Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal Things got really weird during President Donald Trump’s big speech on “election security” Thursday night.  The centerpiece of the event was a document dump that was posted to the White House website, which Trump claimed to summarize during his televised primetime address. The supposed evidence contained in the reams of pdfs included a wild anecdote about the iconic 1990s computer shooter game “Doom” that underscored just how far the president was reaching as he tried to substantiate his theories.   In the address to the nation, which was only carried by some networks, Trump reiterated his thoroughly debunked…

Sky York Journal As a smoke jumper, Sam Forstag fought a relentless game of inches.  The job is a hard one. Firefighters who parachute in when blazes break out deep in the forest need to build a barrier to beat back the flames. They use chainsaws and other tools to cut down to the hard mineral soil, creating a fire line with no fuel to keep feeding the inferno. It’s grueling work that can be set back in an instant by a fresh bolt of lightning. And Forstag learned all too well that, even when the forecast seems set to…

Sky York Journal Blanche’s Top Prosecutor of Political Violence Marched at Jan. 6 TPM’s Josh Kovensky revealed yesterday that a top federal prosecutor heading up the Trump DOJ’s task force on political violence marched on January 6. At least one image TPM reviewed showed him in an area outside the Capitol that was restricted, but that Trump supporters nonetheless stormed into, a lead prosecutor in the DOJ’s since-disbanded Capitol Siege Section told Josh. The DOJ told us that Lynch “was present but never entered the capitol, left the grounds after a brief period, and did not commit and was never…

Sky York Journal Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton Are on the Hill Two figures who will play decisive roles in the future of the Trump retribution and election-meddling agenda will be on Capitol Hill for their Senate confirmation hearings today.  Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche will be before the Judiciary Committee for hearings Wednesday and Thursday. And Jay Clayton — Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence and the current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York — will be before the Intelligence Committee.  Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, has since January 2025 played a central role in…

Sky York Journal Its Time to Flood the Zone With Shit Again Trump announced Monday evening that he’s hauling out an old trick — the prime-time address — on Thursday at 9 p.m. What will the topic be? “Just gonna be a speech like a lot of my speeches,” he told Hugh Hewitt on Monday. Indeed.  MS Now reported last night that the president, joined by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, FBI Director Kash Patel and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, is expected to advance a new set of allegations — or, more likely,…

Sky York Journal Voter Suppression Looms Large in Push to Replace the Senator We heard a lot in the day after Lindsey Graham died at 71 about the way in which the senator played a key roll for the White House, explaining how the Senate worked to Trump. Given the president’s recent, monomaniacal focus on passing the SAVE America Act, the voter suppression legislation was, apparently, a key component of that relationship. “He literally called me about the SAVE America Act,” Trump told Meet the Press, describing his last call with Graham, which came hours before his death. “Think of…

Sky York Journal Trump Fires Three EAC Commissioners A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court handed down a pair of decisions finding that 1. Trump could exert tremendous control over independent executive branch agencies, including firing their commissioners and 2. the Fed, also an independent agency, was different. Since then, the question of where Trump would strike first has lingered. Now we know. Last night, Trump forced out all remaining commissioners atop the Election Assistance Commission — two Democrats and a Republican — just months before the midterms. In a statement to ProPublica, an unnamed White House official gestured toward…

Sky York Journal This article first appeared at ProPublica. President Donald Trump has pushed out the three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, leaving the bipartisan agency in limbo as he rushes to remake how elections are run before this year’s midterms. Trump fired Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, the Democrats on the commission, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ProPublica, which was the first to report the actions on its social media accounts. Christy McCormick, the Republican, was allowed to resign, the sources said. The commission’s unprecedented dismantling alarmed voter advocacy groups and Democratic state election officials,…

Sky York Journal Maine Dems Piece Together Plan to Help Party Hold Senate Graham Platner is finally out. In a defiant statement last night, he once again denied the sexual assault allegations against him, but conceded what his allies had been telling him for days: it was time to leave the race. He called for an “open” and “democratic” process to replace him, Kate Riga reports. The Maine Democratic State Committee voted overwhelmingly to hold a 600-person nominating convention, according to the Portland Press Herald, which broke the news. MS NOW reported that, per one proposal discussed Wednesday, county committees…

Sky York Journal In an increasingly ominous trend, there are currently hundreds of election deniers on the ballot for the 2026 midterm elections. And although history has shown election denialism is not a winning campaign strategy, it continues to be a powerful force in the right-wing movement, from President Donald Trump on down.  According to the nonpartisan non-profit States United Action, there are at least 140 election deniers currently running for statewide and congressional office. In statewide races, there are at least 42 election deniers running in 23 states. And in congressional races, there are at least 98 election deniers…