Melania gives Congress private deadline as she works around Trump's team: report

First lady Melania Trump gave Congress a private deadline to pass her signature foster care bill, and she is pursuing it largely outside the usual White House channels, according to a new report in Politico. At a bipartisan roundtable with the House Ways and Means Committee in April, the first lady publicly called foster care legislation a "moral imperative." Then, behind closed doors, she set a target, Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) told the outlet: "I want this on Donald's desk by the August recess." The Fostering the Future Act, which expands housing, education and workforce help for young people aging out of foster care, passed the House unanimously.The Senate has not moved it out of committee, and lawmakers are set to leave Washington around Aug. 10. At a White House picnic the day the House passed the bill, both Trumps urged the Senate to hurry. "Hopefully, it will quickly pass in the Senate," the president said. He has not publicly pressed senators since.The deadline reflects a first lady who increasingly operates on her own track. Her office, not the State Department, has led her effort to reunite children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war, negotiating directly with Moscow and Kyiv, the White House said. She has also shown a willingness to diverge from the administration's message. She broke with the White House on Epstein, calling for survivors to testify as the president's team tried to move past the scandal, and last week put her own spin on a Supreme Court ruling her husband celebrated, voicing support for the LGBTQIA+ community.A recent book recounted how she resisted Trump's overhaul of the White House grounds and lost.

This Republican Has a Wild Idea for Fixing Housing Prices: Let the Market Actually Work

Republican unveils Declaration of Independence bill ahead of America's 250th birthday

Rep. Matt Van Epps said his bill reaffirming the Declaration of Independence directly responds to socialist candidates gaining ground in primaries.

‘It’s crazy’: GOP rebel declares war on Republican leadership

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) committed to block House floor proceedings unless House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) inserts the SAVE Act into a must-pass piece of legislation, Punchbowl News reported on Friday.Luna has pressed for the SAVE America Act – a bill that mandates voter ID and citizenship checks while adding new restrictions on mail-in ballots – to be folded into the annual defense policy bill."We should be doing all of the above," Luna told Punchbowl News for its report published Friday. "Why not try? It's crazy."Luna has already disrupted leadership's plans once – she helped defeat a rule that would have inserted SAVE Act language directly into the defense bill, despite House GOP leaders having spent three years working to keep unrelated amendments out of it.Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have grown frustrated with inter-party disputes. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Punchbowl that Republicans "need to be very careful" about how they message the standoff, arguing that Democrats – not Republicans – are the ones blocking the SAVE Act's passage.“The message we need to convey to our supporters – it’s not Republicans that are preventing the SAVE America Act from being passed. It’s Democrats,” Johnson told Punchbowl News.

E Pluribus Algae: Why Green Pond Scum Is as American as Red, White and Blue

And why the most patriotic approach to the Reflecting Pool may be to let the algae take over.

James Talarico pals around with ‘PEDO PROTECTOR’ who brought a convicted sex offender to a school

Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico not only has a long history of strange comments about trans children and a nonbinary God — he’s now campaigning with Bobby Pulido, who BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales warns is a “pedo protector.”“Bobby Pulido is not just close with James Talarico. Bobby Pulido is besties with the entire Texas Democrat team, I guess, because Bobby Pulido kicked off the entire Texas Democrat convention last week as per his own tweets,” Gonzales says, explaining that Pulido is a famous musician.“In his band, he employs an accordion player by the name of Frankie Caballero. Now, Frankie’s not a good guy. Frankie is in fact a total creep, because you see, Frankie is on the sex offender registry for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old in 2014,” she says, warning that this is the most egregious offense on his lengthy rap sheet.“Be that as it may, the offense wasn’t enough for Pulido to stop touring with him, because both before and after Caballero went to prison for this, for four years, he was touring with the band. He was part of the band,” she explains.And while the band was touring, they headlined an Axios school benefit. So Pulido headlined a school benefit with a registered sex offender.“Children were welcome and present at the event, which was held at the Flores Stadium several miles from the middle school grounds according to the promotional materials. So he’s like, ‘Hey, you just busted out of prison for doing unspeakable things to an 8-year-old child. Want to go to a middle school event with me?’” Gonzales says.“I mean, it takes just the lowest of the low person to do something like that,” she continues.It was until after 2021 that Pulido stopped touring with Caballero, which Gonzales points out was after he pled guilty to assaulting his daughter and “impeding her normal breathing.”While Pulido claimed he didn’t know about Caballero’s prior convictions, Ramon Rodriquez, a south Texas bass player, told the New York Post that he “performed with Caballero as recently as 2020 and that the child sex conviction became ‘a known fact in music circles’ in the immediate years after.”“Seems kind of weird that James Talarico and the rest of the Democrats are hanging their hat on this guy who’s associating with an actual convicted pedophile,” Gonzales says, adding, “That’s what blows my mind.”Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

New York Republican says Swift, Kelce should pay for police securing wedding

“Our officers are already working overtime for 4th of July festivities & NYC taxpayers should NOT be on the hook."

New York Republican says Swift, Kelce should pay for police securing wedding

New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R) said Thursday that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce should reimburse the New York Police Department (NYPD) for costs imposed by their reported Friday wedding at Madison Square Garden. “Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce should reimburse NYPD for the 130 officers needed per day to keep their multi-million dollar, thousand…