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The countdown is peaking.

Grande and Alvarez met during her Honeymoon Tour in 2015.

Grande and Alvarez met during her Honeymoon Tour in 2015.

DOJ Finds USDA Preferences For 'Socially Disadvantaged' Farmers Discriminatory

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has concluded that the U.S. Agriculture Department’s (USDA) favors for “socially disadvantaged” groups unconstitutionally discriminate based on race and sex.

Just the News reports that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has determined conservation‑planning programs that authorized USDA to waive user fees for “socially disadvantaged” farmers as defined by race‑ and sex‑based criteria, violated the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantee.

🔥Hot off the presses: @TheJusticeDept explains that the @USDA cannot give benefits only to certain "socially disadvantaged" groups. But there's more to this one than you may pick up at first glance 👀 pic.twitter.com/3otuh4FWwl

— Eric W. (@EWess92) June 23, 2026

The DOJ defines “socially disadvantaged” farmers as any “whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice,” including women and African American, Hispanic, and Asian people.

The agency found that billions of dollars distributed in fiscal 2025 illegally favored non-Caucasians.

Of 36 programs reviewed, the DOJ declared that most were unlawful, and that the USDA must provide assistance via “constitutionally permissible means.” Five programs, which can be “administered in a race- and sex-neutral manner,” will be retained.

In a Monday press release, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “Racial discrimination is illegal, and the government cannot show preference to certain groups when awarding special benefits without a compelling reason to justify the classification.”

Blanche added, “This Department of Justice is committed to ending illegal DEI initiatives across the federal government that violate our Constitution and laws.”

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins affirmed, “All persons served by this Department will, without question, be treated equally.”

Rollins said, “Today’s opinion affirms discrimination based on race and sex is unconstitutional and no program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including those in the Farm Production and Conservation mission area, will act otherwise.”

The USDA may continue to provide technical assistance, financial support, and outreach to farmers and ranchers through constitutionally permissible means.

The Trump administration has spearheaded a DEI crackdown across federal agencies and education.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 17:00

The grisly case has since been tied to a broader criminal probe into an alleged illegal corpse-trafficking ring.

FIFA Folds, Allows Rainbow Flags To Fly In Seattle Stadium Despite Objections From Iran, Eqypt

Rainbow flags will be allowed inside the stadium in Seattle, where the FIFA World Cup group game between Iran and Egypt is being held on June 26, despite both countries objecting to the standards associated with the LGBT community.

Both countries are predominantly Muslim, and homosexuality is illegal in Iran and criminalized in Egypt, but Hana Tadesse, a spokesperson for Seattle’s World Cup organizing committee, said on June 24 that FIFA considers the rainbow flag a statement of human rights and will allow fans to wave it inside Lumen Field.

In December 2025, the soccer federations of both Iran and Egypt complained after it became clear that Seattle’s World Cup organizing committee wanted to use the match as a “once-in-a-lifetime moment to showcase and celebrate LGBTQIA+ communities in Washington.”

As Chris Summers reports for Epoch Times, under FIFA’s World Cup stadium policy, it is prohibited for fans to bring in certain controversial political items.

“Any materials, including but not limited to banners, flags, flyers, apparel, and other paraphernalia that are of a political, offensive, and/or discriminatory nature, containing wording, symbols, or any other attributes aimed at discrimination of any kind against a country, private person, or group on account of race, skin color, ethnicity, national or social origin, gender, disability, language, religion, political or any other opinion, birth, wealth or any other status, sexual orientation, or any other grounds,” according to the policy.

When Iran played its first game, against New Zealand in Inglewood, California, on June 15, The Epoch Times reported that FIFA had banned Iranian fans who opposed the regime in Tehran from flying the country’s pre-1979 flag—which bears a lion-and-sun standard—inside the stadium.

On June 25, before the Iranian soccer team held a news conference in Seattle, Daniel Marin, FIFA’s executive director of public relations, read a statement on behalf of the Iranian team.

“This Islamic Republic of the Iran Football Federation has asked us to inform the media that they are only willing to answer questions in relation to the game,” Marin said.

“We fully respect the right of all journalists to ask questions. In this case, we ask you respect the rights of the federation here today to only answer questions in relation to the team, the tactics, the match, and so on.”

Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand makes a save against Belgium during their soccer World Cup match in Inglewood, Calif., on June 21, 2026. Mark J. Terrill/AP

But Iran’s coach, Amir Ghalenoei, was still asked a barrage of questions about the issue by journalists, which he declined to answer.

If Iran wins, they will advance to the knockout stage of the World Cup for the first time.

“I said to you earlier we are here to play football. For nothing else,” Ghalenoei said.

“Our entire focus is going to be on tomorrow’s game, on succeeding in tomorrow’s game. And, anything else that is banned ... we don’t want to speak about it.”

Soccer Is the ‘Beautiful Game’

“We are only going to speak about football, what a beautiful game it is, and how enjoyable it’s going to be,” Ghalenoei said.

Egypt’s players and coach Hossam Hassan also declined to answer questions on the issues during a news conference at Husky Soccer Stadium in Seattle.

“We are all focused on football,” Hassan, speaking through a translator, said. “This is all that we think about.”

The wearing of rainbow armbands became a controversy in 2024, when several English Premier League soccer players objected to wearing them as part of an “LGBTQ+ inclusion initiative” because of their religious beliefs.

Marc Guehi, who is currently playing for England in the World Cup, chose to write over the armband the message, “Jesus loves you.”

Sam Morsy, a practicing Muslim who captained Ipswich Town, chose not to wear the symbol on his jersey when he led his team to a draw against Manchester United in December 2024. Morsy played nine times for Egypt—where his father is from—but was not included in their World Cup squad.

The Epoch Times reached out to FIFA for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 16:40

Wilderness adventurers are warning about an "extremely dangerous" but picturesque waterfall in Yosemite National Park after a 22-year-old fell to his death from it.

Too much flop sweat, not enough laughs.

Cameron Boozer's girlfriend has no doubt the forward is going to be received well in his next big career step.

LaVar Ball is back to being in the headlines — and not for the best reasons.

Partisan super PAC groups lavished more than $50 million into the four contested Big Apple congressional races that ended with a stunning far-left takeover during Tuesday's Democratic primaries, records show.

The lovebirds are hosting a dinner for their closest friends and family the night before their July 3 nuptials.

The lovebirds are hosting a dinner for their closest friends and family the night before their July 3 nuptials.

The rollout will be staggered, starting with elementary school students in 2030.

The Party Of Algae And 'Our Democracy'

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“. . .a political party doesn’t lose 95 percent of a registration advantage because voters are kinda annoyed. Something much, much deeper is going on.”

- Richard Landwirth

Okay, convince me that gay-Islamic-race-communism is a “progressive” political program America is going to buy like corn flakes.

The Lefty-left wants to think so, as it lurches from one peak of mental illness to an even greater one in the 130 days to the midterms.

Look how successful they’ve been with open borders, defunding the police, men in the girl’s swim lane, no cash bail, sex-change surgery for kids, free-for-all elections, hatin’ on white people, and open Medicare fraud. The new re-branding strategy as “Democratic Socialism” only tells you that reality has ceased to interest them.

No, winning electoral districts stuffed with illegal aliens in bright blue cities with tiny overall voter turnouts won’t sweep the nation like love. More likely it’s a harbinger of the party’s approaching death, like the Whigs going down the drain in 1852, gurgle-gurgle. Advocating to destroy American society is a poor sales pitch. The party’s old-line leadership frantically seeks some way to neutralize the rising influence of Zohran Mamdani and his disciples, but so far nothing works. An odor of desperation fills the air.

One thing you can say about the gay-Islamic-race-communists is that they are well-organized, which is understandable since their political program resembles an ant farm, a dis-individuated collective with insectile characteristics, workers and soldiers toiling in mindless solidarity to occupy more electoral territory so as to vanquish their “oppressors,” Trump and the big feet of his capitalist minions.

Meanwhile, though, the money flows dry up as the old Big Donor Dawgs freak-out at the prospect of having their fortunes confiscated, eaten by this advancing ant-swarm, while Scott Bessent and Todd Blanche work to disassemble the giant, hive-like matrix of NGOs that, for years, laundered US taxpayer dollars through the Democratic Party’s patronage system. In New York City, Philly, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Portland, the NGOs furnished comfortable salaries for young activists churned out remorselessly by Higher Ed, but all that’s starting to look like a bygone Shangri-la, a lost world.

“Many Democratic primary voters, however, are in no mood for defensiveness. As they see it, they’ve been failed by a cautious, compromising establishment, and they’re going to overthrow it.”

- Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times

Of course, the loss of those cushy jobs and perqs has pitched that young demographic into a yet greater rage, prompting them to wreak vengeance and havoc on the system that took their “entitlements” away. Activists want to do activism, which is not necessarily the same as working for a living. It’s working for an ideal, a cause — to abolish the very society based on working for a living and replace it with a parent-like, hovering, all-powerful government that provides your every need by “seizing the means of production.”

The trouble is, this has been tried before, many times in the previous century, and the track-record is discouraging, exhibit-A being the old Soviet Union, the experiment that failed. Why? Because after seizing the means of production, the state bureaucracy lacks the skills, the spirit, and the creative juice to produce much of anything, and especially to do it well. All it can actually contribute to the process is its intrinsic bureaucratic entropy and, to put it ultra-simply, entropy is just not a force for good in this world.

The Republican Party is laboring through its own parallel, but rather different sort of crack-up, a breach based more on pure enmity to President Trump’s personality than necessarily to ideas or policy.

The Right still uniformly subscribes to personal liberty and economic enterprise, but factions on the right have a long-running investment in the Deep State apparatus and its protection against Mr. Trump’s impending prosecution of the so-called “grand conspiracy” (the ongoing seditious coup), as well as his dismantling of the money-flow architecture that keeps Beltway types rolling in dough.

Former AG Bill Barr is exhibit-A for that faction, as when he concealed the FBI’s possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop through Trump Impeachment No. 1, when he refused to investigate ballot fraud after the 2020 election, and when he managed to let Jeffrey Epstein off himself in the Manhattan federal lockup.

Then there is Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the emptiest suit to ever occupy that job, who refuses to explain his aversion to common-sense election reform or his failure to allow confirmation of the president’s nominees to important federal posts. He is so committed to doing nothing that he makes “Joe Biden” look like a prodigy of action. They say Sen. Thune represents the old-school “country club” Republicans, but he looks too dim to even tote up an 18-hole golf card.

There are also Tucker, and Candace, and Nick Fuentes, and MTG, and other pouting and shouting former MAGA superstars throwing down against the president and his program.

It has all become rather unappetizing, though rumors swirl of Tucker seeking to build a whole new party to replace the GOP and MAGA. As Homey de Clown might put it: I don’t think so. . . .

I doubt that any of them will succeed in destroying MAGA, but they’re making the movement uncomfortable. Let’s face it: they’re embarrassing.

On the other hand, the Party of Algae and “Our Democracy” is incapable of being embarrassed, and that has been obvious for a long time based on the absurdities they attempt to foist upon our country.

The Iran War seems to be fading in the rear-view mirror now, despite all their yelling about how we lost it.

Oil is hovering just below $70-a-barrel as I write.

Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are reduced to a pitiful vaudeville act in the face of Mamdani-ism.

Bernie Sanders is lost in a rain-dance for Utopia.

And James Carville is on-track for a three-week vacation in the Rubber Room.

Don’t bother praying for them. Just wait for gurgle.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 16:20

It’s the wedding of the century! Ahead of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s reported multi-day celebration over July 4th weekend in New York City, Page Six senior reporter Bernie Zilio has all the reported details on the singer and NFL player’s star-studded affair. From the bridal fashion to the A-list musical entertainment — and the...

It’s the wedding of the century! Ahead of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s reported multi-day celebration over July 4th weekend in New York City, Page Six senior reporter Bernie Zilio has all the reported details on the singer and NFL player’s star-studded affair. From the bridal fashion to the A-list musical entertainment — and the...

The Hot Girl Walk is under fire, and this piece of gear will bring an even bigger burn.

Where they lead, we will follow.

From despair to moving on, Sweden’s Anthony Elanga experienced those emotions in quick succession.