Trump tariffs go into effect as US brokers new trade deals; SCOTUS to consider legality of race-based districts in possible boon to GOP redistricting effort; Appeals court says Texas AG can’t question Catholic Charities; RFK Jr. defunds mRNA vaccines; Trump – not Newsom – to oversee 2028 Los Angeles Olympics; Prominent Vatican cardinal encourages Pope Leo to ‘open’ door to traditional Latin Mass; Miracle in Naples, Italy; and more —
Soros-Backed Group, Beto O’Rourke PAC Pick Up Tab For Texas Democrats’ Gerrymandering Stunt
Groups tied to billionaire megadonor George Soros and failed candidate Beto O’Rourke are picking up the tab for Texas Democrats who fled the state to block a GOP redistricting plan, according to The Texas Tribune.
Since Sunday, dozens of Texas House Democrats have taken refuge in blue states such as Illinois to deny the state House a quorum needed to pass a new congressional map that could net Republicans up to five additional seats. The absent democrats face a $500 fine for each day they are absent, but O’Rourke’s Powered by People PAC and the Soros-backed Texas Majority PAC are covering much of the cost, according to The Texas Tribune.
Read more at the Daily Caller
‘Disgusting’: Tom Homan Skewers Far-Left Dem Declaring Her Allegiance To Foreign Nation Over Her Own Country
Border czar Tom Homan ridiculed Democrat Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez on Wednesday for declaring her allegiance to Guatemala over the U.S. during an anti-American summit abroad.
Ramirez proudly stated in Spanish that she is a “proud Guatemalan before [she is] an American” during the summit located in Mexico City that several far-left lawmakers attended. Homan told reporters outside of the White House that her remarks are “disgusting” and a betrayal to her constituents who elected her to represent them.
Read more at the Daily Caller
The Real Reason Democrats Are Panicking About Redistricting
Matt Walsh exposes how a rigged census, racial gerrymandering, and decades of manipulation have given Democrats an unfair advantage in Congress — and why that whole system may soon be upended. He reveals how SCOTUS’ upcoming vote on the Voting Rights Act may change all that.
Watch at Matt Walsh on YouTube (In: 2:07-Out: 18:07)
Supremes to consider legality of race-based districts in possible boon to GOP redistricting effort
Democrats have gone as far as fleeing their home state to avoid voting on the issue, ironically, to deep-blue Illinois, where racial gerrymandering has favored Democrats for decades. Race-based districts also face a second prong of scrutiny from the Trump Justice Department.
The Supreme Court’s decision to scrutinize the constitutionality of race-based congressional districts under the Voting Rights Act may give Republicans a major boost in their redistricting effort ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The constitutionality of race-based districts, which are primarily concentrated in the southern United States as a vestige of anti-discrimination efforts during the civil rights era, are also facing challenges from the Trump Justice Department, which has prodded at least one state to reconsider its district map over constitutional concerns.
Read more at Just the News
Biden Lost 500K Migrant Children — Trump Administration Is Returning Them Home
The Trump administration is working to safely return to their home countries the unaccompanied illegal migrant children lost under the Biden administration, The Daily Signal has learned.
Hundreds of thousands of minors arrived at the southern border without a parent or a legal guardian under the Biden administration. The Trump administration has located 13,000 of those children, and now, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a subagency of the Department of Health and Human Services, is working to reunite those children with their families in their home countries and find the rest of the missing minors.
Read more at Amac
Appeals Court Says Texas Attorney General Can’t Question Catholic Charity Leaders
A state appeals court in Texas this week affirmed that Attorney General Ken Paxton will not be permitted to question the leaders of a Catholic Charities affiliate at the U.S.-Mexico border amid an inquiry into illegal immigration.
The state 15th Court of Appeals said in an Aug. 4 ruling that Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley has cooperated sufficiently with the state’s investigation into the charity. Paxton’s office has been conducting broad inquiries into allegations that nonprofits have facilitated illegal immigration in the state.
Prosecutors were not entitled to a “pre-suit deposition” from charity leaders, including its executive director, Sister Norma Pimentel, the court ruled.
Read more at the Catholic News Agency
President Trump has signed an executive order creating a task force to oversee the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
On Tuesday, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order establishing a White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics. …
The Executive Order establishes a task force to lead Federal coordination for the Olympic events, comprised of members of President Trump’s cabinet and key government agencies.
President Trump will chair the task force, Vice President JD Vance will serve as Vice Chair, and an Executive Director will manage daily operations. …
Read more at WhiteHouse.gov
Gingrich: Trump Is On A Pathway To Greatness Not Seen Since Lincoln, Washington
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says President Trump is wielding the power of the presidency at a “level of energy, drive, and effectiveness” the U.S. hasn’t seen since Washington, Lincoln, or maybe Franklin Roosevelt.
“You have this rock standing in the middle of history called Donald Trump,” he told FNC’s Jesse Watters Wednesday night. “If he can sustain this, he’s moving into a league that, other than Washington and Lincoln, nobody has gotten to.”
Read more at Real Clear Politics
President Trump Asked If He Misses Elon Musk
Spoiler alert: Trump – “I think Elon Musk is a good person. I think he had a bad moment. But he’s a good person, I believe that.”
Watch Trump’s response @Citizen Free Press on X
Trump tariffs go into effect as US brokers new trade deals
A set of stiff tariffs against nearly 70 countries went into effect Thursday just after midnight, bringing the Trump administration one step closer to finalizing its “Liberation Day” agenda.
United States trading partners will face duties ranging from 10% to 41%, part of a recalculation of the rates Trump laid down in his original April 2 tariff announcement. Other countries not included in the executive order will face a 10% tariff.
Read more at the Washington Examiner
Health Secretary Kennedy announces $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Investment being canceled
“We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted. BARDA [Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority] is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu. We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.”
Watch @SecKennedy on X
California University’s New President Vows to ‘Eliminate Whiteness’ – Victor Davis Hanson
“Eliminate whiteness,” says Sacramento State’s new president, Dr. Luke Wood. But press him on what that means? He has no answer. Victor Davis Hanson explains what this rhetoric really means, and why this racialized framing is not only intellectually hollow, but deeply dangerous for a pluralistic and Western democratic society” …
“This is in the age of post-DEI, in a very reactionary, retrograde approach, that you’re going to single out particular groups and you’re going to emphasize particular plans, programs based on the color of their skin at a time when we’re all trying to transcend it … It’s a retrograde tribal thought that goes back to pre-civilizational ideas.”
Watch at The Daily Signal
With New Cell Phone Ban, Texas Students Will Have To Start Talking To Each Other
With August upon us, the month most kids dread after summer vacation, Texas public school teachers like myself are singing a different tune. The Texas legislature has banned cellphone use on all school campuses during school hours. Thanks to this new policy, Texas students will no longer scroll on TikTok during lessons, Google answers during assessments, and violently clash with teachers who ask them to put away their phones.
For the first time in years, students will experience what school was like in the dark ages when kids talked to their peers face-to-face, did their work during class, and endured hours of boredom when that work was done. Perhaps students will discover the lost arts of doodling, passing notes, planning outings with friends, and reading actual books from the school library. They may even cultivate real personalities and introduce themselves to one another.
Read more at The Federalist
North Carolina Priest Arrested For Homosexual Prostitution In Church Parking Lot
A Catholic priest at St. Ann Catholic Church in Johnston County was arrested early Monday morning and charged with felony solicitation of prostitution, according to the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office.
Clemente Guerrero-Olvera, 47, was taken into custody around 1:00 a.m. in the parking lot of the church, located along U.S. Highway 70 Business West near Clayton. Deputies were in the area searching for a missing juvenile when they encountered Guerrero-Olvera under suspicious circumstances.
A patrol deputy searching the church grounds reportedly spotted a young man inside a parked vehicle and another man attempting to flee on foot behind the church. The deputy detained the individual who had been running, later identified as Guerrero-Olvera, and located a 20-year-old male in the vehicle.
Read more at Complicit Clergy
Cardinal Koch: It is ‘desirable’ for Pope Leo to lift restrictions on Latin Mass
A prominent Vatican cardinal has said it would be “desirable” for Pope Leo to “open” the door to the traditional Latin Mass which Pope Francis moved to close via his stringent restrictions.
Speaking to Austrian website kath.net, Cardinal Kurt Koch opined on the question of liturgy and on relations between Christians under Pope Leo XIV.
Read more at Lifesite News
9 Killed in Attacks on Nigeria’s Christian Farming Communities
At least nine people, including a police officer, were killed between Aug. 1-5, in a series of coordinated attacks on villages in Agatu County of Nigeria’s Benue state.
The victims belonged to Christian farming communities targeted in what locals suspect were reprisal assaults by armed Fulani herdsmen.
According to residents, the attackers crossed into Agatu from neighboring Kogi state, carried out the assaults, and then fled across the state border. The villages affected include Okwutanobe, Okpokpolo, Olegagbani, and Ikpele.
Read more at International Christian Concern
Why the Black Internet is Calling Cynthia Erivo’s Casting as Jesus Anything But Holy
Cynthia Erivo’s new role as Jesus at the Hollywood Bowl’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” has some Black folks online in shambles. Clips of her performance went viral over the weekend, and now, the Black internet is sounding the alarms for what they deem to be straight up blasphemy and disrespect. …
“Jesus Christ will not be mocked,” one TikToker said. He began to rebuke the production and the “Black queer actress” in the name of Jesus. “This is blasphemy. Christians are outraged because they say Jesus Christ is a man and should be portrayed as such. It’s pure mockery to have a queer woman portray our Lord and Savior, but that’s always been Hollywood’s mission– to disrespect Christianity.” He went to say that “the things she stands for are anti-Christ,” pointing out the fact that “no other religion is disrespected like Christianity”…
Read more at The Root
The Shroud of Turin: God’s Gift to ALL People
God, the Creator, has graciously preserved and given humanity an astounding, miraculous, 2,000-year-old gift — a precious holy relic. It is the Shroud of Turin, the recently authenticated burial cloth of Jesus Christ, determined by extensive research and scientific examination to be the genuine article. For sure, the implications of this finding are far-reaching.
The 14.5 x 3.7-foot Shroud contains a face-up image of a man with blood stains on his forehead, wrists, side, and feet; exactly the areas of the body where the Christian Bible describes how Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified by Roman soldiers.
Recent research indicates that the fabric of the Shroud is characteristic of fabrics woven in Israel during the first century and that the fabric contains microscopic residue of plants known to exist around Jerusalem.
Read more at Amac
Sister of heroic Vietnamese Cardinal imprisoned by Communists tells his story
Elisabeth Nguyen Thi Thu Hong joins the podcast to tell the inspiring story of her older brother, Venerable Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, the heroic Vietnamese Cardinal who was imprisoned by the Communists for 13 years, 8 of those in solitary confinement. Thuan was descended from a line of Vietnamese martyrs, and his uncle was the devout Catholic President and Prime Minister of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, who himself was something of a martyr.
Watch at Catholic Culture on YouTube
‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing’: Miracle of the oil of St. Charbel in Naples church
St. Ferdinand Church, located in the historic heart of Naples, Italy, was the scene of an event that many are already calling miraculous, attributed to the intercession of St. Charbel, a Lebanese hermit, devotion to whom has transcended borders.
On July 24, in the context of his liturgical memorial, Monsignor Pasquale Silvestri, parish priest at the Neapolitan church, celebrated a Mass in honor of the saint attended by more than 500 people, many of them ill.
At the end of the Eucharist, the priest proceeded to anoint the faithful who approached the altar with blessed oil — sent especially for the occasion by the Maronite Curia in Rome. It was then that something unexpected happened.
Read more at the Catholic News Agency
Scenes surrounding the inauguration of new Polish Catholic president Karol Nawrocki, defender of national and religious rights amid a globalist Europe —
— The ancient Polish hymn to the Mother of God, “Bogurodzica,” was sung at the start of the Holy Mass for the intention of the Homeland and the President of Poland. The Eucharist was led by Primate of Poland, Fr. Archbishop Wojciech Polak.
Watch @Radio Maryja on X
— The inaugural Mass was held in the Basilica of St. John The Baptist in Warsaw. The Polish Army Choir sung at the Mass.
Watch @Declan Gangley on X
— On the eve of his inauguration, the new Polish president Karol Nawrocki attended Mass with his family, offered at the Jasna Góra Basilica (attached to the Chapel of the Black Madonna) in Częstochowa.
Watch @Moine Soldat on X
— Even Trump got in on the action congratulating the Polish nation upon Nawrocki’s inauguration
“TRUMP ALLY WINS IN POLAND SHOCKING ALL EUROPE.” Congratulations, Poland, you picked a WINNER!”
