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Monday, July 13, 2026

On Monday, an Obama-appointed federal judge issued a sweeping sanctions order after President Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had already been voluntarily dismissed, concluding that because Trump ultimately controls the IRS, the parties were never truly adverse. The judge also referred several members of President Trump's legal team to their state bar associations for possible disciplinary action.

The X post from independent journalist Breanna Morello says:

An Obama-appointee Judge Kathleen Williams says President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose.”
The judge referred Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, and President Trump’s attorneys to their respective state bar authorities for potential disciplinary review.
The judge says President Trump controls the IRS and Treasury so the plaintiffs and defendants were on the same team. She claims, "the Government entered into a “settlement” that deviated from its litigation posture in similar actions, disregarded DOJ policies, and accomplished objectives beyond those authorized, as well as those specifically prohibited, by law. Under these circumstances, the Court may reasonably infer that the Government failed to defend this lawsuit or to respond to the Court’s jurisdictional inquiry because its position would not withstand judicial scrutiny and because resolution of the threshold issues identified by the Court would not have favored its preferred outcome to this case."
She also alleges the lawsuit was filed just to get the court’s official approval for a deal they had already arranged.
I have reached out to the DOJ for comment.

This decision casts some doubt on the Trump administration's planned Anti-Weaponization Fund, which has in any case effectively been scuppered; Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has already indicated that the plans for the fund will not be moving forward.

As of this writing, the Trump administration has not commented on the ruling.

Obama-Appointed Judge Reopens Trump IRS Lawsuit, Demands Answers on $1.776 Billion Fund

The judge also indicated that, should President Trump have filed the lawsuit when he was a private citizen, the outcome may have been different:

Williams suggested if Trump had brought the lawsuit “in a timely fashion while he was a private citizen,” the case might have been resolved within the span of months.
“But that is not what happened,” she wrote. “Instead, President Trump did not pursue his claims until he once again occupied the White House and had appointed his former lawyer, and the former lawyer of persons who are putative beneficiaries of the ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ to prominent positions in the DOJ.”

The decision effectively turns one of the administration's own legal victories on presidential authority against it, with Williams reasoning that if Trump exercises direct control over the IRS and Treasury, they cannot function as truly adverse parties in federal court. It's an interesting point; opposing parties in a lawsuit are adversaries, and it's interesting that his case hinged on two parties that are, effectively, part of the same team.

In any case, the matter likely won't end here. Stay tuned.

https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/07/13/trump-team-now-facing-bar-referrals-by-obama-appointed-judge-n2204277?utm_source=rsafternoonbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Joe & Mika Display Platner Denialism; Time Magazine Zeroes in on the Big Issue With the Iran War: Climate

Joe & Mika Display Platner Denialism; Time Magazine Zeroes in on the Big Issue With the Iran War: Climate

Brad Slager

Joe & Mika Display Platner Denialism; Time Magazine Zeroes in on the Big Issue With the Iran War: Climate — *Townhall Media*

Get access to Brad Slager's "Riffed From the Headlines," a daily VIP feature where he looks to bring accountability to the mainstream media. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!

DNC PR Firm – MS NOW

Talk about a crew that needs to get over it…

As the Platner fiasco in Maine has the press spinning out of control and trying to recalibrate their past support for the alleged rapey Nazi with anger issues, one source has been rather resolute about backing the guy – the crew at "Morning Joe." We covered how Mika Brzezinski was quite perturbed with Anthony Wren, the reporter who broke the latest scandal involving rape with Platner.

Now for the latest, she and her hubby, Scar-Joe, are coming out with lectures for the press and Democrats about their treatment of Platner. For one example, reporter Jackie Alemany gave a detailed rendition of many — but not all — of Platner’s exposed problems, and Mika was dismissive about those pieces of evidence. “It's just funny because for that list that Jackie just made, I mean, for some Republicans, that's just a Tuesday. But whatever, you know.”

I will tell you, Mika and I have heard — NO-THING — and let me underline that…nothing but support from Maine Democrats on the ground for Platner. Platner signs are still up! They think that this is Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the Washington establishment coming to get him. They all have the same story.”

Prose & Contradiction – WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Okay but…that describes it…

The New York Times is still weathering the fallout of its expose of Graham Platner through one of his victims, Lyndsey Fifield. That would be the piece where they pulled the punches, failed to contact all of the corroborating witnesses Fifield gave them, and allowed the Platner team enough room to come out and accuse her of being a conservative plant meant to bring him down.

At the Examiner, Tim Carney saw fit to excuse the outlet by laying out that what the outlet had done was not what it was accused of doing.

So they avoided key evidence, allowed the aggressor to mold the narrative, and they turned the attack's focus on the conservative female victim.

You just described a catch-and-kill piece.

Blue-Anon – TIME MAGAZINE

It appears the rest of us have been overthinking this war…

Consider the ramifications and the main issues with the Iranian conflict. The country that leads in state-sponsored terrorism has been attacking domestic shipping, launching sucker punch missile attacks on its neighbors and allies, and there was that small matter of exterminating tens of thousands of its own citizens who dared to rise in opposition to the leadership.

Well, Time Magazine is here to correct us about what we should be really upset about – how the war affects climate change.

Pre-Written Field Reports – LOS ANGELES TIMES

“I don’t like this, so all the fans are as offended as me!”

One of the tiring aspects of the press in the Trump 2.0 era is the constant pestering of teams to forego the tradition of visiting the White House following a championship.

The latest involves the LA Dodgers, and after they visited with President Trump, sports columnist Bill Plaschke was offended by what he saw. So, of course, he arrived at the conclusion that ALL of the Dodger faithful were equally and identically offended as he is.

Dems Embarrass Themselves on ICE Shooting - Plus Their Party's Shutdowns May Have Led to a Big Issue

Dems Embarrass Themselves on ICE Shooting - Plus Their Party's Shutdowns May Have Led to a Big Issue

By Nick Arama

As we reported on Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were involved in an incident on Tuesday morning in Houston where an illegal alien was shot and killed.

According to ICE:

On July 7, 2026, at approximately 6:50 AM CT, ICE law enforcement attempted to conduct a vehicle stop as part of a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien. The driver of the vehicle, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo—an illegal alien from Mexico—attempted to evade arrest. From information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense.
The driver was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted. The driver was transported to the hospital where he passed away from his injuries.

As we reported, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said she was looking into taking legal action.

During her speech, Sheinbaum left out the alleged attack on authorities by Salgado.
“His only fault was not having papers, even though he had been hired by an American company,” she said, adding that the U.S. government and its agencies have a history of oppressing migrants. “They don’t have to be in detention centers or for there to be any violence.”

Looks like she left out some rather important alleged points in the matter.

Good Luck With That — Mexican President Wants to Take Legal Action Against ICE for Illegal Alien Death

Now we have a couple of Texas Democrats who have weighed in.

First, there's the Democrat running for the Senate in Texas, James Talarico. Speaking of leaving a few things out, here's what he posted.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a father of three. He lived in Houston for 35 years. On his way to work, ICE agents shot and killed him. His family learned from a video posted online. There must be accountability. We need a full, independent investigation.

That, of course, is misleading the public by leaving out what ICE has said. If you read that, it reads like the agents just decided to shoot him for the heck of it while he drove to work. If you can't even be straight about that, how can voters trust what you have to say? That's not going to go over well in Texas with people who are going to know what the Democrat left out.

That was bad, but then there's what Democrat Rep. Sylvia Garcia (TX-29) said. This is truly embarrassing.

"So we have learned some lessons," Garcia said.

"Apparently, ICE has learned nothing. If they really think that a car is going to hurt somebody, I mean, even a kid will tell ya, you shoot the tires, you don't shoot the driver.

If ever there was a facepalm comment, this would be it. What the heck is she even talking about? Now we don't know all the facts of the matter yet, but if a car is coming at you, even if you could shoot out tires in the split second you may have to react, that isn't going to stop a moving car. Does she not know that?

According to reports, Araujo was not the target of the action. Three other men were detained in the incident. They claim "a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after he got out of his vehicle, and that the driver didn't veer in his direction at any point."

Here's a wild thought for the Democrats. How about, instead of immediately attacking and demonizing ICE, you actually pay attention to what they've said and wait for the investigation before you act foolishly?

Then, too, there's another point that the Democrats seem to be missing at this juncture.

The ICE officer who fatally shot Araujo was not wearing a body camera because officers in that field office were not yet equipped with them, according to a DHS spokesperson.
The officers in Houston "had not been issued body-worn cameras due to back-to-back Democrat shutdowns," the spokesperson said, blaming a series of government funding lapses that arose when Congress failed to pass measures to fund department and agency operations. There was a 43-day government shutdown in late 2025, as well as a separate 76-day DHS shutdown that started in February and ended in April. The spokesperson said that the shutdown interrupted the body camera procurement process for ICE field offices.

Translation? If this report is true, then we don't have body cam video to look at here because of the Democrats' delays in passing funding. Great job, Democrats.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2026/07/10/ice-shooting-dem-remarks-including-talarico-and-garcia-n2204197?utm_source=rsmorningbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Sunday, July 12, 2026

Angeleno Businessman Explains How L.A. Claims Crime Is ‘Down’

Angeleno Businessman Explains How L.A. Claims Crime Is ‘Down’

Catherine Salgado

While crime is supposedly going down in Los Angeles, locals are reporting more and more violence, homelessness, arson, and drug trafficking. How come the official data does not match the lived reality on the ground?

It is not exactly atypical for Democrats to mess around with crime data in order to make themselves look better. There has never been a single state or city that became a better place to live after Democrats were in charge, which means that Dems have to lie about their track record constantly in order to stay in power. In some cases, they change the definition of what constitutes certain crimes, and in other cases, they deliberately under-report. Then there’s the situation in Los Angeles, where the system is essentially set up to fail.

Police in Los Angeles have to deal with so much crime from a combination of factors, including sanctuary for illegal aliens, soft-on-crime policies, and government incompetence, that law enforcement just doesn’t always show up to a crime scene. The same phenomenon is evident in my own hometown of Tucson, Ariz., where the police tell individuals reporting crimes that they have a months-long backlog and very little time for anything new. And if there is no official report of a crime, it doesn’t go into the statistics.

L.A. real estate businessman Michael Moreno shared a story illustrating what this looks like. He described what happened when an agent in his office walked across the street to get himself lunch. The agent tried to allow a high homeless woman who illegally crossed the street to pass him, but she decided to attack him instead, grabbing his shirt and assaulting him.

“With only a hydro flask in hand, he hits her on the head. She barely notices and continues attacking him repeatedly,” Moreno detailed the incident. “He continues to fight back until she finally lets go. She then starts screaming at him and threatening his life. This didn't happen on Skid Row, it happened at 2:30 PM in broad daylight in Encino, CA - one of the more affluent areas in LA.”

Moreno went on:

After the homeless lady finally walks away, still screaming to herself, he calls the police.
He then proceeds to sit there for an hour waiting. The police never come.
At 9:30 PM, 7 hours after the incident, the police call and say they've arrived.
By now he's home, the attacker is miles away, and realizing the futility of his efforts, he doesn't open an investigation.
This crime now goes unreported and LA politicians can tout that crime has decreased.

Moreno’s story is not a one-off. For instance, in June, the California Post reported that city officials claimed metro crime fell last year by almost seven percent, along with a 33% drop for “crimes against society.” And yet many public transport users reported still experiencing dangerous and alarming situations, rejecting the narrative of improved safety. In Aug. 2025, NBC4 Los Angeles noted the selectiveness of the data: “While the number of murders in 2025 has continued a multi-year decline across Los Angeles, the number of killings remained nearly unchanged this year around the Vermont Knolls area and surrounding communities.”

Interestingly, while claiming that homicide rates had gone down impressively in Los Angeles in 2025, the Los Angeles Times admitted this could partially be due to the Trump administration crackdown on illegal aliens. In other words, if it happened, it’s actual enforcement of laws that local officials oppose driving the dip.

We also have to wonder whether the violent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles end up in the official statistics for crime.

The main point is, we simply cannot rely on the official crime statistics out of Los Angeles. The politicians ruining the city have a vested interest in dishonesty.

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2026/07/11/angeleno-businessman-explains-how-la-claims-crime-is-down-n4954908?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

Gutfeld Nails Exactly Why Democrats Turned Graham Platner Into a Folk Hero

Gutfeld Nails Exactly Why Democrats Turned Graham Platner Into a Folk Hero

Matt Margolis

Poor Graham Platner, right?

No, not really. He deserves everything that he’s getting right now. No one should be grieving about him or for him. Frankly, the best thing for him now would be to return to his old life in obscurity. Something tells me that he won’t, though. He’s tasted fame and notoriety. He may not get to build a tower shaped in honor of himself that looks like a post-apocalyptic trash can, as Barack Obama has, but he’ll find a way to remain a thorn in the side of the Democrat Party.

But perhaps the biggest question about Platner comes from Greg Gutfeld, who asked Friday night on The Five how someone who was an unknown not so long ago suddenly became the most important person in the party for a while.

"It's incredible how somebody so obscure can all of a sudden become the most important variable for one major political party," Gutfeld said. "It just tells you that these things happen in places that you ignore, spaces that are unoccupied, and you're too busy doing something else."

He added, "But it blows my mind that this guy was an obscurity and now he's everywhere.”

The New York Times ran a piece describing women mourning Platner's political implosion, a framing Gutfeld found absurd given how the same media treated other left-wing candidates who fell short. "They never coddled a voting bloc like this," he said. "I mean, we painted them as rubes falling for a charlatan."

He pointed to Bernie Sanders as the clearest example of the double standard. "Even with Bernie Sanders, they didn't show any sympathy for the voters," Gutfeld said. "They cheated when they tossed him aside in two elections."

That comparison led Gutfeld to a broader point about how Democrats and their allies in the press treat claims of a rigged process. "This is why it kills me," he said. "When they laugh at Republicans or conservatives who think 2020 was rigged against Trump, it's like, ‘You guys rigged two elections against your own guy. Why wouldn't we think that you did it to Sanders?”

Gutfeld then turned to the substance of Platner's far-left platform, arguing that the folksy image built around him was designed to distract from it rather than from his personal baggage. "They kept saying this guy was relatable, a normal guy, but I think this was all camouflage, not for his sexual escapades, but for his policies," he said.

He rattled off the specifics reporters glossed over. "By focusing on the mustache and the truck driving, you didn't talk about free Medicaid, trans, defunding police, BLM, Antifa," Gutfeld said. "There's nothing folksy about his beliefs; it's pure chaos."

ICYMI: The Platner Campaign Is Telling Some Real Whoppers Now

"He has all the stuff of that campus town coffee shop where the coffee mugs don't match," he said. "And all the flyers on the wall are for No Kings rallies and bail funds and rent strikes." He added that Platner is "a walking billboard for decolonization and free Palestine rallies," and insisted "that is not a normal guy just because he wears a sweatshirt."

Gutfeld's sharpest point came when he contrasted Platner with Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican far removed from MAGA politics. "They keep portraying this guy as far worse, evil than voting for Susan Collins," he said. "That was their apocalypse, an elderly, benign liberal Republican who's about as MAGA as Sally Field."

Gutfeld closed by pointing out just how far the goalposts had moved. "And yet that choice, oh, not her, drove women in Maine to grieve, grieve over a guy with a Nazi tattoo who may or may not have raped a few women," he said. "They grieve over him."

That pretty much says it all.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/07/11/gutfeld-nails-exactly-why-democrats-turned-graham-platner-into-a-folk-hero-n4954906?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

The Return of Socialism and the GOP's Golden Opportunity

The Return of Socialism and the GOP's Golden Opportunity

Josh Hammer

The Return of Socialism and the GOP's Golden Opportunity — *AP Photo/Seth Wenig*

The Democrat Party has come a long way since Bill Clinton was president — and not in a good way.

In 1993, the first year of the Clinton presidency, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced legislation to end automatic birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens; today, Democrats routinely call to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and advocate for illegal alien suffrage. Clinton famously called for abortion to be "safe and legal but rare"; today, Democrats prefer to "shout your abortion" as a perverse badge of honor. On marriage, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act to define the union under federal law as one man and one woman; today, Democrats struggle to even tell us what a woman is, and polyamory now lurks as the next frontier in social experimentation.

But of all the issues where the Democrat Party has moved sharply to the left since the Clinton era, perhaps none is more notable than economic policy. During his 1996 State of the Union address, Clinton famously declared that "the era of big government is over." And he acted on that impulse too: Clinton signed the most transformative welfare reform law in a generation, deregulated Wall Street, slashed taxes on capital gains, and ended his presidency by presiding over consecutive balanced federal budgets. Clinton was greatly assisted by the dot-com boom and a fiscally conservative Congress, but facts are still facts.

When it comes to economic policy, today's Democrat Party looks absolutely nothing like its more moderate 1990s-era forebear.

What began as an incipient Barack Obama-era trend toward big government has now, during the post-Joe Biden era, emerged as a strong majority sentiment. A Gallup poll last September found that 42 percent of Democrats have a positive view of capitalism, while a whopping 66 percent hold a positive view of socialism. Leading kingmakers in today's Democratic Party are (literal) Soviet Union-honeymooning communists, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), or leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). And the singular party top dog right now is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is fond of quoting Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto," speaks of the "warmth of collectivism," and is now implementing city-owned grocery stores across the Big Apple.

Hold aside that communism is the single deadliest ideology in the history of mankind — responsible, historians estimate, for nearly 100 million deaths. Hold aside, as well, that socialism and communism have resulted in horrific resource scarcity and immeasurable immiseration everywhere they have been attempted. At the most basic level, socialism is simply contrary to human nature. Men have a natural right to the fruits of their labor, provided those fruits do not undermine the common good. And it is natural, contrary to the basic tenets of socialism, to value the flourishing of one's family and tribe over that of the polity — let alone the whole world. As Dennis Prager has often noted, socialism violates two of the 10 Commandments: do not steal, and do not covet.

Republicans are presently confused about what exactly they should run on, as they begin to make their case to the American people before this fall's midterm elections. Inflation, while dramatically reduced from its catastrophic Biden-era peak, is still stubbornly higher than it ought to be. The Trump administration is, at least for now, unwilling to finish the campaign it launched against Iran. Republicans have a great story to tell on the issue of crime, but they seem uninterested in telling it. The administration has had tremendous success in stanching illegal immigration, but the GOP's consultant class frets that a focus on immigration would hemorrhage the gains the party has made with Latino voters.

The solution, and the best path the GOP has to defy historical trends and retain both houses of Congress next January, comes in the form of a concerted socialism-centric campaign.

In previous cycles, Republicans might have credibly been accused of fearmongering in running against a "socialist" bogeyman. That is simply not the case anymore — not in a world where third-worldist DSA radicals like Darializa Avila Chevalier and Melat Kiros are knocking off longstanding incumbents in Democratic congressional primaries, and where a vociferous foe of capitalism is the mayor of the nation's commercial center. The threat is here, and the threat is real. Perhaps even more to the point: Latino voters who fled failed socialist hellholes in places like Havana and Caracas don't want that. Middle-class suburban moms concerned about dim job prospects for their children don't want that. And according to Gallup, independents don't want that either.

In an April speech in Austin, Texas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that progressivism and American constitutionalism are fundamentally incompatible. He's right. It's also true that socialism — real, genuine socialism — is incompatible with the American way of life as it's been experienced for two and a half centuries. That's a fact — and it's a powerful argument to make in this milestone 250th American birthday year, in particular. Republicans should make that argument passionately and with alacrity.

https://townhall.com/columnists/joshhammer/2026/07/10/the-return-of-socialism-and-the-gops-golden-opportunity-n2679152?utm_source=thdailypmvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&utm_content=ncl-hVMyapMGud&utm_term=&_nlid=hVMyapMGud&_nhids=ncqWjHGaSxj1ls