Government’s own experts found ‘barbaric’ and ‘negligent’ conditions in ICE detention

Government’s own experts found ‘barbaric’ and ‘negligent’ conditions in ICE detention

NPR reports: In Michigan, a man in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was sent into a jail’s general population unit with an open wound from surgery, no bandages and no follow-up medical appointment scheduled, even though he still had surgical drains in place. A federal inspector found: “The detainee never received even the most basic care for his wound.” In Georgia, a nurse ignored an ICE detainee who urgently asked for an inhaler to treat his asthma. Even…

Read More Read More

This indictment of Trump does something ingenious

This indictment of Trump does something ingenious

Norman Eisen and Amy Lee Copeland write: When the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney, Fani Willis, filed criminal charges against Donald Trump and over a dozen of his allies for their attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results, she did something ingenious. In contrast to the special counsel Jack Smith’s latest laser-focused federal indictment of Mr. Trump, Ms. Willis charges a wide range of conspirators, from people in the Oval Office to low-level Georgia G.O.P. functionaries, and is the first to plumb the…

Read More Read More

Don’t let Donald Trump take his case to federal court

Don’t let Donald Trump take his case to federal court

Laurence H. Tribe, Donald Ayer, and Dennis Aftergut write: Now that Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis has indicted former President Donald Trump for his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s first chessboard move is likely to be a motion to “remove” the case—that is, to transfer it from state court in Atlanta to federal court in the Northern District of Georgia. This maneuver shouldn’t work, as it didn’t work in July in New York, but once…

Read More Read More

The biggest difference between the Georgia indictment and the Jan. 6 indictment

The biggest difference between the Georgia indictment and the Jan. 6 indictment

Richard L Hasen writes: If the recent federal indictment of Donald Trump on charges related to his attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election was a streamlined surgical strike aimed at ensuring a clean case and a speedy trial of the former president before the 2024 election, Monday night’s Georgia indictment is the equivalent of a blitz. With 19 defendants and 41 charges, the heart of the indictment is a sprawling state racketeering charge that places Trump at the center…

Read More Read More

Trump’s Fulton County indictment, unpacked

Trump’s Fulton County indictment, unpacked

Lisa Needham writes: The latest Trump indictment is out, and it’s a blockbuster. Let’s start with the numbers, shall we? A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, returned an indictment that has: 19 defendants, including the former president of the United States and 6 lawyers in his orbit 41 criminal counts across all defendants 13 criminal counts against the former president himself 8 types of manners and methods used to further a criminal enterprise 161 overt acts of racketeering activity…

Read More Read More

GOP sees turnout disaster without Trump

GOP sees turnout disaster without Trump

The Hill reports: Republican strategists are worried that if former President Trump doesn’t secure the GOP’s presidential nomination next year, or if he is kept off the ballot because of his mounting legal problems, it could spell a voter turnout disaster for their party in 2024. GOP strategists say there’s growing concern that if Trump is not the nominee, many of his core supporters, who are estimated to make up 25 percent to 35 percent of the party base, “will…

Read More Read More

The dawn of a new climate industry

The dawn of a new climate industry

Robinson Meyer writes: What does the new American climate policy look like? Last week, we got a better sense. On Friday, the Biden administration unveiled a massive investment — more than $1.2 billion — that aims to create a new industry in the United States out of whole cloth that will specialize in removing carbon from the atmosphere. As President Joe Biden’s climate law hits its one-year anniversary, the investment shows the audacity, the potential, and — ultimately — the…

Read More Read More

Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes

Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes

The Washington Post reports: The company formerly known as Twitter has been slowing the speed with which users could access links to the New York Times, Facebook and other news organizations and online competitors, a move that appeared targeted at companies that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk. Users who clicked a link on Musk’s website, now called X, for one of the targeted websites were made to wait about five seconds before seeing the page, according to…

Read More Read More

The clean energy future is arriving faster than you think

The clean energy future is arriving faster than you think

The New York Times reports: Delivery vans in Pittsburgh. Buses in Milwaukee. Cranes loading freight at the Port of Los Angeles. Every municipal building in Houston. All are powered by electricity derived from the sun, wind or other sources of clean energy. Across the country, a profound shift is taking place that is nearly invisible to most Americans. The nation that burned coal, oil and gas for more than a century to become the richest economy on the planet, as…

Read More Read More

Montana judge hands young plaintiffs significant victory in landmark climate trial

Montana judge hands young plaintiffs significant victory in landmark climate trial

CNN reports: A Montana judge handed a significant victory on Monday to more than a dozen young plaintiffs in the nation’s first constitutional climate trial, as extreme weather becomes more deadly and scientists warn the climate crisis is eroding our environment and natural resources. In a case that could have legal reverberations for other climate litigation, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled that Montana’s continued development of fossil fuels violates a clause in its state constitution that guarantees its citizens…

Read More Read More

Trump makes inflammatory statements after being warned about making inflammatory statements

Trump makes inflammatory statements after being warned about making inflammatory statements

Politico reports: Donald Trump slammed the judge presiding over his newest criminal case early Monday, testing her three-day-old warning that he refrain from “inflammatory” attacks against those involved in his case. In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m., Trump assailed U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan as “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair,” citing as evidence a statement she made during the sentencing of a woman who participated in the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan….

Read More Read More

Two months in Georgia: How Trump tried to overturn the vote

Two months in Georgia: How Trump tried to overturn the vote

The New York Times reports: When President Donald J. Trump’s eldest son took the stage outside the Georgia Republican Party headquarters two days after the 2020 election, he likened what lay ahead to mortal combat. “Americans need to know this is not a banana republic!” Donald Trump Jr. shouted, claiming that Georgia and other swing states had been overrun by wild electoral shenanigans. He described tens of thousands of ballots that had “magically” shown up around the country, all marked…

Read More Read More

Georgia RICO law

Georgia RICO law

Jay Kuo writes: [Fulton County District Attorney] Fani Willis understands RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization] law well. She’s famous for having brought broad state RICO charges to bust up a ring of administrators and educators who were in on a scheme to help students cheat on standardized tests, using money to reward those who aided the effort while punishing those that refused to help. Willis explained state RICO law perfectly then. “You don’t, under RICO, have to have a…

Read More Read More

Russian ruble at weakest level since early days of Ukraine war

Russian ruble at weakest level since early days of Ukraine war

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia’s currency fell to its weakest level in over a year and the central bank called an emergency meeting, signs of intensifying financial pressure on an economy weighed down by Western sanctions and the war in Ukraine. The ruble’s decline picked up pace in recent weeks, and on Monday the currency fell past 100 to the U.S. dollar for the first time since the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. So far this year, the ruble has lost almost 30% of…

Read More Read More