Stephen Kruiser at PJM thinks the GOP's Case for Making Midterms About Law and Order Just Got Stronger "On Friday, the FBI released its "2025 Reported Crimes in the Nation" statistics, and it told a pretty interesting story, but the most important headline is this one: "Data reported to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program shows 2024 to 2025 marked the largest year-to-year decline in violent crime rates since FBI estimations began in 1936." The biggest decline in violent crimes in 90 years? That's huge." It is, but unfortunately parties in power tend not to be judged on what they do, but rather the judgment of what they haven't done. This is abetted by the media, which for Republicans, focuses on shortcomings, not successes. At the Wash Stand, Congress Closes Massive Spending Disclosure Loophole, but Will Trump Sign It into Law? "Legislation known as the Stop Secret Spending Act (SSSA) was approved earlier this year by Congress with bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House, closing a massive loophole in federal law that enables executive branch officials to hide hundreds of millions of dollars in spending from public examination." Trump is still holding out for the SAVE America Act.
Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh, " UPDATE: This pollster missed the Florida Governor GOP primary by a whopping 33 POINTS against Trump-endorsed Byron Donalds, for James Fishback WTF?! @TPSIOfficial this is an EMBARRASSMENT. Final poll: Donalds+4.6 over Fishback Reality: Donalds+37.4 over Fishback LANDSLIDE." Polls are propaganda.A View from the Beach
One day you wash up on the beach, wet and naked. Another day you wash back out. In between, the scenery changes constantly.
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Flotsam and Jetsam - Crime is Down, But Will Americans Notice?
The Wednesday Wetness
Maryland is celebrating a milestone in Chesapeake Bay restoration after Gov. Wes Moore announced the state has achieved nearly all of its 2025 Chesapeake Bay restoration goals. But some watermen say the pollution reduction target numbers don't reflect the conditions they're experiencing on the water. The Maryland Department of the Environment says the state has hit 100% of its sediment reduction goal, 100% of its phosphorus goal, and 99% of its nitrogen reduction goal.
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But Captain Robert Newberry, president of the Delmarva Fisheries Association, says the pollution reduction target numbers published don't line up with conditions that watermen are reporting. "It's not my opinion, I'm taking up a conglomerate of what everybody's saying. We have problems with the numbers. They're not right," Newberry said.
Newberry says he spoke with watermen from Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne's, Talbot, Dorchester, Somerset, Baltimore, Anne Arundel, St. Mary's, Calvert and Charles counties while researching the issue, and says the consensus among them was skepticism. “The upper bay, the guys have been seeing, dead zones, benthic zones, bad water all summer long. And they saw it in the south too, they’re seeing extremely turbid water, which is non-visible,” said Newberry. "Nothing was getting done in one year. All of a sudden, boom, we hit 100% phosphorus reduction, 99% nitrogen and 100% sediment. That's not the consensus I'm getting bay wide.”
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Allison Colden, Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, says the numbers released this week are based on bay-wide modeling and show Maryland has met or is on track to meet its reduction goals. But she cautions that models don’t tell the whole story.
"Models are always inherently an abstract of what we are seeing in reality," Colden said. "It's a necessity to simplify what we're seeing in order to produce a model. And because of that simplification, there's always a chance that there is, you know, some sort of gap between what the model would predict and what we are seeing. That doesn't necessarily mean the model is wrong.”
That's almost the definition of a model being wrong; when it doesn't match reality.
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Flotsam and Jetsam - Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning
And not a lot of material! Maybe I didn't keep up with the reading. From Althouse, "They were going to build an F.B.I. headquarters three hours away in Maryland, a liberal state. We’re going to stop it.", "Said Trump, last year, quoted in "Judge Rules Trump Administration Can’t Scrap F.B.I. Move to Maryland/The ruling is almost certainly not the end of the lengthy fight over the F.B.I.’s future headquarters, which has lasted for years" (NYT gift link). In a 47-page ruling, Judge Theodore Chuang of the Federal District Court in Maryland wrote that “the F.B.I. erroneously concluded” that it could select a new headquarters for itself without consulting Congress. In reality, Judge Chuang wrote, Congress had already approved the Biden administration plan for the F.B.I. to move to Maryland...." Of course, it's nowhere near 3 hours from DC to Greenbelt, except when traffic snarls (not all that uncommon). I don't care, move the seat of government to Fargo, ND, just to see who really wants to be there.
Red State's Teri Christoph is happy to report Trump Humiliates Obnoxious CNN Reporter After Oval Office Outburst: Ouch! Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47, "@POTUS: "You're very disrespectful in front of this young man... You're a loud, boisterous person. You're Fake News. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. You're a fake reporter and you report FAKE NEWS." I don't think they're capable of shame.
At TownHall Matt Vespa thinks You Won't Believe It, A John Cornyn Staffer Pulled a Benedict Arnold Move. Here's His New Boss, James Talarico campaign. How to admit you have no sincere beliefs in one easy career move. John Waters at RC History, looks at The Next American Right. "Today, the insurgency has won. What remains is not a bold, dramatic second act, but the far more familiar (and mundane) work of routine governance. We have entered the revolution’s mopping-up phase."
Vicky Taft at PJM asserts Trump's Messaging on the Mullahs Could Be as Powerful as a GBU-57. A bomb is only as good as it's aim. Victory Girls sees Iran Move To Crack Down On Civilians And Survive The Midterms. Armed Forces Press is angry the Media is Pushing the Carrier Crew Mental Health Story As Iran Blockade Is Working. From Althouse, "I just do not understand the mentality. If this is a representation of who our military is now… we’re just Rome sitting here waiting to burn. We’ve got nothing left." |From "Fox Host Trashes U.S. Sailors as ‘Weak’ for Speaking Out About Dire Conditions/Fox News host Joey Jones mocked service members speaking out about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln" (MTN)." At Twitchy, Messages Scrawled on Aircraft Flap by Service Members Show No Morale, Says Iranian Propagandist. Hat Hair's Capt. Ed wonder if it's Mixed Signals or Taqiyya? Hamas Pledges Disarmament As Iran Plots Wider War. TownHalls Matt Vespa looks at That Time Bill Maher Challenged This Former CBS News Anchor to Find a 'Moderate' Muslim.
Drew Bond at Am Mind assures us of America’s Winning Playbook Against China.
Capt. Ed calls it Off the Deep End: Dems Make 'Abolish ICE' Official Position. Matt Yglesias at Slow Boring asserts Woke 1 is dead. We’ve learned nothing. Documenting Saylor @saylordocs, "Javier Milei: “I thought being on the left was a mental problem. The empirical evidence is so overwhelming that it never worked anywhere, and they refused to accept it.” “But what I discovered is that being on the left is a disease of the soul. The left is built on envy, hatred, resentment, and unequal treatment under the law. They are very violent, and since they have no way or arguments to answer, they go for physical violence.”"
Mediaite watches CNN Data Guru Flags ‘Troubling’ Number for Democrats That May Predict Mike Rogers Victory, "Enten noted Rogers is leading El-Sayed by four points overall and five points among independents." But is it outside the margin of fraud? Capt. Ed calls her the Spitting Image: El-Sayed Sis Charged With Assault on Illinois State Trooper. I hope she got properly thumped. PJM's Chris Queen thinks Jon Ossoff Sure Seems to Think He's the Next Barack Obama.
Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_, "NEW: The company behind a recent poll that showed Karen Bass with a 12-point lead over Nithya Raman for LA mayor & showed Bass collecting most of Spencer Pratt's prior support has admitted their poll was FAKE and was intended as a "social experiment" to see how a poll could spread in the media ecosystem without verification. The company, Median Strategies, also conducted a recent poll in Wisconsin that had socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong up by 20 points. Hong lost her primary. It was all bogus. Wild story via @Noah__Goldberg at LAT." At Althouse, Comedian strategies. So polls are often bogus? Who knew? Now let's not always see the same hands.Tattoo Tuesday
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| Pictures of Nancy Mace from her YouTube channel Get Maced. |
Rep. Nancy Mace has publicly revealed the nine tattoos she previously said she got during one of the most difficult periods of her personal and professional life, showing the artwork on her new YouTube show after largely keeping it covered throughout her time in Congress.
The South Carolina Republican first disclosed the tattoos in a February interview with Politico, saying she got all nine in rapid succession between late 2023 and early 2024 during a period that included the end of her engagement and significant staff turnover in her congressional office.
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Mace has spoken openly about surviving sexual assault and molestation and has frequently discussed how those experiences shaped her life and political advocacy. In previous interviews, she has connected the tattoos to a broader effort to reclaim ownership of her body following years of personal trauma.
The congresswoman described getting the tattoos during a tumultuous period that also saw the breakdown of her engagement and intense public scrutiny surrounding her political career. She explained that she viewed the tattoo process as both physically and emotionally significant.



