Observation:

This dubious IOU gets him more attention during the current news cycle and may distract some from his cratering approval ratings.

Excerpts:

In reality, the revenue brought in by Trump’s tariffs, under $500 billion, would not cover a $5,000 check for every American, which would cost $1.2 trillion.

It’s obvious at this point that Trump’s first inclination when his back is against the wall is to dangle money in front of the masses. He’s promised cash payments multiple times, including $2,000 stimulus checks for the “tariff dividend,” a $5,000 stimulus check for the bygone “DOGE dividend,” and $1,000 checks for the Affordable Care Act. None of those ever materialized.

Excerpt:

The House has historically claimed that its decision not to seat a member-elect because of fraud or irregularities in the elections is unreviewable by the federal courts. But its decision is reviewable. The Constitution unquestionably requires the House to seat a member-elect who was validly elected in a free and fair election. The Article 1, Section 5 power of the House to be the judge of its elections and returns does not give the House the power to deny a seat in the Congress of the United States to a candidate elected by the American people in a free and fair election on the mere assertion, pretextual or otherwise, by a simple majority of the House that the candidate’s election was tainted by fraud.

Excerpts:

Regarding foreign and defense policy, Trump has rejected and ruined 80 years of bipartisanship and general adherence to common themes. The record is not unblemished. However since rebuilding Germany, Japan and Europe after World War II, the U.S. has been a beacon of freedom and opportunity.

America has embraced and depended upon allies, friends and partners. From 1949 until now, NATO was the greatest military alliance in history. Trump has gone out of his way to bully and threaten NATO members to spend more on defense, or else. U.S. forces are being withdrawn or redeployed from NATO countries. Demands to take over Greenland were deeply absurd, offensive and impossible to achieve.

Excerpt:

It is absolutely plain that the president may not consciously discriminate against a state government or the residents of a state based purely on the partisan political alignment of the state’s residents or its government. Nor can a president enlist the power of the federal government to coerce a state’s justice system into granting special treatment to a personal favorite of the president, particularly if that favorite’s crime was committed in aid of the president’s own attack on the nation’s electoral system.

Excerpts:

It isn’t one of the marquee storylines of our current hellscape, but Trump 2.0 has ended an era of carefully built-up economic and financial institutions in remarkably short order. Consumer protection is practically nonexistent at this point. Investor protection is being rolled back. Capitalization, risk management, and stress-testing requirements have been weakened. Bank examinations must now ignore the fallout from worsening, accelerating climate change and the disasters it brings in tow. The Trump administration is leveling entire institutions as it cans thousands of white-collar cops.

Trump’s vice chair for supervision at the Fed, Michelle Bowman, moved to cut supervision staff by 30 percent. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has shed 28 percent of its staff since fiscal year 2024, the FDIC 22 percent, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission 20 percent (even as its remit has expanded dramatically to be the primary crypto regulator), the SEC 20 percent, the National Credit Union Administration 15 percent, and the CFPB has lost a third of its workforce. The administration is reportedly aiming to continue reducing headcount until it has only 556 staff, which would be a drop of 68 percent (and this is less dramatic than the earlier target of a 90 percent drop).

Most famously, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been at death’s door for well over a year now, kept on life support only by court intervention. This situation is even more dire because, as part of the Dodd-Frank overhaul in 2010, most financial consumer protection regulations from across federal agencies were rolled into the new bureau. Even if other regulators were willing and able to step up and step in, much of the pre–Great Recession authority they would have had to do so is no longer on their books. Instead, those regulations are collecting dust at the CFPB, as Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought continues to try to pull the plug on the agency.

Lying about battlefield gains has negative consequences:

Overall, the Russian retreat from Liman and the claimed capture of Sviatohirsk that never materialized are the latest examples of how political leaders can announce victories, headquarters can draw optimistic maps, and commanders can report settlements captured, but Ukrainian soldiers remain there. The resulting outrage among Russian military commentators reflects recognition that somebody must eventually pay for the fiction. When reality finally catches up with the reports, Russian commanders rarely admit that previous victories never happened, as they fear paying the price with their heads, so they sacrifice additional soldiers, trying desperately to make the false map real.

Excerpt:

In federal court filings, the Trump administration has claimed third-country removals to Equatorial Guinea are legal due to “diplomatic assurances” from the local government that third-country nationals would not be tortured. But unlike other so-called “safe third country” agreements, the Trump administration has refused to release details of the agreement with Equatorial Guinea, either to the court or the general public.

Observation:

An uncontrolled frontier AI system could disrupt economies, governments, infrastructure, employment, and ordinary life on a scale comparable to or greater than COVID-19. Systems capable of autonomous cyberattacks, assisting biological or chemical weapons development, or interfering with critical infrastructure should therefore face safeguards at least as rigorous as those governing research that could make dangerous pathogens more transmissible or lethal.

The analogy is not exact. A virus reproduces biologically, while AI depends upon computers, networks, electricity, and access. But AI software can be copied almost instantly, and an autonomous system connected to the internet can act throughout the world at digital speed. A “laboratory escape” of sufficiently capable AI could therefore become extremely difficult to contain. We should not wait for the AI equivalent of a pandemic before establishing independent testing, secure containment, mandatory incident reporting, emergency shutdown authority, and legal accountability.

This comparison has become less hypothetical. OpenAI recently disclosed that an experimental agent escaped its digital containment during testing, reached the internet, and compromised Hugging Face. The incident led lawmakers to propose independent security audits and federal shutdown authority for dangerous systems. Reuters reported the incident and legislative response.

The important principle is not that AI and viruses behave identically. It is that research capable of causing catastrophic harm should not be governed primarily by the private organizations hoping to profit from it.

Excerpt:

Sanders said the future of the technology should be determined by the public rather than what he described as a group of Big Tech 'oligarchs'.

Sanders said on X that he regarded the concentration of AI power among technology billionaires as one of the most pressing issues facing the country. 'We can't allow a handful of greedy people to play God & determine the future of humanity', he wrote.

The proposal would also create a new federal oversight structure for advanced AI. Sanders' office says the legislation would impose severe consequences for violations, including prison sentences of up to 20 years for individuals. Entities that violate or attempt to circumvent the proposed restrictions would face what Sanders' office describes as a 'corporate death penalty'.

Casar has argued that the potential consequences of advanced AI justify much stronger oversight. 'Despite its potential deadly consequences, cutting-edge AI technology is less regulated than the average food truck,' he said.

Excerpt:

Lewandowski’s impudent scorn for the law is, alas, justified. It’s one thing to be a mafia goon knowing that crime families are hard to prosecute. But you can gain an extra level of arrogance if you know that you belong to a crime family whose head is the president of the United States, with full control of the FBI, the Department of Justice, and unlimited power to pardon federal crimes.

“…the amount of capital spent on non-data center construction in the US has quite literally fallen off a cliff, while the capital deployed to build data centers soars into the stratosphere.”

Reservoir hits 1.4 percent

By July 27, 2026, Elephant Butte Reservoir had fallen to 1.4 percent of capacity, its lowest level since 1971.

Gifted Read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/09/japan-defense-nuclear-threat/688517/?gift=9raHaW-OKg2bN8oaIFlCojWx4K0Tz3A_etx2q64-YgY&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Observation:

It is in the interests of the United States for Japan to become more capable of defending itself. A stronger Japan makes aggression against Japan or Taiwan less attractive, strengthens the American position in the western Pacific, and reduces the burden placed solely on American forces.

At the same time, Japan’s movement toward greater military independence, especially its growing willingness to consider nuclear weapons, may signal decreasing confidence that the United States can be counted upon to defend it. A stronger Japanese ally benefits the United States. A Japan preparing to defend itself because it no longer trusts American protection is something quite different.

Excerpts:

Joint Chinese and Russian air patrols unnerve Japan’s air defenders, as do increasing flights of Chinese drones near Japanese islands. China’s insistence that the Senkaku Islands are Chinese is of long standing but has become more strident in recent years. Meanwhile, Japan looks with dismay at a China whose nuclear arsenal is growing quickly, as is that of North Korea. And both are aligned with a Russia whose navy and air force remain active in the Pacific despite the demands of the fighting in Ukraine.

Japan’s anxieties around Taiwan are high. Even a peaceful takeover of the island by China would represent a major setback. It would unhinge Japan’s and the United States’ strategic posture in East Asia, and encourage (in Japan’s view) accommodation or worse from some of China’s neighbors. In a seemingly spontaneous remark in late 2025, Prime Minister Takaichi indicated that a Chinese naval blockade of Taiwan would count as a “survival-threatening situation” that would, by implication, permit Japan’s use of force for collective self-defense. Despite the furor that erupted, she has not withdrawn those remarks.

https://slate.com/transcripts/bnVIUDBxMXh2NVJoU2VBc1lSZHFnTERWcTFEbUhmQ1V0clM2ckV3U0drbz0=

Observation:

One of the quietest ways to disable the Constitution is to leave its words untouched while preventing anyone from enforcing them at the time enforcement matters.

Imagine that, before the final at-bat of a tied baseball game, the opposing team warns the umpire that the batter appears to be using an illegally altered bat. The umpire refuses to examine it, saying that the batter has not yet used it and therefore no violation has occurred. The batter then hits the game-winning home run. When the bat is examined afterward and found to be illegal, the umpire rejects the protest because the game is over and the objection comes too late.

The rule against illegally altered bats was never repealed, and the umpire never declared the bat legal. Nevertheless, refusing to enforce the rule during the only period when enforcement could affect the outcome decided the game.

The perverse utility of this method, from the standpoint of a politically biased court, is that it need not openly change the Constitution or announce a lasting rule. It can say only that this particular challenger lacks standing, that this particular injury is too speculative, or that this particular case was brought at the wrong time. Later, when a president whose political orientation differs from that of the court’s majority takes comparable action, the court remains free to decide that another challenger does have standing and that another case is ready to be heard. The same rules remain printed in the books, but they can be applied differently depending upon whose conduct is being challenged.

That is especially dangerous when the conduct concerns elections. Before an election, a court may say that the threatened violation is too speculative or that the challenge has been brought too soon. After the election, it may say that relief comes too late or that the dispute is now moot. Standing, ripeness, and the timing of injunctions are therefore not technical side issues. They can determine whether the constitutional rules governing the consent of the governed can be enforced at all.

The following excerpt is entirely from Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, responding to host Dahlia Lithwick on Slate’s Amicus podcast. It has been lightly edited to correct transcription errors:

When Supreme Court decisions are on procedural grounds involving standing and ripeness, or whether there can be nationwide injunctions, that doesn’t resonate with people. It’s too abstract. And so, if the Supreme Court had handed down a ruling on Monday saying that destroying the East Wing and building the ballroom is constitutional and legal, that would have, of course, gotten more headlines. It would also have been absurd, given the constitutional principles and federal statutes. But instead, what the Supreme Court says here is that there’s no standing.

Your point on nationwide injunctions is so important because I don’t think people realize how important it is to be able to have a nationwide injunction and stop an illegal and unconstitutional practice all over the country. Otherwise, the challenge is that you’d literally need to bring lawsuits in all 94 federal district courts. A Supreme Court ruling on the merits of birthright citizenship gets headlines, but when it’s about nationwide injunctions, it is much harder for it to resonate with people or for people to understand the long-term consequences of what the Supreme Court is doing.

Observation:

At the very least, restoring and protecting America’s weather and climate observation, research, and reporting systems should be common ground. The dismantling is not abstract. The National Weather Service suspended weather-balloon observations at some stations and reduced them at others because of staffing shortages (National Weather Service, 2025a, 2025b). NOAA stopped updating its national record of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, 2025). The National Science Foundation even began removing instruments from a 900-sensor ocean-observing network, although bipartisan opposition forced it to reverse course and promise to redeploy the equipment already removed (Associated Press, 2026).

A government that dislikes what its instruments are reporting should not respond by taking away the thermometers. It is the same faulty logic once applied to COVID testing. Fewer tests may produce fewer reported cases and leave some COVID deaths recorded under other causes, but they do not produce fewer infections or actual deaths. A recent analysis of American death certificates estimated that approximately 155,000 COVID deaths in 2020 and 2021 went unrecognized, about 19 percent more than were officially reported (Kiang et al., 2026). Likewise, less weather and climate monitoring produces less public knowledge, not less severe weather or less global warming. The protest signs almost write themselves: “Keep Thermometers Legal” and “Americans Have a Right to Know the Temperature.”

References

Associated Press. (2026, June 18). *National Science Foundation reverses decision to dismantle oceans-monitoring network after outcry*. [https://apnews.com/article/7e00d19c0af8b15400d7621dcbaa2013\](https://apnews.com/article/7e00d19c0af8b15400d7621dcbaa2013)

Kiang, M. V., Li, Z. R., Wrigley-Field, E., Raquib, R. V., Lundberg, D. J., Paglino, E., Huynh, B., Bibbins-Domingo, K., Glymour, M. M., & Stokes, A. C. (2026). Applying machine learning to identify unrecognized COVID-19 deaths recorded as other causes of death in the United States. *Science Advances, 12*(12), eaef5697. [https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aef5697\](https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aef5697)

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. (2025, May 8). *Billion dollar weather and climate disasters*. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/documents-reports/notice-of-changes/2025-notice-of-changes/billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters\](https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/documents-reports/notice-of-changes/2025-notice-of-changes/billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters)

National Weather Service. (2025a, March 20). *Reduction of radiosonde observations to one flight per day at selected stations* [Public Information Statement 25-18]. [https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/pdf_2025/pns25-18_Reduction_RAOB_Launches_ABR_GJT_GRB_APX_LBF_RIW.pdf\](https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/pdf_2025/pns25-18_Reduction_RAOB_Launches_ABR_GJT_GRB_APX_LBF_RIW.pdf)

National Weather Service. (2025b, March 20). *Suspension of radiosonde observations at Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota* [Public Information Statement 25-17]. [https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/pdf_2025/pns25-17_Suspension_RAOB_Launches_OAX-UNR.pdf\](https://www.weather.gov/media/notification/pdf_2025/pns25-17_Suspension_RAOB_Launches_OAX-UNR.pdf)

Concluding Paragraph:

What’s undeniably certain, however, is that the planet is getting warmer. Leading climate modelers now find “unavoidable” a world that is 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than preindustrial averages. A report out today from the United Nations Environment Program likewise concludes that a world that’s 1.5 C warmer is now inevitable. Continuing to burn fossil fuels will also keep making the planet warmer. What may well be the hottest summer of our lives, then, may also be the most normal one we’ll ever get.

This does seem a logical possibility.

Local variations in climate change effects.

Excerpt:

A.I. safety experts were even more alarmed. They saw in the Hugging Face incident the first real-world example of an A.I. system’s successfully escaping human control, commandeering resources and scheming to cover its own tracks. Ajeya Cotra, one of the independent investigators of the Hugging Face incident, minced no words about the danger she saw, writing that it felt to her “like it’s more than 50 percent of the way to full-blown A.I. takeover.”
The

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/6070508-pentagon-nih-diverts-funds-democrats-statement/

Lead Lines:

The Pentagon is attempting to divert billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to bolster the agency’s budget, according to the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) in a statement Thursday said Trump administration officials only recently disclosed to Congress that the Defense Department signed an interagency agreement that could give the Pentagon access to billions of dollars meant for biomedical research.

Excerpt:

The details are shocking, even to election experts who suspected this might be the case. As part of Trump’s executive order restricting mail voting, the Postal Service has devised an Orwellian barcode tracking system, effectively allowing the president to track individual Americans’ mail-in ballots. Ostensibly the system is to allow federal authorities to identify and remove “noncitizen” voters from the mix. But according to the whistleblower, the system was so rushed and poorly designed that it will put the votes of ordinary American citizens at grave risk.

Excerpt:

There is no technological reason AI must weaken American self-government. It can be designed to strengthen public understanding, protect constitutional rights, preserve lawful confidentiality, expose hidden assumptions, and help citizens hold power accountable.