Trade war escalating. The White House announced it has banned dairy products, alcoholic beverages and motorcycles from Canada as the trade war between the two longtime allies ramps up.

The ban will go into effect Sept. 29 in response to Canada’s imposition of $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. It includes whey, molasses and non-alcoholic beer.

Most Canadian provinces, including Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, boycotted or outright banned U.S. alcohol.

The administration also will slap an additional 50% tariff on cheese products, steel and aluminum, and bamboo furniture from Canada.

The U.S. and Canada have long fought over trade, but this is believed to be the first time Washington has banned products from Canada.

Canada is the U.S.’s second-largest trade partner.

The decennial census would eliminate questions on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation under a proposal by the administration, which it said would bring the questionnaire more in line with the census’ original purpose.

The plan also calls for dropping illegal immigrants and temporary foreign visitors from the official apportionment count, which is used to apportion the 435 seats in the House.

The changes would be among the biggest ever to the main census count, which surveys every household in the country.

Census officials said the proliferation of demographic questions has tainted the survey, causing some people to refuse to respond.

“The collection of such data does not, by itself, advance the fundamental, constitutional purpose of the decennial census, which is to conduct an enumeration to ascertain the population count for apportionment,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

Opponents are gearing up for a fight.

“The administration’s proposal is a flagrant assault on our democracy, designed to manipulate voting maps and dilute the political representation of diverse American communities,” said William Roberts, senior vice president for rights and justice at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress.

The security lessons of 9/11, which occurred 25 years ago, are waning.

Several of the hijackers were aided by their ability to obtain driver’s licenses in Virginia and Florida, a flaw that eventually led to the Real ID.

But 25 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the consensus around securing IDs is fraying, according to experts who see a renewed apathy toward identity emerging.

The same is true for other lessons of Sept. 11. Experts see stalled progress on screening people as they enter and exit the U.S., backsliding on breaking down walls among intelligence agencies, and confusion on identifying terrorists and denying them safe havens.

Integrity clock is ticking. The Senate has only a three-week window remaining to finish the already herculean task of passing the SAVE America Act.

Republicans face a Democratic filibuster, and even then it may be too late to force states to implement the measure’s proof of citizenship and photo ID requirements before the Nov. 3 elections.

Mr. Trump is keeping pressure on Congress to get the bill passed, but he too is looking beyond this year’s elections.

“One way or the other, before or after the November 3rd election, we will pass the SAVE America Act. We will make mandatory photo ID and proof of citizenship,” Mr. Trump said to the GOP convention in Dallas.

The House-passed version of the election bill is written to take effect upon the date of enactment, specifying that anyone applying to register to vote on or after that date must show proof of citizenship.

Voters also would be required to show photo identification at the polls.

Musk to the rescue? Elon Musk is trying to divert the midterm debate away from inflation and gas prices and turn it into a referendum on transgender issues.

His America PAC began airing ads this week accusing Democrats in key Senate races of backing the “radical transgender” policies that let men play in women’s sports and fund sex changes for children.

It’s a familiar line of attack for the GOP and Mr. Trump. 

In Iowa, the group is running an ad against Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek that accuses him of supporting “taxpayer‑funded sex change surgeries for children” and policies that “let biological men enter girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms.” The narrator concludes: “Josh Turek voted to put our daughters and their teammates in danger.”

A similar spot is airing in Ohio against Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Democrats say Republicans are trying to distract from the economy, the top concern for most voters.

Missouri redistricting rejected. The Supreme Court rejected two requests from Missouri to restore its Republican-tilted congressional map for this year’s elections. Proponents requested another emergency consideration at the high court.

The state’s Supreme Court had halted the map in a ruling and restored the maps used in the 2022 and 2024 elections.

The now-discarded map had eliminated a Democrat-held seat, which Republicans had hoped would produce a 7-1 split in the state’s delegation.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, rejected the first request, while the entire court rejected the second, both without explanation.

The IRS broke a Watergate-era privacy law when it gave information on 47,000 people to ICE for use in immigration enforcement, a federal appeals court ruled.

The IRS took a process for turning over individualized information when requested for a specific criminal investigation and turned it into a “mass” data-sharing operation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said.

In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel upheld a district court injunction halting the sharing, agreeing that it trampled on Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, which limits when and how the IRS can disclose the data it collects on taxpayers.

“The Data-Exchange Procedure indisputably contravenes the requirements of section 6103,” wrote Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee. She was joined by two other Obama-appointed judges in the ruling.

Harnessing the IRS for immigration enforcement has long been a goal of conservatives, who point out that the agency is collecting taxes from illegal immigrants and, in many cases, has information on them that other agencies don’t.

Last year, ICE sought to get at that data, saying it wanted to get IRS information on 1.28 million migrants who were defying deportation orders. The IRS began processing the requests and returned information on more than 47,000 people before the lower court stepped in and shut it down.

The appeals court said the transaction violated several principles of IRS privacy rules.

The Sept. 11 attacks woke up Americans, writes Clifford D. May. The challenge now is to stay awake and take the steps necessary to defend ourselves.

As Mr. Trump goes after Canada in a tariff war, Joseph Curl reminds readers of the Newfoundland community of Gander, which welcomed thousands of U.S. airline passengers when their planes were not allowed to land in the U.S. after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Congress needs an oath to do no harm, writes Kevin Villani.