Friday, May 30, 2025
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The White House defended Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. amid scrutiny of the administration's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) Commission report, which was found to cite multiple studies that do not exist.
At a Thursday briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed concerns, insisting the report remains a "transformative" achievement.
When a reporter asked Leavitt directly if artificial intelligence had played a role in drafting the 73-page report—a possibility raised by the volume of citation errors—Leavitt declined to answer. "I can't speak to that," she said. "I would defer you to the Department of Health and Human Services."
Goodbye Tariffs?
replies
Big news yesterday and today on the tariff front. Yesterday, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that President Trump’s “Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariffs” and “Trafficking Tariffs” on goods from Mexico and Canada exceed the authority delegated to him by Congress. The administration immediately appealed that ruling, and today it was stayed by the Federal Circuit pending further litigation. So the tariffs remain in place, for the moment.
The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to “lay and collect
Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” By statute, Congress has delegated some of that authority to the president.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shut down its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) office last week, The Post can exclusively reveal.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth officially closed the Community and Equity Office after earlier prohibiting the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring or student admissions, a university official confirmed.
A senior administrative position at the office will also be eliminated as part of a return to a merit-based focus kicked off by Kornbluth in January 2024. That process involved an assessment of the DEI office’s relative success as determined by senior faculty and staff members.
“MIT is in the talent business. Our success depends on attracting
Sanctuaries on notice
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Today, the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) published,
a comprehensive list of sanctuary jurisdictions including cities, counties, and states that are deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws and endangering American citizens.
The DHS notice indicates that the official list was published in accordance with an Executive Order issued by Pres. Trump late last month. Still to come,
Each jurisdiction listed will receive formal notification of its non-compliance and all potential violations of federal criminal statutes.
If you a curious, you can check for yourself to see which localities in your state(s) are included.
Some states, I noticed, do not have a listing.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta released its integrity reports on Thursday for the first quarter of 2025, claiming it reduced enforcement mistakes by 50 percent since the beginning of the Trump presidency. Enforcement mistakes include removing content from Facebook and Instagram that doesn’t actually violate platform rules.
In January, Meta announced policy changes intended to reduce the number of enforcement mistakes, as part of Zuckerberg’s commitment to enable free speech on Meta’s platforms.
The company’s newly released Q1 report shows that the company is taking steps to put its weight behind Zuckerberg’s words. The report notes that in December 2024 it removed millions of pieces of content every day
The Supreme Court Tames NEPA
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This is big news: in recent decades, it has been just about impossible to get anything done in the United States. The permitting process for infrastructure projects of all kinds has become, essentially, a never-ending gauntlet that few projects can survive. There are several reasons for this, one of which is the expansive reading that activists and courts have given the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA requires permitting agencies to analyze environmental impacts before proceeding with projects. That is a feel-good principle that, in practice, has often brought progress to a screeching halt.
A pair of hikers in New York called emergency services to report that a third member of their group had died, but when a park ranger responded to rescue them it turned out they were just high on hallucinogenic mushrooms, officials say. The third hiker was uninjured - and not dead - and the hikers were "in an altered mental state", according to a report issued by parks officials. The incident took place on 24 May on Cascade Mountain in the Adirondacks High Peaks of upstate New York.
Pope Leo XIV has made history by being named the first American appointed to head the Catholic Church, and now he's impressed the heck out of baseball fans after a video that's surfaced of him doing an incredible one-handed catch went viral.
It happened outside the Vatican at St Peter's Square on May 28 while the Pope was riding around in an open popemobile when a fan waved a plushie that looked just like him at him. In response, the Pontiff signaled for the fan to toss it towards him so he could get a closer look. In the clip, we see the rather impressive
NewsNation host Chris Cuomo dismissed the issue of illegal immigrants murdering Americans during a Thursday episode of his podcast.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recorded a total of 13,099 non-detained illegal immigrants convicted of homicide as of July 21, according to a September 2024 letter. In response to a viewer question on “The Chris Cuomo Project” about whether Cuomo would modify his view of the two parties if they stuck to governing instead of partisanship, he said he would not, citing the politics of Laken Riley’s murder at the hands of an illegal immigrant as a reason.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey found the operations by federal immigration officials on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard “disturbing,” despite the arrests of more than three dozen illegal migrants.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported about 40 apprehensions in the May 27 operation on the elite coastal enclaves, including a documented MS-13 gang member and at least one child sex offender. ICE partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Coast Guard in the operation. [Tweet]
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on Thursday that a longtime USDA employee and five others were busted in one of the largest food stamp frauds in U.S. history.
A short time ago, Perry Carbone, Attorney for the United States, Charmeka Parker, the Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General and Christopher G. Raia, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI revealed a superseding indictment was unsealed charging six people in connection with a $66 million-plus fraud and bribery scheme under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka food stamp program.
The O’Keefe Media Group on Thursday released undercover video of a Nevada Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Division of Welfare and Supportive Services specialist admitting to bending the rules to provide benefits for illegal aliens.
“I get them emergency medical all the time… I just approve them for 12 months because I can,” Nevada DHHS specialist Deshaun Eli Mack said.
“Even undocumented people from Mexico and things; I can still get them benefits,” he said.
Per O’Keefe Media Group:
An anti-Trump IT specialist the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was arrested on Thursday for attempting to provide classified national defense information to a foreign government.
According to the DOJ, Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 28, of Alexandria, Virginia, was arrested on Thursday in northern Virginia, and will make his initial court appearance in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday.
The Justice Department said Laatsch offered to transmit classified information to the foreign government because he did not “agree or align with the values of this administration” and was therefore “willing to share classified information” that he had access to, including “completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation.”
How hard it is to find a man willing to brave the storm, to stand when most everyone else bends the knee. We are drawn to the stories of those who do so for two reasons. First, we admire in others the fortitude that is so lacking among most of humanity. (Snip) Yesterday, former U.S. Army Lieutenant Mark Bashaw was pardoned by President Donald Trump. Bashaw commanded the Army Public Health Center’s headquarters company at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland when the Department of Defense issued its illegal vaccine mandate in 2022.
Two weeks ago, the Arapahoe District Attorney's Office which covers Aurora, Colorado, rendered a stunning decision. In July 2024, a 15-year-old Colombian teenager who was 1) an illegal immigrant; 2) did not have a driver's license; and 3) had taken his mother's Jeep on a joy ride with friends and was driving 90 miles-an-hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone, struck the car of 24-year-old Kaitlyn Weaver, and ended her life. The teenager was charged with vehicular homicide, and the district attorney's office promised there would be no plea deal and that they would prosecute the Colombian illegal to the full extent of the law.
How much longer are we going to tolerate American judges kneecapping American interests from behind the bench?
In the latest act of judicial self-sabotage, a federal appeals court has decided that President Donald J. Trump—yes, the duly elected President of the United States—isn’t allowed to impose tariffs to protect American industries (Snip) Let’s get one thing straight: President Trump enacted those tariffs using the clear authority granted to him under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The law allows the President to take action to restrict imports if those imports are found to threaten national security. Not luxury. Not convenience. Security.
When an industry requires endless subsidization, that means it’s signaling a lack of potential—both short-term and long-term—so it’s *probably* a bad investment.
According to Matt Oliver at The Telegraph, new numbers from the electric vehicle industry show that these cars are depreciating rapidly, much faster than their gasoline counterparts; after just two years of ownership, these cars are worth less than half of what their owners originally paid. (I mean, we tried telling them these were foolish purchases, but they didn’t want to listen.) Here’s this, per Oliver:
A typical EV now retains only 49pc of its value after 24 months, a sharp decline from 83pc as recently as 2022,
When a president defies a court, the media pulls the fire alarm. Legal experts fill TV panels with words like "unconstitutional" and "authoritarian." The phrase “constitutional crisis” gets tossed around like glitter at a political parade.
But what most people forget is that history doesn’t always side with the judiciary. Some of America’s greatest presidents defied court rulings, and history later confirmed that those examples of defiance were not only justified but necessary. They didn’t do it to seek power. They did it to protect the country when others froze.
That’s not a crisis. That’s leadership.
Now that two federal courts have blocked President Trump’s new economic tariffs,
Poor, poor Michelle Obama. The former First Lady has to decide which of her three multi-million dollar estates to spend the night in. She has to deal with a fawning leftist press that treats her like she’s some sort of goddess. Her husband was once one of the most widely adored politicians on the planet, she never has to work another day in her life if she doesn’t want to, and she has two grown children who are healthy and apparently happy.
But it’s all so stressful.
Lately, for reasons only known to herself, she’s been podcasting with her brother on a low-rated show called "IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson,"
Senator Chuck Grassley Declassifies FBI
Files on Nellie Ohr, Including Lies Told
to Congress replies
Files on Nellie Ohr, Including Lies Told
to Congress replies
Eight years ago, I created a simple graphic to help readers and researchers understand how Nellie Ohr was connected to the construct of the Steele Dossier, the core source material that underpinned the Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant used against the Donald Trump 2016 campaign and President Trump administration.
In addition to outlining how Nellie Ohr took Ham radio operator classes (May 2016) during her employment with Fusion GPS (began Dec 2015), the graphic shows the circular process of how the Steele Dossier (technically Nellie Ohr’s dossier) was constructed. (snip) graphic is also a timeline showing how Nellie Ohr interacted with the overall ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation, which eventually evolved to
A former vice president at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts says he was fired by the organization following a CNN investigation into his previous comments on gay marriage. Floyd Brown, who served as the center’s top fundraiser for only several weeks, wrote in a social media post this week he was fired after being contacted by a CNN reporter inquiring about his comments on his personal website and other platforms criticizing homosexuality and floating conspiracy theories about former President Obama.
A federal appeals court on Thursday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause a lower-court ruling that struck down most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The Trump administration had earlier told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that it would seek “emergency relief” from the Supreme Court as soon as Friday if the tariff ruling was not quickly put on pause. The judgment issued Wednesday night by the U.S. Court of International Trade is “temporarily stayed until further notice while this court considers the motions papers,” the appeals court said in its order.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt absolutely smoked former First Lady Jill Biden for her involvement in the cover-up of former President Joe Biden's mental and physical decline and said she definitely needs to answer questions for it. During a White House press briefing on Thursday, Leavitt said, "I think, frankly, the former first lady should certainly speak up about what she saw, in regards to her husband and when she saw it, and what she knew."
Leavitt said that anyone who was paying attention could see the apparent decline in Biden and could see "this was a clear cover-up."
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” collided with deliberation day in the courts, and it did not go well. The Court of International Trade ruled that the President lacks the authority to impose his massive tariffs worldwide.
But all is not lost for Trump’s tariffs.
The three-judge panel held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) does not give the president “such unbounded authority.”
While some have criticized the court as a “judicial coup,” it is a well-reasoned and good-faith decision from judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and Trump.
While the court, in my view, should have issued a stay pending appeal,
