August 1, 2025: America’s Newest Day Of Infamy

On so many fronts, the first day of August was a terrible day for the United States. 

We're sending nuclear submarines off the coast of Russia because President Trump must fitfully respond to Russian saber-rattling with anything to distract from the cause du jour, the ascension of convicted pedophile Ghislaine Maxwell to a cozy prison retreat in Texas. 

Beyond today’s psychic hits to national security, child abuse and judicial norms (all wrapped up in one), Trump also took to disemboweling the gold standard of American economic institutions, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The monthly jobs report, a bulwark of economic data and guidance, didn’t suit Trump’s liking. So he sacked the BLS commissioner, an honest bureaucrat whose departure makes for likely suspicious numbers ahead. 

August 1 signals to the world’s bankers that America cannot be counted on to be truthful about forthcoming economic data — given that autocratic Trump will install a nefarious chef to cook the books to please. 

The jobs numbers are down due to Trump’s disastrous immigration crackdowns and tariffs, which kicked in August 1. Still, there’s $200 million to redo the White House ballroom. In Trumpian gold leaf, to be sure.

We have become mummified to Trump's excesses. Needless to say, if Obama, Biden or Bush had committed the same atrocious acts, impeachment would ring all over the land.  

In the Ghislaine Maxwell case, Trump has demagnetized our moral compass. A heinous woman who used money and power along with consort Jeffrey Epstein to dehumanize hundreds of young girls is striding toward a full pardon by Trump. The minimum-security gambit is just a way to numb America’s fading vision of protecting our children — and shielding Trump’s past. 

In just six months, Trump’s shriveling of America has taken hold. Institutionally, media companies, law firms and universities have all kowtowed to Trump, agreeing to pay ransoms to “comply” with Trump grievances about liberals, diversity-equity initiatives and anti-Israeli sentiment on elite college campuses. 

Even the federal courts can’t catch a break, knowing that whatever ruling goes against Trump’s demagoguery will doubtless be reversed by the complicit US Supreme Court.

Numb yet?

Every action coming out 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is meant to castrate American democracy. But the Democrats are decaying too fast to thwart Trump’s messianic behaviors.

On August 1, 2025, American allies  drew closer toward acknowledging genocide in Gaza — with the United States on the wrong side of life, if not also liberty and the Palestinian pursuit of happiness. More in Gaza were killed today as they struggled to secure food amidst gangs and Israeli bullets supplied by the United States.

Meanwhile, our own food scarcity is starker, given federal cuts and food banks decrying dwindling stocks amid overwhelming demand. 

Those who can buy travel almost comatose through half-empty supermarkets, now numb to prices. With impulse buying out the window, shoppers arrive with smartphone lists instead. 

Expect even more of the same as Proctor & Gamble’s 25-percent hike takes effect August 1 on its product line. The household goods leader blames increased costs for tariff-laden raw materials. It’s goodbye, Crest and Tide, hello bargain brands.

The nation’s cultural sensibilities  also took a big hit today. The Smithsonian Institution’s impeachment exhibit will no longer feature twice-impeached Trump. Someone ordered that fact deleted. But down the street, the storied Kennedy Center Opera House may soon have, on full display, the name of the president’s wife, whose cultural contributions were highlighted in her nude pictorials.

Those announcements pale with August 1’s devastation that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will wind down operations. CPB is closing after Trump rescinded $1.1 billion in funding for the nonprofit that has helped sustain National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, and it counts hundreds of local public media stations across the country.

“Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement, “providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country.”

Yes, America, Big Bird is dying.

Borrowing from another cultural icon, and referencing Denzel Washington after he got shot in the butt in his Oscar-winning “Training Day”: What a day! What a motherfucking day!”

NO WAY TO TREAT A FRIEND

Goodbye FEMA. Trump is dismantling it. Truth will come when we have back-to-back hurricanes in 2025. He says the states are well equipped to handle natural disasters. No way, I say.

Goodbye storied Voice of America. For decades, citizens from around the world have listened intently to what democracy sounds like. It gave them hope and fervor. Not any more, to be sure. Adios to America’s low-cost propaganda machine, which triumphantly and accurately broadcasted morsels of humanity, trust and American goodwill.

Goodbye National Weather Service. Trump has gutted that vital meteorological agency. No way will they be able to help pinpoint impending disaster. 

Remember, in his first term, Trump took a Sharpie to diagram where a hurricane was supposed to hit along the Gulf Coast. Of course, he was dead wrong. 

And he will be wrong again — as time will show that our communities are more vulnerable with the lack of this technological expertise to gauge and try to get the upper hand against an ever-meaner Mother Nature.

Goodbye to the Department of Education. Students? We don’t need no friggin’ students, paraphrasing Trump, aided by his wrestling crony, who has no education experience. None. Nada!

In the midst of an exploding measles outbreak, his nutty buddy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., bids a nasty farewell to our health-protection agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, with thousands more firings at the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Many people at that agency learned they were terminated when their security badges were pulled at the door as they showed up to work. 

This whole alleged cost-cutting and rooting out abuse is a bridge too far. It is a dodge, a fraud perpetrated unto We The People.

Speaking of people, paltry little has been said about the rampant abuse to our federal work force. 

And don’t buy into any ugly Trump trope.  Civil service has been their calling, and they are experienced and competent — loyal to their jobs and these United States of America.

In these calamitous times, they have been subjected to hateful and passionate indignities. But adding more context: The people hired to protect us, in one way or another, are being let go.

Unceremoniously.

These mass firings will tear apart families and communities throughout the land, as breadwinners no more come home with the news.

Countless terrible stories are on the horizon with the loss of federal workers. Try making a call to the Social Security Administration. Wait times at Veterans Administration clinics and hospitals are sure to increase exponentially with the proposed hacksaw to the VA. How many veterans will suffer due to the lack of care? How many more will commit suicide with their support gone?

And don’t wonder whether that forklift operator or farm equipment assembly worker, or a hospital janitor will get workplace protections even after an accident. The occupational safety inspectors are gone, too. 

Consequently, Americans will perish because they work in hazardous conditions with federal oversight absent.

In the fourth month of this moronic U.S. presidency, Trump spews rapid-fire hurt. Daily, sometimes hourly, his policies impact working Americans, our vital student population, our old, and the most vulnerable.

In this era of White House Big Mac Attacks, it really doesn’t matter what’s on a new menu.

Just get me out of this vomit.

                    —30–

https://substack.com/@dwightcunningham?r=352h0i&utm_medium=ios

A PLEA — WHILE THER IS STILL TIME

Let me preface this by stating that I have been a transportation reporter and aviation enthusiast since childhood, and took that passion skyward when I joined the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. 

That said, let me be blunt: Trump — once again — is using a tragedy for his own racist benefit while ignoring facts. He blames diversity initiatives for the fatal Washington crash, pointing to control tower personnel as being unintelligent and of “low aptitude” because of diversity initiatives. 

Utter racist rubbish.

The reality is that for years, the passenger and cargo airline industries have castigated federal officials for the chronic shortage of air traffic controllers. The shortage is costly, and has contributed to chronic delays, cancellations, prolonged flight times and extended taxi periods.

Here’s an earlier bit of American aviation history: The FAA has been chronically understaffed since President Ronald Reagan fired all of the striking controllers in the 1980s. I covered that event.  (And I could never understand why they named Washington National Airport after him following that nasty, egotistic act.)

Fast forward 30 years and tens of thousands of controllers have retired or are now retiring because they have reached the mandatory retirement age of 56. Burnout also remains high. So, today there remains a chronic shortage of ATCs. 

Meanwhile, the standards for hiring and training remain high. But controllers are saddled with an antiquated nationwide air traffic system in need of expensive and critical 21st Century hardware and software upgrades.

At the time of the Washington crash, reports say that there was one controller in the DCA tower handling two positions, which some say is not unusual. But Trump, with no facts, is blaming the loss of 67 Americans aboard the two aircraft on diversity and equity initiatives in the control tower. How utterly ungodly and shameless.

But give him credit. Trump has hit a trifecta: 

• An undereducated and misinformed populace. 
• MAGA gone wild. 
• And a hollowed-out news media too cowardly to challenge the wannabe oligarch. (And don’t forget that he’s making millions in the White House with his cryptocurrency stakes, etc.)

Fundamentally, it is time for us citizens to take back the news and not be distracted by this Trump racist and rhetorical nonsense.

On the DEI front, many of my Facebook friends are solid journalists, present and past, who happen to be Black and Brown folks. I have followed your careers and reveled — in your bylines, live shots and constant achievements.

And if you don’t happen to be a journalist, that’s also great because you are leaders in your own fields and magnum force is needed at this crucial moment.

I think about the legends who helped me along the way: Arthur M. Carter of The Washington Afro-American; Mal Goode, the first TV network correspondent; Pulitzer winners Leon Dash, Acel Moore and Les Payne; and, Dorothy Gilliam of The Washington Post and Maynard Institute.

I wonder what they would say, what they would do to fight this patently vindictive civil rights rollback that’s creating seismic schisms in our society.

Thus, I know that we must do something to protect The Village. As journalists, we must do what we’ve always done: Speak truth to power.

That’s what Art, Acel, Leon, Les and Dorothy would do — and we are their legacy.

The Village, once again, is in peril. Let’s form a consortium or create strategies to harness our energy talents, and belief in a democratic future — while there is still time.

Rich Man, Poor Us

There is a depression over the land, and it grows with each passing day under this new Trump administration. Instead of inspiring, he is taking us down his own dark path of American madness. 

Speaking to retired federal employees, I know what is happening in Washington, DC. They know what’s happening in the hinterland with the federal programs they used to administer. Their programs were built to protect the old, the young, the sick, the poor — and every one of them is in jeopardy. The people who administer these programs at the grassroots — such as Medicare and food stamps — are now in limbo as well. Their staffs are being put on notice that they may not have jobs in coming days. 

This burgeoning nationwide mental health crisis also heavily touches the career civil service workforce, people who have given their entire existence to careers that benefit the public. Many of these federal employees are now depressed, not knowing which way to turn with Trump’s recent buyout offer. These are people with families. These are people with mortgages and children to care for, and aging parents to watch over. These are people with bills. These are people. 

Donald Trump does not care about people, only his entitled cabal of wannabe oligarchs. 

Now, Google is renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Indeed, America has a growing gulf of insecurity bordering on insanity. The Gulf of America is now aptly named because we are in uncharted waters. 

Better yet, uncaring waters, Dear America.