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.

As near as I can make out — in a fit of pique, Trump is now declaring that if the Senate won’t confirm his nominee for AG, Todd Blanch, he’s going back to demanding that his weaponization slush fund be reinstated.

“It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account, vowing to pass an “Anti-Weaponization Bill” should his nomination of Todd Blanche for attorney general fail in the Senate.

Trump added that he would keep Blanche as acting attorney general and blasted two GOP senators — John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina) — who have blocked the nomination from advancing over concerns about the fund.

It appears that Trump is backing off from insisting that the Senate stay in session until it approves Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General. He “truthed” a social media post saying he was considering withdrawing Blanche’s nomination until next year, when John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who are not on board with Blanche, will no longer be in the Senate. Steve Benen writes that there are two potential problems with this plan. One is that there are legal questions about how long Blanche can fill the role in an “acting” capacity. Two, there is no guarantee Trump will have a Republican majority in the Senate next year. (Please.)

See also The GOP revolt over Todd Blanche is suddenly very real by Mychael Schnell.

Cornyn and Tillis, both of whom are leaving Congress at the end of the year, say the Trump administration has yet to satisfy their demands on Trump’s IRS settlement. The pair is asking Blanche to formally kill the so-called anti-weaponization fund and narrow the scope of the IRS audit immunity afforded to Trump, his family, his businesses and others under the agreement.

Until then, they’re refusing to advance his nomination to the Senate floor.

However, today the Senate Finance Committee voted down an amendment to a tax procedure bill that would have prevented the IRS from making any tax audit immunity deals with a sitting president, their family, or any connected entities. Which would effectively have killed Trump’s IRS audit immunity deal. And Cornyn voted to kill the amendment. So I don’t know what’s going on with that.

Trump could, of course, get the Blanche nomination back on track as soon as he releases written assurance that there will be no anti-weaponization slush fund or IRS audit immunity. But he won’t, probably because he cares about the slush fund and the audit immunity more than about Todd Blanche.

Trump also has been saying that John Thune may not be majority leader for much longer, as if he has anything to say about it.

John Light at Talking Point Memo

Throughout Trump’s SAVE Act pressure campaign on his Senate allies, he has repeatedly made demands that misunderstand the reality of how the Senate functions, and how bills become law. He has seemed amenable to passing what everyone has taken to calling the “SAVE Act” through budget reconciliation, even though a SAVE Act done through reconciliation, while bad, would likely be without the nationwide voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship mandates that are core to what the SAVE Act is. It is unclear whether Trump realizes this. 

Pathetic. But the senators who are running for re-election are no doubt eager to get home and do some campaigning. And it appears neither Todd Blanche nor the SAVE America Act has the votes now. And I don’t see anything Trump can do to change that.

You’ll want to read We’ve Officially Entered the Twilight of Late-Stage Trumpism by Greg Sargent.

I’m trying to not pay attention to what’s going on in the Fauci Senate hearings. It’s too painful. I suspect I’ll be subjected to highlight films eventually.

Trump has been trying to strong-arm the Senate into delaying their August recess until they pass the SAVE America Act. From what I can tell from news stories, they are unlikely to comply. If Senate Republicans had the votes to pass it, they would have done it already. Majority Leader Thune is saying the Senate could stay in session until Christmas and the bill still wouldn’t get passed.

And I’m seeing news stories saying the Todd Blanche nomination is in trouble. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is holding out. This is from WaPo:

The senator has also said he wants the administration to limit, in writing, the scope of a Justice Department agreement not to pursue President Donald Trump or his family over past tax claims, for example by clarifying that it does not apply to the family’s future actions.

I haven’t disappeared; I’ve just been super busy doing other things. I just wanted to mention something I just read — Trump Will End Subsidies for Medicare Drug Premiums

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it intended to end a Biden-era program that for the past two years has helped tamp down the cost of monthly premiums for drug coverage for people on Medicare.

The decision means that millions of Americans 65 and older could face higher Medicare drug premiums next year, when the cost of living is already a major concern. That could be politically damaging for Republicans in the midterm elections. In the weeks leading up to November, Medicare beneficiaries could experience sticker shock while shopping for next year’s drug plan.

For 2025 and 2026, the federal government gave health insurers billions of dollars in subsidies to help them keep down drug premiums for people on Medicare. Without the subsidies, millions of people could have had to pay hundreds of dollars more a year for their drug plans.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a post on social media on Tuesday that the subsidies had been ended because the insurers no longer needed them. He said every Medicare beneficiary would still have options for low-cost plans.

It is not at all clear to me what Oz thinks has changed so that the subsidies are not longer needed. I’m betting Dem congressional candidates around the nation are already arranging for ads to be made about this. Once again, it’s almost as if Trump wants Republicans to lose.

The White House Correspondents Dinner must have been surreal last night. There was Trump, with his “I’m not having a good time” face, sitting among people who have exposed many of his mis-doings, people he has insulted, people he has called “fake,” people he has sued. And then he watched while people got awards for some of the very reporting he called “treason” (somebody please explain to him what “treason” is) and filed suits about. And this:

One particularly awkward moment played out when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer welcomed a group of reporters from The Wall Street Journal to the stage to accept an award for their “courageous reporting on President Trump’s past relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein” that “triggered the release of the so-called Epstein files.”

Mr. Blitzer reminded the crowd that “Trump quickly filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the Journal, revealing reporter Khadeeja Safdar’s home address. Her family had to be relocated. The Journal was kicked off of Air Force One.”

Good for you, Wolf! It’s been reported that Trump just shrugged.

Trump’s hour-long speech at the dinner sounds fairly dreadful. See Trump’s insult-laden speech to press dinner draws mostly stunned silence by Michael Birnbaum at WaPo and Trump bombs in WHCD return and then unleashes on CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and media in jaw-dropping hour-long rant by Josh Marcus at The Independent.

Just a quick word on the indictments of New York Times reporters that were dismissed this week — I wasn’t too worried about the Times reporters, because I do know the law pertaining to news reporting pretty well. Truth is an absolute defense, and Trump himself admitted that his fancy new Air Force One was nixed for the return trip from the NATO summit because of security reasons, which is what the Times reported. And journalists have long been protected from revealing their sources. The government cannot punish news sources for publishing material obtained from a third party who may have broken laws to obtain it; see the Pentagon Papers.

Oh, and here’s the newest NY Times reporting on the Air Force One fiasco — Inside the Rushed Effort to Get Trump His New Air Force One by Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Maggie Haberman.

The big headline today is that the Trump Administration has admitted to canceling grants going to states that didn’t vote for Trump. Another impeachable offense. There’s at least one every day, I believe.

Another good read for today is by David Frum at The Atlantic, The Saudis Learn the Truth About Trump. This is about the nuclear deal Trump allegedly made earlier this week with the Saudis, and then within hours began changing the terms.

On July 22, United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed an agreement for a Saudi-U.S. civilian nuclear partnership. The multi-decade, multibillion-dollar deal allows American companies to develop and operate commercial nuclear power plants on Saudi soil, potentially including a uranium-enrichment facility. The Saudis have sought such a deal for almost 20 years. United States presidents from Barack Obama onward have expressed openness to it, but on two conditions: Any deal must include safeguards against Saudi use of enrichment for nuclear weapons and also a normalization of relations with Israel. …

… The Saudis, essentially, had got everything they wanted, with little sacrifice in return. But no sooner was the deal signed than the reneging began. In a Truth Social post yesterday, Trump insisted that the deal did not, in fact, include uranium enrichment and that it is “totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords”—that is, to normalized relations with Israel. Utter chaos and confusion duly erupted over what Trump meant to accomplish with these words. Is Trump attempting to blow up the freshly inked deal after hearing Republicans criticize it on Fox News and elsewhere, as CNN suggests? Or was the outburst simply Trump bluster without real-world consequences?

Whichever. It’s not clear if the deal is still viable. But this is a pattern that goes back to Trump’s pre-politics days. He was notorious for not honoring contracts if he didn’t feel like it. Frum concludes,

America’s traditional democratic allies feel betrayed and baffled by the unpredictability of Trump’s pay-for-play diplomacy. But those willing to pay can suffer betrayals and bafflements of their own. If not even the Saudis, who showered Trump and his family with cash and gifts, can trust Trump’s diplomacy, who else on earth can feel any confidence at all?

This all goes back to the fact that much of news media, television news especially, have been “sanewashing” and normalizing Trump since he first ran for POTUS in 2015. And to this day I’m sure many people still believe he was a successful businessman because he played one on The Apprentice. But his actual record as a businessman is terrible. He inherited a successful real estate business from his father, but nearly every business venture Trump initiated himself either bombed or was shut down by courts for being fraudulent. Before The Apprentice he was over his head in debt and close to being ruined. The Apprentice saved him, and made him look more competent than he ever was, and here we are.

I remember the New York Times publishing some in -depth reports on Trump’s failures and shady business practices, but I didn’t see any of that on television news. And that’s where people get most of their information, on television news. Maybe they’ve learned a lesson by now. If it’s not too late.

Warfighter Pete testified to the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, and from what I saw he was mostly being an asshole. He also appears to have way lowballed how much money has been spent on the Iran War even as he was asking for more money for the war. And he can’t say what “winning” would look like. But this isn’t really news to anybody.

The chair of the committee is Susan Collins. Yes, she’s head of the committee that will most likely vote to approve more money for the increasingly unpopular war. Even the MAGA Trump fan base is souring on it. Collins probably wishes she were a tad less visible on this issue. I understand Fox News wasn’t covering the hearings yesterday. Tells you something.

The iron law of midterms says that if people are pissed at the President, the President’s party will lose votes. And at this point even Republicans are admitting they’re doing worse under Trump’s economy.

It’s as if Trump is doing everything he can do to help the Democrats. Even his bomb of a speech on “election integrity” might possibly have discouraged his base from turning out in November. Why bother to vote if they think the elections are rigged by the Democrats? (See also David Frum, Trump Dooms His Own Party.)

It’s hard to know how much Trump himself is aware of this. I question how many working brain cells he has left. Trump keeps saying he doesn’t want to be the next Herbert Hoover. I say he’s worse than Hoover already. Poor Hoover was inaugurated POTUS in March 1929, a few short months before the infamous stock market crash of 1929. But the economic conditions that set up the crash and the Great Depression were all aligned during Calvin Coolidge’s administration. Hoover hadn’t done anything to change the direction of the economy. Trump’s economy is all Trump’s doing. And with the Iran War escalating I don’t see any possibility for it getting better before the midterms.

And speaking of the Great Depression, yesterday Paul Krugman wrote that Trump’s is actually citing a provision in the Trade Act of 1930, generally known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, for authority to slam more tariffs on Canada. Seriously.

Update: This is juicy. Malcolm Ferguson at The New Republic asks, What Did Trump Do With the Billions He Collected From Venezuelan Oil?

The Trump administration has raked in about $13 billion after taking over Venezuela’s oil exports in the wake of their kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, according to a Financial Times analysis. But six months later, and one month after two devastating earthquakes, that money is nowhere to be found.

Various claims have been made about what happened to the money, but reporting by the Financial Times says the claims have not checked out. But also, “In January Semafor reported that Trump would be keeping proceeds from the first $500 million sale of Venezuelan oil in an offshore bank account based in Qatar. It might be worth checking up on that account.”

Update: I bet I’m not the only one here who remembers the Edsel. Well, now the ugly Tesla cybertruck is officially a bigger sales flop than the Edsel was.

One of my Facebook friends posted this —

Yes, Trump wants to open this protected wilderness to oil drilling.  Canada is burning, but we need more oil. Meanwhile the Trump Administration is paying billions to abandon wind farm projects, because he hates wind farms.

I thought of this when I read Paul Krugman’s latest Substack column, Trump’s War on the Future, Monetary Edition. Krugman discusses a digital payment system initiated by the government of Brazil called Pix that is very popular among Brazilians. It works like Apple Pay or Google Pay, but Pix payments are official currency and not transfers from private accounts. It’s free to use, and it sounds like Pix payments that you can make from your phone are the same as cash. I can see why that would be very handy. So when do we get something like that here?

Oops, not anytime soon, because Trump doesn’t like it. Krugman writes that “the Trump administration will try to punish Brazil for this success. It will do so by imposing tariffs on Brazilian exports under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which permits such tariffs to counter ‘unfair trade practices.'”

This doesn’t sound like any of our business, frankly. If this is working for Brazilians, I’m happy for them. Krugman says that what should worry us is if the European Union established a similar system for euros. Goodbye supremacy of the U.S. dollar.

But let’s be clear: the reason people might switch to digital euros will be because the US won’t be offering an equally good means of payment. Why won’t there be a digital dollar? Not because it’s a bad idea — as Brazil has shown, it would be a very good idea. But there are powerful special interests that oppose any such move.

Last year Republicans in the House passed a bill that didn’t just forbid the creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency; it prohibited any study of the issue by the Federal Reserve. “Don’t even think about parking here creating a digital dollar.”

Proponents of this ban claimed to have concerns about how a central bank digital currency would work. But it’s obvious that their real concern is that it would work too well. Crypto interests, in particular, are very worried that consumers who had access to digital dollars would lose interest in stablecoins and other cryptocurrency products, because these products, being risky and awkward to use, would not be competitive with a system that simply lets people make electronic payments in dollars.

And, gee, who was it who took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year? Some guy. It’ll come to me, I’m sure. Oh, yeah …

Finally, the furious opposition to central bank digital currencies reminds me of the Trump administration’s all-out efforts to block development of wind and solar power. In both cases we see political players beholden to special interests — crypto when it comes to money, fossil fuels when it comes to energy — who claim to favor technological progress, but scream “not like that” when a superior technology doesn’t take the economy where they want it to go.

This reminds me also of Trump’s canceling of policies that encouraged people to buy EVs, like the tax credits for EV purchases and leases. Yes, let’s let China get way ahead of us in EV development. If this were 1903 I can see trump trying to kill off automobiles to protect the horse and buggy industry (which made a big contribution to his presidential “library”).

As Krugman writes, “The Trump Administration has declared war on the future.” Well, he’s declared war on a future that is hospitable to humans, anyway. The future he’s taking us too may not be.