Daily Archives
46 posts · Saturday
Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 191
Blue Wave Update
“President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would decide whether to live-stream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, two days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it would be publicly shown,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “There are two thoughts: don’t show it, and show it. By showing it, maybe other people won’t be doing what he did. I’ll make a decision, ultimately.”
“Last year, Justice Department officials said a sweeping investigation would unravel a grand conspiracy by a cabal of national security officials who sought to undermine President Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Trump allies hoped it would definitively confirm what they have been alleging for years: Officials who investigated the president over the last decade engaged in what was essentially a coordinated effort to violate his civil rights.”
“Instead, the probe has been beset by departures, infighting and inexperience.”
“A federal judge has blocked the Justice Department from accessing state voter rolls to find noncitizen voters and bar them from casting ballots,” the Washington Sun reports.
“Shortly after President Donald Trump authorized the attorney general to contact states for information on suspected election law violations in March 2025, the DOJ began requesting complete and unredacted copies of states’ computerized voter registration lists. The department has filed dozens of lawsuits in attempts to compel enforcement — all of which have been blocked or dismissed by other district courts so far, with a handful of decisions outstanding.”
“The National Park Service will begin cutting down more than 500 trees on Saturday at a public golf course in Washington, D.C. that President Trump is planning to replace with a ‘championship-level’ course,” the New York Times reports.
“President Trump said he wasn’t involved in the plan to livestream the execution by firing squad of Fort Hood killer Nidal Hasan, while stressing that he understands the decision to make an ‘example’ of him,” the New York Post reports.
Said Trump: “They want to do that because they want to set an example. I wasn’t involved in that decision, but I understand the decision.”
“The uproar isn’t dying down over U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle and her reported request to have a MAGA donor pay down her personal credit card debt,” The Hill reports.
“President Trump, when asked about the matter as he prepared to leave for New York Friday, was conspicuously noncommittal.”
Said Trump: “I just heard about it: Too bad. I don’t know too much. But she was always very nice.”
MS NOW: Trump donor accuses Kimberly Guilfoyle of quid pro quo: ‘She’s a grifter.’
“Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been moved back to prison,” the Associated Press reports.
New York Times: A vague, redacted execution protocol in Tennessee draws scrutiny.
Wall Street Journal: “While pushback against data centers is well-known nationwide, battlegrounds across Ohio and Michigan might become a test case for a question swirling around the midterms: Will voters punish politicians over them?”
“In the Midwest, where sprawling facilities are rising on farmland and former factory sites, the issue has become a—if not the—central political focus.”
MS NOW: “According to Marshall’s most recent Federal Election Commission records filed in July, no one working for Marshall’s campaign had received a paycheck in the past five years — a situation that campaign finance experts said was potentially unprecedented in the modern era of politics.”
“But according to Marshall’s chief of staff, Brent Robertson, the campaign now does have some paid staff, though he declined to offer evidence or details, such as how many people were being paid or when their employment began.”
“Still, campaign experts say the situation raises questions about the line between Marshall’s campaign and his taxpayer-funded Senate office.”
“Republicans are running out of ways to reverse their gloomy midterm prospects,” Politico reports.
“The Politico Poll finds most Americans see no clear way for the party to regain the advantage as the election reaches its final weeks, with even Republican voters skeptical that President Donald Trump could pull off a last-minute move that could shake up the campaign. And majorities of voters say they would not be more likely to vote Republican even if Trump were to pull off a major political feat before November — like announcing the Iran war was over, bringing the price of gasoline down by $1 or creating 100,000 new jobs.”
“That’s especially true of Democratic midterm and undecided voters: No matter the scenario or how significant the accomplishment, both groups hardly moved, the poll shows.”
“Donald Trump’s new press secretary has had a sordid online history of spreading vaccine conspiracy theories, calling for the upending of constitutional norms, and encouraging the president to run for a third term in office—much of which she appears to have tried to expunge from the public record sometime before ascending to her new job,” The Bulwark reports.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin conveyed Tehran’s vision for a possible end to the war in Iran to U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian state media reported Saturday,” CNBC reports.
“The report comes a day after Trump said Russia will supply diesel to the global market amid a surge in energy prices caused by the wars in Iran and Ukraine.”
“Presidents have long made bombastic pledges to voters in last-minute electoral appeals,” Bloomberg reports.
“Now, that playbook is in full force ahead of November’s midterm election, as President Donald Trump crisscrosses the country touting promised multibillion-dollar megaprojects in battleground states and credits his tariff agenda with ushering in a golden age of domestic manufacturing.”
“But pledges for a steel plant in Iowa, an aluminum smelter in Oklahoma and a long-sought gas pipeline in Alaska face significant questions, leaving it unclear whether the projects will fully materialize or amount to anything more than a midterm mirage.”
“The U.S. has announced sanctions against the International Criminal Court, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowing to dismantle the world’s only permanent war crimes tribunal,” NPR reports.
A new Pew Research poll finds Democrats leading Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, 44% to 36%.
“Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton, who has unexpectedly turned deep red Kansas into a toss-up, has drawn high-profile Republican supporters as he tries to pull off one of the biggest upsets of the midterms,” the Washington Post reports.
“Two former GOP governors in Kansas, Mike Hayden and Bill Graves, endorsed Hamilton, writing op-eds, giving interviews and appearing in campaign videos in which they say his opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, is no longer the right fit for the state.”
The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore.
Lepore repudiates the prospect of AI as a replacement for democracy.
“American truckers are warning that sky-high diesel prices are eating into their profits and putting pressure on trucking companies to cut routes, raising concerns that some drivers could be forced off the road and the pain could eventually reach Americans at the grocery store,” Fox News reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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