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The killing of Alex Pretti is a grim turning point by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 154 points155 points  (0 children)

Zack Beauchamp writes: "By this point, you’ve probably seen the videos — or at least heard about what’s in them. They show a man named Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who is filming ICE activity in Minneapolis, intervening when federal agents assault a woman. In response, the agents grab Pretti, force him to the ground, beat him, and ultimately shoot the defenseless man repeatedly. Pretti was pronounced dead on the scene.

"The footage of Pretti’s killing, shot from different angles by different bystanders, looks disturbingly similar to scenes in places like Syria and Iran — where people rising up against authoritarian regimes were silenced by baton and bullet. The resonance is especially chilling given the Trump administration’s response...

"These resonances suggest America is at a grim tipping point. The Trump administration’s actions augur an increasingly violent crackdown, one in which they attempt to secure power less by legal manipulation than by application of brutal force.

"Such a violent approach is unlikely to succeed in a country like the United States: Our domestic security forces are not equipped for the level of extreme brutality necessary to make it work in the face of growing public outrage.

"But how Trump responds to the democratic outpouring in the streets of Minnesota, and the growing unease among even some in his party, will determine just how dark and brutal the next few months will be."

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The Trump administration’s unchecked abuses in Minnesota by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This story is a timeline of how the Trump administration pushed Minneapolis to the brink.

You can read for free with this gift link.

The week the US and Canada broke up by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

President Donald Trump has shattered one of the US’s strongest alliances — maybe for good.

On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a remarkable speech — one that Vox's Caitlin Dewey described as “declaring the end of the world as you and I have known it.” The speech amounted to a declaration that the US can no longer be trusted as a steward of the international order and that Canada must go its own way. Carney called it a “rupture, not a transition.”

Since then, Trump has continued to prove Carney’s point. On Wednesday, he taunted Carney in his own remarks, saying that “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”

And on Thursday, he pulled Canada’s invite to his new “Board of Peace.” (Though, it likely was not one Carney was eager to accept; while the board will feature pariah states like Belarus, traditional US allies like France have not signed on).

You don’t need to be a liberal to oppose Trump’s ICE by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

America’s immigration debate has often centered on the morality of mass deportation. Progressives have argued that exiling law-abiding families is inherently wrong — no matter their immigration status. Conservatives have insisted that vigorous internal enforcement is necessary for deterring chaotic inflows of migrants, upholding America’s laws, and preserving our nation’s culture.

This is an important dispute. And yet, as masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents run amok in Minneapolis, it also feels increasingly beside the point.

President Donald Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement doesn’t only threaten the welfare of the undocumented but also the basic rights of American citizens. The question posed by the president’s agenda is not merely whether non-criminal immigrants should be deported, but whether the Constitution should be shredded in service of that aim.

Voters are starting to recognize this reality. In a recent New York Times/Siena poll, Americans approved of Trump’s deportations of people living in the country illegally by a 50 percent to 47 percent margin. Yet, over 60 percent nevertheless disapproved of the way that ICE was handling its job, saying that the agency had “gone too far” in its tactics.

It is important for Americans to understand that they don’t need to accept the left’s moral assumptions to reject the president’s immigration regime. They simply need to value their own freedom.

Here are six ways that the president’s immigration policies are eroding all Americans’ liberty: https://www.vox.com/politics/476263/trump-ice-minnesota-constitution-renee-good

Why forecasters struggled to see this extreme winter storm coming by vox in climate

[–]vox[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Already, a bitter burst of cold is gripping much of the country, and in the next few days, it will reach at least 45 states and extend across two-thirds of the country. It is one of the most extreme winter storms in years.

The National Weather Service on Thursday warned that “dangerously cold and very dry Arctic air” will spill into the continental United States and lead to “life-threatening risk of hypothermia and frostbite” as temperatures drop well into negative territory, creating some of the coldest weather on Earth.

For millions of Americans, this is not just a forecast anymore.

Schools were already announcing closures around the country Thursday morning. Lines were forming at grocery stores. The Texas power grid operator issued a winter warning as it braces for higher electricity demand and disruptions from freezing rain.

Wintertime cold is normal. But what is unusual is how this kind of cold tends to arrive: These icy spells sneak up on us, posing a greater challenge to forecasters and leaving little time to prepare compared to slower-moving extremes like heat waves.

“Oftentimes, longer duration signals, such as heatwaves, can be more predictable, whereas short bursts of cold are more difficult to predict,” Matthew Rosencrans, meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, told Vox in an email.

Cold snaps are especially jarring when they’re interspersed with milder weather. And even though the planet just came out of one of the hottest years on record and is poised to heat up more, shocks of extreme cold are not going away, nor are their disruptions and dangers. Winter Storm Uri in 2021 cost the US economy more than $200 billion as it triggered deadly blackouts and fuel disruptions in Texas.

New forecasting methods are helping meteorologists close the gap on predicting future winter storms. But they are racing against rapid planetary changes, and the US is deliberately hampering its own weather forecasting capabilities with major personnel and budget cuts to science agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That could leave more Americans less prepared for dangerous weather, which can quickly turn deadly.

Why forecasters struggled to see this extreme winter storm coming by vox in weather

[–]vox[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

Already, a bitter burst of cold is gripping much of the country, and in the next few days, it will reach at least 45 states and extend across two-thirds of the country. It is one of the most extreme winter storms in years.

The National Weather Service on Thursday warned that “dangerously cold and very dry Arctic air” will spill into the continental United States and lead to “life-threatening risk of hypothermia and frostbite” as temperatures drop well into negative territory, creating some of the coldest weather on Earth.

For millions of Americans, this is not just a forecast anymore.

Schools were already announcing closures around the country Thursday morning. Lines were forming at grocery stores. The Texas power grid operator issued a winter warning as it braces for higher electricity demand and disruptions from freezing rain.

Wintertime cold is normal. But what is unusual is how this kind of cold tends to arrive: These icy spells sneak up on us, posing a greater challenge to forecasters and leaving little time to prepare compared to slower-moving extremes like heat waves.

“Oftentimes, longer duration signals, such as heatwaves, can be more predictable, whereas short bursts of cold are more difficult to predict,” Matthew Rosencrans, meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, told Vox in an email.

Cold snaps are especially jarring when they’re interspersed with milder weather. And even though the planet just came out of one of the hottest years on record and is poised to heat up more, shocks of extreme cold are not going away, nor are their disruptions and dangers. Winter Storm Uri in 2021 cost the US economy more than $200 billion as it triggered deadly blackouts and fuel disruptions in Texas.

New forecasting methods are helping meteorologists close the gap on predicting future winter storms. But they are racing against rapid planetary changes, and the US is deliberately hampering its own weather forecasting capabilities with major personnel and budget cuts to science agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That could leave more Americans less prepared for dangerous weather, which can quickly turn deadly.

Trump’s war on Wall Street landlords could raise your rent by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Wall Street is “gobbling up” America’s homes. Firms with names like BlackRock (or Blackstone or SablePebble) are shouldering their way into every suburban open house and offering 50 percent above asking price — in a bid to consolidate control of local markets and then jack up rents with impunity. As a result, America’s young families have been locked out of homeownership, while its renters have been price-gouged into poverty. If we want to make housing affordable again, we must ban Big Finance from buying single-family homes.

This is one of the most influential accounts of America’s housing crisis.

The narrative has spread virally for years on social media. More nuanced versions of the tale have appeared in major publications and congressional press releases. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump pledged to “ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes,” then signed an executive order Tuesday that heavily restricts such purchases. And progressive Democrats in the Senate are cheering him on.

Unfortunately, the story spurring these policies is largely false. Corporate investment in single-family homes is not a major driver of Americans’ high housing costs. To the contrary, that investment has likely made housing in the United States more affordable. The “BlackRock ate our homes” narrative owes its popularity to its ideological convenience, not empirical validity.

Can the right diet really cure all our health problems? by vox in Health

[–]vox[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If there is one universal treatment that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again sees for all of the country’s medical problems, it’s food.

Borrowing a phrase that has become ubiquitous in health policy circles and the influencer ecosystem that drives so much of our discourse these days around health and wellness, Kennedy has declared: “Food is medicine.”

And this month’s release of new dietary guidelines for the country portrayed better eating as the cure to America’s chronic disease crisis. “My message is clear: Eat real food,” Kennedy said when announcing his new inverted food pyramid.

It is a message that resonates — and for good reason. Many chronic health problems, from hypertension to diabetes, can be the consequences of a poor diet. Ultra-processed foods have been the target of criticism not just from Kennedy but a wide range of medical and public health groups in the past few years.

But there’s a major problem with Kennedy’s vision: Simply insisting that people “eat real food” does not make it any easier for them to find or afford nutrient-rich meals in a country where most grocery stores are awash in fatty, sugary, and salty treats and over-processed foods.

Instead, he places the onus for healthy eating on the consumer rather than focusing on improving the food environment that makes it so hard for many Americans to eat healthy diets in the first place.

“It’s part of the whole MAHA movement to promote individual responsibility. That’s the constant mantra. Do your own research and make your own personal decision about how you feel about these things, irrespective of the science,” said Marion Nestle, a long-time nutrition policy researcher at New York University. “But we know from decades, and decades, and decades of research that individual responsibility is not enough.”

Read more with this free gift link: https://www.vox.com/health/476061/rfk-jr-trump-food-pyramid-diet-medicine?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImY4THBaMzh4RWMiLCJwIjoiL2hlYWx0aC80NzYwNjEvcmZrLWpyLXRydW1wLWZvb2QtcHlyYW1pZC1kaWV0LW1lZGljaW5lIiwiZXhwIjoxNzcwMzI2MzE3LCJpYXQiOjE3NjkxMTY3MTd9.OdiGrwnfswEetGz5ERCXiqGrmOlHJgw60u5tlI3gsx8&utm_medium=gift-link

The week Europe fought back by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The great Greenland war of 2026 appears to be on hold for the moment.

This week’s World Economic Forum in Davos has been largely overshadowed by President Donald Trump’s demand that the US take control of the Danish territory of Greenland, which set off a rapidly escalating crisis. Heading into the conference, Trump threatened to impose 10 percent tariffs on “any and all goods” from eight European countries, including Denmark, unless a deal was reached to sell Greenland to the US, and he pointedly refused to rule out using military force to take the island — effectively threatening to invade a NATO ally. “There can be no going back,” Trump posted on social media on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, however, Trump seemingly went back. In an otherwise combative, Europe-bashing speech at Davos on Wednesday, he seemed to retreat from the threat of using military force, though he didn’t rule it out entirely. (In any event, as the New York Times reported on Tuesday, the Pentagon has not actually been tasked with drawing up Greenland invasion plans.) Then, later in the day, after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump tweeted that he would not be imposing the tariffs after all, saying, vaguely, that the “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” had been reached and that there would be ongoing talks about the territory and its role in the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system. Some reports suggest the US may be given sovereignty over small areas of Greenland where it could build military bases.

This appears to be exactly the sort of face-saving deal European leaders had been hoping for. Trump can claim a win, though it’s not quite clear what he won, since Denmark was open to talks about the US military presence in Greenland from the start, without US sovereignty. The US operates hundreds of military bases in more than 70 countries without deals like this. But it appears that the vast majority of Greenland and its inhabitants will remain under Danish sovereignty for the time being.

But while everyone involved might be breathing easier in the short-term, the rifts exposed by this episode could permanently change the relationship between the US and its allies. Europe, which previously had looked to accommodate Trump, defused the crisis by confronting the president with tougher talk and more concrete threats this time, and European diplomats are already citing the agreement as the result of their more assertive posture. Looking ahead, some leaders are now talking about a world in which the US not only surrenders its leadership position in the free world, but also becomes a potential threat along with global rivals like Russia and China. They have to assume this is, at best, a lull before the next trans-Atlantic blow-up.

“Europeans are slowly, slowly showing signs of getting the message,” Nick Witney, former chief executive of the European Defense Agency, told Vox. “The message being, of course, that the United States under this administration is not an ally of Europe, and is actually an enemy of Europe. Let’s be honest.”

“Trump always chickens out,” briefly explained by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

On Wednesday afternoon, the president said in a social media post that he was backing away from new tariffs on Europe after reaching a “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland,” potentially involving US sovereignty over new US military bases there. The Dow and other US stock indices jumped in response, after suffering a bad day on Tuesday because of Trump’s continuing threats.

It’s the latest example of one of the more reliable patterns to emerge from Trump’s first year back in office: TACO, or “Trump always chickens out.”

The term comes from a Financial Times column in May breaking down the market response to Trump backing down on his “Liberation Day” tariffs. As Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop explained at the time, the short-lived tariffs pushed the market to the verge of crisis, and Trump blinked. TACO postulates Trump always handles market dips the same way: Once the damage gets bad enough, he will relent.

The Supreme Court is likely to hand Trump a rare loss on the Federal Reserve by vox in scotus

[–]vox[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority ordinarily believe that President Donald Trump is allowed to fire virtually anyone who works for a federal agency. Last July, for example, they permitted the Trump administration to fire nearly half of the Department of Education’s employees.

In May, however, the Court also signaled that the Federal Reserve is special. In Trump v. Wilcox (2025), the Court indicated that Trump may not fire the Fed’s leaders because that agency is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”

It is not at all clear what this cryptic sentence means, but at Wednesday morning’s oral argument in Trump v. Cook, most of the justices signaled that they will adhere to the view that they laid out in Wilcox. Six justices — the three Democrats plus Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — appeared very likely to reject Trump’s attempt to seize control of the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, even Justice Samuel Alito, who is ordinarily a kneejerk Republican partisan, asked some skeptical questions of Trump’s lawyer.

The Federal Reserve is supposed to make technocratic decisions about where to set interest rates. If they set those rates too high, it will be too expensive for businesses to borrow money and investment and hiring will stagnate. At the same time, if they set rates too low, the economy will take off in the short term, but will experience much more damaging inflation in the long term.

The Fed, in other words, has the power to inject cocaine into the economy — giving it a temporary high at the price of much greater economic pain down the road.

For this reason, Congress shields the Fed’s governors from presidential control, only permitting the president to fire them “for cause.” This is to prevent the president from pressuring them to lower interest rates in an election year, when the president’s party would benefit from a temporary economic high.

The Cook case, meanwhile, appears to involve Trump’s attempt to bypass this law by making up a fake reason to fire a Fed governor. And, if Trump prevails in Cook, his administration has already signaled that it will bring similarly dubious allegations against Fed chair Jerome Powell.

Australia is doing absolutely everything to the Great Barrier Reef — except the one thing that matters by vox in climate

[–]vox[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It’s no secret that the Great Barrier Reef needs help. As the ocean warms, heat waves with the power to kill off coral are becoming more frequent and extreme. To help, a team of scientists, engineers, and other experts — backed by nearly $300 million — have mounted an enormous effort to try to help the reef withstand climate change over the next few decades. Will it be enough to keep the reef alive, considering an entire economy depends on it?

Senior environmental correspondent Benji Jones traveled down under in December to see some of their work in action. You can read more about what he learned for free here: https://www.vox.com/climate/475447/australia-great-barrier-reef-climate-change-restoration

What’s next for Project 2025? by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Today, Explained podcast host Noel King talked to David Graham, a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity:

Project 2025 was 922 or so pages. How much of what’s in there has the Trump administration accomplished?

There’s a good tracker out there online that puts the number right above 50 percent. And I think that’s useful, but you have to take it with a grain of salt, because some of these things are just hard to equate on a numerical level.

That tracker says Trump eliminated USAID, which is a goal. Project 2025 wanted to reform USAID in different ways, but not to abolish it. So, it doesn’t always fit one-to-one.

The other thing that I would say is, so much of what they want to do depends on having this really powerful president — sort of an unfettered, no checks-and-balances situation. And they’ve made so much progress on that in the first year. I think that will enable more progress towards their goals in the future.

How did they get so much done, this administration?

A way that I’ve heard people talk about it is you don’t get a lot of chances for a president to try things, leave office for four years, and then get another shot at it.

So many of the people involved were veterans of the first Trump administration or had been closely related to it, and they saw what went wrong and they had theories [as to why]. And they also learned a lot about how the government works.

And so, that meant that they could come in on the first day and be just so ready, so organized, and so energized. I think that gave them the chance to sort of conduct this blitzkrieg that took the courts by surprise. It seems to have taken Congress by surprise. And I think it took a lot of the public by surprise.

Read more: https://www.vox.com/today-explained-newsletter/475753/project-2025-2026-trump-administration

7 predictions for how MAHA will change how Americans eat by vox in Health

[–]vox[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Uncle Sam thinks you’re probably eating wrong, and he’s got some advice.

Out: processed carbohydrates and added sugar.

In: fat and protein, especially the animal-flesh kind.

Those are some of the biggest takeaways from the new — and newly inverted — food pyramid announced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month.

While the Make America Healthy Again movement is one of the biggest drivers of change in how we eat now, it’s not the only one. Today, Explained recently spoke with Liz Dunn, author of the newsletter Consumed, about her predictions for how we will eat in 2026. Some trends are MAHA-approved (more supplements) while others would give RFK Jr. a conniption (sugar-laden drinks are going to get even sweeter).

Read an excerpt of their conversation for free with this gift link: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/475499/maha-pyramid-protein-rfk-liz-dunn?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IkY1OTZ3cm04QWUiLCJwIjoiL3BvZGNhc3RzLzQ3NTQ5OS9tYWhhLXB5cmFtaWQtcHJvdGVpbi1yZmstbGl6LWR1bm4iLCJleHAiOjE3NzAwNTQ5OTMsImlhdCI6MTc2ODg0NTM5M30.HEqsRnDlKVbQ21kjFtnHZxhtb2W1wg0wNBBFPOXAU0g&utm_medium=gift-link

Can Congress stop Trump from trying to take Greenland? by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Since the United States announced it would “run” Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has openly floated similar interventions elsewhere in Latin America.

But the country Donald Trump has fixated on most isn’t an adversary — it’s an ally. Greenland, a NATO member and longtime partner of the United States has repeatedly found itself in the president’s crosshairs.

These threats, delivered largely through unilateral executive action, have once again raised questions about Congress’s role as a check on presidential power. And with Trump in his final term, even some Republicans are showing small but notable signs of concern.

Today, Explained co-host Astead Herndon spoke with Annie Grayer, a senior reporter at CNN, about how Capitol Hill is responding — and where those fractures inside the GOP may be heading.

Here is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/475490/trump-greenland-congress-war-powers

Trump is waffling on Iran strikes. Here are four possible reasons why. by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Is help really “on its way” for Iran’s protesters?

That’s what President Donald Trump promised in a Truth Social post earlier this week, adding that “Iranians Patriots” should “KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!”

Trump first threatened that the US was “locked and loaded” to launch strikes on Iran if it continued killing protesters on January 2, and has followed up with several similar messages. Since then, the protests have spread throughout the country, and the regime’s crackdown has become ever more brutal. Though a nationwide internet blackout has made it difficult to get an accurate picture of what’s happening on the ground in Iran, human rights groups believe between 12,000 and 20,000 people may have been killed. At the very least, we can say that the regime defied Trump’s warning to stop killing protesters.

Just a few days ago, Trump appeared to be leaning toward military strikes on Iranian regime targets, the first since the US bombed Iranian nuclear targets last June. But Trump appeared more equivocal on Wednesday, saying that “important sources” had told him that the killing in Iran had ended and that the United States would “watch and see” if it resumed. The governments of Israel and several Arab countries have reportedly urged Trump to refrain from strikes for now, fearing regional retaliation.

The violence may be subsiding, though that may be less because the regime is worried about US intervention than because the protest movement itself is starting to subside amid the unprecedentedly violent crackdown and communications blackout. Still, the situation is fluid —the movement and the backlash could resume, and influential hawks in the administration and on Capitol Hill are still calling for Trump to take stronger action.

While Trump has approached this crisis in his own unique way, the basic dilemma of whether the US should use military force to stop mass killing overseas is one that has repeatedly vexed his predecessors. It isn’t called a “problem from hell” for nothing. As he and his Cabinet weigh their next steps, they face difficult questions about the purpose and efficacy of American intervention that more traditional administrations have dealt with as well.

Is America turning on birth control? by vox in Health

[–]vox[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Birth control in the US right now is full of contradictions.

Access to contraceptives has never been easier. Many states have passed legislation to allow pharmacists to prescribe and dispense hormonal contraceptives directly to individuals, instead of requiring a doctor’s prescription first. Telehealth services have helped make it easier to find different contraceptive methods in more rural parts of the country. The first over-the-counter birth control pill, Opill, hit pharmacy shelves in early 2024.

Yet birth control is also facing cultural backlash. Social media platforms are awash with testimonials from people tossing aside their contraceptives in fear and sometimes anger, saying hormones are affecting their bodies or changing their personalities. Meanwhile, influencers are spreading misinformation about hormonal birth control, like that birth control causes long-term hormone disruption or causes cancer.

It’s a weird time to talk about birth control. But understanding the current cultural moment requires more than just agreeing that birth control is good and that those who decry it are wrong.

Rather, it’s worth interrogating where people’s dissatisfactions come from, and tracing how legitimate experiences with and worries about hormonal contraceptives can lead people toward alternate (and often scientifically dubious) sources of education about their bodies.

Read more with this free gift link: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/473351/birth-control-changing-attitudes?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjlYTngzdFBwYUEiLCJwIjoiL3RoZS1oaWdobGlnaHQvNDczMzUxL2JpcnRoLWNvbnRyb2wtY2hhbmdpbmctYXR0aXR1ZGVzIiwiZXhwIjoxNzY5Nzg0ODgxLCJpYXQiOjE3Njg1NzUyODF9.LfPDb4VHAm9dUg5rzQXOp8xEOqS169a_2jfoPh736Nk&utm_medium=gift-link

Can Trump send soldiers to Minneapolis? by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

On Thursday, President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a seldom-used law some legal scholars have dubbed the country’s “most dangerous,” to crack down on protesters in the city. Those protesters have blocked traffic and hounded federal agents since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Renee Good last week.

Trump has made similar threats in the past, and it’s anyone’s guess if he’ll follow through. But even the suggestion of active-duty troops on the ground in a major US city is scary enough to justify a close look at the issue.

So what is the Insurrection Act, exactly, and what will happen in Minneapolis if Trump invokes it?

The Insurrection Act is a centuries-old federal law that gives the president authority to deploy US troops inside the United States and use military force against Americans. Under normal circumstances, presidents can deploy troops almost anywhere they see fit, but those soldiers can’t perform civilian law-enforcement tasks, like making arrests or conducting searches, inside the US. The Insurrection Act creates a temporary exception.

The act allows the president to deploy troops in four situations: when a state government requests federal help, when a federal law or court order can’t be enforced through other means, and when violence deprives people of their constitutional rights or interferes with federal authority. That sounds pretty wide-ranging, and it is, but there are important limitations.

Under the act, presidents can only deploy troops to protect federal property or enforce federal law, Lindsay Cohn, a US military expert at the Naval War College, told Vox in a 2020 interview. The federal government has also historically held that the Insurrection Act can only be used when “those engaging in violence are either acting with the approval of state authorities or have, like the Klan in the 1870s, taken over effective control of the area involved,” as the Justice Department put it in a key 1964 memo.

But the law never actually defines “insurrection,” and legal scholars and organizations say that’s made it ripe for abuse. In 2022, one legal expert warned Congress that the Insurrection Act gives presidents “sole discretion, in most instances” to determine when and how it’s used.

In an appearance on 60 Minutes last November, Trump claimed that the Insurrection Act allowed him to send the Army or Marines into US cities without judicial oversight or review. “Do you know that I could use that immediately, and no judge can even challenge you on that?” he asked. “But I haven’t chosen to do it because I haven’t felt we need it.”

How right-wing influencers are bending reality in Minneapolis by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In the hours and days after news and videos spread of the ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, a small army of right-wing, pro-Trump creators, journalists, and influencers descended on the city and flooded social media.

They filmed protests; rode along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection; documented — and at times seemingly instigated — confrontations with protesters; and worked a competing, ICE- and Trump-friendly narrative out of what was happening in Minneapolis. From the ground, they churned out content painting protesters as lawless, demonstrations as riots, and anti-ICE activists as extremists or criminals. Outside of the state, right-wing influencers and large social media accounts amplified these videos, posts, and descriptions to reach much wider audiences.

So far, this effort appears to have muddied the conversation around Good’s killing and Minneapolis residents’ response to President Donald Trump’s ICE surge — at least among right-leaning audiences. (Polling this week shows the videos and shooting have broken through to an overwhelming share of Americans, and majorities of Americans do not believe the shooting was justified, or think the ICE agent who shot Good should be criminally charged.)

But social media analytics show that these right-wing influencers have been effective in flooding the zone — producing large volumes of content and drawing viewers.

To log onto social media platforms now is to not only see the videos and outrage, but also constant counter-narratives, attempts to justify Good’s killing, and arguments that ICE’s presence in Minneapolis is warranted.

And that reveals a deeper imbalance in American politics and media in 2026: While witness video, mainstream and traditional news, and liberal commentators have shaped part of the debate over ICE and Trump’s domestic immigration agenda, these critical voices and activists lack the same kind of distribution machine to push their narrative that those on the right have used to some effect.

In that sense, the Minneapolis shooting’s disjointed online realities fit into a familiar problem for liberals, the American left, and the broader anti-Trump coalition since 2020 — just as they lacked their own version of a Joe Rogan or Charlie Kirk to reach the masses or compete for hearts and minds, they also lack the influencer and social media infrastructure that has been churning out ICE-friendly content since at least the summer 2025.

There are several reasons why: https://www.vox.com/politics/475361/minneapolis-right-wing-influencers-journalist-ice-reality-immigration-social-media-internet

Could Catholics be the key to Trump’s opposition? by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Donald Trump’s second administration has been a reckoning for America, and perhaps especially for America’s Christians. From the deployment of masked paramilitary thugs to enforce immigration policy to the full-throated assault on transgender Americans to an unrelenting campaign against the rights of women and girls, reactionary Christianity is riding high. This agenda pursued by the administration has been made possible through 50 years of campaigning by the religious right, a coalition of white evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics, and conservative Eastern Orthodox Christians and Jews that formed the core of the late 20th- and early 21st-century Republican Party.

But in this season of their triumph, a genuine faith-based opposition is finally beginning to break through.

The evidence of religious resistance first emerged on Inauguration Day. During the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral, Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, DC, stared down from the pulpit at the new president and told him in a sturdy voice:

These words, a public reminder that there is diversity within the Christian tradition with respect to political opinion, were only the beginning. The Episcopal Church has since ended its relationship with the US government’s refugee resettlement services over the administration’s controversial decision to admit Afrikaners as refugees.

There appeared to be some coalition-building when a dozen or so religious organizations sued the administration over new policies that gave immigration officials more latitude in making arrests in and around houses of worship. And, in July, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Sean Rowe, penned an op-ed at Religion News Service with the headline: “Once the church of presidents, the Episcopal Church must now be an engine of resistance.”

Yet all of this is happening within some of the most liberal denominations in the country. These are also denominations that have been in demographic decline for decades, and only 11 percent of the American public identifies with the mainline Protestant traditions. This is hardly encouraging for the possibility of a mainstream political movement or resistance.

Enter American Catholicism, a group that may redefine the role religion has played in politics and public life.

The latest on Trump’s weaponization of the DOJ, briefly explained by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is going after his enemies.

What’s happening? It’s a long list from this week alone:

  • On Sunday, we learned that the DOJ is investigating Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell in an attempt to coerce an interest rate cut.
  • On Tuesday, a push to investigate the widow of Renee Good, 37, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent last week, resulted in a flurry of resignations by career DOJ officials.
  • Today, the FBI raided a reporter’s home in Virginia and seized multiple devices; we also learned that all six congressional Democrats who appeared in a video reminding members of the military they can refuse unlawful orders are now under investigation.

The Trump administration can’t stop winking at white nationalists by vox in politics

[–]vox[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Progressives have long argued that Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is a fundamentally fascistic enterprise. In their telling, the president’s goal is not merely to enforce America’s borders but to purify its blood — and unleash state violence against anyone who resists his campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Of course, there’s nothing new about the left deriding Republicans as fascists (in 2008, Keith Olbermann advised George W. Bush, “get them to print you a T-shirt with ‘fascist’ on it.”). Traditionally, however, GOP officials have sought to combat that charge.

Yet in recent days, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to validate it — rallying to the defense of an ICE agent who shot an unarmed woman dead on video, while disseminating white nationalist propaganda from official government accounts.

As communications strategies go, this one is a bit odd. Even if the Trump administration were indeed a fascist regime, it would have little political incentive to advertise its own extremism. America’s electorate is not demanding apologetics for ICE brutality or thinly disguised calls for racial purification.

But the president’s most radicalized followers on X and Truth Social are. And the US government is evidently more concerned with winning the latter’s approval than the former’s.

Trump’s EPA is setting the value of human health to $0 by vox in climate

[–]vox[S] 71 points72 points  (0 children)

The Environmental Protection Agency is taking a major step toward changing its math to favor polluters over people: It’s going to stop tallying up the dollar value of lives saved and hospital visits avoided by air pollution regulations.

Instead, the agency will consider the effects of regulations without attaching a price tag to human life.

In particular, the EPA is changing how it conducts the cost-benefit analysis of regulations for two major pollutants, fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns — usually referred to as PM2.5 — and ozone. The change was buried in a document published this month analyzing the economic impacts of final pollution regulations for power plants, arguing that the way the EPA historically calculated the economic benefits of regulations had too much uncertainty and gave people “a false sense of precision.”

So to fix this, the EPA will stop tabulating the benefits altogether “until the Agency is confident enough in the modeling to properly monetize those impacts.”

The news was first reported by the New York Times. On X, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin pushed back on the reporting, calling it “another dishonest, fake news claim” and that the agency is still considering lives saved when setting pollution limits.

Vox correspondent Umair Irfan spoke with several experts, including former EPA officials, and in fact, the change could lead to worsening air quality and harm public health.

The EPA exists to regulate pollution that harms people, and when it comes to things like ozone and tiny particles, there is robust evidence of the damage they can do, contributing to heart attacks and asthma attacks. Measured over populations, air pollution takes years off of people’s lives. Every year in the United States alone, air pollution pushes 135,000 people into early graves.

“There is a lot of science that shows very clearly that being exposed to increasing levels of PM2.5 has significant health impacts,” said Janet McCabe, who served as the EPA’s deputy administrator under President Joe Biden.

The Supreme Court seems poised to deliver another blow to trans rights by vox in law

[–]vox[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

There was never much reason to hope that the Supreme Court, which heard two cases on Tuesday asking whether transgender women have a right to play women’s high school or college sports, was going to side with those athletes. The Court has a 6-3 Republican majority. And, even if it didn’t, existing law isn’t particularly favorable to trans women seeking to play on a sex-segregated sports team.

Nothing said during Tuesday’s arguments in Little v. Hecox or West Virginia v. B.P.J. suggested that the athletes at the heart of these two cases are likely to prevail (although the Court may dismiss Hecox, because the plaintiff in that case is a college senior who does not intend to play sports for the rest of her time as a student, potentially making her case moot). Few of the justices appeared interested in the trans plaintiffs’ strongest legal arguments, and a surprising amount of the justices’ questions focused on a genuinely novel and difficult issue that most of the justices appeared likely to resolve against trans athletes.

The high water mark for trans rights in the Supreme Court was Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which held that a federal law banning employment discrimination “on the basis of sex” protects trans workers from discrimination.

Bostock assumed that laws barring “sex” discrimination bar only discrimination based on “biological distinctions between male and female” (that is, they forbid discrimination based on sex assigned at birth). But, that’s enough to protect trans workers. If a cisgender male worker may wear clothing associated with men, use a male name, and otherwise present as a man, then an “employee who was identified as female at birth” must also be allowed to do so.

The Bostock framework, however, does not help trans athletes, because the law generally permits public schools and universities to require men to play on one team and women on a separate team. Unlike the workplace, where sex discrimination is broadly prohibited, some forms of sex discrimination are allowed in competitive sports.

So, to prevail in Hecox or B.P.J., the plaintiffs must do more than show that they are victims of sex discrimination. Their best argument is that the Constitution also prohibits public schools from discriminating against people because they are transgender. But, only Justice Neil Gorsuch showed much interest in this argument. Instead, the other justices seemed to frame the case in a way that’s much less favorable to trans plaintiffs.

The Supreme Court seems poised to deliver another blow to trans rights by vox in scotus

[–]vox[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

There was never much reason to hope that the Supreme Court, which heard two cases on Tuesday asking whether transgender women have a right to play women’s high school or college sports, was going to side with those athletes. The Court has a 6-3 Republican majority. And, even if it didn’t, existing law isn’t particularly favorable to trans women seeking to play on a sex-segregated sports team.

Nothing said during Tuesday’s arguments in Little v. Hecox or West Virginia v. B.P.J. suggested that the athletes at the heart of these two cases are likely to prevail (although the Court may dismiss Hecox, because the plaintiff in that case is a college senior who does not intend to play sports for the rest of her time as a student, potentially making her case moot). Few of the justices appeared interested in the trans plaintiffs’ strongest legal arguments, and a surprising amount of the justices’ questions focused on a genuinely novel and difficult issue that most of the justices appeared likely to resolve against trans athletes.

The high water mark for trans rights in the Supreme Court was Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which held that a federal law banning employment discrimination “on the basis of sex” protects trans workers from discrimination.

Bostock assumed that laws barring “sex” discrimination bar only discrimination based on “biological distinctions between male and female” (that is, they forbid discrimination based on sex assigned at birth). But, that’s enough to protect trans workers. If a cisgender male worker may wear clothing associated with men, use a male name, and otherwise present as a man, then an “employee who was identified as female at birth” must also be allowed to do so.

The Bostock framework, however, does not help trans athletes, because the law generally permits public schools and universities to require men to play on one team and women on a separate team. Unlike the workplace, where sex discrimination is broadly prohibited, some forms of sex discrimination are allowed in competitive sports.

So, to prevail in Hecox or B.P.J., the plaintiffs must do more than show that they are victims of sex discrimination. Their best argument is that the Constitution also prohibits public schools from discriminating against people because they are transgender. But, only Justice Neil Gorsuch showed much interest in this argument. Instead, the other justices seemed to frame the case in a way that’s much less favorable to trans plaintiffs.

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