FRIDAY: Here's the report we'd recommend...

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2026

...on this September 11: We don't expect to be posting again until next week. On this specific September 11, here's the report we'd recommend:

Conservative Fmr. Appeals Court Judge Explains How Republicans Are Trying to ‘Steal’ Midterms in Shocking Column...

A former appeals court judge tore into Republicans in a lengthy piece describing how conservatives are prepping to...steal the upcoming midterm elections.

Michael Luttig, a George H.W. Bush appointee who served as an appeals court judge from 1991 to 2006, unloaded in a piece he penned for The New Republic on Thursday, entitled, “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”

And so on from there. With respect to the ongoing, current assault on the possibility of the American project, that's the report we'd recommend today.  

Here's the link to Luttig's piece in the New Republic. We don't see a paywall blocking the essay by this widely-celebrated, famously conservative former judge.

For what it's worth, Judge Luttig discussed this theory with Ali Velshi on the August 6 edition of The 11th Hour. To see that discussion, you can start by clicking here.   

For Judge Luttig's presentation of this thesis at his Substack site, you can simply click this. 

We've been hoping that Judge Luttig's presentations would gain a bit more attention in this dangerous, madness-powered time. Maybe his presentation in the New Republic will sprout a pair of wings.   

As always, please note this last important point: 

The fact that Judge Luttig says it doesn't necessarily make it true.

THURSDAY: Lawrence interviews Mary Peltola!

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2026

But also, the president's "mental health:" She appeared last night with Lawrence O'Donnell, but who is Mary Peltola? 

Who the heck is Mary Peltola? When it comes to pure Americanism—but also, when it comes to Americanism with a smile—that was a truly beautiful interview. 

Before we link you to what was said, this is an overview of the person in question:   

Mary Peltola   

Mary Sattler Peltola (born August 31, 1973) is an American politician and former tribal judge. She served as the U.S. representative from Alaska's at-large congressional district from 2022 to 2025. 

A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as a judge on the Orutsararmiut Native Council's tribal court, was executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Bethel city councillor, and member of the Alaska House of Representatives. As of 2026, Peltola is the most recent Democrat to have won statewide office or held the position in Alaska.   

Peltola was first elected to Congress in an August 2022 special election after the death of incumbent Don Young...

Peltola was re-elected to a full term in 2022. She lost re-election in 2024 to Nick Begich III. She is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2026, challenging incumbent senator Dan Sullivan.  

She once "won statewide office in Alaska?" In Alaska, congressperson is a statewide office. Alaska has only one member of Congress. That person serves the whole state.  

Come November, Peltola may win one of Alaska's Senate seats. This is also part of who this candidate is:   

Born Mary Sattler, Peltola is Yup'ik from the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta in Western Alaska and German-American. She was born in Anchorage on August 31, 1973. Her Yup'ik name is Akalleq (translation. the one who rolled). Her father was Ward Sattler, a German American from Nebraska. He moved to Alaska to be a pilot and teacher. Her mother, Elizabeth "LizAnn" Piicigaq Williams, is Yup'ik from Kwethluk, Alaska.

Mary Sattler grew up with her sister along the Kuskokwim River in the communities of Kwethluk, Tuntutuliak, Platinum, and Bethel. As a Yup'ik child, she began fishing with her father at the age of six. Her uncles taught her how to place nets to catch different kinds of fish. 

When she was 12, her father registered a boat in her name and she began fishing independently as a captain at 14. She traveled with her father while he campaigned for Congressman Don Young, later commercially fishing with her father during the summers... 

And so on from there. In our view, that is pure Americanism, one of roughly 330 million different examples of same.

("No people are uninteresting," Yevtushenko, in translation, once said.)

Upon reflection, we won't attempt to follow the richness of that overview by transcribing some of what was said during last night's interview with Lawrence. Instead, we'll strongly suggest that you watch MS NOW's videotape of the session.  

It runs slightly less than seven minutes, and it's filled with the miracle of Alaska. You'll quickly note that the candidate knows how to smile, a very good way to win votes. She's also concise and quite sharp.

Regarding the ongoing struggles of President Trump, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) appeared with Erin Burnett on Tuesday night. Burnett described the president's weird behavior over the weekend—his weird Truth Social posts.

At that point, she turned to Rep. Garcia. Here's part of what was said:  

BURNETT (9/8/26): Out front now, Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia. He's a top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. And I appreciate your time.

So, you know, as I said, this shouldn't be controversial, to just say that this is not okay, to have the president of the United States in this moment spending his time in this way. Are you hearing anything from your Republican colleagues just privately about their concerns about what Trump is doing, about his state of mind, about his focus?

GARCIA: Yes, I mean, look, I think the Republicans in Congress, I mean, many of them, are very concerned that the president continues to, what they believe, tank their chances this November. He's not focused on anything he said he would. A lot of them are concerned about his mental health.

I think that as a country, we should be, one, outraged. It's bizarre behavior. It's unhinged. I'm concerned about the mental health of the president, who is sending out these messages, what, 100 on a certain day. And they are just bizarre things. It's a bunch of slop. It's a bunch of things that insult our allies, things that are not true, and things that no American president should be doing.

It is an embarrassment to the White House, to our country, the way he's treating Canada and our North American allies. It's disrespectful. And we have to now wonder, is—I mean, is Donald Trump fully there? I mean, that's something that a lot of us are actually wondering. 

He's falling asleep during meetings. He's saying bizarre things. And it's concerning that he's the president of the United States.

BURNETT: Look, what he's posting is concerning...

Good grief! Garcia specifically cited concerns about the president's "mental health." He did so right out of the gate, two separate times. 

After that, he went colloquial, but he continued asking if the president is "fully there." 

Burnett seemed to agree, seeming to say that the president's mental health is "concerning." But as you can see from the CNN transcript, she then posed a question about possible political "strategy" on Trump's part, and this highly unusual interchange came to an end.

Robert Garcia gave it a try. The moment quickly ended. 

The "journalists" know they mustn't go there. Our "journalists" refuse to discuss what seems to be sitting there right before everyone's eyes.

WEDNESDAY: They don't know how to report it, he said!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2026

Isn't it phony to think so: They don't know how to report it, he said.   

We're speaking of Lawrence O'Donnell. He said it last night at 10:05, one minute into his opening monologue on his nightly program, The Last Word.

We're willing to give him a B for effort, but what he said just isn't true. 

You can see a partial tape of the monologue at the web site of The Last Word. Here's the headline at the site, along with the first thing it shows O'Donnell saying:

Lawrence: What are Trump’s deranged social media posts if not evidence of insanity?   

The American news media, understandably, has no idea how to cover a possibly insane president of the United States. That's movie stuff, an insane president. 

The American news media has no idea how to cover a president who could be slipping into dementia, as Donald Trump's father did.  That headline basically speaks for itself. Below it, you see the way O'Donnell's monologue began.   

That headline basically speaks for itself. Below it, you see the way the (partial) videotape of the monologue begins. 

What O'Donnell says there is of course absurdly inaccurate. The American news media, including all the other anchors on MS NOW, do in fact know the basic way to cover any topic.

How do you cover any topic? This is what you do:   

You interview carefully selected specialists in the given field. In this case, that would mean interviewing carefully selected medical specialists concerning the (fairly obvious) possibility that President Trump 1) is mentally ill in some serious way, or 2) is experiencing some serious degree of cognitive decline. 

Perhaps at the direction of MS NOW executives, Lawrence wasn't being truthful as he started last night. In fact, everyone in the media knows how to cover those possibilities, but they've all agreed that they won't ever do it. That includes Wallace and Melber and Hayes and Psaki, the anchors whose programs preceded O'Donnell's on MS NOW last night. 

We've shown you where the videotape at the Last Word web site starts. By clicking here, you can see the way the fuller monologue actually started.

The monologue about this topic actually started like this: 

O'DONNELL (9/8/26): The corruption and lawbreaking in the Trump regime is on a scale far beyond what we have ever seen before in American history. 

But 50 or 100 or two 200 years from now, the story that future historians will no doubt be fascinated by and drawn to more than any other Trump regime story...will probably be what appears to those historians to be the insanity of Donald Trump.   

The American news media, understandably, has no idea how to cover a possibly insane president of the United States. That's movie stuff, an insane president.

The American news media has no idea how to cover a president who could be slipping into dementia, as Donald Trump's father did.  

That's the fuller way he began. You'll note the convoluted language, in which he simply speculates about what someone else will probably say way off in the future.

You'll also note that, in Lawrence's assessment, even our historians will be taking a dive on this topic for at least the next fifty years. For the record, that's the way today's historians have behaved with respect to many basic parts of the political and journalistic history of the past forty years.

Again, you can watch the entire monologue about the possible insanity simply by clicking here, then by continuing to click. But make no mistake about the corruption:   

Something resembling a type of corruption is also found all through "the American news media"—all through the orgs which won't report or discuss the astonishing possibility which is staring us all in the face.  

"Understandably," their bosses don't want their news orgs to get sued. The anchors and the reporters enjoy their status and their frequently rather large salaries.

The New York Times isn't reporting the presidential meltdown O'Donnell went on to describe. Quite weirdly, no one at Mediaite has posted the remarkable but fairly obvious assessments Lawrence went on to make.   

Everyone is running from this. Lawrence continues to try.

Also this: Lawrence mentioned "Natalie Harp" six times. We're sorry, but she isn't the story here.

To his credit, O'Donnell is trying harder than all the rest with respect to this fairly obvious state of affairs. 

The others have agreed to take a dive. That includes the historians.