curated citations to news sources
Fortune: Even if you can’t trust the data, these 13 warning signs will tell you the economy is in trouble
For decades, statistics that came directly from the U.S. government, especially from agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), have long been the gold standard for measuring the health of the American economy. But this trust has been shaken by recent events, including substantial downward revisions to jobs data, bruising political accusations, and the unceremonious dismissal of Erika McEntarfer, the BLS’s top official, at the beginning of the month. The resulting uncertainty has left many Americans asking: If official government data can’t be trusted, how can you know if the economy is struggling?
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So this invites the question: If you cannot trust official numbers, what concrete signs reveal economic trouble? Economists point to several alternative indicators that, individually and collectively, offer insight—often visible without needing to consult official statistics. Here are the telltale signs the average person, or a skeptical observer, should watch for
Beyond the numbers: Recognizing economic distress
- Labor market conditions
- Consumer behavior and social signals
- Business activity
- Alternative and composite data
- Public mood and media reporting
Fast Company: Why is tourism down in Vegas this summer? Some blame Trump
The head of the Culinary Workers Union, Ted Pappageorge, calls it the “Trump slump.”
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Al Jazeera: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy reveals key details of private meeting with Trump
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed key details of his private White House meeting with Donald Trump, saying they discussed US security guarantees, prisoner exchanges, and a trilateral meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
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Jennifer Rubin: Word & Phrases We Could Do Without
A ‘guarantee’ from Trump?!
Donald Trump, after his Alaska abasement, told European leaders he would be open to offering Ukraine “U.S. security guarantees” to end the war.
No, really.
Ukrainians are all too familiar with “U.S. security guarantees.” After the breakup of the Soviet Union (in which Vladimir Putin learned his trade as a KGB agent), the U.S. gave Ukraine a “security guarantee.”
(Jennifer Rubin more…)
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RawStory: NewsMax settles with Dominion for $67 million
(RawStory more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – August 18, 2025
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Then the post claimed that “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”This is bonkers across the board. Dozens of countries use mail-in voting, and there is zero evidence of widespread voter fraud in the U.S. Just today, news broke that right-wing channel Newsmax will pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Systems for spreading false claims that the company’s voting technology had been rigged to give the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Combining that sum with the $787 million Fox News paid for spreading the same lies means, as Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) wrote today, that media entities have paid out nearly $900 million “for publishing lies about the 2020 presidential election. Yet Donald Trump, who lost by more than seven million votes, keeps repeating the Big Lie and makes it compulsory dogma for his employees.”
Certainly, if Democratic leaders were so unelectable, the Republicans would not go to such lengths to rig district voting maps and keep Democratic voters from the polls. Indeed, while voter fraud is vanishingly rare, the Republicans are using the specter of it to engage in election fraud: manipulating the mechanics of an election to favor one side over another.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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TNR: Angry Trump Accidentally Blurts Out Unnerving New Plot to Rig Midterms
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Wired: An Account Using the Same Name as Trump’s BLS Pick Posted Red-Pilled Conspiracy Theories
A WIRED review of a now-deleted Twitter account that used the screen name “Dr. Erwin J. Antoni III” shows it posted conspiratorial content about the 2020 election, Covid-19, and Jeffrey Epstein.
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arsTECHNICA: RFK Jr.’s Wi-Fi and 5G conspiracies appear to make it into MAHA report draft
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Notably, the report does not mention the leading causes of death for American children, which are firearms and motor vehicle accidents. Cancer, another top killer, is only mentioned in the context of pushing new AI technologies at the National Institutes of Health. Poisonings, another top killer, are also not mentioned explicitly.
(arsTECHNICA more…)
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Bill McKibben: Trump is shockingly dumb about (electric) power
It’s not too soon to start working the politics of people’s power bills
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Eric Topol: Covid and Our Arteries
A new study on acceleration of vascular aging adds to the body of evidence
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Morgaan Sinclair, Ph.D.: Atlantic ocean currents are near collapse. That could bury Europe in glaciers.
The Economist gets it right. Only complete destruction by atomic bombs could cause greater damage to Europe. And when they say it’s a strategic problem requiring a strategic response, they’re right.
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James Eagle: Where does AI get it’s info from
(James Eagle more…)
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Howard Yu: The Assembly Line in the Sky
The True Costs of Progress and the Need to Scale by Imagination, Not Extraction
The dormitory window was four stories above concrete when Tian Yu jumped.It was March 17, 2010. She was 17 years old. Exactly 37 days earlier, she had stepped into Foxconn City, Shenzhen’s sprawling factory complex where millions of iPhones were assembled. She had left her village to pursue skills and wages, seduced by a line in the employee handbook: “Your dreams extend from here until tomorrow.”
Reality was different. She found instead robotic repetition. Three iPhone screens were polished every minute, totaling 1,700 a day. Errors were punished by public humiliation and reinforced by self-criticism.
Her first month’s pay was lost to “administrative errors.” Company dorms were crammed with strangers on shifting schedules, erasing any chance of her making friends. It’s “a massive place of strangers,” she would later call it.
(Howard Yu more…)
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Dean Blundell: US Senator Sends 4 Page Letter To Canadian Politicians Inviting Them To Commit Treason By Joining The US
MAGA Senator Martin from Maine sent letters to every elected officials from Manitoba to BC effectively threatening them unless they leave Canada for Trump’s Police State
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Daily Beast: Trump, 79, Can’t See World Leader Right in Front of Him
WHERE ARE YOU?
The president has made a string of similar baffling slip-ups at the White House.
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Borowitz: Trump Freaks Out After Nobel Peace Prize Form Asks If Applicant Ever Used Troops Against Own Citizens
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties