Daily Archives
83 posts · Thursday
Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 191
Blue Wave Update
“The Pentagon said it planned to livestream the firing-squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, a former officer who admitted to killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood Army base in Texas,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
New York Times: Fort Hood shooter’s execution will be public and streamed live, Pentagon says.
“The Michigan Senate debate on Thursday was as heated and personal as the rest of the race has been,” the Washington Sun reports.
“Republican nominee Mike Rogers repeatedly called Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed a ‘glitchy AI chatbot’ and suggested the Muslim American has ties to terrorists. El-Sayed called Rogers cowardly and accused him of going after the ‘Peeping Tom vote’ by supporting local government control of Flock cameras.”
New York Times: 5 key moments from hostile Michigan Senate debate between El-Sayed and Rogers.
CBS News: El-Sayed and Rogers toss insults in Michigan Senate debate.
“Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers signaled he would accept support from AIPAC as he remains locked in a tight contest against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed,” Politico reports.
“Rogers was asked during a debate Thursday whether he would welcome public backing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — and he pointedly did not rule it out.”
“Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro refused to commit to serving out a full term if he wins reelection, following in the footsteps of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore as 2028 rumors fly,” the New York Post reports.
“Instead, Shapiro trained fire on his GOP rival, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, for seeking the governor’s mansion instead of finishing out a full term in office.”
“President Donald Trump lambasted incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) calling the congressman ‘a loser’ on Wednesday, while criticizing the lawmaker for remaining a Democrat after receiving a presidential pardon,” Fox News reports.
“Trump pardoned Cuellar and his wife last year as the couple faced charges pertaining to bribery and money laundering.”
Said Trump: “In any event, I did the pardons, and made no deal, where a crooked politician would have, but I thought there would be a good chance that Cuellar, who was persecuted by Democrats because they didn’t like him, would have routinely gone over to the Republican Party — the people that saved him from years in prison.”
Charlie Cook: “The big story is the cratering of GOP prospects over the last six weeks. A glimpse of that is obvious in consumer confidence among Republicans plummeting during September, a harbinger of low GOP voter turnout next month.”
“It’s not a question of whether the GOP will have a bad night, but how bad will it be, despite structural advantages that should have precluded them from having a devastating midterm.”
“Applications for unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — have dipped to longtime lows in recent weeks, even as many Americans remain sour about the economy ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections,” the Washington Post reports.
“New filings for unemployment benefits have held below 200,000 for four weeks, data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday shows.”
“That’s the longest stretch since the late 1960s.”
“The Trump administration is considering using ships, including a 500-foot training vessel and ferries, to deport migrants to Central and South America on journeys that could take days and cost millions of dollars,” the New York Times reports.
“As the Senate race in Maine heats up, the state is getting cold,” the New York Times reports.
“And for many Maine voters, chilly weather could present a particular challenge this year: New England’s northernmost state is singularly reliant on heating oil, and the price of the product is surging because of President Trump’s war with Iran, which has clogged a vital oil shipping corridor.”
“The issue has started to move to the center of the race between Senator Susan Collins, a vulnerable fifth-term Republican, and her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, who has blamed Ms. Collins for the rising fuel oil costs.”
“An attack on an oil tanker near Qatar, deep inside the Persian Gulf, has raised fears among traders that a surge in strikes on shipping is spreading beyond the Strait of Hormuz, threatening the tanker operations that have helped keep oil flowing despite the conflict,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“A couple more interest rate hikes are probably on the way. But the Federal Reserve is in no great hurry to deliver them. That’s the takeaway from the latest round of communications out of the central bank,” Axios reports.
“It implies that the Fed is not in a full-scale effort to tighten the screws on the economy, but rather a cautious recalibration in light of inflationary pressures and robust growth.”
Russell Berman: “What attention Hochul attracted in her first years as governor was largely negative. She won her own full term in 2022 by six points, a relatively narrow margin for New York that Nancy Pelosi blamed for costing Democrats control of the House… By late 2024, Hochul’s approval rating had dropped below 40 percent, and the Democrats who were plotting primary challenges included her own handpicked lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado.”
“But the past two years have yielded an impressive turnaround. Hochul has drawn praise for forging productive relationships with both Trump and Mamdani. She easily dispatched opponents on her left (Delgado quit his campaign for governor in February) and her right (Representative Elise Stefanik’s bid lasted just more than a month). Hochul appears on track to secure another four-year term as New York’s governor, and if she remains something less than an A-list political celebrity, she has earned the respect of a party that all but dismissed her not long ago.”
“The White House has floated placing one of its top officials to serve as the head of the government’s most powerful watchdog, a move that could threaten the oversight of President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the executive branch,” the Washington Sun reports.
“Trump is considering nominating Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought’s deputy to serve as the nation’s comptroller general, the Government Accountability Office’s chief, for a 15-year term.”
“Democratic lawmakers are calling for Kimberly Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, to be fired after a bombshell report that she sought $100,000 from a Trump donor while offering access to administration officials,” the Washington Sun reports.
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed in an interview this week that the execution of the man who killed 13 people in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009 would be ‘public,'” CNN reports.
Said Hegseth: “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
“The Supreme Court on Thursday once again quickly stepped into a legal clash regarding the rules governing the price of political television ads ahead of the midterms,” the Washington Sun reports.
“The Trump administration and Republican campaign committees asked the justices to halt a ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which gave the Federal Communications Commission until noon Friday to resolve a challenge from Democratic Senate nominees to the agency’s March guidance granting political party committees access to lower ad rates when coordinating with candidates.”
“Chief Justice John Roberts quickly did so — at least for now.”
“Three is a trend, and the leaks about Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton’s campaign have more than hit that threshold,” Semafor reports.
“On Thursday the Texas Tribune published audio of Paxton saying the U.S. needs to ‘suck it up’ and cut federal programs, more drips from the same fundraiser that elicited Paxton’s complaints about gas prices, lack of control over his own campaign, and the Republican midterm convention depressing his numbers.”
Said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): “Got to be more careful when you run with the big dogs.”
“The National Football League wants state regulators, not the federal government, to oversee and regulate prediction markets such as Kalshi, the league wrote in a Supreme Court filing Thursday,” the Washington Sun reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
More about Taegan Goddard →