Craig Crawford

Todd Blanche went on national television and said the quiet part out loud. The days of an independent Justice Department are officially over. We are witnessing a radical departure from democratic norms straight back to the Nixon era where the Attorney General acts as the president’s personal lawyer. His AG ended up in prison.

Hopefully you will notice the trail feels a little smoother today, and you didn’t get batted away by a moody digital bouncer.

That’s because TRAILMIX.CC has officially moved into a brand new home!

Over our 21-year run—starting out on Blogspot back in 2005, riding shotgun on The Atlantic’s servers, then hosted by Congressional Quarterly, Roll Call, The Economist, and The New York Times, before eventually setting up camp at Network Solutions—we’ve carried this community through many digital landscapes.

As we always say, we were social media literally before it had a name.

For the majority of those 11 years on Network Solutions, they were a reliable, safe home that just quietly did its job. But recent corporate mergers and private equity shakeups changed the neighborhood, trading stable infrastructure for mysterious 500 errors, stubborn firewalls, and unannounced backend surprises.

So, we packed up our entire archive yesterday—all 14-plus gigabytes of it—and relocated to a lightning-fast new server built by the folks who actually created WordPress (Pressable).

The best part? Your favorite feature—dropping photos and files right into the comments—is coming along for the ride, and it’s finally running on machinery that won’t choke when you use it.

Thanks for bearing with us through the recent hiccups. The digital plumbing is fixed, the trail is wide open, and we’re ready for whatever comes next. Pull up a chair and drop an image in the comments to break in the new floors!

Hey Trailmixers,

If you’ve noticed some weird delays, missing content, or errors when trying to interact with the site lately, I want to clear the air. It’s not your browser, and it’s not a ghost in the machine—it is entirely the fault of my current hosting provider, Network Solutions.

Here is a quick look behind the curtain at what is happening and how we are going to fix it.

The Corporate Shell Game

Network Solutions isn’t the independent, reliable tech company it was when I moved us here many years ago. Through a series of acquisitions over the last few years, it was swallowed up by a massive private equity-backed conglomerate called Newfold Digital (formed when investment firms like Clearlake Capital merged Web.com, Endurance International Group, and Network Solutions into one giant umbrella).

As is the playbook when private equity takes over web hosting, the focus immediately shifted from customer reliability to aggressive corporate cost-cutting.

The Oracle Cloud Migration Mess

To slash their overhead, Newfold Digital recently started migrating their network of brands over to Oracle Cloud infrastructure. For boutique, independent sites like Trailmix, this forced migration has been a complete disaster. We are currently dealing with:

• Broken Firewalls: Their new security architecture (specifically an OpenResty firewall block) is horribly misconfigured. It is actively intercepting my connection and blocking me from publishing new posts.
• Database Chokeholds: They are severely throttling background resources to cram as many sites onto their servers as possible. This is what causes the site to time out or throw errors when you try to leave a comment.
• Non-Existent Support: Because they’ve consolidated so many distinct brands into one massive pool, their outsourced technical support is stretched incredibly thin and unable to fix the underlying server architecture.

What Happens Next?

I refuse to let corporate penny-pinching ruin this community. Because Network Solutions can no longer provide a functional platform, I have decided to move Trailmix to a new, premium server company ASAP. I want to be completely upfront: migrating a website is never fun for any of us. Over the next week or two, there will likely be some brief downtime, weird visual glitches, or broken links while we pack up our digital boxes and move the database to a better neighborhood.

Please bear with me while I get this sorted out. I promise the end result will be a much faster, much more reliable Trailmix for all of us.

Thanks for sticking around!

Or is it just Socialist growing pains?

The media is split on how to read the tea leaves after a night of high-profile Democratic primary defeats for the progressive wing. Mainstream outlets are framing the losses of Francesca Hong in Wisconsin and Josh Elliott in Connecticut as a sigh of relief for establishment Democrats and a repudiation of far-left policies. However, some local and progressive coverage highlights the extremely tight margins in Wisconsin, arguing that the near-miss of a democratic socialist in a critical swing state actually signals undeniable momentum for the left, even in defeat. The absurdist reality? A loss is being simultaneously spun as a “wall” for progressives and a terrifying warning sign for moderates.

• [Mainstream]: [Ongoing] David Crowley wins Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor over progressive Francesca Hong – Associated Press
• [Local]: CT Gov. Ned Lamont defeats Josh Elliott in Democratic primary – CT Mirror
• [Public Media]: Crowley and Hong locked in a tight race as results are reported – PBS Wisconsin
• [Local]: CT Gov. Ned Lamont defeats Josh Elliott in Democratic primary – Connecticut Public
• [Independent]: Wisconsin Democrats choose David Crowley over Francesca Hong’s progressive vision – The 19th

Open Thread…

• Wisconsin: A major stress test for the Democratic establishment, fueled by the rise of democratic socialist Francesca Hong in the gubernatorial primary.
• South Carolina: A high-stakes Republican special primary to replace the late Lindsey Graham, where his sister, Senator Darline Graham, is running with the full endorsement of Donald Trump.
• Minnesota: A significant reshuffling to replace departing incumbents, highlighted by a fierce Democratic Senate primary and a crowded Republican gubernatorial race featuring Mike Lindell.
• Connecticut: A classic establishment-versus-insurgent battleground, featuring a liberal primary challenge to sitting Governor Ned Lamont.
• Alabama: A redistricting shakeup featuring special primaries across four newly redrawn congressional maps.
• Vermont: State primaries continuing the broader national tug-of-war between establishment Democrats and progressive challengers.

The Stakes

The Anti-Vax Lie That Sickens GOP Campaign Pros

The new Trump/RFK Jr. vaccine executive order is an unforced error that can blow up the 2026 electoral map.

The White House is trying to spin their mandate to break up the MMR vaccine and cut standard childhood shots from 18 to 11 as “parental choice.” What it really does is manufacture chaos in pediatrician offices by ordering pharmaceutical products that don’t exist and would take a decade to make.

Read my deep dive at trailmix.cc/substack.

This hands Democrats the ultimate suburban wedge issue right before the midterms. Nearly 80% of the country—including two-thirds of MAGA voters—support school vaccine mandates. Picking this fight isn’t bold. It’s unhinged.

Today on Trail Mix LIve…