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Donald Trump’s victory marks a turning point in the American experiment, and there is much to be dissected about what it means.

We will leave that analysis to others.

Our role as an investigative news organization lies elsewhere. In the coming months and years, we will be devoting a significant portion of our staff to chronicling the effects of what promises to be a drastic change in the role of the federal government in all of our lives.

This is nothing new for us. Over the past three presidential administrations, we have closely covered the actions of the federal government, from the Navy’s propensity for building expensive ships that aren’t seaworthy to the failings of regulators to protect the public’s health and safety.

I’ve been a reporter and editor for more than four decades, long enough to see the pendulum of public sentiment swing from the presidencies of Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama to Trump. At moments of seismic shift in our country, I like to look back on the words of Adolph S. Ochs when he took control of The New York Times in 1896. The paper, he wrote, would “give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved.”

In the 21st century, “without fear or favor” means maintaining a fact-based, data-driven approach to journalism. Our job is to give readers an independent, verifiable account of what’s happening, even if the president is calling us enemies of the people or bloodsuckers. At ProPublica, our mantra is that we bring the receipts to every story we publish.

We are journalists, not leaders of the resistance.

There are some who will argue that ProPublica’s model of doing journalism that spurs reforms will be hobbled when one political party controls both branches of Congress and the White House.

I do not agree.

Again and again, we have seen powerfully documented stories stir change in states dominated by one party. One example: Our series on Florida’s shabby treatment of the families of children born with brain injuries prompted Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-led Legislature to take immediate action. ProPublica’s story that included a recording of a 6-year-old Salvadoran girl wailing for her mother prompted an immediate end to the first Trump administration’s policy of deterring migrants by separating families.

As we have done for each presidential administration since 2008, our reporters will begin with basic questions about new government policies: Who is benefiting? Who is suffering? What are the unintended consequences?

We are mindful that we may be entering a new era, one without precedent. Trump’s first administration, which included two impeachments, was defined by his penchant for smashing norms.

There will be far fewer guardrails in the second Trump presidency. The Supreme Court’s decision declaring presidents presumptively immune from prosecution for official acts and the return of Republican control of the Senate, and perhaps the House, mean there will be few, if any, checks on the power of the president.

Trump famously said that he wouldn’t be a dictator, “except for Day One.” In fact, it will take a while for a picture to emerge of how he plans to use the expansive authority of his office.

The coming months will feel as chaotic as they always do during a transition. Various figures in the president-elect’s orbit will be jockeying for influence and will leak transition team documents in hopes of turning them into reality. You will read many stories about proposals for radical change in every government agency. Some will be embraced. Many more will be cast aside, never to be seen again.

Of course, ProPublica reporters would be delighted to receive any and all leaks sources can share about the transition. You can reach our whole team at propublica.org/tips if you have a tip for us to investigate. You can also text or call 917-512-0201 or send us a message at that number on Signal, a secure messaging app.

While Trump’s campaign speeches were less than linear, he has been clear and consistent about his plans in many areas. Some, like health care and taxes, are subjects ProPublica has long closely covered. Others, like his plan for imposing much higher tariffs on imported goods, open up whole new arenas of inquiry for us.

The campaign pledge with the greatest immediate impact will be his plan to deport millions of people who entered this country illegally. Karoline Leavitt, the campaign press secretary, told Fox News on Wednesday that Trump will begin “the largest mass deportation operation” in American history on his first day in office.

Previous presidents have stepped up the enforcement of immigration laws, notably Trump in his first term and Obama. But the United States has not attempted mass arrests of migrants since 1954, when border agents rounded up more than 1 million people living in Texas and California and forcibly transported them to Mexico.

We have been closely covering immigration, and our recent series of stories of its impact on towns like Del Rio, Texas, and Whitewater, Wisconsin, reflect our emphasis on deep, on-the-ground reporting. If Trump carries out his pledge to round up and expel 15 million to 20 million people, we will cover it in ways that go beyond the day’s headlines.

How ProPublica Has Covered Abortion Bans, Immigration and More Issues at Stake in the 2024 Election
Jesse Eisinger, one of our senior editors, delivered some remarks to his staff this morning that sum up how I believe reporters at ProPublica and elsewhere should be approaching this moment.

“We face the biggest test of our professional lives,” he told them. “Now we get to see if we really meant it when we said we will hold power to account. Will we do so when our subjects have true power on their side and a willingness to use it? We may be harassed. We may be sued. We may be threatened with violence. We may be ignored. Are we just sunshine journalists or are we ready?”

Russian election interference efforts focus on the Harris-Walz campaign
Sep 17, 2024 | Clint Watts - General Manager, Microsoft Threat Analysis Center
- https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/09/17/russian-election-interference-efforts-focus-on-the-harris-walz-campaign/

Russia and Iran have both undertaken cyber influence operations headed into the 2024 presidential election. In our last report, published on August 8, we detailed how Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations sought to undermine the Republican campaign through targeted hack-and-leak operations, covert social media personas, and imposter US news sites. In the past two months, Microsoft has observed a notable shift in Russian influence operations tactics reflecting the changing U.S. political environment. Specifically, we have observed Russia pivot towards targeting the Harris-Walz campaign, with actors disseminating fabricated videos designed to sow discord and spread disinformation about the new Democratic nominee Vice President Harris.

We discuss this activity in a new report by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) released today. This update follows other reports we have released around activity by actors advancing the geopolitical goals of Iran and China.

The shift to focusing on the Harris-Walz campaign reflects a strategic move by Russian actors aimed at exploiting any perceived vulnerabilities in the new candidates. Initially, Russian influence operations struggled to evolve their efforts following President Biden’s departure from the 2024 US presidential race. However, in late August and September, we observed two Russian actors MTAC tracks closely — previously reported as Storm-1516 and Storm-1679 — using videos designed to discredit Harris and stoke controversy around her campaign. Specifically:

• Storm-1516, identified by news reports as a Kremlin-aligned troll farm, produced and disseminated two inauthentic videos, each generating millions of views. One video depicted an attack by alleged Harris supporters on a supposed Trump rally attendee, while another used an on-screen actor to fabricate false claims about Harris’s involvement in a hit-and-run accident. This second video was laundered through a website masquerading as a local San Francisco media outlet — which was only created days beforehand.


• Storm-1679, a newer group reportedly aligned with the Kremlin, pivoted its focus from producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to publishing false videos discrediting Vice President Harris. One of the videos, which was shared on X shortly after it was published to Telegram, depicted a fake New York City billboard advancing false claims about Harris’ policies. The X post received more than 100,000 views in the four hours after it was published on Telegram.

- more at link: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/09/17/russian-election-interference-efforts-focus-on-the-harris-walz-campaign/

History as an antidote to despair
Consider this the next time the news freaks you out

When you consume the news these days, it’s easy to conclude that things have never been worse. Easy to conclude—but wrong.

This misapprehension is the result of recency bias, where we mistakenly give greater weight to things that just happened. One countermeasure against this cognitive distortion is to study history.

Consider Abraham Lincoln. Dude was president at a time when half the country preferred war to abandoning slavery. His life was under constant threat by his enemies. In his personal life, two of his sons had died in childhood and he was struggling with crippling depression.

And yet, during his second inaugural address in 1865, he called for “malice towards none.”

Take that in. The Civil War was coming to a bloody end; he had survived multiple assassination attempts; he was struggling with grief and depression—and he called for malice toward none.

I find this kind of perspective to be extraordinarily helpful when I’m experiencing anxiety over the 2024 presidential election. Things have definitely been worse, and we’ve pulled through.

- More at link: https://www.danharris.com/p/history-as-an-antidote-to-despair

Gabe Sterling, from Georgia’s secretary of state’s office, said secrecy rules doesn’t allow rejecting a ballot when a voter dies before Election Day.

“You can’t go back and get that ballot back out. It’s just physically impossible, given the privacy rules in our state,” Sterling said.

Many of you have reached out for advice on how to vote on the amendments. Here's the skinny on my take.

Consitutional Amendment #1

Statewide exemption to local homestead tax: “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the General Assembly to provide by general law for a statewide homestead exemption that serves to limit increases in the assessed value of homesteads, but which any county, consolidated government, municipality, or local school system may opt out of upon the completion of certain procedures?”·

Purpose: Allows the Legislature to set statewide homestead property tax exemptions, aiming to reduce property taxes by limiting assessed value increases.·

Local Control: Enables local political subdivisions to opt in or out of the exemption program.·

Voting Impact: A “yes” vote authorizes new homestead exemptions to lower property taxes for homeowners; a “no” vote leaves current property tax laws unchanged. This amendment would implement a statewide exemption to the local homestead tax that uniformly applies to all counties, local school systems, consolidated governments and municipalities unless they opt out. The statewide exemption would freeze the values of all homesteads in Georgia based on a yearly assessment of consumer price index, meaning that the value of a home would go up the same percentage as the value of a home in a different part of the state. This could be good news for homeowners, who would see only more predictable, inflation-based jumps in their home’s assessed value, but is a blunt instrument that could have certain unintended consequences. Among those, many school systems say their operations could be hurt by dramatic cuts to funding if this were enacted.

The bill contains a procedure for county school systems to opt out of this uniform system of assessment increases. It is unclear how many county systems will attempt to opt out, but I expect some to do so. Like many laws, this proposal contains some potential good (and needed) outcomes and some potentially problematic ones. I voted no in the Senate and plan to vote "NO" on my ballot.

For more perspectives on this law’s potential impacts on the housing markets and school systems, please see:
taxfoundation.org/blog/georgia-property-tax-exemption-amendment-1
parkerpoe.com/news/2024/06/how-georgias-new-statewide-homestead-exemption-law-could

Constitutional Amendment #2

Tax Court Amendment (HR598): “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to provide for the Georgia Tax Court to be vested with the judicial power of the state and to have venue, judges, and jurisdiction concurrent with superior courts?”

HR 598 amends the constitution to delegate judicial power to the Georgia Tax Court and grants the Tax Court state-wide jurisdiction to address tax-related matters. Judges on the Tax Court will serve a four-year term, are appointed by the Governor, and may be reappointed for unlimited consecutive terms. Any vacancies will be appointed by the Governor.

Georgia Amendment 2 would create a tax court with statewide jurisdiction that would be concurrent with superior courts to address tax-related matters. Right now, the tax tribunal that hears tax cases is in Georgia’s executive branch, so Amendment 2 would establish a court in the judicial system. Judges would be appointed by the governor and approved by state legislative committees.

Currently, the Fulton County Superior Court hears appeals to any tax tribunal cases. This is not ideal, because the superior court is not meant to be an appellate court and does not specialize in tax law. Further, Fulton County Superior Courts have extremely busy dockets, so some feel that having them hear tax tribunal appeals is a burden. The amendment would ensure that the Georgia Court of Appeals would hear an appeal to a tax case decision.

I voted for this amendment in the Senate and plan to vote “YES” on my ballot.

Statewide Referendum Question

Personal Property Tax Exemption Increase Measure | (HB808):“Do you approve the Act that increases an exemption from property tax for all tangible personal property from $7,500 to $20,000?”

While the claimed purpose of this amendment is to alleviate tax burdens on small businesses by increasing the exemption on personal property fair market value to $20K, I believe legislation should be better targeted to capture small businesses only so that wealthy individuals don't benefit.

It is true that this tax exemption has not been increased since Georgia last raised the maximum threshold for a tangible personal property tax exemption in 2002, when voters passed a referendum to raise the limit from $500 to $7,500.

I voted against this in the Senate and will vote "NO" on my ballot. This amendment is not extremely problematic, but it does allow wealthy people to claim a tax exemption on things like boats, etc. It would also allow certain small businesses (like LLCs) to make tax exempt business purchases as advertised, but in my view, the Legislature could and should pass legislation that is more targeted to capture small businesses and leave out the benefits to people who don’t need it.

Proposed Constitutional Amendments
- 1 -
Provides for a general law state-wide homestead exemption that may differentiate among political subdivisions.
House Resolution No. 1022
Ga. L. 2024, p. 1191
"Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the General Assembly to provide by general law for a state-wide homestead exemption that serves to limit increases in the assessed value of homesteads, but which any county, consolidated government, municipality, or local school system may opt out of upon the completion of certain procedures?”

- 2 -
Provides for a state-wide Georgia Tax Court.
House Resolution No. 598
Ga. L. 2024, p. 1189
"Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to provide for the Georgia Tax Court to be vested with the judicial power of the state and to have venue, judges, and jurisdiction concurrent with superior courts?"

Statewide Referendum Question
- A -
Raises amount of tangible personal property tax exemption from $7,500.00 to $20,000.00.
House Bill No. 808
Act No. 581, Ga. L. 2024, p. 696
“Do you approve the Act that increases an exemption from property tax for all tangible personal property from $7,500.00 to $20,000.00?”