There’s been another fatal ICE shooting this morning, this time in Maine. No details yet.

Update: Here’s an eyewitness account from the Portland Press Herald. Sounds like another government-sponsored homicide.

Mitch appears to be alive, although lots of folks are saying the photo released of Mitch and his wife as “proof of life” is just AI. Could be. This, of course, is legit:

The conspiracy theory regarding Mitch is that Republicans don’t want to hold the special election because they’re afraid a Democrat (or GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, who is not fond of Trump) will win it. But this is Kentucky; Democrats tend to be long shots. And, anyway, an absent Mitch leaves the Senate one short of Republican votes.

And Lindsey Graham is gone, leaving the Senate short two Republicans at the moment. I’m seeing news stories saying this will slow down Trump’s agenda. The problem is that the governor of South Carolina can appoint a replacement to fill the seat until January, and that can happen any minute now. So I’m not celebrating.

Here is the best retrospective on Miz Lindsey I’ve seen so far — Tom Schaller at Public Notice, Lindsey Graham and the rot of modern conservatism.

The so-called cease fire with Iran never existed except in theory, considering that the U.S. and Iran never actually stopped shooting at each other. And now Trump has restored the naval blockade of Iranian ports. I understand some peace talks are still going on somewhere, with somebody, but nobody seems to care.

And now we have Trump Being Trump:

President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will take over the Strait of Hormuz — and will be reimbursed “at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped” for overseeing one of the world’s most critical oil passageways that has been at the center of the U.S.’s re-escalating war with Iran.

“We will become guardians of the strait,” Trump said during an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “We’re going to hit [Iran] very hard and keep the strait, and probably run it.”

This could be a skit on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

Trump said the “process and formation will begin immediately.”

“We guarded the strait for 50 years and never got paid for it,” Trump said on Fox. “We want to be reimbursed for this, for putting our people in danger.”

Trump wants everything to be a protection racket that he’s running.

Iranian state media declared the strait closed “until further notice” on Saturday — a claim that Trump later rebuffed, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the waterway was “open” and the U.S. “bombed the hell out of them last night.”

To remember what the world was like when there were real leaders running things — if you get the History Channel, do look up the World War II series narrated by Tom Hanks. It’s quite good. I’ve been watching and learned a few details I’d never heard before. Overall I’d say it’s better than the World War II series by Ken Burns, which was a bit overstuffed and confusing. They’ve released most of the episodes of the Tom Hanks series, although roughly the last year or so of the war has yet to be covered.

Finally, Trump’s tribute to Miz Lindsey is, of course, really about himself.

I haven’t yet weighed in on the Mitch McConnell Mystery. Is he alive, or not?  Either is possible, but I’m increasingly leaning toward not. Notwithstanding the handful of people who claim to have talked to him, if he’s conscious and able to communicate I don’t understand why the hospital would not be allowed to release that information. It’s very possible he’s in a coma, but if there is still some brain activity and a chance he could come out of it, again, why wouldn’t the hospital  be allowed to say so?

McConnell is/was retiring, and people already were campaigning to replace him in the November general election before his heart attack. But under Kentucky state law, if he dies before August 3 the state has to have a special election to find someone to finish his term. And the rumor is that Trump is terrified that Rep. Thomas Massie could win. You’ll remember that Massie, who was critical of Trump, lost his primary to a Trump endorsee. So it’s now widely expected the Senator will succumb on August 4.

Yesterday morning’s news informed us that Trump had fired the remaining three commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission. It’s not clear to me how much of a threat this is. The EAC mostly distributes funding and provides election security support for states. But I’m still really, really worried about the elections. The Regi8me had already threatened states with a loss of FEMA anti-terrorism support if they didn’t surrender to Trump’s election demands. I believe some states have already declined.

The more I learn about the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, the more heartbreaking it is. And the government of Mexico says it will file criminal complaints in the United States over the death of Lorenzo Salgado and several other Mexican nationals who have died in ICE custody.

Of course, ICE released it’s standard lie to excuse the shooting.

ICE officials released a statement on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the shooting in the predominantly Latino East End neighborhood. They said they were performing a “targeted enforcement operation” and alleged Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle,” rammed it into an ICE car and attempted to run over an ICE officer, who then shot Salgado Araujo in self-defense, according to ICE.

Last night on All In, Chris Hayes showed a photo of the van he said was taken after the incident. The front of the van, including the grill, were completely undamaged and showed no sign of having impacted anything. Big surprise.

We don’t have the benefit of independent videos of what happened on July 7 when Salgado Araujo was shot. And the ICE agents were not wearing body cams, or at least claimed they weren’t. ICE blamed Democrats and the most recent government shutdown in spite of the billions of dollars Congress has given ICE to fund it.

We do have eyewitnesses. There were three other men in the car, who gave the same story when questioned independently.

The three other men in the van told a lawyer that Salgado Araujo never veered toward federal agents and that a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle, the Washington Post reports. Attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said he met with the three men individually while they were in detention and they separately gave similar accounts. “All of them reiterated that there were never any ICE agents in front of the van,” Balderas-Ibarra told the Post. “They came in and started shooting from the sides.”

ICE immediately pressured the three witnesses to “self-deport,” according to several news stories.

This is from the New York Times:

I guess the much-ballyhooed cease fire is over. And the price of oil just shot up again. Maybe the oil execs should pay Trump another visit.

Trump is at the NATO conference and has apparently decided the U.S. must cut trade with Spain, and the rest of NATO should, too.

President Trump lashed out at Spain early Wednesday during remarks from the NATO summit, urging the U.S. to cut off all trade with the European country over what he called a lack of contributions to defense spending. 

“Spain is a wasted cause. We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore by the way,” Trump said, sitting alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the group’s summit in Ankara, Turkey. 

“Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate. They don’t pay,” the president continued. “I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits,” he said.  

“Watch them come running back. Oh they’ll come running back,” he added.

Trump also accused Madrid of treating Rutte “terribly,” telling the NATO chief he “shouldn’t carry” Spain. 

I don’t know exactly why he’s pissed at Spain in particular. And I don’t much care. Trump still doesn’t understand what NATO even is and how it’s funded, and why contributions from nations are not equal (because they are based on GDP per capita).

But of course it’s also the case that presidents don’t have the constitutional authority to unilaterally decide to cut off trade with another nation. Only Congress can do that. We’ll see if Congress even responds, though. Most likely we’ll go through more rounds of Trump issuing orders and courts canceling them. I’m sure the other NATO countries realize this.

How is the rest of the conference going? Let’s ask Paul Krugman.

Yesterday, soon after he arrived in Ankara for the NATO Summit, Trump reiterated his demand that Denmark hand him control of Greenland. But reactions were subdued. As far as I can tell, our erstwhile allies are now treating Trump as the senile uncle who says crazy, outrageous things, but shouldn’t be taken seriously. …

…The combined effect of these humiliations for Trump and his minions has been a drastic reordering of America’s place in the world. For most of last year foreign leaders kept trying, desperately, to appease Trump. These days they’re mostly just humoring him, building a world in which his sundowning won’t matter.

It’s extremely unlikely that anything substantive will come out of this NATO meeting. And a year ago the prospect of a failed summit would have been a source of deep concern. Now it will be met with a shrug: Nobody expects anything but chaotic bluster from Trump, and what he does matters less and less.

Do read the whole thing. I especially appreciate what Trump says about Trump’s failure to deliver Ukraine to his buddy Putin.

I understand Trump flew to the NATO summit in his luxury “gift” plane from Qatar. I’ve read in several places that it took in the neighborhood of $1 billion of the taxpayers’ money to retrofit the thing to make it suitable to serve as Air Force One. Trump still expects to take it with him when he leaves office in 2029 (if not sooner). I say no, unless he reimburses the $1 billion back to the Treasury. Maybe not even then.

Update: Edith Olsmsted at The New Republic reports that Trump will be leaving the new plane in Europe and getting home some other way, presumably on some other plane. (The headline of the article says “England” but the article says “Europe.”) Trump’s excuse for this is that it’s being left on one of the big military bases so that “people can see it.” There is speculation that somebody discovered a security problem on the plane, even after spending $1 billion on it.

“The most likely reason for this is that the ‘new’ ex-Qatari jet doesn’t have the self-defense capabilities needed when flying from Turkey while in a shooting war with Iran,” The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg wrote on X. “The actual VC-25 aircraft does have those capabilities.”

George Conway, an anti-Trump activist, suggested that perhaps the plane hadn’t received all the necessary security capabilities “because Trump wants to keep it if he leaves office.”

As the world continues to frustrate him, Trump is turning to his chief source of comfort, remodeling. Scaffolding had been erected around the White House columns. Officially this is supposed to be for “standard restoration work,” but it’s widely believed Trump plans to replace the columns with fancier ones that would clash with the architectural style of the rest of the building. If we’re lucky maybe he’ll just decorate them with gold doo-dads that can be removed later.

There also are persistent rumors/reports that Trump wants to cut down  the cherry trees along the Potomac that were a gift from Japan in 1912 to make room for a luxury golf course that nobody really needs. He is putting in a new helipad. Apparently he doesn’t like having to walk on grass. Sometimes grass is wet. Such a trial.

Update: I am just hearing Graham Platner has suspended his campaign. So Dems can choose a replacement to take on Susan Collins. I hope they don’t screw it up.

The Fourth is over and so is the heat wave, in the NYC area it least. At mid-morning it’s 65 degrees and pouring rain. The AC can rest for a while.

Trump is on his way to a NATO conference, where he will further display his ignorance of what NATO even is and piss off our used-to-be allies. The Wall Street Journal is running a story that is headlined ‘There Is No Going Back’: The Inside Story of Europe’s Rupture With America.” It sounds juicy, but it’s behind a paywall.

I’ve heard elsewhere that European leaders are pretty much done being nice to Trump to his face to dissuade him from doing more damage. It doesn’t work, anyway. But I don’t know what they’ll do with him at the meeting. They’d probably like to shove  him under a bus, but they probably won’t.

I want to look at the further adventures of the SAVE America Act. Yesterday Mike Johnson announced that the House will pass SAVE America one more time as part of a budget reconciliation bill. Which, of course, would allow the Senate to bypass the 60-vote threshold and pass it with Republican votes. They tried this trick once already, and the Senate Parliamentarian nixed it. The Byrd Rule dictates that only provisions with a direct impact on federal spending and revenue can be in a reconciliation bill, and that seems to me to leave out the SAVE America Act. I understand Johnson has talked about adding a $4 billion grant program attached to the SAVE America act to make it about revenue.

However, Mychael Schnell at MS NOW says that even Republicans are tired of getting bogged down with the SAVE America Act.

“He wants to go it alone, his way to the highway, and it don’t work,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who’s retiring at the end of the year, told MS NOW. “He’s trying to pound the square peg through the circle, and it doesn’t work.” … …

,,,Yet another House GOP lawmaker was more succinct: “Republicans — those of us who can do math — would like the president and other members to recognize that there isn’t a path forward.”

As Trump continues his pressure campaign — he managed to mention the SAVE America Act during his July Fourth speech on the National Mall on Saturday night — several Republicans say it’s time for him to pivot. Instead of trying to force GOP skeptics in line, some lawmakers said Trump should consider a compromise with those holdouts, or even with Democrats.

“There’s things that we should be able to do,” the House GOP lawmaker said, “but we’re so focused on legislation that will never get a Democratic vote and won’t make it through the reconciliation that it’s stopping all progress.”

Some House Republicans say that Trump needs to put pressure on Democrats to change their votes. But I say hell hath no fury like what the Democratic base would do to any Dem who played ball with Trump on this bill.

The last time it was voted on in the Senate, all Dems plus four Republicans voted no, and if that holds it would not pass even if only a majority vote were required.

In other news — Trump’s interference in the World Cup games is turning into an international big deal.

FIFA has dismissed Belgium’s challenge over the eligibility of Folarin Balogun after world soccer’s governing body decided to suspend his one-game ban ahead of the World Cup round-of-16 game with the United States.

Despite being dismissed against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the USMNT striker is available to face Belgium in Seattle on Monday night after an intervention involving U.S. President Donald Trump, government officials, U.S. Soccer and an extensive legal team.

Belgium formally objected to that decision, saying it had “no alternative but to challenge (Balogun’s) eligibility for the upcoming match”.

FIFA’s appeals committee, however, has rendered the request submitted by the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) as “inadmissible”. They did so on the grounds that “the RBFA is not a party to the proceedings and, as such, has no standing to appeal the decision,” a statement from FIFA said.

I have not been following the World Cup games and have no idea if the penalty imposed on Balogun was fair or not. But the appearance of the thing stinks out loud, to mix metaphors a bit. I’ve seen people on social media calling for the U.S. team to voluntarily bench Balogun for tonight’s game, to show good sportsmanship. I haven’t heard anything from the team, though. See also FIFA Loses Control of World Cup After Bending the Knee to Trump by Hafiz Rashid at The New Republic.

Update: It looks like Graham Platner’s campaign is in big trouble. There have been no allegations, and he’s canceled several campaign events. Platner may be toast. I have been told that by Maine rules if he drops out by July 13 the Dems can appoint a replacement. But then he released a video that doesn’t sound like he’s dropping out.

The heat is keeping me indoor by the AC this weekend, and I’ve given up even thinking of attending any local celebrations. So I’m sitting this one out, sadly. I hope you all at least enjoy some barbeque and maybe watch the young folks run around with sparklers, if young folks still do that.

The more I hear about the so called “Great America State Fair,” the worse it sounds. It obviously was put together by people who had no idea what a state fair is really like. They seem to have thought a state fair is something like an exhibit hall attached to a convention, but with a little rodeo and a Ferris wheel.

And what makes this even more of a bleeping shame is that Congress put together funds and a commission to plan for the 250th anniversary ten years ago. Among other things, they were going to help fund a lot of celebrations around the country. DOGE stripped them of a lot of funds last year, causing a lot of plans to be scaled back. Then Trump siphoned off more money and managed to fraudulently redirect donations to the official commission into his own plans. And the result is just awful. So we’ve been robbed of the 250th celebration we could have had.

Do read ‘I’m Mad at Trump’: Even Trumpers Can’t Stand How Shoddy the Great American State Fair Is by Josh Kovensky and Allegra Kirkland at TPM.

After the Freedom Truck, we spotted, visited, and avoided a Budweiser Truck ($12 Michelob, no thank you), and then moved on to a tent with a religious theme. A “Great Awakening” booth had books and DVDs on the essential fakeness of the COVID pandemic, the country’s Christian founding, and more. My friend and I stopped to speak with an attendant at the stall; she immediately began to try to convert us. She asked if we really knew what would happen once we died; I replied that I didn’t think anyone knew the answer to that question. Her eyes now burning, she told us that she knew, asked our names, and started to pray for us. Once she asked if we could repeat after her that Jesus Christ was our lord and savior, we walked away.

I believe I would have walked away a lot sooner.

Real state fairs are pretty amazing. Back in the early 1970s when I was a student at the University of Missouri school of journalism, I got a summer job working for the Missouri State Fair. It was a hoot. I even lived on the fairgrounds while the fair was open, so it was a 24/7 experience. Most of my job involved writing press releases of the livestock competitions, an assignment I got because I was the only college student they hired who knew what a steer was. But there were also stock car races and a big carnival with lots of rides and a real old-time sideshow. There were some decent entertainers, and Bob Hope was the headliner. I got to go to a Bob Hope press conference. I also vividly remember the Coon Dog Water Races and the Mule Show. The whole thing was a great experience; I still get a kick out of thinking about it. Too bad about whatever that thing is in D.C.

So Trump’s financial disclosure statements show he made something like $2 billion last year while most Americans suffered financially. And if this were any other POTUS, or at least a Democratic one, this would be a massive scandal. But it’s Trump, so … NBC News:

The figures from 2025 — the first year of Trump’s second term — were disclosed to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in a 927-page document. By comparison, President Barack Obama’s final disclosure form was eight pages, while President Joe Biden’s was 11. Vice President JD Vance’s form for last year is 17 pages.

I understand the biggest source of income for Trump is in crypto. But as I understand it, he’s not making money from investing in crypto but in selling it. The people buying the stuff from Trump are losing their shirts, apparently. Associated Press:

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling “governance tokens” and “stablecoins” and other crypto assets. Another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the meme coins have plunged in value since his sales, partly because they are so difficult to value. Governance tokens, for instance, confer to holders only the power to vote on certain management policies at a company, not equity stakes, and so typical valuation measures don’t apply.

I don’t understand any of this, and I doubt many of the people who bought this stuff understood it either. More from the AP:

He took in tens of millions from new property holdings in foreign countries eager to please a man with power over where to deploy the U.S. military and how much to charge in tariffs. And he got tens of million more suing media companies worried they could lose their broadcast licenses or not get deals approved by his regulators.

Ever the salesman, Trump even made big money off the smallest of things, pulling in millions by slapping his name on Bibles, guitars and watches — the latter alone bringing in $4.7 million.

Has any president ever directly profited from selling his personal branded merch while in the White House? Not that I can remember.

Profits at Trump’s golf courses and other properties also are up, I understand. And he’s made some money in the stock market, sometimes putting money into businesses that were subject to his regulation decisions.

See the New York Times, The Key Ways Trump’s Financial Interests Intersect With Government Policy. It begins,

When President Trump’s annual financial disclosure was released on Tuesday, it showed that he reaped at least $2.2 billion from his various businesses last year, a singular haul for a president. Many of the gains stemmed from ventures that intersect with his administration, posing unparalleled potential conflicts of interest.

And  here’s just one example:

The Trump Organization has announced new international deals in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, licensing the family name in exchange for payments from government-backed developments. Both countries are key U.S. allies in a region that has been upended by the war with Iran. Last year, Qatar gave the U.S. a Boeing plane that Trump began using this week as Air Force One.

The earnings were $14 million for these new deals and a total of at least $37 million from all the Middle East deals.

But there’s so much more. It’s a gift link, so do read it all.

And then there’s Trump’s badly flopping 250th Anniversary observance. Today Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee accused Trump and his cronies of misleading donors. If you hadn’t figured it out already, there are two organizations competing for donations and attention that had planned to put on celebrations. One is America 250, which was established by Congress a decade ago to plan nonpartisan celebrations nationwide. The other is Freedom 250, being run out of the White House, which is putting on the stupid “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall, the concert series that was canceled because all the acts bailed out, and that garish UFC match at the White House.

I understand that a lot of the money that had been allocated for America 250 was cut by DOGE last year, so a great many plans for local celebrations around the country had to be scaled back. And some was “redirected” by Trump toward his own projects. But the Democrats documented that a lot of people who had planned to give money to America250 were tricked into giving it to Freedom 250. WaPo:

The donors meant to give money to America250, a congressionally chartered initiative to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, according to Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee. They instead were given routing and account numbers that directed their funds to Freedom 250, which President Donald Trump established last year to organize anniversary events, the report says.

Trump is planning a big whoop-dee-doo this Saturday, the 4th. But the weather service is saying the day could be the hottest in recorded history for the D.C. area, which is bound to keep the crowds away. I was in D.C. on a 4th of July many years ago, and it was seriously hot then but nothing like what it’s going to be on Saturday. Heh.

A DSAer knocked off a15-term House incumbent Dem in Colorado primaries yesterday, and the centrists are in a panic. And Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser won the Democratic primary race for governor over Michael Bennet, a three-term incumbent U.S. senator. WaPo:

Weiser tweaked Bennet for voting to confirm eight of Trump’s Cabinet members. Bennet stood by his votes, except for the one to confirm Energy Secretary Chris Wright. He argued his support was necessary to help the state secure federal resources.

Update: And I see we have a request for the dancing banana.

So birthright citizenship is safe. Trump meltdown on the way … Thomas, Alito, and  Gorsuch dissented. Kavanaugh quibbled with the majority opinion reasoning but voted with the majority anyway. Here’s the decision. I haven’t read it yet.

Skimming through social media comments, I’ve noticed an alarming number of people who think the Supreme Court has just created some radical new policy regarding immigrants. One commenter worried that Hispanic people born here before the decision would now suddenly become citizens, as if they weren’t already citizens. I swear, ignorance is killing us.

In other decisions, SCOTUS allowed states to ban transgender athletes from competing in their schools. And in In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled 6-3 with the Republicans (big surprise) that federal limits on coordinated campaign expenditures by political parties violate the First Amendment.

I’ll post more here if I see any juicy reactions or commentaries.

Update: I’m seeing news stories saying Alito is retiring. I’m also seeing news stories retracting the stories that Alito is retiring.

Update: I haven’t heard of any reaction from Trump, but the rest of MAGA is having a meltdown. You’d think the SCOTUS had created some new immigration law rather than just uphold what’s been in the bleeping Constitution since 1868.

Update: Mike Johnson and some others are seizing on Kavanaugh’s opinion, which (I understand) is that the President has no authority to change birthright citizenship, but Congress could. Again, I haven’t found Kavanaugh’s opinion in all the mountain of writing about this decision today. But that’s what I’ve read.

So that’s going to be the next attempt. The problem is that it appears to be the clear opinion of five of the justices that birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the 14th Amendment, period, and the Constitution can’t be overwritten by legislation alone any more than it can be overwritten by executive orders. But I bet they’re going to try. See Johnson Follows Kavanaugh’s Lead, Says Congress Will ‘Deal With’ Birthright Citizenship by Nicole LaFond at TPM.

SCOTUS is dumping a ton of decisions before its summer recess. Among these is the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara. I like the name. Tomorrow is the last day before recess. Are they waiting until the last minute before they dash out the door before bombing the 14th Amendment? Stay tuned.

I’ve been following along on SCOTUSblog. It hasn’t been all bad news so far. The Court will not hear Trump’s appeal of the $5 million a jury awarded to E. Jean Carroll. (Trump’s reaction is unhinged.) They upheld a Mississippi law that allows election officials to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received within five days after. They stopped Trump from firing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook.

However, John Roberts’s campaign to implement the Unitary Executive Theory continues. Kate Riga writes at TPM:

The Supreme Court cast its long-telegraphed death blow to independent agencies Monday, confirming that the president can fire at-will civil servants that were meant to be insulated from political backlash. In a second opinion, though, the Court gave the Federal Reserve a special carveout from this new reality. 

The odd baby-splitting in the combination of Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook — both authored by Chief Justice John Roberts — reveals the right-wing Court’s priorities: It may be sanguine about the demolition of agencies mostly used to regulate big business and protect worker rights, but is far less willing to let President Trump take over the Fed and unleash global economic chaos. 

Translation: The Chief Justice draw the line as far as his personal financial investments are concerned. See also Josh Marshall’s commentary, The Supreme Court’s Corruption Must Be Broken.

And see also Paul Krugman:

… but much more important is Humphrey’s Executor, which is the generations-long precedent that says that when Congress creates an independent agency, it is independent. It’s able to make decisions.

Of course, the president has some role. Typically, the president can choose the agency’s head subject to congressional approval, but the president can’t just go and fire officials that he doesn’t like for whatever reason or for no reason, because the agencies that operate the U.S. government and basically run our society are supposed to be professional. They’re supposed to be following their legal mandate. They’re not supposed to be personal tools of a dictator in the White House.

Well, the court just scrapped that. Now, lawyers, people who are legal experts, can do a better job of explaining just what went down. But what I think is important to understand is not only does this give essentially dictatorial powers to the occupant of the White House, but it also makes it extremely difficult for the economy to function. It makes it extremely difficult for society to function.

John Roberts (and the justices who agree with hm) seem to have a cognitive dysfunction that doesn’t allow him to anticipate the effects of his decisions. Or else he doesn’t care. Citizens United anyone? Of course it had a corrupting influence on politics. Gutting the Voting Rights Act brought on a return of Jim Crow in several southern states. Now Trump can merrily destroy whatever federal agencies are still functioning. No skin off Roberts’s nose, I guess.

I guess they’re done for today. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get the decisions on birthright citizenship, transgender athlete bans, and a challenge brought by Republicans to how much money candidates can spend in coordination with their political party. I’m gong to assume the Republicans will win that one.

The winner of my House district’s primary, Cait Conley, is the candidate the Democratic establishment wanted. And I think she can beat Mike Lawler in the general, although of course a lot can happen between now and November.  But I’ve bumped into some younger progressives in the district who swear they will not vote for her, because she’s not pure enough on one issue or another. And I don’t disagree with them as far as the issues are concerned, but House Democratic majority, folks. The bigger, the better. Vote Blue No Matter Who.

Now I think some other people need to hear that same message. See, for example, After wins by democratic socialists, centrist Democrats unite to push back by Matthew Choi in WaPo. (I appear to be out of gift links, but maybe you can read some of it.)

Thirteen Democratic House members and candidates announced their support Thursday for a centrist initiative aimed at pushing back against the party’s tilt toward democratic socialism. …

… “They should not be the face of our party,” said Jessica Killin, a Democratic candidate running in a competitive Colorado district. “We need to be organized and clear in our vision.”

Killin is one of the 13 who signed on to the “Promise to America” initiative that commits candidates to a set of centrist principles, including capitalism, fiscal discipline, strong borders and pride in the United States.

Yeah, that sets up such a strong contrast to Republicans, right?

Part of me does appreciate that Republicans are absolutely going to seize on the flakier DSA candidates and hang them about the necks of every Democrat running everywhere. Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of the Mamdani-endorsed candidates who won on Tuesday, is a bit much even for me and will probably serve nicely as this year’s “defund the police.” But it appears I’m not the only Democratic voter who has had it with the centrists. Michelle Goldberg writes in the New York Times,

Many Democratic primary voters, however, are in no mood for defensiveness. As they see it, they’ve been failed by a cautious, compromising establishment, and they’re going to overthrow it. The Democratic version of the Tea Party is here, with dramatic implications for the midterms and possibly the next presidential election. As Mamdani said at a rally at Brooklyn’s Kings Theater last week, people are asking when the race for 2028 begins. “It starts now,” he said.

then later, Goldberg writes,

That means the 2026 midterms could end up being a giant national experiment that tests the populist left’s theory of victory. For years, it has argued that Democrats have failed because, in thrall to corporate interests, they let themselves become the party of the status quo. Unable or unwilling to galvanize voters with an economically progressive alternative to the right, they’ve offered only timid, business-friendly incrementalism. Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, the organization that recruited Avila Chevalier to run for Congress, told me that too often, the Democratic Party “tries to stymie big and bold ideas” in favor of technocratic pragmatism. “I think what voters have really made clear, particularly this past year, is that they are desperate for bold, visionary leadership,” he said.

What I’ve been saying for at least a couple of decades.

See also A Far-Left Freedom Caucus Would Be a Nightmare for Jeffries by Paul Kane at NOTUS. It begins:

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York) has a message for the far-left Democrats who won in Tuesday’s primaries and are all but guaranteed to join Congress in January: tone it down.

But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), the liberal icon whose 2018 upset win inspired this movement, had a very different message directed at the old-line Democrats: welcome these incoming progressives with open arms, or else they’ll spark ideological clashes.

This is worth reading. It quotes AOC,

“My hope is that they are not met with the hostility and the cruelty, frankly, that I experienced, and I think that a lot of that can inform what happens afterwards,” she added, noting that they should be respected for having won their districts just like everyone else.

I hadn’t realized she’d been dissed so badly when she first came to the House in 2019. But, yes, the DSAers were elected like everyone else, and should they win in November their constituents expect them to deliver what they ran on, or at least be seen trying real hard. Once again, it looks like the centrists are the real clogs in the machine who insist their timid, incremental approach is the only legitimate one and everybody had better get with their program. And the centrists will still be the whopping majority in the House, so it’s not like they’re going to lose control in the near future.

Update: Josh Marshal comments on this very same theme. See ‘Centrists,’ This Is on You.