Monthly Archives: August 2026

In the week since my last note on Trump Media & Technology Group (stock symbol DJT), the price of a share terminated its brief sojourn above $10 to $8.27 in what must have been a discouraging turn of events for the amateur investors who are known to have initially crowded onto this leaky boat.

I’ve not seen any evidence or announcements of their cryptocurrency “treasury” being liquidated, and I’d interpret this report to confirm that perception:

Falling cryptocurrency prices took a heavy toll on Trump Media & Technology Group during the second quarter, saddling the Truth Social parent company with a $238 million net loss—a steep increase from the $20 million it lost a year earlier.

In its second-quarter earnings report, Trump Media said the “vast bulk” of the loss came from non-cash charges rather than money spent or assets sold. Those included more than $190 million in unrealized losses across digital assets, pledged digital assets, and equity securities. …

The report did not disclose how much of that quarterly hit came from Bitcoin alone. [decryptvia yahoo!/finance]

The drop in the value of bitcoins and $TRUMP may have also contributed to the short term drop as well as not auguring well for the future. Here are their trailing seven day charts:

Bitcoin from CoinMarketCap.

$TRUMP from CoinMarketCap.

A contributing factor for DJT’s sudden slump? Last week I mentioned the corruptive potential of their new Truth API offering; this week …

On Wednesday, The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court, targeting Truth API, a service launched by Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. (NASDAQ:DJT) on Aug. 1.

The service charges between $60,000 and $100,000 a month for early access to posts from 10 prominent Truth Social accounts, including Trump’s.

The plaintiffs argue that the arrangement effectively places presidential communications behind a pay-to-access system and violates constitutional protections that require equal access to government information. [BENZINGA via yahoo!/finance]

Will the judicial system buy into the argument? I don’t know. But this confluence of events surely doesn’t favor DJT, now does it?

Belle of the Ranch suggests this entire episode was scripted to control the news cycle. Is Trump’s War going badly? Well, rather than having news about shrinking missile stockpiles and morale, imply the nasty ol’ Iranians threatened the President, and he ended up waving most of his staff and the covering news reporters around as a decoy.

It certainly reduces the coverage of the news implying Trump is an incompetent, doesn’t it?

Today we made it to only a single Minnesota Fringe Festival show, probably the last we’ll see this season.

Is That Why? is one of those shows that has to work to find its home, and the Fringe is probably that home. In this show, Ari Hoptman, who teaches classes concerning the German language at the University of Minnesota as his day job, presents a number of interesting, unconnected facts and explanations – or mysteries – about linguistics in a rapid fire manner for a good hour. I don’t know where he gets the energy for this, because I was exhausted but fascinated when he finished. He covers mostly Germanic languages, such as the true difference between High and Low German, but also occasionally treks off into Finnish and more obscure corners of the linguistic world. If this sounds interesting and you’re considering seeing his final show for this season’s Fringe, which is tomorrow (Sunday 16 August), be warned this is only of smallest venues of the Fringe, so show up early and put away that claustrophobia doll – there’ll not be room for it.

Steve Benen remains mystified by the habits of President Trump:

“We totally control the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said. “We have control over it. Nobody else, only us.” He added soon after, “We have total control over the Hormuz Strait right now. They don’t have control. We have total control. We own it.”

A day earlier, the American president similarly insisted that the Strait of Hormuz is “open now,” adding that the U.S. is “the only one that has control” over the waterway.

I am mindful that “Trump says false thing” is not a headline that generates a lot of attention, but this is qualitatively worse than the Republican’s usual nonsense. In the midst of a war, the president is (a) aware of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz; (b) negotiating with Iran in the hopes of ending its control over the Strait of Hormuz; and (c) bragging incessantly about Iran’s lack of control over the Strait of Hormuz. [Maddowblog]

Trump’s behavior is quite the denial of reality, isn’t it? And then, as CNN reports, it goes even further:

Iran said the key waterway “cannot be seized with a tweet” after President Donald Trump claimed he would declare the strait US territory after the war.

My bold.

Now, claims that President Trump is waging a one-man propaganda war against Iran are certainly plausible, as are assertions that this is part of an effort to blunt the numerous Trump’s War criticisms, and their authors, in preparation for the mid-term elections. Less noised about, but, again, within the realm of possibility, are satisfying his need, generated by the undeniable pathological narcissism afflicting him, for acquiring public glory through conquering territory and growing the American Empire, such as it is. It might be successfully argued that the repetition is a little difficult to rationalize in this scenario.

But, to my mind, the explanation which covers the facts best was, and I apologize to long-term readers who tired of my repeated references, provided by Chad Bauman in 2020.

With diffuse roots but emerging most forcefully midway through the twentieth century in Pentecostal and charismatic circles, prosperity theology draws selectively on biblical passages (chief among them John 10:10, in which Jesus says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”) to insist that God desires our physical and financial prosperity. Our task, in a phrase popularized by the movement (and its detractors), is to “name it and claim it.” …

The president’s admiration for prosperity theology is well-documented. He was raised in Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church, which was pastored by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, whose The Power of Positive Thinking, was a key text in the prosperity movement and took the nation by storm. [Religion Dispatches]

Trump’s naming and claiming the Strait of Hormuz, quite literally. If he does it enough, God will capsize to his desires and reward him. Yep, I do think he believes that. Or is, at least, so frankly desperate enough to take a shot at it.

Do I take Trump seriously in this matter? Not at all. No one else should. But we can expect some more empty-headed chanting from our morality-free President.

Leucism:

• Leucism is a condition with a partial loss of pigment in the skin, fur, or feathers.
• The eyes remain unaffected, retaining normal pigmentation (typically black or pigmented).
• This condition is caused by a genetic anomaly, usually recessive in nature. [GeeksForGeeks]

Noted in this news report, “Photographer captures rare white loon in Canada,” Jeff Wagner, CBS Minnesota:

Dale Gentry, the director of conservation for Audubon Upper Mississippi River, said it’s shocking to see a loon with such a color. “I’ve never seen one in person, and I’ve only seen pictures on the internet,” said Gentry. “Albinism and a leucistic bird, they have some sort of genetic change that influences the genes that code for a pigment in their feathers called melanin.”

Pictures at the CBS Minnesota link, above. If you know loons, the photos are a trifle shocking.

A poll from The Economist/YouGov is not encouraging for those few still on the side of the President. This would be Question 3, Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President?:

              Total
Approve       33% ...
Disapprove    62% ...

Then there’s Question 23, If the elections for U.S. Congress were being held today, who would you vote for in the district where you live?

                            Total
The Democratic candidate    40%
The Republican candidate    32%

And on and on. Those clouds you’re trying to touch? Your plane is in a death spiral.

THE MORE THINGS DON’T CHANGE

… the deeper the swamp becomes? The AG position at the DOJ has been officially filled by Todd Blanche, formerly personal attorney for the President, who mysteriously worked hard to be approved by a skeptical Congress. Republican Senators Murkowski and Collins voted against him.

Collins called Blanche “a capable lawyer,” but she said the Department of Justice (DOJ) under his leadership [as assistant and later acting AG] has “become increasingly political.”

She cited several actions that she believe have “further eroded the department’s independence” as “the basis for my vote to oppose his confirmation.” [The Hill]

President Trump was furious with Murkowski, but not Collins.

Trump’s War continues to burn, U.S.S. Lincoln is setting records for deployments and consequential drop in morale, public disapproval of the President continues to mount, and VP Vance looks like a deer in the headlights, when he’s seen at all.

Who wants to vote for chaos?

NATIONAL UNDERCLOTHES

Try not to have accidents, unlike last time.

• In what might have been the marquee event of the last week or so, the 11 August Republican special primary election in South Carolina did not yield an outright winner and nominee. Senator D. Graham (R) took 32.8%, Rep Norman (R) won 23.5%, followed by Russell Fry, Mark Sanford, and Mark Lynch. The first two advance to a run off, scheduled for 25 August. Notably, 40% of the vote might be classified as “not Darline Graham,” so I think Rep Norman has a shot at winning the special primary, and if he were to do so he’d be the presumptive Senator from South Carolina – and, by losing, D. Graham would become yet another Trump-endorsee who found the burden too great to bear. Can Rep Norman do it?

  In other news, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) is endorsing Senator D. Graham for the seat, while businessman Mark Lynch, who came in fifth place in the primary, endorsed Rep Norman.

• Minnesota held its primaries on 11 August, and for the Senate Michelle Tafoya won the GOP nomination over GOP-endorsed Adam Schwarze, who did beat the polls with a 23.5% portion of the votes, much better than said polls predicted. The Democratic primary voters selected Lt Governor Flanagan over Rep Craig, and by a significant margin: 58.9% to 39.5%, close to 20 points. The last few polls had suggested an exceedingly tight race in which Rep Craig’s superior finances might provide the advantage, but no; professional political analysts credit Flanagan’s ground game. I understand from some voters that they were offended by the tail of commercials from Craig, so perhaps Craig or her allies misunderstood Minnesota sensibilities.

  Mz Tafoya, as I heard on MPR, proclaims herself beholden to neither Party nor President, and supports abortion rights. I see this as a necessary beginning in a State in which most voters consider the President to be a moral and practical failure, but I doubt Tafoya will win the Senate seat.

• In Montana Seth Bodnar’s (I) and Rep Bankhead’s (D) opportunities to withdraw in favor of the other have passed. Can either beat both the other and the third candidate with a real chance, Kurt Alme (R)? Seems unlikely, but have a go at it, folks.

• 

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

  Elon University is giving former Gov Roy Cooper (D) a 53% – 42% lead over Michael Whatley (R) in the race for the open North Carolina Senate seat. I am not familiar with Elon University, but those numbers seem plausible. Along with those are numbers indicating the President is underwater in the job approval department in the estimation of North Carolina voters by 18 points, so it’s no surprise the Republican candidate, Mr. Whatley, is trailing badly. Gov Cooper (D) is not a moderate, see right, making the general run of North Carolina Senate polls even more interesting, and suggesting the GOP has really shot itself in the foot by following Mr. Trump, rather than tossing him out on his ass.

• VoteVets is stepping into the Alaska Senate race:
  

  VoteVets Action Fund is going into Alaska, launching a $225,000 ad buy against Sen. Dan Sullivan for his votes against reining in President Donald Trump’s Iran war powers, according to details first shared with Semafor.

  It’s the start of what’s expected to be a larger VoteVets campaign against Sullivan, who is facing former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in a highly competitive race.

  The ad ties Sullivan’s Iran votes to rising costs in Alaska: “Nine-dollar-a-gallon gas in Dillingham, nine bucks a pound of ground beef in Anchorage. That’s not the cost of living. That’s the cost of Dan Sullivan’s votes,” the ad says. “Sullivan voted a dozen times for this war in Iran.” [Semafor]

  I do have to wonder if there is a quid pro quo, stated or not, when these independent entities intrude on races. But dollars are a necessary-but-not-sufficient component of a successful campaign.

• In Texas an Emerson College poll is giving Republican Ken Paxton a 47% – 46% lead over James Talarico (D), calling it a dead heat. Under Party Affiliation Republicans outnumber Democrats, 47.6% to 32.4%, and the power-holding Independents/others are at 20%, suggesting a number of Republicans are either voting Talarico or not voting at all. I can’t fault their position.
• Fox News Poll is joining other polling services in giving Maine’s Troy Jackson (D) a small lead over Senator Collins (R) of 48% – 46%, with a margin of error of ±3 points, or a dead heat.
• Don’t get excited and/or appalled, depending on ideology, by this poll from Bullfinch Group, even if it does put the Idaho Senate seat in play, placing Todd Achilles (I) only four points behind Senator Risch (R).
  

  Recent statewide polling of likely 2026 voters in Idaho shows Independent Todd Achilles in an exceptionally strong position against incumbent Republican Senator Jim Risch. Achilles trails Risch by just 4 percentage points while boasting a stellar net favorability rating and huge room for growth.

  Why not? My posts from 2024 indicate Bullfinch had poor accuracy and might have been partisan. Such problems can be reformed away, of course, but I have no reason to assume such reforms have taken place.

ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?

Not really. I don’t have to be entertaining or profound in every Campaign Update.

We made it to two more shows, which I’ll review in a hurry as the first has only one more showing, scheduled for tomorrow [Friday].

Latin Papi [Latin Daddy] is a two dancer presentation of hot Latin dance offs and interpretations. A bit loud for the sensitive, but this is why I go to the Fringe – I won’t see something like this at a cinema or theater. And it’s fun. In fact, over the years I’ve seen maybe a dozen dance shows, from modern, such as Latin Papi, to ethnic dancing, such as, if memory serves, Thai. Only one, in a modern tradition and from many years ago, didn’t work.

Watership Down is, I’m guessing, a straight recounting of the classic kid’s story concerning rabbits, their leader, their mystic, and their quest to survive. It’s not really Fringey, but it was really an excellent show. My Arts Editor practically exploded as we walked out, excited by the singing (“they all know how to sing!”), the acting, and the big, scary dog. Come for the dog, stay for the story, as it were. Recommended, if you liked the book, or think you would. My only complaint was that the characters would have benefited from more differentiation.

We still have another show left on our pass, so we hope to use that up over the next three days. On what? We don’t know.

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.

Hadestown: The Musical (2026) is a movie of one production of the aforesaid show, Hadestown. The tale interfaces the romantic tale of Hades and Persephone with that of Orpheus and Eurydice. The former concerns Hades, brother of Zeus, falling in love with Persephone, but her absence causes mother Demeter to send the world into sterility. In the end, Hades permits Persephone, now his queen of the Underworld, to return to the surface for six months of each year.

The latter concerns the kidnapping of Eurydice, beloved of Orpheus, and her travails in Hades. Orpheus boldly descends to find and rescue her, but it’s perilous and tricky.

I enjoyed all the aspects of the movie, from acting to singing to special effects. It is very much a Broadway musical, so if you have a particular allergy to that style of musical, or to Greek tragedies, you should avoid this; otherwise, it’s not bad at all.

This would be fun as an impromptu graffiti.

Day the World Ended (1955) is a messy, grimy take on a messy, grimy subject, when mankind takes that unconscious decision to end it all through the unplanned aggregate of selfish actions that results in a most deadly war.

Throw in some zombies, symbolic of the consequence of the un-wisdom exercised by those who couldn’t tolerate their rivals, whether it be because of honest self-interest or faux-divine, present in this very cul-de-sac of survivors, and it’s something of a complete traversal from the fellow trying to save this little chunk of mankind, to the hot head who can only think of himself, to the creatures waiting to destroy them in the hot zone above them.

Salt with way too much literal power for the individual, whether it’s the guy with the gun or with the nuclear weapon, and this is your favorite soup, metaphorically seasoned with arsenic.

Unfortunately, sympathizing with the characters is a little hard, and I’m not sure why. It may simply be the fact that the movie was made in an unfamiliar era, a time when we were transitioning from a more communal society to a more individualistic society, so it’s harder to slip into the personas of these characters.

Or maybe they’re not well-presented by the script, or well-portrayed by the actors.

But it’s a raw take, to be sure, thrusting the audience into an unfamiliar scenario and watching the various personality types react. It’s interesting, and yet a bit horrifying.

If you do stumble across this, enjoy.

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.