Part of our aim with The Drain Pipe is to demystify the stodgy traditions that make Washington tick — or lethargically limp along, as the case may be. If some journalism organizations draw the bounds of allowable discourse at the 40-yard line, the broadcast “Sunday Shows” draw them at the 10. And whether anyone outside the Beltway actually tunes into This Week or Face The Nation is sorta beside the real point: To pantomime tough questions while avoiding meaningful ones, limiting DC conventional wisdom to that narrow stretch of turf.
Take anchor Kristen Welker’s very first question to newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche on Meet The Press on Sunday: “Can you pledge that the Justice Department will always act independently of the White House?”
Blanche refused to pledge allegiance to the principle that Welker made up.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that,” he said.
“There’s a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigate any case, and act independently of the White House,” he continued. “This narrative that is pushed by the media and pushed by the left that the president is going to pull me aside and ask me to do something illegal is completely a false narrative.”
Longtime purveyors of DC conventional wisdom like New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush and former Meet The Press anchor Chuck Todd expressed outrage.
Nevermind that the Biden Justice Department doggedly pursued charges against Trump, collecting intelligence on dozens of aides, MAGA-aligned organizations and Republican members of Congress in the process. Per Civics 101, the DOJ is part of the executive branch and thus under Trump’s domain as the nation’s chief executive.
“Ah yes, the four branches of government: Legislative, Judiciary, Executive, and Department of Justice,” joked former Trump communications official Alex Pfeiffer.
Nonsensical as her line of questioning was, Welker prompted a slew of headlines smearing Blanche as a political hack.
Thus if Blanche indicts Anthony Fauci, the networks will have already established the narrative that Trump ordered it for political retribution. That’s an escape hatch from the gathering flood of documents showing that the sanctified bureaucrat extinguished important questions about the lab leak theory and COVID vaccine side effects — with their help — threatening to sink their reputations ever lower.
THE EXECUTIVE
President Donald Trump is at the White House and will receive an intelligence briefing, meet with hero lifeguard Ryder Williams, and participate in a policy briefing.
The Dream Of Woke 1.0 Is Alive At The NIH
A little-noticed step by the Trump administration could chip away at the power of the managerial state to go on spending sprees for projects ranging from the overtly political to the simply inane.
The federal government issued around $141 billion in research and development grants in fiscal year 2025. Americans have often asked whether they get a good return on investment for that $141 billion.
Take for instance the $378,000 grant issued by the National Institutes of Health to Ohio State University to give rabbits Swedish massages. Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Humanities issued $450,000 in grants to create a documentary on the history of Tupperware.
Under the Trump administration, $711,115 in NIH funds have flowed to researchers studying the deleterious mental health impact of “gender-affirming healthcare bans,” a policy the administration supports.
Trump signed an executive order Aug. 7 aimed at requiring relevant agency heads to coordinate with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and review each discretionary grant to ensure it’s “consistent with agency priorities and the national interest” rather than deferring to the agency’s peer review process. This came after the public comment period for a similar rule change closed in July.
One former OMB staffer claims the rule change could hurt the government’s ability to finance innovation.
“Grantees are rational actors and rational recipients respond to uncertainty by pricing in the risk, doing less work for the same dollars, or declining to participate at all,” a former OMB staffer wrote in an op-ed to Washington Monthly on Thursday.
“Rational?” We’re not sure that’s how we would describe spending $3.8 million to take black kids to the park for “anti-racist healing” (that project has produced zero research papers, by the way); spending $225,000 to study headaches in children taking cross-sex hormones; or $167,545 to study “intersectional discrimination” against transgender women in Ecuador.
Who Will Circle Back With Us Now?
Expect a rotating cast of senior officials as guests at the White House press podium until a permanent replacement for outgoing press secretary Karoline Leavitt is picked. Few would be surprised if Marco Rubio takes on another job after his guest shift at the podium is up.
Trump announced on Truth Social last Wednesday that Leavitt will be stepping down as press secretary by the end of August to spend more time with her family, after which she’ll remain one of his “top outside advisors.”
THE LEGISLATIVE
The House and Senate are at recess until Aug. 31 and Sept. 14, respectively.
Nothing Ever Happens
August is a sleepy time in Washington. Many Americans only get two weeks of vacation (or none at all) but our nation’s elected leaders get a very European month on their donor’s yacht back home in their districts. Just like a Parisian cafe might close its doors to American tourists so its baristas can decamp to Nice for the month, many legislators shutter their offices every August.
The Senate adjourned Aug. 8 after delaying a government shutdown and tightening some sanctions. After the House merged provisions of the SAVE America Act with a continuing resolution to fund the government, the Senate passed a “clean” version of the resolution without said provisions.
The Senate will likely revisit the SAVE America Act and Stop Insider Trading Act — which the House also added voter ID provisions to — when it reconvenes. However, that means neither bill will become a law in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
Either Way, McConnell’s Crawling Out Of The Casket To Weigh In
CNN pundit Scott Jennings, a former staffer to Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, revealed Tuesday that McConnell aims to be fully recovered in time for the Senate to reconvene.
“He left the rehab facility several days ago, and he’s been recovering at home,” Jennings said in an episode of The Arena With Kasie Hunt, The Independent reported. “I could tell being at home was better than being in the hospital.”
Friday marked the 2-month anniversary of what has essentially been a paid disappearance for McConnell. Ironically, the senator voted against extensions for paid sick leave on multiple occasions.
“My belief about males of that generation is that they’re intensely private … He’s always been a little private about his own personal healthcare,” Jennings said.
Shrouding The Midwest In Darkness
Trump reaffirmed his support last Saturday for the Sunshine Protection Act, which aims to make Daylight Savings Time permanent.
“The Senate must vote on the NO MORE CHANGING THE CLOCKS ACT as soon as possible,” Trump said on Truth Social. “More sun later in the day is better (including for fighting crime!), but, even more importantly, NO MORE RIDICULOUSLY CHANGING CLOCKS AND WATCHES TWICE YEARLY, with all of the disruption and chaos it causes. FINALLY, GET IT DONE!!!”
This echoes a Truth Social post he made earlier that week, arguing adding an extra hour of day light would “Decrease Robbery and Murder Rates, Reduce Car Accidents (especially those involving Pedestrians!), Lower Risk for Cardiac Issues, Stroke, and Seasonal Depression, Make It Safer for Children to Walk Home from School,” among other things.
While the bill passed the House in July with a bipartisan supermajority, some warn that it would backfire if signed into law.
“It doesn’t work in South Dakota. I mean, we’d have kids going to school in the dark until 9 o’clock, 9:30 in the morning. It won’t work,” Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds told The Hill.
Congress tested permanent Daylight Saving Time from 1973-1974. However, President Gerald Ford reversed it after children in certain parts of the country were required to walk to school in the dark, according to Smithsonian Magazine. At least eight children were struck and killed by vehicles on their way to school during the test-run.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune — who voted against the bill when it was in the Senate Commerce Committee — also opposes it over concerns it could have for Midwestern states.
If passed, this bill could help the golf industry — which has lobbied for this for a while — rake in around $1 billion per winter season, Athlon Sports reported Aug. 4. The bill maintains the support of America’s most famous golfer. The Senate is expected to mull it over next session.
THE JUDICIARY
SCOTUS starts its next term Oct. 5. Here’s what could be on the docket by then.
Trump v. Barbara 2: Electric Boogaloo
— While the Trump admin saw some recent wins with Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation and Federalist Society-aligned Will Scharf’s incoming appointment to White House counsel, its Aug. 6 executive order aimed at reining in birthright citizenship faces its first legal challenge.
The American Civil Rights Union (ACLU) asked a New Hampshire district court last Tuesday to block the executive order, The Hill reported.
“President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right, and he may not like that he lost in the Supreme Court, but that is really beside the point,” ACLU Immigrants’ Right Project Deputy Director Cody Wofsy said, according to The Hill. “It’s well past time for these illegal and cruel attacks on children’s citizenship to end.”
This appears to be the first of what could be multiple challenges against the executive orders Trump signed after SCOTUS upheld birthright citizenship in June.
“The Department of Justice [DOJ] is confident in the lawful authority underlying President Trump’s Executive Orders on birthright citizenship and birth tourism, and will vigorously defend them in court. DOJ will always defend the President’s authority to protect the integrity of American citizenship,” a DOJ spokesperson told The Hill.
Trump Takes Election Integrity Into His Own Hands
As the Senate failed to pass the SAVE America Act in time for recess, Trump is exploring other ways of requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship in federal elections without having to go through Congress by declaring a national emergency.
“If you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship and a limit to mail-in ballots, and you don’t even need the Senate’s help,” conservative commentator Wayne Root told Trump in a podcast last Tuesday.
“Let me just say that stranger things have happened, OK? I’ll leave it at that,” Trump responded.
The Trump admin appears to be angling to have SCOTUS place similar initiatives on its docket next term.
U.S. Solicitor General John Saer asked the Court last Wednesday to block a Massachusetts district judge from siding with 23 states — plus DC — against the Trump admin’s March executive order aimed at requiring states to provide to the feds lists of eligible voters and those they intend to send mail-in ballots to within 60 days of the election, SCOTUSblog reported.
MISCELLANEOUS
Farage Vanquishes Bin
Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage reclaimed his parliamentary seat after defeating perennial candidate Count Binface last Thursday.
Farage, who has represented Clacton since July 2024, resigned his seat in July amid an investigation into a $6.4 million gift he reportedly received from a crypto billionaire in 2024.
In a July 7 statement announcing his candidacy to take back the seat, Farage called the probe an “establishment hit job” and that his constituents “should be the judges,” CNBC reported.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer — weeks before, he too lost his job — called Farage’s decision a “desperate stunt,” The Guardian reported July 7.
After both the Labour and Conservative parties boycotted that race, Count Binface — a persona played by writer and comedian Jon Harvey — became Farage’s top challenger.
The trashcan-clad space alien garnered 9,455 votes versus Farage’s 22,239.
Police State: For Good And Bad
Many of Trump’s latest moves appear to be attempts to carry out the mandate Americans gave him by bypassing Congress. So, is the United States turning into a totalitarian mostly free country like the United Kingdom?
Our Founding Fathers envisioned the POTUS to play an active role in promoting national security. For example, Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers no. 70 that the federal government is meant to be unified by a single president who serves with “decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch” necessary to protect the republic.
You can see this in action through the White House’s deployment of thousands of National Guardsmen throughout DC. This led to over 16,000 arrests, including 35 homicide suspects and 100+ “known gangbangers,” the White House boasted last Monday.
On the other hand, the federal government has shown no signs of slowing down its post-9/11 crackdown on private communications.
German-Finnish hacker and Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom claimed during an Aug. 7 interview with Tucker Carlson that the national security state has a backdoor into every form of digital communication — including Signal.
However, even if the federal government doesn’t use this to crack down on citizens’ ability to organize against tyranny, multiple state and local governments have been promoting the rise of mass surveillance through the implementation of Flock Safety — which sells Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) that can be used by authorities without a warrant.
The Kansas Justice Institute is suing the City of Wichita after police allegedly used the ALPRs to stalk a man without a warrant, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported July 30.
Citizens across the country have resorted to destroying Flock cameras. For example, local police in Winona — a city in Minnesota — said Aug. 4 that all eight of the city’s Flock cameras were destroyed, the DCNF reported. This follows similar cases of vigilantism in Ohio, Texas, and North Carolina.
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DAILY CALLER, SOTD – THE DRAIN PIPE; 08-17-2026 – The Legislative, Shrouding The Midwest In Darkness
I support the DST. In the 70’s I wasn’t stateside so it never affected me. However, I support 24hr time (call it military time if you will) and further drastic idea of adopting UTC-GMT and do away with all these time zones in the States. Businesses, schools, agriculture can adjust. {btw it’s 1600hrs right now!}
DAILY CALLER, SOTD – THE DRAIN PIPE; 08-17-2026 – The Legislative, Nothing Ever Happens
BS!!!!; Republicans, Senate & House, need to “stay the course”, come back to your districts or stay in D.C. and meet with PAC’s, but “work”! You can rest after the most critical legislation is passed. The most critical is the SAVE Act with the required voter ID as key. Do you think DSA and all the other lib-tards are taking a month-long break????