The Patriot Post® · Monday: Below the Fold
Assailant lays ambush, kills two firefighters: At 1:20 p.m. Sunday, a call was made about a fire on Canfield Mountain in Idaho. At 2 p.m., firefighters responding to the fire reported coming under sniper fire. Two firefighters were killed, and a third is still in the hospital. The suspected sniper was found dead with a gun nearby; currently, he is believed to be the only shooter. The fire was likely started by the assailant for the ambush, according to Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris. Law enforcement located the shooter’s body by tracking his cellphone signal.
Birthright citizenship amendment: To “immediately put an end to the debate” on the question of so-called “Birthright Citizenship,” whether citizenship rights are automatically conferred to children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens, Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) has introduced a constitutional amendment. Barr’s amendment would deny citizenship eligibility to children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens by clarifying the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction” clause. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, was intended to guarantee full citizenship rights to former slaves. Barr’s amendment provides three criteria under which a person born in the U.S. is granted citizenship status: their parents are U.S. citizens, aliens granted permanent legal residence, or legal aliens performing active service in the Armed Forces. While SCOTUS on Friday ruled in Donald Trump’s favor on nationwide injunctions tied to his executive order suspending birthright citizenship to children born to illegal aliens, the justices did not address the constitutionality of his order.
Senate advances OBBBA: The Senate advanced the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Saturday. The narrow 51-49 vote was mostly along party lines, with two GOP defectors. Senators Rand Paul and Thom Tillis voted “No,” with Paul opposing the debt limit increase and Tillis opposing supposed cuts in Medicare funding for North Carolina. The 940-page bill advanced after President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune worked overtime Friday and Saturday to garner the necessary votes. Vance and Thune secured “Yes” votes from Senators Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, Mike Lee, and Cynthia Lummis in a deal late Saturday night. Per the deal, an amendment to limit the number of able-bodied adults on ObamaCare will be voted on before the final vote to advance the bill out of the Senate, expected tonight.
Tillis won’t seek reelection: North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who voted against advancing the Senate’s version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, announced over the weekend that he won’t seek reelection. The 64-year-old’s sudden announcement followed blowback from Trump, who blasted Tillis on social media and promised to support a primary effort against him. Tillis, a moderate, quickly threw in the towel, stating that it boiled down to a choice of “spending another six years navigating the political theatre and partisan gridlock in Washington” or with his family. “It’s not a hard choice,” he concluded. The two-term senator was also facing a tough reelection fight, both in the primary and, should he have prevailed, in the general election. While some are blasting Trump for damaging the Republicans’ chances of retaining control of the Senate, Tillis’s heart was clearly no longer in the job.
Navy upgrades name: SecDef Pete Hegseth has officially announced that the ship USNS Harvey Milk, named for a homosexual pedophile under the order of Barack Obama in 2016, will be renamed for World War II Medal of Honor recipient Oscar V. Peterson. However, as Mark Alexander notes: “Hegseth’s effort to undo this Obama/Biden DEI charade is admirable, but it is inexplicably why Hegseth’s staff would suggest OV Peterson, who was previously honored with the naming of the USS Peterson — an Edsall-class destroyer escort, launched in 1943 and decommissioned in 1965. There are 1,049 Navy and Marine Medal of Honor recipients, and about 180 Naval vessels of all sizes named for recipients. Hegseth should have selected one of the 870 other recipients.”
Grand Ayatollah issues fatwa against Donald Trump: If anyone needs reminding that Iran’s regime is and has been a longtime enemy of the U.S., Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, who is a former member of the Assembly of Experts for Constitution, issued a fatwa against Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The fatwa calls on Muslims of the world to kill both Trump and Netanyahu. Iran has launched multiple assassination plots against not only Trump but also other American political leaders, so in a sense, this latest action is simply par for the course for the Islamic Republic. What is telling is that Trump, as he observed, could have easily given the green light for the Ayatollah Khamenei to be eliminated, yet he refrained. Trump wants peace, while the regime in Tehran promotes more violence and terror, all in the name of Islam. And they insist it’s a “religion of peace.”
IDF kills Hamas cofounder in airstrike: There is more good news regarding Israel’s war with the Iranian proxy Hamas. Hakham Muhammad Issa Al-Issa, one of the founders of the jihadi terrorist organization, was killed by Israel Defense Forces in an airstrike on Friday. The IDF noted that Issa had been instrumental in training for and planning the October 7, 2023, attack. “The IDF & ISA [Israel Security Agency] will continue to locate and eliminate all terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre,” a social media post concluded. Slowly but surely, Israel is destroying Hamas.
Border Patrol needs new hires: A wave of Border Patrol agents who joined the organization when it was formed in 2003 will likely retire by 2028, potentially leading to a shortage of agents. The Border Patrol employs nearly 20,000 agents and staff at ports of entry and along the country’s coasts. More than 4,000 agents quit under Joe Biden’s leadership due to his demoralizing effort to flood the nation with illegals. CBP’s Office of Field Operations is already short 5,850 customs officers. The situation is likely to worsen soon due to retirement protocols. Agents can retire at any time with 25 years of service, or after age 50 with 20 years of service. At 57, agents are required to retire, but they can return for one-year renewals until age 60. 2028 will mark 25 years since the creation of CBP, resulting in a large number of eligible retirees.
Mark Carney tosses tech tax to appease Trump: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney ended the Canadian plan to tax U.S. technology companies in an attempt to resume negotiations toward a trade deal with the U.S. Trump ended negotiations with Canada last Friday over its insistence that it would proceed with the tax. The tax plan, known as the digital services tax, would have imposed a retroactive 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users, resulting in a $3 billion bill due at the end of June.
Headlines
Harvard hit with Title VI violation notice by Trump admin for handling of anti-Semitism (Fox News)
University of Virginia’s DEI-obsessed president resigns in disgrace (The Federalist)
Trump to announce TikTok buyer group in two weeks (Newsweek)
Given three chances, Zohran Mamdani won’t condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” (Daily Wire)
Mamdani says billionaires shouldn’t exist (Fox News)
Texas is first state to implement series of MAHA reforms (Just the News)
Ukraine moves toward withdrawing from treaty banning anti-personnel mines (Fox News)
Humor: In powerful dissent, Ketanji Brown Jackson simply writes “Wakanda Forever” (Babylon Bee)
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