The figures that matter most, each traceable to one entry and one named source.
Standing rule: no scores. Color marks whether something is in force, reversed, contested, concluded, or permanent, not good or bad.
Unscored · 97 entries · last change 2026-08-16
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Color is a legal fact, not an opinion. It shows (whether something is still in force, was reversed, or is contested in court), never whether it was good or bad.
Every number links to its source and to how strongly it can be tied to the action (). Click any figure to see the full evidence.
Nothing here is scored, graded, or ranked. When two credible sources disagree, this archive shows both numbers instead of picking one.
Wins are in here too. See or filter the Ledger by .
Nobody is asking you to trust a byline. There isn’t one — the archive is anonymous, on purpose, which is exactly why it has to be checkable without one. See and check one entry against its own source yourself.
Public approval37% approve · 57% disapproveNet approval of roughly −21 is the lowest of either term, below his post-January-6 floor of −19. Independent approval near 34%.Polling averages, early August 2026
Next scheduled testMidterm elections, November 2026Three months out. Independent approval below the level that preceded the 2018 wave; the entire House and a third of the Senate are on the ballot.Election calendar
Figures of record
▲ and ▼ are direction. Color is measured : who paid, who gained, not whether that was right. Click a figure that has an entry. Not every figure here is a cost. Filter to just .
▲$2.8T
added to the national debt so far this term
18 months in; the JEC reported $2.77T year-over-year in April 2026
Net cost
Added since January 2025 — from $36.22T to roughly $39T. Borne by future taxpayers through debt service; sources put the range at $2.2T–$2.8T depending on cut-off.
Gross national debt · Treasury / Federal Reserve
▲54
more federal judges confirmed this term
On top of 234 in the first term
Transfer
9 appellate, 45 district. Ahead of the 2018 confirmation pace but with a far thinner pipeline — 60 nominees submitted against 137 by this date in 2018.
Lifetime judgeships filled this term · Senate confirmation record
▲369K
total jobs added, Jan 2025 – Mar 2026
vs. 1,565,000 in the final 14 months prior
Transfer
Positive but roughly a quarter the pace of the preceding 14 months. Private sector +609K, offset by federal cuts.
Total nonfarm employment · BLS via FactCheck.org
What this archive is made of
97 entries, 203 effect claims, 520 sourced estimates, 230 linked documents. Zero scores, grades, or rankings.
Where every entry stands today
Color here is a legal and operational fact, not an opinion: whether the action is still in force, was reversed or never fulfilled, is contested in court, has concluded, or is irreversible.
Coverage by domain
Bar segments show the standing mix inside each domain. Click any row to open it in the ledger.
The honesty check on the whole archive. If nearly everything claimed Direct, the archive would be overreaching. Amber marks claims where credible sources reach incompatible conclusions.
Direct138
Contributory28
Contextual20
Disputed17
What the evidence is made of
Every estimate in the archive, grouped by the kind of institution that produced it. Advocacy sources are admissible but never appear alone.
Primary document157
Government data79
Party to the action67
Academic / peer-reviewed52
Nonpartisan scorekeeper41
Advocacy — labeled31
Journalistic verification26
Named / interested parties24
Archive reasoning — not a source17
Cross-ideological convergence13
Mixed / other11
Polling aggregate2
The disagreement, charted
These are the numbers people argue with. Each bar is one published estimate at its own value, never averaged into a single figure, because the width of the gap is itself the finding.
10-year deficit effect — OBBBA
$ trillions, 2025–2034
CBO, excl. interest3.4
CBO, incl. interest4.1
CBO, dynamic (thru 2035)4.7
CRFB, if made permanent5.5
10-year deficit effect — TCJA
$ trillions
JCT, dynamic1.07
JCT, conventional1.46
CBO, incl. interest1.9
Project 2025 implementation — competing trackers
% of that tracker’s own agenda list
CPR / GFI — 532 proposals, method published53
Crowdsourced tracker — 317 objectives, no method48
Employment effect — steel & aluminum tariffs
jobs
Steel production jobs added1000
Steel-consuming mfg. jobs lost-75000
2020-01-03 · Foreign policy & defense · action
Killing of Qasem Soleimani
29 of 97
Layer 1 — Action
Strike conducted January 3, 2020. Iran responded with ballistic missile attacks on Al Asad Air Base on January 8.
A drone strike in Baghdad killing the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, conducted without prior congressional authorization.
Layer 2 —
Concluded; no wider war followed at the time
More than 100 US personnel were later diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries from the retaliatory strike, after initial reports of no casualties. Iraq’s parliament voted to expel US forces; the resolution was non-binding and not implemented.
Verified as of August 2026
This entry is a useful precedent for reading the 2026 Iran entry: unilateral strike, disputed imminence, congressional resolutions vetoed, casualty figures revised upward later.
Layer 3 — Measured effects
The strike was conducted without congressional authorization.
No AUMF specific to Iran exists; the administration cited Article II self-defense authority and the 2002 Iraq AUMF.
Administration legal justification to Congress
Party to the action
Both chambers passed war-powers resolutions seeking to constrain further action; the President vetoed them.
Congressional roll calls and veto messages
Primary document
Legal scholars divided on whether the imminence standard for self-defense was met; the underlying intelligence remains classified.
International law scholarship
Academic — divided
Casualty reporting was revised over time.
Initial statements reported no casualties from the Iranian response; DoD later confirmed 110+ traumatic brain injury diagnoses.
Defense Department records
Implementing agency
The revision reflects diagnostic timelines for TBI rather than a contradiction of the initial report.
This document is not public, so there is nothing to link. CRS report R46148 records that the notification was submitted on 4 January 2020 under Section 4(a) of the War Powers Resolution and — citing contemporaneous reporting, not its own finding — that it was classified in its entirety. The archive is citing a document the public cannot read, which is itself part of the record.
Publisher’s site — this names a collection, not one document
Names casualty and injury reporting released in stages as assessments were revised upward over months, not one report. A single url would freeze the citation at whichever revision it pointed to.