Polls

Donald Trump

NY Times -   When the Trump administration canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October, it framed the move as an urgent corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste.  But it wasn’t true.

In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.

The admission showed how President Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Mr. Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.

NBC News - President Donald Trump ordered that “warning” signs be placed in front of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to inform visitors of the “inaccurate information presented in the Museum.” The directive is the latest front in the president’s bid to gain control over the institution.

Alternet  - President Donald Trump does not appear to be the entertainer he once was, reports CNN’s Brian Stelter.  The president’s insult-laden speech drew mostly stunned silence from the audience as he attacked a bunch of journalists at the pared-down recap of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday.

“Trump bombed at the ... Dinner Friday night. He knew he was bombing, too, and he even tried to meta-joke his way out of it,” reports Stelter. “But no. Even the president’s jokes about his bad jokes fell flat, and he was widely ridiculed for the comedy routine afterward.”

In a “rambling hour-long speech,” Stelter said Trump insulted journalists by name, “repurposed old nicknames for political opponents, made a strange number of fat jokes that weren’t funny at all, and sounded mad at his unnamed writers for giving him weak material to work with.”

“Does anyone understand this stuff?” he said at one point during the razzball speech. The answer, said Stelter, was “generally no. But more than anything, the speech was just … boring.” ….Many journalists refused to attend, and the dinner was a small-scale redo of the April 26 black-tie affair that got called off after a gunman tried to rush into the ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel, so Trump joked about bullet proof vests and how attendees hid under their tables while his staff bravely stood on tables and directed crowds.

Ecology

 The Roadless Rule has been in place for nearly two decades and keep millions of acres of national forests intact — but now, the Trump administration wants to trade our beloved public lands for expanded logging, new road construction, and increased industrial activity in some of our nation's most ecologically important forests.

Gas prices

Independence Journal-   U.S. gas prices have jumped to their highest levels in nearly four years as the Iran war drives crude oil above $100 a barrel.  Attacks, shipping threats, and closures near the Strait of Hormuz are squeezing global supply and pushing pump prices sharply higher.

AAA data show average U.S. gasoline prices up roughly a dollar a gallon since before the conflict, with many states now well over $4. Economists warn the surge will raise inflation and household costs, while analysts say the crisis exposes America’s ongoing energy vulnerability.

Maine's Troy Jackson picked to against Susan Collins

The Hill -  Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson formally clinched the Democratic nod to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in November, giving the party just 100 days to quickly turn the tides in the must-win race.

Jackson handily won on Saturday with 566 votes during the Democratic nomination convention in Bangor, Maine. His only challenger, biopharmaceutical executive Saundra Pelletier, nabbed the remaining five votes.

….Democrats in the state largely consolidated around the former state senator ahead of the convention to replace scandal-ridden Graham Platner, who exited the race earlier this month. The contest, which Decision Desk HQ and Cook Political Report rate as a toss-up, could prove decisive in the party’s chances of clinching the upper chamber this fall

Climate

Inside Climate News -   After 13 years, Texas and New Mexico have finally reached a settlement in a Supreme Court case over Rio Grande water management. Now comes the hard part.

Texas sued New Mexico in 2013, arguing that its upstream neighbor was hogging water on the river that millions depend on for irrigation and drinking water. The settlement requires New Mexico to reduce the amount of water drawn from wells that deplete the flow of Rio Grande water to Texas.

The agreement also introduces a new accounting method to determine how much water New Mexico owes Texas. And for the first time, the volume of water flowing into Texas will be measured at the state line. Compliance will cost New Mexico upward of $150 million. If the state fails to meet the settlement’s requirements, it could face harsh penalties or another taxing lawsuit.

New Mexico officials hope that buying water rights from farmers and shutting off their wells will be enough to comply. But if climate change continues to drive drier conditions in the Rio Grande basin, those initial voluntary measures will likely fall short. The state expects to have 25 percent less water in 50 years because of rising temperatures.

If New Mexico has to make further reductions to water use, the possibility of mandatory water cuts looms over the region. Behind closed doors, major water users, including farmers and the city of Las Cruces, are negotiating contingency plans. The Lower Rio Grande in New Mexico shows how difficult it will be to fairly reduce water use among farmers, industry and residents as the climate gets hotter and drier.

NY Times - Fast-moving wildfires in France and Spain have forced nearly 300,000 people to evacuate or shelter at home as of Saturday, as blazes moved closer to major cities like Bordeaux and Madrid during the peak of the summer holiday season. In France, the authorities have ordered the evacuation of around 197,000 people from the Gironde and Landes regions in the country’s southwest, where the fires have burned through an area about three times the size of Paris.

Our erratic behavior

Sam Smith -  From tomorrow to August 2, our service may be somewhat erratic thanks to your editor’s two sons, their wives and three grandchildren showing up.  

Rural folk have shorter lifespans

 Nautilus - People who live in rural parts of the United States have significantly shorter lifespans compared to those in urban areas.  In fact, rural working age adults (aged 25 to 54) are 43 percent more likely to die from natural causes than those who live in cities, according to data from 2019. The gap has widened from a 9 percent difference in mortality when the trend first emerged three decades ago. Now a new study in the journal Economics & Human Biology is attempting to unravel the multifarious causes. 

Todd Blanche

POGO- Todd Blanche, acting attorney general of the Department of Justice (DOJ), had his confirmation hearing last week to take on the role permanently. You deserve an attorney general who answers to the Constitution — not one who prioritizes loyalty to the president. Blanche was a personal lawyer to the president, defending him in several criminal cases. As deputy and acting attorney general, his continuing fealty to the president has shown itself in his actions and even in his words. Todd Blanche seems to think the role of attorney general is no different than being the president’s personal lawyer, and we cannot have that. The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently set to vote on Blanche’s nomination in the coming week. We have a few days to change the outcome.

• Blanche is responsible for creating the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund for the president as part of a settlement on the Trump v. IRS case. He also intended to give the president and his family sweeping immunity from audits of their past taxes. Just last week, a federal judge recommended disciplinary actions against him over the case.

The case for publicly funded art

In These Times -  Beyond jobs and entertainment, decades of research links arts education in public schools to better outcomes in literacy, critical thinking and social-emotional development. When we defund the arts, we don’t just lose performances and exhibitions— we lose one of the primary means by which we understand each other. The arts are how a culture makes sense of itself.

….Arts and cultural industries contributed $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2023, about 4.2% of GDP, and employed nearly 5.4 million workers. Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Arts has been shrinking for decades. Adjusted for inflation, the NEA’s budget has dropped from roughly $592 million in 1980 to $207 million today. In 2025, the Trump administration proposed eliminating it entirely and canceled hundreds of active grants overnight via email. The private sector won’t fill the gap on its own, which is why federal support is so important: Every dollar the NEA puts out is matched 9-to-1 by nongovernment funds. Everybody wins.

 

World's most dangerous cities

Compare the Market Australia has analysed the figures for cities across America and the world, as rated by users online based on crime levels, to see which are the most dangerous cities. The main takeaways were:

Memphis was ranked the most dangerous in the US.

Detroit was ranked second, while Baltimore was third.

Irvine had the biggest increase in crime concern scores, followed by Raleigh and Portland.

The index consisted of user-submitted crime ratings over the last seven-and-a-half years, spanning 411 cities across the globe.

Donald Trump: A few facts

Debrina Elkins -  Ladies & Gentlemen; Please meet the President of the United States:

·       Flew on Epstein’s plane at least seven times. Just friends, I guess.
·       Pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times in a single deposition. Nothing says “innocent” like refusing to answer a single question about your own business.
·       34 felony convictions. A record most people would call disqualifying.
·       91 criminal charges.
·       Accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least 26 women. But sure, tell me again how he’s a great guy.
·       6 corporate bankruptcies. The self proclaimed greatest businessman alive somehow keeps running out of money.
·       5 draft deferments. Funny how the toughest guy in the room never actually showed up for duty.
·       4 criminal indictments. ..
·       2 impeachments. A club of exactly one president.
·       2 of his own companies convicted of criminal tax fraud. Convicted. Not accused. Convicted.
·       1 fake university shut down. 1 fake charity shut down.
·       Paid 25 million dollars to settle the Trump University fraud lawsuit because scamming people who believed in you costs money eventually.
·       Ordered to pay 5 million dollars in the first E Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict, then hit with 83.3 million more in the second.
·       Ordered to pay 2 million dollars for looting his own so called charity.
·       Stealing from a charity with his own name on it.
·       Found liable for business fraud and originally slapped with a penalty topping 450 million dollars, later thrown out on appeal while the fraud finding itself stuck to him anyway.
·       First president in modern history to increase the deficit every single year of a full term.
·       Kept the debt to GDP ratio above 100 percent for his entire first term.
·       Presided over the largest single day point drop in Dow Jones history at the time.
·       Set the record for the longest government shutdown in US history in his first term at 35 days, then couldn’t resist beating his own miserable record in his second term with a 43 day shutdown, followed by yet another shutdown just months later. Encore nobody asked for.
·       Added roughly 2.25 trillion dollars to the national debt in his first year back in office alone, pushing the debt past 39 trillion dollars.
·       Pushed through the largest defense budget increase since World War Two while the debt kept climbing anyway.
·       Purged more than 300,000 federal employees in his first year back.
·       Pardoned nearly 1,600 January 6 Capitol rioters on his very first day back in office, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy.
·       At least 40 of those pardoned rioters have already been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for new crimes since walking free.
·       His family’s crypto ventures, including a meme coin and World Liberty Financial, pulled in more than 1.4 billion dollars in disclosed earnings while he sat in the Oval Office.
·       Sent the National Guard into American cities at a cost of nearly 500 million taxpayer dollars in 2025 alone.
·       His own tariffs are projected to cost the average American household more than 2,500 dollars this year.

Polls

InteractivePolls

Newsom: 20% (-4) Ossoff: 16% (+11) AOC: 14% (+4) Harris: 7% (-1) Buttigieg: 5% Shapiro: 5% Beshear: 2% Kelly: 2%

Meanwhile. . .

Daily Boulder - Trump’s DOJ forced to withdraw subpoenas of NYT reporters after judge threatens sanctions over botched legal work

Artificial intelliegence sites using up water and electirity

Bold Front News -   As artificial intelligence booms, giant data centers are starting to compete with American families for basic things like water, power, and land right in their own backyards.  Data centers can use as much water and electricity as small cities, straining local systems. Communities across the country are pushing back as bills, noise, and land impacts pile up. Debate over who pays the true cost of AI is uniting skeptics of big government and big tech.

Trump adds lots more tariffs

The Hill -  President Trump will impose double-digit tariffs on imports from 60 countries over forced labor violations, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced Thursday. The action will cover 99.4 percent of U.S. imports and apply to Washington’s top trading partners, according to a fact sheet released by his office.

The tariffs are being brought under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which Trump has been using to implement tariffs after the Supreme Court ruled against his “liberation day” tariffs earlier this year. The new levies, which go into effect at midnight Friday, will replace tariffs that Trump imposed under Section 122 of the trade law earlier this year following that decision as they were set to expire…

Ten percent tariffs will be implemented on countries that have made commitments to adopt and enforce forced labor import prohibitions, while countries that have not enacted a forced labor import prohibition will be hit with a 12.5 percent tariff.

Health

NY Times -  A large outbreak of cyclosporiasis associated with iceberg lettuce has been linked to another four states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 1,947 people have become ill and 98 have been hospitalized in the outbreak, which has expanded to include Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia were already part of the outbreak.

The Food and Drug Administration has linked the infections to iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms and grown in central Mexico. On July 17, Taylor Farms recalled bagged iceberg lettuce sold in 27 states (including the nine states in the outbreak). The recalled lettuce was sent to restaurants, retail stores and food service distributors including Taco Bell and Walmart, but Taylor Farms has not provided clear information about exactly where the products were sold or served, and which specific products were affected.

The news comes as federal officials investigate other cyclospora outbreaks and illnesses across the country, which they say are unrelated to this outbreak. On Thursday, the F.D.A. announced a new outbreak with 72 cases, but did not identify the location or the potential source.

NY Times -  The United States has now recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, a grim sign that the country may be headed toward a new era in which the disease regularly sickens thousands every year. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that there have been 2,318 confirmed cases of measles so far this year. The case count toppled the record set last year, when measles infected more than 2,200 Americans and killed two unvaccinated children. More measles cases have been reported in the United States in the last two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined.

Immigration agenets

Daily Beast -    Federal immigration agents have faced a record number of sex crime charges since President Donald Trump returned to office. The Ohio Immigrant Alliance study, titled They Walk Among Us, logged 59 ICE and Border Patrol officers charged or convicted of sexual or violent offenses since 2006, the Daily Beast’s investigative Substack PunchUp reports. Sex crime allegations accounted for 50 of them, and 37 involved child victims. Of those cases, 25 date from 2025 and 2026 alone. The previous highest annual peak was six, in 2020—another Trump year. “These are not people who should be given guns and free rein,” said Lynn Tramonte, the alliance’s executive director, who wrote the report.

Middle East

The Constitutional Insider -   Officials report dozens of deaths in Iran and strikes across several provinces, while Iran and its allies claim major U.S. casualties and drone losses. The Pentagon says the goal is to “degrade” Iran’s military, but it has released no public proof that these strikes are truly reducing Iran’s ability to fight.  Conflicting statements about nuclear sites and battlefield losses deepen public doubts about whether leaders are being honest and strategic.

Constitution Center -  The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 specifically lists as a power of Congress the power “to declare War,” which unquestionably gives the legislature the power to initiate hostilities. The extent to which this clause limits the President’s ability to use military force without Congress’s affirmative approval remains highly contested. 

Most people agree, at minimum, that the Declare War Clause grants Congress an exclusive power. That is, Presidents cannot, on their own authority, declare war. Although it is somewhat more contested among scholars and commentators, most people also agree that Presidents cannot initiate wars on their own authority (a minority argues that Presidents may initiate uses of force without formally declaring war and that  Congress’s exclusive power to “declare war” refers only to issuing a formal proclamation).

 In the early post-ratification period, the clause’s limit on presidential warmaking was read broadly. Many key founders, including Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and James Madison, referred to the clause’s importance as a limit on presidential power. In the nation’s early conflicts, Congress’s approval was thought necessary – not only for the War of 1812, for which Congress issued a formal declaration, but also for lesser uses of force including the Quasi-War with France in 1798, conflicts with the Barbary States of Tripoli and Algiers, and conflicts with Native American tribes on the Western frontier (all of which were approved by Congress, albeit without formal declarations).  MORE

Tales from the Attic: Lou Stovall

 

Sam Smith.2017  - One of the saddest parts of your editor's departure from Cleveland Park was that I wouldn't be living next to Lou and Di Stovall anymore, which had gotten to be a 28 year habit for me. Lou and Di are both artists but they also serve as the magnetic north of the neighborhood. Follow a compass and that's where you'll end up. Our friendship has endured even though Lou no longer asks my advice on art. That ended after I wandered into his studio while he was working on a print of a seascape and he recklessly asked me what I thought of it. I pointed to an empty piece of sky and suggested that a plane towing a banner would look nice there.

I did get into one of his prints, though. Outside his house one day, he explained that he was working on some prints for the Equal Opportunities Commission and needed some quotes to use on them. "Got any quotes, Sam?" he asked. "Look Lou," I said, "writers write things and then they get quoted; they don't just write quotes." But for him, I thought of one anyway and he used it: "God is an equal opportunity employer."

Lou and Di provided the neighborhood young with counsel, refuge, their own box of art supplies in the studio, laughs, food, and a badminton court. Back when the street wasn't as busy as it now, Lou painted home plate in the middle of it for whiffle ball, the required afternoon activity for anyone between the ages of 6 and 16. Since there weren't enough kids to staff two full teams, every game involved innumerable "ghost men," imaginary creatures whose precise accomplishments and locations at any given moment were a matter of endless, loud debate after every play. Among other services, Lou and Di provided advice on anger management. One year, though, four of Sidwell Friend's starting nine were graduates of the Newark Street field of screams.

Some years later, Lou and Di's own son went to Sidwell and, faced with having both Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore Jr as schoolmates, rebelled in one of the few ways available to a 7th grader under such circumstances: he became a Republican. This revolt, mercifully brief, included playing golf and arranging to have me sent a membership in the GOP Gold Club complete with a welcoming letter from Haley Barber, as well posting a Dole-Kemp sign in his bedroom that looked directly down into our living room.

Lou and I conspired on a number of matters, including one of the city's first neighborhood crime watches. Lou designed the signs and hosted meetings, while I served as crime statistician. Some of the watch's efforts didn't work out all that well. At one meeting, the late Bishop John Walker complained that a wanted poster drawn by a neighbor seemed racist to him. I told John that he just didn't understand the difference between racism and bad art. John, bishop of the Washington National Cathedral, had a sense of humor good enough that Lou once loudly told him one of my recently transmitted jokes, from one crowded Giant food checkout line across to another, and John had the grace to laugh. The joke was that Moses had come down from the Mount and told the people, "I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is I've talked him down from 100 to ten. The bad news is that adultery is still one of them."

On another occasion, someone called the police around ten pm to complain about someone shining flashlights into their house. It was the neighborhood watch on patrol, albeit a bit counterproductively. Then, on a pleasant Saturday afternoon, the alarm went off at the house on the other side of ours. The police responded, with Lou and I there to assist. Noting that the kitchen window was unlocked, the officer pulled his revolver and announced, with what struck me as excessive import and hubris, "Stand back, I'm going in." He opened the window and crawled through, waving his revolver. A few minutes later, he reappeared, announcing with even great import, "Stand back, this could be dangerous." In his right hand he still held his revolver, but in his left was a saucepan out of which all the water had boiled, leaving only one perilously overheated egg.

On another occasion, I returned to find Lou in his front yard. "Doesn't that car look like the one they're looking for in that rape case?" he asked, pointing to a decrepit vehicle up the street. We went to take a look, nodded thoughtfully at the decrepit contents, and then returned to call the police. Afterwards, we stayed on the sidewalk talking for about twenty minutes, until Lou said, "Let's go take another look." After our inspection, we returned to Lou's fence and our conversations. Some while later, Lou said, "Where are those cops? I think I'll call again." When he returned outside, he reported that the officer on duty had told him, "We have the car under surveillance, sir, but it doesn't help much if citizens keep looking in the window. Which one are you, the big white guy or the little short bald black guy?"

"I resent that," said Lou. Replied the officer, "We're paid to be observant."

Elections

Democratic Secretaries of State -  Trump's administration has been demanding that states hand over personal voter data – driver's license numbers, partial Social Security numbers, private information on millions of Americans.  Every single Democratic Secretary of State refused. The administration took them to court and lost over a dozen times…and counting. So now the administration is threatening prison time.

Workers

Independent -   The number of Americans who've left the labor force has reached a new high under President Donald Trump - eclipsing spikes tied to the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, stunning new government figures show.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis tallied 105.8 million people over 16 who were unemployed and not actively seeking work in June, the New York Post reported Wednesday.

That number includes 832,000 who dropped out of the labor force last month, according to the Post, and it came after American businesses created just 57,000 jobs in June, less than half the 115,000 forecast by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal

Climate crisis-driven heat sucking European soils dry

The Guardian -   Extreme heat supercharged by the climate crisis is sucking Europe dry in summer and intensifying the drought hitting the continent, a scientific analysis has found. Record-breaking heatwaves meant the hot atmosphere strongly evaporated water from rivers, lakes, soils and plants – conditions made 80 times more likely by global heating in western Europe and 40 times more likely in eastern Europe, the study showed. The level of soil dryness in the west was made five times more likely by the pollution from fossil fuels in the west, and 11 times more likely in the east.

Polls

Newsweek -  President Donald Trump's net approval rating has hit its lowest level ever, according to a new poll.  The survey, conducted by the American Research Group between July 16 and 20, revealed that a total of 30 percent of Americans approved of Trump's handling of his job as president, while 67 percent disapproved. This gave Trump a net approval rating of -37 percent, his lowest rating yet.

Family wealth vs. the cost of aging

Washington Post -  Baby boomers — boosted by decades of rising house prices, strong stock markets and economic growth — control more than half of U.S. household wealth. When they die, a lot of that wealth is expected to go to their descendants. Estimates have predicted that $68 trillion to $84 trillion in money and assets will change hands over the next two decades.

A Washington Post analysis of the finances of thousands of seniors in the last decade of their lives found that, for many families, the cost of care eats away much of what they had hoped to pass on. And within a growing segment, elder care costs are not just diminishing their savings, but obliterating them.

Adult children, rather than being the beneficiaries of generational wealth, are in some cases spending down their own savings to pay for their parents’ care.

Low water levels

CNN -   The combined water level in two of the United States’ biggest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, has fallen to a historic low, in what experts are calling a significant moment in the Colorado River crisis — threatening a water system that supplies tens of millions.  On July 12, Lake Powell was at 3,524 feet and Lake Mead was just under 1,043 feet, breaking a record set in March 2023, according to an analysis published by five Colorado River experts last week. Together, the two reservoirs haven’t been this low since 1957, during the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, before Lake Powell even existed.

Meanwhile. . .

NPR - Irondale, Alabama’s Mayor James D. Stewart sparked a major backlash after he announced that the town's "I Love Irondale Day" festival would be renamed "AI Love Irondale Day." He has since assured the public that the festival is not about AI and would return to its original name. 

Oil prices

NBC News - Oil prices rose Thursday to their highest level since early June after the latest Iran war escalation threatened severe new disruption to global supplies.  Brent crude oil, one of two key global benchmarks, rose more than 6% to more than $100 per barrel in early Thursday trading. That is its highest level in eight weeks, since the end of May. U.S. crude oil also jumped for a second straight day, rising more than 5% to almost $92 per barrel — its highest level since June 11.

Wildfires

NY Times -  Particulates still hang thick as soup over large parts of the Upper Midwest…. Already, they have burned hundreds of thousands of acres, spewing plumes of hazardous air across the Pacific Northwest and western Canada. So when the sky cleared over the Meadowlands on Sunday, with billions of eyes turned toward the World Cup to be played there, what future did we all see?

Per-person smoke exposure in the United States has surged over the last decade, now four times as high as it was between 2006 and 2019. And even before the apocalyptic Canadian wildfire summer of 2023 — when Americans on the Eastern Seaboard were introduced to the eerie orange skies they had previously believed only possible in fire-prone places like California and Australia — more Americans were dying of wildfire smoke-related deaths east of the Mississippi than west of it.

Those 2023 fires alone contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, according to one estimate. All told, the monetary damages from wildfire smoke deaths are now expected to exceed those from all other climate impacts combined, as Robinson Meyer noted last week, and yet until very recently climate scientists and climate economists were not even counting them at all when projecting future costs from warming. That wasn’t because nobody knew to expect more fire; everyone knew to. It was just that we hadn’t really started to think about all that smoke.

Smoke events like these aren’t exactly unheard-of on the Eastern Seaboard, though there aren’t too many people still alive to remember the “Great Smoke Pall” from the Chinchaga fire of 1950, for instance.

Congress

Guardian - House Republicans have agreed to begin the process of writing a $95bn bill to fund the war with Iran as well as provide new aid to farmers, while making a long-shot attempt to impose new restrictions on voting nationwide.