Dear Everybody,

Here’s the news for August 12.

Leavitt Leaves It. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s Press Secretary, is quitting to spend time with her family. It’s ALWAYS “to spend time with her family.” Why can’t it be, just once in a while, “to make reparations for all the lying” or “to have more time for Klan meetings.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/politics/karoline-leavitt-trump-press-secretary.html

Primary Suspects.

Pillow Fluffer Deflated. Mike Lindell lost his Minnesota primary to Lisa Dartmuth by 11 percentage points. Not much of a pillow fight.  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/politics/trump-lindell-minnesota-republican-primary.html

Inheritance Windfall. Darlene Graham, who inherited her seat in Congress from her brother, Lindsey, advanced to the special primary for South Carolina senator.  There could be a Graham cracker joke in there, but this is a classy column. Kind of. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/us/politics/darline-graham-runoff-south-carolina.html?searchResultPosition=2

Hong Gone. Francesca Hong, the democratic socialist candidate in Wisconsin’s governor race had a double-digit lead last week but lost. David Crowley, a moderate, won. Crowley had suspended his campaign a month ago and then re-entered after new polling. Hong disparaged the Thanksgiving holiday. If you’re running for office in the USA, I would add that to your list of Don’ts.   https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/politics/crowley-hong-wisconsin-governor-primary-polls.html

Putting the Gloves On. ICE plans to equip agents with electrified gloves. A user manual for the gloves, manufactured by Compliant Technologies, says they are capable of inhibiting “the subject from performing coordinated muscle movement.”  This is every bit as stupid and cruel as getting a shock collar for your kid. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/politics/ice-gloves-shock.html?smid=url-share

Ballot Blocks. Trump asked the Supreme Court to restore his mail-voting restrictions.  A district court on Tuesday blocked his executive order from being implemented. Here in Colorado, I love mail-in voting. I’m informed when my ballot is sent to me, when the completed ballot is handed in. I have unlimited kitchen-table research/discussion time and have no need to carry a lengthy list to a polling station. The counting is handled by a bipartisan team as it is everywhere. And iIf there is any hint of irregularities, we have the paper ballots to hand recount.  Trump’s claim that, basically, it’s only rigged if he loses really should set off BS detectors on BOTH sides of the aisle.   https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-administration-again-urges-us-supreme-court-intervention-mail-ballots-2026-08-12/

Free-Speech Prevention Department.  National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7). Reminder: this tool signed last year is still in place.  The ACLU says ‘NSPM-7 is a deliberate attempt to sow fear and intimidate and silence opposition to the president’s abuses. … The memo is a fever dream of conspiracies, outright falsehoods, and the president’s distorted equation of criticism of his policies by real or perceived political opponents with ‘criminal and terroristic conspiracies.’ It stitches together a few disparate, serious acts of actual or attempted criminal conduct with First Amendment-protected beliefs and protests against the president and his policies, and wrongly conflates them as ‘political violence.’“ We are so fortunate that at least for now, most of the courts are resisting the Trump dismantling of governmental safeguards, norms, and checks and balances.    https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-nspm-7-seeks-to-use-domestic-terrorism-to-target-nonprofits-and-activists

Hindenmobile.  An ex-pilot has set a new land-speed record for going more than 406 MPH in a hydrogen-powered vehicle.  This is probably just me, but going 406 MPH with a hydrogen tank strapped to your vehicle sounds a bit unsafe.  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/land-speed-record-utah-andy-green.html

Russian Laundry. The US is Scaling Back Scrutiny of U.S. Shell Companies. The Trump administration will not enforce reporting requirements of the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act, which was intended to crack down on money laundering. Gosh, why they would decide this is just a big baffling mystery. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/politics/treasury-scrutiny-shell-companies.html

Food Truck One.  More people today are criticizing Trump’s decision to let the regular Air Force One fly with its load of press and staffers, despite the “credible and imminent shoulder-fired missile threat”.  Trump argued today that the small plane he was sent on was at a bigger risk than the regular large aircraft used as Air Force One, but even I don’t think Trump’s THAT heavy. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/credible-missile-threat-led-secret-aircraft-switch-trump-source-says-2026-08-12/

Scary-Go-Round. AI Recursive Self-Improvement (AI RSI) is going to get more and more coverage.  This is the process, which is already under development, of putting AI to work improving AI. Some estimates put the date for this AI automation transition at 2031.  The situation calls for caution and for smart minds being applied to consider safety and regulation. Unfortunately we have a congress that is not even able to handle issues like vaccinations and elections. Maybe we should be applying AI to the question, but that could be a bit like picking Hannibal Lecter to run the FDA.  https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ryan-greenblatt?utm_source=tldrai

AI Intro. In some circles, there’s a lot of talk about how much energy AI consumes and how valueless it is. If you have held off trying it and would like to just see how capable it has become, here are some sample queries you could feed to ChatGPT. As always, treat the answers the way you would if you got them from a stranger on the street. Use them as a possible first cut, to be checked out.

·        Name some kinds of small businesses that existed in downtown Chicago in the 1940s.

·        My cat has an appetite for grass. Is there anything I can give him to satisfy that need?

·        Describe how one’s long-term capital-gains tax rate can vary based on other income.

·        If I want ComfyUI to use an external GPU, do I have to do anything beyond connecting the external GPU to TB4?

·        Summarize season 1, episode 7 of The Diplomat.

We’re Going to Need A Bigger Catering Cart.  Jimmy Fallon opened the Tonight Show by being wheeled onto the stage inside a catering container by faux Secret Service agents, emerging with McDonald’s bags. He joked that the ordeal wasn’t too stressful because Trump had probably slept through much of it.  https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/jimmy-fallon-finds-trumps-coping-strategy-for-his-cowardly-plane-switch/

Today in History. In 1480 in one of the more murderous membership drives, Ottoman troops conquered Otranto in southern Italy after a 15-day siege, killing 12,000, enslaving 5,000, and beheading 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam. Or, as Philomena Cunk would tell us, that’s why we call them ottoman instead of footstool or hassock.

On August 12, 1981, IBM unveiled the IBM PC. It had a whopping 16KB of RAM. (This was an upgrade from the Apollo 11 AGC, which had 4KB.)

Again, my apologies to the August 10 crew.

Connie’s Back Tomorrow. I’m always in awe of Connie’s ability to generate her daily emails AND get her amazing fiction writing done and do all the other things that life on Earth involves. After doing this a few days again, that feeling of awe is even stronger. Thank you, Connie! Welcome back tomorrow!

This is John Stith, www.neverend.com , filling in for Connie Willis through today, and signing off. Thank you to those who have sent kind words and suggested additional coverage.

As Connie says, keep calm and carry on,