Saturday, October 10, 2026
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.
If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
Herbert Stein.
September 23, 2026
Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first time since the Dixiecrat MAGA insurgency took control of the party and made it a populist party.
Bit and pieces of the signs are everywhere, all of a sudden. Stein's Law has arrived.
GOP candidates are in trouble all over the country and now they're starting to dump Trump. A good example of this is Congressman Ashley Hinson, who is trying to do the same thing that Harriet Hageman is trying to do, which is to move into a retiring Senator's spot. She's in real trouble in that effort and recent polls indicate that she's behind. The Republican seat appears slated to go to a Democrat. The GOP sent out John Barrasso to stump for her, an odd choice as Barrasso isn't inspiring on his alleged home turf, but the thought must have been that the Senate Whip could show how Hinson winning would help the Dear Leader.
Well, that message didn't seem to take. So Hinson started to bolt. From her Facebook.
Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices.
That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs.
While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don’t suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now. These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.
I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.
Go home Dave. You drank too much WFC Kool aide.
Elsewhere, Wyoming teachers are organizing against the attempt to bankrupt the state:
Teachers, hospital leaders launch $1M campaign to fight property tax ballot measure
October 4, 2026
The Gillette News Record ran an article about a Campbell County event of the meet the candidate type in Gillette for Bextel. It was held at The Railyard, which is a restaurant in Gillette. It's a fair sized restaurant but not huge. Apparently about 20 people went, which shows how little interest Bextel's campaign is drawing.
Her campaign does receive media attention as she's able to run it and it's so unusual. I hesitate to post on her regularly as it makes her look like a bigger deal than she really is. It is interesting however.
For one thing, Bextel keeps stating the "I didn't want to do this but had to" type of line. Nobody has to run for anything. What that really means is that the Dixiecrat is suddenly awake to the fact that Wyoming isn't 1960s Alabama and is terrified of what that means.
Also, Bextel continues to use some crude language. I guess that's no shock in this day and age but at least to some it sort of edges her towards Southern White Trash, which isn't a good look for anyone.
Those in attendance asked why Hageman and Gray (Gray stayed at her house, apparently, while campaigning) haven't come to her support.
As if.
Politics is a backstabbing game and there's no way that Hageman and Gray are going to buck the GOP for anyone.
Some local politicians showed up, which risks their being associated with her. I don't blame them for showing up, but the press coverage might be a deterrent to that occurring in the future.
Bextel claims that Harriet Hageman went after Barlow in a major way in a discussion with her personally, claiming that she said he was "pure evil". Bextel is clearly a bit baffled why Gray and Hageman don't come to her aid in her race.
The fact that Gray is a "true friend of MAGA" is the very reason that Chuck ought to be sent to be a toilet bowl scrubber in the Kremlin. The question is who to vote for.
Monday, October 5, 2026
2028 Election, Part I. The Preview of Coming Attractions Editions.
December 19, 2025
And the 2028 Presidential Season has begun. Erika Kirk of Turning Point USA has endorsed J. D. Vance.
And yes, it's way, way, early.
But perhaps its not surprising. Trump's mentally departing the stage and chance are good that he'll be out of office in the next few months, Vance is probably looking towards his future right now. His best chances for that position, of course, would be if Trump is escorted out of the building babbling about being the greatest and sent to a gilded retirement home.
But if that doesn't occur, the knives will be coming out before 2028. Marco Rubio will not have sat through four years of soul corrupting dementia not to take a run at the White House. No doubt others are in the wings.
One who may be in the wings, if I'm wrong on his being too demented to carry on in any fashion, is Donald Trump. Everyone keeps noting that he's constitutionally barred but he has no regard for the law in the first place and his threads to run need to be taken seriously.
On Vance, he's a true NatCon, although a recent convert to the philosophy, and his being backed by Turning Point means something, assuming that Turning Point doesn't fly apart or become highly diminished (which I think it will). It's hard to know exactly what's going on, but it might be suspected that it's probable that Kirk's coming out now has the backing of other significant NatCon figures, who know that they need to put their man in power now (Trump really isn't their man, but their tool). A figure like Rubio would turn the clock back.
And so the race is on.
December 22, 2025
It wasn't until listening to the weekend shows that I learned that Marco Rubio has endorsed Vance as well.
That's really interesting, and frankly surprising.
Cont:
And now the rumors are circulating, probably correctly, that Ted Cruz will be running.
Moreover. . . .
The NatCon nerve center and author of Project 2025 starts to come unglued as the Trump Administration does:
The conservative movement continues to splinter about how to deal with its most controversial voices
I've always thought Roberts' organization would maneuver to put Vance in power in 2026 and shove aside the Pine Tree flag folks, who don't have the intellectual capacity to run a government. The risk has always been that they'd hold the hand they were dealt too long.
They may have.
And Pence, who didn't look like a good candidate before, is starting to with some folks.
September 23, 2026
Chris Christie has made what is effectively an announcement that he's running for the Presidency in 2028.
Christie is a solid and real conservative and is not only seeking to obtain the Oval Office, but to stage a counter insurgency against the populist MAGAs. This is a good time to do so, as the MAGA's are abandoning ship pretty rapidly as the bloom is off the Trump Stenchweed for everyone except the most diehard loyalist, many of whom are in the ignorant category. The MAGA's are floundering around like fish in the deck with the two presumed 2028 candidates for the Trump thrown, Marco Rubio and J. D. Vance having real trouble dealing with a legacy they both want to take and to avoid.
Christie was a Trump supporter after his first run for office in 2016 and was part of the Trump transition team. He got COVID 19 at a White House event, which shows how late he remained on Trump's team, sort of. It would seem that his loyalty was always somewhat cynical, as he never played that much of a role and his views don't dovetail with Trump's. Christie definitively broke with Trump on election night 2020 when he adamantly maintained that the election was not stolen and he's pulled away from him ever since. He's a frequent guest on the This Week panel where he's been a very vocal opponent of Trump's, while still being a conservative.
Christie's announcement brought out tons of criticism, some of it from people like me who have always opposed Trump. I understand that, but I feel it's unwarranted as Christie never compromised his own views and stood for them when the time came. His support for Trump was likely self serving, as is J. D. Vance's and Marco Rubio's. He's a real Republican, a real conservative, and in my view is a very good candidate. It's early, of course, but in this environment, positioning himself early, before the November 2026 election, would appear to be a good strategy.
I will note that the immediate opposition to Christie in some quarters is interesting. As noted, I get those who are disgruntled as he supported Trump in the first administration. But a lot of people just keep saying "he's fat".
Yeah, he is. So was Taft. So was Cleveland. So is Trump.
It's weird to think being fat would be a reason not to vote for a person, while being a serial polygamist isn't.
We should mention the Democrats as well.
No Democrat has announced or even gone as far as Christie with an announcement of intent to announce. That's likely a wise strategy as announcing in advance of the November election will give absolutely desperate Republicans something to focus on. An interesting development has happened, however, in that Gavin Newsom has been clearly testing the waters but came out saying he would not run if Kamala Harris does. Presenting a united front against the GOP is a good strategy, to be sure, but in 2028 the Democrats will not face Trump and the need to be united early may not really be there. Moreover, Harris is a terrible candidate. Harris would fit the mold, however, of Democrats re-running failed candidates.
September 25, 2026
JB Pritzker, who Trump likes to insult for being fat, even though Trump is fat, has effectively thrown his hat in the ring as well as of yesterday.
Pritzker is 80 lbs lighter than he was this time last year.
An interesting thing here is that we now have two ex Governor's from east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason Dixon line running for the GOP ticket. It's over two years until the 2028 election, but it's still noteworthy as this could very much reflect a shift in the GOP. Donald Trump is a New Yorker, of course, but he's basically from the State of Television. The last Republican President who was a true East Coaster was George H. W. Bush of Maine.
September 29, 2028
Robert Reich reports that Rahm Emanuel is thinking of running on the Democratic ticket.
The Rahm Bomb
And Reich is worried.
He should be.
I don't know that much about Emanuel, but I do know that the Democratic Party can blaze a way to defeat like no other. Given a chance to simply walk into the White House, and right now it's looking like they have one, they'll mess it up by picking a candidate that's unelectable.
Let's be perfectly frank about 2024. Donald Trump won in no small part as the Democrats picked two completely lousy candidates.
Joe Biden was obviously suffering from mental decline and allowed to run until it simply couldn't be ignored. Then they went to the next worse option, Harris.
I warned at the time that Harris was a bad choice, at which time I urged that they pick Tammy Duckworth.
Why can't Democrats get a clue?
Why isn't anyone suggesting that Tammy Duckworth replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket?
Nope, Kamala Harris with her high pitched whiny voice and completely unworkable personality.
Uff.
There's plenty of rumors afoot that Harris is going to run again, which his repeating the mistake the Democrats made with Hillary Clinton. People didn't like Clinton, at all. The Democrats kept acting like her failures weren't her failures.
There's a serious risk that the Democrats do that again, and figure, sure she lost to Joe Biden in the primary, and sure she lost to a demented septuagenarian in the Presidential election, but, by golly, that means nothing.
Which of course has nothing to do with Emanuel. . . or maybe it does.
Emanuel is from the Clinton and Biden administrations. It's really clear that a lot of people are really trying to put distance between the past and the present and are disgusted with politicians in general who symbolize the past. About the only Democrat of old who could win now would be Barack Obama, and he can't run (although if the GOP finds some illegal way to run Trump. . . ). The Democrats need to move forward.
They also need to ditch the Baby Boomers like the stenchy worn out gym shorts they've become. There ought to be an age limit on anyone running in 2028. I'd put the cap at being born in 1965, which is the upper year for Generation Jones. If the Boomers haven't gotten things right by now, they're not going to.
On this, the Democrats also need to get Bernie Sanders to shut up. Nothing says Gerontocracy like having a million year old man running around as the voice of "progressivism"
Duckworth, fwiw, would be a good candidate. Amy Klobuchar would as well.
Basically, if you were born before 1965, or had a position in a prior administration, stay out.
Pritzker, I'd note, makes that cutoff.
So does Republican Chris Christie.
October 5, 2026
Rahm Emmanuel was on Meet the Press this weekend. He's clearly running, and frankly he sounded perfectly reasonable. I was impressed.
Additional labels:
2028 Election, Part I. The Preview of Coming Attractions Editions. Additional labels.
Friday, August 21, 2026
King Donald's War, Part 11. The worst defeat in American History. Sic transit Gloria Mundi.
Donald Trump is about to become what he never wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. Held hostage by Iran. And it was all voluntary.
Chris Christie.
We've never seen anything like it. It's an existential defeat. We're never going to recover as a country from this.
This is our 1958 Suez Crisis.
We've lost wars before, of course, in spite of what Americans like to believe. The War of 1812 was a loss. The Korean War ended in a stalemate, which certainly isn't a win, if it's not a loss. The Vietnam War was a flat out loss. And the war in Afghanistan, which didn't have to be a loss, became one as Donald Trump surrendered to the Taliban. So, we've lost wars before.
But not like this.
People may be tempted to draw parallels to Vietnam, which was a really bad loss. It was touch and go if the country would recover from for about a decade, and with the complete failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt to get the hostages out by force in 1980, it really looked like we'd faded beyond repair.
Importantly, however, the United States didn't lose any allied because of Vietnam, in no small part because it didn't ask for any to participate in the war. Some did, such as South Korea.*
The Reagan Administration, which I frequently criticize here, turned things around. It rebuilt the military and made a calculation that it could spend the Soviet Union to death in the Cold War, which it did. The Soviets collapsed and the Cold War ended, a major American victory. . . without fighting.
The fighting we've done since Vietnam has been impressive, right up until now. And that's the military that Reagan built. A military designed to take on the USSR. It still basically is. It's a big war military. So was our military in Vietnam.
In Vietnam the military learned that it wasn't good at asymmetric wars. And it finally learned the lesson that should have been clear in 1945 that airpower can't win a war.
In came Trump, and Hegseth, who have proven incompetent.
In a few short months they've lost the war to a second rate power, destroyed our relationship with our allies, eliminated our position in the globe as a superpower, emboldened the Chinese and probably the Russians, and made war with China, which we now stand a good chance of losing, inevitable.
There were signs that we were in trouble already, but they were mostly economic. Between 1945 and the 2000s the US had lost control of its budget. When the Cold War ended we did not return to a rationally sized military, even though we did go to a smaller one. We maintained quasi colonial connections with some countries, notably those in the Middle East, which we did not need to. At home we let education decline.
In short, we lost the self discipline and sense of purpose a democratic nation should have. And that lead to the election of Donald Trump, twice. And in his second term, Trump has so accelerated American decline it leads to rational questions on whether or not he's a foreign agent.
Whatever he is, Donald Trump and his defense secretary Pete Hegseth aren't students. They're not smart people. They certainly aren't students of history.
Indeed, if they had, they might have realized this has happened before.
Following the Second World War the United Kingdom and France retained claims to being wold powers, indeed superpowers. But the end of that is now clear in retrospect. Both were losing control of their colonial empires rapidly. The United Kingdom retained food rationing until 1954. Both nations still fought colonial wars, although the French could really only do it with American help, which was only reluctantly given, if given at all.
In 1956 Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. The UK, France and Israel, the latter of which had its own issues with Egypt, decided to militarily intervene. Israel attacked first, on October 29, with the objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba. The United Kingdom and France joined in on October 311 seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal. France and the UK expected the Eisenhower Administration to support it, but it didn't.
The net result was that Israel gained in the war, although the US forced it to give back the parts of the Sinai it too. The US and France proved incapable of carrying on without US support.
Iran has said the Strait will remain closed u ntil the US accepts its terms.
Reporter: Family members of service members are concerned about conditions on the LIncoln.Trump: No they’re not.Reporter: Has the deployment gone on too long?Trump: No. Not nearly long enough.
This strait will be opened and closed only under Iran’s command, and so long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and stop indulging in fantasies, Iran willcontinue to enforce the blockade.
Last edition:
King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.
Monday, August 10, 2026
King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.
July 21, 2026.
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Kipling.
Just 19 years old. She died, not so that Iran would not have a nuclear weapon, not for liberal democracy in Iran, but because a demented old narcassist duped by a prime minister of a desperately minoritarian regime in the Middle East could spill her blood for its purposes.*
Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and every American supporting this war has blood on their hands.
And not just hers.
Isabella Gonzales. A life cut short, and a life taken on behalf a regime that would likely send her to Mexico on the basis that she has a Spanish last name, if it could, for a war that most Americans don't want, and which is being fought for Israel.
I'm not, as I've noted before, in favor of women in combat. Pvt. Gonzales left a few social media type posts of herself, in uniform, acting very cute, and very feminine. She did not deserve this. It sounds brutal to say this, but this is a man's role.
But more than that, this is a role that should be filled, if it had to be, by those who brought it about. Why are the Trumps not in action?
Why have they never been?
A person who did.
Take up the White Man’s burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go send your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need*
Nah, that's not going to happen.
Most days now, it won't even be the main headline. Troops will go on killing and dying, and for what? A goal never clearly expressed, and which cannot be obtained without massive loss of life.
July 22, 2026
The third soldier:
Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, age 28.
And killed elsewhere in Iraq.
Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, age 30.
I suppose their faces look like America as it is. . . but not really the America that people like some in the Trump seem to want it to look like.
CST headline:
Well, like they say, freedom isn't free, and apparently giving up your freedoms for a demented narcissist isn't either.
The Houthis are threatening to close the Red Sea.
July 24, 2026
From the CST:
July 26, 2026
The Houthis hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia yesterday.
News reports hold that the administration has put on hold an escalation of the war due to a shortage of air defense munitions. Savvy analysts, including yours truly, have been warning about that occurring for months, and not it's here.
So, in keeping with that, a prediction.
This is also likely a moment that Putin and Xi have been waiting for as well. Our weapons stockpile has been built up over years, and now we've wasted it on a war fought for Israel and Trump's vanity. Both Putin and Xi know that the next President, assuming at Trump 2028 coup to be unsuccessful, and assuming that we don't have another President before 2028, is much less likely to be a complete patsy and geopolitical dimwit.
For Russia, that means Russia needs to fight on in hopes it can win before the next administration comes on. For Xi, that means the time to invade Taiwan is. . . now.
July 27, 2026
We're really back to, if not surpassing, the Vietnam War era administration fibbing levels.
Pentagon reveals hundreds of new Iran war casualties
July 29, 2026
Trump openly showed frustration with Netanyahu who was in town for Lindsey Graham's funeral as Bibi announced ahead of time that he wanted to share Israeli intelligence on Pickaxe Mountain.
That intelligence would reportedly show that the Iranians are reconstituting their nuclear program there and have no plans to give it up, which is obvious. That frustrates Donny, however, who was basically suckered into the war by Bibi and now can't find a way out. Bibi is trying to keep him focused and involved.
Iran launched a series of missile strikes on US targets yesterday. The missiles were reportedly alls hot down, but they cause the US to burn through it's depleting anti missile supply.
July 30, 2026
Well worth reading. We're not only losing, recent actions have made us even weaker than we were before.
Midweek Update #21: Iran Is Toying With The USA
Plus: Iranian Strategy; How Does This End?
We really have a evered amateurs at war problem going on. Hegseth apparently just feels that bombing wins wars, which has never worked. Trumps managed to go from having a horror of war into being nearly bloodthirsty, at least in his rhetoric. We're depleting weapons like crazy when we're already broke.
The war not only will have a losing result, but this is going to have a severely bad end for the country.
July 31, 2026
The U.S. resumed strikes on Iran yesterday. A drone strike on gas vessels in Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta occurred which is fairly clearly linked to the war, but the details have yet to be developed.
As an aside, I've already noted that the recent dead are half female and 3/4s minorities. It's also the case that one, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, was lesbian in a same gender union.
I'm noting that as the dead do not line up with Pete Hegseth's and MAGAs world view of who are Americans, yet they're the ones dying.
Iran has conducted a cyber attack on the Minnesota public water systems.
Cont:
The dipshit in the Oval Office blamed Minnesota for the Iranian attack on that state's public water systems.
He really doesn't care about you folks.
August 1, 2026
The illegitimate Trump Administration is meeting at Camp David today to discuss the illegal war it started.
August 3, 2026
Trump called off attacks and promised not to resume if a deal could be reached quickly.
It's won't be.
Iran and Oman are apparently in separate discussions on the Strait of Hormuz.
August 4, 2026
Trump claimed yesterday that talks were "underway". Iran denied that any were going on.
In fact, last night, Iran has launched a drone attack on a U.S. military base in Kuwait. and Iran struck a cargo vessel off the coast of Oman, all after King Donny claimed the U.S. and Iran have resumed negotiations.
Nobody knows for sure what the story is here, but we all know that Trump is an outrageous liar.
Trump is showing signs of getting increasingly frustrated with the war and clearly doesn't have any idea what to do. Iran knows that and has zero incentive in working with him on anything. More likely than not this is going to drag on for many more months.
The critical breaking point may prove to be a military one. The US cannot sustain the war and it's now very clear that's the case. Every single day of active fighting in the Middle East brings war with China, now inevitable in my view, closer.
"Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics" is the phrase that come to mind. Trump isn't a student of either. Neither is Hegseth, by observation . Trump listened to armature hawks like Hegseth whose war philosophy seemed boil down to "make big boom, kill people, opponents surrender" which would demonstrate that he wasn't much of a student of history.
The U.S. Army has used up most of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles in the war.
August 6, 2026
Apparently Hegseth and Trump got into a raging argument about the war at Camp David.
August 8, 2026
Iran has announced that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the United States meets certain conditions, including lifting the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions, withdrawing U.S. forces from around Iran, paying war reparations, releasing frozen Iranian assets, and ending attacks on Iran’s allies and threats against the country.
Yup, they're dictating terms to the U.S.
Those responsible for this debacle, from the Secretary of Defense down to the military planners, need to go, and need to go right away. Fire them.
August 10, 2026
Leaks from the Administration indicate that Trump is now at the point that the US will end the war if Iran only promises to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Iran is refusing that offer, wanting the US to pay reparations.
This is a complete defeat.
Donald Trump is about to become what he never wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. Held hostage by Iran. And it was all voluntary.
Chris Christie.
This is such a humiliating turning point that we will close this edition out with this.
Footnotes:
*“The White Man’s Burden" by Kipling, quote in part.
I don't admire the sentiments in this poem at all. It's racist. But it expresses the type of WASP colonialism, sans the Protestantism which at least moderated it a bit, of the colonial 19th Century, that the US is now experiencing under Donald Trump.
Related threads:
Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 8. Donald Trump, China's (and Russia's) greatest ally edition.
Last edition: