The Epstein Files: Story of The Week Just Keeps Chugging Along

And here we are, once again writing about that godawful man Jeffrey Epstein. It makes us feel dirty to do so, but it's a story that just won't fade away, no matter how much Donald Trump wishes it would do so. Here's a rundown of the bad news for him from just the last 24 hours or so:

• The Wall Street Journal: Rupert Murdoch owns Fox, and the entertainers there have been almost entirely silent about Epstein Mobilier. He also owns The Wall Street Journal, and the journalists there have not. Yesterday, the paper ran a story (paywalled, but if you'd like a summary, click here) in which it asserted that Ghislaine Maxwell collected letters and cards from friends in honor of Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003, and Trump responded with a letter and a hand-drawn picture of a naked woman. And you know how Al Hirschfeld used to incorporate the name of his daughter, Nina, into his drawings? Well, in our "you can't make this stuff up" department, Trump apparently used his signature to provide a... key design element of the drawing. Let's just say that if he is not careful, "Trump" and "merkin" are going to end up as synonyms.
  
  Trump predictably melted down over the Journal's reporting, and so he got onto his increasingly pornographic social media site to respond:

  The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don't draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn't print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I'm going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT

  This was actually his second response; his first merely hinted that he would sue, while this one confirmed it. That said, one wonders if, once he cools down, he will think better of taking actions that will keep his name next to Jeffrey Epstein's in headlines for, oh, the next 2 years. Oh, and social media has already been flooded with other pictures drawn by Trump, so that part of his claim ("I don't draw pictures") has already proven to be a lie.
  
  
• The Right-Wing Commentariat: On Wednesday, we suggested that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are all canaries in a coal mine, for if they take sides against Trump in this, then he's lost control of the narrative. We noted on Wednesday that Johnson had flipped. He has since shown no signs of changing course.
  
  Another canary in a coal mine is the right-wing mediasphere. As we also noted in that item, Trump has worked hard to get them to move on. However, red meat is pretty much literally their bread and butter. It's their job to figure out what the audience wants, and then to deliver. And so, even the folks who had announced "nothing to see here, let's move on" have now gone back to talking wall-to-wall Epstein. Most obvious among those is Charlie Kirk, whose Epstein moratorium lasted one day. Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist who once dined with Trump and Kanye West, went further, addressing himself to Trump, and declaring: "Fu** you! Fu** you! You suck. You are fat. You are a joke. You are stupid. You are not funny. You are not as smart as you think you are." Even Lara Trump, who is Trump's daughter-in-law, and who was hired to basically go on Fox and provide a daily serving of Trumpy propaganda, said that it's time for "a president for truth and transparency" to have more transparency about the Epstein situation.
  
  
• The House of Representatives: This is a little tricky, so bear with us. There have already been two efforts, both led by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), to get the House to vote in favor of releasing the information the government has about Epstein. Both efforts failed, but just barely. Now, the heat has apparently grown intense enough that the House Rules Committee is going to vote on its own resolution on the matter.
  
  Here is where it gets tricky. On one hand, House Republicans don't want the resolution coming from a Democrat, nor do they want it coming from prominent Trump antagonist Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). On the other hand, they are still scared of Donald Trump. So, the exact contents of this alleged resolution are currently a mystery. There was talk yesterday that it would be non-binding, although later one Republican member said, off the record, that it would have "some teeth." Hard to know exactly what that means.
  
  Assuming that the Rules Committee does vote on, and approve, some sort of meaningful resolution, it still has to go to the whole House for a vote. And, if you examine your calendar, you will note that: (1) it is summer, and (2) today is Friday. So, there is some substantial amount of pressure from House Republicans to adjourn ASAP, before a whole-House vote can be held. Some members think that would be the best of all worlds; they could go back home and tell constituents "we're doing something!" while not actually doing much of anything for a while, in hopes this all dies down.
  
  
• Vacuums Suck: Nature, of course, abhors a vacuum. And in the absence of information, people will start filling in the gaps for themselves, sometimes in a manner that's even worse than the truth. For example, right-wing journalist Mark Halperin said yesterday that a "blockbuster" exposé is about to drop. Was he talking about the WSJ report? Something else? If something else, what, and when? Similarly, federal prosecutor Maurene Comey was fired this week. She is the daughter of former FBI Director and current Trump enemy James Comey. She also worked on the Epstein case. So, was she fired because of the Comey connection? The Epstein connection? Both? Neither? Already, the conspiracy theories are flourishing.
  
  As we noted yesterday, many Democrats have concluded that there's an opportunity here, and some of them are adding conspiratorial fuel to the fire. For example, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) was on CNN yesterday, and hinted that Trump is withholding the Epstein files so he can use them for blackmail purposes. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced that his investigations have turned up a paper trail of 4,725 wire transfers and almost $1.1 billion involving Epstein, and at just one bank. The Senator says the people deserve to know where that money came from, and what it was for.
  
  
• The Polls: You know that a scandal has reached full maturity when people start polling about it. And The Economist/YouGov have now done so; their latest says that 79% of respondents think the government should release all the materials it has on Epstein, versus just 5% who say the files should stay secret. And the people who most want to see the files are... Trump voters, 83% of them.

Presumably in view of all (or some) of this, Trump made this announcement yesterday:

Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!

The careful reader will notice that while Trump is ostensibly ordering the release of material, he's given himself a triple out: (1) it's only grand jury testimony; (2) and even then, it's only "pertinent" testimony; (3) and even then, it's only if there is court approval. Presumably, he thinks this will keep the wolves at bay. And once again, we will point out that if he were still alive, Richard Nixon might have a few useful things to say about how well it works to try to kill a burgeoning scandal with half-measures. (Z)

ICE Put on Ice: Judge Stops Government from Indiscriminately Grabbing People

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." Decades of case law interpreting that phrase has led to important rules around law enforcement procedures to ensure that all people can be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects." It's fair to say that ICE, CBP and other DHS immigration enforcement arms have been playing fast and loose with the Fourth Amendment to meet quotas imposed by deporter-in-chief Stephen Miller. As readers may know, in the Los Angeles area, ICE has been conducting indiscriminate raids and sweeps and has snatched people up, including U.S. citizens and others in the country legally, and thrown them into a basement in a downtown federal building known as B-18. Once there, federal officials are denying them access to lawyers in violation of the Fifth Amendment, not to mention holding them in "dungeon-like" conditions without access to food (or even water, in some cases). B-18 does not have beds, showers or medical facilities... because it's a basement. But, you know, maybe they can sleep on discarded office furniture.

On July 2, the ACLU filed suit in federal district court on behalf of five individuals, the United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights L.A. (CHIRLA) and other non-profits to enjoin these violations. The cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Culver City, Montebello and others filed a motion to intervene in the suit. On July 11, Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting these roundups without reasonable suspicion, and ordering access to attorneys, as well as safe and sanitary conditions for those held in B-18. In other words, the Court made the radical finding that the federal government is not above the law and must adhere to the Constitution in enforcing immigration law. The Court did not stay the decision and the White House has already appealed for both an administrative stay (a shorter stay while the court decides on the longer stay) and a stay pending appeal to the Ninth Circuit. As of this writing, the Ninth Circuit had not acted on either application. Incredibly, the Department of Justice is arguing to the court that the order "barring unconstitutional stops and arrests is akin to a 'straitjacket' on its operations." So, unless the feds can ignore the Constitution, they can't enforce immigration laws? That is a stunning claim, even from this administration.

There are many important takeaways from this decision (which is really worth reading):

1. The government didn't dispute that the Constitution does not allow "roving patrols without reasonable suspicion" or denying access to lawyers to people in detention.
   
   
2. The plaintiffs presented what the court described as a "mountain" of evidence of the illegal raids, including that many of us have seen a U.S. citizen being roughed up and handcuffed even while he is pleading that he is a U.S. citizen with a Real ID driver's license. He is hauled away even after the officers take his Real ID because he couldn't recall the name of the hospital where he was born.
   
   
3. The government's evidence was... zero. Seriously, the DoJ presented no evidence that the agencies' actions are lawful. Instead, they presented boilerplate training manuals stating that all agents are trained to follow the law. The astonished judge was left to conclude that "what the federal government would have this Court believe—in the face of a mountain of evidence presented in this case—is that none of this is actually happening."
   
   
4. If none of this is actually happening, as the government contends, then how can the Court's order enjoining what everyone agrees would be illegal actions hamper the administration's enforcement of immigration laws? Hopefully, the appeals court will notice that inherent contradiction.
   
   
5. The court's order makes clear that "reasonable suspicion" cannot only be based on race, language spoken (or accent), type of work and/or location of work, such as car washes, restaurants, garden centers, etc. The evidence was clear that the raids are targeted at Latinos, while white people who may be in the country illegally are ignored.
   
   
6. The court's ruling, quoting a Ninth Circuit case, defines "seizure" under the Fourth Amendment as one that includes any one of the following: "a threatening presence of several officers, a display of a weapon by an officer, some physical touching of the person, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer's request might be compelled." This pretty much sums up the raids—masked, heavily-armed men grabbing people and demanding answers to their questions.
   
   
7. This was officially sanctioned conduct—it was not the result of a few rogue agents and the administration has not argued otherwise. The quota of 3,000 daily arrests is well-known, as is the administration's shuttering of oversight agencies and punishing employees who fail to meet the quotas.
   
   
8. The court's order applies district-wide. The Central District of California is the most populous in the country and covers the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura (where the Camarillo raid of the cannabis farms occurred), Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Orange. These are where what federal officials have called the "largest mass deportation operation in history" have been taking place. And the order already appears to be having its intended effect, as the article linked above found: "Weeks of aggressive sweeps by masked and heavily armed federal agents seemed to abruptly cease in [the central district] following Frimpong's order last week."
   
   
9. Frimpong is a Biden appointee, the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, and a Harvard and Yale Law School grad. Central casting couldn't have found someone more likely to infuriate Miller and company. In fact, Miller wasted no time in posting to ex-Twitter after the ruling was issued, calling her a "communist judge in LA." Communist? Apparently, Miller is now just openly channeling his inner Roy Cohn. If this order holds up on appeal and halts ICE operations indefinitely in the place where they took the most pleasure in terrorizing the community, that is some serious schadenfreude.
   
   
10. Whither the Supremes? We can see where this is headed. The effect of the high court's repeated intervention on the administration's behalf through the shadow docket has led to this display of the feds not even bothering to defend their actions in the district court. They are now all-in on their unlawful conduct being sanctioned by the Supreme Court. Even if years down the road they eventually lose, they will still have won in the interim and can ignore the law to their heart's content. And with its recent ruling on the shadow docket giving Trump the green light to 86 the Department of Education, despite rejecting a similarly-situated request for an administrative stay from the Biden administration regarding its student loan program, the Court has made its partisan allegiance even more crystal clear. It has already encouraged Trump to violate lower court orders by tossing out a remedial order imposed by a district court for Trump's failure to provide due process to detainees shipped to third countries. It is fair to wonder whether there will ever be any consequences to Trump's running roughshod over the Constitution.

But meanwhile, Frimpong hedged her bets as much as possible here. She did exactly what the Supreme Court said was required: The order only applies to the central district (as opposed to nationwide) but she also certified a class consisting of anyone who may be subject to a warrantless or suspicionless arrest or detention, just in case the Court decides even a narrow injunction requires a class action before it can apply to anyone other than the named plaintiffs. (L)

In Congress: Democrats Get Mad, But Not Even

Congressional Republicans may be getting ready to defy Donald Trump on Jeffrey Epstein (see above), but they otherwise continue to roll over for the president like well-trained dogs. We certainly hope the GOP members are housebroken (and Housebroken), but with a few of them (ahem, Derrick Van Orden, R-WI), we definitely aren't sure.

First up is the rescissions. Late Wednesday, as expected, the Senate voted to cancel $9 billion for foreign aid and for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), thus giving sanction to a portion of the work done by Elon Musk and DOGE. The vote was 51-48, with Sen. Tina Smith (DFL-MN) absent from the proceedings, and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) joining the Democrats in voting against the cuts. Somehow, some way, Collins once again managed to break ranks with her party without it actually mattering. Funny how that works.

The House took up the measure yesterday morning, and also voted in favor. In the lower chamber, the final vote was 216-213, with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Mike Turner (R-OH) crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats. The legislation now heads to the White House for Donald Trump's signature; he has to take care of business by midnight Friday, and presumably will do so unless someone has hidden all his Sharpies.

Once Trump has signed, the federal outlay for the CPB, which funds both PBS and NPR, will be reduced to $0. Republicans are making no bones about the reason for the cuts; they believe that those outlets have a left-wing bias, and that hurts their fee-fees. For example, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said: "We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) added that public broadcasting "has long been overtaken by partisan activists. Plain and simple." It's true; everyone knows that Daniel Tiger of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is a commie. You think it's just a coincidence that he wears a RED hoodie? Please, comrade...

We have already written this, but it bears repeating. Largely speaking, NPR and PBS outlets in big cities (i.e., blue areas) will be fine, as they have many funding sources, including foundations, donations from patrons, etc. It's the rural NPR and PBS outlets, the ones that serve MAGA voters, that are likely to close up shop. For some reason, those viewers and listeners did not find the programming to be unacceptably woke, left-wing, etc. The CPB, incidentally, gets about one penny out of every $100 the federal government spends, so cutting that funding in the name of economy is clearly justified.

As to the foreign aid, about $400 million in PEPFAR (fighting AIDS) funding was supposed to be cut, but the senators said "no," and put that money back. Most of the cuts, about $8 billion in total, will be to aid for certain Middle Eastern nations (Egypt and Jordan, primarily); several non-PEPFAR global health programs, and Food for Peace, which combats hunger in poor countries. It is very hard to understand why these folks, nearly all of them self-proclaimed Christians, would want to stop helping needy people when the amount involved is basically a rounding error on the overall federal budget. By the way, there are 500 tons of USAID food, with a value of about $800,000, that was supposed to go to hungry children around the world, but that is sitting in a warehouse because DOGE killed USAID. That food has reached its expiration date, and so it will have to be destroyed, at an additional cost of about $150,000. Efficiency!

In addition to approving the rescissions, the Senate—specifically, the Senate Judiciary Committee—also voted to advance the nominations of Emil Bove for a judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Jeanine Pirro for U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, despite the fact that they are both woefully unqualified, and they were both chosen entirely on the basis that they will tote Donald Trump's water. The Democrats on the Committee tried to shame their colleagues into voting "no," and when that failed, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) led them in walking out of the hearing room, in protest. Something of an empty gesture, but it's the only thing they could do, besides doing nothing. Such is life in the minority. (Z)

Programming Note: Stephen Colbert's Time on CBS Is Coming to an End

Let's start this item by talking baseball, specifically this week's MLB All-Star Game. Because the game was in Atlanta, and because we are vaguely in the ballpark of the 50th anniversary of the home run that Henry Aaron hit to break Babe Ruth's record (Aaron, a longtime member of the Braves, did it on April 8, 1974), there was a tribute to the historic home run during the game. The tribute was actually pretty impressive; the producers managed to turn the field itself into the screen upon which the presentation was projected:

There are plenty of people who were at the game, and who recorded it on their phones; you might think the presentation would not work, visually, for those present in person, but it was actually just fine.

The game in which Aaron hit the home run featured the Braves playing the Dodgers, and the tribute alternated between the calls of Braves announcer Milo Hamilton and Dodgers announcer Vin Scully. Scully had a real gift for capturing the spirit of historic moments, and so it was his reflection that was used as the climax of the presentation this week. If you were at the game, or if you were watching on TV, this is what you heard Scully say:

What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world.

It is true that Scully did say that during his original call. However, that is an edited version of his remarks. Here is the full call:

A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world.

That is rather different. It is clear that Scully felt the "marvelous" part was not the home run, per se, but the acceptance of Aaron's accomplishment by a Southern, mostly white fanbase. If there is any doubt about that, here is what Scully—who, by the way, called the majority of the games in which Jackie Robinson played—said about the moment after it was over:

I stood there thinking about the impact, and the more I thought about it... That's what I said when the crowd died down, about what a great moment not just Henry, not just for the Braves, not just for baseball, this was the greatest impact at home run, sociologically. I mean, here is a Black man in the Deep South getting an absolute love ovation for breaking the record of a white icon. To me, that's what made that home run the most important home run that I ever called.

So, the edit that MLB chose to make not only dishonors Aaron (who was very mindful of the racial dimensions of the whole thing), it also undermines Scully's intent. And this in an All-Star game whose overall message was "We really don't care about Georgia's discriminatory voting laws anymore." It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Major League Baseball and its broadcast partner, Fox, were bending over backward to kiss Donald Trump's rear end in particular, and to avoid hurting the feelings of conservative white people in general, out of fear that they would not want to hear anything suggesting that racism is a real thing, even if the words came from the mouth of the politically conservative Scully, and even if the racism in question is from a half-century ago.

We note this as prelude to the news that yesterday, CBS announced that it is canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. This comes less than two weeks after CBS parent company Paramount paid $16 million to settle the meritless lawsuit Trump filed against the company, and about a week after Colbert himself described the settlement as a "big fat bribe."

Given the delicate sensibilities of today's Republicans (see tribute, Hank Aaron; NPR; PBS; etc.), pretty much everyone connected the Trump settlement with the Colbert cancellation. We can actually see five basic possibilities. To wit:

1. This was a (secret) part of the Trump settlement.
   
   
2. This was not part of the Trump settlement, but was done to curry favor with the administration, which has to approve Paramount's planned merger with Skydance.
   
   
3. This was not part of the Trump settlement, but was done to curry favor with Skydance, whose leadership is Trumpy.
   
   
4. This was a warning to all CBS personnel not to say mean things about the Trump administration, potentially at penalty of their jobs.
   
   
5. The timing of the cancellation and the settlement is just coincidental, and the two things have nothing to do with each other.

It could also be one of those "a little of column A, a little of column B" situations.

CBS, for its part, insists that it's just coincidence, and the cancellation was entirely about economics. And, in the network's defense, the whole business is in trouble right now, thanks to streaming and to cord-cutting. Further, it did ax the late-night program that came after Colbert a few weeks ago. So maybe it really was just a business decision.

On the other hand, late-night programming has historically been the cheapest and—therefore—most profitable part of a network schedule, much more so than scripted primetime series. And Colbert is the highest-rated of all the late-night talk shows, outpacing The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. It could be that Colbert's salary is much higher than that of his rivals, but CBS certainly didn't make any effort to fix that problem, if that is the case. Colbert was not told about the cancellation until after it was announced, and so certainly was not given the opportunity to discuss coming back on a more affordable salary. It's at least a little odd that the network would not at least make the attempt.

Ultimately, it basically doesn't matter if Colbert was actually a victim of Trumpism. What matters is that it really looks like he was. And between that, and the 60 Minutes settlement, and the All-Star Game, and the PBS/NPR funding, the message is out there: If you are a part of the media, you cross Trump and/or the Republican Party at your own peril. (Z)

Never Forget: Four Chaplains

Today, because it's a very long post overall, we have a fairly short reminiscence from J.S. in Dayton, NJ:

My grandfather, Olas Smith, enlisted in the Army in 1942. On February 3, 1943, he was en route to Greenland on the SS Dorchester, a transport ship, when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The ship quickly sank. Of the 904 people on board, only 229 survived. Fortunately, my grandfather was one of them. It was his 21st birthday. He got a pretty bad case of frostbite from the icy water and was awarded a Purple Heart. The Dorchester sinking is famous because of the Four Chaplains, who each gave away their life jackets to save others. These men were later honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a commemorative stamp. My grandfather carried this stamp in his wallet for decades, until he gave it to me when I was about 13. I didn't ask him too much about the incident, because he would weep when he talked about it.

After recovering from the Dorchester disaster he was sent to France, where he learned how to curse in French. More importantly, he was thrown from a Jeep when it drove over a landmine, severely injuring his leg. He was awarded a second Purple Heart.

After leaving the military he got married, went to barber school, and eventually settled in Lewes, DE, where he opened a barber shop. Some years later he became a Delaware State Trooper and served for 20 years, retiring as a sergeant in the mid 70's. He passed away in 1989 after Alzheimer's disease stole the spark from his eyes and turned a proud military hero into just a memory, while he was still breathing.

Thanks to a previous "Never Forget," I became aware of the National Personnel Records Center, which makes military records available to the public. Sadly, I've learned that the vast majority of military records of those discharged between 1912 and 1960 were destroyed in a fire in 1973. This explains why I can't find his name in any item about the Dorchester sinking. To make it even more frustrating, no one in the family knows where his Purple Hearts are. I remember seeing them when I was a boy but that's all I've got... memories.

Thanks, J.S. (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

We have had a few requests for reminders as to how this little headline game works, so here goes:

• The clues only appear to the right of the colons in the headlines. We always specify whether it's just one word, or could be more than one.
  
  
• We sometimes exclude headlines, particularly for items that involve death or other subjects with gravitas. This week, as with previous weeks, the "Never Forget" headline is not part of the game.
  
  
• We give a couple of hints on Friday, namely the (most) correct Trivial Pursuit category for the theme, and some additional hint. These are important; if a solution does not work with the TP category and/or the hint, it's probably not correct.
  
  
• Similarly, we try to keep the theme pretty disciplined. For example, we might have a theme that is "football terms." Or we might have a theme that is "football players." But we would not mix football terms and football players.
  
  
• We had a couple of questions recently as to how someone could be "the winner" if they weren't the first person to submit. The reader whose answers we use for the solution is not "the winner." They are just someone we picked out who laid out the whole solution correctly. To make the Top 50, a respondent does not HAVE to go headline-by-headline, and usually the first few responses do not give us anything EXCEPT the theme, in the interest of quickness.
  
  
• Similarly, when we give credit for correct answers, we allow a fair bit of leeway.

And with that out of the way, the first hint for last week was: "[W]e'll say that yesterday, the official White House eX-Twitter account posted another ridiculous meme that is meant to: (1) make Donald Trump cool, by connecting him to popular culture, and (2) burnish Trump's credentials as a strongman (or, at least, a strong man). We'll share the actual meme as tomorrow's hint, but for now, we'll say that the #1 comment on the tweet is: 'His only kryptonite is bone spurs and Epstein lists.'" The second hint for last week was the actual image (Trump's head photoshopped onto Superman's body) along with the remark: "This is... a second hint for the week's headline theme. A big hint. A very big hint. A super hint." Oh, and the TP category for last week was "language."

And now, here is the solution, courtesy of reader B.H. in Sherman Oaks, CA:

Each headline has a word that can be preceded by "super":

• Trade War: Trump Is Just Making Things up on the Fly
• Legal News: The Birthright Citizenship Ball Is Back in John Roberts' Court
• Channeling Elbridge Gerry: GOP Desperately Trying to Save House Majority
• The Epstein Files: MAGA Base Continues to Freak Out
• I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The Jackson 8
• This Week in Schadenfreude: Grok Does a Villain Turn
• This Week in Freudenfreude: The Farmer Is the Man, Part II

"Star," from the headline for this item, also fits the category.

Here are the 30 readers to get it right:

D.D. in Highland Park, IL N.H. in London, England, UK A.C. in Kingston, MA J.N. in Zionsville, IN D.L. in Uslar, Germany A.E. in Cleveland, OH K.G.W. in Lafayette, IN P.Q. in Metuchen, NJ H.B. in Toronto, ON, Canada S.G. in Durham, NC B.H. in Sherman Oaks S.W. in Corvallis, OR B.B. in Charleston, WV D.P. in Lexington, KY H.B. in State College, PA C.W. in Atlantic Beach, FL T.T. in Conway, AR M.W. in Altea, Spain M.M. in Dunellen, NJ R.S. in Milan, OH M.T. in Simpsonville, SC S.W. in Winter Garden, FL D.B. in Glendale, CA D.M. in Oakland, CA D.L. in Springfield, IL D.H. in Portland OR D.M. in Amagansett, NY O.B. in Santa Monica, CA C.R. in Houston, TX D.E. in Lancaster, PA

As you can see, we did not get up to 50. However, the 30th correct response was received at 10:37 a.m. PT on Saturday. Even we can't guess when the 50th correct answer will come in, so don't hold back based on assumptions.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word in some headlines, and multiple words in others, and it's in the Trivial Pursuit category Publishing (which is found in 1983's "Baby Boomer Edition.") For a hint, we'll say that Sarah Palin would certainly be unable to solve the puzzle, especially if Katie Couric is around.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line July 18 Headlines. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Find a Loophole, Save a Fortune?

We might have to change the name of this feature to "This Week in Malicious Compliance," because that is definitely a recurring theme recently.

Today's malicious complier is... the nation of Italy. By GDP, Italy certainly is not poor, ranking 8th in the world, right between France and Canada. However, the Italian people are not big fans of taxes, and at the same time they definitely expect the government to provide a social safety net. Taken together, that leaves not a lot of money for defense. Certainly not 5% of GDP, which is what the Trump administration is demanding of NATO members. At the moment, Italy spends about 1.5% of GDP on its military, or about $35 billion.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is either a right-wing populist, or a fascist, or both, depending on who you ask, believes that she is the Trump whisperer, and that she understands how he thinks. And consistent with that, she's come up with a plan to give him what he wants. The Italians have been trying, for many years, to build a bridge between the Italian mainland and Sicily, at an estimated cost of $15 billion. But what if... that bridge might plausibly serve a military purpose, moving vehicles and personnel around in the event that Italy is invaded by, say, Ethiopia? Then, the $15 billion would be a military expenditure, and would count toward the 5% target.

Consequently, the Italian legislature has formally adopted a document that decrees "the bridge over the Strait of Messina also has strategic importance for national and international security, so much so that it will play a key role in defense and security, facilitating the movement of Italian armed forces and NATO allies..." Meloni thinks that this will be enough to assuage Trump, since he loves, loves, loves big development projects, and since he could declare a "win." And she might well be right.

Of course, if Trump takes the bait, then all the other NATO countries are going to quickly "discover" the military applications of the bridges, roads, airports, subways, public housing and other projects they were already planning to build. For example, the French just spent $2 billion cleaning up the Seine. Now, it will be available for soldiers to swim from one end of Paris to the other, in the event the city needs to be protected from invasion by... uh... the Swiss? (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: The Day Mr. Rogers Made It Real Simple

There are many great anecdotes about Fred Rogers. The time, for example, that his car was stolen. When word got out that it wasn't just anyone's car, it was Mr. Rogers' car, the thieves returned it the next day, to the very spot where they had taken it from. Or the fact that, whenever he fed his fish on the show, he always explained verbally what he was doing. That is because he'd gotten a letter from a young, blind viewer who wanted to be certain the fish were OK. Oh, and speaking of fan letters, Mr. Rogers answered them all, all by himself. There's even a collection of them, entitled Dear Mister Rogers, Does It Ever Rain in Your Neighborhood?

Of course, Mr. Rogers was also a trailblazer. He did not invent children's television, but he basically did establish that children's television could engage with serious subjects, as long as it was in an age-appropriate manner. Most famously, after seeing the (rather terrifying) "instructional" classroom film Duck and Cover, he once did a whole week on nuclear war. Behind the scenes, one of the key cast members on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was François Scarborough Clemmons, who played, well... Officer Clemmons. Clemmons, who is still among us, is gay. Mr. Rogers, who was an ordained Presbyterian minister, knew Clemmons was gay. And while that could not plausibly be incorporated into a children's show of that era, Mr. Rogers made clear that Clemmons would not be terminated on the basis of his sexuality. That was an unusually tolerant attitude for nearly any person of that time, much less for an ordained minister.

And then there is one of the most famous incidents from Mr. Rogers' career. In the late 1960s, the Senate Committee on Commerce's Subcommittee on Communications was holding hearings to decide whether or not to slash the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by half, from $20 million to $10 million. The chair of the Subcommittee was Sen. John Pastore (D-RI), a budget hawk known for being a hardass. On May 1, 1969, Mr. Rogers appeared in order to testify. You can read his remarks here, or you can watch them:

It was masterful, full of the empathy and the gentle good humor for which Mr. Rogers was so well known. Pastore was completely won over, and admitted he had "goose bumps." The Senator concluded: "I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars." In fact, the Senate eventually ended up bumping the total to $22 million.

Yesterday, on reading about the decision-making going on in Congress, we were reminded of this rather famous incident. And we weren't the only ones; the footage of Mr. Rogers' appearance was all over the place yesterday. Back then, there was a lot of decency to go around, even if one person had a D after their name, and another person had an R (and although he did not broadcast it, Mr. Rogers was indeed an R). One can only hope that the nation eventually gets back to that place, one of these days.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

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