Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal Census Bureau officials last Sunday conceded that a new rule banning certain privacy protection methods will make it impossible for the agency to publish data that it has historically released, a development that could especially harm minority groups. Representatives of the bureau, however, denied that the policy change had political objectives, though experts and advocacy groups believe it does. Officials from the Census Bureau spoke publicly at a major statistical conference, answering questions about a policy shift first outlined in a June memo issued by the Commerce Department. The memo banned an umbrella of statistical privacy protection tools…

Sky York Journal Missouri Republicans have been transparent about their strategy to drag out the response to a challenge to their new 7-1 congressional map, with state Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) saying publicly during a radio interview earlier this year that “delay works in our favor.”  Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) proclaimed a petition voters brought to trigger a statewide veto vote on the new map “insufficient” Tuesday, claiming that it is unconstitutional to challenge gerrymanders under the referendum process. People Not Politicians, the group that organized the petition and sent in “over three times” the number of…

Sky York Journal The group behind an effort to force a statewide vote on Missouri Republicans’ 7-1 gerrymander filed a new lawsuit Tuesday night challenging the Secretary of State’s finding earlier in the day that its petition is “insufficient.”  Missouri law lets voters block legislation if they gather enough signatures on a petition and win a subsequent statewide vote. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R), who dragged the certification process out as long as legally possible — until Missouri’s primary day Tuesday — said that the petition was insufficient not because of the number of signatures turned in, but because,…

Sky York Journal President Donald Trump went off on a long, strange tangent where repeatedly expressed revulsion at the state of “blue cities” during an event in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon. “What do they have in common? They’re all dirty. They’re filthy, dirty,” Trump said, adding, “Their streets are dirty. Their streets smell. Their storefronts are broken. Their trees are all gross. Everything about the place is dirty.” Trump went on to specify that he didn’t “want to mention any specific city.” “It’s really all of them,” he said.  Trump’s attack on the homes of a large segment…

Sky York Journal A new report from Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) details shocking allegations about the conditions inside an ICE detention facility in Texas. The report, which was published on Friday, was based on interviews Senate staff conducted with “approximately 20 family units and approximately 40 women detained in the adult detention unit” at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, it said. In a statement released along with the report, Durbin described the findings as part of “an ongoing investigation into medical and mental health care” in immigration detention facilities. He also called for the…

Sky York Journal The right-wing media machine is salivating over its newest anti-trans storyline, served up by Sophie Cunningham, a guard on the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.  Cunningham, long nicknamed “MAGA barbie” by W fans, has 3 million followers on TikTok and a predilection for reposting content starkly to the right of the famously progressive, activist league (she says her politics are “very much in the middle”). She hasn’t disavowed her adoption as a poster child by Republican officials, saying after the Trump White House used a meme of her taunting another player earlier this month: “I think everyone around the…

Sky York Journal The increasingly acrimonious Senate primary between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and public health official Abdul El-Sayed draws to a close next week, and with it, the biggest battle yet of the moderates versus progressives proxy war. It’s a perfect microcosm of the debate roiling the Democratic Party. Stevens, a moderate four-term congresswoman who flipped a previously red seat in 2018, would have once played as the obvious pick for a purple state. El-Sayed, whose only electoral experience is his 2018 loss to now Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and who espouses a lefty platform endorsed by Congress’ most…

Sky York Journal Trump’s new Federal Reserve Board Chair Kevin Warsh took two missteps in two opposite directions during and after yesterday’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rate decision. And it wasn’t necessarily the board’s choice to hold interest rates steady — a decision that was mostly expected given current economic conditions — that most rankled markets and economists. Rather, it was both what Warsh said, and also what he didn’t say, that put a diverse set of central bank stakeholders on alert. When the FOMC on Wednesday issued its second rate decision since Warsh began leading the agency in…

Sky York Journal Good morning. It was great to meet all of you who came out to our event in New York last night with Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket. Trump Tries to Raise the Stakes on SAVE Again President Donald Trump made a show yesterday afternoon of preparing to throw Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to the wolves out of frustration that the SAVE Act is not yet on track to pass in any form. The latest push is to jam parts of the bill through using budget reconciliation, which requires 51 instead of 60 votes, though Trump…

Sky York Journal This story was originally published by ProPublica In a private ceremony on Sept. 17, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a podium inside the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., and praised a Florida nonprofit for what he called a singular achievement in American education. The attendees were celebrating the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness, which announced that it had reached 2 million children with civics education since its founding in 2016. “I hope you understand how important this is,” Hegseth told the room. “What we pour into the next generation will determine whether we keep…