| second: On Tuesday 18 August 2026, President Donald Trump declared the Strait of Hormuz as US territory in a new post on Truth Social. Two things he wrote: 1) “NEW US territory”. 2) “The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated.”
However, only ten vessels passed through compared to 130 to 140 before the outbreak of war. [go to link] Sadly for Trump, neither 1) nor 2) are true. |
| second: President Trump’s Billionaire Boy’s Club – A new investigation by Public Citizen reveals that 57 individuals within the Trump administration, excluding President Trump, are individually worth as much as $100 million, eight of whom are billionaires. The analysis underscores the growing economic divide between the average American worker, who earns $65,000 a year, and the politically-connected individuals who hold power: [go to link] |
| second: The Top 10 Ways Trump Has Made America Weaker.
He’s been one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history—in all the wrong ways: [go to link] |
| second: Trump 2.0 has deleted or altered nearly 400 US datasets, endangering public health, education and more. A database of federal law enforcement officer misconduct records. A survey measuring physical, sexual and emotional violence against children and youth. Real-time pollution readings collected by air quality monitors from US embassies around the world.
These are among the hundreds of federal datasets that the Trump administration has taken down or altered as part of its aggressive campaign to wipe all mentions of data findings that do not align with the administration’s priorities. [go to link] |
| second: A New Level of Trumpian Evil.
North Korea is the worst government on Earth; Trump prefers it to the prosperous democracy next door. Why? Because North Korea isn’t simply a bad government, just another murderous authoritarian regime. It is something that has become rare, even among dictatorships: a full-blown totalitarian state, in which the government controls every aspect of life and even thinking dissident thoughts is a crime: [go to link] |
| second: Trump, not surprisingly, like he does with everything else, blamed the press for covering it, accusing reporters of trying to turn warriors into victims.
As if the press loves to make up stories about sailors living in squalor and trying to take their own lives: [go to link] |
| second: What's The Difference Between Iran & Vietnam?
Trump Had A Plan To Get Out Of Vietnam [go to link] |
| second: Trump bows to pressure from North Korea's Kim Jong Un, scales back military exercises with South Korea [go to link] |
| second: Trump Is Turning His Back on Most of East Asia—and Embracing Kim Jong-un. He is saying, explicitly, that he has warmer regards for Kim Jong-un—one of the world’s most vile and murderous dictators—than he has for the democratically elected leaders of South Korea: [go to link] |
| THG:
Ossoff Just WENT THERE with 'NATALIE' Dig at Trump
[go to link] |
| THG: Supreme Court tells Trump to go kick rocks on E Jean Carroll case
[go to link]? |
| second: Canadians petition Parliament to expel US ambassador Hoekstra for normalizing annexation threats and US diplomatic interference in Canadian unity. — The New York Times [gift link] [go to link] Canadians’ opinion of the United States has rapidly gotten worse since Mr. Trump took office and began targeting Canada with tariffs and talk of making it part of the United States. |
| second: Navy weighs major warship redesign to match Trump’s preferences. The service is evaluating the feasibility of moving the multistory tower that acts as the carrier’s command center farther forward, toward the middle of the ship, to resemble older vessels, the officials said. The review, which has not been previously reported, is in response to Trump’s concerns about the “look” of the new Ford-class ships, where the tower is near the rear, these people said.
The Navy also examined the issue during his first term as president. A study found that moving the island would cost billions of dollars in redesign costs and significantly delay the program. More at [go to link] |
| second: The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump’s tendency to avoid blame when things go awry. Concerns about a weak economy and still-high inflation? His predecessor, Joe Biden, saddled him with that, he says, despite Trump promising an immediate turnaround. The war in Iran? Actually, this was Trump making up for timid earlier presidents who, he argues, squandered 47 years of opportunities to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Accepting the 2016 presidential nomination, Trump said, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” But as president, he has often suggested that the solution and blame rest elsewhere. Much more at: [go to link] |
| second: Trump asks the Supreme Court to let White House ballroom construction continue, arguing the 65% built project is impossible to deconstruct. — SCOTUS blog [go to link] “Quite frankly, if the building were tragically ordered to be taken down, or even altered, by the court, there would be no way to do so.” The concrete that has been used in the project is “the type used in nuclear power plants” and is “virtually impossible to deconstruct.” |
| second: We don't even need to say who.
There's something deeply bizarre about the possibility that humanity's first truly simultaneous global celebration, across every time zone, might be triggered by the death of a single human being. [go to link] |
| second: Chief Justice John Roberts needs to read the Constitution.
There’s an article in the latest New Yorker on Chief Justice Roberts. In it, he’s quoted as saying: “Only the President (along with the Vice President) is elected by the entire Nation.”
What an embarrassing and easily falsifiable lie. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the US Constitution and the GW Bush election in 2000 and Trump in 2016 would know this is false. Most high school students could have told him he’s wrong.
The votes in presidential elections are for slates of electors in each of the states. Those electors are the ones who actually elect the president. The number of citizens represented by each states’ electors varies wildly, so this process is undemocratic at two levels.
Twice in my lifetime, the Electoral College has overruled the election results of the entire Nation. [go to link] |
| second: Trump creates drama or a crisis, arouses a counterforce, attacks this new enemy, experiences fear—will my luck hold?—defeats the new enemy, feels relief, relaxes, Noonan wrote. Then, restless again and on the prowl, he creates new drama. Noonan wrote that the mentality comes with a faith that "things just break his way," and suggested it runs deep. She mentioned Regime Change, the book about his second administration by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, and a scene where Trump spoke to Tucker Carlson ahead of the Iran war. "I know you're worried about it, but it's going to be OK," Trump told Carlson, who was trying to talk him out of it. Trump said he knew everything would be all right "because it always is." [go to link] |
| second: Attorney General Todd Blanche: "I am not sure of the uproar of having a Border Patrol or ICE agent at a polling location. What's the risk?" Uh, maybe because it’s illegal?
Federal statute 18 U.S.C. § 592 prohibits deploying “troops or armed men” to locations where elections are held, to prevent interference or intimidation. You’d think an Attorney General would know this. [go to link] |
| second: A single sheet of paper sits somewhere in the files of the Justice Department, announcing, in capital letters, that the United States is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from pursuing any claims against President Donald Trump, his two eldest sons, and the Trump Organization. One page. One signature.
Last week, Trump appealed the 56-page ruling in which Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida dismantled the settlement that produced it and sanctioned the lawyers who engineered it. Whether that page has any legal force is now a question for the court of appeals; the Senate, for its part, gave its answer by confirming the man who signed it as attorney general. The plain answer is that it has none.
In short, Trump’s tax immunity deal is unenforceable. [go to link] |