April 13, 2025 at 12:10 PM EDT
'Death Master File': How DOGE won 'a momentous internal battle' over an illegal 'novel strategy'

Two security guards in Woodlawn, MD physically walked out Greg Pearre, a staffer at the U.S. Social Security Administration who pushed back against a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) scheme to falsely label "6,100 living immigrants as dead," the Washington Post reports. According to the report, Pearre "had clashed with Scott Coulter, the new chief information officer installed by Elon Musk." "Pearre told Coulter that the plan was illegal, cruel and risked declaring the wrong people dead, according to three people familiar with the events," the Post reports. "But his objections did not go over well with Trump political appointees. And so on Thursday, the security guards in Pearre's office told him it was time to leave."

April 13, 2025 at 11:36 AM EDT
'Bloodless coup': NC Supreme Court partially upholds GOP vote-tossing effort

In what North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein called a "dark day" for the state, the North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday delivered a partial victory to Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin, who is challenging some 65,000 votes in his bid to overturn the narrow win of his Democratic opponent and incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. The Supreme Court, ruling 4-2, partially overturned an appeals court decision earlier this month that gave all the challenged voters 15 days to affirm their identities. Instead, the state's highest court ruled that around 60,000 ballots with registration inconsistencies would not be challenged, but approximately 5,000 overseas or military voters would have to verify their identities within 30 days. Riggs said she would challenge the ruling in federal court, and asked the court to temporarily block the order.

April 13, 2025 at 10:40 AM EDT
'Run by capricious whim': CNN's Tapper corners WH economic adviser on Trump 'whiplash'

CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday confronted President Donald Trump's economic adviser Kevin Hassett on how the president's tariff "whiplash" is negatively impacting small business owners. Trump last Wednesday "announced a 90-day pause on higher-band tariffs with the exception of China, imposing a 125 percent tariff on Chinese goods," BBC reports. Speaking with Hassett, Tapper played a clip of small business owner Sarah Wells, who told CNN the president's back-and-forth tariff policy is hurting her company.

April 13, 2025 at 9:36 AM EDT
Shock poll: Consumer confidence plunges to 2nd lowest level in 70 years

Consumer sentiment in the United States continued its sharp plunge this month under President Donald Trump as Americans grew increasingly concerned about the prospect of a job-destroying recession in the near future""fears fueled in large part by the administration's erratic tariff policies. The University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers, released Friday, found that U.S. consumer sentiment plunged 11% at the start of April compared to last month, a decline that was "pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region, and political affiliation."

April 13, 2025 at 9:35 AM EDT
'Political revolution': Wisconsin teen accused of killing parents plotted Trump assassination

A Wisconsin teen accused of killing his mother and stepfather is facing charges related to an alleged plot to assassinate President Donald Trump in the hopes of starting a "political revolution," Fox 6 News reports. According to Fox 6, "Nikita Casap, 17, is accused of killing his mother, Tatiana Casap, and stepfather, Donald Mayer, at their village of Waukesha home in February. Casap was arrested in Kansas days later with a gun, driving Mayer's stolen SUV." A search warrant executed as part of the homicide investigation reveals Casap was engaged with "The Order of Nine Angles." "The group is described in FBI documents as a 'satanic cult' with 'strong anti-Judiac, anti-Christian, and anti-Western ideologies' that claims to 'incite chaos and violence,'" Fox 6 reports. According to the search warrant, a three-page document titled "Accelerate the Collapse" was found on Casap's phone. "An excerpt from the three-page document specifically referenced President Donald Trump and said 'getting rid of the president and perhaps the vice president' is 'guaranteed to bring in some chaos.' It later said: 'Point being this manifesto is specifically for the attack that targets Trump,'" Fox 6 reports. Read the full warrant here. Watch the video below or at this link.

April 13, 2025 at 6:13 AM EDT
'Dirty tricks:' Controversial bill passes in final minutes of WV session amid shenanigans

Through what Sen. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, called "dirty tricks" in the last 30 minutes of the 2025 regular session, Republican lawmakers in the Senate passed a bill Saturday to ban nearly all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the state of West Virginia. The bill passed the House at 10:41 p.m. after nearly three hours of debate.

April 13, 2025 at 5:59 AM EDT
Trump's about-face on tariffs was not some part of a brilliant plan

Does anyone believe that Donald Trump brilliantly planned the abrupt reversal of his "recriprocal" tariff barrage? Leaving aside the most zombified MAGA cultists, and those who are paid or otherwise induced to pretend to believe whatever the president says, the answer is no. But that may not be the right question to ask in the wake of his vaunted policy's overnight collapse.

April 13, 2025 at 5:52 AM EDT
Inside the fight against the Trump regime's extreme cruelty

It's been another grueling week. Several of you have asked me how to live in a nation whose leader has embraced cruelty as public policy. How do we inhabit Trump's America without becoming complicit in this cruelty?

April 13, 2025 at 5:37 AM EDT
Trump, dementia and the duty to warn

To ensure that the United States will always be led by a coherent, functioning President, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment provides for the prompt, orderly, and democratic transfer of executive power in the event the president is incapacitated, physically or mentally. Trump's tariff debacle, where he thrust out his chest, flung economic incoherence at the world, then flip flopped only two days later, was the strongest evidence yet- in a roiling sea of evidence- that he is mentally incapacitated.

April 12, 2025 at 2:11 PM EDT
'Rabid' hatred of Amy Coney Barrett reveals frightening truth about 'MAGA ideology': analysis

When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020 and President Donald Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett as a replacement, it was a definite game changer for the U.S. Supreme Court. Ginsburg was a liberal appointee of former President Bill Clinton, while Barrett is considered an "originalist" who was greatly influenced by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Moreover, Barrett doesn't have the libertarian leanings of former Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee who was right-wing in his judicial philosophy yet voted with Ginsburg and other High Court liberals on key issues involving gay rights and abortion rights. Very much a social conservative, Barrett was part of the 2022 majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization -- which overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years.

April 12, 2025 at 1:53 PM EDT
Trump 'boasts' about his 'mental health'-- but couldn't remember cognitive test details

During Donald Trump's first presidency, one his most famous lines was, "I am a very stable genius." And the line became so famous that Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig used it in the title of their 2020 book "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America." Now, during his second presidency, Trump is still bragging about his cognitive ability. But according to Daily Beast reporter Catherine Bouris, Trump cannot remember the details of a recent cognitive test.

April 12, 2025 at 12:02 PM EDT
'In too deep: Right-wing media remains loyal to Trump even as economy tanks -- here's why

Far-right Fox News host Jeanine Pirro drew plenty of scathing criticism from liberal and progressive media outlets for a comment she made during a panel discussion on April 3, when she remarked, "I don't really care about my 401k today. We've got to have manufacturing in this country." Pirro made that remark at a time when the stock market was plummeting because of President Donald Trump's steep new tariffs. And many critics slammed Pirro as painfully tone-deaf, reminding her that for older Americans and retirees who need 401k money to live on, a tanking stocking market is no joke.