Oligarchs' Victory Celebration Was Premature

 

Another Poll Has Talarico With A Slim Lead Over Paxton In Texas

 

The charts above are from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research Center at Texas Southern University Poll. They surveyed 1,200 likely Texas voters between July 27th and 30th. The margin of error is 2.83 points.

Is Anyone Still Listening To Trump's War Lies?

Political Cartoon is by Jonathan Brown at Cagle.com.
 

The Biggest Cost To The U.S. By The Trump Administration

 From Robert Reich:

I used to think the major tradeoff was between “guns and butter” — between defending the nation and attending to our most pressing social needs. 

That view put the federal budget at the center of debate. And it assumed a zero-sum game in which the more we spent on the military, the less we had for the poor. As Ike said in 1953, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

But that old zero-sum game isn’t the biggest cost Trump is imposing on us. 

Yes, Trump’s war in Iran and the $1.5 trillion he wants for the Defense Department next year will make it harder for us to meet the nation’s other needs. As will the dramatic cuts he’s made or proposed in public health, education, Medicaid and Medicare, and nutrition assistance. 

Yet the biggest cost is the cost of doing nothing about three worsening crises that threaten the very survival of America and the world: climate change, AI, and widening inequality. 

Almost all Americans — indeed, most human beings — are now subject to the escalating costs of climate change. How much more evidence do we need? 

This summer has been a living hell. Wildfires have forced around 60,000 people to evacuate parts of Washington state, destroying hundreds of buildings and leaving thousands without power. Fires in Canada turned the skies orange and the air foul across a large part of the eastern United States. Millions of lives have been threatened by a deadly heat dome. 

Even if Trump weren’t worsening climate change by subsidizing fossil fuels, simply doing nothing would be shameful enough because the crisis is growing so fast. Years ago, climate scientists predicted exactly what’s occurring right now. Trump’s lack of leadership — no, his outright sabotaging of global efforts to stop the planet from becoming uninhabitable — is one of the worst sins of his sinful regime. 

AI’s dangers are also now upon us. 

If you believe that humans are in total control of AI, you haven’t been paying attention. Recently, at least two of OpenAI’s models escaped a sealed testing environment and broke into the servers of another AI company. The AI models “reasoned” that the solutions to a cybersecurity test were on that other company’s servers, so the models snuck onto the internet and hacked into the other company’s solutions. 

This is chilling. The possibility of AI models escaping human control to do horrendous damage to human life is growing exponentially. Here again, the Trump regime’s inaction is a huge cost that’s soaring by the day. 

My candidate for the third existential threat is wealth inequality, which is also out of control. Billionaire wealth is surging to monarchical heights while the wages of the typical American aren’t even keeping up with price increases — meaning that most of us are getting poorer. 

The problem isn’t inequality per se. It’s the consequences of inequality — especially widening corruption. Billionaires are using their wealth to bribe politicians to reduce their tax rates (which are already lower than most Americans face) and to stop lawmakers from regulating fossil fuels or AI.

Full circle. 

Of course, there are still guns-versus-butter issues. Federal budget priorities are important. America faces a yawning budget deficit and can’t possibly do everything that needs to be done. Dollars spent on the military are literally taking food from America’s hungry. 

Yet on the largest existential crises of our time, where the costs of inaction are rising to frightening levels, the solutions don’t require extraordinary government expenditure. 

They require thoughtful environmental and AI regulations, and far higher taxes on the wealthy.

Democrats and progressives running for Congress, governorships, and other positions must speak out loudly and clearly about the rapidly rising costs of inaction on climate change, AI, and inequality.

 

Demand action. Educate the public. Condemn the Trump regime and its backers — Big Oil, AI, and the billionaire class — for threatening the very survival of humans on the Earth.

Not Everyone Was Conned Like Tillis And Cornyn

 Political Cartoon is by Nick Anderson at The Contrarian.

63% of Americans Have Under $500 Left Each Month After Paying Their Bills

This very disturbing report is from the International Business Times. 

Nearly two-thirds of Americans are now living paycheque to paycheque, according to the latest SurveyMonkey Quarterly Money Survey, underscoring the financial strain many households continue to face despite a resilient labour market and slowing inflation.

The survey found that 63% of US adults rely on each paycheque to cover monthly expenses, while most have little or no financial cushion after paying for essentials such as housing, food, utilities and transportation.

The findings suggest that millions of Americans remain financially vulnerable, with many saying they would struggle to absorb even a modest unexpected expense or a temporary interruption to their income.

According to the SurveyMonkey survey, an overwhelming majority of respondents reported having less than $500 remaining each month after covering essential living costs.

Among all respondents, 20% said they generally break even each month, and 17% reported spending more than they earn, leaving them in a monthly deficit. Only a minority said they consistently have significant disposable income remaining after paying bills.

For households already living paycheque to paycheque, the picture is even more challenging. The survey found that 90% of those respondents have almost no money left after meeting basic financial obligations, while 47% either break even or operate at a monthly deficit.

Among respondents who reported ending each month with a financial deficit, the size of those shortfalls differed considerably.

The survey found 25% fall short by less than $100 each month, 26% report deficits between $101 and $250, 37% say they are short between $251 and $1,000, and 12% face monthly deficits exceeding $1,000

Those figures illustrate how even relatively small budget gaps can accumulate over time, often forcing households to rely on savings, credit cards or loans simply to cover routine expenses. The survey also found that ongoing financial stress is reshaping long-term personal and financial decisions.

According to SurveyMonkey, 61% of respondents said money pressures have forced them to postpone important life milestones. Those delayed plans include saving for retirement, purchasing a home, buying a vehicle, getting married, and making other significant financial commitments.

Rather than building wealth or investing for the future, many households report focusing primarily on covering immediate living expenses.

More than half of those surveyed said they feel more financially stressed today than they did one year ago. Among the biggest contributors to that stress were insufficient savings (45%), credit card debt (30%), auto insurance costs (25%), and medical expenses (23%).

The findings suggest that while inflation has eased from its post-pandemic peak, many households continue struggling with elevated everyday costs and limited financial reserves. The survey also highlights how little financial flexibility many Americans have.

Among those living paycheque to paycheque, 71% said even a one-week delay in receiving their wages would create financial problems. 50% described such a delay as a major hardship, and 21% said it would trigger a financial emergency. Only 23% believed a delayed paycheque would be a minor inconvenience.

He Never Learns

Political Cartoon is by Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News.
 

The U.S. Is Running Out Of Long-Range Missiles

 

The Answer

 

Democrats Have An 85% Chance of Winning The House And 55% Chance of Winning The Senate

 

These charts represent the 2026 election forecast from G. Elliott Morris at FiftyPlusOne. When he was making these forecasts in the past for fivethirtyeight.com, he was among the most accurate forecasters.

A Bipolar Species

 Political Cartoon is by Steve Sack at stevesack.substack.com.

More Narcissistic Idiocy From Trump On Truth Social

Donald Trump is presiding over an economy that gets worse for most Americans every day and a war he doesn't seem to be able to end. But instead of trying to fix either, he is engaging in posting idiotic and narcissistic images of himself on Truth Social. Does he really think this is what the voters want to see?

Here, from mediate.com, are the latest images:

Mother Nature Is A Commie

Political Cartoon is by Mike Smith in the Las Vegas Sun.
 

The U.S. And Iran Are Fighting A War - And China Is Winning

 

The following insightful post is by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman:

Make America Great Again? Hah. Donald Trump has weakened us with astonishing speed. Under his “leadership” America’s influence, reputation and credibility have peeled away like the liner in the Reflecting Pool.

The disintegration of U.S. power was well underway before Trump started his war on Iran, but the pace of decline has accelerated sharply since the magnitude of our defeat started becoming apparent.

And when future historians write about this tale of self-immolation, they may well do so in Mandarin.

China hasn’t been a direct combatant in the third Gulf war, and its support for Iran has, until recently, been discreet. (China is now reportedly preparing to send Iran advanced munitions — Phillips O’Brien suggests that it is “going in for the kill.”) But China has clearly relished our humiliation. And both the way the war has played out and China’s role have drastically shifted the global balance of power in China’s favor.

China has been a serious geopolitical rival to the United States for some time. China’s manufacturing sector overtook the US in 2010, and the gap has continued to grow (I’ll explain the line labeled “US+EU” shortly):

And China’s role as the workshop of the world inevitably gives it a great deal of geopolitical influence.

However, there were a number of factors that, two years ago, arguably still gave an America a power advantage despite China’s economic weight and manufacturing prowess. These factors included:

· America still led the world in science and cutting-edge technology.

· The U.S. military appeared to have vastly better weapons and leadership than any other nation’s.

· The dollar’s dominant role in international transactions gave the United States enormous financial clout, including the ability to cut other nations out of the global payments system.

· Above all, the U.S. wasn’t alone. We were the leader of history’s most successful alliance system, nations bound together not just by mutual interests but by shared democratic values.

Yet Trump and his lackeys have quickly squandered all of these advantages.

A great deal has been written about the Trump administration’s attack on science, which is a topic largely separate from the Iran war. As one recent discussion put it, Trump officials

have orchestrated a series of attacks on scientists and their laboratories, implemented through funding cuts, grant interruptions, and immigration restrictions. Scientists are gravitating to Canada, Europe, and China, and we are rapidly losing the depth of our innovative and essential scientific community.

The undermining of other U.S. sources of strength was also underway before the Iran war, but the war has accelerated the downward spiral.

Even before the bombing of Iran began, some observers worried about the state of the U.S. military. Had U.S. military leaders adapted to the new world — revealed by the war in Ukraine — of cheap, ubiquitous drones? How much damage had the pro-testosterone, anti-intellectual leadership of Pete Hegseth already done? Now we know the answers to these questions, and America’s military reputation has nose-dived.

Oh, and as a December 2025 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, a Chinese supply chain underpins “the architecture of modern drone warfare.”

America’s dollar-linked financial power has also sharply declined. True, as I wrote a month ago, “The dollar’s role as the dominant currency for ordinary business is not under threat.” However, the war has demonstrated that, thanks in large part to China’s underlying economic power, America’s ability to weaponize the dollar has been greatly reduced:

Iran was able to continue selling oil (until the U.S. temporarily imposed a military blockade) and buying essential imports, despite U.S. financial sanctions, by taking payment in yuan and using those yuan to buy Chinese goods. Ships that paid Iran for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz also paid in yuan (or in cryptocurrency, whose only real use case remains criminal activity.) The details are complicated, but using yuan essentially allows those designated by the U.S. government as rogue actors to fly under our financial radar.

Finally, the war has really put the nail in the coffin of the U.S.-centered alliance system.

America’s alliances have been a fundamental source of global strength since World War II. The line labeled “US+EU” in the chart on manufacturing value added is an indication of how much these alliances used to strengthen us: It shows that even now the US and the democracies of the European Union combined produce more manufactured goods than China, a lead that would be larger if I included the UK, Japan, Canada, etc.

But Trump began torpedoing our alliances on day one. Discussions of the Trump tariffs, even critical ones, don’t emphasize enough the fact that every one of these tariffs broke international agreements made by the United States in the past. So Trumpian tariff policy, by itself, was an announcement to the world that agreements with the U.S. government are worthless. Add to this the demands that Canada become the 51^st state, that Denmark hand over Greenland, and so on, and America had thoroughly lost the trust of its former friends even before the Iran war.

Then came the war. And in the past five months the U.S. has shown itself both erratic and ineffectual. Trump launched a war that, in addition to creating death and destruction, cut off much of the world’s oil supply without so much as consulting other nations. Once the war began, America proved both incapable of imposing its will on Iran and unable either to open the Strait of Hormuz or to protect regional allies.

So now the world neither trusts nor fears us. The chart at the top of this post, drawn from the Pew survey of global attitudes, shows views of the US and China in multiple countries. Even many of our oldest allies, the nations that helped us win World War II and the Cold War, now have a more favorable opinion of China than they do of us.

Let’s be clear: The end of U.S. leadership and China’s growing geopolitical ascendancy are bad things. China is a corrupt autocracy, with little respect for human rights and none at all for democratic values.

But people around the world have concluded that the Chinese are serious people, and that we are not. So America lost the war — and China won.