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Thursday, October 01, 2026

The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft-carrier strike group and additional Marine Corps ships to the Middle East, according to U.S. officials... read more


Renee Good's family sued the U.S. government... read more


Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Putin ally aims for his sports association to regain control of Olympic boxing read more


Monday, September 28, 2026

The Trump administration announced plans Friday night to cancel $810 million in funding for health, education and other programs just days before the end of the current fiscal year, triggering another fight with Congress over the power of the purse. The so-called pocket rescission claws back money already appropriated by Congress, with little time for lawmakers to respond before the new fiscal year begins next week. The House is already out of town and not scheduled to return until after the November midterm elections. Top appropriators of both parties immediately denounced the move and accused the Trump administration of acting illegally by holding up and then canceling funds without congressional approval.


Friday, September 25, 2026

The Department of Homeland Security said it found 16,000 noncitizen voters in one state -- but didn't get a single name right. read more


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Attorneys representing Tennessee death row inmates previously alleged that the state appeared to have obtained pentobarbital through the "gray market," citing manufacturer restrictions that they said prohibited the drug from being sold for use in executions.

The allegation was detailed in an April 10, 2025 request to Gov. Bill Lee seeking a reprieve for death row inmates Oscar Smith and Byron Black while a legal challenge to Tennessee's then-new execution protocol proceeded.

"If the chemicals are manufactured, then it appears nearly certain that TDOC has procured the chemicals from the gray market," Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell of the Federal Public Defender's Capital Habeas Unit wrote in the request.

The attorneys wrote that every manufacturer of pentobarbital had placed distribution controls prohibiting sales of its products to corrections departments for executions. If Tennessee had obtained commercially manufactured pentobarbital, they argued, the drug would therefore have been acquired "outside the approved and tightly controlled commercial stream."

Tennessee officials subsequently claimed that the pentobarbital used in the state's executions was commercially manufactured, Nashville Public Radio reported in December 2025.

The Tennessee Department of Correction has, however, declined to publicly identify its pentobarbital supplier, according to the outlet. State law protects identifying information about people and entities involved in procuring drugs and other supplies used in executions.

The allegations have resurfaced following Tennessee's unsuccessful attempt to execute Pike, 50, on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

people.com

More: All politics are identity politics. Republicans have long mocked this notion, treating the very concept of "identity politics" as a left-wing fixation. In reality, the GOP's success is entirely due to the cheapest form of identity politics: For decades, but especially now, they have worked to distract voters from the party's ruinous policies with appeals to their identity as white, provincial and, most importantly, Christian. This campaign has been enormously successful. White evangelicals have been the backbone of the GOP for decades not because they love tax cuts for the rich and environmental degradation, but because they have been told, repeatedly, that Democrats are demonic and there is no such thing as a liberal Christian.

This is why there's a growing panic in the Republican ranks over the campaign of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Texas, and it's not just fear that he could beat Ken Paxton, the state's Republican attorney general. Win or lose, Talarico " a seminary student-turned-politician " embodies an existential threat to the right's long-standing myth that to be Christian must necessarily mean voting Republican.

"As a young evangelical we were taught repeatedly and clearly: It is not possible to be a Christian and a Democrat," Brad Onishi, a research associate at the University of California, Berkeley and co-host of the "Straight White American Jesus" podcast, told me. "But candidates like Talarico are changing that. His theological acumen and keen ability to use the language of the New Testament to disarm bad-faith religious attacks is showing a new way forward."

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