Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal The Trump administration is trying to wriggle out of a legal requirement to end its war with Iran, experts told TPM — and to do so, it’s trying to convince everyone to focus on the wrong thing. On Friday afternoon, the White House told Congress that as far as it was concerned, the war had been “terminated” by a ceasefire, which began on April 7 and has since been extended.  It’s a version of the claim Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth rolled out before Congress earlier this week, stating that the administration’s ceasefire with Iran stops the…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. President Donald Trump on Thursday withdrew his nomination of Casey Means, a wellness influencer, for surgeon general after key Senate Republicans declined to support her. Means, a doctor without an active medical license, had been poised to elevate Trump’s vague but politically potent message to “Make America Healthy Again” and alternative forms of medicine. Pulling her nomination represents a defeat for the president and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,…

Sky York Journal With a hard deadline bearing down on them, Trump and his allies are scrambling for a way to argue that contrary to the shooting, ship boardings, and an ongoing naval blockade, the U.S. is not engaged in hostilities with Iran.  These increasingly fantastical rhetorical sleights of hand are coming because of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a law mandating that a president must withdraw from a conflict 60 days after notifying Congress that American forces are fighting. The administration will slam into that 60-day deadline on Friday.  It’s a rare example of the White House and…

Sky York Journal On the same day that Trump’s nominee for Fed chair advanced after a long stalemate, the current chair made clear that Trump’s bid for control over the central bank still had a long way to go.  Kevin Warsh’s nomination for Federal Reserve Chair advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday along party lines after his first nomination hearing before the crucial panel ended without a vote. With a 13-11 vote, Warsh’s nomination was able to move out of committee. Every Democrat voted “no by proxy,” except Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who voted no in person. …

Sky York Journal The Supreme Court exposed the grisly underpinning of the Trump administration Wednesday as it ruled to subordinate minority voters to white ones, and seemed ready to allow the government to summarily end protected status for endangered refugees.  The administration is an amicus supporting Louisiana in Louisiana v. Callais — a landmark ruling in which the Supreme Court made the Voting Rights Act dead letter — and the petitioner in the consolidated cases Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, a challenge to the Department of Homeland Security’s abrupt ending of the temporary protective status of Haitian and…

Sky York Journal As the Trump administration puts the finishing touches on its plans to bury the remains of USAID, it’s running into a final problem.  It plans to use money that Congress appropriated for global health to cover the costs of shutting down USAID, Senate Democrats said in a Friday letter. That means redirecting funds meant for fighting HIV, malaria, and more to instead pay for the aftermath of the agency destruction, a move that the letter describes as an “illegal impoundment.” The Democrats, led by the Senate Appropriations Committee’s State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee’s Ranking Member Sen. Brian…

Sky York Journal Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said Sunday he will drop his blockade and get onboard to confirm Kevin Warsh’s nomination to chair the Federal Reserve after the Justice Department dropped an investigation into current central bank chief Jerome Powell. “I have been clear from the start: the U.S. Attorney’s Office criminal investigation into Chair Powell was a serious threat to the Fed’s independence, and it needed to end before I could support Kevin Warsh’s confirmation,” Tillis said in a social media statement Sunday. The sham investigation came out of the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia,…

Sky York Journal This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published by The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The Italian prime minister and leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, Giorgia Meloni, has made fostering ties with foreign leaders a central part of her political strategy. A few years before winning Italy’s 2022 general elections, she started cultivating ties with the U.S. and European conservative world as part of a broader political rebranding effort aimed at projecting a more moderate image at home and gaining legitimacy abroad. She subsequently became…

Sky York Journal In yet another loss for president Trump and his floundering gerrymandering blitz, Virginia voters approved a Democratic-led redistricting measure on Tuesday that will likely give Democrats four additional congressional seats and a chance to take control of the U.S. House this year.   With 97% of the vote in, the measure had passed with 51.5% approving and 48.5% voting against it. State and national Democrats celebrated Tuesday’s win, which still has to face a number of hurdles as legal challenges to the proposal continue to play out in court.  “Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they approved a…

Sky York Journal For the publisher of a book that is both derided as racist drivel and lauded as deeply influential among Trump administration immigration restrictionists, there’s nothing more valuable than being able to claim you’ve been cancelled. In this case, far-right activists are alleging censorship after Amazon briefly delisted a paperback version of the Camp of the Saints. It’s an influential anti-immigration tome; the edition whose paperback version disappeared from Amazon had an introduction penned by a fellow at a think tank that helped devise Project 2025. The reason for and extent of that delisting remains unclear. It doesn’t…