Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! Your roundup includes: the New York Times puts Trump’s memes on the couch and accidentally diagnoses itself; Justice Kavanaugh orders overnight homework in Missouri; Republicans open the first midterm convention in party history; and Georgia manhunt for suspect who violated the laws of nature themselves and got away with the most expensive towel in history.
🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍
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Last weekend, President Trump posted an AI picture of himself wearing Hulk Hogan’s body. The New York Times responded by assembling a 2,000-word-plus front-page psychiatric evaluation.
Which only proved that the meme worked as intended.
Yesterday, the Times ran an extraordinary “breaking news” exclusive, “60 Posts in 10 Hours: How Trump’s Social Media Reflects His Version of Reality.” It appeared near the top of the website and landed on Page A1 in this morning’s print edition, because apparently the Nation could not commence business operations until America’s Newspaper of Record informed readers that Donald Trump had posted something boastful on the Internet.
Before we begin, this was not clearly labeled opinion. It appeared under the gauzy heading “Washington Memo,” the corporate-media equivalent of choosing a fake-mustache-and-sombrero filter before pressing record on your TikTok video. The article’s deadly serious subheadline advised readers that Trump’s posts were, “critics say, a barometer of his mental state.” Then, for nearly 2,200 words, the story energetically auditioned for a top spot as one of those critics.
By my count, the Times’s purported news analysis packed in roughly two dozen express or implied insults aimed squarely at the President of the United States. It emptied out the thesaurus. Trump “unleashed” a “barrage.” He put the “bully” in the bully pulpit. His world was a “unique reality” anchored “not in fact” but in “ego.” His posts were “ever wilder,” “ever more outrageous,” “bizarre,” “abnormal,” “frenetic,” “grandiose,” “belligerent,” “delusional,” “authoritarian,” “imperialist,” and evidence that he may have “lost his mind.”
From tweets.
The story’s opening paragraphs warmed to its overheated theme by describing President Trump as a bully, fantasist, egomaniac, warrior-in-his-own-mind, failed conqueror, would-be historical giant, deteriorating old man, and an ‘enemy of presidential dignity.’ That was all before the article reached its first quoted source. In other words, that was the factual background. (Apparently anonymous adjectives now count as corroboration.)
But the Times’ problem was bigger than bias or even the embarrassing TDS flare-up. The story was hilarious— unintentionally.
Trump’s ‘terrible’ mental-health symptoms included: posting an image of himself intimidating Canada’s prime minister with a hockey stick; wearing Hulk Hogan’s muscles; pounding Iran with an enormous hammer; declaring “The Moon Is Ours”; leading an extraterrestrial in shackles; reshaping Iran into his hair profile; and draping the American flag over most of the Western Hemisphere in a cartoon map.
In other words, the President posted memes— a radical new development the Times has apparently never heard of.
Think about it. It wasn’t like he posted the nuclear inventory. They weren’t satellite photos of President Xi’s master bathroom. He didn’t upload Chuck Schumer’s hooker rolodex. It was just… Memes. Deliberately and obviously preposterous visual jokes—the digital equivalent of political cartoons, except the cartoonist is the President and the Newspaper of Record doesn’t get to choose the caption.
The Times repeatedly admitted that the pictures were AI-generated and “cartoonish,” but still analyzed them as though Trump had accidentally uploaded his latest Rorschach test. If any other influencer posts himself as Superman, sane people understand that he is not actually claiming to fly like a plane or date a myopic woman named Lois.
But at the Times, when a new cartoon meme appears, the terrified Editors frantically call the Cabinet for an emergency wellness check.
The Times looked at the “rat-a-tat of ever wilder, ever more outrageous posts” and saw “a barometer of his mental state.” Whereas, I would call this article a barometer of the New York Times’ mental state.
🔥 The Grey Lady’s investigative reporting has reached heroic levels. The reporter carefully determined that Trump began posting at 11:54 a.m., posted six more messages at 1:47 p.m., circulated twenty-seven more from 2:40 p.m. to 3:43 p.m., and finally stopped at 10:35 p.m. Somebody at the Times logged a second-by-second tweet timestamp like it was a newly discovered edit of the Zapruder film.
The story repeatedly complained about constant posting but never considered whether Trump could have uploaded a batch of posts at once and just scheduled them to publish at different times, or that aides could have done it, who, the Times conceded, ‘craft’ some of his posts. But never mind.
After all that investigative effort, the Times finally cracked the case: when the President has fewer scheduled events, he spends more time online. Pulitzer committee, clear some shelf space.
The quotes from ‘sources’ were no less deranged. The article quoted Representative Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), who you could be forgiven for never having heard of. She called Trump “truly unhinged,” “dangerous,” and potentially unfit for office, while demanding that Congress, the Cabinet, and “everyone around him” make it stop. Chellie wasn’t talking about stopping the Iran War. She meant stopping Trump from making Canada lose a pretend hockey game.
It quoted Trump’s former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, who insisted the meme-tweets prove Trump is going insane. “It feels like we’re genuinely watching his brain rot in real time,” she sneered, without any hyperbole whatsoever.
🔥 But one short sentence tucked away under a photo’s caption gave the whole game away: “Trump sometimes uses social media to bypass traditional media.” It explained everything. The article’s fury was actually the white-hot passion of a spurned lover.
The Times is not actually afraid that readers will believe he literally annexed the Moon. It fears that Trump no longer needs the Times, to tell readers what he said, what he meant, whether it was important, and how all virtuous people should feel about it.
That information monopoly used to matter. A president made a statement; credentialed interpreters translated it into approved English; editorial priests separated acceptable meaning from dangerous heresy; and citizens received the polished product with a side of narrative twenty-four hours later, published right beside an advertisement for 20-foot-long phone extension cords.
You see, the Times is most hurt by Trump’s rejection, which is why they cannot summon any sense of humor. This article and its endless catalog of sneers sound exactly like the torrent of superheated invective a feminist divorcee might unleash after her former husband starts dating a 19-year-old hot yoga instructor.
But, behind its back, everyone is either feeling sorry for or laughing at the Times. It is suffering Cluster B personality disorder.
The joke is not merely Trump as Hulk Hogan. The joke is watching the people who appointed themselves democracy’s guardians solemnly convene emergency seminars about Trump as Hulk Hogan. The Times even quoted Trump’s own explanation: “We do a little trolling.” Yet somehow, after ten years, the country’s most celebrated journalists still respond to every troll like a village council hearing its first report of a large creature under the bridge demanding payment to cross.
With missiles flying in hot wars, markets moving in record sweeps, and governments wobbling across the European continent, the Times devoted prime homepage real estate and Page A1 to report that Donald Trump still thinks Donald Trump is terrific. Not exactly breaking news.
Well, two can play at this game. Allow me to deploy a few diagnostic words to describe the Times’ unstable mental state: obsessive, humorless, depressed, self-centered, heartsick, cast aside, plagued with low self-esteem, and hopelessly addicted to the same man it has spent a decade ordering everyone else to ignore ever since the divorce.
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Keeping you posted on the astonishing legal battle in Missouri over a Republican +1 map. Late yesterday, SCOTUSblog reported, “Missouri congressional redistricting dispute returns to the Supreme Court.” Round two.
Yesterday I told the tale of two orders: Federal Chief Judge Stephen Clark had just opposed the Missouri Supreme Court, by issuing a TRO ordering the Secretary of State to do the exact opposite thing and use Republicans’ 2025 map— the same one voters just relied on in the primary.
Well, yesterday the other side appealed to the Eighth Circuit. It immediately lost, so it climbed the judicial ladder back to the Supreme Court, asking it to stay Judge Clark’s order, which would restore the 2022 map and give Democrats +1 House seat.
SCOTUS moved fast. “Kavanaugh has instructed Onder and Hoskins,” the article reported, “to respond by 10 a.m. EDT on Thursday.” Meaning, this morning. Justice Kavanaugh literally ordered overnight briefing. You cannot make this stuff up.
If Democrats really think the midterms are in the bag, as all the polling news keeps claiming, they sure are fighting hard for one single seat in Missouri. The stakes in the 2026 midterms are getting astronomically high.
🔥 Republicans are fighting just as hard. Yesterday, the GOP began its unprecedented midterm ‘convention’ in Dallas. The Wall Street Journal reported, “Five Takeaways From Day One of the Republican Convention.” President Trump spoke for nearly two hours. Try to imagine Biden speaking for two hours about anything without devolving into a long, incoherent story featuring cannibals, Corn Pop, and oil cancer. On second thought, don’t try that.
Trump’s speech was the classic inventory of his favorite subjects. He recognized Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated one year ago. He triggered corporate media by claiming to have won the 2020 election, and by suggesting that, if Republicans keep control of Congress, every adult American could get a “Trump dividend” of $5,000 each. Even though the amount is implausible (totaling well over $1 trillion), reporters raced to the wires to accuse the President of “buying votes.”
It was like reporters don’t think Democrats always promising more entitlements and higher minimum wages is vote-buying. But never mind.
Corporate media also fumed about Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), who appeared at the Republican convention (by video), to say, “I’m always going to reject the extremes in socialism and that anti-American way of life.” Ouch. The Journal devoted two full paragraphs to insulting Fetterman, mostly by calling him lazy, and then reported, “His video appearance only further angered Democrats and fueled speculation that he may switch parties.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke, warning that “The radical left is relentless in their pursuit to remake America in the image of every socialist hellscape of the last century.” I thought it was a neat turn of phrase. He pointed out, “Democrats brought this country to the brink of ruin” under Biden.
Keeping Congress is, admittedly, a tall order. The House almost always flips after a president’s first two years. Despite corporate media’s fake news propaganda, the regularity of the phenomenon proves it is not a referendum on a particular president. It happens to everybody, regardless of party or approval rating.
The truth is that midterm-Congress-flipping is more about turnout than anything else. Independents largely vanish from midterms, since they typically only vote in presidential elections. So it’s a battle between partisans, and the out-of-power party is usually more fired up. It’s that simple. It is literally all about turnout.
Republicans have a plan. “The midterms are not supposed to be won by the sitting president, but we’re going to change that,” President Trump promised. He pledged to campaign in 35 competitive House and Senate races all around the country. So we know that much. But vexingly, they haven’t told us the plan. (Nor should they.)
The convention is scheduled for two days, yesterday and today. President Trump will conclude the agenda tonight, along with Vice President JD Vance.
What corporate media either missed or intentionally ignored is that this convention isn’t about publishing a platform or confirming the party’s nominees, like normal conventions. This one is the launch party for the Republicans’ midterm strategy. So far, they’ve been sitting back and keeping their campaign powder dry. But now the GOP’s war chest is finally opening.
Ready or not, here it comes.
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Alert! Law enforcement officials need our help. Police in Chatham County, Georgia, are searching for a man who allegedly broke into somebody else’s backyard, swam in the pool, relaxed in the hot tub, became “obsessed” with a rubber duck, stole $1,200 worth of pool towels, and escaped on a bicycle. WTOC reported the developing crisis yesterday under the headline, “Police search for suspect seen on video using pool, hot tub and ‘intensely interacting’ with rubber duck in Chatham County.” Security photos ruled out Goldilocks.
The headline alone contained enough plot material to fuel Season One of a new Netflix series. It has breaking and entering, luxury recreation, forbidden passion, grand larceny, and a low-speed getaway. All it needs is Helen Mirren as the police chief and a troubled detective who drinks alone because years ago he trusted the wrong bath toy.
According to alert Chatham County police officers, surveillance cameras recorded the unidentified man frolicking on the Whitefield Avenue property for over three hours in the middle of the night between 2:15 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. The suspect didn’t just trespass; he enjoyed the full package. “It’s obviously not the biggest crime we’ve dealt with this month,” a CCPD statement said, “but it has a lot of ick-factor.” 😳
The short article provided a surprising amount of helpful detail. First, the unidentified intruder took a refreshing moonlight swim. Then he moved to the hot tub. Presumably he would have ordered room service, but the concierge was asleep and also did not know the home had become a luxury hotel.
At some point, police say, the man noticed a rubber duckie— and quickly became “infatuated” with it. Security video shows him spending more than ten minutes —and I am not making this up— “intensely interacting” with the duck. That is the official police description. Intensely.
“Intensely interacting” is the kind of official euphemism authorities deploy when everybody knows what happened but nobody at the press conference wants to be the first person to make eye contact. It safely covers a broad range of conduct, from a stern maritime interrogation to a torrid relationship that will require the duck to enter the Witness Protection Program.
The department added that it wants to find the mysterious intruder “so he doesn’t do this to someone else.” This is prudent police thinking. We can all agree the police should do everything in their power to safeguard the community from this kind of demonic transgression. But it does raise a few difficult jurisdictional grey areas: does “someone else” include other rubber ducks? And if so, have authorities alerted manufacturers? Which statute, precisely, prohibits such intense, rubberized interactions? The unauthorized romantic use of a bath toy?
If there isn’t a law, should there be?
🦆 Until the suspect is apprehended, Chatham residents are advised to bring all rubber ducks indoors after dark. Ducks should avoid isolated hot tubs. If approached by a stranger, they should remain calm, float toward a well-lit area, and squeak three times. Under no circumstances should they attempt to confront the suspect, especially since their feet are decorative and their wings have no practical range of motion.
I’m already running long, but one more detail is worth pausing over. $1,200 in pool towels? Towels he carried away on bicycle? Were they made of Apple stock certificates? For $1,200, a towel should dry you, apply sunscreen, validate parking, and contact your dermatologist about that thing on your shoulder. It should remember your birthday. It should whisper, “You were right about your sister,” while tenderly enveloping you in Egyptian cotton.
And I really hate to bring this up, but… Was the towel caper an inside job? I am not accusing the duck of anything. I am only asking. But it is curious that, after more than ten minutes of ‘intense interaction,’ the suspect suddenly knew exactly where to find twelve hundred dollars in towels. Follow the feathers.
The American Council for Rubber Duck Relations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WTOC assured readers that, and I quote, “The Chatham County Police Department is the lead investigative agency in this case.” This is important because until then it was unclear whether jurisdiction belonged to the FBI, the Coast Guard, Fish and Wildlife, or the NTSB’s Hot Tub Division. Interpol is monitoring the duck.
The police —again, I am not making this up— have asked anyone who recognizes the lovestruck intruder to call the police department right away. “Tipsters can also call Crime Stoppers at 912-234-2020,” the article encouraged, “where tips are anonymous and may qualify for a cash reward.”
A cash reward! Diligent Chatham police are leaving no towel unturned. Or unfolded. You get the idea.
Have a terrific Thursday! Ride back here tomorrow morning, for even more essential news (okay, maybe not always entirely essential) and extra-caffeinated commentary.
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For thirty years before he ran for office, Donald Trump quietly paid mortgages, flew sick children across the country, and wrote checks to strangers who needed help. You will not find those stories on the evening news. So here they are.
Start with what people who knew him before politics say. He has never had a drink. He has never smoked. He has never used drugs. He built his business on long hours, and the people who worked for him will tell you he outworked all of them. Nobody called him a bigot until the day he announced for president. That timing tells you something about the accusation.
Now to the record.
In 1986, a Georgia widow named Annabell Hill was about to lose the family farm at a foreclosure auction. Trump saw her story on the news, picked up the phone, called the auction, and stopped the sale. Then he sent her the money to keep the farm.
In 1988, an Orthodox Jewish family in Los Angeles had a three-year-old son named Andrew Ten who needed treatment in New York. The boy could not survive without a full life-support setup, and no airline would carry it. His father asked Trump for help. Trump put the family on his own jet and got them there.
In 1991, two hundred Marines came home from Desert Storm to Camp Lejeune and found out the military had no aircraft to fly them the rest of the way to Florida. Trump's airline, the Trump Shuttle, made two runs between North Carolina and Miami and got every one of them back to their families.
In 1995, a passing driver in New Jersey pulled over to help change a flat on Trump's limo. Trump asked what he could do in return. The man only wanted flowers sent to his wife. A few weeks later, the story goes, the flowers came with a note saying the couple's mortgage had been paid off. People have been repeating that one for three decades.
In 1996, Trump sued the town of Palm Beach, Florida. The town had been leaning on his Mar-a-Lago club for one reason. He let in Jewish members and Black members, and the older clubs did not. Abraham Foxman, who ran the Anti-Defamation League at the time, said Trump shined a light on the ugly side of Palm Beach that the glitter usually hid. Foxman also said other clubs started admitting Jews and Blacks after Trump forced the issue.
In 2000, Trump was watching Maury Povich and saw a little girl named Megan who lived with brittle bone disease. He said her attitude got to him. He called the show and sent her family a large check.
In 2008, Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew were murdered in Chicago. Trump moved Hudson and her family into his Chicago hotel at no charge and had his security team watch over them while they grieved.
In 2013, a Buffalo bus driver named Darnell Barton saw a woman standing at the edge of a bridge. He stopped the bus, walked over, put an arm around her, and talked her back to safety. Trump read about it and mailed Barton a check, because he thought a man like that deserved a reward.
In 2014, Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi spent seven months in a Mexican prison after he took a wrong turn at the border with legally owned guns in his truck. President Obama never placed the call to Mexico that the sergeant's family begged for. Trump sent Tahmooressi a check for $25,000 to help him rebuild his life once he got home.
In 2016, Melissa Young stood at a Trump rally in Wisconsin and cried while she thanked him. She had competed as Miss Wisconsin USA in 2005, then got sick with an illness that has no cure. During her worst stretch, a handwritten note arrived from Trump calling her the bravest woman he knew. She said the doors Trump opened for her ended up giving her Mexican-American son a full ride to college.
That same year, Lynne Patton, a Black executive at the Trump Organization, put out a video answering the people calling her boss a racist. She admitted she had fought addiction for years. She said the Trump family never pushed her out. They stood by her the whole way.
Also in 2016, a young Illinois volunteer named Shane Bouvet told reporters that Trump had stepped in to cover his father's cancer treatment. His father, Donald Bouvet, beat the cancer. Trump has stayed in touch with the family ever since.
And there is a story that has floated around New York business circles for years. A Black business owner could not get a loan anywhere in the city. Someone told him to go see Trump. Trump lent him the money and told him to pay it back when he could. The man came back later with a check and said the business was doing well. Trump tore the check up.
Read that list again and notice who is on it.
A farm widow.
A Jewish family.
Marines.
A bus driver.
A jailed serviceman.
A sick beauty queen and her Mexican-American son. A grieving Black singer.
A struggling Black executive.
When Trump saw someone in trouble, he helped, and he did not check their race or their religion first.
Nearly forty years ago, Oprah asked him on air if he would ever run for president. He told her he would not rule it out if things in this country ever got bad enough. He looked at America in 2015 and decided that day had come. The man who spent decades helping people one at a time decided to help the whole country.
Ask yourself when you last heard of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama doing any of this with their own money. Then ask yourself why the media, Hollywood, and the progressive left have spent ten years trying to destroy a man with this record. He loves this country. The record shows it. Share this so your friends see what the news will not show them.
Charlie Kirk was a martyr for his faith. Miss him.