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8+ min ago (429+ words) House Speaker Mike Johnson on July 8, 2024 (Wikimedia Commons) Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team reportedly are "losing control" of the House floor. That's according to Punchbowl News and its cofounder, Jake Sherman, who report that what was once a rare occurrence, forcing votes via discharge petitions as a way to circumvent the Speaker " which was done to release the Epstein files " is becoming more commonplace. It's not just the discharge petitions, however. "Being forced to bargain for GOP support during simple procedural votes. Calls to Cabinet secretaries from the House floor to help win over members. A prolonged debate on health care with a disengaged president. Potential retirements on the horizon," Punchbowl reported. "This is the House Republican majority with less than 11 months until the midterm elections." Separately, some reports say up to 39 House Republicans could be out after…...

15+ min ago (448+ words) CNN senior reporter and resident fact-checker Daniel Dale bombarded President Donald Trump over the "whole lot of wrongness" he detected from Trump's newest rally speech. Trump held a rally at beautiful Mount Airy Casino Resort on Tuesday night that served up'lots of'familiar elements, right down to'the riff'on buying too many dolls. On Wednesday's edition'of'CNN News Central, co-anchor Kate Bolduan played some clips from the rally, then asked Dale to dig into the facts: KATE BOLDUAN: CNN's Daniel Dale has a fact check on this and more on this one. What did you find, Daniel? DANIEL DALE: I found that there's a whole lot of wrongness in just those few sentences. So, first of all, as John said, inflation is not stopped, as the president claimed. The latest inflation rate we have for September is 3.0 percent. Now, the president said that…...

18+ min ago (1090+ words) Dale Smith is a freelance journalist in the Parliamentary Press Gallery and author of The Unbroken Machine: Canada's Democracy in Action. This was a heavy year for liberal democracy, as the second Trump presidency in the United States began actively dismantling democratic institutions in that country. If 2024 was the year of creeping authoritarianism, 2025 saw it in full bloom. Across the border in Canada, there has been a false sense of security with the rise of Mark Carney to the office of prime minister, and a feeling that the electoral defeat of Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre meant that our democratic institutions were safe and secure. That is not the case, but with the daily barrage of news stories from the U.S., the assault on democracy in this country is going largely unnoticed by both the media and the public....

20+ min ago (218+ words) Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Karl Rove looks on ahead of a funeral service for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, at Washington National Cathedral, in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 20, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst But veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove, in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal on December 10, argued that American voters aren't as isolationist as America First proponents would like. And the article is getting a rave review from former Vice President Mike Pence. On X, formerly Twitter, Pence described Rove's op-ed as a "great essay," noting that Rove addresses the question: "How isolationist are Trump's voters?" "The newly released White House National Security Strategy raises again the question whether Americans are turning isolationist," Rove explains. "A recent poll suggests they aren't." The poll that Rove references was conducted by the Ronald Reagan Institute. Rove continues,…...

21+ min ago (242+ words) Lynch is superb as Maria, "bringing warmth, charm, and vulnerability to the role with effortless grace, agreed Amarjeet Singh on What'sOnStage. And hers is just one of several "stunning performances in Nikolai Foster's captivating and beautifully designed show " including from David Seadon-Young as Captain von Trapp, who is less of a martinet than usual, and more demonstrably grief-stricken. Curve Theatre, Leicester. Until 17 January Talking Point Glasgow-born artist is first person with a learning disability to win Britain's biggest art prize The Week Recommends The English artist's striking paintings turn "concentration into reverie' The Explainer Freddie Scappaticci, implicated in 14 murders and 15 abductions during the Troubles, "probably cost more lives than he saved', investigation claims Feature An insider's POV on the GOP and the untold story of Shakespeare's first theater feature Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, through Feb. 22 Feature Featuring a suspended fireplace in…...

22+ min ago (919+ words) Admittedly, this whole thing is unbelievably confusing, because we are dealing with people who make shit up for a living, so half of what they are mad about are things they made up or things others among them made up about them or about other people. Let's start out with Tim Pool, because he's somewhat at the center of it all. He announced last week that December 17 just might be the very last episode of "Timcast IRL," as he now lacks the funds to keep it going ever since he lost access to those sweet, sweet Kremlin dollars. "At what point do we say we can't do this anymore? The cost of running "Tim Cast IRL' studio and the projects around it exceeds the amount of money it brings in," he explained last week. "That's just that breaking point, isn't…...

24+ min ago (1083+ words) By Nora Gilbert, University of North Texas Along with millions of others, I'll soon be taking 2 hours and 10 minutes out of my busy holiday schedule to sit down and watch a movie I've seen countless times before: Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," which tells the story of a man's existential crisis one Christmas Eve in the fictional town of Bedford Falls. There are lots of reasons why this eight-decade-old film still resonates, from its nostalgic pleasures to its cultural critiques. But when I watch it this year, the sequence where Bedford Falls transforms into the dark and dystopian "Pottersville" will resonate the most. An angel named Clarence is tasked with pulling George back from the brink. To stop him from attempting suicide, Clarence decides to show George what life would have been like if he'd never been born. In…...

24+ min ago (540+ words) A server from Phoenix, Arizona, says her table of five mysteriously disappeared as she brought them their bill. However, they come back and leave no tip because she assumed they dined and dashed. In a video with over 514,000 views, TikToker Shannon Marie (@shaanmarie) recounts an awkward situation she encountered at her serving job. "The table consisted of a mom and her four kids. Her kids were probably high school or college age," she says. Marie notes that the family sat outside on the restaurant's patio near an exit gate. At the end of their meal, Marie cleans up and goes to print the family's $400 bill. However, they aren't sitting at the table when she returns. "I am gone for all of 45 seconds," she explains. "They are not there. Their stuff is not there." Marie turns to the table next to…...

28+ min ago (922+ words) She called it a "garbage bill" that she refused to vote for. Anti-LGBTQ+ Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) is enraged over the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the House recently approved and which has toned down some of the anti-trans provisions from the original legislation. Boebert called the recently released negotiated draft " the result of negotiations after the House and Senate each approved their own versions " a "garbage bill" that she refused to vote for. "The House passed a strong bill. What's coming back is a woke, pork-stuffed betrayal of our troops and our country," she wrote, decrying the fact that it "funds DEI madness" and "still forces women in our military to compete against (and shower with) biological men pretending to be women." While the most recent version of the bill still contains anti-trans riders,…...

29+ min ago (195+ words) The mockumentary from Aidan Zamiri hits theaters on Jan. 30, 2026 "The Moment" has finally arrived " or, at least, its full trailer has. "Hi, it's Charli XCX. Are you having a Brat Summer? I'm sorry, what is it again?" the mock version of the pop star asks atop A24's Thursday teaser. "Don't you just think the whole "Keep having a Brat Summer' thing is a bit cringe?" And with that, Aidan Zamiri's musical mockumentary is off. The trailer pokes plenty of fun at the 2024 album rollout/cultural moment that was "Brat," while also introducing audiences to Alexander Skarsg'rd, Hailey Benton Gates, Rachel Sennott, Jamie Demetriou, Kate Berlant and Rosanna Arquette's characters. Plus, Kylie Jenner. The movie was directed by Aidan Zamiri and written by Zamiri and Bertie Brandes, with Charli XCX producing alongside David Hinojosa. Naturally, the music comes from A.G. Cook. The official…...