July 27, 2026

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: “Visiting a General Motors proving facility in Milford, [Michigan,] where vehicles are pressure-tested before they hit the market, [Donald] Trump accepted some gifts (car sculptures) and road-tested his latest insult for the Democratic Party — 'Dumocrats' or 'Dumbocrats'; he is apparently still mulling the spelling — as he attacked several presidential predecessors.... Before he spoke, Mr. Trump watched a crew of professional drivers drag-race several luxury vehicles, including a race between a black 2027 Corvette ZR1X, a car that starts at $227,000, and a silver Corvette ZR1 convertible, which costs around $207,195. Later, he told hundreds of supporters, many of them dressed in Trump regalia, that the economic pressures they were experiencing were problems inherited from the Biden administration.... Michigan has been among the states hardest hit by tariffs because of the impact on automakers, a pillar of the economy. Tariffs have siphoned off money they could be using to invest in new car designs and new technologies. Mr. Trump promised that General Motors would soon see major benefits. 'It’s amazing what tariffs will do for General Motors,' Mr. Trump said before his speech....” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What you won't read even if you read every word of Rogers' report is that during his remarks, Trump made a new (as far as I recall), disgusting, racist statement. And Trump wanted you to hear it. He anticipated the remark would "make news." Donald Trump is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill racist. He's a proud racist: ~~~

Joe DePaolo of Mediaite: “'This is maybe gonna make news,' said President Donald Trump on Monday at a rally in Milford, MI....'“When [the Left] take[s] something over, it’s always dirty,' Trump said. 'The sidewalks are dirty. The people are, I hate to say this, not clean, OK? The curbs are loaded with you know what? This smell is terrible. I mean, I see it happening to cities, blue cities. They’re all blue. They’re blue.'... He also tried to take credit for the current state of affairs in the District of Columbia. 'It was filthy,' Trump said. 'Graffiti all over the place. We fixed up 72 monuments and fountains, and we’ve done an unbelievable — we took the graffiti off the beautiful marble columns. We have new grass going down. But you know what we did the best? We stopped crime in Washington. It’s down 88 percent.' The president first deployed the National Guard in Washington in August 2025. An analysis from the Niskanen Center — a nonpartisan think tank — showed a dramatic reduction in non-violent crime, but hardly any reduction in violent crime. The analysis found crime went down 24 percent overall as of June, rather than the 88 percent Trump claimed Monday, and violent crime went down by even less.”

Trump Takes Voter Suppression E.O. to Supremes. Amy Howe of ScotusBlog: “The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fully implement an executive order signed by ... Donald Trump that seeks to impose additional restrictions on mail-in voting. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer called an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts that paused portions of the order in 23 states and the District of Columbia 'extraordinary,' and he argued that it 'flouts settled' doctrines governing when courts can weigh in on a dispute. Sauer also asked the court to issue an immediate administrative stay – an order that temporarily puts the lower court’s order on hold while the justices consider the government’s request. Trump signed the executive order at the center of the case ... on March 31 of this year. Among other things, the order instructs the U.S. Postal Service to propose rules for mail-in and absentee ballots, and it directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile 'state citizenship lists' – lists of individuals in each state who are U.S. citizens over the age of 18. Under the order, the rules issued by the USPS must provide that the Postal Service can only send mail-in ballots to voters whose names appear on the state citizenship lists.”

Sarah Rumpf of Mediaite: “The BBC scored a blow against ... Donald Trump in its defense against the defamation suit he filed when a judge ordered the president to turn over years of financial documents to the British public broadcaster.... On Monday, [U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué] Lett issued a nine-page written order spelling out what documents Trump would have to disclose to the BBC and setting deadlines for that document production.... [Trump argued that properties owned by his trust should not be subject to discovery because the Trust was not a party to the lawsuit. But] Trump is claiming damages up to $10 billion which include the 'value' of his 'brand, properties, and businesses,' wrote Lett, and [a]s represented by the parties, virtually all of these “properties and businesses” are owned by the Trust.'” Lett limited the order to records covering the period from January 1, 2023 to the present. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Unless the judge rules otherwise, these financial documents will become part of the public record; that is, they will come under the scrutiny of our prying eyes.

Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: “James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, asked a judge on Monday to throw out the indictment accusing him of threatening ... [Donald] Trump with a photograph of seashells arranged to read '86 47,' calling it a misuse of criminal law to punish free speech. The charges, filed in North Carolina in April over an Instagram post Mr. Comey later deleted, say he 'did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the president of the United States.' Mr. Trump has argued that the term '86,' popular among restaurant workers, is mafia slang to kill someone, an accusation that many of his supporters have embraced. The other number, 47, is a reference to Mr. Trump, the 47th president. 'That claim,' Mr. Comey’s lawyers wrote in the new filing, 'is contradicted by every possible source of meaning: dictionaries, context, precedent and common sense. “86” simply means “get rid of” or “eject” and has no violent connotation except in the most uncommon usages.” The link is a gift link.

Where's Mitch? Theodoric Meyer of the Washington Post: “Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has not been medically cleared to leave a rehabilitation facility, the Capitol physician’s office said Monday, and will miss Kentucky’s Fancy Farm Picnic on Saturday as he continues recovering from a June fall.” A Guardian report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a new photo released Sunday. McConnell's office says the photo was taken Sunday: ~~~ 

     ~~~ Aaron Parnas has more.

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Donald Trump is a sad character. Here's what the POTUS* did on his day off: ~~~

~~~ Sean James of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump fired off a series of AI-generated images on Sunday targeting a slew of names from his enemies list, from Iran’s theocratic leaders to Rosie O’Donnell and “ex comedians” Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert. The president’s social media spree started with a picture of CNN’s Kaitlan Collins as trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney — doubling down on a joke he made at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner two days earlier. And he kept going from there. Trump posted a picture of a grease and mustard-stained Chris Christie fawning over a saggy-looking Bruce Springsteen soon after.... The president went on, posting multiple pictures of him donning a red 'Trump 2028' hat.” ~~~

     ~~~ To get a fuller picture of how "the most powerful man in the world" frittered away his Sunday, Harry Sisson has the full rundown here. Marie: I didn't watch the full video, but I saw enough. Whatever you did on Sunday, even it was lolling on a webbed chaise longue watching your grass grow and idly wondering if the lawnmower needed a tune-up, your day was better spent than Trump's.

Heather Cox Richardson: “From the time he took office in January 2025, Trump and his cronies have not simply challenged laws or constitutional provisions. They have acted as if the Constitution doesn’t exist.... Their actions align with the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, whose writings seem lately to have captivated leaders on the American right. Schmitt opposed liberal democracy.... He argued that true democracy erases individual self-determination by making the mass of people one with the state and exercising their will through state power. That uniformity requires getting rid of opposition. Schmitt theorized that politics is simply about dividing people into friends and enemies and using the power of the state to crush enemies. As J.D. Vance described Schmitt’s ideas in 2024: 'There’s no law, there’s just power.' Much of Schmitt’s philosophy centered around the idea that the power of a nation that is based in a constitution and the rule of law belongs to the man who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law.” Richardson elaborates on how Trump is doing that.... “Trump’s imposition of a new round of tariffs ... is a flashing red light.”

Sammy Westfall & Suzan Haidamous of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump wants to give ongoing talks with Iran 'some space' as he considers whether to escalate attacks, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday. Mike Waltz’s comments came as the U.S. military paused its bombing raids on Iran over the weekend after 13 consecutive days of heavy strikes and warnings by Trump of an even more aggressive bombing campaign. On Friday, Trump emphasized ongoing talks between the United States and Iran in an Oval Office appearance. The day prior, he had told Axios that he is 'considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision.'” ~~~

~~~ Barak Ravid of Axios: "The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, Adm. Brad Cooper, recommended stopping the bombing campaign around the Strait of Hormuz because it has reached the limit of its effectiveness, according to two sources with knowledge of his position.... The recommendation by Cooper, the commander of the U.S. Military Central Command (CENTCOM), together with other advisers impacted ... [Donald] Trump's decision on Friday to pause U.S. strikes against Iran, the sources said.It was an acknowledgement by both military and civilian advisers to the president that there are limits to what can be accomplished through military action, and specifically an air power campaign." MB: IOW, the current lapse in strikes is less about giving peace a chance and more about the uselessness of blowing up stuff, especially when are air defense stocks are dwindling.

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: “Facing criticism that it had minimized the number of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in the war with Iran, the Pentagon on Sunday changed the way it reports casualties as it announced a higher number of wounded service members this month. In an unusual new accounting method, casualties since July 7, when the cease-fire began unraveling and fighting escalated, are not listed on a Pentagon website with others since the war began, but rather on a new webpage labeled generically as 'overseas operations casualties.'... Under the new system, the Defense Casualty Analysis System restored the deaths of four soldiers killed last weekend in the war that had been removed from the website — but in a separate, unexplained category. The change also raised the number of those wounded to 142 more than were previously reported by the Pentagon since July 7. The official number of soldiers wounded since that date is now listed as 207, for a total of 624 since the war began on Feb. 28. The total number listed as killed is 18. Last week, Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, insisted that the number of U.S. troops injured since July 7 was fewer than 100.” The link is a gift link. The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This new system Drunk Pete has devised seems to be intended not only to minimize the number of casualties but also to create "confusion by imprecision." Since the list of "overseas operations casualties" lacks specificity, a U.S. soldier stationed in Germany and injured or killed in, say, a car accident on an autobahn, could be listed on the page.

Alex Horton, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.... The strikes ... had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines.... Traffickers are also relying more on aircraft, which take off from clandestine airstrips along the Colombian-Venezuelan border and head east to Guyana and Suriname to avoid U.S. forces.... The DEA analysts reported..., 'Price and availability have not been noticeably affected.'... The reports contradict public claims by ... Donald Trump. Trump has said at least 15 times, including as recently as last month, that the strikes have reduced maritime drug trafficking into the country by 97 or 98 percent. '98.2% of Drugs coming into the U.S. by Ocean or Sea have STOPPED!' he wrote on Truth Social in April.”~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Did some toady tell Trump that drug trafficking had been nearly eradicated to make him feel even better about killing fishermen? Or did Trump just make up out of whole cloth a specific figure like "98.2"?

Greg Kaffe & Kate Kelly of the New York Times: “Admiral [Daryl] Caudle, then the head of a major Navy training command, offered to help [Pete] Hegseth prepare for his politically contentious Senate confirmation hearing, according to current and former defense officials. The outreach was a breach of military ethics.... Nothing came of the offer. But soon after Mr. Hegseth took office, he fired the first woman to lead the Navy: Admiral Caudle’s boss. Days later, a senior officer on Admiral Caudle’s staff contacted Mr. Hegseth’s team in another breach of protocol. His pitch: Mr. Hegseth should choose Admiral Caudle to be the next chief of naval operations.... Even though Admiral Caudle was not on a list of candidates recommended by senior Navy officials, Mr. Hegseth chose him for the job.... But before the promotion could be finalized, the admiral needed to address [an inspector general's inquiry into remarks he had made]. To help resolve the inquiry, Admiral Caudle hired Timothy Parlatore, a Navy Reservist and well-known lawyer who had represented Mr. Hegseth and ... [Donald] Trump. [Case closed.]...

“Since taking office nearly 18 months ago, Mr. Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than two dozen senior officers, including Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who held the top Navy job before Admiral Caudle. He has also removed from promotion lists about 40 senior officers who had been selected by boards made up of their peers.... Admiral Caudle’s promotion is a view into the flip side of Mr. Hegseth’s purge.” MB: A photo of Caudle accompanying the article depicts him as a mean old White guy. The link is a gift link.

Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post: Tim Bakkan, a law professor at West Point, stands up for the First Amendment and against the institution, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth. The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Natanson, BTW, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was arrested in January at the Pentagon's request for supposedly "illegally retaining classified government materials."

Phillips O'Brien on Laura Loomer's conversion on the Russia/Ukraine war: "So it turns out that Laura Loomer is now a good thing.... Loomer went to Ukraine, said how bad Russia was, how she had been misled by Russian propaganda, and how she now supported Ukraine. She is finally on the side of the angels. At least this is what we are being told. Actually, I can think of nothing more destructive. The praise people are putting on Loomer, and the publicity she is garnering from it, is a disaster. Let me explain:... While Loomer was in Ukraine..., she also revealed (once again) where her true and deep devotions have and always will lie. She remains a racist, conspiratorial and destructive Trumpist, calling for disenfranchisement of people she does not like, gross discrimination, and the prosecution and imprisonment of enemies. Indeed, she continued espousing all of these stances the entire time she was in Ukraine."

Paul Krugman: Decades ago, scientists predicted the effects of climate change, the results we are seeing today. The Trump administration hates them for that. "It’s just a real hatred of the whole scientific enterprise. And so in an obvious sense, the climate denial is of a piece with the determination of RFK Jr’s health department to find a link between vaccines and autism. They just kind of hate the idea of scientists, they hate the idea of objective research of any kind. And so that feeds right into the climate denial.... I don’t think you can really understand what’s going on in this administration without saying that there’s a kind of hatred of the intellect, not just science, but really any kind of hard thinking. I mean, at some, not very deep level, it’s an obvious correlation between Trump saying that the reason that we had fires in Canada is because the Canadians didn’t rake their forests, — all, by the way, two million square miles of boreal forest in Canada. You know, there’s just this absurdity, this kind of evil absurdity of the whole situation."

If you are following Krugman's series "Against Oligarchy," Part 2 is here. Most of it is behind a paywall, but you can claim your free post if you're so inclined.

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Michigan/Indiana. Olivia George, et al., of the Washington Post: “Officials who separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his young twins last month relied on a vague and unsubstantiated allegation from an accuser authorities later deemed possibly 'mentally unstable,' according to previously unreported police records. The records, obtained by The Washington Post, and an interview with the apparent complainant offer the most detailed account yet of how a false tip led investigators to the home of one of the country’s most prominent Democrats, drawing bipartisan outrage. Child welfare experts who reviewed the documents at The Post’s request said they illuminate a flawed process that was made worse by poor judgment by agencies and a lack of communication among investigators from two states. Michigan State Police reports detail the chain of events from the allegation to its eventual determination it was unfounded and potentially politically motivated.”

Minnesota Senate Race. Joe Kottke & Rachel Uribe of NBC News: “Democratic Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman said Friday that Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., sought his endorsement for her U.S. Senate campaign while he was in intensive care following the June 2025 attempt on his life. Hoffman said in a statement to NBC News on Sunday that a 'dear and trusted friend' approached him for an endorsement twice — once while he was in the intensive care unit and the second time while he was recovering at home — and that the friend 'confirmed that the endorsement requests came from Congresswoman Craig.'... A spokesperson for Craig said in a statement that 'the claim is categorically false.'”

New York/Israel. Emma Goldberg of the New York Times: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Sunday responded directly to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s calls for his arrest, accusing the mayor of “fomenting hate” and referring to a video address that Mr. Mamdani made last week as 'hate speech.' In an appearance on Fox News’s 'Sunday Morning Futures,' Mr. Netanyahu criticized the mayor for the video, released Tuesday, in which Mr. Mamdani called him a 'war criminal,' condemned the war in Gaza and urged the U.S. government to enforce an International Criminal Court warrant for the prime minister’s arrest. 'He’s fomenting hate,' Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, 'He’s trying to turn one group against the other.' The prime minister also said that he did not think it was 'accidental' that a Jewish man was stabbed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan after the mayor released the video.... Mr. Mamdani’s spokesman Joe Calvello pointed to a New York Post interview with the mayor on Saturday, in which Mr. Mamdani said he was committed to countering antisemitism across the city.”

Washington State. Yan Zhuang & Ishani Desai of the New York Times: “Three people were killed and four others wounded on Sunday in a shooting at a food festival in Seattle, the authorities said. The shooting occurred at Seattle Center, which was hosting the Bite of Seattle food festival and is also home to the Space Needle, the Seattle Police Department said. The wounded included a boy who was approximately two years old, the Seattle Fire Department said. The police were searching for one suspect and had another in custody, Assistant Chief Tyrone Davis said at a news conference late Sunday. He said the police believed two people had been shooting at each other at the festival.” The link is a gift link.

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Germany. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: “The police on Sunday evening shot and killed the man suspected of killing a woman and injuring 29 other people near a Berlin gay Pride celebration after he charged at officers with a weapon, the German authorities said. The man, a 21-year-old German citizen whose family members migrated from Lebanon, had been the subject of a protracted nationwide manhunt since the Saturday evening attack. The suspect used a rented van and what appeared to be a machete in the attack, which German officials called an act of Islamist terrorism. In a brief statement, the police said they had tracked the suspect to an area in a western corner of the city where residents maintain large garden patches. After officers shot him, emergency responders tried to revive him, but he died at the scene, the police said.” This is an update of a story linked early Sunday. (Also linked yesterday.) The link is a gift link.