Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal President Donald Trump’s signature economic policy hit another brick wall Thursday evening when the Court of International Trade overturned new tariffs Trump enacted to replace the tariffs blocked by the Supreme Court. The Court of International Trade Chief Judge Mark A. Barnett and Judge Claire R. Kelly ruled Trump’s Section 122 tariffs were unlawful. They ordered a permanent injunction to begin within five days and directed the government to refund the small businesses that sued the Trump administration for any tariffs they’ve already paid, plus interest. Senior Judge Timothy C. Stanceu dissented. On a press call Thursday…

Sky York Journal Sebastian Gorka released a new counterterrorism strategy on Wednesday, singling out “violent left-wing extremists,” “extreme transgender ideologies,” and “violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.” As with much that comes out of the Trump administration, the messenger needs to be taken into account with the message. At a press briefing on Wednesday, Gorka replied to a question about what impact the Iran war might have on terrorist threats by calling critics of the war “testicularly challenged,” describing it as a “low-T approach to threats to the United States.” Low-T refers to low…

Sky York Journal In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s redistricting failure in Indiana, he vowed political retribution against Republican state senators who refused to cave to his pressure to gerrymander maps in their state. The results of Tuesday’s primaries in Indiana show Indiana voters may still be influenced by Trump’s rhetoric and his broader campaign to gerrymander maps ahead of the midterms.  Trump endorsed primary challengers against seven different incumbent Republican candidates in Indiana’s state Senate primary races on Tuesday night. The Trump-backed challengers won in at least five of those races, as of this publishing Tuesday evening. Following…

Sky York Journal In the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling this week that struck down Louisiana’s second Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana v. Callais and dealt a devastating blow to the Voting Rights Act, limiting the use of consideration of race in future maps, Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has suspended this month’s already-active congressional primary election to give lawmakers time to pass new gerrymandered maps ahead of the midterms.  Over 100,000 mail-in ballots have already been sent out and absentee ballots have already been cast for the state’s primary congressional election, which was set to take place on…

Sky York Journal The Trump administration is trying to wriggle out of a legal requirement to end its war with Iran, experts told TPM — and to do so, it’s trying to convince everyone to focus on the wrong thing. On Friday afternoon, the White House told Congress that as far as it was concerned, the war had been “terminated” by a ceasefire, which began on April 7 and has since been extended.  It’s a version of the claim Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth rolled out before Congress earlier this week, stating that the administration’s ceasefire with Iran stops the…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. President Donald Trump on Thursday withdrew his nomination of Casey Means, a wellness influencer, for surgeon general after key Senate Republicans declined to support her. Means, a doctor without an active medical license, had been poised to elevate Trump’s vague but politically potent message to “Make America Healthy Again” and alternative forms of medicine. Pulling her nomination represents a defeat for the president and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,…

Sky York Journal With a hard deadline bearing down on them, Trump and his allies are scrambling for a way to argue that contrary to the shooting, ship boardings, and an ongoing naval blockade, the U.S. is not engaged in hostilities with Iran.  These increasingly fantastical rhetorical sleights of hand are coming because of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a law mandating that a president must withdraw from a conflict 60 days after notifying Congress that American forces are fighting. The administration will slam into that 60-day deadline on Friday.  It’s a rare example of the White House and…

Sky York Journal On the same day that Trump’s nominee for Fed chair advanced after a long stalemate, the current chair made clear that Trump’s bid for control over the central bank still had a long way to go.  Kevin Warsh’s nomination for Federal Reserve Chair advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday along party lines after his first nomination hearing before the crucial panel ended without a vote. With a 13-11 vote, Warsh’s nomination was able to move out of committee. Every Democrat voted “no by proxy,” except Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who voted no in person. …

Sky York Journal The Supreme Court exposed the grisly underpinning of the Trump administration Wednesday as it ruled to subordinate minority voters to white ones, and seemed ready to allow the government to summarily end protected status for endangered refugees.  The administration is an amicus supporting Louisiana in Louisiana v. Callais — a landmark ruling in which the Supreme Court made the Voting Rights Act dead letter — and the petitioner in the consolidated cases Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, a challenge to the Department of Homeland Security’s abrupt ending of the temporary protective status of Haitian and…

Sky York Journal As the Trump administration puts the finishing touches on its plans to bury the remains of USAID, it’s running into a final problem.  It plans to use money that Congress appropriated for global health to cover the costs of shutting down USAID, Senate Democrats said in a Friday letter. That means redirecting funds meant for fighting HIV, malaria, and more to instead pay for the aftermath of the agency destruction, a move that the letter describes as an “illegal impoundment.” The Democrats, led by the Senate Appropriations Committee’s State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee’s Ranking Member Sen. Brian…