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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

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A landmark new United Nations report on climate change concludes that we are fucked, cooked, kaput, fakakta, up shit’s creek without a solar panel, and for you older kids, toast. Stick a fork in our coal-powered electrical outlet: We are done.

The report concludes that it’s no longer possible for humanity to prevent the Earth from warming beyond the critical threshold of a 2.7° (1.5° Celsius) rise that we were warned years ago never ever to do.

Basically, the dean just called us in and told us that between our missing homework and shitty term paper, we can’t pass the course even if we ace the final.

This does not mean the end of humanity. This is not one, last Michael Bay movie in which this time no muscular middle-aged man saves the planet.

It does mean a lot more shitty shit that will kill a lot of people. Mostly poor people. Mostly people not in America. But not only.

According to the Associated Press, humanity’s imminent failure to avoid raising temperatures 2.7° above pre-Industrial Age norms will mean dramatic increases in weather-related disasters for decades. Much of our glaciers and ice caps will seep or flood away, elevating sea levels.

We will get more deadly heat waves, storms, droughts, wildfires, and floods.

It will also mean extinctions. And migrations to avoid extinctions. And migrations to seek dwindling food and water supplies. That will mean increased conflict and increased disease.

Some island nations and coastal communities have only decades or years to live.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe.”

Eleven years ago, the world’s nations at the Paris climate accords pledged not to pass the 2.7° mark. Then they didn’t do what was needed to make good on their pledge.

America definitely didn’t help by electing President Donald Trump, a climate-denying, science-denying, autocratic, curiosity-lacking, brain-not-using, impulsive howler monkey with the strategic foresight, discipline, and wisdom of a methed-up hummingbird in a burning SuperBall™ warehouse sharing space with a fireworks company.

In recent years, UN reports approved by government officials from member countries said we could still avoid the Threshold of Doom (as I’m calling it so we can all have a good laugh). They were lying.

Wednesday’s truer report was put together by 50 climate scientists, who are not pulling their punches, and have surprising upper-body strength. Other climate organizations concur with the incredibly depressing findings. Here’s what we’re looking at:

• Now: Earth is 2.5° above pre-industrial levels, based on 20-year averages.

• Soon: “[I]n the next few years” temperatures will top the 2.7° mark.

• Best case: Warming peaks at about 3.2° above pre-industrial levels somewhere around 2050.

• Trump case: Temperatures reach 4.7° above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

What we’ve done so far won’t kill (most of) us. We’ll still have functioning societies capable of taking drastic, radical action to reduce atmospheric carbon.

Humanity will definitely reduce its carbon emissions. The only question is whether humans do that through collective action, or whether nature does that by killing us.

Going all Luigi Mangione on polluters won’t do it.

But the good news for you American Newsfuckers is that Americans are more empowered than just about anyone on the planet to do something.

THE UPSIDE Studies have shown that fear is a better motivator than hope, so if our fear motivates us to start doing things totally fucking differently in the very near future, our great-grandkids will be admiring the hell out of us in their neural history videos as they sun themselves during Nova Scotia’s Annual Spring Break Blast.

University of Exeter climate scientist Richard Betts, who co-authored the depressing-as-fuck report, said, “There’s still a lot we can do to limit warming.”

University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver told the AP, “Every tenth of a degree we avoid still means less damage.”

What we do now will determine the fate of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the Amazon rain forest, and the Atlantic current that warms much of Europe.

Here’s how the Washington Post puts it: “[H]umanity’s best remaining option for limiting this overshoot [of the Threshold of Doom] is to zero out greenhouse gas emissions and use carbon removal strategies to bring average temperatures back down to a tolerable level.”

That is the best remaining option because it’s the only remaining option, unless you count Jesus coming back really soon as an option (which would be an even worse option for this non-believer).

Step one: Cutting carbon emissions 55% by 2035, and virtually ending them by 2050. That’s soon, motherfuckers! Step also: Figuring out how to remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

This will be much harder to fix than it would have been to prevent with simple, do-it-yourself steps such as not electing idiots to the White House and Congress.

This is no time for paltry imaginations. We have to stop the internal-combustion industry from externally combusting us. We have to stop Big Oil.

If that means shutting them all down and putting them on welfare paid for with taxes on the world’s richest man, who failed to get everyone to buy electric vehicles, then win-win.

But also, it could mean using the Defense Production Act to commandeer entire industries and force them to switch to sustainable energy. Trump has already shown us the government can nationalize private companies — here and in Venezuela!

We just have to do it for our reasons (saving the planet), rather than his reasons (incontinent shits and giggles).

MEDIA WATCH Corporate media covered Wednesday’s report and then moved on to Trump’s ballroom or what Trump wants Natalie Harp to do with his ballroom.

We can still fight for the causes that move us, but if we don’t bend the rise in global temperatures back below the Threshold of Doom, everything else is moot. Every issue is climate change, which means we’re all now single-issue voters.

If your news outlet of choice has access to politicians and doesn’t ask them whether they plan to save the planet, choose another news outlet of choice.

Choose media that focus on climate change. Find yours. Support them. Spread the word.

A Year of Boat-Killings

Unfortunately, blowing up small, gas-powered boats does almost nothing to reduce the carbon footprint of narco-traffickers. But also, when people are in those boats, it’s murder.

It’s now been one year since the U.S. military began murdering people in boats without cause, without honor, without warnings, without due process, without proving any crime in a court of law, without even alleging the commission of a crime that carries the death penalty.

The U.S. has now murdered 227 people — some of them believed to have been not-drug traffickers and even human-trafficking victims — in 68 separate strikes.

We can’t know whether Democrats threatening future prosecutions for these murders might have prevented some of these murders. Because Democrats didn’t do that.

“It’s been a year of murders,” one unnamed defense official told The Intercept. “It’s absolutely criminal.”

The dead include two men wounded in an initial strike who were then blown up with a second strike as they clung to boat debris and waved for help, which would be the first scene in literally any movie establishing America’s role as “Orange Bad Guy #1.”

Another government official told The Intercept that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s serial-killing spree has even violated the secret, weak-ass murder authorization ginned up by the Justice Department, making the killings “clearly murder.”

The Gulf of Scamerica

People don’t suddenly become immoral. We respond to systems and incentives.

Which is why, ten years after first getting conned by a con man into electing him as president, America is now achieving new heights/depths in corruption.

A record number of Americans say they’re targeted by scams. And the Associated Press reports that the U.S. is worse than developed nations at doing something about it.

Which is not surprising, given that Republicans have gutted the main watchdog against financial scams, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

And they defunded the police at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), leading to a 35% drop in revenues from audits last year, with the IRS inspector general warning that losses from tax crimes will likely increase. (h/t)

Republicans weakened enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Corporate Transparency Act because they’re not the law-and-order party, they’re the their-law-to-order-you-around party.

The reported scam losses totaled a record $15.9 billion last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says. That’s 25% more than under Pres. Joe Biden, head of the Biden Crime Family.

And the FTC believes it’s being scammed, because most victims are too embarrassed or ashamed to report their losses, estimating the real total at about $200 billion annually.

A big culprit: Unregulated crypto and “AI.” Which leads us to the culprit-in-chief.

A record number of Americans now believe corruption is widespread in the government. The number was steady over two decades under presidents of both parties, between 70% and 80%. It hit a record high of 79% last year. And then this year you’ll never guess what happened:

It rose another ten points to 89% this year.

That’s almost everyone in the country who now agrees that corruption in the federal government is widespread, after less than two years of total Republican control of all three rotten branches of government.

Even better: The number of Biden-deranged Republicans who believe there’s widespread corruption has barely moved. It was 87% in 2024 and it’s 83% now. For those Republicans that don’t believe in math, that’s just 4% of Republicans who think government is less corrupt under Trump than Biden.

REALITY CHECK Corruption in the federal government is not widespread. It’s virtually non-existent. Except at the top. The corruption ain’t bureaucrats, it’s the people Americans elected.

Take Russell Vought. Please. Vought heads up the CFPB that he tried to behead.

Because he couldn’t behead it, Vought switched the CFPB’s function from enforcing the law to protect financial consumers, to politely asking financial firms to obey the law. ProPublica just revealed a great example of how asking criminals not to crime leads to more crime.

MEDIA WATCH The AP article on scams was a scam. The headline reads “Scams in the US are at a record high. Yet most victims get no help and some end up losing even more.” The story refers to “exclusive new polling data.”

The polling was from June. Sigh.

GOP Gives Momentum to Expanding Supreme Court

House Republicans on Wednesday sought to protect the right-wing Supreme Court the only way they know how to do things: Stupidly.

Constitutional amendments require a 2/3 majority in the House, so Republicans must have known today’s headlines would say that their attempt to fix the number of Supreme Court justices at nine would fail. But they did it anyway. And it failed. (h/t)

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pushed the amendment, because he thinks nine is the perfect number when six of them are right-wingers. Not only did the amendment not get 2/3, it barely got a majority, in a Republican-controlled House.

The amendment got 212 votes, to 206 against. Only one Democrat, Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) voted for it.

Which gives new momentum to Democratic proposals to expand the court once there’s a Democratic president, which will work great unless we get one of those fuckin’ Democrats who thinks they’re noble if they nominate an equal number of judges from each party. Sigh.

No Punishment (Yet) for Democratic Republicans

While establishment Democrats continue to wage war on Democrats who dare to merely campaign with democratic socialists, the two House Democrats who voted Tuesday to advance a package of Republican bills remain unpunished.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) had vowed … something … after Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) and Jared Golden (D-ME) provided Republicans with the two votes needed to force consideration of GOP bills.

But the Democratic caucus committee didn’t recommend any punishment after its meeting Wednesday.

Insanely, some House Democrats support punishment as a warning not to the Democratic Republicans who vote Republican, but to democratic socialists, who vote with the party almost always, and more than Democratic Republicans do.

Very Fucking Related Story:

Jeffries is still considering how to respond, but in a sign that this is all cynical kabuki theater, said Wednesday that he wants to act “Sooner rather than later.”

Why might that be theater? Because acting sooner means before Election Day, so progressives will be excited to see establishment Dems do something against Democratic Republicans … but, also, Gluesenkamp Perez’s potential independent voters will see her as going up against Democrats … and potentially vote for her in her tight race (Golden isn’t running).

That helps Jeffries pursue a Democratic majority that’d make him speaker.

Real punishment would be to talk before Election Day about how loyal Gluesenkamp Perez always is to Democrats and democratic socialists and secretly loves Zohran Mamdani. (And then take her off the Appropriations Committee.)

Sic Transit Gloria

Gloria Steinem died on Tuesday. She was 92 years old, and lived multiple lifetimes over the course of her life.

She also gave life to uncountable numbers of people in her lifelong crusade for equality.

Three Quickies

• The Dept. of Homeland (sic) Security is launching a massive non-existent-man-hunt for non-citizens who are registered to vote, the New York Times reports. At least they’ll terrorize fewer undocumented immigrants for a while. Hundreds of agents will be tasked with finding these illegally registered voters who exist in statistically insignificant numbers, when they could be using their time to hunt for Bigfoot, Elvis, or Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). (h/t)

• The U.S. has increased the amount of relief aid for Nepal flood victims to $3.6 million. The U.S. was flooded with derision and scorn after first offering just $500,000, a fraction of what’s needed to build just one (1) ballroom. The U.S. is still being flooded with scorn and derision because $3.6 million is also a fraction of what’s needed to build just one (1) ballroom. The flooding was made worse, and more likely, by climate change, which was made worse, and more likely, by the U.S.

• Used EVs are on fire — in a good way! — Grist reports. New EVs are doing just okay, after Pres. Donald Trump killed subsidies to lower the prices. But buyers are snapping up recent used models, with July sales up from June and from last year. That’s also thanks to Trump, who boosted the market for sustainable energy by starting a war with Iran like an asshole.

TCB

LABOR DAY I’m taking another summer Friday off, giving myself a long Labor Day weekend (thanks to your support!) in which to do some work on my original reporting and also some work on getting my kid back to college for the fall semester. Pray for us.

SUPPORTING TFN You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

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Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

Go get ‘em, kids! The flap of a butterfly’s wing can change the weather. Let’s be butterflies…

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

You can read today’s TFN here and if you’re a regular listener, the best way to keep TFN going is with a paid subscription, which you can get using this link or this button (except with American Express, which refuses to process TFN payments because we used a bad word):

Yes, I want to support TFN

You can also support TFN — and your own personal image! — with TFN merch sporting the TFN bullet, logo, or even our E Pluribus Fuckem slogan at TheFingNews.com.

• Other ways of supporting TFN

• Other resources

• Me on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Spoutible

Go get ‘em, kids…!

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

TFN stuff: Podcast | Merch | Other TFN
Support: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal
Take action: Your representatives

Your self-important TFN likes to expound about how TFN doesn’t focus on gossip news or famous people spouting opinions about things that don’t affect our material lives. So one might think TFN would never lead with The Antichrist1. Which is just what he wants one to think!

In reality, the unreality of The Antichrist, The Rapture, and other non-biblical shit was invented by preachers who — realizing that The Bible was too boring without future freaky shit — basically went George Lucas on The Bible, inserting characters and sharpening focus on stuff that shoulda stayed lo-res.

So when JD Vance, the vice president of the United States, talks publicly about The Antichrist and the End Times, and when it’s ignored by corporate media that ignore religion today the way they ignored it on Jan. 6, 2021, well, if the corporate media hath forsaken us, then TFN must sacrifice itself for their sins.

Plus, everyone should understand how incoherent the literal version of The Antichrist is, as revealed in how Vance does/doesn’t engage.

If it were true that a guy serving Satan was going to arise at some point to unite the world for his nefarious ends, Christians and the damned alike probably should prepare for that the way we’re not preparing for climate change. Likewise, attention should be paid to The Rapture by Christians, the damned, and the estate-planning industry.

And yet, here’s what Vance said on Bryce Crawford’s podcast:

Crawford: What do you think about the End Times? Do you think that we’re here? Do you think it’s coming?

Vance: I have for my entire life been fascinated by End Times prophecy and theology. … do I think that we’re in the End Times? I don’t know. And I think that it’s probably bad for me, spiritually, to focus too much on it, because there are, like, things you gotta do. I gotta be good to my wife. I gotta be good to my kids. I have to be, you know, as good [sic] of a leader [sic] as I can for the United States of America. And so I think that focusing — while I’m fascinated by it — I think focusing on it too much can be very bad. I think that there are, like, things about the world that make me feel, like, not shocked if The Antichrist was walking among us. But again, I try not to focus too much on it.

I don’t often question people’s religious beliefs, but this is a hellishly hot bowl of bullshit stew. Jambalaya, even.

For one thing, he’s weaseling. He’s asked what he thinks about the End Times, doesn’t say whether he believes in it!

Remember, Vance went to Yale Law, where they don’t teach law-abidingness, they teach weaseling.

He’s weaseling to avoid the unresolvable paradoxes of evangelical prophecy.

Vance says he wouldn’t be shocked if The Antichrist were walking among us (“among us” being apparently the only way evil myths walk). But evangelical prophecy says Vance would be shocked!

The whole evangelical shtick about The Antichrist is that the world believes he’s the messiah. People love him! The definition of The Antichrist is that everyone will fill their shorts with shock when they find out.

Which leads me to the bigger Antichrist Antilogic.

The Antichrist unites the world peacefully; one-world language, one-world currency, one-world religion. These are all good things! (Except for the translation and currency-exchange industries.)

The world at peace! Everyone able to communicate with everyone else! No more Canadian dollar! It’s paradise on Earth! (This is how we know The Antichrist isn’t Donald Trump.)

So, what’s actually bad about this peace-bringing Antichrist? Well, Christian exceptionalists hate that one-world religion thing.

The reason Christian evangelicals evolved (ahem) this Antichrist narrative was to insulate believers against anyone who sought to end religious division and strife! See that emerging world leader who cares about humanity more than culture differences? GET HIM!

Here’s the evangelical logic trap: Because The Antichrist is prophesied, he must succeed. We can’t oppose him!

He’s a prophesied prerequisite for Jesus to return (and see that The Antichrist has already done the hard work of uniting Earth’s people in peace).

So, if you think The Antichrist and End Times are necessary, who’s to say God’s plan isn’t for you, Mr. Vice President, to help The Antichrist?

Like, what if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) caught The Antichrist swimming across the Rio Grande, looking for work stealing an American’s Antichrist job?

Then what?

Kill him? Deport him to El Salvador? Then Jesus can’t illegally immigrate here from Heaven!

It’s an incoherent story as soon as you think about the details Vance doesn’t want to think about. That’s why he doesn’t want to think about them.

He’s not actually worried that some day he’ll say, “Sorry, kids, I can’t be a good Dad to you today, cuz I’m too busy thinking about The Antichrist.”

So Vance blames God. God doesn’t want us thinking about Jesus’s return. (Which would be a Trump-scale conflict of interest because TFN has learned that Jesus is God’s son!)

And yet, Trump and Vance and faith advisor Paula White are very much thinking about eschatology (End Times theology). It’s a key driver of America’s Israel policy. (Remember Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem? Or Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his Bible study guide?)

Also, God literally ended His really important book for humanity with this stuff! Vance is telling us to ignore The Antichrist behind the curtain even though God wrote the last chapter of His book about the End Times and sprinkled Agatha Christie clues throughout precisely so we could match those clues to current events, so that we can, um, help or fight The Antichrist.

This is why Vance, corporate media, and even believers run from engaging with this stuff: It’s useful for rube-manipulation, incoherent on close examination. The Antichrist is an oxymoron good for manipulating morons, but not logically actionable.

Vance being Vance, there’s yet another way Vance is full of shit.

He says, “I have for my entire life been fascinated by End Times prophecy and theology.”

Except, in a little-known book that was made into a little-known Oscar-winning Hollywood movie, Vance explained why the rubes believe End Times stuff. And why he stopped.

“The Rapture was coming, we thought. Apocalyptic imagery filled the weekly sermons and the Left Behind books (one of the best-selling fiction series of all time, which I devoured). Folks would discuss whether the Antichrist was already alive and, if so, which world leader it might be. … The End Times were the natural finish for a culture sliding so quickly toward the abyss.

“…Nor did I realize that the religious views I developed during my early years with Dad were sowing the seeds for an outright rejection of the Christian faith.”

Vance gave a whole interview in 2016 — ignored in 2024 by corporate media, but not by TFN! — shitting on Protestants for believing this stuff and explaining that Catholicism is better for getting rich or dying trying and then getting reborn to try again.

The point isn’t what Vance really believes, the point is these belief systems can evolve regardless of whether people “really” believe. Either way, we can better rescue people from toxic theologies when we can show how incoherent they are.

Just like The Antichrist wants us to do!

House Democrats Help Keep Trump Administration Up and Running Rampant

The vast majority of House Democrats voted on Tuesday to fund the government into December.

They won virtually nothing of consequence in the process. Technically, yes, the funding bill blocks a new rule that would give political appointees of Pres. Donald Trump (aka all his appointees) more power to disburse funds. Which, yay?

Except for two things:

1. Trump already can’t do that with a rule,

2. The law already says how congressionally appropriated funds are supposed to be disbursed, and

3. Trump doesn’t give a shit about #2.

According to The Hill, “the grantmaking provision added by the Senate, coupled with a desire to prevent a funding lapse, brought many Democrats on board.” Pro tip: Do not get on board when the frigate is the SS Evil and Captain Long Con Silver has charted a course for the all-inclusive Scandals resort.

Everything Trump’s doing now, Congress funded then. Without Tuesday’s vote, government funding would have expired on Oct. 1. Everything Trump does on Oct. 2, Democrats just funded.

And Democrats lost the opportunity to have a battle this month and next — when voters are watching — over literally everything Trump needs money from Congress to keep fucking:

• Illegal war(s)

• Boat murders

• Vote suppression

• Gutting health

• Gutting the rest of science

• Gutting education

• Institutionalizing discrimination against women, non-Christians, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people

• Kidnapping and killing people

• Stealing from us

• Taking food money from poor kids for rich people to not invest in capital expenditures that will create jobs

• Denying disaster funding based on who you voted for

• Worsening climate change

• Letting Wall Street run rampant

• Letting the rest of corporate America run almost as rampant

• Jacking up the cost of living

• Jacking up the cost of dying

All of that and gobs more, funded by House Democrats on Tuesday with nary a peep, because who can afford a peep and besides peeps are illegal now.

Only 48 members of Congress — 19 stingy Republicans and 29 principled Democrats — voted against the short-term funding of Trump’s crimes. (It already passed the Senate, 90-6.)

MEDIA WATCH The Washington Post explains that some of the 19 Republicans voted against it because it ostensibly restricts Trump’s spending autonomy. NO MENTION of why 29 Democrats voted against it.

(The roll call of no votes includes a ton of progressives and — oh, hey! Democratic socialists! — so I think we can infer that most of those 29 Democrats voted against funding the Trump administration because they oppose autocracy and fascism and that list of shit four paragraphs back.)

VOTE BLUE EXCEPT IN CONGRESS Eight House Democrats on Tuesday voted with Republicans to condemn socialism and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Here are those Democratic Republicans of America:

• Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL)

• Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX)

• Rep. Don Davis (D-NC)

• Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA)

• Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME)

• Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX)

• Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL)

• Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM)

Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) and Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) voted present. Which means anti-DSA worrier Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) voted in favor of socialism!

(Not really: The Republican resolution included Pres. Donald Trump’s vote-suppression measures, so Suozzi introduced his own anti-socialism resolution.)

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE Two of those House Democratic Republicans didn’t just vote against socialism and democratic socialism, they voted against democratic Democrats.

Before the anti-socialism resolution, and a batch of others, could be debated and voted on, the House had to approve procedural rules. No rules, no vote.

But Republicans lacked the votes to set the rules on the votes. Democrats were in lockstep to block the rules and therefore the votes.

Enter Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden.

They defected and voted for the rules. Because of them, the rules passed 210-208 and Democrats were forced to vote on the GOP bills.

Why’d Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden do that? To save the whales! And by “save” I mean kill.

Golden had a bill in there to delay lobster-fishing regulations meant to protect whales from dying in lobster nets. Gluesenkamp Perez voted to help him out because fuck whales.

Wildlife Defenders notes that Earth only has 70 breeding female right whales left, and birth rates are going down due to entanglement in capitalism’s lobster nets, a handy metaphor for America’s birth rates.

Environmental groups argue that federal funding could expand use of better lobster-fishing equipment that doesn’t kill whales, also a handy metaphor for America.

THE PUNISHER House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and House party leadership referred Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden to the committee on caucus rules, which basically polices party loyalty.

Jeffries said their dual defection was “a significant breach of trust” and “necessitates a serious response,” and the committee can recommend punishments. That could include stripping Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden of committee assignments.

This could all be performance art for voters’ sakes. Progressives get to see House Democrats doing something for once about Democratic Republicans and those same Democratic Republicans get to show non-Democratic voters in tight races back home, “Look how non-Democratic I are!”

Election Watch

MASSACHUSETTS Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) won re-election Tuesday to another six-year term, even though he’s probably gonna die soon. Massachusetts voters decided by a landslide margin that they’d rather have a fraction of Markey than 100% of Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA).

Markey had promised, as old politicians do, that he’d definitely retire as soon as his mental faculties were too degraded for him to recognize that he should retire. Moulton ran by running away from his anti-transgender remarks in 2024, when he suggested that Democrats could’ve won if only they hadn’t stuck up for the human rights of those humans.

Markey beat Moulton, 65% to 35%.

Two Quickies

• Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on Tuesday revealed that a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) whistleblower claims that the USPS is moving forward with Pres. Donald Trump’s vote-suppression orders. A court told USPS not to do that. Trump ordered the USPS not to deliver ballots in states that don’t share voter info with the federal government and not to deliver ballots to voters who aren’t on federal lists. The good news: The first mail-in ballots go out Friday to military overseas; meaning, there’s not enough time to implement this bullshit this year. The cringey good news: The whistleblower says the USPS efforts are “rushed” and “chaotic,” meaning they’re just as likely to fuck Republican voters. Assuming there still are any.

• The U.S. military conflict with Iran is heating up now that the U.S. announced it would focus on economic conflict which is not working just as well as the military conflict is not working. Iran says U.S. strikes on Tuesday took out a wedding party, which will never threaten international shipping routes again. Iran was also accused of targeting civilians early Wednesday because just because Pres. Donald Trump’s an asshole doesn’t make Iran Mr. Rogers.

TCB

SUPPORTING TFN You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

If you wanna support TFN but not Substack, you can do so via cash apps: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal.

Go get ‘em, kids! Or The Antichrist will getcha! Which is a good thing, because Jesus.

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

You can read today’s TFN here and if you’re a regular listener, the best way to keep TFN going is with a paid subscription, which you can get using this link or this button (except with American Express, which refuses to process TFN payments because we used a bad word):

Yes, I want to support TFN

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

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Take action: Your representatives

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Pres. Donald Trump can continue defiling the White House, picking up the work begun 25 years ago by Osama bin Laden.

Trump’s construction of an ugly, hulking, vulgar monument to wealth and excess — and you know The Fucking News abhors vulgarity — was found to be “likely illegal” by Chief Justice John Roberts. But Roberts was in the minority the only way he’s ever in a minority: Voting against even-further-right justices.

By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court found that the group suing to stop construction of the ballroom didn’t have legal standing because they wouldn’t be injured by the ballroom, even though they’re people and the White House is literally known as The People’s fucking House.

Pardon the vulgarity.

The ruling allows Trump to erect what he always erects: Something no one wants. The ruling came less than two weeks before the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that targeted New York City’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and either the Capitol or the White House.

It’s never been determined which building al Qaeda was targeting with the hijacked United Flight 93, because the passengers revolted, bringing the plane down before it could fulfill the grisly mission of landmark destruction that Trump is now pursuing throughout the nation’s capital instead of lowering prices.

U.S. politicians saved by the sacrifice of those passengers, including openly gay Mark Bingham, honored them by still passing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

(Disclosure: I was born in New York City and was working at CNN in New York on 9/11, helping break the story that the Flight 93 passengers voted to fight back. So I am officially biased against 9/11.)

Trump never seeks approval for anything involving balls, but Roberts wrote that his ballroom requires congressional approval. So, construction violates the law, which might have mattered if Roberts hadn’t previously voted to let Trump do that. The court’s three Democratic-appointed judges agree, especially with the part about how Roberts fucked up by letting Trump violate the law.

The ruling itself didn’t say that construction is legal, merely that the group suing to stop construction, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, probably lacked legal standing to challenge it.

“[T]he only harm the Trust claims,” the right-wing majority wrote, “is the offense one of its members will suffer from having to view a structure of the ‘scale,’ ‘height,’ and ‘massing’ the government intends.”

Of course, if you’re a national trust for historic preservation, you’re suffering the harm of the lack of historic preservation, not to mention the violation of national trust in the democratic processes that were violated to destroy the East Wing like bin Laden wanted and replace it with something brutal and undemocratic like bin Laden wanted.

As TFN has written before, the ballroom’s symbolism is a kick in democracy’s symbolic balls. Not just because of the autocratic process, but because the White House was designed to share a direct line of sight with the Capitol.

The two branches, eye to 535 eyes.

Congress and the president, equal in standing and accountability.

Checks and balances, symbolically destroyed by dumping a physical tribute to nihilistic excess smack in the lines of sight between the White House and the Capitol.

The case was sent back down to a lower court, although it’s not clear to me why.

More importantly, the timing of any future legal efforts to stop the ballroom is now likely well beyond the timing of finishing construction, assuming Trump can make up his mind choosing gold-covered bidets.

Which leads us to the Democrats. And the position every federal Democrat must take publicly before the 2028 election when it comes to whether they will let Trump’s ballroom stand, man:

It’s not just about the building itself and its Trumpian grossness. Allowing it to stand tells future aspiring dictators that sidestepping the law works, and will survive. So anything Trump puts up outside the confines of democracy must not be permitted to stand.

“Undo it all” shall be the whole of the law.

U.S. Military Too Depleted to Invade Voting Booths

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine said in a letter reported Monday that the U.S. military is not planning to steal the U.S. elections in November.

Sweet.

Caine was responding to a letter from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), just a friendly check-in that the right to vote won’t be Penta-gone in November. Caine wrote:

“…the Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections [and] … no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election‑related material…

“I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections.”

Of course, there was no plan for the Iran War, either, but that happened.

And your nitpicking TFN isn’t happy about Caine saying he hasn’t received any “unlawful” order to steal the election. Because any order can be made lawful with the stroke of Attorney General Todd Blanche’s pen, assuming Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doesn’t steal it.

It’s not clear whether the U.S. military could intervene, having apparently used up much of its weaponry losing the Iran War. The Washington Post on Sunday reported that extending the Iran War threatens to weaken the Pentagon’s ability to defend what the Post for some fucking reason describes as “the U.S. homeland [sic].”

Let the record show that the greatest threat to the U.S. homeland (sic) is the Pentagon and the normalization of fascist thinking by corporate media that call the country “the homeland (sic).”

Johnson Handling GOP Handling of their Johnsons

The House today is expected to vote on whether to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) for showing a special interest not just in special interests, but in two especially interesting young women on his staff that he apparently really wanted on his staff.

This is not how Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) hoped to spend his return to Washington from his month-long vacation from preventing Americans from having month-long vacations. But Edwards is demanding an opportunity to speak in his defense, even though he’s not up for re-election, about how he handled his staff and how he wanted his staff to handle his staff.

Which means spectacle! Which means video! Which means cable-news blah blah two months before the election.

And Edwards isn’t alone, no matter how lonely he is. Democrats are considering forcing a vote on Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), the guy endorsed by Johnson and by Pres. Donald Trump despite/because of allegations of abusing his ex-wife and ex-toddler.

Also in the batter’s box is Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), accused of, as Axios brevity-ishly sums it up: “domestic abuse, stolen valor and financial misconduct.” Trifecta!

Add it all up, and it sure looks like the predators and groomers Republicans are looking for are calling from inside the House. And that House Republicans have a higher crime rate than undocumented immigrants, which isn’t that hard to do considering undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than that of average Americans.

This Is What They Do to People

Twenty-year-old Pierre Damas Bel came to the U.S. in 2024, joining his family in Springfield, OH. They all had Temporary Protected Status to stay here and the family had purchased a home.

Longtime Newsfuckers may recall me writing about the secret campaign by Springfield businesses to recruit Haitians there, without alerting the city so it could bolster its social services. That led the city to ask for help — not against the Haitian immigrants, but to serve these new, contributing members of society who were helping turn Springfield around.

Sadly for everyone, one of the people Springfield asked for help was scheming, arrogant, venal, unscrupulous shit-gibbon-to-the-stars JD Vance, when he was still a senator. Instead of helping, Vance twisted the city’s request for his own political ends, laying the groundwork for a campaign against Haitians, and the Supreme Court approving the end of Temporary Protected Status.

So Bel — who graduated high school with honors in May as a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) and then went to college hoping to study medicine — was slapped with an ankle bracelet and had an asylum hearing coming next month. He was scared of being forced home, where gang violence is rampant.

“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone,” he posted on Instagram. “Now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.”

On Friday, JROTC handed out uniforms. But not to Bel.

On Monday, he called his Dad at 8:03 am. “I’m not feeling okay,” he said.

At some point before 8:45 am, Bel walked into traffic on I-70 and, according to what police told his Dad, “threw himself under a truck.”

Multiply this story by millions and we get a sense of the moral monstrosity this country is committing. But it’s not enough to vote out Republicans.

We must have zero tolerance, too, for Democrats propagating the vile smear that immigrants pose a threat to our country. Immigrants are our country.

Election Watch

MASSACHUSETTS Despite being 80, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is hugely ahead of Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a new poll showed Sunday, two days before today’s Senate primary.

Maybe it’s because it’s Massachusetts, but as the New York Times reports, a mainstay of Markey’s campaign has been … not abandoning or ignoring transgender people.

Markey said Moulton “threw trans kids under the bus” by blaming Democratic support for transgender rights for the party’s 2024 election losses.

Last month, Moulton apologized. Well, he if-apologized, when you’re sorry not for your actions but for how people felt: “I’m sorry if my comments hurt you,” Moulton said.

Hilariously, The Lever found Moulton trying to goose dark money to buy ads calling him a progressive in the campaign’s final days, even though he used to say progressivism was a path to defeat. That, and Moulton ramped up his ageist attacks on Markey.

Yes, Markey will be 86 at the end of his term. That’s old!

On the other hand, that’s how old Dan Rather was when I worked with him, and I’d vote for that guy.

Besides, I’m sure Massachusetts voters will say sorry to Moulton if their votes hurt him.

SOCIALISM Democratic socialists came under fire Monday from four Democratic Republicans. While most Democrats are abiding by Vote Blue No Matter Who and working to unify voters behind Democratic nominees (including democratic socialists), these four Democratic Republicans are so dedicated to unity they’re working to unify voters behind Republicans.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Hillary Scholten (D-MI), and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) introduced a resolution Monday condemning Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), supporting the Republican campaign narrative against policies like those that helped Europe leave our standard of living in the dust.

The Democratic Republican resolution is identical to a Republican Republican resolution except for not including Pres. Donald Trump’s vote-suppression measures.

It’s not clear how real this Democratic Republican crusade is, or whether it’s just a grift to win independent votes in close races and “centrist” billionaire dollars. Suozzi, as I’ve reported, is conducting his own make-believe assault on Democratic socialists:

UPDATE I just checked, and, no, Suozzi hasn’t added a single new signatory to his anti-democratic socialism campaign in more than a week. Keep up the good fake work!

Three Quickies

• Pres. Donald Trump on Friday ordered the creation of the U.S. Space Academy to forge America’s next generation of space cadets. The academy will serve both NASA and the U.S. Space Force, the new military branch Trump created to militarize the final frontier and then Democrats didn’t undo the second they got into office. “Undo it all” shall be the whole of the law.

• Trump’s slow-motion collapse continues. He’s at another record low in another poll, with UMassAmherst finding just 32% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing. On us. Republican support is down 14 points since March. Americans disapprove of all Trump’s Iran Wars by a margin of 54% to 26%, while those with no opinion total 20% and will doom us all.

• Health (sic) and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Foodie Kennedy, Jr., is recalling yet another food that isn’t as safe to eat as roadkill. It was just Monday that TFN told you about deregulating meat inspections and defunding research on the explosive-diarrhea parasites in our lettuce. Now it’s tofu. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday announced a recall in 29 states of 10,000 cases of Hodo’s Chili Crisp Lightly Fried Tofu that may be contaminated with ink. Unlike our chili crisp lightly fried health secretary, who’s contaminated with stink. (h/t)

TCB

FUCKING THE FUCKING NEWS More grumblings about TFN!

The same Newsfucker who upbraided me for talking about the Gary, IN, loss of power without mentioning the Pine Ridge and Dine’ reservations’ lack of reliable water was not happy with my response.

Because I addressed past neglect of Puerto Rico, they felt I “could have been magnanimous and used the example to highlight the worst cases of poverty afflict all communities of color but the longest suffering and most oppressed groups are our indigenous people.”

Which is true. I could have. I was ignorant about Pine Ridge and Dine’ as I am about many things. Also, all news omits many things, roughly 99.9999% of all the things. Including totally valid, important things.

But “Talk about what I want you to talk about” is one of those critiques that no news can ever satisfy to everyone’s satisfaction. I’m much more receptive to arguments for not talking about things that are really just gossip or emotion-bait.

TFN always omits stuff that would be great to address. My hope is that we can support and boost other journalism that addresses those things, and that Newsfuckers will broaden all of our awareness in TFN’s comments and chat. Thank you.

SUPPORTING TFN You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

If you wanna support TFN but not Substack, you can do so via cash apps: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal.

Go get ‘em, kids! And have yourself a safe, rewarding, Chili Crisp Lightly Fried Tuesday.

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

You can read today’s TFN here and if you’re a regular listener, the best way to keep TFN going is with a paid subscription, which you can get using this link or this button (except with American Express, which refuses to process TFN payments because we used a bad word):

Yes, I want to support TFN

You can also support TFN — and your own personal image! — with TFN merch sporting the TFN bullet, logo, or even our E Pluribus Fuckem slogan at TheFingNews.com.

• Other ways of supporting TFN

• Other resources

• Me on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Spoutible

Go get ‘em, kids…!

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

TFN stuff: Podcast | Merch | Other TFN
Support: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal
Take action: Your representatives

Typically, one wants one’s government attacking problems at both ends. Just not when the problem is one’s alimentary canal.

Pres. Donald Trump hasn’t tried to rename it the America Canal yet, although the day is still young.

But Trump and his congressional Republican accongplices are waging war on both what goes in your alimentary canal at the top, and what comes out the other end. And the explosiveness therefrom.

Let’s start at the top!

As usual, Trump is trying to get his meat into millions of people. So, on Friday he announced a brilliant idea from that well-known source of the other kind of ideas: Glenn “ReGlember him?” Beck.

Trump said Friday, “Ranchers and Farmers have always been a number one priority for me.” It wasn’t clear how many other number-one priorities he has or whether ranchers and farmers are his number-one number-one priority.

Two days earlier, Beck asked Trump to let cattle farmers kill and process their own cattle (the technical term for hamburgers that are still moving).

To be clear, cattle farmers — or “ranchers” if we’re feeling especially Taylor Sheridan — can already process their cattle. So don’t blame the government. Only the Catholic Church says it’s a sin to process your own meat.

The hitch for Beck is that to sell his meat after he’s processed it, it has to be federally inspected. And no one wants to inspect Beck’s meat.

I said “his” meat because that’s Beck’s pronoun and TFN respects pronouns. Also, Beck is a cattle farmer. So he wants to be able to sell his meat without federal inspections.

The whole Trump-Beck discourse is USDA-Prime comedy, but here, lightly annotated, are the best cuts from these meatheads. Don’t miss America’s commander-in-beef and the cattle farmer/radio host improvising federal policy as they guess which agency has jurisdiction:

Beck: Please, when it comes to beef, please look at the cartel that is the meat processing cartel. I mean, that is — I run a ranch, so I know what it’s like…
…I’m telling you, it is the processing plants. There’s four of them and I think two of them are not even American. It’s bad and they’re, I believe they’re colluding with each other. [Yes.]

Trump: …I’m surprised because that’s been going on a long time… [which typically makes things not a surprise].

Beck: … [W]e can’t butcher. With all of the federal regulations it is really hard. … The inspections are insane.

Trump: …if you didn’t have those regulations, could you do it on your ranch? [Faint sound of wheels turning.]

Beck: Yes … Break the back of those processing plants. There’s people that want to build processing plants everywhere. The regulations are killing us, just killing us.

Trump: So you’re saying, with less regulation, you think that the ranchers and farmers would do a very good job of processing the beef?

Beck: Yes. … Free your people. Let our people go. Let your people go.

Trump: …Who’s controlling those regulations, Department of Agriculture [USDA]?

Beck: Yes and FDA [Food and Drug Administration].

Trump: And the FDA.

Beck: Or U.S., or is it USDA? I can’t remember which one [because who wouldn’t forget who’s killing us, just killing us], but it’s—

Trump: USDA.

Beck: It’s the federal regulator. It’s all the inspections. It’s all the inspections.

Trump: Wow. …you just gave me a very good idea.

Wow, indeed, Mr. President. Wow, indeed.

See, this is why you never want to see the sausage get made, especially when it’s sausage getting made about how beef gets made by two idiots who don’t know how to make beef or sausage.

In fairness, Beck has a point. Four meat-processing companies control 85% of America’s meat processing. Not counting capitalism processing human meat through the grinder of birth, school, work, death.

And, yes, two of the meat processors are Brazilian-owned, as if we’re supposed to care about the nationalization status of the monopolistic meat-handling billionaires (or unlicensed drivers) who kill us.

The Justice Department is already looking at this quadropoly. Allegedly.

But thanks to the dwindling of the cattle herd — caused by the climate change Trump is causing by trying to bring down gas prices — no, there’s actually not “people that want to build processing plants everywhere.”

There’s already a surplus of dead-cow processing capacity.

Yes, Big Meat processors are protected by regulatory capture — rules that make it harder for smaller competitors to handle their meat — but even Big Meat is already pulling out their meat. Tyson Foods just announced it’s closing two plants and selling a third.

That’s hundreds of layoffs.

Trump’s Glenn Beck’s idea comes as the entire meat industry is pissed at Trump for bringing in 300,000 metric tons of un-American beef. And Trump’s Glenn Beck’s idea to make it up to cattle farmers is to let them slaughter and pack their dead cows … which requires investments in slaughter-industrial equipment, and not just that hand-held cow-killy thing Anton Chigurh had. These are investments that farmers can’t afford when they’ve already got fewer cows to sell.

Nevertheless, in response to Trump’s half-assed order based on Trump’s Beck’s half-assed idea, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins today is rolling out half-assed initiatives to let half-assed-inspected meat hit our tables. “[W]aiving red tape” is what the secretary who sponsors a free-market Bible study called it.

The National Cattlemen’s Association, the collective body of rugged individualist cowsplayers, said, “Weakening federal meat inspection and food safety standards, as President Trump has suggested, is not the answer.”

Not only does red tape protect us from red tape worms, but federal regulations — and I’ve heard this before — often aren’t a burden. One slaughter-house owner said, “The USDA approving my processing plant was the easiest part of the whole thing.” He said state and local rules are the problem.

But Trump can’t do explosive shit about those.

And on that topic, there are other assholes we’re already dealing with at the other end of our alimentary canal: Ours.

If you’re having lettuce with your steak, you should know it’s been inspected about as well as Beck wants his meat inspected. But this time, Trump’s ahead of the pack.

More than 17,000 people in 20 states this year have come down with cyclosporiasis, which causes explosive diarrhea and is caused by the cyclospora parasite, which was caused by too many voters swallowing the verbal, um, rhetoric, of the 2024 election-cycle parasite.

The cyclosporiasis was traced to lettuce imported by Taylor Farms, which did its best to wipe its fingerprints off our poop. So how could tainted lettuce get into the country?

As ProPublica found out, U.S. inspections of international facilities that provide us with food are at 15-year lows, like Trump’s approval ratings. How come? Remember all those unneeded administrative staff Trump let go?

They included travel coordinators. And boring, useless bureaucrats who processed travel reimbursements and saved our lives. So: Much less travel.

And are we now researching how to stop the cyclospora that makes it through the non-existent inspections?

Politico reports that the USDA (or maybe the FDA?) had three major research projects on cyclospora. Here’s their current statuseses:

• Defunded.

• Defunded.

• Forced to move to Iowa, so literally every single researcher on the project said they’re out, because they’d rather risk explosive diarrhea than risk Iowa.

Why were those two projects defunded? Because Republicans have a majority in Congress and those millionaire tax cuts won’t pay for themselves.

So now the USDA researchers who study foodborne parasites are all leaving the glamorous world of foodborne-parasite research or just retiring (and I don’t mean they’re shy).

The USDA in 2022 just finished a $32 million renovation of the food lab they’re now abandoning. The relocation is to a facility with less modern facilities.

And the lab is storing dangerous bacteria in freezers at -80°, colder than Tucker Carlson’s heart. Those freezers now have to be moved. Somehow.

As Barbara Kowalcyk of George Washington University’s Milken Institute of Public Health told Politico, “Do you want them shipping highly pathogenic strains of bacteria in a truck across the country?”

Hey, don’t give Trump a very good idea. Wow!

OBVIOUSLY Rollins’s new plan for Trump’s Glenn Beck’s idea is expected to involve subsidizing smaller meat processors, to help them compete with the Big Four.

This aid is expected to arrive more than a year after Trump killed this aid after it was authorized under Pres. Joe Biden.

Trump killed millions in Biden grants directly to small cow-killers. Also, under Biden, the USDA (or maybe FDA?) had $1 billion in grants and loans in the meat pipeline to boost independent meat processors.

Trump killed it, but in July announced $60 million in grants to do the same thing, only at a rate of one 60-millionth of one billion. Trump’s grants will go directly to meat processors to help them buy hand-held cow-killy things from Anton Chigurh.

By contrast, Biden’s one (1) billion stoked the whole pipeline, giving money to schools and food banks … for buying meat from small, independent vendors. One goal was to build a more resilient, locally-based food-supply system after COVID showed us the vulnerabilities food monopolies create.

And the Biden billion meant it wasn’t just cow-killers benefiting, but the whole ecosystem (except cows): School kids, hungry poor folks, food banks, and cow-killers.

Of course, we should be moving away from all meat as fast as possible before climate change does that hand-held cow-killy thing to our species.

Commander-in-Thief Steals Oil Before Restoring Democracy

Pres. Donald Trump on Sunday said the U.S. will replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with oil he’s stealing from Venezuela. Trump’s been tapping the reserve to keep gas prices low, which he hasn’t (here’s why).

The reserve hasn’t been this low since 1982, the last year Pres. Ronald Reagan was still sexy.

Trump earlier announced a vague “deal” to take a stake in Venezuela’s biggest oil company which is fucked up morally but also fucked up for other reasons too lengthy and numerous to enumerate here. But here’s one you’ll enjoy: Trump’s impulsive communism is pissing off Big Oil, because they just got a new competitor in the form of Big Government.

Obviously, there’s no reason to think this will move gas prices any time soon. In fact, some questions about the quality of the oil Trump just stole are being raised in the past by someone who knows oil probably better than anyone:

It’s worth noting that it’s been eight months since Trump stole Venezuelan Pres. Nicolás Maduro. The government wasn’t dismantled. The country remained intact.

And yet there still haven’t been elections.

Because what’s the first thing the people would do? Elect a government that would obey Venezuelan law against selling off its oil. And then re-nationalize it all.

Election Watch

ALABAMA Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) isn’t the only former senator who’s suddenly got a fighting chance in November.

Former Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) — who lucked out in 2017 running against a future surprise guest on the Chris Hansen show — might have a slim shot at winning the governor’s race this year, polling suggests.

Jones is running against Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), named after a town that was named after his brain. Tuberville was already outed as living and voting in Florida, which is not Alabama (yet … despite best efforts).

New polling shows only 49% of voters are at least “probably” going to vote for Tuberville. If enough of the rest vote for Jones, they could send Tuberville and his tuber back to Tuberville. Or Florida.

Jones’s campaign site is here.

MICHIGAN Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall offers a sedative for anyone panicking that Michigan voters are rejecting Abdul el-Sayed just because he’s a terrorist … in Republican campaign ads. (h/t)

Marshall marshals recent polling to show that even if el-Sayed isn’t a sure thing, there’s every reason to think he’s in the lead already. And his campaign site is here.

Four Quickies

• Fifteen people are missing, and one dead, after flash flooding hit Grand Canyon National Park over the weekend to make sure no one thinks climate change is only bringing deadly floods to Nepal.

• Remember how the Department of Homeland (sic) Security (DHS) admitted it overhyped its Nevada non-citizen voting numbers like Las Vegas overhypes your odds of winning? Your turn, Pennsylvania! Democracy Docket reports that the secretary of the commonwealth said DHS officials privately admitted they don’t have “high confidence” in their public claim that Pennsylvania has 14,576 non-citizen registered voters. “High” is just one of the kinds of confidence I don’t have. (h/t)

• Pres. Donald Trump for the first time in recent memory attacked Iran without violating a ceasefire, because there is no ceasefire. He just … ceased firing. Then the U.S. spotted Iran preparing to deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz that they can just fire into the water via rocket launcher. The U.S. strikes on Sunday reportedly killed two people who weren’t even attending a girls school. Iran retaliated against America’s weakest point: Other countries. But Jordan says Iran’s rockets were intercepted. Which didn’t protect Iran’s real target…

• Oil prices this morning rose three percent as the exchange of fire reminded Wall Street traders that the U.S. still hasn’t won the Iran War.

TCB

FUCKING THE FUCKING NEWS Just wanted to acknowledge recent grumblings about TFN. No need to rise to my defense; the points are valid and, I think, fair-minded.

As TFN grows — I now have 80,000 subscribers! — it’s more important to be transparent about criticism and editorial thinking. Aka my thinking.

I got multiple comments about Thursday’s TFN, in which I wrote that Nepal’s flood victims had not evolved biological adaptations to climate change quickly enough to survive. One Newsfucker suggested it was too soon: “I'm not sure if joking about Nepal first thing is appropriate, today or at all. I'm disappointed.”

Another agreed: “I had a similar thought. I love TFN’s schtick, but it doesn’t work equally well for all stories.”

Another said, “making light of the horrific flash flood devastation in Nepal in order to score points on those who dismissed Al Gore’s warnings is perhaps…a bridge too far. Not in good taste this time!”

It’s true, sometimes The Fucking News is not in good taste! I’m grateful for those who defended me, but I had mixed feelings about it myself.

There’s no way to calibrate taste and schtick and appropriateness perfectly, because the audience is always changing and I screw up. That said, the more folks reading TFN, the more I have to think about how mordant humor will hit everyone.

So the feedback is important. Thank you.

NEWSFUCKING IN THE WILD Didja miss my appearance Thursday on The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali? You can fix that, right here.

SUPPORTING TFN You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

If you wanna support TFN but not Substack, you can do so via cash apps: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal.

Go get ‘em, kids! Remember, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, meat-handling should be consensual!

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

FTN is intended to help Newsfuckers keep tabs on TFN without flooding their inboxes. To choose which TFN emails you get — weekly, daily, or Bonus Stories — adjust your Notification settings here.

Let’s facepalm…

Bessent Loses Iran War Even Faster than Hegseth Did

What was advertised as “Economic D-Day” for Iran turned out to be more like ‘D’-For-Effort-Day for the U.S.

I’m not too proud to admit I fell for it. In the runup to Monday’s big announcement, I treated Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as if he weren’t a functionary of Pres. Donald Trump. But he were, Newsfuckers. He were.

Bessent over-promised like Trump does and under-delivered like Trump does. (Which is good, in this case.)

The announcement was hyped as launching the biggest global economic blah blah against Iran that anyone’s ever blah blah. But as your smart-people-pointing-out TFN pointed out Monday, smart people were pointing out that China is a big part of the global economy.

And it’s the biggest part of Iran’s economy. And it’s too big for Trump to go to war with. Too Big To Nail, as it were.

And it were, as Bessent revealed with Monday’s lack of China-nailing.

So “Economic D-Day” turned out to be not an actual metaphorical landing on the beaches of Normandy but more of a “Do not make me come over there and land on the beaches of Normandy.”

As the New York Times put it, “Bessent acknowledged the effort was more of a warning shot.”

Which, in itself, is an acknowledgment of defeat after six months of real shots.

Perhaps my favorite, most telling line from Bessent was, “We find that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy.”

Aside from getting the biggest laugh of his whole set, it’s an important line. As with any good joke, it works on so many levels!

Bessent’s talking to us, revealing that talks are ongoing, meaning the U.S. hasn’t implemented threats yet, it’s mostly threatened threats. That’s not D-Day, that’s waiting to see whether the weather clears over The Channel.

Bessent’s also talking to his boss: Please, boss, for the love of God, don’t remember that you have never once found that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy.

And Bessent’s also talking to us again, setting expectations for going forward: You won’t be hearing about this. Stop thinking about the Iran War. It’s over. _{(We lost.)}

I expected Bessent to try to boil the frog of defeat with actual hardball economic measures to start us off. Instead, he skipped instantly all the way from D-Day to Defeat Day; instead of boiling the frog gradually, flash-frying it post-gradually. Undergradually. Whatever.

Now the U.S. can withdraw enough to leave room for Iran and others to come up with something for the Strait of Hormuz that Trump can spin as a non-loss. As for nukes, there’s already plenty of evidence Iran isn’t pursuing nukes for Trump to cherry-pick and declare non-non-victory.

So, this could be a good thing, if Trump can control his impulses. [Pause for laughter.]

Because “quiet diplomacy” really is the best way to engage with countries! Anything to ratchet down the heat around Iran is better than not. Trump is trying to slither out of the global fuck-up he upfucked and hope we forget. We should let him (but not forget).

Trump Easing Way for Next Global Banking Crisis

Eleanor Davis-Diver of the American Prospect warns that federal financial regulators are preparing to loosen more banking regulations for them not to regulate.

The issue is capital requirements: How much money a bank has to have in order to lend. And by “bank” I don’t mean your local, Main Street bank, because (a) I’m talking about Wall Street firms, and (b) those firms ate your local, Main Street bank.

Wall Street is claiming it can lend more money if only they didn’t have to have so much cash on hand to do it. Because Wall Street lies!

And Wall Street even complains about moves in their favor. Because everything is never enough.

But Republican politicians believe it. Because that’s what they’re paid for.

Davis-Diver quotes Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) saying that, without lower capital requirements, Wall Street will have “fewer dollars to lend to small businesses, first-time homebuyers, [and] car loans.”

Because that’s definitely how Wall Street makes its money. Car loans!

Every gambler prefers to bet with someone else’s money. But if that gambler bets his own money, then when he loses, only he loses.

Betting with more borrowed money — lower capital requirements — means when one Wall Street bank loses, then everyone they borrowed from is now on the line. Only one borrower gets the cement shoes, but everyone in his crime family is tied to him.

And so are we: That’s what happened 20 years ago. Taxpayers forked over $700 billion (trillions, counting Fed loans) to ensure that all of Wall Street would still have the resources to foreclose on our homes.

The Prospect doesn’t name the agencies involved, but if I traced the rabbit hole correctly we’re talking about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

What those agencies have in common is that the corporate media you still haven’t weaned yourself from won’t talk about them, when they could read you Natalie Harp love letters, instead.

(I’m not blaming you, dear Newsfuckers; you can have your salacious gossip because you also do your TFN homework!)

European Summer Killed 35,000 People

So far this summer, Europe’s four heat waves have killed at least an estimated 35,000 people, disproportionately elderly, and not enough oil executives, new data show. That doesn’t include August. Or half of Europe.

The new numbers show 25,000 dead in just France, Spain, and Germany. The estimates are based on what’s called excess mortality: Comparing death rates to what they usually are. The overages are attributed to the formerly-unusual heat waves that struck Europe this summer, killing people and records.

Most of these deaths are not simple sautés, but cases where extreme heat exacerbated other conditions such as respiratory problems or cardiovascular disease.

The good news is, now we can afford to do something about climate change that we couldn’t afford before it started killing us.

TERRIFYING POST-CREDITS SCENE Global ocean surface temperatures hit almost 70° last Friday. That’s believed to be the warmest Earth’s bodies of water have been since Jesus still had 10,000 years to go before He could get His own body, which was mostly water.

The high temperatures are driven by a powerful new El Niño but more so by Pres. Donald Trump, El Other Niño, and also by the powerful old niños who run the fossil fuel industries and therefore Congress.

Trump Sends Congress Deal to Help Saudis Get Nukes

Promises not made, promises kept!

True to his word about the campaign promise he never mentioned in the campaign, Pres. Donald Trump on Tuesday sent Congress a deal to help the Saudi government develop nuclear power solely for civilian energy use and definitely in no way ever possible enrichable to give Saudi Arabia a nuclear bomb.

The deal takes effect automatically if Congress doesn’t pro-actively vote to reject the deal within 90 congressional working days. Both chambers must approve a joint resolution to reject the deal, with specific legislative language saying, and forgive the legalese: Fuck no, are you out of your Fukushima mind?

Of course, the timing strikes a sentimental note for millions of Americans: The 25th anniversary of 9/11 is just a couple weeks away.

And everyone knows the traditional 25th anniversary gift is enriched uranium.

Republicans howling over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attending the 9/11 commemorations are also observing a long-ass moment of silence over Trump giving nuclear power to the nation that gave us 15 out of 19 hijackers (and then edited Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi to pieces).

The deal comes while Trump is losing two (2) wars over nuclear proliferation: The military war against Iran and the economic war against Iran.

For decades Iran said it doesn’t want a nuclear bomb. Then its (new) leaders saw how Trump treats Iran without nukes versus how he treats North Korea with nukes, and so now, as TFN mentioned Monday, Iran’s starting to think nukes look pretty Fukushima good.

And now the prospect of a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia will slap the sexiest Insta filter possible on Iran’s view of nuclear proliferation.

Meanwhile, Trump is waging a new war on Canada…

Canada Fighting Back without Nukes

As promised/threatened, Canada on Tuesday unveiled new, retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

Pres. Donald Trump over the weekend slapped 50% tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, and auto parts — even though the U.S. auto industry is heavily reliant on Canada for some auto parts.

But on Tuesday, Trump’s tariffs on aluminum were foiled by Canadian tariffs on aluminum foil. It’s like a sword fight, with foils!

Starting Sept. 8, about 700 American products will be hit with Canadian tariffs of anywhere from 15% to 50%, effectively pricing American products out of competition in Canadian markets.

It also means, for instance, that if Canadian aluminum is tariffed coming into the U.S., and then U.S. companies turn it into aluminum foil and it’s slapped with more tariffs going back into Canada as aluminum foil, then Canadian aluminum foil’s going to be worth its weight in imported gold.

Canada’s also imposing tariffs on American products ranging from fish to dishwashers, meaning Canadians will have to spend 50% more to wrap American fish in American aluminum foil or store it in glass containers that then have to go into the dishwasher. Where does the madness end?!?

One way it might end is if Canada starts retaliating not with tariffs on imports from the U.S., but by taxing some Canadian exports that Trump hasn’t slapped U.S. tariffs on: Namely, energy.

The U.S. gets a lot of fossil fuels and power from Canada, and Canada could start making that a lot more expensive, the New York Times reports. It’s an idea even more popular than retaliatory tariffs with Canadians, who know what cold winters really are.

Also, Canada is supporting its industries being hurt by Trump’s tariffs. One way: With interest-free loans … that don’t have to be paid back until Trump leaves office.

Nepal Fails to Adapt Quickly Enough to Climate Change

Rescue teams searched overnight Wednesday for more than 1,300 people missing after a stunning flash-flood on the China-Nepal border that, based on videos of the flood, doesn’t appear to have used any CGI at all.

At least 168 270 353 people are known to have died, and, based on the horrific, Michael Bay scenes, it’s hard not to expect that to go a lot higher as it just did from 168 to 270 to 353 while I was writing this.

It’s believed to be the worst global tragedy since Dolly Parton died.

The flooding was caused by the collapse of a glacier in the Himalayas. Along with the Earth’s poles, the mountain range is one of the few places that’s home to more deposits of ice than Tucker Carlson’s heart.

Reportedly, the glacier melting rate in the Himalayas has doubled since 2000, because everyone thought Vice President Al Gore was so hilarious with his global-warming this and carbon-emissions that.

The fossil fuel executives and craven politicians who killed these people were not available for comment, except in the past, when they said Gore was lying and that it would be too expensive to transition Earth to sustainable energy and, okay, fine, fuck it, the human race would just have to adapt to a hotter planet because it’s not like species ever just go extinct.

Video from Wednesday tells a different story. Despite having entire seconds or even whole minutes of warning, not one of the Nepalese in videos of the flood can be seen evolving gills or wings or better lungs in order to survive. They don’t appear even to try getting bit by a radioactive spider.

But maybe something like this is what it takes to break humanity’s dam of stupidity and lack of imagination.

Because it’s one thing to see a flash flood. It’s another to see a flash-flood three stories high. Not just because of the height, but because of the stories.

When you see those buildings, even the subconscious mind of the stupid and unimaginative can understand on some level — I mean, I already said “subconscious” — that those houses were only there in the first place because flooding at this scale doesn’t happen there.

It should also be an eye-opener that the only people who adapted to climate change are the wealthy people who profitethed from selling out the world and evolved an exoskeleton of high-walled compounds and armed patrols to protect them if the masses ever comprehend what they did.

On the other hand, Pres. Donald Trump does seem to be doing pretty much what Gore suggested when it comes to reducing demand for two big emitters of carbon…

Trump Escalates War on Big Trucks, Big Beef

I fucked up on Wednesday and said that Trump’s plan to undercut U.S. cattle ranchers involved bringing in 300,000 cows to sell at 25% below market prices. It was actually just 25 cows to sell at 300,000% below market.

I’m kidding, of course: It was 300,000 metric tons of dead cow, specifically the dead-cow parts that get made into ground beef, or roughly a year’s worth of Big Macs for one (1) White House.

After I fucked up on Wednesday, so did Trump, signing the actual proclamation to bring in the 300,000 extra tons of dead-cow paste.

Amazingly, Trump still didn’t identify where the beef’s coming from or which humans will be processed into patties. Maybe Mitch McConnell could help! (And not with his vote.)

Among the reasons Trump gives for rising beef prices, I bullshit you not, is “growing consumer awareness of the health benefits.”

Yo, that’s a shoutout to Health (sic) and Human Services Secretary Robert Flank Kennedy, Jr., trying to get Americans eating more meat! So that U.S. herds will be bigger, so climate change will get worse, so there’ll be more drought, so there’ll be smaller U.S. herds.

But Trump is blaming Kennedy for demand, which = higher prices. Which, okay, why not. (In fairness, Kennedy is also reducing demand by thinning out the human herd with vaccine denial.)

But as I wrote not-fucked-uppedly on Wednesday, Trump still hasn’t figured out how to balance rancher desire for high prices with consumer desire for food they can afford. And Trump’s proclamation isn’t expected to do much for prices.

Plus, he’s breaking up the meat shipments over three months, starting Sept. 1 — so, too late to lower prices before the election, but early enough to piss off ranchers in swing states.

This leaves everyone pissed at Trump, but mostly the guys who are literally the cartoon stereotype of his supporters: Cowboys and the agri-overlords who cowsplay as cowboys.

Trump signed his proclamation even after getting a letter — pleading please don’t — from America’s biggest lobbyist organizations for America’s rugged individualist cowboys:

• The American Farm Bureau Federation

• The Livestock Marketing Association

• The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association

• The United States Cattlemen’s Association.

THE TRUCKING NEWS Trump is also taking aim at his other cartoon base: Jerks with big trucks who don’t need big trucks and the truck-makers who make them. That’s thanks to Trump’s new threatened tariffs on Canada, giving Republican candidates a chance before the midterm elections to try out new slogans such as Yes, We Canada! And the GOP-to-Spanish translation: Si, Se Puedophile!

As Robert Kuttner writes for the American Prospect, Trump’s coming tariffs on Canadian-made autos and auto parts will make popular trucks like GM’s Chevy Silverado and Ford’s F-350 and F-450 a lot less popular by making them a lot more expensive.

Basically, Trump is doing to the U.S. auto industry that Pres. Barack Obama saved what Trump did to the Iran nuclear deal that Obama dealt.

The tariffs will be “cataclysmic,” one industry executive told Politico. Which would make Trump a cataclysmic converter! Made in the USA!

As Kuttner points out, Trump slashing the tires on American automakers’ truck businesses comes just a year after Trump let the air out of their investments in electric vehicles by killing Pres. Joe Biden’s subsidies, presumably because Biden once worked for Obama.

As Kuttner also points out (The Prospect is very good!) this is all playing out two months ahead of the elections, with Michigan (the sclerotic heart of America’s auto industry) poised to decide Senate control.

Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) is going from 0 to 60 fleeing questions about Trump’s tariffs, leaving former public-health official Abdul el-Sayed to drive Michigan’s disaffected Republicans and Independents into his corner.

El-Sayed’s campaign site is here.

Keep Calm and Gary On

Power was expected to be back in Gary, IN, this week at full, um, power, two weeks after a series of storms knocked out power in the, um, remote, hard-to-reach, um, craggy mountains of, uh, northern Indiana.

Relief efforts have been thwarted by the fact that Gary has no easy access to shipping ports. The nearest body of water is Lake Michigan, which depending on how you travel is zero miles away. The closest major city, Chicago, is a daylong trek if you walk slowly and stop at Culver’s.

Weirdly enough, Gary residents spent weeks in the dark despite being served by the most efficient supplier of electricity known to humanity: Capitalism. The power company’s parent, NiSource, at the start of the storms announced that it would be rushing aid … to investors. In the form of $140 million in dividends.

Almost four out of five people in Gary are Black. And civil-rights leader Bernice King said, “Black communities have too often been expected to endure conditions that would be treated as intolerable somewhere else.” (Except Puerto Rico, claro!)

Facebook Faces the Music in Landmark Settlement

Debate is raging over whether Wednesday’s massive Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) settlement with 47 state attorneys general deserves a 👍 or a 😡, which probably means the deal’s effectiveness likely depends on execution.

Here’s the deal with the deal…

Meta has come under fire for fucking kids for money, basically a metaphorical but global Epstein Island that the Epstein class has done nothing about. By stoking peer competition and status comparisons, Meta knowingly drove child anxiety, leading to eating disorders, suicide, and Mark Zuckerberg knows what else.

With 47 states suing them, Meta agreed to:

• No teen use midnight to 6am

• No notifications for teens overnight or during school

• Teens limited to two hours per day of doomscrolling

• Better age verification

• Options to deactivate predatory algorithms

• Concealing the number of post “likes”

• Banning “beauty filter” options

Of course, without those beauty filters, you get this…

…instead of this:

Meta is now pressuring competitors — think YouTube and TikTok — to follow suit. Meaning Meta still can’t help doing peer pressure.

Florida’s attorney general, not part of the suit, called Meta’s concessions “peanuts compared to the profound harms Meta’s profit-driven addictive features have inflicted on our children.” Wait til his capitalist masters stumble across that post! 😡😡😡

WIRED reports that there’s another problem: The settlement shifts a lot of the policing burden from Meta to parents.

And Florida Republicans would have no problem with the core of Wednesday’s settlement: It’s self-regulating. There is no cop on the beat. There is no new law against what they do.

Meta simply … agreed to be better. And if they’re not, what’re 47 states gonna do about it? Sue?

Here’s the ultimate predictor of whether this hurts Meta the way we all want or helps Meta by ending the lawsuit at minimal cost: Shares of Meta stock rose on the news.

😡😡😡

Murder, He Boat

The one (1) illegal war that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is being allowed to keep waging is, of course, the most illegal one: The serial-killing Boat-iac Killing™ spree through the Caribbean and Pacific.

Without Democrats warning that they’ll be prosecuted, members of the U.S. military have been obeying illegal orders to blow up boats without warning, without due process, without honor, and without any claim of self defense.

On Monday morning, U.S. Southern Command released another note taunting the authorities with details of their latest kill, with two more victims dead, and the usual trophy video that’s become a signature part of their M.O.

Well, joke’s on them, because there are no authorities!

THE UPSIDE Just because Democrats aren’t publicly threatening prosecution doesn’t mean that a new/real attorney general and/or international authorities won’t eventually open investigations and convene grand juries and start identifying everyone in the chain of commadness who did these murders. We just have to make sure the 2028 candidates know where we stand on whether the U.S. should do murders.

Gang Members Seek to Escape Gang Due to Its Crimes

MS NOW has spoken with members of a global criminal cartel who are sick of their lives of crime and trying to get out.

The gang has a number of street names, including “Department of War” and “The Pentagon,” as the OGs call it. (That’s “Old Generals.”)

According to MS NOW, the gang members are sick of the criminal violence.

Some say their gang, “The Pentagon,” is illegally blowing up civilian bridges in Iran:

“I realized there’s no way that you could interpret the international laws as saying that you’re allowed to strike civilian bridges, but in reality, if the president wants to blow up bridges, the lawyers will find a way to say that it is OK to do it, and nobody anywhere up or down the chain of command ever stops and says no.”

That may have something to do with the fact that Democrats haven’t vowed to prosecute those in the chain of command who never stop and say no, effectively abandoning everyone lower on the chain of command.

Then there are the boat murders, The Boat-iac Killings™. It’s been hard since the maritime murder spree began a year ago not to wonder whether any of the service members involved thought about the fact that there was no warning. No due process.

No imminent danger to anyone. No rationale for self-defense.

Turns out some did.

“You can tell yourself what you want at night and say they were all precision strikes and they were all planned, but there’s at least one innocent person that I feel like I indirectly hurt.”

“Hurt.”

One group that works with conscientious objectors seeking to leave the military told MS NOW they typically handle 50 a year but have already dealt with about 140 so far since Pres. Donald Trump started the Iran War on purpose. (h/t)

Okay, congressional Democrats, 140 should be enough witnesses for the hearings next year, right?

Mutiny on the Lack of Bounty

Pres. Donald Trump’s inability to steer the U.S. economy is inspiring talk of mutiny even among his loyal crew, the New York Times reports.

Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) is running for Senate in Iowa, so she has every motive to rebel against what Trump’s doing to her state’s farmers, which she’ll vote for anyway if she wins. Trump just announced he’s lowering tariffs on imported beef, undercutting Iowa’s dead-cow purveyors.

Hinson Sunday said, “[T]his isn’t the way.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is running for re-election in a state that borders Canada and said that Trump’s new tariffs “will increase costs for Maine families, as most businesses will have no choice but to pass on the tariffs to their customers through higher prices.” The tariffs will also give Collins no choice but to vote for them the second she wins.

Hinson’s opponent is state Rep. Josh Turek (D-IA), whose campaign site is here.

Collins’s opponent is former state Senate President Troy Jackson (D-ME), whose campaign site is here.

The War on Democrats

With primary season over for most of the country, it’s time for Democrats to pull together and work to defeat Republicans unless those Republicans are running against democratic socialists.

So, last week, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) held a virtual press conference — that doesn’t exist online and as far as I can tell was covered only by right-wing media outlets — to discuss his efforts against democratic socialists who’ve won Democratic primaries.

So, I did two (2) TFN Bonus Stories on Sunday to unpack the tattered valise of Promise to America (PTA), Suozzi’s group targeting democratic socialists.

James Carville signed on to PTA, so I was obliged to demolish every word that right-wing media reported that he said:

And I crunched the numbers on Carville’s claim that democratic socialists aren’t really Democrats. Wanna see whether PTA Democrats or Squad Democrats vote with the party more often? So did I, so I did the math!

Also, Suozzi straight-up lied about his goals for getting Democrats to join PTA. So I gave him his own Bonus Story. And unlike the cynical, skeptical, sophisticated, savvy political media that unquestioningly regurgitated Suozzi’s claim about his PTA goals, I went back and checked — like a dick! — what Suozzi had said before:

Not because PTA matters, but because if anyone should know Suozzi’s moving the goalposts, it’s you Newsfuckers. Cuz I don’t wanna live in a world without an alternative to media that just mindlessly regurgitate bullshit.

The Fake Hasan Piker Problem

EXCLUSIVE Setting aside the particulars, however awful, of things that Hasan Piker has said, it’s worth considering whose words and which associations get promoted like his from footnote to Problem.

For some reason, the same media and politicians who furrow brows over Democratic candidates tied to Piker enjoy unfurrowed brows when it comes to Republican candidates who associate themselves with Pres. Donald Trump. Who has said many a thing. Like, an Oxford English Dictionary’s worth of thing-saying.

Some Democrats furrow no brows when they operate under the cloak of religion. And when I say religion, I mean the right religion. (Not Islam.)

Take Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who praised the “miracle” of El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s leadership, which includes torturing Trump’s prisoners and offering to torture Americans if that’d help Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio.

Did Suozzi get even a fraction of the Piker blowback that Abdul el-Sayed got? Nada.

But there’s one GOP fave whose words include Piker-esque America-blaming. For COVID. For Jan. 6.

Unlike Piker, he doesn’t endorse or campaign for Republicans. They endorse him, sponsoring his Bible studies. So, over on my original-reporting Substack, I unearthed what this pastor, Ralph Drollinger, said about Jan. 6 and COVID.

And I listed Republicans who keep sponsoring his Bible studies anyway. If any of them are running in your neck of the woods, arm of the city, or heart of the town, feel free to spread the good news! You can check it out here.

MEDIA WATCH Last week, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon (D-FL) won her Senate primary. So CBS asked her about the most pressing issue America faces now: Her connections to and thoughts about Piker.

Nixon said she had few thoughts about Piker and fewer connections, because she barely knows who he is. Did the media cover this as CBS fucking up?

No, they covered it as Nixon dodging.

The best headline I saw on this was on Reddit: “Gayle King incorrectly states that progressive candidate Angie Nixon campaigned with Hasan Piker. Nixon corrects her, explaining that she has never campaigned with Piker and doesn’t know him. King then immediately asks Nixon if she would like to campaign with Hasan Piker.”

This is why we support independent media, kids!

Election Watch

ALASKA Former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) got the most votes in Tuesday’s Alaska Senate primary, which sent the top four candidates from all parties to the November general election.

In a good sign for Democrats, both Republican Dans Sullivan made the cut. incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) came in second, followed by non-incumbent Dan Sullivan (R-AK), no relation.

Republicans tried to get other Sullivan off the ballot. Failing that, they got the ballots to include the middle initials of both Dans Sullivan, counting on that famous MAGA-voter attention to detail.

So, literally, control of the U.S. Senate could hinge on whether MAGA can tell the difference between two distinct middle initials the way they couldn’t between a sane former vice president and an obvious, incurious, impulsive, stupid con man.

Here are the results for the four who made the general election:

• Peltola (D-AK): 48.2%

• Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): 42.6%

• non-Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): 2.5%

• Gerald Heikes (R-AK): 1.1%

One thing other than other Dan Sullivan that doesn’t help Dan Sullivan is finishing so far in second place, with a gap much bigger than is accounted for by other Dan Sullivan.

Peltola’s campaign site is here. No, I’m not giving you other Dan Sullivan’s site.

KENTUCKY NBC’s Sahil Kapur caught a House Republican candidate in Kentucky pivoting from the primary to the general primarily by deleting references to his general: Pres. Donald Trump.

Here’s Ralph Alvarado’s (R-KY) before-and-after:

Kapur reports that Alvarado also scrubbed his campaign website of anything that sounds or looks like Trump.

Alvarado’s opponent is Zach Dembo, who probably archived every single Alvarado Trump message. Dembo’s campaign site is here.

SOUTH CAROLINA In what was a fairly good night for Pres. Donald Trump that he may come to regret later like so many of his good nights, his chosen candidate won in a key primary despite their lower odds of winning in the general election.

Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), who went by Darline Nordone right up until her brother — instantly-forgotten Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — died, won a narrow victory, powered by Trump’s ill-considered and not-considered endorsement, over a guy who probably had a better shot at winning the general election, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).

Graham’s victory was both narrow (52% to 48%) and stunning (any% to not-all%).

The November race is being seen as a done deal, but Trump’s 18-point margin of victory in 2024 hasn’t managed to protect every Republican this year. The Democratic candidate, pediatrician and political activist Annie Andrews, thinks she’s got an outside chance, since Graham is out of her depth.

Andrews’s campaign site is here.

Four Quickies

• The death toll of Health (sic) and Human Services (sic) Secretary Robert Fatal Kennedy, Jr. rose on Tuesday. Two unvaccinated people died of measles in Pennsylvania, we learned Tuesday. They’re the first U.S. measles fatalities of the year, as the nation is seeing a 35-year-high of 2,777 cases. Just as school’s starting!

• FLASHBACK Kennedy’s new head of the vaccine panel, Kirk Milhoan, said back in January that America is about to get “a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles.” He meant this in a good way because of all the data we’d get. Unfortunately, data are the only thing Kennedy and Milhoan seem to be vaccinated against.

• The Texas ban on drag shows just got overturned again. A judge found that the ban was so broad it could have outlawed cosplayers and Dolly Parton impersonators, right when the nation needs them most. The suit was filed by drag artist Brigitte Bandit against state Attorney General Ken Paxton, pedophile protector of child bandits. The judge’s research into the suit revealed that people offended by drag shows are physically capable of not going to them. (h/t)

• A Texas federal judge on Wednesday ruled against Minnesota’s attempt to extradite an accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shooter and liar from the rogue nation of Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has refused to extradite fugitive ICE agent Christian Castro, who shot a guy in Minnesota and then lied about it. Abbott has also refused to say he’s refusing to extradite Castro, giving the judge an excuse to say there’s nothing Abbott’s done for him to rule on, which I feel like I should’ve tried in school when I didn’t do my homework. Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, says he’s pursuing other legal avenues to pursue Castro, but it’s not clear which avenues won’t lead to him getting shot down in a Texas court.

TCB

CLARIFICATION After TFN noted the two weeks that Gary, IN, went without relief for some of its storm-stricken residents, a diligent Newsfucker emailed me about Pine Ridge and the Dine’ Reservation, Navajo Nation, lacking consistent, reliable water for decades.

“It irks me that progressives omit them when talking about struggling communities,” they wrote to me.

In my defense, because I’m overly defensive, I wasn’t talking about struggling communities, I was talking about Gary!

In my other defense, I omitted a hell of a lot more struggling communities. This is a consistent challenge for any journalism of humanism: Talking about some without talking about all.

I fail at some of this all of the time. Which is why, on any issue, I try to talk about the some in ways that illuminate the all. So, I will continue to omit many, many things. But I hope you Newsfuckers will continue to tell me about at least some of the all that I omit.

And I hope together we can share information and understanding in ways that get us closer to benefiting all.

SUPPORTING TFN I don’t have permission to share their name, but on Sunday, one of you Newsfuckers gave me $500 through PayPal to support my work. Crazy, I know.

Here’s what they wrote: “Keep at it Jonathan, we have to make sure people understand just how dangerous the extremist WCNs are.” That’s White Christian Nationalists, I assume. Or Wicked-Cute Nihilists?

If you’re thinking that’s a lot of money, that’s what I’m thinking! It is a lot. A donation like that changes my day, tells me it matters to someone that I’m working on a summer Sunday.

But I also know that any amount of money is a lot to someone. So, thank you to everyone who supports TFN.

If the weekly TFN roundup, Facepalm the Nation, is worth the aggregation aggravation, please consider letting me know by putting your money where my cursing mouth is with a paid subscription. Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

This is a TFN Bonus Story — you can adjust your settings here if you want to get just the weekday morning newsletter.

Always a privilege to join online titan Wajahat Ali on his show, The Left Hook (you can check out his Substack here.)

My favorite, subtle thing about this conversation is that both times I brought up an arcane but really important story or recent development to criticize corporate media for ignoring it, I was worried that Waj wouldn’t know about it. Both times, he not only knew about it, it had been covered on The Left Hook.

Proof. Pudding.

Thanks to all you Newsfuckers who joined us, I caught some of you in the chat as it flew by!

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning in to my live video with !

You can read today’s TFN here and if you’re a regular listener, the best way to keep TFN going is with a paid subscription, which you can get using this link or this button (except with American Express, which refuses to process TFN payments because we used a bad word):

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Go get ‘em, kids…!

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

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Take action: Your representatives

Rescue teams searched overnight for more than 1,300 people missing after a stunning flash-flood on the China-Nepal border that, based on videos of the flood, doesn’t appear to have used any CGI at all.

At least 168 270 353 people are known to have died, and, based on the horrific, Michael Bay scenes, it’s hard not to expect that to go a lot higher as it just did from 168 to 270 to 353 while I was writing this.

It’s believed to be the worst global tragedy since Dolly Parton died.

The flooding was caused by the collapse of a glacier in the Himalayas. Along with the Earth’s poles, the mountain range is one of the few places that’s home to more deposits of ice than Tucker Carlson’s heart.

Reportedly, the glacier melting rate in the Himalayas has doubled since 2000, because everyone thought Vice President Al Gore was so hilarious with his global-warming this and carbon-emissions that.

The fossil fuel executives and craven politicians who killed these people were not available for comment, except in the past, when they said Gore was lying and that it would be too expensive to transition Earth to sustainable energy and, okay, fine, fuck it, the human race would just have to adapt to a hotter planet because it’s not like species ever just go extinct.

Video from Wednesday tells a different story. Despite having entire seconds or even whole minutes of warning, not one of the Nepalese in videos of the flood can be seen evolving gills or wings or better lungs in order to survive. They don’t appear even to try getting bit by a radioactive spider.

But maybe something like this is what it takes to break humanity’s dam of stupidity and lack of imagination.

Because it’s one thing to see a flash flood. It’s another to see a flash-flood three stories high. Not just because of the height, but because of the stories.

When you see those buildings, even the subconscious mind of the stupid and unimaginative can understand on some level — I mean, I already said “subconscious” — that those houses were only there in the first place because flooding at this scale doesn’t happen there.

It should also be an eye-opener that the only people who adapted to climate change are the wealthy people who profitethed from selling out the world and evolved an exoskeleton of high-walled compounds and armed patrols to protect them if the masses ever comprehend what they did.

On the other hand, Pres. Donald Trump does seem to be doing pretty much what Gore suggested when it comes to reducing demand for two big emitters of carbon…

Trump Escalates War on Big Trucks, Big Beef

I fucked up on Wednesday and said that Trump’s plan to undercut U.S. cattle ranchers involved bringing in 300,000 cows to sell at 25% below market prices. It was actually just 25 cows to sell at 300,000% below market.

I’m kidding, of course: It was 300,000 metric tons of dead cow, specifically the dead-cow parts that get made into ground beef, or roughly a year’s worth of Big Macs for one (1) White House.

After I fucked up on Wednesday, so did Trump, signing the actual proclamation to bring in the 300,000 extra tons of dead-cow paste.

Amazingly, Trump still didn’t identify where the beef’s coming from or which humans will be processed into patties. Maybe Mitch McConnell could help! (And not with his vote.)

Among the reasons Trump gives for rising beef prices, I shit you not, is “growing consumer awareness of the health benefits.”

Yo, that’s a shoutout to Health (sic) and Human Services Secretary Robert Flank Kennedy, Jr., trying to get Americans eating more meat! So that U.S. herds will be bigger, so climate change will get worse, so there’ll be more drought, so there’ll be smaller U.S. herds.

But Trump is blaming Kennedy for demand, which = higher prices. Which, okay, why not. (In fairness, Kennedy is also reducing demand by thinning out the human herd with vaccine denial.)

But as I wrote not-fucked-uppedly on Wednesday, Trump still hasn’t figured out how to balance rancher desire for high prices with consumer desire for food they can afford. And Trump’s proclamation isn’t expected to do much for prices.

Plus, he’s breaking up the meat shipments over three months, starting Sept. 1 — so, too late to lower prices before the election, but early enough to piss off ranchers in swing states.

This leaves everyone pissed at Trump, but mostly the guys who are literally the cartoon stereotype of his supporters: Cowboys and the agri-overlords who cowsplay as cowboys.

Trump signed his proclamation even after getting a letter — pleading please don’t — from America’s biggest lobbyist organizations for America’s rugged individualist cowboys:

• The American Farm Bureau Federation

• The Livestock Marketing Association

• The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association

• The United States Cattlemen’s Association.

THE TRUCKING NEWS Trump is also taking aim at his other cartoon base: Jerks with big trucks who don’t need big trucks and the truck-makers who make them. That’s thanks to Trump’s new threatened tariffs on Canada, giving Republican candidates a chance before the midterm elections to try out new slogans such as Yes, We Canada! And the GOP-to-Spanish translation: Si, Se Puedophile!

As Robert Kuttner writes for the American Prospect, Trump’s coming tariffs on Canadian-made autos and auto parts will make popular trucks like GM’s Chevy Silverado and Ford’s F-350 and F-450 a lot less popular by making them a lot more expensive.

Basically, Trump is doing to the U.S. auto industry that Pres. Barack Obama saved what Trump did to the Iran nuclear deal that Obama dealt.

The tariffs will be “cataclysmic,” one industry executive told Politico. Which would make Trump a cataclysmic converter! Made in the USA!

As Kuttner points out, Trump slashing the tires on American automakers’ truck businesses comes just a year after Trump let the air out of their investments in electric vehicles by killing Pres. Joe Biden’s subsidies, presumably because Biden once worked for Obama.

As Kuttner also points out (The Prospect is very good!) this is all playing out two months ahead of the elections, with Michigan (the sclerotic heart of America’s auto industry) poised to decide Senate control.

Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) is going from 0 to 60 fleeing questions about Trump’s tariffs, leaving former public-health official Abdul el-Sayed to drive Michigan’s disaffected Republicans and Independents into his corner.

El-Sayed’s campaign site is here.

Facebook Faces the Music in Landmark Settlement

Debate is raging over whether Wednesday’s massive Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) settlement with 47 state attorneys general deserves a 👍 or a 😡, which probably means the deal’s effectiveness likely depends on execution.

Here’s the deal with the deal…

Meta has come under fire for fucking kids for money, basically a metaphorical but global Epstein Island that the Epstein class has done nothing about. By stoking peer competition and status comparisons, Meta knowingly drove child anxiety, leading to eating disorders, suicide, and Mark Zuckerberg knows what else.

With 47 states suing them, Meta agreed to:

• No teen use midnight to 6am

• No notifications for teens overnight or during school

• Teens limited to two hours per day of doomscrolling

• Better age verification

• Options to deactivate predatory algorithms

• Concealing the number of post “likes”

• Banning “beauty filter” options

Of course, without those beauty filters, you get this…

…instead of this:

Meta is now pressuring competitors — think YouTube and TikTok — to follow suit. Meaning Meta still can’t help doing peer pressure.

Florida’s attorney general, not part of the suit, called Meta’s concessions “peanuts compared to the profound harms Meta’s profit-driven addictive features have inflicted on our children.” Wait til his capitalist masters stumble across that post! 😡😡😡

WIRED reports that there’s another problem: The settlement shifts a lot of the policing burden from Meta to parents.

And Florida Republicans would have no problem with the core of Wednesday’s settlement: It’s self-regulating. There is no cop on the beat. There is no new law against what they do.

Meta simply … agreed to be better. And if they’re not, what’re 47 states gonna do about it? Sue?

Here’s the ultimate predictor of whether this hurts Meta the way we all want or helps Meta by ending the lawsuit at minimal cost: Shares of Meta stock rose on the news.

😡😡😡

Gang Members Seek to Escape Gang Due to Its Crimes

MS NOW has spoken with members of a global criminal cartel who are sick of their lives of crime and trying to get out.

The gang has a number of street names, including “Department of War” and “The Pentagon,” as the OGs call it. (That’s “Old Generals.”)

According to MS NOW, the gang members are sick of the criminal violence.

Some say their gang, “The Pentagon,” is illegally blowing up civilian bridges in Iran:

“I realized there’s no way that you could interpret the international laws as saying that you’re allowed to strike civilian bridges, but in reality, if the president wants to blow up bridges, the lawyers will find a way to say that it is OK to do it, and nobody anywhere up or down the chain of command ever stops and says no.”

That may have something to do with the fact that Democrats haven’t vowed to prosecute those in the chain of command who never stop and say no, effectively abandoning everyone lower on the chain of command.

Then there are the boat murders, The Boat-iac Killings™. It’s been hard since the maritime murder spree began a year ago not to wonder whether any of the service members involved thought about the fact that there was no warning. No due process.

No imminent danger to anyone. No rationale for self-defense.

Turns out some did.

“You can tell yourself what you want at night and say they were all precision strikes and they were all planned, but there’s at least one innocent person that I feel like I indirectly hurt.”

“Hurt.”

One group that works with conscientious objectors seeking to leave the military told MS NOW they typically handle 50 a year but have already dealt with about 140 so far since Pres. Donald Trump started the Iran War on purpose. (h/t)

Okay, congressional Democrats, 140 should be enough witnesses for the hearings next year, right?

Are You Ready for Some Football to Die?

No, not because of the toxic masculinity and tribalism it re-inscribes in society or its role as a big circus in the bread-and-circuses that preoccupy millions of men who might otherwise be volunteering at the local library or exploring their feelings.

It’s because football kills people!

A new study found that one out of four NFL players had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). That’s a condition you get when you’re slammed in the head by 250 pounds of beef, imported or American. It tends not to kill you directly: It just kills your brain, which in some cases has led to fatal violence against others and/or then self.

In short, pigskin is now on the list with asbestos and coal-mine dust.

And it’s not just the NFL. There could be similar, or proportionate cases of CTE resulting from college and high-school football, which colleges and high schools should stop doing but won’t because they like money more than they like kids.

So, um, buzzkill … we should probably stop watching. The last thing America needs is more brain damage.

This is why Jesus gave us videogames!

CTE is found in virtually zero people who don’t get slammed in the head. But it’s not just football that causes CTE. So do other impact sports: Hockey, soccer, rugby, wrestling, and even bobsledding. It’s also been found in military personnel.

Which might explain all the Murder He Boat.

Election Watch

KENTUCKY NBC’s Sahil Kapur caught a House Republican candidate in Kentucky pivoting from the primary to the general primarily by deleting references to his general: Pres. Donald Trump.

Here’s Ralph Alvarado’s (R-KY) before-and-after:

Kapur reports that Alvarado also scrubbed his campaign website of anything that sounds or looks like Trump.

Alvarado’s opponent is Zach Dembo, who probably archived every single Alvarado Trump message. Dembo’s campaign site is here.

Two Quickies

• The Texas ban on drag shows just got overturned again. A judge found that the ban was so broad it could have outlawed cosplayers and Dolly Parton impersonators, right when the nation needs them most. The suit was filed by drag artist Brigitte Bandit against state Attorney General Ken Paxton, pedophile protector of child bandits. The judge’s research into the suit revealed that people offended by drag shows are physically capable of not going to them. (h/t)

• A Texas federal judge on Wednesday ruled against Minnesota’s attempt to extradite an accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shooter and liar from the rogue nation of Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has refused to extradite fugitive ICE agent Christian Castro, who shot a guy in Minnesota and then lied about it. Abbott has also refused to say he’s refusing to extradite Castro, giving the judge an excuse to say there’s nothing Abbott’s done for him to rule on, which I feel like I should’ve tried in school when I didn’t do my homework. Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, says he’s pursuing other legal avenues to pursue Castro, but it’s not clear which avenues won’t lead to him getting shot down in a Texas court.

TCB

CLARIFICATION After TFN noted the two weeks that Gary, IN, went without relief for some of its storm-stricken residents, a diligent Newsfucker emailed me about Pine Ridge and the Dine’ Reservation, Navajo Nation, lacking consistent, reliable water for decades.

“It irks me that progressives omit them when talking about struggling communities,” they wrote to me.

In my defense, because I’m overly defensive, I wasn’t talking about struggling communities, I was talking about Gary!

In my other defense, I omitted a hell of a lot more struggling communities. This is a consistent challenge for any journalism of humanism: Talking about some without talking about all.

I fail at some of this all of the time. Which is why, on any issue, I try to talk about the some in ways that illuminate the all. So, I will continue to omit many, many things. But I hope you Newsfuckers will continue to tell me about at least some of the all that I omit.

And I hope together we can share information and understanding in ways that get us closer to benefiting all.

NEWSFUCKING IN THE WILD Hoping to do a Substack Live with Wajahat Ali today at 2pm eastern, so look for that notification! I’ll also post it here when it’s done.

SUMMER FRIDAYS Dunno whether I’ll have a new TFN on Friday. Not because I’m taking off — how often do I really take off? — but mostly because there’s something like half a dozen stories I should be breaking on my original-reporting Substack — and TFN Bonus Story commentaries, too! — and I could use the time to work on those.

Plus, TFN gets more subscribers when I put out fewer TFNs! Who am I to argue? Give the people what they want not to get!

SUPPORTING TFN You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

If you wanna support TFN but not Substack, you can do so via cash apps: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal.

Go get ‘em, kids! 😡😡😡

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

You can read today’s TFN here and if you’re a regular listener, the best way to keep TFN going is with a paid subscription, which you can get using this link or this button (except with American Express, which refuses to process TFN payments because we used a bad word):

Yes, I want to support TFN

You can also support TFN — and your own personal image! — with TFN merch sporting the TFN bullet, logo, or even our E Pluribus Fuckem slogan at TheFingNews.com.

• Other ways of supporting TFN

• Other resources

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Go get ‘em, kids…!

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

TFN stuff: Podcast | Merch | Other TFN
Support: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal
Take action: Your representatives

As part of Pres. Donald Trump’s series of pop-up performance-art exhibits of doing something about high prices, he’s allowing 300,000 dead cows to immigrate here to cut the price of beef.

On Tuesday, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brooke Rollins, was asked which countries Trump’s talking to about sending America its dead cows. Because, y’know, what if it’s a shithole country?

Check out what Rollins — can’t stress this enough, the USDA secretary! — said in this exchange:

Q: “What specific countries have been in talks with the U.S. about stepping up those beef imports, aside from Mexico?”

Rollins: “I am not privy [sic] to talk about that. I think the conversations are still going on. And that’s Ambassador [Jamieson] Greer, who’s finalizing what exactly that looks like, and I think the president’s involved in that, as well.”

Obviously, the big scandal should be her misuse of the word “privy.” You can be privy to information. You can’t be privy to talk about it. (I’m stewing because everyone else is treating this as a nothingburger, because these are dark times for our country.)

The big focus has been on the fact that the USDA secretary either doesn’t know or is covering up (depending on how badly she’s misusing “privy”) where these undocumented dead cows are coming from to take our women and our jobs. Trump literally opened the borders for cows.

And they really are taking American jobs!

Trump promised that the immigrant beef “will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.” He’s bragging about shanking American cattle farmers! So even Republican politicians (especially those on the ballot in November) have beef with him.

What’s happening here is Trump never bothered to figure out navigating the inherent tension between profits for American businesses and the cost of living for people.

So he ends up cutting up cattle farmers. All sizzle, no American steak. All hat, no American cattle.

Trump himself was recently asked where the beef’s coming from. His answer response wasn’t well done: “I don’t want to say which countries but there are a few countries." You know he loves playing Hide the Salami.

Amazingly, he also stampeded over American beef, saying his mystery imports will be “the highest quality beef.” But with Americans not even knowing what kind of meat he’s not talking about, Trump may have to do a lot of political horse-trading and pork-barrel spending to win back anyone who’s got a dog in this fight or is now cat-calling Trump’s chicken-shit strategy and market monkeyshines.

The U.S. is already importing record amounts of beef from Mexico, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Nicaragua, New Zealand, and Argentina.

Where’s all the American beef? Newsfuckers, U.S. herds are cooked. They’re at record lows thanks in part to droughts caused by record highs caused by climate change caused by the U.S., including the dead-cow industry.

So, the price of ground beef has risen from $5.45 a pound when Trump took office to $6.85 now. If prices keep rising, along with gas prices, Trump could prove to be one of our most effective presidents fighting climate change.

Also ironically, it’s far from sure that 300,000 new dead cows will lower prices, as they’re basically just replacing dead cows that didn’t come in because of fears of screwworm. (The deadly parasite that kills cattle, that is, not the deadly parasite that runs the Health and Human Services Department.)

Trump Sends Congress Deal to Help Saudis Get Nukes

Promises not made, promises kept!

True to his word about the campaign promise he never mentioned in the campaign, Pres. Donald Trump on Tuesday sent Congress a deal to help the Saudi government develop nuclear power solely for civilian energy use and definitely in no way ever possible enrichable to give Saudi Arabia a nuclear bomb.

The deal takes effect automatically if Congress doesn’t pro-actively vote to reject the deal within 90 congressional working days. Both chambers must approve a joint resolution to reject the deal, with specific legislative language saying, and forgive the legalese: Fuck no, are you out of your Fukushima mind?

Of course, the timing strikes a sentimental note for millions of Americans: The 25th anniversary of 9/11 is just a couple weeks away.

And everyone knows the traditional 25th anniversary gift is enriched uranium.

Republicans howling over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attending the 9/11 commemorations are also observing a long-ass moment of silence over Trump giving nuclear power to the nation that gave us 15 out of 19 hijackers (and then edited Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi to pieces).

The deal comes while Trump is losing two (2) wars over nuclear proliferation: The military war against Iran and the economic war against Iran.

For decades Iran said it doesn’t want a nuclear bomb. Then its (new) leaders saw how Trump treats Iran without nukes versus how he treats North Korea with nukes, and so now, as TFN mentioned Monday, Iran’s starting to think nukes look pretty Fukushima good.

And now the prospect of a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia will slap the sexiest Insta filter possible on Iran’s view of nuclear proliferation.

Meanwhile, Trump is waging a new war on Canada…

Canada Fighting Back without Nukes

As promised/threatened, Canada on Tuesday unveiled new, retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

Pres. Donald Trump over the weekend slapped 50% tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, and auto parts — even though the U.S. auto industry is heavily reliant on Canada for some auto parts.

But on Tuesday, Trump’s tariffs on aluminum were foiled by Canadian tariffs on aluminum foil. It’s like a sword fight, with foils!

Starting Sept. 8, about 700 American products will be hit with Canadian tariffs of anywhere from 15% to 50%, effectively pricing American products out of competition in Canadian markets.

It also means, for instance, that if Canadian aluminum is tariffed coming into the U.S., and then U.S. companies turn it into aluminum foil and it’s slapped with more tariffs going back into Canada as aluminum foil, then Canadian aluminum foil’s going to be worth its weight in imported gold.

Canada’s also imposing tariffs on American products ranging from fish to dishwashers, meaning Canadians will have to spend 50% more to wrap American fish in American aluminum foil or store it in glass containers that then have to go into the dishwasher. Where does the madness end?!?

One way it might end is if Canada starts retaliating not with tariffs on imports from the U.S., but by taxing some Canadian exports that Trump hasn’t slapped U.S. tariffs on: Namely, energy.

The U.S. gets a lot of fossil fuels and power from Canada, and Canada could start making that a lot more expensive, the New York Times reports. It’s an idea even more popular than retaliatory tariffs with Canadians, who know what cold winters really are.

Also, Canada is supporting its industries being hurt by Trump’s tariffs. One way: With interest-free loans … that don’t have to be paid back until Trump leaves office.

Conversion Therapy Fails on Trump’s Trade Warrior

EXCLUSIVE U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is, reportedly, a devout Mormon.

Which could explain why he planned to attend at least two sessions of the White House Bible study last year, as I revealed on Tuesday over on my original-reporting Substack. It could also explain why Greer seems to have stopped going, if he ever did make it (they’re pretty early in the morning!).

Allow me to explain…

The White House Bible study is run by an outside, right-wing group, Capitol Ministries. Their aim is to convince politicians to govern the way they say God wants, by showing them “proof” in, um, the Bible, that well-known prover of things.

Dozens of Republicans are public sponsors.

But some people attend secretly. I’ve already revealed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA). And now it appears that Greer was so devout he was willing to give it a try, too. But it’s also possible he’s so Mormon he decided to stop.

Allow me to explain…

Capitol Ministries leader Ralph Drollinger has a pattern of strict Christian exclusionism. Even some Protestants are going to Hell, he says. Never mind Catholics.

And Mormons, Capitol Ministries says, aren’t even Christians.

If Greer did bail on the Bible study because he doesn’t count as Christian, it might explain why he hasn’t told USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins where America’s mystery meat is coming from: Because she helped bring Drollinger back to the White House.

Now, how much does this matter? Well, it seems to show that Republicans sought to get Greer to go. But only two sessions show up in Greer’s calendar that I found. And it gives us a third politician who’s not publicly listed.

Big picture, though? Probably not a big deal. Neither Drollinger nor The Lord God Almighty for whom Drollinger speaks have a lot to say about international trade.

Or Canada.

Election Watch

ALASKA Former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) got the most votes in Tuesday’s Alaska Senate primary, which sent the top four candidates from all parties to the November general election.

In a good sign for Democrats, both Republican Dans Sullivan made the cut. incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) came in second, followed by non-incumbent Dan Sullivan (R-AK), no relation.

Republicans tried to get other Sullivan off the ballot. Failing that, they got the ballots to include the middle initials of both Dans Sullivan, counting on that famous MAGA-voter attention to detail.

So, literally, control of the U.S. Senate could hinge on whether MAGA can tell the difference between two distinct middle initials the way they couldn’t between a sane former vice president and an obvious, incurious, impulsive, stupid con man.

Here are the results for the four who made the general election:

• Peltola (D-AK): 48.2%

• Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): 42.6%

• non-Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK): 2.5%

• Gerald Heikes (R-AK): 1.1%

One thing other than other Dan Sullivan that doesn’t help Dan Sullivan is finishing so far in second place, with a gap much bigger than is accounted for by other Dan Sullivan.

Peltola’s campaign site is here. No, I’m not giving you other Dan Sullivan’s site.

SOUTH CAROLINA In what was a fairly good night for Pres. Donald Trump that he may come to regret later like so many of his good nights, his chosen candidate won in a key primary despite their lower odds of winning in the general election.

Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), who went by Darline Nordone right up until her brother — instantly-forgotten Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — died, won a narrow victory, powered by Trump’s ill-considered and not-considered endorsement, over a guy who probably had a better shot at winning the general election, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).

Graham’s victory was both narrow (52% to 48%) and stunning (any% to not-all%).

The November race is being seen as a done deal, but Trump’s 18-point margin of victory in 2024 hasn’t managed to protect every Republican this year. The Democratic candidate, pediatrician and political activist Annie Andrews, thinks she’s got an outside chance, since Graham is out of her depth.

Andrews’s campaign site is here.

Parton Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Singer/songwriter/philanthropist Dolly Parton, the most famous person capable of walking among us unrecognized just by taking off her wig, has died.

She was politically active in ways that didn’t make her politically radioactive. As was pointed out on Twitter, she drew tributes from both Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Pres. Donald Trump.

As that Tweet noted, “genuinely cannot imagine anything like this ever happening again.”

The DSA called Parton “a working-class hero and an inspiration to us all.” Trump said “This is a true loss for millions of people. There has never been anyone like her and never will [be].” In his final, most touching tribute, Trump observed a moment of silence by saying nothing about her chest.

I’d like to believe we still have people beloved across the political spectrum, but no one comes to mind. Thoughts, Newsfuckers?

And, because TFN is not beloved across the political spectrum, I’m gonna share some of a short remembrance of Parton by Jane Fonda:

Two Quickies

• The death toll of Health (sic) and Human Services (sic) Secretary Robert Fatal Kennedy, Jr. rose on Tuesday. Two unvaccinated people died of measles in Pennsylvania, we learned Tuesday. They’re the first U.S. measles fatalities of the year, as the nation is seeing a 35-year-high of 2,777 cases. Just as school’s starting!

• FLASHBACK Kennedy’s new head of the vaccine panel, Kirk Milhoan, said back in January that America is about to get “a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles.” He meant this in a good way because of all the data we’d get. Unfortunately, data are the only thing Kennedy and Milhoan seem to be vaccinated against.

TCB

SUPPORTING TFN You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

If you wanna support TFN but not Substack, you can do so via cash apps: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal.

Go get ‘em, kids! Trump’s grilling his own ass with cattle farmers and Republicans are cooked.

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

You can read today’s TFN here and if you’re a regular listener, the best way to keep TFN going is with a paid subscription, which you can get using this link or this button (except with American Express, which refuses to process TFN payments because we used a bad word):

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

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Note: Hey. You.

There’s a lot going on. It can feel overwhelming. And I don’t often preview where it’s all going. Over the next two years some things will get worse, some will get better.

Even short-sighted Republicans are starting to glimpse a post-Trump world. Democrats will likely control one chamber of Congress as of January. Combined, this will bring a lot of Republican badness to a halt. It will likely also extrude remaining badness out through a smaller number of holes like a Play-D’oh™ factory but for evil.

Our job is to have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. Ignore the people and outlets that firehose us with everything, demanding our hate and panic.

Trump has shown us just how much can be done quickly if you do it all at once. Democrats doing that when they get the White House is the only way we fix this better than it is and was.

So, stay informed in ways that inspire rather than deflate us. Move levers where we can. Awaken the “non-political.” Reject fear and limiting framing. Push/help politicians to make the world we want. Run for something. Mostly, hang in there the way the founders wanted us hanging: Together.

What was advertised as “Economic D-Day” for Iran turned out to be more like ‘D’-For-Effort-Day for the U.S.

I’m not too proud to admit I fell for it. In the runup to Monday’s big announcement, I treated Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as if he weren’t a functionary of Pres. Donald Trump. But he were, Newsfuckers. He were.

Bessent over-promised like Trump does and under-delivered like Trump does. (Which is good, in this case.)

The announcement was hyped as launching the biggest global economic blah blah against Iran that anyone’s ever blah blah. But as your smart-people-pointing-out TFN pointed out Monday, smart people were pointing out that China is a big part of the global economy.

And it’s the biggest part of Iran’s economy. And it’s too big for Trump to go to war with. Too Big To Nail, as it were.

And it were, as Bessent revealed with Monday’s lack of China-nailing.

So “Economic D-Day” turned out to be not an actual metaphorical landing on the beaches of Normandy but more of a “Do not make me come over there and land on the beaches of Normandy.”

As the New York Times put it, “Bessent acknowledged the effort was more of a warning shot.”

Which, in itself, is an acknowledgment of defeat after six months of real shots.

Perhaps my favorite, most telling line from Bessent was, “We find that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy.”

Aside from getting the biggest laugh of his whole set, it’s an important line. As with any good joke, it works on so many levels!

Bessent’s talking to us, revealing that talks are ongoing, meaning the U.S. hasn’t implemented threats yet, it’s mostly threatened threats. That’s not D-Day, that’s waiting to see whether the weather clears over The Channel.

Bessent’s also talking to his boss: Please, boss, for the love of God, don’t remember that you have never once found that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy.

And Bessent’s also talking to us again, setting expectations for going forward: You won’t be hearing about this. Stop thinking about the Iran War. It’s over. _{(We lost.)}

I expected Bessent to try to boil the frog of defeat with actual hardball economic measures to start us off. Instead, he skipped instantly all the way from D-Day to Defeat Day; instead of boiling the frog gradually, flash-frying it post-gradually. Undergradually. Whatever.

Now the U.S. can withdraw enough to leave room for Iran and others to come up with something for the Strait of Hormuz that Trump can spin as a non-loss. As for nukes, there’s already plenty of evidence Iran isn’t pursuing nukes for Trump to cherry-pick and declare non-non-victory.

So, this could be a good thing, if Trump can control his impulses. [Pause for laughter.]

Because “quiet diplomacy” really is the best way to engage with countries! Anything to ratchet down the heat around Iran is better than not. Trump is trying to slither out of the global fuck-up he upfucked and hope we forget. We should let him (but not forget).

Trump Engaging with Canada the Worst Way

Our friendly neighbors to the north will fire retaliatory tariffs at us today after Pres. Donald Trump on Monday responded to the collapse of trade talks the way he responds to all things: As if Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee all fell into the 3-Course-Dinner Gum machine and came out as one stale stick of dumb.

Specifically, Trump threatened to slap 50% tariffs on Canadian auto parts, steel, and aluminum. Never mind that this would slap American consumers and the American companies that rely on Canadian auto parts, steel, and aluminum.

What Trump has achieved in his newest trade war is to unite Canada’s left and right politically. And he’s pissed off Canadians — a feat of eldritch sorcery in and of itself — enough that they’re genuinely willing to suffer economic hardships just to tell Trump “Fuck you, eh, hoser!”

Unlike Canadians, Americans won’t suffer Trump’s newest economic deprivations quietly. Because, like Canadians, they’ll see it as Trump’s fault — yet another needless war of choice.

But also because Canada has a more robust social safety net, and is already working on new measures to buffer against the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs.

Does anyone think Trump’s gonna bail out the U.S. auto industry — which relies on Canadian auto parts — like Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama did? Think it’ll be in time to prevent Abdul el-Sayed from winning votes in Michigan based on Trump fucking over U.S. auto companies? Fuck no, eh!

On the other hand, Canadian threats to shut off the electric power it supplies to the U.S. may not be the threat Canada thinks it is — against a country becoming so isolated the only world it’s moving toward is the third…

Keep Calm and Gary On

Power is expected to be back in Gary, IN, today at full, um, power, two weeks after a series of storms knocked out power in the, um, remote, hard-to-reach, um, craggy mountains of, uh, northern Indiana.

Relief efforts have been thwarted by the fact that Gary has no easy access to shipping ports. The nearest body of water is Lake Michigan, which depending on how you travel is zero miles away. The closest major city, Chicago, is a daylong trek if you walk slowly and stop at Culver’s.

Weirdly enough, Gary residents spent weeks in the dark despite being served by the most efficient supplier of electricity known to humanity: Capitalism. The power company’s parent, NiSource, at the start of the storms announced that it would be rushing aid … to investors. In the form of $140 million in dividends.

Almost four out of five people in Gary are Black. And civil-rights leader Bernice King said, “Black communities have too often been expected to endure conditions that would be treated as intolerable somewhere else.” (Except Puerto Rico, claro!)

Trump Easing Way for Next Global Banking Crisis

Eleanor Davis-Diver of the American Prospect warns that federal financial regulators are preparing to loosen more banking regulations for them not to regulate.

The issue is capital requirements: How much money a bank has to have in order to lend. And by “bank” I don’t mean your local, Main Street bank, because (a) I’m talking about Wall Street firms, and (b) those firms ate your local, Main Street bank.

Wall Street is claiming it can lend more money if only they didn’t have to have so much cash on hand to do it. Because Wall Street lies!

And Wall Street even complains about moves in their favor. Because everything is never enough.

But Republican politicians believe it. Because that’s what they’re paid for.

Davis-Diver quotes Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) saying that, without lower capital requirements, Wall Street will have “fewer dollars to lend to small businesses, first-time homebuyers, [and] car loans.”

Because that’s definitely how Wall Street makes its money. Car loans!

Every gambler prefers to bet with someone else’s money. But if that gambler bets his own money, then when he loses, only he loses.

Betting with more borrowed money — lower capital requirements — means when one Wall Street bank loses, then everyone they borrowed from is now on the line. Only one borrower gets the cement shoes, but everyone in his crime family is tied to him.

And so are we: That’s what happened 20 years ago. Taxpayers forked over $700 billion (trillions, counting Fed loans) to ensure that all of Wall Street would still have the resources to foreclose on our homes.

The Prospect doesn’t name the agencies involved, but if I traced the rabbit hole correctly we’re talking about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

What those agencies have in common is that the corporate media you still haven’t weaned yourself from won’t talk about them, when they could read you Natalie Harp love letters, instead.

(I’m not blaming you, dear Newsfuckers; you can have your salacious gossip because you also do your TFN homework!)

That Vote-by-Mail Freakout Everyone Wants You To Have

It is, yes, undeniably, A Bad Thing™ that the Supreme Court voted Monday to let Pres. Donald Trump continue fucking with mail-in voting. But it is not a fatal thing nor an un-undoable thing.

As the Associated Press responsibly leads with, it may have no impact at all on this year’s elections. Basically, the six right-wing justices said that June was too early for Democrats to challenge Trump’s executive order purporting to impose limits on how states do mail-in voting.

Which doesn’t mean they’ll ultimately allow it. But it may not be in time for this year’s elections.

Also, it’s mostly directed at blue states … where Democrats would likely win anyway. Where Republicans really need help is in red states, where they’re fighting most of their current political battles.

Also, it’s not as if only Democrats vote by mail. I’ve seen estimates that one out of four Democrats do, but so do one out of five Republicans.

More also, what happens in states where Republicans pull this shit? Your repetitive TFN has talked before about Newtonian politics: People react!

In areas that Republicans have gerryklandered, Black voter turnout increases. Expect the same thing as word spreads that voting by mail may be harder. People will be pissed off. At Republicans.

Especially if you remind them that Trump voted by mail.

Rubio Seeks to Deport 200,000 Visa Holders

The State Department on Monday said it’s going to revoke the visas of as many as 200,000 people here legally — if they subsequently applied for asylum.

The thinking behind it — wait, “thinking”’s not the right word — the racism and xenophobia behind it is that anyone who came here on a visa for business or tourism must have been lying when they said why they wanted a visa if now they say they want to stay because home isn’t safe for them.

Also Monday, the State Department ordered embassies to stop doing visa interviews until officers who interview applicants can be trained to forget what being American is supposed to mean.

Specifically, they’re now being told to identify and deny visas to anyone who might rely on public assistance. Such applicants fall into several distinct categories:

1. Tired

2. Poor

3. Huddled masses yearning to breathe free

4. Wretched refuse

5. Homeless

6. Tempest-tost

Let the record show (because I’ve met Democrats who don’t get it) that immigrants — of any documentation status — are net contributors to the All-Important Sacred Economy and commit fewer crimes than people born here do.

And quick reminder that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would lose his citizenship if Pres. Donald Trump convinces the Supreme Court to kill birthright citizenship.

He was born in Miami to parents who were still Cuban citizens. And he used to talk about his parents as if they came here after Fidel Castro took over. Almost as if they were seeking asylum, which is what Rubio’s now helping Trump turn this place into.

European Summer Killed 35,000 People

So far this summer, Europe’s four heat waves have killed at least an estimated 35,000 people, disproportionately elderly, and not enough oil executives, new data show. That doesn’t include August. Or half of Europe.

The new numbers show 25,000 dead in just France, Spain, and Germany. The estimates are based on what’s called excess mortality: Comparing death rates to what they usually are. The overages are attributed to the formerly-unusual heat waves that struck Europe this summer, killing people and records.

Most of these deaths are not simple sautés, but cases where extreme heat exacerbated other conditions such as respiratory problems or cardiovascular disease.

The good news is, now we can afford to do something about climate change that we couldn’t afford before it started killing us.

TERRIFYING POST-CREDITS SCENE Global ocean surface temperatures hit almost 70° on Friday. That’s believed to be the warmest Earth’s bodies of water have been since Jesus still had 10,000 years to go before He could get His own body, which was mostly water.

The high temperatures are driven by a powerful new El Niño but more so by Pres. Donald Trump, El Other Niño, and also by the powerful old niños who run the fossil fuel industries and therefore Congress.

Two Quickies

• Democracy Docket reports that officials from the Department of Homeland (sic) Security (DHS) said privately that they could only identify 185 “potential” noncitizens registered illegally to vote in Nevada. That’s 1.16% of the 15,903 that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin publicly claimed existed, and 0.008% of all of Nevada’s voters. “Potential”ly.

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) made a promising but vague vow on Monday. He was responding to people pissed that he met with Jared Kushner to discuss how Democrats, if they win a majority, can work constructively with The Legion of Doom next year. Jeffries said that “We’re going to hold every single member of the Trump cartel accountable.” Which would be more promising if Jeffries weren’t planning on working constructively with a cartel ringleader.

TCB

SNEAK PREVIEW It’s not a big, huge story, but I do have some original reporting coming over at my other Substack related to one of the key figures in the Canada trade talks. I’ll flag it in TFN after it’s up, but if you want to get all of my original reporting, you can subscribe here (for free or, if you choose, supporting that work with a paid subscription).

SUPPORTING TFN You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

If you wanna support TFN but not Substack, you can do so via cash apps: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal.

Go get ‘em, kids! Trump is literally hitting Canada harder than Iran … two months before the elections.

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

You can read today’s TFN here and if you’re a regular listener, the best way to keep TFN going is with a paid subscription, which you can get using this link or this button (except with American Express, which refuses to process TFN payments because we used a bad word):

Yes, I want to support TFN

You can also support TFN — and your own personal image! — with TFN merch sporting the TFN bullet, logo, or even our E Pluribus Fuckem slogan at TheFingNews.com.

• Other ways of supporting TFN

• Other resources

• Me on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Spoutible

Go get ‘em, kids…!

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

TFN stuff: Podcast | Merch | Other TFN
Support: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal
Take action: Your representatives

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is taking over management of the Iran War today, with the announcement of “Economic D-Day,” a sweeping barrage of new sanctions against Iranian allies and commercial partners.

Which is gonna be a lot harder now that Pres. Donald Trump is refusing to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Corporate Transparency Act that used to help regulators thwart shell companies that move money to places like Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been running the Iran War the old-fashioned way, bombing strategic sites such as military bases, missile launch sites, and girls schools. Then Hegseth realized he was running low on the missiles he was using to blow up incoming Iranian bombs.

Back to you in the studio!

It’s believed to be the first time in this administration that an official who fits Trump’s preferred profile — straight, white, performatively Christian, Fox rapist-bro — has been replaced by a gay dude, flying in the tattooed face of Hegseth’s anti-DEI crusade.

The goal of Bessent’s new sanctions is to force Iran’s regime officials to be more compliant. Like the previous ones. Before Trump killed them.

Bessent is announcing the specifics of the plan just as soon as it’s finished. He said “Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.”

In other words, Trump is going to bully other nations into ending trade with Iran in the hopes that starving Iranians will starve so much that they stand up and revolt, but not so much that they can’t stand up. And that they’ve forgotten that the last time Trump encouraged popular revolt in Iran, thousands of leaders were executed while Trump did nothing about it.

It’s worth noting that sanctions and trade restrictions are the same tactic the U.S. used whenever it wasn’t bombing Iran. Bessent is just doing more of the thing that didn’t work, in order to force Iran back into the deal Pres. Barack Obama won by not doing any of this.

One big question mark, though: WTF is Trump going to do about Iran’s biggest trade partner, China?

“Iran has been under comprehensive sanctions for years,” Edward Fishman of the Council on Foreign Relations told the New York Times. “The only major thing left to do is aggressively target Iran’s trading partners — above all, China … I’m skeptical Trump is willing to risk instigating an economic war with China right now.”

Yeah, Trump’s too smart for that!

With or without China, “Operation Epic Fury” is being replaced today by “Economic D-Day,” apparently chosen over other scary names for the new assault, such as “Financial Fuck You,” and “Fiduciary Douchery.”

One thing “Economic D-Day” could succeed at is normalizing the wind-down of U.S. military operations gradually, without Trump having to say “amo” (Persian for “uncle”). That’ll be more difficult if Iran goes ahead with its new threat Saturday to bomb any neighbors that join in with “Economic D-Day.” Or if Iran stops Saudi oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, the Suez Canal, or the Gulf of Aden.

Who says geography can’t be fun!

Bessent probably won’t explain what the U.S. (or Hegseth) will do if Iran responds to “Economic D-Day” with actual military attacks, inflicting more economic pain on Iran’s neighbors than Trump can, shutting off global trade routes, or tanking the global economy again, fer instance.

On Saturday, the top Iranian security official publicly questioned whether maybe Iran should start pursuing nuclear weapons. Previously, Iranian officials have denied any interest. Also previously, we didn’t have Trump trying to do something about it, a sure sign that the opposite will happen.

And this Iranian official was a hard-liner, the former head of the militant Revolutionary Guard, which had less power until Trump blew up the people who used to have power.

One way we know that Trump is escalating the bluster and economic saber-rattling to cover his military defeat is that Bessent already told Wall Street, yeah, the war’s over. And where did Bessent make this important declaration of market-calming defeat? Live address to the nation from Hegseth’s office?

Nope. Bessent was speaking to his people where they live: CNBC.

Bessent said on CNBC Thursday that “maximum economic pressure … means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart,” even using the word Hegseth wanted to say because “kinetic” is the new cool word for bombing.

And Hegseth isn’t even getting to run America’s other revived war, either…

Disquiet on the Northern Front

If today is Economic D-Day for Iran, Saturday was Economic Whatever-the-Canadian-Letter-for-’D’-Is Day for Canada.

Saturday is when new U.S. tariffs kicked in against Canada and against the Americans who want to buy stuff from Canada. Obviously, the new trade war was preceded on Tuesday by Pres. Donald Trump announcing a deal to avert it. Canada is kicking back with coming tariffs against U.S. products.

At this point, Newsfuckers, I can’t even keep track of what Trump is fighting about, or which Canadian shit is getting tariffed now. I’ve seen wine, cheese, cement, and hockey sticks.

In other words, no wine and cheese for Wisconsin parents watching the kids play street hockey in the new driveway.

It’s a weird list and it only encompasses $20 billion worth of Canadian shit, which means the economic pain won’t be widespread, but also that U.S. voters will head into the midterms seeing stories about those industries: American kids crying that they can’t afford hockey sticks and wine moms crying that — ah, who are we kidding, they’ll always get their wine.

All of this, by the way, is happening because Trump isn’t happy with the existing U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal. That he negotiated and signed.

So now each side is blaming the other for the talks collapsing. The U.S. argues that Canada kept making last-minute requests.

The Canadian argument is that it was impossible to negotiate with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was also chiming in.

And Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about those putative last-minute requests and denied it, saying simply, “No.” Or possibly, “Non.”

As Politico reports, the Canadian story is basically that the U.S. negotiators didn’t understand the terms of the deal, so when Canada clarified those terms, that felt like last-minute requests. But, non.

Mutiny on the Lack of Bounty

Pres. Donald Trump’s inability to steer the U.S. economy is inspiring talk of mutiny even among his loyal crew, the New York Times reports.

Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) is running for Senate in Iowa, so she has every motive to rebel against what Trump’s doing to her state’s farmers, which she’ll vote for anyway if she wins. Trump just announced he’s lowering tariffs on imported beef, undercutting Iowa’s dead-cow purveyors.

Hinson Sunday said, “[T]his isn’t the way.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is running for re-election in a state that borders Canada and said that Trump’s new tariffs “will increase costs for Maine families, as most businesses will have no choice but to pass on the tariffs to their customers through higher prices.” The tariffs will also give Collins no choice but to vote for them the second she wins.

Hinson’s opponent is state Rep. Josh Turek (D-IA), whose campaign site is here.

Collins’s opponent is former state Senate President Troy Jackson (D-ME), whose campaign site is here.

Murder, He Boat

The one (1) illegal war that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is being allowed to keep waging is, of course, the most illegal one: The serial-killing Boat-iac Killing™ spree through the Caribbean and Pacific.

Without Democrats warning that they’ll be prosecuted, members of the U.S. military have been obeying illegal orders to blow up boats without warning, without due process, without honor, and without any claim of self defense.

This morning, U.S. Southern Command released another note taunting the authorities with details of their latest kill, with two more victims dead, and the usual trophy video that’s become a signature part of their M.O.

Well, joke’s on them, because there are no authorities!

THE UPSIDE Just because Democrats aren’t publicly threatening prosecution doesn’t mean that a new/real attorney general and/or international authorities won’t eventually open investigations and convene grand juries and start identifying everyone in the chain of commadness who did these murders. We just have to make sure the 2028 candidates know where we stand on whether the U.S. should do murders.

The War on Democrats

With primary season over for most of the country, it’s time for Democrats to pull together and work to defeat Republicans unless those Republicans are running against democratic socialists.

So, on Thursday, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) held a virtual press conference — that doesn’t exist online and as far as I can tell was covered only by right-wing media outlets — to discuss his efforts against democratic socialists who’ve won Democratic primaries.

So, I did two (2) TFN Bonus Stories on Sunday to unpack the tattered valise of Promise to America (PTA), Suozzi’s group targeting democratic socialists.

James Carville signed on to PTA, so I was obliged to demolish every word that right-wing media reported that he said:

And I crunched the numbers on Carville’s claim that democratic socialists aren’t really Democrats. Wanna see whether PTA Democrats or Squad Democrats vote with the party more often? So did I, so I did the math!

Also, Suozzi straight-up lied about his goals for getting Democrats to join PTA. So I gave him his own Bonus Story. And unlike the cynical, skeptical, sophisticated, savvy political media that unquestioningly regurgitated Suozzi’s claim about his PTA goals, I went back and checked — like a dick! — what Suozzi had said before:

Not because PTA matters, but because if anyone should know Suozzi’s moving the goalposts, it’s you Newsfuckers. Cuz I don’t wanna live in a world without an alternative to media that just mindlessly regurgitate bullshit.

Ballroom Fritz

The White House is stepping on its own feet in its elaborate legal dance to keep building Pres. Donald Trump’s ballroom.

On Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts allowed construction to continue while the court considers whether the construction Roberts just allowed is legal.

But the Washington Post reports that Trump’s national-security rationale for the ballroom is already falling apart, like any Trump structure, undermined by what’s already under the White House.

Trump is now arguing that the ballroom is just the cis-gender normative cake topper on the urgently needed security facilities underneath, namely the bunker where Trump plans to ride out the global destruction he’s facilitating until the day he can emerge into the radioactive rubble and rule humanity’s only survivors, The Kingdom of Chodes and Natalie Harp.

How’s that argument undermined? Turns out, the White House already has that bunker. Sixty feet underground, just like Trump’s approval ratings, and thick enough to survive a nuclear blast, just like Trump’s obtuseness.

The administration has argued that the new bunker will allow Trump to run the country in a crisis. Of course, we’re already in a crisis, and the best way to end it is for Trump to not run the country.

The Fake Hasan Piker Problem

EXCLUSIVE Setting aside the particulars, however awful, of things that Hasan Piker has said, it’s worth considering whose words and which associations get promoted like his from footnote to Problem.

For some reason, the same media and politicians who furrow brows over Democratic candidates tied to Piker enjoy unfurrowed brows when it comes to Republican candidates who associate themselves with Pres. Donald Trump. Who has said many a thing. Like, an Oxford English Dictionary’s worth of thing-saying.

Some Democrats furrow no brows when they operate under the cloak of religion. And when I say religion, I mean the right religion. (Not Islam.)

Take Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who praised the “miracle” of El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s leadership, which includes torturing Trump’s prisoners and offering to torture Americans if that’d help Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio.

Did Suozzi get even a fraction of the Piker blowback that Abdul el-Sayed got? Nada.

But there’s one GOP fave whose words include Piker-esque America-blaming. For COVID. For Jan. 6.

Unlike Piker, he doesn’t endorse or campaign for Republicans. They endorse him, sponsoring his Bible studies. So, over on my original-reporting Substack, I unearthed what this pastor, Ralph Drollinger, said about Jan. 6 and COVID.

And I listed Republicans who keep sponsoring his Bible studies anyway. If any of them are running in your neck of the woods, arm of the city, or heart of the town, feel free to spread the good news! You can check it out here.

MEDIA WATCH Last week, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon (D-FL) won her Senate primary. So CBS asked her about the most pressing issue America faces now: Her connections to and thoughts about Piker.

Nixon said she had few thoughts about Piker and fewer connections, because she barely knows who he is. Did the media cover this as CBS fucking up?

No, they covered it as Nixon dodging.

The best headline I saw on this was on Reddit: “Gayle King incorrectly states that progressive candidate Angie Nixon campaigned with Hasan Piker. Nixon corrects her, explaining that she has never campaigned with Piker and doesn’t know him. King then immediately asks Nixon if she would like to campaign with Hasan Piker.”

This is why we support independent media, kids!

Two Quickies

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the most likely speaker if Democrats win control of the House, took a break from planning how Democrats will fight back against Pres. Donald Trump to plan how Democrats will work with Trump. Jeffries reportedly met with Trump son-in-law, amateur diplomat (and leader in the corruption import/export field) Jared Kushner. The New York Times says they discussed areas of common ground, such as not fighting back against Trump. Issues discussed included housing, immigration, and inflation. Trump has previously expressed willingness to work with Democrats unless it involves Democrats.

• Here’s a way to make real progress on immigration! Federal Judge Jeannette Vargas ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio violated the law when he stopped processing visa applications from 75 countries. Federal law requires them to be processed and says consular officers are in charge, not Rubio, according to Vargas, who was appointed by Pres. Joe Biden and is now exacting his revenge from beyond the almost-grave.

TCB

SUPPORTING TFN I don’t have permission to share their name, but on Sunday, one of you Newsfuckers gave me $500 through PayPal to support my work. Crazy, I know.

Here’s what they wrote: “Keep at it Jonathan, we have to make sure people understand just how dangerous the extremist WCNs are.” That’s White Christian Nationalists, I assume. Or Wicked-Cute Nihilists?

If you’re thinking that’s a lot of money, that’s what I’m thinking! It is a lot. A donation like that changes my day, tells me it matters to someone that I’m working on a summer Sunday.

But I also know that any amount of money is a lot to someone. So, thank you to everyone who supports TFN.

You can help make TFN happen by sharing it on social media, telling your friends, and, if you can afford it, by upgrading to a paid subscription. TFN is still growing, but between normal attrition and American Express canceling subscriptions, the number of paid subscriptions is falling, so your support is especially important now.

Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.

If you wanna support TFN but not Substack, you can do so via cash apps: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal.

Go get ‘em, kids! Hegseth just lost two wars to a gay dude: Happy Monday!

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.

Support: Venmo | BuyMeACoffee | PayPal
TFN stuff: Podcast | Merch | Other TFN
Take action: Your representatives

There’s a phrase for when you fall short of a goal and then move the goalposts to make it look like you scored. When you do that literally, it’s called moving the goalposts.

When you do that metaphorically, it’s called lying.

Which brings us to Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY).

In a press conference on Thursday, Suozzi talked about his goals for Promise To America (PTA), his campaign to defeat democratic socialists on the rise in the Democratic Party (even though they’re now running against Republican supporters of Pres. Donald Trump in the general election).

Suozzi wasn’t talking about the goals he originally said he had for PTA; on Thursday he was talking about goals he suggested he had always had. But didn’t.

He didn’t move the goalposts, you see; the 10-yard line has always been our friend.

Suozzi’s virtual press conference isn’t available online. And only right-wing media seem to have attended. Or maybe they were the only ones invited. In any case, right-wing media accounts are all we have to go by.

None of the savvy corporate-media political-news types have reported on the disconnect between Thursday’s remarks and what Suozzi said just two months ago. But here at The Fucking News, we don’t just transcribe the news, we fuck it.

So let’s start with what Suozzi said Thursday.

Here’s how Hannity.com covered Suozzi’s remarks about the growth non-growth of PTA since its official launch in June, specifically regarding the number of members of Congress on board:

Got that? Suozzi only wants ten members of Congress. That’s either a random strategy — why ten? — or it’s moving the goalposts. AKA lying.

In this case, it’s lying. We know this because:

• (a) Nothing about growing into state and local politics requires limiting the congressional roster. Just the opposite: A robust congressional presence would drive state and local involvement.

• Also, (b) there’s nothing magical about ten. Why work to get ten and then stop? This could go to eleven!

• Plus, (c), failing to grow nationally just invites challenges from the right-wing outlets Suozzi panders to, as I’ll discuss in a moment.

• And (d) setting the logically obvious bullshit aside, there’s also the explicit, overt bullshitting revealed by what Suozzi said just 55 days ago.

As I’ve obnoxiously been reporting, Suozzi said in June that he was going to grow the congressional roster. As I’ve more-obnoxiously been reporting, he hasn’t done that thing he said he’d do.

And — fortunately for those of us who aren’t journalists savvy enough not to compare what politicians say one day with what they say another day — Suozzi even gave us specific metrics about PTA’s goals in an exchange on June 26, 2026. In that interview, Fox was asking about the 13 House Democrats and Democratic candidates who had signed on:

Ainsley Earhardt: I’m surprised only 13 were willing to sign your pledge, this promise to America. Why aren’t more speaking out?

Suozzi: There will be more [sic] people as time goes on. We kicked this off about six months ago. We had a formal unveiling about a month ago. Yesterday, we announced the first ten members of Congress and the first five Democratic candidates. Our goal is to get 20 candidates, 200 state and local officials, and 2,000 people around the country.

First ten! First five!

Notice Suozzi didn’t mention his fears that an eleventh member of the House might demand to be added as a signatory, thereby dooming Suozzi’s quest for local and state politicians.

Apparently, when Suozzi announced his “first” ten members of Congress, those were also secretly his last ten members of Congress. As we’ve now learned, he had already met the goal that he would almost two months later explain as “only want[ing] ten 10 members of Congress.” Mission accomplished!

And that other goal, of 20 candidates? PTA had five in June, since then have added none, and one of those lost their primary. That’s an increase of -20%.

And those 200 state and local officials? PTA now has four (4) state representatives and two (2) state senators. Just 194 to go!

(Do you know how many state representatives and senators there are in the country so we can figure out the percentage who’ve signed on with PTA? Me neither.)

Earlier today I addressed Suozzi’s four other new signatories: The heartland-of-America-representing “Veteran Strategists” who became veterans in the 1990s strategizing for the 1990s, the decade that gave us all that we enjoy today.

This is not the first time I’ve caught Suozzi suozzing the truth. Over on my original-reporting Substack, I wrote back in May about Suozzi secretly living in Capitol Hill housing subsidized by anonymous right-wing Christians.

The Rev. Rob Schenck, a reformed Christian nationalist, told me that Suozzi didn’t want voters to find out about his living arrangements. “He said to me, I don’t tell anybody this,” Schenck told me.

In other words, be it a character flaw or the politics of surviving in a district so divided it sent George Santos (R-NY) to Congress, Suozzi is, to put it kindly, calculating about what he wants voters to know.

And when he does get caught, it’s more often right-wing media than left-wing media that catch him. (Let alone the supposedly sophisticated cynics of mainstream political news.)

So, much as it pains me to say the word “Hannity” in proximity to the phrase “good point,” Hannity.com raised a good point about Suozzi’s modest PTA showing giving Republicans an easy opening:

“…the modest showing gives Republicans an easy opening: if capitalism, border security, lower crime and patriotism really represent the Democratic mainstream, why does a pledge saying so need to exist — and why are so few elected Democrats willing to put their names on it?:

Yeah, Suozzi! Riddle me that!

Hannity.com’s point being, Suozzi’s failure to organize a genuine movement among either Democratic leadership or the grass roots either confirms the Republican narrative that most Democrats hate America, or it confirms the democratic socialist narrative that most Democrats love democratic socialism or at least won’t go to war against it.

And just to keep my dickishness streak going on Suozzi’s whole half-assed PTA campaign, let’s consider the state and local signatories he’s picked up thanks to his noble sacrifice of an 11th member of Congress.

Of the four (4) state representatives who signed on with PTA, three are up for re-election this year. None of them had primaries. No one ran against them.

Those three are in Kentucky, New Hampshire, and South Dakota, and likely could use the PTA boost to signal to independents that they’re not crazy enough to support wildly popular policies like higher taxes for the rich and an end to needless death due to lack of health insurance.

The other PTA signatory, Jennifer Mandelbaum of New Hampshire, won her seat in 2024 with 98.8% of the vote, even more than Vladimir Putin gets.

And Suozzi’s two PTA state senators? Newsfuckers, meet Joe Baldacci of Maine and Joanne Benson of Maryland.

No, wait, you can’t meet Joe Baldacci of Maine because he already lost his primary to a candidate who supports Medicare For All. (h/t)

Okay, well, then meet Joanne Benson of Maryland! No, wait, you can’t meet Joanne Benson of Maryland because the 85-year-old stopped showing up for work this year, which may be related to the fact that she’s not running for re-election.

Kudos to Maryland Matters for noting that Benson’s not running, and for quoting Progressive Maryland Executive Director Larry Stafford calling PTA’s website “a set of vague platitudes, not a document outlining a plan to improving people’s lives … attempting to appeal to everyone while delivering nothing.”

So, those are the six (6) state politicians Suozzi has picked up since June, at the rate of less than one (1) per week.

And now, for Suozzi, the PTA looks like a lose-lose. He’s given up on recruiting national Democrats. And his failure has even the great minds behind Hannity.com pointing out that Suozzi’s just highlighting how few Democrats agree with right-wing “centrism.”

But maybe Suozzi’s smarter than I give him credit for.

Maybe this isn’t about America, but about erecting a Potemkin Village in which swing-district Democrats can hide and hope Republicans won’t see them in November.

Performance Anxiety?

Maybe all of this is purely performative, giving right-leaning independents enough hippie-punching to pick up some votes. Suozzi, after all, is in a very tight race, as usual. (Which is why you don’t see democratic socialists boosting their own campaigns by undermining him.)

Consider this: Suozzi’s go-to line when speaking with the media — typically corporate political news outlets or right-wing outlets like Fox — is to say that he’s a capitalist, not a socialist.

That line’s all over the PTA website.

But on Suozzi’s campaign website? The only place the words “capitalist” or “capitalism” appear are in reposted articles about the PTA.

He doesn’t want his supporters to think of him as defending capitalism. He wants fence-sitters to think of him that way.

As I wrote in today’s earlier piece about James Carville joining the PTA, regardless of whether Suozzi and the PTA are doing this just to bolster their own re-election options, the risk is that national political media will take this seriously.

That could jeopardize Democratic chances of reclaiming the House or Senate in November.

And it could undermine the prospects for a Democratic agenda that does more than merely fucking tinker around the edges of our current, economically catastrophic and unjust system.

Plus, there’s the question of whether the right-wing coverage will really win over right-leaning independents. After all, the New York Post headlined its editorial about Suozzi’s efforts, “Why moderate Democrats seem like such a hopeless bunch.”

At least we can all agree on something.

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TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.

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James Carville just joined the war on Democrats. And he’s not alone. (Although he’s mostly alone.)

Which Democrats is Carville at war with?

It’s not the Democrats who oppose reproductive rights. Not the ones who vote against LGBTQ+ rights. Not those who violate their constitutional oath by supplying illegal weapons for war crimes.

Carville and his cohort are fine with those Democrats.

The Democrats he’s waging war on are those who support the platform and principles of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

At a virtual Thursday press conference that seems to have been shared exclusively with right-wing media. Carville said democratic socialists should leave the Democratic Party and form their own.

Which would devastate the Democratic Party in November’s elections and possibly cost them control of one chamber or both.

Also, that’s not how democracy works. People get to choose whether to fight for change inside or outside whatever the fuck system we’re talking about.

The press conference was for new members of the Promise To America (PTA). Fittingly, with the initials PTA, that’s the infantilizing campaign of Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) to convince voters to vote against Democrats he doesn’t like.

Here’s some of what right-wing media reported that Carville said (I can’t find any coverage in mainstream, let alone progressive, media):

“We get subjugated by some of the more outspoken people who are by the way not even Democrats — I wish they’d take the word ‘Democrat’ out of their name — I have no idea why the democratic socialists, if you hate the Democratic Party so much, then don’t use our goddam name, go think of your own name.”

So, it’s not just that Carville and other right-wing Democrats can’t respect LGBTQ+ preferred pronouns, they can’t even respect democratic socialist proper nouns.

And Carville’s not just starting multiple sentences in the course of one sentence. Heading into a general election — with both Senate and House control on the line, and his party’s leaders pushing unity — tactical genius Carville used the press conference to try to push out the Democratic voters who have powered victories from New York City to Michigan to Florida.

Never mind that Carville was repeating the No True Scotsman logical fallacy — in which one claims that one’s opponent can’t possibly be a real whatever-the-fuck because a real whatever-the-fuck would never do That Thing I Hate.

It’s a common fallacy across the political spectrum. Christian Democrats, for instance, have declared confidently that no real Christian would support Pres. Donald Trump or be Speaker Mike Johnson.

Here at TFN, we respect people’s preferred pronouns and proper nouns. If a democratic socialist registers with the Democratic Party, runs on the party line, and is elected by Democratic voters, we’re just crazy enough to call ‘em a Democrat.

What Democrats are is another story. That changes over time as Democrats change. Democrats used to support very, very bad things that today’s Democrats do not. Both were Democrats! Which Carville should know, having been alive for both.

Still, it’s worth interrogating Carville’s claim that democratic socialists aren’t real Democrats, if only because I already know that this won’t go well for him.

Carville isn’t super helpful with a definition of a “real” Democrat. But he does love “common sense,” despite “common sense” being what got us here. So let’s use common sense (plus facts!) to assess who’s really a real Democrat for real.

Common-sense taxonomy tells us that a real Democrat is one who acts like other Democrats. If it walks like a timid, corporate-owned politician, etc…

One way we can judge how much of a Democrat one is is by looking at the ideology reflected in the bills they push, sponsoring or co-sponsoring.

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), as I’ve occasionally reported, is at times out of step with most House Democrats, even in some crucial partisan battles. But Gonzalez proudly joined PTA even before Carville did.

According to GovTrack, here’s where Gonzalez is — represented by a pink triangle despite opposing some LGBTQ+ rights — in terms of the ideology of bills he’s sponsored or co-sponsored:

So who do we choose to represent democratic socialists? That’s a little trickier. Must they belong to Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)? Or be endorsed by DSA?

It’s messy, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is about as DSA as you can get, by most metrics. So let’s use see whether Ocasio-Cortez is more or less Democratic than Gonzalez. Here’s where Ocasio-Cortez is in terms of the ideology of her bills:

So is Ocasio-Cortez any less a Democrat than Gonzalez? It’s reasonable to be unsure based on those graphs.

But there’s another metric we can consider, more revealing than which bills they choose to back. Let’s look at how they actually vote on every bill that hits the floor.

Ocasio-Cortez almost always votes with the Democratic Party, scoring 96% for party loyalty.

Gonzalez’s Democratic Party loyalty score is just 81%.

Is that indicative of the PTA cohort and/or Ocasio-Cortez’s cohort, aka The Squad? Well, Hell, let’s look at all of them, courtesy of Voteview:

Hell, Loyalty Scores of All Ten PTA House Members

• Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR): 96%

• Rep. Don Davis (D-NC): 79%

• Laura Gillen (D-NY): 89%

• Rep. Gonzalez: 81%.

• Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH): 93%

• Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ): 90%

• Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA): 82%

• Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV): 91%

• Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI): 92%

• Rep. Suozzi: 89%

And The Squad? How are they for Democratic loyalty?

Hell, Loyalty Scores of All Seven Squad House Members

• Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX): 97%

• Ocasio-Cortez: 96%

• Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA): 96%

• Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL): 96%

• Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN): 95%

• Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA): 96%

• Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI): 94%

All but one Squad member is more loyal than all but one PTA member.

Six out of seven (six seven!) Squad members are more loyal to the Democratic Party than nine out of ten PTA members. More Democratic, if you will.

Here are the averages for the two groups:

Average Party Loyalty by Member Votes

• PTA: 88%

• Squad: 96%

So, which group is more loyal, more Democratic? That depends on what your instincts tell you about this question: Is 88% more than 96%?

I don’t expect anyone to do the math, but do the math!

That 88% is who Carville and Suozzi consider real Democrats, more than those crazy 95%ers, even though the PTAers are the ones voting more often with Republicans, the radical, fringe, antidemocratic, pro-autocratic party. And don’t make me calculate how often each group kills Democratic bills, or makes the difference passing Republican ones.

No, really, that would be hard to figure out. Also, we all know who it is.

Now, have some of this year’s DSA candidates said some stupid things? Newsfuckers, they have.

So have I. So has everyone in Congress. House Democrats have said and done abominable, unconscionable, obscene things. Routinely! With minimal outcry or media focus. Because starting wars and depriving kids of food and health care has become normalized.

The DSA’s sin is to say crazy things that haven’t yet been normalized. Some of which shouldn’t be. Some of which should!

Here’s the big point: Genuinely nutso DSA stuff has no chance of passing Congress. But genuinely nutso Democratic Party votes routinely help enact genuinely nutso Republican Party legislation.

For instance, in June, Carville said the Democratic Party should refuse to admit Darializa Avila Chevalier (D-NY) in the House Democratic Caucus if she wins in November. (And fuck the Democratic voters who nominated her and then elected her.)

“Her views are totally against anything that any Democrat has. We believe in pluralism,” Carville said, explaining that Democrats are too inclusive to include her. Apparently, that’s because she once condemned interracial dating, which she doesn’t anymore and which she already took back.

Chevalier is not going to introduce a bill banning interracial dating. Such a bill would be unlikely to pass without Republican hel—okay, I see that problem. Still…

Point being: It’s not happening.

Likewise, Suozzi likes to trot out the DSA platform — which calls for abolishing the Senate — and individual DSA candidates who’ve called for defunding the police.

Never mind that if we had no Senate today, and Suozzi suggested “hey, let’s have a lawmaking body that gives incredibly disproportionate representation to underpopulated states,” Democrats would look at him like he had no heads and wanted two Senate votes for each of them. The Senate is a wildly crazy, undemocratic idea that only has material form today because it had material form yesterday.

And defunding the police doesn’t need me relitigating it; the police are not being defunded.

That said, however disingenuous, unmathematic, and otherwise wrong this whole PTA thing is, and Carville’s DSA PTSD is, that doesn’t mean none of PTA’s stuff can’t work.

The whole thing strikes me as performative, designed to help right-wing Democrats in close races appeal to Democrat-phobic independent voters.

But even if The Promise to America is really intended solely to boost PTA members, their campaign against straw-men arguments could still weaken incoming democratic socialist members of Congress on issues where they might otherwise succeed (because most Americans support them):

Taxing the rich. Medicare for All. Obvious shit like that.

The PTA could convince the media — and Democratic Party leaders — that democratic socialism is actually more radical than the right wing (in both parties) or, even more false, nationally unpopular.

The good news is that Carville is very bad at doing things other than making people think he’s good at doing things.

Just this month Carville said he would leave the Democratic Party if streamer Hasan Piker didn’t. Piker didn’t. Then Carville didn’t.

Suozzi has said he’s going to get organizing. But signs of it are scarce, as I’ve reported.

And Carville, 81 years old, was the most prominent “new” PTA member Suozzi had to offer up on Thursday, adding “Veteran Strategist” as a whole new category of PTA members profoundly in touch with real people. The other new Veteran Strategists profoundly in touch with America included fellow 1990s rock stars Paul Begala and Al From, who’s from ancient history.

Carville’s best known for his accent, his increasingly accurate Crypt-Keeper impression, and, tertiarily, for working on the successful 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton.

That’s the wellspring of any vestigial assumption that Carville has a clue.

So, whenever right-wing Democrats tout the success Clinton enjoyed — by tacking right, punching hippies, and targeting Black people who got out of line — it’s vital to remember the reality.

Yes, Clinton won. He also got a smaller proportion of the vote than any Democrat since. The vast majority of the country favored a conservative candidate who wasn’t Clinton; they just split over which.

1992 Presidential Election Results

• Bill Clinton: 43.0%

• George H.W. Bush: 37.4%

• H. Ross Perot: 18.9%

Powered by Carville’s tactical genius, the Clinton campaign got a smaller proportion of the country to vote for him than Gov. Mike Dukakis (D-MA) got.

The 43% that Carville won for Clinton is statistically identical to the results of modern American history’s two greatest exemplars of presidential losing: Former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984 and 1980’s Pres. Jimmy Carter, both of whom got around 41%, just two points lower than Clinton did.

Even with Perot helpfully splitting the vote, the campaign Carville strategized could only outperform Bush by 5.6%. (UPDATE: Whether Perot hurt Bush is still hotly debated, as a rigorous Newsfucker was kind enough to point out. I remain skeptical that most of Perot’s voters would have flocked to Clinton.)

Even if Carville is as full of shit as history would suggest, it’s possible this whole PTA thing is genuine. Maybe Suozzi and Carville are just annoyed by these kids with their belief that a healthy society doesn’t need militarized policing and doesn’t funnel the fruits of its labor to an elite who destroy said society.

Suozzi’s gotta be annoyed by having to answer for the DSA thing at every turn (more on that in a coming article).

But even if this whole PTA thing is performative (to grift right-wing donors or sucker independent voters into giving Democrats victory in tight races), that still means that Carville, Suozzi, and the PTA cohort are seeking to boost their own fortunes by risking not just the party’s overall prospects but also undermining the economic agenda of Roosevelt that created the middle class.

Either way, it doesn’t seem like they value the Democratic Party over their own concerns.

And as for who’s really more Democratic, Carville this month acknowledged that “hypothetically” he could see himself joining the Republican Party. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) responded, “he can start his own party.”

Media W-tch

For some reason, a lot of right-wing media hyphenated “goddam” or “goddamn” from Carville’s quotation.

Traditionally, “goddamn” was bowdlerized by replacing the “o” in “God” with a hyphen. (God doesn’t like Os.) That’s to honor whichever Commandment says not to take His name in vain. In other words, it’s a legalistic cheat; the kind of cheat that great world religions specialize in inspiring.

But out of just plain ignorance or some other kind of ignorance, right-wing media were hyphenating … the “damn” part.

Meaning, they were still taking God’s name in vain, which as an atheist, I thank them for. To wit:

I suspect the “journalists” editing this stuff are bleeping “damn” because they have a vague memory that they’re supposed to bleep something in “goddamn” and they have a vague sense of “damn” as a bad word, even though it’s not.

“Damn” is a real, non-slang, non-vulgar word for a very, very bad thing: Namely, God torturing people forever.

You’d think “journalists” would know that and you’d think that right-wingers would know their Commandments. And if they don’t, well, goddamn.

Related Story:

TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.