🔫 Left-Wing Gunman Storms Correspondents’ Dinner — Third Assassination Attempt on Trump

Cole Tomas Allen, 31, a CalTech-educated engineer and part-time teacher from Torrance, California, rushed a Secret Service checkpoint outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton Saturday night armed with multiple weapons — firing at and striking a Secret Service agent protected by a ballistic vest before being taken down — forcing the evacuation of President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and senior cabinet officials in what authorities are calling the third assassination attempt on Trump since 2024, according to CNBC and CBS News.

Allen had sent family members a written manifesto minutes before the attack identifying himself as the “friendly federal assassin,” expressing anger at Trump administration officials, referencing “detention camps,” and calling Trump a “traitor” — with his sister telling investigators he had a pattern of radical statements and had secretly stored two handguns and a shotgun at his parents’ home. He donated $25 to Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign, had “strongly anti-Christian” social media posts per Trump, boosted Bluesky posts calling for Trump to be “immediately removed from office and tried for high crimes,” shared posts calling to “Abolish ICE,” and was a member of “The Wide Awakes” left-wing activist network and attended “No Kings” protests in California — with early reports citing investigators and family members indicating Allen held communist sympathies, a detail authorities are still working to confirm as the investigation into his motive continues, Washington Free Beacon and Fox News reported. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro charged him with using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault of a federal officer, with additional charges expected.

The Founders who wrote the Declaration of Independence were no strangers to political passion — but they built this republic on the conviction that grievances must be addressed through argument, through elections, and through law. A free society that tolerates the normalization of political violence against its leaders, from any direction, will not remain free for long.

✈️ North Dakota Lawmaker Killed in Twin Cities Plane Crash — NTSB Investigating

North Dakota state Rep. Liz Conmy of Fargo and one other person were killed Saturday when their single-engine Beechcraft BE33 crashed and caught fire in Southbrook Park in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, shortly after takeoff from the nearby Crystal Airport — with eyewitnesses describing the plane going down “really fast” and erupting in a “big explosion” before the Brooklyn Park Fire Department arrived within minutes to extinguish the blaze, according to KSTP and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Conmy, a Democrat who championed public education, the environment, and government transparency and was described by her colleague Sen. Tim Mathern as having “a zest for life” and “a strong work ethic,” leaves behind a state legislative career defined by constituent service in a community largely shaped by farming families. The National Transportation Safety Board is on scene and investigating the cause of the crash, with no survivors and no injuries reported on the ground.

The sudden loss of a state legislator — one of the thousands of largely unsung public servants who keep the republic’s machinery running at its most basic level — is a reminder that the experiment in self-governance depends on ordinary citizens willing to step into unglamorous roles and serve. We mourn Rep. Conmy and extend condolences to her family, colleagues, and constituents.

📱 Supreme Court Takes Up Geofencing Case — Your Phone’s Location Data Is on Trial

The Supreme Court is considering whether the government’s use of “geofencing” — drawing a virtual fence around a crime scene and then demanding that Google hand over the identities of every user whose phone was in that area at the time of the crime — violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches, in a case that arose from a Virginia bank robbery where a gunman fled with $195,000 and police sought a sweeping Google database warrant to identify who was nearby, according to NPR.

The technique has been used by police in hundreds of cases nationwide — and critics argue it is the digital equivalent of stopping and demanding ID from every person on a city block because a crime happened there, sweeping in innocent people who had no connection to any crime and whose only offense was carrying a phone. Supporters say it is an indispensable modern investigative tool, subject to a court warrant, and fundamentally different from a general warrant because it is time and location-limited.

The Founders who wrote the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on “unreasonable searches” and “general warrants” were reacting specifically to British writs of assistance — open-ended search powers that let authorities go wherever they wanted and search whomever they pleased. Geofencing warrants, which compel tech companies to identify millions of innocent people to find one suspect, raise precisely the same question: at what point does a warrant that is facially specific become functionally general?

🇮🇱 Netanyahu’s Likud Collapsing in Polls as Israeli Voters Sour on Iran War Results

New polling from three major Israeli broadcasters shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party dropping to as few as 20-25 Knesset seats — down sharply from its 2022 result — as Israeli voters grow increasingly dissatisfied with the Iran war’s outcomes: Iran’s government remains in power, Hezbollah and Hamas are not defeated, and 58% of Israeli voters say they do not believe the US and Israel won the conflict, while opposition leader Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have now announced they will merge their parties ahead of October elections, according to Times of Israel.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party is rising — gaining seats as Likud bleeds them — while Bennett’s new combined party with Lapid has declared “the era of division is over” and is building toward a Zionist opposition bloc that polls show within striking distance of a governing majority. The elections, constitutionally due by October 27, could come earlier if Trump pushes for early dissolution to give Netanyahu a political lifeline, Wikipedia/AP reported.

The Founders who designed a republic of checks and balances knew that even the most powerful leaders are ultimately accountable to the governed — and that a democratic public which concludes its leader’s promises were not kept will eventually find a way to say so at the ballot box, whatever obstacles stand in the way.

⚡ Data Centers Divide Georgia Politics — and Democrats Smell Blood

Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature ended its 2026 session without passing any of roughly 20 proposed measures to restrict data center construction — leaving communities across the state facing what local officials describe as unchecked AI infrastructure development — and Democrats are now explicitly framing the GOP’s failure to act as a campaign issue, with a new Emerson poll finding that 47% of Georgia voters oppose data centers being built in or near their community, five points higher than the national average, according to Politico and Axios Atlanta.

More than a dozen Georgia counties — including Clayton, DeKalb, and Athens-Clarke — and cities including Roswell, Hampton, and LaGrange have adopted moratoria on data center development, while Republican lawmakers who supported tax breaks for data centers are now finding those votes being used against them in competitive districts where power costs, water concerns, and construction noise are kitchen-table issues, WABE/NPR reported.

The Founders who wrote the Constitution’s commerce and property protections understood that economic development and the rights of existing communities are not automatically compatible — and that when a government grants special tax treatment to powerful corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens’ quality of life, the political consequences tend to follow the kitchen-table grievance, not the economic argument.

🌴 California’s Governor Race Reshuffles — Becerra and Steyer Now Co-Frontrunners Among Democrats

Former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and billionaire investor Tom Steyer have emerged as the co-frontrunners among Democrats in California’s June 2 open primary for governor, tied at 13% each in new internal polling — with Becerra surging nine points since Swalwell’s exit and strategists calling the Becerra bump “real,” even as both Democrats trail the two top Republicans, Steve Hilton (17%) and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (14%), in a race where party leaders are warning of a “real” risk that two Republicans advance to November if Democrats remain fragmented, according to The Hill and KQED.

Steyer has now spent over $132 million on the race — on pace for the most expensive gubernatorial campaign in state history — while Becerra ended the most recent fundraising period with just $507,000 on hand, prompting Becerra to frame the contest as “those who’ve earned it versus those who are trying to buy it.” A second debate is set for April 28 at Pomona College, with a CNN two-hour special debate on May 5, and ballots beginning to reach California voters in less than two weeks, CalMatters reported.

California has not elected a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election in 2006 — but the state’s open primary system means Republicans need only unite behind two strong candidates to potentially shut Democrats out of November entirely, a scenario that would be the political earthquake of the 2026 cycle in the nation’s most populous state.