Trump administration’s report on ‘anti-Christian bias’ is ridiculous propaganda
Trump administration’s report on ‘anti-Christian bias’ is ridiculous propaganda
The report references the Biden administration’s investigation of a Catholic extremist and its acknowledgment of Transgender Day of Visibility.
The Trump administration is facing rebuke over its release of a report that purports to show the Biden administration’s anti-Christian bias.
On Thursday, the White House’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, led by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of President Donald Trump’s former defense attorneys, released a controversial report that attempts to portray the previous Democratic administration as having launched a partisan attack on Christianity. To give you a sense as to how unfounded these claims are, they include the Biden administration’s law enforcement inquiries into a self-described “radical traditional Catholic Clerical Fascist” and its acknowledgment of Transgender Day of Visibility, which coincidentally fell on Easter last year.
That the White House thinks it has any credibility here is a remarkable window into the administration’s rank derangement, given the recent claims of blasphemy Trump faced after he portrayed himself as Jesus.
The head of the Interfaith Alliance, a faith-based activist group that opposes Christian nationalism, rebuked the report, calling it “abominably hypocritical.” The Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush’s statement cited Trump’s recent attacks on Pope Leo and his previous condemnation of Bishop Mariann Budde for delivering a sermon that called for mercy toward immigrants:Trump’s radical DOJ’s new report is abominably hypocritical. To find anti-Christian bias, the Trump administration should look in the mirror at its own targeting of Christian communities and leaders who dare to oppose its extreme agenda. From attacking Pope Leo to Bishop Budde to so many others, this president has repeatedly threatened and clashed with many of the most prominent Christian denominations in our country.
A hefty portion of the report is dedicated to condemning the Justice Department’s investigation of an extremist in Virginia named Xavier Lopez, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison after he was found with a bevy of explosives in 2022. Republicans have sought to frame the FBI’s investigation of Lopez and the church he attended as evidence of anti-Catholic bias, but the DOJ’s inspector general debunked that claim, determining there was no “malicious intent” or evidence of bias in the FBI’s probe despite errors in some of the agency’s investigatory practices. At the time, the FBI said its own review had affirmed “there was no intent or actions taken to investigate Catholics or anyone based on religion.”
The Trump administration’s report buries some important context about Lopez that fueled the investigation, according to the Daily Beast:
On his wall hung a giant Nazi flag, with a crucifix and rosary fixed neatly above the swastika.
Federal agents had been tracking Lopez since 2019 over neo-Nazi posts urging followers to shoot police and attack Black Americans and Jews. He also boasted he could do better than Anders Breivik — the far-right killer who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011, Commonweal Magazine reported.
After Lopez began attending Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) Chapel, agents placed an informant inside the parish to find out whether he was trying to recruit fellow worshippers for a violent attack.
The Trump administration’s report also takes aim at the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-extremism organization the DOJ recently hit with a bogus indictment. Federal prosecutors say the organization has funded extremism with its investigatory work into extremist groups; the SPLC has vigorously denied the allegations, saying its work has been done largely to help law enforcement target extremists.
MAGA world figures have tried to peddle absurd claims that racist extremism is a liberal contrivance, and this new report seems intent on fueling these claims by citing two officials’ emails raising questions about the SPLC’s methodology in deeming certain religious groups as extreme. But the DOJ’s report also lends credence to the SPLC’s defense of its actions, with its quoting of an official who said the organization “has been a source for statistics and data not otherwise available to law enforcement.”
Opinion | Trump’s time-bending claim about the Iran war is truly absurd
The Trump administration told Congress Thursday that the legislative branch doesn’t need to worry about authorizing the war with Iran that President Donald Trump launched two months ago. The War Powers Resolution says that a president only has 60 days after deploying U.S. military forces to either fully withdraw those forces or get formal approval from legislators for the campaign to continue. Despite hitting that deadline Friday, the White House is now saying that as far as it’s concerned, the hostilities that began two months ago are “terminated,” leaving no reason for Congress to act.
It’s a confounding sentiment given the U.S. warships still blockading Iranian ports and the possibility that Trump could launch a new round of strikes at any time. But time has clearly become flexible to the Trump administration and its allies. Depending on who you ask, and when, America’s war against Iran is simultaneously ongoing and doesn’t exist; it began 60 days ago but also 40 years ago. The war ended in early April, but our “warfighters” still need unconditional support to achieve victory.
The result is a quantum-flux state of play regarding the Iran war that’s as absurd as it is illegal. The conflicting arguments stretch the limits of credulity in hopes of avoiding laws meant to prevent America being dragged into a conflict with no end — and, in this case, seemingly no real beginning.
When Trump announced the joint U.S.-Israeli bombing against Iran, there was immediate concern that at no point had he tried to get authorization from Congress ahead of the strikes beginning. Hegseth claimed during one of his first press conferences after the campaign began that the U.S. “didn’t start this war,” implying it was an act of self-defense despite the U.S. being the one with fighter jets flying sorties.
More confounding was the claim from the State Department’s legal advisor that the hostilities with Iran merely continue a conflict ongoing since 1979. Despite there being a ceasefire for talks after last June’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the State Department’s analysis claims that “if a conflict has not ended, then it must be ongoing.” (Keep that in mind for two paragraphs from now.)
The White House formally notified Congress about the military deployment on March 2, starting the 60-day clock for approval. While never fully clarifying the war’s goals, the White House halted airstrikes on April 7 when both sides agreed to a ceasefire. Since then, there have been muddled negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and a last-minute extension from Trump as the original two-week pause reached its end. But throughout the off-and-on peace talks, the U.S. has maintained a naval blockade of Iranian ports and Iran has continued to choke off trade in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump says he doesn’t need congressional approval for Iran war because ‘hostilities’ have ended May 1, 2026 / 11:06
Incredibly, when asked about the War Powers Resolution deadline during a Senate hearing Thursday, Hegseth claimed that it was a moot point. While deferring to the White House counsel’s judgement, the defense secretary claimed, “we are in a cease fire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a cease fire.” Hegseth’s statement echoed House Speaker Mike Johnson’s words to NBC News earlier that day: “We are not at war.”
Johnson’s refusal to acknowledge Congress’ role in declaring war is troubling on its own. But it pales next to the administration’s efforts to avoid the War Powers Resolution’s clear requirement when congressional approval is lacking: “terminate any use of United States Armed Forces” regarding the conflict after 60 days. As Just Security noted, “this withdrawal of U.S. forces occurs by operation of law – that is, according to pre-existing terms of the statute, without any further action by Congress.” It’s supposed to be up to Trump to convince Congress to let the troops stay engaged in hostilities at this point, not Congress’ job to force him to remove them.
Moreover, simply claiming that there’s no fighting isn’t the same as the war ending. Previous administrations have claimed under something called “intermittence theory” that the clock starts and stops with each discrete set of military strikes. But a ceasefire is not a lasting peace, and the War Powers Resolution only speaks of “hostilities” ongoing, not armed conflict. In other words, under the law, if U.S. forces are deployed. nobody needs to be firing shots for the clock to keep ticking.
Meanwhile, the continued blockade of Iranian ports is unquestionably an act of war under international law, not to mention an action that is putting U.S. service members at risk of being drawn into renewed combat. Trump is also reportedly considering a renewed round of attacks to force the re-opening of the strait or convince Iran to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium. Under his administration’s interpretation of the law, the U.S. breaking the ceasefire would merely resume the clock with weeks left before needing authorization — or potentially restart it entirely.
As Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley law school, recently wrote in The New York Times, it is imperative that the courts “simply hold that the War Powers Resolution requires the president to end our involvement in the war with Iran unless and until Congress authorizes it.” Until that happens, Congress’s power to declare war, already weakened, has been made effectively irrelevant. Instead, we live in a world the White House will keep trying to argue that a war that lasts for 10 months is the same as one that lasts 60 days is the same as one that’s lasted forty 40 years is the same as one that only lasted 40 days.
The Boy Who Walked Into the Wedding. The Girl Who Stood Up for the Truth.
At first, everyone thought the boy was there to steal something.
He appeared at the entrance of the grand wedding hall like a shadow that had wandered into the wrong dream.
The ballroom glittered with crystal chandeliers, golden curtains, towers of white roses, and guests dressed in silk, satin, and diamonds. Waiters moved between tables carrying trays of champagne. A pianist played softly near the marble dance floor. Everything looked perfect.
And then he walked in.
A skinny teenage boy in dirty white sneakers, an oversized black jacket, and a gray hoodie stained with dust.
The laughter faded.
Heads turned.
Someone whispered, “Is he homeless?”
Another voice muttered, “Security.”
The boy ignored them all.
His dark hair fell over his forehead. His face was pale, smudged with dirt, but his eyes were strangely calm. He walked through the crowd as if he already knew exactly where he belonged.
And then he stopped.
Not in front of the bride.
Not in front of the groom.
But in front of the girl in the wheelchair.
Her name was Clara.
She was sixteen, dressed in a pale-blue gown that shimmered under the chandeliers. Her long brown hair was pinned back with a pearl clip, but her hands were folded tightly in her lap, as if she were trying to disappear.
All evening, people had smiled at her with pity.
They told her she looked beautiful.
They told her she was brave.
But no one asked her to dance.
The boy looked at her and said, “I’ll dance with you.”
The room went silent.
Clara’s eyes widened.
Her mother, standing near the head table, gasped. The groom frowned. The bride placed a hand over her mouth.
Clara looked down at her useless legs.
“I can’t dance,” she whispered.
The boy did not move.
“I can’t walk.”
A painful stillness spread across the ballroom.
The boy slowly held out his hand.
Then he said the words that made every guest stop breathing.
“I’ll make you walk.”
Someone laughed nervously.
Someone else said, “That’s cruel.”
A security guard stepped forward, but Clara raised one trembling hand.
“Wait,” she said.
Her voice was barely audible, but everyone heard it.
The boy crouched in front of her.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Eli.”
“Do you know me?”
His jaw tightened.
“I know enough.”
Clara frowned.
Something about his voice made her heart beat faster. It was not the voice of a stranger. It carried pain. It carried memory.
Her mother rushed toward them.
“Clara, don’t listen to him. He’s confused.”
Eli turned his head slowly.
“No,” he said. “I’m the only one here who isn’t.”
A murmur rippled through the guests.
Clara’s father, Richard Vale, stood from the front table. He was the owner of half the hotels in the city, a man whose smile appeared on charity posters and business magazines.
His voice was cold.
“Remove him.”
Two guards moved in.
Eli didn’t resist. He simply reached into his jacket and pulled out a small silver key.
The moment Clara saw it, her breath caught.
It was shaped like a tiny bird.
Her pendant.
The one she had lost on the night of the accident.
The night everything changed.
Clara’s voice shook.
“Where did you get that?”
Eli looked at her.
“You gave it to me.”
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
Clara’s mind flashed backward.
Rain on glass.
Headlights.
Her father yelling.
A boy screaming her name.
Then darkness.
For three years, Clara had believed the accident was her fault.
She had been told she ran into the road.
She had been told a strange boy tried to help her.
She had been told he disappeared.
But Eli was standing in front of her now.
Alive.
Broken.
Forgotten.
Her father’s face had gone pale.
“Clara,” he said carefully, “this boy is lying.”
Eli stood.
“No. You lied.”
The bride whispered, “What is happening?”
Eli pointed at Richard.
“That night, Clara didn’t run into the road. You did. You were drunk. You hit us both.”
A shocked gasp tore through the ballroom.
Clara’s mother covered her mouth.
Richard’s expression hardened.
“That is insane.”
Eli’s voice cracked, but he kept going.
“You paid people to erase everything. You told the hospital I was a runaway. You told Clara I was nobody.”
Clara stared at her father.
“Dad?”
Richard stepped toward her.
“Sweetheart, don’t let him upset you.”
But Clara was no longer looking at him.
She was looking at Eli.
At the scar near his eyebrow.
At the way his hand trembled.
At the silver bird key in his palm.
A memory struck her so hard she nearly cried out.
She remembered holding that same hand.
She remembered a boy pushing her away from headlights.
She remembered him whispering, “Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.”
Clara’s tears spilled over.
“You saved me.”
Eli swallowed.
“I tried.”
The room fell into a stunned silence.
Then Richard said, “Enough.”
He grabbed Clara’s wheelchair handles.
But Eli moved faster.
“Don’t touch her.”
Richard’s mask cracked.
“You filthy little street rat.”
The words echoed.
Every guest heard them.
Phones rose.
Cameras recorded.
Richard realized too late what he had done.
Clara’s hands tightened on the wheels of her chair.
For the first time in three years, she looked at her father not with dependence, but with horror.
“You knew him,” she whispered. “You knew who he was.”
Richard said nothing.
Eli stepped closer to Clara.
“Your legs were injured, yes. But not destroyed.”
Clara froze.
“What?”
Eli looked toward her mother.
“The doctors said she might walk again with treatment. But he stopped it.”
Clara’s mother began to sob.
Richard shouted, “Shut up!”
But it was too late.
Eli pulled a folded envelope from his jacket.
“I found the medical report. The real one.”
Clara’s mother stumbled backward.
Richard lunged for the envelope, but the groom stepped between them.
“Don’t,” he said.
Eli handed the envelope to Clara.
Her fingers trembled as she opened it.
The words blurred through tears.
Partial spinal trauma. High recovery potential. Intensive therapy recommended.
Clara’s lips parted.
High recovery potential.
Not impossible.
Not hopeless.
Her whole world tilted.
For three years, her father had told her walking again would never happen.
For three years, he had kept her weak, dependent, silent.
Why?
Then she looked across the room at the wedding decorations. At the cameras. At the reporters invited to capture Richard Vale’s “charity wedding donation” announcement later that night.
And she understood.
Her wheelchair had made him look noble.
Her suffering had become his brand.
Her pain had sold his kindness to the world.
Clara let out a broken sound.
“You used me.”
Richard’s face twisted.
“I protected you.”
“No,” she whispered. “You buried me alive.”
Eli knelt again.
His voice softened.
“Clara, I don’t know if you can walk far. I don’t know if it will hurt. But I know this.”
He held out his hand.
“You were never as broken as he made you believe.”
Every eye in the ballroom fixed on Clara.
Her heart pounded.
Her body shook.
Fear screamed inside her.
What if she fell?
What if Eli was wrong?
What if everyone watched her fail?
Then she looked at her father.
And suddenly, falling didn’t scare her as much as staying seated forever.
She placed her hand in Eli’s.
A gasp spread through the room.
“Clara, don’t,” Richard warned.
She ignored him.
Eli gently placed one arm around her shoulders.
“On three,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes.
“One.”
Her fingers dug into his sleeve.
“Two.”
The wheelchair creaked beneath her.
“Three.”
Clara pushed down with everything she had.
Pain shot through her legs.
Her knees buckled.
The crowd gasped.
Eli held her tighter.
“Look at me,” he said.
“I’m scared,” she cried.
“I know.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Her legs trembled violently. Sweat gathered at her temples. Her breath came in sharp, broken bursts.
Then, slowly—
impossibly—
Clara stood.
For one second, no one moved.
No one spoke.
The entire ballroom seemed frozen inside that single miracle.
Then Clara took one tiny step.
Her mother screamed.
Not in fear.
In joy.
The guests erupted. Some cried. Some clapped. Some simply stared as if they had witnessed the world split open.
Clara collapsed into Eli’s arms, sobbing.
“I walked,” she whispered.
Eli’s eyes filled with tears.
“You did.”
Richard turned to leave.
But the doors opened.
Two police officers stepped in.
Behind them stood an older woman in a nurse’s uniform.
Clara recognized her immediately.
Nurse Helen.
The woman who had disappeared from the hospital after Clara’s accident.
Helen pointed at Richard.
“That’s him,” she said. “He paid me to switch the records.”
Richard’s face drained of color.
The officers moved toward him.
“This is absurd!” he shouted. “Do you know who I am?”
Eli answered quietly.
“A man who thought money could erase the truth.”
Richard was handcuffed in front of everyone.
The cameras captured it all.
The perfect wedding had become a public trial.
But the twist was not finished.
As Richard was dragged away, he suddenly laughed.
Cold.
Ugly.
Desperate.
“You think he came back for justice?” he spat at Clara. “Ask him why he really came.”
Clara turned to Eli.
Eli went still.
Richard smiled like a dying snake.
“Tell her, boy.”
The room grew quiet again.
Clara’s voice trembled.
“Eli?”
He looked down.
For the first time all night, he looked afraid.
“I didn’t just come because of the accident.”
Clara’s heart sank.
“What does that mean?”
Eli reached into his jacket one final time.
This time, he pulled out a faded hospital bracelet.
Clara stared at it.
Her name was on it.
But beside it was another name.
Twin: Male.
Clara stopped breathing.
Her mother let out a strangled cry.
“No,” Clara whispered.
Eli’s eyes shone with tears.
“I was in the car too,” he said. “Not as a stranger.”
Clara’s world went silent.
Eli’s voice broke.
“I was your brother.”
The ballroom disappeared.
The guests vanished.
There was only Eli, holding the bracelet between them.
Her twin brother.
The boy she had forgotten.
The boy her father had abandoned because two injured children would ruin the story.
One disabled daughter made Richard look tragic and heroic.
A homeless son proved he was a monster.
Clara covered her mouth.
Memories returned like lightning.
A little boy laughing beside her.
Two children sharing cake with their fingers.
A silver bird pendant split into two keys.
A voice in the dark saying, “Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.”
Clara reached toward Eli.
“You were my brother?”
Eli nodded, tears slipping down his dirty cheeks.
“I waited for you to remember me.”
Clara sobbed and pulled him into her arms.
This time, the room did not clap.
No one dared.
Because this was not a performance.
This was a family being resurrected from a grave built by lies.
Her mother fell to her knees beside them, crying harder than either of them had ever heard.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered to Eli. “He told me you died.”
Eli closed his eyes.
“I almost did.”
Clara held him tighter.
The reporters lowered their cameras.
Even the bride cried.
Outside, police lights flashed against the golden windows.
Inside, Clara stood once more—not perfectly, not steadily, but with Eli’s arm around her and her mother holding her other hand.
Together, they faced the crowd.
The girl who had been used as a symbol of weakness had just exposed the empire built on her silence.
The homeless boy who had been thrown away had returned as the only person brave enough to tell the truth.
And Richard Vale, the man everyone had admired, was remembered forever not for his wealth, his charity, or his grand wedding hall—
but for the night his daughter stood up, his son came home, and every lie he had buried finally learned how to walk.
