April 14, 2026

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Excerpt from slaynews.com

A wealthy Democrat megadonor has announced that he will not be donating any more money to President Joe Biden.

Instead, tech mogul Jacob Helberg has decided to donate $1 million to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

Helberg acknowledges that his move will not be popular in liberal Silicon Valley.

However, he notes that “Trump was right” on several key issues.

Helberg’s $1 million donation to Trump’s re-election effort makes the tech adviser one of the largest financial backers of the 45th president’s bid to win back the White House in November.

According to The Washington Post, Helberg previously used his money and influence to support Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s doomed campaign for president during the 2020 election.

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Excerpt from www.washingtonexaminer.com

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) on Monday called on President Joe Biden to replace Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Martin Gruenberg amid toxic workplace culture allegations at the agency.

The move was a departure from Brown’s Democratic colleagues but comes as he battles for reelection in a competitive race and has increasingly distanced himself from Biden on an array of policies.

Brown said that given the troubled claims against the bank regulator and its leadership under Gruenberg, there “must be fundamental changes at the FDIC.”

“Those changes begin with new leadership, who must fix the agency’s toxic culture and put the women and men who work there — and their mission — first,” he said in a statement.

Brown called on Biden to “nominate a new chair” immediately so that the Senate could confirm him or her, a move that would avoid an immediate resignation from Gruenberg and avert temporary Republican control of the agency by Vice Chairman Travis Hill.

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Excerpt from thehill.com

 

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights group, on Monday announced a $15 million investment to reelect President Biden in November and combat escalating anti-transgender rhetoric on the 2024 campaign trail.

The education campaign will cover six key swing states — Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada — and will include paid advertising, field efforts and grassroots engagement, the group said Monday in a news release.

Recent polling suggests former President Trump leads Biden in the battleground states that will decide November’s election, though the rivals are tied at 44.8 percent nationally, based on The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s average of 700 polls pitting the two against each other.

HRC also plans to maintain “a strong ground game” in California, Texas, New York and Delaware, where LGBTQ congressional candidates — including Delaware Democrat Sarah McBride, poised to become the nation’s first openly transgender congresswoman — are on the ballot.

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Excerpt from lidblog.com

 

The leftist voters in a liberal Massachusetts town are furious that they are suddenly being inundated with the exact thing they voted for when they pulled the lever for Joe the destroyer Biden.

Norfolk, Massachusetts with 11,500 residents voted at plus 22 for Biden in 2020. But now they are peeved that Biden is doing just what he promised he would do by importing millions of illegals into this country. And now they are headed to Norfolk.

And boy are these lefties pissed.

Apparently, the state is proposing that a shuttered jail, the Massachusetts Bay State Correctional Center, be used to house illegals instead of prisoners.

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Excerpt from rapidcityjournal.com

For the first time since 2021, South Dakota will have a full roster of federal district judges.

Eric Schulte was officially confirmed by a vote of 61-33 in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday in Washington, clearing the way for the Sioux Falls lawyer to take the bench with a lifetime appointment in South Dakota’s U.S. District Court.

Camela Theeler, a state circuit court judge in Sioux Falls, is scheduled for a Senate vote Thursday, with all signs pointing to confirmation. She was recommended by the Senate Judiciary Committee with a vote of 20-1.

“This was a smooth confirmation process with strong bipartisan support,” Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond (Va.) law professor who studies federal judicial nominations, told News Watch.

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Excerpt from trendingpoliticsnews.com

Former President Donald Trump found his sweet spot during a weekend speech, joking about running for a third term that rallied his conservative base while simultaneously sending liberals into apoplexy.

Giving remarks before the National Rifle Association at the group’s annual meeting, President Trump harkened back to the four terms of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who extended his stay in the White House following the outbreak of World War II.

“You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term? You tell me,” Trump quipped according to Politico. The open question prompted audible roars of approval from the audience.

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Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

Voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin get their first look Monday at an onslaught of Democratic attack ads against Donald Trump that will be coming their way for the remainder of the election cycle.

The inaugural ad from the Democratic group American Bridge 21st Century features Anna Igler, a Wisconsin OB-GYN and mother of two, who decided to abort her third pregnancy due to a devastating fetal abnormality.

Igler says she “had to end a wanted pregnancy because my baby was very sick.”

“So my husband and I made a decision to have an abortion,” she says, choking up as she recalls the moment her doctor told her the baby would not survive. “That’s not a decision for any politician, including Donald Trump.”

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Excerpt from www.politico.com

A prominent pro-Israel super PAC is throwing its backing behind Democrats running in a handful of competitive races, as the party grapples with how the Israel-Hamas war will impact races up and down the ballot in the fall.

The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC is issuing its first general election endorsements, shared first with POLITICO. The group is supporting three senators running in battleground states — Sens. Bob Casey (Pa.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.) and Jon Tester (Mont.) — along with three Democrats looking to flip House seats currently held by Republicans: Joe Kerr, a retired fire captain challenging Rep. Young Kim in California’s 40th District; former state Assemblymember Rudy Salas, who’s running in a rematch against Rep. David Valadao in California’s 22nd District; and former news anchor Janelle Stelson, who’s running against Rep. Scott Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th District.

The group said it will roll out additional endorsements ahead of November. DMFI PAC does not announce its future spending plans, but has a record of notable investments in support of its endorsees. In 2022, the group spent more than $7 million on independent expenditures, primarily in House races. This cycle, it has so far spent more than $500,000 in a half-dozen House contests, along with the California Senate primary in support of Rep. Adam Schiff and for President Joe Biden.

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Excerpt from www.politicususa.com

Judge Merchan brought the parties into court early on Monday, and said that due to issues that have come up over the weekend closing arguments at the Trump criminal trial won’t happen until after Memorial Day.

Anna Bower of Lawfare posted from inside the courtroom:
First, Justice Merchan thanks the parties for coming in early. There were issues that came up over the weekend, he says.

As a result of some of those issues, it’s become apparent that we WON’T be able to move to summations tomorrow.

We will finish up evidence, the pre-charge conference, and so on this week, Justice Merchan continues.

And then we’ll move to closing arguments next week, after the long weekend.

Now we’re moving on to issues regarding objections to evidence that might be introduced during the continued cross examination of Michael Cohen.

The prosecution objects to the introduction of an email sent to Michael Cohen by Robert Costello’s law partner back in 2018.

The new schedule means that the jury might not get the case until sometime in June, and that is without any further issues or delays.

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Excerpt from www.weny.com

“What’s happening in Gaza and Israel is heartbreaking: Hamas’ vicious attack on Israel, killing innocent lives and holding people hostage; innocent Palestinians caught in the middle of all this – men, women and children killed or displaced and in desperate need of water, food and medicine,” the president said.

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Excerpt from thehill.com

 

Ben Carson, who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under former President Trump, said his ex-boss “does not like to surround himself with yes people” when asked about his stance on abortion laws.

CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Carson on “State of the Union” to describe his conversations with Trump about abortion laws, noting that Carson has expressed support in the past for national legislation on abortion.

Trump said last month that he believes abortion law should be decided by the states in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“President Trump does not like to surround himself with yes people. And he likes to have healthy discussions about things and recognize that in terms of saving the lives of unborn he has done more than any other president. So I give him much credit for that,” Carson said.

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Excerpt from www.lehighvalleynews.com

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Josh Siegel’s biggest fear is that a resident of one of the Lehigh Valley’s major cities will throw a battery in the trash.

After that trash gets picked up from the curb by sanitation workers, Siegel said, the battery ends up in a garbage truck, where it could burst into flames.

“And now that garbage truck is on fire in the middle of a densely-packed, crowded street, and all of a sudden cars are on fire, houses on fire,” said state Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh.

“I’m trying to prevent the loss of life and the loss of property and basically make sure that we are being as proactive as possible and making sure that we don’t have those incidents here in the Lehigh Valley.”

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Excerpt from boltsmag.org

An initiative to protect abortion access in Arizona has gathered more signatures than it needs to make the November ballot. If it passes, it wouldn’t be the first time Arizonans have used direct democracy to enshrine rights directly relevant to women. A popular initiative gave Arizona women the right to vote in 1912, years before the 19th Amendment brought suffragists nationwide victory.

Getting a measure on the ballot is expensive and onerous, says Dawn Penich, a spokesperson for Arizona for Abortion Access, the organization behind this year’s measure. But her group is determined to champion it to restore abortion rights and overcome restrictions put in place by Arizona Republicans. They’ve raised over $12 million to recruit hundreds of volunteers, train them, and send them out to canvas in high-traffic areas under the blazing desert sun. Their goal: get at least 383,923 Arizonans who are registered to vote to sign a petition so it qualifies for the ballot.

“It is grueling work,” Penich said. “I’m out in the field, on the streets, at trailheads with our volunteers many days a week.”

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Excerpt from labortribune.com

A Republican-backed bill to make it harder to amend the constitution through the initiative petition process – thus ending majority rule voting in Missouri – has died after a record-breaking 50-hour Democratic Senate filibuster that made national news.

Currently, ballot referendums generated by citizen-led initiative petitions need only a simple majority to pass. SJR74 would have required the approval of a majority of voters statewide and a majority of voters in five of the state’s eight congressional districts to pass.

The disagreement that triggered the filibuster was about “ballot candy,” items added to the bill meant to trick voters into supporting the measure. Those items included a requirement that those who vote in Missouri elections be U.S. citizens and a clause that foreign governments cannot fund ballot initiative efforts. Both items are already required under Missouri law.

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Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

Former President Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas’ chief legal officer.

“I would, actually,” Trump said Saturday when asked by a KDFW-TV reporter if he would consider Paxton for the national post. “He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.”

Paxton has long been a close ally of Trump, famously waging an unsuccessful legal challenge to Trump’s 2020 election loss in four battleground states. He also spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021.

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Excerpt from thehill.com

 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is tee-ing up a second attempt at passing the bipartisan border bill — after Republicans blocked it earlier this year — a move that comes as the situation at the southern border remains top of mind for voters ahead of the November elections.

Schumer announced on Sunday that the Senate will take up the bipartisan border deal as a standalone measure this week. The vote is all but certain to fail amid opposition on both sides of the aisle, but it will allow Democratic leaders to flip the messaging switch on Republicans as the border dominates chatter on the campaign trail.

It will also give vulnerable Democrats an opportunity to go on the record in support of cracking down on the situation at the southern border.

“We are hopeful this bipartisan proposal will bring serious-minded Republicans back to the table to advance this bipartisan solution for our border,” Schumer wrote in a letter to colleagues.

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Excerpt from www.nj.com

The FBI agents stepped quietly inside U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez’s modest white house tucked in an upscale neighborhood along New Jersey’s scenic Palisades one morning in June 2022, creeping in through the garage.

They were directed to move discreetly, none of the shock and awe of a pre-dawn raid and perp walk. Nobody was even home.

“We were sensitive that we were searching the home and executing a search warrant of a United States senator,” the FBI agent in charge of the search testified as Menendez’s federal corruption trial got underway this week, revealing a treasure trove of new details in the scandal.

New Jersey’s senior senator, along with his wife, Nadine, were at his apartment in Washington, D.C., a four-hour drive from Englewood Cliffs, even on a good day, with light traffic and U.S. government plates.

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Excerpt from www.civilbeat.org

Police can seize property without a court process if they suspect it is connected to a crime or poses a danger.

This may sound strange, but we still prosecute property as well as people. The rationale is even weirder and dates back centuries.

Suppose you were living in ninth-century Britain when something terrible happened. You were on your way to market to sell something when a brigand came out of the bushes, demanded your goods and then stabbed you with a dagger.

If he was caught, the highway robber would be prosecuted (or worse) and so would his dagger. In fact, the Crown would confiscate it.

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Excerpt from dailycaller.com

CNN host Jake Tapper pressed Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett Sunday regarding her recent clash with Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene during a GOP Oversight Committee hearing this week.

Crockett appeared on “State of the Union” to discuss her viral blow up with Greene at an Oversight Committee hearing late Thursday night as lawmakers were voting on whether or not to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. During the hearing, Greene made a comment about Crockett’s eyelashes, sending the meeting into a tailspin that eventually led to Crockett making a comment in reference to Greene as she called out her “beach blonde, bad built, butch body.” (RELATED: ‘Don’t Tell Me To Calm Down!’: GOP Oversight Committee Hearing Turns Into Absolute Chaos)

“You‘ve really embraced what you said. You‘re printing it on swag, I think we have an image of the shirt here that you‘re selling to help raise money to elect Democrats. How would you respond to say it‘s inappropriate to respond to an attack on somebody‘s physical appearance. You hear the congresswoman AOC say you shouldn‘t be attacking somebody‘s physical appearance, but then you did the same thing. You attack her physical [appearance],” Tapper stated.

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Excerpt from www.jsonline.com

 

MADISON – U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is not pledging to accept the result of the November presidential election, leaving a door open to objecting to the certification of election results — a scenario that prompted an attack on the U.S. Capitol four years ago when former President Donald Trump lost reelection.

Johnson told The Cap Times on Saturday he could not answer whether he would accept the results of the 2024 presidential election, calling it an “impossible hypothetical.”

“We have to see exactly what happens,” Johnson said in an interview at the state Republican Party convention in Appleton. “If there are all kinds of abuses, we might have to start questioning those abuses, might have to investigate them. I certainly want to (accept the results).”

A spokeswoman for Johnson did not immediately answer questions early Sunday about what kind of events could push Johnson to seek an investigation.

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Excerpt from agenda.ge

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Thursday denounced foreign politicians joining “radical anti-Government rallies” against the domestic law on transparency of foreign influence in the capital city of Tbilisi as “unfriendly acts against Georgian people”.

Papuashvili’s comments followed visiting foreign ministers from Latvia, Estonia, Iceland and Lithuania joining a protest rally against the law on Rustaveli Avenue on Wednesday.

In his social media message, Papuashvili noted the development was “not just an unfriendly act against Georgian people, but also a symptom that the Russian Government had imparted some of its worldview to its staunchest opponents, especially in the Baltics”.

Addressing a rally of exalted youth led by radical opposition parties against the Government, and calling them the ‘whole nation’ is something that you would expect from a Soviet or Russian propagandist, not a foreign minister of an EU member state. And helping to topple a democratically elected government just because you do not like their legislation is out of the Soviet handbook”, he said.

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Excerpt from www.thejc.com

Large protests took place on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem motorway on Monday as anti-government activists launched a “day of disruption” to mark the start of the Knesset’s summer assembly.

Police clashed with the demonstrators, whose key demands included an early election amid the failure to bring home the hostages and disagreements over Charedi conscription legislation.

Demonstrators were also rallying over the predicament of the tens of thousands of residents from the north and the south who remain displaced due to attacks from Hezbollah and Hamas, Times of Israel reported.

Protesters came from across Israel and convoys merged en route before starting to arrive in Jerusalem at around 2pm.

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Excerpt from time.com

It was a speech that preached harmony while highlighting differences. After William Lai Ching-te was sworn in as Taiwan’s new President on Monday, he used his first address to call for repairing cross-Strait relations, while namechecking “democracy” 31 times to underscore the gulf between his island’s government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) determined to bring it to heel.

“Mutual benefits and prosperous coexistence would be common goals,” Lai, 64, told the crowd that featured eight heads of state among 51 international delegations, including from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Japan, and Canada. “I hope that China will face the reality of [Taiwan’s] existence.”

It’s a place in the world that Beijing is determined to undermine. Taiwan became politically self-ruling at the culmination of China’s civil war in 1949 after spending half-a-century as a Japanese colony until 1945. Although the CCP has never ruled the island of 23 million, Chinese President Xi Jinping considers its return to the fold as a “historical inevitability” and has repeatedly threatened force to achieve it.

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Excerpt from www.theguardian.com

The next UK general election is looming, with most analysts expecting it to be called late this year.

After 13 years of Conservative rule, Keir Starmer’s Labour has been consistently ahead in the polls since the start of 2022.

The latest a general election could be called is January 2025. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has the power to call a general election at any point before then, but facing a potential loss, experts think that he will put it off to stay in power for longer.

The Guardian will track latest polling averages, sourced from all major British polling companies, until election day.

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Excerpt from abcnews.go.com

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines blamed Chinese fishermen on Monday for a massive loss of giant clams in a disputed shoal controlled by China‘s coast guard in the South China Sea and urged an international inquiry into the amount of environmental damage in the area.

The Philippine coast guard presented surveillance photographs of Chinese fishermen harvesting large numbers of giant clams for a number of years in a lagoon at Scarborough Shoal, but said signs of such activities stopped in March 2019.

Parts of the surrounding coral appeared to be badly scarred, in what the coast guard said was apparently a futile search by the Chinese for more clams. The lagoon is a prominent fishing area which Filipinos call Bajo de Masinloc and the Chinese calll Huangyan Dao off the northwestern Philippines.