On July 16, Bessent spoke at a State Department event organized by Marco Rubio. "Increasingly," he said, "legitimate nonprofit and charitable structures are being exploited as a mechanism to conceal the movement of illicit funds to support political terrorism." Then he dropped the hammer. "In the fall, the United States designated four far-left Antifa extremist groups abroad as foreign terrorist organizations."

In January, Chris Rufo interviewed Bessent. "When you see these protesters, someone is financing them," Bessent explained. "There are safe houses. When you see the 300 people with the same laser that they’re using to blind DHS agents in courthouses in Portland, someone bought those lasers." Meaning, a left-wing NGO. If that isn’t a threat, I don’t know what is.

Rufo asked Secretary Bessent, "There are 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups funded by left-wing dark money, that are organizing -- or at least at arm’s length encouraging -- criminal activities. Is the Treasury looking into this? Is it something you have authority to crack down on, and what can we expect?"

Note Bessent’s answer: "Yes, yes, and yes. So these groups that are engaging in this -- we have the authority, and we are examining them." Then came the mailed fist inside the silk glove: "What we do is follow the money -- just like we followed it with the mafia. We’ll find out who’s done this."

Bessent’s inner circle is drafting a blueprint that could ultimately strip non-compliant organizations of their 501(c)(3) status, according to two of the people familiar with the plans. The reviews could result in massive back payments and civil penalties, the same sources said.

Ooooohhhhh….

[snip] Officials have also scrutinized a number of anti-corporate and labor-aligned advocacy groups that could end up on the blacklist, including the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, the anti-Amazon Athena Coalition, left-leaning watchdog MediaJustice, and the Strategic Organizing Center alongside its parent union, the SEIU, according to the three insiders briefed on the matter.

North Carolina’s Board of Elections issued a short but sweet statement:

The North Carolina State Board of Elections has submitted our envelopes to the U.S. Postal Service for review and approval. This complies with the requirements that we upload a list of everyone we’re sending a ballot to by mail and that is the only requirement. These are measures we do all the time and involves simply basic practices such as creating a report from SEIMS and putting that into a spreadsheet.

Our office is confident that the county boards of elections plan to send out absentee ballots to North Carolina voters who have requested them for this election, starting September 4, as required by state law, will happen flawlessly and smoothly. We do not which to comment on hypothetical scenarios, but if it becomes necessary, we will do our best to comply with any court decisions, as we always do.

So simple! So easy! Note that highlighted line: North Carolina just said that, while complying, its election "will happen flawlessly and smoothly." Smoother than Jif peanut butter.

This is yet another wildly unforeseeable development, the latest bizarre bend in the ongoing drama, and corporate media has completely refused to report it. It seems the looming September 4th deadline isn’t the real one after all. Against all odds, the Administration just got handed another two weeks till the next round of states begin sending ballots on September 19th.

But it’s not just about the enlarged deadline. It’s much bigger.

This is a colossal plot twist, much more than it first appears. Assuming USPS approves NC’s envelope format, accepts the voter uploads, and timely processes the September 4th military-and-overseas mailing smoothly and flawlessly, the government can argue that the plaintiffs’ claims of "impossibility" of complying are made up.

North Carolina is proving that state election officials can comply. And they can do it rapidly, flawlessly, and smoothly -- and so the much ballyhooed disruption is purely speculative rather than unavoidably imminent. [snip]

Picture a courtroom where the plaintiff solemnly explains that a grand piano cannot possibly be moved before Friday. At that exact moment, two movers roll the piano past the open courtroom door and are overheard saying that delivery should proceed "flawlessly and smoothly." Corporate media would report the plaintiff’s severe back strain and omit the piano on the grounds that furniture is outside the scope of the story.

[snip] Judge Talwani somberly opined in her order that compliance would be "practically impossible," that failure "seems unavoidable," and that state declarations of impossibility were unrebutted. Welp. They’re rebutted now, Sally! By one of the plaintiffs.

It is now up to the First Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite the appeal, throw it into "warp speed," if you will, to give the Administration time to reach SCOTUS. Since the First Circuit already denied the Administration’s July appeal, the one that did reach the Supreme Court, it is not sympathetic and is unlikely to be of much help.

Any sane lawyer handicapping this mess would normally put the odds near zero. But these aren’t normal times. And the Administration keeps enjoying windfalls of "good luck." For now, the show goes on. [/quote]

Talwani has offered the strongest case in favor of the expanded use of the emergency docket, also known as the "shadow docket." Liberal law professors and litigants have bewailed the expanded use of this docket at the Supreme Court to resolve cases without the need for a long briefing and oral argument. However, judges like Talwani have created legitimate concerns of the gaming of the system to harness or freeze new policies. This is why the "shadow docket" has become more prominent. [snip] What concerned the justices was that many of these injunctions directly contravened earlier precedent, exposing the cynical purpose of these orders. For a president to be able to carry out major changes, he had to run a gauntlet of hundreds of judges, any one of whom could effectively negate reforms. In response, the Supreme Court ramped up the use of the emergency docket and cracked down on national injunctions, quickly reversing the rapidly increasing number of injunctions against the Trump administration.

With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, the odds favor challengers in either running out the clock or prevailing on the merits on the mail-in ballots. But Talwani and some other judges have reinforced suspicions of the Roberts court that some courts are willing allies of partisan groups in seeking to gum up the system.