DRW: Here’s “another way of looking at the health of the consumer. It measures the six month annualized change in Real Personal Spending for 2008 to 2025, ex-2020. ..

“.. In the first six months of this year this reading is a negative 0.1%.”

Kernen: "These are statistical changes based on this antiquated system. It's just a big leap to go to rigged."

Trump: "When they say that nobody was involved, that it wasn't political. Give me a break!"

Rare aerial imagery shows displacement and destruction in Gaza Airdrop flights offered a vantage over the closed-off Gaza Strip.

New aerial images show the destructive impact of Israeli bombardments that have destroyed much of Gaza, displaced most of its population and left more than 60,000 people dead, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Wildfire smoke and poor air quality in general is becoming a frequent challenge that most of the country now reckons with every year.

Its impacts on our health are significant.

We discuss for @nbcnews.com

Stay safe out there!

This is complete fantasy. Just an absurd made up lie. The EU is not giving Trump “$600 billion to invest anyway I want.” They aren’t giving him 1 dollar to invest. It is just astonishing that a president can go on a financial network and lie like this & it barely registers. bsky.app/profile/atru...

Federal data showing what percentage of the workforce is Black or Latino has been deleted.
www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0... (via @marketplace.org)

Opinion | A new era of government censorship has dawned Donald Trump fancies himself a champion of free speech. Oh, really?

A new era of government censorship has begun.
It started with the silencing of scientific speech, when the admin blocked release of research on bird flu. But MAGA has also cracked down on other wrongthink—on race, geography (!), and of course Trump himself
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

PANTHEON: “.. The average effective tariff rate is now near 20%; upside risks ahead ..

“.. Financial markets are no longer imposing pressure on the President to reverse the tariffs, and Mr. Trump likely is emboldened after the EU, Japan and South Korea accepted a baseline 15% ..”

This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen.

By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

Don Bacon: "From my vantage point here in Nebraska, we're seeing a bit of a troubled economic mess. Right now it's a troubled time. In Nebraska the GDP has decreased by 6% over the last year and it's all about trade...so what I hear about weak jobs numbers, we're seeing that in Nebraska right now"

Yeah man I think of a lot of dumb stuff too. Like what if we had a Gummi Bear so big you could sleep on it?

popular anti-fascism as taxpayer revolt...might have some legs

Rep. Greg Casar is rallying the people right now outside Abbott’s mansion—because Texas Democrats are DONE playing nice.

They’re risking everything to stop Trump’s racist, illegal power grab.

This isn’t a protest. It’s a reckoning.

We’re not letting them steal a damn thing.
#MessWithTexas

Until we pass a nationwide ban on gerrymandering (which we need), Democrats should gerrymander every state to the fullest extent. 52-0 in CA, 17-0 in IL, and so on. No more unilateral disarmament. Time to get serious about fighting back.

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

This is insanity.
An enemy within is destroying everything of value that belongs to the people.

Trump administration takes aim at satellite that measures carbon dioxide and crops

www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

Abbott just issued arrest warrants for the Dems who fled the state.

Rep Jasmine Crockett: unbothered.

“You have a lot of intelligent attorneys that serve in the Texas House, and so they know there’s nothing he can do outside of the Texas jurisdiction.”

Texas Dems Stand on Business amid Voting Rights 911 The battle for voting rights heads to the Supreme Court, and plays out in states from Texas to Illinois.

ICYMI: On Monday night’s TJRS, @Sherrilyn Ifill laid out what’s at stake in the Texas gerrymandering fight and an upcoming SCOTUS case that could further weaken the Voting Right Act. www.joyannreid.com/p/texas-dems...

TrumpMurdoch080425.PDF

BREAKING: Trump & Murdoch cut deal postponing Murdoch deposition in $20B libel case re Epstein letter until after WSJ's forthcoming motion to dismiss. Barring health issues, neither Murdoch nor Trump will be deposed for months. Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Killing Democracy—And Not Bothering to Hide It The assault is happening in plain sight, from the Epstein case to Texas reapportionment to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"It seems as if the authoritarian assault on the long-established and seemingly solid institutions of American democracy has reached a critical point....liberal democracy is being killed not in darkness but not in darkness but in broad daylight."

“On June 15, 1992, [Dan] Quayle altered 12-year-old student William Figueroa's correct spelling of "potato" to "potatoe" at the Muñoz Rivera Elementary School spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey. He was the subject of widespread ridicule for his error.” — @wikipedia.org

Fuck the far right and fuck Farage and others beating this drum for personal gain.

New Firm Seeks to Confront Trump on Executive Power

New pro bono law firm aims to bring appellate expertise to very beginning of a client’s case, to improve odds of making a successful argument before SCOTUS.
It’s a game plan straight out of the Big Law playbook. But many large firms receded from this type of work to avoid drawing Trump’s wrath

“.. The message .. was unmistakable: Government officials who deal in data now fear they have to toe the line or risk losing their jobs ..”

@peterbakernyt.bsky.social @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

JUST IN: Abbott says he may treat fleeing lawmakers as having “forfeited” their offices and move to replace them. He also suggests they could be subject to felony charges if they accept payments to cover impending fines gov.texas.gov/uploads/file...

“.. the latest flashpoint in a push by the White House to withhold money already approved by Congress.” 🤡

@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

“.. a week that bore many authoritarian hallmarks — purging dissenters, rewriting history, criminalizing opposition and demanding total institutional loyalty .. Vast swaths of society are falling in line ..”

@axios.com
www.axios.com/newsletters/...

Eight days ago:

A graph of manufacturing growth broken down by subsector

America has lost 116k manufacturing jobs over the last year—that's the fastest pace of job loss since the early COVID era and worse than any period from 2011-2019.

Big drops in the transportation (-49k) & electronics (-32k) industries drive most of the decline

“.. what Trump is doing now is something different. Confabulation is sometimes called ‘honest lying,’ because the person doing it genuinely believes what he’s saying, even if it is obviously and patently false.”

@thehill.com
thehill.com/opinion/camp...