Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal In a bizarre court filing last week, the Justice Department conceded that in March 2025, two members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team who were working at the Social Security Administration were in touch with an advocacy group that hoped to “find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States.” The DOJ says in the filing that one of these DOGE staffers signed a “Voter Data Agreement” with the advocacy group, and may have sought to use Social Security data to analyze state voter rolls as a way to search for instances of voter…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Candice Norwood of The 19th. Meet Candice and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. A mother shoved to the ground in front of her children in the hallways of a immigration courthouse in New York. A young woman pulled from her car and handcuffed on a busy street in Key Largo, Florida. A child care worker dragged out of her workplace in Chicago, in front of parents and children. A pregnant woman yanked by one arm through the snowy streets of Minneapolis.  In each of these cases,…

Sky York Journal President Donald Trump launched his second term by seeking to usurp Congress’ authority and challenge a nearly century-old legal precedent that shields independent executive branch agencies and the congressionally-confirmed officers who lead them from presidential overreach. In late January, Trump removed Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board and fired two commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In February, he dismissed a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board. And in March, he axed two commissioners from the Federal Trade Commission.  Nearly a year after this push began, the Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear…

Sky York Journal The Hechinger Report covers one topic: education. Sign up for our newsletters to have stories delivered to your inbox. Consider becoming a member to support our nonprofit journalism. LUBBOCK, Texas — The meeting of the local NAACP chapter began with a prayer — and then the litany of injustices came pouring out. A Black high school football player was called a “b—h-ass” n-word during a game by white players in September with no consequence, his mom said. A Black 12-year-old boy, falsely accused last December of touching a white girl’s breast, was threatened and interrogated by a police officer at school without his parents and…

Sky York Journal On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether President Trump can continue his rampage through the federal government by removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook without due process, giving the executive unprecedented power over the nation’s premier financial institution.  Trump has since his first term openly tried to manipulate Federal Reserve governors into cutting interest rates, seemingly to benefit his own political and business interests and those of his allies. He’s taken unprecedented steps to apply pressure, including trying to remove Cook on a manufactured allegation of mortgage fraud and arguing with Federal Reserve…

Sky York Journal The Trump administration has flooded Minneapolis with thousands of immigration enforcement officials who have killed, shot and brutalized its inhabitants. Protests have ramped up accordingly. Videos show ICE officers using force against the protesters, in some cases reportedly taunting them with ICE officer Jonathan Ross’ killing of U.S. citizen Renee Good last week. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) has put the National Guard on standby.  And Thursday morning, President Trump posted on Truth Social: “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E.,…

Sky York Journal The Trump administration’s pressure campaign to get red states across the country to engage in midcycle redistricting has hit another roadblock.   A panel of federal judges rejected a Trump DOJ and California Republican Party request to block California’s new map on Wednesday — once again calling into question the efficacy of the Trump administration’s larger gerrymandering crusade. And although Republicans may appeal, experts tell TPM that given the precedent of a recent Supreme Court ruling upholding Texas’ gerrymandered map, it would be unusual for the Supreme Court to step in.  In a 2-1 ruling on Wednesday, a panel…

Sky York Journal A 2-1 conservative majority on a federal appeals panel on Thursday reversed a ruling that had blocked federal officers from arresting Mahmoud Khalil, handing the Trump administration a win in its effort to crack down on and in some cases remove pro-Palestinian voices from the country. The ruling is unlikely to take immediate effect, as attorneys for Khalil are expected to ask a full session of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case. But it marks a defeat for the pro-Palestine activist, whose nighttime detention by ICE agents last year over his pro-Palestine advocacy…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Marissa Martinez of The 19th. Meet Marissa and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. A week after an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fatally shot a Minneapolis woman, half of American women are in favor of abolishing the law enforcement agency altogether, according to one new poll.  Dismantling ICE was a policy embraced by a number of Democratic politicians under President Donald Trump’s first administration, particularly the progressive Squad made up largely of women of color legislators. But whether to double down on a renewed…

Sky York Journal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson bemoaned in a dissent that the Court’s majority had, in a Wednesday opinion, crafted a “bespoke” doctrine allowing candidates to challenge voting laws with far more leeway than it had even been willing to give victims of law enforcement violence. She wrote that the plaintiff in Los Angeles v. Lyons had sued “forty-some years ago,” seeking a ban on life-threatening chokeholds after having been subjected to one by the police that almost killed him. The Court in 1983 found that Adolph Lyons didn’t have enough of a reason to believe that he’d be…