Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann

“Historically speaking, Uncle Sam isn’t very good at managing money. Because the politicians and bureaucrats who run the U.S. government aren’t good at managing money, they’ve opened the door to massive losses through fraud. In 2024, the GAO estimated that from 2018 through 2022, the U.S. government lost between $233 billion and $512 billion dollars per year to fraudsters. These are not small amounts of money. … If fraud comes in at the low end of the GAO’s estimates, it would reduce the federal deficit by 12.5%. At the high end, it would reduce the U.S. government’s budget deficit by 28%. Either way, reducing its fraud losses to zero would not be enough to eliminate 2026’s budget deficit.” (08/05/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/05/stopping-fraud-isnt-enough/

Source: The Daily Economy
by David Hebert

“What economists have argued for generations is now reflected in public opinion: Americans see free trade as the better alternative to protectionism.” (08/05/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/free-trade-the-consensus-is-growing/

Source: The Intercept
by Nick Turse

“As his war in Iran has imploded, his poll numbers have plummeted, the U.S. economy has cratered, and he finds himself in the grip of a steep cognitive decline, President Donald Trump has increasingly lashed out, calling for cataclysm, slaughter, and even genocide. As he tries desperately, if ham-handedly, to extricate himself from a losing war, the commander-in-chief of the world’s most destructive military offers up deranged rants, baying for blood and issuing orders that throw the concept of proportionality in warfare out the window. Trump’s bloodthirsty rhetoric has been borne out in asymmetrical slaughter, with Iranian fatalities exceeding American deaths by multiple orders of magnitude. And this follows similarly lopsided casualty tolls in Trump’s conflicts in Somalia, Venezuela, Yemen, and on the high seas.” (08/05/26)

https://theintercept.com/2026/08/05/trump-colonial-extermination-asymmetric-warfare/

Source: Common Dreams
by Robert Dodge

“On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 am local time, our world changed forever when the US dropped the first atomic bomb used in war over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The immediate death toll was approximately 70,000 with ~140,000 to have died by year’s end. Three days later, the US would drop a plutonium bomb over the city of Nagasaki. The immediate death toll there was ~40,000 with ~70,000 to have died by year’s end with a combined total of ~210,000. Three weeks earlier, following the atomic bombing of New Mexico with the Trinity test, the nuclear age was thrust upon mankind. The nuclear legacies from victims and survivors of the atomic bombings, Hibakusha, and their history lingers to this day. The legacy extends from the mining for the nuclear materials and its impact on local communities to the processing, testing, use, storage, and waste management, as well as the impacts and risks of nuclear power to this day.” (08/06/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/81-years-brink-nuclear-war