Rediscovering America

Sam Smith –Back in 1957, I covered my first story for an all news radio station in Washington. Since then, I can’t think of any time when I have been as worried about the future of America as I am right now. It’s not just Donald Trump but also a lot of cultural changes that made his power possible, things like the rise of television, advertising and public relations.

Truth, collective concern and community action don’t mean the same thing anymore. Instead, people like Trump have become far more important. When I consider my own past and some of things that guided me, I come up with memories like a Quaker high school, working on a Maine farm in the summer, activists who led folks like me during the  sixties, playing in a band, living in a strongly bi-ethnic DC, and serving in the Coast Guard. In short, a life where you acted with and learned from others rather just telling  them, because of your status, what to do.

Where we are now  is far from anything I can recall. Even Nixon and Reagan were not as self centered and  power hungry as Trump. And today’s Democrats fail to offer strong alternatives although we still have those like independent Bernie Sanders to remind us that  of what real change used to look like. Having lived under FDR, Harry Truman,  Lyndon Johnson, JFK and Barack Obama I know what a really active Democratic Party is like and nationally there’s nothing like it at present.  Our leaders are not the fellow Americans we used to have to guide us. We have to turn off the TV news and start rebuilding our country  with our states, our towns, and our neighbors.   

Climate

NY Times -  After President Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement during his first term, many Democratic-led states passed their own laws to curtail carbon emissions.  But most states that set goals for 2030 are not on track to meet them. Now, with voters worried about inflation, and with the war in Iran raising energy prices, some states have begun to cut back or abandon those goals instead.

Polls

Gallup - Americans’ perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. are at their highest level in 20 years, with 89% of U.S. adults saying it is widespread. That figure is up 10 percentage points from last year and well above readings in the 72% to 79% range between 2010 and 2025.

Newsweek - In June, 41 percent of women approved of [Trump’s] performance and 57 percent disapproved, producing a net rating of minus 16….July’s numbers moved further against him. Approval stood at 38 percent and disapproval at 57 percent, leaving Trump at minus 19 with women…. The latest poll, published September 1, placed Trump at 34 percent approval and 64 percent disapproval among women.

NBC News - An overwhelming share of adults, 70%, say they are more worried about AI than excited about it, according to a new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey. About two-thirds of Americans say AI comes with high risks for society and that they oppose the construction of an AI data center in their local area.

The Guardian -  voters are identifying as Democrats and shying away from calling themselves Republican, according to the latest quarterly data published by Gallup.  Some 49% of voters surveyed leaned Democrat, including independent voters asked to pick one party or the other. Only 39% of respondents leaned Republican.

That 10-point spread marks a sharp reversal from the four-point advantage that Republicans held over Democrats in the fourth quarter of 2024, when voters sent Donald Trump back to the White House and Republicans swept both houses of Congress. Democrats are seeing their most sizable advantage since 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, according to the New York Times.

Milwaukee socialism

Jacobin - Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was a Socialist Party stronghold for much of the first half of the twentieth century. Socialists there built a strong presence in the labor movement and city council and held the mayor’s office for nearly forty years between 1910 and 1960.

The Milwaukee socialists’ focus on good governance and municipal policy achievements like clean water earned them the ire of some fellow socialists, who derisively dubbed them “sewer socialists.” Yet New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has cited them as an inspiration for his own administration, and, as Jacobin contributor Eric Blanc argued in an essay for Catalyst earlier this year, the sewer socialists’ pragmatic approach to building working-class power has much to teach the Left today.

David Griscom recently interviewed Blanc for The Jacobin Show about his research on the Milwaukee socialists, discussing their strategy and potential takeaways for Mayor Mamdani and American socialists in the current moment. You can watch the full interview here.

Have we destroyed childhood?

Joshua Rothman, New Yorker - Early in the psychologist Peter Gray’s new book, “Restoring Childhood: How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety,” he proposes a thought experiment. “Imagine that your spouse or your closest friend had the same power over you that parents typically have over children,” he suggests. Although you’re an adult, this “loving person” insists that you never leave the house without an accompanying guardian or a G.P.S. tracker. When you return, they demand a full account of what you did. Frequently, they communicate with your boss, who “controls you the way a teacher controls children at school.” This boss reprimands you for arriving even a minute late, and prohibits you from talking with your co-workers without permission; you must even ask, publicly, to use the bathroom. “Everything you do is judged and ranked in comparison to the work of your coworkers,” Gray goes on. And, when you wrap up at the office, “your employer also requires you to do more work at home,” and “encourages your loving spouse (or friend) to be sure you do that work.”

This doesn’t sound like a very nice life, does it? It’s an existence in which you’re micromanaged and surveilled, given almost no freedom or privacy, and put under constant pressure while, at the same time, being seen as incompetent and lazy. (Why else would all this have to be done to you, for your own good?) And yet, Gray argues, it’s how many children live in affluent Western countries, including the United States. Now eighty-two, Gray has spent decades studying kids, particularly how they spend their free time. In “Restoring Childhood,” he warns that they now have none, in both senses: they have no time, because they are over-scheduled and over-schooled, and their time isn’t free, because adults are neither willing nor able to leave even older kids unsupervised.  MORE

Meanwhile . .

NPR - Beachfront homeowners along Florida’s Panhandle are locked in a high-stakes legal battle over who gets to use the beach. To protect their interests, private property owners have taken measures into their own hands, installing physical barriers, putting up "Private Beach" signs and hiring private security guards to turn away beachgoers. The decade-long conflict is spreading to other coastal communities, and advocates for public beach access are calling for a Florida constitutional amendment to resolve the issue once and for all.

How Gloria Steinem brought folks together

 MS Now - Among Gloria Steinem’s contributions was something called a “talking circle,” in which a small group would get together to share their thoughts on personal and societal challenges. Despite being a feminist icon, Steinem had “an incredible way” of making people “feel intimately connected,” argues freelance journalist Emma Gray, who attended the last talking circle for journalists in Steinem’s apartment before her death at age 92. It was one more piece of evidence for her contention that the personal was political, and the political was personal. Read more.

The growing demand for air conditioning

The Guardian - The greenest campaigners against climate change have long suffered from a crippling shortcoming: they too often frame the challenge as a problem of excess consumption. This motivates calls to “degrow” the economy and to curb the population. The claim is that humans consume too many resources, which in the context of climate change means too much energy.

Nowhere has the tension between this proposition and reality become more palpable during this sweltering summer than in the conversation over air conditioning. If the atmosphere were to warm more than 3C above the average temperature in the preindustrial era, a prospect that looks ever more likely given the lackluster efforts to reduce carbon emissions, one in six of the world’s largest cities would suffer at least one heatwave per year lasting more than a month, according to the World Resources Institute. Low-income countries would suffer, on average, 6.9 heatwaves per year. Delhi would suffer at least 140 days with temperatures hitting at least 35C (95F).

Demand for AC around the world will inevitably accelerate as the atmosphere continues to warm. Ninety percent of households in the US and Japan enjoy artificial cooling. But in Indonesia, the share is only 9%. In India, it is 5%. Of the 2.8 billion people living in the hottest parts of the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), only 8% currently possess AC.

Ranking the Republican 2028 contenders

Social Security in danger

Alternet - The future of Social Security, the government program that touches the lives of more Americans than any other, will be determined by the results of the November elections. Let us explain. The Social Security program faces a funding shortfall. As ABC News reported back in June:

Social Security’s trust fund that pays retiree and survivor benefits is expected to begin running low on money earlier than previously expected, leading to questions from Americans who rely on the benefits for their living expenses. Without congressional action, the fund is now expected to begin depleting by the fourth quarter of 2032, according to a report issued Tuesday by Social Security’s trustees, the body that manages the trust fund.

This does not mean that, as some who for their own political purposes argue, Social Security is going “bankrupt.” Those who depend on Social Security (roughly 68 million Americans) do not have to worry about their checks stopping. Instead, they need to be concerned about a very significant cut to their benefits.

But know this: The reduction can be avoided with courageous political action. Congress and the president can make adjustments that will close the gap and pay out promised benefits. Back in 1983, Congress and President Ronald Reagan hammered out a solution to do just that.

The environment

The Hill - The Trump administration on Friday said it will consider further narrowing protections for streams and wetlands under the Clean Water Act.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers issued a supplemental proposed rule that they said would be likely to reduce the bodies of water that are under the Clean Water Act's jurisdiction if its changes are adopted.

It would be expected to reduce the number of waters subject to the Clean Water Act in the West.  That means development or pollution in these streams and wetlands would no longer require a permit or potential mitigation.

The new changes come on top of an already proposed rule by the agencies that is also expected to narrow the Clean Water Act's applicability. The additional proposal could narrow it further.

The cowardice of the Democrats

Ralph Nader - Trump continues to commit “high crimes and misdemeanors,” brazenly, taunting the so-called leaders of the Democrats by saying, “This is just the beginning.” He provides the Democrats with daily evidence to that should prompt shadow congressional hearings organized by Democratic members of Congress and designed to build a public factual record. Such hearings could attract substantial media attention, particularly if they focused on specific alleged abuses and featured affected witnesses, legal experts, and former public officials. Nonetheless, Jeffries and Schumer block any shadow hearings by dissenting House members.

What explains this historic cowardice? Is it fear of Trump retaliating? Is it smugness over Trump’s low polls, and a belief they can win in November by lying low, raising AIPAC and corporate campaign money, mumbling about affordability, and avoiding heavily poll-favored Pledges or Contracts for the American people showing specifically what they stand for? ... Or is it just trying to avoid Trump accusing the Democrats of having done similar things when they controlled the White House, such as starting or backing unconstitutional wars?

Whatever explains their inhibitions, the result is to signal to Trump that he has two-plus unchallenged years to ravage the lives and livelihoods of millions of people here and abroad, oppose preparedness for climate and pandemic catastrophes, to suppress renewable energy and favor omnicidal fossil-fuel combustion, invade our cities with his stormtroopers, and treat children with unsurpassed cruelty. It also leaves unanswered serious questions about his personal financial enrichment while in office – estimated to be $1.1 million per working hour. All this invites the demand that they resign. The people need fresh, stand-up leaders to take over the Democratic leadership and its party committees. (See RootsAction: “Tell Democrats in Congress to Insist That Schumer and Jeffries Step Aside”.)

The Democrats and electorally frightened Republicans pushed Richard Nixon out in 1974 for far, far lesser transgressions than those committed by Trump in a week.

Donald Trump

Mediaite - President Donald Trump literally jumped the gun Friday by encouraging American ranchers to go ahead and shoot gray wolves to protect their cattle herds from the predators. Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office Friday with a provision to “encourage” states to delist gray wolves as protected species so ranchers can shoot them.

“Gray wolves have been listed under federal endangered species protection in parts of the United States for over 50 years,” according to the Endangered Species Act.

“Anybody have a problem with the Mexican gray wolf?” Trump asked the ranchers surrounding the Resolute Desk.

One rancher said the Clinton administration released gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico, which have become “a big problem.”

“Not a great idea, right?” Trump asked. “Although they are beautiful looking. But you don’t think they are beautiful, do you? And what do they do, rip the herd apart?”

“They will kill your livestock, they will kill your dogs, your horses,” the rancher said.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “But sir, the problem is, because they are on the endangered species list, they can’t shoot them. They have to sit and watch them destroy the herd.”

“You can shoot them as of today,” Trump declared.

Axios - President Trump is hitting the campaign trail and doing the last thing many Republicans want: making the 59 days to the Nov. 3 midterms a referendum on him, Axios' Marc Caputo reports

 Most Republicans are too scared to bluntly tell Trump how unpopular he is. Timidity aside, Republicans need Trump's low-propensity voters to turn out. So they're going along with a Trump-focused strategy that many believe could cost them credibility — along with seats in the House and Senate.

"We have no choice. We're stuck on the boat with him whether we like it or not," said a top Republican campaign official who's in contact with Trump's political operation.

….Trump essentially demanded the ads focus on him because midterms are referendums on a president anyway, and he wanted to tout his accomplishments, The Atlantic first reported.

"I'm not on the ballot, but I'm on the ballot," Trump told one confidant who relayed the conversation to Axios. 

Polls

Independent - A growing number of Americans now identify as Democrats, a shift that presents fresh political headwinds for President Donald Trump and the Republican party ahead of the November midterms, according to a new poll. The latest Gallup data shows 31 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats in the second quarter of 2026, compared with 25 percent who identify as Republicans. That six-point advantage is the largest Democratic lead in party identification in more than a decade.

MS NOW - A new poll from Gallup finds that “Americans’ perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. are at their highest level in 20 years, with 89% of U.S. adults saying it is widespread.” 91% of Democrats, 90% of independents and even 83% of Republicans agreed with that assessment.

Gloria Steinem’s last essay

The first Labor Day holiday

Heather Cox Richardson -   On September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade. The parade almost didn’t happen: there was no band, and no one wanted to start marching without music. Once the Jewelers Union of Newark Two showed up with musicians, the rest of the marchers, eventually numbering between 10,000 and 20,000 men and women, fell in behind them to parade through lower Manhattan. At noon, when they reached the end of the route, the march broke up and the participants listened to speeches, drank beer, and had picnics. Other workers joined them.

Their goal was to emphasize the importance of workers in the industrializing economy and to warn politicians that they could not be ignored. Less than 20 years before, northern men had fought a war to defend a society based on free labor and had, they thought, put in place a government that would support the ability of all hardworking men to rise to prosperity.

By 1882, though, factories and the fortunes they created had swung the government toward men of capital, and workingmen worried they would lose their rights if they didn’t work together. A decade before, the Republican Party, which had formed to protect free labor, had thrown its weight behind Wall Street. In 1884, even the staunchly Republican Chicago Tribune complained about the links between business and government: “Behind every one of half of the portly and well-dressed members of the Senate can be seen the outlines of some corporation interested in getting or preventing legislation,” it wrote…

The workers marching in New York City carried banners saying: “Labor Built This Republic and Labor Shall Rule it,” “Labor Creates All Wealth,” “No Land Monopoly,” “No Money Monopoly,” “Labor Pays All Taxes,” “The Laborer Must Receive and Enjoy the Full Fruit of His Labor,” ‘Eight Hours for a Legal Day’s Work,” and “The True Remedy is Organization and the Ballot.”

Middle East

NBC - U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers after Iran launched ballistic missiles toward two U.S. Navy ships, the U.S. military said.  An aircraft carrier and guided missile destroyer evaded multiple attacks by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. No American personnel were harmed.

The GOP war on the Constitution and democracy

The Guardian - A federal judge on Friday again blocked Donald Trump’s executive order to impose sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting, the latest in a legal back-and-forth playing out less than two months before election day.

US district court judge Indira Talwani initially placed a temporary order blocking the president’s mandate and has now extended that prohibition with a stronger preliminary injunction. The ruling comes hours after North Carolina became the first state to start sending out mail-in ballots for the 3 November midterm elections.

“Plaintiff States are required under state law to mail millions of ballots to voters on a prescribed timeframe. As detailed below, they are unable to pivot this late in the election cycle, nearly guaranteeing significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters,” the judge wrote in her ruling.

Trump signed an executive order in March that would create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters, compelling the US Postal Service (USPS) to work with states to establish lists of mail-in voters before elections. The result would mean a limited ballot delivery only to voters on those lists.

Workers

In These Times - This summer, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), representing 191 million workers through 340 national affiliates in 169 countries, ranked the United States among countries with ?“systemic violations of worker rights.”

The ITUC’s Global Rights Index assesses over 150 countries based on 97 indicators drawn from international standards and jurisprudence. Given the increase in violations since last year, the United States was placed on the report’s ?“Watchlist,” alongside Guinea-Bissau, Israel, Liberia, The Republic of Moldova, the Philippines and Zimbabwe.

The inclusion of the United States on the ITUC’s Watchlist is based on the pattern of backsliding of fundamental rights over the past year, and serves as a troubling indicator of the country’s current state of affairs.

The report notes that, in the United States:

·       More than one million federal workers have lost their right to collective bargaining.

·       The National Labor Relations Board has been left unable to fulfill its essential role of protecting workers’ rights.

·       Tens of thousands of immigrant union members have been stripped of their status and rights through the unlawful termination of various forms of rights-based protections and programs.

·       Immigration enforcement is being used as a tool to suppress the exercise of freedom of expression, assembly, and association by detaining or revoking the visas of workers who take action or express views contrary to those of the government.

Word: Extremism

Sam Smith (in a 2008 conversation with Carole Kolker)  -  Mark Plotkin, who is on WTOP, interviewed me on my fiftieth anniversary in journalism and I said to him, “If you go back and you look at what I wrote twenty or thirty years ago, it doesn’t seem very extreme at all.” I like to describe myself as a moderate of a time that has not yet come and I compare myself sometimes to the people who got involved in the Spanish Civil War. The FBI referred to them as premature anti-fascists which is a wonderful concept when you think of it: it means you can be prematurely right.

Climate change

NY Times - After President Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement during his first term, many Democratic-led states passed their own laws to curtail carbon emissions.  But most states that set goals for 2030 are not on track to meet them. Now, with voters worried about inflation, and with the war in Iran raising energy prices, some states have begun to cut back or abandon those goals instead.

IRS moves to end tax exemption for schools with aid to minority race students

NPR - The IRS has proposed a rule that would revoke the tax-exempt status of private schools and colleges that have programs designed to help students based on race. Many institutions currently offer programs to support Black or Latino students who may be the first in their families to attend college. Some also aim to foster a diverse student body by offering scholarships and other initiatives. The administration argues these programs amount to racial discrimination.  The administration is attempting to apply financial pressure on these schools to get what it wants: an end to race-based programs, NPR’s Adrian Florido says. By operating as non-profit, tax-exempt entities, these schools avoid paying federal income taxes. This status also serves as a crucial fundraising tool, as donations from alumni and others become eligible for tax deductions. The IRS hasn't clarified how it plans to identify schools with programs it disapproves of, but it estimates that about 18,000 private schools could be affected. Legal challenges are likely to arise, as the authority of the IRS to unilaterally redefine racial discrimination and revoke tax-exempt status remains unclear.

Mail-in voting

NPR - For now, mail-in voting is still available to all voters who are eligible for it in their states, NPR's Hansi Lo Wang tells Up First. Election officials and voters are concerned that major disruptions to the midterms could occur if the Supreme Court allows the plan to move forward. Many election officials say it's too late to carry out the plan. The administration didn’t meet its own deadline today to publish its state-by-state lists of eligible voters.

ICE

The Guardian - Teresa Reyes drove 300 miles to be with her son on his 32nd birthday in May, but she couldn’t give him a gift, share a meal with him or give him a hug. She couldn’t even touch him.

Her son, Guillermo, a tattoo artist from San Jose, is locked up in the California City immigration detention center, California’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, and the only way he can see his mother is behind a thick pane of glass.

The detention center, housing roughly 1,600 people in a desert region north of Los Angeles, has denied contact visits to all people held inside since the Trump administration opened the site one year ago. That means no one inside the facility, which is run by the private prison firm CoreCivic, can sit with or embrace family members who travel to the remote site for visits. Instead, families are left talking through phones while their relatives sit in an adjacent room, separated by glass barriers.

Middle East

The Guardian - People in Kuhestak, a predominantly Baloch city in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, are mourning after a strike on a wedding killed at least four people, including a child, and injured more than 60, according to local authorities.  The blast hit at around 9.30pm on 1 September, turning a night of celebration into one of devastation for the small coastal community, which is on the strait of Hormuz.

Polls

Pew Research - Six-in-ten U.S. adults describe themselves as working class, up from 54% two years ago. People across income groups and education levels adopt this identity, but partisanship is an especially strong factor. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to describe themselves as working class

Pew Research - The share of U.S. adults under 30 who say they spend too much time on their smartphone. Around four-in-ten in this age group report that they’re on their device “almost constantly.”

Pew Research  -  Some 37% of Americans now say it’s not too or not at all likely that the United States will elect a woman as president, up from 26% in 2023, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The share who say it’s extremely or very likely has fallen from 25% in 2023 to 17% today. Another 44% say it’s somewhat likely, down from 49%. Among men and women and Democrats and Republicans alike, relatively few Americans say it’s highly likely that a woman will be president in their lifetime.

Vance doesn't even want to call a war a war

Time - Vice President J.D. Vance said Thursday that he would not characterize the United States as being at war with Iran, even as the two countries have exchanged strikes in recent days and the Trump Administration has declined to say when a conflict now stretching beyond six months might end.

“I wouldn’t call it a war,” Vance told reporters at a White House press briefing. “Right now, there is no active shooting.”

The distinction was striking after a renewed burst of hostilities this week, including American strikes inside Iran and Iranian attacks in the region. But it echoed an argument that President Trump and other Republicans made in the earliest days of the conflict: that the United States was carrying out a limited military operation rather than embarking on another prolonged Middle Eastern war, which, under the Constitution, would require congressional approval. —Nik Popli

Workers

NBC News - The U.S. economy in August added 162,000 jobs, far more than expected. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected overall hiring of just 53,000 roles and a steady unemployment rateThe strong August number and upwardly-revised June and July numbers will give economists significant added confidence in the stability of the labor market.

Politics

Alternet America - Tarrant County [Texas] went blue in 2020, and its Republican commissioners have spent the years since making sure that does not happen again.

Officials in Tarrant County, Texas voted on Tuesday to cut 92 polling locations ahead of the November midterms. The third most populous county in Texas will now have 224 voting sites, down from 316 in the 2022 midterms.

The Commissioners’ Court approved the plan along party lines after a previous vote in August collapsed when residents erupted during public comment. The room had to be cleared multiple times, and former state Rep. Lon Burnam was arrested for grabbing a microphone.

Tarrant County is 31 percent Hispanic, 19 percent Black, and one of the fastest-growing areas in the state. The same Republican majority redrew the county’s precinct map last year in an unusual mid-decade redistricting that packed most Black and Latino voters into a single district and turned a 2-2 partisan split on the court into 3-1 in favor of Republicans.

The county judge who cast the deciding vote said voters would still have 54 more polling places than the law requires, which is like your boss cutting your salary and reminding you it is still above minimum wage./

Workers

Washington Post - Donald Trump is on track to become the first president in a century to oversee a U.S. labor force that will be smaller when he leaves office than when he entered. Since the start of his second term, the number of people in the United States who are either employed or looking for a job has dropped by 1.6 million — and it’s largely because of Trump’s immigration restrictions. Unless those policies change, a shrinking workforce will cause slower economic growth and lead to more expensive public debt.

This is an anomaly in U.S. history. The civilian labor force has increased by the end of every president’s term, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln’s because of the number of people who left the workforce to fight in the Civil War.

Growth accelerated in the decades following World War II largely thanks to the baby boom, increases in female workforce participation and a spike in immigration after 1965. The labor force increased by 6.7 million during Ronald Reagan’s first term and by 8.7 million during his second. Similar growth occurred under Bill Clinton. Falling birth rates slowed the expansion of the U.S.-born labor force after the early 2000s, but thanks to immigration the number of total workers still rose by 1.6 million during Barack Obama’s first term and by 3.9 million during his second.