Attention to the Unseen

By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski This story was originally published by ProPublica On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.”  Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to…

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Chicago Sun-Times reports: Federal agents deployed tear gas on the Far Southeast Side — sickening protesters and more than a dozen cops — despite a deputy Chicago police chief having told them his officers didn’t have gas masks and offering to clear a path so the agents could safely leave a chaotic scene, according to law enforcement sources. Angry residents had poured into the street to confront federal immigration agents near 105th Street and Avenue N in the East Side…

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Wired reports: Stewart Rhodes announced last week that he is relaunching the Oath Keepers, his anti-government militia which virtually disappeared after dozens of its members—including Rhodes—were arrested for their roles in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Rhodes, speaking to the Gateway Pundit this week, says that he sees the relaunched group as playing a role in combating what he labeled an “insurrection by the left” on the streets of US cities. “Right now, under federal statutes, president Trump…

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Ashley Parker writes: The jurors in the case of The United States of America v. The Sandwich Guy (as Sean Charles Dunn is better known) sized one another up before the final group had even been selected, asking, “Did you attend the ‘No Kings’ march?” “It’s like, You’re damn right I went,” one juror told me, referring to the anti-Trump protests throughout the country last month, including in Washington, D.C. (The juror, who spoke with me several days after she…

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By Jeremy Kohler This story was originally published by ProPublica The beneficiaries of President Donald Trump’s mercy in his second term have mostly been people with access to the president or his inner circle. Those who have followed the rules set out by the Department of Justice, meanwhile, are still waiting. Trump has granted clemency to allies, donors and culture-war figures — as well as felons who, like him, were convicted of financial wrongdoing. On Friday, he granted pardons to…

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CNN reports: The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America. For years, the…

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The Independent reports: The Department of Justice has been hemorrhaging staff under President Donald Trump, with thousands of attorneys leaving and few being hired to replace them, according to a new report. Since January, nearly 5,500 DOJ career employees have quit, taken a buyout, or been fired, according to Justice Connection, an advocacy group composed of department alumni. A Justice Connection spokesperson told The Independent that its estimates are based on both public reporting and non-public information the group has…

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Judge Mark L. Wolf was appointed as a federal judge by Ronald Reagan in 1985. On Friday he resigned. He writes: I decided all of my cases based on the facts and the law, without regard to politics, popularity, or my personal preferences. That is how justice is supposed to be administered—equally for everyone, without fear or favor. This is the opposite of what is happening now. As I watched in dismay and disgust from my position on the bench,…

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  When Donald Trump was sworn in as president in January, both John Roberts and Trump knew that the oath he was taking was meaningless — it had been rendered meaningless by the Roberts’ edict, Trump v. United States (2024), granting presidential immunity. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, “the President is now a king above the law.” Commenting on the Supreme Court ruling that effectively turned the president into a monarch by granting unprecedented presidential immunity from criminal…

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