It’s the end of another week in Trumpistan (formerly the United States of America). As usual, there’s a lot happening. These are the stories that most interested me this morning.
In a bit of good news, it appears that Trump and Musk have restored Ukraine’s ability to use the Starlink/Starshield systems to defend themselves from Russia’s relentless attacks.
Trump may be planning renewed attacks on Iran, according to recent news reports; and Iran appears to be making plans for future operations also.
For the second week in a row, Trump has been traveling to red states to campaign for MAGA candidates in a likely fruitless effort to help Republicans keep control of the House and Senate. He looks and sounds exhausted, and he has been demonstrating some unusual behaviors during his rallies and his interactions with the press.
Ukraine News
For the past week or so, Ukraine has not had full access to the Starlink/Starshield systems that help them intercept Russian missiles and drones. Meanwhile Russia has been deliberately targeting civilians. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump and Musk ordered the slowdown, and they reported today that Trump told Musk to restore Ukraine’s access.U
Ukraine’s full access to Starshield has been restored, the country’s defense ministry said Saturday, two days after US President Donald Trump said Elon Musk had restored access to the military-grade version of his Starlink internet service.
“The Ministry of Defense’s monitoring systems are recording a recovery in Starlink/Starshield speeds,” Ukrainian Minister of Defense Yevheniy Khmara said in a statement.
“We are recording speeds exceeding 400 km/h; the connection is stable.”
He added that the defense ministry is continuing to track the progress.
It’s not clear if the restoration of Starshield speeds could be felt across the country. One source on the ground in Ukraine’s Donetsk region told CNN Saturday morning that the speed in their area continued to be limited to 160 kilometers per hour.
Later on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Starlink and Starshield had resumed operations at the speeds they had prior to the restrictions.
He stressed the importance of the services, describing them as “crucial for our frontline logistics and for defending Ukraine against jet-propelled Shaheds.”
Trump asked Musk in a phone call in recent days to restore Ukraine’s full access to the Starshield satellite system, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Trump had been seeking information about the slowdown and went to the billionaire owner of Starlink and Starshield’s parent SpaceX, after Ukrainian officials reported disruptions, the source said.
Portrait of theatre director and suffragist Edith Ailsa Craig, painted in 1943 by her close friend and artist Clare Tony Atwood.
Why does Musk, a civilian, have the power to control military grade defenses in another country that is our ally, whether Trump likes it or not? Read more at the link.
A trio of House Democrats representing Silicon Valley is demanding the White House launch an investigation into reports that SpaceX limited its military-grade version of Starlink satellite services to Ukrainians on the battlefield.
In a letter sent to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Reps. Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta and Ro Khanna asked for a briefing within two weeks outlining who decided to restrict Starshield speeds, how they were implemented and if any contractual obligations were violated. The lawmakers also asked for details of whether similar vulnerabilities exist elsewhere.
“Politically motivated service interruptions or erratic throttling will undermine reputations developed through decades of work that Americans have led to support our allies and customers throughout the world,” they wrote.
Starshield is SpaceX’s satellite network for the government designed for earth observation, secure communications links and hosting payloads for military missions, according to the company’s website….
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of Starlink and that he spoke with President Donald Trump and other senior administration officials before the limits were imposed.
“American taxpayers should never be left guessing whether the responsibility for critical national security decisions lies with their elected government or a private citizen with substantial financial interests in federal contracts,” the letter reads.
The U.S. and Israeli militaries have developed specific plans for renewed strikes against Iran after the American midterm elections, according to U.S. officials and other people briefed on the deliberations.
As planning for a short but intensive operation progresses, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have stepped up exercises, flying planes over Iraq to practice strike maneuvers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week to discuss new strikes, U.S. officials said.
By Mary Quan
The targets would likely include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and missile and drone arsenal. Some officials say one more big round of attacks could push Iran’s economy over the brink and force the country to make diplomatic concessions after nearly eight months of conflict.
Still, there are reasons to be skeptical that a renewed war would be any more successful than the first phase of intense U.S.-Israeli strikes between February and April. Those rounds of fighting drove up energy prices and inflation around the world, eroded security in the Middle East and severely strained the Pentagon’s supply of missile interceptors.
It is also far from certain Mr. Trump will approve fresh strikes. Repeatedly this year he has vetoed plans for a return to major combat operations, including this month when the U.S. and Israeli militaries were nearly ready to attack….
Iranian officials have promised to retaliate this time by expanding their targets beyond commercial ships and energy infrastructure in the region to data centers and underwater internet cables.
They say the fighting will neither be quick nor limited.
The U.S. government has put employees on heightened alert across the Middle East and moved to reduce personnel levels at embassies and consulates because of intelligence showing Iran is in the advanced stages of planning attacks against Americans, U.S. officials said on Friday.
Intelligence officials raised alarms to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo on Friday that warned about the dangers to State Department employees in the Middle East and other regions, the officials said.
The memo, from Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, said that agencies had “received intelligence that Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel. The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U.S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries.”
Gedda Runyon Starlin, Contemplation
The Trump administration confirmed the memo on Friday night through a U.S. official. The move demonstrated the seriousness with which the U.S. government is taking the threat, officials said. Axios earlier reported on the memo.
U.S. agencies assess that the threat against Americans in the Middle East and several other countries is at the highest level since the start of the war in February, U.S. officials said.
President Trump and top aides have received regular briefings on the rising threats, which go beyond the Middle East, one official said. Analysts have been examining the intelligence on the threats to U.S. officials, including ambassadors, in the past three weeks. Some material indicates Iran may have operatives in the United States, the official said. The Iranian plans also include potential targets in Europe, U.S. officials said.
But another official cautioned that Iran’s ability to carry out attacks in the United States and other territories overseas is limited, and its ambitions to strike are greater than its capability to do so.
Iran has “substantially increased efforts to target US personnel” in the Middle East and other areas, the US national intelligence director has warned in a memo seen by the BBC.
Jay Clayton’s assessment come as the US State Department makes adjustments to staffing at diplomatic posts in the region, including the ordered departure earlier this week of non-emergency US embassy staff from Saudi Arabia.
The order came in response to escalating attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis against Saudi Arabia in the past month.
Clayton’s memo was marked unclassified and sent to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday.
It said: “The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against US citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries.”
Clayton said he was making every effort to downgrade as much intelligence as possible so Rubio could share it with US State Department personnel….
“The threat of Houthi attacks and of Iranian terror plots targeting US officials are informing our decisions on staffing adjustments for embassies on [Restricted Operations] Status in the region.”
At least 21 people have now been killed in Houthi attacks on Saudi airports since the start of October, according to Saudi authorities.
One missile strike on Riyadh’s international airport on 10 October killed 13 people and injured 308 others – the deadliest attack in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade.
Trump’s Increasingly Odd Behavior
Trump often exhibits bizarre behavior at his rallies. Usually the mainstream media just ignores most of his antics, but over the past couple of weeks, Trump has been doing something that has finally captured the media’s attention. He has become obsessed with commenting on men’s bodies and his opinion as to whether they are “handsome” or “good looking.” Now the media is finally take notice.
As President Trump travels the country ahead of this year’s elections, he might focus on selling Americans on how he will bring the Iran war to a close, or control rising prices.
But in a puzzling approach, at some recent rallies he has instead started his often-meandering remarks by effusing about the physical appearances of other men and, more rarely, finding fault with them.
Mr. Trump has long marveled at the physical appearance of some men, sometimes gravitating to a favored phrase to describe men whose looks he appreciates: straight from “central casting.”
But lately Mr. Trump has been particularly quick to gush about male bodies.
Artist eva21nesco on DeviantArt depicting Arabella Figg
Balk offers several examples, and you can read them all at the NYT, using the gift link. Here are a couple of them:
As Mr. Trump held a rally in Highland Heights, Ky., on Saturday, he quickly recalled meeting the local Republican nominee for the House, Ed Gallrein, and said he looked like he had come from “central casting.”
Mr. Gallrein defeated a Republican critic of Mr. Trump, Representative Thomas Massie, in a primary in May. Mr. Trump had long targeted Mr. Massie for defeat.
“I needed somebody good, and this guy walks through the door,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Gallrein. “I said, look at this beautiful guy.”
Then Mr. Trump turned his focus to a Republican in a neighboring state, Senator Jon Husted of Ohio. Mr. Trump said he recently learned that Mr. Husted played college football. He recalled looking carefully at the physique of the senator, whom he campaigned with on Monday.
“I never did that with a man before,” Mr. Trump said. “I examined his ass, and then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline. Studied him. He’s got a jawline.”
Mr. Trump delivered a similar commentary at the rally on Monday.
“I looked, and I watched up and down,” Mr. Trump said earlier in the week. Speaking directly to Mr. Husted from the stage on Monday, Mr. Trump said: “Congratulations. Now they finally know.”
On Saturday, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that Mr. Husted, who is in a tough race, had gained “9 or 10 points since I talked about that.”
Another example from a Georgia rally:
Mr. Trump was not five minutes into his remarks at a rally in Dalton, Ga., on Friday before he turned to an assessment of the physical attributes of Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Representative Mike Collins.
Mr. Trump started with Mr. Ossoff.
“Somebody said he’s a good-looking man,” Mr. Trump said of the senator. “I don’t think he’s a good-looking man. I actually think Mike Collins is a good-looking man — and he’s all man. He’s all man. I’m not sure about Ossoff.”
By artist Miwa Kitahata
The president added that he thought Mr. Ossoff looked like Pee-wee Herman, the bow-tied comedic character created by the actor Paul Reubens.
Mr. Trump then addressed Rick Jackson, the Republican nominee for Georgia governor.
“I actually think that Rick Jackson’s a very handsome, distinguished, beautiful-looking guy,” the president said.
Later in his remarks, Mr. Trump turned his focus to the military, saying that because he was president he spent time with soldiers from “central casting.”
“We’re allowed to have big, strong, handsome soldiers now,” the president said.
He declared, “you couldn’t hire guys that look this good,” and added it was an experience he hadn’t had at Trump Tower.
Speaking at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, earlier this month, to support the Republican senator Jon Husted, Donald Trump broke from his prepared remarks.
Trump said he had recently learned that Husted played football at university. The president, 80, said this had prompted him to conduct a physical assessment of Husted.
“I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his ass and I looked at the whole – and then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s got these, like, claws,” Trump said.
“You are a great athlete,” he said to Husted, 59. “Congratulations.”
It was just one example of Trump offering unsolicited, and increasingly unhinged, assessments of men’s bodies in the last two weeks, as he freewheels across the US attempting to drum up votes before November’s midterm elections.
With Republicans expected to struggle, it’s unclear whether Trump’s inspections are part of a carefully thought-out strategy or just a man indulging a pattern, but either way Husted, who has represented Ohio in the Senate since 2025, could be forgiven for wanting the president to stop paying him such close attention. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely to happen, because Trump has begun to speak of Husted’s charms even when he’s campaigning for other candidates in other states.
So it was that an audience in Kentucky this week heard Trump talking about Husted, with his appraisal taking on a more forensic nature.
“I examined his ass,” the president said of Husted, who was not at the event. “And then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline. Studied him. He’s got a jawline.”
Trump continued: “I then patted him on the shoulder, and it was like a piece of steel. I’m still recovering.”
President Trump went on another unprompted homoerotic tangent at a rally on Thursday, this time about military generals.
“Just recently I gave all members of the United States military $1,776,” Trump said at the Iowa rally, speaking of his one-time “warrior dividend” for service members. “And everyone said, ‘Oh, it can’t be done. You can’t do it. It won’t be done. You can’t do it.’ Well, I did it. I said, generals, I want to give them a bonus. They’ve been so great. Tell me what we can do…. These three guys who were so handsome. I hate handsome men. I’ve always hated. They’re like central casting, four-star guys.” Trump went on to finish his anecdote.
This is becoming a trend for Trump, which is especially strange given that he likes to present himself as particularly hypermasculine. For the last week, he has been obsessing over Senator Jon Husted’s buttocks….
“Every night now he plays out a new gay fantasy in public and makes bizarre noises. His words increasingly make no sense. Dementia is overtaking him, and the fact that his party refuses to see it makes the whole party a danger to the United States,” Trump biographer Seth Abramson wrote online. “Vote to protect your country.”
Old Woman with a Cat, by the Austrian artist Johann Lucas Kracker (1719–1779)
Personally, I have always thought Trump seemed effeminate, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he is bisexual. But I think what’s happening is that Trump’s dementia is getting worse, and he is losing the ability to control his impulses.
It just so happens that Mary Trump, the president’s niece, is a clinical psychologist; and she agrees with me.
Mary Trump has criticised Donald Trump’s repeated public comments about men’s bodies as “deeply weird” and “alarming”, saying she believes they suggest he is losing control over his impulses.
The 61-year-old clinical psychologist made the remarks on a 19 October appearance on The Rest is Politics during a discussion with host Alastair Campbell about what he called Trump’s “constant commentary” on how handsome men are. Campbell also referenced a recent rally moment in which Trump talked about checking out Jon Husted’s butt.
Asked where people “should be on the gaydar with Donald”, Mary Trump replied: “I have a terrible gaydar, but what I do know is that he talks more admiringly about men physically than most straight women I know,” adding: “So it’s very alarming, but I think it’s just a sign of how his impulse control is eroding.”
Mary Trump went on to claim her uncle “can’t help it”, saying: “He has no filter anymore. I mean, he’s never had much impulse control, but it’s completely gone.”
She described what she was seeing as “disinhibition”, adding: “We see all sorts of signs of disinhibition, which is what that is. He was at a rally, and he just threw a glass of water on the floor for no reason.”
She described what she was seeing as “disinhibition”, adding: “We see all sorts of signs of disinhibition, which is what that is. He was at a rally, and he just threw a glass of water on the floor for no reason.”
Returning to the rally clip, she added: “And now he’s talking about men’s a**** and checking them out in front of thousands of people,” before saying it was “deeply weird.”
Mary Trump also discusses Trump’s homophobia at the link.
That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What else is on your mind?
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“Golly gee whiz, those pesky Russians.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The elections are still the front-page news today. Trump is trying to create as much turmoil as possible because polling news about Republicans is bleak. States that shouldn’t be in play are seriously in play. Many of his voters have turned on him. Of course, affordability is the key issue. Trump still asserts it’s a hoax propagated by Dems. I can honestly say I haven’t felt this much pressure on my bank account from the incredibly high consumer interest rates since the very early 80s.
So, there are two really telling headlines up today that I want to start with. Here’s the first. It’s reported by Kevin Breuninger at CNBC. “Corruption is voters’ top issue ahead of midterm election, CNBC survey shows. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that as a national concern before. Have you? Read these concerns, and you’d think we were somewhere in South America in the 70s.
The finding follows a months-long messaging effort by Democrats to link widespread economic dissatisfaction with what they allege is rampant corruption by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies.
CNBC’s survey of 1,000 registered U.S. voters found 36% of respondents pointing to government corruption as one of the most important issues facing the country right now. The cost of food and groceries came second with 34%, followed by protecting democracy and the price of gas, which garnered 23% each.
The nationwide poll, which gauged attitudes about the economy, Trump, Congress, artificial intelligence, the Iran war and more, was conducted Oct. 14-18. It was co-led by Democratic pollster Hart Research Associates and Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies, and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
To be sure, the question asking voters to name their top concerns lists several economy- and cost-related topics separately, subdividing an issue that might otherwise rank higher if lumped into a single category.
But the results nevertheless align with other recent polls showing corruption has shot to the top of voters’ list of pressing worries.
A Fox News poll published last week found 60% of registered voters are extremely concerned about government corruption, surpassing concerns about inflation and high prices. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday found some two-thirds of respondents think Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself, up 10 percentage points since September 2025. Gallup recently found perceptions of government corruption in the U.S. have hit multi-decade highs. And an August poll from Reuters/Ipsos found nearly 7 in 10 Americans believe Trump’s businesses influence his presidential decisions.
G. Elliott Morris writing at his Substack Strength in Numbershas this interesting analysis of which voters are sticking with Trump. It seems obvious, but it always nice to see it come with stats to backup your intuition. I love the idea that people that have the most to lose, and are living that reality, know how to vote their interests. All you need to know is your gut experience with the economy and the status of your household. Fuck Trump’s statement that were anxious for no damn good reason. Weekly grocery prices tell it all for me.
Poll: Low-information voters have turned hardest against Trump and the GOP. Trump voters who can’t answer two basic questions about politics are three times as likely as other Trump voters to back Democrats for the House. This is a big change since 2024.
In our October Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll, conducted Oct. 13–19 among 2,028 U.S. adults, we asked respondents two factual questions about politics: which party has the most members in the House, and which has the most members in the Senate. I classified anyone who got at least one of these questions wrong as “low-knowledge.” About 30% of adults miss at least one question, including 25% of 2024 Trump voters, 22% of Harris voters, and more than half of people who didn’t vote in 2024.
In this article, I do two things with this data. First, I repeat my February analysis and compare how these two groups feel about Trump’s job as president; then I look at each group’s voting behavior in the upcoming House midterms.
First, the approval rating comparison. My findings from February hold.
Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of −27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net −24 approval, a 23-point shift.
Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points. The size of this shift is unlikely to be explained by statistical noise.
When compared to our plot from February (below), you can see that low-information voters have actually overtaken high-information voters in their anti-Trump-ness.
The panicked POTUS has already sent the DOJ to mess up local elections as much as possible. This is from Steve Benen writing for Maddow Blog at MSNOW. “Trump administration sues to block possible Democratic win in Alaska Senate race. The Justice Department’s preemptive lawsuit is a dramatic escalation, which comes a month after the president directed the attorney general to pursue the matter.”
Late Thursday, Trump’s Justice Department filed a preemptive lawsuit that intends to block certification of the Senate race — but only if the Republican incumbent loses while the rival with the similar name remains on the ballot.
As The Associated Press reported, the litigation kicks off “what many have feared could become a lengthy battle between the U.S. government and states over certifying an election where the president’s party is struggling.”
What’s more, it’s entirely possible that former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola will win this race and the efforts by Trump’s DOJ will determine whether she’s seated — and which party ultimately holds a majority in the Senate.
The lawsuit is a dramatic escalation, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. At a White House event in early September, the president publicly urged Attorney General Todd Blanche to pursue a case in Alaska specifically focused on the competing candidates with nearly identical names.
Last week, Trump went further, claiming that federal authorities were “looking into” the matter and pushing assorted conspiracy theories for which there was no evidence. As recently as Wednesday of this week, the president used his social media platform to publish a statement that read, in part, “Dan S. Sullivan is leading by a lot, but this is CHEATING in an Election, and the Judge that allowed this to happen should be ashamed of himself. We are looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot, and holding the Democrats accountable for their Election Interference, in the pursuit of Justice and Fairness.”
The statement included obvious falsehoods — most recent polling in Alaska shows the Republican incumbent trailing, not “leading by a lot” — and there is nothing to suggest Democratic officials have engaged in “election interference,” other than championing their party’s nominee.
Nevertheless, there have long been concerns that the Trump administration might try to derail election results it doesn’t like, and the DOJ’s new lawsuit regarding Alaska suggests those concerns are well grounded.
I have to admit that when I read this one, I just couldn’t believe it. This is clear evidence that Trump uses the DOJ to file nonsense lawsuits on the taxpayers bill. Orange Caligula’s love of lawsuits that are basic losers cost us millions. This is from LawFare. Anna Bower, Eric Columbus, and Molly Roberts share the lede. “As comical as the prosecution’s case appears, it may well go to trial.” Remember when Comey took the picture on the beach with those seashells that spelled out 8647? Yeah, it’s that again. This is its status right now.
The Comey prosecution appears to be—to put it mildly—utterly lacking in merit. It is difficult to imagine that it will lead to a conviction. Whether Comey can end it before a jury is sworn in, however, is far from certain.
There’s an old saying in the law: The process is the punishment. Trump would almost certainly delight in seeing Comey behind bars. But forcing Comey to sit in court while a prosecutor presents a felony case to a jury—as weak a presentation as it’s likely to be—might be enough to make the president’s day.
If you’re interested in the details follow the link. It’s a lot of lawyer stuff but it’s really interesting to see the machinations this thing has gone through. I can only imagine how costly it’s been.
JJ has written a lot about that disgusting political, hit job ad out by Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Michelle Goldberg has an opinion piece out today I want to share with you. This is from the New York Times. “The Meaning of the Republican War Over Ramaswamy’s Vile. Ad.”
By tacitly siding with a man indicted on charges of child rape, Ramaswamy has shown us all who he is. But he’s also given conservatives space to reckon with the ethical degradation of Trumpism, though without quite admitting that that’s what they’re doing.
Take, for example, the conservative magazine National Review. Early in 2016, it put out an issue with the words “Against Trump” emblazoned in gold on its cover. “Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot on behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself,” said the lead editorial.
Over the following decade, some of the issue’s contributors remained anti-Trump stalwarts, but several — along with the magazine as a whole — turned into apologists and bootlickers for the president. As long as Trump offered the right new peaks of political power, many of his onetime conservative critics were happy to swallow their qualms. Now, as the whole gaudy edifice of MAGA crumbles — with Trump so unpopular that Republicans risk losing states like Texas and Kansas — at least some of his enablers may be feeling ashamed.
Denouncing the Ramaswamy ad gives conservatives a chance to try to drag their movement out of the Trumpist gutter. National Review, tellingly, has helped lead the charge. It ran a sober article backing up Acton’s story, and then several columns lambasting Ramaswamy, including one titled “When Character Was Obliterated.”
I wish I could say I believed that the ‘conservative movement’ would turn on Ramaswamy and Trump but from what I’ve seen, the big players making the big bucks are too into themselves and the money they’re making by staying in the repugnant idiot zone, that’s not going to happen. While this is the most interesting national political season that I’ve every seen, I also have to say that it is also the most sickening. I’ve always considered politics to be my personal blood sport, but sports and politics come with rules, laws, mores, … you know, all those things that make a society part of civilization. If this is the kind’ve shit they keep throwing, I’m afraid for all of us.
It may not be a Cold Civil War and many folks I’m reading fear another January 6 is coming. This is from The Guardian today. “As midterms loom, Trump and his allies try to change the subject. It’s written by Callum Jones. Despite distraction and distortion, voters know what issues will be informing their votes in this election.”
Midterm elections are almost always tough for Washington’s governing party. There is a conventional playbook for navigating this: senior figures fan out nationwide to reassure the people who backed them two years prior that they get it. They hear them. They’re on it. They just need more time.
The president is indeed fanning out across the country. This week alone, he was in Kansas on Monday and North Carolina on Tuesday, before South Carolina on Wednesday, Iowa on Thursday and Florida on Friday. Georgia and Michigan follow this weekend. JD Vance is on a cross-country tour of his own.
But this is where Trump and his allies depart from convention. Rather than acknowledge the golden age has yet to shine for much of the country – let alone concede that some of his priorities since taking office, like the beautification of Washington, or adding his name to the Kennedy Center, were not among the campaign promises his base had found so appealing in 2024 – Trump has opted for an altogether different response.
He has tried to change the subject.
This summer, as questions over Iran, the cost of living and hardline anti-immigration policies loomed large, the most powerful elected officials in the US tried to stoke fears that communism was rife inside the Democratic party.
In September, the president dangled a $5,000 “Trump dividend” for every US citizen, a proposal that was widely criticized as a pre-election bribe.
Now, in the final stretch of the campaign, those questions very much remain. Rather than address them, Republicans appear to be resorting to a volatile mix of distraction and distortion.
Having spent much of the Iran war, which he launched in February, claiming it was about to end, the president is now pivoting to Ukraine – striking a stunning deal to buy Russian diesel, pausing some sanctions on Moscow and suggesting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should quit.
The plan seems to be create distractions, suppress voters, disrupt voting, and what else? How desperate will he become the rest of the year? What will January bring? I wouldn’t put it past him to stage another J6 even? Do you think that’s possible? Am I being overly dismal?
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
I want to dance around the room singing something about seeing the signs!
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Hello. I think my current mood lately has been despise. I can’t remember what the proper form or tense that word would be…Wordpress is telling me the correct word is disdainful. Well, i am more inclined to keep despised because these asshole republicans make me physically sick.
So you may have seen this shit out of Ohio.
This is quite possibly the most vile, despicable political attack ad I have ever seen. tiffinohio.net/posts/acton-…
Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton’s estranged mother went to court to support the man her 12-year-old daughter accused of rape, then left town with him. Decades later, she has resurfaced in a pro-Vivek Ramaswamy political attack video accusing that same daughter of lying about her childhood and urging Ohioans not to elect her governor.
Now Acton’s younger brother is fighting back, accusing Ramaswamy of exploiting his sister’s childhood sexual abuse in a desperate attempt to damage her campaign just two weeks before Election Day.
Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, issued a blistering statement Tuesday, October 20, after video circulated of their estranged mother, Donna Arthur, attacking Acton’s character and disputing her accounts of childhood abuse, poverty and homelessness.
“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said.
“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”
Stearns went further in his condemnation of the Republican gubernatorial nominee.
“This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”
This is beyond disgusting. I honestly have no words except fuck you Vivek!
All these Republicans do is shield and glorify the pedophiles.
i don't think i've ever seen a campaign do a murder-suicide before (decent chance this drags down the entire GOP ticket in the state)
As Vivek Ramaswamy doubles down on his controversial ad attacking Amy Acton, backlash has grown to include Democrats, Republicans and political commentators across the country.
Why it matters: Ohio’s gubernatorial race is projected to be a tight one — Ramaswamy’s ad is garnering enough negative attention that it could affect the result.
Catch up quick: The ad, first obtained by The Rooster political blog, features Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, accusing her daughter of lying about her childhood and urging Ohioans not to vote for her.
Acton has said she was sexually abused at age 12 by her stepfather, who faced criminal charges, and that her mother sided with him.
Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody. According to her brother, their mother remained married to Acton’s alleged abuser until his death.
State of play: Within 24 hours of the ad’s appearance Tuesday, the Columbus Dispatch endorsed Acton, calling it “revolting and unsettling.”
Cleveland.com’s “Today in Ohio” hosts called it “vicious” and said it “dooms Ramaswamy.”
I have never in my life seen a political ad where it uses someone’s past sexual abuse and assaults against them. Especially in this case, a woman’s prior childhood abuse. I am convinced the GOP is the grossest lowest form of shit there is…
And then you have this shithead with his response:
Just one more thing…this is another advertisement. However, this ad speaks the truth. Check it out:
The first genuinely honest ad for generative AI I've ever seen, from Microsoft / CoPilotA mediocre white guy sees his non-white colleague getting praised for good work, he asks AI to *literally copy it*, and then he gets all the praise instead: http://www.ispot.tv/ad/SoDi/micr…
This is just strange behavior, even from a dementia patient. Trump stops and waves. The camera zooms out to reveal that there’s nobody in the direction he’s waving. Apparently, he’s waving to the ghost of Lindsey Graham.
My hometown is going to the World Series! I am very excited for the Tampa Bay Rays!
As we are still working on the formatting on the blog, I hope things are looking better. Stay safe. This is an open thread.
94yr old JOHN WILLIAMS delivered a surprise performance of ‘The Imperial March” from Star Wars in front of 13,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl last month.He is the soundtrack to our lives.
There are just 2 weeks to go until the midterm elections on November 3; and things are looking very good for Democrats, as long as Trump doesn’t have a diabolical plan to interfere with the process.
The final New York Times/Siena University national poll of the 2026 midterm campaign finds Democrats leading nationally by 11 percentage points, 52 to 41 percent, when likely voters were asked about the specific candidates for the House in their district.
Eleven is a big number. No party has won the national vote by such a large margin since the Democrats did so in 2008. While the outcome of the midterms will ultimately be decided seat by seat, anything like the results of the poll would probably yield a large Democratic House majority and give the party every opportunity to flip the red states they need to win the Senate, including in states where Democrats simply haven’t been competitive in recent years.
In today’s polarized era of closely fought elections, it can be hard to believe that a party could win by that much. The skepticism is not unfounded. The polls have raised the possibility of this kind of overwhelming Republican defeat before in the Trump era, only for the polls to ultimately overestimate Democratic support in 2016, 2020 and, at least in crucial red states, in the 2018 election.
This kind of polling error is possible — it’s happened before — but it’s not inevitable, either. And at least in this particular poll, the Democratic lead is large enough that the party would still deliver a significant victory even if it were off by as much as the polls were in 2016 or 2020.
Could Republicans still hold their own?
But there’s another reason to be skeptical of a decisive Democratic victory, even if one assumed the polls were in the ballpark. To win by such a wide margin, Democrats need modest but meaningful support from Republican-leaning voters who haven’t usually been up for grabs during the Trump era, or they need Republicans to stay home. Either way, the G.O.P. could avert a worst-case scenario by winning back some normally reliable Republican voters over the final two weeks. It sounds simple enough.
In practice, it’s not so simple. The poll offers no reason to think that Republicans have stopped the bleeding, let alone made progress toward winning back their usual supporters.
A foreboding part of the poll for Republicans is the trend line: President Trump and his party have continued to slide since the last Times/Siena poll in September, even as they might have hoped to rally supporters with the campaign heating up.
But check this out:
If there is a particular finding that’s most ominous for Republicans, it’s Mr. Trump’s approval rating. It’s extraordinarily low and still dropping. It fell by another three points since the September poll, to 34 percent among registered voters and 36 percent among likely voters. That’s his worst approval rating in a Times/Siena poll. Taken together with other recent polls, it seems Mr. Trump’s backing has fallen through his long supposed “floor” of support, and at the worst time for his party.
Read all the details using the gift link, if you wish.
UTD NYT/Sienna Polling data; no paywallwww.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/u…
President Trump’s approval rating hit a new low just a few weeks before the midterm elections, driven down by broad disapproval of his handling of the economy, the war in Iran and high gas prices, according to a new national poll from The New York Times and Siena University.
Just 36 percent of likely voters said that they approved of Mr. Trump’s performance, while 59 percent said that they disapproved. That is his lowest approval rating recorded in any Times/Siena poll. More than two-thirds of independent voters said that they disapproved of the way he has handled his job as president.
Likely voters said that they preferred Democratic candidates over Republicans by 11 percentage points in their congressional districts in the final Times/Siena national poll before the midterm elections, a slight improvement for Democrats since last month. The metric is widely seen as a strong indicator of political momentum.
The national political environment is bleak for Republicans. Americans broadly disapprove of economic conditions under the Trump administration, with three-quarters rating the economy as fair or poor. A majority of voters blame Mr. Trump for the decline: 69 percent disapprove of his handling of the cost of living, 65 percent disapprove of his handling of the war in Iran and nearly three-quarters disapprove of his handling of gas prices, which are above $4 a gallon.
But Democrats still face serious challenges, particularly as they seek to win control of the Senate. To do so they are trying to flip seats in Republican-leaning states including Texas, Iowa, Alaska and Ohio, which Mr. Trump won by double digits in 2024. Other polls show that Democrats and Republicans are locked in tight races in several key Senate contests.
Still, the deep economic frustration has even broken into the coalition that elected Mr. Trump to his second term. Over the past year, Democrats have improved their standing among men, young voters and Hispanic voters — winning back some voters in those groups who helped propel Mr. Trump to victory two years ago.
Among all registered voters, including those who are less likely to vote, Mr. Trump’s approval rating was even worse, with 34 percent approving of his job performance. Mr. Trump built his 2016 and 2024 wins partly on the strength of his support among white voters without a college degree, but the poll found that group is about evenly split in its approval of his job, with 48 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving.
Just under two weeks before Election Day, our new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll finds Democrats with their largest lead on the generic congressional ballot in the 17 waves of this survey since May 2025.
Among registered voters, 52% say they would vote for the Democratic candidate for the House in their district and 41% for the Republican, a margin of 10.4 points using unrounded figures. That edges past our previous high of 10.1 points in February. Among likely voters, Democrats lead 54% to 42%, a 12-point margin and also a high for the series. The Republican Party’s 41% among registered voters is the lowest share it has received in our poll.
The president himself is roughly where he was in September, which was the worst month of his second term in our data. Just 34% of Americans approve of the job he is doing and 62% disapprove. But his ratings on immigration, border security and deportations — the issues that carried him in 2024 — all fell to new lows. Republicans now hold no advantage over Democrats on either immigration or deportations….
Headline poll findings:
Generic ballot: Democrats lead 52–41 among registered voters (D+10 unrounded), and 54–42 among likely voters (D+12). These are both new highs for our poll, and higher even than the Democratic Party’s margin in generic ballot polls ahead of the 2018 and 2006 midterm elections.
Job approval: 34% approve / 62% disapprove (net −28 before rounding), essentially unchanged from September’s record low of −30. 50% strongly disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, vs 16% who strongly approve.
Immigration: Trump’s net approval on immigration fell five points to −16, a new low. Border security (−6) and deportations (−18) are also at new lows, too. Eight of 13 issues are at series lows.
Party trust: Democrats lead on 10 of 13 issues and tie Republicans on deportations. They are now ahead on immigration (D+2), and the GOP’s edge on border security is down to seven points from 22 in May 2025. Democrats lead by 13 on voters’ own most important problem (47–35), tying May for their widest margin in our tracker.
The midterms as a referendum: 40% say their vote for Congress will mostly be a statement against Trump, vs 21% who say it will be a statement of support. When given a binary choice 58% want a Congress that acts as a check on the president, vs 25% who want one that helps him pass his agenda.
Top problem: 39% name prices and inflation the single most important problem facing the country, tying May for the highest share we have recorded. 63% put it in their top three.
Impeachment: 51% think there are grounds for Congress to impeach Trump, vs 39% who don’t. 50% would support the next House impeaching him in 2027, while 38% would oppose it.
You have to sign up for a free subscription to Morris’s site to get his poll interpretations.
The Democratic Party, riding a tide of anti-Donald Trump sentiment, enters the final stretch of the midterm campaign with a 10-point advantage over Republicans nationwide in voters’ choice in their own congressional district, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
More than three-quarters of voters see this election as their chance to change things up in Washington, the poll finds. Trump’s approval rating stands at a record low of 32%, and voters express broad dissatisfaction with both the economy and the state of the country nearly two years into unified GOP control of the federal government. Those sentiments work against the GOP in its effort to hold on to Congress, even as some voters express skepticism that a Democratic win would bring meaningful improvement.
Voters line up for early voting in Ravenna, Ohio, on October 12. David Maxwell, AFP via Getty Images
Democrats’ 49% to 39% advantage among registered voters nationally is the largest in CNN polling since just before the 2020 election, and rests on wide margins among traditional pillars of Democratic support such as Black voters (who favor the Democrats by 70 percentage points), Latino voters (+40), women (+21) and younger adults (+31), as well as a steep advantage among independents (+15) and those who say they’re extremely motivated to vote (+18)….
Even with those broad advantages, the scale of the Democratic Party’s potential gains could be limited by mid-decade redistricting and the large number of competitive races in GOP-friendly territory. Should a 10-point margin in favor of the Democrats materialize in the nationwide popular vote, that would represent roughly a 13-point swing from the nationwide popular vote for House in 2024. But even a swing that large may not ultimately translate into deep-red pickups for the party, as many of this year’s competitive campaigns are playing out in places that Trump carried by double digits.
The Democratic upper-hand has held over the past year, and the margin has widened in recent polling as cost-of-living concerns remain voters’ most important issue and Trump’s approval rating lands at historic lows in poll after poll. Roughly 6 in 10 voters this year say their midterm vote will be sending a message about Trump, and by a 2-to-1 margin, that’s a message of opposition rather than support.
Democrats top Republicans 46% to 37% among registered voters who call the economy their top concern, and Democrats are seen as the party better able to deal with the economy and cost of living. But roughly 3 in 10 overall say they think neither party would do a good job handling those issues, and a similar share say neither party has the right priorities.
Behind economic concerns, corruption in the government (19%) and the state of US democracy (18%) are the only other issues cited by more than 10% of voters as their top concern.
Can Trump and his goons somehow interfere with the elections? Some points of view on that:
Armed and in uniform, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been knocking on doors in several states to ask residents about their immigration status — and to inquire if they have registered to vote or cast votes in past elections, a CBS News Investigation has found.
The operation is part of an effort to root out potential noncitizen voters ahead of the midterms. DHS has alleged that there could be as many as 250,000 citizens illegally registered to vote, although election experts have disputed the accuracy of this figure. Just 156 people have been charged with voting-fraud related offenses since the beginning of the Trump administration, according to the Department of Justice. There are 227 million registered voters in the U.S.
Photos posted by HSI NorCal of Homeland Security agents knocking on doors in the San Francisco area.
Critics say that sending armed federal agents to the doors of U.S. residents could be intimidating for legal voters.
“What we’re seeing now is the federal government is inserting itself into the state process for verifying their voter roles in an unprecedented way,” said Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, a left-leaning advocacy group that is suing the federal agency over the door-knocking campaign. “And they are doing it in a way that seems maximally designed to scare lawful voters from participating.”
The home visits ramped up in September, in the thick of the midterm campaign season, and continued over the past weekend. The Justice Department announced Monday that Homeland Security agents in California arrestedmore than 20 people, all of them green card holders, on allegations they had illegally registered or cast a vote.
As part of that roundup, dozens of federal agents descended on the residence of a 72-year-old man from Belize, who was taken from his home in his pajamas and arrested on charges he allegedly voted illegally in the past four elections.
“HSI is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found,” said a DHS spokesperson. “Under President Trump, HSI is committed to restoring integrity to our election systems and ensuring that American citizens and only American citizens are electing American leaders.”
A small group of U.S. national security officials has been discreetly advising state governments and congressional lawmakers on how to prepare for the possibility that the Trump administration will attempt to interfere in November’s midterm elections, according to people involved in the effort.
The group includes about 10 current and former officials with experience in the Defense Department, some of whom have previously focused on countering authoritarianism abroad.
Their efforts are motivated not by political bias, they say, but a growing sense of alarm that President Donald Trump will harm American democracy by undermining the integrity of the vote to keep theRepublican Party in power.
Over the past several months, the group has consulted with officials from 10 states, including governors, election officials and members of the House and Senate from both political parties who share a fear of federal intervention, two people involved in the effort said.
The effort, which has not been previously reported, focuses on states and jurisdictions where tightly contested races will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Trump’s presidency. Members of the group remain in contact with congressional staffs, and at least one state has continued to meet with them as it works to address potential vulnerabilities.
“All of them have said we’re concerned but we don’t know what to do,” one member of the group said of its meetings with lawmakers.
“The outcome that we hope for is that states would be prepared for any contingencies should they arise,” the person continued.
Read all the details using the gift link, if you’re interested.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to interfere with the 2026 elections have almost universally failed. Courts have halted his most egregious actions, Congress has rejected his anti-voting legislation and civil groups have stepped up to support election officials.
In Congress, Trump’s push to pass the SAVE Act, which would have added significant new barriers to voter registration and could have disenfranchised every woman who took her husband’s last name, failed to clear a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, even after multiple attempts were made to attach it to unrelated legislation.
“These overt efforts to attack elections are failing over and over again,” said Hannah Fried, CEO of All Voting Is Local, a voting rights nonprofit.
That doesn’t mean Trump won’t keep trying.
From falsely claiming that President Barack Obama was born in Africa and could not serve as president to lying about his 2020 election loss and attempting a coup to stay in power, Trump has not accepted the results of any election that didn’t go his way. Trump has even falsely claimed there was fraud in elections that he won.
“One thing is certain: on election night we will hear from the president from the White House spreading lies about our elections and slandering election workers as they’re busy doing their work,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research.
But Trump’s lies and bluster are likely to remain just that. After all his efforts over the past two years have failed, Trump has a few more ways to try to interfere in the midterms. But none of them are legal, and courts have said so. Meanwhile, more than 9 million people have already voted.
Read more at the HuffPost link.
But some observers have been suggesting that Republicans who now control Congress keep newly elected Democratic members out?
President Trump’s unfounded claims of large-scale voter fraud have Democrats bracing for what they worry could be substantial interference by the federal government in the midterm elections.
But with polls showing that Democrats are likely to win control of the House, some lawmakers and commentators have turned their attention to a different scenario that could unfold after the voting: Republicans in Congress, egged on by Mr. Trump, could try to block them from assuming the majority by refusing to seat elected Democrats.
The possibility sounds far-fetched and is regarded by many legal scholars as a vanishingly remote one.
“It requires a lot of ducks to be in a row that I don’t think would be in a row,” said Brian C. Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University.
But the same might have been said in 2020 of the possibility that Republican lawmakers, under pressure from Mr. Trump, would challenge the Electoral College results that confirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. That is precisely what a majority of Republicans voted to do on Jan. 6, 2021, an effort in which Representative Mike Johnson, who has since become speaker, played a major role.
That is among the reasons that two moderate House members, one from each party, have asked their colleagues to pledge to accept certified election results and block efforts to refuse or delay seating winners.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said this month that his party was “preparing for all eventualities, including making sure that the results of the American people that emerge from the Nov. 3 general election are brought to life on Jan. 3 in the new Congress.”
That is the day that the next Congress is scheduled to convene.
You can read more about how this supposedly could happen at the gift link.
So…that is the state of affairs with 2 weeks to go before the elections. Over all, it does look good for Democrats, so hang in there and VOTE!
That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts? What else is on your mind?
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President Donald Trump dismissed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s claim that he is on the “wrong side of history,” saying Zelenskyy should have settled the war long ago and let someone else negotiate for Ukraine.
Trump is siding with Russia. Again.He’s attacking Zelenskyy for striking Russian oil refineries, while Russia has been relentlessly bombing Ukraine’s energy grid and civilian targets.1/
Lilly et gatto, Carlos Marron
Portrait of theatre director and suffragist Edith Ailsa Craig, painted in 1943 by her close friend and artist Clare Tony Atwood.By Mary Quan
Gedda Runyon Starlin, Contemplation
Artist eva21nesco on DeviantArt depicting Arabella FiggBy artist Miwa Kitahata
Old Woman with a Cat, by the Austrian artist Johann Lucas Kracker (1719–1779)
G. Elliott Morris writing at his Substack 
The panicked POTUS has already sent the DOJ to mess up local elections as much as possible. This is from Steve Benen writing for
have to admit that when I read this one, I just couldn’t believe it. This is clear evidence that Trump uses the DOJ to file nonsense lawsuits on the taxpayers bill. Orange Caligula’s love of lawsuits that are basic losers cost us millions. 
If you’re interested in the details follow the link. It’s a lot of lawyer stuff but it’s really interesting to see the machinations this thing has gone through. I can only imagine how costly it’s been.
I wish I could say I believed that the ‘conservative movement’ would turn on Ramaswamy and Trump but from what I’ve seen, the big players making the big bucks are too into themselves and the money they’re making by staying in the repugnant idiot zone, that’s not going to happen. While this is the most interesting national political season that I’ve every seen, I also have to say that it is also the most sickening. I’ve always considered politics to be my personal blood sport, but sports and politics come with rules, laws, mores, … you know, all those things that make a society part of civilization. If this is the kind’ve shit they keep throwing, I’m afraid for all of us.
