STUMBLING INTO TUESDAY

There are 91 days left to the midterms.

Monday, Trump blasted Chevron CEO Mike Wirth for not crediting the White House for the oil industry’s profits. Trump argued that without his administration’s help, the oil industry and the country itself would be, in his words, dead. Trump’s demand that oil companies roll back their profits, because it is hurting his standing with voters, fell on deaf ears. Energy markets responded with minimal reaction to Trump’s Monday criticism of oil companies for “making too much money” off global shortages created by the Iran war, in which he threatened, “They better cut the retail price, the consumer price. I’ll say it loud and clear. I’m not happy about it.” Crude prices dipped slightly. Gas prices remained steady. The oil industry ignored the presidential pressure entirely. So much for the Big Bad Wolf and his huffing and puffing.

Danny

In another - more important - example of how Dear Leader is turning himself into yesterday’s news, there’s this: last week, Trump demanded that Senate Majority Leader Thune cancel the August recess and stay in session until the SAVE Act was passed. The Senate responded by moving forward with an attempt to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded until December 11, trying to move forward on the late Lindsey Graham’s bill to sanction Russia, and a cryptocurrency reform bill. Not only will the Senate leave Friday when its work is done for a five-week recess, it will also leave without passing the SAVE Trump’s Fat Ass bill. The legislation Senate Republicans are working on doesn’t address inflation and affordability, but it shows the majority has no interest in saving Trump’s fat ass. They’ll come back in September for three weeks, then be gone for the October election recess.

Republicans have long thought the former swing state of Ohio was locked down as a solidly red GOP stronghold. That’s no longer the case. Republican strategists are bracing for a very dicey November. One national GOP strategist said that the combination of GOP voter depression, the Iran war and Max Miller’s abuse allegations all spell trouble for the party in a big way. Ohio Republicans are privately hoping that Miller will drop out of the race so state Senator Jane Timken can take his place on the ballot. But Miller only has until tomorrow to withdraw, and right now he’s staying put. The Senate contest isn’t looking much better for Republicans. Incumbent Jon Husted is in a dead heat with former Senator Sherrod Brown, who’s been out-raising Husted by a nearly three-to-one margin. His campaign has made Husted the face of increasingly unpopular data center development across the state. Billionaire RamaSwamaDingDong is also neck-and-neck with Democrat Amy Acton in the gubernatorial election. He’s struggling to connect with the state’s working-class voters and has faced backlash from his own party’s base over his public support for AI data centers. He was even recently heckled while stumping at a libertarian conference. Some Republicans worry Ohio could also be a preview of what’s coming in other blue-collar Midwestern and Rust Belt states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Mmmm...Republican Fricassee - my favorite.

Markwayne Mullet recently spoke at a governors meeting in Oklahoma, and ended up pointing out that the claim that immigrants steal jobs from Americans isn’t true across every industry, and argued immigrant labor is necessary to fill gaps where Americans simply aren’t filling positions. Which prompted outrage from MAGA influencers like Beachbunny Tomi Lahren, who accused Mullin of trying to appease liberals while Loonie Loomer demanded Trump fire him. Steve ManyShirts and fabulist Jack Posobiec said MAGA wants a DHS secretary who will prioritize deportations over everything else. This is despite DHS not slowing down on deportations at all. Immigrant detention numbers just hit a new high, while arrests have surged nationwide. Deportation figures are climbing ever higher by the day, and nothing about ICE enforcement has changed.

Paul Krugman observed that the sharp drop in immigration hasn’t produced a notable increase in new jobs for native-born American workers at all. In fact, job creation has actually stalled, while the employment rate for native-born American adults is lower now than before Trump’s mass deportation campaign began in 2025. Additionally, data shows that mass deportations have cost American jobs in local economies without raising wages for workers. But don’t expect the dentally-challenged shitkicking hay shakers of the lumpenproletariat to suddenly come to their senses.

A new report from the Wall Street Journal reveals how ICE has been systematically using grand jury subpoenas and administrative subpoenas to uncover the names of people criticizing ICE online. According to the report, ICE has tracked down hundreds of Americans and forced them to sign documents acknowledging that their criticism of the agency may constitute a crime. The agency combed through dozens of social media sites including Reddit, Discord, LinkedIn and others to track down critics. The documents have no legal force and telling the fifth-rate inbreds from ICE to take the document between thumb and forefinger and put it to use as the toilet paper it is will not result in an arrest.

Monday, the Attorneys General of 25 states Twenty-five states walked into the US Court of International Trade on Monday and asked it to kill Trump’s newest tariffs, which cover 99.4% of everything America imports. NY Gov. Kathy Hochul called them a tax on groceries and building materials, which is exactly what they are. The states already won this fight before. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in February that the emergency tariffs were illegal, and Customs has been paying the money back—$71 billion of the $166 billion it took, with interest, landing in the accounts of affected American businesses. NY AG Letitia James didn’t mince words. The regime, she said, is “once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs” after losing at the Supreme Court.

Trump is considering removing “Boxwine Jeanine” Pirro, the US attorney for D.C., over a Justice Department conclusion that problems with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool stemmed from a flawed renovation rather than vandalism, two people familiar with his thinking told CNN. The president is “furious” with Pirro, one of the sources said, telling CNN that he fumed about her all weekend. They added that based on his criticisms of her, they find it “highly likely she’s removed from her job.” She went to the Oval Bordello to meet with Trump and Doug Burgum, the interior secretary whose department oversees the Reflecting Pool, in the Oval Office Monday afternoon, to try and explain what was what in the fewest single-syllable words possible in the hopes that Dilbert would comprehend what she was saying. She emerged with her employment intact - for now. Dilbert is actually convinced that there is “massive evidence” as he put it - lots of pictures from “moving cameras” - of people with boxknives slashing the pool liner. Again: He. Is. Delusional. As Jeff Tiedrich put it: “a spite- fueled chief executive with a vendetta, directing his entire government to go after someone he imagines must be guilty of something, isn’t how functioning democracies work. it’s how tin-horn fascist dictatorships work. it’s how megalomaniacal dumbfucks who believe themselves to be some kind of king work.

Trump repeatedly campaigned for his second term as a champion of free expression, vowing in his January 2025 inaugural address to stop what he described as years of “government censorship.” Since then, a wave of court rulings has concluded his administration has done the opposite. Reuters identified 75 federal-judge rulings finding Maladministration II infringed on First-Amendment rights including freedoms of speech, religion, and the press.The unprecedented pushback on constitutional grounds has included repeated findings the administration chilled or squelched the speech of citizens and groups opposing Trump’s agenda. “The President’s palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech,” Boston-based U.S. District Judge William Young wrote, ruling last September that Maladministration II illegally detained, deported and revoked visas of foreign students and faculty because of their pro-Palestinian advocacy. Maladministration II officials have repeatedly called federal judges ruling against them “activists” who are interfering with the president’s executive authority. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson criticized the First-Amendment rulings in a statement, saying “the federal judiciary has repeatedly endangered and obstructed the election choices of the American people with its unlawful rulings.” That statement alone demonstrates that Judge Young was right. The 75 cases that produced lower-court rulings against Maladministration II were among 93 total cases during his second term in which judges addressed First-Amendment arguments, Reuters found. By comparison, during Democratic President Joe Biden’s presidential term, Reuters identified just 27 cases in which lower-court judges weighed First-Amendment challenges to his agenda. Judges ruled against his administration in 13 of those. Most of the lower-court rulings against the Biden administration involved its vaccine mandates, which were challenged on religious-freedom grounds.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said today a deal regarding the Strait of Hormuz could be made either “today” or “tomorrow.” “We are in talks with the Iranians. There is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait and move towards a more normalized position in this conflict,” Bessent said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said while speaking with reporters this morning that ships and oil were moving through the waterway, which suggest that it is “open now.” Suggesting the U.S. was undertaking efforts to reopen the waterway alongside Oman, Rubio said, “I think that there’s a conversation and a negotiation that we are involved in between Oman and Iran on how more ships can be able to go through there safely in the short term as we move towards these longer-term talks about denuclearization. And suffice it to say there’s been progress made in those talks, but not finality yet. We’re hoping that will happen very shortly.” Reality is different: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said during a Monday press conference: “We are not currently holding negotiations with the United States. Our talks are with Oman and are focused on reaching an understanding on a route that would allow shipping traffic to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Our aim is to work out, as soon as possible and in consultation and cooperation with Oman, a route that would naturally be temporary and would enable us to ensure the security of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” Iran and Oman have made progress toward a deal to reopen the strait, regional officials said Tuesday. Under the emerging agreement, ships would enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through a route controlled by Oman, with service fees charged for providing security and preserving the maritime environment. A U.S. official said the U.S. remains committed to returning to the status quo in which “no party controls the lanes or the ability to transit through them.”

Remember, you are not the crazy ones, and we were made for these times. Regardless of what you may feel right now, act as if you believe that and redouble your efforts.

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.” - Abraham Lincoln

Midnight and Sally

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