Plus: the Democratic Party's candidate problem, property tax breaks for seniors, and the UFC on the White House lawn
A federal appeals court sharply questioned lawyers for the city of Philadelphia on Tuesday over their lawsuit seeking to restore a slavery exhibit to the President’s House site in the city, which is operated by the federal government. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit heard arguments in a […]
In New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, incumbent GOP Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. now knows who he will be competing with this year in the general election: Rebecca Bennett, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who, in a Tuesday primary, defeated three other Democrats. And Never Trump conservative George Conway used the outcome to take a swipe at the "missing" Kean.Political Polls reported the election results on X late Tuesday night, tweeting, "Former navy helicopter Bennett wins the democratic nomination in NJ-07, the most vulnerable seat for Republicans in NJ. She will run against Missing congressman Kean Jr." And Conway had a humorous response to that tweet: "Maybe she can lead a search-and-rescue mission for her opponent."Kean, according to many reports, has been missing from Congress for months.The 39-year-old Bennett defeated three fellow New Jersey Democrats in the primary: businessman Brian Varela, medical doctor Tina Shah and former Biden administration official Michael Roth. Conway himself is running for office in the United States' 2026 midterms.Although the conservative attorney, now 62, spent most of his life as a Republican and was a prominent figure in the right-wing legal movement, he became a Democrat in 2025 and is seeking the Democratic nomination for a race in New York's 12th Congressional District — where Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler isn't seeking reelection. Conway is promising to "make America boring again" if he wins the primary and the general election — an obvious swipe at President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.Despite his conservative background, Conway is a scathing critic of Trump and the MAGA movement. Conway supported Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, and he has been quite active in The Lincoln Project (a conservative anti-Trump group).Conway attacks Trump repeatedly during his frequent appearances on MS NOW; Trump, Conway argues, is terrible for conservatism and terrible for the Republican Party. His ex-wife, GOP strategist Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway, however, was among Trump's top allies during his first administration.Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. is the son of another well-known New Jersey Republican: Thomas Kean Sr., who served as governor of New Jersey from 1982-1990. Before that, in the early 1970s, the older Kean was speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly.Although New Jersey is a blue state, it sometimes goes GOP in gubernatorial races. The Garden State's other Republican ex-governors include Christine Todd Whitman (who is very much a Never Trumper) and Chris Christie (who, unlike other GOP primary candidates, attacked Trump vigorously when he ran for president in 2024).
A former Trump White House insider warned that voters should be cautious of the "rizz" of rising stars in the political scene right now.Anthony Scaramucci, one of Trump's former White House communications directors, spoke to CNN's Kasie Hunt about what it takes to win big elections nowadays."Are we at a moment where being famous is the thing you have to have if you want to be in politics?" Hunt asked.Hunt mentioned the rising popularity of Spencer Pratt, a reality star turned contender for L.A. mayor, and the resilience of Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who keeps weathering controversies."If you're making the point that we've lost the plot and we're no longer hiring people based on their credentials and what they could do for the country, and it's more about who's got the name recognition and the pizzazz or rizz on Instagram, yeah, we're definitely in that category," Scaramucci responded.However, for Scaramucci, that's not a good place to be."That's dangerous, and that's something I think we should be worried about," Scaramucci said, whose former boss, Trump, was a reality TV star.He explained that "the system has gone awry" by rewarding "self-aggrandizement," and "this is a problem for us," as "name recognition is number one" on the list of qualifications for politicians.
Trump's latest appointment is baffling and extremely dangerous, a political commentator warned Tuesday evening on CNN.Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist and the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was appointed as the acting Director of National Intelligence. Critics point out that he has no experience in intelligence, but Democratic political pundit Van Jones said it's worse than that."The main thing is something really bad could happen when you have people who are unprofessional, they're in there doing the wrong thing," Jones warned. "People can die in America."For Jones, he feared that "we can't remember 9/11" and agreed with commentators who pointed out that Pulte would be responsible for national security."We should remind people this is the office that prepares the president's intelligence briefing," David Axelrod, a former Obama senior advisor, warned. "That alone should send chills down people's spines, when you have someone who's completely ill-equipped or trained, leaving aside the moral and ethical dimensions of the guy.""We've gotten a little bit lazy. We've gotten a little bit soft," Jones said about opposition to dangerous appointments. "I just hope nothing bad happens."
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that would allow artificial intelligence companies to voluntarily collaborate with the federal government, which would get early access to new models. The order released by the White House specifies that the federal government would be given access to “covered frontier models” up to 30 days before […]
The NFL has not posted about Pride Month on its X account in three years.
The order asks AI companies to share previews of powerful new models with the government before they are released to the public.
The first round of June Social Security payments for retirees, now capped at $5,181, will be issued in seven days. When will payments arrive? Retirees born on or before the 10th of a month will receive this payment on June 10. The second round will go out on June 17 to those born between the […]