>For example, the way the system is designed, if even one barcode on one ballot in a bulk mailing of 10,000 ballots failed to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state, effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters and depriving them of their vote.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/whistleblower-usps-systems-mail-ballots-flawed-rcna595361

An anonymous federal official warned in a whistleblower complaint this week that the technical system the U.S. Postal Service built for mail voting is flawed, untested and likely to cause major disruptions in this fall’s midterm elections if it is implemented.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that directed his administration to create federal lists of citizens and asked the Postal Service to transmit mail ballots to only those people. A federal judge has blocked the order from going into effect amid ongoing litigation over its constitutionality; the whistleblower complaint highlights potential issues that could arise if the courts ultimately declare it lawful.

The USPS typically is responsible only for transporting mail ballots between election officials and voters, and the federal government has never kept a central list of all American citizens. Trump ordered the agency to take on an unprecedented and complex role in the process this year amid a broader attempt to exert greater control over the country’s elections and his continued unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

The technical system the USPS assembled to vet voters was developed in a “rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed process,” according to a whistleblower complaint sent to the office of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Blumenthal sent the complaint to Postmaster General David Steiner on Monday asking for more information.

Coinbase CEO weighs California exit over ‘deeply un-American’ wealth tax
https://nypost.com/2026/08/25/business/coinbase-ceo-weighs-california-exit-over-deeply-un-american-wealth-tax/

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said he is considering exiting California over the state’s “deeply un-American” proposed wealth tax.

During a Tuesday evening appearance on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” Armstrong warned that tech founders are fleeing California over the state’s proposed first-of-its-kind billionaire tax – and hinted his firm, which operates its largest office in San Francisco, might be next in line.

“I think it’s deeply un-American to seize people’s assets. It might be unconstitutional,” said Armstrong, who is worth an estimated $8.8 billion, according to Forbes.

He argued that he has paid “tons of taxes” on his income and has no problem doing so – but that an extra tax on wealth and assets “starts to feel like a third-world country. That is a dangerous, dangerous path to go down.

“It’s against my values, I would say. I think it’s bad for the state and for America. So we’re considering any and all options basically at this point to be, in terms of relocation,” Armstrong said.

The exec added that he wouldn’t be so opposed to additional taxes if there wasn’t so much fraud and waste in the government.

Armstrong told CNBC last week that he’s considering relocating his home out of California by the end of the year.

As of June, Coinbase – an American crypto exchange and wallet platform with venture capitalist powerhouse Marc Andreessen on its board – employed 4,300 workers internationally.

The company insists it is a remote-first operation – but last May it signed a lease for 150,000 square feet of San Francisco office space. That came just four years after it paid $25 million to break its previous office lease in the same city.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/far-right-british-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-has-been-deported-after-ice-arrest_n_6a931256e4b0b47f3d0c5751

Yiannopoulos is a well-known champion of conservative causes and has frequently taken provocative public positions criticizing feminism, Islam and immigrants. He has been especially supportive of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no buts,” Yiannopoulos wrote on X last year.

Yiannopoulos rose to fame in the early 2010s as an incendiary writer for the conservative website Breitbart News. He resigned from the company in 2017 after a video of him endorsing pedophilia resurfaced online.

A federal judge lit into the Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for using either AI or fake studies to defend the Trump administration’s decision to fund only abstinence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs.

“While abstinence-only education may well be appropriate for some age groups or communities, the agency has offered no explanation or evidence to support its across-the-board mandate that only abstinence strategies be pursued,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his opinion. “On the topic of body literacy, the notices (remarkably) reference public health studies that appear either not to exist or not to support the propositions for which they are cited—a hallmark of AI-generated citations.”

Cooper issued a preliminary injunction, pausing an order that has already led to millions of dollars in grant cuts.

“The Court concludes that the Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on their arbitrary and capricious claim, combined with the severity and irremediable harm to their programming and the balance of equities in their favor, justify the issuance of a preliminary injunction in this case,” he wrote.

>https://newrepublic.com/post/215001/judge-rfk-jr-hhs-fake-ai-studies-teen-pregnancy

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-space-academy-nasa-military-rcna594870
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-signs-order-creating-new-space-academy-akin-west-point-location-determined

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order to create a new military academy — the U.S. Space Academy — to train people for the U.S. Space Force, NASA and the civilian space industry.

Speaking at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Trump said “the rapid growth of the Space Force and the commercial space industry and the expansion of our ambitions to the moon and far beyond the moon” inspired the new academy.

“It’s clear that we need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled service members, engineers, civil operators and everything else to do what we have to do,” he added.

Later in the day, Trump made history by becoming the first president to call U.S. astronauts on the International Space Station from the NASA facility’s Mission Control Center. He also awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the crewmembers of NASA’s Artemis II mission, who flew around the moon earlier this year.

“I just congratulate everybody. And be careful. Be safe. And we love you all,” the president told the astronauts aboard the space station, telling them about the new service academy.

Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles
Conservative veterans with large social media followings have been hired by the Defense Department and are amplifying Pete Hegseth’s culture-war fights.
6 minutes ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/08/30/pentagon-secretly-installs-military-influencers-civilian-roles/

By Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp
The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material.
At least some of the influencers have been assigned to civilian roles that could lead to changes in policy, the people familiar with the matter said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Neither the Pentagon nor those involved have disclosed the government roles despite the Trump administration’s claims that they are running the most transparent Defense Department ever.
Those involved include Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, people familiar with the matter said. Pentagon records reviewed by The Washington Post show that both have active official government email addresses as of this past week and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The email addresses include a “.civ” suffix, meaning they are labeled as civilian employees, rather than as military personnel or contractors.
Both served for decades in uniform and, since retiring, have turned from the military to conservative commentary. Maness has more than 135,000 followers on X, while Schlicter has nearly 620,000.

‘Missing’ Epstein files containing major allegations against Trump discovered: report
https://www.rawstory.com/jeffrey-epstein-2677759745/