News
Trump Endorses Man Who Was at the Capitol Jan. 6 and Who Bragged About Exposing Man’s Genitals to Unsuspecting Women
Donald Trump on Thursday issued an endorsement in a U.S. House race to Derrick Van Orden for Wisconsin’s 3rd congressional district. Van Orden was at the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and bragged about exposing another man’s genitals, a hospital patient, to two unsuspecting women.
Van Orden, a Republican who previously ran for Congress but lost in the primaries “went to Washington on Jan. 6 ― a trip paid for with leftover campaign funds ― to rally with other pro-Trump supporters who were trying to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory,” HuffPost reports. “Van Orden claimed that he never set foot on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, but as The Daily Beast reported, a photo from that day shows otherwise.”
On his campaign website Van Orden describes himself as “an American patriot, retired Navy SEAL, husband, father, grandfather, and Christian.”
In an op-ed for the La Crosse Tribune he claims he “traveled to Washington, DC for meetings and to stand for the integrity of our electoral system as a citizen and at the behest of my neighbors here in Western Wisconsin.”
Never before in American history has there been any call to travel to Washington, D.C. to stand for the integrity of our electoral system, nor was there any significant fraud that would make such a trip necessary.
He notes he was not at the Capitol alone.
“Two of my friends, both combat veterans, and I stood on the parapet that lines the perimeter of the grounds and watched what should have been an expression of free speech devolve into one of the most tragic incidents in the history of our nation.”
“When it became clear that a protest had become a mob, I left the area as to remain there could be construed as tacitly approving this unlawful conduct.”
The Daily Beast reports it “confirmed that Van Orden would have had to cross police barricades to reach that area.”
“As for Van Orden’s campaign expenses surrounding Jan. 6, it’s unclear how they relate to Van Orden’s attendance,” The Daily Beast adds. “Federal Election Commission regulations state that travel expenses must be “directly related to the campaign.” Van Orden—who wrote off roughly $4,000 in transportation and D.C. hotel costs around Jan. 6 for him, his wife, and a campaign staffer—lost his race in November and didn’t declare his 2022 candidacy until April.”
A former Navy SEAL, Van Orden blames “ineffectual” then-President Barack Obama for the deaths of two SEALs in Benghazi.
“In 2015,” HuffPost reports, “Van Orden published ‘Book of Man: A Navy Seal’s Guide to the Lost Art of Manhood,’ about the lessons he learned from being a Navy SEAL. In the book, as the La Crosse Tribune reported in 2020, Van Orden describes an incident in which he surprised two unsuspecting women by showing them a lieutenant’s swollen genitals (his ‘ball sack huge as a cantaloupe’).”
He told the paper that he was “instructing two junior Medical Corps officers in recognition and treatment” ― even though he never identified the two “cute girls” as medical officers in the book.
On the issues, the first one he mentions is masks for school children during the coronavirus pandemic. They should be “optional,” he says, attacking “dismissive school boards.”
He opposes the LGBTQ Equality Act,
Van Orden also claims the second impeachment of Donald Trump “for purely political reasons” “called [him] back into public service, this time as a candidate for Congress in the 3rd District of his beloved State of Wisconsin.”
This is the pinned post on Van Orden’s Facebook page:
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President Donald Trump concluded his executive time Friday morning with a statement announcing he would end the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and laid out his requirements for a deal with Iran, before declaring, “I will be meeting now, in the Situation Room, to make a final determination.”
After a two-hour meeting with his advisors, Trump left without making a decision.
“It was not clear why Mr. Trump did not reach a decision,” The New York Times reports.
“In recent days, the sides have exchanged fire, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened a return to full-scale war,” the Times added.
Among Trump’s demands were that the Strait be reopened “immediately,” with no tolls imposed on traffic, and all water mines removed — although he noted, “we have removed, through detonation, numerous such mines with our great underwater mine sweepers.”
“Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say hello to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President,” he wrote. Trump added: “No money will be exchanged, until further notice.”
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Were an agreement to be reached, the Times noted, “it could give Mr. Trump an off-ramp from a war that has driven up oil prices and grown deeply unpopular at home. It could also eventually allow Iran to regain access to frozen overseas assets and provide a route for Tehran to get billions of dollars of oil revenue flowing again.”
Even if the Strait reopened immediately, experts warn, replacing the lost oil could take months.
“The spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said in a telephone interview with Iranian state media on Friday that current negotiations were limited in scope and did not include ‘the nuclear issue,'” the Times reports. Trump did specifically state that “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb.”
He also mentioned “nuclear dust,” writing that it “is buried deep underground with virtually collapsed mountains, caused by our powerful B2 Bomber attack 11 months ago, sitting on top of it.”
The president said that it “will be unearthed by the United States (which, it is agreed, is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so!), in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and destroyed.”
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Image via Reuters
A federal judge has ordered that President Donald Trump cannot rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, nor may he close it for what the Trump administration said were two years of renovations.
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” the judge wrote, CNBC reports. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Just weeks after he was sworn into office, Trump removed members of the board of the Kennedy Center and replaced them with allies and administration officials, including Richard Grenell, Pam Bondi, and Susie Wiles. The new board then voted for Trump to become chairman of the Kennedy Center.
In December, after the White House announced that the board of the Kennedy Center — the official, “living memorial” to the late president — had voted to rename the iconic cultural institution the Trump-Kennedy Center, several members of the Kennedy family took the opportunity to denounce the move.
Maria Shriver, the former First Lady of California, wrote: “The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F Kennedy.”
She called the renaming “beyond comprehension,” “beyond wild,” “downright weird,” and “obsessive in a weird way,” while explaining that the Kennedy Center was named in honor of a man who was interested in the arts, culture, education, language, and history.
“Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial,” she said. “The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”
May 17 is President John F. Kennedy’s birthday, he was born in 1917.
This article has been updated.
Image via Reuters
The Villages in Florida is deep red Trump country — it’s called the “largest retirement community in the world,” where nearly seven out of 10 county residents voted for Trump in 2024. It’s roughly four hours to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and resort, and it’s not unusual to see Trump flags on the backs of residents’ golf carts.
Trump visited The Villages just a few weeks ago, where one resident told BBC News, “we’re as red as red gets.”
“The Village are very Republican and very Trumpster,” said another.
“Trump 2028!” declared another, waving his fist.
But the tide appears to be turning in Florida, where several polls spell bad news for Trump. His approval is underwater in one poll from April, and one released on Thursday shows a majority of Florida voters hold a negative view of the president.
Still, some may find a letter to the editor in The Villages local news declaring “MAGA has abandoned core Republican principles” surprising.
The letter declares MAGA is “not conservatism,” but rather a “betrayal” that has “embraced indulgence.”
“The irony is cruel,” says the letter writer, Carl Young. “Those who once railed against ‘big government’ now defend its excesses when it serves their side. The philosophy of restraint has been replaced by the politics of spectacle. Rome is burning, and the arsonists call the flames freedom.”
Young scorches Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that he says “produced the highest deficit spending in history.”
Citing dystopian and totalitarian works by George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Ayn Rand, he writes: “This is not renewal but regression. America has been dragged into an alternate 1984, where responsibility collapses and chaos parades as strength. The political temperature has risen to 451. The pigs now rule the farm.”
“These were never meant as prophecies. They were warnings,” he continues. “Atlas has finally shrugged.”
Image via Shutterstock
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