Florida Supreme Court paves way for GOP-backed congressional map

Democrat Calls Republicans Fascists, Wishes He Could 'Run Over' Trump at Congressional Baseball Game

House Dem lashes out at GOP efforts to probe foreign donations with stunning claim on motive

Rep. Terri Sewell claims the GOP probe into ActBlue and CEO Regina Wallace-Jones is part of a pattern of Trump DOJ harassment of Black women in power.

Inflation hits back hard at Trump, who spins heads with comments 

A new report on Wednesday showed inflation rising 4.2 percent in May, marking its highest level in three years and underlining how hard the Iran war is hitting consumers. The Labor Department report is unwelcome news for President Trump and the GOP in an election year where affordability is the dominant issue. Democrats were already…

GOP leader skips Trump’s bill signing — pins 3-year high inflation on his Iran war

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune was noticeably absent from Wednesday’s Oval Office bill signing ceremony — but top House and Senate leaders — including Speaker Mike Johnson — were present, cheering on the president. Thune did take time to talk with reporters, where he tied Wednesday’s surging inflation numbers to Trump’s Iran war.The Washington Examiner’s David Sivak asked Thune directly why he wasn’t present at the president’s signing of the $70 billion reconciliation bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol, or to talk about FISA legislation with Trump. Thune noted that Speaker Johnson is “down there anyway” and that he and Johnson “talk regularly,” Sivak reported. Thune appeared to suggest that there might not have been an invitation, adding, “I don’t know that we got asked, but I’ve got stuff going on here, as you know.”Thune spelled out the inflation connection to reporters, as Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio reported. “The sooner we get the situation in Iran stabilized, the Strait [of Hormuz] opened up, those [inflation] numbers will trend in a better direction,” he said. “But obviously right now there are important national security objectives we’re trying to achieve.”“The American people realize that if we’re heading in the right direction and the trendlines are good and the confidence is good long-term — which I [think] it will be because of all the other things we’ve done on the economy — then obviously people will start to see improvement,” he also said. “It may not happen overnight, but it will. But at least for now, we’ve got to do everything we can to keep the pressure on [in] getting the situation in the Middle East resolved.”Getting the situation in Iran resolved was not how President Trump appeared to approach Iran on Wednesday. “Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore – They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The Bully of the Middle East is dead!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”In that Oval Office meeting, Trump also slammed Iran, saying that the U.S. would hit Iran hard again on Wednesday, and insisted the Iranian government is “playing us for suckers.”Thune has distanced himself from the president over time, refusing his repeated demands to pass the controversial SAVE America Act — legislation some call voter suppression — to kill the filibuster, and to fire the Senate parliamentarian. He has also opposed Trump’s intelligence nominee. Thune tried to persuade Trump to back Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), but the president endorsed Ken Paxton instead — and Paxton went on to defeat Cornyn in the May primary runoff.

Republicans turn their backs on South Carolina's Nancy Mace

Rep. Nancy Mace's (R-SC) political career ended decisively Tuesday as the South Carolina congresswoman finished a distant fifth in the state's Republican gubernatorial primary. Former allies and staffers immediately criticized her tumultuous tenure marked by combustible ambition and self-inflicted wounds, reports The Washington Post. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy stated, "I helped her win. But I just watched her change along the way." Mace failed to carry her home county, received no prominent Republican endorsements, and lost President Donald Trump's backing to a rival despite months of courting. Former communications director Will Hampson said Mace had burned down every bridge. Her former adviser also noted she was her own best weapon — and own worst enemy.Mace's erratic public behavior included profanity-laced airport tirades, hour-long House floor speeches accusing men of sex crimes, and offensive comments about a Republican opponent. Former GOP operative Justin Evans concluded, "She had all the ingredients a successful candidate should have. It's just her moral compass was completely missing."Watch the video below. Your browser does not support the video tag.

Inflation is back above 4%. Here's what's costing Americans more

President Donald Trump dismissed inflation concerns on Wednesday, saying, "the numbers were great."

Florida high school valedictorian offers jaw-dropping pearl of wisdom: ‘There’s always ChatGPT’

A Florida high school valedictorian posted a mind-blowing graduation quote on his school district’s official website — urging fellow students use artificial intelligence to cut corners. 

Trump’s Supreme Court is coming for your job: analysis

In April, the Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision which critics say “eviscerated” the Voting Rights Act. Now, according to new reporting from Vox, the impact of this decision is about to spread from the voting box to the workplace. Per Vox, “President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice released an opinion on Tuesday that, in the likely event it is embraced by a Republican-controlled federal judiciary, would make it significantly harder for plaintiffs who face employment discrimination to prevail in court.” It was notable that the opinion was signed by T. Elliot Gaiser, head of the Office of Legal Counsel and a former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, author of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Essentially, Gaiser’s opinion argues that the same logic Alito used to attack voting rights can be applied to employment anti-discrimination law. According to Vox senior Supreme Court correspondent Ian Millhiser, “if you accept Alito’s opinion in Callais as legitimate, then Gaiser’s approach to employment discrimination is hardly a stretch. Indeed, it is the next logical move in the Republican Party’s broader campaign to weaken civil rights protections for racial minorities.”As Millhiser explains, “The 1982 law that Alito targeted in Callais provided that voting rights plaintiffs who challenged a state election law did not need to prove that state lawmakers acted with racist intent in order to prevail. Under that law, which was repealed by Callais, a state law that ‘results’ in voters having their right to vote diminished due to their race may also be challenged.” Now, because of the Supreme Court’s decision, voting districts can more or less be gerrymandered at will, even scrubbing Black districts entirely out of existence, because the language in Alito's opinion makes it nearly impossible to prove racist intent.Gaiser’s decision concerns a similar law regarding employment, and he’s making essentially the same argument raised by conservative justices: that a discrimination case can prevail only if racist or sexist intent is explicit. And given these similarities, says Millhiser, Gaiser’s claim “is likely to prevail before a Republican Supreme Court.”According to Millhiser, there are two upshots to this conclusion: “One is that it should be significantly harder for many employment discrimination plaintiffs to prevail. The other, which is potentially even more significant, is that elected officials should lose much of their power to remedy discrimination of all kinds, and the scope of civil rights law should be determined primarily by the Supreme Court.”As Millhiser explains, “both the Voting Rights Act’s results test and employment discrimination’s disparate impact test, after all, were enacted into law by Congress. But the Republican Party’s consistent position on civil rights laws is that democratically enacted civil rights laws must bow to the whims of Republican justices.”In essence, it is the position of conservatives on the court that “these difficult policy questions should be removed from the democratic process and given to a Republican judiciary.” Millhiser asserts that this should raise troubling questions as to “why six Republican lawyers in black robes have more insight into US civil rights policy than the people American voters elected to make these decisions.”