War is the deadliest distraction in the authoritarian's playbook… Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war. — Mark Anthony in Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar In the modern era, it was probably George W. Bush who first said it out loud and then acted on it: When you're unpopular and losing politically, just start a little war that's easily winnable and you'll be back on top. As he told his biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, in 1999 about his plans for an Iraq war as a strategy to get himself re-elected in 2004: "One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of (Kuwait) and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." It worked for Bush, although history hasn't been kind to him as a result. Trump's second presidency, meanwhile, has been an unmitigated disaster, both in real terms and politically as his approval ratings have slipped so far underwater they're in late-years Nixon territory

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Will we regret Trump being able to use a nuclear weapon? — A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals backed Trump's National Guard deployment to LA: what will this mean for other Blue cities Trump is trying to provoke to riot? — Racist Alert! Did Trump ever complain before about too many holidays? Why just on Juneteenth? — Look out! Retirees being forced into privatized, for-profit, rip-off Medicare "Advantage" plans. — Astonishing: Give Trump a million dollars and you get to become an Army officer, complete with uniform and everybody must salute you! You, too, can play warrior if you're a large enough Trump donor! — Geeky Science. Will Children born now live in a world where the US can only produce half as much of its key food crops? — Bob Kennedy and his anti-vaccine freaks were just caught lying to Congress again about the COVID-19 vaccine, just as a new variant touting a "razor-blade sore throat" arrives.

A sinister Republican bond scheme could price you out of justice — forever... Right now, the only thing that's preventing Trump from going full dictator is the federal court system and our ability to challenge his unlawful, unconstitutional behavior in it. Republicans in the Senate think they have a fix for that, though. It's a good-news, bad-news scenario, although the bad is far worse than anything most of us could have imagined. The good news is that Republicans in the Senate have removed the provision in their Kill Medicaid To Pay For Tax Cuts For Billionaires ("Big Beautiful Bill") legislation that would have prevented courts from being able to hold Trump's people from being held in contempt of court when they refuse to follow court orders. The bad news is that they've replaced it with a provision in Section 70302 of the bill that will make it all but impossible for anybody — other than billionaires and giant corporations — to sue the Trump administration for dictatorial behavior (or anything else) in federal court.

A chilling tale of detention, interrogation, and exile for the 'crime' of writing a blog. "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." — Benjamin Franklin The Trump administration just refused to allow an Australian writer entry to America because he'd penned articles on his personal blog critical of the administration's support for the Netanyahu government's Gaza policies. Whether you support or oppose those policies, this should shock every American.