The House of Representatives censured the late Roderick Butler, R-Tenn., in 1870 for taking a bribe for a military academy appointment. 

The House also censured late Rep. Thomas Blanton, D-Texas, in 1921 for inserting a document into the Congressional Record which contained obscene language.

And late Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., faced censure in 1983 for having sex with a 17-year-old page. 

Those are three of the 28 Members ever censured by the House.

 Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., did not become the 29th Member slapped with censure recently.

That’s probably because Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., was one of four Republicans who joined Democrats to block a censure of Omar. And in so doing, Mills may very well have prevented himself from becoming the 30th House Member to be censured.

Censure is the second-highest form of discipline in the House. It falls between a reprimand and expulsion. Censure is more than a regular foul in a soccer game. Kind of like a yellow card, which serves as a caution. But it’s not a red card, either, which triggers ejection.

That said, censure has become a ‘thing’ in recent years on Capitol Hill. If the House were to ever consider censuring any Member, such an inquest would go behind closed doors with the Ethics Committee. An inquiry may take months.

No more. ‘Snap’ censures are now fashionable in the House of Representatives.

Here’s how it works:

Someone thinks someone says a colleague says something outrageous. So they just prep a censure measure, go over the head of the Congressional leadership by making their resolution privileged (meaning the House must consider it within two days) and, if the House votes in favor of your gambit, that Member is censured.

Done.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., crafted a resolution to censure Omar and strip the Minnesota Democrat from her committee assignments. Mace accused Omar of using inflammatory rhetoric in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

During an appearance on the news outlet Zeteo, Omar claimed ‘there is nothing more effed up, than to completely pretend that his words and actions have not been recorded and in existence for the last decade or so.’ Mace’s resolution quoted from a profane social media video not produced by Omar — but reposted by her — which fired invective at Kirk.

Mace’s maneuver came as leaders from both sides tried to urge calm at the Capitol amid the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

‘Every leader has an obligation to lower the temperature right now,’ said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif. ‘I disagree with the retweet of one of our one of our colleagues.’

Aguilar said that Mace’s resolution to sanction Omar was not ‘helpful.’

‘Every member of Congress, and certainly the President of the United States, have a responsibility to take the temperature down,’ said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. ‘Nancy Mace wants to lecture Ilhan Omar and Democrats about civility? Are you kidding me? It’s not a serious effort. It’s an effort to drive donors into her gubernatorial campaign.’

For his part, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., didn’t try to sidetrack Mace. He declared that ‘Members have a prerogative to file privileged motions.’ 

‘What she did was outrageous and dangerous. And there has to be accountability in the House for these kinds of activities,’ said Johnson. ‘I don’t understand why she uses that kind of language.’

Mace and Omar wound up tangling over the censure resolution on X. 

‘One-way ticket to Somalia with your name on it, Ilhan Omar,’ posted Mace.

‘I am going soon, so please drop off the tickets on your way to your office. I am next door,’ retorted Omar. 

The Minnesota Democrat added that Mace was either not ‘well or smart.’ She added ‘you belong in rehab, not Congress.’

Democrats defended Omar.

‘When we are all trying to take the political temperature down, when we are all trying to work to be able to approach our differences with humanity and stand out against political violence, this is the wrong move,’ said House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass.

But lawmakers from both sides are growing weary of the censure trap.

‘Every time a Republican in this House is offended, they pile on censure resolution,’ said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. ‘I’m not here to be fighting over whatever people’s schoolyard thing is for the day.’ 

‘It’s escalation,’ said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., of Mace’s maneuver. ‘You’ve got to remember, we’re going to be in the minority someday. We’ll be on the receiving end of this.’

Bacon added that Congress is now ‘better at shaming people versus legislating.’

Ultimately, the House never took a direct vote on sanctioning Omar. Democrats instead moved to ‘table’ or kill the resolution. That blocked an actual up/down vote on disciplining Omar. The House then voted 214-213 in favor of tabling Mace’s measure. All 210 Democrats who cast ballots voted to table. But four Republicans joined Democrats: Reps. Mike Flood, R-Neb., Jeff Hurd, R-Colo., Tom McClintock, R-Calif., and Mills.

A ballot by Mills against tabling would have reversed the final tally to 214-213. That means the House would have proceeded immediately to the actual vote to censure Omar. But Mills’ vote with the Democrats froze Mace’s effort.

It’s unclear if Mills based his decision on self-preservation. But had the House censured Omar, it would have undoubtedly triggered a resolution by Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, to sanction Mills.

Casar’s resolution accused Mills of assault – which Casar denies. It also alleged that Mills improperly received the Bronze Star when he served in the Army. But once the House diffused the Omar measure, Casar withdrew his plan for Mills.

Flood explained his vote to table.

‘I’m going to vote in ways that support the Ethics Committee,’ said Flood. ‘If we were to pursue a censure action against this Representative, that should be referred to the Ethics Committee. It should be investigated. There should be due process. There should be a back and forth before you issue a censure.’

Mace excoriated her Republican colleagues who voted to table.

‘They didn’t stand with Charlie Kirk. They didn’t stand with the millions of Americans mourning his death. They stood with the one who mocked his legacy. They showed us exactly who they are. And we won’t forget,’ said Mace in a statement.

But censure is now en vogue.

The House censured no members between Studds in 1983 and late Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y. in 2010. But five Members have felt the weight of censure since 2021.

The House voted to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., for posting a cartoon video depicting him killing Ocasio-Cortez.

Republicans then began returning the favor.

The House voted to censure former Rep. and now Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for how he handled the Russiagate investigation. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., faced censure for her comments after Hamas attacked Israel. The House censured former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., for pulling a false fire alarm. And the House voted earlier this year to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, for heckling President Trump during his State of the Union speech. 

Members have embraced censure lately. Those censured have characterized it as a ‘badge of honor.’ They’ve fundraised off censure. Their colleagues have even engineered a pep rally in the well of the chamber to drown out the House Speaker when he issues the censure.

This probably won’t be the House’s last dalliance into the realm of censure.

‘It just seems like every week or so we want to censure somebody for something,’ lamented Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Tex., who is no fan of Omar. ‘A lot of people say a lot of stupid stuff around here.’ 

This is Congress. So you can bet that someone will say some ‘stupid stuff’ soon. And unless lawmakers can restore some calm, there will be another effort to censure someone else any day now.

In the end, Disney and ABC had absolutely no choice but to rehire Jimmy Kimmel.

The reason the late-night host is returning to the air tonight is that this whole thing has been an utter PR debacle for ABC, and more personally for Disney chief Bob Iger, who even got whacked by his predecessor as CEO, Michael Eisner, accusing him of bowing to ‘out-of-control intimidation.’

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb in saying that Iger’s reputation is shattered forever.

The company became the poster child as a high-profile opponent of free speech — a deadly label for a news organization like ABC.

So the ‘indefinite’ suspension is over.

I could sniff that things were moving in this direction when I learned the two sides were talking. And when Disney asked Kimmel for a second meeting the other day, I knew the only question was which day he’d be back.

Let’s revisit the dumb and inaccurate comment that got Kimmel in trouble. And remember, like Stephen Colbert, he is so vociferously anti-Trump that he surrendered half his audience:

‘We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.’  

First, it was beyond tone-deaf, with feelings rubbed so raw over Charlie Kirk’s assassination. And the killer is not ‘MAGA,’ just another crazed lunatic who said he was acting out of ‘hatred’ for Kirk, but also sympathetic to gays and transgender people like his roommate and romantic partner.

At the same time, there was pressure from the FCC, with Chairman Brendan Carr blundering by saying he would act on Kimmel if ABC didn’t. Even Carr’s allies, like Ted Cruz, said he sounded like a mob boss by declaring ‘we can do it the easy way or the hard way.’

Nice little network you got here – be a shame if anything happened to it. Carr walked it back the next day.

What Kimmel said wasn’t the worst thing ever uttered on the air, and maybe in a month it would have passed unnoticed. But not so soon after the targeted assassination.

With that kind of blatant government pressure, ABC caved and took Kimmel off the air as he was about to tape last Wednesday’s show – and was said to be preparing an even tougher monologue about the Kirk killer. Again, he failed to read the electronic room.

It was downhill from there.

For anyone who believes in free speech – and that includes some Democrats who don’t agree with Kirk on just about anything–Disney and ABC were now the enemy.

Howard Stern, Kimmel’s closest friend – their families vacation together – said yesterday he had canceled his Disney+ subscription, as did Robin Quivers. After conferring with Kimmel, he said on his first live show since the suspension:

‘When the government says, ‘I’m not pleased with you, so we’re going to orchestrate a way to silence you,’ it’s the wrong direction for our country. It isn’t good.’

Stern called the suspension ‘horrible’ and ‘outrageous’ for such a ‘big talent… You can’t support this kind of a move. I don’t care whether you like Jimmy or not. It’s about freedom of speech. If ABC wanted to fire Jimmy because they didn’t like him, or he had low ratings — they didn’t want to fire him. They’re being pressured by the United States government. We can’t have that, not if we’re going to have a democracy.’

Howard has an awful lot of followers on Sirius XM that would take their cue from him. 

Some 400 celebrities signed an ACLU letter calling this ‘a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.’ These include Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda, Selena Gomez, Tom Hanks, Olivia Rodrigo, Ben Stiller, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Keaton, Regina King, Diego Luna, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Natalie Portman, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short and Kerry Washington.

This is the kind of thing that Hollywood really cares about, the bold-faced names.

Kimmel is said to be concerned about the jobs of dozens of producers, staff members and contractors who would lose their livelihoods if the show was deep-sixed.

Disney made a point of saying in its statement that Kimmel was suspended because ‘we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.’ But ‘thoughtful’ conversations led to Jimmy’s return.

Whether you like Kimmel or not, no company can withstand that kind of pressure, even if it goes against the wishes of Donald Trump, who celebrated the suspension.

Now here’s the challenge Kimmel and Disney/ABC faced.

The suits had already been urging Kimmel to tone down the attacks against Trump. But Kimmel, who has hosted the program since 2003, and parlayed that into Oscars-hosting gigs, has always insisted on his independence. He’s arguably the most famous face at the network.

I played a small role in this last year by asking Trump about Kimmel after the Oscars, and the candidate slammed him, escalating their feud. Jimmy even took a swipe at me (horrors).

So perhaps with a wink and a nod, Kimmel has now agreed to tone things down a tad and the brass has agreed to let him basically say what’s on his mind.

Jimmy Kimmel is the only clear winner in this.

Everyone else – Disney, Bob Iger, Brendan Carr, ABC – is unmistakably a loser and will forever be branded, fairly or otherwise, as cowardly opponents of free speech.

And hey, ratings for tonight’s show should be through the roof. 

President Donald Trump will highlight the ‘return of American strength’ in his second administration during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, while delivering ‘blunt’ and ‘tough talk’ about the ‘failures of globalism,’ a White House official told Fox News Digital.

The president is scheduled to deliver his first address of his second administration at the UN General Assembly in New York City Tuesday just before 10 a.m.

A White House official gave Fox News Digital an exclusive preview of the president’s address.

‘President Trump has effectively restored American strength on the world stage,’ a White House official told Fox News Digital. ‘His historic speech at the United Nations General Assembly will highlight his success in delivering peace on a scale that no other president has accomplished, while simultaneously speaking bluntly about how globalist ideologies risk destroying successful nations around the world.’

The president is expected to highlight his successful efforts to negotiate peace around the world—specifically, Armenia and Azerbaijan; Thailand and Cambodia; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; among others.

The president is also expected to highlight his strikes against narcoterrorists from Venezuela.

Earlier this month, a U.S. military strike blew apart a Venezuelan drug boat in the southern Caribbean, leaving nearly a dozen suspected Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists dead. And last week, the president announced that the U.S. military had carried out its second kinetic strike on Venezuelan drug trafficking cartels.

Also last week, the president announced that he ordered a lethal strike on a vessel allegedly linked to a designated terrorist organization conducting narcotrafficking in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility. That strike left three narcoterrorists dead.

‘Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage en route to poison Americans,’ Trump posted to his Truth Social announcing the strike.

The president is also expected to highlight his ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ which marked the largest B-2 operational strike in history and represented the United States’ move to deliver a decisive blow against Iran’s nuclear program back in June.

Trump’s historic precision strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites hit their targets and ‘destroyed’ and ‘badly damaged’ the facilities’ critical infrastructure—an assessment agreed upon by Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Israel, and the United States.

Trump is also set to detail his work to ‘deliver historic peace deals in decades-long conflicts,’ the official told Fox News Digital.

Meanwhile, the president’s speech will also feature ‘some blunt, tough talk about the failures of globalism.’

‘This will include the global migration regime, energy and climate, and how these ideologies pushed by globalists are on the verge of destroying successful nations,’ a White House official told Fox News Digital.

The president is also expected to discuss America’s position as a ‘defender of western civilization.’

‘As the president delivers peace in major conflicts around the world, what has the United Nations been doing?’ the official said.

After his speech at the United Nations, the president is expected to have meetings with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; the president of Argentina, Javier Milei; and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

The president is also scheduled to have a multilateral meeting with leaders from Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.  

Jurors in Fort Pierce, Florida, are expected to begin deliberations Tuesday on the federal criminal charges brought against Ryan Routh, the man accused of attempting to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida last year.

Routh, who has been representing himself in the federal criminal trial, ended his defense after less than a day on Monday. He called only three witnesses, and told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that he would not be taking the stand to testify in his own case, a notion he had previously considered. 

Both the prosecution and defense formally rested their cases at 2:20 p.m., and Cannon ordered the court to reconvene for closing arguments Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Prosecutors and Routh will take turns presenting their closing arguments to jurors, followed immediately by jury deliberations, Cannon said, before instructing the jury on the deliberation process.

Cannon instructed jurors to consider whether prosecutors met the standard for conviction on each of the five federal charges against Routh. The 59-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all counts, which include attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and multiple firearms offenses.

A verdict in the case could come as early as Tuesday or Wednesday, pending the length of the closing arguments and the deliberation time needed. If convicted, Routh could face a maximum of life in prison.

The closing arguments come after Routh rested his case after just hours of presenting arguments to jurors. He called only three witnesses, and did not introduce new evidence.

His ‘pro se’ defense starkly contrasts with the prosecution’s, which spent nearly two weeks carefully and extemporaneously making its case against Routh to a jury in Fort Pierce, Florida.

In that span, jurors heard from 38 witnesses and reviewed hundreds of exhibits — text messages, call logs, bank records, and cellphone data — linking Routh to the alleged gun purchase and placing him near Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in the weeks before the alleged attempted assassination.

Shortly before the defense rested, Cannon asked Routh if he had any more motions for acquittal. He said he did not.

President Donald Trump announced that Dr. Ben Carson will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, noting that there will be a ceremony at the White House to honor him.

‘Congratulations Ben. He didn’t know this. He didn’t know it. I hope he’s happy,’ Trump said after making the announcement at the conclusion of his remarks at the American Cornerstone Institute’s Founders’ Dinner on Saturday.

Carson, who founded the ACI, served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Trump’s first term in office.

Carson, a former neurosurgeon, ran for president when Trump mounted his first successful White House bid, but ultimately dropped out and backed Trump in 2016.

ACI’s website states that ‘Dr. Carson is ensuring there is an organization fighting for the principles that have guided him through life, and that make this country great: Faith, Liberty, Community, and Life.’ 

Carson is supporting U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for re-election.

In a post on X earlier this month, Carson declared that Graham ‘has been a steadfast conservative leader for South Carolina and our nation and I’m pleased to endorse him for re-election.’

Carson was one of the people who spoke at the memorial service honoring slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Arizona on Sunday.