50501 FRIDAY BRIEFING | JULY 31, 2026
A missed deadline, a stalled nominee, and the week some Republicans stopped falling in line.
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ICE forced medical treatment on a hunger striker. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let it limit who gets a mail ballot, and Trump told the Senate to skip its August break for a voting bill that continues to fail. Trump also let a Supreme Court deadline lapse, two Republican senators stalled his attorney general nominee, and the Senate went on record against a Maxwell pardon.
Monday
Trump came at voting from two directions
The administration asked the Supreme Court to let it enforce Trump’s mail voting order. Trump also demanded the Senate cancel its August break for the SAVE America Act.
The order directs Homeland Security to compile state citizenship lists and requires Postal Service rules limiting mail ballots to voters on them. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., successfully challenged the restrictions, and the First Circuit declined to revive them.
On Monday we shared an article regarding recent ICE impersonators:
ICE Impersonators Forced an Oregon Driver Into an SUV
On July 17, two men in tactical vests marked “POLICE,” with one of them carrying a rifle who pulled a driver over near Woodburn. They said they were ICE, and forced the driver into an unmarked SUV.
A third man inside assaulted the driver, the driver was then released twenty minutes later and hospitalized. Federal agencies confirmed the three were not ICE. Claims spread online (from changed/edited records) that the victim was a woman who was sexually assaulted, You can read the full article by clicking here.
Tuesday
ICE confirmed forced medical treatment of a hunger striker
A budget filing from ICE’s Health Service Corps, surfaced by the Guardian, says one detained hunger striker was “subject to force feeding, hydration, or forced urinary catheterization, or involuntary blood draws.”
Homeland Security wouldn’t say which procedure was used. Eunice Cho of the ACLU calls the authorizing court orders a rubber stamp, since many detainees have no lawyer to challenge them.
The deadline passed and Trump never filed 🎉
Tuesday was the last day to ask the Supreme Court to rehear its birthright citizenship ruling.
The Court ruled 6 to 3 on June 30 in Trump v. Barbara. A week later Trump posted he would seek a rehearing “IMMEDIATELY.” He had 25 days.
Wednesday
Epstein survivors carried the files to the Senate, and Blanche’s vote was postponed
Survivors launched the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile on the National Mall and hand delivered files to Senate Judiciary offices. Later that night, Chairman Chuck Grassley postponed Thursday’s vote on Todd Blanche.
The bookmobile will carry all 3.5 million released files to communities through the midterms. (Click here to learn more about the bookmobile and when it will pass through a town near you)
“A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote against justice,” survivor Elizabeth Stein said.
The Senate then agreed by unanimous consent that Maxwell should get no pardon, with no roll call taken, so nobody went on record and nobody objected. Blanche stalled over Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, who want written assurance that the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund from Trump’s IRS settlement is dead. By Thursday Trump was posting he had “no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd’s name” until January.
How, Exactly, Do You End Up Beefing With Ms. Rachel, of All People?
On Wednesday we shared an article on Ms. Rachel:
Ms. Rachel posted that being against genocide is not controversial and that staying silent about it is. She named no country. The verified State of Israel account replied, “Ms who?”
In June she hosted a press briefing on a UN report finding Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, which Israel rejects. She sang outside Delaney Hall with families of detained immigrants, then wheeled 535 packets of letters from children held at Dilley into the Capitol. You can read the full article by clicking here.
Thursday
Two thirds say the Iran war has not been worth fighting
National poll results came out that revealed sixty four percent of Americans say the war with Iran hasn’t been worth fighting, against 33 percent who say it has.
Republican approval of Trumps Iran handling fell from 71 to 61 percent in a month.
At least 18 American service members have died since February.
Forty percent now call gas prices a major stressor, up from 27 percent prewar.
Some Recent Good News:
Kansas voters kept a safeguard worth thousands of ballots
The Kansas Court of Appeals refused to let Secretary of State Scott Schwab revive a law that would have thrown out mail ballots arriving after Election Day.
Kansas has counted ballots postmarked by Election Day and arriving within three days since 2017. This cushion saved 2,110 ballots in 2024 and 32,000 in 2020, and it holds for the August 4 primary.
Kotek pulled state land out of a proposed Salem data center in Oregon
Governor Tina Kotek ordered Oregon to terminate the sale of roughly 32 acres of state-owned land intended for a proposed data center in southeast Salem.
Kotek said developments of this scale must make sense for natural resources, utility customers, and surrounding communities. This is a win but may not automatically end the entire project there. Kotek has direct influence for the Salem location because it’s state owned land. Other proposed centers sit on private or locally controlled property, where decisions largely run through city land-use rules and permitting.
Movement Spotlight
Japantown stood strong against a planned ICE facility
Organizers and South Bay officials rallied Wednesday outside the historic Issei Memorial Building against a planned ICE facility near Gilroy.
“Today, unfortunately, it’s too late to just say never again,” said Susan Hayase of San Jose Nikkei Resisters, noting that Japanese Americans resisted inside the World War II camps with strikes and draft resistance. Santa Clara County sued in June.
The ICE facility shows detention space for 150 people.
Trump’s biggest setback this week came from courts, from two departing Republican senators, and from Epstein survivors. The midterms are **95 days away** and will be here before you know it.
Go to https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/ to check if you are registered and find out who is running in your area for local offices.
Latest Questions in our Subscriber Chat:
Is your community organizing against a data center? What strategies are working and are your local officials listening?
Grassley’s phone number needs to be listed so we can call and deride him for his actions, to ask him if his grandchildren would be proud of him and his decision that looks as if he’s supporting a pedophile’s crimes. He’s the chair but he’s also 90+ years old and any reminder of his so-called legacy needs pounding.