July 31, 2026 (Friday)

Courtney Kube, Monica Alba, Peter Nicholas, Gordon Lubold, Katherine Doyle, and Andrea Mitchell of NBC News reported Wednesday that President Donald J. Trump is “exasperated” that the Iran war is dragging on and that his advisors can’t agree what to do next. Reportedly, he erupted last week during a meeting with his national security team, shouting expletives at the officials in the room. One of Trump’s allies told the reporters that Trump had not expected the war to last as long as it has. “There was not a real strategy for how long or what they should do to get to the endpoint…. He did not intend this to be a long, drawn-out war,” the person said.

Yesterday the war began to widen as a drone hit a gas storage tanker owned by a U.S. company in Egypt near the Suez Canal—no one has claimed responsibility—and Iran struck at American installations in Jordan. U.S. and Saudi Arabian forces launched strikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.

At a Cabinet meeting at Camp David today, Trump told reporters he intends to hit Iran with heavy military strikes again to force Iranian negotiators to give in to his demands. “We will be hitting them very hard,” he said. “And you know at some point, they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore.’” “We just want to win,” he said. “We’re doing very well.”

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not appear to have a strategy for their war on Iran. Instead, they had an ideology. That ideology elevates individualism over the idea behind the modern American state: that government should regulate business, maintain a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, protect civil rights, and support an international order based in rules rather than in military might.

Since the 1950s, opponents of that modern state have celebrated the American individual, especially the American cowboy, as the figure the American government should privilege and protect. In their mythology, the cowboy wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone to rise through his own hard work, protecting himself and his family from wrongdoers with his gun and his principles. The education, expertise, cooperation, and coalitions on which the modern U.S. stood before Trump were signs not of strength, but of weakness.

That ideology seems to have been what was behind the attack on Iran. In 2015 the U.S., China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Iran negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium significantly and allow inspections, in exchange for relief from some sanctions. The Strait of Hormuz remained open. Although inspectors said Iran was honoring the deal, Trump maintained it was “ne of the worst deals ever made by our Country.” He took the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and the following year, Iran resumed work on enriched uranium necessary for a nuclear weapon.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth brought this ideology into the Defense Department, which he tried to rebrand the “Department of War.” In 2024, Hegseth published a book titled The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. In it, he claimed that the U.S. military was weak and “effeminate” because its leaders had embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion.

His prescription for the country involved getting rid of the Geneva Conventions, which recognize human rights for noncombatants in war, claiming they forced the U.S. troops to fight “with one hand behind our back.” In his confirmation hearings, Hegseth refused to tell Senator Angus King (I-ME) that he would honor those agreements.

On September 5, 2025, Hegseth said changing the name of the Defense Department to the Department of War was part of his campaign to spread a “warrior ethos” at the Pentagon. The rebranding, he said, was part of “restoring intentionality to the use of force…. We’re going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct. We’re going to raise up warriors, not just defenders. So this War Department, Mr. President, just like America, is back.”

But Trump’s war on Iran has illustrated the weakness of that vision. Trump reiterated yet again today that the U.S. has dominated Iran’s military. “They’re being decimated. They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no anti-aircraft,” he said. But for all that, they retain their ability to choke world trade by controlling the Strait of Hormuz—the very condition previous presidents worked to avoid through negotiations.

An article yesterday by Politico senior foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi suggests that the “cowboy” approach to foreign policy has another downside. Toosi called out the extreme attacks of Trump and his aides on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and wrote that, although the U.S. is not a signatory to that court, former government officials and legal scholars suspect Trump and administration officials are worried about future prosecutions.

On July 13, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the administration intends to “dismantle the ICC—brick by brick, if necessary.” A press release from the State Department on the same day said that the U.S. “will feature a whole-of-government response to systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.”

A Republican operative close to the White House, Bill Cortese, told Toosi that some administration officials are afraid that “if Democrats come into power…, an unchecked ICC and other international institutions are going to unleash a wave of litigation against this administration and anyone associated with it.” Toosi notes that during the administration, U.S. law enforcement and military officials have been accused of human rights violations that reach across borders.

Notably, on September 2, 2025, three days before Hegseth’s “maximum lethality, not tepid legality” speech, the administration began strikes against small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Those strikes have killed more than 220 people, but the administration has offered no evidence to prove its claims that those killed were “narcoterrorists” killed to stop the flow of cocaine to the U.S.

Trump claims the strikes have virtually ended drug trafficking by sea, but on July 27, Alex Horton, Terrence McCoy, Samantha Schmidt, and Dylan Moriarty of the Washington Post reported that according to Pentagon officials and officials from the Drug Enforcement Agency, the strikes have not reduced the cocaine coming into the U.S. Indeed, the dropping price of the drug suggests there is more of it now than there was a year ago. Instead, the strikes have simply prompted criminal organizations to find new routes. The strikes have also disrupted the law enforcement system in which lower-level participants inform on higher-ups, as the lower-level sources are being pulled back.

While the strikes appear to have done little to stop the flow of drugs, legal analysts say they look a lot like former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers and users. Law professor Charlie Trumbull reminded readers of Foreign Policy that in 2017, Trump called Duterte to congratulate him for doing “an unbelievable job on the drug problem.” Trumbull also noted that “Duterte is now behind bars in the Hague,” charged with crimes against humanity for trying to get rid of criminals by unlawful means, including murder.

“The Trump administration should be concerned,” Trumbull warned.

On July 25 the U.S. State Department cheered Venezuela’s withdrawal from the treaty that established the ICC and said it welcomed “the new Venezuelan government’s partnership on American-led efforts to dismantle the corrupt and worthless ICC.” It continued, “The ICC is neither credible, independent, nor legitimate,” and called on all members of the ICC to abandon it.

Today Missy Ryan and Nancy A. Youssef of The Atlantic reported that in the wake of the U.S. strike on the Minab school that killed 168 people, mostly schoolchildren, in the first hours of the war, the Pentagon is considering reversing some of the deep cuts Hegseth made to the staff at the Defense Department. A report by the Pentagon inspector general found that cuts to the civilian-harm protections staff who work to protect noncombatants may have violated laws.

Ryan and Youssef explain that the U.S. military had spent decades building its civilian protections. Leaders understood that battlefield victories were insufficient to win military operations and that protecting civilians is crucial to public support for those operations. Ryan and Youssef noted that to reflect this understanding, the Pentagon in 2006 “formally added legitimacy, restraint, and perseverance to its Principles of Joint Operations, defining legitimacy as ‘the legality, morality, and rightness of the actions undertaken.’”

A U.S. official told Ryan and Youssef that the leadership of U.S. combat commands uniformly support the restoration of the personnel whose job it is to protect civilians. But Hegseth has not committed to the restoration of the old system, the journalists note, and even if he does, it will have little effect unless he changes his own rhetoric.

For his part, Trump appears to be addressing concerns about future prosecutions, whether by the ICC or at U.S. courts, by keeping control of the government after the midterms. Today Trump disagreed with the assessment of investigators that a recent cyberattack on municipal water systems in Minnesota was likely the work of Iranian hackers. Instead, he blamed Democrats.

“We heard in Minnesota there was a cyberattack and they blame it on Iran,” he told reporters. “I don’t think so. I think. I blame it on Minnesota because they’re grossly incompetent. There was a cyberattack of thirty water plants. And I would blame it on Minnesota and the governor, the corrupt governor of Minnesota.”

There is another piece of evidence this week that the abandonment of education and expertise in favor of a “warrior ethos” has weakened the U.S. on the world stage. At an international conference on AIDS in Rio de Janeiro, an official of the U.S. State Department showed a map of Africa on which six fake countries were identified with the names of random real countries—including Nigeria, where several hundred U.S. soldiers are deployed. Reuters identified the image as AI.

Attendees took screenshots and posted them online. “Whoever ⁠created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work,” one wrote.

Thanks.

HCR with her colleague in
What the Heck Just Happened?”

Link

August 1, 2026 (Saturday)

In a classic Friday night news dump, the Department of Justice last night moved to dismiss the criminal charges against David Hearn, the U.S. Olympian the Justice Department indicted for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The filing says that “damage to the Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (“AIC”), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”

President Donald J. Trump announced in April that he was planning to renovate the reflecting pool and on May 7 said it would take a week and cost about $1.8 million. By May 8 the cost had jumped to $13.1 million, with the contract awarded on a no-bid basis. When the pool reopened on June 6, Trump declared it a triumph, writing on social media: “Thank you President Trump.”

But the day after the reservoir filled with water, algae began to bloom in it. A spokesperson for the Interior Department said the algae were “residual” and a normal part of the process of refilling the pool. “President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the Reflecting Pool for good unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden,” she said in a statement.

By June 16, crews from the National Park Service were pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae that had turned the pool bright green even as Trump insisted the pool was perfect.

By Thursday, June 18, the new blue epoxy at the bottom of the pool was peeling off and floating in the vivid green pool. David Fahrenthold reported in the New York Times that the National Park Service contracted not only the coating and painting of the pool under a no-bid contract—the price tag had jumped to at least $14.2 million—but also an additional $1.7 million contract for a water purification system.

That no-bid contract went to a firm called Greenwater Services, whose ultimate owner is the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, led by Trump donor John J. Cafaro, whose wife chaired the 2017 International Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago and who lives near Mar-a-Lago at a mansion that is listed as the water treatment company’s address in Florida corporate records.

On June 19, U.S. Park Police officers arrested 67-year-old Hearn, a former Olympic canoe racer, who had stopped by the pool on a 52-mile bike ride and reached into the water to feel what the detached material felt like, for destruction of public property. “I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn told David J. Lynch and Aaron Schaffer of the Washington Post. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

That night, Trump blamed “Radical Left Lunatics, most likely Dumocats , who have spent their lives trying to ruin our Country,” for “some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool.” By the next day, he was blaming “multiple individuals for vandalizing our Nations magnificent Reflecting Poll . Who would do such a thing? These are very serious crimes having to do with the destruction of National Monuments. Years in jail! Work will begin immediately on its repair.”

Minnesota governor Tim Walz commented: “Found an imaginary problem, said only they could fix it, didn’t listen to experts, hired buddies who grifted millions, failed miserably, bragged how great it went. The entire Trump presidency in a nutshell.”

Administration officials insisted that the problems with the reflecting pool renovations were entirely the fault of vandals. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on Walz’s statement, saying “The vandalism is very real.” Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, scoffed at the idea that there had not been vandalism, telling Jesse Watters of the Fox News Channel that she had just been at the pool and “someone was intent on doing incredible damage to the pool.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Dana Bash of CNN that the contractors had nothing to do with the problems; it was “vandalism.” He insisted the government could prove there were vandals and suggested there were “photographs.” When Bash pressed him over whether the government actually had “photographs of a person or people cutting a 300- or 350-foot gash in the bottom of the reflecting pool,” he deflected, saying: “I’m not sure why you and others in the media think that you want to keep trying to question” the president’s version of events.

On June 29, Trump posted: “The Reflecting Pool, which suffered great damage due to the Vandals and Radical Left SCUM that hate our Country, has been, for the past two days, in full operation. It looks beautiful! After July 4th, we will release the water, fix the damage done to the very expensive waterproof matting, with the use of sharp knives and muscle, including the 350 foot gash along its right side, and have it looking as good as it was two weeks ago, when it was absolutely PERFECT!”

Now, of course, the Department of Justice’s filing proves that the idea of vandals was always a lie. The problems with the renovation of the reflecting pool were exactly what critics said all along: a hasty, expensive, ill-thought-out project failed. This case is so bad, Chris Geidner of LawDork noted, that Pirro went out of her way to blame the Interior Department for the misguided indictment.

The disparity between the fantasy Trump and his cronies sold to their supporters and the reality of the situation when they were forced to prove their allegations in court matters. Administration officials insisted before the media that the project had been a great success, hurt only by “Radical Left SCUM that hate our Country.” In order to prove their lie, administration officials used the power of the government to harass, indict, and threaten a random individual whom they could blame for their own failures. Then, when forced to prove their allegations in a court of law, they withdrew the claim entirely.

This has always been the pattern of Trump and his cronies: weave a fantasy story in front of friendly media cameras, a fantasy of their own great success undercut by haters, then abandon—or lose—the legal cases based on the fantasy.

For all the bluster before the cameras of Trump cronies insisting the 2020 election was stolen, Trump’s attorneys backed away from the claims. They either withdrew or lost all but one of the 60 lawsuits they brought over the election. As a headline in the Wall Street Journal put it in 2020: “Trump Cries Voter Fraud. In Court, His Lawyers Don’t.”

The one case Trump’s lawyers won found that the Pennsylvania secretary of state overstepped by allowing voters extra time to provide missing identification for mail-in ballots. Even with that ruling, Daniel Barnes of NBC News reported, Biden still won the state by more than 80,000 votes.

Even as reality makes it clear that his claims are a fantasy, Trump continues to spin his yarns, seeming to have little else to convince voters to support him. Today he doubled down on his insistence that vandals caused the problems with the reflecting pool. “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM…. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT”

Thanks.

August 2, 2026 (Sunday)

Friday’s dismissal of the Department of Justice case against David Hearn for vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool came days after Hearn’s lawyers asked for transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to the indictment. The lawyers noted that the government’s only witness testified that the pool was already damaged before Hearn went near it, and that the witness could not quantify the cost of any damage Hearn might have done over and above the cost of repairing the existing damage. The lawyers told the court there were “irregularities in the government’s presentation of the evidence to the grand jury” that “call into question whether the grand jury was misled.”

The Department of Justice has been caught repeatedly misleading grand juries or committing misconduct in getting indictments. Hearn’s lawyers were suggesting that the Department of Justice engaged in the same misconduct in the indictment of David Hearn for damaging the bottom of the reflecting pool.

In their filing, they noted that a judge and former federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia had recently stated that “enerations of presidential administrations and public officials” have reinforced the idea, called the “presumption of regularity,” that public officials do their jobs properly, operate in good faith, and follow correct procedures. But, the judge noted, “In just six months, the President of the United States may have forfeited the right to such a presumption.”

On July 28, J. David McSwane, Pratheek Rebala, and Carla Astudillo of ProPublica reported that judges across the country are calling out lawyers for the Department of Justice, questioning whether they can be trusted to tell the truth and whether they are operating according to centuries-old norms. Judges have called behavior by Department of Justice lawyers “unlawful,” “unethical,” “unseemly,” and otherwise dishonest.

The degradation of the Department of Justice, which is charged with defending the rule of law for the American people, into an instrument of Trump’s political wrath has been illustrated in the fight over the confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to attorney general.

Before going to the Department of Justice, Blanche was Trump’s personal attorney. He led Trump’s criminal defense team in the case of falsifying records to cover up hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, as well as his defense against the two cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith: the one indicting him for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the one indicting him for retaining classified documents after leaving office.

Since he took over for former attorney general Pam Bondi, Blanche has openly flouted the law in order to do Trump’s bidding. He secured indictments against people Trump perceives to be enemies, including former FBI director James Comey for posting on Instagram a picture of seashells arranged to form the number “8647.”

On July 29, Devlin Barrett and Alan Feuer of the New York Times reported that the Secret Service agents who interviewed Comey in May 2025 were told to send a summary of that interview as quickly as possible to Trump on Air Force One. Trump’s close involvement in the case, the authors wrote, “is one of the most glaring examples to date of the degree to which Mr. Trump now directs federal law enforcement actions.”

On July 28, Comey’s lawyers filed motions to throw out on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution the federal charges Blanche brought against him. They noted that Trump had repeatedly made it clear he wanted Comey indicted, even going so far as to put his former special assistant Lindsey Halligan into office as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where she indicted Comey just four days later. (That appointment was later found to be invalid.) The filings from Comey’s lawyers appear to show that FBI officers engaged in warrantless surveillance of Comey.

Like the lawyers in the Hearn case, Comey’s lawyers suggested that “irregularities in the grand jury process influenced the grand jury to return an indictment.” Like Hearn’s lawyers, they asked the court to “disclose the transcripts and audio recordings of all proceedings before the grand jury in this case” or to review them himself to make sure they followed the law. In a previous case against Comey, they note, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick found that the government’s actions raised “genuine issues of misconduct” that were “inextricably linked to the government’s grand jury presentation.”

Blanche’s indictment of Comey to please Trump colors another of his actions: he backed the deal Trump made with the Department of Justice to establish a $1.776 billion slush fund to pay off those convicted of committing crimes surrounding Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Blanche put his name to the second half of that deal that seems to be being eclipsed by the slush fund but is clearly Trump’s main interest: an agreement between Trump and the Department of Justice promising to drop any pending claims against Trump, his oldest sons, or the Trump Organization for past illegalities in tax returns, and promising not to conduct audits of Trump’s tax returns.

That slush fund/nonprosecution deal has been a sticking point for Blanche’s Senate confirmation to attorney general, as two Republican senators—John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina—want him to put in writing that the deal is as dead as he claimed it is in his confirmation hearing before they agree to support his nomination. But he has refused to do so. On Thursday, Trump suggested he was willing to withdraw Blanche’s nomination until Cornyn and Tillis are out of office, leaving him as acting attorney general.

Then, at 7:03 Friday morning, Trump threw a monkey wrench into this fight by posting that in fact, he emphatically supports the slush fund. He appears to reject the idea that it is dead, and seems to be counting on Todd Blanche to implement it, exactly as critics have said.

Trump seems to have been thwarted from getting his way quietly by putting Blanche in as attorney general without any promise to kill the slush fund and its accompanying promise not to prosecute Trump or his associates for crimes associated with their tax filings. And so, on Friday, Trump filed notice that he and the rest of the parties to the “agreement” will appeal the July 13 ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams. She said that the suit that led to the $10 billion slush fund and the accompanying nonprosecution promise was filed to “manipulate the judicial process.” Williams said the Justice Department could not claim the deal it made with the Trumps was a judicial agreement.

At 7:32 Saturday morning, Trump posted: “If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche, one of the most respected professionals, according to everybody, in the Country, to be the United States Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill, which takes care of those who have been so badly treated by the Crooked Joe Biden (and Obuma!) Administration (I get nothing, although I was treated horribly!), PASSED. Todd Blanche was a voice of reason! It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT”

August 3, 2026 (Monday)

Just before midnight last night, news broke that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had rescinded the order of May 18, 2026, establishing a $1.776 billion slush fund for those who claimed that the Department of Justice under former president Joe Biden had persecuted them. The fund was widely perceived to be a way to pay off those convicted of crimes related to their attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

What Blanche’s order did not do was to change the terms of the nonprosecution order providing that the Department of Justice would not prosecute Trump, his sons, the Trump Organization, or their associates for crimes related to tax returns filed before May 19, 2026. Last night, Blanche reiterated that the nonprosecution order applies “only retroactively,” but that was always the case.

At stake is at least $100 million it appears Trump owes to the American people from previous tax shenanigans that turned up in audits. It’s possible there are other irregularities, but if so, under this order, we would not know: the order says that the IRS will not audit the tax returns of Trump and his associates before the May 19 date. Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews noted: “Pretty convenient that Trump gets immunity from IRS audits for the year where he made, by far, the most money of his entire life in shady deals all over the globe.”

And, as legal analyst Barb McQuade noted, even the promise to kill the slush fund is hollow. Last week, the Department of Justice paid $1.2 million to Paul Vaughn, who was convicted in 2024 of violating the FACE Act, which bans “force or threat of force or… physical obstruction” that “intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with… any person… obtaining or providing reproductive health care services.” While Vaughn claimed he was arrested for praying, in fact he blocked the doors of a reproductive health care clinic in Tennessee.

Vaughn’s payoff shows that the Department of Justice will simply give out “individual settlements instead of one designated fund,” McQuade wrote.

Nonetheless, Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who sit on the Judiciary Committee and were openly opposing Blanche, this morning issued a joint statement saying they will now support Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, allowing the nomination to move out of the Judiciary Committee to the full Senate.

Legal analyst Lisa Rubin noted that “n their statement, Sens Cornyn and Tillis refer to this one pager as a ‘binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury.’ But this isn’t an order nor does it bind anyone.”

The top-ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin of Maryland, released a statement titled “Blanche’s Empty Promises Do Nothing to Kill Slush Fund, Stop the Flow of Money to Convicted J6 Felons and MAGA Allies, or End Trump Family Super Pardon.” He called for “six patriotic House Republicans” to join with House Democrats to pass a discharge petition that would force a vote on stopping the “unconscionable” deal.

Now the rest of Republican senators have to decide whether Blanche’s fig leaf gives them enough plausible deniability of support for paying off violent Trump supporters and Trump’s IRS immunity to confirm Blanche’s nomination to become the attorney general tomorrow. While the focus has been on Tillis and Cornyn, Semafor’s senior Washington editor Elana Schor told MS NOW on Sunday that other Republican senators were quietly cheering Tillis and Cornyn on. “If the Senate voted on this fund today there would be almost 60 votes to kill it, maybe 70,” she said.

In The Freedom Academy with Asha Rangappa, counterintelligence scholar Rangappa suggests the Republican senators have gone so far down the road of enabling Trump that they will simply rubber-stamp Blanche. If “you’ve confirmed Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Kristi Noem, you’ve funded ICE, you’ve stood by while Trump hollowed out the , fired thousands of people, drained the U.S. Treasury, hijacked the country’s semiquincentennial, trashed the White House lawn for a WWE event, and drained the reflecting pool. Twice…. Is Todd Blanche really going to be THE LINE?” she asks. “Come on.”

Rangappa is probably right that Senate Republicans will vote to confirm Blanche. But the cost of enabling Trump has risen as his job approval ratings have tanked. Only about a third of Americans approve of his job performance, numbers that rival those of President Richard M. Nixon just before he resigned. Confirming Blanche, who clearly works for Trump alone, carries with it the fact that Blanche appears to have been the person most responsible for ignoring the Epstein Files Transparency Act. According to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, Blanche essentially admitted he had violated the law when he failed to address allegations brought by independent journalist Katie Phang, who sued for access to documents she claimed were unlawfully redacted.

The judge is now reviewing those documents to see if the redactions were proper. If not, their exposure after Republican senators have put Blanche in the position of the top law enforcement official in the country would make the senators appear complicit in the Epstein files cover-up. While that issue has fallen out of the headlines since Trump began his war on Iran, it is an issue MAGA Republicans elected Trump to expose and could easily reignite.

And then there is the increasingly erratic behavior of Trump himself. This morning, he posted: “My REAL Polling Numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they have ever been, and why wouldn’t they be with the biggest tax cuts and employment numbers EVER, the biggest outside Investment in America in World history, a totally secure Border, a giant Victory in Venezuela, the Denuclearization of Iran, unparalleled respect and success throughout the World, and much more? Don’t believe the Radical Left’s Fake Poll numbers. They are Crooked and Corrupt, just like the Country Destroying Dumocrats are Crooked and Corrupt. VOTE REPUBLICAN FOR GREATNESS IN AMERICA!”

This version of Trump’s America is as fantastical as his post yesterday of an AI image of himself writing on a map of the U.S. with presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, or of himself dressed as a svelte Elvis the day before.

Indeed, Saturday was quite a day of posting on social media for the president of the United States. In addition to portraying himself as Elvis, he posted a flattering picture of himself with the caption: “President Trump ages in reverse!,” himself as a Continental Army officer, a split portrait with his face as one half and George Washington as the other, and a “Trump 2028” poster.

Trump has given Republican senators little reason to give him cover. He has been openly feuding with Republican senators over things he wants Congress to do for which Republican leadership can’t find enough votes.

Those include the SAVE America Act, which would dramatically rework voting in the U.S. and which Trump seems to think would enable Republicans to win the 2026 midterms. But even if the Republicans nuke the filibuster so they could pass it without any Democratic votes—something they don’t want to do—it’s not clear they have enough votes for a simple majority. To get his way on the SAVE America Act, Trump hamstrung Republicans by refusing to sign a popular housing bill, which had to become law without his signature, hurting Republicans’ ability to claim credit for the measure.

Trump also wants a major supplemental funding bill for the enormously unpopular Iran war, which the Republicans would prefer not to pass before the midterms.

Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris of CNN reported yesterday that Trump is barely communicating with Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) except through the media. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on July 23 that Trump’s “patience is running out” with Thune, and Raju and Ferris note that Senator Lindsey Graham’s death on July 11 hampered communication as the South Carolina Republican was close to both Trump and Thune.

Now the infighting appears to be getting worse. “We need to be talking up the wins, talking about how crazy Democrats are, and instead we are knifing each other,” a Republican senator told the CNN reporters.

The infighting between Trump and Republican senators was muted this weekend compared to the fighting between Trump and cabinet members. After U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro moved to dismiss criminal charges against David Hearn, the U.S. Olympian the Justice Department indicted for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, both Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took to social media to challenge her.

Trump repeatedly posted on social media that “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro” and posted a video of the reflecting pool in broad daylight, with the workers skimming algae in it and people around it, focusing on what seemed to be a young man briefly kneeling by the pool as “proof” the “material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter, for all to see!” Alayna Treene of CNN reported today that Trump is furious with Pirro and is considering firing her.

Pirro blamed the Interior Department for the mistaken indictment, and Burgum fought back, supporting Trump’s version of events. He posted that the “evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool. Some of these acts were even caught on camera.” Unlike Pirro, Burgum did not have to defend his statements in a court of law. He did, though, get corrected by community notes, which pointed out that the Department of Justice had stated that damage to the pool came from a “botched contractor installation.”

And the fight between cabinet members paled in comparison with the extraordinary fight playing out between Republican federal lawmakers from Ohio, where Representative Max Miller on Sunday took to social media to post a twenty-minute video he apparently thought would exonerate him from well-supported stories that he abused his baby daughter and wife.

The video delivered such eye-poppingly classic examples of abuse that it seemed to prove his guilt rather than his innocence. Documents he posted to accompany the video also supported the stories.

After Miller released the video, his former father-in-law, Senator Bernie Moreno, who had remained silent about the stories, finally made a public statement on social media calling Miller’s behavior “increasingly erratic and dangerous” and saying the representative—who is running for reelection—“needs serious psychological help” and “should not serve in the House of Representatives.”

Miller responded with what seemed to be a reference to stories that MAGA Republican Moreno is gay: “You know this isn’t true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus,” Miller wrote. “This is all political.”

Tomorrow’s HCR: “ Just before midnight last night, news broke that… Mitch McConnell suddenly and unexpectedly passed away”

Divine Angel said:

Tomorrow’s HCR: “ Just before midnight last night, news broke that… Mitch McConnell suddenly and unexpectedly passed away”

He was seemingly getting better and then for some reason went up many flights of stairs and opened a door that went nowhere except down.
Gravity is a bitch

Cymek said:

Divine Angel said:

Tomorrow’s HCR: “ Just before midnight last night, news broke that… Mitch McConnell suddenly and unexpectedly passed away”

He was seemingly getting better and then for some reason went up many flights of stairs and opened a door that went nowhere except down.
Gravity is a bitch

wait he went to Russia and found Windows did he

Thanks for posting HCR.

August 4, 2026 (Tuesday)

On Friday night, a court filing from Capital One denied there was any political motivation behind the closure of more than 380 bank accounts in the names of Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. Instead, it stated, the accounts were closed “for anti-money laundering reasons.” It said “transaction patterns” had triggered the review.

President Donald J. Trump has maintained that banks refused to do business with him after January 6, 2021, for political reasons. As Allison Morrow of CNN reported yesterday, Trump and his supporters, including cryptocurrency ventures, have used the idea that they were being “debanked” because of their political beliefs to claim they are victims. Last year, Trump and the Trump Organization sued Capital One in federal court in Florida, saying they had sustained “considerable financial harm” after the bank closed about 385 of their accounts.

Observers note that the story of Trump wanting immunity from IRS audits and the revelation that his bank activity mirrored that of money launderers might well be the same story.

That story recalls the work of national security specialist Natasha Bertrand in 2018, when she reported in The Atlantic that Trump’s rabid attacks on FBI and Justice Department officials centered on those with extensive experience in investigating money laundering and organized crime, particularly as they interfaced with Russia.

Trump went after officials he claimed were “Democrats” who were part of a “witch hunt” against him as they examined the ties of his 2016 campaign to Russian operatives. But Bertrand pointed out that his primary targets—Bruce Ohr, Lisa Page, Andrew Weissmann, Andrew McCabe—all specialized in investigations into organized crime and money laundering. She noted that the probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian operatives was primarily a counterintelligence investigation and that Russia’s criminal syndicates and intelligence services had become increasingly intertwined.

In July 2017, Trump told the New York Times that it would be unacceptable for those investigating his campaign’s ties to Russia to look at his or his family’s personal finances. That would be a “red line,” he said. “I have no income from Russia. I don’t do business with Russia.” (This denial contradicts Donald Trump Jr.’s 2008 statement that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets” and Eric Trump’s 2014 boast, “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”) Bertrand noted that Trump’s links to “Russian oligarchs and mobsters” were “documented” and that his Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, “was repeatedly cited by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for having inadequate money-laundering controls.”

Financial irregularities surrounding Trump associate Jeffrey Epstein are also in the news today. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is famous for following money trails doggedly, released a report saying that JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank held off on filing required suspicious activity reports in transactions associated with Jeffrey Epstein.

The report, titled “Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking,” came out of a multi-year investigation. Investigators “found significant evidence that JPMorgan Chase (JPMC), Deutsche Bank, and Bank of America violated anti–money laundering laws by failing to screen and report Epstein’s suspicious financial transactions in a timely manner.”

It describes how top banks enabled Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation by ignoring suspicious financial transactions by those associated with him, appearing eager to use Epstein’s connections to other wealthy individuals. The report explains that Epstein’s lawyer Darren Inkyke and his accountants Richard Kahn and Harry Beller “executed thousands of suspicious cash withdrawals and wire transfers, potentially in furtherance of human trafficking. Disturbingly, federal prosecutors have never even questioned them in connection with criminal investigations.”

Federal law designed to prevent money laundering requires banks to notify the Treasury with a suspicious activities report (SAR) within 60 days of detecting activity that raises red flags. The investigators found that the three banks most closely associated with Epstein put off reporting suspicious activity for years, filing reports of more than $1.4 billion retroactively only after Epstein was arrested for the second time in 2019 on charges of sex trafficking. The suspicious transactions included “thousands of wire transfers, major withdrawals of cash, payments to women and girls, and correspondent banking in high-risk foreign jurisdictions (including Russia). They also include tens of millions in payments to his conspirator and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.”

The report concludes that “top executives at major Wall Street banks were aware of Epstein’s suspicious financial activity for years but withheld information from the U.S. government, protecting Epstein from federal scrutiny” as they sought access to his money, which generated millions in fees every year, and to the money of his friends.

Top of the list of those friends was billionaire Leon Black, the former chief executive officer of Apollo Global Management Inc. The report concludes that Black “was overwhelmingly the largest source of funding for Epstein’s sex trafficking,” providing Epstein’s primary source of income between 2012 and 2017. Those payments amounted to about $166 million.

Bank of America took five to seven years to report those transactions even though bank officials thought they had “no apparent economic, business or lawful purpose.” Black told the Republican-dominated House Oversight Committee that he paid that money to Epstein for “tax, estate planning and other related services” and was not aware of Epstein’s “nefarious activity.”

The report concludes that “Bank of America likely violated federal anti-money laundering laws by failing to properly screen and report” those payments.

The report also covers already-released SARs from JPMorgan Chase, showing that the bank waited years to file those SARs despite the fact that bankers flagged more than $1 billion of transactions as suspicious, including payments to women in many countries and large cash withdrawals. It explains how Deutsche Bank AG, as well, delayed for years reporting more than $250 million in suspicious transactions tied to Epstein.

The report notes that JPMorgan Chase cut ties to Epstein as a client in 2013 out of concerns he was engaged in money laundering. This is an interesting mirror of the recent news from Capital One, since Trump also sued JPMorgan Chase and its chief executive officer Jamie Dimon for $5 billion, alleging they “debanked” him after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Wyden, who is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, chastised Republicans for not working with him on this project. He noted that Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who is currently running for governor, refused to join him in subpoenaing records in the Epstein banking matter even as she publicly complained that Democrats were hampering the investigation into those records.

The report also pointed out that Republicans have blocked Wyden’s measure that would require the Treasury Department to produce copies of all suspicious activity reports related to Epstein and his co-conspirators for congressional committees, and it singled out U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for refusing to produce those records to the Senate Finance Committee.

The report called for the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Comptroller of the Currency to “conduct thorough investigations of the activities laid out in this report and…levy fines or criminal penalties, as appropriate.” The report emphasized that such an investigation should include looking at the behavior of individual bankers, as well as the banks themselves.

“Investigations into the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein have thus uncovered an important finding that extends beyond Epstein himself: Wall Street banks have been willing to turn a blind eye to the suspicious transactions of ultra-wealthy clients, even if the failure to scrutinize and report these transactions runs directly afoul of federal law,” the report said. “If federal prosecutors are serious about preventing the next Jeffrey Epstein, they must hold Wall Street accountable.”

Congress passed federal securities laws and banking regulation in the 1930s after it became clear that a small group of wealthy investors had manipulated the markets and misused bank funds. Pressure to clean up Wall Street came from entrepreneurs and small investors, who knew they could not do business or make gains in the market if the system was rigged against them. A healthy economy depended on a level playing field for everyone.

Now, it appears, we are watching the dismantling of those protections and not only the long-term skewing of our system toward the very wealthy, but also a dramatic skewing in real time. On Saturday, Trump began selling access to his social media posts to Wall Street trading firms milliseconds before they go public, permitting them to buy and sell with insider information. The cost for this service, according to Marina Dunbar of The Guardian, is up to $100,000 a month.

Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law, an expert in government conflicts of interest rules, told Bernard Condon of the Associated Press that this scheme is “yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.”

August 5, 2026 (Wednesday)

On August 5, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law a new tax to help fund the United States government during the Civil War. Far more than writing a traditional revenue act to address the catastrophic war that had demonstrated its horrors just two weeks earlier at the Battle of Bull Run, Congress deliberately constructed the law to shift ownership of the American government away from the bankers who had previously provided Treasury funds, to the American people.

Over the next four years, the Republican Congress would put taxes on virtually every product in the country and then, to guarantee that “the burdens will be more equalized on all classes of the community, more especially on those who are able to bear them,” as Senate Finance Committee chair William Pitt Fessenden (R-ME) put it, they invented the nation’s first income tax.

In 1861, Congress levied a 3% tax on income over $800; in 1862, concerned that the level of taxation necessary to pay for the war would be too much for most Americans to bear, Congress placed a general tax at 3% and created a progressive income tax. It taxed income over $600 at 3% and income over $10,000 at 5%.

“The weight must be distributed equally,” Representative Justin Smith Morrill (R-VT) said, “not upon each man an equal amount, but a tax proportionate to his ability to pay.” In 1864, Congress revised those numbers upward. They put general taxes at 5% and raised the income tax brackets to 5% for income from $600 to $5,000 and 7.5% for income from $5,000 to $10,000.

Morrill thought it was important for the federal government to collect the tax directly to illustrate that people were supporting the United States of America, not individual states, as they might think if states collected the taxes. The federal government had a right to “demand” 99% of a man’s property for an urgent necessity, he said. When the nation required it, “the property of the people…belongs to the Government.”

Indeed, the new taxes did cement loyalty to the United States. With their money behind the war effort, Americans became more and more committed to their cause. As the war costs mounted, far from objecting to taxes, Americans asked their congressmen to raise them out of concern about the growing national debt. In 1864, Senator John P. Hale (R-NH) said: “The condition of the country is singular…I venture to say it is an anomaly in the history of the world. What do the people of the United States ask of this Congress? To take off taxes? No, sir, they ask you to put them on. The universal cry of this people is to be taxed.”

Enlisting more than 2 million soldiers and sailors into the war effort, moving them, equipping them, and arming them eventually cost the United States more than $5 billion. Taxes paid for about 21% of that cost.

Although Republicans invented the American income tax, party leaders in the modern era have turned against it.

In 1980, Republican president Ronald Reagan won the White House by promising that tax cuts would create such dramatic economic growth that Americans would be able to continue to fund popular programs despite those cuts. During the presidential campaign, Reagan’s rival for the Republican nomination, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency George H.W. Bush, called this promise “voodoo economics,” and he was right: the promise that tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations would pay for themselves never materialized. Instead, the national debt rose dramatically.

But the idea that tax cuts were a reliable solution to slow economic growth became Republican dogma.

Rejecting the principles Republicans laid down in the 1860s, Republican leaders ever since have taken the position that taxes do not build the country, but destroy it. Despite the rising national debt, that ideology continued into the modern era. In 2017 the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered income tax rates across the board and offered most tax relief to the wealthy and corporations, became President Donald J. Trump’s signature law.

Those tax cuts eroded the revenue base of the U.S. government, sending the debt soaring. Nonetheless, in July 2025, Republicans passed Trump’s signature economic measure for his second term—the law they call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—making permanent the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations they passed in Trump’s first term. They offset some of the costs of that measure with dramatic cuts to programs that help the American people, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Even with those offsets, economists estimate that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add more than $4 trillion to the national debt in the next ten years. And now, Trump’s war on Iran is adding yet more strain to the national budget. But, rather than restoring the tax base Republicans have cut away—or even passing a wartime tax—the Trump administration maintains that cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse” will solve the problem of the growing debt.

Election results from yesterday suggest that the era of tax cuts as a solution to economic concerns may be coming to an end.

Voters in Missouri resoundingly rejected a Republican proposal to eliminate the state income tax and to replace missing revenue with a higher sales tax. The vote was not close: 83.3% of voters opposed the measure while only 16.7% were in favor, despite the fact that groups in favor of eliminating the tax—many of which kept their donors secret—outspent those in favor of keeping it by a margin of more than two to one.

Ta.

August 6, 2026 (Thursday)

Sixty-one years ago, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. The need for the law was explained in its full title: “An Act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, and for other purposes.”

In the wake of the Civil War, Americans tried to create a new nation in which the law treated Black men and white men as equals. In 1865 they ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing enslavement except as punishment for crimes. In 1868 they adjusted the Constitution again, guaranteeing that anyone born or naturalized in the United States—except certain Indigenous Americans—was a citizen, opening up suffrage to Black men. In 1870, after Georgia legislators expelled their newly seated Black colleagues, Americans defended the right of Black men to vote by adding that right to the Constitution.

All three of those amendments—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth—gave Congress the power to enforce them. In 1870, Congress established the Department of Justice to do just that. Reactionary white southerners had been using state laws, and the unwillingness of state judges and juries to protect Black Americans from white gangs and cheating employers, to keep Black people subservient. White men organized as the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize Black men and to keep them and their white allies from voting to change that system. In 1870 the federal government stepped in to protect Black rights and prosecute members of the Ku Klux Klan.

With federal power now behind the Constitutional protection of equality, threatening jail for those who violated the law, white opponents of Black voting changed their argument against it.

In 1871 they began to say that they had no problem with Black men voting on racial grounds; their objection to Black voting was that Black men, just out of enslavement, were poor and uneducated. They were voting for lawmakers who promised them public services, like roads and schools, that could only be paid for with tax levies.

The idea that Black voters were socialists—they actually used that term in 1871—meant that white northerners who had fought to replace the hierarchical society of the Old South with a society based on equality began to change their tune. They looked the other way as white men kept Black men from voting, first with terrorism and then with grandfather clauses that cut out Black men without mentioning race by permitting a man to vote if his grandfather had voted, literacy tests in which white registrars got to decide who passed, poll taxes, and so on. States also cut up districts unevenly to favor the Democrats, who ran an all-white, segregationist party. By 1880 the South was solidly Democratic, and it would remain so until 1964.

Southern states always held elections. It was just foreordained that Democrats would win them.

Black Americans never accepted this state of affairs, but their opposition did not gain powerful national traction until after World War II.

During that war, Americans from all walks of life had turned out to defeat fascism, a government system based on the idea that some people are better than others. Americans defended democracy and, for all that Black Americans fought in segregated units, and that race riots broke out in cities across the country during the war years, and that the government interned Japanese Americans, lawmakers began to recognize that the nation could not effectively define itself as a democracy if Black and Brown people lived in substandard housing, received substandard educations, could not advance from menial jobs, and could not vote to change any of those circumstances.

Meanwhile, Black Americans and people of color who had fought for the nation overseas brought home their determination to be treated equally, especially as the financial collapse of European nations loosened their grip on their former African and Asian colonies and launched new nations.

Those interested in advancing Black rights turned, once again, to the federal government to overrule discriminatory state laws. Spurred by lawyers Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley, judges used the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to argue that the protections in the Bill of Rights applied to the states, that is, the states could not deprive any American of equality. In 1954 the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Republican former governor of California, used this doctrine when it handed down the Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring segregated schools unconstitutional.

White reactionaries responded with violence, but Black Americans continued to stand up for their rights. In 1957 and 1960, under pressure from Republican president Dwight Eisenhower, Congress passed civil rights acts designed to empower the federal government to enforce the laws protecting Black voting.

In 1961 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) began intensive efforts to register voters and to organize communities to support political change. Because only 6.7% of Black Mississippians were registered, Mississippi became a focal point, and in the “Freedom Summer” of 1964, organized under Bob Moses, volunteers set out to register voters. On June 21, Ku Klux Klan members, at least one of whom was a law enforcement officer, murdered organizers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner near Philadelphia, Mississippi, and, when discovered, laughed at the idea they would be punished for the murders.

That year, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which strengthened voting rights. When Black Americans still couldn’t register to vote, on March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, marchers set out for Montgomery to demonstrate that they were being kept from registering. Law enforcement officers on horseback met them with clubs on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The officers beat the marchers, fracturing the skull of young John Lewis (who would go on to serve 17 terms in Congress).

On March 15, President Johnson called for Congress to pass legislation defending Americans’ right to vote. It did. And on this day in 1965, the Voting Rights Act became law. It became such a fundamental part of our legal system that Congress repeatedly reauthorized it, by large margins, as recently as 2006.

But in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts struck down the provision of the law requiring that states with histories of voter discrimination get approval from the Department of Justice before they changed their voting laws. Immediately, the legislatures of those states, now dominated by Republicans, began to pass measures to suppress voting by Democrats and, by extension, people of color. In the wake of the 2020 election, Republican-dominated states increased the rate of voter suppression, and on July 1, 2021, the Supreme Court permitted such suppression with the Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee decision.

On April 29 of this year, the Supreme Court continued the assault on the Voting Rights Act. In Louisiana v. Callais it rejected the longstanding interpretation that sometimes, in order to guarantee Black representation in government, states have had to create districts that are made up primarily of Black Americans. By a vote of 6–3, with the right-wing justices in the majority, the Supreme Court in April declared Louisiana’s construction of a majority-minority district unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment. It was, they said, an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

A 2024 study by the Brennan Center of nearly a billion vote records over 14 years showed that the racial voting gap is growing almost twice as fast in places that used to be covered by the preclearance requirement. Another recent study showed that in Alabama, the gap between white and Black voter turnout in the 2024 election was the highest since at least 2008. If nonwhite voters in Alabama had voted at the same rate as white voters, more than 200,000 additional ballots would have been cast.

In 1957, when he was Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson called for the protection of Black voting, saying: “This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.”

Upon signing the Voting Rights Act in 1965, he said to the American people: “I pledge you that we will not delay, or we will not hesitate, or we will not turn aside until Americans of every race and color and origin in this country have the same right as all others to share in the process of democracy.”

August 7, 2026 (Friday)

On Tuesday, August 4, Erin Banco, Mike Stone, and Jonathan Landay of Reuters reported that the U.S. has used “virtually all” of its highly accurate long-range missiles that can strike accurately from a safe distance. Sources told the journalists that the dwindling missile supplies could make it more difficult for the U.S. to deter Russia and China.
The journalists reported that the shortages contributed to President Donald J. Trump’s decision not to resume massive strikes against Iran.

At 12:34 on Thursday morning, Trump denied the story, posting that “he U.S. has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed. Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history. The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought!”

Despite Trump’s protestations, Tara Copp, Natalie Allison, and Noah Robertson of the Washington Post reported yesterday morning that Trump exploded at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the issue. Sources told the journalists that at the cabinet meeting Trump held at Camp David last Friday, Trump appeared to confront Hegseth with his concern that he had been misled about weapons shortages. The journalists reported that Trump is increasingly frustrated with Hegseth, who was enthusiastic about striking Iran and helped to convince Trump it would be a quick victory.

Hegseth allegedly responded by blaming Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg, the private equity billionaire who is pushing Congress to pass a $1.5 trillion military budget while at the same time he is overseeing the newly created Economic Defense Unit (EDU) in the Defense Department. The EDU is directing government investment in private sector defense contractors and has cut deals for the government to start taking equity stakes in those businesses.

Yesterday Alexander Ward, Josh Dawsey, Lara Seligman, and Meridith McGraw of the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has ordered investigations into who has been leaking information about the weapons shortages, and that Trump called Feinberg to talk about speeding up production. Hegseth joined the call. The journalists also reported that Vice President J.D. Vance talked to Republican senators on Thursday to defend the administration’s handling of the war on Iran.

Also yesterday, Seligman and Yoko Kubota of the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence assesses that the depletion of U.S. munitions has made it more likely that Russia will try to fracture the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance in the next few years by attacking a NATO nation.

Global affairs columnist David Rothkopf wrote today in the Daily Beast that replenishing the munitions stockpiles Hegseth and Trump have depleted will take years and will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Rothkopf reports that experts in the military and former employees of the Defense Department consider Hegseth’s record “to be the most egregious example of defense management malpractice in our history. And,” Rothkopf wrote, “that’s saying something since this is the country that gave us the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, blank check support for Israeli genocide in Gaza, and drunken sailor levels of defense spending that have actually weakened us while, in so doing, strengthening our rivals worldwide.”

Numbers released by the Department of Labor this morning showed that the U.S. economy shed 23,000 positions in July, a significant drop from the 83,000 new jobs economists had predicted. The department also revised the jobs numbers from May and June down by more than 100,000 jobs. “That’s a big kick in the guts,” economist Justin Wolfers wrote. “ver the past three months, the US economy created about -200K fewer jobs than we had thought.” “Revise down your views substantially,” he added.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% as nearly a million people stopped looking for work over the past two months. Carl Quintanilla of CNBC noted Schwab’s observation that “he labor force participation rate has given up all gains since February 2021.” According to the National Women’s Law Center, women make up the vast majority of the labor force decline.

Republican senators have responded to the crisis in national security and the slowing economy by voting to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in a Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee hearing on July 29. As the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, Fauci was part of Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force.

As Chris Iorfida of CBC News notes, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has helped to lead those who blame Fauci for the origins of Covid, for masking protocols and shutting down churches and schools, and of exaggerating death tolls, attacking him to whip up their base. Paul has said repeatedly he would like to see Fauci behind bars. Before he left office, former President Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon for Fauci to prevent MAGA Republicans from vindictive prosecution.

Although Fauci has testified before Congress more than 200 times, including more than 20 times about Covid, he took the Fifth when Paul pulled him in front of the committee the Kentucky senator chairs last week. The day before Fauci’s testimony, Paul posted on social media: “If Anthony Fauci comes before my committee tomorrow and perjures himself, his pre-emptive pardon from Joe Biden will not protect him.”

In his statement before testifying, Fauci said, “Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’”

And so Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights more than 100 times as Republican senators taunted and berated him. On Thursday, Paul led the Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a federal subpoena by refusing to answer their questions. All Democrats voted no.

Normally, a contempt vote would then go to the full Senate, where it would need 60 votes, but Paul likely knows there are not 60 senators willing to agree to the measure. So, as Sabrina Siddiqui and Sadie Gurman of the Wall Street Journal report, he is bypassing the Senate and asking Vice President J.D. Vance to certify the report and refer it directly to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to insist that vandals, not a poor installation, caused the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and to demand that Pirro prosecute the wrongdoers. He continues to insist that Olympian David Hearn, whom the Department of Justice indicted for the damage, be prosecuted, despite Pirro’s move to drop the indictment, claiming the problems came from the installation itself.

“U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro should re-visit her hastily made decision, especially since it turned out that the ‘gentleman’ involved is a big player in ActBlue, a disgraceful fundraising SCAM, and is represented by a TRUMP DERANGED SLEAZEBAG, Political Hack Lawyer, Norm Eisen,” the president of the United States posted.

Trump was, perhaps, even more incensed by today’s ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Two of the three judges upheld a lower court’s decision that Trump cannot build his ballroom without congressional approval.

“Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence. The President has no—and claims no—constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people,” the court wrote. “We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now.”

They noted that Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House with no review and no advance notice, and quoted the district court’s finding that the “government’s concerns regarding the safety and security of the White House… a problem of the President’s own making!”

A judge Trump appointed dissented, saying the ballroom likely falls under the president’s authority to make improvements to the Executive Residence for security purposes.

The court stayed its decision in order to enable Trump to appeal to the Supreme Court, which he said he will do. On social media, he posted: “The Military and Secret Service are viewing this horrendous, politically motivated, and unlawful ruling as a National Security threat to our Nation in that the entire Complex is being built for the protection of our Country and, additionally, all future Presidents.”

He added that “the desperately needed, and totally secure Ballroom, which is being built ahead of schedule and under budget, is a Gift from President Trump and Great Patriots of the United States of America. There will be no expense to the American Taxpayer.” In fact, as Sarah Blaskey and Jonathan O’Connell reported in the Washington Post in June, officials from the federal government have already committed taxpayer money for more than half of the cost of the ballroom.

Later, Trump posted again, saying of presidents: “We are not tenants, who pay rent and do all other things that a tenant must do, we are PRESIDENTS, elected by the people of the United States States of America, and have many rights, including the right to fix, renovate, secure, protect, and beautify the White House grounds.”

Then he posted AI images of himself with famous World War II–era generals George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur; two images with the caption “TRUMP 2028,” one saying “Just kidding!” and the other without comment; two images suggesting the roof of the ballroom would have the “great and very important military asset” of a drone port; two images claiming to show “Vandalism” at the reflecting pool; an article claiming he had “won the Iran War’; and an image making fun of Biden for allegedly having a poor golf handicap.

At polling website Fifty Plus One today, Cooper Burton and Mary Radcliffe noted that voters are even more concerned about inflation and prices now than they were in 2024, by a significant margin. In October 2024, 24% of Americans identified inflation as the nation’s most important issue. In a poll released this week, those numbers had jumped to 36%.

Ta.

That letter includes a succinct explanation about Fauci’s pleadings, which was being discussed in the US Politics thread.

Heather Cox Richardson and her friend Dr Joanne Freeman
discuss history and politics in “What the Heck Just Happened”.

Link

August 8th

August 8, 2026 (Saturday)

At 4:00 this morning, just before they left for a five-week recess, Senate Republicans confirmed Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the position of Attorney General of the United States. This makes President Donald J. Trump’s personal criminal lawyer the top law enforcement officer of the country.

The attorney general is supposed to be the lawyer for the people of the United States.

Some Republicans, like 92-year-old Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley of Iowa, were enthusiastic about Blanche. “Mr. Blanche is a tough, fair prosecutor dedicated to ⁠the rule of ​law, and his leadership instills that same zeal throughout the entire Justice Department,” Grassley said.

Other Republicans were more skeptical but said if they didn’t confirm Blanche, Trump would choose someone worse. Perhaps in a permanent rather than an acting capacity, they said, he would be more likely to resist Trump’s pressure.

Republican senators played a very different role in the United States 52 years ago.

In late July 1974 the House Committee on the Judiciary had passed three articles of impeachment, charging the president with obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress over his handling of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
The House would almost certainly send those articles of impeachment to the Senate, but what would happen there was not clear.

And then, on August 5, in response to a subpoena, the White House released a tape recorded on June 23, 1972, just six days after the Watergate break-in, that showed Nixon and his aide H.R. Haldeman plotting to invoke national security to protect the president.

Even Republican senators, who had not wanted to convict their president, knew the game was over. A delegation went to the White House to deliver the news to the president that he must resign or be impeached by the full House and convicted by the Senate.

On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon spoke to the American people to tell them he was resigning the presidency of the United States.

“Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me,” he said. “In the past few days, however,” he continued, “it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort….”

“From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter, I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation will require.”

“To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body,” he said. “But as President, I must put the interests of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad….

“Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.”

August 9, 2026 (Sunday)

On August 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign.

The road to that resignation began in 1971, when Daniel Ellsberg, who was at the time an employee of the RAND Corporation and thus had access to a top-secret Pentagon study of the way U.S. leaders had made decisions about the Vietnam War, leaked that study to major U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The Pentagon Papers showed that every president from Harry S. Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson had lied to the public about events in Vietnam, and Nixon worried that “enemies” would follow the Pentagon Papers with a leak of information about his own decision-making to destroy his administration and hand the 1972 election to a Democrat.

The FBI seemed to Nixon reluctant to believe he was being stalked by enemies. So the president organized his own Special Investigations Unit out of the White House to stop leaks. And who stops leaks? Plumbers.

The plumbers burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in California, hoping to find something to discredit him, then moved on to bigger targets. Together with the Committee to Re-elect the President (fittingly dubbed CREEP as its activities became known), they planted fake letters in newspapers declaring support for Nixon and hatred for his opponents, spied on Democrats, and hired vendors for Democratic rallies and then scarpered on the bills. Finally, they set out to wiretap the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in the fashionable Watergate office complex.

Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, Watergate security guard Frank Wills noticed that a door lock had been taped open. He ripped off the tape and closed the door, but on his next round, he found the door taped open again. Wills called the police, who arrested five men ransacking the DNC’s files.

The White House immediately denounced what it called a “third-rate burglary attempt,” and the Watergate break-in gained no traction before the 1972 election, which Nixon and Vice-President Spiro Agnew won with an astonishing 60.7% of the popular vote.

But Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two young Washington Post reporters, followed the sloppy money trail back to the White House, and by March 1973 the scheme was unraveling. One of the burglars, James W. McCord Jr., wrote a letter to Judge John Sirica before his sentencing claiming he had lied at his trial to protect government officials. Sirica made the letter public, and White House counsel John Dean immediately began cooperating with prosecutors.

In April, three of Nixon’s top advisors resigned, and in May the president was forced to appoint former solicitor general of the United States Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor to investigate the affair. That same month, the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, informally known as the Senate Watergate Committee, began nationally televised hearings. The committee’s chair was Sam Ervin (D-NC), a conservative Democrat who would not run for reelection in 1974 and thus was expected to be able to do the job without political grandstanding.

The hearings turned up the explosive testimony of John Dean, who said he had talked to Nixon about covering up the burglary more than 30 times, but there the investigation sat during the hot summer of 1973 as the committee churned through witnesses. And then, on July 13, 1973, deputy assistant to the president Alexander Butterfield revealed the bombshell news that conversations and phone calls in the Oval Office had been taped since 1971.

Nixon refused to provide copies of the tapes either to Cox or to the Senate committee. When Cox subpoenaed a number of the tapes, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. In the October 20, 1973, “Saturday Night Massacre,” Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, refused to execute Nixon’s order and resigned in protest; it was only the third man at the Justice Department—Solicitor General Robert Bork—who was willing to carry out the order firing Cox.

Popular outrage at the resignations and firing forced Nixon to ask Bork—now acting attorney general—to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Democrat who had voted for Nixon, on November 1. On November 17, Nixon assured the American people that “I am not a crook.”

Like Cox before him, Jaworski was determined to hear the Oval Office tapes. He subpoenaed a number of them. Nixon fought the subpoenas on the grounds of executive privilege. On July 24, 1974, in U.S. v. Nixon, the Supreme Court sided unanimously with the prosecutor, saying that executive privilege “must be considered in light of our historic commitment to the rule of law. This is nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that ‘the twofold aim (of criminal justice) is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.’… The very integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the system depend on full disclosure of all the facts….”

Their hand forced, Nixon’s people released transcripts of the tapes. They were damning, not just in content but also in style. Nixon had cultivated an image of himself as a clean family man, but the tapes revealed a mean-spirited, foul-mouthed bully. Aware that the tapes would damage his image, Nixon had his swearing redacted. “” trended.

In late July 1974, the House Committee on the Judiciary passed three articles of impeachment, charging the president with obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Each article ended with the same statement: “In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.”

And then, on August 5, in response to a subpoena, the White House released a tape that proved to be the “smoking gun” Republicans had demanded before they would impeach and convict Nixon. Recorded on June 23, 1972, just six days after the Watergate break-in, the tape was a recording of Nixon and his aide H.R. Haldeman plotting to invoke national security to protect the president. Even if he hadn’t known of the crime itself—although the tape suggested that he had—Nixon clearly had been central to the cover-up. A delegation of Republican lawmakers went to the White House to tell Nixon that he must resign or be impeached by the full House and convicted by the Senate.

In his resignation speech, Nixon refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong. Instead, he told the American people he had to step down because he no longer had the support he needed in Congress to advance the national interest. He blamed the press, whose “leaks and accusations and innuendo” had been designed to destroy him. His disappointed supporters embraced the idea that there was a “liberal” conspiracy, spearheaded by the press, to bring down any Republican president.

Neophyte said:

August 9, 2026 (Sunday)

On August 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign.

The road to that resignation began in 1971, when Daniel Ellsberg, who was at the time an employee of the RAND Corporation and thus had access to a top-secret Pentagon study of the way U.S. leaders had made decisions about the Vietnam War, leaked that study to major U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The Pentagon Papers showed that every president from Harry S. Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson had lied to the public about events in Vietnam, and Nixon worried that “enemies” would follow the Pentagon Papers with a leak of information about his own decision-making to destroy his administration and hand the 1972 election to a Democrat.

The FBI seemed to Nixon reluctant to believe he was being stalked by enemies. So the president organized his own Special Investigations Unit out of the White House to stop leaks. And who stops leaks? Plumbers.

The plumbers burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in California, hoping to find something to discredit him, then moved on to bigger targets. Together with the Committee to Re-elect the President (fittingly dubbed CREEP as its activities became known), they planted fake letters in newspapers declaring support for Nixon and hatred for his opponents, spied on Democrats, and hired vendors for Democratic rallies and then scarpered on the bills. Finally, they set out to wiretap the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, in the fashionable Watergate office complex.

Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, Watergate security guard Frank Wills noticed that a door lock had been taped open. He ripped off the tape and closed the door, but on his next round, he found the door taped open again. Wills called the police, who arrested five men ransacking the DNC’s files.

The White House immediately denounced what it called a “third-rate burglary attempt,” and the Watergate break-in gained no traction before the 1972 election, which Nixon and Vice-President Spiro Agnew won with an astonishing 60.7% of the popular vote.

But Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two young Washington Post reporters, followed the sloppy money trail back to the White House, and by March 1973 the scheme was unraveling. One of the burglars, James W. McCord Jr., wrote a letter to Judge John Sirica before his sentencing claiming he had lied at his trial to protect government officials. Sirica made the letter public, and White House counsel John Dean immediately began cooperating with prosecutors.

In April, three of Nixon’s top advisors resigned, and in May the president was forced to appoint former solicitor general of the United States Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor to investigate the affair. That same month, the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, informally known as the Senate Watergate Committee, began nationally televised hearings. The committee’s chair was Sam Ervin (D-NC), a conservative Democrat who would not run for reelection in 1974 and thus was expected to be able to do the job without political grandstanding.

The hearings turned up the explosive testimony of John Dean, who said he had talked to Nixon about covering up the burglary more than 30 times, but there the investigation sat during the hot summer of 1973 as the committee churned through witnesses. And then, on July 13, 1973, deputy assistant to the president Alexander Butterfield revealed the bombshell news that conversations and phone calls in the Oval Office had been taped since 1971.

Nixon refused to provide copies of the tapes either to Cox or to the Senate committee. When Cox subpoenaed a number of the tapes, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. In the October 20, 1973, “Saturday Night Massacre,” Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, refused to execute Nixon’s order and resigned in protest; it was only the third man at the Justice Department—Solicitor General Robert Bork—who was willing to carry out the order firing Cox.

Popular outrage at the resignations and firing forced Nixon to ask Bork—now acting attorney general—to appoint a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a Democrat who had voted for Nixon, on November 1. On November 17, Nixon assured the American people that “I am not a crook.”

Like Cox before him, Jaworski was determined to hear the Oval Office tapes. He subpoenaed a number of them. Nixon fought the subpoenas on the grounds of executive privilege. On July 24, 1974, in U.S. v. Nixon, the Supreme Court sided unanimously with the prosecutor, saying that executive privilege “must be considered in light of our historic commitment to the rule of law. This is nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that ‘the twofold aim (of criminal justice) is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.’… The very integrity of the judicial system and public confidence in the system depend on full disclosure of all the facts….”

Their hand forced, Nixon’s people released transcripts of the tapes. They were damning, not just in content but also in style. Nixon had cultivated an image of himself as a clean family man, but the tapes revealed a mean-spirited, foul-mouthed bully. Aware that the tapes would damage his image, Nixon had his swearing redacted. “” trended.

In late July 1974, the House Committee on the Judiciary passed three articles of impeachment, charging the president with obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress. Each article ended with the same statement: “In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.”

And then, on August 5, in response to a subpoena, the White House released a tape that proved to be the “smoking gun” Republicans had demanded before they would impeach and convict Nixon. Recorded on June 23, 1972, just six days after the Watergate break-in, the tape was a recording of Nixon and his aide H.R. Haldeman plotting to invoke national security to protect the president. Even if he hadn’t known of the crime itself—although the tape suggested that he had—Nixon clearly had been central to the cover-up. A delegation of Republican lawmakers went to the White House to tell Nixon that he must resign or be impeached by the full House and convicted by the Senate.

In his resignation speech, Nixon refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong. Instead, he told the American people he had to step down because he no longer had the support he needed in Congress to advance the national interest. He blamed the press, whose “leaks and accusations and innuendo” had been designed to destroy him. His disappointed supporters embraced the idea that there was a “liberal” conspiracy, spearheaded by the press, to bring down any Republican president.

A familiar tale to those of us who were being lined up for potential service in Vietnam, and who took the streets to voice their opposition to some of Nixon’s bone-headed ploys.

The last bit could provide a template for DJT to follow..

August 10, 2026 (Monday)

Remember when Mondays in August were lazy, quiet summer days? Those were good times.

Today, though, Trump’s war on Iran is demanding a resolution, and it is crystal clear that the Iranians believe they are in a position to dictate terms to the United States.

Iran and Oman have been negotiating terms for travel through the Strait of Hormuz, which runs between the two countries. Iran closed the strait when Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026. Before the war, more than 20% of the world’s shipborne oil and even more than that of its shipborne fertilizer traveled through the strait, and their loss has dramatically impacted the global economy. Farmers around the world are having trouble obtaining fertilizer, and the price of oil—and the corresponding price of gasoline and diesel—have jumped dramatically.

On Saturday, Iranian officials laid out a series of demands the U.S. must meet before they will reopen the strait. They say the U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw the U.S. military, “permanently end the war against Iran and Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq,” and “never threaten nor insult Iran in any language,” essentially gagging Trump. They want an end to sanctions on Iran and the release of frozen Iranian assets. And they want reparations. All up front, as conditions for reopening the strait.

In the past, sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets were made conditional on an end to Iran’s nuclear program. Now such a negotiation doesn’t even appear to be on the table. And Iran is asserting its right to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global trade. Tolls on ships using the strait would provide significant funding for the Iranian regime.

Foreign policy scholar and diplomat Philip Gordon, who served in the Biden White House, wrote: “U.S. acceptance of Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz is an extraordinary outcome only made conceivable by an administration that squandered legitimacy, alienated allies, attempted regime change in a war it had not adequately prepared for and that is being forced to accept a catastrophic outcome without viable alternatives.”

He suggested that “in other circumstances Iran’s closure of Strait by brazenly attacking maritime traffic and neighbors’ civilian infrastructure would likely have justified and led to a united, global response—like the U.S.-led naval escort mission during the Iran-Iraq war, the global coalition that reversed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the multinational naval force enforcing UN sanctions in the Gulf in the 1990s, or the UN Security Council sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program in the 2010s—that led to the JCPOA.”

“Instead,” he wrote, “ US and other countries are now being forced to accept an outcome that would have been unthinkable before the war but seems to have become unavoidable because of it.”

Yesterday Trump told Barak Ravid of Axios, “We are low-keying it,” explaining: “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.” He stressed that Iran’s in an economic crisis and that since oil prices have come down slightly in the U.S., gas prices have eased enough to provide some relief to consumers.

“It will work out,” Trump told Ravid. “It always works out. It’s like a chess game.”

But Trump’s mood had changed by today. At 12:31, he claimed Iranian negotiators had never before mentioned reparations for the damage done to Iran during the five month conflict, although the Memorandum of Understanding he signed on June 17 clearly calls for the establishment of a $300 billion fund for Iran’s reconstruction and economic development, suggesting either that Trump has forgotten what was in the agreement or didn’t know.

Trump posted: “I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts, for which they are famous…. I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations.” An hour later, he added: “Also,…Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!”

Later, when a reporter asked Trump when he thought the Strait of Hormuz would open, he answered: “Well, it’s open now…. It’s open now. Look, the only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy.”

Iran apparently wants its part of the agreement up front because it doesn’t trust Trump to follow through once the strait is reopened, and there is reason to doubt that he will—or can—deliver on his promises. Yesterday, Netanyahu openly rejected the plan that Trump announced as a done deal less than two weeks ago to end the fighting in Gaza.

On July 30, Trump posted that his “Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza” in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli forces there. “This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” Trump wrote. “One year ago there was a violent raging war, humanitarian crisis and hostages kept in brutal captivity,” he wrote, but now there was a “historic breakthrough.” “CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL ON THIS AMAZING DEVELOPMENT, THAT EVERYBODY SAID COULD NEVER BE ACHIEVED!” he wrote.

At the time, Netanyahu expressed skepticism, but today he openly broke with Trump. When asked about the rejection, the White House told reporters to talk to the Board of Peace.

While much of the focus of the media has been on Trump’s bumbling in the Middle East, the administration has been busy working to reshape Latin American countries into right-wing protectorates of the United States. In Colombia’s recent election, Trump endorsed a right-wing millionaire lawyer who had never before run for office, Abelardo de la Espriella. De la Espriella holds both U.S. and Colombian citizenship and is a Republican who supports Trump.

De la Espriella won a close election, and as soon as he took office, replacing the leftist Gustavo Petro, the U.S. pledged $1 billion in assistance to Colombia, “as part of a security package to support President (Abelardo) de la Esprilla’s administration in achieving our shared goals,” the White House said.

Tyler Pager, Julian E. Barnes, and Frances Robles of the New York Times reported on August 7 that the administration has been looking for a similarly cooperative leader for Cuba. In a search for “more regime alteration than regime change,” they write, the administration has “pressed its spy agencies to identify someone in the mold of Delcy Rodríguez, who became Venezuela’s interim president after U.S. forces captured the previous leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January. U.S. officials viewed Ms. Rodríguez as a pragmatist who could seamlessly assume power and would be willing to work closely with them,” the journalists report.

The plan appears to be to get Cuba to open its economy to private enterprise including U.S. businesses, buy oil from the U.S., and push out the Russian and Chinese intelligence operatives there. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Pager, Barnes, and Robles note, has secretly established a Cuba task force.

Their New York Times colleague Adam Entous reported on August 5 that the task force includes “case officers who recruit and manage spies, intelligence analysts, officers who conduct cyberoperations and officers who specialize in covert influence operations.” Sources told Entous that the plan appeared intended to create rifts among those in Cuba’s political elite to enable the rise of leaders willing to agree to Trump’s demands.

Trump’s assumption of control over Venezuela seems to have been the model for attempts to take over other countries. Last September the Trump administration began strikes against small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Trump claimed—without evidence—were being operated by narcoterrorists from Venezuela. Then the U.S. began to seize vessels allegedly carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil. On January 3, 2026, in a nighttime raid, the Trump administration conducted airstrikes in Venezuela and removed Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, taking them to New York to face federal narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking charges.

Although opponents of Maduro, who had seized power after losing a presidential election, cheered the raid in the belief that Trump would help them put opposition candidate Edmundo González in power—exiled opposition leader María Corina Machado gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal after the raid in an apparent attempt to create good will—in fact the administration supported Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. On January 5 it formally recognized her as Venezuela’s head of state.

Venezuela’s high court disagreed. It called Maduro’s absence a “kidnapping” and determined that under the country’s constitution, Rodríguez could act as president for 90 days, a period the National Assembly could extend for another 90 days. But if Maduro didn’t return after either 90 or 180 days, the absence must be considered permanent. At that point, the constitution requires elections to be held in 30 days.

When Rodríguez’s first 90 days were over, there was no public announcement that the National Assembly, which is controlled by her political party, had extended her acting presidency. July 3 marked 180 days since Maduro’s kidnapping.

As Antonio María Delgado of the Miami Herald reported, in late July the U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to dismiss a lawsuit filed by three Americans against Rodríguez accusing the Maduro government, which was well known for human rights abuses, of torture. The Justice Department called for the dismissal on the grounds that Rodríguez is entitled to immunity as Venezuela’s head of state, thus underscoring that Trump intends for her to run the country. Delgado called it an “extraordinary step.”

Negotiations are underway for a new election, but opposition leader Machado has been excluded from them. On August 6, seven Democratic senators led by Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reiterating that Rodríguez is still the acting president rather than the head of state,and putting the administration on notice that its “increased support of the same officials who contributed to the Venezuelan government’s lengthy and well-documented record of human rights abuses and violations is alarming, and we urge the State Department to re-commit to its long-standing practice of calling attention to human rights violations committed by the Venezuelan regime and exerting pressure on regime on regime officials to end these abuses.”

An exclusive story tonight by Dan Lamothe, John Hudson, Andrew Ba Tran, and Joyce Sohyun Lee in the Washington Post revealed the utter cowardice behind Trump’s authoritarian aspirations.

Leaving Türkiye on July 8 after the NATO summit, the day after he had renewed strikes on Iran, Trump made a show of switching from the newly outfitted plane given to the U.S. by Qatar to an older plane that had served as Air Force One before Trump got the Qatari jet. The journalists who were traveling with the president and some of the White House staff moved with the president to the older plane for the leg of the trip that would take them to Britain.

But the journalists report that Trump and some of his aides secretly left the older plane in a container lowered into an airport catering truck and were transferred to a smaller plane for the trip. There had apparently been credible Iranian threats against Trump’s life, and so officials turned to a plan to hide him, even from senior U.S. officials. To do so, they left the journalists and staff on the plane that would use the Air Force One call sign, turning them into a decoy for an Iranian strike. White House staffers instructed journalists to lower their shades when they entered the plane.

Trump secretly reboarded the bigger plane in Britain and was filmed coming down its stairs, suggesting he had been on the flight. Then he boarded the Qatari jet, along with the press pool and the staffers who had been on Air Force One, for the trip from Türkiye. On the flight, Trump briefly spoke to reporters, who asked why they had been asked to lower their window shades on the previous flight.

It was “because you’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with,” Trump said. He added that there are threats against his life “all the time” and that “I’m number one on their list, before you. But if I go, you go. Right?” “Perhaps someday you want to change professions.”

Bluesky national security commenter Angry Staffer wrote: “So, I completely understand secreting POTUS away from a credible assassination attempt. But leaving the entire Air Force One crew, press pool, etc. to play decoy is some sick sh*t.”

Thanks.

August 11, 2026 (Tuesday)

Days off have been thin on the ground in 2026 as the news comes at us like a firehose.

But I’ve been on the road all day and am too tired even to read the news, let alone put it into a coherent narrative. So tonight just magically became a picture night.

Here’s a fresh water image, for a change, from a late afternoon swim at a local pond with my nephew.

I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Neophyte said:

August 11, 2026 (Tuesday)

Days off have been thin on the ground in 2026 as the news comes at us like a firehose.

But I’ve been on the road all day and am too tired even to read the news, let alone put it into a coherent narrative. So tonight just magically became a picture night.

Here’s a fresh water image, for a change, from a late afternoon swim at a local pond with my nephew.

I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Gorgeous

August 12, 2026 (Tuesday)

In Minnesota yesterday, close Trump ally Mike Lindell, the former chief executive officer of MyPillow, lost the Republican primary for governor to Republican state house speaker Lisa Demuth. This loss comes after Trump ally Representative Andy Ogles lost his primary in Tennessee. As Andrew Howard of Politico noted, Trump had endorsed both of them.

Trump continues to insist that voters are angry not at him, but at Republicans for not passing the measures he demands. But a new Economist/YouGov poll released yesterday found Trump’s job approval ratings dropping even further than the numbers the same poll had shown the previous week, with only 33% of Americans approving of his performance.
As Margie Cullen of the USA Today network reports, 60% of Americans think the president is “not honest and trustworthy,” and 69% feel that things in the country these days are “out of control.” Fifty-three percent of those polled think Trump is too old to be president.

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former cardiologist, shares that concern. In a New York Times op-ed today, he noted that the president “has not looked well” at times this year. His hands are bruised, his ankles are swollen, and he struggles to stay awake. Reiner listed a number of questions the White House should address to reassure Americans that Trump is able to perform the duties of the presidency.

“he United States does not have a king,” Reiner wrote. “In a representative democracy, the people must have confidence in the health of their leader, and in the leader’s capacity to guide the nation. We have been kept in the dark too long.”

As if to underscore Reiner’s concerns, Trump appeared to be asleep at a White House event yesterday.

The Iran war appears to have undercut Trump’s power internationally, as well.

At 10:31 this morning, Trump posted: “ The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it. They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the IRGC is decimated and fleeing, and their ‘Leadership’ is uncertain, at best! They have No Money—Their country is ‘shot.’ All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300% INFLATION, and getting worse! Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer. Praise be to Allah!”

In fact, Reuters reported that in the last week, about a single ship a day has passed through the strait. The prewar number was about 130 a day.

National security reporter David Rothkopf wrote: “The man who cowered hiding from the Iranians in a catering truck and who has personally done more to increase Iran’s strategic influence than anyone in its own government ever has, is now blathering nonsense via social media. The world sees him more as an impotent fool today than ever before.”

Trump’s inability to end his war on Iran has eroded U.S. credibility in the Middle East. Yesterday, Daniella Cheslow, Nahal Toosi, Phelim Kine, and Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing of Politico reported that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rejection of Trump’s Board of Peace plan for Gaza is also undermining allies’ faith in the ability of the U.S. to influence conditions and events in the Middle East. Netanyahu’s defiance of Trump appears to show that the U.S. no longer has leverage to impose its will on the region.

Referring to the Board of Peace that Trump has supported as an alternative to the United Nations, Zaha Hassan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told the journalists: “It’s really a Trump personal enterprise. So if it can’t get Israel to stand down in Gaza, to withdraw, to allow the Board of Peace to do its work, how can any other regional actor believe that the U.S. can restrain Israel in their neighborhood?”

As his popularity slumps, Trump appears to be collapsing his circle to those close to him personally. The scandal that Trump secretly used a small plane to leave Türkiye for Britain after credible Iranian threats of assassination, leaving journalists and White House staffers to act as a decoy, has provided a crystal clear view of the president. As writer and cartoonist Liza Donnelly summed it up in her Seeing Things: “To Save Himself, Trump Endangered Others.”

The choice of who left the decoy plane to travel with Trump also revealed that Trump opted to protect his loyal aides rather than any cabinet officials, prizing loyalists over members of the government. Dan Lamothe and Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post reported today that Trump left Secretary of State Marco Rubio behind on the decoy plane but took with him White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, executive assistant Natalie Harp, and director of Oval Office operations Walt Nauta.

The journalists report that Scavino, Harp, and Nauta worked for Trump at Mar-a-Lago in between his presidencies after others distanced themselves. Nauta was indicted on six felony counts, including taking part in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, after allegedly helping Trump hide the classified documents he retained after leaving the White House.

Also traveling with the president was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who cheered on Trump’s attack on Iran. Although Hegseth apparently retains Trump’s approval, Natalie Oliverio of Military Times reported yesterday that repeated extension of their tours of duty to more than 8 months while the condition of their ship has deteriorated, with broken showers and little food, has led sailors from the USS Abraham Lincoln to self-harm, including attempts to jump from the 60-foot-high deck. More than 200 family members have raised concerns about sailors’ mental health, exhaustion, and safety with Navy officials.

With Trump slipping both politically and personally, there is a frantic feeling in the air as members of the Trump administration and their allies appear to be trying to grab all they can before the midterm elections.

Today Jonathan O’Connell and Sarah Blaskey of the Washington Post reported that the renovations Trump is making to the White House campus will cost at least $927 million, with that money coming primarily from taxpayers. The administration has bypassed Congress to find the funding by channeling money from other agencies and private donors and sending it to an account typically used for routine maintenance.

On Sunday, reporter Scott MacFarlane of MacFarlane News reported that more than $323 million has been funneled from the National Park Service to Trump’s vanity projects on the White House grounds, even as Trump’s own Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, estimates a $30 billion backlog of deferred maintenance in the parks themselves. MacFarlane notes that the number is a nearly 5,000% (not a typo) increase over the $7.5 million spent at the White House in 2024, the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Another $100 million has been allotted to the National Mall this year. The $423 million allocated this year for projects at the White House and the National Mall is more money than had been allotted to Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Mammoth Cave, Zion, and Joshua Tree National Parks, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and the Statue of Liberty complex combined.

Outdoor writer Wes Siler of Wes Siler’s Newsletter reported on Monday that House Democrats Jared Huffman of California, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, and Maxine Dexter of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, are launching an investigation into possible insider trading over Trump’s 90% reduction of the national monuments Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante.

Huffman and Dexter wrote to Ross Bhappu, president and chief executive officer of Energy Fuels, noting that Bhappu and board chair Bruce Hansen bought the largest amount of company stock purchased by an insider in the company’s history just days before Trump’s announcement. That announcement opened almost 3 million acres of federal land to uranium mining that would benefit Energy Fuels, just as the company had been asking for since Trump’s first term in office.

Energy Fuels is a giant Canadian mining conglomerate whose leadership has boasted to investors about its close ties to the Trump administration. Huffman and Dexter noted that it has also received a $725 million loan from the Department of Defense to expand a uranium-processing facility near Bears Ears National Monument.

That mill, Huffman and Dexter point out, “has become a radioactive dumping ground, taking in waste from Superfund sites, the Manhattan Project, and even foreign countries, all while storing more than 700 million pounds of toxic material in outdated, single-liner pits that threaten nearby tribal communities and groundwater. Americans are rightfully outraged that spills have occurred along a school bus route and that the mill continues emitting radon and other dangerous pollutants linked to lung cancer, all without modern safeguards or meaningful transparency.”

Trump loyalists are not accepting Trump’s weakening position without a fight. Today, journalists like Sarah Davis of The Hill reported that Mike Lindell, who lost the primary by more than 10 percentage points, is refusing to concede. He claims his team is investigating irregularities in the vote totals.

Representative Ted Lieu ridiculed Lindell’s echo of the claims he and Trump had made about the 2020 election. “Many people say Venezuela rigged the election against Mike Lindell because they don’t like his pillows,” Lieu wrote. “Never seen anything like it.”

Neophyte said:

“It’s really a Trump personal enterprise. So if it can’t get Israel to stand down in Gaza, to withdraw, to allow the Board of Peace to do its work, how can any other regional actor believe that the U.S. can restrain Israel in their neighborhood?”

oh the US is meant to restrain Israel in their neighborhood these days is it

August 13, 2026 (Thursday)

Today Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board voted to put Trump’s name back on the Kennedy Center, this time in letters saying the building was “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.” Trump is the chair of the Kennedy Center board; his loyalists elected him to that position.

Administration loyalists are not only cashing in as Trump’s power wanes, they are also grabbing ideological ground.
Although a YouGov poll released two days ago shows that only 40% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, the administration has ramped up its attacks on immigrants. Hamed Aleaziz and Miriam Jordan reported in the New York Times at the end of July that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has teamed up with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to enable ICE officers to arrest individuals with expired visas, many of whom are waiting for visa extensions or green cards and have valid work permits.

In the past, those people were usually detained only if they had committed crimes. But the Trump administration considers all those who have overstayed a visa to be criminals. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hopes to arrest 2,000 immigrants a day, sweeping in foreigners newly married to Americans, an engineer waiting for an extension of his work visa, and so on.

The administration is also moving cases through immigration courts as quickly as possible, leading to people missing court dates in historically high numbers. Having missed their court date, they are being ordered immediately deported. Valerie Gonzalez and Cybele Mayes-Osterman of the Associated Press reported on August 1 that overworked judges are often deciding hundreds of cases a day, often making decisions in less than five minutes.

The administration allowed a contract for legal representation for immigrant children to expire on July 31, then offered a $150 million no-bid contract to a small Texas law firm with no experience in the field but with close ties to Trump. When the story broke, outrage led the law firm to decline the contract.

Yesterday federal officials said a third immigrant detained at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall has died. They said Jose Chajon-Raxon experienced a medical emergency on July 19 and died in the hospital. As part of a new policy to stop reporting the deaths of detainees released from federal custody, DHS said Chajon-Raxon had been “released from ICE custody on July 22.”

On August 10, ICE published a notice that it would spend up to $20 million on shock gloves that deliver a painful charge of electricity to subdue individuals. Jeremy White of Wired reported today that the glove is supposed to subdue someone in three seconds or less and the manufacturer warns that the device should not be used for longer than 15 seconds; no more than one pair should be used at the same time on one person; that operators must touch only arms or legs, strictly avoiding head, face, throat, chest, and groin; that gloves must not be used on the elderly, children, pregnant women, or people with severe disabilities; and that the technology must not be used to stop people from talking back, as punishment, or to torture.
Senator Angus King (I-ME) released a statement saying: “At a time when the majority of Americans believe that Immigration and Customs Enforcement…has been irresponsible in its use of force, the new ICE announcement touting shock gloves begs a crucial question: is ICE genuinely focused on de-escalation or, what appears more likely, intimidation of anyone critical of their often unlawful conduct?

King urged “every single one of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand up, assert our constitutional authority, and demand immediate answers from ICE on their hiring practices, training, and tactics.”

He continued: “I never thought I would see the day when masked and armed men in unmarked cars would be roaming the streets and neighborhoods of America, acting in utter disregard of the legal constraints that are basic to our freedoms.

“It’s becoming more and more clear that the stated basis for this gross violation of our rights—that they are ridding our communities of ‘the worst of the worst’—is a lie, and the real purpose is to establish a national police force to do the bidding of a corrupt and lawless administration.”

“It is past time for Congress to do its duty and, for once,” he said, “put country ahead of party.”

The symbol of the administration’s immigration crackdown is the attack on Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who came to the U.S. legally under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. During the 2024 presidential campaign, both Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, then a senator from Ohio, claimed falsely that the Haitian immigrants who had come to Springfield to fill jobs in manufacturing and food packaging were eating the pets of their native-born neighbors. Although Republican governor Mike DeWine defended the immigrants, crediting them for the city’s economic renewal, Trump and Vance’s claims set off neo-Nazi marches and threats that forced schools to close.

Former DHS secretary Kristi Noem declined to renew TPS for Haitians and Syrians, and in June the U.S. Supreme Court upheld her determination, stripping about 350,000 Haitian immigrants of their legal status.

Stephen Starr of The Guardian reports that DHS has recently begun ordering Haitian immigrants in Springfield to come to a DHS facility, where they are fitted with ankle monitors. DHS did not answer Starr’s inquiries about why they were using the monitors, answering only: “Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe. DHS does not discuss ongoing or future operations.”

The administration claims to be building its border wall in Texas by bulldozing its way through Big Bend National Park, a remote area larger than the state of Rhode Island that receives only about 1% of the nation’s unauthorized border crossings. As Ed Lavandera, Ashley Killough, and Rachel Clarke of CNN reported today, in February, Noem waived federal laws related to wildlife protection, historic preservation, and the environment, saying there was “an acute and immediate need to construct additional physical barriers and roads” there.

Thaddeus Cleveland, a former U.S. Border Patrol officer and the Republican sheriff of Terrell County northeast of the park, told the CNN reporters that there had previously been little if any talk of a border barrier there. “We didn’t have to worry about any type of barrier. We had a God-made barrier,” he said. “But that’s definitely changed.”

The federal government has allotted $1.72 billion for the destruction, planning to add steel walls, hundreds of miles of new roads, and vehicle barriers. Retired park superintendent Bob Krumenaker called the whole project “insane.” “It’s just a tremendous erosion, if not violation, of the agreement that Texans and the American people made when they established that national park. The federal government that I worked for for 41 years is disrespecting its citizens in a huge way.”

Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Brad Heath, and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported today that because of staffing shortages, funding cuts, and reassignment of agents to immigration enforcement as the administration attempts to purge the nation of Brown people, the Department of Justice’s investigations into sex trafficking have stalled, with charges falling to their lowest pace since 2010. The Justice Department has also dropped prosecutions of those involved in crimes like tax evasion and drug trafficking to focus on immigration.

Rebecca Beitsch of The Hill reported today that Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), who is the top-ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, and Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) want to know more about the purchase of twelve new planes, including one that came “fully equipped with a bedroom and other luxury amenities like a shower, kitchen, bar, and flatscreen TVs”—although the bedroom has apparently been removed—to ferry Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Kash Patel and Trump’s border advisor Tom Homan. The FBI already has a plane for the director.

“This administration has lit taxpayer dollars on fire by acquiring new and unnecessary planes to jet Trump officials around in extreme luxury that the vast majority of Americans will never experience,” Murray and Murphy wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also grabbing ideological ground. Although he gained Senate confirmation by assuring Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a medical doctor, that he would not change the nation’s vaccine schedule, he began reworking it almost as soon as he was confirmed.

States have the authority to determine which vaccines will be required for attendance at public school, but in January the administration cut the number of vaccines the government recommended for children, ceasing to recommend vaccines against influenza, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis or RSV.

On Monday, even as measles outbreaks are growing in the U.S., Trump issued an executive order to force states to revise their recommendations on childhood vaccinations. The order calls for recommending that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine be separated into three single-disease shots to be administered at separate appointments, although such separate vaccinations aren’t even available in the U.S.

While Trump falsely claimed that “there could be a possibility that” the vaccines are “quite lethal” in an MMR shot—utter nonsense—he said that separating the vaccines means they will be “very effective.” In fact, years of evidence have proved that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective.

But what separating the vaccines would do is to guarantee that fewer children would be fully vaccinated. Separate vaccines mean more visits to the doctor, often spaced at specific intervals. Studies show that separating the vaccines makes children from poor families less likely to get the full schedule of vaccines, leaving them and their communities more vulnerable to disease than wealthier Americans.

The executive order will not change the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or, probably, insurance coverage. What it will do is sow confusion over vaccines, as Kennedy has done for years. Trump called the announcement a “major victory for parents rights, religious and constitutional rights, and for the gold standard science.”

When asked if he regretted his vote to confirm the anti-vaccination activist Kennedy to head the nation’s health department, Cassidy told CNBC’s Squawk Box: “If you’re going to tell me I was, somebody didn’t tell me the truth, and I should’ve, like, you know, seen in the future they were not gonna tell the truth, you can say, ‘Oh, Bill you should’ve seen into the future,’ in which case I’d be on your show talking about the futures of stocks as opposed to vaccine policy.”

Today Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board voted to put Trump’s name back on the Kennedy Center, this time in letters saying the building was “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

🤦🏻‍♀️

Divine Angel said:

Today Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board voted to put Trump’s name back on the Kennedy Center, this time in letters saying the building was “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

🤦🏻‍♀️

freedom democracy at work

This whole article sounds like a comedy sketch, except it ain’t funny.

Divine Angel said:

Today Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board voted to put Trump’s name back on the Kennedy Center, this time in letters saying the building was “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

🤦🏻‍♀️

Bet he didn’t lift a finger.

I don’t think anyone has posted this yet today.

August 14, 2026 (Friday)

Today the Trump administration asked the United States Supreme Court to let it build Trump’s ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be. Trump ignored Congress and its authority over government building projects when he tore down the East Wing and began construction of a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the site. He claimed initially that there would be no cost to taxpayers for what he estimated to be a $200 million project; already estimates have risen to at least $900 million to be “covered primarily by taxpayers.”

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to stop construction, and lower courts have agreed, saying the ballroom requires congressional approval, although they have permitted construction of an underground bunker to continue. On August 7 an appeals court wrote: “We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now.”

Nonetheless, construction has continued, and now U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer is telling the Supreme Court the ballroom is critical for national security and that it is too late to stop the project. He claims it is “65% complete” and has “a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to keep the Project ahead of schedule and under budget.” The administration wants the Supreme Court to step in to allow Trump’s vanity project to continue.

The timing of Trump’s request that the Supreme Court allow him to ignore Congress and the law in order to spend taxpayer money on a vanity project provides a dramatic contrast to the actions of the government ninety-one years ago.
On August 14, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While he had already put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.

The Social Security Act established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.

The driving force behind the law was FDR’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to hold a U.S. Cabinet position and still holds the record for having the longest tenure in that job: she served from 1933 to 1945.
Perkins brought to the position a vision of government very different from that of the Republicans who had run it in the 1920s. While men like President Herbert Hoover had embraced the idea of a “rugged individualism” in which men provided for their families on their own, Perkins recognized that the vision of a hardworking man supporting his wife and children was more myth than reality: her own husband suffered from bipolar disorder, making her the family’s primary support. She understood that Americans had always supported each other.

As a child, Perkins spent summers with her grandmother, with whom she was very close, in the small town of Newcastle, Maine, surrounded by a supportive community. In college, at Mount Holyoke, she majored in chemistry and physics, but after a professor required students to tour a factory to observe working conditions, Perkins became committed to improving the lives of those trapped in industrial jobs. After college, Perkins became a social worker and, in 1910, earned a masters degree in economics and sociology from Columbia University. She became the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for the workers who made the products they were buying.

The next year, in 1911, she witnessed a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in which 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. They were trapped in the building when the fire broke out because the factory owner had ordered the doors to the stairwells and exits locked to make sure no one slipped outside for a break. Unable to escape the smoke and flames, the workers—some of them on fire—leaped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the building, dying on the pavement.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire proved to Perkins that voluntary organizations would never be enough to improve workers’ lives. She turned toward using the government to adjust the harsh conditions of industrialization. She began to work with the Democratic politicians at Tammany Hall, who presided over communities in the city that mirrored rural towns and who exercised a form of social welfare for their voters, making sure they had jobs, food, and shelter and that wives and children had a support network if a husband and father died. In that system the voices of women like Perkins were valuable, for their work in the immigrant wards of the city meant that they were the ones who knew what working families needed to survive.

The overwhelming unemployment, hunger, and suffering during the Great Depression convinced Perkins that state governments alone could not adjust the conditions of the modern world to create a safe, supportive community for ordinary people. She came to believe that, as she said: “The people are what matter to government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.”

Perkins met FDR through her Tammany connections, and when he asked her to be his secretary of labor, she told him that she wanted the federal government to provide unemployment insurance, health insurance, and old-age insurance. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

Creating federal unemployment insurance became her primary concern. Congressmen had little interest in passing such legislation, claiming that unemployment insurance and federal aid to dependent families would undermine a man’s willingness to work. But Perkins recognized that the Depression had added pressure to the idea of social insurance by emphasizing the needs of older Americans. In Long Beach, California, Dr. Francis Townsend had looked out of his window one day to see elderly women rooting through garbage cans for food. Appalled, he came up with a plan to help the elderly and stimulate the economy at the same time. Townsend proposed that the government provide every retired person over 60 years old with $200 a month, on the condition that they spend it within 30 days, a condition designed to stimulate the economy.

Townsend’s plan was wildly popular. More than that, though, it sparked people across the country to start coming up with their own plans for protecting the elderly and the nation’s social fabric.

It also spurred Congress to action. Perkins recalled that Townsend “startled the Congress of the United States because the aged have votes. The wandering boys didn’t have any votes; the evicted women and their children had very few votes. If the unemployed didn’t stay long enough in any one place, they didn’t have a vote. But the aged people lived in one place and they had votes, so every Congressman had heard from the Townsend Plan people.”

FDR put together a committee to come up with a plan, but committee members could not make up their minds how to move forward. Perkins continued to hammer on the idea they must come up with something, and finally locked the members of the committee in a room. As she recalled: “Well, we locked the door and we had a lot of talk. I laid out a couple of bottles of something or other to cheer their lagging spirits. Anyhow, we stayed in session until about 2 a.m. We then voted finally, having taken our solemn oath that this was the end; we were never going to review it again.”

By the time the bill came to a vote, it was hugely popular. The vote was 371 to 33 in the House and 77 to 6 in the Senate.
When asked to describe the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins mused that its roots came from the very beginnings of the nation. When Alexis de Toqueville wrote Democracy in America in 1835, she noted, he thought Americans were uniquely “so generous, so kind, so charitably disposed.” “Well, I don’t know anything about the times in which De Tocqueville visited America,” she said, but “I do know that at the time I came into the field of social work, these feelings were real.”

With the Social Security Act, Perkins helped to write into our laws a longstanding political impulse in America that stood in dramatic contrast to the 1920s philosophy of rugged individualism. She recognized that the ideas of community values and pooling resources to keep the economic playing field level and take care of everyone are at least as deeply seated in our political philosophy as the idea of every man for himself.

In a 1962 speech recalling the origins of the Social Security Act, Perkins reflected: “Of course, the Act had to be amended, and has been amended, and amended, and amended, and amended, until it has now grown into a large and important project, for which, by the way, I think the people of the United States are deeply thankful. One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

Ta.

August 15, 2026 (Saturday)

On Monday, August 10, Todd Blanche took the oath of office as attorney general, administered by federal appeals court judge Emil Bove, another of Trump’s defense lawyers before moving to the Department of Justice, where he was Blanche’s top deputy. In that capacity, CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz recalled, he fired career prosecutors and pushed Trump’s takeover of the department.

Using Bove to swear in Blanche looked like a victory lap for the Trump team. Although the press was excluded, two other Trump loyalists, FBI director Kash Patel and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, attended Blanche’s swearing-in.

Retired conservative judge J. Michael Luttig told MS NOW: “Todd Blanche now becomes the symbol of Donald Trump’s corruption of the rule of law in America and the actual ruin of the Department of Justice of the United States. This is another shameful act of acquiescence, if not obeisance, by the Senate Republicans; they will bear this badge of shame the rest of their lives.

“Never before in American history has an attorney general been confirmed who was as corrupt as Todd Blanche. The Department of Justice is already in shambles.”

“And,” Luttig added, “he will further ruin the Department of Justice.”

As soon as he took office, Blanche issued a memo dramatically expanding executive privilege, which he described as the authority of the president to “withhold certain sensitive information for the public good.” Executive privilege has enabled the president to shield conversations with key advisors from public scrutiny with the logic that a president must be able to get a wide range of advice, given freely, by those in the executive branch.

Now, though, the Department of Justice under Blanche says the president can shield “presidential communications with private advisers so long as the communications relate to official presidential decisionmaking.” The memo defines as a “private adviser” “anyone the President consults outside the Executive Branch.” As John Light of Talking Points Memo notes, this definition would enable the White House to defy congressional subpoenas for anyone to whom the president talks.

As Avery Lotz of Axios reports, Democrats had been planning to begin investigations of Trump’s corruption if they retake control of the House and/or the Senate. Recognizing that the White House would stonewall them, they intended to subpoena companies, college officials, and private citizens to testify. The memo, which is not legally binding but which indicates the administration’s position, would hamper that effort.

Lotz notes that the administration is already fighting a subpoena in a lawsuit filed by the American Bar Association that orders Trump’s senior personal lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, to testify about the deals the Trump administration struck with major law firms early in his second term.

Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote: “This latest opinion should be seen as a partisan measure to insulate the president and his corrupt activities from Congressional subpoenas when the majority flips.”

Thursday was the day that Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held a status conference in the case of Phang v. Blanche. This is a lawsuit brought by independent journalist Katie Phang to force the Department of Justice to produce unredacted versions of documents from the Epstein files that she says were redacted against the explicit instructions in the Epstein Files Transparency Act. With that law, Congress ordered the Department of Justice to release all the files gathered by the FBI investigation into sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, with redactions only to protect victims, no later than December 19, 2025.

Almost eight months later, the Department of Justice has refused to do so, probably producing about half the files, with many of the documents heavily redacted at the same time that it released some of the victim’s names, photographs, and identifying information.

As legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained in her Civil Discourse, Phang sued in April for access to an unredacted version of a handful of files, including emails about a “torture video” and sexual activity with girls, as well as notes from FBI interviews with a victim who claims Trump sexually assaulted her when she was 13 and materials in foreign languages, which the Department of Justice has not produced at all. She also asked the Department of Justice to explain why they made the redactions they did, something the law requires but the Justice Department has not done.

In late June, Sullivan granted Phang’s request.

But the Department of Justice under then–acting attorney general Todd Blanche, who interviewed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell shortly before she was transferred to a far less restrictive prison that should have been inaccessible to a sex offender, did not turn over those documents.

So, in July, Sullivan ordered the government to turn over the unredacted documents to him so he could review them himself to see if the decision by the Department of Justice not to release them was correct. Once again, the Department of Justice refused. As for an explanation for why the department hadn’t explained the decisions to redact, the Justice Department lawyer told the judge the process was “underway” but couldn’t say when it would be done or why translating documents in foreign languages wasn’t practical. He claimed the materials the department is withholding are simply duplicates of things that have been released, but offered no proof of that assertion.

Ultimately, as Vance explains, Sullivan asked: ““So you’re saying I’ve learned everything I’m going to learn from the government?” The lawyer for the Department of Justice, Andrew Block, answered: “That’s right.”

Sullivan wasn’t satisfied. “The public has a right to know what the hell is going on in this case. The victims have a right to know. The court has a right to know. The law is still in full force and effect. The court is just ensuring compliance.”

To make it clear he was being reasonable, in expectation of a review from a higher court, Sullivan repeatedly told Block he was willing to work with the department, but warned that he had held prosecutors in contempt of court in the past. Sullivan gave Phang’s lawyers 10 days to propose an order to deal with the failure of the Department of Justice to comply with his orders to produce the files Phang requested.

The administration is also undermining another popular law. This week, under Trump, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the Treasury Department not only ended the registry Congress set up in 2021 over Trump’s veto to make shell companies identify their owners, but also destroyed all the data it has already collected.

FinCEN combats money laundering. Congress set up the Corporate Transparency Act after documents leaked to BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2020 found that between 1999 and 2017, banks had flagged more than $2 trillion in potentially laundered money, moved by criminals operating out of Russia, China, Iran, and Syria through shell companies. These are legal entities that don’t have physical plants or operations, but can be used for holding and moving money.

Shell companies also meant that the political system in the U.S. was awash in secrecy. “t’s illegal for foreigners to contribute to our campaigns,” one Democrat reminded Congress in a speech for the bill, “but if you launder your money through a front company with anonymous ownership there is very little we can do to stop you.” One of the documents flagged how much Russian money was flowing into the U.S. in 2016 through Deutsche Bank.

The U.S. was the easiest place in the world for criminals to form an anonymous shell company enabling them to launder money, evade taxes, and engage in illegal payoff schemes—Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen used a shell company to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from taking the story of her sexual encounter with Trump public before the 2016 election. So Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act to undercut the shell companies that enabled money laundering in America.

The act required the owners of any company that was not otherwise overseen by the federal government (by filing taxes, for example, or through close regulation) to file a report that identifies each person associated with the company who either owns 25% or more of it or exercises substantial control over it. That report, including name, birthdate, address, and an identifying number, would go to FinCEN. The measure also increased penalties for money laundering and streamlined cooperation between banks and foreign law enforcement authorities.

The plan was to pull the rug out from both domestic and international criminals that take advantage of shell companies to hide from investigators. The measure passed on a bipartisan basis; then-senator Marco Rubio of Florida, now secretary of state, co-sponsored it, calling it the “most significant anti-corruption and money laundering law in decades.”
Now the Treasury Department says it will not collect the information the law requires, raising the question of whether the Trump administration is openly refusing to implement a law.

“ Now the Treasury Department says it will not collect the information the law requires, raising the question of whether the Trump administration is openly refusing to implement a law.”

There’s a question?

August 16, 2026 (Sunday)
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.”

My brother’s recitation of “The Cremation of Sam McGee” was the first time I ever heard epic poetry delivered—as opposed to read—and I was spellbound. (That he followed it up with Ruth Moore’s “The Ballad of the Night Charlie Tended Weir” was icing on the cake.) I loved the poem and went on to read most of Robert Service’s work, but it was years before I really understood the importance of the Yukon Gold Rush.

In “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” Service tells the story of McGee “from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and grows,” who had “left his home in the South to roam round the pole,” although why, “God only knows.”

In fact, as Service well knew, his character McGee left home to find a fortune in the Yukon Gold Rush.

On August 16, 1896, a group of four people found gold on Rabbit Creek in the remote Yukon Territory of Canada. A Tlingit and Tagish woman known as Kate Carmack; her brother, known as Skookum Jim; her husband, George Carmack; and a third man, nicknamed Dawson Charlie, made up the family group.

Reports suggest that it was Skookum Jim who made the initial discovery, but since his white brother-in-law would be far better able than an Indigenous man to protect his mining claim, it was Carmack who filed the first legal claim for gold on the creek that would soon become known as Bonanza Creek.

Nearby miners rushed to the Klondike to stake their own claims, and news began to filter out to the rest of the world. By the following summer, 30,000 to 40,000 men, known as “stampeders,” had rushed to the Yukon to try their fortunes there.

There were many routes to the gold fields, but most cost a lot of money. The poorest adventurers took the straightest route in, leading them only about 33 miles from the Pacific waterways to a lake where they could buy or build a boat that would take them down the Yukon River to the gold fields. While short, that route took them up Chilkoot Pass: a high mountain pass they traversed by trudging up 1,500 steps cut into ice. The winter journey was easier than the summer version. In the summer, the rocks that littered the path were treacherous.

Stampeders had to carry their gear and the year’s supply of food the Canadian authorities required to prevent starvation. Altogether, the supplies—150 pounds of bacon, 400 pounds of flour, 125 pounds of beans, 15 pounds of salt, 10 pounds of coffee, mosquito netting, axes, 2 suits of heavy underwear, and so on—weighed about a ton, transported by 50- to 80-pound packs and left at a cache while the prospective miner went back down to make the ascent anew with more gear.

Most of the stampeders were unprepared for the harsh environment of the Yukon and had little knowledge of prospecting. They died of disease, violence, avalanche, exposure, scurvy, and malnutrition. Men—and a few women—made the trip to the unforgiving Yukon because it seemed their best bet in a nation crushed by a depression and torn between the haves and the have-nots.

In 1892, just five years before the stampeders struck out for the gold fields, voters had put Democrat Grover Cleveland in the White House and Democrats in charge of Congress, giving the Democrats full control of the government for the first time since before the Civil War. Their vote was a rejection of Republican president Benjamin Harrison and his pro-business administration that had added six new states to the Union to make sure they could control the Senate, had raised tariff rates, and was responsible for the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.

As soon as it was clear voters had put Democrats in charge, Republican industrialists panicked. Their industries were protected by a high tariff that had enabled them to dominate the domestic market and raise prices, while a lack of labor laws and protections for farmers drove down workers’ wages and agricultural profits. The tariffs had made industrialists very rich indeed, and they insisted that Democrats’ promises to lower tariff rates to help the workers and consumers who paid the tariffs would collapse the economy.

Harrison’s administration had been “beyond question the best business administration the country has ever seen,” one businessmen’s club declared, and losing that administration would be a calamity, especially since, according to Republicans, Democrats were socialists and anarchists who wanted to destroy America. The Chicago Tribune told readers that a lower tariff would destroy industries and throw people out of work, but it seemed fine with the prospect: “The working classes of the country need such a lesson.”

Republican newspapers warned of an impending collapse, and fearful investors pulled their money out of the market and out of U.S. bonds. Gold began to flow out of the country as Europeans brought their money home. The outgoing Harrison administration refused to reassure investors, insisting there was no financial problem even after financier J.P. Morgan rushed to Washington to urge Harrison to do something. Treasury Secretary Charles Foster commented publicly that the Republicans were responsible for the economy only until March 4, the day Cleveland would take office. His job was only “to avert a catastrophe up to that date.”

He didn’t quite make it. On February 17, the Reading Railroad Company collapsed, and then, one reporter wrote, “the bottom seemed to be falling out of everything.” Harrison’s men remained unmoved. Foster spent his last few days in office sitting for his portrait. Then, when he handed the Treasury Department over to his successor, he told the newspapers that “the Treasury was down to bedrock.”

Cleveland took office with a financial panic in full swing and a depression right behind it. By 1894, desperate workers were demanding government relief programs, adding fuel to Republicans’ charges that workers were dangerous. When officials at George Pullman’s Palace Car Company outside of Chicago cut wages five times without lowering rents in company housing and then fired members of an arbitration committee, workers went on strike. By July 1894 the nation’s transportation system had ground to a halt, and the federal government sent troops to Chicago, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Wyoming, California, Utah Territory, and New Mexico Territory. Clashes destroyed $250,000 in property.

As Democrats tried to revise the tariff and replace missing revenue with an income tax, Republicans insisted they were socialists. In the 1894 midterms, Republicans blamed Democrats for the economic crisis, strikes, and desperation. They associated the Democrats with economic disaster and anarchy and promised a Republican victory would dramatically improve the economy. In the midterms, voters turned Congress back over to Republicans.

But the fight was not yet over. In 1896, a handsome young Nebraska Democrat speaking at the Democratic National Convention stood firmly for the people. “There are two ideas of government,” William Jennings Bryan said. “There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up and through every class which rests upon them.”

Democrats nominated Bryan for the presidency, while Republicans stood behind former Ohio representative William McKinley, a staunchly pro-business lawmaker who was chiefly responsible for the high tariffs of Harrison’s term. While McKinley stayed home and kept his mouth shut, Republicans flooded the country with speakers and pamphlets charging Democrats with trying to instigate “class warfare” and saying Bryan was a “demagogue” who hoped to create a “red welter of lawlessness as fantastic and as vicious as the dream of a European communist.”

He was planning to change the government of the people, for the people, and by the people into “a government of a mob, by the demagogue, for the shiftless and the disorderly and the criminal and the semi-criminal.”

In the 1896 election, the issue that most clearly divided the Democrats and the Republicans was that of money. Democrats noted that Republicans had stopped the coinage of silver in 1873 in a routine reworking of the nation’s currency laws, just as silver strikes in Nevada would have poured silver into the market. Workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs wanted the government to coin silver as well as gold to expand the currency, making it easier for them to borrow to develop new businesses to rebuild prosperity.

But more money might also create inflation, enabling them to pay back loans in cheaper dollars, and Republican financiers, creditors, and established businessmen insisted that the security of the nation depended on a gold standard. Looser money would decrease the value of their holdings and unsettle businessmen, making them unwilling to invest in the economy to help fuel a recovery.

In the election of 1896, Republican “Gold Bugs” backed big-business representative William McKinley, while Democratic “Silverites” backed Nebraskan William Jennings Bryan. The election was one of history’s most vicious. When Bryan complained about Republicans’ rhetoric, Republicans retorted: “This is a fight for the country and the flag.”

McKinley won in 1896, and the Republicans immediately hiked tariff rates even higher. Poorer Americans could see little hope for their future, and news of a gold strike on Bonanza Creek in Yukon Territory seemed providential.

In the end, few of the stampeders made fortunes and many more lost their lives. The biggest winners in the Klondike Fever were those from the newly booming city of Seattle who supplied the miners, and the writers who saw romance in the frigid dream: Jack London, whose most famous novel, The Call of the Wild, showed how love and loyalty trumped gold; and Robert Service, whose poems explored the cruelty of life in the Yukon but also the humor, sentimentality, and above all the loyalty and friendship of those who realized they must help each other or die.

Enough gold poured into the United States from the Yukon to give Gold Bugs a gold standard and Silverites an expanded currency. The economy, which had already begun to recover anyway, got a boost as the Yukon Gold Rush pulled the fangs of the currency issue, giving Americans one fewer division to overcome before they could reform the country during the Progressive Era.

“The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold….”

August 17, 2026 (Monday)

From Friday through Sunday, Trump continued his now-habitual weekend flooding of social media with fantasies that he is smart, beloved, and powerful.

The post closest to reality on Friday touted the story by Steve Thompson, Federica Cocco, and Christoper Rowland of the Washington Post on Thursday, August 13, reporting that prescription drug prices have fallen 3.1% this year, the biggest rate of price decrease since 1963. While that drop is real, the journalists note, much of the drop reflects the falling price of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, whose price has dropped dramatically because of competition from generic versions.

For other drugs, experts say the price drop comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Democrats without a single Republican vote in 2022, during the Biden administration. That law permitted the government to begin negotiations with drug companies for lower prices on ten commonly prescribed drugs, with the lower prices going into effect this year. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that taxpayers would save $6 billion from those first changes.

Health policy scholar Stacie Dusetzina told the journalists that Trump’s TrumpRx program covers “a limited number of branded drugs” that “may not be high enough volume to be included” in the new figures.

The desire to claim Biden’s success as his own may have been behind Trump’s resurrection of accusations that Biden was corrupt.

Trump’s morass in Iran also turned into fantasy on social media when he claimed the U.S. has built a “WALL OF STEEL,” complete with an AI wall through the water, of a blockade of Iranian ports. Trump then veered to declaring that “Pocahontas and ‘Abdul’”—Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), whom he portrayed in stereotypical Indigenous garb, and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. senator from Michigan, “want to take your stuff, and Crash the Economy!!!” and that El-Sayed and women in hijab “are coming for your home and your belongings!”

Since an appeals court found that construction must stop, Trump has harped on the idea that the ballroom is crucial for national security. But as Will Hobson and Louise Radnofsky of the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, Trump began suggesting a ballroom back in 2010 for reasons of aesthetics and space. The national security argument, the journalists note, didn’t arrive until January 2026, after legal challenges to his authority to demolish the East Wing and build his ballroom.

Trump’s weekend fantasies put him in the same category as framers of the Constitution as he showed an AI-finished ballroom to George Washington, at one point writing: “Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas on this great Military Complex/Ballroom!” In real life, Washington staunchly opposed royal luxury for the president.

By equating himself with George Washington, Trump appeared to entertain the fantasy that he is leading the country toward a second American Revolution, much as Heritage Foundation leader Kevin Roberts told Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast in 2024. Trump’s vision for the country is literally dark: on Saturday his social media account posted a dark black-and-white image of him wearing a Trump 2028 hat, with the caption, in a German-style typeface echoing that of the Nazis, saying: “We are going to win.” In another post, he boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “get along GREAT!”

Sunday evening, Trump declared that “ased on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” the North Korean dictator, he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” traditional military exercises with key U.S. ally South Korea. The joint drills were scheduled to begin today.

Trump wrote that such exercises “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” Trump suggested the change was retaliation for the refusal of South Korea’s president Lee Jae Myung to help the U.S. in Iran, but as political scientist Norm Ornstein noted, the decision comes just as North Korea is sending 50,000 troops to help Russian president Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine.

The idea that Trump is a powerful dictator making a victorious alliance with North Korea and Russia presents a darkly threatening posture but, like the rest of Trump’s social media dump, portrays a world different from reality.

Today is the day that the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran that Trump signed on June 17 expires. Rather than ushering in a permanent agreement that opens the Strait of Hormuz and stops Iran’s nuclear ambitions, today shows just how badly Trump is flailing.

This morning he lashed out, telling Trey Yingst of the Fox News Channel “that Iran should ‘put up the white flag of surrender.’ I have no time schedule,” Trump told Yingst. “I’m not in a hurry…the midterms have nothing to do with my thinking.” As for talks between Iran and Oman over control of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump told Yingst: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.” Oman is a key U.S. ally in the region.

For Iran’s part, an Iranian leader told Reuters that if diplomacy fails, Tehran will shift from defense to offense. Benoit Faucon and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Iranian hard-liners have spent the past two months planning to widen the war and raise the cost for the U.S., inflicting enough pain that Iran can deter future attacks. Today Reuters reported that Iran-backed Houthis launched missiles at Saudi ships near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, another key international shipping route.

Meanwhile, Trump is caught in a domestic scandal over the condition of the U.S. military. In early August, news broke that the U.S. was running low on precision missiles after using the expensive weapons to shoot down inexpensive Iranian drones. Then we heard about the appalling conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier kept overseas without adequate resupply and with maintenance issues, including overflowing toilets. Multiple outlets have reported that despondent service members, months past the scheduled end of their deployment, have attempted self-harm. The U.S. is moving the USS George Washington from the western Pacific to replace the USS Lincoln, leaving the region near China without a U.S. carrier.

When a reporter began a question to Trump on Friday with, “Family members of U.S. service members are concerned about the conditions on board the USS Lincoln,” Trump interrupted to say: “No they’re not.” When the reporter followed up with “Has the deployment gone on too long? Are you worried about their mental health?” he blustered: “No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.”

Families of sailors reacted with fury, telling Ed Pilkington of The Guardian that sailors have bad water and so little food they have lost up to 30 pounds (13.6 kg). There is little mental health counseling despite the extended deployment. “Keep praying for us,” one sailor texted home. “We are doing our best to make sure we protect our country and our families.”

On Saturday, Aaron Parnas in MeidasNews reported on a supply crisis on the USS Boxer, as well, and today Brad Lendon of CNN reported that sailors on a U.S. guided missile destroyer spent four days in blistering heat last month without working toilets, cooked food, or air conditioning after the vessel lost power.

Trump’s contribution to military plans has been to order the U.S. Navy to alter the construction of new aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller—named for a Pearl Harbor hero—ordering the designers to replace the modern electromagnetic launch system for planes with an older, steam-powered catapult system. Kaanita Iyer of CNN reports the change will delay production of the craft for several years and could cost billions.

Noah Robertson and Tara Copp of the Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Navy is also considering redesigning the aircraft carrier fleet to reflect Trump’s preference for ships that look like those from World War II. That change, too, could cost billions.

On Sunday night, a social media user posted a video of Trump at a party at his Bedminster club blasting “Y.M.C.A.” on his iPad for the crowd. National security scholar Tom Nichols responded: “We’re losing a war to Iran, we’re alienating our allies, we’re emboldening our enemies, our stalwart service people are being subjected to deprivations…and this is what the Commander in Chief is doing.”

But, in fact, that’s not all Trump is doing.

Late Friday night, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, whose leader Trump appointed, approved a preliminary charter for World Liberty Financial (WLF) to become a bank. As Lawrence Delevingne and Pete Schroeder of Reuters report, the charter would permit WLF to issue USD1, a stablecoin tied to the dollar, and to manage and hold assets for customers and settle payments faster. WLF is the cryptocurrency venture launched by the Trump family and their close allies the Witkoff family.

Steve Witkoff is Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, and WLF has done at least one major deal with a national security advisor for the United Arab Emirates. Reuters estimates that as of April 2026, WLF had “funneled more than $1.6 billion to the U.S. president and his family.”

Strategic studies scholar Phillips P. O’Brien wrote: “They are going to steal everything they can while they have power.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, said: “President Trump is now the first President in history to approve, operate, and supervise his own bank. This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen—and Congress cannot allow it to stand.” She and nine other senators are introducing a bill to guarantee “that no President, Vice President, their immediate families or other senior government officials can exploit their positions to own or control a bank, which could serve as a major vehicle for corrupt dealings.”

At 4:09 this afternoon, Trump posted on social media an image of Kim Jong Un outside with several men standing around him, talking on a landline telephone. The caption read: “HEY DONALD, WE COOL… RIGHT?”

Neophyte said:

August 17, 2026 (Monday)

From Friday through Sunday, Trump continued his now-habitual weekend flooding of social media with fantasies that he is smart, beloved, and powerful.

The post closest to reality on Friday touted the story by Steve Thompson, Federica Cocco, and Christoper Rowland of the Washington Post on Thursday, August 13, reporting that prescription drug prices have fallen 3.1% this year, the biggest rate of price decrease since 1963. While that drop is real, the journalists note, much of the drop reflects the falling price of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, whose price has dropped dramatically because of competition from generic versions.

For other drugs, experts say the price drop comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Democrats without a single Republican vote in 2022, during the Biden administration. That law permitted the government to begin negotiations with drug companies for lower prices on ten commonly prescribed drugs, with the lower prices going into effect this year. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that taxpayers would save $6 billion from those first changes.

Health policy scholar Stacie Dusetzina told the journalists that Trump’s TrumpRx program covers “a limited number of branded drugs” that “may not be high enough volume to be included” in the new figures.

The desire to claim Biden’s success as his own may have been behind Trump’s resurrection of accusations that Biden was corrupt.

Trump’s morass in Iran also turned into fantasy on social media when he claimed the U.S. has built a “WALL OF STEEL,” complete with an AI wall through the water, of a blockade of Iranian ports. Trump then veered to declaring that “Pocahontas and ‘Abdul’”—Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), whom he portrayed in stereotypical Indigenous garb, and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. senator from Michigan, “want to take your stuff, and Crash the Economy!!!” and that El-Sayed and women in hijab “are coming for your home and your belongings!”

Since an appeals court found that construction must stop, Trump has harped on the idea that the ballroom is crucial for national security. But as Will Hobson and Louise Radnofsky of the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, Trump began suggesting a ballroom back in 2010 for reasons of aesthetics and space. The national security argument, the journalists note, didn’t arrive until January 2026, after legal challenges to his authority to demolish the East Wing and build his ballroom.

Trump’s weekend fantasies put him in the same category as framers of the Constitution as he showed an AI-finished ballroom to George Washington, at one point writing: “Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas on this great Military Complex/Ballroom!” In real life, Washington staunchly opposed royal luxury for the president.

By equating himself with George Washington, Trump appeared to entertain the fantasy that he is leading the country toward a second American Revolution, much as Heritage Foundation leader Kevin Roberts told Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast in 2024. Trump’s vision for the country is literally dark: on Saturday his social media account posted a dark black-and-white image of him wearing a Trump 2028 hat, with the caption, in a German-style typeface echoing that of the Nazis, saying: “We are going to win.” In another post, he boasted that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “get along GREAT!”

Sunday evening, Trump declared that “ased on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” the North Korean dictator, he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” traditional military exercises with key U.S. ally South Korea. The joint drills were scheduled to begin today.

Trump wrote that such exercises “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” Trump suggested the change was retaliation for the refusal of South Korea’s president Lee Jae Myung to help the U.S. in Iran, but as political scientist Norm Ornstein noted, the decision comes just as North Korea is sending 50,000 troops to help Russian president Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine.

The idea that Trump is a powerful dictator making a victorious alliance with North Korea and Russia presents a darkly threatening posture but, like the rest of Trump’s social media dump, portrays a world different from reality.

Today is the day that the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran that Trump signed on June 17 expires. Rather than ushering in a permanent agreement that opens the Strait of Hormuz and stops Iran’s nuclear ambitions, today shows just how badly Trump is flailing.

This morning he lashed out, telling Trey Yingst of the Fox News Channel “that Iran should ‘put up the white flag of surrender.’ I have no time schedule,” Trump told Yingst. “I’m not in a hurry…the midterms have nothing to do with my thinking.” As for talks between Iran and Oman over control of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump told Yingst: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.” Oman is a key U.S. ally in the region.

For Iran’s part, an Iranian leader told Reuters that if diplomacy fails, Tehran will shift from defense to offense. Benoit Faucon and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Iranian hard-liners have spent the past two months planning to widen the war and raise the cost for the U.S., inflicting enough pain that Iran can deter future attacks. Today Reuters reported that Iran-backed Houthis launched missiles at Saudi ships near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, another key international shipping route.

Meanwhile, Trump is caught in a domestic scandal over the condition of the U.S. military. In early August, news broke that the U.S. was running low on precision missiles after using the expensive weapons to shoot down inexpensive Iranian drones. Then we heard about the appalling conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier kept overseas without adequate resupply and with maintenance issues, including overflowing toilets. Multiple outlets have reported that despondent service members, months past the scheduled end of their deployment, have attempted self-harm. The U.S. is moving the USS George Washington from the western Pacific to replace the USS Lincoln, leaving the region near China without a U.S. carrier.

When a reporter began a question to Trump on Friday with, “Family members of U.S. service members are concerned about the conditions on board the USS Lincoln,” Trump interrupted to say: “No they’re not.” When the reporter followed up with “Has the deployment gone on too long? Are you worried about their mental health?” he blustered: “No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.”

Families of sailors reacted with fury, telling Ed Pilkington of The Guardian that sailors have bad water and so little food they have lost up to 30 pounds (13.6 kg). There is little mental health counseling despite the extended deployment. “Keep praying for us,” one sailor texted home. “We are doing our best to make sure we protect our country and our families.”

On Saturday, Aaron Parnas in MeidasNews reported on a supply crisis on the USS Boxer, as well, and today Brad Lendon of CNN reported that sailors on a U.S. guided missile destroyer spent four days in blistering heat last month without working toilets, cooked food, or air conditioning after the vessel lost power.

Trump’s contribution to military plans has been to order the U.S. Navy to alter the construction of new aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller—named for a Pearl Harbor hero—ordering the designers to replace the modern electromagnetic launch system for planes with an older, steam-powered catapult system. Kaanita Iyer of CNN reports the change will delay production of the craft for several years and could cost billions.

Noah Robertson and Tara Copp of the Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Navy is also considering redesigning the aircraft carrier fleet to reflect Trump’s preference for ships that look like those from World War II. That change, too, could cost billions.

On Sunday night, a social media user posted a video of Trump at a party at his Bedminster club blasting “Y.M.C.A.” on his iPad for the crowd. National security scholar Tom Nichols responded: “We’re losing a war to Iran, we’re alienating our allies, we’re emboldening our enemies, our stalwart service people are being subjected to deprivations…and this is what the Commander in Chief is doing.”

But, in fact, that’s not all Trump is doing.

Late Friday night, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, whose leader Trump appointed, approved a preliminary charter for World Liberty Financial (WLF) to become a bank. As Lawrence Delevingne and Pete Schroeder of Reuters report, the charter would permit WLF to issue USD1, a stablecoin tied to the dollar, and to manage and hold assets for customers and settle payments faster. WLF is the cryptocurrency venture launched by the Trump family and their close allies the Witkoff family.

Steve Witkoff is Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, and WLF has done at least one major deal with a national security advisor for the United Arab Emirates. Reuters estimates that as of April 2026, WLF had “funneled more than $1.6 billion to the U.S. president and his family.”

Strategic studies scholar Phillips P. O’Brien wrote: “They are going to steal everything they can while they have power.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, said: “President Trump is now the first President in history to approve, operate, and supervise his own bank. This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen—and Congress cannot allow it to stand.” She and nine other senators are introducing a bill to guarantee “that no President, Vice President, their immediate families or other senior government officials can exploit their positions to own or control a bank, which could serve as a major vehicle for corrupt dealings.”

At 4:09 this afternoon, Trump posted on social media an image of Kim Jong Un outside with several men standing around him, talking on a landline telephone. The caption read: “HEY DONALD, WE COOL… RIGHT?”

What if a soldier/pilot/etc looses his/her shit and decides to damage the ship either deliberately or through physical/mental fatigue.
Carrier landing wouldn’t have margin for error either

August 18, 2026 (Tuesday)

On August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by a vote of 50 to 49. The deciding vote came from Harry T. Burn, who supported suffrage but was under pressure to vote no. His mother had urged him to vote yes despite the pressure. “I believe in full suffrage as a right,” he said. “I believe we had a moral and legal right to ratify. I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”

Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the amendment, and the last one necessary to make the amendment the law of the land once the secretary of state certified it.

The new amendment was patterned on the Fifteenth Amendment, which protected the right of Black men to vote, and it read:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Like the momentum for the Fifteenth Amendment, the push for rights for women had taken root during the Civil War as women backed the United States armies with their money, buying bonds and paying taxes; with their loved ones, sending sons and husbands and fathers to the war front; with their labor, working in factories and fields and taking over from men in the nursing and teaching professions; and even with their lives, spying and fighting for the Union. In the aftermath of the war, as the divided nation was rebuilt, many of them expected they would have a say in how it was reconstructed.

But to their dismay, the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly tied the right to vote to “male” citizens, inserting the word “male” into the Constitution for the first time.

Boston abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, the author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” was outraged. The laws of the era gave control of her property and her children to her abusive husband, and while far from a rabble-rouser, she wanted the right to adjust those laws so they were fair. In this moment, it seemed the right the Founders had articulated in the Declaration of Independence—the right to consent to the government under which one lived—was to be denied to the very women who had helped preserve the country, while white male Confederates and now Black men both enjoyed that right.

“The Civil War came to an end, leaving the slave not only emancipated, but endowed with the full dignity of citizenship. The women of the North had greatly helped to open the door which admitted him to freedom and its safeguard, the ballot. Was this door to be shut in their face?” Howe wondered.

The next year, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, and six months later, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe founded the American Woman Suffrage Association.

The National Woman Suffrage Association wanted a general reworking of gender roles in American society, drawing from the Seneca Falls Convention that Stanton had organized in 1848.

That convention’s Declaration of Sentiments, patterned explicitly on the Declaration of Independence, asserted that “all men and women are created equal” and that “the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” It listed the many ways in which men had “fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights” and insisted that women receive “immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.”

While the National Woman Suffrage Association excluded men from its membership, the American Woman Suffrage Association made a point of including men equally, as well as Black woman suffragists, to indicate that they were interested in the universal right to vote and only in that right, believing the rest of the rights their rivals demanded would come through voting.

The women’s suffrage movement had initial success in the western territories, both because lawmakers there were hoping to attract women for their male-heavy communities and because the same lawmakers were furious at the growing noise about Black voting. Wyoming Territory granted women the vote in 1869, and lawmakers in Utah Territory followed suit in 1870, expecting that women would vote against polygamy there. When women in fact supported polygamy, Utah lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to take their vote away, and the movement for women’s suffrage in the West slowed dramatically.

Suffragists had hoped that women would be included in the Fifteenth Amendment and, when they were not, decided to test their right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment in the 1872 election. According to its statement that anyone born in the U.S. was a citizen, they were certainly citizens and thus should be able to vote. In New York state, Susan B. Anthony voted successfully but was later tried and convicted—in an all-male courtroom in which she did not have the right to testify—for the crime of voting.

In Missouri a voting registrar named Reese Happersett refused to permit suffragist Virginia Minor to register. Minor sued Happersett, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision in 1875, the justices decided that women were indeed citizens but that citizenship did not necessarily convey the right to vote.

This decision meant the fat was in the fire for Black Americans in the South, as it paved the way for white supremacists to keep them from the polls in 1876. But it was also a blow to suffragists, who recast their claims to voting by moving away from the idea that they had a human right to consent to their government, and toward the idea that they would be better and more principled voters than the Black men and immigrants who, under the law anyway, had the right to vote.

For the next two decades, the women’s suffrage movement drew its power from the many women’s organizations put together across the country by women of all races and backgrounds who came together to stop excessive drinking, clean up the sewage in city streets, protect children, stop lynching, and promote civil rights.

Black women like educator Mary Church Terrell and journalist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, publisher of the Woman’s Era, brought a broad lens to the movement from their work for civil rights, but they could not miss that Black women stood in between the movements for Black rights and women’s rights, a position scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw would identify In the twentieth century as “intersectionality.”

In 1890 the two major suffrage associations merged into the National American Woman Suffrage Association and worked to change voting laws at the state level. Gradually, western states and territories permitted women to vote in certain elections until by 1920, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Arizona, Kansas, Alaska Territory, Montana, and Nevada recognized women’s right to vote in at least some elections.

Suffragists recognized that action at the federal level would be more effective than a state-by-state strategy. The day before Democratic president Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated in 1913, they organized a suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., that grabbed media attention. They continued civil disobedience to pressure Wilson into supporting their movement.

Still, it took another war effort, that of World War I, which the U.S. entered in 1917, to light a fire under the lawmakers whose votes would be necessary to get a suffrage amendment through Congress and send it off to the states for ratification. Wilson, finally on board as he faced a difficult midterm election in 1918, backed a constitutional amendment, asking congressmen: “Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?”

Congress passed the measure in a special session on June 4, 1919, and Tennessee’s ratification on August 18, 1920, made it the law of the land as soon as the official notice was in the hands of the secretary of state. Twenty-six million American women had the right to vote in the 1920 presidential election.

Crucially, as the Black suffragists had known all too well when they found themselves caught between the drives for Black male voting and women’s suffrage, Jim Crow and Juan Crow laws meant that most Black women and women of color would remain unable to vote for another 45 years. And yet they never stopped fighting for that right. Women like Fannie Lou Hamer, Amelia Boynton, Rosa Parks, Viola Liuzzo, and Constance Baker Motley were key organizers of voting rights initiatives, spreading information, arranging marches, sparking key protests, and preparing legal cases.

They were some of the leading voices behind the 1965 Voting Rights Act that finally made Black voting a reality.

Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.

“Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.”

Bruddy-ekk!

“ Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.”

What
The
Actual
Fuck

We’ve been heading down the path to Gilead for ten years. Now we’re entering city limits.

Michael V said:

“Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.”

Bruddy-ekk!

Wonder at times how woman put up with men.
Our track record throughout history and location towards the treatment of woman is appalling
Most men probably don’t even think about this.
All this petty jealousy over equality

Cymek said:

Michael V said:

“Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.”

Bruddy-ekk!

Wonder at times how woman put up with men.
Our track record throughout history and location towards the treatment of woman is appalling
Most men probably don’t even think about this.
All this petty jealousy over equality

Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid
- Mrs Winifred Banks in Sister Suffragette, Mary Poppins

Michael V said:

“Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.”

Bruddy-ekk!

What about the households in which there are no men?

Divine Angel said:

Cymek said:

Michael V said:

“Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.”

Bruddy-ekk!

Wonder at times how woman put up with men.
Our track record throughout history and location towards the treatment of woman is appalling
Most men probably don’t even think about this.
All this petty jealousy over equality

Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid
- Mrs Winifred Banks in Sister Suffragette, Mary Poppins

That’s fair enough
Men often seem very emotionally stunted.
I mean its pretty damn obvious that gender equality is the only way to go.
Each gender or no gender brings different strengths to the table even then no real evidence exists for one gender having a skill advantage over the other
Its that stupid might is right that causes many problems, us men can physically dominate woman so think that makes us superior
I wonder if the animal kingdom thinks that way

Divine Angel said:

Cymek said:

Michael V said:

“Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.”

Bruddy-ekk!

Wonder at times how woman put up with men.
Our track record throughout history and location towards the treatment of woman is appalling
Most men probably don’t even think about this.
All this petty jealousy over equality

Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid
- Mrs Winifred Banks in Sister Suffragette, Mary Poppins

we mean the good old ussa have been installing taliban all millennium now so why not back at home as well

Bubblecar said:

Michael V said:

“Now, in 2026, Christian nationalists, whose ideas are powerful in the Trump administration, want to repeal women’s right to vote. They say that voting should be by household and that women must defer to men.

It’s a plan that seems designed to resurrect the world in which Americans lived before August 18, 1920.”

Bruddy-ekk!

What about the households in which there are no men?

well then they don’t get to vote duh

SCIENCE said:

Divine Angel said:

Cymek said:

Wonder at times how woman put up with men.
Our track record throughout history and location towards the treatment of woman is appalling
Most men probably don’t even think about this.
All this petty jealousy over equality

Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid
- Mrs Winifred Banks in Sister Suffragette, Mary Poppins

we mean the good old ussa have been installing taliban all millennium now so why not back at home as well

What if you stop some little girl having an education.
In her is the potential to do something fantastic for the benefit of the human race
Or just in general half the population having their potential quashed.
No wonder all these nations are backwards and shit holes to live in

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

Divine Angel said:

Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid
- Mrs Winifred Banks in Sister Suffragette, Mary Poppins

we mean the good old ussa have been installing taliban all millennium now so why not back at home as well

What if you stop some little girl having an education.
In her is the potential to do something fantastic for the benefit of the human race
Or just in general half the population having their potential quashed.
No wonder all these nations are backwards and shit holes to live in

Plenty of kids right here in this country not receiving an adequate education, for various reasons.

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

Divine Angel said:

Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid
- Mrs Winifred Banks in Sister Suffragette, Mary Poppins

we mean the good old ussa have been installing taliban all millennium now so why not back at home as well

What if you stop some little girl having an education.
In her is the potential to do something fantastic for the benefit of the human race
Or just in general half the population having their potential quashed.
No wonder all these nations are backwards and shit holes to live in

well that’s a bit unfair, obviously females are needed to incubate the next generation of Real Men and terminating that incubation is a crime worse than rape (because rape is actually greatness), education is a waste of time and good warm incubators, you can take your socialism and shove it up the non reproductive tract

SCIENCE said:

Cymek said:

SCIENCE said:

we mean the good old ussa have been installing taliban all millennium now so why not back at home as well

What if you stop some little girl having an education.
In her is the potential to do something fantastic for the benefit of the human race
Or just in general half the population having their potential quashed.
No wonder all these nations are backwards and shit holes to live in

well that’s a bit unfair, obviously females are needed to incubate the next generation of Real Men and terminating that incubation is a crime worse than rape (because rape is actually greatness), education is a waste of time and good warm incubators, you can take your socialism and shove it up the non reproductive tract

Rape-Related Pregnancies in the 14 US States With Total Abortion Bans

Link

August 19, 2026 (Wednesday)

The political world has been consumed over the past few days with a Republican meltdown about Trump’s aide Natalie Harp.

The story began when Democratic Georgia senator Jon Ossoff said at an event for his reelection campaign on Sunday that Trump does not appear to want to do the job of the presidency. Ossoff added: “He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” That was it. That was all he said.

On Monday, CNN reporter Kristen Holmes asked Trump to respond to Ossoff’s comment. Trump first referred to Ossoff as Pee-wee Herman, a child-man film character created by late actor Paul Reubens, then defended the ballroom and attacked the reporter. Later, as Scott Nover of the Washington Post reported, the White House rapid response team took to social media to call Holmes a “disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.”

Then, in an unusual escalation, the account targeted Holmes’s children, posting: “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”

You could almost feel the palpable relief that the White House might be able to gin up a controversy that could rally the base, one that, for the first time in a long time, didn’t automatically show the president or the administration in a bad light. Undermining Ossoff, whose speeches have been a particularly sharp thorn in the administration’s side lately, appeared to be icing on the cake.

Certainly the call went out to right-wing media figures to pile on to the idea that Ossoff was making a sexist attack on Harp. Megyn Kelly posted that Ossoff “was clearly implying that Trump is having an affair w/his staffer,” and Michael Knowles wrote: “Every time I see a woman at work, I just know she’s sleeping with her boss! Am I right? Anyway, am I the new Obama yet?” White House spokesperson Steven Cheung wrote: “Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” and Newt Gingrich posted: “Jon Ossoff owes Natalie Harp a personal apology for having smeared her.”

Matt Royer of the Democratic National Committee Youth Council noted: “The word “affair” was never uttered, and yet apparently every single conservative talking head in the world heard it anyway, so what does that tell you?” He added: “Never have I seen a more exquisite example of the Streisand Effect where someone’s supporters fall over themselves to basically accuse them of adultery when it wasn’t even brought up.”

Commandeering the news cycle with manufactured outrage distracted attention from other issues Ossoff did call attention to in the same sentence. Ossoff called out Trump’s apparent stock manipulation, an issue Trump highlighted recently when he sold early access to his Truth Social posts for as much as $100,000 a month. It has been widely reported that investors appear to be making a killing by anticipating Trump’s posts as they make markets go up or down.

An investigation by Casey Tolan and Isabelle Chapman of CNN published on July 16 found that Trump himself “made at least 44 stock purchases of 21 different companies within a week before he posted a complimentary Truth Social message about the firms, their executives or their products.”

“He’s selling faster access to his tweets, and then you can bet on the markets,” comedian Shane Gillis recently told popular podcaster Joe Rogan, “It’s literally insider trading.” Rogan, whose support for Trump in 2024 was important to his victory, responded: “Wait a minute, is that real? How is that legal? Who’s telling him this is a good idea? $100K to get early tweets? That’s literally crazy. He’s just on a grab.”

As Matthew Chapman of RawStory reported, the two went on to discuss Trump’s involvement with cryptocurrency. “This government has done some (expletive) that no government has ever done before and one of them is the crypto stuff,” Rogan said. “The crypto stuff is nuts. Trump has made billions in crypto. Then you got his sons and his sons are involved in these weird business deals, and there’s a lot of money flowing around that you could dig in and start arresting people.”

Attacking Ossoff for allegedly smearing Harp also shifted attention from Trump’s ballroom, which is enormously unpopular and which is in the news as Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court to override lower courts’ rulings that he does not have the authority to build such a structure without the permission of Congress. Even Republican members of Congress seem reluctant to grant such permission, as it highlights Trump’s grabs for luxury while Americans are hurting under high gas and grocery prices caused by Trump’s tariff wars and war on Iran.

Recently, New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, who with Jonathan Swan wrote about Trump’s second administration in Regime Change, has told podcasters Ezra Klein and Axios’s Mike Allen that Trump spends about “70%” of his time working on his Washington, D.C. projects. “He is spending a huge amount of energy, mental and otherwise, on these renovation projects, beautification projects around Washington, and then monuments to self,” Haberman told Allen.

She described a visit with Trump seventeen days into the Iran war in which “t was very clear what his mind was on while we were there. And what it was not really on was the war.” “You would think that on the 17th day of the war that he would have maps of the Middle East or maps of troop deployments—who knows,” Haberman said. “He picks up these pictures, and of maple trees. And he says: ‘I am choosing maple trees for the White House. I am good at picking trees.’ I’m paraphrasing here, but that is pretty much what he said.”

Recent news reports tie the lack of supplies on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln to Iran’s damaging strike on the only U.S. naval base in the Middle East, known as Naval Support Activity Bahrain, in the first weeks of the war. Trump has downplayed the poor conditions aboard the vessel, infuriating the families of the sailors.

He continues to downplay the flailing of his administration in Iran, as well, as Iranian forces continue to control the Strait of Hormuz. When asked today about the strait, he told reporters: “Last night we had a lot of boats come through, we have possession, complete control of the strait, I mean, outside of nuisance value—and there is nuisance value when they shoot a drone every once in a while, but and not everybody’s going to go through. But they come through. And over the last couple of weeks, we had a lot of oil coming in, a lot of oil. It’s not gonna be perfect, but it’s a lot of oil coming in, a lot. In fact, people are amazed.”

Scott Waldman of Politico reported on Monday that while an average of almost 140 ships a day traversed the strait before the war, last Sunday only 3 did.

The Harp story also has taken oxygen from increasing pushback against the Trump administration. Yesterday ABC and its parent corporation, The Walt Disney Company, launched a federal lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), saying the Trump administration violated their free speech rights. The lawsuit claims that administration officials tried to do Trump’s bidding by launching investigations and challenging broadcast licenses because Trump didn’t like their talk show opinions, news coverage, and late-night comedians.

As David Folkenflik of NPR noted, the lawsuit began with the words: “Government censorship is deeply un-American.”
This is a one-eighty for ABC. In 2024 it agreed to donate $16 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit Trump brought over the assertion by George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. In fact, Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse, and the judge said that while what he did fell under the common definition of rape, New York state law had a very precise definition that his actions didn’t fit.

The settlement made ABC one of the first to settle with Trump. That money seems to have disappeared, and there is currently a congressional investigation into where it, along with almost $50 million more from similar settlements, has gone.

FCC chair Brendan Carr seemed to back away from previous threats, saying that ABC and Disney were acting too hastily and that the FCC has not yet decided whether to renew the licenses. “Ultimately,” he said, “they’re going to get a fair shake before the agency.”

Jeremy Barr of The Guardian shed light on the issue today when he reported on new documents obtained thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and a lawsuit from Democracy Forward showing that Carr has been working closely with the White House and right-wing media. In addition to talking and meeting with White House officials, Carr has been working with the Fox News Channel and the chair of the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group.

There is also the uncomfortable fact that the national debt passed a record $40 trillion yesterday, much sooner than expected. The U.S. is currently spending more than a trillion dollars a year to pay interest on the national debt, more than it spends on defense.

As Steven Rattner noted in the New York Times yesterday, Trump said in his 2024 campaign, “We’re going to grow like nobody’s ever grown before,” but in fact, the economy is slowing. He promised to bring the cost of gasoline below $2 a gallon; it is now above $4 a gallon.

In 2025, Trump said he would balance the federal budget, but in fact, thanks largely to his tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, the deficit is growing. Also in 2025, Trump promised that his new tariffs would enable him both to cut taxes and to pay down the deficit; in fact, the national debt relative to gross domestic product (GDP) is about to break the record set during World War II.

Republican operatives appear to have thought that the Harp story could enable them to pivot to attack Ossoff and change the narrative, but it seems they miscalculated. Their attention to Ossoff’s statement that Trump would rather “travel with Natalie” has brought attention to the relationship between the 80-year-old president and the 35-year-old aide, who was once a host on the right-wing OAN network.

Maggie Haberman told MS NOW that for Trump, Harp “is sort of his binky, for lack of a better way of putting it, a comfort blanket.” She is the main buffer between Trump and the outside world, filtering the information the president sees, setting up meetings and passing along messages, writing social media posts, and printing out articles praising Trump.

In their book, Haberman and Swan wrote that Harp leaves “adoring letters” to Trump in “private spaces,” saying things like: “you are all that matters to me.” CNN’s Holmes reported that Harp is “physically close to Trump at all hours of the day” and that Harp once jumped into the trunk of an SUV to stay close to Trump after being told there was no room for her in the vehicle.

The renewed scrutiny of Harp has turned up the story that for more than a year, she refused to get a routine security clearance to work at the White House. A national security official expressed concern to Jake Traylor and Jacqueline Alemany of MS NOW that Harp has more access to sensitive information than nearly all of the other White House officials.

When Trump left a decoy Air Force One airplane for a smaller plane in early July, he left behind cabinet secretaries but brought Harp with him.

“ There is also the uncomfortable fact that the national debt passed a record $40 trillion yesterday, much sooner than expected. The U.S. is currently spending more than a trillion dollars a year to pay interest on the national debt, more than it spends on defense.”

Get a businessman to run the country, someone said.

Gosh!

I gets more and more outrageous.

Thanks for posting.

Michael V said:

Gosh!

It gets more and more outrageous.

Thanks for posting.

Fixed.

Bloody typos.

Have a t…

August 20, 2026 (Thursday)

On Saturday, August 15, the New York Times editorial board published an op-ed noting that the Republicans are trying to hide the cuts they have made to health care in the U.S.

The editorial board called the expansion of affordable health care to millions of Americans one of the great achievements of the federal government in this century. Before the Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 without a single Republican vote, about 18% of Americans under 65 had no health insurance. With the passage and later expansion of the ACA, also known as Obamacare, the number of uninsured had fallen below 10%.

But now, the journalists note, Trump and the Republicans are working to uproot that achievement. While they extended Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in their July 2025 budget reconciliation bill—the one they call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed without a single Democratic vote—they refused to extend subsidies that enabled people to afford healthcare insurance in the ACA marketplaces.

The Democrats shut down the government last fall to try to force Republicans to restore those cuts, foreseeing that higher prices for premiums would drive healthier people out of the markets and out of healthcare insurance, while the loss of those healthier people from risk pools would drive up premiums for those remaining.

They were unsuccessful, and as they warned, without the subsidies, people dropped their health insurance. A report from the Department of Health and Human Services in late June 2026 showed that at least 5 million people lost health insurance in the first six months of the year, a drop of about 13%. For those remaining, premiums have spiked: the editorial board notes that a middle-income, middle-aged couple with two children could pay an additional $3,500 a year, more than doubling their premium from before the cuts. Deductibles also jumped this year by about $1,000 a person as people chose cheaper policies that offered less coverage.

Democrats shut down the government also because they wanted to restore the cuts of about $1 trillion over the next ten years Republicans had made in funding for Medicaid. In their budget reconciliation bill, Republicans placed what they called a “work requirement” on enrollees, requiring them to prove they have a job or a valid exemption.

But, as the editorial board notes, the “work requirement” is really a “paperwork requirement” that will throw people eligible for the program off it because they have not filed the right paperwork. As the board reports, Elizabeth Zhang and Gideon Lukens of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that about two of the three people who will lose Medicaid because of the new requirement are legally entitled to it.

They estimated that up to 15 million people are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage. That, in turn, will force hospitals, especially rural hospitals, to cut back services or close. Although still legally required to provide services to everyone, they will not be reimbursed for the cost of such care and will drop labor and delivery services, for example. Those closures will not just mean poorer health care, they will mean lost jobs.

As the New York Times editorial board noted, Republicans deliberately put off the implementation of most of the Medicaid cuts until after the 2026 midterms.

New York Times reader KAM from Marin County, California, noted in a comment on the story that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defines onerous paperwork differently than Republicans in Congress. Bessent recently announced the Treasury will no longer require shell companies to disclose even the name, address, and identification of people who own an interest of more than 25% or who exercise “significant control” over the company, as Congress required in the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act. Congress designed the law to combat money laundering, but Bessent says the paperwork puts an undue burden on businesses.

In 1883, sociologist William Graham Sumner published What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, concluding that the answer was: nothing. In a time when unregulated industrialization was making fortunes on the one hand and driving down wages on the other, creating extremes of rich and poor, Sumner turned on its head the traditional idea that the economy of the United States would provide a living to any man who worked hard. Instead, Sumner argued that anyone who did not succeed inthe United States must be “negligent, shiftless, inefficient, silly, and imprudent.”

Not only was it unfair to make “the industrious and the prudent” responsible for such shiftless men, he wrote, it would ruin the country by destroying individual enterprise. Sumner called for a “laissez-faire” world in which those who failed should be permitted to sink into poverty and die to keep the U.S. from becoming a place where lazy people wanted a handout. In the end, such people needed to be purged from society for the good of the nation.

At the time, those succeeding in the industrializing economy nodded along with Sumner. The Republican New York Times editor wrote that even though Sumner’s “views are singularly hard and uncompromising, it is difficult to quarrel with their deductions, however one may feel one’s finer instinct hurt by their apparent cruelty.”

The Trump administration seems to have embraced Sumner’s belief that the nation depends upon the survival of the fittest.

As microbiologist and senior health reporter Beth Mole reported last year in Ars Technica, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears to believe that the key to health is not to rely on the vaccines proven to prevent infectious diseases, but rather to have a strong immune system fortified, as he wrote in a 2021 book, “through healthy living, clean water, and good nutrition.” He accused those who support vaccines of misleading the American public for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry and the healthcare industry.

This seems to explain why he has claimed—without evidence—that the Texas children who died of measles were malnourished and that “e don’t know what was killing” the 83 Samoans who died in the country’s 2019 measles epidemic, during which Kennedy associated with members of the anti-vaccine movement there. It would also explain why he promised to turn away from promoting vaccination to exploring new treatments for measles, including vitamins.
And it would help to explain the effort to change the vaccine schedule for children by separating the MMR vaccine into single-disease vaccines. Rather than two shots, requiring two doctor’s visits, the vaccine series would require six. Experts say such a change will mean poorer children will not get the whole vaccine series, putting them and their communities at risk.

If overall health can fight off germs and illness, then measures like the pasteurization of milk and the tracking of foodborne illnesses are unnecessary.

The U.S. is experiencing a particularly bad wave of foodborne illness. It’s driven both by hot weather that nurtures food contamination and by federal funding cuts that scaled back the ability of federal agencies to conduct food inspections and provide grants to state and local health departments that used to be able to trace outbreaks quickly.

Deidre McPhillips of CNN reported that so far this year, the U.S. has reported about 10,500 cases of foodborne illness. Between 2021 and 2025, the annual average was about 1,500 cases. At least 9,481 people in 17 states have fallen ill with cyclosporiasis carried by lettuce from Taylor Farms, and thousands more cases are being investigated. It’s the largest cyclospora outbreak in U.S. history, spurred by cuts of more than 40% to food safety detection systems.

It’s not just lettuce. Frozen organic blueberries sold in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia have been recalled for E. coli; fresh jalapeños from Taylor Farms have been recalled for salmonella; 1.5 million dozen eggs sold in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and New Mexico have also been recalled for salmonella. Anna Skinner of Newsweek notes that while the focus has been on produce, in fact, FDA records show what she calls “a steady stream of recalls” that includes “prepared foods, salad dressings, soups, bakery items and ready-to-eat products,” potentially contaminated with salmonella, Listeria, or foreign materials, including pieces of metal.

As former U.S. surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams wrote in USA Today, “You cannot effectively focus on chronic diseases while you’re being repeatedly overwhelmed by acute infectious outbreaks.” He called for restoring the mandatory tracking of all eight pathogens that were covered by the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) before the administration cut the surveillance down to just two, and for filling the leadership positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration that are currently vacant. He called for inspectors to prioritize high-risk foods and imports and for the Department of Health and Human Services to reaffirm that vaccines are safe and effective.

In the 1890s, the determination of those like William Graham Sumner to keep government out of society in order to promote individualism had undermined public health and safety. Producers adulterated tuberculosis-carrying milk with chalk and formaldehyde, decorated candy with lead paint, and scooped melted ice cream off the bottom of the vat to refreeze for sale the next day, and what was in sausage meat was a terrifying mystery.

In the early twentieth century, middle-class Americans demanded regulation of the food and drug industry, ushering in the reforms that we now call the Progressive Era.

Fighting Against a Disastrous Fascist Regime | Explainer
Heather Cox Richardson

Link

August 21, 2026 (Friday)

On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner, an enslaved American, led about 70 of his enslaved and free Black neighbors in a rebellion to awaken his white neighbors to the inherent brutality of slaveholding and the dangers it presented to their own safety. Turner and his friends traveled from house to house in their neighborhood in Southampton County, Virginia, freeing enslaved people and murdering about 60 of the white men, women, and children they encountered. Their goal, Turner later told an interviewer, was “to carry terror and devastation wherever we went.”

State militia put down the rebellion in a couple of days, and both the legal system and white vigilantes killed at least 200 Black Virginians, many of whom were not involved in Turner’s bid to end enslavement. Turner himself was captured in October, tried in November, sentenced to death, and hanged.

But white Virginians, and white folks in neighboring southern states, remained frightened. Turner had been, in their minds, a well-treated, educated enslaved man, who knew his Bible well and seemed the very last sort of person they would have expected to revolt. And so they responded to the rebellion in two ways. They turned against the idea that enslavement was a bad thing, and instead began to argue that human enslavement was a positive good.

And states across the South passed laws making it a crime to teach enslaved Americans to read and write.

Denying enslaved Black Americans access to education exiled them from a place in the nation. The Framers had quite explicitly organized the United States not on the principles of religion or tradition, but rather on the principles of the Enlightenment: the idea that, by applying knowledge and reasoning to the natural world, men could figure out the best way to order society. Someone excluded from access to education could not participate in that national project. Instead, that person was read out of society, doomed to be controlled by leaders who marshaled religion and propaganda to defend their dominance.

In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina explained that society needed “a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill.”

But when they organized in the 1850s to push back against the efforts of elite enslavers like Hammond to take over the national government, members of the fledgling Republican Party recognized the importance of education. In 1859, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln explained that those who adhered to Hammond’s “mud-sill” theory “assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible…. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous.”

Lincoln argued that workers were not simply drudges but rather were the heart of the economy. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him.” He tied the political vision of the Framers to this economic vision. In order to prosper, he argued, men needed “book-learning,” and he called for universal education. An educated community, he said, “will be alike independent of crowned-kings, money-kings, and land-kings.”

When they were in control of the federal government in the 1860s, Republicans passed the Land Grant College Act, funding public universities so that men without wealthy fathers might have access to higher education. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Republicans also tried to use the federal government to fund public schools for poor Black and white Americans, apportioning money according to illiteracy rates.

But President Andrew Johnson vetoed that bill on the grounds that the federal government had no business messing with education: that process, he said, belonged to the states—which for the next century denied Black people equal access to schools, excluding them from full participation in American society and condemning them to menial labor.

Then, in 1954, after decades of pressure from Black and Brown Americans for equal access to public schools, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, a former Republican governor of California, unanimously agreed that separate schools were inherently unequal and thus unconstitutional.

Immediately, white southerners lawmakers launched a campaign of what they called “massive resistance” to integration. Some Virginia counties closed their public schools. Others took funds from integrated public schools and used a grant system to redistribute those funds to segregated private schools.

Within years, these segregation academies would dovetail neatly with the religious schools organized after the 1962 Engel v. Vitale decision in which the Supreme Court struck down state-mandated prayer in public schools, and the 1963 Abington School District v. Schempp decision prohibiting teachers from leading students in prayer and Bible reading. The Supreme Court decisions against prayer in schools reinforced the idea that the government opposed “family values,” and fundamentalists pulled their children out of public schools and created alternative religious schools. Fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell began to suggest that public schools should be abolished entirely.

Both of these developments provided constituents for Ronald Reagan’s rise to political power with a message that public employees had gotten too powerful and that public enterprises should be privatized.

After Reagan’s election, his secretary of education commissioned a study of the nation’s public schools, starting with the conviction that there was a “widespread public perception that something is seriously remiss in our educational system.” The resulting report, titled “A Nation at Risk,” announced: “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

Although a later study commissioned in 1990 by the secretary of energy found the data in the original report did not support the report’s conclusions, Reagan nonetheless used it to justify school privatization. He vowed after the report’s release that he would “continue to work in the months ahead for passage of tuition tax credits, vouchers, educational savings accounts, voluntary school prayer, and abolishing the Department of Education. Our agenda is to restore quality to education by increasing competition and by strengthening parental choice and local control.”

The drive to push tax dollars from public schools to private academies through a voucher system remained a top priority for those on the right. In his first term, Trump asked Congress to fund “school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children. These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.” His education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was a staunch supporter of school choice and the voucher system; she and her family gave $600,000 to promote school choice ballot laws in the decade before 2017.

The coronavirus pandemic sped up the push to defund public schools as Trump pushed hard to transfer funds from the closed public schools to private schools. That push helped to change the nature of vouchers from ones targeted at students from poor families or students with special needs toward vouchers for everyone. In 2022, Arizona lawmakers passed the biggest school voucher program in the nation.

Advocates claimed that the new program would “save taxpayers thousands per student, millions statewide,” but in fact, as Eli Hager of ProPublica explained in 2024, the parents most likely to apply for subsidies already had their children in private school or were homeschooling them, using the vouchers to replace what they had been paying in the past. The state’s spending on vouchers ballooned to $886 million in 2024–2025 as families from wealthier, whiter school districts used vouchers for children who were already in private school. The costs blew a hole in the state’s budget: in 2024, Arizona faced a shortfall of $1.4 billion, forcing the state to slash spending for water infrastructure, road repair, and community colleges.

But voucher programs continued to expand, helped by DeVos’s continued promotion of vouchers after Trump left office. In 2022 a nonprofit she founded poured about $9 million—about $2.5 million of which came from DeVos and her husband—into state elections, backing nearly 200 candidates who would push school vouchers to subsidize private schools with public tax money.

In May 2025, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed into law a voucher program in Texas under which, beginning this fall, families will receive about $10,000 a year for each school-age child to spend at a private school or $2,000 for children being homeschooled. The program is capped at $1 billion in its first two years, but experts predict it will rise to almost $5 billion by 2030.

The measure had faced opposition from Democrats and also Republicans from rural districts who worried about money draining from their public schools. It passed only after national pro-voucher advocates poured money into replacing the Republican state legislators who had stood against a voucher system with pro-voucher candidates. Abbott said that one of those donations, $6 million from Republican megadonor billionaire Jeff Yass of Pennsylvania, was the “largest single donation in Texas history.”

Earlier this month, Jaden Edison and Sneha Dey of the Texas Tribune explained that a report from the state comptroller showed that of the more than 100,000 families participating in the new private school voucher program, most are white and from urban areas. Their families make less than twice the federal poverty level. About 70% were already attending private schools or being homeschooled.

Austin Democratic state senator Sarah Eckhardt said the report “proves this program is a billion-dollar handout to exclusive private schools concentrated in big cities, while public schools across the state are underfunded and closing at an alarming rate.”

In Arizona, opponents of the voucher program tried to put onto the ballot this fall a measure that would have limited eligibility for the program by income and cracked down on the misuse of funds by homeschoolers, who used voucher money for ninja warrior training centers, trampoline parks, pianos, and so on. But voucher supporters sued over the signatures on the ballot measure, and on Tuesday the Arizona Supreme Court decided in their favor, throwing the measure out of this fall’s election.

Elvia Díaz of the Arizona Mirror wrote: “Arizona school vouchers that are pulling $1 billion away from students in K–12 public schools are here to stay, whether we like it or not.” She noted that “the real challenge is a public school system left underfunded and a voucher system left unchecked.”

In 1831, southern lawmakers tried to create a white nation by making it a crime to educate Black Americans. In 2026 the intent to exclude certain Americans from participation in the Enlightenment principles that undergird the nation remains the same, only less explicit.

Thanks for posting.

Nothing says “protecting educational freedom” quite like spending billions to make sure everyone gets less of it.

August 22, 2026 (Saturday)

On Tuesday, August 18, during a debate for a runoff to win the South Carolina Republican senatorial primary, Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) answered a question about Taiwan and the importance of the South China Sea by saying: “I’m not that informed on national security.” She paused, and added: “But I do support the military.”

The audience reacted with boos and gasps. Senators are supposed to manage national security.

Trying to clean up her mistake, Graham went to an interview with the friendly Sean Hannity at the Fox News Channel, where she tried to make a virtue of her error by saying it reflects that she is not a politician. Then she added that people in South Carolina are worried less about foreign affairs than they are about affordability, “boys in girls’ sports,” the Second Amendment, “illegal immigration,” and the SAVE America Act.

Journalist Parker Molloy noted that trans girls have been banned from competing in K–12 girls sports since 2022 and are banned from competing in the NCAA and the Olympics. “This is literally an issue that doesn’t affect SC at all anymore,” Molloy noted. “They got what they wanted. How is this still a priority?”

Graham perfectly represents the modern Republican Party. South Carolina governor Henry McMaster appointed her to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham. McMaster said Trump “thought it was a great idea” for her to replace her brother, and she has indicated her loyalty to Trump and her willingness to pass the SAVE America Act he so badly wants in order to rig the 2026 midterm elections. Graham has little political experience, and with little to offer voters other than loyalty to Trump, she is simply echoing Republican culture war talking points that worked for him in 2016.

But it appears voters don’t like living in the world Trump is creating.

As Cleve R. Wootson Jr. noted yesterday in the Washington Post, Trump went to South Carolina last night to help Graham’s campaign. He told those attending the rally that the election was really about him. Although Graham’s opponent in the runoff, Representative Ralph Norman, has made much of Graham’s inexperience, Trump told rally attendees: “They’re only fighting Darline because they want me to lose.”

Wootson notes that Trump is hoping for a Graham win to restore some of the power that is slipping away as his popularity continues to slide to new lows. Primary candidates he backed for governor in Iowa, Georgia, Wyoming, and Minnesota all lost, as did those he backed in congressional primaries in Michigan and Tennessee.

Indeed, as Graham was fumbling the debate last Tuesday, two former teachers endorsed by Democrats flipped the Sarasota, Florida, school board. That board had been dominated by right-wing candidates since 2022, led by Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, who has said public schools are “indoctrination centers for the radical left” and that she wanted to bring “religious values” to them.

Formed in 2021, Moms for Liberty was behind the book banning of the past several years. Ziegler is married to the former chair of the Florida Republican Party, who was forced out of his position after a woman alleged he had raped her in relation to the three-way sexual relationship she had with the Zieglers. Bridget Ziegler refused to step down from the school board after the scandal broke.

As Kerry Sheridan of WUSF reported, Beth Mayberry and Megan Tennimon ran on issues of school funding, academic achievement, and helping students in underserved areas. Both won their races by more than 10 percentage points.

As political historian Joanne Freeman put it Saturday morning in our chat on What the Heck Just Happened?, when Republican leaders in 2020 decided not to write a political platform at all, but simply to “reassert the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration” and to say it would “continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda,” they gave him every reason to think that “all of the things that he’s doing to promote himself—the races and the gold and everything else—that that’s all campaigning. It’s all about him.”

Then, when party leaders in 2024 essentially turned Trump’s social media posts into a platform, they embraced the idea that the party could stay in power through slogans. They promised to “DEFEAT INFLATION, AND QUICKLY BRING DOWN ALL PRICES,” to “BRING BACK THE AMERICAN DREAM AND MAKE IT AFFORDABLE AGAIN FOR FAMILIES, YOUNG PEOPLE, AND EVERYONE,” to “promote a Foreign Policy centered on the most essential American Interests, starting with protecting the American Homeland, our People, our Borders, our Great American Flag, and our Rights under God,” and so on.

The Republican Party tied itself to Trump and remains tied to him as he devotes his time to celebrating himself with his ballroom, a UFC cage match at the White House, his triumphal arch, renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and now this weekend’s “Freedom 250 Grand Prix” around the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in which 25 IndyCar drivers are covering 147 laps at speeds up to 150 mph around a 1.7-mile (2.7 km), 7-turn street circuit loop past the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument, the National Archives, and the National Gallery of Art.

The race has required workers to weld down more than 200 manhole covers, move traffic lights, and put up barriers that have disrupted traffic, while the National Gallery of Art has had to protect its sculptures from vibrations and airlines have had to reroute flights.

Meanwhile, the country remains embroiled in an apparently purposeless war in Iran; the economy is slowing and prices of food and gas are rising; Americans are horrified by the tactics of ICE and Border Patrol, who have abused and killed immigrants and U.S. citizens alike; Trump, his family, and his allies have put at least $2.2 billion in Trump’s pockets; and Trump has alienated our closest allies.

Just after midnight on August 21, Trump imposed a 50% tariff on a range of goods from Canada. Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney suspended trade negotiations with the U.S. and said Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. beginning September 8. In a statement, Carney said: “We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship.” Canada, he said, will be “focused on building our strength at home diversifying our partnerships abroad.”

And now the story that the closest advisor to the President of the United States is a 35-year-old woman who seems unhealthily obsessed with him ties Republican Party leadership to the reality that they are permitting the destruction of the United States with barely a whimper.

As Trump led Republicans into a box canyon, they have left an open field for Democrats to redefine the nation’s politics.

On August 17, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg recorded a video to assure those Americans who oppose the Trump administration that they are in the large majority. He noted that the strategy Republicans are pursuing shows how unpopular they are.

“Think about it,” he said. “They’re not out there showing that the economy is somehow better than it looks…. They’re not defending their cuts to healthcare, they’re not defending the tax cuts for the wealthy. They’re not defending the corruption that’s going on in Washington.”

“It’s too late for that,” he said, because “we’ve all seen that those policies have failed. They made us all pay tariffs and said the reason we got to do this is to bring back manufacturing jobs…. Well, we paid the tariffs, and then America lost manufacturing jobs. They cut taxes for the rich. They said we’ve got to do that in order to speed up economic growth. And what happened? Economic growth slowed down…. They said they were going to cut costs and prices. Inflation is actually higher now than the day Donald Trump took office. They said they were gonna drain the swamp. And then they expect us to be okay with the first family making a billion dollars or more in crypto deals while the president’s in office….

“A lot of people believed this president and Republicans when they said no new wars. Then, what do we get? A war with Iran in the Middle East right now, which means all of us here at home are paying higher gas prices.”

The Republican strategy is not to change their policies, Buttigieg said. “It’s changing the maps. Changing the rules. Because that’s the only way they could win. They know they’re on the wrong side of the American people….

“You’re already in the majority if you think that we need healthcare for all, not Medicaid cuts and cutting Obamacare…. Right now, if you think that the wealthiest people in the country need to be paying their fair share in taxes, which is more than they’re doing today, where they currently pay less than a lot of teachers and nurses and firefighters. You are definitely in the majority if you believe that the wealthiest nation in the world ought to do the best job of funding public education and making sure it works. Not this Republican approach, which is to literally eliminate the Department of Education. You’re not alone if you think that in any decent economy, one job ought to be enough. And you’re certainly not alone if you believe that a woman’s healthcare decisions ought to be up to her and no one else, that in a free country, you should get to be who you are, and love who you love, and live a life of your choosing. When you believe these things, you’re not just not alone. You’re part of a powerful majority. Really a supermajority of the American people.

“So, whether you’re a Democrat, an independent, or someone who has generally voted Republican in the past, most voters want the same things right now: to be led and represented by normal people who are good at getting things done. People want leaders who respect those who disagree or vote differently instead of calling them the enemy. People who know that God does not belong to a political party in the United States of America. Most voters want to elect leaders who are not simply trying to rebuild the past, but trying to create something new and better.”

Neophyte said:

August 22, 2026 (Saturday)

On Tuesday, August 18, during a debate for a runoff to win the South Carolina Republican senatorial primary, Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) answered a question about Taiwan and the importance of the South China Sea by saying: “I’m not that informed on national security.” She paused, and added: “But I do support the military.”

The audience reacted with boos and gasps. Senators are supposed to manage national security.

Trying to clean up her mistake, Graham went to an interview with the friendly Sean Hannity at the Fox News Channel, where she tried to make a virtue of her error by saying it reflects that she is not a politician. Then she added that people in South Carolina are worried less about foreign affairs than they are about affordability, “boys in girls’ sports,” the Second Amendment, “illegal immigration,” and the SAVE America Act.

Journalist Parker Molloy noted that trans girls have been banned from competing in K–12 girls sports since 2022 and are banned from competing in the NCAA and the Olympics. “This is literally an issue that doesn’t affect SC at all anymore,” Molloy noted. “They got what they wanted. How is this still a priority?”

Graham perfectly represents the modern Republican Party. South Carolina governor Henry McMaster appointed her to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham. McMaster said Trump “thought it was a great idea” for her to replace her brother, and she has indicated her loyalty to Trump and her willingness to pass the SAVE America Act he so badly wants in order to rig the 2026 midterm elections. Graham has little political experience, and with little to offer voters other than loyalty to Trump, she is simply echoing Republican culture war talking points that worked for him in 2016.

But it appears voters don’t like living in the world Trump is creating.

As Cleve R. Wootson Jr. noted yesterday in the Washington Post, Trump went to South Carolina last night to help Graham’s campaign. He told those attending the rally that the election was really about him. Although Graham’s opponent in the runoff, Representative Ralph Norman, has made much of Graham’s inexperience, Trump told rally attendees: “They’re only fighting Darline because they want me to lose.”

Wootson notes that Trump is hoping for a Graham win to restore some of the power that is slipping away as his popularity continues to slide to new lows. Primary candidates he backed for governor in Iowa, Georgia, Wyoming, and Minnesota all lost, as did those he backed in congressional primaries in Michigan and Tennessee.

Indeed, as Graham was fumbling the debate last Tuesday, two former teachers endorsed by Democrats flipped the Sarasota, Florida, school board. That board had been dominated by right-wing candidates since 2022, led by Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, who has said public schools are “indoctrination centers for the radical left” and that she wanted to bring “religious values” to them.

Formed in 2021, Moms for Liberty was behind the book banning of the past several years. Ziegler is married to the former chair of the Florida Republican Party, who was forced out of his position after a woman alleged he had raped her in relation to the three-way sexual relationship she had with the Zieglers. Bridget Ziegler refused to step down from the school board after the scandal broke.

As Kerry Sheridan of WUSF reported, Beth Mayberry and Megan Tennimon ran on issues of school funding, academic achievement, and helping students in underserved areas. Both won their races by more than 10 percentage points.

As political historian Joanne Freeman put it Saturday morning in our chat on What the Heck Just Happened?, when Republican leaders in 2020 decided not to write a political platform at all, but simply to “reassert the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration” and to say it would “continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda,” they gave him every reason to think that “all of the things that he’s doing to promote himself—the races and the gold and everything else—that that’s all campaigning. It’s all about him.”

Then, when party leaders in 2024 essentially turned Trump’s social media posts into a platform, they embraced the idea that the party could stay in power through slogans. They promised to “DEFEAT INFLATION, AND QUICKLY BRING DOWN ALL PRICES,” to “BRING BACK THE AMERICAN DREAM AND MAKE IT AFFORDABLE AGAIN FOR FAMILIES, YOUNG PEOPLE, AND EVERYONE,” to “promote a Foreign Policy centered on the most essential American Interests, starting with protecting the American Homeland, our People, our Borders, our Great American Flag, and our Rights under God,” and so on.

The Republican Party tied itself to Trump and remains tied to him as he devotes his time to celebrating himself with his ballroom, a UFC cage match at the White House, his triumphal arch, renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and now this weekend’s “Freedom 250 Grand Prix” around the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in which 25 IndyCar drivers are covering 147 laps at speeds up to 150 mph around a 1.7-mile (2.7 km), 7-turn street circuit loop past the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument, the National Archives, and the National Gallery of Art.

The race has required workers to weld down more than 200 manhole covers, move traffic lights, and put up barriers that have disrupted traffic, while the National Gallery of Art has had to protect its sculptures from vibrations and airlines have had to reroute flights.

Meanwhile, the country remains embroiled in an apparently purposeless war in Iran; the economy is slowing and prices of food and gas are rising; Americans are horrified by the tactics of ICE and Border Patrol, who have abused and killed immigrants and U.S. citizens alike; Trump, his family, and his allies have put at least $2.2 billion in Trump’s pockets; and Trump has alienated our closest allies.

Just after midnight on August 21, Trump imposed a 50% tariff on a range of goods from Canada. Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney suspended trade negotiations with the U.S. and said Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. beginning September 8. In a statement, Carney said: “We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship.” Canada, he said, will be “focused on building our strength at home diversifying our partnerships abroad.”

And now the story that the closest advisor to the President of the United States is a 35-year-old woman who seems unhealthily obsessed with him ties Republican Party leadership to the reality that they are permitting the destruction of the United States with barely a whimper.

As Trump led Republicans into a box canyon, they have left an open field for Democrats to redefine the nation’s politics.

On August 17, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg recorded a video to assure those Americans who oppose the Trump administration that they are in the large majority. He noted that the strategy Republicans are pursuing shows how unpopular they are.

“Think about it,” he said. “They’re not out there showing that the economy is somehow better than it looks…. They’re not defending their cuts to healthcare, they’re not defending the tax cuts for the wealthy. They’re not defending the corruption that’s going on in Washington.”

“It’s too late for that,” he said, because “we’ve all seen that those policies have failed. They made us all pay tariffs and said the reason we got to do this is to bring back manufacturing jobs…. Well, we paid the tariffs, and then America lost manufacturing jobs. They cut taxes for the rich. They said we’ve got to do that in order to speed up economic growth. And what happened? Economic growth slowed down…. They said they were going to cut costs and prices. Inflation is actually higher now than the day Donald Trump took office. They said they were gonna drain the swamp. And then they expect us to be okay with the first family making a billion dollars or more in crypto deals while the president’s in office….

“A lot of people believed this president and Republicans when they said no new wars. Then, what do we get? A war with Iran in the Middle East right now, which means all of us here at home are paying higher gas prices.”

The Republican strategy is not to change their policies, Buttigieg said. “It’s changing the maps. Changing the rules. Because that’s the only way they could win. They know they’re on the wrong side of the American people….

“You’re already in the majority if you think that we need healthcare for all, not Medicaid cuts and cutting Obamacare…. Right now, if you think that the wealthiest people in the country need to be paying their fair share in taxes, which is more than they’re doing today, where they currently pay less than a lot of teachers and nurses and firefighters. You are definitely in the majority if you believe that the wealthiest nation in the world ought to do the best job of funding public education and making sure it works. Not this Republican approach, which is to literally eliminate the Department of Education. You’re not alone if you think that in any decent economy, one job ought to be enough. And you’re certainly not alone if you believe that a woman’s healthcare decisions ought to be up to her and no one else, that in a free country, you should get to be who you are, and love who you love, and live a life of your choosing. When you believe these things, you’re not just not alone. You’re part of a powerful majority. Really a supermajority of the American people.

“So, whether you’re a Democrat, an independent, or someone who has generally voted Republican in the past, most voters want the same things right now: to be led and represented by normal people who are good at getting things done. People want leaders who respect those who disagree or vote differently instead of calling them the enemy. People who know that God does not belong to a political party in the United States of America. Most voters want to elect leaders who are not simply trying to rebuild the past, but trying to create something new and better.”

Danananana (bionic man sound)

He’s back!

Ta.

August 23, 2026 (Sunday)

I’ve heard rumors that we all need a break.

So here, from a recent kayak trip, is a photo of a world that is not dominated by the news.

And now, let’s all get a good night’s sleep.

I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

August 24, 2026 (Monday)

On Friday night, Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed Canadian negotiators to walk away from talks with officials from the Trump administration over new tariffs of 50% Trump had imposed on $28 billion of Canadian products. Carney explained in a statement that “last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”

He has a point. From July 1, 2020, until Trump’s second term, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico traded under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Negotiated under the first Trump administration, USMCA replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and was similar to it, creating one of the world’s largest free trade zones.
The trade zone reinforced the close alliance between Canada and the U.S., enabling people in both countries to enjoy the longest demilitarized border in the world stretching more than 5,000 miles (more than 8,000 kilometers) across the entire North American continent. Canada and the U.S. have shared military and defense capabilities, with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) operating since 1957 to detect aircraft or missiles, especially those coming over the North Pole, that could prove a threat to the United States (NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did).

But as soon as he won reelection in 2024, Trump began to emphasize that he intended to use “economic force,” specifically tariffs, to pressure Canada into joining the U.S. as its 51st state. He began to exercise that threat the day he took office for the second time, saying he would put 25% tariffs on Canada. This violation of his own trade agreement reflected the administration’s abandonment of the principles of free trade and defensive alliances put in place after World War II, replacing that system with one favored by autocrats like Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, in which strong countries imposed spheres of influence in their regions of the world.

Since then, Trump has sought to use the extraordinary economic power of the United States to force Canada and other countries into subordinate relationships. The recent threat against Canada came after Trump’s previous tariffs either were struck down or expired. On July 20, Trump said he would use Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, more commonly known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, to impose a 50% tariff on certain Canadian products. No president had ever before invoked Section 338, which allows a president to impose tariffs when a country discriminates against U.S. products relative to its comparative treatment of other countries’ goods.

On Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Carney would have to back down because tariffs will be “devastating for his country.” Also on Sunday, the Wall Street Journal editorial board noted that Trump “has contrived an array of pretexts—from fentanyl trafficking to trade deficits—to bludgeon Canada with tariffs.” And the editorial board, known for its right-wing slant, called Trump’s tariff war on Canada “the dumbest trade war in history” and said it “makes no economic or political sense.”

Canada is the second largest trading partner of the U.S., and the editors noted that Trump’s “latest round of border taxes will hit an array of consumer goods, construction materials and manufacturing components,” driving prices still higher at a time when consumers are already squeezed.

Trump’s new attack on Canada might not make economic or political sense for the U.S., but it seems to make sense for a decaying president.

Trump is flailing in Iran, and so—as national security scholar Tom Nichols pointed out in The Atlantic after Trump nonsensically attacked South Korea, another longstanding and loyal ally—he is looking to reassert his dominance. Trump doesn’t dare to cross the leaders who actually threaten the U.S., those like Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Instead, Nichols writes, he is trying to make himself feel better by “kicking America’s allies, the nations he can punish without fear that they will kick him back.”

“At a better moment in American history, an enraged Congress would step in and demand answers about such dangerous idiocy,” Nichols wrote. “They would rush to the White House, talk to the press, hold hearings, and in general act like responsible stewards of American power.” But Republicans in charge of Congress appear to be unwilling to cross Trump. Our allies, though, Nichols notes, “have power and agency of their own, and even now are likely planning for a world in which the Americans are no longer men and women of principle who stand by their word and by their friends.”

That moment appears to have arrived.

In Davos, Switzerland, in January 2026, Carney warned the World Economic Forum that the world is “in the midst of a rupture.” He warned that the post–World War II rules-based international order is no longer automatically a route to prosperity and security as the world’s most powerful nations are using the economic integration that system championed as a way to coerce other countries.

He urged “middle countries” to create “coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests” as an alternative to a “world of fortresses” made up of major powers with spheres of influence.

On Friday night, after recalling Canada’s negotiators, Carney released a statement saying: “We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship. Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market.”

Although negotiators had tried to work with the U.S., he wrote, Canada’s core economic strategy has been on building Canada’s economy and diversifying economic partnerships. He noted that Canada is creating jobs at four times the rate of the United States. “Canada has what the world wants,” he wrote, “And we will not allow any nation to determine our future.”
In an address to Canadians on Saturday, Carney said: “Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so that they can own us. And I promised: ‘That will never, ever happen.’ We are keeping that promise.” “Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America. We are already giving ourselves more than they can take away. And we are just getting started.”

Carney said Canada will retaliate against the U.S. tariffs, dollar for dollar, beginning on September 8.

This morning, Trump exploded on social media, claiming that “Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years” and warning that “Canada will be treated like a State no longer!” He said that on “January First, 2027,” he would place tariffs of 50% on “all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel.” Canadians “feel entitled,” he wrote, “and yet, WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who used to be a Trump fan, told reporters today “I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so has a lot of room to kiss my ass.”

Today Carney told reporters that Canada will soon “begin intense discussions with the European Union, the world’s second-largest economy, to build a much stronger and deeper economic and security partnership. Now,” he said, “we can build such unparalleled access because we’re trusted, because we’re reliable, and because we have what the world wants.”

On Friday The Economist reviewed polling by YouGov showing that Trump has a positive job approval rating in only three states: West Virginia, Idaho, and Wyoming.

There seems little reason to think those numbers are going to turn around. On Friday, Trump announced he would try to lower beef prices by suspending tariffs on imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef that he said would be sold “at 25 percent below current prices.”

Cattle ranchers and farmers, who have in the past strongly supported Trump, cried foul, saying the imports would drive down prices while making it impossible to distinguish between U.S. and foreign meat just after nearly 30,000 pounds of Argentine beef were recalled after missing a required inspection in the U.S.

Trump has refused to identify from which country or countries he plans to get the ground beef, a reluctance dovetailing unfortunately with a report from Dave Philipps with visuals by Erin Schaff in the New York Times on August 20 that the Bureau of Land Management under Trump has been selling wild horses for slaughter as meat for as little as $25 a head. Wild horses are legally protected from hunting or capture, but the administration appears to be selling them to middlemen who resell them into the food pipeline unquestioned.

In a sign of just how untrustworthy many Americans now consider Trump, anti-Trump social media users were quick to put the two stories together.

Georgi Kantchev, Rebecca Feng, and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal today also cast doubt on the administration’s claims that large volumes of oil are moving through the Strait of Hormuz. “The trackers whose job it is to count the world’s oil shipments see much less,” they write.

On Sunday, Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s insistence that he needs his new ballroom for security is bunk: the White House already has a secure, hardened facility that can withstand a nuclear blast and house dozens of people for weeks. It was built secretly during the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, the angry opposition to the Trump administration and the wealthy tech bros it serves is taking shape with popular fury over the data centers. These facilities house computers, servers, and data storage infrastructure and have existed for a long time, but to support the extraordinary demands of artificial intelligence they have grown exponentially lately. Tech giants have built huge facilities that are noisy, pollute, and require huge amounts of energy and water.

Technology advocates have pushed their agenda by claiming they will dramatically expand the economy, and the Trump administration has backed their ambitions. Trump even brought billionaire Elon Musk into the administration after he poured almost $200 million into getting Trump elected.

But opposition to the data centers is bipartisan and growing as they appear to symbolize the takeover of our system by a few wealthy men like Musk. Molly Hennessey-Fiske of the Washington Post reported today that in Texas, some Republicans are mobilizing to prevent Republican Greg Abbott from winning a fourth term as governor because of his support for data centers.

Over the weekend, the growing fury over Trump and his administration led to an uproar over a report in the New York Times by Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni about a meeting in the past weeks between House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The journalists said the meeting was about “potential areas of common ground,” a vague description that led a clearly nervous House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to warn Kushner: “You better not bet against the House Republicans.”

But even the idea that Jeffries was talking to Kushner was enough to infuriate opponents of the administration, a fact that seems likely to have been behind the leak of the meeting in the first place. For his part, Haberman and Karni note, Jeffries has emphasized that he wants “to get rid of toxic Trump cabinet secretaries,” including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,” but it’s clear that demands for even more widespread accountability are growing.

In addition to posting a number of references to the first plane landing “at the newly named President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” claims that the “Radical Left Democrats are going CRAZY with Fake Polls,” and two photos of himself with Kim Jong Un, Trump posted today that “IRAN IS COMPLETELY COLLAPSING!!!”

And yet Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent today announced “Operation Economic Outcast,” an initiative to demand other world leaders join with the U.S. in strangling Iran’s economy. Bessent says Trump is contacting other leaders, but, as Riley Beggin, David J. Lynch, and Aoife Walsh of the Washington Post note, would neither say who they were nor specify the deadline.

“The United States expects action,” Bessent told reporters. “We do not have infinite patience here.”

“ NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did”

TIL

Divine Angel said:

“ NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did”

TIL

Not to mention this little gem:

>>On Sunday, Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s insistence that he needs his new ballroom for security is bunk: the White House already has a secure, hardened facility that can withstand a nuclear blast and house dozens of people for weeks. It was built secretly during the Obama administration. <<

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

“ NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did”

TIL

Not to mention this little gem:

>>On Sunday, Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s insistence that he needs his new ballroom for security is bunk: the White House already has a secure, hardened facility that can withstand a nuclear blast and house dozens of people for weeks. It was built secretly during the Obama administration. <<

I didn’t know this.

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

“ NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did”

TIL

Not to mention this little gem:

>>On Sunday, Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s insistence that he needs his new ballroom for security is bunk: the White House already has a secure, hardened facility that can withstand a nuclear blast and house dozens of people for weeks. It was built secretly during the Obama administration. <<

I’d read rumours of such a thing. No one believes one would bunker down in a ballroom.

Trump is the realistic reflection of the USA that’s existed since the Cold War
People were easily fooled by blatant propaganda of how great they were when if you look closely its mostly rot.
The fact the richest nation has ghettos, underclasses for your wars, no universal healthcare, poor working conditions, etc
Leave the population to be exploited and pretend its capitalism and you’re fighting them no good commies.
Not excusing Russia or the USSR as they are terrible as well.

Divine Angel said:

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

“ NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did”

TIL

Not to mention this little gem:

>>On Sunday, Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s insistence that he needs his new ballroom for security is bunk: the White House already has a secure, hardened facility that can withstand a nuclear blast and house dozens of people for weeks. It was built secretly during the Obama administration. <<

I’d read rumours of such a thing. No one believes one would bunker down in a ballroom.

I thought that the bunker would be under the ball room.

Divine Angel said:

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

“ NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did”

TIL

Not to mention this little gem:

>>On Sunday, Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s insistence that he needs his new ballroom for security is bunk: the White House already has a secure, hardened facility that can withstand a nuclear blast and house dozens of people for weeks. It was built secretly during the Obama administration. <<

I’d read rumours of such a thing. No one believes one would bunker down in a ballroom.

Would you want to survive a nuclear war.
Of all the ways to wreck civilisation it would be the worst.

ms spock said:

Divine Angel said:

buffy said:

Not to mention this little gem:

>>On Sunday, Noah Robertson and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s insistence that he needs his new ballroom for security is bunk: the White House already has a secure, hardened facility that can withstand a nuclear blast and house dozens of people for weeks. It was built secretly during the Obama administration. <<

I’d read rumours of such a thing. No one believes one would bunker down in a ballroom.

I thought that the bunker would be under the ball room.

Yes, but the ballroom itself is supposed to be a “secure event space” too.

Heather Cox Richardson interviews Robert Reich

Link

August 25, 2026 (Tuesday)

Trump started the morning on social media saying: “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer.” On X, the account of the Republicans pushed the idea of renaming the lake.

In contrast to MAGA’s performative nonsense, Canadian officials announced today that on September 8 they will begin to impose tariffs of up to 50% on about 700 products worth about $20 billion in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on Canada. Those products include U.S. steel, aluminum, chain saws, appliances, processed cheese, and clams. Paul Vieira of the Wall Street Journal noted that the tariffs appear targeted toward plants in Republican-held congressional districts.

Canada will also invest about 7.5 billion in Canadian dollars ($5.4 billion U.S.) in Canadian firms and workers hit by the trade war.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s threat of yesterday that the U.S. intends to strangle Iran’s economy isn’t faring much better than Trump’s attempt to rename Lake Ontario.

As economist Paul Krugman pointed out in his newsletter today, China can supply much of what Iran needs and has incentive to do so as Trump’s “self-inflicted quagmire in Iran” saps U.S. strength and respect. Krugman warned that Bessent’s threat “reeks of desperation,” a scent China would surely smell.

Krugman concluded with a prediction: “I can safely predict that the Chinese will make sure that the Iranian regime survives, and that they will thoroughly enjoy watching Trump slowly twist in the wind over the Strait of Hormuz.”

Indeed, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian today rejected the administration’s call for isolating Iran economically. “Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted,” Lin said. “China has already stated many times that it firmly opposes illegal unilateral sanctions.… China will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests.”

As Krugman pointed out, the Iran war has forced the U.S. to abandon many of its Middle East bases—that’s why the USS Lincoln couldn’t be resupplied—and it has little prospect of reclaiming them now that Iran has been emboldened to attack the troops there. MS NOW national security analyst Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired Army general, posted Saturday: “In my judgement, the US Armed Forces have probably permanently lost access to 15 Persian Gulf bases. Iran now poised to control access the Gulf States. US will have to negotiate new access in western Saudi Arabia, Israel, southern Europe.”

On Sunday, in The Atlantic, Robert Kagan noted that the Iran war has reconfigured the Middle East. For years, Iran was on the ropes, with the U.S. dominating the region alongside countries aligned with the U.S., including Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Now Iran has withstood six months of attacks from the U.S. and Israel. Its survival has reconfigured the power structure of the region, with Iran emerging as the area’s dominant power as it has demonstrated its ability to damage the oil and gas infrastructure of its neighbors.

It is plain, Kagan wrote, that “Washington fears escalation more than Iran does,” limiting what the U.S. can do as Iran not only exercises the right to collect tolls on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz but also decides who can use the strait. That control, Kagan notes, gives Iran “leverage every day, over dozens of countries.” It can “reward friends, punish enemies, extract revenue, force the loosening of sanctions, and make governments think twice before opposing Iranian policies…without firing a shot.”

The policy of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to bring a “warrior” ethos to the Pentagon by putting it “on offense, not just on defense” using “maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” and and having “violent effect, not politically correct,” has given the U.S. a tremendous loss in Iran.

And a report today from Megan Rose and Hannah Allam of ProPublica suggests that officers in U.S. Central Command recognized the dangers of Hegseth’s approach to warfare. Rose and Allam report that when Hegseth polled top commanders about cutting the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response program instituted after civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan hardened opposition to the U.S., they universally objected.

Current and former defense officials told the journalists that Hegseth apparently thought senior officers would agree with him that focusing on civilian security was “woke” and would hamper “maximum lethality.” Instead, they uniformly disagreed, warning that scaling back the effort to protect civilians would “result in decreased efficiency of U.S. lethal operations due to an increased risk of target misidentification and reduced battlespace awareness.” Hegseth gutted the program anyway, and U.S. strikes have killed hundreds of civilians. Now it appears the administration is considering rebuilding the program.

Social media this morning picked up that a U.S. Air Force transport aircraft that had taken off from Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C., landed in Moscow. Later reports said the U.S. official traveling to Moscow was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Ratcliffe. There’s been lots of speculation about the purpose of his trip to Moscow, but so far it’s all guesses.

Journalist Greg Sargent notes that Trump’s trade war with Canada will hit the Midwest right before the midterms. Josh Turek, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Iowa and a leading voice for a new prairie populism that works for farmers, told Sargent, “It’s a really dangerous time to be a farmer in the Midwest.” “You talk to farmers, and they’ll tell you it’s one gut punch after another,” Turek said. Iowans tell him they feel betrayed.

Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, said that “Trump is escalating a trade war with Canada for his own vanity” and that his Republican opponent, former representative Mike Rogers, is a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s plans.

Maine, too, will be hit by the trade war with Canada. Yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance was in Maine campaigning for Senator Susan Collins, but while he praised her, she did not show up for the rally. Vance made it a point to call Collins “independent,” a descriptor that many former MAGA candidates in Maine are using in this election cycle.

Collin’s Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, was a logger on the Canada border before pursuing a career in politics, giving him an authentic voice as he explains the cost of a fight with Canada for Mainers.

NBC News national political reporter Sahil Kapur noted today that Ralph Alvarado, who is running for the U.S. House from Kentucky’s sixth District, which Trump won in 2024 by 15 points, has scrubbed his website of references to Trump and has changed his slogan from “America First Fighter” to “Independent Leadership.”

Still, Trump appears to think his power is unchallenged and, in the midst of the fires all around him, continues to be focused on his renovations to Washington, D.C. A report today from Jonathan Edwards in the Washington Post showed that ticket sales and fundraising for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts plummeted after Trump’s name was added to it, even though the board insisted his takeover was a financial rescue.

Today Trump’s lawyers suggested that the administration might have to demolish the Kennedy Center if the courts don’t allow the board to renovate it over the next two years and add Trump’s name to the facade. After the renovations, it would read: “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

As Gary Grumbach and Dareh Gregorian of NBC News reported, Justice Department attorney Brantley T. Mayers wrote: “Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.”

Trump’s threat to destroy the Kennedy Center unless he gets to do what he wants to it seems to be a metaphor for the United States: “Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

“ After the renovations, it would read: “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.””

As will the White House, I’m sure. Except the JFK bit obvs.

Maine, too, will be hit by the trade war with Canada. Yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance was in Maine campaigning for Senator Susan Collins, but while he praised her, she did not show up for the rally. Vance made it a point to call Collins “independent,” a descriptor that many former MAGA candidates in Maine are using in this election cycle.

I don’t know what it take to get rid of Collins. After her involvement with Roe vs Wade. I thought that would have ended her.

ms spock said:

Maine, too, will be hit by the trade war with Canada. Yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance was in Maine campaigning for Senator Susan Collins, but while he praised her, she did not show up for the rally. Vance made it a point to call Collins “independent,” a descriptor that many former MAGA candidates in Maine are using in this election cycle.

I don’t know what it take to get rid of Collins. After her involvement with Roe vs Wade. I thought that would have ended her.

it will take

Neophyte said:

Iran emerging as the area’s dominant power as it has demonstrated its ability

maybe

SCIENCE said:

Neophyte said:

Iran emerging as the area’s dominant power as it has demonstrated its ability

maybe

Both Russia and China are backing them.

roughbarked said:

SCIENCE said:

Neophyte said:

Iran emerging as the area’s dominant power as it has demonstrated its ability

maybe

Both Russia and China are backing them.

so some other country is actually the area’s dominant power

though that isn’t really what we meant

roughbarked said:

SCIENCE said:

Neophyte said:

Iran emerging as the area’s dominant power as it has demonstrated its ability

maybe

Both Russia and China are backing them.

Going to be an interesting WW3, the semi communist states and various parts of the Middle East and Asia versus the West and the Rest of the Middle East and Asia
Knock out all major industrial centre and major capital cities and bye bye human race

Thanks for posting. So much stuff being messed up by DJT.

August 26, 2026 (Wednesday)
Last night, at exactly 9:25—9 to 5—the top of the Empire State Building in New York City lit up pink. The antennas of Chicago’s Willis Tower—formerly the Sears Tower—lit up pink, too. So did the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier, which also sported a giant pink heart. The Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee; Reunion Tower and other buildings in the Dallas skyline; and the Longfellow, Burns, Fore River, Braga, and Zakim bridges of Boston; Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans; and, of course, Nashville’s KVB Bridge and historic Metro Courthouse were all lit up in pink last night.

The Arthur Ashe Stadium played “Jolene” during the U.S. Open. Jack White played Jolene in London. Elsewhere in London, the Buckingham Palace band played “9 to 5.”

All this and more for a woman born on January 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee, in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains without electricity or running water.

Dolly Rebecca Parton was the fourth of twelve children born to illiterate sharecropper Robert Lee Parton Sr. and Avie Lee Caroline Owens. A musical prodigy encouraged by her mother, Dolly was singing on local radio and television shows in Nashville by the time she was 10 and debuted at the Grand Ole Opry when she was 13. In 1964 she moved to Nashville, where other musicians quickly recognized her talent as a songwriter. Over her career, she would write songs made famous by Kenny Rogers, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, and others.

In 1965, Parton made her first record, and the following year she married asphalt paver Carl Dean, who stayed out of the limelight during their 59-year marriage. Following the success of Parton’s first record, country music star Porter Wagoner invited her to become part of his show in 1967.

There she blossomed, joining Wagoner to record a dozen studio albums that produced a number of top 10 hit singles. Playing off Wagoner’s famous rhinestone-studded suits made by Ukrainian-American designer Nudie Cohn, the petite Parton adopted huge hairstyles and emphasized her figure, and soon began wearing rhinestones herself.

She once told a journalist that she modeled her public image after a woman others called the “town tramp” but whom she saw as a glamorous contrast to the women in Parton’s own life. “She had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails. She had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, low-cut tops, and I just thought she was beautiful. When people would say, ‘She ain’t nothing but trash,’ I would always say, ‘Well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up.’” But, in an industry dominated by men, Parton also noted her style was a way for a small woman to “fill my space.”

By the 1970s, Parton was coming into her own, taking on the music industry on her own terms. “Find out who you are and do it on purpose. And do it with purpose,” Parton was famous for saying. “Don’t ever sacrifice who you are, your principles and your morals and your values to just try to get ahead in business. It ain’t worth it.”

Rather than running from her upbringing in rural poverty, Parton embraced the values that upbringing had inspired in her. In 1971 she hit #1 on the country charts with her song “Joshua,” inspired by the Appalachian men around whom she had grown up whose rough looks covered their quality. In the same year, her “Coat of Many Colors” reached #4, telling the story of how her mother had made her a coat of rags, rich with love. Those who valued possessions over love, she sang, were the ones truly impoverished. In 1972 she wrote “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” about the peace and humanity of rural life, “walking home from church on Sunday with the one you love, just laughing, talking, making future plans.”

She parted ways with Wagoner in 1974, and her farewell song to him, “I Will Always Love You,” became a global sensation that reached #1 on the country charts in 1974, 1982, and again in 1992, when it spent 14 weeks at #1 after Whitney Houston covered it. In 1974, Parton also delivered “Jolene,” the desperate plea of a woman to a beautiful rival not to “take my man.” “Jolene,” too, hit #1 on the country charts.
In 1975 and 1976 the Country Music Association named Parton Female Vocalist of the Year, and in 1978 it honored her as Entertainer of the Year, just three of the many awards she would win as her musical career took off not just at home but also internationally.

In 1976, Parton began working with manager Sandy Gallin, and in 1980 she launched her film career, starring with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5, a comedy with a subversive subtext about discrimination against women. In the film, for which Parton wrote the theme song, three working women replace their sexist, domineering boss and implement programs their colleagues like, including equal pay, flexible hours, and an on-site daycare center, all of which result in dramatically improved office productivity.

A massive success at the box office, 9 to 5 opened doors for Parton in the movie industry, leading to parts in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, and other films. She and Gallin created a production company, Sandollar, which produced her television specials and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

For almost sixty years, Parton was a member of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, a labor union that represents about 70,000 singers and players and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. She joined the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) in 1969.

AFM International president Tino Gagliardi told John Nichols of The Nation: “Before she was an icon, Dolly was a working musician. Dolly never forgot the musicians who helped bring her music to life. By standing firm for solidarity and treating every player with dignity, she elevated our entire profession.”

In 1989, Sandollar helped to bring awareness and empathy to the AIDS crisis with the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. The film explored the lives of five of the individuals memorialized in panels on the AIDS Memorial Quilt and called attention to the Reagan administration’s lack of response to the epidemic.

In 1990, Common Threads won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and in the 1991 song “Family” that she wrote with Carl Perkins, Parton sang: “Some are preachers, some are gay, some are addicts, drunks, and strays, but not a one is turned away when it’s family. Some are lucky, others ain’t, some are fighters, others faint. Winners, losers, sinners, saints, it’s all family.”

In a conversation with host Larry King in 2016, Parton noted that she had taken heat for her support for the LGBTQ community, but that she did “not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.”

In 1986, Parton bought an interest in a theme park owned by Jack and Pete Herschend in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Renamed “Dollywood,” the park became the biggest ticketed attraction in the state, now visited by about 4 million people a year and employing about 4,000. “I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area,” she told a reporter.

Two years later, she established the Dollywood Foundation to support education in Sevier County. In 1990, her “buddy” program decreased the high school dropout rate in classes that participated from 35% to 6%. In 2016, the Dollywood Foundation created the My People Fund—as in, these are my people—providing immediate financial assistance to families who lost their homes in wildfires in Sevier County that November. It donated more than $12 million.

In 2020, Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund the research that allowed researchers to prove that mRNA vaccine technology worked. That research led to grants that enabled development of the Moderna mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 that saved millions of lives. She also helped encourage others to get vaccinated, taking her own shot on camera in a dress she had cut the shoulders out of so the doctor would have easier access.

Beginning in February 2022, under the Grow U program, Parton provided 100% free tuition, fees, and books to any of the 11,000 employees at any of the 25 amusement parks and attractions under Herschend Enterprises. The president of Dollywood told reporters that one of the key tenets of the Dollywood Foundation is to “learn more.” He said that Parton is “very supportive of the employees learning and continuing to grow themselves.”

That drive for growth and opportunity was behind Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which Parton founded in 1995 to put books into the hands of every young child in Sevier County. Her inspiration, she said, was her father, who was “the smartest man I have ever known but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all his dreams.” The program has grown until it now serves children across the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

In February 2018, Parton donated the 100 millionth book from her Imagination Library to the Library of Congress. It was a copy of her book Coat of Many Colors, dedicated to her father.

By the time Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, August 25, at the age of 80, her Imagination Library had delivered more than 332 million books to more than 3 million children.

“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true,” the Imagination Library website reads. “I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer. The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

When children age out of Dolly’s Imagination Library, they receive a final letter from her hoping they would “have a great time” in school and urging them to keep reading.

The letter ends: “You and all of your friends are very special. There is no limit to what you can do or how far you can go. Just remember the lessons my family taught me—dream big dreams; learn everything you can learn; and care for all those who care for you. You do all of these things and you can be anyone you want to be.

“You are terrific, and remember…

“I Will Always Love You,

“Dolly.”

“ In a conversation with host Larry King in 2016, Parton noted that she had taken heat for her support for the LGBTQ community, but that she did “not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.””

Saw a post this morning saying we need more people like Dolly Parton and less woke people like Taylor Swift. Obviously the original poster did not pay attention to the divine miss Dolly.

Neophyte said:

August 26, 2026 (Wednesday)
Last night, at exactly 9:25—9 to 5—the top of the Empire State Building in New York City lit up pink. The antennas of Chicago’s Willis Tower—formerly the Sears Tower—lit up pink, too. So did the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier, which also sported a giant pink heart. The Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee; Reunion Tower and other buildings in the Dallas skyline; and the Longfellow, Burns, Fore River, Braga, and Zakim bridges of Boston; Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans; and, of course, Nashville’s KVB Bridge and historic Metro Courthouse were all lit up in pink last night.

The Arthur Ashe Stadium played “Jolene” during the U.S. Open. Jack White played Jolene in London. Elsewhere in London, the Buckingham Palace band played “9 to 5.”

All this and more for a woman born on January 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee, in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains without electricity or running water.

Dolly Rebecca Parton was the fourth of twelve children born to illiterate sharecropper Robert Lee Parton Sr. and Avie Lee Caroline Owens. A musical prodigy encouraged by her mother, Dolly was singing on local radio and television shows in Nashville by the time she was 10 and debuted at the Grand Ole Opry when she was 13. In 1964 she moved to Nashville, where other musicians quickly recognized her talent as a songwriter. Over her career, she would write songs made famous by Kenny Rogers, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, and others.

In 1965, Parton made her first record, and the following year she married asphalt paver Carl Dean, who stayed out of the limelight during their 59-year marriage. Following the success of Parton’s first record, country music star Porter Wagoner invited her to become part of his show in 1967.

There she blossomed, joining Wagoner to record a dozen studio albums that produced a number of top 10 hit singles. Playing off Wagoner’s famous rhinestone-studded suits made by Ukrainian-American designer Nudie Cohn, the petite Parton adopted huge hairstyles and emphasized her figure, and soon began wearing rhinestones herself.

She once told a journalist that she modeled her public image after a woman others called the “town tramp” but whom she saw as a glamorous contrast to the women in Parton’s own life. “She had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails. She had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, low-cut tops, and I just thought she was beautiful. When people would say, ‘She ain’t nothing but trash,’ I would always say, ‘Well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up.’” But, in an industry dominated by men, Parton also noted her style was a way for a small woman to “fill my space.”

By the 1970s, Parton was coming into her own, taking on the music industry on her own terms. “Find out who you are and do it on purpose. And do it with purpose,” Parton was famous for saying. “Don’t ever sacrifice who you are, your principles and your morals and your values to just try to get ahead in business. It ain’t worth it.”

Rather than running from her upbringing in rural poverty, Parton embraced the values that upbringing had inspired in her. In 1971 she hit #1 on the country charts with her song “Joshua,” inspired by the Appalachian men around whom she had grown up whose rough looks covered their quality. In the same year, her “Coat of Many Colors” reached #4, telling the story of how her mother had made her a coat of rags, rich with love. Those who valued possessions over love, she sang, were the ones truly impoverished. In 1972 she wrote “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” about the peace and humanity of rural life, “walking home from church on Sunday with the one you love, just laughing, talking, making future plans.”

She parted ways with Wagoner in 1974, and her farewell song to him, “I Will Always Love You,” became a global sensation that reached #1 on the country charts in 1974, 1982, and again in 1992, when it spent 14 weeks at #1 after Whitney Houston covered it. In 1974, Parton also delivered “Jolene,” the desperate plea of a woman to a beautiful rival not to “take my man.” “Jolene,” too, hit #1 on the country charts.
In 1975 and 1976 the Country Music Association named Parton Female Vocalist of the Year, and in 1978 it honored her as Entertainer of the Year, just three of the many awards she would win as her musical career took off not just at home but also internationally.

In 1976, Parton began working with manager Sandy Gallin, and in 1980 she launched her film career, starring with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5, a comedy with a subversive subtext about discrimination against women. In the film, for which Parton wrote the theme song, three working women replace their sexist, domineering boss and implement programs their colleagues like, including equal pay, flexible hours, and an on-site daycare center, all of which result in dramatically improved office productivity.

A massive success at the box office, 9 to 5 opened doors for Parton in the movie industry, leading to parts in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, and other films. She and Gallin created a production company, Sandollar, which produced her television specials and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

For almost sixty years, Parton was a member of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, a labor union that represents about 70,000 singers and players and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. She joined the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) in 1969.

AFM International president Tino Gagliardi told John Nichols of The Nation: “Before she was an icon, Dolly was a working musician. Dolly never forgot the musicians who helped bring her music to life. By standing firm for solidarity and treating every player with dignity, she elevated our entire profession.”

In 1989, Sandollar helped to bring awareness and empathy to the AIDS crisis with the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. The film explored the lives of five of the individuals memorialized in panels on the AIDS Memorial Quilt and called attention to the Reagan administration’s lack of response to the epidemic.

In 1990, Common Threads won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and in the 1991 song “Family” that she wrote with Carl Perkins, Parton sang: “Some are preachers, some are gay, some are addicts, drunks, and strays, but not a one is turned away when it’s family. Some are lucky, others ain’t, some are fighters, others faint. Winners, losers, sinners, saints, it’s all family.”

In a conversation with host Larry King in 2016, Parton noted that she had taken heat for her support for the LGBTQ community, but that she did “not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.”

In 1986, Parton bought an interest in a theme park owned by Jack and Pete Herschend in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Renamed “Dollywood,” the park became the biggest ticketed attraction in the state, now visited by about 4 million people a year and employing about 4,000. “I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area,” she told a reporter.

Two years later, she established the Dollywood Foundation to support education in Sevier County. In 1990, her “buddy” program decreased the high school dropout rate in classes that participated from 35% to 6%. In 2016, the Dollywood Foundation created the My People Fund—as in, these are my people—providing immediate financial assistance to families who lost their homes in wildfires in Sevier County that November. It donated more than $12 million.

In 2020, Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund the research that allowed researchers to prove that mRNA vaccine technology worked. That research led to grants that enabled development of the Moderna mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 that saved millions of lives. She also helped encourage others to get vaccinated, taking her own shot on camera in a dress she had cut the shoulders out of so the doctor would have easier access.

Beginning in February 2022, under the Grow U program, Parton provided 100% free tuition, fees, and books to any of the 11,000 employees at any of the 25 amusement parks and attractions under Herschend Enterprises. The president of Dollywood told reporters that one of the key tenets of the Dollywood Foundation is to “learn more.” He said that Parton is “very supportive of the employees learning and continuing to grow themselves.”

That drive for growth and opportunity was behind Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which Parton founded in 1995 to put books into the hands of every young child in Sevier County. Her inspiration, she said, was her father, who was “the smartest man I have ever known but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all his dreams.” The program has grown until it now serves children across the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

In February 2018, Parton donated the 100 millionth book from her Imagination Library to the Library of Congress. It was a copy of her book Coat of Many Colors, dedicated to her father.

By the time Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, August 25, at the age of 80, her Imagination Library had delivered more than 332 million books to more than 3 million children.

“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true,” the Imagination Library website reads. “I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer. The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

When children age out of Dolly’s Imagination Library, they receive a final letter from her hoping they would “have a great time” in school and urging them to keep reading.

The letter ends: “You and all of your friends are very special. There is no limit to what you can do or how far you can go. Just remember the lessons my family taught me—dream big dreams; learn everything you can learn; and care for all those who care for you. You do all of these things and you can be anyone you want to be.

“You are terrific, and remember…

“I Will Always Love You,

“Dolly.”

What a beautiful obituary.

Divine Angel said:

“ In a conversation with host Larry King in 2016, Parton noted that she had taken heat for her support for the LGBTQ community, but that she did “not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.””

Saw a post this morning saying we need more people like Dolly Parton and less woke people like Taylor Swift. Obviously the original poster did not pay attention to the divine miss Dolly.

maybe that poster meant they need to be dead wokists and not live wokists

Divine Angel said:

“ In a conversation with host Larry King in 2016, Parton noted that she had taken heat for her support for the LGBTQ community, but that she did “not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.””

Saw a post this morning saying we need more people like Dolly Parton and less woke people like Taylor Swift. Obviously the original poster did not pay attention to the divine miss Dolly.

She this so many times over the years. She was an icon.

August 27, 2026 (Thursday)
This morning, a headline in the Guardian read: “RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate.” The story by Michelle R. Smith reports that letters, newly obtained by members of the press, contradict Kennedy’s repeated assertions to members of Congress in early 2025 during his confirmation process to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that his 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines.” In fact, in a letter to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy said explicitly that he wanted to investigate the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine used there.
Observers claim that Kennedy’s visit empowered anti-vaccine activists in Samoa. After he left, a measles epidemic killed 83 people. Smith notes that knowingly lying to Congress is a crime, although it is rarely prosecuted. Still, Smith points out, the apparent proof that Kennedy lied to Congress is a clear opening for hearings into Kennedy’s testimony, history, and conduct in office—including changing the vaccine schedule after promising not to—that would illuminate what has been happening to the U.S. government, information that would likely prove embarrassing to the Trump administration.
The U.S. is now in the midst of its own measles outbreak, which has killed two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania. One of them was a newborn, too young for the vaccine and thus dependent on herd immunity. Yesterday, Kennedy suggested that Democratic governor Josh Shapiro’s announcement of the deaths might “have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers.”

Smith reports that a spokesperson for HHS said: “Secretary Kennedy’s visit to Samoa in 2019 was unrelated to vaccines. Any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.” Kennedy was not under oath in the hearings.
This afternoon, Aram Roston of the Guardian reported that Trump’s war on Iran has “driven the US military into a severe financial crisis.” Roston reports that the U.S. Navy, which is bearing the brunt of the operation, is transferring money from payroll to combat operations, creating shortfalls. Officials are covering that shortfall by raiding other accounts.
This issue has already come up in a July hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, when Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the top-ranking Democrat on the committee, noted that Defense Secretary Hegseth was using a funding mechanism that “does not make a lot of sense.” Hegseth responded by blaming the “gross negligence” of the Biden administration and its “woke” policies. The ways in which he has spent the department’s budget were not closely examined.
Defense analyst Todd Harrison of the conservative American Enterprise Institute told Roston that the shortages are no secret, but speculated that “that is a deliberate decision of the civilian leaders in the Pentagon, starting at secretary, that this is for political reasons, that they don’t want to look like they’re damaging future military readiness over a war that is becoming increasingly a political liability.”
A former military officer who now works for a company that contracts with the navy told Roston: “They’re f*cked. They shot all their weapons; they trashed all their ships; they ran out of their money.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Navy denied that funds for maintenance and operations have been run down. “The Department of the Navy,” the statement said, “is actively managing its resources to meet current pay obligations on time. We continue to work closely with Congress to address ongoing operational demands and sustain our personnel and readiness throughout the fiscal year.”
In the Washington Post, Evan Halper reported that the administration’s latest move to cancel an offshore wind project and nurture the fossil fuel industry will funnel a fortune to Australian billionaire Michael Dorrell, who donated about a million dollars to Trump’s inaugural committee. The way it works is this: the German company RWE will get $1.2 billion from the U.S. government to give up its wind leases for projects off of New York, California, and Louisiana if it invests instead in “conventional energy” projects. RWE will spend $900 million of that $1.2 billion for a stake in a giant liquefied natural gas project in Louisiana.
Halper reports that that stake is currently owned by a private equity fund run by Dorrell, meaning that the $900 million RWE invests in the “conventional energy” project after abandoning its wind projects will go to Dorrell’s private equity fund.
Administration officials told Halper they had nothing to do with RWE’s decision. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said: “This story is a brazen attempt to insinuate a conflict-of-interest that does not exist.”
Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, had already called for investigations of the more than $4 billion the administration has spent buying the abandonment of offshore wind development. After the new story dropped, he told Halper “These fake ‘settlements’ were already an insane waste of taxpayer funds and a ridiculous charade that seems to be blatantly illegal. This now adds the stench of corruption.”

Sorry, more to come. I misclicked.

continued

Huffman said of the buyouts of offshore wind projects: “The deals are deeply corrupt and illegal. When the accountability comes, and I promise you accountability is coming, everyone involved in them will answer for it.”

Last week, Kenneth P. Vogel and Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times reported that three days after Trump administration officials awarded a 5-year federal contract worth $85 million a year to the private prison company GEO Group to house people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a subsidiary of GEO Group donated $1 million to MAGA Inc., a political super PAC run by Trump’s allies. Two days after announcing another ICE contract worth $80 million annually, the company donated another $413,000.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement: “Any allegation that political donations play a role in agencies awarding government contracts are false. It is not shocking that ICE is announcing more contracts to detain illegal aliens as President Trump carries out the largest deportation operation in American history.”

In a major story for Public Citizen, Zach Everson examined the Trump family’s cryptocurrency products, reporting that Trump appears to have made at least $1.4 billion off crypto in 2025, although he put none of his own money into the ventures. The money, Everson says, comes from foreign governments, pardon seekers, corporate interests, and targets of government investigations.

It also comes from retirement accounts and MAGA supporters who believe Trump when he tells them his coins are a good investment. Everson reports that “Trump’s crypto schemes have left investors at least an estimated $4.7 billion underwater.” The losses reflect “wealth transferred to a small group of early buyers rather than money that simply vanished.

The White House claims: “Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”

This afternoon, Rebecca Ballhous, Sam Kessler, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s new crypto bank is backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the national security advisor of the United Arab Emirates who is also the brother of the country’s president. Last year, the Abu Dhabi royal invested $500 million in the Trumps’ World Liberty Financial.

Such an investment in a president’s company by a foreign government official is unprecedented. Even more alarming is that Trump is currently negotiating with the UAE over whether it can have access to U.S. artificial intelligence chips that experts fear will make their way from the UAE to China. “How many red flags do we need?” ethics lawyer Kathleen Clark told the reporters. “Trump is selling out our national security in exchange for his own wealth maximization.”

If voters put Democrats in control of either or both chambers of Congress this fall, investigations and hearings into the machinations of administration officials will be epic. It is no wonder Trump appears frantic at the idea of midterm losses.
And the ranks of his supporters appear to be thinning. G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers reported yesterday that Trump approval among American adults is underwater on every single issue, including border security. And there is a strong intensity gap: 49% strongly disapprove of his job as president, while only 17% strongly approve. Morris notes that the “movement against the president is now primarily in his own coalition, with significant softening in the share who say they ‘strongly support’ the job he’s doing.”

As his popularity falls, Trump appears to be adopting the belief that people don’t like him because they don’t understand all he’s done for them. Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Michael Scherer, and Ashley Parker of The Atlantic reported Tuesday that Trump intends to buy a blitz of midterm ads that focus on him, rather than the candidates on the ballot, making the election all about him.

He is already trying to sell that story. Yesterday morning, he tried to recast his disastrous Iran war as a success, posting an AI image of himself in front of a giant American flag, an aircraft carrier, and military aircraft. In the image, he leans over dirt as if it were a desk, with President George W. Bush in the lower left corner of the image surrounded by flames and a pair of empty soldier’s boots. In front of Bush is a sign that reads: “MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED 2001–2021.” In the lower right corner of the image is a picture of the former leader of Iran, killed in Trump’s strikes, with a sign that reads: “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 2026.”

Journalist Jim Acosta noted, “This is delusional for Trump to post this and it should be covered as such. It was a massive story when Bush declared ‘mission accomplished’ during the Iraq War. The image dogged Bush throughout much of his presidency. Should be the same for Trump.”

After the “mission accomplished” post, Trump reposted someone else’s social media post warning that voters are mad at the Republicans not because of Trump but because Republicans in Congress have not gone far enough in implementing Trump’s will.

“I don’t think the fully grasp how badly they are f*cking up right now,” the post read. “I’m talking to people who normally have ZERO interest in politics who are legitimately pissed off. They are not seeing the major reform they thought would happen and are REALLY MAD about it. No true accountability. No true mass deportations. No meaningful decrease in the deficit. Lots of very long vacations and no work. No bills being passed that REDUCE the government involvement in their lives.”

The poster continued: “I’m very worried the is sleepwalking toward a midterm reckoning they don’t see coming. People are pissed off that they voted Trump into office and then the continues to slow-walk every reform people want.”

Later this afternoon, in what seemed to be an attempt to bully Canada—although Canadians and Americans both have made it very clear that strategy is backfiring—Trump signed an executive order directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in official U.S. government documents and communications, as well as the Geographic Names Information System.

As Marianne LeVine, Natalie Andrews, and Amanda Coletta of the Wall Street Journal reported, in Trump’s discussion of his executive order, he harked back to his change of the name of the Gulf of Mexico in official U.S. documents.
“We took something called the Gulf of Mexico, we changed it,” the president of the United States said. “So if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake, now all we need is an ocean. So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific.”

buffy said:

continued

Huffman said of the buyouts of offshore wind projects: “The deals are deeply corrupt and illegal. When the accountability comes, and I promise you accountability is coming, everyone involved in them will answer for it.”

Last week, Kenneth P. Vogel and Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times reported that three days after Trump administration officials awarded a 5-year federal contract worth $85 million a year to the private prison company GEO Group to house people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a subsidiary of GEO Group donated $1 million to MAGA Inc., a political super PAC run by Trump’s allies. Two days after announcing another ICE contract worth $80 million annually, the company donated another $413,000.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement: “Any allegation that political donations play a role in agencies awarding government contracts are false. It is not shocking that ICE is announcing more contracts to detain illegal aliens as President Trump carries out the largest deportation operation in American history.”

In a major story for Public Citizen, Zach Everson examined the Trump family’s cryptocurrency products, reporting that Trump appears to have made at least $1.4 billion off crypto in 2025, although he put none of his own money into the ventures. The money, Everson says, comes from foreign governments, pardon seekers, corporate interests, and targets of government investigations.

It also comes from retirement accounts and MAGA supporters who believe Trump when he tells them his coins are a good investment. Everson reports that “Trump’s crypto schemes have left investors at least an estimated $4.7 billion underwater.” The losses reflect “wealth transferred to a small group of early buyers rather than money that simply vanished.

The White House claims: “Neither the President nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.”

This afternoon, Rebecca Ballhous, Sam Kessler, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s new crypto bank is backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the national security advisor of the United Arab Emirates who is also the brother of the country’s president. Last year, the Abu Dhabi royal invested $500 million in the Trumps’ World Liberty Financial.

Such an investment in a president’s company by a foreign government official is unprecedented. Even more alarming is that Trump is currently negotiating with the UAE over whether it can have access to U.S. artificial intelligence chips that experts fear will make their way from the UAE to China. “How many red flags do we need?” ethics lawyer Kathleen Clark told the reporters. “Trump is selling out our national security in exchange for his own wealth maximization.”

If voters put Democrats in control of either or both chambers of Congress this fall, investigations and hearings into the machinations of administration officials will be epic. It is no wonder Trump appears frantic at the idea of midterm losses.
And the ranks of his supporters appear to be thinning. G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers reported yesterday that Trump approval among American adults is underwater on every single issue, including border security. And there is a strong intensity gap: 49% strongly disapprove of his job as president, while only 17% strongly approve. Morris notes that the “movement against the president is now primarily in his own coalition, with significant softening in the share who say they ‘strongly support’ the job he’s doing.”

As his popularity falls, Trump appears to be adopting the belief that people don’t like him because they don’t understand all he’s done for them. Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Michael Scherer, and Ashley Parker of The Atlantic reported Tuesday that Trump intends to buy a blitz of midterm ads that focus on him, rather than the candidates on the ballot, making the election all about him.

He is already trying to sell that story. Yesterday morning, he tried to recast his disastrous Iran war as a success, posting an AI image of himself in front of a giant American flag, an aircraft carrier, and military aircraft. In the image, he leans over dirt as if it were a desk, with President George W. Bush in the lower left corner of the image surrounded by flames and a pair of empty soldier’s boots. In front of Bush is a sign that reads: “MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED 2001–2021.” In the lower right corner of the image is a picture of the former leader of Iran, killed in Trump’s strikes, with a sign that reads: “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 2026.”

Journalist Jim Acosta noted, “This is delusional for Trump to post this and it should be covered as such. It was a massive story when Bush declared ‘mission accomplished’ during the Iraq War. The image dogged Bush throughout much of his presidency. Should be the same for Trump.”

After the “mission accomplished” post, Trump reposted someone else’s social media post warning that voters are mad at the Republicans not because of Trump but because Republicans in Congress have not gone far enough in implementing Trump’s will.

“I don’t think the fully grasp how badly they are f*cking up right now,” the post read. “I’m talking to people who normally have ZERO interest in politics who are legitimately pissed off. They are not seeing the major reform they thought would happen and are REALLY MAD about it. No true accountability. No true mass deportations. No meaningful decrease in the deficit. Lots of very long vacations and no work. No bills being passed that REDUCE the government involvement in their lives.”

The poster continued: “I’m very worried the is sleepwalking toward a midterm reckoning they don’t see coming. People are pissed off that they voted Trump into office and then the continues to slow-walk every reform people want.”

Later this afternoon, in what seemed to be an attempt to bully Canada—although Canadians and Americans both have made it very clear that strategy is backfiring—Trump signed an executive order directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in official U.S. government documents and communications, as well as the Geographic Names Information System.

As Marianne LeVine, Natalie Andrews, and Amanda Coletta of the Wall Street Journal reported, in Trump’s discussion of his executive order, he harked back to his change of the name of the Gulf of Mexico in official U.S. documents.
“We took something called the Gulf of Mexico, we changed it,” the president of the United States said. “So if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake, now all we need is an ocean. So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific.”

Its in corporate interests in weaken government involvement in peoples lives.
That way they can exploit people even more.
Can fully see congress replaced or so massively weakened its controlled by the mega corporations.
Heading towards a dystopian police state using AI and tech to control people and possibly literally, implanted chips to override free will.
Could even have a Trump state within the wider USA that has rules of its own

Ta.

August 28, 2026 (Friday)

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that took place on August 28, 1963, in Washington, D.C., is remembered today primarily because it was the occasion when the final speaker, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered what became known as the “I Have a Dream” speech.

While that speech is often excerpted to make it sound like King’s concerns were simply about the way individuals thought about race, in fact, the march’s organizers, Black labor leader A. Philip Randolph and civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, focused on economic discrimination and the lack of decent jobs for Black Americans. In the process of organizing the march, they brought on board not only civil rights organizers but also white labor organizer Walter Reuther, the head of the United Auto Workers.

King acknowledged the economic focus of the march when he centered his speech around the idea that Black Americans had received “a promissory note” that had become “a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’” “But,” he said, “we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”

Dr. King was not the only speaker that day; he anchored the event. Before him spoke the chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a young John Lewis. Just 23 years old, he had been one of the thirteen original Freedom Riders, white and Black students traveling together from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans in 1961 to challenge segregation.

At the Washington march, Lewis railed against the systems that kept Black Americans in poverty and permitted white men to commit violence against them, and explained that the remedy for the economic deprivation and racial violence Black Americans suffered was not in the civil rights bill proposed by the administration of President John F. Kennedy, but in the power of peaceful demonstrations and the vote. “‘ONE MAN, ONE VOTE’…must be our ,” he told the crowd.

“The revolution is at hand, and we must free ourselves of the chains of political and economic slavery,” Lewis said. “The nonviolent revolution is saying, ‘We will not wait for the courts to act, for we have been waiting for hundreds of years. We will not wait for the President, nor the Justice Department, nor Congress, but we will take matters into our own hands and create a great source of power, outside of any national structure, that could and would assure us a victory.’”

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Acts to protect voting rights. That year, when Republicans ran Arizona senator Barry Goldwater for president, calling for a rollback of business regulation and civil rights to the years before the New Deal, voters gave Democrats such a strong majority in Congress that President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Democrats were able to pass 84 new laws to put what Johnson called the Great Society into place.

They cemented civil rights with the 1965 Voting Rights Act protecting minority voting, created jobs in Appalachia, and established job-training and community development programs. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 gave federal aid to public schools and established the Head Start program to provide comprehensive early education for low-income children. The Higher Education Act of 1965 increased federal investment in universities and provided scholarships and low-interest loans to students.

The Social Security Act of 1965 created Medicare, which provided health insurance for Americans over 65, and Medicaid, which helped cover healthcare costs for folks with limited incomes. Congress advanced the war on poverty by increasing welfare payments and subsidizing rent for low-income families.

Congress took on the rights of consumers with new protective legislation that required cigarettes and other dangerous products to carry warning labels, required products to carry labels identifying the manufacturer, and required lenders to disclose the full cost of finance charges in loans. Congress also passed legislation protecting the environment, including the Water Quality Act of 1965 that established federal standards for water quality.

But the government did not simply address poverty and safety. Congress also spoke to Johnson’s aspirations for beauty and purpose when it created the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities. This law created both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to make sure the era’s emphasis on science didn’t endanger the humanities. In 1967 it would also establish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, followed in 1969 by National Public Radio.

In 1968, former vice president Richard M. Nixon won the presidency after promising that he would not continue to use the federal government to protect Black rights in the South. With that promise, racists made a permanent move from the Democrats to the Republicans, joining forces with businessmen who wanted an end to regulation and to taxes and the social welfare programs they funded. The race to tear apart the postwar government that helped all Americans by appealing to racism was on.

Now, in 2026, the contours of that bargain are extreme and unmistakable.

Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security under Trump served up straight racism and cruelty to its wavering base in a post about Haitians. About 350,000 Haitians came to the United States after a catastrophic earthquake hit their country in 2010, destabilizing both the economy and the government. As the country became overrun with violent gangs, the U.S. granted Haitians Temporary Protected Status, allowing them to stay in the U.S. because it was too dangerous to go home.

Former secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem, who described Haitians as “entitlement junkies” and “foreign invaders,” refused to extend TPS for those immigrants, despite the fact that the State Department warns travelers not to visit Haiti “due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest and limited health care.” In June the Supreme Court ruled that the administration had the power to make that determination, and the administration promptly warned Haitian immigrants, many of whom have deep roots in the U.S. now, that they no longer have legal status and would be deported.

Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security posted on social media: “Haiti TPS has been TERMINATED. Those with TPS are in our nation illegally. They have two options: LEAVE IMMEDIATELY or be DEPORTED.” Attached was a video of chained Black men and women being moved through the rain toward a waiting plane.

Officials at DHS chose to publish a video of Black people in chains that evoked the slave coffles of the Old South.

Today Theodore Schelifer and Matt Zdun of the New York Times reported on the top 20 megadonors, who have already poured $1.2 billion into the midterm elections. Elon Musk alone has put in more than $90 million to keep Republicans in office as they dismantle a government that worked for the people and replace it with one that continues to funnel money upward.

In Washington, D.C., today, students, union members, civil rights organizations including the NAACP and National Urban League, and 90 community partner organizations held a “March on Washington 2026: Defend the Vote.” Earlier this year, the Supreme Court weakened yet another key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “We know in this fight we’re fighting powerful forces, but this is why we rally today,” ​National Urban League president Marc Morial said. “This is why we seek to bring Americans together of goodwill from all races, from all sections of the ​country to push back as forcefully as we can.”

Indeed, in the rush to cement MAGA power, the assault on voting is no longer directed at Black and Brown Americans alone. The Department of Justice sent more than 80 election monitors to observe the primary elections in seven states and has said it will send about 1,000 monitors to specific polling places for the November midterm elections.

Republican candidates in Georgia, Maine, and Michigan have been recorded calling for deployment of retired police officers or ICE agents to polling places to make sure undocumented immigrants can’t vote, although it is widely understood that they don’t. Natalie Hausmann of Democracy Docket reported that Rick Jackson, the billionaire Republican nominee for Georgia governor backed by Trump, told a supporter he was confident that outgoing Republican Georgia governor Brian Kemp would deploy the National Guard at polling places.

In Maine, Republican nominee for governor Bobby Charles told the Maine Young Republicans that he will call his friend Tom Homan, Trump’s border advisor, to ask him to send ICE and U.S. Marshals to the polls. And in Michigan, Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers has called for off-duty police officers to go to the polls to intimidate voters: “I mean, they wouldn’t be able to wear their uniforms, but they would, you know, all you got to do is open your jacket and you see the badge on the belt, right?” he said.

Today Kaanita Iyer of CNN reported that the Republican governor of Wyoming, Mark Gordon, has asked the state’s attorney general to investigate the “aggressive” behavior of the election monitors the Department of Justice sent to observe last week’s primary election. Gordon said the “behavior” of the election monitors sent by the DOJ “seemed to exceed what the authority that Congress had given them was.” He added: “I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes.”

Ta.

August 29, 2026 (Saturday)

On Thursday, August 27, Tolouse Olorunnipa reported on the attempts of Republican lawmakers to restrict the ability of naturalized and dual citizens to run for office. In several states, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures to cut those Americans out of candidacy for elected positions, while in Congress, at least five Republicans have called for prohibiting them from federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, ambassadorships, and congressional seats.

The push has come in the wake of the rise of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and other naturalized U.S. citizens whose policy positions those like South Carolina representative Nancy Mace consider un-American. These policies are, of course, the ones voters elected people like Mamdani to put into place. In her comments to Olorunnipa, Mace said: “This isn’t personal. It’s about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people.”

Her word choice was revealing. Our elected officials are entrusted with the enormous power OF the American people, not OVER them.

In the 1850s, Americans struggled over the question of equality and immigration. The United States had always been a nation of immigrants, but in the 1840s the failure of the potato crop in Ireland sent at least half a million Irish immigrants to the United States. As they moved into urban ports on the East Coast, especially in Massachusetts and New York, native-born Americans turned against them as competitors for jobs, warning that Catholics were un-American and could never assimilate into the U.S.

The 1850s saw a similar anti-immigrant fury in the new state of California. After the discovery of gold there in 1848, native-born Americans—the so-called forty-niners—moved to the West Coast. They had no intention of sharing the riches they expected to find. The Indigenous people who lived there had no right to the land under which gold lay, native-born men thought; nor did the Mexicans whose government had sold the land to the U.S. in 1848; nor did the Chileans, who came with mining skills that made them powerful competitors.

Above all, native-born Americans resented the Chinese miners who came to work in order to send money home to a land devastated by the First Opium War of 1839–1842, hoping to make money in America and then return to China, from which they could not legally emigrate. Expecting to go home again, they retained their languages, their culture, and their clothing. They tended to work the mines Americans had cleaned of their biggest deposits, focusing on meticulous reworking of the gravel, and they did better than native-born Americans thought they should.

Democrats and the new anti-immigrant American Party (more popularly known as the “Know Nothings” because members claimed to know nothing about the party) turned against the new immigrants, seeing them as competition that would drive down wages. In the 1850s, Know Nothing officials in Massachusetts persecuted Catholics and deported Irish immigrants they believed were paupers.

In 1850, in California, a legislature charged with establishing the legal framework for the proposed state adopted the federal law enacted a half-century earlier, in 1802, that limited citizenship to “free white persons.” The state legislature then went on to impose a foreign miner’s tax on Chinese and Mexican miners; then, in 1854, the state courts agreed that Chinese nationals could not testify in court against white Americans. In 1855 the legislature tried to stop Chinese immigration altogether by passing a $50 tax on shipmasters for each person ineligible for citizenship they brought to the state.

The construction of castes of immigrants mirrored the ideology of southern whites who enslaved their Black neighbors. As Georgia’s Alexander Stephens explained, the men who framed the Constitution had made the terrible error of believing in equality, and northerners stupidly clung to the outdated idea that Black people were equal to white people, “and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man.” In contrast to the United States government, men like Stephens believed that “subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

In 1855, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Speed to reiterate his dislike not just of enslavement, but also of the caste system going into place in places like Massachusetts and California.

“I am not a Know-Nothing,” he wrote. “That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of , be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except .’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except , and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.”

Lincoln understood that once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have granted your approval to the idea of rulers and servants. At that point, all you can do is to hope that no one in power decides that you belong in one of the lesser groups.

Arguments that some men were better than others, “are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world,” Lincoln said. “You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent….”

“I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop,” he asked.

Americans answered him definitively in 1868 when they added the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It recognized that “ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It also established that states could not draw lines around different groups of citizens by providing that “o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

That same constitution also establishes requirements for officeholders. The president must be at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen of the United States. A U.S. senator must be at least 30 years old, a citizen of the U.S. for at least nine years, and a resident of the state they’re representing. A U.S. representative must be at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and live in the state they represent.

Law professor Pamela Karlan told journalist Olorunnipa that “Those qualifications are exclusive. The state can’t add qualifications on top of those, nor indeed can the federal government.” Former representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) added that in a country growing more diverse, telling naturalized Americans that they can’t run for office will ensure they vote for the opposing party. “It is one of the dumbest tactical moves I’ve ever seen politicians make,” he told Olorunnipa.

Karlan summed up the idea of discriminating against naturalized citizens, telling Olorunnipa it is “just incredibly ugly, stupid, and unconstitutional.”

Ta.

Neophyte said:

August 29, 2026 (Saturday)

On Thursday, August 27, Tolouse Olorunnipa reported on the attempts of Republican lawmakers to restrict the ability of naturalized and dual citizens to run for office. In several states, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures to cut those Americans out of candidacy for elected positions, while in Congress, at least five Republicans have called for prohibiting them from federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, ambassadorships, and congressional seats.

The push has come in the wake of the rise of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and other naturalized U.S. citizens whose policy positions those like South Carolina representative Nancy Mace consider un-American. These policies are, of course, the ones voters elected people like Mamdani to put into place. In her comments to Olorunnipa, Mace said: “This isn’t personal. It’s about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people.”

Her word choice was revealing. Our elected officials are entrusted with the enormous power OF the American people, not OVER them.

In the 1850s, Americans struggled over the question of equality and immigration. The United States had always been a nation of immigrants, but in the 1840s the failure of the potato crop in Ireland sent at least half a million Irish immigrants to the United States. As they moved into urban ports on the East Coast, especially in Massachusetts and New York, native-born Americans turned against them as competitors for jobs, warning that Catholics were un-American and could never assimilate into the U.S.

The 1850s saw a similar anti-immigrant fury in the new state of California. After the discovery of gold there in 1848, native-born Americans—the so-called forty-niners—moved to the West Coast. They had no intention of sharing the riches they expected to find. The Indigenous people who lived there had no right to the land under which gold lay, native-born men thought; nor did the Mexicans whose government had sold the land to the U.S. in 1848; nor did the Chileans, who came with mining skills that made them powerful competitors.

Above all, native-born Americans resented the Chinese miners who came to work in order to send money home to a land devastated by the First Opium War of 1839–1842, hoping to make money in America and then return to China, from which they could not legally emigrate. Expecting to go home again, they retained their languages, their culture, and their clothing. They tended to work the mines Americans had cleaned of their biggest deposits, focusing on meticulous reworking of the gravel, and they did better than native-born Americans thought they should.

Democrats and the new anti-immigrant American Party (more popularly known as the “Know Nothings” because members claimed to know nothing about the party) turned against the new immigrants, seeing them as competition that would drive down wages. In the 1850s, Know Nothing officials in Massachusetts persecuted Catholics and deported Irish immigrants they believed were paupers.

In 1850, in California, a legislature charged with establishing the legal framework for the proposed state adopted the federal law enacted a half-century earlier, in 1802, that limited citizenship to “free white persons.” The state legislature then went on to impose a foreign miner’s tax on Chinese and Mexican miners; then, in 1854, the state courts agreed that Chinese nationals could not testify in court against white Americans. In 1855 the legislature tried to stop Chinese immigration altogether by passing a $50 tax on shipmasters for each person ineligible for citizenship they brought to the state.

The construction of castes of immigrants mirrored the ideology of southern whites who enslaved their Black neighbors. As Georgia’s Alexander Stephens explained, the men who framed the Constitution had made the terrible error of believing in equality, and northerners stupidly clung to the outdated idea that Black people were equal to white people, “and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man.” In contrast to the United States government, men like Stephens believed that “subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

In 1855, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Speed to reiterate his dislike not just of enslavement, but also of the caste system going into place in places like Massachusetts and California.

“I am not a Know-Nothing,” he wrote. “That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of , be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except .’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except , and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.”

Lincoln understood that once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have granted your approval to the idea of rulers and servants. At that point, all you can do is to hope that no one in power decides that you belong in one of the lesser groups.

Arguments that some men were better than others, “are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world,” Lincoln said. “You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent….”

“I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop,” he asked.

Americans answered him definitively in 1868 when they added the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It recognized that “ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It also established that states could not draw lines around different groups of citizens by providing that “o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

That same constitution also establishes requirements for officeholders. The president must be at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen of the United States. A U.S. senator must be at least 30 years old, a citizen of the U.S. for at least nine years, and a resident of the state they’re representing. A U.S. representative must be at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and live in the state they represent.

Law professor Pamela Karlan told journalist Olorunnipa that “Those qualifications are exclusive. The state can’t add qualifications on top of those, nor indeed can the federal government.” Former representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) added that in a country growing more diverse, telling naturalized Americans that they can’t run for office will ensure they vote for the opposing party. “It is one of the dumbest tactical moves I’ve ever seen politicians make,” he told Olorunnipa.

Karlan summed up the idea of discriminating against naturalized citizens, telling Olorunnipa it is “just incredibly ugly, stupid, and unconstitutional.”

Old habits die hard.

Or is it just the default human response to meeting humans from a different cultural group, and this behaviour must be trained out of us through reason?

party_pants said:

Neophyte said:

August 29, 2026 (Saturday)

On Thursday, August 27, Tolouse Olorunnipa reported on the attempts of Republican lawmakers to restrict the ability of naturalized and dual citizens to run for office. In several states, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures to cut those Americans out of candidacy for elected positions, while in Congress, at least five Republicans have called for prohibiting them from federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, ambassadorships, and congressional seats.

The push has come in the wake of the rise of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and other naturalized U.S. citizens whose policy positions those like South Carolina representative Nancy Mace consider un-American. These policies are, of course, the ones voters elected people like Mamdani to put into place. In her comments to Olorunnipa, Mace said: “This isn’t personal. It’s about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people.”

Her word choice was revealing. Our elected officials are entrusted with the enormous power OF the American people, not OVER them.

In the 1850s, Americans struggled over the question of equality and immigration. The United States had always been a nation of immigrants, but in the 1840s the failure of the potato crop in Ireland sent at least half a million Irish immigrants to the United States. As they moved into urban ports on the East Coast, especially in Massachusetts and New York, native-born Americans turned against them as competitors for jobs, warning that Catholics were un-American and could never assimilate into the U.S.

The 1850s saw a similar anti-immigrant fury in the new state of California. After the discovery of gold there in 1848, native-born Americans—the so-called forty-niners—moved to the West Coast. They had no intention of sharing the riches they expected to find. The Indigenous people who lived there had no right to the land under which gold lay, native-born men thought; nor did the Mexicans whose government had sold the land to the U.S. in 1848; nor did the Chileans, who came with mining skills that made them powerful competitors.

Above all, native-born Americans resented the Chinese miners who came to work in order to send money home to a land devastated by the First Opium War of 1839–1842, hoping to make money in America and then return to China, from which they could not legally emigrate. Expecting to go home again, they retained their languages, their culture, and their clothing. They tended to work the mines Americans had cleaned of their biggest deposits, focusing on meticulous reworking of the gravel, and they did better than native-born Americans thought they should.

Democrats and the new anti-immigrant American Party (more popularly known as the “Know Nothings” because members claimed to know nothing about the party) turned against the new immigrants, seeing them as competition that would drive down wages. In the 1850s, Know Nothing officials in Massachusetts persecuted Catholics and deported Irish immigrants they believed were paupers.

In 1850, in California, a legislature charged with establishing the legal framework for the proposed state adopted the federal law enacted a half-century earlier, in 1802, that limited citizenship to “free white persons.” The state legislature then went on to impose a foreign miner’s tax on Chinese and Mexican miners; then, in 1854, the state courts agreed that Chinese nationals could not testify in court against white Americans. In 1855 the legislature tried to stop Chinese immigration altogether by passing a $50 tax on shipmasters for each person ineligible for citizenship they brought to the state.

The construction of castes of immigrants mirrored the ideology of southern whites who enslaved their Black neighbors. As Georgia’s Alexander Stephens explained, the men who framed the Constitution had made the terrible error of believing in equality, and northerners stupidly clung to the outdated idea that Black people were equal to white people, “and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man.” In contrast to the United States government, men like Stephens believed that “subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

In 1855, Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Speed to reiterate his dislike not just of enslavement, but also of the caste system going into place in places like Massachusetts and California.

“I am not a Know-Nothing,” he wrote. “That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of , be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except .’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except , and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.”

Lincoln understood that once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have granted your approval to the idea of rulers and servants. At that point, all you can do is to hope that no one in power decides that you belong in one of the lesser groups.

Arguments that some men were better than others, “are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world,” Lincoln said. “You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent….”

“I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop,” he asked.

Americans answered him definitively in 1868 when they added the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It recognized that “ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It also established that states could not draw lines around different groups of citizens by providing that “o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

That same constitution also establishes requirements for officeholders. The president must be at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen of the United States. A U.S. senator must be at least 30 years old, a citizen of the U.S. for at least nine years, and a resident of the state they’re representing. A U.S. representative must be at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and live in the state they represent.

Law professor Pamela Karlan told journalist Olorunnipa that “Those qualifications are exclusive. The state can’t add qualifications on top of those, nor indeed can the federal government.” Former representative Mo Brooks (R-AL) added that in a country growing more diverse, telling naturalized Americans that they can’t run for office will ensure they vote for the opposing party. “It is one of the dumbest tactical moves I’ve ever seen politicians make,” he told Olorunnipa.

Karlan summed up the idea of discriminating against naturalized citizens, telling Olorunnipa it is “just incredibly ugly, stupid, and unconstitutional.”

Old habits die hard.

Or is it just the default human response to meeting humans from a different cultural group, and this behaviour must be trained out of us through reason?

Yes.

Yes.

Tribal.

August 30, 2026 (Sunday)

One of our founding myths is that of George Washington and the cherry tree. In his The Life of Washington, first published in 1800, minister and writer Mason Locke Weems, more commonly known as Parson Weems, wrote down for the citizens of this new nation the qualities they should require in a leader. The book was written not to reflect the facts of Washington’s life—biographies would not focus on facts for almost a century—but to show virtues the nation’s youth should imitate and to establish a set of attributes against which future voters could judge those vying to lead the nation.

Weems’s Washington was generous, reverent, studious, athletic, martial, hardworking, and beloved by his comrades. And, beginning with an 1806 edition of the book, he could not tell a lie. According to Weems, when George was about six years old “he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet, of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping every thing that came in his way. One day, in the garden…he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree…. The next morning the old gentleman finding out what had befallen his tree…, came into the House; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author….

Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. ‘George,’ said his father, ‘do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?’

“This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, ‘I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.’

“‘Run to my arms, you dearest boy,’ cried his father in transports, ‘run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.’”

Like many of the other anecdotes Weems delivered, this story was almost certainly invented. But it established the importance of truth-telling in a leader.

On Friday, Rick Maese of the Washington Post reported that despite orders from U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes saying that she wanted advance notice before the government took down more than ten trees from the East Potomac Golf Links or brought equipment larger than a sedan onto the property, the Trump administration has taken down more than sixty trees in apparent preparation for Trump to redesign the golf course.

Opponents have sued to stop the redesign of the historic publicly owned course. Trump has said the makeover will begin on September 1, but Maese notes that the administration has released “no final design, construction schedule or estimated cost.” It has apparently not conducted either environmental or historical preservation reviews. It has not said how changes to the course will affect public access to the three courses and to the popular recreation path on the property.

Reyes said she would not stop administration officials from doing routine maintenance on the property, and the administration says the tree removal is routine maintenance. A spokesperson for the Interior Department said: “Arborists are doing routine maintenance at East Potomac Park with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention.”

One of the trees they have cut down is a cherry tree.

It seems like the writers for the 250th season of American democracy are becoming increasingly desperate to get the country’s attention.

On Friday, Trump announced: “The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY! At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer. This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity. This Transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States! Thank you for your attention to this groundbreaking matter.”

There are reasons to greet this announcement with skepticism.

A U.S. official told Megan Messerly, Ben Lefebvre, and Scott Waldman of Politico that this deal was a new venture between the U.S. government and an “experienced private operator in Venezuela.” Although the official did not identify which operator that is, it became clear over the weekend that the person in question is Alejandro Betancourt López.

Rebecca F. Elliott, Anatoly Kurmanaev, and Edward Wong of the New York Times explained that Betancourt’s family controls Venezuela’s second largest private oil producer, North American Blue Energy Partners. Betancourt has been accused of corruption for years; Switzerland has investigated him for money laundering and has issued a warrant for his arrest, although it has not charged him.

According to the New York Times reporters, it appears the plan is for the U.S. government to back North American Blue Energy Partners, which will, in turn, develop oil reserves in 17 of Venezuela’s oil fields. The U.S. official who talked to the Politico journalists said the new venture would be the second-biggest private oil company in the world, after Saudi Aramco. The U.S. would control 55% of the venture’s output. When production starts, the person told the journalists, “the resulting stable supply of at-cost oil in our Hemisphere will go toward filling the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and fulfilling the supply needs of our Great U.S. Military.”

But an executive in the oil industry told the journalists that the deal was “built on a legal environment that does not exist. The Venezuelan constitution does not allow for anyone other than to own rights to oil and gas in the country,” the executive pointed out.

“The end of story,” the person said, “is the president wants to say we have billions of barrels of oil in reserve. That would act as a price stabilization nuclear bomb. Oh, the Iranians have blocked Hormuz? The president could say ‘I have 65 billion barrels in reserve.’”

The Politico journalists report that Trump has been frustrated that U.S. companies have been slow to invest in Venezuela and that the administration has pressured Rodríguez to give them better terms. Samantha Schmidt and Helena Carpio of the Washington Post today flat out said the deal “cements the United States’ long-term dominance over Venezuela, which has become a neo-colony since the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro in January, when Trump vowed to ‘run’ the country and exploit its oil wealth.”

Last September, the Trump administration began striking small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Trump claimed—without evidence—were being operated by narcoterrorists from Venezuela. The U.S. massed military vessels off Venezuela’s shores, where they blockaded Venezuelan oil tankers after Trump called Venezuela’s government a foreign terrorist organization. On January 3, Trump authorized the military to kidnap Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores in a nighttime raid and bring them to the U.S. for trial on weapons and drug charges.

Although opponents of Maduro, who had seized power after losing a presidential election, cheered the raid in the belief that Trump would help them put opposition candidate Edmundo González in power, in fact the administration supported Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. On January 5 it formally recognized her as Venezuela’s head of state. Venezuela’s high court disagreed. It called Maduro’s absence a “kidnapping” and determined that under the country’s constitution, elections had to be held to replace him.

Now the U.S. government says it has made a “deal” with Rodríguez, who told reporters: “The agreement is based on a very simple premise. Each party contributes what it does best. Venezuela contributes oil, its industry and the experience of its workers accumulated over more than 100 years. The United States contributes the capital and technology needed to recover and develop those assets.”

“So, let me get this straight,” national security reporter David Rothkopf wrote. “he US illegally attacks a country, kidnaps its president, threatens its government with massive military force, gets them to hand over to US control a huge portion of their national assets, hails the billions it has already brought in and promises billions more but we don’t know where the money’s going, how it is going to benefit the US, if it is going to benefit the US, who’s privately going to benefit, what side deals have been struck with the corrupt leaders of their country or ours, & we are supposed to celebrate this act of aggression and theft that violates international law and that could well turn out to be a massive mafia-style shakedown scheme to benefit the anti-democratic forces in Venezuela and the US, the president’s friends and supporters, possibly the president and his family?”

Rothkopf appears to have understood the point of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.

Neophyte said:

August 30, 2026 (Sunday)

One of our founding myths is that of George Washington and the cherry tree. In his The Life of Washington, first published in 1800, minister and writer Mason Locke Weems, more commonly known as Parson Weems, wrote down for the citizens of this new nation the qualities they should require in a leader. The book was written not to reflect the facts of Washington’s life—biographies would not focus on facts for almost a century—but to show virtues the nation’s youth should imitate and to establish a set of attributes against which future voters could judge those vying to lead the nation.

Weems’s Washington was generous, reverent, studious, athletic, martial, hardworking, and beloved by his comrades. And, beginning with an 1806 edition of the book, he could not tell a lie. According to Weems, when George was about six years old “he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet, of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping every thing that came in his way. One day, in the garden…he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree…. The next morning the old gentleman finding out what had befallen his tree…, came into the House; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author….

Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. ‘George,’ said his father, ‘do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?’

“This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, ‘I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.’

“‘Run to my arms, you dearest boy,’ cried his father in transports, ‘run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.’”

Like many of the other anecdotes Weems delivered, this story was almost certainly invented. But it established the importance of truth-telling in a leader.

On Friday, Rick Maese of the Washington Post reported that despite orders from U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes saying that she wanted advance notice before the government took down more than ten trees from the East Potomac Golf Links or brought equipment larger than a sedan onto the property, the Trump administration has taken down more than sixty trees in apparent preparation for Trump to redesign the golf course.

Opponents have sued to stop the redesign of the historic publicly owned course. Trump has said the makeover will begin on September 1, but Maese notes that the administration has released “no final design, construction schedule or estimated cost.” It has apparently not conducted either environmental or historical preservation reviews. It has not said how changes to the course will affect public access to the three courses and to the popular recreation path on the property.

Reyes said she would not stop administration officials from doing routine maintenance on the property, and the administration says the tree removal is routine maintenance. A spokesperson for the Interior Department said: “Arborists are doing routine maintenance at East Potomac Park with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention.”

One of the trees they have cut down is a cherry tree.

It seems like the writers for the 250th season of American democracy are becoming increasingly desperate to get the country’s attention.

On Friday, Trump announced: “The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY! At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer. This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity. This Transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States! Thank you for your attention to this groundbreaking matter.”

There are reasons to greet this announcement with skepticism.

A U.S. official told Megan Messerly, Ben Lefebvre, and Scott Waldman of Politico that this deal was a new venture between the U.S. government and an “experienced private operator in Venezuela.” Although the official did not identify which operator that is, it became clear over the weekend that the person in question is Alejandro Betancourt López.

Rebecca F. Elliott, Anatoly Kurmanaev, and Edward Wong of the New York Times explained that Betancourt’s family controls Venezuela’s second largest private oil producer, North American Blue Energy Partners. Betancourt has been accused of corruption for years; Switzerland has investigated him for money laundering and has issued a warrant for his arrest, although it has not charged him.

According to the New York Times reporters, it appears the plan is for the U.S. government to back North American Blue Energy Partners, which will, in turn, develop oil reserves in 17 of Venezuela’s oil fields. The U.S. official who talked to the Politico journalists said the new venture would be the second-biggest private oil company in the world, after Saudi Aramco. The U.S. would control 55% of the venture’s output. When production starts, the person told the journalists, “the resulting stable supply of at-cost oil in our Hemisphere will go toward filling the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and fulfilling the supply needs of our Great U.S. Military.”

But an executive in the oil industry told the journalists that the deal was “built on a legal environment that does not exist. The Venezuelan constitution does not allow for anyone other than to own rights to oil and gas in the country,” the executive pointed out.

“The end of story,” the person said, “is the president wants to say we have billions of barrels of oil in reserve. That would act as a price stabilization nuclear bomb. Oh, the Iranians have blocked Hormuz? The president could say ‘I have 65 billion barrels in reserve.’”

The Politico journalists report that Trump has been frustrated that U.S. companies have been slow to invest in Venezuela and that the administration has pressured Rodríguez to give them better terms. Samantha Schmidt and Helena Carpio of the Washington Post today flat out said the deal “cements the United States’ long-term dominance over Venezuela, which has become a neo-colony since the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro in January, when Trump vowed to ‘run’ the country and exploit its oil wealth.”

Last September, the Trump administration began striking small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Trump claimed—without evidence—were being operated by narcoterrorists from Venezuela. The U.S. massed military vessels off Venezuela’s shores, where they blockaded Venezuelan oil tankers after Trump called Venezuela’s government a foreign terrorist organization. On January 3, Trump authorized the military to kidnap Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores in a nighttime raid and bring them to the U.S. for trial on weapons and drug charges.

Although opponents of Maduro, who had seized power after losing a presidential election, cheered the raid in the belief that Trump would help them put opposition candidate Edmundo González in power, in fact the administration supported Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. On January 5 it formally recognized her as Venezuela’s head of state. Venezuela’s high court disagreed. It called Maduro’s absence a “kidnapping” and determined that under the country’s constitution, elections had to be held to replace him.

Now the U.S. government says it has made a “deal” with Rodríguez, who told reporters: “The agreement is based on a very simple premise. Each party contributes what it does best. Venezuela contributes oil, its industry and the experience of its workers accumulated over more than 100 years. The United States contributes the capital and technology needed to recover and develop those assets.”

“So, let me get this straight,” national security reporter David Rothkopf wrote. “he US illegally attacks a country, kidnaps its president, threatens its government with massive military force, gets them to hand over to US control a huge portion of their national assets, hails the billions it has already brought in and promises billions more but we don’t know where the money’s going, how it is going to benefit the US, if it is going to benefit the US, who’s privately going to benefit, what side deals have been struck with the corrupt leaders of their country or ours, & we are supposed to celebrate this act of aggression and theft that violates international law and that could well turn out to be a massive mafia-style shakedown scheme to benefit the anti-democratic forces in Venezuela and the US, the president’s friends and supporters, possibly the president and his family?”

Rothkopf appears to have understood the point of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.

Every time I see Heather Cox Richardson.

I just keep thinking how you are a bionic person now.

That you are still alive. How lucky we are not to lose you.

That needles was on the ball.

Praise all the ice cream from Scoop ice cream shops.

I feel grateful.

And thanks it is always good to read her.

Ta.

ms spock said:

Neophyte said:

August 30, 2026 (Sunday)

One of our founding myths is that of George Washington and the cherry tree. In his The Life of Washington, first published in 1800, minister and writer Mason Locke Weems, more commonly known as Parson Weems, wrote down for the citizens of this new nation the qualities they should require in a leader. The book was written not to reflect the facts of Washington’s life—biographies would not focus on facts for almost a century—but to show virtues the nation’s youth should imitate and to establish a set of attributes against which future voters could judge those vying to lead the nation.

Weems’s Washington was generous, reverent, studious, athletic, martial, hardworking, and beloved by his comrades. And, beginning with an 1806 edition of the book, he could not tell a lie. According to Weems, when George was about six years old “he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet, of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping every thing that came in his way. One day, in the garden…he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree…. The next morning the old gentleman finding out what had befallen his tree…, came into the House; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author….

Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. ‘George,’ said his father, ‘do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?’

“This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, ‘I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.’

“‘Run to my arms, you dearest boy,’ cried his father in transports, ‘run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.’”

Like many of the other anecdotes Weems delivered, this story was almost certainly invented. But it established the importance of truth-telling in a leader.

On Friday, Rick Maese of the Washington Post reported that despite orders from U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes saying that she wanted advance notice before the government took down more than ten trees from the East Potomac Golf Links or brought equipment larger than a sedan onto the property, the Trump administration has taken down more than sixty trees in apparent preparation for Trump to redesign the golf course.

Opponents have sued to stop the redesign of the historic publicly owned course. Trump has said the makeover will begin on September 1, but Maese notes that the administration has released “no final design, construction schedule or estimated cost.” It has apparently not conducted either environmental or historical preservation reviews. It has not said how changes to the course will affect public access to the three courses and to the popular recreation path on the property.

Reyes said she would not stop administration officials from doing routine maintenance on the property, and the administration says the tree removal is routine maintenance. A spokesperson for the Interior Department said: “Arborists are doing routine maintenance at East Potomac Park with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention.”

One of the trees they have cut down is a cherry tree.

It seems like the writers for the 250th season of American democracy are becoming increasingly desperate to get the country’s attention.

On Friday, Trump announced: “The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY! At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer. This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity. This Transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States! Thank you for your attention to this groundbreaking matter.”

There are reasons to greet this announcement with skepticism.

A U.S. official told Megan Messerly, Ben Lefebvre, and Scott Waldman of Politico that this deal was a new venture between the U.S. government and an “experienced private operator in Venezuela.” Although the official did not identify which operator that is, it became clear over the weekend that the person in question is Alejandro Betancourt López.

Rebecca F. Elliott, Anatoly Kurmanaev, and Edward Wong of the New York Times explained that Betancourt’s family controls Venezuela’s second largest private oil producer, North American Blue Energy Partners. Betancourt has been accused of corruption for years; Switzerland has investigated him for money laundering and has issued a warrant for his arrest, although it has not charged him.

According to the New York Times reporters, it appears the plan is for the U.S. government to back North American Blue Energy Partners, which will, in turn, develop oil reserves in 17 of Venezuela’s oil fields. The U.S. official who talked to the Politico journalists said the new venture would be the second-biggest private oil company in the world, after Saudi Aramco. The U.S. would control 55% of the venture’s output. When production starts, the person told the journalists, “the resulting stable supply of at-cost oil in our Hemisphere will go toward filling the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and fulfilling the supply needs of our Great U.S. Military.”

But an executive in the oil industry told the journalists that the deal was “built on a legal environment that does not exist. The Venezuelan constitution does not allow for anyone other than to own rights to oil and gas in the country,” the executive pointed out.

“The end of story,” the person said, “is the president wants to say we have billions of barrels of oil in reserve. That would act as a price stabilization nuclear bomb. Oh, the Iranians have blocked Hormuz? The president could say ‘I have 65 billion barrels in reserve.’”

The Politico journalists report that Trump has been frustrated that U.S. companies have been slow to invest in Venezuela and that the administration has pressured Rodríguez to give them better terms. Samantha Schmidt and Helena Carpio of the Washington Post today flat out said the deal “cements the United States’ long-term dominance over Venezuela, which has become a neo-colony since the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro in January, when Trump vowed to ‘run’ the country and exploit its oil wealth.”

Last September, the Trump administration began striking small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Trump claimed—without evidence—were being operated by narcoterrorists from Venezuela. The U.S. massed military vessels off Venezuela’s shores, where they blockaded Venezuelan oil tankers after Trump called Venezuela’s government a foreign terrorist organization. On January 3, Trump authorized the military to kidnap Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores in a nighttime raid and bring them to the U.S. for trial on weapons and drug charges.

Although opponents of Maduro, who had seized power after losing a presidential election, cheered the raid in the belief that Trump would help them put opposition candidate Edmundo González in power, in fact the administration supported Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. On January 5 it formally recognized her as Venezuela’s head of state. Venezuela’s high court disagreed. It called Maduro’s absence a “kidnapping” and determined that under the country’s constitution, elections had to be held to replace him.

Now the U.S. government says it has made a “deal” with Rodríguez, who told reporters: “The agreement is based on a very simple premise. Each party contributes what it does best. Venezuela contributes oil, its industry and the experience of its workers accumulated over more than 100 years. The United States contributes the capital and technology needed to recover and develop those assets.”

“So, let me get this straight,” national security reporter David Rothkopf wrote. “he US illegally attacks a country, kidnaps its president, threatens its government with massive military force, gets them to hand over to US control a huge portion of their national assets, hails the billions it has already brought in and promises billions more but we don’t know where the money’s going, how it is going to benefit the US, if it is going to benefit the US, who’s privately going to benefit, what side deals have been struck with the corrupt leaders of their country or ours, & we are supposed to celebrate this act of aggression and theft that violates international law and that could well turn out to be a massive mafia-style shakedown scheme to benefit the anti-democratic forces in Venezuela and the US, the president’s friends and supporters, possibly the president and his family?”

Rothkopf appears to have understood the point of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.

Every time I see Heather Cox Richardson.

I just keep thinking how you are a bionic person now.

That you are still alive. How lucky we are not to lose you.

That needles was on the ball.

Praise all the ice cream from Scoop ice cream shops.

I feel grateful.

And thanks it is always good to read her.

I’m off to the monthly church fete on Friday – wondering if I should ask the padre if there’s any biblical precedent for coming back from the dead.

Neophyte said:

ms spock said:

Neophyte said:

August 30, 2026 (Sunday)

One of our founding myths is that of George Washington and the cherry tree. In his The Life of Washington, first published in 1800, minister and writer Mason Locke Weems, more commonly known as Parson Weems, wrote down for the citizens of this new nation the qualities they should require in a leader. The book was written not to reflect the facts of Washington’s life—biographies would not focus on facts for almost a century—but to show virtues the nation’s youth should imitate and to establish a set of attributes against which future voters could judge those vying to lead the nation.

Weems’s Washington was generous, reverent, studious, athletic, martial, hardworking, and beloved by his comrades. And, beginning with an 1806 edition of the book, he could not tell a lie. According to Weems, when George was about six years old “he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet, of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping every thing that came in his way. One day, in the garden…he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree…. The next morning the old gentleman finding out what had befallen his tree…, came into the House; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author….

Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. ‘George,’ said his father, ‘do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?’

“This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, ‘I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.’

“‘Run to my arms, you dearest boy,’ cried his father in transports, ‘run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.’”

Like many of the other anecdotes Weems delivered, this story was almost certainly invented. But it established the importance of truth-telling in a leader.

On Friday, Rick Maese of the Washington Post reported that despite orders from U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes saying that she wanted advance notice before the government took down more than ten trees from the East Potomac Golf Links or brought equipment larger than a sedan onto the property, the Trump administration has taken down more than sixty trees in apparent preparation for Trump to redesign the golf course.

Opponents have sued to stop the redesign of the historic publicly owned course. Trump has said the makeover will begin on September 1, but Maese notes that the administration has released “no final design, construction schedule or estimated cost.” It has apparently not conducted either environmental or historical preservation reviews. It has not said how changes to the course will affect public access to the three courses and to the popular recreation path on the property.

Reyes said she would not stop administration officials from doing routine maintenance on the property, and the administration says the tree removal is routine maintenance. A spokesperson for the Interior Department said: “Arborists are doing routine maintenance at East Potomac Park with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention.”

One of the trees they have cut down is a cherry tree.

It seems like the writers for the 250th season of American democracy are becoming increasingly desperate to get the country’s attention.

On Friday, Trump announced: “The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY! At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer. This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity. This Transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States! Thank you for your attention to this groundbreaking matter.”

There are reasons to greet this announcement with skepticism.

A U.S. official told Megan Messerly, Ben Lefebvre, and Scott Waldman of Politico that this deal was a new venture between the U.S. government and an “experienced private operator in Venezuela.” Although the official did not identify which operator that is, it became clear over the weekend that the person in question is Alejandro Betancourt López.

Rebecca F. Elliott, Anatoly Kurmanaev, and Edward Wong of the New York Times explained that Betancourt’s family controls Venezuela’s second largest private oil producer, North American Blue Energy Partners. Betancourt has been accused of corruption for years; Switzerland has investigated him for money laundering and has issued a warrant for his arrest, although it has not charged him.

According to the New York Times reporters, it appears the plan is for the U.S. government to back North American Blue Energy Partners, which will, in turn, develop oil reserves in 17 of Venezuela’s oil fields. The U.S. official who talked to the Politico journalists said the new venture would be the second-biggest private oil company in the world, after Saudi Aramco. The U.S. would control 55% of the venture’s output. When production starts, the person told the journalists, “the resulting stable supply of at-cost oil in our Hemisphere will go toward filling the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and fulfilling the supply needs of our Great U.S. Military.”

But an executive in the oil industry told the journalists that the deal was “built on a legal environment that does not exist. The Venezuelan constitution does not allow for anyone other than to own rights to oil and gas in the country,” the executive pointed out.

“The end of story,” the person said, “is the president wants to say we have billions of barrels of oil in reserve. That would act as a price stabilization nuclear bomb. Oh, the Iranians have blocked Hormuz? The president could say ‘I have 65 billion barrels in reserve.’”

The Politico journalists report that Trump has been frustrated that U.S. companies have been slow to invest in Venezuela and that the administration has pressured Rodríguez to give them better terms. Samantha Schmidt and Helena Carpio of the Washington Post today flat out said the deal “cements the United States’ long-term dominance over Venezuela, which has become a neo-colony since the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro in January, when Trump vowed to ‘run’ the country and exploit its oil wealth.”

Last September, the Trump administration began striking small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Trump claimed—without evidence—were being operated by narcoterrorists from Venezuela. The U.S. massed military vessels off Venezuela’s shores, where they blockaded Venezuelan oil tankers after Trump called Venezuela’s government a foreign terrorist organization. On January 3, Trump authorized the military to kidnap Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores in a nighttime raid and bring them to the U.S. for trial on weapons and drug charges.

Although opponents of Maduro, who had seized power after losing a presidential election, cheered the raid in the belief that Trump would help them put opposition candidate Edmundo González in power, in fact the administration supported Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. On January 5 it formally recognized her as Venezuela’s head of state. Venezuela’s high court disagreed. It called Maduro’s absence a “kidnapping” and determined that under the country’s constitution, elections had to be held to replace him.

Now the U.S. government says it has made a “deal” with Rodríguez, who told reporters: “The agreement is based on a very simple premise. Each party contributes what it does best. Venezuela contributes oil, its industry and the experience of its workers accumulated over more than 100 years. The United States contributes the capital and technology needed to recover and develop those assets.”

“So, let me get this straight,” national security reporter David Rothkopf wrote. “he US illegally attacks a country, kidnaps its president, threatens its government with massive military force, gets them to hand over to US control a huge portion of their national assets, hails the billions it has already brought in and promises billions more but we don’t know where the money’s going, how it is going to benefit the US, if it is going to benefit the US, who’s privately going to benefit, what side deals have been struck with the corrupt leaders of their country or ours, & we are supposed to celebrate this act of aggression and theft that violates international law and that could well turn out to be a massive mafia-style shakedown scheme to benefit the anti-democratic forces in Venezuela and the US, the president’s friends and supporters, possibly the president and his family?”

Rothkopf appears to have understood the point of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.

Every time I see Heather Cox Richardson.

I just keep thinking how you are a bionic person now.

That you are still alive. How lucky we are not to lose you.

That needles was on the ball.

Praise all the ice cream from Scoop ice cream shops.

I feel grateful.

And thanks it is always good to read her.

I’m off to the monthly church fete on Friday – wondering if I should ask the padre if there’s any biblical precedent for coming back from the dead.

😂😂😂