Benjamin Nighthorse Campbell, the former Republican senator and Native American activist passed away.
The first indigenous U.S. senator from Colorado has passed away. He originally ran as a Democrat but switched parties and became a Republican.
He was a moderate Republican. In today's Republican Party, Benjamin Nighthorse Campbell would be rejected, called a DEI hire and a RINO.
He was a legendary member of the Republican Party of yesteryear.
Campbell died of natural causes surrounded by his family, his daughter, Shanan Campbell, confirmed to The Associated Press.
Campbell, a Democrat who stunned his party by joining the Republican Party, stood out in Congress as much for his unconventional dress — cowboy boots, bolo ties and ponytail — as his defense of children’s rights, organized labor and fiscal conservatism.
A member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, Campbell said his ancestors were among more than 150 Native Americans, mostly women, children and elderly men, killed by U.S. soldiers while camped under a flag of truce on Nov. 29, 1864.
He served three terms in the House, starting in 1987. He then served two terms in the Senate, from 1993 to 2005.
Among his accomplishments was helping sponsor legislation upgrading the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in southern Colorado to a national park.
“He was a master jeweler with a reputation far beyond the boundaries of Colorado,” said Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper on X. “I will not forget his acts of kindness. He will be sorely missed.”
Campbell was seen as a maverick
The motorcycle-riding lawmaker and cattle rancher was considered a maverick even before he abruptly switched to the Republican Party in March 1995, angry with Democrats for killing a balanced-budget amendment in the Senate. His switch outraged Democratic leaders and was considered a coup for the GOP.
“I get hammered from the extremes,” he said shortly afterward. “I’m always willing to listen ... but I just don’t think you can be all things to all people, no matter which party you’re in.”
Considered a shoo-in for a third Senate term, Campbell stunned supporters when he dropped out of the race in 2004 after a health scare.
“I thought it was a heart attack. It wasn’t,” said Campbell. “But when I was lying on that table in the hospital looking up at all those doctors’ faces, I decided then, ‘Do I really need to do this six more years after I’ve been gone so much from home?’ I have two children I didn’t get to see grow up, quite frankly.”
He retired to focus on the Native American jewelry that helped make him wealthy and was put on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. He also worked on a line of outdoor gear with a California-based company, Kiva Designs, and became a senior policy adviser with the powerhouse law firm of Holland & Knight in Washington.
Campbell founded Ben Nighthorse Consultants which focused on federal policy, including Native American affairs and natural resources. The former senator also drove the Capitol Christmas Tree across the country to Washington, D.C., on several occasions.
“He was truly one of a kind, and I am thinking of his family in the wake of his loss,” said Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette on X.
An accidental politician
In 1982, he was planning to deliver his jewelry to California, but bad weather grounded his plane. He was killing time in the southern Colorado city of Durango when he went to a county Democratic meeting and wound up giving a speech for a friend running for sheriff.
Democrats were looking for someone to challenge a GOP legislative candidate and sounded out Campbell during the meeting. “Like a fish, I was hooked,” he said.
His opponent, Don Whalen, was a popular former college president who “looked like he was out of a Brooks Brothers catalog,” Campbell recalled. “I don’t think anybody gave me any kind of a chance. ... I just think I expended a whole lot of energy to prove them wrong.”
Campbell hit the streets, ripping town maps out of the Yellow Pages and walking door to door to talk with people. He recalled leaving a note at a house in Cortez where no one was home when he heard a car roar into the driveway, gravel flying and brakes squealing.
The driver jumped out, tire iron in hand, and screamed that Campbell couldn’t have his furniture. “Aren’t you the repossession company?” the man asked.
Benjamin Nighthorse Campbell with daughter Shanan.
“And I said, ‘No man, I’m just running for office.’ We got to talking, and I think the guy voted for me.”
Campbell went on to win and he never lost an election thereafter, moving from the Colorado House to the U.S. House and then the Senate.
Born April 13, 1933, in Auburn, California, Campbell served in the Air Force in Korea from 1951 to 1953 and received a bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University in 1957. He attended Meiji University in Tokyo from 1960 to 1964, was captain of the U.S. judo team in the 1964 Olympics and won a gold medal in the Pan American Games.
Campbell once called then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt a “forked-tongued snake” for opposing a water project near the southern Colorado town of Ignacio, which Campbell promoted as a way to honor the water rights of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes.
He clashed with environmentalists on everything from mining law and grazing reforms to setting aside land for national monuments.
Despite all this — or perhaps because of it — voters loved him. In 1998, Campbell won reelection to the Senate by routing Democrat Dottie Lamm, the wife of former Gov. Dick Lamm, despite his switch to the GOP. He was the only Native American in the Senate at the time.
Campbell insisted his principles didn’t change, only his party
He said he was criticized as a Democrat for voting with Republicans, and then pilloried by some newspapers for his stances after the switch.
“It didn’t change me. I didn’t change my voting record. For instance, I had a sterling voting record as a Democrat on labor. I still do as a Republican. And on minorities and women’s issues,” he said.
Campbell said his values — liberal on social issues, conservative on fiscal ones — were shaped by his life. Children’s causes were dear to him because he and his sister spent time in an orphanage when his father was in jail and his mother had tuberculosis.
Organized labor won his backing because hooking up with the Teamsters and learning to drive a truck got him out of the California tomato fields. His time as a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy in California in the late 1960s and early ’70s made him a law enforcement advocate.
His decision to retire from politics, Campbell said, had nothing to do with allegations that Ginnie Kontnik, his former chief of staff, solicited kickbacks from another staffer and that his office lobbied for a contract for a technology company with ties to the former senator.
He referred both matters to the Senate Ethics Committee. In 2007, Kontnik pleaded guilty to a federal charge of not reporting $2,000 in income.
“I guess there was some disappointment” with those charges, Campbell said. “But a lot of things happen in Washington that disappoint you. You just have to get over them because every day there’s a new crisis to deal with.”
American journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of former ambassador Caroline Kennedy passed away.
The granddaughter of former president John F. Kennedy has passed away. The daughter of former U.S. ambassador Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg has died of terminal leukemia.
She is the niece of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Tatiana Schlossberg was 35 years old.
Schlossberg, daughter of Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, revealed she had terminal cancer in a November 2025 essay in The New Yorker. A family statement disclosing her death was posted on social media Tuesday by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the statement said. It did not disclose a cause of death or say where she had died.
Maria Shriver, a niece of John F. Kennedy and a former award-winning TV journalist, grieved for Schlossberg on social media and called her “the light, the humor, the joy” and a great journalist who “used her words to educate others about the earth and how to save it.”
Shriver was previously married to actor/politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California.
“She loved her life, and she fought like hell to try to save it,” Shriver wrote.
Schlossberg told of being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024 at 34. While in the hospital for the birth of her second child, her doctor noticed her white blood cell count was high. It turned out to be acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation, mostly seen in older people.
In the November essay, “A Battle With My Blood,” Schlossberg recounted going through rounds of chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants and participating in clinical trials. During the most recent trial, she wrote, her doctor told her “he could keep me alive for a year, maybe.”
Tatiana's final days.
Schlossberg also criticized policies pushed by her mother’s cousin, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in the essay, saying policies he backed could hurt cancer patients like her. Her mother had urged senators to reject his confirmation.
“As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers,” the essay reads.
Schlossberg had worked as a reporter covering climate change and the environment for The New York Times’ Science section. Her 2019 book “Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have” won the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Rachel Carson Environment Book Award in 2020.
Schlossberg wrote in The New Yorker essay that she feared her daughter and son wouldn’t remember her. She felt cheated and sad that she wouldn’t get to keep living “the wonderful life” she had with her husband, George Moran.
While her parents and two siblings tried to hide their pain from her, she said she felt it every day. Her siblings, Rose and Jack Schlossberg, are JFK’s other grandchildren.
“For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” she said. “Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Former U.S. ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg and her children, Jack and Tatiana.
Schlossberg’s mother Caroline was 5 years old when her father, President Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. She was 10 when her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968 while he was running for president.
Caroline’s brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in 1999 when the single-engine plane he was piloting plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. His wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, also died in the crash.
Shriver called Schlossberg valiant, strong and courageous.
“She was smart, wicked smart, as they say, and sassy. She was fun, funny loving, caring, a perfect daughter, sister, mother, cousin, niece, friend, all of it,” Shriver wrote.
To tell you the truth, calling any U.S. city safe or dangerous doesn't fucking matter.
If the United States continues to fund Israel at the expense of our U.S. cities, we could see more decline in value, more expenses on residents, declining population and continued gun violence.
Gun violence is the biggest issue the United States faces every year.
Presidents past and present refuse to do something about the gun violence problem.
USA Today releases its final analysis of cities which saw an increase in police incidents.
That's how they end up ranking which is safe and dangerous.
The far right often claim that cities ran by Democratic mayors allow this to happen. In reality, our state legislators often controlled by Republicans often consider austerity and reduction of funds which lead to these issues.
WalletHub made the secondary analysis which they determine which cities is dangerous.
Here's the list.
The nation's top 10 most dangerous cities (or the least safe of the 182 ranked), according to WalletHub, are:
New Orleans [312,000 population]
Memphis, Tennessee [673,000 population]
Baton Rouge, Louisiana [223,000 population]
Detroit [642,000 population]
Baltimore [564,000 population]
Fort Lauderdale, Florida [198,000 population]
Houston [2.4 million population]
San Bernardino, California [234,000 population]
Philadelphia [1.5 million population]
Cleveland [358,000 population]
The top 10 safest cities in the United States, according to WalletHub, are:
Warwick, Rhode Island [84,000 population]
Overland Park, Kansas [204,000 population]
Burlington, Vermont [45,000 population]
Juneau, Alaska [42,000 population]
Yonkers, New York [214,000 population]
Casper, Wyoming [60,000 population]
South Burlington, Vermont [22,000 population]
Columbia, Maryland [107,000 population]
Lewiston, Maine [35,000 population]
Salem, Oregon [193,000 population]
The whole idea of listing the most safest and dangerous city remains controversial. It pours gasoline on a fire. It encourages Republicans to push for budget cuts as well as President Donald J. Trump to send in the National Gaurd.
Besides, the U.S. should invest in more resources to prevent crime.
Alas, it isn't a Democrat or Republican problem. It is an American problem.
A Different World is returning to TV and Netflix greenlights sequel.
Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert-Wayne will return back to Hillman University after moving to Japan in the series finale of A Different World.
With that said, the famous sitcom is on a revival. It is a spin off that will feature Kadeem Hardison, Jasmine Guy, Daryl M. Bell and Cree Summer. They will reprise their roles and it will have some possible returns of Dawnn Lewis, Chernele Brown and Glynn Turman.
Netflix will order the series. I am guessing that Debbie Allen, the co-creator will reprise her role as executive producer and director.
Maleah Joi Moon will also be starring in the 10 episode series. She will play the daughter of Dwayne and Whitley.
Alijah Kai, Cornell Young IV, Kennedi Reece, Jordan Aaron Hall, and Chibuikem Uche join Moon as the pupils populating Hillman’s halls. Hardison has enjoyed welcoming the sequel’s new cast members into A Different World’s decades-long storied history.
Netflix confirm the new cast of A Different World reboot.
This will be the first sitcom without the input of disgraced media mogul Bill Cosby.
Jasmine Guy (plays Whitley Gilbert-Wayne), Kadeem Hardison (plays Dwayne Wayne), Daryl M. Bell (plays Ron Johnson) and Cree Summer (plays Freddie Brooks).
You can watch A Different World on Netflix or HBO Max.
The original series starred Lisa Bonet, Marisa Tomei, Dawnn Lewis, Hardison and Guy.
Jada Pinkett Smith, Loretta DeVine, Whoopi Goldberg, Tisha Campbell, Damon Wayans, Sr., Kenan Ivory Wayans, Kim Wayans, Billy Dee Williams, Tupac Shakur, Bumper Robinson, Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, Rondell Sheridan, David Alan Grier, Halle Berry, En Vogue, Kris Kross, TK Carter and Roscoe Lee Browne were featured guests.
The show was a groundbreaking for Black television. It detailed the lives of Black colleges and university life. Racism, drugs, HIV, pregnancy, rivalries, shocking events, death and taking part in the fight against South African apartheid.
Hopefully, A Different World will take part in the fight against Israel, its apartheid and genocide.
We will liberate Venezuela from those nasty narco terrorists.
The U.S. conducted another illegal airstrike on the sovereignty of Venezuela. The claims of drug trafficking is bogus. It is basically an attempt to force its president Nicolas Maduro to resign so they can install the far right opposition leader MarÃa Corina Machado. With her in power, she will allow Israel unprecedented access, destabilize the Venezuelan economy, push for U.S. intervention in Colombia and Bolivia. Machado is the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and her legacy is full of chaos and war.
President Donald J. Trump has indicated that the U.S. has “hit” a dock facility along a shore as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the U.S. offered few details.
Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela,” he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up.”
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”
It is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are boats smuggling drugs bound for the United States. It moves closer to shore strikes that so far have been carried out by the military in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. military said it conducted another strike on Monday against a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people. The attacks have killed at least 107 people in 30 strikes since early September, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.
Trump declined to say if the U.S. military or the CIA carried out the strike on the dock or where it occurred. He did not confirm it happened in Venezuela.
“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore,” Trump said.
Trump first referenced the strike on Friday, when he called radio host John Catsimatidis during a program on WABC radio and discussed the U.S. strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats.
“I don’t know if you read or saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard.”
Trump did not offer any additional details in the interview.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or one of the U.S. military’s social media accounts has in the past typically announced every boat strike in a post on X, but there has been no post of any strike on a facility.
The Pentagon on Monday referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking more details. The press office of Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statement.
Trump for months has suggested he may conduct land strikes in South America, in Venezuela or possibly another country, and in recent weeks has been saying the U.S. would move beyond striking boats and would strike on land “soon.”
In October, Trump confirmed he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The agency did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.
Along with the strikes, the U.S. has sent warships, built up military forces in the region, seized two oil tankers and pursued a third.
The Trump administration has said it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and seeking to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from power.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this month that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro ‘cries uncle.’”
For the past four years, President Donald J. Trump repeatedly dogged former president Joe Biden and former Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton over health concerns. Now the tables have turned and he ain't liking it at all.
The president can't uses toner or makeup to hide his bruises or liver spots. He can't hide the receding hair or the pushed comb overs.
At the age of 79, the stress of a second term is starting to get to him.
The bruises on his hand according to the White House is the endless handshakes.
Right?
He has already experienced the second term curse pretty damn early and it led to his fallout with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik. He took a massive defeats in three major elections that he endorsed the candidates.
If you want peace, you got to give Russia what it wants. Do me a favor! Turn over Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and not join the NATO alliance.
He has overseen another government shutdown and chaotic foreign policy.
It is taking a toll on his job approval.
He has a 34% job approval.
The Daily Beast has closely catalogued the bruising on Trump’s hand, which he has been nursing for months. The makeup smears, together with Trump’s swollen ankles, mysterious MRI, mental flubs, and twice-in-a-year “annual” medical checkups, have raised concerns about the health of the oldest person to be inaugurated president.
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Mar-a-Lago to discuss a solution to the Russian invasion. The president is trying to force Zelenskyy to concede land and avoid joining NATO.
Zelenskyy told Trump directly that he is not going to allow Russia to seize land from Ukrainian sovereignty.
Also Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Mar-a-Lago to detail his intentions to strike Iran again. This fake ceasefire is entering its deadlier second phase.
Israel has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians since this U.S.-backed ceasefire came into effect.
It is a damn farce because Israel has violated it over and over again.
I answer to him.
Trump warned Iran on Monday that the U.S. could carry out further military strikes if the country attempts to reconstitute its nuclear program as he held wide-ranging talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his home in Florida.
Trump had previously insisted that Tehran’s nuclear capabilities were “completely and fully obliterated” by U.S. strikes on key nuclear enrichment sites in June. But with Netanyahu by his side, Trump raised the possibility that suspected activity could be taking place outside those sites. Israeli officials, meanwhile, have been quoted in local media expressing concern about Iran rebuilding its supply of long-range missiles capable of striking Israel.
“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again,” Trump told reporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “And if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that’s not happening.”
Trump’s warning to Iran comes as his administration has committed significant resources to targeting drug trafficking in South America and the president looks to create fresh momentum for the U.S.-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire. The Gaza deal is in danger of stalling before reaching its complicated second phase that would involve naming an international governing body and rebuilding the devastated Palestinian territory.
At a news conference with Netanyahu after their meeting, Trump suggested that he could order another U.S. strike.
“If it’s confirmed, they know the consequences, and the consequences will be very powerful, maybe more powerful than the last time,” Trump said.
Iran has insisted that it is no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program. The two leaders discussed the possibility of taking new military action against Tehran just months after June’s 12-day war.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s warning.
Gaza ceasefire progress has slowed
Trump, with Netanyahu by his side, said he wants to get to the second phase of the Gaza deal “as quickly as we can.”
“But there has to be a disarming of Hamas,” Trump added.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that Trump championed has mostly held, but progress has slowed recently. Both sides accuse each other of violations, and divisions have emerged among the U.S., Israel and Arab countries about the path forward.
The truce’s first phase began in October, days after the two-year anniversary of the initial Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about a disputed toll 1,200 people. Israel constantly hypes up the death toll. Israelis used the Hannibal Directive to kill its own civilians but places the fault on Hamas. Hamas stated clearly that their goal was to attack military not civilians. All but one of the 251 IDF soliders/illegal settlers taken then have been released, alive or dead.
The Israeli leader, who also met separately with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has signaled he is in no rush to move forward with the next phase as long as the remains of Ran Gvili are still in Gaza.
Gvili’s parents met with Netanyahu as well as Rubio, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in Florida on Monday.
Iran president Masoud Pezeshkian and China president Xi Jinping.
“They’re waiting for their son to come home,” Trump said of the family of the young police officer known affectionately as “Rani.”
Next phase is complex
The path to implementing Trump’s peace plan is certainly complicated.
If successful, the second phase would see the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision by a group chaired by Trump and known as the Board of Peace. The Palestinians would form a “technocratic, apolitical” committee to run daily affairs in Gaza, under Board of Peace supervision.
It further calls for normalized relations between Israel and the Arab world and a possible pathway to Palestinian independence. Then there are thorny logistical and humanitarian questions, including rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza, disarming Hamas and creating a security apparatus called the International Stabilization Force.
Much remains unsettled
Two main challenges have complicated moving to the second phase, according to an official who was briefed on those meetings. Israeli officials have been taking a lot of time to vet and approve members of the Palestinian technocratic committee from a list given to them by the mediators, and Israel continues its military strikes.
Trump’s plan also calls for the stabilization force, proposed as a multinational body, to maintain security. But it, too, has yet to be formed. Whether details will be forthcoming after Monday’s meeting is unclear.
A Western diplomat said there is a “huge gulf” between the U.S.-Israeli understanding of the force’s mandate and that of other major countries in the region, as well as European governments.
All spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that haven’t been made public.
The U.S. and Israel want the force to have a “commanding role” in security duties, including disarming Hamas and other militant groups. But countries being courted to contribute troops fear that mandate will make it an “occupation force,” the diplomat said.
Hamas has said it is ready to discuss “freezing or storing” its arsenal of weapons but insists it has a right to armed resistance as long as Israel occupies Palestinian territory. One U.S. official said a potential plan might be to offer cash incentives in exchange for weapons, echoing a “buyback” program Witkoff has previously floated.
Trump makes case once again for Netanyahu pardon
The two leaders, who have a long and close relationship, heaped praise on each other. Trump also tweaked the Israeli leader, who at moments during the war has raised Trump’s ire, for being “very difficult on occasion.”
Netanyahu said Trump during the lunch was formally told that his country’s education ministry will award him the Israel Prize, breaking the long-held convention of bestowing the honor on an Israeli citizen or resident.
“President Trump has broken so many conventions to the surprise of people,” Netanyahu said. He added, “So we decided to break a convention too, or create a new one.”
Trump also renewed his call on Israeli President Isaac Herzog to grant Netanyahu, who is in the midst of a corruption trial, a pardon.
Netanyahu is the only sitting prime minister in Israeli history to stand trial, after being charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases accusing him of exchanging favors with wealthy political supporters.
Trump has previously written to Herzog to urge a pardon and advocated for one during his October speech before the Knesset. He said Monday that Herzog has told him “it’s on its way” without offering further details.
“He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?” Trump said.
Herzog’s office said in a statement that the Israeli president and Trump have not spoken since the pardon request was submitted, but that Herzog has spoken with a Trump representative about the U.S. president’s letter advocating for Netanyahu’s pardon.
“During that conversation, an explanation was provided regarding the stage of the process in which the request currently stands, and that any decision on the matter will be made in accordance with the established procedures,” the Israeli president’s office said.
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) is leading an effort to expel Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from Congress. This is the latest laziness the Republicans got going on right now.
Instead of focusing on affordability and lowering the price of groceries, Fine is devoting his time to demonizing a lawmaker who lives over 1,500 miles from his district.
He is joined by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) and Rep. Max Miller (R-OH).
Fine is a staunchly pro Israel Republican and has voted numerous bills to fund Israel.
Omar has took shots at the obese Florida lawmaker in the past and isn’t shy to call him and President Donald J. Trump out. That's why are resorting to attacks on her.
Baseless claims about her being a terrorist, marrying her brother, lying to obtain asylum and an raging antisemite are the accusations thrown around willie nillie.
Now some made up scandal about Minnesota has Gov. Tim Walz, Omar and Democrats out on the defense. Fox is pushing this extensively.
The Minnesota Fraud Scandal: In late 2025, Republicans, including her 2024 GOP opponent, linked Omar to a $1 billion welfare fraud case in Minnesota involving several Somali-led non-profits. While investigations are ongoing, GOP leaders like House Majority Whip Tom Emmer have demanded ethics investigations into her ties to the community organizations involved.
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) is Marjorie Taylor Greene 2.0. Fat asshole trying to get Ilhan Omar expelled because of her outspoken opposition of Israel.
Deportation and Denaturalization Rhetoric: High-profile Republicans, including the president and Ron DeSantis, have escalated their rhetoric, with Trump repeatedly calling Omar "garbage" and suggesting she and other immigrants are a threat to the country. Some GOP members, like Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), have openly called for her citizenship to be revoked and for her to be deported to Somalia.
Like President Donald J. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Jared Kushner, Barron Trump and Peter Thiel are literally profiting off the federal government.
Fine was also angered by Dave Chappelle's Netflix comedy where he took aim at Israel.
Chappelle addressed criticism he faced for performing at a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia, which some condemned due to the Saudi government's 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Chappelle responded by contrasting that coverage with the situation in Gaza, stating he "didn't know y'all was still counting" after Israel reportedly killed over 240 Palestinian journalists in the last few months.
Wondering why Trump has issues with Somalia? Israel. The apartheid ethnostate recognizes a breakaway region as a formal country. The African Union and Arab League denounced it. They conclude that Israel is trying to force Palestinians there.
The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump is compromised by Israel. His support of the apartheid ethnostate will ruin him like it did George W. Bush and Joe Biden.
The apartheid ethnostate is planning on expelling Gazan and West Bank Palestinian civilians to Somaliland in their ethnic cleansing. It is officially a genocide by the independent spectators. The U.S. refuses to acknowledge it and have placed sanctions on those who called it a genocide.
Somaliland is not formally recognized by the nation of Somalia, the African Union, the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The formal recognition by Israel is an op to intimidate Yemen, Iran, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Israel is trying to start World War III by pushing its expansion into Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Cyprus. They are determined to eliminate the Gaza Strip and West Bank. They are determined to push the U.S., Great Britain and European Union into criminalizing free speech on the guise of antisemitism. They are buying up American junk food media companies to keep the status quo narratives.
The public is not in favor of it.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a wanted war criminal is allowed in the United States because the country refuses to adhere to the International Criminal Court demands to hold world leaders accountable. It is the reasons why George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Trump are never getting dragged in to ICC.
The U.S. thinks of itself above international law.
Israel thinks its above the law as well.
Russia too.
(Somaliland) celebrates a rogue state's acknowledgement of their existence.
The U.S., Israel and Russia are the most hated countries in the world. As an American, I have finally realized that our country being ran by white men has lead us to endless chaos and the time is now for a formal rejection of the status quo.
Had Kamala Harris denounced Israel, the former vice president would be our first Black woman president. We can only hope she can at least win back some of the voters she shunned in 2024. Remember she was speaking when they demanded her to stop supporting Israel. If the Democrats do win the Midterms with pro Israel nominees, it is a wrap come 2028.
A growing number of countries on Saturday rejected Israel’s recognition of Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland as an independent nation a day earlier, the first by any country in more than 30 years.
Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 during a descent into conflict that continues to leave the east African country fragile. Despite having its own government and currency, Somaliland had never been recognized by any nation until Friday.
A joint statement by more than 20 mostly Middle Eastern or African countries and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Saturday rejected Israel’s recognition “given the serious repercussions of such unprecedented measure on peace and security in the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea and its serious effects on international peace and security as a whole.”
Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi on the phone with Netanyahu expressing joy to the apartheid ethnostate's recognition of Somaliland.
Somaliland, which is arid, lies on the Gulf of Aden across from Yemen and next to small Djibouti, which hosts military bases for the U.S., China, France and several other countries.
The joint statement also noted “the full rejection of any potential link between such measure and any attempts to forcibly expel the Palestinian people out of their land.” Syria in a separate statement also rejected Israel’s recognition.
Earlier this year, U.S. and Israeli officials told The Associated Press that Israel had approached Somaliland about taking in Palestinians from Gaza as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan at the time to resettle the territory’s population. The United States has since abandoned that plan.
The U.S. State Department on Saturday said that it continued to recognize the territorial integrity of Somalia, “which includes the territory of Somaliland.”
Netanyahu’s office said Friday that he, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Somaliland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, signed a joint declaration “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords.”
Earlier this year, U.S. and Israeli officials told The Associated Press that Israel had approached Somaliland about taking in Palestinians from Gaza as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan at the time to resettle the territory’s population. The United States has since abandoned that plan.
The U.S. State Department on Saturday said that it continued to recognize the territorial integrity of Somalia, “which includes the territory of Somaliland.”
This scumbag causing chaos worldwide.
Netanyahu’s office said Friday that he, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Somaliland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, signed a joint declaration “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords.”
That initiative, which started in 2020, established commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab and Muslim-majority countries. Trump sees it as key to his plan for bringing long-term stability to the Middle East.
Somalia’s federal government on Friday strongly rejected what it described as an unlawful move by Israel, and reaffirmed that Somaliland remains an integral part of Somalia’s sovereign territory.
African regional bodies also rejected Israel’s recognition. African Union Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said that any attempt to undermine Somalia’s sovereignty risks peace and stability on the continent.
East African governing body IGAD said in a statement that Somalia’s sovereignty was recognized under international law and any unilateral recognition “runs contrary to the charter of the United Nations” and agreements establishing the bloc and the African Union.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announces pregnancy.
A first in U.S. history.
I despise her with all my passion. She is nothing more than a stupid propagandist for the status quo. She is a honey pot to an older man. That older man has influence over our president.
President Donald J. Trump, Vice President JD Vance and members of the White House congratulate White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as she announces her pregnancy to her second child.
Leavitt is the first U.S. press secretary to be operating as a pregnant woman. She also is the youngest spokesperson for the U.S. president.
She is 28 years old and her husband Nick Riccio is 60.
The controversy around him is possible pedophilia and sexual predatory behavior. He is a real estate developer.
Leavitt does a photo op trying to dismiss postpartum depression.
In December 2023, Leavitt became engaged to Nicholas Riccio, a real estate developer from New Hampshire who is 32 years her senior. They were introduced in 2022 at a restaurant during Leavitt's congressional campaign. Leavitt has described Riccio as "an introvert" and her "opposite". Their son was born in July 2024. She returned to work within a week of his birth, on the day of Thomas Crooks's attempted assassination of Trump. Leavitt married Riccio in January 2025, days before Trump's second inauguration. A May 2025 photograph of Leavitt feeding her son while working drew international attention.
In November 2025, the mother of one of Leavitt's nephews was detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement and removal proceedings began.
Leavitt's predecessor was Karine Jean-Pierre, a former progressive agitator who took the role after Jen Psaki stepped down. Jean-Pierre was the first Black woman and openly gay woman to serve as White House press secretary.
Jean-Pierre and Leavitt will have a legacy of infamy. Both defended Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden's ironclad support of Israel.
Israel will once again play a pivotal role in politics. If Trump loses the House or Senate, it will because of Israel. The support of Israel is declining and no amount of bans, laws or insults by the federal government will stop the public from turning on Israel.
A former church in Dayton, Ohio. This facility is now left to the taggers from the suburbs.
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The original Pledge of Allegiance never had "Under God."
It was incorporated in 1954 and it launched the religious right and their push to culture wars. Of course, the push against desegregation was a key factor to its rise.
The religious institutions are seeing a rapid decline in parishioners. From your church, parish, mosque and your synagogue, the American public is not going to the religions establishment.
Why are we paying for your reverend's new car with your donations?
Why are we sitting in a church listening to your pastor dehumanize others under guise of Christianity?
Why are we being told by your rabbi that you're life is always in danger because of his support of a foreign country?
Why is your preacher always accused of sexually abusing children and we look the other way?
Why are the megachurch pastors so devoted to be around federal and state officials?
The Bible Belt is about to unravel.
An unprecedented 15,000 churches are expected to shut their doors this year, far more than the few thousand expected to open, according to denominational reports and church consultants.
People are not seeing a sky deity as the hope in a man-made world of crisis. Trust me, GOD isn't fixing a decline in the United States. The country is trying to incorporate Christianity and Judaism as the primary religions of the government.
Still trying to define the U.S. Constitution without realizing the separation of church and state.
I guess I am going to hell if I don't go to church.
Religious extremism is a primary factor to why people are not going to church. Also the work schedules. More Americans are working more hours and it drains them. The National Football League is the biggest driver to why people are not going to church.
Pushing for abortion bans, anti-LGBTQ policies or sermons, punching down on the vulnerable, dehumanizing others, politics, association with controversial figures, adultery by church leaders, sexually abusing children and cash grabs have turned people away from the church.
About 40% of Americans are unaffiliated.
The Christian right has advanced socially conservative positions on issues such as creationism in public education, school prayer, temperance, Christian nationalism, and Sunday Sabbatarianism, as well as opposition to the teaching of biological evolution, secularism, LGBTQ rights, abortion, euthanasia, pornography, embryonic stem cell research, and the use of drugs. Although the term Christian right is most commonly associated with U.S. politics, similar Christian conservative groups can be found in the political cultures of other Christian-majority countries.
America, we have a problem. The problem is the status quo and Americans are getting tired of it.
Purdue University released its public findings of the 119th Session of the United States Congress. It gave it a failing grade. With a Republican president, a Republican controlled House and Senate, this session only pass 38 bills that were signed into law by President Donald J. Trump and former president Joe Biden in his final weeks.
Days of decline will continue in 2026
Examples of democratic backsliding include:
Free and fair elections are degraded;
Liberal rights of freedom of speech, press and association decline, impairing the ability of the political opposition to challenge the government, hold it to account, and propose alternatives to the current regime;
The rule of law (i.e., judicial and bureaucratic restraints on the government) is weakened, such as when the independence of the judiciary is threatened, or when civil service tenure protections are weakened or eliminated.
An over-emphasis on national security as response to acts of terrorism or perceived antagonists.
Politicians can't agree on funding essential needs and services which trigger spiteful pain on the citizens.
The government shutdown of 2025 was one of the longest in U.S. history. It lasted 43 days and put a huge cripple in democracy. It took six Democrats and two independent senators to save Republicans. In the House, it took at least six Democratic House members to help
High profile House members like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Eric Swalwell, Elise Stefanik, Ashley Hinson, Jasmine Crockett, Harriet Hageman, Byron Donalds, Wesley Hunt, Seth Multon, Nancy Pelosi, Angie Craig and others are leaving for the private sector, resigning or seeking higher office.
Senators like Tina Smith, Thom Tillis, Cynthia Lummis, Joni Ernst, Dick Durbin, Gary Peters, Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn and others are leaving for the private sector, retiring or seeking higher office.
Many others like Ashley Moody and Jon Husted will have to fight to serve the remaining term.
A major accomplishment was the passage and signing of H.R. 1, known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which enacted the most significant tax legislation in nearly 40 years. Congress also aggressively used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn several "lame duck" environmental and other regulations from the final months of the Biden administration.
A contributing factor to this “lack of productivity” was President Donald Trump’s increasing use of executive orders, often controversial and subject to multiple court challenges. So far in his second term, Trump has signed 224 executive orders, compared to the 52 he signed in 2017 and more than he did during his entire first term. President Joe Biden signed 76 in 2021, his first year in office. Trump has currently signed more than 70 percent of the all the executive orders that Biden and President Barack Obama signed during their cumulative 12 years in office.
Mike Johnson and John Thune get headaches dealing with Republican members
The House set a record for fewest votes cast during a first year of a two-year congressional session for the entire 21 century thus far. The 362 votes they did cast were “barely half as many votes as in 2017, which was Trump’s first year in office” and another year when the GOP had majority control.
Kane noted that this was probably related to the “unusually large number of House members” who “have decided to leave the chamber either to retire or run for other office,” putting the House on pace to set a 21st-century record for retirements in one Congress.
So far, 24 Republicans and 19 Democrats are heading for the exit door, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who are retiring, Reps. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) and Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) who are running for the U.S. Senate, and Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) who are running for governor in their states. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was running for New York governor but recently announced she was dropping out of the race and retiring from Congress as well, a remarkable fall after she gave up her leadership position when Trump nominated her as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations but then her nomination was withdrawn amid concerns about defending the GOP’s razor-thin majority.
Another man comes out with allegations that mega film director and actor Tyler Perry committed an act of sexual battery. Sexual battery is either unwanted groping of the buttocks or penis.
An actor who appeared in “Boo! A Madea Halloween” is suing the entertainment mogul for sexual battery.
In the lawsuit filed on Thursday, Mario Rodriguez claims Perry subjected him to unwanted sexual advances and multiple instances of assault, per The Hollywood Reporter. He’s seeking at least $77 million.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Perry, denied the allegations.
This is the second time in a year, men came out with some damaging allegations against Perry.
Derek Dixon, an actor who appeared in Perry's shows The Oval and Ruthless, filed a lawsuit in June 2025. He alleges that Perry made unwanted sexual advances on multiple occasions, including groping him and threatening his role on the shows if he did not comply. Dixon is seeking $260 million in damages.
Mario Rodriguez, an actor who had a minor role in Boo! A Madea Halloween, filed a separate lawsuit in December 2025, seeking $77 million in damages. He claims that Perry sexually assaulted him and made unwanted advances repeatedly over several years after meeting at a gym in 2015.
Now again, if you remember Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks on Adult Swim. In an episode called "Pause", Robert Freeman is hired to participate in a play written by playwright Winston Jerome. Freeman (voiced by John Witherspoon) was amazed by the talents that Jerome (voiced by Affton Crockett) held in Black media. Huey (voiced by Regina King) and Riley (voiced by King) were cynical of Jerome. They believe their granddad was enticed into a cult. That cult would exploit men for Jerome's sexual desires.
The episode was pulled from Adult Swim after Perry threatened to sue and pull his impact from Warner Bros. and Sony Entertainment.
The Boondocks famously parodied Tyler Perry in an episode.
Greg Braxton of the Los Angeles Times cited "Pause" as one of the sharpest public criticisms of [Tyler] Perry" and situated it alongside other critiques of Perry's work from African American filmmakers like Spike Lee.
Perry born Emmitt Perry, Jr. is an American actor, filmmaker, and playwright. He is the creator and performer of Mabel "Madea" Simmons, a tough elderly woman, and also portrays her brother Joe Simmons and her nephew Brian Simmons. Perry's films vary in style from orthodox filmmaking techniques to filmed productions of live stage plays, many of which have been subsequently adapted into feature films. Madea's first appearance was in I Can Do Bad All by Myself (1999) staged in Chicago.
Perry wrote and produced many stage plays, which were at their successful peak in the 1990s and the 2000s. His breakthrough performance came in 2005 with the film Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which he wrote and produced as an adaptation of his stage play of the same name. He also developed numerous television series, most notably Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which ran for eight seasons on TBS from 2006 to 2012, before being renewed in 2020. In 2011, Forbes listed him as the highest-paid man in entertainment, earning $130 million between May 2010 and May 2011. In 2012, Perry struck an exclusive multi-year partnership with Oprah Winfrey and her Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). The deal featured scripted projects such as The Haves and the Have Nots.[6] In 2019, he produced the political drama series The Oval for BET.
Outside of his own productions, Perry has been cast in numerous Hollywood films including Star Trek (2009), Alex Cross (2012), Gone Girl (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), Vice (2018), Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), and Don't Look Up (2021). Perry has also done voice acting for animated films such as The Star (2017) and Paw Patrol: The Movie (2021).
Perry's films and shows have cumulatively grossed over $660 million, and his net worth is an estimated $1 billion, making him one of the richest people in the entertainment industry. Despite commercial success, his productions have received criticism from critics and scholars who believe his films perpetuate negative or offensive portrayals of African Americans, along with the critical reception itself being largely negative. In 2020, Perry was included in Time's list of the 100 most influential people and received the Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Additionally, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy Awards in 2021, and was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame the following year.