1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

This is how taxpayer money is spent to make our lives and country better… Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy took his family on a seven-month road trip to film a realty show called The Great American Road Trip, while on the job. Then told Fox that “it fits any budget to do a road trip” and encouraged us to hit the road, on a day when the national average for a gallon of gas was $4.54. Guess he didn’t have to pump or pay for his own gas on his getaway. The NYT reports that Trump gave a no-bid $6.9M contract for work on the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Which is now a lovely shade of Las Vegas blue. No reviews. No bids. Just did a workaround to award a no-bid contract to a company that has never before won a federal contract, but had worked at one of his golf clubs. The contract is for more than triple the $1.8M Trump promised. All so he can show how quickly he can ruin yet another national monument in time for our 250th BD. He’s a kid in a candy shop with our money. But we don’t get any of the candy. The NYT explains that the Defense Dept’s claim that the war with Iran has cost taxpayers $25B tallies only the price of the 2,000 spent Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, airplanes lost, and other matériel used. Not lives lost. Disruption to global oil markets. Companies shut down (like Spirit Airlines). Heightened geopolitical tensions. Higher interest rates. Lower stock prices. Lower economic growth. Iran’s new ability to charge tolls in the Strait of Hormuz to fund its nuclear ambitions. Or the new need for countries to increase military spending. Their analysis notes that the Iraq war cost about $3T and estimates the Iran war “will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and very possibly trillions.” The Atlantic reports that Trump is “bored” with the war and wants to move on. Five of Trump’s aides and advisors told them Trump is convinced he can sell any agreement as a win. But Iran remains unconvinced. As do we the people. WaPo reports that FEMA has been denying aid to states that have Democratic-led governments while speeding it to Republican-dominated states. ProPublica reports that the Trump administration has granted a two-year pause on compliance with the Clean Air Act to more than 180 facilities, like coal power plants and medical sterilizers, that are polluting in 38 states and Puerto Rico. They sidelined the EPA by using a presidential exemption that has never been used before, under seemingly false pretenses. Trump has also invoked his usual national security justification for the pause, claiming that the US is in a national energy emergency out of concern that emerging industries, like AI and the data centers on which AI relies, will not be able to get the huge amounts of energy they need. We won’t get to breathe clean air but at least AI will be happy. Courts have now ruled that even Trump’s modified 10% global tariffs are illegal. So he’s threatening even higher tariffs. Meanwhile a 22-foot gold statue of Trump was installed at his golf course in Miami. A group of crypto investors paid for the $450,000 statue as part of a promotional push for their new memecoin. The definition of a golden calf. But with all the rampant corruption, bankrupting of the country by an incompetent president and his compliant Congress, we at least get to read about any aliens amongst us in newly released government files. See how easily it can be done? So why haven’t the rest of the Epstein files been released? How about instead of golden monuments and garish bankrupting ‘improvement’ to our national symbols you give the people what we actually want on our 250th birthday…leadership with integrity. Release the Epstein files.