'Surely, the mission of DOGE will continue'

Bishops in Washington’s three Catholic dioceses announced Thursday that they will sue the state over a law signed by Democratic Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on May 2, requiring priests to break the seal of confession. The May 29 lawsuit stated that “Washington is targeting the Roman Catholic Church in a brazen act of religious discrimination.” […]

'We're working our damnedest right now to declassify it'

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt went ballistic over a ruling from the U.S. Court of International Trade that struck down President Donald Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to place tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada, and other countries. Leavitt, addressing reporters from the White House briefing room on Thursday, opened the briefing by saying, “Last night, the Trump administration faced another example of judicial overreach. Using his full and proper legal authority, President Trump imposed universal tariffs and reciprocal tariffs on Liberation Day to address the extraordinary threat to our national security and economy posed by large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits.” “The president’s rationale for imposing these powerful tariffs was legally sound and grounded in common sense,” Leavitt continued. “President Trump correctly believes that America cannot function safely long term if we are unable to scale advanced domestic manufacturing capacity, have our own critical supply chains, and our defense industrial base is dependent on foreign adversaries.” On Wednesday night, a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that the president improperly used IEEPA to impose tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada for failing to adequately combat human and drug trafficking across America’s borders and Liberation Day tariffs on other countries in an attempt to rebalance the trade deficit. The conclusion of the ruling read: “IEEPA does not authorize any of the Worldwide, Retaliatory, or Trafficking Tariff Orders. The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs. The Trafficking Tariffs fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.” Leavitt claimed these judges “brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump, to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him. These judges failed to acknowledge that the president of the United States has core foreign-affairs powers and authority given to him by Congress to protect the United States’ economy and national security.” “These judges are threatening to undermine the credibility of the United States on the world stage,” Leavitt added. “America cannot function if President Trump, or any other president for that matter, has their sensitive, diplomatic, or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges.” Furthermore, Leavitt argued on the president’s behalf that “Congress had created the National Emergency Act to provide the congressional framework to strike down improper IEEPA use, and any questions over whether President Trump improperly imposed these IEEPA tariffs were already adjudicated in Congress following Liberation Day. Congress firmly rejected an effort led by Sen. Rand Paul [R-Ky.] and Democrats to terminate the president’s reciprocal tariffs.” In response to the ruling, Leavitt confirmed that “the administration has already filed an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and an immediate administrative stay to strike down this decision.” As the Trump administration continues to battle interventionist judges, Leavitt called on the Supreme Court to “put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.” The post Leavitt Goes Scorched Earth on Judge Tribunal’s Ruling Against Trump Tariffs appeared first on The Daily Signal.

BREAKING: Appeals Court Lets Tariffs Remain in Effect ... For Now

California: BDSM Training for LGBTQ+ Students Is Great!

“The Kids Online Safety Act is back” read multiple headlines as a “bipartisan pair of senators reintroduced” the bill May 14 with a subtle change in hopes that the legislation — which thankfully flatlined in the U.S. House after it passed 91-3 in the U.S. Senate — will fare better this go-round.  The primary difference this time? The party affiliation of the lead sponsor of the bill now has an “R” instead of a “D.” The prior two times the bill was introduced (Feb. 16, 2022 and May 2, 2023), however, the lead sponsor of the bill was Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT).  The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), despite this minor change, very much remains a Democrat bill as it has been left largely unchanged since its most recent iteration from December 2024 languished and rightfully withered on the vine. What then is wrong with the Senate version of KOSA?  Its supporters would have us believe that it is quite simply not a censorship bill. In fact, its sponsors even claim that “changes were made to further make clear that KOSA would not censor,” but just because you state something is true, doesn’t make it so. The devil truly is in the details. In short, the anti-free speech legislation would make tech companies liable if the content shared on their platforms subjectively caused a child “depressive disorders” and/or “anxiety.” It even penalizes platforms that permit alleged “online harassment” of minors. But that’s not all. Beyond the subjective language that could induce platforms to censor even more constitutionally protected online speech, KOSA would create a new Ministry of Truth disguised with the otherwise benign name the “Kids Online Safety Council.” This council’s membership, in addition to providing recommendations to platforms on content, would even be required to meet Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-style quotas.  And there’s more.  If the Senate version of KOSA were to pass, it would empower unelected bureaucrats to produce “remedies” for online harm, create new cash flows for the infamous Censorship Industrial Complex, strongarm Big Tech companies into eliminating anonymous speech and even allow for attorneys general to use state courts to target online speech. But what’s more, KOSA goes to great lengths to outsource to private industry, which at first blush may sound appealing, but isn’t in practice. For starters, KOSA makes it difficult for victims of censorship to get justice in court by outsourcing the enforcement of censorship to the tech platforms themselves, largely removing victims’ ability to bring action against government actors directly. Furthermore, the censorship legislation appears to also outsource government authority to a private trade association, the American Psychiatric Association, which may or may not adhere to objective criterion for terms and phrases already vaguely provided in the legislation itself. The APA has already shown itself to have a leftist bent, lobbying against statutes regulating so-called “gender affirming care” and even pushing practitioners to incorporate critical race theory into their treatment.     Now, a brief walkthrough on what transpired the last time this censorship bill was making waves a little under a year ago: After KOSA swept through the Senate in late July 2024, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) did not immediately schedule a vote on the Blumenthal version of the bill as the house had just begun a six-week summer recess. Upon return, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed through its own version of KOSA during a committee markup hearing led by Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), stripping the controversial “duty of care” provisions pushed by Democrats found in the Senate version. The House bill was sponsored by Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL). MRC Free Speech America reported remarks from then-MRC President Brent Bozell at the time: “Media Research Center President Brent Bozell applauded the House bill but cautioned conservatives. ‘Protecting children is extremely important, but we should not fall into the trap of allowing Big Tech to censor us, which we know will happen on issues like gender ideology and abortion,’ Bozell said. ‘I support the current House bill. If the Senate’s censorship provisions are added to the bill under the cloak of darkness, conservatives will have to oppose it.’” But the MRC was not alone. Speaker Johnson similarly slammed the Blumenthal bill as “very problematic” and indicated that he would not bring it up for a vote, joining critics who have repeatedly warned that it would incentivize censorship. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who voted against the Senate Democrat bill, warned back in July 2024: “This is insane. This bill is not well-thought out.” Paul went on to call the bill “Pandora’s box for censorship,” and further suggested that it “opens the door to nearly limitless content moderation, as people can and will argue that almost any form of content could contribute to some form of mental health disorder.” Then, in December, KOSA was repackaged and reintroduced yet again in what Bozell referred to as Blumenthal’s “Trojan Horse” for censorship. Bozell explained, “Blumenthal’s new version of KOSA pressures tech companies to censor any content that could be a ‘contributing factor’ to ‘anxiety.’ These nebulous terms enable government censors and state prosecutors to coerce tech platforms into expanding their already extensive censorship operations.” Sen. Paul, joined by others as well, again piled on. Paul warned, “Reminder: KOSA poses such a dire threat to our First Amendment rights that House and Senate leadership must not agree to add it at the last minute to larger pieces of legislation, like the Defense or government spending bills.” Which leads us to today. It’s back, with a new lead sponsor, but the same old problems.  As MRC Free Speech America’s Schneider has stated before, “We can protect kids from voracious tech oligarchs while also protecting free speech rights. [Speaker Johnson] gets it.” Pro-free speech advocates must hold the line and not fall prey to the single letter switcheroo from “D” to “R.” Simply stating that KOSA doesn’t censor belies the underlying problems with the bill’s often-times vague, anti-free speech language and the censorship incentives it places on Big Tech platforms to protect their bottom line. MRC Senior Counsel for Investigations Tim Kilcullen contributed to this report. Free speech is under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech and government be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

On Wednesday night, MSNBC’s All In ran a story about an ill 4-year-old named Sofia, who was supposedly being heartlessly forced out of the country by the Trump administration without recourse. The suffering of this child was deeply saddening, but the story omitted extremely key information. MSNBC was using this child's brutal and agonizing health complications with Short Bowel Syndrome to make the claim that Trump was “forcing” her out of the country and that she might die after a few days.  Host Chris Hayes had this to say while introducing the story: Last month, the Trump administration revoked permission to stay here and ordered the family to leave immediately. This little 4-year-old girl Sofia is not a criminal or a terrorist or Tren De Aragua or obviously, any threat of any kind. She’s not a danger to Americans, but she is among the many people targeted in the mass deportation drag-net happening around the country under orders of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller.     Hayes made the claim that the Trump administration “revoked permission to stay here and ordered the family to leave immediately.” This statement was not entirely true. While it is factual that their humanitarian aid parole status through the CBP One App was canceled (because of the termination of the process entirely), the DHS themselves stated that “Any reporting that Vargas and her family are actively being deported are FALSE. This family applied with USCIS for humanitarian parole on May 14, 2025, and the application is still being considered.” This type of biased information was not only false but dangerously misleading by saying that the Trump administration was actively deporting this ill 4-year-old.  Hayes showed a clip of KNBC Reporter Michelle Valles who said this: She’s got a medical condition called Short Bowel Syndrome, which prevents her from absorbing nutrients in food. They came here with permission in 2023 on humanitarian grounds to receive that lifesaving medical care, but last month the Trump administration ordered them to self deport. The mom tells us that according to doctors, the little girl could die within days if she is sent back to Mexico. In this segment of the show they were essentially alluding to the fact that this little girl will be deported back to Mexico where she will die if she didn’t receive proper care. MSNBC was offering their audience slanted story telling by not laying out all the options available to the Vargas family on their immigration status. If the DHS decided to revoke their parole, Sofia’s family had a few options. The Vargas family could elect to place their ill child under a guardian of their choosing, where she could still receive medical treatment in the United States, while her family left the U.S. and attempted to come back in legally. The next option their family had, if their parole was terminated; Sofia’s family could elect to bring her back with them to Mexico and look for treatment in their country of origin as they attempted to re-enter the U.S..  Later on in the show, Hayes interviewed the Vargas’s families lawyer, Gina Amato Lough, who stated this: The equipment that Sofia relies on to deliver the nutrients to her system is not available outside of the United States, and her doctors have clearly ordered her and the other patients that are undergoing this treatment, to not leave the country. Sofia used something called Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) that’s essentially a method of delivering vital nutrients directly into the bloodstream. It is used to help patients with Short Bowel Syndrome, like Sofia. For her own lawyer to say that the equipment needed to deliver the nutrients “is not available outside of the United States,” was false. Mexico did have the TPN equipment needed for Sofia. The main problem could possibly be that the drug Gattex was not available in Mexico yet, so if the Vargas family felt as though they wouldn’t be able to find the treatment they need for Sofia in Mexico, then they can keep her in America per the DHS’s own rules and regulations. This wouldn’t be the first time Hayes had stretched the truth to the public. Earlier this year, MSNBC settled a defamation lawsuit about a doctor they labeled the “uterus collector" in a story that Hayes reportedly stated “the reason it went viral” was because it “conjured the worst kind of like Third Reich, … sort of … Jim Crow, Mississippi Hospital history.” Showing that Hayes had done this manipulation of people's emotions to play into a specific narrative before. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view. MSNBC’s: All In With Chris Hayes May, 28th, 2025 8:35:35 PM EST CHRIS HAYES: In 2023, the little girl you see here who is being identified as “Sofia,” came to this country from Mexico with her parents. And the family was granted permission to temporarily stay here for humanitarian reasons. They applied for it and it was granted, because Sofia is ill and in need of life saving treatment. Now, all that is in jeopardy. (...) 8:36:10 PM EST MICHELLE VALLES (KNBC reporter): She’s got a medical condition called Short Bowel Syndrome, which prevents her from absorbing nutrients in food. They came here with permission in 2023 on humanitarian grounds to receive that lifesaving medical care, but last month the Trump administration ordered them to self deport. The mom tells us that according to doctors, the little girl could die within days if she is sent back to Mexico. HAYES: Last month, the Trump administration revoked permission to stay here and ordered the family to leave immediately. This little 4-year-old girl Sofia is not a criminal or a terrorist or Tren De Aragua or obviously, any threat of any kind. She’s not a danger to Americans, but she is among the many people targeted in the mass deportation drag-net happening around the country under orders of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. Gina Amato Lough is one of the attorneys representing Sofia, she’s also the directing attorney for the Immigrants Rights Project, a public counsel, and she joins me now. Let me first just ask about the sort-of medical status of Sofia, in terms of the care that she needs and gets. My understanding from reading about her case was that she came very close to death in Mexico, and this is a treatable condition in some parts of the world, including the U.S., but they were having a hard time getting the care in Mexico for her. Is that right? GINA AMATO LOUGH: Yes, that’s correct (...) 8:38:50 PM EST LOUGH: The equipment that Sofia relies on to deliver the nutrients to her system is not available outside of the United States, and her doctors have clearly ordered her and the other patients that are undergoing this treatment, to not leave the country. HAYES: So her mother was sort of and the father dealing with this awful condition and trying to save their kid. And my understanding is that the mom applied to the U.S. government through the CBP app, right, to say, look, there's a category of humanitarian carve outs is that right for folks to come in under these circumstances? LOUGH: Correct. They presented themselves at the border, the lawful way. They requested humanitarian parole for medical purposes, and the government granted them humanitarian parole. This was in July 2023, and they were granted humanitarian parole through the end of July of this year. But the current administration canceled their humanitarian parole without notice and without reason in April of this year. (…)

A U.S. appeals court reinstated the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on Mexico, Canada, and China on Thursday, after a federal trade court blocked them only one day previously. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade found Wednesday that the administration had exceeded its authority by imposing the tariffs on the three largest trading partners to the U.S. On Thursday, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted an emergency appeal by the Trump administration to reinstate the tariffs for the time being. 'We are going to produce the cars and ships, chips, airplanes, minerals, and medicines that we need right here in America.' The administration had invoked the tariffs under the provisions of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but the trade court said that it did not apply to tariffs. Other tariffs imposed through separate laws were not blocked by the trade court. RELATED: Trump announces sweeping new tariffs at 'Liberation Day' celebration at White House Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Critics of the tariffs have pointed to chaos on the stock market as well as on the bond market, but supporters say the economic strength of the U.S. will improve in the long run under the new global structure. The three judges on the trade court include one nominated by Trump in his first term and two others nominated by former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. The president is facing several other court challenges to the sweeping tariffs he announced on "Liberation Day" at the White House in April. "From this day on, we're not going to let anyone tell us American workers and families cannot have the future that they deserve," the president said at the time. "We are going to produce the cars and ships, chips, airplanes, minerals, and medicines that we need right here in America." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!