Category Archives: Uncategorized

Doppelgängion:

Here we have a number so ludicrously large that it is tricky to compare with any other numbers: 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 68 corresponds to 1 followed by 100 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion zeroes.

It is a number I have named the doppelgängion, because it relates to the chances of there being another person like you, a doppelgänger, somewhere else in our universe. To be clear, we aren’t talking about doppelgängers in other universes disconnected from our own, as imagined in the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, or any other multiverse theory. Instead, we are asking about our very own universe and the possibility that your doppelgänger is out there – same nose, same eyes, even the same thoughts. It is an idea that goes back to physicist Max Tegmark at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It might seem absurd. But ultimately it comes down to the probability that there is another bit of space, the same size as the one you occupy, in exactly the same quantum state, encoding the likely arrangements of all the particles that make up you. [“5 mind-bending numbers that could reveal the secrets of the universe,” Antonio Padilla, NewScientist (13 August 2022, paywall)]

For the record, Padilla’s number looks like this: 10¹⁰⁶⁸

And HTML renders it properly, too. I had my doubts.

I think the Republicans just won’t get it – collectively speaking – until it’s way too late:

The suggestion Thursday by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that his party could fall short of taking control of the chamber this fall — in part because of “candidate quality” — is not sitting well with some conservatives in his party.

Stephen Miller, a former senior aide to former president Donald Trump, said McConnell is the one to blame for prospects of a Republican takeover of the Senate that are “shrinking every single day.”

“We are witnessing in real time the greatest self-inflicted wound we have ever seen,” Miller said during an appearance on Fox News.

Miller asserted that McConnell has been focused on picking candidates that he thinks will help him stay in leadership and faulted him for not trying to create a national referendum on immigration and other issues. [WaPo]

McConnell, for all of his own flaws, comes from an earlier generation of Repubilcans, and at least is seeing the relationship between general characteristics of candidates and the expectations of the electorate, and speaking of it.

Those who are complaining about him? They’re the youngsters who were brought up sucking on former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s (R-GA) philosophy that winning elections is the end-all, be-all goal.

In other words, their metric is winning elections.

And that’s what they’ve been doing with the philosophy we’ve seen developed and implemented from the days of that quitter, Gingrich. Briefly, it consists of extremism, dismissal of expertise and experience and competency, single issue voting, and, paramount, the pursuit of power at the expense of everything else.

This synergy has worked in many geographical areas. The single issue voting over such issues as gun rights, abortion, taxation, and regulation provided the pivot around which extremism and incompetency could achieve office. Once in office, well, that was the goal, now wasn’t it?

Actual governing, which is the proper metric, was ignored. Anyone who observed the Trump Administration, and the GOP in the two Congresses of the same time period, knows this to be true. You don’t need to take my word for it, the reality is unavoidable. For even more examples, visit the GOP during the Bush II and Obama Administrations. It was party time, as they say.

But what of those complaining about McConnell? They are the conservatives brought up under the Gingrich political dictums, and, for most, it’s all they know. And they saw success using those rules, that philosophy, didn’t they?

And so they’ve been blinded by the wrong metric, that of winning elections, because the activities behind winning elections has resulted in both a changed electorate and candidates with different characteristics.

The electorate has seen Roe overturned by Dobbs, and the stories of the struggles of women forced to carry dead or terminally flawed fetuses to term, of raped little girls having to travel across State lines to get an abortion, all to satisfy the pretentious egos of politicos who think they know the mind of a divinity with which there has never been a verified communications. They’ve seen gun violence that had been falling begin to climb again, their children gunned down on the streets, ghost guns coming into use, and self-righteous and indignant gun owners proclaiming everyone should have one.

And the candidates are those who’ve successfully used the RINOing tactic to be rid of Republican moderates, where those moderates are yesterday’s radicals, now no longer in comparison to the religious zealots who can’t believe the Constitution has an Establishment clause, such as Rep Boebert (R-CO) and gubernatorial candidate Mastriano (R-PA). Their ranks have been growing for years: Gosar, Greene, Gohmert, and many more, all are familiar to those who pay attention to their absurd antics and recognize them for power-mad fools. I still like Greene’s Jewish Space Lasers.

The chemistry between candidates and audience has changed.

But these folks aren’t going to figure it out. No one likes to second-guess their own success. So McConnell will continue to take the flak for the mistakes of Miller, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), and many others who have clung to Gingrich’s precepts or Trump’s knees or their own overweening egos.

And, I suspect, they will go down screaming in November, screaming about cheating and McConnell and anything else but their own broken ideologies. They’ll be broken politicos, lost in their life vests as the American electorate takes a turn they didn’t expect and don’t understand.

While reading this WaPo article on imminent restrictions to the uses of the Colorado River, one of the most significant rivers of the American West, it occurred to me that I don’t really have a feel for its course or the cities it serves, unlike the Mississippi. The latter, I know without looking it up, starts a little north of the Twin Cities at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, goes through the Twin Cities, divides Minnesota from Wisconsin, Wisconsin from Iowa, Iowa from Illinois, serves Pepin, WI, which I only mention for its delicious restaurant, Harbor View Cafe, serves St. Louis and eventually ends up entering the Gulf of Mexico at NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana).

So let’s see a map!

The Colorado River
Source: American Rivers

Sourcing out of the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado River flows through Grand Junction, CO, Moab, UT, the artificial Lake Powell on the Utah / Arizona border, all the while picking up contributions from tributaries. Crossing Arizona, it passes into Lake Mead, another artificial reservoir formed by the operation of the famed Hoover Dam and that I’ve alarmed over before, and near Las Vegas, NV. Heading south, it passes by some smaller cities and forms the border between Arizona and California, before passing into Mexico and, at one time, eventually feeding into the Gulf of California, that gulf on the west side of Mexico formed by Baja California and the Mexican mainland, as it were. Now I read it no longer makes it there.

But going over this by river only isn’t a wise course. In the map above, the olive and turquoise areas serve to illuminate the Colorado River basin, and it’s that area to which the Colorado River provides water. This includes most of Arizona, including Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Flagstaff. The Water Education Foundation states the Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and more than 5 million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000 square miles. American Rivers suggests the number is 36 million.

Not quite sure what that means? The recent US Census effort suggests the United States has a population of roughly 330 million people. That means, roughly, that 10%-12% of the US population has some sort of direct dependency on the Colorado River.

In other words, the water source for 12% of the United States population is at risk of becoming inadequate.

So what’s going on?

First, population has been growing. Macrotrends has the last four years’ population estimates for the Las Vegas metro area growing at about 2.7% annually. That’s not small over twenty years. Phoenix is growing at a similar rate, according to World Population Review.

Second, everyone wants water without paying for it. Face it, this is an American tradition. Speaking as a four-time visitor to India, it’s not a world-wide tradition. There you ask for bottled water and you may be charged for it. But here we tend to use water with little thought; we even talk about spending money like water to describe the profligate.

Third, as this WaPo article notes, the Colorado River is being starved of water due to a drought:

The root of the problem is an ongoing 23-year drought, the worst stretch for the region in more than a millennium. Mountain snowpack that feeds the 1,450-mile river has been steadily diminishing as the climate warms. Ever-drier soils absorb runoff before it can reach reservoirs, and more frequent extreme heat hastens evaporation.

“The prolonged drought afflicting the West is one of the most significant challenges facing our communities and our country,” Beaudreau said. “The growing drought crisis is driven by the effects of climate change, including extreme heat and low precipitation.”

Climate change that we had a chance to ameliorate and foolishly threw away that chance over the last, at least, decade. California is beginning to bend a bit, at least:

Grass is the single largest irrigated “crop” in America, surpassing corn and wheat, a frequently-cited study from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found. It noted by the early 2000s, turfgrass, mostly in front lawns, spanned about 63,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of Georgia.

Keeping front lawn grass alive requires up to 75% of just one household’s water consumption, according to the study, which is a luxury California is quickly becoming unable to afford as the climate change-driven drought pushes reservoirs to historic lows. [CNN]

Lake Powell is nearly not a lake any longer.

The remarks of the fishing guides interviewed by the journalist are more than a little unsettling. I hope there’s a special explanation for the huge implied drop in water levels at Lake Powell.

Of course, if you look hard enough it’s possible to find some lemonade. In Europe, if they can gather the gumption and money, they have an unexpected chance to clear part of the Danube River in Serbia of dangerous World War II debris:

This week, low water levels on the Serbian section of the Danube River exposed a graveyard of sunken German warships filled with explosives and ammunition. The vessels, which emerged near the port town of Prahovo, were part of a Nazi Black Sea fleet that sank in 1944 while fleeing Soviet forces. More ships are expected to be found lodged in the river’s sandbanks, loaded with unexploded ordnance. [WaPo]

But that’s a real weak lemonade. The point here is to ask whether we are willing to do what’s necessary to continue to live in those areas of the country, such as no more green grass lawns and irrigating farms, or if it’s just time to move out.

The Middle East continues to warm to cryptocurrencies:

Iran has reportedly registered its first import order purchased via cryptocurrency.

The Iranian news outlet Tasnim reported today that the crypto amount is worth $10 million.

The outlet left out numerous details on the order, including what the order is for and from whom, plus which cryptocurrency was used.

Cryptocurrencies will be used widely in Iran for foreign trade, according to Tasnim, which is linked to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. [AL-Monitor]

UAE may not be a scary entity; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps definitely qualifies. So ripping them off may be less likely.

And cryptocurrency’s transparency has an impact on sanction evasion:

Cryptocurrencies is also still not used widely and its blockchain is publicly accessible. This makes it less plausible crypto will be utilized to evade sanctions to a significant degree, according to the Baffi Carefin research center in Italy.

Probably depends on how well an identity can be covered up.

They were hiding in rabbit holes, but now they use rhino holes.

• TargetSmart claims in a Tweet – so this that as you will – new voter registrations in States with poor abortion rights protections have surged among the young woman group. The implied raising of the importance of politics and governance in the younger portion of the electorate is not only significant for the 2022 election, but will carry forward into future elections. It may even apply to generations too young to vote in the 2022 election, but still paying attention. The SCOTUS conservatives’ “victory” symbolized by Dobbs may mark the beginning of a very long occupation of minority status by the Republican Party, regardless of its composition, in the United States. More analysis of TargetSmart’s claims by Laura Clawson on Daily Kos here.
• New Hampshire’s Senator Hassan (D), despite not having an opponent as of yet, does not do well in a Saint Anselm College poll. It’s more than a little difficult to see her losing to these far-right extremists, but I suppose anything is possible.
• A profile of Oklahoma candidate in the special election to replace the retiring Senator Inhofe (R), and former Rep, Kendra Horn (D) is here in Roll Call. Its descriptions of Oklahoma Republicans reminds me of those of Kansas Republicans, arrogantly certain of themselves even after their Constitutional Amendment was shot down. But that doesn’t mean Horn will be winning this fall.
• Colorado’s Senator Bennet (D) has an eight point lead over challenger Joe O’Dea (R), according to a poll by McLaughlin and Associates from a couple of weeks ago. That is not as good as the previous poll result of a twelve point lead for Bennet. The problem? McLaughlin and Associates gets only a “C/D” rating from FiveThirtyEight. The link to the poll notes that McLaughlin and Associates has ties to the Republican establishment, which may skew their results as they try to please their patrons. Even the linked article mentions this. I still think Bennet should win this race, but I’m not sure I’d accord this result much credibility. A WaPo report suggests O’Dea is a moderate Republican, which may make Bennet’s job a little tougher.
• Unlike the unknown pollster Center Street PAC, A- rated Emerson College Polling has J. D. Vance (R) leading Rep Tim Ryan (D) in Ohio, 45% – 42%, in its first poll of the Ohio Senate race, suggesting Ryan has a hill to climb and that the seat from Ohio remains in doubt.
• Incumbent Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) reportedly wants to invest Social Security funds in … the stock market! I don’t have access to the original article, but I just have to wonder what happens to those Social Security checks when the market crashes, and what would happen to the market if a large blob of money was invested. In fact, it all sounds like madness to me. However, don’t confuse this with the Bush 43 plan to privatize Social Security, which was explored in detail and rejected.
• Harry Enten, former FiveThirtyEight-ite now with CNN, confirms Senator McConnell’s fear that many Republican Senate candidates are disliked by the electorate using polls. Of course.

The previous book of Senatorial doom is here, right down that rabbit hole, two to the left. Right. Up.

This is certainly not rare.

But it’s nice clear pictures. I’ve put them on iNaturalist.

2.0 (2018). Environmentalist movie? Anti-environmentalist movie? Evil ornithologist, enraged by the murder of his birds, commits suicide in order to take revenge on, well, everyone via the Old Gods?

Via kaiju?

It’s weird, alright.

Oh, yeah. That has to be Elvis, right?

From the University of Minnesota’s News and Events newsletter:

Research Brief: Tracking invasive plants from space

No, they mean using satellites to identify and track invasive species. This has nothing to do with The Day of the Triffids (1962).

I wonder if they wrote it that way on porpoise.

Last year’s tactics may be this year’s anchors. Here’s a quick summary by veteran war observer Mark Sumner of Daily Kos:

Drones are playing an ever greater part in [Putin’s] war, and the various roles and types of drones are undergoing a fast evolution. It’s a very safe bet that the results in Ukraine are being carefully examined by every military in the world. From observation drones directing precision munitions, to large drones launching missiles at targets dozens or hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines, to loitering munitions with varying levels of AI, to drones like the “revolver” that can drop explosives straight down on enemy troops and vehicles, the battlefield is becoming ever more dangerous. How all this stuff works is changing in real-time, and the winner of this war may well be the side that is nimble enough to incorporate these technologies in the best way.

It comes down to technology, or the capabilities of your drones, and logistics, as in can you build and ship them to critical territories in sufficient numbers?

A lot like all those other wars, really. The trick is recognizing what’s revolutionary and what’s not. I recall reading somewhere that a couple of World War II American admirals, tasked with stopping a small Japanese convoy carrying an invasion force, and being unfamiliar with the radar systems installed on their cruisers and therefore didn’t use them, did in fact stop the convoy, but at a very dear cost.

If they had utilized the radar? Who knows, but the outcome might have been less painful.

But charlatans also flock to sell their crap to the military. An incredulous military is important, as the charlatans’ crap can get your people killed. The Brits are well-known for being taken in by a magical bomb detector during the Afghan conflict, losing a few service members to sheer and utter garbage. I think someone was arrested for that particular fraud, but I don’t recall enough of the details to look that one up. Oh, wait, here it is. Deeply shameful.

Impugn:

to cause people to doubt someone’s character, qualities, or reputation by criticizing them:
Are you impugning my competence as a professional designer? [Cambridge Dictionary]

Noted in “Trump has never been in so much peril. Nor has the GOP.” Jennifer Rubin, WaPo:

In an AL-Monitor Pro report (partial paywall), Ali Metwally has little but ill to speak of the future:

A global food crisis is well underway and, according to World Food Program chief David Beasley, it will be “beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetime.” The situation is all the more alarming for countries that have traditionally depended on imports of key staple foods to meet their needs. This goes for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where food accounts for 13% of the region’s total imports, compared to 9% in the European Union (EU), 8% in Latin America and 7% in North America.

Long in the making, the situation has more recently been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted global supply chains and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war that began earlier this year and which has further polarized and politicized the matter. Combined, these countries make up around a third of global wheat exports — a key food staple in most MENA countries — and are responsible for 32% of MENA’s wheat imports.

With food export bans now in place in many countries, rising shipping costs and a widening supply-demand gap, the crisis, if not adequately and urgently addressed, could see shortages of essential food items grow to levels that lead to a notable increase in hunger and malnutrition rates across the world.

I’ve been wondering if the tendency of Western food exports to disturb the fundamental economies of their customers is a disaster waiting to happen. That is, cheap Western food puts local farmers out of business. Then food gets cutoff by an event such as the Covid crisis, or something worse. With the local farming economy in ruins, or worse – think the Aral Sea debacle – is it going to end in mass starvation?

Immense profits do not justify mass starvation, at least not in my book.

For the minute-by-minute prognosticators who live for Election Night, Ranked Choice Voting may be a nightmare. We have an example up in Alaska, where the seat of the late Rep Don Young (R) is up for grabs, and assumed to be going Republican again. With Sarah Palin (R), the former governor, in the mix, it was thought to be a fight between Palin, representing the religious far right extremists, and Nick Begich, who had worked for the late Rep Young’s campaign.

So who’s leading?

Mary Peltola (D).

With two-thirds of expected votes counted in the special election for the House seat of the late congressman Don Young (R-Alaska), former Alaska governor and GOP vice-presidential nominee Palin surprisingly trailed a Democrat, Mary Peltola, 38 percent to 32 percent. The other front-running Republican, Nick Begich, was at 29 percent.

Where this goes from here, nobody knows. But Peltola far outperformed the primary results in June, in which she took just 10 percent of the vote. She appeared to benefit from the decision of independent/Democratic-aligned Al Gross to drop out of the race after the primary, making it a three-candidate contest with two Republicans and a Democrat. But even accounting for that, Peltola’s showing is strong. [WaPo]

And I agree with the article: who knows where this heads as RCV procedures are followed, along with the absentee ballots that haven’t been counted? The leader today may be middle of the pack tomorrow. Or worse.

And that’ll drive the prognosticators up the wall.

So be prepared. Popcorn, peanuts, that sort of thing. And I will only be surprised if the Democrat wins. If that happens then it suggests the Republicans are really being repudiated by the electorate. But I doubt that’ll happen. I think Begich wins, assuming he’s less extreme than Palin.

Good progress is being made in doing away with the experiment of privately run prisons, but it needs to move faster, as this story is outright horrifying and should result in the immediate outlawing of private prisons, nevermind the theoretical arguments advanced by myself and many others.

Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.”

In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care. [AP]

And so we see private justice institutions influencing justice, in an illicit manner, in order to elicit more profits. And never mind the damage to the children !!!

It’s appalling and potentially highly damaging to society.

I do hope this quashes any more pro- private prison arguments.

Something bothered me about this story portraying a pastor as a greedy bastard:

A pastor in Missouri rained down a fiery sermon upon his flock one Sunday this month, scolding parishioners for failing to follow God.

The Rev. Carlton Funderburke condemned his congregation not because they had sinned too much, loved God too little or done too few good deeds out in the world. Instead, Funderburke rebuked the “cheap sons and daughters” of the Church at the Well in Kansas City for not “honoring” him with a luxury gift.

“That’s how I know you still poor, broke, busted and disgusted, because of how you been honoring me,” Funderburke told his congregation, according to a video. “I’m not worth your McDonald’s money? I’m not worth your Red Lobster money? I ain’t worth your St. John Knit — y’all can’t afford it nohow. I ain’t worth y’all Louis Vuitton? I ain’t worth your Prada? I’m not worth your Gucci?” [WaPo]

And, of course, that may be an accurate portrayal, as there’s just not enough information in the story and I’m, uh, too lazy busy to dig out more. Nor do I live in Missouri.

But it is true that groups, especially those defined in traditional pecking order groupings such as racial or religious groups, compete to move up and the social power ladder. It’s an important behavior because a group that is important, such as Catholics in Ireland prior to the realization of the abuse of children by the ICC (Irish Catholic Church) by the public, doesn’t suffer abuse, while Catholics in Protestant Britain, on the other hand, can suffer a certain amount of disadvantage, even when putative public policy is to disregard membership in such groups.

And part of establishing one’s place in that societal pecking order is the display of wealth. Wealth informs those who might initiate violence that vengeance could be likely, official or not, and while common criminals might not consider that to be important, an organized group presents too many vulnerabilities.

So Funderburke may be wishing to signal that members of his congregation are rich enough to gift him with luxury items, and thus he, and they, may have influence with official law enforcement – or his congregation might be armed, although I doubt that’s information that he wants to signal.

In the end, it’s possible that he wants to signal that, hey, he leads a group of financially stable people, so leave them alone.

Or Not. He could be just a self-centered bastard.

Mere speculation and completely made up guesswork: That’s how Republicans appear to be defending the former President. But enough of the sideshow, let’s go see the Senators! Can you tell the Minnesota State Fair is imminent?

• New Hampshire’s incumbent Senator Maggie Hassan (D) may not yet know her general election opponent, which will be determined in a Sep 13 primary, but if the three GOP candidates who showed up for a debate last weekend are the top candidates, and participant Don Bolduc, a retired brigadier general, leads the pack by quite a lot, then the New Hampshire Republican Party is unlikely to snap up Hassan’s seat in November. Brandishing far-right positions such as abolishing the FBI as well as the 17th Amendment, which would make the state legislatures responsible again for selecting Senators – evidently because trusting voters is too much for this crew – they are emblematic of a GOP that has been RINOing its way to the right in a blind fury of power madness and, I suspect, will go right off a cliff in November, screaming, yet again, of a stolen election, wearing their badge of righteousness on their sleeves, while leaving the cloak of humility in the closet. Ahem. Putting the soapbox away now. Sorry about that.
• In the first poll for any Senate contest I’ve seen since the FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago, University of North Florida reports that Florida incumbent Senator and Trump ally Marco Rubio (R) now trails challenger Rep Val Demings (D) by four points, 48%-44%, among registered voters; that 4 point gap is greater than the margin of error. University of North Florida polls are rated “A/B” by FiveThirtyEight, so there may be some credibility in this poll. I’d like to see several polls from different sources coming to the same conclusion before thinking Rubio’s likely to lose, but I will add Rubio to the list of endangered Republican Senators.
• Speaking of endangered Republican seats, Jennifer Rubin notes a report from  The New York Times that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is cutting advertising budgets in Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman reportedly has a large lead over Republican and neophyte Dr. Mehmet Oz, Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly (D) is facing extremist and political neophyte Blake Masters (R) and reportedly has a fourteen point lead, and, surprisingly, Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson, whose sanity could easily be questioned, will be facing off against recently selected candidate and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) [later note: See more on Barnes vs Johnson below]. If the NRSC is ceding Wisconsin, that’s huge news and is beginning to make the potential Senate gains for the Democrats look shocking – and confirm my thesis that the American electorate has little patience for extremists, who now make up most or all of the Republican Party, regardless of where we are in the election cycle. Democratic would-be extremists, take note and shut up.
• Alaska’s primary has yielded the following promotions to the general election: incumbent and Trump-hated Senator Lisa Murkowski (R), Trump endorsee Kelly Tshibaka (R), followed at some distance by Patricia Chesbro (D) and a player to be named later. This is rather better for the Senator than predicted, strengthening my suspicion of a victory for her, barring black swans. Remember, this is a Ranked Choice Voting state (RCV), which works to moderates’ advantage, and Murkowski may be the most moderate Republican Senator out there.
• 

  Senator Thune’s (R) On The Issues summation. Yep, he’s about to fall off the edge of the world there, isn’t he?

  If I’m to believe this poll, South Dakota citizens mostly reject abortion extremists who try to outright ban abortion, although they may disapprove of abortion itself. It’s that nuance that makes me doubt this suggests this is trouble for incumbent Senator John Thune (R), regardless of the magnitude of his extremist measurement from On The Issues. Show me a couple polls with Thune trailing challenger Brian Bengs (D) and I’ll change my tune, although satisfying noted Thune-hater DJ Trump would be a bit galling.

• In the first poll in Wisconsin since primary voters selected incumbent Senator Ron Johnson (R) and Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes (D) as the last additions to the 2022 Senate race in Wisconsin, and the first Wisconsin poll since the Mar-a-Lago visit by the FBI, Marquette University Law School Poll, an “A/B” rated pollster according to FiveThirtyEight, gives Barnes a seven point lead, 51%-44%. While this may fluster the timid pundit pool, it’s what I hoped to see when I wrote about the burdens Johnson is carrying: a history of conspiracy theories, possible dementia, and the overwhelming weight of the Wisconsin GOP, who appears to be exceptionally lost in the wilderness, probably not to return until most of the membership is ejected and former members invited to rejoin.
• It seems unlikely, but keep in mind that Senator Inhofe’s (R-OK) seat will lack an incumbent defender in November, and his seat in red, red, red Oklahoma may be in danger if favored successor wannabe Markwayne Mullin (R), who has not yet won the primary runoff scheduled for August 23, continues putting his foot in his mouth with such statements as
  

  “We saw this media frenzy about supposedly classified information — where was this same media frenzy when there was 33,000 classified emails on a server in a bathroom with Hillary Clinton?” Mullin asked, indignantly. “Why didn’t they raid that bathroom?” [TPM].

  Since there were 133 classified emails and Secretary Clinton delivered the email server up on request, unlike the former President and his stolen documents, Mullin is now vulnerable to charges of lying by his challengers, primary runoff mate T. W. Shannon (R), and if he slips by Shannon, general election challenger Kendra Horn (D). As noted before, it’s worth keeping half an eye on this Oklahoma contest. I suppose a poll is unlikely until after the runoff. I’m such a member of the Instant Gratification Generation.

• Summarizing current Democratic status: Seats probably lost: None. Seats I currently consider to be in danger: None. Seats that had been thought to be in danger a few months ago, but now no longer so considered: Arizona, Georgia, Washington, New Hampshire. Not enough data: Colorado, Nevada.
• Summarizing current Republican status: Seats probably lost: Pennsylvania, Ohio. Seats I currently consider to be in danger: – Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Wisconsin. If things break just right, Republicans may also lose: Missouri, Kansas, Utah (to independent Evan McMullin), Kentucky. Not enough data: any seat currently held by a Republican for which no polls of relevance available. There’s blood in the water, folks.

More flubs concerning Senate races are here.

Erick Erickson’s particularly perturbed today, resulting in this shocking quote:

Biden promised us a return to normalcy and instead he handed Afghanistan to the Taliban …

Yes, because Americans think being at war is normal.

Or how about this one:

Yes, because Americans should abrogate all international agreements to which it is a signatory, and Trump signed this one with the Taliban.

One of those blurry shots of Nessie the Divinity.

Reading Erickson’s post is really quite wearisome because virtually every claim is, at best, debatable, many are deceptive, some are outright ridiculous … and all I can figure is that his God is not a good God, or that Divinity has a real bad frownie face right now.

I think The Lincoln Project has it right with regard to Liz Cheney:

Tonight, the nation marks the end of the Republican Party. What remains shares the name and branding of the traditional GOP, but is in fact an authoritarian nationalist cult dedicated only to Donald Trump.

While the demise of those truly in control of the Republican Party may involve fundamental neglect of national priorities and, indeed, violence from those who’ve been taken in by these leaders, it’s my belief that these same leaders are, much like the Axis leaders of World War II, really a pack of fourth-raters when it comes to politics and government. They may cover it with violence, as did the Axis leaders, but desperate clinging to ideological and theological tenets, even in the face of realities that disprove those tenets, is absolutely incompatible with effective leadership.

This was recently proven in Kansas in the rejection of a proposed Kansas Constitutional Amendment to permit anti-abortion legislation, but has been proven over the last few years with the rejection of climate change denying candidates in what would otherwise be considered Republican districts, and were experiencing extreme weather events.

I fear this won’t go swiftly, and the repair of damage done by the extremist Republicans loathed by The Lincoln Project may take decades, but progress will continue. My hope is that single issue voting will become a rejected, even disgusting, option, and finer grain discussions of political candidates will once again become a characteristic of the American landscape.

I’m looking forward to color commentary concerning the game pitting the Cuneiforms vs the Ideographs.

Kerygmatic:

The systematic study of theological truths within a structure that can directly and immediately serve to prepare for and promote the preaching of the truths of revelation to the Christian people (A. de Villalmonte). The modern movement for a kerygmatic theology seeks to orientate scientific theology to Christian life and apostolate, and thereby to bring about an interaction of theology and apostolic action. [Encyclopedia.com]

Aaaaand … that was gibberish to me. Truly. Scientific theology? Noted in “Is Latin more effective in driving out demons? An exorcist responds,” David Ramos, Catholic News Agency:

In the exorcism ritual of 2000, “the threats to the devil, the insults to the devil, have been suppressed, for example, because there were ritual prayers from 1614 that were directly a torrent of insults against the devil.”

“That is, they wanted to remove that part, let’s say, more threatening to the devil, to accentuate the kerygmatic proclamation of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ,” [the unnamed consulting priest] said.

Uh huh. And finally:

Torres explained that “if an exorcist uses the ritual of 1614, he is acting correctly and it is effective, and if an exorcist uses the one from the year 2000, he is acting efficaciously and correctly, because the Church has pledged her prayer and her faith in those rituals.”

Which is to say, Let’s just dodge the question of whether or not Latin is more efficacious because I don’t want any bricks through my windows.

Power prancers to the left, power prancers to the right!

• A-rated, by FiveThirtyEight, Fox News has issued one of those generic Congressional polls that finds the faceless Democratic and Republican candidates to now be tied in preference. In May it was a seven point Republican lead, June a three point lead, ditto July. If September sees Democrats ahead, Republicans had better buy new handkerchiefs for blotting their foreheads. Or waving surrender, given their unfortunate alliance with the former President, and Biden’s surging success, which will soon, I suspect, be followed by a surge in his approval numbers.
• The Green Party achieved its goal in North Carolina as a Federal judge ordered their Senate candidate, former Marine Matthew Hoh, had qualified to be on the ballot in November. While Democrats worry that he’ll peel off voters who might otherwise vote for their candidate, Cheri Beasley, in the long run Hoh’s presence on the ballot indicates a certain electoral openness to ideas that, if not yet espoused by Democrats, may in the future. The process of introducing new ideas to voters is an important step in the democratic process – perhaps the most important step.
• Also in North Carolina, the Republicans face a similar problem in Libertarian Senate candidate Shannon Bray, but it may actually be more serious. The Republican candidate, Trump-endorsed Rep Ted Budd, may discover that the Trump endorsement is rapidly becoming a disadvantage. When conservative North Carolina voters, repulsed by his association with the former President, consider Democratic candidate Beasley unacceptable, Bray may attract their vote as an acceptable protest vote against both Budd and Beasley. Like many Democratic candidates nation-wide, Beasley would then benefit from the rapidly declining reputation of the former President.
• Iowa Senate candidate Mike Franken (D), take note:
  

  “Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s [sic] … ready to shoot some small business person in Iowa?” — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) speculates on what the IRS will do with their increase in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

  I say to Franken, Go on stage, play that clip, stare soberly out at your audience, and ask, “Is this the hysterical Senator you want representing you in Washington?” Do it at a debate if you can.

• In Georgia, not all Republicans approve of Herschel Walker’s run for the Senate. Republican Accountability PAC (RAPAC) has announced an ad campaign targeting Walker and other extremists running under the Republican banner. Walker’s endorsement by the former President is already a threatening sign of disaster, so this may just be piling on. Ahem. Sorry. For more analysis, here’s Rebekah Sager on Daily Kos.
• 

  Bob McDermott’s On The Issues‘ summation.

  The nominees for the Hawaii’an Senate seat have been determined as of Aug 13th, and the top two are incumbent Senator Brian Schatz (D) and Republican and State Representative Bob McDermott. As can be seen to the right, McDermott appears to be a moderate Republican, but Schatz still appears likely to win the seat again. There are three other nominees making the ballot, representing the Aloha Aina Party, the Greens, and the Libertarians, but they seem unlikely to affect this contest.

• Is Senator Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky kneecapping himself with this Tweet? The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment. Repeal the Espionage Act – The Future of Freedom Foundation. The Espionage Act has been mentioned in connection with the FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago. While Kentucky is considered a solidly Republican state, this may be a tool that his challenger, Charles Booker (D), can use against him.
• John Bridgeland, Chief of Staff for retiring Senator Rob Portman (R) of Ohio, announces his support for … Rep Tim Ryan (D).
  

  

  Senator Portman’s On The Issues summation.

  The 2022 election for U.S. Senate in Ohio calls the question on what kind of representatives we seek and nation we want to be. I have the privilege of knowing both candidates and am forming “Republicans for Tim Ryan.”

  Senator Portman (R) is no moderate, so this is quite a statement by Bridgeland, who presumably shares most or all of his boss’ positions. Just how bad does Ryan’s opponent, J. D. Vance, have to be to elicit this shocking response from a right-winger?

Previous absurd gestures concerning the Senate campaign are here.

An opening sample of political advertising this season, thanks to Dr. Oz’s campaign team.

This new, desperate, bizarre ad from Dr. Oz shows a bong popping out of John Fetterman’s head. pic.twitter.com/sAEUNvfWoP

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) August 15, 2022

Will it work? Beats me. But it feels like something out of the 1960s.

One of our clematises has been inspired by the honeysuckle:

I see that Erick Erickson is on the edge of terror, although even he may think he’s frightened of societal disturbance, and not what should really disturb him. Regardless, he’s busy saying silly things:

I have to agree with George Will and his magnificent column the other day.

Regarding this week’s events in Palm Beach, Fla., of course the rule of law is important. So, however, are other things, including social comity and — check the Constitution’s preamble — domestic tranquility. No value ever eclipses all others. Fiat justitia, ruat caelum — let justice be done, though the heavens fall? Let’s not.

The left is hell-bent on finding some reason to throw Donald Trump in prison. They impeached him twice. Now the Attorney General, who’d be on the Supreme Court but for Trump, has joined the fun to throw him in prison.

If you really do want to tear the country up, you’d do exactly that.

Otherwise, you’d ignore him.

An incredibly short-sighted remark in view of the potential damage the former President might do, depending on the contents of those documents, and his intentions thereupon.

But let’s skip that; it’s too obvious.

Erickson speaks of trust:

Merrick Garland and the Democrats are doing everything they can to get the man re-elected in their never-ending quest to find some way to throw the man in jail.

Let him go. Move on. Ignore him. You are right now finding some reason why you cannot in the name of justice, defending democracy, and the rule of law.

With each excuse, you are undermining all of the above.

This nation is running low on an indispensable ingredient of a successful society: trust, in institutions and one another. This week was another subtraction. Garland has said about the Justice Department, “We will and we must speak through our work.” Actually, his political duty is to explain and justify his work more thoroughly than he did in his minimalist statement Thursday afternoon. [George Will, I’m sure, but uncredited.]

Yes, this is about trust. Will and Erickson need to understand that trust comes with underpinnings. That a breach of trust must come with consequences.

Without those consequences, public and, yes, humiliating for both perpetrators and their allies, our society will die from lack of trust. This is why grifters are considered to be evil. This is why Erickson and Will are wrong.

But Erickson is terrified that the ideology around which he’s built his life, the Conservative Movement as some proponents call it, is about to burn to the ground. While I’m sure some will attempt to characterize Trump as an interloper, an aberration, and Erickson will be among them, the truth of the matter is that he was enthusiastically accepted by much of the base of the Republicans and the conservatives, and those that did leave were swiftly replaced by extremists holding dubious beliefs, or, worse, only the belief that they wanted and deserved power.

Trump is the toxic product of a broken ideology, an ideology that holds precepts foreign to American sensibilities, and Erickson has based his life on this ideology.

It’s not surprising that he’s dismayed, that he’s defending a possible traitor to the nation.

But he speaks of trust, so let’s speak of trust.

The peaceful transfer of power, one of the most important foundations of American government and society, is built on trust. We trust each other to transfer power peacefully, we trust the courts to fairly and lawfully arbitrate electoral disputes, we trust that our political opponents have our best interests at heart, and the dispute is over methods, not goals.

We trust each other not to instigate anti-government riots based on fits of pique at having lost.

So now we’re faced with a political movement – that’s yours, Erickson – that has produced a leader that has breached norms and laws, been credibly impeached, has a host of other negative, but irrelevant here, attributes, and has lost the trust of much of the American electorate, an electorate that seems to believe that crimes were, indeed, committed. An anti-government riot was instigated, and not only are there still high Republican officials bloviating their “doubts” about the 2020 election, but now Republican candidates who have lost in the primaries – let me repeat that, in the primaries – are shrieking that they were robbed.

Robbed by their own clubmates, as it were.

To speak so reverently of trust when you’re part of a Conservative Movement that will have none of it is really a bit of a sanctimonious joke.

And the worst part? Erickson’s right, and yet he’s not willing to back it up. Trust is the bedrock of this nation, and yet he continues to defend, and be part of, the untrustworthy Conservative Movement, an ideology that is based on an all-consuming selfishness, an arrogant adherence to religious kant over rationality and debate that renders opponents into creatures allied to the Devil.

Hard to trust those who you’ve consigned to the care of satanic forces.

Erickson calls for trust of the untrustable. His own broken argument destroys his desired conclusion, that his Conservative Movement escape close scrutiny.

And, under such scrutiny, the Movement turns out to be packed with fourth-raters and those who’ve forsaken reason for religious kant dispensed by grifters and power-seekers, who deny reason and reality itself in preference to those things that bring them power, wealth, and even just reassurance.

It’s an ugly, ugly disaster, a toxic pit of hellish personal characteristics.

Garland screwed up? PLEASE. He did the right thing, and the United States will be better for it.

Ooops, forgot: And that post title? Here’s Erickson, one more time:

And the fact that some of you will scream about this and insist it was all legitimate and I’m a partisan for saying otherwise actually makes my point for me. You’re too broken to be rationale on this. Your hatred has made you what you hate. You need to let it go, forgive, and move on.

Yeah, he actually went there. Arrogance supreme. Which may be America’s greatest curse these days.

Bupkis:

Bupkis is a Yiddish word, which is literally translated as “beans” and is derived from a Slavic word for “goat droppings.” Apparently goat droppings look like beans, although I’ve never actually seen any goat droppings.

However just to make things confusing, it’s not used as a reference to something edible (beans), or something inedible (goat droppings), but as something worthless (a bean isn’t worth much, and goat droppings even less)  [Bupkis.org]

Noted in “My Latest Theory About The SCOTUS Leaker,” David Lat, Original Jurisdiction:

Who knows? Not me. Like my prior post, What The SCOTUS Leaker Might Say For Themselves, this post is completely speculative and based on no inside information. You could torture me if you wanted, and you’d get bupkis. And yes, this post is also somewhat embellished, maybe even over-the-top—but remember that I’m also a fiction writer, and I’m working on a novel based on the events of this Term.