trump administration

January 6, 2022 - A text sent to the Trump White House the day after the 2020 election outlining a strategy to have the Supreme Court decide the outcome of the presidential race reportedly came from the phone of former Energy Secretary and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Championing the election's overthrow didn't dim Perry's job prospects, though: He resigned his Trump administration post that December and the following month became a director for the general partner of Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based pipeline company led by billionaire Trump backer and longtime Perry associate Kelcy Warren, whose interests Perry profitably championed in Washington.

November 19, 2021 - The term of Ron Bloom, chair of the U.S. Postal Service's Board of Governors, ends on Dec. 8, and hundreds of public-interest organizations are urging President Biden to replace him. They object to his support for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee embroiled in numerous controversies over service cuts, financial conflicts of interest, wage theft, and a pattern of questionable campaign contributions at his former North Carolina-based logistics company.

October 28, 2021 - A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by civil rights groups on behalf of several immigrant advocacy organizations working with Cameroonians fleeing violence at home confronts anti-Black racism in the U.S. immigration system.

June 18, 2021 - Despite lawsuits instituting reforms, state prisons across the U.S. continue to be places of physical and sexual violence, especially against incarcerated people of color. Conditions got so bad in Alabama's prisons that the federal government recently sued the state for violating the Constitution. Robert T. Chase, a historian of prisons, says they need the same kind of scrutiny now faced by police.

March 23, 2021 - The organizer who pioneered politically transformative get-out-the-vote efforts in Georgia is now using that existing infrastructure to get some of the state's most vulnerable residents vaccinated against COVID-19.

February 3, 2021 - Right-wing extremists who believe the fall of American society has begun and should be hastened through racial polarization and violence played a key role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Documents filed as part of recent criminal prosecutions of accelerationists, many active in the South, reveal disturbing trends, including ties to foreign intelligence services and penetration of the U.S. military.

January 29, 2021 - Tied for the hottest year on record globally, 2020 also brought the most $1 billion disasters ever in the U.S., and they took a disproportionate toll on the South's most vulnerable communities. With most states in the region controlled by a party whose platform downplays climate change, environmental advocates are looking to the new president for help. Here's what the Biden administration has done so far.