Potential new treatment for uncontrolled hypertension results in a 15-point reduction in systole

 Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified a potential new treatment, an investigational drug called lorundrostat, for individuals with uncontrolled or treatment-resistant hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that clinical trial participants taking the new drug experienced a 15-point reduction in systolic blood pressure, the top number in a blood pressure reading, compared to a 7-point reduction for patients who received placebo.

"This study was designed to look at the impact of a novel medication in lowering blood pressure for individuals whose hypertension is inadequately controlled by current standard medications," said Michael Wilkinson, MD, principal investigator for the study at UC San Diego School of Medicine and cardiologist at UC San Diego Health.

The multicenter, Phase II, nationwide clinical trial involved 285 participants, including patients at UC San Diego Health, and was done in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic Coordinating Center for Clinical Research.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hypertension affects approximately 120 million people across the United States, nearly half of all adults, and is considered the leading cause of heart disease in the country. Usually, high blood pressure has no signs or symptoms.

The hormone aldosterone plays a crucial role in regulating the body's blood pressure, and when it is dysregulated, it can contribute to hypertension.

"We were specifically studying a new approach to addressing imbalanced aldosterone, which is an often underrecognized cause of treatment-resistant hypertension," said Wilkinson.

Over the course of 12 weeks, all participants in the trial received a standardized, antihypertensive medication. Additionally, 190 received a measured amount of the trial drug—which stops production of the hormone aldosterone—while 95 received a placebo.

"All participants used the same standardized medications for their blood pressure for the first three weeks of the trial before beginning the drug or placebo, which allowed us the opportunity for a baseline and to truly understand the effectiveness of the treatment," said Wilkinson, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Ultimately, we found that the therapy, compared to placebo, was helpful in lowering a person's systolic blood pressure."

Each participant's blood pressure was monitored continuously for 24 hours at the beginning, middle and end of the trial. For the individuals who received the medication, their systolic blood pressure levels dropped, on average, around 15 millimeters of mercury (mmHg).

"While blood pressure readings remained elevated at the end of this Phase II trial in some participants treated with lorundrostat, we find these results promising because almost all participants involved in the study were not able to sufficiently lower their blood pressure with medication before," said Wilkinson. "As we learn more about the safety and efficacy of this treatment, I'm hopeful we will identify a useful tool in addressing high blood pressure for patients in need."

Wilkinson also noted that the clinical trial included a more diverse patient population, which could lead to a more adequate treatment for high blood pressure in a wider range of individuals at an increased risk of heart disease. Next steps for the research involve a larger, Phase III trial of the medication.

Co-authors of the study include Luke Laffin, Steven Nissen, Carrie Melgaard, Kathy Wolski, Ashish Sarraju, all at Cleveland Clinic; Branko Kopjar, Reena Mehra, University of Washington; Jessica Ibbitson, Shivani Bhikam, David Rodman, Mineralys Therapeutics; Matthew Weir, University of Maryland; Elizabeth Ofili, Morehouse School of Medicine; James Luther, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Debbie Cohen, University of Pennsylvania; and John Flack, Southern Illinois University.

More information: Luke J. Laffin et al, Lorundrostat Efficacy and Safety in Patients with Uncontrolled Hypertension, New England Journal of Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2501440

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-potential-treatment-uncontrolled-hypertension-results.html

Simultaneous target of lysosomal enzyme, KRAS-MAPK pathway eradicates pancreatic tumors in preclinic

 Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death, with a five-year survival rate of 13%. The high mortality is largely due to a lack of effective therapy options. In a recent paper published in Nature, researchers from the University of Michigan have discovered that simultaneously targeting PIKfyve and KRAS-MAPK can eliminate tumors in preclinical human and mouse models.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common type of pancreatic cancer, is challenging to treat because of the cellular environment.

"Pancreatic tumors are predominantly composed of non-cancer cells. In some patients, only 10% of the tumor is made up of the malignant cells," said Maisel Endowed Professor of Oncology Costas Lyssiotis, member of the Rogel Cancer Center and co-director of the Rogel and Blondy Center for Pancreatic Cancer.

"Even though these malignant cells don't have access to blood-derived nutrients because of dysfunctional blood vessels, they survive by turning on different processes."

These processes include recycling pathways, using nutrient transporters and evading the immune system.

Lysosomes, which are responsible for breaking down and recycling worn-out cell parts, play a key role in helping malignant cells thrive.

"Although the lysosomes are an attractive target, there are no medicines that work against them for pancreatic cancer," Lyssiotis said.

In the current study, the researchers focused on PIKfyve, an enzyme that has been identified as a lysosomal target for other cancer types, including blood malignancies.

"Even though PIKfyve inhibitors have cleared phase 1 clinical trials for other cancers, it was unclear how they worked to decrease tumor development and growth and whether they would work for pancreatic cancer," said Caleb Cheng, a graduate student in the Lyssiotis and Chinnaiyan lab, and the lead author on the study.

Using genetically engineered mouse models, the team showed that mice lacking PIKfyve developed cancer to a lesser extent compared to the mice that had PIKfyve.

Additionally, mice treated with PIKfyve inhibitors, apilimod and ESK981, had lower cancer growth after 10 weeks.

To understand how PIKfyve drives lysosomal processes in pancreatic cancer cells, researchers used human cell lines to identify which genes were affected by PIKfyve inhibitors.

"Lysosomes degrade molecules in the cell and use the resulting products to either make useful proteins or convert them into energy," Cheng said.

"We showed that lysosomes need PIKfyve to recycle fats. If we inhibit PIKfyve, the cells are now forced to make their own fats, and the relevant genes are turned on."

The team demonstrated that tumor cells make new fat through the KRAS-MAPK pathway.

"KRAS is the master regulator of pancreatic cancer, and new medicines are now in clinical trials to bring down this kingpin," Lyssiotis said.

While the implementation of KRAS inhibitors marked a major milestone for the field, cancer cells treated with KRAS inhibitors eventually became resistant.

This illustrates the need for combination approaches, further illuminating the potential of PIKfyve inhibitors.

"We definitively demonstrated the critical role of the PIKfyve gene in KRAS-driven pancreatic cancer," said Yuanyuan Qiao, research assistant professor of translational pathology, an author on the study.

In several state-of-the-art preclinical models, this combination therapy completely cured mice of pancreatic cancer.

"The most exciting aspect of our findings is the discovery of a novel strategy to rewire lipid metabolism and significantly enhance the efficacy of KRAS inhibitors—therapies already approved for pancreatic cancer treatment," said S.P. Hicks Endowed Professor of Pathology and Urology Arul Chinnaiyan, member of the Rogel Cancer Center.

The team is now working to find a way to eliminate the tumors.

"These cancer cells have perfected their ability to develop backup pathways, all of which we have tried to shut down in this study," Lyssiotis said.

"We believe that recruiting the immune system to target the surviving tumors will be the missing piece of the puzzle."

More information: Caleb Cheng et al, Targeting PIKfyve-driven lipid metabolism in pancreatic cancer, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08917-z

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-simultaneously-lysosomal-enzyme-kras-mapk.html

For colon cancer that no longer responds to treatment, new drug combination offers hope

 A novel combination therapy offers better outcomes for patients with KRAS G12C metastatic colorectal cancer that have stopped responding to chemotherapy, according to a Phase 3 clinical trial by researchers at City of Hope.

In January, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the combination to treat patients with metastatic KRAS G12C mutated colorectal cancer that has progressed following chemotherapy.

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, colorectal cancer patients who received a combination of two drugs, the small-molecule KRAS G12C inhibitor sotorasib combined with the monoclonal antibody panitumumab, had significantly longer progression-free survival compared to those who received standard of care. Researchers also saw a strong trend toward improved overall survival in the combination therapy group.

"This new treatment option prolongs the control of disease in this patient population and should be offered as the new standard of care," said senior author Marwan Fakih, M.D., Judy & Bernard Briskin Distinguished Director of Clinical Research; professor in the Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research; co-director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at City of Hope.

KRAS G12C is one of several genetic mutations that are known to activate the KRAS protein, which drives tumor growth and progression. KRAS mutations are present in up to 45% of colorectal cancer cases. Of these, fewer than 10% involve the KRAS G12C mutation.

Sotorasib targets the KRAS G12C protein specifically and is the first KRAS G12C inhibitor to be FDA-approved for clinical use. It works by binding to the mutated KRAS G12C protein, blocking its activation and inhibiting cancer cell growth.

Panitumumab is a monoclonal antibody drug used to treat colorectal cancer. It works by blocking a protein called epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR), which play an important role in cell growth and division. EGFR is over-expressed in several cancers, including colorectal cancer.

The new study builds on previous research by Dr. Fakih's team showing that sotorasib could be made more effective when combined with panitumumab.

City of Hope is a national leader in working collaboratively with biopharmaceutical companies to introduce innovative cancer therapies to patients, especially people diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

The trial, called CodeBreaK 300, is the first to compare the sotorasib/panitumumab combination head-to-head against the standard of care in this patient population. All patients involved in the trial had KRAS G12C-mutated colorectal cancer that progressed despite previous treatments with oxaliplatin, fluoropyrimidine and irinotecan—standard first- and second-line chemotherapy drugs.

For the study, 160 patients were randomized into three groups. One group received a 960 milligram (mg) dose of sotorasib with panitumumab; a second group received a lower dose of 240 mg sotorasib with panitumumab; and a third group received either a trifluridine/tipiracil combination or regorafenib, the current standard of care drugs.

"We confirmed that the higher dose of sotorasib was associated with higher response rates and longer time to progression compared to the control arm. The higher-dose arm also appeared to have more favorable outcomes than the lower-dose sotorasib arm," Dr. Fakih said.

More than 30% of patients in the high-dose sotorasib group achieved an objective response, which researchers defined as shrinking tumor volume by more than half. Only 1.9% of patients in the standard-of-care group achieved the same result.

Notably, even though the trial was not designed to measure overall survival due to its small size, the results suggested a benefit. Researchers noted that overall survival in the high-dose sotorasib group was prolonged by 30% compared to standard of care.

"The exciting response rates seen with this combination provide a strong rationale to combining sotorasib plus panitumumab plus chemotherapy in the earlier lines of therapy of this disease," Dr. Fakih said.

The most common adverse reactions were diarrhea, musculoskeletal pain, nausea, fatigue, hepatotoxicity and cough. Follow-up studies are underway investigating this combination as a first-line treatment option for KRAS G12C metastatic colorectal cancer, he added.

More information: Filippo Pietrantonio et al, Overall Survival Analysis of the Phase III CodeBreaK 300 Study of Sotorasib Plus Panitumumab Versus Investigator's Choice in Chemorefractory KRAS G12C Colorectal Cancer, Journal of Clinical Oncology (2025). DOI: 10.1200/JCO-24-02026

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-colon-cancer-longer-treatment-drug.html

Green-energy madness will turn NYC family homes into firetraps

 You’ve got to be kidding me.

A massive lithium-ion battery facility is being quietly pushed into the heart of Middle Village, Queens — right across the street from PS/IS 128, where hundreds of children go to school.

And it doesn’t stop there: It’s also next door to an animal hospital, a day-care center and a children’s fun house.

This is not a joke. It’s a fire hazard disguised as green infrastructure, as part of the City of Yes.

And I’m here to say: Not in my neighborhood. Not next door to our kids.

Not without a fight.

NineDot Energy, the company behind this plan, is eyeing a residential lot smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood — a place where kids ride bikes, families walk their dogs and teachers relax on their lunch break.

It’s the last place a dangerous industrial-battery facility should ever be allowed.

These lithium-ion battery systems, necessary to comply with the impossible clean-energy goals of Albany’s 2019 Climate Act, are a disaster waiting to happen.

Look no further than Moss Landing, Calif. — where a giant battery facility caught fire this year and burned for five days, releasing toxic smoke and forcing over 1,000 residents to evacuate.

A month later, it caught fire again.

In 2023 alone, lithium-ion battery fires in New York City killed 18 people and injured 150.

And those were from smaller batteries — imagine what a 40-foot container full of high-capacity battery racks could do in the middle of a neighborhood if it explodes.

Now imagine that happening across the street from a school with thousands of kids inside.

This project is being allowed as-of-right — meaning no public hearing, no environmental review, no input from the community — as part of the City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality, a citywide zoning amendment that I strongly opposed and voted against.

And Middle Village isn’t alone: Similar giant battery sites and proposals are popping up in residential areas all over the outer boroughs — Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx.

The communities most at risk are the ones with the least political clout, and the most working-class families.

This is what happens when City Hall passes sweeping legislation without doing its homework — without understanding the consequences.

They called it “green,” wrapped it in nice language, and pushed it through without asking: What happens when we site hazardous battery facilities in the middle of residential communities?

Moss Landing knows.

This wasn’t about climate. It wasn’t about helping everyday New Yorkers.

It was about helping developers and special interests. The same groups who pushed for this plan — who stood to benefit financially — were the ones who helped write the rules.

nd too many of my colleagues in the City Council did their bidding, whether as useful idiots or because they were in on it.

That’s why I’ve joined a lawsuit with the Common Sense Caucus to strike down the entire City of Yes zoning overhaul — because it’s being used to fast-track projects like this one that put people at risk.

And we’re also exploring a separate legal action specifically targeting the carbon-neutrality piece of the zoning law that makes this battery facility possible.

We’re demanding accountability. And we’re demanding a full stop to the reckless placements of these facilities.

Let me be clear: I’m not against clean energy. I support renewable power, responsible planning and real solutions to our climate challenges.

But that doesn’t mean handing our neighborhoods over to developers and crossing our fingers that nobody gets hurt.

We can build a sustainable city without turning schools into blast zones and blocks of family homes into firetraps.

I’m calling for the city to place an immediate moratorium on all large-scale lithium-ion battery facilities in residential areas, until real safeguards are in place and real people have a say.

That means public hearings, fire-safety reviews, community input and accountability — not just backroom deals and rubber stamps.

Middle Village is not a testing ground. Our families will not become the green lobbyists’ collateral damage.

We’ve fought too hard to keep this community safe, and I’m not about to let it go up in flames — literally.

This is about common sense. And I’ll keep fighting until it prevails.

City Council Member Robert Holden (D) represents District 30 in Queens.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/24/opinion/green-energy-madness-will-turn-family-homes-into-firetraps/

Workers could save 122 hours a year by adopting AI in admin tasks, says Google

 Britain could gain 400 billion pounds ($533 billion) from AI-driven growth if it trained its workforce, Google said, after a pilot scheme in the UK showed workers could save more than 120 hours a year by using AI in administrative tasks.

Simple steps such as giving workers permission to use AI and a few hours of training to get them started could help double the adoption of the new technology, and in turn boost economic growth, Google said in a report on its pilot scheme, published on Friday.

The U.S. tech giant, which developed the Gemini AI chatbot, said that according to analysis by Public First, its partner in the scheme, two thirds of workers - particularly older women from lower socio-economic backgrounds - had never used generative AI at work.

Debbie Weinstein, Google's Europe, Middle East and Africa president, said the AI Works pilots - conducted in a small business network, educational trusts and a union - showed workers could save on average 122 hours a year by using AI in administrative tasks.

But one barrier stopping some from dipping a toe into the water was a concern that using AI in their job was not legitimate nor fair.

"People wanted 'permission to prompt'", Weinstein said in an interview. "'Is it okay for me to be doing this?' And so giving them that reassurance was really important."

Once they started, a few hours of AI training to build their confidence resulted in them using the technology twice as much, she said, and they were still using it several months later.

These simple interventions helped to narrow the AI adoption gap amongst the participants in the pilot studies, Google said in its AI Works report.

Before training, for example, only 17% of women aged above 55 in its cohorts used AI weekly and only 9% daily.

Three months later, 56% were using it weekly and 29% had made it a daily habit.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ALPHABET-INC-24203373/news/Workers-could-save-122-hours-a-year-by-adopting-AI-in-admin-tasks-says-Google-49712871/

Buh-bye ActBlue! Trump set to sign memorandum targeting foreign dollars in American elections

 

By Olivia Murray

You know how every time legislators pass a law that targets pedophiles, or child sex abusers, and the LGBTQ++ mafia cries about how this will “disproporationately” affect them, thus signaling to us all who the culprits of such crimes mostly are?

Well, here’s another example of that phenomenon, from a report at Politico today:

Trump to target ActBlue in presidential memorandum

In a shot at ActBlue, the left’s major online donation platform, President Donald Trump plans to sign a presidential memorandum on Thursday that he will cast as cracking down on foreign contributions in American elections, according to a person familiar with the policy and granted anonymity to discuss not-yet-public details.

Politico is getting ahead of itself though because funny enough, it’s not like the memorandum appears to actually be mentioning ActBlue by name at all. Trump is simply working to close loopholes to eliminate “foreign contributions in American elections”—as it is already illegal—and if that derails the Democrat fundraising machine, then one can only infer they’re the greatest perpetrators of such crimes.

Which is what we basically already “knew.” ActBlue has been embroiled in one scandal after another, with the obvious implication being that it’s a money-laundering front. Recall that this past December, ActBlue revealed that it “had not automatically blocked donations made with foreign-purchased gift cards until September 2024.” Because there’s nothing weird about donors who somehow all have gift cards that were purchased outside of the country and are seriously committed to the Democrat cause, but have no other forms of payment except these foreign-bought gift cards.

And don’t forget this either:

Separately, a Republican watchdog in August claimed that it found more than 60,000 potential discrepancies in donations made to the Biden-Harris presidential campaigns. Fair Election Fund said it had contacted tens of thousands of people named in a Federal Election Commission report as small-dollar donors who didn't recall making donations.

Which seems to be continuing still today:

DataRepublican honed in on what appears to be an unconscious admission of guilt:

But it’s not just Democrats profiting—a “Republican” congressman from Alabama took home $165,000 in 2024 alone. Can you say “Uniparty”?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/04/buh_bye_actblue_trump_set_to_sign_memorandum_targeting_foreign_dollars_in_american_elections.html

Secretary Hegseth Threatens the Deep State

 

By J.B. Shurk

It’s been three months since Vice President Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary.  The Deep State worked hard to scuttle Hegseth’s nomination in December and January with a steady drip of news stories calling his character into question, but President Trump and his trusted veep stood by their man and applied enough pressure on wayward Republican senators to secure his confirmation.  Suddenly, corporate propagandists posing as reporters are back with fresh stories meant to undermine Secretary Hegseth and get him fired from the Pentagon’s top post.  

It’s almost as if the Deep State tabled its sabotage campaign for a neat ninety days.  Do you think there’s a section in some clandestine handbook on the dark arts of information warfare that recommends a three-month cooling-off period before ramping up operations against a given target?  Our domestic spooks have gotten so tiresomely predictable!

Make no mistake: The silly attempts to create a public “narrative” that Secretary Hegseth threatens national security are part of the same Intelligence Community operation that targeted him last winter.  It’s quite revealing how desperate the Deep State is to keep “outsiders” away from the levers of power, isn’t it? 

If the CIA and its Establishment co-conspirators don’t “own” you, they don’t want you around sticking your nose in their business.  And it is big business!  They’ve got elections to rig (foreign and domestic!), governments to topple (for the right price), and trillions of dollars in war funding to spend!  They can’t let the president of the United States and his secretary of Defense get in their way!  Don’t Trump and Hegseth understand that they’re just here for cute photo ops while the permanently installed shadow government runs the global show?  Heck, Defense secretary Lloyd Austin disappeared for days at a time, and nobody even noticed!  The same information warfare specialists who continue to call Hegseth a “drunk” never said anything about Austin performing his duties while under sedation!

C’est la vie.  MAGA Americans are well versed in the Deep State’s double-standards.  If you burn down cities and loot stores in the name of “social justice,” the mockingbird media chirp about civil rights and the “summer of love.”  If you show up in D.C. to protest election fraud, the same mockingbird media call you an “insurrectionist” and deny that you have any civil rights at all!  Because Hegseth’s not part of the Deep State team, he gets the Orange Man Bad treatment from the press.  Since the Gestapo-FBI effectively acts as a pimp for Politico and The New York Times, the presstitutes who work those rags’ street corners get slapped around when they don’t do the Intelligence Community’s bidding.  In the corporate news world, that’s just life!

So after a ninety-day hiatus in the information war against Secretary Hegseth, the I.C.’s “journalistic” brothel is back to its old tricks.  Despite vigorous denials from the White House, NPR is pumping out the following headline on car displays: “White House looking to replace Pete Hegseth at Defense.”  Talk about modern “journalism” in a nutshell!  Everybody at the White House says this story is bunk.  President Trump says it’s horse pucky.  Undaunted by overwhelming testimonial evidence to the contrary, NPR insists that some anonymous government official has assured its bordello of scribes that Trump is planning to fire Hegseth, even though the president is publicly saying the exact opposite!  Could this unnamed “official” perhaps be related to the tubby Tweedle-Vindmans, a diminutive Ukrainian president, or some cash-strapped Nigerian prince?  Holy moly, President Trump can’t defund fake-news NPR soon enough!

Last winter, when the Deep State’s “Operation: Sink Hegseth” was in full force, corporate news presstitutes nearly succeeded in giving RINO squishes enough cover to vote against his nomination.  Celebrity “journalists” — whose profession remains a notorious breeding ground for alcoholism and sexual harassment — did their best to slander Pete Hegseth as a drunken womanizer and “Me Too” villain.  Like monkeys flinging poo at the public, the nation’s trashiest gossip rags created a scene almost ugly enough to distract from Senate Republicans’ premeditated betrayal.  

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Senator Joni Ernst withheld support for Trump’s pick, and rumors swirled that she hoped to secure the SecDef job herself.  Two-Faced Thom Tillis was apparently working behind the scenes to tank Hegseth’s nomination at the last minute.  Bitter and enfeebled Mitch McConnell, brain-dead Mainer Susan Collins, and dimwitted Democrat-in-all-but-name Lisa Murkowski (whom Alaskans have repeatedly tried to kick to the curb, while Establishment cheaters rig “elections” in her favor) scowled for the cameras, apparently hoping that their permanently dour visages would scare senatorial colleagues into submission.  Much to the consternation of so many RINOs who have turned losing into an art form, Senate majority leader John Thune managed to avoid another spectacular Republican double-cross, reminiscent of John McCain’s infamous rescue of socialized medicine (AKA Obamacare).

One thing that regular people have learned well over the last several decades is that D.C.’s “ruling class” never gives up on failed plans.  Americans repeatedly told politicians that marriage is a sacred institution that exists between one man and one woman.  State and federal courts put their hands over their ears and chose to redefine a millennia-old tradition.  Americans repeatedly told politicians to secure the nation’s borders.  For fifty years, state and federal officials kept America’s borders wide open.  Americans repeatedly told politicians to stop printing and spending money that they do not have.  Congress not only created forty trillion dollars of debt and another couple hundred trillion dollars in future entitlement obligations, but also put us on the path of runaway inflation and currency collapse.

In the real world, “no” means “no.”  In D.C., “no” just means “wait ninety days and try again.”  That’s why the Deep State has circled back to scalp Hegseth.

Unfortunately for the compromised perverts running America’s shadow government, the American people have largely caught on to their little games.  When they see the streetwalkers at The New York Times, Politico, and NPR all teasing customers with new salacious Hegseth stories, the first thing on most Americans’ minds is that whatever Trump’s Defense secretary has done to tick off the Fourth Estate’s pimps in the Intelligence Community can’t be that bad.  After all, when was the last time some branch of the Deep State did something good for America?

In 2025, Americans have learned that only heroes become targets.  You protest election fraud, you go to jail.  You defend your children from public school sickos who want to castrate kids and saturate classrooms with pornography, you’re put on one of the Gestapo-FBI’s watchlists.  You attend a traditional Latin Mass, you’re labeled an “extremist.”  You humiliate Hillary Clinton, the I.C. frames you as a Russian spy.  You refuse to yield to the Deep State, you get railroaded by corrupt prosecutors and even more corrupt judges willing to invent “crimes.”  

So when the Deep State’s favorite journalistic courtesans are back to titillating the public with news of Hegseth’s imminent demise, discerning Americans assume that Trump’s secretary of Defense must be doing something right.  Could the Deep State be mad that Hegseth is purging the military of discriminatory D-I-E initiatives that prioritize racial and sexual identities over competence, hard work, and merit?  Is it mad that he’s successfully rebuilding a warrior culture that is attracting new recruits in record numbers?  Is it mad that he’s prioritizing America’s hemispheric security over nuclear-tipped civil war in Ukraine?  Is it mad that he follows President Trump’s orders and expects his subordinates to do the same?  Is it mad that Secretary Hegseth puts America First?

Easy answer: Yes.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/04/secretary_hegseth_threatens_the_deep_state.html