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Senator Finds More Evidence Federal Officials Evaded FOIA

A U.S. senator and his team say they have uncovered additional evidence that federal officials worked to evade requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Several emails obtained by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) showed personnel with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were aware of FOIA requests and sought to evade them. FOIA enables people to request records from the government. It requires officials to retain and produce requested records, subject to certain exemptions.

In a Nov. 26, 2022, missive, Allison Lale, a medical officer with the CDC, asked a colleague about receiving safety analyses of COVID-19 vaccination from the FDA.

Pedro Moro, a CDC epidemiologist, responded. “I think that because of the FOIAs we may have asked FDA to stop sending these weekly data mining outputs,” Moro wrote.

“Oh interesting,” Lale said. She added that during calls for a CDC-managed program, “we used to just verbally mention” that certain terms had not triggered safety signals, or signs vaccines were causing problems.

“But we could also leave it out if that [sic] this creates more hassle,” she added.

In a separate email chain, FDA officials were told by an FDA vaccine safety analytic expert, Dr. Ana Szarfman, that the approach they were using to analyze the safety of COVID-19 vaccines was faulty. The information sparked a long discussion, during which officials considered asking the expert to contact an outside expert on the matter.

“Before we potentially reach out to Ana, we should meet internally – many considerations not suited to email…” David Menschik, an FDA official who distributed the data mining reports, wrote on April 15, 2021.

“Sounds good,” Bethany Baer, another FDA worker, responded. “Happy to meet and discuss anytime open on my calendar.”

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UK Schools Pushing Books On Kids Telling Them ‘There’s Plenty Of Room’ For Small Boat Migrants

British kids as young as five are now being read picture books that paint small boat crossings in glowing terms and urge them to open the door to unlimited migration.

While record numbers of illegal arrivals strain housing, schools and public services, left-wing charities are using taxpayer-backed programmes to turn classrooms into recruitment centres for open borders ideology.

More than 1,100 schools and nurseries across the UK have signed up to the Schools of Sanctuary programme, run by the City of Sanctuary network. The scheme requires schools to complete a “rigorous” award process to prove they are “working collaboratively to strengthen community approaches to welcoming refugee children and families.” Once awarded, they pay a minimum donation of £75 to £300.

As part of the programme, schools are given a suggested reading list packed with pro-migrant messaging. One book, Kind by Alison Green, illustrated by renowned children’s illustrators such as Quentin Blake and Axel Scheffler, tells children: “Sometimes people have lived through very hard times. They’ve had to leave their homes and their countries because of danger. They are brave and amazing and have extraordinary stories to tell.”

It continues: “Sometimes people say there’s no room for anyone more. But maybe you can say ‘There’s plenty of room! Come on in!’ After all, if you don’t let people in, you’ll never know what you’re missing.”

Yeah, come on in! In fact, come on in and live in a hotel in a nice green village, all at taxpayer expense!

The book features a cartoon lion in a crowded boat with other animals and encourages pupils to share toys, draw pictures together and even learn words from a foreign child’s language.

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The Trump Surveillance State

The Fourth Amendment protects all persons from warrantless government searches and seizures of their persons, houses, papers and effects. It requires that warrants be supported by probable cause of crime and specifically describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

Last week, for the first time in the modern era, the government argued to the Supreme Court of the United States that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution did not outlaw general warrants. General warrants were issued in the colonial era by a secret court in London. They were not based on probable cause of crime or even on articulable suspicion about a potential defendant. They did not identify a target or state what crime was being investigated.

Rather, general warrants were based on governmental need; a meaningless standard as whatever the government wants it will tell a court it needs. The warrants authorized the bearer of the warrant to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found.

The stated motivation for the general warrants was the British government’s enforcement of the Stamp Act. That legislation required all colonists to have stamps affixed to all papers, books and newspapers in their possession. The enforcement of the Stamp Act was the government’s fig leaf for spying.

We know that the true reason for the Stamp Act was to conduct surreptitious searches for revolutionary materials. We know this because during the one-year existence of the Stamp Act — 1765 — a group of enterprising students at the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University, calculated that more revenue was spent to enforce the act than was collected by the sale of the stamps.

Historians believe that the use of general warrants for the enforcement of the Stamp Act pushed many colonists into the independence camp 10 years later in 1775. The use of general warrants also motivated James Madison and his colleagues in 1791 to craft the Fourth Amendment whose specificity requirement “particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized” poignantly did away with search where you wish and seize whatever you find.

Until now.

Now, in one week on Capitol Hill, the right to privacy is facing its gravest challenges since pre-colonial days, in Congress and the Supreme Court. Congress will wrestle with Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires in just days, and the court will hear a claim that general warrants are still viable.

Sec. 702 permits warrantless surveillance on Americans by permitting federal agents to use software that allows them to conduct surveillance of all fiber optic means of communication — mobile phones, message texting, emails — based on the lawful communications of some Americans to foreign persons and then their subsequent lawful communications to other Americans. The “other Americans” can include all 340 million of us.

Theoretically, the data gathered from these warrantless searches cannot be used for criminal prosecutions, since even the feds who do this spying have told members of Congress that they recognize the need for search warrants to access the content of the data. There are at least two reasons that no one should believe what the feds have said. The first is the feds lie. In 2023, they accessed the content of the data thousands of times without warrants. The second reason is that Madison and the Fourth Amendment’s ratifiers did not believe the government would restrain itself, hence the specificity requirement.

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Former Ukraine Top Spy and Currently Presidential Chief of Staff, Popular General Budanov Has Become a Danger to Zelensky’s Rule

Keep your enemies closer?

We have been reporting here on TGP on how the corruption scandal involving Volodymyr Zelensky’s close friend and partner Timur Mindich shook Kiev’s political landscape.

Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO exposed a $100 million embezzlement and kickback scheme at the state nuclear energy company Energoatom, which led to Mindich fleeing justice to Israel.

To survive the political crisis, the all-powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak was sacrificed by the regime, and Zelensky appointed in his place Kirill Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), and his moderate critic.

As journalist and political analyst Vitaly Ryumshin detailed in RT, this has been a dangerous idea.

Budanov started in his new role keeping a low profile, but soon he started making public statements at odds with those of Zelensky.

“While the president has prepared the country for a prolonged conflict, Budanov has spoken of ongoing negotiations and suggested that peace may not be as distant as many assume. When Zelensky highlighted Ukraine’s technological breakthroughs, Budanov has downplayed them. He has also openly acknowledged the growing difficulties of mobilization, a rare admission from a senior official in a country at war.

At the same time, Budanov has been carefully constructing his public image. In Western media, he is presented as both a war hero and a pragmatic ‘dove’, a man who understands the need to bring the conflict to an end. For domestic audiences, his team promotes stories of personal bravery, portraying him as a hands-on commander who has taken part in operations and narrowly escaped danger.”

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Hormuz: Who Is Calling The Shots?

I’ve been trying to make sense of what’s going really on with the war on Iran. The US says it is blockading the Straits of Hormuz to destroy Iran’s economy, but it risks destroying the world economy, including its own, in the process. So, let’s have a look and see if we can make any sense out of it. Take it up in the comments.

Picture this: it’s the end of April 2026, and the world is holding its breath over the powder keg in the Persian Gulf. After a whirlwind of airstrikes, naval showdowns, and shadowy proxy battles, it has simmered into an uneasy ceasefire, but the air crackles with the threat of explosion. What kicked off as a thunderous US-Israeli assault on 28 February is now a high-stakes game of chicken, where nobody’s blinking. Western headlines scream of taming a rogue regime, Iranian voices roar defiance, and powers like Russia, India, and China shake their heads at the chaos rippling across the globe. At the epicentre? The Strait of Hormuz, where only about ten ships a day are making the passage through it, way less than a tenth of normal traffic. 

And just what is Donald Trump’s strategy. Is he out to crush Iran? Or China? Is he creating his own new world order based on US hegemony? Or is he handing globalist elites at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and their UN Agenda 2030 playbook a golden opportunity to reshape the world into the Global government tyranny they desire? 

Let’s rewind to the fireworks. The war erupted when Trump, fresh off a 60-day ultimatum for Iran to scrap its nuclear ambitions and ditch its proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis, imitated joint strikes with Israel. Tehran lit up under the bombs and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed. Trump’s strategy was, he said, crystal clear: regime change, pulverise Iran’s missiles, sink its navy, wipe out its air force, neuter its terror network, and slam the door on any atomic dreams. But Iran didn’t follow the script, fought back effectively, and oh so predictably closed the Straits. By early April, a fragile two-week truce kicked in and on 7 April Iran eased tanker access through Hormuz, the US paused the pounding and Trump stretched it indefinitely on 21 April, bragging that 75% of targets were toast. And then, after calling the Iranian regime a bunch of gangsters for closing the Straits, the US imposed its own, very much reducing traffic and directly ordering around 40 ships to turn back and putting shells into at least one of them. But still, there’s no grand deal in sight. Iran’s rebuffing US demands for ironclad nuclear handcuffs and talks in places like Islamabad have hit the skids after Iran refused to accept America’s demand for capitulation and Trump yanked his envoy at the last minute.

Western sources paint a picture of gritty impasse. “An awkward limbo of ‘no war, no peace’,” as the NYT quips, with diplomacy derailed and both sides digging in like a modern Somme. The Guardian captures the frustration: a “deepening sense of deadlock” despite frantic regional shuttle diplomacy. Trump keeps dangling the phone line to Tehran; “Call if you want to talk” but insists no nukes, period. Casualties? Murky as ever, though US brass concedes Iran’s still got plenty of punch left in its missile and drone arsenals.

In Tehran it’s a tale of grit and grievance. PressTV and IRNA frame this as a brutal US-Israeli bulldozer trampling sovereign soil—day 57 of invasion by 25 April, no less. Iran’s pushing “workable frameworks” for peace, but with teeth: demands for war reparations from Gulf neighbours over wrecked bridges and power grids, like the Karaj-Tehran lifeline. Their 10-point blueprint? Crack open Hormuz, lift the US naval stranglehold, but only if the West coughs up real security pledges. No more nuclear grovelling without it. And the warnings? Chilling. Tehran vows “mayhem” on Israel and the US if the truce snaps, teasing “new surprises” in its arsenal. Even US senators are calling the whole mess “disastrous,” with failed bids to leash Trump’s war powers stacking up.

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$65B lithium mother lode hidden beneath Appalachian Mountains could supply US with power for centuries

They’ve hit the mother lode.

We may no longer need to rely on foreign batteries to power our electronics. Geologists have announced that the Appalachian Mountains could be hiding a sprawling multibillion-dollar cache of lithium that could last the US hundreds of years.

“This research shows that the Appalachians contain enough lithium to help meet the nation’s growing needs,” declared US Geological Survey Director Ned Mamula in a statement.

According to a map by the institution, this East Coast mountain range houses around 2.5 metric tons of this battery precursor, most of which is concentrated in the Carolinas, Maine and New Hampshire. Total value: around $64.4B dollars.

Per Bloomberg, the US imports nearly half of its consumption of lithium, which powers lithium-ion batteries that are used for everything from iPhones to vehicles and even aerospace alloys.

With this recent mineral motherlode, USGS officials estimate that we could supply 1.6 million grid-scale batteries — enough to power 130 million electric vehicles or supply 180 billion laptops for a collective thousands of years of global use.

It could also fuel 500 billion cellphones, the equivalent of 60 devices for every person on Earth.

All told, this haul is enough to replace 328 years of imports at least year’s level, providing “a major contribution to US mineral security, at a time when global lithium demand is rising rapidly,” said Mamula.

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Rep. Jasmine Crockett Declares ‘I Am One of the 535 Most Powerful People’ in America While Whining About ‘Disrespect’ Toward Black Women, Demands Regular Americans Need to Know Their Place

Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett unleashed an unhinged and egotistical rant on national television Tuesday, insisting she is one of the “535 most powerful people in this country” and complaining that everyday Americans are showing her “disrespect” by failing to treat her as an untouchable elite.

Crockett made the comments during an appearance on “The Sherri Show,” hosted by Sherri Shepherd, while discussing criticism of Black women in Congress.

“Some people are just like, ‘Oh, but you’re a congresswoman.’ I’m a Black woman first,” Crockett declared.

The soon-to-be former politician added, “So, the level of disrespect that is continuously lobbed against us as Black women, for me, I’m like, wait a minute now. I am one of the 535 most powerful people in this country!”

Crockett went on to demand that everyday Americans know their place beneath her.

“And for some reason you think we’re on the same level, but you’re going to disrespect me? Like, it’s not going to happen!” Crockett asserted.

The interview has drawn swift backlash and criticism on social media, with commenters explaining that members of Congress are public servants elected by the American people, not royalty above reproach.

Crockett’s latest outburst comes at a particularly awkward time, because in March, she was decisively defeated in the Democrat primary for U.S. Senate in Texas by state Rep. James Talarico.

The stunning loss ended her bid to move up from the House, leaving her as a lame-duck congresswoman heading into the final months of her term.

Crockett, a former public defender and civil rights attorney, first won election to Congress in a 2023 special election for Texas’s 30th District following the retirement of longtime Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson.

The loudmouth representative quickly gained national attention for her combative style in House hearings, most notably her viral exchanges with then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans during Judiciary Committee proceedings.

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Senate Passes Rule Banning Members From Trading on Prediction Markets

The U.S. Senate unanimously voted on April 30 to ban members and their staff from betting on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket. The rule, aimed to stop senators from insider trading will go into effect immediately.

“Serving in Congress is an honor, not a side hustle,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) wrote in an X post on Thursday. “Americans deserve to know that their leaders are here for the right reason!”

Moreno spearheaded the ban, and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) added an amendment to expand the rule to Senate staff.

Polymarket, one of the most popular prediction markets in the world, quickly voiced support for the legislation on social media.

“We’re in full support of this,” the trading platform wrote in an X post after the decision was made in Washington.

“Our Rulebook & Terms of Service already prohibit such conduct, but codifying this into law is a step forward for the industry. Happy to help move this forward however we can.”

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Senators Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Tighten US Ban on Chinese Vehicles

A bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation aimed at strengthening a U.S. government ban on Chinese automakers accessing the U.S. market, citing national security concerns.

Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) introduced the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026 on April 29, which would codify a Commerce Department rule that effectively bars all Chinese automakers from selling passenger vehicles in the United States and take other measures to block China from entering the U.S. light-duty market.

“The American auto industry is the backbone of the American industrial economy, we cannot afford to make the same mistakes globalists have made for decades and see these great American companies devastated by predatory and massively subsidized Chinese state enterprises hellbent on the destruction of our economy,” Moreno said in a statement.

“As Europe, Mexico, and others allow their markets to be overrun by Chinese predators, the U.S. must act before it’s too late. The answer is simple: Chinese vehicles can never be allowed into the U.S. market—the fate of the American auto industry and countless autoworkers depends on it.”

The legislation would ban internet-connected vehicles and related hardware and software tied to the Chinese regime or other foreign adversaries from being imported, manufactured, sold, or resold in the United States.

It would empower the Commerce Department to identify and block technologies or parts deemed national security threats from entering the U.S. market.

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Dem Rep Suggests Hegseth Could Be EXECUTED For War Crimes Like NAZI Sub Captains

In a stunning escalation of partisan rhetoric, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) declared on national television that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is “guilty” of war crimes — and compared U.S. military operations against drug-smuggling boats to the actions of Nazi submarine captains executed after World War II.

The remarks, delivered Wednesday on CNN’s OutFront, come as the Trump administration presses aggressive action to dismantle narco-terrorist networks flooding America with deadly fentanyl and other poisons.

Instead of backing efforts to secure the homeland, Moulton opted to invoke the language of international tribunals.

Host Erin Burnett asked Moulton directly: “Do you believe that the Secretary of Defense is guilty of war crimes?”

Moulton answered without hesitation: “Absolutely. I mean, he’s clearly behind the operation to shoot all these boats in the Caribbean when it’s very unclear that we actually have any confirmation that these so-called narco terrorists, a term the administration invented to justify this action, are even on the boats.”

He continued, “I mean, in fact, there’s a lot of evidence that these are just fishermen, you know, getting jobs, piloting these boats, trying to feed their families. There’s been press reporting on some of these individuals who have been killed, who are clearly not war criminals.”

He added, “And on top of that, we then have the strike where they came back in and hit it again, a double tap, just purely to kill these survivors who were clinging to wreckage. You know, it’s interesting, Erin, another historical analogy back in World War II, the Allies tried Nazi submarine captains for doing this exact same thing. And guess what the conclusion was? They got executed. Listen to THAT, Mr. Secretary!”

The X post capturing the moment quickly went viral, with users reacting in disbelief at a sitting congressman invoking execution rhetoric against a Trump cabinet official.

This isn’t isolated grandstanding. It fits a clear pattern: Democrats framing routine counter-narcotics operations — strikes on vessels tied to designated terrorist organizations like Tren de Aragua operating on known smuggling routes — as criminal acts worthy of prosecution.

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