Tag: donald trump

23,000 Jobs Lost, but the Number Washington Hates Is 53,000

President Donald Trump got handed an ugly jobs headline Friday. The economy lost 23,000 payroll jobs in July, and revisions erased another 103,000 jobs from May and June.

Both nonfarm payroll employment (-23,000) and the unemployment rate (4.1 percent) changed little in July, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment declined in local government education and retail trade. Employment continued to trend up in health care. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry.

For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note. Household Survey Data Both the unemployment rate, at 4.1 percent, and the number of unemployed people, at 6.9 million, changed little in July. These measures also changed little over the year. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for teenagers (12.1 percent) and people who are Hispanic (4.6 percent) declined in July. The jobless rates for adult men (3.9 percent), adult women (3.7 percent), and people who are White (3.6 percent), Black (6.3 percent), or Asian (4.0 percent) showed little or no change over the month. 

Among the unemployed, the number of people on temporary layoff increased by 153,000 to 921,000 in July. The number of permanent job losers changed little at 1.7 million. In July, the number of people jobless less than 5 weeks edged down to 2.0 million and is down by 344,000 over the year. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) edged down over the month to 1.8 million but changed little over the year. The long-term unemployed accounted for 25.5 percent of all unemployed people in July.

That can’t be dressed up; a weak jobs report is a weak jobs report.

But buried one line deeper is a number worth noticing. Private employers added 30,000 jobs in July while government payrolls fell by 53,000. If government employment had simply remained flat, the headline number would’ve been a gain of 30,000 jobs.

Statistics can tell very different stories depending on where somebody stops reading. The easiest headline is “23,000 jobs lost.”

It’s accurate, but so is “private employers added 30,000 jobs.”

So is “government employment fell 53,000.”

We deserve all three numbers because together they show what actually happened.

The government decline needs context, too. Of the 53,000 jobs lost, 50,000 came from local government education. Federal employment fell by only 3,000 in July. Giving Trump credit for all 53,000 would be just as misleading as pretending the private-sector gain never happened.

The larger federal trend, however, belongs squarely in Trump’s column. Office of Personnel Management data show the federal workforce has lost 272,283 employees since Trump took office on Jan. 30, 2025.

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Trump Threatens To Jail Arms Shortage ‘Leakers’

President Trump on Thursday threatened “leakers” with jail time over reports about dwindling US military stockpiles as a result of the Iran war, and claimed the US had plenty of munitions available.

“The US has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the US as needed,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history. The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” the president added.

Some of the most significant reports about the shortage of advanced munitions didn’t come from media reports but from analysis published by the think tank the Center for International Studies (CSIS), which used publicly available data to produce its estimates.

CSIS found that the US has used about 60% of its advanced Patriot air defense missiles and about half of its interceptors for the THAAD missile defense system, though sources told CNN that the US had actually used about 80% of its THAADs during the war.

While Trump says that US arms makers are working to produce more munitions, the current rate of weapons use far exceeds the rate at which they can be produced, and it will take years to significantly increase production.

Media reports have also said that the US has used up nearly all of its ATACMS missiles and Precision-Strike Missiles, which were both used extensively in strikes on Iran.

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Conservative National Review Urges Trump Impeachment Over Latest Grift

On Wednesday, the National Review – the preeminent conservative magazine since 1955 — called it: President Donald Trump has done the “impeachable.”

“There is no plausible defense of Trump’s TruthSocial scheme,” declared National Review Senior Editor Charles Cooke. “It is flagrantly corrupt. It is impeachable. Congress should intervene. (It won’t, I know.)” He posted this assertion over his latest article, entitled “Truth Social’s Early-Access Scheme Is Indefensible.”

As he explains, over the weekend, the Trump Media & Technology Group announced the creation of a “real-time feed on the Truth Social website that will give paying institutions early access to certain high-profile posts for between $60,000 and $100,000 per month.” Cooke doesn’t hold back with his assessment of the scheme, writing, “There is no credible defense of this. The only reason that anyone would want priority access to Truth Social is to gain priority access to President Trump’s pronouncements on that platform. And the only reason that anyone would want priority access to President Trump’s pronouncements on that platform is to act on them for pecuniary gain.”

As Cooke elaborates, “Trump often uses Truth Social as the primary forum for his announcements — announcements that include changes to personnel, the imposition or rescission of tariffs, key foreign policy decisions, and more. These announcements are extremely useful to financial institutions, and, in the age of high-speed trading, the faster those financial institutions can obtain them, the more money those financial institutions can make. Facilitating this access is not a byproduct of Truth Social’s API offering; it is its core — perhaps its sole — purpose. Simply put: President Trump is charging Americans a fee — a fee that, in part, goes into his family’s pockets — for the privilege of receiving news about his official actions earlier than those who do not pay.”

According to Cooke, it is “obvious how unequivocally corrupt this setup is. Technically speaking, the beneficiaries will not gain the information they seek directly from Trump himself, but indirectly, via an API (Application Programming Interface) whose output will be processed by a bunch of semi-autonomous servers and acted upon according to a set of predetermined parameters. But the results will be the same as if Trump had personally picked up the phone.”

He continues, “Good traders do not react to the news on the fly; they have plans of action, which are to be implemented if a war starts or ends, if taxes are raised or cut, if the Federal Reserve’s next chairman is expected to be hawkish, dovish, or somewhere in between, and so on. If, instead of using Truth Social as the middleman, President Trump announced that, for a hefty annual charge, he would call a select group of brokers at the stock exchange to inform them of his important decisions, and thereby give them a head start in executing their plans, we would call that what it is: corruption. Why not here?”

Here Cooke concludes in rare agreement with Democratic lawmakers, writing, “Senators Warren and Schiff have described Trump’s plan as ‘an outrageous abuse of the President’s office for his personal benefit that undermines everyday investors and the integrity of our markets, while enriching Wall Street and other wealthy insiders.’ They are correct… It is certainly a grave offense against honesty, transparency, and good government. If it has any self-respect, Congress will respond to the president’s brazen provocation by passing a law that renders his model flatly illegal. And, if that fails to persuade him, it will impeach and remove him from office, the better to drain the swamp.”

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Trump signs 2 new EOs to restrict birthright citizenship and curb ‘birth tourism’

President Donald Trump signed two new executive orders (EOs) on Thursday aiming to restrict birthright citizenship and curb “birth tourism,” making a revised push on immigration policy just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) struck down his initial sweeping order.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump acknowledged the June Supreme Court ruling that declared his broader January 2025 executive order unconstitutional, calling the 6–3 decision “unfortunate” while asserting that his administration was making further adjustments to pursue a narrower legal approach.

“We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright, it was close,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Thursday. “But a very, very unfortunate decision. So we’re making adjustments.”

“This was done right after the Civil War … This was for the babies of slaves,” Trump reminded those in attendance.  

The newly signed actions will work to circumvent the Supreme Court’s constitutional ruling by focusing on specific categories of foreign nationals rather than issuing a blanket denial to children of illegal aliens or temporary immigrants.

The first order seeks to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents with foreign embassy or lobbying ties, as well as children whose parents are accused of engaging in fraudulent activity to secure their initial U.S. citizenship.

White House officials described the measure as an adjustment to the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s jurisdiction clause, setting up what legal experts believe will be another round of immediate court challenges from far-left groups and state attorneys general (AGs).

The second EO explicitly targets commercial “birth tourism” by tightening visa regulations and border screening for pregnant foreign nationals traveling to the United States.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller emphasized that the administration intends to crack down on foreign visitors who utilize temporary travel visas with the primary intent of giving birth on American soil to secure citizenship for their newborns.

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Camp David Clash: Trump Hammered Hegseth For Misleading Him On Arms Supply, WaPo Reports

Following reports that US forces have “used up virtually all” of their precision, long-range missiles in futile attempts to first trigger an Iranian regime change and then to compel Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, now comes reporting that an angry President Trump confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in recent days, accusing the Pentagon of misleading him on critical munitions shortages that leave Trump increasingly powerless in the five-month-old fiasco of a war. 

According to sources cited by the Washington Post, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to concern about retaliation, Trump’s ire erupted alongside a cabinet meeting held Friday at Camp David. Trump expressed consternation that he’d been assured that the weapon shortage “had been fixed” when that is apparently far from true.     

According to “multiple officials” who — reading between the lines — clearly seem to have had it with Fox News talking-head-suddenly-turned-Defense-secretary, Hegseth defended his own actions and tried redirecting the blame to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, a billionaire GOP donor whom Trump plucked out of his role as co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management to give him the number-two job at the Pentagon. Hegseth was said to have thrown Feinberg under the bus for both the shortages and failing to keep Trump fully informed.  

The officials characterized Trump as increasingly exasperated by Hegseth, whom they describe as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of launching a war on Iran, saying he persuaded Trump that victory would come quickly and easily. The war that the administration once projected to last three or four weeks is now in its sixth month. Iran has used both its sophisticated missile technology and its inexpensive but huge arsenal of drones to wreak havoc on US and allied forces around the Gulf. Hammered by a shock and awe campaign peppered with the multiple incidents involving mass casualties among innocents — including scores of elementary schoolgirls — the Iranian people have rallied around the Islamic regime, for all its faults. At least 18 US service members lay dead, several hundred have been wounded, and some estimates of the war’s cost to date exceed $100 billion.  

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America Reaps What Trump Sows: The Price of Policing the Globe

“In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows.” — Chalmers Johnson

What goes around comes around.

That is the terrible law of blowback.

When the United States bombs another country, threatens its government, kills its people, occupies its territory or attempts to dictate its future, the consequences do not remain safely contained thousands of miles away.

They come home.

They come home in flag-draped coffins and shattered military families. They come home in retaliatory attacks on American bases and embassies. They come home through terrorist plots, cyber sabotage, disrupted shipping lanes, higher energy prices, depleted weapons stockpiles, and trillions of dollars in debt.

They come home through hacked water systems, vulnerable power grids, heightened domestic surveillance, militarized police and government demands that the American people surrender still more freedom in exchange for the promise of protection from dangers the government itself helped create.

This is blowback.

Blowback isn’t just about war. It’s about the consequences of the rash, heedless and heartless decisions made every day by the actors of the American police state—and the fact that it is “we the people” who will be paying the price for those terrible decisions for years to come.

President Trump’s war with Iran is only the latest reminder that no government can bomb, threaten and police the world indefinitely without eventually bringing the consequences home.

For months, the Trump administration has lurched between war and threatened war, massive bombing campaigns and aborted strikes, demands for surrender and claims that peace is imminent.

There appears to be no coherent plan for ending the conflict.

There is, however, a mounting bill—and it will be paid in American lives, American dollars, American security and American freedom.

This is what happens when a government appoints itself judge, jury, executioner and police officer to the world.

The government creates enemies faster than it can kill them.

It destabilizes one country, then uses the resulting chaos to justify intervening in another. It bombs in the name of peace, occupies in the name of freedom, surveils in the name of security, and retaliates against retaliation in an endless cycle of violence that serves the war machine while leaving ordinary people everywhere less safe.

We have seen this before.

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Trump releases new UFO footage as files expose silent 500ft triangle over US base and mysterious body with undecipherable markings

The Trump administration released a fresh batch of UFO files on Friday, exposing dozens of reports and videos previously hidden from the public.

The fifth tranche includes chilling accounts of enormous triangular craft, mysterious high-speed orbs and even a metal sphere allegedly carrying a human body.

Among the most extraordinary reports is a military pilot’s account of a silent, 500-foot triangular object that swept over Bagram Airfield, a US-operated base in Afghanistan, in 2002.

The witness told agents that he was stargazing with a colleague at approximately 4.30am when the stars suddenly began disappearing above them.

‘It appeared as if something huge went overhead,’ the FBI interview summary states.

The pilot described the object as an equilateral triangle that moved silently across the sky at a steady speed and altitude, despite displaying no visible lights.

Another file recounts claims that a large metal sphere crashed into the center of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro in 1963, gouging a 13ft-deep hole.

The mysterious object reportedly had window-shaped openings covered with thick glass, and contained a human body dressed in heavy clothing bearing inscriptions that could not be deciphered.

However, the records preserve witness statements and media reports rather than verified government findings, and they offer no evidence that either object was extraterrestrial. 

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Friday: ‘The Department of War is in lockstep with President Trump to bring unprecedented transparency regarding our government’s understanding of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. 

‘These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation, and it’s time the American people see it for themselves. 

‘This release of declassified documents demonstrates the Trump Administration’s earnest commitment to unprecedented transparency.’

One of the records, a three-page FBI interview summary, details the pilot’s alleged encounter with the 500ft triangular craft over Bagram.

He estimated that the equilateral object was traveling at around 173mph.

The second pilot reportedly witnessed it too, asking, ‘Did you see that?’ as it passed overhead.

The witness said he did not report the encounter at the time and later failed to find anything that explained what they had observed. 

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Why The Trump Administration Was Right To End The Medicare Part D Insurer Bailout

he Trump administration’s recent decision to end a temporary Part D subsidy program in 2027 attracted much press attention, and some criticism. The California Democratic Party claimed on  X that “25 million people, mainly seniors, count on Medicare Part D to afford their prescriptions. Donald Trump is putting their health on the line by ending the program.”

This is  absurd—and false. The Trump administration is not  ending the Part D program (established by Congress in 2003) and couldn’t do so even if it wanted to. However, it is ending a temporary and extralegal bailout program that provided billions of dollars in subsidies to insurers. That’s because Democrats made changes to the program that have cost far more than they claimed.

The Bailout, Explained

In summer 2024, the Biden administration announced a unilateral  “premium stabilization demonstration.” The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) noted the new program would start at the2025 plan year. This was just in time for premium announcements to land in seniors’ mailboxes just prior to the November 2024 election.

The program came into effect largely due to Democrats’ Inflation (Reduction) Act. That law shifted and restructured costs Part D insurers had to pay. It also reduced seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses on prescription drugs. The latter change will, all else equal, result in higher spending, because seniors will consume more and more costly drugs if they  have to pay for fewer or none of their own costs.

The IRA already included one “stabilization” mechanism in a statute running through 2029, intending to minimize any premium increases. But, after seeing preliminary plan bids for 2025, CMS effectively admitted this lone bailout would be insufficient to prevent large spikes in premiums or insurer exits. 

So it conjured a second, unilateral bailout to minimize any potential disruptions. Of course, as I noted at the time, this also amounted to using taxpayer funds to prevent Kamala Harris from suffering a big political controversy in the days leading up to the presidential election.

Unsustainable Costs

As the Washington Post wrote in a recent editorial, these “subsidies have helped keep premiums down but simply by shifting more of the cost on to the federal government,” rather than lowering costs. Indeed, while seniors traditionally paid 25.5 percent  of Part D benefit costs via premiums, this year seniors are paying only about half that amount, or 13 percent.  Taxpayers foot the bill for roughly seven in eight dollars of program spending (87 percent).

The IRA bailouts resulted in $40 billion in additional taxpayer spending in 2025 and 2026, and the costs will add up even more in coming years. I noted recently that this year’s Medicare trustees report increased the long-term cost of the Part D program by roughly one-third, or $5 trillion, compared to the 2025 trustees report.

Justifiable Action

Given these skyrocketing costs, it makes perfect sense to end the Biden administration’s unilateral bailout. Because the IRA’s major changes took effect in January 2025, insurers now have enough actuarial information (i.e., plan claims) to price their products without uncertainty leading to major variations in premiums. 

Eliminating one bailout—remember, the statutory bailout remains in effect through 2029—may increase Part D premiums slightly. But CMS noted that the majority of enrollees will either face no change or a decline in premiums (25 percent), or an increase of under $10 per month (30 percent). Given that taxpayers will still pay a greater share of Part D costs than before the IRA and premiums have fallen by more than one-third in inflation-adjusted terms over the past 15 years, Part D still represents a good value for seniors.

By ending the Biden administration’s unilateral insurer bailout, the Trump administration served as a smart steward of scarce taxpayer dollars, while restoring more of a competitive balance to Part D. False scaremongering by the left aside, the action will help to preserve a Medicare program that faces significant solvency concerns.

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White House Moves to Accelerate AI Data Center Development on Federal Lands

The Trump administration has issued executive orders intended to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence data centers, including on federal lands, according to administration officials. The orders are designed to address rising electricity demand from AI computing and to strengthen U.S. competitiveness, the White House said. Data centers currently consume about 4.4 percent of total U.S. electricity, a figure projected to reach 12 percent by 2030, according to industry estimates cited by the White House. [11]

Executive Orders Direct Agencies to Open Federal Lands

The executive orders direct the Departments of Energy and the Interior to identify federal parcels for data center leases and to designate projects as priority infrastructure, according to the administration. Agencies have been instructed to expedite permitting and coordinate transmission connections, officials said. The Bureau of Land Management has already approved the Townsite Data Center project to construct, operate, and maintain a data center on 88.5 acres of public land, Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) said on Facebook, accusing the administration of approving the “first private data center on public land using a permit meant for a solar project.” [10]

A report by Children’s Health Defense, “Cheating the System,” details how developers have exploited legal loopholes following a May 2023 Supreme Court ruling that limited Clean Water Act jurisdiction, leaving many data centers outside Environmental Protection Agency oversight or eligible for streamlined nationwide permits that require minimal review. [12]

Power Demand Drives Energy Infrastructure Plans

Officials said the data centers will require electricity from natural gas, nuclear, and geothermal sources, along with expanded high-voltage transmission capacity. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum warned the Senate that the U.S. risks losing the global AI race to China unless it prioritizes reliable, baseload electricity generation, primarily from fossil fuels, to meet the energy demands of AI and data centers. [5] In its quest for more electric power, AI data centers are forming partnerships with nuclear power providers, with utilities owning about a third of U.S. nuclear power plants in discussions with AI centers about long-term electricity supply, according to the Trends Journal. [6]

The rapid buildout raises questions about grid reliability, water consumption, and environmental impacts on previously undisturbed federal lands. Local officials across the United States say rapid construction of data centers is creating environmental and infrastructure concerns, according to NaturalNews.com. [4] The backlash against AI data centers is intensifying across America, driven by growing awareness that these facilities are escalating electricity costs and displacing resources essential for human life, including water, farmland, and energy, according to BrightVideos.com. [14] According to U.S. Labor Department data cited in the Trends Journal, electricity bills are up more than 10 percent and homeowners’ insurance is up 13 percent over the past two years. [7]

Supporters Cite Competition; Critics Raise Concerns

Administration officials and industry representatives said the buildout is necessary for U.S. leadership in AI and for national security. State lawmakers and big tech are pushing back against what they call misinformation surrounding data centers, arguing that the facilities are vital for American jobs and technological leadership, according to Just the News. [9] Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in Senate testimony that without reliable baseload power, the United States risks falling behind China in the AI race. [5]

Opposition has also organized. More than 300 cities, towns, and counties have enacted bans or moratoriums on hyperscale construction, according to a count by The Information, and a poll cited by NBC News found 58 percent oppose local data centers. [8] Environmental groups and local residents have objected to land use and emissions, while public health advocates have cited concerns about noise and light pollution, according to BrightVideos.com. [14]

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FAA Investigating Air Traffic Safety Incident Involving Marine One While Trump Was Onboard

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating an air traffic safety incident involving Marine One while President Trump was onboard.

The incident happened on Tuesday while President Trump was traveling to Joint Base Andrews for a trip to Southern California.

“The president’s Marine One helicopter took off from the White House Tuesday afternoon, but air-traffic controllers hadn’t halted commercial flights at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as required under safety protocols, people familiar with the matter said,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to Reuters, a commercial flight departed Reagan Airport one minute after Marine One lifted off from the Ellipse.

Per Reuters:

Trump’s helicopter lifted off from the Ellipse near the White House around 2:33 p.m. (1833 GMT), on his ​way to Joint Base Andrews for a trip to Los Angeles, according to a pool report.

A source told Reuters that Envoy ​Air 3742 — a regional E170 jet bound for Pensacola, Florida — departed at 2:34 p.m. and was involved in the apparent loss of separation incident with Marine One. Envoy is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines (AAL.O), which did not immediately comment.

FAA rules require aircraft to remain separated by at least ​1.5 miles horizontally and 500 feet vertically around airports. The sources said it appeared Marine One and the plane did ​not maintain separation. One said it appears they were not converging during the incident.

Video of the safety incident shows Marine One over East Potomac Park near a commercial flight.

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