Just Married 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🧨 🎇 

Independence Weekend:  Taylor and Travis got married; if you had Adam Sandler officiating at their ceremony on your BINGO card you are one up on me. Hundreds of face masked Patriot Front white supremacists carrying Confederate flags marched towards the Capitol, truly scary but also funny in a twisted way given that they’re the same people who objected so forcefully to mask mandates during COVID.  Trump first went to Mount Rushmore, where he probably had some of his Mar a Lago construction cronies, maybe even his pool guy, taking measurements to figure out the most expensive and damaging way he could carve his face alongside those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theordore Roosevelt.  He followed up by giving a rain delayed Fourth of July speech in Washington DC in which alongside the usual patriotic themes he once again repeated his demand that Congress pass his voter squelching SAVE Act while also warning the sweating attendees that a vote for Democrats was a vote for Communism, a fear mongering theme likely to dominate midterm campaigns given the number of Democratic Socialists who’ve won primaries and all the attention being given to NYC’s Mayor Mamdani who for some reason that escapes me also delivered a much-covered holiday speech. Then because awarding Trump the “inaugural” FIFA peace prize wasn’t enough kowtowing for FIFA president Gianni Infantino, after Trump intervened he took the highly unusual step of lifting the red card suspension that would have prevented American star Folarin Balogun from playing in today’s match against Belgium. Belgium is not happy and assuming the lift stands if the US wins the results will be tainted. Since my football (soccer) knowledge wouldn’t fill a thimble, I won’t opine on whether Balogun deserved that suspension but removing it at Trump’s request seems a bit sketchy, then again Trump did “win” that peace prize. Adding to the irony, player Balogun is a beneficiary of birthright citizenship, that thing that Trump hates so much. Though he grew up in London, he was born in the US when his seven-month pregnant Nigerian mother was restricted from boarding a plane home.

Politics and Grift:  It’s been one year since Republicans in Congress passed Trump’s big ugly bill.  During that time, the average cost of health care has doubled, 4.2 million have lost their ACA (Obamacare) coverage, 3.8 million have lost Medicaid coverage, and nearly 500 hundred hospitals, clinics and nursing homes have closed.  Dr Oz, who heads up Medicare and Medicaid, attributes a lot of that shrinkage in coverage to the removal of fraudulent participants, citing as proof that many of those who’ve lost their ACA coverage didn’t use their insurance anyway.  Apparently Oz doesn’t understand the purpose of insurance.  RFK Jr is still the Secretary of Health and Human Services which partially explains why the FDA, CDC, and NIH don’t have confirmed heads and the Surgeon General slot is still in limbo but there are rumors that he isn’t long for the job and that he’ll be replaced by Oz when he leaves.  Though $1.4 billion of the estimated $4 to 5 billion increase in Trump’s net worth is attributable to his crypto schemes, $86.5 million of it comes from his lawsuit settlements including $16 million from ABC, $16 million from CBS, $24.5 from META, $22 million from YouTube, and $8 million from Twitter.  Notably while he’s all in on extorting money from others, he still hasn’t paid E Jean Carroll the $5 million plus interest that he owes her. It’s also notable that the investors in Trump’s crypto schemes have lost $3.8 to $4.5 billion dollars.

Mess in Michigan:  Gary Peters one of Michigan’s two Democratic Senators is not running for reelection this year. Since Democrats need a net gain of four seats to flip the Senate, holding on to the Michigan seat is essential. Unfortunately, the Democrats race to replace him has been messy.  Over the weekend Mallory McMorrow who had been polling around 12% suspended her candidacy. She isn’t issuing an endorsement but instead said she’ll back whoever wins the primary. The race to replace Peters as the Democratic candidate is now between mainstream candidate Haley Stevens and “progressive” Abdul El-Sayed. During a recent CNN interview El-Sayed who is endorsed by Bernie Sanders and AOC refused to answer whether or not Israel has a right to exist. To state the obvious, you can oppose Israeli politics and dislike Bibi Netanyahu but being unable to come out and say that Israel has a right to exist is depressingly revealing.  Once again, a Democratic primary is mired in ugly Middle East politics with a taint of anti-Semitism.  That last part isn’t overreach, over the weekend social media was full of comments attacking Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce for having Adam Sandler as their wedding officiant, not because he’s a goofy comedian but because he’s a “Zionist” as in Jewish. The primary takes place on August 4.  Congressman Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for the Senate seat is relatively mainstream.  He could end up winning what is expected to be a close November race especially if the Democrats continue to be so divisive.    

More 💩:  It’s 2026 but Trump is still trying to prove that he didn’t really lose to President Biden in 2020.  To that end, Kash Patel’s FBI has sent 260 agents to complete a “priority” investigation of Fulton County Georgia, still looking for those 11,780 imaginary votes that Trump wanted Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find for him. Locating those mythical votes isn’t the real goal, the destruction of Democratic stronghold Fulton County’s election apparatus, while injecting more doubt about the integrity of the election process, is. It’s not a coincidence that Trump’s attacking Georgia, because going into this year Republicans believed that Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff would be easy to beat. Now that looks unlikely, unless of course, Fulton County’s results can be upended.