July 17, 2026

Thanks to RAS for the link.

Time for Some War Crimes. The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Iran War are here. From the pinned item at 5:00 pm ET: “Bridges, rail lines, power and water facilities and other targets in Iran, Kuwait and elsewhere in the Middle East were attacked in airstrikes on Friday as the United States and Iran broadened their weeklong crisis over the Strait of Hormuz into tit-for-tat strikes targeting infrastructure that can serve civilian purposes. Since ... [Donald] Trump declared a cease-fire agreement 'over' more than a week ago, daily bombardments have escalated into some of the most widespread attacks since the war began in late February. The U.S. strikes have hit bridges and a control tower at Iran’s third-largest port. Iran has tried to strike similar targets in U.S.-allied Gulf countries. On Friday afternoon, the U.S. military said that it had launched yet another round of strikes, marking the seventh consecutive day of strikes. The command has made no mention of civilian infrastructure.... [Mr.] Trump has threatened to attack an even wider array of civilian infrastructure to try to force Iran’s leaders to make a deal. Such attacks could be considered a war crime, and Iranian officials have warned they would retaliate more broadly.”

Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Friday threatened state election officials with possible prison time if they don’t comply with Trump administration methods to determine whether noncitizens are on voter rolls. Expanding on ... Donald Trump’s election speech a night earlier, Mullin said that the Department of Homeland Security had preliminarily determined there were more than 250,000 noncitizens on voting lists in at least four states: California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mullin demanded states run their voter rolls through a federal database maintained by DHS to determine if noncitizens were on lists and said if they don’t, they won’t be able to access federal grants. But the use of the DHS database — which was historically for assessing immigration benefits — has been blocked by a federal judge, who ruled that repurposing it for this effort violated rules on the disclosure of Social Security records. The database has also proved to be error-prone when used to evaluate voter rolls. It often flags newly naturalized citizens as noncitizen voters. Voting rights experts say the use of the database is flawed and could result in registered voters purged from rolls."

Brian Schwartz, et al., of the Wall Street Journal, republished by MSN: “The Treasury Department’s top tax policy official was forced out of his job after he warned that the White House was at risk of violating a federal law prohibiting senior officials’ involvement in IRS audits.... Kenneth Kies, an assistant Treasury secretary and acting chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, is leaving those posts in the coming weeks. Kies at times clashed behind the scenes with White House officials.... That included a recent meeting in which he contended that a potential White House request would violate Section 7217 of the Internal Revenue Code.... That law prohibits the president, vice president, White House staff and certain agency heads from directly or indirectly requesting that the IRS conduct or terminate an audit or investigation of any particular taxpayer. Violations are punishable with up to five years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines, and IRS officials have long seen the prohibition as an important shield against the kind of political interference that President Richard Nixon tried to impose on the tax agency.... It couldn’t be determined what White House requests Kies objected to and whether the administration plans to follow through with them after Kies departs.” Donald Trump appointed Kies to this political post. Thanks to RAS for the link.

     ~~~ Marie: I suppose Kies got the boot because he wouldn't allow an audit of one or more of Trump's "enemies," but I wonder if he's been making noises about that fake "settlement" Toady Todd arranged so the past returns of Trump & Sons & Co. could never be audited.

Fox Won't Let Trump's Phony Claims Burn It Again. Tom Durante of Mediaite: “As other networks picked apart ... Donald Trump’s prime-time address to the nation early Friday morning.... Fox & Friends produced not one mention of the president’s address from the night before, during which the commander in chief once again attempted to cast doubt on the integrity of American elections.... Instead, the regular lineup of co-hosts Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt, and Lawrence Jones discussed the latest campaign of U.S. airstrikes against Iran, the air quality crisis choking much of America, disastrous flooding in Texas, the World Cup, and a 'phenomenal' speech — by Marco Rubio.... The network carried Trump’s 26-minute speech in full on Thursday night. As it concluded, chief political anchor Bret Baier said Fox News 'is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the president’s statements and claims at this time.'... Fox got burned by Trump’s election claims back in 2023, when the network settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over its false claims about fraud.” Thanks to RAS for the link.

U.K. Rowena Mason of the Guardian: “Andy Burnham has pledged to lead a united Labour government free of infighting and factional politics as he takes over as leader.... The new Labour leader, who will become prime minister on Monday, set out a distinctly leftwing vision for Britain with promises to undo the Thatcherism of the 1980s, bring in more public ownership of utilities, find the money to fix social care and build a new generation of council homes. But he also insisted he would run a 'pro-business' Labour government just as he had done as mayor of Greater Manchester. Arguing his election is the most significant change in British politics for 40 years, Burnham said this was the 'last chance' for Labour to get things right, and he appealed for unity in order to beat Britain’s new right'.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. MB: I don't know if this is “the most significant change in British politics in 40 years,” but it certainly has been the least newsworthy, if the U.S. press is any indication. 

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Julian Barnes & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said his address on Thursday night was about building public confidence in American elections, but he spent much of his speech undermining them.... Documents Mr. Trump released to support his claims — and previous assessments from the intelligence community — do not back up his most aggressive statements about election security. In fact, some of the documents reach the opposite conclusion. They also do not contain significant new revelations about vulnerabilities in election systems. One of the documents posted on the White House website was blunt: 'We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results.' Below are takeaways from Mr. Trump’s prime-time speech. Trump called for bolstering protections he has dismantled.... Grains of truth were blown out of proportion.... He repeated a demand for voting restrictions before the midterms.” ~~~

     ~~~ Alex Isenstadt & Marc Caputo of Axios: "Trump's dark, foreboding 25-minute address from the East Room of the White House served two main purposes: Build support for his SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship for voter registration and is stalled in the Senate. And return to a topic that fixates him perhaps more than any other: The 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden." They list four takeaways. MB: I don't know how much support Trump might have built for his voter suppression bill. From what reporters have gleaned, it will not pass. ~~~

Zachard Wolf & Annette Choi of CNN have the transcript of the speech, annotated with questions, clarifications, refutations & other commentary. 

Marie: Here's the page of the White House Website that links to the documents Trump and I haven't read. They're a pain to open, so I didn't bother. According to on-air analyses I heard last night, many of the documents are so heavily-redacted, there is barely anything in them, much less enough for a reader to assess the conclusions for herself. 

Maggie Haberman also wrote the pinned item on the New York Times liveblog of Trump's speech, and it's pretty helpful. It begins, Donald “Trump made at times outlandish claims about the safety of American voting systems in a White House address on Thursday night, drawing selectively from documents his aides published online to insinuate that U.S. elections have been compromised for years and that government officials had suppressed the evidence.” The link appears to be a gift link.

~~~ Dustin Volz & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: Donald “Trump started his speech on Thursday evening by outlining a series of claims about China’s attempts to acquire American voter data, portraying the alleged activity as a historic scandal. But China’s efforts to collect that data have been broadly known for years. Voter data is in many cases freely available to download on the internet, and in other cases can be purchased. Possessing such data could reveal insights about American voters, but would not allow votes to be manipulated. Mr. Trump asserted that Beijing had carried out 'the largest compromise of election data in history' starting with the 2020 cycle, illicitly collecting 220 million voter files 'over a period of years.' It was unclear precisely how the president arrived at that number.... China has hacked far more sensitive information....”

Nick Corasaniti & Alexandra Berzon of the New York Times: Donald “Trump and the Department of Homeland Security claimed on Thursday that they had uncovered a significant number of noncitizens registered in four states, but offered no evidence to support their findings nor any description of their investigative process. Election officials in at least one state — Nevada — immediately rebuffed the claims regarding noncitizens on their voter rolls. Evidence-free claims that noncitizens have voted in elections have been core to the president’s political message — and central to his justification to enact the SAVE America Act, federal voting legislation that Democrats claim is aimed at tipping the scales to benefit Republicans.” The report goes on to question how the DHS collected its data & cites other discrepancies between DHS claims and, you know, facts.

Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: “In a meta moment on Thursday night, Mr. Trump used his address to call out ABC and NBC for not airing his live remarks, claiming the networks declined to do so 'because they know how corrupt our system is and they don’t want to reveal it.' He also repeated his frequent demand that the networks’ government-issued broadcast licenses be revoked. 'They and others in the media are part of a plot,' the president said, offering no evidence for his claims. In fact, ABC and NBC did carry Mr. Trump’s speech live on their streaming platforms. After the president concluded, both networks broke into regularly scheduled entertainment programming to air special reports that analyzed his outlandish claims about the safety of American voting systems.” ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Nover of the Washington Post: “ABC and NBC did not specify why they declined to air the speech, but networks are often loath to grant time to presidents for overtly political purposes. Fellow broadcast network Fox took the speech live while CBS preempted programming for a special report, in which it aired part of the speech and explained Trump’s long history of falsehoods on the topic of election security.... Trump asserted that ABC and NBC should lose their government-issued broadcast licenses, something that he’s repeatedly suggested and something that his Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, has taken unprecedented steps to do, particularly with ABC, in recent months.”

John Sakellariadis & Maggie Miller of Politico: “Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says his agency found thousands of noncitizens on voter rolls in California and three other states as ... Donald Trump prepared to renew his focus on election security with a speech to the nation. DHS said a preliminary review uncovered tens of thousands of noncitizens on the voter rolls in New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, and nearly two hundred thousand in California, according to a draft press release.... The press release, which did not say whether there was any evidence of actual voting by noncitizens or explain how DHS reached its finding, was circulated inside the agency ahead of Trump’s planned prime time speech in which he had promised to reveal 'really big news' on election security.... A federal judge recently found that the citizenship database created by DHS erroneously classified U.S. citizens in a large number of cases as ineligible voters.” ~~~

     ~~~ Josh Marshall of TPM points out how this article "helped float another DHS lie.... [The DHS claim] is almost certainly false.... Versions of this claim have been made repeatedly by various right-wing groups and sometimes government agencies. In every case the original claims fall apart on closer scrutiny.... This seems sloppy, negligent and more than a little sleazy, even for Politico. So I checked out the bios of the two bylined reporters, John Sakellariadis and Maggie Miller. Based on their bios, neither has any reporting background in voting rights, voting security or any of the complicated and fetid politics of voting mechanics... Having zero background on the issue in question is how you end up with this kind of egregiously negligent reporting." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I was not nearly as put off by the Politico report as was Marshall. As Marshall himself acknowledges, the Politico reporters don't write that DHS found non-citizen voters; rather they write that DHS says it has found non-citizen voters. (The headline says that, too, and that's important.) While the Politico reporters don't cite the precise history of false claims Marshall thinks they should have listed, they do cite lots of info that suggests previous claims about non-citizens voting have been false. They even cite a judicial finding against the DHS itself to that effect. And they repeatedly mention that DHS hasn't released any evidence of non-citizen voting. What they could have done -- and didn't -- is to more thoroughly question the sources & methodology of the DHS report, as Corasaniti (a long-time reporter on voting issues) & Berzon did in the NYT story linked above. But then the Politico report, as Marshall says, is based mostly on an unreleased (i.e., draft) "press release," not on any actual findings or errors therein. ~~~

    ~~~ Bottom Line. So is the Times report better than the Politico report? Yes. But then Times reports generally are among the best, most comprehensive reports on any number of topics. That's why I cite them so often -- even when I know not everybody has a subscription to the Times, so my "recommendations" are rather unfair unless I can find a gift link. When I cite a Times story, I do very often include a link to a story on the same subject by a "free" news outlet.

White House Holds Secret Meeting for Nutjobs. Vaughn Hillyard of MS NOW: “The White House hosted about two dozen Trump-aligned activists this week ahead of ... Donald Trump’s primetime address on the 2020 election. The session was convened by conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell and attended by figures who have spent years promoting the conspiracy theories Trump has invoked in falsely claiming the race was 'stolen' from him. At least some of the activists engaged in conversations around Thursday’s planned announcement were told to sign nondisclosure agreements..., and attendees of the Monday meeting were told the proceedings were confidential.... [On attendee,] Charles Faltenovich, the director of PA Fair Elections..., said the information provided 'was basically all the media reporting that John Solomon and others have done already.'”

Delusions of the Mad King. Peter Baker of the New York Times: Donald “Trump used a lot of alarming words on Thursday night as he addressed the American people about threats to the integrity of elections in the United States: 'Deep state.' 'Rigged and stolen.' 'Conspiring.' 'Manipulation.' 'Corrupt.' 'Fraud.' 'Cover up.' But the bottom-line message he clearly wanted to leave with the public was this: He is not a loser, regardless of the result of the 2020 election. There were dark forces at work to thwart him. And if his party loses this fall’s midterm election, he intimated, that may not be an honest outcome either. Mr. Trump’s prime-time speech from the East Room of the White House was an astonishing spectacle featuring a president intent on persuading the country that its elections cannot be trusted, at least not the ones where he or his allies fall short. He cited selectively declassified documents to make sensational claims about vulnerabilities of the election system, although nothing he revealed proved any outcomes were actually changed.... “It does feel a little like Captain Ahab in “Moby Dick,’” said Trevor Potter, a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.” 

Marie: I don't have a link to it, but Tom Nichols' essay in today's online Atlantic is titled "Trump Just Did More Damage to American Elections Than China." I'll take his word for it. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: here's a gift link, courtesy of akaWendy: “Trump strongly implied that in 2018, China was on the attack and trying to influence the outcome of the 2020 election, and that American intelligence operatives plotted to keep that from him while he was in the Oval Office. He said that attempts to rectify all of this have fallen 'catastrophically short' but that he will take 'swift' action in the coming days. The documents he offered tonight, though, tell a different story — so different that they raise the question of whether Trump, or anyone else in the White House, actually read them.”

Rick Hasen on his Election Law Blog: "What Trump did NOT do was even purport to show a single ineligible voter voted in the 2020 election, or that any voting machines were actually compromised, voting machines or voter registration databases breached, or election results inaccurately reported. Overall, this was an underwhelming announcement delivered with low energy that changes nothing about how state and local election administrators should run elections." 

Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket: "In a tirade against elections Thursday night..., Donald Trump ordered FBI Director Kash Patel to reopen an investigation into long-debunked anti-voting claims against a voter registration drive in Michigan in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Trump presented the episode as an example of the kind of large-scale voter fraud that he has railed against for years. However, the case has been known about for years, and fraudulent registrations tied to the event were voided before the 2020 election. In fact, authorities have said that it didn’t lead to a single fraudulent vote being cast. And Michigan’s chief election official, within minutes of Trump’s speech ending, labeled his claims 'long-debunked and baseless.'” Here's the New York Times report, by Nick Corasaniti, 

Marie: Here's something I don't get: How come the only presidential election that was "rigged" against Trump was the one that was conducted while he was president*? Apparently, the 2016 election -- which took place when Barack Hussein Obama was president -- went more-or-less okay (although, for instance, Trump claimed that New Hampshire, which went for Clinton by a few thousand votes, bussed in voters from Massachusetts to vote for her in NH). And the 2024 election -- which went down when Sleepy Joe was president -- also went okay. Is it only Democrats who can run free and fair elections? 

Paul Krugman: “I expected to hear lurid lies about the 2020 election. What [Donald Trump] offered instead was mostly dreary innuendo that convinced nobody. Which is not to say that his speech was free of lies. Indeed, more or less every word he spoke was a lie, including 'a,' 'and,' and 'the.' But the most spectacular lies ... were at the beginning, when Trump boasted about America’s place in the world. Here’s the part that caught my eye: 'We had transgender for everybody, men in women’s sports, crime ravaging our cities, and the whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not anymore. Two years ago, our country was dead. Now, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before.' In reality, one of the most spectacular consequences of Trump’s return to power and the mess he has made since has been a collapse of global respect for America.... But remember: At this point, none of what Trump says is really about persuasion. It’s all about laying the groundwork for his attempt to destroy democracy.”

Torrie Herrington of NOTUS: "Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind ... Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, announced Thursday it’s launching a service that will sell faster access to posts on the site — including Trump’s regular markets-moving diatribes. A spokesperson for Trump Media told Reuters that the application, called Truth API, will give paying users access to posts from the 10 most influential accounts at a faster pace than normal Truth Social push notifications. Trump is by far the most followed account on the platform, with 12.9 million followers....  API services aren’t an unusual offering in the social media industry — X, Reddit, Facebook and other platforms all sell access to users’ posts in bulk just milliseconds faster than they are available for viewers online."

Jarrett Ley, et al., of the Washington Post: “The lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool peeled away in at least seven places along seams that were created when the material was applied in large rectangular sections, indicating likely problems in how it was installed, according to a Washington Post analysis of visuals and interviews with experts.... Post reporters visited the Reflecting Pool on June 25 and identified seven locations where the lining — a waterproof membrane that was painted onto the concrete basin — had partially or entirely peeled away. The peeling occurred in irregularly shaped patches that stretched alongside the long edges of the pool. The pieces ranged in size from a few inches to as long as six feet.By comparing the seven locations with satellite imagery, photos and videos taken during the renovation process, the analysis found that all of the failures occurred at the seams — lines between two areas that were painted at different times....

“When The Post shared its findings with the White House and the Interior Department, spokespeople disputed that the surface had been improperly applied.... Donald Trump has repeatedly said vandals are to blame for the damage that appeared just two weeks after the $14 million renovation was completed in early June.... 'The slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs,' he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday.... Interior Secretary Doug Burgum made similar claims in television interviews in early July, saying on Fox News that vandals left gashes totaling 350 feet.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: In yesterday's Comments, Patrick wrote a very interesting explanation of why images of leaders almost always appear in profile on coins. Warning: when I say something is "very interesting," it's often because the information is new to me. It's a little like Trump's "nobody knows this, but ...." Art Intel, BTW, gives a different reason from Patrick's when asked, "why do images appear in profile on coins?" Both Patrick & Art could be correct. 

Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "... Donald Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on more than a dozen of Trump's speeches on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found.... Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who has been operating Trump's teleprompter since 2016, is in talks with federal regulators to settle allegations he used his inside knowledge of the president's speeches to win more than $100,000.... According to the sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its 'Mentions' market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech.... White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday afternoon, following ABC News' report, that Perez has been put on unpaid administrative leave. Leavitt said she spoke with ... Trump about it, and he thought it was a 'disgrace' and made the decision himself to put Perez on unpaid leave." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Thanks to RAS for the link. A New York Times story is here. Akhilleus sez, "Every single person connected with this fucking guy is a goddam crook and world class sleaze bag." Marie: I'll add Normally, a crook on Trump's staff would get a pardon. But this guy's name is Perez. It would be better if his name were Guy White.

Tom Bartlett of the Atlantic on Drunk Pete's “High-T Department of War: “How much this new initiative will cost taxpayers, and the question of whether the military health system’s labs even have the capacity for such testing, is unclear. But the bigger question is whether this is in any way a good idea.... The American Urological Association’s guidelines say that a low-testosterone diagnosis shouldn’t be made based solely on a test. That’s because testosterone levels can vary widely, and a man with a lower-than-average number might still be perfectly healthy.... Even if a man’s testosterone level drops below what’s considered normal, doctors don’t automatically recommend testosterone-replacement therapy. For starters, non-pharmaceutical interventions might work.... [For instance, e]xcess alcohol consumption is known to lower testosterone. Testosterone-replacement therapy also comes with real side effects.... Testosterone therapy suppresses a man’s natural production of the hormone and decreases sperm count. That’s why experts caution against its use by men trying to conceive.” (Also linked yesterday.) Related stories linked yesterday.&~~~

     ~~~ Thanks to akaWendy for the link. See also Paul Waldman -- linked below -- who asks, "Is Hegseth unaware that the vast majority of military personnel are people whose jobs involve things like logistics, equipment maintenance, IT support, and everything else that doesn’t require firing a weapon? Actually, the answer to that last question might be yes." AND, based on Bartlett's reporting -- "Excess alcohol consumption is known to lower testosterone" -- one does have to wonder how many of Pete's policy preferences, how much of the macho-man identity he tries to project, are based on some sort of pathetic projection? On some existential fear of his own effeminacy. See Akhilleus's commentary in yesterday's thread on Trump's coin. Pete likes to be pictured glowering, too. So just substitute "Drunk Pete" for "Fat Hitler" in Akhilleus's analysis. ~~~

~~~ Paul Waldman on Hegseth's "High-T Department of War": "You can’t write an absurdist satire of Trumpworld, because Trumpworld is an absurdist satire. We can laugh at them — and we should, because mockery has always been one of the most potent weapons the public has against tyrants — but we don’t need satire to reveal their stupidity and lunacy. It’s right there before us, clear as day." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. MB: Waldman went right to the same "Dr. Strangelove" clip that I did, not because great minds thing alike but because Drunk Pete is such a cardboard stereotype of a deranged military "leader" that equating him with an insane fictional military character is an immediate visceral response to the High-T story. (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~ Cole Reynolds of the Washington Post: “A Blue Angels fighter jet buzzed a beach in Pensacola, Florida, during a Wednesday morning practice run, sending shrieks through a crowd of onlookers and umbrellas flying into the air.... In a statement, the Blue Angels said that the aircraft flew lower than standard profiles, ABC News reported. By Thursday afternoon, acting Navy secretary Hung Cao said the flight debrief was complete. 'No reprimands. No firings. No problem,' he posted on X. 'That’s the sound of Freedom!'... The White House posted what appeared to be an illustration of the ... the low pass. 'It’s okay to love America,' the post stated. Less than four hours after the White House’s post, Cao posted that the debrief was complete.... Typically, pilots are required to fly 500 feet above people on the ground, said John 'JV' Venable, a retired colonel who formerly commanded the Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s elite demonstration squadron.” An observer reckoned the jet flew about 90 feet above the beach. ~~~ 

     ~~~Thanks to Akhilleus for linking the video. As he predicted yesterday, before Secretary Cao announced the debriefing conclusions, "... rest assured that nothing will happen to those pilots as long as Testosterone Pete is around (oh, and as long as those pilots are all Christian white guys). Public safety? Safe flying practices? Fuck that. As long as it's 'cool', and 'manly', Drunk Pete is A-fuckin'-Okay with it."

Madeleine Ngo & Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “The Trump administration on Thursday revived a policy that gives immigration officers wide authority to deny green cards to people they deem likely to rely on public assistance, a significant change that could deter hundreds of thousands of immigrants from using such programs. The shift, which comes amid the Trump administration’s escalating efforts to curb both lawful and unlawful immigration, was swiftly denounced by immigrant advocates for discouraging families from seeking food stamps or housing vouchers they qualify for, potentially hurting their U.S.-born children. The move could effectively require them to choose between using safety net programs to meet basic needs and risking rejection for permanent resident status.... Federal law has long barred immigrants from obtaining green cards if they are likely to become a 'public charge,' or primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.”

Emily Allen, et al., of the Portland Press Herald: “The federal immigration agent who shot and killed a 26-year-old Colombian man in Biddeford has been identified as David Michael Brouillette. Brouillette, who is 37 and lives in Manchester, was identified by an ex-wife as the ICE agent who shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Ashley Brouillette told the Portland Press Herald in a phone interview Thursday afternoon that her ex-husband called admitting to the shooting and defending his actions.... 'He was asking me to lie for him and to cover for his character,' Ashley Brouillette said. 'I told him that I was not going to lie for him. And then he tried to say that it was a justified shooting because the guy tried to hit him with his car.' She said she has seen videos of Brouillette on the scene of the shooting and confirmed that was him on scene, telling him: 'nowhere in there does it show that this man charged at you with a car.... In his head it’s justified. He’s unusually calm about it, she said.

“David Brouillette has held multiple jobs in law enforcement and public safety in Maine. He’s also a licensed real estate agent and a veteran.... Ashley Brouillette told a reporter that she wanted to speak publicly because she had previously reported concerns to his superiors in the military about his mental health. She said he was abusive in their relationship.” The Press Herald has made the link to this story a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ AP, published by NBC News: "The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press. David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat. Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out ... Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown." Read on. This is a horror story.

David Goodman of the New York Times: “Small bags inside a van whose driver was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent contained salt, not drugs, said a lawyer for a witness, contradicting federal agents. Investigators with the F.B.I. got a warrant to search the van on Tuesday after telling a federal judge they believed that a 'crystal-like' substance in the plastic bags might be methamphetamine. On Thursday, Ruby Powers, a lawyer for Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, who is the victim’s younger brother and was a passenger in the van, said in a statement that 'after consulting with my client and his family, our understanding is that this was granulated salt.' Like other construction workers, her client and his brother would mix the salt into water and add lemon as a kind of homemade energy drink during their days working in the hot Houston sun, Ms. Powers said in an interview.... The Harris County district attorney, Sean Teare, also cast doubt on the presence of drugs Thursday. 'Based on what we’ve learned about the passengers, it’s inconsistent that drugs were in the van,' he said in a statement.”

Jake Spring & Evan Halper of the Washington Post: “On his first day back in office..., Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency and vowed to unleash abundant energy that would meet surging demand for electricity 'to power the next generation of technology.' A year and a half later, analysts say his administration has yet to deliver results by one of the metrics that matters the most: new gigawatts added to the electricity grid.... Electricity shortages across the United States have utility executives and power grid operators warning that the system is increasingly unstable and vulnerable to blackouts.... Demand is rising much faster than new generation is coming online.... More renewable power would ease that strain. Yet analysts say the administration’s policies have undercut such projects. As a result, skyrocketing demand from data centers and Americans’ increasingly electrified daily life has added to consumers’ rising electricity bills and angered voters ahead of the midterm elections.

“Since March, the Interior Department has announced it will spend some $2.7 billion to buy back offshore wind leases, while the Energy Department is offering $17.5 billion in loans for nuclear energy and $800 million to bolster the coal industry. Nuclear power has low emissions but is far more costly and complicated to bring online than wind or solar.”

Chris Marquette & Erica Orden of Politico: “Sen. Thom Tillis said Thursday his vote to confirm attorney general nominee Todd Blanche is contingent on Blanche meeting with victims of the late convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein. The North Carolina Republican’s new demand creates yet another hurdle for Blanche’s confirmation, which will fail to advance to the Senate floor if one Republican on the Judiciary Committee defects — assuming all Democrats on the panel oppose him. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is also undecided.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: “... Todd Blanche, met on Thursday with victims and relatives of victims of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after a key Republican lawmaker [Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee] insisted he would not advance Mr. Blanche’s nomination to serve in the job permanently unless he did so.... For months, a group of Epstein survivors has tried unsuccessfully to meet with Mr. Blanche.... Some victims at the meeting called it unhelpful and infuriating, while a Justice Department official said it was productive.... Two of the attendees sharply criticized Mr. Blanche’s conduct during the meeting, saying it fell far short of what they wanted from the Justice Department, and urged senators to vote against Mr. Blanche.... 'I found him abrasive, condescending and intentionally noncommittal to survivors, a marked contrast to his public testimony during his confirmation hearing,' said Annie Farmer.” A Politico story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Blanche said during his testimony Wednesday that he "was prohibited" from meeting with Epstein survivors, uh, even though apparently it was not "prohibited" from meeting with jailed Epstein collaborator-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell and get her transferred to the Nfmaro. 1 Club Fed. Yet suddenly when his promotion is threatened, Blanche can't get those women into his office fast enough. There are so many reasons not to vote to confirm Blanche, and every Republican senator who does vote to confirm him (which is likely to be every Republican senator) is pimping for Trump, much as Maxwell did for Epstein. 

Marie: Yesterday morning, I forgot to link any stories about the performance of Jay Clayton during his Senate confirmation hearing to be Director of National Intelligence: ~~~

~~~ Julian Barnes of the New York Times: “Democrats on Wednesday repeatedly questioned Jay Clayton..., [Donald] Trump’s nominee to lead the nation’s intelligence community, about his refusal to answer the question of who won the 2020 election. Mr. Clayton’s response — that Joseph R. Biden Jr. was 'certified' as the winner — has become the standard answer for Trump administration nominees, who have refused to say flat out that Mr. Biden won. But with Mr. Trump set to deliver a speech on election security this week, Democrats refused to accept the standard answer. Senators Mark Warner of Virginia, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Angus King, a Maine independent, all grilled Mr. Clayton over his answer. Several of the senators said that the job of the director of national intelligence is to speak truth to power, and that Mr. Clayton was demonstrating an aversion to that very task.” A CNBC report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Here was the exchange with Sen. Ossoff, who wouldn't let Clayton off the hook: ~~~

Rachel Dobkin of the Independent: “Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, had sexual relationships with two congressional staffers and was 'very flirtatious' with others, according to a new report. The relationships were with two aides to Texas Democrats in the House of Representatives and occurred during his decade as a congressman, the New York Post reported, citing unnamed sources. Gallego served in the House from 2015 to 2025 before moving to the Senate. While the relationships were reportedly consensual and are not believed to have occurred when Gallego was married, one of the Post’s sources said they are a part of a broader 'pattern of mistakes and missteps and judgment calls.'... Ruben married his second wife, Sydney, in 2021 after filing for divorce from his first wife, Kate, in 2016. Last month, the Senate Ethics Committee dismissed allegations of sexual misconduct and campaign finance violations against Gallego made by Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Gallego was "indiscreet," as the "very flirtatious" accusation suggests, then, as they say, mistakes were made. But in general, a single person having an affair with a single colleague is pretty darned normal, albeit these were affairs where there were apparently power imbalances.   

Judson Jones, et al., of the Portland Press Herald: “A blanket of dense smoke from Canadian wildfires stretched across Ontario into the Midwestern and northeastern United States on Thursday, disrupting life for millions and prompting many to stay inside with the windows shut.... Air quality readings surged to dangerous levels in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Toronto and many places in between. The air in northeastern cities like Washington, Philadelphia and New York rated only slightly better but was still unhealthy and gray, with the acrid scent of a campfire.... The bad air was the product of about 800 wildfires burning across Canada, particularly the roughly 180 that have been burning in Ontario, where the fires have prompted air quality warnings, road closures and some evacuations.” 

Montezuma's Revenge, Again? Christina Jewett, et al., of the New York Times: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked an outbreak of cyclosporiasis to iceberg lettuce that Taylor Farms supplied to Taco Bell, according to two federal officials who declined to be named. The C.D.C. said the shredded lettuce was sent to Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. In a notice posted Thursday night, the agency warned the public not to eat shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in those states. It remains unclear if Taylor Farms sent the lettuce to other vendors, said one of the officials, who was not cleared to speak for the administration. The C.D.C. has not publicly named Taylor Farms in its investigation.... Food and Drug Administration officials also said the lettuce was grown by a single supplier in Mexico. The agency has stepped up screening at the border for the company’s lettuce.... Health officials are also investigating other cyclosporiasis illnesses and outbreaks in other states that are unrelated to the one linked to Taco Bell, the C.D.C. said in its notice posted Thursday night.”

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Senate Races. Matt Zdun & Katherine Perry of the New York Times: “Democratic candidates for the Senate have raised far more money than their Republican rivals so far this year in several crucial contests, new campaign finance filings show. The cash influx could give an edge to the party out of power as it seeks to take back the chamber. Strong fund-raising showings in the second quarter, combined with a dominant performance in the first quarter, mean that Democrats now hold a cash inflow advantage in all of the key Senate races except Iowa. (The party’s financial picture in Maine, however, has been complicated by Graham Platner’s exit and a search for a new nominee. And Republicans still outperform Democrats in money raised through main party committees and super PACs.)” (Also linked yesterday.)

Maine Senate Race. Ben Binday of the Washington Post: “After a federal immigration officer fatally shot a man in Maine this week, the state’s major Democratic Senate candidates have embraced a once-fringe position: abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The leftward shift shows how the contenders, competing in a fast-paced contest to replace Graham Platner as the nominee, are adopting the spirit of his aggressive campaign, which electrified Maine Democrats before he dropped out because of a sexual assault allegation, which he denied. The candidates are presenting themselves as fighters in Platner’s mold in their responses to the shooting. And they are invoking the death in their case for ousting longtime Sen. Susan Collins (R), criticizing her previous votes funding ICE and inability to rein in ... Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.... Several front-runners in the race, including Nirav Shah, Troy Jackson and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, rushed to Biddeford to join an anti-ICE rally hours after the shooting.”

Texas Senate Race. Lauren McGaughy of the New York Times: “Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas recently bought three condominiums at a luxury resort in Utah, a set of purchases that offered fresh insight into his wealth amid his run for U.S. Senate, according to property records.... The properties, along with a dozen others owned by Mr. Paxton, are at issue in his ongoing divorce negotiations with his wife, State Senator Angela Paxton, who has accused him of adultery. Mr. Paxton, 63, purchased the condos, worth a total of $1.6 million, in February..., and transferred them to his blind trust. On the deeds, Mr. Paxton listed his address as a Dallas-area home. Police records indicate a woman who is not his wife lives there. Mr. Paxton, who has been photographed vacationing with the woman, has not directly addressed the relationship. 

“Mr. Paxton won the Republican primary runoff in May, defeating Senator John Cornyn, and is now in a highly competitive race with James Talarico, 37, a Democratic state representative. Public records ... show Mr. Paxton, his blind trust and another family trust now own at least 15 properties worth around $9 million, including a luxury cabin in Oklahoma, three homes in Florida and a plot of land in Hawaii. Mr. Paxton’s expanding real estate portfolio has raised questions in the past about how he has amassed his wealth, despite his $153,000 salary as attorney general. Both Mr. Talarico and Mr. Cornyn have suggested Mr. Paxton has used his public role to benefit himself.” The link appears to be a gift link. Thanks to RAS for the link and to akaWendy for the lead.      

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Ukraine in Disarray. Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: “What snapped [Ukraine's recent winning streak on the battlefield] ... was an outbreak of political infighting, which culminated with Mr. Zelensky’s dismissal on Wednesday of a popular, youthful defense minister who championed the innovations of drone warfare. The minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, responded Thursday by hosting reporters and opposition politicians in an underground parking garage, for security against Russian missiles. There, he aired the most dramatic, public critique of Ukraine’s war strategy, its corruption in defense contracting and the shortcomings in its military command to emerge during the full-scale war with Russia.... At a nearby park, a crowd of protesters — only the second large street demonstration of the war — stomped their feet in support of Mr. Fedorov, clapped their hands and chanted, 'One Ukraine, united and free!'... After more than four years in which virtually all Ukrainian officials lionized the military leadership, Mr. Fedorov lit into it. An open clash between the minister of defense and the commanding general had cracked an all-important sense of unity in fighting the larger Russian Army, as well as the narrative of a Ukraine riding high in the war.” MB: It sure looks as if Zelensky picked the wrong pony. And so far, at least, he is not regrouping.