TV News LIES

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it is freezing federal funding for childcare programs in Minnesota after allegations of fraud – first exposed and prosecuted during the Biden administration – recently became the focus of conservative influencers and media outlets.

Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of health and human services, said in a video statement that the funding freeze was in response to what he called “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country … We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud.”

The announcement comes one day after homeland security officials followed the new wave of attention generated by a rightwing influencer’s video dispatch from Minneapolis by going to businesses in the city to question workers over alleged fraud.

Despite claims by conservatives on social media that the allegations of fraud were ignored until now, there have been years of fraud investigations that began with the indictments in 2022 of 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a $250m scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prosecutors eventually secured the conviction of 57 people who stole federal funds granted to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future.

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The White House cannot lapse in its funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal district court judge ruled on Tuesday, only days before funds at the bureau would have likely run out and the consumer finance agency would have no money to pay its employees.

Judge Amy Berman ruled that the CFPB can continue to get its funds from the Federal Reserve, despite the Fed operating at a loss, and that the White House’s new legal argument about how the CFPB gets its funds is not valid.

At the heart of this case is whether Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s budget director and the acting director of the CFPB, can effectively shut down the agency and lay off all of the bureau’s employees.

The CFPB has largely been inoperable since President Trump has sworn into office nearly a year ago. Its employees are mostly forbidden from doing any work, and most of the bureau’s operations this year has been to unwind the work it did under President Biden and even under Trump’s first term.

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U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino said Tuesday federal immigration enforcement officers would remain in Chicago “for years,” even after months of controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants in the Windy City. 

“If you think we’re done with Chicago, you’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself,” Bovino wrote in a statement on social platform X.

“Don’t call it a comeback; we’re gonna be here for years,” he added. 

The post included a video of immigration officers chasing, tackling and arresting people, with an overlay of the song “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J. 

In the clip, one officer could be seen waving his finger through the hole of his pants, mocking the Chicago arrests. Some Chicago residents strongly oppose the Trump administration’s immigration operations, leading to mass demonstrations.

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President Trump has overseen a series of dramatic changes at the Kennedy Center since taking office at the beginning of the year.

The most significant shifts came in two waves, both of which resulted in artists canceling performances in protest of Trump’s takeover of the cultural institution.

In February, Trump replaced multiple board members with allies, who then elected Trump chair of the board, days after the president first announced on social media that he would serve in the position. He then named longtime ally Richard Grenell the center’s interim executive director.

This month, the board voted to rename the center “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” The president also hosted the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony, which aired last week.

Here are some of the performances that were canceled:

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Democrat Renee Hardman won a special election for state Senate in Iowa on Tuesday, preventing Republicans from regaining a supermajority in the chamber, Decision Desk HQ projects.

Hardman, the West Des Moines mayor pro tempore, defeated Republican Lucas Loftin to fill the seat that has been vacant since state Sen. Claire Celsi (D) died in October.

Her victory denies Republicans a two-thirds majority in the upper chamber, which would have given them the power to override a governor’s veto, call for special sessions and approve a governor’s appointees on a party-line vote. 

With Hardman’s win, Iowa Democrats are closing out the year strong. Back in January, Democrat Mike Zimmer flipped an Iowa state Senate district that had overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2024. And in August, Democrat Catelin Drey flipped another open state Senate seat, breaking the GOP supermajority. 

Her win is also the last in a string of notable victories for the party nationwide. Democrats most recently saw success in a special election for a state Senate seat in Kentucky. Prior to that, the party overperformed in a special election in Tennessee. And Democrats had a better-than-expected election in November, when they overwhelmingly won the governors’ mansions in New Jersey and Virginia, the mayor’s office in New York City, and a number of other notable downballot races.

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Uncle Sam wants you to dress up when heading to the airport, but are people heeding the call?

The request for sartorial seriousness in the skies is part of the "The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You" campaign, which the Department of Transportation says aims to "restore courtesy and class to air travel."

When the campaign launched in November, the DOT cited trends that have festered among travelers for years, including 13,800 unruly passenger incidents since 2021, a 400% increase in inflight outbursts since 2019, and one in five flight attendants experiencing "physical incidents" in 2021.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a BlazeTV interview published Nov. 25 that not dressing "respectfully" can lead to "people not treating each other respectfully."

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Tatiana Schlossberg, the environmental journalist, author and granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, has died. She was 35. 

Her death was confirmed Dec. 30 by the The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the nonprofit organization that provides financial support and staffing for the former president's library.

"She will always be in our hearts," her parents, siblings, husband and children said in an Instagram post.

Schlossberg, the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and designer Edwin Schlossberg, disclosed her terminal cancer diagnosis in a Nov. 22 essay for the New Yorker.

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On December 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a $35 billion deal to sell natural gas to Egypt in what officials describe as the largest energy export agreement in Israel’s history. The natural gas will be produced from Leviathan, a massive field west of Haifa. “On this day,” Netanyahu wrote in a statement that day, the third day of Hanukkah, “we’ve brought another jug of oil to the nation of Israel. But this time, the flame will burn not just for eight days, but for decades to come.”

The gas export permit for Egypt came after months of delays and behind-the-scenes disputes between Tel Aviv, Cairo, and Washington. The decision is expected to reinforce the Camp David peace framework between Egypt and Israel—an arrangement strained by the Gaza genocide—while cementing Israel’s emergence as a major natural gas supplier in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.

The deal has been more than a decade in the making—and one unlikely individual played a small, but essential role in laying its groundwork: Jeffrey Epstein. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak consulted extensively with Epstein on financial deals around Leviathan for years, as Barak searched for international backers for Leviathan’s development.

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