Thursday, August 20, 2026

Dolly Parton, Wham, Melanie, Judy Garland, Raye

Let's again start with Dolly.  Paige Gawley (AMERICAN SONGWRITER) reports:

Dolly Parton is getting her flowers. During the 19th Academy of Country Music Honors, Carter Faith, Carly Pearce, and Kaitlin Butts teamed up for an incredible performance of Parton’s hit, “9 to 5.”

The trio of country stars took lines of each verse individually. They joined their voices together during the chorus of the iconic 1980 track.

[. . .]

The performance came the same night that Parton received the ACM Poet’s Award. The distinction recognized Parton’s extraordinary, decades-long impact as one of country music’s most gifted and influential songwriters.


So good for Dolly.  She's more than earned -- and more than deserves -- the recognition.  An album is drawing attention to a major cultural event from the 80s.  Paul Sinclair (SUPER DELUXE EDITION) reports:

 

A selection of Wham!’s live performances from their historic 1985 trip to China will be released for the first time, on a special live EP in December.
10 Days in China – The Live EP features four songs that all went to number one in the UK and/or the USA with two (‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ and ‘Freedom’) from the first concert in Beijing and a pair (‘Everything She Wants’ and ‘Careless Whisper’) from the second (and last) show in Guangzhou.
This live audio has been newly mixed and mastered by Chris Porter from the original recordings and will be released on 12-inch vinyl and CD single. Whether this EP is a taster of a full length live album next year or all we’ll be getting, remains to be seen.

December 4th is when the album's set to be released.   Wham going to China was huge back in the day.  They were the first western band to perform there.   In other news, Jake Fitzpatrick (FAR OUT) notes:

A sprawling three-day celebration of music, peace and love, Woodstock is often remembered as the defining gathering of the 1960s counterculture, attended by hundreds of thousands of people collectively dreaming of something better.

Yet for all of its mythology, the festival was actually overwhelmingly male, with only Melanie and Joan Baez appearing as solo female acts, and for the former, 22 years old, the experience would prove to be far more profound than she ever could have imagined.

The daughter of a jazz singer, Melanie grew up in Queens, New York, constantly surrounded by music. Her mother, a jazz singer, introduced her to artists including Kurt Weill, Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith, with Melanie later recalling, “It was solo women singing their hearts out. All that really hit me”. By the age of five, she was already writing songs, which eventually led to her performing gigs at the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene while still in high school.

After a brief spell with Columbia Records that failed to take off, she subsequently left the label before her husband and producer, Peter Schekeryk, encouraged her back into music. While the pair were in London in 1970, Melanie was invited to perform at Woodstock, and at the time, she had a rather different idea of what the festival would be.

“I had pictured… three days of peace, love, and music was going to be more like a picnic with kids, families, arts and crafts, and going shopping,” she recalled, “I had no clue!”

Her journey there did little to correct that impression. Melanie’s mother drove her to Woodstock, although they initially went to the wrong place before finding their hotel, where the singer found herself alone with her mother, rubbing shoulders with some very familiar faces. “We got to the hotel, and there’s Sly Stone walking by. Then, surrounded by media, was Janis Joplin drinking Southern Comfort,” she fondly remembered.

The reality of Woodstock came crashing onto her prior to taking to the stage, where an audience of roughly 400,000 people stretched out before her, by far her largest audience to date. As she waited in the wings, it started to rain, and the announcer then encouraged the crowd to light candles in an attempt to keep the rain away. Melanie subsequently walked onstage wearing a loose-fitting red tunic and trousers, sitting alone on a metal folding chair and began to sing.

Melanie was one of a kind and she is truly missed.  Also at FAR OUT, Andrew Clayman notes:

In 1936, the New York newspaper columnist Oscar Odd McIntyre rather eloquently described the talents and shortcomings of “the most enduring bar balladist” in America, a singer named Tommy Lyman.

“He has been moving from table to table in dives and cafes in many parts of the world for more than twenty years,” McIntyre wrote. “A pasty-faced, sad-eyed fellow with little voice yet an ability to entertain, especially when the crowds have reached a mellow mood. He is originator and coiner of the term ‘torch song’, a lament for lost love. And an increasing radio horror.”

Tommy Lyman isn’t famous enough to warrant having his own Wikipedia page today, but back in the Jazz Age, he was a prominent enough song-and-dance man to be right at the centre of how the literal language of lounge music was unfolding. Along with being among the early microphone-wielding artists to be labelled under the modern “crooner” category, Lyman was also the recognised inventor of an entire genre of songwriting, or song styling perhaps, known as torch singing.

In the late 1910s, Lyman co-operated a spaghetti joint in Kansas City with a business partner named Joseph Hamm. While there, he supposedly wrote a song tied in with the old poetic idea of “carrying a torch” for a lover you’ve had a falling out with, although Lyman would later claim to have invented the entire concept itself.

“‘Carrying the torch’ was an expression I created when I wrote the first ‘torch song’ called ‘Gee, But It’s Tough When the Gang’s Gone Home’,” Lyman told the syndicated columnist Louis Sobol in 1931, right before name-dropping his subsequent adventures with a who’s who of entertainers and important types, from Al Jolson, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Fred Astaire to the Prince of Wales. Lyman didn’t mention the time he was deported from France in 1926 after getting into fisticuffs with some soldier who claimed to be Winston Churchill’s nephew. 

[. . .]

By 1953, the category of music was so well known that a major Hollywood film, starring Joan Crawford, was titled Torch Song. A year after that, in the first of numerous remakes of A Star Is Born, Judy Garland arguably took the torch era to its peak moment with her rendition of a brand new torch song, ‘The Man That Got Away.’

With words by Ira Gershwin and music by Harold Arlen, who’d penned ‘Over the Rainbow’ for Garland 15 years earlier, ‘The Man That Got Away’ captured everything that was moving and powerful about a good torch song. The way that very specific forlorn sense of hopeless defeat meets a mature sort of “show must go on” resignation: “The night is bitter / The stars have lost their glitter / The winds grow colder / Suddenly you’re older / And all because of the man that got away.”

With Garland, who also sang a portion of the aforementioned ‘My Melancholy Baby’ in the same film, the loungy novelty of Tommy Lyman’s “invention” transcended its original “woe is me” male-centric origins to become a universal encapsulation of the pain of rejection or a love lost. ‘The Man That Got Away’ has since been covered by everyone from Jeff Buckley to Jessie Buckley; Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra to Shirley Bassey and Sheena Easton.

So that's a pretty interesting history of torch songs.  In 1981, Carly Simon released TORCH, her collection of TORCH songs.  It's a great album, however, her 1990 MY ROMANCE is a classic album of torch songs.  Frank Sinatra was also a torch singer.  Especially after Ava Gardner left him.  


Lastly, Christine Burroni (PARADE) reports:

Singer Raye may not be releasing another album anytime soon.

While speaking on NBC’s Today, following her performance on the plaza, the singer shared why there are no plans on the horizon to come out with more music.

“I’m on strike from like making an album until until I fall in love, basically,” she shared.

The “WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!” singer went on to explain that she needs a “perspective” shift ahead of recording anything new.

“You know what it is. I’ve written so many songs, right?” she said to Dylan Dreyer, Al Roker, and Craig Melvin. “And my perspective has largely just been, ‘Oh, this didn’t work out,’ or ‘This sucks,’ or ‘I’m alone,’ or you know, ‘Oh my ex that time,’ and ‘My ex that time.’ So I’m very just bored of that perspective, and so I think I’m just really excited to like find another project, see what happens in life, and just enjoy the twists and turns, do shows, do all of that stuff.”




Closing with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Thursday, August 20, 2026.  Chump continues to wreck the economy, the US national debt soars to new heights, Pete Hegseth is responsible for the suffering on board THE USS LINCOLN, did FBI documents on Epstein get 'released' to REDDIT, and much more.



As Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video below, the rats are fleeing the sinking ship. 




Daniel Orton (NEWSWEEK) notes Chump's losses Tuesday night:

President Donald Trump suffered his most concentrated series of endorsement defeats of the 2026 primary cycle on Tuesday, when three Republican candidates he supported lost races in Florida and Wyoming.

Representative Cory Mills was defeated in the Republican primary for Florida’s 7th Congressional District, Catalina Lauf lost the contest for the GOP nomination in Florida’s 19th District, and Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder fell short in the state’s Republican gubernatorial primary.
The three losses do not erase Trump’s long list of successful endorsements, including several victories on the same night. But they add to a run of August defeats that has exposed the limits of the president’s ability to carry candidates past local opposition, controversy or questions about their fitness for office.

Former NBC News moderator Chuck Todd summarized the political moment in a post on X late Tuesday, writing: “August has been a cruel month for Trump politically.”

And we note that again today  because Chump can never admit he's wrong or that he lost. And so the day after the election, he had to announce that he had told Cory Mills to drop out of the race:

On Wednesday, in a post on Truth Social, Trump called Mills a friend but said he had urged him “to get out of the Race, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Then why, if this lie were true, did you endorse him?  

Regardless, you endorsed him and he lost.  You called on your followers to vote for him and they told you "NO!" 



Donald Trump’s effort to boost Republican candidates isn’t packing the punch he wants it to, as his losing endorsements hit double digits this week thanks to a series of primaries in his home state.

Ten GOP candidates endorsed by the president have now lost their primary race after the Florida Republican primary season came to a close on Tuesday.
[. . .]
Trump seeing ten candidates he endorsed lose so far is only one shy of the eleven candidates he endorsed who lost their primary bids in 2022 in total, and the 2026 primary season has not completely wrapped up.

Back in 2022, only one of the incumbents Trump endorsed lost his primary, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who was facing numerous investigations. Six of the primary challengers he backed also came up short, making up the vast majority of his losing endorsements. Four were running for open seats.

In 2024, just four Trump-backed candidates lost their primary bids as the president ran for a second term.

The last time Trump was president and faced a midterm election season in 2018, only two of the candidates he endorsed in the primaries lost, but he went on to face a rough general election season, and Democrats retook the House that year.

While Trump struggles to admit the truth, FOX "NEWS" fesses up to one of their own lies.  Ayeesha Walsh (THE MIRROR) explains: 


Fox News was forced to broadcast an on-air retraction after making false claims about gas prices in the US.

The news broadcaster issued a correction to viewers after they broadcast a graphic on Monday, August 17, where it was claimed that in 2025 consumers were paying $4.13 a gallon, with current prices at $4.06 a gallon. The report stated that this meant the current average gas price was actually lower than last year, despite President Donald Trump's ongoing conflict with Iran.
However, the graphic was actually false, with prices a year ago really sitting at $3.13 a gallon, meaning that there has been an 93 cent increase based on the current average. Fox claimed in the correction that the Trump administration has claimed "those gas prices will fall quickly, once the operations in Iran end." It comes as CNN analyst Harry Enten shared figures showing the president at a record-low approval rating.


President Donald J. Trump, at least according to a Reuters poll this week, has the lowest approval rating of his second presidency and is tied for the lowest across both of his presidencies. The war in Iran, which Trump launched and with which he is closely associated, is also wildly unpopular; there’s not much confidence among anyone in either party that the United States will be able to pull itself out of that conflict anytime soon.
Therefore, the Iran War, along with rising gas prices and related inflation, is likely to be top of mind for voters as the November election approaches. And that could be bad news for the GOP, beyond the traditional expectation that the president’s party will lose seats in a midterm election. And the Republicans are already defending a slim majority in the House.
A CNN report on Tuesday looked at how Republicans are approaching this dynamic.

CNN reported that some Republicans are “growing impatient” with the continuing war, which they fear “threatens to further imperil their chances in the midterms.” However, as the story notes, very few Republicans still running for Congress have publicly broken with the president. Most Republicans in the House with any degree of public skepticism toward Trump have either declined to run again or lost their primaries.
Those candidates are “gambling that voters can stomach the economic pain of the war for national security.

“Let’s deal with this now, and let’s get it done,” Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa, who is running for re-election, said of the war, contrasting that with the position of Democrats, whom he implied want to give up on the Iran mission.

Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in Arizona, was a bit more circumspect about the party’s predicament.

“There is one person in this country who doesn’t care about gas prices — just one — and unfortunately that one person kind of controls our fate,” Marson told CNN. “For Republicans, it is a balancing act on the thinnest of wires to still support the president but also feel the pain that voters are going through.”

Indeed, Trump said at a rally last week that he would never apologize for high gas prices and told his supporters that a bit of a pain at the pump is worth it to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.


Be interesting to see how he feels if the voters respond that entering a war of choice and doing so with no Congressional resolution nor oversight means it's his problem and his alone.  As Joe Scarborough noted yesterday on MS NOW, "They've got no message. But I would say the worst message right now is to go out and actually say to a microphone, 'Your family would be doing much better if we had listened to every expert over the last generation and not launched an unnecessary war in Iran'."

And it will be interesting to see how voters react to a higher inflation as a result of diesel costs.  In a second article, Stephen Silver notes:

According to a Financial Times analysis published on Tuesday, rising diesel prices “threaten [a] new jolt of inflation” this fall, ahead of the vote in November.  Diesel cost $3.46 at the start of the year, but surged throughout the Iran war, occasionally dipping on a couple of occasions when it appeared the conflict was nearly over. At the same time, the continuing war between Ukraine and Russia has affected oil supplies as well, with frequent drone strikes on oil tankers and refineries.
Per FT, the “pump price” of diesel hit $5.47 a gallon on Tuesday, an eight percent increase over the last month, and is approaching the all-time high of $5.82, which occurred shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The “crack spread,” which is the difference between the cost of diesel and crude oil, has also reached a record high. It’s sometimes called the “3-2-1 spread.”

Per Bloomberg News, that spread, defined as the “margin for making diesel from crude oil,” has risen above $100 per barrel. Monday was the first time that it had ever settled in the triple digits, after that number had never gone above $89 per barrel before this year.

The “Crack Spread,” Skip York wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Wednesday, “is going to make your life unpleasant.”

The high cost of diesel can have many effects. It drives up costs for truckers and across the industrial chain, and businesses may pass those costs on to customers. That could mean inflation that Americans notice day to day.

The economy's in the toilet and Chump put it there with his tariffs, his war on immigrants and his war on Iran.  Business are going under.  Christopher Edwards (NEW YORK POST) notes, "Classic American fried chicken chain KFC has permanently closed a total of 44 restaurants across California from July 2025 to July 2026, according to a new analysis from search visibility platform Local Falcon. The chain closed 312 restaurants nationwide in the same period, representing a 7.6% loss in the chain’s national footprint."  Alexander Kirk (9NEWS) reports, "Mission Foods will close its tortilla plant in Pueblo and lay off 90 workers.  The world's largest tortilla maker will close its factory plant at 2110 Santa Fe Dr. in Pueblo on Oct. 13, the company said in a letter to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment."  Jordan Hart, Madeline Berg, Natalie Musumeci and Kelsey Vlamis (BLOOMBERG NEWS) report, 

Retailers and restaurants are gearing up for another wave of store closures.

It's shaping up to be the continuation of a retail pullback that Business Insider tracked in 2024 and 2025. Major chains, from department stores like Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue to restaurant chains Pizza Hut and Wendy's, have already announced multiyear closure plans that extend into 2026, as have some niche stores.

And Jordan Valinsky (CNN) reports another closing.  

Columbia House, a pioneer of subscription music before streaming, is shutting down after seven decades in business.
A widely reported statement appeared on its website saying the company is closing on September 15 has been removed, but a customer service representative confirmed to CNN by phone that it is soon ceasing operations.
Columbia House became a household name in the 1980s and 1990s for offering monthly deliveries of records, tapes, CDs and later DVDs each month.

Streaming didn't kill off COLUMBIA HOUSE but Chump did.  

Things are bad and they could get worse.  And the new reality has not been good for Chump.  BALLER ALERT notes:

Nearly one in four people who backed Donald Trump in 2024 now say their financial situation has gotten worse since he returned to the White House, putting fresh attention on the economy just months before voters head back to the polls. The latest Trump economy poll from the Financial Times and Focaldata found that 24 percent of Trump’s 2024 voters said they are worse off financially. 23 percent of voters who supported Trump in 2020 said the same. Across the broader survey, 53 percent of respondents said their finances have worsened since Trump’s second term began, while about 20 percent said they are doing better and 26 percent said their financial situation is about the same.


Today on MORNING JOE (MS NOW), Joe Scarborough noted that Chump promised he was going to pay off the national debt has done nothing but increase the national debt. 



The US national debt hit 4 trillion dollars this week.  Fatima Hussein (AP) notes, "The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October."  Michael Race and Francisco Velasquez  (BBC NEWS) add, "The faster-than-expected rise has sharpened concerns about how quickly the government's borrowing needs are growing and what that means for future interest costs."  Brittney Melton (UP FIRST, NPR) points out, "The government will spend more than $1 trillion this year just to pay interest on the debt, which is about 15% more than it spent on interest last year. "  Myles McCormick and Kate Duguid (FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON) explain: 
 

Trump returned to office in 2025 pledging to curb wasteful government spending. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent vowed to curb the budget deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by the end of Trump’s term. 
But measures taken to cut spending in some areas have been offset by large tax cuts in the president’s 2025 signature budget legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is set to push up debt by more than $4tn by 2034. Trump has also called for annual defence spending to be increased by more than half to $1.5tn, the largest funding request in US history. 




The US gross national debt reached $40tn for the first time on Wednesday, the highest in US history.

The government deficit doubled over the past decade, with government spending growing under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden – Trump approved $8.4tn worth of debt during his first term, with a large chunk going to Covid-19 relief spending, while Biden approved $4.3tn worth of debt.

In fiscal year 2026, which began in October 2025, $1.8tn has been added to the debt so far.

Both Democrats and Republicans responded to the milestone with outrage, with Democrats placing the blame on Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress for the uptick in spending.

“The President said he’d pay off the debt in his first term. Well we all knew that was a lie. Instead he ran it up to $40 trillion while he and his family made billions,” Mark Kelly, a Democratic senator from Arizona, posted on X.

“Republicans ran up the tab, handed billionaires another tax break, and now wanna lecture working families about ‘fiscal responsibility’. You can’t max out the card AND pretend you’re the accountant. Pick a struggle,” Jasmine Crockett, a Democratic congresswoman from Texas, said.

“The Republican One Big Ugly Bill adds over $4 trillion alone—all to shamefully give tax breaks to billionaires and corporations,” Jason Crow, a Democratic congressman from Colorado, posted on X.


Meanwhile, Chump continues his war on the First Amendment.  As he orders and encourages FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to go after ABC, not only is ABC fighting back, but also others are noticing what's taking place.  Matthew Rozsa reports:

President Donald Trump’s war against ABC and Disney for platforming comedian Jimmy Kimmel has boomeranged on him, with the entertainment behemoth suing Trump’s FCC for violating their First Amendment rights. More recently, the FCC has challenged ABC’s broadcasting licenses.

Even a conservative newspaper is siding with ABC and Disney over the Trump administration.

“ABC sued the FCC on Tuesday for ‘coercing and retaliating’ because it ‘refuses to bow to the Administration’s demands,’” wrote The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Tuesday. “The lawsuit says the government has violated its First Amendment rights ‘by launching pretextual regulatory investigations and threatening the Stations’ valuable broadcast licenses.’”

Describing FCC Chairman Brendan Carr as a “mob-boss” and agreeing with the premise of the lawsuit, the Journal opined that Trump’s FCC is indeed violating “the First Amendment by letting the FCC interfere in editorial judgments and suppress disfavored content and viewpoints. ABC’s lawsuit says the FCC’s pressure has resulted in it ‘passing on further consideration of booking several political candidates,’ and none have appeared on the program since February.”

The Journal added that Carr once criticized Democratic administrations for violating free speech rights, and concluded that “in 2020 he lambasted a progressive media group for petitioning the FCC to censor broadcasts of Mr. Trump’s Covid press conferences, calling it a ‘dangerous and sweeping attempt by the left to weaponize the FCC.’

"It’s a shame Mr. Carr won’t defend ABC’s free-speech rights today," the board added.


Yesterday on NPR's MORNING EDITION, Leila Fadel spoke with FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez: 


LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: ABC agreed to a settlement with President Trump over a defamation lawsuit, and there were critics at the time that said, well, you're just conceding to an intimidation over your - over speech. That was the criticism at the time. Why do you think the network is now choosing to challenge the actions of the government versus settle?

ANNA GOMEZ: One of the things that we learned from this administration is if you capitulate, it doesn't buy you peace from the administration. Instead, it just buys you time. The administration will keep coming back and continuing the threats, continuing to use whatever leverage it can in order to retaliate against critics. And so Disney has found its courage and it is pushing back. And this is good. It's good for the First Amendment, it's good for the public and it's good for broadcasters in general.

FADEL: The FCC chief, Brendan Carr, says that he is upholding requirements that broadcasters operate in the public interest. What do you say to that?

GOMEZ: When we talk about the public interest traditionally, we say we want licensees to provide service to their communities and that means providing them content that matters to the communities. The problem with saying that you're using this public interest standard in a vague way is it's now being wielded about in order to say, any content we don't like is contrary to the public interest. That is not what our Constitution allows the FCC to do, it is not what our Communications Act allows the FCC to. And so I've called on the FCC to say, OK, if we're going to say - keep using this public-interest standard - a vague, nebulous standard that really has no definition - then the FCC needs to establish rules that specifically say what that means. And if those rules violate the First Amendment, then we will learn that lesson.

FADEL: Are other commissioners concerned? I know you're the only Democrat on the commission, and there might be people listening to you saying, well, that - she thinks that 'cause she's a Democrat and the president is not. Are other commissioners concerned?

GOMEZ: Well, I will say this. Protecting the First Amendment is not a partisan issue. And, in fact, this FCC has heard from former FCC chairs that were Republicans, former FCC commissioners that were Republicans. We have heard from Senator Cruz, Senator Kennedy and other Republicans who have been concerned about the FCC's actions and their effect on the First Amendment. There is bipartisan support for respecting the First Amendment.






As we noted yesterday, there are rumors this week that Pete Hegseth, failed and failing Secretary of Defense, wants to be a presidential candidate in 2028.  Ed Kilgore (INTELLIGENCER) offers his take on that possibility:

Put aside, if you can, your priors about Hegseth’s reported history of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct, and adultery, or any visceral reaction you have formed toward his juvenile addiction to public displays of physical fitness, hypermasculinity, and performative bellicosity. Has this martinet done anything in his 46 years to show he is presidential timber?
Yes, it’s true the man who lifted Hegseth from a Fox News studio to the summit of the Pentagon has largely obliterated past assumptions about qualifications for the presidency. But compared to Hegseth, the pre-presidential Donald Trump was a virtual Pericles, running (however erratically) huge businesses, developing a national following, and expressing opinions on a broad range of issues. The secretary of War was trounced in a Minnesota GOP convention by a Ron Paul disciple in his one bid for public office (a doomed 2012 U.S. Senate run in Minnesota for the chance to get beaten by Amy Klobuchar) and then devoted his life to bloviation on Fox News. That was clearly enough to qualify him for the Trump Cabinet but not to form a Cabinet of his own.
What would a Hegseth candidacy for president represent, other than outlandish claims about his brilliance in directing the U.S. military in a war whose outcome doesn’t look that promising right now? His well-worn tirades against DEI, LGBTQ+ troops, and the debilitating effects of feminism would hardly make him stand out in any sort of GOP presidential field. Now, it is true that he is the highest-ranking over-the-top Christian nationalist in public life today, and that the particular form of patriarchal neo-Calvinism to which he avidly subscribes might have a constituency in places like Iowa and South Carolina, both well-established Christian-right strongholds. But does he have any point of view at all on topics like the cost of living, AI (other than its military applications), health care, education, or any other dimension of government beyond bristling militarism?
If your reaction to Hegseth for President speculation is to laugh, then laugh longer and louder and maybe he can be shamed into ruling it out. Even for Pete Hegseth, hubris must have its limits.

Zeesham Aleem (MS NOW) also weighs in on a presidential run on the part of prissy Pete:

What makes it all the stranger is that Hegseth is exceptionally unpopular in the Trump administration. CNN data analyst Harry Enten, reviewing recent polling from Fox News and Quinnipiac University, called Hegseth “the lowest of the low” in the president’s Cabinet. In the Quinnipiac poll, Hegseth’s job approval is 22 points underwater — significantly worse than the net approvals of Secretary of State Marco Rubio (-8%),  and Vice President JD Vance (-17%). Given that Rubio is also associated with the war with Iran (as well as Trump’s intervention in Venezuela), it suggests Hegseth has something uniquely repellent about him to the public. 

Remarkably, despite his poor marks with the public, The Washington Post reported that “officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking believe that he is considering a run for president or some other political office after his time in the Trump administration is over.” Appearances in Iowa are a surefire strategy for potential presidential candidates to float trial balloons about their viability. Given his track record, anti-charisma and polling trends, I think we already have the answer to that. Something tells me Hegseth might need more convincing.


Hegseth's attention appears to be everywhere but where it should be: Focused on doing the job of the Secretary of Defense. 




The USS LINCOLN remains a scandal and, we are learning, that it's such a shock because Hegseth lied to the American people.  Brendan Cole (NEWSWEEK) reports: 

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “hid” how Iran had destroyed much of the main resupply base for the U.S. military in the Middle East, according to MS Now, as concerns grow about the conditions faced by sailors on board USS Abraham Lincoln.

The network’s senior national security reporter David Rohde made the claim about the aircraft carrier, which, according to The New York Times, has faced supply problems since Iranian strikes hit the logistics hub Naval Support Activity Bahrain at the start of the war. 

During a segment in MS Now discussing President Donald Trump’s dismissal of reports of low morale and the mental health concerns of those aboard the carrier during an unusually long deployment, Rohde said the resupply issue was “because Pete Hegseth hid the fact that Iran destroyed the main resupply base that the United States has in the Gulf.”

“He did not make that public in press conference after press conference, and that is, again, the way that they have mishandled this war,” Rohde added. 







The USS Abraham Lincoln wasn’t able to be resupplied because the U.S. Navy’s main resupply base in the Gulf of Oman was destroyed by Iranian strikes—a fact that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chose not to make public, David Rhode, MS NOW’s senior national security reporter, said on Tuesday.

From late February until June, Iran launched extensive missile and drone strikes on Naval Support Activity Bahrain, causing devastating damage that was not acknowledged by the Pentagon.

The U.S. Navy was forced to evacuate most personnel, and move supply operations to a U.K. naval base on Diego Garcia, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean 2,200 miles from where two aircraft carrier groups have been operating in the Gulf of Oman.


That's presidential?  No.  No it's cause to fire him from his post immediately. 

Let's note this from Senator Tammy Duckworth's office:

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined all of her fellow members on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) minority, as well as the Democratic leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee on Defense, in demanding answers from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Senators’ letter follows reports that the aircraft carrier’s crew has endured food and water shortages, broken plumbing and mental health crises severe enough that multiple sailors reportedly attempted to go overboard during its record-setting deployment. The Lincoln has been at sea for more than 250 days, including over 200 consecutive days without a port call, the longest continuous deployment at sea for a U.S. aircraft carrier in the modern era.

In the letter, the Senators wrote: “Our sailors and Marines signed up to serve and to be treated with respect. They did not sign up to be kept at sea indefinitely with no announced return date and, by multiple accounts, without reliable food, hot water, or working plumbing. That is not how we treat the men and women we ask to carry out this mission.”

“This situation was preventable, and the conditions aboard the Lincoln are nearly identical to the issues faced by the USS Ford when it conducted an extended deployment that ended earlier this year,” the Senators continued. “The USS Lincoln was redirected to the Middle East as the war with Iran began and has remained there as that war has dragged on with no clear endpoint. This is a symptom of poor planning by both you and the President and exacerbated by the deeply unsound decision to start a war with Iran. Open-ended deployments driven by an open-ended war have real consequences for our servicemembers, and we are seeing those consequences now.”

The Senators pressed Secretary Hegseth on his Department’s failure to provide a clear timeline for the crew’s return and condemned his public dismissal of the reports as “completely misrepresented,” as well as President Trump’s remarks suggesting the Lincoln had not been deployed “nearly long enough.” The Senators demanded detailed answers on mental health and medical resources aboard the ship, the state of good order and discipline, hygiene and food conditions, the full extent of the reported man-overboard incident and support being provided to military families, along with a formal request for a bipartisan congressional delegation to visit the ship.

Along with Duckworth, the letter was co-signed by the following SASC members: Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Angus King (I-ME), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Chris Coons (D-DE) of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense also joined.

The full text of the letter is available on Senator Duckworth’s website and below:

Dear Secretary Hegseth,

We write regarding the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln and mounting evidence that conditions aboard the carrier have deteriorated to the point that the safety and wellbeing of its crew could be compromised. These are deeply troubling reports, and the American people deserve honest answers.

The USS Lincoln departed San Diego on November 21, 2025. The ship has now been deployed for more than 250 days, including over 200 consecutive days without a port call, setting a modern-day record for continuous time at sea for a U.S. aircraft carrier. Family members of the sailors and Marines serving aboard have received urgent messages describing conditions that should alarm you, and everyone serving in a position of leadership at the Pentagon, to include concerns about exhaustion, food and water shortages, and mental health crises serious enough that multiple sailors reportedly attempted to go overboard.

In response to these reports, you publicly stated that the conditions aboard the carrier have been “completely misrepresented.” Even more galling, when asked by reporters about the conditions on the Lincoln, President Trump dismissed the concerns of the families and stated that the Lincoln had not been deployed “nearly long enough.”

Our sailors and Marines signed up to serve and to be treated with respect. They did not sign up to be kept at sea indefinitely with no announced return date and, by multiple accounts, without reliable food, hot water, or working plumbing. That is not how we treat the men and women we ask to carry out this mission.

This situation was preventable, and the conditions aboard the Lincoln are nearly identical to the issues faced by the USS Ford when it conducted an extended deployment that ended earlier this year. The USS Lincoln was redirected to the Middle East as the war with Iran began and has remained there as that war has dragged on with no clear endpoint. This is a symptom of poor planning by both you and the President and exacerbated by the deeply unsound decision to start a war with Iran. Open-ended deployments driven by an open-ended war have real consequences for our servicemembers, and we are seeing those consequences now.

Recent press reports indicate that the USS George Washington will be deployed to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. While that is welcome news, the Department’s mismanagement of carrier deployments also means that the U.S. will not have an aircraft carrier in the Pacific for the foreseeable future. However, ensuring the USS Lincoln returns to port takes precedence, and it is incumbent on the Department to inform Congress, and the families, on the plan and timeline to get the crew home. Denial and defensiveness are not acceptable responses. Congress and these families need accountability.

Given the seriousness of these reports, we request written answers to the following:

  1. What is the current timeline for the USS Lincoln’s relief and return to homeport, and what specific operational requirements are driving continued extensions of this deployment?
  2. Was the crew informed that the deployment could be extended indefinitely? Have any members of the crew been changed out since the beginning of this deployment, and if so, how many?
  3. Has there been any degradation in the operational capability of the USS Lincoln or her airwing?
  4. What mental health resources are being provided to the crew?
  5. Have there been any suicides aboard the ship during this deployment? How many instances of detected suicidal ideation or attempted self-harm, including attempts to go overboard, has the Department recorded?
  6. What other medical resources are available aboard the ship, and are resources sufficient to meet the crew’s needs given the length of this deployment?
  7. What chaplain resources are available to the crew, and have they been adequate to the scale of need aboard the ship?
  8. What is the current state of good order and discipline aboard the USS Lincoln?
  9. What is the hygiene and healthy food situation on board, including the status of reported plumbing failures, water contamination, and food shortages?
  10. What is the extent of illness or injury aboard the ship, including full details of the reported man-overboard incident and any other similar incidents?
  11. What is the state of the families of the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Lincoln? What resources are being provided to them, and are they being kept informed on a regular basis about the status of the deployment and their loved ones’ wellbeing?
  12. Will the Department authorize a bipartisan congressional delegation to visit the Lincoln to conduct firsthand oversight of conditions aboard the ship?

As the Secretary of Defense, you are accountable to the men and women who serve our nation. It is time for you to demonstrate leadership, rather than peddle excuses. The servicemembers we send into harm’s way deserve nothing less.

Sincerely,

-30-


Turning to the topic of Jeffrey Epstein, Chump's dead buddy who was a pedophile and a sex trafficker. Jane Doe in The Epstein Files is a woman who spoke to the FBI four times about being assaulted.  The file summary on that released by Todd Blanche was the one noting Jeffrey Epstein.  Three other interviews -- hidden by Blanche -- had her noting Donald Chump.  Katie Phang is suing to get the files released -- as the act of Congress mandated.  Yesterday, Ellie Leonard reported on what may be FBI files that have ended up posted to REDDIT. 


P







The Republican chairman of the House oversight committee has threatened to hold the private equity investor Leon Black in contempt if he does not fully cooperate with the panel’s ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, amid accusations that the billionaire is purposely delaying and disrupting the panel’s inquiry.
A letter released by Representative James Comer’s office on Tuesday, which was addressed to Black’s lawyer, revealed new details about the high-stakes clash between the powerful Kentucky congressman and Black, the co-founder of Apollo Asset Management who was Epstein’s friend and former client and paid Epstein tens of millions of dollars in fees.

“If Mr Black refuses to provide the Committee with responsive documents or refuses to appear for his scheduled deposition on September 3, 2026, the Committee will use all tools at its disposal, including contempt,” Comer said.


The following sites updated:





Posted by at

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Dolly Parton, John Paris, the Doors, the Beatles, Jackson Browne

Let's start with Dolly.  Taijuan Moorman (USA TODAY) reports:

Dolly Parton has missed an expected Dollywood appearance amid her ongoing health struggles.

Dollywood President Eugene Naughton introduced the country legend – who was previously set to attend the Friday, Aug. 14 opening of the theme park's anticipated new ride, NightFlight Expedition – via a prerecorded video instead.

"Well, hey Eugene. I'm right here. Well, kind of. Sort of," Parton said in the video, as captured by the Knoxville News Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network. "I'm still in Nashville, and I'm sorry about that. I was supposed to be there in person like I planned."

The video showed Parton, 80, flashing her trademark smile, wearing a pink getup and fluttering butterfly wings to match as she provided fans with a health update.
"Now I've told you before, all my fans, that I've had a few little health issues, and sometimes I get a little dizzy, and I get dehydrated. And I'm dehydrated," she said. "And so my Nashville doctor, who's kind of clipped my wings, [is] saying, 'You ain't traveling this week.'"

So Dolly is apparently still recovering.  I know we all wish her well and hopes she's back to her usual healthy self soon.  Let's turn to an entertainer in an inducted coma.  Anthony Robledo (USA TODAY) reports:

Singer Shelly Clark White, wife of Earth, Wind & Fire bassist Verdine White, has an update on the band's drummer John Paris after he was hospitalized ahead of a recent San Francisco concert.

Paris, 58, has been placed into an "induced coma" as doctors provide him with critical care following his medical crisis, according to an Aug. 15 post from the Facebook page Standing for John Paris. The page was reportedly "created by Shelly Clark White," her husband and "longtime friend Tazz Cole."

The post did not disclose the specifics of Paris' condition but clarified that the decision to sedate him came after he experienced hypertension and had difficulty breathing.
"Over the past several days, we have intentionally kept many details of John’s condition private out of respect for him and his family," the post states. "As information has begun to circulate publicly, we feel it’s important that everyone hears the story directly from us so there is no confusion about where things stand today."

Paris has been a member of Earth, Wind & Fire since 2001.  "Light My Fire" is a famous song, a hit record by the Doors.  Alex Hoegler (MEN'S JOURNAL) notes: 

 Jim Morrison and The Doors accomplished their first No. 1 hit in the United States on July 29, 1967, when “Light My Fire” topped the Billboard Hot 100. “Light My Fire” held the top spot for three weeks before another legendary rock band’s new hit took over at No. 1.
Fifty-nine years ago today, The Beatles were back at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, when “All You Need Is Love” topped the chart. This was the band’s second No. 1 hit in the United States in 1967, after “Penny Lane” spent a week at the top on March 18.

The Beatles played “All You Need Is Love” for the first time on the Our World television special, which aired on June 25, 1967. The program was the world’s first international multi-satellite broadcast.

According to The Beatles’ website, it’s estimated that 400 million people worldwide watched the live performance of “All You Need Is Love.” The song was subsequently released in the United Kingdom and the United States on July 7 and July 17, respectively.
“All You Need Is Love” spent one week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. On Aug. 26, “Ode to Billie Joe” by Bobbie Gentry began a four-week run atop the chart, marking her only No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

And Steven Luna (GRUNGE) picks out "5 confessional '70s songs that hit even harder today" to marvel over one of which is a Jackson Browne number from THE PRETENDER: 

Jackson Browne was a teenage songwriting prodigy who'd become a confessional king by the time "Here Come Those Tears Again" showed up on the radar. Needless to say, he wastes no daylight cutting to the heart of the matter here. "Here come those tears again / Just when I was getting over you, Browne sings in the opening lines, which tells you what's coming through the rest of the song ... or does it? He drops a bombshell a few lines later: "But you always walk back in like you did today / Acting like you never even went away." The source of the sadness comes clear before the chorus delivers satisfying self-protection: "Well I don't know if I can / Open up and let you in baby / Here come those tears."

Multi Grammy-winning rocker Bonnie Raitt and Rosemary Butler lend emotional electricity on backing vocals, aiming their piercing "Don't know if I can" harmonies like a combined lightning strike. It sends a jolt of electricity through the song just when you think things are ready to calm down, doubling the impact of the lyrics and proving that confessional tunes can rock. It's a standout on Browne's 1976 classic LP, "The Pretender," an album laden with so much masterful confessional songwriting that Browne could have published the lyrics as a journal and made a mint. Thankfully, he did it in musical form so we could all sing along.

Closing with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Wednesday, August 19, 2026.  Chump and Hegseth continue short changing the US military, Hegseth makes time to go on the campaign trail (and ditch his work as Secretary of Defense), Chump's endorsement doesn't lead to wins on Tuesday night, ICE continues to terrorize, Epstein continues to circle Chump, and much more. 




As Ben notes in the video above, Tuesday night was an embarrassing one for Donald Chump.  Patricia Mazzei (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

State Representative Angie Nixon, a progressive firebrand who ran such an underdog campaign that she could not afford a single television ad, won the Democratic Senate nomination in Florida on Tuesday in a shocking upset.

With her defeat of Alex Vindman, a candidate with establishment backing who raised more than 16 times as much campaign money, Ms. Nixon, a democratic socialist, continued the left’s winning streak this year in Democratic primaries.

Florida had appeared impervious to the prevailing political winds in recent election cycles, with Republicans doing exceptionally well in the state in 2022, in what was otherwise a strong year for Democrats. Ms. Nixon’s breakthrough victory, and losses by Republicans endorsed by President Trump in several Florida congressional primaries, suggested that maybe Florida is no longer quite as immune to national trends.



Andrew Atterbury, Arek Sarkissian and Gary Fineout (POLITICO) add, "And, in another major development, two candidates endorsed by Trump, scandal-plagued Rep. Cory Mills and former administration official Catalina Lauf, lost their bids for Congress."







Chump is a loser.  

And so is his war on Iran.  Stephen Silver (NATIONAL JOURNAL) explains:


On Monday, the 60-day period from the June Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Iran expired, seemingly rendering that agreement even more dead than it previously appeared.

This leaves the conflict between the U.S. and Iran in a sort of limbo, as the sides have not been attacking each other in recent weeks, but have also not made peace.
Iran and Oman have, for nearly two weeks, been reportedly close to a deal on control of the Strait of Hormuz, but no agreement has been announced, and earlier this week, President Donald Trump threatened to bomb the U.S. ally Oman.

So, what’s next for the Strait of Hormuz and the broader conflict? Trump provided some clues on Tuesday.
On Truth Social Tuesday, the president declared that “there are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In addition, Trump said that “The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated.”

A few hours earlier, Trump had posted a graphic to Truth Social, proclaiming the Strait of Hormuz a “New U.S. Territory.”

Per CNBC, no one but Trump seems to agree that the U.S. now controls the Strait, nor does it appear to be official U.S. policy to treat the Strait of Hormuz as a U.S. territory.

Traffic through the Strait remains at a standstill.

Marc Sievers, who served as ambassador to Oman for most of Trump’s first term, discussed the situation there and expressed doubts that the U.S. would actually go through with bombing Oman.
“It’s very hard for me to imagine [U.S. Central Command] planning bombing raids on Omani targets when we’ve worked very closely with the Omanis and developed their ports and so forth for access for the U.S. Navy over a number of years,” Sievers said in a CNBC appearance this week.



The U.S. Army is considering pulling back troops from the Middle East as the impact of the Iran war becomes increasingly evident, according to a new report.

The Washington Post claimed that the Defense Department has already signaled it might not rebuild struck bases as they were before the war began.
The outlet went on to detail that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not ordered a formal review, but the Pentagon's policy office is already conducting an evaluation. The Joint Staff and the U.S. Central Command are also considering the possibility.

All the uncertainty?  Means only one thing: oil prices went up.  Alex Daniel (GUARDIAN) reports:

Brent crude rose above $90 a barrel for the first time since 30 July, and was trading at $91.63 on Tuesday morning.

Angeline Ong, a senior technical analyst at the investing and trading platform IG, said: “Trump’s threat to bomb Oman could be the moment the oil market shifts from pricing a temporary disruption to pricing a prolonged one.

“If Muscat pulls back from talks with Tehran, the diplomatic route to restoring normal flows through Hormuz narrows considerably. That would be a signal to add to energy longs rather than fade the rally – with roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil normally passing through the strait, even a small reduction in the probability of reopening warrants a higher geopolitical premium in crude.”


At some point, probably after the Iran War is over, people are going to examine what took place and they're going to ask -- scholars are going to ask -- was part of the problem the lack of strong negotiators?  Jared Kushner?  Who the hell picked that loser and greedy crook to negotiate on behalf of the US?  Trained negotiators were always an option.  As was a bipartisan panel of former government employees.  But Chump kept insisting upon his son-in-law and his Cabinet.  

Scholars will examine the poor results and will look to see how much blame to hand to those who were supposed to be negotiating. 

They'll note 'wisdom' like what Jared offered on FOX "NEWS" yesterday, "When the deal is ready, the deal will be ready."

As  noted by Ruth, the optics are not good for Chump and Hegseth when it comes to the USS LINCOLN.  And now there's the USS BENFOLD.  Paloma Chavez (PEOPLE) reports on the latter:

A U.S. Navy destroyer suffered a total loss of power while operating in the South China Sea last month, leaving its crew without drinkable water, hot meals, working toilets or air conditioning for four days.
The USS Benfold was sailing with the George Washington carrier strike group on July 24 when an “engineering casualty involving its generators” caused a complete loss of power aboard the ship, according to Cmdr. Matthew Comer, a spokesman for the U.S. 7th Fleet, per The Washington Post.

As the Benfold was towed to port in the Philippines, other ships in the carrier strike group — including the cruiser USS Robert Smalls — helped supply the destroyer’s crew with meals. Once ashore, sailors were provided with contracted lodging and meals away from the ship, Comer told the US Naval Institute News, an independent military publication, in a statement.






With all these issues, should Hegseth have gone to Iowa to campaign for candidates?  Wait, don't answer just yet.  Aaron Parnas (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) reports:

MeidasTouch has obtained exclusive text messages from a military spouse describing conditions aboard the USS Carl Vinson that paint a troubling picture of morale inside the U.S. armed forces as the ship prepares to head back out on deployment.
In a private conversation shared with MeidasTouch, the wife of a sailor currently doing a “work up” aboard the Carl Vinson off the coast, the training and readiness period ships go through before deploying, described conditions onboard that she called “insane.” According to her texts, sailors on the carrier do not have access to warm water to shower, and the water fountains on the ship have been shut off entirely.
“Yep my husband is doing a work up right now just off the coast on the Carl Vinson before he goes back on deployment and they don’t have warm water to shower and the water fountains are all turned off,” she wrote, adding, “Like wtf is going on.”

The messages also reveal that the problem isn’t isolated to one ship or one branch. In the same conversation, the woman’s friend, who says she is close with an Air Force Major, relayed that his morale is also cratering.

“I know it’s happening on more than just one ship too,” the friend wrote. “One of my close friends is a Major in the Air Force and he told me he hates his job right now. If he wasn’t so close to his 20 years, he would’ve quit already. Morale is basically in the shitter across the board it seems.”


So what's going on?  And should Hegseth be in Iowa at a time like this?  








Pete Hegseth used an anti-trans slur during a campaign visit to Iowa on Monday.

The Defense Secretary spoke with veterans at the Iowa State Fair and honored soldiers killed in Kuwait. During the event, Hegseth spoke on the anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion policies the Trump administration has made at the Department of Defense.
[. . .]
The event was originally scheduled for March, with Hegseth as a special guest, but was postponed following the deaths of two Iowa soldiers in an Iranian strike on a Kuwait facility on March 1.

Pete broke the rule that has governed previous persons who were the Secretary of Defense by going out and doing partisan campaigns.  Previous people in his position had respected the non-political nature of the job but this is Pete who now briefs just Republicans in Congress.  This is Pete who is a feather weight and a feather brain.  And he knows he's breaking custom as evidenced by a report from John McCormick (WALL STREET JOURNAL):


“According to the lawyers, I’m only here in a personal capacity today,” Hegseth said roughly halfway through what was essentially a 19-minute campaign speech for Nunn, President Trump, military spending, the Iran war—and perhaps himself, down the road—in a state that starts the GOP presidential nomination process.

When Nunn “asked if I’d come on out here, it was an absolute no-brainer,” Hegseth said. “We need those reinforcements in Washington, D.C. We need him to continue to be there.”


Hegseth said he was there in strictly a "personal capacity," yet he traveled to Iowa in a taxpayer-funded military aircraft. And media figure Paul Rieckhoff, who served in the U.S. Army during the Iraq War, is calling out the visit as highly "inappropriate."
In a Tuesday afternoon post on X, formerly Twitter, Rieckhoff posted, "Unprecedented and inappropriate. Not acceptable on any level. [Donald] Rumsfeld, [Dick] Cheney, [Chucl] Hagel. None of them did this. Or would have."

Rieckhoff, in his tweet, was referring to two officials who served in the George W. Bush administration during the 2000s — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney — as well as Chuck Hagel, secretary of defense under former President Barack Obama. Although Obama led a predominantly Democratic administration, conservative ex-U.S. Sen. Hagel (R-Nebraska) was a Republican when he hired him to lead the Pentagon.

Rieckhoff, who served as a U.S. Army first lieutenant, said of Hegseth's Iowa visit, "These are lines that have never been crossed. With good reason. It's bad for our troops, bad for our politics, and bad for our democracy. Yet they continue to politicize our military like never before."


Some have taken his Iowa visit to mean he's planning to run for president in 2028.  


Former Fox News personality and all-round macho-man Pete Hegseth wants to be your next president, according to officials familiar with the self-proclaimed Secretary of War’s thinking.

Those sources, who spoke anonymously in order to be frank about the Trump Cabinet member’s ambitions, told the Washington Post that Hegseth’s trip to Iowa on Monday suggests he may very well have his sights set on the White House. The Defense Secretary, 46, headed out to stump for GOP Rep. Zach Nunn in the battleground state, where presidential hopefuls have historically tested their mettle.
He also stumped for Sen. Darline Graham in the early presidential primary state of South Carolina last week.

He also showed up for congressional candidate Ed Gallrein in his successful primary run against incumbent Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie earlier in May. CBS notes that it’s rare for any sitting defense secretary to head out campaigning for candidates.


And it's rare for someone with as many ongoing scandals as Hegseth to be traveling around the country campaigning for candidates . . . while the department he heads is failing troops.  


In a pointed letter obtained exclusively by MeidasTouch, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker excoriated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over deteriorating conditions and a near-total lack of transparency surrounding the USS Abraham Lincoln’s marathon deployment, demanding written answers within days.
The letter, dated August 18 and addressed directly to Hegseth at the Pentagon, lays out in stark terms what Pritzker calls a “profound and serious threat to the health and safety” of the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard the carrier, which has now been at sea for more than 200 days without a single port call since December.


Again, is this really time for Hegseth to be prancing around the country?  Seems like he should be hunkering down and fixing these problems.


Moving to the topic of Chump's war on immigrants, Mark Vancleave and Russ Bynum (AP) report:



Minnesota's attorney general sued the governor of Texas on Tuesday, seeking to compel the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent charged with wounding a man and then lying to justify the shooting during the agency's crackdown in Minneapolis.
Attorney General Keith Ellison is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.
Castro was arrested in Texas in May on Minnesota charges of assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 wounding of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Castro, 52, is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg with a bullet that lodged in a child’s bedroom wall. Prosecutors say Castro then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

Gregory Svirnovskiy (POLITICO) adds that it's not just "prosecutors" who say Castro falsely accused Sosa-Celis:


Former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons previously said Castro and another ICE agent lied when they claimed Sosa-Celis had attacked them with a shovel and broom.
It’s the latest legal fallout from Operation Metro Surge, the White House’s December and January push to swell federal authorities to Minneapolis in an attempt to crack down on illegal immigration and crime. Two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by federal agents as protests ripped through the state. Minnesota officials have spent months pushing for more visibility into the violent incidents.

Castro was arrested in Texas in May. But he has still not been extradited to Minnesota to face charges, Ellison said Tuesday, despite repeated attempts from state officials to compel Abbott to greenlight his extradition.

“Instead of promptly fulfilling his legal, ministerial duty to execute the governor’s rendition warrant for Castro, however, Governor Abbot has withheld the warrant and held up Castro’s extradition for nearly three months,” Ellison told reporters in a press conference.


Ernesto Londono (NEW YORK TIMES) also reports on the press conference noting:

Mr. Ellison and Mary Moriarty, the elected county attorney in Minneapolis, said that officials in Mr. Abbott’s office told them this week that the governor did not intend to act on the request to send Mr. Castro to Minnesota.

Ms. Moriarty’s office believes Mr. Castro could flee to Mexico if he is released, she said. She cited unspecified links she said the agent had to that country.

“We do believe he is a flight risk,” she said during a news conference.


As ICE continues to destroy lives, Brandi Buchman (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:

Jose Mejia Hernandez, a man allegedly beaten by ICE agents so brutally that he suffered a brain bleed, is demanding a probe into what happened to him, MeidasTouch News reported. 

Mejia Hernandez, a Mexican immigrant, claims that while on his way to work in Virginia on Aug. 11, he was abruptly chased by two ICE agents and when they apprehended him, they viciously attacked him and hit him on the head with either a Taser or stun gun. What ensued was a series of several confusing, painful days, Mejia Hernandez alleges, where he was hospitalized, monitored by ICE agents, denied private time with doctors and kept out of the loop about the severity of his condition. Mejia Hernandez alleges no one at ICE, nor the hospital where he stayed, attempted to notify his family that he had been hurt or detained. 

A brain bleed?  ICE continues to roam the country without any oversight and without any consequences.  Li Zhou (HUFFINGTON POST) notes an attempt at oversight on the part of Democrats: 

During a field hearing in Maine on Monday, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) pressed for answers regarding the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer this past July.  

Pingree revealed during the hearing that the intended target of the immigration enforcement operation was allegedly Durán Guerrero’s roommate, who did not have a final order of removal and was the owner of the vehicle. Previously, the Department of Homeland Security had claimed that agents were surveilling the “last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal” ahead of officers’ attempts to stop the vehicle. The ICE officers targeted Durán Guerrero, who also did not have a final order of removal, after he left the residence they were surveilling, DHS claimed. 
“This shocking revelation and clear contradiction to what ICE and DHS have been saying about the operation raises fundamental questions,” Pingree said. “How is ICE deciding who to target and detain in Maine? What information are its agents relying on? And is anyone checking whether that information is complete, or even correct, before armed officers are sent into our communities?”


For decades, Chump was best pals with pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.  In fact, had Jeffrey not passed away in 2019, they'd probably still be hanging out since we now know that they were in contact after the 2016 election.  (We also now know that Chump never kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago.)  Chump is thought by many to have been so agreeable to starting the Iran War in the hopes that it would distract from his Epstein scandal.  If so, that really hasn't worked out for him -- or for his enabler Todd Blanche.  Hafiz Rashid (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes: 

Virginia Giuffre’s 2015 civil lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell is going to be unsealed.

A federal court in Manhattan last week ordered the public release of the files from Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against the accomplice and partner of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following eight years of litigation from the Miami Herald, reported Julie Brown, the investigative journalist for the newspaper best known for covering Epstein’s crimes.
Maxwell had been fighting to keep the lawsuit details under wraps, but her arguments were not enough to convince U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, who ruled that the Epstein Files Transparency Act supersedes the grand jury arguments Maxwell cited to keep the records sealed.

Giuffre brought the lawsuit more than a decade ago after Maxwell accused her of lying about being abused by Epstein, Maxwell, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, and other powerful figures. The lawsuit’s discovery process yielded thousands of pages of documents, including depositions of Maxwell, Giuffre, and many others, and Brown was told that it contains more evidence against Epstein, Maxwell, and their accomplices.

Chris Nesi (NEW YORK POST) notes the reaction of Julie K. Brown to the news:


Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, whose reportage is credited with catalyzing the disgraced financier’s downfall, wrote on her Substack Tuesday about Manhattan Federal Court Judge Loretta Preska’s decision to unseal the “voluminous” documents.
[. . .]
Brown wrote she and The Herald fought a nearly decade-long court battle to have the documents released, arguing that they weren’t properly sealed. The case was settled in 2017.
“Judicial records by law are supposed to be open to the public. In this case, the former judge (Robert Sweet, now deceased) issued a blanket sealing on all the documents because they contained “sensitive” and “private” information,” Brown wrote.

“Sweet placed a protective order on massive amounts of material, including hearings and judicial decisions made in the case — and voluminous evidence that Virginia presented to show that Epstein and Maxwell were operating an underage sex trafficking operation,” she continued.

“This is not the way sealing is supposed to happen, however. Each document that the lawyers want sealed has to be examined, and those requesting it be sealed must provide legal justification to the judge for doing so. This wasn’t done in this case.”


Diana Falzone (NEWS NATION reports on another Epstein survivor: 

In a wide-ranging interview with NewsNation, former Playboy Playmate Audra Christiansen detailed the alleged sexual abuse and sex trafficking she says she endured from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2004. 

Christiansen said she was contacted by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator, who is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for the trafficking of minor females. Maxwell said that the then-24-year-old model should meet with Epstein, who had ties to Victoria’s Secret and could offer her opportunities in the fashion and entertainment industry.

“Basically, it was like she was pretending to be like an agent or like a manager that she could introduce me to all of these people. And I kind of ignored it, because as a model, you get that a lot. You get a lot of people who contact you and say they can make you a star; that's the big thing in Hollywood, and I found out that my information had been sold to her," Christiansen said.

[. . .]
Christiansen said it was her lifelong dream to be a model and actress, so she decided to meet with Epstein at a hotel in Los Angeles, which she said was not unusual in Hollywood.

“I tried everything I could to protect myself. And he made me feel very comfortable in that setting. We talked for like an hour, and everything seemed to be going really smoothly and really great. And I was excited about the possibilities of what he had to offer,” Christiansen said.

The model explained that Epstein then briefly left the room.

“Then that's when he excused himself to go to the bathroom and came back with a robe, and my life changed,” Christiansen stated.

Christiansen told NewsNation that when Epstein returned, he sexually assaulted her.

“I think that every woman, we all play through the scenario of 'What ifs?' in our head, and I had played the 'What if?' so many times in my head, and I thought I'm a fighter. I'm vocal. I'm a fighter. I'm not somebody that usually just gives up and submits. And it was really frustrating to have my brain telling me what to do and to run and to fight back. And my body just would not move,” Christiansen said.
“It was like there was a total disconnect from my brain to my body. And that is the hardest part. And I think it's the hardest part for a survivor that's gone through that is that we knew we should run. We knew that we should do stuff, stuff to make it stop. But when you're in that situation, it's just you freeze,” she described.
After Epstein allegedly sexually assaulted her, Christiansen said she called Maxwell to report the abuse. She says Maxwell then threatened her.

“I called Ghislaine, and I was crying. I was sobbing. That's when she was the one who was threatening … they get to you. They talk to you. They find out what your weaknesses are. My weakness was my family, my parents. My parents meant the world to me,” she said.






Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:


***LETTER HERE***

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined 25 of her Democratic colleagues in demanding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdraw its proposal to roll back drinking water protections—which, if finalized, would remove federal public health limits on the amount of certain PFAS compounds in our drinking water.

The Senators emphasize in a new letter to the EPA that removing these health limits will expose Americans to unsafe levels of chemicals that have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, immune suppression problems, developmental harm, thyroid disease, pregnancy complications, and liver damage. 

“Safe drinking water is not a partisan issue. Families across the country expect that when they turn on the tap, their water is safe to drink. Congress enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure EPA relies on the best available science to protect public health—not to weaken existing protections once the science has been established,” the Senators wrote.  

Despite the administration touting their ‘Make America Healthy Again’ (MAHA) agenda, if enacted, EPA’s proposal would rescind the 2024 National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFAS and delay compliance for the PFOA and PFOS standards until 2031 – putting the health of millions of Americans at risk.  

“As far back as the 1950s, scientists observed that PFAS compounds could accumulate in human bloodstreams. It took decades of advocacy and heroic scientific research to reach the historic moment in 2024 when EPA finally promulgated the very first national drinking water standards for PFAS compounds. We cannot afford to go backwards and make Americans’ health worse,” the Senators concluded.  

In addition to Senator Murray, the letter is signed by U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife Subcommittee, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the EPW Committee, Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Edward Markey (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Gary Peters (D-MI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ).

Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:

Dear Administrator Zeldin: 

We write in strong opposition to EPA’s proposal to rescind the 2024 National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFHxS, PFNA, GenX, and the Hazard Index mixtures, while also delaying compliance for the PFOA and PFOS standards until 2031. These actions would reverse the first-ever national drinking water protections for six of the most dangerous and well-studied PFAS chemicals, despite overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrating that there is no safe level of exposure to many of these chemicals. Furthermore, there is a strong case to be made that this proposal contravenes the Safe Drinking Water Act’s anti-backsliding provision. 
 

The agency’s proposal is inconsistent with both the scientific record and EPA’s own prior findings. The 2024 drinking water standards followed years of scientific review, public input, and economic analysis. EPA concluded that the standards would protect up to 105 million people from exposure to toxic PFAS in drinking water, prevent thousands of premature deaths, reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses, and generate billions of dollars in public health benefits. 

PFAS contamination is one of the most widespread public health concerns facing our nation. Nearly every American has PFAS in their blood, and millions of people continue to rely on drinking water contaminated with these persistent chemicals. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, immune suppression, developmental harm, thyroid disease, pregnancy complications, and liver damage. 

EPA has repeatedly stated that protecting Americans from PFAS is a top priority. Yet these proposed rollbacks move in the opposite direction. In addressing revisions to drinking water regulations, the Safe Drinking Water Act itself states that “each revision shall maintain, or provide for greater, protection of the health of persons.” Rather than strengthening protections, the proposal eliminates enforceable standards for four PFAS entirely and delays protections for the two most prevalent PFAS. Communities living with contamination should not be forced to wait additional years for clean drinking water while polluters and regulated entities receive regulatory relief. 

Your agency has suggested that regulating only PFOA and PFOS is sufficient because these chemicals are often found alongside other PFAS. However, EPA’s own scientific record demonstrates otherwise. Other PFAS occur independently, contribute to cumulative health risks, and warrant their own enforceable protections. Removing standards for these contaminants will leave significant gaps in public health protections and create unnecessary uncertainty for water systems and states that have already begun compliance planning. 

Moreover, many utilities and states have already invested substantial resources to comply with the 2024 standards using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding and other federal assistance. Weakening the standards now undermines those investments, creates regulatory uncertainty, and penalizes communities that have acted responsibly to protect public health. 

Safe drinking water is not a partisan issue. Families across the country expect that when they turn on the tap, their water is safe to drink. Congress enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure EPA relies on the best available science to protect public health—not to weaken existing protections once the science has been established. 

We therefore urge EPA to withdraw its proposal to rescind the 2024 drinking water standards for PFHxS, PFNA, GenX, and the Hazard Index mixtures, reject the proposed delay for the PFOA and PFOS standards, and fully implement the 2024 National Primary Drinking Water Regulations as finalized. 

As far back as the 1950s, scientists observed that PFAS compounds could accumulate in human bloodstreams. It took decades of advocacy and heroic scientific research to reach the historic moment in 2024 when EPA finally promulgated the very first national drinking water standards for PFAS compounds. We cannot afford to go backwards and make Americans’ health worse. Thank you for your consideration. 

###


The following sites updated:





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