Trump told his Republican henchmen when he was going to attack Iran. The day before the war started they all invested in defense stocks and made a fortune.
We read and write a great deal about the SAVE Act that may or may not pass. It is a federal law, and really it’s unconstitutional, because the states control their own elections. If it passes as a federal law, well, there are still a few things that can be done. In the meantime, state legislatures are busy. Depending upon your own state’s legislature, it’s at least likely there’s committee work happening on this. Or, possibly, your state has progressed (ha) as far as my state has.It’s a fine day to check in with your state’s business, so you aren’t caught unawares come your next election.
Kansas is not rewriting its election system with one sweeping law.
It is doing so in pieces.
A deadline adjustment here. A database requirement there. A repeal of mail-in ballot authority. A restriction on ballot return methods. A new reporting mandate. A rule centralizing constitutional challenges in one county. A provision that repeals advance voting if courts intervene.
Individually, each bill appears technical. Administrative. Procedural.
Collectively, they form a kind of architecture, and architecture is never accidental.
The justification offered repeatedly is election integrity, specifically, noncitizen voting. Yet documented cases of noncitizen voting in Kansas have been counted in the single digits through the decades.
National reviews of millions of ballots have found similarly rare occurrences. The problem, statistically, is exceedingly small.
The legislative response, however, is structurally expansive.
Consider what is being built.
One bill requires certain public assistance agencies to report identifying information about noncitizen recipients to the secretary of state. Another one mandates recurring comparisons between Kansas’s voter registration system and the federal SAVE database.
Others expand the removal triggers to include driver’s license status or database mismatches.
In practical terms, that creates a dubious data pipeline: Public benefits system data is sent to the Secretary of State, where it is cross-referenced against the federal immigration database, then checked against the statewide voter rolls and then returned to the secretary of state, who has removal authority.
Public benefits databases were designed to determine eligibility for food, health care, and housing assistance. The federal SAVE system was designed to verify immigration status for entitlement programs. Kansas’s voter registration system was designed to facilitate elections.
Now, these systems are being interconnected for enforcement.
Even small database error rates become significant when the right to vote is at stake. Federal oversight reports have documented reliability and oversight concerns within SAVE.
Legislative testimony in Kansas has acknowledged audit-tracking issues within the state’s voter system. When automated cross-checking expands and removal authority increases, the margin for error shrinks, and the constitutional risk grows.
At the same time, access pathways are narrowing.
Deadlines for advance mail ballots are shortened. Remote ballot return boxes are eliminated. The statutory authority for certain mail ballot elections is repealed. These changes do not eliminate voting, but they constrict time and space.
When time compresses, errors matter more.
If a voter is flagged incorrectly due to a database mismatch, an outdated record or a clerical error, there is less opportunity to correct the problem. Fewer alternatives. Less flexibility.
Then there is process.
Several of these election bills have moved rapidly through the House, advancing from committee to floor debate to final action within compressed timelines. Emergency procedural tools reduce the space between debate and final vote. Hearings are scheduled even when broad support is thin.
Procedure is not neutral.
When legislative time is compressed, public scrutiny thins. Stakeholder response shortens. Amendments shrink. The result may comply with formal rules, but deliberative depth diminishes.
Finally, litigation itself is being reshaped. House Bill 2569 centralizes constitutional challenges to election laws in Shawnee County. Another contains a provision that would repeal advance voting statutes if courts invalidate certain signature verification requirements. These measures alter the terrain of judicial review, raising the stakes of constitutional challenges.
States unquestionably possess the authority to regulate elections. That authority is granted by the Constitution. But it exists alongside equal protection guarantees, due process protections, and the Voting Rights Act.
The question is not whether Kansas can regulate elections.
The question is whether it should construct an expansive enforcement and restriction architecture in response to a statistically rare problem.
From a social work perspective, policy is not evaluated solely by its stated purpose but also by its impact.
Who is most likely to be flagged incorrectly in database cross-checks? Who relies most heavily on mail voting? Who has the least time and fewest resources to correct administrative errors?
Who bears the burden when access narrows, and timelines tighten? When election administration shifts from facilitation to filtration, those questions matter.
This is not about one bill. It is about the convergence of data centralization, verification expansion, access contraction, procedural acceleration and litigation hardening, all moving in the same direction, creating a cumulative burden on Kansas voters.
Kansas may not rewrite its election system in a single dramatic stroke.
But architecture does not require drama. It requires design. And Kansans deserve to understand the structure being built in their name.
Robin Monroe is a native Kansan living and working in Wichita. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.
Rabbi Moti Rieber watches law enforcement as they confront protesters March 10, 2026, outside the Senate chamber in the Kansas Statehouse. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Rabbi Moti Rieber sat on the tiled floor, legs akimbo, in front of the arched passage leading to the Kansas Senate chamber with at least 20 people behind him and more lining the walls with handmade signs.
“We are here because when injustice becomes law, then resistance is necessary,” Rieber said. “We are here as moral witnesses.”
Clergy members led a sit-in protest Tuesday in opposition to a recently passed anti-trans law. The Republican-controlled Legislature used tactics to avoid public input and overrode the governor’s veto to pass Senate Bill 244, requiring people in public buildings to use the bathroom that coincides with their biological sex and also mandating driver’s licenses include a person’s sex assigned at birth instead of their gender.
Sergeants-at-arms looked on from behind the group, and Kansas Highway Patrol troopers soon joined. But it wasn’t until the group prevented Sen. Tim Shallenburger, R-Baxter Springs, from entering the chamber that troopers grabbed people by the arms to clear a path.
As troopers hoisted activists up from their seats, encouraging them to disperse, the group sang in harmony: “No one is getting left behind this time. No one is getting left behind. No one is getting left behind this time. We get there together or never get there at all.”
At one point, a trooper knocked a woman to the ground as she tried to pass through the crowd, appearing to mistake her as part of the demonstration. Protesters responded with chants of “Shame!”
The woman declined to be identified or comment but told Kansas Reflector she was OK.
Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, said while sitting on the floor, addressing the crowd, that the process to pass SB 244 was “crooked.” (There is a TikTok embedded on the page, linked in the title above.)
The law has already been challenged in Douglas County District Court, where a judge decided Tuesday not to pause enforcement of the law. The state sent letters to 275 Kansans shortly before the law went into effect, telling them their driver’s licenses were invalid. Some experts say laws targeting trans people can harm their mental health and increase the likelihood of discrimination.
The Rev. Mandy Todd, pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church in Lindsborg, said SB 244 is hurtful, targeted and part of a culture war. She said the group is “disgusted by this Legislature’s treatment of trans people.”
The bill stokes fear and anxiety, she said.
Todd, the director of engagement for Kansas Interfaith Action, said trans people in her community have felt the immediate effects of SB 244. The closest driver’s license office is in the next town, which Todd said has hamstrung one Lindsborg woman, who now cannot legally drive to sort out her invalid license.
Pastor Charles McKinzie II of Grace United Methodist Church in Winfield is confident the law, which he said was flawed in process and in substance, will make its way to the Kansas Supreme Court to be overturned.
“In the meantime, people are hurting, and people need to know that they are seen,” McKinzie said.
Conversations about the effects of SB 244 aren’t limited to a courtroom. They are taking place in churches, synagogues and other small group settings across the state, McKinzie said, and the sit-in was meant as a show of nonviolence “to shed light on a violent system.”
About an hour after the protest, Master Trooper Scott Whitsell said that no one from the group had been cited or arrested to his knowledge. The only law the protestors broke was blocking an entryway, he said.
Since Ron came home we have been very intuned with each other. Each of us trying to give the other space and as much positive interaction as possible. Yet I started to get irritable and Ron was noticing so I apologized this morning. This morning is important, but let’s get back to that.
Ron needs interaction and attention. Plus I have gone back to making meals and making sure he eats. That takes two hours out of my morning at least, but even more when I tell you what happened this morning.
I got up at five, fed the cat who clings to me even though he is Ron’scat. I settled down to “work” putting together the cartoon / meme / news roundup that has not gone out in recent days. Then Ron surprised me. He got up early at 6:30 am. OK.
TMI to come.
It is my birthday and knowing how sexual I am he appeared at my office door offering sexual relations. One of the issues Ron had with the effects of the libido killing medication is he felt pressured some times to meet my needs when he really did not want to or feel it. I had made a promise to not put such pressure on him when we talked about it when he got home at the same time he was trying to tell me he realized how important it was and wanted to work to be more sexual and he was starting to feel more sexual desire as the medications worked out of his system. But when he appeared with his grand offer I had to gently tell him I felt that because today was my birthday he would feel pressured to offer me favors. I did not want him to feel that pressure and because I am hypersexual … Again TMI… I masturbated in my office to porn before he got up… Twice. When I explained that to him at first he seemed surprised and then I got the reaction I wanted when I explained it. He blossomed and lite up understanding I was respecting him.
Then I went back to my posting and and for the next three hours Ron kept coming to my door to talk to me, to ask my opinion on this or that or could I go with him to another part of the house to talk about something. I guess I started to show irritation because Ron suddenly said this will be the last time I bother you.
But this is what has been happening since he has been home. He doesn’t seem to understand I need time and ability to do the posts. I need to understand he needs and wants my interactions. I try to divert him to his own projects but he is not easy to divert.
OK one of the reasons I voluntarily went to therapy was I was lashing out at Ron in irritation of everything. I have PTSD and according to the therapist, I am OCD. I use the OCD to try to manage my PTSD. So when Ron is being himself and is not ordered, not picked up, not… well Ron is a old never reformed youngest child frat boy. He leaves everything where he last used, he folds towels like if he just gets it somewhat near a shape he can push it on the shelf, or he will root for a towel leaving the rest looking like a possum made a nest of them. He will leave his socks on what ever surface in the livingroom he takes them off near. His shoes are all over the house I trip over them. The end of last year I was exploding and very angry. I went to therapy.
Before I saw “Sally Sunshine” I had already figured out the problem and the solution. I have lived with Ron for 36 years. I knew and accepted what he was in the first few months. I thought over the years I could change him but over the last year I was lashing out at him for these things and he was getting very defensive and withdrawing from me. I realized the truth before I ever saw the therapist, and she was shocked I figured this out.
The problem was not Ron nor his actions which he always apologized for and said he would correct. The problem was my reaction to it and how I was letting my irritation build to massive anger. I got to the point when the towel shelves were messed up I would angrily demand he come back down to the bedroom and refold every towel. He would do it but he was hurt. Once I steped back from it all then realized something important. He was hurt!
Before I went to therapy I realized the simple truth of the situation. If it bothered me so much I could simply correct it myself. Why humiliate him and make him feel bad for something he couldn’t help as it was ingrained in him and he couldn’t stop it anymore than I could stop the nightmares at night that leave me screaming that he tries to save me from? I vowed to change and I did. Now when the towels are rooted through I simply take them out and refold them my self like I want them to be. That is what I should have done from the start. I love him.
Back to this morning. While he was standing there nude in my office doorway I went to him and hugged him. I apologized for my irritability the last few days and told him it was wrong of me. I also told him it was OK for him to call me out on it if I get acting irritable with him again. Boy did he put that to the test this morning with three hours of needing / wanting my attention. But it worked out. I gave him the attention he wanted.
This afternoon he went out. Did I mention it is my birthday? He came back with two big steaks, something I have always loved but on our income have not had in nearly a year. He also had flowers he arranged and put in a vase. He got all the things I might like such as baking potatoes and the fixing for them. He had gone out for prime rib but he couldn’t find it, his other choice was to take me out, but sadly I have gotten to dislike leaving my home. I know I need to change that but even as I offered to go out Ron realized I wouldn’t enjoy it. I only leave the house now for doctor’s appointments or to accompany him on large shopping trips. I have developed an anxiety about leaving the house just like I have for voice conversations on the phone.
So Ron is making a large birthday meal complete…
So Ron called me to eat. He had set up the folding table we use as a dining room table while the remodeling is going on. He had a vase of flowers and our plates of steak and spiral potatoes. I could see he was frustrated as he apologized he never got the broccoli with cheese sauce done. It was a good meal, everything was tasty and good. I ate my fill of decent steak something I have not had in a long time and Ron cooked them on the grill. It was wonderful.
I did ask him what he wanted for his upcoming 71st birthday, and he suggested several things not available in our area that he got in Texas. But then he said he would think on it. What ever makes him happy I will do.
But I had started tomorrow’s cartoons / memes / and news roundup but it is late here after 7 pm, and I am wearing down. By this time normally I am thinking of bed and to tell the truth I am now. I will try to do a bit more and get up at 4 am to get it out at a resonable tiime. Just letting everyone know why posts have been sporadic and not timely. Thanks in advance for your understanding. This is our 36th year together and I am not going to jeopardize our relationship. But I have to get him to find a balance. I need to find a balance as well. Hugs
Sorry this article is so old. I have dozens more older than this in open tabs with the hope of one day being able to get what I think is important news out to those who may have missed it at the time. Here is the southern states patriarchy punishing women for not bringing forth a well formed offspring of a male who bred them. That is the way this reads to me. The woman means nothing, just the fetus, zygote, the failed issue of a man must be the fault of a woman. Think of this being promoted as prolife while they are willing to torture live females for a few cells in the human body that act parasitic. Remember no man is required to give any part of his body to another even his own dying child. Tht is the law. But a woman, a female is required to give her body over entirely and all actions of her life entirely to that male inserted parasitic entity that will drain her life force and can cause life long medical problems. It tells you exactly how these male law makers and their Christian supports see women. Hugs
Hundreds of US women charged with pregnancy-related crimes since fall of Roe
Study finds prosecutors targeting low-income women mainly in US south – and figure likely to be an undercount
Abortion rights supporters protest outside the supreme court in Washington in June last year. Photograph: Aashish Kiphayet/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
In the first two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes, new research released on Tuesday found.
Of the 412 cases tracked by Pregnancy Justice, the vast majority took place in the US south, targeted low-income women and involved allegations that women broke laws against child abuse, endangerment or neglect, according to the research, which was compiled by the reproductive justice group. About 300 prosecutions took place in Alabama and Oklahoma. In 16 cases, law enforcement charged women with homicide.
Because there is no national database of US arrest or court records, the group believes the tally is likely to be an undercount. In a report released in September 2024, Pregnancy Justice said it had recorded 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions in the first year after Roe fell – the highest number ever recorded at that time. Pregnancy Justice is now devoting more resources to unearthing records of pregnancy-related prosecutions, so the group can’t say for sure whether these prosecutions are on the rise post-Roe or whether they are simply tracking them more closely.
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Nearly 400 of the cases included in the new report involved allegations of substance use during pregnancy. In an example described to the Guardian, after one woman gave birth, the hospital tested her umbilical cords for drugs. When the test came back positive for marijuana, the woman was arrested for felony child neglect, even though she had a medical marijuana card.
The laws used in most of these prosecutions, Pregnancy Justice pointed out, are typically meant to protect children, not fetuses. By prosecuting pregnant women under them, the group says, states are cementing the legal doctrine of “fetal personhood”, which seeks to grant embryos and fetuses full legal rights and protections – sometimes at the cost of the rights of the woman carrying them. Alabama and Oklahoma are both hubs for the growing fetal personhood movement.
“That is the ultimate goal of the anti-abortion movement,” said Dana Sussman, the senior vice-president at Pregnancy Justice, which scoured court and police records to find the cases. “It wasn’t just to overturn Roe. It is to establish full personhood, full rights for embryos and fetuses.”
Sussman said a number of women have faced criminal consequences for taking substances that were legal or prescribed to them. For that reason, Donald Trump’s claim last week that pregnant women who take Tylenol may give their children autism, raised alarms. Scientific research does not support this claim.
“It’s a perfect storm of all of the things that we work on: stigmatizing pregnant people for not being perfect pregnant people, blaming them for their perceived failures, and relying on misinformation and junk science to create a panic when there shouldn’t be one or isn’t one – while also increasing surveillance in the police state to monitor and potentially criminalize people when they don’t meet these impossible ideals,” Sussman said.
Only 31 of the cases documented by Pregnancy Justice included a stillbirth or miscarriage, while almost 300 of the cases led to a live birth.
A woman whose case was included in the Pregnancy Justice report reportedly didn’t realize she was pregnant until she started to feel intense pain in her stomach. The woman, a new immigrant to the US, suspected that she had food poisoning and decided to drive herself to the hospital.
Before she could get in the car, however, the woman started to give birth. She ultimately delivered what police records listed as a stillbirth. Pregnancy Justice did not factcheck the cases in the report and could not say whether the fetus was past 20 weeks of pregnancy, after which the term stillbirth is used. After police found the remains, the woman was charged with abuse of a corpse.
Abortion pill providers targeted by new Texas law refuse ‘anticipatory obedience’
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The report indicates there are far more cases of miscarriage criminalization than have made national headlines. In one widely covered case in late 2023, police charged an Ohio woman with felony abuse of a corpse after she miscarried into a toilet. In another, earlier this year, a Georgia woman who had been found bleeding and unconscious after a miscarriage faced one count of concealing the death of another person, and one count of throwing away or abandonment of a dead body. The charges against both women were ultimately dropped.
Nine cases discovered by Pregnancy Justice involved allegations that women had considered abortions, such as ordering abortion pills or looking for information about abortion online. Only one woman in those cases was charged with violating a criminal abortion ban, likely because it is legal in most states to “self-manage” one’s own abortion. US abortion bans tend to penalize providers and people who help abortion patients, not the patients themselves.
In 2025, lawmakers in at least 12 states – including Alabama and Oklahoma – introduced legislation that would treat fetuses as people, which would leave women who have abortions vulnerable to being charged with homicide. In several of those states, that charge would carry the death penalty.
“What our work has proven is that, unfortunately, anything is possible when it comes to policing pregnancy,” Sussman said.
Kavanaugh claims the court does the same for every president not just tRump. The facts don’t show that to be true. tRump has a near perfect record of the court giving himwhat ever he asks for, while Biden was often either denied a chance for the court to rule or the court ruled against him often having to ignore precedent and prior rulings to do so. Either tRump has compromising material on the right wing justices or they are ruling based on poltical idology and racism. Hugs.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed about frequent rulings in favor of the Trump administration at a rare joint appearance.
Supreme Court Justices Kentanji Brown Jackson, left, and Brett Kavanaugh.AP; Getty Images
WASHINGTON — Internal Supreme Court divisions over how the high court has frequently ruled in favor of the Trump administration in emergency situations spilled out into public Monday with liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh locking horns.
The court’s conservative majority has on a regular basis blocked lower court rulings that have stymied President Donald Trump’s agenda, sparking criticism from within and outside the judiciary.
Jackson, often a vocal dissenter in those cases, forcefully aired her critique of the court’s actions in a rare public appearance with Kavanaugh at an event for lawyers and judges held at the federal courthouse in Washington.
Bemoaning the recent increase in such emergency filings — requested to challenge lower court rulings — she suggested that the number of filings would drop if the court were stingier about granting them.
The procedure has become known as the “shadow docket” because the court rarely hears arguments and often issues terse decisions with little explanation. The Supreme Court decisions can allow policies to go into effect at early stages in legal challenges, long before lower courts have reached any definitive conclusions. The casesmight then return to the Supreme Court later in the process, leading to final decisions on the merits.
In the last year, the court has, among other things, allowed Trump to fire thousands of federal workers, assert control over previously independent federal agencies and implement various aspects of his hard-line immigration policy. All those moves, done through the shadow docket, had been blocked by lower courts.
“I just feel like this uptick in the court’s willingness to get involved … is a real unfortunate problem,” Jackson said. Among other things, it affects how lower court judges approach cases, as they already have a preliminary sense of how the Supreme Court might approach them on appeal, creating “a warped kind of proceeding,” she added.
Jackson and Kavanaugh during introductions at the beginning of Monday’s event.Lawrence Hurley / NBC News
“It’s not serving the court or this country well,” Jackson said.
Kavanaugh, usually in the majority in shadow docket cases, defended the court — as he has done in the past — saying it has to act one way or another when the government or another litigant files an emergency application.
Kavanaugh noted that the increase in government applications is not unique to Trump, saying the court also granted similar requests made by the Biden administration, albeit at a lower rate.
The reason successive administrations have rushed to the Supreme Court is that presidents have relied more on executive orders in recent years because of the difficulty of persuading Congress to enact legislation, and those actions are often challenged in court, he said.
The justices have aired their disagreements in written opinions, but this was a rare example of two justices entering into a public debate about internal court business.
“None of us enjoy this,” Kavanaugh said of the shadow docket trend, noting that the court has opted in some cases to hear oral arguments and issue longer written rulings in response to some of the criticism.
“We have to have the same position regardless of who is president,” he added, a statement that Jackson expressed agreement with.
Responding to questions posed by Washington-based Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, the justices were otherwise mostly on the same page during the hourlong event.
In particular, they both expressed concern about the increase in violent threats against judges. Recently, judges who have ruled against Trump have been regular targets.
“There’s no easy answer, for sure,” Jackson said. “It’s unfortunate because it relates to a lack of understanding about judicial independence.”
Kavanaugh praised Chief Justice John Roberts, who he said had “picked his spots” to push back against the criticism.
Roberts, for example, put out a statement rebuking Trump and his allies for suggesting judges should be impeached for ruling against the administration. One of the judges some Republicans want to impeach, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., was among those at Monday’s event.
Easy-to-use solar panels are coming, but utilities are trying to delay them
Utilities are convincing lawmakers around the U.S. to delay bills that would allow people to buy solar panels, plug them into an outlet and begin generating electricity.
Abortion rights supporters protest outside the supreme court in Washington in June last year. Photograph: Aashish Kiphayet/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Scottie's Playtime 