Federal judge rejects 75 country visa ban

Washington Post - The Trump administration must resume processing visas for people from 75 countries that the government deemed likely to become a “public charge,” a federal judge in New York ruled Friday, curbing one of the latest efforts to restrict legal immigration pathways to the United States. The halt to visa processing began in January, affecting dozens of countries in every corner of the globe. It was meant to limit visas for people the government said would probably rely on public benefits for their basic needs, long a complaint from President Donald Trump.

Via Willie Ross Jr. Knee Deep

Wildfires

NY Times -  Firefighters continued to make progress Sunday evening as they tried to tame a wildfire that forced thousands of people from their homes as it threatened Reno, Nev. The blaze, known as the Hawk fire, has burned more than 15,000 acres and has not been contained since it began Saturday in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

….About 45,000 people were evacuated and an additional 40,000 were warned that they might need to leave at a moment’s notice. About 10,000 customers remained without power, an improvement after 60,000 had no electricity on Saturday.

Six people, including three firefighters, have been injured. It is unknown how many structures the wildfire burned down or damaged.

Officials said that the fire was caused by a human, but did not say whether they suspected arson.

….Extreme heat, dry conditions and strong winds have helped the Hawk fire expand. It is the second large blaze in the area in the past three weeks.

Arid conditions have propelled an active wildfire season across the American West this summer. In Washington State, hundreds of homes and more than 400,000 acres burned. In Oregon, a record 2.4 million acres have burned in 2026, according to state authorities.

Good response to the Postal Service

Marc Elias, Democracy Docket - In my 30 years as a lawyer, I have read countless government documents. Over the last decade, I have watched Trump and his lawyers spin lies and frivolous arguments.

Yet, nothing quite prepared me for this sentence from a rule released by the U.S. Postal Service on Friday night: "Although ballot mail does not present precisely the same operational issues as cremated remains or replica explosives, it is unquestionably sensitive mail that raises unique operational considerations."

A mail-in ballot does not pose a health risk. It will not cause panic if exposed to the public. It's a piece of paper marked with a pen that is only dangerous to authoritarians wishing to rule rather than govern with the consent of their citizens.

Ballots do not raise "unique operational considerations" unless you are aiming to limit voting and undermine democracy. Such Orwellian reasoning is dangerous to an already fragile republic battered by years of Trump's lies. 

Yet, equating mail-in ballots to human remains and fake explosives is part of the rationale the U.S. Postal Service offered to justify Donald Trump's unconstitutional executive order. It is how they sought to get around the obvious fact that Congress has not given the USPS or the president authority to do what they're attempting here: render unmailable any ballots Trump disapproves of.

 The USPS announced all of this in a rule it released late Friday night — presumably hoping few would notice what it was up to. The new rule was crafted to effectuate Trump's March executive order, which restricts mail voting and creates a new federal voter database.

 Under this new rule, the USPS will only send mail ballots to voters included on a state list. If voters aren't on the lists, they will not receive a ballot.

 Earlier this summer, a federal court blocked this executive order and halted the rulemaking. In June, the court granted the motion of 24 Democratic attorneys general to invalidate this entire scheme.

After the First Circuit upheld this victory, the Department of Justice sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court. Their argument was not that Trump's executive order was lawful, but rather that the states' lawsuit was premature.

 The DOJ suggested that no steps had been taken to implement Trump's power grab, and perhaps the Postal Service and other federal agencies would refuse to take the actions Trump suggested. That was always a sham aimed at buying time — dismiss the lawsuit as premature, then move fast enough to later claim the process was too far along to stop.

 Since the DOJ sought Supreme Court relief in July, the time left to implement this executive order has begun slipping away. Two weeks ago, the DOJ asked the Court to hurry up.

 It also asked the Court to proactively block a nationwide injunction the district judge had issued in a second, related case brought by a group of nonprofits representing voters. Yet, as the week ended, the Supreme Court remained silent.

 Finally, on Friday night, the USPS acted, noting that "delaying the effective date would jeopardize implementation of this rule in time for the 2026 general election, which will be held on November 3, 2026."

 So much for their argument that the case wasn't ripe for adjudication.

 With this step, the Postal Service has unquestionably taken the type of concrete action that satisfies the standing requirement that the DOJ told the Supreme Court was missing. The Postal Service conceded as much in its Friday notice: "The rule would require states to adjust their processes and adapt to the changes imposed by the rule, potentially incurring new costs."

 There was one more twist that USPS was probably not expecting. On Sunday, the nonprofit plaintiffs filed an emergency motion with the trial court to halt the publication of the rule. If it isn't published, it cannot take effect.

 The DOJ attempted to minimize this by suggesting that the rule's implementation was contingent on the DOJ winning at the Supreme Court. The judge was not amused. She ordered the DOJ to respond to the motion by 8 a.m. on Tuesday — so that she could, if necessary, block its publication scheduled for Wednesday.

 We have come to expect these types of games from the Trump administration. We knew he had planned to weaponize the historically nonpartisan U.S. Postal Service to meet his own political needs.

 On that score, the rule did not hide the ball. It reflects the "importance of applying additional measures concerning the use of the mail to vote in federal elections, in order to facilitate enforcement of federal law, reduce the risk of fraud, and help protect the integrity of federal elections."

 Never mind that there is little risk of fraud and nothing this rule does would minimize it. After 250 years, it is sad to see the Postal Service reduced to chasing false claims of fraud and suggesting ballots pose unique challenges.

 Everything Trump touches is tarnished. That now includes the USPS..

Big change in marriage

The Congressional Insider-  The Institute for Family Studies reports a dramatic change: among men ages 20–39, the number of unmarried now far exceeds the married, with the gap growing from 2.6 million to 15 million over roughly 25 years. That means close to two unmarried men for every married man in this age band. The finding tracks with a wider turn away from early marriage. The shift is not a one-year blip. It reflects steady changes in how Americans form families.

Pew Research Center has shown that each new wave of young men is less likely to have married by the same age than the prior wave. In 1960, only 16% of men ages 25–34 had never married; by 2000 it was 39%, and by 2010 it reached 52%. The U.S. Census Bureau found the share of never-married men ages 25–34 rose from 19% in 1950 to 39% in 2000, placing today’s levels on a long upward line.

Researchers at Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Family and Marriage Research find unmarried adulthood has grown across the last half century. Among 18–29 year-olds, the share unmarried fell through 1960, then more than doubled to 84% in 2024. USAFacts reports Americans are marrying later and fewer are married than at almost any point since 1940, and most unmarried adults have never married at all. These measures show a broad cultural and economic reset….

The Institute for Family Studies highlights a class divide. The share of working-class men ages 25–44 who are married fell from 73% in 1980 to 42% by 2025, based on federal survey data. Earlier briefs tied never-married status more often to men without full-time work, underscoring how steady jobs and wages link to marriage plans. These facts resonate with worries on both left and right about lost opportunity and a shrinking path to the American Dream.

Many readers blame elite-driven policy failures for high costs, weak ladders to stable work, and frayed norms. Others fault a culture that prizes independence but leaves families last. The data do not assign blame. They do show a clear result: fewer young men are marrying, and the tilt away from marriage is steep among those with less stable work. That is a social risk both parties say they want to fix, yet Washington has struggled to turn words into change.

Word

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal -  I’m thinking about the deeper effects of governmental corruption in the Trump era, and why it leaves many not only indignant but uneasy. I suspect it’s doing something to us as a people. The thoughts were prompted by a poll this week from Reuters/Ipsos, which Reuters headlined “Most Americans Believe Trump Has Inappropriately Profited Since Returning to Power.” It reported that 69% of respondents see his personal business interests as influencing presidential decisions. Two-thirds of independents, half of Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats shared that view.

Record collapse of crime

Axios - The U.S. is enjoying one of the steepest and most widespread crime declines in modern history. Researchers aren't exactly sure why — but they have theories, Axios' Russell Contreras writes:

• Research points to factors that include declining alcohol and drug use, tech to help catch suspects (including drones and license-plate readers), an aging population, tougher prosecutions and more….

The U.S. violent-crime rate plunged 9.7% in 2025, the largest annual decline since FBI national estimates began 90 years ago.

• The murder rate fell 18.5% to 4.1 per 100,000 people, tying 1955 and 1956 for the lowest since national estimates began.
• And the decline hasn't stopped: An Axios analysis shows violent crime in big cities fell again in the first half of 2026….

 Under-the-radar demographic and health trends are also quietly reshaping public safety:

• The proportion of young people in America is declining, shrinking the demographic most historically linked to street crime.
• In a fascinating medical twist, the explosion of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs (like Ozempic) has been clinically linked to decreased alcohol abuse and improved impulse control — two major factozrs in violent offenses.

What we're watching: Pandemic-era federal money for local crime-fighting efforts expires at the end of the year, putting more pressure on already short-staffed police departments.

An economic downturn could create another headwind: Historically, worsening economic conditions mean more crime

Hardest working states

WalletHub - WalletHub today released its report on 2026’s Hardest-Working States in America…. WalletHub compared the 50 states across ten key metrics. The data set ranges from the average number of hours worked per week to the share of workers with multiple jobs to the average leisure time spent per day.
 

Top 20 Hardest-Working States in America
1. South Dakota	11. Virginia
2. North Dakota	12. Kansas
3. Alaska	13. Oklahoma
4. Hawaii	14. Maryland
5. Wyoming	15. Colorado
6. Nebraska	16. Alabama
7. Texas	17. Montana
8. New Hampshire	18. Iowa
9. Tennessee	19. Indiana
10. Georgia	20. Wisconsin

Key Stats

• Alaska has the longest hours worked per week, which is 12 percent longer than in Utah, the state with the shortest.
   
• New York has the longest average commute time, which is 1.8 times longer than in South Dakota, the state with the shortest.
   
• Mississippi has the highest share of workers leaving vacation time unused, which is 1.6 times higher than in Ohio, the state with the lowest.
   
• Montana has the highest share of workers with multiple jobs, which is 2.5 times higher than in Alabama, the state with the lowest.

Full report and your state’s rank

Democrats in Pennsylvania

Since the 2024 election, legacy media pundits and many establishment Democrats have complained that Democrats focused too heavily on “cultural issues” — meaning everything from abortion to social justice, which happens to impact the most vulnerable and loyal voters in the Democratic base. They’ve suggested this focus was ruining the Democratic Party “brand” among swaths of the electorate, including working-class whites and rural voters. It turns out that all it took was a couple of years of atrocious malfeasance and incompetent Trump regime rule (including disastrous tariffs), some dogged Democratic grassroots organizing, and a crop of top-flight Democratic candidates to reverse the trend.

Democrat Brandon Dukes scored a narrow victory in last week’s special election in the Pennsylvania 12^th General Assembly, an overwhelmingly White Pittsburgh suburban district that has not sent a Democrat to the state house since the 1990s, and that voted for Donald Trump by 18 points in 2024. The Pennsylvania Capital Star reported that the win was “a major boon for Pennsylvania Democrats, who are hoping to build momentum going into a series of key elections this fall.” Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale told the paper:

Pennsylvanians across the political spectrum are sick and tired of Republicans’ chaotic, corrupt, and cost-raising agenda — and they’re ready to reject them at the polls and elect Democrats up and down the ballot in historic fashion.

If Democrats can keep the state house, re-elect Governor Josh Shapiro, and flip 3 state senate seats, they will have a trifecta for the first time in decades.

Canada

NPR - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports starting Sept. 8. The move comes after the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs on various Canadian goods. Trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada collapsed shortly before a Friday midnight deadline, triggering tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products.

Carney has warned that the U.S. is increasingly seen as an unreliable economic partner, NPR's Scott Horsley says. The prime minister, who is backed by strong public support, has vowed that Canada will fight back. The latest tariffs affect only about 5% of U.S.-Canada trade. Horsley notes that retaliation can be effective: China’s response to U.S. tariffs last year helped lead to a de-escalation.

Middle East

NPR - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to announce a new round of economic pressure on Iran to force it back into negotiations. President Trump has called the expected actions an “economic D-Day.” In response, Iran’s new security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, said Iran would retaliate against Trump’s economic plan in a “seismic manner.”  Trump has suggested that the U.S. will increase pressure on countries that do business with Iran, NPR’s Emily Feng tells Up First. Longtime U.S. diplomat Alan Eyre is skeptical that the economic sanctions playbook will change Iran’s regime, saying the war has instead strengthened hardliners.

ICE

The Guardian - Plans to supply Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers with special gloves that can deliver electric shocks have alarmed experts and drawn scrutiny amid some high-profile lawsuits over their use in local correctional facilities.

In one extreme case, a 43-year-old man died after allegedly being shocked 40 times by officers with a combination of the gloves and a Taser in a county jail in Kentucky, and the man’s widow is suing authorities.

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, published plans to spend up to $20m (£15m) to outfit ICE officers by March of next year with the controversial gloves, which are also used in various police departments and some schools.

Civil rights advocates protest that the federal agency’s use of force during Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns already lacks proper oversight.

ICE “is putting these [gloves] in the hands of an agency that has dropped its hiring standards, its training, its background requirements in its hiring spree”, Sarah Mehta, deputy director of government affairs in the equality division of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said. MORE

Postal Service issues “final order” to restrict mail-in voting

MS NOW -  The U.S. Postal Service has issued a “final order” to restrict mail-in voting, carrying out President Donald Trump’s executive order about two months ahead of the November midterm elections.  In its rule, the agency said it would deliver mail ballots only in states that provide voter information to the Trump administration. But the USPS order, issued late Friday night, acknowledged that injunctions issued by courts in California and Massachusetts must be lifted in order for the new rules to be implemented.

The Supreme Court could rule on the matter at any moment.

“If the government obtains timely relief from the injunctions, implementation immediately thereafter will provide election officials as much time as possible before the next election to comply with the rule’s preparation standards for Federal Ballot Mail envelopes,” the regulations state.

The Postal Service order says states must “prepare to submit data” to a federal portal before they can receive mail-in and absentee ballots.  Trump has long sought to restrict mail-in voting despite frequently casting his own ballot by mail.

In March, he signed an executive order requiring states to provide the federal government with lists of voters receiving ballots by mail. The Postal Service would only send mail-in and absentee ballots to voters on the list, essentially giving the agency sweeping power to screen ballots for eligibility.

While Trump’s executive order was blocked by two federal courts, his administration has asked the Supreme Court to move quickly to clear the way for the new restrictions in time for the midterm elections

Trump's effect on Iowa

MS NOW - DES MOINES, Iowa — As farmers’ economic anxieties in this agricultural cradle rise, so does the political outlook for Democrats. Farmers across the Hawkeye State are feeling the punishing effects of President Donald Trump’s policies — from his war against Iran and sweeping tariffs to his new imported beef pricing plan.

“It’s chaos,” Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, told MS NOW. “We are just not on the right path. At the time when farmers are dealing with all this uncertainty, we should be doing more to help them bring stability.”

Lehman, a fifth-generation soybean and corn farmer from Polk County, said farmers are putting off purchasing and repairing machinery because the costs are so high. “They’re putting off repairs even to machinery that should be repaired. They are bringing less innovation onto the farm,” he said.

Denise Ryan, a farmer from Columbus Junction, said rising diesel prices and tariffs are hurting her and her husband, Bill. “It is very stressful,” she said. “There is no doubt about it. All sorts of different factors sometimes going against us, and so many things we can’t control.”

Like other farmers interviewed by MS NOW at the Iowa State Fair’s Corn Day, Ryan and and her husband declined to say how they voted in previous elections.

The financial woes expressed by these farmers over the rising costs resulting from Trump’s economic plans and unpopular war in the Middle East come as Democrats seek to take back control of Congress and governors’ mansions in the midterm elections in just two months. Iowa, which Trump won by 13.2 percentage points in 2024, is a state that could tilt the balance of power if it elects a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 2008…

“We already had very tight margins,” Iowa Corn Growers Association President Mark Mueller said, but higher diesel prices have “just ratcheted the margins even tighter.” Mueller, a corn and soybean farmer, estimated that he will spend an additional $12,000 this year filling an 8,000-gallon fuel barrel before harvest.

A gallon of diesel costs $5.37 in Iowa, up from $3.50 a year ago, according to AAA fuel prices.

Meanwhile....'

Word

Trump's ballroom

 Washington Post - President Donald Trump has claimed that the White House needs a massive new ballroom because it would provide him and future presidents with a secure, hardened facility. But former officials say the argument fails to acknowledge that the presidential complex already has one. More than a decade ago, federal officials built a highly protected bunker, embedded deep underground, that can shelter the president and his top aides in a national security emergency, according to three former officials.

The facility, which was secretly completed during the Obama administration, can house dozens of people for up to multiple weeks, two former officials said. It’s buried more than 60 feet underneath the White House complex and built to withstand a nuclear blast, two of the officials said, ensuring the president and his team have a secure command center to run the country in times of extreme duress.

The Congressional Insider -  President Trump insists his new White House ballroom will cost taxpayers “not one dime,” but government watchdogs and even a Republican senator say public money is already flowing into the project. Trump has repeatedly promised the ballroom will be funded entirely by private donors, not taxpayers.

A House Democratic report says tens of millions in taxpayer dollars have already gone toward construction. The project’s price tag has jumped from an early $100 million estimate to as much as $600 million.  Republican Senator Rick Scott has questioned why any taxpayer money would be needed if private funding exists.  A contract shielding donor names from public disclosure was only revealed after a lawsuit.

Middle East

Newsworthy News - President Trump said he will declare the Strait of Hormuz a United States territory, raising legal and economic stakes in a vital oil chokepoint. Trump asserted “total control” of the Strait and signaled a U.S. territorial claim.

Iran issued competing claims, saying it manages the waterway and can restrict passage. United Nations sea law supports transit passage, not sovereignty changes, in key straits.

On August 12, President Trump said the United States has “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz. Two days later, he said he would declare the strait “a territory of the United States.” These remarks go beyond normal freedom of navigation language and point to a sovereignty claim. The strait carries much of the world’s oil and gas. Any shift in who controls it affects fuel prices, shipping routes, and insurance costs worldwide.

Wildfires

Newsbreak  - A fast-growing wildfire spread from the Sierra foothills toward the center of Reno early Sunday, as approximately 90,000 residents were urged to evacuate. The fire has been burning across a rugged section of the Humboldt–Toiyabe National Forest, where Peavine Mountain is ringed by homes and businesses on the Nevada side of the California state line, and some of these homes have been consumed by the flames.

Polls

The Hill -   Only 9 percent of Americans younger than 30 have a “very positive” view of capitalism, according to a new CBS/YouGov poll.  That shows a stark generation between Generation Z and older generations.

Thirty-three percent of people older than 65, or those in the baby boomer generation, said they have a very positive view of capitalism, while 23 percent of people aged 45-64, a group that includes Generation Xers and older millennials, view capitalism very positively.

Millennials in the 30-44 age range were closer to Gen Z, with just 15 percent saying they had a very positive view of capitalism.

Climate

Washington Post -   Some of the most extreme weather in the United States this summer have been driven by an invisible force pooling in the skies above: water vapor.

Although recent destructive floods in Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Texas, West Virginia and many other states may seem geographically disconnected, they share a link to something happening thousands of miles away, in a remote stretch of the tropical Pacific Ocean.

That’s where the combination of a record-breaking El Niño, a marine heat wave and the ocean-warming tailwind from climate change have sent much more moisture into the atmosphere than normal. So far this summer, total atmospheric moisture levels have been about 5 to 15 percent above average in the Pacific and across much of the U.S.

An analysis by The Washington Post shows that since June, this extra moisture, transported by winds, has spilled into the contiguous United States, helping to fuel record-breaking rainfall in parts of 44 out of 48 states, covering about 90,000 square miles.

Trump regime throwing doubt on integrity of US elections

The Guardian - A series of moves by Donald Trump’s administration to sow doubt in the integrity of US elections have intensified concern among voting experts – and sparked hope among election deniers – that it could declare a national emergency.

The White House and US federal agencies have released a string of documents this summer – including disputed analyses of alleged voting by noncitzens and historical intelligence memos – stoking expectations that the US president could move to exert greater control over November’s US midterm elections.

Trump used a primetime television address in July to claim – again – that US elections were vulnerable to foreign manipulation, and repeat the lie that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was stolen.

Trump’s speech prompted Steve Bannon, his former political strategist, to predict the US president will declare a state of emergency on national security grounds to “protect” elections.

“Take your No 2 pencil out,” Bannon, a rightwing commentator, said on his War Room video podcast on 29 July. “It’s coming. It’s coming. Just block the last week of August out. It’s coming.”

While Trump and his allies could try to use a national emergency declaration to delegitimize results of November’s results, experts say such a declaration would not supersede the constitutional restrictions on executive power on election administration. No president has ever attempted to invoke an emergency to assert control over voting.

Asked earlier this month by Wayne Allyn Root, a rightwing broadcaster, if he would “declare a national security emergency for elections”, Trump notably did not shoot down the idea.

“Let me just say, stranger things have happened, OK?” the president told Real America’s Voice, a rightwing cable channel. “I’ll leave it at that.”

MS NOW - In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed that the Trump administration had found nearly 16,000 “potential” noncitizens registered to vote in Nevada, write Vaughn Hillyard and Laura Barrón-López. But senior officials told election administrators last week that they had identified only 185 potential noncitizens on the voter rolls so far, according to emails and a video recording obtained by MS NOW. Election administrators in multiple states have said they are concerned that the Trump administration will use claims about noncitizen voters to interfere with the midterms. Read more.

Just a reminder

Sam Smith -  The Supreme Court will be considering whether Texas schools can require postings of the Christian ten commandments.  While America is heavily Christian more than ten percent of its citizens are Jews, Muslim, atheists, agnostics or some other belief system.  One of the great things about being an American is that you don’t have to belong to  the most popular religion.

The Kennedy Center

NPR -  In a status report submitted late Tuesday to a federal court, the Kennedy Center outlined its plans to put President Trump's name back on the arts complex. The signage proposed by the center's board would eventually read: "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump, Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund." The last line would be added only if the fund reaches $100 million in donations. Additionally, the board is seeking to rename the physical grounds of the arts center "President Donald J. Trump Plaza." The Kennedy Center said it would not try to add Trump's name back on the building before Sept. 8.

In its filing, the center also argued that the much-discussed tarp that has been covering the signage at the complex's front entrance is a "necessary element of the ongoing construction activities," and is there in part to protect the marble paneling during the renovation.

…. The status report was filed with Judge Christopher R. Cooper, the federal judge presiding over the lawsuit between the Kennedy Center and Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio member of its board. In the same filing, Beatty's lawyers urged Cooper to make a ruling before Sept. 8, writing: "There is thus every reason to believe that Defendants will attempt to effectuate some or part of this latest unlawful resolution at the earliest opportunity after Sept. 8. Moreover, Plaintiff is concerned that Defendants already may have damaged the historic marble that lines the facade with their original desecration of the Center's facade by attaching President Trump's name above President Kennedy's."

Artificial Intelligence

Tech Crunch - Over one-third of web pages published after the release of ChatGPT show signs of being written by AI, according to a new study from Pew Research released on Thursday. The report corroborates other studies that detail how much of the web’s newer web pages are now either written by or “substantially edited” by AI, the firm says.

….To compile the report, Pew said it used the Common Crawl web archive to collect nearly half a million English-language web pages from the past five or so years, starting a couple of years before ChatGPT’s November 2022 release. Pew then used Open Pangram’s technology to detect how many were likely written or heavily edited by AI.

In a random sample of 10,000 web pages collected in July 2026, around 10% showed “significant signs of AI authorship,” Pew said. However, Pew pointed out that a random sample like this would inevitably include older web pages — ones published before AI writing tools even existed, and therefore couldn’t have been AI written.

Pew Research -  Today, 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life – up from 37% in 2021. Another 9% are more excited than concerned and 37% say they’re equally excited and concerned, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 22-28, 2026.  Concern about AI is up among younger and older Americans alike since we first asked this question in 2021. But while the rise was mainly in the first two years for Americans ages 30 and older, concern continues to climb for adults under 30 – whose skepticism of AI has made headlines in recent months.

Meanwhile. . .

Deep State Tribunal - The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the Supreme Court to strike down Texas’s Ten Commandments classroom law after a near-split appeals court said the law is constitutional…

Newsworthy News - Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said the United States should abolish the Electoral College and elect presidents by direct popular vote, pressing a change that would rewrite how the nation chooses its leader….He argues every vote would count the same and campaigns would not hinge on a few states. Defenders say the Electoral College protects smaller states and rural voices. Changing the system would require a United States constitutional amendment…

Via Adam Kinzinger

Trump’s Plans to Steal the Elections

Trump trying to weaken American Bar Association

New Republic - President Trump is trying to take away the American Bar Association’s ability to accredit law schools due to its being too woke.

The ABA is the leading accreditor for almost 200 law schools in the United States. Without its accreditation, a school’s graduates may not qualify to take the bar exam, and the school itself may not qualify for federal funding—two massive implications. Now the Education Department has published a 500-page report recommending the removal of that long-standing power because it believes the ABA is trying to “inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do.”

“We have said many times that accreditation, in general, operates like a cartel,” assistant Secretary of Education David Barker said to The Wall Street Journal. “When there’s no competition, accreditors feel free to inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do.”

The Education Department’s recommendation is not final and will take some months to be adjudicated, but the right is already celebrating.