Politics

U.S. Attorney General Nominee Todd Blanche and the Antiabortion Machine’s Pressure Campaign

PUBLISHED 7/14/2026 by

Judges, lawyers and sexual abuse survivors have raised very strong reasons why it would be reckless and unconscionable for the Senate to confirm Todd Blanche to the post of Attorney General of the United States. One of the under-reported issues, though, is Blanche’s backing from well-funded antiabortion groups.

If the Republican Congress confirms Blanche, he could weaponize the DOJ in service of the antiabortion machine’s wish list, increasing the potential for some of the biggest blows to abortion access since Dobbs. 

Blanche’s confirmation could mean the further decimation of access to abortion healthcare in the United States at the behest of the antiabortion machine, which has already successfully pressured the Trump administration to meet its demands by, for example, calling for FDA head Martin Mackary to be fired. Meanwhile, the antiabortion machine is ratcheting up the pressure to push its agenda at various levels across the U.S.

Reasonable members of Congress who believe in the independence of the DOJ from outside pressure, including that of the administration itself, will vote to oppose Blanche’s nomination for U.S. attorney general. 

The Blueprint to Save America’s Moms 

PUBLISHED 7/13/2026 by and

American healthcare was fundamentally reshaped a year ago with the passage of H.R. 1. The sweeping federal budget reconciliation bill President Donald Trump called the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law on July 4, 2025.

One year later, the country’s sexual and reproductive health system is in crisis, and we are at a devastating inflection point, leading all high-income countries in a statistic that should shame every lawmaker: maternal mortality. 

To truly save the lives of American moms, we must adopt a policy framework rooted in medical expertise, research and human rights. Here’s what we propose.

Civil Rights Coalition Urges Senate to Reject Trump’s Attorney General Pick: ‘An Instrument of Trump’s Personal Revenge’

PUBLISHED 7/12/2026 by

President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing Wednesday, July 15, and Thursday, July 16. 

Ahead of the hearing, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights along with dozens of national organizations (including the Feminist Majority Foundation, publisher of Ms.) sent a letter to the committee calling on senators to vote against his confirmation, citing a pattern of political interference and attacks on civil rights protections. 

Blanche “has turned the DOJ into an instrument of Trump’s personal rage and revenge,” the coalition writes. “The role of the Attorney General is not to protect the interests of the President, but to protect the interests of the nation’s people.”

Poems Wherein the Bullet Speaks: A Review of Heidi Kasa’s ‘The Bullet Takes Forever’

PUBLISHED 7/11/2026 by

Consider the title of Heidi Kasa’s first book of poetry, published by Mouthfeel Press: The Bullet Takes Forever. In seven syllables, Kasa’s title conjures a wide swath of loss, both vertical and horizontal, the catastrophic consequences of gun violence, robbing us of time and life itself.

The way the title lands is a fine indicator of the way Kasa’s poems will strike the courageous reader, the reader willing to dwell for a time in this space dedicated to examining violence, often delivered upon the most vulnerable among us.

Reading these poems, I realized how little narrative Kasa actually needs to provide. We already know the story. We have lived it, watched it unfold again and again in schools and communities across this country. At a moment when the Trump administration is rolling back gun regulations, Kasa’s poems remind me that policy debates can never capture what violence leaves behind: grief, fear and lives forever altered. Her collection asks us not simply to read, but to remember.

“Back to School Shopping List

“1. backpack (big enough to hide behind)
“2. notebook (for reunification records)”
“7. spelling test (words: tourniquet, instructions, wound, direct, manual, pressure).”

The Most Popular Supreme Court Justices Are Women

PUBLISHED 7/10/2026 by

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!

This week:
—Knowing that whoever is nominated will face intense scrutiny for potential sexual misconduct, a woman could be Maine Democrats’ safest choice.
—”It’s worth remembering that in moments of past darkness we have triumphed not by moderating our opinions or softening our asks, but by dreaming big and daring boldly,” writes Janai Nelson.
—The justices who have most visibly pushed back on executive overreach, including on birthright citizenship and Trump’s tariffs, happen to be the three women on the liberal wing. And they are also, by a significant margin, the most popular justices in the country.

… and more.

If You’re Alone on the Prairie, Would You Rather Meet a Man or a Wolf?

PUBLISHED 7/10/2026 by and

It would be easy to be cynical about a remake of Little House on the Prairie (Netflix). At a moment when “tradwife” nostalgia and gender politics dominate so much of our cultural conversation, the series arrives as an unexpected relief—and maybe just what we need today.

The series presents a vision of manhood built around care rather than conquest: thoughtful men, flawed men, men for whom fatherhood is the center of their lives. They aren’t heroes, exactly—just plain, decent men trying to find their footing in a country freshly out of a war that ended slavery, even as it stepped into a new era of oppressing the people who were already here. The show never lets you forget that history. It’s always present, but it’s carried by characters wrestling with the same universal struggles we all recognize.

The women and girls matter just as much. They’re fierce and determined, never reduced to helpless victims—and it’s largely through how the men in the show treat them that we get the show’s gentlest lessons on how men and women can meet each other halfway.

From ‘Love Island’ to Election Day: How Close Is the U.S. to Deciding Elections by Phone?

PUBLISHED 7/10/2026 by and

Five nights a week, millions of Americans vote on Love Island USA with just a few taps on their phones. Yet when Election Day arrives, most still stand in line, mail absentee ballots or travel to polling places. Despite using smartphones to bank, buy homes, file taxes and manage their healthcare, Americans still can’t use them to vote. The contrast raises an increasingly common question: If Americans trust their phones with nearly every other aspect of life, how close are we to trusting them with democracy?

While internet voting already exists in limited form for some military, overseas and disabled voters, expanding it to the broader public remains one of election administration’s most contentious debates. Supporters argue that allowing eligible voters to cast ballots securely from their phones could remove one of the most persistent barriers to participation. Critics counter that convenience cannot come at the expense of election security, warning that no current internet voting system has yet demonstrated the level of security, transparency and public trust required for democratic elections.

Whether Americans will someday choose presidents the same way they choose reality TV winners remains an open question.

Women’s Sports Were Built by Letting Girls In

PUBLISHED 7/9/2026 by

When the Supreme Court upheld West Virginia’s ban on transgender girls participating in girls’ school sports in West Virginia v. B.P.J., it said the ruling was about protecting the safety and fairness of women’s and girls’ sports. I hear that claim against everything I actually lived.

Thirty years ago, in United States v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that generalizations about “the way women are” cannot justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description. That principle didn’t just build my generation of athletes. It built a generation of women: the litigators and judges, the surgeons, the CEOs and entrepreneurs, the senators and governors, the police officers and firefighters and fighter pilots, the women who were the first of everything. Every one of those doors was held shut by the same argument Virginia made: Most women wouldn’t want this, most women couldn’t do it.

Women of my generation didn’t fight to be seen as individuals—as athletes, as leaders, as whatever they had it in them to be—only to watch that principle eroded now, in their name and over their objection.

More than half a century ago, this country decided that girls who had been told they didn’t belong on the field belonged there after all. I got to live the proof of that promise. The work now is to keep that promise for every kid who wants to play.

Making Americans Smokers Again: Trump Administration Cuts Anti-Tobacco Programs

PUBLISHED 7/9/2026 by

In May, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported one of the greatest public health victories of the past 50 years. A government survey found that cigarette smoking among U.S. adults dropped to an all-time low of 9 percent in 2025, the first time the smoking rate hit single digits. In the 1970s some 40 percent of U.S. adults smoked daily, as well as 16 percent of teenagers, but a culmination of tobacco taxes, smoking bans and remarkably successful public education campaigns turned around what is still the nation’s largest cause of preventable death. 

Which is why it is so astounding that the Trump administration, despite its stated goal to “make America healthy again,” is rolling back its smoking cessation efforts.