The ferry to my normal late summer undisclosed location. Photo by author.
Yes, I am on vacation this week, and while I will start posting regularly again soon, I’ve gone a little brain-dead as I settle into life at the beach.
So, in lieu of generating original material, here’s a fun conversation I had last month with Star Price, host of the Hit Pause podcast, about how the media is driving politics and what Democrats need to do to meet the challenge of the post-Trump era.
Short takes:
If Max Miller’s allegedly sadistic behavior towards his wife took months to gin up outrage, charges that he withheld a little blue bunny for two days while his daughter wept provoked instant bipartisan outrage. “Conservative colleagues who previously had avoided commenting on Miller’s personal life called this week for his resignation after his former father-in-law, another powerful Ohio Republican, accused the second-term congressman of holding his granddaughter’s stuffy ‘hostage’ for 48 hours,” Danielle Paquette and Amy B Wang report at The Washington Post. Conservative David Frum, when approached for a comment, delivered one of the best analyses of this whole sordid affair: “There are literally thousands of fathers reading those tweets and thinking: ‘When my daughter lost her favorite toy, I led a search party as if for a downed NATO nuclear warhead. And when that failed, I paid $300 for a replica on eBay.” (August 10, 2026)
“On Thursday, a judge officially threw out felony charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who’d been falsely accused by [President] Trump of vandalizing his disastrous renovation of the landmark,” Greg Sargent writes at The New Republic. But it ain’t over until it’s over. As Trump insists on his false narrative about the event, “This week, Representative Jamie Raskin—the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and potentially its future chair—will formally demand that the Justice and Interior Departments turn over a wealth of documents related to the charging decisions made in this case.” Furthermore, Hearn’s lawyers want to know if the government intentionally misled a grand jury to secure an indictment against the 67-year-old Olympian. (August 10, 2026)
In an exclusive for the Wall Street Journal, investigative reporters Josh Dawsey, Dana Mattioli, Annie Linskey and Emily Glazer describe the protection racket that Donald Trump is running out of the White House to fund his vanity projects and, one imagines, himself. “Trump has been demanding large checks from companies for a range of political and legacy projects—telling executives and lobbyists that their companies should give $25 million or $50 million. He has sometimes offered donors special access,” they write. “Interviews with dozens of donors, executives, lobbyists, Trump advisers and others indicate a staggering fundraising and influence operation, with Trump at the center of it all. The president closely tracks who gives, aides said, repeatedly assigning [fundraiser Meredith] O’Rourke with big asks that she has told others make her uncomfortable.” (July 30, 2026)
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