Vol. 1, No. 61
Topic
Politics is the section where American Courant covers the federal government and the institutions around it: Congress, the White House, the federal agencies, the federal courts, and the elections that decide who runs them. Our reporting concentrates on what is actually happening and what it does to public policy, not on the day's partisan score. We follow legislation through markup and floor votes, presidential directives through the Federal Register, agency rulemaking through public comment, and Supreme Court arguments through their downstream effects on people who will never read the opinion.
We pay particular attention to the places where political decisions touch ordinary households — health coverage, tax policy, immigration enforcement, voting access, federal employment, federal benefits, infrastructure spending — and to the courts and agencies that often have more day-to-day impact than the cable news cycle suggests. The Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Reserve, the SEC, the FTC, the EPA, and the federal courts of appeals all show up in our pages regularly because their decisions move real lives.
When a story crosses into how it lands at the household level, you'll find related reporting under personal finance or health; when it touches U.S. action abroad, see world news; when it bumps into financial markets or the broader economy, see business and economy. We try to keep our political coverage measured, specific, and durable enough to be useful a week or a year later, not just the day a press conference happens.
Obama's $850 million presidential center opened in Chicago's Jackson Park this week — on public parkland the city leased to his foundation for $10. Courts upheld the deal; critics still call it a land grab.
A new Justice Department opinion says federal law doesn't require states to fund community-based care for disabled Americans. It changes no law, and that's exactly why it's dangerous.
A leaked DHS document reveals the ICE Task Force Module, a face-scanning app already in local police hands that runs images against 250 million records.
Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones lost Georgia's GOP runoff for governor to political newcomer Rick Jackson, who spent over $100 million of his own money. On a busy primary night, he wasn't the only favorite to fall.
Trump's 250-foot triumphal arch has won over the design boards he appoints. The one approval the law actually requires, a vote in Congress, is the one nobody is waiting for.
The Small Business Administration has stopped backing loans to lawful permanent residents — taxpaying, legally settled, citizens-in-waiting. It's a self-inflicted wound dressed up as enforcement.
Section 702 lapses today, and both parties had a hand in it. But the reason a routinely renewable spy law became impossible to save traces back to one decision: who Trump insisted on putting in charge of intelligence.
For the first time, the warrantless spy law known as Section 702 expired at midnight — collapsing in a fight over Trump's spy-chief pick. A secret court order keeps the eavesdropping running into 2027 anyway.
Alabama insisted nitrogen hypoxia was quick and painless. The Eleventh Circuit found it presents a substantial risk of serious harm, and a judge endorsed a firing squad as the less cruel alternative.
The House passed roughly $70 billion for ICE and Border Patrol in a 214-212 vote, funding the agencies through 2029 and ending a four-month impasse.
Treasury's tax watchdog says it cannot confirm ICE is safeguarding the roughly 47,000 taxpayer addresses the IRS handed over — and the courts have split over whether the deal that produced them is even legal.
The court may be right that only Congress can set the fee. But the goal was right: H-1B has become a channel for cheaper foreign labor, and these high-paying jobs should go to Americans, not the lowest global bidder.
The vanity of putting a living president on a $250 bill is the easy thing to argue about. The part worth worrying about is what the Treasury did to the career official who said the law didn't allow it.
Trump says the office that coordinates 18 U.S. spy agencies may be 'unnecessary' and wants an acting director, 'less shackled' by Senate confirmation, to start cutting. The goal isn't the problem. The method is.
The Senate passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement package 52-47 at 5 a.m. Friday. Only Lisa Murkowski voted no among Republicans. The $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund survived every amendment.
John Bolton is pleading guilty to a single count over a diary entry, collapsing an 18-count national security case. The deal is tidy. The questions it leaves open are not.
SOUTHCOM calls all 199 dead narco-terrorists. The Guardian found no drug links for 13 identified victims. The Pentagon watchdog has opened a targeting review.
The House passed the Ukraine Support Act 226-195 after 18 Republicans used a rare discharge petition to bypass Speaker Johnson and Trump's opposition.
Acting AG Todd Blanche told Congress the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund is finished — 'period' — after a federal judge blocked it and both parties revolted over potential January 6 payouts.
The House voted 215–208 to order a withdrawal from Iran hostilities, with four Republicans joining Democrats — the first time the chamber has passed such a measure since the war began.
Trump named Bill Pulte — who runs the federal mortgage giants and has no intelligence background — acting spy chief. He'll oversee 18 agencies without giving up the day job, and even Republicans are uneasy.
A White House budget office proposal would require senior political appointees to approve every discretionary federal grant, from NIH cancer research to NSF climate science, before awards are made.
Iowa Republican primary voters rejected Trump's last-minute endorsement Tuesday, handing him his first primary loss of the 2026 cycle as MAHA-backed Zach Lahn defeats Rep. Randy Feenstra.
The D.C. Circuit found animus in the Pentagon's transgender ban—direct, not inferred. That makes Hegseth's Supreme Court gamble harder than he's letting on.
A 2-1 appeals court panel ruled the Pentagon's transgender ban violates equal protection, blocking active-duty discharges. Hegseth vows a Supreme Court fight.
