The reaction to a procedural ruling by the Supreme Court on Aug. 24, 2026, was immediate and sharp.

The conservative justices’ decision in the 6-3 ruling to lift a block on implementation of President Donald Trump’s March 2026 executive order imposing restrictions on mail voting had voting rights advocates and many state officials angry and alarmed. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the ruling, saying it would spark a “Kafkaesque nightmare” that “needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections.”

The Conversation’s politics and legal affairs editor Naomi Schalit talked with Quinnipiac University election law scholar John J. Martin about the ruling and what it signals may be ahead.

What’s the background to the Supreme Court’s ruling on Aug. 24?

Back in March, President Trump issued an executive order that was meant to, in his words, maintain “public confidence in election outcomes” and “enhance election integrity” in mail and absentee voting in federal elections. There are a few provisions that were included in that executive order.

The first would require the Department of Homeland Security to maintain a state citizenship list of residents in those states who are U.S. citizens, above the age of 18, and therefore eligible to vote in federal elections. The Department of Homeland Security would share these lists with each state at least 60 days prior to each federal election.

The next provision orders the U.S. attorney general to prioritize the investigation and the prosecution of state and local election officials who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters, such as noncitizens.

Next, Trump ordered the U.S. Postal Service to devise rules that could substantially alter the ability for states to use mail and absentee ballots in federal elections. What this could look like is, for example, a requirement that a mail ballot being used in a federal election has to look a particular way.

The executive order also gives states the option to provide the Postal Service at least 60 days before a federal election a list of voters entitled to vote by mail or by absentee ballot. But that deadline conflicts with a federal rule that states must give voters the opportunity to register to vote at least 30 days prior to an election. So states might not even know 60 days prior to an election who was entitled to use an absentee or mail ballot.

Finally, the big one is that the executive order directs the U.S. Postal Service to not transmit any mail or absentee ballots from voters in federal elections who do not appear on a mail-in or absentee voter list compiled by the service, presumably based on the list being provided to it by the states, although the executive order isn’t fully clear on this.

So, if a voter isn’t on that list, the Postal Service can just ditch that person’s ballot?

The executive order tells the Postal Service that it should not transmit that ballot over mail.

But the Supreme Court did not rule on the legality of the executive order, did it?

No. A number of states sued the Trump administration pretty quickly after this executive order was issued, arguing that the president simply doesn’t have the authority to implement these policies. The states specifically asked for a preliminary injunction in federal court, which allows the court to pause the government’s actions before the case is fully resolved. The lower court ultimately issued the preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the implementation of the executive order.

The Trump administration argued the states lacked something called standing, which requires a plaintiff to suffer an actual or imminent injury in order to bring a case in federal court. Accordingly, the preliminary injunction should not have been issued.

The Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the Trump administration and contended that because a lot of the executive order either required the states to do nothing, or had yet to be fully realized, the states’ case here was premature. They had yet to suffer an injury.

But it’s not permanent that the states do not have standing. It’s that they did not have standing at this moment until the rules to come out of this executive order had been put into effect. Is that correct?

That’s correct. So, theoretically, if the Postal Service were to propose a rule that would forbid the transmission of ballots that don’t meet their standards, and then that rule is ultimately adopted, then the states would have standing to bring this case.

The Constitution gives the states the power to administer elections. What power is the president asserting here that would legitimately allow him, or the executive, to demand these changes?

The U.S. Constitution certainly makes states the default administrators of elections, and that includes federal, state and local elections. The federal government plays some roles in regulating elections, with the Constitution allowing Congress the ability to override states’ regulations of the procedural aspects of congressional elections.

The Supreme Court has also found that Congress has some authority to regulate certain aspects of presidential elections, such as in the area of campaign finance. And under the 14th and 15th amendments, Congress has the ability to implement laws that fulfill the equal protection clause or the 15th Amendment’s prohibition against racial discrimination in elections. That’s how we get something like the Voting Rights Act. And that can apply to federal, state and local elections.

But states still remain the predominant administrator of elections.

And the president’s role in elections?

It’s hard to find any constitutional source that backs up the idea that the president has unilateral authority to decide how elections are run, even federal elections.

Maybe the strongest argument you can make in this case is that the president has authority over officers in the executive branch of the federal government. So the president could certainly direct executive officers, such as the postmaster general, to do things or not do things. But it doesn’t mean that the president can tell these officers to just do whatever the president wants in violation of the Constitution.

This is a very long way to say that the president really doesn’t seem to have authority to be doing what he’s doing right now.

So this was a procedural decision by the Supreme Court; there’s also a similar case brought by voting rights groups that they may consider. In the end, is everybody just playing a waiting game for the substance of this executive order to get to the Supreme Court to have the Supreme Court say sorry, President Trump, you can’t do it, case closed?

The Supreme Court cannot avoid deciding this on the merits of the case.

Regardless of how and when this all proceeds, will it have an effect on upcoming midterms?

Election officials need to know how they’re supposed to manage their elections, and they need to know this months in advance. They want to know: Are we actually able to implement mail voting, or absentee voting, the way that we’ve always done it? Or is this executive order going to completely throw a monkey wrench into the process, and now we have to rethink everything, and we have to wait until we receive a list from the U.S. Postal Service confirming that the voters that we believe are entitled to these ballots are, in fact, entitled to these ballots?

And voters might be fearful that if they try to vote by mail it won’t be counted. That could discourage people from voting through a process that has made it easier and more straightforward to vote for certain segments of the population – and really everyone.

John J. Martin, Assistant Professor of Law, Quinnipiac University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The Trump administration now says that if the court doesn’t approve its renovations of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts it could complete tear down the building.

Add this to the long list of norms shattered and institutions threatened or degraded by the Trump Administration. The New York Times:

Lawyers for the Trump administration told a federal judge that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts desperately needs the major renovation ordered by President Trump and raised the specter that it would need to be “taken down” if those plans are blocked.

In a court filing late on Monday, Justice Department lawyers defended plans for the $250 million renovation project and described how, as recognition for the president’s role, an inscription of his name on the arts center’s marble facade would be appropriate.

“Without those efforts, the center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down,” the filing said, “with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.”

In other words: rule our way or else.

Lawyers for the Trump administration told a federal judge that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts desperately needs the major renovation ordered by President Trump and raised the specter that it would need to be “taken down” if those plans are blocked.

In a court filing late on Monday, Justice Department lawyers defended plans for the $250 million renovation project and described how, as recognition for the president’s role, an inscription of his name on the arts center’s marble facade would be appropriate.

“Without those efforts, the center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down,” the filing said, “with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.”

It was unclear how seriously any thought to knock down the building has been considered, but it was the most extreme measure that has been cited to support Mr. Trump’s contention that the Washington arts center needs a major overhaul that would force it to close for two years. Mr. Trump ordered the demolition of the White House’s East Wing last fall to make way for a luxury ballroom.

Such a decision at the Kennedy Center would be subject to legal challenges and objections from historical preservation groups.

The filing was part of the proceedings in a lawsuit by Representative Joyce Beatty, an ex officio board member at the center who has fought to block its plans to close and conspicuously honor Mr. Trump. In a statement on Tuesday, Nathaniel Zelinsky, a lawyer for Ms. Beatty, said the suggestion by Justice Department lawyers was a “not-so-subtle threat to demolish the Kennedy Center if the president doesn’t get his way.”

The DOJ suggested in a court filing Tuesday that the Kennedy Center could face demolition in the event a federal judge issues an order permanently blocking Pres. Trump's push to renovate the facility with additions intended to recognize Trump personally. https://t.co/MxP1Qc8Zqq

— ABC News (@ABC) August 25, 2026

Kennedy Center Finances Collapsed Once Trump Added His Name https://t.co/BTl8sNXzYO

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) August 25, 2026

The Kennedy Center is officially designated as a "living memorial" to President John F. Kennedy. Established by an Act of Congress in 1964 following Kennedy's assassination. https://t.co/WBeldYbsex

— Mike (@UmustBkiddingME) August 25, 2026

“.. ticket sales and donations plunged after the Trump-led board of trustees voted in December to rename the center after him and put his name on the front of the building, according to the records.”@washingtonpost https://t.co/OHA1HzKrca pic.twitter.com/X41SHu0n2g

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) August 25, 2026

BIG BABY TRUMP IS "threatening the demolition of the Kennedy Center if the arts institution isn’t allowed to follow its plans for the site, including adding President Donald Trump’s name to the front of the building."https://t.co/gq4DmKOYtP

— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) August 25, 2026

Trump Lawyers Warn That Kennedy Center Might Need Demolition if Not Fixed – The New York Times…All About The??? Revenge & Retribution…You Don't Name It After Me, I'll Destroy It!! https://t.co/eO9EA5fvqG

— Merribeth Herbert (@beansi50) August 25, 2026

Trump slapped his brand on the Kennedy Center. Nearly $100 million in missing revenue later, things are going great. https://t.co/f1ykTPrKIX

— Daily Kos (@dailykos) August 25, 2026

Monday’s filing comes days after the center’s board, which is stacked with Trump allies, voted again to close the center down for the renovations. https://t.co/IOcwAxLxJx

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 25, 2026

“Nosedive…”
Placing Turnip's name on DC's JFK Ctr for the Performing Arts tanked ticket sales and fundraising even as the center’s leaders publicly touted a financial turnaround…
(WP) https://t.co/Ij2jr4oIga

— Steven Ashley (@steveashleyplus) August 25, 2026

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by Robert Reich

Not exactly a war, but a trade war — which will impose huge costs on both American consumers and on Canada.

As I said, Trump is now completely and utterly out of his mind.

The very idea of a trade war with Canada — our neighbor, our ally, our closest friend, a nation that’s peaceful and whose people have a reputation for kindness — is absurd.

But Trump is doing it anyway. He’s imposing a 50 percent tariff on goods coming from Canada — which, remember, is an import tax paid by you and me. The tariffs account for $20 billion of the $382 billion worth of products Americans bought from Canada last year and cover a wide array of goods (the full list of more than 500 products can be found here, here, and here).

Trump has singled out several Canadian industries — especially forestry, including building products like plywood.

The obvious effect will be to make it more expensive to build houses in the United States. Couple this with the rise in long-term interest rates — i.e. mortgage interest rates — courtesy of Trump’s war spending, his tax cuts mainly for the rich and big corporations, and the giant corporate AI debt (encouraged by Trump) — and the result will be to make housing even less affordable than it already is.

This is another example of Trump’s perverse rage. I say “perverse” because I’ve come to believe that his insanity is expressing itself in ways deliberately contrary to what’s expected of a president of the United States — ways considered wrong if not stupid by most serious observers — which makes him want to do it all the more.

He’s lost his war in Iran, most Americans are struggling financially, his mass deportations are unpopular — so what does he do? He flips the finger at Canada because Canada is exactly the kind of nation that an American bully targets. Bullies always go after targets that won’t or can’t fight back.

Trump has been bullying Canada since the start of his second term. Six months ago Trump suggested the border between Canada and the U.S. was an “arbitrary” line. He’s repeatedly proposed that Canada be annexed as the 51st state. He said he’s willing to inflict “economic pain” on Canada to get what he wants. On July 1, Canada’s national holiday, Trump declined to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, which means the agreement will now undergo annual reviews.

Mostly, though, Trump is enraged that Canadian prime minister Mark Carney asserted in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the U.S. is no longer a guarantor of stability in the world and that middle powers like Canada must unite in order to survive. It was a forceful speech — and the first time that a U.S. ally has stood up to Trump.

The day after Carney gave his speech, Trump told the same World Economic Forum:

“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us. By the way, they should be grateful also, but they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful — they should be grateful to us, Canada. Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
Trump is a peevish, angry, perverse child.

The question I ask myself is how much worse will his behavior have to get before Republicans and suck-ups around him take some action to stop him?

Robert Reich is professor emeritus of public policy at Berkeley and former US secretary of labor. His latest book is the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, “Coming Up Short.” Originally published in Common Dreams.

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“Emma,” a young Jewish woman who we met in 2019, didn’t belong to a synagogue. She didn’t have a Jewish partner. She didn’t observe Jewish rituals regularly. On most surveys about religion, she would not seem very engaged with Judaism.

But as Emma talked about what she did in her free time, a very different picture began to emerge. She visited Jewish websites and enjoyed listening to Jewish music. She read books about Jewish topics and had recently attended a retreat for young Jewish adults to learn Torah while also doing yoga.

She was highly invested in learning about Judaism, but she explored her identity without joining traditional institutions.

Most major surveys about religion ask whether someone belongs to a congregation, how often they attend services, whether they pray regularly and whether belief is important in their lives. Those measures help identify broad shifts, like the growing percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated: the “nones.”

But many Americans’ religious lives, like Emma’s, are not disappearing; they are moving away from membership of traditional institutions. To understand what religion looks like in 21st-century America, researchers may need to ask different questions.

Learning through art

As scholars of Judaism and education, we have been exploring how people learn about religion beyond traditional places like synagogues, Jewish schools and summer camps. Between 2019 and early 2023, we spoke with hundreds of people and explored different leisure time activities to discover what people learn about Judaism and Jewishness through cultural arts.

We interviewed dozens of audience members at Jewish-themed shows on Broadway, such as “Leopoldstadt” and “Parade.” We attended Jewish concerts and asked attendees what they learned. We explored how social media communities offer spaces to talk about different Jewish topics, like what fans learned about ultra-Orthodox Judaism from watching the television show “Shtisel.”

Our research revealed that there is a vibrant ecosystem of people learning about religion in their leisure time. Through the arts, both Jews and non-Jews encounter Jewish history, Jewish religious practices and representations of Jewish communities.

Screen and stage

Most people we spoke with told us that they felt meaningful connections to Judaism during activities that would rarely appear on a standard religion survey.

“Joan,” an unmarried woman in her 50s from Connecticut, told us that she was deeply invested in Judaism, but felt that synagogues and Jewish community centers were not welcoming to single people without families. Instead of joining a Jewish institution, she watched Jewish-themed TV shows and movies on Netflix, and joined social media communities to chat with other fans.

“Luis,” who lived in Boston but was born in Argentina, was a Sephardic Jew, a group that traces their ancestry and traditions to Jewish communities who once lived in Spain and Portugal. His wife was Ashkenazi, meaning her ancestors came from Central and Eastern Europe. She considered herself secular, and so the couple joined the Worker’s Circle, a nonreligious Ashkenazi institution rather than a synagogue.

Yet Luis loved deepening his knowledge of Sephardic culture, and he often attended concerts of music in Ladino, a Sephardic language related to Spanish, with other Sephardic immigrants.

For Joan and Luis, these activities were not peripheral to their Jewish lives. Rather, they were central avenues for learning and community. We interviewed hundreds of Jews who told us that cultural experiences were opportunities to reflect on Jewish practices, explore questions of belonging, connect with family histories and find friends with common interests.

New questions

Some aspects of these patterns were distinctive to Judaism. Historically, many Jews have understood Judaism to be a cultural world, and not only a theological tradition. Learning about cultural dimensions of Judaism has long been part of Jewish education.

The broader phenomenon of informal learning, though, extended far beyond a single tradition. Across America, increasing numbers of people learn about religion through media, cultural productions and digital networks. Christians may study biblical themes through podcasts, online discussion groups or religious influencers. Muslims may participate in online learning communities that connect believers across the world.

The challenge for religion researchers, then, is not simply to determine whether engagement with religion is rising or falling. Rather, it is to develop more nuanced ways of understanding how people explore religious themes and practices, beyond traditional institutions. Only then can we more fully understand how contemporary Americans actually live their religious lives.

Laura Yares, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University and Sharon Avni, Professor of Academic Literacy and Linguistics, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The Valley Obscured By Smog, Bearmanor Media, 2026.

Alan Starkwell is a young college graduate, transplanted to Los Angeles in the latter mid-70s, with dreams of working in the movie industry. Alan doesn’t have too many prospects. He has a degree in English. He thought he had a job as a script reader lined up, but his friend took the job from him. And he’s crashing the same friend’s pad with several others, including an ex-girlfriend who definitely is not interested in him anymore but sometimes hangs around the pad barely dressed.

Ah, the life of the educated young poor two generations ago …

Alan, needing cash as soon as possible, has a potential job tossed to him, It’s a publishing house. He hurries to the job and is hired on the spot by the owner Bernie Bloom, who says he needs a magazine editor. The business office has locks just about everywhere. Alan is assigned a windowless area to churn out copy all day long. The pay’s low but there are bonuses if you write a book once a month.

Fans of the cult auteur Edward D. Wood Jr. will recognize the setting. It’s a pornography publisher called Pendulum. Ed Wood spent much of his last several years there writing stories, novels, film captions, essays, screenplays, even directing. For $200 a week, Alan is expected to write fiction and non-fiction for the magazines. In these magazines the highest priority are photos, not text.

Alan can make an extra $800 to $1,000 a month if he can pen a porn book, preferably non-fiction sourced with a “doctor” of some sorts to lend legitimacy on topics such as sex between a husband and wife, or homosexuality, etc. There’s even a library in the office with source material that Bloom has purchased. Dr. T.K. Peters, anyone? …

Most of the staff is young, like Alan. Most are unmotivated, except an older writer, who keeps to himself. This guy, Ed Wood, likes to also occasionally work in women’s clothes. He’s dismissed and often chided by the staff. They shrug off his disapproval of their laziness, thinking him a tired, old drunk.

There’s some truth to the “tired old drunk” moniker, but Alan — not cynical, just skeptical — finds the old man interesting. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Alan and Ed form a kind of team. Ed’s been assigned to direct a movie, to be called “Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love.” He has $7,000 to do it. He wants Alan as his assistant. Alan knows he’s unqualified for the job but wants to be a part of any movie.

Alan becomes more of an assistant. He becomes a kind of minder for Ed, once a movie director but now an unreliable alcoholic hanging on to his job. Ed needs someone to care about him; make sure he gets out of bed, his apartment, and finishes the porn film. Ed’s job depends on it.

W. Paul Apel has crafted a novel that provides readers a glimpse of what Wood’s life was probably like in his final years. In my opinion, it’s another addition to the surge of Ed-Wood related books the past decade-plus that — read together — provide a sort of biography of Wood’s life, before and after, what occurs in the Tim Burton film, “Ed Wood.”

I’ll stop with mostly plot narrative. Writer Apel has created an accurate portrayal of Los Angeles/Hollywood of the ’70s. He’s placed the release of “Star Wars” in his time frame. Alan thinks Ed would be excited about this new blockbuster. Ed isn’t but he does perk up a bit when Alan mentions Peter Cushing is in Star Wars.

Ed’s dreams live in the past; but he exists in a hard, tough present where Imperial whiskey is most real to him

Apel’s research is a plus for the reader. Scenes in the narrative derive from Rudolph Grey’s classic oral biography of Wood, Nightmare of Ecstasy. (A quick note: I wrote my NOE review when many of the myths of Ed Wood were still believed.) And Apel has clearly seen the many documentaries and read the growing list of books on Ed Wood, the Ed Wood Wednesdays blog from Joe Blevins, and Bob Blackburn’s Ed Wood Jr. Facebook page.

Shannon Dolder, a young woman neighbor of Wood’s in the infamous Yucca Street apartment complex in Hollywood Wood and wife Kathy endured, becomes in the novel a sort of pal to Alan. The late Dolder, who was part of the ’70s and ’80s LA punk scene, accompanies our protagonist Alan to a reading from poet/novelist Charles Bukowski, and meets rocker Keith Moon; both are fun interludes.

But when Alan and Ed frantically attempt to complete Necromania in a couple of days, contemporaries of Wood surface. There’s Ed’s wife, Kathy Wood. There’s a phone call to Vampira who turns down a part in “Necromania.” There’s a lot of Criswell in the novel. They visit him and his eccentric wife. Criswell loans Wood a coffin and visits the movie set, which of course includes Hal Guthu, cinematographer and agent to adult actresses. Porn starlet Rene Bond, and her husband Rick Lutze, both in “Necromania,” are in the novel. And there’s a hilarious passage of Alan and Ed, after egocentric porn star John Holmes turns them down, sneaking out of the iconic Tail O’ the Cock restaurant, stiffing Holmes with the cost of a steak dinner.

Ed Wood fans know, of course, that “Necromania” was filmed several years before 1977, the novel’s time. But including the film in the narrative makes sense. It provides a central theme; Wood’s economic survival, perhaps his life, depends on him finishing that film. Alan becomes a participant in that drama stress. The film also provides a more interesting center than the locked-up colorless Pendulum offices. There is one fun scene where cops raid Pendulum, which was a normal occurrence back then. (Much of the Pendulum offices scenes are recollections of the late Leo Eaton, who worked with Wood there, and Robert Cremer, biographer of Bela Lugosi who interviewed Wood in the 1970s.)

Apel has written a fast-moving, entertaining novel Wood fans will devour like a fine dinner with great dessert. But even those not aware of Wood’s career can enjoy the novel if they come across it. It’s an interesting tale of a young, penniless writer living essentially by his wits, grabbing the only job he can snag. And this writer finds a kind of mentor, old and weak, but with a backstory that turns out to be so interesting.

— Doug Gibson

Apel’s Amazon page is here. He’s written a non-fiction book — I Watched Football Early the Day I Died: The Lost Ed Wood Frank Leahy Screenplay — based on an unproduced screenplay Wood wrote on the life of the legendary Notre Dame football coach. Apel is currently writing a book called Necromania: A Tale of Weird Lit — The Pulp Fiction of Ed Wood. … The endurance of Wood’s 50 years-plus appeal and cult status is fascinating. It first peaked in the mid to late 90s, after Grey’s Nightmare of Ecstasy, Burton’s film Ed Wood, various documentaries, and now-defunct genre magazines such as Cult Movies and Psychotronic Video. But the cult never went away. The past 12 years or so it’s grown, along with a renewed interest in Wood’s career post 1965. As mentioned, lots of valuable books, websites and Wood Facebook pages exist.

Watch a Plan9Crunch YouTube interview with author Paul Apel discussing The Valley Obscured by Smog.

Cross posted from Plan9Crunch blog

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South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s July 2026 appointment of Darline Graham to fill the remainder of her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Senate term – and her subsequent decision to run for the seat – may seem unusual. After all, Darline Graham has no experience in elected office and was virtually unknown outside of the small circle of people who knew her from her time heading the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, or the slightly larger group of people who knew her as Lindsey Graham’s sister.

Nevertheless, she’s made history as the first woman to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate.

Graham has since demonstrated how quickly a family connection can translate into electoral support. On Aug. 11, 2026, she finished first in a 10-candidate Republican primary with nearly 33% of the vote. She now faces U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman in an Aug. 25 runoff.

Her appointment belongs to a long American tradition of family succession in politics.

For much of the 20th century, political parties, particularly in the American South, routinely turned to relatives – particularly widows – to fill congressional vacancies. The practice persisted because it provided continuity during moments of uncertainty, preserved party control of valuable seats, avoided divisive nomination fights and capitalized on the electoral value of a familiar name. Although family succession might seem at odds with democratic ideals of open competition, it also created one of the first pathways for women to enter Congress.

As scholars of elections and Southern politics, we see the Graham appointment as a reminder that political inheritance has never been fully absent from American democracy. What has changed is the form it takes and the role it plays in the recruitment of political leaders.

Why widows became the preferred successors

Beginning in the 1920s, congressional widows frequently became the preferred choice to fill legislative vacancies. According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, 48 women have been elected or appointed to fill congressional vacancies created by the deaths of their husbands – 40 in the House and eight in the Senate.

The route into office differed by chamber.

In the case of Senate vacancies, states may allow governors to temporarily fill those spots, whereas House vacancies can be filled only by election. Congressional widows, therefore, reached Washington through both gubernatorial appointments and special elections. But in the one-party South, where Democrats held virtually every elected office from roughly 1900 to 1960, receiving the dominant party’s nomination was effectively a guarantee of a general election victory.

Supporters often argued that these women could provide continuity because many had served as trusted advisers, campaign surrogates and informal political partners to their husbands. They knew the district, understood constituent concerns and were familiar with ongoing legislative priorities. Much like Darline Graham, they also carried a last name that voters already associated with a familiar brand.

Political considerations also mattered. Party leaders often viewed a widow as a politically safe choice who could preserve a seat while avoiding a potentially damaging intraparty battle.

Voters, for their part, were presented with a familiar and trusted name at a time when replacement elections were often held quickly.

This was essentially the logic behind the appointment of Hattie Caraway, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1931 by Arkansas Gov. Harvey Parnell after her husband, Thaddeus Caraway, died. Caraway was subsequently elected with only token opposition to complete the remainder of her husband’s term, becoming the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

This “widow’s mandate” was particularly prevalent in the South, although scholars have found that Southern widows served shorter terms than their counterparts elsewhere in the country, perhaps owing to the South’s embrace of more traditional gender norms.

Some women who entered Congress under these circumstances went on to build significant political careers of their own, though. Perhaps the best-known example is Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. After her husband’s death in 1940, she won a special election to succeed him in the House. She later won election to the Senate and became one of the most influential women in 20th-century American politics. Her famous “Declaration of Conscience” speech challenged the tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare.

Why the Graham case is different

The appointment of Darline Graham highlights an aspect of family succession that was often less visible in traditional cases of widow succession.

Historically, widows were frequently defended as logical successors because they had participated in campaigns, advised their spouses and possessed extensive knowledge of district politics. Whether those claims were always accurate is debatable, but they provided a justification rooted in continuity and experience.

Darline Graham was not entirely absent from her brother’s political career. She supported his campaigns and appeared in his ads. Their personal relationship was also unusually close because Lindsey Graham helped raise his sister after their parents died.

Unlike some congressional widows, however, Darline Graham was not her predecessor’s longtime governing partner. Her appointment rests less on the notion of a political partnership and more directly on the value of a well-known political name and identity. Lindsey Graham served in Congress for more than three decades, first in the House and then in the Senate. His name recognition, political network and long-standing visibility in South Carolina politics created advantages that extended beyond the officeholder himself.

The Graham appointment therefore makes visible one of the central forces that has sustained family succession throughout American history: the enduring electoral value of political brands.

The political benefits of continuity

Widow succession still happens, but it is less common than it once was. This decline largely reflects the rise of women’s independent political careers. As women increasingly won local, state and federal offices on their own in the late 20th century, family connections became less necessary as a pathway into Congress.

Yet family succession has never completely disappeared. Darline Graham’s appointment and strong showing in the Republican primary demonstrate that the political benefits of continuity, name recognition and established networks remain powerful.

The old “widow’s mandate” may have faded, but the broader dynamics that sustained it continue to shape American politics.

Gibbs Knotts, Professor of Political Science, Coastal Carolina University and Christopher A. Cooper, Professor of Political Science & Public Affairs, Western Carolina University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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ICE has electric gloves

Seeking new ways to inflict cruel and unusual punishment, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) published a notice of its plans to spend as much as $20 million on a product known as G.L.O.V.E, an abbreviation for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter.

Remember, when it comes to MAGA, the cruelty is the point. It’s as if separating families, incarcerating children, and shooting Americans in the back of their heads in the middle of our streets isn’t bad enough.

In its acquisition filing, ICE described the gloves as a “distraction and de-escalation device. Senator Adam Schiff sees it as a new tool for ICE to use to inflict terror, writing on social media, “Senate Republicans had the opportunity to rein in ICE and CBP, they refused. Instead they handed DHS BILLIONS more of your tax dollars without any constraint after the shooting and killing individuals in the streets. Now, ICE is looking to purchase electrical shock gloves to continue terrorizing our communities.”

He continued, “How soon will they be used to inflict further cruelty?”

The murders of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE are not the only incidents Democrats are citing. Recently, ICE carried out two fatal shootings in Texas and Maine, while video surfaced of an ICE officer pointing a gun in the face of a woman, a US citizen, in Virginia.

An ICE agent claims that she tried to run him over with her car, but as is usually the case with these goons, he was lying. They should really make sure there isn’t video of the situation before they lie about it. But then again, it’s not like video proof makes them stop lying.

House Homeland Security Committee Democrats wrote on X, “ICE agents shoot innocent people. They pepper spray innocent people. And now the Trump administration wants to spend $20 MILLION to give them gloves to tase people. This is insanity. ICE does not need another weapon.”

Guidance from the company that produces the gloves, Compliant Technologies, recommends various limitations in its own literature, noting that failure to follow guidelines could result in “injury or death.” That probably makes ice agent say, “Oh goody.”

While the company says the gloves aren’t dangerous to healthy people, its manual says officers should avoid using them on pregnant women or the elderly and notes people may have “underlying medical conditions that may or may not be easily discernible with casual observation.” I’m sure ICE agents stopped reading at “injury or death.”

The manual also encourages officers to “always give the subject(s) a reasonable opportunity to comply before force is used.” This is when the agents started laughing.

ICE has defended the purchase, but it did not respond to a series of questions posed by reporters on what guidelines would be issued for using the gloves and whether officers would comply with manufacturer instructions, providing a link to its current use of force policy and writing that officers “regularly receive ongoing use of force training.”

Are they talking about the training that they cut short for those recruited by the Trump regime?

GO HERE TO READ THE REST.

Visit Clay Jones’ website and email him at Clayjonez@gmail.com.

The post Shock the Monkey appeared first on The Moderate Voice.

The fate of President Donald Trump’s estimated US$400 million White House ballroom may hinge on the little-known and somewhat surprising rules as to when the federal government and its agencies can accept privately donated funds.

That’s because Trump’s is using the fact that he’s been accepting private donations to pay for at least some of the project’s cost as a justification for not needing Congress’ explicit authorization.

A federal appeals court on Aug. 7, 2026, disagreed and left in place a lower court’s injunction that’s slated to halt construction on Aug. 21, barring Supreme Court intervention.

As a scholar of nonprofit and tax-exempt law who has studied for decades how the law governs deductible charitable contributions, including those to the government, I find that this appeals court decision calls for an explanation of the role that such private donations may play in any federal government project or activity. An intricate statutory dance is required for taxpayers to make donations to particular government agencies or for particular government purposes.

Giving to the government

You may not realize that you can make potentially tax-deductible contributions to the federal government itself. An official website lists almost two dozen programs, including the National Endowment for for the Humanities, the National Arboretum and AmeriCorps, to which U.S. citizens can donate.

But such donations are allowed to government agencies only if Congress has granted the agency statutory authority to receive those funds.

In this context, according to the reasoning of the majority in the appeals court case, that means spending donated funds to preserve the East Wing would have been automatically allowed because it stood on a national park and the National Parks Service is an agency that individuals can donate to; spending those funds to build something new to replace that structure would not be allowed unless Congress had authorized the project.

But the Trump administration has failed so far to obtain congressional authorization and appropriations for the ballroom.

The federal government has accepted donations voluntarily made by Americans since its founding.

What’s more, the Bureau of Fiscal Services – the central bank account and financial manager for the federal government – explains that it “may accept gifts donated to the United States Government” and that the account for such gifts, which dates back to 1843, was established “to accept gifts, such as bequests, from individuals wishing to express their patriotism to the United States.” Such gifts, however, are subject to restrictions.

Statutory restrictions

Since 1982, a provision of the United States Code, the official codification of all the nation’s general and permanent federal statutes, has required that these “patriotic” donations be devoted exclusively to reducing the national debt.

By law, federal agencies cannot augment congressional appropriations. The Miscellaneous Receipts Act requires that “an official or agent of the Government receiving money for the Government from any source shall deposit the money in the Treasury as soon as practicable without deduction for any charge or claim.”

Despite this seemingly absolute language, government agencies are permitted to accept gifts of money or other property when – and to the extent – they are given explicit statutory authority.

Agencies with the authority to accept gifts include the Justice Department, the State Department and the Library of Congress.

But this money must be spent only as Congress directed in establishing the mission of the National Park Service, which is the conservation and preservation of the land and structures under its jurisdiction.

In contrast, the White House does not have this authority. Its own website states that it “is unable to accept cash, checks, bonds … or other monetary equivalents” as gifts from private citizens.

‘No instance in American history’

That’s in part why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held on Aug. 7 that Trump could not build the ballroom on the site of the former East Wing building.

The two judges in the majority concluded that neither the National Park Service, which is the steward for the national park on which the White House stands, nor Trump himself had satisfied all the statutory requirements needed to undertake building of the above-ground ballroom. It did not block work on an underground military bunker the Trump administration began renovating after it demolished the East Wing in October 2025.

That some, most or even all the funding comes from private donations does not protect the administration’s right to proceed with construction of the 90,000 square-foot (8,361 square-meter) ballroom because it has failed so far to obtain congressional authorization and appropriations for this project, the majority explained.

Crucial to this conclusion was a statute declaring, “A building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”

“We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid
for,” the majority opinion says. “Until now.”

Satisfying 2 statutes

The Trump administration has pointed to two possible statutes it says provides the necessary authority to do that.

One involves the purposes for which the National Park Service can spend its funds, including privately donated funds. The other grants the president the ability to spend funds for, among other items, “the care, maintenance, repair, alteration, refurnishing, [and] improvement” of the executive residence at the White House – funds that “are authorized to be appropriated each fiscal year.”

The majority explained that authority for the president to construct the ballroom requires satisfying both of those statutes; neither alone suffices.

And it rejected the reliance on the National Park Service provision alone. That statute limits use of the service’s funds, in the words of the majority, to “the identified purposes of conservation and preservation.”

In particular, the majority ruled, the provision does not authorize the construction of a new building. Further, it held, the National Park Service provision cannot authorize the president to lead the project; only the provision related to the executive residence can do that.

As to the executive residence provision, the majority opinion explains that it “does not expressly grant the President any independent authority.”

Instead, the majority held, the president must rely on “an accompanying appropriation.” The court found no such accompanying appropriation.

Ellen P. Aprill, Senior Scholar in Residence at the UCLA Law School’s Lowell Milken Center For Philanthropy And Nonprofit Law, University of California, Los Angeles

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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A 72-year-old musician pulled himself to safety after being pushed onto the subway tracks at Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center station early Wednesday morning.

The incident occurred in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, at one of the city’s best-known tourist destinations.

Rodney Thomas, a 72-year-old guitar player, was waiting for a northbound F or D train at the 47th-50th Streets–Rockefeller Center station shortly before 4 a.m. when he was pushed from behind, according to the New York Daily News.

Thomas fell onto the tracks but managed to pull himself back onto the platform before a train arrived.

Several good Samaritans rushed to help Thomas after he fell onto the tracks. However, Thomas had suffered a dislocated shoulder and was concerned that attempts to pull him up could worsen his injury, according to Yahoo News.

So Thomas came to his own rescue. He made his way toward the end of the platform, where he knew there were stairs used by subway workers to enter and leave the tracks.

“You’re gonna lay there and let a train come run you over — or you get yourself up,” Thomas said, according to Yahoo News.

Thomas was taken to Mount Sinai West Hospital following the incident for treatment. He was reported to be in stable condition but had suffered a dislocated shoulder.

Forty-year-old Francisco Garcia was identified as the suspect. Authorities arrested Garcia in connection with the incident. Garcia was charged with assault and reckless endangerment, according to AM New York.

The attack comes amid a troubling increase in assaults on New York City’s subway system. Through Aug. 9, there were 406 felony assaults in the subway system, compared with 371 during the same period last year, according to figures reported by Yahoo News. Yahoo News also reported that misdemeanor assaults increased from 876 to 1,056 during the same period, a rise of about 21%.

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Five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, knew a few things about war – certainly more than a five-deferment draft evader and a faux macho Fox News drunk seem to know. One of Ike’s axioms was: “Battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.”

We can pair that with a truism commonly known as the 7 P’s: “Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.”

But the Sultan of Stupid, who has inexplicably failed his way to the pinnacle of power, is cognitively incapable of grasping those basic concepts – and his long track record of disrespecting the military speaks for itself.

Hence the horrific living conditions on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, where 5,000 service members have been wandering the seas without a port of call since last November. They’ve been plagued by food and water shortages, backed-up toilets spewing human waste, long periods without laundry, and disrupted mail service.

Carriers typically pull into a port every 30 or 45 days for resupply, maintenance, and crew rest. But the Lincoln hasn’t done that because there are no reachable ports. Their tour of duty was supposed to end in May. As the spouse of one sailor told Stars and Stripes, the military news outlet, “I’m just actively watching my [family member] kind of break down, like they’re losing hope and everything.”

This is all quintessential Trump. This guy couldn’t even show a profit in casinos or clean a Reflecting Pool, so why would anyone believe for a millisecond he could run a war? There are reports at least one Lincoln service member jumped overboard, and I sympathize. After 10 long years of moronic nonsense, many of us would love to jump the MAGA ship and swim to safe harbor.

Why has the Lincoln been stuck out there for nearly nine months without a port of call in the Middle East? Because when Trump and Pete Hegseth launched their stupid illegal war against Iran, Iran quickly retaliated by bombing the Navy base in Bahrain to smithereens. Bahrain had been the Navy’s key logistics hub for decades. It was the Lincoln’s intended port. The next closest port beyond the range of Iran’s missiles is 2,200 miles away – too far for the Lincoln, given its war mission.

Did Trump and Hegseth not anticipate bombing Iran might prompt Iran to target American ports in the region? Nope. And why was Bahrain so ill-defended? Because the 7 P’s truism was too heavy a lift for the inept regime that 77 million voters entrusted with decisions of life and death. As one retired Navy veteran said on social media the other day, “No safe harbor, no supplies…This is an epic failure on the part of the jackass at the helm of the Pentagon and the coward currently desecrating the people’s house.”

Worse yet is the MAGA cult’s predictable reaction to the Lincoln’s plight. Cultists have been excoriating crew members who’ve had the audacity to highlight the deteriorating conditions. Fox News host Joey Jones taunted them: “How weak are you?”

Trump cultists worship the military from afar, but as soon as service members speak up in ways that may embarrass the cult leader, suddenly the complainants are either liars or wimps who need to suck it up. No surprise there, because Trump has long given them permission to disrespect or exploit our people in uniform when the whim strikes.

It’s a blessing Eisenhower left us long before Trump’s ignominious ascent. How appalled he would be. He once said, “War is a grim, cruel business, a business justified only as a means of sustaining the forces of good against those of evil,” and at least he knew which side was good. When Trump was told in 2018 about a key World War I battle, he reportedly asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?”

Eisenhower also said, “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” Rest assured he would loathe a bone spurs charlatan who launches a war with no clue how to win it, who toys with service members’ lives after flunking even the most basic lesson of logistics.

We’re with you, Ike. If only you were with us today.

Copyright 2026 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes the Subject to Change newsletter. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com

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Widespread denial accompanied the public exposure of Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long sexual abuse and trafficking of girls and women.

After the U.S. Justice Department released millions of case documents on Epstein in January 2026, billionaires, politicians, heads of state and academics proclaimed their ignorance of Epstein’s global network of sexual exploitation.

Why would so many intelligent and powerful people repeatedly trumpet their lack of awareness, especially after Epstein’s 2008 plea agreement to underage prostitution charges?

And what about all of Epstein’s staffers and business associates who kept quiet about the suspicious behavior they observed?

As a human rights researcher who has conducted genocide research on four continents, I think denials of human rights atrocities can help people understand the denial of crimes like child sexual abuse and trafficking.

Avoiding accountability for atrocities requires two types of denial: by the perpetrator and by the community. It’s easy to understand why mass murderers and child rapists deny their horrific actions. More perplexing is why bystanders, law enforcement, colleagues, family and institutions claim ignorance.

Society understands that staying quiet after witnessing impermissible crimes is a form of complicity. Bystanders are likely to deny an atrocity when acknowledging it requires action, both morally and legally.

As sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel has noted: “Like silence, denial involves active avoidance. Rather than simply failing to notice something, it entails a deliberate effort to refrain from noticing it.”

US and international law

A network of international and domestic laws considers certain crimes so horrific that there are no extenuating circumstances for committing them. Other laws stipulate that everyday observers of certain crimes have a legal responsibility to report them and to protect victims if possible.

The 1987 United Nations convention against torture emphasizes: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war … may be invoked as a justification of torture.” And the 1948 U.N. genocide convention holds all signatory nations responsible for their inaction against genocide.

In the United States, the 1974 Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act mandates that states have provisions requiring certain people – doctors, teachers, clergy and law enforcement – to report known or suspected cases of child abuse.

About a quarter of states go further and stipulate that “all persons who have cause to suspect that any juvenile is abused, neglected, or dependent or has died as the result of maltreatment shall report” to the authorities.

Perpetrator denial

In the context of government human rights abuses, sociologist Stanley Cohen in 2001 classified denial into three strategies: literal, interpretive and implicatory.

With literal denial, Cohen wrote, the perpetrator simply claims the event never happened. If successful, this form of denial makes the problem disappear.

During the U.S. war on terror after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, human rights groups accused the George W. Bush government of torturing detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

Applying Cohen’s typology illuminates how the Bush administration cycled through strategies of denial, beginning with literal denial. Responding to evidence of U.S. torture of detainees in Iraq in 2006, Bush denied the accusations: “This country doesn’t torture; we’re not going to torture.”

After the failure of literal denial, the Justice Department employed interpretive denial, which admits to something having taken place, just not something that rises to the level of a crime. The DOJ redefined torture and referred to acts such as waterboarding – legally classified as torture – as “enhanced interrogation methods.”

Following his guilty plea to soliciting prostitution from a 14-year-old, Epstein used interpretive denial by comparing the severity of his crime to shoplifting: “I’m not a sexual predator,” he said. “I’m an ‘offender.’ It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.”

When interpretive denial fails, perpetrators turn to what Cohen calls implicatory denial. It accepts the facts – torture of detainees, forced expulsions, mass killings – but denies the psychological or moral ramifications that follow.

In his memoirs, Bush did not deny the use of torture; he denied the immorality of the torture. “The choice between security and values was real,” he wrote.

Community denial

Research that I’m currently conducting revises Cohen’s typology to understand why bystanders to crimes like Epstein’s don a veil of ignorance.

Denial of child sexual abuse occurs within a community – a citizenry, a family, a congregation. The community establishes the parameters of morality, the relative power of each member, and which actions constitute crimes.

In cases where accepting the truth has a high communal cost – a reordering of the power structure, more egalitarian institutions, eradication of prejudice or social disgrace – many people calculate that the cost of justice is not worth reordering the structure of privilege from which they benefit.

In the case of institutional abuse, powerful groups, such as the Catholic Church, prioritized the reputation of the institution over the victims.

Much like perpetrators, a community adheres to its preferred version of reality by denying abuse at the literal, interpretive and implicatory levels.

With literal denial, bystanders negate the experience of one particular child. This is so prevalent among mothers of incest victims that the legal community is exploring criminally charging the mothers who fail to protect their children.

Community interpretive denial tells the victim they did not experience what they thought they experienced. This occurred repeatedly for many victims of Larry Nassar, a former physician who sexually assaulted hundreds of gymnasts in the guise of medical treatment.

Gymnast Larissa Boyce described what happened when the then-16-year-old reported Nassar’s abuse to her coach. “She just couldn’t believe that was happening. She said I must be misunderstanding what was going on.”

Community implicatory denial negates the moral implications of the atrocity by blaming the victim for the perpetrator’s actions.

During the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal that erupted in the late 1980s, Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland admitted that sexual activity had taken place between some of his priests and their young parishioners, but he dismissed the notion that the priests were entirely to blame.

“Sometimes not all adolescent victims are so ‘innocent,’” he told The Catholic Herald in 1988. “Some can be sexually very active and aggressive and often quite streetwise.”

Communities blinded by the perpetrator’s stethoscope, billion dollars, clerical collar or Ivy League degree often refuse to acknowledge the stereotypes that protect privileged predators.

And that willful ignorance of child sexual abuse equals complicity. Through denial, members thus absolve themselves for inaction in the face of atrocity.

Sarah K Lischer, Associate Professor Politics and International Affairs, Wake Forest University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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In early August, Capital One bank asserted in court that it had debanked accounts tied to Donald Trump businesses in 2021 because of account activity that triggered internal money laundering alerts. JPMorgan Chase had also closed Trump business accounts.

Less than two weeks later, the U.S. Department of the Treasury finalized a rule that exempted domestic persons from filing the documents that helped law enforcement identify illegal financial activity such as money laundering, human trafficking, terrorist financing, drug distribution and sanctions evasion.

That information had heretofore been opaque until Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA, 2021) which amended the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

President Trump endorsed the measure in 2019.

Now Trump has gutted the transparency tools designed to assist the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA) while suing banks over the very AML infrastructure that banks relied upon to flag his accounts.

Coincidence? R-i-g-h-t. Does anyone believe in coincidence with this White House?

Banks toe the line with AMLA.

President Trump began ragging about anti-money laundering (AML) efforts early in his second term, about four years after his debanking had occurred. At the January 2025 World Economic Forum, Trump accused Bank of America and CEO Brian Moynihan of debanking conservatives in general.

In response, a Bank of America spokesperson noted that the company was “required to follow extensive government rules and regulations that sometimes result in decisions to exit client relationships.” In other words, things that look suspicious after months of investigation can lead to a bank saying goodbye to a customer.

That’s also similar to what Capital One and JPMorgan Chase told reporters.

However, by August 2025, Trump was claiming personal harm, saying “they [banks] totally discriminate against — I think me maybe even more — but they discriminated against many conservatives.”

Then on August 7, 2025, Trump issued an executive order titled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans.” However, Nick Anthony, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, told The Dispatch, “Frankly, I don’t find the argument that conservatives and Christians are being debanked en masse persuasive simply because we’re not seeing it.”

Financial institutions are beholden to the Department of the Treasury. “If a financial institution misses anything that’s suspicious, they can be held on the hook for that, they can get fined for that, and we see that happen,” Anthony told The Dispatch. “[F]inancial institutions are generally very risk averse when it comes to this type of thing.”

True to form, massive lawsuits.

Trump sued Capital One in March 2025 and JPMorgan Chase in January 2026. In both cases, he claims that the banks ended their relationship with him because of politics. Both banks have pointed to internal processes. Capital One cited BSA-mandated reviews designed to ferret out money laundering. The CTA is the section of the BSA that Congress added specifically to close the shell-company loophole in the AML framework. JPMorgan Chase told reporters it closes accounts that “create legal or regulatory risk.”

Money laundering is big business. The U.N. estimates that annual global money laundering is $800 billion – $2 trillion, 2-5% of global GDP. As much as $300 billion runs through the U.S. That’s why then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) called CTA “the most significant anti-corruption and money laundering law in decades.”

Weeks after his own bank invoked BSA compliance as its defense, Trump’s Treasury Department gave the CTA a radical makeover.

The CTA was designed to make a BSA compliance review more effective. Instead of banks having to go through hoops to try to identify owners in shell companies, the CTA required shell companies to provide that information to the government. The data reside with Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

What is a shell company? Also known as a paper company, it has “no or nominal business operations and few or no assets.” The business form is often used for its ability to shield the identity of the owner(s). Shell companies may have legitimate purposes but are also used to perpetuate financial fraud.

The 2026 rule repeals the requirement that domestic companies and persons (which includes associations) must identify a “beneficial owner” (true owner), defined as an individual “who exercises substantial control over an entity” or owns/controls at least 25% of its ownership interests. Only some foreigners will be considered “beneficial owners” who are required to report to FinCEN.

Moreover, the new rule deletes ownership information that was already on file if Treasury “reasonably believes” the owner is a U.S. person. As former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), a lead sponsor of CTA, said on X:

“Treasury deleting the beneficial ownership info it already gathered is utterly crazy. This database was not public — it was just for law enforcement to use in investigating crimes. It’s like Trump ordering the deletion of the FBI’s fingerprint database.”

If Rubio was right in his claim about CTA, this rule has effectively gutted “the most significant anti-corruption and money laundering law in decades.” The law remains on the books. The regulation simply ignores its directive to the executive branch.

That means the next time there is a Trump-like dispute among banks and clients over ‘was this AML or politics,’ there will be a lot less government infrastructure to test the arguments against.

It’s not just business that’s affected.

This repeal, however, has effects beyond corporations or family businesses. The CTA was widely supported by both parties, and indirectly it potentially increased transparency in money invested in domestic politics, which is verboten to foreign individuals and entities.

SuperPACs are a straightforward way for individuals and organizations to work around the caps on individual donations to candidates. SuperPACs are supposed to act independently of candidates and can accept money from shell corporations that successfully disguise the person behind the check.

In 2024, dark money hit about $2 billion in federal races, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Dark money is defined here as groups that do not disclose their donors. SuperPACs in 2024 “had affiliated dark money groups that provided eight- or nine-figure sums.” If those groups were shell entities, law enforcement could trace the owners if it had justification.

Neither you nor I can find out who donated the funds and neither can the Federal Election Commission. But with the reporting requirements for shell companies that CTA imposed, those donor identities can become knowable by those who can access FinCEN with reasonable cause. It also means that foreign money might be traced when hidden by a domestic shell company.

Trump’s repeal of the rule implementing CTA isn’t just bad for law enforcement, it’s bad for democracy.

Follow the money? Not anymore.

This essay first appeared at Substack.

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Is Tucker Carlson a threat to Donald Trump and the Republican Party?

The answer may surprise both Carlson’s supporters and Trump’s defenders.

The real question isn’t whether Tucker Carlson can build a successful third party or become president. He probably can’t. Third parties have a miserable track record in American politics, and Carlson has shown little interest in the nuts and bolts of organizing one.

But he doesn’t have to win to become a serious problem for Donald Trump and Republicans.

Carlson has become one of Trump’s most relentless conservative critics. Day after day, he posts videos speaking directly to millions of viewers, arguing that the Trump administration has betrayed the America First movement. Much of his criticism centers on foreign policy, particularly Israel and America’s role overseas, but it has broadened into a wider indictment of Trump’s leadership.

Then came one of the most unexpected moments in recent political media: Carlson sat down for a lengthy interview with Hunter Biden. The interview wasn’t an endorsement of Biden. It was something perhaps more significant. Carlson demonstrated a willingness to step outside the traditional Republican-versus-Democrat script in search of common ground.

Whether one agrees with Carlson or not, it signaled he’s trying to build something different from simply being another conservative commentator.

The Trump camp reportedly views Carlson as something of a political fly – more of an annoyance than a genuine threat. That may prove to be true.

Or it may prove to be a dangerous miscalculation.

Carlson isn’t trying to persuade Democrats or even political moderates. Most of those voters are unlikely to follow him. His audience is overwhelmingly conservative, populist and high skeptical of the Republican establishment.

In other words, he is fishing in Trump’s pond. That’s what makes this different.

Suppose Carlson convinces only a small percentage of loyal Republican voters that Trump and today’s GOP have abandoned the principles they once claimed to represent. Those voters don’t have to switch parties. They don’t even have to vote Democratic.

They can simply stay home. Or vote for a third-party candidate. Or leave the top of the ballot blank. In a closely divided nation, that can be enough.

American elections are often decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of states and congressional districts. A movement that peels away just two or three percent of reliable Republican voters could determine control of Congress — or even the White House.

History offers a reminder.

Ross Perot never came close to becoming president in 1992, yet his independent campaign reshaped the election. Political scientists still debate exactly how much he affected George H. W. Bush’s defeat, but almost no one disputes that a well-known outsider can dramatically alter the electoral landscape without winning.

Carlson may be attempting something similar on the right.

Can he succeed? Having a massive online audience isn’t the same as building a political organization. Donald Trump (a.k.a “Teflon Don”) has repeatedly demonstrated an extraordinary hold over Republican voters, surviving controversies that would have ended almost any other political career.

Carlson could discover criticizing Trump is far easier than persuading Trump’s supporters to abandon him.

But dismissing Carlson because he is unlikely to become president misses the point.

The greatest danger he poses is not leading a victorious third party. It is encouraging enough disillusioned MAGA voters to conclude that neither Trump nor the Republican Party deserves their support.

That’s a much lower bar.

And if Tucker Carlson clears it, he won’t have to win a single election to help Republicans lose one.

The Trump team may be right that Tucker Carlson will never become president. They could be wrong if they think that’s the only way he can hurt them.

In American politics, sometimes the most dangerous opponent isn’t the one who wins. It’s the one who convinces just enough of your own supporters to walk away.

Copyright 2026 Joe Gandelman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

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