US Politics

Makers take a stand through ‘Melt the ICE’ red knit caps and sparkly nails – all while raising funds for those affected by immigration raidsIn the nine years that Gilah Mashaal has owned Needle & Skein, a yarn store in the suburbs of Minneapolis, she has tried to maintain a rule that “nobody talks politics” in the shop. But amid the weeks-long occupation of the Twin Cities by federal immigration paramilitaries, Mashaal and one of her employees decided to turn one of their weekly knit-alongs into a “protest stitch-along”.They didn’t want to return to the “pussy hats” that symbolized women’s resistance to Donald Trump in 2016, so Paul, their employee, did some research and came back with a proposal: a red knit hat inspired by the topplue or nisselue (woolen caps), worn by Norwegians during the second world war to signify their resistance to the Nazi occupation. Continue reading… More

As senators refuse to fund Trump’s immigration crackdown, a partial shutdown is likely. For Democrats, it’s the right moveIt took not one but two killings of unarmed white American citizens by immigration enforcement agents for the Democrats to commit to withholding funds from the Department of Homeland Security, the agency of which Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the border patrol – the killers – are part.After the first killing, seven House Democrats nevertheless voted with Republicans to allocate $64.4bn to the DHS, including $10bn for ICE. The bill they approved contained none of their party’s “commonsense” reforms, such as prohibition of masks and the requirement that agents obtain a judicial warrant before busting down a person’s door – not just an administrative warrant signed by the same agency invading the home. This last “reform”, which the Republican party rejected, is the soul of the fourth amendment, without which no one is safe anywhere from the state’s intrusion. Continue reading… More

Under Donald Trump, the White House has filled its social media with memes, wishcasting, nostalgia and deepfakes. Here’s what you need to know to navigate the trollingIt started with an image of Trump as a king mocked up on a fake Time magazine cover. Since then it’s developed into a full-blown phenomenon, one academics are calling “slopaganda” – an unholy alliance of easily available AI tools and political messaging. “Shitposting”, the publishing of deliberately crude, offensive content online to provoke a reaction, has reached the level of “institutional shitposting”, according to Know Your Meme’s editor Don Caldwell. This is trolling as official government communication. And nobody is more skilled at it than the Trump administration – a government that has not only allowed the AI industry all the regulative freedom it desires, but has embraced the technology for its own in-house purposes. Here are 10 of the most significant fake images the White House has put out so far. Continue reading… More

After months of community resistance, the president backed down. Leadership from below succeeded when politics as usual failedFor most politicians and journalists, the answer to nearly every question is to look up. Not at the moon, the stars or even the chimney tops, but at their leaders: the people who sit atop institutions, wield power and set the line that others follow. The top of the totem pole is the sole focal point, and the stories that count usually come from the heights of power.Bend your neck back far enough and Davos becomes not a talking shop in a Swiss ski resort, but a gathering of world leaders; Keir Starmer flying into Beijing is a summit of great powers; even who should be the MP for Gorton and Denton is really all about the Labour leadership. For this piece, the Guardian’s research librarians counted how many times the words “leader” or “leadership” appeared across the British press. Over the past week alone, the rough total stands at 2,000. A third of those stories concern one man: Donald Trump.Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

After saying the US would attack if protesters were harmed, the president appears now to be tying the threat of airstrikes to Iran’s nuclear programmeDonald Trump has warned that Iran must come to the table to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programme or face the possibility of airstrikes and regime change, capping off a month of bellicose posturing and whiplash inducing u-turns from the US president.The US president’s demands threaten to open a new chapter in America’s long and tumultuous relationship with Iran, which in just over a decade has seen rapprochement, broken deals, targeted assassinations and unprecedented airstrikes. Continue reading… More

This blog has now closed. Read our latest story hereTwo federal officers fired their guns during the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, according to an initial review by the Department of Homeland Security that was obtained by NBC News.Three sources told NBC News that the preliminary report, from a Customs and Border Protection internal investigation led by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was sent to congressional committees yesterday, including the House homeland security and judiciary committees. Continue reading… More

Ruling follows arrests under DHS ‘re-vetting’ operation of more than 100 refugees who had been lawfully resettledA federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from detaining refugees in Minnesota, following a spate of arrests in the state.More than 100 refugees who had lawfully resettled in the state had been arrested in recent weeks, according to attorneys and advocacy groups. Some were flown to detention centers in Texas, according to attorneys representing the cases, and then were abruptly released – and left to find and pay their own way back home. Continue reading… More

County spokesperson says warrant seeks number of 2020 election records while FBI declines to give further detailsThe FBI executed a search warrant at the election office in Fulton county, Georgia, on Wednesday for records related to the 2020 election, according to a spokesperson for the county and the FBI.The warrant sought all ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls, according to a warrant obtained by the Guardian. Continue reading… More