Greetings! Glad you're here. Today is Monday, Aug. 24, 2026 — waffles, peach pie, and the anniversary of the British torching the White House are all sharing the calendar today.
My calendar says it's Waffle Day, Peach Pie Day, Maryland Day, and Strange Music Day. Make yourself some waffles, slice into a peach pie, and put on the weirdest record in your collection — Maryland gets a nod too, though nobody's quite sure what they want you to do about it.
Today In History:
79 A.D.: Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash and killing an estimated 20,000 people.
1572: The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre begins in Paris, as Catholic mobs slaughter thousands of Huguenot Protestants over the following weeks.
1814: British forces invade Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812, setting fire to the Capitol and the White House; First Lady Dolley Madison saves a portrait of George Washington from the flames before fleeing.
1932: Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo, nonstop, coast to coast, completing the trip from Los Angeles to Newark in just over 19 hours.
1949: The North Atlantic Treaty formally takes effect, establishing NATO.
1954: President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Communist Control Act into law, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.
1968: France becomes the world's fifth thermonuclear power, testing a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
1981: Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.
1989: Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti bans Pete Rose from the game for life over gambling allegations.
1991: Ukraine declares independence from the Soviet Union following the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev.
1992: Hurricane Andrew slams into Florida, causing record damage and 55 deaths across Florida, Louisiana, and the Bahamas.
2006: The International Astronomical Union votes to strip Pluto of its status as a full planet, reclassifying it as a "dwarf planet."
2023: Donald Trump surrenders at the Fulton County jail on 13 felony charges related to alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia.
Birthdays Today Include: Marlee Matlin, actor (Children of a Lesser God); Cal Ripken Jr., MLB Hall of Famer; Dave Chappelle, comedian actor (Chappelle's Show); Rupert Grint, actor (Harry Potter); Vince McMahon, professional wrestling promoter.
* * *
Tim Hains at Real Clear Politics, this morning:
Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Jake Auchincloss told "FOX News" that the Democratic Party will lose if the moderate party establishment picks a direct fight with the new Democratic Socialists. "What my faction of the party needs to do is to demonstrate to Americans what our positive, proactive agenda is to strengthen the middle class, how we are going to base that in freedom, not socialism, free enterprise, free minds, freedom from fear, and free elections," he said.
(Sound of muffled laughter. Shuffling in the seat while I smooth my professional commentator demeanor back into place.)
The comments are from an interview on Fox with Shannon Bream, which we’ll get back to in a second.
Free enterprise. Free minds. Freedom from fear. Free elections. Gotta tell ya, Congressman, that's a genuinely lovely word salad, and I mean that with the sincerest possible sarcasm — because you're delivering it roughly 48 hours after your own party's biggest streaming ally got caught with a framed newspaper commemorating 9/11 hanging on his studio wall like a hunting trophy. But we'll get there.
BREAM: So, there is a video of somebody who's been campaigning a lot with Democratic candidates or Democratic Socialist candidates who say they belong in your party, Hasan Piker, he's not disavowed this video that's out there circulating this weekend where he's singing a song that appears to be mocking the death of Charlie Kirk, of people who would, you know, be worshipped as Christians, worshipping Jesus. What's your message to those within your party who are campaigning, fundraising, and appearing with Hasan Piker?
AUCHINCLOSS: I reject Hasan Piker's ideology, whether it was seeming to celebrate or at least excuse 9/11, whether it is seeming to excuse the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which I condemned immediately. The Democratic Party does not stand for what Hasan Piker stands for. The Democratic Party also needs to be able to reach young voters from all walks of life who are angry at a status quo in which they cannot afford to buy a home, in which they do not believe Social Security will be there for them in their retirement, and in which they see corruption run rampant in Washington, D.C.
Well, it seems to me that they've already identified who's responsible for the status quo. Establishment Democrats.
They're the ones who've either been holding the reins or doing everything in their power to obstruct the repair process for the better part of the last six decades. Young people can't afford a home in large part because of Democrat-controlled cities and states stacking regulations, zoning restrictions, and tax burdens on top of housing supply until the whole market seizes up like an engine that's never seen a drop of oil.
Here's the part Auchincloss conveniently glides past, though, and it's worth dragging back into the light: While he's on national television lecturing about "rejecting" Piker's ideology, plenty of his own colleagues have been busy actively embracing it.
Fox News's own reporting from just this month confirms Piker has framed, and proudly displayed on camera behind him during livestreams, the front page of the New York Times' Sept. 12, 2001, edition — the "U.S. Attacked" issue — describing it to his audience as "the cutie Cinderella newspaper from 9/11." A man decorating his broadcasting studio with a memorial to the deadliest terror attack in American history, treated as a cute keepsake. And he's told CNN there's "0% chance" the 2028 Democrat nominee will be pro-Israel, expressing total confidence his own party is drifting exactly where he wants it.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna has publicly refused to apologize for appearing on Piker's show, warning that distancing from him would signal "weakness." House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar went on MS NOW's Morning Joe and insisted, with a straight face, that "the party isn't lurching too far left." Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told Meet the Press he cares about "reaching Piker's audience," not his actual comments — which is a genuinely remarkable sentence for a candidate to say out loud about a man who's excused a terror attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.
Sen. John Fetterman, to his credit, has cited "moral clarity" as the exact reason he's drifting from his own party, specifically calling out colleagues willing to "unify with people who are willing to embrace people that love Hamas or that think America deserved 9/11." Even Chuck Schumer can't manage a clean answer, reportedly too spooked by the threat of a primary challenge from AOC to say anything at all.
So when you tell Shannon Bream the Democrat Party "does not stand for what Hasan Piker stands for," you're going to need to explain why so much of your own leadership keeps standing directly next to him, on his show, at his rallies, in his replies, for the cameras. Come on, let's hear it, Sparky. I'm quite sure we're all quite interested to hear.
And we need to go out there and communicate with this younger generation on the basis of a new American dream in which with hard work and with fair play, you get an excellent education by 18, you get a home of your own by 30, and you have a dignified retirement by 65.
If you look closely, dear reader, you may recognize this as the OLD American dream — the exact one an entire generation can no longer reach, in no small part because of the very establishment Democrats now nodding solemnly on cable news about how concerned they are about the affordability crisis their own policies helped manufacture.
Priceless. Truly.
It should be noted that the Democrats for the last 60 years have been pushing a weaker version of socialism as compared to the DSA. That’s how we got where we are. The DSA’s solution for this not working is to go full socialist. That’s not going to win over Mainline Democrat voters, but it will win enough to split the left into quite manageable pieces, from the GOP’s perspective.
I tell you true: There's no way I can see the Democrats recovering from this. Certainly, between now and this November, and somewhat less certainly in 2028.
Consider this closely: With the last several elections going as close to 50/50 as possible, losing a goodly portion of that 50% to the DSA will do nothing but lose elections for both of them. And that’s without considering the number of Mainline Democrats who have already jumped ship. I’ve already mentioned in previous columns the registration shifts: about four and a half million voters who have left the Democrats behind them.
Don’t think for a moment that big a split isn’t going to be felt come November. As I indicated a few days ago, the DNC simply has no way out of the cage they’ve built for themselves. Auchincloss's flailing about like a hooked fish only confirms this in my mind.
Thought for the Day: As a personal observation, I find it interesting how many of the ones loudest in the chant of “Israel is Murdering Children” are also the ones cheering for Lindsay Clancy.
VIP members: Your turn. Your voice matters. Let’s hear from you in the comments.
Have as good a Monday as you can have, gang. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy PJ Media's conservative reporting exposing the radical left and woke media? Support our work so we can keep bringing you the truth.
Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member