Iran Won’t Confirm Trump Administration’s Claim That a Peace Deal Is “Very Close”, Netanyahu Orders Israel’s Army to Seize 70% of Gaza Strip, Israel Bombs Beirut and Expands Assault on Southern Lebanon, U.N. Adds Israel to “Blacklist” for Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, Protesters Target New York Real Estate Expo over Sale of Illegal Israeli Settlements, NATO “Stands Ready to Defend” Its Territory After Russian Drone Strikes Romanian Apartments, Six Arrested as Protests Continue Outside For-Profit ICE Jail in New Jersey, U.N. Warns Global Heating Is on Track to Exceed 1.5°C Threshold by 2030, Blue Origin Rocket Explodes in Major Setback to Jeff Bezos’s Spaceflight Ambitions, U.S. Inflation Hit 3.8% in April, Its Highest Rate Since 2023, Pentagon Awards Dell a Contract Worth Nearly $10 Billion After Trump Purchases Shares, Massachusetts Formally Recognizes Union of Ride-Share Drivers, Guatemala Denies Reports It Agreed to Allow U.S. Strikes Against Narcotraffickers, Philadelphia Community Access Media Founder Gretjen Clausing Dies at 61
Conspiracy mongering about President Donald J. Trump’s health has ticked up dramatically as of late, with CNN whining about the results of his physical exam not being […]
Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author. For years, “cyber apocalypse” talk sounded like the tech version of a guy on a street […]
Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, and Dave Matthews Band are headlining an explicitly political music festival organized by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, openly promoted as a left-wing protest event timed just weeks before the November 2026 midterm elections. The post Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters & Dave Matthews Headline Leftist ‘Power to the People’ Protest Festival Ahead of 2026 Midterms, Tom Morello Promises Day of ‘Rage Against the Machine’ Activism appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
President Donald Trump's planned celebration of the nation's 250th birthday was dealt a crippling blow as the headliner of a planned concert became the latest to pull out.Country star Martina McBride scrapped plans to lead the Great American State Fair, claiming she agreed to perform without knowing the MAGA links to the massive event in Washington, D.C.The concert is fast unravelling as nearly half of its scheduled acts have now backed out less than a month before the event, organized by Freedom 250 and scheduled to start June 25 on the National Mall, starts."I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event," McBride wrote on X, "but that turned out to be misleading." The 59-year-old singer's abandonment came a day after she was announced as headliner. She said she had pressed organizers with questions before agreeing to perform, believing it would "bring people together in the way that only music can." Once the announcement dropped, she said, "things started changing and what we were told is, in fact, not what is happening."Also on Thursday, soul group The Commodores announced their withdrawal. "Our music has always been our voice," the band said in a statement, "and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party."The exodus started earlier as multiple stars claimed they'd had no idea of the political affiliations of the event.Rapper Young MC, who pulled out Wednesday, told Vibe Magazine, "I was told one thing and then it was a bait-and-switch. When an event is presented to an artist as nonpolitical and nonpartisan, and then turns around and becomes hyper-partisan like it's a rally, that's when I have a problem."Morris Day and The Time also withdrew, leaving Flo Rida, Bret Michaels, C+C Music Factory, Vanilla Ice, and Milli Vanilli still on the bill. One half of the original Milli Vanilli duo, Rob Pilatus, died in 1998, and a separate act currently touring under the Milli Vanilli name said it has no involvement with the Freedom 250 show.
The data-center boom in Australia, rivaling the country’s once-in-a-generation mining boom, could keep interest rates structurally higher than they were before the pandemic, according to Westpac Banking Corp.
President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump-linked institutions and Trump supporters is, according to one conservative, a gateway to something most right-wingers oppose: Reparations for the descendants of American slaves“It will set a precedent that a future president could use to bypass Congress and the courts to implement wide-reaching policies without congressional support—including race-based reparations,” wrote The Federalist Society's Darin R. Batram, who practices appellate and constitutional law in Washington, for The Wall Street Journal. Batram then reviewed how the fund was created, observing that Trump sued the IRS even though as president he had two conflicts of interest: First, that he was suing an agency he controlled; and second, that the Justice Department which he likewise controlled is supposed to defend the IRS from his litigation.Trump sued the IRS by alleging that it owed him $10 billion because a contractor associated with them leaked his tax returns during his first term. Because no victim of IRS leaks has ever received monetary compensation, and due to his conflict of interest, the judge assigned to preside over the case ordered all parties to wait for experts to weigh in on its legality. The judge established May 20 as a deadline, so on May 18 he dropped the lawsuit after having his Justice Department and IRS settle for $1.776 billion. He then said he would use the money to pay Trump supporters, including perhaps Jan. 6th insurrectionists.“Guardrails against the use of public funds to settle perceived wrongs have been eroded before. Mr. Trump has pointed to a compensation program President Obama established to redress harm to Native American farmers, known as the Keepseagle program, which settled a case brought against the U.S. Department of Agriculture involving farm loans and benefits,” Batram said. “Keepseagle provided that a claimant could receive up to $50,000 on the presentation of basic evidence and $250,000 with supporting evidence that the USDA could dispute. Importantly, this settlement program was established despite fundamental weaknesses in the underlying claims by the farmers, including a decision by the court to deny them class certification.”“Remedying perceived harm to Mr. Trump’s supporters stemming from the Russia-collusion investigations or the events following Jan. 6 could seamlessly morph into a future president’s deciding to implement an even broader remedial program—providing reparations to black Americans for slavery and ‘systemic racism,’” Batram wrote. “The Trump fund would give legitimacy to administrative compensation for a politically defined class of government victims—even if neither Congress nor any court has authorized such compensation.”He concluded, “Justice should be administered impartially and shouldn’t be weaponized against political rivals. That happened with Mr. Obama’s Russia-collusion investigation, which continued through Mr. Trump’s first term. It continued through the Biden administration. But the Anti-Weaponization Fund is the wrong remedy, and one that risks making the government even more lawless.”Unlike the Obama precedent, which went to genuine victims of oppression, Trump seems to have pursued this fund to benefit himself and his political base, according to Jonathan V. Last, a conservative commentator for The Bulwark.“Trump understood that while it might be illegal to go to CBS and ABC and demand that they pay him protection money, he could use a civil lawsuit as justification for creating a private legal contract that amounted to the same thing,” Last wrote. “He further understood that if he filed a civil suit against the U.S. government and then became president, he could direct the government to settle with him on whatever terms he desired.”
