Come November

If American democracy is going to work the way it’s supposed to work, we should be able to put up a blockade to Trump’s authoritarian drive is this year’s midterm elections.

But in order to provide a check on Trump’s power, the Democratic Party needs to win control of at least one chamber of Congress.

According to in-depth interviews with six leading pollsters, the New York Times reports they all believe that the Democrats will indeed win the House and that control of the Senate remains up for grabs.

Control of both houses in Congress would set up a Constitutional confrontation that could block Trump and save our tattered democracy.

While these results give hope, many things could change between now and November. 

You can read the complete article here.

HEADLINES:

• Another U.S. Service Member Is Killed as Two Sides Edge Toward Wider War (NYT)

• US identifies soldiers killed in Iranian attack in Jordan after ninth night of strikes (Guardian)

• Trump Owes Americans a Better Explanation About Iran (Atlantic)

• U.S. and Iran Edge Closer to Wider War After U.S. Soldiers Killed (NYT)

• U.S. launches new airstrikes to ‘punish’ Iran for troop deaths (NPR)

• Iran issues chilling ‘Blood for Blood’ message (CNN)

• Russian attacks kill 6 in Kyiv and other cities and expose gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses (AP)

• Russia’s Empire Is Starting to Fall—the “Good Russians” Know It (Newsweek)

• Who Will Win the Midterms? 6 Pollsters and Pundits Make Educated Guesses. (NYT)

• AIPAC has spent a record amount on Michigan's Senate primary, the biggest test of its influence yet (AP)

• The Silver Lining of Trump’s Reheated Election Denialism (Bulwark)

• ICE officer’s troubled past renews questions about vetting (WP)

• ‘We just want to be treated like humans’: how a Latino neighborhood is rallying after an ICE shooting (Guardian)

• Federal Agents Were Told F.B.I. Will No Longer Investigate ICE Confrontations (NYT)

• DOGE was supposed to be dead. Its remnants are everywhere. (WP)

• Trump Says New Air Force One Will Be Taken Out of Service to Be ‘Maxed Out’ (NYT)

• The Investors With a New Way to Win in Silicon Valley (WSJ)

• I’m 56 and got tired of being ghosted after job interviews (BI)

• AI may make you ‘boring’ at work, Columbia Business School professor says: How it can hurt your career (CNBC)

• ‘Hunt For Gollum’ Director Andy Serkis Defends Film’s All–Andy Serkis Cast (Onion) 

Sunday Reads

HEADLINES:

• Two US troops killed and one missing after Iranian attack in Jordan (BBC)

• Iran hits US allies as Israel warns missiles headed for Jordan could land on its territory (AP)

• Warehouse workers among 8 dead in deadliest Ukrainian attacks inside Russia for two years (CNN)

• Russia launches major ballistic missile attack on Ukrainian cities (BBC)

• Fighter Jets Are Passé (Atlantic)

• ‘Pulte got really scared’: Inside the White House debate over Trump’s elections speech (Politico)

• Trump’s Election Claims Land With a Whimper Among Republicans (NYT)

• Senate Democrat calls for Trump impeachment after election claims (The Hill)

• Lawmakers demand answers after ‘bombshell’ report of ICE officer shooting in Maine (PBS)

• ICE Agent Defended Shooting of Immigrant in Maine, Ex-Wife Says (NYT)

• An Ohio woman took in two strangers. Then she saw their ‘wanted’ photos. (WP)

• Summer weather smokes the U.S. (Reuters)

• Wildfire smoke from Canada and Minnesota pushes farther into the U.S. and engulfs D.C. in haze (NBC)

• Trump wants to impose tariffs on Canada in retaliation for wildfire smoke (WP)

• Trump threatens TV networks (Reuters)

• Millennials are bailing out their retired parents (BI)

• Too Many Books? (NYT)

• The World Cup champion will be one of the greatest teams ever (Silver Bulletin)

• People of faith are finding a new moral guide in AI (WP)

• China’s Latest A.I. Breakthrough Threatens America’s Lead (NYT)

• The Race to Stop AI’s Threats to Democracy (Reveal)

• Silicon Valley Has Lost Its Biggest Advantage (Atlantic)

• Data centers have united Americans of both parties in mutual hatred (WP)

• Man Resents Home Run For Making Him Pause Eating, Clap (Onion)

Fictional Lives

Although this may be the smallest of sample sizes, I’ve noticed a trend among Generation Zero and Y that they like to make family movies. Not the kind of family movies we grew up with — these are movies with fictional plots and the family members are actors.

When the edited version reaches their satisfaction, they post it to YouTube, where the sample size is orders of magnitude times larger, so yes this is a well-known trend outside of my family.

Anyway on Friday, my teenaged grandchildren hatched a new movie plot involving French bad guys operating out of Monaco, a nuclear threat to Washington, D.C., and a trip to New York City, where the good guys might be singing a song they’ve written.

The dog has some sort of role in this movie, but I’m not sure who prevails in the end — the good guys or the plotters from Monaco.

I guess I’ll find out with the rest of the world when they post it to YouTube.

Maybe I’ll write a review.

HEADLINES:

• Dangerous wildfire smoke blankets large parts of Canada and the US (BBC)

• U.S. strikes bridges in Iran; Tehran targets U.S. bases in the Gulf (NPR)

• Why Iran is returning to war (FT)

• A new wave of US attacks on Iran has plunged Iranians back into deep uncertainty and anxiety after a period of relative calm while a shaky ceasefire held. (Reuters)

• Trump Just Did More Damage to American Elections Than China (Atlantic)

• What Trump’s newly declassified documents do – and don’t – say about threats to US elections (CNN)

• Trump says ABC, NBC licenses should be revoked over refusal to air speech on election integrity (WP)

• Trump Dooms His Own Party (Atlantic)

• Andy Burnham, a mayor from England’s north, is poised to become Britain’s next prime minister (AP)

• Russian troops survive an average of 30 minutes on the Ukrainian battlefield, CIA director says (BI)

• Ukraine Was on a Roll. Then a Clash Over War Strategy Exploded Into View. (NYT)

• How to Research Private Schools Like an Investigative Reporter (ProPublica)

• The death of the stick shift is almost here (WP)

• What ICE Didn’t Say About Its Latest Killing (Mother Jones)

• The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press. [AP]

• Map: 7.3-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Off Mexico’s Coast (NYT)

• If you’re not a billionaire in San Francisco, you’re poor (BI)

• Good AI standards don’t need a new government bureaucracy behind them (WP)

• Google Ordered to Give A.I. Rivals More Access on Android Smartphones (NYT)

• Mitch McConnell Clarifies Absence Due To Brief Planned Trip To Afterlife (Onion)

 

Fake News

Trump’s big speech Thursday night was a flop.

Once again, he is trying to claim that he lost the 2020 election because it was “rigged.” Although he claimed last night there was evidence to support his claim, he provided none.

But this entire drive by Trump has nothing to do with 2020. It’s about this coming November when his party is on course to lose control of Congress to the Democrats.

Trump may be scheming to use allegations of past election meddling by the “deep state,” China and other adversaries to cast doubt on the integrity of the midterm elections. Then, he could use this doubt as predication to try and invalidate the results, which would lead to massive protests, which would allow him to declare a national emergency, call out the National Guard, and declare martial law.

That may sound like a far-fetched conspiracy theory, but it’s beginning to look like one that is plausible given his obsession with “rigged elections.”

Meanwhile, here’s a quick summary of the news around Trump’s speech from the Washington Post:

• Trump stopped short of offering evidence of vote tampering in the 2020 election. Instead, he described weaknessesin voting infrastructure. Read our four takeaways.

• ABC and NBC didn’t air the speech: Trump threatened to revoke their broadcast licenses.

• Trump wants a new voting bill: Here’s what to know about the Save America Act.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Exaggerates Claims About Election Vulnerabilities in Speech (NYT)

• Trump rehashes wide-ranging US election claims and releases heavily redacted documents in primetime address (Guardian)

• Air quality plummets in 20 states as smoke from Canadian wildfires spreads across the US (Guardian)

• Thom Tillis tells Todd Blanche to meet with Epstein victims — or don’t expect his support (Politico)

• The use of force has become a ‘default tool’ for ICE officers, a new report finds (NPR)

• ICE misused crowd control weapons against protesters 412 times within 1 year: Analysis (The Hill)

• Reflecting Pool peeling likely caused by application flaws, experts say (WP)

• Can the establishment stop Abdul El-Sayed? (Silver Bulletin)

• Pete Hegseth Wants YOU to Test Your Testosterone (Atlantic)

• Hegseth touts a high-testosterone military, as doctors question his claims (WP)

• House Democrat: Hegseth testosterone screenings indicative of ‘homoeroticism’ (The Hill)

• The New York Times Files Motion to Quash Trump Administration Subpoenas (WSJ)

• US or Iran — Who needs a new truce deal more? (Al Jazeera)

• Iran targets military bases as US launches wave of strikes (BBC)

• Iran said that the Strait of Hormuz was an inviolable "red line", warning that if US President Donald Trump carried out his threat to attack Iran's infrastructure, it would strike all infrastructure across the Gulf region. (Reuters)

• Trump’s Iran Bluster This Week Revealed the Only Thing That Really Matters to Him (Slate)

• Trump’s foreign policy is to try to get America paid (CNN)

• Zelensky’s removal of popular defence minister sparks protests in Ukraine (BBC)

• Paralysed man regains hand function through novel brain technology (FT)

• White House Teleprompter Operator Bet on Trump Speeches, Kalshi Says (NYT)

• The Race to Commercialize the World’s Most Powerful Psychedelic (WSJ)

• Californians back Becerra and reject AI data centers by big margins, poll finds (LAT)

• Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster (Atlantic)

• Thinking Machines Lab Drops Its First Model (Wired)

• Public Begs Mitch McConnell To Stop Releasing Photos Of Himself (Onion)

Pretzels Twisting on the Hill

It was painful to see two middle-aged men in suits humiliating themselves by trying to avoid admitting that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Todd Blanche is 52 and wants to be Attorney General. Jay Clayton is 60 and hopes to be Director of National Intelligence.

They appeared before Senate committees Wednesday seeking confirmation but managed to make fools of themselves in the process.

All in the service of the man who lost that 2020 election but can’t get over it. Trump remains obsessed with his loss, so would-be Cabinet members like Blanche and Clayton are forced to twist themselves into verbal pretzels or risk his ire.

Trump promises to address the nation tonight about the issue of “free and fair elections.” He says he has “really big news.” 

Republicans are scared. We probably all should be.

HEADLINES:

• ‘Scared s–tless’: Republicans brace for Trump’s primetime speech (Politico)

• Protests in Ukrainian cities against Zelensky’s removal of defence minister (BBC)

• US strikes Iran, tanker, as Tehran hits Kuwait, Jordan (Al Jazeera)

• Hegseth announces new policy to test troops for low testosterone (CNN)

• Blanche’s slip-up on his Trump relationship: ‘I’m his lawyer’ (Politico)

• Blanche Faces Crucial Hurdle After Rocky Hearing (NYT)

• White House overturns DHS halt to ICE traffic stops despite killings of two men (Guardian)

• What we know about the 26-year-old father from Colombia who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Maine (CNN)

• Houston prosecutor “more than prepared” to bring charges against ICE agents if wrongdoing is found in fatal shooting (CBS)

• ‘Misuse’ of crowd-control weapons on ICE protesters led to blindings and traumatic brain injuries, report finds (Guardian)

• Investigative journalist reports on the abuse inside ICE’s largest detention facility (NPR)

• A man running from an encounter with immigration and other federal agents in Florida was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer, authorities said. It was the third death in a week involving encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, following shootings in Texas and Maine. [AP] 

• Texas Hispanics swung hard to Trump. A new poll shows they’re furious at his deportations. (Politico)

• Almost Half of House Democrats Vote to End Aid to Israel (NYT)

• Hegseth’s Study of Women in Combat Is Designed to Reach One Conclusion (Mother Jones)

• Civil rights leaders announce ‘March on Washington’ to defend voting rights (NBC)

• Donald Trump has no good options for reopening the Strait of Hormuz (Economist)

• U.S. launches new daylight attacks on Iran, upping pressure alongside naval blockade (NBC)

• Trump held Situation Room meeting on massive new Iran strikes (Axios)

• Putin, now losing in Ukraine, may resort to a desperate gamble in the Baltics (The Hill)

• South Korean company paid Trump $2 million amid trade investigation (WP)

• China Aggressively Patrols Disputed Waters. Now the U.S. Coast Guard Is Moving In. (WSJ)

• Federal Court Hearing Set For State AGs’ Emergency Motion To Halt Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger (Deadline)

• FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals (ProPublica)

• From Sea to Singeing Sea: The U.S. at 250 (Daily Kos)

• Boomers, not Gen Z, are the generation cutting back most on alcohol (FT)

• Scientists discover what kept ancient campfires burning for generations (SciTechDaily)

• How Vibe Coding Is Transforming Tech (BI)

• An Ivy League professor suspected AI cheating, so he gave the final exam in person (WP)

• Barack Obama Pretends To Be Canadian While Traveling Abroad (Onion)

 

The Backwards Man

Trump reverses himself more often than a kid driving a bumper car.

One day he says he’s going to charge fees for ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz. The next day he reverses it.

One day he says he will slap new tariffs on our European allies. The next day he reverses it.

Yesterday his administration said it was halting almost all traffic stops by ICE after two more civilians have been gunned down by its agents.

This morning Trump says ICE should continue with the traffic stops.

He has lost all credulity in the eyes of the world. American prestige is at an all-time low.

The world. There’s a concept. Thinking globally is beyond Trump’s capacity. He’s a two-year-old in an 80-year-old’s body.

Cut that. It’s an insult to two-year-olds. And to 80-year-olds.

***

There’s really nothing much you can do to console kids after their team loses a big game. They simply are heartbroken. Anything you say just seems to make matters worse.

While there were glum faces around here, supporters of Spain were ecstatic after they beat France handily in yesterday’s World Cup match. Spain will play the winner of today’s match between England and Argentina for the championship on Sunday.

But as sad as the kids were yesterday, today they’ll be waking up ready to move on. Unlike Trump, they know when you lose, you lose. There’s no reversing reality.

And besides, today is a new day.

HEADLINES:

• U.S. launches fresh wave of strikes on Iran, as analysts warn conflict risks becoming ‘forever war’ (CNBC)

• Trump scraps his Hormuz shipping charge idea but presses ahead with an Iran blockade (NPR)

• US and Iran intensify conflict, with naval blockade hours away (CNN)

• The push to bypass Hormuz (Axios)

• ‘Enough Is Enough’: Lawmakers Criticize Trump Over Resumption of Iran War (Time)

• The Iran war and McConnell’s absence are complicating government funding talks (NBC)

• ICE halts most vehicle stops after Maine, Texas shootings, sources say (CBS)

• Trump says ICE should resume traffic stops after his own administration suspended them (CNN)

• ICE agent’s killing of Maine motorist is at least the ninth death in US immigration sweeps (AP)

• Supreme Court Justice Barrett says ‘the threat level is really high’ in budget testimony (CNBC)

• ‘I Am Frustrated’: Emails Show Blanche’s Role in Trump’s Retribution Campaign (NYT)

• RFK Jr. faces Hatch Act complaint after intervening in congressional races (WP)

• Opportunities Narrow for Women as Hegseth Blocks More Promotions (NYT)

• Outbreak of diarrhea from parasite expands to more states as US cases soar beyond last year’s level (CNN)

• WHO warns DR Congo Ebola outbreak may be double the official tally (Al Jazeera)

• The Ebola epidemic is getting out of control (Economist)

• Emails detail confusion in State Department over Trump plan to destroy contraceptives (WP)

• E. Jean Carroll Receives $5.6 Million Payment From Trump in Civil Case (NYT)

• Argentina court recognizes two goldfish as sentient beings with rights (CNN)

• This tech start-up is hiring local reporters and feeding their work to AI (WP)

• I used ChatGPT to build a personal operating system using a single prompt — now I can’t imagine working without it (Tom’s Guide)

• SoftBank Group's CEO says $5 trillion a year needed globally to meet AI demand (AP)

• China’s exports ride AI boom as domestic economy struggles (Reuters)

• New York becomes first state to impose data center moratorium (WP)

• Kash Patel Calls For Public’s Help Using Computer (Onion)

Tuesday Mix

 HEADLINES:

• Trump says US will blockade Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and charge ships for safe passage (AP)

• US bombs Iran again, Tehran strikes Gulf, tankers (Al Jazeera)

• Oil prices surge as Trump says blockade reinstated, U.S. to impose fees on Strait of Hormuz (CBS)

• Trump proposes 20% toll on cargo through Strait of Hormuz; restarts Iran blockade (CNBC)

• ICE agent shoots dead Colombian immigrant in Maine (EuroNews)

• ‘A key link’: Trump’s Senate whisperer is gone (Politico)

• Senate again confronts the challenges of an aging membership (WP)

• Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, set to be tapped to serve out Senate term (CBS)

• Lindsey Graham: The Good, the Bad, and the Banality of Evil (Bulwark)

• Trump’s sons invest heavily in defense tech as father’s administration pours money in (WP)

• Another Person Dies in Fatal ICE Shooting—a Week After the Last One (TNR)

• Judge says Trump sued IRS for ‘improper purpose’; refers his lawyer to bar (CNBC)

• The Supreme Court Isn’t Even Trying to Hide Its Worst Trait Anymore (Slate)

• How Putin Turned Japan Into a Den of Spies (NYT)

• Putin’s Spiraling Crisis Exposed by Russia’s Military Records (Daily Beast)

• Russia and America Are Rediscovering the Limits of Nuclear Weapons (Atlantic)

• Counterterrorism Police Take Over Investigation Into U.K. Lawmaker’s Death (NYT)

• European countries reported more than 10,000 excess deaths during the record-breaking heatwave that engulfed the west of the continent in late June, official data showed. (Reuters)

• California And 11 Other States Sue To Block Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger (Deadline)

• Prosecutors Went to Prison to Ask the Prisoners How to Fight Crime (NYT)

• Eat your ice cream for a long, healthy life? This doctor says so (NPR)

• One of sci-fi’s most difficult questions about AI is becoming real (WP)

• Massive AI buildout poses latest inflation threat as consumers pay more for laptops and electricity (AP)

• ‘Time To Become Immortal,’ Announces RFK Jr., Exposing Perineum Atop Solar Tower (Onion)