A few things to catch up on:

The 250th Anniversary. With the heat wave in D.C. on July 4th, it wasn’t until 11:15pm local time that Trump was able to start his grand speech (which, I will confess, I did not watch). That meant the fireworks for the 250th, which was designed to break the previous world record for largest fireworks display, started very slightly after midnight, on the 5th.

In more recent 250th-related news, this week Treasury Secretary Bessent announced a new dollar coin will be issued for the 250th anniversary, with Trump on its face. Is this legal? The administration says it is, and at this point who are we to argue?

World Cup. The home country troika all bowed out in the round of 16, even though — thanks, it appears, to Trump’s intervention — FIFA overturned six decades of precedent to allow U.S. striker Balogun to play against Belgium, notwithstanding his red card in the previous game. After four-and-a-half weeks of play, we were left with the four highest-ranked countries in the world; seems like we could have just skipped ahead to that? Spain & Argentina will meet in the final, with England & France facing off for 3rd.

Maine Senate. Graham Platner’s teflon finally wore off in early July when a former girlfriend credibly accused him of having had sex with her against her will during their relationship. Within hours, the tide of opinion in the Democratic party turned solidly against him, and he withdrew from the ballot mere days before that would no longer have been possible. Facing a brisk deadline to select a replacement candidate, Maine Democrats have organized a 600-delegate convention on July 25th. That will be interesting.

McConnell, and Graham. Mitch McConnell has, it would appear, been hospitalized for weeks after a sudden health issue. By last week, conspiracy theories were starting to circulate to the effect that he was actually brain dead and was being kept alive to avoid the need for a special election to be called in August, in which dissident Republican Congressman Massie could run. A picture of McConnell and his wife was finally released in order to quell the rumors.

With that as background: When I woke up this weekend to news that an important Republican Senator was dead, the identity of said senator was surprising — not McConnell, but rather Lindsey Graham. Graham had just returned from a trip to Ukraine, prompting conspiracy theories that perhaps Putin was behind his sudden death. His younger sister (and adoptive daughter) has already been appointed to Graham’s Senate seat; but Graham was on the ballot this fall, and a special primary election has been set for August 11th. Candidates have yet to file, but it is expecting to be a very competitive primary race.

Trump v. IRS. Recall that Trump had, ludicrously, sued his own administration “in his private capacity” for $10 billion due to a breach of his tax returns that had happened during his first term, and then Trump’s Acting Attorney General, Blanche, agreed to a settlement of the “lawsuit” that not only created a $1.776 billion fund from which Trump appointees could dole out monies to victims of “weaponization”, but also (illegally?) granted Trump a free pass on all his existing IRS audit issues.

This week, a federal judge issued an opinion to the effect that, in light of the unitary executive theory (including references to the recent SCOTUS decision in Slaughter), there was no adversarial interest between the parties to this lawsuit, and hence the suit was a fraud on the court. It’s a damning opinion, although its practical impact is somewhat unclear. As the opinion notes in a footnote, “whether a private agreement between the Parties—as if “there is no judge”—is valid and enforceable or is a depredation of the Judgment Fund and an illegal conferral of immunity is not before this Court.” But there are potential professional ramifications for some of the attorneys involved, including Blanche, whose confirmation hearing for the permanent A.G. role kicked off this week.

Iran. Last week, the vaunted Memorandum of Understanding appears to have fallen apart. Earlier this week, Trump announced that the U.S. would now be in charge of assuring safe passage in the Strait in exchange for a toll equal to 20% of the value of cargo; within 24 hours he walked that back. Brent crude prices had briefly retreated to its pre-war level in the low $70s with the signing of the MOU, but have now drifted back into the low $80s.

Tonight. Trump is giving a presidential address from the White House tonight, supposedly about the 2020 election? WTF? Both NBC and ABC have declined to carry it, while CBS and FOX haven’t shown their cards yet.

Yesterday the U.S. MNT won their round-of-32 World Cup tie against Bosnia and Herzegovina, in somewhat dramatic fashion. The Americans were ahead 1-0 an hour into the game when the hero of their round robin win against Paraguay, Balogun, was belatedly awarded a controversial red card after VAR review of a play that hadn’t even resulted in a yellow card before the VAR got involved. This was eerily reminiscent of how Bosnia had reached the World Cup in the first place, beating favored Italy in penalties after Italy had taken a red card while up 1-0. This time, however, the U.S. scored a second goal on a free kick from just outside the box and held on to win 2-0. With no ability to appeal Balogun’s 1-game suspension for the red card, the U.S. will be missing a key player for their round-of-16 match against Belgium, who had beaten the U.S. 5-2 in a spring friendly.

In my last post I had mentioned new NYTimes polling of the Texas and Maine Senate races. Shortly after I had published that article, the NYTimes release similar polls of four other key Senate races in red states: Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina, and Ohio. While Governor Cooper has a comfortable lead in North Carolina, the three other races currently lean to the Republicans by 2 or 3 points. This polling suggests that having the Democrats reclaim control of the Senate in 2026 remains odds-against, but still more plausible than one would have thought a year ago, given the seats that are up this year.

More recently, Fox News released polls of the Georgia and Iowa Senate races. They have Sen. Ossoff up 56-43 over Rep. Collins in Georgia (and also have Bottoms leading in the Georgia Governor’s race), while in Iowa they have the Democrat ahead, 50-46. They also have Sen. Collins up 50-47 over Platner in Maine.

Earlier this week, Speaker Johnson sent the House into its 4th of July recess sooner than expected, reflecting internal dissension in the Republican caucus. Retiring moderate Republican Congressman Bacon of Nebraska referred to the dissidents as “shitting in their own house because they’re mad at the neighbor.” Sounds about right.

Finally, we are now 2 days away from the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — and indeed, it was 250 years ago today that the vote to declare independence passed, although to John Adams’ dismay we eventually adopted the 4th and not the 2nd as the national holiday. Unfortunately, the celebration of the semiquincentennial has become mired in partisanship. Today the Democratic staff on the House Natural Resources Committee issued an interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday”. Quoting from the Executive Summary:

“In 2016, Congress established an independent, nonpartisan U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission tasked with organizing celebrations in honor of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. America250 was created to lead the celebrations on behalf of every American, insulated from the political whims of any particular administration. It was designed to leverage public-private partnerships without any quid-pro-quos or outsized political influence infecting the celebrations. The National Park Foundation—the official philanthropic partner of the National Park Service for more than five decades—stood ready to channel private generosity toward the parks and public spaces where the nation would gather.

But under President Donald Trump, this anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment. … The White House first attempted to bend America250 to its purposes, demanding spectacles focused on promoting President Trump rather than the country while forcing partisan content, campaign-style fundraisers, and favored contractors onto an organization Congress designed to serve the whole country, not
one party or president. … When America250 would not yield, the White House created a replacement: Freedom 250 LLC, a shadow organization capable of infiltrating the celebrations and injecting America’s 250th with Trump’s extreme, partisan agenda. Lodged within the National Park Foundation, the new entity could exploit the credibility and donor
relationships of a beloved public charity while operating outside the transparency and accountability requirements Congress wrote into the semiquincentennial framework.”

The centerpiece of Freedom 250’s efforts is the Great American State Fair, currently taking place on the National Mall. Attendance has been abysmal, hindered in part by a massive heat wave impacting much of the country. Trump intends to give a major speech — or as he put it, “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all” — on the Mall on the night of the 4th as part of the “Salute to America 250 Celebration and Fireworks” event, promising “the LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY.” The forecast high in D.C. for Saturday is 99, with a ‘feels like’ of 109. Sounds wild.