A federal judge temporarily blocked on Friday President Donald Trump’s effort to limit the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the November mid-term elections, as ballots are going out in one state.
It is the same judge, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who blocked an earlier, related effort, ruling that the executive order Trump issued in March was likely unlawful and unconstitutional, according to NBC News.
Read the full story
Pundits on cable news keep insisting that President Trump’s economic strangulation campaign against Iran cannot work. Sanctions, they say, have never brought down a regime. They note that Iran has survived decades of economic sanctions due to weak compliance and selling discounted oil through a shadow fleet, mostly to China.
That argument misses what is happening now. After the Iranian regime rejected President Trump’s diplomatic offers—including a generous Memorandum of Understanding and the substantial financial incentives that accompanied it—he turned to a different strategy. This is not another round of paper sanctions. It is a naval blockade, backed by asset seizures and targeted strikes. It does not merely ask governments and banks to comply. It stops tankers. That is why the campaign has a realistic chance of forcing a political rupture in Tehran that sanctions alone cannot produce.
Read the full story