US politics

US politics

Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries! Trump warned on Truth Social before the vote was finalized, adding: TARIFFS have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege. Undoing Trump's tariff policy would ultimately require his approval, which was unlikely.

I almost went to Kamala Harris' inauguration. " Almost," of course, is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The former vice president came up short against Donald Trump's Third Reich... I mean, third run at the Oval Office. Harris, who would have been the first woman to ascend to the country's top office, is admittedly many stone throws away from my politics. But in a land of constant dreams deferred, I was struck that, maybe this time, the top-of-the-top may be finally cracked by a Black woman.

After the tensions of the George W. Bush era, the new US president's approval ratings among Germans skyrocketed. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 93% of Germans believed Obama would "do the right thing regarding world affairs." That remains a record to this day. Even in 2016, at the end of his second term, an extraordinary 86% of Germans still trusted Obama.

A Florida man pardoned by President Trump after storming the U.S. Capitol in 2021 has been convicted of sex crimes involving two children. Andrew Paul Johnson, a 45-year-old handyman, was found guilty on Tuesday of five charges, including the molestation of one victim under the age of 12 and another under 16, Hernando County prosecutors announced on Wednesday. He was also convicted of lewd and lascivious exhibition and electronically transmitting material harmful to a minor.

The venerable public opinion firm announced Wednesday that it would no longer publish any approval or favorability ratings of any political figures, but suggested the decision has nothing to do with Trump's second-term slump. Leadership ratings have been part of Gallup's history, Justin McCarthy, a spokesman for Gallup, said in a statement. At the same time, (they) no longer represent an area where Gallup can make its most distinctive contribution.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

"promote DEI and radical gender ideology."

These new restrictions-which can be found throughout the appropriations bill for the Department of Education and other sections of the 11-part funding package that was signed into law last week-are part of what policy experts describe as a bipartisan attempt to rebuke the Trump administration's budget proposal and restore Congress's power of the purse. Historically, the language of these budget bills has largely stayed the same, serving as little more than a template into which lawmakers plug that year's dollar amounts and policy riders.

Donald Kinsella was appointed the U.S. attorney in New York's Northern District in place of John A. Sarcone III, who left his post as the acting U.S. attorney after a judge blocked Sarcone from any further involvement in the investigation of New York Attorney General Letitia James, claiming he was not lawfully serving in the office at the time the subpoenas were issued in the case.

Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries! Our Trade Deficit has been reduced by 78%, the Dow Jones has just hit 50,000, and the S&P, 7,000, all Numbers that were considered IMPOSSIBLE just one year ago. In addition, TARIFFS have given us Great National Security because the mere mention of the word has Countries agreeing to our strongest wishes.

Senator McConnell was discharged from the hospital [Tuesday] and is grateful for the outstanding care he received. He is feeling better and will be working from home this week on the advice of his doctors, spokesman David Popp said in a statement.

We first learned the name of San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo last summer, when Azevedo received official notice that he was under investigation by federal agents. Azevedo, like former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, was among a group of East Bay elected officials who went on a sponsored, probably fairly luxury trip to Vietnam in August 2023, paid for by the Vietnamese American Business Association.

The DOJ's latest release of over 3 million pages of Epstein documents appeared to contradict previous statements made by President Donald Trump's commerce head, Lutnick, who claimed to have cut ties with Epstein in 2005. The Senate Committee on Appropriations held a hearing on Tuesday where Secretary Lutnick was grilled about his mischaracterization of his ties to Epstein, which documents showed continued past 2005 and included a visit to Epstein's private island.

Artificial intelligence, meet the U.S. Supreme Court. It's an institution steeped in tradition and resistant to any quick changes in the way it does things. But like it or not, the justices are about to see artificially created versions of themselves, essentially avatars, speaking words that they actually did speak in court but that were not heard contemporaneously by anyone except the people in the courtroom.

O n January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol insurrection, many people were transfixed by what they saw in Washington. It was only a heroic effort by the police that kept the insurrectionists out of the House of Representatives, where elected members and staff took refuge behind chairs and under desks. In one sense, the riot, with its outlandish characters wearing costumes and face paint, felt like an absurd exclamation mark that punctuated the end of an erratic presidency.

In January, Florida Rep. Randy Fine made a typically bigoted post on X about his colleague in the House of Representatives, Ilhan Omar. The post was in conversation with a specious right-wing conspiracy alleging that Omar's net worth had increased, nefariously, through a variety of unspecified means-perhaps cryptically linked back to her Somali heritage. Fine asserted that to "solve all this," Omar ought to be "denaturalized and deported."

About an hour after lifting the restrictions, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, whose responsibilities include overseeing the FAA, explained the unexpected closure by saying, "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion." (The Trump Administration refers to the Department of Defense as the Department of War, or DOW, although its legal name remains the former.)

Harvard CAPS/Harris (Jan. 28-29): Mark Penn's polling firm found that 51% of registered voters say Trump is doing a worse job than Biden, compared with 49% who say he's doing better. Rasmussen Reports (Feb. 2-4): The Trump-friendly pollster is fending off MAGA criticism after finding that 48% of likely voters say Biden did a better job as president, compared with 40% who chose Trump. Another 8% said the two presidents have performed "about the same."

Initial fundraising reports from the first week of Matt Mahan's gubernatorial campaign filed Tuesday reveal the depth of support for the moderate Democrat from Silicon Valley executives and venture capitalists. Reports filed with the California Secretary of State show just 21 individuals contributed more than $1.6 million to Matt Mahan for Governor 2026 in the first two days of his campaign.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Last year didn't really work as envisioned,

must ensure that our electric grid - upon which military installations, operations, and defense-industrial production depend - remains resilient and reliable, and not reliant on intermittent energy sources,

"The Secretary of War, in coordination with the Secretary of Energy," the order reads, "shall seek to procure power from the United States coal generation fleet by approving long-term Power Purchase Agreements, or entering into any similar contractual agreements, with coal-fired energy production facilities to serve Department of War installations or other mission-critical facilities."

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

"We will continue to move and pass down things, meaning that when they try to erase us, as long as we stay present, they can't,"