June 21, 2026

x01 Archives

Blurb:

 

In midterm elections in which control of all or part of Congress flips away from the president’s party, a common pattern emerges.

The party out of power grows stronger on the hypothetical midterm-election ballot as the year moves toward Election Day.

A president isn’t on the midterm ballot, but his/her popularity and the perception of how the country is doing factor in to how voters vote in a midterm election.

The perception of both Donald Trump’s performance and the country’s current situation is not good.

Blurb:

State lawmakers are taking steps to, in the future, keep immigration detention centers out of communities.

Under a bill that moved out of an Illinois House committee Wednesday, new immigration detention centers would be prohibited within 1,500 feet of schools, churches, day care centers, cemeteries, public parks, forest preserves, private residences and public housing.

Testifying in support of the legislation was House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, both of whom represent the Broadview area, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center played a major role in Operation Midway Blitz last fall. The bill got broad support from Democrats, but was unanimously opposed by Republicans.

“This bill says something very simple and very reasonable: Detention facilities do not belong in the middle of our neighborhoods,” Welch said. “They should not be next to schools, they should not be next to day care centers, they should not sit beside parks, public housing, places of worship, or private homes like the Broadview detention center does.”

Blurb:

US deploying 1,500 troops from 82nd Airborne

Iran could significantly increase U.S. casualties if its elite military and proxy forces shift to guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks in the region, a leading military analyst has warned.

Blurb:

Ha Nguyen McNeill, the top official at the TSA, is testifying about the dire air travel situation before the House Homeland Security Committee, where she is calling on Congress to fund DHS and “ensure this never happens again.”

McNeill said the TSA has already lost more than 480 transportation security officers during this shutdown, while callout rates have accelerated. At some airports, 40 to 50% of their workforce is calling out of work on certain days, she said.

“This has led to the highest wait times in TSA history, with some wait times greater than four and a half hours,” McNeill said. “We are being forced to consolidate lanes and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers. It is a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation.”

Blurb:

The Vatican has issued a new directive discouraging investment in mining, framed as a matter of environmental responsibility. But the Faith and Reason panel sees something else: a Church that blessed Pachamama idols in 2019, whose current Pope knelt to Pachamama in 1995, now imposing an anti-human ecology that prioritizes the earth over the people who live on it.

The hosts defend their reporting on the newly surfaced photographs of Pope Leo XIV participating in a Pachamama ritual, not to scandalize, but to demand clarity. If cardinals condemned Pachamama as “demonic” and “apostasy” under Francis, what do they say now that the man in the photo sits on the Throne of Peter? The silence, they argue, is gaslighting: pretending the obvious is not happening.

Blurb:

Top Republican in North Carolina Senate concedes race decided by 23 votes  Fox News
from news.google.com

Top Republican in the North Carolina Senate Phil Berger conceded his GOP primary race Tuesday after a second recount left him behind by a mere 23 votes, ending Berger’s long hold on the Triad-area seat and setting up a leadership shake-up in a key battleground state.

“While this was a close race, the voters have spoken, and I congratulate Sheriff Page on his victory,” Berger wrote in a statement Tuesday after the results of the second recount confirmed Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page won the District 26 race.

“Over the past 15 years, Republicans in the General Assembly have fundamentally redefined our state’s outlook and reputation. It has been an honor to play a role in that transformation.”

Blurb:

The Supreme Court handed internet providers a major win Wednesday, unanimously ruling that Sony can’t hold Cox Communications liable for failing to boot users accused of pirating music.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said a lower court went too far in seeking to impose copyright damages on Cox for its customers’ actions. While the ruling itself was unanimous, two liberal justices declined to sign onto Thomas’ broader reasoning.

“Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights,” Thomas wrote.

The court‘s decision raises the bar for suing internet providers. Thomas said companies must actually intend for their services to be used for piracy or design them for illegal activity before they can be held liable.

Blurb:

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) on Tuesday announced a “historic First Amendment victory” in a case brought against the Biden administration when he was Missouri’s attorney general.

“We just won Missouri v. Biden. As Missouri’s Attorney General, I sued the Biden regime for brazenly colluding with Big Tech to silence Missouri families — censoring the truth about COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop, the open border, and the 2020 election. They tried to turn Facebook, X, YouTube, and the rest into their private speech police, labeling dissent ‘misinformation’ while they pushed their narrative on the American people,” Schmitt explained.

Blurb:

The Senate confirmed an experienced federal prosecutor, Colin McDonald, Tuesday afternoon to act as the Justice Department’s anti-fraud division lead.

In a party line vote, McDonald was confirmed 52-47 to be the first assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement at the DOJ.

McDonald will work with Vice President JD Vance, whom President Donald Trump named the White House “fraud czar” to lead a new task force to eliminate fraud.

Blurb:

An explosive new undercover video has exposed an alarming ballot fraud scheme in California, revealing that a major operation is underway to buy votes by paying homeless people to forge signatures of real voters, without their consent.

The footage, published by O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), is raising serious concerns about election integrity in California.

The reporting uncovers evidence of a coordinated scheme in which homeless individuals are paid to forge signatures using the identities of registered voters, without their knowledge or consent.

Petition circulators were filmed operating on Skid Row, paying individuals small amounts of cash to complete ballot petitions under assigned names and addresses.

Blurb:

USC was set to hold a debate for California’s gubernatorial candidates. There was no problem with this, so a disgruntled candidate made one up. Subsequently, the event was canceled less than 24 hours before the scheduled time because the candidates were too white for the left.

According to The Desert Sun:

Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democratic candidate for governor, accused USC of using an “arbitrary formula that favors wealthy candidates” and said the criteria resulted in the exclusion of all candidates of color from the debate.

In other words, Becerra was beside himself, as he could not comprehend how he did not meet this “viability” score.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason he did not qualify for the debate had nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with the fact that he is polling at 3%.

USC said it stood by the independence of the data-driven formula used to determine candidate “viability,” but acknowledged the controversy had become a distraction from issues voters care about.

“We recognize that concerns about the selection criteria for tomorrow’s gubernatorial debate have created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters,” the university said, adding that it would “look for other opportunities to educate voters on the candidates and issues”.

Blurb:

Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have hit a wall once again.

As WLT Report previously covered the United States sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war.

The negotions of the plan were reportedly made by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.

Now Iran state media has revealed Iranian officials have rejected the new plan.

Blurb:

The U.S. military has sent MQ-9 Reaper drones to Nigeria, a U.S. defense official reportedly told The Associated Press, as fears are growing of a renewed insurgency by the terrorist group Boko Haram.

The drones were deployed after 200 U.S. troops arrived in Nigeria last month to provide training and intelligence. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is battling a complex security crisis, especially in the north of the country.

A spokesperson for AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, told the AP that U.S. troops “are working alongside their Nigerian counterparts to provide intelligence support, advisory assistance, and targeted training in support of the Nigerian Armed Forces.”

Among the most prominent Islamic militant groups active in Nigeria are Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, which is affiliated with the Islamic State and is known as Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP.

Blurb:

President Donald Trump made his position clear. Standing in the White House during the swearing-in ceremony of new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, he said the Gulf allies have carried real weight in the fight against Iran, but NATO needs to do more. It was a typical direct message: The United States and its regional partners can’t carry the burden alone while Europe continues to watch from a safe distance.

Blurb:

 

A Democrat faces possible expulsion from Congress after federal prosecutors alleged that she stole millions in federal funds and used that money to finance her campaign.

The House Ethics Committee will host a public trial for Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) on Thursday in connection with the allegations. According to reports, such public trials are rare and signal that Cherfilus-McCormick may be in deep trouble.

The defendants ‘conspired to steal that $5 million and routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source,’ the DOJ alleged.

Indeed, she is already under federal indictment.

Back in November, the Department of Justice announced that Cherfilus-McCormick, her brother Edwin Cherfilus, and other co-defendants had been charged after they allegedly bilked millions from a FEMA-funded COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract.

Blurb:

 

Once again, academic freedom is suddenly a concern. Funny how this is never a worry when it affects conservatives.

Campus Reform reports:

Princeton professors discuss resisting Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies at panel

Faculty at Princeton University are organizing opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, with panelists warning that the policies could affect academic freedom on campus.

About 30 professors gathered for a recent American Association of University Professors (AAUP) panel to discuss how faculty should respond to the Department of Education under President Donald Trump, as the group reportedly increased its meeting frequency in response to federal actions targeting DEI initiatives.

The panel featured Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Institute for Advanced Study professor emerita Joan W. Scott, who argued that recent federal policies reflect a broader effort to influence higher education. Taylor said at the meeting as reported by The Daily Princetonian that the changes have “created conditions of fear, intimidation, and repression on college campuses.”

Speakers also pointed to organizations such as the Heritage Foundation as influential in policy discussions surrounding higher education reform and DEI programs.

Blurb:

A new poll from Quantus Insights — one of the most accurate pollsters of the 2024 presidential election — found Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton leading longtime Senator John Cornyn in the runoff election for the state’s Republican U.S. Senate primary.

The poll, which surveyed 1,217 likely voters between March 22-23, found Paxton leading with 48.8 percent of the vote to Cornyn’s 41.3 percent. An additional 9.9 percent of respondents indicated that they remain undecided.

When asked about their likelihood of voting in the runoff, 89 percent said they were certain to vote, 8.9 percent said they probably would vote, and 2.1 percent said it was 50-50. When asked to recall their vote in the initial March 3 primary, 40 percent of respondents said they voted for Cornyn, 38.6 percent for Paxton and 10.6 percent for U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.