Pete Buttigieg won’t seek Senate, Michigan governor jobs amid presidential bid speculation
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(LANSING, Mich.) — Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced Thursday morning that he will not run for U.S. Senate or governor in the state of Michigan, potentially clearing the way to possibly mount a run for president in 2028.
“I care deeply about who Michigan will elect as Governor and send to the U.S. Senate next year, but I have decided against competing in either race,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “I remain enthusiastic about helping candidates who share our values – and who understand that in this moment, leadership means not only opposing today’s cruel chaos, but also presenting a vision of a better alternative.”
Buttigieg’s announcement comes as Democrats grapple both with being locked out of power in Washington and the prospect of defending multiple key Senate seats in the 2026 midterms.
Buttigieg was expected to potentially announce a run for the seat being vacated by incumbent Sen. Gary Peters, who announced in January that he would not run for reelection.
Newly sworn in Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem participates in an immigration enforcement operation in New York City, Jan. 28, 2025. (DHS)
(NEW YORK) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined an immigration enforcement operation in New York City on Tuesday.
Noem posted a brief video of an arrest to her social media account.
The secretary is witnessing both criminal and civil enforcement operations, according to sources familiar with the actions in New York.
The criminal case involves a member of a Venezuelan gang that took over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, the sources said. One alleged gang member was arrested in the Bronx.
The New York division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said it was working with partners at the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to assist the Department of Homeland Security with enforcement efforts.
Noem’s appearance for the operations came just days after she was confirmed by the Senate.
Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, will be charged with overseeing Trump’s immigration crackdown along with “border czar” Tom Homan.
“The Trump Administration will once-again empower our brave men and women in law enforcement to do their jobs and remove criminal aliens and illegal gangs from our country,” she said in a statement after her confirmation. “We will fully equip our intelligence and law enforcement to detect and prevent terror threats and will deliver rapid assistance and disaster relief to Americans in crisis.”
(WASHINGTON) — With online access to pornography and other sexually explicit content easier than ever before, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will take a fresh look at government efforts to impose new safeguards for children by requiring adult websites to conduct electronic age verification.
The case, brought by an adult entertainment industry trade group and several content creators, challenges a 2023 Texas law that says sites containing more than one-third of “sexual material harmful to minors” must verify that a user is at least 18 years old or face civil penalties up to $10,000 per day.
The law, HB 1181, mandates that adult sites implement a system to check a user’s digital identification or government-issued ID using a “commercially reasonable method.” They are not allowed to retain personal information, but the law offers no other requirements for data security and privacy.
Content platforms like Pornhub, one of the most popular websites in the world, have chosen to stop operating in Texas rather than comply with the law. They argue it violates the First Amendment and unfairly targets the porn industry since search engines and social media apps are exempt.
The case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, pits a growing nationwide effort to strengthen protections for minors online against long-standing constitutional protections for sexual material that have helped bolster the rise of a booming multi-billion dollar business.
“More people watch porn and view porn each year than vote and read the newspaper,” said Lisa Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court litigator with Williams & Connolly LLP. A 2016 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that up to 70% of men and 40% of women have consumed pornography within the past year in the U.S.
American teenagers have reported similar levels of exposure to pornography in a number of studies conducted over the past three years. Public health experts say young people who view sexually explicit content are more likely to start having sex earlier, engage in unsafe sex, and have multiple partners.
Texas is among nineteen states that have recently enacted age-verification requirements for adult content online, according to the Age Verification Providers Association.
The state has said that online age verification should be no more controversial or unconstitutional than the common practice of verifying a customer’s age before the purchase of an adult magazine at a newsstand or purchasing liquor at a bar.
Supreme Court precedent has set a high bar for laws that infringe on individual free speech rights even if they are meant to advance another compelling public interest, such as protecting kids.
Twenty years ago in a remarkably similar case — Ashcroft v. ACLU — the court struck down federal legislation that would have required age verification to view sexually explicit material. The decision instead put the onus on parents and technology companies to utilize less burdensome content-filtering software.
Supporters of the Texas law say those tools have proven ineffective and that evolving technology has changed the constitutional calculus for whether asking porn producers to act as gatekeepers violates the First Amendment.
“It’s time to think again about what is a mechanism that can achieve a legitimate objective of states protecting children from what is increasingly violent and misogynistic pornography online,” said Iain Corby, executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association, an international trade group made up of technology companies. “It’s possible to prove your age entirely on your own cell phone, so no personal data need ever leave the palm of your hand.”
An rapidly evolving industry of third-party age verification services and apps, Corby said, has made the process quick, secure, and free — a far cry from more cumbersome options of two decades ago.
“Because no one disputes that Texas can prevent kids from accessing hardcore pornography, this case is about means, not ends,” the state told the Court in its legal briefing. “And the means Texas has chosen is appropriate.”
Civil liberties groups argue that the constitutionality question remains clear cut.
“The government cannot make it illegal to publish certain sexual content online without verifying the age of users first, and yet that’s exactly what states are now doing,” said Vera Eidelman, an ACLU attorney who focuses on free speech litigation.
Eidelman argues that the Texas law robs adults who want to legally view sexually-explicit material the right to anonymity, and potentially puts their private information at risk of abuse.
“It’s really different to show your ID in person than it is to have to offer up personal identifying information online, creating potential targets for data breaches, hackers potentially creating much more of a record of what you are looking at,” Eidelman said.
She also claims that the Texas law could ensnare a much wider range of websites than those selling pornography, such as those hosting sexual health education resources or R-rated content.
“Young people certainly deserve our protection, but whenever the government is passing a law in the name of protecting kids, I think there are serious questions to be asked about whether what it’s really doing is saying the [content] is bad for everyone,” said Eidelman. “That’s exactly what the First Amendment exists to protect against.”
The court is expected to deliver a decision in the case by the end of June.
(WASHINGTON) — Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, the head of the Oath Keepers, were released Tuesday from prison following President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardon of those convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
They were serving 22- and 18-year sentences, respectively, for their roles in the riot.
Four years after they raided the Capitol, threatened Congress members and assaulted police officers, a group of some of the Jan. 6 rioters convicted of the most violent incidents that day are now free men thanks to Trump.
Other convicted members were scheduled to be released throughout the day from Washington, D.C. area, jails and prisons.
Of the nearly 1,600 individuals who have faced charges associated with the Capitol attack, according to figures released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 608 individuals faced charges for assaulting, resisting or interfering with law enforcement trying to protect the complex that day, the office said. Approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured during the riot, the Department of Justice has said.
A federal judge sentenced Rhodes in May 2023 after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy the year prior for his and his group’s role in the riot. The Oath Keepers had stockpiled weapons at a D.C. hotel and organized the attack, according to prosecutors.
Rhodes himself did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6 and maintained that his group only intended to provide security and medical aid to those attending multiple pro-Trump demonstrations in the area, prosecutors said.
Tarrio was sentenced in September 2023 for his conviction on seditious conspiracy and given the longest sentence of all of the convicted Jan. 6 rioters, though he was not at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
During his sentencing, prosecutors pointed to a nine-page strategic plan to “storm” government buildings in Washington on Jan. 6 that was found in Tarrio’s possession after the riot, as well as violent rhetoric they say he routinely used in messages with other members of the group about what they would do if Congress moved forward in certifying President Joe Biden’s election win.
As more of the rioters were released from jails and prisons, a group of Trump supporters, Proud Boys members and others gathered and cheered them on as they were released.
The group carried large flagpoles with Trump and American flags attached and signage that read, “no man left behind” and “pardon all j6 hostages day one.”
Current and former DOJ officials have expressed alarm over the potential that Trump would hand down pardons — or otherwise free — violent offenders, citing the potential risk they could seek to target the prosecutors who oversaw their cases, the judges who sentenced them to periods of incarceration, or witnesses who may have testified against them.
