in a case called Humphrey’s Executor vs. U.S.

    In creating such bodies, Congress often was responding to the problems of a new era.

    The Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887 to regulate railroad rates. The FTC, the focus of the court case, was created in 1914 to investigate corporate monopolies. The year before, the Federal Reserve Board was established to supervise banks, prevent panics and regulate the money supply.

    During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market and the National Labor Relations Board to resolve labor disputes.

    Decades later, Congress focused on safety. The National Transportation Safety Board was created to investigate aviation accidents, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission investigates products that may pose a danger. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission protects the public from nuclear hazards.

    Typically, Congress gave the appointees, a mix of Republicans and Democrats, a fixed term and said they could be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

    Slaughter was first appointed by Trump to a Democratic seat and was reappointed by President Biden in 2023 for a seven-year term.

    But conservatives often long derided these agencies and commissions as an out-of-control “administrative state,” and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he believes their independence from direct presidential control is unconstitutional.

    “The President’s power to remove — and thus supervise — those who wield executive power on his behalf follows from the text” of the Constitution, he wrote last year in his opinion, which declared for the first time that a president has immunity from being prosecuted later for crimes while in office.

    Roberts spoke for a 6-3 majority in setting out an extremely broad view of presidential power while limiting the authority of Congress.

    The Constitution in Article I says Congress “shall have the power…to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution…all other powers vested” in the U.S. government. Article II says, “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”

    The current court majority believes that the president’s executive power prevails over the power of Congress to set limits by law.

    “Congress lacks authority to control the President’s ‘unrestricted power of removal’ with respect to executive officers of the United States,” Roberts wrote last year in Trump vs. United States.

    Four months later, Trump won reelection and moved quickly to fire a series of Democratic appointees who had fixed terms set by Congress. Slaughter, along with several other fired appointees, sued, citing the law and her fixed term. They won before federal district judges and the U.S. Court of Appeals.

    But Trump’s lawyers filed emergency appeals at the Supreme Court, and the justices, by 6-3 votes, sided with the president and against the fired officials.

    In September, the court said it would hear arguments in the case of Trump vs. Slaughter to decide on whether to overturn the Humphrey’s Executor decision.

    At the time, conservatives applauded the move. “For far too long, Humphrey’s Executor has allowed unaccountable agencies like the FTC to wield executive power without meaningful oversight,” said Cory Andrews, general counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation.

    In defense of the 1935 decision, law professors noted the court said that these independent boards were not purely executive agencies, but also had legislative and judicial duties, like adopting regulations or resolving labor disputes.

    During Monday’s argument, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the principle of “democratic accountability” called for deferring to Congress, not the president.

    “Congress decided that some matters should be handled by nonpartisan experts. They said expertise matters with respect to the economy and transportation. So having the president come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists is actually is not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States,” she said.

    But that argument gained no traction with Roberts and the conservatives. They said the president is elected and has the executive authority to control federal agencies.

    The only apparent doubt involved the Federal Reserve Board, whose independence is prized by business. The Chamber of Commerce said the court should overrule the 1935 decision, but carve out an exception for the Federal Reserve.

    Trump’s lawyer grudgingly agreed. If “an exception to the removal power exists,” he wrote in his brief in the Slaughter case, it should be “an agency-specific anomaly” limited to the Federal Reserve.

    David G. Savage

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  • ‘Traditional family values’ Michigan lawmaker appears in adult hookup sites  – Detroit Metro Times

    The name, email address, and home address of Republican state Rep. Bryan Posthumus of Kent County, along with a credit card bearing his name, appear in data from Ashley Madison, a website for people seeking affairs. 

    Posthumus, who has built his political career around “traditional family values,” was married in March 2012 when the account under his name was used multiple times to access the chat and mail features, according to records reviewed by Metro Times and verified through publicly available cybersecurity databases. 

    Posthumus’s personal information also shows up on two other adult hookup websites — AdultFriendFinder and Fling.com, a pornographic dating site that features live web cams and promised users they could “find sex” and “get laid tonight.”  

    An AdultFriendFinder account used the possy355@aol.com email address and was last accessed in 2012.

    A Fling.com account listed the same password found in the AdultFriendFinder breach and used his bryan.posthumus@gmail.com address, which Posthumus used in his candidate filing data. The Fling.com information also included his October 26, 1984, birth date. The account lists top interests as “fetish,” “group sex,” and “online flirting.” The account also indicates an interest in men, women, or couples. 

    Each of these sites has since confirmed the authenticity of the breaches. Metro Times independently verified the information using original data files and multiple cybersecurity databases.

    In response to questions from Metro Times, Posthumus’s office in Lansing emailed a letter from the lawmaker’s lawyer John C. Burns, who called the allegations “categorically false” and accused the story of being a “hit piece” and “nothing more than a thinly veiled political attack masquerading as journalism.”

    The 2015 Ashley Madison hack exposed the personal information of more than 30 million users of the infidelity website, which was explicitly marketed to married people seeking affairs under the slogan, “Life is short. Have an affair.” The leak ensnared numerous politicians and public officials worldwide and has been used in reporting by outlets, including The Washington Post and Politico.

    The Ashley Madison data includes an email address linked to Posthumus and a Lowell home address that he and his then-wife purchased in 2011, as well as a credit card bearing his name. The data matches information contained in the leak, which was one of the largest privacy breaches in internet history. The same property and email appear in other public records tied to the lawmaker.

    The account was accessed several times between March and September 2012, and it used the site’s mail and chat features.

    At the time, Posthumus was married. His former wife, Stacy Posthumus, filed for divorce in early 2014, according to court records. 

    The profile associated with the information contained explicit sexual preferences and listed the user’s relationship status as “attached male seeking female.” In a written response field, the user wrote:

    “I love when a woman takes charge and seduces me.”

    The account lists favored sexual activities such as “threesome,” “being dominant/master,” “being submissive/slave,” and “one-night stands.”

    Posthumus, 41, represents part of Kent County in the Michigan House of Representatives, where he serves as majority floor leader. He previously served as Minority Floor Leader and as finance chair for the Kent County Republican Party.

    Posthumus married Elizabeth Posthumus in 2022. Since then, he has been accused of living outside his House district on two separate occasions. County court records showed he and his wife filed to run for precinct delegate positions in two separate townships, and only one of those was within his House district. Posthumus said he bought a Cannon Township condo to maintain his residency in the 90th House District while keeping close to his wife’s family. 

    The adult hookup websites stand in stark contrast to the man who has built his image around God, morality, and “traditional family values.” In 2022, the Christian Coalition of Michigan named him its “Friend of the Family Award” for his “strong defense of family values.” In accepting the award, Posthumus said he was “honored to receive this recognition.”

    He has voted against repealing Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban that lacked exceptions for rape or incest, against removing criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions, against expanding protections for LGBTQ+ residents, and against banning conversion therapy for minors.

    In his attorney’s letter to Metro Times, Burns accused the publication of trying to “weaponize unverified, anonymous data dumps” and claimed that “a disgruntled former employee” or political opponent could have created the accounts. It also described the reporting as a “thinly veiled political attack masquerading as journalism.”

    However, the Ashley Madison account was created nearly a decade before Posthumus was first elected to public office.

    Posthumus is part of one of Michigan’s most prominent Republican political families. His father, Dick Posthumus, served as lieutenant governor under Gov. John Engler from 1999 to 2003, and his sister, Lisa Posthumus Lyons, is the Kent County clerk and register of deeds and previously served three terms in the state House.

    Born in Grand Rapids on Oct. 26, 1984, Posthumus earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business management from Michigan State University. He is managing partner of West Michigan Hopyards, a hop farm he co-founded in 2013, and CEO of Tuebor Strategies, a consulting firm launched in 2010. He previously worked as a national account and regional sales manager at Compatico.

    Posthumus is a three-term lawmaker who was first elected in November 2020. 

    Posthumus has twice been convicted of drunk driving — once in 2013 and again in 2021, the latter while serving as a state representative. He spent 15 days in jail following the 2021 conviction. For his 2013 conviction, Posthumus’s license was temporarily suspended.

    In November 2024, Posthumus and West Michigan Hopyards were sued in federal court by a migrant worker alleging wage theft and labor-law violations. The suit claims worker Jose Magana Garcia was denied full pay, forced to go weeks without compensation, and lacked access to bathroom facilities while working long hours on the 33-acre hop farm.

    Posthumus and his business partner have called the allegations “politically motivated” and “frivolous.”

    Last month, Metro Times revealed that Republican state Rep. Josh Schriver, R-Oxford, who introduced legislation in September to ban online pornography statewide, appeared on Fling.com. The leaked information, verified by the cybersecurity database SnusBase, lists Schriver’s email address and a profile indicating sexual interests including “fetish” and “groupsex.” The account was last accessed on Sept. 11, 2010, according to breach data.

    Schriver denied having a Fling.com account. 

    Editor’s note: Metro Times reviewed the data linked to Posthumus in verified cybersecurity breach databases and cross-referenced it with public property, campaign, and voter records. The information includes email addresses, a home address, and a credit card in his name. Publication of this story serves the public interest because Posthumus has based his political career on promoting “traditional family values” while seeking to legislate personal morality.


    Steve Neavling

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  • Commentary: MAGA’s ‘big tent’ is burning down amid explosion of antisemitism, racism

    South Asians have played a prominent role in President Trump’s universe, especially in his second term.

    Second Lady Usha Vance is the daughter of Indian immigrants who came to California to study and never went back. Harmeet Dhillon, born in India and a devout Sikh, is currently his U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. And the head of the FBI, Kash Patel, is (like potential New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani,) of Indian descent by way of Uganda.

    Some Republicans have taken pride in this kind of diversity, citing it for the gains Trump made in 2024 with Black and Latino voters.

    But these days, the MAGA big tent seems to be collapsing fast.

    Last week, MAGA had a total anti-Indian meltdown on social media, revealing a deep, ugly racism toward South Asians.

    It comes amid the first real rebellion about rampant and increasingly open antisemitism within the MAGAverse, creating a massive rift between traditional conservatives and a younger, rabidly anti-Jewish contingent called groypers whose leader, Nick Fuentes, recently posted that he is “team Hitler.”

    Turns out, when you cultivate a political movement based on hate, at some point the hate is uncontrollable. In fact, that hate needs to be fed to maintain power — even if it means feasting on its own.

    This monster of white-might ugliness is going to dominate policy and politics for the next election, and these now-public fights within the Republican party represent a new dynamic that will either force it to do some sort of soul searching, or purge it of anything but white Christian nationalism. My bet is on the latter. But if conservatives ever truly believed in their inclusive talk, then it’s time for Republicans to stand up and demand the big Trump tent they were hailing just a few months ago.

    Ultra-conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who opposes much of Fuentes’ worldview, summed up this Republican split succinctly.

    Fuentes’ followers “are white supremacists, hate women, Jews, Hindus, many types of Christians, brown people of a wide variety of backgrounds, Blacks, America’s foreign policy and America’s constitution,” Shapiro explained. “They admire Hitler and Stalin and that splinter faction is now being facilitated and normalized within the mainstream Republican Party.”

    MAGA’s anti-Indian sentiment had an explosive moment a few days ago when a South Asian woman asked Vice President JD Vance a series of questions during a Turning Point USA event in Mississippi. The young immigrant wanted to know how Vance could preach for the removal of nearly 18 million immigrants? And how could he claim that the United States was a Christian nation, rather than one that valued pluralism?

    “How can you stop us and tell us we don’t belong here anymore?” the woman asked. “Why do I have to be a Christian?”

    Vance’s answer went viral, in part because he claimed his wife, although from a Hindu family, was “agnostic or atheist,” and that he hoped she would convert to Christianity.

    “Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved in by church? Yeah, I honestly do wish that,” he said.

    Vance later tried to do some damage control on social media, calling Usha Vance a “blessing” and promising to continue to “support her and talk to her about faith and life and everything else, because she’s my wife.”

    But many South Asians felt Vance was dissing his wife’s heritage and attempting to downplay her non-whiteness. They vented on social media, and got a lot of MAGA feelings back.

    “How can you pretend to be a white nativist politician who will ‘bring america back to it’s golden age’ … when your wife is an indian immigrant?” wrote one poster.

    Dhillon received similar feedback recently for urging calm and fairness after a Sikh truck driver allegedly caused a fatal crash.

    “[N]o ma’am, it is CRYSTAL CLEAR that sihks and hindus need to get the hell out of my country,” one reply stated. “You and your kind are no longer welcome here. Go the [expletive] home.”

    Patel too, got it, after posting a message on Diwali, a religious holiday that celebrates the victory of light over darkness. He was dubbed a demon worshipper, a favorite anti-Indian trope.

    Perhaps you’re thinking, “Duh, of course MAGA is racist.” But here’s the thing. The military has been scrubbed of many Black officers. The federal workforce, long a bastion for middle-class people of color, has been decimated. Minority cabinet members or top officials are few. Aside from another South Asian, Tulsi Gabbard, there’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez‑DeRemer and HUD head Scott Turner.

    South Asians are largely the last visible sign of pluralism in Republican power, an erstwhile proof that the charges of racism from the left are unfair. But now, like Latinos, they are increasingly targets of the base.

    At the same time anti-Indian hate was surfacing last week, a whole load of MAGA antisemitism hit the fan. It started when Tucker Carlson, who in his post-network life has re-created himself as a hugely popular podcaster with more than 16 million followers on X, invited Fuentes on his show.

    In addition to calling for the death of American Jews, Fuentes has also said women want him to rape them and should be burned alive, Black people belong in prison and LGBTQ+ people are an abomination.

    Anyone who is not his kind of Christian “must be absolutely annihilated when we take power,” he said.

    Turns out far-right Charlie Kirk was a bulwark against this straight-up American Nazi. Kirk’s popularity kept Fuentes — who often trolled Kirk — from achieving dominance as the spirit guide of young MAGA. Now, with Kirk slain, nothing appears to be stopping Fuentes from taking up that mantle.

    After the Fuentes interview, sane conservatives (there are some left) were apoplectic that Carlson would support someone who so openly admits to being anti-Israel and seemingly pro-Nazi. They demanded the Heritage Foundation, historical backbone of the conservative movement, creators of Project 2025 and close allies of Tucker, do something. The head of Heritage, Kevin Roberts, offered what many considered a sorry-not-sorry. He condemned Fuentes, saying he was “fomenting Jew hatred, and his incitements are not only immoral and un-Christian, they risk violence.”

    But also counseled that Fuentes shouldn’t be banished from the party.

    “Join us — not to cancel — but to guide, challenge, and strengthen the conversation,” Roberts said.

    Are Nazis really all bad? Discuss!

    The response from ethical conservatives — Jewish and non-Jewish alike — has been that you don’t politely hear Nazis out, and if the Republican Party can’t clearly say that Nazis aren’t welcome, it’s got a problem.

    Yes, the Republican Party has a problem.

    The right rode to power by attacking what it denigrates at “wokeism” on the left. MAGA declared that to confront fascism or racism or misogyny — to tell its purveyors to sit down and shut up — was wrong. That “canceling,” or banishment from common discourse for spewing hate, was somehow an infringement on 1st Amendment rights or even terrorism.

    They screamed loud and clear that speaking out against intolerance was the worst, most unacceptable form of intolerance itself — and would not be tolerated.

    You know who heard them loud and clear? Fuentes. He has checkmated establishment Republicans with their own cowardice and hypocrisy.

    So now his young Christian white supremacists are empowered, and intent on taking over as the leaders of the party. Fuentes is saying what old guard Republicans don’t want to hear, but secretly fear: He already is dangerously close to being the mainstream; just read the comments.

    Roberts, the Heritage president, said it himself: “Diversity will never be our strength. Unity is our strength, and a lack of unity is a sign of weakness.”

    Trying to shut Fuentes up or kick him out will likely anger that vocal and powerful part of the base that enjoys the freedom to be openly hateful, and really wouldn’t mind a male-dominated white Christian autocracy.

    The far right has free-speeched their way into fascism, and Fuentes is loving every minute of it.

    So now this remaining vestige of traditional conservatives — including senators such as Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell — is faced with a painful reckoning. Many mainstream Republicans for years ignored the racism and antisemitism creeping into the party. They can’t anymore. It has grown into a beast ready to consume its maker.

    Will they let this takeover happen, call for conversation over condemnation to the glee of Fuentes and his followers?

    Or will they find the courage to be not just true Republicans, but true Americans, and declare non-negotiable for their party that most basic of American ideals: We do not tolerate hate?

    Anita Chabria

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  • Supreme Court’s conservatives face a test of their own in judging Trump’s tariffs

    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court’s conservatives face a test of their own making this week as they decide whether President Trump had the legal authority to impose tariffs on imports from nations across the globe.

    At issue are import taxes that are paid by American businesses and consumers.

    Small-business owners had sued, including a maker of “learning toys” in Illinois and a New York importer of wines and spirits. They said Trump’s ever-changing tariffs had severely disrupted their businesses, and they won rulings declaring the president had exceeded his authority.

    On Wednesday, the justices will hear their first major challenge to Trump’s claims of unilateral executive power. And the outcome is likely to turn on three doctrines that have been championed by the court’s conservatives.

    First, they say the Constitution should be interpreted based on its original meaning. Its opening words say: “All legislative powers … shall be vested” in Congress, and the elected representatives “shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposes and excises.”

    Second, they believe the laws passed by Congress should be interpreted based on their words. They call this “textualism,” which rejects a more liberal and open-ended approach that included the general purpose of the law.

    Trump and his lawyers say his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs were authorized by the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA.

    That 1977 law says the president may declare a national emergency to “deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” involving national security, foreign policy or the economy of the United States. Faced with such an emergency, he may “investigate, block … or regulate” the “importation or exportation” of any property.

    Trump said the nation’s “persistent” balance of payments deficit over five decades was such an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”

    In the past, the law has been used to impose sanctions or freeze the assets of Iran, Syria and North Korea or groups of terrorists. It does not use the words “tariffs” or “duties,” and it had not been used for tariffs prior to this year.

    The third doctrine arose with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and is called the “major questions” doctrine.

    He and the five other conservatives said they were skeptical of far-reaching and costly regulations issued by the Obama and Biden administrations involving matters such as climate change, student loan forgiveness or mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for 84 million Americans.

    Congress makes the laws, not federal regulators, they said in West Virginia vs. Environmental Protection Agency in 2022.

    And unless there is a “clear congressional authorization,” Roberts said the court will not uphold assertions of “extravagant statutory power over the national economy.”

    Now all three doctrines are before the justices, since the lower courts relied on them in ruling against Trump.

    No one disputes that the president could impose sweeping worldwide tariffs if he had sought and won approval from the Republican-controlled Congress. However, he insisted the power was his alone.

    In a social media post, Trump called the case on tariffs “one of the most important in the History of the Country. If a President is not allowed to use Tariffs, we will be at a major disadvantage against all other Countries throughout the World, especially the ‘Majors.’ In a true sense, we would be defenseless! Tariffs have brought us Great Wealth and National Security in the nine months that I have had the Honor to serve as President.”

    Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer, his top courtroom attorney, argues that tariffs involve foreign affairs and national security. And if so, the court should defer to the president.

    “IEEPA authorizes the imposition of regulatory tariffs on foreign imports to deal with foreign threats — which crucially differ from domestic taxation,” he wrote last month.

    For the same reason, “the major questions doctrine … does not apply here,” he said. It is limited to domestic matters, not foreign affairs, he argued.

    Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh has sounded the same note in the past.

    Sauer will also seek to persuade the court that the word “regulate” imports includes imposing tariffs.

    The challengers are supported by prominent conservatives, including Stanford law professor Michael McConnell.

    In 2001, he and John Roberts were nominated for a federal appeals court at the same time by President George W. Bush, and he later served with now-Justice Neil M. Gorsuch on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

    He is the lead counsel for one group of small-business owners.

    “This case is what the American Revolution was all about. A tax wasn’t legitimate unless it was imposed by the people’s representatives,” McConnell said. “The president has no power to impose taxes on American citizens without Congress.”

    His brief argues that Trump is claiming a power unlike any in American history.

    “Until the 1900s, Congress exercised its tariff power directly, and every delegation since has been explicit and strictly limited,” he wrote in Trump vs. V.O.S. Selections. “Here, the government contends that the President may impose tariffs on the American people whenever he wants, at any rate he wants, for any countries and products he wants, for as long as he wants — simply by declaring longstanding U.S. trade deficits a national ‘emergency’ and an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat,’ declarations the government tells us are unreviewable. The president can even change his mind tomorrow and back again the day after that.”

    He said the “major questions” doctrine fully applies here.

    Two years ago, he noted the court called Biden’s proposed student loan forgiveness “staggering by any measure” because it could cost more than $430 billion. By comparison, he said, the Tax Foundation estimated that Trump’s tariffs will impose $1.7 trillion in new taxes on Americans by 2035.

    The case figures to be a major test of whether the Roberts court will put any legal limits on Trump’s powers as president.

    But the outcome will not be the final word on tariffs. Administration officials have said that if they lose, they will seek to impose them under other federal laws that involve national security.

    Still pending before the court is an emergency appeal testing the president’s power to send National Guard troops to American cities over the objection of the governor and local officials.

    Last week, the court asked for further briefs on the Militia Act of 1908, which says the president may call up the National Guard if he cannot “with the regular forces … execute the laws of the United States.”

    The government had assumed the regular forces were the police and federal agents, but a law professor said the regular forces in the original law referred to the military.

    The justices asked for a clarification from both sides by Nov. 17.

    David G. Savage

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  • Opinion | The New Right’s New Antisemites

    Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation flounders in the Tucker Carlson-Nick Fuentes fever swamps.

    The Editorial Board

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  • Supreme Court might upend Voting Rights Act and help GOP keep control of the House

    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court may help the GOP keep control of the House of Representatives next year by clearing the way for Republican-led states to redraw election districts now held by Black Democrats.

    That prospect formed the backdrop on Wednesday as the justices debated the future of the Voting Rights Act in a case from Louisiana.

    The Trump administration’s top courtroom attorney urged he justices to rule that partisan politics, not racial fairness, should guide the drawing election districts for Congress and state legislatures.

    “This court held that race-based affirmative action in higher education must come to an end,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his brief. The same is true, he said, for using the Voting Rights Act to draw legislative districts that are likely to elect a Black or Latino candidate.

    Too often, he said, the civil rights law has been “deployed as a form of electoral race-based affirmative action to undo a state’s constitutional pursuit of political ends.”

    The court’s conservatives lean in that direction and sought to limit the use of race for drawing district boundaries. But the five-member majority has not struck down the use of race for drawing district lines.

    But the Trump administration and Louisiana’s Republican leaders argued that now was the time to do so.

    If the court’s conservatives hand down such a ruling in the months ahead, it would permit Republican-led states across the South to redraw the congressional districts of a dozen or more Black Democrats.

    “There’s reason for alarm,” said Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulous. “The consequences for minority representation would likely be devastating. In particular, states with unified Republican governments would have a green light to flip as many Democratic minority-opportunity districts as possible.”

    Such a ruling would also upend the Voting Rights Act as it had been understood since the 1980s.

    As originally enacted in 1965, the historic measure put the federal government on the side of Blacks in registering to vote and casting ballots.

    But in 1982, Republicans and Democrats in Congress took note that these new Black voters were often shut out of electing anyone to office. White lawmakers could draw maps that put whites in the majority in all or nearly all the districts.

    Seeking a change, Congress amended the law to allow legal challenges when discrimination results in minority voters having “less opportunity … to elect representatives of their choice.”

    In decades after, the Supreme Court and the Justice Department pressed the states, and the South in particular, to draw at least some electoral districts that were likely to elect a Black candidate. These legal challenges turned on evidence that white voters in the state would not support a Black candidate.

    But since he joined the court in 1991, Justice Clarence Thomas has argued that drawing districts based on race is unconstitutional and should be prohibited. Justices Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented with Thomas two years ago when the court by a 5-4 vote approved a second congressional district in Alabama that elected a Black Democrat.

    Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote the opinion. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh cast the deciding fifth vote but also said he was open to the argument that “race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”

    That issue is now before the court in the Louisiana case.

    It has six congressional districts, and about one-third of its population is Black.

    Prior to this decade, the New Orleans area elected a Black representative, and in response to a voting right suit, it was ordered to draw a second district where a Black candidate had a good chance to win.

    But to protect its leading House Republicans — Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise — the state drew a new elongated district that elected Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat.

    Now the state and the Trump administration argue the court should strike down that district because it was drawn based on race and free the state to replace him with a white Republican.

    David G. Savage

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  • FBI cuts ties with Southern Poverty Law Center after criticism from conservatives

    FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is cutting ties with the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias for decades.It comes after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and increased attention on the group he founded, Turning Point USA. SPLC included it as a “case study in the hard right” in its report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024.”Video above details the charges against the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s death.Patel said on Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the SPLC, asserting that the organization had been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticizing it for its use of a “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States. Criticism of the SPLC escalated from some conservatives and prominent allies of President Donald Trump in the weeks after Kirk’s assassination. Prominent figures including Elon Musk condemned the SPLC this week for its descriptions of Kirk and the organization.Many of those political figures were also connected to the group in the Turning Point USA case study.”Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA is a well-funded, hard-right organization with links to Southern Poverty Law Center-identified hard-right extremists and a tremendous amount of influence in conservative politics,” the SPLC case study states. “While the group was previously dismissed by key figures within the Republican National Committee (RNC), Trump attended several TPUSA events across the country throughout 2024, and several of his nominees have ties to the organization.”The case study characterized the organization as “authoritarian, patriarchal Christian supremacy dedicated to eroding the value of inclusive democracy and public institutions.” It stated that Turning Point USA exploited fear and “embraced aggressive state and federal power to enforce a social order rooted in white supremacy.”The August 2025 Intelligence Project Dispatch also named a leader of Turning Point Action, stating that former Arizona Rep. Austin Smith had been charged with election fraud.Video below: Charlie Kirk’s widow vows to continue his mission after his murderA spokesperson for the SPLC, a legal and advocacy group founded in 1971 as a watchdog for minorities and the underprivileged, did not directly address Patel’s comments in a statement Friday but said the organization has for decades shared data with the public and remains “committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalized people.”The FBI also cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism. It faced criticism on the right for maintaining a “Glossary of Extremism.” The organization announced this week that it was discontinuing that glossary because a number of entries were outdated and some were being “intentionally misrepresented and misused.”What is the SPLC?The Southern Poverty Law Center was created by lawyers Morris Dees and Joe Levin in Montgomery in 1971.Civil Rights Activist Julian Bond was named the first president and people from across the country created the financial base for the organization, according to the SPLC website.”In the decades since its founding, the SPLC shut down some of the nation’s most violent white supremacist groups by winning crushing, multimillion-dollar jury verdicts on behalf of their victims,” the website states about the organization’s history. “It dismantled vestiges of Jim Crow, reformed juvenile justice practices, shattered barriers to equality for women, children, the LGBT community and the disabled, protected low-wage immigrant workers from exploitation, and more.”During the 1980s, the SPLC began monitoring white supremacist activity and what is now known as the Intelligence Project tracks hate and extremist groups across the country. This report is known around the world.

    FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is cutting ties with the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias for decades.

    It comes after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and increased attention on the group he founded, Turning Point USA. SPLC included it as a “case study in the hard right” in its report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024.“

    Video above details the charges against the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s death.

    Patel said on Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the SPLC, asserting that the organization had been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticizing it for its use of a “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.

    Criticism of the SPLC escalated from some conservatives and prominent allies of President Donald Trump in the weeks after Kirk’s assassination. Prominent figures including Elon Musk condemned the SPLC this week for its descriptions of Kirk and the organization.

    Many of those political figures were also connected to the group in the Turning Point USA case study.

    “Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA is a well-funded, hard-right organization with links to Southern Poverty Law Center-identified hard-right extremists and a tremendous amount of influence in conservative politics,” the SPLC case study states. “While the group was previously dismissed by key figures within the Republican National Committee (RNC), Trump attended several TPUSA events across the country throughout 2024, and several of his nominees have ties to the organization.”

    The case study characterized the organization as “authoritarian, patriarchal Christian supremacy dedicated to eroding the value of inclusive democracy and public institutions.” It stated that Turning Point USA exploited fear and “embraced aggressive state and federal power to enforce a social order rooted in white supremacy.”

    The August 2025 Intelligence Project Dispatch also named a leader of Turning Point Action, stating that former Arizona Rep. Austin Smith had been charged with election fraud.

    Video below: Charlie Kirk’s widow vows to continue his mission after his murder

    A spokesperson for the SPLC, a legal and advocacy group founded in 1971 as a watchdog for minorities and the underprivileged, did not directly address Patel’s comments in a statement Friday but said the organization has for decades shared data with the public and remains “committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalized people.”

    The FBI also cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism. It faced criticism on the right for maintaining a “Glossary of Extremism.” The organization announced this week that it was discontinuing that glossary because a number of entries were outdated and some were being “intentionally misrepresented and misused.”

    What is the SPLC?

    The Southern Poverty Law Center was created by lawyers Morris Dees and Joe Levin in Montgomery in 1971.

    Civil Rights Activist Julian Bond was named the first president and people from across the country created the financial base for the organization, according to the SPLC website.

    “In the decades since its founding, the SPLC shut down some of the nation’s most violent white supremacist groups by winning crushing, multimillion-dollar jury verdicts on behalf of their victims,” the website states about the organization’s history. “It dismantled vestiges of Jim Crow, reformed juvenile justice practices, shattered barriers to equality for women, children, the LGBT community and the disabled, protected low-wage immigrant workers from exploitation, and more.”

    During the 1980s, the SPLC began monitoring white supremacist activity and what is now known as the Intelligence Project tracks hate and extremist groups across the country. This report is known around the world.

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  • Trump’s attacks on Kimmel and ABC put him at odds with high-profile conservatives

    The return of Jimmy Kimmel to ABC’s airwaves flipped the political script, for a time aligning the late-night comedian with several conservative figures who staunchly disagree with federal regulators trying to shut him down over free speech — even as President Trump continued to threaten the network.

    “I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” Kimmel told viewers during his opening monologue Tuesday night.

    Trump in recent days has ramped up efforts to stifle his political opposition and what he perceives to be liberal bias in media coverage through lawsuits and regulatory actions, a move that has increasingly concerned the president’s supporters and influential conservative personalities.

    The firestorm over free speech came in the wake of comments Kimmel made about how the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points from Charlie Kirk’s slaying. On a conservative podcast, Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist who heads the Federal Communications Commission, accused Kimmel of “the sickest conduct” and suggested there could be regulatory consequences for local television stations whose programming did not serve the public interest.

    After Disney took “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air at ABC last week, some high-profile Trump allies worried the threat of regulating speech was taking it too far — and that conservatives could be next if the federal government were to follow through.

    “If we embrace the FCC stripping licenses from anyone who says something you disagree with, the next Democrat president who gets in the White House will do this and will come after everyone right of center,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a critic of Kimmel’s, said Wednesday on his podcast, “Verdict With Ted Cruz,” reaffirming previous comments in which he likened Carr’s threats to mafia-like maneuvers. “That is a slippery slope to oblivion.”

    Trump, however, was dismayed by Kimmel’s return and threatened legal action, following a pattern in which he has sued major media outlets over negative coverage of him.

    “I think we are going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do,” Trump wrote late Tuesday on his social media platform, suggesting a lawsuit against the network could potentially lead to a “lucrative” settlement. “A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”

    Combined, Trump’s legal threats and Carr’s comments have fueled a sharp debate about free speech, and whether Trump and Carr are trying to level the playing field for conservative voices or launching a coordinated and illegal attack to silence liberal ones. As a result, Carr — the author of an FCC chapter in the right-wing Project 2025 playbook — has landed in a glaring media spotlight and as the target of a congressional inquiry.

    Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and eight other Democratic senators wrote a letter to Carr on Wednesday expressing “grave concern” over the FCC’s apparent role in Kimmel’s suspension, and demanded answers about the role the agency played in it and its justification.

    “The FCC’s regulatory authority over broadcast licenses was never intended to serve as a weapon to silence criticism or punish satirical commentary,” the senators wrote. “Your agency’s mission is to serve the public interest, not to act as an enforcement arm for political retribution against media outlets that displease those in power.”

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has also written to Carr, accusing the Trump administration of “waging a dangerous attack on those who dare to speak out against it” and calling on Carr to recommit to defending free speech, including by disavowing his previous remarks about Kimmel.

    In the days after Kimmel was sidelined, Cruz and other influential conservatives, who have long trashed the longtime late-night host, voiced opposition to his situation based on concerns that the FCC may be trying to regulate speech on the airwaves.

    “You don’t have to like what somebody says on TV to agree that the government shouldn’t be getting involved here,” former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on a social media post Monday.

    Podcast host Joe Rogan said he did not “think the government should be involved, ever, in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue” — and told conservatives they are “crazy” if they don’t think such tactics could be “used” against them. Candance Owens, a far-right influencer, said Kimmel’s suspension was an attack on free speech, and said she does not agree with the government controlling what can be said.

    Ben Shapiro raised concerns about potential government overreach.

    “I don’t want the FCC in the business of telling local affiliated that their licenses will be removed if they broadcast material that the FCC deems to be informationally false,” Shapiro said, warning that “one day the shoe will be on the other foot.”

    Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson said last week he does not want to see “bad actors” use Kirk’s killing as a means to restrict free speech, which he said is a cornerstone of Kirk’s legacy.

    “You hope a year from now, the turmoil we’re seeing in the aftermath of his murder won’t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country,” Carlson said.

    In his opening monologue, Kimmel touched on the same theme. He said Carr’s tactics were “un-American” and likened them to what happens in authoritarian countries such as Russia.

    “This show is not important,” he said. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”

    On the podcast last week, Carr called Kimmel’s remarks about Kirk’s alleged shooter “some of the sickest conduct possible.” He then said: “Frankly, when you see stuff like this, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. There are ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

    On Monday, Carr denied claims that he threatened to pull television stations’ licenses and that he played a role in Kimmel’s suspension, saying “that didn’t happen in any way, shape or form.”

    “They’re completely misrepresenting the work of the FCC and what we’ve been doing,” he said during a conference in New York, accusing Democrats of engaging in a “campaign of projection and distortion.”

    Carr said the FCC wants to empower local television station owners to “push back on national programmers, even when they think there’s some content that they don’t think in their judgment — not my judgment, but their judgment — makes sense for the local communities.”

    What happened with Kimmel, Carr said, is that local television stations “for the first time in a long time stood up and said, ‘We don’t want to run that program, at least right now.’” He said Disney, a national programmer, then made its own business decision not to air Kimmel for a few days.

    After Disney brought back the show, station owners Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group said they would not be running it on their ABC affiliates, hinting to future conflicts that could play out in the media landscape.

    Carr opened his Project 2025 chapter on the FCC by writing that the agency should “promote freedom of speech,” but has also sided with Trump in criticizing broadcasters for allegedly showing bias against conservatives and said that he would use the agency’s power to ensure that they better serve the “public interest.”

    Bob Shrum, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said the political brawl over Kimmel has been interesting to watch — in part because of the bipartisan backlash to the suspension and the administration’s apparent influence on it.

    “I’m encouraged by the fact that it’s not just Democrats who complained about this, it’s Republicans like Ted Cruz,” Shrum said. “That at least begins to set a deterrent for the federal government going too far on this.”

    While Trump was angered by Kimmel’s return, Shrum found it notable that his social media post ended with the line: “Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.” It showed the limits the president sees on his power to wipe Kimmel from the airwaves, he said.

    “That’s not the kind of last line that says, ‘We’re coming after you,’” Shrum said.

    Ana Ceballos, Kevin Rector

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  • London protest organized by far-right activist exceeds 100,000 as small clashes break out

    A London march organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson drew more than 100,000 people and became unruly Saturday as a small group of his supporters clashed with police officers who were separating them from counterprotesters.Several officers were punched, kicked and struck by bottles tossed by people at the fringes of the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, Metropolitan Police said. Reinforcements with helmets and riot shields were deployed to support the 1,000-plus officers on duty.At least nine people were arrested, but police indicated that many other offenders had been identified and would be held accountable.Police estimated that Robinson drew about 110,000 people, while the rival “March Against Fascism” protest organized by Stand Up To Racism had about 5,000 marchers.Anti-migrant themeRobinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, founded the nationalist and anti-Islam English Defense League and is one of the most influential far-right figures in Britain.The march was billed as a demonstration in support of free speech, with much of the rhetoric by influencers and several far-right politicians from across Europe aimed largely at the perils of migration, a problem much of the continent is struggling to control.“We are both subject to the same process of the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture, you and we are being colonized by our former colonies,” far-right French politician Eric Zemmour said.Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and owner of X, who has waded into British politics several times this year, was beamed in by video and condemned the left-leaning U.K. government.“There’s something beautiful about being British, and what I see happening here is a destruction of Britain, initially a slow erosion, but rapidly increasing erosion of Britain with massive uncontrolled migration,” he said.Robinson told the crowd in a hoarse voice that migrants now had more rights in court than the “British public, the people that built this nation.”The marches come at a time when the U.K. has been divided by debate over migrants crossing the English Channel in overcrowded inflatable boats to arrive on shore without authorization.Numerous anti-migrant protests were held this summer outside hotels housing asylum-seekers following the arrest of an Ethiopian man who was later convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a London suburb. Some of those protests became violent and led to arrests.Sea of flagsParticipants in the “Unite the Kingdom” march carried the St. George’s red-and-white flag of England and the union jack, the state flag of the United Kingdom, and chanted, “We want our country back.”U.K. flags have proliferated this summer across the U.K. — at events and on village lampposts — in what some have said is a show of national pride and others said reflects a tilt toward nationalism.Supporters held signs saying “Stop the boats,” “Send them home” and “Enough is enough, save our children.”At the counterprotest, the crowd held signs saying “Refugees welcome” and “Smash the far right,” and shouted, “Stand up, fight back.”Robinson supporters chanted crude refrains about U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour Party, and also shouted messages of support for slain U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk.Several speakers paid tribute to Kirk, who was remembered in a moment of silence, followed by a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”One demonstrator held a sign saying: “Freedom of speech is dead. RIP Charlie Kirk.”Crowd covered blocks of LondonThe crowd at one point stretched from Big Ben across the River Thames and around the corner beyond Waterloo train station, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile (around a kilometer).The marches had been mostly peaceful, but toward the late afternoon, “Unite the Kingdom” supporters threw items at the rival rally and tried to break through barriers set up to separate the groups, police said. Officers had to use force to keep a crowd-control fence from being breached.Counterprotesters heckled a man with blood pouring down his face who was being escorted by police from the group of Robinson supporters. It was not immediately clear what happened to him.While the crowd was large, it fell far short of one of the biggest recent marches when a pro-Palestinian rally drew an estimated 300,000 people in November 2023.Robinson had planned a “Unite the Kingdom” rally last October, but could not attend after being jailed for contempt of court for violating a 2021 High Court order barring him from repeating libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee who successfully sued him. He previously served jail time for assault and mortgage fraud.

    LONDON —

    A London march organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson drew more than 100,000 people and became unruly Saturday as a small group of his supporters clashed with police officers who were separating them from counterprotesters.

    Several officers were punched, kicked and struck by bottles tossed by people at the fringes of the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, Metropolitan Police said. Reinforcements with helmets and riot shields were deployed to support the 1,000-plus officers on duty.

    At least nine people were arrested, but police indicated that many other offenders had been identified and would be held accountable.

    Police estimated that Robinson drew about 110,000 people, while the rival “March Against Fascism” protest organized by Stand Up To Racism had about 5,000 marchers.

    Anti-migrant theme

    Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, founded the nationalist and anti-Islam English Defense League and is one of the most influential far-right figures in Britain.

    The march was billed as a demonstration in support of free speech, with much of the rhetoric by influencers and several far-right politicians from across Europe aimed largely at the perils of migration, a problem much of the continent is struggling to control.

    “We are both subject to the same process of the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture, you and we are being colonized by our former colonies,” far-right French politician Eric Zemmour said.

    Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and owner of X, who has waded into British politics several times this year, was beamed in by video and condemned the left-leaning U.K. government.

    “There’s something beautiful about being British, and what I see happening here is a destruction of Britain, initially a slow erosion, but rapidly increasing erosion of Britain with massive uncontrolled migration,” he said.

    Robinson told the crowd in a hoarse voice that migrants now had more rights in court than the “British public, the people that built this nation.”

    The marches come at a time when the U.K. has been divided by debate over migrants crossing the English Channel in overcrowded inflatable boats to arrive on shore without authorization.

    Numerous anti-migrant protests were held this summer outside hotels housing asylum-seekers following the arrest of an Ethiopian man who was later convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a London suburb. Some of those protests became violent and led to arrests.

    Sea of flags

    Participants in the “Unite the Kingdom” march carried the St. George’s red-and-white flag of England and the union jack, the state flag of the United Kingdom, and chanted, “We want our country back.”

    U.K. flags have proliferated this summer across the U.K. — at events and on village lampposts — in what some have said is a show of national pride and others said reflects a tilt toward nationalism.

    Supporters held signs saying “Stop the boats,” “Send them home” and “Enough is enough, save our children.”

    Demonstrators take part in the Tommy Robinson-led "Unite the Kingdom" march and rally near Westminster, London, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025.

    At the counterprotest, the crowd held signs saying “Refugees welcome” and “Smash the far right,” and shouted, “Stand up, fight back.”

    Robinson supporters chanted crude refrains about U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour Party, and also shouted messages of support for slain U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

    Several speakers paid tribute to Kirk, who was remembered in a moment of silence, followed by a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”

    One demonstrator held a sign saying: “Freedom of speech is dead. RIP Charlie Kirk.”

    Crowd covered blocks of London

    The crowd at one point stretched from Big Ben across the River Thames and around the corner beyond Waterloo train station, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile (around a kilometer).

    The marches had been mostly peaceful, but toward the late afternoon, “Unite the Kingdom” supporters threw items at the rival rally and tried to break through barriers set up to separate the groups, police said. Officers had to use force to keep a crowd-control fence from being breached.

    Counterprotesters heckled a man with blood pouring down his face who was being escorted by police from the group of Robinson supporters. It was not immediately clear what happened to him.

    Tommy Robinson speaks during the "Unite the Kingdom" march and rally near Westminster, London, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025.

    While the crowd was large, it fell far short of one of the biggest recent marches when a pro-Palestinian rally drew an estimated 300,000 people in November 2023.

    Robinson had planned a “Unite the Kingdom” rally last October, but could not attend after being jailed for contempt of court for violating a 2021 High Court order barring him from repeating libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee who successfully sued him. He previously served jail time for assault and mortgage fraud.

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  • MAGA Reacts to the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

    Late last summer, I spent the early hours of a weekend morning walking through suburban Phoenix with volunteers for Turning Point Action, Charlie Kirk’s political-advocacy organization. Donald Trump had just been in town for a huge rally, during which Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—a surprise guest—endorsed him. Gold streamers made to look like they were on fire exploded from the stage. Many in the crowd were there to see Kirk, who spoke first. “You know you are part of something bigger than yourself,” he said. “You are part of the most exciting, diverse, powerful movement in the history of this country.” He went on, “This movement is about all of us against them.” The next time I saw Kirk, in January, Trump had won the election, and Kirk was hosting an Inauguration Eve party in the basement of a hotel in Washington. Giddy supporters danced under a disco ball. But, even at the height of the exuberance, there were a lot of discussions about the battlefield ahead, and references to how narrowly Trump had escaped death on the campaign trail. On Wednesday, after Kirk was assassinated onstage in Utah, it felt, to many, like the war was here. “People warned him, ‘Hey, Charlie, you’re the most exposed person than anybody in this movement,’ ” Steve Bannon said on his streaming show. “Charlie Kirk’s a casualty of war. We’re at war in this country.” On the House floor, Speaker Mike Johnson interrupted votes to hold a moment of silence for Kirk. Lauren Boebert shouted that they should be praying out loud: “Silent prayers get silent results.” Anna Paulina Luna yelled, at Democrats, “Y’all caused this!”

    I decided to go out. There was a vigil for Kirk at St. Joseph’s, a Catholic church near the Capitol. The service lasted twelve minutes. By the time I arrived, the pews were empty; in the dark hallway outside the nave, I ran into a Senate staffer, who had heard about the vigil in an e-mail blast. “He represented a lot of people, whether you agreed with him or not,” he said, of Kirk.

    Outside, two men were talking under a street lamp, holding printed programs. “The vigil used the Sermon on the Mount as a direct comparison between Kirk and Jesus,” one of them, whose name was Ethan, told me. “You could think about him going around the country as a controversial truthteller, spreading the Gospel. Some people will call him a provocateur, and others will call him a prophet.”

    “He was one of the nicer people on the right,” the other man, who wouldn’t give his name, said. “I’m concerned about what may follow.”

    Ethan responded, “Some people are straight up celebrating this guy’s death right now.”

    “It validates the idea that the right is under attack,” the other man said. “Maybe the quiet majority will grow bigger. I could see people saying, ‘I’m not going to put my face out there, because that guy did and he got killed for doing it.’ ”

    “I think the real question is whether or not things start online or in real life,” Ethan said.

    The other man asked Ethan if he had seen the video of the assassination. Ethan hadn’t. “Fuck that,” the man said. “You should watch it. Do you want to watch it right now?”

    Joe Allen, a correspondent for Bannon’s show, happened to be crossing the street alone in the dark. I walked with him toward Pennsylvania Avenue. I thought people might gather at Butterworth’s, a sort of informal MAGA clubhouse, to mourn Kirk. One of the restaurant’s owners told me that he planned to hire armed security the next day. The jubilance of the Inauguration felt like a long time ago. “Be safe out there,” one of the vigilgoers had told me. “I hope this doesn’t turn into a hot civil war.” Allen said, “I feel a dark foreboding. The swelling negative energy . . . and then this, and the constant replay online. Yeah, we’re going to be watching these people die for days, weeks, I don’t know, over and over again. There’s so much callousness and cruelty, and I can already see it building momentum for bloodlust—for revenge, too. If you feel like your tribe is under attack, you draw blood.” He added, “I’m concerned about a strengthening of state power, from Trump all the way down. But, more immediately, potential copycats.”

    We paused in front of a storefront where a TV was playing CNN. Trump was onscreen, speaking from the Oval Office. “My Administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after—” The video faded out. “Certainly the President is not sort of calling for calm on all sides,” Anderson Cooper said. Kara Swisher was his guest. “There’s never an opportunity not to have an opportunity to hate,” she replied. “It’s a real weaponization of words.”

    Outside Butterworth’s, a man in a suit paced the sidewalk. I overheard snippets of his call: “We’re gonna put a text out. . . . The Democrats . . . ” A group was smoking near the door. “Charlie did everything fucking right,” a person close to the Administration told me. “The entire point was, I’m going to sit down and talk to people and try to change their minds. If you don’t like my ideas, come sit down with me. To quote Charlie, ‘When the discourse stops, the violence starts.’ When someone believes in the system as much as he does, if you’re going to kill him . . .” He went on, “There are malignant parts of the right begging for an excuse. Charlie was the bulwark against that. You have an absolutely fucking handicapped political structure in the U.S.”

    Antonia Hitchens

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  • Intercollegiate Studies Institute Launches $25 Million Campaign for Education and Civilizational Renewal


    WILMINGTON, Del., August 25, 2025 (Newswire.com)
    –
    The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) announced the launch of the America 500 Campaign, a $25 Million initiative to expand programs that educate rising leaders for liberty.

    As Americans approach the 250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, ISI will honor the prudence and courage of the Founders while investing in the leadership, virtue, and vision needed for long-term civilizational renewal in public life and culture.

    President and CEO John A. Burtka IV called the effort “a chance to cast a vision for the next 250 years of American greatness and goodness.”

    To realize this goal, ISI will raise $25 million for its America 500 Education Fund. Donations will support academic and student journalism programs, educational media, and core infrastructure and capacity-building.

    The America 500 Education Fund will strengthen the Institute’s “Reach, Teach, Launch” educational model. ISI uses educational media to reach students and introduce them to conservative thought and the Western tradition. In-person, faculty-led campus programs teach undergraduate students and foster deep intellectual formation and community. Finally, selective, advanced experiences like the Honors Program and alumni events such as ISI’s annual Homecoming Weekend launch future leaders.

    In recent years, the Institute has seen strategic growth in key areas, including construction of the Linda L. Bean Conference Center at its Delaware headquarters in 2023. In the coming academic year, ISI is planning 250 educational events for students across the country-a 67 percent increase over previous years. The Institute’s programs are shaped by a commitment to ordered liberty, economic freedom, cultural excellence, and public virtue.

    Participate in the America 500 Campaign

    Supporters of ISI are invited to participate in the America 500 Campaign in three ways.

    More information, campaign media, event registration, and giving opportunities are available at isi.org/america500.

    Media Contact:

    Spencer Kashmanian
    Chief of Staff | Intercollegiate Studies Institute
    skashmanian@isi.org  | (302) 524-6119

    Related Video

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4EcFxzsWA

    Source: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

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  • What are my voting rights? Check this list before heading to the polls

    What are my voting rights? Check this list before heading to the polls

    *** lot of work is being done to make sure you’re safe at the polls and that the election process isn’t interrupted. And two important things to know if you’re voting in person this year, if there are long lines and polls close while you’re still in line, stay in line, you have *** right to vote and election officials will outline *** plan. And if you make *** mistake on your ballot, you can ask for *** new one and start over head to our app or our website and check out the commitment 2024 section for information on your local and national races, ballot issues and information on how to vote and join our news teams on election night for information and results as we learn that, thank you for joining us.

    Know your rights: Essential things to know before voting at the polls

    Did you make a mistake on your ballot or do you need accommodations?

    A number of laws protect voters as they play their part in our democracy, so they can cast their vote confidently. Before heading to the polls on Election Day, here are the rights you need to know that protect you by law:If the polls close while you’re still in line, stay in line. You have the right to vote. If you make a mistake on your ballot, you can ask a poll worker for a new one. If the machines are down at your polling place, you can ask for a paper ballot.If you are registered to vote but your name is not listed in the poll book, you are still entitled to a provisional ballot. Your ballot will be held separately from the regular ballots until an election official determines whether you are qualified to vote and are registered. If you meet those requirements, they will count your provisional ballot.If you are a voter with a disability and need accommodations, all polling places for federal elections must be fully accessible. Voters with disabilities and those unable to read or write can choose a person to assist in all aspects of the voting process except if the assistant is the voter’s employer or union. If you have difficulty reading or writing English, you can ask for assistance. Certain jurisdictions, determined by the Census Bureau, must provide all election information that is available in English in the covered minority language. The election process must be equally accessible in the minority language as it is in English. It is illegal to intimidate, threaten or coerce someone from voting or attempting to vote, as well as people who are urging or helping others to vote. How can I report a violation? To report a possible civil rights violation, you can report it to the Civil Rights Division online at civilrights.justice.gov or by phone at 800-251-3931.To report possible federal crimes, including potential threats against voters, election officials, or election fraud, you can contact the FBI either online at tips.fbi.gov or by phone at 800-CALL-FBI.This segment is part of a half-hour news special called Commitment 2024: Get the Facts. The special helps voters get the facts on the voting process and debunks election-related disinformation that could surface in the final hours before Election Day. To watch the full special, check your local listing for air dates or watch on the Very Local app.

    A number of laws protect voters as they play their part in our democracy, so they can cast their vote confidently.

    Before heading to the polls on Election Day, here are the rights you need to know that protect you by law:

    1. If the polls close while you’re still in line, stay in line. You have the right to vote.
    2. If you make a mistake on your ballot, you can ask a poll worker for a new one.
    3. If the machines are down at your polling place, you can ask for a paper ballot.
    4. If you are registered to vote but your name is not listed in the poll book, you are still entitled to a provisional ballot. Your ballot will be held separately from the regular ballots until an election official determines whether you are qualified to vote and are registered. If you meet those requirements, they will count your provisional ballot.
    5. If you are a voter with a disability and need accommodations, all polling places for federal elections must be fully accessible. Voters with disabilities and those unable to read or write can choose a person to assist in all aspects of the voting process except if the assistant is the voter’s employer or union.
    6. If you have difficulty reading or writing English, you can ask for assistance. Certain jurisdictions, determined by the Census Bureau, must provide all election information that is available in English in the covered minority language. The election process must be equally accessible in the minority language as it is in English.
    7. It is illegal to intimidate, threaten or coerce someone from voting or attempting to vote, as well as people who are urging or helping others to vote.

    How can I report a violation?

    To report a possible civil rights violation, you can report it to the Civil Rights Division online at civilrights.justice.gov or by phone at 800-251-3931.

    To report possible federal crimes, including potential threats against voters, election officials, or election fraud, you can contact the FBI either online at tips.fbi.gov or by phone at 800-CALL-FBI.

    This segment is part of a half-hour news special called Commitment 2024: Get the Facts. The special helps voters get the facts on the voting process and debunks election-related disinformation that could surface in the final hours before Election Day.

    To watch the full special, check your local listing for air dates or watch on the Very Local app.

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  • Florida Senator Rick Scott Honored with ‘Pioneers for Prosperity’ Award

    Florida Senator Rick Scott Honored with ‘Pioneers for Prosperity’ Award

    Florida Senator Rick Scott was honored with the “Pioneers for Prosperity” award.

    According to Americans for Prosperity, the award honors distinguished lawmakers who were policy champions during the 118th Congress. According to AFP, these leaders are on the frontlines in Congress advancing principles and policies that drive the conservative movement, while proactively opposing harmful ideas that grow the size of government and take money out of taxpayers’ paychecks.

    The “Pioneers for Prosperity” stood firm against what they labeled ill-advised legislation that would have deepened the hardships felt by working families and worked closely with AFP in Washington as well as with grassroots communities in their home states.

    “I’m proud to be recognized by Americans for Prosperity, a great organization that advocates for the success of our nation’s families and businesses,” Republican Senator Rick Scott said. “For too long, families have seen their tax dollars wasted as they struggle to make ends meet under the Biden-Harris administration’s big government, big spending and inflation-fueling policies. I’m fighting every day to keep the American dream alive by bringing fiscal sanity and common sense back to Washington so it truly works for the American people.”

    U.S. Representatives Byron Donalds and Laurel Lee were also honored as “Pioneers for Prosperity.”

    Lawmakers earned recognition for supporting bills such as the Employee Rights Act, Strategic Production Response Act, Lower Energy Costs Act, Health Care Fairness for All Act, and other pieces of legislation that the groups said offer common-sense solutions that would improve Americans’ lives – although Democrats would disagree.

    “Florida is fortunate to have leaders in Washington who stand for policies that put hardworking Americans first,” AFP-FL State Legislative Affairs Director Chris Stranburg said. “We are thankful for these individuals who have voted for sensible reforms to keep our economy strong and government limited. Next year, we look forward to overcoming fiscal deadlines with the help of their voices.”

    AFP-FL recently met with congressional members in Washington to discuss major tax policies, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, that are set to expire at the end of 2025 which are commonly referred to as the “fiscal cliff.”

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  • Conservative U.S. Podcasters Deny Involvement in Russian Influence Operation

    Conservative U.S. Podcasters Deny Involvement in Russian Influence Operation

    Six conservative influencers, including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson, were unknowingly part of a company accused of being a front for a Russian influence operation, according to a U.S. Department of Justice indictment. The indictment alleges that RT employees Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva funneled nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based company to produce content that aligned with Kremlin interests, such as weakening U.S. opposition to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

    The DOJ does not accuse the influencers of wrongdoing but claims they were misled about the funding source. Pool responded, “We still do not know what is true as these are only allegations,” adding, “Putin is a scumbag.” Johnson stated that he had provided content for a media startup under a standard deal, which was later terminated. Rubin also denied any knowledge of the scheme, stating, “I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity.”

    Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). U.S. authorities have previously warned of Russian influence in U.S. elections, with intelligence officials noting Moscow’s preference for Donald Trump in past elections.

    While the indictment does not directly name the Tennessee company, it is believed to be Tenet Media, which hosts content from Pool, Johnson, Rubin, and others. Tenet Media has featured conservative guests such as Lara Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Kari Lake. Influencers tied to the company reportedly received lucrative contracts, with one receiving $400,000 monthly, plus bonuses.

    Prosecutors allege that Tenet Media’s content and shows have garnered over 16 million views on YouTube.

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  • Dallas Is Latest City Targeted by Venezuelan Gang, Social Media Video Claims

    Dallas Is Latest City Targeted by Venezuelan Gang, Social Media Video Claims

    For the last year the Dallas Police Department has been investigating criminal activity committed by members of a Venezuelan gang in North Dallas, a department spokesperson told the Observer Wednesday. According to the department, several individuals in the North Dallas area are believed to be associated with the Tren de Aragua gang, a Venezuelan criminal organization that has reportedly crept into the United States in recent months. …

    Emma Ruby

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  • Conservative America Has a New Hat

    Conservative America Has a New Hat

    Press Release
    •

    Jul 31, 2024

    Introducing The Fight Hat: A Bold Symbol of American Courage.


    CHICAGO, July 31, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Today we are proud to announce the launch of FightHat LLC, a company dedicated to creating apparel that serves as a powerful homage to our nation’s resilience and determination. Because, in the face of adversity, America stands up strong and keeps going. 

    And with the launch of our company, conservative America has a new hat: The Fight Hat. 

    Boldly emblazoned across the front are the words “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT,” echoing the unwavering courage that defines America, featuring an embroidered red stain over the right ear, representing our nation’s bravery. After all, America is still the home of the brave. This red embroidered stain is a symbol of surviving an assassination attempt, underscoring our belief that there should be no room for violence in our nation, regardless of your political views.

    The Fight Hat is a reminder to fight for democracy and what is right. It represents a movement. One that can never be silenced.

    About FightHat LLC

    FightHat LLC is an apparel company dedicated to providing American people with clothing that serves as an homage to resilience and determination. Available exclusively at TheFightHat.com, our primary product, The Fight Hat, comes in two models and colors, celebrating the unbreakable spirit of all Americans. For more information, visit TheFightHat.com or contact us at TheFightHatStore@gmail.com.

    Source: The Fight Hat

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  • Bomb threats reported at Planet Fitness locations in Northern Va. amid transgender controversy – WTOP News

    Bomb threats reported at Planet Fitness locations in Northern Va. amid transgender controversy – WTOP News

    These threats come amid criticism of the gym brand for its enforcement of a gender identity non-discrimination policy after a woman complained about the business in March. 

    Virginia officials spent a portion of Saturday evening evacuating Planet Fitness locations in the City of Alexandria and Prince William County as the business continues to navigate responses to transgender-inclusive restroom policies.

    Alexandria police said they were investigating a bomb threat and had evacuated a Planet Fitness location in the 4000 block of Kenmore Avenue before 7:30 p.m.

    “Officers have cleared the area as necessary during the search of the area,” the department said. So far, no injuries, damage or devices have been reported.

    Officials in Prince William County responded to bomb threats at two locations — one located at Richmond Highway and another along Galveston Court — after 6 p.m. Saturday, according to a statement to WTOP.

    A spokesperson said that the locations were searched and that no suspicious items were found. So far, police investigating both incidents have not shared details of the reported bomb threat with the public.

    An investigation into the incidents is ongoing.

    Controversy for ‘Judgement Free’ gym

    These threats come amid criticism of the gym brand for its enforcement of a gender identity non-discrimination policy after a woman complained about the business in March.

    Challenges for the brand sparked when a woman identified as Patricia Silva shared photos of a person who she believed to be transgender using the women’s locker room.

    “I’m not comfortable with him shaving in my bathroom,” Silva said in a video posted to Facebook after the incident.

    Despite this claim, the person has not been publicly identified as a transgender woman or spoken out on the matter.

    Nevertheless, this video was shared across social media, gaining traction on popular conservative accounts, including “Libs of TikTok” on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

    Planet Fitness responded to the photograph and complaint by revoking the woman’s membership in accordance with its policy, which says: “[A]ll members and team members may use Planet Fitness locker room facilities and programs based on their self-reported gender identity; these facilities include bathrooms, showers, and all other facilities separated by sex.”

    This isn’t the first time Planet Fitness has responded to gender-based complaints by removing a member’s access to their gyms. In a 2015 incident, the “Judgment Free” brand officially revoked a woman’s membership after a reported complaint of transgender women utilizing the rest areas that aligned with their gender identity.

    Some analysts have highlighted the incident and Silva’s efforts to spread awareness of the policy, encouraging people to cancel their memberships and boycott the brand. Occasionally, these calls have harkened back to protests against Bud Light after the brand sent promotional materials to transgender content creator Dylan Mulvaney.

    In the days after this controversy began, Planet Fitness stocks reportedly tumbled by some $400 million.

    Others, including the nonprofit Media Matters, have highlighted the protest as a cause of increasing bomb threats for the gym chain amid a rise in violence against trans-identifying people across the United States.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

    Ivy Lyons

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  • Mitch McConnell Stepping Down As Senate Republican Leader

    Mitch McConnell Stepping Down As Senate Republican Leader

    Opinion

    Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons

    Many Republicans have had a problem with Mitch McConnell leading the Senate GOP for a very long time, particularly for undermining conservatives’ agenda.

    But come November, it appears he will no longer be a problem.

    He’s stepping down.

    RELATED: Trump Jr. Rips Mitch McConnell as ‘Pro-Amnesty Turtle’ After Vast Majority of $118 Billion Senate Bill Goes to Israel, Ukraine

    In Congress Since 1985

    The bane of conservatives’ existence – except for deftly maneuvering some Supreme Court seats – will move on to other ventures.

    The Associated Press reports, “Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November.”

    The story continued:

    “McConnell, who turned 82 last week, was set to announce his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, a place where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders,” AP noted.

    The senator had been under increasing pressure from the restive, and at times hostile wing of his party that has aligned firmly with Trump…

    But while McConnell’s critics within the GOP conference had grown louder, their numbers had not grown appreciably larger, a marker of McConnell’s strategic and tactical skill and his ability to understand the needs of his fellow Republican senators.

    McConnell gave no specific reason for the timing of his decision, which he has been contemplating for months, but he cited the recent death of his wife’s youngest sister as a moment that prompted introspection. ‘The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer,’ McConnell said.

    That last part will be music to many conservative voters’ ears.

    RELATED: Byron Donalds, Who Is On Trump’s VP Short List, Says Congress Should Defund The Government ‘If The Border Is Not Secured’

    Why Won’t He Step Down Now?

    The Federalist’s Sean Davis makes a good point.

    Why won’t McConnell step down now? Is he sticking around simply to sabotage Trump and his agenda?

    The last major move by McConnell was to partner with Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in putting together a bill that would give billions more to Ukraine and not secure the border.

    Seriously.

    What kind of conservatism is that?

    Mitch McConnell has dedicated his entire time as a GOP Senate leader to undermining conservatives as much as he could.

    So good riddance. A change in leadership is long overdue.

    He can’t leave quickly enough.

    Liberal Media Claims Biden Has An Illegal Immigration ‘Silver Lining’ Because There Are More Workers

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    The Political Insider ranks #3 on Feedspot’s “100 Best Political Blogs and Websites.”

    is a professional writer and editor with over 15 years of experience in conservative media and Republican politics. He… More about John Hanson

    John Hanson

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