August 2, 2026

Are We Surprised? We Are Not. Michael Gold, et al., of the New York Times: “Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, confirmed in writing on Sunday night that the Justice Department would abandon elements of the deal it struck with ... [Donald] Trump to resolve his lawsuit against the I.R.S., conceding to demands from Republican senators who had threatened to block his nomination as attorney general.... Mr. Blanche posted two documents on social media on Sunday night: a signed memo in which he said that the Justice Department was formally rescinding an order that created the so-called 'anti-weaponization fund' and an unsigned statement in which the Justice Department clarified the terms of the I.R.S. protections.... Mr. Blanche posted a second statement saying that only Mr. Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization would be immune from audits, excluding a broader pool of Trump family members and their associates who appeared to be eligible for protection under the original Justice Department deal. Mr. Blanche also stipulated that their future tax returns could still be audited — another one of [Sen. John] Cornyn’s demands. Still, even in its new form, Mr. Blanche’s order for the I.R.S. to abandon any audits of Mr. Trump’s previous tax returns is an unprecedented and potentially illegal benefit to a sitting president, worth potentially tens of millions of dollars in lower taxes and avoided penalties.” The link is a gift link.

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: Donald “Trump headed into the weekend having vowed that U.S. forces would unleash a furious new round of attacks against Iran, saying that the military would be 'hitting them very hard.' By Saturday night, Mr. Trump said that the military was still 'locked and loaded' to carry out the strikes, but that he had decided to call them off. 'I was asked to by Saudi Arabia, by U.A.E., by Qatar and by Iran,' Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday evening aboard Air Force One on his way back to Washington from his golf club in New Jersey. 'We were all set to go. Just about at this time, right now. The reason they asked is they think there’s a deal.' Mr. Trump said that talks with Iran would begin on Monday, and that he was told there could be a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route, as well as 'a deal on the nuclear.' He has, of course, said most of this before. Repeatedly. Over the five months since the war began, Mr. Trump has reached this point in the cycle several times, threatening to unleash hell and then trumpeting a coming negotiation with Tehran.” The link is a gift link. 

Annie Karni of the New York Times: “Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, broke his silence on Sunday about a yearslong family struggle involving domestic abuse allegations against his former son-in-law, Representative Max Miller of Ohio, saying in an emotional statement that Mr. Miller was not fit to hold public office. Mr. Moreno, saying the dispute had put his family through 'pure hell,' scathingly denounced Mr. Miller, whose ex-wife, Emily Moreno, has accused him of abusing her and their 2-year-old daughter. 'If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them, Mr. Moreno wrote in a post on X. He added: I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.' He continued: 'He should not serve in the House of Representatives. I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does.'

“The senator issued his statement in reaction to an earlier, defiant livestream on Sunday by Mr. Miller, who is seeking re-election. He denied the accusations and vowed that he was 'not getting out of this race.'... In a roughly 20-minute livestream, Mr. Miller categorically denied all the accusations that Ms. Moreno has leveled at him in court. He also claimed that she had 'significant mental health challenges,' without offering any evidence.” ~~~

     ~~~ Jennifer Bahney of Mediaite adds to the Times report. For instance, “[Bernie] Moreno initially said 'I don’t know,' when asked by a reporter if Miller was fit to stand for reelection.”

Joe DePaolo of Mediaite: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. melted down and berated CNN’s Dana Bash in a wild brawl over Dr. Anthony Fauci..., Donald Trump, and vaccines. In a marathon battle on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, the HHS Secretary — a years-long Fauci critic who has ramped up his attacks in recent days — defended Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic despite the fact that Trump kept Fauci in a position of power.”

David French of the New York Times takes a look at how serious the Iran War debacle is. A new world war “is more possible now than it has been at any time since the end of the Cold War, and the American government is led by the worst rulers in the modern history of the United States. Congress, the only branch of government that possesses the power to intervene, has been prostrate before the president.... The initial American strategy failed, the war with Iran is consuming the entire region, Iran and Ukraine are risking a face-off, there is evidence that both Russia and China are escalating their military commitments, American munitions stocks are dwindling and Trump is raging.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Everyone, including French himself, wants to believe that French is wrong. But let's face it: the "decider" does not have the mental capacity and temperament to get the pool painted. You think he can manage a multi-faceted, constantly-moving war? With Drunk Pete at his side? 

What with it's being the weekend and all, let's check out the Sooke Fine Arts Show in Sooke, B.C.: ~~~

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Thankfully, Another TACO Moment. Francesca Regalado of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said late Saturday that he had canceled threatened U.S. strikes on Iran, provided a deal could be reached rapidly that reopened the Strait of Hormuz and ended what he described as Iran’s nuclear threat. Mr. Trump, writing on Truth Social, said Iran and other Middle Eastern countries had asked him to delay military action, claiming that the 'perimeters of a deal' had been reached. He also claimed that Israel had jointly committed to a pause in fighting. The Israeli government has not publicly confirmed its agreement. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke with counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan as well as Britain and India, the ministry said in brief readouts of the calls.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

Farnaz Fassihi & Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: “During a fleeting truce, Iranians covertly devised a plan to raise the war’s costs for ... [Donald] Trump if U.S. forces attacked anew.... Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Iran’s chief negotiator, even crowed on social media about the strategy [to deploy] proxy forces, which are known in the region as the 'Axis of Resistance.'... The Houthis in Yemen, for instance, are seen as the most autonomous of the groups that make up the alliance. Hezbollah coordinates the most closely with Iran, while Shiite militias in Iraq are somewhere in the middle in the degree of their willingness to act as a direct arm of Iran.” ~~~

     ~~~  Still, Trump's concerns about his family's businesses may have been a deciding factor in this latest retreat: ~~~

     ~~~ Barak Ravid & Marc Caputo of Axios: "Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke to ... [Donald] Trump on Saturday and expressed concern over his plans for massive new strikes against Iran.... A ... source with knowledge of the call said MBS urged Trump to de-escalate and refrain from launching the strikes." MB: In 2021, MBS sank $2BB into Jared Kushner's private equity company over the objections of the directors of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

~~~ Aaron Boxerman of the New York Times: “Israeli strikes in Gaza on Saturday killed at least two people and damaged warehouses for medical supplies, Palestinian officials said, despite a recent deal between ... [Donald] Trump’s Board of Peace and Hamas to advance the Gaza cease-fire.... It is unclear whether Israel has agreed to the proposal.... One of the strikes destroyed and damaged the warehouses at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza before dawn on Saturday, said ... a hospital spokesman. The outpatient clinic was also damaged, he added, though there were no reports of casualties. The Israeli military said it had bombarded the warehouses because Hamas was storing weapons there and using the facility as a hide-out.... A second Israeli strike on Saturday, in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, killed two Palestinians, according to local health officials. The Israel military confirmed the attack but declined to provide details about why the two were targeted.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

~~~ Pranav Baskar of the New York Times: “The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had killed several Hezbollah members overnight on a strategic ridge in southern Lebanon, challenging a fragile cease-fire between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.” The link is a gift link.

Oh, who could have predicted that Donald Trump would still demand activation of his slush fund, despite his lawyer Todd Blanche's claim that the fund was dead? ~~~

Mark Walker of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said on Saturday that he would revive a proposal for a $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund that would compensate his supporters if the Senate does not confirm his nominee for attorney general. The administration had backed off plans to establish such a fund in June as it was criticized as a scheme to reward political allies with taxpayers’ dollars. But in a social media post, Mr. Trump reacted to skepticism about his nomination of Todd Blanche, his former defense lawyer, to be attorney general, saying that he would keep Mr. Blanche as the acting attorney general if the Senate failed to confirm him, and added that he would  'push hard' to pass legislation creating the fund. 'Todd Blanche was a voice of reason! It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done,' Mr. Trump wrote on social media.” The link is a gift link. Politico's report is here.

The Perils of Jeanine. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: When Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, withdrew charges against Olympian David Hearn, she “blast[ed] the Interior Department for the rushed and 'botched' renovation, along with U.S. Park Police officials who fed bad information that led her to publicly cite 'tremendous evidence' against Mr. Hearn. Ms. Pirro’s 20-page filing did not refer to, much less rebuke, Mr. Trump for claiming the damage was caused by left-wing vandals rather than his administration’s missteps. But it raised innate doubts about his assertion that criminals had slashed the pool’s lining with a 'knife or blade.'...] On Saturday morning, Mr. Trump wrote,] 'I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro.' [who has been a friend since the 1980s.]... 'I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,' he wrote, adding, 'There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!' In his own social media post on Saturday, [Interior Secretary Doug] Burgum said that his department had 'provided the U.S. Attorney’s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool.'... [As for Mr. Hearn,] His legal team was 'evaluating all legal remedies,' [his attorney Norm] Eisen said.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ A NOTUS report is here. See also yesterday's page for links to related content. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Attorney Boxwine used her withdrawal filing to try to transfer blame for the major foul-up from her office onto the Department of the Interior. (a) Whether or not her account was accurate, it was never going to work. Trump had staked out his position -- a big fat lie -- which was proffered for the familar purpose of blaming someone else -- in this case, innocent passersby -- for his own very public big fat screw-up. This was a big fat screw-up that exposed a more fundamental lie that forms the basis for his self-image and sense of self-worth: "I’m very good at building things and constructing things," he had said of his part in the Reflecting Pool renovation. As for Doug, he had gone on the teevee to back up the big fat lie and cover his own part in the big fat screw-up. (b) In the twisted mind of Donald Trump, solid evidence that he is in the wrong is always a hoax. The evidentiary value of facts that contradict him is zero. (c) In the Trump administration, it's always the boys against the girls, and the boys always win. 

BTW, in yesterday's Comments, Patrick posted a viable theory of DOI's actions (and inactions). Patrick's analysis is a series of reasonable guesses based on known facts about similar matters, and the outcome he posits may come to pass (even if we never find out about it).   

This is hilarious. Thanks to RAS for the link. Via digby. 

MAGA cult members, remember when Trump personally awarded Dr. Anthony Fauci a Presidential Commendation for his work on Operation Warp Speed and the COVID vaccine?

Trump apparently didn’t.

When Megyn Kelly asked him about it, he claimed he had no idea who gave Fauci the award.… pic.twitter.com/oljqmr2kKt

— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) July 31, 2026

     ~~~ Marie: The reason Trump can feign ignorance of the award and who gave it to Dr. Fauci is this answer to my question of Art Intel: "Unlike a traditional in-person medal ceremony with media coverage, the commendations were issued via a White House Statement rather than a public photo-op event." Besides, the commendation was given to 52 people for their work on Operation Warp Speed on January 19, 2021, Trump's last full day in office. I'm sure on that day Trump was preoccupied with stuffing papers down the golden toilet, stealing classified documents and other criminal & illegal activities. From his ready answer to Kelly, it seems likely Trump was reminded this week of giving Fauci the commendation.

The Criminal in the White House, Ctd. Reuters, published by the Guardian: “Capital One Financial hit back on Friday against a lawsuit over its ⁠decision to close ... more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts in March 2021..., stating that it did so after a review by anti-money-laundering experts. The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money-laundering concerns to Donald Trump’s family business. Capital One is seeking to dismiss the case by casting doubt on claims of illegally debanking – or denying services on religious or political grounds – the Trump Organization.... Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of money laundering. ​But Friday’s filing argues that 'documents and Plaintiffs’ own ‌allegations make clear that Capital One closed ‌Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (“AML”) reasons....'”

Trump's DOJ Takes Another Potshot at a Free Press. Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: “A freelance reporter has been fighting a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking to force him to reveal his sources for a New York Times article about a failed top secret mission in North Korea.... The subpoena, which has not been previously disclosed, reflects the administration’s intensifying campaign to investigate leaks of government secrets by pressuring reporters to divulge their sources. Until ... [Donald] Trump began his second term, federal subpoenas to reporters were exceedingly rare. In February, F.B.I. agents showed up at the New York home of the reporter, Matthew Cole, to deliver the grand jury subpoena, which was issued by prosecutors in Newport News, Va.... The investigators are seeking his testimony about two years’ worth of information about Mr. Cole’s contacts and conversations, as they try to identify his sources for the article about the operation in North Korea.... The Times is providing a legal defense to Mr. Cole.” The link is a gift link. 

Maybe Little Marco Is Seeing the Downside of Colossal Cruelty. Stephanie Nolen of the New York Times: “Over the past two months, the United States has made financial commitments that hint at a limited return to global health and humanitarian assistance partnerships, after the abrupt severing of many of those relationships a year and a half ago.... In most cases, these payments move money that had been appropriated by Congress but which had been stuck since the Trump administration took office in January 2025 and instituted a freeze on foreign aid.... People who have been part of talks with the State Department about this funding said that there were at least two motivations behind the money flowing to resumed partnerships. First, recent health threats including, most notably, the ballooning Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reinforced the need for funding multilateral agencies that work on global health security. Second, with the Trump administration’s dismantling of ... U.S. A.I.D..., there was no longer the infrastructure or staff for the United States to move humanitarian assistance on this scale by itself, making these large international agencies necessary partners.” The link is a gift link. 

Michael Schmidt & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: The prominent law firm “Paul Weiss was a progressive stalwart for decades and led the legal resistance against ... [Donald] Trump in his first term. Then it surrendered without a fight. This is the inside story of its transformation.” MB: Naturally, the transformation boils down to greed in the greed-is-good/1980s sense, but fear and petty office politics play their parts, too. The link is a gift link.

     ~~~ Marie: Here's a funny part of the report: After the firm made its self-defeating agreement with the White House, “... [Paul Chairman Brad] Karp assured partners that Paul Weiss would maintain its independence. But that evening, when Mr. Trump announced the deal on Truth Social, he ... said that Paul Weiss had agreed to 'not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies.' At the same time, the White house put out a statement declaring that Mr. Karp had 'acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul, Weiss partner, Mark Pomerantz.' Mr. Karp was floored. 'I cannot believe this,' he wrote to partners in an email.... 'He changed the agreement, added a no-DEI provision, and came up with a completely false quote saying I acknowledged things I never said. My god.'” It beggars belief that in 2025 the head of a top law firm -- one that had previously litigated against Donald Trump -- would be surprised that Trump lied about a deal his people had cut. So not just greed, fear & office politics; let's add stupidity. (Karp, BTW, was forced to resign from Paul Weiss because Jeffrey Epstein.) 

Sierra Lopez of the East Bay Times: “World War II 'Rosie' Jeanne Gibson, a National Parks ambassador who spent her final years in the Bay Area highlighting the contributions of women during wartime and encouraging little girls to fight for what they deserve, died Wednesday. She was 100. The Pinole resident, who welded war ships as a teenager and detailed her story nearly every Friday for the past few years at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Homefront National Historical Park in Richmond, died of congenital heart failure while surrounded by loved ones.... Millions of women like Gibson who worked in American shipyards and factories during World War II — many of them stepping into the industrial workforce for the first time while the men who had formerly worked such jobs were deployed overseas — became known as “Rosie the Riveters,” after the 1942 hit song of the same name.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. ~~~

     ~~~ AND a special shoutout to Donald Trump & Pete Hegseth., those Class A asses: 

     ~~~ Marie: I found a number of articles written in March 2025 reporting that the images of women working in factory jobs during World War II were flagged for removal from Pentagon Websites as part of Donald Trump's effort to obliterate any "DEI" content. (God forbid the kids should find out that, for instance, women, the Tuskegee Airmen and Navajo Codetalkers were crucial to the war effort.) One article dated April 2025 was firewalled, but indicated that images of Rosie the Riveter had been removed from the Pentagon database.

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Idaho. Mack Liederman of the New York Times: “At least three people were killed and two others wounded after a gunman opened fire at a recently opened In-N-Out Burger on Saturday, sending people running from the shopping center in Twin Falls, Idaho, as shots rang out and the gunfire spilled outside. A call came in to Twin Falls police around 2:30 p.m. that there was an active shooter inside the dining area of the restaurant, which opened on July 24, said Josh Palmer, a city spokesman. The suspected shooter is dead, the police chief in Twin Falls, Matthew Hicks, said during a news conference on Saturday. It was not immediately clear if the gunman was among the three fatalities or in addition to them. It was also unknown how the shooter died. The number of victims is 'expected to be higher,' Mr. Palmer said.” The link is a gift link.

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Wars are apt to have consequences far beyond the countries actively engaged in a conflict. So a consequence of Donald Trump's futile Iran War: Ukrainians die. ~~~ 

~~~ Ukraine. David Stern of the Washington Post: “Russian ballistic missiles rained down on Kyiv early Saturday, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 30, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country had run out of air defense interceptors. Russian forces fired nearly 200 attack drones and 35 missiles, including 27 ballistic missiles, primarily at the capital..., Zelensky wrote on social media. 'Only one ballistic missile was intercepted, simply because there are no interceptors,' Zelensky wrote. 'A hell of a night,' Ukrainian Foreign Minster Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.... Zelensky said it was 'critical' that Ukraine’s partners, which Kyiv hopes will supply the needed missiles, 'hear that these capabilities are needed not somewhere in stockpiles for hypothetical scenarios, but here and now, to contain and stop the Russian war in Ukraine.... Every night without them results in more casualties.'... Zelensky urgently appealed to ... Donald Trump during a White House meeting on Tuesday, offering in return Ukraine’s anti-drone technology, and extensive experience in destroying Russian and Iranian drones. Trump earlier said the U.S. would give Ukraine licenses to produce Patriots, but on Friday he told the Financial Times he was 'not sure' whether Washington would follow through. 'We’re looking at it,' he said during a telephone interview.”