September 30, 2026

02a U.S. Politics – Conservative

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The Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left outfit that disparages conservative organizations by categorizing them as “extremist” alongside actual racist groups, was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday night for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. According to the indictment, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million it received from unsuspecting donors toward racist groups by paying “a covert network of informants” who were part of “violent extremist groups.”

One of the SPLC’s chief activities is what it calls “tracking hate,” which includes cataloguing racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan as well as mainstream civil liberties groups like Alliance Defending Freedom. The smear campaign it wages against Christian and conservative organizations by equating them to actually extreme groups threatens not just their reputations but their fundraising prospects and even their physical safety. In 2012, a gunman opened fire at the D.C. office of the Family Research Council, intending to “kill as many as possible” because he didn’t “like what they stand for.” He told law enforcement afterward that he was inspired by the SPLC’s inclusion of the Family Research Council on its list of so-called “hate” groups.

The Federalist has also found itself in the SPLC’s crosshairs. In the summer of 2017, the SPLC posted an article under its “Hatewatch” category attacking The Federalist as a “rabidly partisan” purveyor of “anti-LGBT and specifically anti-trans writings.”

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Fox News Digital exclusively reviewed a report that details how diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices have continued to thrive on hundreds of U.S. campuses through a more deeply rooted ideology, “intersectionality.” The Legal Insurrection Foundation and the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies issued the report.

“Intersectionality’s toxic influence must be confronted head-on,” the report said, emphasizing, “The future of our education system and the safety of our nation depend upon it.”

Despite several executive orders by Trump banning DEI, the report found that progressive school administrators across the country continue to profile students by group identity and to teach students to view America and Western society as global oppressors. The result, the report says, is increasing social discord and even violence spreading across America.

The report’s authors urge the president to take executive action to address intersectionality specifically by name, arguing that doing so will close a loophole that allows DEI practices to continue under the intersectionality banner. The report also calls on the administration to replace this school of thought with education programs that promote traditional American values.

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Take them out before they take these girls’ lives.

This is why no deal can be made. They slaughter their own people, the best ,brightest – young women, the future of Iran. The anti-human regime must be obliterated. The time for talk is long, long past.

Iranian Regime To HANG Young Women

As the Islamic Republic of Iran prepares to hang eight young women, the silence from the international community is deafening. The very institutions that claim moral authority—governments, global bodies, and prominent rights groups say nothing when the victims don’t fit a totalitarian narrative. Where are the emergency sessions, the urgent condemnations, the coordinated pressure? If human rights are universal, they cannot be selectively defended. This quiet acquiescence doesn’t just ignore injustice, it encoruages it.

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One of the regime’s more influential propagandists has been quietly operating from the safety of suburban Southern California — all while reportedly collecting a fat monthly paycheck from Tehran.

Meysam Zamanabadi, a longtime close advisor to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has deep ties to the Iranian regime stretching back to his days as Tehran mayor and head of law enforcement, has been living in Glendora, California, for nearly a decade.

Zamanabadi manages Ghalibaf’s English-language X account, churning out slick, meme-heavy anti-American content aimed squarely at impressionable—nay, gullible—U.S. audiences.

Is it any wonder that Democrat politicians are so easily duped by blatant Iranian propaganda on social media, when certain operations are generating from American soil, by operatives who speak English and post using emojis and Gen Z memes?

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President Donald Trump took to his social media account on Tuesday night, posting on a variety of topics. In two posts, he commented about the continued standoff between the United States and Iran regarding the Strait of Hormuz. The president asserted that Iran did not want to close the Strait so it could financially benefit from vessels passing through it, claiming that Iran was “collapsing financially” as a result of the Strait being closed.

“Iran is collapsing financially!” Trump posted late Tuesday night, the second such post he made about Iran and the Strait in a span of a few hours. “They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately- Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!”

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A congressional investigation into a growing number of missing and deceased scientists was triggered after the disappearance of a high-ranking Air Force official tied to some of the nation’s most classified research programs, a House Republican has revealed.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) revealed that the probe was sparked in part by the sudden disappearance of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland.

As Slay News has been documenting, McCasland vanished in February from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Burlison described McCasland as the “UFO general.”

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For the moment, the Democrats have won. Their Machiavellian gerrymandering scheme passed by a slim margin Tuesday night, slicing and dicing Virginia’s congressional districts into a ridiculous jigsaw puzzle that most closely resembles Illinois’ comical maps — meaning they have no logic, other than to rig the result and disenfranchise millions of voters.

 

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Virginians voted Tuesday to approve a redistricting map introduced by Democrats that allows wealthy, Democratic residents in northern Virginia to outvote rural residents in the state. 

The new gerrymandered map changes the balance of power from 6-5 to 10-1 in Democrats’ favor, even though the state went just under six points to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Democrats claim it is a “temporary measure” — existing through the 2030 Census — to combat President Donald Trump.

Former President Barack Obama was one of the chief spokespeople for the new map, alongside Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who ran in the 2025 election as a moderate Democrat. 

The map itself is truly something to behold. The so-called “lobster district” — Virginia’s new 7th congressional district proposed by the map — starts up north with a sliver of blue Fairfax County and then splits into two arms just north of Charlottesville, where the University of Virginia is located. The proposed 8th district similarly starts in Fairfax and then snakes down to the area east of Richmond. 

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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penned a sole dissent in District of Columbia v. R.W., a case decided Monday. The case concerned whether a police officer’s actions were supported by reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

A D.C. metropolitan police officer entered a parking lot in a marked police vehicle around 2:00 a.m. He noticed two people immediately dash out of a car. The police officer “had not done anything other than simply pull up,” according to court documents. The driver, “R.W.,” then began to reverse out of the parking space with at least one rear door open.

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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 to go forward, which I knew they were going to do anyway. I mean, I don’t think they had a choice. They have to negotiate.”

Trump lays out a stark choice for Iran: “And you know, the one thing I’ll say is this: Iran can get themselves in very good footing. If they make a deal, they can make themselves into a strong nation again, a wonderful nation again. They have incredible people, but they seem to be, you know, bloodthirsty. They’re led by some very, very unfortunately tough people. And I don’t mean tough in a good way. I think it’s very negative for the country because we’re much tougher than they are — like not even close. But they have to use reason and they have to use common sense, and they can get themselves into a great position to make themselves into a great country, but a legitimate country, not a country based on death and horror.”

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Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley: The ship the U.S. seized in the Strait of Hormuz this weekend was headed from China to Iran and is linked to chemical shipments for missiles. It refused repeated orders to stop. Another reminder that China is helping prop up Iran’s regime—a reality that can’t be ignored (Haley).

Wall Street Journal: The Iranian cargo ship seized by U.S. forces in the Gulf of Oman this weekend is part of a fleet that often sails to China, one of Tehran’s most important backers—and includes vessels that have been accused of transporting chemicals for Iran’s ballistic-missile program. The ship, the MV Touska, visited the southern China port of Zhuhai twice in the six weeks before it was intercepted Sunday on its way to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, according to shipping analysts. The Touska ignored six hours of warnings from the USS Spruance, a guided-missile destroyer, according to the Pentagon

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“Awesome,” Murphy said as he shared an article headlined “At least 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels bypass US blockade.”

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy is cheering for the United States to fail in Iran because he hates the president. “Awesome,” Murphy said as he shared an article headlined “At least 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels bypass US blockade.”

“A Democrat Senator is now publicly rooting for Iran. Did ActBlue start accepting donations from the regime’s oil revenue?” Said Montana Senator Tim Sheehy.

“The Democrats are rooting for Iran—literally,” said commentator Batya Ungar-Sargon. “Senator Chris Murphy may be the most psychotic example of this, but he is the apotheosis of a vibe that is utterly pervasive in the anti-Trump Left and Right. Donald Trump has a super-power: He exposes the most despicable qualities in his opponents, revealing them to be utterly beneath contempt.”

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An Indiana school counselor who was fired after discussing the district’s policy regarding “gender identity” with a reporter was awarded a $195,000 payout as part of a lawsuit settlement.

Kathy McCord, who has been an educator for 37 years, was dismissed after the South Madison Community School Corporation unveiled the new policy in August 2021.

The policy said that counselors and other employees were required to use “names and pronouns for the student that do not correspond with his or her sex” upon request of that student, according to a Wednesday release from Alliance Defending Freedom.

The policy sometimes “required employees to hide the new names and pronouns from parents,” the legal advocacy group said.

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As the ceasefire between the United States and Iran winds down, heated words filled the air.

“Iran has Violated the Cease Fire numerous times!” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.

He did not provide details about the alleged infractions.

Meanwhile, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, rebuked Trump for “imposing a siege and violating the ceasefire,” according to CNBC. He was referring to Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports.

He accused Trump of trying to turn peace talks into “a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering.”

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Disgraced former Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is facing renewed scrutiny after campaign finance records revealed extensive spending on alcohol delivery services, luxury travel, and personal expenses funded by donors over multiple years.

According to reports citing Federal Election Commission data, Swalwell’s campaign made more than 100 separate purchases from alcohol delivery service Drizly between 2020 and 2024.

The purchases account for roughly a quarter of all such campaign-related spending nationwide during that period.

Campaign Funds Used for Alcohol, Travel, and Luxury Expenses

After Drizly ceased operations, records show Swalwell’s campaign continued similar spending patterns through Uber Eats, with more than 220 transactions totaling over $19,000.

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A majority of voters support the SAVE America Act and want Congress to pass it before the midterms in November, a March Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found. The majority of respondents also support other election integrity requirements, like counting ballots within 24 hours after Election Day, removing noncitizens from the voter rolls, and even allowing states to share voting records with the Department of Homeland Security.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll is conducted monthly. Last month’s survey, conducted March 25-26, included 2,009 respondents identified as “registered voters.”

Much of leftist media outlets’ coverage surrounding the SAVE America Act — which would require documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote and voter ID in federal elections — fearmongers that the legislation would essentially disenfranchise voters en masse by enacting these common-sense safeguards. The recent Harvard/Harris poll suggests that Americans aren’t as worried about that as the corporate press would have you think.

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Biden-era FBI officials pressed forward with an investigation into Republican members of Congress after top prosecutors privately agreed central allegations lacked credibility, documents obtained by Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley show.

Based largely on claims made by then-Democratic New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the FBI launched a probe in January 2021 to assess whether several Republican members assisted individuals or groups who organized the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, records reveal.

“Operation Rampart 12 is yet another example in which Republicans were unfairly targeted and secretly subjected to an invasive investigation by the Biden DOJ and FBI,” Grassley told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“If not for my investigative work and brave whistleblowers, we wouldn’t know about FBI agents’ and DOJ prosecutors’ disgraceful efforts to try and destroy Republicans,” Grassley said. “My Democrat colleagues want to ignore these facts and evidence and defend the fired officials who participated in Biden’s lawfare. I’ll continue working to expose the widespread constitutional abuses that occurred under the Biden administration, because transparency brings accountability.”

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Key Takeaways

  • The U.S. Department of Education proposed a rule to hold colleges accountable for graduates’ earnings, introducing an ‘earnings test’ to ensure graduates earn more than those without a degree.
  • Programs failing to meet the earnings threshold, with bachelor’s graduates earning less than high school graduates, would lose eligibility for federal student loans.
  • The proposal aims to address rising student debt, emphasizing that taxpayer subsidies should only support programs that yield better outcomes for graduates.

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Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) remains sidelined due to an undisclosed medical issue, extending a weeks-long absence that is tightening the margin for House Republicans at a critical moment.

According to reports, Kean has not cast a vote since early March and has now missed dozens of roll-call votes, with no clear timeline for his return.

Extended Absence Raises Questions

Kean’s office confirmed he will miss additional votes this week but has provided limited details about his condition.

A spokesman said the congressman is “expected to be totally fine” and will be “back to a full schedule soon,” but offered no further updates.

Kean has been absent from public view for more than a month, with no recent in-person appearances.

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Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz is officially breaking with Democrats after more than six decades, saying the party he once backed has taken a turn he can’t support.

The longtime liberal announced he is registering as a Republican, pointing to what he described as growing “hostility” toward Israel and a broader ideological shift inside the Democratic Party.

Dershowitz made clear he’s not just switching labels; he plans to get involved in stopping Democrats from reclaiming power in Washington.

“I intend to work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House… and Senate, and I urge those who share my concerns about the increasing influence of radicalisms in the Democratic Party to vote, campaign and contribute for continued Republican control of Congress.”

The prominent constitutional lawyer has spent years warning that Democrats are drifting too far left, especially on foreign policy and civil liberties.

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There appears to be an expulsion fever occurring in the House of Representatives. Republican Tony Gonzales (TX-23) and Democrat Eric Swalwell (CA-14) resigned their seats, rather than face this particular fate. Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL-20) and Republican Cory Mills (FL-07) remain bloodied, but unbowed.

Cherfilus-McCormick’s day of reckoning comes Tuesday. The House Ethics Commission has found her in violation of 25 charges and recommended sanctions. Republican Ana Paulina Luna (FL-13) plans to bring a resolution to the floor to have Cherfilus-McCormick expelled.

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (SC-01) has Republican Cory Mills (FL-03) in her sights, and she’s locked and loaded.

I filed a resolution to expel Cory Mills from Congress.

Last time, my resolution to censure him failed because he cut a deal with Ilhan Omar to save his own skin.

My new resolution outlines how Mills misrepresented his military service, sexual misconduct, campaign finance violations and illicit involvement in federal contracts as a member of Congress, among other charges.

Swalwell is gone. Gonzales is gone. Mills is next.

We need to have the moral courage to do what’s right and expel him.

 

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Capitol Hill has never been a particularly ethical place, but complaints of wrongdoing on both sides of the aisle have led to a recent spike in efforts to remove sitting lawmakers.

One new development involves Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), who is facing a House Ethics Committee decision as dozens of her fellow Democrats seem eager to join Republicans in voting to expel her.

While House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) only said the party will “follow the facts and apply the relevant law” when it comes to allegations that Cherfilus-McCormick laundered millions of COVID-relief dollars, other Democrats were more decisive.

As Axios reported:

“The charges and examination are incredibly, incredibly serious and I think we have to hold ourselves to high standards here in the Congress,” Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) told Axios.

  • “We need to make sure we can tell the American people that they can trust in their lawmakers,” said Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.).
  • Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), John Larson (D-Conn.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) all told Axios they expect to vote for expulsion if that is what the Ethics Committee recommends.
  • “I’m going to take their recommendation very seriously,” said Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine).
  • Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-Md.) went one step further, telling Axios expulsion is “something we should take a look at seriously even if it’s not” what the committee recommends.

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The Trump administration has made it clear since its pullout from Minneapolis that the era of mass deportation is over and the administration will instead focus on criminal aliens. But sanctuary cities, which defend the worst of the criminal aliens, remain fully funded and undeterred well into Trump’s second term, with zero strategy to harness the news of endless heinous crimes committed in these fugitive jurisdictions.

How can it be that Republicans are planning one last party-line bill to fund ICE and aren’t even broaching the issue of sanctuary cities?

Just 15 months into this administration, the central campaign promise is dead.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, there were over 300 sanctuary jurisdictions in 2016. In response to Trump’s rise to power and his threat to enforce our sovereignty, this number rose to 564 by 2018 — an increase of roughly 88% in the first two years of the Trump administration. As of last year, FAIR identified at least 1,003 by May 2025.

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Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed a bill making Virginia the latest participant in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact last week, as the compact draws perilously close to upending our constitutional order. Every American who cherishes our republic should take notice.

For years, left-leaning pundits and politicians have campaigned to scrap the Electoral College, the method the founders gave us for choosing presidents. Their vehicle is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. With Virginia’s recent entry, the compact now includes 19 jurisdictions (18 states plus the District of Columbia) controlling 222 electoral votes. That falls short of the 270 needed to trigger the scheme, but the trajectory is clear and troubling.

Virginia’s action carries special irony. This is the state of James Madison, the Father of the Constitution. Yet in April 2026 Virginia has joined an effort that effectively rewrites a core feature of the document Madison helped design.

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I’ve never met Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, but I’ve voted for her twice: I live in her Tampa-area district. (Actually, she lives in my district — I’m pretty sure I got here first.)

She’s still in her second term, but already on the cusp of becoming a national figure. She’s gone one-on-one with Joe Rogan. On live TV, she corrected Bill Maher about her “Cuban” ethnicity (“We’re Mexican. We’re not all the same, Bill.”) Camera-shy, she ain’t.

If you could buy stock in a politician’s future, Rep. Luna’s stock value would be soaring.

And you don’t have to be a genius to figure out why. If Jay Leno’s quip is accurate — and politics is “show business for ugly people” — then Mrs. Luna is preposterously overqualified. Not too many of her colleagues could’ve modeled for Maxim Magazine. (Not even Rosa DeLauro.)

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WASHINGTON/CAIRO/ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. military said on Tuesday it had seized a tanker linked to Iran in international waters, its latest apparent action to enforce a blockade, with time running out on a ceasefire and the prospect of last-ditch further peace talks still up in the air.

Washington has expressed confidence that talks with Iran will go ahead in Pakistan, and a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering joining. But with the final hours of a two-week truce ticking by, there was little time left for the talks.

The U.S. military said it had boarded the tanker Tifani “without incident”. The ship, capable of carrying 2 million barrels of crude, last reported its position on Tuesday morning as near Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, according to MarineTraffic tracking data. It was close to fully loaded and had signaled Singapore as its destination.

“As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran — anywhere they operate,” U.S. Central Command said.

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A national free speech group is calling on the Catholic University of America to allow pro-Israel speakers on campus – or else face an accreditation complaint.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent a second letter to CUA leadership on Friday, asking it to remove its restrictions on Students Supporting Israel.

The intervention follows a proposal earlier this year for the group to host Israeli homeland security expert Dany Tirza as well as Jewish Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, as The College Fix previously reported.

The university is requiring the club to host a pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel speaker.

While the school says this is part of their policy, that is only supposed to apply when an invited speaker takes a view contrary to the Catholic Church, such as if a club invited a pro-abortion speaker. However, the university did not even apply this policy, allowing the campus Democrats club to host a speaker who supports abortion, according to Student Supporting Israel’s leadership.

The Catholic university in Washington, D.C. allowed an event with an anti-Israel speaker, for example, but did not present the pro-Israel side, FIRE also said.

“We again strongly urge CUA to approve SSI’s event requests and assure students that the university will not condition event approval on student’s willingness to arrange for and host speakers opposed to their own viewpoint,” Program Counsel Jessie Appleby wrote to President Peter Kilpatrick.

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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) celebrated the news that 26 Iranian ships broke through the U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman.

I haven’t found many reports about the fleet bypassing the naval blockade. I came across this:

Maritime tracking firm TankerTrackers.com reported that a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) operated by the National Iranian Tanker Company departed Iran in late March 2026. The vessel then sailed towards Southeast Asia, where it reportedly transferred approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil to another supertanker.

Following the transfer, the tanker returned towards Iranian waters and is believed to have crossed what analysts describe as a US “siege line”, a monitored maritime enforcement zone linked to the ongoing blockade efforts.

According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, the vessel successfully re-entered Iranian-controlled waters and is expected to reach Kharg Island shortly. The report stated, “This tanker unloaded its 2 million barrels of crude oil and then returned home through the blockade line,” citing data from TankerTrackers.com.

The Trump administration is fighting a FISA court ruling that prevents the government from specifically searching for individuals online who have merely contacted a foreigner. The administration is challenging the FISA court as the court’s existence comes up for renewal this April 30. The GOP-led House extended the program by unanimous consent vote during a late-night session.

DOJ Reportedly Appealing Ruling That Limits Feds’ Ability to Use Notorious Spy Tool– www.westernjournal.com
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The Trump Department of Justice is appealing a ruling limiting the use of certain tools to collect Americans’ data, according to The New York Times.

Congress is currently weighing an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals’ communications with Americans, as President Donald Trump urges Republicans to renew the program before its authorization expires on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued a classified ruling in March extending the program’s ability to collect emails and phone calls through March 2027, though the judge objected to tools analysts use to “process messages,” per The New York Times.

Under the court’s ruling, intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency cannot use filtering systems that refines search results to examine communications of specific individuals who contact foreigners, The New York Times reported, citing a person familiar.

RFK Jr. is vowing to replace the “woke” panel currently in charge of choosing what preventative care gets covered by Obamacare. Kennedy plans on replacing the current allegedly “woke” members of the U.S. Preventative Service Task Force, saying “We’re now bringing new members on who have a clear mission.”

RFK Jr. will overhaul ‘woke’ panel that decides preventive services covered under ‘Obamacare’– www.lifesitenews.com
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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force “has been lackadaisical and negligent for 20 years,” Kennedy told the House Ways and Means Committee. 

Kennedy announced last July that he intended to dismiss all 16 panel members of the task force because he viewed them as too “woke.” 

“We’re now bringing new members on who have a clear mission,” Kennedy told the committee on Thursday. 

Politico reported that “some public health advocates worry that Kennedy would remake the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to align it with his views, many of which go against mainstream science, the same way he overhauled the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appointing members who shared his skepticism of vaccine safety.” 

The task force was formed in 1984 to advise the federal government on preventive health matters. The Affordable Care Act in 2010 broadened its mandate, giving it the power to determine which screenings, counseling and preventive medications insurers must cover at no cost to patients.

In recent years, however, the task force had undergone mission creep. It developed a formal Health Equity Framework to systematically consider race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and social risk factors to be used in all of their recommendation processes.