MATT TAIBBI: Campaign 2024: Officially Chaos.

At this stage of the cycle three elections ago, on August 1, 2011, President Barack Obama signed a controversial debt deal and headed back on the trail, starting with a pair of birthday fundraisers in Chicago. Meanwhile, Michelle Bachmann left the stump in Iowa to return to Washington and vote against Obama’s deal, saying it “spends too much and doesn’t cut enough.” This was considered campaign excitement once. Boring is too mild a word for those mechanized non-dramas of yore.

A dozen years later, the campaign is pure chaos, Pompeii after the blast. In the annals of presidential races we haven’t experienced many days like yesterday, July 31, which ended with the futures of all major candidates appearing hopelessly clouded. Forget the national debt; there are now not-improbable scenarios in which the main issues in next year’s debates, which could easily involve both nominees in ankle monitors, are nuclear fallout and alien visitation. Our leaders, who once had the election process reduced to scripts more predictable than Everybody Loves Raymond, now seem to have no clue what will happen beyond the next few minutes.

If not for the fact that the disintegration of American society might be imminent as a result, I’d be laughing harder. It might be funny anyway. Consider: the establishment plan for the Republican Party this cycle was clearly Ron DeSantis, but a New York Times/Siena poll published yesterday shows he’s plunging like a stone, falling to 17%, a.k.a. 37 points behind Donald Trump. . . .

The cognoscenti never figured out or accepted that the support for protest candidates like Trump or Bernie Sanders even is rooted in wide generalized rage directed their way. To this day they don’t accept it. They keep thinking they can wish it away, describe it away (see Bump’s description of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as “not at this point serious competition”), indict it away. If you drop 76 charges on a candidate and he goes up in polls, you might want to consider that you might be part of the problem. But they can’t take even that heavy a hint.

They’re emotionally incapable of accepting the truth that they’re awful.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Biden Makes Things Up To 7th Grandchild By Appointing Her Head Of Ukrainian Shell Company.

OF COURSE IT DID: Ninth Circuit rules Calif. community college suppressed conservative students’ protected speech.

BLUFF CALLED: Newsom Team Appears Agitated That DeSantis Accepted Debate Challenge.

TEXAS A&M HAS UNDERPERFORMED MY EXPECTATIONS LATELY: Texas A&M president resigns amid fallout over woke journo prof hiring debacle: Professor Kathleen McElroy said in a 2021 interview that journalists ‘can’t just give people a set of facts anymore’ and should disregard ‘illegitimate’ perspectives.

THE YEAR OF LIVING DISSIPATEDLY: Let’s commemorate Joe Biden’s 365th day of vacation.

PAUL BEDARD: White House Report Card: Even on vacation, crushing American traditions.

ROBERT GRABOYES: Bambi Meets Godzilla, Part Deux: Ideology and Academic Navel-Gazing Redefine “Greatest Film of All Time.”

AFTERMATH OF THE ANNUS HORRIBILIS: Does Trump’s Shutdown Decision Disqualify a Future Presidency?

Let’s be brutally clear. Hoover’s well-intended but wrongheaded [Smoot-Hawley] policy caused the Great Depression, and we know how that all went. Equally true, Trump’s well-intended but wrongheaded policy caused untold pain, suffering, and misery, not to mention bankruptcies, foreclosures, suicides, and premature deaths. It also wiped out a crucial block of irreplaceable time for in-person instruction for tens of millions of American kids, the full ramifications of which we’ll not sustain for about a decade.

Trump has disqualified himself from ever being elected president again simply by virtue of that single, solitary decision while in office. And this I believe in the marrow of my bones.

Flashback: Trump was apoplectic when Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp reopened his state in late April of 2020.

IT’S A SCANDAL, BUT AT LEAST IT DOESN’T INVOLVE PEDERASTY: Generational Wealth: Lincoln Project Hires Cofounder’s Son.

#RESIST: The Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising Is a Stark Reminder to Be Brave in the Face of Tyranny.

READER FAVORITE: Black Table Lamp for Bedroom Nightstand – 3 Way Dimmable. #CommissionEarned

ARNOLD KLING: Bumper Bowling into Adulthood: A culture that prefers security to freedom.

J.D. VANCE CONFOUNDS EXPECTATIONS:

When J.D. Vance walked into the surgical technology class at Great Oaks Career Campuses, the vo-tech students were steeling themselves for final exams. Yet it turned out to be perfect timing. Vance was only planning to observe the class, but when he noticed that one of the students was anxious about having her blood drawn by her classmate, the Republican senator of Ohio casually removed his suit jacket and offered to take her place. When no objection from the teacher or students materialized, he sat down, rolled up his sleeves, and smiled.

To the clearly nervous student about to stick a needle in his arm, Vance said quietly, “Don’t be nervous. If you have to do it again, it’s fine with me. I am here for you until you get it right.”

The student got it done on the first jab.

The instructor looked at Vance with a broad smile. “Well, that wasn’t something I expected I’d see from you today.”

Confounding expectations is turning into something of a habit for Vance.

I knew him before he was a national figure and I’m not surprised.

GOODER AND HARDER, L.A.: The Los Angeles Humanitarian Crisis Right Before Your Eyes.

How could 6,000 shelter beds be unoccupied in Los Angeles County? It’s a number, reported in LAist in July, that makes no sense given the miles of homeless encampments that occupy area streets and sidewalks.

Looking for an answer, I talked to Dave — a formerly homeless man who asked me not to reveal his last name. Dave told me how he ended up unhoused in the 1990s and then worked his way into a good job and a steady roof over this head.

He believes that homeless individuals who live on the street choose to do so, because when he didn’t have a roof, he chose to spend the night in missions with rules, not on streets without them.

Flashback: Marvin Olasky on C-Span’s Booknotes discussing The Tragedy of American Compassion.

PROGRESS! White House Says Bidenomics So Successful The Average American Has Twice As Many Jobs As They Had Two Years Ago.

OPEN THREAD: Party on, dudes.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: New ISS experiment will help develop air conditioning for future space habitats.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

YOU MEAN THE NAZI/ALIEN BASE? The Mystery of What’s Inside The Moon Is Still Puzzling Scientists.

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Lockdowns and Liquor: Surge in Severe, Alcohol-Related Liver Injury During COVID Pandemic.

WELL, GOOD: Common blood thinner may double as cancer therapy.

EX-NFL LINEBACKER DISMISSES COLIN KAEPERNICK’S LATEST COMEBACK ATTEMPT: “‘The senior prom was like 6 years ago, bro! It’s over!’ [Terence Garvin] said. ‘It’s over, bro. You still trying to be the prom queen. It’s a wrap. You took that money.  He pop up this time every year. We know you can throw the ball, bro.’ Kaepernick’s throwing showcase appeared to be a part of a Nike ad. Harris and his other NFL colleagues who were in the video and endorsed Kaepernick were all Nike athletes.”

NIGER’S JUNTA RULERS ASK FOR HELP FROM RUSSIAN GROUP WAGNER AS IT FACES MILITARY INTERVENTION THREAT. “Niger has been seen as the West’s last reliable counterterrorism partner in a region where coups have been common in recent years. Juntas have rejected former colonizer France and turning toward Russia. Wagner operates in a handful of African countries, including Mali, where human rights groups have accused its forces of deadly abuses.”

“I’D CURE IT SOON: ABOLISH MONDAY MORNINGS, AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.” Workers are less productive and make more typos in the afternoon — especially on Fridays.

STACY MCCAIN: Everybody Keeps Indicting Trump, Without Regard for Consequences.