Category Archives: Uncategorized

Jennifer Rubin of WaPo has praise for Rep Cheney (R-WY), vice chair of the committee investigating the January 6th attack hearings, and a plaintive question:

All praise is due to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has already earned her place in history. But amid the admiration and praise for her, the question remains: Why is the rest of her party so cowardly? [WaPo]

Long time readers know my answer: The majority of the current crop of Republican elected officials hold their posts for two reasons:

1. Toxic team politics, which specifies thou shalt vote for the Republican candidate, and that candidate will adhere to the specified tenets on abortion, gun control, etc. Republicans fall in line, remember? This obviates the tangible advantages of experience, expertise, and competency, just shout out the Party slogans. And then find a way to differentiate yourself from all the rest. Experience doesn’t count, remember, so go for being more extreme.
2. Trump, Trump, Trump, who brought #1 to life, drew in replacements for those Republicans who left in disgust, animated Independents, and justified an evangelical base to vote for him and his endorsees by being … evil. They point at Cyrus, the great Get Out Of Jail Free card, the card that let’s them love evil. Period.

Repudiate Trump? Most of them are in office because of Trump, even if they predate him.

But this isn’t about personal betrayal of Trump. It’s about repudiating the system that brought them power, and keeps them in power. They may not realize it, but many will be in power until someone even more extreme RINOs them out of power. No, that’s too far in the future. Right now, their taste of power, prestige, and wealth is their heroin, and hell if they’ll stop sucking on it. And if that means hugging Trump’s knees, many of them will do it.

But it’s not Trump, he’s just the guy who figured out how to use the reins; the reins are the existentially awful way of winning elections, by not permitting dissension. Single issue voters and extremist positions have completely done away with the importance of experience, competency, and character in a candidate, because if Trump, or a local reader, points and says she or he is a great person, then they get the vote.

We’re seeing some stirrings of revolt against Trump, but it’s the system that needs to be reformed.

In what may become an ongoing addendum to the Georgia Senate contest, Herschel Walker’s past is now being mined for miscues, and apparently the lode is quite rich:

No, not Miller. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier!

Such bold genius!

Penury:

1. : a cramping and oppressive lack of resources (such as money)
   especially : severe poverty
2. : extreme and often stingy frugality
   [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Why men don’t age like wine,” Ed West, Wrong Side Of History:

To those of you too young to remember TV from the 1980s, Blake Carrington was the silver fox from Dynasty who tricked my generation (born 1978) into believing that men age like wine, when they clearly don’t. He was married multiple times, an alpha male signal, but it’s alpha because very few men can afford it. Rather than living in a neo-classical mansion surrounded by women in shoulder pads, the typical divorced man is far more likely to end up above a kebab shop living in penury.

Regarding my call for police to not hire anyone less than, oh 28 years old, a reader writes:

Not really true. The average age of the shooter for all mass shootings over the last 40 years is about 33. It is more true for school mass shootings where the average age of the shooter is only 22. More interesting when you look at the fact that 9 of the 20 total school shooters (in the 19 shootings that occurred) were 18 years of age or less. And even more so when we realize that 7 of the 20 were less than 18, and not entitled to own any gun at all, and thus no amount of laws would have stopped them. These 20 shooters, over that 40 year timespan, killed a total of 197 students and adults. 41 of those deaths occurred at the two college shootings, and the remaining 156 at elementary through high schools. Just some data to ponder as you wonder what would actually change things.

Oh, and of course that means that there have been a total of 807 deaths in non school mass shootings over that 40 year timeframe. And yes, that includes Vegas and Pulse – it includes all of them.

My bold, and emphasizes where I think the reasoning goes off the rails for the general case of prohibiting selling guns to, or owning guns, those less than 28 years old. The problem with the reasoning at this juncture is that the reader is holding a dependent variable constant, and that variable is the number of available guns. The variable is dependent on the existence, or not, of the proposed law.

Because these murderous minors are stealing these guns, or even buying them via loopholes or unmonitored sales environments, it’s necessary to consider that the universe of accessible guns to these minors will decrease if the general proposal were to be enacted, because some, and possibly even most of those guns that can be stolen, begged, or bought by the minors are available because their owners, although not minors, are still under 28, which is not only a legal stricture of impact to the argument at hand, but also, often, indicative of foolishness in their firearms management.

Scientifically speaking, they’re just not wired, yet, to make good decisions. The brain hasn’t matured.

By removing firearms from those not ready to privately manage them properly, I think those minors who want to buy and use firearms in the commission of an atrocity would find it more difficult to gain possession of them. The farther they have to go afield in search of their desired weapons, the more likely they stumble across an informant or even a law enforcement agent. This sort of thing happens with bombs from time to time, and the materials for making bombs are regulated. We just don’t hear of bombs being used to kill very often, as they are difficult to use safely.

And then if we can cure the madness of permitting private ownership of weapons of war, that’ll make it even harder to have a massacre.

None of these are a guarantee, just as putting guards around schools isn’t a guarantee. It becomes a question of which hurdles are effective and make sense in the greater context. We need to soberly determine how to slow down these people.

Ally-shoring:

The U.S. can do much the same thing with key South and Southeast Asian nations today that it did with East Asian nations in the previous century. Allowing India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines to sell their products in the U.S. largely unimpeded will boost growth by creating a stable, predictable source of demand, and by incentivizing companies in those countries to learn foreign technologies and business models in order to compete internationally.

This will accomplish three goals at once:

1. It will improve and strengthen economic and political ties between the U.S. and its prospective friends and allies in the region.
2. It will make these Asian countries economically stronger and more technologically advanced, and thus more capable of resisting Chinese power.
3. It will help the U.S. reshore production from China to more friendly countries, making our supply chains more resilient in case of a conflict. (This is often called “ally-shoring” or “friend-shoring”.)
   [“The U.S. must commit to making South and Southeast Asia rich,” Noah Smith, Noahpinion]

aNow that the primaries are half finished and mostly tabulated and decided – for those not paying attention, Rep Cawthorn (R-NC), a member of what I’ll informally call the Young Right-Wing Crazies Caucus, was successfully primaried by state Sen. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), despite a late endorsement from former President Trump – an overview of the upcoming elections to the Senate seems appropriate.

For those just rising from their stone couches, the Senate is split 50-50, with VP Kamala Harris (D) providing the deciding vote when necessary, which is reportedly quite often. The Democrats, who have the advantage of defending only 14 seats to the Republicans’ 21, and of facing a Party from which an attempted insurrection was sparked, and which then failed to condemn it, would in normal times be heavily favored. However, their own missteps may be crippling them.

Let’s start with brief discussions of possible factors, nation-wide, in this election cycle.

Inflation is a favorite topic of right-wing pundits. At 8% or so, it sounds terrible, although I think the Turks would swoon to have such an inflation rate, seeing as their’s is apparently over 70%, although I wonder at interpreting the source article.  On sober assessment, much of inflation, particularly of fossil fuels, is owed to Putin’s War (the invasion of Ukraine by Russia), but often blamed on the Biden Administration.

And don’t be fooled by claims that the United States is “energy independent.” Our fossil fuel companies are, truthfully, international companies hooked into an efficient international transit industry for a fungible product. An impact in one part of the world, such as Europe cutting off Russian oil supplies, will inevitably ripple all through that network. We produce and export more fossil fuel than we import, it’s true, but that doesn’t isolate us from price impacts.

Lack of achievement, traceable to Republican refusal to even permit debate on legislation that is not trivial nor Ukrainian aid, makes it hard for individual Senators to distinguish themselves in the area of achievements. Some, like Senator Cruz (R-TX), have learned how to run their mouths and distinguish themselves that way, but, given the low quality of his analysis and rhetoric, it’s hardly impressive.

The Afghanistan withdrawal, which left thirteen Americans dead, as mandated by former President Trump, may have some impact. While, on analysis, it’s difficult to see how President Biden could have changed his reaction without violating treaties signed by the former President, most Americans saw chaos, rather than an amazingly efficient withdrawal. While Senators had little to nothing to do with the incident, it may impact some contests.

Gun-related homicides, of which the Buffalo, NY, and Uvalde, TX massacres are leading examples, and the weak or, in at least one instance, utterly incoherent Republican responses, may influence voters who are also parents.

The sexual assault scandal of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) may have an effect on the voting patterns of a group that has been conservative for decades. While the evangelical proportion of the electorate has been shrinking for much of that time, they’ve been a potent voting bloc throughout the South.

But will this continue? The revelation that the SBC has been suppressing reports of sexual assaults by member pastors, not been disciplining those pastors effectively, nor reporting them to the police, and not supporting the victims, may shake the evangelicals to their roots. After all, it’s been these same pastors and leaders who’ve led the charge, mostly surreptitiously, but even overtly, against those evil, God-forsaken liberals. The realization that they’ve been mislead in this area may lead to reevaluations in all areas, even including abortion.

Might the bloc fracture and begin evaluating the political leadership potential of liberals? Some evangelicals, while remaining in the sect, may vote Democratic for the first time in their lives.

Political mismanagement by the Democrats tends to have more impact than the same by the Republicans, perhaps because Democrats of the far left are more often advocates for social change in a nation that is probably best described as center-right.

But advocates is a weak word these days. As I’ve noted before, the far left has shown a thread of autocracy in their approach to, ahem, advocacy, perhaps most notably in their utter botch and continued disregard for taking responsibility in the management of the transgender issue. Note that I speak extremely precisely here: I am not addressing the issue of transgenderism itself, but the political management of it. Its sudden appearance in Federal regulations, sans discussion and debate, with an autocratic flare, may be the deciding factor in why the Democrats are not expected to do well this November. If this seems nonsensical, compare to the discussions and debates concerning gay marriage, which began in 1992. Gay marriage was legalized nation-wide in 2015, meaning we had some 23 years of debate and discussion first. Was there equivalent debate of transgender issues? So far as I and others can tell, there was none. And that’s a serious abrogation of the liberal democracy model, which is far more important than most realize.

But other issues come under this heading: the disastrous Defund the police! slogan, since discarded and repudiated by moderate elements of the Democrats, but not all of the far-left; advocacy for Modern Monetary Theory, which, to most folks, including me, sounds like wishful thinking nonsense; ill-advised use of terminology that sounds much like socialism to new immigrant-citizens adverse to socialism, such as Cubans and Venezuelans; and attacks, both rhetorical and real, on historical figures revered by most Americans, such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, et al, without regard to historical context and, in some cases, simple historical facts.

I think these all unsettle independent voters who might otherwise be inclined to vote for the Democrats. This, despite the comparison of a thread of autocracy to the Republican Party’s blanket of autocracy.

I calls them as I sees them.

The January 6th Insurrection investigation, which I think is the great wildcard of the election, has had its first television appearance. This gives the independents a chance to learn just what transpired on the eponymous date. If they are paying attention, and don’t treat this as just more entertainment or settling of political grudges, this may change the balance of some races; it’s even possible that a Trump endorsement may go from a much sought after political fob to an anchor hanging from the necks of those who’ve received it.

But that still remains to be seen.

Many of these issues will doom the Democrats to not hold onto a 50-50 split Senate, which VP Harris tips towards the Democrats, or the House of Representatives.

Or so goes the common wisdom.

On the other hand, Senator McConnell, leader of the GOP in the Senate, has to, and does, worry about the quality of the Republican candidates, who tend to be fourth-raters with extremist views, and about the base, who think competency means corrupt, and moderation and humility is not better than arrogance and extremism. Such views do not impress most independents, who are the pivot of the election. Nominating an abortion extremist, or someone with bizarre views on life such as this guy, or a 2^nd Amendment absolutist, will not go over well with independents who are otherwise looking for reasonable alternatives to Democrats.

Is it an opportunity for a new third party? That’s a tough, tough sell, but the presence of Senators Sanders (I-VT) and King (I-ME) in the Senate suggests it’s not impossible for voters to think outside the box. Jennifer Rubin of WaPo thinks the promisingly named Moderate Party has a chance. I could see Evan McMullin and many other former GOP members joining such a party, along with some conservative Democrats. But it’s almost certainly too late for this election cycle.

So with no further ado, here’s my mini-analyses of the 2022 Senate contests.

Index

| Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maryland | Missouri | Nevada | New Hampshire | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | South Carolina | South Dakota | Utah | Vermont | Washington | Wisconsin |

Alabama

Long time member of the Senate Richard Shelby (R) is retiring at the end of the 2022 term, but this is Alabama and hardly seems a pickup opportunity for the Democrats.

Except, this is  the Alabama GOP, the same Alabama GOP that nominated Judge Roy Moore for a special election to fill an empty Senate seat in 2018, and thereby handed that Senate seat to Doug Jones (D), who subsequently lost it to Tommy Tuberville (R), which may be another illustration of the state of the Alabama citizenry.

Primaries have been held, with now-Trump-endorsed Katie Britt and Rep, and former Trump endorsee, Mo Brooks making it to the runoff. Neither seem to have the scandal necessary to gives the Democrats a chance, although Brooks is slightly entangled in the January 6th insurrection imbroglio. Were he to win the runoff, and then the January 6th committee reveal some gross misconduct on his part, it might be enough to make him vulnerable, if GOP voters were to stay away in disgust. If if if, eh?

Among the Democrats, Will Boyd has won the primary overwhelmingly. His electoral experience is confined to losing campaigns, which should come as no surprise in Alabama; otherwise, he appears to be a college denizen, having a number of academic degrees, in engineering as well as theology. Will that be good enough?

Looks for the Republicans to retain this seat, absent a major scandal.

Alaska

Alaska is using an unusual jungle primary from which the top four vote-getters progress to the general election.

But let’s be honest. The incumbent is Senator Lisa Murkowski (R), and this is Murkowski-land, as her father also served as an Alaskan Senator and Governor. The far-right of the Alaska GOP may hate her, they may not endorse her, Trump may see red every time he hears her name, but she won as a write-in candidate in 2010 and could probably do the same again this time around.

The Republicans will retain this seat, as the Democrats are not running a candidate and have endorsed Murkowski, and I don’t think it’s a bizarre ploy. The other Republican candidates are simply far more extreme than the incumbent, and they’d rather see her back in the Senate than one of her competitors. Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) is supporting her in the face of Trump’s campaign to be rid of her.

She’s the favorite.

Arizona

The incumbent Senator Mark Kelly (D), winner of the special election to replace Senator McCain (R) after his death, faces his first traditional election. He has no primary opponents, so he’s been free to campaign against whoever the GOP has in the primaries.

But he suffers from lack of accomplishments, a common affliction in this age of team politics. If he’s done anything in the Senate, it’s escaped my admittedly scanty notice.

But does that leave the door open in purple Arizona? The primary to select his opponent from the GOP has not yet occurred, and to my eye there is no projected winner. State Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a civil engineer with no electoral history by the name of Jim Lamon, and similarly inexperienced, but endorsed by former President Trump’s and financed by billionaire Peter Thiel, Blake Masters are on offer.

Senator Kelly, outside of his political career, had careers as an astronaut and a Navy captain, which may serve him well in this race; his two of his three potential opponents do not seem to have much more to point at than adherence to the former President, and Brnovich is scorned by the same former President.

If Kelly can persuade Arizona independents that he’s not a leftist radical, he should be able to win. Communications is critical for victory.

Arkansas

Senator John Boozman (R) is up for his second reelection, or third term, as Senator from a State that, as of now, has a Federal delegation made up of two Republican Senators and four Republican Representatives. He’s endorsed by former President Trump.

No drama? Wrong.

Primary rival Jake Bequette may be pushing Boozman, and while I’ve found nothing really on his positions, he’s reported to take far-right positions. However, Boozman’s On The Issues summary shows him to the right of Bequette as a far-right extremist himself, and in any case, Boozman prevailed in the May 24th primary.

What does this mean? Given that some GOP voters refuse to vote for primary rivals when their favorite loses, this might give a strong Democrat a chance to take the seat. However, as this article implicitly notes, the Democratic opposition is weak. A possible opportunity for the Democrats, thrown away.

California

Senator Alex Padilla (D), who was appointed to take the place of Senator Harris (D) when the latter won the VP slot of the United States in 2021, is now gunning for outright election. The Republican nominee is Mark Meuser, who advanced via the non-partisan primary, and …

… has criticized California’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and even went so far as to file more than 20 lawsuits against Gov. Gavin Newsom for his emergency restrictions.” [Fox40]

I’ve been unable to find an On The Issues entry for Meuser.

Unless a black swan flies overhead, it’s Padilla all the way, despite his lack of obvious accomplishments during his time in the Senate.

Colorado

Senator Michael Bennet (D) is running for reelection for a second time. In 2016 he gained 50% of the vote, defeating Republican Darryl Glenn by 6+ points. Can he do it again? There’s no obvious reasons why not. He faces no primary opponents, Biden won the state by 13 points, and none of the names in the Republican primary ring a bell, much less strike fear in the hearts of liberals, at least not that I have heard.

That said, American politics is full of upsets and surprises. Both Bennet and Biden need to get on their campaign horses and get the message out.

Connecticut

Senator Richard Bloomenthal Blumenthal (D) will be defending his seat, but not against primary opponents. And how do his Republican opponents look?

The first snapshot of Connecticut’s U.S. Senate race shows Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a two-term Democrat, with leads ranging from 10 points to 16 points in matchups with Republicans Themis Klarides, Peter Lumaj and Leora Levy. [MSN]

Unless something unforeseen occurs, Bloomenthal Blumenthal should be reelected.

Florida

The race in Florida, featuring incumbent Senator Marco Rubio (R) vs, in all likelihood, Rep Val Demings (D), should be one of the hotter races in the Senate this year. The Democratic propaganda line has repeatedly claimed that Demings is ahead or, at least, within striking distance of the two-term, three-term wannabe, incumbent.

And, quite honestly, to my independent ear, Rubio has seemed woefully out of touch, even somewhat incoherent, recently. When the Miami Heat of the NBA included an announcement during the game following the school massacre in Uvalde, TX, urging fans to call on their local and Federal representatives to pass “common-sense gun laws,” Rubio’s response was deeply flawed, for those who cared to soberly think:

The @NBA doesn’t like to talk about the billions they make from a China that enslaves Uyghur Muslims and harvests their organs

But they have no problem politicizing a horrific tragedy in America pic.twitter.com/VUXpOBbw7j

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 26, 2022

Designed to enrage, rather than provoke discussion, Rubio’s attempt to hide behind the stage magician’s magic hand is not impressive to my mind.

But I don’t live in Florida. Concerning Demings, I’ve heard little. Some polls are out, such as this one. It may depend on how well Democrats can turn out the vote.

Georgia

Georgia’s Senatorial race is decidedly one of the most interesting races to analyze. The Democratic incumbent and winner of a special election in 2020, Senator and Rev Raphael Warnock, pastor of the very church at which MLK, Jr. preached, will face recent overwhelming winner of the GOP primary, former NFL star (and Minnesota Viking) Herschel Walker.

First, it’s worth noting that former President Trump is not urging the MAGA crowd not to vote, so that drag on the Republican candidate is not present, unlike when Warnock won the special election to initially fill the seat in 2020.

Warnock has been accused of various ill-doings, none of which seem to stick, so they might be just the usual political mud flinging. He doesn’t appear to have any particular Senatorial accomplishments to which to point, since political polarization brought on by GOP toxic team politics, as well as Senator McConnell’s (R-KY) steadfast insistence of never permitting a debate on most legislation, unless it’s trivial or aid to Ukraine, makes such accomplishments quite the trick to achieve. Still, a man of the cloth should hold some sway over Georgia independents.

Walker has his share of negative reports as a burden as well: accusations of domestic terrorism by an ex-wife, for which Walker claims he’s “accountable;” in his business dealings, he apparently tends to claim more than he actually does, and has been associated with ethically questionable businesses – or even businesses that don’t exist. He’s also acknowledged mental illness, a brave thing to do.

But that’s the past, and many conservative voters will give him a pass for past mistakes. The United States loves a good, redemptive story. So do I. But how about today?

Today, it’s not clear that he’s even functional. His response to the Uvalde, TX school massacre wasn’t evasive, it didn’t cling to the magic of owning a gun, it wasn’t like any other Republican response.

It was utter gibberish, and so was his followup.

And, yet, polls show Warnock and Walker neck and neck, so far as I can make out.

Raw Story has a report from prior to the primary that claimed Georgia GOP officials were terrified that Walker would win the primary, thus dooming their hopes to retake Warnock’s seat. How do they feel now, with Walker unable to meet the challenge of even saying “Prayers and thoughts?” Or will the magic of football dominate in Georgia, as it did in the Alabama election of former coach Tommy Tuberville (R) in 2020?

The general election in Georgia will say a lot as to the seriousness of the electorate.

Hawaii

Democratic Senator Brian Schatz will be running for reelection, having been appointed to his seat in 2012, and winning outright election in 2016 … by 51 points.

There seems little to worry Schatz in his reelection bid.

Idaho

Much like the Hawaii race, incumbent Idaho Senator Mike Crapo (R), recent winner of his primary, seems to have an assured reelection, having won his previous election in 2016 by 39 points.

Illinois

Senator Duckworth (D) will be defending her seat for the first time, having won in 2016 by 15 points, upsetting incumbent Mark Kirk (R). I have not found any excitement in press coverage concerning Senator Duckworth, and she lacks primary opponents, while the Republican collection of candidates do not appear to be remarkable. The primary is June 28, which may clarify the race’s points of interest, or it may simply clarify who Duckworth will be thumping.

Indiana

Deep in Republican land, Senator Todd Young (R) is defending his seat against Mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr. (D). Young won this then-open seat in 2016 by just less than ten points, which may be misleading as he beat the son of a former Senator, Evan Bayh, son of Birch Bayh. Does McDermott have the same name recognition, being the mayor of Hammond, IN, for 18 years? I’ve not found any polls saying so, or measuring the race. The Cook Political Report says Young is outpacing McDermott in fund-raising. And, it’s Indiana.

I figure it’s Young all the way until I hear otherwise.

Iowa

Senator Grassley (R), all 88 years of him, is running for reelection. He was challenged in the primary by State Senator Jim Carlin (R), who seemed optimistic that Grassley is vulnerable, but he failed.

But Carlin may be right. As I’ve noted before, Senator Grassley has sadly devolved into either dementia or just simple mendacity. Iowans, like most American voters, like honesty in their candidates, and if Grassley cannot manage honesty then he may be ousted.

The Democrats surprisingly passed over former Rep Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) to select inexperienced retired Admiral Mike Franken, who does have some experience from working in Senator Ted Kennedy’s (D) office. Perhaps Iowans will respond well to someone with a military background. Grassley is an ally of the former President, so if Trump finds himself in legal trouble, it could reflect poorly on Senator Grassley.

But I sense this is one of those unexpected pickup opportunities that will somehow slip out of the Democrats’ hands.

Kansas

Incumbent Jerry Moran (R) is being primaried by something of an oddity: Joan Farr, who is also running for Senator from the state of Oklahoma.

Yeah, no kidding.

She’s also written a book, How to Run for Office as an Independent Candidate – on very little $$!, so I have to wonder if this is a stunt.

The Kansas primary is on August 2, but I doubt that Kansas is likely to send a Democrat to the Senate unless Moran becomes as electorally repulsive as Kris Kobach (R-KA), who is notorious for losing the 2018 Kansas governor’s race to Democrat and then-State Senator Laura Kelly, thus once again proving Kansans do have a limited appetite for extremist Republicans, having previously rejected, in 2017, then-Governor Brownback’s (R-KA) radical tax reduction plan by replacing his legislative allies with moderate Republicans and Democrats, and then revoking his plan, much to his horror.

Senator Moran’s (R-KS) On The Issues summary.

But by the handiest measure of extremism, Moran’s TrumpScore, he is not particularly extremist. Absent a disastrous scandal, and in view of the fact that Moran won election in 2016 by 30 points, look for Moran to win reelection. His On The Issues summary, though, shows more of an extremist outlook, and is more complete than an arbitrary list of votes.

Still, look for the Democratic challenger to have an uphill climb.

Kentucky

Incumbent Rand Paul (R) won in 2016 by nearly 14 points, and in Republican Kentucky that might be the end of the story.

But if I were a Rand Paul partisan, I might have some concerns.

First, the Democratic nominee is former State Senator Charles Booker, who ran a close second in the Democratic primary in 2020 to challenge Senator McConnell, and is considered a well-known and popular Democrat in Kentucky.

Second, Senator Paul has arguably been acting erratically and against the interests of the United States and Kentucky for years, with his latest cause being the delay of assistance to Ukraine in Putin’s War; indeed, it almost appears that Paul is a Putin partisan. And Americans have little patience with traitors.

Now, it is true that Paul is emblematic of the amateur that is semi-revered in Republican politics. A graduate of Duke Medical School, beginning in 1999 he was certified as an ophthalmologist by an organization of his own creation, the NBO, which was also run by Paul, his wife, and his father-in-law. This sounds very much DIY and brave and all that rot, but is obviously open to fraud. In fact, an unfavorable reading of the cited article suggests a certain petulance on his part.

In any case, a vigorous and insightful campaign by Booker has the potential to yield a surprise for the Democrats. Paul is hardly an impregnable political force. He’s really more of a goof. The question is whether or not Kentuckians realize that.

My money says they don’t.

Louisiana

Deep in Republican land, Senator John Kennedy (R) is popular and appears to not be facing any opponents of stature from either Party. Expect another six years of the smarmy guy from Louisiana.

Maryland

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen’s future is unclear, at least to me. If he were challenged by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R), at least some polls have suggested he would lose. However, the Republican effort to recruit Hogan to run have failed, leaving behind a bunch of names with which I’ve no familiarity.

Van Hollen, having won in 2016 in an open seat contest by 25 points, has to be the presumptive favorite.

Missouri

Missouri’s Senator Roy Blunt (R) is retiring after this Congress, which puts his seat up for grabs. In normal times, Blunt would be succeeded by another Republican, perhaps one of his staff members.

This isn’t normal times.

As Kansas (governor) and Alabama (senator) have demonstrated in recent years, if the GOP nominates a sufficiently repulsive personality, such as extremist Kris Kobach, or alleged sexual predator Judge Roy Moore, moderate conservative voters will walk away and give the seat to the Democrats. Candidate and former Governor Eric Greitens (R), who was forced to resign for his alleged sins, may fit the profile, as he was accused of sexual assault of a woman, not his wife, who was tied up in his basement at the time. He claimed it was a consensual encounter, but resigned anyways.

And now he’s a leading contender for the GOP nomination.

Past behavior is no guarantee of future behaviors, of course. Missouri voters may be convinced the accusations, which also included campaign finance irregularities, were all a political scam, and vote him into the Senate.

I must say, not being a fan of the other Missouri Senator, Josh Hawley (R), that’d make quite a pair chewing up Senator salary funds.

But if the Democrats can field a strong contender, this may turn into quite a race. The problem is that phrase: strong contender.

The primary is August 2, and it could be quite interesting.

Nevada

Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is the incumbent and is considered to be in some danger of losing her seat to whoever wins the Republican primary, which recent polls suggest will be Adam Laxalt, a former Nevada Attorney General; the primary is this Tuesday. However, her position with the Latino community appears strong, and general polls suggest a great deal of indecision.

Conventional wisdom has Masto losing, but I suspect, absent the black swan of doom, Masto will win this with surprising ease.

New Hampshire

The incumbent is Democrat and Senator Maggie Hassan. In her 2016 race, she upset incumbent Kelly Ayotte (R) by .14%, a painfully close race. Nor is New Hampshire a traditional Democratic stronghold.

And, finally, opinion is mixed. Crowd Wisdom, which is unfamiliar to me, believes Hassan is well-positioned to win reelection; conservative National Review, in an older article, thinks she’s in trouble. With the primary in September, Hassan’s opponent is undetermined.

We’ll just have to wait to see if the Republicans pick a strong or weak candidate.

But it must be noted in that popular Governor Sununu (R-NH), when asked to run for the Senate, declined the opportunity. Rumor suggests he sees little opportunity in the Senate for accomplishment, which is real pushback on the strategy of Senator McConnell.

This is a gift to the Democrats. Can they capitalize?

New York

Incumbent Senator and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) has been facing the Mountain of GOP intransigence, the Lake of Manchin and Sinema Obtuseness, and the Abyss of Biden clumsiness, but he’s running again anyways. Weaker men would call it a career.

On the other hand, and hand in hand with Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA), they defeated former President Trump’s desperate attempts to force the government into bankruptcy. Schumer has a lot of good to point at.

So his path to remain in his seat includes reminding independents of his defeat of the former President, the insuperable obstacles he’s faced as Majority Leader, and what happens if he’s replaced by a Republican. Fortunately, none of his primary or general election opponents seem to have much for name recognition, and New York is generally Democratic for state-wide campaigns. Look for Schumer to retain his seat.

North Carolina

In purplish North Carolina incumbent Richard Burr (R) is vacating his seat after accusations that he may have violated ethics rules concerning stock trades made with privileged information. As the primary has come and gone, we know that the two major party candidates are former State Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley (D), who easily won her primary, and Rep Ted Budd (R), who won the GOP nomination in a come from behind overwhelming victory, following endorsement by former President Trump.

Which way to bet? Democrat Beasley definitely has a hill to climb, and the few polls out so far have varying results, from a 2 point mound to an 8 point ugly hill. But there’s still a few months for the campaigns to work their respective magics.

The other two hinges of this race may also be that of current President Biden and former President Trump. If Biden sharpens his message and his performance, independent North Carolina voters may decide to vote for Beasley as a proxy for Biden. If Biden’s Administration continues to struggle with domestic issues and fails to communicate its more-than-solid performance regarding Putin’s War, then North Carolina independents may hold their noses and vote for the Trump-endorsed Budd. Even disaffected voters for the losers of the primary – primarily former Gov Pat McCrory (R) – may vote for Budd.

But if Trump comes out of the January 6th Insurrection hearings that are currently being televised smelling like an arrogant autocrat, independent North Carolina voters may take their fury out on the Republicans by voting for Beasley.

Time will tell.

North Dakota

It’s North Dakota. Have North Dakotans become disaffected with the Republican Party when I wasn’t looking?

No.

It’s incumbent John Hoeven (R) in a walk. Assuming he survives the upcoming primary.

Ohio

Incumbent Rob Portman (R) is retiring from the Senate, and the major parties are putting forth Rep Tim Ryan (D) and J. D. Vance (R), retired Marine, lawyer and author of Hillbilly Elegy.

J. D. Vance’s On The Issues summary.

Vance has not held elective office, but he has worked for Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and state Senator Bob Schuler (R-OH), so he at least knows what’s going on. He won the party primary with merely 31.3% of the GOP vote, so there may be some question as to whether the Josh Mandell partisans, his closest rival with 24.3% of the vote, will be willing to vote for Vance, or if the battle was bitter enough to outrage them. Balancing this is an endorsement, in April, of Vance by former President Trump. However, an endorsee who only won a plurality of the vote does raise some questions about the candidate’s overall popularity with the GOP. Complicating the question is the fact that Vance transitioned from a Never Trumper to a Trump sycophant, suggesting his lust for power influences his judgment, and that he’s a right-wing extremist. The On The Issues summary of his positions, to your right, reinforces that impression.

Rep Ryan (D) is completing his twentieth year as a member of the House of Representatives, albeit for two different Ohio districts. His length of service suggests he knows how to get elected in a reddish state, although gerrymandering may also be at work here. However, he’s more than a bit to the left of moderate, as can be seen to the left.

The only poll I’ve found so far suggests Vance is up by 2 points, which is within the margin of error. In an opinion piece by Jennifer Rubin of WaPo, she quotes Matt Bennett:

Matt Bennett, of the moderate think tank Third Way, explains: “Voters in places like Ohio will have a clear choice in the Senate race: a principled moderate who has eschewed the radicals in his own party and is entirely focused on making life better for the people of the state or a completely phony proto-populist who decided that the only way to win high office as a Republican is to bend the knee to Donald Trump, lie constantly, and focus on culture war tropes and racist nonsense.”

Not exactly a nuanced, neutral view – or Vance is one mighty scumbag.

Look for this to be one of the big battlegrounds of the 2022 Senate cycle.

Oklahoma

The incumbent is James Lankford (R), who won his 2016 race by 43.1 points. He’s being primaried, but the opponents do not appear to be a serious threat, and neither do the Democrats.

It’s Oklahoma. It’ll be Senator Lankford, again, in 12 months, barring a black swan scandal.

But it’s a two-fer! Long-time Senator James Inhofe (R) will retire prior to the end of his current term, on the day that new Senators are sworn in; the special election will be held on November 8, 2022, Election Day.

The parties are putting forth former Rep Kendra Horn (D), who lost to Stephanie Bice (R) in her reelection bid in 2020, and is the default winner in the primary, while there’s a host of GOP candidates awaiting the late June primary balloting, chief among them former EPA Administrator and entrant in the Most Scandals Ever contest Scott Pruitt, and Rep Markwayne Mullin, perhaps best known for his desperate attempts to gain former President Trump’s endorsement. With a TrumpScore of 93%, he may not be sycophantic enough to overcome Pruitt’s service to the former President.

But it’s more than likely that either one of them will beat Horn in highly conservative Oklahoma. Unless the former President does, in fact, fall from grace in the near future.

Oregon

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has had 26 years in the US Senate, and he’s gunning for another six years. In 2016 he won reelection by an overwhelming 23 points. Do have the Republicans have a selection which will appeal to the power-holding independents?

I don’t think so. The winner of the GOP primary is Jo Rae Perkins, who won with only 33% of the primary voters, indicating dissension in the ranks. Her electoral experience consists of running for and failing to win elective office. Most importantly, her On The Issues chart, to the reader’s right, indicates a far-right partisan unlikely to appeal to independents.

Absent the black swan, this is incumbent Wyden’s in a walk.

Pennsylvania

Toomey may not have had the mouth of Senator Cruz, but he’s arguably farther right than the most disliked member of the Senate.

The race for the open seat of retiring far-right Senator Pat Toomey (R) is possibly the most intriguing and damaged competition of the 2022 races for Federal seats, including the House seats. Indeed, it’s damn near a soap opera.

The Republicans opened with a field led by the Trump-endorsed and prominent PA Republican Sean Parnell, who was defeated in 2020 for an open House seat in a Republican-leaning district by moderate Democrat Conor Lamb. Probably due to the endorsement, Parnell’s future looked promising, but on or around Nov 23, 2021, he withdrew from the race entirely after losing custody of his children to his estranged wife after being accused of hurting both wife and children, which he denied.

Mehment Oz’s On The Issues summary.

With a prime member of the PA GOP’s Steel Curtain suddenly out of the running, Dr. Mehmet Oz, also known as TV’s Dr. Oz, a surgeon who dispenses medical advice on television, joined the race a few days later. Does he have a residence in Pennsylvania? He does in a few other States, but not Pennsylvania. He holds dual citizenship with the USA and Turkey, has been accused multiple times, credibly, of dispensing inferior medical advice, as well as flip-flopping on positions. Nor is he a moderate that would appeal to moderates, as his On The Issues summary, to the left, indicates. I do have to wonder how accurate it is, though, as he has no prior elective experience, only statements.

But he’s not the only opportunist, as David McCormick also joined the fray in January of 2022. A Wall Street inhabitant, he also has a military background and served in positions in government.

But wait, there’s more! As the primary date neared, comparative unknown Kathy Barnette, breathing far-right fire, surged in the polls and seemed to be positioning herself to slide by the two leaders, Oz and McCormick, by using her ideological appeal and even a diss of the former President. That latter tactic may have been a mistake.

In the Republican primary showdown, the counts, recounts, and litigation took quite a while to resolve, but Dr. Oz slipped past McCormick by a mere 951 votes in the end. Barnette faded badly, but at least she didn’t start screaming about vote rigging, unlike this defeated candidate in Arizona.

Among the Democrats, the contest counted four entrants in the end, but the real contest was expected to be between the aforementioned Rep Conor Lamb, coming off of one giant-killing in 2020, and Lt. Governor John Fetterman, who, at 6′ 9″ tall, is a credible giant, bald, and covered in tatoos.

But I think anyone who has seen Fetterman on stage or read his responses to Republicans over the years is well aware that he’s a charismatic individual who comes across as authentic, much like Jesse Ventura did during his successful run for the Minnesota Governor’s seat as an independent in 1998.

But there was more drama to come, as Fetterman ended up in the hospital just a few days before May 17, Primary Day in Pennsylvania. Initially reported as a mild stroke, brought on by ignoring medical advice, it turned out to be much more serious. Would that affect the primary?

Oh, it probably did, but Rep Lamb’s giant-killing ways still came to a stop with a surprising 32 point loss to the Lt. Governor.

But will Fetterman’s campaign’s decision to underplay his medical condition affect some voters? Some – maybe many – appreciate knowing medical details of their political representatives – even if FDR had polio and didn’t advertise it. That was an era when medical problems were far more common, and political candidates were expected to persevere and hope the divine would carry them through. That’s not today.

John Fetterman’s On The Issues summary.

Fetterman, unlike Oz, has relatively little to worry about in the scandal department, or at least so far as we know, unless Oz can somehow find a way to attack Fetterman’s support for fracking, a position which will make Democrats deeply uneasy, but will appeal to a certain class of Pennsylvanians. Oz would be wise to forget that target, because Oz will be the target of many unhappy revelations, at least for those who haven’t followed his career. Pennsylvania famously went for Biden by 1.17% in the 2020 Presidential election, and, even more importantly, far-right retiring Senator Toomey won in 2016 by only 1.5 points – against a relative unknown. If the Democrats had a better-known candidate in 2016, Toomey might have spent the last 5.5 years watching from the sidelines. Fetterman may be that candidate.

Fetterman’s health and opacity makes this pick a bit of a wildcard, but I still like Fetterman’s chances. Look for the Democrats to pick up this seat, especially if McCormick’s partisans were embittered losing to Mehmet Oz.

South Carolina

Incumbent Senator Tim Scott (R) is running again. Having won in 2016 by 23 points, and not stepped in any potholes since then, I expect to see Senator Scott in the Senate again a year from now.

South Dakota

Incumbent Senator John Thune (R) is running again. In 2022, he won by 43 points, and there’s little reason to believe the South Dakotan and high ranking Republican leader in the Senate, and who won 73+% of the votes in the GOP primary, won’t be victorious again come this November.

No matter how much the former President hates him.

Utah

In what would otherwise be considered another limp Republican state, incumbent Senator Mike Lee (R) is facing an actual credible challenge, not from the Democrats, but from independent Evan McMullin.

McMullin has not held elective office, but has worked as chief policy director for the House Republican Conference, a credit of, perhaps, dubious worth, given the tremendous mess the GOP has for most policy issues; prior to that, he was a CIA officer. He ran for President in 2016, and in Utah he hoovered up 21.5% of the vote, which I personally think is a marvelous result.

The incumbent, Mike Lee, still faces a primary, which does not appear to be much of a challenge, and then McMullin, who has been extraordinarily endorsed by the Democrats, and Lee will have their go. McMullin is definitely a conservative, but the sort that is a Never Trumper, while Senator Lee is an ally of the former President. Lee has certainly stuck his foot in his mouth a couple of times, exhibiting views that seem sophisticated and insightful, but they were neither, simply convenient to his defense of the former President and the policy positions of the Republicans. By being allegedly deceptive about his role in the January 6th riot, he’s angered his hometown media, namely The Salt Lake Tribune.

It’s Lee, but it’ll be close, close enough that bad news for Trump could see McMullin into the Senate.

Vermont

Democratic incumbent Senator Leahy is retiring at the end of this term, so it’s a free-for-all for this seat. The primary is August 9th. At present, the scant polls suggest Democratic Rep Peter Welch is in a commanding position, but there are still months to go.

But President Biden won Vermont by 35 points. I expect we’ll see a Democrat win this seat.

Washington

Tiffany Smiley’s On The Issues summary.

Long time incumbent Democratic Senator Patty Murray is running again. In 2016, she won by a commanding 18 points, but here in 2022 some sources are trying to talk up a challenge by Tiffany Smiley (R). Smiley’s a moderate, which suggests she may appeal to Washington independent voters, but Murray is a known and presumably comfortable quantity. The sources are, I think, wishful rather than realistic. This poll gives Murray a commanding lead.

Look for Murray to retain her seat.

But I think the real point of interest is that Washington uses a “top-two” primary system. All qualifying candidates, regardless of party affiliation, are listed on the primary ballot, and the top two vote-getters then move on to the general election. This has the potential to remove extremists, conservative and liberal, who are not palatable to the general voter, leaving at least one of the top two to be of a moderate mien; if there is no incumbent, then both may be moderates.

But it depends on a sufficient turnout. If Smiley is, in fact, promoted to the general election, that suggests that the far-right extremists, despite the racket they make, are only a small portion of the general conservative faction of the American electorate.

Wisconsin

Republican incumbent Ron Johnson (R) is running for reelection, and in so doing breaking a vow to only serve two terms. I don’t think that matters much to his partisans, and probably not to the Wisconsin electorate.

But it’s of a piece with the story of Senator Johnson. Over the last two or three years, he’s been slowly descending, in the eyes of this independent, into the depths of dementia or, at best, exceptionally poor judgement. He’s promoted vacuous, false claims of cures for Covid-19, crank conspiracy theories, election-denying attacks on our election system, ridiculous anti-Democrat memes, unjustified diminutions of the effects of what appears to be the imminent overturning of Roe v Wade, and generally seems to have a screw loose.

I’m not kidding. This isn’t vituperation; he is simply that bad.

Will he even survive the primary? There’s a long list of Republicans on the primary ballot, eager to take him down, and that suggests a widespread recognition that the Senator is a liability and not an asset in the US Senate. However, I have not found any polls for Johnson and his intra-party rivals.

Nor have I for the Democrats among themselves.

However, I have found a couple of polls of Johnson vs selected Democrats, namely Lt. Governor and former State Assemblyman Mandela Barnes, who comes out even, and former State Assemblyman Tom Nelson, who comes out with a 4 point advantage.

Johnson won reelection in 2016 by 3+ points, but this time around he has an extra burden to bear: the Wisconsin GOP. They have proven to be a pack of Trump sycophants and extremists, having wasted millions of dollars on recounts and incompetent, even infantile investigations, and demanded Wisconsin Speaker of the House Robin Vos revert the 2020 Presidential election results, which would be illegal, as Vos himself recognized. He was booed for telling the truth. All of these fourth-rater blunders have been well-advertised by an outraged Wisconsin media.

Between that and Johnson’s outright non-mainstream and irrational behaviors, it’s hard to see the independents voting him back to the Senate again. If the Democrats select a reasonably strong candidate and Johnson beats his rivals in the primary, I expect the Democrats to tip this state.

And that’s it. I’m too tired to count, but my impression is that, as one might expect given the imbalance in seats to defend, the Republicans have two-four more seats that may be taken by Democrats (or, in Utah, independent Evan McMullin) than do the Democrats have at risk. Worse yet, it’s hard to pick which Republican is at worst risk, the empty seat in Pennsylvania, Senator Johnson in Wisconsin, or even Senator Grassley in Iowa.

Months to go, scandals to come. I hope you enjoyed my analyses.

Is this actually water?

Blue Team Tip: when investigating a potential security breach clean all of the servers with a high powered water hose pic.twitter.com/jbLg4SpSHG

— vx-underground (@vxunderground) May 23, 2022

Or do they have a vermin infestation?

Umbonate:

An umbo is a softly curved bump in a flat cap. A cap with an umbo is said to be umbonate, as in the two larger mushrooms at the left [omitted]. The two small mushrooms at the right [omitted] have a central bump on a convex pileus, and are said to be campanulate, or bell-shaped. In this case, the bump is usually not considered a separate feature. [The Journal of Wild Mushrooming]

Noted in this video from gingerpale:

Don’t take Literally too literally.

Perry Bacon, Jr. is dismayed that the Democrats are improperly blaming, in his opinion, progressives and their policies for jumps in the crime rate:

It’s clear, though, that two things did not cause this increase: “reform prosecutors” like Boudin and the “defund the police” movement. Few cities have actually reduced their police budgets, and homicide rate increases happened in many cities that increased spending. [WaPo]

Questions that do not reduce to simple laboratory setups are tough to work on, and I say that as a software engineer that occasionally has to work on problems that only my customer sees because of some customization they have developed and applied.

What to do?

Restate the question. The question is, Does defunding the police lead to higher crime rates? Well, in at least some locations, we have higher crime rates. So is there anything interesting about any of these locations that we can connect to the question we’re asking?

Remember that actions often have unstated goals. This is not to say that they’re always covert, because sometimes, in a political arena, a bit of snappiness in the verbiage is often an advantage. Defund the police was snappy until it wasn’t.

So what is the covert goal of this slogan? The decidedly longer and less snappy Reduce police presence on the street! Yes, including the exclamation point.

At this point, I’ll note that I’m located in a first ring suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, with Minneapolis just across the river. We get crime reports on the local news every night; the local major paper, the StarTribune, carries more detailed reports and historical data, as does Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). But I can’t speak for other cities, and don’t.

Minneapolis is known to have decisively rejected a Defund the police! proposal in its last election cycle. But Minneapolis, and St. Paul, are also known for exhibiting a depleted police force. Me from somewhat more than a year ago:

And this at a time when, in Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) appears to be struggling with morale in the wake of the George Floyd riots and a city council that tried, but failed, to “defund” it in the wake of the George Floyd homicide. Officers have retired or gone on disability in the wake of the riots, and they’re not being replaced at a comparable rate. Here’s MPR News:

There are far fewer police officers patrolling the streets of Minneapolis so far this year than city officials anticipated. Members of a City Council committee Thursday approved $6.4 million for the city’s Police Department to hire dozens more officers this year.

Chief Medaria Arradondo told the committee that 105 officers left the department last year, which is more than double the average attrition rate. And so far this year, 155 officers are on leave and are not available for duty.

Ominously:

“This presents operational challenges for me as chief,” said Arradondo, adding that the department is becoming one-dimensional, meaning officers mostly respond to 911 calls instead of doing what he calls proactive policing.

Minneapolis may not have defunded the police, but it’s beyond dispute that the goal of the slogan was achieved – with disastrous consequences.

I’m not going to claim that Bacon is being deceptive or disingenuous, because analysis of this sort isn’t always obvious. Much like grifters, wordsmiths can be taken in by the very craft in which they’re trained. Defund the police!, for all its charisma, turns out to be a lot less attractive when it’s goal is stated, instead: Reduce police presence on the street!, because residents who must face the consequences have rejected it. Here in the Twin Cities, after an appalling couple of years, we seem to be just starting to edge out of the crime wave. I’ll be interested to see if there’s a correlation between police on the street and the flattening out, even beginning to dip again, of crime rates.

I just finished watching the first televised meeting of the January 6th panel, including the testimony of the embedded documentarian, Nick Quested, as well as injured police officer Edwards. I suppose I should have live blogged it, but I wasn’t up for it.

And, for the most part, there was nothing new, with the exception of the video footage of the witnesses who testified to the committee, the video footage of some of the rioters, standing trial or prepping for trial, remarking on their motivations, and some of the footage of the riot.

And the latter is quite violent. Three points came to mind while I watched all this firsthand footage:

1. There were only a couple of thousand rioters present, it seems to me. This wasn’t a mob of even tens of thousands, much less what the former President would have us believe. Just a couple of thousand, give or take. That’s enough to overwhelm an ill-prepared police force denied backup, yes, but even with sympathizers scattered throughout the nation, this is no Moral Majority-equivalent. Malcontents is closer to it.
2. Building on that, these folks are sadly lacking in critical-thinking faculties. They were disappointed in the results, the loser shrieks it was rigged, and rather than calmly exploring that possibility, or accepting that the courts, who are charged, in effect, to be our proxies in matters such as these, and the courts universally ruled against the loser on all substantive matters, they took the loser at his word and tried to force the result they wanted. They should have realized that Trump claiming it was statistically impossible for him to lose doesn’t make it so.
3. I forget. If I remember, I’ll publish an addendum.

I must say that splitting time between the Democrats and the Republicans, in the persons of Chairman Thompson (D-MS) and Rep Cheney (R-WY) was very effective.

The question, though, is what will independents who’ve been trying to ignore the matter going to make of this? I know the Republican pundits will all try very hard to discredit it, which is why I’ll just ignore them.

But independents are the key to power these days.

Addendum: #3: For the good of the nation, as well as his conscience, Rep Andrew “they were just tourists!” Cyde (R-GA) should resign immediately. And go into seclusion. His remarks on the matter at the time are incredibly shameful.

For a few days we’ll be enjoying PURPLE!

After the movie flopped, they formed a barbershop quartet. Sadly, they could only get gigs on Skid Row.

If you’re a Bela Lugosi completist and haven’t seen Murder By Television (1935), well, I’m sorry to say you won’t be enjoying this addition to his body of work. In this story of corporate greed blown up to murderous proportions, Prof. James Houghland has invented a new capability in the area of television transmissions. When he won’t sell to any of the interested corporate interests, he’s murdered, as is Scott Perry (Lugosi), who interferes and is paid off for it.

Except when he reappears, animated and stern.

Yeah, it’s the old, lugubrious “He’s my brother” trick, a deux ex machina which is the shiniest example of the flaws in this snoozer. We’ve got a reporter who keeps breaking into a house guarded by police detectives, which contributes exactly zero to the plot; at least three different offensive stereotypes; a bunch of ladies who do absolutely nothing for the plot; magic codes; a death ray built on gibberish; and, well, skipping the rest of these painful flaws, if you make it to the end, it’ll only be because this one’s relatively short.

The shorter the better.

A message the Democrats should use in communicating with the electorate is inspired by Steve Benen’s commentary on what is passing for a Republican plan for responding to anthropogenic climate change. First, it’s Benen:

[From The New Republic’s Kate Aronoff] The six pillars themselves are a grab bag of buzzwords presumably harvested from the party’s favorite think tanks and trade associations: “Unlock American Resources,” “Let America Build,” “American Innovation,” “Beat China and Russia,” “Conservation With a Purpose,” and “Build Resilient Communities.” The policies therein, accordingly, are the same things Republicans have been asking for for as long as anyone can remember.

The blueprint barely exists in any meaningful way: House Republican leaders issued a relatively brief press release, noting the six prongs of their climate vision, accompanied by a two-page document calling for more oil drilling. (Aronoff added that the document “exists mainly as a chaotically formatted two-page list of talking points.”) …

Ultimately, however, much of the right scrapped each of these talking points and simply concluded that global warming was “the biggest hoax ever put over on the American public.” The idea of addressing the climate crisis wasn’t just rejected, it was derided by GOP officials as ridiculous.

Yep, that Republican plan reflects my view of the Republican Party: a pack of fourth-raters. My apologies to those long-time readers who tire of my repetition on the subject.

But this ‘plan’ highlights an opening that seems to have been overlooked by the Democrats, even a strategy. Here’s my suggestion (and I hope I’m being redundant with some message crafter in the Democratic Party):

VIDEO: SCENE OPENS with two to three scenes of massive wildfires from the fires of Australia, 2019-2020.

VOICEOVER: This is Australia. It’s burning, unlike anything seen before. Climate scientists believe this is due to humanity-caused climate change.

Ask Australians. Before 2019, they were four-square behind their fossil fuel industries.

Today? They booted out fossil-fuel backing Prime Minister Scott Morrison, along with his Party, for refusing to acknowledge that their nation and environment was badly damaged by climate change powered by fossil fuels.

For refusing to act like rational adults.

Democrats have been warning about humanity-caused climate change for years, and we’ve watched world-wide average temperatures climb, just as predicted.

VIDEO: Insert movies of the worst California wildfires.

VOICEOVER: Do we have to wait until the California wildfires overrun our entire nation before the Republicans begin acting like rational adults?

Or you can vote Democratic on Election Day and begin working on the problem now. This won’t be pain-free, but, together, we can solve this problem.

There ya go.

This is all – meaning the last few years – beginning to feel like sitting in on a Master’s class in grifting. Here’s the latest I’ve run across:

The beleaguered cryptocurrency industry, although it might disagree about being in trouble, has been thrown a lifeline:

A highly anticipated Senate proposal to bring the freewheeling cryptocurrency industry under federal oversight would deliver a win for the sector by empowering its preferred regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), over the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The bill’s sponsors, Sens. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), are touting it as the first serious effort to apply comprehensive regulation to the crypto industry, which has minted a new class of billionaires and promised to reinvent financial services while also spawning scams and investor wipeouts that have raised regulators’ alarms. [WaPo]

While there’s blather about whether the SEC or the CFTC should be in charge, the point here is that there is official recognition of the industry, in a positive manner, by Senators.

Senators who will now be inclined to run interference for the industry.

It has many months before it is signed into law, if ever. But now there are some, in official positions, apt to protect the industry from being, say, stamped out.

Physiatrist:

Physical medicine and rehabilitation, also known as physiatry, is a branch of medicine that aims to enhance and restore functional ability and quality of life to people with physical impairments or disabilities. This can include conditions such as spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, strokes, as well as pain or disability due to muscle, ligament or nerve damage. A physician having completed training in this field may be referred to as a physiatrist. [Wikipedia]

New one on me. Noted in “How long covid could change the way we think about disability,” Frances Stead Sellers, WaPo:

Alba Azola, a physiatrist at Johns Hopkins, said helping long-covid patients make that transition is one of the most challenging parts of her job as co-director of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Post Acute Covid Team Clinic.

WaPo notes how often mass shootings are perpetrated by, well, young adults:

“Age is the untold story of all this stuff,” said [Vanderbilt University psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl], who is also a sociologist. “I feel very strongly we should not have people [ages] 18 to 21 with guns.”

A key omission is the police. As far as I’m concerned, the youngest a police cadet should be is somewhere in their 28th year or so, when the brain has finished its wiring and the adult has some experience with the world, a chance to shed some of those delusions that just about all of us, including me, have as we enter legal, if not physical, maturity.

“You said this would be a good movie!” he balled, throwing a strike. The umpire, due to a hand clutching at his throat, failed to call the runner out, leaving the running back the freedom to run. [The balance of this three page paragraph has been omitted for reasons of taste. It didn’t taste good. Oh, shut up, you! No, you shut up! Sheesh, it’s hard to get good help these days!]

But. There are some well known actors present. If you’re a Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, F. Murray Abraham, Robbie Coltrane, or Ben Kingsley completist, you may have to see this.

You have my condolences.

AL-Monitor reports on Turkey’s problems with its economy:

Turkey’s consumer inflation has hit a 24-year high of 73.5% and the Turkish lira has lost 49% of its value since September as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pursued a controversial policy to lower interest rates and promote growth at the expense of inflation spiraling out of control.

Ouch. Maybe we’re doing better than expected. Although, honestly, I didn’t understand this next paragraph:

Consumer prices rose 2.98% in May to bring annual inflation to 73.5%, the highest since 1998, according to data released Friday by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK).

A big recovery for the consumer?

The monthly rate was below the projections of economists, rekindling a debate on how reliable the official data is. The median estimates in polls conducted by Reuters and the state-run Anatolia news agency had stood at 4.8% and 5.49%, respectively. Many observers also noted that TUIK, whose chief was controversially fired earlier this year, stopped releasing detailed price tables this month.

So hard to say. Maybe I’ll ask my Arts Editor to return to a former life as a banker, spiritually speaking, and interpret this for me.

Or will she die laughing at that entire idea?

Greenslide:

(no definition found)

Noted in “Australia votes for stronger climate action in ‘greenslide’ election,” Alice Klein, NewScientist (28 May 2022, paywall):

Australia’s election on 21 May has been described as a “greenslide” after voters abandoned the long-standing pro-coal Liberal-National Coalition government in droves in favour of candidates that support stronger action on climate change.

That helps.

I was fascinated to see this article in WaPo, starting off with:

Charles Komanoff was for decades an expert witness for groups working against nuclear plants, delivering blistering critiques so effective that he earned a spot at the podium when tens of thousands of protesters descended on Washington in 1979 over the Three Mile Island meltdown.

Komanoff would go on to become an unrelenting adversary of Diablo Canyon, the hulking 37-year-old nuclear facility perched on a pristine stretch of California’s Central Coast that had been the focal point of anti-nuclear activism in America. But his last letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in February, was one Komanoff never expected to write. He implored Newsom to scrap state plans to close the coastal plant.

“We’re going to have to give up some of our long-held beliefs if we are going to deal with climate,” Komanoff said in an interview. “I am still a solar and wind optimist. But I am a climate pessimist. The climate is losing.”

Komanoff’s conversion is emblematic of the rapidly shifting politics of nuclear energy. The long controversial power source is gaining backers amid worries that shutting U.S. plants, which emit almost no emissions, makes little sense as governments race to end their dependence on fossil fuels and the war in Ukraine heightens worries about energy security and costs. The momentum is driven in large part by longtime nuclear skeptics who remain unsettled by the technology but are now pushing to keep existing reactors running as they face increasingly alarming news about the climate.

It’s indicative that, despite the proclamations of some cultural warriors, the left can be flexible when reality gets ready to hit them in the face.

But, of course, that doesn’t mean nuclear energy, even though I’m in favor of exploring it further, is part of the future. Reporter Michael Brooks in NewScientist (28 May 2022, paywall) explores the cloudy future of nuclear energy and comes to an ambivalent conclusion:

It remains to be seen if such innovations can pick up the slack. And herein lies the problem when it comes to making your mind up on nuclear: so much depends on things we don’t know for sure. On the one hand, why bother with it, given its drawbacks, if we can meet our net-zero targets with nothing but renewables? “I tend to believe we can do 100 per cent renewables,” says [M. V. Ramana at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver]. On the other hand, why put all your eggs in one basket? “It’s not an either-or situation: we’ve got to do them both,” says [Jacopo Buongiorno, director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at MIT]. Even among those with all the facts at their disposal, those fault lines remain. Add in the fact that nuclear weapons make things even more complicated (see “The weapons connection“), and it is clear why nothing is clear. Whatever call we make, some people will say it is wrong. The only thing we can do is be sure that we don’t make the call too late.

But the flexibility displayed by Komanoff is key. Nothing is guaranteed, but keeping an open mind and exploring options is part of the overall strategy of survival – not clinging to ideological/theological positions.

No, not that sort – this sort:

I HATED the Salinger story. It took me days to go through it, gingerly, a page at a time, and blushing with embarrassment for him every ridiculous sentence of the way. How can they let him do it? That horrible self-consciousness, every sentence comments on itself and comments on itself commenting on itself, and I think it was actually supposed to be funny. And if the poems were so good, why not just give us one or two and shut up, for God’s sake?

Elizabeth Bishop on J. D. Salinger’s Seymour: An Introduction
Letter to Pearl Kazin
9th September 1959

More here at Letters of Note.

You’re an alien ship full of unknown armament. Me? I have a machine gun. Ready, set … run!

Battleship (2012), purportedly based on the old plastic/board game popularized by the admission, You sank my battleship!, is actually a surprisingly good example of the alien invasion genre, by which I mean I thought it would be atrocious, and it actually held my attention, as well as my Art Editor’s.

Why? Partially because the aliens are not entirely inscrutable. While it’s not completely clear why they came in response to signals from Earth, and certainly they shouldn’t have arrived as quickly as they did, when they do arrive, they lose their communications ship to a collision, and that shapes their subsequent actions.

It makes sense.

Nor are they irritatingly impregnable. The three guided missile cruisers that have the pleasure of the first encounter, while not successful in stopping the aliens, do inflict significant damage on the alien ships.

Amusingly – at least for this obsolete old software engineer – their computers have bugs just like Earthly computers have bugs. And misclassification is a bitch.

Finally, the Earth forces, finding themselves at a disadvantage at several turns while on a desperate mission to save the world, find impressively clever ways around their problems.

Sure, this isn’t perfect. Beyond the usual credulity problems associated with the genre, the lead character is an excruciatingly example of the smart guy who makes bad decision after bad decision, and the Why of that is never quite clarified. The actor who plays the lead, Taylor Kitsch, I’ve only seen, to my knowledge, in one other movie – John Carter (2012) – and I didn’t like him in either flick. Not that I need to personally like him, but in both movies he just doesn’t play the role convincingly. But the supporting actors, I felt, did a good job, playing their roles both earnestly and professionally. While a hidden grin or two is sometimes acceptable, I didn’t sense them here. Roles are played straight.

It’s not an awful movie, which makes its nomination for several of Razzie awards puzzling. I’ve sat through some truly dreadful movies, far worse than this or, for that matter, the aforementioned John Carter, and I truly didn’t feel Battleship needed to be dissed in this way. Perhaps some folks objected to its purported and far-fetched origins.

And don’t forget. The original Battleship game had more than battleships. It had subs and cruisers and an aircraft carrier.

And a mighty battleship.

If you like the alien invasion genre, Independence Day (1996) may set the bar, and Battleship doesn’t quite get over it. But on its own it’s a fun little flick to watch.