7.31 Atlanta
7.30 Atlanta
7.29 Atlanta. Bought a house.
7.28 Atlanta
7.28 Ryne Sandberg dies at 65.
7.27 Jamelle Bouie in the Times: “One of the things that drives me a little crazy is whenever people talk about the 2020 protests and they say, well, the 2020 protests contributed to Trump, blah, blah, blah, wokeness, blah, blah, blah. But when you actually look at what happened in terms of public opinion, the 2020 protests were a huge drag on Trump that if they didn’t happen, Trump would’ve been in better standing for re-election. And the mechanism there is not so much broad public sympathy with every single message coming out of them, but that people don’t like chaos. They saw all the protests, and they were like: This is disorder, and I don’t like it. And they blame the incumbent for the disorder. People blame whatever disorder and chaos was at the border on Biden. What Trump has done is trade one form of chaos and disorder for another. He’s taken whatever may exist at the southern border and then just plopped it into American cities. If he’s just trading one form of chaos and disorder for another, there’s actually, I think, a good amount of evidence to suggest that this is going to be harmful — actively harmful to him because he isn’t getting rid of the chaos. He’s just redistributing it.”
7.27 Tressie McMillan Cottom in the Times: “Dylan Rodriguez, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, calls this moment “white Reconstruction,” a term that draws on the 19th-century attempt to enfranchise Black Americans after the Civil War. Rodriguez argues that the long post-civil rights era that flowed from the Civil Rights Act was not one where progress inevitably won out; it was one where the accommodation of social progress looked like racial equality but ultimately undermined it. Where the Reconstruction of the 1860s and 1870s attempted to make Black Americans whole, today’s white Reconstruction tries to make white Americans not more whole, but more powerful. On the right, white Reconstruction looks like relentless, shameless attempts to claw back rights from poor people, minorities and women. But on the left, it looks more like what Olufemi O. Taiwo, a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, calls elite capture, or the co-option of radical ideas (in this case, diversity) by powerful institutions. Elite capture is a way for those with power to accommodate social progress through the performance of diversity while keeping their hold on political hegemony. It’s action that looks like progress, but in reality it changes very little. In either case, the tactic is the same. Accommodation allows for cosmetic diversity but it also creates opportunity for white Christian men to claim victimhood in the face of it.
7.26 Lunch with John Maggiore at Country Drive In.
7.26 Tom Lehrer dies at 97.
7.26 Mike Lofgren in Salon: “It’s said that every confession is a species of boasting.”
7.25 In Oakland’s 15-3 victoy over the Astros, the A’s Nick Kurtz went 6 for 6, scoring six run, hitting four home runs, driving in eight runs. He is the first player in MLB history to do so. His total 19 bases matched a single-game record set by Shawn Green of the Dodgers on May 23, 2002. Kurtz is the 20th man to hit four home runs in a major-league game. None of the other 19 were younger than 25. Kurtz did it at 22 years and 135 days old during his 66th major-league game. “It’s arguably the best game I’ve ever watched from a single player,” said A’s manager Mark Kotsay, who played parts of 17 major-league seasons.
7.25 Washington Post: “During the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush, affluent Americans who benefited from tax cuts were more likely to be Republicans. The political party they supported delivered material benefits that boosted their pocketbooks. Democratic voters, by comparison, were more likely to be working or middle class. Now, more than half of upper-income families — defined as those earning more than $215,400 per year — vote Democratic, according to a 2024 Pew Research survey, as more highly educated voters shift to the left. The top fifth of earners went from supporting Barack Obama in 2008 by a 2.5-point margin to supporting Joe Biden in 2020 by close to 15 percentage points. “Affluent Americans used to vote for Republican politicians. Now they vote for Democrats,” one 2023 paper found. That shift intensified during the 2024 presidential election, when large numbers of Black and Latino voters, who tend to be lower-income, defected to the Republican ticket for the first time in decades, according to several political scientists, exit polls and studies.”
7.24 Hulk Hogan dies at 71.
7.24 Fintan O’Toole in NYRB: “Trump’s desire to militarize American politics and politicize the American military is unfinished business. Militarizing American politics means defining all those who do not conform to his version of normality as mortal enemies to be confronted as though they were hostile foreign nations. Politicizing the military means dismantling its self-image as an institution that transcends partisan divisions, is broadly representative of the US population, and owes its primary loyalty not to the president but to the Constitution. These aims are intertwined, but the first cannot be consummated until the second has been accomplished. Trump failed to do this in his first term, but he is determined not to be thwarted again. In late May 2020, as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of American cities to protest the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Trump held a meeting of his advisers in the Oval Office. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book Peril (2021), Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s most extreme anti-immigrant policies, advised: “Mr. President, they are burning America down. Antifa, Black Lives Matter, they’re burning it down. You have an insurrection on your hands. Barbarians are at the gate.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, responded, “Shut the fuck up, Steve.” Citing the daily Domestic Unrest National Overview produced for him by his staff, Milley told the commander-in-chief, “They used spray paint, Mr. President. That’s not insurrection.” He pointed to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln: “That guy up there, Lincoln, had an insurrection.” Milley insisted that the BLM protests were “not an issue for the United States military to deploy forces on the streets of America, Mr. President.” Along with other real soldiers, Milley was able to resist Trump’s demand that the 82nd Airborne Division be sent to Washington. But that was then. Now there is no one in the Oval Office to tell Miller to shut the fuck up or to explain to Trump what an insurrection is. On June 6 federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted what US district judge Charles Breyer cited as “several locations in downtown LA and its immediate surroundings” that were “known to have significant migrant populations and labor-intensive industries.” They arrested forty-four working people, including some day laborers gathered outside two Home Depot stores, and employees of an Ambiance Apparel warehouse in the Fashion District. On June 7, by which time only around a dozen arrests had been made at protests against these roundups, Trump issued a memorandum to the secretary of defense, attorney general, and secretary of homeland security declaring that these demonstrations “constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” He authorized his secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, to take federal control of the California National Guard and to “employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary.” By June 9 around 1,700 National Guard soldiers and seven hundred US Marines had been deployed to Los Angeles, even though both the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had made clear that they did not require additional resources to manage the protests or suppress the outbreaks of looting and vandalism that occurred on their margins. As Breyer emphasized in his ruling that Trump’s federalization of the National Guard was “dangerous” and illegal, “There can be no debate that most protesters demonstrated peacefully.””
7.23 Jamelle Bouie in the Times: “[U]nlike his predecessors, President Trump is less interested in governing than he is in playing the role of head of state. As Trump himself will tell you, he tends not to know what his deputies are doing with their time. He professes to be ignorant of the actions of his government. Asked, for example, if his administration was planning to send migrants to Libya, he replied, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.” He saves his attention and enthusiasm for the pomp and circumstance of the presidency. He’s eager to host other heads of state, to attend celebrations and to speak to crowds of supporters. He also spends a lot of his time at his clubs and resorts, golfing, gossiping and glad-handing with passers-by and hangers-on.”
7.23 Alyssa Rosenberg in The Washington Post: “Can still you make enough money to put on an old-fashioned, heavily staffed late-night show? And the answer seems to be no. In 2009, David Letterman’s late-night show brought in $271 million in ad revenue, more than any other show in that format. Last year, all the network late-night shows combined brought in $220 million in ad revenue. So yes, I think this was a business decision, but one that was probably also convenient for a company trying to close an acquisition deal that needs approval from the FCC.”
7.22 Trump says Tulsi Gabbard has found evidence that Obama tried to steal the 2016 election. “We found absolute — this isn’t like evidence, this is like proof, irrefutable proof, that Obama was seditious. That Obama was trying to lead a coup. And it was with Hillary Clinton and with all these other people, but Obama headed it up. And, you know, I get a kick when I hear everyone talks about people I never even heard of. […] It was Obama, he headed it up. And it says so right in the papers.”
7.22 Ozzy Osbourne dies at 76.
7.19 Andy Byron, the Coldplay Kisscam CEO, resigns.
7.17 CBS announces that Stephen Colbert and The Late Show, the most highly rated show in its time slot, will air only through May 2026, at which point the franchise will be retired.
7.17 The New York Times: “Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been digging into [Jeffrey] Epstein’s financial network for the past three years. Some members of his staff have viewed confidential files that shed light on the immense sums of money that, they say, Mr. Epstein moved through the banking system to fuel his vast sex-trafficking network. In particular, filings by four big banks flagged more than $1.5 billion in transactions — including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr. Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women, the senator’s office found. The filings came after Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. Large money transfers to individuals, foreign countries or obscure companies are the kind of things banks are supposed to be examining as potentially suspicious. Some of the Epstein money transfers disclosed in a report from JPMorgan Chase involved accounts at two Russian banks before those institutions were subject to U.S. sanctions. A few transactions red-flagged were for as much as $100 million.”
7.16 A couple captured on a Kiss-cam at a Coldplay concert turn out to be Andy Byron, the married chief executive of a tech company called Astronomer, and Kristin Cabot, the company’s chief people officer who is not his wife. The Times: “When Ms. Cabot noticed her face on the screen, she immediately jumped out of Mr. Byron’s arms, covered her face and turned around. He ducked out of view. A woman standing beside them was seen cupping her face in disbelief, her mouth wide open.”
7.16 Sen. Tom Tillis, after the Senate votes for recissions: “I suspect we’re going to find out there are some things that we’re going to regret.”
7.16 Connie Francis dies at 87.
7.16 Trump on Truth Social: “[The Democrats’] new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,”
7.16 Trump on Powell: “I was surprised he was appointed.” (Trump appointed him.)
7.12 After just five appearances in the Major Leagues, Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers, a 6-foot-7 right-hander with a fastball that’s been clocked as high as 103 mph, was named to the National League All-Star team.
7.12 Trump on Truth Social: What’s going on with my “boys” and, in some cases, “gals?” They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and “selfish people” are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 “Intelligence” Agents, “THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,” and more? They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called “friends” are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files. No matter how much success we have had, securing the Border, deporting Criminals, fixing the Economy, Energy Dominance, a Safer World where Iran will not have Nuclear Weapons, it’s never enough for some people. We are about to achieve more in 6 months than any other Administration has achieved in over 100 years, and we have so much more to do. We are saving our Country and, MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, which will continue to be our complete PRIORITY. The Left is imploding! Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein. LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
7.11 Annie Lowry in The Atlantic: “This week, Donald Trump reignited the global financial conflict he started in January, sending letters threatening new tariff rates to nearly two dozen countries. Starting in August, American importers will pay a 25 percent tax on goods from South Korea and Japan, a 35 percent tax on goods from Canada and Bangladesh, and a 50 percent tax on goods from Brazil unless those countries agree to bilateral deals. Additionally, Trump warned he would slap tariffs on goods from any country “aligned” with the “Anti-American policies” of China, India, and other industrial powerhouses—no further details given—and put a 50 percent levy on imported copper, used to build homes, electronics, and utility systems. The summer tariff announcement was characteristic of all the White House’s tariff announcements this year: draconian, nonsensical, and hard to take seriously.”
7.11 David Gergen dies at 83.
7.10 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf.
7.8 Mike Bloomberg on Bloomberg: “[S]o many lives could have been saved if elected officials had done their jobs. They owe the families who lost loved ones — the death toll from the Fourth of July floods is now at more than 100 — more than thoughts and prayers. They owe them a sincere commitment to righting their deadly wrong, by tackling the problem they’ve turned their backs on for too long: climate change. The scientific evidence is clear that the more frequent extreme weather we are experiencing is being driven by climate change — and that it’s only going to get worse. As the director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M University put it, the storms and flooding in central Texas are “exactly what the future is going to hold.” And yet so many elected officials are pretending otherwise. The latest episode of horrific flooding isn’t just about a natural disaster in one state. It’s also about a political failure that’s been happening in states across the country, and most of all in Washington. The refusal to recognize that climate change carries a death penalty is sending innocent people, including far too many children, to early graves.”
7.8 Trump, to reporters: “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable. I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, when we’re having some of the greatest success, and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.”
7.4 Tremendous storms send inches of rain per rain to central Texas. More than 100 people died, including at least 27 campers and counselors from a girls Bible camp.
7.4 Adriaan van der Weel, an emeritus professor of Book Studies at Leiden University, quoted in the Washington Post: “The incidence of low literacy and functional illiteracy is rising to alarming proportions…. Reading for its own sake is becoming a less and less popular pursuit. . . . Let’s face it, reading is a challenge. Even after we have learned to read, it remains a matter of great mental discipline throughout our lives. Precisely because reading is so unnatural, the search for greater ease and ways to avoid having to read is so intense. Was the need for reading and writing perhaps only a temporary blip in human history? . . . Reading leads to a literate way of thinking — linear, analytical and logical — and it has also, in the process, taught us to be more objective. That has in turn had huge cultural effects. With the help of reading and writing, we have unintentionally created a world of such complexity, with such complex challenges, that it’s extremely unlikely that we could do without them. Reading and writing have, so to speak, given us cognitive wings. With those wings, we have flown higher than we could ever have imagined. If we were to give up the challenge of reading, we would just crash to earth. . . .If people cannot read well, they cannot think well; if they cannot think well, others will do the thinking for them. This might be a desirable for a totalitarian regime, but it will definitely kill democracy.”
7.3 Michael Madsen dies at 67.
7.2 Ron Brownstein on Bloomberg: “Trump is nothing if not a student of human weakness. And he has clearly taken note of how many institutions are splintering under his assaults. In response, Trump is indulging his most aggressive instincts and taking political and policy gambles that might have seemed too reckless during his first term. On issue after issue, he is treating an extremely confrontational position as merely his opening ante — before immediately doubling down with even more extreme ideas. . . .The common thread linking Trump’s second-term choices is that he appears to view himself as both infallible and invulnerable. (“I run the country and the world,” he has declared.) He partially retreated when bond markets rebelled against his tariffs, but no other external force has cowed him. And unlike his first term, he’s filled his government with loyalists more prone to flatter than challenge him. Business executives and international leaders have followed suit, sacrificing their independence (and in some cases self-respect). That lack of pushback appears to be encouraging him to take yet more gambles. None have entirely blown up on him yet. But he is rushing onto so many ledges that any could crumble beneath him. Iran eventually could respond to his attack with a destabilizing act of terrorism or a sprint toward a bomb; his National Guard deployments into blue cities could trigger a Kent State moment when civilians are killed; trade wars could derail the economy; voters could recoil from a budget bill that cuts taxes for the top 0.1% by over $230,000 annually while revoking health insurance from more people than any previous statute. . . .Brown University political scientist Corey Brettschneider points out that when other presidents have sought to aggrandize their power and undermine Constitutional freedoms, the system’s supposed checks from Congress and the Supreme Court have usually failed. According to Brettschneider, who explored that history in his powerful recent book The Presidents and The People, what has slowed those presidents (from John Adams through Woodrow Wilson) is “citizens pushing back” and building “a coalition in opposition” when rights and liberties are threatened. That history points to the real danger of Trump’s towering overconfidence. It has emboldened him to take serial risks that may ultimately hurt the American people and provoke a public backlash, particularly among the swing voters that he — and more immediately his party in 2026 —need to retain power. Trump is repeatedly raising his bets as if he believes he can draw only aces from the deck. He might do well to remember that back in Atlantic City, his ventures into the casino business more than once ended in bankruptcy.”
7.2 Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers becomes just the 20th pitcher in MLB history to notch 3,000 career strikeouts, and only the third to do it all with one team.
7.2 F1. Entertaining!
7.2 A Manhattan jury found Sean “Diddy” Combs guilty of two prostitution-related charges, which carry maximum 10-year sentences. He was acquitted of charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, which carry maximum life sentences.
7.1 Senate passes the Big Beautiful Bill. Jonathan Chiat in The Atlantic: “Congressional Republicans have talked themselves into a plan so incomprehensibly reckless that to describe it is to question its authors’ sanity. As of today’s 50–50 Senate vote, with Vice President Vance breaking the tie, the House and Senate have passed their own versions of the bill. The final details still have to be negotiated, but the foundational elements are clear enough. Congress is about to impose immense harm on tens of millions of Americans—taking away their health insurance, reducing welfare benefits, raising energy costs, and more—in order to benefit a handful of other Americans who least need the help. The bill almost seems designed to generate a political backlash.”
7.1 According to The Lancet, funds from USAID prevented 91 million deaths between 2001 and 2021. Every American should feel proud that we contributed to those results. Has any other nation in history ever matched that largesse? That spirit of generosity is what makes America great. Unfortunately, The Lancet also reports that the Trump-Musk funding cuts to USAID could lead to 14 million additional deaths over the next five years. Secretary of State Rubio: “This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end.” Bullshit.
7.1 Jimmy Swaggert dies at 90.