The claims have reignited debate over voter fraud in California, despite the absence of evidence of widespread fraud in the state's elections.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is projected to generate nearly $1 billion in economic impact across California, with Los Angeles and the Bay Area expected to benefit from tourism, hotel demand, visitor spending and job creation.
Former national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday warned that President Trump’s actions in the war against Iran could spark a nuclear arms race. “Whatever deal President Trump makes with Iran, his often-contradictory decisions during the conflict have laid the groundwork for more nuclear proliferation in the Middle East,” Bolton said in an opinion piece…
Sen. Lindsey Graham, an enthusiastic backer of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, faces an anti-interventionist insurgency at home in South Carolina, where he’s fending off a challenge from businessman Mark Lynch in the state’s June 9 primary.A self-styled “America First” candidate, Lynch has attacked Graham by calling him a “warmonger” who cares more about “a fancy ballroom than he does your sons and daughters dying in the Middle East.”Differences over foreign policy aside, Lynch’s candidacy taps into the more extreme tradition of far-right politics, compared to Graham’s relative moderation.Graham is running with the endorsement of Trump, who dismissed Lynch as a “lunatic” while expressing annoyance that Graham’s challenger supported Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a critic of the war against Iran.“Mark Lynch would be a DISASTER for the Republican Party, and Lindsey Graham just, GETS THE JOB DONE,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.Lynch has racked up endorsements from retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor; former Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino; Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center; Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet; and Ivan Raiklin, the self-styled “secretary of retribution.”Graham has become a target of anger for the restive MAGA faction, which sees the war with Iran as a betrayal of Trump’s promise to avoid getting the United States into new wars. Among Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, Graham distinguished himself by urging the U.S. to seize Iran’s Kharg Island and saying he would be willing to send South Carolina’s “sons and daughters” to the Middle East.Speaking at an anti-war rally in Michigan last month, Raiklin dangled a red cap inscribed with the words “Dump Lindsey” from a mic stand.“Do you want your president listening to Lindsey Graham?” Raiklin asked.“No!” the crowd thundered in response.“If you’re in South Carolina, primary this scumbag,” Raiklin said, “so he’s no longer golfing down at Mar-a-Lago promoting the war machine.”The Graham campaign did not respond to questions concerning this story.Lynch, who trails Graham by about 20 points in recent polls, has attempted to strike a delicate balance between supporting Trump and appealing to the MAGA dissidents.“I believe that the job of a U.S. senator is to uphold their oath to the Constitution, represent the interests of the constituents, and promote America First principles,” Lynch told Raw Story. “And I would support everything President Trump does to those ends.”At the same time, Lynch is staking positions markedly to the right of Graham by vocally supporting white Christian nationalism, while embracing a theocratic doctrine that critics view as anti-constitutional.Lynch has used his X account to argue that “white replacement is real,” while expressing agreement with a call for religious exclusion by a violent Jan. 6 rioter who has faced multiple criminal charges since Trump pardoned him for his conduct at the Capitol.During an angry tirade directed at a city council in the Dallas suburbs last month, Jake Lang accused the city of replacing “white people” with Muslims and Hindus, while declaring that the United States “is a Christian country” and suggesting that Muslims and Hindus can’t be Texans.“Gotta say, I agree with Jake Lang here,” Lynch wrote on X.Asked how he reconciles Lang’s views with the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion, Lynch told Raw Story, “Islam is not a religion; it is a theocratic construct that should be banned in the United States.”Lynch’s friendliness with Lang and other Jan. 6 rioters who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol lines up with his ultraconservative activism as founder of a group called United Patriots Alliance that has promoted the controversial “doctrine of lesser magistrates.”Lynch introduced the Rev. Matthew Trewhella, a Wisconsin pastor who popularized the doctrine, during an event sponsored by United Patriots Alliance in Greer, S.C. in September 2024.Trewhella, who advocates for the criminalization of abortion and homosexuality, described the doctrine in an interview with United Patriots Alliance tactical strategist Ethan Mulch as holding that “when the higher-ranking civil authority makes unjust or immoral law, policy, or court opinion, the God-given right of the lesser civil authority is not to obey.“They’re to stand between the tyranny of the superior civil authority and the people they represent,” Trewhella continued. “It’s called interposition. You can do it verbally, or physically, or both. And it’s massively needed in our day.”Trewhella published his book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates, in 2013 following more than two decades in the anti-abortion movement.
After returning to the White House on January 20, 2021, President Donald Trump made a point of picking staunch MAGA loyalists for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI — including FBI Director Kash Patel, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche (now acting AG) and federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro. And according to New York Times reporter Devlin Barrett, the Trump-era DOJ relentlessly searched for evidence of a "deep state" conspiracy against the president."It was an investigation long sought by Kash Patel, the FBI director, and it was announced not in court papers, but through a haze of cigar smoke on Joe Rogan's podcast in early June of last year," Barrett explains in the Times. "Mr. Patel's prized criminal inquiry, known as 'the grand conspiracy case,' sought to tie together actions by a group of people that President Trump blamed for various investigations into him, going back to the examination of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, and extending into events surrounding the 2020 election and the criminal prosecutions of Mr. Trump in 2023 and 2024."Barrett continues, "In the view of Mr. Trump and his supporters, there was a 'deep state' cabal that had sought across multiple administrations and agencies to bring him down. Mr. Patel told Mr. Rogan he had found a secret room of evidence inside FBI headquarters confirming his long-held suspicions."Patel, according to Barrett, believed that old DOJ files showed evidence of a conspiracy against Trump — and that obsession "became a defining feature of the Trump administration's politicization of the Justice Department." But DOJ veterans who weren't MAGA loyalists, Barrett reports, pushed back."Some of the documents related to events from 2016 and 2017 that Mr. Patel wanted examined, specifically the actions of James B. Comey, who was the FBI director at the time, and John O. Brennan, who had been the CIA director," Barrett notes. "Mr. Patel wanted both men investigated for lying to Congress and suggested that the documents supported charging them…. The premise of the 'grand conspiracy' was that Mr. Comey and his allies had concocted the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential contest to damage Mr. Trump, and that conspiracy extended into the 2020 election and the 2022 appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate him."Barrett adds, "To Mr. Patel, the case consolidated years of his complaints and accusations about Democrats and national security officials. To many career Justice Department veterans, the case looked more like Frankenstein's monster — a motley assortment of long-dead investigations that were now supposed to be stitched together and brought to life."
LIVE FIRE CEASEFIRE: Iran attempted to use its leverage with President Donald Trump — who is anxious to seal a nuclear deal with Tehran — to protect its proxy forces in Lebanon from Israeli retaliation, after Iran struck Israel with a wave of missile attacks over the weekend. Trump told Axios he would call Israeli […]
President Donald Trump said that Israel and Iran are once again negotiating a ceasefire as violence in the Middle East escalated over the weekend. Iran launched a missile strike against Israel Sunday morning in retaliation for Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon earlier in the weekend. Israel responded Monday morning with a strike against […]
President Donald Trump said the US would maintain its blockade of Iranian ports until there is a deal to end hostilities in the region after demanding Israel and Iran stop military action.
The Yemeni Houthis announced early Monday they would impose a “complete ban” on Israeli sea vessels from passing through the Red Sea, a partial blockade that risks hitting global trade with a “two-front crisis” as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, several outlets reported.“We declare a complete ban on enemy navigation in the Red Sea and we consider any Zionist movements to be military targets for our forces,” said Houthi spokesman Brig Gen Yahya Al Saree in a televised statement released on Monday, according to the United Arab Emirates news outlet The National.“We will respond to escalation with escalation and our operations will intensify in line with the battle and in conjunction with the axis of jihad and resistance."The announcement comes in response to Israel’s strikes on Iran Sunday, itself a response to Iranian strikes on northern Israel as retaliation for Israel’s siege on Beirut, Lebanon.While not as critical to global trade as the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea is still a major shipping waterway, with around 12% of global trade passing through the channel, “including 30% of global container traffic,” according to The Guardian. Together, disruptions to both shipping waterways would likely further exacerbate supply shocks sparked by President Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran.“The two waterways together carry an estimated 30% of global container shipping and approximately 22% of the world's seaborne oil supply, according to analysis by The Middle East Insider,” reads a report from Insurance Business Magazine. “A combined disruption places an estimated US$10 billion per day of global trade at risk.”YEMENI HOUTHIS ANNOUNCE NAVAL BLOCKADE ON ISRAEL IN THE RED SEA pic.twitter.com/AWSP9pEgvI— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) June 8, 2026