Politics

WASHINGTON — The fireworks began before Brett Kavanaugh said a word. On Monday morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee commenced its hearings on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. But what was expected to be an anticlimactic affair, with Republicans lobbing softball questions and Kavanaugh offering perfunctory pledges to respect precedence …

Maria Butina wants you to know she’s totally not a honeypot. Held without bail on charges that she worked as an illegal Russian agent, successfullyinfiltrating the NRA and high-level GOP circles in a conspiracy to “penetrate the U.S. national decision-making apparatus,” Butina is now seeking to be released to home …

It took 42 years for the United States to ratify the 19th Amendment, enshrining a woman’s right to vote. Between the time it was first introduced to Congress in 1878 and when it actually became law in 1920, the Panama Canal was built, nine states joined the unionand World War …

“Fourteen people came up to me and said you should be president,” says Melissa Murray, the interim dean of the Berkeley Law School. She is talking to Gavin Newsom, who just delivered the school’s commencement address. Newsom has been the mayor of San Francisco, and he’s currently lieutenant governor of …

Three years ago at the Kennedy Center Honors, a 73-year-old Aretha Franklin took the stage in a floor-length fur coat, sat down at the piano and brought President Obama to tears. Her performance of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” was so rousing that it elicited a standing …

Update: The Associated Pressreported on Tuesday that the Trump campaign is filing arbitration action against Omarosa for breaching a confidentiality agreement signed prior to joining the campaign in 2016. Though she signed a confidentiality agreement covering her time on the campaign, she did not sign one prior to joining the …

Few Senate Republicans have been as critical of President Trump as Jeff Flake. This isn’t saying much, but the outgoing Arizona lawmaker has spoken out against the president on several issues, from his trade war, to his attacks on the media, to his “shameful” press conference alongside Russia’s Vladimir Putin. …

The Trump child-separation horror is far from over. According to the government’s own numbers, released late last week, as many as 3,000 children were yet to be reunited with their parents. On Tuesday, the administration failed to comply with a court order to return all children under the age of …

Michael Cohen has had a lot of time to think since April 9th, the day federal agents raided his office, apartment and hotel room. For the past few months, Donald Trump’s former legal counsel and “fixer” has been holed up in a Manhattan hotel room, presumably mulling over whether to …

Few were surprised that Trump bungled his much-hyped summit with Kim Jong-un. And, as expected, the president emerged from Singapore singing the praises of the North Korean dictator, as he has done after meeting with other authoritarian leaders around the world. What’s mind-boggling is the extreme degree to which Trump …