Will Trump end virtually all voting in two States? No one bothers to look into it

I've mentioned this issue before, but as Trump keeps trying various ways to stop mail ballots (whether through the latest edition of the SAVE Act or through Trump's executive order to block mail ballots from being delivered in states that won't give his administration full access to their voter rolls) no one is talking about the fact that two states vote almost entirely by mail: Washington and Oregon. If vote by mail ends, or even is severely restricted to just members of the military etc., then those two states would not be able to hold anything resembling an election in November.

Unless I'm missing something? That is possible. It is hard to figure out what the effects of, for example, the SAVE Act would be. There have been several different versions, and our national press is chronically allergic to explaining policy. A ton of ink is spilled over whether there are votes to break the filibuster, or machinations to attach the SAVE Act to some must-pass budgetary bill. But almost none of them ever get into the weeds to explain what the Act would do if it was passed.

The Fantasy Nuclear Deal with KSA

Giving the Saudi's nuclear technology is a terrible idea, IMHO. Biden was willing to give it to them, but only if the deal includes the inspection regime to make sure the commercial nuclear program was not used to make nuclear weapons, like the regime that Obama required when he entered into a deal to share nuclear technology with the UAE. Biden also insisted that the Saudis recognize Israel as a precondition to any nuclear deal. The Saudis would not do it, particularly after Israel's brutal invasion of Gaza made diplomatic recognition even more politically toxic in the Arab world. But even if Biden had gotten UAE-style inspections and recognition of Israel out of the deal, I still don't think it would be worth it. No inspection regime is perfect, and once the nuclear door is opened, you can't really close it again.

Trump has now entered into a deal to share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia. How did our deal-making president reach an agreement after Biden couldn't? He dropped all the conditions that Biden insisted upon and gave the Saudis everything they wanted without much in return. No inspection regime (in fact, the deal seems to be crafted to prevent UN inspections from happening) and no recognition of Israel. Art of the deal!

Of course, since the tentative deal came out yesterday, including how little the U.S. got in return, a backlash is brewing in Congress and commentators, including people on the right. So now Trump is claiming that the deal includes a requirement that Saudi Arabia join the Abrahamic Accords (i.e. recognize Israel). But the earlier reports said that wasn't a requirement! What gives?

It is almost certainly the usual phenomenon. Trump can't handle criticism from anyone on his own side, so he is probably lying about the recognize Israel condition to the deal. If the administration now tries to slip that in the final deal, the Saudis won't sign, which will kill the deal (which is good!) But it is also possible that recognition of Israel won't be in the actual agreement, the Saudis will sign and won't recognize Israel while Trump just insists that they will or have.

ADDING:

The (terrible) deal was announced and signed, now Trump wants to add a condition after the fact that Saudi has been explicitly rejecting for years and, what, hoping they won’t notice? Trying to regain Saudi confidence after Iran war debacle was likely the point of the deal, and this ain’t that.

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— Abu Aardvark (@abuaardvark.bsky.social) July 23, 2026 at 1:12 PM

ADDING (a second time):

Typical.

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— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.onestnetwork.com) July 23, 2026 at 12:41 PM

Maybe this is "too political" too

When Trump gives his speech tonight airing whatever election conspiracy passes through his dementia-addled brain, remember that the TV networks don't have to broadcast the speech at all. They have options. They can just do what they did with President Biden when he tried to warn the country about Trump's fascism.

"Cut off trade with Spain"

It's interesting to watch how many news sources reported that President Dementia ordered a halt to all trade with Spain without mentioning that Trump has no power to do that.

While people talk about "U.S. trade with Spain" almost all of that trade is between individuals or businesses in the two countries, not the governments. A company importing olive oil from Spain to be sold in U.S. grocery stores is engaging in "U.S. trade with Spain." Trump can make things more bureaucratically difficult for importers or exporters to that country (whether those difficulties are legal is a different matter, this administration breaks the law constantly) but that would not stop all trade. He could try to impose extra tariffs on Spain, but thanks to last February's Supreme Court decision, it is not clear if those tariffs would ever go into effect.

Trump could try to get Congress to pass sanctions on Spain, but again, that's not something that he could do himself, and Congress is likely to ignore him because, um, why are we doing this?

Kudos to the NYT who at least tried to look into the practical question of what cutting off trade with Spain would mean.

Tesla is worried about liability for its self-driving feature

True story: Late last year I got a speeding ticket. When the officer issued the citation to me, he said I should contest it even though we both knew I was speeding. He told me if I contested it, because I did not have any real record, the traffic court judge would reduce it to a warning which would prevent me from getting any points on my license.

So I contested it. That is what the officer told me to do. I got a hearing date, and then notice that the traffic court office was under construction so they gave me a new date with a new address for the hearing. I went to the hearing in mid-March. But I accidentally grabbed the wrong hearing notice so I went to the old court address not the one on the revised hearing notice. I ended up in a construction site. Luckily there were signs giving the new address and it was only a mile down the road.

As I was returning to my car, someone else pulled up and got out of another car. He was in a suit, dressed for court like I was. I told him about the new address, and we drove in a convoy to the correct courtroom. Once we got there we had to wait for our cases to be called. I asked him if he was  a lawyer, yes he was. He asked me the same, and I told him "yes, but today I am pro se, this is my personal speeding ticket." I asked him if he was also representing himself (he did not have a client with him nor did he seem to be looking for anyone). "No," he said, "I represent Tesla."

This was a teeny-tiny court, the county municipal court-traffic division, pretty much the lowest court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The courtroom itself was just an office building in a strip mall. No one but lawyers were dressed up, and instead of prosecutors, local police officers "prosecuted" the cases themselves.

A case was called before mine, when I was still waiting. The Tesla lawyer jumped up and went into the courtroom. Without anyone to chat with, I went in too so I could watch. The case was about a woman who got  a ticket for reckless driving. She claimed she had her Tesla in driverless mode when it happened and that the car suddenly veered off and hit a pole on the side of the road. An officer happened to see it, and cited her for what looked like reckless driving. She had a lawyer, not the Tesla lawyer. The Tesla lawyer sat behind them, behind the gate that separated the parties to the case and the observers. But he sat in the first row of the observer section. The woman's lawyer would sometimes lean back over the gate so the Tesla lawyer could whisper in his ear.

They ended up cutting a deal. I think that's what everyone wanted. The woman had to pay a small fine on a reduced charge without any reckless driving on her record. The Judge didn't have to make a hard call whether the woman was responsible for what the driverless system did.

And, of course, I am sure that is what the Tesla lawyer wanted. The fact that Tesla paid enough attention to the dockets of tiny courts in the suburbs of Philadelphia and then hired a lawyer to go to rinky-dink municipal court, shows that they are worried about the liability issue. But they can't dodge the issue forever. There have been crashes that were a lot more serious than a car hitting a pole at a relatively slow speed on the side of the road. Maybe this case in Texas will be the one that does it.

Pulte cannot legally fire anyone at ODNI

By law, the Director of National Intelligence is required to have "extensive national security experience." 50 U.S.C. §3032(a)(1). Before he was made Acting Director of National Intelligence, Bill Pulte had zero national security experience. By law, he is not qualified for the post. 

Which is why I hope the house-cleaning that Pulte is doing now gets challenged in Court. Every person who is fired has an argument that Pulte doesn't have the power to fire them because he is not legally permitted to be Director of National Intelligence, acting or otherwise.

The only thing tempering their malice is their incompetence

The $85 Billion in funding that Congress gave ICE last year was obscene. But one small comfort is that they will probably waste most of it.