Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing cable news… The county fair I used to go to as kid featured a roller coaster that went around in a circle as the Carny at the controls yelled through a staticky microphone, “Do you wanna go faster?” As with today’s hyperspeed (and hypernuts) news cycle, it had little impact when I screamed, “No!” Today’s news consumers already had to keep up with what was out in the open, and now the stuff that was covered up is being added to the mix. Like many of the elements of the whistleblower’s complaint, the coverup story is being confirmed. From AP: “A senior administration official acknowledged that the rough transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was moved to a highly classified system maintained by the National Security Council at the direction of attorneys.” And from WaPo: The effort to shield Trump’s call with Ukrainian leader was part of broader secrecy effort. (I wouldn’t have used the word effort twice in one headline, but I view this as more evidence that the current news cycle that has overwhelmed everyone. At this point, the 2020 election could come down to a simple question: Which candidate would you rather have a Xanax with?)

+ Even Fox News has been thrown off track. Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman on a Trump identity crisis at Fox.

+ “Could impeachment still backfire? I asked. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘We handled this with such care. It isn’t like we ran into this. He has taken us to this place.'” The New Yorker’s David Remnick talks to the Speaker about the week that changed everything. Nancy Pelosi: An Extremely Stable Genius.

+ Trump is determined to find and punish the leakers. But the most damning information so far is the call summary he released himself. That fact won’t alter what has become a familiar theme of the victim in the bully pulpit. McCay Coppins in The Atlantic: Victimhood is at the core of the president’s identity—and it’s likely to shape his approach to the coming battle. In the meantime, there will be tweets. And they will be weird.

+ Recent history has shown how Trump will play the crisis. What about Rudy? “It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I’m not. And I will be the hero! These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero.” (I’d take that bet…)

+ I could go on, but I’m late for a News Curators Anonymous meeting. So here’s the latest from CNN and WaPo.