Unsightly Mental Blemishes

I don’t recall seeing these orange things before. iNaturalist suggests it’s a goldenrod soldier beetle, as does at least one friend.

I gotta say the roiling concerning the President’s recently being transported from Turkey to the UK in a plane other than Air Force One, and secretly at that, strikes me as a trifle artificial. After all, the President is the President, and the occasional subterfuge to keep him safe from attempts by national adversaries to assassinate him doesn’t strike me as a terrible crime.

Not like sending goons in ICE uniforms to Minnesota to try to spread terror.

Or continuing his lifelong grifting ways.

Or endangering NATO.

It feels more like his protectors did something unusual, but not criminal, and the critics had a freakout.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it was a terrible crime. But no one’s made an intelligent argument affirming that position, yet, on the matter.

Establishment strikes back in Wisconsin and other takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries

Dolts. This is an election, meaning a collective third party, the voters, made their preferences known. The Democratic establishment didn’t go roaring across the street with steel pipes and crowbars in hand.

Perhaps surprisingly, in the Case of the Reflecting Pool Fiasco, US Attorney Pirro as not been fired for doing the right thing in this Trump Administration, namely dropping the charges of vandalism against David Hearn for want of evidence, as well as evidence that the contractor botched the job.

Not yet, at least.

This failure to victimize a leading member of MAGA, former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, lowers the chances of the Trump Administration imploding, as a core of MAGA will remain loyal until Pirro, or someone of equal prominence, is unfairly victimized by the childish bully leading the Administration. That existential danger may be why Pirro is still in her job, although I’d guess an ally told Trump not to fire Pirro, rather than he figured it out himself.

But the drama continues until either she’s gone, or she files plausible charges against someone else for either this case, or some other.

You may have heard of Trump’s Golden Fleet of Trump-class battleships. You may have heard they’ll be expensive, and that they won’t have a use.

But of course they’ll have a use.

They’ll make for fine target ships.

Last week we saw our first two Fringe plays of this season’s offerings.

It’s-a-Me, a Musical! is based on SuperMario Brothers, games and movies and merchandise, stripped of enough detail to discourage lawyers bearing trademark infringement paperwork. It being a first-night presentation, it suffered from the usual technical glitches; but it also needed several rewrites of the script. As is, despite the earnest efforts of the performers, it’s not compelling, and my Arts Editor wants that hour of her life back. The one real plus? The production program was the best I’ve ever seen at a Fringe show. Alas, that didn’t save this production.

The second production of the night was the mystifying Fly Tape. Three siblings, speaking mostly in cliched slang, are rummaging through their late mother’s lifetime accumulation of stuff, discovering uncomfortable secrets along the way. Sadly, these performers, despite efforts that, again, can only be described as earnest, cannot overcome the script. I think that it’s a lack of chemistry, with a consequential glacier pace that did the presentation no favors. The mystery is the intermittent presence of a character who is auctioning off, through a puppet he carries, some of the mother’s possessions to the audience. If you choose to see this production, on entry keep an eye out for a basin of coins and scoop up one or two. You can use them to participate in the production.

Another visit on Thursday, we hope.

It’s classic Tuberville…

“I’m going to go back to Alabama and, hey, we might build a 30-foot wall around our state, because I know what’s coming. I can see it coming, I can hear it coming. You can just smell it out there, that they want to take this country over.”

“They’re a lot more aggressive than we are as Americans,” Tuberville said.

A spokesperson told AL.com Tuberville was referring to “radical Islamic terrorists who want to destroy America.” [AL.com]

At least the Senate won’t be putting up with him after next January. He’s running for Alabama governor in November.

Caping:

A cape is a sleeveless garment, tied around the neck from everyone from bullfighters to superheroes. Caping is slang for “defending or supporting” someone, especially someone considered unworthy of it. [Dictionary.com]

Ah. Noted in “Rep. Jim Jordan is meddling in South Korea’s war on disinformation,” Ja’han Jones, MS NOW:

One can easily read that excerpt and presume Jordan and his colleagues are just caping for Trump-aligned social media companies — such as Elon Musk’s X platform and the Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta — that have been known for spreading misinformation and disinformation and could face scrutiny under South Korea’s new law.

This sort of feels like the spastic actions of a failing empire, doesn’t it?

House Judiciary Committee Republicans sent a letter to the South Korea’s Media and Communications Commission on Thursday expressing their concern over recently adopted online regulations they say could allow the government to censor free speech and attack opposing viewpoints.

The letter, reported first by CNBC, calls for a briefing from South Korean officials on their plans to enforce an amendment to the country’s existing data privacy law, which took effect in July and has been dubbed the “fake news” law. It allows the government to issue fines to media outlets and content publishers with more than 100,000 subscribers if they intentionally spread false information.

“This amendment serves as a major threat to online speech and expression and would allow the KMCC to punish American companies and their users for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” the lawmakers, including House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote. [CNBC]

Trying to dictate another country’s actions, impose American laws on foreign lands, and all that rot. It almost strikes me as pathetic.

“How to project Ugly American while never leaving home Washington!”

It’s just so appropriate …

It was the mistake heard ’round the world. In late June, NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg misheard an announcement on the final day of the Supreme Court’s most recent term and reported that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring.

The report sent shockwaves through legal and political circles, but as NPR soon made clear, it was wrong and the conservative jurist had made no such announcement.

Nevertheless, the reporting generated a new round of chatter about Alito and his future, and in the weeks that followed the NRP error, … [Maddowblog]

Bold all mine, folks. Along with the chortling.

One of the ways President Trump has been regarded is as an avatar of the common sense voter. What is a common sense voter? You know the type; I can hear them echoing in my head. “It’s only common sense that …”

Quite often, but not always, a decision made by, or action initiated by President Trump or his minions, conforms to someone I’ve heard, or could have heard, saying, “Finally, President Trump has taken the common sense approach and …”

Yeah, my reader might have a relative that pops right to mind.

Or recognize themselves.

And it’s not confined to one political group. I’ve heard President Obama proclaim his propositions for gun control were “only common sense,” a statement that raises a couple of red flags for me. Heck, if I can stretch a point here, my own father, a liberal, claimed Social Security didn’t have to be in financial difficulties if they would only something something annuities. While the deadly phrase, common sense, was not attached, it was strongly implied.

To return to my primary point, President Trump’s Administration, from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s contemptuous proclamations, to White House communications director Stephen Cheung arrogant announcements and reproaches, to Hegseth’s well-groomed lunatic decisions, to the President himself, has issued a series of decisions, opinions, announcements, litigation, failures to act, and over-reactions, that has been a nearly uninterrupted series of disasters for the Administration.

This isn’t like previous Administrations where a few maneuvers, while well-meant, did not pan out. Yes, perhaps Biden’s stimulus was out of line; Obama, as I recall, tried to subsidize a solar power company, and that went belly-up.

But Trump and his minions make one bad decision after another. Pick your area and you’ll find a horde, such as RFK, Jr, and all of his decisions that hurt vaccines and the confidence we should have in them. It’s almost hard to find a good decision in the bunch, although my Arts Editor, a former banker, is in favor of the decision to kill off the penny.

And that’s the only one.

Yeah, in this plenitude of decisions, from starting a war with Iran to pardoning drug pushers and criminals so they’re beholden to Trump to firing members of the FBI simply because they were tasked with investigating Trump stealing papers to which he had no right to beginning planning for a useless class of battleships, his best decision was … to kill off the penny.

The rest, crippling our preventative health services and wasting our munitions and not throttling President Putin of Russia when the opportunity presented itself, has been a disaster.

And so we bear witness to the death and disaster that follows the common sense voter. They finally got their wish, and their common sense, used in place of the expertise which they do not possess, the evidence which they only wish they had, has played the United States into the hands of the Russians, the Iranians, and other adversaries, while betraying Canada and so many other allies.

Perhaps H. L. Mencken should be studied in high school, just for this quote:

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

In the future I dearly hope Trump and his common sense voters are generally recognized as a sign warning of the foolishness potential of being common sense. It’s just like pouring sugar in a gas tank.

Continuing the Truth API thread, here’s Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) (via yahoo!finance) with the beginning of a report on the first use of the Truth API feature of Truth Social:

Trump Media & Technology Group stock rose on Monday morning after its pricey new service kicked off on Saturday with a big success, essentially giving its institutional-investor customers a sneak peek at President Donald Trump’s “cancel the attack” on Iran post. Trump’s Truth Social post published at 10:05 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 1 announced that “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to” including immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Customers of the service that Trump Media & Technology Group announced on July 16 with an Aug. 1 launch date get a direct data feed that provides real-time access to posts, possibly seconds ahead of regular users.

And that’s not the half of it. While I do not have an IBD subscription, I did manage to access the entire article, and, well, this is appalling …

For Trump Media, which had just $871,200 in sales in Q1, the new Truth API service could be the ticket to its first substantial revenue. News reports indicate that charges for institutional investors, including high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms, may run as high as $100,000 a month for the service, or $60,000 per month for a three-year contract that would run beyond Trump’s second term in office. …

“Trump will want them to be happy with their new service,” Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, posted on X. “So expect more frequent market-moving posts.”

Corruption one way, corruption the other. Trump needs to provide more market moving posts in order to attract and keep customers of Truth API, so … what will he make up next? Announce an invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to secure rare metals for the United States?

And then he’ll discover he has to execute that invasion, otherwise Truth API loses value.

This is why an immature fascination with money is entirely inappropriate in government officials. Private and public interests are rarely in accordance.

That said, DJT price per share breached $10/sh again, and now sits at $10.23/sh. Does this mean it’s on its way up?

I don’t think so. The momentary success of Truth API may delay, but not suppress, the corruption inherent in that feature when it’s combined with Truth Social’s chief feature, the President. As investors view its use and performance, and think about the implications, as I’ve done above, the wise investors will walk away. Combine that with the ridiculous market cap of this company, and it seems highly unlikely that it’ll keep bobbing up this high.

Especially given the constant stream of bad news that seems to follow Trump from golf course to his office and back to the golf course.

We assumed this was a fashion show, but now we think it was closer to being an art installation. Enjoy!

REPUBLICANS SHOULD HAVE A CASE OF NERVES

Because the generic CNN Congressional poll gives the Democrats an 8 point lead.

Because their Party has quite a few dubious characters, such as Representatives Edwards and Miller, and there’s more than just them. Think Gaetz, Bondi, and others.

And Trump doesn’t have a magic wand.

THAT TIME AT THE BALLPARK WHEN A SINGLE HOME RUN WAS HIT AND …

… no other score. Yep, happened to me on a date. Haven’t gone to a ballgame since. Oh, and here’s the news:

• Third time … leaves me feeling a bit weirded out. But, yes, it’s happened.
  

  The Democratic Senate nominee in South Dakota ended his campaign Tuesday following calls from party activists to exit the race and leave independent Brian Bengs as the main competitor against Republican Sen. Mike Rounds.

  Julian Beaudion, a former state trooper, cited “extraordinary personal challenges,” including a house fire, financial struggles and “intimidating threats to drop out of this race,” as reasons for his decision.

  He said in a statement posted to social media that he has no plans to endorse either Bengs or Rounds. [Roll Call]

  First, let me state that I’m appalled that intimidating threats are occurring; we need to track down and imprison the perpetrators. Scaring folks out of the political process is not to be tolerated.

  Second, and for new readers who’ve not paid attention to political activity for the upcoming Senate elections, this is the third instance of a Democratic nominee dropping out of a three way Senate race. The two prior States have been Nebraska and Idaho; in Montana there’s a three way contest, but the Democratic nominee, Rep Alani Bankhead, protests that former UMontana president Seth Bodnar (I) has discriminated against women, and she’ll never drop in his favor, so a fourth will have to come from elsewhere.

• The Kansas City Star of Kansas has endorsed Pastor Adam Hamilton (D) in the Democratic primary; he has ten competitors. Hamilton can add that endorsement to that of former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

  The presumptive Republican nominee is the incumbent, Senator Roger Marshall (R).

  [A day later] And now we have primary results from 4 August. Senator Marshall won the Republican primary with roughly 80% of the vote. His opponent was Pond Naramore, who appears to be a moderate Republican, although I don’t have an On The Issues summation for him. That an unknown such as Naramore attracted 20% of the vote against a powerful incumbent says something, but nothing too significant, I suspect.

  In the Democratic primary the victor is Pastor Adam Hamilton in a badly fragmented vote; his percentage of the Democratic primary vote was only 34.9%. The remainder of the vote was spread among his ten competitors, with second place going to Christy Davis with 14.1% of the vote.

  I’d ask if the Democratic side of the slate can pull together, or if there is resentfulness of the late-comer Pastor, but here’s the important numbers: Senator Marshall outpolled the entirety of the Democratic primary field, and substantially. While using raw primary numbers for analysis of an upcoming general election is often highly misleading, right at the moment Marshall seems to be in a commanding position, despite his association with President Trump.

  Yet, professional forecasters have added a degree of uncertainty to their forecasts, according to the Kansas Reflector, moving from solid ‘R’ to likely ‘R’.

• According to Ballotpedia as of this writing, South Carolina’s special primary election to replace the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R) on the general election ballot still has five candidates, including Senator Darline Graham (R), who is his sister, and the notorious Mark Sanford, former governor of South Carolina, as well as former Representative of South Carolina’s 1st district.

  KTBS reports two polls were released last week:

  Graham led the poll from the Trafalgar Group released Friday with 27%. Norman and U.S. Rep. Russell Fry each snagged 17%.

  Norman led the poll from the Emerson College Polling Center released Thursday with 22%. Graham was next at 19%.

  The same report has the Republican count at nine, not five, but I think that’s a mistake. The special primary is scheduled for 11 August.

• In a rare Alabama Senate poll, by a pollster of whom I’ve not heard, named yes. every kid. foundation., Rep Barry Moore (R) leads Everett Wess (D), 47% – 32%. (If you like details, follow the link and then click on the second View Fullscreen big blue button.)

  Analysis of this poll is foolhardy, as I don’t know quality of the pollster, but I cannot help but note that a 15 point Republican lead is a far cry from the last Senate race in Alabama. In 2022, now-Senator Katie Britt (R) defeated Will Boyd (D) by 36 points. Has Alabama shifted twenty points towards the center?

  Or is Wess a more appealing candidate? Or even Moore a less appealing candidate?

  Pun intended.

• Texas Southern University, in the same range as other polls from academic institutions in Texas, gives James Talarico (D) a 47% – 45% lead over Ken Paxton (R), with a margin of error of ±2.83 points, so realistically it’s a tie. Talarico has a roughly 18 point lead in the net viewed favorably part of the poll, which makes me wonder how easily Paxton might attract more votes compared to his rival.

  The Texas Pulse Poll (Texas A&M) has a similar result of a four point lead, 47% – 43%, as does 254 Labs/YouGov, 48%-45%.

  Old-time blogger Paul Waldman has an observation on the race:

  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, after ousting incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary, is in a tight race with state Sen. James Talarico. At first, Paxton and his allies focused on defining his opponent as “low-T Talarico” — a radical left-wing ideologue bent on sapping the testosterone from manly Texas men. But last week Paxton changed tunes, introducing an economic plan with new and expanded tax breaks for things like health care, child care and housing. The accompanying ad sounds the same notes you’ll hear from most of the Democrats running for office in this election. “Washington is making it harder than ever to get ahead,” he says in the ad. “And the American Dream is slipping away as the cost of everything from housing to health care rises.”

  Wait — doesn’t Trump say we’re living in a “golden age” of boundless prosperity? [MS NOW]

  Will Trump take this betrayal by a candidate he’s endorsed lying down? In view of today’s job report, might he have to?

  It also occurs to me that, if Ken Paxton does win, how long will it take for him to start agitating for Senatorial immunity for crimes committed in office?

• 

  On The Issues: Senator Mark Warner (D).

  In Virginia the 4 August primary yielded Senator Warner (D), unopposed in the primary, as the Democratic nominee, and Bert Mizusawa (R) as the Republican nominee. Mizusawa is a retired US Army major general and has relevant degrees and work experience, according to Ballotpedia. His victory was with 51.5% of the vote, so the Republicans seem fragmented. I heard nothing of substance concerning this primary; the last Republican Senator from Virginia was George Allen, serving 2001-2007, so it’s not impossible that Warner could lose.

• The Iowa Senate race is tight, with an Emerson College poll giving Rep Hinson (R) a 47.5% – 45% lead over Josh Turek (D). I found the name recognition portion of the poll interesting, as nearly 10% of respondents had not heard of Mr Turek, while only 4% had not heard of Rep Hinson. It suggests there may be some room for Turek to pick up some undecided’s votes.

  A recemt Fox News poll had given Turek a four point lead.

• On 6 Aug the Tennessee primary elections determined the incumbent, Senator Haggerty (R), will compete with challenger Marquita Bradshaw (D), who won with 54.7% of the Democratic vote. She’s an environmental activist who has not held political office, despite running in the 2020 and 2024 Senate races. She won the primary in 2020, upsetting the favorite.

  Despite being unopposed, the Senator outpolled the entire Democratic field of five hopefuls by nearly double, 623,538 to 333,605. Bradshaw has quite a cliff to climb, and there may not be enough Tennessee independent voters hauling on that rope to get her to the top.

• KSTP/SurveyUSA have a new poll out for Minnesota showing Rep Craig (D) leading Lt Governor Flanagan (D) in the race for the Democratic nomination for Senator Klobuchar’s (D) Senate seat by 2 points, 42% – 40%, and I can attest they continue to go at each other hammer and tongs in commercials. My personal favorite is that Rep Craig is a puppet of “crypto-pharma.”

  On the Republican side, Michelle Tafoya is even more dominant than the previous report claimed, leading 48% – 13% over Royce White.

• The North Carolina GOP nominee for the North Carolina Senate seat, Michael Whatley (R), has apparently been nominated for the Nevada governor’s seat as well by President Trump. Yeah, don’t ask me.
• Senator Ossoff (D) of Georgia has picked up some endorsements:
  

  In the span of three days, former Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson and Tifton Mayor Julie Smith all announced they are backing Ossoff’s reelection campaign over Republican nominee U.S. Rep. Mike Collins. [CBS News]

  Not that I think he needs them.

• And in Michigan, the favorite of pundits everywhere, on 4 Aug Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (D) did beat Rep Haley Stevens (D) for the Democratic nomination for the to-be-open Senate seat in this State, 48.5% – 47.5. As it happens, Mallory McMorrow (D) also won 4% of the vote, so some may argue if she had withdrawn from the race officially, rather than unofficially, Stevens might have won. I think the more realistic conclusion is to admit it’s impossible to know who that 4% would have voted. McMorrow had indicated disdain for Party leader Schumer, so we might conclude El-Sayed would have received those votes, but the On The Issues summations of El-Sayed and Stevens are close to identical, although El-Sayed has a paucity of data behind it.

  Rep Stevens has immediately pivoted back to the campaign trail:

  “I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election.

  Notably, most of the polls did not mirror these results. Emerson College’s last poll gave El-Sayed a 15 point lead, Tavern Research a 10 point lead, Mitchell Research a 14 point lead – you get the point. Will this unreliability carry over to the general election? There’s a conversation here at the Times, but it’s behind a paywall for which I have not paid for access.

BETTIN’ ON A NEW PARTY?

Honestly, as tempting as it may be, no, I’m not. Successfully founding and running a Party is a very difficult operation, and I don’t see that happening just because some independents are considered to be competitive.

That said, the Big Tents both parties claim to pursue are double-edged swords. OK, mixed metaphor. But my point is this: get enough special interest groups together and alignments of interests becomes difficult. Individuals find they have to be pro-choice, pro-transgender, this, that, the other thing, and some political folks can’t do it. Or, if they’re evangelical Christians then they must be pro-life and hate the ‘baby-killers,’ burn books deemed offensive, disbelieve climate change, and some more etcs.

Independents often discard these requirements, or mix selections to satisfy their moralities, their ambitions, their desires. If they happen to have a collection of such that matches the voters’, they may win. From this, the Parties may or may not adapt. While both Parties seem quite rigid today, tomorrow may bring a change because it’s better to adjust than become a political irrelevancy, which is a well-loathed fate by most politicos.

The simple fact that 3-4 independents look competitive suggests the post-season could be quite interesting, once some facts have been established beyond dispute. I look forward to that.

The Fringe starts tonight, folks, and while it’s come down a bit from its pre-pandemic heights, it can still be fun. We’ll be attending a few shows, constrained by our various surgeries and recoveries there from.

Contumacy:

1.  obstinate and wilful rebelliousness or resistance to authority; insubordination; disobedience
2.  the wilful refusal of a person to appear before a court or to comply with a court order [Collins Dictionary]

This seemed familiar, but I can’t find it on the blog, so I guess not. Noted in “Peter Navarro inches closer to Supreme Court in his Jan. 6 subpoena contempt appeal,” Jordan Rubin, MS NOW:

“Because President Trump did not, in fact, invoke executive privilege, neither the Select Committee’s subpoena nor the prosecution for Dr. Navarro’s contumacy in the face of that subpoena presents the separation-of-powers concerns of which Dr. Navarro complains,” the panel said last month in rejecting his appeal.

Too bad, kid. Best to wear your conviction with faux-pride.

Primary Day, in Missouri, is also Amendment Day, and the most important Amendment priority for Governor Kehoe (R) didn’t do well:

Missouri voters have rejected Amendment 5, declining to give lawmakers a blank check to raise or expand sales taxes, something some lawmakers sought to enable enormous income tax cuts for the state’s wealthiest households. By doing so, voters in the Show-Me State set a positive example for states around the country, turning away from what would have been one of the most damaging tax policy changes in any state in recent years.

Otherwise divided voters were united in rejecting redistributing taxes away from the wealthy, with just 17 percent of voters casting their ballots in favor. Despite a well-funded campaign and no signs of wholesale rejection of their elected leaders, Missourians across the state rejected their governor’s biggest priority. [ITEP]

A symptom of one of the toxic influences on Republican politics. If rich people want to reduce their relative tax burden, then raise corporate taxes. They’ll pass on their additional tax burden to their customers, because heaven forbid their investors take the hit, and it’ll be quite popular.

If the Republicans want to become unpopular, keep on trying to undertax the wealthy. It’s a bit like splashing one’s self with hot tar and then jumping in a lake. Splash splash.

I found this report on Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) encounter with MAGA fascinating:

Yet [Mullin] apparently isn’t good enough for MAGA die-hards. They’re furious and calling for his ouster over comments he made Saturday at a National Governors Association meeting in which he drew a distinction between legal and illegal immigration, and also suggested immigration reform would be a good idea in the long term because it’s needed to help the economy grow. [Zeeshan Aleem, MS NOW]

What did he say?

Over the weekend, Mullin told the National Governors Association Summer Meeting that in order to grow the economy, there needs to be more employment visas for the farm and agriculture sector, which some Republicans have tried to change out of concern that those who use them will be taking Americans’ jobs.

“Because this narrative that it steals American jobs is true in some industries, it’s not true for all industries,” he said during a fireside chat moderated by NGA chair Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt. “We want to take care of Americans first. It’s our economy, it’s our homeland, but there’s a way to utilize labor where we’re not having the participation rate we need to, and we can plug those holes.” [ABC News]

I think that, to the dispassionate observer – sure, go look that up, I’ll wait – that’s actually the beginning of a nuanced conversation, even if it looks like maybe Mullin dropped a word here or there.

MAGA is given to neither being dispassionate or, in fact, analysis.

We could discuss this in the context of apparent MAGA precepts, or the impact of the loss of immigration on the economy, or several other contexts, but I find more interesting what the future behavior of MAGA might be. We need to remember that, like most human institutions, there’s a power structure involved, whether it’s your local club for collecting post-stamps, or the “Catholic Church hierarchy.”

In an organization centered around disputes with central societal assumptions, in this case tolerance of variations in such human attributes as skin color, immigrant, religion, and other such attributes, the important valuations center around purity, and rejection of anything that might imperil such purity, and so what I think we’re going to see is rejection of nuance, of compromise, and the very idea that MAGA can be wrong. Instead, much like the Republican Party, discussion within the group will center around who can go further into the extremes of ideology and, importantly, arrogance. These will be the valuations upon which judgments of social position will pivot, and the ambitious will strive to find more and more ‘pure’ positions.

In other words, look for MAGA positions to become more and more extreme, and MAGA attitudes to become more and more arrogant.

I don’t expect MAGA to grow appreciably; indeed, the drive towards purity may result in the ejection, voluntary and involuntary, of members. Some will not qualify for membership, and some will become disgusted, either by the perceived weakness of the organization or by the consequences of the group dynamics. Will there be a wall where no ideological warrior can move even further right?

But I had been ignoring MAGA as likely to dissolve – and I still expect them to dissolve. But they’ll be making a racket for while longer, it seems.

President Trump has not yet fired U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro over her doing the right thing with regards to the Reflecting Pool debacle, but he might as well have done so:

The pool’s problems had sparked tirades from Trump inside the White House, and the president soon grew angry for another reason: Pirro did not give the White House a heads-up about dropping the charges, a White House official said. The president spoke with her by phone Saturday to discuss the decision, a call first reported by CNN.

Trump publicly turned his ire on Pirro too, saying on social media he disagreed “100%” with her decision and again insisting that vandals were to blame. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum chimed in to agree that vandals “repeatedly” damaged the site, claiming the acts were caught on camera and insisting his agency had been forthcoming with Justice Department lawyers. [WaPo]

So he’s embarrassed her, criticizing her actions and her judgment. Will this diminish her admiration for someone who, frankly, is a failure at darn near anything he tries?

Or will she live up to her reputation of being no-nonsense, resign, and go out with return insults?

And how about Secretary Burgum? He claims to have evidence of vandalism on camera. If so, then Pirro’s office should be able to use same for prosecuting a case. Her failure to do so suggests Burgum’s either lying through his teeth in order to please Trump, or his understanding of what he has is deeply flawed. Neither is an admirable position.

And is this another step on the way to impeachment and conviction? It depends on how much more amateur hour bullshit Republican members of Congress can tolerate, and that’s a hard number to quantify.

For those readers maintaining an interest, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp went live with their Truth API on Saturday. How do I feel about this? Let’s start with the announcement:

“Markets already move on Truth Social posts,” Truth Media’s McGurn wrote at the time of the announcement. “Truth API delivers a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving Truths while advancing our strategy to monetize proprietary assets through a high-margin, recurring revenue stream.” [CNBC]

Unfortunately, he’s probably right. Libertarians should be shivering in horror at this juncture, as this is clear evidence of government interfering in free markets. But is that the position of their customers, or are they too focused on making money and keeping their shareholders happy to actually think about the implications of this entire sordid mess?

Then there’s the true conservatives in this context – Senators Warren (D-MA) and Schiff (D-CA):

“This appears to be an outrageous abuse of the President’s office for his personal benefit that undermines everyday investors and the integrity of our markets, while enriching Wall Street and other wealthy insiders,” they wrote in a letter to SEC chair Paul Atkins dated Tuesday.

If you’re busy being outraged at the thought of those two Senators being conservative, keep it in context. They’re calling for government not to interfere in the private sphere, especially for personal gain. Plenty of liberals and conservatives have been caught with their hand in the cookie jars, to be sure, and mutter about that if you must. It’s corruption.

But it’s worth a bit of contemplation concerning corruption. Why is it so bad? Because corruption misdirects societal resources for critical services. Just as putting investor desires for return on investment first in the corporate world, corruption’s purpose of skimming resources, whether it’s product, information, or wealth, changes how resources are distributed – and reduces efficiency, sometimes drastically.

That’s why the concern over corruption, whether it’s Fat Leonard corrupting naval officers, or Donald Trump corrupting his own Administration. Misdirecting resources can result in chaos and disaster.

Well, I’m a bit far afield here, so I’ll stop and let your mind wander on the various subjects.

For science geeks, the Big Rip refers to a hypothesized future astrophysics phenomenon in which atoms themselves rip apart as the Universe expands.

But for my purposes, this news, a continuation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool debacle and the arrest of David Hearn for vandalism of same, may be a big red flag:

The felony indictment that [former Fox News host and current District of Columbia U. S. Attorney Jeanine] Pirro’s office brought alleged that Hearn had caused more than $1,000 worth of damage to the Reflecting Pool. It was a facially absurd claim when it was made on July 2 in a Pirro press conference that was roundly mocked at the time.

Unsurprisingly, the indictment did not stick.

Less than a month later, Pirro and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael P. Spence filed Friday’s motion to dismiss the indictment against Hearn. [Law Dork]

President Trump violently disagreed with Pirro’s activities, and you can find that at the Law Dork link.

When analyzing this incident, it’s important to keep in mind that US Attorney Pirro, when she was a Fox News host, was an avid Trump fan, even agreeing with his election-denial position, regardless of the lack of evidence; no doubt that and her former position as a judge led to her nomination by Trump, and her confirmation by the Senate, as US Attorney for D. C.

Now he’s shriekingly angry at her for withdrawing a false accusation^[1] and admitting the whole incident is a farce, all because it thrusts the fault for the embarrassing and expensive incident back on the President.

Chasing away your most ardent fans is not a path to success; this is how those he counts on for loyalty and protection suddenly find a reason to turn on their sugar daddy and melt him in a pot. This could be the precipitating incident for Trump loyalists in the Cabinet, in the House, and in the Senate to quietly consider how to remove him from office and from influence.

Nothing may happen. Heavens knows the loyalists have had to ignore fallacious economic theories, fallacious war theories, humiliating Cabinet meetings, and a petty, boastful, grasping President who makes decisions based on personal loyalties rather than objective merit; many of them no doubt revel in their elevated, and often unearned, social positions. Some may have used their positions for grifting.

But realizing the society in which they exist is being put through a cheese-grater will occur to some of them, and that the consequent loss of national prestige among the community of nations is damage to themselves. I’m guessing there’ll be a delay as folks organize, and one day Trump will be dumped out of the White House on his ass, and his Secret Service detachment either replaced with a smaller group or even, in extreme circumstances, withdrawn.

All ignited by this small incident.

¹ A not unknown phenomenon in Trump’s life, as those who remember the shameful Central Park 5 accusations are aware.

At least they served dinner.
You’re quite sure?
Well, not quite. Merely sure.
You fluster me, sir. Fluster me.
If you insist. The dinner was a dessert?
Not at all. Olives are not a dessert.
I say. With enough sugar, anything’s a dessert.
Ah, so much nonsense. Puns do not exist in this hotel, so prey do not employ them here. I have not the funds to pay them. Their teeth are sharp and their claws are borrowed from the snickety-snick!
The tax auditor was snatched up and eaten while inventing an adequate response to this breath-taking assertion. His scuba tank fell off when it happened, but the inspector missed the clue twelve hours later.

Mr. K (2024) is where you go if you need your fix of surrealism. Mr. K, a sleight-of-hand magician, has been invited to entertain at a hotel. His stay rapidly transforms into a trap as the hotel itself seeks to contain him, shunting him from kitchen to his room to another room to, well, perhaps that was Alice of Wonderland.

All the while the purposes of hotel and story remain obscure. That’s about all I can really say, as the story becomes more and more obtuse, and when an escape finally is presented, I can only wonder if it’s really an escape, or another trap.

Like I said, surrealism. If you like it, great, have at it, have fun. If you don’t, though, this may not be your cup of tea.

THE BAD NEWS TSUNAMI

Republicans are facing a wave of bad news, and it’s mostly their leader that has them in a pickle, with a fair seasoning of their own inability to say No! to their little child of a leader. I could cite Trump’s War and how it’s sucking in various players, or the threats to the nearby and critical Suez Canal, or we could move on to an economy that is so worrying the Federal Reserve that at their recent quarterly meeting, the leaders of the various Banks leaders didn’t even consider reducing interest rates, as demanded by President Trump, but held them steady while reporting some of the leaders recommended a rate increase. Or we could talk about his various distractions, such as redesigning Dulles Airport, or the Qatari-gifted airliner that needs upgrading, or the Medicare subsidy cancellation, … so many other problems.

But let’s go with a poll from highly respected Quinnipiac University:

Thirty-two percent of voters approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president, while 58 percent disapprove, with 10 percent not offering an opinion.

Trump’s 32 percent approval is an all-time low approval rating for him in a Quinnipiac University poll.

This may be especially hurtful to the GOP Senators …

Twenty-nine percent of voters think Donald Trump is focused enough on addressing the problems most Americans are facing, while 68 percent think he is not focused enough on addressing the problems most Americans are facing.

By the time the November elections comes around, voters may be asking why the GOP caucus in Congress did not remove the President as soon as problems appeared. And vote accordingly.

HERE’S THAT CAVE WHERE YOU LEFT YOUR TOY MONSTERS

They said that was from last week and they don’t want them.

• Remember the recent action in Nebraska wherein Democratic nominee Cindy Burbank declared she couldn’t beat incumbent Senator Ricketts (R) and withdrew in favor of Dan Osborn (I)? It’s happening again in Idaho:
  

  The Democratic candidate who hoped to unseat U.S. Sen. Jim Risch in Idaho announced Tuesday that he is dropping out of the race, leaving Independent Todd Achilles as the challenger to the longtime Republican.

  David Roth, who won the Democratic primary in May, said he was proud of his campaign and believes in what Democrats are fighting for across Idaho, but decided to shift his efforts to other areas.

  “I have concluded that I can make the greatest difference by focusing my time and energy on helping Democrats win up and down the ballot and in communities across Idaho,” he wrote in a statement. [Idaho Statesman]

  Mr Achilles doesn’t appear to be a slouch, according to Ballotpedia, with time in the US Army, various degrees in economics and international relations, time in corporate America, and a couple of years in the Idaho statehouse, albeit on appointment rather than winning an election.

  So does Mr Achilles have a chance? Some parts of the country are hungry to kick out old politicians, and Senator Risch (R) is 83. Public Policy Polling (PPP) thinks he could be ejected. Me? The information at PPP struck me as a trifle fantastical and speculative. Show me a poll from a highly-rated pollster.

• Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat currently held by Maine Senator Collins (R-ME) is up for grabs:
  

  Jackson said Maine voters do not think the federal government is working for them and are looking for a change. “There’s an energy like I’ve never seen of people that are frustrated. They’re fed up,” he said.

  “We can have much better government than we have right now, and people in Maine are going to show up in November, and Susan Collins is in trouble,” he added. [MS NOW]

  But Mainers know Senator Collins. Certain of her votes in the Senate have certainly been unpopular, but the mark of a good politician is the ability to turn what looks unpopular into a badge of honor. In today’s polarized climate, however, that feat is more difficult to accomplish than in previous decades. And Maine is … the nation’s oldest state, according to Census.gov. That may work against Jackson.

• North Carolina’s getting a bit of love in this issue of Campaign Update as the national GOP tries to claw back the Senator Tillis (R) seat, which former Governor Cooper (D-NC) currently has in a headlock:
  

  The Senate’s top GOP super PAC is launching a $17 million summer ad campaign in North Carolina — its largest reservation anywhere in the country so far this cycle, underscoring the state’s importance to Republicans’ hopes of defending their Senate majority.

  The investment, shared first with POLITICO, is the first tranche of Senate Leadership Fund’s previously announced plan to spend $71 million in North Carolina this year. It comes as early public polling shows Democrat Roy Cooper, the state’s popular former governor, with a lead over GOP nominee Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair. [POLITICO]

  $71 million seems excessive, as I continue to ignore Trump’s Inflation forcing prices up. But it seems Republicans think they can expose weaknesses in Cooper’s record. The problem with this assertion? The Republicans have spent much of the last few years being absolutely tone-deaf, which is also true of the Democrats. But Cooper has struck me as not so tone-deaf, having won two governor races in this Republican state.

  

  On The Issues: Gov Roy Cooper (D-NC).

  Meanwhile, highly respected Fox News Poll is giving Cooper a 53% – 44% lead over Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee for Tillis’ Senate seat. Of particular interest was that Cooper voters are mostly interested in voting for Cooper, but Whatley voters are 46% voting against Cooper. While that doesn’t directly address the enthusiasm question, it is suggestive of a Democratic advantage in that department. Add in that nearly half of participants were concerned Whatley is too close to the profoundly unpopular President, and Whatley will need to step away from Trump in order to make a move on Cooper.

• Another clutch of polls for Michigan: In the Democratic primary, Mitchell Research has Abdul El-Sayed (D) with a 52% – 38% lead over Rep Haley Stevens, while the defunct Mallory McMorrow (D) is at 4%, trailing Undecideds, who are at 7%. This is a larger lead for El-Sayed than Mitchell’s prior poll. However, the margin of error is ±4.85 points with n=406 likely primary voters, which is not all that large.

  Meanwhile, in another poll Mitchell has Republican nominee and former Rep Rogers in a tie with El-Sayed at 45%, while Rogers leads Stevens by 3 points, 46% – 43%. Margin of error is ±3.77%.Emerson College Polling has El-Sayed with a 54% – 39% lead, impossible to overcome using only undecideds, so Rep Stevens will have to convince El-Sayed leaners to lean towards herself. I know Emerson had better ratings than Mitchell, so this one should worry Rep Stevens.Finally, unknown Tavern Research gives El-Sayed a 46% – 36% lead, again substantial. Polls can be badly wrong, but three, including Emerson, leaning against Rep Stevens must cast a shadow on her chances.

• The Texas GOP may want to contract with Austin, TX, for a heaping bucket of the blues. The highly respected Fox News Poll does not have good news for them as Democrat James Talarico (D) leads state AG Ken Paxton (R) 51% – 48%, with a margin of error of ±3 points. Of course, the Democrats should lead by more, and that should tell them something, too. But, like the Republicans, they are too arrogant to listen, I expect.

IS CHANGE IN THE AIR?

Not usually, but I never expected to see even a hint that Idaho might be in play. Let’s be frank, it’s still not likely that Senator Risch (R-ID) will lose, but, like the Minnesota Twins game Thursday night in which they were beat until they weren’t, often dominance doesn’t seem to be beatable until someone grits their teeth and doesn’t stop and overturns the unbeatable.

Or, for those of us who favor brevity, persistence pays off.

While the odds are still with their opponents, these two independents could herald the beginning of the replacements for the major Parties of today.

Remember the excitement over SpaceX going public? Well, since then, as of yesterday …

The price per share high was $225 or so, so it’s lost not 25%, as this six month chart shows, but 50% or so.

Not pleasant.

To me, a market cap is the result of investors future expectations of the stock, that being dividends and the likelihood that other investors, for good reason or bad, will bid the price up. Sure, there’s going short, calls, puts, and more outré forms of investing, but that’s the essence. Fundamentals, which are the analysis of the various numbers associated with running a business, technicals, which is the application of mass psychology to the investor class and often seems delusional, stand along side the story aspect of investing: associated with the estimate of the market size, it’s the rationalization of why this company will grow, and in turn grow the return on investment.

Will SpaceX ever grow into its market cap? At its high of $205/sh and an outstanding share count of 10,607,000,000, we’re talking a market cap of $2.17T at one point, which seems huge to me, especially for a company not yet showing a product. But what about its market and story? I’ll leave the market to others, especially since that’ll depend on Mr Musk’s objectives over the next few years, but note that SpaceX’s ownership structure is atypical and concentrates control in the hands of Mr. Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has been erratic over the last few years, demonstrating an inclination to bulldoze his way through obstacles, rather than finding proper and clever paths. While he deserves, and gets, credit for his products congruent with green thinking, his intellectual vulnerabilities apparent in his conspiracy theory mindset and the DOGE debacle make him a sketchy leader.

The SpaceX future becomes a problem in dueling stories: the supposedly immense riches of outer space vs Musk’s erratic behavior in combination with the immense technical challenges of his enterprise. I’ve owned shares of that solar power company that was bought by Tesla, and so I’ve owned Tesla shares as well. Yes, the romanticism attaching to SpaceX is alluring, but I shall have none of it. Elon Musk has been erratic and, in the end, will have disgraced himself with his DOGE antics. Too easily his companies might just collapse.