Author: Darnell Thompkins

Rep. Jasmine Crockett told a national audience that shifting population figures give Democrats a real shot in the Texas Senate race, leaning heavily on race and Census numbers rather than policy or persuasive arguments. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Rep. Jasmine Crockett advanced a demographic argument for Democrats’ chances in Texas that focused on raw population growth and racial breakdowns. She listed specific figures about recent growth and used them as the basis for predicting political change. The segment relied more on arithmetic than on a discussion of policies that might win votes. Host Joe Scarborough set the stage by recalling…

The Supreme Court, in Learning Resources v. Trump, issued a 6-3 decision rejecting President Trump’s asserted authority to reimpose tariffs after he returned to office, a ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts that split the court along familiar lines with a three-justice conservative dissent. The court’s decision in Learning Resources v. Trump knocks a tool out of the presidential toolkit that conservative voters have long seen as essential for protecting American industry. The ruling says the specific legal power the president claimed to use to reimpose tariffs does not survive the way it was applied this time. That outcome…

Stephen Colbert staged a public censorship crisis after CBS pulled a TV broadcast of James Talarico over the FCC equal-time rule, but the real harm fell on Jasmine Crockett, the Black Democrat who was never offered equal time while the episode went viral and raised millions for Talarico. Last week Stephen Colbert stood before his studio audience and told a story about censorship, claiming the “most powerful man in the country” had reached in and killed an interview and that the First Amendment was under assault. The line played like a civic emergency, with outrage baked into the monologue. It…

The White House is crafting a plan to make large tech firms cover the full costs of running AI data centers—paying for electricity, water, and the strain on the grid—while insisting those who create demand also build the supply. The administration’s framework, as described by trade adviser Peter Navarro, aims to stop ratepayers from subsidizing Silicon Valley’s energy needs. Officials want companies that consume massive power for artificial intelligence to bear the entire bill for their operations and the local infrastructure impacts. That direction emerged in public comments and intergovernmental agreements this winter, signaling a shift toward accountability for externalities.…

Russian athletes will return to the Paralympics under their own flag, and the national anthem will be played for gold medalists — a first in over ten years that raises questions about sport, sanction policy, and international reaction. The decision to allow Russia to compete under its own flag marks a clear break from the restrictions that kept its athletes separated from national symbols for years. Many people see this as a signal that the international sports landscape is shifting, whatever else it may mean for broader politics. The move is likely to have wide-ranging effects on athlete morale and…

Five years after Warren Buffett sold Berkshire Hathaway’s newspapers and predicted steady declines for the sector, the company revealed a fresh $350 million investment in the industry, signaling a notable shift from exit to selective reengagement. In 2021 Warren Buffett concluded that newspapers faced long-term headwinds and moved Berkshire Hathaway away from the business entirely, selling the remaining media assets. That decision was accompanied by blunt forecasts about ongoing declines for most of the industry, and it seemed to close a chapter on Berkshire’s direct newspaper ownership. Now the company has disclosed a new $350 million commitment tied to the…

January’s consumer-price data show broad, tangible relief at the checkout, with 71 items dropping in price and core inflation easing to levels not seen since March 2021. Seventy-one goods and services fell in price in January, and core consumer prices were up just 2.5 percent from a year earlier, the lowest core rate since March 2021. Goods prices slid 0.1 percent month to month, and when food is excluded, goods fell by nearly half a percentage point in a single month. Those are not academic numbers — they translate into real breathing room for households that have been squeezed for…

A Dallas-area federal jury has indicted five people accused of defrauding customers of a cattle company of $220 million, according to court filings and local reports. A federal indictment returned this week names five individuals tied to a cattle business and alleges a loss to customers totaling $220 million. The case moved quickly into the public eye because of the scale of the alleged fraud and the involvement of multiple defendants from the same region. Prosecutors say the scheme targeted people who entrusted money to the cattle company, and those clients later discovered their investments were gone or misused. Court…

The latest disclosure about Nixon connects to modern concerns over the influence of a permanent bureaucracy and how it shapes politics today. The new revelation about Nixon ‘bears directly on allegations by President Trump and his supporters about the existence of what was once called the permanent bureaucracy, better known today as the “deep state.”‘ This development stokes a long-held Republican worry that unelected officials can steer policy and investigations without accountability. For decades critics on the right have argued that career bureaucrats can obstruct elected leaders and preserve institutional preferences that clash with voters. That friction is now getting…

Progressives who long pushed gun controls now praise aspects of the Second Amendment, but their policy instincts still clash with the amendment’s original purpose and practical realities. For years many on the left treated American gun owners as a political problem to be managed, and lately a surprising shift has emerged where some of those critics are suddenly pointing to the Constitution when it suits them. That turn is striking because it highlights the very reasons the founders protected the right to keep and bear arms, even if modern proposals from those same critics would hollow that protection out. The…