News

AMERICAN PRISONS HAVE never been much for the First Amendment, and now, the Trump administration is exporting prison-style censorship to the general population. In tactics that are easily recognizable to incarcerated people like me, they’re doing it in the name of “security.”

This includes claiming antiestablishment ideologies and literature must be punished because they pose nebulous risks to those with government-approved political views. It also includes the logical next step: criminalizing efforts to keep authorities from finding out that one holds those ideologies or reads that literature.

Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada is set to be tried starting Tuesday on charges of corruptly concealing a document or record and conspiracy to conceal documents. He’s been in custody since July and in federal prison since October (save for a brief accidental release before Thanksgiving, during which he spoke to The Intercept). He and his codefendants were recently transferred to county jail to await trial. Supporters report that they’ve been placed in solitary confinement and are dealing with other horrid conditions.

In plain language, Sanchez Estrada is facing up to 20 years behind bars for allegedly moving a box of anarchist zines from his parents’ house to another residence in his hometown of Dallas. His indictment came on the heels of Trump’s signing an executive order to classify “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization” and issuing National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.

Cities across the US have developed novel tactics to protect their residents from federal immigration agents

As federal immigration agents flooded the streets of Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles over the past year, cities across the US have been at the frontlines of strategizing over how to protect their residents, should Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents come to their communities.

From Philadelphia to Oklahoma City and Oakland, California, many cities are developing new – and creative – tactics to prepare for and push back against ICE. Here’s a look at a few.

[...]

Tesla launched its “Robotaxi” service in Austin eight months ago. In that time, Elon Musk promised 500 cars in Austin, coverage for half the US population, fully unsupervised rides, and expansion to 8-10 cities, all by the end of 2025. None of it happened.

Today, the service has roughly 42 cars in Austin, availability below 20%, a crash rate 9 times worse than human drivers, and the “unsupervised” rides Musk hyped before earnings have vanished from the tracker.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/homeland-security-wants-social-media-sites-to-expose-anti-ice-accounts/

“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama responded before adding that they are not being kept in Area 51.

“There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States,” he added.

A new investigation examining emails sent between federal investigators and prosecutors has raised fresh doubts over the Department of Justice’s claim that it has released the full cache of Jeffrey Epstein files, suggesting the material made public amounts to just 2% of the data gathered by federal agents.

Channel 4 News reported that internal emails seen by its journalists show federal investigators expected to process between 20 and 40 terabytes of data seized from Epstein’s properties, including his Florida mansion, New York townhouse, and private island.

The broadcaster added that emails between investigators discussed the data “totaling” up to 50 terabytes from the “earliest stages” in June 2020.

In another internal email from 2025, the report continued, officials said that they were “looking at approximately 14.6 terabytes of archived data.”

As the United States heads toward the midterm elections, there are growing concerns among some political scientists that the country has moved even further along the path to some form of autocracy.

Staffan I. Lindberg, the director of Sweden's V-Dem Institute, which monitors democracy across the globe, says the U.S. has already crossed the threshold and become an "electoral autocracy."

Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University and co-author of How Democracies Die, agrees.

"I would argue that the United States in 2025-26 has slid into a mild form of competitive authoritarianism," Levitsky said. "I think it's reversible, but this is authoritarianism."

Critics say Trump administration’s rapidly expanding system is open to abuse and risks alienating communities from local police

Homeland Security watchdogs who were forced out of their jobs warn that the Trump administration’s “alarming” rush to deputize hundreds of local police departments to enforce federal immigration law – while gutting independent oversight – risks “a threat to civil rights nationwide.”

When the experienced civil rights watchdogs had their jobs cut last year by the Trump administration, they were in the process of scrutinizing the controversial federal program allowing local police to conduct federal immigration enforcement work, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

The vexed program gives local, county and state law enforcement officials unusual powers to detain, arrest and interrogate immigrants and turn them over to federal immigration authorities – a system critics say is open to abuse and risks alienating communities from local police.

I can't even completely articulate why this behavior feels so scummy. I know it's trash, I'm just not 100% sure why.

Wasatch County’s Republican Party chair is facing felony child abuse charges for allegedly “waterboarding” a 16-year-old relative.

At least 12 Women’s Institute (WI) groups are closing or considering closure after the organisation barred transgender women from membership.

Branches said they felt forced to shut after the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) confirmed that, from April, membership will be restricted to those registered female at birth. Several plan to relaunch as independent social groups.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it has released all of the files required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but lawmakers have argued the release is insufficient.

The letter sent to members of the US Congress on Saturday from Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche said all documents in the possession of the DoJ had been released and provided a list of names contained in the files.

Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who co-wrote the law, called for the DoJ to also release internal memos outlining past decisions on whether to charge Epstein and his associates.

Millions of new files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released by the DoJ earlier this month.

Cryptocurrency billionaires. Disgraced politicians. Reality TV stars. And hundreds of political allies.

Since taking office for a second term, United States President Donald Trump has issued more than 1,840 acts of clemency to a range of personalities.

Presidents have long stirred controversy in their choices of people to pardon. But experts argue that the way Trump has exercised his clemency power violates rules and norms in place for more than a century.

Now, they warn that pardons and commutations have become transactional, with Trump using them to reward those loyal to his agenda.

Some beneficiaries have been supporters of his "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement, including the hundreds of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

On Sunday morning, Border czar Tom Homan said elected officials in Minnesota “ought to be saying thank you” to the Trump administration for making the state safer.

“They were a sanctuary state,” Homan said on Fox & Friends. “Their county jails weren’t working with us across the state. So you know what? We fixed it.”

The remarks came after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and others criticized the Trump administration for its violent campaign against immigrants and the suppression of protesters in the days following Homan’s announcement that the federal government would end Operation Metro Surge.

“They left us with deep damage, generational trauma, economic ruin. They left us with many unanswered questions,” Gov. Walz said. “Where are our children? Where and what is the process of investigations into those who were responsible for the deaths of Renee and Alex?”