The weekend is much closer than it appears.

In Our Sights

Is the Trump surge over? After weeks of topping the Iowa polls, everyone’s favorite former real estate mogul has slipped to second — or, at least, he’s slipped into the margin of error, even with Dr. Ben Carson. Must have been the helicopter rides.

Scott Walker may now be in danger of being re-seated to the kids’ table for the CNN Presidential debate, but he’s giving his all to New Hampshire. The Wisconsin governor will spend Labor Day weekend criss-crossing the Granite State on a Harley Davidson. 

Hillary Clinton is ending out her summer, carefully locked away from the huddled masses, in a sprawling East Hamptons mansion. And frankly, she’d prefer if you didn’t remind her about that whole email thing while she’s trying to get her Barefoot Contessa on.

Speaking of Hillary Clinton, it turns out the State Department’s 7,000-email dump revealed more than her fears about missing canned fish. She may not have received any classified email, but she certainly knew where to direct it when it happened into her inbox.

The Republican Party is so terrified of Donald Trump, it may call in the secret weapon literally no one is counting on: Mitt Romney. 

Strange and Wonderful

Thousands of years before Egyptians were hauling giant hunks of granite up incredibly complicated scaffolding to pave their way into an afterlife, early Russians were carving giant wooden statues out of 100-year-old trees and then losing them in peat bogs.

Around the Watercooler

Kermit the Frog broke up with Miss Piggy last month, presumably on the heels of her “Lifetime Achievement Award” for contributions to feminism. Yesterday, the green frog puppet made his new cross-species relationship public.

Breakfast with Oscar Wilde

“Obama says it is undeniable that Man has damaged the climate, and “all the rest is politics”…  that is demonstrably true; he was poisoning the atmosphere even as he spoke!”

Happy Wednesday, Spectators!