[guest post by Dana]

The President of the United States addressed the General Assembly at the United Nations yesterday. While I don’t see any reports saying that he informed the U.N. audience that the word “DUMB” ends in a “B” (because he just recently found that out and now he assumes that everyone else is just as clueless), he did, however, confirm to the powers that be that he is a moron. While that’s nothing new, Kevin Williamson at The Dispatch has done a brilliant job of laying to waste the man who believes with all his heart that he is the smartest man in the room. He says Trump gave a “second-rate rally speech that was daft and superficial and dishonest in all the ways Trump customarily is daft and superficial and dishonest.”:

Trump’s speech was intended for domestic rather than international consumption, and it contained no good news for Republicans—rather the opposite, in fact: Trump reiterated his insistence that he expects an Iranian peace deal and a rapid decline in gasoline and diesel prices after the midterms, which is Trump’s beef-witted way of saying that he expects no such developments before the midterms. Not unrelatedly, he made a point of reminding the room that he is not going to be on the ballot. Allow me to translate that into English from the original Low Chimpanzee: You Republicans are hosed, nothing is going to be done about the one big issue that most irritates the greater part of your voters, and my main concern here is that this could make me look bad, so I’m just going to pretend that it doesn’t have anything to do with me. Trump is getting ready to tell defeated Republicans “I never knew you,” words he himself might expect to hear in the near future in another context.

Indeed, much of the speech was given over to Trump’s rehearsing the emotional self-defense litany he will be chanting to himself (and to anyone who will listen) after Republicans get their asses handed to them at the polls and he gets to spend a lot more time answering questions about why it is that a family of supposed billionaires needs a Russian oligarch to pay for Uday’s ghastly wedding: greatest economy ever, strongest country ever, strongest military ever, etc.—an all-American bed of roses until those ungrateful MAGA rube voters Democrats came along and wrecked everything.

Williamson pointed out how Frederick Douglass and “Frederick Douglass and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were at their best and most influential when they indicted the United States for failing to live up to its national creed, Reagan put the United Nations on the spot by celebrating its ideals and idealism and pressing the body and its member states to live up to its own words.” Not so Trump:

I have a big decision to make.

Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?

Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East, or even the world.

Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?

Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?

But I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election, because it doesn’t make sense for them not to.

They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.

What they don’t realize is that I’m not running.

I did that already and won in a landslide.

We won in a giant landslide.

To sum it up:

Of course, it is embarrassing for Americans to be represented by such a man as Trump: ignorant, rage-addled, smeared in make-up applied with an artistry that falls somewhere between clown and hooker along with an evolving assortment of hair dyes, doddering, bloated. It is tempting to treat a pathetic figure such as Trump the way Trump would treat such a figure. But what afflicts Trump more than whatever causes his ankle swelling is a curse that might be best understood as a form of moral obesity, a suffocating excess of self that has the ironic effect of disfiguring the self—here I mean the moral self and the mind—rather than aggrandizing it and fortifying it. One can overdo the metaphor, but Trump is a man who seems to have suffered the spiritual equivalent of an ischemic stroke when he was about 27 and never to have recovered the full use of his faculties. It is not for nothing that he insists on traveling with the emotional equivalent of a nurse.

Brilliant and spot-on.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to humiliate all Americans by hosting the murderous thug, President Xi, while mocking other U.S. presidents:

There is something so unAmerican and so disturbing about an American president demeaning and poking fun at a fellow American president in the presence of a communist leader, while the previous president is battling cancer.

It’s just so sickening. https://t.co/rT0kDBhvC2

— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) September 24, 2026

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

Commitments secured:

Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., announced Thursday that they have secured commitments for the 218 signatures needed to force a House vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act II.

. . .

“Thomas Massie and I have defied history for a second time, securing 218 signatures on Epstein 2.0,” Khanna said in a video Thursday. Khanna said four Republicans had joined the effort and that the two remaining Democrats had been sick and would sign when Speaker Mike Johnson calls the House back into session.

“Four Republicans have signed the Epstein Files II discharge petition!” Massie wrote. “When we return from recess that Speaker Johnson imposed until the election, Rep. Ro Khanna & I will have 218 names required to force a vote!”

Second news item
Uh-oh:

Laura Ingraham told Fox News viewers that “many Republicans” in Congress want their own party to lose the midterm elections so that they are not expected to pass bills supported by President Donald Trump.

“One of the most incredible statistics is the Trump administration, in one year, has grown personal incomes more than Biden in four,” Ingraham stated, alluding to Census Bureau data released this week.

. . .

After Kudlow blamed Republicans for failing to tout Trump’s accomplishments, Ingraham said something sinister is afoot among Republican electeds.

“But how many Republicans secretly want Trump to lose?” she said. “I actually think there are a lot of Republicans on the Hill who will be happy not to have the burden of having to pass legislation, Larry. They’re almost going to be relieved for a little while, at least, to be in the minority. I’m sorry to report that. But there’s no other explanation for why they shouldn’t be on the offense of the U.S. economy.”

Third news item

Trump’s obsession with the Kennedy Center continues:

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper will, however, require the government to provide at least 30 days’ notice if it intends to demolish the performing arts center in the nation’s capital.

Cooper said his requirement seeks to “avoid any confusion on that score given more recent events.”

The Trump administration has described the Kennedy Center as in a state of decay, saying renovations are needed to conduct repairs.
President Trump has publicly suggested the building could soon be razed if courts don’t allow him to add his name to the facade. The president was seen Wednesday night on Air Force One looking at a placard that appears to depict a potential demolition.>

It’s It should be stunning that the sitting president of the United States is such a big baby wah-wah that, if he can’t have his name inscribed on JFK’s memorial, then no one will be allowed to enjoy it.

Fourth news item

Simply inhumane:

For around 15 hours, immigration detention officers kept Raúl Suárez Herrero confined in a cage slightly larger than a phone booth, where he feared snakes and endured mosquitoes in the middle of Florida swampland, the former detainee alleged.

Suárez, 59, told José Díaz-Balart in an interview for Noticias Telemundo’s “Ahora 360” that he was forced into the cage, measuring 7 feet, 9 inches high and 4 feet, 3 inches square, for praying out loud for an ill young man at “Alligator Alcatraz,” an ICE detention site.

The facility staff told inspectors that the cages were “calming areas” where immigrants could de-escalate and have time alone and that no one spent more than two hours inside them.

I don’t know about you, but every time I say a prayer for someone who is suffering, I get so worked up I need a calming cage too! God, these immigration detention people are animals.

Oh yes, and this:

Alex Lafranconi, a spokesman for DeSantis, has dismissed criticism of the small cages. Lafranconi has described the small cages as a confinement area for “violent criminal aliens who have proven they cannot remain peaceful,” and said “we’d make them smaller, if we could.”

Fifth news item

Witkoff and war weariness:

Kyiv and Moscow are growing increasingly frustrated with the U.S.-mediated peace process — and with Washington’s Envoy Steve Witkoff, people familiar with the matter told the Kyiv Independent.

Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has emerged as a key peace negotiator, traveled to Russia and Ukraine in early September in an attempt to restart stalled negotiations. They left both countries with little to show for the effort.

Behind the scenes, however, several separate efforts are taking shape to remove Witkoff from the equation. The Kyiv Independent can reveal that multiple tracks are also seeking to disrupt his close relationship with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

Officials and people close to the process in both Kyiv and Moscow are questioning Witkoff’s role. At the same time, Trump appears reluctant to dislodge Witkoff.

This frustration comes amid a broader problem with Washington’s approach. Ukrainian officials say they are seeing few new ideas from the U.S. side and little willingness to increase pressure on Russia, while the Kremlin increasingly blames Witkoff for “diplomatic” failures and his inability to pressure Ukraine into giving up territories that Russia failed to capture militarily.

“They keep telling us that ‘you have to end this war.’ As if we don’t f***ing want to end it,” one Ukrainian official involved in the peace talks, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told the Kyiv Independent.

Have a great weekend.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

It may not go anywhere but it needs to be done:

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky moved Tuesday to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran.

Congressman Massie, a long-time critic of the Trump administration, read the articles of impeachment aloud from the House floor just after the chamber convened at noon. Massie alleges that Hegseth has waged the Iran war illegally, among other “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Massie alleges that Hegseth initiated the conflict unlawfully, defied Congress’ order to withdraw from the conflict and incurred unnecessary civilian casualties.

[guest post by Dana]

Trump restrained in unconstitutional power grab:

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to change how mail ballots are sent to voters across the country, rebuffing a proposal that election officials warned would have had catastrophic consequences if allowed to take effect for this year’s midterms.

In one of the most significant cases to appear on the court’s quick-turn docket in years, a majority of the justices blocked the procedure that would have given the US Postal Service the unprecedented power to withhold potentially millions of mail ballots. Even some GOP election officials cautioned that the proposal could lead to chaos and mass disenfranchisement.

Trump took the rejection of his plan like the adult we know him to be:

Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally CORRUPT and out of control Mail-In voting “disaster,” which is a laughing stock all over the World, and where we are the only country that has to endure such a Nation Destroying SCAM. Justices Alito and Thomas, legends both, strongly disagreed with this horrible, highly political, ruling. It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left “Dumocrats,” on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do – And now they have an open field to do so! The Supreme Court has really let our Country down! Certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats, and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America. Their horrible decision on Tariffs will be costing the U.S.A., for many years to come, Trillions and Trillions of Dollars. They didn’t even state, “money paid does not have to be paid back,” much to the benefit of entities that truly hate our Country, and have been RIPPING IT OFF FOR YEARS, unnecessarily costing us, immediately, Billions of Dollars. Likewise, the Supreme Court’s Decision on Birthright Citizenship is a complete and total disaster for America, and has already led to massive corruption with respect to “citizenship” in our Country. The damage done to America is incalculable, and they know this, just as everyone else does – It is an irreparable and unrecoverable harm! The Court’s inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our Country will go down, in a very negative way, in the annals of History. This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years. These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal. It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country’s history. It is not easy for me to write this criticism of the United States Supreme Court – it will likely cost me dearly for years to come – but I feel it my obligation and duty, as President, to do so for the America we love! Thank you for your attention to this very important matter. God bless the U.S.A. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Maybe if he stopped trying to obsessively control elections and how Americans vote, he wouldn’t see his blood pressure skyrocket like it surely must when he’s told “no” by an entity more powerful than the president of the United States.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

How interesting(and not at all suspicious) to read that a close pal of Vladimir Putin’s and Donald Trump Jr’s, who is also the head of the “scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom,” financed a big portion of Trump Jr’s recent wedding on a private island in the Bahamas:

Umar Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. . .The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

Throughout the war in Ukraine, many of us have long-criticized President Trump for his continual surrender to Putin while blaming Ukraine for the war. Trump continues to do this while the small but mighty nation defends itself from Russia’s constant bombings of civilian cemters.

Concerns about a tied-to-Putin ogliarch footing a large part of the wedding bill are fairly obvious:

Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.

National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection?

And obviously: What does/will Kremlev demand/expect in return, both now and in the future? Access to POTUS comes to mind:

“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

But with a family like the Trumps it’s not unthinkable. Rather, it’s just business as usual.

And following that line of thinking, it then makes sense that many immediate family members were not invited to the wedding, but a coalition of Russians including Kremlev, were invited.

Meanwhile, Trump continues his efforts to protect Russia and blame Ukraine for the war (and everything else):

Trump is Putin’s whore. https://t.co/va6XWuFaFd

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) September 14, 2026

More blaming of Ukraine by the Trump-appointed envoy, son-in-law Jared Kushner:

Kushner again blames Ukraine, making the case that if only Putin would be given "what he wants to achieve", "we’d have a deal" and the Trump family could finally get their hands on that cash while Ukraine is genocided. https://t.co/g7qIXcSf6k

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) September 13, 2026

Thankfully, Kate from Kharkiv lays waste to Kushner’s nonsense:

Kushner: “Putin’s laid out his line of what he wants to achieve. If Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now doesn’t want to do that.”

He’s absolutely clueless! Not only does this ignore the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine and could leave at any moment, but it also parrots a classic Russian propaganda narrative: “Russia only wants Crimea… I mean, Donetsk and Luhansk… wait, Donbas, but that’s it, promise!”

​See my point? We haven’t just heard this before, we actually tried giving Russia land without a fight. We tried it with the exact same regime in power today, and it only led to a bigger war.​

This was never about a specific piece of land. Russian invasion has always been about destroying Ukrainian statehood.​

Surrendering more land won’t just doom thousands of our people to a horrific death under occupation, it will guarantee an even larger war in a few years.

It’s a pity that special envoys don’t understand this.

Heck, there’s a lot of deals to be made between Putin and the Trump family, thus keeping the prize in mind, there is no interest in understanding anything other than what they are told. . .by the Kremlin.

It’s a fascinating and eye-opening report. Make sure to read it in its entirety.

P.S. Don Jr. and his wife released a statement, in which they referred to Kremlev as “our dear friend”. A man personally sanctioned for kidnapping Ukrainian children. . .

—Dana

[guest post by JVW]

I don’t want to step on Dana’s Weekend Open Thread, but I thought that since we are marking the twenty-five years anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, a separate open thread might be important and provide a dedicated area where we can all share our thoughts.

One quarter-century ago today I awoke early with the intention of driving out to Riverside to meet with some customers. As I recall, my morning alarm was set to KFI, a talk station found at AM 640 in the Los Angeles area. I vaguely recall hearing something about a plane crash as I groggily stumbled my way to the shower, but maybe that’s a false memory all these years later. What I do know is that by the time I emerged from the bathroom, having showered and shaved, both American flight 11 and United flight 175 had hit their respective towers. Within the next hour came news of American fight 77 which had crashed at the Pentagon and United flight 93 which had inexplicably crashed in rural Pennsylvania. We would soon learn about the heroism of the flight 93 passengers, which President Bush would call the first counter-attack in the War on Terror. It goes without saying that I never made it to Riverside.

My sister was living in New York at the time, and every day she would ride the Number One or Number Three subway from 72nd Street to her office, emerging within blocks of the site of the Twin Towers. Those were the days before everyone had a cellphone, and my sister was one of those who did not. Between that and the phone lines being mostly down, we had no idea where she was. My parents called me, their demeanor somewhere between concerned and frantic, asking if I had heard from her which I of course had not. We spent the better part of the day worrying about her until she managed to borrow a cellphone and call me around 3:00 pm. She had been sequestered at the subway stop at South Ferry for several hours, before being allowed to walk home up the East Side which of course took a few hours.

I spent the rest of the morning into the early afternoon in my apartment. I had the TV on, but I found that the Bill Handel Show on KFI was the most informative of all of the news sources. Handel’s show usually ran from 5:00 am until 9:00 am, before yielding to Rush Limbaugh, but that day Handel stayed on air for somewhere between twelve to sixteen hours, providing really solid insight and utilizing his impressive rolodex to bring on very informative guests to discuss what was going on and what would likely be the aftermath. I’ve always held a great deal of respect for the job he did that gloomy day.

Towards the end of the afternoon and frustrated at my feelings of helplessness, I hit upon the idea of going to the American Red Cross Blood Center and giving a donation. Naturally, a lot of other people had the same idea, and I arrived to a line of donors close to 100 deep. The ARC had called in all of their workers and every single donor chair was occupied. I waited for a couple of hours to get in, and a local restaurant, the Mexican Riviera Restaurant, delivered free bean and cheese burritos to us, which I thought was an incredibly classy gesture. I was a bit taken aback at the fact that some people in line were happily chatting and even laughing on what I thought was a truly somber day, but I guess I understood that people deal with tragic events in different ways. I eventually was able to make my donation, after which I headed home. Word starting coming in of locals who had been on both of the flights that hit the Towers, which was expected given that three of the four flights were destined for Los Angeles.

I went to bed late that night feeling very glum. I was a couple of months shy of 32 and I had not served in the armed forces, so I knew it wasn’t going to be me carrying a rifle in Afghanistan. But I couldn’t help but think about all of the young people whose lives would be interrupted by dangerous overseas service. Some of them hold elective and appointed office today. It’s appropriate that we take a moment to reflect upon all aspects of the day: the evil depravity, the horror of watching events unfold, the heroism of the first responders, the momentary sense of national unity which would eventually evaporate into rancor.

Twenty-five years later we are a much different country than we were before those airplanes took off from Boston, Washington, and Newark, so much so that it’s become something of a cliche to discuss “pre-9/11” and “post-9/11.” Perhaps in a world beset with strife, ancient hatreds, and radicalism an epoch-changing event like this was inevitable, but I’m sorry it came at the dawn of a new millennium and that it has had such a huge impact upon us ever since.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

About Trump’s pledged $5,000 for every American adult, if Republicans control the House and Senate after the midterms:

Mr. Trump says he doesn’t think Congress would need to approve the payments, which he called “a great infusion” — money he says would have to be spent in the U.S., not other countries.

Fink: Mr. Trump, last night you proposed “Trump Dividends,” giving every American adult citizen $5,000, and I’m wondering if Congress would need to approve that?

. . .

Trump: Well, we think not. I think they will do it if we needed it. But we think not. The country is doing so well, we’ve taken in trillions of dollars in tariffs and other things. We have now over $20 trillion worth of manufacturing plants and other investments being made in the United States, which is far greater than ever before. And we think it’s something that’ll be good. We do have one proviso, and that’s that the money be spent… people spend their money in the United States. We don’t want to have that money spent in other countries. We think it’s something that’s really good, popular and it’s a great infusion.

Second news item

Swearing loyalty to Trump, per his directive:

“Please raise your right hand,” Trump commanded the crowd in Dallas. “I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States.”

The crowd repeated the line back to him.
Not the country. Not the Constitution. Trump had his supporters pledge themselves to Donald Trump, while he stood before them with his own hand raised.

But the cultlike spectacle was only getting started.

Trump continued feeding the audience lines to repeat, directing them to promise that they would round up their families and friends to vote in November. He then led them into something even more disturbing.

“I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m going to try,” Trump said. “And cheat like hell like they do.”

The crowd obediently echoed his words.

Then the Christian icon whose favorite book is the Bible, went for gold:

“You know what happens if you don’t vote?” he asked. “You go to hell. You know that? Okay? You go to hell.”

Trump: So Please raise your right hand: I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States

Crowd: I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States…

Trump: I’m going to try and cheat like hell like they do. https://t.co/umehtVKUr7

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2026

Cult? What cult?

Third news item

More checks to go out to Americans before midterms:

The Trump administration will give $500 to nearly 1 million Americans who lost income-based subsidies that helped reduce health insurance costs, according to a Thursday White House announcement.

The refunds will go out next month. The announcement comes less than two months before the November midterm elections, where skyrocketing health costs have become a key campaign issue, and after the White House opposed efforts to extend Biden-era enhanced subsidies last year.

“Today’s actions directly refund the Americans most exposed to the higher costs imposed by the Biden Administration’s gross mismanagement of Obamacare,” according to a White House fact sheet.

The refunds, first reported by Axios on Wednesday, will go to people who earn too much to qualify for an income-based subsidy to lower their health insurance costs.

Fourth news item

Today’s Republican Party:

Less than two months before the midterms, Republicans are fighting roughly 200 legal battles to try to impact elections, including several cases in which the GOP isn’t officially participating but is paying legal fees or advising on strategy.

Driving the news: The Republican National Committee’s vast roster of cases includes efforts to tighten voter ID rules in Montana, decrease ballot drop-off locations in Georgia, increase scrutiny of voter lists in New Jersey and Delaware, and boost access for election observers and challengers elsewhere.

Fifth news item

AI warnings:

OpenAI and Anthropic researchers are ramping up calls for an AI slowdown and warning of existential risks to humanity after the resignation of a researcher at Anthropic fueled fresh scrutiny.

The concerns started after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said Tuesday that he was quitting the company as he accused Anthropic and rival OpenAI of “gambling with our lives.” He added that those building AI believed that it could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s alignment lead, responded that he expects there is a more than 10% chance of that happening.

Since then, several employees at both AI labs have come out in support of calls to slow the pace of AI development as they stressed the risks of the technology. The public warnings are the culmination of growing concern globally about the capability of AI, following numerous cyberattacks and security incidents in recent months by rogue models developed by both OpenAI and Anthropic.

Sixth news item

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

President George W. Bush standing at Ground Zero in New York City following the September 11 Attacks. “I can hear you.” https://t.co/fx8E680m6N

— History Calendar (@HistoryCalendar) September 9, 2026

How it’s going 25 years later:

“Before 9/11, the primary concern came from centralized international terrorist organizations. Today, those groups remain a threat, but the landscape is broader and more dispersed,” according to a DHS spokesperson. “Individuals and small cells now plot attacks independently, often motivated by a range of ideological and political goals.

Foreign terrorist organizations, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda continue to seek ways to carry out or inspire attacks in the U.S., the spokesperson said.

“At the same time, domestic terrorists continue to plan acts of violence, often driven by anti-government views and a desire to destabilize society,” the spokesperson added.

9/11 then and now: Photos show how the World Trade Center area has changed in 25 years
In the past year and a half, the FBI has arrested at least 16 people inside the U.S. homeland for allegedly plotting or supporting plots to kill Americans on behalf of al-Qaeda or ISIS, officials say.

Count your blessings and have a great weekend.

—Dana

[guest post by JVW]

This year (technically back in April) marked the fiftieth anniversary of the theatrical release of one of America’s greatest summer movies, The Bad News Bears. One half-century removed from its premier during the Bicentennial year, it still resonates as a truly great look at that troublesome nexus between kids, parents, and sports, and it provides a timeless lesson on the values of courage, friendship, and tenacity.

Hopefully most of you have seen the movie and are generally familiar with it, but here is a quick outline of the plot. Set in the San Fernando Valley, a city councilman has sued the local six-team Little League because his son and some other boys have not been skilled enough to be accepted by any of the teams. Having thus forced the league to add a seventh team, known as the Bears, the councilman hires ex-Minor League Baseball pitcher Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), an alcoholic whose regular job is as a pool-cleaner at ritzy homes, to manage the ragtag squad. The boys are awful and Buttermaker barely gives a damn, until he prevails upon an ex-girlfriend’s daughter, Amanda Wurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal), whom he had taught to pitch years earlier, to join the team. Amanda is in that pre-adolescent phase where she wants to leave behind her tomboy past and become a teenage girl, but she barters with Buttermaker and cuts a deal that she will pitch for the Bears in return for Buttermaker paying for ballet lessons and designer jeans.

Amanda is a good pitcher, but the team behind her is so miserable that the team continues to lose. That changes when local juvenile delinquent, the motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smoking Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) joins the Bears to stick it to the uptight adults who run the league. Kelly turns out to be a phenomenal athlete, and his addition to the team immediately turns around the Bears’ season. As the Bears begin to move up in the league standings, Buttermaker becomes more intense as a manager, emulating the hyper-competitiveness of the league’s other teams. The Bears advance to the league championship against the league’s dominant team, the Yankees, whose coach Roy Turner (Vic Morrow) is a combination of John McGraw and Bobby Cox. The two teams play a close and spirited game, until Buttermaker suddenly realizes that he has become another Turner, squeezing the joy out of the game and making it about his ego rather than a fun time for the kids. He relents and allows all of his players to play which stakes the Yankees to a strong lead, but the Bears rally in the final inning only to come up short in the end. As the Yankees joylessly accept another championship trophy, Buttermaker reminds the kids that baseball is fun and that it shouldn’t be the focus of their youth.

The writer of the movie, Bill Lancaster, is the son of legendary actor Burt Lancaster. This unconvincing behind-the-scenes video (I don’t recommend you waste your time watching it) claims that Matthau’s character Morris Buttermaker is based upon the writer’s famous father, but I get the sense that Burt Lancaster was closer in personality to Vic Morrow’s character Roy Turner: intense, obsessive, and distant. Matthau was the third choice for the role of Buttermaker, after both Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty passed on the role. It’s hard to see either of them so convincingly playing the world-weary drunk who allows a group of sixth graders to affect his worldview. Matthau’s son Charlie said that his dad, who could be grumpy on set, came to adore the young actors who made up the Bears, and always named this movie as one of his favorite roles.

Tatum O’Neal, like Matthau, was an Academy Award winner when cast in the movie, having won at the remarkably precocious age of ten. She filmed her role as Amanda a few months before her twelfth birthday and apparently learned enough about pitching to be a passable Little Leaguer. Vic Morrow is excellent as the enemy manager, Turner, mixing an old-school drill sergeant mentality with more than a hint of malevolence. Jackie Earle Haley, fourteen at the time of filming, allegedly rode a small motorcycle to his audition (obviously without a license) which all but guaranteed that he would be cast as the miscreant Kelly Leak.

But the heart of the movie isn’t either one of the Oscar winners; it isn’t Morrow, the old pro, father to Jennifer Jason Leigh; it isn’t even Haley who perhaps had the meatiest role of all. The character who leaves the most indelible mark on the viewer (or at least to this one) is the second baseman Tanner Boyle, played by Chris Barnes. Tanner is short and not particularly athletic, but has a hair-trigger temper and is prone to profane and racist outbursts against his teammates, coaches, and opponents. He comes across at first as unlikeable, a little twerp with a Napoleonic complex, but as he plot unfolds he emerges as the most consistently reliable teammate and friend.

My favorite scene is when the team decides to quit en masse, handing their jerseys back to Buttermaker in the dugout a day after an early humiliating loss. Team spokesman Toby Whitewood (David Stambaugh) tells Buttermaker the decision is unanimous. As the coach scans his players in the dugout, he lands upon Tanner, whose face is bruised and nursing a cut lip, having fought “the entire seventh grade” who had picked on Bears players. Buttermaker asks Tanner if he too wants to quit. Tanner’s response is to stare Buttermaker defiantly in the eyes, and reply “Crud no. I want to play ball.” Later on, Tanner intervenes when players from the Yankees begin bullying the Bears seldom-used outfielder Timmy Lupus, having only just moments ago demanded Timmy not sit near him, and fights two larger boys in defense of Timmy and, by extension, the Bears. In the championship game when a Yankee player sides foot up while charging home on a wild pitch and kicks Amanda square in the chest, it’s none other than Tanner who accosts the boy and kicks him squarely in the nuts. As Buttermaker begins tyrannically coaching, it’s Tanner whose plaintive and incredulous gaze snaps the coach back to reality.

But it’s in the final scene where the legend of the movie, and that of Tanner Boyle, is secured. After the Bears come up short on the final out of the game, Buttermaker, seeking redemption from this players, begins handing them celebratory beers (there’s no way this scene would be included today, and indeed, in the 2005 remake the kids are given non-alcoholic beers) and congratulating them on their efforts. As the Bears file back on to the field, beers in hand, to watch the Yankees accept the championship trophy, the Yankees captain delivers a half-hearted and smarmy apology. The captain of the Bears (because I just retroactively appointed him that), Tanner Boyle, responds with one of the great lines in cinematic history.

Everything about this movie is great, from the writing, the casting, the performances, the direction, the use of Bizet’s Carmen as the score. Fifty years later it remains one of the greatest summer movies ever, and is a fine way to bid adieu to summer and move into autumn.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Midterm bribe:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday night promised every adult American citizen a $5,000 “dividend” if the Republicans are victorious in the upcoming midterm elections.
. . .

“Here is my promise: if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them… because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” he told a crowd at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas.

This isn’t the first time Trump has promised dividends to the American people:

First, at the start of his second term, President Trump promised a DOGE dividend, a pledge to take the money that Elon Musk’s team would cut from the federal budget and send it to the American people.

Then Mr. Trump moved on to a “tariff refund,” a plan to use the money the government was collecting in import taxes to fund payments for the public.

But in each case, no money was ever received by the appointed recipients. They were just more grifts.

It is estimated that if this latest promise of $5,000 per adult were fulfilled, it would cost north of $1 trillion.

Brett Baier of Fox News asked Vice-President J.D. Vance whether the payment proposal was a bribe:

“I can hear the critics’ heads exploding. They’re saying out loud, I guarantee you, ‘the president is bribing voters to vote for Republicans to take over the House, and then he’s bankrupting the country because the deficit and debt is huge and inflation would come back if this comes into play.’ So how do you answer those criticisms?” Baier asked.

“Well, I say first of all, what the president’s talking about is fundamentally a dividend for American workers,” Vance replied.

He continued: “We’re taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies, but also foreign countries who’ve been taking advantage of America’s workers for pretty much my entire life.”

. . .

“What the president’s just saying is, ‘If you keep it going to the American people, if you keep us in power and allow us to continue to do these things, then you’re going to share in some of the benefit of this incredible wealth that, that we’re, we’re creating in the United States of America.’ I don’t think it’s a controversial idea,” Vance added.

One thing Vance didn’t address was the likelihood of a legal challenge to the payout plan:

Under U.S. federal law*, offering or making a payment to induce someone to vote, withhold their vote, or vote for or against a candidate is a criminal offense, punishable by a fine, up to one year in prison, or both. A willful violation can carry up to two years’ imprisonment.

*Here:

Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and

Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

—Dana

[guest post by Dana]

It’s nearly impossible to not see this as the deliberate targeting of President Zelensky:

The plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Oslo for the funeral of ​the King of Norway was nearly struck by a drone ‌when taking off from Moldova on Tuesday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told public broadcaster NRK on Wednesday.

“His plane was almost hit by a drone as it ​was about to take off from Moldova. That is the ​reality he is facing,” said Støre, who did not say ⁠what his source was for the information or how close the drone ​came.

The spokesperson said the president’s aircraft was later cleared for take-off once it had been established that a Russian drone had come down on Moldovan territory.

Shockingly, yet not shockingly, Trump, when asked today about a deal between Russia and Ukraine, attempted to convince people that both nations share a mutual hatred toward the other. The problem is, he ridiculously views them as equivalent. Because he has no functioning moral compass, he sees no difference between Putin and Zelensky’s position, thus no difference between Ukraine and Russia and their goals:

Trump: “Putin is wanting to make a deal, and if Zelenskyy is wanting to make a deal, that’d be very nice. The hold-up is two people that hate each other.”

Yes, they both want a deal, but not the same kind: Putin demands Ukraine’s total surrender, while Zelensky seeks a lasting,… pic.twitter.com/LwRFqcFx5e

— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) September 9, 2026

Trump: “Putin is wanting to make a deal, and if Zelenskyy is wanting to make a deal, that’d be very nice. The hold-up is two people that hate each other.”

Yes, they both want a deal, but not the same kind: Putin demands Ukraine’s total surrender, while Zelensky seeks a lasting, just peace backed by strong security guarantees to protect our independence.

The claim that they simply “hate each other” is a manipulative narrative that intentionally blurs the difference between aggressor and victim.

We might hate Russia because they are actively killing us right now. Meanwhile, Russians, and Putin in particular, hate Ukrainians simply for existing, and hate us strongly enough to invade and kill us.

Reminder: If Ukraine surrenders, quite simply, it will cease to exist.

—Dana