1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Be2 Be7 7.O-O O-O 8.f4 Nc6 9.Kh1 Qc7 10.Be3 Bd7 11.Nb3 a6 12.a4 b6 13.Bf3 Rac8 14.Qe2 Nb4 15.Qf2 Rb8 16.Rac1 Bc6 17.Qg3 Rfd8 18.e5 dxe5 19.fxe5 Nfd5 20.Bh6 g6 21.Ne4 b5 22.axb5 axb5 23.Bg4 Be8 24.Ng5 Nc6 25.Nxe6 1-0>

<Republican lawmakers on Thursday voted to make it harder to change the Missouri Constitution amid a campaign to restore abortion rights through a voter-backed constitutional amendment.

Currently, Missouri constitutional changes are enacted if approved by a majority of votes statewide. State senators voted 22-9 along party lines to also require a majority of votes in five of the state's eight congressional districts to approve amendments. The Senate measure now heads to the Republican-led House.

Republican state lawmakers have been fighting for years to raise the bar to amend the constitution, without success. But there is increased pressure this year due to the effort to get the abortion-rights amendment on the November ballot.

If approved by the full Legislature, the Senate's proposal would go before voters this fall. Some Republicans are hoping the higher threshold for approving constitutional amendments will get on the August ballot so that it could be in place by November, when voters might decide on the abortion-rights amendment.

The Missouri proposal to make it harder to amend the state constitution builds on anti-abortion strategies in other states, including last year in Ohio. Last month, the Mississippi House voted to ban residents from placing abortion initiatives on the statewide ballot.

The Missouri Senate proposal passed days after Democrats ended a roughly 20-hour filibuster with a vote to strip language to ban noncitizens from voting in Missouri elections, which they already can't do.

“Non-citizens can't vote,” Republican state Sen. Mike Cierpiot said during a floor debate Tuesday.

Senate Democrats have argued that including the ban on noncitizen voting was so-called ballot candy, an attempt to make the proposal more appealing to Republican voters worried about immigrants.

“I just don’t quite understand why, during election years, it always seems like there has to be a group of people that we’re supposed to be fearful of,” Democratic state Sen. Tracy McCreery said during the filibuster.

Republicans, particularly members of the Senate's Conservative Caucus, have warned that an explicit ban should be added to the constitution in case city leaders try to allow noncitizens to vote and state judges rule that it is legal. Republican Gov. Mike Parson has said he has filled more than 40% of Missouri's judicial seats.

“We have a foresight and a vision to see the potential of what could happen in the future here in the state of Missouri with the election process: the illegals voting,” state Sen. Rick Brattin, who leads the Conservative Caucus, told reporters Thursday.>

<Over the past year, we’ve seen an alarming wave of current or former senior government officials who reportedly failed to properly safeguard classified information. This includes classified documents recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022 and additional classified material discovered and surrendered from the homes of President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence between December 2022 and January 2023.

The attention of the media and public has been almost wholly focused on two aspects of these incidents: their potential criminal and political liability. On the legal front, although the decision has been made to not pursue criminal charges against Biden or Pence, Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury for the unlawful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Legal pundits and political strategists continue to debate the relative appropriateness and equitability of these decisions by the Justice Department. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

Questions also persist concerning the political ramifications for Biden and Trump, the two expected major-party candidates in the upcoming presidential election. Since the publication earlier this month of special counsel Robert Hur’s decision not to indict Biden, the focus has been on the potential damage to the sitting president. While his report concluded that criminal prosecution for the willful retention of classified documents was not warranted, several sections appear to raise questions concerning the president’s mental acuity — in particular, the report’s reference to the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” has garnered significant attention.

But as impactful as the legal and political considerations may be, a third critical area must also be addressed: the potential ramifications these incidents can have on US national security.

The US designates classified information as Confidential, Secret and Top Secret based on the damage that could reasonably be expected to occur as a result of disclosure of this information (“damage,” “serious damage” or “exceptionally grave damage”). All government employees granted a security clearance receive training on the protocols for storing classified material. When classified information fails to be safeguarded, including retaining documents in a home office or garage such as Biden did or a bathroom such as Trump did, national security can be jeopardized in several ways.

The clearest threat is that our adversaries can more easily gain access to classified material and the sensitive information it contains. It is no secret that foreign intelligence services target the United States to gather information concerning our defense and intelligence capabilities and leadership intentions. Documents recovered from both Biden and Trump are reported to have included material classified at the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level, requiring storage in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, which has special safeguards to prevent unauthorized access. A private home (or an estate connected to a private resort), even one where a current or former senior government official resides, is almost certainly less secure than a SCIF. This increases the likelihood that an adversary would succeed in accessing any classified documents stored at these locations....>

<....If our adversaries recognize a pattern of senior officials improperly storing documents, they may alter their tactics to target these less-secure locations. Rather than attempting to conduct a clandestine operation to surreptitiously enter an embassy or other federal building, for instance, they could simply look to burglarize a private residence.

Beyond the actual intelligence contained in the reports, one of the greatest concerns is for the sensitive sources and methods used to obtain the information. These include things such as phone taps, computer intrusions and imagery from satellites or drones as well as the most sensitive source: recruited human assets. If an adversary’s counterintelligence service can identify the manner in which the US acquired specific information, that service can take steps to prevent vulnerability to more collection in the future. This could mean removing a listening device, concealing their assets from overhead imagery or, in a worst-case scenario, capturing and executing a source recruited by US intelligence.

In addition to the potential threat to existing sources, individuals who might otherwise consider risking their lives by cooperating with the US could also have second thoughts. If a potential asset believes the US is unable to safeguard their identities, it is less likely that they would be willing to work with an agency such as the CIA. Human sources provide unique access and insights into our adversaries’ intentions. Decreasing their number by calling into question our ability to protect their identities would deliver a serious self-inflicted blow to our national security.

Our adversaries are not the only ones observing how well we safeguard sensitive information. The US intelligence community regularly shares information with allied intelligence agencies, such as Britain’s MI6, Australia’s Secret Intelligence Service and others in the “Five Eyes” alliance. In return, these partners provide the US with information to help promote joint national interests, such as counterterrorism. If our allies believe that our senior officials cannot properly safeguard their intelligence, they may reconsider their level of cooperation. In the current multithreat landscape, the US simply can’t afford to go it alone.

Finally, US intelligence community employees, bound by the same oath to safeguard classified information, may come to question the seriousness of their obligation. If the storage of sensitive documents outside government-approved areas becomes normalized, and there is a perception that the repercussions are nominal, the risk of additional incidents will increase. This would only serve to further weaken national security. While I’m confident that the overwhelming majority of patriotic men and women in the US intelligence community take their obligation to protect classified information seriously, even the smallest decline in vigilance could have severe repercussions.

Whether negligent or intentional, inadvertent or criminal, we should expect more from our senior-most officials.>

<Trump attorney Alina Habba torpedoed Fox News legal analyst Andy McCarthy over his analysis of ex-President Donald Trump’s chances at winning an appeal of his bombshell fraud judgment.

McCarthy wrote that Trump’s appeal of the bombshell fraud judgment that could total in excess of $460 million is not likely to come out with a “clean win” for either side.

On Wednesday night’s edition of Fox News Channel’s The Story with Martha MacCallum, MacCallum asked Habba about those comments and Habba retorted that McCarthy is welcome to join the team if he thinks he knows better than she does:

MARTHA MACCALLUM: I mean, it’s interesting we’re going to get into this later, but, that that, you know, the numbers in New York right now indicate that there are Democrats who are leaning towards Trump. I mean, he’s still 12 points behind the current president. But I think it’s interesting, given how perhaps, you know, the overreach of this, that maybe all people look at and try to figure out how this possibly makes sense. Andy McCarthy wrote this in National Review. Just a quick thought on this before I let you go, Eileen, if I may.

He said, “To my mind, it’s unlikely that Trump’s appeal will result in a clean win for either side. The realist in me is not banking on a sweeping appellate win for Trump. I anticipate that he will get material relief in terms of the dollar amount, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on the rest of the penalties. And those penalties matter a lot.” What do you say to that?

ALINA HABBA: I say that I welcome him to be part of the legal team if he thinks he knows the case better than the team that tried it for 11 weeks. I’ve been on this case for the better of three years. I can tell you right now, there are truly no facts that support any of these decisions. And that, again, I can say, will be made very clear in our appeal.

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Well, we look forward to seeing the next move in this very complicated game of chess that has a lot of people’s attention.

McCarthy took the jab in stride, writing on Twitter/X “I’ve been there – any lawyer who put heart and soul into trying the case is annoyed by comments from peanut gallery.”>