United States | News & Politics

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had a meltdown on Thursday during a Pentagon press conference, excoriating reporters for failing to act as cheerleaders for his boss, President Donald Trump. In a briefing about U.S. strikes on Iran, Hegseth criticized the press for not following the Pentagon line and called on journalists to “wave an American flag.”

His statements harken back to past Pentagon calls for fawning coverage in the name of patriotism.

“The press corps,” Hegseth complained, “cheer against Trump so hard, it’s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad.” Hegseth’s tantrum stemmed from reporting that cast doubt on Trump’s assertion that recent U.S. air strikes had “obliterated” Iranian nuclear facilities last Saturday.

Jessica Corbett Jun 26, 2025

"Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday beat disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic NYC mayoral primary—but progressives within and beyond the city don't expect the billionaire class and party establishment that lined up against him to give up so easily. Going into the general election, those who believe in Mamdani's vision are encouraging him and his supporters to maintain the momentum of the movement they've built."

In a chilling development from Arizona, authorities say Adam Christopher Sheafe, 51, admitted in a jailhouse interview to brutally murdering 76‑year‑old Pastor William “Bill” Schonemann in his home. According to law enforcement and media sources, Sheafe described nailing Schonemann’s hands to a wall in his New River home and placing a homemade crown of thorns on the pastor’s head in an act of symbolic crucifixion.

Sheafe, who wears a “YHWH” neck tattoo in Hebrew, told True Crime Arizona that he left Phoenix around 2 a.m. Easter morning to carry out what he called “Operation First Commandment.” He said his motivation was theological — specifically targeting pastors who, in his view, “misrepresent God by preaching the Trinity” by calling Jesus God.

According to investigators, the murder of Pastor Schonemann — found dead in bed on April 28 but later revealed to have been crucified—was the first in a planned nationwide spree aimed at what Sheafe labeled “Christian leaders.” He detailed a plot targeting 14 pastors and priests in ten states, beginning and ending in Phoenix. His next intended victims were two priests at the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, where he was apprehended en route following a burglary-related manhunt.

The US State Department has been advised to cut nearly $1.3bn in grants for global pro-democracy initiatives, according to a report in The Guardian on Thursday.

The move would cut approximately 80 percent of programmes that sit under the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour (DRL), except for two programmes that operate in China and Yemen. The State Department oversees the DRL.

The overhaul was reportedly outlined in a foreign assistance review produced by the Office of Management and Budget and would impact 391 active grants. The review was seen by three State Department officials, who were sourced by The Guardian.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/32367585

Opinion - Michelle Goldberg June 27, 2025

"Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian politics have sparked enormous alarm among some New York Jews, but he’s also won considerable Jewish support. In a poll of likely Jewish voters done by the Honan Strategy Group in May, Andrew Cuomo came in first, with 31 percent of the vote, but Mamdani was second, with 20 percent. On Tuesday, he won most of Park Slope, a neighborhood full of progressive Jews, and held his own on the similarly Jewish Upper West Side.

“His campaign has attracted Jewish New Yorkers of all types,” wrote Jay Michaelson, a columnist at the Jewish newspaper The Forward. The rabbi who runs my son’s Hebrew school put Mamdani on his ballot, though he didn’t rank him first. And while Mamdani undoubtedly did best among left-leaning and largely secular Jews, he made a point of reaching out to others. After he gave an interview to Der Blatt, an ultra-Orthodox Yiddish newspaper, Rabbi Moishe Indig, the leader of a faction of Hasidic Jews, told The New York Times, “As mayor, we wouldn’t have a problem with him.” (Though Indig considered adding Mamdani to his endorsement slate, he ultimately decided against it.)"

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Update: The Supremes voted to limit nationwide injunctions.

Among the cases still pending: the court will decide whether a school district in suburban Washington, DC, burdened the religious rights of parents by declining to allow them to opt their elementary-school children out of reading LGBTQ books in the classroom.

The court will also decide the fate of a government task force that recommends which preventive health care services must be covered at no cost under Obamacare. And it will decide a challenge over Louisiana’s congressional districts that questions how far states may go in considering race when they draw maps to fix a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

But by far the most significant decision is likely to be the one dealing with Trump’s birthright citizenship order.

The US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.

The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, centers around a 2018 executive order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid is the US government’s main health insurance program for low-income people. About 80 million people rely on it.

The Democratic party is at a crossroads.

It can continue to push policies that maintain a broken and rigged economic and political system and ignore the pain of the 60% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck. It can turn its back on the dreams of a younger generation which, if we don’t change that system, will likely be worse off than their parents.

It can continue to depend upon billionaire donors and out-of-touch campaign consultants and spend huge amounts of money on dumb 30-second ads that fewer and fewer people respond to.

It can ignore the tragic reality that tens of millions of Americans are giving up on democracy because they don’t see their government understanding their struggles and the realities of their lives or doing anything about it.

Or it can learn the lesson that the Zohran Mamdani campaign taught us on Tuesday.And that is:

Have the courage to address the real economic and moral issues that face the majority of our people, take on the greed and power of the oligarchy and fight for an agenda that can improve life for working families.

Jake Johnson
Jun 25, 2025

"Affordability was a key focus of Mamdani's policy platform and messaging, with the Democratic state assemblymember calling for an immediate rent freeze for all of the city's rent-stabilized tenants, the creation of a network of city-owned grocery stores focused not on profits but on "keeping prices low," and free childcare.

Mamdani proposed funding those and other priorities with a higher tax rate on corporations and city residents earning more than $1 million per year—fueling the backlash his campaign faced from the ultra-wealthy."

Republican and Democratic senators have offered starkly contrasting interpretations of Donald Trump’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities after a delayed behind-closed-doors intelligence briefing that the White House had earlier postponed amid accusations of leaks.

Thursday’s session with senior national security officials came after the White House moved back its briefing, originally scheduled for Tuesday, fueling Democratic complaints that Trump was stonewalling Congress over military action the president authorized without congressional approval.

“Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,” the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said following the initial postponement, which he termed “outrageous”.

from Common Dreams [reprinted from Pressenza]
David Andersson
Jun 25, 2025

"But the establishment’s machine was no match for the momentum behind Mamdani, who worked closely with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Their progressive political movement, deeply rooted in democratic socialism, has been steadily gaining ground—election after election, neighborhood by neighborhood—through tireless grassroots organizing, door-to-door campaigning, and small-dollar donations.

“This is a victory for every New Yorker who has been told they don’t have a voice,” Mamdani said in his victory speech. “It’s proof that organized people can beat organized money.”"

A new Congressional report (CRS IN12568) casts doubt on the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system to protect the continental United States from missiles.

The system is at an early stage. Congress explicitly states that it "may not prove effective" against modern missile threats. Its combat value has not been proven.

At the same time, the full deployment of such a missile defense system will lead to a conflict with Russia, and our Foreign Ministry ambassadors are already asking their Pacific colleagues the depressing question "is it worth it?"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/32220256

Brett Wilkins Jun 24, 2025

[Since this article was written, #Mamdani has won the Democratic primary.]

"The prospect a Mamdani victory is deeply worrying to many of the Wall Street bankers, corporate executives, real estate developers, mega-landlords and others who are bankrolling #Cuomo... Backers include billionaire former Mayor Michael Bloomberg; financiers Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb; Wall Street titans Blair Effron, Steve Rattner, and Antonio Weiss; Palantir founder and co-CEO Alex Karp; and former President Bill Clinton."

By Phoenix Tso and Elizabeth Chou
06/20/2025 1:41 pm

"The article below was first published by the Los Angeles Public Press on June 20, 2025. It documents a new form of the multi-faceted resistance by #immigrant rights supporters to the #Trump administration’s workplace raids and #deportations of #UndocumentedWorkers.

World-Outlook is publishing it for the information of our readers. The headline, subhead, photo, and text below are taken from the original.

— World-Outlook editors"