alternet.org

After initially promising his White House ballroom would not be charged to American taxpayers, President Donald Trump recently declared that he does indeed want US citizens to pay for his ballroom — and a presidential aide to the last Republican president just called him out for it.“Lindsey Graham wants Donald Trump not just to have a corrupt, paid-for ballroom by the corporation, but a taxpayer-paid-for ballroom to the tune of half a billion dollars,” Steve Schmidt, who advised President George W. Bush, said on Wednesday. “My god, you could buy a Bezos yacht for that amoun

In the wake of the attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, there has been a concerted effort by President Donald Trump and his allies to fault their political opponents. But according to New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, it would be “dishonest to deny that [Trump] is responsible for shaping the environment in which we live — for creating an atmosphere in which these kinds of events are more likely.” Trump and those in his orbit have attempted just such duplicity, with the president claiming “the hate speech of the Democ

President Donald Trump wants his federal government to seize control of the 2026 midterm elections so he does not lose power of Congress, but an elections expert just pointed out he does not actually know how to accomplish that.“It is not clear to me at all that these laws would hurt Democrats,” Nathaniel Rakich, the Managing Editor at Votebeat, told Silver Bulletin’s Eli McKown-Dawson on Wednesday. “I do think that is Trump’s expectation. He’s basically all but said, 'if you get rid of mail ballots and have voter ID, then Republicans will never lose another election.' But I just don�

In recent months, states across the country have been grappling with redistricting efforts as Republicans and Democrats fight to create new congressional seats and shift the balance of power. The gerrymandering war was kicked off in Texas, and has since proceeded through several states, then on Wednesday morning, the Florida House passed the map proposed by Governor Ron DeSantis. The new map is expected to be approved by the state Senate later in the day then by DeSantis on Thursday, upon which Florida’s status as a swing state will effectively end.The death of Florida’s purple distinction was called by Henry Olson, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Writing in the

President Donald Trump welcomed the Artemis II astronauts to the White House after their incredible trip farther than any other human has traveled. He didn't want to talk about that, however. CNN host Brianna Keilar noted that Trump talked about former FBI Director James Comey, crime in Washington, D.C. It was anything but a conversation about the Artemis II crew standing beside him. "I think we should just also point out what a tough spot for these incredibly accomplished astronauts who have just renewed so much interest in space travel with their incredible achievement of this Artemis II mission," said Keilar. "You know, two of them are active duty military, one of them Canadian, by the way. So, you can u

A federal appeals court handed President Donald Trump a loss on Wednesday in his quest for the entire court to re-hear his appeal in the $83 million E. Jean Carroll civil defamation case.CNN reports that the court’s decision now allows the president to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his claims arguing presidential immunity. The high court established broad criminal immunity for all presidents in 2024 for official acts.A panel of judges earlier had affirmed a jury verdict that Trump had defamed Carroll in 2022 when he “denied her allegations of sexual assault, said she w

President Donald Trump insists that polls showing him with low approval ratings are "fake news." But those polls are not outliers, and they show a pattern of widespread dissatisfaction with the president, according to critics.In a Substack column published on April 29, economist Paul Krugman argues that the Iran war is only one of the problems confronting Trump — who, he stresses, is facing an array of problems all at once."Indeed, claiming victory tends to be hard when you've lost badly," Krugman says of the Iran war. "How long will it take before Trump accepts the reality that he doesn't have

The New York Times, on April 23, reported that the Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is ramping up its push to denaturalize U.S. citizens — and more than 300 are being targeted.The New Republic's Matt Ford, in an article published on April 29, describes the Trump DOJ's denaturalization push as "concerning" but lays out some reasons why it is on shaky legal ground."The (Trump) administration's denaturalization threats often provoke a strong respon

The DOJ's second indictment of James Comey is "flimsy, at best," according to a former U.S. attorney writing for MS NOW, but even if it is no real threat to the man himself, there is one threat it does pose.On Tuesday, the DOJ confirmed that it had acquired a grand jury indictment against the former FBI director, charging him in relation to a photo he shared on social media last year featuring seashells arranged to spell out, "86 47," on a beach. The indictment argued that this was an active threat to do harm to or outright kill Presi

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before Congress to answer questions under oath for the first time since the start of the war with Iran. Hegseth struck a hostile posture toward his questioners, but as CNN Pentagon reporter Haley Britzky points out, his attack was immediately undercut by his top general. Diverging from his prepared statement, Hegseth took a moment to assert that, “The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of Congressional Democrats and some Republicans.” But moments later, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General