Monthly Archives: February 2026

Oooops!

I missed a few slightly stale polls, so I include them here to get the ball rolling on the quantum uncertainty of polling.

And Onwards

Since the last update we have the following:

• I noticed Senator Ossoff (D) of Georgia was on the Wednesday night edition of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Will Colbert be required to interview the Senator’s challengers as well, numbering fourteen at the moment? Or will the FCC, meaning Trump’s Toady Brendan Carr, and “CBS lawyers,” of whom the latter I must doubt their qualifications, decide to ignore the entire matter? At least they have the sense to not have another go at Colbert, who ate them alive in the Talarico incident. But before you begin shouting hypocrite at the FCC, et al, keep in mind that some folks have come to the conclusion that Trump and his minions believe being a hypocrite is of survival value, and not survival-negative, like the rest of us do.
• The “I have no idea if this is true” file: Dean Blundell wants me to believe Senator Graham of South Carolina is way too friendly with the bottle. Yes, that bottle. I don’t believe it until I see a second or even third confirmation; this could all be a scurrilous rumor. And does it matter to voters in South Carolina?
• A University of New Hampshire (UNH) poll shows New Hampshire Senate candidates Sununu and Pappas leading their respective primary opponents, Sununu 48% – Brown 25%, and Democrat Rep Pappas 65% – Manzur 11%. It also shows Rep Pappas with a 50% – 45% lead over Sununu. It’s a long time to Election Day, even to Primary Day, which is September 8, and this poll is from a month ago. UNH has a very good reputation as a pollster, as I recall.
• Unknown-to-me pollster Carolina Forward measured Roy Cooper (D-NC) as having a five point lead over Michael Whatley (R-NC), 47% – 42%, in North Carolina back in January. Yes, Whatley has a large lead in the primary. Polling for the Democratic primary doesn’t seem to be present. But is this a credible pollster?
• Last December highly respected Emerson College Polling released a poll of Ohio voters that showed Senator Husted (R) leading former Senator Brown (D), 49% – 46%.
• Stuart Rothenberg, contributor to biweekly newsletter Inside Elections, believes Senator Collins (R) of Maine will not win reelection. I wish he’d said why. Didn’t see anything on the website.

We need a reminder of the summer after 6 inches of snow last night.

Oooops! Last night’s snowy debacle combined with a camera that didn’t like snow. Let’s try again.

My Arts Editor says her rock sculpture is surly.

Oh, that’s better.

Lusciously delicate.

OK, warm but slightly vertiginous.

Back to reality? Actually, from weeks ago.

An announcement from England:

Thames Valley Police said in a statement that authorities arrested “a man in his sixties from Norfolk” but declined to name him. [MS NOW]

This politic announcement masks the identity of the alleged offender, the former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. It seems likely that his arrest has to do with his name being found in the Epstein Files.

If you’re part of the super elite who subscribes to the assertion that the elite .1%, however it is you wish to measure it, should not be subject to the rules applying to the hoi polloi^[1], then this is another attack upon the rights and, let’s be wry here, superlatives, of said class.

President Trump has demonstrated through his pardons of both domestic and foreign rich felons that he has at least some regard for the elite, and I’m wondering how he’ll react to the fall of the former Prince, shorn of rank, privilege, and now even liberty. Legally, Trump cannot intervene: panicky pardons will look foolish and be impotent. Will he rant and rave as he has with a few other former privileged who discovered they were vulnerable? Will he predict terrible, or at least terribly incoherent, futures for England if Mountbatten-Windsor is not at liberty?

Or will Trump repress himself? Suggest Mountbatten-Windsor isn’t part of the super-elite? Or maybe the Epstein Files have exonerated Mountbatten-Windsor just as he keeps proclaiming they’ve exonerated him?

The dangers of the super-rich, super-privileged have always been present; many famous despots, etc, have had failsons as their progeny. I suspect Mountbatten-Windsor is a prime example of this grimly human failing.

¹ From Wikipedia, The English expression “(the) hoi polloi” (/ˌhɔɪ pəˈlɔɪ/) was borrowed from Ancient Greek (οἱ πολλοί), where it means “the many” or, in the strictest sense, “the people”.

Who Needs An Intro?

Since the last broken breaking report, this has happened:

• WaPo reports on how the three Kentucky GOP candidates aren’t giving former Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) any respect. While McConnell’s not generally popular, his connections and allies are taking offense at the attacks generated by these three candidates who all have connections to McConnell. One of them is most likely the next Senator from Kentucky, but they may find themselves representing a discontented State searching for alternatives. Or a Democratic candidate with more gravitas, such as Booker or McGrath, might upset them, especially if Trump’s reputation continues to decay due to discoveries in the Epstein Files.
• As I’m sure everyone expected, Texas AG Ken Paxton’s (R-TX) yearning to be a Senator from Texas is upsetting many conservatives, even as Senator Cornyn’s relative lack of extremism displeases extremists. Erick Erickson:
  

  Some of these Texas supporters of Paxton have reasoned they’d rather the Democrats take the Senate than keep John Cornyn. They will not be reasoned with. They wrap themselves in the language of Christianity and promote a serial adulterer of ill repute and then convince themselves the country is going to hell in a hand basket.

  Welcome to the epistemic bubble of the right. The left has one, too. The Texas primary is scheduled for March 3rd, but early voting has already begun.

• Texas is a big State with lots of news, and I saw this one the night it occurred: An interview with Democratic candidate for the Senate James Talarico by Stephen Colbert for the The Late Show was banned by “CBS lawyers” (read: David Ellison?) because of FCC shit. Word on the street is that Talarico is worrisome as he’s studying to be a minister and rejects the evangelical arguments for voting Republican. If you want details such as the actual announcement/denouncement by Colbert, a transcript, or a link to the actual interview, follow this link to a poopdogcomedy post on Daily Kos. This MS NOW piece includes a clarification from the CBS News lawyers. This TNR piece says, It has gotten 8.3 million views as of this writing. The show typically has 2.3 million viewers. And this MS NOW piece helpfully summarizes this entire drama. This leaves interpretation wide open: Is this a simple case of the current chief of Paramount, which owns CBS, which in turn owns The Late Show, David Ellison, clumsily trying to silence a dangerous Democratic contender for the Senate seat held by Senator Cornyn, and instead amplifying his candidacy? Losing evangelical voters would doom the current lot of Republican grifters, that’s for certain, and that’s one way to enhance your failson credentials, Mr Ellison. But the result was predictable. Is Ellison, or whoever’s the hand in his puppet, taking a shot at Senator Cornyn, who, see above point, is disliked by the “compromise is evil” extremists? Perhaps Talarico is seen as easier to beat than his Democratic competitors, Rep Jasmine Crockett and Ahmad Hassan. Or is it something deeper yet?
• Oh, and President Trump endorses all three top GOP candidates for the Senate seat in Texas. The terror of being wrong, eh?
• Readers of the first installment of this coverage may recall this note in the initial coverage of Texas:
  

  “I told [lawmakers] straight up: South Texas will never be red again,” said Mario Guerrero, the CEO of the South Texas Builders Association, a Trump voter who traveled to Washington last week. [Politico]

  I mention this because I’ve run across something similar involving Florida. From Professor Richardson, as I don’t currently have a Wall Street Journal subscription:

  In May 2023 the Florida legislature passed a law requiring employers with 25 or more employees to confirm that their workers are in the U.S. legally. The new law prompted foreign farmworkers and construction workers to leave the state. Now, the Wall Street Journal reported in a February 6 editorial, employers “are struggling to find workers they can employ legally.”

  The newspaper continued: “There’s little evidence that undocumented migrants are taking jobs from Americans. The reality is that employers can’t find enough Americans willing to work in the fields or hang drywall, even at attractive wages. Farm hands in Florida who work year-round earn roughly $47,000, which is more than what some young college graduates earn.” “The lesson for President Trump is that businesses can’t grow if government takes away their workers,” the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board concluded.

  As predicted for many years. This sounds like alienation of voters’ affections, if the Democrats can link the inability to build housing and harvest food to the anti-immigrant efforts of the Republicans. That might make Senator Moody (R) a vulnerable target.

Read All About It

The news seems a bit time-sensitive, so here’s what has hit my windshield so far.

Exsolve:

Mineralogy (of two minerals in solid solution)
to separate from one another at a critical point in temperature​ [Collins Dictionary]

Noted in “Yellowstone Is One of the World’s Largest Magmatic Systems – And It May be Missing a Key Volcanic Gas,” Rosie McCall, Discover:

As the magma flows towards the surface, the decrease in pressure causes the gasses to exsolve from the liquid magma and continue to rise to the surface, eventually escaping into the atmosphere – a process known as outgassing.

Never seen exsolve before. Neither has my spelling checker.

Although some will argue it is.

Fighting over Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding, minus that of ICE, which is ludicrously funded, damages both Republicans and Democrats.  DHS has come under scrutiny, it’s reported, from both sides of the American political spectrum.

This seems like an opportune time to abolish DHS. Advantages:

1. Progress is made involving the abolition of a government department that draws public ire.
2. Grandiose claims concerning cost savings are possible.
3. For Trump, Noem and Lewandowski, reported to be scheming to put Noem in the Presidency, would be out. Yes, I know Noem has figured out how to project … something, but it’s not competency.

I would suggest the return of all agencies to their original homes. The two parties can thumb wrestle concerning FEMA, as it has no original department listed.

And take some of the ICE funding and give it to other agencies. FEMA, for example, is threatening to become yet another anchor around Trump’s neck, so find a competent manager and fund them. Folks left sitting on their roofs for weeks on end do not look kindly on the Administration who took away FEMA.

And the “shutdown” of DHS is done.

But Wait

After my relative disaster of the 2024 Senate Campaign posts – let’s not review, for example, the trumpeted Selzer & Co poll at the end of the race which claimed Harris had a 3 point lead over Trump in Iowa, followed by the news that Trump won Iowa by 13+ points – I had considered skipping this summary for us regular folks who work in non-political jobs and don’t have time for this.

But I keep running across news, so what the heck, hey?

The GOP in The Senate Isn’t Going To Lose That Many Seats … Right?

Right. That’s what I think. Why bother wasting my time on this? They have 53 when only 50 is required, with VP Vance voting to break ties. Throwing four seats away, even in the dysfunctional Senate, would be horrible incompetence on the Republicans’ part, and require voters to develop a trust for the Democrats that doesn’t seem to be there, and the Democrats’ elements of autocracy and arrogance are nearly a match for the Republicans’.

But then there’s this:

In case the above disappears, it’s a tweet from InteractivePolls:

For the first time, GOP strategists are telling Axios that losing the Senate — where Republicans have a 53-47 majority — is a distinct possibility.

According to GOP internal polling, even deep-red states like Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio are now in play

Top GOP strategists acknowledge that immigration and the economy — the two issues that drove Trump’s win in 2024 — are now liabilities.

“A year ago, I would have told you we were almost guaranteed to win the Senate,” one GOP operative who’s reviewed internal polling told Axios. “Today, I would have to tell you it’s far less certain.”

The Republicans have been acting rather nutty these days. Amateur hour, some might say. Like me. Although Senate Majority Leader Thune (R-ND) does not seem to like President Trump and may try to hold the Senate to only reasonable actions.

The Senate could change hands.

Current News

There are always retirements imminent and announced among the one hundred members of the Senate, unless your name is Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The current list of announced retirements:

• Senator and former Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY)
• Senator Ernst (R-IA)
• Senator Lummis (R-WY)
• Senator Tuberville (R-AL), who is running for Governor of Alabama.
• Senator Smith (D-MN); additionally, Senator Klobuchar (D-MN) has announced a run for Governor of Minnesota in 2026, so she’ll be required to resign from the Senate if she wins. Since her current Senate term is until 2031, a loss in the primary or general election would not result in her necessarily leaving the Senate.
• Senator Durbin (D-IL)
• Senator Peters (D-MI)
• Senator Shaheen (D-NH)

What About Polling?

The collapse of FiveThirtyEight does put a dent in resources for polling. Along with FiveThirtyEight, Monmouth University Polling announced it was shutting down, as did Selzer & Co, source of the Iowa Poll. This is all depressing for folks like me, but then again only one poll really counts, and that’s the election itself.

After the 2024 disaster in polling, these service terminations may not be that important.

Other Sources

Inveterate political observer Matthew Yglesias thinks the Democrats have a chance to take Congress:

The Tennessee special, by contrast, was a real election with real budgets and some earned media attention. And Behn, though by most accounts a charismatic person and effective public speaker, was a genuinely terrible candidate for the district. Unlike Zohran Mamdani, she declined to disavow earlier support for defunding the police and had a record of inflammatory statements that made it clear she wasn’t just talking about hiring more social workers.

If Democrats can put up 13 points of overperformance in a meaningfully contested House race with a candidate who is terribly positioned to win crossover voters, that suggests Republicans are in deep trouble.

Deep enough to realistically put a Senate majority within reach, if Democrats come up with good nominees.

Nate Silver, founder of the late FiveThirtyEight, has a nuanced position that I read as uneasy:

Just in case this isn’t clear, today’s newsletter is meant to be descriptive, not proscriptive. Yes, I agree with those who say Democrats ought to place a heavy emphasis on “electability,” especially in states like Texas. In fact, the greater the threat that you think Trump is to the future of American democracy, the less you can afford to nominate only candidates who pass a progressive purity test. I also agree that moderation usually helps. Not necessarily being a down-the-line centrist, but at least vibing with your local electorate rather than the MSNBC (excuse me, MS Now) audience.

And David Shor has some data on issues here.

Wyoming

Single-term Senator Cynthia Lummis (R) will retire at the end of this term, saying … she didn’t have it in her to fill out another six-year term after an intense session that got particularly exhausting in the past several weeks.

It’s Wyoming, so whoever wins the Republican primary is probably a sure-fire winner of the general election. However, as an experienced politician, the Republicans will probably miss her far more than any of these “business leaders.” Fortunately for them, Rep Harriet Hageman (R-WY) is reportedly running for the open seat, although she is burdened with a Trump endorsement.

No word on Democratic candidates.

What’s Next?

I hope to post occasional updates with significant news: primary results, news of concern to candidates, maybe even polls.

All from a guy who doesn’t do this for a living and can’t imagine same.

But I hadn’t expected it to be quite so … meta:

Kristi Noem: "When it gets to Election Day, we've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-02-14T14:51:25.730Z

In case it disappears …

Kristi Noem: “When it gets to Election Day, we’ve been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.”

Yeah, the wannabe fascist can’t keep it in her shirt. Oh, sure, we can justify the first part in isolation if we take right people voting to mean citizens only. I have no problem with that in isolation.

But electing the right leaders to lead this country?

No. That’s code for Ensuring only We get elected. And it invalidates the first part’s neutral interpretation as well.

This is the sort of thing that will have everyone’s nerves standing on end. Including my readers’.

If you look for this stuff with your mouth hanging open, you’ll likely die of suffocation or drowning. That’s how fast it’s coming in.

So some readers will be familiar with the House hearing in which Attorney General (AG) Pam Bondi descended into, well, gibberish isn’t quite accurate, but she certainly looked like a lunatic. Observers believe she was trying to impress one person, that being President Trump.

This is an amateur hour thing to do, because any AG knows that you answer the questions as fully and truthfully as possible, regardless of the impact on the President, or anyone else. This is Government 101 stuff and not an advanced topic. Diverge from this simple rule and shit starts to happen.

And, for the President who is presumably responsible for manipulating Bondi into such behavior, it, too, is amateur hour stuff. He has given his his allies in Congress another reason to disregard his wishes when legislation arises. He’s given his MAGA supporters another reason to walk away. All to soothe his savage ego.

Doubt that? Here’s chloris creator, rather snarkily, via Daily Kos:

Maga Podcasters Jumping Ship After the Bondi Hearing

We may or may not forgive these people, but the fact that some MAGA podcasters are peeling away is a BFD.

They have a lot of influence.

They have the pulse of right-wing culture.

Yep, left wing arrogance, but what they pick out is worth the teeth grinding. Here’s just one bit:

JOE ROGAN.

Here’s what Joe Rogan had to say. Let’s play it. “So we know Sultan Ahmed bin Sullean Sul Suliam [no idea about the actual spelling] sent the torture vide to Epstein. This is in 2009. Um, so Epstein was saying, that, ‘where are you? Are you okay? I love the torture video.’ Jeez. ‘I am in China. I’ll be in the US the second week of May.’ What the ???, man? And why is his name redacted? Why would your name be redacted if you’re not a victim?

Go read, or listen, to the rest of it.

If MAGA podcasters are dismayed by Bondi and Trump, they may begin to reject them. Yes, Rogan may not be MAGA, but he’s very popular and if he’s commenting negatively on Trump and his minions, Trump supporters may also be dismayed and walk away.

And in other amateur hour news, the New Mexico GOP appears to have failed to nominate anyone to challenge Senator Luján (D). While beating a sitting Senator is typically no mean feat, it’s not impossible in slightly blue New Mexico. After all, Kamala Harris did win the State in 2024, but only by six points. A failure to nominate anyone at all emphasizes what an amateur hour production the New Mexico GOP has become. Local blogger Joe Monahan (same link as above):

The party holds no statewide elected executive offices and no seats in the five -member congressional delegation. The governor is a Democrat and both chambers of the legislature overwhelmingly so. The five-member state Supreme Court is all Democratic.

This is what happens when ideological purity becomes the primal measurement stick, and experience is loathed.

Failson:

failson (plural failsons)

1. (Internet slang, derogatory) An incompetent, unsuccessful middle- or upper-class man who is protected from economic duress by his family’s wealth or influence. [Wiktionary]

Well, I’ll be. Noted in “The President Of The 0.00001 Percent,” Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish (paywall):

How did the Trumps pull this off? The incomprehensible bullshit called crypto currency (i.e. WLF) induces a coma in most voters; and the ethical conflicts are “resolved” by having the failsons of Trump, Howard Lutnick, and Steve Witkoff “run” the businesses while their dads direct government policy. Here’s nepo-baby Zach Witkoff at a crypto conference in Dubai last year announcing the deal with WLF, sitting next to the heir-spare Eric Trump:

We really need to take a page out of His Highness’s and the Emirates’ book. They are just an amazing example of how you can lead with innovation while also maintaining your family values.

Really makes you wonder about David Ellison, the son of database magnate Larry Ellison. The son is in charge of CBS, Paramount, and various other properties, and is the dude who brought in Bari Weiss and The Free Press for a few hundred million dollars. I’d never even heard of David Ellison before now.

Given how much Weiss received, I’d say rookage occurred.

No, I do not recognize the reference to ‘WLF’. Searching on it revealed WLF Irrigation Service.

The noise of the evolution of education grinding to a bloody and devastating halt.

This sycophancy is hardly confined to leaders trying to stay in the government’s good graces. It’s a plague in the classroom too. When students earn A’s just by enrolling in a class and handing in assignments, sycophancy reigns. When professors’ jobs depend on their popularity with those they grade, the incentives align for mutual back-scratching. When teachers are afraid to tell someone “that’s a really dumb idea,” or even “that’s wrong,” education gives way to customer satisfaction. This reticence does nobody a favor. Dispensing praise instead of provoking learning may be comical in an AI chat, but it’s poisonous in the classroom. [“The epidemic of toxic flattery is spreading,” Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, WaPo]

I recall writing a post, many years ago and apparently unfindable, that concluded one does not buy an education; one merely buys access to that education, and it’s up to the student to utilize it.

I subscribe to Skeptical Inquirer, which investigates everything from religious miracles to Bigfoot and other cryptids to creationism to other mysterious occurrences, usually deploying mundane explanations of what probably happened and that sort of thing.

Including Havana Syndrome, dating from 2016 in Havana, Cuba, and referring to incidents where

U.S. and Canadian government officials and their families reported symptoms associated with a perceived localized loud sound. The symptoms lasted for months and included disabling cognitive problems, balance problems, dizziness, insomnia, and headaches. Havana syndrome is not recognized as a disease by the medical community. [Wikipedia]

I always thought the proffered explanation, a variant of psychosocial illness as I recall, seemed a bit weak.

It may have been weaker than I realized.

Working in strict secrecy, a government scientist in Norway built a machine capable of emitting powerful pulses of microwave energy and, in an effort to prove such devices are harmless to humans, in 2024 tested it on himself. He suffered neurological symptoms similar to those of “Havana syndrome,” the unexplained malady that has struck hundreds of U.S. spies and diplomats around the world.

The bizarre story, described by four people familiar with the events, is the latest wrinkle in the decade-long quest to find the causes of Havana syndrome, whose sufferers experience long-lasting effects including cognitive challenges, dizziness and nausea. The U.S. government calls the events Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs).

These results were discovered by a Havana Syndrome skeptic, so points for him, and bolsters the case for actual, working weapons being deployed against U.S. and Canadian personnel. They were released recently

Well, this should make either the next issue, or the issue after that, of Skeptical Inquirer quite interesting. There’s nothing on their website’s front page about this development, but this is recent enough that they may not have developed a response.

Will there be a retaliatory response from the current Administration?

I cannot find a full, clean quote, but I love what I’ve seen and will go with it:

Kash Patel

“[FBI Director Kash Patel is] going back to the one skill that he thinks he has, which is self-promoting: diving into the media, diving into social media to compensate for his complete ineptitude at being the director of the FBI, which should not surprise anybody,” [former FBI counterterrorism division senior executive Christopher] O’Leary said. “He has no leadership experience, no operational experience, no investigative experience.”

In other words, Patel is little more than a neutering of the FBI. Why? Because they’re a great danger to President Trump. And, I suppose, his family.

Pozzolan:

Pozzolans are a broad class of siliceous and aluminous materials which, in themselves, possess little or no cementitious value but which will, in finely divided form and in the presence of water, react chemically with calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)₂) at ordinary temperature to form compounds possessing cementitious properties. The quantification of the capacity of a pozzolan to react with calcium hydroxide and water is given by measuring its pozzolanic activity. Pozzolana are naturally occurring pozzolans of volcanic origin. [Wikipedia]

I just stumbled across pozzolans, unknown to me, while researching this post. Noted in the Wikipedia article, “I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge“:

In the concrete comprising the drilled shafts, piers and footings, a significant proportion of the Portland cement was replaced with slag, fly ash and other pozzolans.^[36] These materials reduce the embodied energy of the structure and allow the concrete to resist the ingress of water and dissolved solids such as chloride ions. This allowed the structure to be designed to resist deterioration for much longer than structures made with conventional concrete.

I am not a civil engineer, but I know one. I might have to ask him to clarify this to me. Or maybe not. Embodied energy, while perhaps self-explanatory, eludes my sense of significance.

It would seem there’s a bit more to the story of Trump & the bridge than I had envisioned, according to The New York Times:

The billionaire owner of a bridge connecting Michigan with Canada met Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, on Monday hours before President Trump lambasted a competing span, in the latest flashpoint in the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Canada.

Matthew Moroun is a Detroit-based trucking magnate whose family has operated the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, for decades. He met on Monday with Mr. Lutnick in Washington, according to two officials briefed on the meeting who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

After that meeting Mr. Lutnick spoke with Mr. Trump by phone about the matter, the officials said.

Well. President Trump as hit-man, eh?

To play devil’s advocate, I’ll also note this:

The new bridge was fully paid for by Canada but is owned in part by Michigan, and is expected to ease congestion in the busiest trade corridor between the United States and Canada.

There is something to be said about private vs public competition, although I must say the situation is rarely as clean as a libertarian, who will emphasize the vast public resources available to the state, make for unfair competition, might have you believe. I did a bit of research on the privately owned entity, the Ambassador Bridge, in Wikipedia, which claims the bridge’s condition is, oh, I don’t know, let’s say marginal and getting worse. However, it also notes the various permissions to repair the bridge have been difficult-to-impossible to obtain, again, my words. It may be that both public and private have dirty hands, but that’s for other researchers to debate.

All that said, the state, err, states in this case, have a possibly critical interest in a dependable and speedy transport link over the Detroit River; if the Ambassador were to collapse, replacement would take years. Yes, I know the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge, which replaced the collapsed I-35W Mississippi River Bridge, took roughly 13 months to complete, but managers who bank on setting construction records rarely have good outcomes, and this would be a far larger project. Canada and Michigan might justify the construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge on these concerns alone, and have a good case.

And to learn the Ambassador Bridge was once owned by a public company, before the Morouns bought it up!

This is concerning:

Gallup will no longer measure presidential approval, the analytics firm confirmed on Feb. 11.

Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the Washington, DC-based management company began tracking the president’s job performance 88 years ago.

Gallup told USA TODAY it will no longer publish “favorability ratings of political figures,” a decision it said “reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership.” [USA Today]

In today’s societal pressure cooker, you have to wonder about this – really them deciding that, or succumbing to pressure? Here’s former Rep, former Republican, and MS NOW contributor Joe Scarborough:

With the company dependent on government contracts — and Donald Trump’s own ratings hitting historic lows — many conclude that Gallup trashed its longtime legacy to avoid the president’s wrath.

The Presidential approval poll is virtually their iconic offering, so I’m puzzled that they decided to dump it.

It’s a causal change reaching all the way back Newt Gingrich^[1]:

1. Gingrich decrees the primal importance of win, win, win for the Republicans in the 1990s.
2. Republicans, already caught up in the faux philosophy of the divine, true or false, and shocking arrogance, discover the simpler decision-making becomes, the more likely they can gather votes. See Senator Goldwater’s prescient warning concerning pastors in the Republican Party.
3. This leads to the ascendancy of ideology and the denigration of experience, mo****, humility, compromise, and all the other attributes of adults who’ve discovered governing is not a simple checklist procedure, but a complex balancing of interests – sometimes international – that are rarely found in ideological precepts.
4. Republicans previously valued by their Party for their experience, flexibility, and humility begin leaving the Party, or at least leaving leadership positions. In more cases than might be thought, they are actively expelled from leadership or Party; see the highly respected Senator Lugar (R-IN) for a classic case; Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) both practiced running out moderate Republicans and experienced being run out himself.
5. Consequently, leadership eligibility in the Party became a list of policy positions and performative assertion of same, combined with the deliberate smearing of all opponents, rather than the Party-enhancing sober, honest debates. This is Politics as Entertainment, and while I’ll skip selecting a peak moment, the 2016 Presidential Republican Primary debates were certainly deeply silly, as was the Alabama Senatorial Republican primary contest, in which far-right wing Rep Mo Brooks (R-AL) was accused by backers of other Republicans of being an ISIS supporter, among other things. Leadership became a shrill pack of ideology shouters, with no positional incentives to moderate positions or act like, well, adults; position became dependent on purity; this translates, in power terms, to extremism. “Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice” became the slogan, and then everything vociferously hid itself in Liberty’s hem. The end result were carriers of ideology.
6. Such folks are deeply vulnerable grifters and those who pursue power for its social advantage without regard to responsibility. Trump, once he had captured the imagination of the Republican base, forced out all leaders who’d compete, who’d not support him. Replacing them were the Trump supplicators and ideological specialists, sweating to find coveted positions, previously thought unobtainable, now in their grasp. All became political.
7. Trump wins and in they flood, replacing not only political appointees of the previous Administration, but even the non-political upper-level members of the bureaucracy.
8. And then they discovered the FAA actually requires competency.

Lots of stuff omitted, and some irrelevancies inserted. Such is the fruit of a head cold. But if you want to know what’s going on in El Paso and its airspace, closed and then opened, here’s an MS NOW report:

Two congressional officials told MS NOW that the dispute between the FAA and the Pentagon that led to the closure began when FAA officials raised concerns that the laser had not been properly vetted for use around a civilian airport. Military officials said the FAA was fully informed of their plans.

Smith said the agencies’ contradictory accounts were unacceptable and an example of the Trump administration’s poor management.

“The big issue here is the unbelievable incompetence of the Trump administration,” Smith said. “A major airport is shut down for 10 days without explanation. A full day later DOD, FAA and CBP can’t even come close to telling us what actually happened, and the White House, responsible for all of them, is just sitting around with their thumb up their ass.”

While undoubtedly a political report, it is deeply congruent with my expectations of the Republican Party, not just Trump. They’ve descended into the madness of ideology because that’s their perceived source of success, and their ego daren’t let them leave the morass, even as it solidifies into concrete and is carried to the edge of the water fall.

¹ No, no links; this head cold has me down. None of this is really new or hidden and can be easily found by the casual observer.

Border czar and lead officer on the ground in Minneapolis announced today that the ICE surge is over, and they’re leaving but not quite out of here.

The protesters and anti-ICE intelligence experts should keep an eye on known members of ICE in Minneapolis, as uncertainty over their presence and purpose could cause disruption for Minneapolitans. Some will remain, just as some were present prior to the surge, acting as assistance on international crime. Can folks of Minneapolis tolerate this?

We’ve already seen Trump and Homan claim the surge worked, a ridiculous claim on its face because such evaluations require balancing costs vs achieved goals; regarding the latter, measurement of progress is difficult when it comes to crime. Measure this very instant? Measure in three months? Which is more meaningful?

And the costs!

Ah, now I can’t find the link. Shipping, room, board, all those accompanying costs means Trump’s blithering cost the nation a lot of money, along with two lives and the serenity of a lot of citizens.

Evaluations are better done a few months out.

But I still greatly admire the citizens of Minneapolis and those who came to help out. Some of them are my friends!

Congrats!

But the situation is a bit too serious.

But it really does look like adults trying to correct a child who refuses to take any of the hints.

Federal judges in Albany, New York, appointed a new U.S. attorney on Wednesday, exercising a rarely invoked legal authority to appoint top prosecutors in regions without a Senate-confirmed nominee.

Their choice lasted less than five hours on the job.

Donald T. Kinsella, a 79-year-old former prosecutor and registered Republican, was summarily fired via an email from the White House later that evening, Justice Department officials said. [WaPo]

The President has the responsibility to nominate prosecutors acceptable to the Senate. Trump is, as always, falling down on the job, frantically insistent that he have loyalists in important, dangerous offices, even when they’re rejected by both Senate and the Judiciary. His problem?

The Jan. 8 ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield made Sarcone the latest prosecutor appointed by the Trump administration to be found to be improperly in their position. Judges have issued similar rulings against top federal prosecutors in California, Nevada, New Jersey and Virginia. [syracuse.com]

Can you guess?

Yep. Fourth-raters he can trust, but the first and second-raters who would be nominated for such offices will not work for Trump. They know he’s a corrupt bully who, everyone hopes, will soon go down in flames so we can get back to the serious business of governance.

I think Erick Erickson is beginning to question his own eyes in talking about AG Bondi’s performance in Congress yesterday:

In 2016, talking to Howard Stern, actress Tina Fey told Stern, “I always like it when someone is articulate at these things, because let’s face it, actors are very stupid.” In the same way, in 2019, Sir Anthony Hopkins sat for an interview with Brad Pitt and said, “I don’t have any opinions. Actors are pretty stupid. My opinion is not worth anything.” Actors themselves very frequently acknowledge that actors are stupid.

Unfortunately for America, President Trump decided to choose people from central casting who looked the part, more than fit the role. When one goes to central casting, one does not often find the best and brightest. One might wind up with a puppy killer at Homeland Security and Bondi at the Justice Department.

Or a lush, harassing former military man whose conception of the military is little more than inflicting violence on whoever gets in the way at the Defense Department. He happens to have been a Fox News host.

And I’m sure I could go on with a Cabinet that often seems to exist only to praise the President, but I’ll leave off with the most obvious: the big guy himself has only had success in dramatic roles: The Apprentice and getting himself elected; don’t mistake the latter to mean he was a success as President, only that three times he put on quite a show on the campaign trail.

I think Erickson nailed this one.

Which is A Bridge Too Far, the title of a famous movie and non-fiction book.

President Trump has inserted himself into the scheduled opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which is in the finishing phases of construction and will link Michigan to Canada at Detroit and Windsor, in a most aggressive and petulant manner:

Trump on Monday threatened to block the opening of the Canadian-built bridge across the Detroit River, demanding that Canada turn over at least half of the ownership of the bridge and agree to other unspecified demands in his latest salvo over cross-border trade issues.

“We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset,” Trump said in a lengthy social media post, complaining that the United States would get nothing from the bridge and that Canada did not use U.S. steel to built it. [MS NOW]

Sure, everyone’s responded to him, but I don’t think they understand what’s really happening: President Trump is distracting attention from the Epstein Files release and examination.

I think respondents, at least Americans, should have responded by not addressing Trump and his issues; maybe repeat how close the bridge is to completion and how it will enhance both countries, and that sort of thing.

If Trump gets mad about being ignored and yells about his issue, then respond so very sweetly like this:

We’re very pleased to keep this issue out of President Trump’s face as he deals with the grave issues raised by the release of the Epstein Files.

Recognizing and reacting effectively to the tactics of the adversary are a key part of winning a war.

Later in the day, in connection with a dinner with the President with the nation’s governors, the President heaped blame on everyone else for the invitation list, starting with Governor Stitt (R-OK), and then called Stitt a RINO (Republican in Name Only), which I’ll leave to my reader to characterize in their mind.

On Wednesday, however, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), the [National Governors Association] chairman, told governors that Trump would be inviting all governors to the White House on Feb. 20 for the NGA’s business breakfast. [WaPo]

But not dinner.

And I’m not taking about Governor Walz (D-MN). Here’s the AP:

“Because [National Governors Association’s] mission is to represent all 55 governors, the Association is no longer serving as the facilitator for [the Association’s annual business meeting, hosted by the White House], and it is no longer included in our official program,” [Governor and NGA chairman] Kevin Stitt [(OK-R)] wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

In other words, this Republican governor just told off a President from his own Party. We may be seeing more cracks opening in the Republican establishment.

On a side note, I don’t monitor Governor Stitt, but he’s pulled some dumb stunts, such as this one. I think this action indicates he’s come a ways and may realize that, no, the divine is not going to come down and save his ass. He has to do his own ass-saving, or even simply the right thing.

Congrats.

I think we can guess from this CNN headline (content for CNN subscribers only):

Grand jury declines to indict Democratic lawmakers who urged service members to disobey illegal Trump orders

Grand juries have been a thorn in the side of AG Bondi, DC US Attorney Pirro, and, ultimately, President Trump, because they do have minds of their own and are more difficult to coerce. As President Trump prefers to signal his intentions via the demonization psychological op, I expect we’ll soon be hearing how grand juries are a cancerous growth on the hide of democracy.

Read: They’re not under Trump’s control and thus must be done away with. So speaks arrogance.

But will MAGA and the Republicans tolerate the removal of grand juries from the judicial system? Or will the proposal begin ringing warning bells for the supposed conservatives in our country.

Stay tuned.