Don't Worry, Be Happy?  🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

Pearls of Idiocy:  If Trump is elected, women will be “happy, healthy, confident and free and no longer thinking about abortion” because the country is thrilled about “his” Justices overturning Roe because no one cares about abortion any more as “everyone” wanted abortion out of the federal government and into the hands of the states.  Also, California will no longer have to worry about droughts or threatening fires because “you have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps in Canada and all pouring down, and they have essentially a very large faucet,” and Trump will stop that water from going “aimlessly” into the Pacific Ocean, turning it back so that “all of that water would come right down” into Los Angeles. Moreover, there is no need to be concerned about global warming because those scientists expecting sea levels to rise by ten to twelve inches over the next thirty years, they’re all wrong.  Levels will only be rising “one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years,” and anyway higher levels are good because doesn’t everyone want more oceanfront property?  Trump’s scientific acumen is awesome because his uncle was the “longest serving” professor at MIT so obviously that makes him an expert because genetics? Crime is up even though the FBI says that with the exception of car thefts it’s down.  No one has a job even though unemployment is at 4.2%, lower than the long-term average of 5.7%, inflation is still raging even though it’s down to 2.5%. The stock market is crashing even though the indices are at record levels.  And of course, only Trump can fix that economic hellscape by unilaterally imposing “substantial” tariffs which will also solve the trouble of childcare.  Then there are his promises of retribution, which judging by the NY Time’s report of how he targeted his “enemies” including Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe,  Pete Strzok, and Lisa Page among others last time he was president should be taken very seriously. This nonsense and the threats go on and on yet Trump lags Kamala Harris by the thinnest of margins with 47% of likely voters ready to vote for him, and worse yet, if the NY Times- Siena poll is right, he’s leading in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. How’s your week going?   

Only the Best:  Trump isn’t the only politician who thinks concerns about abortion access are overstated.  Bernie Moreno, the Republican who is running against Ohio’s incumbent Democratic Senator Sherod Brown, told a group of voters at an Ohio townhall that “older” women, which he defined as women over 50, shouldn’t care about abortion because they’re too old to have children anyway.  Apparently, Republicans, or at least their candidates, don’t get that people, including “older” women and men could possibly care about their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and friends losing their body autonomy, bleeding out in hospital parking lots, or being forced to continue unviable pregnancies and so on.  That makes sense when you consider that Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial candidate who, in addition to be a self-proclaimed Black Nazi, doesn’t believe that women should have the right to vote.  Robinson still has Trump’s endorsement and is being given the benefit of the doubt by VP candidate JD Vance but he’s lost the support of Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp and will no longer be given any more campaign money by the Republican Governors group though both Kemp and the Governors group had no problem supporting him when they “just” knew he was a Holocaust-denier who thought giving women the right to vote was a bad thing.  Remember George Santos, the Long Island Congressmen of many names and fabrications, it turns out that he was serving as an effective heat shield for Anthony D’Esposito, another Republican Long Island Congressman.  D’Esposito, who like Santos was elected in a Biden plus district in 2022, is now under fire for putting his fiancée’s daughter and his girlfriend (someone other than his fiancée) on his payroll.  The local Republican machine knew about D’Esposito’s questionable behavior but with Santos sucking up so much press attention they must have thought no one would care. Well, apparently via the NY Times everyone now knows, and some people care about what are likely House ethics rule violations.  D’Esposito is being challenged by Democrat Laura Gillen who according to Siena, is polling a few points ahead of him. By the way, ethical lapses aren’t unique to Republican, but they do appear to be rampant in the New York metropolitan area where just about everyone in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has announced early retirement and/or is being investigated by the FBI.

Endorsements:  To the extent that any “swing” voters care, and to be clear, they should it’s just not clear that that they do, on Sunday, in a letter organized by the National Securities Leaders of America over 700 national security and military officials endorsed Kamala Harris for president saying that she "defends America's democratic ideals" while Trump "endangers" them. In addition, three former chairs of the Maine Republican Party “enthusiastically endorsed” Harris saying they opposed Trump’s proposed tax and trade policies, his divisive rhetoric, and his failure to say that Ukraine should prevail against Russia. Last week the International Brotherhood of Teamsters decided not to endorse a candidate, a disappointment for Kamala Harris but since then regional Teamsters councils, representing hundreds of thousands of members and retirees in 14 states including swingy Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and western Pennsylvania have endorsed Kamala as has the Teamsters National Black Caucus.  Then there’s Joe Manchin, he’s now angry with Kamala for saying that she would push for the Senate to dispense with the filibuster to codify abortion rights, so he won’t be formally endorsing her. He previously hinted he would.  So very Manchin of him especially when you consider that the Democrats have a slim chance of even holding the Senate and neither he nor Kamala will be in the Senate next term regardless of the outcome of the election.  As to the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell told a group of big-ticket donors that he’s certain that they will be winning the Senate seat held by Democrat Jon Tester and that he is also very optimistic about winning Sherrod Brown’s Ohio seat but that he needs more money from them to stand a chance to win elsewhere.  Sadly, he’s likely right about Montana but it’s not clear that he’s right about Ohio though with Trump on the ticket, Brown is facing a tough battle.  For their part Democrats are upping their spend in the Florida and Texas Senate races.  And lastly, though he didn’t endorse Kamala, Republican State Senator Mike McConnell (not to be confused with Mitch) announced that he opposes changing Nebraska’s electoral college vote allocation process.  As a result, Nebraska will continue to allocate one of its electoral college votes to the winner of the congressional district that includes Omaha, an area that is likely to vote for Kamala Harris. That’s a disappointment for Trump who has already started attacking Nebraska’s McConnell on social media and also for South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham who expended some personal capital trying to change Nebraska’s process on behalf of Trump.  If Kamala loses all of the swingy southern states, that one vote could be pivotal.    

#BringThemAllHomeAliveNow