George Bush speechwriter and podcaster Tim Miller says anti-gerrymandering Republicans in Indiana are catching increasing threats of violence as the party's unpopular policies continue to sink it. Indiana Republicans are making another push at mid-decade gerrymandering, unveiling a new congressional map that eliminates all of the state's Democratic seats, flipping the state's congressional map from a Republican advantage of 7-to-2 to 9-to-0. Meanwhile, the pressure on Indiana Republicans who oppose the power grab has escalated to include threats of violence, with nearly a dozen state lawmakers reporting that they have been the victims of SWAT or doxing attempts. read more
Despite traditionally being regarded as one of America's most storied cultural icons, the Kennedy Center has had significant difficulty filling seats ever since President Donald Trump took over the vaunted institution earlier this year. The Daily Beast reported Wednesday that Trump advisor Richard Grenell, his first-term acting Director of National Intelligence who is now president and executive director of the Kennedy Center, erupted after a report by The Athletic (which is owned by The New York Times) showed how the facility's ticket sales have been lagging for months. The report noted that the Kennedy Center allowed FIFA (which organizes the quadrennial World Cup) to rent its concert hall for a $0 fee.
President Donald Trump's name has been installed on the building and signage around the US Institute of Peace (USIP) " an independent agency that the administration gutted earlier this year. The president's moniker appeared on the Washington, DC, headquarters ahead of a peace agreement signing ceremony between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) due to take place there on Thursday. "Welcome to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. The best is yet to come," the State Department posted on X Wednesday, announcing it had renamed the institute "to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation's history." The Trump administration has essentially shuttered the institute, which works to resolve conflict and was created by Congress in 1984. The administration's budget request for the next fiscal year called for the elimination of federal funding for USIP.
Donald Trump's boast that he was close to ending the war in Ukraine was in ruins on Wednesday, with his much vaunted peace plan in tatters.
In the Before Times, George Will was the dean of conservative letters, so attention ought to be paid to his latest column: "Trump, Hegseth and a sickening moral slum of an administration" - The Washington Post No operational necessity justified Hegseth's de facto order to kill two survivors clinging to the wreckage of one of the supposed drug boats obliterated by U.S. forces near Venezuela. His order was reported by The Post from two sources ("The order was to kill everybody," one said) and has not been explicitly denied by Hegseth. President Donald Trump says Hegseth told him that he (Hegseth) "said he did not say that." If Trump is telling the truth about Hegseth, and Hegseth is telling the truth to Trump, it is strange that (per the Post report) the commander of the boat-destroying operation said he ordered the attack on the survivors to comply with Hegseth's order. read more
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