Articles by James Caldwell

Government Shutdown Set to Become Longest in U.S. History as Democrats Block GOP Bill

The lights in the federal government are staying off. A tense and predictable vote on the Senate floor has just ensured that the United States will officially enter the longest government shutdown in its history, a moment of profound institutional failure. Senate Democrats, for the 14th time, have...

Jury Acquits Man Who Wrote He’d “Twist the Knife” in Trump, a Major Rebuke to DOJ

The words were vile, specific, and violent. A former Coast Guard officer wrote online that he wanted someone to “take the shot” at President Trump, adding that he “would twist the knife after sliding it into [Trump’s] fatty flesh” and would “pitch in” for a hitman. The Department of...

Tucker Carlson’s Interview with Nick Fuentes Signals a Mainstreaming of Extremism, Splitting the GOP

A political “civil war” has been raging within the conservative movement, a battle for its very soul. This week, the shooting has stopped, and a victor has been declared. The man who says “Hitler is awesome” has been welcomed in from the cold. The friendly, legitimizing interview of white...

ICE Struggling to Meet Aggressive Hiring Goals Despite Lowered Standards and Ad Blitz

Congress handed the agency a blank check, a mandate to more than double its size in a matter of months. But the massive hiring surge at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is running into a hard reality: finding qualified recruits is proving far more difficult than lawmakers anticipated....

GOP Report: Biden White House Ran a Shadow Presidency, Autopen Pardons Now Void?

A fuse has just been lit under one of the most explosive questions in modern American politics: who was truly in charge during the final years of the Biden presidency? A scathing new report from the House Oversight Committee alleges a deliberate White House “cover-up” of the former...

Feds Would Rather Deport Abgrego Garcia to Africa Than Put Him on Trial in the U.S

The strange legal odyssey of one Salvadoran migrant has just taken another bizarre and constitutionally troubling turn. Federal prosecutors, who have pursued criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia with vigor, have now signaled to a judge that they would rather deport him immediately –...

U.S. Marshal Shot During Immigration Raid in LA. The City Declared a State of Emergency Over Federal Operations

A U.S. Marshal and an undocumented immigrant were both shot Tuesday during an immigration enforcement operation in Los Angeles. Federal agents had surrounded and boxed in a vehicle when the driver allegedly rammed federal vehicles attempting to escape. Agents opened fire. The Marshal was struck in...

Supreme Court Takes Aim at a New Target: Can You Own a Gun if You Use Drugs?

The battle lines over the Second Amendment are being drawn once again at the nation’s highest court. Just weeks into its new term, the Supreme Court has agreed to take up a second major gun rights case, this one involving a head-spinning constitutional question. This new case promises a profound...

Trump’s Budget Chief Is Using Creative Accounting To Protect The President’s Priorities

Another government shutdown grips Washington, a familiar spectacle of political failure. Yet beneath the surface of closed parks and delayed services, something unprecedented and constitutionally dangerous is unfolding. The executive branch, under the direction of the President’s budget chief, is...

Appeals Court Gives Trump Green Light (For Now) to Send Troops into Portland Over Governor’s Objections

The standoff is stark: a President determined to send the National Guard into an American city, and a state government fighting fiercely to keep them out. This constitutional battle over the limits of federal power and state sovereignty has just taken a critical turn, as a federal appeals court...

DOJ Tries to Disqualify Comey’s Lawyer, Accusing Him of Being Part of the Original “Crime”

The battle lines are drawn in the explosive criminal case against a former FBI Director. But the latest skirmish isn’t about the alleged crime itself. It’s a bare-knuckle fight over who gets to stand beside the defendant as his lawyer. Federal prosecutors have taken the extraordinary step of...

An Oath to Trump or the Constitution? The Kentucky Race and the Crisis of the Modern GOP

The political ground is shifting beneath the feet of Kentucky’s Republican establishment. A man once seen as the heir apparent to a giant of the Senate is now running to replace him, but the price of admission requires a public break from the very mentor who launched his career. This primary...

Trump Bypassed the Senate to Appoint Prosecutors. Now His Cases Are Being Tested in Court.

Trump appointed U.S. attorneys in blue states without Senate confirmation, using legal workarounds to bypass the “blue slip” tradition requiring home-state senators’ approval. Now the prosecutions these attorneys brought – against James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and...

Nearly All Major News Outlets Refuse Pentagon’s New Press Rules, Face Eviction Wednesday

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave reporters until 5 p.m. Tuesday to sign a new policy agreement or lose Pentagon access permanently. Nearly every major news organization refused. Starting Wednesday, for the first time since the Eisenhower administration, no major U.S. television network or...

“Everyday Americans Cannot Lie to Banks”

Letitia James wrote in February 2024 that “everyday Americans cannot lie to a bank to get a mortgage, and if they did, our government would throw the book at them. There simply cannot be different rules for different people.” She was attacking President Trump on social media while celebrating...

Democrats Suddenly Embrace “States’ Rights” to Fight Trump’s Plan for a Federal Takeover of Chicago

Listen closely to the sounds of our modern political debate, and you will hear something strange and disorienting. Democrats are passionately defending “states’ rights” and the sanctity of local control. Republicans, meanwhile, are championing a massive and unilateral assertion of federal...

ICE Arrests Illegal Immigrant Driving 18-Wheeler With New York License Listing His Name as “NO NAME GIVEN”

An illegal immigrant from India was driving a commercial truck on Interstate 40 in Oklahoma carrying a New York state CDL with “NO NAME GIVEN” listed as his first name. ICE arrested Anmol Anmol during a routine truck scale inspection on September 23, discovering he entered the country illegally...

FBI’s “Arctic Frost” Spy Operation: How Jack Smith Secretly Tracked Nine GOP Lawmakers Without a Warrant

FBI Director Kash Patel just opened a file the Bureau didn’t want anyone to see. Inside: proof that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team tracked the private phone records of eight Republican senators and one House member – without those lawmakers ever knowing they were targets. The operation had...

Federal Judge Accuses Trump Administration of Playing “Whack-A-Mole” to Circumvent Court Orders on Troop Deployments

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued a temporary restraining order Sunday night blocking President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Portland. Then the Trump administration tried deploying California Guard members instead. So Immergut expanded her order to block troops from any...

Shutdown Stalemate Deepens as Critical Republican Coalition Vote Wavers

Senator Angus King voted with Republicans five times to reopen the government despite caucusing with Democrats. The Maine independent joined Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto in crossing party lines to support GOP funding bills that Democratic leadership has...