Tuesday Afternoon News Updates: Blanche Moves Ahead, U.S. Munitions Run Out – 8/4/26

Important midday update

U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) attends the committee vote on U.S. President Donald Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche to be U.S. attorney general, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 4, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Hey all, it’s not even 11AM out here on the West Coast, and there’s already a lot of important news to share. Before I dive in, I want to say another thank you for your incredible support of our new book, WTF America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy. If you preorder today, be sure to let me know in the comments!

Let me start with the headlines and then we can go deeper.

Here’s what we’re tracking:

• The Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination to the full Senate after Tillis and Cornyn folded

• A stunning report from Reuters detailing how the U.S. has burned through nearly “virtually all” of its precision strike missiles in the Iran War…exactly what we’ve been warning about

• Meanwhile, Iran hit a cargo ship and also attacked a U.S. base in Kuwait yesterday

• Charges against THREE MORE people falsely accused of destroying the reflecting pool were just dropped as Trump fumes over Jeanine Pirro making the fatal mistake of telling the truth

• The right spreads fake news about Mayor Mamdani requiring ID at NYC grocery stores

• Tariff refunds are coming in by the billions—and all of it is going to corporations, not the consumers who have been eating the higher costs

• The scandal surrounding Republican Rep. Max Miller continues to get worse

• 25 states are suing the Trump regime over his new tariffs

• Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary between Abdul El-Sayed and Hayley Stevens

Side note before we dig in: it’s also Barack Obama’s 65th birthday today! Happy Birthday to the former president! Now let’s dive deeper…