Morning, let’s have tabs.
The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee voted to block the release of the Epstein files last night. Does Committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx love protecting pedophiles or something? What’s that about? Is it something that just comes with being a 950-year-old white Republican Karen? What about all the other Republicans on the Committee? (Republican Rep. Ralph Norman voted with the Democrats to release the files.) We are just asking questions about the Epstein files and why Republicans are so protective of them, just like everybody else in America is asking questions. What are they hiding? What are they hiding? What are they hiding? What are they hiding? What are they hiding?
What …
Are they hiding?
Guess somebody stuck a Trump-dick-flavored lollipop in Charlie Kirk’s mouth because he says he’s done talking about Epstein now. Okeydoke. [Media Matters]
You need to watch this interview with Youman Wilder, a youth baseball coach in Harlem, describing how armed Trump Gestapo tried to harass and terrorize his players, pretty obviously because they aren’t white. “I’m willing to die to make sure” these kids get home safely, he said he thought at the time, choking up as he recalled it. Because that’s what Trump and his Nazis are doing to children. You know, when they’re not protecting pedophiles.
Oh yeah, did we mention that this youth baseball coach is also a man with a law degree? He is also that.
Trump’s ICE Nazis have declared now that all the millions of people who have ever crossed the border illegally are no longer entitled to bond hearings, which means they could be held in Trump’s Nazi concentration camps indefinitely. Hey, do you think they’re really going to just stop at imprisoning millions of people — or that it’s even tenable to do that — or are you still in denial about what is happening? Do you think they’re going to go ahead and put US citizens in prison because they didn’t have proof of citizenship on them, or is your head in the sand? [Washington Post]
All should watch this video from Maddow last night about the abhorrent conditions inside the Trump Nazis’ first domestic concentration camp in Florida.
Here is Trump yesterday during a luncheon of the fascist charlatan pig fundamentalist Christians who make up his faith team, and they’re all yukking it up about how Vladimir Putin is always one way with Trump, and then bombs nursing homes the second he quits paying attention. Ha ha! laughed the Trump Christians. Melania has to tell him Putin bombed the nursing home! Ha ha!
Sam Stein and Andrew Egger talk about how thoroughly fucking weird that entire Trump faith luncheon was. [Bulwark]
Over at my Friday place, it’s now been six months since I started tracking pastors, youth group leaders, Christian school teachers and so forth who’ve been accused/arrested for/sued for/convicted of sexually abusing/grooming/preying on kids, and now we can start compiling some data. Which segment of conservative Christianity has had the MOST separate stories this year about people like that? Is it the Baptists? Which kinds of Baptists? Is it the Southern Baptists, AKA Speaker Mike Johnson’s denomination? Click to subscribe and find out! [The Moral High Ground]
The Supreme Court is totally fine with Trump abolishing the Department of Education, we guess. Is it possible that there’s confusion here and the illegitimate partisan hack Supreme Court Six think when it says the president must take care that the laws are faithfully “executed,” that it means “executed” like Kristi Noem’s puppy? It’s possible! Samuel Alito is a very dippy, unserious man!
Apparently GOP Rep. Cory Mills — yeah THAT scumbag — was evicted from his DC penthouse yesterday for $85,000 IN UNPAID RENT? Um, party of fiscal something or other, you betcha! Anyway, read Josh Marshall’s thread, and the underlying stuff from Justin Baragona, and laugh a bunch. [NBC News]
Marc Andreessen and the Billionaire Victims Club. Good read, and more people need to get wise to who Andreessen is. [Jonathan Last]
“You just deploy the magic word and the thinking stops.” This whole essay isn’t about the word “woke,” but that quote is, and you should read the whole essay it comes from. {Notes from the Circus]
It is HOT OUTSIDE in southern Europe. In general, in a climate change way. (The major heat wave of a week or two ago has lifted, for the moment.) But hey, at least in Spain, they are trying to do progressive things to deal with it. [New York Times]
The Defense Department is set to start using Grok, so that’s awesome. Did Secretary Shtifaced get a thrill up his leg when Grok went Nazi last week? Just asking. [Washington Post]
“I Once Thought Fatness Would Ruin My Life. Having a Daughter of My Own Changed That.” That’s an article in Vogue written by a personal friend of ours who was on “America’s Next Top Model” back in the day, who’s super funny, and now she’s got a new book out! Go read! [Vogue]
MEETUP ALERT FROM ZIGGY WIGGY: "I am hosting a Cleveland Wonkmeet on Aug. 16, at the Boss Dog Brewing Company at 1 p.m. in Cleveland Heights. Rebecca and family will be attending. Thank you!"
I ain’t got a recipe for you this week, so here’s a song to make you dance around.
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Fascinating critters, nudibranchs. Your hed gif source here: https://martiniambassador.substack.com/p/the-nudibranch-from-okinawa
And meme chat: https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/f9e97833-031d-4f5c-9d93-200598f27e2e?utm_source=share
A sad end to an inspiring life
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World's 'oldest' marathon runner dies at 114 in hit-and-run
Fauja Singh, a British-Indian man believed to be the world's oldest marathon runner, has died after being hit by a car in India at the age of 114.
Police say Singh was crossing a road in the village where he was born in Punjab when an unidentified vehicle hit him. Locals took him to hospital, where he died.
Singh, a global icon, set records by running marathons across multiple age categories, including when he was over 100. He began running at 89 and ran nine full marathons between 2000 and 2013, when he retired.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqnppnx0z1o.amp