Dear Everybody:

It’s a Monday, so I’m going to start with some good news first before I get to all the bad news:

–The Supreme Court refused to rehear Trump’s appeal to throw out the decision declaring him guilty of defamation and sexual assault in the E. Jean Carroll case, which means he’s out of options and won’t be able to get the $5 million dollars-plus back from her. (He was actually out of options before since the Supreme Court had refused to hear the case once, this was an appeal of that decision.)

–AK Doyle: “There comes a point when attorneys should be sanctioned for bringing these endless appeals of appeals. Enough already. Pay the lady.”

–Michael Banach: “There should be a $10 million dollar fine for continual abuse of the appeals process.”

–Captain Spatchcock: “We’ll probably be dropping more bombs on Iran now. Or invading Greenland. He’s gonna be highly mad.”

Now, on to the bad news, which is really bad:

–Trump has ordered the US to “substantially reduce US military exercises with South Korea because his good buddy North Korea feels threatened by them. He said, “based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” he was reducing the military exercises and would have cancelled them altogether except that the military told him it was too late to. He described Kim Jong Un as “non-threatening and respectful.”

–He also said he was doing it because South Korea refused to get involved in his war in Iran. (Note: Nobody in their right mind would want to get involved with his war in Iran at this point.)

–North Korea continues testing missiles and improving its nuclear capabilities while repeatedly threatening South Korea and the United States.

–Norm Ornstein: “Helping North Korea even as they send 50,000 troops to help Putin. Almost seems as if Vladimir Putin is acting as the White House chief of staff.”

–Ken Gordon: “God help us. North Korea just provided Russia with thousands of missiles to attack Ukraine, Russia is working with Iran to murder US citizens. I wouldn’t exactly call North Korea unthreatening and respectful, personally, now that we know Russia has been giving weapons and satellite imagery to Iran to kill US soldiers.”

–The US and South Korea have been conducting military exercises together since the 1950s to deter North Korea.

–Northam Deputy Commander Lt. General Joseph Jarrard; “North Koreans have successfully flight-tested ICBMs with enough boost to deliver a nuclear payload anywhere in North America.”

–At the same time Trump has pulled the last aircraft carrier out of Asia to come replace the USS Abraham Lincoln, which means South Korea and Japan are pretty much unprotected. Sounds like a good time for China to make its move against Taiwan. Or North Korea to make a move against South Korea.

–severn: “Fresh off losing to Iran, Trump feels the need to lose in Asia.”

–Rick Wilson: “He’s quite mad, you know.”

–1strepublic14thstar: “Don’t ever forget that Trump despises democracies and openly admires dictators. Who are the only people he never has a bad word for? Putin and Xi.”

–Canukinfutz: “Don’t forget his lover, Kim Jong Un.”

–Jeff Storobinsky: “Russia before Ukraine and North Korea before South Korea. We have now lost all credibility.”

–Ron Filipkowski: “Trump pissed on the graves of a lot of Korean War vets today.”

–Then this morning Trump made it worse by demanding protection money from South Korea. “I asked for $10 billion.”

–Steven Beschloss: “This man is failing to defend the United States. This man is a traitor. This man should be removed.”

In USS Abraham Lincoln news:

–Admiral Bradley Cooper went to the USS Lincoln to make an inspection. He downplayed the problems aboard, saying that his time aboard ship “was inspiring. He admitted there were some mental issues, “but not any worse than any other ships.”

–Rose Benson: “Gaslighting on new levels.”

–golfdoodscott: “Let an old Salty Senior Chief from the Navy set you straight. Replenishment ships have to enter safe ports with supplies in order to return to sea and replenish ships such as the Lincoln. No safe harbor, no supplies. How many safe harbors do we have in the Middle East and how much damage has occurred to these ports due to the mismanagement of this unlawful war? This is an epic failure on the part of the jackass at the helm of the Pentagon and the coward currently desecrating the People’s house!”

–Public Notice: “Trump doesn’t see himself as a public servant. Rather, he sees himself as a king, entitled to the reverence, awe, and lives of everyone he surveys. Service members aboard the USS Lincoln should spend even longer at sea just to prove what a great job he’s doing.”

–Reporter: “Is there enough food on the USS Lincoln?” Trump: “Yeah. That was a CNN fake report.”

–The Republicans continue to take Trump and Hegseth’s side in this. GOP Rep Pat Fallon: “These ‘reports’ are just that. I don’t make much of it, to be honest.”

In Iran war news:

–Trump threatened this morning to “bomb” the shit out of Oman if it gets in the way of Washington’s efforts to strike a peace deal with Iran. Trump: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.” (Note: Soon we will have NO allies except Russia and North Korea.)

–Iran said it’s working with Oman on a plan to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which will have the two countries working together and charging fees for safe passage.

–Meanwhile, Russia continues to be as delusional as Trump. The New York Times reports: “Putin wants NATO and the EU to collapse from within by 2026 and Russia in control of Moldova, with parts of Ukraine seized to create a land corridor to Moldova.”

In other Iran war news:

–Thursday Iran attacked two UAE ships in the strait.

–Trump told Iran to “raise the white flag of surrender.”

–International Crisis Group’s Deputy Program Director Ali Vaez: “Tehran has drawn a simple lesson from every game of chicken with Washington. Hold your nerve long enough, and America swerves first.”

–The Borowitz Report: “In what some experts are hailing as a major breakthrough, on Monday representatives of Israel and Hamas agreed that Jared Kushner is a dick.”

So what’s the media focused on this morning? A comment Jon Ossoff made:

–Senator Jon Ossoff said, “While the sailors on the Lincoln fight this war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. So he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

–The press is going nuts over Ossoff’s having mentioned Natalie Harp’s name and implying she and Trump are having an affair. (Even though he didn’t really.) Personally, I thought the stuff about Harp was common knowledge, especially after he took her and not Karoline Leavitt with him on the plane when he sneaked off Air Force One, but they’re all saying they can’t believe he actually mentioned her by name.

–Adam Parkhomenko: “Goddamn. Names the mistress and all.”

–Political strategist Mike Nellis: “First federal Dem elected official to say the name of Trump’s alleged mistress, I think. Won’t be the last.”

–The good news is that they’re repeating all the stuff we already knew about Harp: that she’s with Trump night and day, that she’s responsible for many of his craziest posts, that Susie Wiles and the Secret Service have been very nervous about her relationship with Trump and have tried to get her away from him, that her own brother called her relationship with Trump “unhealthy” and said she was emotionally unbalanced, and that she sends Trump love notes that read stuff like, “You’re the only thing that matters to me.”

–bilboteach: “May the ketchup splatter.”

–The ketchup is definitely splattering. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung responded, “Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics.”

The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman had a different take on why Trump took Harp with him:

–Haberman: “I can guess why Natalie Harp and Dan Scavino were with him. She is sort of his binkie for lack of a better way of putting it. His comfort blanket.”

–Haberman: “Walt Nauta is there for his hair. He also always carries that brown leather briefcase” which she said was full of things like TicTacs and hairspray and all kinds of stuff.”

–vajafa: “So Walt Nauta is Trump’s human purse?”

–terriebrent: “Walt and Natalie have both been named the Keeper of the Diaper.” (Harp notoriously carries around a huge stuffed duffel bag.

–Jacob Soboroff: “Stephen Miller is sort of locked at the hip with the President, and when I heard that he left Stephen Miller back on the plane, I don’t know, my ears perked up. I don’t know what to make of it.”

In Ukraine/Russia news:

–Ukraine hit and destroyed another Wildberries warehouse (like Amazon.) This was the biggest one and was very close to Moscow.

–Ukraine’s got a serious problem because they’re nearly out of anti-missile and anti-drone missiles and Trump is refusing to send them any more. So they’re going after the drone- and missile-launching infrastructure.

–To that end, Ukraine hit a rocket motor plant in Sanara which produces the Soyz control electronics and avionics installations. They also hit and destroyed a number of fighter jets which deliver the missiles.

–And yesterday they destroyed a drone-manufacturing plant.

–In Moscow, more and more horses and carts are appearing on the streets since gasoline is in such short supply.

–One million five hundred thousand Russian soldiers have died so far in the war.

–Rick Wilson: “Moscow is burning this morning and Putin is one day closer to being murdered by his own men.”

In Trump’s dementia/madness news:

–Both the draw-down of military exercises with South Korea and Trump’s threats to bomb Oman could go in this section. They aren’t decisions. They’re crazy whims, driven by his anger and his determination to get revenge on people he thinks have slighted him. And there’s lots more.

–Trump posted an AI video of him walking around his ballroom, pointing out various things to George Washington. There are two American flags in the video, both with the wrong number of stripes. The caption reads, “thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas on this great military complex/ballroom. President Donald J. Trump.”

–Trump appeared yesterday with a big lump under his coat jacket in the back. It’s on the right side and looks like a box or something. Some people have speculated it’s a “fecal extrusion device for patients who diarrhea themselves 24/7.”

–Aaron Rupar: “Seriously, what is going on with Trump’s rear end here? It looks like he has some sort of contraption back there.”

In historical news:

–Today marks the day in 1944 when, with Allied troops heading toward Paris to liberate it and Resistance fighters already in the streets, the puppet Vichy government mayor of Paris and other officials went to see German Commandant Dietrich von Choltitz in a last-minute bid to save the city.

–German commandant Dietrich von Choltitz was under orders from Hitler to raze Paris to the ground, and Nazi engineers were already planting explosives all over the city, on the Seine’s bridges and in Paris’s government buildings, some of which Resistance fighters had already occupied.

–Some versions of the story say that Hitler had specifically ordered von Choltitz to destroy the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and other historical and cultural landmarks, others that they were dangerously close to government buildings they were trying to destroy, but whatever version is the truth, we know that Hitler continuously phoned and telegraphed von Choltitz to ask, “Is Paris burning?’

–Maybe because he realized the consequences of destroying such beloved things or maybe because he realized they’d lost the war, von Choltiz chose not to give the orders to burn Paris to the ground and opted instead to surrender to the mayor and then to the Allied troops. Thank goodness. But just because Hitler didn’t succeed in getting revenge on his arch-enemy doesn’t mean he didn’t fully intend to. (Something to keep in mind with all the stuff Trump is proposing. Just because you didn’t succeed, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be held accountable for attempting it. See: Leaving NATO, helping Russia destroy Ukraine, nuking Iran, and deporting legal immigrants and putting them in concentration camps.)

–Note to people serving in the military and the Trump administration: Nazis who REFUSED TO FOLLOW Hitler’s orders are remembered kindly in history.

In other news:

–Tens of thousands are without power and more than 100 homes have been damaged by Tropical Storm Lala. There were landslides and mudslides as Lala strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane this weekend, and there are still hazards, like flooded areas and downed power lines.

–Trump ranted about vandals killing the grass on the National Mall and provided a photograph–of the place where the stage had stood during the Great American State Fair celebration for the fourth of July.

–Chandler, Arizona just canceled more than 40 Flock cameras after a police officer got caught using the system for personal reasons. (To track his ex-wife? To stalk underage girls?)

In good news:

–A federal judge ruled the Defense Department must resume its review of offshore wind permit applications.

–The Kennedy Center lost its lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd. They sued him after he canceled his Christmas appearance at Kennedy Center AND said why in no uncertain terms. He has been awarded more than $250,000.

–Traffic to Trump’s Truth Social is down 36% from a year ago, in spite of his offering to let businesses buy early access to his posts. Only 6 to 10 companies have taken him up on the offer.

And in VERY GOOD NEWS;

–The Senate adjourned for its late summer recess without passing Trump’s SAVE Act requiring proof of your legal name to vote. It was particularly aimed at women, who wouldn’t be able to vote if their married name was different from the one on their birth certificate. They would have to provide both a birth certificate AND a marriage certificate. The Senate won’t be back in session till September 14, and even if they were to pass it then (which I don’t think they will), it will be too late to implement it for the midterms.

–The Senate also refused to get rid of the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act for Trump, which is possibly even more important. (I think it’s because they’re seeing the writing on the wall and think it’s more dangerous to obey than not. Just like Nazi Commandant von Choltitz. See historical news below.)

Best comment of the day, from Feed After Midnight, on Trump’s determination to build his ballroom and his arch: “Donald Trump is a deeply dumb and unserious man, guided by a set of principles that would make bumper stickers seem like policy tomes. Those policies are in a failing death spiral and he’s likely pulling back from any former levels of child picture book specificity he once entertained–handing more and more over to those below him and making snap calls along the way. Add in real and dramatic cognitive decline, and it’s easy to see why he would grasp at his building glory days as his mental abilities slip away.”

Keep calm and carry on,

Connie Willis