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 🍎 🍯