Ommmmm  🌻🌻🌻

Midterm Madness:  Anyone who tells you that they know how tomorrow’s elections will turn out is either lying or engaging in wishful thinking, so I’ll keep my message simple:  VOTE and prepare for an emotional rollercoaster. Polls are all over the place with quite a few of the more recent ones from right or left leaning companies rather than reputable prognosticators so don’t believe most of what you’ve heard.  So far, we know that Democratic enthusiasm has caught up with Republican enthusiasm whatever that means and that early voting has surpassed numbers clocked during the 2018 midterms.  The wishful thinking set believe, or desperately hope, that the early voters lean Democratic though no one really knows for sure if they do or, more significantly, whether they’ll be overtaken by an equal or larger amount of Republican voters on election day. In some states, early votes get counted early, in others, including Pennsylvania, early ballots can’t even be removed from their envelopes and prepared for scanning until election day morning. So be prepared for blue mirages in some states and red ones elsewhere, also be prepared to hear lots of complaints about the process from both sides of the aisle with Republicans complaining about imaginary “illegal” vote dumps and Democrats complaining about probably some all too real voter suppression, long lines in urban areas and lack of access elsewhere.  Also, while most eyes are on wacko Senate candidates like Pennsylvania’s Dr. Oz, Georgia’s Herschel Walker and Arizona’s Blake Masters,  there are quite a few key state races to watch too, like in evenly split Wisconsin where the Republican candidate TIm MIchels for Governor running against incumbent Tony Evers, promises that if he wins he’ll fix it so no Democrats wins state office ever again, a real possibility given how Republicans already control Wisconsin’s seriously gerrymandered state houses. As to the Senate, it’s not just Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona that are up for grab, pay attention to New Hampshire and Nevada where Democrats are threatened and Ohio where Tim Ryan is giving Republican Hillbilly JD Vance a run for his, or really, conservative billionaire Peter Theil’s money.  Also, don’t ignore Alaska where moderate Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is being challenged by Former Guy backed Kelly Tshibaka.  Alaska uses a ranked voting system so it may take a while to figure out the winner.  Murkowski matters because she’s one of the few Republicans who would vote against a Mitch McConnell and team federal abortion ban. One indication of how weird things are in Alaska right now is that Republican Murkowski has endorsed Democratic newbie Congresswoman Mary Peltola who is being challenged by two Republicans one of whom is the infamous Sarah Palin.  Murkowski isn’t the only one crossing party lines, outgoing Congresswoman Liz Cheney has endorsed Ohio’s Tim Ryan’s and two moderate, vulnerable Democratic Congresswoman, Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin and Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger. There are almost always upsets, so also keep an eye on 89- year-old Chuck Grassley’s Iowa race and insurrectionist Mike Lee’s Utah Senate race.  They, like Florida’s Marco Rubio will probably win but then again, who knows for sure?  As to the House, so many races so little space but if Democrats start losing big in the east, it won’t be a good thing unless you believe that Kevin Q McCarthy and his crowd taking over, impeaching President Biden and refusing to raise the debt limit are the right way to go.  And don’t even get me started on the NY Gubernatorial race.  While polls, except for the ones being cited by Republican challenger/election denier Lee Zeldin and Murdoch’s NY Post, indicate that incumbent Kathy Hochul is likely to prevail, her race could be a nailbiter and even those mainstream polls aren’t all that reliable .  Time for chanting. Om.

Air Former Guy:  The freshly painted FG plane is back and word is that the FG plans to announce another run for the presidency on or about November 14.  One indication that he might be serious is that he’s got a new nickname, Ron DeSanctimonious, for Florida’s Governor. While out campaigning this weekend the Former Guy spent more time tooting his own horn and admitting that he'd taken documents with him to Mar a Lago and probably his other homes than anything else but sadly that’s a strategy that has worked well for him in the past and his fans certainly love him for it though the Republican National Committee seems a bit stressed. Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel says that if the FG declares that he’s running she’ll have to stop paying the portion of his legal bills that he’s been foisting upon her.  As to the FG’s potential Republican competitors Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton who no one was going to vote for anyway says that he’s not running, likely because few if any of the rich guys he approached are all that interested in supporting someone with zero personality. It’s not clear that former CIA Head/Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is all that personable either, but he appears to still be considering a run, or at least that’s what his statement defending Ron DeSantis from the name calling bully would indicate. For her part, Nikki Haley who says she won’t run if the FG does is clearly running for something.  She campaigned for “good man” Herschel Walker this weekend while calling for his opponent, US born Senator Raphael Warnock to be deported. That’s first generation American and anti-abortion politician Haley calling for the deportation of descendant of slaves Warnock over a disagreement on immigration policy to bolster the political career of Walker who paid for two abortions, well two that we know about.

Twitter Verse:  The Chief Twit had a rough weekend maybe because running a social media company is complicated.  He’s put his plan to roll out the $8 per month blue check program on hold at least until Wednesday.  The purported reason for the delay is that letting people pay to self-verify their identities before a key election could amplify misinformation but it’s just as likely that the new program isn’t ready yet which could be one of the reason’s that Twitter is now seeking to rehire dozens of the coders that it fired last week.  In other news, it turns out that Elon doesn’t have a sense of humor.  Last night, after countless Tweeters had “assumed” his identity to issue what were obviously parody tweets, he issued a fatwah against one of them, comedienne Kathy Griffin, banning her from the site.  Curiously, he didn’t strike out at Valerie Bertinelli who used his name to support Democratic causes and reproductive rights possibly because striking out at the much beloved Bertinelli, twitter handle @Wolfiesmom, would cause an uproar while targeting the gritty Griffin is popular with the right. Worth noting Kanye has been back up on Twitter.  For her part Kathy Griffin is doing fine, she’s now tweeting using her departed mother’s account @TippitMaggieG.  The Chief Twit is also blaming the woke left for all the ad revenue that’s gone up in smoke, even though much of those ad purchases were cut in the run up to the closing of his purchase over concerns about the direction he’d be taking “his” company. Turns out that mainstream companies hate uncertainty and aren’t fond of hate and competing car companies don’t want to enrich Tesla’s owner.  Regarding hate, it looks like Net Kyrie Irving is learning that when you f-ck around you find out.  He’s still on the bench and has now lost his Nike contract.

 

See you on the other side of Tuesday.  Oy and Om.