Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal Chris Taylor, the Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court, is projected to defeat Maria Lazar, the Republican-backed candidate, expanding the Court’s liberal majority, per the Associated Press. Taylor’s win represents the fourth straight victory for Democratic-backed candidates in the state’s high court elections. The outcome is in keeping with polls over the last few months, which consistently showed Taylor running ahead of Lazar, as well as Taylor’s fundraising and ad spending advantage over Lazar throughout the campaign cycle. That, coupled with liberal candidates’ double-digit victories in the last three state Supreme Court races, had Wisconsin Democrats…

Sky York Journal Data shared earlier this week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection suggests the smallest and most vulnerable importers are being left behind in the early stages of the tariff refund process. After the Supreme Court overturned most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which the president issued under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA, Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade mandated that the federal government repay American importers for tariffs collected under the statute. CBP wrote in an early March court filing that there were about 330,000 importers eligible for a slice of…

Sky York Journal The hard right has long wanted to end birthright citizenship in the United States. The view only came into vogue with the Republican mainstream — and entered the White House — in the last decade. But the policy cannot escape its origins: In adopting the view that birthright citizenship should end, the Trump administration and its allies put forth arguments and language long used by nativists and white supremacists to push for a transformation of American citizenship. Its yet another reflection of how anti-birthright citizenship advocates, long relegated to the fringe, are, under Trump II, reveling in…

Sky York Journal The conservative justices on Wednesday were, at times, appropriately skeptical of the Trump administration’s patched-together attempt to undermine birthright citizenship, a bedrock of American life for well over a century. That they treated his theory as legitimate at all is a sign of how amenable they are to President Trump’s whims, given that his argument directly contradicts Supreme Court precedent and subsequent congressional action.  Still, all but Justice Samuel Alito seemed to find it tough to swallow a new conception of citizenship that would exclude the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visitors based on their insufficient…

Sky York Journal Congressional Republicans have been musing about the possibility of a second reconciliation package for some time now. The conversations picked up recently after Senate Republicans tried to convince President Donald Trump to drop his objections on a possible Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding deal, promising the president that they will pass the SAVE America Act through the reconciliation process — as a way to circumvent the filibuster. So far, Republicans have said they want to include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — and possibly even all of DHS — the Department of Defense (DoD)…

Sky York Journal As DHS officers flooded into Minneapolis on an early December day, Mahamed Eydarus was out with his mom, shoveling snow.  In a subsequent declaration filed in a lawsuit, Eydarus would detail what unfolded over the next few minutes: An unmarked car suddenly drove up. A group of masked men wearing vests labeled “POLICE” and patches labeled “ICE” exited, and began questioning him and his mother: could they produce citizenship documents to prove that they were “not illegal”?  For Eydarus, a 25-year-old Somali-American U.S. citizen, the experience was harrowing. But amid the stress, he noticed that two men…

Sky York Journal The Supreme Court will consider President Trump’s effort to rewrite who gets to be an American citizen Wednesday, an attempt to pervert the Constitution and law that was born in the far-right fever swamp.  In Trump v. Barbara, the Trump administration is trying to erase the 14th Amendment’s promise of birthright citizenship to anyone born on American soil, with very narrow exceptions. The Supreme Court has already upheld that interpretation of the Citizenship Clause, and Congress has codified it in law multiple times.  Trump wants to exclude “temporary visitors” and “illegal aliens” from that sacred right, questioning…

Sky York Journal This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. At the Department of Agriculture’s research division, everyone knows there’s one word they should never say, according to Ethan Roberts. “The forbidden C-word” — climate. Roberts, union president at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois, has worked for the federal government for nearly a decade. In that time, the physical science technician has weathered several political administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first term. None compare to what’s happening now.  The sweeping transformation became apparent last March, after a memo…

Sky York Journal March 2026 was a big month for anyone keeping tabs on the increasingly important intersection between the Trump administration and combat sports.  On March 11, FBI Director Kash Patel announced a partnership between his agency and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Less than two weeks later, on March 24, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Mixed Martial Arts fighter–turned–Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. TPM has been on top of all of this with original reporting on how Patel’s deal with the UFC raises legal and ethical questions and how the MMA…

Sky York Journal Shortly after President Donald Trump on Friday signed a presidential memo directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, a key House committee meeting descended into conspiracy theories as it debated whether to take action on a Senate bill that would do the same.  Trump’s executive action, on dubious authority, comes as the Senate-passed bill that would fund DHS without Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is stalled. “America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point,” Trump declared in the memo authorizing the payments. “I…