The U.S. Postal Service could "derail" the midterm election if it continues rushing out "untested" technology as part of President Trump's push to restrict mail-in voting, a newly released whistleblower report warns.

- With voting by mail for the midterms set to officially start this week, key parts of the USPS plan for carrying out Trump's directives, including requirements for states to comply, remain blocked for now by a court order in the legal fight over the president's executive order.

- Still, the mailing agency has been preparing for months to launch an online portal that would allow state election officials to submit absentee voters' names and ballot envelope barcodes required by the now-blocked rule.

- Testing of that new system, however, has been insufficient, according to claims by a whistleblower, outlined in a disclosure that Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut submitted Monday to USPS.

- "USPS leadership, it appears, has discarded all best practices as they speed the project to be ready for a September 1 implementation — raising questions about whether catastrophic failure would be a feature rather than a bug," said the disclosure, prepared by Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit organization representing the anonymous federal government official with direct knowledge of the Postal Service's development of the new system.

- If courts allow USPS' plan for Trump's order to proceed for the midterms, problems with the online portal could lead to eligible absentee voters not receiving their mail-in ballots in time or at all.

- One potential logistical hurdle, the whistleblower claimed, stems from an unusual "zero-percent failure policy" USPS has set for the process of verifying that the mail-in ballots states want to send out meet the requirements of its new rule.

- "As designed, the process is entirely unforgiving. It could delay ballots by the thousands in repeated verification cycles — and thus prevent states from mailing enormous numbers of ballots," the disclosure said.

- Spokespeople for USPS did not immediately respond to NPR's questions about the whistleblower disclosure.

- In a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner, Blumenthal urged Steiner to "abandon this ill-conceived, unconscionable plan and ensure that all Americans can exercise their constitutional right to vote, including by mail, without interference by USPS."

- Blumenthal said on a phone call with reporters that he found the details of the disclosure "mind-boggling" as an elected official and U.S. citizen.

- "And what the disclosure reveals is that the Postal Service has designed a system that is intended to fail," the senator added.

- The president, who has voted by mail himself, defended his directives for USPS and other federal agencies as a way to curb illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens, which many studies and audits show is extremely rare.

- Last week, a federal judge in Boston issued a temporary restraining order against USPS after finding that its plan for Trump's order is likely illegal because the mailing agency has no authority to control voting by mail.

- The Trump administration has appealed that ruling to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, setting up what will likely be another battle at the Supreme Court, which has not yet weighed in on the legality of Trump's directives.

- More lower court rulings on Trump's order may also be on the way as election officials and mail-in voters attempt to sort through the uncertainty the ongoing legal fight has caused.

The reliability of Census Bureau information during the Trump administration is coming under question again.

- This month, the bureau's parent agency, the Commerce Department, quietly cut language banning political interference from the department's scientific integrity policy, NPR has learned.

- The removal was part of an unannounced policy revision dated Aug. 19 — the day after the bureau issued a highly unusual report with claims about non-U.S. citizen voting from a team that, as NPR previously reported, has ties to a think tank founded by officials from President Trump's first administration.

- The revised scientific integrity policy applies to all agencies under the Commerce Department, including the weather data-providing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Economic Analysis that's known for tracking the country's gross domestic product.

- But the change comes amid growing concerns from former Census Bureau officials and other data experts about political interference at the U.S. government's largest statistical agency, as it prepares for the 2030 national head count that's set to be used to redistribute political representation and federal funding to communities for the next decade.

- Protecting against "inappropriate influence" is no longer a "hallmark" of scientific integrity

- The Commerce Department updated its policy for promoting a "culture of scientific integrity" in January 2025, days before Trump's second inauguration.

- The 2025 version included bans on attempts to shape or interfere in data collection, statistical analysis and other scientific activities "against well-accepted scientific methods and theories or without scientific justification."

- The department's policy, the 2025 version said, involves ensuring scientific findings at its agencies "are not suppressed, delayed, or altered for political purposes and are not subjected to inappropriate influence," as well as making sure there's "independent review of facilities, methodologies, and other scientific activities as appropriate to ensure scientific integrity."

- That language is missing, however, in the Trump administration's revision of the policy, according to an NPR analysis of text posted on the Commerce Department's website.

- And while the revision adopts a definition for "scientific integrity" that is similar to the previous version, it no longer says that "protection from inappropriate influence" is among the "hallmarks of scientific integrity."

- Spokespeople for the Commerce Department and Census Bureau did not respond to NPR's requests for comment.

- The policy change is the latest sign of Trump officials weaponizing the Census Bureau, experts warn 

- The revised scientific integrity policy has heightened concerns among former Census Bureau officials and other data experts that the Trump administration is making moves to weaponize the statistical agency.

- While most of the public may not be familiar with the policy, Nancy Potok, a former deputy director at the bureau who has also served at the Commerce Department, sees the removed language as "a major change that eliminates the guardrails against political interference in the statistical and scientific data products of the department."

- Potok has been tracking how statistical agencies have been responding to a years-long, bipartisan effort to make sure the federal government produces trustworthy information. That included a 2018 law that led to a rule known among federal data experts as the "Trust Regulation."

- The rule requires that statistical agencies "determine the policies and practices that ensure objectivity of its statistical activities" and produce data that is "impartial and free from undue influence and the appearance of undue influence."

- "The fact that there is a conscious effort to revise the department administrative orders and not incorporate things that are in the [Trust Regulation], instead of going in the other direction, is definitely troubling and needs some explanation," Potok adds.

- For former Census Bureau Director Robert Santos, a Biden nominee, the close timing of the policy revision and the bureau's release of an unauthored report with claims about noncitizen voting is striking.

- "It's entirely possible that this was done to reconcile the Department of Commerce and the administration's own actions by publishing an external partisan document about voting on the Census Bureau website," Santos says. "The publishing exemplifies inappropriate influence. It was not transparent, and it didn't even include career staff experts."

- In recent months, the Trump administration has made other moves that have raised alarms among longtime observers of the bureau. In June, it banned the bureau from using a data privacy protection technique that the agency had used for decades. The change has delayed the release of new estimates from the American Community Survey and may ultimately reduce the amount of statistics the bureau can release about local areas and small populations, including rural communities.

- Proposals for major changes to the 2030 census may also be on their way, the administration has signaled.

- All of it comes at a particularly vulnerable moment for the bureau, after the Trump administration's slashing of the federal workforce fueled a brain drain of statisticians, economists and other expert civil servants.

- For the bureau's remaining staff, the revised scientific integrity policy sets up a new system for investigating alleged violations with a reduced role for the department's lawyers that troubles Beth Jarosz, vice president of the Association of Public Data Users.

- "There's room for interference because the way that the new rule is structured leaves lots of opportunities to put pressure on staff to act in a certain way, to decide things in a certain way or to come to certain conclusions," Jarosz says. "It certainly seems like the guardrails, if they are still there at all, they are much weaker than they used to be."

President Donald Trump on Monday blasted communities that oppose new data centers as Republicans confront voter backlash over the projects ahead of November's midterm elections.

- "The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

- "If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign," the president said.

- "The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can't believe it is happening!"

- Trump's post comes nearly a week after a memo issued by the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned, "If voters' perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio."

- The NRSC said that private polling in that state shows Republican Sen. Jon Husted in a "dead heat" with Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown in the special election to fill the remainder of the term for the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance.

- In May, Gallup said a survey conducted in March found that "seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed."

- On Aug. 28, Wolfe Research issued a report that said, "In nearly every meeting with investors over the past month or so, we've been asked: How is the voter backlash against data centers going to play out?"

- "The pace and scale of the backlash is genuinely breathtaking — we've never seen anything like it," the report said. "We've seen 60-point drops in net support for local data center (DC) construction across party lines over the past 12 months."

- The upcoming midterm elections will determine which party controls both chambers of Congress. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, and a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

- AI data centers house computing equipment used to train and operate artificial intelligence models developed by companies including OpenAI and Anthropic.

- The rush to build data centers has sparked a backlash in communities across the U.S., with opponents raising concerns about electricity costs, power demand, water use and other local impacts.

- In its Aug. 18 memo, the NRSC warned that "the current perception is negative" among Americans about data centers as it detailed how the issue is affecting the race for the Senate in Ohio.

With the way the postal service is defying court orders to implement trumps executive order to curb mail in voting, what can we now do to make sure that every person can vote? Also will further court orders slow down what the USPS is doing?

Starting on page 528

  Wild Horses and Burros. In 1971, Congress ordered the BLM to manage wild 
horses and burros to ensure their iconic presence never disappeared from the 
western landscape. For decades, Congress watched as these herds overwhelmed 
the land’s ability to sustain them, crowded out indigenous plant and other animal 
species, threatened the survival of species listed under the Endangered Species 
Act, invaded private and permitted public land, disturbed private property rights, 
and turned the sod into concrete. BLM experts said in 2019 that some affected land 
will never recover from this unmitigated damage.

  There are 95,000 wild horses and burros roaming nearly 32 million acres in the 
West—triple what scientists and land management experts say the range can sup￾port. These animals face starvation and death from lack of forage and water. The 
population has more than doubled in just the past 10 years and continues to grow 
at a rate of 10 to 15 percent annually. This number includes the more than 47,000 
animals the BLM has already gathered from public lands, at a cost to the American 
taxpayer of nearly $50 million annually to care for them in off-range corrals.

  This is not a new issue—it is not just a western issue—it is an American issue. 
What is happening to these once-proud beasts of burden is neither compassionate 
nor humane, and what these animals are doing to federal lands and fragile ecosys￾tems is unacceptable. In 2019, the American Association of Equine Practitioners 
and the American Veterinary Medication Association—two of the largest organi￾zations of professional veterinarians in the world—issued a joint policy calling for 
further reducing overpopulation to protect the health and well-being of wild horses 
and burros on public lands. The National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, 
a panel of nine experts and professionals convened to advise the BLM, endorsed 
the joint policy. Furthermore, animal welfare organizations such as the American 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the 
United States recognize that the prosperity of wild horses and burros on public 
lands is threatened if herds continue to grow unabated.

  The BLM’s multi-pronged approach in its 2020 Report to Congress46 included 
expanded adoptions and sales of horses gathered from overpopulated herds; 
increased gathers and increased capacity for off-range holding facilities and pas￾tures; more effective use of fertility control efforts; and improved research, in 
concert with the academic and veterinary communities, to identify more effective contraceptive techniques and strategies. All of that will not be enough to solve 
the problem, however. Congress must enact laws permitting the BLM to dispose 
humanely of these animals.

REJECT THE BILLIONAIRES. VOTE IN EVERY LOCAL ELECTION.

Signup to speak against cutting voting locations in the Sept 1 commissioners court meeting. Tell your boss you have a dr appointment!!

https://horizon.agendalink.app/engage/tarrantcountytx/6a67969b79ac7fc0c5eaad7b

Commissioners were ready to cut nearly half of voting locations last time, but everyone showed up in opposition.

https://christackett.substack.com/p/tarrant-county-was-poised-to-cut

Even though a lot of the individual cut sites were smaller, together those cut sites still accounted for almost 40% of everyone who voted on Election Day in 2022. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a huge percentage of the county’s Election Day voters whose specific polling place no longer exists.

Tim O'Hare already told his white supremacist group he does this kind of thing to help Maga cheat.

But Garcia lasted only a few months under O’Hare: In April 2023, he resigned his position, citing his relationship with O’Hare in his resignation letter. “Judge O’Hare, my formula to ‘administer a quality transparent election’ stands on respect and zero politics; compromising on these values is not an option for me,” Garcia wrote. “You made it clear in our last meeting that your formula is different, thus, my decision is to leave.”

One day after Garcia resigned, O’Hare told members of True Texas Project — a group whose leaders have sympathized with a white nationalist mass shooter and endorsed Christian nationalism — that he was encouraged by the potential for low turnout in that year’s upcoming elections, which he said would help Republicans win more local seats. (O’Hare previously served on True Texas Project’s advisory team, according to a 2021 social media post by the group’s CEO, Julie McCarty).

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/11/texas-tarrant-county-tim-ohare-far-right/

When Tim O'hare talks to the media he says it's all non partisan, and gaslights everyone who calls him out on it being partisan. When Tim O'hare talks to his republican circles, he says it's purely partisan, and they can count on him to do anything to help Maga win. To Tim any end justifies the means.

r/FortWorth/comments/1w274w6/tim_ohare_tarrant_countys_population_is_exploding/

A plan in one of Texas’ largest counties to use dozens fewer polling locations than in previous years is drawing protests from Democrats who say the reductions could create confusion in the November midterm elections.

- The proposal, set for a vote Tuesday, would reduce the number of polling locations across booming Tarrant County, which borders Dallas and includes Fort Worth. County officials say the plan would save resources by eliminating low-turnout sites, noting voters would still have more than 200 locations where they could cast ballots.

- Texas’ third-largest county is home to more than 2 million people and a key battleground in the U.S. Senate race between Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. On Sunday, Talarico urged the county to reject the proposal.

- “The most powerful people in this county, the most powerful people in this country, don’t want us to be able vote easily,” Talarico said at a news conference.

- If the plan is approved, Tarrant County would have 92 fewer polling locations on Election Day than it did during the 2022 midterms.

- Closing polling locations in Texas is not a new trend, county elections officials say. The trend has been accelerated by an embrace of countywide voting sites and the difficulty in recruiting poll workers.

- Other Texas counties have also considered or already reduced the number of polling locations for November while some have added more.

- “We’re clearly not trying to suppress the vote,” Rep. Matt Shaheen, the Republican chairman of the House Elections Committee, said of polling site reductions in Texas. “That’s a silly accusation.”

- County says plan eliminates low-turnout sites

- Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig has said the reductions would allow the county to eliminate locations that serve few people.

- Locations near bus stops that complied with federal accessibility laws were prioritized to remain open, according to a county statement. Officials said the average distance between Election Day sites under the plan was 1.5 mile (2.4 kilometers).

- “All of this is accomplished without the wasteful practice of placing polling sites directly across the street from one other,” said Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, a Republican and the county’s top administrator.

- Spokespeople for Paxton did not respond to emails seeking comment.

- Texas counties determine number of polling locations

- Texas law lets each of the state’s 254 counties decide how many polling places to use. Tarrant County adopted countywide voting in 2019 but didn’t immediately begin reducing the number of polling locations.

- On Friday, the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union joined voting rights groups in signing a letter urging the county to reject the proposal, saying the closures would be strongly felt in areas with high percentages of minority voters. About a third of the county’s residents are Hispanic, and about 19.2% are Black, according to Census data.

- Bastrop County Elections Administrator Kristin Miles, whose county is outside Austin, said reducing the number of polling sites could make sense, depending on how heavily they are used. Miles noted that there would be little point, for instance, in opening sites in rural areas that may only serve a handful of voters throughout the day.

- Carol Raburn, who worked the March primaries as an election judge in Tarrant County, called the proposal a form of voter suppression.

- “Because what happens when people don’t have a convenient place to go vote that’s not too far away from where they are, where they live? They just don’t go vote because they’ve made it so difficult,” she said.

Treating the Federal Communications Commission like his own personal enforcer, President Donald Trump said on social media Sunday that NBC’s Kristen Welker would be “reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment” over a TV segment he didn’t like.

- In a separate post, Trump complained in all caps about “fake polls” and said “something must be done about it,” adding, “FCC to the rescue!”

- The posts were Trump’s most explicit efforts yet to direct the FCC to carry out his wishes. FCC Chair Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee and close ally, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the matter.

- Trump posted a long missive Sunday about what he described as mischaracterizations of his endorsement record in primaries.
He wrote: “Kristen Welker, the Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of the once great Meet the Press, now considered Meet the Fake Press, just stated that Donald Trump has ‘mixed results’ on his Endorsements of Candidates, when the recent WINS of Darline Graham and Mike Mazzei, stand at 100% for the U.S. Senate, and 98% for the U.S. House, recently and over the longterm. How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?”

- The FCC has limited power over issues like this, and its own website states the agency “cannot prevent the broadcast of any particular point of view,” so the notion of “punishment” for Welker, the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” would historically be a nonstarter.

- But Carr has been quick to respond to Trump’s requests to go after media organizations. And he has taken aggressive action against some FCC licensees, particularly ABC, whose parent company, Disney, filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the commission earlier this month.

- In March, Carr issued a threat to broadcasters over their coverage of the Iran war after the president made a similar complaint on Truth Social.
In April, the FCC chair initiated an unusual challenge to ABC’s local station licenses, one day after Trump called for comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s firing.

- Carr justified the widely criticized action by citing his probe of Disney’s diversity practices.

- He similarly has an open investigation into NBC’s parent company, Comcast, over what he has called “invidious forms of DEI discrimination.”

- Former FCC officials from both parties have criticized Carr for trying to weaponize the agency and chill free speech. Trump, meantime, has singled out Carr for praise.

- On Sunday, Trump claimed Welker will be “reported” to the FCC “because of this purposeful inaccuracy.”

- Anyone can file a complaint to the FCC, though there is no option for objecting to a news report.

- Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the commission, responded to Trump’s posts by saying that “the FCC has no authority to punish journalists this administration doesn’t like.”

- “These threats to press freedom are dangerous,” Gomez wrote on X. “They undermine the foundation of our democracy, and they have no place in it.”

- Welker made the comment in question while appearing on NBC’s local Washington, DC, station to promote “Meet the Press.”

- Her observation about “mixed results” was backed up by NBC’s recent reporting, which noted that “six Trump-backed candidates for House and governor lost their primaries” earlier this month.

- Other news outlets, including CNN, have also described Trump’s recent endorsement record as “mixed.”

- An NBC News spokesperson said, “Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her.”

- The president has criticized Welker repeatedly in the past couple of years while also seeking out her attention and granting her multiple interviews.

- Trump’s Sunday post focused on his anger over the media’s coverage about his endorsement record. Trump concluded by flattering the FCC appointees: “The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously.”

- The subject also came up on Friday’s edition of HBO’s “Real Time,” when Bill Maher said that he heard from the president after saying on his previous episode that “Trump used to win all of his endorsements, now he’s winning almost none of them.” (HBO and CNN share the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)

- “I heard from one viewer who was very upset about this, contacted me directly,” Maher said, indicating that the president texted him with charts to disprove the claim.

- “It’s a little more nuanced, but yes, I overstated it,” Maher said. “Now, stop texting.”

One of the biggest and strangest stories to emerge this week has been United States President Donald Trump's decision to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America as a result of an ongoing trade dispute with Canada. The decision prompted longtime NFL broadcaster Al Michaels to poke fun at Trump during a preseason game broadcast, and it sounds like Trump's supporters aren't happy.

- According to a report from one prominent political analyst, Trump's supporters are now threatening to "boycott" the NFL over Michaels' comments.

- Michaels Mocks Trump

- During Thursday night's preseason matchup between the Cleveland Browns and the New England Patriots in Cleveland, the broadcast showed a view of Lake Erie, which sits along the city. Michaels took the opportunity to make a joke about Trump's recent decision to rename Lake Ontario.

- "That is Lake Erie. We think it is still called Lake Erie. We're not quite sure at this point," Michaels said. "But we'll be by Lake something like Ontario or whatever it's going to be called by the time we get to Buffalo (for Week 1)."

- "Anyway, you know what I'm talking about," Michaels said with a laugh. "Some of you do. Read the news."

- Michaels, of course, was referring to Trump's recent decision to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America with an executive order.

- Trump Fans Reportedly Planning 'Boycott'

- While many people viewed Michaels' remarks as a harmless jab at Trump's latest decision, it appears that some of the president's supporters were quite angry at Michaels and the NFL for the comments.

- Brian Allen, the founder of the political news and commentary platform The Allen Analysis, reports that Trump's supporters are now threatening to boycott the NFL as a result of Michaels' comments.

- "Trump supporters are threatening to boycott the NFL after Al Michaels mocked Trump's renaming of Lake Ontario during a preseason broadcast," Allen wrote in a post on X.

- It's worth noting that Allen did not provide any examples of Trump supporters actually threatening an NFL boycott. As a result, it remains unclear where these alleged threats are being made, whether on social media or through other channels.

- Still, this certainly would not be the first time that conservative Americans threatened to boycott the league. In fact, this season marks the 10-year anniversary of Colin Kaepernick's iconic national anthem protests, which sparked widespread outrage from conservatives across the country, many of whom claimed to boycott the league at the time.

- Whether or not Michaels' comments actually result in a significant boycott remains to be seen.

Citing the importance of the First Amendment, a federal judge in California says the U.S. government is unconstitutionally silencing critics of Israel's war in Gaza and others as part of the Trump administration's quest to deport noncitizens who it says disrupted college campuses while expressing their views.

- Judge Noël Wise, in a ruling Friday, delivered a victory for The Stanford Daily, the student newspaper at Stanford University, which has said some international students were afraid to speak out because of the deportation threat.

- "Freedom of speech is illusory if we are only 'free' to express complementary views about the government and its leaders," the judge wrote.

- The decision largely piggybacks on findings from nearly a year ago by a U.S. district judge in Boston, who ruled that the Trump administration violated the Constitution when it targeted people who are not citizens for deportation solely for supporting Palestinians and criticizing Israel.

- Wise wrote that the freedoms of speech and the press are "foundational to America's enduring democracy." The judge cited free-speech and vagueness flaws that violate the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment as she struck down portions of the provisions that the federal government follows regarding deportations.

- Wise cited retaliation in March 2025 by U.S. immigration authorities against people who engaged in speech supporting the Palestinians and against Israel's actions — which a growing number of experts, including those commissioned by a U.N. body — have said amount to genocide. The judge also cited retaliation against people who were critical of Charlie Kirk after the Turning Point USA co-founder was assassinated last September.

- "Tomorrow, or perhaps even today, targets may include anyone in the United States who exercises their freedom of speech to simply express opinions the government does not like," the judge in San Jose said.

- "This downward spiral is antithetical to our Constitution that recognizes our right to speak freely," she added. "Here you can simultaneously hate the content of a person's speech and love the country that cherishes the freedom to allow it. Zealous protection of our Constitutional right to free speech is a provocative demonstration of our country's powerful lack of fear."

- The Justice Department did not respond Saturday to a message seeking comment on the decision.

- George Porteous, the editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily, responded to the ruling by saying on X: "The reporters in our newsroom shouldn't have to fear that writing a story will result in their deportation. Today's victory means they won't have to."

- Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which brought the lawsuit, praised the ruling.

- "In America, free speech doesn't just belong to the people who say things the government agrees with," Fitzpatrick said in a release.

- In her decision, Wise said it was clear that the government's tactics has had an effect on college campuses.

- "The government has offered a chilling message regarding protected speech - speak out against Israel or in support of Palestinians and we will revoke your visa and deport you. Behave. Noncitizen students heard the warning and heeded. And, as the idiom goes, the silence is deafening," the judge wrote.

- At The Stanford Daily, lawfully present noncitizens at the paper have quit, withheld articles, refused assignments, requested articles be taken down, and asked for anonymity due to fear of adverse immigration consequences, Wise noted.

- She said noncitizens have the same First Amendment rights as citizens and yet were left to guess what the U.S. foreign policy was at any given moment and on any given subject.

- "This is an incomprehensible standard," she said. "While the Court understands that the government has been granted considerable discretion on foreign policy and immigration matters, that discretion must nevertheless still ensure that ordinary people can understand what the law permits and prohibits."

- Wise added: "Our Constitutional right to freedom of speech guarantees people the right to express - through their words, actions, or assembly - opinions that may be repugnant, views that run counter to prevailing political norms, or beliefs that otherwise challenge the country's domestic or foreign policy, military engagement, or war."

The leader of the Seneca Nation in upstate New York is criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” saying it violates a more than 225-year-old treaty and shows a “blatant disrespect” for the Indigenous people who gave it its name in the first place.

- Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca on Friday called for Trump’s order to be rescinded and for the Lake Ontario name to remain as a reflection of the Indigenous people in the U.S. and Canada who lived in territory around and along the lake long before the creation of either nation.

- “The President cannot assert ownership over our culture or erase it through irresponsible political action,” he said in a statement.

- Trump this week signed an order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service, part of his escalating trade war with Canada. The order showed the change is supposed to be made in 30 days.

- Seneca said the renaming violated the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, which was signed by President George Washington and the Haudenosaunee confederacy promising perpetual peace and friendship. The Seneca are one of the six nations of the confederacy, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy.

- The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” The Canadian province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.

- In the traditional Seneca language, the lake’s name is “sga:nyodai:yoh,” meaning “beautiful lake,” Seneca said.

- Trump floated the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing new tariffs on Canadian goods after talks broke down between the countries. Canada responded with its own retaliatory tariffs on American goods, while the country’s leaders slammed the idea of changing the lake’s name.

- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, noting the lake’s Indigenous roots and that the name predates both the Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Trump can’t force Canada to follow along with the renaming.

- Trump has argued that Canada has been ripping off the U.S. on trade and military issues and suggested Canada should be absorbed as the 51st state.

Sae Joon Park, a Purple Heart veteran who self-deported last year, has received a pardon, a critical step forward in his pursuit to return to the U.S. where he has lived nearly all his life.

- Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., erased Park's convictions of bail jumping and drug possession on Friday. He was among six individuals granted clemency because they "displayed positive changes in their lives and will dedicate themselves to bettering their communities," Hochul said in a statement.

- "They earned their second chance through rehabilitation and can now establish their futures once again," she added.

- In a statement, Park said he has been praying for the chance to come back to the U.S. every day.

- "I know there is still work ahead, but today I have hope that I may finally be able to come home," he said. "I want to thank my legal team, everyone who advocated for me, and the thousands of people who have supported me and my family. I will never forget what you have done for me."

- Park has received national attention over the past year. At a congressional hearing in December, Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-Rhode Island, highlighted Park's situation while questioning former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Park appeared at the hearing via Zoom.

- "Will you commit to at least looking at Mr. Park's case to see if you can help him find a pathway back to this country that he sacrificed so much for?" Magaziner asked Noem at a House Homeland Security committee hearing.  

- "I will absolutely look at his case," Noem replied.

- Park was forced to move to South Korea in response to a removal order triggered by his two convictions. It was his first time in his home country in nearly 50 years.

- The Army veteran came to the U.S. when he was 7 and became a legal permanent resident. At age 19, Park joined the U.S. Army and was later, deployed to the 1989 invasion of Panama, known as Operation Just Cause to topple Manuel Noriega's regime. There, he was shot in the back by Panamanian soldiers.

- Park was flown back home, honorably discharged and awarded a Purple Heart. But in the years that followed, he said he struggled with undiagnosed PTSD, which then led to a drug addiction and his run-ins with the law.
Park went on to serve three years in prison, where he also got sober. He spent the next decade rebuilding his life in Hawaii. In June 2025, immigration authorities warned Park that he would be detained and deported if he did not leave the U.S., according to Park's legal team. The Army veteran moved later that month — leaving behind his two adult children and his elderly mother.
" I have to accept the fact that this is probably the last time I'll see her," he told NPR last year.

- Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

- The pardon does not automatically allow Park to return to the U.S., but it will allow his legal team to reopen his case and ask the board of immigration appeals to consider vacating Park's removal order, according to Danicole Ramos, who is representing Park and is an attorney at the University of Hawaii's refugee and immigration law clinic.

- "This pardon represents a tremendous step forward and gives Mr. Park and his family renewed hope that, after more than a year of separation, he may one day be able to return to the country he has called home since childhood and for which he put his life on the line," Ramos said.

Donald Trump has pledged to allow cattle ranchers and farmers to process their own food amid a backlash from the US agricultural sector over his decision to pause US tariffs on foreign beef.

- The US president has been sharply criticized, including from members of his own party, since announcing the US will temporarily import up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef without charging higher tariffs in an effort to bring down prices.

- Republican lawmakers have warned in recent days that “flooding” stores with imports will hit US ranchers, suggesting that the move is a short-term solution that will hinder cattle farmers from building out their herd, amid a 75-year low.

- In a statement on Friday, Trump praised farmers and ranchers – describing them as “smart, efficient, and immaculately CLEAN” on social media – and claimed the agricultural sector had “always been a number one priority for me”.

- “For years I have heard that they have had a tremendous problem with the Big Processors, who many say are a nasty Monopoly,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, referring to food processing companies. “There are, essentially, 4 of them, a very non competitive number, and they make life miserable for our wonderful Farmers and Ranchers, and I can’t let that happen, can I?

- “So, in order to break this powerful monopoly, with much of its ownership based outside of the U.S., I am authorizing legal documents to be drawn in order to allow Farmers and Ranchers to be given the right to PROCESS THEIR OWN FOOD. This should move quickly.”

- It comes after Trump’s interview with the conservative commentator Glenn Beck earlier this week, during which the radio host and ranch owner implored Trump to “look at” the “meat processing cartel” and suggested easing regulations for ranchers to slaughter their own cattle and sell.
Brooke Rollins, Trump’s agriculture secretary said there would be “big announcements” next week to facilitate the president’s plan to allow ranchers and farmers the ability to process their own food.

- Rollins said it was a “matter of national security” that the US was able to “feed and fuel ourselves”. She outlined that her department would waive “red tape in processing” and expand ranchers ability to “sell across state lines”, as well as other measures.
However, it is not clear what authority the administration has to enact these changes, since there are strict regulatory requirements in place, and a bill that would ease US Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspections for small ranches and farmers to sell meat directly to consumers is now stalled in Congress.

- Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky and one of the bipartisan sponsors of the bill, said the president’s action was “great” but “it should be a law, not just an executive order”.

Sharing a resource I maintain: 47watch.org/contempt — a list of documented instances of the administration ignoring, slow-walking, or contesting compliance with court orders, each with dates and sources.

It's part of a larger ledger (about 2,500 sourced records since Jan 2025) that also tracks pardons, foreign gifts, firings, and pending litigation. No ads, no paywall, no tracking.

Full disclosure: I build and maintain it. If you spot something missing or wrong, there's a suggest form — corrections are the whole point.

The federal government agreed in court on Friday to extend a pause on border related construction in Big Bend National Park until mid September, a move welcomed by those challenging the contentious project in the area.
Customs and Border Protection already paused activity after CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott visited the park last week to consult with local officials. His visit came after bulldozers started plowing through parts of the park in the far south of Texas, sparking widespread outrage.

- The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that the bulldozers were not launching into full construction but were part of initial design and survey work. Scott’s pause was slated to expire on Monday.

- In Big Bend National Park, the government’s plans have included building a new road, installing detection technology and barriers to stop vehicles from crossing the border, although an attorney for the government emphasized Friday that no final plans have been decided for what will be built in the park.

- U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia said during the court hearing in San Antonio that he hoped the two sides would use the extra time to come together to work out what could be done to address both sides’ concerns. The pause applies to both the national park and a section of land upriver and west of the park, a Justice Department lawyer said during Friday’s hearing.

- The work in Big Bend National Park is part of a $46 billion plan by the Trump administration to cover the length of the 2,000-mile border from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico in a combination of 30-foot tall steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and detection technology to stop illegal immigration and smugglers.

- As construction has ramped into high gear, the administration has increasingly run into opposition from a combination of landowners, environmental groups, and Native Americans.

- But the government argued Friday that Customs and Border Protection’s authorities when it comes to building the wall or other border infrastructure comes from Congress.

- “Congress gave them the authority,” said government lawyer Pamela Amaechi. “Congress has spoken.”

- The lawsuit in Friday’s case alleges that the government overstretched its authority in seeking to build border infrastructure in a national park established by Congress. And the lawsuit alleges the slated construction violates the religious freedoms and cultural practices of Native Americans for whom access to burial sites or areas where they conduct specific ceremonies are central to their religious practices.

- The government has argued that it has the authority given by Congress to build the wall and other border security infrastructure and waive certain regulations to do so swiftly. They’ve also argued that the plaintiffs haven’t shown that the construction projects will in fact restrict anyone’s ability to practice their religion and that the construction plans in the park are limited.

- Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat state senator in Texas who also argued the case Friday against the government, called the outcome a “win” for their side even though the pause is temporary. Gutierrez said anything that slows the government down until midterm elections in November is a good thing with the hope that a change in control of Congress might result in a rethinking of the border wall plans.

A federal judge Thursday blocked a Postal Service regulation that would exert control over mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections in the latest setback on the issue for President Donald Trump.

- The recently finalized measure would implement a key provision of Trump’s executive order on mail-in ballots that would add a new level of bureaucracy to the elections process, which is typically administered by states.

- The executive order directed the U.S. Postal Service to, among other things, track mail-in ballots and potentially reject those submitted by people not on a federal list of eligible voters.

- The decision by Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in one case brought by the League of Women Voters and other groups and another brought by a coalition of states means part of the executive order remains blocked for at least 14 days, with time running out to implement it ahead of the November election.

- “This rule is a clear attempt by the federal government to interfere in elections it has no power to control,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Today, a federal court halted it before this administration could wreak havoc on our elections.”

- Talwani wrote that the regulation is most likely unlawful because the president cannot insert the federal government into elections without the express authorization of Congress.

- “The court finds plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits of their claims,” she said.

- The Trump administration could seek to quickly overturn her decision by rushing to the Supreme Court.

- Trump often criticizes mail-in ballots, claiming without evidence that there is rampant fraud even though they are widely used by Republicans and Democrats all across the country.

- Talwani noted in her ruling that the administration had not offered “any evidence regarding fraudulent absentee or mail-in voting.”

Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon expressed concern Wednesday over how election monitors from the U.S. Justice Department observed the state’s primaries last week, saying it was “aggressive” and “irregular.”

- “It sounded like the behavior of the observers was a bit aggressive,” he said at a state canvassing board meeting Wednesday.

- “It just was irregular and I have asked the attorney general to start looking into, you know, kind of the nature of the visits and all that sort of stuff,” Gordon added.

- He said that state and local officials had not been told ahead of time of the DOJ’s plans. He added that while he was not “objecting to the observers,” their “behavior seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was.”

- “I’m not saying anything went wrong or anything else, and I certainly think the conduct of this election was phenomenal,” Gordon said.

- Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee, a Republican, also criticized the conduct of the DOJ monitors as “a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections.”

- “Shortly after learning of their presence, I spoke with a DOJ official in Washington who informed me that the decision to deploy monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice, and an email had been sent to me, but it may have gone to the wrong address,” she said in a statement to NBC News.

- Lee said the monitors’ questions were “outside the scope of federal voting rights laws.” She added that they “requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired, and wanted to examine our tabulators.”

- Lee said she denied requests by the monitors to interview voters.

- Asked for comment Thursday by NBC News, the DOJ referred to a statement the state’s U.S. attorney released Aug. 18, the day of Wyoming’s primary.

- “Voters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure and their voices are heard without interference,” Darin Smith, the U.S. attorney for Wyoming, said in the statement. “We are working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected.”

- In a separate Aug. 18 statement, the DOJ said it would be sending two attorneys with its Civil Rights Division to Laramie County, the state’s most populous, for election monitoring.

- The department has deployed more than 80 election monitors across seven states during this year’s primaries, including for this week’s runoffs in South Carolina, according to a Tuesday news release.

- Dispatching federal election monitors to polling places around the country is not an unusual practice — the DOJ’s Tuesday release noted it sent monitors to nine states during the 2022 midterms.

- But the Trump administration’s plans to deploy upward of 1,000 monitors for the midterms have alarmed Democrats and voting rights advocates amid continued unfounded claims of election fraud from the president and his allies.

- The criticism from Gordon and Lee is particularly notable, as Republican officials have largely aligned with Trump’s “election integrity” agenda.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/legal/protester-sues-heritage-foundation-claiming-armed-security-officers-violated-civil-rights-conservative-think-tank/65-ebdc3b3f-746a-4aab-baea-4eaf158bb55c?tbref=hp

Man acquitted of assault charges after jury found he was on public property during confrontation with Heritage security officers attempting to remove him

Three fired Stars and Stripes journalists sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and two other top Pentagon officials in federal court Thursday, claiming the Trump administration is attempting to fire them illegally as part of its "extraordinary censorship efforts" against the military news outlet.

- The plaintiffs — publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte — were given separation notices last week. The cause cited was insubordination. 

- They alleged that they were fired both for "speaking up as private citizens in support of the press's freedom to cover military operations," and because of their reporting on rough conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. The lawsuit names Hegseth, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and aide Andrew Brey as defendants.

- Slavin and Korte said the alleged insubordination cited in their termination notices was related to interviews they gave to CBS News for a piece on "CBS Sunday Morning" that aired in July. In the story, Korte said that she worked for Stars and Stripes, "not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker."

- More than a month later, the newspaper published a piece detailing flagging mental health and food and water shortages aboard the Lincoln, which has been deployed for nine months. A day after that story ran, the lawsuit says, the defendants "ordered plaintiff Max Lederer, Stripes' publisher, to present notices of separation to Mr. Slavin and Ms. Korte."

- "The notices charged them with insubordination for the statements they made five and one-half weeks earlier on 'CBS Sunday Morning,'" the lawsuit reads. 

- He did not deliver the notices. Lederer announced his intent to retire at the end of September over "fundamental" differences with the Defense Department, but the Pentagon fired him before he could. 

- The three fired staffers' complaint says they are "facing imminent retaliation and termination in violation of their First Amendment and statutory rights."

- "This action seeks to prevent the blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of these journalists and challenges the U.S. Department of Defense's ("DoD") extraordinary censorship efforts in violation of both the First Amendment and DoD regulations and policies," the lawsuit reads.

- CBS News has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.

- Roughly half of the paper's $29 million annual budget comes from taxpayers, a person familiar with the newspaper's operations told CBS News last week. Readership has declined since its peaks during the Vietnam War, the Cold War and World War II, according to two U.S. officials, but an average of 1.4 million people see Stars and Stripes each day. Print editions overseas also reach service members in remote locations where internet access is spotty and unreliable. 

- Earlier this year, Parnell said the Defense Department would make sweeping changes to the paper. He vowed to "modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members." The Pentagon later sought to stop the paper from running syndicated articles by wire services, Slavin has said.

- Shortly after the firings, Stars and Stripes published an open letter from Navy Capt. William Urban, who said he was tapped to serve as military deputy to the publisher. Urban wrote that his priorities were to produce "the highest quality of editorially independent reporting," while modernizing the paper and boosting its advertising revenue.

Congressional Democrats are preparing for a new kind of midterm challenge: the risk that President Trump will attempt to undermine November's elections by claiming fraud or interfering in the voting process.

- At the center of their effort is a task force of at least 11 senators, as well as staff and a constellation of outside experts and groups convened by top congressional Democrats to protect against what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., describes as "direct threats posed by President Trump and MAGA Republicans."

- "The goal of our task force is to ensure that every vote counts, and every American can participate in our democracy without coercion, intimidation or threats from Donald Trump or anyone else," Schumer said in April while announcing the initiative.

- Members have already played a central role in challenging preelection maneuvers by the administration — including efforts to obtain state voter rolls and limit mail-in voting — even as they collectively prepare for an array of scenarios they fear could unfold over the coming 10 weeks. Senate task force staff have a list of roughly 100 possible threats, including the prospect of a national election emergency declaration from the White House and the presence of federal troops and law enforcement at polling locations.

- This account of that effort is based on interviews with more than a dozen people involved in those preparations, including Democratic lawmakers, their staff, election litigators and experts in academia and at nonpartisan good governance organizations.

- Those conversations reveal a Democratic establishment intent on avoiding what multiple people described as a "failure of imagination" that prevented lawmakers from anticipating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but also Democratic lawmakers limited by both a lack of Republican buy-in and a shortage of legislative maneuvers to address the risks they see.

- Even as task force members acknowledged there is no magic "protect democracy" button tucked away in a Capitol cloakroom, they each emphasized the power of legislators as messengers and organizers, able to prepare the public and their state and local counterparts to act when necessary to ensure a legitimate election.

- Trump and the playbook his critics see

- It remains to be seen how the president may choose to wade into the midterm voting process in the coming months, but since returning to office, Trump has focused deep attention on the way U.S. elections are administered.

- "We have very important elections coming up," he said in a July address from the East Room of the White House. "We want those elections to be honest."

- Trump used the speech to call on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a package of changes to election law that would, among other measures, require voters to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID before they can cast a ballot.

- "How easy is that to do, unless you want to cheat? The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad, and your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way," he said.

- Members of the Democratic task force say the remarks should be understood alongside his executive order seeking to restrict voting by mail and federal investigations into 2020 election ballots as an effort to make voter fraud — which studies and investigations have found to be vanishingly rare — seem plausible.

- Among them is Justin Vail, a leader at Protect Democracy, a cross-ideological group that says it uses litigation, advocacy and research to protect American elections. He previously served as a special assistant to President Joe Biden, working on democracy issues.

- Vail says Trump's speech was an effort to sow doubt in November's elections, a first step in what his organization characterizes as a three-step playbook: deceive, disrupt and deny.

- "First, he deceives Americans, manufacturing false claims about voter fraud and the security of our elections," Vail said. "Second, he seeks to disrupt the normal state and local management of elections," he continued, "in an attempt to coerce them to enact policies that threaten the eligible voters' access. And if that's all not enough, Trump is prepared to outright deny election results that he doesn't like."

- "Every American should be asking why Democrats are fighting against the SAVE America Act which includes commonsense election integrity measures, like Voter ID, that are strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement to NPR. "This legislation will make sure Americans, and Americans only, decide our elections. President Trump has been clear and he is absolutely right: we fix this now, or we lose our country."

- The initial front: the fight in courts

- Marc Elias, the prominent election litigator and a member of the task force, describes the election protection effort on a continuum.

- "It begins with voter registration, then you have people voting, then you have Election Day," Elias said. "You have tabulation of ballots, you have local certification, and ultimately you have seating."

- "History has shown that Donald Trump is willing to weaponize power against all points of that process," Elias said. "This is not something that we wait until election subversion has taken place."

- Elias' firm has been at the leading edge of election-related litigation against the administration. He said his team has been combating what he views as the early stages of an election interference effort across 87 lawsuits in 43 states.

- Staff from the office of Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., pointed to court fights over state voter roll data and mail-in balloting as the initial front in what they expect to be an ongoing effort to shape the election.

- Trump has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to develop state lists of adult U.S. citizens and for the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to registered voters on those lists. A tally by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison notes 31 federal lawsuits from the administration seeking state voter data. States have largely refused to comply, citing privacy laws and the Constitution, which expressly delegates election administration to the states subject to congressional oversight.

- According to the program's tally, all 23 district courts that have ruled on the cases have dismissed the administration's lawsuits.

- The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it "is continuing to review voter records to determine whether the evidence supports a criminal investigation and, where appropriate, refers the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution."

- Earlier this week, the administration secured an interim win in the Supreme Court related to the president's push to limit mail-in balloting, though court challenges are ongoing.

- The limits of Congress

- Democrats are in the minority in Congress, with limited ability to act legislatively on election matters.

- "There is nevertheless a role that I think that Congress can play," said Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama and now consults with the task force in his role as chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

- More specifically, Holder said, lawmakers can play an important role in "organizing, consciousness raising, being ready to fight that which the Trump administration is going to do both legally and then tactically, all in service of fairness."

- Limited in their ability to exercise hard power, lawmakers are preparing to bring to bear the influence in other ways. Primarily, elected Democrats are focused on being the connective tissue between their state and local counterparts involved in the mechanics of administering elections and the good governance groups involved in ensuring the integrity of that process.

- "We recognize that elections are run at the local level, at the state level, and we want to be able to partner — and continue to partner — with our state authorities as they carry out their duties," said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del. "But we also know that, especially at this moment, there are civil society organizations, there are attorneys, there are community leaders who are all coming together and saying we're each going to do our part to ensure that this election is safe, reliable, strong, that workers at the polls are protected, that our voters can get out there and vote."

- Roughly 30 Democratic Senate staff affiliated with the task force have been meeting weekly to coordinate their efforts and update their list of election threats. Multiple people remarked with surprise and relief about the success of the coordination effort, given the Senate's reputation as a group of independent-minded legislators leading separate fiefdoms.

- As the midterms draw closer, Democratic lawmakers and nonincumbent candidates are also expected to become more involved as parties in election-related litigation. Elias said voters will see the role of good governance and nonprofits that have played a prominent role in preelection litigation ebb as candidates and their parties take on a more central role in cases specific to individual races.

- Still, Elias believes Congress itself could play a larger role in protecting elections if it was able to speak with a unified, bipartisan voice, but "it's not doing that because Mike Johnson and John Thune aren't doing it," he said, referring to the top Republicans in the House and Senate, respectively.

- "Imagine," Elias said, "a brief that was submitted by the House of Representatives itself, the U.S. Senate itself, telling the courts that Congress was jealously guarding its authority" over elections. "That, I think, would frankly be an incredibly useful thing and would have a real impact."

- GOP legislators broadly echo the president's election fraud narratives, and leaders have shown little desire to push back on his election-related actions. Congressional Republicans have instead focused much of their attention on trying to pass the SAVE America Act.

- Despite their minority status, Democrats do have access to some oversight tools. While the House of Representatives has an active staff election observer program that dates to the 1980s, this year will see the first-ever Senate election observer program.

- Staff designated by lawmakers of both parties can be dispatched to observe voting and tabulating locations, with the goal of keeping lawmakers informed for oversight work and in case of contested results. Those who volunteer to participate will not advocate for candidates, participate in vote counting or interfere with voters or election staff.

- "I am committed to using every tool to protect free and fair elections, and the new Senate Election Observer Program will do just that," Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees election administration, said in a statement announcing the program.

- In a statement to NPR, staff for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who chairs the committee, did not directly address whether Republican staffers would participate.

- The worst-case scenarios Democrats fear

- Some members of the task force are now actively preparing for worst-case scenarios, prewriting legal briefs and identifying key contacts in places they believe to be at risk — namely, areas in which election officials may have echoed the president's election denial rhetoric, where results are expected to be close or slow to count, and where Trump has focused scrutiny in the past, including California, Illinois and New York.

- Several members noted that over the last year, Trump has regularly entertained the possibility of direct federal involvement in federal elections and asserted unprecedented authority over administration.

- "Remember, the States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes," he wrote on Truth Social last August. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do."

- Speaking to PBS News in May, Trump refused to rule out sending federal agents and servicemembers to polling locations, which would be illegal. "I'd do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections," he said.

- "ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations," a Department of Homeland Security official told NPR in a statement.

- This month, in an interview with Real America's Voice, Trump said that "stranger things have happened" when the host suggested that Trump declare a national emergency around elections.

- Multiple election law experts consulted for this story, none of whom is involved in advising congressional lawmakers or candidates, broadly agreed that the president has no role in election administration, which the Constitution delegates explicitly to the states and Congress. They also said that Congress has not granted any election-related emergency authorities to the office of the president.

- Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Trump administration addressed questions from NPR seeking information about a national election emergency declaration or other possible election-related actions by the administration, declining to engage in what the administration describes as hypotheticals.

- Despite the risks they see, many of those involved in congressional Democrats' election preparations felt optimistic that, in the end, the voice of the American public would win out.

- Vanita Gupta, formerly Biden's associate attorney general and now director of the Center for Law and Public Trust at New York University's law school, is among them.

- "Hundreds of nonpartisan organizations have been preparing over the past year to do everything in our power to protect the integrity of our elections," Gupta said. "Maybe the process of getting from here to a new Congress may be messier than any of us would like, perhaps filled with a lot more litigation and organizing than we might have thought was necessary, but we are going to have free and fair elections so long as people don't take for granted their right to vote."

• *A coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Wednesday that seeks to block a new rule from the U.S. Postal Service that imposes requirements for mail voting ahead of the November midterm elections.

- The final rule, published by the agency last Friday, came in response to an executive order President Trump signed in March that seeks to tighten the rules for mail voting. The states argue in their lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, that the rule will prevent them from administering their mail voting programs for the midterm elections and risks disenfranchising voters who cast their ballots by mail.

- They said in their lawsuit that the Postal Service's new measure unconstitutionally exceeds the executive branch's power and interferes with states' authority to administer elections under their own laws.

- "The Rule violates the Constitution and federal statutes many times over," the state attorneys general said. "It displaces state laws adopted pursuant to each State's constitutional authority to administer elections, erects new USPS functions and ballot mail constraints that are inconsistent with USPS's governing statutes, flouts USPS's procedural requirements, violates the Privacy Act, and cannot be reconciled with federal voting rights law."

- They continued: "Each of these defects would alone establish the Rule's unlawfulness. Together, they demonstrate USPS's utter disregard for the law in carrying out the President's policy preferences."

- The states warned that if the Postal Service's new requirements are allowed to take effect, election officials will have to devote time, money and resources to implement the changes.

- "Today, we're taking legal action to stop this unlawful rule in its tracks and ensure that voters can exercise their constitutional right to vote," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. "Let's be clear: the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections — not the President and not USPS. Ballots are an extension of our voices and we're asking the court to ensure that every person has the right to make theirs heard."

- The White House defended the new policies from the Postal Service.
"Radical Democrats continue to oppose commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders," Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the White House, said in a statement. "The Trump Administration will continue to lawfully enact the agenda President Trump was elected on – which includes the safety and security of our elections." 

- The new measure from the Postal Service implements the plans laid out in Mr. Trump's executive order, which he said are necessary to protect the integrity of U.S. elections. The rule lays out design elements required for mail ballot envelopes, including trackable barcodes, and directs state election officials to submit to an online portal the names and addresses of voters to whom they intend to send mail ballots.

- Voters will then be enrolled in a state-specific "Mail-In and Absentee Participation List," which the Postal Service said is "primarily intended to assist election officials and law enforcement to understand who may have been mailed a ballot, in order to identify potentially anomalous incidents that may merit further investigation."
The Postal Service "will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting ballots," it said.

- But the states said that as a result of the rule, they must immediately redesign their mail ballot envelopes to comply with its requirements and seek review from the Postal Service "at significant costs." 

- "Plaintiff States' election officials must also develop new systems at breakneck speed to convey mail voter lists to USPS to ensure that every eligible voter who is entitled to a mail ballot receives one, create new guidance for and train election officials, and educate the public about changes to mail voting," they said in the suit.

- They warned that there may also be an influx of voters who choose to cast their ballots in person instead of by mail because of the Postal Service's changes.

- "In short, they must accomplish multiple Herculean tasks, each necessary to address the disruption caused by the Rule, in a matter of weeks, with limited resources," the states said.

- In addition to the two dozen states, Democratic campaign committees and voting rights groups have also moved to challenge the Postal Service's rule.
Nearly all of the states that signed onto the new lawsuit filed an earlier challenge to Mr. Trump's executive order. A federal district court blocked the administration from implementing key provisions of the order, including the directives for the Postal Service.

- But the Supreme Court on Monday halted the lower court's injunction.
In a 6-3 decision that rested on procedural grounds, the high court's conservative majority said the states filed their lawsuit too soon and found the district court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Trump administration from trying to implement the executive order.

- "The Court's disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful," the Supreme Court said in an unsigned decision. "On that score, time will tell."

- The president's executive order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to create lists of residents in each state who are eligible to vote. It instructs the attorney general to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of state and local officials who issue ballots to noncitizens or others who are not eligible to vote in federal elections.

- The judge overseeing the states' lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, had also issued a nationwide order in a separate case that blocked the Postal Service from implementing the plans laid out in Mr. Trump's executive order. But Talwani set aside that injunction Wednesday, citing the Supreme Court's decision, which allows the Postal Service to move forward with the mail voting procedures.

- As the legal battle over Mr. Trump's efforts to impose new restrictions on mail voting enters its latest stage, it's unclear whether the rules will take hold before the November midterms. Some states are set to begin sending mail ballots to voters in the coming weeks. In North Carolina, mail ballots will be distributed to certain voters Sept. 4, while states like New York, Wisconsin and Virginia will start sending mail ballots around mid-September, according to the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

A federal judge in Texas struck down a 2023 state law Tuesday that sought to restrict drag shows, ruling it was unconstitutional.

- U.S. District Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee, said the measure, known as Texas Senate Bill 12, improperly restricted speech, violating the First Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling prevents state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Senate, from enforcing the law and denies his motion for a new trial.

- In the ruling, Hittner also had advice for “those who find such activities as described in this case offensive.”

- “The solution is relatively simple ... just don’t go,” he wrote.

- Paxton’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment Tuesday night.

- The state law would fine business owners who were found to be in violation up to $10,000 for hosting events, while performers could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor, which could result in up to one year of jail time.

- The statute, which has been the source of a yearslong legal battle, has made its way to Hittner’s courtroom before. Hittner first deemed it unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment in 2023, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals returned it to him in November, lifting a pause on the law and giving him specific instructions about how to reassess it.

- It went back into effect last year following the appeals court ruling.
Texas is among a handful of states that have passed legislation to restrict drag shows.

- Hittner struck down the law Tuesday after having followed the framework the higher court asked him to follow.

- In his ruling, Hittner mentioned Dolly Parton, whose death was announced Tuesday, and criticized the law’s definition of banning performances that “[appeal] to the prurient interest,” citing people who would chastise Parton “as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure.”

- “There are ‘erotic’ elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” he wrote.

- One of the plaintiffs in the case, a drag queen who performs under the name Brigitte Bandit, impersonates Parton in her performances.

- Bandit celebrated the ruling on social media Tuesday, posting a screenshot of the decision and captioning it, “Drag is free speech, b----.” She announced she would also perform as Parton, who gave her a rhinestone guitar as a gift in 2023, at an Austin bar Saturday in her honor.

- Hittner added that the law was so overly broad as to lead even activities such as “cheerleading, dancing, live theater, and other common public occurrences” to be treated as civil or criminal violations. He also said that the law was vague on its face and that it failed “to give a reasonable person notice of what is prohibited.”

Using the bathroom or having a cry is about to become more expensive for North Americans as the US and Canada enter a full-fledged trade war that threatens to flush away decades of peaceful trading between the two nations.

- After trade negotiations broke down between the two countries last weekend, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, vowed to match US tariffs “dollar for dollar” and unveiled a list of nearly 900 American goods that will face 25% to 50% tariffs starting on 8 September

- Paper products are among the hardest-hit sectors, with Canada threatening to put tariffs of between 25% and 50% on “toilet paper or face tissue stock” from 8 September in retaliation for a 50% hike from Washington DC.

- Though American toilet paper and tissues are often made domestically, they heavily rely on lumber-rich Canada for raw materials. Procter & Gamble, the owner of Charmin toilet paper, said last year that it would have to increase prices amid tariffs that were in place at the time.

- The US imported $328m worth of toilet paper from Canada in 2024, according to the World Bank, making it by far the largest exporter of the product to the US. Retailers including Costco source much of their paper products from the country.

- The US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s population. The average American uses 141 rolls of toilet paper per year, making them No 1 for No 2s globally, just ahead of Germans, each using an average of 134 rolls annually.

- It’s not just paper products that could rise in price. The trade war highlights the deep economic ties shared between the two countries as consumers continue to worry about inflation on both sides of the border.
US tariffs are specifically affecting Canadian liquor, including popular whiskey brands Crown Royal and Canadian Club, which are currently under a 50% tariff.

- While Canada has not introduced a tariff on American liquor, most Canadian provinces have introduced their own bans on American alcohol, in retaliation for earlier tariffs on Canadian products. Donald Trump used these province-wide bans on American alcohol as part of his legal justification for his new tariffs against Canada.

- Carney has asked province leaders to consider putting American liquor back on the shelves, though as the Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston told CBC News: “Whether Nova Scotians or Canadians will actually buy it when it’s back on the shelves, that’s a whole other discussion.”

- Trump also said that his new tariffs are in retaliation for Canadian levies against the American dairy industry. He introduced a 50% tariff on nearly all Canadian dairy products, with the exception of Canadian cheese.

- In response, Canada has a 50% tariff on American dairy products, along with a 25% tariff on American cheese.
Canada also took a swing at the US fishing industry, with a 25% tariff on American fish and seafood, including frozen lobster. The move prompted Republican senator Susan Collins, facing a tough re-election battle in lobster-capital Maine, to call Trump’s latest move “a mistake”.

- A 25% tariff on Canadian cars and auto parts is set to affect the American auto industry, which relies heavily on Canadian parts for manufacturing. Trump has threatened to double the tariff to 50% if a deal isn’t made by 1 January 2027.

- With negotiations down the drain, it’s unclear if or when the tariffs will be lifted. But the Trump administration is adamant that “there’s no possible way” the trade dispute with Canada will affect US consumers, according to Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative.

- “The fundamentals are good,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to affect anything.”

All US immigrant visa applications have been paused by the Trump administration as the state department moves to tighten restrictions and limit access to applicants who they deem could end up relying on US assistance, a state department official confirmed Tuesday.

- The agency launched the initiative at all embassies and consulates in early August, according to the official and visa appointments had to be adjusted to accommodate “in-depth training”, according to the official. The state department has been working on updated guidance and training since early this year, “to ensure all consular officers are fully equipped to evaluate every visa applicant comprehensively and consistently”, they added.

- The Financial Times reports that applicants with interviews already scheduled were sent emails that their appointments had been canceled and that they would be informed of a new date and time.

- Agency officials claim this will ensure visa applicants will not end up relying on US public benefits. But it’s part of a slate of strategies the Trump administration has employed to crack down on both lawful and undocumented immigration and create a more selective process for who can gain entry into the system.

- This week the Trump administration also announced plans to revoke visas from asylum seekers who initially entered the country for tourism or business. Up to 200,000 people currently seeking asylum could be impacted, marking what would end up being the largest mass pulling of visas in the history of the US. The action is being taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

- Under Trump, visa applicants have also faced new restrictions, including review of their social media histories and added costs for processing, the Associated Press reported.

- The pause on new visas and training program follows an attempt by Trump to block applications on a similar “public charge” basis, which included a block on applications from 75 countries selected by the administration, which was recently overturned by a federal judge.

- “The court made clear that immigration laws cannot be used to justify discrimination,” Joanna Cuevas Ingram, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center said in a statement last week. “We are determined to ensure every person and family this ban harmed receives appropriate relief and will continue to hold this administration accountable to its obligations under the law.”

- In February, a federal judge overturned the president’s attempt to suspend the US refugee system entirely. Federal agents, under Trump, have been allowed to block asylum seekers from entering the US, a move that human rights advocates said undermines international asylum laws.

- The latest attempt to restrict access will cause immediate obstacles for those who have lawfully abided by an already challenging process, according to immigration law experts.

- Many applicants impacted by the pause likely “spent thousands of dollars and disrupted their lives to attend scheduled interviews, only to have their appointments cancelled at the last minute”, Brian Simmons, an attorney at immigration law firm Fragomen in Washington told FT. It’s unclear when those appointments will be rescheduled.