Good morning, AlterNet America family.
Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I give you my thoughts on the week’s biggest news as I consume my caffeine with you.
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Between mail-in ballots and produce, it’s been a busy week for the Trump administration. There’s been several developments around some of his biggest orders this week, so let’s talk about them.
Trump Has Beef With Other Republicans (Literally)
Beef currently has an easier path through customs than a Canadian with a valid passport.
In February, Trump signed a deal with Argentina President Javier Milei to allow 80,000 metric tons of tariff-free beef into the country. In August, the USDA recalled nearly 30,000 pounds of the Argentine beef from stores in Texas and Florida after learning it had been sold without ever going through mandatory federal inspections. The agency classified it as a Class I health hazard, the highest category.
Two weeks later, Trump paused tariffs on another 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef for 90 days. He claimed foreign exporters have agreed to sell the beef at 25 percent below current market prices, but didn’t say which countries or companies are involved in the agreement.
More than a dozen GOP senators publicly condemned the move, including high-ranking senators like John Barrasso of Wyoming and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, who is a cattle rancher, called it a betrayal of the American people.
The administration has now tried to fix beef prices twice, and the only thing it has actually lowered is the ranchers’ opinion of the president.
Trump’s Mail-In Ballot Order Has Been Blocked, Unblocked, and Blocked Again
Trump has now spent more time trying to stop people from mailing ballots than the Postal Service has spent trying to deliver them.
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 Monday to lift a federal injunction blocking Trump’s executive order limiting mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterms. Signed in March, the order mandates states provide the federal government a list of all registered voters who request a mail-in ballot, and orders the U.S. Postal Service to refuse delivery of ballots from states that don’t comply.
The ruling did not address whether the order is legal, but said states had not yet shown enough injuries to sue. States can later challenge the Postal Service’s rule after it causes harm.
Two days after the ruling, a federal judge found that the administration had already violated a separate nationwide injunction by issuing new design and tracking rules for mail ballots. The administration argued that the rule did not violate the injunction, as it directly states it will not be implemented while the injunction is in place. The judge disagreed, but declined to impose penalties.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston blocked the order for a second time after states refiled their lawsuits, issuing a 14-day restraining order. The first mail ballots in some states are due to go out before that restraining order expires.
RFK Jr: Making America Hospitalized Again
HHS Secretary RFK Jr. is so worried about what’s in vaccines that he never checked what was in the lettuce.
As of August 20, the CDC has confirmed 2,777 measles cases across 47 states in 2026, already surpassing all of last year. Two people died this week in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, both unvaccinated. They were the first measles deaths of 2026, following three in 2025, which were the first in the country since 2015.
At the same time, more than 17,000 Americans have been sickened by cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection traced primarily to contaminated iceberg lettuce from a processor in central Mexico. The outbreak has resulted in at least 495 hospitalizations and two deaths in Michigan. During the same period last year, there were 1,180 cases.
At least 431 people in 31 states got sick this summer alone from a salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers imported from Mexico, after the contaminated product was served at Chipotle and QDOBA locations. Another July outbreak linked to eggs resulted in a recall of more than 1.5 million dozen. And since January, a third tied to backyard poultry has made more than 500 people sick in 43 states.
Kennedy’s HHS decimated the infrastructure that would otherwise catch these outbreaks sooner. He oversaw the CDC’s FoodNet program dropping mandatory reporting for six of the eight pathogens it once tracked, and more than 200 consumer safety specialists left the FDA including dozens tasked with food safety. The grocery industry also successfully lobbied the FDA to delay its Food Traceability Rule for two and a half years.
The Pentagon Has a Secret Blacklist of Journalists and Accidentally Told One
The U.S. Central Command keeps a secret list of journalists blacklisted by the military’s press office, according to a report Monday from The Intercept. CENTCOM public affairs executive assistant Richard Allee disclosed the list’s existence, telling reporter Nick Turse that he would be placed on the list if he continued to call the command with questions about the Iran war.
When Turse asked Allee for clarification, the answer was a simple “yes.” Allee said he was not authorized to say which reporters or outlets are on the list now.
CENTCOM’s official press office denied in an email that any blacklist exists. A separate U.S. official, speaking anonymously, told The Intercept that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s office had a standing order not to engage with the reporter and would deny it if challenged.
The disclosure is part of a broader pattern under Hegseth, who has compared reporters to Pharisees and instituted a policy requiring journalists to sign a pledge that they will not collect unclassified information without approval. Nearly all the Pentagon press corps gave up their credentials rather than sign. A federal judge struck the policy down as unconstitutional in March 2026, but escort restrictions remain.
While the New York Times and Washington Post can push back against unconstitutional orders because they have billionaire owners and institutional power, the news outlets who are doing the most critical work right now can’t.
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