Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Brooke Migdon of The 19th. Meet Brooke and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. Legislatures in left-leaning states have consistently rejected bills that would bar transgender student-athletes from participating in sports in line with their gender identity. But this November, the question of whether to exclude them will go straight to voters in two blue states, Colorado and Washington, and one swing state, Arizona. The groups behind the ballot measures say they see energy behind the issue, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last week…

Sky York Journal A U.S. district judge on Thursday blocked the crux of President Donald Trump’s March executive order, which ordered the creation of a federal citizen list and dictated to whom the Postal Service can send absentee ballots. Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee in Massachusetts, found that those components of the order exceed the president’s power and enjoined them for the plaintiff states. Those states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Josh Shapiro in his…

Sky York Journal President Donald Trump unexpectedly cancelled his own signing ceremony for the overwhelmingly bipartisan housing bill Wednesday morning due to his obsession with disenfranchising voters ahead of the midterms.  In a Truth Social post Wednesday morning Trump declared he would not be signing the bill into law until Congress passes “the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.” He’s spoken in dire terms about the SAVE America Act before, but the “National Emergency” line set off alarm bells among voting rights advocates as Trump continues to threaten to take over elections.  Trump’s…

Sky York Journal Federal judges in Fort Worth handed down maximum sentences to eight people charged in connection with a July 2025 demonstration outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center that devolved into vandalism and the shooting of a police officer. Benjamin Song was sentenced to 100 years in prison and Maricela Rueda to 70. Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto, Meaghan Morris, Autumn Hill, and Zachary Evetts each received sentences of 50 years. Daniel Sanchez Estrada, who was not at the demonstration, was sentenced to 30 years on charges relating to concealing documents in the investigation. Judges in the Northern…

Sky York Journal “This story was originally published by ProPublica. After the Trump administration upended the world’s largest foreign aid provider last year, terminating thousands of programs and firing nearly all of its staff, its plan for the agency was clear: Eliminate it entirely. But because it is a congressionally created agency, President Donald Trump needed lawmakers’ permission to do so. So this year, Trump officials asked Congress for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and dramatically reduce federal spending on food, medicine and lifesaving work around the world.  Congress said no. Lawmakers, who hold the government’s…

Sky York Journal “I don’t agree with everything Ron Paul thinks,” Tucker Carlson said in an interview at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “I don’t agree with everything I think!” Over the past three decades, Carlson has been saying whatever he thinks, even the things he doesn’t think, also the stuff he apparently does think but doesn’t agree with, even though he thought of it himself. Somehow, this has placed him at the very top of the right-wing media heap. It’s a godforsaken story of constant evolution, always optimizing his positions to retain and grow his audience. His latest act…

Sky York Journal Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) criticized President Donald Trump’s supposed peace deal with Iran on Thursday, saying he is concerned the agreement  “negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury.” “Since day one, I have supported President Trump’s efforts to end Iran’s 47-year threat to the United States and our partners. I am concerned that the memorandum of understanding negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the President’s goals,” Wicker said in a Thursday statement. Wicker’s statement comes after lawmaker complaints that they have not…

Sky York Journal The federal government is applying a McCarthy-era law to strip a Somalia-born Minneapolis man of his citizenship over actions that took place after he became a citizen.  It’s a fundamental break with how the government has attempted to denaturalize people. Bound by extensive Supreme Court precedent, the DOJ has long pursued these cases against people who lied on their citizenship applications or omitted something significant enough that, had the government known, it would have declined the person’s citizenship application: war criminals who did not disclose atrocities in which they were involved, for example, or people who omitted…

Sky York Journal A Senate hearing to start the process of confirming President Donald Trump’s pick to be the Director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, went up in flames early Wednesday morning. And, though at times Wednesday it looked as if the Senate might move forward despite the president’s erratic demands, by mid-afternoon Clayton’s path to director was a hopelessly tangled mess. The fracas saw even Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-AR), a dependable pro-Trump voice, grumbling publicly about the White House.  It all began with a predictably lengthy social media post, sent out shortly before 4 a.m, in…

Sky York Journal Throughout his confirmation hearing, Democrats didn’t trust that President Donald Trump’s new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh could remain independent from the president. Of chief concerns were Trump’s very open attacks on the Fed’s independence, which started on social media and in the press but went far beyond that when he tried to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook and allowed his Department of Justice to launch a criminal probe into former Chair Jerome Powell.  Cook’s case is still unresolved, with the Supreme Court expected to soon rule on whether Trump has the authority to outright fire a…