Posts on Friday, August 15, 2025

A federal appeals court panel has cleared the way for the Trump administration to largely dismantle the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, lifting a lower-court judge’s injunction that had preserved the agency’s structure — and barred mass layoffs — for months. The 2-1 ruling, authored by Judge Gregory Katsas, said a series of legal defects in the lawsuit brought by CFPB employees and the NAACP doomed the case and required the district court judge’s blockade to be lifted. Katsas, a Trump appointee, said the fatal flaw was the broad challenge against what the employees described as a master plan to shutter the agency altogether.

A decade and a half after California voters stripped lawmakers of the ability to draw the boundaries of congressional districts, Gov. Gavin Newsom and fellow Democrats are pushing to take that partisan power back. The redistricting plan taking shape in Sacramento and headed toward voters in November could shift the Golden State’s political landscape for at least six years, if not longer, and sway which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections — which will be pivotal to the fate of President Trump’s political agenda.

President Trump on Friday described it as “very nice” that former rival Hillary Clinton promised to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize if he’s able to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without Kyiv being forced to give up territory. “Well, uh, that was … very nice,” Trump told Fox News “Special Report” host Bret Baier, after a prolonged pause. “I may have to start liking her again,” the president added of the former first lady, secretary of state and two-time defeated presidential candidate, as he traveled aboard Air Force One for a high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

President Trump proclaimed Friday he and Russian President Vladimir Putin made “great progress” toward ending Moscow’s war on Ukraine after meeting for nearly three hours in Alaska — while cautioning “there’s no deal until there’s a deal.” Trump, 79, and Putin, 72, didn’t publicly mention any details of a preliminary “understanding” toward ending the long-running war, with the US leader saying he would be calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and key European allies to discuss negotiations. “There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them,” Trump said at a media availability where neither he nor Putin took any questions.

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska — President Donald Trump said he and Vladimir Putin didn’t reach a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine after meeting on Friday — despite Putin saying they had come to “an understanding” — as the two leaders offered scant details on what was discussed while heaping praise on each other. In brief remarks as they shared a stage after meeting for about 2 ½ hours in Alaska, Putin said he and Trump had reached an “understanding” on Ukraine and warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress.” But Trump then said, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal” and said he planned to speak with

SAN FRANCISCO — California’s unemployment rate increased slightly in July and is now the highest of any state in the nation. California added 15,000 nonfarm jobs in July, according to the Employment Development Department, pushing the unemployment rate up 0.1% to 5.5%, which is higher than that of any other state and higher than the national average of 4.2%. July’s job gains follow a downward-revised job loss of 9,500 for June, the EDD said. (Snip) The biggest month-over-month job sector loss was in professional and business services with specialized design, computer design, and scientific research and development experiencing consistent year-over

MSNBC’s Morning Joe is the lookouts on the Titanic: they see the iceberg but can’t do anything to alter the collision course. That’s the Democratic Party. I think most know their agenda sucks, but they hate Trump so much, or they’re bullied into taking these awful public policy positions, lest they risk having the wrath of the progressive Left bear down on them. The party is now defending crime. They’re booing law enforcement in D.C., who are trying to make the city safer. Due to rising crime, President Trump federalized the D.C. police force and deployed the National Guard. Co-host Mika Brezinski had the best line to describe

Earlier this month, Customs and Border Protection recorded fewer than 7,832 illegal border crossings in July. That’s a staggering number when you consider that the 25-year average for that month is 76,000. Even more staggering is that this should never have happened. At least, not if you believed President Joe “Autopen” Biden. For four years straight, Biden and his minions told the American public either that the border was secure, or that the problem was impossible to fix due to Republican intransigence, or some combination of the two. Here, for the record, is a sampling:

It has been said that antisemitism is the oldest form of prejudice and hatred, predating most major religions. One of the bravest women I have ever met is Ayaan Hirsi Ali and she has spoken at length in several forums about its deadly rise and what it means. I met her in 2007 at the Martin Luther King dinner held by the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE) which awarded her the award of International Sisterhood due to her efforts to protect the interests of Muslim women suffering from the demand of vaginal mutilation and forced marriage by Islamic Sharia law. At the time, she was a Dutch* parliamentarian and an atheist.

A Staten Island man and his mother are facing a slew of charges, including aggravated manslaughter and hindering apprehension, after authorities say he caused a deadly crash in Plainsboro, New Jersey during a dangerous BMW street race. Alvi Limani, 20, is charged with aggravated manslaughter, vehicular homicide, multiple counts of reckless assault by auto, endangering others, obstruction, tampering with records, leaving the scene of a fatal crash, and causing death or serious injury while driving with a revoked license. His mother, Vilma Vneshta, 42, is charged with hindering in the third degree.[snip]According to jail records, both Limani and Vneshta are listed as non-citizens.

A Republican consulting firm is warning that Google’s Gmail platform is disproportionately flagging Republican fundraising messages as spam while allowing similar Democratic solicitations to reach inboxes. [Snip] The firm said emails containing links to the Republican fundraising platform WinRed were, “in many cases, sending them directly to spam,” while identical test messages with links to the Democratic platform ActBlue were “delivered without issue.”

I received such an outpouring of comments to my recent bad T.V. and cable ads article that I thought I’d give this another shot. Currently, there are so many bad ads I had no problem finding truly dreadful examples. First, let’s check out an ad campaign that worked, American Eagle’s ads featuring Sydney Sweeney, a popular young Hollywood actress. Apparently, she not only has good genes, but good jeans. When those American Eagle Sydney Has Great Jeans ads broke a couple of weeks ago, three things happened. Immediately, the “progressive left” predictably lost their minds, flooding TikTok and YouTube with screaming video fits, calling Sydney a Nazi while claiming

There’s a Democrat in Texas (yes, really!) who lost a race for senator, and then lost a race for governor. He’s a designated loser. His name is Robert but he has a nickname. Since he’s proven himself not exactly an Alpha, you might assume his nickname is “Beta.” Close. It’s “Beto.” Beto has a lot more in common with “Beta” than with “Rambo.” Beto/Beta attended elite private boarding schools and then Columbia where he took a degree in English Literature. It was probably Shakespeare that taught him not to be. But Beto/Beta has a strategy to show his toughness