June 18, 2026

02b U.S. Politics – Progressive

The US has a long history of changing voting districts for political reasons. Is it legal?– www.dailykos.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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The gerrymandering of House districts is becoming more rampant across the U.S.

The word “gerrymander” was coined in America more than 200 years ago as an unflattering way to describe the political manipulation of boundaries for legislative voting districts by those in charge of drawing them.

The word has stood the test of time, in part because American politics remain fiercely competitive. And with time and technology, politicians have become even more adept at drafting voting districts that benefit their political party.

Trump backing Secret Service leadership after correspondents' dinner shooting– thehill.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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President Trump is standing by Secret Service leadership following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. In a statement, a senior White House official said Trump thinks the Secret Service did “an excellent job” of neutralizing the shooter and moving the president, along with first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Vance…

Jamie Raskin Crushes Dana Bash’s Effort To Blame Democrats For WHCD Attacker– www.politicususa.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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A Washington D.C. press that makes its living suckling the udder of Donald Trump was going to be completely clueless and traumatized as to why anyone would try to harm the elites in the bubbles of six and seven figure parties for a contrived event that they use to cozy up to power while broadcasting it all on television while Americans can’t afford groceries, healthcare, gasoline, and many are out of a job.

Any person who would take or even consider violent steps probably has some serious mental health issues, because such behavior is never an answer, but instead of taking a look in the mirror and questioning whether they are to blame for platforming, normalizing, and profiting off of Trump’s devisiveness, some in the Washington, D.C. press have deciced that the problem is political rhetoric, and that Democrats are to blame as much as Trump for the culture of divisiion and extemism that currently exists in the country.

On CNN’s State Of The Union, Dana Bash interviewed Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).

Raskin explained that he went to the White House Correspondents Dinner because he was supporting the First Amendment:

 I was so happy that President Trump went to that because he had called the press the enemy of the people. There have been so many attacks on reporters there have been lawsuits brought against media entities, and so there’s been this terrible assault on the First Amendment. Freedom of press and speech.

Fox Blames The Media For WHCD Incident– crooksandliars.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Trump’s propaganda channel, it’s that they’re going to use incidents like the one this weekend as a cudgel to silence his critics.

Here’s the crew from this Sunday’s Fox & Friends Weekend blaming the media for the apparent assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

JONES: So again, multiple problems. I talked to the president last night on my way home to New York. And again, a lion in his heart — extremely gracious. If I was in this situation, if I was the principal here, I would not have been as kind.

South Africa showed the world progress is possible– www.dailykos.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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On April 27, 1994, South Africa delivered a landslide victory to activist and former political prisoner Nelson Mandela and his once-outlawed African National Congress, marking the end of the apartheid era.

The election was held over four days, and over 20 million South Africans turned out, including millions who had long been denied their right to participate in an election. They stood in line for hours, all for a chance to vote in the country’s first truly democratic elections.

“This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country,” Mandela said in his victory speech. “I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy. Pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own.”

Carter, Collins throw elbows in Georgia Senate GOP debate– thehill.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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Reps. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Mike Collins (R-Ga.) traded barbs while former college football coach Derek Dooley largely stayed above the fray during Sunday’s Georgia Senate GOP primary debate — one day before early voting begins. Carter, Collins and Dooley alongside former Senate candidate John Coyne and retired Brig. Gen. Jonathan McColumn are vying for the Republican nomination to take on Sen. Jon Ossoff…

The White House Correspondents Dinner Gunman Changes Nothing– www.politicususa.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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Of all the things that the Trump administration could have asked for in response to a gunman trying to gain entry into the White House Correspondents Dinner, what the Trump administration and their supporters have settled on as a solution to potential mass shootings and assassination attempts is a ballroom.

It’s weird, right?

However, the rallying cry from the Trump administration is “build the ballroom.”

Acting AG Todd Blanche posted on X in response to the lawsuit that is holding up the construction of Trump’s ballroom:

This lawsuit is on behalf of a single person who walks in the vicinity of the White House once a month and expects to dislike the East Wing’s new design. The passing aesthetic gripe of a single person cannot possibly justify delaying the construction of a secure facility for the President to do his job.

The president’s job isn’t to hang out in ballrooms. The president’s job isn’t to build ballrooms. In fact, ballrooms have nothing to do with the presidency.

There is a whole

‘Shots Fired’ Leavitt: Trump Was Going To ‘Celebrate Free Speech’ At WHCD– crooksandliars.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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Trump’s gaslighting Press Sec wants us to believe Trump was going to be “delivering jokes and celebrating free speech” before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was derailed this Saturday.

We all know what was actually planned, which was for Trump to attack the press and then run off like a coward after his speech. Leavitt joked that there were going to be come “shots fired” ahead of the shooting incident that brought the event to an end.

Karoline Leavitt Joked There Would Be ‘Shots Fired Tonight’ Prior to Gunman at White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

Just hours before reports surfaced of multiple shots being fired in the lobby of the hotel where the White House Corresponds’ Dinner was supposed to take place, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described how she believed the evening would turn out.

“It’ll be funny. It’ll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room,” Leavitt, 28, said during an interview that is gong viral on social media, likely referring to the jokes that President Donald Trump was planning to make during his first-ever WHCD speech. “Everyone should tune in, it’s going to be really great.”

Senate Republican calls for scrapping filibuster to fund DHS after correspondents’ dinner shooting– thehill.com

pgnewser April 27, 2026 0

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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) says Republicans should “nuke” the Senate’s filibuster rule if Democrats continue to block Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding after the third assassination attempt against President Trump, citing “a moment of national danger.” Johnson acknowledged in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that Republicans would want…

GOP Lawmakers Are Pushing “Alarming” Bills to Shield Big Oil From Climate Liability – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com

pgnewser April 24, 2026 0

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A pumpjack extracts oil out of a well near Bakersfield, Texas.Bill Clark/ZUMA

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Republican lawmakers are attempting to shield big oil from having to pay for its contributions to the climate crisis, alarming environmental advocates.

New House and Senate bills led by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) would give oil and gas companies broad legal immunity from policies and lawsuits aimed at holding the industry accountable for damages caused by its emissions.

Dubbed the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026, the proposal would protect the sector from liability. It is similar to a 2005 law that has largely blocked lawsuits against the firearms industry over gun violence.

“To try to legislate that science away is something that’s really alarming.”

The New York Times Finds Hasan Picker, Glamorous Advocate of Theft and Murder– www.newsbusters.org

pgnewser April 24, 2026 1

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Back in 2020, National “Public” Radio promoted a nasty little book called In Defense of Looting. NPR summarized the “Marxist-informed” author Vicki Osterweil in the wake of the “racial justice” rioting in cities: “She argues that looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society.”

It’s interesting to imagine how they would feel if someone stole all their lame Nina Totenberg tote bags, or some transgressive activist broke in and emptied out the designer fashions in NPR CEO Katherine Maher’s residence. They are striking an anti-capitalist pose, and let’s guess it’s not the same if you commit property crimes against socialists.

House GOP leaders scramble to sell Senate’s slimmed-down budget with promises of ‘Reconciliation 3.0’– www.politico.com

pgnewser April 23, 2026 0

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House Republican leaders want a floor vote next week on the Senate’s budget resolution, the first step in writing an immigration enforcement bill and passing it by President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline.

“It has to be clean because it has to be quick,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday, indicating that conservatives could not make major changes to the other chamber’s blueprint at this time.

But Johnson and others still have to lock in support from conservatives who are threatening to vote against it if it doesn’t encompass more top GOP policy priorities, and it is proving to be a delicate balancing act.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) met Thursday morning with Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (Texas) and leaders of key House GOP factions, according to four people granted anonymity to share details of private meetings — an effort to quell concerns among some conservatives about the narrow scope of the current plan. Arrington and other senior Republicans have been pushing to expand the party-line bill currently under discussion.

FBI probes cases of missing or dead scientists, including four from the L.A. area– www.latimes.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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WASHINGTON — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday that it has launched a broad investigation in the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and staff connected to highly sensitive research, including four from the Los Angeles area.

“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.

The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced that it would investigate reports of the disappearance and deaths of the scientists, sending letters seeking information from the agencies involved in the federal inquiry as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.

MAJOR LEAK: New Supreme Court Leaks Further Damages Our Highest Court With Conservative Justices Squarely Targeted– gellerreport.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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The radical leftists on the Supreme Court are leaking to the treacherous New York Times to undermine and damage the conservative justices. For the cancerous left, nothing is sacred.

Which justice is the traitor? The FBI should conduct the investigation and that justice should be thrown off the bench. Justice Roberts took no action after the Dobbs leak which put the lives of conservative justices in immediate danger. So further leaks were inevitable almost encouraged.

Americans are demanding answers after the The New York Times obtained and published “secret” internal memos from the U.S. Supreme Court — marking the third major leak from the high court in the last four years.

Kerri Urbahn: “Which is really unheard of from the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“I think these leaks TEND to go in one direction and it is to undercut what the conservative wing of the Supreme Court is doing or in the process of doing.”

Troops Warned They’ll Be Prosecuted For War Crimes If They Follow Illegal Trump Orders– www.politicususa.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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Members of the Trump administration are leaking to reporters that the president is bluffing when he threatens Iran, but on Sunday, Trump threatened Iranian power plants.

Trump posted in part on Truth Social:

We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years.

Amnesty International said in a statement after Trump first threatened to commit war crimes, “International humanitarian law strictly prohibits direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects. The US President’s threat of extermination and irreparable destruction brazenly shreds core rules of international humanitarian law, with potentially catastrophic consequences for over 90 million people. It may constitute a threat to commit genocide, a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more defined acts ’with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.’”

Nearly 500 alleged MS-13 members in El Salvador face a sweeping mass trial– abcnews.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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SAN SALVADOR — Prosecutors in El Salvador opened a massive consolidated trial against nearly 500 alleged members of the MS-13 gang accused of tens of thousands of crimes including homicide, extortion and arms trafficking.

The joint trial, which opened Monday in San Salvador, is the latest in a practice that has been criticized by human rights groups as an infringement of the rights of the accused to defend themselves. Such trials form part of President Nayib Bukele’s iron fist approach against criminal groups in El Salvador, which has been under a state of emergency for four years to fight organized crime.

The 486 defendants are accused of being members of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, and accused of ordering more than 47,000 crimes from 2012 to 2022, according to the Salvadoran government. The crimes also include femicide and enforced disappearances.

GOP’s Outside-Money Edge Is Being Built by Billionaires, Oil, and Crypto– readsludge.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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The two giant super PACs closely tied to Republican leaders in the House and Senate are relying on billionaire donors, the fossil fuel industry, cryptocurrency firms, and Big Tobacco to bankroll their defense of Congress.

Around half of the combined haul of the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) and the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) has come from billionaires—at least $133.5 million—according to a Sludge analysis of Federal Election Commission data from the start of 2025 through March 2026. The billionaires include reclusive President Trump megadonor Timothy Mellon, casino mogul Steve Wynn, Republican megadonors Christopher and Jude Reyes, poultry magnate Ronald Cameron, and cryptocurrency tycoons the Winklevoss twins. It’s possible that more billionaires have donated to the SLF and CLF through their “dark money” affiliates, which hide the names of donors from the public.

The SLF and CLF were the top-spending outside groups nationwide in the 2022 midterms—though this time around, many more super PACs are loaded up with record amounts of cash to spend. The groups, aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), spend heavily on attack ads against Democrats and independent expenditures supporting Republicans each cycle.

Alex Jones is so mad about InfoWars becoming a satire site he loses his shirt and exclaims ‘they’re bodysnatchers’– www.independent.co.uk

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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A furious and shirtless Alex Jones went on an unhinged rant after The Onion gained the rights to lease his site InfoWars, describing the parody news website as a group of “bodysnatchers.”

“Just because you’re wearing my shirt doesn’t mean you’re me, let’s be 100 percent clear about that,” the conspiracy theorist, naked from the waist up, raged Monday.

He continued: “The whole thing’s about defaming me. You can’t take something over and then act like you’re somebody, even if you say it’s a parody. You could do a parody of somebody, but not if you took something from them… So you guys, keep laughing, just like you did a year and a half ago.”

Jones’ outburst came shortly after The Onion revealed its planned relaunch of InfoWars as a satirical site, though the deal still requires court approval. The outlet’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, has so far gained the rights to lease InfoWars for $81,000 on a month-by-month basis for six months, until potential renewal.

Facebook users shared a supposed video of Trump at Walter Reed hospital. It’s AI-generated– www.politifact.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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Two weeks after unfounded rumors said President Donald Trump suffered a health issue, social media users shared a video they said showed proof he was just taken to a hospital.

In the video, two men appear to assist Trump as he walks unsteadily out of a building. A sign on the building reads “Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.”

“BREAKING: There are some reports Trump has been taken to Walter Reed Hospital,” the captions of multiple Facebook posts sharing the video read. The earliest we found was posted April 19 and the latest was posted April 21.

The footage isn’t real. It contains signs that it was made with artificial intelligence.

We contacted the Walter Reed hospital’s communications office, which said that the logo shown in the video is not the hospital’s official logo, and the signage is inconsistent with that at the hospital.