| Over at CBS News, frequent TWS contributor Michael Graham has a column on the dilemma of Afghanistan. "The bad news for President Trump," Graham writes "is that Afghanistan is a no-win proposition: Stay, and you keep losing American lives and treasure. Go, and you risk a future attack planned in Kandahar but executed in Kansas City." See also yesterday's excellent item by Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio at TWS on how Trump can avoid making the mistakes of his predecessors. Steve Scalise is learning to walk again. It's easy to forget in this amped-up news cycle that a member of the leadership of the U.S. Congress was nearly murdered some weeks ago. "Mr. Scalise has undergone multiple surgeries after being shot in the hip on June 14 and was readmitted into the intensive care unit in early July due to infection concerns. He is now in rehabilitation and undergoing extensive physical therapy," Speaker Paul Ryan told the Wall Street Journal. Step away from the Instagram account. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's glam wife, Louise Linton, stepped in it yesterday when she posted a picture of her and her husband getting off of a government plane in Kentucky, captioned: "Great #daytrip to #Kentucky! #nicest #people #beautiful #countryside #rolandmouret pants #tomford sunnies, #hermesscarf #valentinorockstudheels #valentino #usa." She had somebody take this picture so she could share it (like an Instagram model!) to her 8,000 followers, which is not very many. My dog Gus has 1,500, and Bonjour the Cat has 30,000. It's poor judgement for the wife of a government official, to be sure. But the comments, oh the comments. A user going by the handle of jennimiller29 responded to Linton by snarking: "Glad we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable." Which set off Linton: "Cute (Kisses emoji) Aw!!! Did you think this was a personal trip? Adorable! Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol. Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours. (Flexing muscle emoji, kisses emoji.) You're adorably out of touch..." Linton's account is now private. (Is this just the patriarchy crashing down on Linton?) Take a knee, Browns. Our colleagues over at Red Alert Politics editorialize over last night's Monday Night Football game regarding the dozen or so Cleveland Browns players who took a knee and prayed instead of standing for the national anthem. RAP observes that the number of Browns players kneeling for the national anthem is more than than their win total over the past three seasons. As a Browns fan, one has to take these digs in stride. As a friend observed: Is this really in the top 500 bad things the Cleveland Browns franchise has done to its fans? All a matter of perspective, I suppose. While the preseason is meaningless, the Browns are 2-0! Last year they won only one game all season, including the pre-season. Paul Nehlen Watch, Cont'd. Speaker Ryan's campaign staff might as well take the summer off with an opponent like Nehlen, who had a bizarre exchange with the Daily Beast's Lachlan Markay. Markay responded to a Twitter thread where Nehlen was sucking up to President Trump that Nehlen was undeterred after losing to Ryan last time by 68 points. Nehlen took the bait, responding: "if you are for Paul Ryan you are for PP, Obamacare, open borders, sanctuary cities, Hillary." Markay responds: "It could be that, or it could be that you're just too fringy and abrasive for even your district's Republicans." To which Nehlen responds with a link to vdare.com, a fringe website. More totality, sorta. Turns out that deputy online editor Chris Deaton wasn't the only TWS employee in range of the eclipse. Associate editor Ethan Epstein, opinion editor Barton Swaim, and senior writer John McCormack all spent the day at various points along the eclipse's path. Here's John's item today on the historic event from St. Joseph, Missouri. —Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editor Please feel free to send us comments, thoughts and links to dailystandard@weeklystandard.com. -30- | 