April 1, 2025 at 10:31 PM EDT
'Musk is the biggest loser': Social media erupts as Dem wins big in WI supreme court race

Dane County Judge Susan Crawford has defeated Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel in Tuesday's Wisconsin Supreme Court election, with major networks calling the race less than two hours after polls closed. NBC News called the race for Crawford -- the liberal candidate -- shortly before 10 PM Eastern Time, while CNN called it shortly after. Crawford was ahead by roughly 15 points at the time of NBC's call, vastly outperforming former President Joe Biden's margins in his 2020 victory in the Badger State. With her win, Crawford will serve on Wisconsin's highest court for a full 10-year term.

April 1, 2025 at 9:16 PM EDT
'No going back now': Senate Republicans are reportedly 'going nuclear' in latest move

The Republican majority in the U.S. Senate is now apparently poised to circumvent the body's primary interpreter of rules in order to ram through its agenda, according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Huffpost reporter Igor Bobic tweeted Tuesday that during Sen. Cory Booker's (D-N.J.) record-breaking speech on the Senate floor, Schumer interrupted him to announce that Senate Republicans are aiming to ignore the Senate parliamentarian (who serves at the pleasure of the Senate's majority leader). The parliamentarian's official role is to advise the chamber on standing rules and parliamentary procedure, and alert the majority leader if and when rules are being violated.

April 1, 2025 at 8:37 PM EDT
'History!' Internet explodes as Booker takes segregationist senator 'off the record books'

On Tuesday, social media woke up to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) still plowing through an historic Senate floor speech launched the night before. By 6 PM, Booker had nabbed the record for second longest filibuster in history and had accumulated more than 280 million likes on TikTok. Thirty minutes after that, he surpassed the record of ardent segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), who protested the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

April 1, 2025 at 6:38 PM EDT
'Too easy to hack': Senior Trump official blasted after 'another insecure messaging scandal'

Officials in President Donald Trump's administration are under fire for failing to adhere to generally accepted safety standards for sensitive information. The Washington Post broke the story on Tuesday that aides of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have been using commercial email to share information that could pose a risk to the U.S. if revealed to adversaries. The Post revealed members of President Donald Trump's National Security Council -- particularly White House national security adviser Michael Waltz -- conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents and interviews with three U.S. officials. National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told the paper he hadn't personally seen evidence of the national security adviser using the Gmail account as described, but he said Waltz's "legacy contacts" have occasionally emailed work-related information to accounts.

April 1, 2025 at 6:02 PM EDT
'Extremely angry': Elderly Florida voter unleashes on Elon Musk ahead of special election

The first special elections for the U.S. House of Representatives of 2025 are underway in Florida. And even though the congressional districts up for grabs are regarded as Republican strongholds, the GOP is nervous about holding onto them. President Donald Trump has dedicated time to promoting Republican candidates for Florida's 1st and 6th Congressional Districts on his Truth Social account, letting Florida voters know about Tuesday's special election to fill the seats vacated by former Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) The former was appointed to head the Department of Justice (though he removed himself from consideration after roughly a week) and the latter now serves as Trump's national security advisor.

April 1, 2025 at 6:02 PM EDT
When greedy corporations want a stupid law, they come to Texas

Once again, my state's GOP hierarchy is leading the nation in creative ways to increase corporate power over people's rights. This time, lawmakers are rushing to protect corrupt executives from legal challenges by their own shareholders! Their law would ban rank-and-file owners of corporate giants from suing their CEOs and other top officials for financial malfeasance. In particular, it's a heavy-handed attempt to prohibit shareholders from suing bosses who lavish shareholder funds on extravagant pay and luxury perks for themselves.

April 1, 2025 at 5:42 PM EDT
'They broke Johnson': Speaker mocked for shutting House down after 'brutal' defeat

Speaker Mike Johnson is facing bipartisan criticism""and public ridicule""after abruptly shutting down the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon for the rest of the week. The move came after a Republican proposal with bipartisan support, which would allow members with newborns to vote remotely, disrupted his legislative agenda. Johnson, who often portrays himself as a devoted family man, opposed a rule change to accommodate new parents.

April 1, 2025 at 3:35 PM EDT
'People are going to die': Physicians say CDC 'effectively dissolved' after mass firings

Doctors are reeling at mass firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this morning, even as the nation prepares for its worst measles outbreak in recent history. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Trump administration began sending out termination notices through emails at dawn, hitting whole branches of the agency, targeting doctors and scientists among other employees. WIRED reports the effects rippled across the CDC as workers in the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice (DEHSP), the Division of Population Health, the Division of HIV Prevention, the Division of Reproductive Health, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and National Center for Injury Prevention and Control began receiving reduction in force (RIF) notices before employees arrived at work.

April 1, 2025 at 3:00 PM EDT
'You own this': Top GOP senator who backed RFK Jr. now under attack after HHS mass firings

As the Trump administration's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., presses forward with a mass firing in a sweeping effort to downsize the agency tasked with safeguarding the nation's well-being""including removing top leaders from key programs, including from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention""a Republican Senator who cast the pivotal vote that enabled the controversial anti-vaccine activist to take the helm of the massive public health agency is facing scrutiny and backlash.

April 1, 2025 at 12:12 PM EDT
Today's the day to tell Trump to go you-know-where

Apologies for my lame attempt at humor this morning. (As several of you pointed out, it was all too plausible. Trump and Musk have blurred the line between humor and catastrophe.) But if you live in Wisconsin or in the 6th congressional district of Florida you'll have a chance to do something the rest of us only dream about doing -- tell Trump and Musk to go to hell.

April 1, 2025 at 12:06 PM EDT
'A large revenue heist': WSJ bashes Trump's 'ideological fixation on tariffs'

Calling out the Trump administration over its attempts to present the planned tariff increase as "tax cuts," the Wall Street Journal termed these tariffs "a large revenue heist." "In the real economic world, a tariff is a tax," the newspaper wrote in its Tuesday editorial .

April 1, 2025 at 12:03 PM EDT
Almost 60% of this red state's taxpayers would owe more income taxes under GOP bill

COLUMBIA -- Legislation touted by GOP leaders as making South Carolina's tax code appear more competitive would require most tax filers to pay more initially, according to an analysis by state fiscal experts. Collapsing South Carolina's tax brackets into a single flat tax rate of 3.99% in 2026 would reduce state revenues by $216.6 million overall.