Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Today, the Supreme Court is letting Trump move forward with his mail ballot post office plan, a whole secret White House bunker built during the Obama administration that could undermine Trump’s ballroom national security argument, the mayor of Gary Indiana says 12 days without power is unacceptable, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has made a ruling that will help some immigrants, Trump escalated his trade war with Canada by threatening to hit imported cars, trucks, automobile parts and steel with 50% tariffs starting Jan. 1, 2027, California has canceled talks with Paramount over the Warner Bros. merger, and an arbitrator has ordered the Washington Post to reinstate Karen Attiah, who was fired after posting about Charlie Kirk.
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Sources:
Secret White House bunker undercuts Trump’s ballroom lawsuit, ex-officials say - The Washington Post
Frustration builds in US city struggling without power for 12 days
Washington Post Ordered to Rehire Fired Columnist Karen Attiah - The New York Times
Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, metals
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rubio-visas-revoke-e9c14fdfd0ada439d2b9d8694e678a46
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/24/nx-s1-5909592/trump-mail-voting-order-supreme-court
Thanks so much, Allison. We appreciate your hard work
Of all of these, the situation in Gary is the most pressing and concerning to me. You have a public company (NIPSCO) that is subject to state regulation and has prioritized every other recovery effort due to the storms (including data centers) over the welfare of of the 11th largest city in the state. And why? The facts scream right out at you - 1) They're predominately Black. (yes, I went immediately there), and 2) they're predominately poor, and thus have no "stroke" on Indianapolis' Capitol Hill as they aren't a part of the donor class.
So let the investigations begin, but the true answer here is staring us straight in the face - nationalize NIPSCO and turn it into a public power entity. Public Power is, statistically, lower cost and has greater responsiveness to its supported rate payers than the majority of publicly traded utility companies. Publicly traded utilities have a sordid history of harvesting their assets to maintain payouts to their investors.
Next time you're out, especially in rural areas look for the following - bleached out power poles, leaning poles, bent or broken cross arms, loose cables, rusting transformers. This means they're not replacing or maintaining the core distribution system, making them ripe for failure, and an indicator they're cooking the books. Look for lack of tree trim - trees touching the lines, or near to them - a sure sign of issue if high winds come up lines will come down and you'll experience lengthy outages. (full disclosure, once upon a time I consulted to T&D companies, redesigning HOW they maintain their Transmission and Distribution systems - I averaged a 24% reduction in cost and a 58% improvement in performance).
Governor Braun has a fairly straight forward tool at his disposal to address the callous disregard to human suffering NIPSCO has evidenced in Gary, IN, if he has the intestinal fortitude to alienate the donor class in favor of supporting his constituents. Nationalize NIPSCO and create People owned Public Power company.