Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026

541 days into Donald Trump's term the president's net approval rating is -23, down 0.3 points since last week. 36% approve, 59% disapprove, 4% not sure


The Justice Department can't access New York's unredacted voter roll, a judge said in handing the federal government yet another loss in court in its quest to obtain the lists from all 50 states. read more


"You heard the president talk about how he wants to effectively double the funding for national defense. Look, we live in dangerous times. We're fighting communism on our own shores, and we're fighting evil terrorists and tyrants around the world, and we have to be able to protect our national security," Johnson said. read more


Despite regulating broadcast media, FCC commissioners have accepted pricey tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala from CBS or its parent company, now Paramount. Ethics experts say that by accepting the gifts, FCC commissioners are compromising the agency's impartiality and should avoid acting on Paramount's pending merger. After voting for a Paramount merger, Commissioner Olivia Trusty took tickets worth over $12,000. FCC Chair Brendan Carr has accepted tickets worth at least $63,000.


The National Guard will remain deployed in Washington, D.C., through Inauguration Day 2029 as part of President Trump's anti-crime mission in the city, unless the president deems otherwise, the Pentagon confirmed to NPR. read more


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More: According to the joint task force, all National Guard members who come to D.C. have been deputized as special police by the U.S. Marshals Service and issued a firearm, which is rare for a domestic National Guard deployment. Guard troops are not authorized to make arrests, although they can detain someone until arresting officers arrive.

The troops in D.C. are largely performing what are called "presence patrols," walking in small groups around popular areas of the city to act as a deterrent for crime and allow law enforcement to focus on other areas.

But two different studies " including one out this week by the progressive Center for American Progress " have both found that the National Guard presence in D.C. has had little to no effect on violent crime and that the recent drop in crime would have likely happened regardless of the troops.

"These trends have been going on since before the deployment, since before Trump's second inauguration even. It should tell people that actually this is not part of the solution," says Chandler Hall, associate director on the public safety team at CAP and lead researcher of the study.

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As the length of the deployment, as well as the size, increases, so does the cost to taxpayers. With the current summer surge, the cost per day is hovering around $3 million, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Using that number, the Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonpartisan watchdog, estimates the deployment with this new 2029 extension will cost somewhere between $2.5 billion and $3.4 billion in total, depending on how many troops remain in the city.

More: Sari Bashi, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, said publishing the photo itself constituted a war crime, because of the prohibition under international humanitarian law against depicting prisoners or detainees in humiliating states.

"There's the posting, and then there's what it appears to show," she said. That, too, may be a war crime, she said: "The way in which he was confined raises strong concerns that the method of confinement was a form of punishment that could amount to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, or even torture," depending on how much the man suffered.

Israeli soldiers have frequently posted apparently incriminating photographs and videos of themselves during the war. Rights groups say it reflects a cultural shift in the military that is at odds with its insistence that such incidents break with its rules and norms.

"The soldiers are taking their cue from the highest levels," Ms. Bashi said. She recalled that the defense minister, Israel Katz, had met with and was said to have apologized to five reservists after charges were dropped against them in a case involving the abuse of a Palestinian prisoner who suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung and a torn rectum.

"If I were a foot soldier," Ms. Bashi said, "I would think this is all OK and even desirable."

Oneg Ben Dror, a project coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, who also said the published photo was evidence of two war crimes, said the mistreatment depicted was exceptional only because it had been so clearly documented. Thousands of Palestinians have testified to having been tortured in Israeli prisons and military camps, she said.

"It's not a unique case," she added. "This time, the soldiers took a photo of it."

Amani Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Association, said the photo showed how Israeli soldiers acted with impunity and underscored the "violence and brutality" that detainees have endured.

She also argued that the original dissemination of such a photo was "an effort to shape public consciousness through intimidation and psychological deterrence by using images such as these and the impact they have on Palestinians more broadly."

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