Dear Everybody:
Before I start in on the news, I just want to tell you I’ll be busy with personal stuff for the next few days, and John Stith has very kindly offered to fill in for me, so he’ll be doing the posts and keeping you up on all the news from tomorrow (Friday) through the 12th. Thanks so much, John!
Today’s big news is that Rand Paul and the Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee voted to refer Dr. Fauci for criminal contempt charges for taking the Fifth Amendment:
–All the Republicans voted for this, all the Democrats against. The vote should then go to the Senate floor to be voted on, but Rand Paul knows it wouldn’t pass there, so he has sent it straight to Trump’s corrupt DOJ.
–Not only is all of this blatantly illegal, but Republicans have frequently refused to show up (like for the January 6th Committee) or just ignored their subpoenas (like Jim Jordan and Steve Bannon) and they’ve done nothing at all.
–Harry Litman: “Rand Paul and the Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee, which just voted on straight party lines to refer Fauci for contempt, are an absolute kangaroo court. The Hollywood 10 were convicted during the McCarthy days, and this will go down in history as a similar moment of opprobrium and insanity.”
–Chudluv73: “This can’t pass the muster of a court’s review of it even if it somehow passes the DOJ. Invoking your Fifth Amendment rights and being prosecuted for having done so will have drastic consequences for the GOP if and when the DNC takes back control of both houses and the White House.”
–Lonesome Coyote; “If you can be held in criminal contempt for exercising your Fifth Amendment rights, then the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination no longer exists.”
Today’s other big news is that Max Miller DID NOT drop out by the deadline, and that he keeps digging himself in deeper and deeper:
–Miller claimed he didn’t hold his daughter’s blue bunny hostage: “Please stop the lies. My daughter got her bunny back in fourteen hours.” However, there are a whole bunch of emails that say otherwise–and show that this was a regular tactic of his.
–In March of 2025, Emily Moreno sent Miller an email: “Please don’t punish (daughter’s name) if you’re upset with me.” In another email, she said, “If you’re choosing not to return our daughter’s favorite toy for another reason, that’s just cruel.”
–Moreno had a doctor and lawyers intervene, and there are pleas from multiple people on multiple dates asking him to return it, and emails saying he “adamantly refuses.” Miller’s response: “You can go through the parent coordinator.”
–More of Miller’s threats against Senator Moreno are appearing, including, “Everyone is going to get to know you better than your wife does. Enjoy the ride, brother. I wouldn’t have to do this if you could keep your lying daughter under control.”
–The most damning evidence, as far as I’m concerned, is an audiotape from when Miller was talking to the police detectives about his daughter’s broken shoulder. He told them: “It’s actually extremely common. A broken clavicle or collarbone in a toddler–very, very common.”
And in non-news, sort of, Mitch McConnell is still missing in action:
–The deadline for holding a special election passed several days ago, so that can’t be the reason he was staying incommunicado.
–MuellerSheWrote: “If Mitch McConnell could talk, he would have recorded a video message by now.”
In economic news:
–Trump: “We’re doing an incredible job. Costs are coming way down…I inherited very very high costs, and they’re all coming down now. The food, the groceries, it’s all coming down. We’ve done a great job. You know, I think we should be given an A+ on the economy. I think that’s coming, people are starting to talk about it.”
–GOP Rep Tom Emmer: “Right now there are great things happening in our economy. Nobody wants to talk about 78 cent eggs, nobody wants to talk about milk that’s under $2 dollars. No no. They want to focus on gas prices.” (That’s because regular gas is at $3.89 this morning.)
–Evvie’s D: “Where are these eggs and milk?”
–Trump; “And as illegal aliens go home, the cost of rent, groceries, and other staples is coming down very fast…it was a word they devised–affordability.” (Now he’s blaming illegal aliens for the high grocery prices?)
In Trump dementia/madness news:
–Trump gave a speech today in Nevada, supposedly on “No Tax on Tips,” but of course he was all over the place. Plus, he was wearing a very obvious toupee, which everyone is commenting on. If you’re a STRICTLY BALLROOM fan, it makes him look just like Barry Fyfe.
–Aaron Rupar: “Is Trump rocking a wig, or what the hell is going on here?”
–Jennifer C: “Are we sure this isn’t Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live?”
–Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo introduced Trump and said: “When the press runs him down, they think about, ‘he’s taking care of his billionaire friends.’ But those billionaire friends provide jobs. And unless you take care of them, those jobs are absent.” (With friends like these…)
–On gas prices: “We may have to send it up again. You know what happens when we send it up, but we hope we don’t have to.”
–Trump: “Canada is nasty. They’re nasty.”
–And “The radical left wants to ban a thing called gasoline.”
–Trump: “Nobody knows that ‘dumb’ doesn’t have a B.” (Yes, it does.)
–Trump: “An outlier is a person that doesn’t have a chance.” (That is not what outlier means.)
–Josh Chafetz: “As if millions of statisticians suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”
–Trump: “It’s actually called the ‘one big,’ but I call it the ‘great big’ because I like that term better. I named it the ‘one big’ but then I said, ‘Why didn’t I call it the great big?’ But I use it all the time. Great big.” (No idea.)
–Trump: “Vote for Michael Whatley, by the way.” (Whatley is running in North Carolina. Trump is giving a speech in Nevada.)
–And here are some other recent doozies from Trump: “Grass is like human beings. Grass has a life also. Nobody knows more about grass than me…nobody does grass better.”
–Trump: “The Battle of Gettysburg. What a war that was, when you read about it.”
Note: I rely on Aaron Rupar to collect Trump’s crazy sound clips so I can pass them on to you, but there are times when the clips don’t do it, and you just have to hear the whole thing to get the full impact of how far gone Trump is. Here was his rambling answer when asked about Jeanine Pirro’s dropping the Reflecting Pool case. (Note: I broke it into paragraphs to make it easier to read, but it was actually just one long, unbroken stream of consciousness):
“Jeanine Pirro made a mistake. It was vandalism. I just told you we did, I think 78. One of the things was the reflecting pool, hasn’t worked since 1922, because it always leaked. It always leaked from 1922. You know, it’s the largest longest pool ever, all that. The concept is beautiful, but it always leaked because of the size, because of maintenance, whatever. But it was built in 1922, and from the day it was built it, like, Biden spent $58 million. Barack Hussein Obama spent much more than that. He said, “I have an idea. let’s take the river from, let’s take the water from the Potomac.’ So they took the water from the Potomac and it was putrid. it was putrid. it was a disaster. Biden was a disaster. I said, ‘I’m gonna get that face.’ Along with Doug Burgum, Department of Interior, and we worked harder than that. Now we worked harder in all 70s. It’s actually I think 81 now.
“You saw the new horses that just opened by the bridge with the gold. That was the way they were many years ago. Now they looked better than they did many years ago. But these monuments looked better than they did when they were originally built. Not just a little fix up. We made them the way they were, plus, and everyone’s so proud.
“The biggest, one of the bigger jobs was not really the biggest, believe it or not, but one of the biggest was the reflecting pool. And we did a great job. We sandblasted the stonehouse (sic) at his granite, so it has a long life. We did a great job. We got very expensive material to put on top of the surface that always leaked because it was a stone. it was a stone, sir. Always leaked. And we put it on, and it was beautiful. Now we have photographs of tapes, like moving cameras, right? We have them where people are on the side, cutting it with a box knife. So now I’m not saying I was 100% thrilled with the contractor, but the contractor was rushing. We wanted to get it open for July 4th. And we got it done. But in addition, there was vandalism.
“Number one, look at the grass, where the grass was all knocked out with a very powerful ingredient. We know very well what it is. But like I say the name, because people get ideas. But they put a terrible phrase, I won’t say that either, but a terrible phrase on a massive piece of grass that we had just replaced. Kill the grass. We had to replace the grass. A lot of grass. In addition, they took knives or cutters, and they cut the material. And they put their hands and they pulled it. And there was also some maintenance things that we would have routinely fixed, but we had that up, and it was perfect. And then you had the bubblers, which get rid of what forms in the water. And that works great, but they turned it up because of the fight. Because it competed a little bit of noise during the fight. They turned it off, and it grows very rapidly in the water. But that actually works very well. And that’s all. So now we’re just about set to reopen it. And we had to replace cut areas where they cut it and ripped it. But there’s a tape.
“And Jesse Watters, by the way, did a whole big thing on it. There’s a tape that’s out there that I posted on truth where you have people leaning over the side, the weakest part, because of the flexibility. You know it moves. It’s very complicated. it moves. And the softest part has to be flexible. And that’s the stuff you can cut. And these guys knew what they were doing. And they cut all the way along the base, cut, cut, cut. Now, when you need to look at it, it was a day after the 4th of July, with the largest fireworks display in the world.”
–Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.
–Evvie’s D: “The purpose of the above post is not to point out the lies, but to point out a progressive state of dementia. But of course most of his comment was indeed a lie.”
In Epstein/Trump news:
–Jamie Raskin is pushing the Trump administration to provide all of its records on Jeffrey Epstein’s contacts with foreign governments in an investigation of whether Epstein acted as an unregistered foreign agent.
–The Attorney General of New Mexico is suing the DOJ for the Epstein files documents they are refusing to hand over. Way back when Epstein was investigated for the second time, New Mexico’s Attorney General opened an investigation into Zorro Ranch, where Epstein had had a number of underage girls, and where two foreign girls were thought to have been buried. The DOJ stepped in and took the investigation off their hands, telling them this was no longer their case and not to investigate it further. Then nothing. For years.
–This last year New Mexico formed a Truth Commission to re-investigate the whole thing, and they requested all files related to the investigation regarding Zorro Ranch (where two foreign girls–Epstein victims–are thought to be buried) and the deadline for the DOJ to turn them over was Friday. DOJ completely ignored the request, so now the AG is suing.
In Other Epstein/Trump news:
–Or It’s Getting So It’s Not Even Safe Over on Fox News Any More.
–Dem Congressional candidate Oliver Larkin went on Fox News, where the host tried to make the case that immigrants were all rapists and Democrats were in favor of that. When he asked Larkin, “How many rapes are you comfortable with?” Larkin shot back, “If we’re gonna talk about children being raped, then we need to hold this pedophile President accountable and all those that have been implicated by the Epstein files that the DOJ is still not leaking.”
–During Larkin’s entire statement, the host was frantically trying to interrupt, talk over him, shut him up, and end the interview, but Larkin just kept going. When he finished, the host immediately said, “Thank you very much,” and cut to a commercial.
In Reflecting Pool news:
–We’re now finding out that Jeanine Pirro was paying Assistant US Attorneys $25,000 bonuses to keep them from quitting. (Is this illegal? It’s definitely desperate.)
–Trump is still ranting on about vandalism which he says he has tapes to prove.
–His comment about “moving cameras” instead of “video” is getting a lot of attention because one of the signs of dementia is the loss of words. It’s not just that you can’t think of the word, it’s that the word is actually gone and the person has to resort to talking around it, ie, “the tall green things with leaves” instead of “trees.” Trump is doing this more and more.
In Trump Destroys Washington DC news:
–Trump unveiled two new statues of horses which he has had painted in gold leaf. The statues, “Valor” and “Sacrifice” are part of the “The Arts of War” and “The Arts of Peace,” statues which stand at the Lincoln Memorial Circle in West Potomac Park. They were supposed to cost $2.4 million dollars, but ended up costing over $5 million dollars because Trump said they had to be done by July 4th. (There was no bidding for the project’s contract.)
They weren’t. They were unveiled on July 27, and they are really, really gold. They are slathered in 23.75 gold leaf. The “Arts of Peace” statues still aren’t done. They were originally bronze.
–Stephen Franco: “I think there’s a better use for the funds than polishing up these horses.”
–Karen: “Tacky. It looks like Home Depot gold spray paint.”
–One passerby told the BBC: “I’m looking for the right word. Ugly.”
–A Washington Post/Ipsos poll found 65% of Americans oppose Trump’s projects in Washington, DC, and said they were “dissatisfied” or “upset.”
–The horses are close to Trump’s proposed “Triumphal Arch,” which Trump is still determined to build. The New York Times is reporting that Trump has repeatedly called up Prime Minister Macron of France and asked him about the Arc de Triomphe. “What’s it like?” “Does it have a visitor’s desk?” “Do people jump off of it?”
–At one point Trump talked about putting a gold version of the “fight fight fight” moment after his attempted “assassination” in Butler up on top of his arch.
–(Note: In related news, Trump has apparently now decided that both his assassination attempts were perpetrated by Iran, even though they seem to have been done by lone-wolf crazies. Trump: “They tried to get me twice. I got them once, but they tried to get me twice.”
–He told Maggie Haberman that he wants to be remembered by one name and to have left his mark on the world. (Well, he’s done that, all righty.)
In Not Everyone’s a Jerk news:
–Over in France, which has been wracked with wildfires, people have had to evacuate without taking their pets and/or animals, so a man has been making a 12-mile loop on his motorbike every day to bring food and water to 40-50 different locations for all the cats, turtles, and chickens left behind.
In historical news:
–On this day in 1850, two guys met at a picnic and formed a lifelong friendship. The two guys were Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, both aspiring writers. They lived 6 miles away from each other and helped each other with their work–THE SCARLET LETTER, MOBY DICK, THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES, etc., critiquing each other’s manuscripts and encouraging each other in what may well have been the very first writer’s workshop. When Melville published MOBY DICK, he dedicated it to Hawthorne.
In other news:
–There’s a new food illness outbreak. This one is e-coli, from jalapeno peppers.
–The UFC lost $30 million dollars staging their Freedom 250 cage fighting event in front of the White House. (Trump, however, was paid. He received his cut up front.)
–25 states have sued over Trump’s latest tariffs, calling them a pretext for replacing the tariffs the Supreme Court struck down as illegal.
In good news:
–A federal court blocked a USCIS policy banning pro-voting groups from helping new citizens register to vote after their naturalization ceremonies.
–Kansas defeated an amendment which would have replaced the current merit-based selection of state Supreme Court judges with partisan statewide elections. (The effort was launched to install conservative judges to overturn a ruling protecting abortion rights.)
–The Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia has been named a World Heritage Site. This will offer protection to all the forms of wildlife and plants in the swamp. (Note: The Okefenokee Swamp is where Pogo and all his friends lived.)
Most peculiar comment of the day, from JD Vance; “If you are committing fraud against the American people, all of us in public leadership should be trying to stop it and throw you in prison for enriching yourself off the American taxpayer.” (I totally agree. Let’s start with Trump.)
–Hillary Rodham Clinton: “Local man suggests jailing boss.”
Best comment of the day, from a GOP operative: “We’re preparing for the bottom to fall out.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
