Not much to report today. Trump is claiming the polls show him ahead. You and I are both seeing ones that don't but I would imagine he will always claim that whether they do or don't.
Kevin Drum has a good piece up about why everything Trump and Vance are saying about tariffs is off. This is one of many instances where I genuinely wonder if Donald really thinks what he's saying is true or just thinks it's what his audience wants to hear.
I have decided to stop clicking on any link that has the word "meltdown" in it. In the words of the great swordsman and seeker-of-revenge Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." These days, if someone gets caught misstating even the tiniest fact, it is considered by some a "meltdown."
Here's an interesting column by Louis Errol on "The Politics of Joy." It's about how the Democrats are trying to sell two perhaps-conflicting concepts at the same time: That Democracy is in serious peril and that it's about time politics was more fun. I don't know how I feel about this but he may not be wrong.
I can't help it: Every time I hear the word "joy," I think of the ancient joke where someone says, "Let me show you a photo of my pride and joy" and then when you say yes — thinking it'll be a picture of their kid, wife or home — they whip out a picture of a bottle of Pride furniture polish and a bottle of Joy detergent. It's a gag so old that you could buy a packet of the cards in an old novelty catalog I had when I was twelve or so. It was right between the whoopee cushion and the fake rubber vomit.
In fact, it was so old that Henny Youngman carried around such cards (different photo, same joke) and he gave me one of them at the New York Friar's Club. I have it here somewhere.