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Gas Prices, Mortgage Rates and Inflation Expose the Felon's/GOP's Economic Lies

You know Republicans are desperate when their main response to Democrat candidates is to describe them all with a broad brush as being "communists." Yet that is where the Felon's failed policies of tariffs and trade wars with one time allies and the ongoing Iran war - a war that may yet further restrict oil flow from the Middle East as the Saudis shut down a major pipeline - have revealed the Felon's lies about how he would fix the economy on "day one."  Gas prices are high and likely headed higher, mortgage rates are up and slowing an already cooling housing market, and inflation and other interest rates are putting further strain on American consumers and families.  Locally, we see incumbent Jen Kiggans - who lies as much as the Felon - claiming she gave everyday Virginians tax cuts and laughably claiming she focuses on bipartisan legislative efforts.  The truth is that the tax cuts she voted for largely benefited the very wealthy and votes close to 100% with the Felon. Kiggans is emblematic of many other Republicans who sold their souls to the Felon and now are left telling lies to constituents in the hope they can save their political careers. At some point even MAGA Kool-Aid drinkers cannot ignore the rising cost of virtually everything. A piece in the New York Times looks at economic reality:

With less than two months until the midterm elections, [the Felon] President Trump commenced a final push this week to preserve his Republican majority in Congress, arguing that the United States under G.O.P. control had brought prices “way, way down.”

But for many families and businesses, the economy appeared to be on far shakier footing by Friday. Fuel prices soared, mortgage costs climbed and inflation registered uncomfortably high, testing the public’s patience with Mr. Trump’s frequent assurances that the country is on the right track.

The contrast underscored the political and economic stakes for [the Felon] Mr. Trump, who may soon face the wrath of an electorate long spurned by promises in Washington to lower the cost of living. As November draws closer, prices have risen under the president’s leadership, driven largely by an agenda that has included two years of punishing trade brinkmanship and a prolonged war with Iran.

The consequences were evident in the latest gauge of the Consumer Price Index, released on Friday. The report showed that prices rose at an annual pace of 3.4 percent in August, which increased the odds of the Federal Reserve’s raising interest rates next week.

The data came on the same day that a separate, long-running survey from the University of Michigan found that consumer sentiment dropped sharply this month. In that report, Americans expressed new worries that the economy was sputtering, and that inflation would continue to rise.

Over two days of speeches at his party’s midterm convention in Dallas, the president labored to convince Americans that Republicans had achieved “tremendous economic success.”

For [the Felon] Mr. Trump, the fight with inflation has proved so pernicious that it has overshadowed even the few bright spots in the economy. Despite nearly two years of policy tumult, the labor market has remained strong, the economy is growing and the country is witnessing a boom around artificial intelligence, one that has generally delighted financial markets.

But those positives have not always been obvious or tangible to voters, who have suffered through years of compounding costs that peaked during the coronavirus pandemic. Those financial strains continued into August, when prices rose faster than hourly wages on a year-over-year basis for the fifth straight month.

“The economy is performing well, but this isn’t buoying consumer attitudes,” . . . “Rather, they’re squarely focused on rising prices and interest rates eating into purchasing power.” In an interview, Mr. Klachkin added that he did not see inflation “coming down at a meaningful pace any time soon.” He cited a range of risks, including uncertainty around the tariffs in Mr. Trump’s trade war and the war with Iran.

Both of those conflicts worsened this week, a period that was not captured in the latest inflation report. But Americans still felt the consequences. The return to hostilities in Iran, for example, sent the price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, to $110 per barrel briefly on Friday.

Nationally, gas averaged nearly $4.30 per gallon by Friday, according to AAA — well over a dollar more than a year ago. Still worse was the cost of diesel, which topped $6 per gallon, setting a record that could deeply affect shipping and transportation.

But there was no sign this week that the war with Iran was close to finished. Even [the Felon] Mr. Trump acknowledged at one point that high oil and gas prices could persist until “right after the election,” though he predicted costs would fall quickly, contrary to warnings from economists.

The renewed energy shock created more headaches for the Fed and its new chairman, Kevin M. Warsh. As the Fed eyes a rate increase to bring inflation into check, [the Felon] Mr. Trump has redoubled his demands for significant rate cuts. Absent a steep reduction, the president even threatened last week that he could cut off all trade with countries that sell more to the United States than they buy. Rates are now in a range of 3.25 to 3.75 percent.

On Wall Street, the economic headwinds also helped to push up the cost of the government’s own borrowing all week. That came in the form of higher yields, which topped 4.9 percent on 10-year bonds, the highest level seen since 2023.

The rise carried significant implications, particularly for homeowners, since mortgage rates closely track yields on those bonds. The average rate on a 30-year loan reached around 6.8 percent last week, according to Michael Fratantoni, the chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, a 15-month high.

At the start of the year, Mr. Trump had promised an aggressive plan to lower housing costs. Since then, a confluence of factors has sent mortgage rates skyrocketing, and led Mr. Fratantoni to predict on Friday that it could reach “at or above 7 percent” soon.

Add to that [the Felon's] Mr. Trump’s new sales pitch to voters, promising $5,000 to Americans if Republicans prevail in the midterms — a plan that Mr. Loper estimated could cost $1.2 trillion.

That price tag, on top of existing fiscal woes, would probably “lead to greater inflation and higher interest rates,” he said.

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Trump’s Fantasy Dream World in Dallas

Attendance at the Republican mid-term convention was anything but a full house, but that did not stop the Felon from claiming convention hall was packed. As one would expect, the Felon lied more or less non-stop - CNN complied his 16 biggest lies - and the event was more or less a worship service for the Felon and his insatiable ego. The affair ignored the Felon's terrible poll numbers and the increased attacks in the ongoing war with Iran that have driven energy prices and gasoline prices at the pump to new highs.  Outside of the Kool-Aid drinking faithful and self-prostituting GOP elected officials, one has to wonder whether anyone else believes the endless lies.  For Democrats the event put the spotlight on the Felon and his unpopularity and the main task for Democrats is to turn out those who sat out the last two elections either out of laziness or an assumption that Democrats would win without their votes. The other wildcard will be whether the Iranians and their Houthis allies - who according to Reuters have gained control of the island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that is at the mouth of the Red Sea - will take further actions to drive oil and ga prices even higher as election day approaches.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at the fantasy world on display in Dallas:

[The Felon] President Trump began his midterm-convention address last night by casting his spell on the crowd in Dallas. “This place is packed,” he announced from the stage, pointing to the back of the American Airlines Center, where everyone could see hundreds of empty seats. Those who looked up saw thousands more, whole sections without any people at all. But the crowd cheered anyway. A deal had been struck. Reality would be ignored.

After more than a decade in politics, Trump is facing his last great electoral test—his popularity is waning, his party is down in the polls, Republicans could lose control in the U.S. House and maybe the Senate. He demanded greater complicity minutes later, seeming to invent a person in the back of the room. “He’s leaving for the bathroom. He’ll be back in two minutes,” he said, pointing. “They’ll take a picture of his seat while he’s gone. And they’ll say Trump did not fill up the arena.”

Laughter joined with the cheers for their political wizard. It was working. Trump could say that he had passed “the largest tax cut in the history of our country,” even if that was not the case. He could claim to have won the presidency three times, when he’s actually done so twice. He could describe the recent past as “the most successful two years financially and every other way in the history of the presidency,” despite six in 10 voters saying he had made the economy worse. He could promise to pay every adult U.S. citizen $5,000 if Republicans held both legislative houses, as if that sum did not amount to about 80 percent of the federal discretionary budget.

“I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot,” he said. “I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot. Just one more time.”

The night was all about Trump. He was the alpha and omega, the focus and the solution. Attendees wore pictures of the president on lanyards around their necks, the ticket for entry to the arena. VIP boxes were stocked with Trump was right about everything hats. Oversize photos of the president lined the hallways. . . . When each speaker dropped Trump’s name, it was cause for riotous celebration.

Until now, national political conventions have been held only during presidential-election years, when delegates from each state gather to select their nominee. In the 1970s, the gatherings shifted from smoke-filled rooms for party business to televised infomercials for the candidates. Trump this year created a simulation of a simulation.  . . . The convention-in-name-only was for, by, and about one man—who, importantly, cannot be a candidate for president again, according to the U.S. Constitution.

“The only way to keep dangerous, radical, weird out of the Senate is a united Republican Party standing with our president, Donald J. Trump,” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, bellowed from the stage. “Stand for the president, Donald J. Trump. This is a battle for the heart of our nation.

No president has tried something like this before. None has had so much money to spend on themselves at this point in a presidency. None has chosen to make the midterms a referendum on themselves while polling so badly. . . . . The strategist in chief has bet that turning out Trump voters, the ones who typically stay home when he is not on the ballot, is the only path forward. This is why the first ads he bought for the cycle were not about any candidates who are running this year, but about himself. This was why his latest show was a celebration of the unlimited possibility of his incantations.

Outside Trump’s curated fantasy world, not everything has gone according to plan. Trump’s political strategist, James Blair, announced after the off-year elections in 2025 that the president would be “very, very focused on prices and cost of living.” White House aides told us in the new year that the pivot would come after Trump scratched his itch for another confrontation with Iran. By May, as that conflict dragged on, Trump advisers told us quietly that if it had not receded, along with gas prices, by Labor Day, there would be trouble.

Two weeks ago, multiple Trump advisers told us they expected the kinetic part of the Iran war to mostly cease in September, clearing the way for lower gas prices. None of that has happened. Missiles are still flying in the Strait of Hormuz. Since the 2025 elections, gas prices have risen 39 percent, from $3.08 to $4.28; 30-year mortgage rates have increased 8 percent; electricity prices have gone up more than 4 percent. Charlie Cook, a political analyst and the dean emeritus of legislative-election handicapping, says that Republicans should brace themselves for a tough result. “The worst-case scenario for the GOP and best for Democrats today would have sounded ludicrous eight months ago,” he wrote recently. “The most plausible today resembles Republicans’ nightmare scenario at the beginning of the year.”

[F]ew Republicans still pretend off-camera that they will be able to maintain control of the House. Narrow Democratic control of the Senate, once outlandish, could be within reach. On the sidelines of the convention in Dallas, strategists muttered about recent polling in House races that shows jump balls where Trump won by double digits in 2024.

The outstanding question is whether Democratic candidates can emerge from the dim shadow of President Biden. . . . .On the whole, Democrats are delighted by Trump’s strategy—to put front and center a man whose unpopularity fires up their voters and further alienates the newly skeptical. “If the Democrats have a great year, it will be because they got their base out to vote in large numbers,” Rich Thau, the moderator of the Swing Voter Project, told us. “It won’t be because they magically converted these swing voters into Democratic senatorial and gubernatorial voters.”

His economic approval rating this summer, according to Quinnipiac University, stood at 34 percent, down from 53 percent on the eve of the last midterm elections on his watch, in 2018. The 2024 presidential election hinged on the rising cost of living, and after Republicans won the trifecta—the White House and both chambers of Congress—the expectation was that Trump and his party would fix what many still view as Biden’s economy. “I want to emphasize that this wasn’t to just slightly improve things,” David Winston, a Republican strategist who works with congressional leadership, told us. “They viewed a substantive outcome as what they were looking for.” It has not come to pass.

But no comments mattered more than Trump’s. He talked for nearly two hours, a rolicking, weaving address that only occasionally stuck to the teleprompter. It ended where he began. “Please pretend that I’m running, and get out and vote on November 3 or sooner,” he said. “Because, in actuality, I really am running.” In actuality, he is not. Or maybe he is, in a way. His crowd remained in their seats to the end. The room, at times, felt packed to the rafters.

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Canada and Iran Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel

At the GOP mid-term "convention" in Dallas the Felon promisedthe  Iran war would be over immediately after the mid-term elections.  He also promised $5,000 checks to American citizens if Republicans maintain control of both houses of Congress. The first promise ignores the reality that the Iranians have a say as to if and when the war ends. The only way an immediate end to the war could come about would be for the U.S. to basically unilaterally concede defeat and try to move on. The second promise is ridiculous on its face, but no doubt the most fervent Kool-Aid drinkers will believe it.  Indeed, the Felon's behavior also ignores the reality that both Canada and Iran seem to recognize the Felon's Achilles heel: in both the U.S./Canada trade war and in the Iran war all they need to do is keep the price of oil and gasoline high or rising even more and, in the case of Canada, target states crucial to the GOP effort to retain control of Congress.  This leaves the GOP stuck with fear mongering against Democrats and bragging about tax cuts for the super wealthy. As a piece in The New Republic lays out both Canada and Iran have ways to hit back and cause economic pain that could drive voters to abandon the GOP and its insane leader.  Here are article highlights:

Canadian officials aren’t being coy about it: The retaliatory tariffs imposed Tuesday against the United States were deliberately chosen to hurt vulnerable Republicans before the midterm elections. “We are picking products that will target states in the U.S.,” Mélanie Joly, Canada’s industry minister, said late last month while announcing the tariffs. “We’re being wise and strategic to put political pressure, and that’s why we think it’s ‌the right thing to do right now.” Canada, fed up with Donald Trump’s bullying since he returned to office last year, is hitting the president where he’s most vulnerable —namely the slim congressional majorities that have allowed him to govern with more or less total impunity.

The tariffs particularly focus on vehicles, fish, and dairy, and will hit states with key particularly hard in states with key elections, like Maine, Michigan, and Kansas. There are early indications that they’re working. Nearly two-thirds of voters in Maine and Michigan view the trade war negatively, according to a CNN poll released on Wednesday. . . . But they’re hardly surprising. Trump has repeatedly attacked the U.S.’s northern neighbor, a close ally and biggest trading partner, and even mused about making Canada the “51st state” (an odd riff, given it would almost certainly be a blue one).

These tit-for-tat tariffs are also just desserts, however. Trump has spent much of his second term flouting the longtime convention of U.S. administrations avoiding direct involvement in other countries’ elections. He has endorsed right-wing and far-right candidates and parties in Argentina, Hungary, Brazil, and, most recently, Germany. He has used sanctions against Brazil to try to help spring his his pal and former President Jair Bolsonaro from prison, and sent Cabinet officials to Hungary to aid Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s reelection  campaign. He has used tariffs to try to pressure voters to back his preferred candidates . . . Now, Republicans in tough races will face an even steeper climb—and they’ll have to deal with the kinds of headaches that Trump has tried to inflict on liberal candidates in other countries.

Canada is not the only foreign nation whose actions will affect the midterms. Although no Iranian official has made as explicit a comment as Joly’s, there has been speculation for months that many of the nation’s actions in the stop-start Iran war, particularly those that lead to spikes in already skyrocketing energy prices, are intended to damage GOP chances in the upcoming midterms. “The Iranians are not dumb,” longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove told Fox News in late June. “They know that the fall campaign starts in earnest on Labor Day. I would not be surprised to see them attempt to have an influence on the outcome by creating problems in mid-August and causing oil prices to rise and uncertainty to grow.”

That is exactly what has happened, with strikes resuming in recent weeks and Iran now looking to escalate further, according to The New York Times, which reported Wednesday that “Iran’s leadership believes that now may be the best moment to raise the stakes, ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November when an unpopular war could hurt Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.”

Still, Canada marks the most pronounced and deliberate—and Trumpian—attempt to punish Trump by targeting the midterms. The Canadians, too, seem to know that the fall campaign starts in earnest on Labor Day. And vulnerable Republicans are already reeling. “This is not China we’re dealing with; it’s Canada—our best friend, a country with whom our economy is completely intertwined,” Maine’s incumbent Republican senator, Susan Collins, said last month. . . . it’s hard not to see the entire issue as the president shooting his party in the foot—an avoidable debacle, like the Iran war. Now it’s one that may very well sink his party.

The irony of all of this is that much of Trump’s attempts at interference failed. He went all-in backing his close allies in Brazil and Hungary, and both failed to accomplish what he wanted—Bolsonaro is still serving a 27-year sentence for election interference, and Orban was defeated, ending a 16-year stretch in power. But Trump’s greatest faceplant may have come in Canada. Shortly after he won the 2024 election, he began to attack the nation’s liberal government, first with “51st state” mockery and then with tariffs. It failed spectacularly. Canadian voters had appeared ready to elect a conservative government, but instead kept the liberals in power. That backlash swept Mark Carney into power as prime minister, and he has emerged as a persistent thorn in Trump’s side—a vocal critic who is attempting to rally America’s estranged allies to be less dependent on the U.S. Now, Carney seems to be on the verge of doing something Trump couldn’t: Help to install a more favorable government abroad. 

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Republicans are Hoping ‘Trump-a-Palooza’ Isn’t Only About Trump

Today marks the start of the Felon's Republican mid-term convention in Dallas. With the Felon having record bad polling, Democrats are hoping the Felon makes the two day event all about himself and his grievances, including the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was "stolen", and acting as if affordability is merely a hoax.  Republicans are hoping for the exact opposite with focus on "Republican achievements" which primarily are comprised of huge tax cuts for the very wealthy, slashing funding for social programs that will harm millions of Americans, and supposed control of the border, ignoring, of course, high disapproval of ICE's ongoing outrages (see the image at right).  Since these "achievements" either ignore ongoing high inflation or are a cause of it, the Felon's tariffs are driving up consumer prices, and the Iran war debacle has driven to oil to over $100/barrel, it is unclear what kind of positive spin can be put on an economy where only the rich are getting far richer while the rest of us struggle to tread water at best.  A piece at Politico looks at the gathering which I - and likely many others - hope goes off the rails:

[The Felon] President Donald Trump will be at the center of this week’s GOP midterm convention. Many of his fellow Republicans are hoping he doesn’t make it all about him.

The parade of lawmakers, candidates, donors and party officials now headed to Dallas for the two-day spectacle are counting on Trump to make a compelling pitch on the national stage before voters hit the polls.

According to interviews with dozens of Republicans, they are largely hoping for a two-pronged approach aimed at getting the president’s committed supporters off the sidelines: a focus on what they call Democrats’ extreme positions and the accomplishments of the Republican Congress — most of which are now more than a year old.

Republicans have reasons to be wary. Trump’s approval ratings are at record lows for his time in office, and many swing-district GOP lawmakers are torn between running from an unpopular president and alienating his base of committed supporters.

There is little evidence Trump is content to let rank-and-file Republicans run away from him. The first pair of national midterm ads funded by his cash-rich political operation put Trump at the very center.

Even if not all agree Trump is the party’s best spokesperson at this point, they are eager to see a new effort to promote the tax cuts, which were enacted in July 2025, and want to see them touted anew in Dallas.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to brag about what the Republican Party has done the last year and a half,” added Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Texas). “So certainly talking about the One Big Beautiful Bill.”

While Van Orden and Goldman are attending the convention, which kicks off Wednesday and ends Thursday, many other lawmakers and candidates are staying back in their districts. Some of those Republicans said they have scheduling conflicts or simply want to campaign back home.

But there are also qualms about Trump’s obsession with priorities that many of them consider off-message ahead of the midterms — such as pressuring Congress to take up the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.

As GOP lawmakers begged Trump to get serious about tackling the high cost of living, the [Felon] president has instead openly scoffed at “affordability” as an issue concocted by Democrats to hurt Republicans.

He refused for months to help pass a major legislative package over the summer designed to help lower housing costs, and his trade wars and ongoing conflict with Iran have contributed to persistent inflation. A recent import deal designed to address rising beef prices came at the cost of upsetting American cattlemen.

Speaker Mike Johnson brushed off a question last week about the risk of having candidates show up at a Trump-focused event given his disapproval ratings.

“Politics 101 is just telling folks what you’re going to do, and then come to Washington and do it, and then go back and tell them what you did,” said Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.). “When you look at President Trump’s agenda, securing the border, we’ve done that. That he wanted to make the tax cuts permanent, we’ve done that.”

If there is one consensus message Republicans want the convention oriented around, it’s the choice between the legislative record Trump will be touting and a Democratic Party that they argue has moved way too far to the left — especially as progressive candidates, some of them democratic socialists, continue to win key primaries.

RNC national press secretary Natalie Baldassarre also said in a statement that the event would “put front and center Democrats’ desire to abolish police and prisons, raise costs, and strip away our freedoms,” while also promoting “Republicans’ historic achievements.”

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) called the midterm convention — the first held since Democrats did them in the late 1970s and early 1980s — “an interesting concept” and said he would be paying close attention to the size of the television audience. But he said he would be back in his safe red district campaigning.

“I’m going to look forward to listening to it on the radio as I’m driving down the road, going from one spot in my district to another,” he said.

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Trump’s Midterm Convention Circus

Republicans will be having a mid-term convention this week in Dallas, Texas, at the insistence of the Felon.  Initially, elected officials planning on attending were to be required to pay $25,000 for a ticket.  Between congressional Republicans trying to distance themselves from the Felon and his abysmal approval levels and those not wanting to fork over $25,000, there are fears within the GOP that the convention - during which the Felon wants to showcase himself - may have pathetic attendance. As a result there are reports that tickets are being frantically given away to avoid potential media coverage that could show a sparce attendance.  As a piece in The New Republic lays out, the big winners from this unusual convention will be Democrats as the Felon draws attention to his regime (which is way underwater on just about every issue, including immigration, once the Felon's strong suit) and highly unpopular policies and, of course, the Iran war. The Felon, wrapped in his usual narcissism and petty trade war with Canada - while fabricating stories about his activities on September 11, 2001 - seems oblivious to the fact that his demanded convention will showcase how out of touch with reality the White House regime is compared to voter concerns and will likely prove a gift to Democrats, especially  James Talarico who is running against the thoroughly corrupt Ken Paxton.  Here are highlights from the New Republic:

You must be as excited as I am for this week’s GOP midterm convention. I’m being serious—well, kind of. I’m excited because a midterm convention is such a preposterous notion, such a display of desperate, indulgent, Napoleonic vanity, it will undoubtedly make a terrible situation for the Republicans even worse.

Except for the Kool-Aid drinking third of the population, America is sick of Donald Trump. The third of us who’ve always seen him as a fascist were sick of him 10 minutes after he descended that escalator. The middle third, well, their enthusiasm for him has waxed and waned, but in these last couple of months, they finally seem to have realized what a charlatan the man is.

So, this convention, in other words, is exactly what America doesn’t want: Two more prime-time nights of watching Donald Trump whine and moan and tell the country how great his poll numbers are and how “hot” America is. That should work great!

It appears that the idea was Trump’s, not some aide or sycophant. That makes sense. Only Trump is dense enough to think this is a good idea. Much has been made of the fact that they scheduled this without realizing that they’re competing (this Wednesday and Thursday) with the first two nights of the new NFL season, and against marquee matchups both nights. But I prefer to think that one of his saner aides knew this and scheduled it anyway, praying that most Americans would rather watch Sam Darnold and Matthew Stafford than tune in to Trump’s train wreck.

Have you seen that list of speakers? If they’d asked me to come up with a speaking list, I couldn’t have concocted something this self-parodic, this certain to repel middle America. There’s Mr. Measles, aka RFK Jr. He’s almost as unpopular as Trump. . . . . Todd Blanche, the most corrupt attorney general since, well, Pam Bondi, but a man so shady and unprincipled that he makes Bondi look like Louis Brandeis. And Karoline Leavitt—America wants more of her, right after she quit her job, mouthing her mendacious platitudes like those brainwashed soldiers in The Manchurian Candidate? Don Jr.? Seriously? Don Jr.??

What a bestiary. And that’s why I’m kind of excited. A president at 35 percent in the polls presiding over $4.15 a gallon gas and thinking he’s doing something neat by trying to change New Mexico’s name (“Oh, hell, no,” blared a headline in the Albuquerque Journal) will now go before the nation for two nights spewing lie after lie about the economy. Pass the popcorn.

Here’s the thing about economic lies. There are many things in the political arena you can shade or obfuscate. You can hide your falsehood in a thicket of complexity. You can play on people’s fears and prejudices. But you start telling people that the skyrocketing cost of everything isn’t happening? They will see right through that.

[P]eople know that economic lies are lies because they live the economy every day of their lives. You can’t tell people who just shelled out $8 a pound to grill the kids some burgers on Labor Day that affordability is a Democrat hoax. So, I feel pretty confident in saying not only that Trump won’t get a bounce from this convention. Indeed, if there is a bounce, it will be for the Democrats generally and for James Talarico specifically . . . .

No, Trump’s only hope in November, as even he may know deep down, is to steal it. The lawsuit to stop the Postal Service from implementing new rules on mail-in voting is working its way toward the Supreme Court and may get there very soon. The Supreme Court is as corrupt as it’s been since the 1850s, but even with that being true, it’s hard to see how five justices will find any justification for the executive branch having any say in how elections are conducted, since the Constitution expressly and clearly says that duty belongs to the states, with Congress playing a secondary role.

So, he should lose at the high court. But that just means he’ll ignore the ruling. . . . . ICE still may show up at some polls. The military? Probably not, but Trump would surely try, and Pete Hegseth would do everything he could to please the boss.

Will it make a difference? It might. We shouldn’t kid ourselves. It is one on level terrifying, knowing that there’s no law Trump won’t break, no article of the Constitution he won’t shred, and no lie he won’t tell in order to avoid humiliating defeat.

On the other hand, we still have good cause to be reasonably confident that elections will be conducted for the most part honestly. Election officials, even most Republican ones, tend to take their duties pretty seriously. They did in 2020. They had more motive then to keep him in office, I should think. Now, their desire to cheat for a lame-duck loser should be pretty de minimus.  

In the meantime, let’s sit back and enjoy the show this week . . . .

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What the Felon's War Against Iran War Is Costing Americans

The stalemate in the Felon's war of choice with Iran continues with no end in sight, oil prices have inched still higher, gasoline prices in America are the highest ever for a Labor Day weekend, inflation is up. Americans are paying dearly for the Felon's foolish war of choice given the ripple effect of higher energy costs, especially for diesel which is used in transporting consumer goods. Add in the inflationary effect of the USA ballooning national debt - 30% of which was added under the Felon - through higher interest rates and increased borrowing costs, and the financial cost to American households is rising even more. In increased energy costs alone it is estimated that the war has cost the American public 93 billion dollars or $1200 per household.  When the military costs are added to this, it's likely the total cost is in the hundreds of billions of dollars range. And these estimates do not factor in America's damaged national security through reduce arms supplies and isolation from former allies.  All, in part to perhaps distract from the Epstein files and the manufactured trade war with Canada perhaps aimed at distracting the media from the Iran war.  A piece in The New Yorker looks at the costs the Felon has inflicted on Americans.  Here are excerpts:

Back in early March, speaking to a group of Republican lawmakers and donors who had gathered at his golf club in Doral, Florida, [the Felon] Donald Trump described the Iran war, which he had launched a couple of weeks earlier, as a “short-term excursion” that would end “soon.” Last Friday, the conflict passed the six-month mark. While the U.S. and Israel are no longer bombing Iranian targets on a daily basis, roughly fifty thousand American service members are still deployed to the region; the Strait of Hormuz is largely closed to commercial shipping; a memorandum of understanding that the two sides signed in June has expired; and the Trump Administration has reportedly told Middle Eastern mediators that it has no interest in reviving it.

With no end in sight, the costs of Trump’s war are mounting. Some of them can’t be expressed in dollars and cents. According to the Pentagon, eighteen U.S. service members have been killed and more than seven hundred and fifty wounded. The Iranian death toll is in the thousands, including more than two hundred children, according to estimates from UNICEF and the Iranian government. The war has spilled over into other countries, causing hundreds more deaths—thousands, if you include Israel’s assault on Lebanon.

In principle, it’s easier to estimate the economic costs of the war; in practice, the task is far from straightforward. Even if the calculation is restricted to the United States, you first have to count the military outlays on things such as munitions, additional troop deployments, and repairing the extensive damage that Iranian counterstrikes have done to American bases in the Middle East. Then there are the financial costs that higher energy prices have imposed on American households and businesses. Plus, there are more indirect costs, such as the penalties that Americans have paid in terms of higher inflation and rising interest rates. Only by putting all these things together is it possible to estimate the total cost. But let’s start with the bill for military expenditures, which will ultimately fall on taxpayers.

One issue with tallying them is that the Pentagon has been less than forthright about many aspects of the conflict. In July, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the conflict had cost roughly $37.5 billion, but he didn’t provide much in the way of detail. Shortly before Hegseth’s appearance, NBC News reported that internal Pentagon estimates put the true figure, including military-base reconstruction costs, at somewhere between eighty billion and a hundred billion dollars.

In air wars, the biggest single expense is often munitions, and that is true in this conflict. The Pentagon has made extensive use of precision missiles, such as Tomahawks, which cost $2.6 million each, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (C.S.I.S.), and advanced air-defense systems, such as Patriot-missile batteries, which cost $4.9 million. A C.S.I.S. analysis of the war’s cost, published earlier this summer, said that the Pentagon has used more than a thousand Tomahawks and as many as fourteen hundred Patriots, in addition to roughly ten thousand unguided “dumb” bombs. This dramatic rundown in munitions accounts for $26.1 billion of a total military cost of about forty billion dollars, the analysis said.

It identified the second-largest cost item as damage to U.S. bases in places such as Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, which it estimated at up to $9.2 billion. Although the Pentagon has tried to play down the effectiveness of Iran’s attacks, they appear to have destroyed, wholly or partially, hundreds of structures, including aircraft hangars, fuel depots, radar facilities, warehouses, and barracks—delivering a blow to U.S. military infrastructure without precedent in recent times. . . . . When the conflict ends, Cancian went on, the Pentagon will have to think seriously about whether to rebuild or abandon the damaged facilities, given their vulnerability to future attacks.

Whatever the true figure is, it’s a considerable sum that comes on top of the bloated trillion-dollar Pentagon budget that has already been approved for 2026, and it is money that could, in theory, be used for other purposes. Take the seventy-three billion dollars in extra funding that House Republicans approved. The authors of an analysis published last week by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, pointed out that this amount of money would “provide full Medicaid coverage for 5 million more people, with $33 billion left over.” That money, in turn, could be used to substantially raise SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) for children from poor families and double the funding for the National Park Service and for emergency food-and-shelter assistance, the CAP authors said.

In broader economic terms, the biggest burden that the war has created is sharply higher energy prices. Since late February, the cost of gasoline has risen by more than a dollar a gallon, on average, across the fifty states: that’s more than a third. And petroleum isn’t the only fuel that has become more expensive. The price of diesel, which powers the trucks that traverse the country carrying goods of all types and sizes, has risen by roughly half. . . . . if you combine the rising prices of gas and diesel, the financial hit to Americans since the war began is about ninety-three billion dollars—more than seven hundred dollars per household.

That isn’t the final economic tally. The price of heating oil has shot up by about seventy per cent. The cost of fertilizers, which are largely made from methane gas, the price of which spiked after the war began, has also risen sharply, contributing to higher food prices. . . . . since February, the rate of inflation has risen from 2.4 per cent to 3.4 per cent. Market interest rates, which are influenced by inflation and inflation expectations, have also jumped up, raising the costs of mortgages, car loans, and other types of consumer credit.

Adding all these things together, Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, put the total cost of the war for the typical American household at a thousand dollars—a figure he described as conservative. That was at the end of June. More recently, Zandi has raised his estimate to more than twelve hundred dollars. . . . “Trump decided to launch it, and Americans are paying for it.”

Thus far, the cost to Trump has largely been restricted to sagging poll ratings. Last week, a survey from Reuters/Ipsos put his approval rating at thirty-three per cent, matching the lowest level recorded by this poll during either of his terms in office, with just twenty-five per cent of respondents approving of his handling of Iran. Absent a break in the war’s current stalemate between now and the November midterms, the [Felon] President and his party may end up paying a higher political price. But the economic costs of the conflict can’t be reversed.

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The Felon And Pete Hegseth Are a Wrecking Ball

Like many I suspect, at times I find it is difficult to believe that the Felon is not a Russian asset given the Felon's blind allegiance to Vladimir Putin - does Putin have a full set of the Epstein files or other kompromat that terrifies the Felon? - and the severe damage the Felon and his incompetent Secretary of Defense are doing to America's national security and the U.S. military, especially the U.S. Army.  Putin must be smiling broadly.  Meanwhile, Putin is aiding Iran in the Felon's war of choice and making threatening moves towards Europe, yet the Felon's fealty to Putin remains undiminished.  Reportedly the Felon's emissary to Putin, Steve Witkoff told Putin Saturday that he’ll think back fondly on the “incredible stories and incredible memories” that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given him. This statement is beyond disturbing given Putin's war crimes against Ukrainian civilians. It will take many years to undo the damage done to relations with America's former allies, the purge's of competent  senior military commanders deemed insufficiently loyal to Pete Hegseth, and the racist and white supremacy agenda of the Felon/Hegseth that will likely make recruitment of servicemembers more difficult.  And then there is the ongoing disaster in the Iran war. A piece in the New York Times looks at the severe damage being willfully done. 

It is difficult to fathom the damage President Trump is doing to America’s national security. He is making our nation more vulnerable than it has been at any time since the cloudiest days of the Cold War.

Trump administration scandals come with such speed and frequency that it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. One minute you’re reading about potential war crimes in the Caribbean. The next moment there’s a news alert about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s ongoing purge of generals. Then you click over and read a story about depleted stocks of some of America’s most important munitions.

That’s a fraction of the havoc the administration has wrought. In a strange way, the very frequency of the scandals works to the administration’s advantage. Each new story distracts us from the last one, and we don’t have a minute to pause, take a deep breath and look at the whole picture.

I want to be careful not to be too alarmist. Our military is still highly capable, and we have watched it successfully execute some extraordinarily difficult missions during Trump’s second term. The capture of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and the rescue of two downed American airmen from the heart of Iran were remarkable feats of skill and courage.

It’s comforting — I guess — to know that Hegseth can’t undo the effects of a generations-long commitment to excellence in just 20 months.

That’s the end of the good news. From the top down, Trump is replacing the highly imperfect meritocracy of American public service with an idiocracy, and his corrupt idiocrats are creating profound short-, medium- and long-term harms to American national security.

The short-term damage is serious enough. Even just to achieve what is at best a stalemate in the Persian Gulf, the administration has created a critical shortage in interceptors that can shoot down missiles and drones and in other precision munitions, including some of our most advanced offensive weapons.

At the same time, to maintain the stalemate against Iran, the United States is drawing resources from other, more dangerous theaters of potential conflict. There are now no active carrier battle groups in the Pacific region, for example, exactly when China has ramped up its military activities around Taiwan.

The lack of interceptors is escalating the crisis in Ukraine. Russia is able to pound Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles virtually at will, creating a critical vulnerability for the Ukrainian war effort. Last week, for example, Kyiv endured the longest sustained bombing campaign on the Ukrainian capital since the opening days of the war.

The Economist has also reported that Putin is planning to throw hundreds of thousands of additional troops into the fight, and he’s provoking NATO with a series of incursions so severe (including, according to the German government, an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany) that it prompted John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, to visit Russia to reportedly warn Putin against any further aggression.

As long as Iran — a longstanding ally of Russia that’s closely linked to its neighbor through the Caspian Sea — remains in the fight, it can continue to deplete our interceptors to the point where it might take years to bring our stocks back to acceptable levels, even if we ramp up production at immense cost.

All of this is taking place against the backdrop of terrible self-imposed wounds to America’s alliances. There are obvious immediate risks, for example, to withdrawing troops from allied nations or shortening military exercises with South Korea, but the damage done by engaging in trade wars with allies and threatening aggression against Greenland (remember that?) can’t be repaired by just one administration.

Even if the next Democratic president tries to reconcile with our allies, every allied government will be asking itself, “How long will this last?” Every prudent allied government will hedge its geopolitical bets, and that can harm the United States in incalculable ways.

Our allies fear not just that they’ve lost Trump, but even worse, they fear that they’ve lost a substantial portion of the American people.

We’ve already seen the consequences of American faithlessness. The Trump administration has pitched a fit demanding allied aid in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, only to be greeted with stony silence. Why should our allies expend blood and treasure standing with an American government that didn’t even have the decency to consult them before launching its costly, poorly planned Middle Eastern adventure?

Why should they expend blood and treasure standing with America when America is also threatening the independence and sovereignty of NATO member states? They are getting enough of that from Putin.

The end result could well be a period of extended Western vulnerability as Europe bears the considerable costs (and takes several years to increase its defense capabilities) to deter Russia even while it can’t count on the United States to fulfill its treaty obligations.

The long-term threat is to the character and competence of the armed forces. They are becoming politicized, and the politicization of a military can both destroy its combat effectiveness and turn it into an instrument of domestic oppression.

If you are under the delusion that Hegseth’s purges are about competence more than loyalty — a welcome corrective to the excesses of D.E.I. programs — well then, as we say in the South, bless your heart.

Trump’s critics aren’t the only ones alarmed, I’d refer you to the recent resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. As Nancy A. Youssef, Missy Ryan and Michael Scherer reported for The Atlantic, in a recent White House meeting, “Army Secretary Dan Driscoll brought his concerns about the future of the Army under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directly to President Trump.”

Driscoll was reportedly worried that Hegseth’s purges were hampering the ability of the Army to transform itself. And this is just as the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are demonstrating that the world is in the midst of another revolution in military affairs, and we are not prepared.

The combination of corruption, stupidity and sycophancy — the Pentagon was recently caught surreptitiously employing conservative media influencers who reliably defend Hegseth online — that pervades the Trump administration is now infecting the Pentagon at the moment that our most powerful enemies are becoming more aggressive.

I loved my time serving my country. It was one of the great honors of my life. If anything, I’m biased toward viewing the military in general and the Army in particular through rose-colored glasses. But my view is getting darker. Terrible leadership of even the most virtuous institutions can have terrible consequences.

If history teaches us anything, it’s that the battlefield is the most unforgiving place on earth.

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