I’ve been fascinated by the evolving Madison Cawthorn “scandal.” As TPM Readers know as well as anyone, House Republicans say batsh*t insane stuff pretty much weekly. They not infrequently make statements in support of fringe racist and domestic terror groups. They endorse borderline sedition (light treason, if you will). These pass with as little trace as a brief summer shower. Yet here we have Cawthorn whipping out this weird Boogie Nights reverie about cocaine-filled orgies among his colleagues in Congress, a den of iniquity the brash young man-boy Cawthorn says he is striving to keep himself pure from. And yet this looks to be on the verge of making him a political dead man walking among congressional Republicans. Kevin McCarthy said yesterday that Cawthorn has “lost my trust” and that if he doesn’t shape up he could be stripped of his committee assignments or worse.

It’d be eye roll-inducing if it weren’t so darkly nauseating.

A woman named Lia Thomas won the NCAA Division 1 national championship for the 500-yard freestyle swimming race last week. Thomas is the first transgender athlete to earn this title, beating out Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Emma Weyant, who won second place at the NCAA tournament.

For years I’ve been corresponding with TPM Reader BF. He’s in the national security world, whereas I’m just an outside observer. He’s prone to intense responses to events whereas I’m characterologically more cautious. But this is his field not mine. So in recent days I was struck to see that he thinks I have the Ukraine situation totally wrong and that notwithstanding its battlefield embarrassments and mishaps Putin is on the verge of getting everything he wants and Ukraine is on the verge of what amounts to surrender.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate talk about new revelations into what major Republican players were doing during and around the insurrection.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.