August 8, 2026
Vol. 15, No. 2346

STOP THE DANCE: A federal appeals panel in a scolding opinion yesterday voted two to one to stop construction on President Trump’s White House ballroom.

  The court said in its decision that, “Each president is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its executive residence.” 

  In a further putdown to the president, they also said, “We are aware of no instance in American history in which a president unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the white house that congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid

For. Until now.”

 Trump published a screed on his social media calling the project a desperately needed military center … not a ballroom. As the ballroom project has come under attack, Trump has tried to sell it as a necessity of national security with a bunker complex underneath  and a military drone port on the roof. He doesn’t talk about dancing and dining with world leaders.

  Trump yesterday posted an illustration of his drone port with the message, “This great and very important military asset sits atop the heavily protected Ballroom at the White House. It provides National Security for Washington, D.C., and will protect future Presidents!!!”

  The court gave the Trump administration two weeks to appeal to the Supreme Court. The appeals the court said, “Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the executive branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House—the people’s house—to fit a particular president’s desires.”

CONFIRMED: The Senate by a margin of one vote confirmed Acting Attorney Gen. Todd Blanche to permanent status on the job.

  The vote was 50 to 49, with Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska siding with the Democrats in opposition, saying they feared Blanche would not keep the Justice Department independent from political influence under Donald Trump.

  Blanche is Trump’s former personal defense lawyer.

  The deciding vote was cast by Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana who was defeated in his bid for re-election by a candidate backed by Trump. “The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general, who may not run the department effectively under President Trump.”

  Tellingly, he was nearly weeping at the end of his speech. It was as if he was saying “This is bad, but it could be worse.” 

  Murkowski said in a statement; “The country needs an attorney general who will check the worst impulses of this administration. I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”

ECON 101: Employment in the US sustained a net loss of 23,000 jobs in July, defying predictions of modest job growth.  Unemployment dipped to 4.1%, but that is attributed to more than 260,000 people dropping out of the workforce.

  Healthcare continued to add employees but restaurants, retailers, and local governments cut thousands of jobs last month. 

THE OBIT PAGE: Charles Faddis, a former CIA officer who became a critic of the agency and a leader of the 2020 election-denial movement in Pennsylvania , often appearing often on Steve Bannon’s right-wing podcast “War Room,” died on July 25th in Philadelphia at age 68.

  He had said on his Substack newsletter said he had been hospitalized for Covid-related lung disease and pneumonia.

 Faddis spent a lot of time spreading baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Domald Trump. One of his favorite conspiracy theories was that former President Joe Biden and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, were under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.

  Speaking on the “War Room” podcast and in his newsletter, Faddis claimed that citizens protesting immigration roundups were part of a Marxist plot to create a totalitarian government.

THE SPIN RACK: Following a second inmate death, New Jersey has opened a civil rights investigation into the migrant detention center Delaney Hall operated by ICE and Homeland Security in Newark. The family of the El Salvador detainee, Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, 41, said he might not have been  getting the medication he needed to treat his diabetes and epilepsy. — More than 50 decomposing bodies were found in a Chicago funeral home run by a couple whose crematory had previously been shut down for leaving bodies lying around. — California generated more than half its electricity in the month of May with solar facilities, according to federal data.

BELOW THE FOLD: We’re not sure if this is accidental humor or the product of a sly editor, but a headline in The NY Times says, “China’s Robots Know Kung Fu and Can Scale Walls. Can They Woo Investors?”

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