Matthew Chapman

Texas saw a potential shakeup in government on Tuesday, as Secretary of State Jane Nelson announced her resignation, effective July 17.

"It has been an honor to serve the people of Texas in this role," said Nelson in her announcement. "My time as Secretary came at an important moment for Texas, and I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish as an agency in under four years."

For many Texas conservatives, though, this was a moment to celebrate — since Nelson has been one of the biggest critics of a Texas GOP crusade to adopt "closed primaries," or a system where eligibility to vote in primaries is restricted based on party affiliation of the voter. Many states already use such a system, though in recent years the trend has been more toward adopting open primaries, where all registered voters can choose which primary to vote in each time. The GOP wants to close Texas primaries partly out of suspicion that Democrats can exert undue influence on the process.

"Texas is going to close the primaries This is a big deal," wrote talk radio host Kenny Webster on X.

"Embatttled Texas S.O.S. Jane Nelson, the one using Texas taxpayer dollars to keep leftists voting in GOP primaries is reportedly resigning," wrote right-wing commentator Chris Salcedo. "Who wishes she had resigned before wasting our tax dollars to service socialists?"

"Glad to hear this. Long overdue," wrote right-wing influencer Cary Cheshire. "Nelson opposed the party on closed primaries, allowed local governments to ignore election law, and oversaw elections at mosques and Islamic centers."

Other commenters, however, were fearful of what might be coming next, seeing the GOP as increasingly radicalized and that radicalization likely to spill into election administration.

"There are unsettling things on the horizon for election integrity in Texas, y’all…." wrote state house candidate Sara McGee.

The city of Bakersfield, California, was rocked on Tuesday as a man claiming to have a bomb strapped to his chest took a hostage at a Chase Bank in the city's downtown area.

According to CBS News, police have secured lockdowns of the surrounding area and have been negotiating with the suspect. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have also responded to the scene.

Police did not disclose how many people were in the bank, though they confirmed at least one hostage was being held.

Meanwhile, according to Patch News, a JPMorgan Chase spokesperson assured locals that their "focus is on the safety of everyone involved" as they coordinate with law enforcement.

This is a developing story.

Legendary Democratic strategist James Carville took a few swings at President Donald Trump on Tuesday's edition of Ari Melber's "The Beat," pointing out his health decline — as he has done on prior occasions — but also his total lack of interest in working on major policy issues that are rapidly beginning to define his second term.

Nothing better exemplifies this, he and Melber agreed, than Trump's repeated recent claims that he doesn't care about Americans' financial situation because the Iran war is more important. When a reporter asked Trump to what extent Americans' financial situation was motivating him to make a deal with Iran, Trump was blunt: "Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing: we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon."

"He may not care because he doesn't care whether other House Republicans who tried to back him up every which way, whether they lose their seat," said Melber. "So that's part of that message, whether that works."

He then played a number of clips of Republicans, including one featuring Trump's now-infamous comment about Americans' financial situation. Carville had a field day with the line.

"That's a new message," he said. "I've never in all my years in politics — I've never heard the leader of a political party say, I don't care if we win the election or not, matters nothing to me. And maybe he is so self-absorbed that that's true."

Ultimately, Carville said, "something is wrong here. This guy goes to Walter Reed more than I go to the bathroom. I mean, there's something here that's just not adding up. And I'm not sure that we know what it is, but I suspect at some point we will know."

The problem, he said, is that Trump may find all of this boring in his current mental state, "but I'll tell you who's not bored: our people on the Gerald R. Ford that were deployed for nine months, I guarantee you they're not bored. I guarantee you, the pilots that are flying these missions or ships that are guarding these things, they're not bored at all."

For a president to say something like that, Carville added, is "almost impossible to digest."

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President Donald Trump's executive order seizing federal control of mail-in voting is in peril after a federal judge in Massachusetts gave it a cold reception in court this week.

According to Bloomberg Law, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani "pressed the Justice Department on the president’s order for the Department of Homeland Security to draw up a list of confirmed citizens, which states could use in creating a list of eligible mail-in voters to provide to the US Postal Service," sounding skeptical that this was a valid exercise.

"You'll have a small list," said Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

Under Trump's executive order, states would have to provide these lists within 30 days of an election, and the Postal Service would directly block sending ballots to anyone not on these lists — a requirement and timeline which could trigger logistical chaos if allowed to go into effect immediately.

This comes just a week after U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of Trump, declined to block the order, reasoning that it was only initiating a rulemaking process and hadn't yet caused anything illegal to happen.

It also comes as the Supreme Court considers a case that could make it vastly more difficult for mail ballots to be counted in some states.

Former GOP operative Tim Miller took a moment on MS NOW's "Deadline: White House" to lay into President Donald Trump's move to replace outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with his controversial housing finance administrator Bill Pulte — a man often called Trump's "attack dog," and, Miller pointed out, has absolutely no qualifications to coordinate national intelligence.

"I'm going to start with you because there's nothing for an intelligence person to say about this person," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "This is a political hack ... what happens next?"

Miller agreed, saying that he is likely the most unqualified Cabinet-level nominee in the history of the United States, even including Pete Hegseth, who at least served in the military before being tapped for Secretary of Defense. "Bill Pulte has no experience by this at all. Calling him a political hack is even, you know, kind of too kind to him."

"It's mean to us political hacks!" chimed in Wallace, to general laughter around the panel.

Worse, Miller continued, "he was a corrupt grifter" whose main experience before Trump appointed him to head up housing finance was pushing "meme stocks" and "crypto rug pulls."

Then, he said, at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, "The main thing he did was use his access to mortgage documents. He also made himself the head of Freddie and Fannie to go after Trump's political foes. I mean, that's like the extent of his political work actually, going after political foes with dubious attacks based on the way that they filed their mortgage documents." That, he said, is the extent of his experience in government operations.

And that's probably by design, Miller added.

"I don't think that he's in this job to actually do the job of the Director of National Intelligence," said Miller, speculating that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other high-ranking officials will do that job for him. Rather, "I think he's in there to do the dirty work, to do the sole job of now using his expanded access to the information about Americans to try to go after Donald Trump's political foes. I think that will be basically his only duty there."

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Patrick De Haan, a renowned oil industry analyst, had a dire warning for the American public on Tuesday as the Strait of Hormuz closure continues to pressure global oil supplies.

"Tomorrow, U.S. distillate inventories will likely fall under 100 million barrels for the first time in over 20 years, exacerbated by high exports due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz," he wrote in a post to X.

In other words, he said, "this is a powder keg waiting to go off if a deal to reopen the Strait doesn't happen soon."

The Strait of Hormuz carries around 20 percent of the world's entire global oil trade, as well as a number of other critical raw materials. It has been effectively impassible for months since the U.S. war with Iran flared up.

Trump administration officials insist that the pressure on oil supplies, and with it rising gas prices, is worth the objectives they are attempting to accomplish in Iran, but both lawmakers and the voting public are not convinced, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio getting a cold reception in a hearing earlier in the day.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) is threatening legal action against another man named Dan Sullivan who filed to run against him — accusing him of being a "ghost candidate" planted by Democrats to split the vote against him.

This comes as former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is launching her own Senate campaign, with polls suggesting a surprisingly competitive race in a GOP-favoring state that comfortably backed President Donald Trump three times.

“They all orchestrated this on purpose to confuse Alaskans," Sullivan told NOTUS' Igor Bobic. "These guys are purposely trying to trick my constituents to rig, and I don't use that lightly, rig an election in favor of my opponent.”

Sullivan accused the other Sullivan of infringing on his own campaign logo to further confuse voters.

“We're likely going to sue them on a trademark violation, and I'll win in summary judgment,” he told Bobic.

While there is currently no evidence that the second Dan Sullivan has been planted by Democrats, the tactic of one party recruiting "ghost candidates" that share a last or full name with an incumbent from the other party has occurred before.

Most famously, in 2020, Republicans knocked off some Democratic state lawmakers in Florida when candidates with the same last name showed up on the ballot — a scheme that ultimately led to a criminal investigation and prosecutions. And in Washington State in 2024, the GOP unsuccessfully tried to obstruct then-state Attorney General Bob Ferguson from the gubernatorial nomination by recruiting two other people named Bob Ferguson to run in the primary.

President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Tuesday to triumphantly announce that the White House Correspondents' Dinner will get a do-over.

"In a sign of Strength and Fortitude, it was just announced that The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which violently ended rather abruptly on April 25th, will be rescheduled to July 24th," Trump wrote. "This announcement is a very good thing in that we cannot allow Lunatics to change our way of life, or even its scheduling."

"I was asked to be there, and speak, by Weijia Jiang, President of The White House Correspondents’ Association, and have accepted," Trump continued, adding, "I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out. In any event, it will be a 'HOT' ticket! Interestingly, the location will be The Waldorf Astoria, on Pennsylvania Avenue, a Building and Ballroom that I built."

The shooting that shut down the previous dinner earlier this year left much of the press badly shaken. The alleged gunman was found to have a manifesto listing Trump administration targets.

MS NOW's Rachel Maddow kicked off Monday night's broadcast with a devastating round of mockery for President Donald Trump's recent celebrations to himself.

She set the scene by covering an episode she had already reported on in Philadelphia, where the Trump administration tried to take down memorials to enslaved people at the President's House, only for locals to sue and stop him — but then the National Park Service only restored half the memorials, leaving the entire site looking obviously unfinished.

That, said Maddow, is a perfect metaphor for the half-realized festivities Trump is putting on to honor himself and, ostensibly, the country.

"I know you've heard all about Trump kind of botching the celebrations that are planned for the 250th in Washington, right?" said Maddow. "Putting a cage match on the lawn of the White House, sponsored by what multiple state gambling authorities widely considered to be an illegal gambling operation?" This was further botched by a disastrous marketing campaign for Trump's car race in D.C., where he sold white T-shirts that said "One Nation, One Race," that had to later be taken down.

Meanwhile, Maddow continued, "Trump now has called for the cancellation of a concert that he had tried to plan in Washington for the 250th after, again, a melange of celebrities and former celebrities they thought they had persuaded to come perform" ended up dropping out amid backlash. As a result, she said, Trump "has announced that he himself should be the headliner instead. So, okay, that'll be great."

This, she said, is already shaping up to be a rerun of Trump's inaugurations. The first one's musical performances were "poorly organized, poorly attended, and sort of sadly underwhelming when it came to star power. The vibe was like cut-rate wedding DJ and desultory junior varsity marching band." This is why, she said, Trump probably found it "kind of a relief when his second inauguration came around and had to be moved indoors for poor weather."

Many more of these flops abound, said Maddow, from Trump's smaller-than-planned birthday military parade, to the utter flop of the right-wing alternative Super Bowl halftime show where "Kid Rock kind of just lost the thread trying to lip sync and gave up halfway through."

Ultimately, she concluded, all of this can be easily symbolized by what Trump left at the President's House in Philadelphia: "This half there, half not there, half taken down mess thanks to Donald Trump."

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Pro-Trump influencers have all suddenly started waging war on Harley-Davidson motorcycles — and it's clearly not an organic movement, Will Sommer wrote for The Bulwark in an analysis published on Monday.

This week, he wrote, "has seen wave after wave of MAGA personalities and meme accounts decide, seemingly out of nowhere, that Harley-Davidson was company non grata." For example, he noted, "MAGA influencer Priya Patel declared the manufacturer 'fundamentally anti-American,' while Hercules actor-turned-tweeter Kevin Sorbo said his friends were abandoning Harley-Davidson en masse." Even Nick Adams, a Trump envoy, boosted the campaign.

There's just one problem, he noted: almost none of the influencers slamming Harley-Davidson are actually naming any sort of corporate decision or messaging they object to. Additionally, "every influencer throwing a grenade at Harley is also simultaneously boosting its competitor," Indian Motorcycle.

For example, said Sommer, Prison Mitch, another far-right influencer who trashed Harley motorcycles as "woke and gay," was quick to simultaneously say “Indian Motorcycle spent years building motorcycles and honoring American heritage.”

The pattern was such an obvious paid influence campaign that even Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz, who posted — and then deleted — an image of an anti-Harley post, saying, “copy and paste talking points about a random issue. And yes, foreign countries also pay influencers for certain campaigns like this. We need stronger disclosure laws!”

All of this, wrote Sommer, "is extra awkward in part because many conservative politicians enjoy their Harleys," including Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). It's also ironic because "it’s pitching a company called 'Indian' at a time when the American right has been consumed with hate for people from the country of India" — though some MAGA influencers are even commenting on this, with the Wall Street Mavericks account posting, “I know nothing about them, other than it is not a reference to the country of India.”

President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency cuts are hitting the state of Texas hard, as a long-controlled pest is threatening to resurge and decimate the livestock industry.

The New World screwworm, the larval stage of a parasitic fly known for laying eggs inside livestock animals and letting the maggots chew their way out, could cause massive damage to cattle herds. In the past, the U.S. managed to work together with Mexico to drive back screwworms, but they have been expanding their territory recently.

"Back in the 1950s, the United States led a successful charge against screwworms by buggering up their breeding cycle. But that was back when divisions of the government, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture were well funded and well organized," noted Boing Boing in a piece published last month.

In an urgent public letter, GOP state Rep. Don McLaughlin outlined the danger to the state — and demanded immediate action.

"For more than a year, I have joined Texas ranchers in sounding the alarm while federal regulators have moved at a snail's pace," McLaughlin said in the statement. "Today, the threat is no longer hundreds of miles away. It is at our doorstep. Texas cannot afford to wait until the New World Screwworm crosses the border and begins devastating our livestock and wildlife populations."

Attorney Blake Allen weighed in on the matter: "Screwworms coming back into the U.S. cattle herd/stock is going to potentially devastate the industry and jack up meat prices. Worst part is, this was preventable. Trump & DOGE pushed funding cuts on/destroyed agencies that were directly responsible for fighting this pest."

Despite DOGE's proclaimed mission to identify and eliminate government waste, fraud, and inefficiencies, the cuts by the project do not seem to have been effective in even achieving the core purpose of reducing spending.

A federal judge in Colorado has put a stop to the Trump administration's plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, slamming the move as an effort to exact political revenge on the state.

According to The Colorado Sun, Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson called the administration's plans to transfer NCAR's supercomputing facility to the University of Wyoming “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”

NCAR is a critical facility for climate research, studying changes to Earth's atmosphere. The Trump administration has long sought to marginalize climate research.

But beyond that ideological issue, Jackson agreed with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the plaintiff in the case, "that breaking off parts of NCAR, dismantling projects and potentially firing thousands of employees was intended by Trump and agency officials as direct political revenge."

Colorado has been the subject of Trump's fury multiple times since taking office, including over the imprisonment of Tina Peters, a far-right election conspiracy theorist who tampered with voting equipment to try to prove the 2020 election was stolen. Peters was released on parole this month as part of a highly controversial commutation by outgoing Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.

The state's senators have been fighting tooth and nail to preserve NCAR, even obstructing national spending bills in protest.

House lawmakers have demanded that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton produce documents related to his lawsuit against ActBlue, a critical Democratic Party fundraising platform, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

This lawsuit alleges that ActBlue failed to act sufficiently to prevent illegal donations from foreigners or people who had already hit their campaign contribution limit.

The new letter sent by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Robert Garcia (D-CA), and Joseph Morelle (D-NY) accuses Paxton of ignoring far more serious consumer complaints brought against WinRed, the platform Republicans launched as their answer to ActBlue — in particular, the platform's practice of pre-checking a box to make donors' contributions recurring without them intending to do so.

"While you have done nothing to investigate dozens of such complaints from Texans about being defrauded by WinRed, the platform used to process campaign contributions to Republican candidates and political committees, your office has opened an investigation into an unrelated entity, ActBlue, which processes donations to Democratic candidates and causes," said the letter, noting that Paxton's office has received at least 27 complaints about WinRed, some of them alleging people had their life savings drained from their bank accounts.

The lawmakers are demanding Paxton, now the GOP's candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, turn over any documents about the complaints and communications around them, although they cannot compel this by force without Republican votes on the House Oversight Committee.

This comes after a federal judge in Massachusetts, where ActBlue is headquartered, already warned Paxton that the ActBlue lawsuit is unlikely to succeed on the merits.

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) has been mystifying Capitol Hill for months with his protracted absence due to an unspecified medical issue. Now he's introducing legislation — even though he hasn't actually returned to work yet.

According to NOTUS, Kean "became the lead sponsor of H.R.9061" on Friday — a bill that would require clear guidance from the federal government to states on whether to cover early screenings for preeclampsia, a life-threatening pregnancy complication, in Medicaid and CHIP.

This comes even though he is still out of work and nobody knows where he is.

Republican lawmakers are growing increasingly concerned, as his absence has now extended past 75 days, and his office has not given any clarification on what his medical condition is or when he will be able to return to work. His aides are simply assuring the public that he will be back to work "soon."

Filing legislation is not the only standard congressional activity Kean is carrying on with, despite not actually showing up to the Capitol. His office is also sending out his newsletter, with no indication that anything is amiss.

Kean represents a New Jersey House district that will likely see a competitive race in November, where Democrats are strategizing how to capitalize on a wave of public anger at President Donald Trump and reclaim the House majority after having lost it in 2022.