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Tuesday, May 20, 2025

President Trump Signs “Take It Down” Law Protecting Victims of Digital Exploitation

A bipartisan piece of legislation championed by First Lady Melania Trump. Townhall: This federal law is designed to target non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), which encompasses “revenge po*n” and sexually explicit deepfakes. “Revenge po*n” which is when sexually explicit images of an individual are posted on the internet without their consent in an attempt to create public humiliation and character assassination. This has occurred for many years, especially with the growth of social media. This is typically carried out by someone’s previous sexual partner. In fact, for some time, there were websites that were dedicated to revenge po*n that would allow users to post explicit images of their exes (Townhall). Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “First Lady Melania Trump was instrumental in getting this important legislation passed. The Take It Down Act will protect victims of digital exploitation, hold Internet platforms accountable by requiring them to remove such imagery from their platforms, and provide justice for victims by allowing prosecutors to go after those who publish non-consensual, explicit images online” (X). X CEO Linda Yaccarino: Honored to be at the @WhiteHouse today as @POTUS signed the Take It Down Act. Grateful to @FLOTUS for her dedication to ensuring safety. @X will continue to work alongside @SenTedCruz @MarshaBlackburn @RepNancyMace and @NCMEC to do everything possible to make the internet safer, especially for children” (White House).

Trump Tax-Cutting Legislation Passes Budget Committee in House

A key hurdle to getting it passed by a full floor vote. Salem News Channel: U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut bill, which had been stalled for days by Republican infighting over spending cuts, won approval from a key congressional committee on Sunday in a rare victory for Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson. At an unusual Sunday night session, four hardline Republican conservatives on the House Budget Committee, who had blocked the legislation on Friday, allowed the bill to move forward as they pressed for deeper spending cuts in closed-door talks with Republican leaders and White House officials (Salem News Channel) Chip Roy: Tonight, after a great deal of work and engagement over the weekend, the Budget Committee advanced a reconciliation bill that lays the foundation for much needed tax relief, border security, and important spending reductions and reforms. Importantly the bill now will move Medicaid work requirements forward and reduces the availability of future subsidies under the green new scam. But, the bill does not yet meet the moment – leaving almost half of the green new scam subsidies continuing. More, it fails to end the Medicaid money laundering scam and perverse funding structure that provides seven times more federal dollars for each dollar of state spending for the able-bodied relative to the vulnerable…. As such, I joined with 3 of my colleagues to vote “present” out of respect for the Republican Conference and the President to move the bill forward. It gives us the opportunity to work together this week to get the job done in light of the fact our bond rating was dropped yet again due to historic fiscal mismanagement by both parties (X). Roll Call: The Rules Committee is scheduled to convene at 1 a.m. Wednesday to set the ground rules for floor debate on the measure after releasing an updated committee print version of the legislative text overnight (Roll Call).

Supreme Court Allows Deportation of Gang-Affiliated Illegal Immigrants to Continue

Jonathon Turley: The Supreme Court delivered a win for the Administration today by lifting the injunction on the move to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for hundreds of thousands of people allowed into the country by Biden from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (X). Wall Street Journal: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February announced she was rescinding temporary legal protections that allowed certain Venezuelan migrants to live and work in the U.S. (Wall Street Journal). SCOTUS Blog: Alejandro Mayorkas, then the DHS secretary, initially designated (and later extended the designation of) Venezuela in 2021 as a country whose nationals in the United States were eligible to stay in the United States and work under a program known as the Temporary Protected Status program. Created in 1990, the program gives the DHS secretary the power to make such designations when a country’s citizens cannot return safely to their home country because of a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” there. The dispute before the Supreme Court arose earlier this year, when Noem announced the termination of the TPS designation (along with its extensions) for a group of over 300,000 Venezuelan nationals (SCOTUS Blog).

US Attorney Launches Task Force Targeting Sanctuary Blue States

Beginning with California. Bill Melugin and Cameron Arcand: United States Attorney for the District of California Bill Essayli is taking major action to crack down on “sanctuary” policies in the Golden State. He’s launching “Operation Guardian Angel,” which is a task force, made up of assets from ICE, HSI, DEA, FBI, ATF, and Border Patrol, to begin scanning a criminal database every single day to identify arrested illegal aliens in local jurisdictions that DOJ can charge with felony illegal-reentry. “They’ve made it almost impossible for ICE to do their job, issue detainers and get criminal illegal immigrants out of jails. So what we’re doing instead is we’re going to start issuing warrants,” he told Fox News. “We’re going to flood the system with warrants for criminal illegal immigration that are in county jails, they can ignore a detainer, but they cannot ignore a criminal arrest warrant,” Essayli continued (Fox News). Beege Welborn of Hot Air: There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the old saying goes. And with the Trump administration’s deep bench of on-the-ball heavy hitters, there’s more than one way to get around recalcitrant sanctuary states’ insufferable righteousness, and active interference in immigration enforcement…. Melugin says once it’s completely up to speed, they hope to be pulling dozens of illegal criminals straight out of Los Angeles jails for deportation every single week (Hot Air). From the United States Attorney Bill Essayli: “Even the worst criminal aliens in state custody are frequently released into the community because California’s sanctuary state policies block cooperation with federal law enforcement,” said United States Attorney Bill Essayli. “These laws effectively render federal immigration detainers meaningless. The days of giving criminal illegal aliens a free pass are over. While California may be presently disregarding detainers, it cannot ignore federal arrest warrants….” (Justice).

Dan Bongino: “Yes, we are moving FBI headquarters out of the Hoover Building”

The assistant director of the FBI, joined with Director Kash Patel in an interview with Maria Bartiromo (Fox Business). Bongino: … it is important to relay to you what we’re doing, and the media can be a tool for that. That’s why we chose a long-form interview with Maria Bartiromo for our first interview. I hope you saw it. If you missed it, here are some of the questions that were asked and answered: -Yes, we are moving FBI headquarters out of the Hoover Building. The process has already begun. Stay tuned for updates on the details and timelines (X). Victor Davis Hanson: The news is welcome for reasons well beyond the safety of agents in an apparently unsafe headquarters. It is no exaggeration to state that most of the FBI scandals of the last decade were born in the Hoover building headquarters, suggesting that the agency had long become top-heavy, politically weaponized, and deeply embedded in and compromised by the Washington apparat…. The list of ethical, moral, and legal misadventures at the top-heavy Washington FBI office could be easily expanded. But suffice to say, the closure of the J. Edgar Hoover building and the dispersal of the toxic Washington-centric FB hierarchy is welcome news. Hopefully, this historic closure will also mark the end of the most sordid and decade-long chapter in the history of a once-great agency (Victor Hanson). Reminder: Patel said he’d shut down the Hoover building and make a museum to the deep state (X).

Trump Holds Two-Hour Meeting With Putin

Pursuing an end to the war with Ukraine. Wall Street Journal: Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to agree to an immediate cease-fire with Ukraine in a two-hour call Monday with President Trump, who said afterward that Moscow and Kyiv would resume direct talks on an agreement to halt the fighting. Trump hinted that the U.S. might step back from its mediator role if the negotiations falter. He didn’t say how much longer he would give for an agreement to be reached. “I think something’s going to happen,” he told reporters at the White House. “And if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going” (Wall Street Journal). Trump: The tone and the spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later…. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interest in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin! (White House).

Biden-Era Censorship Efforts Boasted of Suppressing Advertising of “Disinformation” Spreaders

Suppression of speech, courtesy of the U.S. federal government. Senator Eric Schmitt: The top 10 outlets on its “disinformation” list were all on the right (X). The dollar figure of reduced advertising was estimated at $100 million. Just the News: it boasted about its recommended tactics. Specifically, urging advertisers to choke revenue to news outlets that the index deemed to spread disinformation had an enormous early impact, it wrote. “This period, we turned our minds to evaluation of GDI’s impact; specifically, to how we might measure the demonetization achieved through uptake of our risk ratings by brands and/or ad tech platforms,” GDI wrote. Demonetization refers to the practice of pressuring advertisers and gaming search engines in order to reduce, or even remove, earnings from YouTube and other social media platforms relied upon by publishers. Partnering with a “trusted ad tech analytics organization,” GDI estimated that during a 15-month period, from March 2020 to September 2021, the number of bids sent to the approximately 1,200 sites listed on its “Dynamic Exclusion List” was halved, leading to an estimated $100 million lost in collective revenue, the memo says (Just the News).

Biden, the Autopen and the Pardons

Ed Martin is looking into it: Dear Fellow Americans, The integrity of the American Pardon system requires that we examine the Biden pardons and who did what. We will get the bottom of it. Count on us. All the best. Ed Martin, US Pardon Attorney (X). James Comer (R-KY): “Key decisions made in the final days of the Biden presidency, including using autopens to issue blanket pardons for the Biden Crime Family, must be fully examined. There are serious concerns that President Biden lacked the mental capacity to authorize those actions” (Fox News). Ward Clark of Red State: How many of the pardons were signed, not by the then-president, but by an autopen? How many of the pardons did President Biden personally approve? All? Some? None? If any were signed by autopen, a tool normally used primarily for ceremonial items, why use the tool rather than have the actual president sign? The real head-scratcher will be the legal significance of any questionable pardons. The Constitution gives the president wide pardon powers, and pardons, once signed, are final; there is no appeal and no recourse. The Constitution doesn’t include any mechanism for revoking a pardon, not even by the president who issued it. A fraudulently issued pardon, though? To my knowledge, this hasn’t happened before, and the bar of proof would necessarily be very high (Red State).

Trump Speech in Saudi Arabia Signals a New Moment in American Foreign Policy

Mark Halperin asked: “Why is the speech not being covered?” (X). Vice President J.D. Vance: “…the best articulation of a smart, realistic foreign policy I’ve ever heard from an American leader” (X). Gerard Baker labels it “Mater-Realism”: Last week in Saudi Arabia we got as clear a verbal and practical account of a Trump Doctrine as we have had since he first took office eight years ago. It was the familiar deal-making president but with the style raised to the level of strategy on a scale we haven’t seen before, and it was clearly, on his terms, a big success…. But even if you don’t believe the $2 trillion in “great deals” the White House claimed from the trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, there isn’t much doubt that, along with a lot of royal pomp and circumstance of the sort he loves, Mr. Trump got some genuine bargains for the U.S. economy…. His vision appears to be making the top priority economic relations, allied to a ruthless pursuit of national interest shorn of idealism, as laid out in his big speech in Riyadh. It is an unusual mix of materialism and foreign-policy realism—“mater-realism” perhaps (Wall Street Journal). The full speech: (You Tube).

10.

Ambassador Huckabee in Jerusalem: Tehran … is the one who brings the poison to all the rest the world”

Moral clarity from our Ambassador in Jerusalem: “There may be seven different servers coming out of the kitchen bringing a different plate—some Hamas, some Hezbollah, some the Houthis—just remember one thing, all of the plates, all of them came from the very same kitchen in Tehran. Tehran is the chef. It is the server. It is the one who brings the poison to all the rest the world. And if we ever forget who our real enemy is, it will be a fatal mistake” (X). Huckabee was speaking to the World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem: “The president is very clear: They are not going to have a nuclear weapon, they are not going to enrich, they are going to have total dismantlement, and those are the words that he has put,” Huckabee says at the opening gala event of the WJC’s plenary assembly, held at the Museum of Tolerance. “So whatever they are discussing, those are the criteria that the president has set forth. Even if they said they agree to it – do we believe them? That becomes the next big question. Do we believe them? They haven’t kept anything they’ve said for 46 years” (Times of Israel).

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