Friday, July 4, 2025

REVIEW: ‘Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony’ Uplifts at The Kennedy Center.

On the sultry evening of Friday, June 27, The National Pulse was granted exclusive access to a production at once opulent, nostalgic, and a little haunted by its own premise: Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony, a two-night orchestral fantasia staged at Washington D.C.’s crown jewel, the Kennedy Center.

Dolly herself—ethereal, untouchable—did not appear in the flesh. Yet she materialized in spirit, projected nearly a dozen times onto the Concert Hall’s grand screen, offering quips, anecdotes, and metaphysical warmth between lush arrangements of her best-loved songs. It was not quite a concert, nor merely a tribute. It was closer to a séance—with sequins.

🎻 OVERTURE OF ABSENCE.

The National Symphony Orchestra, under the exuberant baton of Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke, opened the night with an immaculate, full-bodied overture. The acoustics shimmered. Reineke conducted with the rapture of a man caught in a southern Baptist revival tent. The audience thundered back with applause—but there lingered a ghost of anticipation. One conspicuous figure had yet to arrive.

Then, there she was.

Dolly Parton. The woman who once said it takes a lot of money to look this cheap, and who made rhinestones into a philosophy. Appearing on screen as digital fairy godmother, she welcomed us with a warm, almost holographic sincerity. At 78 years old, she looked—let’s be honest—closer to 38, and beamed with that honeyed Tennessee optimism no Botox needle could ever counterfeit.

👗 THREE DOLLYS AND A DREAM.

Soon after, three glamorously bedazzled vocalists—Katelyn Drye, Hollie Hammel, and Blair Lamb—stepped out in unison, like Dolly’s muses summoned from a honky-tonk Olympus. They handled her vocal duties with admirable poise, trading harmonies and solos with a polish that honored the legend, though at times evoked more Vegas revue than mountain ballad.

By the third arrangement, the show found its rhythm. The symphonic interpretation of Dolly’s songs—lush, deliberate, unapologetically sentimental—began to weave the evening’s emotional fabric.

🧵 THE GOLDEN THREADS.

Between performances, Dolly told stories. About writing from the gut. About being banned from the radio for “controversial” lyrics, though she insisted her provocations were purely incidental. “I never meant to be scandalous,” she confessed with a wink. “I just wrote what I felt.”

She described herself as “over-the-top,” which is like calling Niagara Falls “a bit damp.” But it’s this very camp, stitched through with truth, that’s made Dolly not just a country icon but a sort of American saint—part showgirl, part philosopher, all heart.

At one point, she spoke of invisible threads connecting us all—a central theme of the production. It’s easy to dismiss such talk as pop-spiritual puffery. But with Dolly, it feels earned. You believe her when she says the songs come from God. Or maybe from the Smoky Mountains. Close enough.

☀️ A SAD KIND OF FREEDOM.

The night crescendoed around Light of a Clear Blue Morning, her soaring ballad of liberation and melancholy. Dolly recounted writing it in tears while driving home after her final day filming The Porter Wagoner Show, the program that launched her, constrained her, and finally set her free. The rain, she said, stopped as soon as the song found her.

The orchestra’s rendition was thunderous—sunlight breaking through stormclouds in C major. Audience members wept. Others closed their eyes and smiled, like they’d heard from an old friend they’d long feared gone forever.

🎤 LEGACY WITHOUT APOLOGY.

This wasn’t Dolly at her most raw or rambunctious. It was Dolly curated—polished and reverent. But the performance never felt artificial. Instead, it felt like a museum of living memory, with Dolly herself as exhibit and tour guide.

Her impact, after all, is quantifiable. As the Kennedy Center press release reminds us (in numbers as shiny as her costumes):

  • 11 Grammy Awards, 52 nominations;

  • 120 charted singles;

  • 49 Top 10 country albums (a record);

  • 255 million books donated to children;

  • The #1 Q Score of any performer, living or dead.

She is a monument with a pulse.

🌟 IN THE END.

As the final notes rang out, the orchestra took their bows. Not just one standing ovation—several. And they deserved every single one. So did Dolly, though she was already gone—vanished like a dream after sunrise.

If Threads was meant to tie us together, then for two nights in Washington, D.C., it succeeded—pulling on the hearts of blue-collar dads, pearl-draped matrons, theater nerds, political climbers, and Gen Z TikTokers alike. All humming the same tune.

James Rose contributed to this review.

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On the sultry evening of Friday, June 27, The National Pulse was granted exclusive access to a production at once opulent, nostalgic, and a little haunted by its own premise: Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony, a two-night orchestral fantasia staged at Washington D.C.’s crown jewel, the Kennedy Center.

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Sen. Rick Scott’s Allies Are Being Drawn Into a Massive Corporate Espionage Scandal.

Tom Grady, a former Florida financial regulator and longtime ally of U.S. Senator Rick Scott, has become a central figure in a legal battle between two competing tech firms: Rippling and Deel. Grady is named throughout Deel’s recent countersuit against Rippling, which accuses Rippling of engaging in a multi-year campaign to damage its business.

Who Is Tom Grady?

Grady served as Commissioner of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation from 2011 to 2012 and was later appointed to the Florida State Board of Education, which he chaired from 2021 to 2023. He also served on the Florida State Board of Administration’s Investment Advisory Council and was a member of the state Constitution Revision Commission. His political ties to Rick Scott include donations to Scott’s campaigns and mutual appointments across several state positions.

Grady and Rippling.

In 2017, the Naples Daily News reported that Grady was an investor in Rippling, a human resources technology firm. That same year, he incorporated the company’s insurance subsidiary in Florida. Grady disclosed Rippling (under its legal name People Center, Inc.) as a client in financial filings covering 2018, 2020, and 2021.

According to Deel’s lawsuit, Grady continued working with or on behalf of Rippling in later years. Then, in 2023 and 2024, he submitted formal complaints about Deel’s licensing status to the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. He sent these directly to Greg Oaks, the agency’s Director of Consumer Finance, who held that position during Grady’s time as commissioner.

The 2023 complaint alleged that Deel operated as an unlicensed money services business in Florida. The office closed the investigation without action. In June 2024, Grady submitted additional allegations, including claims related to a Deel subsidiary and purported connections to sanctioned Russian entities. The agency also dismissed these allegations as not actionable.

Outreach to Former Employees and Legal Recruitment.

In February 2024, Grady’s law firm apparently began contacting former Deel employees. The outreach claimed there was a congressional investigation into Deel’s employee classification practices. According to public records, no such investigation was ongoing. A March 2023 letter from Trump impeachment leader Rep. Adam Schiff and other House Democrats had called for a Department of Labor inquiry, but even Schiff later withdrew that request.

The Grady firm solicited plaintiffs for potential litigation and collected information through a dedicated email address: DeelTruth@gradylaw.com.

Friends With Zenefits.

In 2016, Grady filed a public records request for documents related to a Florida insurance investigation into Zenefits, the company formerly led by Rippling CEO Parker Conrad. The investigation had not yet been made public. Zenefits filed a lawsuit to prevent the release of the documents, citing trade secrets. Grady later withdrew the request without explanation.

In 2017 and 2018, Grady reported receiving consulting income from Zenefits, according to financial filings.

NY & CA Liberal Takes Sudden Interest in Funding Republican Rick Scott.

In October 2024, Parker Conrad, now Rippling’s CEO, made several political donations to Florida political entities connected to Senator Rick Scott. These included:

  • $5,000 to Team Rick Scott (October 18, 2024)

  • $3,300 to Rick Scott for Florida (October 23, 2024)

  • $1,700 to Let’s Get to Work PAC, a Rick Scott-aligned PAC (October 23, 2024)

Conrad also contributed to Kamala Harris’s campaign and had previously maxed out to Joe Biden. Until then, his federal political donations had been directed exclusively toward Democratic candidates. The contributions to Rick Scott-aligned groups represent a notable departure from that pattern, made as Deel and Ripplings were preparing for court.

Conrad was born in New York, studied in Boston, and lives in San Francisco. He has no public affiliation with Florida beyond the regulatory interactions related to the Deel case.

FEC website filings for Conrad.

Grady’s Education Nonprofits.

Grady is president of a group of affiliated nonprofits and for-profit education companies in Florida, operating under the Freedom Institute and Quest Educational Foundation names. These groups provide standardized test preparation and college counseling to students in Naples.

Their funding includes state dollars from Florida’s Personalized Education Program (PEP). According to IRS filings, the organization spent $32,748 on curriculum and activities in its most recent year while allocating over $800,000 to salaries and compensation. It also reported $1.5 million in assets managed by Naples Global Advisors, a firm Grady is reported to have invested in and shares an address with his law office.

As of its most recent filing period (July 2021–June 2024), the organization owed more than $160,000 to The Village School of Naples, categorized as “federal income taxes.”

Ongoing Litigation.

The legal dispute between Rippling and Deel is ongoing. Deel’s countersuit accuses Rippling of coordinating a campaign to harm its business interests using legal, political, and regulatory channels. Grady’s role as an intermediary is a key element of Deel’s case. The allegations remain subject to court review and discovery, and as it proceeds, don’t be surprised if the likes of Senator Rick Scott are asked what they knew about all this as it unfolded.

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Tom Grady, a former Florida financial regulator and longtime ally of U.S. Senator Rick Scott, has become a central figure in a legal battle between two competing tech firms: Rippling and Deel. Grady is named throughout Deel’s recent countersuit against Rippling, which accuses Rippling of engaging in a multi-year campaign to damage its business.

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Is the Senate GOP Letting the Parliamentarian Kill the ‘Big Beautiful Bill?’

PULSE POINTS

WHAT HAPPENED: The Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, has ruled that several significant provisions in President Donald J. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” violate the Byrd Rule and are thus subject to a 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster. This means the provisions must be rewritten to be Byrd rule compliant or scrapped, unless Senate Republicans move to overrule the Democrat-appointed official.

👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Elizabeth MacDonough, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senate Republicans, and Vice President J.D. Vance.

📍WHEN & WHERE: MacDonough issued her Byrd Rule determinations on portions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” on Thursday, June 26, 2025.

🎯IMPACT: The rulings by the Parliamentarian jeopardize President Trump’s agenda and the passage of the reconciliation bill unless Senate Republicans are able to quickly rewrite the measures to be Byrd Rule compliant or circumvent MacDonough.

IN FULL

The Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, has struck a number of critical provisions from President Donald J. Trump’s budget reconciliation legislation, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Weilding the Byrd Rule as a cudgel, MacDonough—an unelected advisor appointed by the late Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)—determined on Thursday that a number of changes that would prevent noncitizens and illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid, rein in pharmacy benefit managers, and roll back significant portions of Obamacare, all require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster rather than the 51 votes typically needed in reconciliation bills.

Her rulings mark a major setback for the “Big Beautiful Bill,” leaving the Senate GOP needing to either quickly rewrite the provisions in question, move to overrule or fire MacDonough, or scrap the provisions altogether—with the latter likely being the only path to passing the bill before a July 4 deadline set by Trump. The National Pulse has put together a rundown of the key provisions struck by the Parliamentarian, and what Senate Republicans can do about it.

WHAT WAS STRUCK? 

A bulk of the provisions ruled to be in violation of the Byrd Rule by MacDonough pertain to Medicaid changes that would bar illegal immigrants and noncitizens from receiving benefits from the federal healthcare program. Other key provisions that were struck include changes to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion funding through provider taxes, changes to Obamacare‘s Medicaid expansion federal medical assistance percentage, and a measure aimed at reining in pharmacy benefit managers. 

According to the Parliamentarian, the reconciliation bill’s language prohibiting the participation in Medicaid and CHIP of individuals whose citizenship status cannot immediately be verified violates the Byrd Rule. Notably, the Byrd Rule only prohibits reconciliation bills from including measures that do not produce a change in outlays or revenues, increase deficits beyond the 10-year budget window, change Social Security, are outside the authoring committee’s scope, or only tangentially impact the budget. The Medicaid and CHIP participation changes do not appear to trigger any of these stipulations.

Similarly, a provision barring federal funding of Medicaid for illegal immigrants does not appear to violate the Byrd Rule despite MacDonough determining that it does. Likewise, a struck provision that bars federal Medicaid funding for so-called gender-affirming care does not appear to substantively violate the rule. And again, it isn’t clear how changes to provider taxes—a provision enacted under Obamacare, which was passed through budget reconciliation—fall afoul of the Byrd Rule either.

In fact, the only measure struck by MacDonough that arguably falls under the Byrd Rule is the provision requiring Medicaid contracts to stipulate that pharmacy benefit managers must pass on reimbursements directly to pharmacies. The policy change here is arguably tangential to the impact on the budget, though a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers has tried to enact this change for some time.

WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?

There are a handful of options for Senate Republicans to deal with MacDonough’s rulings. The most expedient solution would be for the President of the Senate, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, to simply overrule the Parliamentarian—effectively dismissing the Byrd Rule objections and requiring only a 51-vote majority to adopt the bill, including the provisions in question. Such a move has been incredibly rare, with the notable instances being Vice Presidents Nelson Rockefeller and Hubert Humphry overruling the Parliamentarian on votes making changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules. 

The second option would be for the Republican Senate to vote to overrule the Parliamentarian’s determinations. This only requires a simple majority vote of the upper chamber—though it appears that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has ruled this out. Likewise, Thune says he will not move to fire MacDonough—the third option that Senate Republicans have to sidestep the Parliamentarian. “That would not be a good outcome for getting a bill done,” Thune said on Thursday regarding whether he’d fire or hold a vote to overrule MacDonough.

Without overruling or removing the Parliamentarian, Senate Republicans are left with either reworking the provisions to conform to MacDonough’s interpretation of the Byrd Rule or scrapping the measures entirely.  

Image by Gage Skidmore.

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How Trump Could Replace Powell as Fed Chair Sooner Rather Than Later.

PULSE POINTS

WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump has announced he has three or four names in mind to replace Jerome Powell as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Trump, Jerome Powell, Christopher Waller, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Kevin Warsh, Kevin Hassett, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

📍WHEN & WHERE: Trump revealed he had narrowed his search for the next Fed chairman during a press conference on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.

🎯IMPACT: The timing of when President Trump could move to replace Powell is uncertain, as at least two legal avenues exist where the central bank chief could be ousted early. However, President Trump has at times indicated he is content to wait for Powell’s term as Fed chair to expire next year before replacing him.

IN FULL

President Donald J. Trump announced on Wednesday that he now has just three to four names in mind to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as chief of the U.S. central bank. While the America First leader did not elaborate on who specifically could be tapped to replace Powell, speculation among Wall Street movers and Washington, D.C. political insiders has shed light on the potential nominees.

Notably, Powell’s term as Federal Reserve chairman doesn’t expire until next year, and while President Trump has recently indicated he is content to wait on replacing Powell until then, tensions between them are rising, and there remain two legal paths in which a new Fed chief could be named sooner. Powell and Trump have repeatedly clashed over the former’s obstinance toward reducing interest rates, a policy stance the President has repeatedly pushed for.

The National Pulse has compiled an analysis on both how Trump could move to replace Powell as Fed chair before his term expires and who the three or four candidates under consideration to lead the central bank may be.

HOW TO REPLACE POWELL.

Current federal legal precedent makes it difficult to outright fire Jerome Powell as both Federal Reserve chairman and a member of the central bank’s Board of Governors. However, that precedent could soon change under a legal case working its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Trump v. Wilcox, the Trump White House is challenging a nearly century-old finding in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which bars the President from firing board members of so-called “independent” agencies.

In the current Wilcox case, the Trump administration is fighting a legal claim that it cannot fire members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Already, the Supreme Court has moved to stay a lower court ruling blocking the Trump administration’s firings, suggesting that the high court is likely to ultimately side with the President. However, the stay order included a specific carve-out—for now—preventing its application to members of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. This would suggest that unless the White House can present a convincing enough argument, a final ruling from the high court would likely still protect Powell, at least in his capacity as a Fed governor. 

The second avenue available also involves the Humphrey’s Executor v. United States ruling, which protects the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors from being fired by the President without cause, but doesn’t necessarily prevent the central bank’s chairman from being demoted and replaced by another board member. Under this theory, President Trump could demote Powell from his perch as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, while leaving him in place as a member of the Board of Governors. Consequently, this would allow Trump to then elevate another member of the Board of Governors to the position of Chairman. Despite having more solid legal grounding, this move would still likely draw litigation that could see Powell kept in place as Chairman until the Supreme Court settles the question.

Should President Trump pursue either avenue to remove Powell as Federal Reserve chairman before the expiration of his term, it would likely rile markets and increase economic volatility. Uncertainty regarding Fed leadership is widely seen as undesirable on Wall Street.

THE NEXT FED CHAIRMAN.

While when or how Jerome Powell will be replaced as Federal Reserve chairman remains unclear, President Trump indicated during a press conference on Wednesday, June 25, 2025, that he has three or four names in mind to succeed the current central bank chief. The current consensus on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C. appears to have settled on three likely candidates: current Fed Board of Governors member Christopher Waller, President Trump’s current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and former Fed Board of Governors member Kevin Warsh. Meanwhile, there is less certainty as to who the fourth name under consideration could be, though it is possibly Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. 

Christopher Waller, who was appointed to the Fed’s Board of Governors by President Trump in late 2020, would be the likely choice for chairman if Trump moves to demote Jerome Powell. Since there is not currently a vacancy on the Board of Governors, President Trump would need to elevate another current member to replace Powell, making Waller the likely choice. A former executive vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Waller has emerged as one of the Fed’s most staunch inflation hawks; however, in recent weeks he has acknowledged that inflation is under control and pushed for the Fed to instead begin cutting interest rates, aligning himself with President Trump’s policy preference.

While Waller could still be the pick should Trump decide to wait for Powell’s term as chairman to end, the America First leader may opt to name a central bank outsider more aligned with his policy preference for lower interest rates. In this case, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is a likely choice. Bessent, 61, was an early Trump backer, donating a million dollars to his 2016 presidential campaign. He has helped raise nearly $60 million for Trump since. Bessent, a macro fund manager, was an integral figure in monetary markets in the 1990s and early 2000s. In the current Trump administration, Bessent has served as the primary public face on economic matters, especially regarding tariffs and bilateral trade negotiations, being one of Trump’s most effective and aggressive advocates when engaging with the corporate media.

The third name that could be under consideration is former Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Kevin Warsh. Notably, Warsh was rumored to have been considered for Treasury Secretary before President Trump named Bessent to the role. Warsh has deep ties to Wall Street, acting as the central bank’s liaison to investors and major financial firms in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The former Fed governor also has extensive experience with Asian economies, meaning he could prove a valuable asset in ongoing trade negotiations with China and their potential impacts on monetary policy and bond markets.

Rounding out the rumored picks is Kevin Hassett, President Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council. A long-time figure in Washington, D.C. conservative economic circles, Hassett is a possible dark horse candidate. The former director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) served as a key economic advisor in Trump’s first term in the White House before being tapped to lead the National Economic Council in January 2025. Hassett, with a background steeped in tax and fiscal policy, has—like Bessent—served as one of the Trump White House’s key spokesmen on economic and trade issues. In recent months, Hassett has served as a lead White House advocate in the media and on Capitol Hill, pushing for President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” implementing the bulk of the American First leader’s tax and fiscal policy agenda.  

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Don Jr., Lara Trump Open Up About ‘Shocking’ and ‘Scary’ Lawfare Against Their Family.

EDITOR’S NOTE

The following is an excerpt from attorney and former Breitbart reporter Alex Swoyer’s new book, Lawless Lawfare, which comes with a foreword by Mike Davis. Ms. Swoyer has made the following excerpt available exclusively for readers of The National Pulse, and will be launching her book in Washington, D.C., at Butterworth’s:


From the moment Trump launched his 2016 campaign, he was under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which ended up probing him for more than two years for allegedly working with Russia to win the 2016 campaign.

When the Russia investigation failed to land any luck for Democrats, they turned to impeaching him not once, but twice. Eventually, civil lawsuits ensued. But the worst of it may have been the four criminal prosecutions he faced, making history as the first time a former president ever stood trial and was convicted of a crime.

Don Jr., the eldest son of the president, said he does not think his father is bothered by being labeled a “felon” or a “convict.” He told me that, like the mug shot taken in Fulton County, Georgia, over Trump’s state prosecution there, it has all become “sort of a symbol for standing against the corrupt swamp establishment and standing with the tens of millions of everyday, commonsense Americans who supported him.”

“In a weird way, the courtroom sketches, the phony witch hunts, the failed Democrat ads, and the mug shot—it all became sort of a badge of honor, because it represents a courageous and bold stand against abuse of power. It’s a political comeback story like we’ve never seen. And no, I’m not tired of winning,” Don Jr. said.

He also credited the love and loyalty of the American people for motivating the Trump family to continue to campaign despite the mountain of lawfare.

“In fact, the lawfare only made us that much more driven and eager to deliver on the promises to restore equal justice and equal application of our laws. We’re a family of builders—and when you’re building something, you don’t stop until the job is finished. The more the corrupt left-wing lawfare cabal tried to bring him down, the stronger my father became. Because once the corruption got to a certain point, we had no choice but to work harder than ever to deliver a massive victory in November.”

Lara Trump, for her part, said that one day the family will feel comfortable coming out and talking more specifically about the way the political targeting that started nearly ten years ago has impacted each of them, adding that “it has upended all of our lives.”

“It has been very, very damaging to all of our lives in ways probably people couldn’t fathom. When that day comes, I think people will be utterly shocked by the things that have happened to our family and we made it through. I am grateful to the American people that they saw through all the lies and the lawfare and all the nonsense. But it is a really scary process that, had things gone the opposite way in this election, I don’t know what that would have meant for our family, for my father-in-law, and for this country as a whole, because I think once you go past a certain point, I don’t know that you get this country back. So, I feel like we are very fortunate right now.”

Get your copy of Lawless Lawfare: Tipping the Scales of Justice to Get Trump and Destroy MAGA, here today.

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SMITH: How Trump’s Third Circuit Picks Can Save the Second Amendment.

President Trump recently announced the nomination of attorney Emil Bove to fill one of two vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Let’s hope that Mr. Bove’s views on the Second Amendment were thoroughly vetted, because the vacancies on the Third Circuit provide a rare opportunity for President Trump to protect the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.

The Third Circuit covers the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. For many cases that do not go to the United States Supreme Court, it is the last word on some hotly debated constitutional issues arising in those states.

The court is currently evenly split with six Republican- and six Democrat-appointed active judges. President Trump now has the chance, with his two judicial appointments, to put the court firmly in Republican control. And that will make it unique among the federal circuit courts of appeal—a Republican-controlled court overseeing the rabidly anti-gun state of New Jersey and the mostly anti-gun state of Biden’s Delaware.

PROSPECT OF A LIFETIME.

This is the prospect of a lifetime for the Second Amendment movement. It goes beyond the mere potential to invalidate New Jersey’s bans on so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity” magazines and its “sensitive places” (gun-free zones) laws, which are all issues currently pending before the Third Circuit. While those outcomes would be significant in their own right, their importance is enhanced by the “circuit splits” they would create with other courts of appeals.

The United States Supreme Court, for the most part, gets to pick and choose which cases it takes. One of the criteria it considers when deciding whether to take a case is whether the lower courts disagree about a legal issue the case presents—i.e., whether there is a circuit split. One of the reasons it has been so hard to get the Supreme Court to review Second Amendment cases is that it has been difficult to generate circuit splits.

The majority of the anti-gun states – states like California, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, and Maryland – are in circuits with courts controlled by anti-gun judges, which means that when those anti-gun states’ laws are challenged, they tend to be uniformly upheld by the federal circuit courts where they are located. To compound the headaches for the Second Amendment movement, the anti-gun courts in those blue state jurisdictions cite to the anti-gun courts in the other blue state jurisdictions who in turn cite to the anti-gun courts in other blue state jurisdictions and so on… thereby creating an unvirtuous circle of anti-constitutionalism concerning the right to bear arms; and along with that no “circuit split” for the Supreme Court to resolve. 

SNOPE V. BROWN.

We have seen this play out with the recent denial of Supreme Court review in Snope v. Brown, an ”assault weapons” case from Maryland.

Four votes are needed to grant review, and three Justices indicated they would have granted review (Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch), while a fourth justice (Justice Kavanaugh) wrote a concurrence in the denial, indicating that the Court should consider this issue in the future but not yet. Had there been a circuit split, it would have been more difficult for Justice Kavanaugh and the other justices to justify putting off review in what should be a straightforward win for the Second Amendment.

But there is a light on the horizon. If the Third Circuit were transformed into a reliably pro-Second-Amendment court, the likelihood of generating circuit splits on Second Amendment issues would increase dramatically. This, in turn, would increase the opportunities for the Supreme Court to hear Second Amendment cases on the grounds of existing circuit splits.

The Third Circuit has shown signs that there are some strong judges who respect the right to bear arms already on the bench, as evidenced by its lopsided en banc ruling in favor of the Second Amendment in the Bryan Range v. Garland case. Mr. Range had been disarmed for a decades-old non-violent, welfare fraud offense due to the effect of a federal law, which disarms anyone convicted of a “felony” for life. The Third Circuit en banc ruled 13-2 that this gun control law violated the Second Amendment as applied to Mr. Range.

It is imperative that President Trump appoint judges to the Third Circuit who are rock-solid on the Second Amendment. Of course, one nomination has already been made, and given the administration’s support of Second Amendment issues, we hope proper vetting was done, but there is still one nomination to go.

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President Trump recently announced the nomination of attorney Emil Bove to fill one of two vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Let’s hope that Mr. Bove’s views on the Second Amendment were thoroughly vetted, because the vacancies on the Third Circuit provide a rare opportunity for President Trump to protect the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.

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BUILD, BABY, BUILD! – Democrats are Trying to Stop Trump’s Housing Market Solutions.

Arguably, America’s decades-long housing crisis was one of the issues that helped propel President Donald J. Trump into office—and rightly so. Decades of establishment failures (read: self-enrichment) have worsened an already dire situation. Soaring prices, stagnant wages, regulatory bottlenecks, and Bidenflation pushed home ownership further out of reach for ordinary people. Trump’s answer on the campaign trail has been consistent and correct: build more homes, and clear the roadblocks that make them unaffordable in the first place.

Under Biden, the home price-to-income ratio hit a record high. In 2022, a median-priced home cost 5.6 times more than the median household income. That’s the worst spread since the early 1970s. The reasons are obvious: inflation, interest rates, excessive taxes, environmental restrictions, and a shrinking supply of available homes.

Trump’s approach is straightforward: get Washington out of the way, and get America building again. Most Democrats, by contrast, seem to want to avoid this outcome. Despite finally admitting that Biden was an effective Oval Office vegetable, they still won’t repudiate Bidenomics. Naturally, they’re lashing out at private sector investment in the single-family rental (SFR) market—one of the few sectors offering working families a path to stability and home ownership.

Single-family rentals are not the problem. They’re part of the solution. They provide access to good neighborhoods and schools at a lower monthly cost than owning outright, which is often critical for my generation, especially those who graduated at the onset of the 2008 crisis and recently endured COVID lockdowns. Right now, renting can save families about 40 percent compared to mortgage payments. Even in a world where we want more home ownership, that matters.

Yet California, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina lawmakers are pushing legislation to cap the number of homes providers can own. These proposals are based on the false assumption that providers reduce housing supply. The data doesn’t actually support these claims, by the way. According to the Mercatus Center, institutional investors have never accounted for more than 2.5 percent of home purchases in a single quarter. That’s not exactly a takeover of the market.

Private investment increases the housing supply, creates jobs, and expands options. Attacking the private sector may score points on MSNBC, but it won’t build a single home.

Democrats are attempting to restrict the very actors capable of building, maintaining, and managing housing stock. This is a destructive approach to one of America’s biggest problems. Trump understands what’s required: deregulate, incentivize construction, and keep the government as far out of the situation as possible.

If Washington wants to help Americans become homeowners again, it should stop demonizing investors and remove obstacles. That means cutting bureaucracy, slashing taxes, rolling back zoning restrictions, and encouraging development. It means leadership with clarity and urgency—something the Biden White House never displayed.

Trump has. He’s laid out the blueprint. Americans need affordable homes. The private sector is best placed to deliver. All that’s required is the political will to stop worsening the problem.

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PALUMBO: Alex Soros Inherits a Web of Influence in Ukraine – Including Over the Zelensky Regime.

This is an excerpt from Matt Palumbo’s new book The Heir: Inside the (Not So) Secret Network of Alex Soros), published with permission exclusively for The National Pulse’s readers. Purchase a copy of this must-read book, here.


All eyes have been on Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, but Alex Soros’ meddling has gone largely unnoticed as his mingling with America’s elite makes headlines.

Alex’s involvement in the country was a long time coming.

His father George Soros had his flag planted there for decades. A nation plagued by corruption, George saw opportunity, and has used Ukraine to further his quest to spread his vision of a so-called “open society,” and attack his political opponents in the U.S.

The Open Society Foundations has invested at least $230 million Ukraine since 1991. Among George’s activities in Ukraine have included funding the Maidan Protests that led to the election of Petro Poroshenko. This was followed by George being put on Ukraine’s National Investment Council. The Council is now headed by Zelensky, and there’s been no reporting to indicate that George ever left it.

Since the war escalated, Alex has become a cheerleader for it, which he’s played an active role in, both trying to shape policy in America in the Biden administration to the benefit of Ukraine, and to cement a role for himself in a post-war Ukraine.

He’s boasted access – quite publicly, to the entirety of the Zelensky administration.

Alex has had at least four meetings with Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s “right-hand man” that he appointed to be Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine. In addition to being Zelensky’s Chief-of-Staff, he’s also part of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s higher command and control body.

According to the Kyiv Post, Yermak is the second most influential person in Ukraine, and no one in the country is closer to Zelensky than he is.

Yermak has been is plagued by corruption allegations. Just a month after he became Chief-of-Staff, video surfaced showing his brother discussing appointments to government jobs, suggesting he could use position to get people those cushy jobs. An investigation into Yermak’s brother was later dropped by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, which the OSF were active supporters of the creation of.

The corruption whiff around Yermak? Alex doesn’t care; it’s a feature, not a bug. A greased wheel for a machine that thrives on chaos.

During Trump’s first term, Yermak was contacted by Giuliani, who urged him to open an investigation into Hunter’s role at Burisma, which he refused to cooperate in and personally advised Zelensky to not get involved in, protecting Joe Biden.

Alex and Yermak met in Kyiv on November 7, 2023, December 9, 2023 and May 13, 2024, and August 27, 2024. The two were also pictured together at Davos in January 2025. On social media, Alex touts a close relationship with Yermak. There, they publicly exchange birthday wishes and compliments like old friends.

Meetings with Zelensky himself were in the cards.

On December 9, 2023, Alex was invited by President Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska to speak at the first meeting of the “International Coalition of Countries for the Return of Ukrainian Children.” At the coalition meeting, Soros announced that OSF would partner with the Ukrainian First Lady’s foundation, The Olena Zelenska Foundation, and donated one million dollars to its projects.

Alex wrote in a tweet “Thank you President @ZelenskyyUa for inviting me back to #Ukraine to speak at the first meeting of the “International Coalition of Countries for the Return of Ukrainian Children.” Honored to partner with you on this important initiative to bring back the Ukrainian children — as many as 700,000 —stolen by Russia.”

It’s an amusing juxtaposition to comments Zelenesky made in 2020 when he tried to downplay Soros influence over Ukraine to the point of pretending to not even know who George Soros was; “I am not familiar with a person named Soros. I have never met him. The question of the influence of Mr. Soros on Ukraine – I do not feel it. I think this is all an exaggeration.”

That came after he had already bowed to Soros’s power early on.

Weeks after Zelensky was elected in 2019, the Ukraine Crisis Media Center (USMC) issued a statement of “red lines” Zelensky was not to cross – as if he wasn’t the real President.

The UCMC’s funding came from the Soros family’s International Renaissance Foundation, the Embassy of the United States, Kyiv, USAID, NATO, and other quasi-CIA groups with the vague professed purpose of “promoting democracy.”

The core demand was to “protect the values ​​that Ukrainians fought for during the Revolution of Dignity” – a reference to the 2014 George Soros-backed “Maidan Uprising.” In 2014 George wrote an article calling for the “spirit of the Maidan” to be preserved.

The USMC was upset that Zelensky had appointed members of Viktor Yanukovych’s government (who lost to the Soros-backed Poroshenko). UCMC warned that any crossing of these “red lines” would lead to “political instability” and a “deterioration of international warnings,” reading more like a threat than a caution.

Among the red lines included Zelensky holding a referendum on the negotiations to be used with Russia on the principles for a peaceful settlement, negotiating with Russia without any members of their “Western partners,” initiating any actions that may contribute to the reduction or lifting of sanctions against Russia, and implementing policies against the International Monetary Fund.

Other red lines included any policies that would accommodate the nearly fifth of the country that’s Russian, such as preventing him from restoring Russian TV channels, disallowing him from reviewing Poroshenko’s language law that prohibits anyone from state positions if their knowledge of Ukrainian is insufficient, or supporting the Russian Orthodox Church (which Zelensky later banned, earning him a condemnation from Pope Francis).

But it had weight – and it was a reminder of who was really in charge.

Zelensky may have been democratically elected, but he didn’t do it alone if this group can have so much power in what he is and isn’t allowed to do. Considering Zelensky’s desire for seemingly endless war, which reached its peak during the epic White House showdown between him and Trump, his behavior does make more sense in this context. Zelensky has, to a t, followed the rules the USMC laid out for him.

And now that same level of influence is being wielded in Alex.

This is an excerpt from Matt Palumbo’s new book The Heir: Inside the (Not So) Secret Network of Alex Soros), published with permission exclusively for The National Pulse’s readers. Purchase a copy of this must-read book, here. Image via Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s on Flickr.

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This is an excerpt from Matt Palumbo’s new book The Heir: Inside the (Not So) Secret Network of Alex Soros), published with permission exclusively for The National Pulse's readers. Purchase a copy of this must-read book, here.

show more