Last week, Republicans in Congress passed a framework for a proposed round of funding for ICE and Border Patrol. The measure was intended to end an impasse over Department of Homeland Security funding, which lapsed over 10 weeks ago. But the budgetary framework, which includes $70 billion for both agencies, came with a twist: No Democratic input needed. Republicans bypassed the normal…
Source
The Strait of Hormuz may still be closed. But the MAGA influencer-to-foreign agent pipeline remains wide open.
As The Wall Street Journal reported in January, we’re witnessing a growing trend of influencers from President Donald Trump’s purportedly “America First” movement being hired to advance the interests of foreign nations in Washington. The Journal’s report specifically mentioned popular MAGA social media influencers — in many cases, people without any diplomatic expertise — being sought out to act as paid agents for nations seeking to sway the United States government, including Israel and Qatar.
The latest beneficiaries of this trend? Extremist Trump adviser Roger Stone and fellow MAGA activist CJ Pearson — both of whom played key roles in Trump’s failed attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss — have been hired as lobbyists for the Bahamas.
On Friday, the Miami Herald reported on court filings showing that Stone and Pearson have agreed to serve as agents for the Bahamas in lucrative deals:
Coreco “CJ” Pearson, a MAGA youth influencer and commentator, has registered as a foreign agent and will be paid $20,000 a month.
In his filing, Pearson said he will “assist the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in its communications efforts to build stronger relations with the United States.”
Ahead of Pearson’s filing, Trump ally Roger Stone amended his own filing as a foreign agent on behalf of the country. Initially, Stone said DCI Group AZ, L.L.C, would be paid $125,000 a month to help The Bahamas “build stronger relations” with the U.S.; on March 25, he amended the filing to say he is being paid $100,000.
Contacted by the Miami Herald, Stone declined to comment. Joining him
Several major companies have signed on to sponsor President Donald Trump’s plans to celebrate the United States’ founding, which will officially kick off with a Christian nationalist prayer event on the National Mall on May 17.
And there’s a push underway to force the corporate leaders to declare on the record whether they endorse the ideals the celebration is designed to honor. I recently wrote about the upcoming Rededicate 250 event on the National Mall, which will include far-right Christian nationalists who have pressed for an end to the constitutional separation between church and state.
The gathering, which the White House said will feature a “large-scale revival,” is one of the events that Trump and a bunch of companies are planning to execute under the Freedom 250 name, a separate slate of programming from the congressionally authorized America250 programs.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that some executives have been “confused” by the fact that they have received sponsorship requests from both America250 and the more Trump-centric Freedom 250.
Nonetheless, several major companies are listed as sponsors for Freedom 250, an organization that has come under scrutiny from congressional Democrats. The sponsors include credit company Mastercard, software company SAP, consulting firm Deloitte and defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
Journalist Nancy Levine Stearns is the founder of Impactivize, a platform that focuses on “inclusivity and civil rights in America.” She basically has been covering Trump’s assault on diversity and corporations’ complicity in it.
I have referenced her work previously — such as in this post, which highlighted her running tally of corporations whose shareholders have rejected anti-diversity proposals.
She also has been keeping track of the list of sponsors
With the escalation of shelling in southern Lebanon since early March 2026, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese once again find themselves in a cycle of forced displacement. Official estimates indicate that more than 1 million people were forced to leave their homes within just the first few weeks, marking one of the fastest waves of displacement the country has experienced in decades.
Source
On Saturday, Texas state Representative and Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico will speak to graduates of the oldest Historically Black College and University in Texas in his first university commencement speech.
The speech’s thesis is pretty ambitious and a bit unorthodox for a political candidate in our current day and age of negative politics. Talarico will argue that America could be on the verge of another Great Awakening that will be driven by hard-earned cynicism from Gen Z, but can be fixed by love, service and community.
“Disillusionment has a bad reputation,” he will tell the graduates, according to an exclusive copy of his planned remarks to the 2026 graduating class of Paul Quinn College obtained by MS NOW. “But being disillusioned means being freed from illusions — to see reality. To know the truth. As painful as it may be, your disillusionment is a superpower. You can see the world as it is and dream of the way it ought to be.”
The speech doesn’t shy away from the bleakness of the present moment. Instead, it leans into it.
Talarico plans to tell graduates they’ve “scrolled through more suffering, more division, more chaos than any generation in human history” and that the American Dream is “on life support” as a result of “50 years of the top 1 percent rigging this economic system and this political system for their own benefit — at our expense.”
Play
Why Christian nationalists are terrified of James Talarico’s faith
March 22, 2026 / 07:54
“And we know that Black Texans have 10 times less wealth and are half as likely to own a home,” say the prepared remarks by
As workers around the world celebrate and recognize their efforts on May 1 — known globally as May Day or International Workers’ Day and celebrated in Palestine as Labor Day — this day passes in Palestine under a harsh economic reality that reflects a deepening crisis in the labor market and unprecedented levels of unemployment. According to data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of…
Source