The Morning Briefing: Whaddya Know — Republicans Can Play Legal Hardball Too

Happy Thursday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. The Sine Qua Non Sequitur is spending the day enjoying vodka-infused chocolate nonpareils at the quarterly gathering of the Marisa Tomei Adulation Society.

Like it or not, we've gotten a little too used to all sorts of legal wrangling and interference in our politics. That's on the Democrats, of course. They can't beat President Trump in elections, so they have been relentless in trying to ruin him personally and thwart his agenda via various lawsuits, judges, and prosecutors. Nobody sane wants to live in a permanently litigious society, but sometimes we have to get down in the mud to fight the people who have been trying to drag us down there. 

Republicans are mixing it up legally, and the Democrats are none too thrilled. Let's start with some interesting news from yesterday. This is from Catherine:

A circuit court in Virginia just ruled that the newly passed but incredibly biased gerrymandered congressional map is unconstitutional.

Former Virginia attorney general and Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli II posted on X Wednesday about the gerrymandered map, "UPDATE on referendum lawsuits: The Tazewell Circuit Court just ruled the referendum unconstitutional. The Judge entered an injunction blocking certification of the election & denied a motion to stay pending appeal. A final order will be entered once drafted, & it will be immediately appealed."

What's rich about this is that the Democrats immediately began whining about an "activist judge." Their entire strategy to fight anything that President Trump and his administration do is built around activist judges; without them, the party is nothing. They haven't had the greatest luck with them so far, mostly because their activist judges tend to overreach and/or ignore the law. Let's hope this one is based on stronger legal grounds and sticks. If not, bye-bye Virginia. 

I don't know if the judge involved in the Virginia decision is actually a Republican or not, but there is a much bigger story about the GOP fighting back legally. We discussed in Monday's Briefing the hit piece on FBI Director Kash Patel that The Atlantic published. Patel followed it up with a swift lawsuit. That story got a lot juicier yesterday, and it's tangled up with the recent Department of Justice indictment against the thoroughly vile Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

It would appear that the hit piece was a preemptive strike intended to discredit Patel and the DOJ ahead of the announcement of the indictment. This is from my HotAir colleague David Strom:

Laurene Powell Jobs owns The Atlantic. Well, guess what? The SPLC is Laurene Powell Jobs' favorite charity. In fact, the very first one she gave money to. It is the only charity she talks about supporting publicly.

In the immortal words of Alice as things got ever trippier in Wonderland: "Curiouser and curiouser."

This is the kind of thing that we are constantly up against when battling the left. They may be reeling over there in the last year and a half, but they are all still working together. Democratic politicians, the mainstream legacy media hacks, and radical activist organizations are all coordinating their efforts in an attempt to return to power. 

As I've written many times, President Trump is teaching Republicans how to fight. Coming from the high stakes corporate world, he doesn't hesitate to unleash the lawyers. It's what they do in the private sector. Trump has gone after enemy of the people media outlets ABC and CBS in court and won settlements from both. 

Ten years ago, I wouldn't have defaulted to "Sue everybody," and I suspect most of my regulars here wouldn't have either. Yet here we are. These corrupt media outlets have been doing the Democrats' dirty work for far too long. I hope Trump and his people keep burying them in lawsuits to the point where they just might pause before launching another character assassination attempt against a Republican. If that doesn't work, make them keep taking financial hits. Sure, they're acting like it's no big deal right now, but this is new territory for them. The second, third, or fourth trip to court will start to wear them down.

So, yeah, sue everybody.

Remember Ilhan Omar's Winery? Something Very Peculiar Just Happened to It

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is attributing her alleged inflated net worth to an accounting mistake. Earlier this year, reports showed that Ms. Omar had accumulated significant wealth, with a net worth in the millions, which raised questions about possible fraud. Subsequently, Nick Shirley’s investigation into a web of Somali-led scams brought new attention to her financial dealings. 

If that’s a true accounting error, then I’m Somali, too. Are you kidding me, lady? There was an error that inflated your assets to $30 million? Please, also, one of the ventures that The Washington Free Beacon investigated in January, a winery, is now closed, days after she supposedly fixed her financial disclosure forms.

The backstory via the Free Beacon:

Omar reported in her latest financial disclosure that she and her husband, former political consultant Tim Mynett, accumulated a net worth at the end of 2024 ranging from at least $6 million to $30 million. Their wealth is derived almost entirely from the value of Mynett’s ownership stake in his two companies that, together, were worth no more than $51,000 at the end of 2023. The exact value of Omar’s personal fortune at the end of 2024 is unclear—lawmakers disclose the value of their holdings and debts in ranges. Still, the figures in Omar’s latest disclosures show that her and her husband’s net worth skyrocketed by at least 3,500 percent in just one year. 

Omar’s extraordinary accumulation of wealth in 2024 could raise uncomfortable questions for the Minnesota Democrat, who in February told Business Insider that she has been the subject of a "coordinated right-wing disinformation campaign" that falsely claims she’s worth millions of dollars. Omar said any insinuation that she’s worth more than a few thousand dollars was "ridiculous" and "categorically false." She also took to X in February, challenging her followers to "maybe try checking my public financial statements and you will see I barely have thousands let alone millions." 

Omar has her husband to thank for catapulting her to multimillionaire status in 2024. Mynett’s California-based winery eStCru LLC and venture capital firm Rose Lake Capital both achieved remarkable financial turnarounds in 2024. At the end of 2023, Mynett’s combined stake in both companies was worth no more than $51,000, the firms had less than $700 across all their bank accounts, and Mynett and his business partner, former DNC adviser Will Hailer, were saddled with lawsuits from investors claiming they defrauded them out of millions of dollars. 

But by the end of 2024, Mynett’s combined stake in the two firms ballooned to anywhere between $6 and $30 million, and he and Hailer settled the lawsuits with cash settlements, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. 

Mynett’s business activities have long been a thorn in Omar’s side ever since they married in March 2020. They were both married to other people when they met, but the pair began an affair while Mynett served as a political consultant for Omar’s campaign, which paid his firm a whopping $2.9 million during the 2020 election cycle. But that was a fleeting arrangement. The financial ties between Omar's campaign and her new husband’s firm drew intense public scrutiny, and by the end of 2020, Mynett had exited the political consulting business and teamed up with Hailer to branch out into the winery and venture capital industries.

Please, please, someone help this woman with her finances. 

 

U.S. Navy Under Secy. Hung Cao named Acting Chief following Phelan's departure

In a shake-up of the military’s civilian leadership, the Pentagon announced that Navy Secretary John Phelan has departed his post, effective immediately. The exit of the Navy’s 79^th top official was confirmed by Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell, who stated that Under Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao will step in as the acting secretary.

The move comes just one day after Phelan delivered a major keynote address at the Sea-Air-Space symposium, where he had been actively promoting the Trump administration’s plans for a next-generation battleship.

While the Pentagon’s official statement thanked Phelan for his service and wished him well in future endeavors, it offered no specific reason for the abrupt departure. However, the move follows a series of high-profile leadership changes within the Department of War under Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and some incoming reports have suggested that Hegseth personally fired him.

Phelan was likely asked to resign following internal disagreements regarding the pace of naval modernization and the administration’s ongoing maritime blockade strategy, sources say.

 

Meanwhile, Phelan’s exit marks the second major leadership turnover in the services this month, following the recent ousting of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George.

Hung Cao, who now takes the helm of the Navy in an acting capacity, brings a vastly different background to the role than his predecessor. While Phelan was a businessman and major political donor with no prior military service, Cao is a seasoned veteran and retired Navy Captain with over 30 years of active-duty experience.

A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a refugee from South Vietnam, Cao’s career in uniform was defined by his work as a deep-sea diver and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) officer. Notably, he led the recovery team that found the remains of John F. Kennedy Jr. following his 1999 plane crash and served multiple combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

 

As acting secretary, Cao inherits a Navy currently navigating significant geopolitical tension and internal transformation. Prior to this appointment, Cao served as the Navy’s chief management officer, where he was tasked with modernizing the service’s aging IT infrastructure and business systems.

His immediate priorities will likely include stabilizing the department’s leadership amid the recent churn and overseeing the development of the “Golden Fleet” — a fleet modernization initiative involving nuclear-armed vessels, railguns, and hypersonic missiles. Pentagon officials indicated that Cao is expected to serve in the acting role until a permanent successor is nominated and confirmed by the Senate.

 

SPLC Indicted: Millions Funneled to Extremist Linked Groups

A federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama returned an 11-count indictment on April 21, 2026, charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. The Department of Justice alleges the once-revered civil rights group secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to people tied to violent extremist organizations.

According to prosecutors, the SPLC used a network of shell accounts and fictitious entities to hide the flow of donor money and to conceal payments to informants embedded in groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other white-supremacist organizations. The indictment lays out a pattern stretching from 2014 through 2023 that federal officials say amounts to straight-up deception of the very Americans who trusted the charity.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the charity “was not dismantling these groups; it was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose” by paying sources to stoke racial hatred, a charge that, if proven, reveals a moral and legal abyss at the heart of an institution many thought above reproach. The allegations are explosive and demand a full accounting, because there can be no special pleading when millions in private donations are allegedly diverted to people connected to violence.

The SPLC’s leaders pushed back immediately, saying their informant program helped monitor threats and that much of the intelligence was shared with law enforcement; CEO Bryan Fair called the Justice Department’s allegations false and insisted the group’s work saved lives. That defense deserves scrutiny, but it doesn’t erase the fact that donors were reportedly kept in the dark about who was being paid and why.

 Conservatives have long accused the SPLC of weaponizing “hate” labels to silence or damage opponents, and this indictment—if the facts hold up—amounts to the worst kind of hypocrisy: a watchdog that allegedly fed and funded the very wolves it warned Americans about. Ordinary patriot donors have a right to be furious, and federal prosecutors are right to pursue the facts aggressively; charitable status cannot be a license to deceive.

The Justice Department and FBI, represented at the announcement by Acting AG Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, deserve credit for moving where too many in power once looked the other way. Law enforcement must follow the evidence without fear or favor, and if the SPLC’s leadership sanctioned schemes to hide payments and launder money through fictitious entities, there must be consequences that match the betrayal.

This case is also a warning to the media and donors who treat nonprofit rankings and “watchdog” reports as gospel. For years the SPLC influenced universities, tech platforms, and government policy with its lists and labels; transparency and oversight are overdue so that civic institutions cannot operate as cloaked power centers with no accountability.

Let no one forget that an indictment is a formal accusation and not a conviction, but neither should it be an excuse for wishful silence from those who demand integrity from every corner of public life. The legal process will play out in court, and patriotic Americans should demand to see the full paper trail—bank records, internal memos, donor disclosures—so the truth comes out and donors get answers.

This moment calls for accountability, not partisanship: conservatives will not cheer a fall from grace without insisting justice be fair and thorough, but we will also not let elites use righteous rhetoric to mask corrupt conduct. If the DOJ’s allegations are borne out, it’s time to strip privileges that allow organizations to operate in the shadows and to protect hardworking Americans from being duped by institutions that talk like saints and act like scammers.

Senate GOP rams through blueprint to bankroll ICE, Border Patrol through end of Trump era

Senate Republicans pushed their immigration funding plan forward early Thursday, adopting a budget blueprint after an all-night vote series that sets up billions for ICE and Border Patrol while sidelining Democrats.

Senate Republicans adopted their budget resolution, which tees up funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, and effectively cuts congressional Democrats out of the process entirely.

 

It’s the first major step toward unlocking the budget reconciliation process, which Republicans are diving into once again after Democrats refused to fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without stringent reforms.

Despite Republicans largely being on the same page on the approach, Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted against the budget blueprint.

President Donald Trump walks toward reporters before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on April 10, 2026. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., panned Republicans for moving to spend billions in taxpayer dollars rather than addressing rising costs.

"America is crying out for relief from high costs, and you're here adding $140 billion to an agency that nobody — two groups — Border Patrol and ICE, that nobody respects in this country," Schumer said.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., countered that ICE and Border Patrol agents weren't the problem, "Democrats are."

"Today’s Democrats are a rogue and radical party," Barrasso said. "You deserve better than reckless Democrat hostage-taking. You deserve the tools and support from Congress necessary to carry out the mission Congress has given you. Our country depends on you."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 2026. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The Senate GOP’s plan would fund both agencies for the remainder of President Donald Trump's term. Republicans want to front-load the agencies with over $70 billion out of concern that Democrats would never agree to allocate taxpayer dollars to them again.

Lawmakers dashed through amendment vote after amendment vote, with Democrats teeing up several add-ons to the budget blueprint designed to attack Republicans.

Several of the Democratic amendments targeted affordability and economic issues in the country, and all failed along party lines.

But the night wasn’t without a dash of drama.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who has pushed to broaden the scope of the forthcoming reconciliation package despite GOP leadership and the White House wanting to keep it narrowly tailored to immigration enforcement, threatened to derail the process.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pushed to broaden the scope of the forthcoming reconciliation package. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)

He wanted to include a swath of amendments that ultimately wouldn’t have been considered germane to the resolution and were destined to fail without support from Democrats. One of those add-ons was a version of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.

"If you don't want to vote for it, don't," Kennedy said. "All I ask you is to think about it, to trust our Rules committee, to follow your heart, but take your brain with you. Because the American people, both Democrats and Republicans and independents, are questioning our elections."

His amendment ultimately failed.

Meanwhile, adoption of the budget resolution doesn’t immediately kick off reconciliation. The House will now have to adopt the same blueprint or modify it — the latter would kick the resolution back to the Senate and trigger another marathon vote session.

While Republicans are moving forward with the process in response to Democrats not budging on ICE and CBP funding, some are grappling with the ramifications it could have for funding the agencies and, more broadly, the rest of the federal government going forward. 

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital that she was "disappointed that we are where we are, but I understand the need to fund these portions of this agency."

"I'm really disheartened, because I think it fundamentally changes the way that we move forward with appropriations, and not for the better," Britt said. "And I'm not for that at all."

 

CartoonDems

 

Treasury Escalates Iran Pressure Even as Trump Extends Ceasefire

The U.S. Treasury Department is escalating sanctions enforcement against Iran even as President Donald Trump has authorized an extension of a fragile ceasefire that was set to expire, according to a Newsmax report and a Truth Social post attributed to the president.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department is intensifying what officials describe as a "maximum pressure" campaign — internally referred to as "Economic Fury" — aimed at constraining Iran's ability to generate, move, and repatriate revenue through oil exports and global financial networks.

Officials said the effort is focused on disrupting Tehran's maritime trade routes, 

 

which Washington considers a primary source of regime funding, and warned that vessels, companies, or intermediaries involved in sanctions evasion could face designation, asset freezes, and broader financial restrictions.

The Treasury also said it continues to target funds it characterizes as tied to corruption within Iran's leadership, as part of a broader effort to restrict illicit financial flows. The specific Economic Fury branding has not been independently verified.

The stepped-up pressure comes as Trump said Tuesday he is pausing planned U.S. military action against Iran and extending a ceasefire that was due to expire, according to Newsmax reporting.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the move followed a request from Pakistan's Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif,

 

 and cited what he described as internal fragmentation within Iran's government.

 

Trump said he has directed U.S. forces to remain in a "ready and able" posture while maintaining continued pressure through a blockade framework, and extended the ceasefire until Iran submits a unified proposal and negotiations are completed.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed the diplomatic outreach in a post on X, thanking Trump for extending the ceasefire and saying Islamabad would continue efforts toward a negotiated settlement and broader peace framework.

Sharif said he hoped both sides would continue observing the ceasefire and move toward a comprehensive agreement in follow-on talks scheduled in Islamabad.

Separately, Axios reported — citing regional and Israeli sources familiar with the discussions — that U.S. and Pakistani mediators have been awaiting a response from Iran's leadership on the latest proposal. The report said Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's communications have in recent weeks largely come through official channels rather than direct public appearances.

Some reporting and analysis have noted uncertainty around Iran's internal messaging and leadership signaling, though claims regarding incapacitation or absence have not been independently confirmed.

Newsmax also reported that Trump previously ordered a two-week ceasefire earlier this month amid escalating tensions following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure, with Vice President JD Vance telling negotiators that Washington had not received a clear Iranian commitment on nuclear restrictions during earlier talks in Islamabad.

With the ceasefire now extended, the administration is pursuing parallel tracks of intensified economic pressure and ongoing diplomacy as mediators await Tehran's formal response.

© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

 

They Call Us Extreme? Look Who Just Got Indicted for Funding Hate Groups

On Tuesday, another news item dropped that will have conservatives (and probably a fair number of moderates) chuckling for the rest of the day. The Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, is fond of screaming about racists and white supremacists; they are vocally part of the school of thought on the left that a white supremacist is lurking around every corner, when in reality, they are pretty thin on the ground.

 

Now, we learn that the SPLC has not only been encouraging real white supremacist and racist groups, but they have been funding them. And now, they have been indicted on 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Acting AG Blanche and FBI Director Patel made the announcement:

🚨 BREAKING: Acting AG Blanche and FBI Director Patel announce a grand jury has INDICTED leftist NGO Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 COUNTS

This is MASSIVE!

SPLC said they were "fighting white supremacy," but they were "MANUFACTURING the extremism it purports to expose" by… pic.twitter.com/WtyvBUuwrW

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 21, 2026

Here's an interesting and revealing excerpt from Acting AG Blanche's remarks:

Good afternoon. Today, a few minutes ago in the Middle District of Alabama, a grand jury returned an 11-count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

According to the charges and the indictment, the SPLC is a non-profit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups.

As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.

The indictment describes this conduct in detail. But one troubling example is that the SPLC was paying a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that resulted in the death of one person and injured dozens more.

This particular person, being paid by the SPLC, allegedly received approximately two hundred and seventy thousand dollars over the course of eight years.

Did you get that? The SPLC was acting, of course, in accordance with a fundamental law of the universe, widely known as Clark's Law of Social Issues Degradation: "Every social movement will continue until it reaches absurdity." The SPLC was seeing their cause dry up, along with their donations; they had to keep up the appearance that there were hate groups in every town and white supremacist booger-men hiding in every closet, so they paid the few racist shouters they could find, to not only keep up their activities, but presumably inform the SPLC, who could then use them as fundraising tools. And they didn't stint; Action AG Blanche continues:

In total, according to the indictment, between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least three million dollars to eight individuals at least. These individuals were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations-affiliated, Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America, Nazis, and the American Front.

Now, as the indictment lays out, after SPLC paid members of these extremist groups, it created work product that reported on these activities that members participated in or contributed to. And to that end, it was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing.

Irony, thy name is SPLC.

---

Read More: Leftist Logic Justifying Violence: 'Heads I Win, Tails You Lose'

More Blue State Buffoonery As 'Hate Crimes' Official Compares Conservative Group to 'Neo-Nazis'

---

You can read the Justice Department's official press release on this here. That release states in part:

According to the indictment starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of individuals who were either associated with violent and extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups at the SPLC’s direction.

 

 Unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website.

In other words, these people have been committing this fraud for right around forty years. It's a pretty safe bet that they'll find their donations drying up now, though. Honestly, though, the sheer nerve of these people. Not only did they clearly think they were going to get away with it, but they did get away with it for four decades. But there's a new sheriff in town, and he's tossing fraudsters in the hoosegow. 

 

It's Not Over — the Courts Could (And Should) Neuter Virginia's Anti-Democratic Gerrymandering Gambit

For the moment, the Democrats have won. Their Machiavellian gerrymandering scheme passed by a slim margin Tuesday night, slicing and dicing Virginia's congressional districts into a ridiculous jigsaw puzzle that most closely resembles Illinois’ comical maps — meaning they have no logic, other than to rig the result and disenfranchise millions of voters.

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MORE: Breaking: The Results Are In – Here's How Virginia Voted on Democrat-Led Gerrymandering

Even Liberal Media Is Side-Eyeing Virginia’s Sketchy Redistricting Plan

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We saw a similar successful effort in California, with their nakedly partisan Prop. 50, which sidelines a huge percentage of the voting public, but in leftist Gov. Abigail Spanberger's Cavalier State, the battle is actually not over.

Who could change the direction of this abject political power play, which has no basis in high-minded principle but is simply a ruthless, callous, authoritarian ploy? The courts. 

Now, as I’ve written, I’m no fan of how an unnerving number of district judges have consistently ruled in what seems like a coordinated effort to kneecap President Donald Trump’s agenda at every turn imaginable, but they could actually prove themselves worthy for a change.

Former Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin

 

 is urging them to do just that:

I urge the Virginia Supreme Court

 

to rule against this unconstitutional process that will disenfranchise millions of Virginians.

 

“Disenfranchise” is exactly the right word, and it’s one that the Democrats regularly bring up as they thwart the common-sense legislation, the SAVE Act, which would require ID to vote. But when it comes to Republicans, they don’t care if they lock them out of the process by deeply unethical maneuvers. “The end justifies the means” is at the top of their playbook.

But Virginia’s machinations may have problems:

Tuesday's referendum may not be the final word. The state Supreme Court is considering whether the redistricting plan is illegal in a case that could make the referendum results meaningless….

In February, Democratic state lawmakers passed a new U.S. House map to take effect pending the outcome of the redistricting referendum. Republicans have filed multiple legal challenges against the effort.

A Tazewell County judge ruled that the redistricting push was illegal for several reasons. Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. said lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session.

Oh. You mean they cheated? I’m shocked to see chicanery and dubious anti-democratic tactics perpetrated by the Democrats. And here I thought they were the defenders of democracy. 

Principles be damned:

Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the whole disgusting effort was for naught? It could happen:

He [Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr.]

 

ruled that their initial vote failed to occur before the public began casting ballots in last year’s general election and thus didn’t count toward the two-step process. He also ruled that the state failed to publish the amendment three months before that election, as required by law.

Back in February, the state Supreme Court agreed to allow the referendum to proceed before the court moves to make its final ruling.

If the state Supreme Court agrees with the lower court, the results from Tuesday's vote could be rendered moot.

I’ve lost faith in the judicial system in this country since January, 2025, when Trump moved back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., especially in the lower courts. However, it would be amazing to see if they actually did the right thing for a change, and nuked this raw, corrupt exercise of political power.

Do it.

 

Hell Freezes Over As This Prominent Attorney Announces He's Becoming a Republican

He’s been a Democrat since 1959. Not anymore. Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz, who has found himself at odds with his party in the Trump era, is making it official: he’s becoming a Republican. You can probably guess why. Besides the numerous legal antics Democrats have pushed, especially on the Russian collusion hoax and impeachment, which has caused him frustration, his former party’s hostility toward Israel has him heading for the exits 

 

DERSHOWITZ DEPARTS: Legal legend Alan Dershowitz is officially ditching the Democratic Party. The lifelong liberal is registering as a Republican, citing the Democratic Party's "hostility" toward Israel and a radical shift that he warns is "bad for America."

"I intend to work… pic.twitter.com/sfpZvgfG7N

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) April 21, 2026

Hell has frozen over.

Longtime Democrat & Constitutional Scholar Alan Dershowitz is leaving the Democrat Party and registering as a Republican.

OMG.

— John Reese - Person of Interest (@Rickisback_ON_X) April 21, 2026

I am a lifelong Democrat. I started campaigning for the party’s local candidates as a teenager in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been a registered Democrat for 67 years, made speeches for John F. Kennedy as a college student, and can count on one hand the number of Republicans I’ve ever supported for any office.

I still disagree strongly with the GOP on abortion, the separation of church and state, immigration, healthcare and taxes, among other things. Yet I’ve decided to bite the bullet and register as a Republican.

The Democratic Party has become the most anti-Israel party in U.S. history. Last week all but seven Senate Democrats voted for an arms embargo against the Jewish state, and an avowed enemy of Israel, Abdul El-Sayed, is gaining ground in the Democratic campaign for U.S. senator from Michigan.

There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. Until recently there was an age gap, with younger voters more strongly opposing Israel, but recent polls suggest that the trend now includes Democrats of all ages. Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.

I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world. So I intend to work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate, and I urge those who share my concerns about the increasing influence of radicalism in the Democratic Party to vote, campaign and contribute for continued Republican control of Congress.

Not everyone is receptive to this announcement: 

Another entry in "the Right is a dumping ground for failed celebrities and MeToo cases." Alan Dershowitz, Russell Brand, and many others lose their status on the Left and come to harvest clicks and power from the Right—and the Right doesn't have the self-confidence to say "no." https://t.co/pQWNvk0xE2

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) April 21, 2026

Look, this is a free country, and if Dershowitz wants to leave and become an independent because he can't find a home here, that’s his choice. But for him to feel compelled to leave the Democrats over Israel indicates the antisemitism problem on the Left has now reached pandemic levels of bad.