It is late August, kids are either already back in school or headed there soon.

It is hot outside and the young (and some olds) are looking to cool down and enjoy that last splash of summer. In NYC there is a tradition that goes back decades. Opening a fire hydrant and enjoying a blast of cool water. Which is also a very nostalgic view on something that was a problem for the FDNY. Opening hydrants could lead to drops in water pressure that made it harder for them to fight fires. It was also a waste of water as an open hydrant will pour out 1,000 gallons of water a minute. They found a solution that worked for everyone. Spray caps, available for free from the FDNY.

With over a million views on TikTok it is Bee & Lin.

@beeandlin#roadtrip #winetasting #grandmagiggles #grandmajokes #sillyjokes

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Bee (Belinda Buras) and Lin (Linda Simeone) are a married couple and a comedy duo who have found unexpected success in telling corny jokes. They live in Delaware and have been together for more than 40 years. After going viral on TikTok in 2020, the couple has continued making videos for fans all over the world. Bee tells the joke, and Lin’s exasperated reactions are always interrupted by Bee’s giggles as she tries to deliver the punchline. In this podcast they talk about falling in love; dealing with Lin’s cancer; how much they enjoy sharing their humor and that laughter really is great medicine.

We all know that having pets relieves stress, brings joy, and helps fight loneliness. It has been found that humans having a pet can go back as far as 14,000 years. From the NYT and ecologist Zoë Goldsborough: “There are theories that pet-keeping began either because animals were useful for tasks like hunting and protection or because humans have a natural tendency to care for and bond with other living beings,” they are also finding that animals do this with other species. It is thought that animals do this for the same reason humans do, companionship.

Some pets also make good business partners. Doug and The Business Cats share their takes on the world, with Doug, Newt, Frog, and Toad being voiced by comedian Drennon Davis. The humor can range from silly to edgy, and they are not afraid to say Fuck ICE!

It can be easy to assume that young people have no interest in things from the past unless a smart phone is somehow involved, but Autumn Mowery defies that notion. At the age of 18 she worked at the local candlepin alley and learned how to keep the old machinery working, but the owner let it fall into disrepair and the alley was going to be razed.

Autumn asked the owner to let her try running the place and poured her heart into it. After helping a battered woman escape her abuser she realized the space could also be used to help people find community beyond the sporting kind. Now at the age of 24 she is in the process of taking ownership and buying the alley.

Nice Times from Wonkers!

• From Up Here in the Clouds: “I do not have breast cancer! Got the super fancy diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound and came back benign (ok, BI RADS 3, but I will take it). And my hibiscus plants decided to celebrate by blooming today.”

• From NatalyaSResists: “Last Friday, the MRI of my head revealed...A Brain! Plus, the platinum coil used to fill a cerebral aneurysm in 2023 is still doing its job. Yay, head!”

• From Mad Ophelia: “I finally finished knitting my very first pair of socks! They actually match and are foot shaped and are comfy and fit and everything, which is way more than I was expecting for a first try.”

• From memzilla: “I have a home healthcare aide, she has a son with autism.

  After I asked how her son was doing, she told me that he was scheduled to go to Slime Town, but because her check wouldn’t come until Friday, he couldn’t go. She needed $15.

  Now it is frowned upon by their employers to tip home health care workers, but I tip her $5-10 a week.

  So I said “OK. Here’s $20, but this is your tips in advance for next month.”

  She gratefully accepted. Afterwards, I asked how he liked it.

  HE HAD AN EIGHT-CYLINDER BLAST! And a tub of slime candy to leave with.

  Best $20 I ever spent.”

I got so many Nice Times from Wonkers, look for more next week and keep sending them! (Might be edited for space limitations but not content.)

Send to ziggywiggynicetimes@gmail.com or DM me here on Substack.

This week’s recommendation from the Movieboss is Everything, Everywhere All At Once. Which has my favorite movie quote, which should be the Nice Times motto:

When I choose to see the good side of things I am not being naïve, it is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything.

It is available on Disney, but also worth a $3.99 rental. Although it does seem to need a second watching to really get it.

We end with music that is spirited, hopeful, and unique. It is Celtic-Indian folk music, with bagpipes played by the performer The Snake Charmer. She infuses Bhangra with her own take on the song Toss The Feathers, a traditional Irish folk song. So danceable and I also find the lyrics to be inspirational, “Jeet ke aaya” (I came back victorious.)

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Start with a 4 pound duck, add garlic, onion and ginger…

Oh wait wrong duck soup!

For this Duck Soup add 4 Marx brothers, some spicy Margaret Dumont, several cups of slapstick and a hefty sprinkling of digs at politics for a delicious comedy of ridiculousness.

So why is this movie called Duck Soup when the only ducks are in the opening credits, although Groucho’s character of Rufus T. Firefly does eat quackers in bed? Duck soup is an old expression meaning something that is effortless or a naïve person that is easy to get one over on, a sucker.

Mrs. Gloria Teasdale is an incredibly wealthy widow who the government of Freedonia is hoping will bail it out with a $20 million loan. That would be a little over $500 million in today’s world. But Mrs. Teasdale knows she has the power to buy the government she wants, even if it is a really bad choice based purely on her affections for one man. And that man is Rufus T. Firefly. Freedonia can have the money if they put Rufus in charge.

Rufus is a very unserious man who really has no interest in governing, although he does enjoy all the pomp and circumstance that goes with the job. Mr. Firefly also doesn’t have the knowledge or the skills for the task but that won’t stop him from trying. Now who does that sound like? At least Rufus is somewhat likable.

The neighboring country of Sylvania has sent its ambassador Trentino, an ambitious man who will use any underhanded trick to instigate a revolution in Freedonia that he hopes will give Sylvania control over the country. He has hired two inept spies to help him, Chicolini and Pinky.

But Rufus outdumbs (with a b) them all by making Chicolini the Secretary of War. As an insult and a slap has brought the two countries to the brink of war, Freedonia’s war plans are placed in the safe in Mrs. Teasdale’s home. Chicolini doesn’t have any interest in the testosterone of Freedonia’s army but is looking to get his hands on the war plans to gain an advantage.

With no one of intelligence or the courage to speak up in charge of Freedonia, the country stumbles into war with Sylvania. With Ambassador Trentino leading the fight for Sylvania, the bombing and shooting begin, with death and destruction following.

And this is a silly, slapstick comedy!

Duck Soup was the last film the Marx Brothers did for Paramount, where they had a five-film contract. The other movies were The Cocoanuts (1929), Animal Crackers (1930), Monkey Business (1931), and Horse Feathers (1932). I’ve included links to free versions if you want to have a Marx Brothers Marathon of your own!

Duck Soup stars Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Raquel Torres, and Edgar Kennedy. Directed by Leo McCarey.

Duck Soup is available for free on the Internet Archive (FF to 9:22); free on Vimeo; $3.99 in the usual places.

To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.

The animated short is The Three Marx Brothers. From 1962, it was a stop-motion animated show that was meant to be the start of a series from Screen Gems. But the show never happened and this animated short is all that was created.

Next week’s movie night selection is Gaslight (1944), available for free with ads on Xumo Play and Plex; $3.99 in the usual places.

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You may think watching even five minutes of The Great American Road Trip, the godawful reality show starring Transportation Secretary and smarmy asshole Sean Duffy, his execrable wife Rachel Campos-Duffy, and their 97 children that suddenly dropped on YouTube this week is a waste of five minutes you could spend doing literally anything else. And you would be correct.

Still, it was worth watching the episode where the family visits Boston, even if it took us like three hours to get through all 27 minutes because we kept pausing the video to contemplate all the life choices that had brought us to that moment. It was worth it because watching Sean and Rachel Duffy absolutely freaking the fuck out in terror of their daughter attending the woke Grand Guignol that is Harvard might be the funniest thing we’ve seen in months. We haven’t seen anyone with that level of terror since our 10th-grade geometry final.

And it is not just one small moment. No, the fear that the Duffys’ daughter, Paloma, will turn into some sort of mind-controlled lesbian witch if she matriculates at Harvard is a theme the show returns to again and again and again. By the time we got to the final scene, we were half-expecting it to be Sean and Rachel either in therapy or becoming Old Order Mennonites.

The griping starts not even two minutes into the show. As the rest of the family scrambles around packing and getting ready, Duffy and Paloma sit at their giant kitchen island and talk colleges. He asks if she’ll push to be allowed to go if she gets in, and she replies, “I feel like you can’t say no to Harvard.”

“Well, me and Mom can say no,” says Sean, dickishly. The scene jumps to Sean and Rachel sitting on a couch discussing their cultural resentments reasoned opposition:

RACHEL: Catholicism to us is everything. It’s the basis of our marriage, it’s the basis of our family. So I’m nervous about the idea of Paloma going to Harvard. We spend a lot of time nurturing and providing formation for our kids, giving them an environment where they are steeped in faith and values. And so the idea of dropping her off at a place that would undermine that or try to undo all those things makes me worried.

Yeah, it’s so hard to remain connected to the Catholic Church in fucking Boston.

The idea that Harvard is a liberal indoctrination camp rubbing its hands together in anticipation of getting them on nice religious conservatives so it can corrupt them and turn them into the sorts of people who think transgender people should have basic human rights is at the heart of all this. We’re sure it sounds reasonable to the Duffys. To us, they just sound like the culture war dipshits they are in every other forum.

SEAN: I don’t want them to get one viewpoint. I want them to get a lot of different viewpoints, but I don’t want them fed only one viewpoint that’s contrary to the way my kids were raised.

We want them exposed to a wide range of worldviews! Just not those worldviews, if you know what we mean. (Anything to the left of Opus Dei, that’s what they mean.) This is how you know he’s not really open to his kids hearing different viewpoints. If he was okay with the idea, he wouldn’t be terrified that they might agree with some of it.

The Duffys have nine kids. Statistically speaking, five of them are liberals. If we were Sean Duffy, we’d prepare for some disappointment.

Back in the kitchen, Sean tells Paloma that if he sends her to Harvard,

“I think what happens is they have professionalized figuring out how they can take good young girls like you and I think corrupt their minds.”

These are your tax dollars going to fund this indulgence in paranoia and professional victimhood.

By this point, all of three minutes into this travesty, we were rooting for Paloma to get a full scholarship to Harvard just so she could call her parents a week after they drop her off and tell them how fascinating she finds her Intro to Queer Gender Theory class.

Paloma, it should be said, seems like a smart kid whose head is screwed on way tighter than either of her parents. After another minute of her father whining that Harvard isn’t that well-rounded (he doesn’t say because of woke but he might as well), she responds that she went to a conservative high school and comes from an extremely conservative family, and if she goes to a college in a liberal setting, that is way more well-rounded than if she goes to, like, Hillsdale.

“But they’re so good at it,” he whines. “You’ll see young people go to a conservative school with a conservative family, and they get perverted and contorted.” At which point we were hoping Paloma would show up at Thanksgiving wearing flannel and talking about her new best friend Jeanine who loves fly fishing.

Paloma, to her credit, recognizes that her parents are being “dramatic and close-minded.” No kidding, kid. Welcome to their entire careers. You don’t get that nice big house with a kitchen island you could play soccer on by being reasonable and open-minded wingnuts.

Then it’s into the car, where Rachel whines that schools like Harvard are beautiful and they will “woo you” and suck you in, like the Sirens calling out to Odysseus. Then once they’ve got you, presumably they spring their trap and turn you into the sort of person who thinks single-payer healthcare is a good idea.

This is the dynamic throughout the rest of the episode. The parents are neurotics spiraling over their daughter wanting to attend the sort of school they have spent their careers excoriating, and the kids find very reasonable ways to soothe their nerves. It’s some parenting job by the kids, calming down these riled-up toddlers.

Eventually it is on to Harvard, where the family goes right to meet with a Catholic chaplain at the school. He assures the Duffys that there are plenty of Catholic students at Harvard. Lots of them even come to Mass on the regular. Sean and Rachel both seem relieved that he didn’t say something like This is a godless place, full of heathens and drink and fornication. Any child who willingly attends this place will not know the eternal company of our Savior.

It was a bit surprising. We would have thought they would be disappointed that he’s not validating every horrific stereotype about Harvard the entire right wing has been telling itself about for decades.

By the end of the episode, Sean and Rachel have come around and decided to be open-minded about their daughter possibly attending one of the most renowned universities on the planet. In fact, they are so relieved that we’re semi-convinced it was all an act for their fans, they would be thrilled if their daughter went to the Ivy of Ivies no matter what, and everyone else is a sucker.

The Kardashians they’re not. We’re unsure if we mean that as a positive or a slur.

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There’s a lot of reason to expect a blue wave in November’s midterm elections, assuming people are able to vote freely and fairly, which may not be an entirely safe assumption. Democrats are likely to win control of the House of Representatives, even after Republicans gerrymandered several states in an attempt to shore up their slim majority — in some cases while voting was literally already underway.

In the Senate, Dems need to pick up a net four seats to take control — five, really, because John Fetterman — which is harder but doable. Taking the Senate back would be key to slowing down the fuckery Trump can get away with in the remaining years of his term. Election forecasters have shifted their predictions in some key races to suggest Democrats have a better chance; this week the Cook Political Report adjusted its ratings for Texas and Iowa from “Lean Republican” to “Toss-up,” which we wouldn’t have expected earlier in the year. And Fox News moved both Texas and Kansas from “Likely Republican” to “Toss-up.” Good luck, James Talarico, Josh Turek, and Adam Hamilton.

Yr Wonkette loves a good long-shot candidate challenging a terrible Trumplicking Republican incumbent, for sure. But let’s not get too crazy here, please. We already worry that our optimism for the Dems in those red states is more about irrational exuberance, falling in love with smart, charismatic candidates, and a dash of wishful thinking that at least some folks in those states will see how Trump’s policies are hurting them.

There’s no need to tempt us with stories about the supposedly credible chances of plucky Democrats seeking to unseat awful GOP incumbents in Arkansas or in Mississippi. Or for Crom’s sake, Idaho? Really, Newsweek? That’s just cruel.

And hell yes, of course we like the plucky Democrats. Maybe we should try to kick these footballs! They’re so shiny!

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Feed The Kitty

Arkansas: Hallie Shoffner Beating Tom Cotton?

In Arkansas, a poll by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College found that Democratic nominee Hallie Shoffner, a farmer and businesswoman, had a narrow lead (47.4 percent) against incumbent Republican Tom Cotton (44 percent), who we always mix up with Missouri’s Josh Hawley because both look like rodents.

The poll was almost certainly an outlier, experts said, and polling in the summer before campaigning goes into full swing often demonstrate more willingness among voters to think about alternatives to whoever’s in office.

That said, it’s not great news for Cotton, who has far more name recognition and campaign money than Shoffner. It’s particularly telling that in this poll, independents preferred Shoffner two-to-one over Cotton. Shoffner also had better numbers than Democrats usually do in the suburbs around Little Rock. Cotton, not surprisingly, performed well with voters 65 and older, because red state.

It’s also worth noting that a July poll by the “2040 Strategy Group” and commissioned by Shoffner’s campaign found Shoffner down by just three percentage points against Cotton (46 percent Cotton, 43 percent Shoffner, 12 percent “don’t know”). That outcome was well within the margin of error, a statistical tie.

Again, there are methodological issues with the poll, like the sample size — just 586 likely Arkansas voters — and the fact that it was paid for by the campaign. But as the Arkansas Times notes, the poll may also “quantify something you probably already knew: The bloodthirsty and charisma-deficient automaton that is Tom Cotton is just not a very likeable guy.”

2040 Strategy Group co-founder Tabitha Bonilla said voter dissatisfaction with Cotton is the big takeaway from the poll. The surprise, she said, is that “an incumbent senator with nearly universal name recognition remains below 50% while a challenger who is still introducing herself to voters is the only candidate with a net-positive image. Those are indicators of a genuinely competitive race.”

Another indicator would be that in July, Shoffner’s campaign announced it raised more funds in the most recent quarter than Cotton, although his campaign started out with a $10 million war chest and the real fall spending blitz is yet to come. Her money is coming from small donors; Cotton is largely funded by super PACs.

Shoffner certainly has a compelling personal story, having operated her family’s farm for nine years before Trump’s tariffs (the campaign page doesn’t name him; we will), rising costs, and unstable markets forced her to shut down operations in 2025 for the sake of keeping the land for her parents to retire on.

Shoffner’s website points out that “while Arkansas families like hers struggle, Tom Cotton voted against the Farm Bill, against Medicaid, against economic development, and against disaster relief - while supporting tax cuts for billionaires and blowing up the national debt.”

The campaign frames Shoffner as driven not by ambition, but by the sense that she something has to give: “She didn’t plan to run for office. She wanted to farm.” It’s a pretty good pitch!

Mississippi: Scott Colom Takes On Trumpy Relic Cindy Hyde-Smith

Mississippi is one of those states that has in recent years stayed just out of reach for Democratic candidates. Its 2023 election for governor was decided by just three percentage points, with Republican incumbent Tate Reeves narrowly beating challenger Brandon Presley, a distant cousin of that Elvis fellow.

This year, Mississippi voters could get rid of incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who nearly always votes how Donald Trump wants. Her fealty to Trump makes her an easy choice for MAGA loyalists, but Democratic nominee Scott Colom, a district attorney for the state’s 16th judicial district, hopes to benefit from voter disenchantment with Great Leader — especially those prized independents.

Like Shoffner in Arkansas, Colom is definitely a long shot candidate, and so far he doesn’t appear to have even outlier polls going his way. The New York Times summary only shows SPLC-funded polling from April, in which voters preferred “Someone else” by 53 percent to Hyde-Smith’s 33 percent. Once the generic “someone else” was replaced with Colom specifically, Hyde-Smith still managed only 42 percent to his 39 percent, a teensy little lead for a US senator seeking a second term.

Colom and Hyde-Smith also have a bit of history; during the Biden administration, she blocked his nomination for a federal judgeship. Colom says he’s not looking for any sort of revenge; he just wants Hyde-Smith out because she’s such a devoted pusher of Trump’s agenda, especially her support for the Big Ugly Billionaire Blowie Bill.

If Colom can win against Hyde-Smith, he’d become Mississippi’s first Black senator since Reconstruction, and its first Democratic senator since 1982. There’s just one other little history problem, as Mississippi Today columnist Bobby Harrison points out: “Mississippians do not vote incumbent senators out of office. There is no better definition of job security than holding one of Mississippi’s two U.S. Senate seats.”

In fact, the last time an incumbent senator was vote out in Mississippi was in 1942, back in Jim Crow days.

Then again, that run of reelecting incumbents is only a statistical trend, not an ironclad rule, so hey, why shouldn’t Colom be that “Someone else” who can win against Hyde-Smith? As he says on his website, Hyde-Smith “isn’t working for us anymore, voting against Mississippi jobs and investments because it serves her donors’ agenda.”

Also like Shoffner, Colom out-fundraised the Republican incumbent in the quarter ending in July, bringing in small-donor cash, not big money from Republican funding committees. He’s raised about $2 million so far, all of it without support (at least not yet) from the national party, which is sending its money to candidates with higher chances of winning, as you’d expect.

His campaign is hitting hard against Hyde-Smith’s ties to corporate donors and special interests, and as Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland) pointed out while campaigning for him in Mississippi, voters’ dissatisfaction with the Trump economy and his stupid Iran war could boost votes for lots of Dems running in red states this year. “They cannot afford their groceries,” Alsobrooks told the AP in an interview. “They cannot afford the cost of gas. They cannot afford housing. It’s all over the country.”

As the AP notes, Mississippi is a far smaller media market than, say, Texas, where James Talarico needs millions of dollars to go up against Ken Plankton. Ad buys in Mississippi will go farther, and retail campaigning still matters.

To win against Hyde-Smith, Colom would need a few stars to align, if he can push ‘em into place, especially if he can “increase Mississippi’s usual Black turnout by a few percentage points and get a larger share of the white vote than Democrats typically do.”

This might be the year for some surprises. You can help improve the odds by helping out Hallie Shoffner here, and/or Scott Colum here.

[AP / New Republic (or via Yahoo News) / Arkansas Times / The Hill / Mississippi Today / NBC News / Hallie Shoffner for Senate / Scott Colom for Senate]

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Blue Wave Please!

For the last 11 days, after being hit with a tornado last Tuesday and severe weather for days after, tens of thousands in Gary and northwest Indiana have been without power.

Food has spoiled, schools are closed, trees are down, power lines are down, and people are suffering. They can’t take showers, they can’t make food, they’re waiting in lines for hot meals, they’re driving to Chicago just to get ice to keep their insulin and other life-saving medications cold.

According to NIPSCO, the energy company used by 100 percent of Gary residents, over 300,000 people initially lost power last week, and 33,000 are still going without. NIPSCO says that full power should be restored by Tuesday, though many residents are skeptical that this will happen at all, as they’ve said the same thing about other dates (including yesterday) that have since come and gone.

Incredibly, this dire situation has barely been reported outside of local news in Indiana and some of the Midwest until yesterday — and then possibly only because residents who were able to charge turned to social media to spread the word about what’s been going on and to ask for help and people outside the area started asking why this wasn’t national news.

Isn’t it always the way?

@dribabeeWE MADE THE NEWS 🥳 #garyindiana #blackout #indiana

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@.aja_baGo fund me in my bio . Day 6 in the fawning dark , we have nothing . Can’t see nothing .

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@therealgarylucianoUpdate: Day 10 Still No Power Here In Gary, Indiana #poweroutage #garyindiana Anything Helps Just DM ME 🔙🔛🔜

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It also took some time to get an emergency declaration from FEMA, though it is not clear what, if anything, they have done yet.

“At this point, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has approved an emergency declaration for Indiana, making certain federal disaster assistance resources available to the State of Indiana to supplement state and local response efforts,” Congressman Frank Mrvan said in a press conference earlier in the week. “As Northwest Indiana navigates the disaster response and recovery process following the severe storms beginning on August 11, I am committed to being a resource and trusted source of information for local governments, elected officials, and residents in our region.”

Last year, President Trump announced that he wanted to cut FEMA entirely and let states fend for themselves in emergency situations like this. That hasn’t happened yet, but Trump has been reportedly slacking on approving FEMA disaster aid in all states, and very frequently denying blue states altogether. Indiana, obviously, is a red state, but Gary itself is 85 percent Democratic and 76 percent Black.

On Thursday, Governor Mike Braun also issued a request for an emergency major disaster declaration, and may have a better chance at getting some help, as he is a Republican and that is apparently how things work now.

Via PBS:

During his second term, Trump has denied a greater percentage of disaster requests than any president dating to 1989. Those denials have not been evenly distributed among states.

Trump has approved 80% of the disaster requests from Republican governors but only about 60% from Democratic governors, according to the AP’s analysis of FEMA data.

The discrepancy is even more apparent when analyzing major disaster declarations based on presidential elections. Trump has approved more than three-fourths of the requests from states that voted for him in the 2024 election but less than half the requests from states that did not. Although there are federal criteria for disaster aid, decisions ultimately are at the president’s discretion.

From what I can tell, so far, food critic Keith Lee has been far more dedicated to organizing help and aid in Gary than the federal government has been.

@keith_lee125Keith Speaks 💕 Gary Indiana We’ll See Y’all Soon 💕 #foodcritic @Salvation Army USA

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Of course, that’s just what happens when you gut the living shit out of FEMA — which for the last year or so had largely been run by a guy who believed he had teleported to Waffle House.

Technically, however, the agency was without an official leader from when Trump first took office for the second time to August 10, the day before Gary was struck by a tornado. That was the day that Cameron Hamilton was sworn in as head. To his credit, I suppose, Hamilton was fired from FEMA last year by the Trump administration for very rudely telling Congress that he did not believe the agency should be eliminated, because people probably need help when hit by disasters like this. But that’s about as good as it gets.

“President Trump is revealing his chaotic governing style by nominating a candidate who was fired last year and who lacks the experience and qualifications for the job as required under law,” Union of Concerned Scientists senior climate resilience policy analyst Shana Udvardy said when Hamilton was first nominated. “Hamilton is now back as a nominee to lead an agency that has been depleted by thousands of job cuts, unstable leadership and resource reductions, leaving FEMA less prepared to confront more frequent and intense extreme weather and climate-fueled disasters. Congress should press him for answers that the American public needs, with the safety and well-being of communities on the line.”

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Gary, if you didn’t know, was originally a company town. It was established in 1906 by US Steel (and now you get a joke from The Music Man — which was meant to take place in 1912 — that you may not have clocked), and for decades, a majority of residents worked in that industry. However, as the need for steel began to decline in the 1970s, so did the city. Today, there are 100,000 fewer people in the city than there were in the ‘70s and 30 percent live in poverty — which is part of why it’s a pretty big deal that NIPSCO is still charging people for electricity they aren’t getting. Officially, there are 6,700 buildings declared abandoned or blighted, but some have put the number at 13,000.

It would be unimaginably difficult for almost any city to deal with losing power for over a week — I whined my face off when my block lost power for a few hours a couple weeks ago — but it has to be exponentially worse (and unfortunately easier to ignore) in a place that already doesn’t have what it needs when the power is on.

Happy Weekend!

Today is National Be An Angel Day, which the internet says is a day to do good deeds and which I say is a day to encourage people to do good deeds for you by saying, like, “Be an angel and bring me a cup of coffee, will ya?” and whatnot.

So, naturally, your first present this week is a clip from Desperate Lives, the after school special in which Helen Hunt takes angel dust and, well, tragicomedy ensues.

It also stars the lady who played Christina Crawford in Mommy Dearest, which is very exciting for me, personally. Weirdly enough the previous year Helen Hunt was in another made-for-tv movie about angel dust, called Angel Dusted (with co-star Edith Bunker!), which I think I am going to have to see.

I also bring you the first episode of Teen Angel, a weird sitcom about a teenager who dies and becomes his BFF’s guardian angel. It was on TGIF for like a year when I guess they were trying to capitalize on the popularity of Sabrina the Teenage Witch or something. Weirdly enough, it was actually created by Simpsons writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss.

And speaking of Sabrina, I’ve also got a clip of what appears to be an extremely hilarious episode of Touched by an Angel featuring Melissa Joan Hart and a young Jack Black, andJack Black is trying to get her to give him five CDs a day like some sort of illicit Columbia House record club? But then she turns into the Touched by an Angel lady?

I never actually watched that show, but now I’m thinking I missed out because that was hilarious. It’s like a Jesus-y The Littlest Hobo, I guess? Who knew!

This next one doesn’t explicitly have anything to do with angels, but it came up when I searched for “angels” on r/ObscureMedia and after watching the first minute I decided that I cannot possibly keep it to myself. It’s a short documentary about a Christian puppetry convention titled, incredibly, Hands of God, and it’s already one of the most cringe things I’ve ever seen in my life.

You are welcome.

Anyway! And if you happen to be in Chicago and looking for some very cool stuff to do this weekend, you should know that tomorrow is the GREATEST DAY OF THE YEAR, and by that I mean that it is Sunday in the Park with Lyric Day! The day (or evening, really) when the Lyric Opera does a free preview of the season, plus some other selections, at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. It is my actual favorite thing, ever.

Also too, my pal, comic Leah Rudick has a show at Zanies in Montrose tonight, which is very dangerously located across the street from the outlet mall.

If you don’t live in Chicago, however, you can catch her on the rest of the tour should you be so inclined.

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But our week at Wonkette began its last day not with torrents of chemical rain, but with Tabs, as always, including a briefly confusing gif of swan butts that we thought were Furbys or something.

Pete Hegseth is maybe considering running for president, and if that isn’t terrifying, we don’t know what is.

And then there’s Trump’s nominee to run the FDA, Heidi Overton, who carries her own Overton window around with her and is terrible.

The US national debt soared right through the entirely symbolic amount of $40 trillion. Republicans are certain to use it as an excuse to impose austerity and cut social services like they always do, but the real fact is this: It’s the tax cuts, stupid.

Donald Trump’s human printer, Natalie Harp, isn’t having an affair with Great Leader, but such details might be less gross than the sycophantic reality. We did a little editing of her long weird letters, getting them down to convenient bullet points that Trump might be able to process.

Our week actually ended not with the apocalypse, but with a drink, as it always does. It’s something called a “Black garlic martini,” though, so maybe that’s a little apocalyptic all on its own. Also, as Hooper, Your Bartender, explains, it’s not made with “black garlic,” it’s just got “black” and “garlic” for you.

Happy Friday, and we hope you have a great weekend! Wonkette will be here Saturday and Sunday, and the One-A-Day will be back Monday. We love you.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. We’ve just flipped the menu at Hemingway’s, and there are some banging savory cocktails on the menu for fall. I had a chance to taste some of the other bartenders’ work, and I have to brag about Kiki Kunarac’s new cocktail. Kiki’s been a part of Hemingway’s as long as I have, and her sense of taste and proportion always impress me. Let’s talk about her Black Garlic cocktail. I love this drink. Here’s the recipe.

Black Garlic Cocktail

(Kristen Kunarac, Author)

2 oz black pepper-infused vodka

1 oz Hayman’s Old Tom Gin

½ oz dry vermouth

Pinch smoked sea salt

1 garlic clove

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Muddle the garlic clove. Double-strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with drops of extra virgin olive oil and a grind of fresh black pepper.

Black Pepper Infused Vodka

3 tablespoons cracked coarse black pepper

750 ml Luksusowa vodka

Add pepper to vodka and let sit 24 hours. Strain into a clean bottle before service.

I should note that this isn’t a “black garlic” cocktail per se. Black garlic is made of carefully fermented garlic cloves; it’s a sticky, molasses-like form of garlic. This cocktail uses black pepper and raw garlic cloves. It’s a “Black” and “Garlic” cocktail, not a “Black Garlic” cocktail, if that makes any sense.

With that out of the way, this cocktail is going to be an amazing food pairing. Black pepper is good with everything. Garlic is great with everything. This drink is going to be killer with beef, or lamb, or … well, just about everything on our menu. It’s such a beautiful piece of work; Kiki deserves to be proud.

What I love about this cocktail is how it uses the Old Tom gin and dry vermouth to announce, loudly, that this drink is a martini before getting down to business. I love classic martinis. I’ve come to the conclusion that juniper in a classic dry gin is there to wake up your palate and announce that you’re about to taste a really good drink. Old Tom gins are similar to classic gins like Beefeater and Bombay, but better balanced and more definitive in flavor. Hayman’s Old Tom gin really does hit the mark here. It’s crisp and herbaceous without tasting like Pine-Sol. I am shamelessly stealing this approach the next time I write a martini.

The change in Hemingway’s menu is a bit startling. We’ve gone from 60+ cocktails to just 20, and the focus in our menu is impressive. Three of the cocktails on the current menu are savory — this black garlic cocktail, the Filthiest Martini Ever, and a blue cheese cocktail that I’m dying to share with you later this fall. For the first time ever, Hemingway’s has no Malort cocktails listed. It’s a more mature cocktail list, less edgy, more formal. I’m a little sad about that, but I’m convinced it’s the right choice. Our audience skews older. We’re meeting them where they live. And a new hotel is opening up across the street, with a steakhouse on the first floor. This menu will be perfect for that sort of clientele.

Not that we’re throwing out any cocktails, mind you. As I’ve told guests before, “We’ve got a database, and we aren’t afraid to use it.” We’ve got all our old recipes on file, and every one of our bartenders is good enough to write a drink on the fly for a picky customer. The Regrettable Tattoo is not going away. Neither is Malort. You’ll just have to know what to ask for, who to trust, and what to expect when you leave the printed menu behind. Exactly what you want from a classic speakeasy.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Black Pepper Vodka: A neutral potato vodka like Luksusowa is a must here. Tito’s would be far too sweet and mellow to serve as a base for a black pepper spirit. If you love black pepper as I do, this little treat will find all sorts of uses in your liquor cabinet. We were drinking it neat at Hemingway’s for “quality control” before making the first cocktail.

Hayman’s Old Tom Gin: Feel free to use Bombay or Beefeater here, but the impact of that first note of the cocktail will be muddled. Do not use Hendrick’s. Black pepper, rose, and cucumber are not friends.

Dry Vermouth: Always keep your vermouth in the fridge. It’s white wine, not liquor. Leave it out too long, and it gets nasty. We use Dolin, but I’m not too picky about the brand here.

Smoked Sea Salt: A simple saline solution works just fine here. I like smoked sea salt because it plays well with the black pepper and garlic.

Garnish: The oil mellows some of the garlic's harshness, and the grind of pepper adds a spicy aroma to the drink. These garnishes make it very clear that you’re drinking a savory, culinary cocktail tonight.

OPEN THREAD!

The saga of Donald Trump and Natalie Harp has taken another weird turn. We bet you didn’t see that coming! Actually, you probably did. Because where anything Trump-related is concerned, it can always get weirder.

The latest “What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin’ on here” moment came about Thursday evening, when Michael Wolff released two letters Hart wrote to Trump that had come into the journalist’s possession. Excerpts from these letters had dribbled out before, particularly in the rush of news stories over the past week. The quotes are usually accompanied by anonymous Trump sycophants, who are not known for their subtlety, telling reporters that even they were squicked out by Harp’s obsequiousness and remora-like attachment to the president.

This was the first time the public got a full look at the letters, which came into Wolff’s possession while he was writing his last book about Trump, All or Nothing, which was released 18 months ago. The letters were apparently written after Harp accompanied Trump on a trip to his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland in May 2023. And hoo boy, they are something else.

Man. Even Kim Jong-un, who has been known to write what Trump has called “love letters” that flatter the hell out of him, would probably advice Harp to tone it down, she doesn’t want to be too obvious.

We see why Wolff called these “red flag letters,” and why they reportedly alarmed the Secret Service and Trump’s staff. If Trump had pets, we would be concerned for their safety.

But what really struck us was the idea of Trump reading these packed walls of text. The man famously has the attention span of a poodle with a traumatic brain injury. His staff has reportedly learned to present briefings to him in bullet points, with lots of color pictures and mentions of his name, because adding those elements is the only way to get him interested. And here Natalie Harp is, writing with all the density, pathos, and melodrama of a Nabokov novel.

These letters can and must be shortened up if Natalie Harp wants Donald Trump to read them. Frankly, we’re surprised he didn’t tear these up and eat the paper. Though given her creepy vibes, maybe she hoped he would, so that her words could be a part of him forever. Or at least until his next poop.

Anyway, Natalie, we’re service journalists and we’re here to help:

Dear President TRUMP,

• Sorry, President TRUMP, for my poor etiquette in Scotland.

  • Won’t waste your time with explanations.

    • With all you do to make the world better, your time is the most precious and valuable commodity on Earth.

• I beg your forgiveness, President TRUMP.

  • I’ve been distracted.

    • I’m so devoted to you that I forget to eat and sleep.

    • Also, my Dad died, but that isn’t important.

• I want to bring you joy, President TRUMP!

  • Worried you have low opinion of me.

  • Only you matter to me.

  • Don’t want to let you down.

• Trip of a Lifetime!

  • Loved the gifts

  • It made me a better person, President TRUMP.

With all my heart,

Natalie

See? Concise, to the point, doesn’t waste any time seeking empathy from the notorious narcissist for whom other people barely exist. Whatever you did or didn’t do on the golf course is only relevant to the extent that you promise not to do it again. No need to rehash the details, which probably fled the president’s dementia-addled brain a minute after they happened.

Now, let’s take a look at the second letter:

Good lord, woman! Again with all the nitty-gritty! Donald Trump is President of the United States, he doesn’t have time for all that! Also he doesn’t give a tinned shit, which is something you seem to not recognize. So, again, let us help:

Dear President TRUMP,

• Hope you liked my apology.

• Trip was fantastic!

  • I learned a lot about myself

  • Especially, ESPECIALLY enjoyed my time with President TRUMP.

• Jealous of more important people, which is a “me” problem I’m working on.

• Miss our old dynamic, President TRUMP.

  • Remember my Talkshow days?

  • All the talking we used to get to do.

    • Grateful when you get breaks from your chaotic life.

• Must be better

  • Love you telling me when I fail, President TRUMP.

  • Curse at me all you want

    • I know you do it because you care about me more than anyone else, President TRUMP.

• Thank you again for the amazing trip

  • Thank you again for being super-awesome.

  • I am unworthy of you, President TRUMP.

• P.S. I will never let you see my disgusting (but healing, but I know they disgust you) hands again

With all the love in my heart,

Natalie

See? Why use 500 words when you can use 147? There is still plenty of sucking up to Trump without the added details about who said what to whom about available golf carts and cellphone reception. He doesn’t care about that stuff. All he cares about is the dopamine hit he gets from your everlasting devotion.

Also, good job taking his mind off his gross and diseased hands by telling him you’re the one with the gross and diseased hands. If that doesn’t convince him of your everlasting devotion, we don’t know what will.

Who wants to believe these are the only letters Natalie Harp has ever sent Trump in her years of devoted service? There could absolutely be more that will leak out. Like we said, it can always get weirder.

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[Daily Beast archive link]

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According to the Treasury Department, this week the US federal debt reached $40 trillion with a T, which is what happens when there’s less revenue coming in than spending going out. The annual interest on the total debt comes to a trillion dollars, which makes it the second-largest single annual outlay, behind Social Security, which at least has its own taxation to keep it mostly afloat.

Needless to say, the usual Republican voices are insisting that we can’t afford to pay for anything at all other than an ever-larger military as well as the militarized deportation of millions of people who keep the economy going. Plus whatever dumb monuments to himself Donald Trump wants, including his whims about redesigning aircraft carriers to make them less modern.

They may not say it out loud before the midterm elections, but Republicans will soon resume their ceaseless calls for massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and whatever’s left of all our social safety net programs, because America’s low-income folks have too easy a time of it. And they’ll again/always be blaming Barack Obama and Joe Biden for profligate spending, even though Republicans’ massive tax cuts and bad governance (like Trump’s costly, pointless war on Iran and his failed tariffs) have made the nation poorer and weaker.

Yes, this is where we point out yet again that the primary driver of federal debt over the last 25 years has been the huge tax cuts for the rich under George W. Bush and Donald Trump. As an analysis by the Center for American Progress indicates, without the Bush and Trump tax cuts, “revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining.” We would like to visit the alternative universe where that happened.

That analysis of the impact of tax cuts on the debt was published in 2023, so it doesn’t even include the additional budget shortfalls from Trump’s Big Blowies for Billionaires Bill last year. The CBO projected in February that the federal deficit (the annual gap between revenue and spending) for fiscal 2026 will be $1.9 trillion, growing to $3.1 trillion by 2036. All told, just Trump’s stupid second term tax cuts will add another $4.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

Haha, remember how Trump promised to eliminate the budget deficit and even to pay off the entire debt, because he’s a financial genius?

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But don’t worry! Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assured Americans Thursday that all the US needs to do is have a booming economy and then the debt will go right down, you bet. Bessent told CNBC anchor Sara Eisen, “There’s nothing magic about the $40 trillion number, and we can grow our way out of that.” He claimed that this year’s deficit — remember, nearly $2 trillion per the CBO — was higher than it should be because the Supreme Court found Trump had no authority to impose “emergency” tariffs, and has to refund about $100 billion in revenue to businesses. He is very good at math.

Bessent also blamed Biden, a ritual that should be accompanied by some rote gesture like warding off the evil eye.

In addition to supply-side happy talk and deflecting responsibility, Bessent also tried to calm down bond markets this week by announcing the Treasury will buy back some $4 billion in long-term Treasury bonds, double its original buyback plan. In theory, that was supposed to make borrowing less expensive by making bonds less attractive investments. Some $32 trillion of the national debt is held by investors and the public (including other countries), because US debt is, even when the government seems crazy, considered among the most secure investments in the world.

As the AP explains, the buybacks “are intended to reduce the supply of 10-year to 30-year bonds and boost their prices. Yields on bonds fall when their prices rise.” That’s a hella big thing, since Treasury bonds are a benchmark for mortgage rates and other borrowing. Markets are also being flooded with corporate bonds as big tech companies take on debt to finance huge AI data centers (never mind whether AI is worth the gamble). The resulting “deluge of bond offerings is giving bond investors more to choose from, which lowers prices for bonds and pushes up their yields.”

Bessent’s gambit worked for about half a day after he announced the buybacks. Returns on 30-year bonds dropped from around 5.3 percent annually Tuesday to 5.18 percent, but began climbing again, reaching 5.23 percent by Thursday, largely erasing the lower rates Bessent hoped would calm things down.

As JPMorgan bond boffin James Sullivan explained on CNBC Thursday, Bessent’s strategy is to buy back long-duration bonds while issuing more short-term bonds, which provided a bit of relief but doesn’t address the debt worries that underly the market’s jitters. “It’s a little bit like paying your mortgage with your credit card. It can work for a while, but eventually the mismatch starts to become more obvious,” Sullivan said.

One way to get the federal debt under control would be to gradually increase tax revenue by phasing in a repeal of those Republican tax cuts. Heck, we could stabilize Social Security and Medicare by eliminating (or just raising!) the $176,100 income cap on Social Security tax, so the wealthy will pay their fair share.

But the billionaire class wouldn’t like any of that, and would cry that they’ll just go out of business instead. So get ready for even more rightwing panicmongering over “communism” and demands to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, lest Grandma turn Red.

[NPR / CNBC / Common Dreams / Center for American Progress / The Hill / NYT (gift link) / WaPo (gift link) / AP]

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In social science, the Overton Window refers to the range of ideas considered socially acceptable at any given period in time. In medical science, Heidi Overton refers to a complete lunatic with ideas that should not be acceptable at any period or at any time … and who will soon be in charge of the FDA.

Overton is a very, very far-right surgeon (man, something about surgeons!) and anti-abortion-rights activist who has been working in the Trump White House as the deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. Prior to that she was director of the Center for a Healthy America at the oxymoronic MAGA think tank the America First Policy Institute. It was there that she co-authored a policy memo with Trump spiritual advisor Paula White about how abortion rights activists are the real radicals, not people like her who want to take everyone’s reproductive rights away.

Here is a video of Paula White exorcising demons out of a bunch of people by blowing into a microphone. Definitely someone you want to listen to about public health policies and what is and is not a normal thing to believe.

In 2024, Overton wrote a Newsweek op-ed in which she claimed that a Kamala Harris presidency would be a disaster for women, as she would allow them to make their own decisions about their reproductive futures in consultation with their doctors. Imagine the horror! She was very upset that Harris refused to denounce late term abortions, probably because Harris was aware that the reason people have late term abortions is because of serious health concerns that are none of Heidi Overton’s damn business unless she is the one having or performing it.

Most Americans don't support aborting babies in the seventh, eighth, and ninth months of pregnancy. Does Vice President Harris disagree? Her prior support for the Women's Health Protection Act—which has no limits on abortion—is a clue. She's also shown a willingness to gloss over inconvenient facts. The vice president said last year that criticism of her party's support for late-term elective abortion was a “mischaracterization of the point.” Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show at least 4,382 abortions beyond 21 weeks occurred in the U.S. in 2020, with evidence of clinics offering elective (not “medically necessary”) abortions up to 34 weeks. Yet Harris routinely dodges the issue.

Does Heidi Overton think that women are really going through 34 weeks of pregnancy and then going “Nah, I’ll pass”? Really? No. First of all, abortions after 21 weeks (24-25 weeks being the point at which the fetus is viable) are extremely rare and account for only about one percent of all abortions. When someone is having an abortion after 25 weeks, it’s almost always going to be because of a very serious health concern or a fatal fetal anomaly. The reason we support not having limits on abortion in this way is because we understand that this needs to be a conversation between patient and doctor, and because we understand that time is of the essence in these situations. We have seen what happens when women are denied care because the doctor has to worry about what the state will do to them if they perform a medically necessary abortion (or treat a miscarriage), and it is not pretty. We would like to avoid that.

There are only about 60 clinics in the United States that perform abortions after 24 weeks and just five that will perform them after 28. A 1992 study found that abortions after 26 weeks accounted for just 0.02 percent of all abortions, and there was a lot more access to abortion then than there is now. The only reason this is an “issue” is because people like Overton want to use it to eliminate access to abortion entirely.

You may be thinking “Well, since she hates late-term abortions so much, she must love medication abortion and the way recent rules changes have allowed it to be so accessible to those who need it, letting them get abortions very early in pregnancy without having to jump through 87,000 hoops that could cause them to have to wait until later in their pregnancies.” You would be wrong! She also hates medication abortion and wants that to be outlawed as well.

Overton also used that opportunity to show the world how grotesquely transphobic she is, writing that “there is one important reason voters can't trust Harris to commit to women's health: her party won't even define what a woman is.” Such a sick Matt Walsh burn!

It depends on the day and on which audience she's trying to please. At a speech in May, Harris asked the audience “Do we trust women?” But official documents from the Biden-Harris administration instead use the term “birthing people.” Which is it? The answer matters—millions of women's lives and billions of dollars in federal health care spending turn on such things.

And yet she doesn’t do anything at all to explain how acknowledging the existence of transgender people and the ability of transgender men to get pregnant could possibly affect that. Why? Because it doesn’t and wouldn’t.

Yet another disturbing stance was found in a brief talk she gave on an America First podcast about how the reason the Left has so much more scientific evidence on our side is because evil liberals are controlling science through peer-reviewed journals. Her solution? Conservatives making their own science journals that will confirm their beliefs instead, and they need their own credentials and licensing.

“We need alternate systems. We have for too long said that ‘Well, conservatives are going to stay in the current system and just continue to fight and hope our ideas are heard,’ but in the meantime the Left starts journals called the Journal of Adolescent Transgender Medicine and what do you think they publish in that every month week after week, month after month? Articles that support all of their positions. And so when you go to criticize, and you might have one study that was funded that says ‘No, that’s wrong,’ and they bring you 50. And so you’re up, you’re up against this mountain of evidence.”

It will surely shock you to know that there is no such thing as the “Journal of Adolescent Transgender Medicine.”

It seems as though Overton might not understand how all of this is supposed to work.

Scientists do studies so that they can better understand how to best help people, not to provide evidence for people seeking to win arguments on social media. There really isn’t any need to have funding for what Overton wants. I mean, she’s comfortable enough just letting the president dictate the vaccine schedule based on his own personal conviction that vaccines cause autism without any evidence, why should she need evidence for anything else? Plus, it’s hard to imagine how one would configure a study to “prove” that transgender people are not real. That’s just an opinion. A weird, weird opinion.

“We need alternate forms so that doctors who speak out are not afraid that they’re going to lose their medical license or their livelihood that is the greatest threat to doctors that I’ve seen. We had one of the Frontline doctors with us on Wednesday night, and so many of them have had their medical licenses under fire and we should have an alternate system of credentialing and licensing.”

They had their medical licenses “under fire” because they were promoting harmful pseudoscience. How do you license that? Will it just be that they say “Oh, I went around prescribing Ivermectin to people with COVID who weren’t my patients because I’m a conservative” and then the board goes “Oh, okay, then do whatever you want”? Will this work for every possible scenario? Like could a surgeon say “Oh, I got drunk before surgery and cut off the wrong leg, but I did it because I’m a conservative. Yay Reagan! MAGA!” and the board is like “Yes, please continue doing this job!”

The Trump admin actually soft-launched Overton just a few weeks ago during the press conference in which Dr. Trump announced his new plans for the vaccine schedule, which he, being a genius, believes will end autism, despite the fact that autism does not have fuck-all to do with vaccines. I didn’t even get to her in my write-up of the event, because there was so much other crazy going on in those 40 minutes that it practically felt like overkill. But hey! Let’s take a look now at what she said then, shall we?

“In December, the presidential memorandum directed HHS to produce the scientific assessment that they did and then they overhauled the vaccine schedule. Those actions have since been held up in court. And so right now, Americans don’t have access to that information. and you are correcting that wrong today and saying I am giving Americans this information directly so that they know what HHS found in the scientific assessment themselves.”

So she’s a lying liar. Their “assessment” — which wasn’t especially scientific — has been available for people to read since January. What has been held up is the vaccine schedule itself, as Judge Brian Murphy just did not think that Trump, RFK Jr., and their merry band of internet “wellness influencers” and other assorted kooks were qualified to make that change.

Also, they didn’t “find” anything beyond the fact that there are countries on an entirely different continent, with different vaccination needs and also universal health care.

“But most importantly, states are the place where school vaccination requirements are implemented. It’s state laws and regulations and the CDC would advise the states on those policies. Since January 2026, 28 states have no longer agreed with the CDC and they recommend their own policies. A lot of those states are blue states, and they’re working with outside entities such as the American Academy of Pediatrics that still rely on recommendations that were in place in 2024 with the 72 injections by age 18.”

Love how she’s trying to paint the American Academy of Pediatrics as some rogue group of ne’er-do-wells relying on outdated information, while the Trump administration is looking towards a super cool future with self-driving cars, hepatitis babies, and more teenagers contracting bacterial meningitis, which could kill them in a matter of hours.

“So you are saying, especially to states that are willing, take a look at this scientific assessment. These are the gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations and you should put this into your state law so that when parents go to enroll their kids in school, they do not have to meet some of the requirements for the vaccines that are no longer recommended for all children. That brings us in line with European nations.”

How about we get in line with the universal socialized medicine in Europe before we start emulating their vaccine policies, which clearly aren't that great across the board given that they have their own issues with measles and other vaccine-preventable illnesses.

“And importantly, those nations do not have vaccine mandates for school. A lot of those nations maintain vaccination rates for measles above 90 percent. Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Portugal all have vaccination rates for measles above 90 percent without mandates for school. And so they do that through increased public trust and education and letting parents be informed and make those decisions.”

That’s great, except for the fact that we need the measles vaccination rate to be over 95 percent in order to get back to that nice herd immunity place, as opposed to the 2,566 cases we’ve had so far this year.

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Additionally, the reason we have low public trust in our health institutions is because we have a for-profit healthcare system, a long and storied history of medical racism that is ingrained so deeply that there are, to this day, white medical students who think Black people feel less pain, a long and storied history of women being told they are imagining things, and, on the other end of things, the kooks.

RFK Jr. believes that the key to restoring public trust in the healthcare system is by catering to kooks like himself — which has resulted, so far, in a 50 percent drop in trust in the CDC and federal public health recommendations. That’s actually a good thing for now, as trusting anything he’s involved with could be dangerous, but it seems pretty unlikely that putting Overton in charge will do much to change that.

CORRECTION: This post initially said that Overton was tapped to run the CDC instead of the FDA.

There’s been some stupid “Pete Hegseth Is A Failure With Severe Masculine Insecurity Issues” news this week, like there is every week.

Did y’all see him show up at the Iowa State Fair in country western lesbian mom jeans, looking like, well, see below?

In this video, he thinks he’s being clever, but really he’s just being a mouthbreathing bigot whose only really true job qualification is lifting things (but not well), telling an Iowa audience that at his Pentagon, they do “training, not tr*nnies,” which, on top of being simple red meat hate speech for inbred Americans, doesn’t even make sense. Are those two things mutually exclusive? Is the charge that during the Biden administration two roads diverged in a wood and Joe Biden decided to cancel military training in favor of Transgender For Everybody, like his syphilis-brained boss believes?

OK, Secretary of Hair and Makeup.

We get it, Pete’s manliness and power are threatened by literally everything and he lashes out. He’s also losing the only big boy war he ever got to start, he lost it on the first day, like a little bitch, and in record time it disproved his theory that if only he got all the non-white, non-straight, non-man, non-Nazi people out of the military, then testosterone-dosing losers like him could win every war on the strength of their untreated anger and abuse issues.

Guess not. So he’s lashing out at trans people.

Seriously, check out those girl jeans, though, because by the looks of it — click that link, that’s the money shot — he lifted them off an alcoholic Republican Second Amendment lesbian in the front row at the Morgan Wallen concert.

Her name is Bev, and she’d probably like her britches back.

But yes, Secretary Shitfaced was in Iowa this week campaigning for Republicans, instead of handling one of the million crises he’s created, like the lost Iran war or the carrier and other ships that don’t have supplies. He appears to have tried to cover up the real reason the USS Abraham Lincoln couldn’t be resupplied, according to MS NOW’s David Rhode, namely that Iran destroyed a key Navy resupply base in the Gulf of Oman, which forced the Navy to move its resupply ops far, far away to the tiny island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean.

You know what might have prevented that base getting destroyed, and all the American troops who have been killed and injured in this lost war, and all the little girls who lost their lives at school the first day because of Pete Hegseth’s incompetence? If a couple fewer people had told Pete that God loved him and had special plans for his life. You have to be careful filling Christian conservative boys’ heads with shit like that, they get ideas.

Shitfaced’s trip comes amid speculation, according to the Washington Post, that he’s laying serious groundwork for a 2028 presidential run, speaking of boys being lied into believing they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them. The Pentagon said he was going to the Iowa State Fair to campaign for Rep. Zach Nunn “in his personal capacity.”

Yes, a greasy, washed up Fox News weekender host who was never promoted to the first string of talent, who literally isn’t qualified to pick up your dog’s shit, whose military experience and expertise are laughable, and whose only other qualifications for the role are untreated Daddy issues plus a preternatural obsession with hairstyles and shaving, reportedly thinks he’s presidential material.

Sure, Pete, go for it. We can’t imagine him failing harder than he’s failed up to this point, but he’s never not taken the universe up on that challenge.

Of course, if Shitfaced is obviously scheming for a presidential run, won’t that make Daddy mad? Does he really think he could ever be Daddy’s first choice?

Also, would he have to bring his wife as a babysitter if he was president, to make sure he doesn’t drink or try to follow around women so he can, if certain reports are correct, prey on them?

We ask because another article has come out, certainly not the first of its genre, about how Pete’s third wife is the most involved Defense secretary’s wife in history, just bizarrely and disturbingly at his side at all times, because Pete can’t be trusted to be by himself, because he’s a failure as a man.

You think this Natalie Wiping Donald Trump’s Ass stuff is creepy? Well check out Pete Hegseth’s need for constant parental supervision by mommy!

“It’s bonkers that a defense secretary would involve his wife in his sensitive official duties, including sharing details of an impending military operation, and face zero consequences,” said John Ullyot, who left the Pentagon as chief spokesman after three months working under Mr. Hegseth and has been critical of his leadership. “Any president deserves better judgment from his national security leaders.”

“This is not normal,” Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said last year on MSNBC during the uproar over Mrs. Hegseth’s inclusion in the chat and high-level meetings. “Secretary Hegseth has one of the highest levels of classification access. He can’t just hand that to his wife and say, ‘Here, honey, hold my beer, and hold my classified information.’”

Does she have a security clearance? Nobody knows! Does she need one? Perhaps!

One person familiar with Mr. Hegseth’s thinking said that the defense secretary likes his wife to travel with him to keep him out of trouble. Mr. Hegseth, who has a history of heavy drinking, has himself made clear he needs his wife at his side. He often credits his “two J’s” — Jennifer and Jesus — with transforming his life.

Whichever “J” is making his decisions, they’re fucking it up, but we wouldn’t be shocked if their name was “Jack.”

In related news, there’s a new story about how the Navy is talking about renaming an aircraft carrier that was set to be named for a heroic Black sailor who fought in World War II. (The ship is still under construction.) Clearly Shitfaced and his white supremacist boss can’t have that, so they’re thinking of naming it for Trump instead.

Ooh, maybe Daddy will let Shitfaced run for president if he names a big boat after him!

You betcha.

[New York Times]

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Good morning good morning, it’s time for your tabs!

Here’s one million words on the economy, does it suck or what? (Also I am pretty sure we all need to buy Treasury bonds?) (Gift link New York Times)

From this Bulwark post, here’s a letter from a Venezuelan family who were here legally, working legally, and decided to self-deport. At their exit interview, they were arrested and have been detained ever since. Their seven-year-old daughter “wants to die.” Jesus Christ now I do too. (XCancel)

Fuck.

Immigration agents’ and Border Patrol’s lawbreaking and criminality particularly of the raping and molesting kind goes back to at least Reagan, but thanks to the particularly vicious lawlessness of Trump II, it’s getting worse and worse. (Forever Wars)

Sure yeah, we’ll all for sure be delighted to change the subject from the diaper nurse to Trump’s beautiful new helipad, it’s so magnificent! ([T]iedrich)

The button below will take any amount you like, one-time or monthly, at Paypal!

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ABC finally had enough of his shit and sued Trump and his FCC. I like the part Our Liz noted where he specifically tweeted “Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative,” what a jackass idiot. (Our Liz at Public Notice)

Isn’t it fun when Trump lets his pals get out from under $700 million in restitution for their frauds, based on the fiction that they were only prosecuted for “liking Trump”? Bonus new definition of chutzpah: The reality show Chrisleys, since being pardoned means somehow that they never broke the law, are now suing their criminal defense attorneys for $25 million for losing the case whose Trump pardon shows they were innocent all along! (Lisa Needham at Public Notice)

Ten years later, this lawsuit against DeRay Mckesson for not hitting this cop with a rock at a protest is still ongoing. (Balls and Strikes)

South Korean potatoes are “boiling in the ground,” great, less time in the kitchen! (The Guardian)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can’t even fire a top ally/child molester without fucking it up and being a piece of shit about it. (Link fixed!) (Gift link Miami Herald)

Oh please what did this Black Pearl Harbor Navy hero ever do to get a ship named after him when it could be named after Trump? (CNN)

Cook Political Report is shifting four races, it must be because everybody is so happy with the Republicans and Trump! (Cook Political Report)

From last year, but how the Ancient Aliens guy started the Right’s hard-on against the Smithsonian by accusing it of covering up people fucking dinosaurs and also giants. (The New Republic)

Berkeley Law WILL SEE AI IN HELL. (Berkeley)

Professor Sisyphus! (McSweeney’s)

Of course you want to read Garrett White Bucks (sigh, I was on a plane! only two fuckups that I know of so far) on state fairs! He’s the humanistiest! (White Pages)

Wonkette parties upcoming: SAN FRANCISCO in honor of Fukui, TONIGHT, Fri., Aug. 21, 6-8 or 9 p.m., Hyatt Regency SF (Embarcadero); WINDSOR, MASS, potluck! Find your own place to camp or AirBnB near but not at Paul and Holly’s, Labor Day weekend: “campfires and food and drink (BYO adult stuff) on Saturday and Sunday from noon(ish) to bedtime. For information shoot Holly an email. hollyturner at live dot com”; Atlanta has been postponed to October. SECOND SAN FRANCISCO: Mon., Nov. 30, Embarcardero Hyatt again.

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Feed The Kitty

Oh heck, we forgot to put Wednesday’s Nice Times closing post in Wednesday’s Wonkette One-A-Day, so here it is now! New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani held a “Parents’ Night Out Event” with free babysitting last weekend, so parents could enjoy a little quiet time. Rightwingers who can’t shut up about family values were outraged by all the communism.

Wonkette’s Thursday began, as always, with Tabs, featuring a provocative headline and a gif of a hungry bunny rabbit.

Lindsay Graham’s sister doesn’t know anything about Taiwan, but she does know who she’s supposed to hate, and that’s all voters expect of her.

The Natalie Imbroglio continued, and somehow managed to get stupider, with the disturbing revelation that Donald Trump is “post-sex.” Ew.

Wonkette photojournalist guy Dominic Gwinn brought us a photo essay on Great Leader’s many, many uglification projects in DC. Ew again!

Dearborn, Michigan, was treated to another far-right social media influencer’s gross attempt to do a hate rally against Muslims, and the good people of Dearborn had a message for the Nazi punks. (Spoiler: the message was “Fuck off.”) And hey, why does Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers have one of the Nazi rally organizers on his “Faith Coalition Leadership Team”?

RFK Jr. has started a YouTube cooking show to teach Americans how to feed a family of four nutritious meals for less than $20, as long as by “20 dollars” you mean “actually a bit over $70.” Funny how stores won’t sell you just 84 cents worth of olive oil!

Yr Wonkette loves you. Stay cool if you can, and don’t let RFK Jr. teach your kids to do math.

Fellow Americans, if you have you ever thought Sure, our culture has produced some great TV over the decades, but it has never created a cooking show hosted by a cokehead rich dilettante who looks like a canned ham someone left out in the sun, then today is your lucky day.

Such a show now exists, and it is hosted by none other than roadkill aficionado Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The nation’s Secretary of Health and Human Services has started posting episodes of the cleverly titled The Real Food Show on YouTube. Unfortunately, the first two episodes do not teach us the best way to cook raccoon penis, but maybe he’ll get to that in the future.

RFK Jr has long harped on how Americans can eat healthy food that is also inexpensive. That is the thrust of the first episode, in which RFK Jr and a professional chef with the ironic last name of Gruel cook up some salmon cakes and an arugula salad. The gimmick: the secretary asked the chef to keep the cost at under $5 per serving.

You’ve heard about the suspension of disbelief in movies and TV? Well, it also applies to RFK Jr.’s cooking show, if you are looking for advice on buying cheap. The show includes a breakdown of costs for all the ingredients, and to say the numbers don’t add up is like saying that RFK Jr’s voice sounds like someone is running a lawnmower over a gravel driveway. As in, it’s mind-bogglingly obvious. A CNN reporter unsurprisingly found out when he tried to recreate the meal:

It’s true, the two men are cooking wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, and if you are wondering where you can buy enough wild Alaskan sockeye salmon for a family of four for $8.99, uh, we don’t know. Maybe your local Dollar Tree has a seafood section? We checked, and we can’t get even frozen, pre-packaged sockeye that cheap at our local Aldi’s or Costco or even Walmart.

But “family of four” is the standard by which RFK Jr and Gruel are calculating the cost of this meal, as you can see in the picture up top. So that is the standard by which we are judging this absurd garbage.

RFK Jr mentions using canned salmon at one point. Even the canned stuff is $9 or $10 bucks for one 6-ounce can of sockeye. You are not making enough salmon cakes for a family of four with one 6-ounce can.

Of course, you can buy cheap tins of Chicken by the Sea Pink Salmon, but that’s not wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, is it? This is consistent with past statements from RFK Jr, who has suggested that if you can’t afford beef and you need protein, you can substitute cheap organ meat. Great, we’ll let you know when we figure out how to make chicken liver burgers.

That entire list of costs is hilarious. Sure, you might only use 21 cents worth of olive oil to cook your salmon cakes. Unfortunately, grocery stores don’t sell olive oil in small enough increments to cost 21 cents. And if you can find eggs that cost 25 cents per, where are you shopping? 1971?

In between all these incredibly unhelpful shopping tips, you get the usual blast of RFK Jr bullshit. For example, he once again repeats his old lie that Froot Loops used to be at the top of the food pyramid. What was actually at the top of the food pyramid was “fats, oils and sweets,” and the reason that stuff was at the top was that it was because you were supposed to eat it sparingly. Food categories got healthier as you went down the pyramid, so the message that healthy stuff should make up the base of your diet got across.

RFK Jr is very proud that under his guidance, the government flipped the food pyramid. But all that really did is invert a handy-dandy nutrition guide so it now looks like sugar and fat are the tiny point supporting the rest of your diet. Our government is pushing nutrition information this way because the Health and Human Services secretary does not understand how shapes work.

And all of this was moot, since the FDA replaced the food pyramid with something called MyPlate in 2011. But that was when godless communist Barack Hussein Obama was in office and his wife was trying to shove healthy lifestyles down our throats. This is totally different, for reasons.

RFK Jr now becomes the second Cabinet member to host a reality show on the taxpayer dime, following Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his family taking a road trip like a religious remake of National Lampoon’s Vacation. It was supposed to run before America’s Big 250th Birthday, but instead was unceremoniously dumped onto YouTube this week.

Who’ll be next? Maybe Todd Blanche will resurrect The People’s Court. We can already hear the ghost of Judge Wapner screaming in protest.

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Jake Lang was arrested for assaulting cops with a baseball bat at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but was pardoned by Donald Trump before his case went to trial. On Tuesday, he got a bunch of fellow rightwing bigots to join him for what he billed as a “Christian Crusader March” outside a City Council meeting in Dearborn, Michigan — which as you probably know is a very Arab-American and Muslim city next door to Detroit.

Michigan Advance estimated the crowd of bigoted freaks, counterprotesters, and onlookers outside the Henry Ford Library (the council meeting had been moved in advance for safety) peaked at about 2,000 people; police made 22 arrests of people from both Michigan and from around the country, mostly on misdemeanor charges like breach of peace or disorderly conduct. Being a racist fuckwad remains legal under the First Amendment, not that it’s anything to brag about. For the most part, police lines kept the bigot assholes separated from counterprotesters, although there were moments when scuffles nearly broke out.

Here’s our favorite observation from the Michigan Advance story:

A significant portion of the crowd was uninterested in violence. The Advance observed several women urging their male partners to “shut the f**k up,” and stay calm out of concern that “you’re going to get arrested.”

The report didn’t indicate whether the women were with bigot protesters or with counterprotesters, but either way, blessed be the shut the fuck upmakers.

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In the days before the rally and the council meeting, Dearborn and Michigan faith leaders condemned the bigotry and reminded Christians that their Lord is not down with hatred, OK? Chaplain Rick Neveu of Dearborn’s St. Kateri Church pointed out that Jesus simply said “love your neighbor,” not “love your neighbor if he's the same race you are or the same religion you are.” They urged residents not to give Lang and his shit-stirrers the attention or confrontation they craved. Pastor Nathan Hayes of Solid Rock Church said the community should “ignore the outside voices and just pay attention to the person who lives next to you because they care about you way more than these people who are driving in from other places.”

Detroit Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger, whose archdiocese includes Dearborn, issued a statement saying “I join with local and state civic and religious leaders in calling for peace and restraint as outside groups come into our community this evening in an attempt to provoke division and discord.” He added, as did many other civic leaders, that Dearborn is “home to people of many different faiths and backgrounds who live, work, and worship alongside each other.”

Police limited attendance at the council meeting, but Lang and several anti-Muslim bigots were able to get in to speak during the public comment period. Lang expounded on his favorite racist grievances, claiming that “The Muslims are being used by the Democrats to instill socialism in America,” and pretending to give a shit about LGBTQ people, saying “Once the Muslims have power in this country, then they will start throwing homosexuals off the roofs.”

He also blathered about how Muslims refuse to assimilate and are in the USA to “steal the wealth of this land [and] to rape our women,” which is our cue to remind you that pardoned January 6 rioters keep being arrested for sex crimes and domestic violence.

And earlier this year, Lang himself was caught by one of those online “To Catch a Predator” imitators trying to chat up a decoy posing as a 15-year-old girl. Instead of immediately leaving the chat, Lang asked her when she would turn 16 and asked what state she lived in, adding “I can’t see you til your 16.” The conversation apparently ended there, and Lang later claimed the conversation was actually a “phishing scam” by “groypers” trying to smear him, but thank goodness his “team” caught it right away so he’s the hero.

Anyway, at the Dearborn City Council meeting, Lang tried to bring a copy of the Quran to the podium so he could dramatically rip it to shreds, but was stopped by a council member who told him “there’s no books or props allowed.” After spouting some crap about how the “crusade has begun” and telling Dearborn residents “Your time in this country is running short,” Lang stepped away from the podium and tore a few pages out of the book before being escorted out of the hall by police.

Lang was joined in the City Council meeting by Lorenzo Sewell, a rightwing Detroit preacher who helped organize the bigot protest. Sewell’s big claims to fame are that he spoke at Donald Trump’s second inaugural and then launched a memecoin whose value immediately collapsed. Sewell claimed to the council that Dearborn was “under Sharia law,” lamented that “America, we have lost this city. This is a city that is no longer under American laws,” and demanded the council renounce the Sharia takeover that had not in fact actually occurred.

Shawarma law, maybe.

We wouldn’t mention this shitbird Sewell at all, but as Michigan Advance points out, said shitbird “is also a member of the Faith Coalition Leadership Team of Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers,” who has already been pushing bigoted hatred against Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. (The dipshit has mocked El-Sayed’s full name, and accused El-Sayed of wanting to ban football, fireworks, and the Fourth of July. El-Sayed responded by challenging Rogers to play one-on-one football against him, without pads.)

We think Rogers has some ‘splaining to do about having a lying bigot like Sewell on his “faith coalition” team. So does Craig Wozniak, a spokesperson for el-Sayed’s campaign, who said in a statement shortly before Tuesday’s rally, “Michigan families deserve a Senator who will stand up to hate rather than enable it.” Wozniak added that Rogers “must immediately disavow this rally, his affiliation with Jake Lang and January 6th terrorists, and explain why his campaign’s faith advisor is rallying alongside out of state agitators against Michigan faith communities.”

Well, Mike Rogers, why do you have a bigoted shitbird on your team? Go ahead and tell us, will ya?

[Michigan Advance / Click On Detroit / Detroit Free Press / Letters from Leo (paywalled) / CBS News / Michigan Public Media / Abdul el-Sayed campaign]

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This Blog Says Nazi Punks Fuck Off

Donald Trump is obsessed with DC. He is literally remaking parts of the city in his own image. Not only has he packed the courts, created a secret police force, commandeered the military, and gilded the White House, he has also slapped his image across the city. His glaring face looms from government buildings. His name is scrawled across public and private buildings, the heads of sycophants and on the modest yard signs protesting his rule.

In DC, Trump is everywhere.

Like many second-term presidents, he is concerned about his legacy. He wants future generations to see him as a strongman. A historical figure remembered through the ages for what he did to his country, and the world.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) used to be the US’s goodwill ambassador. It would carry out disaster relief, or respond to health crises. It improved (or saved!) the lives of vulnerable people in developing countries. USAID was one of the first victims of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). These days the lobby is dark and empty. Signage on the window remains covered in duct tape.

The administration wanted to move the FBI’s headquarters over there, but the plan was just stopped by a federal judge.

A few blocks away, the signage on the US Institute of Peace stands out from the faint “Donald J. Trump” that hovers awkwardly above it. Unlike the USIP signage, Trump’s name is difficult to see at first. The lettering isn’t carved into the stone on the building’s facade like the USIP. Instead, they’re tacked it onto the outside like some temporary decoration.

Early last year, Trump seized control of USIP, an independent non-profit created by Congress. Staff and leaders were suddenly fired, and like USAID, its offices were raided by DOGE. The fate of the USIP continues to languish in court, but the building now houses Trump’s Board of Peace and his Shield of the Americas scheme.

The front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is draped in white tarp that conceal scaffolding. “Do Not Enter” signs with the Kennedy Center logo are fixed to bicycle fencing blocking the front entrance. A friendly guard on patrol offered me a cold water, and cranked up an industrial fan parked between the doors. I thanked him, and we both shook our heads in silence.

Trump is doing his damnedest to get his name added to the front of the building. When he initially tried it, courts ruled he overstepped his authority, which has not for a second stopped him from trying again. Funny enough, everyone has been so fixated on the front of the building that they’ve overlooked the other signs (and statues).

The streets of DC are still filled with various National Guardsmen. Shadowy federal agents still roam the streets.

The National Guard don’t do much. Most stand around, visibly bored and eager to talk to just about anyone. Over the last year, I’ve been told by several guardsmen at various times that they’ve been ordered not to talk to the press. Some have talked on background about how pointless their “mission” seems.

Around Rock Creek Parkway, a duo of US Park Police stopped a tricked out Honda. They were quickly joined by several federal Homeland Security agents, the umbrella agency under which general fascist fuckery has been occurring over the last year.

When all this started a lot of the agents wore masks during their extrajudicial “investigations.” Administration lackeys have claimed hiding the identity of these agents protects them for public scorn.

Last year, agents would run off whenever anyone with a press badge and/or a professional camera chanced upon a scene. When I walked up on an Asian man being accosted by Park Police and HSI agents along Rockcreek and Potomac Parkway, I fished out a cigarette and got comfortable in the 90 degree heat. They stared at me, so I waved back. After a brief conversation amongst themselves, a Park Police officer wrote him a ticket, and agents quickly left.

The area around the Lincoln Memorial contains the most obvious signs of Trump’s meddling. To its south, across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, sits the site of Trump’s proposed “Triumphal Arch.” The arch would sit along a traffic circle that connects DC with Arlington National Cemetery, obstructing the deliberate symmetry and view connecting the Lincoln Memorial, the cemetery, and Arlington House, the former home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

On the DC side of the bridge sit the Art of War Statues, Valor and Sacrifice. Originally fire gilded, the statues of since been been coated with 23 karat gold leaf. The difference being that the former is a labor intensive process, the latter more like a cheap sticker job. So far, only the Art of War statues have been gilded. The Art of Peace remain covered.

A large chain link fence covered in cheap black plastic cloth surrounds the entirety of the Reflecting Pool. Generators roar as crews power wash algae from the “American Flag Blue” vinyl paint that quickly cracked and tore. People wander up to holes in the cloth and poke cellphone cameras through. Some giggle at the glimpse of a national embarrassment. It’s unclear what the trucks driving over the Reflecting Pool are doing, or if anyone in the administration has learned about photosynthesis.

At Lafayette Square, across from the White House, there’s the usual gaggle of tourists. People used to be able to roam around and take pictures inside the eight-acre park. It’s been host to activists dating back to 1918 when the women’s suffrage movement became the first group to obtain a permit to protest in view of the White House’s North Lawn. It was also the site of the longest continuous protest in US history, the four-decade White House Peace Vigil, until some bootlicker opened his mouth in March of 2025.

Now people are all corralled into a small, cramped square at H Street and 16th. The whole park is surrounded by the same eight-foot fencing that protected the Capitol Building after Trump’s failed insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Large fences around Lafayette Square is something Trump has demanded since 2020. Last month, a federal design panel packed with Trump loyalists signaled support for permanent fencing. The New York Times reports James C. McCrery II, the vice chair of the Commission of Fine Arts, saying, “This is definitely the president’s park, but also the people’s park … The proposal is not to close the park, but to enclose the park.”

There’s a bootlegger on the corner shilling “Trump hats,” as he calls them, for $15. He barks various slogans at potential rubes like, “It’s a hat only for millionaires”; “Poor haters, get you the hat of a rich man”; and, “If you don’t like America, use your visas and go home.” At one point, he barked at an Asian man, “Get your Asian ass away from me! Stop stealing!” When he saw me taking photos, he ranted that people needed to “stop stealing pictures” and buy something.

About 15 or 20 feet away, Don Folden, a career tour guide otherwise known as DC’s “Truth Conductor,” was sitting beneath an umbrella in a lounge chair. From a small boombox, he was blaring the national anthems of different tourists that walked past.

Türkiye, Peru, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Thailand. Between songs, he made announcements for tourists. Folden said the park’s been closed for over a year now, that the Trump administration has spent a lot of money for people to not enjoy what they already paid for. He added that there were 5,000 armed national guardsman walking around the city.

In front of him was a large sign that read, “Stop hating each other because you disagree.”

Across from Lafayette Square is where Black Lives Matter Plaza used to be. BLM Plaza was installed in the summer of 2020, just days after Trump ordered police and federal agents to fire tear gas at peaceful protesters and press in Lafayette Square. They beat the shit out of people and cleared everyone out so he could have a surreal photo-op with a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church (a move the church’s leaders immediately criticized, saying, “Mr. President I know you stood right here and held the Bible in your hands and we know that you do not hold the Bible in your heart”).

At the time, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser called it a symbol to “make America the land it ought to be.” In March of 2025, the Trump administration criticized BLM Plaza as another symbol of diversity, equity and inclusions (“DEI”). They gutted the street and restored vehicle access so guests to the luxury hotels and restaurants wouldn’t have to walk around the block past demonstrators, activists and the occasional weed smoker.

Freedom Plaza now sits full of notable figures from the Revolutionary War. The plaza has always had a statue of Casimir Pulaski, but it now includes two more. One statue honors Caesar Glover, a former slave. Another is the original Equestrian Statue of Caesar Rodney, depicting a slave owner, which resided at the Delaware State Capitol until racial justice protests of 2020 saw it removed.

Conceived as a monument to Pierre L’Enfant’s initial design for the US Capitol, Freedom Plaza is largely forgotten by most. Over the last few decades, it’s been one of the most iconic skateboard spots in the city: a long, raised plane of flat marble and stone, with steps and benches on the side. Over the years, it’s also been a rallying point during major protests, like the Occupy movement of 2010, the “Million MAGA March” in 2020, and Gaza protests in 2024. In 2026, it marked the end of the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride parade.

There aren’t many people at Freedom Plaza anymore. Skatestoppers have been installed all over the benches, and the statues keep things cramped. Outside of protests, skaters were some of the only people who ever frequented Freedom Plaza. Trumpland wants to bulldoze it to increase the flow of vehicle traffic along Pennsylvania Avenue at 14th Street. There’s a fancy hotel that hosts a lot of conservative functions at that intersection.

The temporary federal officials elected to two, four and six year terms have a unique ability to really fuck with the city. Aside from using Stephen Miller’s novel legal strategy to “move fast and break things,” the federal government can simply overrule DC’s local government. They can stop social programs like needle exchanges, policing and criminal justice reforms, gun control and the basic rights every other citizen has, like raising money and governing themselves (read: Home Rule). They can change the physical landscape of DC overnight, and there isn’t much anyone can do.

So it’s not without some irony that the 80 year-old Trump’s obsession with legacy is barreling into two historical trends: the six-year itch and the second-term curse. The first is public backlash against a sitting president during the mid-term elections. The latter is the the belief that the ghost of George Washington cursed all future presidents’ second-terms so they have faced major crises that sink their public approval numbers. Think health problems, a failing economy, political scandals, signature policy failures, disastrous wars and conflicts, etc.

The country has spent much of Trump’s second term talking about his vanity projects. Professional Trump rumormonger Maggie Habberman recently gossiped that he’s “spending a huge amount of energy, mental and otherwise, on these renovation projects, beautification projects around Washington, and then monuments to self.”

But all these self-described beautification projects distract from the things this White House has been doing over the last year and a half. Trump has mysterious absences and an odd smell, and regularly sustains large bruises. The country is in economic turmoil, partially due to global tariff policies. People believe Trump is openly corrupt as he meddles in the country’s economic engine. Insurrectionists have been given a blanket pardon, and potentially offered jobs as secret police with the power to kidnap and kill. The DOJ has redactions in the Epstein files that suggest a larger role for Trump. The White House is banning journalists and replacing them with bootlickers. The natural resources of protected environments are being pillaged. Trump’s signature legislative achievement gutted social programs for the poor and lowered taxes for the rich. The US has carried out extrajudicial assassinations, invaded multiple nations to kidnap or kill foreign leaders, and started an(other) unnecessary war. Global trade and defense alliances have been ruined. The mass firing of government workers has left us with poisoned food, and a planet that seems like it’s breaking.

Maybe the ghost of George Washington is trying to tell us something.

A few updates to bring you on the saga of Natalie, which is still not a sex scandal, no matter how much the White House desperately wants it to be a sex scandal, no matter how painfully Trump’s MAGA allies wish America was doing salacious gossips about “Score, buddy!” and exchanging tawdry tales about the president using his penis to-and-fro in more rooms than Bill Clinton ever did.

We obviously assume she’s changed his bedpan before. Maybe a Sea World spongebath or three while he looks at AI slop of himself dressed as Superman.

Not a sex scandal.

On that subject, we need to provide you two more horrifying quotes to back up that thesis, which we didn’t include in our missive yesterday.

Both are from Michael Wolff, the first summarized by Olivia Craighead in The Cut:

In a detail that will send a chill down your spine, Wolff writes that Trump has never had an affair with Harp because winning the presidency in 2016 made him “post-sex.”

Never realized when Russia gave Trump that reacharound to help steal him the 2016 election that they had pulled his dick all the way off. What does Putin have on Trump? More like what does Putin have on ice in a chest in his office, sounds like.

The second, which is going to make you throw up your lunch, is Wolff quoted by Erkki Forster in The Daily Beast:

The author noted that while no one in the Trump camp suspects a sexual relationship, there is nonetheless a conviction that Harp is hopelessly in love with Trump and determined to be his “higher purpose bride.”

“It’s a Christian devotional relationship,” one Trump aide told Wolff.

Whaaaaaaaaat? Yeah. If you Google that, you’re gonna get some weird conservative Christian shit about women being steadfast and being helpmeets for their husbands, and this is Trump aides talking about Natalie like she is the unfucked Bible wife, which is weird because doesn’t Trump already have an unfucked wife?

Yes he does! And the rest of that Erkki Forster article is about how thoroughly not happy Unfucked Wife #1 (current ranking) is with the presence of Natalie, in here acting like she’s the real unfucked wife.

YOU NOT FUCK MY MAN? YOU NOT FUCK MY MAN?

That is what Melania could say to Natalie, in a Slovenian accent.

Of course, as the Daily Beast notes, and as Wonkette has noted, Melon hasn’t been seen in public in forever. But Princess Natalie Of Unfuckia has! And Michael Wolff says these two things are related. Basically, if Natalie is around, Melania ain’t. They think she’s in New York, Wolff says. (Like clockwork, she has been summoned to appear for a thing in the Rose Garden that now looks like the patio of a Panera, today in fact!)

So that’s one thing.

Also Eric has been dispatched to say nice things about his new mommy Natalie, whining about an interview Natalie’s estranged brother gave to CNN:

“Daddy’s disturbed home health nurse is way hotter than her brother!” is definitely a flex. Not sure what kind, but we include it simply to note that out of the entire Trump brood, Eric’s is the name that has appeared in reporting as being particularly heebie-jeebied out by Natalie. So we surmise he was feeling a special pressure to speak up for New Jesus Mommy.

Did we mention Natalie did all this for a full year without a security clearance? There is zero chance Trump hasn’t been telling her secrets and showing her things, he cannot help himself, especially since Natalie the Clown is the pretty blonde lady who stays with him every day and writes him letters about how he is God and prints out hard copies of things that will amuse him (the extremely old need hard copies of things, it is comforting).

She finally gave in and completed the process. Hooray. Of course, in a normal world and normal White House, a person with what appears to be such severe undiagnosed mental health issues wouldn’t ever qualify for one in the first fucking place, but nothing matters anymore.

Here is Jon Ossoff, who started this whole amazing news cycle, on Lawrence O’Donnell last night, telling the White House to get its big girl panties on and stop fucking bitching and crying about their feelings and Natalie’s feelings and everybody’s fucking loser fucking feelings.

OSSOFF: It’s been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week. And about Natalie Harp, these White House staffers are adults, public officials paid by the taxpayer, with immense power in positions of public trust. And whether it’s Natalie Harp printing out Donald Trump’s daily dose of delusion and flattery, or Peter Navarro steering taxpayer-funded loans to Trump family investments, or Pete Hegseth deluding the president daily into deepening this quagmire in the Middle East, no one cares about their feelings.

No one cares about their fucking feelings.

OSSOFF: The sailors on the Lincoln are fighting his war, a war based on lies, while he plays with his new ballroom, flies around on a jet given to him by a foreign prince, and retreats into this circle of sycophantic aides who tell him every day what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear.

This entire White House is responsible for lying the country into war, and for the rest of their careers, they will be known for having participated in this obscenity.

And many of them will be prosecuted, and will spend the rest of their worthless loser lives in prison, and if there is a just God, they will continue directly to hell, from which there will be no respite.

We’ll give the last word to Rosie O’Donnell, who’s guest-hosting for Jimmy Kimmel this week, and who had these words, and only these words, for Trump last night:

“Hang up your wig and let Natalie tuck you in.”

And that is Donald Trump’s entire presidency now.

The end.

[The Cut / Daily Beast / video via Acyn]

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Darline Graham Nordone is Lindsey Graham’s sister who is not dead. And look, we are about to be mean to her, but there is a reason that if your brain surgeon keels over before your operation, nobody says, “Well why don’t we see if the dead doc’s sister wants to give the scalpel a whirl?” Not that Lindsey Graham was a man of such great skill, but you get the point.

In a debate this week in the Republican special primary runoff, Darline Graham, who has been appointed to fill out her dead brother’s term and decided to keep on truckin’, really fucked the goat. It was awkward when she said there were “50 million people” in South Carolina, for one thing.

And then there was the extremely horrifying moment when moderator Greta Van Susteren (yeah, sure, why not) asked if Taiwan is an important national security interest of the United States and if so, why. Nordone (she calls herself “Graham” for pandering purposes) responded with some embarrassing meandering bullshit about how she don’t know nothin’ about no national security, but she sure does support the military.

It was horrific.

“Does the United States care about Taiwan” is a question for Senate hopefuls that comes somewhere between “state your name” and “please provide the customary stool sample on the way out.” We assume someone has been briefing her on what she’s supposed to care about (more on that in a second) so the idea that she hasn’t gotten at least a 30-second primer on “What is Taiwan?” is appalling.

And not that Lindsey Graham was any great foreign policy mind, or that his thoughts on the matter went deeper than his eternal Cialis boner to inflict pain and destruction and bombs on anybody that he perceived as looking at America funny, but foreign policy was nonetheless kind of his thing. Or at least he thought it was.

“I’m not a polished politician up here,” explained Nordone, about why she couldn’t even attempt to answer the question.

And the audience was appalled. You can hear them in the video above, gasping when she said, “I’m just gonna be honest here. I’m not on national security — I’m not — I’m not that informed on national security. So … but I do support the military.” And that audience should have been appalled. Charlotte Clymer explains why this was such a gimme question here.

And people might say oh well bless her heart, but she didn’t know she was gonna need to be doing this. But that’s precisely the thing. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed her to keep her dead brother’s seat from going into rigor mortis, and she could have done that, while declining to run for a new term, if she doesn’t know where Taiwan is but also thinks South Carolina is America’s largest state.

If she was this unprepared — did her dead brother have an opinion on Taiwan? Pretty sure he did — then she should have said you know what? I’m sure somebody from South Carolina is more qualified to do this, like the Appalachian Trail humper guy or Trey Gowdy, or maybe Madison Cawthorn would be willing to move to South Carolina? He’s available! Literally anybody is more qualified than I am — she could have just done that, it would have been fine.

But she didn’t.

In an interview last night, Graham Nordone revealed that she has been crash-coursing, just not on anything a normal, half-sentient person would care about. Instead, she’s been brushing up on fake bigot issues that get the MAGA base juiced.

On Sean Hannity’s show, the host defended Graham Nordone, noting that most people are morons who can’t find Taiwan on a map. We guess that is fine for MAGA’s senators now too. But she explained to him that the reason she hasn’t brushed up on the intricacies of “Which one of the Chinas is our ally?” is that “I think people in South Carolina are more […] concerned about boys in girls sports.”

Oh, OK.

You see, she talked to people in South Carolina yesterday (dimwits) and some lady talked to her “extensively” about this imaginary problem that does not exist except in the fever dreams of fearful dumbfucks.

Yes, this kind of inbred shit is the best we can expect from Republicans these days. We mentioned above that Lindsey Graham’s undead dumbass sister is obviously crash-coursing on something. She’s just not learning about real issues. She’s learning about make-believe stuff that makes white supremacist Christian conservative clown pigs shit their beds at night. This is what we can expect from the average Republican these days.

At any given time, on the youth level, there is a mere handful of student athletes in the entire country who identify as trans, and yet Fox News-watching mouthbreathers and the stupidest people on the entire planet think it’s half of all student athletes these days. Same on the NCAA level. Same on the professional level. It’s literally not a thing, or more specifically, not a thing that would require senators in an educated country to opine on it.

But this is not an educated country, this is a failing country full of the stupidest, most debased, devalued and devolved humans the species has ever produced.

So of course, Dumbfuck Darline is making “men in women’s sports” a centerpiece of her campaign to replace her dead brother in the Senate.

Why learn about things when the modern Republican Party doesn’t require you to be anything more than a stupid fucking bigot?

In that case, Darline is ready on day one.

[videos via Acyn]

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Is this what’s in Trump’s panties? (Honda Walking Assist)

He and whatever is in his panties are very happy Alexander Vindman lost his primary, and they look forward to Vindman shaking off that loss so he can lose the general as well! (Joe. My. God.)

Natalie declined to seek a security clearance for more than a year, and you can just do that and keep working in the Oval Office? Good to know! (MS NOW) Mr. Trump is very vigorous and hale and Natalie is for sure not his full time nurse for both physically dying and narcissistic ego soother needs. (Amanda Marcotte at Salon)

Abdul El-Sayed might win the US Senate seat for Michigan or he might not. This poll says he will! (Mediaite) Considering I called Kamala Harris with a Reagan-styley 49 states, nobody should ever listen to me. (But I still think he wins.) (Everything Is Horrible)

Here’s a delightful piece (really!) on how libs and commies can Just Get Along, with some caveats to consider and things we must work through.

Nothing soothes bruised feelings like success, and the successes in New York and elsewhere have done much to convince skeptical DSAers that Paris is well worth a Mass, or rather, that Gracie Mansion is well worth some cringe. And the more sensible Democrats have realized that far from sabotaging the party, this influx of highly motivated reformers might be just the kind of bracing tonic that the ailing old donkey needed.

Is this guy right or is this guy right. (Liberal Currents)

Can’t believe Joyce Vance wrote this whole thing about DOJ independence and never once screeched about the screeching about Bill Clinton chatting on the tarmac with Loretta Lynch, a greater scandal than which this country has never known! (Vance)

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Hugh Hefner reported Jeffrey Epstein to the FBI back in 2005 for trafficking a Playmate. The FBI was all circuits are busy, please try your call again later. (News Nation)

If you want to read 27 pages of a now-suspended judge being the cleverest wag in O-hi-o, then by all means. But damn, now-suspended Ohio judge. Good lord. (Disciplinary board ruling)

Delta airlines employees did a very cool, very clever “help ICE get this US citizen man into their rat trap,” good job Delta employees! (WSBTV) You know what they could have done? The opposite, like this United gate agent who can sleep at night! (Time)

Yes his popularity really is in the shitter as evinced by this going-out-of-business Trump superstore, but don’t think his pissed off former fans are some kind of Democrats. They still hate illegals real good! (Slate)

Hahahaha, we could have had public child care under Nixon! Two years before I was born! And I am 53 years old! Hahahaha! (Dame magazine)

Melanoma CANCER VAXX. (StatNews)

Did everybody know that Antonio Banderas is super eloquent and thoughtful? Oh, we all did? Yes, we all did! Antonio Banderas on Almodovar and Sondheim and God and goodness and Anthony Bourdain, and WELL! Wow! Okay! Huh! (New Yorker)

These Russia-paid chuds and misogyny makes you stupid are the last things Brooke Binkowski wrote at us before her other job told her no more Wonking. Well guess who quit that dumb job and is coming to us full time Sept. 1? IT BROOKE. Want to send us money in joy and also so we can pay her beautiful moneys and healthcare premia? Fuck yeah you do, if you are able!

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