Mostly Monday Reads: State of Disunion

“A new, overheard at the corner bar. Not sure what the latest MAGA perceived transgression is, something about hotdogs, I think.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The GOP Senate folded, collapsed, and surrendered to the will of Orange Caligula and his crony, Todd Blanche. I’m not sure what they gain from this in reality. I’m pretty sure this will offend those of us with enough information and education to make a decision concerning all the taxes we pay, and the taxes he never pays. It’s truly a sad day when the Department of Justice folds so easily. The big outrage is that it is political.

I’ll just start with all the outraged headlines that convey “Sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Ever since I was in fifth grade, I could come up with something from Shakespeare that stood up in modern times. Let’s start with The Bulwark. I really felt this one. “GOP Sheep to the Midterm Slaughter. Todd Blanche’s confirmation will be bad for the country—and a gift to Senate Democrats.” This first subtitle and analysis is written by William Kristol. “Of Lemons and Lemonade.” None of this will ever reach the eyes of die-hard MAGA mental midgets.

Here’s the first short blurb. We’re getting yet another eyesore that will wipe out our history.

How much of an eyesore will Donald Trump’s coveted Triumphal Arch be? A National Park Service assessment found that the planned 250-foot arch will intrude on the views from “dozens of historic sites around the capital,” per new reporting from the Washington Post. But look on the bright side: Think of all the flexibility you’ll have finding a good seat to watch them knock it down later. Happy Monday.

Back to Mister Kristol.

Late last night, the American people were handed a lemon: A capitulation by Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina that makes confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general likely. Blanche provided them a fig leaf, a written order formally rescinding the proposed $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of political prosecutions and a statement allegedly limiting the provision of the agreement that shields Trump, his sons, and their businesses from tax claims.

These assurances will presumably be enough for Blanche to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday on a straight party-line vote. He’s then likely—though not certain—to get the 50 votes he’ll need to be confirmed by the whole Senate, probably at the end of the week.

So this lemon will be added to a whole bushel of other lemons in Trump’s cabinet. Todd Blanche will join Jay Clayton, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and Markwayne Mullin as confirmed leaders of the key national security agencies of Trump’s executive branch. Having loyal and determined apparatchiks like them in positions of real power for the next two and a half years is not a good thing.

On the other hand: There is lemonade to be made here. Trump’s polls have been sinking. Republicans are almost certain to lose the House this fall, and the Senate majority is up for grabs. Democratic control of both houses would help check Trump’s authoritarian schemes. And the fact that the entire Senate Republican conference will have to cast a high-visibility vote to confirm Todd Blanche can help in turning the Senate Democratic

.This is from Axios’ Andrew Pantazi. “Blanche poised for confirmation vote after he kills Trump’s fund.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will likely advance to a full Senate confirmation vote after he rescinded the order setting up President Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund Sunday.

Why it matters: Blanche’s Sunday order has won over Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who had held out on voting for Trump’s pick.

The latest: Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement that they will vote to advance Blanche’s nomination.

• The senators said they had negotiated a “legally enforceable document” that ends the anti-weaponization fund and limits protections against audits.
• “We look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” the senators said in the statement.

Catch up quick: The fund grew out of a May settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the disclosure of his tax records.

• The settlement promised an apology to Trump and his sons, and it created the fund for individuals claiming they suffered from government “lawfare.”
• Another agreement released Trump, his family and the Trump Organization from certain IRS claims and audits.

Of note: Blanche’s new order rescinds one from May implementing the nearly $1.8 billion fund, but not the settlement provision requiring the attorney general to create the fund.

• The settlement’s terms can only be changed via a written agreement from the Trumps and the government. Sunday’s order was signed by Blanche but not by Trump, his sons or the Trump Organization.
• At his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Blanche acknowledged that the settlement was enforceable and that Trump’s lawyers could try to enforce it or claim the DOJ breached the agreement by refusing to operate the fund.

Blanche also clarified the sweeping protections Trump received from tax audits on Sunday.

• In a statement released with the order, Blanche said the protections only apply retroactively and only to the lawsuit’s named plaintiffs: Trump, some of his family, and the Trump Organization. The earlier agreement said it extended to any “related or affiliated” individuals, companies and other organizations.

Reality check: While the Trump protections Blanche lists are without precedent, they also reflect the reality that Trump’s administration will not criminally investigate him anyway.

• Before he leaves office, Trump is expected to hand out sweeping pardons to administration officials and allies. That would render any effort to prosecute Trump, his family or his companies doubly moot.

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo puts it this way. “Faux Deal Ends Faux Fight Over Blanche Nomination. Wet Noodle Award: Cornyn and Tillis.”

Trump is Lucy. GOP senators are the football. D.C. political reporters are Charlie Brown.

For a decade now, the illusion that Republican senators in whole or in part would rise up against the outrages of the Trump presidencies has animated political reporting even as the Senate GOP conference has chronically failed to rise to the occasion.

The farcical effort required to sustain the illusion has required a willing disbelief and feigned innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

So while the urge to pile on Senate Republicans like John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina for not driving a hard bargain with Trump over the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general is warranted, it must also be acknowledged, as painful as it is, that their pretend resistance actually works at yielding the headlines and reputational burnishing they’re looking for.

Most of this morning’s coverage of the overnight development bears this out.

After weeks of resistance, Blanche finally put in writing, in documents he posted to X, that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund is dead and that the IRS immunity for Trump is retroactive only. It was a limited concession, but it was enough for the two Senate holdouts, Tillis just confirmed on X.

The news coverage hailed this as a “formal” act by Blanche of rescinding the “anti-weaponization” fund. Some managed to cover the development without reference to Blanche’s disastrous anti-democratic run at a DOJ used as tool of retribution for the Trump White House.

This came after President Trump over the weekend continued to escalate his insistence that the “anti-weaponization” slush fund should still move forward. We’re supposed to belief Trump’s former personal lawyer and underling, not the president himself.

Seriously, this is what America’s all about these days. Keeping Orange Caligula happy and enabling the Trump Family Crime Syndicate. It’s hard to take these buffoons seriously, but unfortunately, an entire group of idiots fell for the scam and loved the racism. So the anti-weaponization fund is gone, but the rest of the hoopla stays. So just to let you know how much the entire Republican Party relies on bigoted, ignorant voters, here’s the newest “policy.” This is from Politico‘s Rebecca Carballo. “Trump administration asks colleges to commit to education overhaul. Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s letter contains some similarities to a compact offered to and rejected by a small group of schools last year.”

The Education Department is asking university leaders to publicly commit to a series of institutional changes, many of which are in line with the Trump administration’s higher education agenda, by the end of the year.

The agency’s letter asks these leaders to address grade inflation, improve transparency about the costs of attending their schools and curb foreign donations. It also asks them to hire faculty of “all relevant perspectives,” with the Trump administration previously arguing schools are too left leaning and suppress conservative voices.

The letter contains some similarities to the college compact the administration sent to a select group of universities last fall, none of which agreed to sign the compact. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology publicly rejected the compact, arguing that some of its provisions would restrict freedom of expression and the school’s independence. A few schools that were not in the initial group the compact was sent to volunteered to sign it.

The administration’s latest letter appears to be less restrictive than the compact. Monday’s letter does not include some of the more controversial asks in the compact, including a 15 percent cap on international undergraduate enrollment and a five-year tuition freeze. It also does not offer the incentives featured in the compact, including a potential leg up in federal contracts and grants.

So, back to the Trump Arch because destroying historical sites just makes me ill. He so wants to be taken seriously, but all he does is create edifices to his idocy. This is from the New York Times. “Park Service Finds Trump’s Arch Could Detract From Dozens of Historic Places, The 250-foot-tall edifice would alter views across Washington and Arlington Cemetery.”  This report is by Emily Badger.

President Trump’s proposed 250-foot-tall triumphal arch would change the skyline of Washington to such an extent that it would intrude on views at dozens of historic sites around the capital, according to an assessment by National Park Service staff.

It would disrupt the symbolic relationship between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, obstruct sightlines from the Kennedy Gravesite and Robert E. Lee’s home, and alter what official documents call “one of the most magnificent” views in Washington at the National Cathedral four miles away, the Park Service said.

The assessment of the arch’s impact on surrounding historic properties is a key step the administration must complete before the project can receive final approval by the National Capital Planning Commission, which could come as soon as its next meeting on Sept. 3.

The Park Service is supposed to seek ways to reduce such “adverse effects” on historic sites under the National Historic Preservation Act. But the arch is expected to move forward with little change given that Mr. Trump has shown no interest in the most obvious remedies — scaling down the project, or building it somewhere else.

I’m going to slip this in just so we know out there somewhere, there are people who know who he really is.

Let’s just leave on this note. I hope he reads it because I know a bunch of us want everything he built and did to be completely erased from history. We should bulldoze all those things he destroyed and put them right again. This is from G. Elliot Morris and his numbers for the elections in his blog Strenght in Numbers. “Democrats strongly favored to take the House, Senate tilts Democratic in our new election forecast (crosspost). Our brand-new election forecast for the 2026 congressional midterms puts Democrats at above even odds to take control of both chambers. Please, please don’t screw this up!

Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. If you’re reading this, that means we finished dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s and just published our shiny, state-of-the-art 2026 congressional election forecast over at FiftyPlusOne. 🎉

As of 6:00 AM Eastern on August 3, 2026, we give the Democrats an 85% chance to win the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and a 55% chance to win control of the Senate (which we define as 51 seats or more, unless an independent wins in Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, or South Dakota — unlikely, but not impossible).

Because our forecast simulates elections for both chambers in one unified model, we can also calculate the probabilities of either party controlling both chambers after Nov. Democrats win control of both the House and Senate in just over 50% of simulations, whereas Republicans prevail in less than 12%.

Of course, there are graphs, so go check it out!

So, I’ll stop right now because I’m now watering sod in my backyard, with the leftover planted on the neutral ground across the street, twice a day. I’m hoping for a big celebratory election party back in the back with all the fixin’s.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

And no, I have no idea what happened to the font here. I’m just going to roll with it.