• Trump’s taxing flip-flop: Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump articulated a traditional Republican stance: Raising taxes on filers in the higher brackets would be “very disruptive.” He made it known among congressional Republicans that he did not support the idea of raising rates on high earners, which he and others had previously floated as a compromise on the way to passing his “big, beautiful bill.” Yesterday, he did a 180, reportedly telling congressional Republicans that, yes, they should raise taxes on filers in the 37% bracket. That rate applies to individuals earning $626,350 or more, and married couples making above $751,600. The left-of-center Tax Foundation says raising that rate back to 39.6% would bring in $59.3 billion over a decade, but that ignores investment changes those filers will make that hurt economic growth. Congressional Republicans should stand their ground and keep rates where they’ve been since 2017.

• FBI opens criminal probe into Letitia James: Letitia James is the New York Democrat Attorney General who, in her campaign for the position in 2019, promised to “use every area of the law to investigate President Trump.” She kept her promise, bringing Trump to court over a novel legal issue related to his real estate dealings. James’s case against Trump hinged on his organization falsifying business records, and the new FBI criminal probe against James hinges on her falsifying bank and property records. Turnabout is fair play, as they say, but James’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, disagrees. Lowell protests that this is the kind of political retribution that “AG Bondi assured the Senate would not occur on her watch.”

• Joe Biden on “The View”: The only person who could help Republicans more by making frequent public appearances than Kamala Harris is her former boss, Joe Biden. We aren’t sure why Joe has been making the rounds recently, but it’s good for the elderly to stay active. His appearance on “The View” is his third event in the last month, and neither has gone particularly well. For example, Joe’s view is that Harris lost the 2024 campaign because America went “the sexist route” — no surprises there. The most interesting moment of the show came when Alyssa Farah Griffin asked Joe about reports of his cognitive decline “in the last year of his term.” After Joe rambled incoherently for a while, his wife jumped in to gush about how hard he worked during his term. Hard work is well and good, but no amount of it can overcome dementia.

• House votes for Gulf of America: Many Republicans who cheered Donald Trump’s slew of executive orders in the days after he took office are eager for the Republican majority in Congress to codify these new policies as law. The House majority is acting on that desire; they looked at all the EOs vis-à-vis the border crisis, energy production, ending DEI, and banning “gender-affirming care” for minors, and they chose the, er, most important of the bunch: renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Trump’s EO renamed it the Gulf of America, a pleasing but symbolic move. The renaming has greatly offended the America-haters, which is always good, but that’s about it. The House voted Thursday 211-206 to pass Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “Gulf of America Act,” which would make the name change permanent. Love the name (buy your Gulf of America merchandise from the Patriot Post Shop today!). Now on to something actually important.

• Trump names Jeanine Pirro DC attorney: On Thursday, President Trump announced that he was appointing Jeanine Pirro, currently a member of Fox News’s “The Five,” as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro’s qualifications include service as an assistant district attorney, county judge, and district attorney in New York. Her appointment comes after Trump withdrew Ed Martin’s nomination due to reports that he would not receive the necessary Senate votes. Martin is currently the acting U.S. attorney through May 20. Trump outlined his plans for Martin in the Justice Department as the director of weaponization, associate deputy attorney general, and pardon attorney.

• James Carville vs. Ilhan Omar: In 2018, Ilhan Omar made some very telling comments about the need to “profile” and “monitor” American white men to prevent “radicalization.” That clip recently resurfaced on social media, and Vice President JD Vance called Omar’s comments “genocidal language.” On Wednesday, Democrat strategist James Carville lost his cool over her comments and said that Omar and those like her are “more trouble than they’re worth.” Carville pointed out that 69% of voters are white and half are men, meaning the “white men” Omar is worried about represent more than one in three Americans. Omar lamented Carville’s “MAGA talking points” and reaffirmed that the Democrats are a “big tent party.” That’s the Democrats — a big tent that has no room for one in three Americans.

• Hamas victim excoriates Pulitzer Board: Your Patriot Post team has extensively covered the laughable Pulitzer Prizes that were awarded Monday. Pulitzers are not awarded based on merit but on political alignment. That alignment is never more clear than when the Pulitzer Prize Board rewards the coverage of an anti-Semitic Hamas propagandist like Mosab Abu Toha. Emily Damari, one of the 251 people kidnapped and tortured by Hamas on 10/7, said it best: “You have chosen to elevate a voice that denies truth, erases victims, and desecrates the memory of the murdered.” Mosab Abu Toha, far from doing any reporting worthy of a Pulitzer, denied Damari’s captivity, the murder of the Bibas family, and generally did his best to make Hamas’s genocidal maniacs seem like the victims.

• Misinterpreting civic “pride”: Proving that little blue enclaves in red states can still cause big headaches, Boise and Salt Lake City did something truly bizarre in recent days: They made the Rainbow Mafia’s “pride” flags official city flags. First, it was Boise, making the basic rainbow flag. Then, it was Salt Lake City, which said “hold my beer” and made two gender-confusion flags — the hideous “progress pride” flag and the transgender flag — official, along with a Juneteenth flag for good measure. Why is this happening? To defy state laws in Idaho and Utah, respectively, banning non-official government flags from public buildings. Democrats are so dedicated to the gender cult that instead of complying, they made their deviant flags part of these cities’ official state religion.

Headlines

• Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter dead at 85 (Just the News)

• Trump suggests cutting China tariff rate to 80% ahead of Switzerland talks (CNBC)

• FEMA acting chief fired after speaking out against Trump plan (Newsweek)

• Anti-Israel mob descends on Brooklyn College in NYC as agitators brawl with police, get tased (Fox News)

• After national outrage, California Dems restore bill making child prostitution a felony (Center Square)

• India-Pakistan: 125 jets clash in one of largest dogfights in recent history (Newsweek)

• Humor: Bernie Sanders unveils his new gold-encrusted “Beat the Oligarchy” dirigible (Babylon Bee)

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