Monthly Archives: September 2026

News Editor Troy Farah of salon brings up an important point, off the cuff:

Yet some people still aren’t convinced he’s really back, or at least not in any meaningful sense. A 10-second video of the press yelling at McConnell to speak or give a thumbs up — with seemingly zero response from the senator — has gone viral. Even Trump acolyte Laura Loomer shared it, saying “Mitch is brain dead. You can’t look at his face and say he’s not a vegetable. He’s not even responding to cognition tests. It’s like wheeling a corpse around. Worse than what the Democrats did with Joe Biden to be honest. He looks incapacitated.” [salon]

Reading between the lines, this is speculation concerning whether or not our government is trustable, and that’s a problem. Of course, pundits like myself had read the news reports on the mendacity of Donald J. Trump early in his first term and begun the chorus of He’s lying!, loud and clear.

But the audience didn’t hear it. Let’s clarify the problem: How many of us know one or more liars who have both experience with acting and a certain charisma?

Not many of us, I’d wager.

The American public, the said audience, didn’t hear what they didn’t want to hear; and the Democrats miserably ran around and let their own pack of wannabe autocrats take at least some control of the Party and offer candidates and candidate teams who it turned out were lying and trying to smile their way through autocratic procedures.

And the Republicans continued to crumble and managed to elect a number of smaller liars and predators; some, like Santos and Gonzales, were kicked out, and, yes, let’s add Democratic leader Eric Swalwell to that list.

So now we have to slog our way through articles such as the above: Is McConnell brain-dead, body-doubled, kidnapped by Democrats, sucked into the sky by aliens? Now we have to deal with conspiracy theories spewing from the mouths of those who have found it profitable to do so. From Alex Jones of InfoWars to Lara Loomer to Troy Farah to, just guessing now, Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck to your favorite Democratic Socialist who’s hungry for power, it’ll be conspiracy theory time.

How many times will I have to see a news report one some Trump supporter who’s spewing something about election cheating? And are they in earnest, in the face of the lack of evidence of same, or are they casting a line out, hoping power will come to them? That’s what this is often about.

Yes, dear reader, if you’re American then ready yourself for the deluge of conspiracy theories. For quite a while a number of people have been convincing themselves that those in power must be lying, whether it be about vaccines or their bodies becoming magnetic or chemtrails or, hell, space flight or chupacabras. Will you believe?

Or can we get back to the business of soberly living life?

Gibbous:

gibbous (comparative more gibbous, superlative most gibbous)

1. Curved or bulged outward.
2. (astronomy, of a celestial body) Having more than half (but not the whole) of its disc illuminated.

   Coordinate term: crescent

3. Humpbacked.

[Wiktionary]

Odd that I looked at gibbous and didn’t know the definition; it’s always been one of those words that I’d look up later. Noted in “A NEW CRATER ON THE MOON,” Spaceweather.com:

Now is a good time to look. The Moon is a [sic?] waxing gibbous in the evening sky and the crater stays lit until Sept. 27th. Don’t expect to resolve the crater, it’s quite small, but its fresh ejecta is the brightest thing for miles, so it registers as a high-contrast speck against the dark mare.

If mare seems nonsensical in this context to my reader, here’s an explanation of lunar mare, which is, briefly, a basaltic plain on the Moon formed by by lava flowing into an impact basin. And here’s an illustrative photo from here.

You can check out the new crater by following the Spaceweather link, above.

Out for an evening perambulation, are we? Mind the rabid raccoons.

The Toxic Avenger (2023) tells the semi-cliche story of the evil businessman whose actions are not community-oriented, but merely self-oriented. The toxic byproduct he produces turns a random citizen of the city into a monster, like magnified versions of the businessman’s henchmen, rock band, and family. Losing his family to horror, the man must take a horrible revenge on the businessman.

It’s, in some ways, very ancient Greek, yet very giggly.

The style reminds me a bit of The Suicide Squad (2021) in its amiable acceptance of blatantly mutant people, working out the consequences and how to connect them to human evil. If you liked that, you might like this.

Or if you’re an Elijah Wood completist.

THE PREDICTED PANIC

As GOP Members of Congress discover Trump’s interests are not their interests, rumblings of the herd worried about harrying hunters is beginning to sound…

Republican senators are privately complaining their party isn’t advancing legislation that helps ordinary voters ahead of the crucial midterm elections, according to a new report. …

One unnamed GOP senator on the ballot accused the White House of “putting a noose around all of our necks” by escalating its trade war with Canada so close to the election, the outlet said Wednesday. …

Trump’s trade war is drawing backlash from other Republicans who fear voters will blame them for the economic pain, particularly in border and farming states. [Raw Story via MSN]

President Trump’s need to prove that he’s dominant is not compatible with an electorate that has a voice to use, ears to hear, and minds to learn. No doubt Trump thinks he can lie his way out of anything, but Americans have had a lot of time to observe, analyze, and switch sides.

Something Democrats should note with humility.

And the Republicans may be acting on these observations of Trump:

• One place you won’t find President Trump? Starring in Republican ads [CNN, paywall]
• Trump implores GOP to keep him at the center of midterm campaigns, but Democrats are featuring him more [CNN, paywall]

SIENA SPEAKS!

The latest poll from Siena College and The New York Times has the following foreboding-for-Republicans conclusions:

• By 51-43% Likely Voters Favor the Democratic Candidate for Congress in their District
• Voters Trust Democrats Over Republicans on Healthcare (60-36%), Immigration (52-45%), and the Cost of Living (51-43%)

Speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Unless the polling is broken, which has been a problem over the last decade. Still, given the dismaying likelihood of mendacity from politicians these days, especially among Republicans, this poll is not implausible. And it fits right in with the Republican panic.

DOWN TO THE PAVERS

Take The Yellow Brick Road, To The Valley Of The Jolly Green Giant….

• Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, which had a respectable 2.6/3 in FiveThirtyEight days, is giving Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico (D) a 46% – 43% lead over Texas AG and Republican nominee Ken Paxton (R). The poll has a ±4.0 points for margin of error, so statistically this is a tie.

  Looking at the political inclination details, 88% of the Republicans surveyed are voting for Paxton, while 94% of Democrats are voting for Talarico, suggesting a small but significant enthusiasm gap. Geographically, central Texas is leaning Talarico, while West and East Texas lean more toward Paxton.

  Top-rated Siena College gives Talarico a 49% – 43% lead, and among Hispanics, the great Republican hope, the lead is 62% – 31%. That should be encouraging for the left side of the spectrum as well as those disgusted by Paxton. The margin of error is ±4.3 points.

  However, Emerson College has Talarico and Paxton tied at a very close 47% – 46%, with a margin of error of ±3 points. They also give Talarico the Hispanic vote by 54% – 39%. Emerson College seems a bit more cautious in their approach to polling than some pollsters.

  Then there’s ReconMR/Siena College, which is estimating Talarico leads Paxton 49% – 43%, which may cause national Republicans to begin plotting when they’ll stop throwing good money after bad. Siena College was top o’ the heap in 2024, and the Texas trend appears to be bigger leads for Talarico.

• The AARP has a new poll out for Alaska, carried out by FabrizioWard and Impact Research, and it estimates that former Rep Peltola (D) is leading the incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan (R), 46% – 41%, in Alaska’s ranked choice voting system. The poll notes, Both main candidates are well known with Peltola’s image positive at 49% – 43%, and Sullivan’s  slightly negative at 40% – 44%. A close race like this may come down to who is more likable. But I’m not sure that I trust the pollsters doing the work.
  

  I don’t usually cite co/efficient polls, but for contrast to illustrate how polling can be contradictory, co/efficient has given Senator Sullivan a 48% – 46% lead over Peltola, and claims the Senator is more likable than Peltola, 46% – 41%. Radically different models, or just straight up dishonesty?
  

  When FiveThirtyEight was still active, Rasmussen Reports was considered to be so bad by that site that it wasn’t even given a rating, only a notation that it was Republican-aligned and to avert one’s eyes. This is the first time I’ve run across them in the 2026 season, and they’re claiming Alaska’s Senator Dan Sullivan (R) is tied with Democratic former Rep Mary Peltola (D) at 39% apiece, with a ±3 point margin of error. For a Republican-aligned pollster to admit to a tie, the situation must be a bit bleak for the Republican. Furthermore,

  Seven percent (7%) would vote for Republican Daniel J. Sullivan, whose presence on the ballot has brought accusations of Democrat skullduggery. Six percent (6%) would vote for Republican “perennial candidate” Gerald Heikes, and nine percent (9%) are not sure.

  And this …

  The incumbent Sen. Sullivan is supported by 59% of Republican voters as well as 15% of Democrats and 36% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Seventy-three percent (73%) of Democrats would vote for Peltola, as would 18% of Republicans and 34% of unaffiliated voters. Twenty percent (20%) of Republicans would vote for either Heikes (11%) or the other Sullivan (9%). Twenty-four percent (24%) of unaffiliated voters are not sure which candidate they would vote for.

  If this wasn’t Rasmussen Reports I’d consider those findings significant.

• Unknown Wedgewood Polls is giving Nebraska incumbent Senator Ricketts (R) a significant 52% – 48% lead over Dan Osborn (I), although a largish margin of error of ±4.4 points means that, statistically, this is a tie. This is in contrast to the last Update reporting well-known pollster SurveyUSA had Osborn leading 46% – 42%.

  In other news, Osborn was caught on the horns of a dilemma hot microphone recently, expressing views of rural voters who favor President Trump. His reply comes via KMTV-3:
  

  At one point in the recording, Osborn appears to say Trump supporters’ “lives suck.” Osborn said he was capturing the anger of himself and voters across Nebraska.

  “I’m talking about people (that) are pissed off,” Osborn said. “People are disenfranchised, and that is what Trump captured in Nebraska. He captured people who are angry about the political system.”

  Well, that might work. I’ll be having bated breath until the next poll comes out.

• The untidy caboose of the primary election season was on 15 September in Delaware, where the Senate primary results yielded incumbent Senator Coons (D) as the Democratic nominee, overwhelming rivals with 78% of the 85,783 Democratic primary votes, and MD Michael Katz (R), a Delaware state Senator, as winner of the Republican primary election, with 77.3% of the 38,481 Republican primary votes. Katz ran for Senator in 2024, losing to now-Senator Rochester (D). While I didn’t find any polls, and primary vote totals are not in general use for predictive purposes, Delaware’s reputation is solid blue. I do not expect Senator Coons to lose in November.

  In the humor department …
  

  Outside spending in the primary was minimal. Sierra Club Independent Action, a super PAC, reported a single independent expenditure of $10 in support of Coons on June 22, described as a website endorsement. That figure is the only periodic-report transaction in the supplied race data through Aug. 12. [Legis1]

  Delaware’s race has certainly had very little mention in the Updates.

• Ohio Senator Husted’s (R) woes continue in a Bowling Green/YouGov poll that shows him down 48% – 45% to former Senator Sherrod Brown (D), although I’ll grant that’s a better result than InsiderAdvantage gave him in the September 11 Update.

  Notably, Ohio voters want to see their candidates clashing. In a YouGov question concerning debates, in excess of 80% of those surveyed think it’s important that Senators show up at debates.

• Speaking of debates, in this collage of campaign stories from NBC News there’s a tale of former Rep Mike Rogers (R) of Michigan, who is running for the Senate, refusing to debate:
  

  Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed took a jab at Mike Rogers tonight after his Republican opponent said he would not be participating in what would have been the first debate in a closely watched race for an open Senate seat in Michigan.

  “Mike DODGERS is too cowardly to show up to debate me,” El-Sayed wrote in a post on X, accompanied by a photo of him in a TV studio in Detroit across from an empty podium.

  Rogers’ campaign said in a statement that he would skip the debate because the moderator, WJBK-TV [a Fox affiliate] news anchor Roop Raj, displays “bias and favoritism.”

  I doubt that’ll impress Michigan independents, and may cost Rogers some votes. Of course, if Raj is a Democratic Socialist then maybe Rogers has a point … although my suspicion is that going into the den and bearding the lion is much more impressive than refusing to take a risk. I’m not saying that’s right, but it’s how American audiences often lean.

  A new poll suggests El-Sayed is clinging to a lead:

  A new Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media Michigan poll finds 48% of Michigan voters support Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, and 46% support Republican Mike Rogers for U.S. Senate. Four percent are undecided.

  

  On The Issues: Mike Rogers (R-MI).

  This is the sort of lead that makes me wonder if it’s just an artifact of the model of the electorate being just a bit off, especially as the margin of error is ±3 points, because it keeps repeating. Then again, only 4% undecided suggests a polarized electorate. That’s also congruent with small, consistent leads. For the record, a WaPo/Schar poll estimates similar numbers. So does conservative pollster InsiderAdvantage.

  Finally, The Detroit News has endorsed former Rep Rogers (R) for the Michigan Senate seat. This is behind a paywall, so I will not try to quote from it, but Michigan News Source provides a bit of it:

  “Mike Rogers is clearly the best choice for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat and gets our endorsement,” the board wrote. It cited the 63-year-old Rogers’ experience in the military, the FBI, the Michigan Legislature and the U.S. House.

  The editorial board also criticized Rogers’ Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, arguing that the former health official lacks the government and policymaking experience needed for the job.

  It’s hard to argue with their point concerning El-Sayed’s lack of experience, as he doesn’t appear to have held elective office, and the Senate is no walk in the park. But do Michigan voters want a hard-right specimen like Rogers? It seems to me that both Parties have done the Michigan electorate a disservice.

• Rasmussen Reports is also active in Georgia, and they give a surprising 9 point lead to Senator Ossoff (D), 51% – 42%, over Rep Collins (R). Margin of error is ±3 points. I expected a pollster with a reputation for swinging conservative to suggest Collins was making up the gap. See Alaska, above, for more on Rasmussen Reports.

  In contrast, unknown pollster Quantus Insights gives Senator Ossoff a 48.2% – 44.4% lead. I don’t take that one too seriously.

• In a bit of a shock for Democrats of Minnesota, Republican Senate nominee Michelle Tafoya (R) has tied Democratic nominee Lt Gov Flanagan (D) at 42%, with the credibility interval, similar to the margin of error, being a largish ±4.4 points. The pollster is KSTP/SurveyUSA. Perhaps Minnesota independents are impressed by Tafoya’s declaration of independence from Republican power brokers, such as Trump, or perhaps they’re put off by Democratic leadership during the fraud crisis in state government. If Tafoya does win, Trump will declare he’s responsible for her victory, and then he’ll be shocked when she turns out to be less than malleable. Don’t mess with female sports reporters, eh?
• A week ago Rasmussen Reports, see the Alaska entry, above, for more information, issued a poll giving Senate candidate Josh Turek (D) a lead of 45% – 40% over Rep Hinson (R), with a margin of error of a surprisingly small ±2 points, in Iowa. That Rasmussen would give the Democrat the lead says something, but precisely what is somewhat puzzling in a pollster with their history of failure. Moreover, Emerson College recently gave a five point lead to Rep Hinson (R), and they are a more reputable pollster by far.
• Kansas Senator Marshall (R) appears to be falling behind as Pastor Adam Hamilton (D), Marshall’s rival and the Democratic nominee for Marshall’s seat, is estimated to have a two point lead of 45% – 43%, with a margin of error of ±3.6 points and thus a statistical tie, in a Emerson College – KSN News poll.

  Perhaps the boos were fair and representative after all, as reported in the last Update for Kansas.

• In Kentucky, Democratic Senate nominee Charles Booker (D) has released a sponsored poll:
  

  Booker, the Democrat running to replace U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, received 40% in the poll of likely voters compared to Barr’s 49%.

  The poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group, had a margin of error of +/- 4.0%. [Fox 56 via yahoo! news]

  Global Strategy Group had an unimpressive 1.8/3 rating from FiveThirtyEight.

• I see little mention of the Louisiana Senate race in the news, and I must apologize because I actually missed a rare poll from about a month ago:
  

  The campaign-commissioned poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling on July 21 and 22, initially found Letlow leading Davis 41% to 37%, with 22% of registered Louisiana voters undecided. After respondents heard biographical descriptions of both candidates, the result moved to 42% for Letlow and 38% for Davis, with 20% undecided. [bayou progressive]

  Public Policy Polling had a poor rating of 1.4/3 from FiveThirtyEight. Of more recent vintage is this:

  Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy said he won’t endorse Congresswoman Julia Letlow in her Senate campaign, but predicted that she will easily win the Nov. 3 election to replace him. …

  “She hasn’t asked me for my endorsement,” Cassidy said Sept. 15 during a conference call with reporters. “She doesn’t need my endorsement. She has President Trump’s endorsement, and that what matters in our state.” [Shreveport Times]

  Dr. Cassidy’s missteps have been numerous, by which I mean poorly thought out votes to confirm very questionable nominees, such as Robert Kennedy, Jr as the HHS Secretary, in the Senate. So should I trust his judgment about his soon-to-be ex-constituents? Beats me. As a default, I think the answer is ‘yes.’ But he could be wrong.

• I have a note stating Harper Polling was founded by Republicans and so I take this seriously. In North Carolina they are giving former Gov Cooper (D) a big 49.2% – 34.1% lead over Michael Whatley (R). Perhaps they are never-Trumpers and know that Whatley’s allied with Trump, or maybe they’re just honest.

  Conservative pollster InsiderAdvantage estimates a smaller lead of 48.4% – 42.5%. I think I trust Harper Polling over InsiderAdvantage.

• St. Pete Polls, which was rated a respectable 2.4/3 by FiveThirtyEight, suggests Democrat Angela Nixon (D) has virtually caught up to Senator Moody (R) in the Florida Senate race, with Senator Moody barely leading, 45.2% – 44.8%. Margin of error is estimated at ±3.2 points, so this is a statistical tie.

  Do I believe it? No, this is Florida. But my mind is open. More polls of Florida, please.

• Conservative pollster InsiderAdvantage states in a headline, but without actual poll data published, … NH Pappas 48, Sununu 40%. This is in contrast to other recent polls for New Hampshire suggesting Sununu (R) is closing the gap or has even passed Pappas (D). What to make of it? Wait for the next poll.
• Rasmussen Reports, of dubious history yes, estimates South Carolina Senator D. Graham (R) leads Dr Andrews (D), 48% – 43%, with a margin of error of ±3 points. Don’t get excited.

STATE FLIPS

Just in this Update, States seemingly moving towards flipping their Senate seat’s political designation on Senate Inauguration Day are Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and North Carolina. This, I think, exclusive of Minnesota, is the tidal wave I thought might be coming for the Republican Party, the party who worships amateurs and amateurism.

That was a lot of shocking news in just a couple of days, and we still have a month or so to go.

It appears Americans may have had enough.

PREDICTIONS?

Oh, well. I’d say I’m not drunk enough, but since I drink a cup of wine a year, two when I’m excited, I guess hiding behind that excuse won’t work.

So let’s make it easy: Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and North Carolina will flip, along with South Carolina. That’d be 8 flips of Republicans to Democrats, and one the other way.

Senator Schumer would be vindicated, although claiming to be a genius would be silly. The Republicans made a huge error when they elected President Trump, and we’ve been watching it ever since.

And now I’m going to hope the news slows down a bit. The last two days have been very busy.

Erick Erickson is mad at the lack of laissez-faire free market when it comes to artificial intelligence, which he perceives as not being dangerous. In fact, at one point he says…

Every month we spend building a cabinet-level agency to license what amounts to math is a month the Chinese Communist Party gets for free.

Someone should remind him that physics, the foundation on which nuclear power is really based, just amounts to math.

Then ask him if he wants a close up and personal look at a reactor in operation.

Math is the tool we use to predict what will happen if we apply specific forces to situations, where satellites will be in δ-t, even the slippage in time between us here on the surface of Earth and our GPS satellites.

It only amounts to math? On a machine networked to other machines, from computers to data collection systems to control systems. Yes, including that last.

That’s why this is a laugher, if grim. I won’t comment on specific alleged threats, because I’m not tracking LLM-based AI and whether various specimens have broken out of sandboxes and that sort of thing. But the simple fact that these are running on networked machines makes this more than math. Just what, I’m not sure. But a little caution may save us from looking stupid.

SO, SO DEEP?

Years ago I predicted deep-fakes would mess up our elections and society, and I was not unique in that regard. This is now beginning to take place in the election arena:

Late last month, left-wing firebrand Hasan Piker showed his Twitch viewers a social media post quoting a supposed audio recording of a Jewish American politician saying that the primary objective of his campaign was to aid Israel.

Piker displayed the post during a monologue on American Jews and Israel that has since roiled the Democratic Party and upended a U.S. Senate race in Michigan.

But even now, weeks later, it is still not publicly known whether the audio recording in question is even real. [WaPo]

A “left-wing firebrand” uses this to take advantage of the conflict in Gaza, but …

The politician the audio is attributed to, Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss (D), has said the clip was manipulated or fabricated and “peddles in offensive tropes” about dual loyalty. Digital-forensics specialists who examined it for The Washington Post found no evidence that it was AI-generated or manipulated but could not establish who recorded it, whether the voice was definitively Moss’s or whether the excerpt had been stripped of relevant context.

This is deeply troubling, of course. Even if this is a false alarm, the future will surely feature such deep fakes, and we’ll need to understand how to detect them and minimize their effects on society.

And why is this important? Because, as a society, in order to come to best solutions, we need to use facts and honesty, and not treat this as a legitimate, yet frantic, race for power. Power motivates a lot of people, but that is not the predicate for our society – because such predicates often lead to mutual distrust and, consequently, violence.

Have you decided how to research such potential fakes?

OUR ANCHOR IS ON FIRE!

The good news is that we’ve taken another step towards blocking interference from the Post Office when it comes to mail-in votes. The bad news? The President’s hair seems to have caught fire.

It’s getting harder and harder to be a far-right Republican; the epistemic bubble has become toxic. The thing is, I suspect it’s toxic on both sides.

DOWN IN THE VALLEYS

Where the antelope play ….

• In a rare Montana poll, US Attorney and Senate candidate Kurt Alme (R) leads Seth Bodnar (I) and Alani Bankhead (D) by estimates of 38% to 30% to 16%, respectively, according to a Rutgers University Eagleton Center for Politics poll. The margin of error is ±4.2 points, and 11% were undecided or won’t vote. Naturally, it’s fallacious to believe that if Bodnar or Bankhead were to drop out, enough votes would accrue to the other to beat Alme, and at least Bankhead has made clear that she’ll not be dropping in any case. But if either did drop, there’s a fair chance the other might win, even though the dropper’s name would remain on the ballot. Alme’s share of the vote in the poll is unimpressive, at least to me, at this late point in the season.

  Still, I expect Alme will win this in the absence of the black swan.

• Texas GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton (R) is the recipient of yet more funding:
  

  Texas Republican Ken Paxton is getting a major infusion of financial help in his Senate battle with Democrat James Talarico.

  A new super PAC linked to Senate Republican leadership has purchased at least $32 million in airtime to boost the controversial Republican attorney general, according to the tracking service AdImpact. And President Donald Trump’s super PAC threw $10 million into the race last week.

  The wave of GOP spending comes as a number of recent polls have shown Paxton slightly trailing Talarico, including a recent AARP poll that Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio’s firm helped conduct. [Politico]

  Yeah, and buying votes is a diminishing returns strategy, especially in this indirect manner. This is a clear signal that nominating Paxton was an unforced blunder. Cornyn must be gritting his teeth something fierce.

• Ohio incumbent Senator Jon Husted (R) is falling into a hole he may never climb out of – if Ohio voters care about issues such as this:
  

  A top campaign staffer for Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) once used a photo of SS soldiers as his Facebook profile photo and recently added to a public playlist of songs celebrating Rhodesia, a defunct White-minority-ruled nation often venerated by white supremacists, according to publicly available social media activity.

  The staffer, 25-year-old Stephen Woytek, was tapped in August to serve as Husted’s political director in the closely contested Senate race between Husted and former senator Sherrod Brown (D).

  In a statement on Friday, after being contacted by The Washington Post, a spokeswoman for Husted said the campaign had decided to “part ways” with Woytek. [WaPo]

  Points for firing Woytek immediately. But could this have been avoided completely? The Ohio electorate will be making that decision in 6-7 weeks, and they may not vote for a political movement welcoming members who find such belief systems congenial.

• The AP has an unhappy news item concerning the GOP nominee for Senate in North Carolina, Michael Whatley:
  

  A pastor kicked off a recent campaign stop for Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee for Senate, with a prayer that asked God to bestow “integrity and honesty” upon the event and to right wrongs “hammered down on the conservative movement.”

  The prayer was hardly unusual by North Carolina political standards. What was surprising was the man who delivered it. Pastor Daimon L. King is a registered sex offender, twice sentenced to prison for convictions involving children, according to state and court records.

  Whatley’s campaign immediately pointed fingers at the hosts, the Craven County Republican Party.

  Whatley’s campaign must handle this unfortunate incident with delicacy or he could look doubly bad. Seeing as we’re talking about Republicans, this may be a major challenge.

  Conservative pollster Trafalgar Group gives former Gov Cooper (D) a 48.2% – 42.3% lead over Whatley. The margin of error is ±2.9 points.

• Also from The Trafalgar Group is a poll for the Georgia Senate seat, giving current occupant Senator Ossoff (D) a 49.4% – 42.8% lead. Again, the margin of error is ±2.9 points.
• Last time we talked about Senator Marshall (R) of Kansas, it included a news item concerning his past billing practices when he was a practicing MD. Now, it appears he’s being booed for them:
  

  Earlier in the forum [at the Kansas State Fair], Marshall got cut off mid-answer by chants of “shame on you” from the audience as he attempted to explain his approach to collecting on patients’ unpaid medical bills as a rural doctor in Great Bend. [The Kansas City Star]

  Honestly, this is hard to evaluate because the environment and audience, if it’s anything like the Minnesota State Fair, is uncontrolled. In other words, the cards might have been stacked.

• Well respected SurveyUSA has a shocking result for the Nebraska Senate seat, with Dan Osborn (I) leading Senator Pete Ricketts (R), 46% – 42%. 4% claim they’re voting for someone else, and 7% are undecided. Is it a real lead? Can Senator Ricketts persuade the undecideds that he needs another term in office?
• Conservative pollster Cygnal has rivals for the to-be-empty seat of the Senator from Iowa, Josh Turek (D) and Rep Hinson (R), tied at 42.9% apiece, with a largish margin of error of ±4.38%. That’s large enough to make me doubtful about the result being useful, especially as Emerson College recently had Hinson up by 5 points.
• And finally, a bit of humor from an Alaska debate in the Senate race.

HONESTLY, NO

Some readers might ask if I’m playing favorites, above, with the bad news items for Republicans. No, if I ran across similar items for Democrats, I’d relay them, too. I don’t run across those as often.

RE-EVALUATING

Voters seem to be re-evaluating their sympathies. I suspect quite a few are looking at the fourth-raters on one side, shaking their heads, and considering the third-raters on the other.

Here’s the sedum turning a bit red while hosting a guest:

A phlox or two, since taken to composting, with their own guest.

And the home of the late, we presume, Ralph the Magnificent, who’s a bit blurry here. I need a better camera.

He was an orb weaver spider who later disappeared, presumably spawning and dying. Or following the wasps we saw him lunching upon into death.

President Trump suffered another loss in front of SCOTUS yesterday concerning his scheme to use the Post Office to interfere with mail-in ballots, but I don’t think it’s as big a deal as Belle seems to think. Instead, I’m leaning towards MS NOW’s Jordan Rubin’s opinion:

The Supreme Court on Monday denied the Trump administration’s bid to halt a Boston judge’s order that blocked the federal government from implementing mail-in ballot restrictions for the midterms.

Over dissent from Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the court issued a brief order that said the government “is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.”

Read carefully, it’s clearly not a final word on the new Post Office regulation, even if there’s seven inclined heads indicating their dubious of the case in question. Trump’s team is forbidden to work on the matter, true, but Trump’s team may still eventually win.

But does he understand that?

Some folks may argue that the following is simply how he plans to wash his hands of the matter, blaming SCOTUS for whatever cheating he claims happens.

“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote on social media, referring to Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Neil M. Gorsuch. “They are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal.” …

In his post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump slammed the decision as “horrible, highly political.”

“It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do – And now they have an open field to do so!” he wrote. [The New York Times]

But I think, if you combine this hyperbole with Trump’s sudden message concerning the attempt on his life, allegedly, in Butler, PA:

Everybody knows the Crooked Joe Biden FBI didn’t do what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA. By the time I got into Office, on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found! Why wasn’t it seen long ago? This was all a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed. Dirty Cop Christopher Wray should pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt, and certainly for the things he said. GOD BLESS AMERICA — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP [Truth Social]

The Cabinet Secretaries begin to gather.

It’s really looking like the wheels have acquired a severe rattle, the sort that occurs when said wheels are in danger of exiting the vehicle. Between that and his hair metaphorically catching fire, he may not make it to Election Day.

It all sounds like someone frantically making up lies to explain why events are not occurring as he expects.

I’d not be surprised if the situation changes radically in the next couple of weeks. Impeachment and conviction, resignation, attempt to retain the Presidency while residing in Seychelles … we’ll just have to wait and see.

Jennifer Griffin is a Fox News host:

In learning that a US Navy HQ was hit hard, we also learn that, if their nose is rubbed in it, Fox News will at least admit to hearing someone, even a mere nominee for Navy Secretary, admit that it’s happened. This may not sit well with the Trump Administration, especially if MAGA becomes upset by it.

It’s easy enough to write-off President Trump’s occasional focus on North Korea as anomalous, but Kyung Suk Lee on 38 North went into it a little further two months ago. Their summary:

Trump’s continued push for a summit with Kim, despite North Korea’s continued dismissals, appears to lie less in strategy and more in Trump’s personal worldview, which shapes how he sees Kim Jong Un. This article makes three claims that follow from that view. First, Trump seeks the meeting as an end in itself for the affirmation it gives him, not as a means to disarm the North. Second, because the meeting is the prize, the substance bends to secure it. Denuclearization gives way to quasi-arms control that freezes the missiles aimed at the American homeland while leaving the rest of the arsenal in place. Third, that bargain may likely protect the United States while leaving South Korea, whose cities remain within range, exposed, which is why close alliance coordination and a continued push for denuclearization matter now more than ever.

It’s useful to add this to the analysis of American interactions with North Korea, 2024-2026, but it’s also a little alarming.

1. North Korean puzzlement. They have to be wondering why such a failure of a President has been reelected, a failure of democracy which affirms their own brutal form of government. Worse yet, he toddles forth as if he’s trying to join a world community of dictators who secretly control the globe.
2. Satisfying a pathological narcissism. When he toddles forth, he’s not doing this for strategic or tactical reasons. All he’s doing is caring for an ego with strange, possibly religious motivations that have nothing to do with taking proper care of the United States. Seem unlikely? I think Kyung Suk Lee agrees:
   

   Trump’s own words gathered over years point to a consistent explanation. Five impulses appear again and again. Each one points to the meeting as a prize rather than a tool.

   A fundamental immaturity.

3. It’s unprofessional. North Korea mistreats its citizens, keeping them ignorant so the Kims may retain absolute power. As a democracy that thrives on knowledge and recognizes knowledge generally make the world safer – although I sometimes have doubts – supporting Kim is hypocritical and dangerous.

All in all, if & when President Trump is put away in a facility for failed government leaders, he’ll be wailing about his position in the community of dictators – never realizing that Kim’d rather put a knife in him than sup with him. But Kim understands something Trump does not – statecraft, diplomacy, whatever you want to call it, requires actions that may seem repellent to the person on the spot. Kim gets it and carries it through. What is Trump looking for?

Direct and immediate satiation of egotistical needs.

The president courting a meeting with a reluctant Kim Jong Un is not chasing a strategy. He is chasing a reflection of himself, and the ally most likely to pay for that reflection is the one standing just outside the frame.

An interesting article.

For those readers convinced the world is against Donald J. Trump, this’ll be a disappointment:

Inoculum:

Inoculation is a term often heard in microbiology, one of the branches of biology that deals with the study of microorganisms which includes unicellular organisms, viruses, and bacteria (Toppr, 2020). It is a process or technique that involves the transferring of microorganisms from culture for growth. Thus, in microbiology, the term inoculum refers to the material in which microbiologists used for inoculation, i.e., the introduction of microorganisms into a culture medium. The technique is commonly done using an inoculation needle (also called an inoculation loop). Inoculation is carried out to grow microorganisms in a culture medium under specific growth conditions. [Biology Online]

I feel there may be a word missing in there somewhere, but a biologist may disagree. Inoculum was noted in this video. Try at about 1:25 if you’re impatient.

So here’s some pics. First, acorn squash bloom with some squatters.

Maybe squash blooms are extra tasty? All three bumblers were moving when I took the pic.

Next, a paintbrush.

Washing may require some extra work.

Finally, I think this pic of a baby Mothra came out extra fine.

My apologies for any residents of the flower sucked up the proboscis.

ADMIN NOTE

This post seems to have exposed a bug in my process, as I try to dodge a bug in WordPress. If this goes incoherent, just remember this is a post of ephemera.

POLLING, POLLING, POLLING

At the beginning of August polling legend Nate Silver made available an open post which I thought was interesting. Here’s a single point:

8. Just to put a finer point on this, the average error in polls in presidential primaries since 2000 is around 9 points of vote margin (!), more than twice President Trump’s (in)famous polling outperformance in 2016. And polling error tends to increase the further you go down the ballot. So if it’s 9 points in a presidential primary, it might be who-knows-what in a congressional primary, but we’re probably looking at something in the double digits. Many people, including traders at prediction markets, tend to be much too crude in the heuristics they apply toward polling error, failing to recognize that polling is relatively accurate in some types of races but routinely quite inaccurate in others and that much of this is predictable. [Silver Bulletin]

Much of the rest of the post is in the context of the El-Sayed victory in the Michigan Democratic primary, including this:

9. … Many of the pollsters in this race have mediocre pollster ratings, aren’t rated at all because they’re new, or aren’t used by Silver Bulletin because they don’t meet our standards for professional polling firms. There can sometimes be cases of the blind leading the blind in polling, producing a lot of herding toward a sometimes very wrong consensus. The constant, frankly often very amateurish “discourse” about polling on Twitter and elsewhere on social media doesn’t help matters either. There are fewer and fewer pollsters I trust to do their own thing, instead of being influenced by “the narrative”.

Which I might interpret as manipulation, or as pollsters overmatched in a challenging environment. Either way, it’s a cautionary tale concerning the predictions of pollsters, as I’ve noted before. Silver is far more qualified than I to pontificate on the matter.

POLLING, POLLING, POLLING, Part 2

From the right side of the spectrum comes Erick Erickson, no doubt representative of many right wing pundits, trying, I think, to reassure the Republican flock.

The Republicans are ahead in Iowa and they are already writing off Georgia and North Carolina. Look at Patrick Ruffini’s data again. “Polling error peaks at 5.9 points too Democratic sometime in late July, and doesn’t start coming down until late August, before settling into an average error of D+2.6 on election day.”

If that’s the case, and historically there is no reason to think this year is different from prior years, except for Georgia and North Carolina, the Republicans’ worst polling here at Labor Day is the high water mark for Democrat polling, and the GOP is in a very good position.

That does not mean the GOP will win. But it does mean that the GOP is in a much more solid position than a lot of the panicked prognosticators would have you believe. Sure, they can say “this time is different,” and yes, gas prices have never been this high in the run-up to an election.

Yes, those are facts from the past, and I remember being surprised at the Democratic collapse. But as financial advisors like to say, past performance is not a predictor of future performance. Yes, there are both conservative and liberal pollsters, who interpret their data to favor certain outcomes. But there are also benefits to being considered a good, disinterested pollster – and so yesterday’s liberal or conservative pollster may learn and improve, especially in an industry that appears to be on the edge of disappearance because of a lack of trustworthiness.

Erickson has a habit of dropping or misinterpreting facts, I’ve noticed. Here, I think he’s ignoring, deliberately or not, the collective GOP candidates’ vast burden of hauling the Trump narcissism along on their journey. Add in the frantic gerrymandering, Missouri being an object lesson in the consequences of abject obeisance to the wishes of Trump, and the electoral and thus polling landscape is quite different from ’24, ’22, and ’20.

POLLING, POLLING, POLLING, Part 3

In a gap I can’t recall seeing before, Quinnipiac Poll reports a big finding.

With the midterm elections less than two months away, voters give the Democratic Party an 11-point advantage over the Republican Party when it comes to who they would want to see win control of the United States House of Representatives, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll among registered voters released today.

This lesson in stressing tenets that are not supported by American citizenry could be quite painful for Republicans.

“I support anybody with an ‘R’ behind their name.“

This has to do with the Rep Max Miller (R-OH) ongoing debacle in which Senator Moreno (R-OH), the father of Rep Miller’s former wife, has demanded that Miller resign and leave politics because of domestic abuse allegations.

For a Party that claims to represent the higher morality in this and prior elections, back to probably Reagan, the above statement is problematic. It says, especially in out of context clips, that all a rapist must do is claim to be a Republican and Rep Lisa McClain (R-MI), the source of that remark, will support them.

I rather suspect she’d like to withdraw that statement. BUT …

The National Republican Congressional Committee is coordinating new TV ad spending with Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) — the clearest sign yet that Republicans are panicking they could lose this House seat as Miller faces allegations of domestic abuse. [HuffPost]

Perhaps not.

The implication is that Power is the morality in this election, though, and that perception will overshadow the hard work of the GOP in removing such members as former Rep Santos (R-NY), expelled and jailed, former Rep Tony Gonzalez (R-TX), resigned under pressure for alleged sexual transgressions, and a couple of others.

The GOP might obviate this mistake by expelling yet another GOP Member of Congress, but who that might be is not at all clear. Since Senator McConnell (R-KY) is rumoured to be returning from the hospital this week, I doubt it’ll be him, and expelling him because President Trump hates him is not a good look. Perhaps it could be Trump-creature Speaker Johnson (R-LA) himself, who seems to be nearly as mendacious as the President. That is no mean feat, except that it is.

PLAYING FAVORITES

How will this affect voters?

Donald Trump’s politicization of federal disaster relief funds has become one of the most important scandals of his second term. The president could at least try to keep up appearances and make it seem as if the White House is approaching the issue in a vaguely responsible way, but with nine weeks remaining before the midterm elections, the Republican is instead leaning into his abuses.

Late Tuesday afternoon, for example, over the course of roughly an hour, he used his social media platform to announce seven disaster relief requests that he had just approved. Their similarities were hardly subtle: [Steve Benen, Maddowblog]

All the approved disaster applications cited by Benen were for States that voted Republican; three applications, from States that voted Democratic, were denied. Will this be publicized? Will it affect voters, will they resent being pushed around by someone who, frankly, does not understand how the United States operates?

Due to visibility issues inherent in the question, I doubt it’ll have any sort of measurable effect on Senate elections.

DOWN IN THE TRENCHES

Where trench foot runs rampant? Oh, the visuals….

• Unknown pollster Beacon Poll is giving incumbent Tennessee Senator Hagerty (R) a 51% – 31% lead over Marquita Bradshaw (D); of the remaining votes, truck driver David Sutman Jr (I) has a 16% share, which is not calculated on the original sample size, but those not inclined to either of the major party candidates.
• Emerson College gives Rep Hinson (R) a five point lead, 50% – 45%, over Josh Turek (D) in the race for the retiring Senator Ernst’s (R) seat in Iowa. The margin of error is ±3.6 points.Equally venerable YouGov sees the Iowa Senate seat race as a statistical tie, with Josh Turek (D) leading Rep Hinson (R) 44% – 43%. The margin of error is ±3.5 points.
• Alaska Survey Research suggests former Rep Mary Peltola (D) has a marginal lead of 50.6% – 49.4% over incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan (R) in Alaska with a margin of error of ±2.5 points. Citing an excited tweet goes against the grain, however.
• The AARP’s pollsters, FabrizioWard + Impact Research, gives James Talarico (D) a 48% – 44% lead over Ken Paxton (R) in Texas. Noteworthy:
  

  Talarico and Paxton both have differences on their images by age
  with Talarico quite positive among voters under 50 vs. narrowly
  underwater among the 50+ while Paxton is slightly positive among
  voters 50+ and underwater among voters under 50.

  I’ll grant I’m dubious about the judgement of the youngsters and the oldsters in Texas.

  The N+ Univision News/YouGov poll, which has an interesting Latino slant, also has an interesting observation:

  Though Hispanic voters continue to give Democratic contenders an overall edge, the deeper story is a notable wave of second thoughts: roughly one in three Latino Trump voters now expresses doubt or outright regret over their 2024 choice, driven by administration actions, cost-of-living fatigue, and growing anxieties over racial profiling.

  They give Talarico (D) a 48% – 43% lead over Paxton (R) as Latino sentiment changes. The Latinas have swung decisively to Talarico, while their male counterparts have been less likely to leave the Republican coalition.

  Now if only Democrats were to discard their outdated and incorrect inclination towards identitarian politics. People are individuals these days, which may explain some of the foolishness on public, even proud, display. A good old fashioned butt-kicking of the Republicans might result in either improvement in the current base as they realize their self-indulgent choices were very poor, or replacement of the base by more moderate members.

  Conservative pollster InsiderAdvantage gives Talarico a smaller lead of 47.1% – 46.6%, a statistical tie as the margin of error is ±2.83 points.

  Paxton’s woes continue to accumulate with this announcement:

  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s former top law enforcement official endorsed Democratic state Rep. James Talarico on Tuesday in the state’s competitive U.S. Senate race. [WaPo]

  Mr Maxwell reported Paxton for alleged abuse of office in concert with several colleagues, Paxton fired them – it’s like reading a bad novel composed of cliches – they sued Paxton, a judge ruled in the whistleblowers’ favor to the tune of $6 million, Paxton was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives, but the Texas Senate acquitted. It’s no surprise Mr Maxwell endorsed Talarico after that story. But – does Mr Maxwell’s endorsement matter in big ol’ Texas?

  In late breaking news, 21 more GOPers, former and current, have endorsed Talarico.

  Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico on Thursday touted endorsements from 21 current and former Republican officials and party leaders ahead of his November faceoff against state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).

  The endorsements come from former members of Congress, Texas state lawmakers and other officials, with several citing Paxton directly as their reason for crossing party lines. [The Hill]

  On another note, what do primary voters of both stripes have in common? They picked terrible candidates that are going to cost a great deal of Party money:

  Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) on Tuesday urged President Donald Trump and his allies to invest in the Senate race in Texas — a reliably red state where Democrats have not won a Senate seat in decades. [WaPo]

  

  On The Issues: Ken Paxton (R-TX).

  The Paxton case was predicted by a number of pundits, and it appears to be coming true. In the Talarico case, listening to him articulate his more outré positions can be an amazingly uncomfortable experience, and begins to explain why he’s not obliterating this punk Paxton in the polls. However, he is more successful at fund-raising than Paxton, so he may not be as expensive for the Party as is Paxton. This announcement may help the cause:

  Democrats have not held a Senate seat in Texas in decades. But polling shows Talarico, who recently said he does not support transgender athletes playing in girls’ sports if it is not safe or fair, has a solid chance of flipping the seat for the party, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the race as a toss-up. [The Hill]

  The remark on transgender athletes may be important to many independents.

  Prediction: Paxton ends up in the same category as the notorious former Rep George Santos (R-NY). The only difference might be that Paxton’s narcissistic behavior was known before he became the nominee for his desired position, and yet he still won that nomination, beating an incumbent Senator who was, and remains for a couple of more months, a member of the Senate leadership. Santos was less notorious before winning his seat, I believe. Both are failures of Republican gatekeepers.

• Senator Marshall (R) of Kansas is also Dr. Marshall, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and is receiving criticism for some of his past billing practices from Democratic rival Pastor Adam Hamilton:
  

  Adam Hamilton, a Democrat challenging Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), criticized the incumbent Tuesday over a report that he sued hundreds of patients over unpaid bills during his decades as an obstetrician-gynecologist.

  The New York Times reported that Marshall had sued more than 700 patients, 81 of whom were arrested for missing court dates.

  “In Washington, Roger Marshall votes to strip healthcare and raise costs,” Hamilton wrote on X. “In Kansas, he sued more than 700 patients who couldn’t afford the bill. Dozens were handcuffed and jailed.” [WaPo]

  Will this affect the Senate race in Kansas? I think that depends on the strength of free market ideologies in the state vs sympathy for patients paying high prices for medical services.

  In other news, Democrat Hamilton has been endorsed by former Kansas Governor Bill Graves (R):

  With our nation facing increasing partisan gridlock and division, it’s time Kansas does something different. For the last six years, Sen. Roger Marshall has turned his back on Kansas. In contrast, Adam Hamilton stands as a bulwark of kindness, humility and service to others. It is for those reasons, and many more, that I believe Kansas should send Adam Hamilton to the U.S. Senate, and I am proud to endorse him. [The Kansas City Star]

  I think we need another poll in Kansas.

• In New Hampshire there was some bluster concerning Democratic Socialist Karishma Manzur (D) making the Democratic primary uncomfortably close for Rep Chris Pappas (D), but the 8 September primary election dispelled the clamor, as Pappas defeated Manzur by a healthy margin of 64.6% – 33.2%. 93,111 votes were cast.In the Republican primary, as expected, former Senator John Sununu (R) easily defeated former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (R), 68.4% – 26.4%, and substantially fewer ballots were counted in the Republican primary, 61,882.
• In Maine SSRS conducted a poll for CNN, one of a series called the CNN/SSRS polls, which had a good reputation (2.4/3 rating) back in the FiveThirtyEight days. The poll finds Democratic nominee Troy Jackson leading incumbent Senator Collins (R) by the slim margin of 48% – 45%. The margin of error is ±3.7 points.Venerable YouGov also conducted a poll in Maine, giving Jackson a 46% – 44% lead over Senator Collins, with a largish 4.9 point margin of error. I wonder why it’s so large, as their sample size is not out of line at 1,378 registered voters. Of interest: 21% of the sample claims to be a MAGA supporter.
• Unknown pollster Elon University polled North Carolina again, finding former Gov Roy Cooper (D) has a commanding lead over Michael Whatley among both likely and registered voters. This is in contrast to the previous High Point University poll showing the race tightening. Of interest from the Elon U poll:
  

  In this survey, 71% of registered voters said they had heard “a great deal” or “some” about Cooper, who was North Carolina governor from 2017 to 2025 and previously served 16 years as the state’s attorney general. In comparison, 47% said they had heard “a great deal” or “some” about Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party. Fifteen percent said they had heard nothing at all about Whatley compared with only 4% who had heard nothing at all about Cooper.

  Whatley won’t win with recognition numbers like those. But is it a failure on his team’s part or a lack of proper civics on the part of the North Carolina citizenry?

  Another unknown pollster, ECU Poll, is less certain:

  The latest ECU Poll of North Carolina’s upcoming U.S. Senate election, conducted August 31 through September 3, shows Democratic nominee Roy Cooper leading Republican nominee Michael Whatley, 46% to 39%, with 14% undecided and the remainder supporting a minor-party or write-in candidate. On a forced-choice measure without an undecided option, Cooper leads Whatley, 52% to 44%, with the remainder supporting a minor-party or write-in candidate. (The poll’s credibility interval, which is similar to a margin of error, is +/- 4.4 percentage points.)

  ECU is East Carolina University.

• The 9 September primary elections in Rhode Island were unsurprising, as Senator Reed (D) won with 76.8% of the Democratic vote, and last man standing Raymond McKay (R), with no elective experience that I can see, won the Republican primary. Vote totals are unimportant since McKay had no opponents to bring out the voters. Still, I think Senator Reed should easily win reelection in November.
• Conservative-associated pollster InsiderAdvantage , with a mediocre-to-good 2.0/3 rating from the late FiveThirtyEight, is giving former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D) a 47.3% – 41.9% lead over current Senator Jon Husted (R), with a margin of error of ±2.83 points. Given InsiderAdvantage’s right-leaning inclination, I interpret this as a clear warning to Husted to get on his horse and ride, ride, ride, or he’ll be a one-term wonder. As in, I wonder why Governor DeWine (R-OH) ever appointed him.But given President Trump’s politically tone-deaf drive to build data centers, which were mentioned as an existential weak point in the Republicans’ strategy in the last report on Ohio, Senator Husted may be left to scrabble fruitlessly at the bottom of the cliff as the rising tide of ocean water comes surging in.
• Conservative pollster InsiderAdvantage, see Ohio above, is giving Senator D. Graham (R) of South Carolina a 45.1% – 43.2% lead over Dr Annie Andrews (D) in the run to replace the late Senator L. Graham (R), which is shocking to me. For comparison, Senator L. Graham won his 2020 reelection bid by more than ten points, so seeing a trivial advantage such as this from a conservative pollster is a big warning sign to Republicans that the befalling of an unexpected disaster is threatening. The margin of error is ±2.83 points. Rep Norman (R), who suggested voters could pencil in his name in the general election, is not mentioned in the poll.Erick Erickson notes: Graham is a terrible candidate on the campaign trail.
• Florida’s incumbent Senator Moody (R), in her first election run after her appointment to Marco Rubio’s (R) old seat, holds a 50.1% – 42.7% lead over Angie Nixon (D) according to unknown pollster Quantus Insights. Nixon continues to confront a cliff to climb, but its height is uncertain.
• Lt Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) holds a 48.2% – 44.4% lead over Michelle Tafoya in Minnesota, again according to unknown pollster Quantus Insights.
• In Michigan Click On Detroit reports on a Glengariff Group poll that gives Republican nominee former Rep Mike Rogers (R) a slight lead over Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, 45.8% – 44.4%. My perception of the Glengariff Group is that they’re associated with the right side of the political spectrum. Back in late July they gave Rogers a ten point lead over El-Sayed; further back, in the FiveThirtyEight days, they had only earned a mediocre 1.5/3 rating. Add in the ±4.0 point margin of error and I’d call this a dead heat, let the bodies fall where they may.CNN/SSRS also conducted a poll in Michigan and gives El-Sayed a lead over Rogers of 47% – 44%, with a margin of error of ±4.1 points.
• Lt Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) holds a 48.2% – 44.4% lead over Michelle Tafoya in Minnesota, again according to unknown pollster Quantus Insights.
• Next to a poll, raunchy gossip is the next best thing. Here’s that from Mississippi:
  

  U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s [(R)] latest criticism of opponent Scott Colom ([D]) in November’s election, comes in the form of a website made to look like his own.

  Hyde-Smith launched ‘ColomForSenate.com’ on Sept. 9, almost exactly two months before Election Day. The website, not to be confused with Colom’s actual campaign site ‘ScottColom.com,’ was described as “[informing] voters of Scott Colom’s true platform and record,” her team wrote in a press release.

  “Mississippians deserve to know who Scott Colom really is and who is behind his run for U.S. Senate,” wrote Jake Monssen, Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager. [Clarion Ledger]

  Desperate to smear Colom? Or is this just sporting, Mississippi-style?

POLLING, POLLING, POST …

Yes, I noticed InsiderAdvantage’s margin of error was always 2.83 points. Is this correct? Copy error? Deliberately misleading? I don’t know.

ANY MOVEMENTS ON THE FLIP LIST?

South Carolina may have moved from undoubtedly Republican to lean Republican. If a more trustworthy pollster gives Andrew something like a lead, the sirens should go off in Columbia and Mar-a-lago.

Ratify:

1. to confirm by expressing consent, approval, or formal sanction.
   to ratify a constitutional amendment.
2. to confirm (something done or arranged by an agent or by representatives) by such action.

[Dictionary.com]

I was watching a video that happened to use that word, and I realized I lacked a precise definition. That video?

A JWST pic of Saturn.

Source: JWST.

And here’s the explanation of the goal of this observation.

From the opening night of the Trump RNC, one of the big pieces of news was an attempted bribe, let’s be direct here, of the American people, or of, at least, the Republican base:

President Donald Trump has pledged a $5,000 dividend to every American adult if Republicans retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections, prompting questions about how the benefit would work, whether it is legal and where the funds would come from. [WaPo]

You scratch my tummy, I’ll scratch yours. The Republican base has a history of not turning out when the President isn’t on the ticket, and this is well known. Some may respond to the bribe. Some independents may respond as well.

But it’s noteworthy how much this is in keeping with the World of Trump, where wealth rules supreme, morality is virtually ignored, and life is a series of transactions. Can Trump coax votes out of an angry, even desperate, electorate? Will they jump at the chance of getting $5000 of their own money, their own investment in good government?

Or will the anger at the Republicans intensify? Buying forgiveness has a long history of disapproval, even loathing, albeit often performative loathing, in American politics.

My suspicion is that a lot of Americans will look at the long-term consequences of supporting the Republicans, give a long sigh, and support Democrats and independents, instead.

Democratic strategist James Carville, who worked with Bill Clinton among many others, has a guess concerning the near future of President Donald J. Trump (R):

Donald Trump could leave the White House after November’s midterm elections, according to strategist James Carville. He predicted a Republican defeat could push the president toward an extraordinary decision.

The claim came as Democrats appeared increasingly positioned to make major gains in the 2026 midterms. Carville suggested Trump could resign and hand Vice President JD Vance an opportunity to steady the Republican Party. [Mandatory]

Yes, regardless of the performance of a President Vance (R), it’d be awfully nice to have the current demented old man out of the Oval Office. But will it happen?

I’ve already given one hint: demented. Combine with his pathological narcissism, and it seems very unlikely that a resignation will occur, because such a resignation would be an admission of failure. He could try to claim that he’d accomplished all he set out to do and was therefore resigning, but, in the face of the likely disastrous mid-terms, even his most loyal supporters would know that he’d failed, and failed so badly he might plausibly be judged as the worst President in American history.

An observation from Erick Erickson provides a second argument against Carville: But there is no evidence [President Trump] is invested in the Republican Party’s success, only his own. Watching Trump fumble about with personal grudges and clumsy attempts to manipulate Congress, the Fed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Kennedy Center, etc, that damage the GOP while they fail in their own right is quite convincing evidence that Carville’s argument, Carville suggested Trump could resign and hand Vice President JD Vance an opportunity to steady the Republican Party, is a bit of ducky nonsense. I think Carville is still trying to see through an old, warped prism in order to divine the future of President Trump.

Former Rep George Santos (R-NY).

That’s a mistake. Trump is mentally ill. Many politicians have magnificent egos and mendacious mouths, but even expelled Rep George Santos (R-NY), who excelled in such matters, eventually admitted to at least some of the crimes. President Trump’s energy for twisting and turning, denying or suggesting the truth is good, not bad, seems endless.

And then there’s a collection of crimes for which he might be prosecuted when he does leave office. He’s immune so long as he stays in office, so he has quite some motivation to stay.

If Trump’s health takes a turn for the worse then all bets are off, of course. But, at the moment, I think Trump will have to be boosted out of office by application of a boot to his back end.

Ya gotta love it:

A political saga from the Joe Biden era is being revived as a meme coin.

Remember Hunter Biden’s laptop? The contents of the personal computer unearthed in a repair shop in Delaware generated an explosion of conspiracy theories that the president’s son seems to be taking aim at with the launch of the crypto coin.

Dubbed $LAPTOP, the crypto will start trading on September 9. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the token’s launch. [Markets Insider via MSN]

It’s sort of emblematic of this era, isn’t it? Empty gestures masquerading as important advances, true for crypto, true for AI, true for our political system …

These days it’s not unusual to hear politics described as a team game. I thought this article from The Daily Beast was interesting in that respect:

Even before [Rep. and GOP Senate nominee Mike Collins’ (R-GA)] summer scandals, the Cook Political Report moved the Georgia Senate race from “toss-up” to “Lean D.” Now, the discussion is less about who will win in November, but about what the margin of victory for [incumbent Senator Ossoff (D-GA)] will be.

One Georgia politico tells the Journal that the danger figure for down-ballot Republicans is six percentage points. If Collins loses by more, the official said Georgia Republicans will struggle in statewide elections for governor, attorney general, insurance commissioner, and more.

Recent polling is likely adding to Georgia Republicans’ angst. A voter survey conducted by conservative-leaning, Georgia-based pollster InsiderAdvantage found Ossoff leading 50 percent to 43 percent, with seven percent of voters undecided.

Encouraging voters to engage in one-Party voting can result in the above scenario when one of the Party headliners is substandard, and, judging from the scandal count and howling from right wing pundit Erick Erickson, Rep Collins is not acceptable to many Georgia voters. He may dance the anti-abortion jig and the anti-tax polka and the anti-regulation twerk, but his collection of associations with third- and fourth- raters is not only dooming his campaign, it appears, but is also dooming campaigns to which he only has distant connections.

I surmise Collins slipped into office through voter ignorance and the disappearance of Republican gatekeepers at both state and national levels, but the voter ignorance is being swept away, and now the dark side of the Republican voter strategy, formulated and implemented since Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, and perhaps before, is coming to the fore in Georgia.

Losing Georgia will give President Trump another black eye – he has about twenty of them now, so don’t visualize it – but he’ll never resign, as that would admit being wrong. He’ll become politically impotent due to this loss. Perhaps more importantly, if less obvious, Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA), terming out with this election, will also be smeared with the mud of this elective loss. True, as I’ve noted before, he backed retired football coach Derek Dooley in the primary for the Senate seat, but, as Governor, he’s supposed to be leading the effort to retain Georgia, and part of that is keeping the Georgia GOP’s quality at an acceptable level.

It’s not.

Governor Kemp is certainly one of the brightest lights in the GOP these days, at least among the younger elected officials. By pinning a disaster on him, the Democrats are doing themselves a favor in case Kemp has Presidential ambitions.

We may not be seeing Governor Kemp running for higher office.

Since the nature of their Truth API revelation, Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) share price was boosted, as this one month chart illustrates.

Source: yahoo!

It also illustrates that it’s as if investors are somewhat dubious. Did some investors rush into the stock on the news without regard to the corrupt nature of the practice in late August, creating a temporary boost? But the bulk of the investors looked at the corrupt nature of the offering and are choosing to stay away? I had expected to see a bigger leap in DJT’s share price, before a likely decline. The decline has come quickly, and the press releases and discussion don’t really address it.

It’s also worth noting that Bitcoin and $TRUMP, having been boosted back in mid August by President Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent’s, maneuver in the bond market that shored up cryptocurrencies, have continued to move up. Bitcoin is now nearly $80k/coin, from the low $60K range, and $TRUMP has moved from $1.50/coin to $2.26/coin, although it’s fallen a bit over the last week or so.. I’d think DJT would be moving up, since it holds the two, but it isn’t. Perhaps “treasury” of DJT no longer holds them.

Well, if I were looking for new investments, the corrupting nature of Truth API, as well as the government maneuvering to shore up cryptocurrencies rather than resolve financial deficits, close down Trump’s War, etc, would discourage an investment in any of three. But what do I know? I’m not a financial advisor, just some guy disgusted with the shearing of the Trump investors.

Cathemeral:

Given the marked variation in abiotic and biotic conditions between day and night, many species specialise their physical activity to being diurnal or nocturnal, and it was long thought that these strategies were commonly fairly fixed and invariant. The term ‘cathemeral’, was coined in 1987, when Tattersall noted activity in a Madagascan primate during the hours of both daylight and darkness. Initially thought to be rare, cathemerality is now known to be a quite widespread form of time partitioning amongst arthropods, fish, birds, and mammals. [“Cathemerality: a key temporal niche,” Daniel T C Cox & Kevin J Gaston, PubMed]

Noted in “Did humans evolve to be active throughout the day and night?” Michael Marshall, NewScientist (29 August 2026, paywall):

For those readers responsible for Internet security at their employers, and those who use their computers to communicate securely with other sites, such as banking facilities and the like – there, that’s just about everyone – there has been, at least for the knowledgeable, the oncoming terror of Q-Day. This appellation is applied to the day that a quantum computer successfully breaks the encryption we use on the Internet.

But how would a quantum computer accomplish this terror? First, keep in mind that I’m just an obsolete software engineer, still employed, meaning I do not work on quantum computers, and thus only know what I read, and I do not know nor study quantum mechanics. The most common approach that I’ve seen mentioned is to implement something called Shor’s algorithm, developed by Peter Shor, that leverages the capability of qubits, the analog to classical computers’ bits, to assume multiple values simultaneously, and execute the parallel calculations simultaneously, which makes them capable of breaking encryption.

Yes, that’s very high level and rough.

So. What am I talking about? Classical quantum mechanics is based on an assumption that it’s a continuous view of quantum space (Hilbert space, actually). But, and skipping over the assertions and arguments and discussion that are way beyond me, what if a better representation of quantum mechanics is one based on a discrete view of quantum space? A quantum physicist at Oxford named Tim Palmer has proposed just such a view, one in which irrational numbers are excluded. He calls it rational quantum mechanics, or RaQM.

And what does it mean for Q-Day? The above link, which is to a paywalled NewScientist article, suggests that Q-Day may never come. Using the theory, a different constraint on the number of possible values a qubit may simultaneously assume, a constraint much lower than Shor’s algorithm requires.

So if disaster seemed imminent to you, or you hadn’t heard of Q-Day, be aware that it may never occur. Not to say some clever cookie will never come up with some other method for cracking encryption, but using quantum mechanics may never work.

More importantly, this may generate the observation that cracks classical quantum mechanics theory. Most theories are used and accepted until some observation of a phenomena occurs that the theory cannot explain. While We can’t seem to get there! is not as positive as, say, observing what we now call plate tectonics and realizing theories assuming the Earth is a static ball of water and continents, it would be a significant observation, and would force a rethinking of quantum mechanics theory.

The Wild Robot (2024) is a sweetly sentimental, but unsurprising story concerning a service robot lost in a crash of a spaceship on a planet. Upon returning to consciousness, if robots can be said to have same, it, now named Roz, attempts to find humans to assist; failing that, local wildlife are the next target. Using its advanced learning abilities to begin communications with the wildlife, it soon determines this is inappropriate, and attempts to signal for retrieval.

Lightning strikes and Roz is left caring for an orphaned runt water fowl, Brightbill. The story becomes a typical runt-to-leader tale combined with cooperation is better than predation. I particularly like the mama opossum who is, atypical for stories like this, fairly accepting at the thought of losing some of the offspring she’s raising. But if predation is bad, what will happen to the predators?

Soon enough, the story comes to a head as Roz helps the wildlife survive a brutal, dangerous winter, only to face a retrieval squad of its own in the end, and all that this entails.

For all that we have robots, there’s not a lot of new thoughts here. When something impossible is required, it happens with a wave of the metaphorical hand, with little cleverness. An inversion of the deus ex machina trope, one could say, but not uplifting.

Endearing, yes. Thought provoking, no.