SmartNews

A Texas Republican state lawmaker is trying to crack down on schools over a persistent internet hoax that children are supposedly being allowed to use litter boxes and identify as animals — but a Democratic colleague called him out in a recent session as wasting the whole legislature's time, the Huffington Post reported.

James Talarico confronted Stan Gerdes over his so-called Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying In Educational Spaces (FURRIES) Act during a session of the Committee on Public Education on Wednesday.

Vice President JD Vance found himself on the defensive Thursday as Fox News’ Bret Baier pressed him on the administration’s handling of the economy in the face of fresh data painting a grim portrait of the country’s economic condition.

“The economy shrank – first time in three years,” Baier told Vance in a Fox News interview. "People are pointing to the tariff policy. There are people looking at their 401(k)s that are worried. What do you tell them? Is this going to work?”

President Donald Trump's Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was enraged Thursday that The New York Times didn't use the entirety of a quote he provided on their latest reporting about the prosecutions of Columbia University protesters.

The Times article paints a picture of high-ranking Trump officials clashing with career prosecutors and law enforcement officials disturbed by what they saw as the weaponization of the justice system against students for expressing political opinions about the bloody war taking place in Gaza.

CNN's Jake Tapper was gobsmacked by Vice President JD Vance's insistence on Fox News that the transfer of Mike Waltz out of the national security adviser role into an ambassadorship is unrelated to his role in the Signalgate scandal.

Waltz was part of the unsecured group chat in which highly sensitive military attack plans against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen were leaked to a reporter from The Atlantic. However, the scandal has mainly focused on the role of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was implicated in a second such leak just weeks later.

A New York Times editorial published Thursday sparked a firestorm of criticism for what many saw as a contradictory warning about the dangers of President Donald Trump’s second term.

In an opinion piece titled, “There is a way forward: how to defeat Trump’s power grab,” the Times’ editorial board warned that the president’s return to power has already inflicted more damage on American democracy “than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction.”

A former national security adviser to President Donald Trump lit up his former boss in a searing op-ed Thursday in the Wall Street Journal in the hours after news broke he would oust Mike Waltz from the same role.

“Donald Trump’s chaotic national-security governance is in full flood,” wrote his former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

A former Republican strategist warned lawmakers in the GOP that there's no "off ramp" for them from the deal they made with President Donald Trump.

As part of a panel discussion on "Deadline White House," host Nicolle Wallace had two legal analysts who remained optimistic about the state of the United States and the rule of law.

Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) made headlines for introducing articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump — but his fellow Democrats are privately grousing about the way he has handled it, Axios reported on Thursday.

Thadear's articles charge Trump with a number of offenses against the Constitution, including obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and "tyranny" and list off transgressions like ignoring the Supreme Court and suspending due process. The resolution doesn't have the votes to pass a Republican House, and also isn't expected to be able to clear the two-thirds vote in the Republican Senate for a conviction.

As Donald Trump’s trade war continues to escalate, even some within his own administration are bracing for the fallout – by hoarding goods and supplies.

That’s according to Rolling Stone, which reported Thursday that while experts have warned against mass stockpiling over fears it could “backfire spectacularly,” many Americans aren’t listening.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) is tearing apart the Republican Party of Virginia — after having been the one to breathe new life into it just four years previously, wrote reporter and political commentator Jeff Schapiro in a scathing analysis for The Roanoke Times published on Thursday.

Youngkin, he noted, brought the GOP out of the wilderness by being elected in 2021, proving Republicans can still at least occasionally compete in the long blue-trending state: "Youngkin’s victory was a testament to, among other things, a generous self-investment. The former Wall Streeter steered to his campaign $20 million from his vast personal fortune, at the time estimated to be $400 million."

Republican pollster and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell sounded the alarm about President Donald Trump's comment that Americans would have to make do with only buying one or two toys for their children for the holidays instead of 30. Most Trump supporters will struggle to pay for those two, she explained.

Longwell spends most of her time speaking with focus groups of people who voted for Trump in 2024 after supporting former President Joe Biden in 2020.

The Pentagon inspector general has widened its investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal – the latest fallout from the group chat controversy following Thursday’s ouster of Mike Waltz as national security adviser.

The new probe now includes the second Signal chat Hegseth and other top administration officials were caught up in last month, which included the embattled Pentagon chief's wife and brother, the Wall Street Journal reported.