Arkansas GOP senator Tom Cotton, who has been at the forefront of efforts to protect the United States from Communist China, is introducing a bill that would expedite the harvesting of minerals needed for the nation’s defense and reduce the nation’s dependence on China.
The bill, titled the Necessary Environmental Exemptions for Defense Act, would make it easier for mining activities and permit the Pentagon to “operate with maximum agility and efficiency to ensure it is prepared to deter and, if necessary, fight and win a conflict with the Chinese Communist Party,” Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-republican-moves-give-u-s-edge-china-harvesting-minerals-weapons-systems">reported</a>.
“Currently, China produces roughly 60% of the world&#8217;s critical mineral supply, and processes up to 90%,” Fox News noted.
The group of rare earths is comprised of “17 elements composed of scandium,  yttrium, and the lanthanides,” James B. Hedrick of the US Geological Survey <a href="https://uscriticalmaterials.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Rare-Earths-in-Selected-Defense-Applications.pdf">noted</a>. The lanthanides include lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium.
“On April 4, China’s Ministry of Commerce imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements (REEs) and magnets used in the defense, energy, and automotive sectors in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff increases on Chinese products,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/consequences-chinas-new-rare-earths-export-restrictions">reported</a>. “The restrictions apply to seven medium and heavy rare earths: samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. The United States is particularly vulnerable for these supply chains. Until 2023, China accounted for 99 percent of global heavy REEs processing, with only minimal output from a refinery in Vietnam. However, that facility has been shut down for the past year due to a tax dispute, effectively giving China a monopoly over supply.”
“Current environmental laws put our readiness to counter Communist China at risk and waste taxpayer dollars on projects that stall out and die on the vine,&#8221; Cotton told Fox News Digital. &#8220;This bill will create jobs, better arm and prepare our soldiers, and spend taxpayer dollars more efficiently.&#8221;
Cotton’s bill would permit the administration to circumvent the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and Federal Water Pollution Control Act; he stated that they “frequently and unnecessarily delay” the military’s readiness without “substantial benefit to the environment or protected species.”
Cotton suggested as far back as January 30, 2020, that the COVID-19 virus might have come from Wuhan, prompting harsh criticisms from leftists. Speaking at a Senate Armed Services Hearing, he asserted, &#8220;I want to talk about the biggest and most important story in the world. The Wuhan coronavirus. This coronavirus is a catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl for China. But actually, it’s probably worse than Chernobyl, which was localized in its effect. The coronavirus could result in a global pandemic. While you were all sleeping overnight, the number of diagnosed cases in China increased by 30%. Let me be clear: that’s not new cases; that is just newly-admitted cases. It is probably several orders of magnitude higher than that.”
“We still don’t know where coronavirus originated,” Cotton said. “Could have been a market, a farm, a food processing company. I would note that Wuhan has China’s only biosafety level-four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.”
In March 2020, Cotton <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-tom-cotton-on-china-i-have-never-trusted-a-communist-and-i-never-will-trust-a-communist">said</a> bluntly, “I have never trusted a Communist and I never will trust a Communist. And that&#8217;s who runs China — the Chinese Communist Party.”
A 2019 <a href="https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/SO-19/Sec-Def-extract.pdf">Pentagon report</a> stated:
<blockquote>
China’s military modernization also targets capabilities with the potential to degrade core U.S. operational and technological advantages. China uses a variety of methods to acquire foreign military and dual-use technologies, including targeted foreign direct investment, cyber theft, and exploitation of private Chinese nationals’ access to these technologies, as well as harnessing its intelligence services, computer intrusions, and other illicit approaches. In 2018, Chinese efforts to acquire sensitive, dual-use, or military-grade equipment from the United States included dynamic random access memory, aviation technologies, and anti- submarine warfare technologies.
</blockquote>

Tom Cotton

Tom Cotton Introduces Bill To Break China’s Monopoly On Rare Earth Minerals For U.S. Defense

Tom Cotton Introduces Bill To Fast-Track Rare Earth Minerals For Defense, Which China Dominates

Communist China

Military Weapons

rare earth minerals

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it will sue the state of California for alleged violations of Title IX, in reference to keeping men out of women’s sports.
“Title IX was enacted over half a century ago to protect women and girls from discrimination. The Justice Department will not stand for policies that deprive girls of their hard-earned athletic trophies and ignore their safety on the field and in private spaces,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-california-violating-title-ix-denying-girls-athletic-opportunities">statement</a>. “Young women should not have to sacrifice their rights to compete for scholarships, opportunities, and awards on the altar of woke gender ideology.”
On Monday, California rejected the resolution agreement from the Trump administration to follow federal law and ban transgender-identifying males from competing athletically with females.
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) aligned itself with the California Department of Education (CDE) and refused to sign the resolution agreement. The resolution was proposed on June 25, when the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the conclusion of its Title IX investigations into the state for allegations of discrimination against women and girls on the basis of sex.
Federal officials found that California was in clear violation of Title IX.
“As a result of the noncompliance finding, OCR has issued a proposed Resolution Agreement to CDE and CIF to resolve their Title IX violations,” the U.S. Department of Education <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-finds-california-department-of-education-and-california-interscholastic-federation-violation-of-title-ix">said</a> in a press release issued last month. “OCR has offered both entities an opportunity to voluntarily agree to change these unlawful practices within 10 days or risk imminent enforcement action, including referral to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for proceedings.
In March, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, in a move widely regarded as an attempt to distance himself from his leftist record and position himself for a future presidential run, <a href="https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/03/newsom-transgender-athletes/">claimed</a> on his podcast that he opposed men competing in women&#8217;s sports. When criticisms were made of a high school boy who had won a regional meet, Newsom responded, “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair. I’m not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”
The lawsuit filed by the DOJ reportedly cited Newsom’s own words, that biological males competing in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.”
The Justice Department slammed policies that “eviscerate equal athletic opportunities for girls &#8230; they also require girls to share intimate spaces, such as locker rooms, with boys, causing a hostile educational environment that denies girls educational opportunities,” Fox News’s Dana Perino <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6375448094112">reported</a>.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated to Perino, “We investigated this; the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education investigated. We told Governor Newsom that we’d be investigating these violations. We found California to be in violation of Title IX; we turned it over to the Justice Department, and they announced this morning that they were filing suit against California.&#8221;
“This is something President Trump campaigned on; his ‘Promises made, promises kept,” she said, adding, “It is the law. The president means business with it.”

President Trump Signs No Men In Women’s Sports Executive Order

‘The President Means Business’: Trump Admin Sues California Over Transgender Athlete Policy

California

Courts

Donald Trump

Politics

Title IX

Transgender Athletes

Women's sports

After the United Nations condemned Google and its parent company, Alphabet, accusing them of profiting from the “genocide carried out by Israel’ in Gaza, Google co-founder Sergey Brin fired back, declaring that the global intergovernmental organization was “transparently antisemitic.”
Unsurprisingly, the United Nations <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/">report</a> with the allegation against Google was authored by the notorious, viciously anti-Israel Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese. Her remarks included statements such as, “For Israeli companies like Elbit and IAI, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture,” “Where corporate entities continue their activities and relationships with Israel &#8230; they may be found to have knowingly contributed to &#8230; crimes of apartheid and genocide,” and “Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon grant Israel virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies, enhancing data processing, decision-making and surveillance/analysis capacities. In October 2023, when Israel’s internal military cloud overloaded, Microsoft Azure and Project Nimbus Consortium stepped in with critical cloud and AI infrastructure.”
On Saturday, in an internal forum for employees, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/07/08/sergey-brin-united-nations-gaza-israel/">The Washington Post</a>, Brin stated, “With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides. I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues.”
“My comments came in response to an internal discussion that was citing a plainly biased and misleading report,” Brin said later in a statement.
On July 1, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations issued a <a href="https://usun.usmission.gov/u-s-mission-to-the-united-nations-statement-opposing-francesca-albaneses-mandate-as-un-special-rapporteur-2/#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20reiterates%20our,targeting%20entities%20across%20the%20world.">public press release</a> urging the organization to remove Albanese. The release stated:
<blockquote>
In recent weeks, Ms. Albanese has escalated her years-long pattern of virulent antisemitism and unrelenting anti-Israel bias by dispatching threatening correspondence to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American corporations. These letters advance deeply flawed legal arguments to support extreme and unfounded accusations that these organizations are complicit in gross human rights violations, apartheid, and genocide. These letters also constitute an unacceptable campaign of political and economic warfare against the American and worldwide economy. In addition, Ms. Albanese’s allegations that Israel is committing “genocide” and engaging in “apartheid” are false and offensive.
</blockquote>
In mid-May, fiercely pro-Israel Australian commenter Erin Molan ripped Albanese after Albanese complained about her reputation having suffered for her despicable behavior, including denying that Hamas raped Israeli women on October 7, 2023.
“Our favorite fraud: Francesca Albanese. She’s upset,” Molan noted. “No, not about denying the rape of Israeli women; don’t be silly. Nor about the atrocities of October 7. Don’t be daft. Or the impact of her atrocious lies on millions of innocents around the world. You’re kidding.”
“You want to know what she’s actually upset about, what she’s losing sleep about?” she asked. “Brace yourself: What some people might think of her.”
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The United Nations&#8217; antisemitic behavior has been on display for decades. In July 2024, the anti-Israel International Court of Justice, an arm of the United Nations, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/icj-court-israel-palestinians-settlements-2d5178500c0410341b252335859f2316">ruled</a> that Israel’s presence in the biblical areas of Judea and Samaria is “unlawful,” and that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, as well as in East Jerusalem, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/icj-united-nations-israel-settlement-violate-international-law-rcna162667">violated</a> international law.
As UN Watch has <a href="https://unwatch.org/2024-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-of-the-world/">noted</a>, “From 2015 through 2024, the UN General Assembly has adopted 164 resolutions on Israel and 84 on other countries. &#8230; The UN Watch Database also documents that from 2006 through 2024, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 108 resolutions against Israel, 44 against Syria, 15 against Iran, 8 against Russia, and 3 against Venezuela.”

2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones – Arrivals

Google Co-Founder Denounces UN’s ‘Genocide’ Claim As ‘Transparently Antisemitic’

Francesca Albanese

Global Politics

Google

Hamas

Israel

United Nations

Speaking to attendees at the Claremont Institute over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance took aim at New York Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, explaining that he embodied all the contradictions within the American Left.
Referring to Mamdani as a “33-year-old communist running an insurgent campaign,” Vance posited that Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary revealed “interesting threads&#8221; that were &#8220;reflective of where the broader American Left is at this moment in time.”
Vance spoke of how President Donald Trump’s victory represented a “broad working-and-middle-class coalition,” while Mamdani’s coalition was “almost the inverse of that.”
Vance pointed out that Mamdani “won high-income and college-educated New Yorkers, and especially both young, highly educated New Yorkers, but he was weakest among black voters and weakest among those without a college degree.” He added that Mamdani “did particularly well in the Bangladeshi areas of New York, but he did particularly poorly with non-Bangladeshi Asian immigrants, particularly Chinese-Americans.”
“His victory was the product of a lot of young people who live reasonably comfortable lives, but see that their elite degrees aren’t really delivering what they expected, and so their own prospects with all the college debt may not in fact be greater than those of their parents,” he said.
“We have to be honest about where his coalition is,” Vance opined. “It is not the downtrodden. It is not poor Americans. It is not about dispossession. It’s about elite disaffection and elite anger. The party of highly educated, but downwardly mobile elites &#8230; they comprise a highly energetic activist base, but it’s important because it’s not just the elites, the college-educated New Yorkers, that base was supplemented by carefully selected ethnic blocs carved out of the electorate using identity politics as the knife.”
Vance noted that Mamdani’s desire to appeal to ethnic blocs was reflected in his “bizarre appeals to foreign politics, intended to signal to one particular group of New Yorkers or another.”
“Let us ask ourselves why is a mayoral candidate in our nation’s biggest city whining about banning Bibi Netanyahu, a country whose population is about the same size as that of New York, and threatening to arrest a foreign leader if he tries to come to New York City?” he asked. “Why is a New York mayoral candidate attacking Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, as a war criminal? Why is he talking about ‘globalizing the intifada’?”
“But what might seem like a contradiction makes a little bit of sense if you peel back the onion,” he speculated. “Consider a movement that rails against the billionaire class, despite the fact that the billionaire class remains firmly in the corner of the modern Left; a movement that idolizes foreign religions, even as it rejects the teachings of those faiths. It rails, this new modern Left against white people, even as many of its funders and its grassroots activists are privileged whites themselves.”
“What unites Islamists, gender-studies majors, socially liberal white urbanites, and Big Pharma lobbyists &#8230; isn’t the ideas of Thomas Jefferson or even of Karl Marx; it’s hatred,” he stated. “They hate the people in this room. They hate the President of the United States, and most of all, they hate the people who voted for that President of the United States in the last election in November. This is the animating principle of the American far-Left.”
“That’s why Mamdani himself is such an appealing instrument to the Left,” Vance said. “He captures so many of the movement’s apparent contradictions in a single human being; a guy who describes the Palestinian cause as central to his identity yet holds views like abortion on demand or using taxpayer-funded money to fund transgender surgeries for minors. These views, of course, are completely incomprehensible on the streets of Gaza. This guy represents that contradiction.”
“He’s trying to tear something down and he’s very effective at articulating all of the things that the far-Left hates in modern America,” he concluded.
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White House: Trump

UNITED BY HATRED: Vance Rips Mamdani, Exposes The American Left’s Contradictions

Elections

JD Vance

Mayor

New York City

Zohran Mamdani

A new report details how the perpetrators of the Hamas-led massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, had a “systematic and premeditated” plan for the brutal sexual assault of Israeli women.
The <a href="https://thedinahproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-Dinah-Project-full-report-A4-pages_web.pdf">report</a> from the aptly-named Dinah Project — in the Bible, the Biblical patriarch Jacob’s daughter was raped by a prince of a nearby region — delineates the savage treatment in the rape and murder of the Israeli women by the Palestinians who were either members of Hamas or the Gazan population.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rape. Genital Mutilation.
Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon of war &#8211; on October 7 and well after.
This was not random. It was systematic. An intentional tactic of terror. A war crime.
The July 8 Dinah Report demands accountability. 
We will not stop fighting for… <a href="https://t.co/YXpesuK9aH">pic.twitter.com/YXpesuK9aH</a>
&mdash; Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) <a href="https://twitter.com/IsraelMFA/status/1942508962852790450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“This report represents a call to action: to acknowledge the sexual violence that occurred on October 7 as crimes against humanity, to hold the perpetrators responsible, and to ensure that the tactical use of sexual violence by Hamas as a weapon of war receives the international condemnation and response it demands,” the report states.
According to the report, the sexual assaults themselves were systematic and premeditated, thus attesting to the weaponization of sexual violence and its utilization as a tool of war. A report from the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) of the UN had already noted, “across multiple locations of the Gaza periphery, a pattern of victims, mostly women, found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their back and/or tied to structures such as trees and poles, and shot. &#8230; There are further accounts of individuals who witnessed at least two incidents of rape of corpses of women.”
“One should bear in mind that the vast majority of those who were sexually assaulted were among the 1,166 who were murdered in the attack and therefore silenced forever,” the report reminds its readers. “Many of those who did survive are likely to be too traumatized to be able to recount their experience.”
“The threat of forcibly marrying the female hostages is a recurring theme,” the report explains. “The intention to marry off the female hostages, which was reported by six of the returned hostages, reveals a plan to engage in an act of raping and possibly impregnating them.”
“Five witnesses reported four or five separate cases of gang rapes; two witnesses reported one possible case of gang rape,” the report notes. “Thus, in total, there are at least four accounts of gang rapes, and possibly six such accounts, all occurring during the October 7 attack. &#8230; In most cases, the rape victims were murdered during or immediately following the assault. &#8230; The accounts of mutilations are corroborated by the descriptions of first and second responders.”
The report noted the following actions taken by the perpetrators: Bodies with objects inserted into their private parts; bodies with signs of shooting or other mutilations in the area of the genitalia, and bodies of naked women cuffed to trees.
“All of the first responders who were at the Nova festival site described the same scenes: Dozens of female bodies naked or partially naked from the waist down, many of them bleeding from the genitalia as a result of gunshots,” the report states.

ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-HOSTAGES

New Report Exposes Brutal Hamas Atrocities Against Israeli Women

Murder

October 7

Rape

Terrorism

World

Eleven people have been arrested in what law enforcement described as a &#8220;planned ambush&#8221; of corrections officers at an ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4.
One Alvarado police officer was <a href="https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-ice-detention-center-attack-alvarado">shot in the neck</a> during the attack and is expected to survive.
“Early reports indicate that more than a dozen masked individuals dressed in black arrived at the Prairieland ICE detention facility late Friday night and vandalized vehicles and security cameras in the parking lot,” CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/alvarado-police-officer-shot-suspects-open-fire-fourth-of-july-johnson-county/">reported</a>. “The individuals launched fireworks in an apparent effort to lure law enforcement.”
On July 5, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on X, “We are closely monitoring the attacks on DHS detention facilities in Prairieland, TX, and Portland, OR, and are coordinating with the USAOs and our law enforcement partners. The Department has zero tolerance for assaults on federal officers or property and will bring the full weight of the law against those responsible.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
We are closely monitoring the attacks on DHS detention facilities in Prairieland, TX, and Portland, OR, and are coordinating with the USAOs and our law enforcement partners. The Department has zero tolerance for assaults on federal officers or property and will bring the full…
&mdash; Todd Blanche (@DAGToddBlanche) <a href="https://twitter.com/DAGToddBlanche/status/1941531862880428299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
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On Monday, acting U.S. Attorney Nancy Larson stated, “We’re here to tell you that late at night on July 4, Friday night at approximately 10:37 p.m. at the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, ten to twelve individuals dressed in black, military-style clothing, began shooting fireworks and engaging in acts of vandalism at the facility and this was part of an organized attack.”
“Today, my office has charged ten individuals with three counts of attempted murder of a federal officer,” she continued. “Each of the ten are also charged with three counts of discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Each of these defendants faces a mandatory prison term of ten years and up to life in prison. An additional co-conspirator was charged with an obstruction of justice and conspiracy for attempting to conceal and destroy evidence in relation to the attack, and he faces up to ten years in prison.”
“Let’s discuss the incident,” she continued. “It was a planned ambush with the intent to kill ICE corrections officers. Make no mistake; this was not a so-called ‘peaceful protest.’ It was, indeed, an ambush.”
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

US-IMMIGRATION-ICE

11 Arrested For Plotting ‘Ambush’ To ‘Kill ICE Corrections Officers’

Ambush

Crime

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Texas

U.S.

California on Monday rejected the resolution agreement from the Trump administration to follow federal law and keep men out of women&#8217;s sports.
The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) aligned itself with the California Department of Education (CDE) and refused to sign the resolution agreement. The resolution was proposed on June 25, when the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the conclusion of its Title IX investigations into the state for allegations of discrimination against women and girls on the basis of sex.
Federal officials found that California was in clear violation of Title IX.
“As a result of the noncompliance finding, OCR has issued a proposed Resolution Agreement to CDE and CIF to resolve their Title IX violations,” the U.S. Department of Education <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-finds-california-department-of-education-and-california-interscholastic-federation-violation-of-title-ix">said</a> in a press release issued last month. “OCR has offered both entities an opportunity to voluntarily agree to change these unlawful practices within 10 days or risk imminent enforcement action, including referral to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for proceedings.
In March, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, in a move widely regarded as an attempt to distance himself from his leftist record and position himself for a future presidential run, <a href="https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/03/newsom-transgender-athletes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> on his podcast that he opposed men competing in women&#8217;s sports. When criticisms were made of a high school boy who had won a regional meet, Newsom responded, “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair. I’m not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”
After the CIF informed the CDE on Monday that it would not sign the resolution agreement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote on X, “Turns out Gov. Newsom’s acknowledgment that ‘it’s an issue of fairness’ was empty political grandstanding,” adding, &#8220;You&#8217;ll be hearing from (Attorney General Pam Bondi).&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
California has just REJECTED our resolution agreement to follow federal law and keep men out of women&#8217;s sports.
Turns out Gov. Newsom’s acknowledgment that “it’s an issue of fairness” was empty political grandstanding.<a href="https://twitter.com/CAgovernor?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CAgovernor</a>, you&#8217;ll be hearing from <a href="https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AGPamBondi</a>. <a href="https://t.co/wa945HtmG6">pic.twitter.com/wa945HtmG6</a>
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) <a href="https://twitter.com/EDSecMcMahon/status/1942299613387522437?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“The technical term for what California just did is ‘FA.’ Stay tuned for the rest of the equation,” Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Civil Rights, posted on X.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The technical term for what California just did is “FA.” Stay tuned for the rest of the equation. <a href="https://t.co/Yh9rulFhec">https://t.co/Yh9rulFhec</a>
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@HarmeetKDhillon) <a href="https://twitter.com/HarmeetKDhillon/status/1942399648443904360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
On June 25, McMahon noted:
<blockquote>
Although Governor Gavin Newsom admitted months ago it was “deeply unfair” to allow men to compete in women’s sports, both the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation continued as recently as a few weeks ago to allow men to steal female athletes’ well-deserved accolades and to subject them to the indignity of unfair and unsafe competitions. The Trump Administration will relentlessly enforce Title IX protections for women and girls, and our findings today make clear that California has failed to adhere to its obligations under federal law. The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.
</blockquote>

MixCollage-08-Jul-2025-05-20-AM-826

California Rejects Title IX Plan To Keep Boys Out Of Girls’ Sports: ‘You’ll Be Hearing From Bondi’

Gavin Newsom

Harmeet Dhillon

Pam Bondi

On Monday, shortly after Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration over a provision in the “big, beautiful bill&#8221; that would have cut federal funding for the abortion giant, a leftist federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the provision outright.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, approved Planned Parenthood&#8217;s request to halt the provision, which freezes Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for one year.
Talwani&#8217;s restraining order, which will last for two weeks, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.286600/gov.uscourts.mad.286600.18.0.pdf">holds</a> that &#8220;defendants, their agents, employees, appointees, successors, and anyone acting in concert or participation with Defendants are hereby enjoined from enforcing, retroactively enforcing, or otherwise applying&#8221; the relevant provision of the bill.
&#8220;&#8216;Defendants shall take all steps necessary to ensure that Medicaid funding continues to be disbursed in the customary manner,&#8221; Talwani added.
“Talwani’s ruling still allows the administration to enforce the provision against other providers, but Planned Parenthood says it comprises almost the entirety of the impacted entities,” <a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5388912-judge-temporarily-blocks-planned-parenthood-defunding-megabill/">The Hill</a> noted.
In 2024, Planned Parenthood’s annual report noted the organization had performed 392,715 abortions between Oct. 1, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2022. That represented a 5% increase over the year before, when 374,155 abortions were performed. Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June 2022.
“The document says that locations in states ‘where abortion is protected’ saw a 700% increase in demand,” the <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/257428/planned-parenthood-reports-record-number-abortions-latest-annual-report">Catholic News Agency</a> reported. “The report also said that Planned Parenthood helped to refer and coordinate travel for over 33,000 abortions.”
In late June, the Supreme Court ruled that lower courts do not have the unilateral authority to block presidential orders. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a884_8n59.pdf">opinion</a> for the majority, stated, “federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing On Hearing On Judicial Nominations

Leftist Judge Blocks Trump From Defunding Planned Parenthood With Big Beautiful Bill

Abortion

Budget Bill

Judge

Planned Parenthood

Reconciliation

In a staggering turnaround, Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei, has reversed the country’s free-fall into the economic abyss and led a recovery that is simply astonishing.
In November 2023, Argentina’s inflation rate had soared to 211.4% and the country had a poverty rate of 41.7%; 19.5 million people lived below the poverty line. Ironically, just before the November election, The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/08/argentina-election-javier-milei-economists-warning">wrote</a> about a letter signed by more than 100 economists warning that electing Milei would bring “devastation” to Argentina.
“Through an aggressive program of public spending cuts, eliminating bureaucracy, and reducing public sector jobs, he erased Argentina’s massive fiscal deficit, paving the way for a historic economic recovery,” Emmanuel Rincon noted in <a href="https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/mileis-economic-miracle-how-argentina-slashed-inflation-to-1-5/">The Daily Economy</a>.
By May 2025, the inflation rate had plummeted to 43.5%, and the consumer price index rose 1.5%, marking the lowest levels in five years. Wholesale prices dropped by 0.3% in May, the best number in 17 years.
“These achievements were no fluke,” Rincon wrote. “They stemmed from a clear strategy: fiscal balance, reduced public spending, ending monetary expansion as a financing tool, and economic deregulation.”
Alberto Cavallo, professor at Harvard Business School, pointed out:
<blockquote>
The PriceStats PPP index, which compares thousands of identical products (electronics, food, and fuels), shows a sharp decline: the basket is now 1% cheaper than in the USA. &#8230; The relative costs with Brazil dropped by more than 20 points since January, due to the combined effect of the peso&#8217;s depreciation and the real&#8217;s appreciation against the dollar. Today, the basket of identical products is 3% cheaper in Argentina, below the average since 2016.
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
1/¿Qué está pasando con los precios relativos de bienes en Argentina desde la liberación parcial del cepo? El índice PPP de PriceStats, que compara miles de productos idénticos (electrónica, comida y naftas), muestra una fuerte caída: la canasta es hoy 1% más barata que en USA. <a href="https://t.co/uF3ljmuAz3">pic.twitter.com/uF3ljmuAz3</a>
&mdash; Alberto Cavallo (@albertocavallo) <a href="https://twitter.com/albertocavallo/status/1941957958352716058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
3/🇧🇷 Los costos relativos con Brasil bajaron más de 20 puntos desde enero, por el efecto combinado de la depreciación del peso y la apreciación del real frente al dólar. Hoy, la canasta de productos idénticos es 3% más barata en Argentina, por debajo del promedio desde 2016. <a href="https://t.co/5TQ6qG6JzP">pic.twitter.com/5TQ6qG6JzP</a>
&mdash; Alberto Cavallo (@albertocavallo) <a href="https://twitter.com/albertocavallo/status/1941957989520507253?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Milei, like President Donald Trump, wants to open up his nation&#8217;s economy by utilizing its oil resources through drilling in the Vaca Muerta, a geologic formation located in the Neuquen Basin in northern Patagonia, where major deposits of shale oil and gas are found. “The libertarian leader wants to transform Argentina into a major oil producer and reshape an economy <a href="https://archive.is/o/MdqKE/https:/www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-10/on-argentina-s-pampas-farmers-are-all-in-on-libertarian-milei">built on farming</a>. It’s an existential project for all involved: Should Milei succeed in generating new oil wealth, he might manage to heave Argentina from its economic quagmire and persuade voters to keep backing his vision,” <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-07-02/argentina-shale-oil-boom-helps-javier-milei-push-economic-reforms">Bloomberg</a> reported.

ARGENTINA-INDIA-MILEI-MODI

Milei Defies Critics, Working Economic Miracles In Argentina

Argentina

Economy

Javier Milei

The Texas pediatrician who mocked Trump voters after violent Texas floods, posting that victims deserve to “get what they voted for,” no longer works for her pediatric group.
Over the weekend, Dr. Christina B. Propst , who had been employed by Blue Fish Pediatrics, posted on Facebook in a now-deleted message that she wished for the safety only of people who didn&#8217;t vote for MAGA.
 “May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry,&#8221; she posted under Facebook user name, Chris Tina. &#8220;Kerr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for. Bless their hearts.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is the sort of pediatric clinician employed at <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueFishMD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BlueFishMD</a> in Houston. The ethics, humanity and empathy illustrated here is unfathomable. <a href="https://t.co/yW0TbEMGN7">pic.twitter.com/yW0TbEMGN7</a>
&mdash; Dr. Lynn Fynn-derella🐭 (@Fynnderella1) <a href="https://twitter.com/Fynnderella1/status/1941567217155571958?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
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At least 80 people, including 28 children, have been declared dead from the raging flood that struck Central Texas on July 4. 10 girls from the all-girls Camp Mystic are still missing. “Two sisters, 13-year-old Blair and 11-year-old Brooke Harber, were killed in the Texas Hill Country floods and found with rosaries and their ‘hands locked together,’ their family said.” <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/central-texas-flooding-sisters-found-holding-hands-2095335">Newsweek</a> reported.
On Sunday, Blue Fish Pediatrics issued the <a href="https://bluefishmd.com/announcements/the-2025-summer-newsletter-is-here/">following statement</a>:
<blockquote>
This past weekend, we were made aware of a social media comment from one of our physicians. The individual is no longer employed by Blue Fish Pediatrics. As we previously mentioned in our original statement, we strongly condemn the comments that were made in that post. That post does not reflect the values, standards, or mission of Blue Fish Pediatrics. We do not support or condone any statement that politicizes tragedy, diminishes human dignity, or fails to clearly uphold compassion for every child and family, regardless of background or beliefs.
We continue to extend our full support to the families and the surrounding communities who are grieving, recovering, and searching for hope.
</blockquote>
Meanwhile, Democrats tried to seize upon the tragedy to impugn the Trump administration. Arch-leftist Connecticut senator Chris Murphy posted on X, “Accurate weather forecasting helps avoid fatal disasters. There are consequences to Trump’s brainless attacks on public workers, like meteorologists.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Accurate weather forecasting helps avoid fatal disasters. There are consequences to Trump’s brainless attacks on public workers, like meteorologists. <a href="https://t.co/CRteXdFvL0">https://t.co/CRteXdFvL0</a>
&mdash; Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1941571878105297216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
There is no indication that the weather service failed ahead of the floods.
As the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/texas-floods-hill-country-weather-warnings-238d4325bb58f0b410015f74684738b6">Associated Press</a> noted, “The National Weather Service sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.&#8221;
According to Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office, the local weather service office had extra staff on duty when the storms hit. They normally have two forecasters when the weather is clear but had up to five when the storms came.
“There were extra people in here that night, and that’s typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,” Runyen said.

Search and rescue operations in Comfort, Texas

Texas Pediatrician Fired After Saying ‘MAGA’ Flood Victims Got ‘What They Voted For’

Floods

MAGA

Pediatrician

President Donald Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114809528606729733" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> on Sunday that any countries considering alignment with the BRICS intergovernmental organization would face an additional 10% tariff, with no exceptions.
The BRICS group was initially founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China as a forum for discussing coordinated policies, much like the G7 countries, which include the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Other countries that have joined BRICS include South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Last December, as president-elect, Trump <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrwj0p2dd9o">warned</a> the BRICS countries against developing a currency to challenge the American dollar, stating, &#8220;The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER.”
“China and Russia see BRICS as a way to challenge the United States’ influence on geopolitics and decision-making, and have pushed the group to grow in size,” The New York Times has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/world/americas/iran-brics-summit-rio-de-janeiro.html">noted</a>.
Meanwhile, at the BRICS summit on Sunday in Brazil, representatives of the Iranian government, seeking allies, attended the meeting. On Sunday, the BRICS group issued a statement condemning President Trump’s strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3317159/brics-leaders-set-condemn-strikes-iran-avoid-direct-mention-us-israel">calling</a> them a “violation of international law.”
In January, nine countries <a href="https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/10/26/brics-13-partner-countries-summit-kazan-russia/">became</a> “partner states” with BRICS, a first step toward joining and becoming official members. Those countries included Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. Last month, Vietnam became another “partner state,” a designation that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/vietnam-admitted-brics-partner-country-brazil-says-2025-06-13/">permits</a> a country to participate in BRICS summits and other discussion sessions.
At the meeting in Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, the chair of the New Development Bank (NDB), which was established by the BRICS nations, boasted, “Today we have strong credit ratings, including a AAA grade from the Japanese agency JCR, and we are expanding into new markets, such as yen-denominated instruments and the Middle East,” then warned against economies relying on the U.S. dollar for external financing, as she declared,  “Any business or government that borrows in foreign currency becomes subject to decisions made by the Federal Reserve or other central banks in developed nations.”
“As a concrete example of this alternative approach, she pointed to a project in Brazil funded directly in renminbi, without the need for dollar conversion,” the BRICS portal <a href="https://infobrics.org/en/post/51428/">reported.</a>

BRAZIL-BRICS-SUMMIT

Trump Threatens Tariffs For Countries Backing ‘Anti-American’ Global Alliance

BRICS

Executive

Iran

Tariffs

Trade War

US dollar

On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that President Trump is intent on reviving tariffs that were paused if countries don’t “move along” by August 1.
Bessent appeared on CNN‘s “State of the Union” with host Dana Bash, who asked what was going to happen when the initial 90-day pause on foreign tariffs expired in three days.
“I&#8217;m not going to give away the playbook, because we&#8217;re going to be very busy over the next 72 hours,” Bessent answered. “President Trump&#8217;s going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners, saying that, if you don&#8217;t move things along, then, on August 1, you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level. So I think we&#8217;re going to see a lot of deals very quickly. “
“So there&#8217;s basically a new deadline?” Bash asked.
“It’s not a new deadline,” Bessent replied. “We are saying this is when it&#8217;s happening. If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to go back to the old rate, that&#8217;s your choice.
Bessent explained that the “playbook” is “to apply maximum pressure. We saw that the E.U. was very slow in coming to the table. Three weeks ago, on a Friday morning, President Trump threatened 50 percent tariffs, and, within a few hours, five of the European national leaders had called him. And Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the E.U., was on the phone.” 
“We are close to several deals,” Bessent continued. “As always, there&#8217;s a lot of foot-dragging on the other side. And so I would expect to see several big announcements over the next couple of days.”
“The thing about being the deficit country, Dana, is, when you are the deficit country, you have the leverage,” Bessent asserted. “These are surplus countries that they have exported more to us than we export to them. So we have the leverage in this situation.”
When Bash posited that small business owners have told her they are living with uncertainty because of the tariffs, Bessent replied, “I&#8217;d say two things, is, the other thing they would probably have been telling you is, it was the uncertainty around taxes. So, with the One Big Beautiful Bill, they now have great certainty on taxes. &#8230; When I&#8217;m out talking to businesses, they want trade and taxes. So we have certainty on taxes now. All businesses know that they will be getting 100 percent expensing for new plant and equipment. On tariffs, again, it is the 18 important trading relationships. And we&#8217;re moving through those.”

Scott Bessent

Bessent: Trump Will Revive Foreign Tariffs If Countries Don’t ‘Move Along’ By August 1

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