The Saddest of Ferris Wheels - American Politics, July 2026

Here we go, 250 more!!

https://www.wlky.com/article/mitch-mcconnell-hospital-condition-louisville-kentucky/71768553

https://newrepublic.com/post/212595/mitch-mcconnell-found-unconscious-rushed-hospital

I managed to miss this back on June 14. And the Washington Post was already dead to me, but...way to piss on the Watergate legacy, Bezos!

From the old thread

Tomorrow we can open a new thread. If only it were as easy to move past the shitstorm called the Trump Administration, the 119th Congress, and the Supreme Court.

In Indian traditions, Saṃsāra refers to the cycle of life, suffering, death, and rebirth, from which we are all trying to escape. It is compared to a "cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence."

Saṃsāra is contrasted with nirvana, a state of bliss in which the enlightened soul gains release from the cycle of torment that imprisons most of us.

It is often depicted, in religious imagery, as a wheel.

Rather like, dare I say, a Ferris wheel.

was inspired by this headline: A storm, overpriced food and a sad ferris wheel: inside Trump’s dreadful state fair

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/01/donald-trump-great-american-state-fair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFx298i-FOc

https://preview.redd.it/i-thought-this-was-a-ferris-wheel-for-years-just-now-v0-pacxk64altbg1.jpeg

how is this gonna work... they can't just admit they lost

The Justice Department on Tuesday directed its staff to bring fraud charges in alleged cases of birth tourism as a response to their loss in the birthright citizenship ruling from the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

In the wake of the 6-3 ruling, a memo from the Justice Department’s office of the deputy attorney general said all criminal division staff should “prioritize the investigation and prosecution of birth tourism schemes.”

Don't there have to be laws against "birth tourism" before you can prosecute them?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1812

S.1812 - Ban Birth Tourism Act 119th Congress (2025-2026)

Sponsor: Sen. Blackburn, Marsha [R-TN] (Introduced 05/20/2025)
Committees: Senate - Judiciary
Latest Action: Senate - 05/20/2025 Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Doesn't seem to have passed

the golden boy brett kavanaugh will be pleased to revisit!

There are.

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/birth-tourism-trump

I did hear about a place in Southern California where they were doing this (mostly women from China) but it was for a weird reason: so their kids could pay resident tuition at colleges! Like in 18 years... pretty crazy foresight

That should have said xp, but there are statutes in place that the government has used to prosecute “birth tourism.”

We should all go to the Dallas GOP convention in Sept... I don't think you have to be a delegate, you can just get your freak on

I don't want to get my hopes up, but an 80 year old man with numerous documented health problems and many secret health problems is promising to give a two-hour speech in 107 degree heat next week...

if it happens on July 4th the world may run out of fireworks

ive still never heard how citizenship would be determined birthright is dead but then i’ve not read much about it. anyone know)

https://medium.com/prismnpen/to-the-trans-girl-who-just-lost-at-the-supreme-court-so-did-i-26-years-ago-cb1603082d46

More of this please:

Dave Weigel: “When Fox News is booking you and covering you, might that be for the same reason Republican PACs spend to help progressive candidates? That they see you as easier to beat?”

Abdul El-Sayed: “It’s amazing to me how deeply they’re misjudging this. I’m like: You have never fought a counterpuncher. The number of times I’m gonna define and redefine Mike Rogers! We’re talking about an anti-charismatic old school politician who doesn’t even know what he believes, except for he wants to make himself rich off of the rest of us. You know what I’m gonna do to that man? By the time I’m done, his best friends are gonna look at him and think what I think, say what I say. I’m gonna define him into eternity. Good, help me beat the crap out of you. Little parts of your vestiges — politically — are gonna be scattered all over the state of Michigan, never to be seen again. You say “Mike Rogers,” it’ll be like: “Remember when Abdul just completely demolished that man’s political future?” By the time I’m done with him, people are going to be calling him Five Dollar Rogers.”

Weigel: “Why five dollars?”

El-Sayed: “Because of $5 gas and how he’ll do whatever you want him to do for five bucks.”

Ugh . Per NY Times ICE is upping arrests now but trying to do so without chaos and headlines of the past . But the new sweep has involved the arrest of a Nigerian nun based in South Texas which has gotten attention today.

Federal immigration officials have detained more than 10,000 people in the last five days, a major surge that has stemmed from a push within Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase arrest rates.

Agency leaders in recent days ordered top ICE officials to focus more of their officers’ efforts on picking up immigrants they want to deport, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with federal officials. ICE officers have arrested people at check-ins, with immigration authorities, during traffic stops and on the street. The push has apparently yielded results, with recent arrest numbers roughly doubling from the 1,000 picked up each day earlier this year.

s. Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, pledged to mount a quieter enforcement campaign following the chaos of a monthlong operation in Minnesota, where federal officers killed two U.S. citizens.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/us/politics/ice-immigrant-arrests-surge.html

Yeah, there was a big operation the next county over from us a few weeks ago where they grabbed more than 100 people in a couple of days. It's completely terrified the local immigrant communities. But they were trying to keep it all pretty low-key, it only became news because local immigrants and advocate groups started spreading the word.

There's an Albania barber down the street from me that was picked up a week or so ago and sent to a detention center in ... Brazil, Indiana? He reportedly came over in 2005 with a fake visa and/or Italian passport, and was allegedly ruled to be deported back in 2008, but skipped. His wife is a US citizen and they have an 8 year old kid. There's a statement from ICE that breaks the record for the number of times it sneeringly invokes "criminal illegal." It's a fucked up situation exacerbated by a complete lack of empathy from assholes that would treat him like shit no matter his status.

That’s the thing, Trump and the Republicans kept saying they would deport everyone, the media kept saying “oh, he only means the criminals”. Tom Homan himself literally said “they’re ALL criminals”.

good morning!

Was glad to see in video clips that there were a number of folks with cowbells, drums, and more outside Malcolm X Park in DC at 8:45 am this morning where Hegseth and Stephen Miller were doing a thank you to a huge number of National Guards standing there. In video clips I have seen you can hear the noise from outside the blocked off park (called Meridian Hill Park by some) while Hegseth is speaking and he then calls the protesters ingrates. The National Guards who stand around DC doing nothing most of the time but looking at their phones cost taxpayers a million dollars a day. Miller referred to them as symbols of the virtues of "Civilization" . I had only heard that Hegseth was gonna be there late last night when I saw on Instagram some flyers about the protest. Malcolm X Park's water fountains that had been actually planned for repair for quite awhile have recently been fixed (via a National Park chosen contractor not a Trump one) and so are working fine and provide a better backdrop. Its disconcerting that Hegseth and Miller and company went to this park that is not down on the mall and is known better and used largely by locals and not tourists and politicians for its Sunday drummers circle, occasional house music events, a Fugazi show, and just hanging out

Florida continues its race to the bottom of humanity

Immigration advocates in Florida have decried a “cruel and harmful” new rule by education officials aligned to hard-right Republican governor Ron DeSantis to ban undocumented students from state colleges and universities.

The Florida board of education voted on Tuesday to bar access to its 28 state-funded institutions to anybody not a US citizen or “lawfully present” in the country. It follows Florida’s move last year to strip discounted in-state tuition rates for certain immigrant students.

Its disconcerting that Hegseth and Miller and company went to this park

It was a show of impunity, that they could come into a neighborhood take over a park named after Malcolm X and do whatever they wanted there. The message: we are the overlords here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/1ulpfy8/stage_falling_apart_at_great_american_state_fair

if it happens on July 4th the world may run out of fireworks

― frogbs, Wednesday, July 1, 2026 6:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think about this a lot, especially when I need a pick-me-up: while none of us will ever have the wealth or power of Trump, Elon, et al, it should comfort all of us to know that the response to our demise will not be the deafening sound of champagne corks being popped simultaneously all over the world

they're actually charging that olympic canoeist with a felony count of touching the peeled, floating pool paint

soon to be another L for Jeanine Pirro

They'll get about as far with that as the sandwich-throwing felony count.

well the story is that it's the vandals' fault, not the shitty no-bid contractor or the motorcade that drove across the curing paint

so he'll serve the purpose of supporting the lie until we've forgotten about this whole fiasco

xp why did they design the stage to look like a guillotine

They misread the guillotine order...

Musicology Duck went to the Fourth in DC so we didn’t have to:

https://bsky.app/profile/musicologyduck.bsky.social

NB i live only a couple miles from the fireworks and barely heard anything.

Musicology Duck went to the Fourth in DC so we didn’t have to

did anything interesting happen there which we should read about

sorry, no quite uneventful but everyone gets wet

ideal situation for the duck at least

Is Mitch McConnell dead?

The idea that he's in a coma and on life support in order to avoid calling a special election to fill his seat feels 100% on the nose.

Was Mitch ever truly alive?

Lizards are alive, so I'm thinking it's within reason to say Mitch was, too.

He's 100% dead, and we are being fucked over by the lack of clarity.

everone likes think that it’s an evil prez who ends up a living head in a jar, but not me. it’s instead a moriarty like mcconnell in the glass.

hi mitch— yah, i got you figgered you rat bastard

If he's a corpse on ice the hospital is required to fill in a death certificate and file it. otoh, he could be brain dead and intubated to the hilt, but if there's a heart beat, they can pretend he's alive and on the road to recovery.

David Morris, a journalist and author, also appeared to endorse the theory with a brutal jab at McConnell and his legacy.

“Mitch McConnell remaining technically alive for an extra three weeks because of a manipulative procedural maneuver is exactly how he would have wanted to go out,” Morris wrote in a social media post on X.

lol

To add injury to insult, Furnari recently broke his foot working on the statue, after tripping over a roll of tape in his studio.

if i were rich i would buy furnari's broken foot, the real human flesh, for $1 million

Some NY Times reporters doing good work and thus, angering Trump administration

Pentagon hid 3 Iranian strikes that wounded dozens of US troops & damaged helicopters only confirming it after the NYT dug it up

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/us/politics/troops-injured-jordan-iran-war.html

The Trump admin sought the phone records of several Times journalists and their relatives — including one reporter's mother — in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who had provided information for articles about the security capabilities of Trump's new Air Force One jet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/business/media/new-york-times-subpoenas-phone-records.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

I imagine the reporters are wary enough to not have any useful information on their phones, you’d hope these days all those kinds of communications are encrypted and not retained.

Meg likes him

Meghan McCain, the daughter of former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Monday that if the 2028 presidential nominee for the Democrats shares New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D) tone about politics, Republicans have a “huge f—ing problem.”

In a post on the social platform X, McCain said that she had tuned into a recent episode of The New York Times’s “The Interview” podcast featuring the New York City mayor, a democratic socialist. She described Mamdani’s tone in the episode as “part folksy everyman, republicans have abandoned the working class and are a bunch of elites without being harsh or conspiratorial.”

Trump imposing massive tarrifs on Canada again for some reason; don't these keep getting ruled illegal?

whenever he says something it becomes possible again, if only just a tiny bit

They're doing "Blame Canada" with the wildfires. Tariff your neighbor while they're on fire.

art of the deal, take advantage of any leverage over your enemy and neighbor to the north

Smuggling all of that uncustomed smoke over the border is a pretty heinous crime.

Lindsey Graham’s little sister has officially decided to run for his empty Senate seat—much to the chagrin of MAGA world.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham Nordone to temporarily fill Graham’s vacancy last week, days after the 71-year-old lawmaker suddenly passed away from a heart issue.

That's from New Republic. Plenty of right wingers in the Republican primary which is August 11.

Pediatrician Dr Annie Andrews is the Dem candidate in the November South Carolina general election for Senate

https://19thnews.org/2026/07/annie-andrews-south-carolina-senate/

oh no the Platner replacement has a 'fiery temper' says an unidentified person

As the Maine Democratic party prepares to rally around former state Sen. Troy Jackson (D-Maine) as the nominee for Senate, reports of his fiery temper are swirling around the Pine Tree State.

He’s been accused of verbally berating Rachel Talbot Ross, who served as House Speaker, during his time as Senate President. The two were reportedly arguing over how to advance a red-flag law, which would allow the temporary removal of firearms from individuals who pose a significant danger to themselves or others.

I don't think arguing with the House speaker is anywhere near the category of, say, yelling at staff.

Anyway, whatever. Grown-ups shouldn't yell at each other, sometimes they do. I've yelled in an office now and again.

I don't yell. I prefer a good book of literary criticism instead.

apparently he threw a water bottle as well... he's like the Tasmanian Devil of rural Maine

I will remember everyone who doesn’t denounce this water bottle thrower. Stand for nothing and you’ll fall for everything.

This was a lot of movie! Thoughts to come once I’ve had a chance to digest some.

lol wrong thread

not at all

this was a lot of the dumbest movie ever filmed in front of a live studio audience

otm

vg+

Washington HAS been described as "show business for ugly people."

As opposed to Hollywood, which is ugly business for show people.

Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC, said Wednesday that the agency will consider ABC's decision to not carry a live broadcast President Donald Trump's July 16 speech about U.S. election security as part of its early review of licenses to eight ABC-owned stations.

normal shit

yeah - NBC didn't carry it either but they don't have Jimmy Kimmel

Well at least Disney so far has seemed relatively unafraid of Carr. They can afford whatever lawsuits this’ll take.

Biden did a 2022 primetime speech ('Battle for the Soul of the Nation') that was not aired by any of the Big Three

Democrats this week:
https://frinkiac.com/comic/img?b=AQIBBlMwNEUwOApyBwABFvQBygMjU29tZXRpbWVzIEkgdGhpbmsgeW91IHdhbnQgdG8gZmFpbCEAJw

House Republicans on Wednesday won narrow approval of their $95 billion budget plan to fund the war with Iran and impose new election restrictions President Trump has demanded.

Senate Republicans are going to sit on the House bill for awhile, Senate Republican leader Thune says

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/us/politics/house-republicans-iran-budget-pentagon.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zlA.WPSc.HYb--VsDz-jy&smid=nytcore-android-share

The six House Democrats who voted for the NDAA:
Henry Cuellar
Don Davis
Jared Golden
Vicente Gonzalez
Adam Gray
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

These 6 Dems who routinely vote against their own party allowed this National Defense Authorization Act to pass 216-212. This year’s NDAA contains controversial language spelling out how the US will assist Israel

Jeffries has not of course expressed any unhappiness with these 6 . He had said he wanted Dems to oppose the bill as a way to oppose the Iran war

I read a lot of “we’re primarying Perez” talk, but that could be due to my feed bias. Didn’t want to vote for Kim Schrier, but even The Stranger is sad to say “drink the piss” and vote for her as the least worst candidate.

isn’t cuellar basically blackmailed by Trump (not that he wouldn’t vote this way on his own)

There will always be Just Enough

this is dead in the senate anyway, their bribe price is higher

will otm

leaving himself an out

The Senate GOP leader (Thune) also cautioned on Thursday that any elements of the SAVE America Act, which would require people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote and show photo identification to vote, would need to be structured carefully to pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian to be included in a budget reconciliation package.

there will always be just enough.

until there is not.

ultimately few remember the previous. so that you feel you are back where your were 20 years, 60 years, 100 years, 140 years later.

except youre dead as fuck 140 years later, and your own later descendents have disowned you.

unless you are a billionaire-- then you are still alive 140 years later. and it was your own children who disowned you. and they are dead while you survive. with their blood.

Affordability! Affordability... it's a fake democrat word

Trump administration announces new tariffs on 85 countries, claiming failed ‘forced labor’ enforcement – US politics live
Canada, Mexico, Australia, EU, UK and China among dozens of economies listed in US president’s latest ⁠effort to restore regime of near-global import taxes after supreme court struck down his ‘liberation day’ tariffs

Algeria; Angola; Argentina; Australia; the Bahamas; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Brazil; Cambodia; Chile; China, People’s Republic of; Colombia; Costa Rica; Dominican Republic; Egypt; El Salvador; Guatemala; Guyana; Honduras; Hong Kong, China; India; Iraq; Israel; Japan; Jordan; Kazakhstan; Kuwait; Libya; Malaysia; Morocco; New Zealand; Nicaragua; Nigeria; Norway; Oman; Peru; the Philippines; Qatar; Russia; Saudi Arabia; Singapore; South Africa; South Korea; Sri Lanka; Switzerland; Taiwan; Thailand; Trinidad and Tobago; Türkiye; United Arab Emirates; United Kingdom; Uruguay; Venezuela; and Vietnam.

my Trader Joe's dried apricots are grown in Uzbekistan but packed in Turkey

From Senate Pres Gallery Bluesky page re a vote on a Trump judicial nominee-

By a vote of 49-44, the #Senate confirmed the nomination of Antonio M. Pozos to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Democratic Senators Durbin and Fetterman voted in favor. Senators not voting: Britt, McConnell, Murkowski, Paul, Scott of SC, Shaheen, and Tuberville.

I can assure you my country has very strong anti modern slavery corporate laws (we do training on it constantly in my company).

And its a fucking joke the USA would say this when it has institutionalised slavery via the prison system!

we also buy a lot of stuff from China that is likely make with Uyghur forced labor

Well yeah any country can be accused of some forced/sweatshop labor thanks to insanely opaque supply chains tbh.

well this whole 'forced labor' thing is some kind of loophole flex since the Supreme Court shot down the 'normal' tariffs

These tariffs will help me to keep losing money every month even though I work full time and don’t spend any discretionary money, EVER! But I don’t know who to vote for!!!!!!

This is totally loophole flex but Australia’s modern slavery laws are a joke (everyone’s are), I’m not going out on much of a limb to say that there’s slavery in pretty much any moderately complex manufactured product with global component supply chains. The system is very very designed to hide it.

None of this says that the trump admin gives a shit about any of this stuff

(Should probably say that I have a friend who is a supply chain academic who specializes in modern slavery and it’s horrifying)

Once again, it's like the administration's main goal is to absolutely destroy the nation's economy.

It is their goal, they think a scared and poor population will be easier to control.

yeah the main goal is to gut education, immiserate the population, and provide endless mindless deadening addictive entertainment so people neither understand nor care how badly they are being fucked

that so many Dems share in this goal is also obvious at this point