Twenty-two Days 😱 ✡️🌻 😱 🚀🚢 💩

Fuel and Mirrors:  Trump is throwing everything he can at the wall in the hope that something will stick so over the weekend he announced that the US will begin buying diesel from Russia, a sketchy effort to lower fuel prices that conveniently for Putin also sends money to cash strapped Russia.  Trump then followed up by announcing that he had negotiated an energy truce between Ukraine and Russia, one where each side agreed to stop attacking the other side’s energy infrastructure. The problem is that the US isn’t supposed to be buying oil from Russia.  We’ve penalized other countries for their purchases, and the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act that Trump signed in to law on September 16 imposes additional penalties for such purchases.  Moreover, the amount of diesel that Trump said the US will be purchasing represents a very small, almost insignificant percentage of our needs so it will do little to lower domestic prices.  Moreover, it’s not even clear that Russia has the fuel to sell us.  As to the energy truce, it takes two to tango; as evidenced by this weekend’s attacks on Ukraine it doesn’t appear that Putin has any interest in abiding by any truce and despite Trump ratcheting up his verbal attacks on the Ukraine leader, Zelenskyy would be a fool to stop attacking Russia’s energy infrastructure unilaterally and he’s no fool. In other war news, the Iran backed Houthis struck two Saudi Arabia airports this weekend, including King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. The Riyadh airport strike killed at least 12 people and wounded over 300, including an American citizen, and a follow-up attack killed one person and injured 11 more.  Saudi Arabia is responding in kind.  It’s only a matter of time before we jump in, the Saudis would like that time to be sooner rather than later and aren’t happy that the US midterms are standing in the way. In other war related news, over the weekend the Pentagon quietly updated US casualty numbers.  The military now reports that 21 US soldiers have died and an additional 865 have been wounded but not to worry because War Secretary Hegseth is checking testosterone levels and planning a live streamed execution that will make mass murderer paraplegic Nidal Hasan more of a martyr to his supporters than he already is.   

Retribution:  Though, as detailed by the NY Times, Trump’s Miami investigation into the “grand conspiracy” launched against him by the likes of former CIA Director Brennan, President Obama, former FBI Director James Comey and a host of others appears to be flailing he hasn’t given up on pursuing retribution, if anything he’s ramping up. In addition to targeting former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, he’s now going after Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook again.  On Friday he announced that the White House has formed a committee to investigate Cook and that he would be holding a hearing to consider whether to fire her over the unproven allegations that she committed mortgage fraud.  Trump’s extrajudicial “committee of inquiry” will be comprised of Trump’s deputies.  The banana republic style hearing is scheduled to take place on November 5, right about the same time that Trump will be working on overturning the results of the midterms. Trump also remains all in on banning the press that he doesn’t like.  To that end, despite court rulings that his ban isn’t kosher, his Justice Department, and it is his Justice Department because no one, least of all Attorney General Todd Blanche acts like it isn’t, is now investigating ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, the five US TV networks that provide pool coverage for White House events for possible antitrust violations.  The networks’  “crime”: standing up for each other by refusing to provide a substitute on those days when CNN, one of the networks banned by Trump, is scheduled to perform its pool responsibilities. This is a First Amendment issue rather than an antitrust one, but details like that don’t seem to concern Trump’s DOJ.  Also on the communications front, Trump announced the appointment of Katie Zacharia, a blonde clone of many of his prior Press Secretaries as well as binky Natalie, as his new one. Zacharia previously worked for Trump Media, the Department of Homeland Security, Fox News and Newsmax. In some of her since deleted social media posts lawyer Zacharia called for the suspension of habeas corpus, the takeover of California, labeled Bill Gates a “eugenicist” for supporting the COVID vaccine, and falsely claimed that mifepristone was created by the same people who manufactured Zyklon B, the poison gas used by the Nazis. In other words, she’s perfect for her new job.  

Midterm Madness:  Early voting is underway. The polls look good for Democrats but, and it’s a big BUT, we’ve been here before.  Cook Political Report moved 18 more races in the direction of Democrats on Friday.  They are projecting that the Democrats total House pick up will be between 9 to 19 seats.  Even if they are being too conservative, the pick-up is likely to be far short of the 40 House seats that the Democrats gained during the 2018 midterms largely because so many seats are too gerrymandered to be impacted even by a wave election.  As to the Senate, pollster pundits warn that at this point in the cycle, undecided voters tend to return to their usual party when they cast their votes. Additionally, though polling in front is certainly better than polling behind, a lot of the races where Democrats are out polling their competitors remain within the margin of error meaning that those undecideds could split in a way that affect outcomes.  Pundits say that the most predictive polls are the ones from unbiased sources where one of the candidates has actually crossed the 50% threshold.  So far only Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and North Carolina’s Roy Cooper are consistently in that comfort zone. Alaska’s Peltola is too; however, Alaska has ranked choice voting so outcomes there can take a while to figure out. One more thing on the Senate front, Republicans spread a lot of false rumors about Texas Democrat James Talarico last week. Talarico was off the trail for around ten days with a really bad case of the flu, the conspiracy mongers claimed he had suffered a mental breakdown.  It wasn’t a break down; it was a bad case of the flu complicated by Talarico’s previously disclosed Type 1 diabetes.  Talarico is back on the campaign trail, he’s fine as evidenced by his jibe that while he had the flu, Republican Ken Paxton is suffering from an incurable cowardice for refusing to participate in a debate. Still that race is depressingly close and Texas is Texas.  As to the flu, it sucks, it’s making an early appearance, so far mostly in western parts of the country but it is expected to show up near the rest of us soon. Time to get vaccinated.