Until her effort to gerrymander her state by violating Virginia’s constitution plays out in court, Democrat Governor Abigail Spanberger plans to use the current map of districts when early voting begins this year. Spanberger’s voter-passed initiative was set to boost Democrats’ advantage in the U.S. Congress from 6-5 to 10-1, but the Virginia Supreme Court ruled her methods violated the state’s constitution. The governor has now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up her appeal on an emergency basis – which is unlikely, given that the nation’s high court defers to state supreme courts in matters regarding state constitutions. Local Virginia station WTOP reported Spanberger’s concession, citing its interview with the governor: “Days after Virginia Democrats filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court as part of their ongoing redistricting battle, Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she’s focused on the fall midterm elections and ensuring voters are motivated to turn out.” …. “Spanberger called the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court ‘important, but when it comes to the execution of elections, no matter the outcome in that case, we will be running our elections beginning next month with early voting on the current maps that we have.’” "We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia," the Virginia Supreme Court explains in its 4-3 ruling striking down the gerrymandering referendum. "This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy." "This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void," the court said in its opinion. The court found that the legislature failed to comply with procedural rules for passing a constitutional amendment, including failing to publish the amendment three months before the election and taking a second vote while early voting was already occurring, rather than waiting for an intervening election.

Alleged comedian Stephen Colbert once infamously claimed President Trump was Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s “cock holster.” CNN host Jake Tapper was acting in such a manner for Colbert during the Thursday edition of his show, The Lead. According to Tapper, who once claimed there was “no reason to doubt” information that came from Hamas, Trump used inferences and angry posts to get Colbert and his show canceled by CBS. While comparing Trump to a king who wanted his those who annoyed him assassinated, Tapper omitted just how much money Colbert was losing annually. Tapper launched into one of his verbal editorials trying to suggest that Trump had orchestrated CBS’s firing of Colbert through social media posts and wishful thinking that the executives would get his message. His evidence? The testimony from a convicted liar and a disgruntled former employee who later allegedly posted in Instagram that Trump should be killed, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen and disgraced former FBI Director James Comey (Click “expand”): TAPPER: In our pop culture lead. Years ago, when longtime Trump fixer, Michael Cohen, was testifying before Congress, he was asked about the ways that Donald Trump, now President Trump, makes his desires known. It is seldom with direct instructions, Cohen said. It's more with suggestions, obvious hints. (…) COHEN: He doesn't give you questions, he doesn't give you orders. He speaks in a code. And I understand the code because I've been around him for a decade. (…) SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID): This is the President speaking. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Now, those are his exact words. Is that correct? JAMES COMEY: Correct. [Transition] RISCH: He did not order you to let it go. COMEY: Again, those words are not in order. [Transition] It rings in my ear as kind of, ‘will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ Tapper latched onto Comey’s quote, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Of course, it was to compare Colbert’s cancelation to a political assassination. “Comey referring there to the folklore about King Henry II. In the 12th century, King Henry voiced frustration with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, who had excommunicated bishops who defied church law,” Tapper explained. “And shortly thereafter, assassins came and killed the archbishop.” Now, the longwinded Tapper did admit there was “no evidence that [Trump] demanded that Colbert be fired or his show canceled,” but he doubled down on the conspiracy theory with his admittedly flimsy historical analogy. “Nor, as King Henry demonstrates, does there need to be direct order,” he chided.   'That meddlesome comedian has been rid. Who's next? And how long will corporate America's chieftains sully their reputations to please one leader?' @jaketapper reports on the timeline of Stephen Colbert's last show and President Trump's criticism of the host. pic.twitter.com/8A8nJdsKD5 — The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) May 14, 2026   Tapper might as well have been standing in front of a corkboard bulletin board while unwinding red twine as he went down of his timeline of events he suggested pointed to Trump getting Colbert fired and others suspended, some of the events being months apart (Click “expand”): TAPPER: But I also want you to consider this calendar. July 1st, 2025, it is announced that Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit against CBS alleging unfair editing by CBS of a Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. It's a lawsuit that few, if any respected legal experts thought had any merit. That's July 1st. July 14th, Colbert says this. [Cuts to video] COLBERT: Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe. [Cuts back to live] TAPPER: July 17th, three days later, CBS announces that Colbert was canceled. One week after that, July 24th, the Federal Communications Commission approves the $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger. Now, we should note in the midst of all that, on July 18th, Trump posted, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next." The Kimmel kerfuffle happened two months after that. “Now, you can make of the timing what you will, but it is inescapable that the decision by CBS Paramount to cancel Colbert pleased Trump,” Tapper argued. “And the folks who owned CBS Paramount at the time got what they wanted, and they were handsomely compensated for it.” But Tapper never provided any evidence that CBS Paramount got what they wanted because Trump was pleased. Then again, facts weren’t really Tapper’s thing. It’s why a report on Tapper’s show was the reason CNN was successfully sued and found liable for malicious defamation last year. With the apparent mindset that political history started with Trump announcing his first run for president, Tapper wondered: “The question, would a Democratic president in the future want to use this precedent? (…) What pressure could be put on Fox when it comes to Fox News Channel?” Jake, do you mean like when President Obama was cracking down on Fox News and James Rosen? Or like when Obama had his IRS crackdown on Tea Party and other conservative organizations? Buried within his ranting Tapper admitted “it is absolutely true that the economics of late night television have been challenging for quite some time due to a variety of factors including more streaming competition, declining advertising dollars, and on and on.” He even noted that, “Conan O'Brien's late night show is no more. Ditto, the CBS comedy show that used to run after Colbert.” But again, he omitted the facts. He ignored how Colbert’s show was hemorrhaging money. According to reports, it cost $100 million to produce the show annually and he was only bringing in $60 million. That’s a $40 million loss. No network would stand for that. If they were actually trying to please Trump, they would have fired him immediately and would not have given him a months-long off-ramp where he could have turned his show’s finances around. Tapper was likely upset that he was losing access to one of the shows he could hawk his books on. Tapper had appeared on Colbert’s show three times in as many years. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s The Lead May 14, 2026 5:34:06 p.m. Eastern JAKE TAPPER: In our pop culture lead. Years ago, when longtime Trump fixer, Michael Cohen, was testifying before Congress, he was asked about the ways that Donald Trump, now President Trump, makes his desires known. It is seldom with direct instructions, Cohen said. It's more with suggestions, obvious hints. [Cuts to video] REP. JUSTIN AMASH (R-MI): You’ve suggested that the president sometimes communicates his wishes indirectly. For example, you said, "Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That's not how he operates." Can you explain how he does this? MICHAEL COHEN: He doesn't give you questions, he doesn't give you orders. He speaks in a code. And I understand the code because I've been around him for a decade. [Cuts back to live] TAPPER: So that was 2019. It wasn't an original observation because two years earlier, former FBI Director James Comey had testified about how President Trump had expressed to him the hope that the FBI would drop a probe into his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. Again, not a direct instruction. [Cuts to video] SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID): This is the President speaking. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Now, those are his exact words. Is that correct? JAMES COMEY: Correct. [Transition] RISCH: He did not order you to let it go. COMEY: Again, those words are not in order. [Transition] It rings in my ear as kind of, ‘will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ [Cuts back to live] TAPPER: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Comey referring there to the folklore about King Henry II. In the 12th century, King Henry voiced frustration with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, who had excommunicated bishops who defied church law, as depicted in the 1964 film, Beckett. [Cuts to video] ACTOR: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest? [Cuts back to live] TAPPER: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” And shortly thereafter, assassins came and killed the archbishop. The phrase has come to represent what happens when leaders want immoral actions carried on their behalf. But they also want plausible deniability. Now, there's no evidence that President Trump, who has long railed against Stephen Colbert and other late night comedians who mock him, no evidence that he demanded that Colbert be fired or his show canceled. The final episode of the Colbert show airs in one week, next Thursday, May 21st. Nor, as King Henry demonstrates, does there need to be direct order. The people who ran Paramount, CBS's mothership at the time that the cancellation was announced last July, Paramount at the time led by Shari Redstone, they were trying to get the Trump administration to approve a merger that would allow Shari Redstone and her team to sell the company to Skydance and they would all make a lot of money. I should note that since then, Skydance has taken over Paramount and the company right now is going through the regulatory process to take over CNN and its parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery. But in any case, it was in the midst of the CBS-Paramount merger last summer when Redstone and her company decided, quite surprisingly, to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. They attributed the decision to economic reasons. They denied that it was political. Now, it is absolutely true that the economics of late night television have been challenging for quite some time due to a variety of factors including more streaming competition, declining advertising dollars, and on and on. Conan O'Brien's late night show is no more. Ditto, the CBS comedy show that used to run after Colbert. But I also want you to consider this calendar. July 1st, 2025, it is announced that Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit against CBS alleging unfair editing by CBS of a Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. It's a lawsuit that few, if any respected legal experts thought had any merit. That's July 1st. July 14th, Colbert says this. [Cuts to video] STEPHEN COLBERT: Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe. [Cuts back to live] TAPPER: July 17th, three days later, CBS announces that Colbert was canceled. One week after that, July 24th, the Federal Communications Commission approves the $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger. Now, we should note in the midst of all that, on July 18th, Trump posted, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next." The Kimmel kerfuffle happened two months after that. Now, you can make of the timing what you will, but it is inescapable that the decision by CBS Paramount to cancel Colbert pleased Trump. And the folks who owned CBS Paramount at the time got what they wanted, and they were handsomely compensated for it. Now, Trump never posted on Truth Social: ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome comedian?’ But anyone trying to curry favor with Trump surely knew where key pressure points were. He had been attacking Colbert years before the show was canceled, and in subsequent posts, he took credit for it. Like the social media post I'm showing you right now. Now, you don't have to like Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel or anyone on that graphic to find this concerning. Because standards once eroded seldom return. We see that with the gerrymandering wars playing out. The question, would a Democratic president in the future want to use this precedent? What pressure could be put on Spotify, for instance, when it comes to Joe Rogan? What pressure could be put on Fox when it comes to Fox News Channel? What happens if a Democratic president one day wonders, will no one rid me of this meddlesome podcaster? T.S. Eliot wrote an acclaimed drama about King Henry II and Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. It's called Murder in the Cathedral. The first professional American production of it in 1936, I think, was at the Manhattan Theater at 53rd and Broadway. That theater is now known as the Ed Sullivan Theater. It's where Stephen Colbert's show takes place until next Thursday. That meddlesome comedian has been rid. So who's next? And how long will corporate America's chieftains sully their reputations to please one man?

“Abigail Spanberger isn’t going to ban America’s rifles under our watch,” NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) Executive Director John Commerford promised after the Democrat Virginia governor signed a bill banning so-called “assault” weapons and high capacity magazines. “We’re not going to stand idly by and let this new governor ban America’s rifles in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Commerford said in a statement announcing that NRA-ILA immediately filed two lawsuits, one federal and one state, challenging Spanberger’s assault of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Our teams of world-class appellate attorneys are ready to win in federal and state court and protect your rights across the Commonwealth. “Abigail Spanberger isn’t going to ban America’s rifles under our watch.” The lawsuit, filed in union with other prominent pro-Second Amendment organizations, is just one of many to come, as Just The News reports: “Other lawsuits are coming. Gun Owners of America and the Virginia Citizens Defense League are planning to file lawsuits on Friday. The Trump administration has also warned it was planning to take legal action if the bill was signed into law.” Virginia’s bill allows people who already own the banned firearms them to keep them, enabling them to continue to enjoy their Second Amendment rights. But, anyone new is subject to a Class 1 misdemeanor conviction, Virginia’s CBS 6 News reports: “The law makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor to import, sell, manufacture, purchase, or transfer an assault firearm. Anyone convicted of that violation is prohibited from purchasing, possessing, or transporting any firearm for three years from the date of conviction.”  

Rather than endure more mandatory anti-White, anti-police, anti-male indoctrination, first-year law school student David Blackman withdrew from Penn State University after just one semester – and audio from one of its required “Race” classes shows why a complaint has been filed with the U.S. Department of Education. In Penn State’s "Race and the Equal Protection of the Laws," a required course for all first-year law students, Blackman was subjected to a transgender faculty member’s activism explaining why the class “is not optional.” According audio from the class obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, Penn State’s Emily Spottswood claimed victim status: “I am a trans-woman, right. And this year there is a lot happening against people from our community and having a focus from the outset on combating oppression and injustice is meaningful to me in a way I cannot describe.” In an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Blackman reported that the course vilified white people and law enforcement and that professors assigned texts by critical race theorists without presenting an alternative perspective: “Over the course of three 150-minute lectures, speakers described all white people as ‘privileged,’ called to ‘eradicate patriarchy,’ and asserted that the justice system is ‘about keeping black people in their place.’ “One assignment said students should ‘consider’ framing their essays around ‘the reality of systemic racism,’ implying that doing otherwise could affect a student's grade.” Audio from the session obtained by Free Beacon reveals the extent to which speakers sought to coercively conscript young law students into their divisive, far-left ideology. Associate Dean Jeffrey Dodge went so far as to declare that all the students in the class had become members of a “coalition”: “Today that you all officially become part of this broader coalition and effort towards building against a more anti-racist, equal-under-the-law approach to our law and legal systems. “This is the part of the coalition that I’m really excited about is we are taking action to disrupt and dismantle systems that racialize, subordinate and oppress.” “Racism, subordination and oppression exists and it has existed,” Dodge said, adding that “We start with that as the foundation for this course.” “I think that our criminal legal system is not about keeping families and communities safe. – it’s about keeping Black people in their place,” Georgetown Law Professor Paul Butler told the first-year law students: “What the problem is, according to the movement, is white supremacy. The problem is patriarchy.” “And, unless we abolish white supremacy, unless we eradicate patriarchy, we’re still going to have problems. I’m most persuaded by the theory articulated by the movement for Black Lives,” Butler preached. On April 1, the American First Policy Institute (AFPI) notified Penn State Dickinson Law Dean Danielle Conway that it had submitting a formal complaint referring the university to the U.S. Department of Education, requesting an investigation into the American Bar Association’s accreditation standards and their potential role in fostering a racially hostile educational environment in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Penn State’s “Course materials repeatedly emphasize race-based frameworks that categorize individuals according to identity and systemic positioning, including themes portraying individuals as ‘oppressors’ or ‘oppressed’ based on skin color, and presenting American legal institutions as fundamentally structured by racial hierarchy,” the letter notes.

On Wednesday, Josh Christenson at the New York Post (as well as conservative cable networks) reported on a hearing organized by Sen. Rand Paul featuring a CIA whistleblower: A CIA whistleblower appeared publicly for the first time Wednesday to testify to a Senate panel that Dr. Anthony Fauci improperly “influenced” intelligence analyses about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic —  to downplay findings that it most likely resulted from a laboratory accident in China. Special operations officer James Erdman III delivered his testimony about the wide-ranging “cover-up” after being subpoenaed by the Senate Homeland Security Committee — and against his own agency’s wishes. Fox's Jesse Watters proclaimed "Anthony Fauci is in big trouble. The little man in a lab coat got a lot wrong and never fessed up to any of it!" But there has been no story on this Senate hearing on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, or NPR. Not only that, you can’t find it on the websites of The New York Times or The Washington Post. This underlines that they don’t want to revisit any angle of the Covid response that challenges the established St. Anthony Fauci narrative. PBS News Hour gushed over Fauci in a two-part interview in 2024, not to mention he starred in a fawning PBS American Masters documentary in 2023. There was a minute and a half on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, where the host threw a bone to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), as "Facts First" CNN labored to underline the lab-leak theory is still just one theory. MS NOW wouldn't be caught dead mentioning this news.  CNN's Jake Tapper indulged Sen. Ron Johnson for a minute Wednesday on Rand Paul's anti-Fauci whistleblower hearing, and "Facts First" CNN labored to underline the lab-leak theory is still just one theory. But at least it surfaced. (MS NOW wouldn't be caught dead mentioning this.) pic.twitter.com/XKTgHP9XLW — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) May 15, 2026 TAPPER: Let's turn to another subject I know you want to talk about. During a Senate hearing earlier today, you heard from a CIA whistleblower who accused intelligence officials and specifically Dr. Anthony Fauci of downplaying the possibility that the origins of COVID came from a Chinese lab. Dr. Fauci declined to comment when we reached out to him to respond to the hearing you held. But I think it's fair to say that the most objective assessment of the situation is that there continue to be highly respected evolutionary biologists reporting in respected peer reviewed journals who suggest, though nothing is proven, that they continue to think it was a natural spillover from an animal reservoir. Now, I might disagree. You might disagree, but it seems like there's still lots of opinions but no definitive proof one way or the other. A CIA spokesperson called this hearing nothing more than dishonest political theater, and that the CIA had already assessed COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak. Efforts to undermine the conclusion are disingenuous. So this is Trump's CIA saying this. What was your reaction to that? JOHNSON: Well, first of all, what we learned, we already knew or certainly suspected, but it just confirmed what we knew or suspected. You go back to the end of January, early February, when you see Fauci assembling this group of people who are probably still saying, well, this might have sprung from nature. They're all people he'd given millions and millions of dollars of grants to. And those are the same people he assembled in the center of the CIA. NewsNation’s Marni Hughes offered a story on Thursday morning, also featuring the negative tweets from the CIA spokeswoman on the "dishonest political theater" allegation. Both sides are represented. Why can't the liberal broadcast networks do this much? Or the newspapers?  NewsNation’s Marni Hughes offered a story on anti-Fauci whistleblower hearing on Thursday morning, also featuring the negative tweets from the CIA spokeswoman. Both sides represented. Why can't the liberal broadcast networks do this much? pic.twitter.com/cCid9XLnC7 — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) May 15, 2026