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Tensions within the Republican leadership of Maricopa County, Arizona, have erupted into open conflict, with key figures now battling each other in court over control of local election administration, Phoenix New Times reported Friday.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court, County Recorder Justin Heap — an outspoken election skeptic aligned with the pro-Trump Make America Great Again (MAGA) wing of the GOP— accused the Republican-led Board of Supervisors of undermining his office and overreaching their authority.

Almost five months into Donald Trump's second presidency, the United States is experiencing what Never Trump conservative David French describes as a period of dangerous instability.

Trump has responded to ongoing protests in Downtown Los Angeles by federalizing California National Guard Troops and sending in U.S. Marines — despite strong objections from Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass — and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) was physically removed from a June 12 press briefing by Homeland Security Kristi Noem, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed. These events come before Trump's Saturday, June 14 military/birthday parade in Washington, DC and large No Kings protests being held all over the United States in opposition to it.

Atlantic writer Charley Locke says Baby Boomers have caught the very best that America can give them. Now they’re about to catch a case of Trumponomics.

“They were born in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability,” writes Locke in the Atlantic. “College was affordable, and they graduated in a thriving job market. They were the first generation to reap the full benefits of a golden age of medical innovations: birth control, robotic surgery, the mapping of the human genome, effective cancer treatments, [and] Ozempic.”

Despite President Donald Trump sanctioning ongoing immigration raids nationwide and deploying U.S. troops to the second-largest city in the United States, it still might not be enough to please his base, according to a recent analysis.

In a Tuesday article for anti-Trump conservative news outlet The Bulwark, journalist Will Sommer argued that there was a "vicious MAGA feedback loop" that is dictating the administration's latest actions, and that it's showing no sign of slowing down. In fact, Sommer suggested that even Trump circumventing California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) in calling up the California National Guard (the first time a president went around a governor to call National Guardsmen since 1965) and sending roughly 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles may still not be enough to give his MAGA supporters what they want.

The ascendancy of Cardinal Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV – to become the global head of the Catholic Church is an inherent threat to the worldview of the American religious right, according to one Christian pastor.

In a recent essay for Religion News Service (RNS), the Rev. Jennifer Butler — who is the senior pastor at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corvallis, Oregon — argued that the far right is railing against Leo XIV specifically because of the dilemma he presents to their belief system. Butler wrote that the MAGA faithful is not opposed to the new pontiff because he's a liberal like his predecessor Pope Francis, but because he's a traditional conservative Catholic who nonetheless holds radically different views than Christian nationalists.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is doubling down after admitting she didn’t fully read the House GOP’s sweeping budget bill—despite now emphatically opposing its AI provisions. The outspoken Georgia Republican faced widespread ridicule Tuesday, as House Democrats blasted her for ignoring their earlier warnings about controversial measures in the legislation strongly backed by President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson.

"Here's a lesson for us all," Greene declared in a speech on the House floor Wednesday. "No matter what political party holds office and is in charge, we should all watch carefully the bills that we pass."

During a wide-ranging Oval Office question-and-answer session on Friday, President Donald Trump was asked about former President Joe Biden, who is now battling an aggressive form of cancer. Trump told reporters he does not feel sorry for his predecessor.

“He’s been a sort of a moderate person over his lifetime,” President Trump said, “not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I will say.”

During President Donald Trump's second term, some of the tech leaders who were critical of him in the past — including Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg — have tried to keep the peace with him. And Tesla/SpaceX/X.com leader Elon Musk is a major Trump ally.

Yet tensions exist within the MAGA movement. "War Room" host Steve Bannon isn't shy about attacking Musk, fearing that tech bros could undermine MAGA's populist goals. And now, Bannon is among the MAGA Republicans who is voicing his concerns about Trump's recent support of artificial intelligence (AI).

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell (D) has been accused of “aiding and abetting” illegal immigration by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who announced an investigation into the mayor over his opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions in the city.

O'Connell will face an investigation by two federal committees, per the ABC affiliate WKRN-TV based in Nashville.

The U.S. Supreme Court “has undermined lower courts” and “effectively allowed the president to neutralize some of the last remaining sites of independent expertise and authority inside the executive branch,” University of Pennsylvania law professor Kate Shaw warns. And doing so could have a catastrophic impact of the rule of law in the country.

Shaw, writing for the New York Times, discussed a recent decision by the Supreme Court to “stay” rulings from the U.S. District Courts and the full D.C. Circuit. That ruling permitted President Donald Trump to fire high-level officials — a move previously considered “unlawful under existing precedent.”

Shaw in her essay argues against the “unitary executive theory” and its proponents’ “singular fixation on the president’s power to fire — a power the Constitution doesn’t expressly give the president.”

READ MORE: CNN’s Tapper corners House speaker claiming he ‘doesn’t know’ about Trump’s lavish crypto dinner

“Even if you disagree — even if you think that Article II’s grant of ‘the executive power’ to the president includes the power to fire at will any high-level official in the executive branch — the court’s disposition of the case sends a profoundly dangerous message to the White House,” Shaw warns. “…Handing the president a win here suggests that the administration did not need to abide by Congress’s statutes or the Supreme Court’s rulings as it sought to change legal understandings.”

“This decision risks emboldening the administration further to act outside of our traditional constitutional order,” she adds.

Shaw writes:

During a press conference on Thursday, May 22, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News' Garrett Haake that President Donald Trump would be attending a political dinner "in his personal time" — noting that it was "not a White House dinner" and would not be "taking place here."

Leavitt's use of the term "personal time" got the attention of Never Trump conservatives, including attorney George Conway and The Bulwark's Tim Miller (a frequent guest on MSNBC and former GOP strategist).

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, an Evangelical Christian whose religious tattoos drew scrutiny during his confirmation hearings, led a Christian prayer service in the Pentagon auditorium during official working hours on Wednesday. The event featured Secretary Hegseth’s personal pastor from Tennessee, Brooks Potteiger, and included remarks describing President Donald Trump as “sovereignly appointed,” according to The New York Times.

“This morning at 9:00 AM the Office of the Secretary of Defense sent out what appears to be a building wide email to the entire Pentagon inviting everyone to a ‘Christian prayer service and worship’ in the Pentagon auditorium,” wrote Fred Wellman, who writes “On Democracy” at Substack. Wellman is a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School, an Army veteran of 22 years who served four combat tours, and a political consultant. “Not the chapel. The auditorium.”