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Thursday, September 10, 2026

The U.S. Supreme Court again rejected a push to use Missouri congressional maps backed by President Donald Trump on Thursday, a loss for Republicans trying to maintain control of the House in the fast-approaching midterm elections.


President Trump is promising $5,000 checks for every adult U.S. citizen if Republicans retain control of Congress in the upcoming midterm election. The Census Bureau estimates there are about 245 million adult U.S. citizens. Giving each of them $5,000 would cost $1.2 trillion. Last fiscal year the government spent about $7 trillion, so Trump's proposal would nominally increase federal spending by more than 15%.


Wednesday, September 09, 2026

Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans' financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime, but which the government thinks may be worth searching, 404 Media has found. read more


Tuesday, September 08, 2026

Oxfam recently released its Best States to Work Index for 2026, a report that analyzed 37 labor policies among all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. read more


"People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air," Mamdani said during a news conference, according to CNN. read more


Comments

More: But more issues were in play than "Army transformation." Hegseth's tenure has been disastrous on multiple scores. Instead of giving sound advice to the commander in chief and ensuring that America remains secure while the president fights a deeply unwise war of choice, he has been pursuing his political grievances about DEI and other pet peeves against the U.S. military. Hegseth seems to have a special animus toward the Army, an institution he claims "spit me out." He fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, and he has pushed out other senior Army officers; at this point, the Army has no Senate-confirmed chief of staff or secretary. (George's replacement, General Christopher LaNeve, so far does not have the necessary votes to be confirmed.)

Even in less dangerous times, Hegseth's irresponsible behavior would be a hazard to American national security. The Defense Department is a huge bureaucracy; it requires a leader who understands more than the mechanics of teaching trainees how to do push-ups or how to handle a weapon. Secretaries of defense must grasp the economics of the defense industry, the nature of alliances, congressional politics, the policy process, and dozens of other issues for which Hegseth seems to care little and about which he knows even less.

In a time of war, however, Hegseth's shortcomings may prove deadly. Leave aside his early stumbles, including the mishandling of sensitive information. Leave aside, even, that Hegseth dissembled about the severity of Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf that had succeeded in disrupting the logistical support for American forces in the theater and led to the kind of deprivations that were suffered by the crew of the aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln. Hegseth's incompetence, and his commitment to staying in Trump's good graces, helped launch the war itself in the first place.

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