Unsightly Mental Blemishes

It’s just like old Rome …

Yet another White House construction project is underway, though this one is meant to be only temporary.

Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn that will host next month’s UFC bout, helping mark the nation’s 250th anniversary — and President Donald Trump ‘s 80th birthday.

Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like ahead of the June 14 event. It will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.

The cage and stage will themselves be surrounded by thousands of temporary seats, including ringside space for a full marching band that can set the entire scene to blaring music. [AP]

Please, no one mention the Colosseum to the President. That’s about the last thing we need in Washington, DC.

Abscopal effect:

The abscopal effect is a hypothesis in the treatment of metastatic cancer whereby shrinkage of untreated tumors occurs concurrently with shrinkage of tumors within the scope of the localized treatment. R.H. Mole proposed the term “abscopal” (‘ab’ – away from, ‘scopus’ – target) in 1953 to refer to effects of ionizing radiation “at a distance from the irradiated volume but within the same organism”. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Red-light therapy does have health benefits but not the ones you think,” Graham Lawton, NewScientist (9 May 2026; paywall):

The research also suggests that the effects spread beyond the light-soaked mitochondria, as the small patch of skin cannot account for the large impact, says Jeffery. This may be related to the mysterious abscopal effect, a rare phenomenon in cancer radiotherapy where irradiation of a primary tumour can shrink secondary tumours located elsewhere, he says.

I CAN’T STOP WATCHING HIM FLOP

It’s all bad news for President Trump, no matter how he spins and snaps his bubble gum.

Source: Gallup.

As he flies his arrogant amateurism, “Only I can fix it” flag, the average American citizen becomes more and more stand-offish of Trump and his supporters. Then there’s the Quinnipiac University Poll:

More than two months after the U.S. launched an attack on Iran and with a jump in oil prices, one third of voters (33 percent) approve of the way President Donald Trump is handling the economy and 64 percent disapprove, the lowest approval on the economy Trump has received in either of his terms as president, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today. …

Critically,

Among independents, 70 percent disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy, while 27 percent approve.

And,

When it comes to the way President Trump is handling his job overall, 34 percent of voters approve of the way he is handling his job as president, while 58 percent disapprove.

The best part about it? I bore easily.

BUT THIS ISN’T GOOD NEWS FOR GOP HOPES

WaPo reports on the last week of legislative, ah, activity:

President Donald Trump has repeatedly bent congressional Republicans to his will, pushing his proposals through meager resistance with the threat of mobilizing the Republican base against disloyal members of his party.

This week, GOP lawmakers in both chambers indicated that their patience with that strategy may be wearing thin.

A series of setbacks on Capitol Hill — on issues spanning the Iran war, a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund and the proposed White House ballroom — illustrated simmering tensions between GOP lawmakers and the president ahead of what could be bruising midterms in November.

But more just went by despite the punishment of Indiana:

The South Carolina Senate rejected a new congressional map Tuesday that Republicans hoped would eliminate the state’s only Democratic seat, a Black-majority district represented for more than three decades by Rep. James Clyburn.

The vote against the new map — which would have helped Republicans in their quest for a clean sweep of the state’s seven congressional districts this fall — was an unexpected rebuff of President Donald Trump, who had pushed for the redistricting effort in hopes of retaining his party’s slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives past November.

The new map passed the state House last week. But a motion to end debate on the map failed in the state Senate on Tuesday after 12 Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against it. [MS NOW]

Republicans facing re-election may see another face in the mirror, the stereotypical MAGA voter who’s infuriated his favorite leader isn’t getting his way. A split in the Republican vote, or MAGA staying home, may hand rivals seats they mightn’t have otherwise won.

POLLSY, POLLSY

Yes, there’s been polls since the last update. No, I’m not reporting most of them because the pollsters are unknown or their last rating from FiveThirtyEight was godawful.

AND NOW FOR THE NEWS: YOUR POPCORN’S BEEN …

Oh, just follow this link for the old news about your popcorn.

• Senator Markey (D) of Massachusetts, up for reelection, suggests Trump’s “slush fund,” aka the fund to give money to 6 January insurrectionists, is good reason for impeaching President Trump for corruption. Keep in mind that while Markey’s own reelection is virtually assured if he can just win the primary, which features Representative Moulton (D), this is the kind of suggestion that will echo in some independents’ ears, possibly helping other Democrats in their runs.
• Alaska’s former Representative Mary Peltola (D) appears to be maintaining a slight lead over incumbent Senator Sullivan (R). Maybe.
  

  NEW RELEASE: Peltola continues to lead Sullivan in US Senate race

  Alaska Survey Research May 14-17, 2026
  N=1,401 Likely voters MOE=+3.0%
  Methodology: Text-to-online + ASR Survey Panel

  How about some actual numbers? 270 To Win claims Alaska Survey Research’s results say 48% – 44%.

• In Maine political novice Graham Platner (D) is retaining a lead over incumbent Senator Collins (R) of 48% – 41% according to Pan Atlantic Research. It’s a ways to go, but if Platner can avoid tripping over his shoelaces he may pull off the upset.
• And in news that has had pundits on the edge of their seats for a few weeks, the Texas GOP primary voters have decided scoundrel Texas AG Paxton (R) is better suited for the Senate than current Senator and loyal Party minion John Cornyn (R). By numbers as of this writing, the margin of Cornyn’s failure is greater than 25 points, but they’re not done counting, so don’t cite my numbers.

  This is what happens when the virtues of experience, loyalty, and competency are tossed out in favor of extremism, scandal, which is useful for blackmail, and credulity on the part of the voters.There must be some concern in the White House regarding Cornyn’s continuing loyalty, but maybe not: if they were concerned, Paxton would have gotten the boot, Cornyn the endorsement, and the Texas GOP primary voters would have been told to vote Cornyn and shut up. Will Cornyn be billing Trump for Trump’s lack of return loyalty?

  Time will tell.

SEATS THAT MAY EVAPORATE

Or who’s looking to flip a pancake: Texas (R), Michigan (D), Maine (R), Alaska (R), North Carolina (R).

Seems unlikely but could happen: Kansas (R), Iowa (R), Kentucky (R), Mississippi (R), Ohio (R), Nebraska (R), Montana (R). These last two would go to independent candidates Osborn and Bodnar, respectively.

And I believe next Tuesday is the next primary day.

A couple of pics to point the way.

We had to remove our apple trees last fall due to fire blight. The tree you see in the middle back is its replacement, a yellow magnolia. The mushroom garden, which never amounted to much, was also removed.

The front gets its time as the Virginia bluebells and bleeding hearts get some displays out.

Showoffs!

An amiable group, out for a movie.

… sometimes bad things happen.

Something like three or four months ago my primary computer burned out. It took more than a month to replace it, and as using a smartphone is tough on old eyes when consuming a lot of content, nor useful when writing, I dropped reading Professor Richardson, Erick Erickson, and Daily Kos. However, since the first two were delivered to my UMB mailbox, they simply stacked up.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been skimming those messages, and Erickson’s castigations of both Democrats and Republicans, including the President and Leader of his Party, has been quite impressive, not only for content but for the fact that the castigations of certain conservatives exist at all.

It also prepared me for this Punchbowl News item:

Senate Republicans are preparing to buck President Donald Trump on two of his long-running obsessions: the White House ballroom project and the “weaponization” of federal agencies against his allies.

It’s a risky gambit, taking on an emboldened president who’s busier settling scores against members of his own party than he is in taking on Democrats.

But Republican leaders are making clear they’d rather risk a Trump outburst than participate in what they see as a campaign of political self-sabotage.

That means scrapping plans to fund security for Trump’s controversial East Wing ballroom. Senate Republicans are also using the reconciliation bill to restrict Trump’s new $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate people who believe they were unfairly targeted by the feds.

Both are politically toxic for vulnerable Republicans in a midterm year defined by affordability issues and high costs.

This is the sort of thing that suggests a discordance of aims between President and … let’s say the Party to which he claims to belong. This is not leading, because he acts independent of almost all opinions in the Party, whether they concern the futility of tariffs, the wisdom of attacking Iran now, if ever; the talk of acquisition of Greenland or Canada; his inclination towards a boastfulness of the most self-directed wish-fulfillment  sort, which is little more than lies; etc. His apologists, mouthing frantic claims of solid judgment and 12-dimensional chess and Biblical Cyrus, are falling from this Tower of Babel and, blinking in shock, attempting to rebuild their fallen positions. Just think of His Former Dominance, Tucker Carlson, or Candace Owen, reduced to attacking Charlie Kirk’s widow.

Or the shaking of the Tower by the Epstein Files revelations.

I think we’ll continue to see Republicans starting to turn on Trump. Some won’t immediately, attempting to use the reversal of others as stepping stones to increased prestige within the conservative power structure, but that’ll be a mug’s game, and more than one Republican politician will soon see the involuntary termination of their political career, brought on by the mistake of clinging to Trump’s trouser leg. Trump and his minions are rolling towards isolation in their half-reconstructed White House, mouthing plans as Republicans persuade Republicans of the wisdom of impeaching Trump.

And will Trump’s dementia permit him to fly away one day to a land without extradition? Or will he dig in his heels and end up being dragged bodily from the White House? A leader must have loyal minions, and they’re leakin’ away.

Quantum spin liquids:

Materials with interacting quantum spins that nevertheless do not order magnetically down to the lowest temperatures are candidates for a materials class called quantum spin liquids (QSLs). QSLs are characterized by long-range quantum entanglement and are tricky to study theoretically; an even more difficult task is to experimentally prove that a material is a QSL. [Science]

Whether they even exist is something of an open question. Noted in “The 50-year quest to create a quantum spin liquid may finally be over,” Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, NewScientist (9 May 2026; paywall):

This isn’t any ordinary rock. Anarakite – later renamed herbertsmithite – could be a rare type of matter known as a quantum spin liquid (QSL). Whether these occur naturally is hotly debated, but if the physicists who think they can are right, nature could be creating highly entangled states. Physicists know how to create entanglement, too, but only in limited ways, such as entangling particles of light or ultracold atoms. Entangling particles within a chunk of stuff has so far eluded them.

The kid is going to school to learn how to half-close his eyes.

Despicable Me 4 (2024) is a limping attempt to recapture the magic of Despicable Me (2010) and Despicable Me 2 (2013) that is unsuccessful, but rather innocuous. Gru and his family’s location in a witness concealment is revealed to an old school rival because Gru cannot resist a villainous talent show at his old school. While there, it’s revealed the rival is now  … part cockroach.

Seems a bit on the nose.

Gru’s family is then shipped to the town of his alma mater, a school for villainy, under the philosophy of keep your old school marm close. Much to Gru’s dismay, the next door neighbor’s daughter is scheming to gain admission to the same school, recognizes Gru, and traps him into raiding his old school. The raid is a success and a failure, as he now has a running battle with the rival.

The magic of the first two movies rested in large part on the minions. They were the instrumentality of a number of the important themes of the movies, from the running gags about minion competitiveness to how much they can accomplish when they work together. In the midst of implementing villainy they demonstrate the virtues of, yes, virtue, such as funding the moon-rocket from their own pockets.

In this movie? They don’t really have a pivotal role. They’re memorable for being unmemorable. Instead of that ridiculous, hilarious competition and commentary on erasing limits in competition during the close credits of Despicable Me, there’s nothing more than a minion scuttling about.

Oh, yeah, there’s a baby cluttering up the screen, too, but it’s not even a MacGuffin. The story arcs of Edith, Agnes, and Margo are advanced not a whit.

Are there some good bits? I’m sure there was – but I don’t remember them. The story is second or third rate, and it just doesn’t measure up to the first two. Disappointing.

A fellow from a family prone to Alzheimer’s is thought to have not been subjected to it because of his job:

Ship engine rooms can reach temperatures of 50°C (122°F) and Whitney [the person who mysteriously has not had Alzheimer’s] was sometimes in them for hours at a time [during his working years], occasionally having to be hosed down to avoid overheating.

Possibly as a result of this heat exposure, Whitney has unusually high levels of heat shock proteins in his cerebrospinal fluid. Our bodies produce these in response to heat to repair and refold certain other types of proteins that might be damaged by the increased temperature.

These high levels of heat shock proteins may have prevented Whitney from developing Alzheimer’s disease by regulating an important brain protein called tau … [“Man destined for Alzheimer’s may have been saved by accidental therapy,” Alice Klein, NewScientist (9 May 2026, paywall)]

It makes me think that we know we’re essentially chemical/mechanical creatures because of phenomenon like this.

Costs can be more than just tangible financials. I ran across this item, dating from late March, in material I was skipping due to my primary computer being burned out earlier this year.

Since the start of the Middle East conflict, Iran has witnessed massive cryptocurrency flows.

Experts say they are being used to circumvent sanctions placed on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as well as a financial safe haven by civilians hit by soaring inflation.

AFP examines how exactly digital currencies are being used in the country.

– Millions of dollars –

In an unusually large movement, more than $10 million worth of cryptocurrencies left Iranian exchange platforms between February 28 — the first day of Israeli-US airstrikes — and March 2, according to data analytics firm Chainalysis.

By March 5, nearly one-third of these funds had been transferred to foreign exchanges. [AL-Monitor]

When sanctions are imposed as punishment, discovering that they’re being evaded by a clever adversary shouldn’t come as a surprise – but counted as a cost. Notably, however, the Trump family and eponymous company have invested in cryptocurrencies, which leaves me wondering how much of that was grifting via the $TRUMP memecoin, and how much is the Trump’s avoiding monitoring and taxes through nefarious means.

Some readers will also recall that the Trumps may be maneuvering to stop losses related to these investments of late. Another hint of cryptocurrencies being a troubled field comes from Molly White, no relation:

Largest North American bitcoin ATM operator, Bitcoin Depot, files for bankruptcy

The company’s bankruptcy filing reports between $10 million and $50 million in both assets and liabilities. In a recent financial disclosure, the company had reported a 49% year-over-year reduction in revenue and a net loss of $9.5 million for the year. The company had also suffered a $3.67 million hack

The company’s bankruptcy filing reports between $10 million and $50 million in both assets and liabilities. In a recent financial disclosure, the company had reported a 49% year-over-year reduction in revenue and a net loss of $9.5 million for the year. The company had also suffered a $3.67 million hack in April. [Web3 is Going Just Great]

Since it’s hard to know when an Administration official is telling the truth, I’ll report that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (R, formerly D, Hawaii) is another chunk falling off the Administration, but …

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is resigning from the Trump administration, she said Friday, after her husband was diagnosed with an extremely rare bone cancer. [WaPo]

There’d been reports that President Trump was shutting Gabbard out of key decision making meetings, so it could also be motivated by that, but let’s accept she’s telling the truth. Good luck to her husband.

And, I know it’s futile, but let’s hope for a better, not worse, candidate for her position.

Hard for this working dude to say much else.

In a notable development since last week, Trump’s eponymous corporation is running away from a key investment:

Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ: $DJT) has moved to sell 2,650 Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) worth $205 million as losses on its cryptocurrency holdings reach $455 million U.S.

Trump Media has transferred the Bitcoin to Crypto.com, a move that is widely seen as the company preparing to sell the digital asset.

Trump Media runs the Truth Social platform that is based on X, formerly Twitter. The company bought 11,542 Bitcoin at an average price of $118,522 U.S. [Cryptoprowl via yahoo!finance]

I don’t know if Cryptoprowl is reliable, so I wouldn’t take their word for the report without some consilience, meaning independent lines of evidence leading to congruent conclusions. It’s also worth noting this is a deduction and not an announcement from Trump Media. However, this is a plausible move as cryptocurrencies, despite the backing of numerous celebrities and rich people, are slowly degrading as folks realize they are lack any novel and essential functionalities.

How is DJT doing? We’re still in the trading day, so confirming this will disappoint those of a precise temperament, but this will be close enough:

Source: yahoo!finance

The stock price has fallen through the $8/share floor today for the first time, before returning above. This means investor confidence is becoming weaker, and suggests the general recognition that Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. has a tenuous future, unworthy of investor dollars.

Investors from the MAGA world may find themselves exceedingly lonely, soon enough.

A REPEATING THEME, A REPEATING THEME

The Hill reports a very recent Fox News poll, the latter of which I shan’t report directly because they don’t like my browser and its ad suppressor:

A new Fox News poll shows President Trump’s approval rating has reached an all-time low with Republicans as the issues of affordability, job growth and the economy remain top of mind for voters across the country.

Trump’s approval rating among Republicans hit a new low at 80 percent, according to the Fox News poll.

The numbers dipped even further among non-MAGA Republicans, whose approval of President Trump sat at 54 percent, followed by surveyed white voters and rural voters, whose approval both sat at 43 percent.

A President with a unneeded war gone bad, tariffs gone bad, ICE gone bad, and what is he doing?

Obsessing over his ballroom and his arch. And his “slush fund.”

Remember King Louis XVI? Hell, every bad monarch. Putting priority on fripperies is how you end up running the pitchfork race, and that’s not even a whimsical analogy.

Look for the House to see more calls for impeachment, and, as the House GOP caucus realizes Trump is becoming a one ton anchor riding along in their shorts, they’ll start signing on to discharge petitions. But this’ll take a couple of more months. And then GOP Senators will face very difficult decisions.

November pressure is going to be immense.

A SLOW SINK. USE A PLUNGER?

The 11-15 May The New York Times/Siena University poll shows Democrats with a 50% – 39% lead in preferences for the Congressional ballot. You’ll have to dig to find it. Other respected pollsters, such as YouGov (46%-43%), at the same link, are not as generous to the Democrats.

Democrats shouldn’t be celebrating. They should be worrying.

OUR PRIMARY EQUATION … DIRECTIVE … Puppy?

There’ll be one more Senate-wide analysis section following State-specific news, because I can’t contain myself and should probably be put in an institution. And that’s not the Senate.

• 

  On The Issues: Rep Julia Letlow (R-LA).

  The Louisiana primary election on 16 May yielded a run-off result for the Republicans as Trump-endorsee Representative Julia Letlow (R) did not gain the required 50% + 1 number of votes in the primary election to avoid the run-off, and in fact only won 45.2%; in second place, and thus also winning promotion, was state treasurer, former Representative, and M.D., John Fleming, with 28.3% of the vote. Incumbent Senator and Trump-target Bill Cassidy, MD (R), came in third with 24.4% of the vote, and is excluded from the run-off and general election ballots. I do not know if Louisiana permits write-ins.

  While the media would have me believe the failure of Senator Cassidy is meaningful in that Trump succeeded in removing someone who he regarded as an enemy, I am not impressed. I am troubled that our traditions of Senators, and in fact all elected members of Congress, exercising their best judgments, without coercion, have been trampled by President Trump, and troubled by those citizens who think being his instrumentality is a good thing. As the Democrats are demonstrating some of the same behaviors, I do not feel inhibited from saying that this Student-Body Left behavior of both sides is stupidly and arrogantly damaging to the Nation.

  But so far as Senator Cassidy goes, I have no preference for him. His public agonizing over, essentially, whether his first loyalties lie with his Party or his Country are indefensible. His vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as HHS Secretary, in contravention to both civil and medical ethics, was dishonorable.

  

  On The Issues: State Treasurer John Fleming (R-LA).

  And, perhaps most notably, Trump-endorsee Rep Letlow’s failure to secure the nomination without a runoff is an implicit commentary on the waning strength of President Trump’s influence in Louisiana. No doubt he’ll point insistently at her winning the primary, but it was with a plurality, not a majority; he can attempt to ignore the runoff, but he cannot deny it.

  Perhaps he’ll accuse the election officials of Louisiana of cheating?

  But is this a strong signal of the public perceptions of the unacceptable executive performance? Letlow’s On The Issue’s summation is shockingly … moderate. See upper right. State Treasurer Fleming, on the other hand and below Letlow’s summation, is of just another far-right extremist, actually not far off from Senator Cassidy, whose summation is not pictured. In fact, if Cassidy’s supporters vote in the runoff, they’re more likely to vote for Fleming than for Letlow, if they’re rational folks.

  Perhaps a substantial portion of the GOP of Louisiana, at least those who vote in primaries, remain in the far-right camp. My view of humanity and our relation to social station is that much of humanity would rather be viewed as a bit of an extremist, but occupying an elevated social position, than confess to apostasy and be expelled. Even as the far-right is revealed as incompetent to the extent that people are getting hurt, illicitly restrained, and all that sort of thing, the GOP may be willing to stick to its far-right views simply to keep their self-respect elevated.

  Question is, if they do lose New Orleans, aka NOLA, to the rising Gulf, as forecast by climate scientists, will they find a way to keep that self-respect elevated?

  The Democratic primary election results is the inexperienced Jamie Davis (D), with 47.4%, and similarly inexperienced  Gary Crockett (D), with 26.3%, being promoted to a run-off. Can the eventual winner overcome their inexperience burden to beat the Republican nominee? It may depend on the nominee, with Letlow being more attractive to independents and thus putting the Democrat at a disadvantage, while Fleming’s hard-right positions may repell independents and advantage the Democrat. Ballotpedia does not yet have this information on the run-off, at least as of this writing.

  The run-offs are scheduled for 27 June.

• Texas Senator and candidate John Cornyn (R) must be feeling beleaguered today, when I wrote up this entry, as President Trump, ahead of my prediction schedule, has issued his endorsement of Cornyn’s rival in the Republican primary run-off, Texas AG Paxton (R). Watchers of the political scene are well aware that Paxton was impeached by his own Party in the Texas House, only to walk away without a conviction by the Texas Senate; he seems a scheming scoundrel to me, based on other scandals and political maneuvers of his authorship. Cornyn should have been more scoundrel-y, seriously now, because that’s the type of guy Trump likes to work with – someone who can be controlled through blackmail.But how well will Democratic nominee James Talarico (D) do against Paxton?
  

  “Donald Trump just endorsed a man who was impeached by his own party, indicted for felony fraud, reported to the FBI by his own staff, ordered to pay $6.6 million to the whistleblowers he tried to destroy, and whose wife is divorcing him on biblical grounds. And Trump did so despite the entire Republican political operation spending more than $100 million for the other guy.

  “With all the baggage, it’s no wonder that one-in-four John Cornyn voters say they’ll vote for James Talarico if Paxton is the nominee. [Senate Majority PAC Statement On Donald Trump’s Endorsement Of Ken Paxton]

  The Senate Majority PAC is a Democratic Party-linked PAC, so take the news release with a grain of salt. Still, Paxton will be less appealing to the all-important independent voter, and so President Trump may have to visit the cobbler after the November election. Texas Southern University has a poll out suggesting Talarico is currently running even with both Paxton and Cornyn, and that the Senate Majority PAC’s statement, above, may be a trifle overblown:

  90% of Cornyn voters would vote for Paxton if he were the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in November, while 2% would vote for Talarico and 2% for Brown, with 6% undecided.

  But the Senate caucuses tend to be more clubby than the House caucuses, leading to friendships and, well, anger:

  And several GOP senators aired public concerns about including any ballroom funding in a bill otherwise dedicated to immigration enforcement. A larger swath of Republicans were privately opposed, with the mood souring further Tuesday amid anger over Trump’s decision to endorse Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the upcoming GOP primary runoff in Texas. [Politico]

  The President is trying to conduct business like a mafioso, a dictator, even possibly a Roman caesar, ignoring rules and using bureaucratic tricks to put lickspittles in power.

  THIS that may not end well if he continues to piss off powerful people like Senators from his own party, as not only Trump but also Paxton may discover. The primary is scheduled for 26 May.

• The 19 May primary election in Alabama has yielded a run-off for the Democrats, as Everett Wess (D) and Dakarai Larriett (D), with 39.6% and 29.1% of the primary vote, respectively, advance to a 16 June contest. Neither seems to have relevant experience, at least according to Ballotpedia.
  

  On The Issues: Rep Barry Moore (R-AL).

  Rep Moore (R) also did not clear the required 50% + 1 bar, earning a concerning 39.2% of the primary votes, so the Republicans, too, have a run-off, featuring Rep Moore and Jared Hudson (R). I expect Rep Moore to win the run-off, although voters may be wishing for some undefined candidate.

  The key question is whether Moore’s far-right extremism will repel the independents, or if the Democrats will repel the independents. As this is Alabama, I expect the Republicans to hold on to the embarrassing Senator Tuberville’s (R) seat, and perhaps be even more embarrassing.

• The 19 May primary election in Georgia will lead to a run-off for the Republicans, as Rep Collins (R) and former football coach Derek Dooley (R) achieved promotion to the next round. The fact that Rep Collins only achieved 40% of the vote, and Dooley only 30%, suggests the Republican voters may have been looking for someone else to rally around.

  However and incidentally, this enhances the already excellent reputation of Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA), who championed Dooley and will be looking for a day-job presently, as he loses the governorship to term limits. Can he get Dooley the nomination? (Yeah, I avoided all the sports metaphors as a plague on mankind.)

  The winner of the run-off will then face Senator Ossoff (D), who did not face primary opposition.

• The Idaho 19 May primary election yielded Senator Risch (R) and the inexperienced David Roth (D) as the nominees from the major parties for the general election; Matt Loesby (L) and two independents also qualified. Neither Risch nor Roth exceeded 64.2% of their respective primary results, but seeing that Risch’s 77,830 votes more than doubled the entire Democratic turnout, there’s no reason apparent to think Senator Risch’s position is threatened.
• In Kentucky the 19 May primary election did not have the 50% + 1 requirement, so former member of the Kentucky House of Representatives Charles Booker (D) won the Democratic primary with 46.9% of the vote, with Amy McGrath (D) taking second with 35.6% of the primary vote.

  On the Republican side of the aisle Rep and Trump-endorsee Andy Barr (R) won the nomination with just short of 60% the primary vote, with former Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron (R) taking second with 31.6%.

  The interesting result is the treacherous land of vote totals. The number of votes cast in the Democratic primary was 323,857, while in the Republican primary 269,511. Were the Republicans bored? How do the independents lean? Should we read this as meaning Booker leads in a hypothetical poll?

• Oregon’s 19 May primary saw the nomination of incumbent Senator Merkley (D) in the Democratic primary with 93.3% of the vote. As of this writing, the Republican nominee has not yet been determined.

And thence to Alice’s joint, eh?

YOUR CHESS PIECES ARE ANGRY WITH YOU!

Related to the apparent termination of Senator Cassidy’s (R-LA) political career, as noted above, comes speculation that he’ll be taking revenge on President Trump, who endorsed Rep Letlow (R-LA) for the Senator’s seat, now that Senator Cassidy’s free of obligations to the Party that is thrusting him unceremoniously from his position. The revenge would presumably be through votes against the President’s recommendations in the Senate chamber, and leaking Party-secret information. While I don’t plan to cover this topic in Campaign Updates unless relevant to Senate campaigns, Steve Benen has more here, and so does whoever’s behind Belle of the Ranch here, who notes Cassidy has already voted for, rather than against, the War Powers Resolution for limiting Trump’s war making privileges.

Neither mentions, at least so far, the potential for Senator Cornyn (R-TX) to join Senator Cassidy in revenge voting, but President Trump’s selection of Texas AG Paxton over the incumbent Senator, as mentioned earlier in this missive, is not a move calculated to engender happy feelings in the Senator. As a loyal Party leader, the betrayal will be especially stinging.

And then there’s Senator Tillis (R-NC), retiring this year. He’s already displayed an independent streak which has the potential to continue until his replacement is inaugurated.

I had not heard about this, as I’ve been paying attention to politics and I keep ignoring “AI”, or machine learning. NewScientist (2 May 2026, paywall) has me covered:

According to Anthropic, there’s a good reason the model [called Mythos] had been kept behind closed doors: it is – by accident rather than design – extremely good at hacking. It can allegedly discover flaws in virtually any software, if asked, that would allow the user to break in.

The company says that Mythos found thousands of high- and critical-severity vulnerabilities in operating systems and other software. Anthropic did not respond to New Scientist’s request for comment, but the company said on its website that “the fallout—for economies, public safety, and national security—could be severe.” [“Do you need to worry about Mythos, Anthropic’s computer-hacking AI?“]

But this is … reassuring, I suppose:

But there are indications that it isn’t time to panic yet. Bobby Holley at Firefox – one of those organisations being given access to Mythos – wrote in a blog post that the model helped his team find 271 vulnerabilities in the web browser, which is certainly quite a haul, but that none were so ingenious, impenetrably complex or sophisticated that a human couldn’t have dug them out.

“Just one such bug would have been red-alert in 2025, and so many at once makes you stop to wonder whether it’s even possible to keep up,” wrote Holley. “Encouragingly, we also haven’t seen any bugs that couldn’t have been found by an elite human researcher.”

No magic here, at least not yet.

Secretary Mullins may be a repeat nominee, but his strenuous efforts here are worth a repeat.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin: "President Trump literally wrote the book on the art of the deal. He's the strongest leader of your and I's time. Period."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-05-12T19:58:50.863Z

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin: “President Trump literally wrote the book on the art of the deal. He’s the strongest leader of your and I’s time. Period.”

Since 12 May President Trump traveled to China, was feted, and returned with no deal.

I shan’t predicate this nomination on a lack of deal, but rather the entire package of mistaken theories of how tariffs work, ICE surge, his bombast and self-celebration with the ornamentation of yesterdecade (“Trump class battleships?” Battleships went out with World War II, perhaps he thinks the eponymous movie was a documentary), his admiration of such dubious leaders as Putin, Duterte, and other such, inability to pass legislation or cut a deal, and failure to effectively interact with foreign leaders.

Secretary Mullin surely ought to realize Trump is among the weakest, not the strongest, of leaders.

The nearest star to Earth, which we call the Sun, is waving for attention:

HUGE FARSIDE SUNSPOT (UPDATED): One of the biggest sunspots in years is crossing the farside of the sun.

More on Spaceweather, including a stop action of sunspot clusters..

The stream heading for the exit continues, and with an age-old story …

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks resigned Thursday, becoming the latest top immigration official to leave the Trump administration in recent months.

“It’s just time,” Banks said in a Fox News interview announcing his resignation. “I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure, most disastrous, most chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen.” [MS NOW]

No, not self-congratulations. I don’t know if his work is that good. No, it’s this, from conservative Washington Examiner:

The national chief of the Border Patrol, Michael Banks, was known among colleagues for taking regular trips abroad to engage in sex with prostitutes, according to six current and former Border Patrol employees who spoke with the Washington Examiner.

Banks “bragged” to colleagues while in his previous management role at Border Patrol about paying for sex with prostitutes while traveling in Colombia and Thailand over the course of a decade. Banks’ behavior was said to have been investigated by Customs and Border Protection officials twice, including last year, but the investigation ended abruptly while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in office, leading to more questions.

A sordid oldie, an official thinking they could brag about something illegal without backlash. Nothing really special, I’m sure Democrats do this, too, but at least they’re discrete.

In a way, him caught and out of government means chances of blackmail diminish greatly, so I suppose we can be grateful for his braggodocio.

But, as I said, nothing all that special.

As we prepare to plunge into summer…

Oooops, where did this guy come from?

Precocial:

1. (adjective) (of the young of some species of birds after hatching) covered with down, having open eyes, and capable of leaving the nest within a few days of hatching
2. (noun) a precocial bird [Collins Dictionary]

That’s new to me. Noted in “Why dinosaurs lived much more complex lives than we thought (Interview with David Hone),” Michael Le Page, NewScientist (2 May 2026, paywall):

You study the flying reptiles known as pterosaurs as well as dinosaurs. Were these animals really able to hatch out of an egg and fly straight away?

[Hone: ]The idea they might be precocial, as it’s known, has been around for a while, but it’s only relatively recently, with the discovery of pterosaur embryos, that we’ve had good data that supports it.

If you look at birds inside eggs, they have well-developed feet, but they don’t have well-developed wings. Before pterosaurs have hatched, they’ve got long wings with strong bones, almost identical to the adult condition. That immediately points to the idea that they might be flying straight out of the egg.

Perhaps I won’t be working that one into casual conversation.

Reading the DJT tea leaves: A salutary behavior for would-be investors from last Friday.

Source: CoinMarketCap

A more than 7.5% drop over 24 hours in a cryptocurrency would worry me if I owned it, because currencies should only move like that when underlying conditions are changing drastically. The $TRUMP coin is nothing more than a way to demonstrate loyalty through ownership, if that’s what it is, of meaningless computer tokens. The specialization of $TRUMP is to scrape wealth from the wallets of average Joes.

A 7% drop indicates something is happening out there, and it’s not advantageous for the average investor. As $TRUMP is held by a DJT “affiliate”, it may also impact the price of shares of DJT. What’s happening there?

A 1-month chart of DJT from yahoo! finance.

A 15% drop in the valuation of a company as dubious as Trump Media & Technology Group Corp has to be concerning to a shareholder.

I expect this is another step in the self-destruction of the Trump Organization, as its fanatic concentration on the gathering of wealth results in surprising vulnerabilities for the Trumps and their many associates, both personal and corporate. Much like Lehman Brothers, they do not concentrate on service to others at a fair price, but on running their ship through the iceberg field at maximum speed and proclaiming it proves their wisdom and veracity in doing so.

Right before the glug-glug.

“You didn’t take the umbilical cord out of the top of glopper’s head?!” Derek cried?
Betty gasped and said, “How do you know his name was Glopper?”
“No, it’s not! That’s the name of the sex ‘glop!'”
Betty whispered, “God must be here! It’s a perfect example of nominative determinism! He said his name was ‘Glop’!”
“No, glop is simply the third of our seven sexes.” Derek shrugged. “Our mating rituals have lots of drugs and handcuffs for all!”
“Shit!” Betty yelled. “You don’t have a chance with me, buster! Get out of here!”
“No, you don’t understand, Betty! Glops are at their most fecund when they’ve been skeletonized! …. Come back, Betty, come back!”

When the aliens furtively land on Earth in Teenagers From Outer Space (1959) they encounter a happy, yappy little dog before they can even use the spaceship exit. One of them takes afright, and, that’s right, zots the little fellow into a shiny, clean skelly. After all, they’re looking for a fecund little meadow in which to pasture their growing herd of their cow-equivalents, and they certainly can’t have pests harassing their meat on the hoof, or, to be more accurate, on arthropod limbs.

But, much like many human nations, their very insecurities have given birth to a self-righteous, brittle arrogance, and when another one, Derek (I kid you not), having read forbidden texts and deciding that the book’s contents must all be true because it’s forbidden – the forbidden is always right, you must see – he makes a run for it, looking for the owner of the yapper to warn them of his fellows.

But this laughable mess has some twists up its sleeve. (Aliens have sleeves?) Remember Derek? He sees a luscious human female or two, and, as the rules of fiction say he must fall in love, off Hormonal Cliff he goes. But it turns out he’s the unknowing son of the Supreme Leader, a fellow with a certain resemblance to Ming the Merciless, at least the one in Flash Gordon (1980), although it’s more a mien thing, I must admit. Squint a bit and you’ll see it.

Being Ming’s Supreme Leader’s son, he must be fetched back or an awful consequence will befall them. Thor, the psychotic dog-murderer, is dispatched on the task, and soon, bloodied but unbowed, he’s chasing all over town, threatening everyone in sight with his zappy gun. When he gets to use it the clean skeletons it produces, as my Arts Editor observed, come with the hook in the top of the skull unremoved.

I haven’t been able to find one of those in my skull, yet. My Arts Editor said she won’t look, it was too much like searching my scalp for lice. Squeamish, I’d say.

Anyways, after wiping out some of the most interesting characters and dealing with the alien, uh, cow, Derek finds a mildly clever way to stop the invading alien fleet, but at the cost of his life. The human female who was the apple of his eye then must be earnest and tragic, and nearly pulls it off.

Is this good? No.

But it is sort of halfway fun, if you can ignore the teeth marks in the scenery. There are many problems, but I did like the alien cow, the car rolling down the cliff and it’s remarkably graphic body flopping out at the end, and the lass who regards every new boy to walk into her life to be fresh meat worthy of sampling.

And that title? I suppose Derek and Thor could be teenagers. But it’s still mostly nonsensical.

PRESSURE CONTINUES TO BUILD

Those ties that bind and bind and bind:

With gas prices continuing to surge, more than 8 in 10 Americans said pain at the pump is putting a strain on their household budgets — and a strong majority blames President Trump, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

The poll also found that Trump is more unpopular than he ever has been, and he faces major declines with key groups since being sworn in for a second term. Most Americans said the economy isn’t working for them, and the war in Iran — which has directly led to those higher gas prices — continues to grow more unpopular.

Those challenges have given Democrats a distinct advantage in the midterm elections. Six months from when votes will be counted this November, Democrats lead by 10 points on the congressional ballot test. The ballot test asks which party’s candidate they would vote for if congressional elections took place today. [NPR]

CNBC reports on inflation: The consumer price index rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. For those of us who remember the Carter years, 3.8% annual inflation is not awful; but it’s quite upsetting for the common citizen today. Signs for future inflation hint at worse to come, if you believe Belle of the Ranch.

CNN has a reinforcing poll: … Trump’s approval rating stands at 30% on the economy, a career low.

The Trump Administration’s strategy? For long-term residents of the United States, it comes as no surprise: Lies.

As April got underway, Donald Trump delivered an address to the nation about the war with Iran and took a moment to comment on the state of the economy. The president said that Americans are currently enjoying “the strongest” economic conditions “in history” (a spectacularly wrong assertion) and that there’s “no inflation.” As the month came to an end, Peter Navarro, the White House’s top trade adviser, similarly boasted on Fox Business, “Inflation is going down.” [Maddowblog]

All of this increases the pressure most or all GOP candidates are feeling, as they take some of the blame for economic mismanagement by supporting President Trump. Will the GOP Senators and candidates competing for the Senate break ranks sooner rather than later, as this Politico article suggests? Or will their fear of being primaried hold them back until the primaries have passed? The latter seems a reasonable strategy.

… CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY

As in, No battle plan survives first contact …

In this case, the left had feared that the SAVE Act would be used to pressure Democratic voters to not vote in November.

Exactly two months ago, the president used his social media platform to promote a far-right legislative proposal that he called the Save America Act, which would make it harder for voters to register to vote, make it harder for voters to cast ballots and, for some reason, would also impose new discriminatory measures targeting transgender Americans. His March 8 missive was one of several online items related to the bill, except this one included a unique vow. [Steve Benen, Maddowblog]

To drive the point home:

“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed,” Trump wrote.

But, as we all know, a picture Donald J. Trump is the very emblem of the Inconstancy Movement^[2], and The New Republic reports the SAVE Act is stuck in Senate. President Trump continues to sign bills, abating the pressure on the Senate to pass what the President thinks is one of his most important tools for winning in November.

The point is that the Senate is not entirely submissive to the will of President Trump. This can be seen both negatively and positively, of course; when the Senate GOP caucus continues to make ideologically-driven decisions that repulse most voters and appear to be based on misperceptions of reality, independents will recoil, while the Senate GOP caucus rebuffing the President may improve their standing.

But Trump’s control cracking isn’t good news for the far-right extremist squad.

AND THE LEFT HAS GASTRIC PRESSURES AS WELL

Former Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (D) is demonstrating how the Democrats are feeling their own internal pressure:

Endorsements are piling up in the race for Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District as [77 year old] U.S. Rep. John Larson and his three Democratic challengers seek to piece together critical support ahead of Monday’s nominating convention.

That scramble kicked off Thursday morning as former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin announced the endorsement he secured from Pete Buttigieg, the former U.S. secretary of Transportation and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. [Hartford Courant]

With a fracture across age, this could be a threat to wise leadership in both houses of the Federal Legislature, because wisdom is not a randomly distributed attribute of individuals, but a hoped-for result of years of learning and living; naturally, the oldsters have more opportunity to develop it than youngsters.

Balancing that is an oldster’s growing investment in the status quo, in having put so much time, energy, and wealth into a given system that it seems foolish to abandon it when it might be time to do exactly that.

Piling on, as this metaphor dissolves under the weight of reality, is the partially imaginary bond between the young voters and the young challengers, or, in some cases, young incumbents. Such enthusiasm can generate blindness to economic observations. For instance, now-Mayor Mamdani of New York City promised during his campaign to implement rent control. The price of rent control is that it makes the market for apartments far less attractive and thus discourages apartment construction, which then contributes to the reputation of such districts as being unlivable.

Will old voters vote for young candidates, especially if they are spouting what appears to be foolish proposals? How about the reverse? That’s the potential problem for Democrats.

THEN THERE’S THE POLLSTERS

This has been the week of dubious pollsters, it seems. I’ll be citing a few, especially for primary polling, but it’s at my discretion.

IN THE CENTER CIRCLE: AND THEN THE PRANCING PONIES CAME OUT RIDING ALIENS FROM MARS!

Wait for it, wait for it … ooops, the aliens canceled. Here’s a pointer to previous news, instead.

• 

  On The Issues: Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), “Hard-Core Conservative.”

  The Tuesday, 12 May primary in West Virginia yielded nominees incumbent Senator Shelley Moore Capito for the Republicans and Rachel Fetty Anderson for the Democrats.

  Capito’s performance seemed less than stellar, gaining only 66.5% of a small primary vote. This may suggest some dissatisfaction among Republican voters. While not as far-right as some of her colleagues, she is not a moderate, according to her On The Issues summation. In second place was Tom Willis (R), with what appears to be an identical summation.

  I may have said Capito was less than stellar, but then what adjective to apply to her general election challenger, lawyer Rachel Anderson? She only made it to 33% of the Democratic primary vote, and in terms of pure votes, Capito bested Anderson by more than double. Anderson apparently has no elective experience and is really going for the golden apple on her first try at election, which may explain her barely acceptable showing in the primary.

  Show me a respectable poll suggesting Capito is in trouble and I’ll pay attention, otherwise this appears to be Capito in a walk.

• 

  On The Issues: Senator Ricketts (R).

  Tuesday also saw the 2026 primary elections in Nebraska, which may be the most interesting of 2026. Incumbent Senator Ricketts (R) won with 80% of the primary vote, losing some 20 points to challengers.

  The competitors in the Democratic primary were Cindy Burbank and William Forbes, neither with legislative experience. Burbank won with 90% of the Democratic primary vote. Forbes, an anti-abortion pastor, was considered a Republican plant by many Democrats. Why would the Republicans plant one of their own in a Democratic primary, beyond the usual squirmy machinations?

  Because they accused Burbank of being a proxy for Dan Osborn (I-NE)! Osborn, if my reader might recall, ran in 2024 for the other Nebraska Senate seat, losing to Senator Fischer (R) by a 6+ point margin, which was not as close as hoped for by many independents and Democrats. Now he’s back, in an atmosphere more favorable to independents and Democrats, and Burbank’s victory is expected to be followed by her dropping out of the race and endorsing Osborn.

  Perhaps irrelevantly, the Democrats had more voters participating than Republicans. I agree that it’s not a good predictor for future performance, especially with Burbank allegedly dropping out, but it remains interesting. It could mean Nebraska Republicans have tired of Senator Ricketts and his far-right ideology, see the above and to the right summation of his political ideology. I still expect Ricketts to win again in November, but a good poll might change my mind.

  So is the latest Tavern Research poll that good poll? Beats me. I have no idea if Tavern Research would rank at the top or the bottom of FiveThirtyEight^[1] rankings, if FiveThirtyEight were still around. But here’s Tavern Research’s assessment, for what it’s worth:

  In Tavern’s latest Nebraska survey, Pete Ricketts beats every Democrat we tested. He loses to Dan Osborn.

  Against Osborn, Ricketts trails 42-47, with 12% undecided. Against Cindy Burbank, he wins 48-39. Against William J. Forbes, he wins 50-34. Against a generic Democrat — the cleanest test of the partisan baseline — he wins 49-42. Four ballots, same incumbent, same week. One of them looks competitive. Three of them don’t.

  As an independent, like myself, might expect:

  The driving factor to this is independents. Against Osborn, independents break 62-20 for the challenger. Against Burbank, they break 48-29. Against Forbes, 47-30. Against a generic Democrat, 54-28. Osborn isn’t picking up a few more independents than a Democrat would. He’s running 14 points stronger with them than the generic Democratic baseline, and roughly doubling Forbes’s margin with the same voters.

  All above bolds are original. I await further surveys, from better-known pollsters, with anticipation.

• The Texas primary run-off competitors, Senator Cornyn (R) and AG Paxton (R), continue to watch President Trump prance about, endorsement held high, as the latter continues to look for clues as to who of the former will be winning the run-off. Sure, that’s precisely backwards, but the state of Trump’s ego is such that endorsing the loser will grate horribly on his emotional well-being. Or perhaps by the time this is published he’ll have very definitely made a decision, and is just waiting for the right time to release the news.But there’s more: Senator Cornyn is taking advantage of his position:
  

  U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) today introduced the I-47 Future Interstate Act to designate US-287, which is the second-longest three-digit highway in the U.S. and runs from Port Arthur, Texas, to Choteau, Montana, as the future Interstate 47, otherwise known as Trump Interstate:

  “Texas is Trump Country, and this bill cements that legacy by designating nearly 1,800 miles of open-road from Texas’ Gulf Coast to the edge of the U.S.-Canadian border as I-47 to forever be remembered as Trump Interstate,” said Sen. Cornyn. “By upgrading one of our nation’s longest highways to a future interstate, this legislation will increase economic growth and improve safety, all while honoring the most consequential president of our lifetime.”

  For those readers unaware of the requirement that President Trump have his ego stroked at all times, this is a Stroke ’em if you got ’em maneuver. How will Cornyn’s challenger, the notorious AG Paxton (R-TX), clear this bar?

• I’ve mentioned Harper Polling only once before, as an apparently right-leaning pollster. That makes them interesting because, in their latest poll for the Senate seat available in North Carolina, they give former Governor Cooper (D) a 50% – 39% lead over former RNC Chairman Whatley (R). When your own pollsters are leaning against you, that’s a signal of troubled waters.
• In Alabama, Remington Research, with a mixed record, gives Rep and Trump-endorsee Moore (R) a 23%-20%-16% lead over Jared Hudson and state AG Marshall, respectively, in the Republican primary. However, they all trail the Undecideds category, at 36%, and so this race is very much up in the air. The primary election is next week; Judson and Marshall had best hurry if they have any clever tactics waiting in the wings.

  This is Alabama, so this statement should not, but does, surprise me: According to the poll, President Trump’s favorability among Alabama GOP primary voters sits at 84%, with just 11% unfavorable.The Democratic primary is not covered.

• While Wyoming is not considered a contested seat, presumed Republican nominee Representative Hageman (R) really blundered this week:
  

  Rep. Harriet Hageman has been among the most vocal of the SPLC’s critics and has steadfastly used the indictment to gaslight the nation about the organization. This was on full display during an interview she did recently with Winston Marshall, a former member of the band Mumford & Sons who now runs his own right-wing podcast.

  “The Aryan Nation, the Nazis, and the KKK are not far-right organizations,” Hageman told Marshall. “Those are far-left organizations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States to prevent blacks from being able to participate in the political arena, if you will. So, I’m going to say they’ve never been associated with the right, they’ve always been associated with the left.” [Right Wing Watch]

  Voters greatly dislike being gaslit by politicians, and in a competitive contest I’d say she had just nailed herself in her own coffin.

  But not in Wyoming. More here.

• And in Iowa the Republican and Democratic primaries now consist of former Iowa State Senate member Jim Carlin and current US House Representative Ashley Hinson, endorsed by President Trump, for the Republicans, and Iowa State Senate members Josh Turek, who has been endorsed by VoteVets, and Zach Wahls; all other candidates have dropped out.

  The Iowa primary is scheduled for 2 June.

There are Senate primaries today in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oregon, so we’ll lop this Update off here. Maybe we can grill it. [EDIT: A big misread on my part. Of the listed States, only Louisiana had a primary last Saturday. The rest are on 19 May.]

¹ For readers new to the Web, FiveThirtyEight is a reference to a statistical analysis website founded by Nate Silver, concentrating on sports and politics. It included a section in which it ranked, based on results, the various political pollsters; it’s its last iteration used a 0 – 3 scale, if memory serves, in which The New York Times / Siena College was consistently at the top of the ratings. Disney bought FiveThirtyEight, and Silver left in 2023. Eventually, FiveThirtyEight was closed down.

² An entirely fictional organization, I can assure the concerned reader.

Radioligand:

A radioligand is a microscopic particle which consists of a therapeutic radioactive isotope and the cell-targeting compound — the ligand. The ligand is the target binding site; it may be on the surface of the targeted cancer cell for therapeutic purposes. [Wikipedia]

I’ve heard of ligands being used to convey various poisons to cancer, as a form of chemotherapy, but this one is new. Noted in “We need more radioactive drugs. Can we make them from nuclear waste?” Mark Peplow, NewScientist (25 April 2026; paywall):

The more recent buzz around radioactivity in medicine centres on something called radioligand therapy. This addresses the well-known problem with radiotherapy: it can damage healthy cells as well as tumours. The idea is to tether a radioactive atom to a molecule called a ligand that seeks out and binds to cancer cells. In this way, the drugs deliver a precise strike with fewer side effects.

So much better than the alternative. Enjoy!