April 23, 2025 at 5:36 AM EDT
John Roberts owns this nightmare -- and he has no one to blame but himself

John Roberts owns this nightmare; without him and his corrupt Republican co-conspirators against democracy on the Supreme Court we never would have had a reality star neofascist ascend to the highest office in the land. And it's getting worse daily.

April 22, 2025 at 8:27 PM EDT
'Driving without guardrails': Conservative outlet buries Trump over 'juvenile' mistakes

Conservative news site The Bulwark recently dressed down President Donald Trump's second term in office. "Every White House makes mistakes," writes journalist Sam Stein. -- But the Trump mess-ups stand out both because there are so many of them and because of how indifferent the president and his team are toward pursuing fixes."

April 22, 2025 at 8:11 PM EDT
Critics denounce VA order for workers to snitch on each other for 'anti-Christian' bias

As Secretary of Veterans' Affairs (VA), Doug Collins is now implementing a controversial policy of encouraging agency employees to surveil their coworkers for any perceived biases against Christianity as part of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. But activists have condemned the move as an effort by the administration to impose Christian nationalism. The Guardian reported Tuesday that it received an email from a source claiming that Collins was now forming a task force to look into "treatment of Christians" at the VA under former President Joe Biden. He added that the task force was now asking VA employees to "submit any instance of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti-ChristianBiasReporting.@va.gov."

April 22, 2025 at 7:18 PM EDT
'Show off': Nicolle Wallace guest explains Hegseth 'doesn't understand' he has 'sober job' now

Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) warned U.S. Secretary Pete Hegseth that he was now occupying "a sober job," requiring more skill than he is presently delivering. "Here's what Pete Hegseth is," McCaskill told Deadline: White House anchor Nicole Wallace. "He's a show off. He's a braggart. He wants to show off to his friends what he knows, not thinking about the consequences to the brave men that were piloting those those aircraft that were dropping those bombs. He wants to do workouts and pushups. He wants to show off all of his regalia, and do videos and photo-ops. He doesn't understand that the secretary of defense is a sober job, and I mean that in more ways than one."

April 22, 2025 at 7:06 PM EDT
'Take responsibility': Ex-general says Hegseth 'endangered our airmen' in text scandal

One former military leader who now serves in Congress took Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to task over his recent scandal involving yet another disclosure of classified information via text message. During a Tuesday interview on CNN, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) emphasized that the embattled Pentagon chief was not only reckless when texting highly sensitive attack plans on Houthi rebels in Yemen to his wife, brother and attorney using his own unsecured device, but that he was actively endangering U.S. military personnel by doing so. Bacon -- a retired one-star Air Force general -- told host Jake Tapper that if he were president, he "wouldn't tolerate" what Hegseth did and would fire him.

April 22, 2025 at 6:56 PM EDT
'Bribery': Outrage grows as Trump drops cases against firms that funded his inauguration

An analysis released Monday in the wake of new Federal Election Commission filings shows that the Trump administration has dropped or paused federal enforcement cases against at least 17 corporations that donated to the president's inaugural fund, an indication that companies' attempts to buy favor with the White House are already paying off. In the new analysis, the watchdog group Public Citizen cross-references FEC data released Sunday with its own Corporate Enforcement Tracker, which documents companies facing federal cases for alleged wrongdoing.

April 22, 2025 at 5:51 PM EDT
'A disaster': Expert says markets are engaging in 'collective puking' in response to Trump

Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson delivered a metaphor for the decline in several major economic measurements of the U.S. market this month. Thompson described President Donald Trump as a bully who wants to strong-arm universities, the chairman of the federal reserve, and law firms into doing what he wants, using the "same Trump playbook over and over again": Make a large threat, use the threat to try to enact a concession, use that concession to bolster his ego or his wallet and then "repeat, repeat, repeat," Thompson told NBC News senior political analyst Nicolle Wallace.

April 22, 2025 at 4:39 PM EDT
'Shakes you to the core': Family members mourn loved ones lost to far-right conspiracies

Rolling Stone writer Fortesa Latifi says Redditors are mouning what looks like the permanent loss of family members as Trump 2.0 drowns the national argument in lies and conspiracy. The subreddit r/QAnonCasualties subreddit crawls with alienated family members saying "Dad has gone full nazi," or "Mom finally contacted me after my late stage cancer diagnosis to screech " about black people." There are also plenty of entries in the line of "Mom said she's removing herself from my life."

April 22, 2025 at 4:13 PM EDT
Republicans silent on Hegseth fear 'questioning Trump and earning his wrath': analysis

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is now fighting for his job leading the U.S. military after the second scandal in which he allegedly mishandled classified information in as many months. And the Washington Post's Aaron Blake is exploring why Congressional Republicans seem hesitant to hold him accountable. On Tuesday, Blake pointed out no Republican elected officials -- save for Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) -- have so far called for Hegseth to resign or be fired. This is despite the former part-time Fox News weekend host being accused of using his personal, unsecured device to share highly sensitive attack plans with his wife, Jennifer Rauchet and his attorney, Tim Parlatore. This came just a month after Hegseth shared separate attack plans on a group text thread that included a journalist who was mistakenly added by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.

April 22, 2025 at 3:22 PM EDT
'Throbbing engine of reactionary hatred': How 4Chan became Trump's main 'propaganda organ'

The two-decades old online dumping ground known as 4Chan got hacked out of existence last week by a rival message board, but WIRED reporter Ryan Broderick examined how the former home of harmless cat memes became the toxic network that influenced X and YouTube and eventually saw its darkest elements infect the U.S. government. Founded by 15-year-old Christopher "Moot" Poole as a spin-off site for a Japanese message board 2chan, or "Futaba Channel," 4Chan evolved into the internet's "Wild West" devoid of organization or moderators. Without solid rules, Collins said he watched over the next two decades as a site featuring owls saying "ORLY" devolved into a fan club for mass shooters and the launchpad for the infamous Gamergate.

April 22, 2025 at 2:37 PM EDT
Army suspends first female base commander after Trump's photo found improperly displayed

The United States Army has suspended the first female leader of Fort McCoy -- Col. Sheyla Baez Ramirez -- due to a controversy related to photos of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Ramirez, who became the first woman garrison commander of Fort McCoy in Wisconsin in the base's 110-plus-year history, has been removed from the position.

April 22, 2025 at 11:42 AM EDT
'A hinge moment': Analyst fears 'season of fever and visions' as Trump clashes with courts

Legal experts have been raising concerns over President Donald Trump's defiance of the court and the administration's continued refusal to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador. In an article published in The Bulwark Tuesday, legal analyst Corbin Barthold noted that Trump is invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which cannot be used in peacetime and can only be applied to citizens of nations attacking the United States.