Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. The beneficiaries of President Donald Trump’s mercy in his second term have mostly been people with access to the president or his inner circle. Those who have followed the rules set out by the Department of Justice, meanwhile, are still waiting. Trump has granted clemency to allies, donors and culture-war figures — as well as felons who, like him, were convicted of financial wrongdoing. On Friday, he…

Sky York Journal As President Donald Trump’s deadline for a massive budget bill drew near early in the summer, Republican Senate leadership needed to corral the support of some members of the conference. The bill would help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy partly through cuts to Medicaid and needed nearly all Republican votes to pass. The impact on rural hospitals, analysts warned, would be severe. But Republican leadership was able to win over key votes by directing a small slice of money to a “rural hospital fund.” Now, all 50 states are now vying for a piece of…

Sky York Journal ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. This article is co-published with Fort Worth Report and The Texas Tribune as part of an initiative to report on how power is wielded in Texas. Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline’s energy was palpable as he gazed out from the video on the computer screen, grinning ear to ear, the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up.  The Republican legislator from Fort Worth had a message to share with people watching the prerecorded video: As a Christian, you have an essential…

Sky York Journal After 40 days of the government shutdown — in which Democrats incessantly demanded Republicans get on board with their effort to protect the expiring Obamacare subsidies — at least 8 Senate Democrats appear to be prepared to break ranks with their caucus Sunday night, setting in motion an end to the shutdown without a promise of extending said tax credits. Sens. Angus King (D-ME), John Fetterman (D-PA) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) have already been voting in favor of the GOP CR for weeks. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) released a statement on Sunday saying he will be…

Sky York Journal It’s been a journey with Greg Bovino over the past few months. We’ve learned a lot: He dislikes protestors. He likes “state instruments of hard power.” And, per a recent deposition video taken in a Chicago case, he takes his orders directly from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Bovino has spent the past year rocketing up the Trump administration’s publicity rankings, going from an obscure posting along the U.S.-Mexico border to one of the most visible hype men for a mass deportation campaign. Under Bovino’s lead, in California and in Chicago, these operations have trained their focus on…

Sky York Journal Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on President Donald Trump’s use of an emergency declaration to apply steep, worldwide tariffs saw liberal justices — and a former Obama-era acting solicitor general, arguing for the plaintiffs — somewhat trollishly embrace two legal theories most often deployed by the court’s right-leaning justices: the so-called major questions and nondelegation doctrines. Both theories, in recent years, have been invoked by the conservative majority with increasing frequency as it struck down actions by Democratic presidents and their executive branch regulatory agencies. Throughout arguments Wednesday, the liberals sought to convince the conservative justice most…

Sky York Journal Emboldened by Tuesday’s Election Night wins for Democratic candidates and causes across the nation, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Wednesday renewed their request for a meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss the ongoing shutdown — which is on its 36th day, now making it the longest government shutdown in U.S. history  “We write to demand a bipartisan meeting of legislative leaders to end the GOP shutdown of the federal government and decisively address the Republican health care crisis,” Schumer and Jeffries wrote in a Wednesday letter to…

Sky York Journal All kinds of Democrats won all kinds of races Tuesday night, as the party swept governors’ mansions, clinched the New York mayorship and is in the fight for an improbable Miami one, ran up huge margins in state legislatures, dominated critical judicial elections and cruised to victory in California’s redistricting initiative.  Races thought to be nailbiters transformed into blowouts; Mikie Sherrill, who polls showed leading Jack Ciattarelli by a paltry single-digit margin, is up 13 percent with nearly all of the vote counted.  The blue tsunami washed up on purple shores, with two Democrats winning spots on…

Sky York Journal In the first substantial blow to the Trump administration’s redistricting power grab in red states across the country, California voters on Tuesday approved a proposal to redraw the state’s congressional district lines. Governor Gavin Newsom and state Democrats pushed the measure to help offset Trump’s nationwide gerrymandering blitz in red states. The ballot measure’s success was clear nearly immediately after polls closed on the west coast. The AP called the race at 11 p.m. ET. The ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, was spearheaded by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and was introduced earlier this year. Trump…

Sky York Journal On Tuesday, Maine voters rejected Question 1, a Republican-backed measure primarily about voter ID, that, if approved, would have restricted absentee voting and ballot access and disenfranchised eligible voters. Supporters of the measure insist these changes are necessary for election security, while voting rights activists argue that the new law is merely a form of voter suppression and a way to cast doubt on the security of an already-secure election system.  The attempt to change Maine’s voting policies came as the state is poised to host one of the most significant Senate contests of next year’s midterms.…