The President's Brain is Missing

Plus: More election rigging, Colbert, our usual cartoons, Tom Morello and Woody, Mike Campbell....

May 13, 2026

Yes, it’s still free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is the author of fourteen books and director of five films for PBS since 2022. In a previous life, he was a longtime editor at the legendary Crawdaddy.

Five shows left….

Jonathan Swan, NY Times:

New: Classified military intelligence assessments from early this month show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities. Including: U.S. intel assesses Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, and ~90% of Iran’s underground missile sites are “partially or fully operational.”

Lucian Truscott IV:

Elections have no meaning if your vote doesn’t count. We have seen what the Trump administration is attempting to do by making it easier for states to limit participation in voting by people they don’t like, however you define them – Black, Latino, Democrat, liberal. But the Callais decision is worse. The Supreme Court is telling Black people that they can live in Louisiana and Tennessee, just to name two of the biggest offenders, but they can’t vote to affect their status as citizens of those states.
The Callais decision cloaks its racism in the language of pure politics, holding that it’s okay to discriminate in drawing voting maps on the basis of political party, but not on race. But everyone in the deep South has known since the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Laws that there are two parties in the South: the White party and the Black party. And everyone knows what that means. Whites vote Republican. Blacks vote Democrat. When you draw lines creating districts that eliminate the power of Democrats to elect representatives to Congress and to state legislatures, you’re drawing lines that lessen or even eliminate the power of Blacks to elect people to represent their interests.
This is fixing elections, pure and simple.

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At least someone is willing to say it clearly, Heather Cox Richardson:

The biggest story in the country, today and always, is that the president of the United States is mentally unwell.
Over the course of three hours last night, he posted on social media fifty-five times. Those posts accused a number of those Trump considers his personal enemies, including former president Barack Obama, of treason…reposted a fake quotation from Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) accusing Obama of making a personal fortune of $120 million from the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare…. He posted an AI image of Obama, Biden, and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) apparently swimming in a filthy version of the reflecting pool with the caption: “Dumacrats Love Sewage.” Then he posted an image of himself on the $100 bill. And then he was back to calling House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) “Low IQ.”
After posting a number of AI images showing the U.S. military destroying the Iranian military, Trump posted: “When the Fake News says that the Iranian enemy is doing well, Militarily, against us, it’s virtual TREASON in that it is such a false, and even preposterous, statement. They are aiding and abetting the enemy!”
Then he posted an image of a map with Venezuela overlaid with the U.S. flag. The caption read: “51st State.”

Music Picks

Just hours after after completing a three-hour concert with Bruce at Madison Square Garden, Tom Morello was leading a protest on the streets, with “This Land Is Your Land.”