Unsightly Mental Blemishes

Public Opinion Strategies‘ Glen Bolger, a top Republican pollster, on former President Trump’s strategy when it comes to endorsements:

“I don’t know whether he is letting emotion rule his decision making or if he is getting bad advice,” explained Glen Bolger. “But it seems like he is picking candidates who are pretty weak, and that’s not a place — when you’re trying to be kingpin — where you want to be.” [Raw Story]

But, for the audience Trump seeks to please, numbers are not of primary importance; they want good stories. I say that as, to borrow a phrase from my sister, a story junkie myself.

If Trump can endorse a nobody and elevate that nobody to electoral victory, he gains not only the undying gratitude^[1] of the recipient, now riding on high, but he adds to his personal story of the Midas touch. The iconic example is Ron DeSantis, then an obscure backbench member of Congress, who entered the race for Florida governor and is widely credited with winning it by attracting Trump’s endorsement through artful and plentiful appearances on Fox News.

If Trump were better at it, his prestige would be higher. But he’s not all that good at it. In some cases, he’s stepped on the one step too far for the GOP base, domestic & sexual transgressions. See Charles Herbster (R-NE), for instance, beaten in the Nebraska primary for governor despite Trump’s endorsement amidst allegations of Herbster sexually harassing various women, or, worse yet, Sean Parnell (R-PA), endorsed for the Pennsylvania Senate race and forced to withdraw over domestic incident accusations, even though heartily denied.

Other failures are less obvious: Incumbent Senator Luther Strange in Alabama springs right to mind. I do not recall any particular transgressions, but Trump-endorsed Strange lost to Judge Roy Moore, who was then beaten by Democrat Doug Jones in the special election.

But the point is that Trump is trying to build a brand. He doesn’t do it very well, witness his poor picks, and other picks just go awry. He’s not the kingpin that Bolger believes he aspires to be. But I think Bolger has the story wrong.

As it were.

¹ Not really. See, again, Governor DeSantis, now a man making the noises of a 2024 rival of Trump’s.

Thinking back to when I read Reason Magazine, they never pointed out that government regulation, effectively implemented, can stop crap like this:

As downpours intensified on 23 April on the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia, toxic foam from an adjacent river started engulfing the Los Puentes neighbourhood.

Fluffy white froth emerged from the water and was whisked up by the wind until it reached a height of 5 metres and blanketed cars and roads, says restaurant manager María Morales. Eventually, it crept through the windows of her kitchen, forcing her to close the business.

Though the scenes may resemble a harmless giant bubble bath, the residents know better.

“If it were normal foam, the kids would love it,” says Maria Chacue, who has had a hard time stopping her 22-month-old son from playing in the toxic chemicals, which include compounds from soaps and detergents. “But it’s not normal. It’s so polluted.”

Environmental officials blame the heavy rains driven by the La Niña weather phenomenon, which have flooded much of Colombia in recent weeks. As the Bojacá and Subachoque rivers converge in the lower river basin near Los Puentes at high speeds and volumes, they churn up the underlying contaminants. [“Toxic foam from polluted rivers causes health problems in Colombia,” Luke Taylor, NewScientist (14 May 2022, paywall)]

The Cuyahoga River fire, aka, if inaccurately, the Lake Erie Fire.
Image: Cleveland State University Library via WYSO.

Of course, the United States has seen such abuse, although with different manifestations. In 1969, the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire; the link on the right has a story on the resulting Clean Water Act.

But the point is, if you consider yourself to be anti-regulation, that picture on the right is what you’re enabling.

The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll is out and contains what some might think is preliminary evidence of my contention that the Democrats will find strength in the supposedly imminent ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade:

Democrats also got a boost on which party Americans want to control Congress. By a 47%-to-42% margin, this survey showed voters would cast their ballot in favor of a Democrat in their local congressional district if the election were held today.

For Democrats, that is a net increase on the so-called congressional ballot test of 8 points from last month’s survey, when 47% said they would vote for a Republican, as compared to 44% who said they would vote for a Democrat. Those numbers were within the margin of error, but it was the first time in eight years that Republicans had done that well on the question in the Marist poll.

The question is whether this spike for Democrats lasts. [Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll] sees reason to believe it might.

Yes, will the spike not be a spike? In a poll with a margin of ± 3.9% for adults and 4.1% for registered voters, there’s lots of room to bounce around, so I’d like to see several polls in a row before I might believe that there’s some proof that the upturning of Roe has electoral legs.

Keep in mind that this has the most visibility in Presidential and Senate races; the House, which is vulnerable to gerrymandering, will only reflect such legs if independents in the few swing districts go out and vote.

Keep an eye on the polling.

On a slightly lighter note concerning cryptocurrencies comes this news from the recent primary in Oregon:

Speaking of the Democratic establishment getting one wrong: Biden aside, the party more broadly didn’t fight too hard for [Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon]. But a PAC affiliated with House Democratic leaders did spend $1 million on a candidate in the neighboring 6th District, Carrick Flynn. Flynn is trailing state Rep. Andrea Salinas, 38 percent to 19 percent.

That investment in an apparently losing candidate, though, pales to Flynn’s biggest benefactor: cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. His Protect Our Future PAC spent more than $11 million on Flynn — a stunning sum for one out of 435 House seats — and it appears to have failed badly. [WaPo]

… when you realize it’s HAILING.

These were all unfortunately taken through window screens.

And here’s a couple of our neighbor.

In what seems to be a desperate bid for attention, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) is gaining a second Earl Landgrebe nomination on basically the same subject as the first one – expungements:

FIRST ON FOX: House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and more than two dozen of her colleagues are supporting a resolution to “expunge” former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment – as pro-Trump Republicans push to rally voters ahead of the midterms.

Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., is leading the resolution, which would apply to Trump’s 2021 impeachment in the wake of the attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. It’s similar to a previous resolution Mullin introduced on Trump’s first impeachment, which concerned him allegedly withholding military aid from Ukraine in exchange for political favors.

The Daily Beast first reported on the existence of the more recent resolution. But the support for it by Stefanik and other Republicans, including House GOP Conference Vice Chair Mike Johnson, R-La., was not revealed until Wednesday. And although it will not pass the Democrat-controlled House, it underscores Republicans’ continued support for Trump nearly 16 months after he left office. [Fox News]

The prior nomination was for Rep Mullin’s sordid attempt to expunge the record of Trump’s first impeachment.

And is this an example of his continued support for Trump? Steve Benen remarks:

… Mullin — who also happens to be a U.S. Senate candidate in Oklahoma — …

There’s one real clue: a kid desperate for the attention of Daddy. And who else is in the race to replace the retired Senator Inhofe (R-OK)? Why, former Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (R-OK), he who was chased from government with so many scandals nipping at his heels that I lost count! An embarrassment to the nation and to Trump, and at least the latter didn’t acknowledge it.

So Mullin’s feeling worried, eh? Let’s all scream for Daddy now!

AL-Monitor reports India is no longer planning to export wheat once current commitments are met:

Wheat prices rose significantly today following India restricting wheat exports — a move that could affect Egypt in particular.

Chicago wheat futures rose around 5% today to $12.40 per bushel, which is the highest price since 2008. The index is considered a benchmark for wheat prices worldwide. A bushel corresponds to roughly 35 liters.

The price increase followed India banning wheat exports over the weekend, citing the risk of food shortages. India was only responsible for about 0.5% of wheat exports in 2020. However, India is one of the biggest wheat producers in the world, and has considered exporting more wheat amid the Russian war on Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Russia are top wheat exporters, and the war has disrupted global wheat markets.

Image: MapsOfIndia.com

What’s left unsaid here? With the usual caveats about international messaging and nationalist leaders – and India’s Prime Minister Modi is about as nationalistic as they come – the immediate question is Why is India worried about their own wheat production?

Is climate change hitting them now? I know that quite a few years ago, when I was there on a work trip, the monsoon failed, endangering various crops; another time, it rained when it wasn’t supposed to, ruining the mango crop. One or two events are too little for conclusions, but if they’re having trouble growing enough food for themselves because of weather or other problems, is this signaling more problems heading our way?

Exacerbated by Putin’s War?

I’m not looking for food prices to drop any time soon. And, I’m sure to the dismay of domestic natalists, we may see the American birth rate edge down even further as prospective parents take a look at the price of food, which acts as a proxy, imperfect as it may be, for the plenitude of the food supply, and decide to hold off, or not have children at all.

While I appreciate Biden’s position vis a vis Putin’s War, his restraint in not hitting Putin harder – including putting troops in Ukraine – may end up hurting the world long-term, as Ukraine is a major food exporter. Russia’s ruination of Ukraine will not be remedied in a year, or even five. It may take ten or more, depending on the determination of Russian troops to salt the land, so to speak.

Less popular flowers are flowering. These are, I think, lungwort:

And this whimsical bit is pasque. I think.

The youngest member of what I’m calling the Young Right-Wing Crazies Caucus, Rep Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), faced a primary opponent last night in his first try at reelection … and lost. From CNN/Politics:

The result is by only a few hundred votes, but reportedly Cawthorn has conceded rather than wrestling violently for his position.

Which is odd.

Steve Benen summarizes the blunders that leaves the 26 year old looking at unemployment starting early next year:

It’s difficult to rank each of Cawthorn’s many scandals, screw-ups, and failures — the list is not short — but one recent incident was largely responsible for derailing his career. As regular readers know, the congressman appeared on a podcast in March and was asked whether the TV show “House of Cards” is realistic. He said he couldn’t help but marvel at the “sexual perversion” of his older colleagues, adding that his congressional colleagues had invited him to orgies and done cocaine in his presence.

House Republicans will tolerate an astonishing amount of misconduct, but this crossed a line: Cawthorn making up nonsense about them was seen as a bridge too far. The North Carolinian conceded that much of what he’d claimed was “exaggerated” — he also claimed not to know “what cocaine is” — but much of the GOP was underwhelmed by his explanation and turned on him with a vengeance.

It’s not hard to visualize this young man, faced with a question out of the entertainment world, and with a background of saying outrageous and possibly false things, jumping at the opportunity to be, well, entertaining. After all, this is the Age of Entertainment, as I occasionally remind friends. He was just going with the flow of his age group.

And lying had not hurt him before, no?

It all ties together with his immediate concession to his opponent, too. The last few weeks have seen his more senior colleagues, outraged at his infamous charges, working against him. Winning this primary, and almost certainly the general election, would result in a position of isolation, with only the other members of the Young Right-Wing Crazies Caucus, plus a few nuts-loose Representatives such as Gosar, etc, to keep him company.

Maybe.

I suspect he welcomes this loss, or should. He may have trouble finding a new political position, presumably as ‘consultant,’ but look for him to try. He might even resign from Congress before then.

And maybe reconsider his role as ‘entertainer.’

Just dump it in the front yard, yeah?

Erick Erickson thinks he knows what’s wrong with America. See if you can guess what his solution might be:

Our country doesn’t have a partisan problem, a political problem, a social problem, an economic problem, or any other problem as big as the spiritual problem we have.

In the absence of God, Americans across partisan lines have turned to government and celebrity for their gods. They have gone off to worship idols.

Indeed? And somehow Erickson has forgotten about all the intra-<place your favorite religion> violence that has occurred over the centuries? Protestant on Catholic on Protestant, for example? Even peaceful Hindus experience violence over such things as the invasion of Western customs. Imagine getting beat up because someone thought you were celebrating Valentine’s Day. (According to the Times of India article I read while in India 20+ years ago, it was actually a birthday party that happened to fall on Valentine’s Day. Poor guy.)

Religion is the source of much, but not all, violence. There’s nothing like an obscure theological point that some power-seeking person chooses to hang their hat on and start a fight over, that often turns deadly because each side is convinced that the Divinity is on their side. Concerning a Divinity for which they have no objective proof.

And, of course, Erickson ends his rant in the worst possible way, and, as a lawyer and intellectual, he knows better:

We need Jesus, not partisanship. We should expect our President to do anything but say that. Our leaders have failed us on all sides. They’ve led us to idols and performance art on social media.

Sheer, shameful pandering to the audience. This is how to solidify the base – don’t give them a reason to question, play to their biases. And he knows that, besides the fact that a good chunk of the United States isn’t Christian, and many of those that are know this, the President can’t do that. A President, in his official capacity, cannot advocate for a particular religion. Even if prosecuting him would be dicey, he’d immediately lose support right across the spectrum.

And does Erickson want to be told he should convert to Catholicism, if Biden were to choose to go full Jesus?

I won’t presume to prescribe for what ails us, because I think it’s a complex problem involving religion, intellectual laxness, arrogance, and the insane reach of the Web, but I do think that prescribing the source of many bloody wars as a solution is a bit of … well, self-delusion or pandering. Take your pick.

Every time I run across another reference to Rep and GOP leader Stefanik (R-NY) refusing to see a connection between her comments on immigration and the reported motivations of the Buffalo mass murderer (alleged, of course), to wit, replacement theory, which is best summarized as “The Democrats are letting all those non-white immigrants in in order to replace us Republicans!”, I simply want to scream.

I want to scream,

Immigrants are neither liberal nor, for that matter, conservative by virtue of their being immigrants!

Seems obvious, no? But it’s not just a theoretical wave of the hand, meant to trick naive Republicans into denouncing a murderer who acted on a message which should be confined to the far-right fringe, but is actually advocated by Fox News personality Tucker Carlson – or so I’m told. No, no, no – which applies to taking Carlson seriously or my point as theoretical.

One of the factors that has made the Democrats position less stable than they’d like is that certain immigrant groups, such as Latinos originating from socialist, or so claiming to be socialist, nations don’t want to be in a socialist nation again. Ask former Cubans in Miami. Heck, I know a former Cuban, I should ask her. The point being that they came here seeking freedom to work, freedom to live, and a word they associate with a less salubrious environment is thrust upon them.

Similarly, there are other Democratic ideologies that are known to grate on immigrants’ nerves – with Latinos, again, the entire LatinX replacement for Latina and Latino is a well-known friction point.

And then add in a certain thread of autocracy that seems to run, ever so delicately, in the Democrats. We’ve seen it with their botching of the transgender issue. They seem to have grown a tendency to want to impose their views, large and small.

And, to some extent, that’s a governmental operational characteristic. But when it comes to public policy, it shouldn’t be.

Oh, sure, when faced with the fourth-raters that make up the opposition, it can be hard to have a serious discussion. The last time what passes for conservatives tried to have a discussion – the gay marriage issue – they were positively creamed. Nowadays they find some nasty word to scream and otherwise refuse to engage.

But that doesn’t make the Democrats look any better. When 25% of the gay community votes conservative, you can bet that the Democrats and their left wing has a problem.

But neither left nor right seem to understand that immigrants are neither liberal nor conservative, which is odd.

CNBC reports on a local company’s analysis of kids and college:

More than two years into the pandemic, nearly three-quarters, or 73%, of high schoolers think a direct path to a career is essential in postsecondary education, according to a survey of high school students.

The likelihood of attending a four-year school sank from 71% to 51% in the past two years, ECMC Group found.

High schoolers are putting more emphasis on career training and post-college employment, the report said. ECMC Group, a nonprofit aimed at helping students find success, polled more than 5,300 high school students five times since February 2020. …

Even before the pandemic, students were starting to consider more affordable, direct-to-career alternatives to a four-year degree, said Jeremy Wheaton, ECMC Group’s president and CEO.

The rising cost of college and ballooning student loan balances have played a large role in the changing views, but “they [students] are more savvy than we give them credit for,” Wheaton said. “They are aware of the jobs that are in high demand.”

But is that the way to run a society? Kids are rarely aware of their potential, even encumbered as it may be by upbringing, environment, hormone-driven bodies, and other barriers to achievement.

But, then again, those jobs in high demand are, in part, critical or close to critical to society. Who’s to deny them the opportunity to serve society in such a capacity?

Nor is college necessary at age 18; in fact, in some may consider it a detriment, given the fact that the brain is not yet completely wired in virtually everyone at that age. However, I wonder about the importance of stress, such as the stress of college, in facilitating the proper wiring of the brain. It seems unlikely that the wiring aspect of brain development is immune to outside influences.

In the end, we may see universities reaching out with special packages emphasizing the liberal arts / civic responsibilities that may not have reached these adults back in high school – if, in fact, they were taught at all.

And that’ll be yet another node of the culture wars.

Leftover pics from last week.

That first one is a trifle pale, but I like the composition.

Not quite so good.

Perhaps a bit coquettish.

And on to the shameless display, above.

It’s been a bit of a scramble in the arena of selling cryptocurrencies to the general public, public relations-wise, over the last month. WaPo covers a couple of points:

Yet that digital coin, a type of crypto known as a stablecoin because it aims to keep its price at $1, has been in free-fall this week. TerraUSD, or UST as it is known, was priced as low as 30 cents on Wednesday and was trading around 40 cents Thursday evening (crypto trades around the clock).

It isn’t clear yet what sent UST into a tailspin. But the cratering of what had been the third-largest stablecoin by total market value points to a wider reckoning for a hype-fueled asset class that is deflating as dramatically this year as it inflated in 2021.

It gets worse.

A sell-off over just the past seven days has erased more than a quarter of the value from the global crypto market, according to CoinMarketCap. Most dramatically, UST’s sister coin, Luna, lost almost all of its value in the past week, all but wiping out most people who had invested in it.

And they’re not supposed to be investments for most people. They’re supposed to be currencies. Yes, words matter. The fact that Luna can fall to zero suggests it, and its brethren, are not immune to manipulation.

But here’s what worries me:

If that’s not emotional manipulation, I don’t know what is. At best, it’s foolish. At worst? Use your imaginations.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, in regard to declining to endorse any Republican candidates in the upcoming primary elections:

How do you find points of agreement when you can’t reach common ground on facts so basic that they could be used in a field sobriety test?

Yet another measure of the rightward dash of the GOP.

All I can think is that Anguirus, the dude on the right, was on testosterone shots. I mean, he never had a chance. – Words of famous Godzillaologist.

Godzilla Raids Again (1955) is the follow up to Gojira (1954), the original Godzilla movie, and is an inferior sequel. A pilot employed by a fishing outfit to guide big fishing trawlers to big schools of fish runs into engine trouble while out working, and manages to set the seaplane down in a bay of a relatively rocky island. As his partner comes to his rescue, Godzilla hoves into view on the island, and is engaged by a giant ankylosaurus, later to be named Anguirus.

The distraction of Godzilla permits the aviators to escape in the rescuer’s seaplane, but, to the dismay of the Japanese authorities who thought Godzilla had perished in Gojira, Godzilla is sighted closing in on Japan. Near Osaka, Godzilla’s attraction to light is used to lure him back out to sea, but an unfortunate accident involving escaped convicts and an oil refinery spoils the plan, and Godzilla stomps up on shore to enjoy his bonfire. His pleasure is disrupted when Anguirus emerges from the sea as well, and attacks again, but this time Anguirus has overreached, and Godzilla wins the day, returning to the sea covered in glory. Blood. Whatever.

Next sighted in some rich fishing grounds, the fishing company and the Japan Self Defense Forces combine their resources to hunt the recalcitrant kaiju. Will they succeed? Or will Godzilla run rampant?

And what about the love subplot?

While Godzilla remains mysterious, it’s not the terrifying What’s he got against us? mysteriousness of Gojira. It’s more along the lines of Oh, not Godzilla again. Who the hell knows what it is this time. Who has the can of RAID bug spray? Maybe that’ll OOPS —

Anyways. The jet pilots seem a little incompetent, while Godzilla appears ill-equipped to deal with fake avalanches, so why is he on an icy island, rather than his usual stomping grounds of Tokyo some South Pacific island where the living’s good? The romantic subplot is sort of nice, but I’m not sure how it ties into Godzilla’s activities, so it was a little distracting.

In sum, it’s disappointing. The terror of Gojira is lost, replaced by a puzzled frown.

Pyrogeography:

Pyrogeography is the study of the past, present, and projected distribution of wildfire. Wildland fire occurs under certain conditions of climate, vegetation, topography, and sources of ignition, such that it has its own biogeography, or pattern in space and time. [Wikipedia]

Pyrogeographer is used in an unlinkable article in Discover (May/June 2022), and it was just too cool to pass up.

Horizontal gene transfer refers to the physical movement of genes from one organism to another. I had always assumed it was a unicellular trait, because … well, because. So this surprised me:

Many snakes make meals of frogs, but some appear to be transferring their DNA into the amphibians as well. A genetic analysis suggests that parasites shared between snakes and frogs may facilitate the movement of genetic material from one species to another.

The “horizontal” transfer of DNA between species was long considered a rare event that took place only between microbes, but there is growing evidence that the process has been going on all over the tree of life. [“Frogs have acquired DNA from snakes with the help of parasites,” Jake Buehler, NewScientist (30 April 2022, paywall)]

So parasites not only suck on your resources, but they gift you with genes you may not want.

Nifty.

Here’s some lovely irises, just popped today:

“What would be completely unexpected, yet organic, at this point?” “I can’t think of a thing.”

Late Night (2019) is a fairly conventional take on the stresses of putting on a talk show, ranging from the writers responsible for the jokes, right to the pinnacle – the talking head. It sails through the expected elements: stale jokes, lack of diversity, complacency and jealousy of position, and what happens when the show’s personnel are suddenly slated for replacement.

Sprightly, it has some laughs and some good acting, and is … unmemorable. For me. I suspect other audiences might love it.

But not me.

I noticed yesterday, via an Erick Erickson’s post, a prospective split in the GOP, but didn’t have time to address it because the lawn needed mowing. This involves the Georgia GOP primary battle for nomination to the governor’s seat involving incumbent Brian Kemp and former Senator David Perdue (R-GA), who was defeated in his reelection bid by now-Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA). Because Governor Kemp didn’t arbitrarily, and no doubt futilely, refuse to validate the 2020 election results in Georgia, Trump is determined to run Kemp out of the GOP, using the vehicle of the aforementioned Perdue. But:

I’ve confirmed with both sides, Vice President Mike Pence is himself formally endorsing Brian Kemp and will be in Georgia the day before the May 24th primary election. on May 23, Pence will campaign in Georgia for Kemp. …

With Pence for Kemp, it puts him directly at odds with President Trump. We probably will not see Perdue attacking Pence for the endorsement, though perhaps Trump will say something.

Via Professor Richardson, I learn from Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of others on the Pence side of the split:

But many of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics have rallied to Kemp’s side. That includes former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who plans to soon stump for Kemp in Georgia, and former President George W. Bush, who recently donated to his campaign.​

Both of whom qualify as old-line Republicans, but while the endorsement of a former President usually carries some weight, Bush is little more than a footnote to most Republican voters these days. It’s not just his Administration ending on the low note of the Great Recession, but his failure to convert into yet another MAGA-ite.

Erickson notes Kemp’s commanding lead in the primary:

Kemp has never been behind in the polls. Initial polling in the race had Kemp under 50%, but for the last three months, every public and all the private polling I’m aware of has had Kemp above 50%, meaning he will escape a runoff. Likewise, President Trump has largely downplayed the race and set expectations for a Kemp victory.

And that last line is a doozy. This is Trump’s conception of loyalty, noted time after time by many observers, and it’s not surprising, given Perdue’s debate performance in his Senatorial reelection bid in 2020 – staring vacantly while Ossoff verbally dumped his sins on his head. A former businessman, he doesn’t really understand being a politician, and shouldn’t have permitted Trump to persuade him to challenge Kemp. Perdue supposedly had prestige as a former Senator, even if he lost to political novice Ossoff, but his utter loyalty to Trump was the key for Trump to endorse him. That uncompromising loyalty marks the amateur, the unwillingness to think for oneself. Perdue never had a chance.

But Bluestein’s comment concerning MAGAites in Georgia reminded me of something important:

The event announced Friday illustrates a growing proxy fight in Georgia between establishment forces backing Kemp and the Trump loyalists who want to remake the state Republican Party in the former president’s mold.

This is really the issue that distinguishes the Trump cult from the traditional American parties and politics, isn’t it? Rather than rallying to a collection of principles and goals, the Trump base rallies to … Trump. Whoever he is, whatever he does, that’s where the loyalties lay.

If he leads them over the cliff of treason, as on January 6, 2021, then that’s where they go. They have no external guideposts, not even their religious beliefs, to stop most of them.

This situation really discourages fruitful discussion, doesn’t it? I mean, you can’t really talk with someone about conservative principles and fossil fuels when it’s all about Trump, and all he does it make up fake statistics about cancer and wind power. We saw him in office, as is common with all mendacious politicians whose focus is gaining and holding power, and his positions shifting and uttering supposed plans – it’s Infrastructure Week again! – as he perceived them to be best oriented to attract his base.

And without discussion, without honest criticism – or praise, are you listening to me you professional pundits? – how is anything supposed to improve?

But that’s the autocratic form of government, isn’t it? All about some self-centered person for whom the metric is How much attention am I getting? rather than Is the nation improving? And while admitting that the second question is far harder to answer than the first, that doesn’t make it invalid. It only makes it far more challenging – and interesting.

Bluestein’s description is an insight into the importance that Kemp – himself saddled with a dubious ethics illustrated by his failure to recuse or even resign as Secretary of State for Georgia when he chose to run for the governor’s seat in 2018, thus tainting the voting system – win, and win with a commanding margin, in the primary over Perdue.

And then we’ll see how Stacey Abrams, former member of the Georgia Legislature, does in the gubernatorial race rematch.

The first picture of the heart of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius *, from the Event Horizon Telescope:

Credit: EHT Collaboration

OK, so it’s a trifle blurry, but what it represents is very cool: A black hole that is the mass of 4 million stars the size of our Sun. More information here.

Remember those tulips from a couple of days ago? They’ve developed:

And some cousins have popped up:

Steve Benen provides a useful summation of what I’ve been predicting over the years, continuing to occur:

Nearly a decade later, however, Toomey is no longer seen as a conservative stalwart. On the contrary, in some GOP circles, he’s actually a boogeyman. The Hill reported the other day on Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, where the former president tried to generate support for celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who’s running to succeed Toomey.

Trump … took aim at former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick, Oz’s primary challenger in the Senate race, saying he is similar to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is retiring from the upper chamber after his current term and was one of the seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump last year.

…

To drive home the point, consider how much company Toomey has. The Texas Tribune reports today, for example, that the Bush name has lost its political clout in the Lone Star State as the GOP moves further and further to the right. In North Carolina, Pat McCrory was a deeply conservative governor, who’s now seen as a “RINO” Senate candidate.

A decade ago, Mitt Romney was his party’s “severely conservative“ presidential nominee, and now he’s persona non grata for much of the right. Even John McCain’s name in Arizona is now “invoked as an insult“ by conservative Republicans.

And Romney’s partner in that race, Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI), hard right zealot, future Speaker of the House, and boy wonder of wonkhood (since expelled for not being actually wonky enough), has been virtually run out of the Party. If he has any influence, I have not heard of it. He joins a horde of Republicans who’ve left the Party, ostensibly over Trump, but really over what he represents. The Party has been sprinting right, as I’ve been expecting.

But I don’t like Benen’s conclusion:

To fully appreciate Trump’s impact on GOP politics, look no further than the conservative Republicans who’ve been deemed too liberal by the party’s base.

The key question here is to ask, Could only Trump have pushed the Party that far right?

I contend the answer is No.

The Republican Party combination of toxic team politics, in which straight ticket voting is de rigeur, single issue voting, the disappearance of the Party gatekeepers, and the emphasis on winning elections, while scanting the question of competent governance and moderate politics, made the soil fertile for anyone with the wit to realize the party was vulnerable.

But then add in the catalyst of religious zealotry, and the poison of all the previously mentioned features is augmented: God wants you to to vote only Republican, God hates abortion / gun control / business regs / taxes, God favors extremists over those damn compromising moderates – the last seen long ago in the phrase,

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Memorable, but a dark omen of the future for the Republicans, as this was written for Senator Goldwater (R-AZ) sometime in the 1960s. Returning to my point, Trump reportedly didn’t even want to win, but use the campaign to suck money out of the conservative movement.

The Get Out Of Jail Free card of the Biblical figure of Cyrus, to which anyone who caught the imagination of the evangelical base could be connected, simply made Trump, who allegedly was fabulously rich, which is an important point for the prosperity church segment of the evangelicals, the focal point of a movement that needed a believable leader and had been discarding potential leaders for decades, names such as Falwell, Gingrich, Romney, Ryan, Bush, Allen West (R-TX) – all had a flaw, whether they were too honorable to break the rules and bring the evangelicals their desperately desired power, or too inept at communications, or were the wrong sect, or the wrong color, or couldn’t be extreme enough.

Trump, despite being a master of communication with his base, may be slipping. His crowds are reportedly shrinking, and sometimes he gets booed.

So Benen may blame Trump, but I blame a Party that self-destructed over a couple of decades, following Gingrich’s advice to put victory at the polls over everything else, be it ideological rigor or electoral cheating. Trump was just the lucky guy – if being the most disgraced President in US history can be considered to be lucky – to benefit from Gingrich’s cursed advice.

The question that leaps to mind is whether there’s a politician waiting in the wings who can outdo Trump. Names such as DeSantis, Hawley, Cruz, and a number of others come to mind, but they all have flaws. Meanwhile, the younger generations seem to view the evangelicals and Republicans with great doubt, although the Democrats are not without their own potentially fatal missteps.

Where will it end?