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Court rejects bid to open Arkansas mail voting to all

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has not made clear his view of absentee ballot excuse limits during the pandemic.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

A lawsuit seeking to require Arkansas to permit everyone to vote by mail has been dismissed after less than a month.

The state is one of 16 that requires people to claim a specific excuse in order to get an absentee ballot. An unusually argued challenge to the requirements was filed four weeks ago, long after the state's primaries but as the number of coronavirus cases was starting to surge across the South.

A state court dismissed the suit Tuesday on the grounds the plaintiffs, led by two prominent former Democratic state officials, could not possibly have been harmed by the rules. But Judge Wendell Griffen did not address their central argument.


Rather than claiming the limitations were unfair because of the pandemic, the lawsuit maintained the state is violating a ruling from its highest court 35 years ago — which declared all Arkansans have a right to decide for themselves whether to vote from home, and for any reason.

GOP Secretary of State John Thurston pushed for the dismissal. But, two days after the lawsuit was filed, he said his position about the use of absentee ballots for the November presidential election abides by the spirit of that 1985 state Supreme Court decision: Any person fearful of voting in person because of Covid-19 may legitimately attest to an "unavoidable absence" on an absentee ballot application.

The plaintiffs argued this wasn't sufficient protection for voters because elections are run by county commissions. GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson has declined to tell the public that absentee voting is effectively available to everyone this fall, although he's signaled he agrees with Thurston that fear of the virus is reason enough to be unavoidably absent from a polling place Nov. 3.

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Trump Shows That Loyalty Is All That Matters to Him

Guests in the audience await the arrival of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during the Federalist Society's Executive Branch Review Conference at The Mayflower Hotel on April 25, 2023, in Washington, D.C.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images/TNS

Trump Shows That Loyalty Is All That Matters to Him

Last week, the Court of International Trade delivered a blow to Donald Trump’s global trade war. It found that the worldwide tariffs Trump unveiled on “Liberation Day” as well his earlier tariffs pretextually aimed at stopping fentanyl coming in from Mexico and Canada (as if) were beyond his authority. The three-judge panel was surely right about the Liberation Day tariffs and probably right about the fentanyl tariffs, but there’s a better case that, while bad policy, the fentanyl tariffs were not unlawful.

Please forgive a lengthy excerpt of Trump’s response on Truth Social, but it speaks volumes:

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U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine discusses the mission details of a strike on Iran during a news conference at the Pentagon on June 22, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites: Trump’s Pivot Amid Middle East Crisis

In his televised address to the nation Saturday night regarding the U.S. strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump declared that the attacks targeted “the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.” He framed the operation as a necessary response to decades of Iranian aggression, citing past attacks on U.S. personnel and Tehran’s support for militant proxies.

While those justifications were likely key drivers, the decision to intervene was also shaped by a complex interplay of political strategy, alliance dynamics, and considerations of personal legacy.

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What if We Fired the Parties?

"They want us divided sign" that represents partisanship among democrats and republicans.

Getty Images, Jena Ardell

What if We Fired the Parties?

Like many Americans, I have been increasingly disappointed by the candidates promoted by political parties because they tend to back candidates who are ultimately focused on personal gain and/or only advancing issues predetermined by party priorities while moving further away from responding to the needs of their constituents. According to The Guardian, in the 2024 election, the number of eligible voters who did not cast their ballot is more than the total of those who voted for either of the party candidates. So, maybe the real issue is that our political party system just isn’t working for most Americans anymore. Assuming this is even partially true, what if, instead of just complaining about the parties or holding our noses and voting for the "lesser evil" every November, we actually fired the parties—took away their grip on our democracy and built something better.

For decades, we've been told we only have two choices. But more and more Americans don't feel truly represented by either major party. We're exhausted by the noise, the blame games, the endless culture wars that solve nothing and only serve to increasingly marginalize portions of our citizenry. Americans want real solutions on housing, healthcare, education, wages, and the future we're leaving for the next generation. And we're not getting them. So, maybe it's time to ask a radical but necessary question: What if the problem isn't just the candidates but the political party system that keeps producing them?

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The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support
person wearing lavatory gown with green stethoscope on neck using phone while standing

The Medical Community Tells Congress That Telehealth Needs Permanent Federal Support

WASHINGTON–In March 2020, Stephanie Hendrick, a retired teacher in Roanoke, Virginia, contracted COVID-19, a virus that over 110 million people in the U.S. would contract over the next couple of years.

She recovered from the initial illness, but like many, she soon began experiencing long COVID symptoms. In the early months of the pandemic, hospitals and medical centers prioritized care for individuals with active COVID-19 infections, and pandemic restrictions limited travel and in-person treatment for other medical conditions. Hendrick’s options for care for long COVID were limited.

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