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Hilton: California Race About 'Change,' Not Trump Ratings

President Donald Trump's low approval ratings in California will not determine the outcome of the state's closely watched governor's race, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton told The Hill on Sunday.

Hilton said, "This election is going to be about the future of California and the fact that we're desperate for change."

Hilton, a conservative commentator and former adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, has received Trump's endorsement but argued that state-specific issues — including poverty, unemployment, and the high cost of living — are driving voter concerns.

 

"That's entirely due to Democrat policies after 16 years of one-party rule," Hilton said, adding that his campaign will focus on offering "a completely new direction" for the state.

Polling underscores the political challenges Republicans face in California. A survey conducted last May by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 29% of adults in the state approve of Trump, including 82% of Republicans, 31% of independents, and just 6% of Democrats.

The comments come ahead of a key primary debate scheduled for Wednesday on KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, as candidates vie to advance from the June 2 primary under California's top-two system, in which the two highest vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party.

The race tightened following the withdrawal of former Rep. Eric Swalwell after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.

A recent poll by Emerson College found Hilton leading with 17% support among likely voters, followed by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and businessman Tom Steyer at 14% each.

Former Rep. Katie Porter and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra each polled at 10%.

California has not elected a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger left office in 2011.

 

Despite the crowded field, Hilton dismissed the likelihood that two Republicans could advance to the general election, citing what he described as the financial strength of Democrat-aligned groups and candidates.

"You've got the massive financial power of the government unions and their corrupt relationship with Democrat politicians," Hilton said. "They will spend whatever it takes to make sure that there's a Democrat in the top two."

Hilton said he expects either Steyer or Porter to emerge as the leading Democrat contender and warned that Republicans must consolidate support to avoid being shut out of the general election.

 

REPORT: The Latest 'Shadow Docket' Scandal Proves Between the Justices and Legacy Media, SCOTUS Is Toast

This week seems to be rife with journalistic malpractice from outlets either running with leaked and unsubstantiated material that tries and fails to put Trump administration officials in a bad light or works to erode and undermine our nation's institutional bodies of governance. 

The latest installment from The New York Times involves leaked memos from the United States Supreme Court, verified by more anonymous sources. 

 

The Times spoke to 10 people, liberals and conservatives, who were familiar with the deliberations over the pivotal emergency order and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because confidentiality was a condition of their employment.

Amazing how one can fail so spectacularly on this basic tenet of integrity. God help us.

The papers expose what critics have called the weakness at the heart of the shadow docket: an absence of the kind of rigorous debate that the justices devote to their normal cases.

After obtaining the papers, The Times confirmed their authenticity with several people familiar with the deliberations and shared them with a spokeswoman for the court. The Times posed detailed questions to the justices who wrote the memos; they did not respond.

Nor should they. 

As RedState reported in February, Chief Justice Roberts took action to secure the integrity of the court's processes after the 2022 leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. Two months later, if this latest tranche of leaked memos is any indication, it hasn't worked. Between justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly criticizing their constitutionalist colleagues, and the legacy media's breathlessly publishing unsourced and leaked material, soon there will not be a Supreme Court left to preserve.

Of course, the NYT has invented a "shadow docket" scandal from the Court's use of emergency rulings, particularly in the area of executive powers of the President of the United States. 

Emergency orders based on abbreviated briefing and almost no deliberation have now become commonplace, notably in cases arising from challenges to presidential actions. Critics call this new way of doing business the “shadow docket.”

How stunning and brave. The "critics" are also nameless blobs whose opinion holds as much credibility as these leaking anonymous employees.

The New York Times has obtained those papers and is now publishing them, bringing the origins of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket into the light.

The 16 pages of memos, exchanged in a five-day dash, provide an extraordinarily rare window into the court, showing how the justices talk to one another outside of public view.

The leaked memos were in reference to a 2016 emergency ruling against the Obama administration on the Clean Energy Plan. From here, the NYT created an entire narrative that blocking then-President Barack Obama's aims to save the planet was not only terrible, but rooted in Chief Justice John Roberts personal animus toward Obama. 

However, the same so-called shadow docket methods employed in 2016 have been used in 2025 to issue favorable rulings on President Donald Trump's use of executive powers. And in the NYT's world, this is beyond the pale. The paper further claims that Chief Justice Roberts has allowed this use of shadow docket methodology to run amok, firing off emergency rulings instead of going through the court's hallowed deliberative judicial process.

Viewed through the outlet's TDS-riddled glasses, everything is stupid, including Supreme Court decisions. This has become incredibly tiresome.

At the time, the ruling seemed like a curious one-off. But that single paragraph turned out to be a sharp and lasting break. That night marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court’s modern “shadow docket,” the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power.

From this, the NYT surmises that Roberts is on Team Trump. Quite a leap.

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Read More: New Report: Supreme Court Conservatives Alito, Thomas, Dig in for the Long Haul

Fresh Humiliation for SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor As She Has to Apologize to Brett Kavanaugh for Cheap Shot

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In the Trump era, he and the other conservative justices have repeatedly empowered the president through their shadow docket rulings. By contrast, the papers reveal a court wielding those same powers to block Mr. Obama. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. warned that if the court failed to stop the president, its own “institutional legitimacy” would be threatened.

The court’s liberals pushed back, but compared with their recent slashing dissents, they were not especially forceful, mostly confining their arguments to procedures and timing.

[...]

Since that breakneck February 2016 exchange, the emergency docket has swelled into a major part of the court’s business, as the justices have short-circuited the deliberations of lower courts. The decisions are technically temporary, but are often hugely consequential.

Rulings with no explanation or reasoning, like the sparse paragraph from that February night, have become routine. The emergency docket is now a central legacy of the court led by Chief Justice Roberts.

NYT finally came to this gobsmacking conclusion:

Read a decade later, the memos suggest that none of the justices fully appreciated what they were doing: embarking on a questionable new way of operating.

So, Chief Justice Roberts and all the other justices at that time were not only partisan hacks, but they failed to fully weigh the gravity of their decisions. This comes off as elitist and patronizing on its face.

The NYT did not miss a step, burnishing Obama's legacy while painting Roberts' motivation in his ruling against Obama in the fact that then-Senator Barack Obama voted against Roberts' confirmation to the Supreme Court. What rank nonsense.

The president was under enormous pressure to address the global climate crisis. He had campaigned on that promise, then for eight years as the planet heated, he failed to get major environmental legislation through Congress. With his term about to end, this was his last chance to act.

The chief justice was eager to assert his institution’s authority and to rein in Mr. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, which he believed had sidestepped a recent ruling.

How exactly does the NYT explain the egregious 2012 Obamacare ruling where Roberts created a tax from whole cloth?

True, Chief Justice Roberts had cast the decisive vote in 2012 to save the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative achievement. But that was approved by Congress.

Yes, that explains everything. Puddle-depth reasoning right here. 

The NYT does admit that Obama's second term was marked by him essentially going rogue, from the Dreamers to the Iran nuclear deal, to his Clean Power Plan, which was simply a climate change makeover of the entire energy sector. 

The chief justice and some of his colleagues were watching warily, concerned the president was going past what the Constitution allowed him to do on his own. In a 2014 opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court warned Mr. Obama that he needed to tread carefully in setting environmental policy without congressional approval.

With the legal challenges to the Clean Power Plan rising quickly to the highest court, and media outlets like the NYT carrying water for the Obama administration on this signature climate legislation, according to the NYT's reading of these memos, Chief Justice Roberts was decisive in his actions to expedite a ruling.

On Feb. 5, the internal correspondence obtained by The Times shows, the chief justice circulated a blast of a memo, insisting that the court halt the president’s plan.

 

His arguments were forceful, quick, and filled with confident predictions. The court was going to give the case a full hearing eventually, he forecast. At that point, the justices would vote to overturn the Obama plan, he said, because it went beyond the boundaries of the Clean Air Act.

For now, the chief justice contended that the court had to act immediately because the energy industry “must make changes to business plans today.”

“Absent a stay, the Clean Power Plan will cause (and is causing) substantial and irreversible reordering of the domestic power sector before this court has an opportunity to review its legality,” he wrote.

It appeared that Chief Justice Roberts surmised that, if the court was able to do its normal deliberations, the court would ultimately rule against the Clean Power Plan, so a stay was in order. Frankly, this is the role of the Chief Justice, and the more conservative-leaning justices backed his play. The more liberal justices, not so much, as referenced by the response by Justice Elena Kagan.

Court action at this point in the process would be “unprecedented,” she added. She mentioned that she was inclined to find that the Obama plan was lawful, but she said the thin briefing made it difficult for her “to determine with any confidence which side is ultimately likely to prevail.”

Justice Alito issued a salvo on the same day as Justice Kagan, with neither of them addressing the other. Echoing the chief justice’s sense of insult and suspicion about the Obama administration, he wrote that the E.P.A. appeared to be trying to render the court irrelevant.

Of course, the NYT continued to color their narrative, saying Roberts distrusted the Obama administration; so, he used strong-arm tactics to create what has become what they consider a dangerous precedent. 

Over just five days, the justices had decided the issue. Even as they debated the Obama plan’s possible burden on the power industry, in the entire chain of correspondence obtained by The Times, not a single justice, conservative or liberal, mentioned the dangers of a warming planet as one of the possible harms the court should consider.

In light of the entire climate boondoggle and Green New Scam being dismantled and debunked in real time, Roberts could practically be seen as Nostradamus for blocking the Obama administration's plans to destroy America's energy sector. The NYT notes that this emergency decision would be the last for Justice Antonin Scalia. Four days later, Scalia would be found dead, leaving a vacancy in the highest judicial body that would not be filled that year. Because it was an election year, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to advance President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland. Despite McConnell's terrible legacy of late and ignominious retirement from the Senate, McConnell will be forever remembered for saving the nation from a lifetime Merrick Garland appointment to the court.

The NYT further concluded that this emergency docket process is a bane to SCOTUS that has contributed to the undermining of the judicial body.

And, yeah, it's all Trump's fault.

Since then, even as the court’s approval ratings dropped, applications like the one it confronted a decade ago have proliferated, swamping the court’s ordinary work.

This is partly a consequence of a gridlocked Congress and presidents willing to push the boundaries of executive power, particularly Mr. Trump.

But it is also the result of the justices’ decision to entertain emergency requests like the one in 2016, warping procedures that had developed over centuries.

Perhaps someone could also point out to the brain trust at the NYT that it is the Left's penchant for lawfare and the activist judges who make these highly partisan and ideologically skewed decisions that have resulted in the need for a method that expedites reviews and judgments by the highest court.

Of all people, Justice Sotomayor admits as much.

In an appearance this month at the University of Alabama, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reflected on the unceasing flood of emergency applications.

“We’ve done it to ourselves,” she said.

 

Vance Delivers Perfect Response After Pope Calls Out ‘Narrative’ About Him and Trump

There was some controversy this week about President Donald Trump being critical of Pope Leo for being weak on crime and his remarks about the U.S. military action in Iran. 

The pope had made prior comments about immigration and the military action against Iran that were critical of the Trump administration's actions before Trump's remarks. But then the media seemed to be trying to interpret a variety of remarks he made after Trump's criticism as an effort to attack Trump and promote controversy.

As we reported earlier, Pope Leo attempted to set the record straight, saying that the media had been pushing a "certain narrative that has not been accurate in all its aspects." Gee, it sure sounds like he's calling out the media for how they've been reporting this. 

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READ MORE: Pope Leo Responds to President Trump: ‘Not Interested in Debate’

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The pope said what came next was "commentary on commentary," trying to interpret what he was saying. Translation? Trying to read anything he said as an attack on Trump. 

He said the remarks he made in Cameroon that were prepared two weeks before, before any of the Trump comments were then made to look like he was trying to "debate the president" when he was not trying to do so, "which was not my interest at all." 

Yet multiple media outlets, including Reuters, interpreted that speech, in which he spoke about tyrants, as related to Trump. 

This tweet was also cast as an attack on Trump by some, despite the fact that it was clearly hashtagged "Cameroon." 

So when it came down to it, when the pope was trying to draw attention to the important issues that needed to be addressed with the problematic government of President Paul Biya, the media was ignoring that in favor of their "focus on Trump" fix. 

The Vatican had said fighting corruption in the mineral-rich central African country would be one of the themes of Leo’s visit, and the American pope didn’t hold back in addressing Biya and government authorities in an address at the presidential palace.

“In order for peace and justice to prevail, the chains of corruption — which disfigure authority and strip it of its credibility — must be broken,” Leo said. “Hearts must be set free from an idolatrous thirst for profit.”

If you think about what the pope is saying, he's saying to the media and the others involved: Don't try to manipulate my words for your narrative about Trump.

Vice President JD Vance welcomed what Pope Leo had to say and had the perfect response to his shooting down the media narrative. 

I am grateful to Pope Leo for saying this. While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict–and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen–the reality is often much more complicated.  

Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day. The President–and the entire administration–work to apply those moral principles in a messy world. 

He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we'll be in his.

Good for Vance, that's a great response. Let all sides call out the media for always trying to manipulate the narrative. Vance recognizes that yes, they may have differences on policy, and the Trump administration has to do what is best for the country, regardless of what differences the pope may have. The pope doesn't have the intel that Trump has on threats from Iran, and as the Border Czar Tom Homan said, may not even understand how the Trump policy on immigration is better, not just for the country but for saving lives as well. He said he was willing to talk with the folks at the Vatican and give them some facts. 

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READ MORE: Spot-On: Tom Homan Delivers a Perfect Response to the Pope on Illegal Immigration

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That would be a great way to take it from here. And maybe now the pope might be more open to understanding that the media narrative about things like the Iran action and immigration might not be as he might think when he sees how the media has behaved here. 

 

What This Dem Operative Just Said Only Reinforces the Push to Nuke the Filibuster

We cannot collaborate with Democrats. Period. They’re insane, motivated by the overeducated, wealthy, white, nose-pierced, and blue-haired radicals that form the core of their political base.

They’re held hostage by activist crazies. That’s why we need to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate and accomplish as much as possible, give our members something to energize their supporters at home, and stop the Democrats’ use of illegal aliens to boost their political power. We need to pass the Save America Act. 

At the very least, we can ensure that only Americans vote in our elections. Plus, whatever economic action items that were deemed DOA due to the 60-vote threshold. 

If we don’t act and Democrats retake Congress, the list of atrocious policy points here is staggering. Look, not everything will get passed, but imagine the disastrous Biden agenda on steroids. Here’s what the Left is cooking up, based on what Democratic operative James Carville said on the Policon podcast.

 

• Grant statehood to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, so that the Democrats can unlock 4 extra seats in the Senate.
• Pack the U.S. Supreme Court from 9 Justices up to 13 Justices, adding another 4 Left-wing Justices to the court.
• Reopen the U.S.-Mexico border and grant mass-amnesty to every single alien currently inside of the United States.
• His advice to Democrat politicians: “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”

They know the census is approaching. They see how blue states may lose electoral votes, and the possible weakening of the Voting Rights Act could significantly advantage Republicans.

Being the better person doesn’t score us brownie points. Nuke the filibuster, John Thune. Look what’s coming if we lose. 

 

Bill Maher: I Thought Swalwell Was a 'F**king Creep'

Bill Maher had former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as guests on his show Friday night. So, bear with us here, but the Eric Swalwell fiasco was brought up, and the HBO host did not hold back: he clearly never liked him. Swalwell appeared on Real Time a couple of times, and Maher said that his ‘creepdar’ increased with this guy. Ask his staff, he never liked him. Yet, Maher is still learning the ways of the corrupt media. He seemed shocked that he was protected by the media and that his tendencies were an open secret.

💥NEW: Bill Maher on Eric Swalwell: "We had him on a couple of times. Ask my staff: I never liked him. I don’t have good gaydar — but I got creepdar. I always thought this guy was a f*cking creep. I never liked him." pic.twitter.com/QCMWJoU0hw

 

— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) April 18, 2026

“Ask my staff: I never liked him. I don’t have good gaydar — but I got creepdar. I always thought this guy was a f*cking creep. I never liked him,” he said.

Swalwell saw his entire career collapse last weekend when multiple women leveled allegations of sexual misconduct and rape against him. He withdrew from the California governor’s race last Sunday and resigned from Congress two days later, just hours after another woman accused him of raping her in 2018. Democrats claim they knew nothing. That’s simply not believable, especially for Nancy Pelosi, who had Eric in her inner circle. 

No one knew? Of course they did. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) virtually spilled the beans in a disastrous presser this week, where the Arizona Democrat said he had heard he was flirty in years past. 

Also, Bill, you almost have it: Swalwell was protected by the media because he attacked Trump. He had a purpose. When he ran for office and faced scrutiny, which brought out stories of alleged sexual assault and misconduct, he was thrown to the wolves. And Democrats tried to drag Reps. Tony Gonzalez (R-TX) and Cory Mills (R-FL) into the mud with their own baggage. If Swalwell was the price to be paid, so be it. This is politics, and nothing, not even friendship, outweighs ambition or the desire to gain an advantage in a fight. 

The media will always protect Democrats. Welcome to the party, pal. 

 

Trump announces seizure of Iranian flagged ship

President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. Navy has seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman.

Trump said on Truth Social on Sunday that the 900-foot-long ship attempted to run a blockade and ignored warnings to stop. He added that the United States responded by striking the vessel’s engine room.

The ship is now in U.S. custody and has a long history of sanctions violations.

President Donald Trump Truth Social post

In a separate post, the president slammed Iran for firing on European ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday,

 saying the U.S. is offering a fair deal he hopes they take.

Trump warned that if they don’t take a deal, they will be brought down fast.

President Donald Trump Truth Social post

 

Media's Vatican Bias: Pope's Politics Undermine American Sovereignty

The mainstream media is at it again, gaslighting patriots by treating the Vatican like a neutral moral referee while cheerleading when the Pope takes shots at our commander-in-chief. CBS’s 60 Minutes ran a glowing segment this month elevating the new pontiff into a political critic of U.S. policy, and the narrative was clear: if you question globalist moralizing, you’re the problem.

The 60 Minutes piece introduced the man now calling himself Leo XIV as the first U.S.-born pope, Robert Prevost, and framed his calls for peace as a rebuke of President Trump’s posture toward Iran and immigration enforcement. The segment quoted the Holy Father condemning threats to “destroy” a civilization and urging the faithful to lobby politicians for peace, a sermon that crossed easily from spiritual counsel into partisan pressure.

Conservatives should not be shy about calling this what it is: an institution with immense moral authority stepping into the middle of American politics and trying to dictate foreign-policy decisions. When a global religious leader chastises a president for defending the nation, it’s not humility—it’s overreach, and American sovereignty deserves its defenders.

Make no mistake, defending our homeland against a regime that exports terror is not bloodlust, it is the solemn duty of any nation that wishes to survive. The Pope’s high-minded platitudes about “peace at all costs” ring hollow if they ignore the brutal realities that free nations face, and they risk empowering regimes that do not share Western values or respect our citizens’ safety.

 

The piece also showcased American cardinals weighing in on policies here at home, even going as far as to attack ICE and the administration’s immigration enforcement as “lawless.” Pastors and bishops who want to be pastors should remain pastors — not substitute for the political class or the activist left. Religious leaders ought to minister to souls, not provide cover for open-borders chaos that hurts working families.

Worse, the Vatican’s foray into foreign-policy critique reportedly prompted an awkward exchange with the Pentagon, showing this isn’t mere moralizing but a real push to influence U.S. strategy. Americans who cherish national defense, secure borders, and the rule of law shouldn’t be lectured by clerics living thousands of miles away while our servicemen and women confront threats on the ground.

Patriots ought to stand firm: we respect faith, but we reject clerical micromanagement of American policy. Call your representatives, support leaders who put citizens first, and don’t let sanctimonious elites—no matter their robes—shame you into surrendering safety and sovereignty. America’s priorities must be set by her people, not by pontiffs with press hits and pontifications.

 

Drought Crisis Hits American Farms: Grocery Prices Set to Spike

American farmers are sounding the alarm, and they should not be ignored. A sprawling drought has settled over huge swaths of this country — a “monster” dry spell that meteorologists now say is the worst for this time of year since modern records began — and that reality will not be solved with platitudes from Washington. Hardworking men and women who feed America are watching their wells, pastures, and spring planting disappear beneath a relentless shortage of water, and that has real consequences at the grocery store.

Out West, the traditional safety net of snowpack has failed this winter; mountains that once stored the season’s water are bone-dry, which means rivers, reservoirs, and irrigation systems will struggle through the summer. When snowpack and groundwater fall, the burden shifts immediately to farms and ranches that rely on that water to raise crops and livestock; this isn’t theoretical — it’s happening now. The federal drought monitoring systems report large percentages of the Lower 48 in drought, and NASA’s satellite data show groundwater losses that should scare any sensible policymaker awake.

USDA field reports back up what farmers are saying: topsoil and subsoil moisture are short to very short across critical producing states, planting is behind schedule in many areas, and those deficits translate into smaller harvests and higher prices down the line. This is not a distant headline for someone else — Nebraska ranchers, Midwestern wheat growers, and Southern cattle producers are already seeing the stress in their fields and on their balance sheets. When soil is dry and seedbeds fail, production falls; supply shocks follow, and working families pay the price.

Conservative voices, led by commentators like Glenn Beck, have warned openly that these shocks compound global risks: fertilizer shortages, energy price spikes, and geopolitical disruptions can turn a localized drought into a systemic food crisis if leaders flinch. Beck has been blunt — supply chains are thin, fertilizer and fuel are critical inputs, and when those fray the people who plant and harvest bear the cost first and worst. Americans should listen to those warnings and demand real preparedness rather than more excuses from career politicians.

This is a test of leadership and of conservative principles: trust in individual farmers, cut the red tape strangling domestic production, and stop sacrificing American energy and fertilizer independence on the altar of virtue-signaling policies. Instead of punishing farmers with burdensome regulations and leaving them dependent on foreign inputs, we should unleash common-sense reforms — streamline permitting for water infrastructure, prioritize domestic fertilizer production, and defend reliable energy so tractors, trucks, and processing plants keep running. No one should pretend bureaucratic band-aids will substitute for real policy that protects food on the table.

Families and communities need to get serious about resilience. Support local producers, build state and private food reserves, and encourage conservative-led state initiatives that back agribusiness rather than kneecap it. The men and women who put bread on American tables are not asking for charity; they’re asking for policy that respects their labor and safeguards our food supply from preventable failures.

Patriots know that America does not cower when faced with challenge — we respond. Call on your representatives to prioritize farm security, demand transparent action plans for drought mitigation, and keep pressure on leaders who think symbolic gestures replace hard work and permanent solutions. Our farmers are on the front line of national security; it’s time Washington treated them that way.

 

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