Hopium 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢

Pooling:  The press pool is back or at the very least should be.  Overnight, US District Court Judge Jim Kelly, the same judge who reinstated Jim Acosta’s credentials after they were canceled by Trump in 2018, said that the White House must lift Trump’s ban on CNN, MSNOW, and Politico.  Judge Kelly’s ruling wasn’t a surprise since Trump’s rationale for stripping the three media outlets had no merit.  It certainly didn’t help that Trump said that he stripped them of access to “his” house because of all the mean things they’d said about him.  The judge didn’t buy the DOJ’s attempt to pivot Trump’s pathetic rationale from personal petulance to national security and military concerns.  It certainly didn’t help that one of the DOJ’s examples of the faux national security risk was Politico’s use of an unnamed source for an article about Iran when the source was a presentation made by Veep Vance in a meeting where the White House asked Politico and the other media outlets in attendance to cite Vance as an unnamed source rather than to identify him by name.  Because the UN has its own press pool, Trump’s depressingly awful speech to the General Assembly yesterday was broadcasted far and wide yesterday.  During that speech he threatened to annihilate Iran if they didn’t concede to his demands while also changing the name of Artificial Intelligence to Super Intelligence. It’s not clear why Trump thinks that renaming things and places is a solution to anything, but he does so AI is now SI, Lake Ontario is Lake America, and the Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America.  Whatever.

MAHA Not:  It’s also not clear why JD Vance and Mehmet Oz think that bragging about stripping Vice President JD Vance announced that the Trump administration is removing roughly 750,000 to 760,000 enrollees from the Obamacare exchanges in the run up to the midterm elections where the chances of them faceplanting continues to grow makes sense by claiming that all of them were either improperly enrolled or do not exist, they did.  Spoiler alert, it’s highly unlikely that most of the cancelled individuals were committing fraud, but the administration that pardons billion-dollar fraudsters loves citing peons for fraud and according to Dr. Oz, anyone who hasn’t filed an insurance claim obviously doesn’t exist. Apparently the multi-homed wealthy Oz doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to understand that healthy people without vast financial resources frequently view health insurance, particularly policies with high deductibles, as something they only use when facing expensive health crises. In other health news, at least for now the White House has shelved a plan for Trump issue an executive order that would have established a commission with the power to block government funded research grants if the work funded by those plans didn’t align with Trump’s political agenda, not because Trump and Budget Director Russel Vought who would have had a prominent role on the commission don’t want to move forward with the order but because there was intense bipartisan pushback.

Midterm Madness: Despite Trump’s efforts to gerrymander away a midterm loss of the House through aggressive redistricting something that is still playing out in Missouri where the 9^th District Court is fighting with SCOTUS, it’s likely that the Democrats will regain control of the House, assuming of course that Trump and his MAGA abettors at the Department of Homeland Security and the DOJ don’t send troops to the polls, otherwise disrupt the elections and/or refuse to swear in the winners.  The Senate is a different story.  For most of this year the assumption has been that while it might be possible to hold Jon Ossoff’s Georgia seat while picking up North Carolina and/or Maine, it would be near impossible for them to regain control.  However, something appears to be happening in more than a few Senate races in reliably red states perhaps because voters are growing increasingly concerned about inflation and rising energy prices and maybe, just maybe are beginning to realize that their Orange MAGA god is more interested in enriching himself and his family than improving their lives.  If the blue wave is big some races that are close or shouldn’t even be close might go blue or independent.  Offsetting that, a lot of Republican billionaire and PAC money is now being thrown into the mix. In no particular order, these are the states to watch:

Georgia: Incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff appears to be leading his Republican competitor Congressman Mike Collins by anywhere from 5 to 10 points.  Ossoff is the Democrats newest darling.  Collins hasn’t been helped by a scandal involving a former senior staff member who was into all things Nazi.      

North Carolina:  North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis is not running for reelection in part because he lost Trump’s support and in part because it didn’t look like he could win reelection against former Governor Roy Cooper who is the Democrat’s candidate for the seat he’s now vacating.  The popular Cooper is facing off against former RNC chair Michael Whatley.  Polls indicate that Cooper is leading by 5 to 15 points.  North Carolina will be a Democratic pick-up unless the midterms go haywire.

Iowa: Current Senator Joni Ernst announced she wouldn’t be running for reelection shortly after dismissing her constituents concerns about Medicaid cuts by saying “everyone dies.” The Iowa race is between Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson and Democrat State Representative/Para Olympian Josh Turek.  Iowa hasn’t gone for a Democrat since Obama but as of now Turek is polling as much as 8 points ahead of Hinson. That’s good news but there was that infamous Iowa poll that showed Kamala Harris trouncing Trump in 2024 so while optimism maybe warranted it’s too soon to put Iowa in the category of Georgia or North Carolina.

Kansas:  Kansas, a reliably red state isn’t supposed to be in play. However, recent reports about incumbent Senator/OB-GYN Doctor Roger Marshall’s history of sending his patients’ accounts to collection agencies for debts as low as $100 appear to be hurting his brand.  While he is still leading, the Cook Political Report has shifted his race against Democrat Adam Hamilton from solid Republican to lean Republican. Ricketts will probably win but Republicans now have to allocate some money to holding Kansas.

Alaska:  Former Democratic Congressman/native Alaskan Mary Peltola is leading incumbent Senator Republican Dan Sullivan in quite a few though not all of the polls.  Alaska uses ranked choice voting, and the other Dan Sullivan is still on the ballot so it’s hard to tell who is really leading but Peltola stands a good chance of coming out on top.   

Ohio:  Ohio is another one of those states that has become increasing red over the years.  Former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown who lost in 2024 to current Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, father-in-law to wife abuser/Congressman Max Miller,  is making a comeback bid.  He’s currently polling 3 to 4 points ahead of incumbent Republican Jon Husted who replaced JD Vance when he became VP.  If any Democrat can pick up a Senate seat in Ohio, it’s Brown, a populist whose appeal historically has crossed party lines.   

Maine:  Maine is supposed to be one of the Democrats’ best pick-up opportunities.  However, incumbent Senator Susan Collins is well liked in the state and has a history of outperforming polls. It doesn’t help Democrats that her opponent Troy Jackson got off to a slow start after their first choice, Graham Platner, the Nazi tattooed oyster farmer and accused rapist, was ousted. Depending on the poll, Collins, despite a lot of people not forgiving her support of Justice Brett (Beer) Kavanaugh’s confirmation, is running neck and neck with Jackson.  Yesterday, ProPublica published an article detailing how, through her PAC, Collins received a campaign contribution from Novatek, a Hawaii based defense company in what looks a lot like a payoff for her support for them getting a lucrative government contract. The grift was being investigated by the DOJ’s anti-corruption unit but the investigation was called off after Trump took office. Of course, Collins denies everything.  Given the timing of the story and Collin’s habit of winning it’s not clear that voters who should care will care but maybe they will helped by rising energy costs and the Canada mess.  

Michigan:  Michigan has an open seat because Democratic Senator Gary Peters is retiring.  The race in the state is between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers.  Senator Peters won his last election by only 1.7 points and Michigan’s other Senator Elissa Slotkin, who ran against Rogers in 2024, won by only 0.5 points so holding the Michigan seat was never going to be easy.  At first it appeared that El-Sayed who eked out his primary win despite polling that had indicated he would easily win would be the underdog against the relatively normal for a Republican Rogers.  However, Michigan is one of the states most affected by Trump’s Canada shenanigans and rising fuel prices.  Sayed is now polling ahead of Rogers in most polls. 

Nebraska:  Nebraska is another reliably Republican state and incumbent Senator Pete Ricketts who is facing Independent Dan Osborn will probably hold his seat, but the state has lots of disgruntled farmers who have been hurt by Trump’s tariffs and rising energy costs.  Polling has been all over the place with some polls showing Osborn leading.  There’s a chance, albeit a small one that Osborn ekes out a victory even though he shouldn’t be able to.

New Hampshire:  New Hamphsire is another one of those states where the Democratic incumbent, this time Senator Jeanne Shaheen, is retiring.  The race is now between former Senator John Sununu, not to be confused with the more popular former Governor Chris Sununu, and Democratic Congressman Chris Pappas.  Pappas who only recently won his primary got off to a slow start and had been lagging Sununu in the polls, but he now appears to be in the lead.  New Hampshire is another state where high energy bills could sway voters blue.

Texas: Texas’s Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton has repeatedly cheated on his wife; he’s an awful person and is so corrupt that he was impeached by Texas’ Republican House.  He won his primary against incumbent Senator John Cornyn only because he got a huge lift from the corrupt guy in Washington.  Paxton is running against squeaky clean Democrat, State Representative James Talarico who is up by a few points in most of the recent polls but it’s Texas and Texas rarely fails to disappoint.  As proof of that yesterday, Paxton’s estranged wife who is suing him for divorce on biblical grounds urged voters to stick with him because she’d rather a flawed Republican than any Democrat. Still, hope or as political guru Tim Miller calls it “hopium” abounds so maybe just maybe this time Texas Democrats, buoyed by some disgruntled Hispanic voters who didn’t realize that Trump’s aggressive anti-immigrant push would put targets on their backs and some ranchers who are suffering will vote for Talarico or stay home.   

 

Gold Kryptonite 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢

Pressing Buttons:   The Houthis have ramped up their attacks, interest rates are up, gas and food prices are rising, and recent polls indicate that Trump’s approval rating is down with Reuters/Ipsos showing it at 32% and the American Research Group showing him breaking through 30% to 29%.  Egged on by surrogate wife/binkie Natalie, Trump’s solution to all the bad news was to announce on Friday that he would be banning CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House and from participating in his traveling press pool.  Over the weekend, he implemented his ban while also asserting that no one is more of an advocate for free speech than him; his definition of free speech, including speech that reports his greatness rather than the “fake” news reported by the outlets he banned and some others like the NY Times and the Washington Post who he threatened to add to his “no White House for you” list. Trump’s impetuous announcement came as a surprise to most of his staff, or so they say, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles but then again, most who aren’t his binkie, including Wiles actually go home at night.  CNN, MSNOW, and Politico are now suing to get their access back.  Their case has been assigned to District Court judge Timothy Kelly,  the same Trump appointed Judge who previously ordered that then CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials be reinstated after Trump stripped his away so it’s likely that theirs will be reinstated too.  The judge who Trump is already badmouthing, scheduled a preliminary hearing for Wednesday morning. CNN was due to run the White House press pool this week meaning that their cameras were supposed to provide and share live footage with the rest of the White House pool, however since they’ve lost, or at the very least temporarily lost their credentials, their camera teams were also subjected to Trump’s ban. In an unusual show of solidarity, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, the other four networks that make-up the White House’s camera pool, all refused to assume CNN’s spot in the pool rotation.  The White House and Trump still have press coverage but that coverage including the first flight into and out of Trump’s new toy, his White House heli pad, went off without professional video coverage and an audible feed because though Trump tried to fill the void with Trump TV, his network wasn’t up to the task. Though Trump’s schedule of United Nations meetings will be covered by the press, with the exception of his General Assembly speech which will be broadcast by the UN, most won’t have the level of camera and audio coverage that he feeds off of, kind of like “Superman” Trump is now traveling with his own form of kryptonite.  Although his Tuesday afternoon meeting with NYC’s Mayor Mamdani was broadcast cleanly, that was only because Mamdani invited the “banned” outlets to participate at their meeting which was held on his Gracie Manson turf.  Score one for Mamdani who at 5’11” appeared to be the same height as the 6’3” Trump.  🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️

The AI Conundrum:  Hugging Face 🤗 🧸 which was acquired by chip maven Nvidia in September, isn’t just an emoji, it’s the name of an online platform and community where developers and researchers build, share, and collaborate on artificial intelligence and machine learning models.  Over the summer it was reported that in May and June OpenAI models running a Hugging Face cybersecurity evaluation started communicating among themselves making changes that were not initiated by humans.  As a result of what is now being called the Huggy Bear incident, the fear of AI running amok is now being taken seriously.  That fear which has been percolating within the tech community was further heightened after Jacob Coxon, a researcher who previously worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic, announced his resignation from Anthropic, accusing top AI labs of racing toward self-improving superintelligence and "gambling with our lives.” As a result of Coxon’s warning and the Huggy Bear incident, which was just the tip of the iceberg, there’s been increasing pressure to slow down AI development until some guard rails, possibly in the form of a national and/or international regulatory agency can be put in place, something along the lines of the way that the proliferation of atomic weapons has been limited, or somewhat limited.  Trump’s first response, likely influenced by some of his tech bro donators and chip manufacturers is that no outside regulator is necessary because he’s a genius and anyway we need to stay ahead of China, to whom he as chief genius sold the advanced chips that they need to advance their AI aspirations. He’s now saying that he’ll create an AI force with an AI czar whatever that means.  What to do about AI development is now a political football, one with lots of anti-regulation money being thrown into the midterm elections. That Trump thinks he’s the genius who can determine what is and isn’t allowed, should scare all of us into believing that some rational framework and regulation is required.  Will we get there before AI gets us, maybe we should ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Copilot?  Then again, maybe they like Trump aren’t the right decisionmakers. 🤷‍♀️ 🤷‍♀️.  

More 💩:  Trump announced that his planned Arc d’Trump will be a “top grade military complex” that will include drone and sniper capability. That is utterly ridiculous however, by saying that his triumphal arch is a military installation, he believes that he’ll be able to get the courts, especially his SCOTUS abettors, to sign off on it much the way that they signed off on his East Wing project when he added an assertion that his ballroom was a military installation in drag. On the subject of drag, Secretary of War and Beer Hegseth appears to be back to ensuring “his” male troops really are male and that they have adequate levels of testosterone.  To that end, in addition to checking that their waist measurements conform to his standards, he’s asked troops over 30 to report on their “spontaneous morning erections.”  Hegseth hasn’t weighed in on bestiality, but FBI Director Kash Patel has. Kash who needs to hire more FBI Agents to replace the ones he fired wants to eliminate a history of engaging in bestiality as an automatic disqualifier because sometimes the bestiality is the beast’s fault? He’s also okay if new recruits have engaged in prostitution or hired a prostitute as long they only did so three times more than ten years ago. On the subject of stupid acts, reports are that Don Jr has agreed to reimburse the oligarch who paid for some of his wedding festivities. That sounds like the right thing to do but there is no proof that he actually has paid him back or plans to do so.  Lastly, Trump has declared victory in his war with Denmark over Greenland, but what he’s really accomplished is the updating of a pre-existing long-term arrangement, something that could have been accomplished without offending allies and scaring Greenland into believing they were about to be invaded.    

 

   

Strict Body Composition 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢

War:  On Tuesday, CBS News published photos showing extensive damage to US military bases across the Middle East, including but not limited to bases in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait.  The damage is the result of Iranian missile and drone attacks.  The photos which were provided to CBS by active-duty members of the military who asked to remain anonymous reflect destruction that the Pentagon has not shown the American public.  Other major news outlets have since reported on the accuracy of the CBS story. Yesterday, after asserting that this year’s Congress had been the most productive ever, Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home early, they won’t be back until after the midterms. Though he didn’t say so, it’s widely believed that he sent them home to avoid having to take a vote on Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach Secretary of Defense/War/Beer Pete Hegseth and also to avoid voting on the release of more Epstein files.  To state the obvious, this Congress has not been the most productive ever, in fact it’s barely ever in session because Johnson keeps sending its members home to avoid taking votes, the war is not going well, and Johnson had every reason to believe that while the vote on Hegseth might not have led to his impeachment, it was going to be embarrassing.  For his part Hegseth, who at least for now isn’t moving forward with his plan to test troops testosterone levels has been focused on other similarly ridiculous things. The Wall Street Journal reports that he’s notified commanders that only service members who meet “strict body composition, fitness, and appearance benchmarks” including somewhat meaningless waist to height ratios, will be considered for attendance at his upcoming “State of the Force address” scheduled to take place on September 30.  Does that mean that the Commander in Chief with the chunky ankles won’t be invited?  The less photo ready soldiers get to remain in harms way in the Middle East, as punishment for being dumpy and/or genetically challenged while Trump, if he’s excluded will just play another round of golf.  In other diplomatic news, Trump is now threatening to go to war with Canada and to impose more tariffs on the EU’s member countries in retaliation to the possibility that our neighbors to the north might join the EU as its first associate member, an option that is only on the table because of the miserable way Trump’s been treating them.        

The Economy:  Yesterday, in an effort to control “stubborn” inflation, the Federal Reserve, now Chaired by Kevin Warsh who despite being known as an inflation hawk, was appointed by Trump to replace his previous appointee Jerome Powell who he pushed out for refusing to lower rates, unanimously voted to raise the benchmark interest rate by one quarter of a point. Trump is not happy; he responded to the Fed’s move by once again asserting that interest rates in the US should be lowered to 1% while also reupping a threat to cut trade “with every country that we have a Deficit with, which is most of them.”  It’s not clear what he was doing during his days at Wharton but it clearly didn’t involve attending Economics classes. Not only is Trump’s threat to cut trade “shoot in the foot” stupid, but it’s his Iran war and its impact on gas prices combined with his tariffs that are  causing the “stubborn” inflation that led to the Federal Reserve Board’s action, not that Trump would ever acknowledge that his actions and policies are anything less than brilliant. Perhaps in response to everyone pointing out that Warsh was his appointee, last night Trump said he still supports his new Fed Chair, asserting that the rate increase wasn’t Warsh’s fault, that he had been “forced” to raise rates by all the other members of the Federal Reserve Board, a weird take on Warsh’s action and his accompanying statement that the rate increase was necessary to combat inflation but then again, given the source, not all that shocking.    

Polls:  On Tuesday, the NY Times reported that the Democrats have a “clear advantage” going into the midterms.  Their conclusion is based on national polling undertaken by the Times together with it’s polling partner Siena University.  The Times/Siena polls are well respected so their conclusions are nothing to sneeze at.  Their polling suggests that Trump is seriously underwater across almost every metric and as a result is a drag on his party.  As a result Democrats have a 9 point advantage going into the midterms.  In prior elections an advantage of that magnitude would indicate that a big blue wave was coming, but given that Republicans won the gerrymandering war and have a bigly funding advantage, it remains unclear just how large the predicted blue wave will be.  That’s not to say that Democrats aren’t expected to take over control of the House but the number of seats they pick up, and the size of their majority are likely to be smaller than they would have been absent all the redistricting shenanigans.  Democrats also stand a chance of regaining control of the Senate, but that hill is harder to climb.  To come out on top they need to hold all their contested Senate seats, including Georgia which given incumbent golden boy Jon Ossoff’s increasing popularity looks like a done deal but also in Michigan and New Hampshire where polls show Democratic candidates El Sayed and Pappas neck and neck with their respective Republican oppoments, Rogers and Sununu, while also picking up four more.  Although Democrats are currently running ahead of Republicans in lots of the states they need to pick up like North Carolina, Maine, Texas, and Ohio as well as in a few others like Iowa, and Alaska where until recently they didn’t think they’d have any chance of winning, with the exception of North Carolina where former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper is likely to coast to victory their leads mostly fall within the margin of error. Moreover, if we’ve learned anything by now polls can be depressingly wrong:  Maine’s Susan Collins has a history of outpeforming hers; Texas is Texas; and that Iowa poll completed by then respected pollster Ann Selzer that showed Kamala Harris winning the state in 2024 by 3 points was off by 16 points. 

More 💩:  Keep an eye on the Kennedy Center.  After a court ruled that Trump can’t have his name etched on its façade, its Trump appointed board voted to shut it down temporarilly as in forever because Trump, bigly mad that he can’t get his name on the Center’s walls, is holding up $257 million that was previously allocated for its rehabilitation and repair.  Yesterday, Trump’s minions began putting up a fence around the Center, and many fear that Trump who has threatened to tear down the Center’s building might do that, replacing it with an amphitheater.  A few members of the Kennedy family have expresed their outrage, but not RFK Jr, he’s too busy pretending that the measles outbreak in Pennsylvania where there more than 700 cases of measles have been confirmed and four deaths have occurred, is just fake news.  Trump has been busy too, not just with his war and his golf game, but also stock trading.  He’s traded 24,000 times since the beginning of this term, quite a bit more than his predecessors Bush, Obama, Clinton, and Biden whose grand total number of trades was 0. It’s fair to assume that some of Trump’s trades involved Data Center and AI related companies but nothing to see there because while lots of people including the heads of Anthropic and OpenAI think it’s time for some regulation, Trump says that since he, the genius whose uncle was a brilliant MIT professor, knows all, is in charge, who needs any regulation, anyway?  Besides, odds are that he won’t be around in ten years when AI takes over possibly killing the rest of us.           

  

Mousetrap 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢 🎇

Vote, Vote, Vote:  Yesterday evening in an unsigned one paragraph statement, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to have the Postal Service suppress voter turnout in the upcoming midterms. A majority of the Justices concluded that it was unlikely that the government would succeed on the merits of its challenge to a District Court’s preliminary injunction barring the implementation of the Postal Service’s new regulations.  Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the majority's decision, saying “that even if the agency has the technical authority to enforce such rules, doing so this close to an election is unfeasible.”  However, just as he did in the birth right citizen case, he hedged, leaving Trump an opening to proceed with his anti-mail-in crusade by saying that “there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority.”  In other words, at a future date Kavanaugh would be open to joining his righter than right wing Trump abetting colleagues Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas who both disagreed with the majority’s decision since they thought that it would be fine for the Postal Service to implement Trump’s voter squelching regulations now, midterms or any future elections be damned.  The Court’s decision is a very good thing for those who care about democracy and free elections, but it doesn’t mean that Trump’s efforts to limit voter participation have been put on hold.  Yesterday, via a whistle blower it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security has been violating state laws by inappropriately using state data bases to “test” whether some voters are really citizens eligible to vote.  Noncitizen voting is extremely rare, and the illegal effort has turned out to be for naught.  And there’s still the specter of INS troops showing up at “blue” polling places on election day.   

🎇 🎇 🎇: Score a big one for ProPublica.  Yesterday in a story that has now been confirmed by other news outlets, they reported that Don Junior’s Bahama’s wedding to Bettina Anderson wasn’t the intimate close family and friends affair that he said it was.  In fact, a few Russians were in attendance, fair since one of them helped plan and then footed the bill for some of the festivities. That “foot” included paying for a wedding weekend party at a nearby private island and for some fancy fireworks.  In all it’s estimated that Umar Kremlov, the current name of the Russian oligarch and friend of Putin in question, coughed up somewhere in excess of $100,000, maybe even a multiple of $100,000, to fete his “good friend” Don Jr.  Little Don doesn’t deny that Umar gifted him the party and accompanying fireworks, nor does Bettina.  They both defended their “grateful” acceptance of Umar’s largesse, saying that’s what good friends do for each other even for people like Donny who is reported to be worth $300 million. In addition to being a good friend of Donny, Umar frequently travels with Putin.  He is also sanctioned by Ukraine, something to do with his “charity” which has been credibly accused of kidnapping Ukrainian children.  It’s fair to assume that Umar didn’t gift Donny and Bettina out of the goodness of his heart because there’s no such thing as a free ride, or as Russians put it “free cheese is only in a mousetrap.”  Hunter Biden and his dad probably have a lot to say about this. One more fun tidbit in the story: in preparation for his wedding or maybe for a future run for president, Don Jr had his chin shaped to look more chiseled.     

More 💩 :  It turns out that reports of Mitch McConnell’s death were greatly exaggerated.  He’s wheelchair bound, and looking Weekend at Bernie’s level fragile but he’s back and ready to cast Senate votes.  Bo French is alive too, though some Texas Republicans running for office probably wish he’d go into witness protection.  French is running for Texas Railroad Commissioner, not a position that ordinarily gets a whole lot of attention outside of Texas.  However, French is now front and center because over the weekend he tweeted out a picture of a crowd of Asian students at a University of Texas football game saying that he’d heard that “UT graduation ‘looked like this,’ adding that the problem was ‘far worse than anyone imagined.’ In another post, he wrote that Americans are being “displaced by foreigners.”  Texas Republican candidates, already facing competitive races, have now been put in the position of having to condemn French’s xenophobic comments or endorse them with their silence.  Fun. Then there’s Macklemore who is outraged that a lot of people think his showing up in an intentionally hateful and disparaging costume, one that included a sterotypical big nose, while making “pro-Palestine” chants and displaying “imagery” at an Ed Sheeran concert was okay. He’s now been banned from several venues and will no longer be accompanying Sheeran.  To be fair, Macklemore’s entitled to say what he wants however he shouldn’t be surprised that attendees of what was supposed to be a family fun Ed Sheeran concert were not “receptive” to his vitriole and found his obviously meanspirited costume repellant.  Naturally, Maklemore whose anti-Israel screeds long predate the events in Gaza is blaming “that Jew” Robert Kraft  for having him banned. In response, Kraft issued a very impressive and nuanced statement last night in which he talked about his ongoing fight against anti-Semitism as well as the resources he has contributed to support Palestinians.  Ed Sheeran has not commented publicly, but has not so bravely let leak that he wasn’t pleased with Macklemore’s shxtshow.  Pink, who did criticize Macklemore for his hatefilled screed has gotten all kinds of hate thrown in her direction.  Being Pink, she can handle it because at the end of the day she’s Pink and she’s great.    

 

 

50 Days 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢

🍀 🍀 🍀 :Fresh off the Trumpapalooza midterm convention, Trump traveled to Ireland this weekend.  In theory he went to the Emerald Isle to promote relations with Ireland, but the real reason he went was to attend the Irish Open taking place at his Doonbeg Golf Club because with him personal business always comes first, second and third.  Naturally, he brought his usual entourage of hangers on with him, including binky/printer girl Natalie who received first lady treatment, fitting because Melania, who has mostly checked out opted not to join the traveling squad. While in Ireland Trump came close to reigniting the Irish Troubles by calling for the immediate unification of Ireland and Northern Ireland because what’s another war, or as he likes to call them, skirmish, anyway? Proving that his tariffs are bunk, he removed the one he’d imposed on Irish Whiskey as a parting gift before departing.  As to wars, the Iran “small potatoes” one is getting worse. The Strait of Hormuz which Trump insists is open is not open and now due to attacks by the Houthis, one of those nice Iranian surrogate groups that we were told the Iranians would no longer have the resources to fund but that they apparently are still funding maybe because they are getting some strategic assistance on targeting US assets from China, the Saudis’ work around route is no longer safe.  That’s bad news for the price of oil, which is bad news for inflation and interest rates, though Trump would prefer that we all hold Ukraine responsible for any diesel price increases because apparently it’s their refusal to concede to Russia’s land grab that is the problem, not the war that Russia started or the Iran disaster.     

Midterm Madness:  Most of us know that Trump will not be sending us $5000 checks if the Republicans hold on to their House and Senate majorities after all the Midterm votes are counted, assuming they are ever counted.  Nor do most of us expect to ever receive the tariff or DOGE dividends that Trump promised but he doesn’t need most of us to believe him, he just needs to convince more MAGA voters to show up on election day even though his name won’t be on the ballot while also convincing a few delusional swing voters, the same ones still waiting for free IVF, to buy into his faux promises. It’s Trump’s preference that his voters actually show up in person because though he votes by mail, he doesn’t want the rest of us to do the same.  On the mail-in front, we’re still waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in. The fact that SCOTUS hasn’t opined yet, is either a good thing or a truly bad thing.  Good because, even if they don’t rule now that Trump’s Executive Order is unconstitutional, deciding instead to kick the can forward, the onerous new Post Service ballot requirements won’t apply to the midterms.  Worse than bad, because if they do rule in favor of Trump’s Executive Order, an outcome which should be inconceivable except for the fact that this Court has done inconceivable things, they’ll inject more chaos into the midterms elections since ballots have already been printed and in some cases have already been mailed out and will do immeasurable damage to election results by squelching votes.  In any case, keep checking your news alert because something will pop up shortly.  One indication that Trump is getting nervous about the elections is that he, like his abettor Elon Musk is finally sending some of the buckets of cash that he’s been hoarding onto Republican candidates.  Not all of it, just some of it because having seen pictures of Obama’s library, Trump wants to save some to make his biglier, while also setting aside some to operate his Qatari plane that only the most delusional believe he won’t continue using after 2028.  As to the elections, retired Conservative Judge Michael Luttig, is raising alarms.  He’s concerned that the “decisive test may not come on Election Day, but on January 3, 2027, when duly elected members of the 120th Congress could be denied their seats, raising a fundamental question for our democracy:  Will the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box be honored?” Judge Luttig is concerned that current House Speaker Johnson who has repeatedly shown himself to be nothing more than a Trump tool will refuse to seat any newly elected Democratic members of Congress and that there will be no Republicans like former VP Mike Pence willing to say no to Trump’s orders. Not seating the election winners would be litigated and eventually overturned but the damage to democracy would be immeasurable.  

More 💩:  Last week Joseph DiGenova, a former US Attorney and a long-term Trump ally, resigned from the Department of Justice.  He’d been leading the “grand conspiracy” investigation taking place out of the DOJ’s Miami office.  That investigation has been tasked with prosecuting people like former CIA Director John Brennan, who Trump holds responsible for looking into his “alleged” election canoodling with the Russians.  DiGenova was being pressured to hand down indictments of Brennan and other Trump “enemies” but apparently had not found the dirt he needed.  He defended his work, and the lack of indictments saying "I make cases the old-fashioned way: witnesses, evidence, etc. That takes time.’ He added that “rushing indictments without proper evidence creates an ethical problem.”  Indictments could still happen, because Trump and AG Todd Blanche aren’t all that concerned about ethics and will just pressure someone less “ethical” and/or stupid to move forward.  It says a lot about the legitimacy of the Miami investigation, nothing good, that someone as dedicated to Trump as DiGenova couldn’t find it within himself to move forward.  Back in DC, the Trump administration position is that the Kennedy Center will have to file for bankruptcy if the courts won’t allow Trump to emboss his name on its walls.  Their legal filing actually says that if Trump’s name isn’t etched in, he won’t approve financing for the Center.  Breathe deeply now because soon you won’t want to. The EPA is on the “verge” of eliminating limits on the amount of pollution that gas and coal plants can release into the environment because apparently despite global warming and erratic weather, we’ve got nothing to worry about.  On the AI (Artificial Intelligence) front, everyone including the leaders of Anthropic and OpenAI, but not Trump is concerned that Hal’s increasingly errant children will soon destroy us.  Speaker Johnson is concerned but doesn’t have time to deal with it mostly because Trump doesn’t want him to find the time.  Lastly, in one piece of good news, the Supreme Court once again refused to allow Missouri to move ahead with the redistricting that would have eliminated one of its two Democratic House seats.         

 

 
Chaos Theory 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢 🍎 🍯

💰 💵 💰 💵:  The Iran war continues to escalate with Iran shooting missiles at US ships in the Strait of Hormuz and at US bases in Jordan.   Trump says that he’s not trying to negotiate an end to the “small potatoes” war right now but that it will mysteriously end right after the midterms which is also the time that he promises gas prices will return to normal levels.  In an effort to drum up attention for the Republican’s weird midterm convention master manipulator Trump who wants voters to pretend he’s on the ballot promised to send every American adult a $5000 check if Republicans win both the House and Senate in the midterms. Estimates are that Trump’s giveaway would cost more than $1 trillion.  He provided no details about how he would fund the giveaway, whether he’d issue more debt or whether he’d zero out something else like maybe Social Security or Medicare.  Then again, Trump who has a habit of bankrupting his companies appears determined to do the same to the US economy. In any case, it’s fair to assume that his promise is just a campaign ruse, one that some voters will fall for, but that’s the point. On the subjects of weird and attention getting, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman appeared via video at Trump’s shindig.  Fetterman continues to insist that he has no plans to change his party affiliation, reminding everyone that he mostly votes with Democrats, but since he really likes his fellow Pennsylvanian Senator Republican David McCormick and hates socialism, he was happy to appear.  Points to McCormick and a few other shrewd Republicans like Alabama’s Katie Britt for figuring out that the emotionally fragile Fetterman responds well to hugs, tea and sympathy and that the unending criticism, warranted or not, that he’s been getting from some in his party is a sure way to push him into their arms.  Fetterman has always been odd, these days he’s also unpredictable, a Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema mash-up in shorts and a sweatshirt.  Neither Manchin or Sinema are still in the Senate, it’s fair to assume that Fetterman won’t be able to win a Democratic primary when he comes up for reelection in 2028 and will be a one term Senator, at least as a Democrat.

Ballot Box 🗳️ Chaos:  Yesterday was primary day in Rhode Island.  Proving that at the end of the day politics is a local affair, sitting Democratic Governor Dan McKee lost his primary to business executive Helena Foulkes. McKee wasn’t ousted by a socialist uprising, rather he was tanked by his mishandling of repair work on Providence’s Washington bridge, the major east-west traffic artery that carries roughly 100,000 vehicles per day.  After next week’s Delaware election, primary season will be over.  Some states have already mailed out ballots for the November midterm election. Despite that, Trump and his anti-mail in ballot fight continues.  The Supreme Court is expected to rule shortly on his efforts to have the US Postal Service insert itself into the election process by refusing to deliver ballots that don’t meet Trump’s “standards.” Even a few Republican states are on record opposing Trump and the Post Office’s efforts, not because they don’t want to make it more difficult for Democrats to vote, but because a lot of their Republican constituents vote by mail and also because there’s not enough time to implement the Postal Service’s screwball and untested new voter system.  Few legal pundits expect SCOTUS to give the Trump administration the signoff it’s seeking, though if we’ve learned anything by now predictions about how this Supreme Court will act are frequently proven wrong.  It’s more likely that instead of ruling on the constitutionality of Trump’s plans, SCOTUS will opt to kick the ballot box ball down the road, leaving Massachusetts District Court judge Indira Talwani’s stay in place. That would prevent the Postal Service from implementing Trump’s Executive Order through the midterms, leaving the bigger issue of the constitutionality of the federal government interfering in what are supposed to be state run elections until after the November elections.  Regardless of what SCOTUS does, Trump has already introduced uncertainty and chaos into the midterms. As to chaos things are getting increasingly nuts in Missouri right now where Republican efforts to redistrict away one of the state’s two Democratic districts remain in limbo. Last week, Missouri’s Supreme Court ruled that the new Trump-backed Republican map could not be used in the midterms because of a citizen backed petition demanding a statewide vote on it. On Tuesday, US Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh let stand that decision ordering that the state’s old districts be used for the upcoming midterms but then a Trump appointed federal district judge in Missouri issued a contradictory order, temporarily blocking the state from using the old map, saying instead that the state should use the new Republican one that gerrymandered away the Democratic seat.  The decision about which map should be used is now back in court. If this sounds nuts it’s because it is. Chaos is the point.  

More 💩: Saying that AI (Artificial Intelligence) has a more than 10% chance of killing all humans and that AI companies “are gambling with our lives” Jacob Coxon, a respected AI researcher who has worked at both Anthropic and OpenAI resigned from Anthropic yesterday.  His stunning announcement follows recent reports that AI models have been talking, coordinating, and even conspiring with each other autonomously without human supervision. Yikes.

Shana Tovah 🍎 🍯

 

 

 
Goodbye Summer 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢 🦱

Summer Breeze: Labor Day weekend is now in the rearview window. Most of us spent the holiday enjoying the waning days of summer, not Trump.  While he played his usual amount of golf, with the help of his ever-present human printer/gal Friday Natalie he posted increasingly demented missives on Truth Social, including a “holiday” message to “all including the Radical Left Lunatics, Communists and Democrats who will do anything possible to destroy our Country.” In a pot calling the kettle black moment, he went on to call anyone who didn’t recognize that he was the best president ever “deranged” while asserting that he was going to win the midterms.  He probably won’t legitimately win the midterms, but he likely will disrupt them as much as he possibly can. In contrast, in his holiday message Joe Biden thanked workers and the middle class.  It wasn’t just Trump’s holiday message that was bizarre and crass, Trump and/or Natalie shared a few dozen more, that included maps and memes in which he changed the name of New Mexico to New America; included Canada, Mexico, Iceland, Greenland, and Iran as a part of the US; claimed the moon as a US territory; asserted victory in Iran; depicted himself as the evil killing Green Lantern; and showed himself wrestling Hulk Hogan to the ground. We’ve mostly grown used to his aberrant behavior; we shouldn’t.  Nor should we be used to son in law Jared and real estate buddy Witkoff serving as his designated “peace” negotiators, but they are.  The two compromised and inept ones spent part of their weekend visiting with Putin before meeting with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy where Jared delivered the message that to achieve “durable” peace Ukraine would have to give up land to those nice Russians who’ve invaded his country.  The nice Russians stopped bombing long enough to allow Kushner and Witkoff to safely travel in and out of Russia, but they’ve now resumed attacking Kyiv. Nothing good to report out of Middle East either where we’ve been exchanging fire with Iran and Iran-backed Houthis launched a major wave of missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, wounding at least 73 people, damaging energy facilities, and driving global oil prices higher. 

Walking on Sunshine:  On the political front, sans Melania, Trump is off to Texas to for his midterm convention/money grab.  Reports are that while a lot of the usual suspects will show up for his self-celebratory party, many Republicans, especially those facing tight races will not be attending and some that do will have the exorbitant attendance fees waived to get them to fill seats.  Those staying away will miss the opportunity to hear Trump use his two primetime speaking spots to ramble on endlessly about how great he is, how great the economy is, how he won in 2020, and how the Democrats are all communists. The point of the “convention” is to drum up enthusiasm for the midterms, encouraging Trump voters to vote as if he’s on the ballot. Some will, but assuming the polls are anywhere close to correct, quite a few voters, particularly those who consider themselves Independents despite voting for Trump at least once and many of the Hispanic voters who shifted his way during the 2024 race, are expected to vote blue or stay home turning some of the Republican gerrymandered districts into dummymanders.  As to election predictions, assuming Trump doesn’t pull a militia or two out of his hat or get the frequently disappointing Supreme Court to sign on to his anti-mail-in scheme, Republicans are likely to lose the House, but the Senate remains in play. To that end, today is primary day in New Hampshire where the Senate seat being vacated by retiring 79-year-old Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen is up for grabs. In all likelihood, Republican John E Sununu will win the Republican Senate primary where he is facing one time Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown while Congressman Chris Pappas will win the Democratic primary although he is facing an insurgent challenge from progressive Karishma Manzur.  The November race, likely to be between Sununu and Pappas, is looking more and more like it could be a toss-up.  That’s a problem for Democrats who can’t afford to lose the seat to stand a chance of retaking the Senate. Republican Sununu has loads of name recognition in New Hampshire because, though he’s never been Governor, he’s related to two people who were.

Hot Fun in the Summertime:  The Wall Street Journal has been on a tear of late.  Last week they ran a hit piece on Pennsylvania’s erratic Senator John Fetterman.  Fetterman, who walked in his trademark shorts to the beat of a different drummer even before his health struggles, appears to have lost the “man of the people” crown that previously helped him win statewide elections.  He’s also very pro-Israel which has earned him the wrath of the progressive and Hamas sympathizing parts of the Democratic Party. Over the weekend the WSJ paper shifted its focus from dooming Fetterman to trashing Corey Lewandowski, providing details about how he leveraged his relationship with former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and his longer-term friendship with Trump to monetize his advisory position with companies seeking DHS contracts.  It’s long been suspected that Lewandowski was grifting but given the buckets of money that DHS received from Congress, the extent of his grift appears to have been even larger than was previously known. The WSJ’s tear didn’t stop with Fetterman and the Lewandowski/Noem duo, over the weekend the paper’s Editorial Board went with a scathing rebuke of Trump, listing all the ways he’s screwing up and how (🤞🤞) he might be responsible for the Senate going blue in the midterms. They are calling for him to change course and to free up all the money he’s greedily sitting on to help out Republican candidates.  Hopefully, other than changing his hair dye from orange to some version of pukey brown, Trump will continue showing his true colors.  Regardless, it’s fair to assume that the Murdochs who pissed off Trump with last week’s firing of the 💰 🍯, got a few very irate and threatening calls over the weekend.