The browsers start surfing 'bout this time o' year, I'm clickin' round back, she said she'd tab me there ...
MSNOW's Symone Sanders tries to help Angie Nixon spin that she joined the DSA — and fails terribly.
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 20, 2026
Sanders: Wasn't joining the DSA more about organizing capacity, and less about issues? They're calling you a socialist.
Nixon: No, it's actually about the issues.
Hilarious. pic.twitter.com/ANXmIYyYXb
Ed: There is no way to casually join the DSA. The only reason to adopt that flex, especially for those in electoral politics, is to embrace the agenda and fully commit to it. Axios tries to help Nixon out, though ...
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Axios: Immediately after her shocking upset in Florida's Democratic Senate primary, state Rep. Angie Nixon made clear she isn't really a socialist — even though she'd just joined the Democratic Socialists of America.
Why it matters: Nixon's win is being cast as a DSA victory, but the organization neither endorsed her nor saw it coming. She ran as a big-tent leftist, linking progressive movements and party institutions in unlikely alliances.
"I don't campaign as a member of any organization," she told Axios, echoing comments she made to MSNOW and CBS. "I don't believe in labels."
Nixon said she joined the DSA because she supports its fights over housing, public education, corporate power and — above all — Medicare for All.
Ed: This is nonsense. She could have supported all of those positions without explicitly becoming a DSA member. Nixon chose the latter for a reason. The Protection Racket Media will tie itself into knots to help Nixon dodge the implications of that choice, but not even Nixon is all that interested in the dodge.
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🚨 BREAKING: ActBlue cofounder Matt DeBergalis just PANICKED and PLEADED THE 5TH in a closed-door deposition with House committee investigators — Fox News
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 20, 2026
This comes after ActBlue is accused of allowing FOREIGN DONATIONS that INFILTRATE US politics for Democrats, without proper… pic.twitter.com/YJihal7YTK
Ed: It sure looks like ActBlue officers are very worried about self-incrimination. We cannot find guilt in a legal sense based on this blizzard of Fifths. We can, however, assume that ActBlue has something to hide as a political matter.
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David Manney at PJ Media: Pleading the Fifth doesn't make DeBergalis guilty of anything. The Constitution protects him, and conservatives should defend that protection even when the person invoking it works for the other side.
But good grief, look at the pattern.
Before DeBergalis appeared, five current or former ActBlue employees had already invoked the Fifth Amendment 146 times during congressional depositions. ...
ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones repeatedly invoked it during a public House hearing in June. Congressional investigators also identified at least 22 significant fraud campaigns detected inside ActBlue's system. Nine had what investigators described as a foreign nexus.
My spidey sense isn't tingling anymore: it's banging pots together in the kitchen.
Ed: Indeed. We need to see the results from state-level investigations in Texas and Missouri into ActBlue operations, and the DoJ needs to provide a robust follow-up to Congress' probes.
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Duchess of Sussex in talks to return to acting with role in Netflix series The Gentlemen, BBC understands https://t.co/IcUpatNWw9
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) August 21, 2026
Ed: The grift goes on ... the grift goes on ...
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Politico: President Donald Trump’s super PAC continued to sit on its $400 million war chest in July, according to new spending figures, refusing to open the coffers to boost Republican candidates.
The MAGA Inc. super PAC didn’t even spend in Texas, where GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton is essentially in a dead heat with Democrat James Talarico and where Republican donors say Trump bears the responsibility to finance the campaign needed to keep the state from flipping. ...
The MAGA Inc. super PAC added over $3 million in cash on hand since the beginning of July, increasing the war chest to over $403 million, according to FEC figures released late Thursday. The PAC didn’t spend on behalf of any candidates last month, continuing a trend from June.
Nor has the super PAC spent any money on independent expenditures, the primary way it can support candidates, in the weeks since. Outside spending is reported to the FEC in close to real time, and MAGA Inc. has not made any this year except for $18,000 on text messages in March for a Georgia special election.
Ed: The reason is fairly obvious; they're keeping their powder dry for when voters start investing in the general election after Labor Day. Paxton is almost certainly not in a dead heat with Talarico either; if that were true, Talarico would not be spending $25 million in an effort to convince black voters to support him. When the time comes, MAGA Inc will spend heavily on Paxton. In fact, the effort will get kick-started next week ...
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President Trump will headline an Aug. 27 fundraiser for Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton in Houston, a source confirmed to ABC News. https://t.co/xbIiFj2D0L
— ABC News (@ABC) August 19, 2026
Ed: Maybe Politico missed this announcement. Or ignored it. And MAGA Inc isn't the only available source ...
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NY Post: Elon Musk is likely to shell out nine-figure sums to help Republicans fend off Democrats in this year’s midterm elections — particularly in Texas, where GOP Senate hopeful Ken Paxton faces a massive fundraising disadvantage.
Officials briefed on the matter told Wired that Musk is expected to spend between $100 million and $200 million to boost Republicans, though the precise amount could change.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss is expected to focus his political war chest on voter turnout in competitive races, with the closely watched Texas contest between Paxton and Democrat James Talarico among the potential beneficiaries.
Ed: Musk is heavily invested in Texas, with both SpaceX and Tesla now run from the state. Also, Talarico's burn rate is already mind-boggling; he's raised $68 million so far but only has $21.5 million cash on hand, and still hasn't convinced black Democrats to turn out.
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You guys are disgusting. You know her father killed himself in 2020, right? She survived bone cancer? Doesn't matter to you. You have a taste of blood and you'er running with it. https://t.co/ULMSQ3Qlsa
— Sasha Stone (@realsashastone) August 21, 2026
Ed: 'Disgusting' is correct. Duane and I discussed this on our Week in Review, too. Meanwhile, the media averts its eyes from this ...
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Joe Rubin at The Free Press: I had just joined the Sanders campaign as his Jewish outreach director, and I was excited about the opportunity. I’d long resonated with Sanders’s progressive positions on healthcare, the economy, and social issues as well as his support for American diplomacy abroad. And I was hopeful that I could help elect the first Jewish president in American history.
The reason I was hired was clear to me. The campaign understood that Jews—who have long voted overwhelmingly for Democrats—were an important constituency for Sanders, and they worried that anti-Zionist voices in his coalition would jeopardize his Jewish support.
But very quickly after joining, I realized there had been a profound misunderstanding on the part of the campaign team: Many of the activists trying to get Sanders elected—and who the campaign depended on—were not looking for a candidate who supported Israel’s existence. That I did was a letdown for them, but one that they had to swallow.
At the time, I assumed these were outliers—a vocal fringe the campaign would eventually outgrow. But I was wrong. They were a sign of where the campaign, and the Democratic Party as a whole, was rapidly heading: toward a status quo in which the price of belonging to the party is to explicitly distance yourself from Israel, denounce the mainstream Jewish institutions that support the Jewish state, and accept the premise that Zionism itself is incompatible with progressive politics.
I saw all of this unfold firsthand. It’s why I’m speaking out now about what’s going on inside the party to which I’ve dedicated my entire career. And I’m not alone.
Ed: How many of the tabloid-eque outlets that are publishing smears and innuendo about Harp have even covered the full-on march by Democrats to anti-Semitism? Read this all and bookmark it.
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Dept of Ed says it took the ABA—the sole law school accreditor—nearly 2 yrs to suspend its diversity rule, which it knew violated SFFA. The ABA emboldens schools like Duke Law, which we found in violation of Title VI b/c of illegal race-based admissions. The gatekeeping must end!
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) August 21, 2026
Ed: They had their opportunity to avoid the culture war and stop discriminatory conduct. Looks like the clock just ran out ...
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WSJ: On Friday, the Education Department is taking the first step toward removing the ABA’s authority to accredit law schools, said David Barker, assistant secretary of education.
The action escalates the Trump administration’s long-running feud with the nation’s premier legal organization, which it has accused of promoting a progressive agenda, including pushing law schools to adopt diversity, equity and inclusion policies. ...
The recommendation to reject the ABA is accompanied by a nearly 500-page Education Department report, more than a year in the making. It asserts that the ABA’s accreditation wing isn’t sufficiently independent of its profession. That independence is designed to ensure the accreditor focuses on education quality.
“We have said many times that accreditation, in general, operates like a cartel,” Barker said. “When there’s no competition, accreditors feel free to inject their own political preferences, their own ideologies into the work that they do.”
Ed: Good. The ABA is far too partisan and political these days to act as an independent accreditor. This is another step in reforming Academia and the law profession.
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There’s still a long way to go before law schools return to their core mission of teaching future lawyers to uphold the rule of law, but the ABA isn’t helpful in that reform effort. Opening up accreditation is a solid step forward. Read the whole thing:https://t.co/lmgcHQt1X8
— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) August 21, 2026
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Free Beacon: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the anti-Israel group whose leader said he was "happy" about October 7, is quietly funding left-wing Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's Senate bid in Michigan. That financial support comes after El-Sayed made demonization of the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) a central pillar of his primary campaign against Michigan congresswoman Haley Stevens, maligning the American group's support as foreign meddling in the election.
The Unity & Justice Fund, which CAIR launched in 2024 as part of its effort "to elevate the political influence of the Muslim community" in the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, gave $175,000 on July 21 to Fighting for Michigan PAC, which was formed to back El-Sayed's Senate bid, according to campaign finance records released Thursday.
Fighting for Michigan, which calls itself a "coalition of progressive, labor, veterans, and advocacy organizations working to elect" El-Sayed," has emerged as the largest outside group supporting the far-left Democrat, spending nearly $3 million to date on digital ads and polls in support of El-Sayed.
Ed: Let's not forget that CAIR has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas and was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-funding prosecution. You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses ...
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Free messaging tip: instead of saying data center opponents are Chinese dupes, scare them with horror stories about how their Netflix streams will degrade to 480p or, gasp, occasionally crash entirely if we don’t have capacity. Americans will not stand for mild inconvenience.
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) August 21, 2026
Ed: I'm more amazed than I should be at the inability of people to connect data centers to their own data use, especially as AI becomes more integrated into core operations in computers, tablets, and smartphones. Unless we're willing to go the Full Luddite (or Full Dune, IYKYK), what are we even doing here with this online social panic?
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Last night's lyric: "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)" by Motley Crüe. I think you all know the inspiration for that choice.
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