REVENGE SERVED: President Trump said he plans to announce tomorrow the defunding and closure of what he considers to be “Democrat programs” that would be permanently cut.

  “We are closing up Democrat programs that we disagree with, and they’re never going to open again,” he said. His administration has already frozen or canceled nearly $28 billion reserved for more than 200 projects primarily located in Democratic-led cities, congressional districts, and states, according to analysis by The NY Times.

  Trump sees himself as President only for the people who voted for him.

  The cancelled projects would include investments in clean energy, the electric grid, and transportation. Trump for instance cancelled funding for New York’s 2^nd Avenue subway and a new tunnel under the Hudson River from New Jersey to Manhattan. The administration also cancelled transit upgrades for Chicago.

  Overall, Trump has claimed total authority over government spending despite the constitutional power of Congress.

PEACE BE UPON YOU: Following the release of 20 live hostages, Hamas militants in Gaza so far have returned only four of 26 bodies of captives who died while in custody. Some of the militants who know where the bodies were kept or buried are dead, and other bodies, like those of Palestinian civilians, may be buried in rubble.

  Israel later said that one of the bodies is not that of a hostage.

  The Israeli government confirmed that they understand Hamas may not know where all the bodies are, but they already cut aid shipments in half to put on the pressure.

  Moving quickly to re-establish power, Hamas militants on Monday publicly executed eight badly beaten men they claimed were traitors to the cause and collaborators with Israel. A crowd stood by and cheered.

  Hamas is also targeting the “clans,” family-based armed groups that gained strength during the two-year war. On Sunday, 52 members of the Dagmoush clan were killed in clashes with Hamas internal security forces, while 12 Hamas terrorists, including the son of a senior leader, also died, according to reports in Gaza.

  The militants have not said how or even if they will disarm. Sitting at the White House with Argentine President Javier Milei,  President Trump said yesterday that the US could step in to disarm Hamas “quickly and perhaps violently” if necessary. We note that Israel has tried that for two years.

  “Everyone says, ‘Oh, well, they won’t disarm.’ They will disarm,” Trump said. “And I spoke to Hamas and I said, ‘You’re going to disarm, right?’ ‘Yes, sir, we’re going to disarm.’ That’s what they told me. They will disarm or we will disarm them. Got it?”

THE REGIME: 

— US forces struck and destroyed a fifth boat in the Caribbean, killing another six people operating what the administration claims was a drug shipment off the coast of Venezuela. The Pentagon did not offer evidence that there were drugs on board. 

  This brings to 27 the number of people killed in what President Trump claims is a fight against narco-terrorism in international waters. Trump posted on his Truth Social that, “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route.”

— President Trump posted that he’s considering further economic punishment of China for not buying US soybeans. “I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act,” he wrote. “We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution.” 

— The administration continues to gut the Department of Education. About 466 workers at the Education Department have been fired since Friday, about a fifth of the employees remaining since previous cuts. President Trump has vowed to eliminate the department that supports 54 million students in elementary and secondary schools.

— President Trump yesterday posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom to the assassinated right wing campaigner Charlie Kirk whoase widow, Erika, received it on her husband’s behalf. 

  In a related development, The Trump administration said it revoked the visas of at least six foreigners who made disparaging comments about Kirk following his death. The State Department issued a statement saying, “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans.” 

THE OBIT PAGE: Longtime transgender and gay rights activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, who was one of the protesters in New York’s historic Stonewall Inn riots that woke up the country to gay/lesbian rights and the knowledge that not everyone is straight, died at home in  Little Rock, Arkansas. She was 78.

  The Stonewall riots that began in late June 1969 were in response to police raids in which people were rounded up for homosexual activity. Homosexuality and any other non-straight sexual identity was considered a perversion. “They were just rude,” Griffin-Gracy told USA Today earlier this year about the police during the raid. “They put their hand where it didn’t belong.”

  Miss Major was born male but said she knew from an early age that she was female. She spent her adult life fighting for the rights of transgender people … particularly Black people like her … and anyone of nonconforming sexuality. She told USA Today that, “Being transgender is not the road to hell.”

THE SPIN RACK:  Two-term Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who has clashed with the Trump administration, announced she’s running for Senator to knock out Republican Susan Collins. —  California Gov. Gavin Newsom denied parole to  77-year-old Patricia Krenwinkle who’s serving life on seven counts of first-degree murder in the infamous 1969 Charlie Manson cult killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others.

BELOW THE FOLD: Presidential son Eric Trump has published a book titled: “UNDER SIEGE My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation.” It just makes you ask, where would our country be without the Trumps?

-30-