Posts on Thursday, June 19, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — An appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump to keep control of National Guard troops he deployed to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids.
The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when he activated the soldiers over opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The deployment was the first by a president of a state National Guard without the governor’s permission since 1965.
The court case could have wider implications on the president’s power to deploy soldiers within the United States
President Donald Trump has set a two-week deadline to decide if the United States will strike Iran.
“Based on the fact that there is a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place in the near future, I will make my decision of whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday, reading a statement from the president to reporters.
Leavitt said Trump would prefer a diplomatic solution, but the president — in consultation with the National Security Council — is weighing U.S. military intervention to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,
As President Trump is contemplating potential U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, law enforcement officials have stepped up surveillance of Iran-backed operatives in the United States, multiple sources told CBS News.
FBI Director Kash Patel has increased efforts to monitor possible domestic sleeper cells linked to Hezbollah — a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization backed by Iran — since Israel's Operation Rising Lion offensive began earlier this month, U.S. officials said.
Both the White House and FBI declined to comment.
The threat from Iranian operatives has worried current and former administration officials since Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was assassinated on Mr. Trump's orders in January 2020.
A SpaceX Starship exploded at the company's Starbase launch site in Texas Wednesday night, bursting into a massive fireball. Video shows the explosion, which SpaceX said occurred as the Starship was preparing for an engine test firing.
The Starship "experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase," the company said in a post on X.
"A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for," SpaceX said.
We've talked about this topic before but as Nate Silver points out today, it probably gets less attention than it should. Let's just start with the chart so you can refer back to it. As the legend indicates, this is a 0-100 point scale where 100 is "excellent" and 0 is "poor." As you can see, conservatives are significantly happier than liberals in every subcategory of gender, race, age and education. And the chart keeps going with a look at income, religion, marriage, sexual orientation and political activity. Here's a bit of what Silver has to say about these results which come from a large survey with 60,000 respondents.
President Donald Trump is further delaying the executive branch’s enforcement of the TikTok ban after Congress passed legislation last year requiring the Chinese company that owns the platform to sell it or face a ban.
Trump signed an executive order Thursday postponing the TikTok ban until September 17, 2025, preventing the enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act for a third time since taking office.
“I’ve just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok
In a surprising and positive change of political winds, a labor union that put its forces behind then-Democratic nominee and incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy with an endorsement of his reelection campaign four years ago has now endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican who ran against him in the 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial race, in the election this November.
What does that mean, beyond a few glowing words for marketing gurus to splash across Garden State TV screen in political ads? Quite a lot more than you might think, local publication The New Jersey Globe reports: [emphasis added]
Washington — Former President Joe Biden will be in Galveston, Texas, on Thursday to join a Juneteenth Celebration Service at a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church. The event will be held at the Reedy Chapel AME Church, one of the locations where an order announcing the end of slavery in Texas was read on June 19, 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, according to the church. In 2021, Biden signed into law a measure that made June 19, or Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. Called the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act
Riots against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have spread from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon, the home of the radical left-wing group Antifa. As of Wednesday night, hundreds of masked protesters marched on the streets, holding signs that argued and criticized the ICE deportation raids, and more radical signs claiming that no one is illegal on stolen land, according to Fox News.
Once the sun had set, the demonstrators got more confrontational. They rolled a dumpster in front of the entrance to an ICE facility, and were promptly shot at with non-lethal munitions by federal law enforcement agents on the roof of the facility.
If there is one thing we should never assume, it’s that Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) can’t get any more clueless.
Remember, Crockett was the one who emphatically argued that former President Joe Biden was in full control of his faculties and was not at all suffering from cognitive decline. Now, during a recent interview with journalist Katie Couric, she is trying to gaslight the public once again.
During the conversation, Crockett complained that American voters would have rather jumped into a pool full of bloodthirsty piranhas than vote for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“When you think about it, Kamala Harris, light years ahead of Donald Trump as it relates to qualifications,
If there’s anything that the last six months have taught us, it’s that appointing the right judges is critical, especially since the current version of Our Democracy we’re being sold holds that, “Yeah, it’s OK to elect a president and a Congress, but to actually do anything you need the approval of a herd of unelected swells in robes.” This is a sad state of affairs; when I was in the Persian Gulf, I don’t remember any of my troops telling me that they were very proud to be fighting to defend the ability of a bunch of Ivy Leaguers who largely couldn’t cut it
'Unconstitutional': DOJ Sues Kentucky
for Giving Discounted College Tuition
to Illegal Immigrants replies
for Giving Discounted College Tuition
to Illegal Immigrants replies
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently filed a lawsuit against the state of Kentucky. The DOJ is suing Kentucky over the state's regulations that allow in-state tuition prices to be provided for students who are illegal immigrants or who lack certain documentation.
“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement. “The Department of Justice just won on this exact issue in Texas, and we look forward to fighting in Kentucky to protect the rights of American citizens.”
This case against Kentucky is a continuation
Jewish House Member Rep. Max Miller Says
He Was 'Threatened' by Someone With a
Palestinian Flag replies
He Was 'Threatened' by Someone With a
Palestinian Flag replies
Those in the antisemitic, pro-terror crowd are coming for members of Congress. On Thursday, Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who is Jewish, posted a video to his political X account about how he had been "threatened by a person who proceeded to show a Palestinian flag before taking off."
"The deranged hatred in this country has gotten out of control. Today I was run off the road in Rocky River, and the life of me and my family was threatened by a person who proceeded to show a Palestinian flag before taking off. I have filed a police report with Capitol Police and the local police department.
The tyrannical Colorado Secretary of State (SOS) Jena Griswold never dreamed that justice would catch-up with her for the unspeakable wrongs she perpetuated against Tina Peters and the American people over the last few years.
Stolen elections are the most significant control point of stealing a country and imposing tyranny upon its citizens. Just ask citizens in Brazil, Venezuela, and even South Korea. The tables in America however have turned due to the methodical actions of the new DOJ and FBI leadership
The Trump administration is attempting to deport Salvadoran national Alexander Alfredo Palacios Guevara, a convicted murderer and Surenos gang member with two attempted murder convictions, who was shielded from removal by a Biden-era Convention Against Torture (CAT) deferral. Guevara was briefly released by ICE due to the CAT protection but was re-arrested due to public safety concerns. The Department of Homeland Security is now exploring sending him to a third country, pending a Supreme Court decision on a recent Boston federal judge's ruling against such removals.
Here’s a story you won’t see the mainstream media cover, ever: the white African farmers once demonized and stripped of their land and livelihoods under Robert Mugabe’s Marxist dictatorship in Zimbabwe didn’t just vanish into thin air. These fighters packed up, crossed the border, and rebuilt. And guess what? They’re doing amazing.
If you don’t recall, back in the early 2000s, Zimbabwe’s government kicked off a so-called “land reform” plan that drove white farmers off their land, often violently, and handed them over to Black Zimbabweans. Roughly, about four thousand white farmers were forced out, and many were attacked or killed. It got so bad that now, years later, Zimbabwe is
The U.S. Supreme Court took a major step in helping dismantle the federal government’s stranglehold on public policy on Wednesday. In an 8-0 decision, the court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not defend itself against a lawsuit from Oklahoma and Utah in its rubber-stamp home court, the D.C. Circuit.
The case arose from the EPA’s 2023 decision to deny the state implementation plans (snip) submitted by 21 states in order to comply with the 2015 “good neighbor” revision to the Clean Air Act, (snip),the thrust of the Supreme Court appeal has to do with the venue at which the case could be heard.
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has never been shy about telling it like it is in his Supreme Court opinions. So, it came as little surprise when he demolished the so-called “expert class” in the high court’s Wednesday opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti.
In a 6-3 ruling, SCOTUS deemed a Tennessee law prohibiting the surgical and chemical castration of minors does not violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.(snip) Thomas also authored a separate concurring opinion “to address some additional arguments made in defense of Tennessee’s law.” It was here that the Court’s most senior justice shattered attempts by plaintiffs (snip) to “accord outsized credit to claims about medical consensus and expertise.”
In the beginning of this discussion we might discover the deeper motive for President Trump to support Israeli strikes against Iran.
Remember, President Trump proactively diffused any reactionary Russian response by talking directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to the eruption of conflict inside Iran. That discussion puts the Chinese interests into a somewhat isolated position. From recent Trump comments we can also see the carrot of sanction removal at play.
China has significant economic exposure within Beijing’s financial ties to Iran. With 90% of Iranian oil production fueling the Chinese economy any disruption would have considerable impact.
Members of a federal appeals court on June 17 questioned what role courts should have in reviewing President Donald Trump’s authority to deploy the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles.
The three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is considering the Trump administration’s bid to extend a pause it issued on June 12.
On that day, the appeals court granted a request by the administration to temporarily stay a lower court order issued by District Judge Charles Breyer, directing Trump to return control of the California National Guard to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In December 2009, the Endangerment Finding was born when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under then-president Obama ruled that carbon dioxide (CO2) endangered human health and thus could be regulated as a pollutant.
The EPA’s action flowed from an expansive and unjustified decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that CO2 was a pollutant simply because it was emitted into the air, and if the agency found it endangered human health or welfare, it could regulate it.
VOX has referred to the court’s decision as the Roe v. Wade of climate policy, and VOX is right.[snip] CO2 is not listed as a pollutant or hazardous chemical under the 1970 Clean Air Act
Wowza.
It's no surprise that Israel has destroyed Iran's Arak nuclear reactor. After all, it was a key element of Iran's program to build nuclear weaponry, and a very vulnerable target.
The only strategic reason not to attack it was the fact that it could have contained highly radioactive material, and Israel had to balance the benefit of denying its use to Iran against the consequences of releasing dangerous and long-lived radioactive material if the supposedly inactive reactor held fissionable material.
Handicapping the LA riots
replies
It would be amusing if it weren't so serious. Last weekend's expressions of supposed free speech were almost universally called demonstrations by the media and "mostly peaceful" by some. In contrast, the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol was labeled an "insurrection" and "riot" by the media. A few congressional Republicans have called for an investigation after reports that some NGOs were used by foreign and liberal individuals and domestic organizations to funnel money that underwrote some of the expenses, like the cost of well-made signs.
Israeli Defense Minister Says Ayatollah
‘Should Not Continue to Exist’ After
Iran Strikes Hospital replies
‘Should Not Continue to Exist’ After
Iran Strikes Hospital replies
Israel is promising to respond forcefully to Iran’s latest missile barrage after Tehran struck the largest hospital in southern Israel as the war between the two countries escalates.
An Iranian missile hit the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on Thursday, causing significant damage to the hospital, one of numerous Iranian strikes on Israel that wounded an estimated 89 people across the country.
“The Iranian regime targeted Soroka Hospital in Beersheba with a ballistic missile—hitting a major medical center. We will not stand by.
Ilhan is ill
replies
There’s a saying, “I won’t dignify that with a response.” Much of what Ilhan Omar says qualifies; however, it is requisite on U.S. patriots to address her putdown of the U.S. turning into “one of the worst countries.”
It’s tempting to be vindictive toward such preposterous ingratitude, but that’s up to her voters (more on her district in a moment). But there’s some schadenfreude to relish: she’s very unhappy, and is not even a friend to herself. In fact, her warped thinking induces such negative emotions that she feels comfortable being mired in the squalid SQUAD — misery loves company.
It would be preferable if she returned to Somalia,
FRESNO, Calif. -- A new COVID-19 subvariant known as NB.1.8.1, or "Nimbus," is spreading across the United States and gaining traction in California, prompting health officials to urge the public to stay up to date on vaccinations. (Snip) One of the most talked-about symptoms of the new strain is what patients are calling "razor blade throat", a severe sore throat that some describe as feeling like swallowing shards of glass. "With this variant, we are seeing patients presenting with a very painful sore throat, cough, headache, and nasal congestion," said Dr. Trinidad Solis with the Fresno County Department of Public Health.
Internal FBI emails reveal that rogue agents and prosecutors in the Biden DOJ were looking for ways to pile on new criminal charges against Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — this time over his involvement with the J6 prisoner choir, based on a single partisan news article.
The 2023 emails obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and revealed exclusively to The Post are an example of the nitpicking malice of anti-Trump lawfare that tainted special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, during Joe Biden’s presidency.
“Can we do some work to nail down Trump’s role in this,”
Tucker Carlson, the TV personality who currently enjoys an enormous gap between the size of his audience and his intellectual abilities, has decided to declare war on the Trump administration for the sin of taking Iran’s nuclear ambitions seriously.
President Donald Trump hit back with a post on Truth Social saying “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene jumped in with Carlson saying, “Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA.”
The mainstream media is loving all this
Remember back when Bill Clinton was President and Hillary was his co-president?
Back then the ever-slavish media regularly referred to her as “the smartest woman in the room"?
That was never true. Not even close.
She was never a feminist heroine because she “was no Tammy Wynette” and did not “stay home and bake cookies and stand by her man.”
She was always just a mean, bitter, unattractive woman with narcissistic delusions of her own abilities.
And after all the intervening years, when she was Obama’s Secretary of State (a pity appointment because she lost the election to him – better to keep her inside the tent),
No Respect, No Money, We’ll See
replies
On Monday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threw down the gauntlet, sort of. He warned that “rogue state actors” who don’t cooperate with ICE and federal immigration officials may have to clean up the mess they created. "The USDOT will not fund rogue state actors who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, and to cities that stand by while rioters destroy transportation infrastructure — don’t expect a red cent from DOT, either.”
"Follow the law or forfeit the funding."
I want to believe Duffy—I really do—but this is one of those cases where I’ll have to see the declaration carried through before I believe it. There are far too many cases
The following is adapted from Antiwar.com editorial director Scott Horon’s statements in debate with Chinese exile Wang Dan on June 12 at Freedom Fest in Palm Springs, California “In order to preserve freedom at home, America must make an effort to export it abroad.” Ha. You’ve got to be kidding me.
In the last 25 years, in the name of spreading democracy and freedom, the U.S. completely destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Mali, Syria, Iraq again, Yemen and major parts of Pakistan and Ukraine, killing and getting killed upwards of four million people, displacing 40 million
Israel's remarkable early success in its campaign against Iran has clearly won over President Trump, who has now taken to using the term “we” when discussing the operation. This has increased the debate over whether — and to what extent — the U.S. should join the effort.
In under a week, Israel has achieved complete air supremacy, allowing its pilots to hit targets in Iran without fear of harassment. Though the conflict has taken a toll (Iran’s indiscriminate ballistic missile attacks have killed dozens of Israelis and injured hundreds more), the Iranian counterstrikes have not destroyed any significant strategic targets.
The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming. Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.
For political junkies who cut their teeth on “60 Minutes,” “Meet the Press,” CNN, and Fox News, longform podcasts were a godsend. Finally freed of commercial restraints and surface-level superficialities, longform podcasts took you beyond the talking points, treating audiences to a deep dive of a topic’s intricacies. Even when the podcast host had limited knowledge of the subject matter (Joe Rogan, I’m looking at you), the benefit of the longform platform was that it facilitated an open-ended, free-floating conversation where both sides learned more about the other.
But there was an important catch: It only worked when both sides were acting in good faith.
Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Will Cain Show” that the “Democratic Party has been the most effective political party in the history of the world.”
Host Will Cain said, “I think you’ve got a deeper problem in the way that the left is talking about America.”
Carville said, “If I take everything that they all said, it wouldn’t amount to what Mike Lee said, who’s actually a United States Senator who actually said something very harmful and very hurtful and is not apologize for it. So, I mean, we can go on. I mean, I’m not here to defend Whoopi Goldberg.
No MAGA Schism On Iran
replies
I wrote here that I didn’t expect the Iran-Israel war to seriously divide MAGA, and that I thought the “anti-Israel/pacifist wing of the right” would prove to be “barely discernible.” This survey by J.L. Partners supports that view:
* 58% of Republicans back U.S. military strikes on Iran, compared to just
25% opposed.
* Among MAGA Republicans, support jumps to 65%, with just 19% against. This is higher than among self-described Traditional Republicans (51% support).
Two striking things about these findings: 1) Most Republicans say they support U.S. military strikes on Iran, which so far are not on the table. And 2) MAGA Republicans are more likely to support
Democrats learned a lesson from Donald Trump's return to the White House: getting arrested is good politics.
It's for good reasons that Americans recoil when prominent political figures are manhandled, put in handcuffs, or have their mugshot taken live on camera. We all love the idea of politicians in handcuffs or being thrown into jail, but we rightly expect that this will only happen if they commit crimes.
Lawfare is incompatible with our values. Of course, Democrats engaged in a multi-year campaign of lawfare against Donald Trump and his associates, and it didn't work out so well for them. So, in an odd twist,
As we've been chronicling here at Hot Air for weeks, things have not been running very smoothly behind the scenes at the DNC. First there was the blowup over David Hogg's plan to primary some moderate Democrats. That eventually led to Hogg being unelected in a do-over vote (they claimed the initial vote violated the rules) but not before someone leaked an embarrassing tape of DNC Chair Ken Martin saying he was considering giving up on his job because of the conflict with Hogg.
Not long after all of that drama made news, we learned that two union bigwigs, Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders, were leaving their positions over disagreements