Progressive search for action

2+ min ago (422+ words) Justice Brett Kavanaugh used an interesting choice of phrase when describing the constitutional issues in Trump v. Slaughter, the vividly named case on the president's ability to remove certain federal officials that Congress stipulated could only be fired for cause. Kavanaugh articulated something a little different on Monday by adding "billion-dollar industries" there. As the oral arguments made clear, the Supreme Court is about to bless an unholy union between presidential corruption and corporate power under the premise that it is actually upholding constitutional principles. Trump ordered her removal in March, along with another Democratic FTC appointee, without cause only two years into her second term. In response, Slaughter filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the legality of her dismissal. She argued that the Trump administration had violated the for-cause removal protections enacted by Congress for FTC commissioners when the agency…...

2+ min ago (1959+ words) This is a lightly edited transcript of the December 8 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack. But there are some Republicans in the Indiana State Senate who are wary of Trump and wary of redrawing the map. So let's talk about this a little bit. Welcome. Thanks for coming. State Senator Andrea Hunley: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here, and I hate to start with a correction, but Perry, I've got to give you one right off the top, which is that Indiana is not a Republican state. We really are much more purple than people give us credit for. And in fact, in 2008, we went for Obama, but about 54 percent Republicans voted in our last election for…...

9+ min ago (364+ words) Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has hit out at Donald Trump after the president received the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize. The talk show host said, "One of the greatest honors of his life. Even his family knows this is a BS prize designed to keep him from screwing up the World Cup, except for him. It is so deeply pathetic, it almost makes me feel bad for him." Kimmel then joked the trophy was bought for "$300 at the trophy shop" and that "he got the President of the United States to do anything he wants." A freeze frame of Trump taking the peace medal was compared to The Grinch lifting the star from a Christmas tree. Kimmel added, "Then we have our lumbering dope grinning from ear to ear with this meaningless medal. Like a fat kid who gets a…...

16+ min ago (292+ words) A former Department of Justice chief of staff suggested that the department flout a court order from a federal inquiry, all while said judge pushes an inquiry into whether or not the department advised Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to deliberately flout one of his orders from March. On Tuesday morning, senior Politico reporter Kyle Cheney highlighted a post to X from Chad Mizelle, who served as DOJ chief of staff from the start of Donald Trump's second term through October, departing the office for unspecified reasons. In the post, he urged the DOJ to "ignore" a demand for testimony from Judge James Boasberg. "DOJ should not give loser Boasberg the time of day," Mizelle wrote. "Don't participate in his clown show. Ignore him. In the meantime, Congress needs to start acting like a co-equal [sic] branch and initiate its…...

21+ min ago (378+ words) The Republican Party is pulling itself apart over a looming healthcare deadline as a clear plan for the future is yet to appear. GOP representatives are still figuring out a plan for millions of Americans, though the Affordable Care Act will end at the end of this year whether a new plan is presented or not. One Republican representative, speaking to The Hill, called the situation a "recipe for disaster" " as few in the party are on the same page. He went on, "What signal would that send if Republicans say, "Yeah, we're going to say no to the Democrats' plan, but we're not going to offer anything? The message that will send is, good luck to the American people, and we don't really care." An unnamed Senate Republican said there is an "ongoing discussion" over what to do with…...

23+ min ago (645+ words) President Donald Trump trashed European allies in Europe as a "decaying" bloc led by "weak" leaders who are "destroying their countries" in a new interview that dropped on Monday. Speaking with Politico's White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns at the White House, the president doubled down on criticisms of Europe that were already laid out in his new National Security Strategy. European leaders, Trump argued, have lost control of migration, although he praised right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orb'n and Poland for their strict border policies. I just think he's doing a very good job in a different sense on immigration. His country's landlocked. You know, he's got a different kind of a country. He doesn't have the sea, so he can't have ships coming in with energy. Uh, he's got a big pipe coming in from Russia. They've had…...

31+ min ago (559+ words) Hey it's tabs, here they are. Zohran Mamdani isn't even officially the mayor of New York yet, but he's already leading by helping New Yorkers understand what to do in the face of Donald Trump's immigration Nazis and terrorists. The amoral garbage that works at the Rupert Murdoch corporation is responding to that by doing that incestuous thing it does where it uses its own organs to create "controversy," and then the same organs report on said "controversy," the one they themselves created, over Mamdani's message. New York Governor Kathy Hochul's response to that? Fuck off, Mamdani's message is great. [New York Post] They're using the same torture techniques " or did at "Alligator Alcatraz" " that they've used at CIA black sites, because this isn't about immigration, this is about white supremacy, terrorism and Nazism. [Spencer Ackerman] And have you heard…...

37+ min ago (304+ words) Top advisors to President Donald Trump were revealed to have privately boasted to GOP donors last weekend about how two impending decisions from the Supreme Court could bolster Republicans" chances in the upcoming midterm elections, Axios exclusively reported Tuesday. According to the report, Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio " two political consultants who manage the president"s fundraising operations " had attended a Republican National Committee retreat in New Orleans, Louisiana. At the event, they were reportedly optimistic over the impending midterm elections, and despite polling that suggests a strong performance from Democrats. That optimism was due to two impending cases from the Supreme Court, which LaCivita told donors "have the ability to upend the political map," according to an attendee of the retreat, speaking with Axios on the condition of anonymity. Were Section 2 of the VRA to be gutted, the anti-voter…...

50+ min ago (565+ words) Fog of war" is the least of it. It's tempting to wonder what Baudrillard would have made of the current US military buildup targeting Venezuela, a campaign that often appears to be driven by narratives with only a tangential relationship to actual events taking place. Take, for instance, President Donald Trump's dramatic announcement on his Truth Social platform a little over a week ago: To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY." As Reuters reported, US officials were surprised by Trump's announcement and unaware of any ongoing U.S. military operations to enforce a closure of Venezuelan airspace." The US not only took no actions to affect the closure" of Venezuelan airspace; a migrant repatriation flight from the US landed in Venezuela just a few days later....

51+ min ago (1718+ words) ALSO READ: A vital struggle just exposed the breadth of this dark Trump threat Growing up in an ultraconservative Mormon family, Jennie Gage said, she was primed to become a Christian nationalist and supporter of Donald Trump's Make America Great Again movement " or MAGA. But about two years ago, at 49, Gage had a reckoning, realizing she had been "literally a white supremacist from birth," based on teachings from the Book of Mormon. Gage said she came to see Mormonism as "the OG Christian nationalist church." So, she flipped her life upside down, leaving organized religion and the Republican party. She now calls herself "a raging feminist," hosts a podcast, "Life, Take Two," and is a member of "Leaving MAGA," a nonprofit online community for former Trump followers who found themselves lost in conspiracies, losing friends, even committing crimes in the…...