On Friday, the Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s request to reinstate an unlawful effort to prevent many refugees from seeking asylum in the United States. This order is not surprising, as the Trump administration’s arguments are so weak that they literally were rejected by the judge who wrote infamous Bush era memos authorizing torture. […]
On Friday morning, the Michigan Attorney General’s office released a damning report on its investigation into how Michigan State University mishandled sexual abuse allegations against former MSU doctor Larry Nassar. The report revealed that MSU’s enabling of Nassar went deeper than previously known, and that the school’s cover-up in the aftermath still continues today. Throughout […]
Thursday was perhaps the most chaotic day of Donald Trump’s exhausting presidency. Still, you might have missed one of the most shocking developments, distracted by the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis and the president’s sudden insistence that Democrats are to blame for a government shutdown (despite bragging “I will be the one to shut it […]
It was to have been Paul Ryan’s parting gift to an ever-browner America. In the waning days of his tenure in the House of Representatives, Speaker Ryan (R-WI) quietly but doggedly pushed a bill that would have secured visas for thousands of people from Ireland seeking jobs in the United States. But wait, you say: […]
Friday’s impending government shutdown spells trouble for federal employees and systems across the country, but it also means problems for public spaces and lands, which have historically suffered from the mayhem associated with shutdowns. With the government in seeming chaos, a possible shutdown could come in a mere hour or by midnight. As a result, […]
The government has mere hours to avert a partial shutdown as Republicans scramble to advance a stop-gap spending bill that includes $5.8 billion for President Trump’s border wall. Shortly before the Senate convened to vote on whether to advance the measure, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called the billions of funding for the border […]
A referee at a high-school wrestling tournament wouldn’t allow Andrew Johnson to wrestle with a hair cover over his dreadlocks. Instead, he issued an ultimatum: Johnson had to either cut his hair before taking the mat, or forfeit the match. No other adult — including, apparently, Johnson’s coach — stepped in to argue on his […]
The Education Department released findings on Thursday that showed it received 35,000 new claims from students who said they had been defrauded by their colleges between June and September. The total number of approved and denied claims has not changed since then “as a result of ongoing litigation,” the department said in its report. In […]
Two natural gas pipelines that would travel from West Virginia into Virginia — the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) — have been facing resistance from environmental groups and local residents for almost five years. And that opposition is not expected to stop in 2019. If the developers are successful in getting […]
Donald Trump is so very right about this. Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018 Trump says that he would be “proud” to shut down the government unless Congress gives him over $5 billion to fund a border wall. […]
The Alabama attorney general officially asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to review a lower court’s decision that a state law prohibiting a common method used for second-trimester abortions is unconstitutional. The lawsuit against Alabama’s dilation and evacuation (D&E) ban is the second anti-abortion case before the Supreme Court. There are at least 11 other […]
Next year will see a dramatic acceleration in environmental regulation rollbacks, as a number of Trump administration proposals gain traction and take effect, with fossil fuel restrictions, public health, and scientific studies all set to be impacted. There has already been an onslaught of environmental regulatory rollbacks so vast it can be hard to keep […]
President Donald Trump is having second thoughts about taking responsibility for shutting down the government over his proposed border wall. Just 10 days ago, Trump declared “I will be the one to shut it down, I am not going to blame you for it.” He made the bombastic statement to Democratic leadership in the Oval […]
The decision by Defense Secretary James Mattis to resign has triggered a predictable level of hand-wringing among Republicans. Mattis, a former U.S. Marine Corps general, resigned on Thursday and became the 10th high-ranking member of the Trump administration to leave in the last two years. While his resignation letter was exceedingly polite and laudatory towards […]
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), the man who falsely blamed ISIS for the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting and touted his receipt of a fake award from Sasha Baron Cohen, said Thursday that he is not worried about government employees who will go without pay in President Donald Trump’s promised partial government shutdown. His reasoning: he doesn’t think […]
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of 7,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, a move that came as a shock to Afghan politicians, analysts, and citizens who woke up to the news early Friday morning. Though Washington has yet to issue a formal announcement of the pullout, which […]
At the end of this football season, Urban Meyer — who was suspended for three games at the start of the year for mishandling domestic violence allegations against his former assistant coach, Zach Smith, and lying about it — will retire as the head coach of Ohio State University. He will not, however, retire from […]
Young people are on the brink of bringing the Trump administration to court in an historic climate trial that may finally have its day in court in 2019. The landmark lawsuit, brought by a group of 21 children and young adults, argues that the government is violating its obligation to current and future generations by […]
Police in Boulder, Colorado, have launched an investigation into at least one allegation of sexual assault by Buddhist teacher William L. Karelis while he was a member of the group Shambhala International, ThinkProgress has learned. The investigation, which has not been previously reported, began in August, according to Boulder Police Department spokesperson Shannon Aulabaugh. Karelis has […]
The former security chief for the Senate Intelligence Committee was sentenced to two months in prison Thursday for lying to the FBI about his contacts with reporters. The sentence handed down against James Wolfe came over the objections of prosecutors who had asked that he be sentenced to two years in prison, and defense attorneys […]
Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned Thursday, one day after President Donald Trump thwarted Mattis and others in his administration by announcing he would pull American troops out of Syria. President Trump wrote in a tweet that Mattis would leave his post in February. Mattis, a former U.S. Marine Corps general who served as the head of the […]
As a coda to a day of political shock, President Trump insisted he wouldn’t sign a government spending bill, and posted a new video blaming Democrats for the shutdown he promised he’d own. Senate Republicans were flummoxed after meeting with Trump Thursday, having been confident just the day before that he would sign the stopgap. […]
A West Virginia high school is under scrutiny after an assistant principal told a trans boy last month that he could not use the boys bathroom. The assistant principal was suspended with pay on Tuesday for the remainder of the semester, or four days. The West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which sent a […]
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) attempted to defend President Donald Trump‘s family separation policy on Thursday by implying it is no different than special counsel Robert Mueller pursuing the prosecution of Paul Manafort, thereby separating him from his own adult children. During a House Judiciary Committee hearing with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Gohmert claimed that […]