by Julie Millican | Jul 17, 2026 | Opinion, White House
When you look at John Solomon’s background, it is clear why President Donald Trump chose him to run a “task force” to declassify evidence of a conspiracy theory that’s been repeatedly debunked. It is also clear that Solomon’s role will likely end with a web of selectively released documents meant to support the president’s preferred narrative — including election denial claims that he reportedly plans to push in his speech to the nation Thursday.
While Solomon spent a good portion of his career hiding under the veneer of mainstream credibility — with bylines at The Washington Post and The Associated Press, as well as roles at outlets including The Hill, Fox News and the Center for Public Integrity — there had been warning signs about his true leanings. A 2004 AP report he wrote on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was described by the Columbia Journalism Review as having “a strong resemblance to an RNC press release.” A 2007 story for the Post, about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, was criticized by the paper’s ombudsman as “accurate” but misleading and “controversial even in the Post newsroom.” (The ombudsman said it was “like a ‘gotcha’ without the gotcha.”) A 2012 Columbia Journalism Review profile similarly noted that “Solomon has a history of bending the truth to his storyline” and that he “was notorious for massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals.”
Solomon became a regular on Hannity’s primetime show, with his reporting serving as part of the foundation for this alternative reality.
Creating “phantom scandals” has made Solomon a key element of the right-wing media’s propaganda machine. He gained prominence for his quest to discredit
by Rep. Ro Khanna | Jul 17, 2026 | Opinion, World
Last weekend, as I stood in the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian Bedouin village demolished by settler attacks, a car carrying armed men pulled up and blocked the road.
After roughly 20 minutes, Israeli soldiers arrived. I assumed they came to help me and my aide pass. Instead, they moved one of their vehicles to block the road. I was with my aide Cam Kasky and seven others, including a driver, a New York Times photographer and security. We were held there for about 90 minutes, as the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post and many other media outlets have confirmed.
I was released because I am a member of Congress, and David Brownstein, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, heroically intervened. Palestinians do not get to make calls for such help.
Photos taken by Rep. Ro Khanna’s staff showing armed Israeli settlers blocking the only road out of Khirbet Zanuta on July 8, 2026. Courtesy Rep. Khanna’s staff
For three days last week I traveled through the West Bank and listened to Palestinians describe their lives. No one decided in advance what I would be allowed to see. I witnessed the indignities Palestinians endure, the contempt they are treated with every day and the violence of Israeli settlers. I’m sharing my experiences both to help people understand the horrors Palestinians are living through and to give context to my vote for a House amendment on Israeli aid that was defeated Wednesday.
In Bethlehem, the wall runs over 400 miles, most of it well inside the West Bank rather than along any border. It cuts through Palestinian villages and
by Ja'han Jones | Jul 16, 2026 | Opinion, White House
The beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term coincided with dozens of passengers dying after an Army helicopter collided with a commercial airplane. Given this, one might hope — if not expect — the Trump administration to operate with impeccable sensitivity and care to ensure military aircraft are being properly operated, and certainly that they are not frightening or threatening to the public in any way.
But with man-children in charge of the federal government, even matters of life and death are treated frivolously.
On Wednesday, a jet from the Navy’s Blue Angels, a squad that performs flight demonstrations, flew so close to the ground that it shocked Florida beachgoers, sending items and sand up into the air. This comes after a somewhat similar incident involving two Army helicopters that flew near pro-Trump musician Kid Rock’s house. You may remember that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lifted suspensions for the crews and quashed an investigation.
Thank you @KidRock.@USArmy pilots suspension LIFTED. No punishment. No investigation.Carry on, patriots. https://t.co/Zqhv1Zx1iG— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) March 31, 2026
And Hegseth appeared to respond to Wednesday’s incident in Florida by posting on X: “The flyovers will continue until morale improves.”
The flyovers will continue until morale improves.— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) July 16, 2026
The White House responded in typically puerile fashion, using a cartoonish, probably AI-generated illustration of the flyover that — unlike the real scene — featured no screaming children ducking for cover.
“It’s okay to love America,” the post on X said.
It’s okay to love America. pic.twitter.com/s4PhtQb56q— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 16, 2026
A spokesperson told MS NOW that the Navy is reviewing footage of “a low-altitude pass by a team
by Ryan Teague Beckwith | Jul 16, 2026 | Opinion
Testosterone is one of the body’s most powerful hormones. In the womb, it helps direct male sexual development. When boys hit puberty, testosterone deepens their voices, stimulates facial hair and fuels muscle growth. Testosterone also helps adult men maintain muscle mass, bone density and energy.
In recent years, some conservatives have turned this common hormone into something much larger: a symbol of American masculinity itself.
Tucker Carlson and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fret about studies showing a broad decline in testosterone, blaming it on a crisis in masculinity and chemicals in the environment, respectively. Conservative influencers promote “T-maxxing” and direct-to-consumer testosterone injections. Republicans brag about President Donald Trump’s supposedly high testosterone levels, while slagging Democrats such as James Talarico, who’s running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, as “low T.”
Now the Pentagon is moving to enshrine these pseudoscientific ideas into military policy. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the department will offer testosterone deficiency screening for male soldiers 30 and older as part of their annual physicals, saying it will help ensure service members have the “right testosterone levels” to perform their “absolute best.” In a video posted with the caption “The High-T Department of War,” he said they will also have the option to receive testosterone replacement therapy.
The timing makes the announcement even more striking. The Trump administration has spent much of the past year arguing that hormone supplements are too destructive and risky to be used for gender-affirming care, particularly for transgender youth. But when the same hormone is framed as a way to make soldiers more combat-ready — and more “high T” — suddenly
by Ja'han Jones | Jul 16, 2026 | Congress, Opinion, White House
Vice President JD Vance took to Joe Rogan’s MAGA-friendly, misinformation-fueled podcast on Wednesday to push the Trump administration’s propaganda on a variety of topics, including its withholding of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Rogan’s show is known for platforming Nazi apologists, anti-vaccine activists and other far-right figures while often offering meek, if any, pushback. So it seems clear why Vance chose this particular venue to peddle misleading claims about the Epstein files. After all, there’s arguably no bigger megaphone for MAGA propaganda.
And it didn’t hurt that Tuesday’s podcast was released at the same time that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — a key Trump ally who has sought to end further inquiry into the Epstein files — sat for a confirmation hearing en route to potentially becoming the new attorney general.
JD Vance: “I’ve never seen a single piece of credible evidence that Trump ever engaged in wrongdoing with minors” pic.twitter.com/V2D5F3Fqzm— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 16, 2026
The vice president told Rogan that Trump and his administration weren’t “forced” to release the previously withheld files.
“People say the president was forced into releasing the documents,” Vance said. “Like, again, the idea that Donald Trump could not have killed that legislation, especially with the United States Senate, is a joke.”
False. In reality, Trump, a former friend of Epstein’s, desperately tried — and failed — to kill the legislation that forced the Justice Department to release the files. He had public tantrums over Republicans who supported the legislation, and there’s no evidence he had the ability to thwart the Senate, which approved the measure by unanimous consent.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor
by Julio Ricardo Varela | Jul 16, 2026 | Civil Rights, Opinion
The president couldn’t be decent even for 24 hours. Less than a day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday that it would pause most vehicle stops, Donald Trump posted on social media early Wednesday morning that “we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”
“The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch,” he wrote on Truth Social. Shortly after, Trump reversed the pause on traffic stops.
ICE operates this way because we as a country have allowed it to happen.
In truth, suspending the stops wouldn’t have brought back Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastián Guerrero, the two Latino fathers killed by ICE agents during separate stops in a span of a week. They are two more victims of an administration that has terrorized immigrant communities relentlessly. The real issue isn’t whether the traffic stops are now ending or continuing — it’s that ICE agents are never held accountable for killing people.
As I have written in the past, ICE operates this way because we as a country have allowed it to happen. ICE is now the country’s largest-funded enforcement agency. Just last month Congress passed $70 billion more in funding. Nothing will change until ICE is abolished.
“They’re just trying to cover for the fact that what they are doing shouldn’t be allowable in the first place,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of ICE’s announcement Tuesday, before Trump’s post about traffic stops. “And the fact that they’re pausing it is to distract from the fact that in many of these instances they shouldn’t be allowed to
