Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Friday to stop Alaska from certifying the winner of the state’s Senate election if Mary Peltola (D) unseats Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) in a close race. It’s the first instance of the DOJ intervening to block the certification of a Senate race to help a losing Republican. In this case, it’s entirely preemptive: the election has not happened yet, though polls project a tight race in Alaska and a series of tight Senate races that could result in a close majority for whichever party wins. Here, the DOJ argues…

Sky York Journal The Ramaswamy campaign’s new ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s mother, in which she repeatedly denounces her daughter as a liar, is making Republicans squirm even in this era of Trump-inflected gutter politics. Acton and her mother have been estranged for decades since her mother’s husband — her stepfather — was indicted for raping Acton when she was a child.  Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and Sen. Jon Husted (R) — who is currently running against Sherrod Brown on the same ticket as gubernatorial candidate Ramaswamy — all said they wouldn’t have…

Sky York Journal There’s a lot to pay attention to this year. With Democrats putting up seemingly fantastical numbers in the polls, the map is expanded in ways that no one thought possible a year ago. Is Texas in play? Is Kansas? Looming over it is Trump’s cult of personality, and the lie that any election in which he or his allies run, they win. This list is an attempt to pinpoint races that tell the story of where America is at this November, explain why, from TPM’s perspective, these races matter, and look ahead to the conversation we’ll be…

Sky York Journal This article first appeared at ProPublica. A few months into President Donald Trump’s second term, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security made an unusual request of its agency focused on cybersecurity: Secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it. The appointees wanted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to procure the machine, examine it and report back the findings so they could be given to the White House, according to two former administration officials with knowledge of the request.  The proposition was shocking to CISA’s career staffers, according to one of the former officials. CISA…

Sky York Journal Bernadette Greene-Placentia would like you to know the story of her rape is not an “October Surprise.”  She did not conspire with the media to publish the graphic details of her sexual assault on the same day early voting ballots were sent out to voters in Arizona. Her harrowing account of being bludgeoned and violated by two men in the middle of the night in a suburban parking lot is not a “hoax” she concocted to win over voters’ sympathies. Her fragmented memories of the attack, and her initial reluctance to go to authorities, are not evidence…

Sky York Journal Most American households were not eagerly awaiting a set of tax data that was supposed to come out from the Internal Revenue Service in July. Now the data is missing, with little explanation — and that’s attracting growing attention. The Statistics of Income publication is a standard release, dropped on the IRS website at predictable intervals. It contains information about what tax breaks different income levels are making use of. Delays are typically accompanied by some sort of more or less reasonable explanation. July’s publication, had it been released, would have shown some of the earliest indications of…

Sky York Journal This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive their stories in your inbox every week. Some 86 years ago, Missouri voters enshrined a system for selecting top judges that would remove political influence from the courts. And almost immediately, it came under attack. Under what has come to be known as the Missouri Plan, lawyers help choose a slate of three candidates from which the governor must make an appointment for the state Supreme Court, appeals courts…

Sky York Journal Bobby Pulido is in the middle of everything.  The famed Tejano singer is trying his hand at politics in his home state of Texas, which is a crucial part of Democrats’ pathway to a potential House majority in Washington. And the blue wave that has made those lofty ambitions more and more realistic has been partially fueled by Latino voters’ shift away from President Donald Trump amid mounting anger with ICE and his mass deportation agenda.  The House seat Pulido is running for is located along the U.S. border with Mexico and home to a population that…

Sky York Journal The Trump administration has flailed at each of its major priorities. That includes, so far, its attempt to instill effective authoritarian rule: the Alien Enemies Act removals, the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, the occupations of Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and others — they’re all marred by the same incompetence. The buffoonery on display would be funny were it not so dangerous: it’s left lives ruined, and people killed. In the case of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), it’s threatening to strip naturalized citizens of basic constitutional rights. I’ve spent the last two years writing about the Trump administration’s…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Shefali Luthra of The 19th. Meet Shefali and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. Republicans running for governor across the country are backing away from abortion bans they once endorsed. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, calls his state’s 20-week abortion limit “settled law.” Just three years ago, he co-sponsored a bill that would have banned abortion six weeks into pregnancy. Stacy Garrity, the GOP’s candidate in Pennsylvania, has said during her campaign that she would “respect” the state’s current law, which…