A certain amount of happy talk on James Talarico, which gets undermined in the same breath with a “makes it a race” — fighting chance. Or, where everyone was before — Beto O’Rourke, that football guy in 2024. And unlike them who were behind in every poll you ever saw, he leads in the polls. The Republicans have an effective and tried and true strategy though: just say that he’s gay. Or, Vegan, which is the same difference. See, this way when he floats any shot of him eating meat they can claim he’s hiding it, a sign of desperation! And then float out a tweet celebrating the “first trans candidate” — can’t argue against that without alienating the trans, right?

For his part, we see the problem with the latest Republican “take down the establishment” — Paxton. Amuse yourself with the divorce proceedings by the divorce proceedings — “biblical grounds” — ha ha — I don’t really see how anyone cares, even if it’s politically convenient now-off is amusing. The problem when bringing up his record, the things that had the Texas legislator impeach him, and a record of scandal is in the litany — everyone skips right past “election denier” and a lead role in conspiracy hunting on January 6 — no more a scandal, an assumption.

Definitions for what get defined as “scandal” get fuzzy. Graham Platner of Maine — sordid past and all, but I take a kind of “meh” on the latest, even as it appears to drop one hell of a drop in female support in the polls. The circumstances of the latest are a little curious — he brought up his sexting images and infidelity to his wife, oh — oh, five minutes before he decided to run for Senate — a campaign staffer who is disenchanted with Platner dropped it into the ether just now. A semi-scandalous detail — I guess? — on these oh so hot dating app photo is he covers up his Nazi tattoo — I am not sure what that detail is supposed to suggest, even before he was aware of the genesis of the image it is by now a thing that he realises that it is not so bad-ass looking to the chicks he is trying to attract and cheat on. There is a bunch of commentary on Platner I am annoyed with — the consultant pundit Cilizza chimes in that what he’s want from a Platner is to jump in to a state legislator race and go from there. A couple problems with the assumptions baked into the proclamation — we are in a “Schumer cleared the field for an 80 year old career politico, an older version of people who have gone down to Collins in the past” — where is the more liberal and younger state legislator barn-storming the state for this primary? Also you lose years by that deed and the generation gap decreases.

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I watched the 4 episode Netflix series “Death by Lightning”, about President James Garfield.  I somewhat wonder on how an earlier depiction of things in an earlier decade would get depicted -with the scene of Charles Guiteau at Oneida, the people at the commune taking his complaints that it is all menial labor and fucking that his complaint is the women at the free love commune won’t do him — this falls in line with current take of mass shootings and violence as stemming broadly from incel entitlement.

Another thought, kind of where I am always stuck and sometimes end up with no consideration or assessment of “well written” and “badly written” because it is the mark of both  — the dialogue foreshadowing through an expression referencing Garfield’s death.  It strikes me that if a central event of a historical fiction was the famous person eating a hamburger at lunch, you would be finding allusions to that in their life and propping those up, and inventing a few for this mundane occurrence made a central point.

John Fetterman speaks. Once upon a time, an object of ridicule and horror on the right, part of a holy trio alongside Biden and Feinstein for “the Democrats’ cognitive decline problem” — two old people and a stroke victim. How did this guy who stutters incoherently and could barely campaign on his way through rehabilitation have won that election? Never mind the piece of work representing the Republicans. Now he is the Republicans’ favorite Democrat. Israel bashing Democrats turned him. Gaza lovers, I guess. A cautionary tale for the Bernie Sanders pac that pumped him up — Damned it, the Democrats should have gone with Conor Lamb. He walks into Fox News, comes out swinging for Trump’s building of a ballroom, calls everyone opposing this victims of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. I mean — security — a guy got into the far peripheral a ways way from the President with a gun — that should settle it: ballroom!

Today you can do a side by side of Majority Report youtube clips for Fetterman’s Senate campaign and how threatening this bold progressiveness is to the Democratic Establishment next to clips of Graham Platner and his Senate bid on how threatening his bold progressiveness is to the Democratic Establishment. Indeed, Schumer did whiff on the recruitment — an 80 year old workhorse who… um… is 80 and had to get dragged in anyway. Promises a single term, which worked just fine for the presidential campaign of Biden (though not a re-election) but for the Senate you are eyeing how they may accumulate power. Today the Republican incumbent does as she always does — it is Jon Tester’s re-election campaigns over in Montana or Maine to what they have done for the state and whatever is going on in Washington is their business. Likely this time up Collins meets her time as up — though I guess we see if Platner’s skull tattoo reads as a Nazi tattoo and how everyone registers old reddit posts — warnings loom in the “one of us — loud blowhead men” category.

For Platner’s part, we get a little galaxy brained, half welcome in its conspiratorial grip. He has in his stump speech some issues I normally associate as getting pulled in on the conspiratorial right and a seeing of Communism everywhere. The “they” don’t want you owning anything. Under this umbrella, there are quite a things in tech and patent law that should be redecided and pulled off from the “well, that’s capitalism!”, the terms of service agreement on e-books and how Apple has its contracts, dove-tails neatly into vague Marjorie Taylor Greene weather horrors. Despite protestations from a respectable politico — post Trump ex-Republican — on a cash-less society as “conspiracy theory”, I do stare down at the casual acceptance of a laundromat that chucked its coin operation for its machines — a headache running amok when we move further and further on this model. This is to suggest a kind of Platner if he has a move from political hackdom in the right places could do some good here — exvept, hopefully he is a political hack in the right places. It probably hardly matters — in as much as I can single the broad point of his distinct stumping into individual lines of legislative moves — and it gets past the money that swaps out 40 and 50 Senators for passing — the Supreme Court will back the Power.

Watching Thomas Massie’s concession speech, a room full of his fiery supporters, and I am quickly transported to what I am actually seeing — this was a Ron Paul speech of old. And maybe we do still sneak in Rand Paul — endosrser and supporter of the guy after all. Along with amusingly enough the endorsement of Kyle Rittenhouse who… Bastard jackass even if I take the unpopular defence attorney position on and there get kicked out of any respectable table regarding.

In the end, the guy won every age demographic except the over 65s. And I have no great sense one way or the other if the circumstance of this election were different, the swamp of campaign and social engineering from the parties required would have targeted the campaign younger — gotten the ad spots on the tik and toks, bought off something in the Fuentes and Rogan and Pooles instead of Fox News and Newsmax and Wheel of Fortune. Thomas Massie was, as so happens, more Doge supportive than anyone, conceptually. Also moved forward past Trump on two campaign promises in releasing the Epstein Files opposing the war in Iran and foreign intervention — his two big crosses against Trump and major animating reasons on how the guy was elected.

What do I make of this Ron Paul energy, for a man who is set to go to his off the grid homestead and drink a lot of raw milk? Who the heck beat him and off what?

YouTube is dumping ads for the latest from Ben Shapiro. I don’t know. In earlier periods when I watched some conservative content and some things that maybe code culturally conservative, I would understand — but now I sense a desperate lurch at that time he has lost 80 percent of his audience, I seek a full expose on the nature of propped up conservative youtube content with Shapiro as test case. The sponsored video I am not clicking on is on “Brainrot Defeated”, a celebration of the defeat of Massie. And if nothing else, Shapiro is a fan of military bombings, so it passes. But I have watched the ads of Massie’s opponent and that of the next congressman from that Kentucky district. I have heard him speak after Trump and Vance. He ran a full speed run against The View. And have a scintillating ad with Massie getting ready to have a three-way with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex and Ilhan Omar — to be sure, a metaphor visually depicted and I guess working well for Kentucky Fox News viewers.

It speaks poorly of Alex Jones and mainstream politics that Alex Jones gets placed in with a list of “prominent conservatives”. Skip back to his yokking with Charlie Sheen or Billy Corgan, pumping up Ron Paul, getting vicious quotes from Alan Grayson. Yep, right-wing indeed, but able to pose as an outside rabbler. Even the thing that has proven his undoing, the habit of declaring all acts of mass violence inside-jobs so enter Sandy Hook — was an outgrowth of the a-partisan worldview — no room for anyone even vaguely your guy in the White House, disenchanted (for the umpteenth time, mind you, and it never stuck) or not.

I half think Alex Jones could go back to the roots. Punk Rock, baby. Not gonna do the Big Circuits. Let’s do… Public Access Television again, where he would be huge in public access television terms.

Skipping about into infowars dot com before it finally gets refurbished by a parodist at The Onion, his big top story is the Federal Government’s indictment of Southern Poverty Law Center. That issue where I half want to place behind a grumbling of some diced opinions on the organization while dismissing that an toto as irrelevant to the fact that it is a bogus and flagrant political act on the part of the Trump government, and half think that any opinion should be so beside the point as to state it is to give the government credence. I think The Nation published a critical piece alleging it falling into its own bureaucracy — might be some other liberal rag — and maybe it is just well that it rests on its couple of big successes in torpoeding the Aryan Nations and prosecuting actual Klan violence. But looking at them, you have the sense of trying to will TP-USA or Focus on the Family out of the mainstream political spot they reside in — or, sure — worthwhile to combat, but the terms you do so fall flat. On their big national “Hate map”, a decade or so back focus on on how they tag Portland and the Willamette Week scratched their head — a coupke of tiny black Muslim reading groups which — looking in on them, maybe they are reading conspirat-orially on the evils of Jews or something in coded manner, but hardly seemed where you can land on the troubles we see. The closing chapters in Infowars posits that this shows — proves — reveals — the SPLC Did it all. The Oklahoma City Bombing, for one. Through their infiltration and seizing control of extremist groups. I half think this is what the DOJ claim actually does say, as this administration is almost just that out of whack, but I know they fall well short and Jones is projecting it onward. The unreality moves in in looking at comments sections at YouTube videos from various commenters on the looming Onion take-over — Jones was right all along here, you just to wake up.

It is this that brings Jones back to Trump — even after the hand-wringing over Iran. That and that he could always still make claims that he has insiders in the White House — referring to whatever Roger Stone threw at him to say. The logic moves on over to Joe Rogan who — apparently was big enough to not get bleated at in a Truth Social post. Just bring him in to stand behind him as he waves freedom for psychedelics use and greet him at a UFC fight and all is forgiven — that while Iran fiasco — what the ever. Nothing sticks. I mean, even Alan Dersowitz apparently remained the Democratic Party while I wasn’t looking — how else do I explain a second “Why I’m Quitting the Democratic Party” essay? (And will be write a third one a year from now?)

A familiar sight in electioneering — the opportunities of campaign dwindle to a handful for the unpopular incumbent — Obama needs to be out campaigning for someone In 2010, but true swing states cut him off — the only place he can find are some heavily black or heavily college districts and the man running against Christine O’Donnell throws him a bone. The circumstances are maybe a little different in this election cycle, but it is a desperate special election batch with, for instance, House Speaker Johnson rolls to a Trump +25 seat and carried a voice message call from Trump to maintain a hold and a seven point victory against a generic Democratic activist. Where will Trump show up — I don’t know, we are in Biden 2022 territory where he may just go wherewithal scarily lighted doom speech and then physically disappear — yeah, he came out swinging against Massie, but that’s a primary.

Today the most important election for the current American conservative movement is taking place. Over in Hungary. Victor Orban is holding on for fear life and has brought in the big guns to rally the base — enter Vice President JD Vance, enter a call in from Donald Trump to the cheering crowd, and enter a message Hungarian patriots to vote to stop powerful foreign and international movements from coming in tell them how they should run their country. The mind reels.

Trying to assess where to campaign — various red districts dotting the US, they won’t admit they have to put in money to Texas until they have to, but the real stop gap to hold and aid future political victory is Hungary. If Hungary falls, all is lost — it will be hard to pick up the pieces and how is JD Vance going to shuffle together the political map to get to 270 electoral votes in 2028 when Hungary is automatically Newsom Country?

Today is a historically important date, down in history as the closest to a nuclear bomb dropping since, I guess 1982/3 with Stanislav Petrov waving away a computer error and Soviet freak-out in intercepting and them a taking as serious a routine American/Britain War game planning.  A “probably not, but…” protudes. … A Truth Social post is a truth social post.

Reportedly Reagan was so moved by the ‘Day After’ mini-series that he changed policies and posturing.  Not much you can drop in mass media right now.  Though, even if someone did, the weird right-wing response from various right -leaning creators was to get a ‘post Soviet invasion’ mini-series on network tv, which did not have any effect on Reagan as by that time Gorbachev was well on the way in Perostrokia and Glastnot (spelling may be off).  (You can find that ‘Amerika’ series on YouTube anyway, and laugh at the comments.)

It is basically a given that the Democrats are going to win the House, though I have a huge that anything less than a measure of 60 freaking plus seats is a bit of a “who cares?” in assessing political strait-jackets. Or probably moreso and tangibly the Democrats winning the Senate. Everything short of that is a rudderless “yeah, 2022 — and the voters have spoken”, false hope for Biden. The tea-leaves grow though — a 10 plus Florida state Senate special election swings Democrat, some 20 plus seat is won by a few points. The matter of the second greatest House exodus in a century by Republican retiring Congress people is tempered a bit — normally one retired because it is no fun to be in the minority — in the Trump / Johnson era of Steve Bannon crowing that the Congress is now functioning as the Russian Duma does it is not any fun to be in the majority either.

The big question in polling, if you ask and tabulate the question of who the electorate voted for in 2024, would the results come back that Harris won — similar to Democratic polling in 1974 finding McGovern beat Nixon. My bunch is no, that the great “price of eggs are just too fanned high and they weren’t five years ago” chunk of low propensity “guard against trans athletes” vote post Trump grumbling voters will split in two directions — Biden and Harris. Some will only have a vague recall Harris was on the ballot, and the great election day trending question “Did Biden drop out?” will shade into the rest.

Comically, multiple states the Democratic Senate candidate is not a Democrat, but an “Independent”, not a sign of a firm party. Nebraska, naturally. Montana, though that one came about situationally with the classic “Incumbent drops out five before filing deadline with hand picked successor knowing to pounce”. At least the Alaska hasn’t folded off in that manner.

For Presidents Day, former president George W Bush wrote an essay on George Washington, that curious foundational figure no one really can say much about. A fascinating document that exists out of time, the equivalent of a fifth grade essay that may as well have been heavily pulled out of an encyclopedia, full of generic patriotic platitudes and pieties. As a celebration of the office, it was then described as a “subtle” rebuke of the current President. A dash too subtle, naturally, to the point where you know it is no such thing. It describes virtues and that we have a president that does not meet any virtues allows a forced reading.

The George W Bush legacy has, I guess, now been fulfilled with military strikes against Iran for the wobbling claim of desiring regime change to free an oppressed peoples. And with that, Donald Trump is now a neo-con. We spent bulk of the George W Bush second term with an “any minute now” warning of impending war / “invasion” of Iran — something that was never coming to fruition. The loudest cohort on this drumbeat included, out of the fringes, the likes of Alex Jones, Scott Ritter, Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Paul, the various writers on The American Conservative. All of whom no love lost for George W Bush and were ready to throw their lot in with Donald Trump. You can toss in figures like Tim Poole and a batch of horeshoe “gonna knock Obama liberal interventionalist” groups in the mix — all ready to call anti-war Obama voters hypocrites for supporting a guy who was busy surging troops in Afghanistan. I am going to make an educated guess — check in with Matt Taibbi and what I will see is a one-sided neener neener “whataboutism”.

For what it is worth that one saving grace of President Trump, why until the last month of office I rated President Trump ahead of President Bush, is now in smoldering ashes. (He talked to North Korea’s dictator — that was a positive in my view.) Also I knew it was coming, so there is no disillusionment on my part — which I suppose is something I would share with this grouping of neo-con busting paleo con and conspiratorial mish mashes. Though I shouldn’t share that.

Weird melee of cultural jackassery.  I did not hear the Bad Bunny Super bowl half-time performance — saw it visually, mostly.  Seemed good.  I recognized some Puerto Rico touchstones in it — a bit of an expansive celebration which you, curmudgeonly old white yokel, should be able to identify with broadly if not specifically.  Ends with a display of all the flags of the hemisphere, including incidentally Canada and USA.  I suppose this is a source of agitation — “It’s the USA only, bastard!”.  I suppose if you want to be truly woke you need to shout out all the First Nations.

The much mocked “Turning Point USA” half-time performance, by way of commentary, I ended up hearing more audio out of.  They have Kid Rock lip-syncing.  I like a couple Kid Rock albums — right when he turned to country-rock, don’t like anything before that or after that when he decided he wanted to be the next Ted Nugent.  They have some anti-trans country song by someone or other.  They have a violinist.  All a little bit of a “whatever” in and of themselves.  But I am struck by how trying too hard and narrowcasting it is.  They dedicate it all to Charlie Kirk.  Bring up Charlie Kirk a lot.  Oblivious or unconcerned that no one outside their orbit gives two shits about Charlie Kirk, even after they tried to pound it for political gain.  In the last presidential election, much was made of Trump’s “winning the culture” more so policy, a breeze through various manly podcast spaces that had tapped out of politics and only go so in some weird anti-woke space.  He pulled together a number of fragments there, broadly where I don’t know what “dead centre of the mainstream” is.  They key to their political sway is they are not altogether political in a sense of making great announcements of philosophy.  I suppose we can drop Bad Bunny and his show into the same equation only… more broadly supported.

For his part, Charlie Kirk had tweeted responses on half time shows.  He liked Beyonce’s performance.  I don’t know if maybe Beyonce had more than one show, because her’s was more overtly political and defiant a display.  Elsewhere in comments, I see a little bit of revisionism on the “wardrobe malfunction” of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, mocking a right for being in a huff as usual — though that one is more understandable a point — brushing past and forgetting and not having now that it is convenient left-ward  commentary on the power dynamics of the show and what the heck that even was.