Daily Archives
75 posts · Friday
Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 191
Blue Wave Update
“The top super PAC for Senate Democrats is reserving $5 million in advertisements in Kansas’ newly competitive Senate race, signaling that the party sees a serious chance of winning a red state that once seemed out of reach,” the New York Times reports.
“The group, Senate Majority PAC, will spend the money on television spots and digital ads through Election Day, an investment to help narrow the gap between Republican and Democratic spending in the state.”
Just published: The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic by Malcolm Gladwell.
A provocative investigation of America’s epidemic of gun violence.
“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that.”
— Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA), quoted by CBS News.
Adam Serwer: “Only a few decades ago, Republican presidents would happily evoke the idea of America as a haven for people around the world. Ronald Reagan, in his farewell speech, declared that ‘anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.’ Reagan was no paragon of racial tolerance—he opposed the civil-rights movement and privately referred to Black people as ‘monkeys’—but he did not regard the presence of nonwhite people as an existential threat to America.”
“For years the Republican Party insisted that what it wanted was a certain kind of immigrant—highly skilled people who came here legally, or even, not that long ago, those brought to the U.S. as children who lacked status through no fault of their own and had long since assimilated.”
“That Republican Party no longer exists. Today the GOP’s view is that almost all immigration—by which the Trump administration seems to mean nonwhite immigration, euphemistically referred to as ‘Third World’ immigration—is bad.”
“I don’t know what the term means anymore. I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is you want to replace American workers with foreigners workers, and you want boys to play in girls’ sports. That’s what unites the socialists that I see running across the United States of America today.”
— Vice President JD Vance, quoted by the HuffPost, when asked to define “socialism.”
“President Donald Trump is establishing a committee to investigate mortgage fraud allegations against Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and is forcing her to appear at a White House hearing to defend herself, a dramatic escalation in his efforts to oust her from her role,” Bloomberg reports.
CNBC: Trump appoints committee to investigate statements by the Fed’s Lisa Cook.
“Texas PAC, the Senate Republican super PAC, is placing another $30 million in TV reservations on behalf of Ken Paxton,” Punchbowl News reports.
“This will bring the Senate Republican leadership-backed PAC’s television spending in the Lone Star State to about $155 million. With streaming ads and mail, the group is closing in on $200 million of spending.”
“Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) on Thursday slammed the recent decision by the U.S. military to livestream the upcoming execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, calling it ‘beyond disgusting,'” NewsNation reports.
“President Trump said Thursday that Minnesotans should ‘fight back’ against Somali immigrants following previous attacks against the group,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back.”
“Top executives at Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI companies are privately gaming out scenarios for a public and political revolt after a catastrophic AI event,” Axios reports.
“These officials anticipate a large-scale event, most likely a cyberattack, that shuts down access to financial services, internet connectivity, or even power and water.”
“Navi Pillay, the winner of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, took an immediate shot at President Trump after she learned she had won the award Friday,” the New Republic reports.
“The former South African judge and United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner gave an impromptu speech at Nuremberg Court in Germany, where she was attending an academic and legal conference after she received the news.”
Said Pillay: “Thank you very much. If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump.”
“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but a consensual gang bang is not a rape.”
— Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), on X.
“Democrats believe President Trump has committed impeachable offenses. But they’re divided over whether they should try to impeach him if they win control of the House,” Axios reports.
“If Democrats win the House, as expected, their 2027 decision on whether to try to impeach Trump could have major consequences for the 2028 presidential race.”
“Theoretically, impeaching Trump would be easy for a unified, Democrat-controlled House.”
“Congress has its best chance in years to pass sweeping permitting legislation, but a series of political and policy obstacles could derail the bipartisan Senate plan,” Axios reports.
“The White House says it supports the bill, but Trump is mercurial, so nothing is final until it’s final.”
“His administration’s willingness — or not — to loosen the screws on wind and solar projects it’s restricting could also sway the lame-duck politics and complicate efforts to win Democratic support.”
“Greenland’s push for independence remains firmly on the agenda after its new security deal with the U.S,” Bloomberg reports.
“The semi-autonomous Danish territory is working to map out the legal steps required to become an independent state, with a commission due to report early next year, said Nivi Rosing, chair of Greenland’s foreign and security policy committee. That work is continuing after the agreement gave the U.S. expanded military access to the island.”
“I think Democrats make a huge mistake when we cede all this ground, when we cede all the terrain around faith and values to Republicans. Why would we do that? Especially given the fact that on matters of morality, in my view, they’ve got so much of it wrong.”
— Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), quoted by the Washington Sun.
“I’ll be honest with you: I never imagined some of the stuff that’s been going on in our country lately. But I am energized by the millions of Americans who are taking a stand and demanding change, even when it’s hard. That’s what hope is all about.”
— former President Obama, quoted by CBS News.
Toluse Olorunnipa: “Around the same time that the world learned that swarms of autonomous AI agents were escaping their testing environments and carrying out sophisticated hacking attacks this past summer, researchers who focus on election security were running tests of their own. They wanted to see whether the safeguards that top AI companies had enacted to prevent their technology from disrupting the upcoming midterms would work in the real world. The results were ominous.”
“In response to sample prompts designed to create misinformation, several chatbots produced realistic photos of a man stuffing ballots into a mailbox, a man holding a foreign passport while trying to vote, and FBI agents investigating a voter-registration organization. The chatbots also created fraudulent government documents and deepfake videos of government officials purporting to substantiate election-conspiracy theories.”
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.
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