Browsed by
Category: Politics

‘You’re not going to investigate a federal officer’

‘You’re not going to investigate a federal officer’

By Andy Mannix, Melissa Sanchez and Nicole Foy This story was originally published by ProPublica 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….

Read More Read More

University of Illinois Republicans club adopt slogan used by white supremacists

University of Illinois Republicans club adopt slogan used by white supremacists

Chicago Tribune reports: The Illini Republicans club at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is facing backlash after posting an illustration on social media of a masked gunman holding a weapon to a kneeling man’s head — alongside the caption, “Only traitors help invaders.” The Instagram post, published Friday, also says Alex Pretti and Renée Good — who were both fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month — had “voided their liberties the moment they decided they were…

Read More Read More

Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics

Epstein files shed more light on Steve Bannon’s efforts to influence European politics

The Guardian reports: Dozens of messages contained in the latest tranche of Epstein files lay bare the attempts by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon to tap Jeffrey Epstein for support and funding to bolster European far-right parties. The messages mostly date to 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being sacked by Trump, regularly visited Europe in his quest to forge a movement in the European parliament uniting ultra-rightwing and Eurosceptic forces from several countries including Italy, Germany, France,…

Read More Read More

Why the West needs migrants

Why the West needs migrants

Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, writes: Imagine you’re the leader of a nation, and you face a dilemma. Half a million or so people who are crucial to everyone’s daily lives inhabit your country. They care for aging parents, work at small and large companies, harvest the food that’s on the table. They are also part of your community. On weekends, they walk in the parks, go to restaurants and play on the local amateur soccer team. But…

Read More Read More

Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon

Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon

The Washington Post reports: He had decided that the America he believed in would not make it if people like him didn’t speak up, so on a cool, rainy morning in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Jon, 67 and recently retired, marched up to his study and began to type. He had just read about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s case against an Afghan it was trying to deport. The immigrant, identified in The Washington Post’s Oct. 30 investigation as…

Read More Read More

Epstein files: Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered amid fury over Mandelson

Epstein files: Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered amid fury over Mandelson

The Guardian reports: Labour MPs have warned that Keir Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered after a day of fury over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The government was on the brink of a defeat in the Commons until a mid-debate amendment brokered by Meg Hillier and Angela Rayner to force the release of documents about Mandelson’s appointment and the depth of his relationship with the convicted child sex offender….

Read More Read More

‘This job sucks’: Government lawyers, drowning in immigration cases, have had it

‘This job sucks’: Government lawyers, drowning in immigration cases, have had it

Politico reports: The Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota has exposed a severe rift between the Justice Department and ICE, detonated the already crumbling trust between the administration and the courts and led to the dozens of detentions the courts have said are illegal. A dramatic breakdown by a Justice Department attorney in a Minneapolis courtroom Tuesday laid bare the crisis roiling the Trump administration as it continues to mass arrest immigrants without the corresponding resources to detain them…

Read More Read More

Jeff Bezos and Will Lewis are murdering The Washington Post

Jeff Bezos and Will Lewis are murdering The Washington Post

Ashley Parker writes: We’re witnessing a murder. Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present…

Read More Read More

Former farming leaders warn U.S. agriculture could face ‘widespread collapse’

Former farming leaders warn U.S. agriculture could face ‘widespread collapse’

The New York Times reports: Current economic conditions and Trump administration policies could lead to “a widespread collapse of American agriculture,” a bipartisan coalition of former Agriculture Department officials and leaders of farm groups warned in a letter on Tuesday. The letter to the heads and ranking members of the House and Senate agricultural committees was signed by 27 influential figures in the farming sector, including former heads of powerful associations representing corn and soybean farmers and officials from the…

Read More Read More

Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen Aliya Rahman describes being assaulted and detained by ICE

Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen Aliya Rahman describes being assaulted and detained by ICE

  Today, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held a bicameral public forum to receive testimony on the violent tactics and disproportionate use of force by agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). My name is Aliya Rahman, and I am a resident of Minneapolis. I am a Bangladeshi American, and a disabled person…

Read More Read More

Right-wing influencers who brought mayhem to Minnesota are now targeting California

Right-wing influencers who brought mayhem to Minnesota are now targeting California

Wired reports: A month after the Trump administration began its immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, right-wing creators are turning their attention to a new target in search of fraud: California. Over the last few weeks, right-wing creators who were instrumental in boosting the Minnesota fraud allegations that predated the administration’s surge of federal immigration agents have been going after a number of California’s social welfare programs, making unsubstantiated accusations of fraud—and potentially laying the groundwork for a similar federal crackdown…

Read More Read More

Judge blocks termination of TPS protection for Haitian immigrants in scathing rebuke to Kristi Noem

Judge blocks termination of TPS protection for Haitian immigrants in scathing rebuke to Kristi Noem

ABC News reports: A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants. In an 83-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes granted a stay maintaining the legal status of Haitian nationals “pending judicial review.” In her ruling, she accused Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of “preordaining” her termination decision, saying she “did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants.” “There is an old adage among lawyers,” Judge…

Read More Read More

DHS is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics

DHS is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics

TechCrunch reports: The Department of Homeland Security has been quietly demanding tech companies turn over user information about critics of the Trump administration, according to reports. In several cases over recent months, Homeland Security has relied on the use of administrative subpoenas to seek identifiable information about individuals who run anonymous Instagram accounts, which share posts about ICE immigration raids in their local neighborhoods. These subpoenas have also been used to demand information about people who have criticized Trump officials…

Read More Read More

Intelligence watchdog shares whistleblower complaint involving Gabbard with Congress after monthslong delay

Intelligence watchdog shares whistleblower complaint involving Gabbard with Congress after monthslong delay

CBS News reports: An intelligence community watchdog has handed over a highly classified whistleblower complaint that includes an allegation of wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to top congressional leaders, following months of delay tied to classification disputes, a government shutdown, and leadership turnover at Gabbard’s office, CBS News has learned. In a Feb. 2 letter to the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, intelligence community Inspector General Christopher Fox said he received final approval on…

Read More Read More

ICE employees vent on Reddit, saying they’re not getting paid and still no insurance despite promises

ICE employees vent on Reddit, saying they’re not getting paid and still no insurance despite promises

International Business Times UK reports: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing an unusual wave of internal backlash after employees began publicly accusing the agency of failing to pay salaries and activate health insurance weeks after recruitment. Despite a historic recruitment drive that added 12,000 agents in recently, the agency’s administrative backbone appears to be buckling, with employees desperate enough to turn to the Reddit to detail their struggles. In raw, unfiltered Reddit posts now spreading beyond law-enforcement circles, ICE…

Read More Read More

How to be a citizen in the information war (and stay sane)

How to be a citizen in the information war (and stay sane)

  On this week’s “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel opens with what it means to live in 2026, when our phones can drop us into graphic, real-time violence without warning—and when documenting that violence can be both traumatizing and politically consequential. Using recent footage out of Minneapolis as a lens, he explores the uneasy collision of algorithmic feeds, misinformation, and the moral weight of witnessing. Charlie also traces how viral documentation can puncture official narratives, pushing stories beyond political circles and…

Read More Read More