Karl Rove ABANDONS his own party

An independent fact-finding mission commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council found "reasonable grounds" to believe the United States committed war crimes during the Iran conflict.

The specific atrocities: a pair of Tomahawk missile strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab and a sports complex in Lamerd, carried out in February, killing 178 civilians — the majority of them children.

At the time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted the U.S. "never" targets civilians.

Military officials denied responsibility entirely.

The fact-finding mission says outdated Pentagon intelligence led commanders to misidentify the school as an Iranian military base — which, if true, is not a defense, it's an indictment of the entire operation. The report has been submitted to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The White House has not responded.

Seven weeks out, the numbers are not looking good for Republicans.

In Texas, Emerson College's newest poll has James Talarico up on Ken Paxton, 47 to 46 — and for the first time all cycle, every single pollster tracking the race has Talarico ahead. Emerson's own pollster pointed to why: Texas Hispanic voters, who broke for Trump in 2024, now favor Talarico by 15 points, 54 to 39, and disapprove of the president 53 to 41.

Up north, the same Emerson poll has Abdul El-Sayed edging Mike Rogers, 48 to 46, in Michigan's Senate race. Tight, but moving the same direction as everywhere else Republicans are supposed to be safe.

Kamala Harris isn't sitting this one out. She's campaigning with Jon Ossoff in Georgia ahead of his reelection and headed to Michigan to stump for El-Sayed. Asked what's occupying her, she didn't hedge: "Midterms, midterms, midterms full time occupying my thoughts, my mind and work."

Some Democratic candidates are keeping her at arm's length. She says that's fine too — "whatever they need to do to win."

Then there's Karl Rove, the man who built the modern GOP turnout operation, writing a Wall Street Journal piece laying out why he’s crossing party lines for only the second time in his life.

“Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a ‘heritage America’ composed of white descendants of the original European settlers,” he wrote.

“There are ‘just asking questions’ Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won’t differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.”

“These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I’ll have no part of it. This November, I’ll vote for only the second Democrat in my life. The first was Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock in 1994, because I thought he would work with Republicans. The second will be Mr. French’s opponent, Jon Rosenthal. The GOP’s stables need a cleaning. This is a good place to start.”

Rep. Thomas Massie put it plainer: "This was Donald Trump's election to lose, and he's doing everything he can to lose it."

And Fox News' Brit Hume looked at his own network's poll — 63% say Trump has made the economy worse, 62% call grocery prices a major problem — and told viewers it's "just killing this administration."

When Karl Rove is voting Democrat and Fox News is doing the opposition research, the GOP needs more than a miracle.

At a campaign rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, Trump told the crowd he'd been sending FEMA money to help the state recover from last year's hurricane — and then told them he'd stop if Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley loses in November.

"Now, if Michael loses, I'm not sending it, OK. No, I'm only kidding." The crowd groaned. This is the same playbook Trump has run for a decade: float the extortion, claim it's a joke, let the threat do its work.

North Carolina is still recovering. The "joke" lands differently when you're waiting on federal disaster funds.

The president is systematically defacing the public commons for personal gain and ego, and no one seems to be able to do anything about it.

First: AFP photographer Brendan Smialowski captured Trump on Air Force One reviewing a large posterboard reading "KENNEDY CENTER DEMOLISH" — one day after a federal judge blocked Trump from putting his name on the building and his handpicked board voted to close it. Trump told reporters he couldn't be bothered to save a former president's memorial if he couldn't brand it. A judge said he needs to give 30 days notice before demolition.

Still unclear why he has the right to demolish a national institution, even with 30 days notice.

Kerry Kennedy is organizing a "Hands Around the Kennedy Center" rally to protest the potential demolition.

Second: the National Park Service has posted a projected construction contract worth up to $49 million for Trump's takeover of the 105-year-old East Potomac Golf Links, a public course in D.C. — no public input, no congressional approval, and at least 150 trees have already been removed.

Third: the Park Service's own planning documents warn that Trump's planned 250-foot triumphal arch in downtown Washington will likely cause "adverse effects to historic properties," including disrupting the symbolic sightline between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.Construction is still going forward.

Christian Castro, an ICE agent, was arrested Wednesday by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on assault charges stemming from a January incident in which he shot and wounded a Venezuelan man through the door of his apartment while children were present.

Castro had been wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant for eight months.

The arrest comes in the same week that a man who sprayed Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with vinegar at a Minneapolis town hall — during the same January ICE crackdown — was sentenced to 14 months in prison.

Minneapolis has become the sharpest case study in what Trump's deportation machine actually looks like on the ground: agents shooting through apartment doors, citizens killed, a sitting congresswoman attacked. The administration calls this a success.