Sophie Gardner (POLITICO) reports:
The Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed two more “measles-associated” deaths, setting off another round of finger-pointing between Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro about a spiraling outbreak in the state.
The two deaths, reported in a Tuesday statement, bring Pennsylvania’s death count to four. Before this year, Pennsylvania hadn’t reported a measles death for more than 30 years.
The health department reported two earlier deaths, both infants, in late August. A Lancaster County coroner said one of the infants died from a ruptured spleen, not measles, and Kennedy’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not listed any measles deaths for 2026 on its website.
Shapiro on Tuesday accused Kennedy of covering them up. “It is also deeply concerning to learn that the Secretary personally intervened in an otherwise administrative process to direct the CDC to not report these Pennsylvania deaths, presumably because it doesn’t fit his phony narrative,” he wrote on X.
Junior is a joke but no one's laughing because he is a sad, sad joke. Instead of dealing with the reality of measles in the US. Beth Mole (ARS TECHNICA) notes:
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will deliver a keynote address at an anti-vaccine conference being held in Washington, DC, later this week and hosted by the anti-vaccine organization he once led, Children’s Health Defense (CHD). The organization announced Monday that Kennedy had signed on to the event.
Kennedy will appear alongside other high-profile figures in the anti-vaccine world, including Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced former doctor who was stripped of his medical license over a fraudulent, now-retracted study that falsely claimed a link between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. An investigation by a medical board found that Wakefield had mistreated vulnerable children and that his actions amounted to serious professional misconduct.
How did this moron become Secretary of Health and Human Services? Because he promised to endorse Chump if Chump made him Secretary of Health and Human Services.
"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Tuesday, September 15, 2026. More people move away from Chump as he tries to make the midterms about himself.
Chump is out of step with the American people. For example, Andrew Stanton (NEWSWEEK) reports:
President Donald Trump’s approval rating on AI was underwater in polls conducted before several artificial intelligence (AI) researchers warned that the rapidly developing technology could pose catastrophic risks to humanity in the coming years.
The issue of AI safety catapulted to the forefront of American political discourse over the past few days after Jacob Coxon, a former AI researcher for Anthropic and OpenAI, sounded the alarm last week, warning that the industry is not acting responsibly. He said there will soon be “superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”
A new poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst conducted last month found that many Americans are unhappy with Trump’s performance on AI issues. Only 23 percent said they believe he has handled AI “very well” or “somewhat well,” while 57 percent said he has handled it “not too well” or “not well at all.” An additional 20 percent were undecided.
The poll surveyed 1,000 respondents from August 21 to 26, 2026—before the latest round of AI safety warnings—and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Broken down by party, only 5 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of independents said they believe he has handled the issue well. Even among Republicans, only 51 percent said they believed he has handled it well, while 24 percent rated his performance as “not well,” the poll found.
No one thinks he has handled the issue well because he hasn't. Ahmad Austin Jr. (MEDIAITE) adds:
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten revealed Monday that Americans have grown extremely dissatisfied with President Donald Trump’s handling of AI.
Since the start of his second term, Trump has repeatedly stressed that the U.S. must win the supposed AI race against China. Americans, however, have not been pleased with the president’s approach. Citing data from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Enten revealed that Trump’s net approval on AI — which was already underwater a few months earlier — has begun to crater.
“The American people despise President Trump when it comes to his handling of artificial intelligence,” Enten said. “You could see it right here. Trump’s net approval rating of AI. That’s approval minus disapproval. Look at this overall: he’s 34 points underwater! My goodness gracious! And somehow, that’s become worse over the course of the year because back in March, he was closer to around 25 points underwater.”
That net approval of -34, however, paled in comparison to the low mark set by Independents. Among that voting bloc, Trump’s net approval on AI was a disastrous -61.
He's vested in AI and so he refuses to see what others see, the dangers that others see. He turns a blind eye because there's money to be made and he'll probably be dead within ten years so he's not that concerned about the future of this country. J.D. Wolf (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes:
Trump is once again defending the rapid expansion of AI data centers while dismissing growing opposition to them. In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump described the backlash as an “outburst” and claimed it is happening because “the United States is leading, by a lot, every other country” in AI.
He then warned, “Don’t kill the Golden Goose,” portraying resistance to data centers as potentially threatening the economic and technological advantages he says the United States is gaining.
Trump has repeatedly argued that communities opposing data centers risk missing out on jobs, wealth and other economic benefits. During a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham that aired Friday, he said communities that resist them could “want to be poor” and warned that the United States should not be “the stupid people” who chase data centers away.
He doesn't know how to talk to the American people because he's so out of touch with them. He lives in his bubble surrounded by people who kiss his rear and refuse to tell him the truth. In fairness to them, Chump tends to explode when the truth is told to him so they probably figure, "Two more years? I can ride this out." They can try. But it only further separates Chump from the American people. And, bit by bit, he continues to bleed support. Ed Kilgore (INTELLIGENCER) notes a group whose support Chump is losing:
When Donald Trump reclaimed the White House in 2024 and Republicans won a trifecta by flipping control of the Senate, one story seemed to capture the moment most dramatically. That was the strong trend in the GOP’s favor among Latinos generally, and Texas Latinos in particular, with the rural and small-town precincts of the Rio Grand Valley leading the way. The Texas Tribune explained at the time:
Texas Latino trends were prominent in the optimistic predictions of Republicans that their 2024 gains weren’t just the product of a backlash against a stumbling Democratic Party and its unstable presidential leadership, but signs of a permanent political realignment in the GOP’s favor. But as the 2026 midterm elections grow near, it’s increasingly apparent that Trump has alienated a lot of the voters he won over two years ago, beginning with Texas Latinos, as a new poll illustrates, per Cook Political Report:
A new survey of Texas Hispanic likely voters, conducted for The Cook Political Report and TelevisaUnivision, finds the Democratic candidates in the state’s Senate and gubernatorial contests leading their GOP opponents by a 2-1 margin with the key voting bloc, as President Donald Trump’s job approval rating in the state has sunk to just 33% with a demographic group that swung hard in his direction in 2024.
The poll, conducted August 26 —September 3 by Democratic firm Hart Research and Republican firm OnMessage Inc, also included an oversample of Hispanic voters in the Rio Grande Valley/South Texas, the centerpiece of Trump’s 2024 coalition and the home to three marquee House races (in TX-15, TX-28 and TX-34). In that subsample, Democrats enjoyed a 14 point advantage over Republicans, 53% to 39%, on the generic ballot.
Democrats’ strong showing among Hispanics in the Lone Star state is a significant shift from 2024, when Trump carried Hispanic voters by 10 points and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz carried them by three.
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A significant shift. And these significant shifts are taking part in every demographic set. Marni Rose McFall (NEWSWEEK) notes another group Chump is struggling with:
President Donald Trump’s approval rating on the economy among women has dropped to a new low, according to a new CBS News Battleground Tracker poll showing just over a quarter of women approve of the president’s handling of the economy.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House via email for comment.
The poll, conducted September 8-11 among 2,460 U.S. adults, comes as Trump and Republican candidates seek to maintain congressional majorities in the November midterms, with the president increasingly making himself the focal point of campaigns. Speaking to supporters at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas last week, Trump said, “Pretend that I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot, just one more time.”
Pretend he's on the ballot? That's not going to work for him. In 2020, he was on the ballot and he lost. In 2016, he did win. But the midterms aren't governed by the electoral college. The midterms are about the popular vote. Chump lost it in 2020 to Joe Biden. But in 2016, when he won, he did so via the electoral college. He lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. So three times, he's been on the ballot. And two of those three times, the American people voted for someone else.
So pretend he's on the ballot?
He's not as popular as he was in 2024 as his fading demographics and low poll numbers demonstrate. And that's because, among other reasons, he's destroyed the economy. Bruce Golding (INDEPENDENT) reports:
The recent surge in gas prices has experts saying the issue could drive the results of November's midterm elections — signaling trouble for Republicans as President Donald Trump admits relief won't likely come before then.
The average national cost of a gallon of regular unleaded topped $4.31 Monday, up 36 percent from more than $3.17 a year ago, according to AAA.
Diesel — which powers delivery trucks, affecting the cost of groceries and other consumer goods — hit a new record high of $6.23 a gallon, up nearly 69 percent.
The situation leaves GOP lawmakers facing a rocky road as they map out their path to victory against Democrats eager to seize control of the House and Senate.
Fortunately, not all elected politicians are as out of it as Chump. On Senator Elizabeth Warren, Aniket Verma (BENINGA) notes:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on Sunday that President Donald Trump has prioritized his own financial activities, such as selling memecoins, over efforts to ease the cost of living for Americans.
Warren stated in an X post that people “are choosing between paying rent and buying groceries, while also cutting back on insulin and selling plasma just to get by.
The senior Democrat has been a vocal critic of the U.S. health care system, saying it is forcing families into impossible financial choices. She previously cited reports about people skipping medication due to cost, even with insurance.
And it's voices like Warren's that are resonating with the American people as they look around and see inflation everywhere. Julian Fernandez (SO YUMMY) notes the cost of groceries:
Food prices have also continued facing pressure from multiple sources. Severe weather has affected crop yields, bird flu outbreaks have reduced poultry supplies, cattle inventories have shrunk, and transportation and energy costs remain elevated. Tariffs on some imported foods, including products such as coffee, tomatoes, and chocolate, have also contributed to higher prices for consumers.
Even as wages have increased for many workers, housing, utilities, and other living expenses have also climbed, leaving many families feeling that their grocery dollars simply do not stretch as far as they once did. As a result, affordability continues to be one of the biggest financial concerns for households across the country.
While Nick Ingram and Sudhin Thanawala (LOS ANGELES TIMES) note the cost of diesel:
The price of diesel is hitting record highs just when many U.S. farmers need it to power combines, tractors and other equipment to harvest two of the nation’s largest commodities, soybeans and corn.
The spike adds to an already tough year for these farmers, who also faced higher costs for fertilizer, seeds and equipment.
Diesel hit a record price in the U.S. on Sept. 4, soaring to an average of $5.85 a gallon for the first time as the six-month war with Iran disrupted the world’s flow of fuel.
It has gone even higher since then, going for an average price of $6.05 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA.
“Those prices hurt,” said Paul Mitchell, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And it’s not just the harvesting. It’s the hauling of everything, moving the grain or the silage from the field to the farm and then from the farm to wherever they’re selling it.”
And guess what? Motor oil? The rationing is starting there. Michelle Chapman (AP) notes COSTCO is imposing limits on motor oil:
Costco has raised the price of motor oil sold under its exclusive private-label brand as well as limited how much of it customers can buy weekly as oil prices climb yet again.
Americans looking to try to save some money by purchasing motor oil to do their own oil changes may consider this yet another blow to their wallets, as they are already contending with high grocery prices and inflation worries.
Costco's Kirkland Signature full-synthetic motor oil 5-quart two pack now costs around $58, well above the approximately $30 it had been selling for just last year. Costco is also only allowing customers to purchase two boxes a week.
The wholesale club operator is also limiting purchases of Mobil 1's full-synthetic motor oil 1-quart six pack, which sells for about $44, to five per membership.
Silvian Secara (CAR BUZZ) explains, "Desperate times call for desperate measures, and skyrocketing prices are no longer the only issue caused by the dwindling oil supply. Apparently, the situation is so dire that Costco started rationing its house brand of motor oil earlier this week, as reported by the folks over at The Auto Wire. Its own Kirkland Signature brand had just about doubled in price over a few short months, with 10 quarts of full-synthetic now costing you $58 compared to just 30 bucks around April." Giulia Carbonaro (NEWSWEEK) wonders if WALMART will be the next to ration?
Chump has increased the costs of everything for the American people. But he's not the only one taking advantage of Americans. Sasha Rogelberg (FORTUNE) reports on Chump's buddy Jeff Bezos:
The U.S. workforce has just made the type of history it likely wishes it didn’t. Working Americans are taking home the smallest percentage of economic output, 52.8%, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the metric in 1947.
But as the share of wealth workers take home through wages—called labor share—is shrinking, corporate profits have exploded, with the S&P 500 index gaining 600% since the beginning of the century, while wages have increased just 12.5% over the same period, adjusted for inflation.
In other words: Corporations are raking in cash, but American workers are reaping less and less of the rewards.
The consequences associated with shrinking labor shares are now becoming tangible. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that across the 11 states sampled, Amazon, the country’s largest company by revenue, has 12,346 workers on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and 11,338 relying on Medicaid. That was nearly triple the number of Amazon employees in need of federal assistance compared to 2020, when GAO conducted a similar report. During that same period, Amazon saw an increase in annual profits from $11.6 billion to $77.7 billion. Amazon’s 2025 revenue soared 12% year-over-year, from $638 billion to a record $717 billion.
That's Jeff Bezos. Chump's friend. Underpaying workers and expecting tax payers to pick up his slack. He really is disgusting human being which is why so many of us rolled our eyes when Meryl Streep was praising him back when she was promoting that bad film she made with Tom Hanks. He's Chump's friend and he's not the American tax payers' friend.
Meanwhile, Chump's administration has been caught deleting evidence. Sarah K. Burris reports:
Former officials in President Donald Trump's administration have been caught by the court deleting messages and potentially relevant evidence despite ongoing court cases and an order to retain documents.
Daily Beast correspondent Tom Latchem noticed the filing that popped up on Sept. 11, showing that at least two former Homeland Security officials deleted information.
Former Secretary Kristi Noem's top staffer, Karen Evans, served as "one of the ousted Department of Homeland Security chief’s most trusted aides," the report claimed. After she was told to retain information, including Signal chats, she "intentionally destroyed" those messages.
Judge Susan Illston wrote in a court filing that Evans, a former acting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) leader, acted with “intent to deprive” plaintiffs of the information requested in the case.
"Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e)(2), plaintiffs are therefore entitled to a presumption that the information lost was unfavorable to defendants," the judge said.
"Evans should have known better," the judge blasted. "She previously served as Chief Information Officer at DHS, in charge of the agency’s records preservation policies. At a hearing on this litigation, her personal attorney touted that 'she is more so an expert” on Signal “than anybody else here[.]'"
Evans created the Signal chat that would likely have been "highly relevant" to the case, but she set her messages to auto-delete in four weeks, according to a message in the chat.
"On March 11, 2026, after she had been named as a defendant in this case and with plaintiffs’ emergency motion pending, Evans shortened the auto-delete timer on one of her FEMA Signal chats. And it wasn’t until April 25, 2026, that Evans created a back-up of her Signal messages, by which point the most timely messages were long since deleted," the judge explained.
Staying with Homeland Security, Richard Luscombe (GUARDIAN) reports:
Before the facility was shuttered, detainees at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” federal immigration jail were frequently locked in outside metal cages no bigger than a phone booth, according to a damning government watchdog report that said the practice “does not align with standards for humane treatment”.
The findings from the office of the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were published on its website – and offer rare criticism of the Trump administration by one of its own agencies.
The report also provides the first official confirmation that guards repeatedly used the highly restrictive cages on detainees in direct contravention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rules.
In December, the Guardian was the first to report an Amnesty International dossier detailing multiple alleged human rights abuses at the controversial camp in the remote Florida Everglades, including how people were regularly shackled outside in metal cages for hours as well as exposed to brutal heat, sunshine and swarms of mosquitoes.
Homeland Security can't even house people correctly. They refuse to do so. They target a population and once they have them in custody, they don't follow the rules anymore than they did before they took the people into custody. Laura Strickler (NBC NEWS) adds:
The DHS watchdog findings are a rare instance when a federal inspector general has publicly criticized the Trump administration. Since he returned to office in 2025, President Donald Trump has fired at least 18 inspectors general, who operate within federal agencies but are tasked with conducting objective audits and investigating allegations of waste, fraud and abuse of power.
Homeland Security’s inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, is one of the few Cabinet-level inspectors general who wasn’t fired in the purge.
DHS IG inspectors visited the facility in January. The inspector general’s report found the “small metal enclosures” were roughly 4-by-4, or 16 square feet, and facility staff members described them as “calming areas” for “detainees to de-escalate and have time alone.”
The facility also had indoor cages that measured 18 square feet, the report says.
The cages are less than half the size of the smallest spaces that people are supposed to be held in at immigration detention facilities. ICE guidelines say rooms designed to hold one person at a time should be a minimum of 37 square feet. By comparison, solitary confinement cells at federal prisons are around 84 square feet.
Lastly on Homeland Security, Shawn Cohen and Phillip Nieto and Elina Shirazi (DAILY MAIL) report:
Donald Trump's White House is leaving Kristi Noem's rumored lover, Corey Lewandowski, out to dry as a criminal investigation looms over him.
Lewandowski, who ran Homeland Security as Noem's de facto chief of staff before they were both ousted in March, is under investigation over his handling of billions of dollars in no-bid contracts and stands accused of trying to turn taxpayer money into personal profit, according to multiple reports.
Two senior Trump officials close to the president told the Daily Mail the White House will not step in to shield Lewandowski if the Homeland Security inspector general (IG) investigators refer him to the Justice Department for prosecution.
The Daily Mail reported exclusively in March that the watchdog has launched a wide-ranging criminal investigation of Noem, Lewandowski and associates involved in the rewarding of contracts, ordering dozens of current and former employees to preserve all communications including documents, text messages, emails, and phone records.
Chump's where the buck is supposed to stop. And he picked every member of his crooked administration. So all of this is on him, all the corruption, all the illegal actions. The fish rots from the head.
Yesterday, Chump again insisted that every American adult will get a $5,000 check if Republicans control both houses. Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) reports:
Prominent conservative Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire has called Trump’s pledge “idiotic” and “flagrant bribery,” and major Republican donor and Trump supporter Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir, described the president’s promise as “bread and circus bribes.”
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Washington, D.C. — In response to Pete Serrano’s nomination for U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Washington, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) has issued the following statement.
“Pete Serrano is not qualified to serve as U.S. Attorney and his extreme right-wing views are completely out of touch with the priorities of Washington state. His record hasn’t changed—he tried to rewrite the history of the violent January 6th insurrection and sides with anti-abortion extremists.
“Let’s be clear about what a sham this is: after federal judges declined to appoint Serrano in Eastern Washington, this administration invented a workaround to install him anyway. Now they want to permanently install Serrano in the Western District. When the federal judges in the Western District appointed a highly qualified prosecutor unanimously—this President fired him within an hour for no cause.
“The people of Washington state deserve a serious U.S. Attorney who will follow the law, not a political loyalist who thinks the law is whatever the President says it is. I will be using every tool I have to block this nomination.”
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