Michigan Senate Race. Marie: This is THE stupidest thing I believe I've heard a Democrat do since Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain in 2007:
~~~ Chris Hippensteel of the Guardian: “Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost the Michigan Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed his Republican rival, Mike Rogers, in an extraordinary rebuke of her party’s nominee on the eve of the midterm elections. Her endorsement came in a video posted to X after she attended an event with Rogers at the predominantly Black Perfecting church in Detroit on Sunday. Stevens’ endorsement was the culmination of an escalating feud between the former primary rivals that has roiled one of the most fiercely contested Senate contests of the cycle. The endorsement was met with immediate pushback from Democrats, who condemned Stevens for her 'betrayal'.” ~~~
~~~ Violet Jira of the Washington Post: “Stevens’s appearance and endorsement marked a stunning turn in events for a Democrat who insisted she wanted a Democratic victory in the Senate race.... 'We are dismayed that Congresswoman Haley Stevens has revealed herself to be a sellout who used Black Michiganders for a political stunt,' Virgie Rollins, chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Black Caucus, said in a statement.” ~~~
~~~ Bayliss Wagner, et al., of the New York Times: “After [Dr. El-Sayed] narrowly beat her in August, [Stevens] immediately endorsed him and they seemed to reach a quiet truce. Then, this month, she began to criticize him in news interviews, and in recent days, they traded public barbs over his stance on Israel. But she continued to cautiously commit to supporting Dr. El-Sayed and the full Democratic ticket.... Ms. Stevens’s move shocked other Democrats and upended her congressional office, with several top officials announcing their resignations.... Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, called the move a 'despicable betrayal.'...
“Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, said in an interview that ... she had told him in a phone call around 10 p.m. on Saturday night that she was still behind Dr. El-Sayed. Mr. Raskin recalled ... that he had pressed Ms. Stevens. 'I just want to be very clear about that: You’re supporting the whole ticket, including Abdul?' he recalled asking her. 'And she said yes.'... Ms. Stevens said [Sunday] that she 'woke up this morning and I decided to go to church and I am here with the person that I am voting for, for United States Senate. And that is Mike Rogers.'”
~~~ See Steve M. on this. He wrote his post before Stevens officially went to the dark side. But he updated the post. And he has a theory. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~
~~~ You can watch the TMZ thang here. Or you may prefer Jimmy Fallon's take on a Haley Stevens interview. It's definitely more entertaining (it begins at about 4:10 min. in). ~~~
~~~ Marie: I do have some bad news for Haley. Unless Mike wins (a possibility) & somehow gets Haley and the boyfriend top jobs in Washington (also possible) -- deputy secretaries of ratfucking or whatever -- that new fiance of hers -- the one she was telling TMZ loves her to pieces -- is going to be dumping her toot sweet. (Maybe Mike promised them jobs; it's not likely El-Sayed would have found a place for either of them.) Probably even if Mike wins & the kids get good gigs in D.C. Honey, that guy's love is strictly transactional. I promise. ~~~
~~~ Erik Loomis in LG&$: "Congrats to Haley Stevens, your racism and Islamophobia has displaced John Fetterman as America's Worst Democrat[.]... What is certain is that Haley Stevens would have been a Joe Lieberman level of ratfucker to Democrats in the caucus. At least Fetterman has the stroke to blame. Stevens is just a terrible human being.... I wonder if this isn’t backfiring on her goal of electing Rogers? It’s one thing for her to give space for her supporters to not come out for El-Sayed, but she’s moving to batshit insanity so quickly and there’s the weirdness with the fiancé and she seems to be losing the thread entirely." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Loomis is right. Stevens would have been a disaster in the Senate. She is not a very stable genius. She married (I think for the first time) in 2021; she & her husband announced their divorce 13 months later. Now, she's embarking on another marriage. She says she is a Christian Protestant. But now she's considering converting to Judaism because of the boyfriend. Suddenly, she's also out of a job. Marriage (x 2). Religion. Profession. These are big deals, defining markers, in most people's lives. Stevens is confused and unsure about her status on multiple levels. So her equivocation on El-Sayed/Rogers is, well, consistent with her recent history of inconsistency. ~~~
~~~ Josh Marshall weighs in. Also worth a read.
Alaska Senate Race. Anna Griffin of the New York Times: “A federal judge in Alaska has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit that pre-emptively challenged the results in a U.S. Senate race featuring two candidates with the same name — a Republican incumbent and another man who could be a spoiler. The Justice Department lawsuit, filed last month at ... [Donald] Trump’s direction, asked the judge to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate election results if Senator Daniel S. Sullivan loses but would have won had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, gone to the incumbent instead. In that scenario, the suit also demands an investigation into whether voters who selected the retired teacher actually intended to vote for the senator. It’s not clear how an investigation into anonymous ballots would be conducted....
“In her ruling, released Sunday morning, Chief Judge Sharon Gleason of U.S. District Court in Alaska [wrote of] the right of states to control their elections. Judge Gleason, an appointee of President Obama, wrote that she did not see how the federal government’s proposed solution to any confusion — separating out ballots filed for Daniel J. Sullivan and investigating whether people who supported him meant to rank Senator Dan S. Sullivan instead — would solve that problem or even work given the right to a secret ballot is a core principle of American democracy.”
Anna Wilder, et al., of the AP, published by the Huff Post: “A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer accused of intentionally ramming his car into a Mexican construction worker in Houston was indicted by a grand jury Friday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, prosecutors said. The officer, Mario Alberto Morales, was driving an unmarked SUV on Oct. 10 when he struck and ran over Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, who was running away during a pursuit through a parking lot, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Parra Hernandez broke his leg and remains in federal custody at a rehabilitation facility, said District Attorney Sean Teare, who announced the indictment at a news conference that included body camera video of the encounter and a recording of Morales calling 911. ICE has asserted that Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle, an account that Teare said is contradicted by video. 'The evidence we have in this case is as clear as any that I’ve ever prosecuted or investigated,' Teare said.” Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Three cheers to Teare for pursuing the case. Now look down the page at the video of ICE goons in Portland, Oregon, slashing the tires of U.S. citizens because they had been warning people in a supermarket parking lot that ICE officers were in the lot, a story RAS also found. Here's the Fox News Houston's report: "federal agents call the prosecution poltically motivated.'" Right. The report includes video of the incident: ~~~
~~~~~~~~~
Peter Baker & Dylan Freedman of the New York Times: Donald Trump's “performances on the road and at the White House this fall have produced many head-scratching moments that have revived questions about his age and stability. He can be forgetful and repetitive. He is more long-winded, more profane and more absolutist than when he ran for president a decade ago. His rambling speeches seem even more garbled at times. He makes comments that leave people wondering what he is talking about or that sound like he is saying something he is not. And even for a president who has never fully observed the norms of the office, he seems more willing to say things no other president would say. He declared that at an unfenced construction site 'only a Hispanic could survive that fall.' He wants to ban immigrants from Norway 'because I didn’t get the Nobel Prize.' He says 'I don’t give a damn' if he is seen as caring more about oil company profits than struggling workers. He mispronounces the Strait of Hormuz as the 'Hormone Strait.' He has told supporters to 'cheat like hell' in the Nov. 3 elections. He says military leakers should be shot.' And then there is his baffling fixation with admiring men’s posteriors....
“Broadly speaking, [an A.I.-assisted New York Times] review concluded, Mr. Trump’s public communication is more vulgar, more uninhibited and less coherent than it was a decade ago.... He is cruder than he used to be, using nearly 15 swear words per 10,000 words compared with 14 two years ago and six a decade ago, a change consistent with age-related disinhibition.... He makes rambling or confusing digressions in his rallies and speeches two and a half times as often in his second term as in the 2016 campaign, although roughly the same as in 2024. His vocabulary remains about the same, as does the reading level of his speaking, which hovers between fourth and fifth grade.” The link is a gift link. Do read on; Baker & Freedman cover quite a number of those head-scratchers.
Tyler Pager of the New York Times: “There were cheetah and zebra stripes on the walls and tables. Women wore sequined leotards and elaborate headdresses, and one couple flocked around in bright-feathered costumes of jungle birds. Then ... [Donald] Trump arrived. 'I came as Donald Trump,' he said, outfitted in his standard red tie and navy suit.... Such was the scene Saturday night, when hundreds gathered in the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate Halloween with the president. The theme was the jungle, if an opulent one. There was Alaskan king crab and a caviar bar. There were bongo drums and puppets.... 'Look at all my rich members,' [Mr. Trump] told reporters. 'They spent all day getting ready. Look at these guys.... These are the biggest guys on Wall Street.'” The link is a gift link. ;~~~
~~~ Marie: Funny, innit, that he's okay with glamorizing "shithole countries & reveling in the beauty and exotic dangers many present? Even funnier: here is a guy who spent the night boasting about all his "rich friends," when just days ago, he was telling the poor people/fans that even if he gave them $5,000, they couldn't buy more than a hamburger & small dessert with it at Mar-a-Lardo. He seems to be counting on the popularity of louche. ~~~
~~~ Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post: “Tying corruption to voters’ economic malaise ... gave new potency to a criticism of ... Donald Trump that the party had struggled for years to make stick. Trump provided an opening, repeatedly dismissing concerns about rising prices even as his own wealth ballooned and his allies profited from their proximity to the presidency. Meanwhile, his handling of the Justice Department’s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein undermined the image he cultivated among his supporters as a political outsider determined to 'drain the swamp' in Washington. Democrats have seized on the contrast to paint not just Trump, but a host of Republican incumbents defending their congressional seats as enriching themselves while ordinary Americans struggled to make ends meet.... This election cycle ... even Republicans have increasingly come to see Trump as part of the problem.... Political strategists in both parties say a steady stream of stories about allegations of self-dealing in the Trump administration has helped keep corruption in the spotlight.” ~~~
~~~ David Ovalle & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: “Some recent polls have shown corruption has risen to the top of issues that voters say they care about most....” The writers cite some examples of both Democrats & Republicans trying to portray their opponents as corrupt. The link is a gift link.
~~~ So suddenly, Trump is Capt. Louis Renault and he's shocked, shocked, to find that is grift going on here. ~~~
~~~ Uh-Oh. Habba Dabba Don't Tyler Pager of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Saturday strongly criticized his former lawyer, Alina Habba Mildon, saying it was 'totally obnoxious and outrageous' for her to enter into a $50 million deal for work with a billionaire Venezuelan family seeking a pardon from the president. Mrs. Mildon, while working as a senior adviser at the Justice Department, signed on last year as an extraordinarily well-compensated general counsel for a company started by the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini, who was granted the pardon by Mr. Trump weeks later. At a Halloween party on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump tore into Mrs. Mildon when asked about the contract, calling it not acceptable.... I thought it was terrible,' he told reporters. 'I told her, and I said, “I don’t want her paid.” I thought we had somebody speak to the people that did it, and she used her relationship to do that. And it was far too much.'” The link is a gift link.
~~~ Marie: If you're wondering why actor James Austin Johnson keeps making a weird sound during the skit, here's the explanation: ~~~
~~~ Nur Ibrahim of Snopes (Oct. 23): "On Oct. 21..., Donald Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in South Carolina for Republican Sen. Darline Graham when a video (archived) clipped from the speech began circulating in which he appeared to emit a strange, guttural vocalization midsentence: 'And I'd say 90% of the reason I took the governor — EHHH! — I took the governor, I put her over at the United Nations, because I wanted this guy to become governor.' People spread the clip — which was easily authenticated via the original C-SPAN footage — on various social media platforms." Includes video clip. MB: It's real and it's weird. My recollection is that Trump has made other, seemingly involuntary, gutteral sounds, midsentence, while making public remarks over the past few years. Whether or not he was aware of making those sounds was unclear to me when I heard and saw video clips of the incidents.
Katie Robertson of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Saturday once again threw out ... [Donald] Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting that linked the president and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The president had argued that The Journal had maligned his 'character and integrity' when it published an article in 2025 about a lewd birthday greeting that Mr. Trump appeared to have written to Mr. Epstein more than 20 years earlier. Mr. Trump denied writing the greeting and sued The Journal, asking for $10 billion in damages. On Saturday, Judge Darrin P. Gayles of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted The Journal’s request that the complaint be dismissed, writing that the president 'has failed' to prove that The Journal had 'acted with actual malice.'... Judge Gayles dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the claim cannot be refiled again.” MB: Even if nobody much cares that Rupert Murdoch challenged Trump & won, it's a good thing he did fight Trump and a good thing for our Constitution that he won. The Guardian's report is here.
Like RAS, Rick Hasen is sure the DOJ will be investigating the Nevada "independent" candidate Danielle Ford, who has ties to GOP operatives. Funnily enough, Danielle has the same last name as the Democratic candidate, Aaron Ford. As the Nevada Independent reported way back on October 20, Danielle Ford's "backers" -- who seem to operate out commercial complex as Gov. Joe Lombardo's (R) campaign -- sent out a mailer picturing her alongside a cutout of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and calling Gabrielle "the AOC of Nevada." "... a spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez, said Danielle Ford has never contacted or spoken to the congresswoman, who is supporting Democratic candidate and Attorney General Aaron Ford in the race." See RAS' commentary yesterday. MB: I too am confused as to why the DOJ hasn't called a press conference yet about this now-12-day old horrifying campaign scandal & why Donald Trump has not demanded that Gabrielle be locked away. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Here the New York Times' Terrence McGinley & Patrick Healy interview reporter Kellen Browning & his editor Amy Gardner about what they published the story about how “political operatives aligned with the Democratic Senate campaign of Mary Peltola recruited another candidate, Dan J. Sullivan, to run as a Republican in the Senate race and try to pull votes away from the incumbent Republican, Dan S. Sullivan.” The link is a gift link. Nothing about why they didn't cover other instances of ballot-stacking (like the one earlier reported & linked above!). The day after it published Browning's damning article implicating Peltola, the Times did publish an article by other reporters outlining past instances in which both parties engaged in ballot-stacking.
Andrew Childers of Democracy Docket: "Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed his department is investigating 300,000 cases of potential noncitizens voting, with 1,600 active investigations. The Trump administration has made potential noncitizens voting its central message heading into the midterm elections Tuesday, repeatedly claiming without evidence that it is widespread. The administration has used those allegations to try to interfere with states’ constitutional authority to administer elections. 'All we’re trying to do is make sure we secure our elections,' Mullin said in a Fox News interview." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I may be making a conservative estimate when I suggest that 95 percent of Markwayne's supposed 300,000 "cases" are fake. But what follows is real: this is what Markwayne's department does, and it shocks the conscience: ~~~
~~~ C.J. Ciaramella of Reason: "Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents slashed the tires of a couple who were recording the agents in an incident near Portland, Oregon, earlier this month. The agents then drove away without arresting or talking to the couple, video footage shows The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which released the footage today, says it is yet another example of ICE agents retaliating against people for protected First Amendment activity. In an administrative complaint on behalf of the anonymous couple, the ACLU and the ACLU of Oregon are demanding an investigation and answers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about why agents tailed, boxed in, and 'vandalized' the vehicle of a U.S. citizen.... The complaint notes that the couple 'experienced retaliatory action similar to that experienced by many other individuals across the country engaged in these same First Amendment protected activities.'" Thanks to RAS for the link.
~~~~~~~~~~
Alaska Senate Race. AP, published by NPR: “The U.S. Department of Justice pushed Friday for a court order to isolate certain Alaska ballots to investigate potential voter confusion, while federal officials confirmed the existence of a criminal probe over a Senate candidate who shares a name with the Republican incumbent.... The request to segregate the ballots in Alaska comes after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Justice Department's request for California to set aside disputed ballots received in the midterm election sent to some 20,000 people the administration contends may not be U.S. citizens.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: This seems stupid to me. Since ballots are secret, I don't see how a ballot, no matter how it is marked for U.S. Senate candidates, can show that the voter was "confused." Well, maybe a bunch of people will write in the margins of their paper ballots, "I was so confused!" (Okay, that would be proof, IMO, that Republican operatives told them to write that! So it's still stupid.) ~~~
~~~ Kathianne Boniello of Mediaite: “A man who donated $500 to Daniel J. Sullivan’s Senate campaign in Alaska — and who said he’s known the neophyte political candidate for years — told the Associated Press he’s gotten a visit from the FBI. Charles Flint owns a boat dealership in the remote community of Petersburg, a town in the southern portion of the state that can only be reached by air or water and a town where Sullivan, a teacher, lives.... Flint told the AP he was out of town when an FBI agent showed up at his business Friday and spoke with his son, asking if he felt he had been 'misled' by his neighbor. 'I don’t feel like I’ve been misled at all,' Flint told the AP. He said he wasn’t going to return the FBI’s message. 'Let him waste his time trying to track me down,' he said before adding, 'I don’t think there’s any confusion. Everybody knows who the incumbent is.'”
Alaska. Anna Griffin of the New York Times: “As a Justice Department lawsuit challenging the presence of two U.S. Senate candidates named Dan Sullivan on the Alaska ballot plays out, Democrats have filed a lawsuit in Alaska accusing election officials of failing to properly operate at least 18 rural polling locations. The complaint, filed Friday afternoon in Anchorage Superior Court, warns that several thousand voters across remote, predominantly Alaska Native communities face disenfranchisement in a state where elections are routinely decided by a few thousand or even a few hundred votes.... The Democrats’ lawsuit alleges that state-advertised absentee-in-person voting sites across 18 rural communities either failed to open, opened late, maintained irregular hours or lacked ballots altogether. In some communities, local workers reportedly resigned without replacements, while others had not received ballots or were unaware they were supposed to host voting. According to the complaint, some voters traveled to their designated voting location 'by boat or by plane' only to be turned away.” The link is a gift link.
Texas Senate Race. Remember the Alamo! Kayla Guo of the Texas Tribune: “Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton was supposed to make the last stand of his campaign at the Texas landmark around which his 'Come and Take It' bus tour centered: The Alamo. But on Saturday, two days before his final rally would’ve taken place on the eve of Election Day, Paxton appeared to scrap those plans. Instead, his campaign added Monday events in Conroe and Allen. The event in Conroe is set for 11 a.m., while the one in Allen is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., at a restaurant 300 miles from the Alamo.... [Paxton] drew on the landmark of resistance — despite the Battle of the Alamo’s outcome, a 1836 loss in the Texas Revolution — to drive home his closing message to Texans: 'When they come after Texans, Ken Paxton goes after them.'... Paxton’s final push was dotted by other cancellations and reschedules, too, including events in El Paso, Tyler, Texarkana and Mission, prompting Democrats to declare a 'Paxton bus tour crashout.'” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I don't know how the Alamo rally would have worked. The Alamo is a (surprisingly tiny) landmark that sits in a small public park in the heart of downtown San Antonio, a city that usually votes Democratic. Here's a HuffPost article about how Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley, who voted for Trump in 2024 are voting Democratic in this election. (San Antonio is not in the Valley, but is part of the "South Texas" region.) A firewalled NBC article is headlined, "Early voting numbers show Hispanic turnout exploding in Texas." So I don't think Paxton could count on a very successful rally in San Antonio. ~~~
~~~ But Wait! I Failed to Let the Gray Lady Weigh in. Robert Draper of the New York Times leads his story by claiming James Talarico is in an “elite pantheon” in Texas and is a “celebrity” as well as “a smooth orator and prolific fund-raiser.” Later on, Draper describes Talarico as a “pale and slightly built pastor-in-training” who “does not personify the Texas swagger.... He wears the same youthful, Texas business casual uniform every day: a tailored blazer, a crisp white dress shirt, jeans and those cowboy boots.” The boots because “He really wants you to know that he’s a Texan.” And on down the page, there's this: “... Democratic Party officials said in interviews that while knocking on doors in both San Antonio and El Paso, they encountered abiding loyalty to Mr. Trump and an aversion to Mr. Talarico, particularly among Latino men.... Mr. Talarico’s surrogates are now couching their sense of urgency about the Latino vote in comic appeals. In San Antonio, the actress Eva Longoria exclaimed: 'Tell everyone! Tell your ex-boyfriend!” In El Paso, the city’s congresswoman, Veronica Escobar, beseeched a group of volunteer canvassers, 'By all means, harass your family and your friends.'” The link is a gift link. You're welcome. Because ~~~
~~~ Marie: In other words, even though Draper concedes Talarico is an 8th-generation Texan (and Paxton is from North Dakota), the Democrat is a pale, puny phony who isn't "Texas" enough, and he is so girly he repel Latino men. Thanks, New York Times!
19 comments:
Election Interference
"Election officials in at least one Florida county are urging in-person voting amid reports of mail-in ballot delays. Broward County Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott said delays are affecting both ballots sent to voters and returned to his office. Scott’s son in Orlando waited 12 days for a ballot, according to WLRN.
It’s unclear how many Broward voters are affected. “We’ve seen where people, even locally in Broward County, have mailed a ballot and it’s taken up to two weeks for that ballot to get here, which is totally unacceptable,” Scott told WSVN 7News."
The president of the United States,
"Trump on Ilhan Omar: She says she has constitutional rights. The arrogance."
"Video Shows ICE Agents Slashing Portland Couple's Car Tire Then Driving Off
An ACLU complaint says the couple was recording ICE agents when they chased, boxed in, and vandalized the couple's car.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents slashed the tires of a couple who were recording the agents in an incident near Portland, Oregon, earlier this month. The agents then drove away without arresting or talking to the couple, video footage shows.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which released the footage today, says it is yet another example of ICE agents retaliating against people for protected First Amendment activity."
This is what it actually looks like when a car is being used as a deadly weapon
"A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer accused of intentionally ramming his car into a Mexican construction worker in Houston was indicted by a grand jury Friday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, prosecutors said.
The officer, Mario Alberto Morales, was driving an unmarked SUV on Oct. 10 when he struck and ran over Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, who was running away during a pursuit through a parking lot, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office."
Funny that Trump is outraged that people don't know how cheap he is. $50 million is too much...his pardons are usually not that expensive. I remember people kept trying to make the argument that Trump wouldn't rip people off for a mere couple grand at a time, like with Trump University, because he is already so rich that it would be beneath him. I think in this case he likes how many people come to him and his go betweens begging him for help for their rich corrupt clients. But $50 million is a lot to launder and could slow the number of people coming to him on their knees saying only he has the power to free them. Pardon power is one of his favorite games to lord over the lives of his flatterers.
Sunday Sermon, Pt. I
WALLS
Our politics are defined by walls.
To the south we’re erecting a physical wall at great cost to taxpayers ($62 billion to date) and to the environment. To the north, we’ve imposed a tariff wall on Canadian products. These walls are hard to ignore. When ICE or the Border Patrol shoots someone, or another headline reminds us how much our tariffs cost us, we notice. Since January 2025, ICE and the Border Patrol have shot at least 30 people and killed 9, some American citizens (cbsnews.com). Tariffs will cost American households $2500 in 2026, $700 more than they did in 2025 (jec.senate.gov). The last two years of the Trump administration’s aggressive wall-building have made the country feel strangely dark (nbcnews.com).
\We’ve been building walls for a long time.
Race, religious and gender walls are familiar and conspicuous parts of our history. Those walls remain with us, but the tallest barrier that separates Americans today is the mountain of money that looms over everything. The six Reagan, Bush II, and Trump tax cuts built that mountain. Overall, 65 percent of those cuts went to the top 20 percent of Americans. Approximately 20 percent of those cuts went to the top one percent (itep.org). Simply put, they rewarded the rich for being rich. Since then, the nation’s ever-widening wealth gap has played an increasing role in all aspects of our lives.
It has certainly played a prominent part in our elections. Each election cycle, big money speaks in an ever-louder voice. In current dollars, political parties, private donors, and organizations spent about $3 billion in the 1998 federal election. In 2024 it was approximately $15 billion. In this year's non-presidential election, total spending will be even greater, with the top one percent contributing over 94% of it (opensecrets.org).
The Supreme Court raised the wall of money even higher with their Citizen’s United and other election law decisions. Citizens United reaffirmed that money contributed to elections is First Amendment protected speech and it extended that protection to groups. While ensuing court and Federal Election Commission decisions limited direct contributions to candidates, they gave free rein to Political Action Committees (PACs) to fund unlimited television, print and social media support for issues or candidates. By 2024, PACs contributed sixty-five percent of election spending. Today, much of that money, first funneled through other entities, is untraceable “dark” money. When Trump baldly asked the oil and gas industry for $I billion to support his 2024 run, he was only following the path the Supremes had laid out. Not coincidentally, his attack on renewables and his special treatment of the fossil fuel industry soon followed.
Some might think that such arrangements reek of corruption, but the Supremes have said something about corruption, too. In addition to granting a general amnesty to nearly everything a president does (though they conveniently didn’t define which presidential “official acts” get a free pass), they decided that corruption doesn’t exist unless there’s a proven one-for-one trade: you give me money and I’ll give you a specific something in return. Buying influence, though, is fine with today’s Supremes. Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, lost his job when he accepted an expensive coat from a supporter. He didn’t even get a jumbo jet.
Pt II
In this election cycle, the governing party has erected even more walls to shield them from the people they were elected to serve. Heeding Trump’s 2025 call (yahoo.com), Republican states gerrymandered like mad, building walls on voting maps to dilute the effect of their likely opponents’ votes. Many Republican-controlled states have simply made it harder for some to vote. Texas recently closed polling sites in Black and Latino areas and imposed new restrictions on voter registration and mail in ballots. (cnn.com).
In our democracy, money is the nearly unscalable wall that separates people from what they should expect their government to deliver. People have repeatedly told their leaders they want basic medical care. They want a living wage. They want affordable food and housing. They want a fair justice system. They want to be able to trust their government. And because they sense what gets in the way of all that, they want money out of politics.
Not all the news is bad. People are beginning to see that vast economic inequality and democracy can’t coexist. Despite legal challenges, Hawaii has acted to overturn the consequences of Citizens United, limiting corporate campaign contributions in state elections. Michigan and Montana also have similar proposals on their November ballots (citizen.org), and if elected, a Washington State District 10 representative candidate has said he will introduce similar legislation here.
Maybe voters have noticed that the wall of concentrated wealth has rendered them powerless.
We’ll soon see.
A comment on the too many Sullivans to the north:
Did an election observation stint on Friday here in Washington St, where mail-in ballots are the norm.
Since election paranoia foisted on us by the R's and ginned up by the Pretender struck, both R's and D's have placed observers in the election office to make sure nothing nefarious is going on. We watch workers withdraw the ballots from the envelopes, inspect the ballots themselves, count them in batches of about 100, set any aside that have any visible problems, like illegible markings, or signs of over or under voting. All that is done by hand before any machine count takes place beginning on Election Day.
Others check signatures on the envelopes and match them with those on the registered voter rolls, one at a time.
Friday I watched two women go over the ballots that had been pulled because their markings were somehow questionable. They were scanned into a computer and the two women then made the necessary decisions, one ballot at a time. People who voted for two candidates in a one candidate race had their votes rejected on that item. People who changed their mind mid vote but made their final choice clear had their votes counted.
We had three initiatives on the ballot. Initiative votes (yes/no) are often confusing, and there was some confusion. Still the election officials accepted the votes when the final intent was clear.
My observation: Since we could see the array of candidates that those who were confused supported, it was my impression that in this small sample the Right-leaning voters were the ones most likely to be confused.
Tentative conclusion: Maybe two Sullivans would have been too much for the Alaskan R's..
A little more context.
jmauro2000's comment of the Peltola case from LawyersGuns&Money
"And it should be noted that in this case, during the 2014 election for the Senate seat, the now-Senator Dan Sullivan, did nothing to disabue the notion that he was the Dan Sullivan, the well liked mayor of Anchorage, who was running for Lt. Governor on the same ballot. Post election polling showed something like 1/5 of Alaska voters had no idea these were two different Dan Sullivans."
Found this article as saying mostly the same thing
"The poll, Larkin said, showed that voters liked the Anchorage mayor more and knew him better than the Senate candidate who shares his name.
"It's giving commissioner Dan a boost," Larkin said in a phone interview. "I mean, the mayor of Anchorage, next to the governor, is probably the most high-profile position in the state. He's on the news once a week.""
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/11/01/us/midterms-elections-trump#social-security-email-trump-hatch-act
Maybe I said nothing about the above because I've run out of things to say...
On BlueSky, a comic by Michael de Adder, on the cost of living
Peter Wehner, for The Atlantic, remembers (wearing rose colored glasses), those who influenced him with their “republican virtue” before commenting on what family values look like to Republicans in the Trump era
"Today the American right is not merely indifferent to character formation; it is in the business of character deformation. It takes pride in its transgressiveness. The Ramaswamy ad embodies the “no bottom” ethic of the Trump-era GOP, and its wickedness comes in layers.
Cruelty and coarseness have momentum, but they also have limits. Political leaders who relentlessly push brutality do lower a nation’s standards, at least for a time. But if we’re fortunate, they also awaken its conscience. The revulsion comes first, almost physical, like bile rising in the throat. It is what Kass, in a different context, called “the wisdom of repugnance.”
The reckoning follows."
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/11/01/us/midterms-elections-trump
I'm a Democrat to the very bottom of my toes, but I'll endorse the Republican pig.
As I said, I've run out of things to say....
Steve M. thinks the Stevens family turn on El Sayed is a GOP Op.
It also comes just after Mike Rogers basically said he supports an abortion ban. Stevens is endorsing taking away more women's rights.
Mike Rogers is back to bragging about his anti-abortion record
After promising Michigan voters he wouldn’t change their abortion rights, Rogers gave evangelical Christians a very different assurance."
Politico
"Stevens’ chief of staff, other aides resign over Rogers endorsement
Rep. Haley Stevens’ chief of staff said Sunday that he and other members of her team had resigned following the Michigan Democrat's endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers for the state’s Senate seat.
“As Haley Stevens’ Chief of Staff for eight years, I speak on behalf of our team in wholeheartedly supporting Abdul El-Sayed for Senate,” Justin German said in a statement Sunday, endorsing her former primary rival. “We are shocked and heartbroken by Congresswoman Stevens’ decision to support Mike Rogers.”"
Just to make a point, support for Rogers means endorsing that women don't have full rights, LGBTQ people don't have full rights, that Democrats do not have full rights, that Trump is above the law, that she wants Trump to appoint the another Swine Court justice, that global warming is not real and needs no solutions, that corruption is preferred, that healthcare should be more expensive and less available, that Canada is a vile enemy of the USA and Russia is our friend, it is support for sick children and poorer education, it is supposed for a repressive police state that can murder citizens with impunity. All that and more is what Stevens just endorsed and is actively fighting for with her support for Republican control of our government.
Have only heard in the past small bits of her raucous, nasal speech, and automatically did not care for her, and what she did this morning is bratty, bitchy,jealous behavior. Because she lost her race she is behaving like a spoiled baby. Nya nya nya nya nya-- bet your sorry you didn't vote for me and instead voted for a terrorist... What a disgusting creep she is, and the boyfriend bit is so less-than-charming. And no, he is not cute-- he is of the Steven genre...like a visit from the underworld. Gaacchhh. I want this to all be over, and also, not happen at all.
you're. Sorry-- don't we have an edit key to fix the idiocies we commit when distracted?
More... News
"Sen. Chris Murphy is in the hospital after having a stroke, according to the Connecticut Democrat’s office.
In a statement Sunday, Murphy’s chief of staff, Allison Herwitt, said the senator “started experiencing numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game” on Saturday.
“He was taken to a local hospital, where it was discovered he had experienced a stroke,” she said. “He was transferred to Johns Hopkins for further monitoring and is responding well to treatment. The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery.”"
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