Nearly a year after Donald Trump announced the creation of the “Board of Peace,” which was ostensibly charged with ending Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and overseeing reconstruction, one of the figures most centrally involved in the body has warned that a complete collapse of the so-called ceasefire in Gaza could lead to a “point of no return.” Nickolay Mladenov…
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This is the August 17, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter.Subscribe hereto get it delivered straight to your inbox every Monday through Friday.
“I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that.”
— Attorney General Todd Blanche on being asked to pledge his independence from President Donald Trump
On Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists dragged Officer Mike Fanone down the Capitol steps. They beat him with the pole of a “thin blue line” flag and repeatedly tased him at the base of his skull until he suffered a heart attack.
Todd Blanche shamelessly stood next to the president this week and said anyone who touches a federal law enforcement officer will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Where was Blanche when Donald Trump pardoned every cop beater who attacked the Capitol that day — trying to overturn what Trump’s own officials called the safest election in American history.
When asked what message pardoning cop beaters sends to police officers, Blanche bizarrely said: “We will protect you.”
Todd Blanche knows he is lying. That’s not the news here. The real takeaway from this sordid affair is the message Trump and his minions sent the bad guys that day: “Do the crime, skip the time.”
Message received.
After the thugs were pardoned, their crimes multiplied.
Child molestation. Home break-ins. Threats to kill politicians. A conspiracy to murder FBI agents. One Jan. 6 convict even threatened the life of a D.C. cop on the anniversary of that bleak date.
But for the president, even pardoning these cop beaters isn’t enough.
Now Trump wants them paid.
That’s what makes Todd Blanche’s bland pronouncements look even more
On July 4, a small group gathered at Jacob Riis Beach in Queens, New York, with handmade signs and zines. They were protesting the conversion of a public bathhouse — a 1930s architectural gem — into a private beach club, set to open on August 15. The response was warm, and beachgoers cheered as the group passed. As the protesters approached the historic bathhouse, the mood shifted.
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The first recorded instance of militant resistance to police harassment by queer people in the country turns 60 this month, but it isn’t widely known. Three years before the infamous Stonewall uprising, trans women and queer people responded directly to repeated bullying and targeting by police at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
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As we mark the one-year anniversary of the National Guard’s occupation of Washington, D.C., it’s worth pausing to learn what D.C. resistance has to teach us — especially heading into the midterms. Many of us are carrying real fear about how far Trump might go to interfere with this election. Our fear isn’t unwarranted. But it doesn’t have to be ungrounded, either. Yes, he will say outrageous…
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While humanitarian associations’ coverage of Gaza focuses on how to provide food, medicine, and shelter, another devastating consequence of wars is the loss of childhood itself. According to various reports and estimates, tens of thousands of children have been killed or injured in Israel’s war on Gaza, and many more have been affected by the loss of one or both parents.
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