President Trump may have gotten his half-brained idea to reopen and expand the infamous Alcatraz prison from a movie that aired on WLRN this past weekend. 

“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” the president wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening. 

“I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” he continued. “We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”  

A Bluesky user provided some more details on this seemingly random announcement. 

“I may have context for this! Last night WPBT in Palm Beach broadcast the 1979 Clint Eastwood film ‘Escape from Alcatraz,’” they wrote. Trump was in Palm Beach on the night in question. 

Trump potentially making major policy decisions based on the last movie he watched is bleak but unsurprising. Alcatraz is a dilapidated full-time museum off the coast of San Francisco that closed in the 1960s because it was too expensive to operate and many of the buildings were falling apart. Getting it back to a full-time jail would be incredibly costly and labor intensive. 

“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” California Representative Nancy Pelosi wrote on X. “The President’s proposal is not a serious one.”

The Trump administration did not rule out that its pitch to replace the nation’s space launch system could massively benefit Elon Musk.

In an interview with Fox Business Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought refused to clarify if the “Dark MAGA” tech billionaire would be pocketing off the budget increase.

“The budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed space launch system,” Fox Business’s Charles Payne said. “Is there a chance that Elon Musk could benefit from that?”

“Look, this is a billion-dollar investment into Mars,” said Vought, a former Project 2025 architect. “We’re doing both, we’re going back to the moon as part of the Artemis. We’ve protected exploration funding that’s open to all companies. Elon Musk hasn’t been a part of the NASA budget conversations at all. And we also provide resources for what we’re doing on Mars.”

As part of its budget proposal Friday, the Trump administration is reportedly looking to slash NASA’s budget by 24 percent year over year, amounting to the largest single-year slice to the agency in its history, with $6 billion in cuts.

The proposal spells the end of the Space Launch System rocket and NASA’s brand-new Orion spacecraft. It also envisions killing the Gateway space station that is crucial to one of the space agency’s biggest missions: a full-fledged, multistep exploration of the moon dubbed the Artemis campaign. (As soon as the U.S. beats China in its space race.)

“We do believe that, after Artemis, it’s time to look for lower cost, commercial, cheaper vehicles that allow us to not have the cost overruns and the delays and the expense that we’ve seen in the SLS and the Orion program,” Vought told Fox. “We’re not doing anything that would in any way delay what’s necessary to get to the moon.”

Instead, the White House envisions that the future of the country’s space funding should be spent on Mars—an idea that isn’t too difficult to trace back to the SpaceX CEO.

Musk has been a vocal opponent of NASA’s Artemis campaign. In January, Musk posted on X that the moon is just a “distraction” and that his company would be looking to go “straight to Mars.”

Republican Representative Mike Collins is freaking out over a halal restaurant coming to the cafeteria in the House’s Rayburn building.

The skittish conservative complained on X Friday morning about CHA Street Food, a Pakistani restaurant, replacing Steak n Shake this summer, likening it to a religious war from thousands of years ago.

If Collins knew anything about cuisines, or even cultures, outside of America, he’d know that Pakistan is thousands of miles away from Jerusalem. His own X post includes a screenshot of an email pointing out that CHA Street Food is actually based out of northern Virginia. Not only that, his beloved Steak n Shake is owned by an Iranian American, Sardar Biglari.

If Collins thinks a new halal restaurant in a House cafeteria is like “the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem,” perhaps he should get to know his colleagues. There are currently four Muslims serving in the House: Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, André Carson of Indiana, and newly elected Lateefah Simon of California. There’s even a congresswoman in his own Republican Party of partial Pakistani descent, Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma.

But Collins is not known for his nuance or tolerance, cheering on racist protesters in Mississippi last year and blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion procedures for

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