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.

Reviewing Trump's surrender agreement with Iran

If this is the real agreement, there are a lot of big deal terms in the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement. The ones that really jump out at me:

• The agreement says that it is binding on the U.S. and "their allies in the current war" (i.e. Israel) (Para. 1)
• The agreement requires "an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon" (Para. 1)
• The agreement requires that the parties don't just stop shooting at each other but also "refrain from the threat" of force as well. (Para. 1) Trump arguably violated that part of the agreement this morning.
• The U.S. commits to withdrawing its forces "from the surrounding area" within 30 days of signing. (para. 4) I'm not sure what the "surrounding area" means, but the U.S. has permanent bases in Turkey, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, and Qatar that are all arguably in the "surrounding area." It is hard to believe that the U.S. agreed to dismantle any of those bases (the Turkish bases are really NATO bases) so maybe this just means the U.S. will withdraw some battleships from the Persian Gulf. But again, the U.S. has regularly had battleships in the Persian Gulf (the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is in Bahrain). I don't know how to read this without thinking it might mean a draw down of U.S. forces from the region from what they had before the war with Iran. At the same time, I can't believe the U.S. actually agreed to that.
• Immediately after signing, Iran gets all U.S. sanctions over the sale of its oil removed, including related limitations on its "banking, insurance, transportation, and the like." (para. 10) If I am understanding this correctly, this is a huge concession to Iran allowing it to sell oil completely sanction free for the first time in decades. This is especially good for Iran because it applies "immediately" when oil prices are still high from Strait of Hormuz's closure before the effects of the agreement fully change the market price.
• The U.S. is also committing to and all sanctions against Iran, both "primary and secondary" in the final agreement (which may never happen) (para. 7)
• The agreement states that "frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available." (para. 11) While it does not say this will happen "immediately" upon signing (like some other provisions do), it also does not talk about any delay before this provision applies so it seems to mean it will happen right away. This is another massive concession to Iran. The U.S. is holding approximately $2 billion is Iranian assets, as well as real estate worth approximately $50 million. Most of these assets have been frozen since the Iranian revolution in 1979 and Iran has never fully recovered control of those assets, even under the Obama nuclear deal with Iran. Plus there are a total of between $100 billion and $120 billion in frozen assets in the rest of the world, mostly because of U.S. pressure and UN security council resolutions. Because the agreement says it "will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council" (para. 14) that could mean that the Iran will regain control of all of its assets for the first time since the current regime took control of the country.
• In addition to those amounts, Iran will get another $300 billion "for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran" within 60 days of signing. (para. 6) Because this is a separate paragraph from the paragraphs about unfreezing Iranian assets and sanction relief, this appears to just be a cash payment on top of all of that, essentially war reparations.
• The agreement does say that Iran "reiterates" it will never produce nuclear weapons. (para. 8) This looks like something that Iran has conceded, but it really isn't. The word "reiterates" is key. Iran has been saying it will never produce a nuclear weapon for decades. It committed to that in the JCPOA and it said it repeatedly both before and after that agreement. In the 1990s, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa declaring nuclear weapons to be contrary to Islam, which would mean that the Islamic Republic of Iran could never produce such weapons. But Iran-hawks in the U.S. and Israel simply did not believe Iran's multiple pronouncements against developing nuclear weapons. If they didn't believe Iran before, why would they believe them now? I don't see this "reiteration" as contributing anything that the world didn't already have from Iran.
• Until a final agreement is reached, Iran is allowed to maintain "the status quo" of its nuclear program. (para. 11) Which means that while all the goodies Iran (the payment of reparations, the unfreezing of assets, the end of sanctions, the removal of U.S. forces) will happen either immediately or within 60 days, they don't have to give up anything else--meaning nuclear material will not be removed from the country--until that mythical final agreement is reached, if ever.
• Iran does not even have to start negotiating the final agreement until the U.S. blockade of the Strait is removed, Iran is allowed to sell its oil without any U.S. sanctions, and its assets are unfrozen. (para. 13) In other words, Iran gets most of its goodies before they even have to discuss making any concessions to the U.S.

I don't see how anyone can see this as anything other than a complete capitulation of the Trump Administration to Iran. Iran has conceded nothing that it has not conceded before and in return for that nothing is getting an end to all U.S. sanctions, the removal of U.S. forces that threaten it, a return of its assets that the U.S. seized almost 50 years ago, and an extra $300 billion dollar payment on top of that. Also, the U.S. needs to force Israel to stop invading Lebanon somehow, with no requirement that Iran rein in Hezbollah or any of its other allied forces in the region.

Call it what is it

 This is human trafficking:

The Trump administration is preparing to deport nearly two dozen people to the Central African Republic on Thursday, including at least two Iranian women who had sought refuge in the United States, according to lawyers and a government official.

…

The migrants have no ties to the country, and it is unclear where they will live or whether they could ultimately be sent back to Iran. The U.S. government has documented significant human rights abuses in the Central African Republic, including unlawful killings, torture and arbitrary arrest and detention.

Everything the President Does Reflects the Fact that He is a Deeply Damaged Individual

 Buried in a NYT article about negotiations to end the U.S./Israel-Iran War:

Mr. Trump has told advisers he will not sign off on any deal in which the United States can be said to be giving direct cash payments to Iran. One U.S. official described this as a “public relations” challenge, acknowledging that some form of financial relief would be required for Iran. Mr. Trump has attacked President Barack Obama for years over sending “pallets of cash” to Iran to settle a decades-old financial dispute, timed after Mr. Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal.

Given that political reality, Mr. Trump’s team has been developing ideas that would involve other countries, including the Qataris, releasing funds to the Iranians — so that the U.S. could say it did not replenish the coffers of Iran’s regime. But it is not clear whether that political sleight-of-hand would quiet the many critics who are already noting that while Mr. Obama shipped $1.7 billion to Iran, Mr. Trump is looking at potentially unfreezing many times that amount.

So President Deals hasn't been able to reach an agreement with Iran because, while he is willing to pay Iran reparations for the illegal war, he needs to launder the money through a third country to make it look like he isn't paying Iran because that is too much like what the black guy did.

Trump's primary success might be a sign of upcoming failure

 Lots of commentary has been made about how many Republicans who crossed Trump (even if just occasionally) are losing their primaries to Trump-endorsed candidates. This has been portrayed as a show of strength. And I suppose it is in the sense that Trump has an increasingly iron grip over his own party.

But there is another way to look at this. Trump's support among the general public is in free fall. While Trump supporters remain loyal, the number of people who call themselves Trump supporters is going down. And since the modern Republican Party is Trump's party those who are not 100% on board are leaving the GOP.

So we have a shrinking party, with people leaving because they are disappointed in Trump. Which means that those who don't leave are the Trump loyalist who are left. It's a shrinking pool, but only the people who are still in the pool can vote in the GOP primary.

In other words, maybe Trump's recent primary victories is more of a reflection of the Republican party's overall loss with the total population. As the party shrinks the original coalition of MAGA plus "mainstream Republicans" (i.e. Republicans who disagree with Trump 1% of the time) starts to shed the mainstream Republicans. That leaves only the MAGA crowd who are going to listen to Trump when he tells them to slay his enemies in the primary. But that doesn't mean the party is strong, or that is will do well when the overall population votes. The Republicans who no longer feel at home in the party may stay home in the next election or cast a protest vote.

This is just my hypothesis. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it is just wishful thinking. But there are two clear trends: Trump's falling approval with the overall pubic, and Trump's better success at removing disloyal GOPers in the primary than he has had in the past. My hypothesis can at least explain both.

ICE are human traffickers

Forcibly sending people to a country other than their home country is not "deportation", it is trafficking.

Finally a half-assed Trump brain fart I can get behind

Trump has apparently told Fox News' John Roberts that he is "seriously considering" making Venezuela the 51st State. Never mind that is not something a President has the power to do, or all the difficult questions the "U.S. State of Venezuela" would raise, I am hoping Trump pushes this plan just because it would give Stephen Miller a heart attack.

Where is this all going?

 So are we just going to have an almost daily string of bullshit announcements that a peace deal with Iran is right around the corner, interspersed with bombings and exchange of fire around the Persian Gulf, while the Straits of Hormuz remains mostly closed until the global economic fallout hits the U.S. economy hard enough for Trump to completely give up?

It seems to me that is where this is going, mostly because Trump is too emotionally fragile to admit that attacking Iran was a massive mistake. So he is going to do everything he can to deny it and pretend that his imaginary master dealmaking will rescue us until it becomes undeniable that it can't.

Clear Majority

55% of the American public supports impeaching President Trump, a clear majority. With 45% saying they "strongly" support impeachment. And 88% of all Democrats favor impeachment. So why isn't every Democratic candidate singing the impeachment song?

Update: Platner has real issues, don't get me wrong. But he is openly talking about impeachment, and if anything that seems to be boosting his campaign. So why isn't everyone running doing this?

Being led by a moron makes ending this war so much harder

Our greedy dumbass of a President doesn't understand that publicly stating that the U.S. wants to "take Iran's oil" is going to make it impossible for anyone leading Iran to give Trump an exit ramp from this war. They now have every incentive to keep fighting, and they have a perfect way to rally the Iranian people behind them.

Loser President is Losing his War

 This is probably the best explanation I have seen explaining why the U.S. is fucked in Iran right now.

The President openly admits committing an impeachable offense

Trump on Iranian leaders: "They're gonna make a deal. They did something yesterday that was amazing actually. They gave us a present, and it arrived today. It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. I'm not gonna tell you what that present is but it was very significant prize"

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 24, 2026 at 2:47 PM

I realize that no one pays attention to this anymore, but it is worth noting that under the emoluments clause of the constitution, Trump is not permitted to accept gifts from foreign governments or foreign leaders without first getting approval from Congress.

On the other hand: It's pretty likely that there is no "big present" and Trump is either making up or hallucinating all of this. In that case it would be more of a 25th Amendment issue than an emoluments issue.

(Via Atrios)

ICE in airports is really stupid political move for Trump

Sending ICE officers to the airport because of long lines at security checkpoints is a hilariously bad idea. When Trump announced the ICE deployment via Truth Social over the weekend, people immediately wondered what exactly ICE could do to address the problem. It did not seem like he was saying that ICE personnel would help screen passengers (ICE are not trained on any of the equipment that TSA uses to screen passengers). So what would they be doing other than standing around and making crowded airports even more crowded?

Apparently yes, that is exactly what they are doing.

But the thing that makes Trump's decision to assign ICE to airports so ridiculous is that is is an astoundingly bad political move for Trump, for at least these reasons:

1. ICE is really unpopular. If you are the President and want to bolster support for your go-to thuggish organization, having them go to where people are really frustrated and then stand there and do nothing to relieve the frustration is just going to make people hate them more.
2. It links ICE to TSA funding. The whole reason that TSA funding has not passed is because the Democrats will only pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security (which includes the TSA) if the funding bill includes legal restrictions on ICE. Even though ICE is really unpopular, there is some risk to that strategy because the Administration can argue that because ICE funding had already passed last year, Democrats' condition for funding the TSA had nothing to do with that organization. By sending ICE to "assist" the TSA, Trump is making an ICE-TSA connection that makes the funding conditions seem to make more sense.
3. It undermines the Administration's argument that ICE officers must wear masks. Since Trump regained the presidency, ICE agents started wearing masks when they made their immigration arrests. Masked law enforcement officers is associated with human rights violations across the world. But the Trump Administration has argued it is necessary to make sure that ICE agents don't get doxxed. (Meaning publicly identified. That is not really what "doxxing" means, but that is what the Administration now claims doxxing is). The masking of ICE agents is a big deal. A ban on their masks is one of the conditions that Democrats have attached to their Homeland Security funding bills. And yet, ICE agents are not wearing masks in the airport. So now it is pretty clear that the Administration doesn't care if ICE officers can be publicly identified. They just don't want them to be publicly identified when they are abusing the civil rights of immigrants and minorities on the streets, which makes Democrats' condition for DHS funding seem a whole lot more reasonable.
4. It will help groups identify ICE officers who have committed illegal acts and human rights violations. A bunch of groups I follow have urged people to photograph unmasked ICE agents in airports and to send the photos to groups who are trying to identify the perpetrators of abusive conduct by masked agents. In other words, this deployment is helping Trump's opponents to build a database of ICE agents which will help those groups identify individuals who commit human rights abuses at other places, the very conduct the Trump Administration is trying to hide by having them wear masks in the first place.
5. Sending ICE to chaotic airports reinforces the idea that ICE is an agent of chaos not law and order.
6. It wastes ICE's time and money. Every ICE officer standing around doing nothing in an airport hallway is one less officer who can raid someone's home or snatch them from a car. This deployment also costs money which will help spend down the obscene budget that Congress passed for ICE last year. Very few undocumented people ever fly. So this might slow down the Steve Miller ethnic cleansing program, at least by a little bit.

Those are the things that immediately come to mind for me. I am sure there are more.

My amateur art critic view of the 2 most recent Iranian flags

I'm making no comment at all on which regime I like better, rule under the Shah or the current Shia Theocracy (short answer: they both suck), but on purely aesthetic grounds, I think the current official flag of Iran looks better than the one with the lion.

(Iranian flag: 1907-1980)

(Iranian flag 1980-present)

The lion and sun, evoking ancient Persia, in the top flag is not bad. But I really think it is exceeded by the cleverness of the bottom flag. I like how they made a hyper-stylized version of "Allah" look like a tulip in the center of the current flag. I also like how the border between the two colors looks like some kind of complex embroidery, but is really the Takbir written in Kufic script over and over. I'm also a firm believer that flags tend to be worse when they go beyond three colors. They could have made the Allah/Tulip gold, like the lion and sun were in the prior flag. But using one of the basic tricolors from the flag is just a better choice. (I'm not sure why they made the center Allah red and not green though).

Again, the post-revolutionary regime in Iran is awful. But I think their design choices were more clever.