Friday, May 8, 2026
Note to Ldotters:
Please remember, no duplicates, no blog posting
unless you have permission from staff, no local crimes and
no posting just to elicit nasty reactions.
Any post with three lines or fewer will be deleted.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Lucianne.com Ad-Free Subscription
Learn More or Enter Code
Latest Posts
The U.S. labor market continued to defy expectations in April, with employers surpassing economists' forecasts and adding 115,000 jobs nationwide.
By the numbers
Economists predicted payroll gains of 65,000 in April, according to a consensus forecast from FactSet.
The unemployment rate, which has hovered above 4% since June 2024, held steady at 4.3%. Health care and transportation/warehousing companies led job growth in April, adding 37,000 and 30,000 jobs, respectively. Federal employment fell by 9,000.
The report follows a strong March report, when employers added a revised 185,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department.
A Utah man missed his connection at Newark Airport, went to retrieve his checked luggage, which contained a properly declared, unloaded firearm, and got arrested. He did everything right. New Jersey didn't care.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) cited that case in a proposed rule published earlier this week that would amend existing Gun Control Act regulations to protect gun owners during routine travel interruptions — a missed flight, a hotel stay, a fuel stop, a medical emergency. The Utah case isn't an outlier. New York and New Jersey have made a prosecution racket out of ensnaring travelers passing through their airports and highways with legally
The hammer is finally coming down on those who think they can skip out on their legal and moral obligations to their own children while enjoying the luxury of international travel.
The U.S. State Department announced Friday that it has officially begun the process of revoking the passports of thousands of Americans who owe significant amounts of unpaid child support.
Starting this week, the Department will begin revoking the passports of thousands of Americans who owe substantial unpaid child support, with an initial focus on those racking up $100,000 or more in arrears.
According to figures provided to the State Department
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has ordered that the “Texas American Muslim University at Dallas” immediately cease operations, saying it has been illegally offering higher education programs in Texas without state authorization. The “TexAM University at Dallas” or “Texas American Muslim University” (TexAM) has been marketing itself as a new university for Muslim students. The institution has been claiming to offer STEM programs alongside mandatory Islamic studies. According to a letter sent by the coordinating board, TexAM has never received the required Certificate of Authority from the state to operate or grant degrees in Texas under Chapter 61 of the Texas Education Code.
Sami Winc: So, Victor, let’s turn to California. And recently, the—we know as well a lot of our viewers know—California has a jungle primary, where the primary is all the parties are in. And the last—the two that are on top are on the ballot for November. Well, no surprise, but our chair of the Democratic Party in California, Rusty Hicks, has decided that this does not work as a primary process.
Victor Davis Hanson: I thought it worked great. It always got the results the law is—they drafted the law.
They said they had 60% Democrats, so they could ensure that in most all—and it worked.
An earthquake occurred today in the Commonwealth of Virginia that was felt at the highest levels of power in the U.S. House of Representatives, particularly shaking the minority leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries. On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected the unconstitutional push by the Democrat majority in the Virginia General Assembly. The Virginia high court voided the proposed constitutional amendment and “temporary” partisan gerrymandering by Democrats that would break up the current congressional district map from its current representation of six Democrat and five Republican congressional seats to 10 Democrat and one Republican to represent the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. House.
Attorneys for the man accused of attempting to kill President Donald Trump on April 25 during the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton hotel slammed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro while demanding she recuse herself from the case. The nine-page motion to disqualify, filed on Thursday, argues that Pirro, along with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and other unnamed DOJ officials, have a conflict of interest that should bar them from participation in prosecuting Cole Allen. It further says that the entire U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, which is currently prosecuting the case, should be disqualified.
Hasan Piker, a leftist streamer and "influencer," is a real piece of... work. Politically, he's somewhere out there to the left of Fidel Castro.
So, naturally, when the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the redistricting scheme cooked up by Virginia Democrats who didn't bother to read what the Virginia Constitution says about the matter, Piker got himself in, shall we say, a bit of a snit.
Actually, a four-alarm angry rant is a more accurate decision.
In a 4-3 decision, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a voter-approved map, which would give Democrats a 10-1 advantage in U.S. House races, violated the state's constitution because of procedural errors in the map’s passage.
President Donald Trump on Friday announced that Russia and Ukraine would observe a three-day ceasefire to mark the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had already declared a unilateral ceasefire to mark Russia's victory in the "Great Patriotic War," Russia's name for World War II. The Kremlin further warned Ukraine against attempting to target Moscow during the festivities.
"I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine. The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but,
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles made a stunning assertion at the Independent Women’s Forum’s Awards Gala in Washington DC, Thursday, declaring that she believes “we’re going to find out” President Trump actually won many of the swing states he supposedly lost to Biden in 2020.
Wiles was honored with the IWF’s Barbara K. Olson Woman of Valor Award, which recognizes women who demonstrate “commitment and courage to advance economic liberty, personal responsibility and political freedom.”
In March, Wiles announced she had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer while stressing she had been given a strong prognosis.
President Trump honored his longtime aide with a surprise video tribute.
A funny thing happened on the way to the (Kia) Forum. The media has begun to take notice of the results emerging from decades of Democrat rule in the Golden State. And suddenly, California dreaming looks a lot more like California screaming – and even the lockstep media can't ignore it.
Democrats have only themselves to blame, not just for the disaster they have made of the state but also in providing the catalyst for the national spotlight on it. In the gubernatorial race, a flood of high-profile Democrats jumped into the jungle primary – also a Democrat innovation – while Republicans had more discipline
The Utah Supreme Court Justice who had a romantic relationship with a leftist lawyer involved in helping the Democrats steal a congressional seat has resigned.
In November, the Utah Third District Court struck down the congressional map crafted by the Republican-led state legislature, labeling it an unconstitutional “gerrymander” and replacing it with a map drawn by left-wing plaintiffs.
The Democrats gained a seat in bright red Utah.
Ed wrote about the (mildly) surprising decision from the Virginia Supreme Court to throw out the results of the referendum that would have made Virginia one of the most lopsided congressional maps in the United States, changing the Congressional districts from 5-6 to 9-1 Democrat.
The court did not invalidate the map because it was unfair—this is politics, where fairness is in the eye of the beholder and the person with the power—but because the referendum plainly violated the Virginia constitution, which even today is occasionally a no-no.
Before major dad headed off to bed last night, I told him I wanted to add some of the updates from the British elections, since they'd started coming in and looked pretty gruesome.
'Right now,' I said as I read to him from one Xweet, 'It says Labour has been losing 80% of the seats it contested.'
We were both, like, HOLY CRAP, and off he went to brush his teeth.
Forty minutes later, when I shut everything down, Labour was losing 88% of the contests.
In what had been the most interesting development so far to me, not just how bloody Reform's rampage
Conservatives do not move in mindless lockstep the way woke liberals do. We can have our disagreements, even on important points of principle and policy. Nonetheless, we should assume good faith debate and try not to talk past one another. This holds true especially in what we might call the “creed” vs. “culture” debate. In a recent interview with the libertarian-minded Reason Magazine, conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch characterized the United States as a “creedal nation,” rooted in the principles of the Declaration of Independence, thereby prompting outrage from some conservatives on social media, who worried about Gorsuch potentially “‘prepping’ us for an absurd Birthright Citizenship ruling.”
Migrants quitting asylum claims and volunteering to leave the US have increased at least seven-fold under President Trump — with the administration touting the increase as a success for the rule of law, but critics arguing it’s a sign detention practices have gotten out of hand.
More than 80,000 “voluntary departure” orders were issued by US immigration judges between Jan. 2025 and March 2026 — a more than 600% increase from the 11,400 issued during the last 15 months of former President Joe Biden’s term, according to numbers from the Vera Institute of Justice reviewed by the Washington Post.
The Virginia Supreme Court's ruling striking down Democrats’ costly redistricting push sparked an uproar on social media over the massive sum the party spent to pass the now-defunct congressional map.
Virginians for Fair Elections, the main pro-redistricting group, raised north of $64 million in support of the Democratic-friendly gerrymander that could have netted the party four GOP-held seats in November’s midterm elections. Nearly $40 million of that came from an outside spending group aligned with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who was heavily involved in the effort to redraw
On Friday, officials with the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they are seeking to denaturalize 12 naturalized American citizens accused of crimes like murder, terrorism, firearms trafficking, marriage fraud, identity fraud, and possessing child pornography, among other things.
“If you’re going to come and become a citizen in this country, but you’re going to do it by fraud, you’re going to do it in a way that’s illegal, you should be worried,” Attorney General (AG) Todd Blanche told CBS News this week.
“We are not limiting ourselves to anybody in particular,
House Democrats reacted with alarm Friday after the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a redistricting referendum that Democrats had hoped would dramatically reshape the state’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, dealing what even some Democrats described as a major setback to their effort to retake the House.
The ruling invalidated the April referendum and preserved Virginia’s current 6-5 Democrat-to-Republican congressional split, preventing Democrats from implementing a redistricting plan that could have expanded their advantage to 10-1 in a state where President Donald Trump won 46 percent of the vote in 2024.
The First Minister of Wales has lost her seat in the Senedd and resigned as Welsh Labour leader as the party loses control in the country for the first time amid mounting pressure on Sir Keir Starmer. The Telegraph has more.
Baroness Morgan of Ely failed to cling on in the Ceredigion Penfro constituency on Friday, becoming the first sitting Welsh leader to lose an election in the Welsh Parliament.
In a parting broadside at the Prime Minister, she warned that Sir Keir’s Government needs to “change course”.
Welsh Labour is set to lose control of the Senedd for the first time, with Plaid Cymru forecast to become the biggest party,
The battle for control of the U.S. House is increasingly being fought not just at the ballot box but in the map room.
Just days after the Volunteer State’s GOP-led legislature rammed through a new congressional map that ELIMINATES the state’s only Democrat-held and Black-majority seat, turning Tennessee into a solid 9-0 Republican delegation, a bombshell new “Crystal Ball” redistricting report is out, and it’s devastating news for Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the entire crying, screaming Democrat Party.
This comes on the heels of the Supreme Court nuking Louisiana’s illegal racial gerrymander and opening the floodgates for fair maps across the South.
I get that states like New York, and governors like Kathy Hochul aren't fans of gun ownership in general, but especially when they don't get to have some kind of control over who gets a gun and who doesn't. They want to be able to peer into the industry and know everything, which is why anything that removes a gun from that paper trail is a bad thing. For them, 3D printers spell doom, which is why Hochul opted to go after them. But the truth of the matter is that the internet is a strange place,
US forces hit tankers trying to break
Iran blockade as military says embargo
has stalled 70 ships replies
Iran blockade as military says embargo
has stalled 70 ships replies
The US military launched a new series of airstrikes Friday, targeting a group of empty tankers in the Strait of Hormuz that were trying to barrel through the blockade of Iranian ports, according to US Central Command.
A US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet struck two empty Iranian tankers that were attempting to break past the American blockade on Tehran’s ports, disabling them both “after firing precision munitions into their smokestacks,” CENTCOM said in a post to X.
The ships — known as the M/T Sea Star III and M/T Sevda — were attempting to breach the blockade to reach an Iranian port in the Gulf of Oman.
A 31.62-carat fancy blue diamond known as the Azure Blue will headline Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction on June 9 in New York City, where it is expected to draw significant attention from collectors worldwide. Described as the largest fancy blue diamond ever to appear at auction, the stone carries a pre-sale estimate of $6.5 million to $8.5 million.
The pear-shaped, modified brilliant-cut diamond boasts VVS1 clarity, with the potential to be reclassified as internally flawless, according to a report from the Gemological Institute of America. It is also classified as a Type IIb diamond—a rare category distinguished by the presence of boron impurities, which not only impart the gem’s vivid blue