Donald Trump’s “gold card” visa, where a foreigner can shell out at least $1 million to legally live and work in the U.S., has been approved for one person, said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Thursday — appearing to fall a bit short of an earlier claim.

After it launched in December, Lutnick said that the government had sold $1.3 billion “worth” in just several days, as Trump stood by holding up the gilded ticket and said, “essentially it’s the green card on steroids.”

Lutnick did not address the apparent discrepancy in an exchange with a congresswoman at Thursday’s committee hearing.

Donald Trump’s pick to be secretary of the Navy has said some crazy things.

The Pentagon confirmed that failed congressional candidate and current undersecretary of the Navy Hung Cao would be replacing John Phelan, who was abruptly fired on Wednesday. It’s an appalling move, given that Cao once made a poor joke about the KKK in an interview with Steve Bannon.

“I know I’ll be attacked by the left, and call me a white supremacist, but I have one ask for them, it’s just than when you give my hood, make sure it’s got the little slits and not the circles so I can see better,” Cao said on Real America’s Voice during his failed 2024 campaign for Senate.

Donald Trump has again said that the US has “total control over the strait of Hormuz”, adding that Iran’s leadership was so hobbled by infighting that it was unclear who was in charge.

But the US president’s claim seemed questionable in the face of the seizure of two container ships by Iranian commandos and a US report warning it could take six months to clear the strait of mines.

The GOP lawmaker has missed about 50 roll call votes, and colleagues have not heard from him, Politico reports.

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) has vanished from Capitol Hill, and colleagues have not heard from the two-term congressman who lasted voted on March 5, Politico reported Wednesday.

Kean’s team told the outlet he has unspecified health issues, but even fellow Republicans in the New Jersey delegation have been unable to reach him, the outlet noted.

GOP Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith have reached out to Kean to check on his welfare, only to be met with “radio silence,” Van Drew said. Ditto for Republicans in the New York delegation, Politico wrote.

The Trump administration is assigning denaturalization cases to regular prosecutors, which could lead to a surge of people stripped of U.S. citizenship.

I note that this appears to be targeted based on skin color.

She sells magical crucifixes and has warned of consequences from God for those who don’t stand with the president.

The president’s spiritual advisor, Florida-based televangelist scammer Paula White-Cain, said at a book-signing event this week that saying no to Donald Trump is the same thing as saying no to the Christian god.

While speaking during the event, White-Cain recounted how the president asked her to join his Evangelical advisory board before his 2016 inauguration, saying, “He’s got a strong persona, don’t get me wrong. Don’t start a fight with him.”

“Why would the evangelicals come out and vote for him?” she asked before saying that “God told me to” join his advisory board.

“Because one thing I said, ‘I’ll never do politics,'” she said. “But when it came down to it, it wasn’t about doing politics. It was about an assignment. To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God. And I won’t do that.

Republicans pushed through a budget plan with a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement after an overnight session in which they beat back Democratic proposals aimed at lowering costs.

A high-ranking official at the Department of Homeland Security has been suspended following allegations that she solicited tens of thousands of dollars from “sugar daddies.”

A formal complaint was filed against Julia Varvaro, a 29-year-old counterterrorism official, accusing her of keeping transactional relationships that posed a security risk, The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.

She was appointed to her senior position in May 2025, shortly after earning a degree in Homeland Security from St. John’s University. Varvaro has attended several MAGA events and has been photographed with Donald Trump.

The complaint, filed with the DHS inspector general, was submitted by an executive identified as “Robert B,” who said he spent approximately $40,000 on Varvaro during the course of their three‑month relationship after they met on Hinge.

Judge’s repeal of Trump ban on gender-affirming care for children ‘a meaningful win for patients’, experts say

A federal judge overturned the Trump administration’s ban on gender-affirming care for children on Saturday, decrying Robert F Kennedy Jr’s “wanton disregard” for the law that “causes very real harm to very real people”.

It’s another loss for Kennedy’s agenda as secretary for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the second Trump administration – an agenda that has focused on restricting healthcare, including vaccines, abortion and gender-affirming care.

A different legal decision recently halted the agency’s attempt to raze vaccine recommendations, and new research and regulatory decisions have undermined controversial announcements by Trump and Kennedy on autism.

The judge said that Frank Figliuzzi's statement, "when taken in context, cannot have been perceived by a person of ordinary intelligence as stating actual facts about Patel."

A federal judge in Texas has tossed a defamation suit brought by FBI Director Kash Patel against former FBI assistant director-turned-MSNBC contributor Frank Figliuzzi.

Patel had sued Figliuzzi over comments he made on "Morning Joe" about the FBI director’s evening activities.

"Yeah, well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building," Figliuzzi said on the show last year.

Move comes one day after voters approved the maps, leading state attorney general to vow office will appeal

One day after voters in Virginia approved new congressional maps intended to make it easier for Democrats to flip four Republican House seats in the midterms, a court ruled the referendum invalid.

The proposal sought to change the state constitution to set aside the nonpartisan redistricting process voters authorized six years ago until 2030, and passed by about three percentage points, 51.5% to 48.5%, according to the Virginia department of elections.

But on Wednesday, Judge Jack Hurley Jr of the Tazewell county circuit court blocked the state from taking any action to implement the new districts, following a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee. The committee had argued to the court that the timing and phrasing of the measure were illegal.

Jay Jones, the Virginia attorney general, said his office planned to appeal the ruling.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/46324692

April 22, 2026

[written by a former #Obama admin official]

“I don’t want other young Americans to go through what I’ve been through. And I don’t want to send other young Americans to inflict the horror that I had to inflict on people.”

Polling suggests that most Americans agree with him. So does the feedback he gets day to day. The people he meets overwhelmingly oppose the war; many are furious or heartbroken about it. That includes his fellow veterans. “I don’t know a single guy I served with who thinks this thing in Iran is a good idea,” he told me. Many of those guys are MAGA. “This was one of the reasons they were big Trump supporters — he was the antiwar or ‘America first’ candidate.”

U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat and the first Black chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, has died. He was 80.

Scott, who was seeking his 13th term in Congress despite challenges from within his party, was once a leading voice for Democrats on issues related to farm aid policy and food aid for consumers and a prominent Black member of the party’s moderate Blue Dog caucus. But he faced criticism and concerns in recent years because of declining health, enduring a primary challenge in 2024 and facing another one at the time of his death.

Scott’s death slightly widens Republicans’ narrow House majority going into the thick of this midterm election year The GOP began the current Congress with a 220-215 advantage, but the margin has fluctuated. Scott is the fourth House Democrat to die in office during this Congress.

So some, I'm guessing all the 🐘 in the room, want to pardon a child rapist and pedophile.

The balance of power in the House now stands at 217 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and one independent, who caucuses with Republicans. The latest margins come after the death of a Democrat in Georgia was announced on Wednesday.

April 10, 2026