F. Left News

Fairplay Executive Director Josh Golin released the following statement today:

“This is a watershed moment for the growing movement to protect children from addictive and dangerously designed social media. In addition to a significant financial penalty, the state attorneys general have secured the most significant injunctive relief yet from Meta, including a number of measures to protect young people’s sleep, such as disabling Instagram overnight for minors’ accounts. The settlement also requires disabling addictive and harmful features like displays of like counts and plastic surgery filters and new guardrails to protect children from predatory adults. We also greatly appreciate that Meta will be required to identify both under-13 and under-18 users without infringing on the privacy of adults. We thank the state attorneys general for their historic leadership in fighting for our children’s safety and well-being online.

“This settlement also underscores the need for KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. As internal documents have shown over and over, Meta and other social media companies deliberately design their products to addict kids, and that is the root cause of so many mental health difficulties and serious online harms for minors. While it’s gratifying to see state attorneys general take action to hold companies like Meta accountable, we also need our federal government to step in to force these companies to make their products safe for kids by design so that every child on every platform will be protected, both now and in the future. KOSA has robust, bipartisan support from over three-quarters of the US Senate. We call on Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Charles Schumer to bring the bill to the floor for a vote next month.”

Climate change has reduced snowpack by 36 percent and streamflow by 13 percent across the western United States, and more than half of those impacts have been triggered by emissions from fossil fuel companies and cement manufacturers, according to a new report released today by University of California, Merced and Union of Concerned Scientists. Additionally, the report ties one-tenth of the observed groundwater loss in California’s Central Valley directly to emissions from these companies. In response, Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, issued the following statement:

“Millions of Americans are experiencing historic water scarcity. We now know that a small number of fossil fuel companies are responsible for a significant portion of this disaster. And they knew full well what they were doing. Already in 1988, companies like Shell were issuing internal reports predicting that climate change—caused by the burning of their fossil fuel products—would create ‘significant changes’ in ‘precipitation patterns’ that ‘would impact on the human environment, future living standards and food supplies’ and could have ‘major social, economic, and political consequences.’ Yet fossil fuel companies lied to the public about this reality for decades, and continue to block the climate action we need to address this crisis. These companies need to face accountability.”

Well damn, we sure feel safer knowing ICE pulled 5-year-old Liam Tadeo and his construction worker dad Victor off Austin's streets on their way to a soccer game before Liam could start kindergarten the next day; also that they were held at a family concentration camp, ICE refused to let Liam's mother take him, and both father and son will "self-deport" to not further sully our pristine white shores. Question: How do these sick fucks sleep at night?

Thanks to the obscene $200 billion-plus gifted to DHS and ICE by their evil overlords, arrests of undocumented or at least unwanted immigrants surged to nearly 50,000 largely innocent people in July, a 15% spike from a month earlier and the regime's highest monthly arrest total to date. So yes, the sadists are still at it, just more quietly than when a psychotic Noem and Bovino were blasting out histrionic videos of daredevil agents dropping from helicopters onto apartment rooftops to grab terrified families - images reportedly, inexplicably "provoking a lot of ordinary people." Wusses, all.

Many recent arrests come during "traffic stops," increasingly with the help of partnering state and local law enforcement lured by "generous financial incentives," especially in Texas and Florida; ICE is also arresting more Haitians whose protections have been stripped away. Among those detained are over 6,200 kids, 10 times more than during Biden's tenure, despite ongoing, fantastical DHS claims they're going after the "worst of the worst" murderers, drug traffickers, sex offenders - and despite ghastly data showing up to 85% of ICE thugs themselves have sex offenses on their records, most against children. New data, like old data, also shows less than a quarter of those arrested have any criminal convictions.

Elsewhere, ICE abuses go on apace. A sailor aboard the troubled USS Lincoln said ICE has taken his father, who had a work permit, into custody. “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws,” said a DHS statement "in the same support-our-troops spirit Trump is so famous for." In an interview, the mother, father and sister of Alex Pretti family said no officials have come forward in the last seven months to retract or apologize for the "disgusting" claims of "assassin" and "domestic terrorist" they made about Alex - "We still hear those words about our child,” said his mother Susan - nor have any criminal charges been filed against his killers.

Meanwhile, J.D. Vance just came to Maine to spew racist lies, flaunt his "trademark absence of charisma," and claim, "If you bring in millions and millions of illegal aliens and give them houses that ought to go by right to American citizens, it's going to increase the cost of housing for everybody else." He also dismissed ICE's killing of Colombian Johan Durán Guerrero, who had a social security card, two jobs, a wife and a three-year-old daughter. Worried residents, he said, should "have a little bit of perspective" to ensure "that poison stops coming into our country." Troy Jackson called J.D. "a dirtbag": "I mean, he had a life." As to Susan Collins, who declined to regret giving ICE "$70 billion more to pull this shit off": "I’m sick of your ‘concerns.’"

And on Aug. 16, brave ICE thugs stopped five-year-old Liam Tadeo - their second small Liam like the bunny-hat-wearing Liam Ramos in Minnesota - and his father Victor Martinez Nieto on their way to play soccer. Without bothering with the nicety of pretending it was a legit traffic stop, they asked Victor, originally from Mexico, if he had legal status. Candidly, he said no; in 2025, he'd been arrested by ICE, "voluntarily" left, then "criminally" reentered the U.S. to (horrors) be with his wife and son. Heart-rending video soon surfaced of Liam crying beside his father and trying to hold one of his hands, cuffed behind him, as Victor tried to console his tearful son, talking to him as they walked. It was the day before Liam was set to start kindergarten.

They were both taken to the for-profit Dilley concentration camp, which rights groups have repeatedly accused of medical neglect, poor living conditions and abuse. According to Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, their family's attorney, Victor begged ICE to release Liam to his mother Maria, also not a legal citizen, at home, or another member of the family. ICE refused, though DHS proudly, routinely declaims ICE "will place the children with a safe person the parent designates," like how they also contend Dilley is "retrofitted for families, with access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets...generously funded by the U.S. taxpayer." Instead, they had Victor sign papers in English he didn't fully understand, and booked both father and son.

Lincoln-Goldfinch says Maria is "desperate and distraught, separated from her child and worrying about his well-being." Back at their home, "It feels like when you go to someone’s house after a sudden death, and there’s a wake or a gathering. Everybody is just stunned." Maria released a statement: "Liam was supposed to start kindergarten this week. Instead he is (in) detention. He should be in school, playing soccer, and at home with his family." Saturday, CNN aired emotional video of her talking by phone to her five-year-old. “I love you so much and I miss you so much, my love,” she tearfully told Liam in Spanish. “Don’t despair, my love, okay?” Lacking options, Liam timidly responds, "Okay." One furious, horrified online comment: "Anyone!!??!!"

This week, Austin's KUT News reported Victor has decided to be deported to Mexico along with his son, rather than risk Liam being separated from him and placed in a dystopian regime's custody as an "unaccompanied migrant child.” Said Lincoln-Goldfinch, "His family did what any family would do: Agree." As Maria reportedly struggles to find a way to re-unite with her family - "My son is only five years old" - Americans fume about "sadistic barbarians harming humanity every single day." "How sick can these people be? I used to think merciless psychopathic villains were only found in movies and fiction," said one. Also, "America has concentration camps. I. Hate. It. Here." and, "That poor little boy, That poor family. I am so tired."

Meanwhile, Texas' Dem lawmakers have called for Liam to be released and for Dilley to be shut down. "I just sat with Liam's mother as she found out what it means to have your child held hostage by ICE. It was horrifying," wrote Rep. Greg Casar, who charged Liam's arrest showed Trump uses children “as bait and leverage to fuel his mass deportation machine.” "Liam should be starting kindergarten this week, and instead he's sitting in a trailer prison." Rep. Joaquin Castro said ICE denied his request to visit Liam at Dilley in what he called "shady stuff," and he vowed to return; he also cited human rights violations, privacy concerns, and untenable phone, video call and e-mail strictures: “I’m telling y’all, ICE is getting worse."

Because this is ghoul-filled America in 2026, Liam's aunt Patricia Resendiz has begun a Gofundme to help with legal expenses and her sister Maria's household costs, as Victor was the sole provider. "If we manage to get Liam and his dad to go free, Liam will also need psychological support, as the detention has left him traumatized. These funds will be to mitigate all aspects of child detention," she wrote. "The detention of Liam and my brother-in-law was cruel. They are not criminals - they were simply on their way to a soccer match. Liam is a beautiful, intelligent, and big-hearted little boy. My sister is devastated, as are we. Liam was detained right in front of my son, his cousin. My son told me that ICE agents said to Liam, 'You can't escape.'"

We feel safer already.

Teachers earned 25.2 percent less than comparable college graduates in other professions in 2025, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

The relative teacher pay penalty — which is adjusted for education, experience, and demographic characteristics — was a slight improvement from 2024’s record high of 26.9 percent, but still more than four times the 6.1 percent penalty recorded in 1996.

In other words, teachers earned on average 74.8 cents on the dollar in 2025 compared with other college graduates — much less than the relative 93.9 cents on the dollar that teachers earned in 1996. When broken down by gender, the relative teacher pay penalty was 34.5 percent for men and 20.0 percent for women.

Overall, simple inflation-adjusted weekly wages for public school teachers fell 6.2 percent over the last three decades, while wages for other college graduates rose 28.8 percent over the same period.

Teachers were paid less than other college graduates in every state, with relative teacher pay gaps ranging from 10.4 percent in Rhode Island to 40.7 percent in Colorado. The teacher pay penalty was at least 25 percent in 25 states.

While teachers typically receive better benefits packages than other professionals, this only partially offsets the growing wage penalty that teachers face. After accounting for the difference in benefits, teachers’ total compensation penalty was 14.5 percent in 2025.

As the report explains, providing teachers with competitive pay is necessary to retain and attract qualified workers. While there are many important factors impacting teacher retention and recruitment, pay consistently lands near the top of any list.

Reversing these trends will require targeted, sustained investment in public education at the local, state, and federal levels. It will also require stronger support for public-sector collective bargaining, which has long been a driver of better pay and job quality for teachers.

“The decades-long teacher pay penalty has taken a heavy toll on public education. Yet, policymakers have failed to make the needed investments to reverse course. That failure is especially troubling in a country as wealthy as the United States, with more than enough resources for its public schools to be the envy of the world,” said report author Sylvia Allegretto, who is a senior economist at CEPR and research associate at EPI

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently launched a process to significantly revise its Travel Management Rule, which guides where motorized vehicles are and are not allowed on almost 200 million acres of national forests and grasslands.

The USDA is proposing to flip the U.S. Forest Service’s longstanding approach to travel management on its head, forcing local forests to allow motorized vehicles everywhere except for places that are specifically closed. The current rule requires motorized vehicles to stay on a designated system of roads, trails and areas in national forests and grasslands and is an essential policy for wildlife conservation, balanced recreation, and public safety.

This comes directly on the heels of the USDA’s proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which would make 45 million acres of remote backcountry forests available for clearcut logging, road-building and other development, unleashing back-to-back blows to our national forests. Combined, these actions are part of the administration’s systematic dismantling of the rules and safeguards that keep national forests safe, accessible, and managed for everyone.

“This is yet another egregious attack in the systematic dismantling of public lands management of our national forests,” said Dan Hartinger, senior director for agency policy at The Wilderness Society. “Travel management provides the basic guardrails that let hikers, hunters, anglers, and riders share the same forest without chaos; removing those guardrails threatens the freedom of all public lands users to safely enjoy our national forests the way they choose. Paired with the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, this destructive agenda sells out future generations’ enjoyment of our forests in order to hand them over for corporate profits.”

“The Travel Management Rule creates a framework that balances uses on national forest lands. It draws on local decision-making processes to support all user groups in enjoying public lands while also protecting these places for future generations,” said Anneka Williams, policy director at Winter Wildlands Alliance. “Removing this framework for shared use threatens diverse user experiences on public lands. Coming on the heels of the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, it is clear that this announcement is part of the administration’s broader agenda to dismantle our public lands as we know and love them.”

“The Travel Management Rule is why dirtbikers and snowmobilers can share national forests with hikers and backcountry skiers without conflict. It’s built on local decision-making that ensures no user group gets steamrolled and all our national forest values are protected,” said Hilary Eisen, federal policy director at Wild Montana. “Just days after doubling down on repealing the Roadless Rule, this announcement makes the administration’s plan obvious: gut the rules requiring the Forest Service to manage our natural resources carefully and listen to the public, then open the gates to industry and extraction. The Roadless rescission already showed that Forest Service leadership doesn’t value public input, science, or expert management. They’ve lost the public’s trust, and should expect the public to hold them accountable.”

“The USDA’s announcement to gut the Travel Management Rule and the Roadless Rule in the same week is a one-two punch that together deals a tremendous blow to wildlife,” said Vera Smith, director of national forests and public lands at Defenders of Wildlife. “The Travel Management Rule states simply that motorized vehicles must stay on routes and areas designated locally for that use. The Forest Service issued the rule over 20 years ago to curb damage from unmanaged recreation, reduce user conflict and protect public safety. Rescinding it now is irresponsible and reckless.”

“Just after this administration moved to eliminate protections for Roadless Areas, it is now proposing to gut the Travel Management Rule that for 20 years has ensured the Forest Service manages motorized recreation in a manner that minimizes damage, protects other visitors, and responds when vehicle use is harming public land resources,” said Adam Rissien rewilding manager at WildEarth Guardians. “Eliminating those protections will not improve access. It would replace locally developed plans with uncertainty, conflict, and unmanaged use.”

“Just days after its proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule, the administration is now attempting to open up our national forests to more off-road vehicle use that will degrade the landscape and disturb wildlife and other land users,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Some places in our national forests are meant for quiet, undisturbed recreation and protecting sensitive wildlife, including endangered species. This rule would open all roads and trails to ORVs by default, meaning areas set aside for hiking, hunting, or horseback riding could soon be fair game to four-wheelers and dirt bikes.”

“The Trump Administration’s proposal to fundamentally alter the Travel Management Rule will change for the worse how Utahns experience national forests throughout the state, from the Wasatch Front to redrock country outside Escalante and Moab,” said Laura Peterson, senior attorney at Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “The proposal will place a heavy thumb on the scale to prioritize off-road vehicle use at the expense of all other uses of the national forests, including the protection of wildlife, cultural sites, streams and wild places. This move will not improve access to public lands, but it will make the experience of recreating on public lands worse for all users, including hikers, bikers, hunters, anglers and riders.”

“For over two decades the Travel Management Rule has ensured our National Forests are managed to host an array of user groups, while safeguarding the health and future of our public lands,” said Peggie dePasquale, National Forest Wildlands Director at the Wyoming Wilderness Association (WWA). “We are now witnessing a troublesome undoing of this effective management tool that the American people, especially here in Wyoming, have come to rely on for sustainable and relied upon access. It is critical that we raise our voices to send a clear message that the proposed revision goes against public interest and is bad news for the future of our natural world.”

“The existing travel management planning process allows the public to meaningfully weigh in on where vehicles do and don’t belong in our national forests. Repealing this rule hands that decision to political appointees in Washington, who have decided that every road, trail, and meadow should be open to motorized use, no matter the conflicts with other users or wildlife,” said Center for Western Priorities (CWP) Communications Director Kate Groetzinger. “Repealing this rule is also a recipe for more wildfire in a region that cannot afford it. Putting hot engines deeper into dry forests during longer and hotter fire seasons will increase wildfire risk, and Western communities will pay for it.”

Travel management is supported by a diverse group of public lands users.
This proposal to revise the Travel Management Rule is out of touch with everyday Americans who use our forested public lands. Motorized groups, recreationalists, sportsmen, conservation organizations, local communities and other public land users nationwide have spoken out in opposition:

• American Hiking Society, Back Country Horsemen of American, American Trails, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Bureau of Land Management, (7/21/2026).
• Motorcycle Industry Council, Specialty Vehicle Institute of America and Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (10/27/2025)
• American Endurance Ride Conference, American Hiking Society, American Horse Council, American Trails, Appalachian Mountain Club, Back Country Horsemen of America, Equine Land Conservation Resource, Move United, North Carolina Horse Council, Pacific Crest Trail Association, Partnership for the National Trails System, Rails to Trails Conservancy, Washington Trials Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, Forest Service (6/5/2026).
• American Motorcyclist Association, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (12/15/2025).
• Rural & Agriculture Council of America & United States Cattlemen’s Association, Letter Opposing full repeal of Travel Management Rule & Requesting a robust public process, (6/24/26).
• Outdoor Alliance & members Access Fund American Canoe Association, American Whitewater, International Mountain Bicycling Association, Winter Wildlands Alliance, The Mountaineers, American Alpine Club, Colorado Mountain Club, Surfrider Foundation, Runners for Public Lands, Letter Opposing Travel Management Repeal, (6/12/26).
• Off Road Business Association, Inc, United Four Wheel Drive Association, One Voice & United Snowmobile Alliance, Letter Opposing “outright repeal” of Travel Management Rule, (1/26/26).
• Public Lands Foundation, Position Statement supporting current Travel Management Policy, (4/25).

Checks & Balances Project (C&BP) has briefed the FBI on potential fraud involving Sussex County Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve White and the Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Squad (SCVRS) that he runs.

The briefing followed a July 14 complaint to the FBI that detailed 10 issues of concerns about White’s apparent corruption in office, including his conflicts of interest in voting to send taxpayer money to SCVRS and potential Medicare and Medicaid billing fraud tied to SCVRS.

C&BP also filed a complaint on July 17 with the inspector general of the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid. C&BP briefed an HHS investigator on Aug. 6 about the details included in its complaint.

The FBI and the HHS inspector general reached out to Checks & Balances Project.

The HHS complaint alleged potential fraud involving billing for ambulance calls conducted by SCVRS and the lack of transparency in the squad’s finances.

SCVRS lost its federal nonprofit status in 2023, because it failed to file tax returns for three years. C&BP also reported that in the five years for which tax returns are available – 2015 through 2019 – SCVRS reported a $304,000 surplus.

Outstanding FOIA requests

C&BP is still waiting for Sussex County to reply to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking data on SCVRS response times to calls for help and the number of times White used his state of Virginia email address for Sussex County work.

The county is also in apparent violation of Virginia law for not maintaining public records, including the agenda packets and minutes of supervisors’ meetings, on its website.

Sussex County’s site includes no information on meetings before 2025 and is missing minutes from some meetings after that date.

State law § 2.2-3707.2. says, “Posting of minutes for local public bodies. Except as provided in subsection I of § 2.2-3707, any local public body subject to the provisions of this chapter shall post minutes of its meetings on its official public government website, if any, within seven working days of final approval of the minutes.”

However, attempts to access the links on the site for meetings before 2025 yield this message: “Sorry! That page doesn’t seem to exist.”

Neither the office of Attorney General Jay Jones nor Sussex Commonwealth Attorney Regina Sykes have responded to C&BP’s offers to brief them.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

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Ryan Costello, Policy Director with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), issued the following statement as the Trump administration moves to intensify its economic pressure campaign against Iran following months of war and instability:

“President Trump, the ultimate gambler in geopolitics, is poised to double down on a bad hand on Iran yet again.

“We’ve been down the maximum pressure road with Iran many times. What we’ve learned is that President Trump can impose extensive economic pain on Iran, but ordinary Iranians overwhelmingly bear the cost.. The ruling elite in Iran remains largely insulated, while Tehran has repeatedly refused to capitulate to Washington’s demands.. Trump’s gamble is that this time, amid the destruction of war, and with the reinforcement of a blockade, time is on his side and ultimately Iran will be forced to concede defeat.

“The pivot back to economic coercion comes with enormous risks the administration appears determined to ignore. After all, it was the United States that waived sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea during the height of the war in March, and again issued a waiver allowing Iran to sell oil freely in June. Now attempting to choke off those same oil sales exposes the contradiction at the heart of Trump’s strategy: Washington needed to relieve economic pressure when the consequences became too costly, yet is now betting that it can reimpose that pressure without suffering the same blowback.

“Within the United States, ordinary Americans are paying the price for this deeply unpopular war at the gas pump and in their grocery bills. Trump’s polls have plummeted amid the war - one he said he’d avoid - heading into all-important midterms. Continuing economic warfare risks deeper turmoil in the energy markets and the global economy, which could cascade into a full-blown catastrophe. Moreover, starting a trade war with China risks retaliatory measures that the U.S. economy can ill afford.

“Iran has also indicated clearly that it will not tolerate economic warfare and will escalate across the region, if necessary, to target any nation that supports President Trump’s efforts to cripple the Iranian economy. While the President may think economic warfare is less risky than military warfare, ultimately Tehran will view it as a different tactic in the same campaign to crush the country.

“None of this appears likely to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Rather, it appears intended to delay and avoid a deal that ends not just the war, but also the maximum pressure campaign that the President has waged since 2018. Oftentimes, admitting you have a problem is necessary in order to stop an addiction. President Trump has proven unable and unwilling to stop his gambling on Iran that risks further undermining U.S. and regional security and the global economy.”

On Friday, Demand Progress Education Fund and a coalition of civil society advocates asked the FTC to investigate AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon for buying books in bulk, scanning them and then destroying the original work—including rare books. In a letter sent to the FTC, the organizations urge the agency to use its authority, including Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, to investigate whether this mass book-destroying practice unfairly prevents competing AI developers and the public from using these resources.

• Read the Letter

Convened by Demand Progress Education Fund, the letter was also signed by the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Media & Digital Governance at Open Markets Institute, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and 14 other organizations.

“The secretive and reckless way that major AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon are acting shows that there is real smoke here that the FTC needs to investigate,” said Demand Progress Education Fund Special Advisor Kate Oh. “There is credible reporting that the AI industry is acquiring books on vast commercial scales to scan and destroy, all to keep that scanned text in a private database walled off from the world and subject to corporate censorship and manipulation.”

“When a small number of dominant tech companies become the sole custodians of millions of human-authored works in digital form, locked away inside proprietary corporate databases—including works they have caused to exist nowhere else—they convert a shared public resource into a private chokepoint,” stated the letter. “They make themselves the unaccountable gatekeepers of our shared historical and cultural record, with the ability to censor as they see fit. That outcome should concern the FTC because the antimonopoly laws exist not only to protect competition but to prevent any private actor from amassing control incompatible with a free and self-governing society.”

Not to alarm, but everything in America - our economy, military, education, environment, health, moral fiber - is being decimated by a petty, fragile, flailing child in a fact-free bubble who just turned our foreign policy over to North Korea because its dictator "has always been nice to me." Otherwise, he's grifting, lying, babbling, losing wars, slathering gold, raving about his vanity projects - "If you're grass, you're very happy" - and going on AI slop sprees with George Washington, spinning in his grave.

This week, the war in Iran sank deeper into the quagmire it was always doomed to be when the 60-day negotiating period expired with little public comment. Trump shrugged off the lack of new talks because "the situation is so good," then threatened the "MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN" against Iran, which said it's working with Oman to monitor shipping through Hormuz Strait, which prompted Trump to threaten to "bomb the shit out of Oman," even though it's supposedly mediating on Iran. Having announced that after "we finish defeating Iran" he wanted to declare the Strait "a territory of the U.S," Trump went online and did just that with his magic Sharpie; Iran, in turn, vowed to "correct the delusions of this delusional individual," and who could blame them. Whiplash City.

At home, alas, America will likely continue getting dumber thanks to the moronic regime deleting or altering nearly 400 federal datasets - tracking police misconduct, violence against children, pollution - to wipe out facts they don't like. Of online data released last week from over 60 agencies - environment, education, labor, law enforcement - by far the largest slice is health information, much on substance abuse, mental health, infectious disease, queer and trans people in keeping with the surreal executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government." Entirely logically, experts decry the destruction - Facts: who needs 'em? - arguing once these cretins crawl back to their caves "we are not going to have the information we need...We’re erasing our institutional memory for public health.”

Speaking of: Just in time for fall, we have "Bobby Jr's Back to School Special: Free Measles!" The folks who won't give out free lunch are instead giving us over a quarter of a million kids entering kindergarten susceptible to measles, which has hit a 36-year high along with an all-time high of vaccine exemptions after rules were loosened - a vax rate so low health experts say it cannot provide herd protection. Just to keep us on our toes, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and chickenpox vax rates are also down, good news for a regime whose only strong point is spreading preventable disease. Dems wrote a letter urging Trump to halt substituting “anti-vaccine ideology for decades of scientific evidence”; good luck to them and us on what besieged health officials deem ongoing "chaos and confusion in vaccination recommendation systems."

Meanwhile, as Americans struggle to afford food, gas, health care - 8 million have lost coverage - the mad king is insisting his "REAL Polling Numbers (are) the best they have ever been" - ie: low 20s for Independents, 13% for Black voters, down 27 points for his Latino voters as Dems flip 30 state seats, including where Mar-a-Lago is - and covering everything in gold. Like, everything. One sage: "His super power is the ability to ruin shit you didn’t even know existed." He's spent up to $900 million on vanity pr0jects and $200 million to turn the White House into a brothel-like, gimcrack-packed "Middle Eastern bazaar crossed with an opulent Cracker Barrel" - complete with gold Trump coin glued to the Oval Office door - in a lavish, tacky, Let-Them-Eat-Gold-or-at-least-Home-Depot-plastic-appliques shopping junket with (obviously) our money.

He's ordered a "golden fleet" of 15 new "Trump-class" nuclear-powered warships estimated to cost about $275 billion, though he's said he'd rather get 25 ships for $455 billion. He announced the White House was buying 250 giant new Cadillac Escalade SUVs - retail price $90,000 each, over $300,000 for armored version - because, "That’s how we look sharp in those cavalcades." Last month, he spent over $5 million to gaudily gild two 19-foot, 80,000-pound equestrian statues, Arts of War and Arts of Peace, in 23.75-karat gold leaf (though they're bronze and should have been polished), rendering them like "very, very gold" oversized children's trophies next to the austere Lincoln Memorial. "We made them the way they were plus," he moronically bragged, "and everyone’s so proud." We wonder: Is "everyone" in the room with us?

As the national debt just hit $40 trillion for the first time - it took nearly 200 years for it to reach $1 trillion in 1981- Trump remains fixated on his feckin' $600 million ballroom - oops, sorry: "military complex" - that no one asked for. After a court blocked construction, he called the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who successfully brought the suit to stop it, “TREASONISTS” who are threatening national security and exposing "top secret military features.” More weirdly, the guy supposedly worried about "national security" just imploded seven decades of careful diplomacy with South Korea - and a 1950s mutual defense treaty the State Department calls "the linchpin for security and stability in the Indo-Pacific” - to punish a longtime democratic ally for declining to join his Iran debacle and instead appease a nuclear-armed dictator.

His abrupt move Sunday night to “substantially reduce” joint exercises with South Korea, hours before 18,000 South Korean troops and thousands of Americans were set to kick off their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, was widely panned as "an unforced error" and "another inane, haphazard decision (by) a chaotic administration" - one made, as usual, not jointly with Congress but unilaterally, on social media, based on wildly false, revisionist history. His "reasons": The drills are "costly" (see statues, ballroom, mountain of gold crap), they send a signal that's "inappropriate and hostile" toward a regime that's "unthreatening," and “Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect...I understand him, and he understands me." In other words, he is Sally Fields at the 1985 Oscars: "You like me!"

Never mind his "unthreatening" North Korea has weapons that reach the US; they're shipping weapons to Putin's forces in Ukraine; and Thursday they shrugged off Trump's paltry olive branch by launching a barrage of missiles, dismissing the "recent measure (of) so-called good faith," and denying Trump's claim his bestie had reached out. Sen. Tim Kaine: "North Korea tests ballistic missiles and Trump decides the problem is with...our ally, South Korea." These are also the guys who killed Otto Warmbler, a 21-year-old U.S. student on a 2016 tour charged with a "hostile act against the state" after allegedly stealing a hotel poster. He was put away after a show trial; when the U.S. got him released 17 months later, he came home blind, deaf, vegetative, howling, with catastrophic brain damage and signs of torture. He died six days later. But sure, Trump and Kim Jong Un "get along GREAT!"

Along with America’s rebuff of ally South Korea, the Pentagon just chose to relieve the beleaguered USS Lincoln with the USS Washington, the Navy’s only aircraft carrier in the Asia Pacific. The move leaves no U.S. presence there for the first time since 1944, “vaporizing” U.S. influence in the region and marking “the end of an era” - maybe just as well, given the Navy’s belated admission that last month U.S. destroyer USS Benfold lost power and ran adrift in the South China Sea for four days with no food, water, AC or toilets. Heckuva job, Pete. No wonder the rude mad king lost it Monday when CNN reporter Kristen Holmes did her job and challenged him on the wisdom of said “policies.” "What I'm doing is making things safer," he snarled. Admirably, she persisted. "Quiet! You're very disrespectful, you're a loud boisterous person," he snapped. "Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet."

The rancor didn't end there. Holmes also dared to ask about a now-viral speech by Sen. Jon Ossoff, who noted the "crook president" doesn't want "to do the job." Instead, "he wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar" - a brief, incendiary reference to "weird stalker-slash-diaper-nurse" Natalie Harp, who Trump calls "sweetie." Trump brushed off Holmes' question with the always bizarre tactic of a grotesquerie tossing puerile insults at better-looking people: Ossoff is "a Pee-wee Herman look-alike." Still, the fragment of discomfiting reality - Ossoff: “Apparently, in the White House, the truth hurts” - in a 30-minute speech sparked a telling torrent of fury from MAGA cultists unaccustomed to hearing it. As a result - and 'cause they're dumb - the meltdown was laughable.

The White House declared Ossoff “the biggest cuck loser in politics,” a “feminine theater kid,” a “lightweight.” They also went for Holmes, “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment." “These scumbags are the lowest of the low,” they said. “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed.” (Cue lowest of the low.) Many others chimed in. Ossoff is “a mean-spirited jerk who traffics in slander,” “Who does this and holds their head high? This guy should be ashamed.” Hilariously, some ran with the news the quiet, studious Ossoff, known “for keeping his head down and doing the work,” spent $2,887 on make-up and prep for TV appearances. Laura Ingraham: "Beneath that pancake bronzer and rouge, we have an ambitious man, (the) most dangerous type of politician." America: "Fox ridiculing men who wear makeup is really something to behold."

Amidst the eruptions, Trump took to Truth Social, his tawdry security blanket, in a weekend spree of over 40 posts in six hours, most of it AI slopaganda. No more hiding in catering trucks: Here he is triumphant, a svelte Elvis - "President Trump ages in reverse!” - building a “WALL OF STEEL" around Iran's ports in a made-for-TV movie war where, in Nazi typeface, “We are going to win.” Also beware Elizabeth "Pocohontas" Warren, Abdul El-Sayed, and women in hijab who "are coming for your home and your belongings!" Enamored of George Washington, he saves him at Mt. Rushmore, splits a portrait with him, rides beside him on horseback (the bad guy on a black horse) and, before two huge American flags with the wrong number of stripes, consults him - shrunk shorter than Trump 'cause petty is as petty does - on his feckin' ballroom: "Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas." Consensus: "Psychotic stuff."

Dean Blundell cites the screaming dissonance of Trump’s infatuation with a leader of grace and integrity who over time “refused a crown, a palace, a third term, power itself” as he “diligently sought the public welfare.” In He’s No Washington, Blundell helpfully offers “the most humiliating side-by-side in American history.” With no fancy education, Washington had and read one key book of philosophy: A 1702 translation of Seneca’s Morals. Its chapter headings became the moral axioms Washington followed through "a lifetime of deliberate self-discipline," starting at 14 when he copied “110 Rules of Civility” into a notebook "and spent the next 50 years living them." A man who could "command a room by saying less" but naturally "most tremendous in his wrath,“ Washington's composure was "a construction project...He was a volcano that decided, every single day, not to erupt."

Blundell describes ”the moral weight of a man who asked nothing for himself.” When he took office, the Senate debated for weeks what to call him - “His Highness the President of the United States," "His High Mightiness“ - but he chose the unfussy ”Mr. President." Same with his residence; the original plan was a European-style palace four times bigger. He twice gave up power at the height of his own, for which King George called him "the greatest man in the world.” His favorite piece of writing was a play about the Roman Stoic senator Cato, who chose death over submission to Julius Caesar’s tyranny. With his army barefoot and freezing at Valley Forge, he had Cato performed for them "to remember what they were freezing for." In his farewell address, he warned of demagogues who would "ride public rage to power." He understood that in America, "the office was supposed to be bigger than the man. Power was never the prize. Character was the prize." Blundell: "Compare and weep."

Wednesday, the “visibly incoherent” current president, laser-focused on our most vital issues, led the press on a giddy tour of the work he’s ordered on the White House grounds in a scene like “a lost episode of the 1980s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” He bragged about the driveway’s “flawless granite,” autographed the ornate helipad “he insists he needs” - “It’s very strong stone, it will never break, it will never do— it’s rated million-year plus” - claimed the "military complex will have a drone-proof uh roof, and you’re gonna have on top of the roof, many drones,” and for perhaps the 10th time intoned “grass has a life like humans”: "We put brand new earth on top, so if you’re grass, you’re very happy.” America: "Hey Ma, Grandpa is in the front yard again yelling at people," "What an incredible babbling idiot," "A million years - that's how long his presidency has felt," and, "Fix the country you broke, asshole." Trump moved on to his new flagpoles. "This is a great pole," he said. "I'm very good at flagpoles."

Update: Now we're not only at war with Canada, but with the U.S. bond market. Asked how he might address volatility in the market, he offered, "The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.” Comments:" "Operation Epic Interest Rates," "We will bomb the shit out of the bond market," "First, they eliminated the short-term interest rates traders, and I said nothing..." Make it stop.

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