Attention to the Unseen

The Guardian reports: The hosting of Tommy Robinson by the Trump administration has been condemned by British MPs amid calls for the US to be included in a probe into foreign interference in UK politics. The far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is being feted in the US, where he met figures including a political appointee at the Department of State in Washington DC and a congressman. The visit has prompted questions about how Robinson – a former…

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Democracy Docket reports: Among other steps that President Donald Trump will take to undermine a fair election this fall, he’ll likely use the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to bring a flood of litigation aiming to challenge Democratic wins and shape the rules in the GOP’s favor. But election law experts say those efforts may stumble over the administration’s many legal missteps: the likely weakness of the claims themselves, the lack of experienced and competent voting lawyers in DOJ’s ranks,…

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Greg Sargent writes: The “forever wars” abroad and the global war on terror after the September 11 attacks left behind a long trail of failure, disillusionment, and death—but they also funneled huge sums of taxpayer money to companies that supplied the equipment that made all that destruction possible. That resulted in windfalls for GOP-connected companies, and fueled a massive public-private bureaucracy that grew harder to rein in as it metastasized to monstrous proportions. Something like this is happening again in…

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NPR reports: The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump. Some files have not been made public despite a law mandating their release. These include what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, as well as notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of…

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NPR reports: Last month, Colleen Fagan was observing an immigration enforcement operation at an apartment complex in Portland, Maine, when federal agents scanned her face with a smartphone and appeared to record her car license plate number. In a social media video she recorded, Fagan can be heard asking why the agent was taking her information. What the agent said next made the video go viral. “Cause we have a nice little database,” the masked agent said. “And now you’re…

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Matthew Weaver writes: Just six months ago Peter Mandelson seemed unassailable as the UK’s ambassador to the US, one of the most vaunted positions in British diplomacy. As our man in Washington, Mandelson appeared to have used his skill for schmoozing, learned over years as a cabinet minister and a European commissioner, to secure a good relationship with the tricky Trump administration. He was considered instrumental in securing a relatively favourable US trade deal for the UK. He was also…

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  Texas Public Radio reports: Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones is calling for transparency and accountability from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigrations and Customs Enforcement regarding the March 2025 shooting death of San Antonio resident Ruben Ray Martinez, a U.S. citizen. Jones said the community deserves “a full and transparent accounting” of the events that led to Martinez’s death. Internal records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that an ICE agent fatally shot 23-year-old Martinez….

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Catie Edmondson writes: Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s concurring opinion released on Friday after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s tariffs concluded with a paean to Congress that read like a requiem for a bygone era of legislative power. “Yes, legislating can be hard and take time,” wrote Justice Gorsuch, a Trump appointee who is part of the court’s conservative majority. “And yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of…

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Jacobin reports: A French far-right militant was pronounced dead on Saturday morning at a hospital in Lyon, succumbing to injuries inflicted during a street battle last Thursday with anti-fascist activists. Twenty-three-year-old Quentin Deranque was part of a contingent of local neofascist militants that gathered to oppose a talk by a prominent left-wing MP at a university campus in France’s third-largest city. Their counterprotest quickly escalated into clashes with left-wingers, in the latest episode of political violence in a city that…

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The Guardian reports: Department of Justice prosecutors across the US have suffered a string of embarrassing defeats in their aggressive pursuit of criminal cases against people accused of “assaulting” and “impeding” federal officers. In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties. But many of those cases have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts. In…

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Business Insider reports: President Donald Trump previously promised Americans tariff dividend checks, but if Democrats have their way, he could be issuing refunds instead. After a Supreme Court ruling on Friday struck down Trump’s tariffs levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Democratic lawmakers were quick to demand that the president repay Americans through tariff refunds. “Donald Trump should return that money immediately. He has an obligation,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday. “$1,751 per family that were…

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