‘Minnesota provides a blueprint for how to prevent a slide into authoritarianism we’ve seen in other countries.…’ (Thomas Pepinsky via Vox)

‘Ever since the United States entrusted its presidency to a would-be insurrectionist in January 2025, many Americans have feared for the integrity of their nation’s future elections.

And not without reason. President Donald Trump made his contempt for democracy clear on January 6, 2021. Shortly after retaking office last year, he pardoned the rioters who’d stormed the Capitol in his name, gutted the agency that protects America’s voting infrastructure from cyberattacks, attempted to unconstitutionally deter the counting of many mail-in ballots, and threatened to prosecute officials who had faithfully administered the 2020 election.

If concerns that Trump might unduly influence the 2026 midterms aren’t new, however, they’ve grown markedly more plausible over the past two weeks.

…This interference could take many forms. But recent events have increased experts’ level of concern about two possibilities in particular:

  — That the Trump administration will try to seize ballots and voting machines from key jurisdictions before votes have been fully counted.

  — That Trump will deploy ICE or other federal agents to the vicinity of critical polling places, so as to deter turnout among voters in general — and those with undocumented family members, in particular.

Below, I explain how recent events have made these hypotheticals more thinkable — and why the administration’s efforts to unduly sway the midterms in its favor are, nonetheless, unlikely to succeed…’ (Eric Levitz via Vox)

‘I print whistles because reality still matters; whistles get neighbors to come running, make sure enough people are recording, so when the regime pretends there’s only one camera angle of Renee Good’s death, we know the truth.

I also make whistles because it’s easy. You can literally do it in your sleep. I’ve made over 12,000 whistles since January 15th with three printers and almost zero optimization. I’ll harvest 300 of them tomorrow morning, 300 in the late afternoon, and another 100 in the evening before I do it all again.

Experimenting with different whistles in my garage, including a full plate of Federico’s Strong Whistle. Photo: Sean Hollister / The Verge
Printing whistles is more cost-effective than drop-shipping them from China. Even if I bought filament at retail prices and paid PG&E’s full exorbitant California electricity rates, I’d be spending around 5 cents per whistle — and the unit economics only get better from there.

Across the country, people are realizing these printers can serve a bigger purpose than building toys and trinkets. Whether someone is looking for 100 whistles to protect friends and family, 200 for a church or school, or 1,000 for a whole neighborhood, requests are flooding in, each one vetted and added to a spreadsheet by volunteers.

No one is told what to do, which whistle to print, or which request to fulfill. These Signal chats feel like a community, building and innovating everything as we go.…’ (Sean Hollister via The Verge)