This evening, I want to leave you with a warning — not hyperbole, not political rhetoric, but a plain and urgent truth: what we are seeing in our nation today is not normal, and it is dangerous.
Over the past six months, we’ve watched institutions bend under pressure, some even break. Law firms have abandoned long-held legal principles to curry favor with those in power. Major media outlets, once courageous arbiters of truth, are pulling punches, wary of backlash or loss of access. But today, something more foundational cracked — something that strikes at the very core of how a democracy is supposed to function.
With institutions like the mainstream media caving to the White House, independent media is more important than ever to ensure the truth comes out, even as this White House fires those it disagrees with. I’ve committed my full energy to this work, and I’m expanding. Your support directly fuels investigations, coverage, and independence. Join us here — your subscription matters.
This afternoon, Donald Trump fired a Commissioner at the Department of Labor. Her offense? Releasing job numbers that reflected a summer stall in the American economy — numbers that were neither partisan nor unprecedented, simply data. Trump immediately claimed they were “rigged,” dismissed them outright, and accused her of being a Biden loyalist working to sabotage his administration. Within hours, she was out of a job.
Let’s be clear: the President of the United States does have the legal authority to hire and fire political appointees within the executive branch. That is not the issue here. The issue is why this firing occurred and what it signals to every civil servant in Washington and beyond.
From now on, anyone working within the federal government — especially in departments like Labor, Commerce, Treasury, and others that collect and release public data — will think twice before publishing anything the White House might find inconvenient. The message is unmissable: deliver data the President doesn’t like, and you may lose your job.
This is the moment when numbers stop being facts, and start becoming propaganda.
Now, back to what this moment means.
Job numbers are just the beginning. If a President is willing to retaliate against a top government official simply for reporting economic data he disagrees with, then what’s to stop similar pressure from being applied to:
Inflation figures?
Unemployment rates?
Budget deficits?
Climate data?
Public health metrics?
And once the public can no longer trust the numbers coming from its own government, it becomes infinitely harder to hold that government accountable. If the official statistics can’t be trusted, who do we turn to? How do we make decisions as voters, business owners, workers, families?
The answer is: we turn to a free press. Or at least, we’re supposed to.
But as many of you know, much of the traditional media ecosystem has become either too compromised or too cautious to fill that role with any consistency. Too many major outlets have responded to political intimidation with self-censorship. Others have tried to appear “balanced” by giving equal weight to outright lies and demonstrable facts. And some, quite frankly, have just stopped showing up when the fight gets hard.
That’s why I started this newsletter. To offer something different — a place for honest, rigorous, and fearless reporting. A place where truth isn’t adjusted to fit the political moment. And after today, I’m doubling down.
Over the next few months, I’ll be expanding this platform. I plan to bring on researchers to help dig into federal reports, compare public data, and follow the paper trails others overlook.
Because if the government starts lying to you, you deserve to know.
Let me be brutally honest: this kind of work is not easy. It doesn’t come with corporate sponsorships or safe assignments. It’s hard, it’s relentless, and it requires real resources. That’s why I’m asking — again, and sincerely — for your support. Paid subscriptions are the only reason I can do this work independently and full-time. If you’ve found value in this writing, and you want to see it grow, please consider subscribing. Even a few dollars a month helps us stay free of outside influence.
I won’t sugarcoat it — tonight is a dark night for American democracy. But we are not powerless. This is the moment when we decide whether to retreat into cynicism, or rise up with vigilance. The erosion of truth doesn’t happen all at once — it happens slowly, one firing, one silencing, one manipulated number at a time.
But so does the defense of truth. It starts one person at a time — choosing to stay informed, choosing to speak out, choosing to support independent journalism that doesn't flinch.
I’ll keep showing up every day. I hope you’ll stay with me.
More tomorrow —
Stay alert. Stay grounded. Stay loud.
Aaron
