Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal ‘Yeah, That’s Not Going to Happen’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and other Senate Republicans are resisting two aspects of Donald Trump’s latest demand that they pass the SAVE Act voter suppression bill: they don’t want to give up or delay their August recess to do so, and they don’t want to nuke the filibuster. Scrapping the filibuster would allow the SAVE Act to pass with 51 instead of 60 votes. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Thune told ABC News yesterday. “If the result is only achieved by nuking the legislative filibuster, we don’t have…

Sky York Journal Hello there. We’re back after a week away. Administration Explains to Court How It Has Weaponized Federalism  It’s becoming a cliche, but this administration has the kind of scandal that took up years of the Nixon administration on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis.  The latest emerges in a New York Times article flagging a court filing in a dispute between the federal government and researchers who work on grant-funded projects. In a stipulation, the administration admits that funds for various Biden-era clean energy projects were withheld from blue states, and blue states alone.  “With one exception, the…

Sky York Journal A federal judge in Virginia ruled in favor of an abortion provider Thursday, finding that the Food and Drug Administration’s most recent set of restrictions on mifepristone isn’t justified by the data. Whole Woman’s Health, a reproductive health clinic in Alexandria, joined a rich history of medical organizations and providers challenging the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), some form of which has been imposed on mifepristone for years. In its most current iteration, formalized under the Biden administration in 2023, the agency lifted some crucial restrictions, allowing the drug to be prescribed over telehealth, dispensed by…

Sky York Journal President Donald Trump has made clear from very early in his second term that he intends to reorder global trade  by instilling permanent tariffs. More than a year later, his government has proven relentless in its attempt. Compounding the growing inflationary pressures from his ill-conceived war in Iran, Trump on Friday set a new round of tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on products from more than 80 countries. But like other aspects of the administration’s signature policies — from bogus Justice Department investigations to unfounded claims of widespread national voter fraud — the stated reasons behind…

Sky York Journal Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is on track to become the official Democratic Senate nominee as the Saturday convention will cap a surprisingly smooth process to replace Graham Platner. A fifth-generation logger, Jackson’s deep labor ties and union support helped him dominate the delegate nominating contests. His performance was so impressive that the other serious Maine Senate contenders — including former director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention Nirav Shah, who placed ahead of Jackson in the gubernatorial primary they both ran in this cycle — dropped out of the race. A planned debate was…

Sky York Journal Weeks after the Iran War began, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) predicted to TPM that it would become a billion-dollar-a-day “mess.” Now, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth taking to Capitol Hill to request almost $67 billion in supplemental war funding, Morelle says his fears have been confirmed. And though Morelle is a member of two key committees with oversight of the Pentagon, he claims Congress has been given little information about where all the money is going.  “We had Hegseth in front of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and he couldn’t give us an accounting and wouldn’t give…

Sky York Journal Almost five months into President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, the Trump administration still has not asked for authorization from Congress to continue hostilities. They, however, did present Congress with a supplemental request — which includes, among other things, an ask for $67.1 billion for the Department of Defense to fund Trump’s war. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday afternoon on the details of the Pentagon’s request. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) used a significant portion of her time asking Hegseth if the administration plans to use an Iran war supplemental…

Sky York Journal This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes. On July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a homebuilder in Houston, woke up before sunrise, ate breakfast prepared by his wife, and drove his construction crew to work. Around 6:50 AM, federal immigration agents surrounded Salgado Araujo’s van and shot him through an open window. Struck in the stomach, he died at a hospital a few hours later.  The Department of Homeland Security put out a statement that evening which claimed that immigration officers stopped Salgado Araujo’s van as part of a “targeted” operation,…

Sky York Journal By now, you may have heard that the company behind Truth Social, Trump Media and Technology Group, plans to sell extra-fast access to the most influential posts on the platform to high-paying clients. Trump is the most-followed person on Truth Social, and so the product, called Truth API, appears aimed at monetizing early access to Trump’s market-moving “truths,” selling it to Wall Street banks and trading firms. Outrage at the mind-boggling scheme was instantaneous. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called it “an egregious scheme to profit off the presidency and enrich Wall Street while doing nothing to help…

Sky York Journal Thanks for reading this last month as we soft-launch what we’re now calling “The Brief.” I’m taking a week off to bring my toddler to the beach. I’ll be back July 27. If you’re enjoying this morning dispatch, we’ll have the option for you to sign up for it as a newsletter by early August. See you all soon. Stay cool, and breathe fresh air if you can find any. Primetime Flop Trump’s election speech last night, which Democrats, election administrators, and Republican legislators were dreading (each for somewhat different reasons), was a dud. Trump insinuated, lied…