08/18/25
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, August 19th.
National Soft Ice Cream Day
Oh it’s also Bill Clinton’s birthday
Man, Joe Biden really missed the mark with his birthday, huh?
And now, the news.
Zelensky in America
Starting with--
Actually, starting with a disclaimer – I’m in a mood. A little because of the news, a little because of having a life outside of the news (shocking, I know) but disclaimer, I’m in a mood and it’s gonna come out a little bit here and a lot bit in another story.
Okay, back to it – starting with Ukraine’s President Zelensky. On Monday, Trump, Zelensky, and an amuse Bushe of European leaders met at the White House, following Trump’s failed meeting on Friday with Putting.
Trump said he called Putin and arranged a meeting between Zelensky and Putin, which will take place at a TBD time and place.
Following Trump’s meeting with Putin, and ahead of this Monday meeting, Trump suggested that maybe Ukraine just wouldn’t get Crimea back. Crimea is, as you may recall, literally part of Ukraine. It’s a part of their country. It’s not a part of Russia. Someone breaking into your home and sitting on your couch while holding a gun to your head for a while doesn’t mean they suddenly own your house.
The biggest takeaway from Monday is that there does seem to be a unity between Trump and NATO, and Trump and Zelensky. A marked change from his last visit, where Zelensky was lectured on his wardrobe before Trump yelled at him about how he didn’t have the cards.
Oh no wait the biggest news is that Zelensky wore a suit.
Mail-In Voting
-via NPR and Huffington Post
And then there’s this… this is where my whole mood is gonna come out. Honestly, I think this is where it comes from. On Monday, Donald Trump, before going into his meeting, took to his ironically named Truth Social to say that he plans to “lead a movement” to get rid of mail-in voting and voting machines ahead of the midterms.
This includes an executive order.
First of all… first of all I gotta calm down.
First of all, Congress controls national election laws, not the president. Your executive order is presidential fan fiction with a very interesting scribble that vaguely resembles your name.
Eight states, plus DC, are full vote-by-mail states. Logistically, you can’t even get those states online for in-person voting in time for the 2028 election, let alone the midterms.
Honestly, logistically, you can’t prepare states for the influx of in-person voting for 2026 nearly anywhere.
This hurts voters everywhere.
Which of course, is all they want. They don’t want honest elections. They’re pretending like they do, by pretending like they’re trying to safeguard the elections. But mail-in ballots are safe. I went to the Heritage Foundation’s website for you, that’s how much I care. This is a conservative think tank, so understand that all of these numbers are geared to make you very scared of voting in general. Ghost and hanging chads around every corner. They pour money into making sure that this country understands what a terrible horrible threat fraud by voters is.
…. 32 cases.
They track fraud by voters in every state, going back to 1982.
32.
Notably, among the six political parties noted, five were Republican and one was a Democrat.
This is not about protecting the vote. Period.
There are a lot of things that can be done to protect voters and democracy. I’ve got a whole list, trust me, I think about it a lot. I do a news podcast for fun, I don’t have a lot of hobbies but thinking about how we can fix and secure voting is like… how I relax.
Nothing this administration does has ever gotten close to that, even on accident.
It will not pass, but they don’t care. They just want people to start thinking… I don’t know. Maybe they’re right. Maybe that vote-by-mail stuff is really bad. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing it. Maybe if someone wins, that win shouldn’t count.
Literally on Monday the man “joked” with Zelensky about how Ukraine has it in the Constitution that they can’t hold elections during wars and said, “So let me just say, 3 1/2 years from now, so, you mean if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections.”
Donald Trump – known for his comedy. Can’t get the man away from a mic at Flappers on a Tuesday.
We are going to continue to hold elections because that’s what a democracy does. But they are going to try and stop us at every single turn, because that is what dictators do.
Lock in.
And again, I must end with this… he did insurrection. He doesn’t get to talk about honesty and integrity and he certainly doesn’t get to put his grub hands in our elections.
And you can tell by the calm tone of my voice how genuinely mad I am.
I’ve passed all the other stages of anger, and found the scariest anger of all… the calm anger.
You did insurrection, you don’t get to touch our elections. For you are an insurrectionist.
Fraud by voters has never changed the outcome of an election ever, in the history of an election.
And if he was so worried about voting by mail… he probably should stop doing it himself.
Trump votes by mail.
Nicole Collier
-via NBC News
And just a quick heads up… no need to panic, but Texas House Republicans have sort of, kind of, locked a House Dem in chambers. Kind of.
As a reminder, many Texas state House Dems came home over the weekend.
Republican leaders told Nicole Collier, who represents Fort Worth, and others that they couldn’t leave the chamber on Monday until they agreed to specific conditions because they had those arrest warrants out for them, after they left the state to save democracy.
One of those conditions was “Members who have not been present until today, for whom arrest warrants were issued, will be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated officer appointment under the rules of the house.” And then that officer would “ensure your return Wednesday at 10 a.m.”
So basically, the Republicans are demanding the Dems sign a permission slip to leave the House chambers.
Collier is refusing to sign the paper, and so she will stay in chambers until Wednesday.
Now, it is her choice to not sign the paper.
She could sign and leave.
But House Republicans are the ones being weird here. She’s grown. She has free will. Imagine if you didn’t show up at work, and then you came back to work and your co-worker (not even your boss!) was like – dude. You gotta sign this paper before you leave that says someone will pick you up before your next shift.
That’s what’s happening here.
It’s weird, it’s also… I mean, they’ve also kind of trapped a woman in the House chambers. A grown adult.
That’s where we’re at right now. Supremely not great.
And that’s in. That’s the news.
This voting stuff has me all in a mood.
But not you! You’d never have me in a mood. And also because you’d never trap me in the Texas house chambers… I’m proud of you.