It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, April 17, 2026
‘This Fight Is Nowhere Near Over,’ Privacy Advocates Warn After GOP Again Punts FISA Vote
“We won’t stop fighting for a self-evident truth: The government should not be able to bypass the courts to surveil Americans,” said one privacy campaigner.
US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) arrives for a caucus meeting in the US Capitol in Washington, DC on April 15, 2026. (Photo by Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
Jessica Corbett Apr 15, 2026 C0MMON DREAMS A controversial federal spying power is set to expire next week, but Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives again delayed a reauthorization vote on Wednesday amid persistent demands for reforms from across the political spectrum.
President Donald Trump is pushing for a “clean” 18-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on the electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “canceled a vote scheduled for Wednesday evening... amid a hard-liner rebellion, making it more likely the program could expire in five days—but said the House would try again Thursday,” Politico reported.
As for whether there would be the necessary votes on Thursday to adopt a rule to proceed to consideration of the bill, Johnson said: “I think we will... We’re working through some final details.”
Although GOP leaders are plowing ahead with their reauthorization effort, Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado still welcomed the delay, declaring that “this time, fearmongering was not enough to overcome a bipartisan movement fighting for the privacy rights of all Americans.”
“We rarely ever see the full force of the White House and the intelligence agencies fail to browbeat Congress into giving them what they want,” Hammado noted. “That this happened today is a testament to the tireless work of our movement, which has been successfully bringing Republicans, Democrats, and Independents together for a common cause.”
“Of course, this fight is nowhere near over,” she added. “Speaker Johnson can still force a vote any time with extremely short notice, but our coalition feels the wind at our backs, and we won’t stop fighting for a self-evident truth: The government should not be able to bypass the courts to surveil Americans.”
Hammado’s group has been a leader in the growing coalition calling for reforms—including for lawmakers to close the “data broker loophole” that intelligence and law enforcement agencies use to buy their way around the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which is supposed to protect Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.
It’s not just congressional Republicans under pressure. Demand Progress Action and Fight for the Future took aim at House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-Conn.)—who has signaled that he will support renewal and vote against adding privacy protections—with a Sunday print advertisement in the Connecticut Post.
On Tuesday, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-NY), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) spearheaded a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders in both chambers arguing that “this authority ought to include meaningful Fourth Amendment protections for Americans in its renewal package.”
“The Trump administration has demonstrated an unparalleled appetite for collecting and exploiting Americans’ personal data,” the caucus leaders and members wrote. “The administration has built profiles on American citizens, demanded that artificial intelligence (AI) companies assist in mass domestic surveillance, and paid hundreds of millions of dollars to build a megadatabase of Americans’ personal data. Without independent guardrails on Section 702, this administration has repeatedly shown that it cannot be trusted to police its own use of this sweeping surveillance authority.”
Over 30 civil society organizations—including Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Indivisible, Project On Government Oversight, RootsAction, and more—endorsed the congressional letter. POGO policy counsel Donald Bell commended the leadership of the caucuses “in seeking real guardrails and accountability that protect our constitutional rights,” while Hammado urged “all members of Congress to follow the lead” of the three groups.
Meanwhile, The American Prospect reported Monday that “the Congressional Black Caucus will quietly support an effort to reauthorize surveillance powers that were used to spy on Black Lives Matter activists in 2020,” which “comes after Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the powerful ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, successfully lobbied CBC leadership to stand down on reforming the vast intelligence authority.”
After publication, Meeks told the outlet that “I support FISA reauthorization, but the only vote I’ve been whipping is my war powers resolution to end the war in Iran. Whip operations are traditionally conducted by the ranking member of the committee that has jurisdiction over the legislation being considered. Any claim that I’m whipping the CBC on FISA is false.”
In response to that reporting,Re Access Now, Fight for the Future, and STOP Spying NYC said in a joint statement that “if the heat of the glares aimed at Rep. Meeks right now could melt him, he’d be dripping like a snowman on the pavement in July. No one in Queens wants everybody in the federal government to have total access to the intimate details of their lives with the tap of a mouse.”
Highlighting the danger of continuing the spying power sans privacy protections as Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers roam US streets, the groups said that “it is a total betrayal of the Fourth Amendment and the dignity of everyday people in this country to treat us all as if we are guilty until Big Brother Trump proves us innocent by watching our every move. And worse—it’s impossible to predict how these troves of records may be weaponized in the future against racial justice activists, trans and queer families, abortion patients and providers, anti-war activists, or anyone who acts out of step with MAGA.”
“It’s supposed to be the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, not the Forever Indiscriminate Surveillance Act. Rep. Meeks’ colleagues are proposing real safeguards to protect people against this indiscriminate government surveillance,” the trio added. “He is not only failing his constituency, he is disrespecting them and putting them in danger. It’s not too late for Rep. Meeks to get on the right side of history.”
Human Rights Groups Demand Ireland Stop Letting Trump Use Airport for ‘Unlawful’ ICE Flights
“If Ireland is facilitating the monstrous ICE project, then we fear the government has lost its way. Rather than cower and capitulate, it must show courage, compassion, and principle,” said the head of Amnesty International Ireland.
A group of detainees board an Eastern Air Express flight at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport on January 11, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At least five of these deportation flights have refueled at the Shannon Airport in Ireland. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
A pair of human rights groups on Thursday called for the Irish government to stop letting the administration of US President Donald Trump use Shannon Airport as a refueling stop for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation flights.
In a joint letter to Ireland’s transport minister, Darragh O’Brien, and foreign affairs and trade minister, Helen McEntee, Amnesty International Ireland and Human Rights First urged the Irish government to stop cooperating with President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport migrants to third countries.
Using data from its ICE Flight Monitor, Human Rights First determined that Shannon Airport has been used to refuel deportation planes during at least five of these removal operations, which involved what the groups described as “transfers of individuals to countries... they have no ties to and where they have faced arbitrary and prolonged detention and other abuse.”
After one of the flights in May 2025, eight migrants from several countries, including Cuba, Mexico, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Sudan—some of whom had legally been resettled as refugees—were dropped in the East African nation of Djibouti. There, they were held in a shipping container at a US base for at least six weeks before being sent to war-torn South Sudan, where they were promptly detained by authorities. Six of them remain in detention today, with little ability to communicate with their lawyers.
Another group of five men from Cuba, Yemen, Vietnam, and Laos was taken to the southern African country of Eswatini in July. Four of them remain in state custody more than eight months later, despite the authorities giving no official reason for their ongoing detention.
Another flight stopped in Ireland on its way back from dumping eight Palestinian men, who were shackled for the entire journey, on the side of the road in the occupied West Bank. Some of the men had green cards in the United States, and several had wives and children from whom they had been forcibly separated, despite facing no accusations of having committed a crime. Two such flights have taken place.
In total, the groups found that at least 28 migrants had traveled through the Shannon Airport on their way to third countries.
About 300 migrants have been sent to third countries as part of the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” campaign, according to a February report by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The administration has spent more than $40 million, part of which has gone to countries willing to take in deportees, including Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, El Salvador, Eswatini, and Palau, each of which has received multimillion-dollar lump sums.Most infamously, the administration last year secretly sent more than 280 young men, most without criminal records, to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a megaprison in El Salvador, where they were subjected to torture and cut off from communication with their families and lawyers for more than four months before a judge ordered most of them released.
Amnesty and Human Rights First have described this practice as a form of “enforced disappearance” under international law.
“To carry out its mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration is flouting international law and cutting deals with dictators. It is also endangering lives, through its opaque web of third country agreements to send people against their will to countries where they have no connection”, said Uzra Zeya, the CEO of Human Rights First.
“Beyond their cruelty, these agreements reflect a transactional foreign policy driven by xenophobia, and they undermine due process and human rights globally,” she said. “Ireland should play no part in facilitating these unlawful removals, including to third countries notorious for rights abuses.”
Shannon Airport has become a target of protest over its use as a hub for American military planes, which many in Ireland see as an affront to the country’s long history of military neutrality. It has previously come under scrutiny for helping transport detainees renditioned for torture by the CIA during the post-9/11 global War on Terror.
Last week, a man was arrested for allegedly breaking into the facility and damaging a US military plane that was en route to a bilateral military exercise in Poland, according to The New York Times. Though no motive has been made public, the incident evoked other acts of vandalism by anti-war activists opposed to the US military presence.
“People across Ireland and the world look on in horror as the Trump administration continues implementing its vile, racist, and xenophobic executive orders that dehumanize and criminalize people who are, or are perceived to be, migrants and refugees. The administration has brazenly violated the right to due process by unlawfully removing people and subjecting some to enforced disappearance,” said Stephen Bowen, the executive director of Amnesty International Ireland.
Following a request last month for it to stop US deportation flights from using Shannon to refuel, Ireland’s Department of Transport contended that under the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, US aircraft do not require permission to refuel at Shannon. Transport Minister O’Brien has said the US did not request authorization for the flights to land and that his department had no knowledge of them.
But Bowen says that even though states are not required to obtain permission to land, the convention still requires them to abide by international law, and that the Irish government ultimately has the power to decide how its sovereign airspace is used.
“The Department of Transport’s public responses are just not good enough,” he said. “There are depressing parallels with Ireland’s failure two decades ago to stop CIA-leased civil aircraft using Shannon as a stopover for rendition operations during the US ‘War on Terror’. Despite promises to ‘enforce the prohibition on the use of Irish airspace, airports, and related facilities for purposes not in line with the dictates of international law’, it appears that no concrete actions were ever taken.”
“The government’s timidity in its dealings with President Trump is already a cause for concern,” Bowen added. “If Ireland is facilitating the monstrous ICE project, then we fear the government has lost its way. Rather than cower and capitulate, it must show courage, compassion, and principle.”
Thomas' 'historically illiterate' speech gets history 'wildly inaccurate': scholar
U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito (left) and Clarence Thomas on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement in 1991 and President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, he wanted the seat to be held by another Black justice. Marshall was an historic figure: Appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, he was the first Black justice in the High Court's history.
But Thomas, now 77, was a major departure from Marshall in terms of judicial philosophy. While Marshall (who passed away in 1993) was decidedly liberal, Thomas is a far-right social conservative. And over the years, he had strong disagreements with not only the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but also, with retired libertarian/conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Thomas looked back on U.S. history during a Wednesday night, April 15 speech at the University of Texas, Austin Law School, arguing that progressive politics are incompatible with the U.S. Declaration of Independence. But The New Republic's Matt Ford, in an article published on April 17, argues that Thomas got history wrong in multiple ways.
Thomas told attendees, "As we meet today, it is unclear whether these principles will endure. At the beginning of the 20th Century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream. The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominently among them the 28th president, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism. Since Wilson's presidency, progressivism has made many inroads in our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever."
But according to Ford, Thomas' take on U.S. history is wildly inaccurate.
"Thomas is correct that progressivism was introduced around the turn of the 20th Century, that Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president, and that Wilson was a progressive," Ford explains. "The historical accuracy ends there. Presenting Wilson as the inventor of progressivism is historically illiterate, akin to saying that Joseph Stalin invented communism or that Ronald Reagan invented conservatism. In reality, the progressive era emerged in the 1890s from the corruption and excesses of the Gilded Age."
Ford continues, "A broad range of activists, journalists, legislators, and judges challenged the societal ills that had emerged from the nation's rapid industrialization…. I'm sure that Wilson would have liked to claim credit for inventing the progressive movement, but he was one figure in a much larger social and political ecosystem. Republicans and Democrats alike both supported the movement and its reforms, and the first president to embrace it was actually Theodore Roosevelt."
Ford argues that for Thomas, it is "rhetorically advantageous to make" Wilson "the standard-bearer of progressivism" because he "was perhaps the most racist person to hold the presidency between Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump."
"It allows certain conservative intellectuals to adopt the guise of anti-racism while simultaneously opposing the civil rights laws passed decades after Wilson died," Ford notes. "I bring all of this up not to defend Wilson himself, but to point out the importance of getting history correct."
As Sotomayor Apologizes to Kavanaugh, Thomas Paints Progressives as Existential Threat
“Cowering liberals think this is a manners contest while conservatives are waging an ideological war,” said one observer.
US Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas pose for official photos on October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
While one liberal US Supreme Court justice apologized Wednesday for mildly condescending remarks about a colleague, one of the high court’s most right-wing members compared progressives to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler—a contrast that one prominent observer called “a perfect commentary on the asymmetry in politics” between liberals and the MAGA right.
“This is from a man whose parents were professionals,” Sotomayor told the audience, “and probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Justice Clarence Thomas linked the progressive movement—which Americans have to thank for many of the rights they have today, from the five-day, 40-hour workweek, to food safety and environmental protection, to near-universal civil and voting rights—with some of the 20th century’s worst mass murderers.
“Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government,” Thomas told attendees of a University of Texas event commemorating the 250th anniversary of the document’s signing. “It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government.”
Thomas called the declaration “one of the greatest anti-slavery documents in the history of the Western civilization,” even though its proclamation that “all men are created equal” did not apply to the 20% of the American population who were enslaved Blacks, and a condemnation of slavery was stricken from the draft due to objections from slave owners.
However, Thomas argued that the ideals in the Declaration of Independence have “fallen out of favor” among progressives.
“Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement, with the possible exception of the pro-slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War, to openly oppose the principles of the declaration” Thomas asserted. “Progressives strove to undo the declaration’s commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self-evident.”
“It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights,” he continued, adding that it “led to the governments that caused the most awful century that the world has ever seen.”
“Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our declaration are based,” Thomas added, referring to Soviet leader Josef Stalin, the Nazi leader, and Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong.
Balls and Strikes editor-in-chief Jay Willis responded to Thomas’ remarks on Bluesky, writing that it is “genuinely funny that Sonia Sotomayor issued a public apology today for her mild criticism of a conservative colleague on a specific, substantive issue, and then a few hours later Clarence Thomas picked up a mic and was like ALL LIBERALS ARE AMERICA-HATING COWARDS.”
“Clarence Thomas is a right-wing freak,” Willis added. “This is an indistinguishable from what unironic retvrn guys post on X about, like, women being allowed to have bank accounts. Anyone who tells you he is a profound thinker or a serious jurist or whatever is not to be trusted.”
Many right-wingers, meanwhile, applauded Thomas’ remarks, with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)—who helped try to steal the 2020 election for President Donald Trump—posting on X that “progressivism *is* an existential threat to America.”
During his speech, Thomas also expressed his admiration for Harlan Crow, the Republican megadonor whose largesse to the justice and his wife Virginia—who was also involved in efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election—has included undisclosed gifts like luxury vacations and private school tuition for a relative.
He also praised John Yoo, his former clerk and senior Justice Department lawyer who authored the infamous “torture memos” for the George W. Bush administration and publicly argued that the president has the power to order the massacre of an entire village of civilians or the crushing of a child’s testicles.
Thomas closed his speech with a call to action.
“Each of you will have opportunities to be courageous every day,” he said. “It may mean speaking up in class tomorrow when someone around you expects you to live by lies. It may mean confronting today’s fashionable bigotries, such as antisemitism. It may mean standing up for your religion when it is mocked and disparaged by a professor.”
“It may mean not budging on your principles when it will entail losing friends or being ostracized,” he continued. “It may mean running for your school board when you see that they are teaching your children to hate your values and our country. It may mean turning down a job offer that requires you to make moral or ethical compromises.”
This, from a justice on the nation’s highest court whose moral and ethical compromises in the form of “the number, value, and extravagance of the gifts” he took from a billionaire linked to a case before that same court has “no comparison in modern American history,” according to a Senate report.
‘Financial Pawn of the Saudi Monarchy’: House Judiciary Opens Probe Into Jared Kushner
“You cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin. Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on April 2, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)
The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee on Friday morning announced a “sweeping” probe into alleged self-enrichment by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump who has served as a high-profile White House envoy in the Middle East while also, according to Congressman Jamie Raskin, “soliciting billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies for [his] private business ventures.”
In a letter addressed to Kushner, the Maryland Democrat charges that by pushing for investments in his international investment firm, A Fin Management LLC (Affinity), while also serving as “Special Envoy for Peace” for the Trump administration, he has created “a glaring and incurable conflict of interest” in the eyes of the American people.
While Raskin points out that Kushner repeatedly vowed to stay out of government during Trump’s second term and, going further, said he would not raise funds for Affinity during that time, both promises were “quickly” broken.
In April of 2022, the New York Timesreported how Kushner had secured a $2 billion investment from a sovereign wealth fund directed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MbS. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, investigations were demanded over accusations that previous financial ties meant that MbS had Kushner “in his pocket.”
According to Raskin’s letter on Friday: Mr. Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, has amassed approximately $6.16 billion in assets under management—including $1.2 billion in the past year alone—with an extraordinary 99 percent of its funding derived from foreign nationals. These include sovereign wealth funds operated by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. At the same time, Mr. Kushner has assumed a central role in sensitive geopolitical negotiations across the Middle East and beyond.
Despite explicit public assurances that he would avoid both government service and fundraising during President Trump’s second term, Mr. Kushner has done precisely the opposite. He has inserted himself into the world’s most volatile global conflicts as one of the United States’ chief negotiators all while deepening his financial reliance on, and entanglement with, foreign governments.
Citing the horrific US complicity in Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza as well as Trump’s illegal war of choice against Iran, Raskin’s letter to Kushner charges that “your decision to play completely irreconcilable and unethical dual roles has been haunting American foreign policy since President Trump returned to Washington in 2025.”
Noting that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia remains “your largest investor through Affinity and thus possesses significant financial leverage over” Kushner, Raskin explains to the president’s son-in-law in his letter that “you cannot both be a diplomat and a financial pawn of the Saudi monarchy at the same time; you cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own.”
Due to these concerns, explained Raskin, the House Committee on the Judiciary investigation will probe “your conduct and that of your firm with the goal of learning information critical to reforming our bribery laws, conflict of interest provisions, other statutes and rules governing the conduct of government and special government employees, and FARA.”
Offering a list of requests, the letter demands that Kushner provide a detailed account of his communications with various investment partners and entities related to his business dealings and that of his work as special envoy to the president, with a deadline of April 30 to comply.
“This investigation will be a priority for our Committee in the coming period,” Raskin’s letter states. “We expect your full cooperation and that you will provide us with all relevant documents that touch upon how your business interests, family wealth, and governmental duties and missions have merged and converged.”
Thursday, April 16, 2026
One 'festering' issue predicted to sink GOP as analyst flags problem 'bigger than Trump'
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), with U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), speaks to reporters while Senate Republican leaders hold a press conference following their weekly policy lunch as the partial government shutdown continues, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Republican Party has a problem on its hands that is bigger than anything President Donald Trump is currently doing, a political analyst has claimed.
David Pakman believes recent comments from Marjorie Taylor Greene and former GOP representatives, including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, highlight the problem with current reps. Greene, a once-prominent ally of Trump and the MAGA movement, commented on the alleged cognitive decline of Trump in a recent interview.
In a clip shared by News 4 Tucson, Greene said, "I really think that his [Trump's] mental capacity needs to be examined. His rhetoric has been shocking to many Americans and people around the world."
A separate appearance on CNN earlier this week from Greene had the GOP ex-rep, who resigned from Georgia's 14th congressional district in 2026, criticize Trump for a Truth Social post.
Trump, referencing Iran in a post to Truth Social on April 7, wrote, "...a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." Greene reposted the comment, adding, "25th AMENDMENT!!!"
The 25th Amendment provides a temporary transfer of the President's powers to the Vice President. This transfer can be made by the President or on the initiative of the Vice President, with the backing of a majority of the cabinet.
Greene added, "I think we have to truly question the mental stability of any President who threatens to wipe out an entire civilization of people. That would include all the innocent people in that country who have nothing to do with the war.
"Especially after President Trump said this was about freeing the Iranian people from the Iranian regime. For him to call to wipe out an entire civilization of people, it's absolutely wrong."
Pakman believes the change in rhetoric from one of "Trump's most ardent defenders" is a sign the GOP must be vocal about their opposition to the President.
He said, "This is way bigger than Trump. It exposes the Republican Party as happy with a system in which they know better, but they don't say a word. They just allow it to continue festering and perpetuate itself. Every once in a while, somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Adam Kinzinger, or Liz Cheney, breaks rank and they say the quiet part out loud.
"Whether it's about Trump's authoritarianism or the cognitive stuff, they are seen as the exception. Now, they may not be the majority of Republicans, but there are a lot of Republicans who believe the exact same thing because they see the exact same thing."
ANTI-D.E.I.
MAGA backlash sees Army yank tribute to Purple Heart senator who lost both legs in Iraq
U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) speaks to reporters following the Democrats weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The U.S. Army shut down an entire network of official social media accounts this week after a post celebrating Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Purple Heart recipient who lost both legs in combat, drew backlash from a pro-Trump veteran online.
The "Soldier for Life" program, which connects veterans and their families to employment, healthcare and retirement resources, posted a tribute to Duckworth's military career as an Army lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran. Within 24 hours of a former Army paratrooper criticizing the post on X, it was deleted.
Chase Spears, a former Army paratrooper and veteran of the war in Afghanistan, criticized Duckworth, calling her 'one of the most brazenly hostile partisans to have worn the uniform,'" NOTUS reported Wednesday.
“There are so many warriors worthy of being praised, men and women who didn’t sell their souls along the way. But this is who @SecArmy Dan Driscoll’s Army continues going out of its way to pay homage to,” Spears wrote on X.'
Shortly after, the Soldier for Life Facebook page was locked down.
Driscoll, Trump's Army secretary, ordered all Soldier for Life accounts shuttered after the negative online reaction, a Department of Defense source familiar with the decision told The Hill. An Army spokesperson insisted the move was "simply a circumstance of the Army handling routine Army business," citing a December memo requiring accounts not managed by qualified personnel to be deactivated.
Duckworth, who served more than two decades in the Army Reserve and Illinois Army National Guard before retiring in 2014, lost both legs in 2004 when her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down over Iraq.
During Driscoll's confirmation hearing, Duckworth pressed him to pledge he would refuse illegal orders from the Trump administration and ultimately voted against confirming him. She has also called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's resignation.
Pete Hegseth uses Bible story to whine about 'garbage' press coverage of his war
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a press briefing in the Pentagon Press briefing room, following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth once again used a Pentagon press conference to complain about the reporting on the Iran war that is trapped in a stalemate, claiming the straight reporting on Donald Trump's attack on Iran has been “garbage.”
He then claimed he attended church last Sunday with his family and heard a sermon about the Pharisees that reminded him of the persecution of Jesus Christ –– then comparing them to the US press.
After boasting about the US efforts in the Middle East, the terse Hegseth pivoted to what has become a regular feature of his press availabilities.
“We urge this new [Iran] regime to choose wisely,” he stated before adding, “Speaking of choosing wisely, a note to the press, to the press corps. To the American media, I just can't help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist pedaling. Despite the historic and important success of this effort and the success of our troops, sometimes it's hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on. It's incredibly unpatriotic.”
“This past Sunday, I was sitting in church with my family, and our minister preached from the book of Mark, the third chapter,” he claimed. “And in the passage, Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees came to watch, and as the scripture reads, they came to see whether he, Jesus, would heal him or he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.”
“You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” he added. “But their hearts were hardened even though they witnessed a literal miracle. It didn't matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held council against him how to destroy him.”
“I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees,” he stated. “Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors … The hardened hearts of our press are calibrated only to impugn. I would ask you to open your eyes to the goodness, the historic success of our troops, the courage of this president, and this historic moment for a deal that could end the Iranian nuclear threat.”
Pentagon 'preparing for something much bigger' after string of military conflicts: analyst
Members of the media raise hands to ask questions, as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump's administration may be preparing for further conflicts after the Pentagon received a briefing to boost weapons production, a political analyst has warned.
Pentagon officials were privately briefed by the Trump administration last month, according to Heather Delaney Reese. Further investigation from the Wall Street Journal found that admin heads had also approached US manufacturers about playing a larger role in weapons production.
The WSJ found that, "The Pentagon is interested in enlisting the companies to use their personnel and factory capacity to increase production of munitions and other equipment as the wars in Ukraine and Iran deplete stocks. Discussions started before the war in Iran, the people said."
This lines up with Reese's claim that the Trump admin has a much bigger plan that could potentially begin once the Iran war is deemed to be over. Reese wrote in her Substack, "By late March, the Pentagon had signed framework agreements with defense contractors to put the military on what it called a 'wartime footing.'
"And now it isn’t just pressuring defense contractors. It’s reaching beyond the defense industry entirely, asking the companies that build our cars to start building our bombs. That is not what a country does when a war is almost over. That is what a country does when it is preparing for something much bigger.
"The United States is deploying more than 10,000 additional troops to the Middle East before the end of April. Roughly 6,000 aboard the USS George H.W. Bush carrier group, and another 4,200 from the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
"These reinforcements will join the approximately 50,000 U.S. personnel already operating in the region, bringing the total to roughly 60,000 American service members and giving U.S. Central Command three aircraft carriers in theater."
Reese went on to suggest that Trump is contemplating further conflicts to continue his image as a wartime president.
"Maybe he is manufacturing a global conflict so he can play wartime president, surround himself with generals, and demand the kind of loyalty and worship that only crisis can produce, like he saw in those old movies," Reese wrote. "Maybe he saw what war did for other leaders’ approval ratings and thought he could replicate it, only to find that it doesn’t work when you start the war yourself and the whole world knows it.
"Or maybe this was always the plan. The Heritage Foundation. The Project 2025 architects. The defense contractors who stood behind him at the White House. They didn’t build this infrastructure for a man who wanted peace. They built it for expansion. And Trump didn’t just go along with it. He reveled in it."
Congress could breach Trump's 'sad reality' if president issues pardons: analyst
Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri and former federal prosecutor, believes Trump may dangle pardons in front of compliant officials, but proceeding with such pardons would open him to investigation.
Bowman explained to Slate's Shirin Ali that the promise itself could be a legally dubious position for Trump, let alone carrying out the pardon.
He said, "I mean, that’s a sad political reality, but it doesn’t change the constitutional law of impeachment. Is it an abuse of the pardon power to pardon the past conduct of your criminal co-conspirators or to promise pardons for the commission of future crimes? Is that impeachable? Of course it is.
"That being so, Congress certainly has the power to investigate, if that’s what the president’s doing. Congress today, if it wanted to, could investigate the uses and promises to use the pardon power of the president.
"Now they won’t do it, of course, because both chambers of Congress are controlled by Republicans. However, Democrats, if they gain a majority in either or both houses, I think it’s incumbent on them to investigate this pretty unapologetically. They should investigate these potential criminal misuses of pardon power as part of their oversight authority and through their power to inquire into impeachable conduct."
Administration insiders told Zeteo's Asawin Siebsaeng that officials such as Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth fear the midterms will put them in grave danger of impeachment.
"Some of them have told me they’ve noticed a growing trend of Democratic politicians making public calls for aggressive prosecutions of Trumplanders in the future — a trend one Trump aide privately lamented as 'kind of worrisome,'" he wrote.
"And a significant number of senior appointees working in Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon, in Stephen Miller’s White House, and in so many other departments and crime-laboratories of the Trump-Vance administration do not think that federal pardons will be enough."
Strategic partner blows up Trump's claim about peace talks coming after 34 years
Counter-protesters hold a banner with an image of U.S. President Donald Trump on it, on the day of a rally marking Al-Quds Day and opposing the war on Iran and Lebanon outside the U.S. consulate in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 14, 2026. REUTERS/Laura Proctor
Lebanese officials directly contradicted President Donald Trump's breezy suggestion that its leader would speak with Israeli leadership.
The 79-year-old president announced on Truth Social that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun would speak Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying they were "trying to get a little breathing room between Israel and Lebanon. It has been a long time since the two leaders have spoken, like 34 years," but Lebanese officials told Reuters that would not happen anytime soon.
"Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun will NOT hold a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the near future, three Lebanese officials told Reuters on Thursday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said leaders of both countries would speak," reported Reuters correspondent Hümeyra Pamuk.
Two of the Lebanese officials said their embassy in Washington had notified the Trump administration before a call between Aoun and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that their president would speak to Netanyahu, according to Middle East Eye.
.jpeg)
