#california
5 entries with this tag
Three Weeks Before the Midterms, Trump's Justice Department Handed California a Password-Protected Thumb Drive of More Than 20,000 Voters and Demanded Officials Verify Their Citizenship Within 48 Hours — Then Sued the State for Not Doing the Impossible, Even as the DOJ's Own Lawsuit Conceded That Investigating That Many People Before Election Day Was Too Much Even for the Federal Government
In mid-October 2026, with the midterm elections roughly three weeks away, the Trump Justice Department escalated a fight over California's voter rolls into something close to a manufactured crisis. On October 13, Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter sent letters to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan, handing Logan a password-protected thumb drive listing more than 20,000 voters compiled from federal agency data and demanding that officials verify every one of their citizenship within 48 hours — and "segregate" those voters' vote-by-mail ballots until it was done. When California did not perform that impossible audit on command, the DOJ sued the state on October 15. The tell was buried in the DOJ's own filing, which acknowledged that investigating that many people before Election Day would be too much even for the federal government — an admission that the 48-hour demand it was suing over was never achievable. Weber called it "an emergency of the DOJ's creation." The pattern is familiar and alarming: similar federally generated "noncitizen voter" lists have proven inaccurate before in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Using the Justice Department to cast last-minute doubt on a blue state's rolls — on a timetable the DOJ itself admits is impossible — is not election integrity. It is election interference dressed as it.
FEMA Will Withhold 20% of a $1 Billion Anti-Terrorism Grant Program — Money for Cybersecurity and Protecting Crowded Public Spaces — Unless States Rewrite Their Elections to Trump's Demands Before the Midterms, a Power the Constitution Gives Him Zero Authority Over
The Trump administration is holding counterterrorism money hostage to force states to change how they run elections before the November 2026 midterms. FEMA's fiscal-year 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program notice says the agency will withhold 20% of each state's total award — from a $1.064 billion program that funds cybersecurity, emergency planning, training, equipment, and protection of crowded public spaces — until the state proves it has complied with new "Election Security" requirements. Those requirements: submit a plan to abandon electronic voting systems that use bar codes/QR codes and move to hand-marked paper ballots (eliminating ballot-marking devices); conduct 5% manual post-election audits; reconcile voters against ballots cast; run the entire voter roll through the DHS "SAVE" citizenship database within 120 days; and verify the citizenship of every poll worker and vendor. In FY2025 the election-related hold was just 3% for three modest actions; FY2026 escalates it to 20% and a far larger list. The 3% election-security set-aside and the 20% holdback are explicitly separate — meeting one does not release the other. The grants flow largely to populous urban states: New York alone expects about $204 million in FY2026. Switching to hand-marked paper ballots would cost states hundreds of millions — Georgia's Republican secretary of state estimated $66 million for his state alone. The Constitution gives the president no authority over election administration; a federal judge recently wrote exactly that while blocking parts of Trump's anti-voting executive order, and another judge blocked DHS from using SAVE to purge voters, finding the administration "knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens." The DOJ has separately sued 30 states for refusing to hand over voter lists and warned election officials in all 50 states they could face criminal charges. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul: the administration is "once again putting New Yorkers' lives at risk to forward their political agenda." Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows: "Trump is trying to meddle in how states run American elections because he's terrified of losing power after the 2026 midterms."
Trump Mocks Newsom's Dyslexia: "I Don't Want the President to Have a Cognitive Deficiency"
Trump attacked Newsom's dyslexia at least four times in one week, calling it "mental problems" and a disqualifying "cognitive deficiency." Dyslexia affects 20% of the population and has no connection to intelligence. Newsom's two-word response: "Too late."
California Filed 54 Lawsuits Against Trump in Year One — Won Nearly Every One
California filed 54 lawsuits against the Trump administration in its first year — nearly double the first-term pace. Result: 12 final rulings in California's favor, 35 preliminary injunctions, Trump conceded 6 times, $188 billion in funding protected.
Trump Conditioned LA Wildfire Aid on Voter ID and Water Policy Compliance
As LA wildfires killed people and destroyed homes, Trump demanded voter ID requirements and water policy changes as conditions for federal disaster aid. He blamed Newsom for a "water restoration declaration" that doesn't exist.