Citron was not supposed to be swimming sideways. When rescuers found the female manatee in Florida’s Kings Bay in January, the unusual position was a sign that something was seriously wrong.

Veterinarians discovered that Citron had a pneumothorax, a condition in which air becomes trapped inside the chest because of damage to a lung. For a manatee, the injury can interfere with buoyancy, making it difficult to swim, remain submerged, or move normally through the water.

Citron was transported to SeaWorld Orlando, where veterinarians and animal-care specialists began what would become seven months of treatment and rehabilitation.

This was not her first rescue. Citron had also needed help in 2025, although that recovery was brief and she was quickly returned to the water. This time, the damage was more serious. Her caregivers performed multiple procedures, including surgery, and monitored her as she slowly regained her health.

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Eventually, Citron was eating normally again. Her medical problems had cleared, and, most importantly for an animal built to move gently through the water, her buoyancy had returned.

On August 27, the rescue team transported her to the Port Hotel and Marina in Crystal River. There, after months surrounded by examination rooms, medical equipment, and the people working to save her, Citron was released into her natural habitat.

Wildlife rehabilitation does not always end happily. Some injuries cannot be repaired, and some animals cannot safely return to the wild. That makes a release like Citron’s more than a pleasant animal story. It is the result of months of patience, specialized knowledge, and people continuing to care for an animal that could offer them nothing in return.

For seven months, a team of people helped Citron right herself. Now she is back in the waters where she belongs, swimming under her own power and, finally, in the right direction.

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A Note After Our First Week

Last Friday, Coffman’s Landing was a town waiting for us to arrive.

This week, we managed to lose a letter off the sign and give practically everyone something to say about it.

Five Minutes in America made its radio debut Monday. Our first week took us from “The Fence” to a boy’s mistake, a father’s workshop and a town that found it considerably easier to supply an explanation than to wait for one.

While writing these stories, I kept coming back to how much of community life depends on what we do after something goes wrong. Somebody has to carry the heavy end. Somebody has to admit what happened. And sometimes the rest of us have to stop talking long enough to hear them.

Those are familiar responsibilities, wherever you live.

This week, Heidi Crnkovic at AGDAILY also published a thoughtful conversation about the series. We talked about Eldon, the Lake of the Ozarks and the people who helped give Coffman’s Landing its character.

It meant a great deal to have someone ask about those roots. I made up the town, but I carry the places it came from with me. Writing these stories has given me a reason to spend some time there again.

Thank you to Heidi and the AGDAILY team. And thank you to everyone who spent five minutes with these stories this week.

If you haven’t visited yet, “The Fence” is a good place to begin.

We’ve only been here a week. There are still plenty of people to meet.

Stay free,

Tony Michaels

P.S. You don’t have to wait until Monday to see what happens next. Paid members get all five of next week’s stories tomorrow. Become a member and spend a little of your weekend in Coffman’s Landing.

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Sources: WFTV, CBS12, and Good Good Good.

The Form and the Phone Call

Somewhere in America, a family is sitting at a kitchen table with a federal inmate number written on a legal pad. Court records are stacked beside an envelope, along with letters from relatives and employers and a printed set of instructions on how to ask the president of the United States for mercy. Someone has highlighted the important parts. Someone else has double-checked the mailing address. They will fill out the forms, gather the documents, explain why the sentence should be reconsidered, and send it away. After that, there is mostly waiting.

Presidential clemency has always contained an unusual kind of hope. One person, exercising one of the broadest powers granted by the Constitution, can shorten a sentence or extend mercy after a federal conviction.

However, another part of the process does not appear on the application: who knows whom, who can make a call, who can get a case noticed, and who can make sure a request does not simply disappear into a stack of thousands.

When presidential mercy has more than one doorway, the most important question may not be who gets pardoned. It may be who gets close enough to ask.

Presidents Are Supposed to Pardon People

The pardon power exists for a reason. Article II gives the president authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, a power that includes commutations. It allows one person to reach into the federal criminal justice system and reduce or forgive punishment.

Sometimes that is exactly the point. Courts can impose lawful sentences that later seem excessive. People can change. Families can buckle under incarceration. New evidence can emerge. Mercy is not a defect in the system. It is part of the system.

That is why the mere fact that a president grants clemency to someone convicted of a serious crime tells us little on its own. Some people receiving clemency from President Donald Trump may have compelling cases. Their circumstances may have changed, their sentences may have been too long, or their families may need them. A fair examination has to leave room for that possibility.

The problem begins when the question is no longer simply whether a person deserves mercy, but whether some people have a better way of getting their case in front of the person who can grant it.

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Johnny Doc Got a Second Look

John Dougherty, the former Philadelphia labor leader widely known as “Johnny Doc,” had already asked for mercy. He was serving a six-year federal prison sentence after convictions in separate trials, one for bribing former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon, and another arising from the embezzlement of nearly $600,000 from the union Dougherty once led.

His wife, Cecilia, has long suffered from a debilitating brain injury that has left her paralyzed and largely unable to speak. Dougherty sought compassionate release so he could help care for her, but U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl repeatedly rejected his efforts to leave prison early.

Dougherty also sought mercy from the president. On July 10th, Donald Trump denied his commutation application along with about 5,600 others. Less than two months later, on September 3rd, Trump commuted the remainder of Dougherty’s sentence. Dougherty walked out of federal prison the following afternoon after serving less than two years of a six-year term.

A serious humanitarian explanation drove the reversal. Dougherty’s attorney, George Bochetto, said he had been in regular communication with White House staff while arguing that Cecilia Dougherty’s deteriorating condition required her husband’s care. A White House official also said her circumstances figured into the president’s decision.

However, the reversal leaves an important question sitting on the table. Thousands of people received denials in July. Dougherty got another look. What caused his case to come back before the White House? Who could keep making the argument after the formal process produced a no? And if another prisoner had an equally compelling story but no attorney communicating with White House staff, would that family have found the same second door?

The remarkable part of Dougherty’s story may not be that Donald Trump eventually said yes. It is that after the government said no, someone could still ask again.

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There Is an Economy Around Being Heard

Dougherty’s case points to something larger than one commutation: an economy has developed around access to presidential clemency.

Reuters identified 290 advocates who helped 197 successful clemency applicants during Trump’s second term. Some were lawyers, political allies, celebrities, lobbyists, or people with relationships inside Trump’s political world. Six people familiar with recent clemency efforts told Reuters that intermediaries with proven access to Trump’s circle can charge as much as $2 million, although Reuters could not establish what each adviser was paid in individual cases.

CBS News found that Mo Strategies, a lobbying firm founded by former Trump campaign and administration officials, received $500,000 from a law firm for work that included immigration and pardon-related discussions. In another case, political operatives disclosed $960,000 in lobbying income on behalf of Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home operator who later received a presidential pardon.

The evidence stops short of proving something much more serious. No public evidence shows that Donald Trump personally received those payments in exchange for pardons. Hiring a lobbyist is not bribing a president, paying an advocate does not guarantee clemency, and a fee does not establish corruption.

The evidence does establish that there is money to be made helping people cross the distance between an ordinary clemency application and presidential attention. A well-connected advocate may know which argument will resonate, which person should hear it, or how to keep a case alive after the ordinary process has stalled. None of that guarantees the president will say yes, but it can help make sure somebody asks him.

You may not be able to buy a pardon, but you can apparently buy a much better chance to be heard. The rich cannot necessarily buy mercy. They can buy proximity to the people who dispense it.

Once proximity to public power becomes something people can purchase, the question is what happens to everyone who cannot afford to get that close.

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At the Kitchen Table, There Is No One to Call

For most families, there is no political intermediary, celebrity willing to make a call, or lobbyist whose business is knowing which office to reach.

There is an application, along with supporting letters, court records, medical documents, employment offers, and whatever else might explain why somebody deserves another chance. Families put the case together as carefully as they can and send it into a system they do not control. Most Americans cannot hire access. They have to stand in line.

That does not mean every clemency applicant deserves the same answer. Equal citizenship does not require a president to grant mercy evenly or mechanically. It requires something more basic: the quality of a person’s case should matter more than the quality of that person’s connections.

One family may have a compelling story about rehabilitation, illness, an excessive sentence, or children growing up without a parent. Another may have a similarly compelling story and the resources to hire someone who can make sure the right people hear it. The difference should not be who can afford the better doorway.

When public power is difficult to reach, access itself becomes valuable, and people with money will always have more ways to buy it. The ordinary citizen is left with the form. The connected citizen may have the phone call. A republic should be very careful when those two things begin to produce different chances of being heard.

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Mercy Is Public Power

The president’s pardon power is personal in the sense that the Constitution places the decision in one office. It is not personal in the sense that the power belongs to the person occupying that office.

The Square New Deal begins from a simple premise: government authority is held in trust. Whether the power involves spending public money, enforcing the law, regulating a market, or granting clemency, the person exercising it must remember where that authority came from and to whom it ultimately belongs.

Different cases can deserve different outcomes. A person who has served decades, demonstrated rehabilitation, or faced extraordinary family circumstances may present a stronger case than someone else asking for relief. A case's strength should not depend on whether someone can afford proximity.

If two Americans are asking the same government to hear them, one should not begin several steps closer simply because money can purchase a lobbyist, a political intermediary, or access to people around the president. That is not an argument for weakening the pardon power. It is an argument for treating the power with the seriousness its breadth demands.

The more discretion one person holds, the more important transparency becomes around how people reach that discretion. Equal citizenship does not mean everyone receives the pardon. It means wealth should not determine who gets close enough to ask for one.

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Congress Cannot Pardon. It Can Turn On the Lights.

Congress cannot decide whom the president pardons, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress cannot legislatively diminish the pardon power. Oversight therefore has to stop short of controlling the clemency decision itself.

That does not require Congress to ignore everything surrounding clemency. Congress has historically overseen presidential pardons, including hearings after Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Lawmakers can examine the money and influence surrounding requests for mercy while respecting the constitutional boundary around the president’s final decision.

On July 22nd, Representatives Dave Min and Suhas Subramanyam introduced the Pardon Transparency and Accountability Act of 2026. The bill would require the president to publish a written explanation for grants of executive clemency and would extend federal lobbying-disclosure requirements to clemency-related lobbying. It was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. Whether every provision would survive constitutional scrutiny is a separate question.

The proposal points toward a useful division of responsibility. The president can retain the constitutional power to say yes or no while the public gains a clearer view of how a request reached presidential attention.

Congress should investigate whether paid influence is distorting access to the clemency process, examine whether lobbying rules adequately capture that activity, and pursue disclosure requirements that respect the constitutional boundary around the pardon itself.

Sunlight does not weaken mercy. It helps distinguish mercy from favoritism. The president may have the final word on whom he forgives, but the people’s branch should make sure Americans can see who had a voice before that word was spoken.

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Mercy Should Not Have a VIP Line

Back at the kitchen table, the paperwork is still there: the inmate number, the court records, and the letters from people trying to explain why someone they love deserves another chance.

Most families will never know whether anyone close to the president sees those pages, whether their case reached the right desk, or whether someone with more money and better connections moved through a different channel entirely.

That does not mean every pardon is corrupt, every politically connected applicant is undeserving, or Donald Trump lacks the constitutional authority to grant clemency. It means a republic should not be comfortable with a system in which proximity to presidential mercy can become a luxury good.

The pardon power exists because justice sometimes requires grace. But grace exercised through public power should not depend on whether a family can afford the people who know whom to call. An ordinary American should not need a celebrity, a prisoner should not need a lobbyist, and a family should not need political connections just to make sure its case is heard.

The president may decide whom to forgive, but mercy should not have a VIP line.

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Support Independent Media

The Coffman Chronicle is reader-supported because independent work only stays independent when readers make it possible.

If you believe public power should belong to the public, if you want government judged by the same rules whether someone is rich, connected, famous, or ordinary, and if you want more reporting and analysis built around that standard, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

If you can afford it, your support helps keep this work going. If you cannot, read, share, and pass it along. That matters too.

The goal is not to build a better team in Washington, but to build a government that remembers who it works for.

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Sources:

Kaminsky, Gabe. “A Trump-Linked Firm Is Lobbying for Pardons. Its First Client Already Paid $500,000.” CBS News. Updated June 24, 2026.

Palmer, Chris. “Johnny Doc Is a Free Man After President Donald Trump Cut His Six-Year Prison Term Short.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. September 4, 2026.

Palmer, Chris. “President Donald Trump Denied Johnny Doc’s Request to Be Let Out of Prison Early.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. July 21, 2026.

Reuters. “Trump Grants Clemency to 30 People, White House Pardon Czar Says.” September 5, 2026.

Taylor, Marisa, Chris Prentice, Kaylee Kang, and Allison Martell. “How to Get a Trump Pardon: Forget the DOJ, Call ‘Bobby’ and Other Influencers.” Reuters. June 11, 2026. Updated July 17, 2026.

U.S. Congress. House. “Pardon Transparency and Accountability Act of 2026.” H.R. 9860, 119th Cong., 2nd sess. Introduced July 22, 2026.

U.S. Congress. Library of Congress. “Congress’s Role in Pardons.” Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Accessed September 6, 2026.

U.S. Congress. Library of Congress. “Overview of Pardon Power.” Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Accessed September 6, 2026.

U.S. Department of Justice. Office of the Pardon Attorney. “Commutation Applications Denied by President Donald J. Trump on July 10, 2026.” Updated July 15, 2026.

U.S. Department of Justice. U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “Former Local 98 Business Manager John Dougherty Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Public Corruption, Embezzlement Convictions.” July 11, 2024.

The Physical Got More Personal

For years, the annual military health assessment has been part of the bargain. A service member answers questions about injuries, medications, and health, and undergoes examinations meant to determine whether he or she is medically ready to serve. Military service does not carry the same privacy expectations as a civilian desk job.

This year, for some service members, the physical was supposed to get more personal. A man over 30 would face testosterone-deficiency screening during his Periodic Health Assessment. A woman could be asked about changes in her menstrual patterns as part of an annual hormonal-health screen, with further evaluation possible if her cycle became unusually long or irregular.

Neither finding automatically means something is wrong, leads to treatment, or results in lost deployment status, but a test stops being abstract once the result belongs to you. A low number can mean another blood draw and appointment. A changed menstrual cycle can raise questions about nutrition, stress, endocrine health, or bone health. Testosterone treatment can also raise fertility questions for a family considering another child.

Washington may see a readiness initiative. At home, it may look like a lab result sitting between the salt shaker and the mortgage bill.

The military has a legitimate responsibility to know whether the people it may send into danger are medically capable of doing their jobs. But somewhere between checking whether a soldier can carry a rucksack and asking how many days pass between a woman’s periods lies a harder question: How much does the government need to know about your body before it can decide whether you are ready to serve?

The Pentagon Has a Real Job Here

The military is not an ordinary employer. Service members may have to carry heavy equipment, function after broken sleep, tolerate extreme heat, deploy on short notice, and perform while responsible for other people’s lives. Medical readiness is part of whether a unit can do what the country asks it to do.

That gives the Pentagon a legitimate interest in identifying health problems that could interfere with service. If military doctors miss treatable hormonal conditions that affect health or performance, the government should not ignore them simply because the information is personal.

There is a difference between examining someone who reports symptoms and building a recurring screening program, just as there is a difference between information a doctor needs and information the military needs for readiness.

The Square New Deal requires government to perform necessary work competently, narrowly, and with enough evidence to justify the power it uses. Military readiness is necessary government. That does not make every readiness policy necessary.

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Then the Pentagon Went Looking for Hormones

On July 15th, the Pentagon announced mandatory testosterone-deficiency screening for service members 30 and older during their Periodic Health Assessments, with optional screening for younger service members. The clinical guidance posted on September 2nd created separate pathways for men and women.

For male service members 30 and older, the guidance laid out screening followed, when indicated, by blood testing, further evaluation, and potentially voluntary treatment. The female pathway instructed providers to screen women annually for hormonal dysregulation, including fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, and changes in menstrual patterns. A cycle longer than 35 days could prompt assessment for Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, a condition tied to inadequate energy availability and risks to bone health, endocrine function, and readiness.

That is where the headline about the Pentagon “tracking women’s periods” came from. The guidance described recurring clinical screening of menstrual patterns; it did not establish a system in which commanders would keep menstrual calendars or require women to report every period through the chain of command.

Correcting an exaggeration should not require minimizing what the government proposed, however. A female service member’s menstrual pattern was being made an explicit part of recurring military medical screening. The government still has to explain why it needs that information, how it would be used, and what safeguards apply.

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Then the Instructions Disappeared

On September 2nd, the Pentagon publicly said the new Defense Health Agency guidance was “effective immediately” and established uniform screening and treatment pathways. By September 3rd, the document had been removed and temporarily rescinded for updates. The interim testosterone-screening policy remained in effect, and the Pentagon said it would issue final clinical guidance shortly.

Then the explanation changed. On September 4th, Tim Parlatore, a senior adviser to Pete Hegseth, said the document had been a draft, had not been approved for release, and had been posted inadvertently. He said it needed more input to ensure that it reflected current medical science rather than antiquated protocols.

While that does not prove the underlying policy is medically unsound or that anyone acted in bad faith, it does create an obvious accountability problem. The Pentagon’s September 2nd statement said comprehensive clinical guidance had been issued and was effective immediately. Two days later, a senior adviser called it an unapproved draft that should never have been posted.

For a policy involving testosterone screening, menstrual patterns, treatment pathways, and medical readiness, the government should be able to explain how those two accounts fit together.

If the document was an unapproved draft on September 4th, why did the Pentagon tell the public on September 2nd that it was effective immediately?

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A Lab Result Doesn’t Stay at the Clinic

A screening program looks clean on a policy memo. A service member experiences it differently.

The Endocrine Society recommends against starting testosterone therapy in men planning fertility in the near term, and it says a diagnosis of testosterone deficiency should involve symptoms along with consistently low laboratory measurements, not merely one low result. That does not mean a service member who screens low will automatically receive treatment. It means broader screening can lead to repeat tests, medical decisions, and questions that follow someone home.

An irregular or unusually long menstrual cycle can likewise lead to evaluation for energy-availability, reproductive, bone-health, or performance concerns. Identifying those problems may be good medicine, but good intentions do not make the consequences abstract.

A service member may leave an appointment wondering whether something is wrong. A spouse may wonder what another round of testing means. A couple trying to have a child may suddenly have questions about treatment and fertility. An abnormal result does not automatically mean treatment, nondeployability, lost promotion, or a threatened career, and we should not claim consequences the policy does not establish.

Once government begins looking for a medical condition, however, it assumes responsibility for what happens after it finds one. The next question is who gets to know the answer.

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What the Doctor Knows Is Not Necessarily What the Commander Needs to Know

Military medicine has always lived with a tension civilian healthcare usually does not. A doctor has a duty to the patient. The military also has a duty to know whether that patient can perform the mission.

A physician may need symptoms, laboratory results, menstrual history, medications, fertility concerns, and treatment options. The military health system may need enough information to make a readiness determination. A commander may need to know whether someone can deploy or perform a particular assignment. Those needs are related, but not identical.

Defense Department privacy rules permit disclosure of some protected health information to command authorities for fitness-for-duty and mission purposes. The Military Command Exception is not blanket access, however. Providers are supposed to disclose only the minimum necessary information, and commanders do not receive direct access to an entire medical record simply because they are commanders.

We have not established that the rescinded guidance would have given commanders individual testosterone readings or detailed menstrual histories. There is a meaningful difference between telling a commander that a service member cannot perform a particular duty and giving the commander every intimate medical detail that led a doctor to that conclusion. The government may need the readiness answer without needing the entire medical story.

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Why Screen Everybody?

The strongest argument against the Pentagon’s approach is not that testosterone screening is inherently bad medicine, but that routine screening of asymptomatic people is not the ordinary medical standard.

The Endocrine Society recommends against routine testosterone-deficiency screening in the general male population and said again in July that evidence is insufficient to support population-level blood testing of asymptomatic men. The American Urological Association similarly says a clinical diagnosis requires low testosterone measurements combined with symptoms or signs, confirmed through two separate early-morning tests. The Pentagon chose a broader starting point for military screening.

That does not settle the policy against the Pentagon. Military medicine is not civilian medicine with camouflage painted on it. Troops expected to deploy, carry heavy loads, and withstand extreme stress may have needs civilian screening guidelines were never designed to measure.

However, a different standard requires evidence. If broad screening improves military readiness, the Pentagon should show how. Does it reduce injuries, identify significant conditions that symptom-based screening misses, reduce lost-duty time, or improve deployability? The female pathway deserves the same scrutiny. If recurring questions about menstrual patterns identify health risks early enough to improve health and readiness, that is a serious argument for doing it.

Military necessity can justify medical rules that would make little sense for a civilian office worker, but military necessity should be supported by evidence, not invoked as a substitute for it.

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The Power to Ask Creates a Duty to Protect the Answer

Government sometimes has a legitimate reason to ask people for information they would rather keep private. Military service is one of the clearest examples. The power to ask, however, creates a duty to protect the answer.

If the Pentagon routinely collects information about testosterone levels, menstrual patterns, fertility concerns, or other intimate medical details, government becomes steward of what it has required people to reveal.

The Square New Deal offers a straightforward test. Is government performing a legitimate duty? If yes, is the intrusion necessary? That requires evidence that broad screening accomplishes something narrower screening cannot. Is the power narrowly designed? Government should collect no more information than it reasonably needs and move it no farther than the mission requires. Are service members protected once government has the information? That requires clear privacy rules, medical review, procedures for correcting errors, and limits on unnecessary disclosure.

Congress should be able to examine the evidence, costs, outcomes, false positives, adverse effects, readiness benefits, and privacy safeguards. National defense should not make a program immune from oversight.

The Square New Deal does not require government to do less than its duty. It requires government to justify the power it uses to perform that duty.

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A Uniform Does Not Make the Body Government Property

Putting on a uniform means accepting obligations most Americans will never be asked to carry. The government can tell a service member where to live, what physical standards to meet, whether to deploy, and whether a medical condition makes a particular assignment unsafe. In the most extreme circumstances, it can order that person toward danger on behalf of the rest of us. Extraordinary authority should produce extraordinary stewardship.

The Pentagon may ultimately demonstrate that broader hormone screening identifies serious health problems earlier, reduces injuries, improves readiness, and leaves service members healthier. If the evidence supports that conclusion, the government should make the case plainly.

However, service members are not equipment inventories. A testosterone level is not a maintenance code, nor is a menstrual history a readiness box to be checked without regard for the person answering the question. Behind every laboratory result is someone who may have to talk with a spouse, make a medical decision, reconsider family plans, or wonder whether a finding will affect the work that pays the mortgage.

If the Pentagon needs this information, it should explain why. If some portion must reach a readiness system or chain of command, it should explain what travels and why. If the military departs from ordinary civilian screening practices, it should show the military evidence that justifies the difference.

None of those requirements weakens readiness. They are part of competent government.

A service member can owe the country extraordinary duties without surrendering the government’s obligation to exercise its authority carefully. Military service does not turn the human body into government property. When the government needs to know something about a citizen’s body, it should be able to explain exactly why, and if an unapproved draft could be publicly described as effective immediately, the Pentagon should explain how that happened before it asks service members to trust the final version.

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Sources

• American Urological Association. “Testosterone Deficiency Guideline.” Accessed September 5, 2026.

• Endocrine Society. “Statement on Testosterone Replacement Therapy.” July 16, 2026.

• Endocrine Society. “Testosterone Therapy for Hypogonadism Guideline Resources.” March 19, 2018.

• Health.mil. “Military Command Exception.” Last updated June 9, 2025.

• Health.mil. “Periodic Health Assessment.” Accessed September 5, 2026.

• Martinez, Luis. “Pentagon ‘Temporarily Rescinds’ New Testosterone Guidelines.” ABC News, September 4, 2026.

• Oliverio, Natalie. “Pentagon Expands Hormone Screening Guidance to Include Female Service Members.” Military Times, September 3, 2026.

• Reuters. “Doctors Question Evidence Behind Pentagon Plan for Testosterone Screening.” July 18, 2026.

• Reuters. “Pentagon Temporarily Rescinds Guidance on Testosterone Screening for US Troops.” September 3, 2026.

• U.S. Department of War. “Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman, Sean Parnell, on Enhanced Screening Protocol to Optimize Warfighter Performance and Enhance Force Readiness.” July 15, 2026.

• U.S. Department of War. “Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman, Sean Parnell, on the Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization.” September 2, 2026.

Which means it’s time once again for Truth or Satire, the game where reality and parody fight in an alley while the rest of us stand around trying to remember which one used to have standards.

Five claims. You decide what actually happened.

“Oh, come on” remains a valid response, but not a source.

Score Yourself

0–1: You still expect events to behave. Adorable. You approached this exercise believing that somewhere there remained a natural boundary between “plausible news report” and “thing somebody made up after three margaritas.” Pinches your cheeks

2–3: Functional, but concerning. You can still distinguish reality from nonsense roughly as often as a coin can. This is now considered a marketable skill.

4–5: You have been assimilated. Congratulations. Your brain has successfully evolved to survive the modern information environment. Unfortunately, this means you can now read an insane sentence, stare silently into the middle distance, and think, Sure, why not? then doing a bit more searching before hitting repost.

Let’s play… Truth? or Satire?

YOU MUST BE THIS RAW TO RIDE

The Viral Claim

The FBI has removed bestiality and hiring prostitutes, among other conditions, from standards for new hires.

Background

Getting a job with the FBI has traditionally required considerably more than submitting a résumé and hoping nobody checks your Facebook page. Applicants undergo extensive background investigations that can include interviews with employers, coworkers, friends, and neighbors; reviews of financial and criminal records; drug screening; and, for many positions, a polygraph examination.

The scrutiny is warranted. FBI employees may handle classified information, criminal investigations, and other extremely sensitive material. A background investigation isn’t concerned only with whether someone has been convicted of a crime. Investigators also look for dishonesty, questionable judgment, and circumstances that could make an employee vulnerable to coercion or blackmail.

Some conduct, therefore, has historically resulted in automatic disqualification rather than simply becoming another factor for investigators to consider. The Bureau also maintains specific eligibility requirements involving felony convictions, drug use, and other conduct.

Those standards aren’t immutable. Hiring policies have changed over the years as laws, social norms, and the Bureau’s recruiting needs have changed.

The Reality

On June 16th, the FBI circulated new guidance to personnel involved in applicant background checks. According to reporting by CBS News, several behaviors that once automatically ended an application can now, under certain circumstances, be evaluated as part of the applicant’s broader history instead.

Hiring sex workers is among them. An applicant may avoid automatic disqualification if the conduct occurred more than ten years ago and happened fewer than three times, subject to additional restrictions involving whether the applicant held certain positions of trust. Theft from an employer may also no longer result in automatic rejection if it occurred more than three years ago.

Then there is the sentence nobody expected to encounter in an FBI employment story. Conduct involving bestiality or animal cruelty may no longer be an automatic disqualifier if it occurred before the applicant turned 18. CBS reported that the new eligibility language itself does not distinguish between voluntary and coerced conduct. The FBI has said the flexibility is intended in part to account for unusual circumstances, including cases involving childhood sexual abuse.

None of this means that admitting to one of these things earns somebody an FBI windbreaker. Removing an automatic disqualification means an applicant can continue through the Bureau’s extensive suitability and background process, where the conduct can still be considered, and employment can still be denied.

Verdict:

“Not automatically rejected” and “welcome aboard” are doing very different amounts of work here.

Still, it has been a rough week for anyone who thought certain behaviors were safely tucked away in the unwritten portion of the employee handbook. Perhaps the applicant pool was getting a bit… shallow. Drain the swamp indeed.

KENNEDY CENTER: EXTREME MAKEOVER

The Viral Claim

Donald Trump had the Kennedy Center’s historic weeping willow trees cut down and plans to replace them with trees he prefers.

Background

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has spent much of the last year making news for things other than the performing arts. The building and its grounds have become the center of an extraordinary fight over renovations, historic preservation, and presidential authority. Changes to the exterior have generated lawsuits and protests, while disputes over signage—including the addition and subsequent court-ordered removal of Trump’s name—have made the building itself part of the political spectacle. Tarp-gate continues to rage, and whistleblowers have made startling claims.

The turmoil has continued beyond lettering on the facade. Artwork has been removed from the grounds, renovation plans have included substantial changes to the building and its interiors, and the Center’s future has become entangled in arguments over a proposed extended closure, preservation requirements, and warnings about the complex's deteriorating condition.

The Reality

The photographs are real. The willows are gone. However, they were also gone months before the current round of Kennedy Center renovations became the story attached to them.

The trees were removed in October 2025. At the time, a Kennedy Center spokesperson said the willows had become a safety hazard. That explanation later acquired considerably stronger support in federal court.

During an April 2026 hearing in a historic-preservation lawsuit, Kennedy Center Executive Director Matthew Floca testified about the landscaping. A May federal court opinion summarizing that testimony states that most of the weeping willows included in the Center’s original design had already been felled because of decay.

A real preservation dispute exists here, however. The willows were considered important contributors to the Kennedy Center’s eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places, and Floca said he thought weeping cherry trees would make suitable replacements. He also testified that he and Trump had not specifically discussed the willows or their replacement. This is a more credible statement than most because Floca has made many other claims that do not spare the administration.

Verdict:

Sometimes the photograph is authentic, and the caption is where the fan fiction begins.

The trees were rotten, which, admittedly, does nothing to narrow down the suspects in Washington.

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YOU’RE NOT YOU WHEN YOU HALLUCINATE

The Viral Claim

Snickers has created a digital candy bar that users can feed to ChatGPT when the AI starts giving bad answers.

Background

In 2010, Snickers launched the advertising campaign built around the phrase “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry.” The premise has survived remarkably well. Hunger makes otherwise recognizable people irrational, irritable, or inexplicably turn into Betty White until somebody hands them a candy bar. Hangriness is real, y’all.

Artificial intelligence has developed some personality problems of its own. Large language models can produce incorrect information, become excessively agreeable, wander away from the question, or confidently provide an answer that bears only a passing acquaintance with reality. Longtime readers may recall the questionable citations in RFK’s Make America Healthy Again push a few months ago.

How a user prompts an AI can also affect what happens next. Asking a model to reconsider an answer, check assumptions, or approach a problem differently can sometimes produce a better response. Like most technology, output quality often directly correlates with input quality, and knowing the tips and tricks is always a good idea.

The Reality

Snickers launched Hungr.AI on August 31st and describes it as the world’s first digital candy bar made for AI. Yes, really. That’s where we are, folx.

When ChatGPT starts producing answers that seem incorrect, overly flattering, or otherwise “off,” users can visit the Snickers site, copy the digital Snickers, and paste it into the chat. The candy bar is, disappointingly but predictably, not chocolate. Snickers’ own terms describe it as a short code snippet or prompt-instruction block designed to change how the AI responds.

The promotion takes the metaphor considerably further than necessary. The AI gets its imaginary Snickers while participating humans can claim one of 3,000 actual Snickers bars through DoorDash while supplies last. The promotion runs through September 20th or until the candy is gone.

Should feeding your chatbot a digital candy bar fail to make it stop confidently inventing nonsense, the Snickers FAQ has an answer for that, too. Snickers supplied the digital tool, the language model supplied the response, and users should fact-check it. That’s the capitalism equivalent of that’s on you, bro. We find threatening the albeit imaginary motherboard to be quite effective. Pro tip.

Verdict:

Apparently even artificial intelligence can be fixed with something from the vending machine. Capitalism at its finest, right?

Humanity spent billions teaching machines to think and has now reached the “have you tried giving it a Snickers?” phase. To be fair, we too can be motivated to work better with the promise of chocolate.

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CLEANUP ON AISLE EVERYWHERE

The Viral Claim

Clorox has recalled more than 6 million bottles because they may contain dangerous bacteria.

Background

If it seems as though everything you own has been recalled lately, you may simply be paying attention. Product recalls have become such a regular feature of American life that the Consumer Product Safety Commission maintains an entire searchable database devoted to things we bought before somebody discovered they could burn us, poison us, strangle us, or occasionally launch a small child across the room. True story.

Food isn’t doing much better. Recent recalls and outbreak investigations have involved everything from undeclared allergens to bacterial contamination, including a current multistate outbreak involving alfalfa sprouts linked to both E. coli and Salmonella. Double the yum. At this point, opening the refrigerator is less meal preparation than risk assessment.

Clorox, meanwhile, has been part of American cupboards for more than a century. The company began selling commercial liquid bleach in 1913. Few household brands are as closely associated with a single product as Clorox. Its name has become so synonymous with bleach in everyday speech that “Clorox” is sometimes used generically for the product itself, sort of like Kleenex, Band-Aid, or Kool-Aid.

The Reality

On September 3rd, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of approximately 6.3 million bottles manufactured by Clorox Manufacturing Company of Puerto Rico.

The products are scented Mistolin Dilutable Cleaners and Lestoil Heavy Duty Multi-Purpose Cleaners. The recall applies only to specified products sold in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, including particular scents and production date codes manufactured between April 2025 and June 2026.

The reason really is bacteria. The affected cleaners may contain Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an organism commonly found in soil and water. Healthy people are usually unaffected, but exposure can cause serious infections in people with weakened immune systems or those with certain medical devices.

Consumers with affected bottles are instructed to stop using them, submit identifying information and photographs to obtain a refund, and dispose of the cleaner in its container with household trash.

If the word “Clorox” made you picture bleach, you aren’t alone, and if you immediately began questioning your science and sanitation knowledge, fear not. Sodium hypochlorite—the active ingredient in ordinary household bleach—is itself effective against P. aeruginosa at proper concentration. However, neither of these recalled cleaners contains bleach, hence the risk.

Verdict:

Check your bottle before checking your will, and unless you live in very specific places, your cleaner is not trying to kill you, at least not with bacteria.

Your bleach is innocent. Put it back under the sink and apologize.

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PRINT THIS BEFORE YOU LEAVE

The Viral Claim

MapQuest refused to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” and promptly became the #1 app in the App Store.

Background

For anyone who came of age before a calm electronic voice began judging every missed turn, there was MapQuest. Launched on the web in 1996, MapQuest helped turn online mapping into an ordinary household activity. You typed in two addresses, printed several pages of turn-by-turn directions, and placed them somewhere in the passenger seat where they would inevitably slide onto the floor at the exact moment you needed Step 17.

No friendly voice announced that it was recalculating. There was no little blue dot assuring you that civilization remained nearby. If you missed a turn, you pulled into a gas station, unfolded your increasingly crumpled directions, and attempted to determine where your relationship with MapQuest had gone wrong.

The service was once so dominant that AOL acquired its parent company in 2000 in a deal worth roughly $1 billion. Google Maps, smartphones, and GPS navigation eventually shoved it out of the cultural spotlight. MapQuest changed hands several times, kept operating, and quietly survived while an entire generation mostly assumed it had gone wherever Ask Jeeves went.

The Reality

On August 27th, Trump issued an executive order directing the federal government to use “Lake America” instead of Lake Ontario. His penance for renaming things randomly is no longer effective fodder for Truth or Satire, however. Private mapping companies weren’t required to follow suit, but many did.

Google Maps adopted the new federal name for U.S. users. Apple Maps eventually did the same, allegedly under personal pressure from the Bully-in-Chief. MapQuest responded considerably more succinctly.

Undaunted by the taunts about their surprising continued existence, the elderly millennial website—or honorary Gen-X technology, depending on how strictly we are checking IDs—began enjoying itself, proving once again that those of us of a certain age are not here to play. MapQuest promoted a tool that let users give the lake their own ridiculous names and used its social accounts to needle the considerably larger technology companies that had changed theirs. After Google changed the lake’s name and Apple followed, MapQuest posted a GIF from Snow White showing the poisoned apple rolling from Snow White’s hand. The caption consisted of two words: “Them too.”

It turns out MapQuest did evolve (but perhaps not matured) with technology, and people started downloading MapQuest. A lot. Within days, the formerly forgotten navigation service climbed to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store. MapQuest’s general manager later said the surge produced more than 1.5 million U.S. and Canadian installs in less than a week, an outcome he described as completely shocking.

Verdict:

Thirty years of being mocked by people who couldn’t find a wedding reception without printing six pages of directions apparently leaves a mark, but Donnie’s Sharpie sure won’t.

MapQuest didn’t die. It was resting, and now it’s pissed. Ah, menopause plus Gen X are really such a beautiful, feral, violent combination. It gives us hope and a tiny taste for vengeance.

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That’s it for another round of Truth or Satire, the game that becomes less sporting every time reality discovers a new hobby. How’d you do? Alas, there are no prizes, only vigilance and whatever MapQuest is doing.

Come back next time and try again. Until then, remember: skepticism is healthy, context is expensive, and “there’s no way that happened” is no longer admissible evidence. Stay hydrated, consume literature and art, and treat yourself to a snack. You matter just as much as AI, baby. kiss

Sources:

• “At the FBI, a history of hiring prostitutes or stealing from employer may no longer be a barrier to being hired,” CBS News, August 28, 2026.

• “FBI no longer treating an applicant’s experience with prostitution as automatic bar against hiring,” Associated Press, August 28, 2026.

• “DC Preservation League et al. v. Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — Memorandum Opinion,” U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, May 29, 2026.

• “Claim Trump cut down weeping willow trees outside Kennedy Center debunked,” Newsweek, September 1, 2026.

• “Kennedy Center removes ‘Blue’ sculpture as Trump presses on with Washington makeover,” Reuters, September 2, 2026.

• “SNICKERS® Launches the World’s First Digital Candy Bar for when AI Acts ‘Hungry’,” Mars, Incorporated, August 31, 2026.

• “SNICKERS® HUNGR.AI | Even AI Can Get Hungry,” Snickers, accessed September 5, 2026.

• “HungrAI Q&A,” Snickers, accessed September 5, 2026.

• “Clorox Puerto Rico Recalls 6 Million Scented Mistolin and Lestoil Multi-Purpose Cleaners Due to Risk of Exposure to Bacteria,” U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, September 3, 2026.

• “CPSC Posts Product Recalls and Product Safety Warnings to its Web Site,” U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, September 3, 2026.

• “Apple changes Lake Ontario name to ‘Lake America’ for US users of its Maps, following Trump’s order,” Associated Press, September 2, 2026.

• “Apple Maps changes name of Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’,” Reuters, September 1, 2026.

• “Apple follows Google in adopting Trump’s ‘Lake America’ name,” TechCrunch, September 1, 2026.

• “MapQuest is now the No. 1 US app after bucking Trump’s ‘Lake America’ renaming,” TechCrunch, September 2, 2026.

Murphy did not run for mayor. This was his first qualification.

His second was that he had never made a promise he could not keep, unless someone counted the words “Bring back the tennis ball,” which Murphy regarded more as a suggestion than a binding agreement.

The actual mayor, Russell Pike, had held the office for twelve years and owned seven pairs of ceremonial scissors. He had cut ribbons for a renovated courthouse step, a repainted fire hydrant, and the reopening of a bakery that had closed for only nine days.

Mayor Pike was especially talented at announcing that something would soon be studied. The leaking library roof was being studied. So had the broken drinking fountain at Maple Street Park.

The pedestrian signal at Third and Walnut had been displaying WAIT for eleven months, which the mayor said was part of a comprehensive traffic-safety review. “Before we make any changes,” he told the town council, “we need to gather the relevant information and consult with the appropriate departments.”

Most residents assumed Mayor Pike would be reelected because no one had agreed to run against him. Then came the public forum.

At Least the Dog Listened

Joe Palmer brought Murphy because the dog disliked being left alone during thunderstorms. Rain tapped against the windows of the municipal building, and Murphy’s damp coat filled the room with the smell of wet towels.

One by one, residents stepped to the microphone.

Mrs. Haney asked when the library roof would be repaired. Mayor Pike explained that the town was developing a moisture-management strategy.

Mr. Lewis asked about the loose railing outside the post office. The mayor thanked him for participating in the town’s infrastructure conversation.

A mother asked whether the playground slide would be replaced before her children were old enough to drive. Mayor Pike said the town had to balance recreational priorities with long-term fiscal realities.

During each answer, Murphy sat beside Joe and watched the person who had asked the question. When Mrs. Haney returned to her chair, he rested his chin on her knee. “At least the dog listened,” she said.

Someone laughed.

By the following morning, a handwritten sign had appeared in the window of the hardware store. **MURPHY FOR MAYOR**

Another appeared at the laundromat. **SIT. STAY. SERVE.**

Joe removed three signs from his own yard before giving up.

“It’s a joke,” Mayor Pike assured everyone.

It remained a joke right up until election night.

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The Write-In Candidate

Town clerk Clara Bell counted 417 write-in votes for Murphy and 400 for Mayor Pike. She also found six votes for “That Nice Yellow Dog,” four for “Murfy,” and one for “Air Bud,” which she ruled too ambiguous to assign.

The town attorney reviewed the results and announced that Murphy could not legally serve because he was not a person, a registered voter, or capable of signing his own name. Joe pointed out that the last qualification had not stopped several previous council members.

Legally, Mayor Pike kept his office. The law was still the law, even when most of the town would have preferred the dog. Politically, though, Russell Pike had lost to an animal who had spent most of Election Day asleep behind Joe’s recliner.

The council attempted a compromise. Murphy would be named honorary mayor for one year. He would attend parades, visit schoolchildren, and pose for photographs. Mayor Pike would continue doing the actual work. This arrangement satisfied everyone except Mayor Pike.

Murphy’s first official appearance was at the council meeting the following Tuesday. His nails clicked across the tile floor as Clara led him to a cushion beside the mayor’s chair. He circled it three times, rejected it, and went to sleep under Clara’s desk. Residents described this as a refreshing display of independence.

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The Mayoral Walk

Murphy’s schedule soon included a weekly “mayoral walk” with Joe. The council intended it as a public-relations event. It became something else.

At Third and Walnut, Joe noticed that the pedestrian signal was still broken because he and Murphy stood there long enough to watch it cycle from WAIT to WAIT.

At the library, Murphy stopped to drink from a puddle beneath the gutter. Joe looked up and saw a plastic sheet flapping over the roof where shingles should have been.

At Maple Street Park, Murphy pushed his nose into a patch of wet grass and began digging. Joe pulled him away, but cold water continued bubbling up through the soil. A buried pipe had been leaking long enough to turn the ground soft beneath the nearest bench.

Murphy did not understand municipal neglect. He just liked puddles, but Joe began carrying a small notebook on their walks.

Residents started joining them. They pointed out buckled sidewalks, burned-out streetlights, and storm drains packed with leaves. Murphy greeted every complaint with the same patient expression, particularly when the complainant had recently handled food.

At council meetings, he sat near whoever was speaking. Sometimes he rested his chin on a knee. Sometimes he fell asleep against a pair of shoes. People felt heard.

Mayor Pike attempted to explain that Murphy was not actually listening. “He’s hoping somebody has ham,” Pike said.

Mrs. Haney folded her arms. “You could try that.”

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The Park for Sale

The trouble began when the town’s budget came up short. Mayor Pike and the council had found what they called a fiscally responsible solution. A development company wanted to purchase Maple Street Park and build a climate-controlled storage facility. The sale would close the budget gap without raising taxes or immediately cutting services. The proposal was titled **Municipal Recreational Asset Optimization Initiative**.

The council planned to announce it with a photograph of Murphy placing his paw on the proposal.

Joe read the first page. “What does this do?” he asked.

Mayor Pike glanced toward the photographer. “It converts an underperforming public asset into a revenue-producing property.”

“You’re selling the park.”

“That is an unnecessarily reductive description.”

“Murphy is a dog, Russell. Reduce it.”

The photographer lowered his camera.

Joe closed the folder. Murphy sniffed it once and turned toward a trash can where someone had discarded a sandwich wrapper. “You’re not using him to sell something people haven’t been told about,” Joe said.

The photograph never happened.

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The sentence traveled through town before lunch. At the next council meeting, every chair was filled.

Mayor Pike explained that Maple Street Park had become too expensive to maintain.

Mrs. Haney reminded him that the drinking fountain had been broken for three summers. A father held up a piece of the playground swing he had found lying in the grass. A teenager presented photographs of trash caught along the creek bank.

Darlene Fitch, who had served on the council for nine years, looked down at the maintenance reports. Most requests had been delayed, reassigned, or marked for future review.

She turned another page, then another. “We’ve been calling the park a burden,” she said slowly, “after spending years refusing to take care of it.”

The room went quiet.

Maintenance, she realized, had been treated as though it were an optional favor the town might someday provide rather than one of the obligations that came with owning the park in the first place.

From the hallway came the crinkle of a snack bag. Murphy stood, walked out of the meeting, and sat beside a boy eating cheese crackers. Half the room followed him.

Mayor Pike stared at the empty chairs.

The public hearing moved to the park the following Saturday. It was the first time some council members had visited it in years. They found peeling paint on the shelter, splintered benches, a crooked basketball hoop, and the slow silver trickle of water seeping through the grass. The creek smelled of mud and wet leaves.

They also found families using it. Children raced across the field. Two older men played chess on a picnic table. A woman walked laps around the cracked path while pushing a stroller.

Murphy charged into a pile of leaves and emerged carrying a crushed plastic bottle as though he had retrieved something of tremendous value.

The park was not underperforming. The town was. The council rejected the sale.

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Then Came the Work

Then came the harder question: what to do instead.

Money reserved for a new illuminated welcome sign was redirected to repair the water line and playground. The public works department replaced the damaged railing, cleared the storm drains, and put the pedestrian signal on the immediate repair list.

Residents organized a cleanup day for the creek, repainted the shelter, and planted trees along the walking path.

Neighbors could rake leaves, pick up bottles, and put paint on a wall. They could not repair a municipal water line, replace a traffic signal, or decide how public money would be spent.

The town still had a job to do, but so did the people.

Mayor Pike arrived carrying one of his ceremonial shovels. Darlene handed him a real one. He developed a blister before lunch but stayed until the work was finished.

Something else changed after that. The council began publishing its maintenance list with each meeting agenda. Residents could see which repairs had been requested, which had been funded, and which were waiting.

When the town delayed something, somebody had to explain why. When money was moved, everybody could see where it went. The meetings did not become exciting.

Nobody asked for miracles.

Mrs. Haney still complained about the coffee, but fewer things disappeared into “future review.” By spring, the drinking fountain worked. The library had a new roof. The railing outside the post office no longer moved when Mr. Lewis leaned against it, and the signal at Third and Walnut finally changed from WAIT to WALK, although Murphy still refused to cross until he had thoroughly inspected the base of the pole.

At the end of Murphy’s honorary term, Mayor Pike asked Joe how the dog had become so popular. They were sitting beneath the repaired park shelter. Nearby, Murphy lay in the grass with a bright green tennis ball between his front paws.

“What was his secret?” Pike asked.

Joe watched Murphy roll onto his back and wait for someone to scratch his stomach.

“He showed up,” Joe said. “He paid attention, and he never confused having his picture taken with getting something done.”

Pike looked across the park. Children were using the new swings. The fountain squeaked whenever someone pressed the button. Two public works employees were checking the repaired water line near the path.

For once, nothing was being announced. It was simply working.

Murphy’s official portrait now hangs in City Hall. He wears the mayoral sash and looks remarkably dignified, despite the tennis ball clenched between his teeth.

Mayor Pike’s portrait hangs beside it. His ceremonial scissors are nowhere to be found.

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We are not quite a full week into the Ber months, and the insanity is pumpkin-spiced and sweater-ready, and we are under-medicated and under-paid. There must be a conservative in office.

Normally, we’d explain the news, but the cartoonists appear to have handled it, and frankly, we’re tired.

Welcome to the Sunday Funnies!

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Ozymandias, but Make It Gold

Ah yes, commissioning the ruins in advance. Somewhere, Shelley is asking for a co-writing credit.

You Are Here

Rand McNally: now a comforting symbol of institutional stability. What a deeply stupid sentence… and timeline.

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Demolition Man

The Founders neglected to include “Do not take a wrecking ball to Article III.” In retrospect, they left a lot to implication.

Blame Canada

Imagine spending decades warning about Canadian invasion only to discover their secret weapon was coordinated passive aggression and excellent trolling. Sorry about your ankles, eh.

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Hush, Little President

America has reached the “maybe he’s overtired” stage of constitutional governance. Somebody find the juice box. sigh But women are too emotional to lead, amirite?

BONUS!

With that, we’re clocking out before there are any more map changes or public humiliations to witness. The internet has the watch.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend, and while you are at it, remember who brought you the three-day weekend, maybe.

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Cecil Boone calls it evidence. Warren Pike brings his toolbox. And Mitchell has something to say before Coffman’s Landing gets any further ahead of itself.

Five Minutes in America is brought to you by Your Pocket Constitution. Keep the Constitution close at hand.

Five Minutes in America brings you a free story every weekday. Don’t want to wait for the next one? Every Saturday, paid members get the coming week’s five episodes all at once.

Become a paid member to listen ahead and help me keep these stories coming. If you’re already a paid member, thank you—you’re helping make this possible.

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Before long, cars are lining both shoulders and everybody has a theory. Then somebody mentions T.C. Redford—and a joke starts turning into an accusation.

Five Minutes in America is brought to you by Your Pocket Constitution. Keep the Constitution close at hand.

Five Minutes in America brings you a free story every weekday. Don’t want to wait for the next one? Every Saturday, paid members get the coming week’s five episodes all at once.

Become a paid member to listen ahead and help me keep these stories coming. If you’re already a paid member, thank you—you’re helping make this possible.

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His father has the tools. T.C. has helped carry the letter. But neither one can do Mitchell’s part for him.

Five Minutes in America is brought to you by Your Pocket Constitution. Keep the Constitution close at hand.

Five Minutes in America brings you a free story every weekday. Don’t want to wait for the next one? Every Saturday, paid members get the coming week’s five episodes all at once.

Become a paid member to listen ahead and help me keep these stories coming. If you’re already a paid member, thank you—you’re helping make this possible.

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Five Minutes in America officially launches September 7—five-minute stories from Coffman’s Landing, a fictional Missouri town built from the places and people I knew around the Lake of the Ozarks.

This week’s Along the Way is a short update before we get started. Thank you for helping me get here.

If you’re a paid member, all five episodes from the first week are waiting below. Start with The Fence and listen straight through to The Truth Comes Down Main Street.

That’s how we’ll do it each week: paid members get the coming week’s five episodes together every Saturday. Everyone can listen free as the individual episodes are released each weekday.

Become a paid member to listen ahead and help me keep these stories coming.

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Five Minutes in America is brought to you by Your Pocket Constitution. Keep the Constitution close at hand.

Sometimes all it takes is one missing letter—and a town willing to fill in the rest.

Five Minutes in America is brought to you by Your Pocket Constitution. Keep the Constitution close at hand.

Five Minutes in America brings you a free story every weekday. Don’t want to wait for the next one? Every Saturday, paid members get the coming week’s five episodes all at once.

Become a paid member to listen ahead and help me keep these stories coming. If you’re already a paid member, thank you—you’re helping make this possible.

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Beginning September 7, a new five-minute American story will arrive every weekday. Free subscribers can follow each story Monday through Friday, while paid subscribers receive the complete five-part weekly arc early each Saturday.

Written and told by Tony Michaels.

Presented by YourPocketConstitution.com—because every citizen should own the instruction manual.

Subscribe now, and meet me along the road.

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Every year or so, another instrument arrived bearing Dolly Parton’s signature, and a little proof that she had actually played it. The tradition began in 2012, at the first Voices for Children fundraiser for Williamson County CASA in Franklin, Tennessee. A connection between organizer Molly Robinson and Dolly’s sister, Rachel Parton George, led to an unusual auction donation from the country music star. It would not be the last.

Nearly every year for more than a decade, Dolly contributed another instrument, including guitars, banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, and dulcimers. Before signing each one, she would strum it herself, turning an autographed keepsake into something more personal: an instrument that had briefly been in Dolly Parton’s hands.

The organization then auctioned it to raise money for children most people would never hear about. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates. Its trained volunteers work with children involved in abuse and neglect cases, learning about their circumstances and advocating for their interests as they move through the court system. For some children, a CASA volunteer may be the one consistent adult who remains with them until their case is resolved and they reach a safe, permanent home.

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Dolly’s instruments helped support that work year after year. A signed mandolin appeared in the organization’s 2014 auction, a signed ukulele in 2023. The guitar she contributed for the 2026 event raised $4,000.

It was not her largest charitable project. It did not distribute hundreds of millions of books like the Imagination Library or generate the attention of her major disaster-relief efforts. It was simply one local organization receiving one thoughtful gift, again and again. That may be what makes the story so revealing.

Dolly understood that generosity did not always require creating something enormous. Sometimes it meant recognizing what you already possessed, an instrument, a signature, a little celebrity, and placing it into the hands of people who could turn it into something useful.

Williamson County CASA will no longer be able to look forward to the next instrument from Dolly, but the gifts she kept sending have already been converted into something more lasting: trained advocates, steadier voices in courtrooms, and help for children who needed someone firmly on their side.

The instruments went home with the highest bidders. What they paid for stayed in the community.

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A Note About Tomorrow

I have spent a great deal of time writing about what is wrong with America.

There has certainly been no shortage of material. Every morning brings another argument, another outrage and another person eager to explain why the people on the other side are responsible for everything that has gone wrong.

But somewhere along the way, I began wondering whether we might learn more about America by looking at the things that still hold it together.

Not the politicians or the television personalities. Ordinary people. The ones who go to work, raise families, keep promises, make mistakes, repair what they have broken and occasionally find themselves responsible for something they never intended to disturb.

That question led me to a fictional Missouri town called Coffman’s Landing.

It has a courthouse square, a bait shop, a church bell and a few front porches where people sit long enough to notice what their neighbors are doing. It is populated by people who will sometimes disappoint us, sometimes surprise us and frequently remind us of someone we have known.

The town is fictional, but it comes from real places. There is some Eldon in it, some Miller County, some Lake of the Ozarks and more than a little of the rural Missouri I remember.

The details are Missouri, but the questions are American.

What do we owe one another?

What happens when a small mistake becomes everybody’s business?

What makes a community more than a collection of houses and roads?

What does citizenship look like when it is brought down from the marble buildings and practiced at human scale?

Those are the questions beneath Five Minutes in America, my new weekday series beginning Monday.

The first week contains five stories. Each is a complete five-minute story, but together they begin introducing us to the people, places and character of Coffman’s Landing.

We begin with a crooked town sign, a boy with a rock and a great deal of trouble over one missing letter.

From there, the town will begin revealing itself.

I don’t know exactly what Coffman’s Landing will become. That is part of the adventure. We will discover its people, its history and perhaps something about ourselves, one story at a time.

Beginning next Friday, I will use this space to write a personal note about the stories we heard during the week. I’ll tell you what I was thinking about while writing them, where certain details came from and what larger question I believe the people of Coffman’s Landing were wrestling with.

But this Friday, there are no old stories to look back upon.

There is only a town waiting for us to arrive.

Members of The Coffman Chronicle will receive all five stories from the first week tomorrow. Everyone else can hear them one at a time beginning Monday.

If you would like to spend the weekend in Coffman’s Landing before the public week begins, I’d be glad to have you join us.

Become a member and hear the complete first week tomorrow.

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Stay free,

Tony Michaels

Sources: NewsChannel 5 Nashville, Franklin Theatre, and Justice for All Tennessee.

Count the Signs

Drive down almost any commercial strip in America and count the restaurants. There is a Dunkin’ near a Subway, an Arby’s across from a Burger King, and a Taco Bell down the road from a KFC. Maybe there is a Buffalo Wild Wings, an Applebee’s, a Jimmy John’s, a Cinnabon in the mall, and a LongHorn Steakhouse near the interstate.

From the driver’s seat, that looks like fierce competition: different signs, different menus, and different companies fighting for the same twenty-dollar bill. Look above the signs, though, and the picture gets smaller.

America still has thousands of independent restaurants and genuinely competing companies, but many familiar chains belong to larger corporate families, some of which sit inside even larger investment portfolios. The food moving into those restaurants can also pass through concentrated processing and distribution industries customers rarely see. The restaurant economy is more interconnected than it looks from the parking lot.

The Signs Are Different. The Owners Are Fewer.

Roark Capital offers one of the clearest examples. Roark’s portfolio includes Inspire Brands, and Inspire alone includes Dunkin’, Arby’s, Sonic, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jimmy John’s, and Baskin-Robbins. Roark’s portfolio also includes Subway, CKE Restaurants, the company behind Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, and GoTo Foods, whose brands include Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, Cinnabon, Jamba, McAlister’s Deli, Moe’s Southwest Grill, and Schlotzsky’s. Roark also lists restaurant investments including Culver’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and Miller’s Ale House.

One investment firm can therefore have interests stretching across coffee, sandwiches, burgers, chicken, ice cream, pretzels, smoothies, and casual dining.

Roark is not the only example. Restaurant Brands International owns Burger King, Popeyes, Firehouse Subs, and Tim Hortons. Darden owns Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Yard House, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, The Capital Grille, Chuy’s, Seasons 52, and Eddie V’s. Dine Brands owns Applebee’s, IHOP, and Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. Yum! Brands completed its sale of Pizza Hut on September 1, leaving KFC, Taco Bell, and Habit Burger & Grill as its restaurant brands.

This is not some obscure corner of the economy. Technomic reported that the 500 largest restaurant chains generated $437 billion in U.S. sales in 2024, accounting for more than 60% of all U.S. restaurant-industry sales.

The market still contains enormous variety. The ownership structure shows that variety of signs is not necessarily the same as variety of ownership.

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That Does Not Mean They Are All the Same Company

A Dunkin’ is not suddenly an Arby’s because both sit under Inspire Brands. Burger King and Popeyes still compete for customers. Olive Garden and LongHorn have different menus, managers, and strategies. Different brands under the same parent can compete with one another for locations, franchisees, and consumer spending.

Many chain restaurants are also not owned day to day by the corporation whose name appears farther up the organizational chart. They are franchises.

The person who owns the local restaurant may be an independent business operator who signed the lease, borrowed the money, hired the staff, and worries about whether enough customers come through the door on Friday night. Inspire describes its system as including hundreds of thousands of company and franchise team members, while Subway says its restaurants are owned and operated by thousands of franchisees and small-business owners.

Ten different signs do not secretly represent one restaurant. The point is to see the entire structure behind them.

A local business may be independent in one sense while operating inside a much larger system that controls the brand, menu requirements, technology, advertising, approved products, remodeling standards, and other rules.

Franchising has created enormous opportunities for entrepreneurs and helped successful concepts spread across the country. The question is where the power and the risk actually sit.

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The Local Owner Still Carries the Risk

A franchise can give a local owner something extraordinarily valuable: a name customers already recognize. It can also place that owner inside a system he or she did not write.

The franchisee may put substantial personal capital into the restaurant, borrow money, employ dozens of people, and carry the consequences if sales collapse. The brand organization above that owner may control standards that determine how the business operates.

That relationship is not automatically unfair. The brand has an investment to protect as well. If one restaurant serves terrible food under a national name, every other operator under that sign can suffer.

Scale, however, changes bargaining power. A local operator negotiating with a corporation overseeing thousands of restaurants is not negotiating as an equal-sized institution. As more brands are absorbed into larger corporate and investment portfolios, it is reasonable to ask whether independent operators still have enough alternatives to discipline the systems above them.

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Then Follow the Food

Now walk through the kitchen door. Corporate concentration above the restaurant is one issue. Concentration in the food system below it is another. They should not be confused, and we should not assume that restaurants sharing an investment owner necessarily share the same chicken processor, lettuce supplier, or distributor.

The second system deserves attention for the same reason as the first: scale can place more economic activity behind fewer decision points.

Consider meatpacking. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in 2024 that the four largest meatpackers handled 85 percent of steer and heifer purchases and 67% of hog purchases.

See our recent reporting on beef consolidation here:

Food distribution has raised similar concerns. In 2015, the Federal Trade Commission went to court to stop Sysco from acquiring US Foods. The FTC said the combined company would have controlled about 75% of the national market for broadline distribution services to large national customers. A federal judge blocked the deal, and Sysco abandoned it.

Those numbers do not tell us who supplied the hamburger you ate last Tuesday, but they show that apparent diversity at the counter can rest on narrower systems upstream.

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One Bad Ingredient Can Travel a Long Way

Food safety makes the consequences of scale easy to understand, and Americans are watching an example unfold right now.

Federal health officials are investigating a massive 2026 outbreak of Cyclospora infections linked to processed iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico and recalled by Taylor Farms de Mexico. FDA traceback identified Taylor Farms de Mexico as the supplier of shredded iceberg lettuce used at Taco Bell locations where sick people had eaten. As of August 27, the FDA had associated 11,458 illnesses in 20 states with the outbreak, including 495 hospitalizations and two deaths. The investigation remains ongoing.

Taylor Farms voluntarily recalled all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico on July 17th. Confirmed distribution of the recalled food-service lettuce reached more than 30 states, and the FDA warned it may have traveled farther. Taco Bell stopped using lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico the same day. The FDA now says the recalled lettuce should no longer be available in restaurants or stores.

The FDA has not reported a confirmed positive product sample for Cyclospora. An initially reported positive test was later determined to be a false positive. The agency says its epidemiological evidence and traceback investigation nevertheless continue to converge on the recalled Taylor Farms lettuce.

That uncertainty is part of the larger point. A food-safety investigation involving one supplier can suddenly involve thousands of illnesses, dozens of states, a national restaurant chain, federal regulators, foreign growers, and an enormous recall. The restaurant where someone ate may be the most visible part of the system, but the source of the risk can sit hundreds or thousands of miles away.

The same scale appeared in another 2024 case, when BrucePac recalled about 11.8 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products because of possible Listeria contamination. Those products had traveled through other establishments and distributors into restaurants, schools, and institutions nationwide, with some recalled ingredients incorporated into other finished products.

A failure no longer has to remain attached to one recognizable package, one restaurant, or one town. In a national supply network, it can move.

The US is currently over 400 food recalls. See our recent reporting here:

Efficiency Has a Flip Side

Large processors and distributors can make food safer. They can afford testing laboratories, sanitation systems, professional quality-control teams, sophisticated tracking technology, and standardized procedures that smaller operations may struggle to match. They can lower costs, keep thousands of restaurants supplied, and create consistency in a system feeding hundreds of millions of people.

Concentration produces real benefits. The tradeoff is that the same network that lets one supplier reach thousands of restaurants can also let one supplier’s failure reach thousands of restaurants.

Efficiency asks how smoothly a system works when everything goes right. Resilience asks what happens when something goes wrong.

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A Free Market Requires Somewhere Else to Go

That is where the restaurant signs, franchise systems, and food suppliers connect. A healthy market needs alternatives.

For a customer, that means another restaurant offering a better meal or price. For a worker, it means another employer competing for labor. For a franchisee, it means another business system worth investing in. For a farmer or food manufacturer, it means another major buyer. For a restaurant chain facing a contamination problem, it means another qualified supplier capable of replacing the one that failed.

Competition is not merely the number of logos visible from the highway. It is the existence of meaningful alternatives when somebody says no. The more concentrated the system becomes, the more important it is to know whether those alternatives still exist.

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The Square New Deal Test: Concentration Has to Earn Its Benefits

The Square New Deal does not require government to decide how many burger companies America should have or which distributor should carry the french fries. It also does not begin with the assumption that every large company should be broken apart.

Scale can be productive. Consolidation can reduce costs. Large businesses can invest in technology, safety, and logistics that smaller businesses cannot. Those benefits are real, but concentration has to keep earning them.

Congress and the agencies operating under laws Congress writes should be able to ask whether markets remain genuinely competitive, whether new competitors can still enter, whether franchisees and suppliers retain meaningful bargaining alternatives, whether food-safety inspection capacity has kept pace with the scale of the system, and whether critical supply chains have become so narrow that one failure can create national consequences.

That is sufficient government: not choosing the menu, but preserving the conditions under which private markets can continue doing their job.

The Square New Deal measures concentrated private power for the same reason it measures concentrated public power. Power can be useful, and concentration can sometimes make institutions more capable. The test is whether the people living underneath that power still have protection, accountability, and somewhere else to go.

Want to know more about the Square New Deal? Read here:

Look Again at the Signs

Drive down that same commercial strip again. Dunkin’ is still selling coffee. Subway is still making sandwiches. Burger King and Taco Bell are still fighting for lunch customers. Olive Garden and LongHorn are still different restaurants. The choices are real, but they are not the whole picture.

Behind the signs are franchise owners, corporate parents, and investment firms. Behind the kitchens are distributors, processors, farms, and manufacturers. Some of those systems are enormous while some are concentrated. All of them depend on rules, competition, and food-safety institutions that most customers will never see.

A system capable of feeding millions of people cheaply and consistently should be judged not only by how efficiently it performs on an ordinary Tuesday, but by whether competition survives, smaller participants retain meaningful choices, and the system can absorb a failure without sending the consequences across half the country.

The next time you pass a row of restaurant signs, count them, and then look past them. A competitive market should not merely look competitive from the highway. It should remain competitive and resilient from the investor to the restaurant counter to the farm that supplied the food.

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Support the Coffman Chronicle

The Coffman Chronicle exists to look past the signs, slogans, and easy explanations and ask who holds the power, who carries the risk, and whether the rules are still working for the people living underneath them.

If you believe independent journalism like this matters, please subscribe, share this article, and help us keep building the Square New Deal conversation.

And if you can afford it, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps make this work possible.

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Sources:

• Darden Restaurants. “Our Company.” Accessed September 2, 2026.

• Dine Brands Global. “Dine Brands — Restaurant Companies.” Accessed September 2, 2026.

• Federal Trade Commission. “FTC Challenges Proposed Merger of Sysco and US Foods.” February 19, 2015.

• Inspire Brands. “People.” Accessed September 2, 2026.

• MacDonald, James M. “Concentration in U.S. Meatpacking Industry and How It Affects Competition and Cattle Prices.” Amber Waves. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. January 25, 2024.

• Restaurant Brands International. “Overview.” Accessed September 2, 2026.

• Roark Capital. “Current Investments.” Accessed September 2, 2026.

• Subway. “Subway Selects PepsiCo as Its Beverage Partner in the U.S.” March 19, 2024.

• Technomic. “Top 500 Chain Restaurant Sales Growth Slows to 3% in 2024, per Technomic’s Annual Report.” April 17, 2025.

• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. “BrucePac Recalls Ready-to-Eat Meat and Poultry Products Due to Possible Listeria Contamination.” October 9, 2024. Updated November 12, 2024.

• U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Investigation of Multistate Outbreak of Cyclospora Illnesses: Iceberg Lettuce (July 2026).” Updated August 27, 2026.

• Yum! Brands, Inc. “Yum! Brands Completes Sale of Pizza Hut to LongRange Capital.” September 1, 2026.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — September 2, 2026 — Missouri writer and broadcaster Tony Michaels will launch Five Minutes in America, a new weekday series of original five-minute stories, on Monday, September 7, 2026.

Released as a podcast and available to radio stations through syndication, Five Minutes in America takes listeners to Coffman’s Landing, a fictional Missouri town shaped by lake-country life, working people and the communities Michaels knew growing up around Eldon and the Lake of the Ozarks.

“America has no shortage of people explaining what’s wrong with it,” Michaels said. “I wanted to tell stories about what still holds it together.”

Each episode tells a self-contained story about the people and places of Coffman’s Landing. Over time, those individual stories will build an accumulating portrait of a town and the generations of people who call it home.

The series explores work, memory, responsibility, dignity, disagreement, neighborliness and belonging through ordinary moments rather than political commentary or traditional news analysis.

“Coffman’s Landing is fictional, but the feeling behind it is real,” Michaels said. “It comes from growing up in Eldon, from the people I knew and from the Lake of the Ozarks always being there in the background.”

Michaels’s grandparents owned Coffman Beach Resort in Rocky Mount on property that is now a public boat launch. That family connection to the lake and its communities helped inspire both the name and the atmosphere of Coffman’s Landing.

A Town Built One Story at a Time

Although each installment can be heard on its own, recurring characters, businesses, streets and shared memories will gradually give Coffman’s Landing a history and identity of its own.

The brief format is designed to give listeners a complete story they can carry into the rest of their day.

The first published story, “The Fence,” offers an introduction to the voice and purpose of the series.

Listen to “The Fence”

From Commentary to Storytelling

Michaels previously created more than 1,100 episodes of The Tony Michaels Podcast, covering American politics, constitutional accountability, concentrated power, democracy and working people.

Regular publication of that program ended in July 2026, while its complete archive remains available online.

Michaels now writes and produces The Coffman Chronicle and hosts Five Minutes in America and Along the Way. The new series represents a deliberate move toward using fiction, memory and character-driven storytelling to examine the experiences that connect people and communities.

“After years of talking about the forces pulling Americans apart, I wanted to spend some time telling stories about the things that keep people together,” Michaels said.

Podcast and Radio Availability

Five Minutes in America premieres Monday, September 7, 2026. New five-minute stories will be released each weekday.

The series can be followed at 5MinutesInAmerica.com.

Radio stations interested in carrying Five Minutes in America may contact Keith Rupnik of RadioLinx Broadcast Marketing at keith@radio-linx.com.

About Tony Michaels

Tony Michaels is a Missouri writer and broadcaster based in Jefferson City.

He grew up in Eldon near the Lake of the Ozarks and draws upon the people, places and working-class culture of rural Missouri in his storytelling. He writes and publishes The Coffman Chronicle and hosts Five Minutes in America and Along the Way.

His work blends humor, memory, civic life and the voices of working people.

About The Coffman Chronicle

The Coffman Chronicle is the publishing home of Tony Michaels and Five Minutes in America. It publishes original stories, columns, audio programs and commentary concerning work, dignity, liberty, citizenship and American life.

Visit TheCoffmanChronicle.com.

Media Resources

Approved cover art, a current Tony Michaels headshot, interview information, background materials and additional audio are available on the Press & Media page.

Media Contact

Tony Michaels
The Coffman Chronicle
thetonymichaels@gmail.com

Radio Syndication

Keith Rupnik
RadioLinx Broadcast Marketing
keith@radio-linx.com

— END —

The Story That Was Too Perfect

A Facebook post began circulating with a claim that seems engineered to stop a person mid-scroll. Donald Trump, it said, had bulldozed more than sixty of Washington’s oldest Japanese cherry trees—116-year-old survivors of a historic gift from Japan—to make way for a golf course.

There was history, destruction, and a president whose name guarantees that half the country will believe the worst before breakfast and the other half will dismiss it before reading the second paragraph.

It was almost too perfect, so we checked. The evidence does not support the claim that Trump bulldozed more than sixty historic cherry trees, but correcting the viral story does not make East Potomac disappear. It does not put the trees back in the ground, and it does not answer the questions raised by what actually happened there.

The Facebook post got the story wrong. The real story begins with the stumps.

The People Who Find the Stumps

The easiest way to misunderstand East Potomac is to hear golf course and picture a country club. East Potomac is public golf on public land. The National Park Service says its Washington courses are meant to provide affordable golf opportunities. Around the course, people bike Hains Point, run the loop, walk beside the Potomac, fish, bird-watch, and sit by the river.

On Saturday, while tree crews were still working, some of those people gathered at Hains Point. Bob Hartt, who is legally blind, told NOTUS he rides a tandem bicycle there because it is one of the safest places in the region to practice away from heavy traffic. Alex Rosen, who cycles, runs and golfs at East Potomac, described sitting at the tip of the park, calling his mother and watching planes take off.

Those are the people who disappear once a story moves into agency filings and redevelopment plans and becomes a collective noun: the public. Donald Trump has golf courses of his own. East Potomac is ours.

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This Is What Public Means

A public golf course is a small expression of democracy. The surgeon can play behind the plumber. A retiree can tee off ahead of a lobbyist. A kid learning the game does not need a family membership, a sponsor, or somebody important to invite him.

The same principle reaches beyond golf. The runner, the cyclist, the angler, and the family beside the river do not need their names on a deed to belong there. The government holds the property, but not for itself.

The people using East Potomac do not own it individually. They own it together.

More Than 60 Trees Really Are Gone

Whatever the Facebook post got wrong, the empty spaces are real. On Aug. 27th, The Washington Post counted more than sixty places where trees appeared to have been removed in recent weeks, from parking areas and the perimeter to playing corridors on all three courses. Crews were still removing trees two days later.

The Department of the Interior says this was routine maintenance unrelated to the proposed redesign, including, they say, arborists removing hazardous, invasive, dying or declining trees. Some of the evidence supports that explanation. Reporters saw hollow stumps and watched a crew take down a visibly decayed tree.

The Post also identified a removed tree near the Blue Course’s 14th green as a cherry tree. The contractor, RTEC Treecare, says it removed no cherry trees.

Which trees were condemned? Who evaluated them? When? Why did so many need to come down immediately before a planned redevelopment of the same property? We do not have to assume the worst to ask. The government does not get to call sixty tree removals “maintenance” and expect that word alone to settle the matter either.

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Congress Said Who This Place Was For

The word public can become so familiar that we stop hearing what it means. In 1897, after the federal government spent millions reclaiming the Potomac Flats, Congress declared the new ground a public park, to be “forever held and used as a park for the recreation and pleasure of the people.” During the House debate, Rep. Joseph Babcock explained that the purpose was to keep the reclaimed land from being diverted to other uses.

That did not freeze East Potomac in 1897. Golf and roads came later. Recreation changed, and the park changed with it.

It can change again. In 2020, the National Park Service signed a 50-year lease with the nonprofit National Links Trust to operate East Potomac, Langston and Rock Creek, with plans to address deferred maintenance, restore historic features, expand access, and make major capital improvements. East Potomac itself was slated for substantial work.

The problem is not that Donald Trump wants to change a public golf course. He could even be right that East Potomac can be made better. The harder question is what government owes the people before it makes those changes irreversible.

Stewardship is not preservation for preservation’s sake. It is accountability for change.

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The Process Is the Public’s Protection

The government has represented in court that before construction of a proposed redesign begins, the Park Service must complete environmental and historic-preservation reviews, make findings concerning harm to park resources, and obtain approval from the National Capital Planning Commission. As of late August, some of that work remained unfinished.

Those requirements can sound like Washington paperwork until you ask who is supposed to do the checking instead. A golfer cannot commission an environmental study, nor can a cyclist personally inspect historic resources. A family using the park cannot sit in every agency meeting where someone decides which parts of the landscape stay and which disappear.

The process is the public’s eyes when the public cannot be standing there. However, review works only while there is still something meaningful to decide. If government can make the physical change first and complete the review afterward, the process becomes an autopsy. The process protects the public only if it comes before the irreversible part.

The Judge Had Already Asked About the Trees

A federal judge had already raised precisely that concern. In May, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes declined to halt necessary maintenance at East Potomac but told government lawyers she wanted advance notice before more than ten trees were removed or equipment larger than a sedan was brought onto the property. Her direction was oral and was not incorporated into a formal written order, so the evidence does not support saying the administration violated a court order.

By July, Reyes was warning against being presented with a fait accompli before challengers had a meaningful opportunity to seek relief. Then, in August, more than sixty trees were removed. The Washington Post reported that a person familiar with the litigation said neither the plaintiffs nor the court had been notified about the recent tree work.

That does not prove misconduct, but it sharpens the question: Why did the kind of irreversible activity the judge had already expressed concern about occur without the notice she had requested?

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The Cherry Trees We Should Actually Be Talking About

There really are extraordinary cherry trees at East Potomac. They just are not the sixty-plus trees described in the Facebook post.

The Library of Congress maintains a Historic American Landscapes Survey for a grove on the golf course identified as “1910 Japanese Flowering Cherry Trees.” It says the available evidence strongly indicates they are the sole surviving specimens from Japan’s first donation of cherry trees to Washington and therefore the city’s oldest Japanese cherry trees. The National Park Service says historical evidence suggests two dozen trees from the shipment believed destroyed in 1910 may have survived and later been planted near Hains Point.

There is no evidence that this grove has been bulldozed. Tom Fazio, the architect selected for Trump’s redesign, has said he intends to preserve the historic trees and that Trump has emphasized protecting them.

The grove also explains why the process exists. A golf architect can see a better fairway where a historian sees a surviving artifact of more than a century of U.S.-Japanese history. A golfer sees Saturday morning. A cyclist sees a safe route. A family sees an afternoon by the river. Public land has more than one beneficiary.

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The Square New Deal Test: Show Your Work

The Square New Deal does not require government to preserve every tree or freeze every public space in time. Public property can change, and sometimes it should.

When government makes an irreversible change to something it holds in trust for the public, it should be able to show that the decision was lawful, necessary, transparent, and consistent with the property's public purpose.

That means showing the work: the tree assessments, the final plan, the historic and environmental reviews, what happens to public access, who pays, and how the oldest cherry trees will be protected. That is not hostility to development. It is accountability.

The rule should be the same whether the president is Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or somebody we have not elected yet. Public stewardship cannot depend on whether we trust the person holding the office.

A good steward does not have to preserve everything exactly as he found it. He does have to account for what he changes.

Public Means Public

The Facebook post that started this story made a claim the evidence could not support. We corrected it because facts do not become optional when an inaccurate version makes someone we oppose look worse.

Government deserves the same standard. If these removals were routine maintenance, show the basis for that conclusion. If the redevelopment has not begun, make the timeline clear. If the historic cherry trees are protected, show us where they remain in the final plan. Accountability is not an accusation. It is what public ownership requires.

More than a century ago, Congress said this land was to be held for the recreation and pleasure of the people. Presidents may improve it, agencies may manage it, architects may redesign it, and courts may determine what the law allows, but none of them own it. The people do.

Public means public. Stewardship begins by remembering whose property you are changing.

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Support Independent Media

If you believe public power should come with public accountability, and that facts should matter even when the truth is less convenient than the viral version—subscribe to the Coffman Chronicle and share this article with someone who believes government should have to show its work.

If you can afford to support this work with a paid subscription, it helps us keep digging past the outrage, checking the claims and asking the harder question underneath them: Who is government supposed to be serving?

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Sources:

• Associated Press. “Judge Tells Trump Officials Not to Cut Trees at Historic Washington Golf Course.” May 2026.

• Bastable, Alan. “Trump Wants a New-Look Golf Course in D.C. Preservationists Have Another Idea.” GOLF.com, June 12, 2026.

• Binday, Ben, Salvador Rizzo, and Rick Maese. “Trump’s Timeline for Golf Course Revamp Is Getting Pushback from This Judge.” The Washington Post, July 2, 2026.

• Historic American Landscapes Survey. “1910 Japanese Flowering Cherry Trees, East Potomac Golf Course, East Potomac Park, Hains Point Vicinity, Washington, District of Columbia, DC.” Library of Congress. HALS DC-8.

• Maese, Rick. “Trees Are Coming Down by the Dozen as Trump’s D.C. Golf Makeover Nears.” The Washington Post, August 28, 2026.

• Muhammad, Shamira. “At East Potomac Park, Trees Are Falling and Tensions Are Rising.” NOTUS, August 31, 2026.

• National Park Service. “Golf Courses.” Region 1: National Capital Region. Last updated April 30, 2024.

• National Park Service. “National Park Service Signs 50-Year Lease with National Links Trust for Historic Golf Courses.” National Mall and Memorial Parks. October 2, 2020.

• National Park Service. “The Witness Tree.” Last updated April 4, 2024.

• U.S. Congress. House. “Congressional Record—House, February 24, 1897.” 54th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 29, pt. 3 (February 24, 1897): 2202.

The Market at the Meat Counter

There is a strange moment in the grocery store when a package of hamburger starts to feel like a financial decision. You pick it up, look at the price, put it back, check the smaller package, and do the quiet arithmetic Americans have become very good at doing. Maybe tacos become pasta. Maybe steaks wait another week. Maybe the family pack is cheaper per pound, assuming there is enough money in the account to buy more today in order to save tomorrow.

Hundreds of miles away, a cattle rancher can be doing a different version of the same calculation. Feed costs what it costs. So does fuel. The cattle are ready when they are ready, but when it comes time to sell, the number of enormous processors competing to buy those cattle has become remarkably small.

Those two Americans may never meet. One is trying to get dinner on the table, while the other is trying to keep a ranch profitable. Between them sits an industry that has spent decades becoming increasingly concentrated. Now Washington is paying attention. On Friday, President Donald Trump publicly attacked what he called a “nasty monopoly” in food processing and promised action aimed at giving farmers and ranchers more options.

The concentration problem he identified is real. The more uncomfortable question is how it was allowed to get this far.

Four Companies, One Very Narrow Marketplace

The number behind that concentration is difficult to ignore. JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef now account for roughly 85% of the U.S. beef-processing market. In 1980, the four largest processors controlled about 36%.

A concentrated industry is not automatically an illegal one, and market share by itself is not evidence of collusion or price fixing. The Justice Department is investigating whether illegal conduct occurred, but competition does not become irrelevant simply because concentration is legal. A rancher preparing to sell cattle does not negotiate in an abstract national economy. What matters is how many serious buyers are available. Fewer buyers can mean fewer chances to reject a bad offer and find a better one.

Workers face a similar problem when only a handful of large employers dominate their local industry. Families buying beef have their own stake in processors competing aggressively for business.

A market can contain thousands of ranchers, millions of customers, and shelves full of different packages while still becoming remarkably narrow at the point where much of the product must pass. The issue is whether competition still has enough room to work.

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Success Is Not the Crime

There is nothing inherently suspicious about a company becoming large. A business can grow because it is efficient, because customers prefer its product, because it innovates faster than its competitors, or because scale allows it to do something smaller firms cannot. Profit is not evidence of wrongdoing, and market share is not a confession.

A government that punished companies simply for succeeding would not protect competition. It would punish it. The problem begins when success hardens into control.

A dominant company should still have to compete for customers, suppliers, and workers. New firms should still have a realistic chance to enter the market. A rancher should not discover that the number of buyers has become so small that bargaining power exists mostly on the other side of the table.

The Square New Deal should defend that boundary. Capitalism depends on the possibility that someone else can build a better product, offer a better price, pay a better wage, or make a better deal. Government should not guarantee any company a permanent place at the top, any more than it should decide who belongs there. Government does not owe corporations protection from competition. It owes the public protection of competition.

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The Government Already Had a Job

None of this required Washington to invent a new responsibility. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, the Clayton Act in 1914, and created the Federal Trade Commission that same year. In 1976, Congress added premerger review for certain large deals.

The reason was straightforward. Some damage is easier to prevent than repair. Once competitors combine and customers lose alternatives, reconstructing competition can be extraordinarily difficult.

The machinery still exists. On August 26th, the Justice Department announced a record $250 million civil penalty against investment firm KKR to resolve allegations that it repeatedly violated federal premerger-review requirements involving at least 16 transactions. KKR agreed to the settlement without admitting the allegations.

The United States has laws, regulators, prosecutors, and a system designed to examine whether consolidation threatens competition. That makes the concentration in beef processing harder to treat as something that simply happened. Government put itself in this story more than a century ago. The question is how well it did the job.

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Why Do We Keep Waiting Until the Market Is Broken?

Markets rarely become concentrated in one dramatic moment. They narrow gradually. One company buys another, a regional processor closes, a competitor sells, a plant disappears. Suppliers adjust to the remaining buyers, workers adjust to the remaining employers, and customers adjust to the remaining choices. Each change can be explained on its own. Taken together over decades, they can produce a market very different from the one government was supposed to preserve.

By the time Washington decides competition has become a serious problem, much of the competitive structure may already be gone. An investigation can uncover misconduct, a lawsuit can stop an illegal practice, and a court can impose remedies, but none of those things automatically recreates the businesses that closed, the capacity that disappeared, or the competitors absorbed years earlier.

Government cannot prevent every merger, save every company, or guarantee that every town keeps every employer, nor should it try. Markets change. Businesses fail. Efficient companies win. Stewardship, however, requires noticing when ordinary market change is steadily removing the competition the system depends on.

If four companies now control most beef processing, Washington should investigate any evidence of illegal conduct. It should also ask a harder question about its own performance. How many warning signs did government see while the market was narrowing? Antitrust policy should not amount to standing beside a burned-down house with a clipboard, carefully documenting that there used to be more rooms.

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Trump Has Identified the Problem. Now Test the Remedy.

President Trump deserves credit for putting the concentration problem on the table. His proposed response is to make it easier for farmers and ranchers to process meat outside the handful of companies that dominate the industry, while supporting independent processors and removing regulations the administration considers unnecessary.

There is a reasonable idea underneath that approach. If government rules make it unnecessarily expensive or difficult for smaller processors to enter the market, those rules deserve scrutiny. Regulation can protect the public, but it can also become a barrier established companies can absorb while potential competitors cannot.

The test cannot stop there, however. Meat inspection exists because contaminated food does not become harmless simply because it came from a small business. Ranchers themselves have argued that barriers should be reduced without abandoning inspection standards.

Washington therefore has a harder job than choosing between regulation and deregulation. Remove rules that unnecessarily protect incumbents. Make it possible for smaller processors to compete. Enforce the law when dominant companies engage in illegal conduct. Preserve the protections necessary to keep unsafe meat out of the food supply. The country does not have to choose between four giant processors and a system with no meaningful rules. A government capable of stewardship should be able to protect competition and protect the dinner table at the same time.

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A Free Market Requires Somewhere Else to Go

A market is not truly competitive just because government does not set the price. Competition depends on alternatives.

A worker needs another employer. A farmer needs another buyer. A small business needs another supplier. A customer needs another seller. An entrepreneur needs a realistic path into the market. Those alternatives create bargaining power.

Take them away, and the economy may still look private on paper. The contracts are still voluntary. The companies are still privately owned. The worker is still technically free to quit, and the rancher is still technically free to refuse an offer. However, freedom means less when every road leads back to the same handful of companies.

Competition is one way ordinary people protect themselves without needing government to negotiate every transaction on their behalf. The Square New Deal should aim not to guarantee that every business survives or every worker gets the deal he wants, but to preserve enough real competition that saying no still means something. A free market requires somewhere else to go.

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The Square New Deal Test for Market Power

The Square New Deal does not need a rule that says every large company should be broken apart. It needs better questions. Can customers realistically choose another seller? Can workers realistically choose another employer? Can suppliers realistically choose another buyer? Can a new competitor enter the market without barriers designed to protect the companies already there?

If those answers begin turning into no, government has a stewardship problem. The cause may be illegal conduct, a merger policy that allowed too much concentration, regulations that established companies can afford but smaller competitors cannot, weak enforcement, or several of those things working together.

The remedy should follow the problem. Sometimes that means prosecution. Sometimes it means blocking a merger. Sometimes it means removing a barrier to entry or writing a better rule. The Square New Deal should not begin with a predetermined punishment and work backward toward a justification. It should begin with the condition of the market itself.

Can ordinary people still choose, bargain, compete and walk away? If they cannot, government has not preserved a free market simply because the companies operating inside it remain privately owned.

Learn more about the Square New Deal here:

The Government Was Supposed to Keep the Market Competitive

The family standing at the meat counter should not need Washington to decide what hamburger costs, and the rancher selling cattle should not need a federal official negotiating the price on his behalf. That is the point of having a competitive market in the first place.

When enough buyers compete for cattle, enough processors compete for business, and enough sellers compete for customers, millions of individual decisions do much of the work government should never try to do itself. Prices move. Businesses rise and fall. Better offers beat worse ones. People retain the ability to walk away.

However, that system depends on competition remaining real. Government was never supposed to guarantee every company success. It was never supposed to freeze the economy in place or protect businesses from rivals that could do the job better. It was supposed to keep the field open.

That means enforcing the law when competition is attacked, questioning consolidation before the alternatives disappear, removing rules that unnecessarily protect incumbents, and preserving the protections the public actually needs.

Government does not owe corporations protection from competition. It owes the public protection of competition.

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Sources

• Federal Trade Commission. “The Antitrust Laws.”

• Federal Trade Commission. “Mergers.”

• MacDonald, James M. “Concentration in U.S. Meatpacking Industry and How It Affects Competition and Cattle Prices.” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, January 25, 2024.

• Douglas, Leah, Tom Polansek, and Susan Heavey. “Trump Vows Legal Order to Break Up ‘Nasty Monopoly’ in Food Processing.” Reuters, August 28, 2026. Updated August 29, 2026.

• U.S. Department of Justice. “Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Sarrine Delivers Remarks at R-CALF USA 2026 Annual National Convention.” June 17, 2026.

• U.S. Department of Justice. “KKR Agrees to Pay Record $250M Penalty for Serial Violations of Federal Premerger Review Law.” August 26, 2026.

She held a yellow plastic folder up to the fluorescent lights as though she were checking it for counterfeit currency.

The folder had pockets. It had prongs. It was plastic. Unfortunately, it was lemon yellow. Owen’s third-grade supply list specified golden yellow. Tessa placed it in the cart anyway.

“If Mrs. Vega rejects it,” she told Owen, “tell her the lighting in our house is deceptive.”

Owen lay across the bottom rack of the cart, one sneaker dragging on the tile. His younger sister, Lucy, had abandoned the cart entirely and was smelling boxes of crayons. “They smell better when they’re new,” she explained.

They did. The aisle smelled of wax, pencil shavings, plastic packaging and the cinnamon pretzel stand near the entrance.

Outside, the heat shimmered above the parking lot. Inside, parents were competing for the last packs of washable glue sticks.

Between third grade and kindergarten, Tessa’s children required twenty-four. She had done the math twice because the first answer seemed like enough adhesive to attach a modest shed to its foundation.

At the display, Tessa reached for the last two six-packs at the same moment as a woman in blue medical scrubs who looked as though she had finished a twelve-hour shift and been rewarded with a scavenger hunt.

“How many children?” Tessa asked.

“Three.”

“Take them.”

“No, you take them.”

“My youngest probably eats paste anyway.”

“Mine thinks glue sticks are lip balm.”

They each took one pack and agreed their children would simply have to develop weaker attachments.

By the time Tessa reached the register, her cart held backpacks, tissues, notebooks, folders, dry-erase markers, headphones, disinfecting wipes, storage bags, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, sanitizer, and one pink rubber eraser Lucy had named Strawberry.

The scanner chirped. Beep. Beep. Beep. Each sound removed another small piece of Tessa’s paycheck.

The cashier read the total. “One hundred eighty-four dollars and sixty-seven cents.”

Tessa stared at the screen. “Does that include tuition?”

The cashier did not laugh. It was early August. She had heard everything.

The Price of ‘Required’

In the parking lot, Tessa took a picture of the receipt and posted it to the third-grade parent group. **Is my child going to school or opening an office-supply store?**

By dinner, it had become a movement. One parent wanted to know why every child needed four boxes of tissues. “Are they teaching fractions by blowing their noses?”

Another said she would provide one tissue per sneeze, provided the school submitted appropriate documentation.

A father named Brent calculated that if every student brought forty-eight pencils, Mrs. Vega’s classroom would contain 1,248 pencils. “No classroom needs 1,248 pencils,” he wrote.

Someone called Mrs. Vega “Miss Amazon Wishlist.” Someone else pointed out that teachers already spent hundreds of dollars of their own money.

Tessa read the comments over boxed macaroni. Her annoyance grew, although she was no longer certain whom she was annoyed with. Mostly, she was annoyed that she had spent nearly two hundred dollars and was still six glue sticks short.

Across town, Marisol Vega read the post in the checkout line of another store. Her cart held glue sticks, pencils, crackers, name tags, replacement headphone cushions, a pencil sharpener, folders for children who arrived without them, plastic bins, Band-Aids, bulletin-board paper, and a small fan for the reading corner, where the air conditioner never quite reached.

Her district classroom allowance was $175 for the year. The cashier gave her the total. “Four hundred thirteen dollars and eighty-two cents.”

Mrs. Vega looked at the cart. Then she looked at Tessa’s post. She typed three replies and deleted them all.

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The List Meets the Classroom

The following Tuesday was back-to-school night. Mrs. Vega’s classroom smelled of lemon cleaner, construction paper, and freshly sharpened pencils. The air conditioner rattled in the window.

On the whiteboard she had written: WELCOME TO THIRD GRADE

Underneath: YES, WE WILL USE THE GLUE STICKS

Tessa noticed immediately. So did everyone else.

Brent had labeled each of his son’s forty-eight pencils individually.

“You labeled the erasers?” Tessa asked.

“They detach,” Brent said.

At seven o’clock, Principal Lyle stepped into the room wearing a school polo and an expression of administrative hope. “I understand there have been questions about this year’s suggested supply list.”

“Required,” Tessa said.

“Strongly suggested.”

“The word ‘required’ is printed at the top.”

“That may be a formatting issue.”

“It’s in bold.”

“A bold formatting issue.”

Tessa had rehearsed an angry speech. Then she noticed the dark circles beneath Mrs. Vega’s eyes and asked the least angry version of the question. “Why does every child need forty-eight pencils?”

“Because children use pencils,” Mrs. Vega said.

“That’s 1,248 pencils.”

“Yes.”

“Where do they all go?”

Mrs. Vega looked around the room. “Last year, one was pushed through a window screen. Fourteen became drumsticks. At least six were traded for snacks. One was planted in a cup because a student believed pencils were made from trees and could grow into trees.”

“Did it?” Owen asked.

“No, but we watered it until Thanksgiving.” A few parents laughed. “By October,” Mrs. Vega said, “I will be able to find six pencils. One of them will be green.” Even Brent laughed.

Tessa picked up the supply list. “What about the tissues, wipes, and storage bags? Those aren’t for individual students.”

“No,” Mrs. Vega said.

“Then why isn’t the school buying them?”

Principal Lyle shifted his weight. “The district provides essential instructional materials.”

“Are pencils essential?”

“Yes.”

“Does the district provide them?”

“Some.”

“How many?”

Mrs. Vega opened a cabinet.

Inside were two boxes of pencils, one package of notebook paper, eight dry-erase markers and a gallon jug of institutional hand sanitizer. “That’s what I received,” she said.

“For the year?”

“For the year.”

The room went quiet.

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What the List Couldn’t See

A small boy entered late with his grandmother. He carried his supplies in a paper grocery sack darkened with sweat. Inside were three notebooks, one box of pencils, and colored pencils.

His grandmother spoke quietly. “I’ll get the rest after Friday.”

Mrs. Vega took the sack as if it contained everything on the list. “This is plenty,” she said. “We have what he needs.” She did not say it loudly enough to turn kindness into a performance. She simply showed the boy his desk.

Tessa looked at the communal bins again.

For the first time, they did not look like a teacher taking things from her children.

They looked like a way for one paper grocery sack to resemble every other bag in the room. “How much classroom money do you get?” Tessa asked.

“One hundred seventy-five dollars.”

“For the month?”

“For the year.”

Brent stopped guarding the pencil bin. “How much did you spend?”

Mrs. Vega hesitated. “Four hundred thirteen dollars and eighty-two cents last week.”

Nobody spoke. “Not counting June.”

Tessa felt her anger move. It did not disappear. It simply crossed the room and sat down somewhere else. She looked at Principal Lyle. “So the school gives her $175. She spends more than $400. We spend another hundred or two each, and then we all argue about who stole whose crayons.”

Principal Lyle loosened his collar. “When you say it like that, it does sound inefficient.”

“It is inefficient,” Brent said. “We bought 1,248 pencils at retail.”

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Whose Part Was Whose

The next half hour did not become pleasant, exactly, but it became useful. They divided the list into three groups: Things each child personally needed, things the classroom needed, and things families could contribute if they wanted to.

The parents were not wrong to believe they should provide for their own children. Mrs. Vega was not wrong to expect a classroom stocked well enough to teach them. The mistake was pretending those were the same obligation.

A backpack belonged to a child. Tissues used by twenty-six children belonged to the classroom. Extras could be contributions. The problem was not that nobody wanted to do their part, but that nobody had decided whose part was whose.

Brent made a spreadsheet because Brent had apparently been waiting his entire life for this moment.

Tessa calculated what twenty-six families were spending separately. Mrs. Vega calculated what the same supplies would cost if the school ordered them in bulk.

Principal Lyle called the district purchasing office and discovered the school already had access to bulk pricing. No one had used it for classroom supply lists because classroom supply lists had always been handled by the classrooms.

This explanation satisfied no one. “You mean we already had a cheaper way to buy this stuff?” Tessa asked.

“Yes.”

“And instead we sent every parent into stores separately?”

“That appears to be what happened.”

Brent looked up from his spreadsheet. “I would like the record to show that the government has discovered Costco.”

By nine o’clock, the children were sprawled across the reading rug. Tessa’s stomach growled loudly enough that Owen offered her a mint from Mrs. Vega’s desk. She took it. It tasted like peppermint and administrative reform.

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What Belonged to Everyone

They did not solve school funding that night. They did not discover a forgotten vault of tissue money beneath the gymnasium, or agree that a public classroom should not depend on private guilt.

Parents could reasonably provide what belonged to their own children, teachers could choose to buy something extra, and families could contribute more when they were able, but those choices could not disguise a public obligation.

If twenty-six children needed a basic supply for a public classroom to function, the school had to treat that supply as part of the cost of operating the classroom. Generosity could add to the system, but it could not be the system.

The PTA created a confidential fund for extras and emergencies. Families who could contribute did. Families who could not were not asked to explain why. The school placed one bulk order for basic shared supplies at district prices.

The district increased the classroom allowance modestly and adopted a new elementary supply policy for the following year. Individual supplies would be separated from shared classroom materials. Basic communal supplies would be budgeted and purchased in bulk whenever possible. Voluntary contributions would be labeled voluntary. The promise was written down, which Tessa had learned was the difference between a promise and a sound made in a meeting.

Mrs. Vega’s revised list had three headings: **YOUR CHILD WILL NEED**, **THE SCHOOL WILL PROVIDE**, and **OPTIONAL CLASSROOM CONTRIBUTIONS**.

The word **required** appeared only once. It was next to **backpack**.

On the first morning of school, the classroom buzzed with nervous voices, zippers, and chair legs scraping against tile. The pencil sharpener growled near Mrs. Vega’s desk, releasing the clean woody smell of cedar.

In the supply cabinet sat tissues, wipes, glue sticks and 1,248 freshly sharpened yellow pencils. By Friday, Mrs. Vega could find six. One of them was green.

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We’ll let them explain once again in this edition of the Sunday Funnies.

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There’s Something Fishy About This

First they came for the cartographers, and we said nothing, mostly because we were waiting to see whether the fish would recognize the new name.

Apparently they have concerns about election integrity.

Tilting at Windmills

Canada has discovered the most devastating weapon in international trade is knowing exactly what irritates your neighbor.

Somewhere, Don Quixote is looking at this and thinking the obsession seems a little excessive.

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The Name Above the Title

At last, a naming opportunity with room for future expansion. The lettering may be the cheapest part… for all of us. At least the spinning might generate a breeze to combat global warming?

Government of the People-ish

Certain passages of American civic scripture apparently required updating for modern audiences. Please rise, place your hand over your wallet, and pledge accordingly.

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The Show Must Go On

There are moments when the presidency requires something more difficult than commanding the room, like, for example, remembering the room was never yours. To be honest, the most Presidential thing this guy could do right now is shut up.

And thus concludes another week in the cursed timeline, where satire continues to suffer the occupational hazard of being overtaken by reality.

Come back next Sunday, assuming reality hasn’t sued the cartoonists for plagiarism by then. Seriously, where are those damn aliens when you need them?

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In this first official Along the Way, I want to tell you why I built Coffman’s Landing, why Five Minutes in America belongs to ordinary people, and why a more perfect Union begins with the way we treat one another.

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