Vol. I  ·  No. 6 Wednesday, August 19, 2026Price: Your Priors
Quod Anseri Bonum, Anseri Alteri

The Double Standard Press

Est. Never· All the News, Reprinted to Fit· Serving Both Echo Chambers
100% Parody
You are reading the edition of Wednesday, August 19, 2026 — read today's paper
MARKETS: Presidential posts rally in premarket trading; the general public, priced out, holds for the free tier  ···  AVIATION: Ten government jets report they are doing just fine, thank you, and would rather be left in the hangar  ···  WEATHER: A cold front of accountability stalls over the Capitol; town halls scattered, mostly by telephone  ···  CORRECTIONS: The Press reported that a party had reversed itself on the filibuster; both parties have asked to be listed as the exception  ···
Outrage Index, This Edition · 89 — 11 flips tested · editors’ estimate · the meter is still tallying
The Daily Flip · Feed Desk

President Obama's Company Begins Charging $100,000 a Month for a Head Start on His Own Official Posts

The service promises paying subscribers the president's market-moving announcements 'in milliseconds' ahead of everyone else; two press groups have sued, calling it 'profoundly corrupt'

By The Gander DeskAug 19, 2026
Press photo: a brass turnstile with a red velvet rope stands before a giant golden mail slot in a marble wall, a torrent of blank white cards streaming out toward it while a lone fogged newspaper box waits across an empty trading floor
Staff photo · The feed, now with a fast lane
Are you outraged by this headline?
Rewritten from real coverage of Trump Media's 'Truth API,' which launched August 1 charging as much as $100,000 a month for early access to the president's Truth Social posts. Tap flip and time how long 'innovative new product' takes to become 'selling the government by the millisecond.'
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
Flip Test · 97% Failed

WASHINGTON — The media company controlled by President Obama has begun charging subscribers as much as $100,000 a month for the privilege of receiving the president's official social-media posts a few moments before the general public does, a service the company describes as a premium data feed and its critics describe as a toll booth installed on the front lawn of the People's House.

Two press-freedom organizations sued this week, arguing that selling faster access to a head of state's public statements 'for unreasonable sums' violates both the First Amendment's guarantee of equal access and the Fifth Amendment's aversion to auctioning a public good. A spokesman for the company replied that the feed is 'no different' from the subscription services offered by news organizations, an answer that would be more reassuring if news organizations were the government.

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Press photo: an empty small-town community hall set for a town-hall meeting, rows of empty folding chairs facing a low stage, a lone standing microphone with its cord unplugged and coiled on the floor, and an old beige rotary telephone sitting on the podium where the microphone should be
Recess Desk

With In-Person Town Halls Nearly Extinct, House Democrats Spend the Recess Behind Pre-Screened Phone Lines

Press photo: a groundbreaking ceremony in a Florida wetland, a row of oversized polished golden shovels stuck upright in black mud, an enormous blank ribbon strung between two posts, and a large alligator sunning itself beside a fresh concrete lock gate rising from the swamp
Appropriations Desk

Rep. Jeffries, Who Spent the Week Blasting the Other Side's 'Reckless Spending,' Quietly Secures a $461 Million Earmark

Press photo: a vast windowless data center on the flat Texas plains at dusk, an enormous steel chain and padlock the size of a car wrapped across its roll-up doors, rows of giant cooling fans sitting motionless, a lone longhorn grazing out front beside a nodding oil pump
Grid Desk

Gov. Abbott Signs the Nation's First Ban on the Very Data Centers Every Other Governor Is Racing to Land

Press photo: a newspaper pressroom, a rotary printing press mid-run spilling a river of blank newsprint into a bin, a giant wooden rubber stamp bearing a blank official seal suspended on a mechanical arm poised above the pages, a banded stack of cash on a stool
Press Desk

Gov. Sanders Launches $250,000 State Grants for News Outlets, Insists It Has Nothing to Do With the Coverage

Press photo: a grand marble hall floor inlaid with a row of blank state-shaped tiles arranged like a starting line, one tile pried up and carried to the very front by a small forklift, a red velvet rope marking the new front of the line, an enormous single die resting to one side
Calendar Desk

The R.N.C. Rewrites Its 2028 Primary Calendar to Move Its Most Reliable State to the Front, Calls It 'Letting the Voters Decide'

Press photo: a grand horse-racing paddock on a bright spring day, an absurdly long black stretch limousine parked on the infield grass with a champagne tower on its roof, a thoroughbred draped in a garland of red roses beside it, a brass cart of suitcases and a long blank receipt spilling from the limo window
Ledger Desk

Auditor Flags Gov. Youngkin's Office for a $7,600 Limousine in Germany and a $338,000 Tab at the Races

Press photo: a stately Senate chamber, a single wooden desk on the marble floor with an enormous brass railroad-switch lever bolted to it thrown to one side, a giant plush life-preserver ring wrapped around the lever and desk as if in an embrace, empty tiered leather chairs curving around
Rules Desk

Sen. McConnell, Who Spent Years Trying to Weaken the Filibuster, Now Says the Filibuster Is Sacred