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Apr 16, 2026, 9:57 PM (11 hours ago)
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Congress is back in session, and there is a frantic feel in the air. Republicans appear to be assessing the fall of Hungarian prime minister Victor Orbán, Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior along with his abysmal job approval numbers, rising prices, and an unpopular war in Iran that currently does not appear to have a solution that will not result in the U.S. losing face. In Hungary, incoming prime minister Péter Magyar is setting a bar as he appears to want no part of playing business as usual with Orbán’s cronies. A center-right politician, Magyar appeared as a guest on state television after his party’s dramatic win—Orbán’s state media had not let him appear on it before the election—and said he intended to suspend the station’s news service because state media does not provide the journalism that the country deserves. He said that he would end the state subsidies for Orbán’s right-wing-allied university and that Hungarian president Tamas Sulyok, a close ally of Orbán, was “unfit to serve as the guardian of legality” and “must leave office immediately.” Republicans appear to be trying to grab all the turf they can before the midterm elections. Today the Senate passed House Joint Resolution 140, a bill that overturns a 20-year mining ban upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) in Minnesota. Representative Pete Stauber (R-MN) introduced the measure, which passed the House in January. It clears the way for a subsidiary of Chilean mining giant Antofagasta to engage in copper-sulfide mining, which produces sulfuric acid, above the pristine BWCA. Those waters include 1,175 lakes and over 1,200 miles of rivers and streams. According to outdoor writer Wes Siler, about 165,000 people visit the BWCA annually, generating $1.1 billion in economic activity and supporting 17,000 jobs. The Republicans’ attack on the BWCA for the benefit of a foreign billionaire feeds President Donald J. Trump’s ongoing crusade against Minnesota. Trump’s secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, is targeting New York today as well, saying that the federal government will withhold $73.5 million from the state because it has refused to review the commercial driver’s licenses of almost 33,000 immigrants. New York officials say they are complying with federal law. Trump is also continuing to try to exert his personal power over the government, threatening again to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, whose term as chair ends in May but who has said he will continue on the board until the administration drops its trumped-up criminal investigation of him over alleged cost overruns on the renovations of Treasury buildings. As Jacob Rosen and Olivia Gazis of CBS News noted, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is supporting Trump’s attacks on those he perceives to be his enemies by sending to the Department of Justice two criminal referrals yesterday. One is for the former government official who was the whistleblower over the July 2019 phone call in which Trump told Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky he would release money the U.S. Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s 2014 incursion…but only after Zelensky did him the “favor” of smearing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The whistleblower told the intelligence community inspector general: “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals.” Gabbard’s second referral is for the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, who found the complaint “credible” and “urgent” and set in motion the process of sharing it with the congressional intelligence committees, which led to Trump’s first impeachment. As Representative Jim Himes (D-CT), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, noted, the effort to criminalize whistleblowing from 2019 for what was Trump’s well-established behavior is most likely an attempt to chill future whistleblower complaints. There certainly appears to be concern on the part of MAGA loyalists that they are in danger of losing power, and that might mean legal repercussions. Testifying before the Senate Budget Committee today, Director of Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought denied that he had held back funds Congress had appropriated. Doing so is called “impoundment,” and it is illegal, but the administration has been engaged in it since it took office in January 2025. Vought is a Christian nationalist and a key author of Project 2025, which sets out to dismantle the federal government. Today Vought said his job was to make sure money was spent “consistent with our agenda.” Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) told Emine Yücel of Talking Points Memo: “They absolutely impounded. He just lied to America.” “He has no respect for the American Constitution and the separation of powers,” Merkley said. “This is an authoritarian government operating as if the president is king. And if we want to save our democracy, we have to save ourselves from the strategy that Mr. Vought implemented.” Republican senator Chuck Grassley (IA) also reminded Vought: “Congress has appropriated money, and you don’t have the authority to impound it.” Today Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) posted on social media that an opinion from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews and approves surveillance warrants against foreign actors and agents in the U.S., “raises serious concerns about FBI implementation of FISA 702,” the law that allows warrantless surveillance. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) reposted Massie’s comment and added that he, Wyden, has sent “a classified letter to House and Senate colleagues about a secret interpretation of surveillance law that every American should be concerned about.” This exchange seems to suggest that FBI director Kash Patel has authorized FBI agents to use surveillance on Americans without a warrant, illegally. Churchill Ndonwie of the Miami Herald and Garrett Shanley of the Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau reported yesterday that attorneys for the immigrants being held at the Florida detention center called “Alligator Alcatraz” said in court that after a judge protected the detainees’ right to use their phone and access their lawyers, the guards cut off their access to phones and beat and pepper-sprayed detainees, openly defying court orders to respect their civil rights. The facility is operated by the Florida Division of Emergency Management but must operate according to Department of Homeland Security standards. Prosecutors in Minnesota today charged Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with two counts of second-degree assault after he pulled alongside a car on a highway in Minnesota and pulled a gun on the occupants. There is a nationwide warrant for his arrest. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty told reporters: “There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents who violate the law in the state of Minnesota.” Today the new Department of Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, announced that acting director of ICE Todd Lyons will be leaving his position at the end of May. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker posted: “Todd Lyons led a secret police force for Trump where masked agents attacked our own American streets, violated Constitutional rights, and shot our own citizens. We’ll hold you accountable too.” Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo noted that in their panic over polls and the popularity of Democratic candidates, Republicans are trying to reclaim their base by turning back to Islamophobia and hoping a culture war will drown out concerns about gas prices, corruption, the Iran war, and Trump’s erratic behavior. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) posted that Muslims—who first came to the American colonies in the early 1600s, by the way—“don’t belong in American society,” and House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called “the demand to impose Sharia Law in America…a serious problem.” But there are signs that Trump is weakened enough that even past supporters are sliding away. At the beginning of his administration, Trump favored Chinese billionaire Justin Sun, who flattered Trump and poured as much as $90 million into the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures, becoming one of the largest investors in World Liberty Financial, founded by Trump’s sons. The Securities and Exchange Commission had sued Sun for securities and market manipulation in 2023, but in March 2026 it quietly settled the lawsuit for a payment of a $10 million fine. On Tuesday, Sun accused Trump’s World Liberty Financial of setting up a trapdoor that allows company officers to freeze accounts. Sun says he has been unable to sell since September 2025, a freeze that a blockchain tracking group says has cost Sun about $80 million. On social media, Sun called out “the bad actors at [World Liberty Financial].” According to Rob Wile of NBC News, World Liberty Financial responded by suggesting Sun himself had engaged in misconduct. “See you in court pal,” it posted. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund, was reviewing its investments even before the Iran war hit its finances, and yesterday Andrew Beaton of the Wall Street Journal reported that it is “on the verge of pulling” its funding from LIV Golf, the rival to the PGA Tour it launched with Trump’s blessing—and mostly on his golf courses—in 2022. Meanwhile, Trump posted four screeds about the proposed White House ballroom today after U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, appointed by Republican president George W. Bush, stopped its above-ground construction but permitted construction of the below-ground bunker to continue. In one of his missives, Trump complained: “The White House doesn’t have a Ballroom (No Taxpayer Money!), which Presidents have desperately wanted and desired for over 150 years, but a Trump Hating, Washington, D.C. District Court Judge, a man who has gone out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn’t get built, is attempting to prevent future Presidents and World Leaders from having a safe and secure large scale Meeting Place, or Ballroom, one with Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations, Structures, and Equipment, Protective Missile Resistant Steel, Columns, Roofs, and Beams, Drone Proof Ceilings and Roofs, Military Grade Venting, and Bullet, Ballistic, and Blast Proof Glass—which all means that no future President, living in the White House without this Ballroom, can ever be Safe and Secure at Events, Future Inaugurations, or Global Summits. This Magnificent Space will allow them to carry out their vital duties as the Leader of our Nation. Furthermore, the Ballroom, which is being constructed on budget and ahead of schedule, is needed now. Almost all material necessary for its construction is being built and/or on its way to the site, ready for installation and erection. Much of it has already been paid for, costing Hundreds of Millions of Dollars. If somebody, especially one with no standing, had a complaint—Why wasn’t it filed many months earlier, long before Construction was started? The Public Record was open for all to see. Everybody knew that it was planned, and going to be built. This highly political Judge, and his illegal overreach, is out of control, and costing our Nation greatly. This is a mockery to our Court System! The Ballroom is deeply important to our National Security, and no Judge can be allowed to stop this Historic and Militarily Imperative Project. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP” — |
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