Coffee Talk with Tiff

August 12, 2026 1:07 pm EDT Tiff Coffee Talk with Tiff 0
Image credit: AI-generated illustration created with ChatGPT

It’s Wednesday…

Shitshow’s public schedule for…

Tuesday Review bled into Wednesday “news”…

Puddle spent Tuesday night posting an image of himself next to his endorsed primary winner.

For example:

Before he patted himself on the back for his chosen Rs doing well in a Republican primary race he visited Ohio for the dumbly named “Patriot Games”.

I haven’t seen much Twitter coverage of the “Patriot Games”. I have seen this from the Washington Post (08/11/2026):

Throughout the events of Sunday and Monday, which included dodgeball, tug-of-war and a mix of obstacle-course contests, athletes competed aggressively, with $250,000 on the line for the pair of winners.

It was mostly unclear how those athletes were selected. A Freedom 250 spokesperson explained in a statement Monday that “submissions were compiled into a composite score, blending athletic performance data with the strength of each applicant’s essay and video.”

The event billed itself as bringing together America’s best youth athletes, with all participants between the ages of 14 and 17. But the White House-backed Freedom 250 nonprofit scarcely promoted the competition outside of its own channels. There appeared to be only a handful of non-White participants.

“We heard about this, originally, through a Facebook post, I think,” said Christopher Brennan, North Carolina’s male representative. “Obviously, this is really cool to get this attention and everything. And these are great athletes our age, you know? So, like, I don’t know. It’s cool to be around a lot of people like yourself.”

Faith was a central topic among participants. Athletes began doing devotionals before events. Many wrote Bible verses on their legs and arms, drawing crosses on athletic tape. “This is a youth Christianity conference,” one woman was heard saying over the phone.

[snip]

The eight remaining athletes competed, hugging one another after completing the race and then drifting into a crowd of their peers while ESPN’s Laura Rutledge did interviews. The competitors who’d already fallen on previous days watched, gold medals dangling from their necks. (Every competitor got one.) They surrounded a Caesarean seat in the center of the stands where the president presided. To his right: Pat McAfee. To his left: Susie Wiles, among others.

Washington Post (08/11/2026).

We don’t know the names of the winners. The press was barred from reporting names until the final airs on Thursday.

My Coffee Talk Take:

Outside of my loathing of naming everything “Patriot Insert Second Name Here,” this event, like all the other 250th celebration events, was designed to please Puddle.

It has very little to do with celebrating the country and a whole lot to do with celebrating how great Puddle thinks Puddle is. As if he’s somehow responsible for the country making it to 250.

You know what I would have done? Had schools host events across the country, then, if we absolutely needed to crown a winner, select the top 10 or 20 to compete in a national final.

Make the 250th about the country and the people who live here. Crazy concept, apparently.

Like most of his travel around the country, Puddle also held a short press gaggle while reporters yelled questions over Marine One.

He confirmed reports that he was put on a different plane to leave the NATO summit in Türkiye.

Reporter: Yeah.

Puddle: Well, this one went over to England where it was shown to the soldiers.

Reporter: Even though—

Puddle: No, I know, but this one went over to England because the soldiers wanted to see it.

Reporter: Right. [Inaudible]

Puddle: And it stopped. Then they showed it to the soldiers, and we did a switch over there. And it was really as per the military. And I just have to do what they say. They go for safety and I have to do what they say.

Reporter: Why was it too dangerous for you to fly on Air Force One, but not [inaudible]?

Puddle: I don’t know. I think, actually, the plane that I flew on was at greater risk.

Reporter: Why do you say that?

Puddle: I think it was a greater risk. Because that would be the plane I think that we, that they would be more likely to go for.

RollCall.com. 08/11/2026.

Presidents have used decoys before. The bigger picture here is who Puddle deemed important enough to take with him after letting the world believe he was on the decoy plane.

The rest of the tweet says: No Cabinet-level officials were on that truck.

This part shouldn’t need to be pointed out, but since Puddle has only recently learned that “dumb” ends with a “b,” we can’t expect him to understand more complex issues like: The plane they thought you were on, dumbass, was the decoy plane with high-level cabinet officials and the press.

FFS.

He was asked about Iran and whether he trusted them. He told the press he doesn’t, adding that the U.S. “owns the strait.”

Puddle:

I don’t trust Iran. Why? Are you saying I trust Iran? I’m the last person to trust Iran. They’ve lied to me constantly. We have total control over the Hormuz Strait right now. They don’t have control. We have total control. We own it. And at some point, maybe they’ll do something and then they get blown away.

But, uh, we, right now, we’re in a very good position. We have a country that has been the bully of the Middle East for 50 years. Really, 51, if you think about it, right. We’ve been saying 47 for four years. And they’re no longer the bully of the Middle East. Thank you very much, everybody.

RollCall.com. 08/11/2026.

He doubled down on his delusion that we “own” the Strait this morning on Lies Social.

Türkiye’s Anadolu news agency reported this morning that:

The US and Iran have “agreed” to extend a 60-day ceasefire under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding as the agreement is set to expire on Aug. 17, Pakistani government sources told Anadolu on Wednesday.

“Both sides have conveyed their consent to the mediators to extend the deadline,” a source close to the mediation process said.

“However, the two sides are exchanging messages to decide on the extension period,” the source added.

Anadolu news agency. 08/12/2026.

A few hours later Reuters reported:

Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior ​Iranian source who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a timeframe to implement it.The ‌comments were a further blow to hopes of a swift resolution to the crisis, following attacks on shipping in the region on Tuesday that pushed oil prices higher.

[snip]

The June interim ceasefire agreement set a 60-day period, extendable by mutual consent, within which Iran and the U.S. were expected to reach a final deal limiting Tehran’s nuclear programme and lifting U.S. sanctions.The Iranian source dismissed a report on Wednesday from Turkey’s Anadolu news agency that quoted Pakistani government sources as saying they ​had agreed to extend that 60-day period.”There is no talk of an extension because, from Iran’s perspective, there is no period that began and therefore nothing to extend. The United ​States violated the interim agreement 48 hours after it was reached and withdrew from it a few days later,” the source told Reuters.

Reuters. 08/12/2026. Note: The article is paywalled. I subbed this morning, I haven’t found how to gift access.

The Wall Street Journal (08/12/2026):

President Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. has total control of the Strait of Hormuz. The reality on the water tells a different story.

Ship-tracking data shows just 14 vessels on Tuesday crossed a waterway that routinely handled more than 130 a day before the war. Eleven of those ships took the route administered by Iran. Traffic was slow throughout July, with an average of 26 crossings a day, and in June, with 33 a day, as renewed Iranian attacks on ships cut short a deal to open the strait.

The disconnect shows how Tehran has managed to squelch traffic through the crucial energy chokepoint with relatively little military force, only a handful of drone and missile attacks on ships. Iran doesn’t need to defeat the U.S. Navy. It just needs shipping companies, captains and insurers to believe ignoring its dictates could get a ship hit.

[snip]

Iran’s attacks have deterred captains from using the route along the Omani coast protected by the Navy. According to ship tracking firm Kpler, around half of the ships that risked crossing the strait in August chose the route administered by Iran. The other half chose to go dark when crossing, meaning their location beacons were off and their routes aren’t known. Only two out of the 166 crossings used the U.S.-backed route along Oman. 

The Wall Street Journal (08/12/2026).

But sure, we “own” the strait.

The other shit he posted this morning…

Yes. It’s the same opinion piece he shared yesterday.

“Dumocrats”.

More and more I’d like to pass a law that bans presidents from having social media accounts.

Yesterday, Puddle announced that former Marine Robert Gilman had been released from Russia and was returning home. Like he always does, he ruined the good news by posting this…

Like I’ve said before Puddle can’t “win” without a loser. He must always have someone to bash. Someone that he feels superior to.

In his last post before doubling down on his ownership of the Strait of Hormuz, he told his fans to buy a new book written by Trey “Hairdo” Gowdy.

Amazon tells me this is the second book in a series and has a release date of August 25th, 2026. Audible tells me the first book is The Color of Death, and, like book two, it was co-authored by Christopher Greyson.


In News that Made Me Late…

That didn’t really distracted me much. But it’s noteworthy as approach the Labor Day weekend.

A judge has ordered the Kennedy Center to pay more than $250,000 to a jazz musician who pulled out of a performance after the venue’s board voted to rename the building for President Donald Trump.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier on Monday ordered the center to pay $252,000 in legal fees and costs to lawyers for Chuck Redd, who for years had played at the center’s annual Christmas Eve concert.

[snip]

Last year, Redd had been in talks with the venue’s staff to perform but declined to sign a contract. He told the center he chose to bow out because of “the defiant and illegal name change happening to the Kennedy Center.”

The Kennedy Center sued in March, alleging Redd had breached his contract by withdrawing from the concert. But in June, Jones Bosier tossed the lawsuit, determining that center officials failed to show they had made a legally binding agreement with him.

[snip]

The Kennedy Center plans to appeal the ruling, a spokesman said in an email.

Washington Post. 08/12/2026.

Marco Rubio told America that “American Citizenship is not for sale”…

It isn’t?

TrumpCard.gov:

But sure, Jan, it’s not for sale…

🖕Open Thread 🖕

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About Tiff 3744 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.