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Friday, August 22, 2025

Trump Visits DC Police: “You're incredible people. You make the country run, frankly”

CBS: President Trump addressed a crowd of federal law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, amid an anti-crime initiative that has swamped the capital with police and National Guard members. The president visited a U.S. Park Police facility in Southeast D.C., where he thanked federal agents and handed out hamburgers that he said were prepared at the White House and pizza from a local restaurant…. (CBS). ABS News: Trump visited the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility in Southeast D.C., which is serving as the gathering point for all the agencies involved in the operation, thanking officers and members of the military and delivering hamburgers from the White House and pizza…. “I just want to thank everybody very much for being here,” Trump said. “I wanted to do this. We’ve had some incredible results that have come out, and it’s like a different place. It’s like a different city. It’s the capital. It’s going to be the best in the world.” “You got to be strong, you got to be tough,” Trump urged the group. “You got to do your job. Whatever it takes to do your job” (ABC).

NY Appeals Court Throws Out $500 Million Case Against Trump

… the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, finding Trump had committed fraud in documents surrounding a real estate loan. It’s a major win for president. Wall Street Journal: A New York appeals court threw out a more than $500 million penalty against President Trump and his business empire, in a sharply splintered ruling that paves the way for further proceedings before the state’s highest court. The decision on Thursday from a five-judge panel of the New York Appellate Division’s First Department is a significant legal boost for Trump, freeing him, for now, from a massive penalty that caused him financial headaches last year. While the court upheld the trial judge’s finding that Trump was liable for fraud, its profound legal disagreement underscores the controversial nature of the case from New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat and frequent antagonist of the Republican president (Wall Street Journal). Hugh Hewitt: “It is a huge thing … and the key phrase is the one that you read: violates the Eighth Amendment. That opens up the door and I hope the president walks through it, to a 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the attorney general and Judge Engoron, who was sort of a Looney Tunes character through this whole thing. Of all the lawfare weighs against Donald Trump, this proceeding in New York was the most ridiculous. No victims, no injuries, nothing, and a half a billion dollar fine for that reason. The court was embarrassed into withdrawing it. Even if they’re Democrats, they had to do it. And I hope the President goes back for the millions of dollars the interest on his bond cost him. This is the first of many wins he will enjoy, because the New York judicial system is so badly broken” (X). Trump responded: TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case! I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State. Others were afraid to do business there. The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before. This was a Case of Election Interference by the City and State trying to show, illegally, that I did things that were wrong when, in fact, everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT. Every single Dollar was thrown out, even the penalties imposed on us by the Corrupt Judge, one of the most overturned in History, Arthur Engoron (Truth).

Another Supreme Court Win for Trump Allows Him to Make Cuts at the National Institute of Health

This win marks the 18^th time Trump has won at least a partial emergency ruling from the nation’s highest court. The Hill: The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling Thursday, enabled the Trump administration to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants linked to diversity initiatives. The decision partially lifts a Boston-based judge’s ruling that declared the cancellations illegal and blocked the administration from moving forward. Five of the court’s six Republican-appointed justices sided with the administration: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. They said the judge wasn’t following the high court’s emergency decision this spring allowing the administration to cancel education grants. Gorsuch was the most pointed in his criticism, accusing the judge and several others of defying the high court. “Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Gorsuch wrote (The Hill). Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote a colorful 21-page dissent: Jackson had sharp words for her colleagues, describing the ruling as “Calvinball jurisprudence” – a reference to the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon – “with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins” (SCOTUS Blog).

California Passes Controversial Redistricting Plan

Controversial because in 2010, California voters passed the Congressional Voters FIRST Act placing the drawing of the Congressional lines in the hands of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. New York Times: California leaders on Thursday approved a sweeping plan to elect more Democrats by redrawing congressional districts, delivering an immediate counterpunch to the gerrymandered map that Republicans in Texas are passing at the request of President Trump. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two redistricting bills that the Democratic-controlled Legislature sent to him earlier Thursday. He also declared a special election on Nov. 4 that will ask voters to grant final approval to the newly drawn congressional districts. The moves will immediately thrust California into a feverish campaign with national implications as Democrats and Republicans vie for control of the House of Representatives through an extraordinary effort to redraw political maps in the middle of a decade (New York Times). California Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio: “Gavin Newsom’s corrupt redistricting scheme is worse than snake oil. It’s arsenic to our democracy” (DeMaio).

California Supreme Court Rejects Republican Challenge to Newsom’s Redistricting Scheme

ABC: California Supreme Court denies Republicans’ request to intervene and slow down Democrats’ redistricting legislation…. GOP lawmakers who filed the request are vowing to keep fighting in court and at the ballot box. Senator Tony Strickland, Senator Suzette Martinez Valladares, Assemblyman Tri Ta and Assemblywoman Kathryn Sanchez released the following joint statement: “Today’s Supreme Court decision is not the end of this fight. Although the Court denied our petition, it did not explain the reason for its ruling. This means Governor Newsom and the Democrats’ plan to gut the voter-created Citizens Redistricting Commission, silence public input, and stick taxpayers with a $200+ million bill will proceed. Polls show most Democrats, Republicans, and independents want to keep the commission, not give politicians the power to rig maps. We will continue to challenge this unconstitutional power grab in the courts and at the ballot box. Californians deserve fair, transparent elections, not secret backroom deals to protect politicians” (ABC). The Democrats’ scheme will go before the voters as Proposition 50.

Missouri to Enter the Redistricting Wars of 2026

Senator Mike Schmitt made the news midday Thursday in his appearance on the Scott Jennings Show: “Republicans should be unified in this. Democrats have been doing this for a very, very long time…. if they’re going to set the rules, we ought to play the game” (Jennings). Trump weighed in on Truth Social: The Great State of Missouri is now IN. I’m not surprised. It is a great State with fabulous people. I won it, all 3 times, in a landslide. We’re going to win the Midterms in Missouri again, bigger and better than ever before! (Truth). The Missouri Independent: Missouri has eight congressional districts, and Democrats hold two. Any proposal is likely to split the 5th District, which is mainly in Kansas City, by adding Republican voters in sufficient numbers to take it away from incumbent Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. That would give Republicans seven of the state’s seats in the U.S. House. For nearly a month, Trump has been pressuring Gov. Mike Kehoe and legislative leaders, with calls to at least one Republican lawmaker who expressed reluctance to go along (Missouri Independent).

State Department Looks to Deny Visas to Known Terror-Supporting Activists Planning to Participate in Next Week’s “People’s Conference for Palestine” in Michigan

The conference will be held August 29-31 in Detroit: This annual People’s Conference for Palestine is organized by Palestinian leaders in the movement, with a political program designed to address the current political moment and to bring together critical voices in the struggle. With Gaza as our guide, people from across North America will come together for a weekend to continue building and strengthening the movement for Palestinian liberation in North America (People’s Conference). Free Beacon: The Trump administration is preparing to block visas for Palestinian terrorists slated to appear later this month at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan, which will feature a number of radical Palestinian activists, a senior State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon. “Given the public invite lists seem to include a number of terrorist sympathizers, we are going through and ensuring all international speakers slated to attend the conference are being placed on a ‘look out’ status for visa applications, so we are alerted if a request is submitted and can ensure they are appropriately processed,” the senior official told the Free Beacon. While the official would not identify which of the nearly 40 speakers would be assigned special “look out” status, some are Palestinians who have spent years behind bars in Israel for conspiring to kill Jews (Free Beacon).

Jewish Leftists Raise $1 Million for Gaza; Fellow Jews Are Rather Upset

Liel Liebovitz: On Aug. 8, the UJA-Federation of New York announced a donation of $1 million to help the people of Gaza. The funds, delivered via the Israeli humanitarian NGO IsraAID, would be used, a statement explained, “to provide food, medicine, and the installation of filtration systems to enable safe drinking water for displaced families.” The decision sparked a controversy that grew into a maelstrom. Taking to social media, WhatsApp groups, and every other platform designed to gauge the temperature of public opinion, many, myself included, criticized the decision as incomprehensible and argued that to give even one shekel to an enemy at a time of war was not only colossally stupid but also morally depraved. After going through his taxonomy of variously-troubled Jews, he argues—essentially—the “untroubled committed” should go it alone: But, Liel, I hear you saying, does this mean we abandon 75 percent of American Jews? That brings us to the third, and most important, thing: We’re going to be alright. More than alright, in fact: Commenting on the Exodus, Rashi famously reminded us that only a fifth of all Israelites chose to leave behind the house of bondage. The rest stayed behind, content with a steady job and guaranteed meals and the satisfaction that comes from living in Pithom and Ramses, the greatest cities in the civilized world. We’re simply reliving Jewish history these days, but with a statistically more significant and emotionally more passionate crew, making up something like a quarter of the American Jewish community—which is, if you’re tracking the math, 5 percent more than history usually allowed us. These people waste not a minute calculating whether they should send checks to people who hate them and want them dead, lest their self-appointed intellectual and moral superiors call them names and exclude them from prestigious film festivals. These people are here to fight and win (Tablet).

“Gen Z is on track to be the most pro-GOP generation since the Great Depression”

That’s how Zachary Donnini of DecisionDeskHQ sums up his look at the latest data: At the heart of the Democratic collapse: young White men are registering as Republicans in unprecedented numbers…. I think it’s notable that this lines up well with other 2024 election data, like David Shor’s postmortem on Democratic support by age and the hard right shifts on college campuses between 2020 and 2024 (Donnini). Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: In fact, for the first time since 2018, more new voters nationwide chose to be Republicans than Democrats last year. All told, Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters between the 2020 and 2024 elections in the 30 states, along with Washington, D.C., that allow people to register with a political party. (In the remaining 20 states, voters do not register with a political party.) Republicans gained 2.4 million…. Democrats went from nearly an 11-percentage-point edge over Republicans on Election Day 2020 in those places with partisan registration, to just over a 6-percentage-point edge in 2024. That swing helps to explain President Trump’s success last year, when he won the popular vote for the first time, swept the swing states and roared back to the White House. “I don’t want to say, ‘The death cycle of the Democratic Party,’ but there seems to be no end to this,” said Michael Pruser, who tracks voter registration closely as the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, an election-analysis site. “There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year” (New York Times).

10.

Evangelical Leader James Dobson Dies, Age 89

Dobson was the Founder of Focus on the Family. It’s difficult to overstate how significant a figure he was in nation and in the evangelical world for 50-plus years. From the Dobson Family Institute: Dr. James C. Dobson, one of the most influential Christian leaders of the last half-century and a tireless advocate for the traditional family, passed away on August 21, 2025 at the age of 89. A psychologist, New York Times best-selling author, a Radio Hall of Fame broadcaster, and advisor to five U.S. presidents, Dr. Dobson dedicated his life to strengthening marriages, guiding parents, and defending biblical values by championing the central role of family in America. “Dr. Dobson was a pioneer—a man of deep conviction whose voice shaped the way generations view faith, family and culture,” said Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Public Policy at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. “His bold leadership, integrity, and compassion helped equip countless families to thrive in a world of shifting values. He was a mentor, a counselor, and a steady voice of truth in turbulent times” (Dobson). Focus on the Family: Today we remember a hero of the faith. Our Founder, Dr. James C. Dobson, passed away this morning. Although we’re sorrowful over this loss, we are thankful for his legacy of family ministry that will live on for future generations, and rejoice that he is now in the presence of our Savior (Focus).

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