On Sunday Trump announced the U.S. would be scaling back long-planned military exercises with South Korea, just hours before they were to begin. Trump also made it clear he was doing this to please Kim Jong Un of North Korea. CNN:

“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”

Trump doesn’t understand strategic alliances, and he doesn’t know history from dental floss. This move not only infuriated our good ally South Korea, it reinforced the growing world opinion that the U.S. can’t be counted on for anything.

And then Trump began telling people that he and Kim Jong Un had been in touch and would be meeting soon. Clearly, Trump wants to rekindle the bromance. But Kim Yo Jong, sister and close confidant of Kim Jong Un, issued a statement saying she is “completely unaware” her brother and Trump had been in contact. I don’t believe she said anything about a meeting.

Oh, and Trump also blabbed that North Korea has 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons. This was probably classified information, although knowing Trump, he got the number wrong.  South Korea thinks he has more. But I kind of dimly remember that Trump’s meetings with Kim Jong Un during his first term were supposed to be about nuclear disarmament. His, not ours. In fact, back in 2018 Trump announced that Kim had agreed to “denuclearization.” I guess not.

One might ask what Trump is thinking. It may be that in Trump’s mind, his détente with Kim was a huge diplomatic success in his first term, and he could use another success right about now. Also, he may be pissed at South Korea.

Analysts say a summit with Kim, irrespective of its outcome, would be a useful feather in Trump’s cap, particularly as Washington’s unpopular war on Iran stands unresolved and his electoral pledge to end the Ukraine war remains unfulfilled.

Yet, Trump’s effort to cosy up to Kim may also have to do with exercising leverage vis-a-vis South Korea, in a typical example of the US president’s transactional approach to diplomacy.

“Trump may want to put pressure on South Korea … following [Seoul]’s reluctance to cooperate with the US in the Iran war and the slow progress in South Korean investment in the United States,” Yong-Chool Ha, director of the Center for Korean Studies at the Henry M Jackson School of International Studies in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera.

“This could be seen as a form of tit-for-tat diplomacy, despite the ongoing alliance between the two countries.”

It appears, though, that Kim doesn’t need Trump any more.

Kim has fully inserted himself into the war in Ukraine by supporting Putin’s war machine and has boosted his nuclear weapons program with Russian assistance. Buoyed by cryptocurrency heists and remote IT worker schemes, North Korean cyber criminals continue to generate considerable revenue for the regime. Compared to their previous round of diplomacy, Kim is in a far stronger negotiating position and sees little need for U.S. sanctions relief or a meeting with the unpredictable U.S. president.  …

… Trump seems to think that diplomacy with the North Korean leader will be easier and smoother than the last time because Kim allegedly treated him with “great respect.”

Unfortunately for Trump, Kim is likely to ignore his overture. The war in Ukraine allowed Kim to reduce his economic dependence on China and expand his economy. By providing weapons and soldiers to Russia, Kim has reaped massive economic benefits. Kim has rejuvenated the domestic defense manufacturing base and expanded access to Russian markets. Since 2022, North Korea’s economy has grown by over 3 percent annually. Even North Korea’s rural regions, long seen by the regime as potential hotspots of discontent and thus neglected economically, have recently seen development, with new medical facilities being built across the country.

So Trump went to all the trouble to limit the joint military exercise to please Kim Jong Un, and he’s getting no response from Kim Jong Un. The Bromance is over. So sad. I hope the press corps asks Trump when he’s going to meet with Kim every day for the rest of his term. Rub it in.

In other news — I see the FBI has searched Eric Swalwell’s home and seized his phone. They are investigating sexual misconduct allegaations against him. I’m glad the FBI is taking sexual misconduct allegations seriously. Now, when will they visit people named in the Epstein files and search their homes?

In more other news — Do read Homeland Security Made a Big Claim About Noncitizen Voting. Now It Can’t Prove It. at The New York Times.

A month after the Trump administration declared without evidence that thousands of noncitizens had illegally registered to vote in Nevada, officials with the Department of Homeland Security were unable to substantiate the claim.

The administration claimed to have identified 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in four states, including an exact number of 15,903 in Nevada. But during a meeting last week with state election administrators, Homeland Security officials said they had identified just 185 potential noncitizens in the state so far, according to emails as well as recordings of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

The federal officials said they were still considering 14,000 names for further review, according to one of the emails. In the virtual meeting, federal officials told Nevada that the nearly 16,000 they had originally identified represented “the ceiling” of potential noncitizens.

But the list the Homeland Security Department shared with Nevada is incomplete — it doesn’t even include names — and is nearly impossible to verify, according to files released by the secretary of state’s office. Nevada officials have requested more information, but the department has not yet offered it.

Do read the whole thing. It’s more than obvious that the DHS has no idea if there are any noncitizen voters anywhere. They threw out a big number and now they’re walking it back, carefully, without actually admitting they don’t have the proof.

One thing we’re learning from this year’s primaries is that old-fashioned organizing can beat television advertising. In primaries, anyway. This may be good news, as campaign television ads tend to be more manipulative than informative. It also means the candidate with less money can win. See The Left Notches Another Win With This Secret Weapon: Old-Fashioned Organizing at the New York Times.

Now, let’s talk about Natalie Harp. Paul Waldman says we absolutely should talk about Natalie Harp. Ever since Jon Ossoff brought her up in a speech a few days ago, all of a sudden there are headlines about Natalie Harp all over the place. Which is interesting, because the press has known about Natalie Harp for a long time. Vanity Fair even ran a feature story on her back in February 2025. She just wasn’t all that newsworthy until Sen. Ossoff talked about her, I guess.

If you haven’t heard, Natalie Harp is, basically, Trump’s security blanket. She’s called the “human printer” because she carries around a portable printer so she can print out items flattering to Trump for him to read. Apparently her primary job is to placate Trump and try to keep him cheerful, if that’s possible. She also keyboards his Truth Social posts. She texts world leaders on Trump’s behalf. And she’s with him pretty much constantly, by all accounts. While no one claims she is any kind of policy adviser, her proximity to Trump does raise questions about whether, for example, her role as gatekeeper of good or bad news affects his decisions. Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman discuss this issue with each other at The New Republic.

But before we go any further, what was it Jon Ossoff said that has, apparently, touched off a media frenzy? Simply this — speaking of Trump, Sen. Ossoff said, “He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

At the Cross Section, Paul Waldman wrote,

It’s remarkable that all Ossoff had to do was say Natalie Harp’s name and Republicans immediately lost their minds. White House communications director Steven Cheung mustered all the class and professionalism for which he is known and tweeted “John Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics.” …

…Republicans in the media chimed in with their own eruption of rage, pretending to be feminist allies defending Harp’s wounded honor against Ossoff’s horrifying attack. “What a gross misogynistic thing to say,” said Marc Thiessen. “You ow [sic] this young woman an apology.” “Who accuses women of behaving like that because he doesn’t like their boss” said Ari Fleischer. “This guy should be ashamed.”

Pardon, behaving like what? Who’s the one making assumptions here?

As far as I’ve seen, no one on the Democratic side or in media has accused Trump and Harp of having an affair. But the fact that she goes everywhere he goes is undeniable. She was even among the chosen few who hid with Trump in the famous catering truck. So Jon Ossoff wasn’t accusing her of anything but simply stating observable fact.

But when CNN reporter Kristen Holmes asked Trump for a comment on Ossoff’s remarks, Trump threw on of his signature fits.

“Quiet, quiet, quiet. You’re very disrespectful.” After she told him she worked for CNN, he responded: “Fake news, you’re fake news, you’re a loud boisterous person. You’re fake news. Be quiet. Be quiet. You’re a fake reporter and you report fake news.” He talked over her as she tried to ask a question.

And, y’know what? I personally don’t care whether they’re having an affair or not. I’m more interested in what role Harp plays in keeping Trump insulated from reality.

But here’s what freaks me out even more. You remember David Axelrod? Axelrod is a Democratic party strategist best know for working for President Obama in various capacities. And Axelrod thinks that Jon Ossoff should have not brought up Natalie Harp. Mention of her was a “distraction” and a “detraction; from the issues and from Ossoff’s message.

Going back to something Greg Sargent said at The New Republic,

Jon Ossoff said three words, poked the bear, and as a result, he’s getting viciously abused across the internet and across the airwaves, but he forced a conversation over what we’re talking about. And that strikes me as something Democrats should learn from.

I have this sort of formula in my head where Democrats spend a little too much time denying the false things that are said about them, and not enough time kind of forcing Trump and Republicans to deny true things about themselves. Does that make sense, Paul?

In other words, what we see here is what happens when a Democrat speaks plain truths about the president. It forces the discussion in a direction that puts Trump on the defensive and reveals things about Trump and the MAGA movement. I think Democrats can learn from that.

And Paul Waldman responds,

But I think that it was incredibly revealing, the way that the White House and basically the entire conservative movement just kind of exploded in anger at this. That really shows that you’ve struck a nerve. And so I think Democrats should think about, you know, what other nerves they want to strike.

Now we’re talking. We need more Democrats speaking the plain truth about what a disaster this Trump Administration has been.

Instead of apologizing, the Dems need to double down — how is Trump really spending his time? He’s focused on the ballroom and the arch and getting his name on the Kennedy Center and his fancy flying palace Air Force One. Not on the business of the people. And maybe this Natalie Harp person is part of the problem. Maybe she’s protecting him from too much bad news. He appears to have no idea what’s really going on. Can we get some answers about this stuff? And since when has anyone working in the White House been off limits?

So what’s next? Let’s have some major Democratic figures like Ossoff or Newsom or Mark Kelly in a major speech question why Trump takes so many cognitive tests. Is he in early stage Alzheimer’s (I wouldn’t be surprised)? The American people have a right to know. And what about the billions the Trump family is making directly from Trump’s position? Let’s stop tip-toeing around that and just go straight to accusation. Yes, it’s been reported in the press. But let’s see how that issue can be used by Democrats to strike some Repulican nerves. Don’t be shy.

What do active-duty military think of Trump these days? There was a time when I had family members who were career army, but they’re no longer serving. so I have no idea.

The treatment of the service people on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and other ships stationed in the Arabian Sea is just plain callous. I do not believe any previous presidents ever brushed off concern for the well-being of troops as coldly as Trump did.

Trump was asked by reporters Friday whether the USS Lincoln’s deployment had gone on too long.

“No, not nearly long enough,” Trump said.

Today he’s calling reports about conditions on the Lincoln “fake news.”

It’s not clear to me if the situation — which I’m reading is affecting other ships — is being properly addressed. The U.S.S. George Washington is said to be on its way to the Arabian Sea to relieve the Lincoln, but there are problems on other ships as well. And it’s obvious nothing would have been done had families not gone to the media and made a stink about it.

Do read or listen to Paul Krugman’s column or podcast — it’s a podcast with a transcript — The Misery Will Continue Until Morale Improves. It begins —

According to an old military maxim, amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics. But these days we need a third category: Immature, insecure guys think that war is about acting tough and looking cool.

I have no military experience, but I’ve read enough history to know that lots of battles, and wars, were lost because of failures in logistics.

Krugman goes on to say that “Trump and company are eviscerating the military.” We’ve burned through weapons and equipment for no good reason, and we’re subjecting the seamen to horrific conditions — inadequate food, flooding toilets, no time off for months.

And then we have the stories about Trump intervening. Demanding, first, that the Navy construct a whole new class of ships, Trump-class battleships, which are useless and would be sitting ducks. Then demanding that the Navy replace modern catapults with steam catapults, which he thinks are cooler. And then demanding that they relocate the command tower on aircraft carriers because he wants them to look more like the way they looked during World War II.

Yes, those are Trump’s priorities regarding the military. Basically he’s an eight-year-old boy in an 80 year old body who has seen a lot of World War II movies, I guess.

Krugman goes on to say that Trump is not in charge of his faculties. I’m not sure he ever had that many faculties. With him it’s hard to tell what might be dementia and what might be plain old stupid.  But he keeps creating his own crises with bad decisions and then doesn’t know how to address them. If he ever had to deal with a real threat, some Cuban-Missile-Crisis level event, we’re doomed..

The emirs and princes and various other leaders of the Middle East are over Trump now.

After months of conflict, and continuing missile and drone strikes by Iran and its proxies, three officials and a former U.S. diplomat told The Washington Post, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain are now united in their aggravation with the administration. Some have begun to debate the utility of continuing to host large U.S. military installations on their territory.

As long as Trump is president, there is no “utility.” Trump has no understanding or appreciation of strategic alliances. He may have no idea how those U.S. military installations got built in Middle East territory. He may think the U.S. bought the properties like real estate. And as erratic as he’s been, there’s no way to know how he would respond if any of those nations needed actual defense.

And the other story I saw was about a three-time Trump voter and MAGA guy whose Russian wife was arrested by ICE.

Last month, moments after the couple got off their flight in Burbank, Calif., a young man in a brown hooded sweatshirt stopped Galina Bobreneva.

“Congratulations, you’ve been chosen for secondary screening,” he told her, according to the couple’s recollection.

The man was a federal agent, and after questioning Ms. Bobreneva for about 15 minutes, he led her away in handcuffs to an unmarked vehicle.

“I’m only doing my job,” he said. “Everything will be OK.”

So began a 16-day ordeal: a night on the floor of a basement holding cell in downtown Los Angeles; two weeks in a Mojave Desert detention center and a frantic legal effort to win her release.

Freed on a $35,000 bond with an electronic monitor clamped to her ankle, she is now fighting to stay in the United States against federal charges of overstaying her visa.

Ms. Bobreneva and her husband have been married for less than a year, and her application for a green card, sponsored by her husband, is still pending. In the past a person in this situation wouldn’t have had to worry about an expired visa, the article says.

Although green-card applicants with expired visas can be detained under federal law, previous administrations did not consider them to be in the country unlawfully. But as the Trump administration seeks to nearly double its daily arrests to 2,000 people, it is detaining and attempting to deport thousands of people who believed they were following the rules.

So it’s just about deporting as many people they can, for any reason or no reason. Oh, and the husband is, shall we say, disillusioned about Trump.

The two stories are very different, but they’re both about the same thing — a realization that Trump isn’t the man they thought he was. I keep seeing stories that Trump voters are disillusioned about Trump’s decision to start a war and the price of gas and groceries. Not all of them, of course. And Galina Bobreneva’s husband was a true Trump believer until ICE arrested his wife. There may be more out there who are one reality check away from being ex-MAGA.

But Trump has one constituency that I suspect will stand by him until the whimpering end. And these are Trump’s own people:  white collar crooks.

David Frum writes at The Atlantic,

“Many secrets; no mysteries.” That’s the master code of the Trump administration. When it does something strange, there’s never any mystery as to why: Somebody close to the president, or possibly the president and his family themselves, intends to score a dishonest dollar. Exactly who and how may be secret. Exactly why is no mystery.

So it is with the news that the Department of the Treasury has ended ownership-reporting requirements for U.S. businesses and purged the existing database of ownership information. This seemingly technical-sounding change is a huge gift to financial crooks, who can now store and launder dark money in U.S. financial institutions with less risk of detection. But the gift comes at the direct expense of banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, which now have to shoulder the burden of verifying customer data themselves.

Frum does into a lot more detail, but basically this change will make it a lot easier for white-collar crooks to move money around for illegal purposes without anyone catching on. It’s also potentially a national security issue. The system Trump is shutting down was put into place in response to September 11.

But at least we know Trump does have some loyal followers left.

Trump’s war in Iran appears to be heading for a T.S. Eliot ending — not with a bang, but a whimper. But not right away. Someday, though, it will just whimper out.

This week Trump has gone from deciding to just ignore the war for a while, to claiming that the Strait of Hormuz is under U.S. control. Objective reality at the Strait appears to suggest otherwise.

Yesterday Trump wrote on Truth Social that the U.S. has “total control” over the Strait, and “I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT.” Today Tehran announced that the Strait of Hormuz is “under Iran’s control and management.” (I understand the potential deal for a joint operation with Oman fell apart over details. A shame.)

But maybe Trump should stick to just ignoring the war. Did he think people would believe  him when he said the U.S. controls the Strait? Because anybody following the news knows that’s not true. This is not something a halfway rational person would have claimed.

Trump has few options left. The depletion of our weapons is putting our military personnel deployed to the region in greater danger.

Shrunken inventories of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors may force the US and its Middle Eastern allies to take greater risks to conserve those air defences, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. For example, it said, American forces may launch fewer missiles against incoming Iranian drones and missiles, raising the chance of one getting through.

The Pentagon now is pushing the defense industry to crank out more missiles as fast as possible. But I understand the high tech stuff takes several months, maybe a couple of years, to be ready to use.  Trump isn’t gong to get his big stockpile back anytime soon.

You’ve probably heard about what’s been going on with the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. The aircraft carrier has been at sea way too long. The crew is burned out. Families are reporting that the crew isn’t getting enough to eat. There are sewage and other sanitation problems with the ship. Recently several crew members have attempted to jump overboard, and one actually did (he survived). Naturally Pete Hegseth has been brushing off these issues as no big deal. Then several Democrats in Congress made noises about an investigation. Today it was announed that the U.S.S. George Washington would be relieving the Abraham Lincoln.

These bozos had better not start World War III, because none of them can manage their way out of a rusty mess kit. Under Hegseth it’s not the Department of War but the Department of What the Bleep Are We Doing?.

But as there aren’t many options left I’m predicting the war will just whimper along as a low-grade hostility until Trump leaves office. Let’s just hope no one else has to die for it.

And I have nothing original to say about Operation Catering Truck, so I’ll just quote this bit from Heather Cox Richardson:

National security reporter David Rothkopf wrote: “The man who cowered hiding from the Iranians in a catering truck and who has personally done more to increase Iran’s strategic influence than anyone in its own government ever has, is now blathering nonsense via social media. The world sees him more as an impotent fool today than ever before.”

In other news, but related:

The first news story I saw this morning was headlined Homeland Security Paid $464 Million for Airplanes. Then It Parked Them. This is a gift article from the New York Times.

Starting last fall, the Department of Homeland Security spent $464 million on a no-bid contract to buy 10 used airplanes from a firm in Northern Virginia.

That was an enormous price tag, but the department said it had no time to consider other offers. The planes were needed urgently for deportation flights.

But since then, the department has barely used this new fleet — for deportations, or anything else.

Apparently the agency doesn’t have the staff to operate the plans.

The contract also illuminated a broader trend within the second Trump administration: no-bid contracts awarded to people with connections to Mr. Trump or his cabinet secretaries. The company that received this contract, Daedalus Aviation Corporation, is led by a chairman who had donated to a political committee supporting the previous Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem. …

… The situation with the planes was reminiscent of the department’s about-face on a plan to acquire warehouses to hold detainees. The department spent heavily on those when Ms. Noem was secretary, but reversed itself just months later under Mr. Mullin. The department is now giving away or selling seven warehouses that it bought for more than $700 million.

I remember reading that the agency was offering amounts way above the market price for those warehouses. Yet The Gnome was the same person who caused huge delays in releasing disaster relief funds by insisting on new layers of review, creating a $17 billion bottleneck. .

And then there’s Trump, spending taxpayer money lavishly on his monuments projects and on covering perfectly presentable statues in gold leaf while we can’t afford health care. But I’m beginning to think even Americans who don’t pay attention to politics are starting to notice something is very screwy. And a big part of that screwiness is that the people in charge of critical government departments are grossly unqualified for their jobs. The Gnome is gone, but I don’t see the overall situation improving

And I honestly don’t think Trump is living in the same time-space continuum as the rest of us.

And you’ve probably heard Karoline Leavitt is leaving at the end of this month. I can’t get too excited because I’m sure whoever replaces her will be just as bad. But I am mildly curious as to why, since she just heroically came back from having a baby, her second child. I certainly appreciate how hard that is. But she’s the one who came back. Maybe there’s another reason. Well, someday somebody will write a book and spill the beans.

Oh one more thing. See Kennedy Center Board Decides to Inscribe Trump’s Name on Building. Seriously.

If you missed Rachel Maddow last night, do watch:

See also Dr. Phil and a Texas Oil Firm Go to Greenland With a Suspicious Agenda. Signs Point to Trump’s Imperialist Visions. by Nicole LaFond at Talking Points Memo.

A Texas-based oil company with ties to President Trump, called Greenland Energy, is reportedly readying resources to begin drilling in a remote area of Greenland even though it does not yet have permission to do so from the Greenland government and local officials. Locals living in the remote area of Greenland’s Nunap Qeqqa, or Jameson Land, have reported seeing drilling equipment being brought ashore and unloaded in the region in recent weeks and the Greenland government issued a “strong warning” against unauthorized actions in the area in a statement in late July.

The Texans are moving in their equipment as if they own the place. Greenland says they don’t have permission.

This will be a little different. I need to rant about health care.

As y’all well know, the United States is the only industrialized nation on the planet still trying to provide health care through a private for-profit system, only using government programs as patches for what the private system won’t touch because there’s no profit in it, like taking care of the elderly.

In 2024, the United States spent an estimated $15,474 per person on health care, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. This isn’t just government spending but all spending, including what we pay out of pocket.

Now let’s look at what other industrialized nations spend. Germany has one of the most expensive health care systems in Europe. They’re spending $9,365 USD per capita per year. Again, that’s all spending. Germany’s health care system is ranked a lot higher than ours, by the way, as measured by outcomes and accessibility. The average spending in European Union countries is $5,005.50 annually per capita. Quality varies, but several of those countries rank higher than the U.S. in quality.

Why are we spending so much more? One reason is that we have no cost controls. I understand providers of pharmaceuticals and medical technology have been free to charge whatever they want in most circumstances. And where else do pharmaceutical companies spend millions on television advertising? Often the same products are far more expensive in the U.S. than anywhere else. Another reason is that keeping track of the many separate insurance plans requires an army of clerical workers to keep track of them. And when uninsured patients can’t pay, or he insurance companies won’t pay, for care already provided, medical facilities often add hidden surcharges to everybody’s bills to make up for the loss.

Other industrialized nations don’t have identical systems, but generally they offer healthcare to everybody through a taxpayer supported system in one way or another. Everybody is covered. These systems get economies of scale and negotiate uniform prices with providers. There is no clerical or advertising overhead. Often there are legal limits on how much profit anyone can charge. H Continue reading →

I’m heartbroken about what’s being done to Dr. Fauci. This is from David Kurtz at TPM:

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted this morning to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for having invoked his 5th Amendment rights not to testify at last week’s witch hunt of a hearing.

At least two Senate committees are actively going after Fauci.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chair of the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, revealed last night that he had obtained Fauci’s COVID-era phone from the Department of Health and Human Services, Fauci’s former government employer, which left Republicans salivating that they had another motherlode of fodder to stoke the fires against Fauci.

It’s bad enough that they published his diary. Plus, the AGs of Florida, west Virginia, and Louisiana have issued subpoenas to Dr. Fauci. They are alleging he  “profited” from the recommendations he gave during the Covid pandemic. I notice that just about every other nation on the planet followed the same or very similar recommendations. But for some reason our political Right in the U.S. became angry about it, and is still angry. Is that happening anywhere else? Not that I’ve heard.

This demonizing of Dr. Fauci began almost immediately, btw. Yesterday when I was looking for something else I came across an old Mahablog post from May 2, 2020, headlined Righties Have Mythology, Not a Cause. It reminded me of episodes I’d forgotten, like a huge protest in Lansing, Michigan in which righties threw a collective tantrum over the covid restrictions. Dana Milbank’s description is priceless:

At the American Patriot Rally at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Thursday, many of the hundreds of protesters wore red “Make America Great Again” caps or flew “Trump 2020” banners and “Build the Wall” or “Drain the Swamp” signs. Others waved the yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags of the tea party. Demonstrators, several armed with military-style guns, then marched into the statehouse and stared down the police.

What did they propose to do with these weapons? Shoot the virus? Shoot the governor? Shoot themselves in the foot?

They didn’t seem to have a plan. They were there to rail against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic restrictions, though hers are not so different from those in other states, even those run by Republican governors. They howled about “tyranny” even though the country is now run by the man they helped elect. They fretted about losing their Second Amendment rights even as they carried guns, legally under Michigan law, into the Capitol. They complained about runaway government spending and money-printing even though Trump and the GOP have championed it.

This was still in the first half of 2020, mind you. The pandemic was just getting started. In New York City the hospitals were renting refrigerated trucks to store the excess dead, and some would be doing this until well into 2021. Yet these bozos were throwing fits over mandatory masks and school closings?  And as I documented in the post, they’d already singled out Dr. Fauci as a villain for handing out the same advice that all the other heads of public health in most other countries were handing out. They were also protesting Bill Gates, but at the moment I don’t remember why.

So the question must be asked, what is wrong with these people?  And why do they seem concentrated in the U.S.? What are we doing wrong to generate all these, um, specimens within our borders?

I may have mentioned this before, but by 2021 there was data showing that people who lived in counties that voted for Trump in 2020 were getting infected and dying at higher rates than people in counties that voted for Biden. And this was largely because more of the blue-county people were getting vaccinated and otherwise taking Dr. Fauci’s advice, while more of the red-county people were not. The MAGAts were paying for their “freedom” with their lives. They haven’t noticed this and won’t believe you even if you show them the data. See also David Frum, Anthony Fauci Is Not the Villain in This Story, at The Atlantic.

In other news — it appears to have been called to Trump’s attention that the U.S. has blown through much of its stockpile of high-tech missiles and other weapons. He blew up at Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office, according to several accounts. And then I’m sure he fell back on blaming Joe Biden. But Trump really has no options left in Iran now. I understand that Iran and Oman are very close to finalizing their deal to mutually control the Strait of Hormuz, and I’m reading at MS Now that Trump and other top U.S. officials are speaking approvingly of the deal, which indicates they may just accept it and slink away. And this may be the best outcome anyone is going to get in the short term. Short term meaning “while Trump is still POTUS.” Some future president may have to revisit all this, but maybe not. We can hope.

In more other news — A federal appeals court panel ruled that Donald Trump must stop aboveground construction on his beloved ballroom unless he gets approval for the project from Congress. I take it Trump plans to appeal to the Supreme Court instead of just getting approval from Congress. See Trump Majorly Flips Out as Judges Rule His Ballroom Is Illegal by Edith Olmsted at The New Republic.

In even more other news — It looks like Todd Blanche has the votes to be confirmed.

See also — Barring Mamdani From the 9/11 Commemoration Lets the Enemy Win by me at Patheos.

There are talks going on regarding Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, but the United States is not part of those talks. Instead, they are going on between Iran and Oman. And what gets decided could be the resolution to Trump’s War. From the New York Times:

Iran and Oman are closing in on an agreement to reopen shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian and American officials, but if the accord goes into effect it could come at a high price — ratifying Tehran’s control over what, before the war, was an open, international waterway.

As described by officials familiar with the emerging accord, vessels heading into the Persian Gulf will transit a channel controlled by Iran, and close to its coast. Ships leaving the Gulf will travel on a channel near Oman.

Iranian officials say that while there will be no tolls charged the agreement includes a “service fee” to cover the environmental impact of the shipping, security for the cargo ships and tankers, and staffing. Revenues would be divided equally between Iran and Oman, two Iranian officials said.

I understand this is an “interim” agreement, not a permanent resolution, but if the “interim” lasts as long as Trump is in the White House I wouldn’t argue about it. In the short run this might be the best resolution we’re going to get. If this agreement opens the Strait and gets everyone to back off what seems to be turning into a much wider war, I say take it. Yes, it would leave Iran with some big, fat leverage it didn’t have before Trump started the war. But is there a way to force Iran to give up that leverage? And if so, what is it? Shooting missiles at them doesn’t seem to be working. And we’re running ut of missiles.

But where does the Administration stand?

But a U.S. official familiar with the negotiations said on Monday that the Iranian account was “not accurate,” and said that any “temporary” routes established through the strait would not involve approvals or permissions by Iran, and would involve no tolls.

Yeah, good luck with an agreement regarding Iran that doesn’t involve Iran. But that was yesterday. Today Trump is saying that he wants this deal to be made immediately, or he’ll shoot what’s left of our missiles at them. But Trump also appears to believe that he, or somebody representing the U.S., is an active participant in these talks.

“It’s not very complex. We’re talking about the strait, the opening of the strait, having it open, literally by tomorrow. Completely open,” Trump said. The president claimed that would be the first phase before proceeding to denuclearization talks.

Ok, so?

But Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, told reporters Monday that Iran was not currently in talks with the U.S. He said Iran was in the final stages of discussions with Oman to open the strait.  

In response, Trump called Iran’s leadership “unbelievably duplicitous,” claiming in a social media post before the press conference they’d begged him to restart talks.  

By now Iran’s leadership is well aware that what Trump says and objectively verifiable realty do not live in the same zip code.

The New York Times article goes on to say that opening the Strait would be a benefit to Trump politically, as it would take a lot of pressure off the economy. It would do nothing about Iran’s nuclear stockpile, but let’s be frank — nothing good can come from talks with Iran as long as the Trump Regime is involved. It would be better to just get the U.S. completely out of it, at least until we have a real President again. But getting Trump to shut his yap about Iran is probably more than we can hope for.

In other news — There are a mess of primaries today, including the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from Michigan, being contested between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed that’s been in the news quite a bit. I’m rooting for El-Sayed but making no predictions.

Paul Waldman at The Cross Section has an essay on electability that I heartily endorse. And there’s another good read by David Graham at The Atlantic, Americans Are Turning on Trump.

There are reports that Cornyn and Tillis have caved and are now on board with allowing a vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General. Blanch appears to have given them written assurance that the slush fund is dead.  But did he?

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling writes at The New Republic:

On its face, Blanche’s note appeared to terminate the fund, specifying that the order was “rescinded and shall have no force or effect.” However, journalists were quick to comment that the language employed in the rest of Blanche’s memo not only suggested that the honeypot fund would be preserved in some form but also failed to terminate Trump’s underlying IRS immunity arrangement.

This, I believe, is the statement Blanche signed and issued. It says there is no fund, but makes no assurances there won’t be one in the future. And it doesn’t say squat about the IRS audit immunity. See emptywheel for more.