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Jack died today, September 22, 2018. I miss him terribly.

𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧

On Friday an Iranian attack on a U.S. base in Jordan killed two soldiers and left one missing. Another service member died Friday in northern Iraq. This brings the number of military personnel killed in the Iran War to 17 since trump launched strikes against the country on February 28. The Pentagon’s casualty-reporting site says 427 U.S. service members have been wounded.

On Saturday, Greg Jaffe, Julian E. Barnes, and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times reported that multiple officials told them that the attack in Jordan was the fourth in five days and that the strikes had wounded dozens of military personnel and damaged several helicopters. The journalists’ sources told them that the strikes proved Iranian forces still have plenty of missiles and are becoming more skilled at getting around U.S. air defense systems.

The sources told the journalists that the first attack hit a base, injuring as many as five service members; the second hit a different base, damaging U.S. Blackhawk helicopters; and a third hit the same base where the soldiers would later be killed. In that first attack, about 20 military personnel were injured.

Retired Air Force Lieutenant General David Deptula, who helped to plan the air war in the 1991 Gulf War, explained that bases in Jordan give the U.S. broader reach across Syria, Iraq, and beyond. Friday’s attack was “an attack on the U.S. regional coalition and an attempt to make the political cost of hosting American forces greater than the security benefit.”

Those sources who spoke to the New York Times reporters spoke on condition of anonymity. The Pentagon declined to comment.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times noted that lack of information from the Pentagon today when he reported that in the week before the weekend’s deaths, three Iranian strikes injured military personnel and damaged several helicopters yet the Pentagon under Defense Secretary pete hegseth did not disclose the strikes, the casualties, or the damage to the American people, citing the need to keep information about operations secure.

Schmitt noted that neither the White House nor the Pentagon has outlined a military strategy since trump announced that the memorandum of understanding that extended a ceasefire—the one he signed on June 17—was no longer in force. In the nine days since then, both sides have increased strikes.

Schmitt noted the Pentagon has not held a major briefing on the war since early May. Since then, the administration has not disclosed the depletion of crucial and expensive weapons through the Iran strikes, or how Iran has both retained and rebuilt its own missiles. In June, Jonah Kaplan and Michael Kaplan of CBS News reported that hegseth’s claim that “almost 90%” of service members injured had sustained only minor injuries gives a misleading picture of the extent of those injuries. A spokesperson for the Army explained that the Army classifies a soldier as “seriously injured” or “very seriously injured” only if they are at risk of dying from their wounds within 72 hours.

Pentagon spokesperson sean parnell responded to Schmitt’s story by posting on social media that “[t]he Department of War rejects these baseless and malicious accusations of hiding injury numbers as outright lies from partisan hacks at the New York Times who are desperate to smear America’s military and its leadership. Claims of concealment are fabrications meant to further distress the American people in the wake of three service members killed in action.” He continued: “This is the most transparent Department of 𝗪𝗮𝗿 in history.”

And yet, the administration did not consult Congress about launching the war, as the Constitution requires, and has blown through the 60-day time limit for the use of the U.S. military to counter an “imminent threat” without getting congressional approval.

Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal today also asked questions about how the Iranians, who trump said had very few missiles left back in June, are developing faster and more maneuverable missiles. Paletta noted that whether Iran is getting help from Russia, or any other country, remains an “enormous question” that puts “much more pressure on the White House to potentially confront Russia.”

When asked about the deaths of the three service members, trump said “We feel very badly, but you know those great people, those great patriots were out there fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They’ve lost everything almost, militarily. They’ve got very little left…. We control the strait. They don’t control anything. So we’ll see what happens when we hit ’em very hard again tonight.”

Over the last several days, the U.S. has struck Iranian bridges and energy infrastructure. According to Iran’s Health Ministry, the recent U.S. attacks have killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400.

Today the Houthis in Yemen, who are backed by Iran, announced they are imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, threatening the passage of oil through the Bab el-Mandeb strait. If the strait is closed, the global oil supply will take another 7% hit.

The American Automobile Association said today that the average price for a gallon of gasoline is just over $4, up about $0.13 from last week. Before the conflict, the price averaged $2.98 a gallon. Economist Paul Krugman noted today that the “wholesale price of refined products (assuming 2/3 gasoline, 1/3 distillates) is most of the way back to its peak. Since this is what matters for inflation and demand, no relief in sight before the midterms.”

Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reported today that crude oil supplies in the U.S. are the lowest they’ve been in 45 years.

The expansion of the Iran War’s scope, duration, and casualties did not keep trump away from the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina on Sunday. After Spain won over Argentina with a score of 1–0, Trump joined FIFA President Gianni Infantino on the field—apparently unconcerned about the dangers that he says require the construction of a fortified ballroom—to present medals to the Spanish players.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽, who then stood on stage with the celebrating players until Infantino jogged across the stage to lead him away. The Guardian captioned a picture by Javier Garcia taken of Infantino and trump standing aside from the players: “Gianni Infantino carefully explains to donald trump that he is not part of the Spanish national team.”

trump appears to be becoming less and less relevant to actual governance. Last Thursday, Alex Gangitano, Megan Messerly, and Myah Ward of Politico reported that Republicans were “scared sh*tless” about what trump might say in his prime time address, but it is perhaps more of a sign of the current political reality of trump’s falling popularity that CNN, ABC and NBC, chose not to run the speech live.

Matt Gertz of Media Matters noted that despite trump’s promise that his speech would deliver “really, really big news,” the Fox News Channel largely ignored the event. Executives might not have wanted to get entangled in the election denialism that cost them close to $800 million after pushing claims of election fraud after the 2020 presidential election.

Fox hosts turned instead to culture war issues, railing against “DEI” and perceived abuse of WNBA Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, who is white, by Black players.

In line with that focus, the administration is renewing its visible and aggressive immigration policies. For months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not released data about arrests, but immigration enforcement scholar Austin Kocher noted that new records show arrests in early July hit 1,474 a day, a record high for the trump administration.

In the past months, ICE has recruited thousands of new agents. As Maanvi Singh and Fabiola Cineas of The Guardian note, many of these new agents did not have the requisite qualifications and were not properly vetted.

Agents from ICE shot and killed two immigrants within a week earlier this month: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in Houston, Texas, on July 7 and Joan (or Johan) Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13. Neither man was the target of the operation in which he was killed.

In Maine, Ashley Brouillette identified her ex-husband, David Brouillette, as the officer who shot Guerrero four times. She found out he was involved in the shooting when he called her to ask her not to tell reporters about his abuse during their marriage. Both she and another ex-wife had restraining orders against Brouillette.

Ashley Brouillette told reporters that when her ex-husband told her at the end of last year that he had been hired as an ICE agent, “I honestly thought that he was being delusional and I didn’t believe it.”

As an Army combat veteran and former security agent, Brouillette would likely not have undergone in-person training to become an ICE agent, Christian Harsa of News Center Maine reported. A spokesperson for ICE, Lauren Bis, told Vanessa Romo and Alina Hartounian of NPR that Brouillette had “nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training.”

Today, Senator Angus King (I-ME) and 38 Democratic senators sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security markwayne mullin demanding “immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations” of the shooting deaths of Araujo and Guerrero.

As Isabelle Oss of the Portland Press Herald reported, the letter noted that both former DHS secretary kristi noem and White House immigration advisor tom homan committed to making sure that agents are fitted with body cameras. And yet, agents involved in the recent shootings were not equipped with cameras, confirming “that neither of these commitments were honored.”

The senators noted that the acting director of ICE, david venturella, promised Congress that all field agents would be equipped with cameras by the end of July. “We view this timeline not as a projection, but as a firm, binding commitment to which we will hold the Department accountable,” the senators wrote.

They also demanded that ICE agents wear labels clearly identifying themselves as ICE agents.

The senators asked mullin to identify specifically how he intended to investigate the shootings, explain the vetting process for new recruits including whether it considers records of domestic abuse before hiring, identify updates or reviews being made to ICE traffic stop policies, and explain what oversight, reporting measures, or public safety measures the agency is implementing.

As if to demonstrate that he is still in charge, trump this afternoon announced new tariffs on certain products from Canada. The 50% tariffs would further upend the economy if they take effect in 30 days as scheduled.

trump has been complaining about the smoke from Canadian wildfires hurting U.S. air quality, and has threatened to impose further tariffs on Canadian produce because “the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air.” Canadians including Ontario premier 𝘿𝙤𝙪𝙜 𝙁𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙨, 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙙.

— 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟐𝟎, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐱 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐧

On Friday an Iranian attack on a U.S.

𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧

On July 18, 1863, at dusk, the Black soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry of the U.S. Army charged the walls of Fort Wagner, a fortification on Morris Island off Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. Because Fort Wagner covered the southern entrance to the harbor, it was key to enabling the U.S. government to take the city.

The 600 soldiers of the 54th made up one of the first Black regiments for the Union, organized after the Emancipation Proclamation called for the enlistment of African American soldiers. The 54th’s leader was a Boston abolitionist from a leading family: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.

Shaw and his men had shipped out of Boston at the end of May 1863 for Beaufort, South Carolina, where the Union had gained an early foothold in its war to prevent the Confederates from dismembering the country. The men of the 54th knew they were not like other soldiers: they were symbols of how well Black men would fight for their country. This, in turn, would be a statement of whether Black men could truly be equal to white men under the country’s laws, once and for all, for in this era, fighting for the country gave men a key claim to citizenship.

The whole country was watching…and the soldiers knew it.

In the dark at Fort Wagner, the Massachusetts 54th proved that Black men were equal to any white men in the field. They fought with the determination that caused African American regiments during the Civil War to sustain losses higher than those of white regiments. The assault on the fort killed, wounded, or lost more than 250 of the 600 men and made the formerly enslaved Sergeant William Harvey Carney the first African American to be awarded a Medal of Honor. Badly wounded, Carney nonetheless defended the United States flag and carried it back to Union lines. United States soldiers did not take the fort that night, but no one could miss that Black men had proved themselves equal to their white comrades.

The Battle of Fort Wagner left 30 men of the 54th dead on the field—including Colonel Shaw—and 24 more so badly injured that they would later die from their wounds. Fifteen were captured; 52 were missing and presumed dead. Another 149 were wounded. Confederates intended to dishonor Colonel Shaw when they buried him in a mass grave with his men; instead, his family found it fitting.

In 2017 I had the opportunity to spend an evening in the house where the wounded soldiers of the 54th were taken after the battle.

It was a humbling thing to stand in that house that still looks so much as it did in 1863 and to realize that the men, carried hot and exhausted and bleeding and scared into it a century and a half before were just people like you and me, who did what they felt they had to in front of Fort Wagner, and then endured the boat ride back to Beaufort, and got carried up a flight of steps, and then lay on cots in small, crowded rooms and hoped that what they had done was worth the horrific cost.

I am not one for ghosts, but I swear you could feel the blood in the floors.

𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟖, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐱 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐧

On July 18, 1863, at dusk, the Black soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry of the U.S.

Yesterday President Donald J.

In response to trump’s address last night, the chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, Cisco Aguilar of Nevada, released a statement saying: “𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙗𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙨𝙝*𝙩.”

𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧

Today began with yet another demonstration of the fact that the U.S. options for extricating itself from trump’s war on Iran with conditions anywhere near as good as they were under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated with a number of countries under President Barack Obama, or even as good as they were in February 2026 before trump and Israeli president benjamin netanyahu launched air strikes on Iran, do not appear promising.

At 10:16 this morning, trump announced on social media that the Strait of Hormuz “is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World. The process and formation will begin immediately.”

In other words, the U.S. is restarting hostility—a blockade is an act of war—and, according to trump, will protect the Strait of Hormuz but expects to be paid.

trump has been clear that he considers the memorandum of understanding he signed on June 17 no longer in force, probably not least because Iranian officials interpret the words of the hastily constructed deal as giving Iran control over the Strait of Hormuz. They have been clear they intend to charge fees for passage of the strait, a condition the U.S. rejects although trump’s current claim that the U.S. will charge fees seems to undercut the U.S. position.

Crucially, officials in the trump administration continue to deny that Congress has any role in declaring war, despite the clear language of the Constitution. Under the 1973 War Powers Act, the president can respond without congressional input to an “imminent threat” so long as the president notifies Congress in writing within 28 hours of the beginning of hostilities. After that notification, the president has only 60 days before he must either end hostilities or secure congressional approval for them.

trump got around this law first by overruling his own intelligence agencies to insist that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. Then when the May 1 deadline for either withdrawal or congressional approval approached, he claimed that hostilities had ended on April 7 with the declaration of a ceasefire, notwithstanding that both sides continued to shoot at each other and the U.S. maintained its blockade of Iranian ports.

Now they are claiming the power simply to start the clock again. On Friday, trump formally notified Congress that the U.S. has resumed strikes on Iran, claiming the Pentagon has another 60 days to strike Iran before the timeline specified by the War Power Act runs out.

Today Elizabeth Dwoskin, Andrew Ba Tran, Luis Melgar, and Peter Jamison of the Washington Post reported that trump’s sons “donald trump jr. and eric trump have amassed a portfolio of defense technology start-ups that are benefiting from new Pentagon priorities and spending, further entangling the United States’ interests and the trump family’s financial fortunes.” They have invested in more than a dozen defense companies that have collectively received at least $3.2 billion in business directly from the government since those investments, along with $3.1 billion in options for future contracts.

Tonight U.S. Central Command announced it has begun a third night of strikes against Iran.

At about 7:15 this morning, an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. According to staff from the Portland Press Herald, Guerrero was from Colombia and was authorized to work in the U.S. The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition said he had a Social Security number and was on his way to work.

Spokespeople for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, have not commented. Senator susan collins (R-ME) has called for “a full and impartial investigation,” but as her political opponents note, collins voted just last month to give ICE another $70 billion. ICE and Border Patrol had become far less visible as Republicans worked to pass supplemental funding for ICE and Border Patrol through Congress. In the wake of that new funding, immigration sweeps are back in the news. Protests broke out today outside collins’s Biddeford office.

Senator Angus King (I-ME) told Patrick Whittle, Leah Willingham, and Jack Brook of the Associated Press that Secretary of Homeland Security markwayne mullin told him Guerrero had tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against officers, forcing the agent to shoot. This allegation has been a common one for agents trying to justify fatal shootings, including that of Renee Good in Minnesota. Witness Daniel Boucher said that in the aftermath of the shooting, he saw Guerrero “bleeding profusely from the head. He was talking. He said: ‘I tried to stop.’”

This evening, Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) said she had learned that the man ICE shot and killed was not the person they had an order to pick up. ‘

In a statement tonight the Department of Homeland Security claimed that the officer shot because he was “fearing for public safety.” David Bier of the Cato Institute and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the Immigration Council both called out that language, noting DHS was claiming not that the officer feared for his life, but that he had a vague concern for “public safety.”

The ICE killing of a man in Maine comes less than a week after ICE shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Houston, Texas. Salgado Araujo was a Mexican national who had lived in the U.S. for 35 years and was close to obtaining legal status. His son told Lekan Oyekanmi, Jack Brook, and Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press that the homebuilder knew what to do when approached by ICE but may have feared that the men following him in unmarked SUVs intended to steal his tools.

ICE said the officers “attempted to conduct a vehicle stop as part of a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien” and that Salgado Araujo “rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.” It added that an officer “discharged his weapon in self-defense.”

A lawyer for two of the people in the van with Salgado Araujo denied that he tried to ram officers. A source later told Dalia Faheid, Chris Boyette, Priscilla Alvarez, and Caroll Alvarado of CNN that ICE’s description of the events that killed Salgado Araujo as a “targeted enforcement operation” was misleading. While that may have been the case, Salgado Araujo was not the target. They saw him in his van near the target and thought he “resembled the target.”

José Olivares of The Guardian noted that Salgado Araujo was the tenth person shot and killed by federal immigration officers from either ICE or Border Patrol this year. Twenty-one more people have died in ICE detention this year.

This afternoon the trump administration finally turned over to Minnesota investigators evidence from the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. That evidence includes statements, video from police body cameras, and Good’s badly damaged SUV.

Today U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Florida Kathleen Williams said trump, his lawyers, and the lawyers for the Department of Justice had manufactured the so-called settlement of trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. “[T]he Court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose—to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact,” she wrote. They launched the lawsuit “as a means of conferring legitimacy upon a course of action that they were unwilling to subject to judicial review.”

The course of action they intended to take was to establish a $1.776 billion slush fund for trump loyalists who claimed that the Department of Justice under former president Joe Biden had been weaponized against them. While that part of the deal got most of the attention, probably more important to trump was the addition to the “settlement” announced the next day: a promise that trump, his family, his businesses, and even his “associates” would be immune from prosecution for any tax crimes revealed by audits of tax returns filed before May 19, 2026.

“No sitting President has ever sued federal agencies completely subject to his control for monetary benefits, or any benefits that inure to him, his family, and associates,” Williams wrote. After trump dropped his lawsuit, thirty-five former judges had asked Williams to set aside her dismissal of the case with the goal of determining whether the claimed “settlement” was a fraud on the court.

In her opinion, she noted that the question before the court was simply whether there was a legitimate lawsuit, and the answer was no. The final disposition of the slush fund and the immunity were not questions before the court. “Whether Executive Branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax monies for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this Court. The question is whether the Parties could do so by claiming to be adverse and engaging the legitimacy of a court proceeding. The answer is a resounding ‘no.’”

Williams recommended legal sanctions against some of the lawyers involved and said she was “extremely troubled” by the testimony of Acting Attorney General todd blanche, which was “at best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous.”

blanche used to be trump’s personal defense lawyer and has said he believes he has a “continuing duty of loyalty” to trump. The president has nominated blanche to become attorney general. His confirmation hearings begin on Wednesday.

— 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟑, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐱 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐧

Today began with yet another demonstration of the fact that the U.S.

𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧

Last night the Department of Justice subpoenaed reporters from the New York Times over a story the newspaper published on Wednesday. Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt reported that the Secret Service had security concerns about the new Air Force One Boeing 747-8 given to the U.S. by Qatar. So, when tensions escalated with Iran while trump was in Türkiye for the NATO summit, they asked the president to use one of the other, older, Air Force One planes for his return journey.

trump and White House officials pushed back strongly against the idea that the new plane had any security problems after pouring what appears to have been hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into renovating the plane. But, according to Adam Gramegna of Military . com, U.S. officials told CBS News that the speed with which the plane was rushed into service meant that it does not have the same protections as the older planes.

According to Devlin Barrett, Glenn Thrush, and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, the story that his prized plane was not as good as the older ones enraged trump, and the White House called in FBI director Kash Patel to find the two anonymous sources who leaked it. Patel spent about 8 hours on Friday running an investigation from the White House, rather than FBI headquarters, before the reporters received the subpoenas.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York jay clayton, whom trump has nominated to be the next director of national intelligence, issued the subpoenas. The reporters are ordered to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” The Department of Justice said the subpoenas are related to “the crime of leaking national security information.”

The Justice Department emphasized that “reporters are not the targets. Those leaking classified information are.” But issuing subpoenas to U.S. journalists, who are protected from government interference by the First Amendment, is a huge red flag. As former Time magazine editor Rick Stengel noted: “The reporting that the Times journalists have been subpoenaed for is exactly the kind of journalism the First Amendment is designed to protect: matters involving national security and taxpayer dollars. 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗰𝗵.”

David McCraw, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for the Times, said: “The appearance of Federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects. Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used. This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”

By 11:18 PM on Friday, trump’s fury had turned back to Iran. He posted on social media that if Iran tried to assassinate him, “Locked and Loaded” missiles would begin to rain down on the country “to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran—PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”

Today he turned his anger toward those questioning his mental acuity, particularly New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, who commented on MS NOW about his reference in Türkiye to the “Islamic State of Japan.” At 12:23 PM he lashed out at “Maggot Hagerman” and then, to refute her claims, wrote that he “just finished a perfect physical at Walter Reed, I do it every six months, and I requested another Cognitive Test, the only President to do so, three times, and I aced them all—Got every question right. Few people in Washington, D.C., could do so, including Maggot and her flunky associate, Jonathan Swan. I would be willing to bet they couldn’t get 50% of the questions right.”

The White House said trump was referring to a physical he underwent in May.

Then, at 3:16, the president’s account posted a screed of almost 450 words complaining angrily that “I win the Election IN A LANDSLIDE against the entire Dumocrat Party,…against almost 100% negative press and Fake News,…especially Maggot Hagerman, one of the most unattractive people in the News “Business,” and her lightweight assistant, Jonathan Swan…. All I do is WIN, often against all odds,” yet no one compliments him on his great successes.

Here he may have had in mind Thursday’s news story from Catherine Rampell of The Bulwark about his claim on social media on Monday that Walmart would be “dropping the price of ground beef by almost 15 percent” “at my Administration’s request.” Rampell reported that a Walmart spokesperson told her a different story: the price cuts were part of usual summer rollbacks, which had begun the week before trump took credit for them. Rampell noted that trump “looks for opportunities to slap his name on politically useful things that companies were already planning to do—seasonal sales, major investments, hiring, et very much cetera.”

White House spokesperson Kush Desai clarified on social media that the president’s “announcement was that the sale is extending all summer long,” adding, “The media’s obsessive need to try to undermine any good news when it affects president trump is pathological.”

A rant about the news media took up most of trump’s long post, as he insisted that those reporting his bad poll numbers and policy failures “have no credibility…. If the Election was held again today, I would win by even more—Actually, much more!” he posted. “The Dumocrats don’t have what it takes, their Policies are wrong, and they are, generally, stupid people. They are going COMMUNIST because they are a desperately ‘sinking ship,’ and there’s not a thing they can do about it.

“Instead of writing inaccurate, false articles, for over 10 years now, shouldn’t it be time that they say, ‘We give up, we can’t beat him, there seems nothing we can do.’ Isn’t it time they say, ‘tRUMP IS THE BEST POLITICAL ATHLETE OF ALL TIME! CONGRATULATIONS, mR. pRESIDENT. YOU HAVE BEATEN US FOR 10 YEARS, AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO WASTE OUR TIME FIGHTING YOU ANY LONGER. WE CAN’T WIN. DO A GREAT JOB, sIR, RUNNING OUR COUNTRY. mAKE aMERICA gREAT aGAIN!’”

Journalist Aaron Rupar used a common meme often used to respond to unreasonably long posts. “𝘐 𝘢𝘪𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵,” he commented. “𝘐’𝘮 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘰. 𝘖𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥.” Conservative lawyer George Conway wrote:“𝘈 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢’𝘴 𝘯𝘶𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘭, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦.”

Almost 450 words evidently weren’t enough. At 4:54 he reiterated the themes of the long post in a shorter one, then a minute later, accused “the Dumocrats” of being communists. A minute after that, he claimed: “The Radical Left Lunatics, often referred to as Dumocrats, have lost control of their Party.”

Apparently, media criticism still stung. At 5:27, trump took on reports of the high cost of his damaging renovations in Washington, D.C. Posting photos of what he said was “the horrible front of the White House,” he continued: “The Radical Left Dumocrats criticize me for spending so much time bringing our White House back to the Glory of 100 years ago—Actually, it will be far better than that, and they will not shame us for bringing our Great and Brilliant Monuments to the past and the future back to levels never seen before. This is what we are doing all over Washington, D.C., and, in different ways, with our Country, itself!”

But his confidence that American voters will support Republicans in the 2026 elections is shaky enough that he continues to call for the Senate to rig them. At 6:07 he reposted what purported to be a poll from right-wing loyalist Senator mike lee (R-UT) claiming that 97.2% of supporters want the Senate to take up the voter suppression SAVE America Act when it goes back into session next week, while only 2.8% want the Senate to take up “Anything else.”

Meanwhile, on Friday a Pentagon official told Rebecca Turco of WJLA 7News in Washington, D.C., that National Guard troops will stay activated in Washington through Inauguration Day 2029 “until law and order are fully restored in our Nation’s Capital.”

“So,” Bill Kristol of The Bulwark commented. “[M]ilitary troops under the direct control of trump and hegseth will be on the streets of our nation’s capital for the rest of trump’s term. The rationale—they’re here to help with a crime emergency—is laughable. But of course the real reason is ominous.”

— 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟏, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐱 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐧

Last night the Department of Justice subpoenaed reporters from the New York Times over a story the newspaper published on Wednesday.

𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧

After the U.S. resumed bombing Iran yesterday evening, Iranian forces retaliated early this morning with strikes on U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.

In Ankara, Türkiye, for a NATO summit, president donald j. trump told reporters that Iranian leaders are “scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people, and they’re, they’re vicious, violent people,” trump said in his comments earlier Wednesday. “Far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re liars.… There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, [negotiations are] over.”

The U.S. then launched another round of strikes on Iran to “further degrade” its “ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Oil prices spiked over the course of the day, and trump appeared to walk back his earlier words, saying: “I think anything that happens is going to be over very quickly, and we’ll only make it safer, including for oil. Oil is going to be very free, very easy, and it’s going to happen very fast. We have the Hormuz Strait; the boats have pulled out. I mean there’s a gusher of oil right now, we have a lot of oil.”

As Tom Nichols noted in The Atlantic, the U.S. emphatically does not have the Strait of Hormuz. “Iran, Not trump, Is in Control of This War,” the title of Nichols’s article reads. It goes on to say that the Iranians are calling the shots in the war and “are routinely humiliating the American president.” The so-called ceasefire was likely intended to calm oil markets, Nichols says; neither side ever stopped shooting.

Like many other observers, Nichols noted that trump was “incoherent” in Ankara. He referred to Iran as the “Islamic Republic of Japan” and referred to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky as “president putin.” In an off-with-their-heads! moment, he also announced he had ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to cut off all trade with Spain.

According to Humeyra Pamuk and David Latona of Reuters, trump repeatedly complained about Spain, whose leftist prime minister Pedro Sánchez refused to let the U.S. use its bases or airspace to attack Iran even though Spain has been dramatically increasing its NATO spending. trump then told Bessent: “I don’t want to do any more trade with them, alright? Don’t even talk to them. They’re hopeless. They’re bad people.... They make so much money with us, and we’re going to see that they make a lot less. I want no business with them.”

As economist Paul Krugman notes in his newsletter, cutting off trade with Spain is simply not going to happen. First of all, trump does not have the authority to do any such thing. Second, the U.S. actually does a lot of business with Spain, and American businesses would not accept any such cuts. But even more, it is impossible because Spain is part of the European Union. As Krugman notes, this declaration is rather like Europe declaring it is going to cut off all trade with Florida.

trump’s declaration is a “non-event,” Krugman notes. It is “not something that is real.”

What we should take from it, he says, is that the statement was “completely crazy.” “In any kind of normally functioning political system,” he said, “in any kind of normally functioning party environment we would have a massive bipartisan call across the aisle, across almost everybody except for a handful of members of congress who are themselves crazy, to say okay this guy is non compos mentis. We cannot leave the fate of the United States or the world in the hands of somebody who is completely irrational, who is making demands and believing himself to have powers that he does not.”

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker agrees. He reposted trump’s reference to the Islamic Republic of Japan with the comment: “𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮. 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲.”

Meanwhile, Jack Detsch and Paul McLeary of Politico reported that European officials at the NATO summit reacted to trump’s announcement of new attacks on Iran just a day after he had praised Iranian leaders with the recognition that they can no longer rely on the United States.

A European official told the Politico reporters: “After seeing what’s happening in Iran and Ukraine, we first of all, have to build our own military might, and then everybody will respect us: Americans, Russians, Iranians or Chinese. The more muscles you have, the less political anger you show.”

A German official was more succinct: “𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿.”

Meanwhile, Steven Rattner of MS NOW noted today that trump’s son-in-law jared kushner and trump’s sons have raised about $13 billion in investment capital from foreign governments, mostly in the Middle East, even as kushner is working for trump as special envoy to the region.

—

𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟖, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐱 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐧

After the U.S.

Wei Weaving is a Chinese artist

𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧

Going into the weekend during which Americans celebrated the 250th anniversary of the day on which the Second Continental Congress accepted the Declaration of Independence, president donald j. trump was facing a whole lot of bad news.

There was the war on Iran. On Thursday, after U.S. Central Command said regional leaders in the Middle East were committed to the “free flow of commerce” in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s military command said that any ships trying to cross the strait on unapproved routes would be met with a “forceful response.” The U.S. has been urging ships to use a route close to Oman, but Iran’s warning caused ships to turn around.

Iran was part of the story of the economy. The choking off of the roughly 20% of the world’s oil that flowed through the Strait of Hormuz until trump launched an attack on Iran has caused inflation to spike in the U.S. On Wednesday, July 1, trump’s new hand-picked chair of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, told the European Central Bank Forum on Central Banking that “prices are too high.” With inflation over 4%, Warsh also reiterated that the Fed would continue to hold its goal of no more than 2% inflation, suggesting that the interest rate cuts trump wants so badly are not going to happen any time soon. Currently there is talk of raising interest rates later this year.

In addition to concerns about stringency in the oil markets, Joe Hernandez of NPR reported on Friday that the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz also affected transport of about one third of the world’s fertilizer transported by sea. Shortages hurt farmers around the world, including in the U.S., where farmers were hit with skyrocketing fertilizer prices during planting season. An April survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation reported that 70% of respondents said they couldn’t afford all the fertilizer they needed for the season.

Hernandez reports that higher fertilizer prices are just one of the reasons that consumers will see higher food prices this fall.

And then there were the stories about corruption. On Tuesday, new financial disclosures showed that trump has made an eye-popping $1.4 billion in his family’s cryptocurrency ventures since he took office. On Thursday, trump appeared to feel the need to defend those profits, telling CNBC: “There’s nothing illegal. There’s nothing wrong with it I could know.” Julia Manchester of The Hill noted that trump went on to say that the nature of the presidency means that his children “have inside information” about almost any business decision they make. He said: “Almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information.”

There are specific legal prohibitions against using insider information for benefit in stock trades and financial transactions.

And trump appears to have fleeced his own followers. On Saturday, Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany of the New York Times reported that as of the end of June, nearly a million people who bought trump’s memecoin lost a total of $3.81 billion while trump walked away with $636 million. trump took transaction fees up front, so he made money no matter what happened with the coin. For his followers, though, his advice that “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” and to “Join my very special trump community. GET YOUR $ tRUMP NOW!” cost them dearly as the coin slid from trading at $75.35 to trading at $1.76, a drop of 97%.

On Thursday, Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources released a report accusing trump of cheating the American people at large by diverting donations that donors intended to make to the nonpartisan America250 program to his own Freedom 250 organization. After failing to take over America250 entirely, the report charges, trump’s people created Freedom 250 within the National Park Foundation. By using a known and popular public charity as cover, Freedom 250 could attract donations while operating outside the transparency and accountability rules Congress required for America250.

The report suggests that trump officials gave donors intending to donate to the bipartisan America250 routing and account numbers for trump’s Freedom 250. They also took most of the money Congress appropriated for the America 250 project; in June a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior told Michael Scherer of The Atlantic: “Spending taxpayer money on frivolous, poorly attended events and D.C. consultants who are trying to get rich off America’s 250th is the exact opposite of what was intended. This administration will not light taxpayer money on fire. Full stop.”

But trump officials routed that money to favored contractors, including the firm that helped to organize trump’s rally at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, before attendees stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA), the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, told reporters: “I’m a lawyer, and I know better than to pronounce that a crime has been committed. But I do know the elements of fraud, and there is evidence of all those elements here.”

Meanwhile, trump’s Freedom 250 focused on promoting his 250-foot-tall triumphal arch at his Great American State Fair on the National Mall. Recurring problems with trump’s renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool marred that celebration as the pool turned green with algae and then pieces of the pool’s new coating began to break loose. Administration officials accused vandals of causing the damage. They put fencing around the pool and had National Guard troops patrol it.

The Great American State Fair opened on June 25 after a number of musical acts backed out, saying they had been misled into thinking the event was backed by the bipartisan America 250. Once open, the fair was plagued with electrical issues, sparse exhibits, and heat. A model of the proposed triumphal arch looked cheap and quickly began to come apart. Visitors were few and far between, and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported that aerial images of the empty mall so enraged trump that White House officials deleted them from official and personal social media accounts.

And on June 25, in response to a lawsuit by journalist Katie Phang, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered acting attorney general todd blanche to produce key documents from the Epstein files by July 2 or show cause why the Department of Justice is refusing. On July 2 it refused to produce the material, saying its redactions and omissions were within the scope of the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

On July 3, Fifty Plus One, which tracks trump’s job approval rating, reported that 59.1% of Americans disapprove of his performance while only 37.5% approve.

And so, on Friday night, the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, trump flew to South Dakota to deliver a speech at Mt. Rushmore in which he claimed he and his supporters are at war against an enemy here at home: communists.

Before his trip to the state, trump posted a video showing his own likeness on a golden sculpture of Mt. Rushmore, alongside the images of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, with the voiceover saying: “I will be the greatest president for many, many years to come.” The video opens with the text “Art of the vision” spelled out over an American flag, an encapsulation—although perhaps an unintentional one—of how trump has maintained political power by selling a false image to his followers.

trump began his speech with a series of feel-good platitudes: “These are very, very special times. And this is a very special place. You live in a very special place. Congratulations, everybody…. We are a nation of dreamers and believers, warriors and explorers, doers and fighters…. There has never been anything like us anywhere on earth.” And then he tied together MAGA’s white nationalism with the claim that trump’s political opponents want to destroy the economy.

trump clearly thinks there is political gain in convincing his followers that his political opponents are communists, although this is a lie made up out of whole cloth after the victory of Democratic Socialists in Democratic primaries and the popularity of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani. Communists call for the end of private ownership of the means of production, giving the state control of private enterprises. 𝗜𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆’𝘀 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮, 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽, 𝗵𝗶𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳, 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲𝘀.

Democratic Socialists are not communists or socialists, who want to see the end of private property. Democratic Socialists call for a robust system of private enterprise, alongside government control of the aspects of society required for people to participate in the economy on a level playing field. While Democratic Socialists embrace a wide range of policies, they generally don’t think schools, or medical care, or roads, should be profit-making industries.

In that, they echo Americans from the 1860s, when the Republicans established public colleges, or the 1900s, when Theodore Roosevelt called for public health insurance. Indeed, what today’s Democratic Socialists call for is much more limited than what the Republicans under President Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted in 1956, when the top income tax bracket in the United States was 91%.

Nonetheless, on Friday trump tried to convince Americans that “there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.” “These are not mere political disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations,” he said. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11.”

He went on to say: “They don’t want good. They don’t love God and they don’t want God. They don’t love religion and they don’t want religion and they won’t have it.… They have no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or your God-given rights. It’s an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder…. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

His false vision of the U.S. is aimed at the midterm elections. “America will never be a communist country,” he said. “We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish, stupid, and unwise.” He went on to demand that the Senate end the filibuster and Congress pass the voter-suppression SAVE America Act. If they do, he said, “we will not lose an election for a hundred years.”

On July 4, hundreds of masked white supremacists in khakis and blue shirts, carrying Confederate flags and flags with the logo of the neofascist white supremacist group Patriot Front, marched in Washington, D.C., chanting “Reclaim America.” The White House did not respond to a query from Gloria Oladipo of The Guardian about whether trump condemns the march.

trump continued his attacks on “communists” in a late-night speech on the National Mall after thunderstorms temporarily shut down his planned rally. “[A]ll these talks from the communists, they haven’t got a chance,” he told the drenched audience members, “not even a chance. We don’t want communists in our country.”

trump’s drop into an anticommunism that exaggerates even the excesses of the McCarthy era seems to indicate panic rather than confidence. Today, July 5, he began posting on social media at 1:21 AM and over the course of the day posted more than 100 times, attacking Democrats and boasting extravagantly of what he says are his own successes while demanding Congress pass the SAVE Act or lose the presidency forever.

trump’s people appear to be trying to push trump’s vision, but it doesn’t seem to be sticking.

Interior Secretary doug burgum made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows today, insisting that the problems with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool were the work of vandals who have gashed its surface in multiple cuts that equal the 350 feet trump claims and that there is video evidence, although the administration, which is famous for spinning everything to its own advantage, is choosing not to show it.

When CNN’s Dana Bash asked whether they actually had photographs of people cutting a gash in the liner, burgum danced away from the question after commenting, “I’m not sure why you and others in the media think that you want to keep trying to question whether or not…”

And so the 251st year of American democracy begins with reality reasserting itself.

— 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟓, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐱 𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐧

Going into the weekend during which Americans celebrated the 250th anniversary of the day on which the Second Continental Congress accepted

“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking, loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.” ― Elie Wiesel

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