Ballot Box Blues😱 ✡️🌻😱 🚀🚢 🗳️

Ballot Box 🗳️:  As I write this morning, with >95% of the vote counted, the race to be Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the Senate is still up in the air.  Progressive, anti-Israel candidate Abdul El Sayed is leading the more mainstream Haley Stevens 48.6% to 47.3%.  The NY Times hasn’t called the race but is now saying that El Sayed is likely to win.  Pre-election polls, or at the very least the ones that the progressive crowd had been touting, had projected that El Sayed would win by somewhere around 7 points so while a victory, assuming he wins, is a victory, his may not bode well for him or the Democrats in November because beating the Republican’s Senate candidate, former Congressman Mike Rogers, won’t be easy.  Beyond the Michigan Senate race, results for the progressive/socialist set were mixed.  Bernie Sanders backed Progressive Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence won his 7^th District Michigan House primary mostly because he was up against two moderates who split the vote. The Michigan’s 7^th is currently held by a Republican so, again while a victory is a victory, a primary victory by a progressive might not lead to a Democratic pick-up in November. Elsewhere in Michigan, Democratic Socialist Donavan McKinney is locked in a tight race with incumbent Shri Thanedar for Michigan’s 13^th District.  In St. Louis, Missouri Democratic Socialist and former Squad Member Cori Bush who’d been trying to knock off incumbent Wesley Bell who’d knocked her out of Congress in 2024 lost by over 20 points.

Blanche Update:  Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche moved one step closer to getting the Acting removed from his title after Dead Man Walking Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis bought into his “fingers crossed behind his back” promise not to proceed with Trump’s slush fund for insurrectionists. They are both also on board with Trump, Don Jr, Eric, and the Trump Organization getting their tax obligations, or at the very least the amounts they owe but failed to pay for prior years, zeroed out.  Cornyn’s and Tillis’ caving was not all that surprising because while their days in the Senate are now numbered, those lucrative lobbying jobs and board appointments beckon and pissing off Trump would likely put their future earnings power in jeopardy.  As predicted Maine’s Senator Susan Collins is the recipient of this confirmation vote’s golden ticket.  She announced yesterday that she will be voting against Blanche’s nomination.  With Mitch McConnell teetering at death’s door and unable to vote, that means that the golden tickets are all used up. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski hasn’t yet announced how she’ll vote but Trump’s been coughing up benefits and carve outs for her state, so she’ll probably cave.  That’s particularly awkward for the pro-choice Murkowski since yesterday a tape of a call that Blanche had with an anti-abortion religious group surfaced.  On that call, Blanche said he is planning to roll back abortion access even in states that have laws protecting it.  Those efforts to further screw women will likely include eliminating access to Mifipristone. 

Peeps:  Republican Congressman Max Miller who as of now is still running for reelection continues to deny that he ever abused his wife and child, instead asserting that the problem is that his lying wife is nuts. Apparently, former Melania aide Stephanie Grisham who he dated and allegedly abused during Trump One is nuts too. Reports are that Miller who used to work for Trump is even resisting an uncharacteristically polite nudge from Trump who told him that while he thinks he’s a nice guy and as of now he still has his endorsement, it’s time for him to step aside not because of the abuse allegations but because recent polling is turning against him.  Miller appeared on Jake Tapper’s CNN show yesterday where he denied that he’d ever hurt his wife and child, he also said that rumors about him and ecstasy aren’t true because the only drug he indulges in is testosterone, a self-own since excessive testosterone use can lead to aggressive behavior like wife beating. Miller also continued to cast aspersions at his father-in-law Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, not so subtly referring to old rumors about the married Senator seeking sex on a gay dating website.  Miller is now being investigated by the House Ethic’s committee, a process that could take a while.  Unlike Miller, Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards just announced that he is terminating his reelection bid.  The 56-year-old Edwards was censured yesterday for “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards to two young female staffers.” One of those staffers was 19 when the harassment began, the other was in her early 20s.  Trump’s still not happy with Washington DC US Attorney/Fox Alum Jeanine Pirro but at least for now Pirro who showed up for her meeting at the White House with documentary proof that Secretary of the Interior Doug Burghum had “misled” Trump about his responsibility for the Reflecting Pond fiasco, still has her job. 

Iran War: Trump, who is re-ripping up the White House lawn because his newly built helipad is leaning precipitously, is once again talking up an imminent deal to open up the Strait of Hormuz while also announcing that the duplicitous Iranians are not to be trusted. Also, news is that we are running out of long-range missiles which is either true or an excuse for Trump and War/Beer Pete seeking more defense spending or both.  Once upon a time we had adults in the White House and someone other than a weekend Fox host running the Pentagon as well as experienced professionals serving as negotiators.  Sure, they sometimes screwed up but at least they had a chance of succeeding.