December, 16 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Biden Selects Rep. Deb Haaland for Secretary of the Interior
Center for Native American Youth Celebrates Haaland’s Historic Nomination as First Indigenous Woman, Praises Haaland’s Experience on Public Land Issues
WASHINGTON
Moments ago, reports revealed that President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Rep. Deb Haaland to serve as Secretary of the Interior. Haaland would be the first Indigenous woman to serve in that position.
In reaction to the announcement, Nikki Pitre, executive director of the Center for Native American Youth said:
"The nomination of Representative Deb Haaland to lead the Department of Interior is historic, groundbreaking, and a proud moment for Indian Country. As a Native American woman, I know that representation and visibility matters. To be the first Native woman cabinet secretary in history will be a proud moment for our people.
"Rep. Haaland will do right by our nation's public lands, waters, wildlife and will help lead the Bureaus of Indian Affairs and Indian Education, where she will have the opportunity to right historical wrongs, chart a new path forward between the United States' government and Indigenous communities, and will lead with passion, equity, and a penchant for justice.
"Native youth look to her as more than a role model, but as an Aunty, because we trust her and are continually inspired by her leadership. She was recognized as an honorary Champion for Change at the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute in 2018. "
"The Center for Native American Youth is incredibly excited and ready to continue to work with Rep. Haaland in this new role."
LATEST NEWS
'Who Are You Cheering For?' Hegseth Suggests US Lawmaker Is a Traitor for Criticizing Trump's Iran War
Rep. John Garamendi on Tuesday described Trump's war as "nothing short of a self-inflicted national security and economic disaster."
Apr 29, 2026
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday lashed out at a Democratic lawmaker over his criticism of President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran.
During testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Hegseth attacked Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) for describing the Iran War, which Trump launched in late February without any authorization from Congress, as a "quagmire."
"You stain the troops when you tell them, two months in, two months in, congressman, shame on you, calling this a quagmire," Hegseth said. "The effort, what they've undertaken, what they've succeeded, the success on the battlefield to create strategic opportunities, the courage of a president to confront a nuclear Iran, and you call it a quagmire, handing propaganda to our enemies!"
Hegseth attacks Garamendi: "You stain the troops when you call this a quagmire two months in, handing propaganda to our enemies. Shame on you. Don't say I support the troops on one hand, and then a two-month mission is a quagmire. That's a false equivalation [sic]. Who are you… pic.twitter.com/WhsjEE3nbH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 29, 2026
Hegseth continued by saying that calling the war a quagmire was "reckless to our troops," and then asked the congressman, "Who are you cheering for here?"
After questioning Garamendi's patriotism, Hegseth told the California Democrat that "your hatred for President Trump blinds you to the truth of the success of this mission, and the historic stakes that the president is addressing."
Hegseth's tirade against Garamendi came after the congressman on Tuesday introduced a new war powers resolution aimed at ending the Iran war.
"Trump’s war is nothing short of a self-inflicted national security and economic disaster," Garamendi said in explaining his support for the resolution. "Thirteen American servicemembers and thousands of Iranian civilians have been killed. Americans, who are already plagued by one of the worst affordability crises in years, are now paying unconscionable amounts for a tank of gas and are struggling to keep food on the table."
Later in the hearing, Hegseth was confronted by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) about the strategic failures of the war, particularly the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has resulted in global oil and gas prices spiking upward.
Hegseth dismisses concerns over the Strait of Hormuz being closed because the US blockaded Iran’s blockade
Moulton: So they blockaded us, and then we blockaded their blockade—that's like if President Madison had said, well, the British just burned down Washington, but don't… pic.twitter.com/PuK4A3gtHS
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 29, 2026
"Would you call Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz winning?" Moulton asked.
"Well, I would say the blockade that we hold that doesn't allow anything to come in or out of the Iranian port..." Hegseth responded, before being interrupted by Moulton.
"OK, we we blockaded their blockade," Moulton said. "They blockaded us, and then we blockaded their blockade—that's like saying, 'Tag, you're it,' or like if President Madison had said, well, the British just burned down Washington, but don't worry, we're going to burn it down as well."
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Comey Indictment Called 'New Low' for White House 'At War with First Amendment'
"This is embarrassing for America," said one First Amendment advocate.
Apr 29, 2026
As the corporate media joins the White House in a new round of accusations against critics of President Donald Trump in the wake of an attempted attack on the White House Correspondents' Association dinner last week—with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche blaming anti-Trump "rhetoric" for the violence at the event—the administration on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment of longtime Trump foe James Comey in what legal experts called a transparent attack on the First Amendment.
At a press conference held by Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, the officials made the case—without presenting specific evidence—that a federal grand jury in North Carolina had indicted former FBI chief Comey because he'd "knowingly and willfully [made] a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon" Trump in May 2025 in a photo he posted on Instagram.
The picture showed seashells grouped together in a pattern, reading, "86 47."
Trump is the 47th president of the United States, and the slang term "86" means "to get rid of," originating in the 1930s. According to Merriam-Webster, the term began being used as a verb in the 1950s when restaurants and bars used it to mean refusing service to a customer or throwing them out of an establishment. That use of the term is still the most common, according to the dictionary, which wrote: "Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of 'to kill.' We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use."
Comey quickly deleted his post last May, which he said he had shared after finding the seashells in the arrangement during a walk on a beach. The former FBI director said he deleted that post after realizing "some folks associate those numbers with violence," and said he opposes violence "of any kind."
Nevertheless, the indictment handed down on Tuesday reads that the shells were “arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47,' which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United States.”
Comey was charged with one count of making threats against Trump and one count of transmitting a threat across state lines.
Federal officials issued a warrant for Comey's arrest, but Blanche did not say whether any court dates had been scheduled in the case.
The indictment was dismissed by several legal experts, with prosecutors within the US Department of Justice reportedly calling it "the flimsiest federal indictment in memory," according to ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl. Building a case based solely on an image of seashells will be an uphill battle for the DOJ, particularly considering First Amendment protections on speech.
New York University law professor Ryan Goodman called the indictment "laughably ludicrous" and a "political act masquerading as an indictment," while US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) condemned the president for using the DOJ as his "personal attack dog, using taxpayer money to settle Trump's petty grievances."
This is the second federal indictment that's been handed down by the DOJ for Comey in seven months. Last September he was indicted on two counts of lying to Congress during a testimony he gave in 2020 regarding the FBI's handling of its investigation into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign's ties to Russia.
The DOJ indicted Comey in that case even though a Trump-appointed US attorney had concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him; the president later forced the prosecutor out of his job. A judge ultimately threw out the indictment, ruling that the prosecutor's replacement had been unlawfully appointed to oversee the case.
Both cases have come years after Trump, during his first term, fired Comey as FBI director over the agency's investigation into his 2016 campaign.
Conservative lawyer Gregg Nunziata of the Society for the Rule of Law called the latest indictment of Comey "legally deficient" and a "scandalous marker of a president and his administration corruptly using government power to punish dissent."
American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted that the administration has "repeatedly pursued criminal charges (or other punishments) against political opponents for their speech, at a level not seen since the most censorious days of the early 20th century," including by attempting to charge members of Congress for reminding service members they are obligated to disobey illegal orders.
"In an administration at war with the First Amendment," said Reichlin-Melnick, "this is a new low."
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'Tragic Day for the Freedom to Vote': Supreme Court Guts Remnants of Voting Rights Act
“Make no mistake: This ruling isn’t about the law, it’s about power, and giving Republicans more US House seats they couldn’t otherwise win at the ballot box," said one critic.
Apr 29, 2026
The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Louisiana must redraw its 2024 congressional map—which created a second majority-Black district to mitigate persistent barriers to equal representation—in a decision that further guts the already tattered Voting Rights Act.
The justices ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Louisiana v. Callais that the state's map is "an unconstitutional racial gerrymander," effectively voiding the last remaining provision of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which allows voters of color to challenge racially discriminatory electoral maps in court.
The case centers on the redrawing of Louisiana's six congressional districts to better reflect the population of a state in which one-third of the people are Black, as Section 2 states that minority voters should have the same chance as others to elect candidates of their choice.
Civil and voting rights advocates challenged Louisiana's Republican-drawn and racially rigged congressional map. In 2022, a federal judge agreed that the map likely violated Section 2, and the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, ordering Louisiana to draw a new map by January 2024.
Louisiana complied. But a group of non-Black voters challenged the new map, claiming it was a racially rigged creation that violated the 14th Amendment. The Trump administration supported the challengers, arguing that Black voters had no right to a second majority-minority district.
The Supreme Court's right-wing justices—three of whom were nominated by Trump—agreed in Wednesday's decision.
“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the right-wing majority. “Compliance with Section 2 thus could not justify the state’s use of race-based redistricting here."
Dissenting, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the ruling represents the "latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”
Kagan said the majority "straight-facedly holds that the Voting Rights Act must be brought low to make the world safe for partisan gerrymanders."
Signed into law in 1965 by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson amid a groundswell of civil rights activism, the VRA was meant to ensure that state and local governments could not “deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”
However, the law has been eroded in recent decades by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country, including through racially rigged and other gerrymandered congressional maps, restrictions on voter registration, reduction in early voting options, and voter identification laws. These measures disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters, and some GOP officials have admitted that they are intended to give Republican candidates an electoral edge.
In 2013, the Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the VRA in Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated a key section of the law that required jurisdictions with a history of racist disenfranchisement to obtain federal approval prior to altering voting rules. In 2021, the nation’s high court voted 5-4 in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee to uphold Arizona’s voting restrictions—even as Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that they disproportionately affect minorities.
Voting rights defenders decried Wednesday's ruling.
The court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais follows cases that have narrowed federal voter protections, like Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.Together, these cases have made it harder for voters of color to challenge discriminatory voting laws and practices.
— ACLU (@aclu.org) April 29, 2026 at 8:20 AM
"This devastating attack from the court majority destroys protections for voters of color across the country," the ACLU said on Bluesky.
"The impacts of the court’s ruling in this case will be felt across the country," the group added. "Redistricting remains ongoing in many states, and the severe weakening of Section 2 may affect future challenges to congressional, legislative, and local maps that dilute the voting strength of communities of color."
NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson called the decision "a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities."
Kristen Clarke, NAACP's general counsel, said:
This is one of the most consequential and devastating rulings issued by the Supreme Court in the 21st Century. The Supreme Court has put the death knell into our nation's most important federal civil rights law, one that provided Black Americans access to a democracy that they had long been excluded from. The ruling defies precedent, ignores statutory text, and will reverse decades of progress we have made as a nation. This will embolden lawmakers in former slave-holding states to target and eradicate districts that have provided Black Americans a fair opportunity to elect candidates of choice, and they will do so with the blessing of this court. It ignores the tremendous sacrifice made by Americans who bled and died for passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Demand Justice president Josh Orton said in a statement, “Today the Supreme Court gutted the remaining protections of the Voting Rights Act and handed [President] Donald Trump even more unchecked political power as he wields the presidency like a power-mad authoritarian."
“Make no mistake: This ruling isn’t about the law, it’s about power, and giving Republicans more US House seats they couldn’t otherwise win at the ballot box, all while trampling the voting rights of communities of color," Orton added. “Today’s decision is another example of why the Supreme Court has lost both its legitimacy and the trust of the American people. It must face fundamental reform if it is to once again serve our democracy.”
Nourbese Flint, president of the reproductive justice group All* Above All, lamented that "the Supreme Court yet again denies communities of color a voice in their own destiny."
"This is part of a coordinated assault on self-determination, and we have to name it as such," Flint added. "The same court that gutted the Voting Rights Act came for Roe. If we are serious about defending reproductive justice that means we have to defend democracy and reform this extremist court.”
Stand Up America managing director of policy and political affairs Brett Edkins called Wednesday "a tragic day for the freedom to vote and representative democracy."
"The Supreme Court just eviscerated the last remnants of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and opened the door to even more extreme gerrymandering that will try to drown out the voices of Black and brown voters, particularly in the South," Edkins said.
NEW: The Supreme Court just gutted the Voting Rights Act, enabling the GOP to erase countless districts drawn to protect voters of color at the congressional, state, & local levels.We detailed each Dem VRA congressional seat that the GOP could target by 2028: www.the-downballot.com/p/with-the-v...
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— Stephen Wolf (@stephenwolf.bsky.social) April 29, 2026 at 8:00 AM
"The court’s decision will escalate the arms race of partisan gerrymanders across the country and could lead to Republican-controlled states redrawing election maps to add an additional 19 GOP House seats," Edkins continued. "This partisan court has handed a major election-year gift to Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who are trying to cling to power despite their growing unpopularity with voters."
“It’s time for Congress to act as a check on this rogue court through major reforms," he added, "including term limits, an enforceable code of ethics, and adding more justices who will defend our fundamental freedoms once Trump leaves office.”
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