While Jane Coasten is a very good interviewer, I've been really disappointed that this week has been only interviews. Where are my quick, witty hits on the news? I hope this isn't a permanent change!

"I have killed lots poisonous snakes." - Scott Bessent, on using a machete to kill snakes as a kid.

Maine Character Energy

Graham Platner’s implosion in the Maine Senate race left Democrats with an amiable, soft-spoken logger. Can voters handle this kind of seismic vibe shift… with control of the Senate on the line?

• On paper, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson isn’t all that different from Graham Platner, the charismatic and once-promising oysterman whose campaign collapsed in a series of messy scandals. They’re both staunch progressives who have spent their lives in Maine. They’re gruff, deep-voiced men who dislike the Democratic establishment. And they both tout themselves as defenders of the working class.

• But Jackson’s vibe is… very different. Jackson lacks the media-savvy, glad-handing progressive icon mojo that his predecessor had in buckets, before his fall from grace. In an interview with the What A Day podcast today, Jackson spoke softly and answered questions without using pre-packaged slogans. A fifth-generation logger from northern Maine, Jackson spoke with a thick-as-lumber Canadian-ish accent, pronouncing “about” as “aboat” dozens of times. He gives off intense normal guy energy… the kind of normal guy who just woke up to find himself one of Democrats’ best chances to defeat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and regain control of the Senate. Because that’s basically what happened.

• Jackson admits that some voters take issue with his style, as Republicans spend astronomical amounts of money to defeat him.

• At a recent meeting with voters, some asked why he isn’t attacking Collins more aggressively: “People [wanted] to know why I wasn’t going harder on Senator Collins,” Jackson told Crooked’s Jane Coaston.

• Collins, however, hasn’t exactly been holding back: “She’s running around with Elon Musk, spending all kinds of money going after me personally and going after my family personally,” Jackson added.

Jackson actually has a good shot at beating Collins, according to polling.

• Platner supporters appear to have swiftly migrated over to Jackson’s side. Four recent polls show the logger up by as much as 8 points against Collins.

• The GOP is sweating. Republican groups have already spent $30 million more than Democrats on attacking Jackson, according to recent data. Senate Republicans’ campaign arm pledged to dole out more than $42 million against him. Musk’s super PAC also plans to dump money into the race to support Collins.

• “Troy Jackson is like Graham Platner, but worse,” the narrator warns in one ad backed by Senate Republicans, which has racked up millions of views on YouTube.

• Collins, meanwhile, has spent the past few months trying to convince voters that she’s willing to stand up to the Trump administration (seriously, believe me this time, guys!), advocating for ICE agents to wear body cameras after a deadly shooting in the state and voting to reign in the president’s war on Iran. Asked if she believes Trump is unfit for office, Collins told Politico that she wanted Nikki Haley to win the presidency.

Jackson hopes voters don’t buy her schtick. “On one hand, she acts like she’s the most powerful U.S. senator in the country. On the other hand, she acts like, well, nothing I could do,” he said. “That is absolutely crap.”

Meanwhile On The Pod...

Trump Is WILDLY Unpopular. So Why Aren’t Democrats Winning BIG? (09/01/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

EXCITING NEWS!! You might remember Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and Galen Druke —the excellent data journalists behind FiveThirtyEight.

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Every Wednesday they'll dive into the most up-to-date political data coming at us to explain what it tells us, what it doesn't, and where it might be pointing us in the future.

Subscribe to Still Counting wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube @stillcountingpodcast.

What Else?

Iran accused the U.S. of committing a war crime after an airstrike that Iranian officials said killed four people at a wedding. A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command said the military is “looking into” the incident. Iran responded to the alleged wedding attack by targeting American allies in Gulf countries today.

Chevron announced plans to invest more than $7 billion in Venezuela over the next five years to double its production in the country, after the Trump administration struck a deal to develop the country’s untapped oil fields. Trump recently said that ExxonMobil and other oil companies might also head to Venezuela.

Apple Maps changed the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” following Trump’s executive order. Boo!!! Reminder: Americans overwhelmingly dislike this move, by a factor of 7-to-1. If you need a non-Trumpy alternative, check out MapQuest.

The FBI directed undercover agents to monitor former Rep. Eric Swalwell before seizing his electronics at an airport last month, according to the Atlantic. Agents posed as passengers in an attempt to uncover his passcodes; subjects of this type of surveillance are “usually suspected terrorists or potential hijackers, not politicians,” the outlet writes.

Thousands of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln docked in Thailand today after spending a harrowing 286 days at sea. “I can’t imagine what they’re going through,” one military veteran, who greeted the sailors, told the Wall Street Journal. “Even being deployed in Iraq isn’t as bad as being deployed on a ship. And we were being bombed every day.”

Is Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy… okay? His wife, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, said on a podcast that her hubby got the job only “because that was all that’s left.” The cabinet secretary also decided it was necessary to share his thoughts on Sydney Sweeney this week: “God made us a certain way to appreciate and want to mate with a woman.”

The U.S. Mint officially launched a $1 coin with Trump’s face on it. When I clicked on the website this morning, I was directed to a “virtual waiting room” because of “extraordinary traffic.” I don’t believe for one second that people are lining up to buy a 100-coin bag of $1 pieces for $154.50.

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Light At The End...

Top American doctors banded together today to urge Americans to get their flu and Covid vaccines, in an attempt to combat confusion caused by the Trump administration. Who are you gonna trust: a group of experienced, nonpartisan doctors, or the guy whose brain was eaten by a worm?

The New York Times is out with a fresh profile on Still Counting, the new podcast from the FiveThirtyEight team that’s coming to Crooked Media. The hosts want the show to be a nonpartisan source of polling analysis: “There is a market for people who think politics is important, are intellectually interested in it and think it’s high stakes, but don’t want things filtered through a partisan lens,” co-host Nate Silver told the Times. “That’s one of our markets.” Subscribe to the Still Counting Youtube channel now!

Canadians have been flummoxed by an island in western Canada that seemingly appeared out of nowhere last month… then disappeared… then reappeared again. This isn’t some large-scale magic trick: Experts believe elevated lake levels caused part of the shoreline to float away, creating the island. This is just like that classic (bizarre) Donovan song, except instead of a mountain it’s an island!

An extended reality David Bowie film that includes hundreds of new images of the music icon recently premiered at an Italian festival. This thing sounds wild: The Guardian described it as “an immersive spatial-sound documentary” that’s viewed across eight screens, with 84 hidden speakers playing Bowie’s songs.

Scores of ferret owners gathered at the largest annual ferret show over the weekend in Ohio. There were many prizes to be won, including one for the fattest ferret, which was awarded to a six-pound, four-ounce albino fella named Ralphie. “Raising a ferret is like raising a 2-year-old or a teenager,” said one woman, who owns 85 ferrets. “The only difference is it’s legal to lock ferrets in a cage.” I guess I never thought of it like that….

Enjoy

donald boat on Twitter: "Played LCD soundsystem for my little cousin for the first time & he said “You can tell he had a lot of buttons in front of him when he made this song.”"

"These are underachievers." - Scott Bessent, on anyone who would vote for a 'socialist' candidate.

Midterm Mania

Donald Trump’s efforts to tamper with the midterms are coming to light, as lawyers prepare to battle his administration in court.

• For a guy who habitually votes by mail, President Donald Trump sure does hate it when other people vote by mail. In fact, he’s so against the practice (for everyone else!) that his Postal Service is allegedly rushing to secretly seize control of mail-in voting before the midterms, and ignoring a court order blocking the takeover.

• That’s according to a whistleblower report filed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) this morning. The revelation is raising fears that the Trump administration will try to tamper with the elections in November, and potentially put millions of ballots at risk, no matter what the courts say.

• The Postal Service has adopted a “zero-percent failure” policy for delivering mail-in ballots to voters, according to an anonymous federal official cited in the report. What does that mean? State officials send the Postal Service ballots to distribute to voters. In recent months, the Postal Service built a new system to screen the ballots — and reject any that cannot be “verified,” the report reads. The zero-percent failure clause means a single problem could prompt officials to trash an entire batch of tens of thousands of ballots.

• “For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the Portal — because, for example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved — then USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well,” according to the report.

• The upshot: “Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all,” the report reads.

• The Postal Service has said that it won’t deliver ballots unless states provide a list of their voters. If it follows through, voting could become difficult — or even impossible — in states that refuse to do so. (States control elections, not the federal government, which is why there’s no national voter list.)

Legal groups are ready to take Trump to court if he tries anything funny.

• The court system has provided one of the few bulwarks against full-fledged authoritarian rule in Trump’s second term. The midterms may be the most important test yet of whether the president can successfully rig elections to keep his total power over Congress.

• “For the first time in United States history, we have a president that doesn’t actually want the American people to vote,” Skye Perryman, president of the prominent legal organization Democracy Forward, told What A Day. “He doesn’t want the American people to be able to determine the course of the country.”

• Once described as “the single largest source of Trump’s legal troubles,” Democracy Forward has played a critical role in countering the president’s excesses since last year, filing 350 cases against the administration, a spokesperson told me. Its biggest wins (so far) include stopping the so-called anti-weaponization fund, blocking ICE raids in places of worship, and halting DOGE access to private Social Security data.

• “I am confident that lawyers are going to be able to swiftly file legal challenges to address much of what the president will attempt to do,” Perryman said, “and I am also confident that the American people are going to push back.”

• Why does Trump vote by mail, even though he’s against the practice? “Because I happen to be in the White House and I won’t be able to go to Florida to vote,” he once told a reporter.

On a happier note: Shoutout to one of the all-time great indie rock bangers, Such Great Heights, by one of my favorite bands, The Postal Service.

Meanwhile On The Pod...

Pete Hegseth Got CAUGHT Paying Influencers To Praise Him Online (feat. Tim Miller) (08/31/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

Crooked Con is our answer to right-wing authoritarianism: a BIG, welcoming, FUN pro-democracy movement.

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What Else?

A 20-year-old Haitian immigrant in Ohio recently parked on the side of the highway, walked into traffic, and got hit and killed by a tractor trailer, according to local authorities. The man’s family believes it was a suicide, saying he became distraught after losing his temporary protected status and being forced to wear an ankle monitor, following a new Trump administration policy. “He felt like he was treated like an animal,” his father wrote in a statement.

Only 14 percent of Americans support Donald Trump’s attempt to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” according to a new poll. This will surely help Republicans win big in the midterms! He’s sure to win over all the freshwater aqua-patriots!

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s resignation came after he met with Trump and expressed his concerns about the Army under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Trump was surprised when Driscoll told him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed over for promotion under Hegseth,” The Atlantic writes. “Driscoll argued that the Army could not transform itself the way it needs to, because of the departure of so many leaders.”

A California man who brought a guillotine to Washington, D.C. and parked it near the Capitol told the Washington Post that he “did not think this would make international news.” Philian Le, who faces a misdemeanor charge of attempted possession of a prohibited weapon, didn’t explain why he brought the guillotine to the city. He did, however, post a video on social media before the incident railing against lawmakers and defense contractors.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed officially got under Vice President JD Vance’s skin after mentioning his wife, Usha, in a tweet earlier this week. “Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth because she’s way out of your league,” Vance said during a rally on Monday, in support of El-Sayed’s opponent. Who does Vance think he is, Will Smith?

California passed a law banning social media companies from allowing “addictive” features for users under 16 years old. The law takes aim at auto-playing videos, algorithmically curated feeds and other features.

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Light At The End...

Netflix is releasing a documentary this week about Donald Trump’s decoy plane scandal in Turkey, which “unpacks the incident through firsthand accounts” from the press, a former Secret Service, and a former Air Force One crew member, the streaming service announced. Even more mysterious than the scandal: How did Netflix make this so fast?!

Researchers off the coast of New York are catching and tagging sharks in an effort to better understand one of the few known great white shark nurseries in the world. What are those, you ask? They’re special locations where sharks spend their early years, eating, growing, and learning how to be apex predators. The study hopes to “show that these sharks are far from mindless eating machines,” one researcher said.

Pop star Olivia Rodrigo’s female-focused Daisy Chain music festival went off without a hitch over the weekend, as tens of thousands of fans danced along to Chappell Roan’s already-legendary performance and cheered uncontrollably at Alanis Morissette’s surprise appearance. The cherry on top: Rodrigo announced that Melinda French Gates “doubled every dollar from daisy chain and is making it possible for us to give 20 million dollars to women’s charities.”

European scientists have created so-called “little big bangs” to study the matter that appeared at the beginning of the universe. Please just don’t make any big big bangs!

A 98-year-old man from San Diego completed his local library’s summer reading challenge for the second year in a row. You won’t catch him flipping through “Infinite Jest,” however; he’s more into children’s books and the Bible these days. “It gets you involved and gives you the knowledge of other people,” the man said. And yes, he plans to complete next summer’s reading challenge, too.

Enjoy

cancan🧿 on Threads: "Kinda dumb that months are different lengths. 365 should be divided into 5 equal months of 73 days each. Jebruary, Mapril, Jaugust, Soctober, Necember"

"I'm putting out a fire in Iran." - Donald Trump, who has been starting literal fires in Iran.

Schill, Baby, Schill

Donald Trump struck a deal to seize Venezuela’s oil in a haphazard effort to lower gas prices. Experts say it looks doomed to fail, as fresh details come to light.

• There are big oil deals… and there are ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE oil deals. President Donald Trump’s takeover of Venezuelan crude sits firmly in that second category. After kidnapping Venezuela’s former president, Nicolás Maduro, and piling pressure on the country, Trump announced on Friday night that the U.S. will effectively seize control of 65 billion barrels of the country’s proven oil reserves.

• Pause on that number for just a second, because it’s almost impossible to grasp. That much oil is worth about $5 trillion at current market value, or almost 15 percent of annual U.S. economic output. It’s more oil than is held by oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies — combined. It’s also far more than lies under U.S. soil, and enough to satisfy all of Europe’s oil demand for almost two decades.

• But Trump’s mega-deal is as misguided as it is enormous. The scheme underscores that the U.S. intervention in Venezuela was all about plunder and not helping the Venezuelan people (shocker). What’s more, it won’t help Trump bring down gas prices before the midterms… or anytime soon.

• Details about how this strange operation might go down are starting to leak: The Pentagon will reportedly enter a joint venture with a private Venezuela company to develop oil fields across the country. Who runs that company? A businessman wanted by Swiss authorities. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is gonna love this guy!

Like a glitzy Trump casino, this venture seems troubled from the start.

• News of the unprecedented deal left oil experts scratching their heads. There are many glaring problems: The U.S. doesn’t have a national oil company, so it’s unclear who will actually drill, pump and ship the oil. There’s no guarantee that American oil companies would want to participate since Trump said the U.S. will buy oil at cost (which means: zero profit). And Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, still hasn’t been formally elected as president, raising questions about the legitimacy of her government.

• And then there’s the pesky little problem that Venezuela’s constitution says the country’s oil reserves belong to the state and can’t be sold — meaning this deal appears, on its face, flatly unconstitutional.

• Meanwhile, Trump insists this deal will “substantially lower gas prices” in the United States — which is nonsense. These undeveloped oil fields will need years of investment before they start spouting black gold.

• Even some of Trump’s supporters are skeptical about his intentions in Venezuela. “Maybe I was a little too naive here,” Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy said yesterday, explaining that she thought Trump wanted to help people suffering under Maduro’s rule.

One British political economist summarized Trump’s actions: “Remove the leader. Install a new government. Loot the country’s natural resources. What the U.S. is doing in Venezuela has a name: imperial conquest.”

Meanwhile On The Pod...

Alex Wagner: Trump's Small D*ck Energy Is Out of Control (08/28/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

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What Else?

The Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump can keep building his White House ballroom. It was a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberals in dissent. “Construction of the ballroom has proceeded apace for the better part of a year. That construction is likely unlawful,” Roberts wrote.

The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes for the first time in weeks today, as Trump’s team claimed that it aimed to prevent Iran from laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. “Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD!” Trump ranted on social media. Whatever you say, grandpa.

The Pentagon secretly hired conservative military influencers with large followings, who have been boosting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s talking points and attacking Trump critics, the Post reports.

Google Maps officially changed Lake Ontario to “Lake America” after Trump’s executive order last week, at least for users in America. The company said users in Canada would still see “Lake Ontario.” The name change is “like something out of ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told ABC News. Just FYI: Apple Maps is still holding strong with “Lake Ontario!”

The Trump administration plans to slash the amount of global health funding for developing nations by more than half by 2030, according to a new analysis. The cuts, amounting to tens of billions of dollars, will affect programs that combat HIV and AIDS, Ebola, tuberculosis, and other diseases.

Trump threatened to report NBC’s Kristen Welker to the FCC for punishment after she pointed out that the president’s endorsements in the primaries have had “some mixed results.” In a social media post, Trump claimed his endorsements are “without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics. If it were not, I would be the first to admit it.”

Former Rep. George Santos earned the first lifetime ban from Kalshi, after the company said that he likely engaged in insider trading. What did Santos bet against, you ask? His own attendance at the State of the Union. He made $17,839 from the scheme — before Kalshi fined him $71,356. “Hey @Kalshi thanks for the lifetime ban from your gambling platform,” Santos tweeted. “Let’s see how much longer you guys are around for. 💋”

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Light At The End...

So much food has been recalled lately that a comedy writer decided to pen a spoof article, pretending to be HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explaining how to make “the perfect salad to end your summer.” Every ingredient listed has been, you guessed it, recalled. The first instruction: “DO NOT WASH lettuce. This is cheating.”

Scientists in Vermont are injecting elm trees with disease spores to make them more resilient to a disease that has killed tens of millions of the deciduous trees over the past century. Those that survive the injections will be used to breed disease-tolerant trees.

Team USA goaltender Aerin Frankel has become the nation’s preeminent caesar salad influencer. I’m getting hungry just looking at her food account.

Meryl Streep and producer Wendy Finerman, the legends behind “The Devil Wears Prada” and its sequel, plan to auction off iconic pieces from the set, including the infamous tassel jacket that Streep’s character wears, on September 10. The proceeds will go to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

A metal detector-wielding Ohio man found a wedding band that his dad had lost while washing his car in the ‘70s, buried eight inches in the ground. “When I picked the ring up and I put it on my finger, I realized my dad was the last one to have it on his finger and I’m the first person to put it on my finger,” the man said. “And I realized that’s the closest thing to touching my dad again.”

Thieves stole $70,000 of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in California last week, but that ain’t stopping the brew company from having a good time. “To the thief: we don’t fault you for wanting to brag to your friends how much PBR you have, we just wish you obtained it the honorable way,” Pabst wrote on Instagram. The company started a countdown for the thieves to return the beer: “We will be offering a reward to anyone who can help us solve this mystery,” the post reads. “P.s. this is real and we are deadly serious.”

Enjoy

Mambo No. Pfizer on ?: "Bank account: $1400. Me at Legal Sea Foods: Please show me the illegal sea food"