Donald Loses His Marbles - Trump 47 - August 2026

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“I miss the days when you used to call, during my Talkshow days, and we’d talk about everything and nothing. I want to get back to that synergy. We shouldn’t have to talk about work all the time!! And please, when I fail, will you tell me? You have the absolute right to cuss me out, if need be, when I deserve it, because no one knows or cares about me more.” 

Natalie Harp to President Trump

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WE DEDICATE this month’s post to “Luscious Natalie,” as we now call her, President Trump’s go-everywhere he goes, young, blonde, White House aide. No one strokes his ego more religiously. 

 

August 1, 2026: Trump spends another quite Saturday at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. Because that is how a studly fellow proves he is working hard for the American people.

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8/2/26: Donald happily announces that a deal with Iran is “imminent.” The United States is finally respected again. The president calls off a major attack on Iranian targets because – well, you know. 

The Iranians are “desperate” to make a deal.

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8/3/26: The stock market rallies on news that the Iran War is as good as ended and the Dow rises 700 points. 

Then the Iranians announce that they are not dealing. Mr. Trump goes to Truth Social to tell the world that the Iranians are “extremely duplicitous.” Most of the loyal MAGA faithful who follow Donald Dumpling on Truth Social are forced to consult their dictionaries – if they own any. 

The U.S. Senate appears ready to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general after a deal is struck. Blanche promises not to advance a plan to pay back all the January 6 rioters for the legal battles they endured – just because they attacked the Capitol, injured 140 police officers, caused several million dollars in damages, and tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

Posted by a loyal MAGA today on X, an AI video of Trump leading a charge during the American Revolution. Even painful bone spurs can’t stop this president. 

  

Without a doubt, General Trump is headed for Yorktown, where he will famously help George Washington capture the airports. 

(Remember when Donald made that bizarre claim?)

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8/4/26: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sounds almost giddy in announcing that Iran is ready to deal and open the Strait of Hormuz! Gas will soon be selling for 19 cents a gallon, just like it was when this blogger was in high school! “There is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the Strait and move towards a more normalized position in this conflict.” 

This, Bessent insists, is Iran’s “last chance.” 

It’s also a great day for all Epstein-associated predators! Todd Blanche now appears to have the votes necessary to be confirmed as the next Attorney General of the United States. He has already all but promised never, never, ever to investigate any criminals who might be listed a few hundred times in the Epstein Files. Blanche is the “Helen Keller” of DOJ investigators. 

Ghislaine Maxwell hosts a party in her cell at the minimum-security detention facility where she is (for no apparent good reason) being held. 

(I’m joking about the party – but Blanche did get her switched to that prison.)

Ghislaine Maxwell in happier days.

 

The confirmation process advances after the Senate Judiciary Committee votes 12-10, with all Republicans/friends of sex traffickers voting in the affirmative. All the Democrats correctly vote no.

 

* 

PRESIDENT TRUMP is feeling sorry for all the January 6 rioters – I suppose even including the sex offenders whom he has pardoned. He claims today that twenty-two J6 rioters have committed suicide. 

Who knows! It could be as high as 2.2 billion. 

Trump doesn’t care about getting numbers in a row and never bothers to check or double check anything he says. 

The actual number is five at most: 

Matthew Perna #52.

Mark Roderick Aungst #236.

David Kennedy Homol #1309.

Christopher Stanton Georgia #1662

 

Nejourde Meacham #1158 (possibly).

Their stories can be found, numbered as above, in the links shown. 

 

The claim that Meacham was a suicide was first spread by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene; but as far as this blogger can tell, it has never been proven. His obituary makes no mention of cause of death. All four (or five) died in service to the president’s “Stolen Election” lies. 

If their families deserve even the slightest compensation, Donald J. Trump would be the correct gentleman to pay. 

(The clock strikes midnight: No deal with Iran, yet.)

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Opposites Day. 

8/5/26: The Associated Press reports that ICE agents have arrested at least fifty spouses or parents of active-duty U.S. military personnel. 

Six have been deported. 

“How can I even focus on my military career because I have to worry about how my wife is doing?” says Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez. He was stationed at Fort Bliss when his wife was detained outside a Walmart last month. Their 6-year-old daughter had to watch mom get cuffed. 

Make America Great Again! 

And: “Thank you, for your service.” 

You could also call this “Opposites Day,” where Team Trump enforces the law with one hand and undercuts it with the other. The New Mexico Department of Justice has sued the U.S. Department of Justice, to get unredacted copies of the Epstein Files. The state boys want to open an investigation into alleged illegal activities at Epstein’s “Zorro Ranch,” which sits near the state’s southern border. 

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche doesn’t want to investigate anything – except Reflecting Pool vandals. 

“New Mexico has a duty to protect survivors and investigate crimes committed in our state so that perpetrators can be held accountable,” State Attorney General Raúl Torrez explained in a statement. “We asked the Department of Justice to cooperate by providing access to records that may be critical to identifying victims, witnesses, and additional criminal conduct [emphasis added] at Zorro Ranch. Their delay is actively hurting our criminal investigation and delaying justice Epstein survivors deserve.”  

According to Torrez, Blanche and the U.S. DOJ “have decided to stonewall, to obstruct, and to frankly conceal for whatever reason.” 

Jeffrey Epstein and his pal.

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8/7/26: President Trump announces from the Oval Office that he is involved in the peace talks over the Strait of Hormuz and insists negotiations are going “very well,” and that a deal could be inked soon. 

He’s involved! The “Art of the Deal.”

 

* 

THE BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS announces today that during July, the U.S. added a hundred thousand … um … well … actually … the U.S. lost 23,000 jobs. Figures for May and June were reduced by another 106,000. 

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, which would normally be excellent news. Sadly, the Labor Participation rate also declined to 61.4%, indicating that the U.S. labor force has shrunk by 1.4 million this year. 

Those are people who have stopped looking for work.

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8/8/26: Today, Iranian National Security Council Secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr threw a shiny new monkey wrench into Trump’s plan to declare victory in the Iran War. With a list of six new demands, he insisted, “until America corrects its behavior, the Strait of Hormuz will not open.”

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Donald Trump grades on a curve. 

8/9/26: The president shows up on Fox News and tells Trace Gallagher that we now live in the best of all possible worlds. All thanks to him. “I inherited very, very high costs, and they’re all coming down now. The food, the groceries, it’s all coming down. We’ve done a great job. You know, I think we should be given an A+ on the economy. But I think that's coming; people are starting to talk about it.” 

Credit (or shame, depending on your perspective) for Gallagher, resisting the urge to laugh out loud.

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Climate change? What you don’t know can’t scare you. 

8/10/26: Can you name the region of the world that is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe? 

If you said, “Donald Trump’s pants every time Natalie Harp wanders past,” good guess. But no. It’s the Arctic. 

Or it was. Or to be more precise, it still is, but the Trump Administration would prefer you not think about it. 

If you are true, red-hat wearing MAGA, you probably won’t. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has put out an annual report on changes in the region every year since 2006. Now NOAA will continue to gather evidence of the growing danger. They just won’t bother to compile it and put it in a report that people might actually … read. 

It’s kind of like Donald Trump’s sagging poll numbers. If no one tells him about them, he won’t be sad. 

As The New York Times explains: 

Every year for the past two decades, the Arctic Report Card has provided a checkup on the health of the region, which is heating up at several times the pace of the rest of the globe. Sea ice has dwindled. Snow cover has shrunk. Glaciers are thinning out. Tundra vegetation has grown more abundant, leading to wildfires that burn through huge areas.

 

This president doesn’t want his supporters (or anyone else) to worry about climate change, because he’s built his reputation on calling climate change “a hoax.” Indeed, he and his billionaire pals in the Big Oil and Big Coal industries don’t want you to worry about what they blow off as “climate alarmism.” 

They don’t want you to ask:    

A)   Why is Canada burning so much this summer that smoke drifted across much of the Eastern United States?

B)    Why does Donald Dumpling want the U.S. to have more icebreakers, to deploy in the far North? 

C)   How come sea ice across the Arctic is now thin enough to break up and why can large commercial vessels make passage where none could previously go, during all recorded history? 

D)   Why is most of the Western United States experiencing the worst drought in 1,200 years? 

E)    How come the Colorado River Basin is seeing record low water levels? 

F)    What caused Europe to set all-time high temperature records in June, breaking the old record set in 2024? 

G)   Why have the world’s oceans broken the record for the warmest temperatures ever recorded – and how is it that humanity can heat up the waters around the world – including the Strait of Hormuz? 

H)   WTF! Why is the Strait of Hormuz still not open?

 

Consider only, “A,” above. What might be going on in the country to our north, where more forest has been reduced to ashes in recent years than ever before? The worst years for fire destruction are, in order: 2023, 2025, 2024, and 2026, with plenty of burn season left to go. With sixteen million hectares burned in 2023, that would be equivalent to 39,520,000 acres, or almost 62,000 square miles. 

That would be the same as burning down every inch of Georgia in one year and then torching Connecticut for fun. 

But sure: Transgenders in sports. 

Let’s all focus on that.

 

FUN FACT: President Dumpling has ordered the U.S. Coast Guard to build 11 polar icebreakers to plow the Arctic Ocean.  The contract to build those vessels will be worth $7 billion and was awarded on a “no-bid” basis. 

Always cool, if you are a friend of this chief executive, and you have donated to his campaigns and causes. The first four ships will be built in Finland, the last seven in the U.S..

 

FUN FACT #2: This month, South Korea has sent a container ship north, through the Bering Strait and across the top of Russia, to test the viability of a new trade route to Europe.

 

FUN FACT #3: The continent of Europe has been more than 3.05° Celsius hotter this summer than ever before. That’s equal to five-and-a-half degrees Fahrenheit. So, imagine an entire summer that is more than five degrees hotter where you live. 

And then imagine every summer, going forward, similarly hotter – for your kids and grandkids.

 

FUN FACT #4: The oceans of the world cover 70% of the globe. So, it takes a great deal of effort to raise their average temperatures to the highest ever. But we did it in 2024! Yay, humanity.

 

UPDATE: The world’s oceans saw a new record on August 22, 2026, at just a shade under 70° F.

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A golfing fool. 

8/11/26: Word for the day: “impotence.” Republican renegades in the U.S. Senate have failed to halt the nomination of Todd “I Put Ghislaine Maxwell in a Cushy New Prison for No Apparent Reason” Blanche to be become Attorney General of the United States. 

Blanche will now investigate all of Donald’s enemies, anytime he asks – such as the “vandals” who ruined the Reflecting Pool beautification project. The Dumpling Man has admitted that there was “some “contractor error done by rushing the job” in how the Pool was coated. On Sunday he also claimed that though he knows vandals ruined the liner there is (how do we put this), no evidence to prove his claim. “There was substantial other damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself.” 

At this point, no one in Washington D.C. would be surprised if the 47th President of the United States boldly announced that he was nominating his Imaginary Friend to be the next head of the Department of the Interior. 

Speaking of “imaginary,” it seems we have an imaginary First Lady. Mrs. Trump has been seen at the White House or at public events on only 38 days, so far, this year. If we count her public appearances in 2025, starting with the second Trump inauguration, we can add 46 more. 

So, we have gazed upon her lovely visage only 84 times in 569 days. If this was a batting average, Melania would be hitting .147. 

(I suspect Mrs. Trump has had sex with Mr. Trump 0 times since he retook office.) 

 

Certainly, Donald is feeling glum, regarding the Iran War, which has never really been a war, and which he has won many times already. The obstreperous Iranians refuse to admit that they have been crushed – and keep insisting that the Strait of Hormuz is not open. And there are stories that the U.S. has used up most of its sophisticated missiles and we could be reduced to throwing feces at enemy drones.  

Finally, President Trump insists that grocery prices have come way down since he took office – and any high prices you might notice are Joe Biden’s fault – and Donald’s latest poll numbers are the best. 

Also: Donald is killing it on the golf course – winning his 43rd club championship – even if he does cheat. 

Since the war started on February 28, Trump has squeezed in time to visit his own courses on 42 days, twice too late to get in a round. He also showed up at a public course in D.C. once.

 

The dates he has visited his courses: 

Bedminster 6/5 (too late for golf), 6/6, 6/7, 6/8, 7/17, 7/18, 7/19, 7/31, 8/1, 8/2, 8/7, 8/8, 8/9,

Trump National L.A. 8/4

Trump International West Palm Beach 3/14, 3/15, 3/21, 3/22, 3/28, 3/29

Trump National Doral 3/6 (too late for golf), 3/7, 3/8, 3/9, 4/12, 5/3

Trump National Washington D.C. 4/11, 4/18, 5/8, 5/9, 5/16, 5/17, 5/30, 5/31, 6/13, 6/27, 6/28*, 7/5, 7/11, 7/12, 7/25, 7/26,

Trump National Jupiter 5/2, 

East Potomac Golf Links 6/28* 

 

FUN FACT: Not everyone who has seen the president play golf has been impressed. Oscar De La Hoya, the retired boxer, once described Donald’s “prowess” on the links. After the two men played a round in 2016, 

[he] explained that penalty strokes for water hazards were conveniently left off the scorecard, while balls hit deep into the rough somehow ended up neatly positioned in the middle of the fairway.

 

“It was unbelievable,” De La Hoya told the Associated Press, adding, “It shows something about his character.” …

 

He added, “Golf is a gentleman’s sport. You don’t lie about your score; you don’t lie about moving your ball. It goes to show what we’re dealing with.”  

 

Donald, however, took to Truth Social to spout off proudly, about his big tournament win. “Thank you very much to all of those who participated,” he humbly announced. “I won with a score of 70, and am so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things. It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!” 

 

FUN FACT #2: Not only does Donald lie about golf, he lies about the terrible vandals who ruined his Reflecting Pool. 

We now know different. Forced to go to court to charge the “worst of the worst” vandals, Michael Spence, an assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, admitted in court documents that prosecutors had attempted to get “everything” from the Department of Interior early in the process of prosecuting David Hearn. 

You’d think in normal times, prosecutors wouldn’t be rushed; but then again, they wouldn’t have The Dumpling pushing them to indict his enemies every day. Interior, Spence told the judge, provided “less than fulsome information” and only “started trickling information” about problems with the initial installation after his office reached out “dozens and dozens of times.” 

(No one who wanted to keep their job at Interior dared to undercut the president’s lies.)

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“All talk and no action.” 

8/12/26: The President of the United States told reporters today that Houthi rebels in Yemen, allies of Iran, killed six people in an attack on a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This would be an attack on the pinch point leading to the Red Sea, on the southwest coast of the Arabia Peninsula, and threaten to cut off even more oil shipments. 

 

Today, U.S. forces also fired missiles at a container ship attempting to breach Washington's blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman. One of our helicopter crews disabled the vessel’s steering and propulsion. “Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it,” the president explained in a post on Truth Social. “Iran is all talk and no action, he added, “the Bully of the Middle East No Longer. Praise be to Allah!” 

Both sides are now demanding that the other pay reparations, while Israel is offering a firm “no” to Trump’s blind, deaf and dumb plan to bring peace to Gaza. When last seen, Gaza was a pulverized hellscape and tens of thousands of Palestinians lay dead and buried in heaps of rubble. 

This blogger has always been sympathetic to the plight of Israel, surrounded by enemies, including jihadists. (I taught history, and in my youth the example of the Holocaust was impossible to ignore.) At some point, however, Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing supporters have stepped over the most generously defined last line, beyond which is genocide. 

Had you begun counting the dead, on October 7, 2023, when Israel was attacked by Hamas, you had one bloody massacre and crime. More than 1,200 Israelis were massacred and another 251 (mostly young people) were taken hostage, of whom only 168 survived. 

In retribution, 73,000 Gazans have been killed, and 173,000 wounded. That, too, to most observers is a bloody massacre and a crime. 

I used to explain to students that in most human conflicts a cycle of violence is touched off. If I was an Israeli on October 8, 2023, and my wife and children had been killed by terrorists, I would demand vengeance. But how to separate out the killers from the general Gaza population? And if I am a father in Gaza and my wife and children were killed on October 9, 2023, I want Israel to pay – but not all Israelis are to blame. Once the slaughter commences, one crime begets another. 

(So far, I don’t believe any plan Mr. Trump has for Gaza has a chance of working.)

 

* 

Trump claims Secret Service agents made him less safe! 

SPEAKING OF BLOODSHED, we have learned that when the president left the NATO summit in Turkey on July 7, there was a serious threat to his safety. That danger, posed by Iranians plotting to bring down Air Force One, was made more real by the president’s ill-advised decision to fly to the summit on his donated Qatari jet, which has inferior safety features. 

That “free” jet has, of course, been reborn as the newest, flying presidential limo, but someone forgot to include all the anti-missile defenses that were built into older versions, on which all previous presidents have flown. 

It then became necessary to protect the Commander-in-Chief by sneaking him off Air Force One, by way of a food cart truck. This trick was kept hush-hush for more than a month, when we learned that Donald was spirited to safety on a smaller military jet. Along with him went Walt Nauta, famous in my reporting for helping move boxes of highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago to hide them from investigators – and then lying about knowing about any boxes being moved. 

Investigators had video of Walt moving a loaded dolly. 

So, Walt was going to be saved.

 

Also moved to safety was Ms. Natalie Harp, the young blonde so often spied following the Mr. Trump everywhere he goes. That decision to take Harp, and Dan Scavino, another valued toady, meant leaving Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the targeted plane, along with at least a dozen reporters and uniformed flight attendants. I will admit that if I were younger – say, thirty years – and I were not married – I would be happy to be stuck in a food cart with Ms. Harp, who I might even put my arm around to reassure her that she was safe in my embrace. If she gazed into my blue eyes and our lips met. 

Well, I would be pleased. 

But the president? At age 80 and absolutely married to the also-lovely-but-more-or-less-missing-in-action Melania? 

Curious.

 

The New York Times has a good story about how the trick was played on any would-be Iranian assassins. It’s not fake news, either, just because it’s the Times telling the tale. Representatives of previous presidents make it clear to Times reporters that the safety of the man in the White House overrides all other considerations. One can understand the president’s fears, considering the assassination attempts he has survived – and the Times points out that those who ride on Air Force One or travel with any U.S. president assume a certain level of risk. 

See, for example, Press Secretary James Brady, shot in the head on March 30, 1981, during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. 

But Trump’s response to reporters on Tuesday strikes most close observers as a lie. Or, it may just have been the president’s attempt to make himself sound braver than he was. 

“I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” Trump offered in mitigation of his odd conduct, “because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.” 

If that doesn’t sound ridiculous to you, you may need to read it again. So, Mr. President, you are saying the Secret Service told you it was necessary to hide in a food cart truck – with Lovely Natalie – and be put on a smaller military jet – secretly – because Air Force One might be targeted – and the agents did so … 

To make you less safe????? 

Do Trump’s loyal fans believe that? Do any of the members of his cabinet or any of his close aides? 

AI generated.

(I doubt even Ms. Harp can swallow that.)

 

* 

January 6: Let Trump, himself, make families “whole.” 

ANOTHER ELECTION CYCLE concluded on Tuesday, and Mike Lindell washed up again in the news, ready for an intra-party pillow fight. Mike, who still insists Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and still says he can prove it, says his defeat in the GOP primary for Minnesota governor was:

A. Rigged

B. Rigged

C. Rigged

D. Rigged

(With Mike the answer is always the same.)

 

Mike was trailing, at 32.5%, in a four-way race, when the race was called for Lisa Demuth, who led with 43.4%, and had 40,000 more votes. But Mike smelled the same rat Mike always smells. 

Frankly, if we’re going to scream about vote-stealing without proof, I think the fourth-place finisher, John Krhin, with 1.1% support, should be the one howling. 

Speaking of election cycles, our new AG, Todd “Jeffrey Epstein Who?” Blanche has said this about the January 6 rioters: “There were people who were victims of a Department of Justice that was absolutely weaponized and [Trump] feels very strongly that he would want to make them whole, as do I, but it will not be through the anti-weaponization fund, which again was never set up.” 

I have recently been checking my blog entries on the rioters, and, for example, anyone dumb enough to thinks Rioter #510 needs to be “made whole” is too dumb to be Attorney General, too dumb, to be President of the United States, and too dumb to pass a seventh-grade test on American government. 

Also, Trump should pay himself to make the families of five police officers who died whole. The first officer died by heart attack the next day, four others died by suicide in the aftermath of the attack on democracy. Blanche can chip in out of his own pockets if he really wants to see justice done.

 

* 

SINCE THE TOPIC is dumb people with a “b,” we should point out that much of the American West is in the middle of an epic drought. Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest in Colorado, is a quarter full. Described as “part of the plumbing of the West,” the water from Blue Mesa has been used in recent years to be released to fill up Lake Powell, an even more crucial reservoir, farther down the river. 

Has Trump ever talked about what the federal government needs to do about the drought? Almost every scientist who has advanced past second grade believes climate change is making droughts more common and more severe. Trump would rather focus on building his Golden Ballroom. 

In fact, he has spent more time bitching about low-flow toilets which (and I am not making this up), he says he has had to flush ten or fifteen times to get rid of any sludge he has just deposited.

 

It is GOP Gospel today that climate change is a “hoax” and that thermometers which show it’s 118° in Forsyth, Montana must be rigged. 

Also, is that weatherperson transgender??? 

Almost every climate scientist out there is shouting warning, and in red state Utah, sensible people are working on solutions. This past May, solar cells produced 33% of the electricity the state required, natural gas 32%, coal 28%, and wind 2%. It was the first time ever that solar led the way. 

Donald Trump personally hates wind power and he’s not keen on solar either. But the trends toward green energy are continuing and even a Bonehead President can’t completely defeat reality.

 

FUN FACT: President Trump likes to call wind power a scam and says even the Chinese don’t use wind power. They just make those giant turbines and then sell them to us and make “a fortune.” 

“They sell them to the stupid people that buy them, but don’t use them themselves,” he insisted. It’s hard to figure out who is feeding Trump all the bad information he then loves to share. (I, for one, am ready to blame Lovely Natalie). According to energy experts, China is responsible for 40% of all global wind power generation. 

China has more than 15,000 offshore wind turbines, alone, more than half of all such turbines in the world.

___ 

 

Time to put Donald Trump’s face on Mt. Rushmore. 

8/13/26: On CNN this evening, Kaitlyn Collins, the reporter who “never smiles,” according to the president, commented on the decision of the board of the Kennedy Center to chisel The Dumpling’s name onto the front wall. Close observers of our favorite orange narcissist may recall that a judge has ruled that the Center could not be renamed without Congressional approval. 

That name had been changed, temporarily, to the Trump is the Greatest Ever/Some Guy Named Kennedy Performing Arts Center. When the judge ruled that this change was illegal, Donald ordered the front of the building covered up in drapery that looked like giant pants, because he couldn’t bear seeing his cherished name removed. 

Yes, ending the Iran War has proved impossible. 

Yes, the federal deficit is exploding. 

Yes, all efforts to bring down grocery prices have failed ignominiously. 

But Trump has made America Great Again – by slapping his name on everything he possibly can. 

“The president’s focus has not just been on the Kennedy Center in terms of his broader push to remake Washington,” Collins explained. “It’s also his penchant for branding everything in his name. That includes the gold coins, the Trump passports, the National Park passes, the Palm Beach airport – I’m not done – the banner at the Justice Department, the new class of battleships. There are many things, not just in Washington, but all across the nation now bearing the Trump name.” 

The Daily Beast picked up on the theme, reminding us that there was even more narcissism involved: 

Not mentioned [by Collins] was the U.S. Institute of Peace, which Trump put his name on nearly three months before he began the war against Iran. The 80-year-old president will also reportedly name the White House ballroom after himself – if the legally dubious project even gets completed.

 

Trump also wants to have the Washington Commanders' new stadium named after himself.

 

As a former teacher of American history, I might suggest we call this the “Trump Century,” in his honor. It would mark a bitter end to what has been called the “American Century.” Never again will this nation stand up to Fascist powers that threaten civilization. We shall not fight authoritarians again – the communists in Russia and China and North Korea. We shall praise their bloody-handed leaders instead. We shall not offer refuge to those seeking basic freedoms and, instead, shall teach our own citizens to hate and fear immigrants. The billionaire class shall prevail, and the modern Robber Barons shall buy up members of Congress by the dozens. Indeed, if we can’t stop this president’s rampage against the rule of law, it will be fitting to fulfill his fondest wish (no – not the one where Melania agrees to sleep with him again). It will be time to put his face on Mt. Rushmore; and since he’s done so much to make America hated round the globe, and because he has worked so diligently to destroy fair elections, it would only be fitting to blast the portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt to rubble. 

Let Donald John Trump’s granite visage glare down upon visitors for the next ten thousand years, a reminder that the American people once voted to allow a pussy grabber to trample the Constitution.

___

 

8/14/26: As we all know, because Donald Trump says so, that prices are coming down rapidly, and we control the Strait of Hormuz. 

“TOTALLY,” Donald says. 

In fact, according to Sec. of Hair Gel Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Navy can continue to blockade the Strait in perpetuity, or until Donald agrees to leave office, whichever event comes first. 

It’s a brilliant plan; and if you think about it, we’re stopping supplies of oil that the world needs to come out of the Strait. Yes, we’re hurting Iran’s economy; but we’re also shooting ourselves in the foot.  

Or feet! 

In this bizarre context, plural is better. 

Today the Iranians attacked two tankers owned by the United Arab Emirates as they tried to transit the Strait, and a quick check shows that the average price of gas in the United States stands at: 

 

*

IN OTHER NEWS, President Trump and his HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have come up with a brilliant plan to require roughly three million new mothers every year to get three shots for their newborns instead of one. What could be better! Three chances to pay the doctor, not one! 

And an extra six million visits for doctors to schedule annually, which cannot possibly go wrong. 

This new plan is brought to you by the anti-vaxxer kooks who believe the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) will cause your baby to turn transgender or develop a voice like Kennedy Jr., who sounds like he’s trying to talk with his mouth full of gravel. Kids who love shots, and parents who love to hear children wailing, are going to really enjoy this fresh approach. 

This is Junior’s plan, the man who once snorted cocaine off a toilet seat. 

Meanwhile, cyclosporiasis is running rampant, with more than 3,400 new cases just this past week. 

That brings the total this year to well over 24,000. Two people died recently and 740 Americans were hospitalized with explosive diarrhea, a severe and long-lasting effect of the infection. 

Under Team Trump, with the encouragement of Elon’s DOGE Boys, government inspections related to food safety were curtailed this year. Thanks for all the extra pooping, Elon. Enjoy your tax breaks. 

 

FUN FACT: I missed this story when it first came out; but if you are struggling to pay for hamburger, don’t worry. All the members of the Trump family are raking in the big bucks. So, be happy for them. 

As of last October, Barron Trump was worth $150 million. With war still raging against Iran, don’t expect the billionaire president’s multi-millionaire son to enlist. And dare we guess: If there’s ever a draft necessary… 

Hereditary bone spurs? 

Anyway, a 3% tax cut, if you made $150 million would be equivalent to a savings of $4.5 million.

 

FUN FACT #2: We learn again today what any fool who follows the news closely and with an open mind should know. There is voter fraud and it’s usually not organized nor rampant. Also, people of all parties, and no parties are involved: 

A Republican state senate candidate in Wisconsin is facing accusations of multistate voting after records emerged indicating that she voted in both Wisconsin and Georgia in recent years. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, online voting records show that Republican candidate Michele Magadance Skinner “voted absentee in Wisconsin in the Nov. 3, 2020, general election. Then, just 15 days later, she registered to vote in Georgia using the address of her family’s four bedroom lake house in the town of Dawsonville,” Wisconsin.

___ 

 

Commies in the White House? 

8/15/26: Did you know that we already have commies in the White House. People who dream of a day when the government takes over all businesses. 

Wait? In the White House, you say? 

“Yes,” we say. 

Donald Dumpling has now strong-armed a reported 31 companies into handing over stakes to the federal government and/or his two oldest sons, Don Jr. and Rumpelbumpkin. See, for example, rare earth materials, railroads (not yet consummated), Intel, military drones, tungsten mines, etc. 

Intel, for example, is 9.9% owned by American taxpayers, at a cost of $8.9 billion. And this guy would be proud to know how far his core ideas have advanced. 

Mr. Marx.

 

* 

HOW IS DONALD DUMPLING doing so far, in his second term, bringing down the federal deficit? 

With Elon Musk’s backing, we must be approaching zero new deficit spending! This is what Trump supporters voted for … 

It turns out the deficit for July, was $432 billion. Just for one month. The deficit for Fiscal Year 2026 is already higher than it was for FY 2025, which began when Joe Biden was in charge – and we still have two months of red ink remaining. 

In a speech Friday, The Dumpling insisted that we should all “pay a tiny little bit more” for gasoline and remember this is the cost of ensuring “a very evil country” can never have nuclear weapons. 

Friday evening, Donald Dumpling spent his free time posting on Truth Social, no doubt with Lovely Natalie by his side, typing his every thought, trying to fulfill his every wish. Natalie is very devoted. According to the president, the people who were trying to stop him from building his Golden Ballroom were “TREASONISTS,” and hated America, and wanted to kill puppies with hockey sticks. 

Earlier, he assured reporters, “The people that are opposing the ballroom are people that, in my opinion, are very disloyal to our country.”  

Well, it’s not all bad news at the White House. On Monday, the First Lady appeared, as if by magic, after a month hidden from the public eye. With justifiable pride, she announced that she and her team have reunited a 34th Ukrainian child with his or her family – after Russian soldiers had dragged off said child (and at least 1,200 others) during the invasion Vladimir Putin launched four years ago. 

For her next trick, she will attempt to show her nincompoop husband that Putin is the bad guy in this war.

___

 

8/17/26: Does it get any better than this! Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announces plans to spend $20 million on a product known as G.L.O.V.E, a diabolical abbreviation for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. That is: Gloves that can shock anyone you touch. 

Need to grab the undocumented immigrant mother of an American-citizen toddler – while the toddler screams? 

Let the agents use G.L.O.V.E., and maybe give them cattle prods, too. This comes in the wake of a U.S. citizen sh0wing an ICE agent pointing his gun in her face as she sits rather peacefully in her automobile. 

 

* 

IN RELATED NEWS, Attorney General Todd Blanche has warned that the federal government may send armed ICE agents to polling places during the midterms. Don’t forget the gloves!

 

* 

IN A REUITERS/IPSOS POLL out today, only 33% of Americans approve of the job Donald is doing as president. 

A staggering 64% do not. 

Or, as Natalie Harp – whose entire purpose every day seems to be to prop up the Presidential Ego – would say, “All the American patriots love you. You are their everything, their Dumpling Hero. They love you more than chocolate chip cookies and warm milk. I love you, too, of course, My Dumpling.” 

___

 

8/18/26: Since the Iran War is over, and the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s defensive and offensive capabilities, Sec. of Mayhem Pete Hegseth decided to take time off and head for Iowa. Rumors are afloat that he’s considering a run for president in 2028. 

God knows, by then, he may have the military pounded into shape and standing right behind him. 

ICE agents at the polls in 2026. 

Tanks and machineguns in 2028, just as General Michael T. Flynn’s suggested in 2020, if you’ve forgotten. 

 

* 

WE CAN ALSO REPORT that President Trump has gone back to the U.S. Supreme Court a second time to have the justices throw out a $5 million award a jury granted to E. Jean Carroll. She has said that a younger Dumpling Man once sexually assaulted her in a department store changing room. 

Donald’s bill keeps rising, for wasted legal costs, costs he will have to pay for Carroll’s lawyers, and interest. 

The high court rejected his request again. 

In two civil cases, involving defamation, Ms. Carroll previously defeated the president, with exactly 0 jurors in either case siding with the Pussy Grabber. Turning to football for an analogy, the score now stands: 

Team Carroll: 49 

Team Donald: 0 

 

So far, federal judges are successfully holding the line against President Trump’s worst ideas and authoritarian instincts, whereas a supine Congress, with both houses controlled by Republicans, has spent his second term kissing ass and telling him his posterior tastes like pizza. It is standard procedure for the U.S. Senate to vote on Donald’s picks for judges and high government positions, such as U.S. District Attorneys. But Donald continues to flout the rules and appoint people on a “temporary basis,” which is supposed to allow them to serve for 120 days. Then he hopes no one will check the calendar. That way, senators can’t say “no,” even if almost every GOP lawmaker does want to say “yes,” so that the president won’t hurt them in the next election. 

Not for the first time, today an appeals court has ruled that Sigal Chattah, the Trump pick for U.S. attorney in Nevada, was unlawfully appointed to lead federal prosecutions in the state. 

Chattah, an election denier, was appointed in October 2025, which even the MAGA faithful, counting on fingers and thumbs, might deduce is more than 120 days ago. This is at least the fourth time that judges have stepped in to remind the president that, yes, there are guardrails. He can’t just appoint Natalie Harp to the U.S. Supreme Court and buy her a sexy black robe to wear. 

The U.S. Senate would have to vote to approve her. God knows, Sen. Tommy Tuberville would vote to confirm. 

(Someone seems to have filled Tommy’s head with concrete.)

 

Speaking of Ms. Harp, subject of increasing gossip of late, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossof clearly touched a nerve when he mocked President Trump for focusing on his ballroom project and traveling “with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace,” which traveling ended with Harp and Trump switching planes in a food cart truck (see above: 8/10/26). 

Ever a pillar of maturity, Trump responded by calling the senator a “Peewee Herman” lookalike. 

White House aides decided that crude language would impress the loyal MAGAs. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle labeled Ossoff a “feminine theater kid,” and a “lightweight.” White House communications director Steven Cheung nicknamed the senator “Jon Jackoff” and called him “the biggest cuck loser.” 

(I often call Cheung, “Mr. Potato Head.” But can any wide-eyed observer blame me?) 

 

Trump himself has helped lower the level of political discourse dramatically, even more so in his second term. (His first term was terrible, too.) We have, for example, his recent threat to “bomb the shit” out of Oman. 

And we have his vow to “beat the fucking shit” out of Iran. 

And his rant aimed at Bibi Netayahu, in which he told the Israeli leader, “You have no fucking judgment.” 

FUCK! I think Donald might be losing his shit. 

AND HE HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

 

Then again, so does his good pal, and blood-thirsty communist ruler of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. During an Oval Office meeting today, Donald, who has never met an all-powerful ruler he didn’t like, had this to say: “Kim Jong-un has always treated me with great respect. We spent time. I understand him. He understands me.” 

He does, indeed. 

Trump once threated to blast North Korea off the face of the planet if Kim didn’t surrender his nuclear weapons. 

Kim didn’t surrender any. So, yes. He “understands” the Dumpling Man. He understands that he’s a clueless windbag. 

Trump informed reporters that he would reduce joint military exercises involving U.S. and South Korean troops. This would show Kim that the United States wanted peace, and he would finally agree to give up his nukes. 

(Dear MAGA: South Korea is a U.S. ally.) 

(And remember: You are supposed to hate communists, not praise them.)

 

FUN FACT: Kim responded to Donald’s comments within hours – by firing a barrage of ballistic missiles into the sea, somewhere east of Japan. Just a friendly reminder that North Korea has missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland.

 

FUN FACT #2: While The Dumpling dreams of big, beautiful ballrooms, and triumphant arches named after him, the North Koreans have continued to increase their nuclear arsenal. This past June, Kim announced completion of a new facility to produce bomb-ready enriched uranium. 

According to North Korean state news (kind of like Fox, without the sexy anchors) Premier Kim and other officials toured the factory, and “confirmed the order of priority for implementing the ambitious future plan designed to beef up our state's nuclear forces at an exponential rate.” 

___ 

 

Playing Whac-a-Mole with Team Trump. 

8/20/26: The overworked blogger has done his best to keep up with all the crimes and idiocies of Team Trump over this long, bleak, last decade, but it has been like playing four games of “Whac-a-Mole” at the same time, one left, one in front, one right, and a fourth behind. 

No way can you whack all the moles. 

So, I do what I can. 

 

Today, we offer yet another catalogue of some of the failures of the president, aided and abetted by his crew of sycophantic aides and officers. First, and perhaps most troubling, the federal deficit continues to explode under this watch, passing $40 trillion this week. Barring some kind of miracle, Team Trump will add at least two trillion dollars to the tab we owe, just this year. 

 

* 

MEANWHILE, DONALD continues to threaten Iran, although his threats sound increasingly like a feeble man’s bluster. 

 

* 

GAS PRICES: For consistency, I use the station nearest to my house here in Glendale, Ohio, for all comparisons. Yesterday, when I got gas for my lawn tractor, I paid $3.89.9 per gallon. 

That was 70 cents higher than on the day Joe Biden left the White House.

 

* 

THE PRESIDENT’S relationship with Natalie Harp continues to garner attention. A story has emerged that on one occasion, Harp was set to ride with him when he went to hear the U.S. Supreme Court arguments on birth-right citizenship. But there were no seats available in any of the vehicles in the motorcade. After an angry shouting match, Lovely Natalie decided to jump into the trunk of one of the SUVs. There are even signs that other White House insiders, tired of Harp’s undue influence over the 80-year-old president, are starting to leak damaging stories. 

(See above, and below.)

 

A second story indicates she worked at the White House for over a year before she bothered to complete a required background check. Without a check, she would have had no security clearance but would have been in close proximity to classified information. Among her many qualifications for a job as a close Trump aide, you have her attractive legs (two reasons to hire her). Plus, Harp once worked in right-wing TV news and has long been a rock-ribbed election denier. 

Writers for The New York Times offered this description of Ms. Harp and her devotion to The Dumpling Man: 

She never takes a day off, not even on Sunday. She works out of the Oval Office and she’s got a regular seat on Marine One. She texts with world leaders on the president’s behalf. She stays up late with him drafting social media posts.

 

She rarely speaks on camera and yet she is never not there, ever-present with a wide smile and her eyes fixed on the president.

 

“She is a platinum blond geyser of positivity, there to buck [Trump] up when the going gets rough.” 

“Sylphlike,” is how they describe Harp. 

The story continues, 

Several videos shared with The Times show Ms. Harp sprinting across great distances to keep up with Mr. Trump’s golf cart as it putters across his course in Scotland. “I also am sorry if I was an embarrassment walking the course in Scotland,” she wrote in a letter to the president that was viewed by The Times.

 

The letter goes on to say: “I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time).”

 

The letter concludes: “With all my heart, Natalie.”

 

It does appear the White House has learned its lesson and Natalie now rides any course in style and heels. 

 (Screenshot: I would describe her as “fetching.”)

 

* 

WE’VE ALL HEARD the president bark about “Fake News,” of course, but the free press has a critical role in any democracy. They work to hold the powerful to account. 

Once again, the Times has done that job. Last fall, “the Department of Homeland Security spent $464 million on a no-bid contract [emphasis added] to buy 10 used airplanes from a firm in Northern Virginia.” 

That’s a lot of taxpayer cash. 

So, the “no-bid contract” phrase should raise a red flag. But it only gets worse. DHS leaders claimed the planes were urgently needed to haul away all those illegal immigrants who wanted to kill good, white, American people. Then the planes pretty much … sat around. It didn’t help that three of the aircraft were “luxury business jets,” not exactly the aircraft one might choose to haul away people in federal custody. Indeed, F.B.I Director Kash Patel wanted dibs on one jet for personal use. 

The other seven regular jets often sit for months at a time at an out-of-the-way airport in Louisiana. 

“An internal government document, obtained by The New York Times,” the story added, “said the agency did not have the staff necessary to operate them.” 

(A glaring flaw in any plan involving flying planes!)

 

The sad saga continues, with reporters noting, “The company that received this contract, Daedalus Aviation Corporation, is led by a chairman who had donated to a political committee supporting the previous homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem.” 

Noem, of course, is today fondly remembered for her own flying-bedroom scandal, which lead to her ouster.

 

* 

IT’S NOT AS BIG A WASTE, but the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, now completely controlled by Trump toadies, has been ordered by a judge to pay jazz musician Chuck Redd $252,479.70 in legal fees and costs, after he refused to perform at the Center. Redd’s decision came after the Narcissist-in-Chief slapped his name on the building and made sure his moniker came first in the new name. 

Trump’s pals on the Kennedy board sued Redd for breach of contract – because the president’s feelings were involved – and lost. 

So, “We the People” must watch a quarter million dollars of our money flushed down the Ego Toilet.

 

* 

SEN. JON OSSOFF, of Georgia, has been going after the president for all his money-making schemes and/or scams. 

As Heather Cox Richardson explained this week, 

Ossoff called out Trump’s apparent stock manipulation, an issue Trump highlighted recently when he sold early access to his Truth Social posts for as much as $100,000 a month. It has been widely reported that investors appear to be making a killing by anticipating Trump’s posts as they make markets go up or down.

 

“He’s selling faster access to his tweets, and then you can bet on the markets,” comedian Shane Gillis recently told popular podcaster Joe Rogan, “It’s literally insider trading.” Rogan, whose support for Trump in 2024 was important to his victory, responded: “Wait a minute, is that real? How is that legal? Who’s telling him this is a good idea? $100K to get early tweets? That’s literally crazy. He’s just on a grab.”

 

I’m going to note, that Rogan seems a little late to the party; but the American people, generally, also seem to be catching on. 

In a recent poll, 63% agreed that it was “inappropriate” for the president and his family to be profiting off cryptocurrency, after it was revealed that the Trumps had raked in a cool $1 billion in just one year, from their crypto businesses. Crypto! A financial vehicle beloved by drug cartels and human trafficking operators.

 

* 

THE PRESIDENT loves to tell everyone that he has made America respected again. Alas, the Washington Post reports today that two countries are propping up the Iranians in their fight with the U.S. 

Can you guess which two??? 

Since war was launched by the United States and Israel on February 28, 

[Russia has] increased its help, providing Iran with valuable drone and intelligence support that strengthened its offensive capabilities. Russia has aided Iran’s campaign of attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles by reportedly sharing valuable drone tactic and technologies tested on the battlefield in Ukraine.

 

“China has not been idle, either,” the Post continues. 

For example, we know that the Chinese supply Iran with chemicals used to propel ballistic missiles. Trump, of course, has said that he and Xi Jinping get along great. In a meeting this past May, Donald assured the Chinese dictator, “it is an honor to be your friend [emphasis added].”

 

* 

THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION continues to lag, regarding food safety inspections. This week a warning was issued for the recall of 19.2 million eggs. Don’t eat them, the FDA said. If you did – because the warnings came too late – “serious adverse health consequences or death” could result. 

This blogger checks the report: Some of those eggs may have been sold by Kroger, which has a store right down the street from his house. And someone at our house has eaten four or put them in baking. 

We’re going to die! 

 (Thanks, Elon Musk, for slashing the jobs of 3,500 FDA workers.)

  

My Lord, if the eggs don’t get us the frozen blueberries will. The FDA is also trying to stop an E coli outbreak. 

Publix has warned that berries from Chile may be tainted and were sold in the following states: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. 

A Class 1 FDA recall has been issued. What does that mean? It means, again, that there’s a reasonable chance that consuming the recalled product would cause severe harm to health or death. 

In other news, measles continues to come roaring back under the leadership of Robert “Mr. Measles” Kennedy, Jr. Each week a new annual record is set, going back to 1991, and well before 2000, when measles was considered eradicated in this country. The yearly count, as of this week: 2,777 cases. 

(Two more unvaccinated people, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will soon die.)

 

* 

FANS OF PAULA WHITE, which would include President Trump, for whom she serves as a “spiritual advisor,” are no doubt feeling smug, however. 

This past Easter, Reverend White was selling seven specific blessings. All you had to do to gain those seven godsends, was cough up $1,000 and mail a check to Pastor White, to prove you were honoring God. 

And let’s just say that one of those seven would protect you from poisonous frozen fruit. That blessing would “take sickness away from you.” 

Plus, you were guaranteed to receive a ten-inch-high Waterford cross! 

I had missed this story last spring; but it seems pertinent in this time of travail. For that pittance, that mere $1,000, you could both honor God and be sure you and your family would never need healthcare again. 

Not even if you were bitten by a rabid beaver.

 

* 

THE PARTY OF BOISTEROUS CHRISTIANITY is also running Brandon Herrara for a seat in Congress from Texas. If he can win in the general election, Herrara will replace the last Republican to hold the seat, Tony Gonzalez. 

Tony had the backing of Donald Trump, but a sex scandal forced him to resign his seat earlier this year. 

Now, the GOP is backing Herrara, known for his hilarious anti-Semitic, and anti-black people jokes. In old videos Candidate Brandon can be seen describing a Nazi-era submachinegun as “the original ghetto blaster “ and “Hitler’s street sweeper.” 

Hitler! 

Always good for laughs!

 

Well, good news, at least on one front: Rep. Cory Mills, who Donald said had his “complete and total endorsement for re-election,” has lost his primary, and gone is his chance to serve another term in Congress. Mills was just another Republican wrapped up in a sex scandal. 

Also: Texas senate candidate Ken Paxton – Kristi Noem – Pete Hegseth – maybe Donald Dumpling himself. 

 

FUN FACT: Hey, MAGA, who hates voting by mail! (All true MAGA folks must raise hands or be forced to eat eggs bought at Kroger.) 

Well, I’ll be damned. Donald J. Trump once again voted by mail in the recent Florida primary.

___ 

 

War of the White House Robots? 

8/21/26: Once again. Today we play catchup on all the strange tales coming out of the Trump Administration. 

Clearly worried about all the scandalous talk involving “Lovely Natalie,” the White House

rolled out the First Lady today, after a month away from the White House, to give a little speech. 

Topic? Who cares! Melania was coming out of hibernation or maybe hiding. 

Witness Protection, possibly?

 

Part of the fun of being a liberal blogger in today’s world is that the right-wingers have made a model out of spreading stupid lies and slathering on innuendo, and now, with clear conscience, I can occasionally indulge myself. One need not even believe what they say, if only people will click on their posts – and they can become famous “influencers.” Since the right has gone wild for tall tales of every sort, it seems fair to start a rumor about Lovely Natalie – who happens to be a sexy robot –controlled by the First Lady, herself! Then I start a new rumor and reveal that Melania is a robot controlled by Natalie Hart’s robot. Then we throw in a few of the juiciest possible details. None of the robots want to have sex with the president. 

Not even Transgender Robot Stephen Miller! 

Robots lack empathy: Miller's defining character trait is that.

At any rate, today, the Robot First Lady and the lumbering lout who plays her husband were seen, ostentatiously holding hands as they walked out to what was once the Rose Garden. (Now paved by the president.) 

Robot Melania stepped up to the podium, scanned her notes with electronic eyes, and tried to decide which of the 47 languages that she speaks to use. Donald made a beeline for a group of supporters twenty yards away. 

He seemed anxious to put a safe distance between himself and the possibly homicidal humanoid machine – who knows he has cheated on her many times before. 

(I do not believe Robot Harp was in the audience.)

 

* 

DONALD WAS STILL restless long after he went to bed on Friday, perhaps with Natalie at his bedside, encouraging him to express his feelings. To be his big, bad self and say what he wanted on Truth Social. “Oooooh, Donald, please, please, let me TYPE for you in big, bold CAPITAL LETTERS!” 

I think she said. 

One way or another, her Dumpling Boss came up with this love note to his former admirers: 

___ 

 

We can grow our way out of the giant deficit hole! 

8/22/26: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been spending his time lately assuring all who bother to let him finish his dumb sentences that we can handle the $40 trillion federal deficit. In fact, thanks to his boss, he says deficits have “peaked.” Once the Trump Magic takes hold, this great nation is going to be rich again! 

“There’s nothing magic about the 40-trillion number,” Bessent insists. “We can grow our way out of that.” 

If that sounds to you like Team Trump is trying out a new economic message it should. On Friday, the president blew off the deficit entirely. “It’s been a problem for 35 years,” he explained to reporters. “And what we have now … is we have tremendous growth. And the way you take care of debt is with growth, and we have tremendous growth. We’ve never had growth like we have right now.” 

Unfortunately, the mirage of “tremendous growth” is only visible to the president and his lackies. 

Even worse, some of us remember Donald Dumpling’s promise to erase the entire federal deficit if given eight years. In fact, if we cut taxes, especially on billionaires, the tax cuts would not increase the budget shortfall, because the U.S. economy would boom, and the cuts would “pay for themselves.” Miracles of growth were promised during the first Trump Administration. Then fresh miracles were promised as soon as Trump took office on January 20, 2025. 

This is like a pickup basketball player, age 29, standing a shade under six feet tall, telling friends he’s going to star in the NBA, as soon as he grows another sixteen inches. It’s just never going to happen! 

 

FUN FACT: I think all good patriotic Americans will agree that we can never have too many guns, because we must be ready to open fire on transgenders in women’s sports, and killer immigrants, such as the crew that put a new roof on the blogger’s house this summer. In fact, who doesn’t love it when a six-year-old in South Carolina shows up at elementary school with a loaded assault-style pistol. That is how you represent the importance of the Second Amendment, right there.

 

FUN FACT #2: That same day, a South Carolina high school student was found with a handgun, and a 17-round clip, in his school.

 

FUN FACT #3: Then a third individual, a 40-year-old mother, was arrested on school grounds, also in the Palmetto State, with another loaded weapon. All of these events on one fine late summer day. 

Darlene Graham, who hopes to follow her late brother into the U.S. Senate from South Carolina, has already laid out her position regarding guns in America, announcing, “To me, gun control is how steady you hold your weapon.” 

(Tell it to the six-year-old, Darlene.)

 

* 

TEAM TRUMP apologists today, are claiming the Strait of Hormuz is wide open and oil is flowing like red ink in the federal deficit. 

It appears that on Thursday, a grand total of seven ships passed through the Strait, four exiting, three entering. In the good old days 120-140 ships per day used the waterway. About half were oil tankers.

 

* 

Trumpcare: Coming the day after …. 

IF GAS PRICES ARE HIGH, we can rejoice in knowing that the Trump Administration is slashing healthcare costs … and I, for one, anxiously await the rollout of Trumpcare, set to replace Obamacare the day after never. 

I swear, if Jesus had come down off the cross before he died, Republicans of his era, c. 33 A.D., would have refused him help paying doctors to repair his hands and feet and close the gash in his right side. 

(Why was he stuck in his right side with a lance? It’s explained in the Bible, I guess.) 

 

In a world Trump and his billionaire buds have helped to build, Americans with workplace healthcare coverage will pay an average of $388 more this year. That will bring costs up to $5,297. And those are the lucky Americans – for there are many millions of us with no coverage whatsoever. 

Sadly, the Wall Street Journal reports that 2027 is expected to be worse. Employees say they expect healthcare plans to rise as much as 11% in cost. 

But at least by then the Iran War will be over. 

I think. 

(See below.)

___ 

 

The president won’t put the war on an egg-timer. 

8/23/26: The Robot First Lady will no doubt head for bed early tonight, having exhausted herself by showing up at the White House twice in three days. She may also have spent the day on Saturday, which would make for highly exciting times in Mr. and Mrs. Trump’s loving marriage. 

Today, she and her doddering, potato-shaped husband attended the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, which was run on the streets of Washington.

 

* 

WE SHOULD also mention what Donald now says the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps and rubella) can be “quite lethal.” 

This was news to doctors in every nook and cranny of this wide country, including witch doctors. Even Dr. Oz, now the head of CDC, had to “correct” the president’s claim, gently, of course – rather than just come out and admit it, saying, “I’m deeply sorry. But I work for a guy with the same level of intellectual curiosity as a person with a head filled with pumpkin seeds.” 

 

Even better, the president now claims that hospitals are doing “reverse surgery” on transgender kids, on his orders. Yes, he said this week – repeating himself, perhaps thinking his ever-loyal, red-hatted followers were too dumb to catch his meaning – “They’re doing reverse surgery. Nobody ever heard about it.” 

This is true. No one has ever heard of any president ordering people to have surgery of any kind, not even boob jobs.

(You can see him talk nonsense at this link.)  

 

To put it plainly, this past week has been boom times for stupidity, with Chief Surgeon Trump slapping 50% tariffs on Canadian goods – while insisting tariffs will never raises costs to American consumers – and simultaneously agreeing to import 300,000 metric tons of Argentinian ground beef – but promising to lift tariffs on the same – because he wants to bring down costs to consumers.

 

* 

SUNDAY, the “alternative facts” lady, Kellyanne Conway, showed up on Fox News, where she did her best to explain to Americans why they should give the president a break, even though he’s flailing to end a dumb war that he and Bibi, his Israeli pal, launched six months ago. 

As The Daily Beast reports, Conway put it this way: 

“The president is doing what he’s doing in the Middle East to help people in the Midwest, longer term. This president takes the long view on everything, and he has said he – uh – I’ll say he can’t put war on an egg timer,” she continued.

 

“We’ve been there for six months, everybody would like it wrapped up—it needs to be wrapped up successfully and completely for us to feel that the next president of the United States, Commander-in-Chief, doesn’t face a nuclear capable Iran.” 

 

Just in case the American people didn’t get the news, that we are kicking ass in the Middle East, that all is well on the USS Lincoln, that Pete Hegseth is the greatest Secretary of War since the War Department was renamed, and that you can tell we’re crushing it against Iran, because Pete always uses the cool term “warfighters,” to describe what’s happening overseas, we have new news. 

Actually, we will have less news because Pete has fired all the top people who ran the Stars and Stripes, a publication normally devoted to serving as the voice of our ordinary men and women in uniform. That newspaper has for decades been granted editorial independence – because our servicemen and women deserve to have their true opinions and concerns more clearly known. Now we’ll have a new publication, suited to Pete’s rigorous regard for making Pete and Donald both sound good. 

Potential new headlines: 

TROOPS LOVE PETE HEGSETH 

PETE HEGSETH – WHAT A STUD! 

IRANIANS FEAR THE WRATH OF PETE HEGSETH 

PRESIDENT KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE’S DOING IN THIS WAR 

DONALD J. TRUMP WILL PERSONALLY KICK THE MULLAHS’ ASSES 

(Bill Mauldin would be appalled.)

___

 

8/24/26: After video of what appeared to be a tense exchange between Melania and Donald at the Freedom 250 race was aired, the First Lady was noticeably absent at a White House meeting to talk about education. Mrs. Trump does seem to care about children – if not necessarily her big lump of a child, Donald. 

Speaking of “lumps,” a story in the Washington Post (ipso facto, “Fake News,” according to Trump world) says doctors are worried because Donald has gained at least twenty 23 pounds since retaking office. 

Let’s just say that this photo from two weeks ago seems to prove the Post knows what it’s saying. 

 

At age 77, your favorite blogger weighs 198 pounds, and stands a shade under six feet tall, but can squeeze into a 34-inch pair of jeans if he inhales for the next six hours. Donald looks like a guy who could go 270, and we all know he’s not getting much exercise, save for riding around in a golf cart. 

(With Natalie Harp in pursuit.)

 

* 

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS, we can report that the White House took time to call Rosie O’Donnell, who has been hosting the Jimmy Kimmel Show for a week, a “total slob.” You know, keeping a laser focus on what matters to ordinary Americans. 

Like the Iran War. Or the exploding national debt. Or the costs of healthcare, gas, groceries, and home loans. 

 

NO FUN FACT: The blogger would like to point out that he has never hung around with anyone who, in a locker room, bragged about grabbing women by the p***y. He has never ridden on Jeffrey Epstein’s jet. And no one he has posed with for pictures has ever been arrested for sexually abusing a child. 

Here’s Donald Trump, checking that last box. Posing here with Mike Caruso, a former Florida lawmaker, we can now explain that Caruso has “been arrested on five felony charges related to child sex abuse, including kidnapping, lewd or lascivious molestation, lewd or lascivious exhibition, luring or enticing a child, and child abuse causing mental injury. The alleged victim was between 3 and 5 years old.” 

Even more bizarre, Caruso had voted for a new Florida law that would impose the death penalty for pedophiles.

 

* 

HOW MANY AGENTS hired to work for ICE do you think should have criminal records, for example, for domestic violence? 

Or for extorting sex from prisoners? 

After digging through court documents, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance has found … 

Two? 

Oh, no, no, no. Try: 152.

 

One may quibble about the actual numbers, the group’s biases, methodology, and more. But 56% of the people on their list have been sentenced. As Peter L. Markowitz, professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, pointed out, it turns out “the worst of the worst” don’t always get deported. They often get jobs with this warped version of the federal government. 

Meanwhile, only 2% of 66,000 detainees in ICE custody are being prepared for deportation based on criminality. 

 

In other ICE news, agents managed to snag a dangerous illegal, Luis Manuel Aviles, 48. Originally from Nicaragua, the arrestee has lived in the U.S. for the last nineteen years, committing a rash of murders (I imagine) while masquerading as a handyman, ready to perform almost any kind of work. 

He was arrested Saturday as he left his home to bring his car to a mechanic (or perhaps murder a true MAGA believer). 

Argelia, his wife, told reporters that her husband holds a valid permit to work in the United States and added that their son, Joshua, is currently serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been at sea for nine months. 

“Thank you for your service,” young man. 

We’re still going to deport your dad, though. 

This arrest looked so bad that even the heartless folks who run ICE realized it might be wise to free the father from custody, and on August 26, Luis was out of jail. An immigration judge dismissed the case against him. 

___ 

 

8/25/26: Lately, Mr. Trump has been listening far too much to two people and it’s warping his view of reality. One person is the “Luscious Natalie” (I am promoting her from “Lovely Natalie”), the president’s favorite White House aide. 

The other is himself. 

With his approval numbers in the toilet, he has now declared that the “Radical Left” is going crazy with the polls. “They’re putting them out at levels never seen before.” Naturally, Trump says the Democrats are making up “Demoralization Polls,” designed to discourage loyal MAGA warriors from showing up to vote. 

With all due respect to the MAGA folks, I, for one, am a huge fan of facts, and have been checking polls steadily since the 2000 election. Almost all the pollsters expected that contest to be close, and it was. 

Two years ago, I knew Kamala Harris was likely to get smoked, because that’s what an aggregate of the polls indicated. 

Right now, the same polls show that Donald Dumpling is only slightly more popular than cyclosporiasis. For the fun of it, if you don’t like President Dumpling, check his numbers as of today. 

39.7 average approval rating 

57.1 average disapproval rating

 

* 

THIS ONE’S just kind of fun. Our leaders often pass out challenge coins as cool souvenirs to mark some important event. Someone who got a Melania Trump coin is selling it on eBay. Only $500.

 

Plus, you get the bag it came in! 

We do know it’s worth more than Melania’s meme coins. Once worth $8.49 each, soon after they were offered for sale to her adoring fans, the coins today sell at a huge profit … Wait. … Holy hell. 

 

You can still get a dime if you sell now. 

(I think Lucious Natalie needs a meme coin, too.) 

(She could soon become Wife #4.)

 

* 

HAVING FORGOTTEN his promise to lower prices on “Day One” of his second term as president – or perhaps having simply given up – or maybe he lost interest – Donald gets mad at Canada. 

So, he slaps 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and automobiles. 

As any fool might have expected, the Canadian government hits back, putting retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods. Costs to consumers are not coming down anytime soon. 

See also: Gas prices.

___ 

 

The laws of war. 

8/26/26: IF YOU DON’T already know, ProPublica is famous for its excellent work om exposing the questionable actions of disreputable people in government. So, today, we have a new report regarding Pete Hegseth. 

In early 2025, soon after he was confirmed as Secretary of Defense/War/Bombast, Hegseth polled his top commanders on a program designed to limit civilian casualties during combat operations. 

You would think that any effort to avoid blowing up babies would be a good idea, and even Pete would get it. But no. 

As ProPublica writes. 

Hegseth had bet senior officers would endorse his view that focusing on civilian security was “woke” and out of step with “maximum lethality,” current and former defense officials told ProPublica.

 

Instead, every commander rebuffed the idea [of killing the program].

 

…

 

In the poll, Hegseth gave commanders three options: cut 65% of staff but keep the effort operational, continue with only a small centralized office in Washington, or eliminate the program.

 

Nine commanders chose the first option to preserve the enterprise as much as possible, according to a memo reviewed by ProPublica. Leaders of two commands, one overseeing the nuclear arsenal and the other focused on cyber threats, declined all three options, asking to maintain the full program. 

 

Leaders at U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for military action in the Middle East, pressed to keep its full staff of 16 assigned to the task of limiting unnecessary civilian carnage. They warned that cutting back would “result in decreased efficiency of U.S. lethal operations due to an increased risk of target misidentification and reduced battlespace awareness,” a memo reviewed by ProPublica said. 

Gen. Erik Kurilla, then in charge of Central Command, and several senior officers appealed to Hegseth to keep the program. Hegseth chose to ignore them and gutted the program. He did allow Central Command to keep one person in the office that worked to protect innocent lives, if that helped. 

As one official put it, the new approach at Hegseth’s Pentagon was: “Bombs away!” And don’t let anyone else know about it. 

“No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement,” Hegseth would later tell a gathering of hundreds of generals and admirals. 

So, if you love schools getting crushed with Tomahawk missiles, and innocent families sitting down for dinner getting incinerated – and no military objectives achieved – then the Secretary of Death and Destruction is your man. In the spring of 2025, airstrikes in Yemen killed and wounded 396 civilians. 

Then, in the early days of the Iran War, a U.S. strike leveled an Iranian school, killing as many as 175 students and educators. 

And it wasn’t just “woke” liberals who questioned this cavalier attitude toward killing noncombatants. 

ProPublica continues: 

Leaders at Central Command told Hegseth’s top staff in a memo that CHMR [the program to monitor U.S. strikes] “enhanced our precision and accuracy, making us more lethal.” The memo added, “The operational and strategic value of this work is widely recognized.”

 

At the same time, the Joint Staff echoed the commanders’ sentiment. 

 

 

Let’s finish with this. If you are the Iranian mullahs or leaders of the Houthi rebels in Yemen, can you recruit more easily, from among the loved ones whose relatives were killed while attending third grade or eating a family supper? 

Of course you can. 

Only Pete doesn’t get it. Or Pete just doesn’t give a shit. 

If you ever wonder why U.S. troops are instructed not to carry out illegal orders, read up on the story of My Lai, a massacre carried out by American forces in Vietnam on March 16, 1968. As many as 567 villagers, mostly women and children, were shot down. 

On orders. 

I’m more than afraid that if Hegseth had been there in My Lai, he would have been the first to listen to illegal orders and would have joyfully opened fire. 

He’d be the guy, as one soldier did that day, who killed two little boys by shooting through a two-year-old held in the arms of his four-year-old brother. Sorry, but we want our troops to be better.

 

“Violence unnecessary to a military purpose is forbidden.” 

I believe that phrase above, or something close was found in the manual that recruits received at Parris Island in January 1969, as did I, after I dropped out of college and enlisted. 

I’m too lazy to dig it up in this lengthy report; but I like this introduction, penned by one of the judges at the 1946 Nuremberg Trials. 

I don’t think Trump or Hegseth have ever heard of those trials, during which Nazi leaders had to stand trial for their war crimes. 

But I like the humanity of what this judge has to offer: 

Purposes of the Law of Armed Conflict

There are two reasons . . . for the preservation and enforcement, as even-handedly as possible, of the laws of war. The first is strictly pragmatic: They work. Violated or ignored as they often are, enough of the rules are observed enough of the time so that mankind is very much better off with them than without them.  …

 

Another and, to my mind, even more important basis of the laws of war is that they are necessary to diminish the corrosive effect of mortal combat on the participants. War does not confer a license to kill for personal reasons – to gratify perverse impulses, or to put out of the way anyone who appears obnoxious, or to whose welfare the Soldier is indifferent. War is not a license at all, but an obligation to kill for reasons of state; it does not countenance the infliction of suffering for its own sake or for revenge.

 

Unless troops are trained and required to draw the distinction between military and nonmilitary killings, and to retain such respect for the value of life that unnecessary death and destruction will continue to repel them, they may lose the sense of that distinction for the rest of their lives.  …

 

As Francis Lieber put the matter in his 1863 Army regulations: “Men who take up arms against one another in public war do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.” [Lieber Code, art. 15]

 

Telford Taylor

Nuremberg Prosecutor

 

This chart, from the report on Marine Corps doctrine, might also help: 

 (Hey, that’s kind of the phrase I remember in the second box, right.)

___ 

 

8/27/26: No one can say that Donald Dumpling isn’t focused on the issues that matter most to Americans. On Tuesday morning, he was off to a rousing start when he posted on Truth Social, his latest plans to bring down the price of groceries – which he promised to do on “Day 1” of his second crack at playing Leader of the Free World. 

That was 582 days ago. 

Not to worry, because #583 would surely be the ticket. 

Not even close, the petulant child dressed up as a fat, doddering 80-year-old, had other key issues to address. Trade talks with Canada had exploded, and the White House buffoon wanted all his fans to know, “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer.” 

 

I doubt the most creative minds in literature could have ever crafted a story line where a President of the United States would sound so dumb. 

And today, Day #585, he sounded even dumber. 

It’s hard, even for this blogger, who has chronicled the antics of Donald Trump religiously for more than a decade, to believe that the man can get dumber. 

Yet he does. 

Today, he signed an executive order, to rename the lake. My wife went to the grocery store soon after, to buy green beans. 

Nothing had changed at the store for the better. 

With stupidity always in style during the Trump Era, we have another example to include, namely a Republican member of Congress who cannot, will not, take a joke. In this case a joke aimed at his God/Hero. 

On the Jimmy Kimmel show, guest host Jelly Roll, now a much slimmer version of himself, had this to say during his monologue, as Huff Post explains: 

“Well, Mr. President, from one fat pig to another, take it from me, that physical fitness is very important,” he said. “And trust me, you’ll be happy to see your penis again.”

 

The singer noted he recently lost more than 300 pounds, concluding, “That means I’ve lost an entire Donald Trump.” 

 

Rep. Jimmy Patronis decided he should be allowed to control the movements of American travelers, posting this: 

  

Speaking of travel, yesterday, the Iranians forced a tanker from India to turn around after the vessel entered the U.S.-protected corridor through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s the Strait the president says we control. 

“TOTALLY.”

 

* 

Disaster foretold. 

TWO THOUSAND MILES farther west, and north of India, a disaster foretold by climate change scientists comes to pass. A melting glacier, behind which water forms into a lake, gives way after a landslide ruptures the land, and a massive wave is unleashed down a mountain river valley. 

In Nepal, 389 are known dead, and 1,400 are missing, with both numbers likely to rise much higher. In some of the narrower parts of the valley, a wall of water as high as a sixteen-story building wiped entire towns off the face of the earth. The people in the path of the torrent had no chance to escape. As the earth continues to warm, it will not be the last such climate change disaster. 

At least 63 American tourists are missing. 

FUN FACT: Scientists have been warning that climate change will lead to more hailstorms, and Illinois has now validated a record-sized stone that fell in March this year. Imagine what this could do to your car. 

Or your head: 

___

  

The Greatest. 

8/28/26: With a little more than two months to plug the leaks in the sinking ship of state, Republicans are increasingly nervous. Trump reportedly plans to spend a pile of cash on campaign ads featuring himself. The White House believes, at least Donald does, that voters have simply forgotten how great he is. Of course, Donald has not forgotten. Nor has Natalie Harp. 

Isn’t he the bold leader who just renamed Lake Ontario? Who cares if the Strait of Hormuz is open! 

I think you could make the argument that even the First Lady might not vote Donald, if he was on the ballot in November. 

Polls can still shift, and polls have a margin of error that means the headline numbers aren’t always accurate in the end. But in Texas, which went for Trump in 2024 by …, Democratic candidate James Talarico, running for a seat in the U.S. Senate has a lead over Trump’s hand-picked adulterer, Ken Paxton. Paxton is the guy who had to agree to pay $3.3 million to his own staff members after he retaliated against them for blowing the whistle on some of his crooked schemes. 

Then Paxton decided to drag the case out in the courts but refused to testify under oath. By the time Paxton dropped his last appeal, in July 2025, the whistleblowers were looking at an award of $6.6 million – which Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, managed to get the state legislature to agree to pay. 

With much of the West locked in an epic drought, many farmers are turning their fury on GOP leaders who have been pushing to build more and more water-hogging data centers in rural areas. One voter does not make a movement; but the words of one Texan may signal trouble ahead. 

The Raw Story explains: 

“We’ve been fighting this [data center] for three years,” said Texas voter Tom Weeks, “and we realized that the Republican Party has given us nothing more than the middle finger. I have been a staunch Republican my entire life. I’m done. I would vote for the devil before I voted for Gov. [Greg] Abbott. I’ve been listening to Talarico. I've been listening to, for the first time in my life, a lot of Democrats.” 

 

Abbott still leads in the most recent polls, but Paxton (who was impeached by his own party) trails James Talarico, his Democratic opponent. Even Fox News was forced to admit on Thursday that Talarico had a 48% to 42% lead in the latest polling. 

Texas voters’ number one issue: “Affordability.” 

And it doesn’t help the Republican Party to have the clueless president roaming around, insisting that “affordability” is a made-up, Democratic word.

 

* 

FINALLY, let’s post the president’s own chart of the greatest and worst presidents in U.S. history. No surprise who he and Lucious Natalie place at the top: 

___ 

 

Racists galore! 

8/29/26: As a blogger careful to adhere to the facts, I am always at pains to note that I know plenty of Trump supporters who are good people and who aren’t racists (including one son-in-law, two old-fashioned Republican neighbors, and at least a hundred former students, all nice people). 

But if you are a racist, Trump is your boy. 

RACIST #1: If you are the neo-Nazi type, for example, you will fondly remember Greg Bovino, who served as commander-at-large for the Border Patrol, earlier this year. Since losing his post, he has called for the deportation of 100 million illegal immigrants, equal to a third of the U.S. population. Now he tells Tucker Carlson that some of President Trump’s pals want him dead. “Hey, Tucker, I got some gas in the tank. If they want you gone, if those gate guards want you gone,” he said during a recent interview, “you better watch out. They’ll come for you.” 

Bovino can be seen lately hanging with the white supremacist crowd and has launched an exploratory committee, testing his appeal as candidate for president in 2028. If you’re a racist, I think you’re going to love his platform. 

Greg is now touting ideas like “remigration,” where, essentially, all dark-skinned people who have come to the U.S. and Europe (even legally) are politely convinced to go home. Or just deported. 

(I don’t think Bovino cares which.)

 

And he’s the guy who was giving ICE orders when they killed two U.S. citizens who were protesting in Minneapolis last January.

 

RACISTS #2-3-4-5: If one white supremacist isn’t enough, Congressman Mike Collins, running for a seat in the U.S. Senate from Georgia, can serve up a second, third and fourth. He makes a fifth. 

His chief of staff, Kip Talley was recently canned after it was revealed he had enjoyed a group chat with Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer. 

Then Collins’ office lost a young intern, Preston Parra, who had fun festooning his X account with swastikas and posted an AI-generated image of himself in Ku Klux Klan robes. When asked his thoughts on race, Parra told a reporter he believed “the white race contributes more to the world.” 

 

Rep. Collins’ son-in-law, David Allan Scheer II, has a lot to say about Jews (doesn’t like ‘em), Muslims (not them either), dark-skinned people (okay, not them, at all) and Hitler’s Nazis (he’s a fan). 

(The Daily Beast offers a summary of his thinking.)

 

RACIST #6: As for Laura Loomer, once thought by some to be shagging Donald, when Melania was away, now replaced (possibly) by Ms. Natalie, yeah. She’s a flaming racist. Here’s a post she sent in reply to Democratic candidate for a seat in the U.S. Senate from Florida, Angie Nixon: 

 

RACIST #7: And we’ll always have top White House aide, Stephen Miller, whispering in Donald’s ear every day.

 

* 

8/31/26: August has not been kind for President Trump with Iran and the United States suddenly trading fire once more. Naturally, this has forced Old Man Dumpling to start spewing threats yet again. First, he says he’s going to blast Iran, like they have never been blasted before. 

“We’re going to hit them very hard,” he promised today. 

“Iran is officially a Failed Nation,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “IT IS DEAD! They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country.” 

Meanwhile, 

Iran's army said it attacked the United Arab Emirates' Al Minhad Air Base with drones early on Monday, Iranian state TV reported, citing a statement from the army.

 

The army said the attack targeted locations where US forces and helicopters were stationed at the base.

 

It said the attack was in response to the killing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Iranian civilians on Larak Island. 

 

The president also decided it would fun to threaten the free press again. This time he said he planned to refer Kristen Welker of NBC’s “Meet the Press” to the FCC, where she should face “rebuke or punishment.” 

And what crime had Ms. Welker committed? On Sunday, she dared mention that Trump had had “mixed results” with his most recent slate of endorsements. 

That was one attack on the First Amendment. How about a second, and third? The G20 is meeting to discuss the state of the world’s economy and Donald would really like some good coverage. Why not block admittance of reporters from three of the nation’s most important news outlets, who had sinned against Donald J. Trump? Journalists from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg who had all written unflattering reports were denied a chance to attend. 

A representative of the German press group in attendance responded to the news, saying, “I believe the press has a completely legitimate interest in reporting openly and freely on this G20 summit. I consider it unacceptable for journalists or entire editorial teams to be excluded.”  

(Someone tell the MAGA faithful how bad it could be if the next Democratic president is an anti-free press nut, too.) 

For kicks, Donald Dumpling also blasted Maggie Haberman, a reporter for The New York Times, as “Maggot Hagerman,” in yet another one of his Truth Social posts. See how clever the bully in the White House is: 

  

We end the 588th day since Donald took over the reins of government loosely and rode his steed right to the slaughterhouse.  

Donald is still mad because he had to have his name taken off the Trump/Kennedy Performing Arts center – now he’s talking about tearing the whole structure down. 

Inflation remains untamed. The war in Ukraine remains unended. Gas prices remain elevated. Canada now hates us, as do most of our former allies around the globe. Melania is still avoiding any sexual contact. 

And the Epstein Files are still not all released – or redacted – and the MAGA folks have all forgotten what they said they wanted when Pam Bondi said she had a list, and Dan Bongino could hardly wait until the arrests began. Now Congressman Thomas Massie, a lame duck, has finished the month by reading out the names of individual he calls “co-conspirators,” most of whom should be called to testify about what they know: 

Prince Andrew

Leon Black

Jean-Luc Brunel (deceased)

David Copperfield

Glenn Dubin

Ramsey Elkholy

Lapo Elkann

Frédéric Fekkai

Lesley Groff

Tom Pritzker

Jes Staley

Daniel Siad

Eduardo Teodorani-Fabbri

Les Wexner 

(And so, another month of D Trump as president comes to an ignominious end.) 

 

Or as the head of polling at U. Mass-Amherst put it, without including the jibe about the First Lady and the zero sex: 

With no end in sight to the ongoing war in Iran, the continued rise in the price of gas, groceries, utilities, and housing, an escalating trade war with Canada, and the likelihood of higher interest rates, it comes as no surprise that Trump’s approval rating remains at a paltry 32%, a 1-percentage-point drop since we last polled in March 2026.

 

That is also the lowest the president has ever fallen in the poll – lower even than on January 7, 2021. 

In other words, it sucks to be Don. 

(Only Lucious Natalie can ever make it all right.)

 

* 

GOOD NEWS for J.D. Vance this week – as a mentally ill man who used a hammer to smash three windows at his home in Cincinnati is headed for jail. Twenty-six-year-old William DeFoor has agreed to pay $28,000 in restitution, stay at least 350 feet away from the vice president, his family members, and his homes. 

He could face up to twenty years in prison. 

Fortunately, no one was hurt. 

Let us all hope that none on our side start spreading rumors, as when Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked in their home, that the attacker was gay, and that a sexual encounter with Paul Pelosi had gone awry. We don’t want to be assholes by the “influencers” who spread tall tales on the right.