June 18, 2026

02b U.S. Politics – Progressive

Trump Just Cost Republicans The House As Virginia Voters Pass New Map Boosting Democrats– www.politicususa.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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Trump’s scheme to steal the midterm election by getting red states to gerrymander more Republican House seats was a poorly thought-out effort with great potential to backfire from the moment it was launched.

The president assumed that Democrats would not fight back. Trump also assumed that red states would line up around the country to carry out his wishes.

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Democrats did fight back by playing by the same rules that Trump established. In California, Democrats romped to a new map that could net them five House seats. While in red states like Kansas and Indiana, Republicans refused to redraw their maps. Ohio Republicans rejected a full-scale gerrymander and went with a fairer map after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries threatened them with a ballot referendum.

Iran Found Its ‘Nuclear Weapon’. Now The US Has To Adapt– www.ndtv.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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For decades the US and Israel have drawn a bullseye around Iran’s nuclear programme, arguing that allowing Tehran a nuke risks triggering an arms race and destabilising a region that produces a third of the world’s oil and gas, as well as large quantities of fertilisers.

For the US, the risk is also loss of strategic control – since a nuclear-powered Iran rewrites power equations with neighbouring Arab states – over a critical global trade and transit hub.

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Air strikes, this year and last, on nuclear and military bases were meant to destroy Iran’s ability to enrich uranium past the current 60 per cent threshold and degrade its missile arsenal.

The strikes have been relatively successful; satellite images showed damage to nuclear and missile capabilities, particularly after the US dropped ‘bunker busters’ on Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow in June 2025, and on missile depots in March 2026.

‘The GOP should’ve done more’: Virginia Republicans point fingers after gerrymandering loss– www.politico.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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After a narrow loss in Virginia, Republicans are pointing fingers as President Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering fight slips into a stalemate.

Multiple Republicans say the party should’ve spent much more, much earlier to have a better shot at blocking Democrats’ Virginia map, which could give the party as many as four more House seats. And pressure is now growing on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to make up for Democrats’ gains with a GOP-led redistricting effort in his state, as soon as next week.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a single Republican tonight who doesn’t think the GOP should’ve done more in Virginia. It actually hurts more that it was so close,” said a GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, like others in this article.

There are mounting signs that Trump and the GOP have used valuable time and political capital on an arduous tit-for-tat that is so far looking like it will be close to a draw. Even if Republicans squeeze out gains in a new Florida map, their total gains are likely to be modest at best.

Dems brace for a close finish on Virginia redistricting effort– www.politico.com

pgnewser April 21, 2026 0

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Democrats hope gerrymandering Virginia will give them the edge they need to win back the House. But Tuesday’s special election is proving more competitive than they’d like.

Tight polling and concerns over voter turnout in an atypical April election have many Democratic party strategists and officials preparing for a close finish.

“I always thought this campaign would be close [and] 24 hours out, I believe that to be the case,” Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said on Monday, before the final day of voting.

“Anytime you’re on the ‘yes’ side of a referendum, you’ve got the burden of proof,” he added. “It doesn’t matter what the referendum is, but anytime you’re arguing for ‘yes,’ the other side is going to be arguing for the status quo.”

Iran brutally trolls JD Vance as Vice President dealt yet another humiliation | World | News– www.express.co.uk

pgnewser April 21, 2026 0

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Iran has brutally mocked JD Vance ahead of crunch peace talks on Tuesday. Iranian channels have reporrtedly shared images of JD Vance edited using Mr Bean meme showing him waiting for the conversation.

Vice President JD Vance and other top Trump officials are expected to travel to Pakistan today for a second round of intense negotiations. The US President has previously said it is “highly unlikely” he would extend the ceasefire deadline further than tomorrow evening.

However, Iranian state media said: “None of the Iranian delegation has arrived or even flown to Islamabad for negotiations with the US at the moment”

Meanwhile, the US President shared a new update on extending the US ceasefire with Iran past its new deadline of tomorrow evening.

As Fuel Prices Soar, Climate Leaders Urge Democrats to Tie Clean Energy to Affordability – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com

pgnewser April 21, 2026 0

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A tugboat tows a barge off the coast of Khasab, on northern Oman’s Musandam Peninsula near the Strait of Hormuz.GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty

Democrats should get louder in championing clean energy’s affordability and resilience from global shocks, according to some of the party’s leading voices on the climate.

As the Iran war roils economies by raising the cost of oil and gas, countries are aiming to accelerate their shift to cleaner energy. But in the US, Donald Trump has sought to kill off any alternative to fossil fuels while opposing Democrats have been reluctant to tie the conflict to any action on the climate crisis.

Trump Down Bigly

pgnewser April 21, 2026 0

President Trump’s approval ratings have fallen to 37% according to an NBC News poll. This is the lowest rating the poll has recorded during the President’s second term. His disapproval rating has hit 62%, with 50% now strongly disapproving.

Trump’s Approval Rating Sinks to Lowest Point of His Second Term – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com
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U.S. President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during an executive order signing event in the Oval Office of the White House on March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC.Andrew Harnik/Getty

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President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have dropped to their lowest level since the start of his second term.

According to the NBC News Decision Desk Poll released on Sunday, only 37 percent of adults approve of Trump’s work as president. Meanwhile, 63 percent disapprove, including 50 percent who disapprove strongly. Some of that strong disapproval comes from Trump’s handling of skyrocketing costs for most households: Among the over 32,000 American adults that NBC News surveyed over two weeks in March and April, 52 percent said they “strongly disapprove” and 16 percent “somewhat disapprove” of Trump’s handling of inflation and the cost of living.

Charlie Kirk Honored with 1A Protecting Laws

pgnewser April 21, 2026 1

Kansas joins a growing list of states which passed laws honoring the late assassinated American activist Charlie Kirk. The laws have one thing in common, they both protect rights enumerated in the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. These rights are the right to religious liberty and the right to freedom of speech.

States eulogize Charlie Kirk with new laws promoting religion and free speech– abcnews.com
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A new Kansas law will allow college students to sue their schools for free-speech violations. In Tennessee, a new law will encourage teachers and professors to include “the positive impacts of religion” in American history courses.

The common factor: Both are being done in the name of Charlie Kirk.

The laws are among the first of what could become multiple state tributes to the conservative activist who was killed while speaking at a Utah university last year. More than 60 Kirk-themed bills have been proposed in over 20 states seeking to promote his ideology, establish official days of remembrance or affix his name to roads and public places, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural.

Republicans stare down a growing, neverending FISA crisis– www.politico.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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Hill Republican leaders are finding themselves in a never-ending crisis over the fate of a government spy law that has unleashed a bitter, intraparty battle within the House while also threatening to derail a host of other GOP priorities.

Republicans now have scant legislative days to build new plans to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. But President Donald Trump, GOP leaders and White House officials have failed to come up with a workable framework for months — and there is no agreement yet on the path forward.

Some House Republicans hope they’re in the final stages of massaging a multi-year extension that would incorporate some minor changes intended to pacify privacy hawks. Others are already predicting they’ll face the same internal schisms come April 30, when the current short-term extension runs out.

Trump’s Christian Advisers Tell Him ‘He Is God’– www.newsbusters.org

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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On Saturday’s The Weekend: Primetime, MS NOW hosts Antonia Hylton and Charles Coleman Jr. combined for a remarkable escalation—from stylistic nitpicking to smearing an entire group of Christians as extremists.

After opening with a polished aside about Trump’s recent use of “God is good,” which she said had not previously been part of his ‘linguistic repertoire,’” Hylton quickly pivoted to a jaw-dropping—and wholly unsupported—claim: that Trump is surrounded by religious advisers who are “telling him that he is God,” or effectively God’s representative on Earth.

Hylton offered no evidence for the assertion, presenting it instead as her personal “read” based on following “extremist” Christian figures. But she didn’t name a single adviser making such a claim—let alone anyone literally telling Trump he is God.

Poll: Trump’s immigration message changed. Voters' opinions have not.– www.politico.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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The White House recalibrated its approach to immigration in the wake of the backlash against the death of two Americans at the hands of federal officials in Minneapolis, shifting leadership and softening its rhetoric. Yet three months later, Americans’ views of President Donald Trump’s deportations campaign remain broadly negative.

New results from The POLITICO Poll show that even as the spotlight has moved away from Trump’s mass deportations campaign and onto issues such as the economy and the war in Iran, public opinion has hardly changed, underscoring how difficult it will be for the administration to reset the immigration narrative.

In the poll conducted April 11 to April 14, half of Americans — including one quarter of his 2024 voters — said Trump’s mass deportations campaign, including his widespread deployment of ICE agents, is too aggressive. Roughly a quarter said his immigration posture is about right, while 11 percent say it is not aggressive enough.

The Onion Says It Has Again Struck a Deal to Take Over Infowars – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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Infowars could finally have a new owner: Global Tetrahedron, the Chicago-based company that owns the satirical news outlet The Onion. The news was first reported by journalist and podcaster Pablo Torre, and also announced by Onion CEO Ben Collins, who wrote on Bluesky, “With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars.” Collins also said on Bluesky that Infowars’ new creative director will be comedian Tim Heidecker.

This is the Onion’s second attempt to acquire Infowars.

Collins also posted a link to a statement purportedly put out by Global Tetrahedron’s fake owner, Bryce P. Tetraeder. “Today I can finally say the sweetest nine or 10 words in the English language: Global Tetrahedron has completed its plan to control InfoWars,” the statement read. “With this new InfoWars, we will democratize psychological torture, welcoming brutal and sadistic ideas from everyone, even the very stupidest among us. It will be like the Manhattan Project, only instead of a bomb, we will be building a website.”

How Cheap Drones Are Changing Wars Like the Ones in Ukraine and Iran– www.nytimes.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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One of the biggest takeaways of the war with Iran is that it has proven itself to be a surprisingly capable adversary against the United States. In addition to its willingness to go on the offensive, Iran has forced the U.S. and its regional allies to confront the rise of cheap drones on the battlefield.

Iranian drones, made with commercial-grade technology, cost roughly $35,000 to produce. That is a fraction of the cost of the high-tech military interceptors sometimes used to shoot them down.

Note: Estimated price of munitions per unit. In practice, multiple interceptors are fired when targeting a drone. For instance, with the $80 bullet fired by the Centurion Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM), 75 rounds are fired in a second. Sources: Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Open Source Munitions Portal, SRC Inc, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy.

Cheap drones changed the war in Ukraine, and they have enabled Iranians to exploit a gap in American defense investments, which have historically prioritized accurate but expensive solutions.

Countering drones has been a major priority for the Pentagon for years, according to Michael C. Horowitz, who was a Pentagon official in the Biden administration. “But there has not been the impetus to scale a solution,” he said.

Obama and Mamdani read and sing with New York preschoolers in first meeting | Barack Obama– www.theguardian.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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Barack Obama met with Zohran Mamdani for the first time on Saturday at a childcare center where the former Democratic US president and mayor of New York City read to preschoolers and led a sing-along.

The meeting comes as Mamdani, a democratic socialist who marked his 100th day in office just over a week earlier, is also trying to build a working relationship with Donald Trump – Obama’s Republican presidential successor.

Obama and Mamdani did not take questions after reading the book Alone and Together to the children – and leading a sing-along of The Wheels on the Bus.

Obama, a standard-bearer for the Democratic party, has offered to be a sounding board for Mamdani, 34. Mamdani’s star power, youth and progressive agenda has made him stand out in Democratic politics.

A new, telling sign emerges about GOP’s midterm fears– www.dailykos.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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It’s been about a week since now-former Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned from Congress after the Texas Republican admitted to having an unethical sexual relationship with at least one former aide, who later died by suicide.

Yet the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, has yet to set a special election to fill Gonzales’ seat—and that silence is telling.

President Donald Trump carried Gonzales’ seat by just over 15 percentage points in 2024, according to data from The Downballot. In a normal year, that would make this seat a GOP lock.

However, this election cycle has been anything but normal.

Last year, Trump pulled New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to serve as ambassador to the United Nations because he worried her seat would be competitive in a special election. And Trump carried Stefanik’s seat by nearly 21 points—making her Upstate New York district even stronger Republican territory.

Cognitively Declining Trump Wants Praise For Being Able To Sign His Name– www.politicususa.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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The White House should not be used as the world’s most expensive assisted living facility, but that appears to be what is happening during the second Donald Trump administration.

The president was showing signs of decline when he ran to return to the White House in 2024. Trump consistently got facts wrong, forgot names, and jumbled up basic history to the point where he once blamed Joe Biden for World War II.

If the American people had been paying attention, and Democrats deserve some blame for being afraid to call out explicitly and repeatedly Trump’s decline to voters, they would have seen that Trump was cognitively fit to serve as president.

Trump has made decision after decision, starting with his obsession with tariffs and willful blindness to the advice of experts, that he would cause severe economic damage, and going through believing Netanyahu and going to war with Iran, which has demonstrated a severe lack of mental competency coming from the White House.

Iran’s Supreme Leader sends chilling threat as he mocks US ‘arrogance and weakness’ | World | News– www.express.co.uk

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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Iran’s Supreme Leader has issied a chilling threat in a new bombshell message, while also taking a brutal swipe at Donald Trump and US troops.

Mojtaba Khamenei commended his forces for resisting what he called American and Israeli “arrogance”, before threatening to bring about “new defeats”. The Supreme Leader also said his opponents’ “weakness and humiliation” had been exposed for all to see. Khamenei has not been seen since the war began. He replaced his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli-US strikes at the start of the conflict.

In a statement issued through an Iranian state news agency, Khamenei said his forces had “stood firm against America’s sinister schemes.”

He continued: “With its strong divine and popular support and in dense, fortified ranks, it (the army) stands shoulder to shoulder with other mujahideen of the armed forces against the two armies at the forefront of the front of kufr (disbelief) and arrogance, clashing with them hand-to-hand and exposing their weakness and humiliation to the eyes of the world.

PBS Attacks Trump Admin’s Pope Criticisms– www.newsbusters.org

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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Ever since Pope Leo assumed the papacy, PBS News Hour Friday contributors MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart and The Atlantic staff writer David Brooks have tried to claim him as one of their own in their fight against the Trump administration. That continued this Friday as the duo essentially told Vice President JD Vance to shut up when it comes to criticizing Leo’s remarks about the Iran War, with Capehart claiming they are among “the most insulting things” a VP could say and Brooks arguing the Iran War is permissible under just war theory, but also isn’t because Trump.

Host Amna Nawaz began with Capehart and wondered, “Pope Leo issued a pretty strong statement rebuking the war in Iran. Trump then unloaded on him online. Vice President Vance jumped in to criticize him as well, telling him to be careful on matters of theology. Is it smart for the president to be getting into it with the pope? What does he stand to gain from that?”

Using logic he would never apply to abortion, Capehart replied:

No, it’s not smart at all to be getting into it with the pope, to be fighting with the pope, even though the president says, ‘I’m not fighting with the pope.’ Yes, you are, and over something where it’s like the president is taking the words from the pope very, very seriously, when any pope, Pope Leo, Pope Francis, Pope John Paul, would have been saying the same thing, because this is about life and death. This is about right and wrong. And it’s something big that’s happening in the world that has commanded the pope’s attention.

Homeland Security’s New Task Force Website Sanitizes Trump’s Deportation Agenda – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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The Department of Homeland Security just rolled out a new website for its city-occupying task forces that looks, more than anything, like a vibe-coded pitch deck. Launched on Friday, HSTF.gov was first announced on the FBI’s X account.

We don’t negotiate. We dismantle. The site’s slogan is displayed in the same sans-serif font stylings as direct-to-consumer deodorant companies and AI-powered lease abstraction platforms. The main page is largely consumed by a macho image, presumably AI-generated, of gas-masked officers with AR-15 style weapons advancing in formation through a cloud of tear gas.

Trump Threatens War Crimes in Iran Again – Mother Jones– www.motherjones.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters about the war in Iran during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Monday, April 6, 2026.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

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In a Truth Social tirade on Sunday morning, President Donald Trump claimed that Iran violated their ceasefire agreement with the US by firing shots at ships in the Strait of Hormuz and again threatened to commit war crimes by taking out the country’s energy infrastructure.

“Many of [the bullets] were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom,” Trump contended about Iran’s targeting of the ships, without evidence. “That wasn’t nice, was it?”

MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell Smears RFK Jr. as ‘Sick Racist’– www.newsbusters.org

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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On Thursday’s The Last Word, MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell used a selectively edited clip to portray HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “deeply perverted racist madman” who wants to remove all black children from their parents and have them “reparented” by the government. In fact, the HHS secretary said no such thing.

The MS NOW host began his dishonest segment by claiming that Kennedy wants to forcibly remove all black children from their parents:

Donald Trump’s Human Services secretary, who was convicted of the felony of heroin possession during the 14 years that he admits to having been a heroin addict, is the first cabinet secretary in history — indeed, the only administration official in the administration of any President in history — who wants to rip every black child in America out of the arms of that child’s mother and that child’s father. Every single black child.

O’Donnell worked in the word “Nazi” as he continued:

Robert Kennedy Jr believes that every black child in America has bad parents, and that every black child in America needs to be reparented. That is his personal Nazi word for it. “Reparented.” He did not say that some black children need to be reparented by him. He did not say that thousands of black children need to be reparented. He said, quote, “every black kid” needs to be reparented by the federal government and institutions run by him.