Category Archives: Uncategorized

Erick Erickson continues to discover that he backed, well, a clown …

It is Obamaesque to think one can negotiate with a terrorist regime that is premised on bringing about the apocalypse. The Vice President claims the Trump Administration is dealing with both moderates and hardliners. The definition of a moderate in Iran is one who wants to nuke Israel tomorrow, instead of today.

The President of the United States chose to engage Iran. It dealt a serious blow. But instead of dealing a knock out blow, the President ordered Israel to pull its punches. We have now harmed our relationships with our Middle Eastern allies who depend on us for protection. The situation is now more unstable than before the war began and it is all because of a single person who swears he’ll get a deal any day now.

Erickson is, to his credit, being honest, but I think his real shortcoming is the set of false or unproven assumptions from which he operates. For instance, the assumption that his religion automatically maps to good and Islam to bad has a collection of knock-on conclusions that are sometimes not fulfilled by reality.

Similar remarks apply to an Iranian government that is entangled in questions of clinging to positions of social prestige. And that applies back to us.

Yes, this is unsurprising, but to accept it and not explore alternate explanations is a mistake. For example, assuming the Iranian government, a large entity, is evil will lead to expectations which will remain unfulfilled; but if we accept a common-sense proposition that they’re doing their best to care for what they consider important, just as we do, then our expectations will come closer to reality. We can guess they’re operating from assumptions a millenia out of date, we can assume they’re trying to follow the rules issued by a divinity long, long ago.

Just as some of us still do today.

I’m mostly avoiding detail here due to my continuing surgical recovery, but I must say: I violently reject Erickson’s first remark. By all accounts I’ve read, the Iran deal was considered an ongoing success, as nuclear weapons were not under development and, more importantly, the outraged Iranian hardliners were losing credibility. Whether it would have continued to be successful is moot, of course.

But that does bring up President Trump, who destroyed the JCPOA. Since he’s Party leader, Republicans generally are hesitant to criticize him, and while Erickson has offered the occasional criticism, his cited post is a step towards acknowledging President Trump has a mental illness, perhaps pathological narcissism and dementia, along with a fourth-rate understanding of how politics really works. What we see is near-childish grasping of the visible signs of governmental greatness, such as monumental and imposing buildings, military victories, and dominance over others; these are signposts of the illness he may have.

He is fortunate to fail, honestly, as success might cost him more than he can imagine, from conviction as a war criminal to the humiliating deconstruction of monumental mementos, which are desired by no one but him and his coterie.

I’ll leave it at that out of necessity.

Rep Nehls (R-TX) is ambitious for an award and, no doubt, so much more:

Nehls: Donald Trump is the best thing to happen to this country in a hundred years. He was born a very special baby. I bet the doctors said, “I can tell this is a very special baby.”

I suppose he could be joshin’ the reporter, but the Republicans are lunatic enough that I doubt it. I think Nehls is either terrified of being primaried, or jonesing for a promotion into the Administration.

Fedsurrection:

Etymology

Blend of fed (“federal agent”) +‎ insurrection, popularized by American right-wing politicians Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

Noun

fedsurrection (plural fedsurrections)

1. (politics, derogatory) the January 6 United States Capitol attack

Usage notes

• This word alludes to a conspiracy theory that a large number of federal agents took part in an insurrection. [Wiktionary]

Noted in “Jan. 6 rioter targeted by ‘fedsurrection’ conspiracy theories gets 8 years in prison,” Ryan J. Reilly, NBC News:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebekah Lederer said Alam’s fellow rioters had made him “a scapegoat,” noting that they tried to label him “antifa” or claim he was part of the “fedsurrection,” the conspiracy theory that the Jan. 6 attack was a setup driven by undercover law enforcement entities.

I was a bit alarmed to see Trump advisor try to slip a problem by:

It appears Mr Pulte failed the hurdle as CNN is claiming Jay Clayton (R) is the nominee for Director of National Intelligence (DNI). He doesn’t seem qualified for the post, but I’ll leave it to those with the time and a working right hand to confirm that. I think it’s interesting that Pulte didn’t get the nod, showing that Trump can be influenced by resolute Republicans and Democrats, and wanted FISA more than Pulte.

But will it work? Clayton will be beholden to Trump, because that’s how a chronically guilty man works, but will Clayton be incompetent as well? Will he be worse than Pulte was projected to be?

Before the overnight storm:

From my Arts Editor.

When spa-ing is overdone.

Ya gotta wonder if these are accurate or on the low side:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in May, after rising 0.6 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 4.2 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for energy rose 3.9 percent in May, after rising 3.8 percent in April and 10.9 percent in March. The energy index accounted for over sixty percent of the monthly all items increase. The index for shelter also increased in May, rising 0.3 percent. The food index increased 0.2 percent over the month as the food at home index rose 0.1 percent and the food away from home index increased 0.3 percent.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent in May. Indexes that increased over the month include communication, airline fares, medical care, personal care, and recreation. Conversely, the indexes for motor vehicle insurance, household furnishings and operations, and new vehicles were among the major indexes that decreased in May.

The all items index rose 4.2 percent for the 12 months ending May, after rising 3.8 percent for the 12 months ending April. The all items less food and energy index rose 2.9 percent over the year, following a 2.8-percent increase over the 12 months ending April. The energy index increased 23.5 percent for the 12 months ending May. The food index increased 3.1 percent over the last year.

4.2% inflation will surely impact everyone who lives from paycheck to paycheck, the house-poor, in short everyone who has freely imbibed of the American teaching to buy everything in sight!

Cauchy horizon:

The Cauchy horizon is the spot where determinism breaks down, where the past no longer determines the future. Physicists, including Penrose, have argued that no observer could ever pass through the Cauchy horizon point because they would be annihilated.

As the argument goes, as an observer approaches the horizon, time slows down, since clocks tick slower in a strong gravitational field. As light, gravitational waves and anything else encountering the black hole fall inevitably toward the Cauchy horizon, an observer also falling inward would eventually see all this energy barreling in at the same time. In effect, all the energy the black hole sees over the lifetime of the universe hits the Cauchy horizon at the same time, blasting into oblivion any observer who gets that far. [“Some black holes erase your past,” Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley News]

I’ve read about black holes all my life, but Cauchy horizon? New to me. Noted in “The hidden pockets of the universe where the future can cause the past,” Leah Crane, NewScientist (30 May 2026, paywall):

You’re falling into a black hole. Somehow, you’ve managed to protect yourself from the spaghettification that’s happening to every object around you as the black hole’s powerful gravity pulls on the near end of each object more than the far end, stretching everything into noodles before shredding it to pieces. Maybe you’ve got some sort of high-tech compression suit holding you together; congratulations on your invention. As you pass the event horizon, the point of no return, all you see is blackness punctuated by streaks of light falling towards the singularity at the heart of the cosmic behemoth. Your impossible suit also protects you from those streaks, which would otherwise be ripping through your molecules at near-light speed.

And then you pass a second, lesser-known horizon, and time and space switch places. This second boundary is called the Cauchy horizon; if they exist within black holes, their insides are the strangest places in the universe.

Here’s NGC1514 – planetary nebula.

NGC1514.

ADMIN

Apologies, hand, surgery, etc.

JUST BELOW THE BLOODIED SURFACE

The Bulwark’s Lauren Egan makes the case that Democratic candidates – moderate Democrats – are making a comeback:

So much of the narrative this election cycle is that Democratic voters just want to cast out the old guard. And while operatives are busy fixating on the attention economy or debating candidates’ morality, it turns out that plain vanilla Democratic politics may actually be working.

“What Iowa, North Carolina, Alaska are telling us is that the recipe is actually pretty simple: You find candidates with long, deep relationships in those states who understand those states, and then you let them run campaigns that are focused on those states rather than trying to nationalize everything,” said Caitlin Legacki, a party strategist who is working with Schumer-backed Rep. Haley Stevens in the Michigan Senate primary.

Always fractious, Democrats have debated how best to campaign while Trump occupies the White House, having argued about it since the earliest days of his first term. But this perennial argument has taken on added significance as the Platner saga rumbles on. Disagreements that were once about campaign strategy have turned into fights over whether key issues or candidate morality even matter at all.

The contrast is remarkable. As Platner’s defenders have invested themselves in making him an avatar of a new type of populist politics, other Democrats running for Senate have been strikingly conventional. Cooper, the 68-year-old former North Carolina governor well-known in his home state, put out a no-thrills bio ad this week that was so colorless it borders on parody.

Radicals of all sorts hate to be pushed away from the sweet, corrupting taste of power, so look for the far left’s cancel culture tactics to continue as moderate Democrats begin pushing issue positions incompatible with Democratic general election victories out of the Party. This includes several issues surrounding transgenderism of the young, such as child surgeries, language imperialism^[1], and dubious, at least to the average voter, sexual teachings^{[see 1 again]}; defunding the police; identity politics; abrogation of the basic tenets of liberal democracy; and other attention-getters that are ultimately viewed negatively by voters.

If they don’t, the Democrats run the risk of becoming an irrelevancy, replaced by a more moderate Party.

Yes, that applies to the Republicans as well. Even moreso.

THE FUMBLING ABOUT CONTINUES

GOP Senate candidates are beginning to move away from the President, as they sense he’s toxic to their job prospects:

While Senate GOP leaders successfully quashed much of that dissent, the days of bitter wrangling exposed cracks in Trump’s base of support on Capitol Hill. There is now a growing chorus of Republicans — and not just the usual defectors — willing to defy him as they seek to rein in his pursuit of his agenda, ranging from projects like the White House ballroom and exacting political retribution on his enemies to his handling of the Iran war and other foreign policy issues. The trend is only expected to accelerate as the November elections approach, with contentious fights ahead like Trump’s push to confirm his controversial expected pick to lead the Department of Justice. [CNN]

So much for dominating the businessmen/jellyfish he arranged to have elected. And …

“The negotiations are at a deadlock and (US President Donald) Trump must break this deadlock,” Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN in an exclusive interview in Tehran. “The ball is in Trump’s court.”

Iran has reportedly demanded the release of $12 billion in frozen funds as soon as an interim agreement is signed with the US, and another $12 billion at a later stage.

US officials are concerned that any unfreezing of funds at this stage could remove a key leverage point over the regime. Trump has demanded that any agreement appear far stronger than the nuclear deal struck in 2015, and to avoid anything that could be construed as handing over “pallets of cash,” a phrase he has invoked to criticize then-President Barack Obama’s decision to give Tehran financial compensation. [CNN]

I expect the Iranians will dig in their heels until Trump rolls over for them, because that’s what he does. GOP Senate candidates will have to work the tightrope of infuriated independent voters and infuriated MAGA voters if they hope to win, and that’ll be a trick.

CURVE BALLS GALORE

Last week was a slider, I think.

• All eyes are on Maine as their primary approaches, and now that upstart oyster farmer kGraham Platner (D) nearly has the Democratic Senate nomination in his grasp, will it slip away? This is not encouraging for Platner fans:
  

  Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner denied some of the new wave of allegations during an interview Thursday with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes, his first national interview following a New York Times report detailing his past relationships.

  The interview came hours after the Times report detailed accounts from several women who had been romantically involved with Platner. The report, based on interviews with more than two dozen people, including six former romantic partners, described sharply different experiences with the Democrat.

  “There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated,” Platner said to Hayes. [MS NOW]

  Senator Hassan (D-NH) is alarmed:

  Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) on Graham Platner amid latest allegations: “Reports of threatening behavior and antisemitism like the ones made against Graham Platner are serious and deserve scrutiny. It’s also critical to acknowledge how difficult this is for the women who’ve come forward. Character matters now more than ever, and any high-profile campaign including Mr. Platner’s involves the close examination of a candidate’s history, statements and behavior, as well as the candidate’s reaction to the pressure that such examination entails. Ultimately the people of Maine will decide who has the character and judgment to best represent them.”

  Progressives may howl over the press reports – “traitors” might be the word du jour – but warts and all is apropos for reportage here. As noted in an earlier post, Platner’s primary competition, Governor Mills (D), hasn’t actually withdrawn from the ballot, and she could still be chosen as nominee, either by voters or by default. The last poll result I’ve seen for the Democratic primary was from the University of New Hampshire and gave Platner a 76% – 10% lead over Gov Mills, and that’s no typo. That’d be a heckuva comeback for Mills, and should scare the bejeesus out of Senator Collins (R).

  Finally, highly respected UMass-Lowell has Platner up 48%-43% over incumbent Senator Collins, but this poll may have been conducted prior to these allegations.

• The Citadel Poll suggests Senator Graham’s (R) lead in the South Carolina is only ten points, 46% – 36%, over businessman Mark Lynch (R), who does not seem to have any experience in electoral politics. If accurate, that’s a surprise, but The Citadel Poll is unfamiliar to me. A quick glance at Lynch’s website reveals a cookie-cutter far-right platform.
• Any problem with passing that on verbaThe same poll gives inexperienced Annie Andrews (D), MD, a 45% share of the potential Democratic primary votes, followed by Undecided at 36% and Brandon Brown (D) at 14%. Her On The Issues summation right/above seems based on little data, so I’m not inclined to ask the question, Do South Carolinians really want to vote for someone so far left?
• Maybe he just shouldn’t talk to anyone in Texas. The headline says it all:
  

  Ken Paxton’s Impeachment Defense Lawyer Endorses James Talarico

• Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has scored an endorsement from the UAW in the race for the open Michigan Senate seat.
• Ya know, I would have guessed any Senate campaign spending records would have been set in Texas. What do I know?
  

  South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has morphed from one of President Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican critics into one of his closest allies, is spending money like he’s in political trouble.

  Graham has spent an astounding $27 million on his reelection campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings, and that’s even before his primary next week. His five GOP opponents — none of whom has a high statewide profile ― combined have spent less than a fifth of that. [HuffPost]

  Senator Graham seems safe enough in South Carolina, at least to me. Him in trouble would indicate either MAGA out of control, or moderate Republicans having had enough of him.

• I have no idea who Colorado Community Research might be, although this Wikipedia page references them as aligned with the Democratic Party, so get out your salt shakers:
  

  [Former Gov and current Democratic Senator] Hickenlooper leading Gonzales 38–30 among likely voters

  Colorado Community Research polling reveals a highly fluid race with a surprisingly uncommitted electorate ahead of the June 30 primary.

  A new statewide survey of likely Democratic primary voters reveals a surprising dynamic: despite John Hickenlooper’s status as a known political quantity, a massive swath of the Colorado electorate remains undecided.

  

  On The Issues: Mark Baisley (R-CO).

  That does seem a bit surprising. As it happens, Senator Hickenlooper and Gonzales, a Colorado State Senator, are the only two surviving entrants in the Democratic primary. The Republican primary is down to one, a Colorado State Senator named Mark Baisley. The primary is 30 June.

• Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is emphasizing corruption in the Republican Party in his campaign, such as this lovely campaign ad. It’s worth remembering that most candidates are lawyers, who can sometimes seem disconnected from the electorate. Senator Ossoff comes from a journalism background in which he helped create documentaries, among other projects, which means he remains connected to the electorate, and can communicate effectively with voters. Having seen that campaign ad, I won’t be surprised if he wins in a rout, given the apparent corruption of President Trump and likely opponent Rep Collins (R).
• Today’s Senate primary elections are in Maine and South Carolina, both Republican seats.

¹Andrew Sullivan doesn’t use the phrase, but cites Gov Hochul (D-NY): ”“gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent.””, to which I can only say, really, Guv’nr? Sorry, Andrew’s site is behind a paywall.

The President is often – always, perhaps – influenced by visuals, and Director of Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte, now appointed acting national intelligence director while having no applicable experience, certainly has a certain intensity which may impress those who think, well, central casting matters in government hiring. But let’s have Rep Himes (D-CT) have a say:

That’s – that’s not the way this works, right? The president needs to sober up and realize that this appointment is arguably, in the – in the – you know, you know, basket of awful appointments he has made, this is probably the worst and most dangerous.

Ouch, but it’s worrisome when a man who campaigned for the President’s attention through accusations of mortgage fraud against political adversaries of the President. We want competent, knowledgeable administrators in positions like DNI, not power-hungry hitmen who specialize in … their looks.

The Democats are refusing to back renewal of the controversial FISA program while Pulte is acting DNI. This will cause a stir and a half.

Slime down the cleavage. Must be a violation of the Geneva Convention.

The Slime People (1963) starts off well enough, as Tom, who’s been out of touch, is flying his small plane into an airport in 1950s or 1960s Los Angeles. Once down, he discovers, to his surprise, mostly empty buildings and bodies, with a couple of bands of survivors to keep things interesting.

Oh. And hunchy aliens with, uh,  spears.

Tom runs into Professor Galbraith and his two daughters, and the story nosedives into the ground right there. My Arts Editor insists the daughters, who are ’bout marryin’ age, are wenches, a term I’ve not heard in decades. They are certainly a waste of screen and time, racing about with kissy faces and messing up their interactions with the aliens. It’s ruination.

Which is too bad. Tom is fun; a Marine survivor of an attack on the aliens provides some lovely misguided get up and go; and the aliens are mildly silly, too. The actors play it straight, and there’s a plot in there, too.

But, overall, this is a slimy experience. Especially for the cast, some of whom were shorted on their pay.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker does what the press should have done from the start of Trump’s runs for the White House – confront all the lies:

Trump appeared to become agitated when Welker asked him about the $1.8 billion fund he has sought to pay people claiming they were victims of politicized prosecutions. The Justice Department agreed to set up the fund to settle the president’s lawsuit against the IRS, but officials backed off amid court challenges and pushback from Republican senators.

The president said on “Meet the Press” that he still wanted to establish the fund.

“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” he said. “If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”

Welker pressed Trump specifically on whether the 172 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6 attack would be eligible for money. Trump declined to rule it out, arguing that FBI agents invited the rioters inside the Capitol and that people pleaded guilty only because they were afraid of harsher sentences.

Welker pointed out that there is no evidence of FBI agents ushering rioters inside the Capitol. The Justice Department’s inspector general found that four FBI informants entered the building, but not at officials’ direction, and no on-duty agents were on the Capitol grounds that day until some responded to help subdue the riot.

“The people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponization,” Trump said. “Many of those people should be compensated.” [WaPo]

And then he went on to his favorite myths: rigged elections, mail-in ballots, etc, and she held firm.

Then he cut off the interview.

The title of this video:

He Captions a Border Force Ship, She Runs the Circus at Home! | Love It Or List It Australia

Shoulda been Captains. Provokes odd visuals in my head.

Our weather forecast seems solidly summer-like, so I declare we’re in summer. So does my mass of weeds – and me with a hand in a cast.

So enjoy this, instead.

Orange Azalea.

Bee with Grass and Indigo.

Perennial Poppy bloom.

Irises on a bed of dead leaves.

My condolences to DJT investors, because it continues to have problems since the last report two weeks ago, when it was at $7.94.

That looks better, right? But look at the chart movement in this one month chart. It jumps all the way to $9.40 before crashing back down, and it may not be done yet. Indeed, it almost looks like an attempted market manipulation.

Along with that is $TRUMP, the President’s memecoin, or grifting coin. Here’s a 24 hour chart from last Friday.

That implied loss of confidence may presage the future of DJT. And while Bitcoin did not fall as far on Friday, today it’s just a smidge over $60,000/coin, while a week ago it was just short of $74,000/coin. Remember DJT’s “treasury” of cryptocurrency? It’s gotta be a bit deflated.

In the end, I do hope my reader avoided these two financial instruments.

Prom went poorly this year, dear?

The Wicked of Oz (2026) is an odd collage of tropes: contemporary swipes such as smartphones, The Wizard of Oz and its many offspring, Night of the Living Dead franchise, and a pack of young men who seem deprived of any common sense. It’s weird, and the script would have benefited from one or two more drafts, if only to eliminate some plot holes that bothered me. The climactic battle was particularly ridiculous.

But mix in some competent acting, some good cinematic music, the use of tomatoes in place of shotgun shells, and it was actually surprisingly good. The actors play it straight, and it works. I’m not going out on a rotting limb and recommending a viewing, but sometimes I go into a movie wondering if I’ll last until the end, and, instead, I enjoy myself, if not entirely, at least in part. An example of previous movies of this type includes Predators (2010). And, to some extent, this movie, The Wicked of Oz, falls into the same category.

Kudos to what felt like a student-made film.

Accelerate, sir?

Source: YouGov

Just think of it as the percentage of citizens who do not live in Trump’s magic land of dementia-magnificence. It’s growing, and growing fast.

(My apologies for typos.)

Back in the 2007-2008 timeframe, I recall feeling we were coming to a crescendo of madness. I had discrete reasons for doing so, ranging over several years, which I’ll try to list here, although some have faded from memory:

• The Pets.com fiasco, with that ridiculous Super Bowl commercial;
• The financial irresponsibility of Congress in the sessions of 2001-2006 (107th – 109th) as they plunged America into debt;
• The revocation of the Glass-Steagall Act and the consequent concentration of great wealth and great foolishness;
• The dot-com-bubble, and its popping;
• The pretextual Iraq War perpetrated by a GOP administration that promptly engaged in Abu Ghraib torture sessions and lied about it;
• Republicans stating that Geo. Bush was God’s pick to be President;
• The financial excesses of Countrywide Financial and other such institutions.

The world seemed to be coming apart at its metaphorical seams.

At the end of all that, and more, what happened? The Great Recession. A lot of wealth disappeared as speculators lost their shirts and America lost its honor.

How are things today?

• The laboriously negotiated JCPOA canceled by a jealous GOP;
• Russia invades Ukraine without provocation;
• War drone development;
• America bombs Iran without provocation;
• COVID-19 reminded us that a plague could reduce us horifically, while nitwits run around screaming conspiracy theories;
• The American political system is populated by parties that have forgotten how America works;
• America’s President is suffering from dementia and his own Party won’t admit to it;
• Ditto the previous President;
• Back to the current President, he, his staff, and his entire Cabinet appear to be grifters and liars;
• Republicans earnestly state that Donald J. Trump is God’s pick to be President – once again, God hates the United States;
• Market capitalizations in excess of $1 trillion observed;
• LLM AI systems of dubious worth has the corporate world galloping about in terror like wildebeests surrounded by lions;
• A $500 million bill for a month’s worth of use of the Claude LLM AI is rumored;
• Cryptocurrency threatens to destabilize societies and destroy trust, and are losing value rapidly;
• And the world is backing away from the dollar as the international currency.

Once again, it seems like madness is running loose. What’s to follow?

I have a bad feeling about this. I wonder how human network experts evaluate this.

What fun!

ADMIN

Due to hand surgery, my commentary will be abbrev’d.

Trump As A Top

President Donald Trump may not be moving forward with his $1.8 billion lawsuit settlement fund, but Democrats are determined to force GOP lawmakers to answer for the issue anyway — repeatedly.

Even after sources indicated Monday that the Trump administration was abandoning its plans on the “anti-weaponization” fund, Democratic leaders were quick to indicate that they would still force votes to block the fund.

“If Trump and Republicans are truly abandoning this corrupt scheme, they should have zero problem banning it in law,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday. “This week, Senate Democrats will push legislation to ban this slush fund and ensure no president can ever do this again. Trump’s word is nowhere near enough.” [MS NOW]

Voters should find that interesting.

CLUE: MUSTARD

Keep an eye on all the arenas, apparently.

The Koch-aligned GOP super PAC Americans for Prosperity Action is putting $6.3 million into battleground Senate ads just a few weeks after warning the Republican Senate majority is “at risk.”

The ads — shared first with POLITICO — are focused heavily on gas prices and affordability, something the group has warned Democrats will take advantage of in November if Republicans don’t present solutions for voters.

The ad buys show that the group is worried about defending Republicans in some very red states. They’re advertising in Montana, which has barely been on the radar for most campaign analysts, as well as Iowa and Ohio, states that President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024. The group is also running ads in Michigan, New Hampshire and North Carolina. [Politico]

I’ve noted Montana might be in play. I await adverts in … Idaho.

NEWS

• The 2 June Iowa primaries have yielded Trump-endorsee U. S. Rep Hinson (R) and Iowa House Rep Josh Turek (D). Thomas Laehn (L) is also on the ballot, which may be a problem for Hinson as libertarians often attract conservative votes. Notably, Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Randy Feenstra lost the Republican nomination by less than a point. Long-time readers may remember Feenstra for successfully primarying Rep Steve King (R) in 2024, although given their On The Issues summations, that was shark-on-shark action. MS NOW is trying to make something of Feenstra losing, but I’m doubtful. We already know a Trump endorsement is a burden.

  Anyways, Republican Hinson shouldn’t try to coast on Trump’s endorsement.

  Finally, Turek and the Democrats outpolled Hinson and the Republicans, respectively. That may be irrelevant, but it may speak to enthusiasm, which can be a key ingredient in races.

• Michigan candidates have been winnowed down, through voluntary dropouts, to former Rep Mike Rogers (R) and Abdul El-Sayed, Mallory McMorrow, and Rep Haley Stevens, for the Democrats. Unknown pollster TIPP gives all three Democrats small leads over Rogers, with Stevens at 48% – 41% as best, and Stevens leading for the primary. That’s not congruent with other pollsters.
• Alaska has a conundrum: Sullivan.
  

  In Alaska this election season, the biggest supporters of Dan Sullivan could be the biggest antagonists of Dan Sullivan.The field of contenders challenging Senator Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican who is up for re-election, has grown in recent days with a rather befuddling addition: Dan J. Sullivan, a former educator of no known relation, has entered the race. …[NYT]

  Republicans may have a point:

  The campaign arm of Senate Republicans, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, suggested that Dan J. Sullivan was a plant by Democrats intended to confuse voters and siphon support from Senator Sullivan, a former Marine who worked in the State Department under President George W. Bush.

  Democrats vigorously assert a State overpopulation of persons named Dan Sullivan. Sad.

• The 2 June Montana primaries have yielded winners US Attorney Kurt Alme (R) and inexperienced Alani Bankhead (D). Joining them is former UMontana President Seth Bodnar (I), considered a contender by some. He may split the left and independent vote, giving the election to Alme, or he may win. Bodnar’s On The Issues summation is to the right, but appears to be based on very little data.

  Democratic primary voting doubled that of Republican primary voting, which may explain the concern of the Koch network, see way above.

• The 2 June New Jersey primaries have yielded nominees incumbent Senator Cory Booker (D), unchallenged, and Justin Murphy (R), who attracted only 33% of the Republican primary voters. That’s not a confidence builder.
• The 2 June New Mexico primaries have yielded nominees incumbent Senator Ben Ray Luján, with 85.7% of the Democratic vote, and Larry E. Marker (Write-in), with 100.0% of the Republican primary vote. The raw vote totals? 112,399 and 4,579, respectively. A lesson in appropriate measures.
• In what must be a bit of a shock for Ohio Republicans, highly respected Fox News Poll is giving former Senator Sherrod Brown (D) a relatively huge 53% – 45% lead over appointed incumbent Senator Husted (R) in Ohio. Brown has an even larger lead in the favorability ratings, 53-41. Maybe the paltry primary turnout observation at my earlier Ohio link is inaccurate?
• The 2 June South Dakota primary yielded incumbent Senator Mike Rounds (R) as the Republican nominee; Julian Beaudion (D) and Brian Bengs (I) had already qualified. While Senator Rounds only recorded  76.9% of the ballots in the primary, I don’t see him as being seriously challenged in November.
• In Alabama, reactions to The Alabama Poll are more interesting than the poll results:
  

  A new poll has upset some Republican candidates heading into the final two weeks before the June 16 runoff. …In the U.S. Senate runoff, the poll listed former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson as the projected winner over U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise), 48.7% to 39.2%, with 12.1% undecided — a significant departure from other polls.

  The poll claims Hudson leads across most of the map and most demographics. …

  “This is yet another bogus suppression poll, similar to the one published before the primary that also claimed Jay was trailing by double digits,” a release from [AG candidate] Mitchell’s campaign stated. “Alabama voters proved that wrong. Despite being outspent 2-to-1 in the weeks leading up to the primary, Jay finished only six points away from first place. Since then, he’s been endorsed by third-place candidate Pamela Casey, who carried 25% of the vote and commands a powerful grassroots following. Simple math and common sense make it clear—Jay Mitchell’s going to win.”

  Sure, I’m not quoting a frustrated Senate candidate, instead a State AG candidate, but this is a hint of what happens to a Party following the Gingrichian diktat of win at all costs. It bleeds into intra-Party contests, causing fratricide & general chaos, rather than the smooth transfer of power.

  And I see Jared Hudson is coming under attack:

  At the Marshall County Republican meeting this past Tuesday evening, held at Wentzell’s Oyster House Restaurant in Guntersville, Alabama, I asked Senate candidate Jared Hudson a simple question: Why had he gone on the record opposing President Donald Trump’s position on the filibuster?

  The answer was revealing—not because of what Hudson said, but because of what he avoided saying.

  Rather than standing with Trump on one of the president’s most important legislative priorities, Hudson spent his entire response explaining why Trump is wrong on the issue. He opened by acknowledging that “the president makes an unbelievably great case as the executive branch on why we should nuke the filibuster.” But instead of supporting Trump’s position, he immediately pivoted, saying, “With that being said, the only conservative tool we have is to make sure that we end the silent filibuster.”

  For Republican voters, that should raise an important question. If Trump is trying to advance a conservative agenda through the Senate, why would a Republican Senate candidate oppose one of the tools needed to make that happen? [Angela McClure, AL Politics]

  Suggesting Hudson incompatibility with Trump is going to discourage Republican primary voters.

Next primary day is 9 June.

Hodiernal tense:

A hodiernal tense (abbreviated hod) is a grammatical tense for the current day. (Hodie or hodierno die is Latin for ‘today’.)

Hodiernal tenses refer to events of today (in an absolute tense system) or of the day under consideration (in a relative tense system).

Hodiernal past tense refers to events of earlier today (or earlier than the reference point of the day under consideration), while hodiernal future tense refers to events of later today (or later than the reference point of the day under consideration). A post-hodiernal tense is a future tense for events that will occur after today or the day under consideration, while pre-hodiernal is a past tense for events that occurred before today or the day under consideration. [Wikipedia]

Yeah, specificity like that, nope in English. Referenced in the video Fantastic Features We Don’t Have In The English Language, by Tom Scott.

The influence of Donald J. Trump:

Ahead of polls closing Tuesday night, [Rep Randy] Feenstra campaign spokesman Billy Fuerst claimed in a message that “Randy Feenstra earned President Trump’s complete and total endorsement to be the next Governor of Iowa because President Trump knows that Randy is the only proven conservative who can defeat Extreme Liberal Rob Sand and keep Iowa red.”

Focus on Randy is the only proven conservative. Feenstra, or at least Fuerst, has ingested the Great Saviour meme, poor guy.

And, yes, Feenstra lost the primary, if only by .8 of a point. At least he conceded rather than running around screaming about cheating.

Even the chick on the screen takes it in the neck!

The Being (1981) is a sci-fi atomic power horror story of uncertain virtue. With sketchy nods to  conspiracy theory elements concerning suppression of information because of public panic, atomic energy frightful danger, the audience is subjected to the usual elements of such movies: people being dragged away shrieking, people being killed, naked people being killed, naked people in cars being killed, cars being treated as if built through papier-mâché techniques, and, well, let’s be clear.

This doesn’t come across a B-list movie. More like C-list.

But there are elements that stand out. I enjoyed the make-up and special effects, particularly that of the monsters or mutated humans, as it seemed effective for the era, pleasantly repulsive.

The climatic fight scene is nicely balanced, really, as the each side is getting hurt. It clears the bar for such fights. Too bad about Mr. Biggles.

The contrast between the occasional soporific radio show, featuring a good ol’ boy in Idaho, and the horror of what’s going on is almost effective in terms of contrast.

And the bereft mother, Marge, who is out of her mind with fear concerning her missing child, was well done and disturbing, as it suggests that a small town will just ignore such a person, rather than turn out to help search for the kid. It’s not necessarily congruent with reality, then or now, but it’s an unexpected element of horror.

But don’t mistake what I wrote above to indicate it’s worth hunting down and ingesting, because it’s not. Young adults having sex in cars and being killed for it is a quaint reminder of a bygone era where extra-marital sex didn’t just get you a frowning, but your life ripped out of your chest, but for today’s younger audience, unless they’re retro, they’ll just puzzled. Why have cars? Why have sex in cars?

And the dream scene, so odd, was extraneous.

Yeah, don’t bother.