America just broke a record today, but it's not one to be proud of. The average price of diesel fuel nationwide just hit $5.85 per gallon, which is the highest it has ever been. It beat the previous record of $5.82, which was set in 2022, just after Russia invaded Ukraine. Diesel costs have risen over 50 percent since Donald Trump started his war of choice with Iran. But even though he normally likes bragging about setting records, Trump will probably not be boasting about this one.

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Is 2026 shaping up to be the data center election? Signs that this could be the case are out there, and they are becoming increasingly hard to ignore. While there are plenty of other big issues the voters will be considering this November, data centers seem to have leapt to the forefront with increasing importance. Both major political parties are finally starting to react to the new reality, which has the potential to be a new dividing line in American politics. The most interesting thing about it is that, so far, it is an issue which cuts across the usual partisan divide -- because almost everybody now hates data centers. It doesn't matter your political affiliation, the issue has generated so much pushback that the politicians are (belatedly, for most of them) trying to catch up with public opinion.

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At this point, you have to kind of wonder... is Donald Trump trying to lose the midterms?

That's a rather extraordinary question to ask, of course. After all, what sane president would want to tank his own party's chances of success in the midterm congressional elections? The entire next two years could include plenty of legacy-defining moments for a lame-duck president who cannot run again. Winning the midterms could be the difference between being impeached for a jaw-dropping third time and having a Republican House do Trump's every bidding. It could mean the difference between a Democratic Senate that refuses to confirm anyone Trump nominates for any office and a GOP Senate that cheerfully confirms every quack, flim-flam man, and carnival barker Trump decides is worthy of high office. The difference between muscular oversight of the executive branch and a bunch of spineless toadies who all follow every Trump command to the letter all hangs in the balance.

But Trump just doesn't seem to care.

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Here we go again. Our toddler-in-chief threw another tantrum this week, because he was mad at Canada. Donald Trump was astonished that Canada didn't immediately knuckle under and agree to all his kooky demands, so he went ahead and opened up a whole new trade war with our neighbor to the north. These demands (to show you how inane the negotiations must have been) included trying to force Canada to reject their bilingual nature and get rid of all that French stuff. Canada refused. So Trump announced a new 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods. Canada then announced their own tariffs on American goods. Trump then threw his tantrum, announcing that he had just renamed Lake Ontario, which will now officially and henceforth be known by the U.S. government as "Lake America" (or possibly "Lake Of America," Trump didn't seem too sure). Which (of course) spurred the internet to respond. The site MapQuest helpfully pointed people to a tool they could use to rename the lake to anything they wished, which (of course) led to all sorts of amusing new names for it (Lake Epstein Files? Lake Hormuz? Lake Cheats At Golf? Lake Gulf Of Mexico?). The funniest one (to us, at any rate) came from "Mister Cool" on the site formerly known as Twitter, who posted an image showing: "Lakey McLakeface."

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Much is being made over the ideological struggle happening within the Democratic Party, with some likening it to a "Democratic Tea Party," or even a civil war among Democrats. Both terms are a bit overblown, but there is indeed a struggle for the soul of the party happening. It didn't spring into existence overnight, or even with the election of New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for that matter. Instead it is a movement that has gradually built up steam to reach the point in Democratic politics where it is now.

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So doubtlessly you've heard the story -- which has gotten heavy coverage in the political press all week long, of course -- of the very progressive Democrat who not only won the primary for an open Senate seat but also impressively outperformed polling expectations, right? It was a huge story -- because it will mean there will now be three progressives on November Senate ballots in three swing states. Progressives scored a big win, which has given rise to much discussion among the pundits over whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the Democratic Party, because it is such a risky strategy right now (with control of the Senate hanging in the balance).

What's that? You didn't hear about all of this?

Well, that's because the mainstream media decided a different primary race was worth all their ink and airwave time instead. They obsessed over a progressive who very narrowly lost a primary in a governor's race (which is just not as important, to national politics, as the Senate races), because they could barely contain their relief and glee over seeing a progressive lose (even though the polls said she would win).

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The 2026 primary season is almost over. This week's crop of primaries generated some big news, mostly due to a young and very progressive Democratic candidate winning the nomination for an open Senate seat in Michigan. This was seen as an epic defeat for both the establishment of the Democratic Party and for AIPAC, who spent tens of millions of dollars unsuccessfully trying to defeat Dr. Abdul El-Sayed -- who narrowly won the nomination, despite being outspent almost 9-to-1.

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Every so often in American politics, a potent issue arises that many voters feel very strongly about, but which neither major political party is willing to tackle (or even address). Call them "political orphan issues," since they have essentially been abandoned by both parties, for whatever reason.

Gay marriage was such an issue, a while back, since while Democrats were a lot more sympathetic to gay people in committed relationships than Republicans, very few Democrats were actually willing to stand up and champion full marriage equality for all until after the Supreme Court stepped in and decided the issue. Then it became politically safer to support gay marriage, but this was nothing more than volunteering for a fight that had already been won -- too little, too late, in other words. There are other political orphan issues from the past few decades that spring to mind, but the one that is currently growing like wildfire in the American electorate is opposing the so-far-unchecked explosion of data center construction.

This is currently a truly nonpartisan issue -- that's a very important thing to say, right up front. People opposed to data centers being built in their towns can be full-on MAGA Trump supporters or Democratic Socialists -- ideological labels don't matter on this issue, because the complaints people have about data centers are a lot more personal and immediate than national politics. It could be seen as a variation of the "NIMBY" reaction ("not in my back yard"), but as I said, the labels don't really matter much. What does matter is the white-hot rage people feel, from both the left and the right.

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It's always amusing (to me, at any rate) when one of the fantasies inside Donald Trump's feverish brain collides head-on into a brick wall of reality. This often happens inside of a federal courthouse, which is where the most recent example comes from. At the close of last week, Jeanine Pirro had to eat a healthy heaping of crow by filing a court motion to dismiss her laughably-thin case against a former Olympian, who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and charged with a felony which could have landed him in jail for 10 years. Pirro did an abrupt about-face in the court filing, admitting that the evidence clearly showed that the damage to the Reflecting Pool was not actually caused by the Olympian in any way, but instead was the fault of shoddy work done by the contractor Trump had personally hired to do the job.

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The midterm congressional elections will happen in early November, which is now less than four months away. Trump has already been making drastic moves (such as firing all the members of a federal elections security board) seemingly designed to sow chaos (or worse) when the ballots are cast. Which is why tonight's speech is so worrisome. And which is why I felt the need to run the following column again. Trump's Big Lie is poisonous to American democracy, which is why I am not exactly looking forward to tonight's speech.

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