Polls

 USA Today - Just 31% of Americans find Trump trustworthy, a new low for him and down from 38% at the start of his second term in January, according to an Aug. 12 Economist/YouGov survey.

And a Pew Research Center survey released Aug. 14 showed that just 38% of Americans approve of Trump's performance as president, with significant majorities disapproving of his signature "One Big Beautiful Bill," his approach to tariffs and changes he has made to the federal government.

Americans dislike just about everything Trump brags about. And the more he touts what he sees as major accomplishments, the less America likes them – and him.

 

Trump threatens complete federal takeover of DC

 Newsweek - President Donald Trump has threatened a "complete and total" federal takeover of Washington, D.C., amid a dispute over the city's crime figures.  Trump has already deployed federal troops, officers and agents to D.C. as part of a crackdown on crime and homelessness.

Trump said on August 11 that the city had been "overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people."

Trump's intervention marks an unprecedented federal involvement in the local governance of the District of Columbia. The deployment of federal troops has sparked a backlash over constitutional limits and home rule rights.

Critics argue that it breaches democratic principles and could set a dangerous precedent, while supporters frame it as a necessary measure for public order.

Writing on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said: "Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN! The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job. They are out in force, and are NOT PLAYING GAMES!!! As bad as it sounds to say, there were no murders this week for the first time in memory."

He added: "Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City! Washington D.C. will soon be great again!!! 

Housing

 Blloomberg - Home-purchase contracts in the US were canceled at a record rate, with about 58,000 agreements falling through last month. That’s equivalent to 15.3% of homes that went under contract and the highest cancellation rate for a July in data going back to 2017.

It’s not just that the housing market’s expensive, with elevated mortgage rates and home prices that have soared 50% since early 2020. Buyers are also pulling back more than usual because of uncertainty over the wavering US economy, as inflation begins to rise again and the labor market slows. Plus, with more listings to choose from in many parts of the country, there’s less urgency. 

“Buyers are having economic nausea—they’re feeling queasy about the market,” said Jeremy Caleb Johnson, an associate broker with Long & Foster in Virginia Beach. “They want to buy a house, but sometimes it’s too overwhelming when they start to focus on all the moving parts and all the costs involved. Sometimes it’s easier for them to cancel and get some fresh air and breathe.”

Trump's Supreme Court

 The Guardian - In the past 10 weeks America has witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of decisions from its highest court that should make Trump very happy indeed. The six rightwing justices who control the court – three of them given their lifetime seats by Trump himself – have effectively greenlighted the president’s explosive and law-busting agenda.

The supermajority has granted Trump 18 straight victories in the administration’s requests for emergency relief. Steve Vladeck, a leading supreme court scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, has tracked the decisions in his Substack, One First, noting that the rulings have been handed down largely in the legal darkness.

They have been piped through the court’s so-called “shadow docket”, where important affairs of state are decided at speed and with little or no debate or deliberation. By Vladeck’s count, seven of the orders have been issued without any explanation, leaving the American people clueless as to the justices’ thinking.

Yet the emergency rulings, though temporary in nature, could have seismic consequences. For as long as they hold they have the potential to cause untold suffering to millions of people targeted by Trump.

That includes countless federal employees who can now be fired at whim after decades of loyal public service; transgender people purged from the military; more than 1 million individuals from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and other countries who are being stripped of their status to remain in the US; immigrants singled out for deportation to war-torn third countries where their lives are in danger.

Legally, the consequences are also profound. Several of Trump’s actions given temporary go-ahead are of dubious legality, violating congressional or international laws and running roughshod over fundamental tenets of the US constitution.

By conceding to Trump’s wishes, the justices have for now approved what Vladeck has called “a truly unprecedented amount of lawlessness by the executive branch”.

 

FBI raids John Bolton's house

 NBC News -  The FBI raided former national security adviser John Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland, on Friday as part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records,” a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News. In a statement to NBC News, an FBI official said, "The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area. There is no threat to public safety.”

The agency declined to comment further on the raid. Bolton did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment. In a post on X early Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote, "NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission."

 

How adult children can help their parents

NPR -  Adult children can find it hard to understand what their parents are going through because they haven’t experienced it yet. Parents may keenly feel that lack of empathy. However, there are several ways adult children can help aging parents adjust to life's developments. 

👴 Listening is the most important thing an adult child can do for an older parent. Try asking them how you can best spend your time with them. If they are struggling with health changes, ask them how they feel about it. 
👴 Many people have to alter their diets as they age. Remember, there is a difference between helping them stay on track and pressuring them with reminders.
👴 If you are providing intimate care, try asking your parents to tell stories about their lives. This can help alter the dynamic of assistance, which can feel humiliating for them. 

Justice Department hires lawyer who represented Jan 6 rioters

 NPR - The Department of Justice has hired a lawyer who represented rioters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Attorney Jonathan Gross is now working with the Trump administration's "Weaponization Working Group," which reviews the criminal and civil cases brought against the president by federal and local prosecutors in the last four years. Gross took an unconventional path to representing Jan. 6 defendants. Here's what to know about the attorney.

Where Trump's legal cases stand

Redistricting

NBC News -  California voters are set to decide whether to approve a plan by Democrats to gerrymander the state congressional map that could net the party up to five more seats after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation to approve a special election vote.

No further detainees allowed at 'Alligator Alcatraz'

NBC News - No additional detainees can be brought into "Alligator Alcatraz," the contested ICE detention facility in the Florida Everglades, a federal judge ruled late Thursday. The ruling also ordered the removal of generators and gas and sewage receptacles within 60 days, bringing into question how the facility, which is part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, would remain operational if those resources are removed. The ruling allowed the injunction that was requested over National Environmental Policy Act violations. Environmental groups and Native Americans had protested construction of the site because of the Everglades’ delicate and unique ecosystem, which is home to endangered and threatened species.  The groups that sued demanding an injunction celebrated the ruling in a joint statement as “a major victory for Florida’s imperiled wildlife and fragile ecosystems which are threatened by the detention center.” The defense has appealed the ruling, court records show.  Read the full story here.

Gaza

NBC News - Famine was officially declared Friday in an area of northern Gaza that includes Gaza City, as Israel vowed to raze the area if Hamas doesn't agree to its terms.

The declaration by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, comes as deaths from starvation rise across the Palestinian enclave in a spiraling crisis under Israel's military assault and aid restrictions.

Israel's military is preparing to push ahead with a new operation to seize Gaza City that could displace hundreds of thousands of people and worsen the dire situation there.

"After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions ... characterized by starvation, destitution and death," the IPC said.

The United Nations-backed body had up until now only declared famine on four other occasions since it was first established in 2004, most recently in Sudan last year. Read the full story here.

Meanwhile. . . .

 Robert Reich -    The GOP governors of South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee have all sent their states' National Guard troops to assist Trump's occupation of DC. FYI: All four of those states have cities with crime rates higher than DC.

Occupy Democrats -   Donald Trump declares war on the Constitution and prepares to sign an executive order directing the MAGA Justice Department to prosecute anyone who burns an American flag. ... The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that burning the American flag in political protest is an act protected under the First Amendment. It's a form of free speech. 

Brian Krassenstein -  Donald Trump has quietly purchased over $100 million in bonds since January. FACT: When interest rates fall, bond values rise. So Trump isn’t just demanding Fed rate cuts for “the economy," he stands to personally profit. 

Gavin Newsom says “eight of the top ten murder states in this country are red states.” 

Musk wins battle with labor unions

 New Republic - The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the National Labor Relations Board’s structure is unconstitutional, dealing another severe blow to the board’s ability to resolve labor-management disputes and enforce federal labor laws across the country.

The case itself reads like a Gilded Age parable. South African–born billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, had asked the court to block the board’s enforcement actions against one of his companies for its alleged anti-union activities. A panel of three Republican-appointed federal judges in Texas, two of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump, agreed with him.

“The Employers have made their case and should not have to choose between compliance and constitutionality,” Judge Don Willett wrote for the panel, referring to Musk’s company SpaceX and two others that had sued on similar grounds. “When an agency’s structure violates the separation of powers, the harm is immediate—and the remedy must be, too.”

Tuesday’s ruling in SpaceX v. NLRB is a significant blow to American workers who hope to organize their workplaces without fear of retaliation. It represents a partial negation of the New Deal, along with 90 years of legal precedent—and a victory for the conservative legal establishment’s war against federal regulatory power.

At issue in this case is whether the NLRB’s actions were unconstitutional because, under federal law, its five-member board and its administrative-law judges cannot be fired by the president at will. NLRB board members can only be removed “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause,” while the ALJs can only be removed “for good cause” after a hearing before a specialized federal civil service board.

Divided Court Eliminates Trump’s Half-Billion-Dollar Fine in Fraud Case

 NY Times - A divided New York appeals court on Thursday threw out a half-billion-dollar judgment against President Trump, eliminating an enormous financial burden while preserving the fraud case against him, a remarkable turn in the battle between the president and one of his fiercest foes.

“While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award to the state,” wrote Peter Moulton, one of the appeals judges whose lengthy and convoluted ruling reflected deep disagreement among the five-judge panel.

While the court effectively upheld the fraud ruling against the president, several of the justices raised major questions about the case. And their decision allowed Mr. Trump to move to New York’s highest court, giving him another opportunity to challenge the finding that he was a fraudster.

Despite the complexities, Thursday’s ruling handed Mr. Trump a financial victory and a modicum of legal validation. It represented a setback for New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who is one of the president’s foremost adversaries and a target of a retribution campaign. The case had been a career-defining victory after she campaigned for office promising to bring Mr. Trump to justice.

 

113 degrees in Phoenix

Reading for fun in the US has fallen by 40%

 The Guardian - The number of Americans who read for pleasure has fallen by 40%, according to a new study.  Researchers at the University of Florida and University College London have found that between 2003 and 2023, daily reading for reasons other than work and study fell by about 3% each year.

The number saw a peak in 2004, with 28% of people qualifying, before falling to 16% in 2023. The data was taken from more than 236,000 Americans who participated in the American Time Use Survey and the study was published in the journal iScience. The definition of reading in the survey wasn’t limited to books; it also included magazines and newspapers in print, electronic or audio form.”

House sales

 Newsweek -  Only 28 percent of homes currently for sale across the country are affordable for the typical U.S. household, according to a new report, showing that homeownership continues moving further out of reach for Americans even as the market finally slows down.

The August 2025 Buying Power Report from Realtor.com shows that, as the maximum affordable home price for a median-income household in the U.S. has fallen to $298,000, just a little over a quarter of all homes on the market are priced within reach of the typical U.S. household.

Back in 2019, before the pandemic homebuying frenzy, the maximum affordable home price for a median-income household was nearly $30,000 higher, at $325,000

Thousands of Americans Told to Stop Driving

Newsweek _  Thousands of Americans have been urged to avoid driving amid concerns over high air pollution levels. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued air quality alerts in Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming and Florida on Thursday. The warnings mean ground-level ozone and particulate concentrations are forecast to reach dangerous levels. In some areas, the pollution comes from drifting wildfire smoke.

The NWS warned that the general public as well as sensitive groups—children, seniors and individuals with preexisting respiratory or heart conditions—might experience health effects linked to poor air quality in the affected regions.

Jeffrey Epstain

A third judge denies DOJ request to unseal Epstein transcripts

Donald Trump

NBC News -   President Donald Trump has purchased at least $103 million worth of corporate and municipal bonds since taking office in January, according to new filings from the Office of Government Ethics. The active trading by a president of the United States is unprecedented and puts him in a direct position to benefit if any of the entities that own the bonds he’s purchased succeed — or lose out if they fail.

Polls

Politico - The vast majority of Washington residents oppose President Donald Trump’s efforts to federalize the city’s police department and deploy the National Guard, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The survey from The Washington Post/Schar School found that 79 percent of residents either somewhat or strongly oppose the efforts, compared to just 17 percent who backed it.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Wednesday, 58% of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognize a Palestinian state, compared with just 33% who said they should not and 9% who said they were unsure. 

The Guardian -Most Americans believe that efforts to redraw U.S. House of Representatives districts to maximize partisan gains, like those under way in Texas and California, are bad for democracy, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found. More than half of respondents - 57% - said they feared that American democracy itself was in danger, a view held by eight in 10 Democrats and four in 10 in president Donald Trump’s Republican party.

The six-day survey of 4,446 US adults, which closed on Monday, showed deep unease with the growing political divisions in Washington - where Republicans control both chambers of Congress - and state capitals. The poll found that 55% of respondents, including 71% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans, agreed that ongoing redistricting plans - such as those hatched by governors in Texas and California in a process known as gerrymandering - were “bad for democracy.”

Gulf Coast states face huge losses

Axios -  The U.S. Gulf Coast is facing billions of dollars in yearly property damage by 2050 due to extreme weather tied to climate change, per a new analysis....Even as Gulf states are still reckoning with the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, more pain and loss seems inevitable.

Damage from extreme weather will cost $32 billion annually across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida by 2050 in a "middle of the road" climate change scenario, per a new Urban Institute analysis using FEMA data....  Full story

Trump backs off solo approach to ending mail-in voting

 Roll Call - The White House has abruptly altered course on President Donald Trump’s vow to have an elite legal team craft an executive order that would end mail-in voting, with a top aide saying the administration would instead forge a legislative path.

Trump has railed against the practice most of his political career, ramping up his lambasting of the practice during and after his unsuccessful 2020 reelection bid. He began the week with an early morning vow to, as he wrote Monday in a 7:17 a.m. social media post, “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN S.”...

Trump was asked about his effort to end mail-in voting and rid the election process of the voting machines later Monday during a media availability in the Oval Office. “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt,” he told reporters.

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday, just over 24 hours later, signaled that the administration had ditched the president’s approach.

“The White House continues to work on this, and when Congress comes back to Washington I’m sure there will be many discussions with our friends on Capitol Hill, and also our friends in state legislatures across the country, to ensure that we’re protecting the integrity of the vote for the American people,” she said. “And I think Republicans generally and the president generally wants to make it easier for Americans to vote and harder for people to cheat in our elections.”

Asked what changed so quickly, and whether Trump had received a legal ruling from within the administration that his office lacked the authority to make such a dramatic election change, a White House spokesman merely lobbed accusations at Democrats and repeated Trump’s 2024 campaign platform on the issue.

Immigration

 The Marshall Project  - The monthly number of people deported whose most serious conviction was a traffic violation — such as driving without a license — has more than tripled in the last six months, hitting almost 600 in May, according to new estimates by The Marshall Project. In total, over 1,800 people with traffic violations have been deported this year.

People with no criminal convictions at all make up two-thirds of the more than 120,000 people deported between January and May. For another 8%, the only offense on their record was illegal entry to the U.S. Only about 12% were convicted of a crime that was either violent or potentially violent. The numbers contradict officials' continued claims that immigration enforcement is focusing on the “worst of the worst” criminal offenders

 

Money

As executive remuneration ballooned, the average CEO-to-worker pay gap across the 100 companies in the S&P 500 with lowest median worker pay – dubbed the Low-Wage 100 by the Institute for Policy Studies – widened by 12.9% between 2019 and 2024, from 560 to 1 to 632 to 1.

Medicare

 Common Dreams- A report released on Friday confirmed what many Democratic lawmakers have long been warning about: Republicans' massive budget law will trigger significant cuts to Medicare.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the GOP's budget package and acknowledged that it would be required to issue a sequestration, which is essentially a cancellation of budgetary resources.

The sequestration is required under the rules set out by the Statutory Pay‑As‑You‑Go Act of 2010 that requires spending cuts that are equal to a piece of legislation's negative impact on the budget deficit.

The only way to avoid these cuts, said the CBO, would be for Congress to pass "subsequent legislation that would offset the deficit increase, waive the recordation of the bill's effects on the scorecard, or otherwise mitigate or eliminate the statutory requirements."

The CBO said that these cuts could take as much as $45 billion out of Medicare for fiscal year 2026. What's more, the amount cut from Medicare would increase in every subsequent year, resulting in total cuts of as much as $536 billion between 2026 and 2034.

Dems registration problem

Axios - A New York Times analysis found Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single state that allows voters to register with a political party between 2020 and 2024. "That swing helps to explain President Trump's success last year, when he won the popular vote for the first time, swept the swing states and roared back to the White House," The Times' Shane Goldmacher and Jonah Smith write.

"All told, Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters between the 2020 and 2024 elections in the 30 states, along with Washington, D.C., that allow people to register with a political party. (In the remaining 20 states, voters do not register with a political party.) Republicans gained 2.4 million," The Times writes.

 "That four-year swing toward the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters, a deep political hole that could take years for Democrats to climb out from.

"All four presidential battleground states covered by the Times analysis — Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — showed significant Democratic erosion." Keep reading 

Bad state choices

NBC News - Texas is set to fully enact its new congressional maps as soon as this week after the Republican-controlled state House passed the mid-decade redistricting maps. The vote came days after state Democrats returned from a two-week "quorum break," but not before they took to the House floor to criticize their Republican colleagues. The aim to pad the party's majority by as many as five seats in the midterm election, urged on by Trump, has other top Republicans in states like Indiana, Missouri and Florida considering tweaks to their maps, too. And Ohio must redraw its lines by law since a 2021 map was approved without Democratic support. 8/21

BeeHive -   Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has announced a new requirement for teachers seeking certification in the state if they are relocating from California or New York. Those applicants must pass a 50-question ‘America-first’ exam created in partnership with PragerU. 

Walters says the test is designed to ensure that educators entering Oklahoma classrooms share what he describes as traditional American values and are not bringing in what he sees as ‘woke indoctrination.’ The exam will reportedly cover topics including the U.S. Constitution, civic responsibility, religion in public life, and gender issues. Applicants must score 100% to pass.  8/20

 NPR -   The Republican governors of  Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia have agreed to send hundreds of additional National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., for the president’s agenda. 8/18

Tariffs

NBC News - The Trump administration agreed to limit tariffs on pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors imported from the European Union to 15%, according to a new framework trade agreement. The deal also includes a promise from the E.U. to buy energy and artificial intelligence technology from the U.S., and mentions that European companies will invest an additional $600 billion "across strategic sectors" through 2028.

According to the agreement, the U.S. plans to roll back tariffs on "unavailable natural resources (including cork), all aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals and their ingredients and chemical precursors" to pre-January levels starting Sept. 1.

President Donald Trump recently threatened the European pharmaceutical industry with tariffs as high as 250% and the region's semiconductor industry with tariff rates as high as 100%. The E.U.'s blanket "reciprocal" tariff, which took effect earlier this month, will remain 15%.  Read the full story here.

Gaza

 NPR - The Israeli military is calling up 60,000 reservists ahead of its expanded military operation in Gaza City, bringing the total number of mobilized reservists to 120,000. A two-month ceasefire offer has been on the table since Monday. Hamas accepted the terms of the deal without any changes, leaving the ball in Israel’s court. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put out statements suggesting he doesn’t like the offer,

This is a major crossroads in the war, and Israel hasn’t decided on what strategic direction it will take, Estrin says. Israel sees Gaza City as a major stronghold of Hamas. Israeli soldiers have already been sent to the outskirts of the city, where they have carried out strikes in recent days. Military officials say these strikes are the initial steps of the new operation. The major offensive would result in Israel ordering the displacement of many Palestinians to southern Gaza, which aid groups warn would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis there.