Two dynamics are fundamentally reshaping the structure and functioning of the American government. The first, which is quite well known, is Congress's decline. The second, perhaps somewhat less appreciated but no less significant, is the Supreme Court's ascent"its expansion of its power into areas previously thought to be off-limits. These dynamics share a root cause: the partisan polarization that has reshaped American politics over the past four decades. But the connection is deeper and more complex than that. Whereas polarization weakened Congress, it emboldened the Court to dismantle laws and, in the process, undermine Congress's ability to make laws at all, reinforcing Congress's sclerosis.
Scott Adams, creator of the "Dilbert" comic strip, who became controversial for his right-wing statements, has died following a battle with metastatic prostate cancer. He was 68. Members of The Scott Adams School (formerly called Coffee With Scott Adams) shared the news of Adams' death on Tuesday. Adams started writing blog posts praising Donald Trump in 2015, and his daily video podcast featured a range of conservative guests. His writings and podcasts began to question the Holocaust and oppose the COVID vaccine. Read more
U.S. consumer prices increased in December, lifted by higher costs for rents and food as some of the distortions related to the government shutdown that had artificially lowered inflation in November unwound, cementing expectations the Federal Reserve would leave interest rates unchanged this month. Nonetheless, expensive food, with prices increasing by the most in more than three years, and rents underscored the affordability crisis facing President Donald Trump, partly blamed by economists on the White House's policies, including sweeping import tariffs.
Former President Bill Clinton appears to have defied a congressional subpoena to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday morning. Clinton was compelled to sit for a sworn closed-door deposition in the House's bipartisan probe into Jeffrey Epstein, but Fox News Digital did not see him before or after the scheduled 10 a.m. grilling. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., had threatened to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Clinton if he did not appear Tuesday.
Remote US Army base Fort Greely Alaska, which has a key role in intercepting incoming ICBMs in the event of a nuclear war, is struggling to keep its dining facilities operating following an exodus of staff under Elon Musk's DOGE budget-slashing campaign.
Fort Greely Alaska
Gavin Newsom' and his staff have quietly talked to the champion of a controversial wealth tax proposal seeking an off-ramp to defuse a looming ballot measure fight. The conversations, reported here for the first time, have occurred intermittently for months as SEIU-UHW's ballot initiative targeting billionaires migrated from the backrooms of California politics to the center of a raging debate about Silicon Valley and income inequality, sparking tech titans' wrath and vows to move out of state. Read more
Whoever replaces Jerome Powell as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve in May knows one thing: If they don't do what President Donald Trump wants, they risk being criminally prosecuted. That was the unambiguous message in Powell's extraordinary statement yesterday, in which he vowed to continue to set monetary policy independently despite the federal grand jury subpoenas investigating his statements to Congress about alleged cost overruns in the renovation of the Fed's headquarters.
Under Trump, the F.C.C. has used obscure regulatory powers to crack down on network TV. Some conservatives are pushing back.
The Trump administration's criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is backfiring in the halls of Congress - likely one reason why investors still have yet to panic. No less than a half-dozen GOP senators publicly criticized the Department of Justice for investigating Powell over Hill testimony last year about the Fed headquarters' renovation.
The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said. The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful " not murders " because President Trump "determined" the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels. But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called "perfidy."
Weeks after the Trump administration lowered minimum wages for some temporary farmworkers, the Trump Organization sought approval to hire 36 foreign workers for its Charlottesville VA winery at a pay rate nearly two dollars an hour below what it previously offered " highlighting the company's continued reliance on overseas labor even as President Donald Trump argues Americans are being pushed out of jobs.
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The Reverend Franklin Graham: "Pray at noon this Wednesday for Jesus to protect Donald Trump and officials from the lying paid agitators."
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Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mara Corina Machado will meet President Donald Trump on Thursday, the White House has confirmed. The visit comes just weeks after Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro was seized in Caracas by US forces. But Trump declined to endorse Machado, whose movement claimed victory in 2024's widely contested elections, as its new leader. Read more
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) warned on Monday that the Department of Justice's criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell better be "real" and "serious" to avoid undermining the independence of the central bank and rattling the world's financial markets.
