The Standing Record

This is the Standing Record for August 8, 2026. Nothing new from August 7, 2026, but we added 12 events that erode our democratic ideals from earlier dates to the archive — 152 so far this month, 1546 in total. If you saw something happen — yesterday, or any other day — that belongs here, send it to our tip line.

This day in history

We haven't recorded anything for August 7, 2026 yet, so we thought it would be fun to take a look back in history.

• August 7, 2025 — Trump signed EO 14332, placing political appointees as sole gatekeepers over all federal discretionary grants
• August 7, 2025 — Trump ordered NCES to collect race-disaggregated admissions data from colleges, bypassing required APA notice-and-comment
• August 7, 2025 — Trump directed Education Department to collect college race-admissions data on compressed 120-day deadline, bypassing required notice-and-comment rulemaking

Filling out the archive

We're steadily backfilling the archive — working backward through the record so the timeline is complete, not just current. These are older events we archived yesterday. If you know of something from months or years back that belongs here, send it to our tip line.

• March 2, 2022 — Peter Navarro defied House Jan. 6th committee subpoena, refused to testify or produce documents
• August 14, 2025 — U.S. Department of Energy adopted blanket "still interested" FOIA policy, closing pending public-records requests
• December 8, 2025 — Florida Gov. DeSantis designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood 'foreign terrorist organizations,' barring state contracts and funds
• January 8, 2026 — DHS fired career IT employee Brandon Wright over private political remarks caught in a covert dating-app sting
• March 13, 2026 — Monroe County, Tenn. deputies arrested Facebook community-page operator Emma Berger over posting a public warrant
• March 20, 2026 — DOE and Commerce awarded SoftBank a federal AI data-center land deal two months after its $50 million gift to Trump's library
• August 3, 2026 — Indiana Gov. Braun fired IURC Commissioner Zay, called cited cause 'ancillary,' day before agency shelved rate-hike reconsideration vote
• August 5, 2026 — Interior Department installed Project 2025 author Dennis Kirk inside its inspector general's office; former IG called it a threat to independence
• August 5, 2026 — Mooresville, NC officer misused Flock license-plate cameras 31 times to track boyfriend's ex-wife
• August 6, 2026 — Trump signed two new executive orders again restricting birthright citizenship after Supreme Court struck down his original order
• August 6, 2026 — Trump ordered leak investigations, threatened jail time over reporting on depleted US munitions stockpiles
• August 6, 2026 — White House pushed to delay hemp ban while Chief of Staff Susie Wiles' son-in-law stood to profit

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