Performative Stupidity

Dear Americans, when you elect Republican clowns (via Chris Marquette and Kyle Cheney at Politico)...

In a quest to frame former special counsel Jack Smith as a liar during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Schmitt asked him if he was in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024, for an NBA basketball game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks — amid mounting drama around the Atlanta-based criminal investigation into Donald Trump led by prosecutor Fani Willis.

The esteemed Senator from Missouri was eager and desperate to catch a prominent opponent of donald "Break All Laws" trump in a lie so he could accuse Smith of perjury, and claim another scalp for the Great Far Right Cause that he could parade around the Fox Not-News talk shows.

Thing is, Schmitt and his own staff never paid attention to the details, or did any actual fucking research.

Smith clarified that he didn’t go to that game. But he did go to a different one on the same day: He was in College Park, Md. to see the Maryland Terrapins women’s basketball team play the Iowa Hawkeyes, led by phenom Caitlin Clark, who dropped 38 points that night in a win over the Terps.

It appeared that Schmitt misinterpreted a text message reference to the “hawks” among Smith’s deputies, who discussed reserving a seat for Smith in the front row.

“What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on Feb. 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair,” the Missouri Republican asked, intimating that he was about to get Smith to perjure himself.

Schmitt tried to connect the NBA game Smith did not attend in Atlanta to Feb. 2, 2024 — the date Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney who was investigating Trump, acknowledged a personal relationship with another prosecutor on her team...

You might recall that Fulton County prosecution went down in flames due to Willis' ill-advised relationship, which was painful considering she and her office did present a lot of damning evidence trump and his allies were attempting to criminally undermine the 2020 election results.

This is due to trump - and the Republicans pandering to trump's delusions - trying to rewrite all of reality by accusing everyone else of being in on conspiracies against him when they uncover real-world evidence of trump's criminal misdeeds. There is one huge ongoing revenge plot on trump's side of things... which isn't working out because trump's lies can't fit the facts as David A. Graham at the Atlantic points out:

When President Trump returned to office last year, the administration had revenge on the agenda. First, the FBI purged agents who’d been involved in investigations into Trump while he was out of office. Second, the Department of Justice launched a major probe to prove a “grand conspiracy” to politically persecute Trump, which would rely in part on the former agents’ cooperation and testimony about improper or illegal actions.

Perhaps you have spotted a potential flaw in the plan. The administration apparently did not...

No one should be surprised that the agents, who appear to have already been fired for simply doing their job, were not eager to testify in court that they’d been involved in anything untoward. Although such testimony would pose serious problems for the DOJ probe, the motion’s intent was not to sabotage it, The New York Times notes, but rather to seek assurances that if the agents testified, they would not be violating a federal judge’s order that bars publication of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report about it.

More to the point, the agents were never likely to have the sort of damning information about a conspiracy that prosecutors want. The facts of the Mar-a-Lago case are not complicated: Trump absconded with documents, many of them highly sensitive; did not turn them over when asked to do so by the National Archives and later via a subpoena; and was found in possession of them at Mar-a-Lago. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, didn’t really dispute any of these facts. He argued that he had declassified the materials—a claim for which he provided no evidence—and that he rightfully possessed them...

The grand-conspiracy probe, which attempts to tie together the documents case, investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and other investigations into Trump allies, has been a mess. In April, a career prosecutor leading the team was removed, reportedly after she concluded that there was not enough evidence to charge John Brennan, the CIA director under President Obama who has repeatedly tangled with Trump, with any crimes...

She was replaced by Joseph diGenova, who was a federal prosecutor in the 1980s but has more recently been known for propagating conspiracy theories. He and his wife were appointed to Trump’s defense team during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe in 2018 but quickly withdrew; they were later involved in Trump’s attempt to challenge the 2020 presidential-election results. DiGenova abruptly resigned earlier this month and implied that he had been under pressure to bring unjustified charges. “If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem,” he told the New York Post...

...The problem with the grand-conspiracy probe is the fundamental premise, not staffing. Trump’s view of the world is zero-sum, such as in trade or diplomacy. The motive for the probe is that because Trump suffered during his criminal probes, his antagonists must have done something just as bad and must suffer the same.

Actually David, it's because trump can never admit he lost at anything, so...

Perhaps you can see the flaw here too: Trump and his allies are starting with a conclusion of guilt and attempting to work backwards to find the charges and evidence to justify it. The risks of this were vividly displayed during Smith’s testimony today, in one of the most excruciating exchanges I’ve ever seen in politics. Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri seemed convinced that he had caught Smith perjuring himself—when, in fact, Schmitt had failed to recognize the difference between the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team, eviscerating not only Schmitt’s dignity but also his theory that Smith had been covertly meeting with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to conspire against Trump.

In order for trump to be a winner in 2020, there had to be a massive conspiracy against him. But like the fantasies trump pushed that he was "a victim" of Democratic schemes in 2016 when he lost the popular vote and suffered an investigation into his corrupt ties to Russia, none of trump's false narratives can hold up to the scrutiny of a courtroom where facts matter. trump tried this attack back then, and his lackeys like John Durham failed to prove a conspiracy then just as they're failing today.

And yet, they need to keep pursuing these false leads to maintain the lie that it's the Democrats who are cheating bastards, not trump or the Republicans (who are). They're going to keep doing this performative bullshit until they get their scalps for display at the next CPAC rally, even as they burn everything down to get there.

Yet another reason to vote these useless Republicans out of office. Americans, please see this stupidity for what it is and get rid of it.

What If: trump Attacks the 2026 Midterms

For all the good news about the polling predicting a Democratic Blue Wave disrupting trump's plans for empire this 2026, there remains genuine concern that trump and his Far Right Republican allies will do whatever they can to deny, disrupt, or destroy the actual midterm elections.

Remember what Wilhoit observed: Conservatives believe "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." Conservatives view themselves - and only themselves - as the In-Group that must be protected at all costs. When the conservative ideologues dispersed across both major parties decided by the 1980s to make themselves all Republicans, that was when the modern Republican Party came to believe only THEY were the legitimate party and that every Democratic win were "stolen" or fraudulent.

For all of trump's whining and gaslighting about "stolen" ballots or acts of mass voter fraud, it didn't all start with him: he's co-opted a long-standing narrative from the Far Right about voter fraud that's been pursued for decades (SEE Kris Kobach's entire political career). No matter if a vast majority of actual voters across the United States - a good number of them may even be angry Republican voters betrayed by their own party - will turn out for Democratic candidates this November: Republicans will refuse to accept those results (because in their minds, anyone who votes for Democrats are not REAL Americans).

Because we've seen it before in 2020.

The most obvious attack that trump and the Republicans - especially in the Red states seeing cracks in their one-party rule like Texas and Florida - will attempt is to fight the results in the courtrooms, claiming massive fraud without, you know, actually proving that fraud... again, what we saw in 2020. Just like in 2020, the courts are going to insist on proof instead of any false promises of "oh we'll find it, trust us" like trump's lawyers argued then and have been arguing in a lot of other court cases during this second administration. It's gaslighting that works on the wingnut media outlets but never convinces the judges, and it's an attack strategy doomed to fail.

One possible attack is trump threatening to send ICE and other federal agents to precincts on Election Day to "arrest all illegal voters." Again, there's no evidence of massive voter fraud being committed by non-citizens: This is trump and his racist lackeys fearmongering over immigrants. There's also the threat of sending the FBI and other agencies to the county-level elections offices (shades of the Brooks Brothers riot) to disrupt or even seize the ballots to prevent the counts. 

This all sounds scary and it should. This is also something that local activists at the state, county, and city levels are prepared to fight; because it is against the law to send armed federal agents to election sites. Lawsuits are already getting filed. trump will likely run into the same angry judges who aren't happy about getting lied to about "voter fraud" in the first place, and there's no compelling argument trump and his thugs can provide to change legal minds.

I'm seeing arguments that in spite of the actual election results - if everything turns for the Democrats and there's a massive Blue Wave at both the state and congressional levels - there's the risk of Republicans still in charge at the state level - the elections officials, the Secretaries of State, the state Attorney Generals (many of them elected Republicans unhappy in this scenario of getting voted out of power) - simply refusing to certify the results. It was the thing trump tried to force on January 6th - stopping Congress from certifying the Electoral count going to Biden - could happen on January 3rd when Congress verifies their own election results, and this could be a legitimate concern.

Derek Muller at Election Law Blog did a big article about the fears over certification blocks, and he's adamant there's little trump or the Republicans could do to stop it:

Even these calls, however, assume that the majority party is exerting control over minority delegations. That is, if a delegation currently controls a chamber, it can refuse to seat a member or a number of members in a kind of “hardball” move (with varying degrees of likelihood of success, left for another day).

That, however, is very different in kind from concern that the minority party could become the majority through some kind of “one weird trick” approach. It is that concern that is the angst of the fearmongering chronicled seriatim above.

Now, there are a range of nuanced views on how, precisely, a minority in Congress would go about doing this across these pieces. I’ll operate from the assumption that it would be Republicans denying Democrats in the House a majority, although occasional reporters I’ve spoken with worry about Democrats refusing to seat Missouri’s delegation over unlawful maps, or some Senate scenarios, which are less complicated because the Senate is a continuing body. And I’ll truck through scenarios pretty quickly.

1. As Ned has pointed out repeatedly, often on deaf ears, the House is not a continuing body. Mike Johnson ceases to be Speaker at noon on January 3. He holds no power. Whatever the House has done or decided before that is cannot bind the incoming House, including any purported findings regarding the validity of elections. It is a brand new House that will adjudicate all matters afresh.

2. If a minority of Republicans object to the seating of some Democrats on January 3, it would only happen after the Speaker’s election (presumably, Hakeem Jeffries). The more recent traditional mechanism is a “stand aside” mechanism, where members whose seats are in dispute stand aside while the remaining putative members vote on whether to seat them. That practice does not have an ironclad precedent, and the Speaker presiding over that vote may well permit the disputed members to vote on their own seating, and a majority of the body would likewise approve of that rule change. The point being, there is a ready way for the majority to thwart an effort by the minority to become the majority.

3. The most sophisticated disaster porn asks about replacing the clerk of the House on the eve of January 3, and the new clerk refusing to recognize the credentials of incoming Democrats, so that Republicans could choose a Speaker and organize the House as if they were in the majority. Ned shares good thoughts from Matt Seligman on this front.

It is worth emphasizing the clerk is not a member of the House, so the political question doctrine does not apply to the clerk’s actions in the event the judiciary is asked to intervene. But more to the point, these actions have happened before, and they’ve not been successful...

As I’ve told many reporters over the last two years on this topic, you can throw sand in the gears, but “stealing the House” is another matter entirely. And the wider the margins (both in terms of the number of votes separating the winner from a contestant, and the number of seats the House turns on), the less likely such scenarios are to occur (I have admittedly quipped that if it’s 217-217 in the House with a tight contest in the 435th race, all bets are off.)...

while it’s possible for a majority to subvert a minority (as Democrats did to Republicans in 1985), it is essentially impossible for the minority (note: which the Republicans would be after a Blue Wave election) to subvert the majority, as the chronicle above should help demonstrate.

One could argue that this moment is different, but that’s really just the assumed premise of this kind of analysis.

In short, most scenarios get basic facts or law wrong, and the most complicated scenarios require a unique convergence of factors that have never existed, a unique level of coordination that seems very unlikely, docile political opposition, and a judiciary willing to acquiesce to all these moves–and all working simultaneously. Even then, most of these scenarios could, at most, delay some organization of the House by a matter of hours or days.

As for blocking certification at the state levels, there are already laws in place requiring county and state officials to certify results once all the counting is done and verified (this is why fears that trump and his thugs will simply seize the ballots to prevent certification. Again, there are laws blocking them from attempting that). No matter what happens, if a state Attorney General or Sec of State refuses to do their duty, the courts are likely to compel them one way or another. 

This all could lead to something that's outside the purview of law, and that's trump simply ignoring every law and pulling a political coup (technically an autogolpe, but everyone understands what a coup means). This is where things really get interesting.

In spite of trump's belief - and the Supreme Court's recent rulings to give the presidency broad overreaching powers - there are still limits to what a president can do even under national emergencies. Rick Hasan also at the Election Law Blog has this to say: 

One of the most alarming threats to the upcoming midterm elections is the possibility that the president will declare a national emergency to try to postpone, cancel, or seize control of the midterms, a tactic that strongman leaders around the world have used to evade electoral accountability. Yet, any claim by the administration that a national security threat allows the president to unilaterally nationalize elections is not based in legal reality and would be an unprecedented attempt in U.S. history to interfere in elections and prevent citizens from voting.

As the Center for American Progress has detailed, no constitutional provisions, emergency powers, statutes, executive orders, Supreme Court precedents, or other sources lawfully delegate to the president any power to change election-related laws. This is true even in the face of a national security threat or an emergency—including attempted foreign interference in elections. The founders wrote the Constitution to prevent presidents from becoming kings, and they expressly gave states the power to administer federal elections, with Congress having authority to set national guidelines when needed. Exercising their clear authority, states have repeatedly demonstrated that they are able to conduct free and fair elections, even under emergencies and challenging circumstances such as the Civil War, both world wars, the COVID-19 pandemic, and—as discussed below—previous attempts at foreign interference...

This has come up before: Our nation faced legitimate national emergencies - armed insurrection by the slave-holding states, world wars, even the Korean and Vietnam wars where we had the presidency itself change hands between parties - and nobody in high office - even President Lincoln in 1862 when pro-slavery Democrats were poised to take control of the House - ever tried to declare national emergencies to disrupt or delay the elections. 

For trump to declare a national emergency over the midterm results would, once again, require facing legal challenges in court that trump and his lawyers can't win. This is when trump's last resort - ordering armed troops (either National Guards units from Republican-controlled states, or the actual military under Secretary of Idiocy Hegseth) could take place.

In that situation, trump would have to argue that the Insurrection Act - a law he violated in 2021 and got away with - applies to the midterms and use it to override the Posse Comitatus Act to deploy the military. As John May over at the Justia Verdict website notes:

Sections 251 through 255 of Title 10 of the United States Code, usually referred to as the Insurrection Act, implement the President’s constitutional authority to call forth “the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel invasions.” Section 253 has two parts. The first allows the President to use the military in a state to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” that “so hinders the execution of the laws” that any portion of the state’s inhabitants are deprived of a constitutional right and state authorities are unable or unwilling to protect that right. The second permits the President to deploy troops to suppress the same conduct when it “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”

Many authorities believe that these sections can only be invoked in very limited circumstances. A 1964 U.S. Justice Department Memorandum states that the law may only be invoked in three circumstances: (1) when a state requests help in putting down an insurrection; (2) when deployment is needed to enforce a federal court order; or (3) when “state and local law enforcement have completely broken down.” The circumstances posited by this paper fit well within the confines of the last scenario.

That all depends on what trump can prove, not gaslight about. trump and his Republican allies could argue the midterm results are part of a "conspiracy" "hindering the execution of the laws" that would be insurrection... but it would be trump and those Republicans doing the actual hindering. The execution of laws are already in place to count and certify votes, and the Democrats aren't the ones interfering with that. It would be a question of how the Republicans would pull that argument (most likely by lying their asses off about mass voter fraud again).

It could be a situation for example in Texas where the Democrats win a plurality of US House districts, as well as state legislative offices that breaks the stranglehold the Republicans have over the last two decades, as well as winning the Governor and Attorney General offices (at which point corrupt bastards like Ken Paxton are shit out of luck). The sitting Republican governor, Greg Abbott, could apply Circumstance (1) asking trump to "put down" the Democrats Abbott would accuse of bringing in illegals to vote and "inciting insurrection".

Depending on how quickly the federal courts could shut that down, even if they could should and would, there's still a risk trump will ignore the courts and proceed with declaring any Democratic win an act of insurrection and start arresting people using ICE - or worst the military - to do so. THIS becomes the true nightmare scenario. It might explain why trump doesn't even seem bothered by how the midterms turn out: Not because he's convinced Republicans will win, it's because trump's convinced he can shut everything down by Executive dictate and force election results the Republicans didn't earn. 

Fearing that result, however, doesn't do anyone any good. Granted it's a worst-case scenario, and it depends on if the Far Right conservatives are that desperate to hold onto power that they would risk open civil war. It's better to fight the battles now, vote as best you can, side with the Democrats to drive the corrupt Republicans out of office through legal means, and get ready to fight trump and his horde for the soul and future of America.

Just be ready for anything. Stay safe.

If One Can Hope For a Big Enough Wave (w/ Update)

If the Far Right Republicans were in control of everything heading into the midterms, they wouldn't exactly be panicking like this (via David A. Graham at the Atlantic (paywalled)):

Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican whose district Trump won by 15 points in 2024, recently released an ad critiquing the administration’s immigration enforcement, saying that Hispanic voters feel “betrayed.” Byron Donalds, the GOP’s nominee for governor of Florida, scrubbed most references to Trump from his website—a notable move considering that the foundation of Donalds’s entire career has been fidelity to the Donald. The Senate contenders Mike Rogers of Michigan and Ashley Hinson of Iowa are both calling for an end to the Iran war. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor of Wisconsin, has even suddenly changed his mind and now believes that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

The number of prominent Republicans distancing themselves from Trump has accelerated, or at least reached a critical mass, in the past 10 days. The shift is interesting—first, as an indication of what information GOP candidates are receiving privately about the president’s unpopularity and its drag on them, and second, because public critiques of Trump from Republicans have been vanishingly rare, no matter how unwise, outrageous, or unpopular his actions have been.

But the defections are perhaps better understood as a sign of normalcy, even in a deeply abnormal context. A president’s party almost always loses seats in a midterm, a result of the pendulum effect in elections. And the dynamics of this race are especially challenging for Republicans because Trump is historically unpopular, outpacing even his own poor ratings in 2018, when Democrats dominated the midterms. Trump is now presiding over persistent inflation, exacerbated by a failing war of choice in Iran. All of this predicts that GOP candidates would be wary of Trump...

Thing is, this time it feels different. After massive gerrymandering to make more congressional districts "safe" for Republican incumbents, the polling - if the New York Times numbers are accurate - is showing massive shifts - ranging from +11 to +31 (or more) - in favor of Democrats across far too many districts.

Texas and Florida would become ground zero for a possible Democratic tsunami, with the party’s chance at a large congressional majority potentially hinging on whether it could break through Republican gerrymanders in those states. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/u...

[image or embed]

— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) September 22, 2026 at 7:06 PM

In case the skeet disappears,
a screenshot of Garcia's observations

The thing that proved advantageous to trump and the Republicans in 2024 - a shift of (mostly male) Latino/Hispanic voters who supported trump over Harris - is now abandoning the Far Right thanks to the odious deportation attacks trump and his lackeys at DHS/ICE are inflicting on Latino communities even in must-need-their-votes states like Florida and Texas. This would explain Rep. Salazar's desperate ad pretending to oppose trump's anti-immigration policies... when everyone knows she and her fellow Republicans in Congress supported those policies and are doing nothing today to stop him.

As much as Donalds and Salazar and numerous other Far Right GOP candidates/incumbents act or say in public, they are tied to the hip with trump and his destructive ways: They never held him accountable to every constitutional violation and ethical breach he's done, not in his first term and clearly not in his second. If voters are paying any attention - and the polling suggests they are - the Republicans can't hide from their culpability in trump's crimes.

For all the conspiracy theorizing of how the Republicans - especially as trump and his lackeys at Justice and Homeland Security and the Post Office are working to disrupt the upcoming midterm voting - could just rig the results and "win" by their form of cheating (extreme gerrymandering, blocking voters at the polls above all, tricking voters to not show, those sorts of things), if they felt they could pull that off then they wouldn't be panicking like they are now. The campaigns tend to have more resources for their own internal polling work - number they don't share to the public - and whatever it is the Republicans are seeing from their own numbers have them terrified they're losing more than the US House or a couple of state governorships.

The polls may say one thing, but what matters above all is actual voter turnout. Elections always matter - I wish more people understood that - and in spite of every Far Right attempt to deny everyone else their power to vote, people need to show up in droves this October during Early Voting weeks - arguably the safest time to do it - and show up no matter what by Tuesday November 3rd for Election Day itself. 

If you're angry about how bad things are, if you're angry about inflation killing you at the gas pump and grocery store, if you're angry about unwanted wars and a military getting decimated by idiocy from trump's people mismanaging it all, if you're angry about your communities under attack by trump's masked thugs kidnapping your neighbors and their kids, you have a way to express that anger the right way.

Show up at the ballot box and vote every corrupt and inept Republican bastard out of office.

Update: Spotted this Axios report from Marc Caputo, Hans Nichols, and Alex Isenstadt where the "Oh Crap" GOP settings are at DEFCON-2.

It's looked bad for Republicans all year, but this week felt different — like the political environment was disintegrating in real time, one ominous data point after another.

Most worrisome for the GOP, there's virtually no chance the war ends, inflation cools, interest rates fall, consumer confidence rises, and economic optimism surges before the Nov. 3 election.

That's why Republicans fear the undertow imperils so many candidates once deemed safe...

The problems for the GOP are everywhere. In the battle for the Senate, once ruby-red Texas looks more in play than ever, and Florida isn't far behind. Nor is Alaska. North Carolina and Georgia look lost. Maine is problematic.

The Senate GOP campaign arm is begging donors for another $8.9 million to defend Senate seats in three states that Trump won by double digits two years ago — Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

"We're having problems just getting Republican voters to respond to polls," said one national Republican pollster. "At what point do we think these guys aren't showing up at the actual polls on Election Day?"

As I've said, turnout matters. As much as getting Democrats invested in showing up, as much as getting Independent voters to show up in favor of Dem candidates, having Republican voters tune out is just as important. Granted, it's hard to get anyone to answer to polls - I admit, I've been sending every phone text request this year to BLOCKED - but even in normal circumstances you should find enough people to respond. THIS midterms, Republican voters refuse to even pretend to pollsters to back their own party.

It's hard for a partisan voter to flip to the other party - when people buy into a brand (tm), they're faithful until the brand betrays them personally - so the next-best thing is that they refuse to show, as a means to express their anger. In the gerrymandered districts the Republicans carved for themselves in Red states, even two percent of your voter base failing to show could be devastating: It's looking like five to ten percent of the GOP base won't vote.

We can't tell for certain what turnout will look like this November, because the primaries that happened earlier in the year are so poorly attended to begin with. It's one of the unspoken failures of our electoral system, that barely a quarter of registered voters show up for that stage of the process when you're choosing the candidates to represent your own party. If more people showed up for that, we might have a better idea of which way the November turnouts will go. Alas...

Political Gravity At Last Is Kicking In

It's gotten to where I don't normally trust the political polls, but good news is good news (via Tara Suter at The Hill):

President Trump’s approval rating has dipped to a historic low with the midterms only about six weeks away, according to a new poll.

In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, Trump’s approval rating was sitting at 32 percent, the lowest of his second term and, according to Reuters, a record low for his entire political life. The fresh approval rating marks a 15-point slide from the 47 percent approval rating he had at the beginning of his second term in the same poll.

I don't think trump has ever polled well with most Americans - I've never seen him go above 50 percent approval, he might have at one point, I just didn't see it - but he's rarely slid under 40 percent during his first term mostly because the Republican voting base never abandoned him. At least until now:

The Reuters/Ipsos poll also pegged Trump’s disapproval rating at 66 percent, up 25 percentage points from the start of his second White House stint...

In a polling average from Decision Desk HQ, Trump’s approval rating was 38.8 percent Monday evening, while his disapproval rating was 59.7 percent.

A recent New York Times/Siena University poll also found Republicans trailing Democrats on the issues of immigration, healthcare and the economy.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll took place Sept. 17-20 among 1,277 people and had 3 percentage points as its margin of error.

You might notice this poll happened after trump's midterms convention stunt, designed to get his approval numbers bouncing back, because rallies are his thing babe.

But his numbers are finally - FINALLY - declining among the Republican base he's trying to rally. That Reuters/Ipsos poll found that his approval among Republicans fell from 82 percent to 73 percent.

I've noted before way back in 2017 that as long as the party base - the ones who would defend their brand (tm), their standard bearer, their demagogue - remains favorable, the polls are going to skew in trump's favor more than they should. What I wrote then:

Notice the polarized numbers between the three factions of Democrats to Independents to Republicans. Of course the Republicans disapproved of the Democrats - harshly so after 1992 when the partisanship started its avalanche - for Clinton and Obama, and of course the Democrats disapproved of the Republicans from Reagan onward, and while they approved their own guys with high marks. That's not surprising...

But that's unimportant for this argument. What matters is that 87 percent approval Republicans have for Trump.

As long as Trump has that much support among the party base, there is not a damn thing the Republicans in Congress or in the Establishment can do to toss him overboard...

The polarization of polling numbers is a given: Democrats are going to favor Democratic leaders and Republicans will favor Republicans. It's a question of how skewed it gets, and staying within statistical norms. There's always going to be a fraction of party voters who don't approve, but they'll always be a significant sliver - usually around 8 to 10 percent - often made up of people angry their guy isn't partisan enough.

For trump to slide from that comfort zone of 85 percent or so of Republican voters - that he's at 73 percent and sinking - suggests that a growing faction of the regular base of the party are souring on him (and the rest of the GOP). trump and his party allies can afford to lose 10 percent of their base: they can't afford to lose 25 percent, especially as the midterms is about a month away.

All of the political issues - above all the economy, something that most voters trusted them with since the 1970s - that had been winners for the Republicans aren't in their favor now, and there's nothing trump is doing that looks to change those trends. trump's not about to give up his tariffs wars that most Americans hate, trump can't solve this mess he made in Iran and the Middle East, and trump won't admit there's a problem with inflation. 

The question now is: How does this translate into actual votes this November 2026? The answer depends on A) every Democratic voter showing up to vote Democratic, B) every Independent voter showing up and flipping votes Democratic, and C) if the Republicans pissed at trump decide to either stay home (likely) or flip Democratic (which is honestly hard to do: voting against your brand (tm) is like tearing off your own arm).

Here's hoping the answer is with massive Blue Waves sweeping into both the House and Senate seats, and enough state governments electing Democrats as Governors and State Attorney Generals to hold trump and his cronies accountable.

Elections matter. Make this unpopular trump suffer at the polls, America. Prove to him he's crashing to the ground at long last.

The Cowards of Congress Fleeing: 2026 Midterms Edition

Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for sharing this blog at Crooks & Liars for the Mike's Blog Round-up! You you can, please do me a favor. A friend of mine from my writing circles, Sarah E. Glenn, passed away. If you can see your way to buying one of her works, and if you like it recommending it to others, would be a great way to remember her. Thank you.

You'd think with a serious midterms election cycle upcoming that the incumbent Republicans would present themselves during the last two months of their terms as competent serious legislators, doing the work of the People in order to impress their voters back home.

Instead, the House Republican leadership under Mike "What Spine?" Johnson are folding up camp and scurrying into their hidey-holes to avoid any last-minute hot potatoes they don't want left in their laps (via Lisa Mascaro at AP News):

Speaker Mike Johnson is closing up the House early, sending lawmakers home Wednesday to campaign for the midterm elections after what he claims is the most productive Congress in decades.

But not without a scathing rebuke from GOP Rep. Thomas Massie for all the unfinished business.

Massie’s resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran and his bipartisan effort to force the release of more files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation are all being left behind, blocked from votes.

“We’re calling off Congress? And we’re in the majority?” Massie railed from the House floor.

“I’m trying to get justice for the Epstein survivors,” he said. “I’m trying to stop a war.”

It's been noted before - starting back after the 2022 midterm results - that this is the weakest, narrowest party majority in the House in decades - and it didn't get better in 2024 when trump's coattails were worthless  - where the Republicans had between two to five seats of wiggle room at any time to get any of their wingnut agendas passed.

As a result, in spite of Speaker Johnson's big lie of "most productive Congress in decades," this has actually been one of the least productive (it's the 119th session, with only 2% of enacted bills), with a sizable number of bills getting through - including a "Release the Epstein Files" package that trump and the party leadership never wanted passed - without Johnson's control.

Johnson is refusing to keep the House open to avoid not only Massie's attempts to hold trump and his corrupt administration accountable - something that might actually benefit House Republicans in the elections as the polling suggest voters are very angry about the corruption and trump's failures - but to avoid any further embarrassments of his failure to keep his own house - metaphorical and literal - in check. He'd rather shut down, declare victory, and pretend in the million-dollar ad campaigns flooding the media markets that "ALL IS WELL".

This is just further proof that the Republican Party is not serious about doing their jobs. They'd rather take the annual six-figure salaries and goof off at fundraiser parties than serve the public trust. They'd rather hide from the disasters consuming the American voting base - the high inflation, the failed Iran/Middle East wars that a majority of Americans clearly want to end, the terrifying increase of poisoned food/water, the spread of more disease - than do anything to fix any of that.

For the LOVE OF GOD, VOTERS. Vote Democratic: at least THEY want to do the damn job and fix things.

One Sentence Observation About the Obvious Corrupt Connections Between trump's Crime Family and the Russians

Donald Trump Jr.’s Bahamas Wedding Was Secretly Bankrolled by Russian Oligarch Close to Putin (read the article)

Considering absolutely every single fucking public revelation of donald trump and his kids - especially donnie junior - taking money and hiding - poorly - every fucking corrupt deal we've seen that's on a scale far worse than anything Hunter Biden ever did, can we at last accept the reality that donald trump has had, is having, will have betrayed the United States to Russia every fucking single chance he gets.

Are We Winning Yet? Nope.

trump's war on Reality Iran took a nasty turn this weekend when the quagmire expanded and made things worse (via the AP Newswire at NPR):

Yemen 's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels captured the island of Mayun at the entrance of the Red Sea, a key alternative for shipping Saudi oil and other exports since Iran has been targeting vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

The island's seizure was confirmed by a senior military official with Yemen's internationally recognized government and a Houthi official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

About 12% of the world's goods are typically shipped through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea. It's especially important to Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally.

Combined with the possible shutdown of another trade route, Iran's allies in Iraq punched Saudi Arabia at another key chokepoint:

Saudi Arabia said Friday it had shut down a major, cross-country oil pipeline as a "precautionary measure" following attacks the day before. The Saudi Energy Ministry did not say who carried out the attacks.

The East-West pipeline has been vital to Saudi Arabia continuing oil exports in the months since the Iran war has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement early Saturday, the Iraqi government said Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ordered an investigation into the operations command in Maysan province and dismissed its commander after authorities determined that attacks targeting Saudi Arabia were launched from a site in the province.

Based on other reports I've seen on social media, the Houthis had been considered a "non-factor" the past month and that the Saudis had them contained. Now, the insurgents pulled off a Tet Offensive of their own, demonstrating how vulnerable the global trade markets still are and giving trump and his regional allies huge black eyes (via Barak Ravid at Axios):

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) called President Trump twice Thursday, urging him to launch strikes against the Houthis as the Iran-backed group closed in on a vital Red Sea chokepoint, two U.S. officials told Axios.

Trump declined, and U.S. officials stressed the administration has no plans to intervene directly against the Houthis for now...

The midterms are coming, trump - or at least his handlers - has come to realize that any further escalation on his part in the region would only anger the voters here at home opposed to his unsanctioned war, and hurt the Republicans' chances of keeping both parts of Congress. So trump is doing as little as possible - publicly at least - while claiming 'victory' and 'we're winning' in spite of the facts.

Gasoline prices are fluctuating here in the U.S. for now for regular consumption, but diesel - the fuel needed for trucks and transportation - has skyrocketed, meaning costs are going up for goods everywhere in the next week or so. These Houthi raids are also underscoring how little control the United States has in the Middle East after decades of mishandling the Global War on Terror.

trump started a war he can't finish, based off of wars that Bush the Lesser couldn't finish, which couldn't get finished by Obama or Biden because they inherited these messes and there were no good answers for any of it.

The Attack on the Midterms Began This Weekend

There is a lot of other craziness going on to report, but this from last week's trump-Fuhrer Fest ought to horrify people (via Hafiz Rashid at New Republic):

President Trump led his fans in a bizarre pledge at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas Thursday night.

“Please raise your right hand. I pledge, to the greatest president in the history of the United States, that loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends, I’ll do it any way, I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do, there’s never been bigger cheaters, they don’t care. I am gonna go out and I’m going to get my friends and family and we are going to vote on November 3rd, or we are going to vote before that!” Trump had the whole crowd repeat after him.

It was blatant, cultlike behavior, and Trump’s MAGA base seemed to eat it up. The “cheat like hell” line proves that Trump’s rants about election fraud have always been self-serving, as he doesn’t care about any laws as long as he wins...

As much as this echoes every fascist rally where Dear Leader demands fealty from his devoted cultists, this is more terrifying because trump is directly attacking the upcoming midterm voting turnout. trump is basically encouraging his MAGA base "to cheat", either by rigging fake votes or disrupting the real ones trying to take place.

And it's all based on big fat lies. trump accuses Democrats of cheating, but in every attempt by election deniers - not just trump these past ten years, but an army of Far Right agitators that have been claiming voter fraud before him - to prove mass voter fraud, they've never proven it.

What Republicans call "cheating" is that there are groups allowed to vote they don't want to vote. Republicans know they're politically in the minority - there are more registered Democrats than registered Republican nationwide - so they want to cull the Democratic advantages as much as possible. It fits well into their conservative world view that only they - mostly propertied rich white males - should have the power to vote, a power that's been diluted down since they opened up the vote to all white males, then the vote to Black (and Latino, and Asian) males, then the vote to women, then the vote to college kids. The Far Right looks at all those voters - a good number of them skewing Democratic - and calls it "cheating" because there's no other way they can contend with that.

So trump has gotten his mob - arguably the same assholes who rioted for him when he committed insurrection back on January 6th 2021 - riled up to view the Democrats as "cheaters" on his say-so, with no evidence but with every bit of anger and venom he can stir up in them.

The risks to voter safety at the polls this November have gone up. It doesn't help that trump will likely use ICE agents to raid precincts in key states to disrupt turnout, use the Postal Service to shut down mail-in ballots (which ironically hurts Republican turnout), and use the FBI to raid elections offices to steal ballots like they do in third-world countries.

Stay safe. Plan ahead. Vote early if you have to (it's unlikely they'll send ICE to early ballot locations where too many white people will witness it). And defend your constitutional power to vote, everybody.

Trying to Find Some Peace On a Tragic Anniversary

Back in 2020 I dreaded the possibility of donald trump still being President for the 20th anniversary of the tragic 9/11 attacks. I didn't realize then he could return for the 25th anniversary and the risks of him messing that all up with his self-aggrandizing me-me-me bullshit.

The good news is that the New York City remembrances make it a policy preventing people from speaking during the memorial services, denying trump the chance to turn a somber gathering into a twisted celebration of his own "greatness".

So he did it instead during an earlier event this week, during which he invented a new 'heroic' story for himself being at Ground Zero; when in fact he was in New Jersey watching the devastation from a distance - later lying that he witnessed Muslim residents cheering the attacks - and going on talk shows to brag about how he now owned the tallest building in Manhattan (which also was a lie, and the worst time to brag about that).

All that rage I'd normally have at this shitgibbon, well I'm letting it out now and then stepping away.

Today, I would rather encourage the various readers of this blog to find some peace within yourselves, find some good things to do for others this day and even this weekend, and try to revel in the small joys and calm comforts we can achieve for ourselves and each other.

Stay safe.

Desperate to Buy Off the Voters (and Cheap, Too)

Update: thanks as always to Steve in Manhattan over at Crooks & Liars including this article for Mike's Blog Round-Up! Good luck everyone, stay safe, and for the LOVE OF GOD throw every Republican crook out of office this midterms!

I didn't watch trump at his midterm egofest last night, but I saw the responses. Gods, he's never been subtle but even this reeks of desperation (via George Chidi at the Guardian(US)):

Donald Trump’s promise of a $5,000 “Trump dividend” for every US citizen if Republicans retain control of the US Congress in November’s midterm elections has sparked incredulity and accusations of bribery.

“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the unprecedented Republican midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump dividend.”

It comes amid extreme concern over the US national debt, which exceeded $40tn for the first time in August.

Even other Republicans questioned it (although they'll likely promote it with grins painted on their faces when trump insists).

Speaking to Politico, Chip Roy, the Republican US representative from Texas, sounded skeptical. “Well – I would like to know how they would plan to pay for … back of envelope … well over $1tn,” he said.

In the moments after Trump made the announcement, Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote on X that “this would cost about $1.2 TRILLION in just one year. That’s more than ALL THREE ROUNDS of COVID relief checks, despite no recessions. The result would be a huge spike in the deficit, and almost certainly in the inflation rate.”

The US has roughly 240 million adult citizens, suggesting the cost of $1.2tn. The federal government spent about $7tn in fiscal year 2025, with about $2tn taken on as debt.

And the funny thing is? The average American household - which depends on what expenses they're carrying from mortgages to bills to medical expenses and outstanding college loans - has around $105,000 in personal debts (note: under normal circumstances I'd be dealing with around $52,000 in debt right now. My dad - with his financial acumen - helped pay off my mortgage last year before he died. Millions of others don't get that kind of help). A meager $5,000 dividend bribe to vote for the party putting us most into debt in the first place is too cheap a payoff to be of any good to anybody.

And it is a bribe trump offers: We'll only get the money "IF" the Republicans win the 2026 midterms that was already looking like a certain Democratic Blue Wave. Everybody - including the MAGA punditry - saw it for what it is (via Malcolm Ferguson at New Republic):

“We should note though, it is not the first time he has promised a cash payment like this,” the (Fox News) network clarified shortly after Trump’s speech. “He promised Americans $2,000 rebates during his tariff policy when that was enacted, but after court challenges to the tariffs themselves, those $2,000 checks so far have not materialized.” 

Fox hosts laid these concerns at the feet of Vice President JD Vance. 

“You do the quick math, that’s about $1.3 trillion,” Brett Baier told Vance. “I can hear the critics’ heads exploding. They’re saying out loud, I guarantee you: ‘The president is bribing voters to vote for Republicans to take over the House. And then he’s bankrupting the country because the deficit debt is huge, and inflation would come back if this comes into play.’ So how do you answer those criticisms?”

Vance tried to defend it by claiming we'd get the money from other countries through trump's trade wars:

“What the president’s talking about is fundamentally a dividend for American workers. We’re taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies, but also foreign countries who’ve been taking advantage of America’s workers for pretty much my entire life,” Vance said, referring to tariffs.

In reality, the revenue brought in by Trump’s tariffs, under $500 billion, would not cover a $5,000 check for every American, which would cost $1.2 trillion. 

It’s obvious at this point that Trump’s first inclination when his back is against the wall is to dangle money in front of the masses. He’s promised cash payments multiple times, including $2,000 stimulus checks for the “tariff dividend,” a $5,000 stimulus check for the bygone “DOGE dividend,” and $1,000 checks for the Affordable Care Act. None of those ever materialized. 

Republicans, by the way, already control Congress. If Trump wanted to make this a reality, he could have by now.

If trump really wants to flip the majority of American voters - angry as hell towards a Republican-controlled government that's wrecking everything from Washington landmarks to our public schools - he would reverse course on his ruinous tariffs policies, end the fighting in Iran and the bombing of fishermen across South and Central America, stop a violent and unnecessary deportation program disrupting our communities, and apologize to voters on bended knee. Of course, trump can never admit he is wrong any anything so that will never happen.

Instead - as the corrupt con artist bastard he is - trump can only offer bribes in clear violation of the law. Social media is rampant with posts of critics pointing to the laws in the US Code trump is openly breaking:

There are at least two provisions in the U.S. Code that make it illegal to offer or accept a $5,000 "GOP Dividend" for voting. Both the offerer (Donald Trump) and the accepter (good luck with that!) are liable for fines and jail time.

[image or embed]

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) September 10, 2026 at 11:19 AM

Just in case Mrs Betty Bowers' skeet disappears,
here is the screenshot

If you want the link to the Code for 18USC s597  and 52USC s10307c here you go. Even the offer of the payment to change votes is illegal even if the payment never goes through.

It is enraging that the corrupt Republican-controlled Supreme Court ruled that a sitting president can't be charged with crimes. trump is so crooked and reckless he believes - no, worse, he knows - the law won't touch him. However; if enough voters show up this November midterms to flip both the House AND the Senate to supermajority Democratic control (it's possible for the Senate, but EVERY seat has to flip to pull it off) these are impeachable offenses, and we can kick trump's corrupt ass out of the White House he does not deserve.

You want motivation to vote, America? VOTE THE REPUBLICAN CROOKS OUT and IMPEACH trump. That is far more valuable than that cheap-ass $5,000 bribe.

trump Himself IS the Derangement Syndrome

Wanted to share this Michael Tomasky article at the New Republic I read a few days ago:

The Venezuela announcement tracks with a very well-worn pattern. Trump raves that the deal in question is the greatest in the annals of history. It will deliver scarcely imaginable benefits. It will cost nothing. And it all happened because of Trump’s genius.

It’s been a lie every time. The tariffs were going to help farmers. Nope: Farmers are furious at Trump, giving Democrats their first potential political opening in rural America in ages. The tariffs were going to allow for elimination of the income tax. Remember that one? The war in Iran was going to take a month. The Reflecting Pool, ruined by Trump’s predecessors, was going to be thing of unparalleled beauty.

It’s tempting to call these lies, and they surely were in the sense that Trump just says everything he does is the greatest without the slightest bit of analysis or conscience entering into the equation. But they’re not just lies. They’re delusions. And delusions, in a way, are even worse than lies.

Why? Because while a liar can change course, a delusional person cannot. Trump is sitting in the mid-to-low 30s in approval. If he were merely a liar, he could try to correct course and do some things differently. He could realize, for example, that the war he started has been a disaster and is massively unpopular and, without exactly admitting it directly, sue for peace and cut his losses. A liar can acknowledge, eventually, that maybe he screwed up a little on the Reflecting Pool.

But a delusionist can do none of those things because the delusionist can’t accept that he’s done anything wrong. And he surrounds himself with people who understand that their only real job, whatever their actual specific responsibilities may be, is to keep the delusions alive and the Emperor happy.

So: A normal president two months out from what’s shaping up as a devastating midterm election would try to do things a little differently. I’m not sure in this case what exactly that would be; releasing some of the petroleum reserve, bringing beef producers to the White House and pressing them to lower prices for a period. Anyway that’s Trump’s problem, not mine. The point is that he won’t do these things because he doesn’t think anything is wrong. In fact, his plan right now is to make himself the centerpiece of the GOP’s midterm message, and to that end he will reportedly redirect part of a $400 million kitty to “television advertisements about his own record.”

That record is delulu. He mocks affordability. He says the bad polls are fake. He blames everything on Joe Biden. He tells people the economy is roaring, everybody says so (yes, everybody at Mar-a-Lago probably does say so). He boasts, as he did at that rally 10 or so days ago, that the last 19 months have been the greatest first 19 months of any administration in history.

His aides must echo every word of this palaver or risk censure or termination. Ditto Republican elected officials, as Salazar no doubt learned swiftly and loudly after her first tweet. And ditto Republican office seekers, like the Senate candidate in Minnesota (net worth: between $17 and $33 million) who says people concerned about gas prices should “take one less trip to Starbucks.”

The GOP lives in a cocoon, woven by the gossamer threads of Trump’s fantasia. Reality does not penetrate it. It’s funny to watch. But it’s tragic because it’s affecting people’s lives. People are struggling and suffering. But to say that in the Emperor’s presence is to prove only that you’re a deep-stater or a stooge or a RINO.

So, no—none of this is fixable. The economy will get worse. More and more innocent people, very much including children, will be rounded up and held in detention centers in the kind of hideous conditions we associate with a right- (or hard-left-) wing dictatorship, not the United States of America. The jaw-dropping corruption will continue and will get worse and more desperate, as indeed it has nearly every month of this administration so far. The attempts to rig and steal the midterms will only get more blatant. And next year, the hideous aspects of the Big Ugly Bill, the ones they intentionally delayed until after the midterms, will kick in, like the massive Medicaid cuts, and poor people and those in nursing homes, among many others, will suffer even more...

All trump knows is the con: Selling junk as though it's gold and profiting from the suckers who buy into it. The thing is, the con he's selling his himself: As a Great Businessman, As a Great Leader, As a Great Dealmaker, etc. That's the junk he's selling, and it's costing the rest of the world dearly.

Tomasky is bringing this all up in the context of that big Midterm Rally (tm) trump is hosting in Dallas this coming week. It's rare for a political party to hold a convention in an off-presidential election cycle - at least in the modern era, maybe back in the 1800s before the telegraph and telephone they had to meet more often to stay organized - to promote themselves, but for trump any rally is where he gets to rave and rant about himself with the delusion that the rest of the world is applauding him.

Granted, the Far Right media outlets - which now includes the broken CBS News - will try to offer wall-to-wall coverage, but the haters are likely to tune out, and the disgruntled Republican voters back home are likely going to be busy at their city halls fighting to stop another data center getting built in their neighborhoods. I don't believe trump's last set of nationally televised appearances were all that good in the ratings (trump of course will insist they were "great"), and I doubt he'll get many viewers for this.

As much as Tomasky argues that the Republican elected officials are stuck pandering to trump's delusions, it's already out there that many of the GOP candidates this midterm are avoiding this Rally (tm) like the plague. trump's approval numbers are so terrible that getting associated with him - especially in districts and states hammered hard by his tariffs and migrant deportations - is toxic. They'll support everything trump is saying when they appear on the Sunday talk shows because they know he's watching, but they dare not stand next to him for any unwanted photo ops.

trump himself doesn't care for the damage he's inflicting on others, even the ones supposedly on his side of the fence. All he cares about is branding himself the Greatest Who Ever Lived while planning to bulldoze down most of Washington DC to get his garish ugly monuments to himself built.

There's your derangement syndrome, Beltway Media. I hope you're happy.

Addendum: As I worked on this, Tomasky did a follow-up article at TNR about the potential Blue Wave coming this midterms in spite of trump and the GOP's efforts to rig the election. We can hope... and we SHOULD turn out in droves to make that Blue Wave flip the House AND Senate this November. Want to break trump's delusions? Defeat him.

A Flock of Protests

This isn't just happening in Florida, but I figure I should start in my home state (via David Ingram with NBC News):

Florida’s state transportation office on Monday revoked the ability of local police to put license plate readers on state highways, as a nationwide backlash continued to gain steam against Flock Safety and other makers of surveillance cameras.

Will Watts, the chief operating officer of the Florida Department of Transportation, informed local law enforcement agencies in a one-page memo that the department was revoking all previously issued approvals for license plate readers (LPRs) in state “rights-of-way,” or the strip of land that’s next to or part of a state road.

Watts cited a “recent exponential increase” in deployments of law enforcement cameras, as well as “concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes” that he said merit immediate action “to preserve Floridians’ sovereignty and quality of life.”

If you've paid attention along the sides of the highways, you might notice these thin black poles on portable mounts with cameras atop them. Unlike the CCTV cameras you'd see at traffic intersections - or the street corners of urban communities - these are cheap, easy to place, and even easier to abuse by law enforcement bullies stalking their exes or other women that caught their eye. Ingram's report provides an example of "a Kentucky police officer was arrested after authorities said he used the Flock system more than 2,000 times to track his ex-girlfriend."

They're investigating cops in Chicago who abused the data for their personal use. A cop in Texas got fired for using Flock to track his ex-wife. A cop is charged in Louisville KY for using Flock to stalk a woman for months.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes is in full effect here, kids.

As Ingram notes, the use and abuse of this new technology - tied into AI, and reaching further into personal privacy data than any previous tech our law enforcement ever wielded - has caught the attention and anger of thousands of fellow Americans:

NBC News has identified 50 areas across the country where Flock cameras have been damaged, spray-painted, smashed or cut down in acts of vandalism since 2024, while some drivers have sued Flock and organized themselves into a proposed class action.

Tim Swarens over at USA Today delves more into the legal concerns:

Unlike old-fashioned surveillance cameras, information gleaned from images captured by Flock cameras – including time, date and place – is stored as searchable text in databases. Law enforcement agencies can then mine the data without a warrant. 

The American Civil Liberties Union says the cameras can even record the bumper stickers slapped on the back of your car. Think about the First Amendment implications of that uninvited interaction with government snoops.

Invasion of privacy concerns have ostensibly motivated vandals across the country to sabotage the cameras. And while I don’t condone breaking the law, I do understand the opposition to unwelcome government surveillance...

Proponents of the cameras say they help police capture dangerous fugitives, stop car thefts and reduce other crimes.

But there is a necessary tension between public safety and our constitutional rights, including the right to privacy. We restrict law enforcement agencies’ power for good reason... 

News stories have cropped up across the country about misuse of the cameras. In 2025, police in Lenexa, Kansas, were accused of using the city’s license plate readers to track the movements of a man who wrote a guest column for the Kansas City Star criticizing the police department...

In February, police in Sherwood, Arkansas pulled over a couple after a Flock camera erroneously identified their vehicle as stolen. The couple was held at gunpoint, with their infant in the vehicle, before officers realized their error...

As much as the technology is cutting edge, the AI used by these cameras is still raw - AI is meant to learn - and prone to mistakes/errors/outright fabrications. We're running the risk of cops reacting to the wrong crimes and towards innocent people. We've had the risk of these same cops abusing their authority to harass and bully others, but now with these cameras and AI they can behave even worse.

I don't condom damaging or destroying any Flock cameras you see out there. But if you ever come across one, take the time to slow down well enough that you can flip the bird at the SOBs as you drive by.

Where The Hell *Are* The Billions Already Wasted At the Pentagon, If They're Desperate to Pilfer Even More Money?

What the HELL is going on here? According to the Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, Hegseth's Department of Defense is about to raid the National Institutes for Health's piggy bank:

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) has learned that officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) are working to divert billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to supplement the Department’s budget.

Without notifying Congress or the American people, DoD has signed an interagency agreement that could give the Department access to billions of dollars that Congress provided to NIH for critical biomedical research. These funds were provided to support research to develop treatments or cures for infectious diseases such as influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, Ebola, and other dangerous pathogens...

We as taxpayers have witnessed billions of dollars going to Defense every budget, we've had Secretary of Steak and Lobster Dinners Hegseth come begging for even more money this summer as ammo and troops got thrown into a costly destructive war on Iran. We've seen the end results of our front-line soldiers and sailors suffering with supply woes, bad food, and lack of support from a logistics system broken under Hegseth's misrule.

Something is rotten in the Pentagon, if they're having to raid other agencies for funds. What the hell happened to the billions we already gave the Defense Department, to where they're now out of money?

There's been calls for years to have a full audit done on the DoD. This is a major red flag warning us that audit is way overdue.

It's a Breakdown. Go Ahead And Give It To Me...

A good sign of how incompetent a Cabinet Secretary is doing at the job is the high number of resignations of key persons from that Department. Just yesterday, Secretary of Defense Idiocy Pete Hegseth got a vote of no confidence with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll jumping the figurative ship (while Navy crews are literally jumping).

A worse sign of how bad it's going within a department is when leaks get out to the media. That's often coming from underlings unable to resign but desperate to cleave an exit route for themselves before the ship sinks everybody. How else to explain the release of rather classified internal briefs to the Washington Post this weekend, detailing how most of the military commanders Hegseth hasn't fired yet are issuing "non-concurrances" in opposition to Hegseth's ongoing mismanagement of unwanted wars.

Mark Hertling over at The Bulwark provides some context:

The Post reported Sunday that several of America’s senior military commanders have warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that continuing the current pace and scale of operations against Iran risks weakening the military’s ability to respond to crises elsewhere. The warnings appeared in the highly classified Secretary of Defense Orders Book.

The most eye-catching part of the Post story was that several senior commanders registered “non-concurs” with continuing some deployments. That sounds dramatic because it is—not because non-concurs are unusual in this process, but because of what they tell us about the condition of the force after six months of war.

The Book is essentially an operational and strategic assessment of how America’s military forces are allocated around the world. The people who assemble it are the staff for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many sections with different responsibilities contribute: Logisticians assess the ability to move and sustain forces, strategists consider the effect on global commitments and other contingency plans, and the services and combatant commands then assess what providing or losing a particular capability means to their overall missions. The operations directorate takes all this expertise into account and prepares the Book for the chairman, who then reviews it and gives it to the secretary of defense.

The Book doesn’t just concern itself with infantry divisions, fighter squadrons, and aircraft carriers. Modern military operations depend as much on intelligence platforms, air-defense units, military police, engineers, communications specialists, medical units, transportation companies, postal detachments, and even organizations responsible for showers and laundry. Those units aren’t glamorous, but commanders can’t fight without them. Every one of those capabilities must come from somewhere. That’s why the Book is ultimately about risk...

I saw this firsthand when I served on the Joint Staff as the J7, which at the time oversaw contingency planning. We were routinely asked to assess what satisfying one combatant commander’s request would do to another’s war plans. It didn’t matter if it was an armored division, an aircraft carrier, or a single aircraft: If someone wanted it, it usually meant someone else didn’t want to give it up.

When I was in the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went through these Books weekly during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, questioning units and even numbers of personnel being deployed. The discussions were often painful for the Joint Staff briefers. But his purpose was straightforward: understand the consequences before deciding...

If there's anything we've seen from trump and from his lackeys like Hegseth, those two have no understanding of anything. /headdesk

This isn’t just Pentagon competition among commanders who want more forces. The reported non-concurs are occurring after months of munitions expenditure, extended deployments, deferred maintenance, and the movement of scarce capabilities from around the world to the Middle East. The Book is doing precisely what it was designed to do: expose tradeoffs to the secretary before he makes another decision.

It is also why the leak itself is so serious.

The Book is highly classified because, taken together, its contents provide an X-ray of American military readiness. It tells senior leaders not only where forces are, but where commanders believe they are short, which capabilities are being stretched, what war plans are accepting additional risk, and where the United States might have difficulty responding to a future crisis. That’s invaluable information for America’s adversaries.

But for the Secretary of Defense, it should be something else: a warning. The Book exists to identify risks before they become vulnerabilities—and the secretary’s job is not merely to read those warnings, but to act on them.

Hegseth can't. And won't.

The Secretary of Defense Pandering can't act on the warnings because they go against the fantasy narrative his boss trump has spun: Not only about the war on Iran, but also the overall fantasy that the United States is great under his leadership. Anyone in TrumpWorld who ruins that narrative gets exiled to the 2:00 am infomercial slots on the Newsmax channel.

Hegseth won't act on the warnings because of his own rage and frustration dealing with a military chain of command he views as "woke" or unmanly. This is a guy who's highest military rank was a major in the National Guard, obsessing over a "Warrior" ethos that remains at odds with the armed forces' focus on professionalism. Half of what he's doing to the military right now is expressing that rage towards generals and admirals he now "outranks", clearing out anyone who doesn't buy into that Warrior Code - or doesn't fix his racist/sexist world-view - he's trying to infuse into the troops at the detriment of morale and discipline. 

Leaking this information - that the upper ranks of the US military are at odds with their civilian (inept) bosses - is a major red flag: There is chaos instead of organization in one of the most important departments of our federal government; and there is a good chance the lower ranks of our armed forces are going to mutiny in some form or another when - not if - Hegseth and trump push them too far.

The Crimes of the DeSantis Power Circle, Symbolic of Statewide Republican Corruption

If you want to know how corrupt Republicans are, not only look to their crimes but also look to how they cover up said crimes when they're in control of the investigation. Right here in Florida is a perfect example as a grand jury probe dug into political fundraising misdeeds by those in power (via Jim Vertuno with AP News, linked through PBS Newshour):

A Florida grand jury found that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration "misappropriated" $10 million in taxpayer money it diverted to a charity connected to his wife, but it declined to file criminal charges due to a lack of evidence indicating who specifically was responsible.

DeSantis on Thursday did not dispute the legitimacy of the secret grand jury report obtained and published online by CBS News Miami, but he insisted no laws were broken and said whoever leaked the sealed documents would face "consequences."

What consequences? The report already indicated nobody in a position to do anything about this is pressing criminal charges!

The Leon County grand jury completed its report in January on investigations into Hope Florida, the charity started in 2021 by Florida first lady Casey DeSantis. Despite the lack of charges, the report ignited a new round of criticism aimed at DeSantis and other top state Republicans over the charity receiving $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement intended to help poor children get health insurance.

Basically, DeSantis' own wife stole from sick kids. SHE STOLE. FROM SICK KIDS. The sociopathy is bottomless with these crooks.

Also note, the grand jury completed their work in January but it's only NOW - after the August primaries were voted on - that the report leaked.

The Hope Florida charity is supposed to help financially struggling families connect with churches and aid groups to help keep them off publicly-financed assistance programs. The $10 million was instead moved to political action committees that used the money to oppose a 2024 statewide ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana for adults in the state...

The grand jury said no one would take responsibility for sending the money to the charity or had any memory of who did.

"We recognize that this would be an impediment to criminal prosecution," the report noted. "While we can't prove who is responsible, we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes and we would like to see changes made to prevent this from happening again."

The grand jury report concluded that James Uthmeier, who was DeSantis' chief of staff at the time, "was in a position of authority over those involved in settling," and that his Keep Florida Clean PAC was the prime recipient of the $10 million. The grand jury said then-state Attorney General Ashley Moody's office knew of the plans to divert the money. She was later appointed by DeSantis to the U.S. Senate...

Take note of all the players involved in both the crime and the cover-up, how they're all interconnected and relying on each other to stay in political power. Uthmeier and Moody both owe DeSantis their offices, and they have personal incentives to make sure they're never held accountable for any role they had in this.

The articles covering this story don't delve too much into how a grand jury investigation into this even started back in October 2025. That it was a fellow state Republican in the state House questioning the fundraising diversions seems a bit surprising unless you recognize it as an intraparty power play: Back then, Casey DeSantis was campaigning to run for governor to follow in her husband's footsteps, a blatant act of nepotism that arguably angered other Republicans ambitious for that office. The polls favored her well into February 2026, but the grand jury created enough scandal to keep her from running.

When she didn't show up on the ballot, you'll notice the other state-level Republicans didn't care to hold anybody accountable for it, even though clearly crimes took place. Their inaction reeks just as much as the DeSantis' power grabs and theft.

And this is what you get when one party runs everything at the state level for 28-plus years. The Republicans - driven more and more by their wingnut extremists - have been in control of Florida since 1998, packing the state courts with conservative judges happy to bend the laws to their favor, shredding every voter-backed referendums that supported funding schools and keeping ecosystems safe, denying local communities any sovereignty, and mocking any accountability to the voters who keep putting the same crooks back into office.

All I want - all I've been praying for the last two decades - is for my fellow Floridians to wake up to the reality that the state-level Republicans - as much as the national party - are a bunch of honest-to-God crooks. The Republican Party from trump on down to DeSantis and to every state legislator and county official are part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy to take taxpayer money for their own pockets and make most of us - even their own voters - suffer to their cruelty.

Please. I am begging every Florida voter. You want an end to criminal corruption in politics? You're going to have to recognize it's all coming from the Republicans in charge at Tallahassee, and you are going to have to vote every goddamn Republican crook out of office. Please.