Washington Examiner

PETA sues DC Metro system over refusal to run advertisements

12 hours agoCenter Right

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a lawsuit against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority on Thursday, arguing the Washington, D.C., agency illegally barred the animal rights organization from advertising in the metro system. The lawsuit objects to WMATA’s decision last year to bar three of PETA’s proposed advertisements from the D.C. metro […]

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Trump’s ballroom chief shows off DC project at Russian economic forum

Alternet.org

5 hours ago

Trump’s ballroom chief shows off DC project at Russian economic forum

Federal funding for President Donald Trump's massive ballroom was on the line before Congress on Wednesday, but the chief of the project was readying for an annual Russian economic conference, which some are calling "Putin's Davos." This is the first time the U.S. has attended since Russia attacked Ukraine. Rodney Mims Cook told the Russian press that Trump and the State Department permitted him to travel to Russia for the economic forum in St Petersburg. BBC News Moscow reporter posted on X that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was "unaware" that Cook was attending the forum. Cook was nominated by Trump to take over the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. All of the members of the board were fired in 2025 and Trump appointed their replacements. They then voted to approve the ballroom project and Trump immediately bulldozed the East Wing of the White House during 2025's government shutdown.According to his conversation with Russian media, Cook said that his presence at the forum had nothing to do with his position in the Trump government; rather, he was there as a Christian to help restore churches in Russia, Reuters reported. Yet, according to Max Seddon, Moscow Bureau chief for the Financial Times, Cook brought graphics showing off the ballroom. "Cook, it turns out, is an ardent Russophile. He has been involved [in] restoring medieval Russian churches for decades. His own house in Georgia is designed in the Russian style. He says he is friends with many senior Russian elite figures. He seems absolutely thrilled to be there," added Seddon. He was also photographed with Russian religious leaders.Others who attended the forum include Andrew Tate and his brother, along with far-right streamer Candace Owens. Tate is facing criminal charges in Romania for sexual assault, human trafficking and establishing an organized crime group to exploit women.

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Reason.com

8 hours ago

Court Refuses to Release Auto-Generated Transcript in Justin Fairfax Child Custody Trial, Citing AI Transcription Errors

An interesting May 22 order from the court in the Justin Fairfax child custody trial, Fairfax v. Fairfax (Judge Timothy… The post Court Refuses to Release Auto-Generated Transcript in Justin Fairfax Child Custody Trial, Citing AI Transcription Errors appeared first on Reason.com.

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Senate Republicans Refuse to Fund Trump’s Ballroom in Spending Bill

The New Republic

Yesterday

Senate Republicans Refuse to Fund Trump’s Ballroom in Spending Bill

Senate Republicans decided not to allocate federal funds to Donald Trump’s ballroom project in the latest draft of their budget reconciliation bill on Wednesday, in a blow to the president’s architectural takeover of the nation’s capital.Before the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” overshadowed it, Trump’s ballroom project was the clearest example of how his solipsism was hurting American taxpayers. The White House said the ballroom was needed for security purposes, and initially claimed it would be funded with approximately $200 million from Trump and “other patriot donors.”That number later doubled to $400 million, before ballooning to a $1 billion funding request for White House security—part of which would go toward the ballroom.Despite badgering by Trump that the ballroom was especially needed after a gunman attempted to sprint through a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents Association dinner at the Washington Hilton in April, using taxpayer money on a ballroom was deemed unnecessary by nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough in May. Trump then tried to get MacDonough fired, while his administration submitted court documents claiming the ballroom was somehow “under budget.”Four Republican senators—Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina—publicly voiced opposition to public money going to the vanity project in May. A larger group inside the GOP were privately against the ballroom, according to five anonymous insiders who spoke with Politico. And most GOP senators were likely worried Democrats would put them on the record about whether they supported public funds going to the ballroom during the filibuster process.Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund” has also recently been discarded after he faced public pressure and legal challenges to it.The Senate began voting to begin discussing their reconciliation bill Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time. The bill’s primary impact would be to fully fund the Department of Homeland security through the end of Trump’s second term.

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DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin refuses to commit to complying with federal court orders

Raw Story

Yesterday

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin refuses to commit to complying with federal court orders

Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, Secretary Markwayne Mullin refused to commit to complying with federal court orders. During a tense Senate Appropriations hearing Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, pressed Mullin four times to confirm DHS would follow court directives to halt illegal or unconstitutional conduct. But Mullin repeatedly declined, "I will never break the Constitution," Mullin repeated."We're going to enforce the law."Murphy countered, saying federal courts determine whether agencies obey the law, warning the committee: "If you're a Republican or Democrat on this committee, you should be really, really freaked out." Mullin's stance echoes documented mass noncompliance by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, under his predecessor, Kristi Noem. Republican-appointed Judge Patrick Schiltz found ICE violated 96 court orders in a single month, according to NPR, stating, "ICE is not a law unto itself." Murphy cited that ruling directly at Mullin. Confirmed in March with 54-45 votes, Mullin replaced former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and pledged a softer enforcement approach at his confirmation hearing.Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.

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The Narrow Path to a Democratic Senate Runs Through Very Red States

NYT > U.S. > Politics

Yesterday

The Narrow Path to a Democratic Senate Runs Through Very Red States

Democrats cheer there is a way, even as new worries emerge over whether Graham Platner can flip a Maine seat. Republicans remain confident they will prevail in Texas, Iowa and Alaska.

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Trump Suggests Vance and Rubio Should Run Together in 2028 Election

NYT > U.S. > Politics

Yesterday

Trump Suggests Vance and Rubio Should Run Together in 2028 Election

President Trump said Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio should split a ticket, without mentioning who should be at the top.

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Marco Rubio Runs Out Clock to Avoid Crucial Question on Cuba

The New Republic

Yesterday

Marco Rubio Runs Out Clock to Avoid Crucial Question on Cuba

Marco Rubio just refused to provide a clear answer regarding the administration’s plans for Cuba.The state secretary appeared before Congress Wednesday for the second day in a row as part of the executive branch’s efforts to defend its $2.2 trillion budget request for 2027. But Rubio’s seemingly endless talking points abruptly ended when he was asked a yes or no question by Representative Jonathan Jackson about whether the White House will invade Cuba.“In closing, I’d like to ask you, will you invade Cuba?” asked Jackson.“Well, I have one second to answer. What do I do?” mused Rubio.“Will you invade Cuba?” pressed Jackson.“That’s not the only thing you said,” Rubio said, before committee Chairman Brian Mast took the reins of the exchange. Rubio never provided a deeper explanation on the president’s aims for Cuba, but attacking America’s Communist Caribbean neighbor is apparently not off the table. Donald Trump told reporters at the White House in March—while Cuba was struggling with an unprecedented economic crisis made worse by America’s Venezuelan oil blockade—that he expected to have the “honor” of “taking Cuba in some form.” “I do believe I’ll be … having the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form,” Trump said at the time. “I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth.”Months later, in May, White House officials told Politico that what had originated as mild musings had since morphed into a genuine interest inside the Oval Office.“The mood has definitely changed,” the person familiar with the White House’s discussions said. “The initial idea on Cuba was that the leadership was weak and that the combination of stepped-up sanctions enforcement, really an oil blockade, and clear U.S. military wins in Venezuela and Iran would scare the Cubans into making a deal. Now Iran has gone sideways, and the Cubans are proving much tougher than originally thought. So now military action is on the table in a way that it wasn’t before.”The conversations took place around the same time that the Justice Department indicted Cuba’s former President Raúl Castro, sparking concerns that the Trump administration would extract and abduct him as it did former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

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DHS Secretary Refuses Again and Again to Say He’ll Follow Court Orders

The New Republic

Yesterday

DHS Secretary Refuses Again and Again to Say He’ll Follow Court Orders

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had a troubling exchange with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy in which he refused to commit to following all court orders on immigration.“‘ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.’ That’s not a Democratic-appointed judge, that is a Republican-appointed judge describing the scale of illegality,” Murphy said in a Senate Appropriations hearing on Tuesday afternoon. “You always struck me as somebody who cared about the rule of law, and so maybe the easiest question is this: When DHS gets a court order telling them that something they are doing is either illegal and unconstitutional … can you commit to us that if a court judges something ICE is doing, something DHS is doing as illegal, unconstitutional, [or] tells you to stop, that you will comply with the court order?”Mullin refused to give a yes-or-no answer, dodging the question at least four times. CHRIS MURPHY: Can you commit to us that if a court judges something ICE or DHS is doing as illegal or unconstitutional and tells you to stop, that you will comply with the court order?MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We will never break the Constitution and we're not going to break the law,… pic.twitter.com/PESeUu577W— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 2, 2026Mullin: Ranking member Murphy, I will tell you that we will never break the Constitution, and we’re not going to break the law, but we’re going to enforce our nation’s laws. And we’re gonna enforce the laws that you guys passed and that we implement. We will never go outside that, and if we do, we’ll hold each other accountable for that.Murphy: But that doesn’t sound like the same thing as committing that you will obey a court order. Obviously, the entire structure of the federal government gives the power to the courts to divine whether you are obeying the law or not. I think it’s an easy thing to say—will you, will you not implement court orders?Mullin: If we didn’t think courts were politicized, then I would probably be able to answer that, but we see courts over and over again that use their bench for their political opinion, not just the rule of law.Murphy: So you’ll pick and choose which court orders you obey based upon whether—Mullin: Don’t put words in my mouth.Murphy: Then what are you saying, then?Mullin: What I’m saying is, we’ll enforce the law, and we’re never going to break the Constitution.Murphy: You just said that you will not follow every court order, because—Mullin: Chris, senator, don’t start putting words in my mouth. That’s not what I said. I said I will never break the Constitution.Murphy: Will you implement court orders when they tell you to stop?Mullin: You’re making an assumption on court orders I haven’t seen.Murphy: Will you or will you not?Mullin: I’m going to enforce the law, and I’ll never break the Constitution.

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