A federal judge enjoined the Trump administration’s federalization of the California National Guard Wednesday, writing that it has “sent California Guardsmen into other states, effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops.”
Continue reading “Judge Blocks Federalization of California National Guard, Saying It’s Become ‘National Police Force’”Trump Admin Spins Death of Student Loan Forgiveness Plan as Great for People Who Want Student Loan Forgiveness
The Trump administration has made moves to officially kill off President Biden’s income-driven student loan repayment plan — meaning that some borrowers who have not made payments for years will have to figure out a plan for making payments again. And officials are trying to spin the decision as some sort of positive thing for participants in the plan, despite the fact that they are enrolled because they can’t afford their federal student loan costs.
Continue reading “Trump Admin Spins Death of Student Loan Forgiveness Plan as Great for People Who Want Student Loan Forgiveness”Will the 21st Century Nabobs Win Their War on Public Accountability?
A friend of mine ran an analogy by me which really resonated. Perhaps others have drawn the comparison.
In the late 18th century, what would later evolve into the British Raj was coalescing into full British domination of the Indian subcontinent — especially after two key battles in 1757 and 1764 waged not by Britain but a private company called the British East India Company. That made it possible for what were often British men of relatively modest origins to build almost unimaginably large fortunes. Life in India was a matter of extremes for British operatives of the East India Company, a joint stock company which owned what were in effect Britain’s Indian colonies. Countless young Brits went out to India and died in short order. But if they could avoid dying, in a relatively few years they could build these unimaginable fortunes. None of them wanted to stay. Virtually no Britons died of old age in India at the time. The whole point was to make as much money as possible in as little time as possible and get back to Great Britain while they were still alive. Then they would pour that money into an estate and land.
They were called “nabobs,” a corruption of “nawab,” a title in the Mughal Empire which originally referred to a provincial governor but evolved into something more like a hereditary lord as Mughal rule disintegrated.
Continue reading “Will the 21st Century Nabobs Win Their War on Public Accountability?”Republicans Fight to Kill Lingering Campaign Finance Regulation after SCOTUS Obliterated the Rest
As Republicans came before the Supreme Court Tuesday to get rid of one of the last regulations governing our wild west campaign finance system, the colloquies fell flat.
Continue reading “Republicans Fight to Kill Lingering Campaign Finance Regulation after SCOTUS Obliterated the Rest”Wave of Income Tax Cuts Has Left Many States Vulnerable to Trump SNAP and Medicaid Crisis
This story first appeared at ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive ProPublica’s biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
This fall, Americans got to see what it’s like to go without a safety net for the hungry. With the U.S. government shut down for multiple weeks and President Donald Trump refusing to fund SNAP, the federal food stamp program, a panic set in among the more than 40 million people who rely on it. Families skipped meals, and babies went unfed. Food banks ran out of food, and some people turned to dumpster diving.
It was just a glimpse of what’s to come. Starting next October, Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act will shift billions in SNAP costs from the federal government onto states. Some states won’t be able to afford this, and they could be forced to deeply cut or even shutter their SNAP programs altogether, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Continue reading “Wave of Income Tax Cuts Has Left Many States Vulnerable to Trump SNAP and Medicaid Crisis”Inside the Secret Network Offering Sanctuary to Immigrants Amid Trump’s ICE Onslaught
They call them the “forgotten migrants.”
Of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, over two thirds of them come from Mexico and South America, according to data compiled by the Pew Research Center last year. However, the population from other regions is growing sharply. Pew found that, as of 2022, there were 375,000 unauthorized immigrants from Africa living in the U.S., which was a striking 36% increase over three years.
Estimates show New York is home to nearly 8% of the nation’s undocumented African immigrants. The community was the primary focus of ICE’s Canal Street raid in late October. As TPM spent nearly two months examining the fallout from that sweep and Trump’s deportation machine in the city, we found that African migrants have faced threats and unique challenges. They’re also receiving help from a growing network of activists and advocates.
Continue reading “Inside the Secret Network Offering Sanctuary to Immigrants Amid Trump’s ICE Onslaught”Life Inside the Undocumented Underground
During President Donald Trump’s second term, dramatic raids staged by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have become a part of life. We want to show you what that looks like up close and on the ground in one American city. It’s a story of fear, resilience, and resistance.
TPM has spent the past two months reporting on the effect of Trump’s mass deportation agenda in New York, one of the cities facing the prospect of a large-scale ICE invasion. We went inside the courts where Trump’s deportation machine is firing judges and snatching migrants from the halls. We walked those same corridors with masked agents and a growing network of volunteers, activists, and advocates who are determined to fight this new system. We also spent time with the immigrants who described the dangers that led them to leave their homes, the new fears they face in this country, and their drive to keep going despite these long odds.
Continue reading “Life Inside the Undocumented Underground”SHOWTIME: Boasberg Summons Key DOJ Witnesses in Contempt Inquiry
DOJ Whistleblower to Take Center Stage
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has ordered testimony next week from Justice Department whistleblower Erez Reuveni and deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign in the criminal contempt of court inquiry in the original Alien Enemies Act case.
Not satisfied with what he called the “cursory declarations” from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and top DOJ officials involved in the decision to continue with the AEA deportations in March despite his court order, Boasberg is taking his inquiry to the next level with the first live testimony.
Testimony from Reuveni is likely to be especially probative as he as already gone public with his account of his efforts to urge DOJ and DHS to abide by Boasberg’s order to stop the AEA deportations of Venezuelan nationals and turn around the planes en route to El Salvador. Reuveni also produced extensive internal DOJ communications that buttressed his account of that fateful weekend in mid-March that quickly became a flashpoint between the executive and judicial branches.
It was Reuveni who famously quoted then-DOJ official Emil Bove as telling attorneys under him that they might have to tell the courts “fuck you” if they tried to block the AEA deportations. Bove — now a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeal — unexpectedly filed his own declaration yesterday in the contempt of court inquiry. Like the others filed Friday, Bove’s declaration was cursory and raised the prospect of using attorney-client privilege as a shield to block further inquiry from Boasberg.
For his part, Ensign has been a willing pawn in an ongoing DOJ effort to stonewall, obfuscate, and mislead judges in some of the key Trump II deportation cases. Ensign was the lead DOJ attorney in front of Boasberg as the AEA deportations unfolded and much of Boasberg’s initial ire was directed at him.
The Trump DOJ may yet rush to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to try to avoid allowing Reuveni and Ensign to testify, citing various privileges, including attorney-client privilege, but the appeals court in a muddled opinion last month already seemed to clear the way for Boasberg to proceed with his inquiry, after it delayed him for seven months.
Boasberg is zeroing in on whether Noem’s decision to continue with the AEA deportations despite his order was willful, a necessary element of a finding probable cause for criminal contempt.
GOP Congress Has Had Its Fill of Hegseth
In perhaps the most robust oversight this GOP-controlled Congress has yet conducted, the must-pass annual defense policy bill contains a new provision compelling the Pentagon to turn over (i) the specific orders for the U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats; and (ii) unedited video of the attacks.
The provision includes some teeth, too, the NYT reports: “It would withhold 25 percent of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if he failed to give the congressional national security committees a copy of the execute orders behind the strikes, or to outline how he planned to facilitate future briefings about the operation with lawmakers in accordance with federal law.”
SCOTUS Might Surprise on Birthright Citizenship
Steve Vladeck, on the way in which the Roberts Court accepted the birthright citizenship case last week: “That particular tea leaf is significant because it reinforces something I’ve believed since the Court first ruled on the emergency applications relating to the birthright citizenship cases back in June—that a majority of the justices are likely to rule against the administration on the merits and invalidate Trump’s executive order.”
No More Habba to Kick Around in New Jersey
Alina Habba has dropped her claim to be the U.S. attorney for New Jersey after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision that she was invalidly appointed. Habba will move to a new position as an advisor to Attorney General Pam Bondi on U.S. attorneys. Bondi indicated that she would continue to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
An EDVA Clash Seems Inevitable
With the Trump DOJ continuing to pretend that Lindsey Halligan is the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia despite a court ruling that she was invalidly appointed, I don’t know how the district judges can continue not to appoint an interim U.S. attorney, especially with ongoing public attacks on them like this from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche:
A statement from @AGPamBondi and @DAGToddBlanche:
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) December 8, 2025
Certain district court and magistrate judges in the Eastern District of Virginia are engaging in an unconscionable campaign of bias and hostility against U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan and her line AUSAs.
Lindsey and our…
Reax to SCOTUS
The Roberts Court gleefully took a sledgehammer not just to independent agencies yesterday in oral arguments, but to the Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence. For help sorting through the implications of the historic case:
- Kate Shaw, William Baude and Stephen I. Vladeck chew over the oral arguments under the clever headline: “Looks Like the Supreme Court Will Continue to Overturn the 20th Century.”
- Public policy professor Don Moynihan looks at the bigger political picture:
[T]he risks of a partisan public personnel system is not just poor public services, but that it worsens our democracy. Many of the points of friction between Trump and federal employees are about democratic values: the rule of law, how Congressional statute is to be interpreted, avoiding abuses of the power, and transparency. Again and again, the logic for Trump’s personnel actions is the logic of a personalist regime: loyalty to the leader above all else, removing individuals or downgrading agencies that are disfavored.
Sandwich Thrower Jurors Recount Deliberations
While they expected it to be an open-and-shut case, three jurors in the case of the D.C. sandwich thrower Sean Dunn told CBS News that they had to overcome an initial 10-2 split that led to some seven hours of deliberations before acquitting Dunn.
2026 Ephemera
TX-Sen: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) is in and former Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) is out of the Democratic primary to seek the seat held by Sen. John Cornyn (R). State Rep. James Talarico (D) of Austin is the other major candidate in the Democratic primary field.
Very on Brand
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) announced a plan to open Turning Point USA chapters in every high school in Texas. The high school chapters are called “Club America.” I’m told “club” is not a verb.
Good Read
The Guardian: What activists from authoritarian regimes wish they’d known sooner.
Nancy Mace Went Full Karen on Airport Staff
The WaPo obtained the investigation report, transcripts of interviews with officers and officials, and video from the Oct 30. incident involving Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the Charleston airport. Upon arriving for a flight, Mace went ballistic when her vehicle was not met curbside at the airport by a police escort, the WaPo reports:
The airport holds “a certain level of responsibility” for a “minor miscommunication” about the color of the vehicle that Mace would arrive in, airport police chief James A. Woods wrote in the new report. But Mace’s “continued failure to follow established procedures at the checkpoint” escalated the situation into “a spectacle” and negatively affected airport staff, the report concluded.
After her arrival hiccup, Mace became enraged:
The investigation, which included several interviews with TSA staff and police officers, found Mace told officers “I’m sick of your s—,” said that they were “f—ing idiots” and “f—ing incompetent” and yelled in front of TSA officers and police using similar expletives as she proclaimed that she is a “f—ing representative.”
The incident left some airport employees “visibly upset” and “downtrodden,” according to the WaPo report.
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It’s Time to Govern, and Republicans in Congress Can’t Remember How
Republicans Try to Remember a World in Which Not All Policy Came From Trump
We’re seeing a phenomenon play out right now that has cropped up repeatedly during both Trump terms.
Continue reading “It’s Time to Govern, and Republicans in Congress Can’t Remember How”Roberts on Cleanup Duty as Court Prepares to Kill Independent Government Agencies
Chief Justice John Roberts scrambled around with a verbal broom and dustpan Monday, reflexively jumping into the arguments to downplay the obvious dangers his majority will soon unleash in its seemingly imminent decision to destroy independent agencies.
Continue reading “Roberts on Cleanup Duty as Court Prepares to Kill Independent Government Agencies”