Adam Lynch, Alternet

'Deciding his own fate': Trump and GOP want to banish this one Republican lawmaker

Politico senior columnist Jonathan Martin reports House Republicans are aligning with President Donald Trump in wanting to remove Trump’s biggest Republican gadfly.

“If President Donald Trump’s top political priority next year is Republicans retaining control of Congress, his second-highest goal may be the defeat of his foremost GOP irritant: Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.),” said Martin.

Massie is a libertarian lone-wolfer who has not been afraid to push for the release of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein case, which Trump considers a “very hostile act.” Martin said Massie’s independent streak comes from the fact that he “has breezed through past primaries — and Trump’s lieutenants have yet to find a formidable challenger ahead of next year’s contest.”

“That could change in the coming weeks, however,” Martin added.

“High-level Republican officials are discussing an effort to nudge former state attorney general Daniel Cameron to drop his Senate bid and switch to challenge Massie in what may be the highest-profile House primary in the country next year,” Martin reports. “Cameron already lives in the district, previously won Trump’s support in his unsuccessful bid for governor two years ago and would have access to a near-bottomless supply of campaign funds provided by Trump’s allies.”

It may be hard to lure Cameron away to do battle with a House incumbent with a history of winning. Still, inside sources tell Martin that Cameron “has struggled to raise cash in his Senate bid” to replace outgoing senator Mitch McConnell and may welcome an alternative race this fall with the promise of Trump’s backing and his financial resources.

“I’m staying in the Senate race. I’m still leading in all the polling and will continue to do so,” Cameron told Martin, and he claims he’s not been approached to make the switch: “This is the first time I’ve heard this chatter.”

But if Trump does eventually corner him to scratch his Massie itch Cameron might have a hard time saying ‘no’, Martin said, “given the president’s clout within the party.”

Massie, meanwhile, remains one of the few Republicans to criticize Israel’s bombardment of Palestine, and he continues to court Trump’s animosity by being the loudest Republican to push for the release of the Epstein files. This week, Martin reports Massie even advised Trump — in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination — to “tone down down" his own divisive rhetoric.

At the end of June, Massie had $1.7 million in campaign cash on hand, but Martin predicts he will “almost certainly” get no financial help from House Republican leaders, “who’ve all but excommunicated him for his Trump criticism and opposition to party-line bills.”

“He is actively working against his team almost daily now and seems to enjoy that role,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju. “So he is, you know, deciding his own fate.”

Read the Politico report at this link.

Analyst 'disturbed' as 'bratty children' party at Mar-a-Lago while Americans squeezed

President Donald Trump’s cadre of millionaires couldn’t be more clueless and tone deaf, says columnist Jennifer Rubin on the Contrarian.

“At a swanky private dinner last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch Bill Pulte, Federal Housing Finance Agency director, 'in the f------ face' … like a “petulant 3rd grader,” Rubin writes. “The backdrop of a temper tantrum provides an even more disturbing picture of the world in which MAGA oligarchs operate.”

“At a moment when Americans who are already financially squeezed face huge cost increases in healthcare, housing and energy, the bratty children at Mar-a-Lago North exist in a world of their own,” Rubin said.

Politico reported the recent inaugural dinner and birthday party at the Executive Branch, “the ultra-exclusive Georgetown club created by and for Trump world’s uberrich” included “a long table for the 30-some guests set with top-of-the-line crystal and china.”

But Bessent hurled an expletive-laden diatribe after catching word that Pulte “had been badmouthing” him to Trump.

“Why the f--- are you talking to the president about me? F--- you,” Bessent told Pulte. “I’m gonna punch you in your f------ face.”

“When the international trade system is melting down, the independence of the Fed is imperiled, unemployment and inflation are ticketing up, job growth has practically flatlined and Americans by a healthy margin think the economy is getting worse, the oligarchy is whooping it up in high style,” Rubin writes. “So much for Republicans’ economic populism — or their political antennae.”

But average Americans know the economy is going downhill, said Rubin, as do honest investors and employers. Now, it falls to Democrats to convince enough voters that Democrats understand how tough things are while Trump and his ilk throw parties with fine china.

“Dems can argue that while Bessent, Pulte, and the other economic illiterates live it up at MAGA extravaganzas surrounded by candelabra, Democrats can be counted on to make life easier for everyone else,” writes Rubin. “With a simple agenda (e.g., a humane and effective immigration plan, respect for Fed independence, returning the ACA and Medicaid to firm footing, repeal of the tariffs/consumer taxes, investment to keep pace with the green energy revolution), Democrats can offer the economic leadership that MAGA carousers could never imagine, let alone provide."

Read Rubin's full column at this link.

Trump's new spin of negative numbers just 'hit a brick wall': report

CNN analyst David Goldman writes that President Donald Trump and his administration spent the last month trying to sell his July bad jobs numbers as a big lie planted by Biden sympathizers to undermine his administration.

The president called the July jobs report “rigged,” and fired Erika McEntarfer from her role as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner for serving them up. Afterward, officials bent themselves into pretzels trying to explain why Trump was justified in removing McEntarfer for allegedly sabotaging his administration — despite offering no proof of McEntarfer’s claimed villainy.

“That effort hit a brick wall Friday after the government produced updated jobs numbers that painted an even more concerning portrait of the U.S. economy,” wrote Goldman.

McEntarfer is gone, but Friday’s jobs report showed hiring continued to stall in Trump’s economy.

“The number of jobs actually fell in June for the first time since 2020 — all while the revisions the Trump administration so vociferously complained about were significantly less dramatic than in prior months,” Goldman said. “… In other words: The jobs data the Trump administration used to signal a scandal was neither historic nor evidence of corruption.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects jobs data from two surveys, one from old-fashioned door knocking and the other from telephone, internet surveys, and automated data transfer from large corporations. The bureau follows up some information with callbacks to assure accuracy. It revises some numbers for seasonal changes and for low survey responses.

Faced with the undeniable trend, CNN reports the Trump administration has not claimed the August jobs numbers were rigged just yet. Instead Trump is trying to blame Fed Chair Jerome Powell for keeping interest rates high.

“Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer echoed that stance,” reports Goldman. “National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett conceded that the jobs report was a ‘disappointment,’ blaming the BLS’ inability to track summer hiring. He also, without evidence, attributed some of the hiring slump to Trump’s immigration policy, a conclusion that the jobs report does not capture.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insists, without evidence, that “McEntarfer was rooting against Trump and America’s success, which led to skewed jobs numbers,” Goldman said.

Read the CNN report at this link.

'We're going to flood the zone': Trump officials plot at event 'filled with extremists'

The Guardian reports the Friday National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C. hosted a wide variety of far-right religious extremists, from men-only secret societies to theocratic right-wing pundits and associations.

Other event speakers were closely associated with the secretive Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), an invitation-only, Christian ultra-nationalist network with “undercurrents of neo-fascist accelerationism,” according to a Middlebury Institute report.

Mingling and mixing among the theocrats, however, were Trump officials.

“NatCon is filled with extremists touting white nationalism and conspiracy theories,” said Heidi Beirich, the chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “What is notable is how Trump administration officials and allies are key players in the event, showing that it is near impossible today to distinguish the far right from the administration.”

One speech by White house “border czar” Tom Homan contained warnings for the city of Chicago, which Trump is threatening to douse with federal agents and national guard troops, as he already has in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

“I said two months ago, we’re going to flood the zone and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Homan told the crowd. “In Chicago, it’s coming. So, watch what happens in the very near future.”

The Guardian reports Trump’s deputy attorney general, Harmeet Dhillon, gave her own speech in which she characterized the justice department’s civil rights division as “the president’s shock troops.”

“We’re the front guard. We are going to go first and clear the way for others to do their work,” said Dhillon, who has assigned civil rights lawyers to investigate anti-genocide campus protests and perceived “anti-Christian bias.”

Other administration figures speaking at NatCon included Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and Small Business Administration leader and former senator, Kelly Loeffler.

These Trump officials shared screen time with leading figures of the so-called “new right,” an anti-democratic and ultra-nationalist far-right movement “whose reactionary views have undergirded the Trump administration’s actions,” according to the Guardian. They also shared space with Society for American Civic Renewal Co-founder Charles Haywood — a regular engagement farmer on X — who recently posted: “Has a single (subcontinent) Indian ever accomplished anything of truly major note in the modern period?”

The Guardian reports the conference also featured “prominent faces from the universe of thinktanks surrounding the Trump administration who have signed on to, or even devised the Project 2025 agenda that has provided a blueprint for Trump’s actions in its first months.” This included Heritage Foundation president, Kevin Roberts, whose speech “leaned into male grievance and anti-immigrant sentiment,” according to the Guardian.

Read the full Guardian report at this link.

'Absolute disregard': Trump skewered over 'reckless' botched covert mission

In his first term, President Donald Trump personally approved a Navy SEALs team to secretly plant an electronic device on a North Korean fishing boat. The device would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during high-level nuclear talks with Trump.

But in an explosive report, The New York Times wrote that the team failed their mission in a deadly way. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire on the boat, killing the innocent fishermen onboard.

Trump never publicly acknowledged or notified key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, either before or after the mission. That lack of notification may have violated the law, reports the Times.

Social media exploded at the news.

“Yet another example of Trump's reckless and failed approach to dealing with nuclear-armed North Korea,” posted Arms Control Association Director Daryl Kimball on X.

“If this had happened under Obama or Biden the media would have crucified them,” said another X commentator.

Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis called the maneuver “an absolute disregard for Article I powers,” on X, adding, “Good thing we’re giving the Dept. of Defense nicknames.”

Another critic snidely described the drama on X as “future Nobel peace prize laureate” Donald Trump killing “a boat full of fishermen then didn’t tell Congress about it.”

“Dude… can the U.S. negotiate in good faith… like, at all?” demanded another critic on X.

The NY Times said the White House declined to comment.

Read the New York Times report at this link.

'Not understanding a word she’s saying': Critics mock Melania’s advice to tech bros

Social media delivered harsh comedy to Melania Trump’s recent warning to tech-head allies against the threat of A.I.

“The robots are here,” she said. “Our future is no longer science fiction. … As leaders and parents, we must manage A.I.’s growth responsibly. During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat A.I. as we would our own children — empowering, but with watchful guidance.”

The Times reports the first lady was “sitting at the head of a round table that had been set up in the East Room. To her right sat Michael Kratsios, the administration’s tech czar. Also up there was David Sacks, the administration’s go-to guy on crypto and A.I. initiatives; a couple of cabinet secretaries; and the heads of Google and IBM.”

Sam Altman, former fundraiser and donor to president Barack Obama but the chief executive of OpenAI who now praises Trump at dinners, sat in the front row and listened as Melania Trump recited her statement from a binder. The dinner guest list also included Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alongside more than a dozen other executives from leading AI and tech firms — many former Obama enthusiasts.

What followed on X was a flood of laughter at the idea of Melania Trump talking down to tech heads about the dangers of AI.

Comedian Maggie Reed posted footage of the first lady struggling to deliver tech related wisdom from a podium.

Other critics begged Melania to “tell them about [A.I.-driven] drones that kill the wrong people 30% of the time.”

Still more critics ragged the first lady for “speaking about AI and not understanding a word she’s saying."

Trump critic Keith Edwards took that moment to post on X Melania’s letter to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, which he claimed both “said a lot of nothing” and “may have been written by A.I.”

The Times noted that Melania Trump has pushed a bill to protect women and children online from the spread of deepfake images and revenge porn and internet catfishing schemes, which creates an interesting contrast to her husband, President Donald Trump, who claimed — against the word of his own aides — that recent images of bags being tossed from White House windows were “probably A.I. generated.”

The windows on that side of the building don’t open easily, he said.

The Times also reports Trump musing aloud before reporters earlier that “If something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll just have to blame A.I.,” revealing even more of a contradiction to his wife’s warning.

'Details still remain murky': Trump admin caught changing story on unprecedented strike

The New Republic reports that President Donald Trump’s administration keeps changing its story to justify an unprecedented military strike on an alleged Venezuelan cartel boat transporting drugs.

Department of Defense officials privately expressed concerns that the government had changed details of its story about the strike that killed 11 people, according to a Thursday report by the New York Times.

The New Republic reports Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling reporters the ship was traveling to Trinidad, Tobago, or “some other country in the Caribbean.” But after Trump claimed the ship was on course for the United States, Rubio changed his claim to align with that of the president.

International drug traffickers “pose an immediate threat to the United States, period,” Rubio said Wednesday, according to the New Republic. “If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States.”

“Shifting the narrative to center the United States is particularly concerning considering the fact that the Trump administration has yet to produce a legal authority for the use of military force against cartels,” wrote New Republic writer Edith Olmsted.

Trump claimed this week that the eleven crew members were “narco terrorists” that belonged to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which the executive branch has labeled a terrorist organization.

But Olmsted said that designation does not serve as a legal basis for a combat strike, and added that the government has “offered no evidence to support its claim that the boat occupants were drug traffickers, despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming administration officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.”

“The actual details still remain murky beneath the Trump administration’s shifting narratives, and the government has been anything but transparent about the military strike, which may prove to have been illegal,” Olmsted wrote.

Read the full New Republic report at this link.

'Escorted into a car': GOP Congressman flees Alabama voters after making 'meet-up' private

News19 reporter Peyton Newman said voters watched U.S. Rep. Dale Strong (R-Ala.) duck behind closed doors and head to his car rather than meet with voters at an advertised “Quarterly Meet-up with Dale Strong” on Thursday.

“I was told media coverage was not allowed,” Newman reported. “I spoke with the host of the event, Republican Women [of Madison], who confirmed this event was advertised as public but they decided to make it private just ten minutes before it began.”

Event attendees said the group posted on both their Facebook page and the Movement Church’s website that it was a public event, but News19 reports those attendees were turned away at the door with law enforcement officials claiming the event “is now private.”

“We noticed that there were a number of people standing outside, and I wasn’t sure whether they were just waiting to go in,” said attendee Pete Robertson. “So the closer we got, we heard that you would not be admitted unless you had an RSVP. And I got a flyer in the mail from a friend, and it said nothing about an RSVP needed.”

Republican Women of Madison President Sheila Banister told News 19 the group decided to make the event private due to protests at prior speaking engagements.

“We were … advised about the number of people and the behavior of this group at recent events across the state and country,” said Banister in a statement. “… Based on the information we received and seeing the chatter on social media, we decided to close the event to local Republican membership and their guests.”

“While we recognize that many people from these groups were frustrated by our decision, we felt it was in the best interest of our organization to ensure the intent of the meeting was met and that our members felt safe while attending,” Banister added.

Republican members of Congress have faced backlash over their decision to pass President Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular Big Beautiful budget with its Medicaid cuts and regressive tax policies. Peyton reports Strong “was swiftly escorted into a car when the event ended” and refused to face attendees who had “waited outside the Movement Church for hours.”

Robertson said he’d wanted to hear Strong speak on changes happening in Washington that could impact local north Alabama industry, and claims he did not have ulterior motives in his attendance.

“[We’re] a region that is extremely blessed with high tech, with diversity and science, engineering, biotech. And there have been a number of challenges from the [Trump] administration in terms of the ability of these institutions around here to function,” Robertson told News 19.

Read the full News19 report at this link.

'Delusional dim-wit' Trump is flailing to avoid his biggest enemy: ex-White House reporter

Former White House correspondent Brian Karem tells Salon he’s been working long enough to recognize the signs of ‘wag the dog’ in the Oval Office.

“Trump continues to play his usual game, hustling and ‘trying to get over’ like an aging White Super Fly — have you seen him dance?” asked Karem. “But even those who have loved Trump with the loyalty of a stray canine are now barking in disdain.”

Trump is stirring news at a frantic pace, but “nothing Trump is doing is keeping his own followers from burning their MAGA hats,” he writes. “They wanted the Epstein files released and they wanted it yesterday.”

Trump’s promise to release the files during his campaign “was just another lie,” said Karem, “like the many he’s told women, his children, his staff, Congress and everyone he knows, [including his own mirror].”

“Lost for ways to deflect from this ongoing fiasco, Trump has tried to wrestle with a variety of meme-worthy issues he hopes will go viral so people will stop talking about Epstein,” said Karem.

This includes his latest hustle to eliminate mail-in ballots. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have the power to do so, said Karem.

“For a few days the news wasn’t about Epstein. If that doesn’t work, then how about gerrymandering? Who cares if the nation burns and every state redraws its district maps so elected officials can choose their voters rather than the other way around? Trump doesn’t care. Just don’t talk about Epstein.”

But “like an angry orangutan … in a glass cage at your local zoo, Trump has more,” said Karem. He’s also trying to revise history at the Smithsonian — but “that’s not enough to ease the spreading stain of Epstein.”

Then Trump stumbled into the war in Ukraine, says Karem, and stumbled back out of a meeting with “Russian President Vladimir Putin with nothing “except saying the war would have never started if Trump had been in charge.”

“What kind of moron sells that?” said Karem. “What kind of con artist cons the con man into thinking he believes this bile? A real good con man, that’s who. But again, Don, in his diminished mental state, is happy.”

The Ukrainian conflict continues, said Karem, and “now Trump has two big problems he doesn’t really want to talk about: Epstein and Ukraine.”

Karem laments the drain of intelligence in Trump’s circle as he flounders about, but says he is not surprised it left.

“The sense of reason has long left many who work for Trump. No sense of irony, hypocrisy or critical thinking is left,” Karem said. “How can there be when you have to pay fealty to a delusional dim-wit with the power of a president? You could ask that of Donald Trump, and he’d probably just smile.”

“After all, at least you aren’t talking about Epstein or Ukraine.”

Read the full Salon report at this link.

'Trump is getting plumped': 'Useful idiots' slammed for abetting takeover

In a headline referring to members of the media as ‘useful idiots,’ New Republic Deputy Editor Jason Linkins is lambasting editors’ and writers’ misdirecting their criticism of Trump’s occupation of Washington DC as a failing crime-fighting endeavor.

“Trump is getting plumped by some in the media,” said Linkins, explaining that “The Atlantic’s Michael Powell idly handwaves the fact that D.C. brought the violent crime rate to a 30-year low in 2024 to admonish Democrats for ‘downplaying crime,’ while ‘Charles Fain Lehman, also in The Atlantic, goes to similar lengths to dismiss the actual facts to assert that ‘the reality is more complicated’ and that some ‘deliberate intervention’ … is warranted.”

“These authors and others are making a profound error from the jump,” warned Linkins, because D.C. was never about Trump’s ineffective attempt to solve crime. This is about “a fascist occupation.”

“[Trump] is inventing a crisis of crime as a pretext for further consolidating his power; this is authoritarianism 101,” said Linkins.

The District of Columbia did indeed have “a miserable year in 2023” as crime rates spiked while dropping across the country. But city officials “got busy in 2024 and reversed the trend,” said Linkins, achieving a 35 percent reduction in violent crime and 30-year low in the violent crime rate. And they did it without “goon platoons.”

And Trump’s occupation is not benign, Linkins added. “Gangs of vaguely identified pseudo-cops are brazenly beating up people in the street “like Proud Boys,” and “carrying out “a sadistic campaign against the city’s homeless population,” he said.

This is taking a toll on city business. The Trump administration recently tried to claim restaurant reservations are “up 30 percent” since the takeover, but this is a lie, said Linkins. The Washington Post reports city restaurant reservations dropping in the city by as much as 31 percent for a single day since Trump’s military takeover, and business owners are afraid the military presence his hurting business during the peak season.

“You can absolutely mark me down as extremely skeptical that Trump’s interventions are going to reduce crime in D.C.,” said Linkins. “As always, I’m prepared to be wrong. Can the same be said of the pundits who’ve criticized anyone who dares use facts to question Trump’s fearmongering on crime?”

Read the full New Republic report at this link.

'I am the pick of the president!' Alina Habba fumes after her 'disturbing' dismissal

In an article labeled “Trump’s dumbest lawyer throws a fit after judge gives her the boot,” New Republic writer Edith Olmsted says New Jersey AG appointee Alina Habba is not taking her second dismissal well.

Olmsted reports that New Jersey federal judges ousted Habba earlier this year, refusing to vote to extend her 120-day appointment as U.S. attorney for New Jersey. But the Trump administration found a loophole to bypass the Senate and judges by ordering U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi to fire the first assistant U.S. attorney approved to replace Habba. Trump then appointed Habba to the first assistant position.

Earlier this week, however, another federal judge ruled that Habba had been illegally serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey since the beginning of July 1, and he blocked her office from prosecuting two criminal cases in which defendants challenged her appointment.

Habba, who was Trump’s personal attorney in a defamation case involving writer E. Jean Carroll — which he lost — claimed the judges opposing her are set against her because they are “Obama and Biden appointed.”

“I am the pick of the president. I am the pick of Pam Bondi, our attorney general, and I will serve this country like I have for the last several years in any capacity,” Habba said. “… It’s disturbing what we’re seeing. It’s not surprising, but it’s disturbing. They think they have a voice for five minutes, they try to be activists. And Pam Bondi called it like it is: The attorney general said it today: We will not fall to rogue judges.”

“We will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job: respecting the president,” Habba added.

Olmsted pointed out, however, that “a judge’s job is to uphold the law, not bend to the president’s every whim. “

E. Jean Carroll claims she watched Habba and Trump interact in court during her defamation case and said Habba “didn’t know the first thing about law.”

“Not the first thing. Couldn’t do it,” Carroll told columnist Jen Rubin, “but she did what Donald Trump told her to do. I could hear almost everything he was saying to her. He belittled her. He grumbled. He actually hissed, spit, moaned and groaned to her. ‘Stand up, stand up, stand up!’ he kept telling her. She didn’t know why she was standing up, but she would stand up and defend the man as brilliantly as she could.”

Read the New Republic report at this link.

Conservative warns Trump 'playing with fire' with latest act of retribution

Conservative writer Andrew C. McCarthy tells the National Review that the FBI raid of former national security adviser John Bolton is actually a raid by President Donald Trump.

McCarthy, who called the search the “retribution president’s latest lawfare sortie,” said there is no solid reason to search Bolton’s home other than to harass.

“Obviously, the Trump Justice Department, which has a growing lawfare practice of investigating Trump’s political enemies, has reopened the criminal investigation of Bolton,” said McCarthy, author of the book “Ball of Collusion,” which examines an alleged plot by Hillary Clinton to rig the 2016 election.

The raid, he said, appears to arise out of the feud over Bolton’s book, “The Room Where It Happened” (2020), which records Bolton’s time in the Trump administration as a high-ranking advisor and depicts Trump as incompetent and unfit as president. McCarthy said Bolton’s book required a classified information review by the intelligence community of Trump’s first term, however, which both vetted and approved it without warning flags.

Still, during his first administration, after Bolton became a reliable Trump media critic, Trump sent aides to court to stop the publication of Bolton’s book, alleging that it contained classified information. However, Federal District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, denied the government’s motion to block publication, said McCarthy.

Trump’s Justice Department then opened a criminal investigation of Bolton for mishandling classified information — months before agents removed boxes of classified documents from Trump’s own home in Florida — but Biden dropped the case. Trump’s civil suit to claim Bolton’s book profits also failed.

McCarthy, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, took particular umbrage with Patel’s announcement on X during the Friday raid that “NO ONE is above the law … @FBI agents on a mission.”

“So much for the presumption of innocence and the Justice Department’s obligation to honor the civil rights of persons under investigation,” McCarthy wrote, adding, “… President Trump is playing with fire in seeking retribution against his tormentors by using the very same lawfare tactics.”

Read the National Review report at this link.

'Dementia alert': Trump's bizarre 'grass' rant raises alarm

The internet piled on President Donald Trump’s suggestion to fill the nation’s parks with golf carts and Bermuda grass.

The aging president wandered into unexpected territory on Thursday while meeting with police and military personnel at his war-on-crime display in Washington , D.C.

“One of the things we are going to be redoing is your parks. … We’re going to be re-grassing all your parks, all brand new sprinkler systems, the best that you can buy,” said Trump, 79, while speaking at the U.S. Park Police’s Anacostia Operations Facility the self-proclaimed turf whisperer continued. “It’ll look like... Trump National Golf Club.”

Trump insisted he’s “very good at grass because I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being I think anywhere in the world.”

The president then pressed on about the perceived soul of good turf. “Grass has a life. You know that? Grass has a life. We have a life, and grass has a life,” he said, lamenting that: “The grass here died about 40 years ago.”

Social media appeared to stare quizzically at the demonstration, or it panicked.

“Dementia alert!” shouted one commenter on X, while another proclaimed: “Not certain wtf is happening at this point, but everything has gone from lunacy to completely nuts.”

“Has Trump completely lost his mind?” asked another.

One commenter’s post on the event drew almost 2,000 comments of its own, and nearly 5,000 “likes” by early Friday, with one respondent saying, “For the love of God, could someone please unplug and replug in America? We need a reboot badly.”

“The ‘Lawn and Order’ President. What a f—— moron,” said still another critic.

There are more than 30 national parks located in D.C. alone, including Smithsonian Ground, all maintained by the National Park Service. However, Trump told law enforcement in attendance on Thursday that he would be revamping parks quickly.

“We’re going to be rebuilding all of your parks and it’s gonna happen fast, it’s gonna go up like a miracle, so you do the job on safety and I’ll get this place fixed up physically,” he told them.

Report typos and corrections to: feedback@alternet.org.

'Lie! Lie!' Wyoming voters lash out at GOP congresswoman during town hall

Comments from climate change denier Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) went badly at a recent town hall in rural Pinedale.

WyoFile reports the community of Pinedale suffered alarming ozone spikes in the late 2000s, with one measurement surpassing that of Los Angeles. Residents — particularly those with preexisting respiratory conditions and asthma — had to avoid outdoor exercise on high-ozone days. WyoFile reports a doctor even advised one mother to drive her hypoxic newborn to a safer place 78 miles away from home.

So when Hageman appeared at a town hall and announced her support for “repealing” a landmark 2009 doctrine classifying greenhouse gases as pollutants and legally binding federal agencies to regulate them, attendees shouted her down.

“The endangerment finding is absolutely based upon false science,” Hageman said, prompting a chorus of boos from the July 29 crowd along with guffaws and several loud shouts of “No!”

WyoFile reports Hageman tried to continue over the outburst: “CO2 [carbon dioxide] is not a pollutant. As far as the validity and the science that was the foundation for that, they cooked the books.”

But Sublette County constituents weren’t having it, reports WyoFile: “The booing continued, along with one person shouting, ‘Lie! Lie!’ as Hageman pressed on.”

Environmental Defense Fund Legislative Manager John Rutecki told WyoFile that “Wyoming didn’t get cleaner by accident,” referring to efforts to reduce ozone-inducing pollutants in Pinedale’s Upper Green River Basin. “It took years of effort by the Pinedale community and so many others.”

The “non-attainment” status issued by the EPA, which Hageman opposes, forced Wyoming air quality regulators to impose healthier standards on fossil fuel drillers, and eventually the companies themselves got onboard.

Pinedale resident Mary Lynn Worl, who attended Hegeman’s town hall, told WyoFile that her state isn’t likely to weaken federal emission rules after recent successes.

“We were never against drilling and development,” said Worl. “We wanted it done right. We wanted it to be done as safely as possible.

Read the full WyoFile report at this link.

‘We’re more dangerous than DC!’ Columnist says Trump sent troops to the wrong place

Kansas City Star Columnist Melinda Henneberger says if any city deserves federal intervention from the U.S. military, it would not be Washington, D.C. It would be hers — only that’s not likely to happen.

“[President] Donald Trump won’t be sending the troops into this heavily Democratic city, even though Kansas City is by the numbers one of the more dangerous places in the country,” wrote Henneberger. “How can I be so sure? Because despite our many gun deaths and Black mayor … we already have no control over our own police department.”

Kansas City is listed as No. 8 on a list of 25 most dangerous places for 2024-2025, but Henneberger said every member of its board of police commissioners, except the mayor, are appointed by Kansas’ Gov Laura Jeanne Kelly, a Republican.

“So, there can’t be any problem here, right?” asked Henneberger.

Henneberger said Washington doesn’t deserve personal intervention from the U.S. military just because one of Trump’s “former DOGE favorites” became a “3 AM victim of an attempted carjacking.” The carjacking, she said, wasn’t even successful. It was interrupted by D.C. police who were “already doing their job in our nation’s capital.”

“The president should have praised the Metropolitan Police Department instead of sending in the troops,” said Henneberger. “According to ABC News, ‘A police cruiser arrived as the assault was in progress’ — emphasis mine — ‘prompting the suspects to flee on foot.’”

Officers on the scene quickly collected two of the suspects — a 15-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy.

Henneberger said she used to live in Washington, and Logan Circle in the middle of the night “used to be a lot less safe.”

“The cops are so on top of it that they see what’s happening, stop what’s happening, and arrest the unarmed suspects. Yet the situation is so out of control that we need to call in the military?” Henneberger asked.

The columnist said the “federal takeover of the police in D.C. … has nothing to do with crime.” Instead, it goes back to Trump’s real “goal of complete control,” and she referenced the president pushing former Republican Missouri Rep. Billy Long out of his “brand new post running the IRS” after the agency refused to provide private information about taxpaying immigrants to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Trump is going to break this republic if we let him, and that’s the crime I worry about most,” Henneberger said.

Read the full Kansas City Star report at this link.