With this letter, I have officially archived an entire year of news… please clap!
This will sadly be the last newsletter I publish in this amount of detail, as I must shift my focus to tracking online disinformation campaigns ahead of the elections.

Last month was unfortunately the peak of Summertime Sadness.
The days grew shorter, the responsibilities of Fall got too close for comfort, and we lost many beloved and inspirational individuals.

Writing was slow, as I planned protests against federal agents, trained my first cohort of 2026 Social media monitors, and completed another trip around the Sun! Despite the business, I could not stay away from the headlines for too long, though I tried. Especially while living in the middle of the Indy Kart spectacle. ugh *eye roll.

After reading what I read, and seeing what I saw; I can say with confidence that we are all in for a very interesting Fall, y’all. With that I present to you the August Newsletter!

Please use the table of contents below to navigate this letter and click here to skip to Good News and read the September Horoscope.

Federal Government

The War Within: Military Morale, Censoring the Military, and the President Hid in a Catering Truck.

Lawmakers and military families continue to raise concerns about conditions on board the USS Lincoln. The carrier has been at sea for over 250 days longer than the usual deployment. The Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading toward the Middle East, following a surge of Navy vessels to the Middle East as the U.S. enforces a blockade against Iran while working to “enforce” safe passage for tankers and other commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Many described their kids or spouses telling them about non-operational toilets, moldy showers, laundry facilities that were broken for weeks, and extended periods with no hot water for showering. However, Pete Hegseth dismissed the allegations, calling reports of shortages “false”. In a face-to-face confrontation in San Diego, angry military families challenged the acting secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, over difficult conditions aboard the USS Lincoln. In multiple meetings, family members expressed concerns directly to Navy leaders about the well-being and safety of their loved ones after the aircraft carrier set a modern-day record during the ongoing Iran war.

The Pentagon fired journalists at the Stars and Stripes, a military publication. Firings included the editor-in-chief, its publisher, and a reporter who covers the Middle East. They sued the Pentagon and top officials. They alleged the Defense Department also retaliated against a Stars and Stripes story that exposed conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back annual joint military exercises with South Korea. His announcement baffled many in South Korea, which has been closely allied with the U.S. for decades and where national security is a top priority due to threats from nuclear-armed North Korea. Trump claims his decision was made in part because of South Korea declining to join the Iran War.

Sudden departure of Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll comes after Pentagon chief removed senior officers and blocked promotions, prompting warnings of a leadership crisis. Driscoll’s exit adds to a string of senior departures under Hegseth, indicating friction and dissent among top military officials.

The president allegedly recently confronted Pete Hegseth at Camp David about how the Iran war is causing a shortage of U.S. munitions that could limit American options to end the conflict. The report prompted the president to lash out on social media against “treasonous” leakers. Trump was caught off guard by the sudden resignation of Karoline Leavitt as his press secretary and does not intend to name a replacement for her when she steps down. James Braid, the director of legislative affairs and White House deputy national security adviser Andy Baker is among a number of others are leaving the administration.

President Donald Trump confirmed that he secretly swapped planes as he left a NATO summit in Turkey. Trump boarded Air Force One on in view of television cameras, before hiding in a catering truck along with Natalie Harp- Trump loyalist and personal printer to be transported to a military aircraft. Journalists and some White House staff on board did not know the US president had been smuggled out, and set them up to be a decoy, as part of an elaborate ruse in response to a possible Iranian threat. Israeli officials briefed the White House about intelligence that indicated Iran may try to kill Trump, potentially with a ​shoulder-launched missile, while he traveled on Air Force One for the summit.

Court and Congress: Massie Names Epstein Associates, Fauci in Contempt, and the Ballroom Bunker Saga that Refuses to End.

On the first night back from August recess, Rep. Thomas Massie named more than a dozen associates he said aided convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in his crimes. Massie said the government is still withholding more than 3 million files. He then named 14 people, including former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley, billionaire investor Leon Black, and billionaire businessman Les Wexner. A New York federal judge gave final approval to Bank of America’s $72.5 million settlement with victims of Jeffrey Epstein over the bank’s role in the late pedophile businessman’s sex trafficking operation.

A Senate committee voted along party lines to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress , a week after the former top health official and scientist refused to answer questions in a hearing about the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a July 29 hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, citing previous comments about wanting to incarcerate him.

The Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to allow construction on the White House ballroom to continue. By a vote of 5-4, the court paused a ruling by a federal judge in D.C., that would have halted above-ground construction of the ballroom project. After this ruling, the Trump administration called on the Supreme Court to block the ruling. They complied.

The Odds are not in Trump’s Favor: The Patriot Games, Impeachment, and Sexual Abuse Verdict Remains.

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) introduced articles of impeachment against the president, for high crimes and misdemeanors “committed in violation of the president’s mandated oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the United States Constitution.” It accuses Trump of operating ICE and CBP “as his vicious, quota-driven, unaccountable paramilitary police forces.” Support for the President remains at an all-time low.

In August the president hosted the Patriot Games. Freedom 250, the White House-backed non-profit, produced the Patriot Games event, and put up the $125,000 in college scholarship winnings that went to each winner on the boys’ and girls’ side of the competition. The event took place at a sports training facility outside Cleveland, Ohio. It was a mess.

The Supreme Court denied President Trump’s request to reconsider his appeal of writer E. Jean Carroll’s $5 million sexual abuse verdict. 

What happened to our regulators? Missed Deadlines, DOGE Sold Our Data, FCC welcomes media consolidation, and Where’s the Beef?

The FCC voted to eliminate a rule that stopped any one company from owning so many TV stations that they reach more than 39% of American households. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the one Democrat on the commission, called the rule change “unlawful on its face” noting that Congress set up the cap under federal law and only Congress can change it.

In the past month, the FDA issued 12 different product recalls for potential salmonella contamination—a six-times increase from the month before. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a total of 46 recalls. Trump said on Truth Social that to lower ground beef prices for Americans, for the next 90 days, the U.S. will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of beef to be imported tariff-free. On Aug. 7 there was a recall of about 30,000 pounds of raw beef that were imported from Argentina without being reinspected in the U.S.

US attorney general Todd Blanche declined to assure that the federal justice department he helms would always act independently of the White House. “No, I’m not going to pledge that,” he said when asked about the topic by NBC’s Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker. “And no attorney general should ever pledge that.”Blanche also claimed Trump would never ask him to do something that crosses an ethical or legal line

On August 1 all Federal agencies appear to have missed the deadline to comply with Trump’s June Executive Order to produce within 60 days a benchmarking process to evaluate AI models’ cyber capabilities, a voluntary framework for pre-release government access to frontier AI systems, and a cyber workforce expansion plan. Following the Hugging Face breach, DEF CON and Black Hat 2026 experts placed 7-in-10 odds that accidental AI intrusion will reach a federal agency. The General Services Administration is currently preparing a government-wide hackathon

DOGE overstated the government savings from their campaign to eliminate “waste fraud and abuse”. Some of the savings are incorrect or lack supporting evidence, according to federal auditors. DOGE posted its estimated savings on a federal webpage known as the “Wall of Receipts” In one case, In another case, DOGE reported $1.7 billion in savings on a Department of Defense contract for IT services, but in the end, no action was taken to terminate the contract, so no savings were achieved.
A rogue DOGE employee is accused of selling sensitive Social Security data, highlighting security risks amid Trump’s federal workforce cuts, which have impacted rural communities. more than 377,000 federal employees have now been pushed out of their jobs

Federal Attempts to Influence Elections: HSI intimidating Election officials, Attacking Mail Ballots, and Even More Tired Election Lies.

President Trump announced to Truth Social that Ed Martin, his controversial pardon attorney, is leaving the Justice Department to take on outside legal work for the upcoming midterm and presidential elections. Martin was later sidelined amid clashes with DOJ leadership and was removed as head of the “Weaponization Working Group,” though he kept his title as pardon attorney.
Communications obtained by CNN show that HSI agents have spent months pressing local election officials across the country for voter records to build criminal cases.

The president again posted false claims about the 2020 elections, this time citing flawed Census data. Last month, The administration during Trump’s Primetime Adress to the nation claimed to have identified 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in four states, including an exact number of 15,903 in Nevada. In follow-up letters to those states – Nevada, California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey – DHS softened that claim, saying it represented a “ceiling” of potential noncitizens registered. (DHS) officials admitted they had confirmed that only 185 were actually noncitizens, according to records obtained by the Guardian after a FOIA request .

A federal judge lifted the final injunction that blocked President Trump’s March executive order restricting mail voting, clearing his administration to impose new ballot requirements weeks before the November midterm election. USPS posted their finalized rule, requiring election officials to submit each mail voter’s name and address to a new USPS portal, along with unique Intelligent Mail barcodes assigned to the envelopes used to send and return that voter’s ballot. Election officials would also have to submit their outgoing and return ballot-envelope designs to USPS for review.

States

States continue to defend elections from Federal overreach: The Chilling Effect of Over-policing and Ongoing Fraud Cases.

23 states filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the finalized USPS rule regarding mail-in ballots. They argue that USPS a federal service has no right to impose such restrictions on State-run elections. The states argue that the rule allows the federal government to monitor and control who receives their ballot.

Milwaukee Mayor Mayor Cavalier Johnson defended the city’s election workers after JD Vance’s comments casting doubt on Milwaukee’s voting systems. “He’s intimidating honest public servants,” Johnson said. “It’s just wrong. They’re scaring people.”

“If I was attempting voter fraud, the first thing I wouldn’t do is put my name on there,” said Kelly Brunner, who was tasked in 2020 with getting the State Supported Living Center in Mexia ready to vote. Brunner admitted making technical errors in the complicated registration system, which were all quickly caught; no resident cast an improper vote. Yet, pushed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, she was criminally charged with orchestrating one of the largest election fraud cases ever in Texas. …“The language is important,” he said. “Most nursing homes will do as little as possible; if you’re not affirmatively telling them what to do, they won’t do it.” He predicted the new emphasis on fraud prevention over access and assistance “will have a chilling effect” on resident voting.

San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas announced the arrest of Stockton City Council candidate Desiree Lynch. She was charged with three counts of perjury, false filing of a declaration of candidacy and voter registration violations, jail records show. She is accused of running for District 5 but not actually living in the district. Lynch is accused of providing an address for a cocktail lounge and an apartment complex to fabricate residency.

States Fighting to protect resident privacy from Federal Agents

The Atlanta utilities committee approved a proposal for a 23-member task force that would study the potential effects of data centers and related facilities. The task force would examine electricity and water costs, water supply, noise levels, electrical grid capacity and impacts on surrounding neighborhoods. It would also look at national and global best practices for data center development.”

Gov. Andy Beshear has joined a lawsuit seeking to block federal agencies from reviewing personal info about recipients of a national welfare program. The lawsuit, filed by 23 states and two governors, claims a recent federal legal notice expanding government access to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families data maintained by the Office of Family Assistance would violate federal statutes and amounts to a “gross breach of personal privacy.

As revealed by a FOIA request, due to the Houston Mayor’s refusal to speak to the press, journalists with the Texas Observer uncovered how Mayor Whitmire has been passively monitoring the dissent of his constituents. Through a $620,000 contract with Zencity, a controversial AI-powered data firm based in Tel Aviv, confounded by a veteran of Israeli military intelligence, the city has expanded its usage of all kinds of aggregated, publicly available real-time data—from hyperlocal social media posts, including Nextdoor data, to 311 complaints—to score each council district on levels of satisfaction.

States Taking the Law into Their Own Hands: The Only Ongoing Criminal Investigation into Epstein and Extraditing an ICE Agent.

New Mexico Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the DOJ and the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, for “stonewalling” its criminal investigation into the activities of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at a Zorro ranch.

Minnesota’s attorney general, sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott to force the extradition of an ICE officer charged with shooting and wounding a man in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement surge there in January. A federal district judge ordered Gov. Greg Abbott to respond before he is released from Texas custody. Members of the Texas Congressional Delegation sent a letter calling on Abbott to sign extradition paperwork. A Trump appointed federal judge concluded that the threat of flight was not enough to justify holding Castro beyond the legal limit. Castro was released but is not allowed to leave the State of Texas. Minnesota AG vowed to “ never stop pursuing Castro wherever he may be to make him face justice in Minnesota,” he said in a statement.

The Department Of Justice (DOJ) teamed up with Elon Musk’s xAI in court. The DOJ filed a statement of interest arguing Minnesota’s law to combat the ​spread of AI porn goes too far. Minnesota said it adopted the measure this year to what it ​called a “staggering amount (of) child ⁠sexual abuse material. The law, which took effect on August 1, prohibits website operators, software developers and others from allowing users to create realistic ​images depicting an intimate body part that is not shown in an original photo of an ​identifiable individual.

Cyber Rights

First Ammendment: Our Rights to Protest, Organize, and… Posess AI Generated Child Pornography!?? That Can’t be Right.

A federal judge in Wisconsin has ruled that the First Amendment protects the possession of child sexual abuse material, in the home if it was created using artificial intelligence and does not depict an actual child. The judge, cited two Supreme Court decisions in his ruling. The first decision stated that the government’s “power simply does not extend to mere possession by the individual in the privacy of his own home” (page 6), meaning that the Constitution protects individuals’ right to have obscene content in their homes. The second decision defended the specific invention of AI-generated child porn, claiming that child sex abuse material that isn’t depicted with real children is protected by the First Amendment.

The ACLU of Florida and other legal groups announced they have filed a lawsuit against Florida International University for disciplining seven students who took part in a silent protest on campus in March in opposition to the presence of ICE agents at the university. The lawsuit claiming it violated their First Amendment rights by punishing them for staging a silent anti-ICE protest on campus.

The union representing ASU’s dining hall workers sued ASU, arguing that University officials violated its members’ First Amendment rights. The lawsuit, filed in federal court by the UNITE HERE Local 11 union, accuses ASU of using excessive force to unconstitutionally restrict the union’s right to protest. The University, two ASU police officers, the Arizona Board of Regents, President Michael Crow and other University administrators were named as defendants in the lawsuit.

School administrators at a San Diego High School are being accused in a federal lawsuit of retaliating against two students for expressing pro-Trump views at a February 6 anti-ICE rally on campus. The suit alleges admin falsely reported one of the students to police, who ended up in an overnight psychiatric hold.

The Fourth Ammendment: The Right to Privacy from Flock, Meta’s Addiction Algorithms, and Twitch Training AI.

The country needs to find a “compromise” between privacy and safety, according to Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley. The Washington Post recently identified 46 cases where police officers have been accused of using Flock technology for unauthorized purposes, including to stalk their wives, girlfriends, or exes. A former Katy Police Department officer Sergio Rodriguez was charged with two third-degree felonies including allegedly stalking and misusing official information using Flock license plate readers to track his ex-wife for over six months. He could face up to 10 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

A pivotal trial for the parent company of Instagram and Facebook kicked off in a California federal court, with four states seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as fundamental changes to how Meta runs its platforms. California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were among the 29 states that sued the tech giant in 2023 over child safety and privacy — the other 25 will go to trial later. The trial is the latest in an avalanche of lawsuits against Meta Platforms and other social media companies including Google’s YouTube, TikTok and Snap, over arguments that their platforms harm young people, illegally collect their data and are deliberately designed to addict them.

A Connecticut-based Twitch streamer sued Twitch and its parent company Amazon in a class action over claims the tech companies harvest creators’ video streams without permission or compensation to train Amazon’s generative artificial intelligence programs. Twitch confirmed its platform uses creators’ content for AI training through a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Aug. 12. That same day, Twitch updated its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy with new language on automated tools and artificial intelligence. Twitch channels are automatically opted in to AI training unless users manually opt out. Twitch’s chief product officer, defended the setting being opt-out instead of opt-in, saying, “If it was opt-in, nobody would opt in. That’s honestly the answer.”

Corporation Watch

Laughing All the Way to the Bank: Trump’s Crypto wants $tablecoin $tatu$, and Trump Tarriffs Not Likely to Trickle Down to Consumers.

A crypto firm partially owned by President Trump’s family received preliminary conditional approval for a bank charter. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted conditional approval according to a letter. This would allow the crypto firm to directly issue and redeem its USD1 stablecoin. This crypto token is valued at $1, and would be regulated by the OCC.
World Liberty Financial CEO Zach Witkoff is the son of Trump’s Middle East negotiator Steven Witkoff. “President Trump is now the first President in history to approve, operate, and supervise his own bank,” Sen. Warren said in a statement before introducing legislation that would prohibit presidents and other senior government officials from owning or controlling banks.

Since the February Supreme Court ruling declaring President Trump’s tariffs illegal, federal government has refunded more than $160 billion that it had collected. The catch is that the refunds are being swallowed by American businesses and have not made their way back to the consumer, who ultimately paid the tariffs through increased prices for goods. The Tax Foundation estimates tariffs cost the average household about $1,000 over the last year. Retailers are allocating the refund in various ways, rarely in favor of the consumer.

What Was AI Ever Even About?: SpaceXai Slams into the Moon, Anthropic Destroying Rare Books, and OpenAI Buying our Senators.

A SpaceXai rocket piece floating in space since last year smashed into the moon at high speed. A four-ton upper stage of a SpaceX rocket is believed to have hit the moon at 5,400 mph. The SpaceX rocket launched a pair of lunar landers last year, but the company’s scientists say a combination of solar activity and gravity put it on a collision course with the moon.

Anthropic has been caught destroying books after scanning them in an attempt to sidestep copyright law. “What is Project Panama?” court exhibit 21 asks, in an internal memo. The answer: “Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world.” The memo advises discretion: “Why use a codename? … because we don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”

Dozens of students rallied at the new Washington, DC lobbying headquarters of OpenAI—with several placed under arrest for the peaceful protest. More than 30 student activists gathered The students unfurled a banner reading, “Stop Stealing Our Future,” and others displayed signs that said, “OpenAI Bought My Senator.”
Protesters staged a theatrical demonstration at OpenAI’s downtown Bellevue office morning, with some activists dressed as “rogue AI agents” making their way into the building’s lobby carrying clusters of red and white balloons before building security intervened. The action, dubbed “No OpenAI Expansion,” was organized by the Oil & Gas Action Network with support from Troublemakers Community, Washington AI Resistance, and the Salish Sea Action Collective.

Mergers and Acquisitions: Charter Comcast Consolidation, Paramount Merger, and more Private Equity Purchases of Media Infrastructure.

AT&T closed its $23 ‌billion acquisition of wireless spectrum ​licenses from ​EchoStar, under a ⁠deal announced in ​August 2025 . The ​U.S. mobile carrier will add approximately 50 ​MHz of ​low-band and mid-band spectrum ‌covering ⁠virtually every market across the U.S.

Digital Advertisement measurement giant Nielsen announced it was looking to acquire ad verification company DoubleVerify in an all-cash transaction worth more than $2 billion. DoubleVerify has long positioned itself as an independent, third-party verifier, but it will now sit within Nielsen, a private company. Private equity firm Silver ‌Lake is in talks to acquire Workday, in a deal that would rank among the largest software buyouts in history. News of the talks sent Workday shares nearly 18% higher.

Charter clears final regulatory hurdle in merger deal with Cox Communications. California was the final state to give its approval. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved the merger after Charter made concessions, including offering low-cost service for low-income households and providing five years of free broadband and Wi-Fi service for 50 schools, libraries and other community centers. Then Charter Communications closed its $34.5 Billion Merger With Cox. Charter was already the largest cable provider in the country with 31 million customers, and after merging with Cox’s 6 million customers the new company will serve 37 million across 45 states. Charter acquired the privately-owned Cox with a combination of stock and $4 billion in cash. The new company will be called Cox Communications, and Charter’s former president and CEO Chris Winfrey will continue as CEO of the new company.

The Ellison’s Paramount Skydance’s $30-per-share all-cash bid for WBD triggers a $7 million per-day ticking fee on October 1. The merger is being stalled by 12 State Attorneys General, who sued last month to block the merger. If the acquisition collapses entirely, Paramount faces a separate $7 billion regulatory termination fee beyond the accumulating. The Complaint filed by state AGs alleges that the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act — a federal antitrust law that prohibits mergers that may substantially lessen competition.

Layoffs and Departures: AI is not a Reason but a Common Excuse.

OpenAI lost nearly half of the company’s team working on AI safety, according to one of its former governance researchers, Daniel Kokotajlo. “It’s not been like a coordinated thing. I think it’s just people sort of individually giving up,” Kokotajlo told Fortune in a report. That has led to what he described as a “chilling effect” within the company on those attempting to publish research on the risks of AGI and an “increasing amount of influence by the communications and lobbying wings of OpenAI” over what is appropriate to publish.

CEOs are changing their messaging around AI and layoffs out of concern for the reputational impact on their brand. Global tech layoffs in 2026 have affected over 124,000 people in just seven months, already surpassing the roughly 122,00 layoffs that occurred over the entirety of 2025, according to data compiled by independent tracker layoffs.fyi. Layoff fears are pushing some visa holders out of Big Tech. The largest Tech Employers have had more than 200,000 H-1B visa applications approved since October 2020. If laid off, H-1B workers generally have 60 days to find another employer willing to sponsor their visa or leave the US.

The latest job cuts are Salesforce’s’ fourth round of Bay Area layoffs in just under a year. Salesforce is the largest private employer in San Francisco. Last year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said AI helped reduce support headcount from 9,000 to about 5,000 “because I need less heads.”
Starbucks plans to lay off 224 corporate and remote employees starting October 2026, focusing on restructuring and expanding its new Nashville office while maintaining its Seattle headquarters. Artificial intelligence was cited in 33% of July’s job cuts, marking the fifth consecutive month AI topped reasons for workforce reductions.
T-Mobile announces layoffs of 113 employees in North Texas “Changing business needs” are leading to the layoffs of 113 employees at T-Mobile’s Irving location, the network announced via a WARN filing. Virtual business experts will be the most impacted, with 100 laid off. Other roles related to virtual business sales will see layoffs, including customer care manager, lead account expert and senior manager.
Amazon, Walmart, FedEx and more than a dozen other employers filing official WARN notices despite a labor market that remains outwardly resilient. Commercial bank postings seeking AI skills jumped by 51 percent.

In a letter to more than 300 elected officials across the country Pornhub criticized age verification laws, created to protect minors online, as risking the data privacy and security of both adults and kids. Instead, they’re calling on lawmakers to mandate operating-system providers like Apple, Microsoft and Google to adopt age checks in their default settings, rather than require individual websites to verify ages.” Pornhub and its subsidiary websites are currently blocked in 25 U.S. states with some form of age verification law on the books. Since then, the case against Texas’ age verification law has returned to a Texas district court.

Weather Report

Gary Indiana: Left In the Dark as the Storm Surged.

We lived through the hottest August on record, according to monthly reports from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

A 99 mph wind gust — comparable to a Category 2 hurricane the storm — classified as a derecho — tore through Gary on Aug. 11, battering neighborhoods and knocking out power to nearly 38,300 utility customers in the city according to NIPSCO. At least seven storm-related deaths have been reported across Indiana. As power returned to homes and businesses in Gary and across Northwest Indiana, Black faith leaders and elected officials alike are turning their focus to restoration, accountability, and solutions for future weather events. The start of the prolonged outage coincided with an announcement by the local power company’s parent, NiSource Inc., that it would be paying out around $140 million in dividends to its shareholders. Gray is majority-Black city where roughly 2 in 5 people rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to feed themselves. Because of the timing of the outages, many SNAP recipients who lost power were not eligible to have their benefits replaced — and had to figure out how to absorb a significant expense. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has activated the National Guard to assist with restoration efforts, while President Trump has approved an emergency declaration for the state. This allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist with recovery efforts from the storm.

The Salvation Army partnered with influencer and philanthropist Keith Lee to distribute aid to the residents of Gary Indiana, who had been without power for weeks following a storm. Aid included: flood recovery clean-up kits, including liquid disinfectants, laundry and dish detergent, gloves, sponges, mops, and other items identified as immediate community needs.

Election Season is Upon Us: Pro-AI Astroturfing, Cutting Polling Locations, and Texas Voters Placed on Susupense Lists.

Build American AI, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, has about $50 million to campaign for data center and AI adoption in battleground states. Efforts will begin in Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin. The advocacy group is also launching a new super PAC — Building the Future (a 527) — to back state and federal candidates aligned with its agenda and oppose those who aren’t. A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 77% of Americans are concerned about data centers raising electricity costs and two-thirds of Democrats and half of Republicans said they’d oppose a data center in their community.

Tarrant County Commissioners voted 3-2 in favor of fewer polling sites for early voting and Election Day. The new proposal would slash the number of polling sites from 316 on Election Day in 2022 to 224. Texans spoke out against the vote, public comments went on for more than two hours, and law enforcement escorted one person out for using profanity. The outcry from Texans caused commissioners to delay the vote and cut far fewer locations than originally planned. Civil Society based in Texas sent a letter to the commissioners, protesting the proposal.

Roughly 1.2 million Texans have been placed on voter suspense lists, following failed efforts by their respective counties to verify their current addresses by mail. While winding up on a county’s voter suspense list doesn’t immediately suspend or cancel a person’s voter registration, it can cause the voter’s registration to be purged after 2 years.

Human Trafficking and Forced Detention: DHS and ICE’s Campaign of Terror, Displacement, and Surveillance.

Immigrants who said they inadvertently registered to vote while obtaining or renewing driver’s licenses are increasingly facing deportation under the Trump administration. ICE expands its presence at U.S. airports. Gate agents say officers have asked them to help identify or locate passengers, provide information from internal airline systems and grant access to restricted areas such as jet bridges and, in some cases, aircraft. The requests have left some workers uncertain about when they are required to assist federal officers and when doing so could conflict with airline security protocols.

(DHS) has collected the DNA of more than 3.3 million people, with the program’s “primary purpose” not revolving around immigration enforcement but to “build a national DNA database for solving crimes.” The 2026 report by Georgetown Law continued delving into government intent. Researchers effectively stated that “new evidence corroborates our original analysis that the true purpose of the federal DNA collection program is to build a massive genetic database for policing the general population.”

ICE deported a US born Citizen to Mexico, after police stopped the vehicle he was riding in near Fredericksburg, then called immigration authorities when he couldn’t immediately provide identification or proof of citizenship. He returned to the US, after the federal government reached an agreement with his lawyers in light of evidence provided about his citizenship. His attorneys argue that he was coerced into signing documents agreeing to a quick deportation so he could rejoin his wife and newborn daughter, who live in Mexico.

Over 120 people were arrested during an ICE raid at a Berclair nightclub, during a multi-agency targeted enforcement operation, “Operation Corral Light”. The DHS celebrated the mass arrest in their press release. Witnesses said more than 100 patrons and employees at El Corralón were detained and sent away in buses and vans, separating them from their families. Others said they watched as mothers and fathers were separated from their children.

ICE refers questions to GEO Group, as Sen. Hickenlooper toured the site hours before the midnight public health order deadline. The senator said he was shocked to see a direct order from the state health department ignored by even the CDC. As for potential risks of TB at the facility, it’s still unclear. Colorado’s health department issued a public health order to GEO Group, the facility’s owner, in an effort to let health authorities investigate the incidence of tuberculosis there. Monday, Aug.17 was the deadline to comply. GEO missed this deadline, prompting a joint letter from the Senate and Congress. “They won’t tell us how many people have been released in the community, where the follow-up testing, how that’s being organized. You cannot do an investigation like this in a vacuum,” Hickenlooper said.

Statesboro City Council approved a rezoning request for a proposed data center, sparking opposition from protesters concerned about the project. The request, filed by 4am Development LLC and Thomas & Hutton, call for a two-story data center containing approximately 115,000 square feet on each floor. The parcel is surrounded almost entirely by residential properties, according to the city’s Development Services Report. It is located just inside Statesboro’s city limits and would therefore not be covered by Bulloch County’s planned ban on data centers in unincorporated areas.

Bad Actor Watch: Kalshi Bans George Santos, Jake Lang Punched by Spider Man, Milo Yinnopoulos Detained, and Alex Jones’ Reduced Defamation Payment.

Alex Jones won a Texas court ruling that reduced one of the defamation lawsuit judgments against him for calling the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre a hoax by more than $40 million because it vastly exceeded the state’s legal cap on punitive damages.

Kalshi has banned former Republican congressman George Santos for life after the prediction market company found he misled the public about whether he would attend President Trump’s State of the Union address in order to make a profit on the platform, more than $17,000. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered Santos to give back those profits as part of a settlement reached with the former congressman last month. The federal regulator also fined him $17,500.

White supremacist and pardoned insurrectionist Jake Lang was arrested in Minnesota, where he awaits gross misdemeanor riot charges. The county attorney announced that they will not pursue felony charges, due to a lack of intent, while he is still being held without bail pending other charges. The charges are based on allegations that a vehicle he occupied drove onto a sidewalk outside Minneapolis City Hall and toward a crowd, as he raised a large sign with the slur against Black people. A counter-protester who was dressed up as Spider-Man protesting Lang, has been charged with fifth-degree assault, after repeatedly punching Lang. “Spider-Man” posted a GoFundMe to help cover legal fees, support came across the country raising over $102,000.
Before Minnesota, Lang hosted a “Christian Crusader March” in Dearborn Michigan and its city council meeting spreading hateful Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory rhetoric. He tore a Quran in an act of Christian nationalism and hate before being removed from the meeting.

Far-right political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was taken into custody by ICE and is being held at a detention center. The British commentator has also been a public supporter of ICE operations and has previously called for “total legal immunity” for ICE agents while performing their duties. Far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who had a public fallout with Yiannopoulos, is taking credit for his arrest. In a social media post, Loomer claimed Yiannopoulos called for her to be “assassinated” at the height of their feud, prompting her to report his immigration status to authorities.

Data Breaches: Back to School, AI Attackers, and Data Breach Accountability.

As kids head back to school, experts are warning parents not to overlook a growing threat: child identity theft. The FTC advises parents to watch for warning signs of identity theft, including collection notices, government benefits issues or credit activity tied to a child who should not have a credit history. If you suspect your child’s identity has been stolen, experts recommend contacting the credit bureaus and reporting the fraud through IdentityTheft.gov .

AI cyberattacks surge 56%, cost businesses $6.04 million per breach. AI-driven cyberattacks increased by 56% in the past year, with more than 25% of organizations that experienced a malicious attack reporting that the incident was driven by artificial intelligence.

In July, Coca Cola’s dairy brand Fairlife shut down the majority of production , after a ransomware attack that temporarily shut down four U.S. manufacturing facilities. On a dark-web site, a group calling itself Anubis took credit for the attack. Anubis said it locked Fairlife’s servers and threatened to leak 1 terabyte of confidential data unless its demands were met, though they did not post proof it was behind the breach. Now, Coca-Cola and Chick-fil-A are facing federal lawsuits over data breaches that plaintiffs allege exposed sensitive personal information. Texas resident Brian Williams filed a class action lawsuit against Chick-fil-A Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The suit alleges the chain failed to secure the personal and payment details of Chick-fil-A One members, leaving them open to an attack built on passwords stolen from somewhere else. “

CareCloud, a leading health data company, has confirmed with federal regulators that the personal information and medical records of over 3.75 million people were stolen in a recent data breach.The incident is now officially recognized as the fifth-largest theft of health data this year. The stolen data includes patients’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and medical and health information. The hackers also stole government-issued identification numbers such as passports and driver’s licenses, as well as banking and financial details.”

Xfinity owner Comcast agreed to a $117.5 million settlement payout to put a class action lawsuit regarding the breach to rest. This settlement is now open for claims. Filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the settlement website explains how Comcast revealed on Dec. 18 they had fallen victim to a cyberattack that October. Class members are eligible to receive up to $10,000 for any out-of-pocket losses or time lost as a result of the breach.

Political Repression and Persecution: ICE Map, Running Over Protesters, and Major Watson on Pretrial Confinement.

According to a secret intelligence bulletin DHS sent to local and federal law enforcement in February, citizen researchers who document ICE are “threats”. A Texas mother built an interactive Google Map titled “Who is Profiting from ICE?” It plots the contractors across the country who work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out the Trump administration’s deportation policies. DHS has used this code – HSEC SIN 8, which stands for Homeland Security Standing Information Need 8 – for her website. The same alert that it reserves for domestic terrorists.

After disrupting a Monday night prayer vigil, a federal immigration agent drove over a protester’s foot outside Delaney Hall, sending her to the hospital. The woman was participating in the weekly Monday night prayer circle near the entrance, when ICE arrived and escalated the peaceful demonstration to violence.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Jason Watson, was ordered into “pretrial confinement”. Watson’s detainment follows an interview he sat for with CNN, during which he defended his decision to call for the impeachment of Trump and Vice President Vance on the Capitol steps in July.

Good News

Case Closed: Relection Pool “Vandalism”, Trump’s Travel Ban, and Tupac’s Murder.

The DOJ moved to dismiss charges against those charged with felony destruction at the reflection pool in DC. The charges came after Trump blamed visitors for the destruction of the lining. In a new court filing, the office indicated it no longer stands behind its case “The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed,”

A federal judge has struck down a Trump administration ban on issuing immigrant visas to people from 75 countries, saying the policy violated federal immigration law by discriminating on the basis of nationality.

The long-unsolved murder of rapper Tupac has finally been closed with a guilty verdict after over 30 years. A jury in Clark County, Nevada, deliberated for nearly three hours before finding Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, guilty of a single count of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, capping an ​11-day trial in a downtown Las Vegas courtroom.

Wins for the Women: Daisy Chains, Dolly’s Legacy, and Dignity Drive.

Olivia Rodrigo hosted the Daisy Chain Fields, a one-day festival she launched on August 29 with a lineup made up entirely of women artists and female-fronted acts.Ticket sales alone brought in $10 million for the fest’s 10 nonprofit partners. Attendees say it was a moment of celebration, community, and hope from the second that attendees stepped on the grounds.

Dolly Parton’s legacy will continue through her foundation, Imagination Library, that sends free books to children in the U.S. and four other countries, regardless of their family’s financial situation.
A federal judge struck down, for the second time, a Texas law that would have restricted public drag performances in the state. The judge noted that people would criticize the “9 to 5” singer “as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure.”

Women’s Fund Dignity Drive to solicit donations of feminine products for girls drew thousands of items. Within just a few weeks, the organization collected 1,250 tampons, more than 5,300 pads and enough hygiene products to assemble 147 completely stocked hygiene kits that included shampoo, conditioner, body wash and lotion. That’s enough for every girl in detention or on probation to receive a kit, with some to spare.

Stopping Detention and Data Abuse: Guillotines and Moratoriums.

The DHS is abandoning plans to convert an empty Salt Lake City warehouse into an ICE detention center, according to a new court filing. The proposed facility would have marked Utah’s first immigration detention center.

Community members in Salem Oregon literally scared data center developers away. One resident reportedly drove a guillotine to the meeting. Company officials came to the meeting intending to address the council and community, but left the building after they “did not feel safe,” The council voted unanimously to pass a motion to explore banning non-disclosure agreements with developers and another to form a data center task force for the city. The council also voted for a temporary moratorium, stopping data center projects from moving forward for at least 120 days.

Californians began participating in the DROP program Delete Request and Opt-out Platform. The service is funded by registration fees paid by data brokers, not directly by taxpayers. More than 425,000 Californians registered for DROP, and data brokers began processing deletion requests this month.

Yay Texas!: Flock Cameras Get Bagged, Airport workers get a raise, and Big Bend Park Protected.

Several Pflugerville residents spoke out during the public comment portion of a City Council meeting. Many cited concerns over privacy and urged council members to vote to disable the cameras citywide. According to the Pflugerville Police Department (PPD), an issue was discovered in the Flock operating system that permitted non-partner law enforcement agencies to access the city’s Flock data. Pflugerville City Council voted unanimously to end their contract with Flock Safety. Following the vote, City staff will turn off all 28 automated license plate reader cameras included in the City of Pflugerville contract and disable access to the ALPR system. Staff also began physically covering Flock Safety cameras on Aug. 25.

Under an executive order signed by Mayor John Whitmire, many airport workers will be paid $20 an hour immediately, followed by additional raises in coming years — a significant hike from current hourly wages as low as $15. The wage hike comes almost a year after workers represented by the UNITE HERE union went on strike at the downtown Hilton Americas-Houston hotel. After 40 days on the picket line, they won nearly identical wage gains. In the following months, UNITE HERE workers at the George R. Brown Convention Center, airport lounges and the Marriott Marquis won new contracts with similar pay hikes. All told, about 37,000 hospitality workers won approximately 30% raises through their unions over the past year.

The Trump administration is pausing work inside Texas’ Big Bend National Park, days after bulldozers began clearing land in one of the least-crossed stretches of the US-Mexico border. A federal judge in San Antonio has extended a temporary pause on new ground-disturbance tied to border wall construction in and around Big Bend National Park. The ruling came after an emergency request by the People of La Junta for Preservation, members of the Lipan Apache community and a West Texas outdoor recreation business to halt construction.

The Miracles of Science: MRNA Cancer Vaccines and Accidental Alchemy!

MRNA cancer vaccines proven successful! Moderna and Merck said that a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine reduced the ​risk of recurrence and spread of melanoma in a late-stage trial. This is the first positive late-stage trial result for an mRNA cancer vaccine, which trains a patient’s immune system to fight tumors by targeting specific mutations in those cells.

Scientists accidentally turned Lead into Gold. While smashing lead atoms into each other at extremely high speeds in an effort to mimic the state of the universe just after the Big Bang, physicists working on the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland incidentally produced small trace amounts of gold – a total of some 29 trillionths of a gram. The collaboration includes almost 2000 scientists from 174 physics institutes in 40 countries.

– Nerdy aside –
To the scientists the accidental transmutation was a mere alchemical nuisance, rather than cause for celebration. Yet the breakthrough distinguishes how far humanity’s understanding of quantum physics has come, since its ancient alchemic origins along the Nile river. Humans have furthered our understandings of the physical world, through science and philosophy; often in pursuit of the magic of transmutation, abundance, and life everlasting. “Nature delights in nature, nature conquers nature, nature masters nature” Physika kai Mystika 200-300 AD (The oldest surviving alchemical text by Ptolomeic Greek-Egyptian Philosopher, Bolos of Mendes )

Horoscope

For the month of September, all will be quiet until a cosmic crescendo on the 10th. Venus moves into Scorpio, a perfect storm for relationship chaos. Murcury will move into Libra, a diplomatic time ripe for manners, tact, and legal affairs. Uranus will enter its yearly retrograde in Gemini, with themes of technology and communication. Finally on the 10th the New Moon will be in Virgo, the best lunar position of the entire year for a fresh start.

Then on the 22nd, the Sun moves into Libra, themes of justice, balance, and beauty will mark the transition from Summer to Fall. Mars moves to Leo on the 27th, an ideal position for courage and play. The Harvest Moon will rise on the 26th, also named the Mating Moon by the Cree Tribe, will cast its glow onto the darkness as the days grow shorter. Finally, Mercury moves into Scorpio on the 30th, a time for secrets, deep thinking, and research.

Take this as your sign from the Sun Moon and Stars to keep a close watch on your temper, as this will be an intense month, but all will be well as long as we remember to keep an eye toward justice and cultivating our fresh starts.

With that, I wrap my newsletter series of 2025-26. I have found much joy in scraping and processing the news in this way. This project has been a welcome challenge to my Virgo desire for perfection and symetry- as every month brought a firehose of jigsaw pieces of information.
As I hoped when I started this project, my writing and social listening skills have improved! Writing has left me with a greater appreciation for our complex democratic process, the independent actors who hold power to account, and the local heroes who stand up for the futures of their communities.
If reading these letters has provided even a tiny chink in the armor of American cynicism, then I will feel as though I have done my part.

I hope to pick this monthly ritual back up in the new year, but only time and capacity can tell us what’s in store for raelyn.info in 2027. I will continue to do what I can to be a part of the change for a better future. I invite you to dare yourself to believe that you can do the same.
Until then,

<3 Raelyn