After Michigan’s Democrat-led legislature passed sweeping changes to Michigan elections, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is attempting to implement corresponding potentially “illegal” new rules before the November general election, even though the law isn’t set to go into effect until next year.

Senate Bill 603 (SB 603), which acts in part to “reorganize, consolidate, and add to the election laws,” as well as “provide for election officials and prescribe the powers and duties of certain state departments, state agencies, and state and local officials and employees,” was signed into law by Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last month. 

The bill’s effective date is 91 days after the final adjournment of the 2024 regular session. Because the legislative session is still ongoing, the bill will not go into effect until well beyond the November election. Nonetheless, confident of the bill’s passage and eager to expedite implementation, Benson’s office already had a first set of rules relating to the conduct of election recounts in the can and ready for public comment before Gov. Gretchen Whitmer even signed SB 603 into law on July 8.

A mandatory hearing for comment on this set of rules — which reflect the new law’s provisions drastically limiting the opportunity for recounts, the definition of fraud, and the ability of canvassers to investigate — was set for June 17. The SB 603 rules were then also sent to Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers for approval. 

The board, composed of two Republicans and two Democrats appointed by Gov.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul pressed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Wednesday on why the agency is weaponizing watchlists to spy on political dissidents as terrorists.

In a letter to TSA Administrator David Pekoske, Paul cited recent whistleblower reports disclosing the transportation agency’s surveillance of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and the wife of a federal air marshal through the Quiet Skies program.

“Taken together, these incidents seem to be part of a broader pattern in which TSA has repurposed Quiet Skies to surveil individuals based on their political activities, even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing,” Paul wrote.

The whistleblower protection group, Empower Oversight, sent letters to the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month detailing the accusations of misconduct. According to a protected disclosure from a whistleblower whose own wife was “improperly labeled a ‘domestic terrorist,’” the U.S. Federal Air Marshals Service (FAMS) “was improperly targeting individuals for enhanced surveillance” including Gabbard. The whistleblower’s wife was investigated under FAMS “Special Mission Coverage” because “she attended President Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech at the ellipse in Washington D.C.”

“She was nowhere near the U.S. Capitol complex that day, yet her FAMS file falsely stated she ‘unlawfully entered the United States Capitol Building on [Jan. 6, 2021],’” the recent letter read.

“Ultimately, the whistleblower was able to work with the FBI to have his wife’s name removed from the terror watchlist in the spring of 2023,” the letter continued. “Yet clearing his own

President Joe Biden announced four years ago that then-Sen. Kamala Harris was put on the ticket because she’s a black woman. So naturally, the first female vice president now running to accomplish what Hillary Clinton couldn’t in 2016 is eager to capitalize on the stardom that comes with being a “first.”

While Democrats court minority voters with segregated outreach sessions at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago this week, former President Donald Trump is on a swing-state tour campaigning through the most competitive battleground regions of the Midwest. On Tuesday, the Republican nominee made a stop in the Detroit suburb of Howell, Michigan, a city in a reliably red county surrounded by blue votes that Republicans obviously hope to flip in November.

Trump’s event on “crime and safety,” however, according to the Harris campaign, isn’t just a “dog whistle” from the Republican, but a “bullhorn.”

Alyssa Bradley, the Harris campaign’s Michigan communications director, condemned Trump for “choosing to rally in a town that was historically known as ‘the KKK capital of Michigan.’” Trump was asked about the charge of white supremacy related to the presence of area extremists at the tail end of Tuesday’s event. The former president responded by asking the reporter a question of his own.

“Who was here in 2021?” Trump said.

“Joe Biden,” she answered.

“Thank you,” Trump responded before walking off.

Reporter: Kamala attacked you for being in Howell, Michigan because it’s associated with white supremacy.

Trump: “Who was here in