It's the end of the summer as we know it

We've had an unusually normal August so far, with not a single day above 32°C all month in Chicago. Oddly, Wednesday might hit 33°C, despite being, you know, the second day of Autumn and all. But that's also pretty normal around here; we really don't get our first blast of autumn cool until the third week of September most years.

• Continuing the OAFPOTUS's second term as the apotheosis of Republican efforts to let businesses steal and pollute as much as they want, Russell Vought's idea of enforcing consumer protections is to "politely ask companies to behave," with predictable results.
• Speaking of ripping people off, is it any surprise that the owners of the "freedom fuel" gas stations may have stolen $4 m worth of gas to make their "discount" scheme work? It's not, if you've ever paid attention to how the OAFPOTUS and his droogs do business.
• Matthew Yglesias argues that Democrats should campaign on surrendering to the Canadians in this asinine trade war the OAFPOTUS started.
• It's not that pro-democracy Americans are opposed to resistance against the OAFPOTUS, Brian Beutler writes; they just want one that works.
• The fact that Republicans want a Constitutional amendment fixing the size of the Supreme Court at 9 tells you that we absolutely must increase its size to 13 as soon as we can.
• You know one of the best ways to cut our national debt? Collect the $600 billion in taxes that the super-rich are evading each year.
• A pro se plaintiff in Connecticut seeded his complaint with AI prompts in hopes of swaying the litigation, and the judge in the case was not amused.
• US District Judge Nancy Brasel (an OAFPOTUS appointee!) has ruled that professionals have First Amendment protections when advocating against their licensing agencies, in a big win for Strong Towns executive director Charles Marohn.
• United Airlines wants to dominate O'Hare the way American dominates Dallas-Fort Worth, which is a bad idea for everyone.

Ah, such light and happy news for the last day of summer!

Actually, I do have some light and happy news: I plan to push two software releases into production this afternoon. Stay tuned.