OUR PICKSICE Blamed Me for Assaults on Agents | Proposed Refugee System Would Favor White People | Weaponizing the Espionage Act, and more

Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People  (Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz, New York Times)
The proposals would transform a program aimed at helping the most vulnerable people in the world into one that gives preference to mostly white people who say they are being persecuted.

Major Airports Refuse to Air Kristi Noem Video Bashing Democrats (Erum Salam, MSNBC)
Airport spokespeople say the decision was made because the message blaming Democrats for the government shutdown violates the Hatch Act.

ICE Blamed Me for Assaults on Agents —Rather Than the Agency’s Own Recklessness  (David J. Bier, MSNBC.News / CATO)
If ICE returned to Biden’s interior enforcement policies, officers, Americans and immigrants would all be safer.

Keep the National Counterterrorism Center’s Focus Off of Americans  (Beth Williams, Lawfare)
NCTC should not compile and disseminate Americans’information in the name of fighting domestic terrorism.

Weaponizing the Espionage Act: What It Means for Whistleblowers, Reporters, and Democracy  (Brian O’Neill and David Schulz, Just Security)
President Donald Trump has made suppressing speech he doesn’t like a governing priority. From his first days back in office he cast dissent as disloyalty, promising “retribution” against anyone who criticized, investigated, or resisted him. He then translated that promise into action through regulatory proceedings, lawsuits, clearance revocations, and restrictions on press access. There have been some speed bumps along the way—setbacks in court, corporate reversals under pressure—but the effort to limit what the press reports remains steady.
The mechanics of Trump’s campaign to muzzle the media were on display in the brief suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! after a Kimmel monologue following the murder of Charlie Kirk prompted the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to suggest that ABC affiliates that continued to air the show risked regulatory sanctions. They were evident in Trump’s $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times and others for allegedly conspiring to portray him as corrupt, in a complaint so obviously written to advance a political narrative rather than to right a legal wrong that the court immediately threw it out as “decidedly improper and impermissible.” And they were reflected in the new press policy announced by the Department of Defense asking Pentagon reporters to acknowledge that soliciting information not pre-approved for public release is illegal and grounds for revocation of their press passes.
These moves—threatened regulatory action, sprawling lawsuits, credential pledges—are soft instruments. They rely on leverage, intimidation, and the hope that delay or distribution control will shape behavior without forcing a direct constitutional clash. But their very limits point to what remains available. When regulatory pressure stalls or procedural setbacks mount, the administration still holds a statute with sharper teeth for controlling news reports: the Espionage Act of 1917.

Many Rural Schools Rely on International Teachers. Trump’s Visa Changes Threaten That  (Sequoia Carrillo, NPR)
Last month, President Trump unveiled a plan that requires employers pay a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas. In his announcement, Trump specifically called out high-paying tech jobs that he said were filled by too many foreign workers.
However, the impact on schools and educators will be significant. According to data from the Department of Homeland Security, more than 20,000 educators are in the country on H-1B visas — the third most common occupation group for the program.

Trump Administration Quietly Canceled the Nation’s Largest Solar Project  (Ella Nilsen, CNN)
The Trump administration’s cancellation of the largest solar project in the United States has sparked confusion and concern among Republicans and Democrats alike.
Known as the Esmeralda 7, the collection of seven solar projects in rural Nevada was set to generate up to 6.2 gigawatts of energy when complete, enough to power 2 million homes. That’s an eye-popping amount of power to add to an electrical grid that desperately needs more of it, due to the insatiable demand from AI-related data centers and increasing residential needs.
Under former President Joe Biden, the federal government was moving the sprawling project through the federal permitting process as one proposal. Developers had planned to use 118,000 acres of federal land in Nevada’s desert as the home for solar arrays and batteries to store the sun’s energy.