At 250, the American Dream Is Alive and Well

Trump-Linked Firm’s Fees for Organizing Freedom 250 Events Remain Secret

Event Strategies, Inc., a longtime vendor to President Trump’s campaigns, is organizing the Great American State Fair and the July 4 celebrations.

Most Supreme Court rulings are secretive votes with little justification

The Supreme Court is deciding more consequential rulings than ever before in secret

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce fans gather for glimpse of top secret wedding

Superfans and sleuths appear to have their hunches confirmed on Friday, as dozens of black cars dropped off elegantly dressed guests outside of Madison Square Garden in New York City. The wedding bash is expected to last into Saturday morning.

Republicans have a 'dirty little secret' that will make Trump furious

As President Donald Trump rages over his party’s inability to pass his much-demanded SAVE America Act, Politico reports that congressional Republicans have a “dirty little secret”: many of them don’t want to pass it at all. According to insiders, the “inconvenient truth” is that “it can’t even pass the House — at least not the version Trump is pushing.”According to Politico, “Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged as much this week, appearing to concede he does not have the votes to move forward with a drastic crackdown on mailed ballots that Trump has repeatedly demanded this year.” Instead, GOP House leaders are reverting to an older version of the bill that focuses on proof of citizenship while otherwise letting states more or less run elections as they please. “We all do” want to give Trump what he wants, said Johnson, but a ban on mail-in ballots “is a very difficult thing to regulate at the federal level, because different states do it differently.” “I’m going to do everything I can with the vote tallies that we have,” he added.Hardline conservatives have pushed for an expanded version of the bill, which in addition to the mailed ballot ban would include Trump’s demand for provisions banning transgender people from playing women’s sports, as well as a prohibition on gender-affirming surgery for minors. But Johnson has continued to press a narrower version he thinks is more likely to pass.As Politico explains, “The lack of widespread GOP support for upending the voting systems in states like Arizona, Florida and Alaska is an open secret on Capitol Hill, where many Republicans credit mailed ballots with helping them win tight races.”“Listen, absentee ballots are not a bad thing historically as long as you put some kind of structure on it,” said Representative Mark Amodei (R-NV). “Just have some commonsensical safeguards for when it has to be postmarked by.” Last week, after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s attempt to limit mail-in ballots via executive order, Amodei said he was happy with the outcome, asserting, “It says mail-in voting in and of itself is not evil. There ought to be some mechanism for you to do that.”Outspoken SAVE Act supporter Representative Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) wants the bill to pass in some form, but worries how a ban on mail-in ballots would affect states with limited polling places, saying, “We’re a rural state. I understand the concerns about mail-in voting… but I think the solution that I’m in favor of is restricting it and creating these commonsense reforms for it.” Johnson seconded her concerns about rural voters, admitting that in some states it can be “very difficult to get to a ballot box, and so they use mail-in ballots very effectively, and I think securely, and that’s something that has to be contended with.”Unsurprisingly, he tailored his criticism of mail-in ballots to target a few states in particular, claiming, “There are other states that do it well, and without a problem. Our concerns are with the handful, five or six blue states, who abuse this, and California is the avatar for this, because it is so ridiculous.”Critics of the president’s attacks on mail-in voting and his demands for other electoral restrictions argue that the SAVE Act will disenfranchise millions of voters. What’s more, as a number of GOP insiders have pointed out, the bill could backfire for Republicans, as conservative voters are less likely to have the appropriate ID and more likely to depend on mail-in ballots.

Trump's 'well unified' party isn't so unified —and it's costing the GOP everything

President Donald Trump likes to boast that he has a “well unified” Republican Party, and even that he is so influential he rather than Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) is the true Speaker of the House of Representatives. Yet according to a respected political analyst, the evidence is that neither Trump nor Johnson can keep the 218 Republicans in sufficient line to get anything done against the 212 Democrats who oppose them.“GOP leaders intended to focus this week on advancing an annual must-pass defense policy bill, called the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, and a key spending bill that funds the State Department, among other things,” reported MS NOW’s Steve Benen on Wednesday. “More than a dozen House Republicans, however, decided they didn’t care for that plan, with some arguing the chamber should do nothing but focus on Trump’s voter-suppression proposal, which the White House has labeled the SAVE America Act, as others pointed to party leaders’ promise of a vote on an anti-immigration bill before the July 4 recess.”He added, “The House speaker tried to legislate anyway, hoping enough of his members would stick together and follow his lead. That didn’t go well: 13 GOP members revolted and voted with Democrats on a key procedural vote, making Johnson look weak and leaving him with little choice but to start the chamber’s holiday break early.”Johnson has gone out of his way to support Trump whenever possible, from vowing to keep Republicans in control of the House so Trump will not face investigations from Democrats to soothing his rage at losing in the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship case by suggesting a Constitutional amendment to get around that problem. Yet he was unable to actually accomplish anything in the lead-up to the July 4th holiday season.“For his part, Trump has made at least tacit efforts to curb these GOP rebellions, declaring by way of his social media platform last week, ‘House Republicans should unify, and stop voting down ‘Rules’ or, threatening to do so. … No more grandstanding, please!’” Benen reported. “The trouble is, the far-right members ignoring the speaker’s wishes (and the president’s rhetorical sops) are doing so in order to do the president’s bidding and champion his legislative priority.”He concluded, “But the underlying problem is the unavoidable fact that Johnson is simply too weak to legislate with such a small majority. Bipartisan majorities have already gone around him with more successful discharge petitions than anyone has seen in generations, and the Louisiana Republican’s latest failures this week reinforce perceptions that he just isn’t in control of the House floor he ostensibly leads.”

‘Major blow’: Clinton-appointed judge nixes Trump’s executive order regarding Postal Service

Election integrity plan found to violate deal post office made with NAACP

Federal judge blocks Postal Service from carrying out Trump mail-in ballot order

A federal judge blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing President Donald Trump's executive order on mail-in ballots nationwide, citing a 2020 agreement.