Washington Free Beacon

A federal judge on Friday delayed New York City mayor Eric Adams’s (D.) trial indefinitely but declined to immediately dismiss the corruption case, leaving the Justice Department’s request to drop the charges in limbo.

Judge Dale Ho ruled that he will instead appoint an outside attorney, Paul Clement, to argue against the DOJ’s attempt to dismiss the case, Reuters reported. Ho will listen to arguments from both the Justice Department and Clement and weigh whether dropping the charges serves the public interest.

The DOJ last week directed federal prosecutors to drop the case against Adams, who was set to face trial in April on charges of bribery, wire fraud, and soliciting illegal campaign contributions. The investigation, according to a DOJ memo, “improperly interfered” with Adams’s 2025 reelection campaign and “unduly restricted [his] ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime.”

Adams in recent days also faced pressure to resign, with four of his deputy mayors announcing their resignations to protest the Justice Department’s request. New York governor Kathy Hochul (D.) ultimately decided on Thursday not to remove Adams from office, though said she will limit his authority and increase oversight over the mayor’s office.

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President Donald Trump gave Israel the green light to restart its war effort in Gaza, saying he would be “OK” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making that decision after Hamas paraded the coffins of two Israeli children through the war-torn strip as Palestinians cheered on. Netanyahu, Trump said, “would like to go back” into Gaza and is “so angry” over the scenes.

Asked by Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade during a Friday morning interview if he is “OK” with Netanyahu ditching a tenuous ceasefire with Hamas, Trump responded, “I am. I really am.” The president’s remarks are the clearest sign to date that the United States would back Israel if it reenters Gaza to fully annihilate Hamas’s remaining forces.

Netanyahu, Trump said, “would like” to do just that following Thursday’s shocking hostage exchange, in which Hamas displayed the caskets of the murdered Bibas children—nine-month-old Kfir and four-year-old Ariel—before throngs of excited Gazans. While Hamas claimed the children had been killed by an Israeli airstrike, a forensic examination concluded the terror group murdered them “with their bare hands,” according to Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari.

Hamas was also slated to return the body of the boys’ deceased mother, Shiri Bibas, but an Israeli examination proved it was not her in the casket but rather an “unidentified” Gazan woman.

“He’s a very angry man at what happened, especially what happened yesterday with these kids,” Trump said of Netanyahu. “You know where he stands, and he would like to go, and he just is so angry, and he should be.”

Netanyahu himself issued a statement on Friday after Israel examined the bodies of the returned hostages. He promised “revenge” for Hamas’s crimes.

“As the prime minister of Israel, I vow that I will not rest until the savages who executed our hostages are brought to justice. They do not deserve to walk this earth. Nothing will stop me. Nothing,” he said.

Trump also discussed his plans to take control of the Gaza Strip and export its population to neighboring countries while the territory is reshaped into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Egypt and Jordan, the two main players in any future deal, continue to publicly rebuke Trump’s plan, but the president said his proposal remains the best option for Gaza’s future.

“We pay Jordan and Egypt billions of dollars a year, and I was a little surprised they’d say that, but they did, and I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan,” Trump said. “I think that’s the plan that really works, but I’m not forcing it.” Trump nonetheless said he would continue to advocate for the plan.

“I’m just going to sit back and recommend it, and then the U.S. would own the site,” the president said. “It’d be no Hamas, and they’d be developed, and then you start all over again with a clean plate.”

The post Trump Details Gaza Talks With Bibi: Israeli Prime Minister ‘Would Like To Go In’ and I’m ‘OK’ With It appeared first on .

As the Los Angeles Fire Department publicly upgraded its warnings of extreme fire threats, Mayor Karen Bass opted to remain in Ghana, where she was attending a cocktail party when wildfires broke out in her city last month. The department pointed to its escalating alerts after Bass accused fire chief Kristin Crowley on Tuesday of failing to adequately warn her of impending danger.

The fire department also told the Washington Free Beacon that before the wildfires broke out on Jan. 7, it posted public notifications, conducted multiple media interviews, coordinated with other city departments, and “notified City Officials about the upcoming weather event.” The department, however, declined to specify when city officials were notified or if the mayor was among them.

Regardless, Bass’s office was at least aware of the dangers while she was abroad, posting her own warning on Jan. 7 at nearly 4 a.m. Ghana time. The National Weather Service of Los Angeles also posted alerts in the days before Bass departed the city on Jan. 4.

During a Tuesday interview, Bass said Crowley didn’t warn her before she left for Ghana and skipped the “normal preparations” for the incoming Santa Ana winds, which created the extreme fire conditions.

“When I talked about it with the fire chief, what she said is is that we have warnings of Santa Ana winds a lot. But predicting this?” Bass said. “That level of preparation didn’t happen.”

The fire department disputed that claim.

“The LAFD followed our standard preparation procedures for the predicted extreme fire weather on January 7th,” a department spokesman wrote in an email to the Free Beacon.

“Additionally, public notifications and media advisories were made while the LAFD coordinated with other city departments and elected officials,” the spokesman added. “Prior to the Palisades Fire starting, the LAFD emailed two separate media advisories, conducted multiple live and recorded media interviews about the predicted extreme fire weather, and notified City Officials about the upcoming weather event.”

The spokesman also pointed to several emergency alerts the department posted while Bass was abroad, before the wildfires broke out. Yet the mayor stayed in Ghana until the blazes began scorching through her city, ultimately burning through some 40,000 acres and more than 17,000 structures until they were finally contained on Jan. 31.

“LAFD: EXTREME FIRE DANGER with DANGEROUS WINDS in LA mountains, foothills, and valleys Tuesday morning to Wednesday afternoon,” the fire department posted Jan. 6 on X. The spokesman told the Free Beacon that “local elected officials are included on the distribution list.”

Bass’s office was apparently aware of the threat. Her X account posted about an hour later that there was “an expected destructive and potentially life-threatening windstorm.”

The fire department also posted red flag alerts—denoting the highest risk of fire—on Jan. 6 and 7 on LAFD.org.

At the time the wildfires started, Bass was photographed at a cocktail party at the U.S. embassy. Bass didn’t return to Los Angeles until the following day and made her first public appearance at a Wednesday evening press conference where she blamed the crisis’s magnitude on climate change.

There were other official, public warnings even before Bass left her city. The National Weather Service of Los Angeles issued an “extreme fire weather conditions” warning two days before her departure, which it then escalated into a “major risk”—its second-most severe alert—the day before she left.

The department’s rebuttal to Bass’s interview follows weeks of tensions between fire officials and the mayor. The week the fires ignited, Crowley told Fox 11 that she felt let down by the city, sparking rumors the mayor would fire her.

Over the year prior, when Bass cut the fire department’s budget by more than $17 million, Crowley repeatedly warned that she needed more money. In a November memo that Bass’s office scrubbed in the early days of the wildfires, Crowley stated Los Angeles had roughly half the number of firefighters necessary for a city of its size, the Free Beacon has reported. The fire chief then warned on Dec. 4 that the department’s inadequate staffing would hamper wildfire response.

The blazes are projected to be the costliest disaster in the nation’s history, causing an estimated $250 billion in damage.

Bass’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The post Karen Bass Remained in Ghana as LA Fire Department Escalated Wildfire Warnings—Undercutting Her Claim She Wasn’t Warned About Impending Dangers appeared first on .

What happened: Drake, the Canadian hip-hop artist and alleged pedophile, was recently filmed throwing his shoe at a drone in what was likely a staged promotional video for an online casino. The sidearm toss was poorly executed and fundamentally unsound, and it missed badly. Drake throws like an American girl (or Canadian boy), but he’s still significantly better at throwing than disgraced former president Barack Obama, according to an exclusive Washington Free Beacon analysis.

Why it matters: Obama has long claimed to be a good athlete who excels at basketball and other competitive sports. All available evidence suggests this claim is just another one of the failed president’s egregious lies. Over the course of his career, for example, Obama has pretended to oppose gay marriage and believe in God, promised Americans they could keep their doctors under Obamacare, and insisted he was born in the United States.

By the numbers: The former president, an alleged basketball aficionado who regularly appeared on ESPN to unveil his NCAA tournament bracket and served as an unofficial adviser to the Washington Wizards (who are 9-45 this season), once went 2-22 during a shootaround on the White House basketball court he had installed. The atrocious performance came as a disappointing surprise to the children who had gathered to watch. They will presumably struggle to develop a coherent sense of right and wrong as they grow up after seeing their country’s president exposed as a malicious liar.

Fact check: Video of Obama Making Three-Point Shot Lacks Crucial Context

Go deeper: Obama is obviously terrible at shooting a basketball, but he’s even worse when it comes to throwing. Millions of children have been irrevocably scarred after watching their president attempt to throw a baseball in public. An exclusive Free Beacon analysis in 2014 revealed the alarming extent of Obama’s athletic ineptitude.

Obama has on several occasions “thrown” out the first “pitch” before a Major League Baseball game. Each time he has struggled to put the ball within a reasonable vicinity of the strike zone. Each time the crowd has applauded out of pity, as though it’s not a tremendous national embarrassment to have a president who can’t throw a baseball like a normal human being. George W. Bush, by contrast, helped to heal his grieving nation by firing a heater down the middle of the plate before Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, less than a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Bush is hardly the only person to outclass Obama on the pitcher’s mound. A Washington Post analysis in 2016 determined that Obama was one of the worst celebrity throwers of all time. The list of celebs who exceeded Obama’s pitiful throwing ability includes Mariah Carey, Sonia Sotomayor, Santa Claus, Cookie Monster, and Tara the Hero Cat, along with the following three individuals:

Big picture: Drake, the alleged pedophile from Canada, also managed to exceed that low bar, according to the Free Beacon‘s exclusive analysis, which projected the trajectory of Drake’s throw and employed artificial intelligence to calculate its proximity to a simulated strike zone. The results speak for themselves.

Read more: Dying Terrorist Throws Better Than Obama

The post ANALYSIS: Alleged Pedophile Throws Better Than Obama appeared first on .

Members of the Beltway political class seem to believe that Donald Trump’s flurry of a first month in office has alienated the American people. Ignore them, says Free Beacon founding editor Matthew Continetti.

Trump has moved fast and broken things. Washington politicos think that’s a bad thing. But they “can’t—or won’t—grasp the extent of public dissatisfaction with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” writes Continetti. “Eighty-three percent of voters said they would like to see substantial change or complete and total upheaval (my italics) in how the country is run.” 

From his “notable executive orders on affirmative action, DEI, gender ideology, and paper straws” to his illegal immigration deterrence, Trump has started delivering that change on the domestic front. His greatest danger, according to Continetti, “is a foreign policy that ends in trade wars, military conflict, and wasted political capital.”

Voters chose Trump to improve the economy and close the southern border. Acquiring Greenland—as much as this columnist loves the idea—wasn’t on the menu. Nor was making Canada the 51st state, retaking the Panama Canal, or owning the Riviera of the Middle East on the Gaza Strip. Just 22 percent of voters in a recent Quinnipiac poll support Trump’s plan for Gaza.

And while it’s true that Trump campaigned on ending the Ukraine war, he risks losing popularity and support if an agreement with Russia makes America look weak. Eighty-one percent of voters in the Quinnipiac poll said the United States shouldn’t trust Vladimir Putin. The voters are right.

Second-term presidents often pay a price for foreign-policy hubris. Reagan had Iran-Contra. Bush’s surge in Iraq succeeded militarily but cost him politically. Obama’s deal with Iran endangered America. Trump, more powerful than ever, seems tempted to join their company. The message from voters was simpler: raise wages, seal borders, drain the swamp. Everything else is a distraction.

Read the full column: Trump’s First Month: Victory at Home, Danger Abroad

Hamas terrorists on Thursday returned to Israel the dead bodies of some of the hostages, including innocent children, they abducted and murdered. The victims, Oded Lifshitz, 83; Shiri Bibas, 32; and her two children, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month old Kfir, were held in captivity for more than 500 days after being taken from their home. Hamas terrorists displayed their caskets on a makeshift stage in front of a sign that depicted Bibi Netanyahu as a snarling, bloodthirsty vampire. Gazan civilians, including many children, cheered and enjoyed celebratory music.

Or, as NPR described it, it was a “somber” scene.

The taxpayer-funded outlet covered the macabre propaganda display on Thursday’s episode of Morning Edition, noting that Thursday marked “the first time that Hamas has handed over bodies during this war.” NPR’s Tel Aviv-based correspondent, Kat Lonsdorf, told listeners the scene was “more somber and much less celebratory on both sides.” Come again?

“While that was true in Israel, where mourning citizens quietly gathered together, NPR’s description of the scene in Gaza differed from what unfolded on the ground,” writes our Adam Kredo. “Inside the war-torn strip, Hamas terrorists paraded the coffins of two dead children, their mother, and an 83-year-old man through the streets of Gaza before mobs of cheering Palestinians.” Then, early Friday, Israel revealed in a gut-wrenching announcement that Hamas returned not the body of Shiri Bibas but rather “an anonymous, unidentified body.”

When Uri Berliner left NPR, he cited the outlet’s work “downplaying the atrocities of October 7, overlooking how Hamas intentionally puts Palestinian civilians in peril, and giving little weight to the explosion of antisemitic hate around the world.” NPR denied the claims. How about now?

Watch the footage: As Gazans Celebrate the Murder of Jewish Women and Children, NPR Calls the Scenes ‘More Somber and Much Less Celebratory’

Over in the Midwest, Indiana native turned prospective Michigan Senate candidate Pete Buttigieg keeps backing away from his woke past. Buttigieg, speaking Tuesday at a University of Chicago Institute of Politics panel on the “Future of the Democratic Party,” took aim at diversity training, saying Americans shouldn’t be made to “sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia, which I have also experienced.” So have cops in Buttigieg’s South Bend.

“In 2017, with Buttigieg a year into his second term, South Bend’s police department instituted diversity and anti-discrimination training sessions aimed at ‘Bridging Relationships and Strengthening Community Through Inclusion,'” our Collin Anderson writes. “Slides from the sessions lamented ‘Implicit Bias’ and presented cops with a list called the ‘The “Ism” Trail,’ which denounced nefarious ‘isms’ that perpetuate prejudice and power dynamics, including ‘racism,’ ‘sexism,’ ‘ageism,’ ‘languageism,’ ‘materialism,’ ‘classism,’ ‘colorism,’ and ‘sizeism.'”

Violent crime was surging in South Bend at the time, and two years later, during his failed presidential campaign, Buttigieg apologized for the police department’s lack of diversity, saying, “I couldn’t get it done.”

Buttigieg’s Tuesday comments came as he takes a “serious look” at a 2026 Senate run in Michigan, “where he and his husband moved in 2022 ‘because of family.’ As Buttigieg eyes that run, he’s worked to distance himself from the left-wing policies that defined his failed 2020 presidential campaign,” including taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for federal inmates and illegal immigrants.

Read more: Pete Buttigieg, Whose Mayoral Admin Held Diversity Trainings Lecturing Cops on ‘Sizeism,’ Now Takes Aim at ‘Portlandia’ Diversity Trainings

Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al-Qasimi is the ruler of one of the seven United Arab Emirates. He’s best known for waging alleged “hack-and-leak” operations targeting the business associates and journalists who exposed his ties to Iran, including our friend Jay Solomon of the Free Press. Now, he’s in business with Gretchen Whitmer and the state of Michigan.

On a recent trip to the Middle East, Whitmer signed a memorandum of understanding with the sheikh, our Chuck Ross reports. She said the deal would facilitate “student exchanges, internships, and joint programs between Michigan and Ras Al Khaimah-based academic institutions” and drive bilateral investments between Michigan and the small Gulf nation. Joy!

“Saud, a University of Michigan graduate who hosted the governor during her visit, is a controversial figure in the United States,” writes Ross. “The dictator, who was until recently represented by Dechert’s Andrew Levander, threatened to sue the Washington Free Beacon for reporting on litigation that accused him of using a network of lawyers, lobbyists, private eyes, and hackers to wage smear campaigns against former business associates and journalists.”

Read more: Gretchen Whitmer Forges Business Deal With Iran-Linked Emirati Sheikh Implicated in Hacking Schemes

Away from the Beacon:

• Colorado’s Medicaid program reportedly spent nearly $4 million on health care for dead people. Can we send “Big Balls” out West?
• Speaking of DOGE, if you’re a federal worker out of a job, have no fear: You get three free months of Politico Pro. 
• Mehdi Hasan is assembling a team (of anti-Semites). His “new media company,” Zeteo, hired Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman to host a “monthly YouTube show” that “will spill the tea on what really goes on inside of Congress & the damage done by big money and special interests.” Subtle!

The post Matthew Continetti Assesses Trump’s First Month. Plus, NPR Whitewashes Hamas Barbarism. appeared first on .

Ignore the Beltway Sturm und Drang: One month into his second term, Donald Trump has advanced his coalition’s priorities of changing Washington, tackling inflation, and sealing the border. Yet these gains could vanish if Trump succumbs to the perennial second-term temptation of foreign policy overreach.

For now, Trump’s position is secure because he’s delivered. His job approval rating remains above water, 49 percent to 47 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Congress’s approval rating has spiked as Republicans confirm Trump’s cabinet and pursue his agenda. The GOP also maintains its edge in voter identification.

As I write, Trump has issued 108 executive actions. They are aligned with the electorate’s aims as revealed in last year’s exit polling. What did the electorate want? A point-by-point refutation of the Biden years. Which is what we’re getting.

The political class can’t—or won’t—grasp the extent of public dissatisfaction with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Seventy percent of voters in 2024 said the country was headed in the wrong direction, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis. Eighty-three percent of voters said they would like to see substantial change or complete and total upheaval (my italics) in how the country is run. Fifty-two percent of voters said Trump would bring positive change, whereas 48 percent of voters said Harris would do so.

The CNN exit poll asked voters which candidate qualities mattered most. The top two responses were the ability to lead and the capacity to bring needed change. Trump trounced Harris on both qualities: 66 percent to 33 percent on leadership and a staggering 74 percent and 24 percent on disruption. The message wasn’t subtle.

Elon Musk’s DOGE may be acting fast and breaking things, as befits its Silicon Valley parentage, but its mission is consistent with the public desire to stop Washington’s slide into stagnation and decline. And Trump’s notable executive orders on affirmative action, DEI, gender ideology, and paper straws fit into the MAGA coalition paradigm of uprooting politically correct, net-zero nostrums that Biden and Harris embedded in government.

The most important issue facing the country in 2024, according to the Fox News Analysis, was the economy and jobs. Trump beat Harris on the issue by 24 points. Two-thirds of voters said the economy was not so good or poor, and they voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Seventy-five percent of voters in the CNN exit poll said inflation caused their families severe or moderate hardship in the past year. These voters also went for Trump. The fate of the Trump majority depends on stable prices.

Last month’s inflation spike exposed the continuing threat. The executive branch can help reduce inflation by lowering regulatory burdens, increasing domestic energy, and cutting spending. Trump has signed presidential directives to accomplish these tasks. Meanwhile, the legislative branch can carry out a similar mission while also pursuing wage growth through tax reform.

Which is why Trump’s support for one “big, beautiful” House bill is significant. The president understands that his legacy rests on improving living standards for working- and middle-class Americans. He understands that his economic program hinges on a 218-215 House majority that could crumble before the next Congress. He understands that the House proposal isn’t mere legislation. It’s survival.

The 2024 electorate’s second most important issue was immigration. Here too Trump demolished Harris. Public opinion on immigration shifted because of Biden’s open border, giving Trump leeway to build the wall, deport illegal immigrants, and fight narcos and human traffickers. The most recent data show that illegal border crossings have declined by 90 percent since Trump returned to the Oval Office. He’s been so successful in deterring illegal immigration that the media rarely bring up the subject.

For Trump to succeed, he needs to enact his domestic agenda in 2025 and hold the GOP House in 2026. (The map makes a Democratic Senate takeover unlikely next year.) The greatest danger to these objectives is a foreign policy that ends in trade wars, military conflict, and wasted political capital.

So far, Trump’s tariff threats are more abstract than real. Let’s hope they stay that way. A low-tax, low-reg, cheap-energy economy can endure mild protectionism. But beggar-thy-neighbor tariffs and a scrambled supply chain make no one wealthier. They just make government more powerful.

Voters chose Trump to improve the economy and close the southern border. Acquiring Greenland—as much as this columnist loves the idea—wasn’t on the menu. Nor was making Canada the 51st state, retaking the Panama Canal, or owning the Riviera of the Middle East on the Gaza Strip. Just 22 percent of voters in a recent Quinnipiac poll support Trump’s plan for Gaza.

And while it’s true that Trump campaigned on ending the Ukraine war, he risks losing popularity and support if an agreement with Russia makes America look weak. Eighty-one percent of voters in the Quinnipiac poll said the United States shouldn’t trust Vladimir Putin. The voters are right.

Second-term presidents often pay a price for foreign-policy hubris. Reagan had Iran-Contra. Bush’s surge in Iraq succeeded militarily but cost him politically. Obama’s deal with Iran endangered America. Trump, more powerful than ever, seems tempted to join their company. The message from voters was simpler: raise wages, seal borders, drain the swamp. Everything else is a distraction.

The post Trump’s First Month: Victory at Home, Danger Abroad appeared first on .

Three buses exploded just south of Tel Aviv on Thursday, in what Israeli police are calling a “suspected terror attack.”

The explosions, which occurred in separate parking lots, were caused by makeshift bombs with timers that likely originated from the West Bank, Tel Aviv District police chief Haim Sargarof told reporters. One of the unexploded bombs has a note that reads “Revenge from Tulkarem,” referring to an Israeli counterterrorism operation in the West Bank, according to the BBC.

No casualties have been reported.

The explosions come on the same day that Hamas handed over the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two children, whom the terror group murdered as part of its October 7 terror attacks.

“Large police forces are at the scenes, searching for suspects. Police bomb disposal units are scanning for additional suspicious objects,” a police spokesperson said.

Police found identical devices two other buses, but those bombs failed to detonate, according to officials.

In response, Defense Minister Israel Katz directed the Israeli military to “increase the intensity” of operations in West Bank refugee camps, the BBC reported, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being briefed on the situation.

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As a prospective Senate candidate, Pete Buttigieg is denouncing the diversity trainings that have become synonymous with the Democratic Party’s liberal wing, saying they look “like something straight out of Portlandia.” As mayor of South Bend, Ind., he championed such training, with his administration implementing a series of diversity sessions that lectured cops on “sizeism” and “languageism” amid a surge in violent crime.

Buttigieg, speaking Tuesday at a University of Chicago Institute of Politics panel on the “Future of the Democratic Party,” addressed the party’s focus on “diversity.” He said he would “always fight” to care “for people’s different experiences.” He also took aim at diversity training, saying Americans shouldn’t be made to “sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia, which I have also experienced, and it is how Trump Republicans are made.”

Cops in South Bend had a similar experience when Buttigieg served as mayor.

In 2017, with Buttigieg a year into his second term, South Bend’s police department instituted diversity and anti-discrimination training sessions aimed at “Bridging Relationships and Strengthening Community Through Inclusion,” the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2020. Slides from the sessions lamented “Implicit Bias” and presented cops with a list called “The ‘Ism’ Trail,” which denounced nefarious “isms” that perpetuate prejudice and power dynamics, including “racism,” “sexism,” “ageism,” “languageism,” “materialism,” “classism,” “colorism,” and “sizeism.”

A similar list of “Key Terms & Definitions” urged officers to refrain from using the term “hearing-impaired,” calling it “offensive” to deaf people as it implies “that their hearing is broken, and needs to be fixed.” One year after the training sessions took place, in 2018, violent crime in South Bend reached its highest level in 20 years. Buttigieg, in 2019, apologized for the police department’s lack of diversity, saying, “I couldn’t get it done.”

Buttigieg’s Tuesday comments came as the Indiana native turned Michigan resident takes a “serious look” at a 2026 Senate run in the Great Lakes State, where he and his husband moved in 2022 “because of family.” As Buttigieg eyes that run, he’s worked to distance himself from the left-wing policies that defined his failed 2020 presidential campaign.

At that time, Buttigieg completed an American Civil Liberties Union survey sent to all presidential candidates. In it, he supported taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for federal inmates and illegal immigrants—a position that helped derail Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign—and pledged to reduce the size of the “immigration detention system by at least 75%,” including by “cutting ICE’s detention budget.”

“I would direct my HHS Office of Civil Rights and Department of Justice to vigorously enforce all federal laws against discrimination based on gender identity, including ensuring the provision of all medically necessary care for transgender Americans,” Buttigieg wrote at the time. “This includes medical care for transgender individuals incarcerated in federal prisons and under immigration detention.”

Buttigieg walked back his answers last week, with his spokesman telling the Free Beacon that he “does not support slashing ICE’s detention budget” and merely pledged to “faithfully enforce all federal laws against discrimination.” His husband, Chasten, has a long history of voicing similar opinions, having argued in 2023 that minors should be permitted to undergo sex change surgeries and hormone therapy treatments.

“I believe those types of conversations and decisions should be left to a transgender person or the parents,” Chasten Buttigieg said during a C-SPAN appearance after a caller asked him about those treatments. “I know that every major medical—reputable medical—association in this country supports gender-affirming care, so I’m going to follow experts in the field and listen to them because I value those trans lives.”

Publicly, top Michigan Democrats like Sen. Gary Peters, whose decision to forgo reelection provided the opening for Buttigieg, have praised the former mayor’s potential candidacy. Privately, however, some politicos have argued that Buttigieg’s carpetbagger status could prove difficult to overcome.

The post Pete Buttigieg, Whose Mayoral Admin Held Diversity Trainings Lecturing Cops on ‘Sizeism,’ Now Takes Aim at ‘Portlandia’ Diversity Trainings appeared first on .

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) in a Senate floor speech announced his retirement and urged his fellow senators to stand up for “national security” and “the rule of law.”

“Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime,” McConnell said in the speech on Thursday, his 83rd birthday. “I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last.”

McConnell, who stepped down as Senate Republican leader last year, is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history and has represented Kentucky since 1985. His Thursday announcement comes amid growing concerns over his health, including several public freezes and falls that raised questions about his ability to serve effectively.

While McConnell has supported most of President Donald Trump’s agenda, the two also clashed during both of Trump’s terms, with the Kentucky senator recently voting against three Trump nominees and calling for increased aid to Ukraine.

The Senate, McConnell said, ensures that “the men and women who preside” over the American people “profess authentic devotion to the rule of law above all else.”

The upper chamber’s most important concern, McConnell went on, is “the obligations of national security.” He warned that the United States has allowed its “hard power” to “atrophy” since Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

The longtime senator ended his speech by saying that he has hope, however.

“There are any number of reasons for pessimism,” McConnell said. “But the strength of the Senate is not one of them. This chamber is still the haven where the political minority can require a debate. It is still the crucible in which jurists are tested for their fidelity to upholding the Constitution and laws as they were written. The Senate is still equipped for work of great consequence, and to the disappointment of my critics, I’m still here on the job.”

The post Mitch McConnell, Announcing Retirement, Calls on Senators To Prioritize National Security and the Constitution appeared first on .

As throngs of Hamas militants and their Gazan allies celebrated over the caskets of four dead Israelis, including two children and their mother, an NPR reporter described the scene as “much more somber and much less celebratory on both sides.”

The taxpayer-funded outlet’s Tel Aviv-based correspondent, Kat Lonsdorf, gave the description after interviewer Michel Martin noted that Thursday marked “the first time that Hamas has handed over bodies during this war” and asked Lonsdorf to describe the “scene.”

“Yeah, it was definitely much more somber and much less celebratory on both sides,” Lonsdorf responded.

While that was true in Israel, where mourning citizens quietly gathered together, NPR’s description of the scene in Gaza differed drastically from what unfolded on the ground. Inside the war-torn strip, Hamas terrorists paraded the coffins of two dead children, their mother, and an 83-year-old man through the streets of Gaza before mobs of cheering Palestinians.

Hamas displayed the caskets on a makeshift stage in front of an anti-Semitic sign depicting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a bloodthirsty vampire snarling above a photo of the murdered captives. Inside the coffins were Shiri Bibas, 32; her two children, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir; and 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz. Hamas kidnapped them during the terror group’s Oct. 7 terror rampage through Israel.

Before being returned to Israel, the International Committee of the Red Cross dispatched one of its staffers to sit with a uniformed Hamas terrorist at a camouflage table and sign “paperwork.” The coffins were then transported through Gaza as hordes of Palestinians cheered and chanted “victory” in Arabic.

When the coffins reached Israeli soil, they were scanned for bombs and booby traps and then opened for examination to confirm the identities of those inside. Hamas locked the caskets shut but did not provide keys to Israel, forcing authorities to smash the locks open.

The post WATCH: As Gazans Celebrate the Murder of Jewish Women and Children, NPR Calls the Scenes ‘More Somber and Much Less Celebratory’ appeared first on .