New Swalwell accuser Annika Albrecht. Credit: CBS News screenshot
A new Swalwell accuser has broken her silence for the first time, revealing how she luckily escaped the now-former Democrat congressman’s attempts to seduce her.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Eric Swalwell (D-China) is facing explosive accusations of sexual misconduct from several women, including a former staffer who claims he ra*ed her twice.
The allegations of the former staffer, who was the first to come forward, were initially reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
While speaking with CBS’s Nancy Cordes on Tuesday alongside fellow Swalwell accuser Ally Sammarco, Annika Albrecht revealed her own harrowing experience with the former congressman.
Albrecht explained that while she was in college, Swalwell offered to stay in touch and mentor her after meeting with her student group in Washington, DC.
“That was an incredibly generous offer that I felt very lucky to have,” she said.
Swalwell then created a group chat on Snapchat with all the students and later added Albrecht as a friend on the messaging app.
Confused, Albrecht then asked the other students if Swalwell added them as friends, and they said no. Even more creepily, she was the only woman in the meeting.
Swalwell started out talking politics to her, but then his messages turned seductive and dark.
“Ultimately, it reached a point where he invited me to a hotel to meet him,” Albrecht said. “It was very clear what the connotation was.”
“At that point, I completely stopped responding.”
WATCH:
Two women who have accused Rep. Eric Swalwell of sexual misconduct, Ally Sammarco and Annika Albrecht, exclusively told CBS News’ @nancycordes that they “have served justice for his future victims” by coming forward: “I think we just prevented another 30 to 40 years, potentially,… pic.twitter.com/ceT2GxMYbb
“What I keep thinking back to is lucky I am that I didn’t go to that hotel,” Albrecht said.
“For me, justice won’t be until he can’t ever harm a woman ever again, and he has faced the consequences for the women that he has harmed,” she added.
Justice may soon be on the way. TGP notes that both the House Ethics Committee and the Manhattan District Attorney have launched an investigation into Swalwell.
In an attempt to avoid accountability, Swalwell abruptly resigned from Congress Monday night.
But he should remain worried, especially because his own party has deemed him expendable.
A two-week ceasefire to the Iran War entered its seventh day on Tuesday as the U.S. imposed its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz
MarineTraffic said in a post on X that two tankers approaching the strait Monday turned around shortly after the U.S. blockade began. One of those tankers, the Chinese-owned vessel Rich Starry, was able to make a successful crossing on Tuesday.
At least four Iran-linked ships were reported to have crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday: Rich Starry, the Murlikishan, the Christianna, and Elpis, while three other non-Iranian ships were also permitted to cross since the start of the blockade.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun spoke out against the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, following earlier denunciations from China on Monday. Guo called the blockade “a dangerous and irresponsible move” which “will only aggravate confrontation, exacerbate tensions, undermine the already fragile ceasefire, and further jeopardize the safety of navigation through the strait.”
AP reported, citing four anonymous sources, that the U.S. and Iran are considering a second round of in-person talks to negotiate a deal before the ceasefire expires next week. Officials say discussions are ongoing, with one mediator claiming both sides have agreed in principle to meet.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said that the U.S. and Israel have agreed to make zero enrichment a requirement to end the war.
“There remains the matter of enriched material that could serve as a basis for an attempt to restart the project,” Katz said, “and therefore the U.S. and Israel have defined the removal of the material from Iran as a prerequisite for ending the campaign.”
The Mossad chief David Barnea said Tuesday that the war will only end once there is regime change in Iran. “Our mission has not yet been accomplished,” Barnea told an audience at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. “We did not think this mission would be completed immediately after the fighting subsided, but planned for the campaign to continue beyond the strikes in Tehran.”
Vice President JD Vance said Monday that Iran must terminate its ability to enrich uranium and that Iran’s nuclear materials must be placed under US control. “We would like to get that material out of the country completely, so that the United States has control of it,” Vance told Fox News.
Nearly two-thirds of Israelis oppose the terms of the U.S.–Iran ceasefire, according to a new poll from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Agam Labs, conducted April 9–10. Thirty-nine percent said Israel should resume attacks on Iran, 41 percent said it should respect the ceasefire, and 19 percent were unsure. More than 61 percent of Israelis said the ceasefire should not extend to the conflict in Lebanon.
An Ipsos poll of Americans released on April 13 found that just 24 percent say that the decision to take military action in Iran has been worth it. Fifty-one percent say it has not been worth it, while 22 percent are unsure. Fifty-four percent of Americans polled say U.S. military action in Iran has had a mostly negative impact on their personal financial situation.
Israel continued its bombing and occupation of Lebanon on Tuesday, with more than 2,089 people reported killed since March 2, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Israeli strikes targeted over 60 locations across Lebanon on April 13, based on field reports compiled by Courtney Bonneau and posted by Drop Site News.
Brent crude fell below $100 on Tuesday as gas prices remained elevated. AAA reported the national average price of gas at $4.12.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced his administration will open the first government-operated grocery store in 2027, fulfilling a campaign promise that has sparked fierce opposition from small business owners who warn the initiative could devastate the city’s network of family-owned bodegas.
Five Stores Planned Across All Boroughs
Mamdani revealed plans to establish one government-run grocery store in each of the city’s five boroughs by the end of his first term. The announcement delivers on a central campaign pledge, despite widespread concerns about the viability of government-operated food retail. Manhattan’s 1.63 million residents, Brooklyn’s 2.74 million, Queens’ 2.4 million, the Bronx’s 1.47 million, and Staten Island’s 500,000 residents would each be served by a single municipal store. Critics question whether one location per borough can adequately serve these populations while competing against established private retailers.
Muslim Democrat NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is planning to open the first of his “Free” city-owned grocery stores in East Harlem next year.
Fernando Mateo, spokesman for the United Bodegas of America, described the government grocery plan as a cancer to small businesses last summer. Bodega owners across the city have consistently warned that taxpayer-funded competition with artificially low prices could force family-owned shops out of business. The mayor’s campaign initially projected using 140 million dollars in subsidies, though that funding source was later determined to be based on a misreading of government resources. Mamdani has not disclosed updated financing details for the municipal grocery initiative.
Track Record Raises Questions
Government-operated grocery stores in other American cities have struggled with sustainability. Kansas City, with a population of 510,000, launched a municipal grocery store that quickly faced problems with food shortages, spoiled inventory, and theft. That city eventually closed its government-run food retail operation. Multiple municipalities have attempted and abandoned similar programs after operational challenges proved insurmountable. The New York initiative moves forward despite these precedents and without clear answers about how city-run stores will overcome problems that defeated similar ventures elsewhere. The mayor’s office has not released operational plans addressing inventory management, security, or competitive pricing strategies for the proposed stores.
A man allegedly linked to “white supremacist movements” has now pleaded guilty to a disturbing series of crimes, including firebombing a nonprofit using a napalm-style device and attempting to assist the foreign terrorist organization Hezbollah.
28-year-old Regan Darby Prater of Tullahoma, Tennessee, stood before a federal judge in Knoxville and copped to one count of arson and one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
According to the Department of Justice, Prater admitted he drove from his home to the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.
“Regan Darby Prater, 28, currently of Tullahoma, Tennessee, entered a guilty plea to one count of arson and one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Prater pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville. Sentencing has been set before U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Varlan for Sept. 9, in Knoxville.
Prater faces up to 20 years in federal prison, along with related fines, restitution, and a term of supervised release to be served after he is released from custody. As part of his agreement, Prater waived indictment by a Federal Grand Jury and agreed to plead guilty to the aforementioned charges.
Court documents establish that Prater used a so-called “sparkler bomb,” i.e., a napalm-based incendiary device ignited by a common sparkler, to destroy facilities maintained by the Highlander Center, a school for grassroots leaders and social movements in New Market, Tennessee. As part of his guilty plea, Prater admitted that he drove from his home in Tullahoma to the Highlander Center, ignited the sparkler bomb, and destroyed a building, ultimately causing over $1.2 million in damage.
Before he detonated the bomb, Prater spray-painted the symbol of the Iron Guard, a 1930s-era paramilitary arm of the Romanian Nazi Party, in the Highlander Center parking lot. This same symbol was engraved on the rifle used in the terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, just two weeks prior to the arson. Prater acknowledged that he committed the arson at the Highland Center due to his white-supremacist ideology and as a response to the Highlander Center’s faith-based educational priorities and its association with the Civil Rights Movement.
Separately, Prater also admitted that, in 2019, he attempted to provide material support to Hizballah, also known as “Hezbollah,” which the United States has recognized as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997. Specifically, Prater obtained a document purporting to contain personally identifiable information of over 35,000 individuals purportedly affiliated with the government of Israel. He then provided that document to an individual he believed to be associated with Hizballah, stating, among other things: “Start the hunt.””
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton possesses two skills in an abundance: dishonesty and self-promotion.
Add to these her lingering, palpable bitterness over her loss to President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election and you have the recipe for her comments about the Iran war Monday on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.”
“You know, Joe, let me just say this,” Clinton said in a clip posted to the social media platform X.
Throughout the 37-second clip, co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski listened while Clinton lied and touted her own experience.
“When I was secretary of state and beginning the then-secret negotiations with Iran to try to reach a nuclear weapons deal to prevent them from ever having a nuclear arsenal,” Clinton added, “it was a very slow, deliberative process.”
Needless to say, an aversion to truth runs in the Clinton family. In this case, the former secretary of state lied when she used the word “ever.”
Indeed, according to the liberal-leaning Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the most common criticisms of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the Iran nuclear deal forged under President Barack Obama — involved the agreement’s “sunset provisions,” which remained in force for only ten or 15 years, depending on the provision.
At best, therefore, JCPOA merely delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Thus, when he terminated U.S. involvement in JCPOA in May 2018, Trump cited this act of kicking the can down the road as partial justification for his decision.
Still, Clinton wanted credit for the negotiations that led to that 2015 deal.
“This is hard work,” she continued, her voice betraying bitterness and resentment. “You don’t just show up in Geneva or Islamabad, talk for a bunch of hours, and go away. This is hard, disciplined effort that has to go into diplomacy to reach any result.”
Hillary Clinton brags about helping Obama with their disastrous Iran deal, where they sent $1.7 billion to terrorists. pic.twitter.com/OtZ6fAqz9z
Trump, of course, spent years criticizing not the Obama-era diplomats’ efforts, but the results they produced.
In fact, in the May 2018 announcement terminating JCPOA, the president insisted that “the deal gave the Iranian regime too much in exchange for too little.”
For instance, the Iran nuclear deal “foolishly gave the Iranian regime a windfall of cash and access to the international financial system for trade and investment” — money which, according to Trump, the Iranian regime then redirected to “its terrorist proxies, such as Hizballah and Hamas.”
According to the CACNP, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal freed up approximately $50 billion in frozen Iranian assets. Then, another $1.7 billion went to Iran from the U.S. as part of a settlement.
In short, Clinton wanted credit for a deal that gave Iran access to tens of billions of dollars. At the same time, that deal merely delayed the development of Iran’s nuclear program.
Reasonable conservatives may disagree — in some cases vehemently — over the wisdom of Trump’s ongoing military operations against Iran.
That does not mean, however, that Clinton sounded any less ludicrous when she touted the horrible Iran nuclear deal. If anything, JCPOA merely created this current mess.
Military analysis shows that Russia holds a decisive advantage over Europe in a war without U.S. backing. Photo courtesy of TASS.
President Trump has been talking about withdrawing the U.S. from NATO since his first term and has refused to get deeply involved in the Ukraine war. Recently, U.S.-European ties were further strained because Europe declined to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even though European oil supply was directly at stake.
Some European leaders have been insisting the continent can defend itself without American help, while simultaneously criticizing the U.S. for leaving Europe unprotected. At the same time, Viktor Orbán lost the election in Hungary, removing the last major European voice against escalation of the Ukraine war. As a result, Europe is now closer to open conflict with Russia than at any point in the last three decades, and likely without U.S. backing.
A detailed analysis of the overall warfighting capabilities of both sides reveals how dangerously unprepared Europe is for that confrontation.
According to SIPRI data, Europe, including the UK, currently fields approximately 1.47 million active-duty military personnel against Russia’s 1.32 million. On paper, Europe holds a narrow manpower advantage. In practice, that advantage is negated by the most consequential asymmetry in the entire comparison: combat experience. Russia’s 1.32 million active personnel are drawn from a force that has fought a large-scale conventional war for over three years, encompassing combined arms operations, mass artillery, drone warfare, electronic warfare, and urban combat at a scale not seen in Europe since World War II.
Virtually every Russian soldier currently serving has either fought in Ukraine or replaced someone who did. Furthermore, Russia’s entire military is under a single command structure while European troops are distributed across more than two dozen separate national armies with no unified command, no shared doctrine, and vastly different readiness levels. A CSIS assessment concludes that Europe’s problem is not one of headline scale but of readiness, coordination, and the ability to deploy quickly.
Russia demonstrated in 2022 that it can rapidly expand its force by drawing on conscript veterans and reserves, generating hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers within months. Most European nations have allowed their reserve and conscript systems to atrophy over the post-Cold War decades. Only a few European nations still have conscription, and the period has been greatly reduced over the past 30 years. Furthermore, countries such as Germany have very liberal requirements, which allow conscripts to select alternative civilian service instead.
The combat experience gap is the single most important asymmetry that raw personnel numbers do not capture. Russia has spent three years fighting a peer conventional war involving massed artillery, coordinated air defense suppression, drone attrition at industrial scale, and combined arms maneuver under fire. Russia’s professional officer and NCO corps has been largely preserved relative to overall losses, with the proportion of officer deaths declining from around 10 percent of total fatalities in early 2022 to between 2 and 3 percent by late 2024, as the burden of frontline casualties shifted to volunteer infantry.
This means the experienced leadership cadre that trains and commands Russian forces has survived the war largely intact.
In terms of hardware, Russia currently maintains around 3,460 operational tanks, including 620 T-90M, 350 T-80BVM, 470 T-72B3/B3M, 1,000 T-72 variants, 600 T-62M/MV, and 120 T-55A, with over 2,100 additional older tanks in storage. Production has kept pace with attrition throughout the Ukraine war. Russia’s defense sector increased T-90 production from approximately 90 to 110 tanks per year in 2020 and 2021 to 280 to 300 in 2024, effectively tripling output, and the number of T-90M tanks grew from approximately 50 to 200 units between 2022 and late 2025.
Between 2026 and 2036, Moscow plans to build at least 1,783 T-90M and T-90M2 tanks, with 1,118 slated for completion between 2027 and 2029, suggesting Russia will enter any future conflict with a larger and more modern armored force than it had in 2022.
On the European side, Turkey leads with 2,381 tanks, though most are older M48 and M60 variants. Poland has emerged as the most operationally capable armored force on the continent, rapidly fielding Leopard 2, South Korean K2 Black Panther, and US M1A2 Abrams tanks. Greece fields 1,385 tanks including Leopard 2A6 variants, with Germany, Romania, and Spain following.
Europe’s aggregate tank count exceeds Russia’s operational inventory, but that total is fragmented across more than twenty national armies with differing maintenance standards, logistics chains, ammunition types, and doctrine. Russia fields a single integrated force under unified command.
Russia’s total aircraft strength stands at 4,237, including 861 fighters, 698 dedicated attack aircraft, and 1,643 helicopters of which 556 are attack variants. Europe fields more total airframes in aggregate, with advanced platforms including the Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale, F-35A and F-35B, and Gripen giving it a qualitative edge in individual aircraft. Russia’s frontline consists primarily of Su-35S, Su-34, Su-30SM, and MiG-31 variants, with very limited Su-57 fifth-generation aircraft in service. Despite Europe’s platform quality, Russia retains a decisive advantage in integrated air defense, with layered S-400 and S-500 systems that European air forces would need to suppress at enormous cost and risk before achieving meaningful air superiority over Russian territory.
Europe also lacks the high-altitude ISR platforms, space-based targeting networks, and strategic enablers that underpin any major air campaign, capabilities that European air forces currently cannot replicate without US support.
Europe’s naval advantage on paper is severely undermined by chronic readiness failures. As of early 2026, both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are out of action. Only three of the six Type 45 Daring-class destroyers are available for service, just six of the eight Type 23 frigates can operate, and only one in five Astute-class submarines is in the water.
Of the total Royal Navy fleet of 63 ships, only about half are available for duty, leading Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West to describe the situation as a disgrace. HMS Queen Elizabeth’s docking period in Rosyth is several months behind schedule, while HMS Prince of Wales, though on five days’ notice to sail as of March 2026, is not deployed.
The actual European carrier picture in April 2026 is therefore a maximum of three serviceable carriers: France’s nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle, Italy’s Cavour capable of operating F-35Bs, and Spain’s Juan Carlos I in a dual carrier and amphibious role. The two most capable European carriers, both British, are simultaneously non-operational. Italy also operates the Trieste, a 33,000-ton amphibious assault ship that entered service in 2024, and France operates three Mistral-class helicopter carriers.
France plans to begin construction of a next-generation nuclear carrier in 2026 at an estimated cost of €10 billion, with sea trials not expected until 2036 or 2037. Russia has no operational aircraft carrier, with the Admiral Kuznetsov remaining in extended refit. Russia never depended on carrier power; its naval strategy is built around submarines, long-range missiles, and land-based aviation.
In submarines, France operates four Triomphant-class ballistic missile submarines providing continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence, plus a growing force of Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines, with the third Suffren-class SSN Tourville entering operational service in July 2025 and three more due by 2030. The UK nominally operates four Vanguard-class SSBNs plus five Astute-class nuclear attack submarines, with the sixth and seventh Astute-class SSNs entering service in 2025 and 2026, but with only one in five Astute boats currently at sea, the operational reality falls far short of the nominal inventory.
Germany operates six Type 212A conventional submarines with air-independent propulsion. Norway, the Netherlands, Greece, and Turkey field additional conventional submarine fleets. Russia’s submarine force, centered on the Northern Fleet, remains fully intact and formidable, despite losing 29 naval vessels in the Ukraine war including 2 submarines and suffering severe Black Sea Fleet degradation.
Russia holds an overwhelming advantage in Arctic capability that has no European equivalent. Putin confirmed Russia operates 34 diesel icebreakers and 8 nuclear-powered icebreakers, with additional nuclear vessels under construction, and Russia is the only country in the world that builds and operates nuclear-powered icebreakers. Russia’s fleet of 42 icebreakers includes 8 nuclear-powered vessels, with five more planned including the Rossiya, a 71,380-ton Leader Project vessel.
The Lider-class nuclear icebreaker under construction at the Zvezda shipyard will be the most powerful ever built, with 150 MW output and no global equivalent, expected by 2030.
European NATO members collectively have 45 icebreaking-capable ships, 12 fewer than Russia. France’s only icebreaker is a Polar Class 2 vessel capable of operating only in moderate ice conditions. Finland maintains a sizeable fleet primarily for Baltic use, and Sweden’s icebreakers are also Baltic-focused.
Russia’s Arctic dominance enables it to ensure year-round navigation through the Northern Sea Route, support military movements to Arctic bases, maintain submarine operations under Arctic ice, and deny Europe any ability to contest the High North.
Russia has over 5,500 nuclear warheads, with the Federation of American Scientists estimating Russian non-strategic tactical nuclear warheads alone at 1,912. Europe’s independent nuclear forces consist solely of France and the UK. France has approximately 290 nuclear weapons and the UK has 225.
In March 2026, President Macron announced a significant shift, ordering an increase in France’s nuclear arsenal beyond 290 warheads, ending public disclosure of stockpile figures, and moving toward a concept of forward deterrence placing French nuclear forces at the heart of European security.
France will maintain a full nuclear triad of SSBNs, nuclear cruise missiles, and air-launched capabilities. Britain is currently dependent at any one time on a single SSBN on patrol. The asymmetry is stark: Russia’s 1,912 tactical nuclear warheads vastly outnumber anything Europe can field independently, and Russia’s doctrine explicitly contemplates first use of tactical nuclear weapons to de-escalate a conventional conflict.
On direct military hardware, Russia holds decisive advantages where they matter most. Its ground forces are battle-hardened at a scale Europe cannot match. Its armored production is outpacing losses and accelerating toward a larger future force. Its submarine fleet threatens European Atlantic supply lines from an intact Northern Fleet.
Its Arctic dominance is essentially uncontested. And its tactical nuclear arsenal dwarfs anything Europe can independently field, with Russia explicitly reserving the right to use those weapons first to halt a conventional conflict going against it.
Europe has more tanks on paper and more total aircraft, but paper inventories obscure readiness failures, fragmented command structures, and a near-total absence of peer conventional warfare experience. Europe’s carrier advantage exists only on spreadsheets: in April 2026, both British carriers are simultaneously non-operational, leaving Europe with three serviceable carriers against a Russian naval strategy built around submarines and long-range missiles that remain fully intact.
In short, without the US, Europe stands very little chance in a war with Russia.
U.S. producer prices rose in March less than economists expected, despite energy costs surging as a result of the war with Iran. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday that the annual producer price index for final demand increased 4 percent. Despite beating projections, this hike remains the largest annual increase since February 2023. The index is up 0.5 percent last month against an expected hike of 1.1 percent; the increase matches the 0.5 percent increase in producer prices in February.
Goods prices jumped 1.6 percent, led by an 8.5 percent increase in energy and a 15.7 percent surge in gasoline, while services prices were unchanged.
Producer price increases are considered a leading indicator of consumer inflation. Many economists expect further inflationary pressure as oil prices continue to rise.
Tyler Robinson’s legal team is bringing in expert witness Dr. Bryan Edelman, who played a significant role in securing a change of venue in the Bryan Kohberger murder case in 2024.
Robinson, 22, has been charged with murder for allegedly assassinating conservative commentator Charlie Kirk back in September 2025 on Utah Valley University’s campus during a Turning Point USA event.
Edelman is a co-founder of the trial consulting group “Trial Innovations” and will give expert testimony at the April 17 evidentiary hearing about cameras in the courtroom, The Post Millennial reported.
A defense motion stated that Edelman believes “the modern internet and social media ecosystem — especially algorithmic curation and personalization — has fundamentally altered how news is consumed and makes local, high-profile publicity substantially harder to avoid for residents of the locality where the events giving rise to the case occurred and the case is being tried.”
He will also reportedly testify about polling results related to the case and speak to the demographics of Utah County’s adult population, from which the jury pool will be drawn.
Robinson’s defense team claimed that modern online content can “bias juror judgments, increase the likelihood of guilty verdicts in experimental settings, and contribute to memory and source-monitoring errors, including misattributing pretrial information as trial evidence.”
As for Edelman’s resume, he testified in favor of a change of venue for Kohberger, who was ultimately sentenced to life in prison after killing four University of Idaho students in 2022.
Edelman’s testimony did, however, help Kohberger secure a change of venue with the case being moved to Ada County.
“People here have demonstrated they would experience fear, stress, panic in this community,” he testified in the case, according to The Post Millennial. “There’s significant rumors and misinformation that have been spread and people have been exposed to in this community. There’s a feeling of pressure to convict.”
Edelman is based in California and holds a Ph.D. in social psychology.
He also conducted a telephone survey for the defense team before reporting his findings on March 13, per Fox News.
Robinson’s attorneys — Kathryn Nester, Michael Burt, Richard Novak, and Staci Visser — have argued that the pretrial publicity affects potential jury pools, resulting in more guilty verdicts.
Recently unsealed records revealed letters and messages between Robinson and his roommate, Lance Twiggs, in which he mentioned “an opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk.”
“If you are reading this per my text, then I am so sorry. I left the house this morning on a mission, and set an auto text. I am likely dead, or facing a lengthy prison sentence. I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it,” he wrote.
“I don’t know if I will/have succeeded, but I had hoped to make it home to you,” Robinson continued.
“I wish we could have lived in a world where this did not feel necessary. I wish I could have stayed for you and lived our lives together.”
The radical Left in Sacramento has finally done it.
In a move straight out of a totalitarian playbook, the California Assembly Judiciary Committee voted 11-2 on Monday to advance AB 2624, the so-called “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” a disgusting Democrat power grab designed to make it illegal for brave citizen journalists like Nick Shirley to expose the rampant fraud bleeding American taxpayers dry in immigrant service centers.
This is nothing less than an all-out assault on the First Amendment by the radical left in the People’s Republic of California.
The bill, authored by far-left Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (wife of Attorney General Rob Bonta), would slap investigative reporters with massive civil sanctions starting at $4,000 minimum if a fraudster from one of these “immigrant service centers” decides they don’t want to be caught on camera committing their scams.
The crook can then run to court for an injunction banning the journalist from filming or exposing them on camera for up to four years.
And if the journalist refuses to take down the original video? Triple the damages, $12,000, just for telling the truth!
In the worst cases, if the journalist is accused of “doxxing” or creating an “imminent threat” by simply reporting the facts, they could face criminal charges and $10,000 fines.
The bill classifies legitimate investigative journalism as “harassment” when it targets these so-called “immigrant service centers” you know, the fake Somali daycares and Los Angeles hospice operations that Nick Shirley has been courageously exposing.
What a disgrace! This is Democrats in action: protecting fraud artists over the American people.
California State Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is among those raising urgent concerns about the legislation, warning that AB 2624 (Bonta) represents a dangerous escalation in government efforts to control investigative reporting.
CA State Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is slamming state Democrats for voting to advance a controversial new law (AB 2624) to silence citizen journalists and shield taxpayer-funded organizations from public scrutiny.
DeMaio has gone as far as dubbing AB 2624 the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” for the chilling effect it will have on free speech.
AB 2624 comes as independent journalists like Nick Shirley have used viral videos to expose fraud and abuse in government-funded programs using on-the-ground footage and firsthand documentation.
AB 2624 claims to be about protecting immigrant organizations from “threats of violence,” when in fact the legislation would apply to any left-wing group that claims to provide any services to legal or illegal immigrants. For example, under AB 2624 entities like the Somali “Learing” Daycare centers would all be covered if they operated inside California.
During a recent Assembly committee hearing, DeMaio directly confronted the bill’s author, Mia Bonta, over language that would allow individuals affiliated with certain organizations to demand the removal of video recordings — even if taken in public — and even impose costly financial penalties against those who publish the videos online.
DeMaio warned the bill would be used to block investigative reporting and intimidate journalists, watchdog groups, and members of the public documenting wrongdoing.
Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s Full Statement on AB 2624:
“California Democrats are trying to intimidate citizen watchdog journalists and protect waste and fraud happening in far-Left-wing NGOs. AB 2624 can only be described as the ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ — a bill designed to silence citizen journalists exposing fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Instead of fixing the fraud problems being uncovered, Sacramento politicians are trying to shut down the people exposing them.
AB 2624 would allow activists and taxpayer-funded organizations to demand the removal of video evidence — even if it captures misconduct in plain view — and threatens journalists with massive financial penalties.
That’s not about public safety — it’s about protecting powerful interests.
If this bill becomes law, the message is clear to every journalist in California: expose corruption and you will be punished. AB 2624 is an unconstitutional direct attack on transparency and the First Amendment – and it needs to be defeated.”
Nick Shirley blew the lid off over $110 million in Somali daycare fraud in Minnesota back in December 2025, empty facilities billing taxpayers while kids were nowhere to be found.
He faced death threats and doxxing for his work, which we reported on extensively. Then in March 2026, Shirley dropped another bombshell: $170 million in similar fraud in California daycares and hospices, with ghost operations registered to empty lots and strip malls.
This Is the Basic Political Problem for Republicans
MAGA’s “detour” is bad news for the GOP if it drags out.
EL SEGUNDO, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 08: High gas prices are displayed at a Chevron gas station as an American flag flies on April 8, 2026 in El Segundo, California. California imports approximately 75 percent of its crude oil with nearly one-third of the crude supplied from the Middle East as prices at the pump in the state are averaging $5.93 per gallon today amid the war in Iran. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
This headline captures President Donald Trump and the Republicans’ midterm election problems in a nutshell: Inflation in March hit its highest level in two years as the Iran war spiked energy prices.
There is simply nothing that has happened in American politics between Trump’s epic 2024 political comeback and the Democrats’ romp in last year’s off-year elections running on an affordability mantra that would suggest voters prioritize a foreign war over higher prices. A thousand clips of Trump expressing his distaste for the ayatollahs or a hundred polls showing rank-and-file Republicans still support him do not prove otherwise.
Before the war, Trump could tout favorable inflation reports and falling gas prices. While inflation still remains well below the 41-year high it hit under the vanquished former President Joe Biden, it is markedly higher than in Trump’s first term. And because inflation is cumulative, it is harder to gain political points from the rate of inflation going down than demerits from it going up.
Public approval of Trump on Iran is running slightly below his overall job approval rating in the RealClearPoliticspolling averages, and neither is good enough for Republicans in November. Democrats currently lead the GOP by 5.4 points in the generic congressional ballot, though some individual pollsters show a bigger margin.
Salvaging the Republicans’ midterm election prospects is going to require extricating the U.S. from the war in Iran while keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, whether GOP lawmakers know it (or are willing to publicly admit it) or not.
Otherwise the Democratic attack ad line that we can afford bombs abroad but not groceries at home writes itself, even if it seems a bit more hypocritical given what Biden and congressional Democrats were doing in Ukraine when inflation was running hot.
It won’t matter.
Trump risks a repeat of 2020, when he heeded bad advice from people who were never his reliable allies in the first place on Covid-19 lockdowns, destroying the economy that was his ticket to a consecutive second term. But the pandemic was outside Trump’s control and not a crisis of his or the overconfident medical expert class’s choosing. Trump cannot say the same of the Iran war.
Whatever the sins of the Iranian government, and they are real, this war was a detour for MAGA and the Republican Party. Only Trump, with an assist from Vice President J.D. Vance, can get them back on track.
That won’t be easy. Not only do the remnants of the Iranian regime get a vote, especially on waterways access, but Trump’s new media allies—who are the same as the old boss—won’t cheer his ending the war as lustily as his beginning it.
The hawks will bay for blood, demanding Trump “finish the job.” Whether that job is the rescue of the Iranian people from the mad mullahs or the death of their “civilization,” seemingly a pair of contradictory goals, will vary by the commentator and the moment.
There isn’t much evidence that anyone in the Trump administration thought much more than degrading Iran’s military capacity was a doable or finishable job in the first place, including advisers committed to “maximum pressure” on Tehran.
Avoiding an intractable forever war and further disruption of the global economy remains as imperative now as it did before Operation Epic Fury began in the first place. Only now it is much more difficult. Wars, once started, are hard to end.
Trump has succeeded on this front in the past where George W. Bush failed because he stuck to military achievable goals, cutting deals with the leaders who remain and cutting his losses before things spiraled out of control. He has never tried to nation-build, especially in the Middle East.
This is the first time Trump has flirted with something more ambitious (or foolhardy). But the administration finally seems ready for an offramp, if a face-saving one can be found.
If the conversation has not substantially shifted away from war and Iran to domestic issues and an improving economy by late summer, Republicans will pay an electoral price for high prices.
It may already be too late for congressional Republicans. But 2028, and the race for the party’s future, remain a long way away.
