Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal This story was originally published by ProPublica. Sign up to receive their biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Minutes after a federal agent shot and killed a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb last September, a group of police officers stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out the answer to a question of protocol: Who would investigate the shooting? “Wouldn’t it be state’s, at a minimum?” one Franklin Park officer asked, according to body camera footage. Chief Mike Witz shook his head. “No, because it’s a federal shooting,” he said. “You’re not going to investigate a federal…

Sky York Journal This excerpt is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.  Donald Trump may not have been the first president to believe in conspiracy theories, but he was definitely the first candidate whose election was fueled by pandering to those who do. As his popularity soared among those on the fringe during his 2016 campaign, their internet presence became less about “questioning everything” and much more about blindly believing whatever Trump told them. Trump’s following on Reddit grew especially fast, and especially toxic. But while threads like r/TheDonald were unapologetically pro-Trump, the large subreddit…

Sky York Journal House Republicans barely passed a funding package on Tuesday, voting after more than a day of wrangling to approve five full-year funding bills plus a two-week continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Senate Democrats last month had demanded that, in exchange for their votes on funding packages, reforms and constraints be placed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. That prompted a standoff over the DHS funds and a short-lived partial government shutdown, which is now over.  But for how long? Members of Congress now have a behemoth task ahead of them: rein in…

Sky York Journal President Donald Trump last Friday announced his intent to nominate former Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh to chair the central bank, tapping a Republican economist with industry and government street cred, but whose public displays of political obsequiousness could contribute to distrust in Fed independence. Trump’s insistence that federal agencies previously immune to presidential interference now bend to his desires have been made manifest across the government. His attempts to strong-arm the Fed into interest rate cuts began during his first presidential term, but Trump II has seen the political pressure on the central bank ratcheted…

Sky York Journal WASHINGTON, DC–Federal District Court Judge Richard Leon expressed shock Tuesday that the Trump Justice Department was asking him to break new First Amendment ground, the better to punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for speaking out against the administration.  “You’re asking me to do something that the Supreme Court has never done — that’s a bit of a stretch, is it not?” the George W. Bush-appointed judge asked DOJ’s John Bailey. The Trump administration tried during the hearing to argue that the diminished speech rights that apply to the active duty military — meant to preserve obedience and…

Sky York Journal Judge Eric Tostrud, a Trump appointee, handed down an often contradictory ruling Monday night lifting his order requiring the preservation of evidence surrounding Customs and Border Protection agents’ killing of Alex Pretti last month.  On one hand, he acknowledged that statements from Trump officials absolving the agents of any culpability for the killing immediately after they shot Pretti are “troubling.”  “They reflect, not a genuine interest in learning the truth, but snap judgments informed by speculation and motivated by political partisanship,” he wrote.  But the connection between the administration’s stance on the fatal shooting, and its intentions…

Sky York Journal Coming off the heels of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s demand for access to Minnesota voter rolls and the state’s decisive refusal to comply with that demand, President Trump is now spreading conspiracy theories about the state and is again threatening to try to exert control over the nation’s election systems. Last month, Bondi attempted to tie the Trump administration’s months-long campaign to seize sensitive voter information from various states across the country, with the recent killing of a U.S. citizen Alex Pretti by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. In a letter to Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz following…

Sky York Journal Across the country, federal prosecutors are upgrading what would have been routine prosecutions into terrorism cases when they involve people President Trump has cast as his political enemies. It represents a dramatic departure from how the Justice Department has historically used the federal material support for terrorism statute. For decades, counterterrorism prosecutors have largely reserved the statute — 2339A — for the kinds of audacious plots that wreak real, lasting damage or whose ambition forms the stuff of movie screenplays. It’s been used in recent years to charge the leadership of Hamas over the Oct. 7 attacks, pursue…

Sky York Journal This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. Kristi Noem faces intensifying public scrutiny over her leadership of the Department of Homeland Security. Criticism of the former South Dakota governor has focused on her handling of the killing of Alex Pretti by a federal immigration agent and her oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. The controversies have prompted calls from Democratic lawmakers — and a small but noteworthy group of Republicans — for her resignation or impeachment. The immediate flashpoint has been the January 24 killing of Pretti,…

Sky York Journal In the 104 minutes of the movie “Melania,” there are only two real hints of how dangerous our world and politics have become.  The supposed documentary on First Lady Melania Trump is largely set in the 20 days before her husband, President Donald Trump, returned to office for the second time last January. At one point, the couple are seen with staffers discussing grand plans for “a million” people to line the streets of Washington for the swearing-in ceremony. Staffers inform the family that they will ride in a motorcade along Pennsylvania Avenue and that, as per…