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Senate Confirms Kash Patel As FBI Director

By
Patrick Houck
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Image via gage Skidmore Flickr

Kash Patel has been appointed to a 10-year term as the new director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), following the resignation of Christopher Wray.

The U.S. Senate first voted on Thursday morning to invoke cloture, the last procedural step before the afternoon’s confirmation vote. Patel, 44, cleared the hurdle largely along party lines, with Republicans supporting his nomination and Democrats expressing significant concerns.

A final roll call vote was conducted at 1:45 p.m., securing Patel’s nomination following a confirmation process marked by adversity.

The vote comes amidst efforts by Trump-backed officials to reshape the FBI and Department of Justice to align more closely with the administration’s priorities.

During his confirmation hearing, Patel pledged to depoliticize the FBI and restore accountability within the Bureau. However, Democrats continued to vigorously criticize his close ties to President Trump and questioned his qualifications and impartiality.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) warned last week, “My prediction is if you vote for Kash Patel, more than any other confirmation vote you make, you will come to regret this one to your grave.” Other Democrats attacked Patel over his comments on the 2020 election, his defense of Jan. 6 defendants and concerns that he could lead a purge at the Bureau.

Patel fired back at Democrats, accusing them of twisting his words and taking his comments out of context—including a list in his book where he identified government officials as part of the “deep state,” which they categorized as an “enemies list.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately advanced Patel’s nomination last week in a 12-10 vote, strictly along party lines.

During Thursday’s cloture vote, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) came out in opposition to Patel’s nomination.

Maine’s senior senator voiced concerns over Patel’s ability to lead the FBI impartially.

“While I strongly support efforts to ensure all federal employees perform their responsibilities ethically and in accordance with the law, Mr. Patel’s recent political profile undermines his ability to serve in the apolitical role of director of the FBI,” Collins said, adding, “Therefore, I will vote against his nomination.”

At the same time, news broke that longtime Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell would not seek reelection. McConnell backed Patel, surprising some observers.

As he begins his 10-year term, Patel faces major tasks ahead, having articulated a comprehensive agenda aimed at restructuring the FBI to enhance its efficiency and public trust.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Mitch McConnell Will Not Seek Senate Re-election

By
Madeleine Jackson
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A stunning development…

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday will announce that he is not seeking reelection in 2026, bringing an end to the longest-serving Senate leader’s political career.

“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” McConnell will say, according to prepared remarks.

“Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business here. Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last.”

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Former NFL Kicker Dragged Out Of City Council Meeting After Calling MAGA ‘A Nazi Movement’

By
Madeleine Jackson
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Arrest image via Pixabay

Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe was removed from a California city council meeting by police after a self-described act of “civil disobedience” while attacking Donald Trump.

The reason for Kluwe’s protest revolved around a sign proposed for Huntington Beach’s public library, which would have the words “Magical,” “Alluring,” “Galvanizing” and “Adventurous” next to each other. The words spell out MAGA.

“Through hope and change our nation has built back better to the golden era of Making America Great Again!” the signage reads.

Video captured Kluwe speaking at the City Council meeting, where he criticized the MAGA movement, which is typically associated with President Donald Trump’s campaign message, “Make America Great Again.” He opined that it was “a Nazi movement.”

“I’m gonna take my time to say what MAGA has stood for these past three weeks,” said Kluwe. “MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for resegregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. MAGA stands for firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing. MAGA stands for firing the people overseeing our nuclear arsenal.”

“MAGA stands for firing military veterans and those serving them at the VA, including canceling research on veteran suicide,” the former punter added. “MAGA stands for cutting funds for education, including for disabled children. MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakenly anti-democracy, and most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement.”

Kluwe then slightly elevated his voice to say, “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.

“I will now engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience,” Kluwe said at the end of his speech to the City Council before walking up to the front where the council members were sitting. 

Video posted by HB Protect on X showed police officers quickly arresting Kluwe, who was face down on the floor with a crowd cheering behind him for his actions. The City Council’s feed cut out before Kluwe was seen rushing the council members.

He was then carried out by three police officers, two of whom holding one arm each and the other carrying the former punter’s legs. 

Kluwe was charged with disrupting an assembly. He told the Orange County Register he was released around four hours after his arrest. He said his belief was that the plaque was more “propaganda” than celebrating the library, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Watch:

Kluwe, 43, played eight years in the NFL, all for the Minnesota Vikings, from 2005-12. 

House GOP Pressures Attorney General To Prosecute Officials Helping Subvert Deportations

By
Madeleine Jackson
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0

Multiple House Republicans are demanding the Justice Department prosecute elected officials and left-wing activist groups allegedly attempting to undermine the administration’s deportation efforts.

GOP Reps. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andy Harris of Maryland, Eric Burlison of Missouri and Pete Sessions of Texas sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi Tuesday, exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. 

“We write today to applaud your prosecution of Governor Kathy Hochul and New York Attorney General Letitia James and to respectfully request that you continue prosecuting individuals, organizations and elected officials who aid and abet illegal aliens in evading Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers,” the Republican lawmakers wrote. “Assisting aliens in avoiding deportation is illegal; therefore, we urge you to continue upholding the integrity of the American system.”

“Far-left politicians and nongovernmental organizations [NGOs] are flouting the law under the assumption that it will not be enforced. We ask that you demonstrate that such violations will not be tolerated.”

Read:

829767401-House-Republicans-Letter-to-AG-Pam-BondiDownload

The letter alleges that left-wing organizations such as Code Pink, Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network and the Immigration Defense Project are actively providing resources to illegal migrants to evade detection by ICE.

The GOP congressmen also urged Bondi to prosecute elected officials helping illegal migrants evade detection by ICE.

Democrat New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy appeared to suggest that he was harboring an illegal migrant on his property on Feb. 3, leading border czar Tom Homan vowing to prosecute the elected official for appearing to violate federal law.

“And good luck to the feds coming in to try to get her,” the Democrat then added, speaking at an open discussion at Montclair State University.

Murphy walked back the shocking claim days later.

Homan warned New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that he is working with the DOJ to determine whether the left-wing firebrand violated federal law by hosting a virtual webinar advising illegal migrants on how to handle encounters with ICE on Jan. 11.

“Let’s hope she’s not educating the next person who gets out and murders a young college student in Georgia,” Homan said on Fox News on Feb. 16. “These are bad people we’re looking for. So she can call it education all she wants, but we all know it’s about evading law enforcement. These people have been ordered removed. The people we’re looking for now have final orders. They’re criminals. They’re in the country illegally.”

Bondi filed a lawsuit against Hochul and James on Feb. 12, citing a New York state law allowing immigrants to obtain a driver’s license regardless of legal status. The Trump administration hit Chicago and the state of Illinois with lawsuits on Feb. 6 over the city and state’s sanctuary laws, which restrict cooperation between local officials and ICE.

“This is a new DOJ,” Bondi said during a press conference announcing the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the state of New York. “We are taking steps to protect Americans, American citizens and angel moms.”

“New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops today,” Bondi added. “We sued Illinois. New York did not listen. Now you’re next.”

Musk Mulls ‘DOGE Dividend’ Checks For Americans

By
Madeleine Jackson
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0
Image via Pixabay free images

Could Americans be in for a payday?

Elon Musk expressed interest in a proposal to use savings from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to give taxpayers a “DOGE dividend” payment.

X user James Fishback wrote a post that tagged Musk and outlined his plan to take 20% of the savings found by DOGE to send it back “to hard-working Americans as a tax refund check. It was their money in the first place!”

Fishback noted that if DOGE achieves its goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending, that would provide the 78 million taxpaying households in the U.S. with about a $5,000 refund or “DOGE dividend” per household, with the remainder used to pay down the national debt.

“Will check with the President,” Musk replied in response to Fishback’s post.

Although DOGE has set a high-end goal of $2 trillion in savings, Musk has suggested that $1 trillion in savings would be a success and explained that goal in an appearance with President Donald Trump on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Tuesday night.

“The overall goal is to try to get a trillion dollars out of the deficit,” Musk said. “If the deficit is not brought under control, America will go bankrupt.” 

“This is a very important thing for people to understand. A country is no different from an individual, in that if an individual overspends, an individual can go bankrupt. And so can a country,” he said. “And the massive waste, fraud and abuse that has been going on, which is leading to a $2 trillion a year deficit.”

DOGE claims an estimated $55 billion in savings achieved to date from canceling certain federal leases and contracts, asset sales, fraud deletion, regulatory savings and workforce reductions.

Musk wrote in a post on Wednesday, “We need to balance the budget as first priority,” in a response to a post by Scott Adams that raised concerns the DOGE dividend could result in the government using the DOGE savings as a “piggy bank.”

Trump Calls Ukraine’s Zelenskyy A ‘Dictator Without Elections’

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    President Donald Trump blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections” on Wednesday.

    The blistering comments come after the U.S. left Ukraine out of initial peace talks with Russia this week. 

    “A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on TRUTH Social. “In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going.”  

    Trump added, “I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..”

    Describing Zelenskyy as a “modestly successful comedian,” Trump said the Ukrainian leader “managed to talk the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle.” Trump decried that the United States “has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.” 

    “Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation,” Trump posed of former President Joe Biden. “On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’ He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’” 

    Zelenskyy criticized Trump earlier Wednesday in comments to reporters in Kyiv after canceling a trip to Saudi Arabia, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Ambassador Steve Witkoff held talks with Russian counterparts earlier this week centered on negotiating an end to the three-year conflict with Ukraine. 

    “Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” Zelensky said.

    Nearly one year past the expiration of Zelenskyy’s first five-year term, the U.S. and Russia are in agreement that Ukrainians must go to the polls and decide whether to keep their head of state. 

    Russia has insisted it will not sign a peace agreement until Ukraine agrees to hold elections, and the U.S. is now “floating” the idea of a three-stage plan: ceasefire, then Ukrainian elections, then inking of a peace deal.

    Zelenskyy’s term in office was supposed to end last May, with elections originally slated for April 2024. But the president’s aides have said elections will not be held until six months after the end of martial law. The Ukrainian constitution prohibits holding elections under martial law. 

    Trump Media Group Sues Brazilian Supreme Court Justice

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    O ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro (PL) concede entrevista e posa para fotografia ao sair do Senado Federal. O ex-presidente participou de uma reunião no gabinete do seu filho Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ). Foto: Roque de Sá/Agência Senado

    President Trump’s media company sued a Brazilian Supreme Court justice for allegedly censoring conservative voices on social media.

    The unexpected lawsuit came hours after Brazilian Justice Moraes had received an indictment that would force him to decide whether to order the arrest of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president and an ally of Trump. The justice is overseeing multiple criminal investigations into Bolsonaro.

    The Trump Media & Technology Group — which is majority owned by Mr. Trump and runs his Truth Social site — sued the Brazilian justice, Alexandre de Moraes, in U.S. federal court in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday morning.

    The companies accused Justice Moraes of censoring political discourse in the United States and infringing upon the First Amendment by ordering Rumble to remove the accounts of prominent supporters of Bolsonaro.

    The New York Times reports:

    The companies argued that those orders could apply to how those accounts appeared in the United States, breaking American law. Mr. Trump’s company has not been subject to Justice Moraes’s orders, but it argued in the lawsuit that it relied on Rumble’s technology and therefore could be harmed if Rumble’s operations were affected.

    Justice Moraes has argued that his actions are necessary to protect Brazil from the anti-democratic acts of Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters. His spokeswoman said that Justice Moraes did not have immediate comment.

    In 2023, a mob of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters raided Brazil’s Supreme Court.

    Late last year, a Bolsonaro supporter tried to bomb the Supreme Court but instead killed only himself.

    On Tuesday, new details emerged in the indictment of Mr. Bolsonaro showing that, according to Brazilian investigators, the former president and his allies had plotted to assassinate Justice Moraes as part of their bid to hold on to power.

    Bolsonaro has denied that he tried to stage a coup or had any knowledge of a plot to kill Justice Moraes.

    As part of investigations into attacks against Brazil’s democracy, Justice Moraes has ordered arrests of Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies and the confiscation of the former president’s passport, as well as the suspension of hundreds of social media accounts belonging to his supporters. Last year, Justice Moraes faced off against Elon Musk — and won — blocking Mr. Musk’s social network, X, in Brazil until the billionaire backed down in his refusal to comply with the judge’s orders to suspend accounts.

    Disturbing Threat Against Elon Musk Scrawled On NY Overpass: Photos

      By
      Madeleine Jackson
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      2
      UK Government, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

      Residents in Rochester, New York, noticed an apparent threat against billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Chair Elon Musk.

      The Daily Wire spoke to two residents who saw the graffiti, photos of which have been posted online. The graffiti reads, “Who will kill Elon?” It was plastered on a 490 off-ramp bridge to Howell Street.

      Barbara Pierce, Director of Bureau of Communications & Special Events for the City of Rochester, told The Daily Wire via email on Thursday that the “offensive graffiti” was removed “as soon as the city became aware of it.”

      The Daily Wire also reached out to the Rochester Police Department and New York State police about the incident, but has yet to receive a response.

      In recent weeks, Democrats have picked up their attacks on Musk, whom they suggest is causing a “constitutional crisis” as he finds waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

      This past week, for example, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) called Musk a “d***” who is “harming the American public in an enormous way” and called for Americans to bring “actual weapons to this bar fight.”

      “What I think is really important and what the American public want is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight,” he said on CNN airwaves. “This is an actual fight for democracy, for the future of this country. And it’s important to push back on the chairperson of this committee.”

      Report: Trump Proposes Changes To White House Landscape

        By
        Madeleine Jackson
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        President Donald Trump is reportedly mulling making significant changes to the White House Rose Garden.

        The New York Times reported that designers have already drafted various options. One of the variables that they are considering is whether to use “limestone or an easily interchangeable hard surface, with the possibility of installing hardwood floors for dancing.”

        White House Communications Director Steven Cheung responded to the story by saying that Trump was seeking to spice up the historical structure.

        “The White House has not been given any tender, loving care in many decades, so President Trump is taking necessary steps in order to preserve and restore the greatness and glory of ‘the People’s House,’” he said.

        During his first term in office, First Lady Melania Trump redesigned the Rose Garden. It’s not clear what she thinks about the new plans.

        The Department of the Interior’s National Park Service maintains the White House grounds, including the Rose Garden.

        The report said that Trump also wants to “hang a grand chandelier from the ceiling of the Oval Office” and is thinking about building a ballroom inside the White House.

        Trump Confirms US Military Airstrike Killed Al-Qaeda Official

        By
        Madeleine Jackson
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        David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

        A member of a group linked to al Qaeda has been killed in a U.S. airstrike.

        On Saturday, U.S. forces “conducted a precision airstrike in Northwest Syria targeting and killing a senior finance and logistics official in the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din (HaD), an Al-Qaeda affiliate,” U.S. Central Command said in a press release.

        CENTCOM said the airstrike was part of its “ongoing commitment, along with partners in the region, to disrupt and degrade efforts by terrorists to plan, organize, and conduct attacks against civilians and military personnel from the U.S., our allies, and our partners throughout the region and beyond.”

        “We will continue to relentlessly pursue terrorists in order to defend our homeland, and U.S., allied, and partner personnel in the region,” Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement.

        President Donald Trump congratulated U.S. forces following the mission.

        “US forces conducted a precision airstrike against a member of al-Qaeda in Syria this weekend,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The terrorist leader was working with al-Qaeda across the region.”

        “Congratulations to CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla, and the US warfighters who dealt Justice to another Jihadi threatening America and our allies and partners,” he continued.

        Hurras al-Din was formed in 2018 after the Nusrah Front terror group broke off from Al-Qaeda. The group operates primarily in Syria’s Idlib Province and could have as many as 2,500 members, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.

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