Unsightly Mental Blemishes

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

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

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

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

But does he understand that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cabinet Secretaries begin to gather.

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

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

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

Jennifer Griffin is a Fox News host:

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

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

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

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

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

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

   A fundamental immaturity.

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

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

Direct and immediate satiation of egotistical needs.

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

An interesting article.

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

Inoculum:

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

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

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

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

Next, a paintbrush.

Washing may require some extra work.

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

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

ADMIN NOTE

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

POLLING, POLLING, POLLING

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

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

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

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

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

POLLING, POLLING, POLLING, Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

POLLING, POLLING, POLLING, Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps not.

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

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

PLAYING FAVORITES

How will this affect voters?

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

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

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

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

DOWN IN THE TRENCHES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Paxton’s woes continue to accumulate with this announcement:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I think we need another poll in Kansas.

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

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

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

  Another unknown pollster, ECU Poll, is less certain:

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

  ECU is East Carolina University.

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

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

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

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

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

POLLING, POLLING, POST …

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

ANY MOVEMENTS ON THE FLIP LIST?

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

Ratify:

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

[Dictionary.com]

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

A JWST pic of Saturn.

Source: JWST.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Former Rep George Santos (R-NY).

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

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

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

Ya gotta love it:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s not.

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

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

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

Source: yahoo!

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

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

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

Cathemeral:

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

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

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

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

Yes, that’s very high level and rough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Endearing, yes. Thought provoking, no.

Another threat from the President, this one not involving Iran:

President Donald Trump on Friday demanded that the Federal Reserve slash interest rates or else he will cut off trade with countries with which the U.S. maintains trade deficits.

Trump issued the sweeping ultimatum in a Truth Social post reacting to a much-stronger-than-expected monthly jobs report by urging the central bank and its chairman, Kevin Warsh, to “get smart” and cut rates. [CNBC]

From a home in the extended family, if memory serves.

A week out on his RNC, (you’ll have to dig around in that post) and he may be just discovering Republicans are dubious about attending; and then add in his fading and twisted endorsement power with which he loses even when he wins, with such failures as Senate nominee Ken Paxton (R-TX) and Senator Husted’s (R-OH) apparently failing reelection bid; and a Republican Party that is beginning to realize that November could be quite embarrassing. If he’s perceived as continually weak, attendance will be sparse, potential allies may insert distance, and minions, through which he projects power, could walk away rather than risk, well, jail at worst, and that’s fairly awful, especially when Trump is out of power.

So he’s flailing at the metaphorical control panel, pulling levers and yelling orders and threats, hoping to regain some of his perceived power. Like most arrogant amateurs, it doesn’t matter how much he fails, he still thinks he’s invincible and, in this case, dropping interest rates will somehow spur the economy without increasing an inflation rate already making voters uneasy.

That’s right. If he gets his way, an increasing inflation rate might finish him off.

Federal Reserve Chairman Warsh was nominated, quite recently, by President Trump, and confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate on a 51-45 vote. That said, Warsh does not seem to qualify as Trump’s creature, as he’s not advanced proposals to lower inflation rates, but rather held them steady while hinting they might go up.

Consequently, Trump may be saved from himself by Warsh, only to go into an RNC that makes him look awful anyways. This is what happens to the mendacious amateur. They’re idiots.

Erick Erickson still seems optimistic about the election:

[The late Texas Governor] Ann Richards [(D-TX)] understood something the President’s PAC does not. Voters do not cast ballots as a thank you note. They cast them out of fear of what comes next. President Trump deserves credit for a secured border and for breaking Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz. He will not get a single vote he does not already have for either one. Tell people what the other side will do to them, and many will crawl over glass to stop it. The GOP must remember that President Trump is overwhelmingly disliked by the country as a whole and by the independent voters who will decide this election. But, my friends, Democrats are still absolutely despised. In a race between what people dislike and what people despise, dislike can win.

Ignoring Erickson’s ludicrous remark concerning the Strait of Hormuz, his remark about people despising the Democrats is important. But is it true?

Source: Gallup.

Democrats are tied with Republicans, and at the unattractive end of the scale with 27% apiece. I think Erickson has it right, and that Democrats who are feeling confident about the upcoming midterms would better spend their time analyzing why they don’t have more appeal than do the fourth-raters in the Republican Party.

But can Republicans organize a comeback? Like I says, fourth-raters: of course they can’t. Democrats will spend the next two years celebrating their big mid-term victory and fail to use that time to reconsider and reform.

It’s a merry-go-round, I tell ya!

CONTINUING IN THE ROLE

Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK) confirms the presence of an anchor caught in the coral reef:

“The challenge that we have is that we have to get over the narrative that ‘I don’t like this guy, so I’m going to vote for the Democrat,’” said Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), according to audio obtained by The Bulwark. “Because I’m telling you right now, I’m hearing it already.”

“And what happens is that’ll impact me because . . . two things will either happen,” Bice added. “They’re going to vote for the Democrat and they may split [the] ticket and vote for me and a few others, or—this is my bigger fear right now—people don’t go vote.” [The Bulwark]

So an awareness that the poison that is Trump is pervading the Republican field and will cost them seats. Will Democrats figure this out? Or are their weaknesses going to doom them to look helpless?

Here’s the interesting part: dealing with the enraged Party leader. The more room GOP candidates seek to put between themselves and their President, the more likely he’ll be provoked and start yelling. After all, Party candidates avoiding contact with him is not congruent with an ego-satisfying vision of him being the well-beloved Leader who is saving America.

While I expect Republicans will move with delicacy in this matter, we may still see the Republican Party melt down before the midterms, and that would be quite shocking.

What might be the flame that starts the fire?

MICE TO THEIR STARTING STALLS!

Each racing mouse will be equipped with a 10 microgram weight around their waists to equalize the injustice of being born.

• Texas continues to be a highlight of the 2026 Senate races. First up, a specific poll from Texas Southern University that MediaIte sums up:
  

  The pollsters surveyed 700 likely voters in both TX-15 and TX-34, resulting in a margin of error of +/- 3.70%, and 600 likely voters in TX-28, with a margin of error of +/- 4.00%.

  In TX-15, which Trump won by 18 points in 2024, 50% of respondents chose [Democratic nominee James] Talarico and 42% [Republican nominee Ken] Paxton; TX-28, which Trump won by 10, was Talarico 51% and Paxton 41%; and TX-34, which Trump won by 10, was Talarico 53% and Paxton 42%.

  It’s like winning a special election: How much does this mean? Hard to say, but the boding is not well for Paxton, I think.

  I see one of the two, the report is ambiguous, also agree concerning a Trump endorsement:

  … the downward drag of Trump and the GOP’s poor polling on key issues like immigration and the economy.

  Click on the above MediaIte link to see the legendary Nate Silver’s rating of Texas. I’m surprised there’s been no mention of a good ol’ curseout in reaction by the President.

  Some Republican pundits, including my preferred Republican commentator, Erick Erickson, are plumb disgusted with Paxton – and, by implication, the Texas GOP:

  The only thing for which Paxton has ever shown prodigious energy is philandery and possibly corruption. He is a lazy candidate in a heated race, and laziness is not a flaw you can fundraise your way around. In the primary, I argued that Paxton could beat John Cornyn and that dragging the man across the finish line in November could cost Republicans the Senate. We have arrived at that moment.

  No doubt I stole that observation from Erickson way back when I suggested Paxton would be a mighty blow to the GOP cause. Honestly, while Trump’s endorsement was not a surprise, as he prefers weak asses that he can control in the important seats of Congress, the Texas GOP nominating Paxton, endorsement or no, was completely gobsmacking. Every primary voter who marked Paxton on their ballot should never be allowed a position of importance in the future.

  Unknown pollster Overton Insights has the two candidates in a dead-heat at 43.4% for Paxton and 44.0% for Talarico, take that for what you will.

  But can Talarico beat Paxton? In another post, Erickson notes a Tweet from some dude named Andrew Kaczynski:

  NEW: In a 2020 Zoom forum with climate activists, James Talarico spoke of “dismantling” capitalism, grouping it with White supremacy and climate change.
  In the same forum, he compared Texas’ oil industry to “cassette tapes,” saying it’s “not gonna last.”

  If this is, in fact, true, then Talarico’s going to have a helluva time winning in a State that practically worships capitalism – and for good reason.

• Were you thinking the lineup for the general election for the seat of the late South Carolina Senator L. Graham (R), now occupied by his sister Senator D. Graham (R), was set? You’re just a wee bit premature:
  

  Coming off a close loss in the Republican Senate primary, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman suggested that voters write his name in as their choice in the November general election. …

  Speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 31, Norman said “it was just shocking to me” that President Donald Trump got personally involved in the primary. [Greenville News]

  At least one political analyst thinks the political dynamic could change if Norman strongly dedicates himself to a tour of the State.

• The 1 September primary for the Senator’s seat for Massachusetts yielded a Democratic result of incumbent Senator Markey (D) 65.6%, Rep Moulton (R) 34.4%; Republican Michael Deaton (R) ran unopposed.

  Interestingly, Emerson College released a poll on 30 August and came to a 65% to 35% result. A 26 August poll from the University of New Hampshire had Markey winning 63% – 28%. Some redemption for other primary divergences.

  Perhaps this did in Moulton?

  In Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary in deep blue Massachusetts, longtime Sen. Ed Markey is harking back to those [Boston Tea Party] roots as he pitches himself to voters as the anti-establishment candidate against Rep. Seth Moulton – despite arriving to Washington just three years after Joe Biden did in 1973. [CNN via yahoo!]

• In Iowa, does this mar Republican Rep Hinson’s (R) run for Iowa’s open seat in the Senate?
  

  Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, a congresswoman pitching herself as a warrior against special interests in Iowa, and her husband, Matt Arenholz, have deep ties to the insurance industry, with Arenholz owning millions worth of interest in a private equity-backed brokerage.

  Documents reviewed by NOTUS reveal Arenholz also held a government affairs post at a leading insurance industry lobbying group, which has not been previously reported. He helped arrange meetings with Hinson and other Iowa congressional delegation members, the documents indicate. [NOTUS]

  I’m not feeling that surge of outrage, unless Hinson has empasized her alleged lack of ties to special interest groups. Nor am I aware of Iowa’s feelings on that particular subject. I always figure politicians have links to special interest groups simply out of necessity; the mistake is taking positions in them or advice from them without critical thought. This may have an impact on a very tight race, but it’ll be hard to measure.

  Speaking of tight races, unknown pollster Wedgewood Polls gives Rep Hinson a 50% – 48% lead over Josh Turek. The margin of error is specified as a largish ±4.6 points.

• Michigan State University measures Michigan Democratic candidate for Senate Abdul El-Sayed as leading Republican former Rep Mike Rogers (R), 48% – 44%.
• Incumbent Senator Ben Ray Luján (D) leads the write-in winner of the Republican primary, Larry Marker (R), 53% – 38% in New Mexico according to an Albuquerque Journal poll. According to local political expert Brian Sanderoff,
  

  “Ben Ray Luján has been active in New Mexico politics for decades. … Whereas his opponent, Larry Marker, he’s not known among the average New Mexico voter. So, what we have here is sort of like a David vs. Goliath.”

  David’s not doing all that poorly, to be honest. I wonder how many conservative voters are just plumb stubborn, and how many are uncomfortable with specific positions of Senator Luján’s.

• And in Alaska, the land of Dan Sullivans, Dan Sullivan (R) has endorsed Dan Sullivan (R), incumbent Senator, instead of … Dan Sullivan (R).

  There will be a test on this later.

FIN

That should be something to think about. Are the Republicans self-destructing? I suspect so. Will the Democrats follow them down the path?

The Democrats are talking it up again, on Meet The Press (via NBC News):

KRISTEN WELKER:

Okay, well, since we are on the topic of the court, let’s speak more broadly about it. Former Vice President Kamala Harris shares some of your criticisms, clearly. She’s called for expanding the Supreme Court from nine justices to 13. Do you support adding four more seats to the Supreme Court, Congressman?

REP. JAMES CLYBURN:

Yes, I do. I think that we are in a position now that calls from some significant actions taken by the Congress, and we ought to expand — and 13 is a pretty good number. A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court. And I would hope we would get people on the court who will follow the constitutional underpinnings of this great nation of ours. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments have been interpreted different ways over the years. And we had in the Warren Court an interpretation of those amendments that I thought would be set for the future of the country. We have now a Supreme Court that has decided to reverse course, and take this country back, I say, to those rulings of Justice Taney, that said that no Black man has any rights that the white man must respect. That was the Supreme Court that made that decision. I had hoped that Clarence Thomas would follow the mordant underpinnings of that constitution of ours, but he has not done so. In fact, he’s decided to go all the way from an angry leftist to a very angry rightist.

The last time the Democrats brought this up, I cautioned that plunging ahead might alienate a significant portion of the independents because it would appear to be cheating by the Democrats. Indeed, this talk may have been a factor in the 2024 loss to the Republicans.

How about now?

Source: Pew Research Center [h/t Steve Benen].

But it’s not hard to see why Democrats feel this way, as the dominant conservative wing of the Court has been coming to conclusions that sometimes seem a bit nuts. Will this issue become a significant part of the campaign? I haven’t seen anything, yet, but there’s still time to deploy it. Or do Democrats see this as difficult to achieve with current likely outcomes of the midterms? I presume this is a legislative issue that must be signed by the President, or ignored, in order to become law.

Right winger Erick Erickson is mad:

But there is no evidence [President Trump] is invested in the Republican Party’s success, only his own. Those interests overlapped in 2016 and in 2024. They do not overlap now, and a party whose leader is optimizing for something other than its survival had better have a message of its own.

Well, yes. I think that’s been obvious for years. But Erickson is not alone, a lot of folks keep trying to interpret President Trump through a prism from decades ago. In order to understand and predict what comes next with President Trump, one first must accept the proposition that the President is mentally ill, pathologically narcissistic to quote a friend, and taking that first step when one’s Party nominated and elected him is tough on the old ego – it was incredibly bad judgment of, admittedly, an actor, by a lot of Republicans. It’s enough to make one question their judgment.

My guess for what is coming is the complete melt-down of the Republicans in this and the next elections. As Trump flies away on Trump One in January 2029, he’ll send his resignation letter to the Republicans, announce same on whatever social media platform he’s using at the time, and then a letter to the American people claiming he deliberately set fire to the Republican Party to show himself as a Great American, and, by the way, he’s now joining the Democrats as their Party Leader.

Quite possibly the Democrats will then also meltdown.

Will the replacement Parties be ready to go by then?

Zenithal:

Adjective

zenithal (not comparable)

1. 1. Of or pertaining to a zenith.
   2. (cartography, of a projection) Azimuthal.

[Wiktionary]

New one on me. Noted in this North Of The Border video, near the end, if memory serves:

When it comes to Truth API, the interim CEO McGurn’s defense against accusations of corruption seems peculiar to me:

Interim CEO Kevin McGurn at Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ:DJT) used a television appearance on CNBC to defend the company’s newest revenue product, the Truth API, describing the underlying technology as standard practice across large social platforms. Speaking on CNBC on August 24, 2026, roughly four months into the role, McGurn framed the paid data feed as a response to institutional demand and a scalable licensing opportunity for the company. …

First, he characterized the demand as organic: “This was demand that came to us from the market. So we wanted to make sure that we satisfy that demand in the most brightly lit way for us.”

Second, he described the underlying technology as commonplace across social media: “The technology is a tried and true technology that’s been in the social media system for quite some time, more than a decade. So all of your big platforms run APIs into high frequency trading platforms, news and information services, prediction markets, you name it.”

Third, he framed the 50 millisecond speed advantage as a byproduct of internet delivery paths: “His information goes out all over the internet. It starts on Truth Social. It goes to Twitter, it goes to Reddit, and it goes to Instagram and TikTok. We give a 50 millisecond advantage in that post, but that is the internet delivery, right?”

I’m not sure what to make of the third defense. Blame it on the Internet, maybe. But none of them appear to treat the subject on a moral level. “We’re just responding to demand” and “Everyone else is doing it” are not defenses, precisely, they’re like Al Capone claiming all the other Chicagoland criminal gangs are engaging in crime, so why shouldn’t his gang?

Except without saying crime.