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I like this more than the America’s Funniest Home Injuries segments I occasionally come across:
- Dave Columbo begins Trump Week with Trump playing dress up in military clothing. Dave continues with RFK Jr giving medical advice and ends with Todd Blanche actually supporting police officers:
- PZ Myers looks at the evidence and suggests what Trump has in mind now that he regards Iran as so boring.
We’re at war with Iran, but that’s not enough to hide Trump’s crimes. How about going to war with a NATO ally?
- CalicoJack in The Psy of Life says that Trump actually did have a plan for winning against Iran.
He would bomb them. They would surrender. The world would worship at his feet. And, that, my friends, would be that.
He still has a plan:
We all joke about HIM having the nuclear codes, but the longer his excursion in to war crimes goes on and the more frustrated he becomes over it, the more he’s going to see going nuclear as being absolutely necessary.
- Michael J Scott has a pretty good idea what is sapping America’s strength. It isn’t the very real munitions shortage.
America has the most powerful military on Earth. We have aircraft carriers, stealth bombers, nuclear submarines, satellites, drones, missiles, and enough firepower to turn large pieces of the planet into smoking holes. What we don’t have is somebody with brains in the White House.
Real strength isn’t pounding your chest and threatening to blow everybody to hell.
The key isn’t possessing the biggest gun:
Real strength is knowing when to use that gun, when to leave it in the holster, and — most importantly — what happens after you pull the trigger.
That’s strategy.
And that’s precisely what appears to be missing. - tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors posts a step-by-step of Trump’s great secret catering wagon escape.
For giggles, tengrain also includes this:
🚨🚨🚨EXCLUSIVE. Meidas has obtained footage of Trump hiding in the catering truck while switching planes.
— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) August 10, 2026 at 9:06 PM
- Inspired by Trump’s recent adventure, portrayed as hiding in a catering container, while journalists and staff play as unknowing decoys, The Borowitz Report provides the Secret Service with helpful suggestions on future places Trump can cower, complete with sketches.
Separately, Trump regularly returns to his catering hole to avoid JD Vance.
- Disaffected and it Feels So Good documents instances from way back to way recent of Trump severely disrespecting service members and veterans.
Some of it is pretty bad. Some is outright horrifying.
- In Hackwhackers, Americans – those not favored with fabulous wealth – are struggling with gas, groceries, and health insurance. But don’t worry. Trump is working hard, devoting every spare moment to improving his golf game and building monuments to himself.
- News Corpse takes an acerbic look at Trump openly selling insider information through his media company.
The reason insider trading is against the law is that it enables a culprit to buy and sell stocks based on knowing information enough ahead of time to cheat other investors.
What Trump is doing is analogous to a quarterback selling his game plans to gamblers so that they can place bets on the game. Except with Trump it’s not a game. It includes national security information.Trump corruption in this case is blatant enough to anger Republican lawmakers. It has also generated a federal lawsuit.
News Corpse quotes a report from The Associated Press:
“The suit comes after his media company, Trump Media & Technology, rolled out a new subscription service earlier this month charging Wall Street firms as much as $100,000 a month to get his posts faster so they can trade off them. - One of the problems plaguing Trump’s DOJ is that court presentations can reveal deliberate lies and misdirection.
Journalist Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel covers court filings containing startling evidence that, after the killings of Renee Goode and Alex Pretti, DOJ investigators were instructed to target pretty much any organization in Minnesota that had criticized ICE.
In the Minnesota Antifa 15 case, defendant Ian Sant has a blockbuster filing revealing details of the broad spying HSI did after they killed Alex Pretti, targeting activists, unions, No Kings, and environmental organizations. - The plain language of the 14th Amendment seems pretty clear. Anyone born in the US is a citizen, the only exception being newborn children of ambassadors living in embassies.
Trump wants that language interpreted to mean something different. After all, the Supreme Court has done it before in other cases.
At The Moderate Voice Robert Levine brings us the decision by SCOTUS that the Amendment actually means what it says, and Trump’s defiant reaction:
It had to happen sooner or later. President Trump has ignored a ruling from the Supreme Court.
Levine places the blame on one major culprit:
Actually, this action by Trump is the Supreme Court’s fault.
Previously, the high court gave him and future presidents immunity from criminal or civil acts taken in their roles as president. - Julian Sanchez has a few insightful comments on John Cornyn’s vote for Todd Blanche as AG
So look, this was my initial reaction too, and Cornyn is certainly a coward. But what he actually said was that they can’t stop Trump from TALKING about how he wants the insurrection fund back. Which is true enough. That’s not the real problem with what Cornyn said…
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 9:46 AM
The real problem is that he then affected to be so naive as to believe the insurrection fund was meaningfully dead, and thus it was fine for him to vote to confirm an AG so shameless and toadying that he’d signed off on such a corrupt arrangement in the first place.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 9:48 AM
Cornyn wants brownie points for integrity for a cynical and performative wisp of symbolic delay before ultimately enabling an AG who, by his own stated standards, is disqualifyingly corrupt.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 9:52 AM
Cornyn isn't naive; he’s lying. He knows the insurrection fund isn't dead.
Today's GOP Congress members deserve zero benefit of the doubt.
Cornyn just flipped, and if we had a real free press in America doing their job, we’d know exactly how much he sold out for. Alas! we don't!
— lonevoice.bsky.social (@lonevoice.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 9:57 AM
- As Trump presser Karoline Leavitt prepares to leave it:
North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a question for her: Was it worth it?
I wonder, if in the quiet places, away from the lights and the bombast and the attention, you can now rewind through your story and see the thousands of small moral failures that led you to this place; the endless stream of seemingly insignificant concessions that began to overtake you.
I wonder if you can look back and see precisely where you lost the plot of the faith you so loudly profess; how you completely abandoned the compassionate, kind, loving Jesus of your religion and instead, willfully lied for a living on behalf of serial predator. - Juliet Jeske at Decoding Fox News watches hour after tedious hour of obsessive coverage of the anti‑Fauci Senate hearing.
Helpful headline note to the network:
Fox News:
Dr. Fauci’s Diary Will Not Make the Iran War Go AwayShe is right, of course, although it is just as true of the Trump/Epstein child rape files.
- Brian Beutler points out what ought to be obvious. It is unjust that Republicans will pay no price for smearing Anthony Fauci.
Degenerates like Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and RFK Jr. should not be effectively immune (civilly, politically) for defaming civil servants—or any civilians—for propaganda or fundraising purposes. What they're doing to Anthony Fauci right now is horrifying. As things stand, they'll get away with it.
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 9:40 AM
Part of the problem is structural. Republicans can abuse needed legislative immunity to instead ruin innocent lives.
Money in politics is mostly about "legal corruption," but there's another aspect: Between the difficulty proving defamation and the GOP's ability to absorb damages, there's little deterrent to what's happening now: changing the subject by ruining someone's life.
www.offmessage.net/p/republican…— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 9:45 AM
He goes deep diving into some of the specific bogus accusations:
They do this *all the time*. But the latest Fauci smears are perhaps the grossest yet. www.offmessage.net/p/republican…
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 9:47 AM
- In Rural Missouri, Jess Piper points out that the backdrop of Trump policy has been the Heritage Foundation.
Analyses by the Center for Progressive Reform, an organization tracking the progress of Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation indicate that about 53 percent of the domestic administrative policy recommendations outlined in Project 2025 have been initiated or completed.
She reads in their public plans a design to put women back in their place, especially by taking women out of the sports world.
I went on to read the entire report on Title IX, and I could barely contain my anger and outrage.
The plan is to end, or severely limit, women’s competitive sports and return to sex-segregated opportunities for men and women in schools across the country. To assert that women never needed sports in the first place. To prove that Title IX has become a tool of “feminist social engineering.” To demonstrate that women don’t need competitive sports and that “clubs, intramurals, and exercise classes…” would suffice.
To instead encourage “activities that emphasize rhythm, coordination, community, and graceful exertion.” To prove that women don’t need to compete at elite levels, but rather benefit from activities that build, “health, good habits, vigor, grace, confidence, and beauty.”
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit notes a plan to give ICE agents electric shock gloves and adds video of yet another incident of an ICE agent with a deadly weapon threatening a citizen. She draws a reasonable conclusion about those gloves.
- Dave Barry figures out a way to enforce laws against undocumented smoke illegally entering the US from Canada, and wonders if he might also be onto a solution to global warming.
- Dave Dubya takes on, but does not name, a fellow blogger over Israel’s misdeeds.
I have an idea of the identity of the unnamed blogger, one for whom I have profound respect. I suppose the two will decide whether to debate openly.
- Right Wing Watch brings us Christian Nationalist pastor Dale Partridge with thoughts about World War II Nazis:
…Germany was “attacked from within by grossly immoral Jewish forces during the Weimar Republic,” which naturally made Nazism “extremely appealing”:
“This Nazi movement terrified the Jews because it represented a powerful form of Christian nationalism.”Oh my!
- This is wrenching.
In Scotties Playtime, Scottie explains a little of what it’s like as an adult who experienced abuse as a child, and music that helps him get by.
Headline:
It shouldn’t hurt to be a child. I am so tired - The Onion engages in an edgy, bitter sort of satire.
Trump downplays the significance of a Trump Tower found on Epstein Island.
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil reminds us that anti-intellectualism, a cult of ignorance, has been a major factor in American life for a long, long time.
…my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge
- A recurrent theme from observers in other countries about US elections:
You need more Political Parties, and a system that encourages other parties to thrive! How can you only have TWO parties?!?!?!
Author and educator Amanda Nelson responds briefly with understandable impatience:
Wow! If only we had thought of that…She goes on to explain the difference between US winner-take-all elections and the proportional voting systems in many European countries, why third parties in the US are mostly a method of wasting votes, and why that is unlikely to change.
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson waits (and waits) on results in the state’s primary election and finds a major personal issue:
Will a Wisconsin Election Ever Respect My Sleep Schedule?
He knows whom to blame:
Approximately 63,000 votes have yet to be counted, according to NBC. So, we wait like we wait in every election because the Republicans in the state Senate refused to take up the bill that would’ve allowed Milwaukee County to process the absentee ballots one day earlier.
Bastards.As he writes, nobody knows who will win the Democratic Senate primary.
But James knows about a trio of losers.The polls:
One of the big losers of tonight’s election has to be the pollsters that predicted a blowout for [Francesca] Hong.The Press:
Imagine with me if the Wisconsin media, instead of writing about the Marquette Poll in February, decided to comb through the campaign finance reports of the candidates the way they once did before they became obsessed with the horse race.Milwaukee:
And, of course, while I’m typing this, the city of Milwaukee just announced that five memory sticks (of nine) did not properly download the results of the absentee ballots so it may be a couple of hours before we learn the result of this election.
Congratulations Milwaukee, you just fed every conspiracy theorist with another anecdote so they can claim Milwaukee’s elections are corrupt.Tom Tiffany is assured of becoming the Republican Senate candidate.
James speculates on a possible primary win by Democratic David Crowley, previously presumed to be nearly impossible:Spoiler alert: if the Democratic nominee does turn out to be Crowley, Tiffany is in trouble.My note, with the benefit of a later deadline: Crowley is the nominee.
- Elon Musk wants to help finance the reelection of Susan Collins.
Jason Linkins suggests Democrats should hang Musk like an albatross around the neck of Senator Collins.
My thoughts on this are pretty straightforward: In a normal country, it is scandalous for a politician to fund their campaign on the proceeds of CSAM and the like. Courtesy of DailyKos writer Oliver Willis, here is a succinct and correct English-language sentence on the matter: “Susan Collins is financed by a man who wants to make it easier to create nude pictures of children.”
Musk is hardly some lone-wolf pervert skulking around Republican politics. - Ubiquitous opinion formulator David Brooks begins his latest segment on his latest gig with PBS News Hour with this:
Voters in almost every presidential race, I think, in every one of my lifetime, have always said, who’s closer to the center? And they vote for that person.
I can imagine most voters thinking: which candidate do I agree with on the issues, or which candidate do I like, or even which party do I like.
I confess to a failure of imagination when it comes to the average voter thinking: which candidate do I think is is closest to the center.
In fact I’m having trouble imagining most anyone caring enough about the center to even think about how close to it a candidate might be.driftglass, who is much less polite, much less tolerant, (and much more talented) than I, takes Mr. Brooks apart cartilage and bone, until there is only the faint beat of reflexive, unthinking centrism left.
For example:
It is a matter of public record that David Brooks has never had any workable definition of “the center” beyond: “What I, David Brooks, happen to think at this moment”. - Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger argues that, unlike the Republican Party, Democrats are not a top‑down organization. Voters, not party officials, determine nominees.
He suggests the Democratic National Committee stop backing specific candidates ahead of primaries, and maintain neutrality until the voters have spoken.
- Max’s Dad defends Democratic Socialism, primarily attacking oldsters who dominate elective office:
The Democrats, instead of embracing the concept and accepting the new guard, start blathering about leaving the party because it means they are finished. You’re old boomers. Your time is over. Accept it. I am to the point where anybody over 70 will never get my vote again. Go away.
He laments what we have become:
We used to protest, smoke weed, stand up to the man, march for civil rights, end wars and drive crooked presidents out of office. Now? We want to run over protesters legally, oppose legalizing weed, are the man, suppress civil rights to keep white men in power, supports wars and shrug when a crooked president does something crooked. We are pathetic. We are the Progressive insurance commercial. We’ve become our parents and not in a good way.He mentions only briefly, and even that 2/3 of the way through, what I would have thought his most salient point:
What is Democratic Socialism? It’s Finland, or Denmark, or Holland, or Norway or Sweden. Hardly bastions of commies, these countries provide its citizens with basic needs. Health care, income, holidays, a balanced work/life. low crime rates and democracy. - Tamra Brown has a word for those of us who vote for Democratic centrists because we think socialists just “want free stuff”
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce takes a somewhat jaded look at religious jewelry and clothing worn by Christians.
When Christians put on their Jesus shirts and go to the mall, grocery, or restaurant, everyone will know what club they belong to. Granted, atheists can do the same, but most atheists I know are content to quietly live their lives. And Muslims? When’s the last time you’ve seen a Muslim wearing a shirt that says Allah Loves Me or Allah, the One True God?
Bruce sees a deficit:
By all means, exercise your first amendment right to wear Jesus bling and display Jesus junk. But, if you want to convince me that I should be a Christian, you better start living according to the teachings of the Bible you say you believe. Until then, you have nothing to offer the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. - Infidel753, who doesn’t hesitate to ridicule religion, and by inference (or sometimes directly) those of us who believe, takes a break from slamming Islam to poke fun at the Catholic Church.
I can hardly wait for him to get to us Midwestern Methodists.
- This past Sunday was the 52nd anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation.
In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson walks us through the escalating steps that went from Nixon paranoia through Nixon criminality to Nixon resignation.
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 same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.
- Vagabond Scholar covers this year’s Oscars and makes it fascinating.
- In Nan’s Notebook, a trip through Bandon, Oregon turns out to be more picturesque than might be expected. Nan favors us with photos.
- Sadly, The Savanna Bananas find that not every clever deception produces results:
- SilverAppleQueen has a hidden cat who ducks out after getting yelled at.
- Marc Abrahams of The Journal of Improbable Research finds an exhibit in the Netherlands, at The Natural History Museum Rotterdam, showing some of the strangest ways unlucky mice have died.
- While promoting a new product, fashion entrepreneur and television personality Toni Brattin makes a now famous NSFW slip on live TV, and Sarah Cooper is able to capture the moment, including the whispered Oh my God at the end:
- @whiskeywhistle98 loves that people love her personality:
We also have smooth wisdom from our usual internet suspects:
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