On-again, off-again mail-in ballot police. Just days after the Supreme Court gave Mr. Trump leeway to proceed on his Postal Service policing of mail-in ballots, a federal judge has shut it down again.

Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee to the court in Massachusetts — and a frequent stumbling block for Mr. Trump — said the president’s plans are likely “unconstitutional” because they interfere with states’ ability to run elections.

That decision blocked the move for a second time. Judge Talwani first blocked it in June while considering the challenge by roughly 23 mostly Democratic-led states plus the District of Columbia.

On Thursday, the judge said that absent a restraining order, states would have been forced to redesign their ballot mail envelopes, reorder those supplies, train election officials to comply with the new federal mandate and provide voter lists to the postal service, all before the election.

“The risk of irreparable harm to voters in those jurisdictions is grave,” Judge Talwani said.

The Justice Department is likely to attempt to appeal her ruling, though temporary restraining orders aren’t always deemed subject to appeals.

But at some point the matter is certain to rush back to the Supreme Court, which earlier this week erased a previous blockade from Judge Talwani, ruling that it wasn’t ripe.

Under the now-blocked rule, states that want to allow voting by mail would be required to submit lists of eligible voters to the postal service. States would then have to use approved envelopes to send the ballots out and to get the ballots back — and they must be marked with unique barcodes so they can be tracked.

The postal service’s plan was issued in response to a directive from Mr. Trump, who issued an executive order in March calling for federal intervention to ensure only legitimate voters get ballots.

Meta will pay states up to $17.1 billion and implement new safety features for teen social media users to settle a landmark case that accused the tech giant of pushing harmful content to children.

California, Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky and New Jersey were among 33 states that sued Meta in 2023 over its Facebook and Instagram platforms, saying the Big Tech giant knowingly features addictive and harmful content while shielding that information from the public.

Now the states in the settlement — which grew to 47 — are figuring out how to spend all that money.

Virginia is slated to receive $353 million, state Attorney General Jay Jones said.

“For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health. I am elated to announce a settlement agreement that will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm,” Mr. Jones said.

The agreement requires Meta to implement new safety features for children who use Instagram and Facebook, among them time limits aimed at stopping “endless scrolling.”

The agreement also requires Meta to block children from Instagram and Facebook from midnight to 6 a.m. and limit access to the platforms during school time, among other changes.

Indiana is set to receive up to $419.4 million in the settlement, Attorney General Todd Rokita said. He called the new safety requirements “groundbreaking changes” that will reduce compulsive use and resulting anxiety and depression among teen users.

One of the new safety requirements will limit beauty filters and visible “like” counts that harm the mental health of kids and teenagers.

An independent auditor and the 47 states included in the settlement will monitor the implementation and efficacy of the new safety features, he said.

While lawmakers and advocates praised the settlement, they said Congress still needs to pass long-awaited legislation to protect kids online. 

Silver lining playbook. Mr. Trump’s success in sealing the southwestern border has a big silver lining — he’s starving the smuggling cartels of a source of income, according to a Treasury Department analysis.

FinCEN, short for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, crunched the numbers on bank reports of suspicious transactions linked to suspected human smuggling. They spotted 67,540 reports, totaling nearly $5 billion.

But the vast majority of those occurred in 2023 and 2024, under President Biden, who averaged more than 7,000 reports each quarter.

By the last half of 2025, when Mr. Trump’s policies had fully kicked in, fewer than 2,000 reports were flagged each quarter.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the numbers prove Mr. Trump has put the smugglers “on the defensive.”

“The Trump administration is restoring border security and disrupting transnational criminal organizations to keep America safe,” he said as he announced the FinCEN study on social media last week.

Immigrants have been known to pay up to $20,000 to be smuggled into the U.S., with the cartels taking a cut.

The Supreme Court’s decision striking down Mr. Trump’s first attempt at global tariffs will sock it to the U.S. Treasury, blowing a nearly trillion-dollar hole in the budget over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Invalidating the tariffs means the government will take in about $700 billion less in customs duties. That includes refunds on the $166 billion in tariffs already collected before the justices struck them down.

And since the government is already running deficits, the $700 billion will lead to an extra $200 billion in debt service, leaving a total hole of roughly $900 billion that wasn’t there when CBO did its last projection in February.

Don’t forget the free unicorns. Free healthcare. Free childcare. Free preschool. Free college. Free transportation. Housing for all. And how about months of paid family and sick leave?

Democrats running under the socialist banner are dreaming up a massively expanded welfare state in America aimed at appealing to the working class but carries an equally massive price tag.

“There is no universe in which you could implement the [Democratic Socialists of America] agenda and not raise taxes by a massive amount on most Americans,” Adam N. Michel, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Washington Times.

Democratic primary voters, oblivious to the cost, are gravitating toward socialist candidates in races across the country who are promising a host of cradle-to-grave freebies.

Economic analysts, however, say that even if a few of those plans become reality, the cost would far exceed revenue from taxing the rich and corporations.

Sen. Darline Graham overcame a last-minute drop in the polls and questions about her qualifications in South Carolina’s Republican Senate runoff, likely ensuring she’ll win a six-year term in November to succeed her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Ms. Graham defeated five-term GOP Rep. Ralph Norman with the help of Mr. Trump, who enthusiastically endorsed her and hosted a get-out-the-vote rally.

She was appointed last month by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to fill the remaining five months of her brother’s fourth term. Graham, a close Trump ally, died suddenly on July 11 of an aortic dissection suffered at his Capitol Hill home.

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who is locked in a close race for Ohio governor against Democrat Amy Acton, is waging a sustained ad blitz to hammer her as a left-winger in a state that has trended Republican and backed Mr. Trump by double digits in the last election.

The old college try. Congress might intervene in collegiate athletics to set national standards for student compensation and preserve parts of the athletic conference system as states and schools struggle to govern it themselves.

Led by Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, the bipartisan legislation is dubbed the NIL bill because it would create national rules for the name, image and likeness system that pays student-athletes.

The legislation was rushing through the Senate in early August but did not make it over the finish line before lawmakers ditched out for a summer vacation. The start of the college football season seems likely to push the bill back onto the Senate agenda.

Supporters of the bill said they are aiming for a vote in September.

The core of the bill is the creation of national NIL standards, heading off a patchwork of legislation that has emerged in dozens of states.

The Washington Times Editorial Board warns about the ticking time bomb that is the national debt.

Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler targets California Gov. Gavin Newsom for signing into law the Stop Nick Shirley Act, which she calls a “blatant attempt to chill news organizations from investigating and reporting on waste, fraud and abuse.”

Gerard Level reminds readers of socialism’s failed history.