Blue state GOP rep forced to remove 2A sticker from laptop: ‘Offensive’
A Republican lawmaker from Colorado expressed shock at being told by Democratic colleagues that he had to remove a sticker supporting the Second Amendment from his laptop while in the state’s House chamber. “I had to cover up this, they couldn’t stand my sticker,” Colorado Republican state Rep. Ken DeGraaf said during remarks on the state’s House floor, pointing to paper covering up a sticker in support of the Second Amendment on a laptop he carried with him to the chamber. “It said ‘shall not be infringed’ and signed ‘2-A’ and that was considered offensive, which I understand would be offensive to this bill,” he continued. The remarks come as Colorado lawmakers debate a controversial gun control bill that would limit the sale of some semiautomatic firearms that rely on detachable magazines, such as the popular AR-15 platform. NM LAWMAKERS WARN SWEEPING GUN CONTROL BILL PRIMED FOR PASSAGE SHOWS DEMS ‘ARE DEAD-SET ON DISARMING US’ The legislation, Colorado Senate Bill 25-003, would be one of the strictest gun control measures in the country, something the state’s Democratic lawmakers argue is necessary to keep citizens safe. “Preventing gun violence is one of the most effective ways that we can make our communities safer and save lives. Semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines are uniquely lethal and dangerous,” state Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democatric sponsor of the bill, told KKTV. “This bill is a commonsense solution to ensure that people receive effective training and meet the requirements under state and federal firearm laws before purchasing the most lethal weapons on the market. From background checks and waiting periods to limits on high-capacity magazines, Colorado Democrats have enacted multiple laws to protect Coloradans from future gun violence.” GOV. DESANTIS MAKES PUSH TO REPEAL FLORIDA’S RED FLAG LAWS The bill has passed the state’s Senate and a second reading in the House, according to the KTTV report, which noted that lawmakers largely expect the legislation to be ready for a final vote in the coming week. The bill has faced stiff resistance from Republicans such as DeGraaf, who argue the legislation would run afoul of the U.S. Constitution. DeGraaf accused his Democratic colleagues of being offended by the Constitution during his remarks on the House floor, pointing to the forced removal as an example. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP As DeGraaf lamented the covering of the sticker, he was informed that the only reason for the request was because such displays are banned in the “well” of the chamber, which sits between the chamber’s front desk and the first row of member seats. “So OK, no displays of the Constitution in the well, got it,” DeGraaf quipped back.
Schumer refuses to step down as Senate Dem leader, defends shutdown vote
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has refused to step down from his leadership position, as Democratic infighting worsens while the party struggles to agree on messaging to challenge President Donald Trump. “Look, I’m not stepping down,” Schumer said in a pre-recorded interview that aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “I knew that when I cast my vote against the government shutdown that there would be a lot of controversy.” Schumer defended why he chose to vote in support of the Republican-proposed continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown despite the bill’s broad opposition by the Democratic Party. “The CR was certainly bad, you know the continuing resolution, but a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse. Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power to determine what is ‘essential.’ And they can determine without any court supervision. The courts have ruled it’s solely up to the executive what to shut down,” Schumer said. DEM SENATOR ON SCHUMER FUTURE: ‘IMPORTANT’ TO KNOW ‘WHEN IT’S TIME TO GO’ Schumer alleged, without evidence, that Trump, Department of Government Efficiency chair Elon Musk and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought would slash funding for SNAP, or food stamps and mass transit, as well as cut Medicaid “by 20, 30, 50, 80%” He suggested the administration could decide during a government shutdown, “We’ll go after Social Security. We’ll go after the veterans.” “They would eviscerate the federal government,” Schumer said. “Their goal is just eviscerate the federal government so they can get more taxes in their tax cuts to their billionaire class over there. So it would be devastating.” “There’s no off ramp,” he added. “Who determines how long the shutdown would last? Only those evil people at the top of the executive branch in the Trump administration.” Schumer told NBC that a Republican senator close to the DOGE team told a Democratic colleague of his that the administration would keep the shutdown in place for “six months, nine months, a year til everyone was furloughed and gone and quit.” “And there would be no way to stop it,” Schumer said. “So I thought that would be so devastating to the republic and anger so many people.” Schumer, who played a critical role in urging Joe Biden to exit the 2024 race, denied that he was acting similarly in resisting calls from his party to resign as leader. Democrats have increasingly criticized Schumer for breaking with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in supporting the continuing resolution, and Schumer has dismissed reports of a potential primary challenge by progressive “Squad” member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for his Senate seat. AOC SHREDS SCHUMER FOR ‘TREMENDOUS MISTAKE’ OF CAVING TO GOP TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN “It was a vote of principle. Sometimes, when you’re a leader, you have to do things to avoid a real danger that might come down the curve, and I did it out of pure conviction as to what a leader should do and what the right thing for America and my party was,” Schumer said, admitting that there’s “disagreement” in the Democratic caucus on the spending bill, but “We’ve all agree to respect each other because each side saw why the other side felt so strongly about it.” “And our caucus is united in fighting Donald Trump every step of the way,” Schumer claimed. “Our goal, our plan, which we’re united on, is to make Donald Trump the quickest lame duck in modern history by showing how bad his policies are.” “He represents the oligarchs, as I’ve said, he’s hurting average people in every way,” Schumer added, saying Democrats are using oversight hearings, the courts and organizing across districts to challenge Trump’s agenda. “I believe that by 2026, the Republicans in the House and Senate will feel like they’re rats on a sinking ship because we have so gone after Trump and all the horrible things he’s doing,” Schumer said. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, the former House Speaker, has claimed Democrats did not gain anything in Schumer conceding to Republicans’ over the CR. “What we got, at the end of the day,” Schumer responded, “is avoiding the horror of a shutdown.” He added that Democrats had “no leverage point,” because Republicans in control of both houses could force a vote on the CR. “When you’re on that political mountain, the higher up you climb, the more fiercely the winds blow,” Schumer said. “The only way you stop being blown off the mountain is your internal gyroscope… I had to do the right thing for our country and for our party.”
Congress expanded the executive—only for Trump to quash much of the administrative state
There is broad agreement among Republicans that the government, particularly the federal bureaucracy, is too bloated for its own good. And despite coming into office with such power vested in the executive, President Donald Trump has overseen an aggressive effort to slash his own branch, to the relief of conservatives in Congress. “I think President Trump is doing exactly what he got elected to do. He got elected to secure the border, get rid of inflation, [and] stop this unbelievable growth of the federal government,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. “I think we have to go back and always follow the Constitution,” he explained, adding that the executive branch should not have the “regulatory power” that it has amassed over the years. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., added that he is “all for cutting out the rot and the waste,” and previewed some of the Trump administration’s changes being codified through a rescissions package in Congress, for which only 51 votes are needed in the Senate. PENTAGON TO CUT UP TO 60K CIVILIAN JOBS, BUT FEWER THAN 21K HAVE RESIGNED VOLUNTARILY A White House official pointed to the significant public sector job growth under President Joe Biden, noting the federal government’s massive expansion in just the last four years. “For all the talk of ‘Donald Trump is going to be a dictator on day one, he is ignoring the judicial branch,’ This is a president who, on day one, made it his mission to reduce the size of the executive branch in an effort to make it more efficient and to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse,” the official told Fox News Digital. “That doesn’t sound like a dictator to me.” Former Trump attorney Jim Trusty explained that Congress “certainly” deserves the blame for both “excessive and wasteful spending.” However, “they maintain the power of the purse and there is no line item veto,” he said, noting that they largely still control “expenditure power.” “I think Congress has been derelict in a lot of ways and the judicial branch is exercising too much authority, so I do not believe we are at much risk of an ‘imperial presidency,’” Trusty said. Meanwhile, Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, posted on X this week that the executive branch has grown “too powerful.” Maloy appeared to be trying to clarify an earlier statement made during a town hall at which she expressed concern about the executive branch needing to be “under control.” “Do I think America is drifting towards authoritarianism? No. I have only hope and optimism about the direction our country is headed. Do I think the executive branch is too powerful? Absolutely,” Maloy wrote. “It’s been growing for decades. We need smaller federal agencies and we have a unique opportunity to do something about it. The president is doing the tough work of trimming back the executive branch.” TRUMP GOES ON ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ PENTAGON FIRING SPREE: REPORT Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said the trend of Congress giving up some of its power saw its most critical moves in the 19th century. “If we had to characterize it at a 30,000-foot level, we would probably say this – first, generally, the 19th century was Congress in power, right? The federal government didn’t do very much – like, long before the New Deal in the 1930s, long before the Great Society in the 1960s, Congress really was in the driver’s seat in all sorts of ways,” Binder told Fox News Digital. “They were setting tariff laws, they were building railroads, they were building roads, they were building ports and so forth. That’s quite a bit different than the 20th century and certainly moving into the 21st century.” Binder said the change over time was likely due to a combination of factors, including expediency – and politics. “Some of that is just a function of crisis. And Congress is…reactive. It’s not really well suited for responding swiftly in a crisis,” she said. “The other part is kind of electoral, right? Lawmakers realize some of these issues and matters are kind of politically contentious, like tariffs. And you begin to see in the early 1930s, Congress giving those powers to the president.” “I mean, you get a sense of it right now with even some Republican lawmakers not happy about the tariff war that Trump has instigated, but at the same time, they seem quite happy that they’re not in charge of setting those tariffs.“ Former assistant US attorney and Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy argued that the administrative state “is not quite the same thing as the executive branch,” specifying that “so-called independent agencies as the SEC, FTC, and Federal Reserve” are “not directly under presidential control,” despite being technically under the executive umbrella. According to McCarthy, Trump’s problem is that statutes were used to create the agencies, and they “can only be repealed by statute.” “He has difficulty paring them back because statutes and court decisions limit his ability to fire the officials who run the agencies,” McCarthy explained. “That is why DOJ is trying to get the current Supreme Court to overrule the Court’s 1935 Humphrey’s Executor decision — it supported the creation of independent agencies…that wield multiple kinds of power…and that place restrictions on the president’s authority to fire agency heads.” In Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the president could not unilaterally remove officials from quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial bodies, such as the Federal Trade Commission. Overruling that decision would vastly expand the president’s power to control who works for federal offices outside of Congress or the courts. “Schedule F” is another classification for government workers that gives the president greater control over their respective offices. “Schedule F” broadly classifies a large swath of federal workers as at-will, making it much easier to fire or lay off workers en masse. Critics of Trump’s move earlier this year to expand “Schedule F”
Popular former GOP governor weighs in on potential Senate bid and whether Trump will endorse him
NEWFIELDS, N.H. — Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu says he is holding a dialogue with national Republican leaders about potentially running next year in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Sununu, who enjoys a large national profile, thanks to his regular appearances the past few years on the cable news networks and Sunday talk shows, said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital that he aims to make a decision regarding a 2026 campaign in the “next few weeks.” The former governor, who for a couple of years was a vocal Republican critic of President Donald Trump, said, “I have no doubt I’d have the president’s support,” if he were to decide to make a bid for the Senate. WHY THIS LONGTIME DEMOCRATIC SENATOR ISN’T RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION NEXT YEAR Sununu, who was elected and re-elected to four straight two-year terms as governor of the key New England swing state, touted, “I have no doubt I can win.” The 78-year-old Shaheen, the first woman in the nation’s history to win election as governor and as a U.S. senator, announced this week that she would retire at the end of next year rather than seek a fourth six-year term in the Senate. ONLY ON FOX NEWS: SENATE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN CHAIR REVEALS HOW MANY SEATS HE’S AIMING FOR IN 2026 Even before Shaheen’s announcement, her seat in swing state New Hampshire was considered one of the GOP’s top pickup opportunities in the 2026 midterms — along with Michigan, where Sen. Gary Peters is also retiring, and Georgia, where Republicans consider first-term Sen. Jon Ossoff vulnerable — as Republicans hope to expand their current 53-47 majority. Sununu’s comments in recent interviews are a switch from last year, when he repeatedly said he wouldn’t seek to run for the Senate in 2026. In a November interview with Fox News Digital, the then-governor reiterated what he had first said in a July interview. SUNUNU OPENS UP ABOUT WHAT’S NEXT AFTER HE FINISHES HIS TERM AS GOVERNOR “Definitely ruling out running for the Senate in 2026. Yeah, definitely not on my dance card,” Sununu said in an interview along the sidelines of the Republican Governors Association winter meeting in Florida. The 50-year-old Sununu, who when he was first elected in 2016 was the nation’s youngest governor, was asked again about a 2026 Senate run in a Fox News Digital interview in early January, in his last full day in office. “I’m not planning on running for anything right now. I’m really not, at least for the next two, four, six years,” he said. “Who knows what happens down the road? But it would be way down the road and nothing, nothing I’m planning on, nothing my family would tolerate either short term.” But Sununu, in his interview with Fox Digital on Tuesday, shared that “some folks in New Hampshire, some folks in Washington, have asked me to really take a few weeks and think about it at this point.” “The door’s open,” he said, before adding, “It’s not open a lot, to be honest.” Among those he’s talking with is Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who’s the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. “Tim is a great friend. We’ve talked a lot, not just about me running, but other opportunities.” And he described his talks as “an ongoing discussion.” Sources tell Fox News that Sununu’s headed to the nation’s capital in the coming days for a dinner with Scott and other Senate Republicans. Sununu four years ago expressed interest in running for the Senate against his predecessor as governor, Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan, who was up for re-election in 2022. And the popular governor was heavily courted by national Republicans to take on Hassan. But on Nov. 9, 2021, Sununu announced that he would instead run for a fourth term as governor, upsetting many Republicans in the nation’s capital. TOP POLITICAL HANDICAPPER REVEALS DEMOCRATS’ CHANCES OF WINNING BACK THE SENATE MAJORITY And he heavily criticized the Senate. “When you look at what their (senators’) job is and what a governor’s job is … it’s not even close. I can’t tell you how many senators told me, ‘You’re just going to have to wait around a couple of years to get anything done.’ Can you imagine me sitting around a couple of years?” Sununu said at the time. “They debate and talk, and nothing gets done. . . . That’s not the world I live in.” Asked whether he had changed his mind, Sununu on Tuesday responded, “Not really, no . . . I think Washington has been really stagnated. Hasn’t done a whole lot, doesn’t deliver.” But with Trump back in the White House, Sununu pointed to a “fundamental change in the past two months,” and that now Congress is “talking about things that I care very passionately about.” Those things include a balanced budget and government efficiency. “Whether you like them or not, you got to give credit to Trump, to DOGE, to folks driving this conversation, this narrative. We have $36 trillion in debt. It’s a very real number. You owe it. I owe it. Your viewers owe that money, not the government. We’re going to have a car crash in the next couple of years with Social Security going bankrupt, Medicare going bankrupt, more debt on the books. So, there has to be a plan and a strategy out of this, and the administration is really leading that effort,” Sununu argued. He said, “That gives me hope that . . . maybe there is an opportunity to have a leadership role in something that is very critical and vital to the country, something I believe very passionately in, and something we’ve been very successful with here in New Hampshire.” Following Trump’s first term in the White House and in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to upend congressional
Red state donating Trump-endorsed Bibles to classrooms to ‘make America pray again’
Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is partnering with country singer Lee Greenwood to donate Trump-endorsed “God Bless the USA” Bibles to classrooms across the state. Inspired by Greenwood’s hit “God Bless the USA” song, this unique bible includes a King James interpretation of the bible as well as the texts of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and several other founding documents. While campaigning in 2024, President Donald Trump endorsed the God Bless the USA Bible, saying, “You have to have it, for your heart, for your soul.” In a video promoting the Bible released last year, Trump said, “We must make America pray again.” PRESIDENT TRUMP COMFORTS MOTHER WHOSE SON DIED OF FENTANYL POISONING: ‘UP THERE WATCHING YOU’ “All Americans need a Bible in their home,” said Trump. “This Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back America and to make America great again is our religion.” “Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country,” he went on. “I truly believe that we have to bring them back and we have to bring them back fast. I think that’s one of the biggest problems we have, that’s why our country is going haywire, we’ve lost religion in our country.” In an interview with Fox News Digital, Walters, a Republican, said that in line with these efforts, he partnered with Greenwood to gather donations for God Bless the USA Bibles to be purchased “at no cost to the state” and sent to classrooms. “We’ve got to understand the Judeo-Christian values that were so crucial in American history … and I think a big part of that is getting the bible back in the classroom,” he said. EDUCATION LEADERS SAY TRUMP DISMANTLING KEY GOVERNMENT AGENCY ‘SAVED EDUCATION’ So far Walters said that over 500 of the Trump-endorsed Bibles have been donated to classrooms across the state. To him, the effort is about combating “state-sponsored atheism” advanced by teachers who would scrub any reference to the bible from American history. “If you go into a classroom and go, ‘Well, we’re going to teach you guys about American history, except for we’re going to scrub any reference to the Bible. We’re going to scrub any reference of anyone who talks about their faith throughout our history. So, we’re going to eliminate that aspect of history.’ You just turned this into atheism. You are pushing a religion on kids,” he explained. “[So], we’re very excited to see patriotic Americans across the country stepping up to make sure that we don’t allow state-sponsored atheism.” “Just teach history,” he went on. “When George Washington talks about the Bible, talk about the bible, when the pilgrims talked about the bible, talk about the Bible … You have to teach kids history so that they can then make their own conclusions. They can learn from that, they can then forge their own worldview and viewpoints. But you can’t start by scrubbing history of any references to the bible because you’re offended by it.” “It’s our history,” he said. “So, we’re going to teach it here in Oklahoma.” EXCLUSIVE: RED STATE SUING SCHOOL DISTRICT FOR ILLEGALLY TEACHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY Commenting on the campaign, Greenwood told Fox News Digital, that he felt drawn to offer to partner with Oklahoma because of Walter’s advocacy for bringing the bible back to American classrooms. “As a firm believer and faithful Christian, this was very appealing to me,” he explained. Greenwood said that the campaign has garnered “some great attention,” and that his team is in conversations with corporate partners about buying the Bibles in bulk. “Everywhere I go – on tour and at special events – I have people coming up to me thanking me for what we are doing,” he said. “Nobody is being shy about their support for this endeavor.”
Big-money WI high court race will have national effects, as redistricting, unions, trans issues at stake
While officially nonpartisan, battle lines have been drawn in what is expected to be a nationally watched, mega-moneyed Wisconsin Supreme Court election in one week, with potential nationwide implications. Republicans are warning that the judge considered Democrats’ choice in the race, Dane County’s Susan Crawford, is primed to support efforts that could “draw out” two U.S. House Republicans in future redistricting maps and support what critics warned will be “legislating from the bench.” Meanwhile, Wisconsin Democrats are pushing back on criticisms after Hungarian-American financier George Soros poured $1 million into WisDems coffers in February – leading to a similarly large transfer to Crawford’s campaign, according to the AP. Former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel – the Republicans’ choice, who is now a Waukesha County judge – called Crawford “Soros’ ideal investment” – as Democrats returned fire at Schimel’s support from similarly deep-pocketed Elon Musk. LIBERAL JUDGE RECRUITS SANCTUARY SHERIFFS WHO DEFIED ICE FOR AD TOUTING CRIME RECORD IN PIVOTAL RACE Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker – whose family owns Hyatt Hotels – dumped $500,000 into the state party, and other six-figure pitches came from Lynde Uihlein – a Schlitz Beer heiress – LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and the mother of a Google co-founder. Joe Ricketts – co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and father of Nebraska’s GOP governor – was listed as a top donor to Wisconsin Republicans ahead of the election – as well as Liz Uihlein, a cousin-by-marriage of Lynde Uihlein and president of Uline shipping supply company. Donald Trump Jr. held an event for Schimel earlier this week. Republicans are branding Crawford as “dangerously liberal,” citing support from Soros, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as well as activist groups who support gender-transition surgeries for minors and allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports. A source familiar with the race also warned of Crawford’s candidacy as part of an ongoing “radical” shift in Wisconsin – both with liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz’ similarly contentious election in 2023 and Gov. Tony Evers’ move to replace “mother” in the state budget dozens of times with “inseminated person.” BRETT FAVRE HAS ONE-WORD RESPONSE TO WISCONSIN GOV’S PROPOSAL THAT WOULD REPLACE WORD ‘MOTHER’ IN STATE LAW Republicans also accuse Crawford of signaling a willingness to “legislate from the bench,” citing his past role in challenging the state’s voter ID law and his appearance at a January event hosted by a liberal donor group aiming to unseat Reps. Bryan Steil of Janesville and Derrick Van Orden of Prairie du Chien. In January, Wisconsin Republicans also claimed that Crawford would seek “selling two of Wisconsin seats” after a New York Times report cited donors hoping that Crawford’s win would lead to Steil’s and Van Orden’s ouster. On Jan. 29, the Wisconsin Republican Party accused Crawford of “selling two of Wisconsin’s seats” in Congress because of her participation in an event with Democratic donors organized by the liberal group Focus for Democracy. The email invitation to the Jan. 13 event billed it as a “chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026.” They also said Schimel would preserve former Gov. Scott Walker’s sweeping Act 10 public-sector union reforms that led to massive protests a decade ago. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Schimel criticized Crawford for purportedly “getting caught on a Zoom call with national billionaire liberal donors offering up how if she gets elected on the Supreme Court, they can turn two Republican congressional seats into Democrat congressional seats and therefore take away part of the majority for President Trump.” “Media in Wisconsin has paid somewhat of attention to it – but it certainly caught the attention of a lot of national media and a lot of national donors on her side because of such an obscene promise,” Schimel said. Schimel also discussed allegations regarding the transgender sports issue and education. “I’m a judicial conservative,” he said. “I follow the law. I don’t try to legislate from the bench or make law as a judge. This is the problem with judicial activists. And yes, we should expect that we’re going to see those kinds of activities from this court if liberals have a majority.” Schimel added that his career is his best credit for the role, quipping that for 35 years his “only client has been the people of Wisconsin.” Asked, as a judge, about national controversies involving judicial activism – including the immigration order situation between President Donald Trump and Obama-appointed Judge James Boasberg – Schimel said that nationwide injunctions have long been a sticky situation. “I’m hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to soon take up this question whether a district judge really has the authority to issue a nationwide injunction against the president or legislative act,” he said, noting that as attorney general he was subject to similar volleys of litigation. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Schimel warned that if he loses on April 1, the next election for a Supreme Court seat is 2028. “All told, the liberals will have five years of unchecked power, and we won’t recognize the state by the time we have a chance to take the court back again.” Fox News Digital also extended an interview invitation to Crawford and WisDems and received a statement from a campaign official in response: “Judge Crawford has spent her career upholding the law, protecting our freedoms, and defending the Constitution,” said Crawford spokesman Derek Honeyman. “She’ll be fair and impartial on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.” Honeyman said that Schimel and his allies are “desperate to mislead voters” and have been caught “manipulating” Crawford’s likeness in their campaign ads. “Brad Schimel has a disturbing record of letting domestic abusers walk without jail time and even gave a sweet plea deal to a man caught with child pornography after taking thousands in campaign contributions from the man’s lawyer,” he said. “Brad Schimel is too corrupt for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.” Crawford’s campaign’s latest ad targeted Schimel over allegations that he had let thousands
5 years ago, Mukesh Ambani, Nita Ambani, Anant Ambani, Akash Ambani did THIS to support India’s Covid fight; WATCH
Members of India’s richest family gathered on their home’s rooftop to ring bells and bang metal plates. Why did they do that? To support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to honour frontline warriors who fought the Covid-19 pandemic.
Expert turns tables on Dem critics after Musk accuses Social Security of being ‘Ponzi scheme’
Democrats have pushed back after Elon Musk claimed that social security operates like a “Ponzi scheme” as he continues to argue for cuts to the federal bureaucracy, but one expert tells Fox News Digital that Musk is on track with his criticism of the agency. “Musk’s statement about Social Security being the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme does have validity,” James Agresti, president of the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, told Fox News Digital in response to pushback from Elon Musk’s claim, which included a “false” rating from Politifact. “A Ponzi scheme operates by taking money from new investors to pay current investors. That’s the definition given by the SEC, and contrary to popular belief, that’s exactly how Social Security operates.” Agresti explained to Fox News Digital that Social Security, believed to be a target of Musk’s efforts at DOGE, “doesn’t take our money and save it for us, as many people believe, and then give it to us when we’re older” like many Americans might believe. EXPERT REVEALS MASSIVE LEVELS OF WASTE DOGE CAN SLASH FROM ENTITLEMENTS, PET PROJECTS: ‘A LOT OF FAT’ “What it does is, it transfers money when we are young and working and paying into Social Security taxes,” Agresti said. “That money, the vast bulk of it, goes immediately out the door to people who are currently receiving benefits. Now there is a trust fund, but in 90 years of operation, that trust fund currently has enough money to fund two years of program operations.” The trust fund only being able to last for two years is not a result of the fund being “looted,” Agresti explained, but rather it was put in place to “put surpluses in it” from money that Social Security collects in taxes that it doesn’t pay out immediately and pays interest on. “The interest that’s been paid on that has been higher than the rate of inflation,” Agresti said. “So, the problem isn’t that the trust fund has been looted. The problem is that Social Security operates like a Ponzi scheme.” DOGE’S PLANS TO OFFLOAD GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS SUPPORTED BY FORMER GSA OFFICIAL One of the top Social Security criticisms from Republicans, including President Trump, has been a concern that individuals who are dead or listed with an age well over 100 years old are on the rolls and receiving benefits. Agresti told Fox News Digital that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about that issue. “What’s unclear to me at this moment is whether or not the people who are on the books are actually receiving checks,” Agresti said. “Back during the Obama administration, there was a stimulus, and the Obama administration sent out stimulus checks via Social Security numbers to 80,000 people who were dead, and about 70,000 of them, the Social Security Administration knew they were dead. So I don’t know if they’ve remedied that situation since then, but clearly the system is not keeping up with the pace of current data, and that provides an opportunity for fraud.” Democrats have also made the case that Musk is attempting to strip away benefits that senior citizens have rightfully earned. Agresti told Fox News Digital that is not what is happening. “There’s been a lot of misinformation about that as of late,” Agresti said. “You know, when DOGE came in and suggested that the Social Security Administration cut, I think it was about 10,000 workers, Democrats erupted that this is going to weaken Social Security. But the fact of the matter is that Social Security pays those workers who are for administrative overhead from the Social Security trust fund. So, by cutting out the money that they’re paying them, you actually strengthen the program financially.” Agresti told Fox News Digital that the current administrative overhead for Social Security is $6.7 billion per year, which is enough to pay more than 300,000 retirees the average old age benefit. Questions have emerged from critics in recent years as to whether Social Security, in its current form, is even capable of remaining solvent to pay benefits to Americans who have paid in over the past few decades. Agresti told Fox News Digital that the program will “become insolvent” as soon as 2035 if changes are not made. “To give you a feel of how disconnected Social Security is from a fully funded pension plan, if to keep the program solvent and put it on the same firm financial footing as a real pension plan, it would require an extra $272,000 in additional payroll taxes from every person paying payroll taxes right now,” Agresti told Fox News Digital. “I’ll give you another way in which more numbers prove this point. If you retired in 1980, it took about three years of receiving Social Security benefits to get back the value of your payroll taxes plus interest. If you retired in 2000, it took 17 years. If you retired in 2020. it will take 22 years, assuming the program has enough money to pay those benefits, which it won’t without another increase in taxes on another generation of Americans.”
Lasers, space radars, missile interceptors: Defense leaders lay out vision for Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ project
Forty years after President Ronald Reagan first conceived the idea, defense industry leaders say the technology is finally advanced enough to build an invisible protective dome of space-based radars, missile interceptors and laser weapons over the United States. President Donald Trump, infatuated by the Iron Dome missile defense system over Israel, first ordered the Defense Department to begin drawing up plans for a U.S. version, the “Golden Dome,” in January. But Israel is roughly the size of New Jersey, so a dome of protection could prove far more daunting for the much larger land mass of the U.S. And the threats to Israel usually come from its neighbors, who use short-range weapons. America’s foes — North Korea, Iran, Russia and China — are half a world away and armed with intercontinental ballistics missiles (ICBMs) and hypersonics, all factors that make the project more challenging for a nation on the size and scale of the U.S. So questions remain. Will the Golden Dome encompass the entire country, including Hawaii, Alaska and U.S. military bases in locations like Guam? Would it be able to protect against short-range missiles, long-range missiles, unmanned and manned aircraft? TRUMP’S ‘GOLDEN DOME’ WILL NEED MANHATTAN PROJECT-SCALE WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT EFFORT, SPACE FORCE GENERAL WARNS Answers may come at least in part at the end of the month, when the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget present a funding plan for the project to the White House. But defense industry leaders say the technology exists to make a Golden Dome a reality. “In our view, it has to kind of be a layered system. Because, you know, shooting a UAV, for example, is very different than shooting a hypersonic vehicle or hypersonic weapon,” Raytheon CEO Phil Jasper told Fox News Digital. His aerospace company, a major U.S. defense contractor, manufactures the Patriot missile system, Javelin anti-tank missiles and a variety of radar and air defense systems. The U.S. already employs a layered missile defense system known as the Command, Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) System that uses radar to detect incoming missiles and fire off interceptors. It has technology like the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) battery to intercept ballistic missiles and the Patriot to intercept cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and aircraft. But the country only has seven active THAAD batteries deployed globally, with an eighth expected to become operational this year. FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S ‘IRON DOME’ PLAN FOR AMERICA Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein said weeks ago that building a Golden Dome will require a Manhattan Project-level whole-of-government approach from the missile defense agency, Air Force, Army, Navy, Space Force, Coast Guard and more. Defense contractors, some of whom have believed a Golden Dome-like project was on the horizon for years, say the protection zone may start around major cities like New York and Washington, D.C., or sensitive military sites before expanding to protect the entire homeland. “What I’m understanding [the goal] really is to protect the entire U.S. It is to put a dome around the homeland,” said Edward Zoiss, president of space and airborne systems for L3Harris Technologies. Jasper predicted some of these defensive measures could be installed rapidly, as soon as 2026. “What the administration has laid out is that building block approach that you can start to protect certain areas, at times, certain regions, and build that out as you continue to produce these systems. And they can continue to come off of production lines,” he said. BlueHalo CEO Jonathan Moneymaker said the dome would be “less of a technology problem” and more of an organizational structure challenge. “The full potential of all of those capabilities working in conjunction with each other, at that scale, there’s definitely some new elements there,” Moneymaker said. John Clark, Lockheed’s vice president of technology and strategic innovation, said the plan will require the Pentagon to “think about what it has on the shelf.” “There are systems that sit today in the Air National Guard or in our current local defense infrastructure domestically. Those could actually be deployed inside of the U.S,” he said. Clark noted that deploying defense infrastructure at home would “draw down our current inventory for conflict in the greater world.” But he suggested that anything pulled out of an Army base today could be backfilled at a later date for global use. Zoiss, whose company, L3Harris Technologies, has already built satellites for the missile defense agency that could be used for space-based radar systems for a Golden Dome, said the biggest challenge is missiles that no longer follow predictable paths. “If you go back to your high school physics class, if you understand the angle and trajectory of a bullet, you understand exactly where it’s going to land because it follows a parabola,” he said. “ICBMs followed parabola trajectories for decades. But a new class of highly maneuverable cruise weapons and hypersonic weapons now don’t,” he explained. “Their endpoint is uncertain. And our defensive systems in the U.S. now have to change to be more robust in order to track that weapon throughout its entire trajectory.” Space-based radar will be the critical element of threats to the homeland in the future, according to Zoiss. “Our challenge is really long-range weapons. You know, it’s weapons progressing large distances that are maneuvering around our current land-based and sea-based radar systems. So, if the weapons maneuver around those systems, that means our current architecture can’t provide fire control ordnance. And, therefore, it has to be moved to space.” The Golden Dome could draw on missile defense missions already in the works, like the National Capital Region Integrated Air Defense System, which is designed to protect Washington, D.C., from incoming threats and employs systems like the Norwegian National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). And it could look to other systems already in the works on a smaller scale. The Army is working on a new Iron Dome-like air defense system in Guam known as the Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC)
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