'Act of territorial defense'

'I have not spoken to the Taiwanese'

'The trial court is directed to dismiss this action'

'Counts One and Two of the inducement are DISMISSED'

Scientists in California are using heat-sensing AI to save grey whales transiting through San Francisco Bay. More and more sightings of grey whales, a medium size baleen that can grow to between 40 and 50 feet, are being recorded in the bay, and conservationists are eager to develop methods to more consistently keep them safe […] The post AI Employed to Pinpoint Whale Heat Signatures in San Francisco Bay to Prevent Ship Collisions appeared first on Good News Network.

After vanquishing multiple Republicans in primaries for having crossed him in the past, President Donald Trump is still as dominant as ever with his party’s electoral base. But are his battles with incumbent Republicans costing him power on Capitol Hill? Trump is on a hot streak with primary challenges. Last weekend, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, placed third in the Senate primary, with Trump-backed challenger Rep. Julia Letlow advancing to the runoff round. On Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a libertarian-leaning House rebel who has defied Trump on key votes, lost by nearly ten points to the Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein. Massie has been in the House since 2012. But Trump didn’t stop there. On Wednesday, he endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to take the Senate seat of incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn, paving the way for the die-hard Trump loyalist to become the Republican nominee after the May 26 runoff. By targeting multiple incumbent senators from his own party, Trump is engaging in a style of politics unheard of since 1938, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt supported multiple challengers against senators in a bid to reshape the Senate. However, it was also a week of trouble on Capitol Hill, where the Republican-controlled Congress defied the president. On Tuesday, shortly after losing his primary, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., voted to advance a resolution to restrain the president’s power to use military force against Iran.  The resolution advanced 50-47, with four Republicans voting for it: Cassidy, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine. Additionally, Congress failed to advance a party-line budget reconciliation bill which would have injected funds into border security.  Instead, the Senate broke for recess until June, as Republicans were divided over whether to support funding for security at the White House’s East Wing, where the president is attempting to build a ballroom. Again, Cassidy played a role in this debate, refusing to support the funding.  “I think this is a spit-in-the-eye insult to all my taxpayers in Louisiana to spend a billion on a ballroom when we should be doing something about the high price of gas, groceries and health care,” he said Tuesday. He was not the only member of the Senate’s growing retirement caucus to be in opposition. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who announced his retirement in July shortly after the president called for a Republican to challenge him in his primary, has been a staunch opponent of the funding. “I’ve got a lot of questions that need to be answered,” Tillis told NOTUS of the funding. “If I’m in the Democratic marketing department, I’m probably thinking of a lot of ways I would use this to target senators that vote for it,” said Tillis, who added he thought “the timing and optics are really bad.” Republicans were also unable to settle disagreements on the Department of Justice’s announcement of “anti-weaponization fund” as part of a settlement agreement in Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The $1.776 billion fund is meant to “provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” per the DOJ. Tillis and Cassidy were opposed. “I think it’s stupid on stilts,” said Tillis. “People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the president and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability,” said Cassidy. Trump has defended the fund, writing on Truth Social that he is forgoing money he could have received from the settlement. “Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden administration, receive, at long last, Justice!” he wrote. Republicans, unable to settle disagreements, decided not to hold any vote on their ambitious budget bill at all.  GOP Senator Thom Tillis on Trump’s proposed “Anti-Weaponization” fund: “I think it’s stupid on stilts. When you take money from me to give to a purpose I vehemently disagree with, that’s tyranny.” pic.twitter.com/PLa2vvxzDN— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 21, 2026 The House likewise went into recess, avoiding a vote on whether to restrain the president’s military power in Iran. The growing flock of Republican lame ducks in the Senate defying the president could be a problem for the president going forward, given Republicans’ already slim majority. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., asked if the budget flop was related to Trump’s targeting of incumbents, replied, “I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us.” On Friday, Trump lashed out at Tillis, whom he called a “weak and ineffective Senator,” but argued the Republican party will have a new start with the senator and his ilk gone. “Now he can have all the fun he wants for a few months, with some of his RINO [Republican in name only] friends, screwing the Republican Party,” said Trump. “In the end it will only get bigger, and better, and stronger, than ever before!!!” Related PostsTrump Endorses Paxton in Texas Senate RacePresident Donald Trump weighed in Tuesday on the Texas Republican Senate primary runoff, backing the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn. “Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. He…Senate Tussles Over Ballroom Security FundingA Senate referee struck funding for security at the White House’s East Wing from a Republican budget bill on Saturday, in what Democrats are celebrating as a blow to President Donald Trump’s ballroom ambitions. Republicans, however, argue that the security funding is unrelated to the White House ballroom and will soon be restored. Republicans are…Massie Loses Primary to Trump-Backed Challenger GallreinRepublican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost to a primary challenger backed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, denying the libertarian rebel an eighth term in Congress and reaffirming the president’s dominance of the Republican Party. The Associated Press declared Ed Gallrein the victor shortly before 8 p.m. when he held an almost eight-point lead…

Tulsi Gabbard Resigns

Shameless: Wasserman Schultz Poaches 'Black District' For Political Survival

Even by the low standards of MS NOW, senior Washington correspondent Eugene Daniels’s Thursday appearance on Chris Jansing Reports was a stellar example of how not to do journalism. Daniels’s title suggests that the network views him as a reporter, but he decided to go full activist.  According to him, Democrats need “to be more comfortable with power” and that the party needs to focus more on “kitchen table issues," which he somehow defined as abortion and gender transitioning children. Reacting to the DNC’s autopsy, Jansing read a portion aloud that suggested Democrats’ problem is that they are just too smart for the electorate, “They claim Republicans are just better at politics. Quote, ‘At times it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections. Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason, even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.’ What should Democrats do with that?”   Yesterday, Eugene Daniels, whom MS NOW technically considers a reporter, reacts to the Democrats' autopsy by saying the party "should be more comfortable with the idea of power" and urges them to talk more about abortion and transing kids "When you talk about whether or not… pic.twitter.com/vXcr4RZbdT — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) May 22, 2026   Daniels began his response by declaring, “They should be more comfortable with the idea of power. And this is something that Democrats have been saying. I've talked to Chuck about this in the past, the idea that at the end of the day, if you are not in office, you can't do anything. And when you talk about winning hearts and minds, that is very important.” Before anyone could wonder where the evidence for the idea that Democrats aren’t power-hungry enough is, Daniels continued: When you talk about issues that matter to marginalized people, that is very important. But you can do those things and still win elections so that you can actually change laws and not just worry about hearts and minds. When, you know, the question about whether or not you should focus on ‘identity politics,’ like Donald Trump only focuses on identity politics, right? It is. It is the heart of the MAGA movement, right? That white people are being replaced. This conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact that, you know, brown—black and brown people are taking the jobs of folks. That is identity politics. Daniels also claimed, “The difference is that Republicans also use—they use that with the rage, and they point it somewhere. Democrats don't do the same thing. There are some who are trying. They have been trying. But you can use ‘identity politics,’ quote unquote, as a kitchen table issue, right?” Usually, kitchen table issues mean things like the jobs or the cost of living, but Daniels took an extremely broad definition: When you talk about whether or not people can have access to healthy abortions—safe abortions, that is a kitchen table issue, right? Whether or not a trans kid can get the services they need, that is a kitchen table issue for families. So, it's about crafting the message in a way that actually gets to the point that Chuck and a lot of other folks say, which is people look at the money leaving their pockets, they look at the party in power, they want some change, and they're willing to flirt with candidates and with parties they haven't been before. Daniels wrapped up by asserting that “Democrats have an opportunity and are trying to figure out how to take that opportunity but have an opportunity to actually be an answer for folks.” If Democrats take Daniels’s advice and define “kitchen table issues” as “progressive culture war issues," they should be prepared to write even more autopsies. Here is a transcript for the May 21 show: MS NOW Chris Jansing Reports 5/21/2026 12:35 PM ET CHRIS JANSING: There is another takeaway, Eugene. They claim Republicans are just better at politics. Quote, “At times it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections. Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason, even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.” What should Democrats do with that? EUGENE DANIELS: They should be more comfortable with the idea of power. And this is something that Democrats have been saying. I've talked to Chuck about this in the past, the idea that at the end of the day, if you are not in office, you can't do anything. And when you talk about winning hearts and minds, that is very important. When you talk about issues that matter to marginalized people, that is very important. But you can do those things and still win elections so that you can actually change laws and not just worry about hearts and minds. When, you know, the question about whether or not you should focus on “identity politics,” like Donald Trump only focuses on identity politics, right? It is. It is the heart of the MAGA movement, right? That white people are being replaced. This conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact that, you know, brown—black and brown people are taking the jobs of folks. That is identity politics. The difference is that Republicans also use—they use that with the rage, and they point it somewhere. Democrats don't do the same thing. There are some who are trying. They have been trying. But you can use “identity politics,” quote unquote, as a kitchen table issue, right? When you talk about whether or not people can have access to healthy abortions—safe abortions, that is a kitchen table issue, right? Whether or not a trans kid can get the services they need, that is a kitchen table issue for families. So, it's about crafting the message in a way that actually gets to the point that Chuck and a lot of other folks say, which is people look at the money leaving their pockets, they look at the party in power, they want some change, and they're willing to flirt with candidates and with parties they haven't been before. And Democrats have an opportunity and are trying to figure out how to take that opportunity but have an opportunity to actually be an answer for folks.

On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee’s 2024 autopsy finally reached the public view, and its error-filled, omission-laden contents were laid bare following a much-ballyhooed, will-they-or-won’t-they-release-it strategy by Chairman Ken Martin as the party struggles to achieve basic aims like fundraising. Unsurprisingly, the “Big Three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored it on their flagship Thursday night and Friday morning newscasts. Along with having received heavy coverage on cable, the autopsy was still on the radar of these networks in the form of stories online and copious coverage on their respective streaming channels of ABC News Live, CBS News 24/7, and NBC News NOW. Our friend and Daily Caller editor-in-chief Amber Duke pointed out many of the wild omissions: The leaked DNC autopsy doesn't mention: - Inflation or Bidenflation - Podcasts - Women's sports, bathrooms - Pronouns - Catholics, Christians, or evangelicals - 'Religion' or 'Religious' - White men - Anything related to MAHA - Gas prices And: - Only one mention of trans… — Amber Duke (@ambermarieduke) May 21, 2026 NBC’s omission was particularly egregious as NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas covered it a mere half hour later on his NBC News NOW show, Top Story. And not only did he mention it, he spent nearly nine minutes breaking it down with two liberal strategists. OMISSION WATCH: NBC has yet to mention the release of the 2024 DNC autopsy report on either of the lead newscasts – Thursday’s ‘NBC Nightly News’ or Friday’s ‘Today.’ But Tom Llamas – who anchors the former – had nearly nine minutes on his NBC News NOW show that airs immediately… pic.twitter.com/qqitPKFKAL — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 22, 2026 Here was Llamas’s quick summation before bringing in Ashley Etienne and Corbin Trent: Now to the deepening divisions within the Democratic Party and the long-awaited release of the so-called 2024 election autopsy. The report was commissioned by Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin. Its purpose? To help the party understand why former Vice President Kamala Harris lost to President Donald Trump. Martin got an independent consultant to write it, but then put off its release, saying it was badly done. After pressure from other Democrats, today, the DNC chair published the 192-page draft that he says is still littered with typos and inaccuracies. The paper argues that Harris wrote off rural voters and failed to attack President Trump with sufficient negative firepower. The DNC adding disclaimers that the autopsy doesn’t reflect the committee’s views.  Sounds serious! Perhaps there should have been, say, even a news brief on this during the big show. Etienne was indignant, blasting the DNC’s “complete failure of leadership” by Martin in two basic jobs of “raise money and...win elections” and the autospy lacked “a vision on how to rebuild this party, how to win elections going forward from the state level to the national level.” “Ken Martin made this entire autopsy debate about himself rather than about the party, about how to rebuild the party and how to bring back what we’re seeing — a bleeding support among the party’s base vote voters,” she added. Etienne defended her former boss, Kamala Harris (click “expand”): LLAMAS: So, do you think that publishing this document was unfair to your former boss, Vice President Harris? I mean, it is called an autopsy. And Democrats lost the election, so it was going to be tough regardless, wasn’t it? ETIENNE: Well, I think she’s vindicated in this document. And she wrote a book about, you know, the 107 Days — and in the book, she made, you know — made assertions that she didn’t get the level of support from the campaign, that the campaign had significant failures in terms of messaging, in terms of its aggression on messaging towards Donald Trump. And that’s what this document actually lays out. So, she’s — she’s fairly vindicated here. But let me just say this. You know, the Democratic Party, the backbone of the Democratic Party is black voters and Ken martin and the Democratic Party owes an explanation to black voters who have been substantially destroyed and attacked from our political power to our economic power by this particular administration, over 600,000 jobs, we’ve lost 8.5 percent unemployment. And we’ve — in the past two weeks have lost we’ve seen 400 years of black political progress undermined with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. The party has to explain what happened to the money. That’s what’s missing from this actual report, is what’s happened to the money[.] Trent also seethed the autopsy “didn’t recognize in any of the last decades that I’ve been involved in this process is that the Democratic Party’s policies aren’t working.” Unlike Etienne, he argued that, at the end of the day, an election’s win or loss starts with the candidate, regardless of the people around them. As for something Nightly News did cover, they had a brief on a would-be burglar at a café finding himself trapped in one of its walls. Thursday’s CBS Evening News and Friday’s CBS Mornings were also out to lunch. The latter instead covered topics such as a brawl at a Toledo, Ohio kindergarten graduation. Just like NBC, CBS buried it on their streaming channel with mentions throughout the day, including on their lead newscast, The Daily Report. Here was fill-in host Meg Oliver: The DNC has released its long-awaited autopsy report on its 2024 election loss. Party chair Ken Martin kept the nearly 200-page document under wraps for months, as other Democrats pressured him to release it. Today, he said the report “does not meet my standards.” Martin said he ultimately chose to release it in an effort of transparency. Among some of the report’s findings, it blames former Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss on a lack of support from former President Joe Biden’s team. It also blamed the Democratic Party for not emphasizing President Trump’s negatives.  Just like NBC, they turned to a liberal political operative in CBS News contributor Joel Payne to give his thoughts (click “expand”): You know, Hanlon’s razor tells us, don’t blame malice when stupidity is just as good of an answer. And I think that actually, to me, summarizes how I feel about this report — both the contents of the report and also the process by which it took the DNC to get to getting this report and to releasing it. I think Democrats did themselves such a disservice by how the DNC went through a process of collecting this information, processing it, trying to hold it from the public, doing all the things essentially that the report said that people were frustrated with from the Democratic Party in 2024. In many ways, this report, the handling of it, is actually the perfect encapsulation of why the public, so much of the public, particularly so much of the base of the Democratic Party, broke with the party and did not show up in 2024 when they needed them. (....) I think what’s missing from it primarily is a conclusion, because if you looked at the report, you see it didn’t actually have a conclusion that was provided by the author. The DNC had to develop one. I think also the types of audiences that it was supposed to speak to, many of them are missing. I think some of the topics that it could have covered Gaza and the situation in the Middle East being a big driver of distrust and frustration with the Democratic brand in 2024, that was missing. I mean, I got all day here, Meg. There’s a lot that’s missing from this report. The last thing I would just say to you really quickly is I think that people are look, they’re thinking today about this report as kind of the main character. And while I understand that the main character isn’t the report. It’s the lack of trust, it’s the lack of credibility, and it’s the lack of competence that was on display by the report’s author and by the DNC and how they handled it. And I think that’s an important framing to keep in mind. Disney’s ABC didn’t care to find time on Thursday’s World News Tonight and Friday’s Good Morning America. But, true to form, Good Morning America channeled its not-so-inner corporate whore with a segment promoting new Disney Parks attractions celebrating The Mandalorian and Grogu and Bluey!. In terms of on-air mentions, ABC stashed them over on ABC News Live, including two segments on ABC News Live Prime. Host Linsey Davis first mentioned it at the end of an interview with Fairfax County, Virginia Democrat Congressman James Walkinshaw. Davis described the report as having “found that the White House did not do enough to elevate Vice President Harris and detailed some, but not all, of the moments that led to her loss in 2024” and then asked if it was “a mistake for the DNC chairman, Ken Martin, not to release this sooner,” whether Martin should be replaced, and whether it was a mistake to not “mention..the debate in the party over support for Israel and the war in Gaza.” The second segment was a little more traditional with Davis going back-and-forth with ABC News political director Avery Harper. Disney-owned ABC News couldn’t bring itself on Thursday’s ‘World News Tonight’ or Friday’s ‘Good Morning America’ to mention the 2024 DNC autopsy, but buried it with a number of reports on ABC News Live. Here was one of them during ‘ABC News Prime’ with host Linsey Davis and… pic.twitter.com/ZQQBTYuw2r — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 22, 2026 Like a loyal liberal journalist, Harper insisted there was little to talk about since “we didn’t learn anything dramatically new” other than to “put a finger on some of the most painful realities” such as Democrats “not do[ing] enough to build Kamala Harris up as a presidential candidate...and that it struggled to make an affirmative sort of case for her candidacy[.]” “[T]he party underestimated just how much economic anxiety there was out there and how much cultural issues were hurting them with key voting blocks,” she added in a cartoonish understatement. Asked to explain “why it took so long for this report to become public,” Harper said Martin insisted “[h]e didn’t want to distract...from some of the victories that we saw for Democrats in off year elections in November of 2025, instead claiming that the party wanted to look ahead to the coming elections in which they are favored to” win. Davis closed with a question as to what surprised her about things being left out. Again showing her bias, Harper didn’t mention the lack of focus on Biden’s health, transgenderism in women’s sports, or even hemorrhaging male votes. Harper joined Payne and Davis from earlier with Walkinshaw in citing Gaza: You know, it surprised me that it does not mention the issue of Biden’s handling of Israel and Gaza. We know that that was an incredibly important issue, particularly for young voters, for Arab American voters in places like Michigan, key battleground states. This report makes no mention of it. To see the relevant transcripts from May 21, click here (for ABC News Live), here (for CBS News 24/7), and here (for NBC News NOW).