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Todd Blanche tries to sell Republicans on "anti-weaponization fund"

May 22, 2026Center

The Justice Department has a new $1.776 billion fund, designated to pay people who allege that politics played a role in their prosecutions under the Biden administration. It's a settlement without precedent, drawn up by the president's own appointees after he sued the government. Weijia Jiang has more details.

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Top election predictor confirms it: Republicans are in a rough spot

Alternet.org

5 hours ago

Top election predictor confirms it: Republicans are in a rough spot

President Donald Trump is going to be the main issue in the 2026 midterms, but experts disagree as to whether the impending electoral disaster will be experienced by the Republicans or the Democrats. Now an election expert is shedding light on the situation.“It’s a competitive situation in both the Senate and the House,” DDHQ’s chief elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley told The Hill's Julia Mueller on Sunday. He later added that “the big question is: will the Iranian conflict … will people being concerned about that ratcheting up, is that going to create reverberations in things like the generic ballot that signal ‘OK, Democrats’ advantage is growing again’?”Skelley also pointed out that Democrats’ lead increases when there is bad news about Iran and gas prices go up, but shrinks when the conflict subsides and gas prices drop.“The challenge for Republicans is the Iranian conflict is heating up again,” Skelley argued. Mueller reported, “Democrats are favored to win the House but are slight underdogs in the fight for the Senate with 100 days to go before the midterms, according to the latest forecast from Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).”She added, “Both parties are dealing with headwinds as they head into the home stretch of the high-stakes election.” While Republicans are worried about the Iran war, oil prices and lingering high inflation, Democrats have their own internal issues with which to grapple.“Wins by democratic socialist and antiestablishment candidates in House primaries across the country have sparked concerns from centrists that their party will be characterized as too extreme,” Mueller reported. “It’s a line of attack being emphasized by President Trump and GOP leaders in Washington working to convince voters not to hand power to the Democratic Party.”She continued, “The result is a situation 100 days out that gives both parties reasons to be hopeful and worried.”The polls are similarly concerning for the Democrats.“At this point in the 2018 cycle, when Democrats won big in the so-called blue wave, the generic ballot showed Democrats up by an average of 7 points or 8 points, DDHQ said, which is double the current edge,” Mueller wrote.She added, “With just more than three months until Election Day, the tight forecasts make races like the Michigan Senate fight must-wins for both parties, adding urgency to the handful of toss-up contests that could decide control on Capitol Hill.”The New York Times similarly reported on Democrats’ perceived incompetence on Sunday.“At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members,” wrote The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein on Sunday. “Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs.”Goldmacher and Epstein continued, “Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.”

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Republicans in panic mode over 'scary' signs their base won't show up

Alternet.org

6 hours ago

Republicans in panic mode over 'scary' signs their base won't show up

Republicans are once again in panic mode over the 2026 midterms, according to The Washington Post, as "scary" new data about their voters' enthusiasm gap shows that they might not care anymore.According to the Post's new report from Sunday morning, GOP pollsters and strategists "are raising the alarm" about the party's voters, warning that they are feeling "listless and demotivated" at a time when the party needs them to be energized for the midterms. This comes at a time when the GOP already had ample reason to worry about getting wiped out by Democrats."A raft of discouraging data from polling, door knocking and focus groups is unsettling Republicans as their party heads into a midterm election season that would be challenging no matter what, given President Donald Trump’s low standing in polls and the fact that the party in control in Washington almost always loses seats," the Post explained. "The lack of enthusiasm is reaching deep into Republicans’ loyal base, spreading to the party’s most consistent voters — who have shown up to vote in all of the past four primaries and general elections, according to an analysis done by Americans for Prosperity Action, a conservative super PAC that was founded by billionaire Charles Koch. This new issue with the base adds to the party’s more enduring problem of turning out less-frequent voters who support Trump but often skip midterm elections."The report continued: "About 1 in 5 reliable Republican base voters are at risk this November, according to Nathan Nascimento, executive director at AFP Action. Those voters in Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Montana, New Hampshire and Michigan are either saying they may stay home or are weighing voting for Democrats, according to their data, which is based on polling and extensive efforts to engage targeted Republican voters by knocking on their doors. The voters are primarily worried about inflation and the economy."“This is a big chunk,” Nascimento said. “This is a scary number.”Nascimento further noted that this issue appears to be separate from another problem the party has faced over the last decade: the significant chunk of "low-propensity" voters who only show up to vote Republican during presidential elections when Trump is on the ballot. The president's pull on these voters as a candidate has been described as "mythical" by some observers, but has created a major problem for the GOP during off-years and midterms, as well as a grave problem going forward, now that he is term-limited.“We have a high-propensity base problem,” Nascimento added.The Post's report also quoted Lance Sulentic, a 56-year-old three-time Trump voter from Iowa who called their past support of the president "the worst three mistakes I’ve ever made in my life," lamenting his failure to keep his 2024 campaign promises and the new pain he is feeling at the pump.“We voted for Trump, and he did the opposite of what he said he was going to do,” Sulentic said. “Gas prices were going to be two dollars, food was going to be cheaper, energy prices was going to be in half, we were going to get two rebate checks to the American people, and we weren’t going to have any new wars, and we were going to build a wall and deport 30 million illegal aliens, and he did none of it.”

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Judge's 'unexpected' Epstein files demand reveals dark truth about Todd Blanche: expert

Raw Story

6 hours ago

Judge's 'unexpected' Epstein files demand reveals dark truth about Todd Blanche: expert

A federal judge's “unexpected” demand to Attorney General Todd Blanche regarding the Epstein files proves a bedrock judicial principle is “on life support," a legal expert argued Sunday.Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan gave Blanche five days to provide the court with unredacted versions of certain Epstein-related files for private review as it litigates a lawsuit filed by lawyer and media figure Katie Phang. Phang sued Blanche for allegedly violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by unlawfully redacting certain files.Blanche provided the court with an explanation as to why certain files were redacted, but Sullivan, doubting Blanche’s explanation, demanded he provide proof supporting his claims. Such a demand, as noted by Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, demonstrated how the Trump administration had all but gutted the key judicial principle known as the “presumption of regularity.”“It was commonly used to advance the idea that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, courts should presume government employees, including DOJ lawyers, acted properly in the execution of their duties. Now it’s on life support and Judge Sullivan’s order is another nail in its coffin,” Vance wrote in an analysis published Saturday on her Substack.“This most recent order suggests that Judge Sullivan doesn’t believe the government when it says something is the case, even when that ‘something’ is as simple as the identity of the person in a ‘to’ line in an email. But the government has acted like it has something to hide, even after Congress passed the Transparency Act and Trump signed it into law.”Specifically, Phang has raised doubts that redacted names on a handful of Epstein-related files were lawfully withheld. The Justice Department (DOJ) has claimed the redactions in question were permitted under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but Sullivan is refusing to take the DOJ at their word.“So the Judge isn’t accepting what the government has represented to it as truthful, and is requiring documentation to support its claims,” Vance wrote.“Under any other president, the Attorney General would have been disturbed by the suggestion prosecutors couldn’t be trusted. There would be disciplinary review. But here, the acting Attorney General is the defendant in the case. It’s paradigmatic of how far DOJ has fallen.”

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Biden bucks: Climate change funds a bonanza for state outfits

WorldNetDaily

6 hours ago

Biden bucks: Climate change funds a bonanza for state outfits

How bureaucracy in 1 leftist state saw income surge from $7 million to more than $300 million

Far Right

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FBI Most Wanted COVID Fraud Fugitive Busted in Jamaica While Using a Fake Identity – Allegedly Stole More Than $32 MILLION in Pandemic Relief Funds

The Gateway Pundit

6 hours ago

FBI Most Wanted COVID Fraud Fugitive Busted in Jamaica While Using a Fake Identity – Allegedly Stole More Than $32 MILLION in Pandemic Relief Funds

The FBI has made a major arrest tied to the massive taxpayer-funded COVID-19 fraud that has proliferated throughout America. The post FBI Most Wanted COVID Fraud Fugitive Busted in Jamaica While Using a Fake Identity – Allegedly Stole More Than $32 MILLION in Pandemic Relief Funds appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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To save capitalism from Gen Z, Republicans must steal socialism

Washington Examiner

7 hours ago

To save capitalism from Gen Z, Republicans must steal socialism

The recent rise of the Democratic Socialists of America is shocking to many, but its rise in popularity coincides with Generation Z’s turnout and involvement in politics. Gen Z was the backbone of the mayoral election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City, with nearly 75% of Gen Z voting for Mamdani, a DSA-backed candidate. […]

Center Right

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Military disables tanker trying to get through Strait of Hormuz after repeated warnings

New York Post

19 hours ago

Military disables tanker trying to get through Strait of Hormuz after repeated warnings

U.S. military forces disabled a tanker trying to get through the Strait of Hormuz on July 24, stopping what officials said was a deliberate attempt to run a regional blockade after the crew repeatedly ignored warnings.

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News

21 hours ago

Penn State Law Dean Resigns Amid Fallout From School’s Anti-Racism Class and Free Beacon Report

The dean of Penn State Dickinson Law resigned on Friday after a former student testified before Congress about the school’s mandatory anti-racism class, which required all first-year students to "acknowledge the reality of systemic racism." The post Penn State Law Dean Resigns Amid Fallout From School’s Anti-Racism Class and Free Beacon Report appeared first on .

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Todd Blanche tries to sell Republicans on "anti-weaponization fund"

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Todd Blanche tries to sell Republicans on "anti-weaponization fund"

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