Quick Recap of Several News Stories

In case you missed it

By: Austin Abbring

June 29, 2026

Supreme Court hands Trump an early defeat in his attacks on mail-in voting:

While I estimate we will still face numerous attacks on mail-in voting and our election processes in general, this is a win for our democracy going into the midterms. Two Republican justices joined three liberal justices to reject the Republican effort to not allow states to count mailed ballots that arrive at election offices after election day. Even when those mailed ballots are postmarked prior to election day. Absentee voter fraud is extremely rare, and non-citizen voter fraud is even more rare, but the Republican Party led by Trump is not going to stop in its efforts to undermine our election integrity and functionality. Their efforts will disproportionately impact their own voter base, as many of their voters live in rural areas where mail-in voting is a much more viable option, and military personnel stationed overseas who are more likely to vote Republican would depend on absentee ballots. As much as I may disagree with the GOP agenda and their voters, I do not want anybody’s right to vote infringed upon or made more difficult. I want it to be as easy and accessible as possible for people to register to vote and cast their ballots on election day.

Donald Trump and Republicans can cry, complain, and fabricate as much as they want to, but they have no evidence to back their claims. This is all simply a way to suppress the vote and get the Save America Act through. An act which I believe would infringe, or at the very least be very close to infringement, upon at least two amendments of the Constitution. We must not be propagandized, and we must fight the Save America Act until its death.

Supreme Court rejects Trump’s effort to challenge the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit:

In his second defeat of the day handed down by the Supreme Court, Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the jury’s ruling in the E. Jean Carroll v Trump case has not been allowed, and any future appeal seems unlikely. The 2023 decision is upheld, and E. Jean Carroll will be awarded her $5 million civil judgment. There is a second defamation claim filed by Carroll for $83.3 million over Trump comments from the first administration that is still on appeal. If Trump would just drop this, some people may forget that we have an adjudicated rapist in the Oval Office of the White House right now. Apparently being linked to Jeffrey Epstein is not enough; Trump wants all of the bad press he can get for some odd reason. Keep shining the light on yourself there, chief; it is really paying dividends.

The Great American State Fair is a disaster:

No surprise here. Any type of right-wing “celebration” or alternative Super Bowl performance has been embarrassing during this administration. Here’s a brief inventory of the failures:

• The Kid Rock-led Super Bowl halftime show to challenge Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny’s was a flop

• Trump’s 250th military parade celebration saw sparse and unenthusiastic crowds

• The UFC cage match on the lawn of the White House, which featured Trump cryptocurrency ads (you can’t make this shit up) and was also a failure by Dana White’s Super Bowl-level viewership predictions, which came up only approximately 118 million views short

• The Freedom 250 concert series where most of the headlining acts dropped out due to partisanship concerns

You can now add the state fair to this list. Not even Fox News could salvage the literally 10s of people in attendance. Trump continues to push these patriotic ventures, but no one is willing to put up with absurd costs to enter these events, horrible planning, lack of infrastructure, and half-assed, completely partisan measures to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of our country. I would love nothing more than for a nonpartisan state fair, concert, or parade to successfully commemorate our country’s existence. I know it may be hard to believe, but I like fun. While I take serious issue with our social, economic, and military history, both domestically and abroad, and I want to see radical change, reform, and restructuring in our systems, I still love my country. I want it to work for everybody. I want everyone to live dignified lives so that they can once again feel a sense of patriotism. We do not have that with this regime, not even close.

Trump’s limited-edition passport has some problematic language:

Credit: US State Department

The Trump administration is unveiling a limited-edition passport starting July 6th, available only at in-person appointments in Washington, D.C. It is the first time a living president will be featured in a U.S. passport. I could not have picked a better president to carry that honor if I tried. This is one of many vanity projects in which Trump is placing his name and likeness on historical buildings, attempting to put it on currency, and all over the National Mall. The passport is just one item in a list that includes: a commemorative 250th anniversary gold coin featuring himself, his signature on American banknotes, an attempt to create a $250 bill with his face on it, his grotesque “Arc de Trump” mirroring the Arc de Triomphe in France, and his attempt at placing his name on the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Anything but governing, right? This is the big-ticket stuff a self-proclaimed economic populist has to juggle in a long to-do list that will never get accomplished.

While promoting this celebratory passport, Trump posted the image of the passport along with the apparent disclaimer for future passport holders: “Welcome, but be good.” While this phrase does not appear in the actual passport, it seems to suggest that the sitting U.S. president is unaware of how passports work. Only U.S. citizens, whether born or naturalized, can apply for and use a passport. He seems to be insinuating that immigrants in the citizenship process, people seeking temporary protected status, or asylum seekers receive passports and that they “must be on their best behavior” after receiving one. I’m sorry, what? Did he forget his administration has heavily rolled back temporary protected status and has effectively wiped out immigration, with several periods of net negative migration to the U.S.? Did he forget that he capped refugee admissions at a record low 7,500 before finally raising it? Even still, 6,000 refugees are white Afrikaners and 3 are from Afghanistan during this 2nd administration. That is it. I am convinced Donald Trump has zero clue as to how immigration works, the different documents that go along with it, and what the actual measures are of the different types of immigrant status that can be accounted for in this country.

South Dakota State Senator Thomas Pischke faces felonies for falsifying election documents: 

What is that old saying about every accusation being a confession? Republican State Senator Thomas Pischke is facing 2 felony counts for falsifying party nomination forms. He has been accused of creating fake signatures to move candidates forward for Republican Party positions without their knowledge. The silver lining is that he at least turned himself in to the county jail. He has repented! All shall be forgiven! Should Pischke be convicted of these felonies, he would no longer be eligible to serve the state Republican Party. The charges brought against the state senator stem from a months-long investigation in which he is suspected of 16 fraudulent signatures on committee position forms.