It has been a pitiful few weeks for the United States Senate, which means senators are now pretending they saved Immigration and Customs Enforcement, fought for the SAVE Act, and still care about victims of government weaponization.

None of that is true.

Do not buy the celebratory social media posts from Senate Republicans. Get to work electing new ones instead.

This is a geriatric form of professional wrestling kayfabe. But instead of heroic wrestlers in tights, the actors are young communications staffers tweeting victory on behalf of their bosses while those bosses fly home.

Before we unpack what happened, we should understand how we got here. To his credit, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) recently summarized the problem well: “We made a huge mistake by not funding ICE and CBP in January. We NEVER should have funded the Democrats’ thousands of earmarks without funding ALL of homeland security. It is time to fund ICE and CBP NOW!”

It was a mistake, except that it was intentional. Still, Scott acknowledged the major point his colleagues would rather hide. Forthrightness in the Senate is rare, so we should welcome it when it appears.

The story begins in January, after two protesters were killed obstructing ICE. In the media-driven hysteria that followed, Congress did something unusual: It split off the Department of Homeland Security from the funding package that covered other agencies.

At the urging of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and top Democrat appropriator Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), Republicans caved and agreed to put DHS in a stand-alone funding posture. In congressional funding terms, that means danger.

For decades, government funding has largely moved through omnibus and minibus bills that force lawmakers into take-it-or-leave-it votes. Members may dislike parts of the package, but they swallow the whole thing to avoid shutting down large portions of the government. When DHS stands alone, Democrats have a much easier time voting no.

In February, DHS funding shut down. Airport lines grew. Employees went without pay. DHS changed secretaries. Democrats continued blasting ICE, deportations remained low, and the Trump administration retreated on parts of the deportation agenda.

In other words, Democrats gained concessions while holding DHS funding hostage.

Then, in April, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) began negotiating with the hostage-takers in earnest. They offered another major concession: separate ICE and Customs and Border Protection from DHS, making ICE and CBP a stand-alone within a stand-alone. For funding purposes, it is hard to imagine a worse fate.

RELATED: Polarization may be the cure — and the clarity — America needs

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Congress funded the rest of DHS, ending a roughly 76-day shutdown. Politicians breathed a sigh of relief because airline lobbyists would stop pestering them about long lines at airports. ICE and CBP, meanwhile, would have to be funded through another mechanism: reconciliation.

Reconciliation funding creates operational problems that normal appropriations do not. That deserves more attention, though it falls deep into the procedural weeds. The key point is that ICE and CBP were isolated, weakened, and pushed onto a more perilous path.

As part of ending the shutdown for every part of DHS except ICE and CBP, President Trump demanded a reconciliation bill funding those agencies by June 1.

Negotiations began, then quickly collapsed after the May announcement of an Anti-Weaponization Fund that would compensate victims of government persecution. Republican senators revolted and learned the lesson Democrats had just taught them: ICE and CBP could be used as hostages.

They threatened to withhold ICE and CBP funding unless Trump agreed to kill the fund. Ultimately, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche did just that.

Despite acting as hostage-takers, Republican senators also used the reconciliation process to posture on the SAVE Act, which had no chance of passing through that mechanism. The SAVE Act, which is popular across party lines, includes voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a leading opponent of the Anti-Weaponization Fund but a proponent of his own right to recover damages for weaponization against himself, introduced a meaningless amendment on the SAVE Act. Knowing most voters do not understand Senate procedure, he styled the move as a valiant attempt to pass election integrity legislation.

“Mr. President,” Graham posted, “I was honored to lead the charge to pass the SAVE America Act, one of the most consequential pieces of legislation you and your team have created.”

RELATED: Trump’s anti-weaponization fund puts GOP cowards on trial

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

This was insincere and unserious. The SAVE Act has no chance unless the talking filibuster is enforced. Everyone on the Senate floor knew that. But Graham maintains Trump’s endorsement in his upcoming primary, so perhaps it will not matter. We may be stuck with him even after Trump leaves the stage.

Much of the swamp remains undrained.

This whole drawn-out charade should be remembered for two reasons.

First, Senate Republicans crossed the Rubicon and went where Democrats had already gone: They held ICE hostage. Worse, they held ICE hostage to force the Trump administration to scuttle the Anti-Weaponization Fund. That is a double betrayal of the base: threaten immigration enforcement to hurt victims of government persecution.

Second, Senate Republicans helped create the most perilous funding path for ICE and CBP moving forward: complete isolation. With ICE and CBP now handled outside the normal appropriations process, they will face another shutdown unless this strategy is reversed. As soon as Democrats have enough votes, they will try to defund both agencies.

Do not buy the celebratory social media posts from Senate Republicans. Get to work electing new ones instead.

​Immigration and customs enforcement, John thune, Lindsey graham, Mike johnson, Opinion & analysis, Patty murray, Republicans, Save act, Senate, Voter id, Ice, Customs and border protection, Department of homeland security, Weaponization, January 6, Filibuster, Rino 

Trevor Preisel, the executive director at the New Castle Prism Initiative, said the LGBTQIA+ members of the center were upset by vandalism on their Pride flags.

The center is located at the Third Independent Presbyterian Church in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and is one of the only centers offering LGBTQIA+ support in the Shenango Valley area.

‘If people are doing things like this, if people are talking about you, it goes to show that what we’re doing is working.’

They were preparing for a Pride festival on Wednesday when they discovered the vandalism.

“People had torn down the progress flags and just thrown them on the ground on both sides,” said Preisel, who showed the destruction to WKBN-TV.

“There was also one in this general area, and someone had just completely stepped on and smashed the fence post, ripped the flag off, as well as down here, where those two flags are now. Those were just completely ripped off the rivets,” he added.

The center has replaced the flags and added surveillance cameras.

“We did feel targeted,” he added. “There was a police report that was filed.”

He went on to say the vandalism was evidence that they were making a difference in the community.

“Obviously, it does hurt in a sense, but to quote a lot of activists that have come before me, if people are doing things like this, if people are talking about you, it goes to show that what we’re doing is working, and what we’re doing is having an impact in this community,” Preisel added.

RELATED: Video shows teens cutting up Pride flags at gay bar during Pride Month — now they’re facing hate crime charges

The group posted images of the damage to social media and said the community responded through increased donations.

“We’ve had a lot of local businesses reaching out to us. We’ve had a lot of community members reaching out to us, a lot of people asking if they can donate toward putting new flags up,” Preisel added. “When things like this do happen, the community comes together.”

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​Lgbtqia, Pride flags, Pride month, Vandalism, Politics 

As late ballots poured in overnight in the Los Angeles mayoral race, Democratic socialist Nithya Raman overtook Spencer Pratt — and BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler isn’t buying it, declaring that “the Democrats have stolen an election again.”

“It’s not a question of did they, it’s a question of how they did,” Wheeler says.

And President Donald Trump agrees.

“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections! Now they’ll be working on great guy Steve Hilton. Won’t have results for, possibly, TWO WEEKS, according to officials,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

“This is exactly what happened in 2020,” Wheeler says, claiming that conservatives are again being gaslighted over the results.

“Do not let them gaslight you. They are cheaters. They stole the L.A. mayoral election. The late mail-in ballot numbers are just quite literally unbelievable. There is no way that this councilwoman, this no-name councilwoman who no one knew who she was, Nithya Raman, before Spencer Pratt made ads about her home, there’s no way that she got 22% of the vote in person on election day,” Wheeler says.

“Meanwhile, Spencer Pratt, whose fundraising skyrocketed in the days before the election, supposedly completely bottomed out from 30% on election day to 20% of late mail-in ballots,” she continues.

Senior counsel for the Article III Project Will Chamberlain agrees, telling Wheeler that there was a boost in Raman’s prediction market odds — even though she was still very far behind in the count at that point.

“Honestly, I do think that … somebody somehow was aware that a bunch of ballots were going to start coming in for Raman,” he says.

“But you start with the assumption that California’s election laws are so frivolous. They lack integrity to such a degree that there are a myriad number of ways in which cheating could have happened,” he continues.

“Plus, if you look at the heat map of the late votes, doesn’t it show that it’s coming from Skid Row?” Wheeler asks.

“I actually lived in downtown L.A. a few blocks from Skid Row. Yeah, nobody lives there except homeless people. And the homeless people are drug addicts,” Chamberlain says.

“They’re not going to vote. They’re drug addicts,” he continues, explaining that’s where he believes the fraud originated.

“These operatives are going into homeless encampments and registering people to vote. That wouldn’t make any sense if you were trying to conduct elections on the level because you couldn’t count on those people to vote,” he says. “So that seems like a very unproductive use of your time unless, right, unless you are using those people to cheat.”

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

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​Liz wheeler, Will chamberlain, The blaze, Spencer pratt, Democrats, Los angeles, Mayor, Donald trump, Nithya raman, Karen bass, The liz wheeler show 

A horrific attack in Northern Ireland by a Sudanese asylum seeker has led to rioting by anti-immigration protesters.

Video of the shocking attack showed the Sudanese man straddling a man on the ground and hacking at his neck with what appeared to be a kitchen knife.

‘The attack in north Belfast was heinous and wrong. But there are dangerous attempts to exploit that, to target and attack innocent people who are simply trying to live, work and raise their families here.’

Bystanders attacked the 30-year-old asylum seeker before police arrived to arrest him and transport the victim to a hospital.

The attacker reportedly obtained asylum in the United Kingdom in 2023 and traveled to Paris before going to Belfast in Northern Ireland. His identity has not been released, but he has been charged with attempted murder.

“The horrific attack in Belfast last night is sickening,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement on social media. “I have absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets. My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim, and I thank the first responders, including members of the public who intervened.”

Outraged voices on social media called for a “protest against mass immigration” for Tuesday evening.

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said there was so far no evidence that terrorism motivated the attack, but added that the investigation is still in its early stages.

RELATED: Sudanese national suspect attempts to behead UK citizen — but police beg public not to share images

“We have commenced an investigation to establish a motive,” Henderson said, adding that the “brutal attack will have sent shock waves through the community, causing real concern.”

Videos from Belfast showed several cars being lit on fire and dozens of rioters clad all in black.

Law enforcement officials also asked that residents stop sharing the very graphic video captured of the alleged attack, in order to avoid more public outrage.

Pastor Jack McKee reported that people in his congregation were being attacked just because they’re black.

“They’re good Christian people, and they’re getting put out just because they’re black,” McKee said to the BBC.

He said some church members were “getting put out of their home, had their house attacked, windows smashed, houses beside them burned.”

One report on social media said rioters were lighting fires in cars with gasoline bombs.

RELATED: German officials failed to deport Syrian migrant who allegedly butchered people at Christian concert

Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Other reports said a Turkish barber shop had been vandalized in a nearby city.

Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill condemned the violence as nothing but “disgusting cowardice” in a post on social media.

“The attack in north Belfast was heinous and wrong,” she wote. “But there are dangerous attempts to exploit that, to target and attack innocent people who are simply trying to live, work and raise their families here.”

She added, “There can be no excuse and no justification for these attacks tonight. No one wants to see this on our streets and I again appeal for calm.”

The 40-year-old victim of the stabbing attack was treated for injuries to his eyes, back, and face.

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​Asylum seeker, Attempted murder, Northern ireland, Anti-migrant riots, Politics