Fighting4AZ

AZ AG Kris Mayes is defending Prop. 308, the 2022 voter-approved measure allowing students who attended an AZ high school for at least 2 yrs & graduated or obtained an equivalent credential in the state to receive in-state tuition regardless of immigration status or current residence. The Trump DOJ is challenging AZ as part of lawsuits against 21 states, arguing federal law prohibits states from providing certain postsecondary education benefits to illegal immigrants when comparable benefits aren't available to U.S. citizens regardless of residency. Mayes argues Prop. 308 avoids 8 U.S.C. § 1623 because eligibility is technically based on attending & graduating from an AZ high school rather than state residency, a position she previously advanced in a 2025 AG opinion. That distinction creates a loophole allowing individuals not lawfully present in the U.S. to receive taxpayer-subsidized in-state tuition while U.S. citizens from other states generally pay substantially higher nonresident rates. Mayes is framing the lawsuit as a states’ rights issue & promising to defend Prop. 308, while the federal challenge will test whether AZ can use educational criteria to provide a benefit that federal law restricts when it is based on residency. https://www.azag.gov/press-release/attorney-general-mayes-vows-defend-prop-308-against-federal-lawsuit

AZ AG Kris Mayes joined 25 states in suing to block the Trump admin.’s new USPS mail-ballot security requirements & obtained a temporary restraining order preventing them from taking effect before the Nov. election. The rule would require states to register mail-ballot recipients with USPS, use approved ballot-envelope designs & unique identifiers, & allow USPS to reject ballots that fail the standards or are associated with voters absent from the submitted lists. Mayes portrays blocking these safeguards as a victory for AZ voters, arguing the requirements were imposed too close to the election & could disrupt AZ’s longstanding vote-by-mail system. The Trump admin.’s requirements are intended to add verification, traceability & accountability to mail voting, including matching ballots with eligible recipients, rather than eliminate mail voting. Mayes is therefore using AZ’s legal authority to fight additional federal election-integrity safeguards instead of working to determine how they could be implemented without disrupting legitimate voters. The judge’s order is only temporary & does not resolve whether the safeguards themselves are ultimately lawful; the coalition is now seeking a longer preliminary injunction while its lawsuit proceeds. https://www.azag.gov/press-release/attorney-general-mayes-secures-court-order-protect-arizonans-right-vote-mail Related Post: https://t.me/Fighting4_AZ/50134

President Trump declared a national emergency over foreign threats to the U.S. electric grid & signed an EO giving the Energy Dept. authority to restrict foreign-made bulk-power equipment that poses unacceptable national-security risks. The administration warns that America’s growing electricity needs from AI, advanced manufacturing & defense production make dependence on potentially hostile foreign suppliers increasingly dangerous & leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to disruption or sabotage. The Energy Sec. can prohibit the acquisition, import, transfer or installation of covered foreign equipment & can address equipment already operating on the grid by ordering it identified, isolated, monitored, secured, disconnected, replaced or removed. The action represents a significant effort to strengthen U.S. energy security by reducing reliance on foreign components that could compromise the reliability of the power grid & requiring utilities to eliminate existing equipment when it presents a national-security threat. https://cforc.com/2026/08/trump-order-could-compel-us-utilities-to-replace-foreign-power-equipment/

Moms for Liberty filed a federal lawsuit against the School District of the Chathams, NJ, challenging Policy 5145.7, which allegedly allows schools to facilitate a student’s social gender transition without notifying parents. The lawsuit argues the policy violates parents’ 1st Amendment free-exercise & free-speech rights and 14th Amendment due-process rights by interfering with their ability to direct their children’s religious, moral & personal upbringing. It also alleges students can be referred to outside LGBTQ advocacy organizations without parental notice or consent. The Thomas More Society, representing Moms for Liberty, argues schools have no constitutional right to conceal significant information about children from their parents or punish students for rejecting gender ideology. The case is part of the continuing legal battle over parental rights, school secrecy policies & whether schools can socially transition minors behind parents’ backs. https://cforc.com/2026/08/lawsuit-alleges-new-jersey-school-district-promoted-secret-gender-transitions-behind-closed-doors/

A federal judge temporarily blocked the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing key parts of new mail-in ballot requirements ordered by the Trump admin. ahead of the Nov. midterms. The rule requires states to provide USPS with lists of mail-ballot recipients & requires outgoing and returned ballot envelopes to carry unique barcodes, allowing USPS to refuse ballots that fail the requirements or are tied to voters absent from state-provided lists. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued the temporary restraining order after Democratic-led states & voting-rights groups challenged the rule following a Supreme Court decision that lifted earlier injunctions against Trump’s mail-voting restrictions. The challengers argue USPS lacks authority to impose election requirements, that the Constitution gives election-regulation authority to states & Congress, & that implementing the changes shortly before the election could burden states & potentially disenfranchise voters. The restrictions were scheduled to take effect Wed., but enforcement is now halted while Talwani considers a longer preliminary injunction at a 9/3 hearing. Mail voting remains significant nationally, with USPS processing nearly 100M ballots in 2024 & approximately 30% of voters casting ballots by mail. https://www.ntd.com/judge-blocks-rule-implementing-trump-plan-to-restrict-mail-in-voting_1169118.html

The DOJ charged 81 members of a violent Puerto Rico drug gang with drug-trafficking & firearms offenses in a massive multi-agency operation under the Trump admin.’s Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative. The FBI & Puerto Rico Police led the takedown, deploying 13 SWAT teams & other specialized resources to dismantle the organization’s leadership & distribution network. The gang allegedly operated since 2021, controlled public-housing projects & surrounding neighborhoods in Mayagüez, used shootings, kidnappings & murders to retaliate against perceived threats & generated more than $49M from its trafficking operation. Authorities say the organization distributed at least 340 kg of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics, 2,200 kg of cocaine & other illegal drugs, while investigators seized 21 firearms. The defendants allegedly served as leaders, suppliers, runners, sellers & lookouts. Those convicted of the drug charges face 10 yrs to life, while defendants convicted of both drug & firearms charges face 15 yrs to life. The operation demonstrates the HSTF strategy of combining federal, state & local law-enforcement resources to aggressively dismantle violent gangs, cartels, drug-trafficking organizations & other transnational criminal networks. https://www.ntd.com/doj-charges-81-members-of-puerto-rico-gang-with-drug-trafficking-and-firearms-violations_1169002.html

The Trump admin. designated the Italy-based Autistici/Inventati (A/I) Collective a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, targeting digital infrastructure used by violent far-left extremist & anarchist networks. A/I provides anonymous website hosting, No.Blogs, email & other technical services that have been used to distribute terrorist communiques, calls for criminal acts, claims of responsibility for attacks, target information, tactical manuals & techniques for attacking infrastructure & law enforcement. Its decentralized Plan R* infrastructure was specifically developed after earlier Italian law-enforcement actions to make the network harder to disrupt, but U.S. sanctions attack the financial & commercial ecosystem supporting it by restricting banking, donations, domain purchases, bandwidth & other services. U.S. persons are prohibited from providing or receiving services involving A/I, potentially forcing hundreds of U.S.-based far-left actors relying on its infrastructure to find alternatives or risk investigation & criminal liability. Antifa & anarchist networks are already warning supporters not to circumvent the sanctions, demonstrating the designation has created meaningful disruption. Those networks could migrate to similar providers, including Seattle-based RiseUp.Net, which has longstanding connections with A/I, but moving infrastructure into the U.S. could place more information within reach of federal law enforcement. Legal challenges to the terrorist designation are also expected. The action represents a significant expansion of the Trump admin.’s strategy against far-left political violence, shifting from pursuing individual offenders to disrupting the technological, financial & organizational infrastructure that enables violent extremist networks to operate. https://thefederalist.com/2026/08/28/antifa-networks-panic-after-trump-administration-just-sanctioned-their-servers

Some Democrats are acknowledging that progressive terminology such as “birthing people,” “Latinx,” “unhoused people,” “criminal justice-impacted individuals,” “allyship” & “social equity” sounds unnatural, elitist & disconnected from ordinary voters. KY Gov. Andy Beshear has urged Democrats to “talk like a normal human,” while Sen. Ruben Gallego, Rahm Emanuel & Gov. Gavin Newsom have similarly called for simpler, more culturally normal language. Democratic group Third Way warned in 2025 that advocacy terminology makes the party sound “superior, haughty & arrogant” & alienates voters, yet the DNC subsequently reaffirmed support for DEI, while progressive terminology continues appearing in legislation & gov’t policy, including replacing “mother” & “father” with “gestating parent” & “non-gestating parent” in NY law. The problem goes beyond unpopular vocabulary: changing terminology without changing the underlying policies amounts largely to a political rebranding intended to make progressive ideas more acceptable to voters. Beshear acknowledges that changing words alone doesn’t eliminate stigma, reinforcing the larger problem that abandoning “woke” language while retaining the same ideology addresses the political presentation rather than the substance. https://washingtonstand.com/article/leftists-try-to-change-their-language-but-not-their-policies

U.S. officials dismantled a massive China-linked hacking network that targeted NASA, the Federal Reserve, Dept. of Energy, U.S. Senate, power companies, hospitals & entities across >130 countries. The operation, known as QTFY, had reportedly operated since 2018 through China-based Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology, which sold access to compromised networks & stolen information to Chinese foreign & military intelligence services. Chinese hackers use botnets & other networks to disguise their activity among ordinary internet traffic, making attribution more difficult & providing Beijing plausible deniability. While espionage between major powers is nothing new, infiltrating U.S. power grids, telecommunications, hospitals & other critical infrastructure creates the capability to disrupt or disable essential systems during a crisis or war & crosses a far more serious threshold. AI is making the threat increasingly dangerous by allowing hackers to identify vulnerabilities, generate malicious code, automate attacks & operate at unprecedented speed & scale. The U.S. needs stronger deterrence in addition to cyber defenses, including sanctions against responsible Chinese companies & individuals, restricting access to U.S. technology & financial systems, coordinating consequences with allies & maintaining credible offensive cyber capabilities. Trump should make clear during his Sept. meeting with Xi Jinping that attacks or preparations to disrupt America’s critical infrastructure will carry consequences severe enough that Beijing concludes the potential cost outweighs any intelligence or military advantage. https://washingtonstand.com/article/chinese-hackers-breached-multiple-govt-agencies-critical-infrastructure-says-fbi

Federal retirement contracts governing billions of dollars in Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) assets contain DEI-related requirements that conflict with the Trump admin.’s push to eliminate race- & ethnicity-based considerations from federal contracting. Contracts awarded by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) to BlackRock & State Street require annual reporting on the use of women/minority-owned brokers, women/minorities in management & each firm’s diversity philosophy. Trump’s March 2026 EO directs federal agencies to end DEI practices that treat employees, applicants or contractors differently based on race or ethnicity, arguing such policies undermine merit, increase costs & create inefficiencies. The TSP requirements may escape the EO because the retirement system manages employee-invested funds without a specific congressional appropriation & therefore is not fully governed by the Federal Acquisition Regulations. The American Accountability Foundation argues that millions of federal employees & retirees—including conservatives who oppose DEI—should have their retirement assets managed to maximize investment performance rather than advance ideological diversity objectives. The TSP originated as part of the transition from the old defined-benefit Civil Service Retirement System, which had accumulated a $560B unfunded liability, to the defined-contribution Federal Employees Retirement System covering federal workers hired after 1/1/87. https://washingtonstand.com/article/trump-banned-federal-dei-programs-but-thrift-savings-plan-contracts-ignore-the-order

Former San Carlos Apache police officer Jacob Christopher Slawson, 29, was indicted on federal charges of deprivation of rights under color of law & falsification of records. Slawson allegedly punched a handcuffed arrestee in the back of a police vehicle, knocking him unconscious, then dragged him from the vehicle, causing the man’s head to strike the concrete & split open. After learning he was under investigation for excessive force, Slawson allegedly added false & misleading information to another detective’s report in an attempt to obstruct the investigation. If convicted on both charges, he faces up to 30 yrs in federal prison. https://ktar.com/arizona-news/tribal-police-officer-excessive-force

The Trump admin. is moving forward with closing a 62-mile border-security gap along the Tohono O’odham Nation’s border with Mexico, with armed CBP agents escorting federal contractors after tribal police had been turning them away. The Nation is fighting construction, claiming it violates tribal sovereignty, threatens sacred sites & could damage Quitobaquito Springs, while environmental activists are separately trying to halt construction over concerns involving endangered species. However, a federal judge rejected the Nation’s attempt to block the project, finding that the 60-ft Roosevelt Reservation along the international border is federal land, undermining the claim that the administration lacks authority to build there. Hobbs & Rep. Adelita Grijalva have sided with the tribe in seeking to delay construction, while CBP maintains that closing the physical gap is necessary to secure the U.S. border. Protecting legitimate cultural & environmental resources should be part of construction planning, but those concerns should not prevent the federal gov’t from fulfilling its responsibility to secure an international boundary, particularly when a federal court has determined the disputed strip is federal property. https://ktar.com/immigration/tohono-oodham-fight-border-wall-sacred-spring

The U.S. State Dept. updated its travel advisory for Israel, the West Bank & Gaza, maintaining Gaza at Level 4: Do Not Travel because of armed conflict, terrorism & serious health risks, including limited emergency/intensive-care facilities, shortages of basic medical resources & unreliable electricity for medical devices. Travelers are advised to have medical-evacuation insurance & appropriate vaccinations. Israel & the West Bank remain Level 3: Reconsider Travel, although family members of U.S. gov’t employees may again join employees stationed in Israel. Certain parts of Israel remain Level 4, including areas near the Gaza Strip, Israel-Egypt border & portions of northern Israel, while terrorism, unrest, rapidly changing security conditions & potential airline cancellations remain concerns. Israel received about 1.3M tourists in 2025, including 400K Americans, & expected tourism recovery in 2026. Regional tensions remain high as Israel continues operations involving Gaza & Syria, Netanyahu maintains Israeli forces won’t leave Gaza until Hamas is fully disarmed, the U.S. has imposed new sanctions on Iran & Iran has threatened retaliation. The U.S. Embassy has warned that Iran & Iran-aligned groups could target U.S. diplomatic facilities, Americans, businesses & other U.S.-associated interests worldwide. https://readability-bot.vercel.app/api/readability?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theepochtimes.com%2Fus%2Fus-issues-travel-advisory-for-israel-gaza-6080242

A federal court dismissed X Corp.’s First Amendment challenge to NY’s Stop Hiding Hate Act (S895B) with prejudice, preventing X from refiling an amended claim on the same issue. The law requires large social-media platforms earning >$100M annually to disclose how they identify & moderate categories including hate speech, racism, extremism, radicalization, disinformation, misinformation, harassment & foreign political interference, with penalties of up to $15,000 per violation per day. X maintained that forcing it to explain its positions on politically contested categories amounted to compelled speech protected by the First Amendment, but U.S. District Judge John P. Cronan ruled that the required disclosures constitute factual commercial information concerning services provided to users & therefore receive more relaxed Zauderer scrutiny rather than strict scrutiny. Cronan declined to follow the 9th Circuit’s decision striking down CA’s materially similar AB 587, which found that requiring disclosures about controversial content-moderation categories compelled noncommercial speech about contested political issues. The result creates a significant difference between the federal courts’ treatment of similar NY & CA social-media disclosure laws, with NY’s requirements surviving the First Amendment challenge while CA’s were struck down. https://readability-bot.vercel.app/api/readability?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theepochtimes.com%2Fus%2Ffederal-court-dismisses-musks-x-lawsuit-against-new-york-law-forcing-platforms-to-define-speech-6080243

RFK Jr. disputed PA Gov. Josh Shapiro’s claim that there is “no fetal tissue in the MMR,” explaining that several vaccines are manufactured using human fetal-derived cell lines created decades ago, including WI-38 & MRC-5. The rubella component of M-M-R II is grown using WI-38 cells, while vaccines including Varivax & Havrix use MRC-5 cells, & manufacturing can leave residual cellular proteins & DNA from those cell substrates in the finished product. RFK Jr. cited Stanley Plotkin’s deposition acknowledging residual DNA in M-M-R II & calculations estimating hundreds of billions of DNA fragments based on the amount & assumed fragment size. Importantly, this does not mean vaccines contain intact fetal tissue or fetal cells; the claim concerns residual DNA/protein originating from laboratory cell lines ultimately derived from abortions decades ago. RFK Jr. said this distinction matters because some Americans have religious objections to vaccines developed or manufactured using fetal-derived cell lines. He also accused Shapiro of falsely labeling his statements vaccine misinformation & challenged Shapiro to provide an example. RFK Jr. further disputed Shapiro’s attempt to blame him for PA’s vaccination-rate decline from roughly 97% to 93.2%, saying Shapiro acknowledged most of the decline occurred during the Biden admin. RFK Jr. argues that COVID-era mandates, restrictions & gov’t messaging damaged public confidence & that restoring trust requires accurately disclosing how vaccines are developed & manufactured rather than dismissing legitimate questions as conspiracy theories. https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/yes-there-is-dna-from-aborted-fetal Related Post: https://t.me/Fighting4_AZ/50121

Sec. of State Marco Rubio is restructuring the U.S. Foreign Service to emphasize merit over seniority, with the State Dept. reclassifying roughly 200 Senior Foreign Service positions overseas to expand the pool of officers eligible for leadership roles. Rather than officers advancing largely according to yrs of service & predictable promotion timelines, the new approach is intended to reward performance, leadership & results, potentially resulting in fewer promotions at some levels while allowing high-performing officers to assume greater responsibility earlier. Eligibility for chief-of-mission positions has also been expanded to include FS-01 & GS-15 employees, who reportedly accounted for 52% of applications in the 1st round under the new process. The Foreign Service includes roughly 14,000 officers overseas, & similar merit-based reforms are planned for the State Dept.’s domestic civil servants & locally employed staff. The changes are part of Rubio’s broader restructuring of the Dept., following an updated Foreign Service selection/test process in April & the elimination of DEI considerations from the Foreign Service earlier this mos. https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/08/27/rubio-reform-foreign-service

Families of children with PANS/PANDAS are pushing for broader insurance coverage for treatment of the neurological conditions, which can involve sudden OCD, tics, anxiety, food restriction, emotional outbursts & other behavioral or neurological changes. One mother, Lynn Haber, said her son’s previously manageable PANDAS became debilitating within days of receiving 2 vaccines & that he later developed autoimmune encephalitis, although this is her reported experience rather than evidence establishing that the vaccines caused his deterioration. Estimates of prevalence vary dramatically: the PANDAS Network estimates roughly 1 in 200 U.S. children, while a study of >95,000 children identified only 13 confirmed cases & estimated about 1 new case per 11,765 children ages 3–12 annually. 20 states currently mandate insurance coverage for PANS/PANDAS, while families in states without mandates report paying substantial treatment costs themselves. IVIG is sometimes used in severe cases to modify immune activity, but the FDA has not approved IVIG specifically for children with PANS/PANDAS, contributing to insurance-coverage disputes. The scientific debate remains unsettled: the American Academy of Pediatrics said in 2025 that PANS is “likely a valid diagnosis” but that much remains unknown about its causes, diagnostic markers & optimal treatments, while recommending cautious, evidence-based, multidisciplinary care. Advocates argue children shouldn’t be denied potentially necessary treatment while those scientific questions are resolved & are pushing legislation, including in MI, requiring insurers to cover PANS/PANDAS care. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/brain-fire-parents-fight-insurance-coverage-children-pans-pandas

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced 2 “measles-associated deaths” among unvaccinated Lancaster County residents & called the deaths preventable, but the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office quickly disputed that characterization. County Commissioner Josh Parsons said the coroner recorded zero deaths caused by measles, while Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni said one case involved a newborn who died shortly after birth from a lacerated spleen; measles antibodies were detected postmortem, but he said measles did not cause the death. PA DOH uses a broader “measles-associated” classification when laboratory or epidemiological evidence of measles exists, even when the coroner does not determine measles was the immediate cause, & details about the 2nd death have not been disclosed. The controversy comes as the Shapiro admin. is proposing a major expansion of DOH disease-control authority, including increasing reportable diseases from 52 to 125, expanding immunization reporting & allowing measures such as masking, social distancing & vaccine mandates for disease prevention or containment. Shapiro’s admin. also has substantial economic ties to PA’s pharmaceutical & vaccine-manufacturing industry, including a recently announced $10.65M grant to Sanofi Pasteur & $21M in state support for a GSK vaccine-manufacturing expansion in Lancaster County. The timing also drew political scrutiny because vaccine-focused advocacy groups had recently tested messaging against Republicans ahead of the midterms & quickly blamed Trump & RFK Jr. after PA announced the deaths, although the material explicitly notes that the timeline does not prove advance coordination with state officials. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/coroner-contradicts-pennsylvania-health-officials-measles-did-not-cause-newborn-death Related Post: https://t.me/Fighting4_AZ/50071

The Trump admin. is conditioning full Homeland Security Grant Program funding on states conducting random post-election manual counts of paper ballots, providing a physical check against electronic voting results ahead of the 2026 midterms. DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin said “election security is national security” & warned that voting equipment containing components manufactured by foreign adversaries poses security risks. Earlier DHS guidance called for manually auditing at least 5% of ballots, reconciling voter participation with ballots cast, moving away from systems relying on barcodes or QR codes for tabulation & using the federal SAVE system or another authorized gov’t database for certain citizenship-verification measures. Mullin also raised concerns that ES&S, Hart InterCivic & Dominion, which collectively supply more than 80% of the U.S. voting-system market, have acknowledged using some Chinese-manufactured components. DHS is not immediately banning those components but argues that voter-verifiable paper records & manual audits provide an independent way to detect discrepancies caused by equipment failures, programming errors or potential interference. The policy uses eligibility for portions of more than $1B in federal security grants to encourage states to adopt stronger paper-ballot, audit, citizenship-verification & election-security safeguards. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/dhs-secretary-markwayne-mullin-orders-mandatory-random-paper

LA Sparks forward Cameron Brink attacked former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, calling him a “stupid piece of s—t” & accusing him of targeting the trans community for clicks, views & attention. Brink called transgender eligibility in the WNBA a “non-issue” & has previously advocated acceptance of teammates who use they/them pronouns. Her comments followed the WNBA declaring Freedom & former NBA player Royce White ineligible for the 2027 draft after both announced they identified as women & attempted to enter the draft, moves league insiders characterized as publicity stunts. Freedom was also reportedly removed from a Chicago Sky game following a confrontation while wearing a shirt defining a woman as an “adult human female.” The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement limits player eligibility to women, but reportedly does not further define sex or gender identity. By rejecting Freedom & White despite their declarations of female identity, the league has effectively demonstrated that self-identification alone does not make a biological male eligible to compete in the women’s league, exposing an obvious contradiction in Brink’s claim that questions surrounding transgender eligibility are merely attacks on a “vulnerable community.” https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/wnba-star-calls-enes-kanter-freedom-stupid-piece