Posts on Tuesday, April 21, 2026
The government of Peru finalized the sign a contract to purchase 12 F-16 Block 70 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin after several days of uncertainty and tensions with the United States that had cast doubt over the deal, according to Peruvian media reports. The signing reportedly took place privately at Las Palmas Air Base on Monday, despite the interim administration of President José María Balcázar having announced suspension of negotiations Friday. The initial agreement includes the acquisition of Fighting Falcons under the United States Foreign Military Sales program. The comprehensive package includes weapons, radar systems and logistical support, with an estimated value of $3.42 billion.
Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a redistricting referendum that will allow the state legislature to redraw its congressional maps outside the normal cycle in a manner expected to favor Democrats.
The Associated Press called the contest in favor of the yes campaign just before 9:00 p.m., with 84% of precincts reporting. As of press time, "yes" stood at just over 50% of the vote.
The state currently has six Democratic members of Congress and five Republicans. The planned Democratic map is expected to produce 10 Democratic-leaning seats and one Republican-leaning seat.
Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.
The Supreme Court is notoriously hard to crack.
But now a bombshell new book is exposing the secret goings-on behind the scenes, including scathing tales about Justices from their former staff.
In her forthcoming book, Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution, conservative journalist and author Mollie Hemingway lifts the lid on the justices' treatment of clerks.
The book is focused on Justice Samuel Alito - who has been the author of opinions defending gun rights and limiting the power of labor unions during his time on the bench and has recently been rumored to be mulling an exit from the Supreme Court.
Each justice usually
The Department of Justice announced Tuesday that a grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center for making fraudulent payments of millions of dollars to members of the Ku Klux Klan and other neo-Nazi organizations.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference that the 11-count indictment filed in an Alabama federal court alleged the left-wing nonprofit had in the past decade paid at least $3 million to eight members of the far-right groups.
One leader of the 2017 Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Va., received roughly $270,000 over an eight-year period. Neither that person nor others were identified in the 14-page indictment.
President Trump extended his cease-fire with Iran Tuesday afternoon — after an American negotiating team led by Vice President JD Vance delayed plans to travel to Pakistan for a second round of peace talks.
“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and,
Employees at top secret government labs have suddenly disappeared without a trace across the US, leaving many questioning how and why it has happened.
The circumstances in certain cases have been eerily similar, with three people who all worked in New Mexico suddenly leaving their houses on foot without taking wallets, IDs or essentials with them. A fourth person, an aerospace engineer in California, disappeared on a hiking trail, feet away from her friends.
One common thread links their work — a retired US Air Force Major General who also left his home on foot on the morning of Feb. 27–
Who will replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell? It won’t be some white guy. Here’s the list of candidates.
In attendance were Democrats Aisha Wahab, Melissa Hernandez, Carin Elam, Rakhi Israni and Matt Ortega, as well as Republican Wendy Huang. Dublin resident Dena Maldonado, a Republican on the ballot, bowed out Sunday afternoon. San Leandro City Councilmember Victor Aguilar Jr., a Democrat, and newcomer Suzanne Chenault, listed with no party preference, did not respond to invitations to join the debate.
Aisha Wahab, an Afghan Muslim, appears to have the inside track and is holding the process ‘hostage’.
On Tuesday, another news item dropped that will have conservatives (and probably a fair number of moderates) chuckling for the rest of the day. (snip) Now, we learn that the SPLC has not only been encouraging real white supremacist and racist groups, but they have been funding them. And now, they have been indicted on 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Acting AG Blanche and FBI Director Patel made the announcement:
Thousands of Palisades and Eaton fire
rebuilding permits approved after Trump’s
executive order replies
rebuilding permits approved after Trump’s
executive order replies
President Trump’s executive order to fast-track the rebuilding of Los Angeles after the wildfires has resulted in almost 2,000 permits approved since it was signed in January, The Post can exclusively reveal.
Trump’s order let state and local rules be preempted when it came to obtaining permits and allowed builders to “self-certify” that they have complied with “substantive health, safety and building standards.”
The result of the administration’s take over was the approval of thousands of permits for people to begin the rebuilding process of homes and businesses ravaged by the January 2025 Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires, two of the most destructive blazes in LA history.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy touted some of the first successes of a massive, multibillion-dollar air traffic system modernization effort during a summit at department headquarters in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.
Thousands of outdated telecommunications equipment like radios and phones are being swapped for brand-new models. Hundreds of radars are being upgraded. And the paper flight strips used by air traffic controllers to guide flights are getting ditched for new electronic ones — all accessible on one computer screen, Duffy and other officials said.
As of this month, nearly 50% of the old copper wires powering critical communications between air traffic controllers and pilots have also been replaced with
Democrats are out of control. It's time to admit they have a problem and seek help. In recent days, several Democratic lawmakers have come under fire for excessive drinking—but not in a fun way.
Eric Swalwell, the former congressman and notorious degenerate accused of sexual assault, routinely used campaign funds to pay for alcohol. Swalwell placed more than a hundred orders on Drizly, the now-defunct alcohol delivery app, between 2020 and 2024. His prolific booze purchases accounted for almost 25 percent of Drizly payments by political campaigns, campaign committees, and PACs during that period, according to federal election records.
Another day, another Chinese national in the United States, busted for doing something he shouldn't have been doing. This time it was a Chinese national, photographing aircraft at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The post reads in full:
A 21-year-old Chinese national, Tianrui Liang, has been arrested and is facing charges after photographing a U.S. “doomsday plane” and other military aircraft without authorization at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. He was taken into custody at JFK Airport following the incident.
It's easy to look at the gun control laws passed in another state and think, "Well, at least it doesn't impact me." I vehemently oppose what's happened in California over the years, just as I vehemently oppose what's happened in Virginia in 2026, but since it doesn't affect me here in Georgia, it's easy to let it go when the dust settles. The problems really get started when those terrible ideas don't stay put, but are instead pushed onto the rest of the nation.
In other words, remember reading about all of those new Virginia gun control laws and how much they suck? Their senators are trying to implement them
The average immigrant pays more in taxes than the average paid by U.S. children, disabled people, retirees, students, and employees, says a cherry-picked report from the Cato Institute.
The cherry-picked report is intended to insert a headline into the minds of busy politicians and lazy reporters who are facing competing pressures from pro-migration corporate lobbyists and from pro-prosperity Americans.
The April 15 Cato report is headlined: “Immigrants Pay More In Taxes Than the Average Person.”
But the key trick in the Cato report is to quietly transfer many migration costs onto Americans. For example, the report celebrates the value of taxes paid by working migrants — but then quietly forces Americans to pay
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi approved new guidelines that pave the way for a wider range of arms exports, including domestically developed warships, combat drones and other military equipment.
The move has been welcomed by key defence partners such as Australia and has drawn interest from countries in Southeast Asia and Europe. US Ambassador to Japan George Glass described it as a "historic step" that would strengthen defence cooperation between allies. However, China strongly criticised the decision, warning that the international community would oppose what it called Japan's shift toward militarism.
Israel Flores Ortiz, an 18-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was sentenced Tuesday to 360 days in prison after being convicted earlier this month of groping several girls at Fairfax County High School.
Originally accused of groping 13 female classmates, Flores Ortiz was convicted on nine counts of misdemeanor assault, found not guilty on three counts, and had one charge dropped.
Flores Ortiz has ten days to appeal the sentence. Including the time he has already served, Flores Ortiz has 135 days left on his sentence.
After Flores Ortiz completes his sentence, he will serve two years of probation.
What to know
POSSIBLE PEACE TALKS: President Donald Trump has sounded positive about new peace talks despite uncertainty over Tehran's participation. "We’re going to end up with a great deal," Trump said this morning, adding that Iran had "no choice" but to send a delegation to Pakistan. Vice President JD Vance will likely head to Islamabad today, a source told NBC News.
IRAN WON'T NEGOTIATE 'UNDER THREAT': Trump also said that he was ready to resume bombing if talks don't go well as tomorrow’s ceasefire deadline looms. Iran's top negotiator warned it will not negotiate "under the shadow of threat" and has prepared "new cards
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee joined Starbucks leadership Tuesday to announce that the company will open a corporate office in Nashville. The announcement was officially made at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center on Peabody Street at 9 a.m. Jeff Hite of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce welcomed members of the media to the new office location for Starbucks. “Welcome to Peabody Union... the future home of Starbucks’ Nashville office,” Hite said. Lee spoke a short time later and added that the Starbucks announcement comes along with a $100 million capital investment and approximately 2,000 jobs. “This is because of
Southern Poverty Law Center says it faces
a Justice Department criminal probe over
paid informants replies
a Justice Department criminal probe over
paid informants replies
WASHINGTON — The Southern Poverty Law Center says it’s the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and faces possible charges over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.
The civil rights group made the announcement on Tuesday, saying President Donald Trump’s administration appears to be preparing legal action against it or some of its employees.
“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment.
Washington — Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida resigned from Congress on Tuesday, moments before the House Ethics Committee was set to determine whether she should be sanctioned for allegations of theft and other misconduct.
Cherfilus-McCormick has been charged with stealing nearly $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds for her campaign and has pleaded not guilty. She was likely to be expelled from the House in the coming days if she had not resigned.
"This was not a fair process," Cherfilus-McCormick said in a statement. "Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away so that I can devote my time to fighting for my neighbors
US forces board Iran-linked oil tanker
in Bay of Bengal as Pentagon ramps up
maritime crackdown replies
in Bay of Bengal as Pentagon ramps up
maritime crackdown replies
US forces have boarded an oil tanker previously sanctioned for smuggling Iranian crude oil in Asia, the Pentagon said Tuesday, as it puts into place a global warning to track down vessels tied to Tehran.
US forces "conducted a right-of-visit maritime interdiction" and boarded the M/T Tifani "without incident," the Pentagon said on social media.The Tifani was captured in the Bay of Bengal - between India and Southeast Asia - and was carrying Iranian oil, according to a US defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing military operation.
The US military will decide in the next four days what to do with the vessel,
The leftists at ActBlue got some ’splainin’ to do. Of course, that’s hard to do when you’re taking the Fifth.
The Democrats’ favorite — and allegedly crooked — fundraising platform is under greater scrutiny in the latest joint interim staff report from the House’s Administration, Judiciary, and Oversight and Government Committees. The report, “Fraud on ActBlue, Part II: Illicit Foreign Donations and a Cover-Up Spur Mass Resignations and Firings on ActBlue’s Legal and Compliance Team,” sheds more light on the criminally suspect practices of the left-wing fundraising titan. It’s really illegal to accept political contributions from foreign entities and individuals.
Thanks to the Dems soft-on-crime agenda, many Americans have been convinced that crime, chaos, and disorder were just facts of modern city life. Part and parcel, right? We were told to lower our expectations, accept the decay, and pretend that pesky “root causes” mattered more than actually putting away criminals and protecting decent people who are just trying to live their livesBut what’s happening in the Swamp right now blows a hole straight through that whole left-wing scam.
Because the truth is pretty simple… when leadership gets serious about crime, things change fast. And whether the media likes to admit it or not, President Trump deserves a whole lot of credit
Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy is under fire after a one-word social media post fueled accusations he was a "traitor" cheering against the United States amid the war in Iran.
"Awesome," Murphy wrote on X in response to a post reporting that 26 ships in Iran's shadow fleet have made it past the US blockade in the Gulf of Oman.
Murphy’s post adds to his long-running criticism of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and revived scrutiny over his past posture toward Iran, giving critics fresh ammunition to cast the Connecticut Democrat as hostile to U.S. interests.
Social media commenters unleashed on Murphy for the message, with some asking if his account was "hacked"
Looks like cheat's back on the menu, boys!
After dragging out the will they/won't they game for a couple of days, the Iranians finally agreed to return to Islamabad for another round of peace talks. Or at least that's what Pakistan claims, the Associated Press reported less than an hour ago. Once again, the same negotiators will meet at the same table to discuss the same issues, and ... do something different this time?
We'll see – maybe:
Neither the U.S. nor Iran have publicly confirmed the timing of talks. Iranian state television has denied any official is already in Pakistan’s capital.
There are plenty of Democrats who are not antisemites, just as many or most Democrats are not advocates of abortion until birth, alphabet ideology, or open borders.
But it is becoming impossible to run and win as a Democrat on a statewide or national stage without being actively antisemitic, and being friendly to Israel is absolutely, positively, without any doubt a position that will kill you in a Democratic primary—and make no mistake, in almost any district in America, Democrats will primary you unless you express deep skepticism or even hostility to Israel.
Alan Dershowitz ... Republican?
Yes. Not independent. Not disaffected. The famed appellate attorney and Harvard con-law professor has not just renounced his lifelong political affiliation, but Dersh has signed up for the other team.
What happened? It starts with Democrats' sharp turn toward anti-Semitism with Israel as its political golem, but as Dershowitz argues, that serves more as a harbinger for a broader radicalization within the party. The catalyst came last week when most of the Senate Democrat caucus voted to withhold funds for Israel's defensive systems, where the scales fell from his eyes on the power of anti-Semites within the Democrat Party:
In recent months, we've seen just a few too many people who came to the United States, legally or illegally, who have established themselves and then proceeded to go on rants about how evil and horrible America is. Some of them are even in Congress. Plenty of people are tired of this; why, one might ask, did they come here if America is all that bad?
Republican Representative Chip Roy (TX-21) has an answer in the Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists Act, which delightfully becomes an acronym as the MAMDANI Act.
Tuesday morning, President Trump did a brief telephone interview with Joe Kernen of CNBC's Squawk Box. The subject was Trump's prognosis for how the negotiations would proceed.
President Trump doesn't seem to have high hopes. He points out that even though the Iranian leadership has stated it would not attend the new round of negotiations in Islamabad, it is participating, so long as the U.S. continues to blockade Iranian ports. Trump did not back off (see VIDEO: USS Spruance Lights Up Iranian Blockade Runner in a Formidable Demonstration of FAFO – RedState) and yet here we are. He frames their attendance as being under duress, "[T]hey just got the okay
A violent “group of juveniles” allegedly chased a Philadelphia college student across campus and into a residence hall before beating him in a vicious, caught-on-video attack.
The assault happened around 2:50 a.m. Sunday at Temple University, when the teens chased the student into the Morgan Hall South dorm, according to the Temple University Police Department.
“Once inside, the group struck the student and damaged university property,” police said.
The unidentified student sustained minor injuries in the attack and declined medical treatment at the scene.
The damage caused inside the residence hall by the thugs included a smashed monitor at the security desk, ABC6 reported.
ActBlue employees took the Fifth in House
depositions 146 times in probe on alleged
donor fraud replies
depositions 146 times in probe on alleged
donor fraud replies
WASHINGTON — ActBlue employees invoked their Fifth Amendment right at least 146 times in depositions with congressional committees investigating alleged donor fraud on the fundraising platform, according to an explosive report released Monday.
Two ActBlue officials, one of whom formerly served as VP of customer service, and three of its former lawyers “declined to answer a single one of the Committees’ substantive questions,” stated the interim staff report from the House Administration, Oversight and Judiciary Committees.
“Their unwillingness to testify only amplifies the Committees’ concerns,” t
Hungarian legislation shielding minors from exposure to LGBTQI+ dogma violates European Union (E.U.) law and hurts respect for human rights and equality, the bloc’s court ruled Tuesday.
The European Court of Justice said Hungary’s legislation, first proposed in 2021 by the government of outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, “stigmatizes and marginalizes” LGBTQI+ persons and their feelings, and fails to uphold the E.U.’s prohibition of discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation, AP reports.
Hungary’s law specifically prohibited the display of content to minors that depicts homosexuality or gender change, while also providing harsher penalties for crimes of pedophilia, and had been challenged for some time by the E.U. and its courts.
The only thing more surprising about the Education Department’s proposed rule on college loans is that it took this long for common sense to prevail over the interests of Big College.
On Friday, the department issued a “notice of proposed rulemaking” that would, if implemented, block taxpayer-subsidized student loans for worthless degrees. To say that this is needed is a vast understatement.
As it stands, there is nearly $1.7 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, and “fewer than 40% of borrowers are in repayment, and nearly 25% of borrowers are in default,” notes The Federalist’s Breccan F. Thies.
A researcher’s bombshell new findings about a strange rock formation in Turkey could prove that Noah’s Ark was real, according to reports. Andrew Jones, a researcher with Noah’s Ark Scans, told GB News that “exciting new findings” about the rock formation first discovered in 1959 on Turkey’s Mount Ararat could prove the boat from the Book of Genesis once existed.
Unsettling all family business
replies
The April 11 protest conducted by the “resistance” at the Whipple Federal Building in the Twin Cities culminated in an assault on TPUSA reporter Savanah Hernandez. The assault was captured on video. Among the perpetrators were “suburban dad” Chris Ostroushko and suburban daughter Paige. Suburban mom DeYanna Ostroushko was in the mix as well. I call them the family that flays together.
Chris was of course featured in the January 27 Star Tribune profile “This suburban dad’s rant became touchpoint of ICE opposition.” The profile by Rachel Hutton constituted one small part of the Star Tribune’s daily support of “ICE opposition” during Operation Metro Surge.
Although Metro Surge has ended,
A curious characteristic of totalitarian communist regimes is the dearth, if not the total absence, of comedy. No comedy films were ever made in the Soviet Union or in any of the other communist countries. In fact, cinemas in communist countries were almost always empty, the films being so mind-numbingly abysmal. (One time in Havana, the government allowed American films to be shown in a theater and the lines stretched around the block, whereupon the government arrested the attendees inside the theater.)
In the Soviet Union, circuses were a major source of popular entertainment, devoid of the usual crude propaganda. The favorite aspect of Soviet circuses were the clowns, when the
Most people know media outlet Al Jazeera is supported by the Qatar regime. If you know anything about Qatar, in spite of the U.S.’s supposed support of them, they are subject to the dictates of the Muslim Brotherhood and closely connected to Hamas.
And Al Jazeera was active in sabotaging the Israelis in the Gaza War.
In case you think Al Jazeera’s influence has been exaggerated, take a look at these numbers:
‘According to its website, Al-Jazeera has ‘over 70 bureaus around the globe’ and is ‘one of the largest and most influential international news networks in the world....’
‘Between 2004 and 2020, AJ+ Facebook videos had been viewed over 10 billion times,
One of the most stunning and yet tediously repetitive features of America’s Donald Trump Experience is the expectation that President Donald Trump is going to become someone else.
People across the political spectrum seem permanently immune to the realization that the country has elected a man who says and does extraordinarily shocking things. With metronomic consistency, they exclaim, “Can you believe what he said? He’s just completely nuts! Where’s my 25th Amendment?”
(Snip)
Over the course of two terms, Trump has altered the course of U.S. history, diverting and even reversing leftist agendas that seemed hopelessly unstoppable.
On Monday, China’s Xi Jinping let the mask slip.
After weeks remaining largely absent from the diplomatic picture as the US conducted Operation Epic Fury against Iran, Xi called Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman to publicly urge a peaceful reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. At least five Iranian-linked tankers heading from the Gulf of Oman to Malaysia have changed course after the US Navy warned that ships carrying Iranian oil would be intercepted anywhere in the world.
And now, every concession the IRGC withholds costs it more than the one before.
Operation Epic Fury destroyed the military capacity Iran has used to threaten to close the strait,
Forget covering protests — some reporters think they should be the ones making the ruckus.
A group of over 250 journalists implored members of the Beltway press corps to “forcefully demonstrate opposition” to President Trump at the ritzy White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.
Trump, 79, is set to attend the swanky dinner for the first time in his presidency. But the group of 250 reporters is demanding that the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) ensure he doesn’t feel welcome.We believe the White House Correspondents Association should take stronger action by issuing — from the podium —