BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Police blasted water cannons Wednesday at protesters in Northern Ireland who set small fires and hurled bricks, rocks and bottles at them during a second night of violence over a brutal stabbing on a Belfast street.

Demonstrators wearing masks tore bricks from the walls outside homes and smashed sidewalks with sledgehammers to toss at riot police. In one place, the unruly crowd used sections of a dismantled a picket fence to take cover on the street.

The clashes with police came several hours after a 30-year-old man from Sudan appeared in a Belfast court charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack that left a man seriously injured and triggered anti-immigrant violence.

Hadi Alodid, 30, was ordered held in jail after appearing by video in Belfast Magistrates’ Court, where a detective said he blinded Stephen Ogilvie in the left eye during the knife attack. He was also charged with possessing a knife and threatening to kill a radiographer while being treated for a hand injury after the assault.

When police arrived at the crime scene, they found Alodid on the man, armed with a kitchen knife, the detective said. Alodid later told hospital staff: “I’ve killed someone, I don’t know if they are dead,” and said, “I will kill you.”

He refused legal representation through an Arabic interpreter and did not enter a plea.

Police were prepared for more violence after masked men on Tuesday set fire to several homes they believed to house immigrants, burned trash bins, torched a Belfast bus and pelted police with objects.

Firefighters rescued several people from burning houses and more than two dozen people were left homeless.

Anselme Shima, a Belfast resident originally from Congo, said he saw smoke from burning vehicles near his home.

“I’ve lived on my street for almost 10 years, I have a good relationship with my neighbors, but last night was a horrific one,” he said. “We don’t know what to do. I’m scared. Seeing this, I’m wondering if I’m next.”

Families, one with a baby, were rescued and taken to police stations for safety, Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said.

“These weren’t just families from ethnic minority communities, these were families from across communities that were caught up in this vile behavior last night,” Boutcher told the BBC. “There is absolutely no excuse for it.”

Boutcher said 200 more officers would be on the streets Wednesday and the PSNI was calling in support from other forces. Bus and train operators in Belfast said they would stop services early because of expected protests.

Ogilvie’s family appealed for an end to the violence and said migrants “make a deeply valuable contribution to our country.”

“We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility,” the family said in a statement.

Politicians from both parts of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government condemned the violence. First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein said it was “thuggery.”

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party, said that “taking frustration at the evil actions of a person out on those who had no part in it is utterly wrong.”

The attack was caught on video

Monday’s attack, caught in video footage that quickly spread on social media, was seized on by anti-immigration activists. Ogilvie, a man in his 40s, was hospitalized with deep cuts to his head, face and back.

Police said Alodid entered Northern Ireland from the neighboring Republic of Ireland in 2023, applied for asylum and was given a 5-year permit to remain.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said there is no information to suggest the attack was terrorism-related.

Protests were encouraged online by far-right activists, and the street violence erupted despite politicians’ calls for calm.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the stabbing attack as “sickening,” but said violence against people based on their background would not be tolerated.

“The scenes in Belfast last night were shocking and completely unacceptable,” Starmer said on X. “There is no justification for the violence and disorder that we saw threatening our communities, nor for those who encouraged it, online or elsewhere.”

Northern Ireland Justice Minister Naomi Long said social media agitators who “yesterday would have struggled to find Belfast on a map” were “weaponizing” the fears of local people.

“If you’re driving people from their homes based on nothing but the color of their skin, you can’t dress that up any other way, it’s racism, and those bad faith actors need to take a step back,” she told the BBC.

Some raise questions about the Irish border

Some politicians said the stabbing should spark a review of the open border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland.

The border is a highly sensitive issue. Allowing the free flow of people is a major pillar of the peace process that largely ended decades of violence known as “The Troubles.” The conflict involving Irish Republican and British Loyalist militants and U.K. security forces left almost 3,600 people dead before a 1998 peace accord.

Much of Tuesday’s violence took place in working-class areas where former paramilitary groups still hold considerable sway over the streets.

Last week a separate case of a university student who was stabbed to death in Southampton, England, in December was seized on by activists and U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who blamed immigration for the violence, an idea rejected by Starmer and other British politicians.

Henry Nowak, who was white, was killed by Vickrum Digwa, a Sikh who falsely claimed to police that he was the victim of a racist assault by Nowak. When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded Nowak as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him.

Digwa was convicted of murder and sentenced last week to life in prison with a minimum 21-year term. A protest over Nowak’s death turned violent, with some attacking police with chairs and rocks. Several people were charged with violent disorder.

Trump calls on Republicans to pass third reconciliation bill that includes Save America Act

by Ashleigh Fields – 06/10/26 11:09 PM ET

President Trump on Wednesday endorsed a third $350 billion reconciliation bill, urging Congress to “IMMEDIATELY” pass it with the Save America Act included.

“I am hereby calling on Republicans in Congress to IMMEDIATELY advance and pass the forthcoming $350 Billion Reconciliation Bill (Recon 3.0) — which, at the request of our Great Department of War — will include THE SAVE AMERICA ACT as well,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

No games, no delays, and no weak compromises! Do this ASAP,” he added. 

His comments come a day after Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chair Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) cast doubt on a third reconciliation package. 

Collins said a third bill was a “terrible risk” and is likely to create funding “instability” for defense efforts. 

Still, Trump said the measure is critical and suggested it was the “ONLY path to the full $1.5 TRILLION DOLLAR Military Budget our Warriors need in order to build THE ARSENAL OF FREEDOM.”

Trump said funds would go toward developing the Golden Dome, manufacturing F-47s and B-21s to “supercharge our ammunition stockpiles.” 

His message comes after a recent analysis found it would take years to replenish advanced weapons used by the U.S. during the Iran war. 

The president also urged lawmakers to include the controversial Save America Act, which has struggled to pass in the Senate.

Some lawmakers have raised concerns about the legislation that requires proof of citizenship to vote, requires a photo ID, and largely bans mail-in ballots except for cases of illness, disability, military service or travel.

“The SAVE America Act didn’t even get 50 votes last week on the floor of the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said.

The president also urged lawmakers to include the controversial Save America Act, which has struggled to pass in the Senate.

Some lawmakers have raised concerns about the legislation that requires proof of citizenship to vote, requires a photo ID, and largely bans mail-in ballots except for cases of illness, disability, military service or travel.

“The SAVE America Act didn’t even get 50 votes last week on the floor of the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said.

Even if you confine it to just the two issues of photo ID [to vote] and [documented proof of] citizenship in order to register to vote, on those two issues, it takes 60 votes in the Senate. The only way to get there is to undo or get rid of the legislative filibuster, and there aren’t even close to the votes here in the United States Senate to achieve that,” he added.

Ashleigh Fields, The Hill

What if UAP sightings and alien abduction accounts aren’t evidence of extraterrestrial life, but of supernatural life?

Do aliens walk among us? Has the government been covering up their existence for decades? In recent years the question of extraterrestrial life, and the fraught issue of government disclosure, has moved from science fiction to the news cycle. Aliens and UFOs — now called UAPs, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena — aren’t just the subject of kooky podcasts and sci-fi films, but congressional hearings and White House document dumps.

And now Steven Spielberg, right on cue, is out with a big alien film, Disclosure Day, about these very questions. But unlike his other famous alien movies (ET, War of the Worlds, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) he’s talking about this one as if it were more documentary than sci-fi. In a recent interview, he said Disclosure Day will cause religious people to question their faith. Most alien films, including Spielberg’s past efforts, have focused on the question of whether aliens exist. This one, he says, will explore what the existence of aliens might mean for religious belief systems that have placed mankind at the center of God’s creation, and will “take the position of the Church.”

“What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have? Is God our God only on this planet, or is God a God for every system where there’s civilization, intelligent life, and even developing life?” he said.

Spielberg seems to think the existence of an advanced alien civilization would shatter, or at least re-order, the religious commitments of us earthlings, especially Christians who believe that God has fully revealed himself in His Son, Jesus Christ. The notion that an advanced alien species would shake or even break that faith has been the assumption of a lot of sci-fi over the years, much of which posits a fundamentally materialist view of the cosmos. If super-intelligent aliens really exist, then maybe all our notions about the supernatural and the spiritual have been wrong, and will become untenable in the light of higher alien civilizations.

Spencer Klavan argues in the Wall Street Journal that that’s not necessarily so. Aliens, he says, “might astound us … by finding our ideas about creation consonant with, even similar to, their own.” Rather than affirm the materialist assumptions of the modern era, or undermine the foundations of religious belief, an alien civilization might be “equally likely to strengthen them beyond measure.” It’s not an unprecedented view. Indeed, as Klavan notes, C.S. Lewis posits something similar in his space trilogy, imagining rational animals on Mars and an unfallen world on Venus, all beloved children of the Christian God.

But setting aside the theological and scriptural problems with both Klavan and Lewis’ speculations, there is another possibility that must be taken seriously with regard to UAPs and disclosure. That’s the view articulated recently by Vice President J.D. Vance, that UAP phenomena are not caused by creatures from outer space but creatures from beyond space and time — that they are demons, not aliens. “When I hear about extra-natural phenomenon, that’s where I go, to the Christian understanding that there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also evil out there,” he said. “I think that one of the devil’s great tricks is to convince people he never existed.”

Here Vance is referencing not only the idea that there is some kind of deception at work in the UAP discourse, but also something most Christians are familiar with, which is spelled out explicitly in the Nicene Creed, that God is “maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” Christians of course believe God created the earth and all that is in it, but also created immaterial (invisible) beings, which scripture calls the angelic host of heaven. Some of these angels rebelled and turned to evil, and Christians understand them to be demons or devils, the enemies of mankind.

It would not be inaccurate to call these immaterial creatures “vast cosmic intelligences,” or even “multidimensional beings,” as some in the UAP world refer to aliens. At the very least, we can say that every culture in human history prior to World War II would have known such beings to be spirits, whether good or bad or something in between. Only since the late 1940s, after mainstream western society had adopted a strict materialist mindset (and after the 1947 Roswell incident launched a million UFO conspiracy theories), did we adopt the idea that UAP or “alien” encounters must involve physical creatures and craft from outer space.

In a materialist age, it would make sense that malign spirits, the demons of Christianity, would want to appear as something plausible to modern man, something he was prepared to believe was “real.” And for a materialist it is indeed easier to believe in little green men and flying saucers than the appearance, in whatever form, of a fallen angel. As the late Orthodox priest Seraphim Rose argued in a chapter on UFOs in his 1975 book, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, UFO sightings first began in the 1940s because popular science fiction literature had groomed modern society to accept it: “What were men prepared to see in the sky?”

But for a properly catechized Christian, the evidence points to something else. For example, the images and videos related to UAPs that were declassified by the Trump administration last month, along with the leaked footage of UAPs first reported by The New York Times in 2017, seem to show objects defying the laws of physics. Egg-shaped craft flying hundreds of miles per hour with no heat signature, stopping on a dime, then plunging into the ocean with no change in velocity. What’s more, pilots involved in these sightings have said that while these UAPs were visible on everyone’s instruments, they were only physically visible out the cockpit window to some pilots and not others. Now what could do something like that?

In the absence of any credible physical evidence, all we have to go on for now are these apparitions picked up by military sensors and the accounts of purported eyewitnesses. There are now decades of such accounts, and an overwhelming majority of them have involved psychological or supernatural elements that are not neatly explained by a materialist narrative about an advanced extraterrestrial species visiting earth.

They are in fact much more consonant with accounts of demonic possession and oppression, which is one reason why prominent Catholic exorcists like Fr. Chad Ripperger have spoken out recently on this very question. In a March appearance on the popular Shawn Ryan podcast, Ripperger called the UAP phenomena a “ruse,” and “diabolic in nature,” saying that “if you strip the veneer of the ‘alien’ aspect of it off, that in point of fact what you’re dealing with are just demons.”

He points to the many accounts of alien abductees crying out to Jesus in their distress and instantly ending the experience. He points to what aliens purportedly do in abduction scenarios, which is identical to what demons do in possession scenarios. He points to the type of things the “aliens” in these encounters say they want, to be saviors of humanity, to usher in a new era of civilization — the very things the demons want, according to Ripperger. (Fr. Rose, the Orthodox priest, also wrote about this, referencing the prominent computer scientist and ufologist Jacques Vallée, who “notes the similarity between UFO encounters and occult initiation rituals which ‘open the mind’ to a ‘new set of symbols.’ All of this points to what he calls ‘the next form of religion.’”) As for sightings of what appear to be alien craft that can move in ways contrary to physical laws, that too, says Ripperger, is likely a “diabolic mirage,” which he says is something demons are able do, albeit rarely.

Ripperger is not alone in making these claims. In late May, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, also a prominent Catholic exorcist, posted a video on YouTube expressing his personal belief that, “many, if not most, [UFO] sightings are, in fact, demons.” In the video, which has since been taken down, Rosetti took care to note that this is his own opinion, not official Catholic doctrine.

Like Ripperger, Rosetti thinks UAP sightings and “alien” encounters are a diabolic deception. “There’s a danger here,” he said. “As an exorcist I wanted to raise that danger. And that is that demons like to hide … They don’t want us to know what they’re doing because they’re more effective when we don’t realize it.”

What made news, however, wasn’t Rosetti’s comments on UAPs but what Washington Archbishop Cardinal Robert McElroy did in response to them. McElroy, one of the most powerful (and liberal) Catholic prelates in America, on June 3 abruptly removed Rossetti from his role as an archdiocesan exorcist and severed the archdiocese’s relationship with the Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal in Washington, D.C., which Rosetti runs.

In a statement, McElroy said that Rosetti’s comments “gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism.” He didn’t explain how the belief that UAPs are demons contradicts Catholic teaching, but merely asserted it.

This is strange. Rosetti, 74, is not some crank but a well-respected priest who has served in the archdiocese of Washington, D.C., since 1993. Before his removal by McElroy, he had been the archdiocesan exorcist in Washington for nearly two decades. He teaches at the Catholic University of America and has served as chaplain to the Washington Nationals baseball team. He’s also a licensed psychologist and an author with a large social media following.

Why did his comments about UAPs and demons provoke such a harsh reaction — and what appears to be a false statement about Catholic teaching — from McElroy? We cannot know for sure, but McElroy is precisely the kind of liberal, modern archbishop who would rather not associate the Catholic Church with cosmic supernatural phenomena — certainly not in the context of the UAP discourse.

Yet in a West that increasingly rejects the cold materialism of the last century and is now entering an era of re-enchantment, it is becoming difficult to posit purely rational, physical explanations for UAPs. Whatever one thinks of the possibility of sentient life on other planets, what we have been told for the past 80 years about aliens and UFOs makes less and less sense as time goes by. The most cutting-edge quantum physics now suggest that not everything that is real can be seen or measured or explained in purely materialistic terms. It is therefore not much of a stretch to think that the things our most advanced military technology can detect in the sky or under the sea, like UAPs defying the laws of physics, might not be what we have been conditioned to believe they are.

After all, if Christianity is true, in all its awesomeness and wonder, then what is the more likely explanation for UAPs? That they are the alien spacecraft of Spielberg’s science fiction, or that they are manifestations of spiritual beings created by God, who have rebelled against heaven? If the latter, then any such beings who come promising salvation, or a new era for humanity, or anything at all, should be understood for what they are: not benign creatures from an enlightened star, but the ancient enemies of mankind, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

The Federalist

Just last week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that improper welfare payments are costing state and federal taxpayers a staggering $186 billion a year – and as much as $3 trillion overall since 2003. It’s numbers like these that have inspired Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to do everything she can to eliminate fraud from state Food Stamp programs.

Thus far, Secretary Rollins’ efforts have led to the removal of millions of ineligible recipients. “A lot of that is fraud,” says Rollins. “A lot of it is people taking the program that shouldn’t have been.”

In particular, the Trump administration is seeking to remove ineligible illegal aliens from U.S. welfare programs. And while Mississippi has complied with data requests that allow USDA to crosscheck eligibility, a deeper problem remains: an agenda to turn a blind eye to fraud and undermine the good work being done by Secretary Rollins and the Trump administration.

Food Stamps, otherwise known as SNAP, is a federal program, but states are responsible for determining eligibility and issuing benefits. To ensure the accuracy of these benefits, the USDA calculates a SNAP “error rate.” When a state pays too little, it’s called an underpayment. When a state pays too much, it’s called an overpayment.  It will come as no surprise that, according to the GAO, welfare error rates consist mostly of overpayments to people who are ineligible.

Until recently, Mississippi’s SNAP error rate didn’t cause welfare bureaucrats much concern. But President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Act changed that. States will be penalized for high error rates: overpaying or underpaying. When a state’s error rate exceeds 6 percent, federal law now requires that state to pay a portion of SNAP benefits using state funds, instead of only federal funds.

Mississippi’s error rate for 2024 is 10.69 percent, nearly double the federal target of 6 percent. That failure carries a price tag of approximately $120 million a year.

How did Mississippi get here? According to the Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS), the blame lies with outdated technology, client-based errors, miscalculations by their eligibility specialists, and a small sample size. 

Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann also points to MDHS’s use of a fraud management tool called “change reporting.” Change reporting refers to the process used by states to report changes in income, residency and other essential factors related to welfare eligibility. On a recent broadcast, Hosemann asserted that “it’s absolutely crazy” to keep using change reporting to verify welfare eligibility. Hosemann also gave the impression that no other states are using change reporting. 

That’s not true. Nineteen other states are using some form of change reporting for SNAP. Arkansas, for example, uses change reporting for groups with high welfare usage, such as those receiving cash assistance and those on Medicaid. Arkansas’ SNAP error rate is 9.56 percent – slightly lower than Mississippi’s, but well above the federal target of 6 percent. Tennessee uses change reporting for households requesting SNAP for short periods (less than four months) and for those whose only earned income is from self-employed adults. Tennessee’s error rate is 9.47 percent. 

Mississippi’s error rate of 10.69 percent is actually below the national average of 10.93 percent – an average that obviously reflects the majority of states using some form of simplified, or non-change, reporting. 

Looking more closely, 84 percent of Mississippi’s error rate comes from overpayment errors. In other words, MDHS is too often giving SNAP benefits to people who are not eligible. Hosemann’s solution is to use simplified reporting, which means less reporting and potentially more fraud. If most of Mississippi’s error rate came from underpayments, Hosemann might have a point. But the data shows he is on the wrong track.

What Hosemann also failed to acknowledge is that, under his leadership, the Senate didn’t merely try to eliminate change reporting, they attempted to destroy Mississippi’s groundbreaking welfare-to-work program altogether. As reported out of committee by the Democrat chairman hand-selected by Hosemann, HB 1772 would have repealed the entire 2017 Hope Act. This law, which I supported when I served in the House, has inspired some of the welfare fraud reforms coming out of the White House today. Repealing the Hope Act would be an absolute slap in the face, not only to Mississippi taxpayers and voters, but also to the Trump Administration.

Even more troubling is the timing of Hosemann’s attempt to repeal the Hope Act. A few months before the 2026 session began, it came out that MDHS is not properly verifying the income of SNAP applicants. Instead, the state is allowing clients to self‑report their earnings, effectively running a multimillion‑dollar program on the honor system.

Income verification for SNAP is not optional. But MDHS has quietly adopted a different practice: one that directly contradicts both federal law and state legislative intent in the Hope Act.

MDHS claims it lacks access to income‑verification systems, but that excuse doesn’t hold up. Mississippi can use free federal tools—unemployment records, Social Security Administration data, IRS matches, and new‑hire reports—specifically designed to prevent the errors the state will be penalized for under the One Big Beautiful Act.

I voted for the Hope Act because it requires stronger identity, eligibility, and asset checks, along with coordinated data‑sharing between Medicaid and MDHS to prevent fraud. Yet it’s increasingly clear that MDHS has not been verifying eligibility in any meaningful way for years.

MDHS says it wants to cut its error rate to 8 percent by 2026, but even that target remains above the federal limit and would still cost Mississippi millions. Setting a goal that guarantees continued penalties is not reform, and gutting the Hope Act is not a plan. Mississippi can do better than that, working with the Trump Administration to hit the targets they are giving us – not by ignoring welfare fraud, but by eliminating it.

The ruling follows a lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed against Nebraska, arguing that a state law unlawfully granted benefits to noncitizens while denying the same benefit to U.S. citizens living outside Nebraska.

U.S. District Judge Brian Buescher ruled that Nebraska’s law violated federal immigration law by providing a higher education benefit to illegal aliens that was unavailable to American citizens from other states.

A federal judge struck down a Nebraska law that allowed illegal alien students to receive in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities, siding with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) after the agency challenged the policy earlier this year.

U.S. District Judge Brian Buescher ruled that Nebraska’s law violated federal immigration law by providing a higher education benefit to illegal aliens that was unavailable to American citizens from other states.

The decision permanently blocks enforcement of Legislative Bill 239, a measure passed in 2006 that allowed certain illegal alien students to qualify for in-state tuition rates at Nebraska’s public institutions.

[RELATED: Nebraska professor laments end of tuition benefits for illegal immigrants]

The judge’s ruling follows a lawsuit the DOJ filed against the state of Nebraska in April, arguing that the state’s policy unlawfully granted benefits to noncitizens while denying the same benefit to U.S. citizens living outside Nebraska.

According to the lawsuit, federal law prohibits states from providing postsecondary education benefits based on residency to illegal aliens unless the same benefits are made available to all U.S. citizens regardless of state residency.

For the 2025-26 academic year, Nebraska’s public colleges and universities charge an average of approximately $9,600 in annual tuition for in-state students, compared to roughly $23,400 for out-of-state students.

Under the 2006 law, illegal alien students could access the lower in-state tuition rates while American citizens from neighboring states were required to pay the substantially higher out-of-state rates.

[RELATED: DOJ sues Virginia for offering discounted tuition rates to illegal aliens]

Nebraska officials ultimately agreed with the DOJ’s position. Rather than defending the law, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Gov. Jim Pillen joined the federal government in a proposed consent decree seeking to end the policy.

“This Nebraska law is unconstitutional as it unlawfully extended benefits to illegal immigrants which were not available to American citizens,” Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers wrote in a press release. “We filed the joint motion with the Department of Justice in order to ensure that this unconstitutional law was permanently enjoined.”

Former Nebraska Gov. and current Sen. Pete Ricketts applauded the move in a post on X.

Nebraska is the latest state to see its in-state tuition policy for illegal aliens overturned following action from the DOJ. Texas agreed to end a similar policy after the DOJ filed suit, while Oklahoma repealed its law after federal pressure.

The DOJ also filed lawsuits challenging similar policies in Kentucky, Minnesota, California, Virginia, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Campus Reform contacted the Department of Justice, the University of Nebraska System, and the Nebraska Department of Education for comment. This article will be updated accordingly

Emily Sturge

@realemilysturge

Contact

About Emily

Emily Sturge is a reporter for Campus Reform. She has appeared on FOX News, FOX Business, Newsmax, Real America’s Voice, Salem TV, News Nation, and the National Desk. She earned her degree in journalism from the University of Florida.

I’m the look-around candidate. All you have to do to understand why I’m surging in the polls is just look around. . . .” — Spencer Pratt.

Just watch in wonder and nausea as California’s mail-in ballots dribble in, providing a real-time demonstration of the “Our Democracy” party spitting in the country’s face again, since everybody knows exactly what’s going on. Meanwhile, the Senate voted down the SAVE Act again this week by 52 to 48 for. . . reasons. But, hey, cheer up, it’s Pride Month. At the same time that California was queering its own “jungle primary,” a troupe of drag queens swanned and capered around New York’s City Council Chamber in what was called a “Pride Ball” (actually more of a show than a ball).

And what it really showed is that the party running New York City has no shame. How, exactly, does mental illness intersect with the public interest, you might ask? Historians of the future, roasting armadillos-on-the-half-shell over their campfires, will probably figure it out. For now, you must pretend that no such question even exists. Don’t bother asking. Just go along with the gag.

Here’s a scene you might like to see: As you know by now, the president has nominated Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to be the Senate-confirmed full-on, bona fide AG. But Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) says he would require Mr. Blanche to declare that the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol riot was “an insurrection.” Wouldn’t it be fun to hear Mr. Blanche reply by saying, “Can’t do that, sir, because the DOJ has an ongoing case that involves dozens of federal officers from several agencies instigating the events of that day in collusion with members of Congress and the US military, and, well, I can say no more about that at this time. . . .”

Similarly, election fraud. Just days ago, Mr. Trump told Miranda Divine of The New York Post, “We had a rigged election [2020], we can’t have rigged elections. We know who rigged the election. We know everything now. . . we have information that nobody thought was possible. . . . Let’s see what happens.”

Hmmmm. . .. Wouldn’t that prompt you to suspect that the DOJ has a case, or multiple cases, involving 2020 election fraud cooking on its stove? Recall that not long ago the FBI seized 700 boxes of evidence from the Fulton County Election Hub in Union City, GA. And another truckload out of Maricopa County, AZ. Do you think they’ll discover some, er, irregularities in all that? Perhaps eye-wateringly blatant?

Would it not then be urgent to seek indictments of actual persons, if any are deserved, well before November, so that measures could be taken to preclude more fraud and cheating in the midterm election — measures like . . . passing the SAVE Act! How might Majority Leader John Thune explain his intransigence on the matter in the face of all that? Or, like New York’s City Council, does he have no shame?

In another momentous development this week, the new management at CBS-News cashiered 60-Minutes star Scott Pelley for apparent insubordinate behavior in a confab with the show’s newly-hired Executive Producer Nick Bilton and Mr. Bilton’s boss, Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. They had already sacked the querulous Sharyn Alfonsi a week earlier. Of course, 60-Minutes, with its giant audience following NFL games, was one of the main units in the Deep State’s gaslighting apparatus, and Mr. Pelley burned brightest there for years, flaring out one lying-a[–] narrative after another from the Russia Collusion hoax to 2020 election fraud to the Jan 6 fake “insurrection,” with the same burnished arrogance he showed his new bosses. Gone now. . . buh-bye. Next up, Lesley Stahl (“Sir!!! Sir !!!”), and the self-important prick Bill Whitaker. Fire them all!

If you seek to understand why the American public is so deeply bamboozled, it is largely the utter failure of the news business. You can trace that to a couple of signal changes of policy. One was the 1987 repeal of the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine,” which required TV stations holding federal licenses to cover controversial public issues in a “fair and balanced manner.” The other was the 2013 “modernization” (under Barack Obama) of the Smith-Mundt Act (1948), which had prohibited the US government from “propagandizing” its own citizens — and after “modernization” turned squishy on that.

The 1975–1976 (Sen. Frank) Church Committee — the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities — documented that the CIA had long-term secret relationships with dozens of U.S. journalists. This is casually referred to as “Operation Mockingbird.” Since the Church Committee, it has only gotten much worse as the Deep State struggles to cover-up layer upon layer of crimes it keeps committing. The nightly news shows now are just anchors and “panelists” shooting their mouths off. The news itself goes mostly unreported. A big reason is that broadcast news now employs nearly zero correspondents in-the-field. Nobody is out there reporting on events. They don’t want to spend the money. So, the news just spins and spins, mostly in the service of manufactured lies.

Also last week, famous New York Times columnist and fake Nobel economics prize-winner Paul Krugman put out a video calling for the “purging” of MAGA and everything MAGA-adjacent from American life — when his team (the party of “Our Democracy”) comes back to power, as it must. He didn’t detail whether this process would entail internment camps and crematoriums, but you could infer as much from his tone. Kinda gives you a clue of where their heads are at.

James Howard Kunstler

Spencer Pratt’s LA mayoral bid surged on Election Day, only to be reversed as California’s entrenched political machine reshaped the final count after the vote.

Bill de Blasio appeared on NewsNation on June 2 and was asked to comment on Spencer Pratt’s campaign. De Blasio smugly described Pratt’s ads as “inappropriate” and wondered, “Who is behind them?”

If de Blasio hadn’t actively participated in the decline of New York City during his disastrous eight years as its mayor, his arrogance might just be dismissed as unwarranted and clueless. But de Blasio is part of a machine that profits from urban decline. Behind his arrogance is a grasping, cynical hypocrite delighted that the machine on the West Coast is as potent as the one that elevated his own mayoral tenure and now supports Zohran Mamdani.

And so way out west, the machine has struck again. In the run-up to California’s June 2 primary, Spencer Pratt, running for mayor of Los Angeles, gave us a moment of hope. But as it turns out, he will not appear on the November ballot. Angelenos will choose between a democratic socialist extremist in the form of Nithya Raman and the “moderate” option, the ex-communist, incompetent incumbent, Karen Bass.

Calling Spencer Pratt’s ads “inappropriate” is a grotesque inversion of truth. Policy failures in Los Angeles have been so intellectualized and contextualized that only crude descriptions of reality on the streets of that beleaguered city had any chance to wake voters up from their brainwashed acquiescence.

Moreover, Pratt’s ads have heralded a new era in campaign messaging. His campaign was pitch-perfect and inspired. It wasn’t merely the use of AI to produce videos at negligible cost, videos that altogether would have cost millions only a few years ago. It was the extraordinary creativity of these videos and their uncanny ability to cut to the heart of issues that by now should have every resident of Los Angeles marching on City Hall with torches and pitchforks.

A few examples should suffice. Have a look at these:

“Entering the illusion,” where two parents confront a child, telling him that “Pratt is MAGA,” wherein the child asks why getting homeless drug addicts help and rebuilding homes is MAGA.

“Catching the Pratt,” where a mother wheels her young adult daughter into the emergency room because she is “thinking for herself,” wanting to “stop addicts from injecting drugs around kids,” etc.

“You are not alone,” where a group of women in a yoga studio realize, to their astonishment, that all of them secretly support Pratt’s candidacy.

“What Spencer Pratt Has in Mind for LA,” a satirical anti-Pratt ad where, for example, a father and daughter chastise Pratt for wanting change “when everything is fine,” while speaking against a backdrop of homes in flames.

And the classic “LA is worth saving,” depicting, among other things, Karen Bass and assorted prominent Democrats dressed in Louis XIV’s Baroque attire, swigging champagne and eating cake, while laughing derisively at a mother trying to protect her children from LA’s dangerous streets.

This was a brilliant campaign. It gave Pratt, who lost his own home in the January 2025 wildfires, instant momentum. So much so, in fact, that his opponents were worried enough to see to it that a second mayoral debate was canceled. And on the day after the election, Pratt had reason for optimism. Early returns reported, “With 63 percent of the votes counted by early Wednesday morning, Bass had 35 percent, Pratt 30 percent, and Raman 22 percent.” Pratt had an 8 percent advantage over Raman. So far, so good.

That was before what members of the machine dismiss as the “red mirage” began to dissipate. It didn’t take long. By Thursday afternoon, Pratt’s lead over third-place Raman had shrunk to 33,076, i.e., from an 8.0 percent advantage to 6.0 percent.

By Friday, the trend was unmistakable. Pratt’s lead was down to 20,672, only a 3.3 percent edge. After the Saturday update, the Los Angeles Times, whose veteran reporters knew better, published an article, “Pratt holds off Raman for now,” as if his lead over Raman, by then down to 7,494 votes or 1.1 percent, left any possibility he would stay in front.

Sunday’s update made it official. Pratt was behind Raman by 4,381 votes. With weeks of counting still ahead, the chances that Pratt will recover his lead are zero. Why? What is the nature of this machine that delivers a red mirage on election night, invariably blown away by a blue wind? How is this possible?

And here it is that accusations of fraud are almost irrelevant. Yes, California’s election laws make voter fraud possible, even easy. With poorly maintained voter rolls, 29 days of “early voting,” provisional ballots, same-day voter registration, automatic motor-voter registration, universal mail-in ballots, a seven-day post-election grace period for mailed ballots to still be counted, ballot harvesting, and county elections offices under oversight by Democrat politicians and staffed by Democrat-leaning bureaucrats, there are means, motives, and opportunities for fraud.

But these laws governing elections in California are tools—all of them completely legal—that turbocharge California’s ruling political machine. To rig an election in California, fraud isn’t necessary. To focus on fraud, without also critiquing the system itself, is a fruitless distraction.

There is a reason that ballot counts in the days after the election skewed two-to-one in favor of Raman, when Pratt led Raman by 8 percent in the early returns, and it doesn’t require fraud. What happens in elections in California today, as noted political observer Chris Rufo stated in a recent interview, is “no less nefarious but much more sophisticated.”

Rufo goes on to describe how California’s system works. “Institutions that have large ground games: unions, DSA, activist groups, homeless shelters—all of these people within the liberal NGO Borg—to go chase ballots, harvest ballots, solicit, and grab all of these ballots, which are technically legal in a way that the opposition cannot do.”

This is what happened to Pratt. This is what dissolved his red mirage. A political machine of extraordinary reach dispatched its operatives to every precinct in the City of Los Angeles wherever voters could be found who were low-information, dependent on government assistance, innately conditioned to oppose a Republican, inclined to have a Pavlovian aversion to any candidate tagged with a “MAGA” affiliation, or unlikely to vote without active assistance, or some combination of all of the above. These votes for Raman were the result of selective vote harvesting from precisely targeted groups.

This is why GOP candidates lose in California. If a race is close, it isn’t enough to wage a brilliant campaign. The endgame is rigged in favor of the party that can field a permanent army to exploit California’s current election laws. That army is populated by operatives from public sector unions that are overwhelmingly partisan Democrats, along with thousands of workers at partisan NGOs. This perennial political machine is fed by taxpayers and tax deductions; the election work they do is often technically “nonpartisan,” and the public programs they provide when they are not harvesting votes are “social welfare” programs that get more funding from failure than from success.

This is California’s self-reinforcing cycle of political dysfunction. Spencer Pratt tried to disrupt the system, and his surge in the polls surprised a lot of people.

But the machine won. Again.

In the shadows of downtown Los Angeles, where human suffering piles up in tents and despair, a disturbing pattern has emerged. Homeless residents on Skid Row are coming forward with claims that they were paid small sums of cash to cast ballots for Mayor Karen Bass and Councilwoman Nithya Raman. These allegations, captured in videos and shared with federal authorities, strike at the heart of election integrity in a city already reeling from policy failures that have turned streets into open-air encampments.

VIDEO HERE:

Skid Row homeless claim they’ve been paid to vote for Karen Bass and Nithya Raman https://t.co/bElx1nmQM2 pic.twitter.com/cQ7dvgR59r— California Post (@californiapost) June 10, 2026

This is not mere politics as usual. It is the predictable fruit of a system where compassion is weaponized for power.

While Bass and Raman position themselves as champions of the downtrodden, reports suggest their machines may have treated Skid Row as a harvest field for votes rather than a mission field for restoration. The very people failed by years of progressive governance now appear to be props in the game of maintaining it.

Videos obtained by the New York Post show multiple Skid Row residents describing outreach efforts in stark terms. One man identifying as Kevin Shepherd claimed he received $4 to vote for Bass, negotiating up from an initial $2 offer. He stated the groups offered an “optional choice” but steered clear of other candidates like Spencer Pratt. Another resident, Rene Johnson, 39, said she took $5 to support Bass, later expressing unease about the forms she signed and acknowledging the behavior as fraudulent even as she distanced herself from direct wrongdoing.

A third woman living on the streets recounted accepting $2, noting that such visits were routine. Resident Mark Sanchez alleged repeated payments of $4 or $5 for signing petitions and forms tied to the mayor’s office and other positions. These accounts paint a picture of coordinated efforts, with groups allegedly visiting the area three to five times weekly in the lead-up to the election.

The timing adds weight to the concerns. The videos surfaced as Raman surged past Pratt in late vote counts to secure a spot in the November runoff against Bass. This comes alongside prior reporting on thousands of homeless individuals registered at shelters with far fewer beds, including one linked to Raman that received substantial taxpayer funding.

A Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has even published guides encouraging ballot harvesting, a legal but contentious practice in California that involves collecting and delivering completed mail ballots.

These revelations echo a recent federal case where a woman pleaded guilty to paying Skid Row residents to register to vote as part of a signature-gathering scheme. Federal prosecutors have confirmed multiple election fraud investigations in the area. Yet the response from Bass and Raman’s camps has been silence in the face of direct outreach.

“Every one of them thinks they have claim to our voice. They think they speak for us.”

Los Angeles has poured billions into addressing homelessness under leaders like Bass, with visible results that are, at best, underwhelming. Encampments persist, crime festers, and the human cost mounts. The irony is inescapable: officials who decry systemic inequities stand accused of exploiting the very inequities they helped perpetuate. Why target a population with limited resources, questionable comprehension of the process, and high vulnerability if not to manufacture electoral advantages?

Advisor Bullion Numismatics Our constitutional republic depends on the consent of the governed, expressed through free and fair elections. When those elections become transactions—cash for ballots—the foundation cracks. The Founding Fathers warned against factions that would subvert the public good for private gain. James Madison in Federalist No. 10 cautioned against the mischief of factions, yet here we see modern equivalents preying on the weakest links in society.

Don Garza, a disabled military veteran living on Skid Row since 1999, captured the exhaustion felt by many: nonprofit organizations and political actors treat residents as votes to be claimed rather than souls to be served. “We are tired of it,” he said. “We don’t want people coming in and deciding elections and taking advantage of us.”

As California’s mail-in voting and ballot collection rules invite scrutiny, these Skid Row accounts demand a thorough federal investigation. The Department of Justice has received the videos. Americans watching this spectacle should pray for truth to prevail and for leaders who fear God more than they chase power.

“And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.” (Isaiah 45:3)

What is hidden in LA’s electoral shadows will one day come to light, exposing whether justice or expediency ruled the day.

In thieThe people of Los Angeles deserve better than a political machine that views the homeless not as neighbors in need but as reliable vote multipliers. True compassion restores dignity. It does not traffic in desperation. Until leaders prioritize accountability over optics, Skid Row will remain both symptom and casualty of a deeper civic failure.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that, despite the exchange of strikes between Iran and Israel, a deal to end the war in the Middle East could be reached “in two or three days.”

“They were going back and forth [with strikes], and now they both agreed, through me, to stop, and now we’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” Trump told reporters in New York, where he was attending the NBA finals in Madison Square Garden.

Trump said the deal would stop Iran from having nuclear weapons and result in the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. “The strait will open up right away,” he insisted. “It’ll open up immediately upon signing.”

It is not the first time that the U.S. president has promised an imminent end to the war in Iran, which has been raging since February. Weeks have passed since Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that negotiating a deal to end the war in Iran could “take a few days.”

Trump on Monday said he had a “very good conversation” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and downplayed talks of a rift between the two leaders.

Last week Trump was reported to have called Netanyahu “crazy” for his renewed attacks on Lebanon, and over the weekend he told the Financial Times that the Israeli prime minister had “no choice” but to accept a deal with Iran.

The U.S. president on Sunday urged his Israeli counterpart not to retaliate after Iran launched several missiles at Israel. After Netanyahu seemingly ignored the request and struck several Iranian cities, Trump demanded both countries “immediately stop shooting” and respect the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that has been in effect since April.

Both sides suspended military operations on Monday afternoon, but Iran warned that it would respond to any attacks targeting its territory or Lebanon. An Israeli army spokesperson warned residents of the Lebanese city of Tyre to evacuate on Tuesday, suggesting strikes on Hezbollah targets were imminent.

Trump on Monday insisted that Netanyahu had not defied him by retaliating against Iran. “If I tell him to do something, he does it,” he told the BBC, explaining Israel had fired its missiles at Iran before the two leaders had spoken.

According to the Times of Israel, Netanyahu called off a major strike on Iran following the conversation with the U.S. president.

The seemingly brief breakdown of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire began after Israel struck Iran-backed Hezbollah targets in Beirut on Sunday, violating a separate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Iran responded with missile attacks on Israel, calling them retaliation for the strikes on Lebanon. Israel then launched attacks on what it said were military targets in Iran.

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the United States was not directly involved in the latest attacks, although U.S. forces launched interceptors to protect American troops stationed in Israel.

Ferdinand Knapp, Politico

“Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out”—David Horowitz

“When you embrace somebody for the job, you really want to embrace a winner”

June 9, 2026 by Daniel Greenfield 7 Comments

Newsletter

Ouch.

Willie Brown made Kamala, gave her positions, introduced her to donors and moved her through the political system. It probably helped that Kamala, unlikely presumably Gavin Newsom, was his ‘side piece’.

Now with Kamala polling behind AOC in a hypothetical Dem presidential primary, Willie just dumped her. Politically at any rate.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, one of California’s top powerbrokers, told ABC News while it’s early to speculate, he believes the most “viable” between his two mentees would be Newsom, “because he would not be the most recent loser.”

“When you embrace somebody for the job, you really want to embrace a winner, and Newsom would be what you would have to say at the moment is a winner,” Brown said.

Brown said he was “surprised” that Harris decided not to run for California governor in 2026.

“I would have advised her to be elected governor, so that she would be in the same identical position, if not better than for electability nationally than Newsom. …. If she was in the category of being on January 8, 2027, the governor of California, the dialogue would be about her candidacy, not about anybody else’s,” Brown said.

ABC News, which I’m sure has no agenda, talks to a bunch of anonymous Kamala fundraisers and donors who basically expressed that they would be likely to use their money to roll joints than to donate to her.

But Willie twisting the dagger has to hurt and he has a point. Kamala could have been governor by just showing up. And plenty of people told her so, I’m sure. Instead she was egotistical enough to go for the brass ring that will never be hers.

Now even Willie, her first supporter, won’t stand with her.