AlterNet - What to make of a brazen case of election fraud in Pennsylvania

Carter Walker, Votebeat
May 23, 2025 | 10:18AM ET

Dozens of new voters had been registered in recent weeks, he noticed, including some people he knew — people who didn’t live in Millbourne.

Tayub won the mayoral election that November, but it would take years for authorities to fully unravel what was behind the odd registrations he discovered: a brazen attempt at election fraud.

Just last month, his opponent in the 2021 race, Md Nurul Hasan, pleaded guilty in federal court to 33 felony charges in a failed scheme to steal the election by illegally registering dozens of nonresidents as Millbourne voters, then casting mail ballots on their behalf. Two associates also pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including fraudulent voter registration.

The case serves as a reality check amid a raging national debate over election security and the threat of voter fraud, especially in swing states like Pennsylvania. It’s proof, on one hand, that despite the many safeguards in place, voter fraud can happen at the local level, with lasting consequences for the community. On the other hand, it also helps illustrate how difficult it would be to orchestrate such fraud on a larger scale without detection.

“It seems to be in the local races this pops up the most, where there is a smaller turnout and there is possibly a direct connection between the person committing the bad act and the person who is going to benefit from the bad act,” said Jim Allen, the Delaware County elections director.

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Politico - Belgium’s future queen caught up in Trump’s war on Harvard

Trump’s foreign student ban affects more than 7,000 students — including Princess Elisabeth.

May 23, 2025 4:20 pm CET
By Seb Starcevic

Belgium’s heir to the throne could be forced to leave Harvard University after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a ban on foreign students at the prestigious institution.

Princess Elisabeth, who will be the next queen of Belgium, is enrolled in a two-year master’s degree in public policy at Harvard, one of the world’s most elite universities.

But the Trump administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students on Thursday, accusing the university of promoting violence and antisemitism and failing to comply with a request to hand over foreign students’ information that could lead to their deportation.

The move affects more than 7,000 currently enrolled students, around a quarter of the student body, Harvard said in a lawsuit to overturn the restrictions, adding that it would have a “devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in her letter announcing the ban that foreign students must transfer out of the university to maintain their visa statuses.

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The Bulwark - A Permanent Stain on Our History

The Trump administration’s embrace of nativism is as shameful as it is self-destructive.

William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift
May 23, 2025

An Unprecedented Assault on American Greatness
by William Kristol

If the Trump administration’s sudden assault on thousands of foreign students legally studying at Harvard seems unprecedented, it’s because it is. If the abrupt abrogation of temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans legally living and working in the United States seems unprecedented, it’s because it is. If the sudden arrests and deportations of law-abiding immigrants checking in as ordered at government offices seems unprecedented, it’s because it is. If the deportations of other immigrants without anything like due process and basically in defiance of court orders to prisons in third countries seems unprecedented, it’s because it is.

And if it all seems utterly stupid and terribly cruel and amazingly damaging to this country, it’s because it is.

But it turns out nativism is one hell of a drug. The Trump administration has ingested it in a big way, and it’s driving its dealers and users in the administration into a fanatical frenzy of destructive activity. And the Republican party and much of Conservatism Inc.—and too much of the country as a whole—is just watching it happen.

The United States has many problems. No one seriously thinks that Harvard’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program is one of them. And the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement of the action against Harvard makes clear this isn’t just about Harvard: “Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.” Are our other institutions of higher education suffering from their ability to attract and enroll students from abroad, if they chose to do so? Are the rest of us?

No. And to the degree there are some discrete problems, nothing justifies this kind of action against Harvard. As Andrea Flores, a former DHS official, told the New York Times, “D.H.S. has never tried to reshape the student body of a university by revoking access to its vetting systems,

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NBC News - White House purges transcripts of Trump's remarks from its website

The White House told NBC News it has decided to post only videos. There still is one transcript remaining online, however: Trump's inaugural address.

May 21, 2025, 8:45 PM EDT / Updated May 22, 2025, 12:23 PM EDT
By Peter Nicholas, Megan Shannon and Megan Lebowitz

WASHINGTON — The White House has removed official transcripts of President Donald Trump’s public remarks from its government website, replacing them with selected videos of his public appearances.

As recently as Sunday, transcripts of Trump’s speeches and comments were still showing up in the “Remarks” section of WhiteHouse.gov. The next day, they were gone, snapshots of the site from an internet archive show. The only transcript appearing now is of Trump’s inaugural address on Jan. 20.

Government stenographers are still recording and transcribing Trump’s remarks, a White House official said. But in an internal policy change in recent days, the White House took down the transcripts in favor of audio and video of his appearances.

The idea behind the move is that people will get a fuller and more accurate sense of Trump by watching and listening to him as opposed to reading a transcript, which they may not be inclined to do anyway, the official said. Purging the transcripts and switching to audio and video of Trump's remarks was intended to create "consistency" across the website, the official said.

“In an effort to maintain consistency, previous transcripts that were available have been removed and replaced with the audio and visual components of that transcript,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The White House continues to work to upload the multitude of public engagements that the president has done and will continue to make sure that the website consists of a full and complete representation of the president’s public comments.”

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Axios - Harvard sues Trump for international student ban

April Rubin
7 mins ago

Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Friday for what it called "clear retaliation" against the school for "exercising its First Amendment rights" after the government barred international student enrollment.

Why it matters: Harvard is becoming the litmus test of how far the Trump administration will go to try taking down colleges and universities it considers to have liberal biases.

• "The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government's illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body," Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement.

Driving the news: The university will also file a motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent the administration from taking any further action against the school, Garber wrote.

Read the full lawsuit here:

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Raw Story - 'Burned along the way': Trump cost meme coin dinner guests millions in losses

Jennifer Bowers Bahney
May 22, 2025 4:40PM ET

President Donald Trump is hosting a dinner at his private gold club near Washington, D.C., Thursday night for the top holders of his $TRUMP meme coin, but a report in The Guardian says nearly half of his "winners" have lost millions on the cryptocurrency.

According to last month's announcement, the top 220 holders in a $TRUMP meme coin competition would win a ticket to a gala at the Trump National golf club. The top 25 holders would also get the chance to meet the president at a “Private VIP Reception” before the dinner, and the very top four would win a limited edition Trump Tourbillon watch that sells for $100,000.

The Guardian reported that the announcement "caused the coin to spike more than 50%."

But after analyzing crypto wallets on the Solana blockchain, The Guardian found that many investors "have been burned along the way."

"Of the 220 winners, 95 – some 43% – have suffered a net loss from purchasing $Trump since the coin’s January launch, a combined $8.95m, according to trading history and portfolios as of 21 May," the report noted.

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TIME - How Big Business Is Cashing In On Trump’s Tax Cuts

May 22, 2025 3:58 PM ET
Lindsay Owens

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was sold to the American public as a boon for working families and a catalyst for economic growth. At the time, President Trump and his allies in Congress promised that slashing the corporate tax rate by nearly 50% would lead to more jobs, higher wages, and a wave of investment in American innovation and infrastructure.

Now, Trump is back in office, and Congressional Republicans’ first order of business is working overtime to extend the Trump tax cuts and, in the words of House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, “deliver on President Trump’s promises to the American people.”

But eight years later, it’s clear how empty those promises have been. The TCJA supercharged corporate profits while delivering little for working families. Instead of reinvesting their windfalls, corporations have lined the pockets of their shareholders, fueling record-breaking profits and exacerbating inequality.

An April 2025 report from Groundwork Collaborative examined corporate pricing and profits since the enactment of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Our analysis confirms what many economists and workers have long suspected: the TCJA supercharged corporate profits and companies took the gains straight to their shareholders, while doing little to benefit the broader economy.

The data tells a stark story. After the TCJA slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, corporate profits exploded. But rather than using these gains to hire more workers or raise wages, companies funneled the bulk of their windfall into stock buybacks and dividend payouts that line the pockets of their wealthy shareholders and boost their earnings reports. Between 2018 and 2022, S&P 500 companies alone spent over $6.4 trillion on buybacks and dividends, dwarfing investments in labor, infrastructure, or research.

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HuffPost - Gun Silencers, Tanning Beds And Other Weird Stuff Tucked Into The GOP's Tax Bill

“There are certain elected officials who appear to have a certain orange hue about them," one Democrat scoffed at a tanning provision later stripped from the bill.

Jennifer Bendery
May 22, 2025, 03:41 PM EDT

WASHINGTON – When House Republicans passed President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package in the wee hours of Thursday, they didn’t just approve giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to rich people while kicking down millions of poor people.

They made it easier to get gun silencers. And quietly removed a weird provision about tanning beds. And expanded a ban on gender-affirming care. And, in a show of fealty to the president, they came up with a new name for tax-saving accounts that the government would seed with $1,000 for babies born in the next few years: “Trump Accounts.”

There was already a lot going on in the GOP’s 1,100-page bill, which is actually called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But things got confusing late Wednesday when Republicans unveiled a 42-page amendment with all kinds of eleventh-hour changes. They released their new language as the House Rules Committee was entering its 20th hour of a hearing on the bill, and Democrats barely had time to make sense of all the changes.

They’re a lot clearer now. Here are some of the weird and last-minute things Republicans slipped into their bill, which is now headed to the Senate and already hitting a wall over there.

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Raw Story - 'How is that fair?' Local TV anchor challenges Marjorie Taylor Greene on white refugees

David Edwards
May 22, 2025 1:35PM ET

LaTrice Currie, anchor of Atlanta's Local 3 News, pressed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) about how she could support deporting teen immigrants with brown skin while accepting white South African refugees.

During a Thursday interview, Currie noted that ICE had wrongly detained Ximena Arias-Cristobal at a traffic stop.

"The law is the law," Greene insisted. "And we don't get to pick and choose who gets to break the law and who gets to follow the law. It's unfortunate that this young lady's parents never pursued a passive citizenship when they illegally brought her into the country when she was a young child."

"And so on that same topic, Representative Greene," Currie pressed, "some people are saying, okay, so we're rounding up there, it's ICE detention centers, and also we're not letting refugees into the country, but we did let, let 59 white South Africans come into the country."

"And so people are saying, well, how is that fair? And what is your response to that when people ask that question?" the anchor asked.

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