A good article detailing Tomas Massie’s proposal to pass legislation to bypass the Department of Justice and Executive Branches cover up of Trump and his allies activities with Jeffery Epstein.

I consider myself to be centrist, slightly right leaning. This happened gradually as I grew older and began working full time. There were also other factors too that strayed me away from the left such as certain issues the left believes should be “normal” in society that I did not agree with. I also can’t consider myself to be affiliated entirely with the right or conservatives because there are still some leftist values that I agree with, which is why I would place myself as a centrist.

Was anyone else here a leftist when they were younger and then changed their perspective as they got older?

Summary:

The Washington Post profiles Chloe Shapiro, a former Texas Army National Guard member who was discharged under the Trump administration’s policy barring transgender service members and then waited months for a promised $86,665 severance payment. Shapiro says the delay left her unable to pay rent or begin college as planned, eventually forcing her to sleep in her car and rely on temporary housing and public assistance. The Post identified at least a dozen other transgender former service members who also say they are still waiting for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in promised separation pay.

Shapiro served for 12 years, received multiple awards and had planned to remain in the military for at least 20 years before choosing voluntary separation rather than risk being forced out without the enhanced severance package. After roughly 100 calls, congressional outreach and an inspector general complaint, she eventually received two $10,000 payments and was told the remaining money would come in installments, though no clear schedule was provided. The Pentagon declined to comment because of ongoing litigation over the transgender military policy.

My take:

It doesn't particularly matter where you fall on the debate, although this is pretty damning evidence against the idea that these policies aren't meant to hurt people or make it harder for them to live their lives. Veterans shouldn't be treated this way, bigotry notwithstanding. I wonder if it even dawns on Hegseth that someone who gave 12 years of honorable service to the same military he served in ended up homeless because the system he now leads couldn't even honor the severance it promised her.

I'm specifically interested in PRE-TRUMP dishonesties, don't want to get into everything that has happened lately. I think when Trump is gone we're pretty likely to revert to some form of the way things used to be and so that's really what we can expect from the right going forward.

I have a list of left dishonesties, I don't need to add to that! I'm just asking about the right because that's the wing I haven't focused on very hard. Thank you!!

Former Israeli generals are raising concerns about the behavior of Israel's government, the Shin Bet, the IDF, and the settlers. They find the behavior recently to be disturbing and not the way a country should act. One of the main points they declare is that the settler violence is being supported by the Israeli government, not opposed. This seems to be the latest attempt to push for reform in the actions of Israel by those that long served it.

Alternative non-paywalled article:

Summary:

The Washington Post reports that senior military leaders warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that continuing large-scale operations against Iran at their current level is unsustainable and could weaken the military’s ability to respond elsewhere. According to people familiar with a classified August 14 assessment, the Navy’s top admiral and commanders responsible for Europe, the Pacific, and Latin America formally disagreed with extending some force commitments, although they said they would execute the orders. Army and Air Force leaders reportedly agreed to the extensions while emphasizing that they carried substantial risks.

The reported strain includes more than 50,000 troops held on alert, extended Army and Air Force deployments, ships and surveillance aircraft diverted from other regions, depleted air-defense interceptors and missiles, disrupted maintenance, and the loss of about one-fourth of the Pentagon’s Reaper drone fleet. The Navy reportedly warned that barely one-fourth of its destroyers are ready to deploy and that current demands cannot be sustained indefinitely. The Pentagon declined to discuss the classified assessment and said force allocations are based on current threats, presidential priorities, and advice from military commanders. The Trump administration has disputed reports that it faces munitions shortages.

My take:

Given the recent reports from the USS Abraham Lincoln, none of this should be surprising. Its deployment stretched into a ninth month and included more than 250 consecutive days at sea, amid reports of food and water shortages, broken plumbing and laundry facilities, supply problems, deteriorating morale, and serious mental-health concerns among the crew.

This is more evidence that all the splendor and power of the United States is not simply a given. It has to be funded, maintained, replenished, earned, and directed by competent and experienced people. Right now, funding is the only one of those boxes we reliably check, and even an enormous budget cannot compensate for bad strategy.

We are burning through finite personnel, ships, aircraft, interceptors, munitions, and maintenance capacity in pursuit of several ambiguous objectives without a credible end date or goal. Then, when the people responsible for tracking those resources warn that the force is being stretched too far, the response is apparently that it simply should not be the case.

The pentagon has officially responded to this story breaking by claiming it is fake news.

https://antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/the-mechanic-behind-the-machine

Reposting with corrected title.

The essay outlines the connection between the architect of McCarthyism, Trump, and Miller and draws parallels between McCarthy's relationship with his "mechanic" Roy Cohn.

This is the point most commentary on Miller misses. He is not merely executing Trump’s agenda. He is constructing the institutional apparatus, including the legal precedents, the agency cultures, the enforcement infrastructure, and the outside organizations that will remain when Trump is gone. He is building for what comes after.

...

What Miller represents is not primarily an ideological problem, though his ideology is genuinely dangerous. He represents a structural problem: the construction, using legitimate state authority and normalized legal precedents, of an apparatus of coercion that will be available to whoever controls the executive branch for as long as it exists.

This point feels important and rooted in a relatively neutral appraisal of the available facts.

A detailed profile on Natalie Harp. Of particular interest is the fact that the Harp and Trump family businesses had a connection since at least 2012, long before Trump saw her on television and brought her into his campaign. The piece argues that Harp is a useful caricature of the American public. In particular, her apparent worship of Trump is an extreme case of a common parasocial dynamic between hyper partisan Americans and their representatives.

Neutral summary: Far-right activist and deportation advocate Milo Yiannopoulos is currently in ICE custody pending removal for overstaying his visa.

Commentary: HA HA!

Summary:

The latest BLS benchmark revision suggests the labor market was a little weaker than previously reported. Employment through March 2026 appears to have been overstated by about 79,000 jobs overall, with private-sector employment overstated by 178,000. Government employment was revised higher by about 99,000, which offset part of the private-sector decline.

The revision is small in percentage terms, only about 0.1% of total employment, but it matters because economists had expected the numbers to be revised up by roughly 183,000 jobs. Instead, average monthly job growth over the year ending in March now looks closer to 11,000 rather than the previously reported 17,600. That adds to evidence that the labor market has been slowing, especially after July lost 23,000 jobs and May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000.

The biggest weakness showed up in areas like retail, manufacturing, education and health services, business services, and wholesale trade. Transportation and warehousing was one of the major exceptions. The BLS now estimates that the sector had about 135,100 more workers in March than previously believed, a 2% upward revision. That was one of the largest adjustments across all industries, although the BLS hasn't yet said whether those extra jobs came from trucking, warehousing, air transportation, couriers, or another part of the sector.

That transportation number is especially interesting because trucking has been dealing with carrier exits and other signs of weakness, so some economists think the increase may have come more from parcel delivery, taxi services, or other transportation categories rather than trucking itself.

These revisions happen because the BLS eventually compares its monthly job estimates with more complete unemployment-insurance records covering nearly the entire workforce. The final numbers won't officially replace the current employment estimates until February 2027, so for now this is still a preliminary adjustment.

Overall, the revision doesn't show that the original jobs numbers were wildly wrong, but it does reinforce the idea that job growth has been weaker than it initially appeared. The private sector looks noticeably softer, while government employment and transportation and warehousing were stronger than previously estimated. The next jobs report on September 4 will give another indication of whether the slowdown is continuing.

Summary:

Nearly 30,000 pounds of raw beef imported from Argentina and distributed in Texas and Florida has been recalled because it entered the country without receiving required USDA import re-inspections. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service classified it as a Class I recall, its highest health-risk category, although the recall notice did not identify a specific contaminant.

That combination is creating questions about exactly how dangerous the beef is. Food safety expert Dr. Darin Detwiler said it's unusual to describe the problem primarily as a missed inspection while simultaneously giving the recall the highest risk classification. As he put it, “We have no indication that there’s any problem, but we’re going to give it the highest classification of risk.” It's also unclear which retailers actually sold the recalled beef, and the distributor hasn't publicly clarified the situation.

The timing is adding a political dimension to the recall. Just days earlier, President Trump announced plans to allow up to 300,000 pounds of additional foreign beef into the U.S. over 90 days at prices 25% below current market prices. The recalled Argentine beef and Trump's newly announced import plan aren't necessarily the same thing, but their timing has caused confusion online and increased scrutiny of imported beef.

The proposal is also facing opposition from some Texas cattle producers and politicians who worry that cheaper foreign beef could hurt American ranchers. Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico accused Washington of “flooding the market with foreign beef” and said the policy would benefit foreign competitors at the expense of Texas cattlemen.

So there are really two separate issues happening at once: a recall of roughly 30,000 pounds of Argentine beef because required USDA re-inspections were missed, and a new Trump administration plan to substantially increase foreign beef imports in an effort to lower prices. The close timing has connected the two issues politically, even though there's currently no indication in the recall notice that the recalled beef was contaminated or that it resulted from Trump's newly announced import policy.

Neutral summary: a federal judge has blocked the new mail in voting regulations of the USPS.

My commentary: the previous SCOTUS ruling was only about procedure and federal courts cant rule on something that doesn't exist yet (i.e. the regulation that wasn't in effect yet). The ruling was never a green light for the regulations to affect the election.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/judge-blocks-trumps-postal-service-regulation-mail-ballots-rcna594692

I don't know what this guy wants. He is all over the place, it feels like he is on everyone's side and no one's side at the same time. What exactly is he hoping to accomplish, because this man is just so despicable, I feel like he is antagonizing US allies, enemies and ultimately the US itself.

He was salivating at the thought of taking greenland from Denmark, he has publicly humiliated zelensky time after time, but at the same time he is also trouble on the Russian side. The US is still sharing vital intel with Ukraine, reportedly it being stated that some hotshot CIA guy went to Russia and said not to attack NATO.

He is antagonizing China, he cut off a major Chinese ally in Venezuela in January. At the same time, he is also offending and saying embarrassing things about Canada. He is attacking Iran and saying random things every other day about a ceasefire.

Tariff? Don't even get me started, I knew Trump was gonna use tariff because he used that word a ton of times during the campaign, like announcement every couple of weeks or months, but increasing tariff one day and decreasing them the other day, changing them 5 TIMES a week is not good for anyone even Billionaires.

I don't think he is compromised by either Israel or Russian or any other American billionaires. Because he has said things that both nations have disagreed to many times. If he was, he'd have started this Iran war back in his 1st Term.

TLDR: The man seems to be on everyone's side and no one's side at the same time. Does he have a disorder?

Summary:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for U.S. geographic naming purposes. The change applies only within the United States, since the U.S. government cannot require Canada to adopt the new name. The move comes amid a worsening trade dispute with Canada. The U.S. recently imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian goods after negotiations broke down, and Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs on an equal amount of American products. Trump has also repeatedly suggested that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, further straining relations between the two countries.

My take:

The damage Trump is doing to Canadian-American trade relations could last for a generation. Canada is one of our closest allies and largest trading partners, and instead of treating that relationship like an asset, he keeps turning it into another venue for petty grievance politics.

Moves like renaming Lake Ontario just underscore what a deranged fool our president is. Midterms cannot come fast enough.

Context:

The order is here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/honoring-the-american-history-of-the-great-lakes-and-renaming-lake-ontario-as-lake-america/

edit:

Canadian PM Carney says Lake Ontario will continue to be called by that name