Farrah
Tomazin, Daily Beast - You can learn a lot about a
city by its street posters. They appear between polished campaign signs and
government notices; an unofficial bulletin board where people say what they
really think. And right now, Washington, D.C., appears to have a lot to say.
The biggest message plastered across the city is one that perhaps resonates
most with residents now living under the authority of Donald Trump and the
camouflaged uniforms he has forced on the landscape. “National Guard: I WANT
YOU TO GO HOME,” it says, alongside Uncle Sam’s famous conscription image. This
week marks one year since Trump sent federal troops into Washington under the
guise of a crime “crisis.” But what started as a deployment of 800 members of
the National Guard has since increased to 4,300—nearly six times the original
deployment. The guards are now scheduled to remain in D.C. until January 20,
2029—the end of Trump’s term—in an extended mission expected to cost taxpayers
about $1.4 billion. One year on, the danger isn’t just a more militarized
Washington—it’s what the White House plans to do next.
August 15, 2026
Trump's military invasion of Washington DC
Stolen paintings
1440 - Italian police recover $10M worth of paintings stolen in three-minute heist. The paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse were stolen from a private museum north of Parma, Italy, in March. Authorities yesterday said the works were recovered during searches ordered by prosecutors, but provided no further details. They also released security footage from the heist (watch via X). Meanwhile, police in Brazil this week recovered eight Matisse illustrations stolen in December. (More, w/photos)
ICE
The
Hill - Outrage is building among congressional Democrats who are
alarmed by new plans from the Trump administration to buy gloves that will
allow immigration agents to deliver a painful electric shock as they carry out
deportations. U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday published a notice of its plans to spend as
much as $20 million on a product known as G.L.O.V.E, an abbreviation for
Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter.
….“Senate Republicans had the
opportunity to rein in ICE and CBP, they refused. Instead they handed DHS billions
more of your tax dollars without any constraint after the shooting and killing
individuals in the streets. Now, ICE is looking to purchase electrical shock
gloves to continue terrorizing our communities,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
wrote on the social platform X.
Polls
Pew Research - Around three-quarters of Americans
(73%) say they are uncomfortable with transgender athletes competing on sports
teams that do not match their sex at birth. Majorities of both Republicans
(91%) and Democrats (55%) express this view, as do majorities across most demographic groups.
Climate change
In
These Times - As climate change
intensifies, worsening fires and extreme weather are creating increasingly
hostile conditions for workers…. Alongside fighting for healthcare, wages and
better treatment, these workers now find themselves fighting for protections
from dangerous heat, smoke and storms — the severity of which is only expected
to worsen if the status quo continues….
“In Minnesota, every summer, we
now experience wildfire smoke in these hot months,” says Scott Wilkie, the
president of Teamsters Local 638…
Workers say their uniforms add to
the discomfort of the heat. ?“We have to use plastic sleeves covering our
entire arms,” a worker tells me. ? “The
plastic sticks to our skin because of sweat, and it’s incredibly uncomfortable.
It’s the same thing with the glove. You are sweating and can’t pull up your
gloves comfortably because of the sweat.”
“I’m thirsty all the time but
can’t leave the line and go get water,” a worker told me. ?“Maybe every hour
you have a chance to get a drink.”
Puerto Rico
In
These Times - Nearly nine years
after Hurricane Maria tore through the island, a dangerous myth persists: that
Puerto Rico’s ongoing humanitarian crisis is a failure of local resilience or
an unavoidable consequence of climate change. This is a lie.
What the island is suffering from
is not a lack of fortitude, but a manufactured financial chokehold. While
Congress has technically allocated over $42.5 billion in disaster relief to the
island, the federal government’s bureaucratic neglect — and restrictive
conditions — have actively broken the infrastructure meant to sustain human
life.
There is a vast gulf between
money being promised on a spreadsheet and cash actually hitting the ground in
Puerto Rico. According to data from Puerto Rico’s Central Office for
Reconstruction, Recovery, and Resiliency, of the $42.6 billion allocated across
all recovery programs, only roughly $13.1 billion has actually been disbursed.
…Of the $11.1 billion FEMA
obligated to completely overhaul the island’s brittle electrical grid, less
than 25% has been distributed. The rest remains trapped thanks to a calculated
bureaucratic trap: FEMA requires Puerto Rico to pay for massive infrastructure
project costs up front and seek reimbursement later.
Meanwhile. . .
Congressional
Insider - Federal prosecutors say a woman splashed red paint and soap
at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., and now faces two felony
charges tied to the attack on a national shrine. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro
named Melissa L. Farris as the suspect and said she is in custody…. Federal law
allows years in prison for willfully damaging veterans’ memorials.
August 14, 2026
Sanders wants to cut big donations to candidates
Congressional
Insider - Bernie Sanders is pressing Democrats to shut super PAC money
out of their primaries, and he is tying that demand to a fresh bill that would
cap individual super PAC donations at $5,000.
Sanders and Representative Summer Lee have introduced the
Abolish Super PACs Act. The bill would cap individual contributions to super
PACs at $5,000. Sanders says Democrats
should ban super PACs from primary elections.
….Sanders said Democratic leaders should not allow oligarchs
and their super PACs to buy party primaries. He also said the party has the
power to stop super PACs from taking part in its own nomination fights. In his
view, that power should be used now, not after another round of expensive,
donor-driven contests.
Companies that stuck with DEI did okay
The Guardian - Conservative
backlash was supposed to put an end to the diversity, inclusion and equity
(DEI) movement as companies were warned “go woke, go broke”.
In January 2025, Donald Trump
delivered a death knell, ending DEI within the federal government with
executive orders and threatening to target companies that still supported it.
Companies including Google, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s and Walmart that had embraced
DEI years earlier fell into line and announced an end to their policies.
But new research published Friday
and shared exclusively with the Guardian found that companies that resisted the
pressure and kept their DEI practices, including Costco, Apple and Delta Air
Lines, performed just as well as their competitors who pulled back.
ICE
The
Intercept - Two Republican-appointed judges in Texas just sentenced a
group of anti-ICE activists to a combined 560+ years in prison following a
protest last July outside ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center. Several Prairieland defendants are appealing
their convictions, and The Intercept’s investigation has already exposed gaping
holes in the government’s case.
However, local authorities are
still refusing to release records that could contain key evidence that the jury
in the first trial never saw. So The Intercept’s legal team continues to use
state open records laws to force local authorities to turn over everything they
have.
The Guardian - The extent to which federal law enforcement targeted political opponents and peaceful organizers has been laid bare in newly disclosed court documents. Internal investigative files reveal that the Department of Homeland Security launched a sweeping surveillance operation against anti-ICE protesters, major labor unions and left-leaning advocacy groups – sending undercover agents to infiltrate community meetings and issuing administrative subpoenas to seize financial records. The documents show that DHS investigators obtained financial records of unions and non-profits, as part of an inquiry into “domestic terrorist financing”.
Trump regime forms "birth tourism" task force
Newsworthy - With a new Birth Tourism Prevention
Task Force now active, the State Department says it is revoking visas and
moving to dismantle profit-driven networks behind the practice. The State
Department formed a task force to target “birth tourism.” Officials report more than 600 recent visa
revocations tied to the crackdown.
August 13, 2026
Elections
Bowers
News Media - In 2025, Donald
Trump signed an executive order that, according to the Brennan Center for
Justice, "attempted to assert presidential control over significant
aspects of federal elections." However, Democratic state officials sued,
and that executive order has largely been blocked in court.
In 2026, the Trump administration
filed lawsuits against 30 states and the District of Columbia demanding that
they turn over their unredacted voter files–including driver's license numbers,
partial Social Security numbers, and dates of birth. However, the state
officials targeted by the Trump administration fought back in court, and have
won every single time, even though most of the judges in ruling on the cases
were appointed by Republican presidents.
Also in 2026, the postal service
began the process of implementing another executive order on elections from
Donald Trump, one that squarely targets mail-in voting. Once again, Democratic
state election officials sued, winning in both district and circuit federal
courts. That executive order is now blocked nationwide.
The Trump administration has
appealed those rulings to the Supreme Court, and as the midterm elections
rapidly approach, is begging them to quickly unblock the executive order on
mail-in voting. Once again, the legal team on the other side is a coalition of
Democratic state officials.
You may have noticed a pattern
here: Donald Trump is doing whatever he can to try and take control of our
elections, and basically the only thing standing in his way are lawsuits from
Democratic state officials.
Roll
Call - The progressive momentum in Democratic
Senate primaries continued Tuesday, with Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan
defeating the more moderate Rep. Angie Craig in a high-stakes contest. But
progressives were dealt a setback in neighboring Wisconsin, with state Rep.
Francesca Hong, a self-described democratic socialist and the perceived
front-runner in the Democratic primary, losing to Milwaukee County Executive
David Crowley. …
Flanagan is now set to face
Republican Michele Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter, who comfortably won
a nine-way Republican primary. If elected, Flanagan, a member of the White
Earth Band of Ojibwe, would be the first Native American woman to serve in the
Senate.
Meanwhile, Minnesota appears
poised to elect its first female governor this fall. Amy Klobuchar, the state’s
senior senator, easily won the Democratic primary Tuesday in the race to
succeed Gov. Tim Walz, who is stepping down after two terms. The Republican
primary represented another defeat for President Donald Trump, with his
endorsed candidate, former MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, losing to state House
Speaker Lisa Demuth.
Congressional
Insider - During weekend comments covered by a New
York outlet, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez encouraged voters to judge a
Wisconsin candidate by what she is saying now, not only by older quotes that
backed "defund the police." … Her remarks mark a softer tone than her
2020 push for the phrase. The shift comes as both parties argue over crime,
police staffing, and how to keep people safe.
TNR Blue Book - You may have seen some right-wingers trying to compare what Donald Trump did in Ankara, Turkey, to something Bill Clinton did in Pakistan in March 2000. Don't buy it. Yes, Clinton secretly boarded a different plane in that global hotspot, but the press was informed, and human beings were not used as a decoy.
Polls
Democratic Socialist 55% (+22)
MAGA Rep 33%
Democratic Socialist 42% (+3)
Establishment Rep 39%
——
Establishment Dem: 50% (+18)
MAGA Rep: 32%
Establishment Dem 46% (+9)
Establishment Rep 37%Court cases
NY
Times - A federal judge in Boston on Thursday dismissed an antisemitism
lawsuit against Harvard University, dealing a blow to the Trump
administration’s efforts to force the university to make a deal with
government. The lawsuit was part of a
broader pressure campaign to force the university to comply with a range of
government demands, including how it handles antisemitism but also race in
admissions and other issues.
Money
AFL
-CIO - The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio of S&P 500 companies
increased from 285-to-1 in 2024 to 312-to-1 in 2025. (And that excludes Tesla
CEO Elon Musk, whose pay package is so huge it would skew the results.) The
average CEO pay at S&P 500 companies increased 21%, from $18.9 million in
2024 to $22.8 million in 2025…..Workers’ share of U.S. national income fell to
its lowest level since World War II. While their bosses rake in millions,
workers at Amazon, Dollar Tree, FedEx, McDonald’s and Walmart are among the
highest users of public assistance, relying on programs like Medicaid and SNAP
(or food stamps) to make ends meet.
NPR - Inflation eased slightly last month. Consumer prices in July were 3.4% higher than they were a year ago, according to a new report from the Labor Department. It's a smaller annual increase than in May or June. Rent and airfare prices rose while gasoline and grocery prices fell.... Produce prices often fluctuate depending on growing conditions and other factors, and lettuce prices are expected to rebound once the food scare passes, NPR’s Scott Horsley tells Up First. The lower prices contributed to about 0.1% decline in grocery costs last month, but overall grocery prices are still up about 2.7% over the past year. This week's cooler inflation report may lead the Federal Reserve to monitor whether inflation will continue to moderate rather than raise interest rates, Horsley says. |
Health
Maine’s childhood vaccine guidance won’t change due to President Donald Trump’s new executive order .
Axios- An overhaul of how Medicare pays hospitals
for joint replacements could pare hundreds of millions of dollars in program
spending while getting facilities to pay more attention to the cost and quality
of care.
Why it matters: It's an example
of how hospitals are the health sector that's being most rocked by the policy
changes of President Trump's second term.
Medicare officials last month
expanded a pilot program that bundled payments for hip, knee, and ankle
replacements — some of the most common surgeries for seniors — to incentivize
providers to manage their spending. Nearly all hospitals in the country will
have to participate. The pilot ran from mid-2016 through 2024 in selected
regions and generated more than $112 million in savings in its sixth and
seventh years.
The expansion is projected to
save $725 million over five years.
How it works: Starting in 2028,
Medicare will set spending targets for post-surgical care and other services
delivered for 90 days after an operation.
Middle East
The
Guardian - Military families and Congress members are sounding
the alarm about an intensifying mental health crisis onboard the USS Abraham
Lincoln, as its 5,000 sailors and marines endure a record-breaking deployment
at sea tied to the war with Iran.
Two leading specialist military
papers, the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes, are reporting that there have
been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard as poor conditions and
mental stresses on the Lincoln reach the breaking point. The crew is in its
ninth month at sea, and has spent 250 days consecutively without making land –
a record for an aircraft carrier in modern times.
Worried families vented their
anxieties about loved ones onboard the Lincoln at an emotional town hall
meeting with navy leaders in San Diego last Thursday, Stars and Stripes
reported. One spouse among the 200 or so family members said that her husband had
texted her that day saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow”…..
The Navy Times gave details of
thwarted suicide attempts onboard the aircraft carrier during the current
deployment. Annabelle Loma told the outlet that her husband had tried to jump
overboard after his spell at sea kept being extended.
“He’s scared. He thinks he’ll get
a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out his 13-year career
is ruined, just like that,” she said.
The paper quoted another sailor’s
wife whose husband was involved in a separate incident onboard the Lincoln in
which he prevented a fellow crew member from jumping, grabbing them and
bringing them back on deck.
Mike Levin, a Democratic member
of Congress from California, has sounded the alarm over conditions onboard the
warship, which is in its fifth month of combat operations against Iran. He
described the lot of the crew on X as “moldy showers, broken toilets, laundry
down for weeks, long stretches with no hot water, a meal that came down to half
a cup of rice and two tortillas. No soap, deodorant, or toothpaste.”
Todd Blanche
Congressional
Insider - Lisa Murkowski’s planned “no” vote on Todd Blanche: Murkowski
says Blanche does not meet her standard for an attorney general who can check
presidential overreach. Her objection
centers on Justice Department politicization and the handling of the Epstein
files. Blanche’s nomination already cleared committee and now heads toward a
full Senate fight. Republican support has been conditional, tied to written
assurances on a disputed settlement fund.
August 12, 2026
Schools
News
from the States - The Trump
administration has put on hold $6.8 billion in federal funds for K-12 schools,
according to an Education Department notice obtained by States Newsroom. The agency informed states on Monday that it
would be withholding funding for several programs, including before- and
after-school programs, migrant education and English-language learning, among
other initiatives.
But the agency notified states
just a day ahead of July 1 — the date these funds are typically sent out as
educators plan for the coming school year.
“The Department remains committed
to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s
priorities and the Department’s statutory responsibilities,” the Education
Department wrote to states.
Donald Trump
Voting
Guardian - A federal
judge on Tuesday blocked the US Postal Service from implementing part of Donald
Trump’s executive order that aims to
tighten rules for mail-in voting before November’s midterm
elections. The ruling expanded on an earlier order
that had prevented Trump’s administration from implementing it
in 23 mostly Democratic-led states.
Trump's secret flight left 100 staffer and media in danger
Guardian - Democrats have called for a congressional briefing after a charade in which Donald Trump was secretly spirited into a different plane than the one the public and press believed he was travelling on. When US intelligence allegedly found a credible threat that Iran plotted to kill the president last month, Trump left Air Force One in a catering truck. More than a hundred aides, officials and reporters were kept onboard to fly towards Britain from Turkey, without being told there was a threat to their lives. “It appears that the idea was we can reduce the danger to President Trump by offering up 100 or so people to be killed by the Iranians in his place,” said Steven Cash, the executive director of the non-profit Steady State who is a former CIA intelligence officer and senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence branch. |
|
August 11, 2026
ICE Agents to Wear Body Cameras but problems remain
ACLU
- After years of delays, ICE has announced that it will equip all
officers with body cameras. But, the agency’s policy says that it will retain
broad control over what videos are released to the public — and that in
particular it will only release footage of serious bodily injuries and deaths
in custody if “it is in the best interests of the agency.” This is exactly the
opposite of a policy that will make body cameras an effective oversight and
accountability measure.
At the ACLU we’ve been saying
from the beginning that body cameras won’t be an effective accountability
measure unless they’re accompanied by good policies on exactly how they’re used
— and that foremost among those policies must be ensuring appropriate public
release of recordings. Without good policies, police body cameras are reduced
to yet more government surveillance devices, with all that implies (such as
over-policing and prosecution), and to propaganda systems that let agencies
publicize videos showing officers in a positive light while burying those that
don’t.
Visitors from Canada
USA Facts
- In 1996, 105.7 million people crossed into the US from Canada by
land. In 2025, that number was 36.6 million and, outside of the three years
when the pandemic restricted travel, it was one of the lowest totals in three
decades. (Note: This data covers legal crossings, not unauthorized entries.)