• The President Should Not Have a License to Kill

    The administration claims that the “war” on drugs justifies extrajudicial killing. But redefining civilian drug criminals as “combatants” gives away the reality: the government just militarized what was a low-level criminal law enforcement incident outside the United States. Once we consider the victims’ alleged illegal actions, we can see that the government committed the most egregious crime here.

  • Far-Right Extremists Have Been Organizing Online Since Before the Internet – and AI Is Their Next Frontier

    How can society police the global spread of online far-right extremism while still protecting free speech? Far-right extremists have long pioneered innovative ways to exploit technological progress and free speech. Efforts to counter this radicalization are challenged to stay one step ahead of the far right’s technological advances.

  • More Industries Want Trump’s Help Hiring Immigrant Labor After Farms Get a Break

    Restaurants, construction and landscaping businesses have lost the most workers, a Stateline analysis found. Now, industries with large immigrant workforces are asking for relief as they combat labor shortages and raids.

  • Labeling Dissent as Terrorism: New U.S. Domestic Terrorism Priorities Raise Constitutional Alarms

    There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law, but all the different definitions focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy. But more than redefining terrorism,National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on 2 September 2025 (NSPM-7) reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief. The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations –“anti-Christianity, “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-American” views –as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.

  • Pardoning Hernández—Where’s the Logic?

    The presidential pardon power can serve real and legitimate purposes, and Trump himself has used it in some deserving cases. But history will long remember his use of it to free political allies and persons who have benefited his cronies and family.

  • 5% of People Detained by ICE Have Violent Convictions, 73% No Convictions

    President Trump’s deportation agenda does not match the campaign promises that he made – he said he would focus on deporting “the worst of the worse” – nor the rhetoric from his officials. The opposite is the case: for example, 73 percent of people booked into ICE custody this fiscal year had no criminal conviction. Of the small number of those convicted of a crime, the majority had vice, immigration, or traffic convictions. The problem: the diversion of effort and resources to find and deport noncriminal undocumented migrants has reduced the ability of DHS and the FBI to pursue investigations into terrorist financing; child exploitation and human trafficking; and drug and gun crimes.

  • Fool Me Once… You Can’t Get Fooled Again: America Has Seen This Move Before

    If drug trafficking truly threatens American communities, the solution lies in intelligence cooperation, economic pressure, cross border law enforcement, and deep regional diplomacy, not in hammer-fist militarism.

  • Lawmakers Call for Probe of How Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Got Piece of $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts

    The demands for an investigation come after a ProPublica story revealed that the Noem-connected Strategy Group was secretly a subcontractor on the ad campaign.

  • A West Texas County Wants to Better Prepare for Floods. Paying for It Will Be Tricky.

    Ector County has boomed since the 1970s, when the drainage system was last updated. Officials hope state and federal funds will help pay for the update despite some grant programs ending under the Trump administration.

  • South Carolina’s Measles Outbreak Shows Chilling Effect of Vaccine Misinformation

    For the first time in more than two decades, the United States is poised to lose its measles elimination status, a designation indicating that outbreaks are rare and rapidly contained. The confluence of larger national trends —including historically low vaccination rates, skepticism fueled by the pandemic, misinformation, and “health freedom” ideologies promoted by conservative politicians —have put communities at risk for the reemergence of a preventable, potentially deadly virus.

  • CDC’s New Deputy Director Is Vocal Critic of Vaccines, Advocated for Ivermectin

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named a critic o COVID vaccines — and a promoter of a worthless alternative to such vaccines – as deputy director of CDC.

  • When Presidents Target Congress

    President Trump reacted to the calls of six members of Congress for military personnel to refuse to carry out unlawful orders by claiming those six federal legislators had engaged in “seditious behavior, punishable by death.” But Congress has explicit constitutional authority over the military. For lawmakers to remind military personnel of their obligations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice is prospective oversight communication about congressionally mandated legal requirements. Indeed, there’s an argument to be made that any attempt by FBI personnel to interview, much less investigate, those six congressional members for their speech would itself constitute a violation of the speech and debate clause.

  • FEMA’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

    As 2025 draws to a close, the departure of the beleaguered acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, caps a tumultuous year for FEMA. Internal turmoil and delayed aid – all under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s vow to abolish the agency — expose the agency’s fragility under Trump.

  • Homeland Security Wants State Driver’s License Data for Sweeping Citizenship Program

    The Trump administration wants access to state driver’s license data on millions of U.S. residents as it builds a powerful citizenship verification program amid its clampdown on voter fraud and illegal immigration. For access, the administration may turn to an obscure data-sharing network used by law enforcement agencies, potentially allowing officials to bypass negotiating with states for the records.

  • Trump’s Immigration Forces Deploy “Less Lethal” Weapons in Dangerous Ways, Skirting Rules and Maiming Protesters

    Civil rights and weapons experts cite the consequences of federal agents’ use of crowd control weapons: religious leaders shot with pepper balls and noxious chemicals. A nurse nearly blinded by tear gas. Protestors trapped, struggling to breathe.