Can’t find anything beyond the facebook post you probably saw, which includes a link to the right wing substack called daily eagle that mentions her “unsuccessful shot at Miss Florida Teen USA back in 2020” and says she has an instagram with no political content.
Facebook comments and article mostly right wing weirdness.
Probably someone from Pat Ryan’s campaign will try to assess accuracy of claims of a photo of her hugging Roger Stone and anonymous poster who says remembers her as bully at their middle school and high school.
AI and data center price fueled inflation, along with the Trump Administration raising prices by forcing coal plants to stay online (with the excuse being the energy needed by said data centers) has finally awoken the electorate to the importance of utility commission elections, particularly in purple and red states. People are sick of helping to pay for big tech's rent seeking for the purpose of more AI slop.
The fact that so many States are giving the centers tax incentives on top of the drain on water and electrical resources makes the insult more egregious! Michigan has plenty of water to spare, but not the electricity. The fact that Republicans in our State House pushed through tax incentives for these low employment centers just to attract new industry to the State is a slap in the face to the rest of the tax paying public, and does nothing for the local tax base for schools. With the expected short lifespan of these centers, they will never carry benefits for the tax base of Michigan!
Yeah, I’m totally fine with data centers in theory (even without AI the cloud economy necessitates them) but the absurd kickbacks and incentives are what we really need to after
If AI is a worthy investment, the money should be there.
Isn't this the "government picking winners and losers" stuff that Republicans used to rail against? (I remember when they wouldn't shut up about Solyndra...)
Trump seems unduly focused on Indiana, perhaps egged on by Jim Banks. Of course, his ego is also damaged, as he was told no. My concern is that when hardline and less hardline Republicans tangle, sometimes the hardliners come out ahead, which happened in my county where the moderate Republicans were thrown out in favor of a hardline bunch.
I get what you are saying. The Republican Party of Michigan went completely off the wall when MAGA seized power here. I would note that the Moderates seized back a lot of the positions and primary contests back at their recent convention. Becoming more Main Street pro reasonable business minded again. More like the Millican and Romney branch as opposed to the Conspiracy nuts that were running it. Sometimes the electorate needs to feel the consequences of crazy, just like we are seeing on the National Level now. I actually hope what just happened in Michigan is a harbinger of a less insane opposition Party Nationally in their next cycle, so we can right the Ship of State without the extremists! Live and Learn!!!!!! Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Maybe Republicans can swing back towards the center, once this bunch goes down to defeat.
The problem with crossing into the other party's primary, at least in Indiana, is that one then loses standing in the Democratic party if one wishes to serve as an officer in the local party, run to be a convention delegate, or run for office as a Democrat. While a county chair can vouch for a person who has crossed over and returned, it adds steps to the process.
This is striking. In Maine, five longtime Republicans have ditched their party label and will instead be running as Independents. The DownBallot has previously commented other instances of this. Are we seeing the beginnings of a trend? Will others conclude that the "Republican" label has been irreparable harmed by Trump – made toxic to a growing majority of voters?
I suppose if there was ever a time that third parties or independents might gain some traction in the US, now would be it. Is there any information out there about voter registration with the Libertarian, Constitution or other parties?
I wonder after the toxicity of the Republican Party brand is destroyed in the next election, if it will morph into a new Party called Independent. These Politicians would have to appeal to the Middle if they were to get elected on that brand, since so many voters are already there.
Eh, my interpretation of that video on Bluesky is that these Republicans are trying to fool the voters in their districts by having the 'I' next to their name despite being strongly conservative.
The districts they're running in are all Democratic-leaning - winnable to Republicans in a 2010-style wave but normally electing Democrats. In a year like this, Democrats shouldn't have anything to be concerned about here.
Minnesota's official GOP chapter was known as the Independent-Republicans of Minnesota from 1975 to 1995; the change was made to try to distance the Minnesota GOP from the national GOP during a time when the latter's brand was damaged by Watergate and the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Notably, Republicans have never won Minnesota in a presidential election since they added "Independent" in their official name, nor have they won Minnesota in a presidential election since dropping "Independent" from their official name.
Just to clarify on Phoenix's electric company, they have two, Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project. In the metropolitan area, SRP services about 40% of customers, is self governed, and tends to have lower electricity rates. SRP and APS split most of the cities including Phoenix.
The corporation commission controls rate setting by APS and Southwest Gas (which used to be APS owned), but not SRP.
The larger, older cities run their own water departments, but many newer and outlying areas have private, expensive water service.
My millionaire, Republican cousin lives in the Scottsdale area (Schweikert's district) and I'm hopeful that she'll have a Democratic representative starting in January!
That is good news for the people of Arizona and hopefully for the two Ds running for the energy commission. And it is also good news for green energy in America. Trump in his continuing stupidity to destroy America has done everything he could to block or destroy green energy.Individuals, state, and local governments must take up green energy to fill the Trump gap. One thing needed in Indiana is to stop HOAs from blocking those of us who want to put on rooftop solar or balcony solar.
This had me recheck some of the other congressional caucus committee endorsements from the past month (since the TX primaries):
Dems:
-CAPAC: Julie Won (NY-07)
-CHC: Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Katy Padilla Stout (TX-23), Johnny Garcia (TX-35) – all for round two
-NewDems: Shannon Bird (CO-08), Denise Powell (NE-02), Cait Conley (NY-17), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), Elaine Luria (VA-02) – this has been commented before
-DWC: Connie Chan (CA-11), Audrey Denney (CA-01), Lauren Babb Tomlinson (CA-06) – I'm honestly pretty surprised by the Chan endorsement, feels like a tacit Pelosi nod
Repubs:
-HFC: Dave Flippo (NV-02)
-Repub Women: Jessica Steinmann (TX-08)
I also look at the FEC candidate contributions from the various committees, for distributions they might make without announcing a press release. I can't remember who else I'm tracking that's missing from the public lists, but a few from the Repub committees that don't post endorsements on a website:
-RSC: Clay Fuller (GA-14) – for the special
-Main Street: James Gallagher (CA-01), Eric Flores (TX-34)
-CHC (the Repub conference one): Alex Mealer (TX-09), Tano Tijerina (TX-28)
Oops, meant *CAPAC, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, you had it. (CAPASA is the related Staff Association.) And Zack has the Freedom Caucus one.
It's really hard to see the extent of our deep and extensive wins across the country in Trump 2.0 and NOT feel excited for the midterms. All the results post-2024 have been much better than expected. I'm trying to temper expectations, but it's hard not to get your hopes up that, say, Iowa's gubernatorial and Senate races are winnable this year when all the counties bordering Iowa in western Wisconsin had the biggest swings left from both 2024 and 2025. It's not just rural areas in the Midwest either--Dems just had the best rural showing in northwest Georgia in modern memory.
If we can get back to Obama 2012 showings in rural and hispanic areas and exceed Biden's 2020 suburban margins in many places, we could really see a wave that frankly I don't think anyone is ready for. Knock on wood.
I'm a little nervous we'll see a reverse 2022 -- it was all but assured there would be a red wave until there wasn't. Could just be me being paranoid though. I know Dobbs played a big role in that -- hopefully a reverse Dobbs effect won't occur that hurts us.
Caution and tempered expectations are good, but there's several key differences from now and 2022:
1. Dobbs lit a fire under our asses in such a way that it's impossible to see the Roberts Court hand down a similar decision animating Republicans in a comparable way.
2. Republicans nominated meme jackass candidates in so many winnable seats that it ended up screwing them. They lost net gubernatorial and Senate seats because of it. Maine is really the only big primary that seems like a recruiting disaster, but I'm optimistic about either Platner and Mills beating Collins regardless. Collins seems to have really worn out her welcome after 30 years in DC. Michigan is somewhat less worrisome than it was, hoping we get McMorrow there. But even then, none of our candidates are comparable to the likes of Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz, Blake Masters, Kari Lake, or Doug Mastriano. Republicans seem on track to nominate worse candidates on the whole with the likes of people like Ken Paxton and Vivek Ramaswamy.
3. We are the high-turnout party now. That also helped us mitigate a massacre in 2022. I don't see how Republicans turn that around in six months after years of their voters not turning out when Trump isn't on the ballot.
in re: point 1, if Callais basically neuters what's left of the VRA it could have an effect on motivation, though sadly I don't see it having an impact of the same magnitude as Dobbs
But Callais wouldn’t really motivate Republicans in 2026 in anywhere near the same way that Dobbs motivated Dems in 2022. That’s why comparisons to a reverse 2022 are generally flawed.
Number 3 doesn't get discussed enough. It's a huge advantage. (It's also why Democrats held up well for the most part in special and off-year elections during Biden's term.)
That's a valid concern, but we could all see from a ways out that 2022 wasn't going to be a red wave. Some of the election night results were a little surprising, but there weren't many, if any, real shocks. Throughout 2022, almost everything that could've gone wrong for Republicans did, and that hasn't been the case for us. I'm not certain it'll be a blowout for us and I'm prepared to be disappointed on a number of key races, but I think cautious optimism is warranted.
It seemed like the GOP (as well its media enablers and bad-faith pollsters like Frank Luntz and Robert Cahaly) tried to talk a red wave into happening, and it didn't.
The better-quality data never really portended one.
I had several bizarre dreams this week and one of them was Democrats narrowly taking the house with 219 seats and a number still left to call a day after the election. I don't think this will be the case but I never forget that my 2016 nightmare that came true ugh.
I'm noticing progressive orgs and leaders are endorsing more candidates than they used to. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm on the left. I'll give a few links to groups to show posters here what I mean:
- https://ourrevolution.com/progressive-champions/ <-- Our Revolution. I barely saw them endorse 2024/2025. Now they have numerous candidates. (Not pictured -- Bob Brooks, Brian Poindexter, Adam Hamaway, and the re-election bid of Sen. Jeff Merkley -- who were endorsed on social media.)
(Some of the groups focused on the forbidden issue endorsed too -- not listing them as I don't want to risk breaking the rule on that, but they tend to endorse left-wing candidates.)
Curious to know what posters here think. Also curious to see people's opinions on the candidates being endorsed -- any really good ones? Any bad ones? Cases where you'd prefer a different candidate be endorsed?
I do think Justice Dems have a way too top-down/national endorsement process that doesn't consult grassroots progressive orgs in the districts themselves, which doesn't capture the resistance those orgs had stated toward candidates like Allam and Abughazaleh (and at least some resistance I've heard toward Bush and Chakrabarti plus the maybe somewhat different disputes over Valdez, but TBD how those turn out). I think it's a pretty big and frustrating flaw that I wish they considered more heavily. If they don't have the bandwidth to do that, then they don't need to endorse.
Our Revolution - I'm unfamiliar with Wala Blegay's progressive credentials. I was assuming Harry Dunn was the consensus progressive pick in that race. What is she like?
Working Families - I think Michael commented this a few weeks ago, but it's interesting to see the split between Working Families and Zohran Mamdani in the Reynoso-Valdez race. Also, I'm concerned about the endorsement of Rep. Alma Adams given that she takes corporate PAC money.
I think Sanders, the Justice Dems, and the CPC definitely have the best endorsements, and would say the Justice Dems overall have the best.
Here's her issues. Mentions of M4A and climate justice. She seems good.
Re: Reynoso -- the Queens Dems endorsed him on the down-low recently and there's some controversy there given the corruption of the NY Dems. Article in City and State NY about it:
"Volunteers aligned with the county party have been gathering signatures for Reynoso over the last month, meaning he’s appearing on petitions with other more centrist, Queens Dems-backed candidates, such as Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar."
If you know anything about Rajkumar, you can see why this isn't a good look for him to progressives. (She was Jumaane Williams' centrist challenger, and she was close to Eric Adams to boot. She also tried to primary Brad Lander before he ran for mayor.)
Your previous post linking all the endorsements by progressive orgs was wonderful, informative & helpful. You're making my job easier. Thanks Techno00. If you ever make it to Santa Fe the first few rounds are on me!
I think it's fine to list the endorsements of organizations focused on Israel, Palestine and other Middle Eastern countries, without comment, but I understand the risk of others replying by focusing on those issues, so I'm guessing the mods would support your decision not to mention them or their endorsements, although they might mention some in digests.
I wonder if RMG adjusted their methodology because they were a huge outlier showing Trump above water into early this year (showimg better numbers than even Rasmussen) and suddenly he's down like the others.
It was odd because I expected Trafalgar/Insider Advantage to produce made up garbage but historically RMG is a decent pollster.
Some UK news I wanted to bring you because as we were (hopefully) sleeping, the Greens snatched a seat on the Kent County Council from Reform in a by-election that suddenly became hotly contested when it wasn't supposed to be.
Background: Reform won 57 out of the 81 seats on the council at last year's local elections. Since Kent County Council is the most powerful council Reform holds Nigel Farage gloated that Kent would be a preview of how Reform would run the UK if they were elected to government at the next election with the party's council head Linden Kemkaran being ticketed for both a parliamentary seat and a cabinet position if everything went right for Reform.
Fast forward to today, Reform's stewardship of Kent County has been both turbulent and chaotic with Reform members of the council fighting it out in the background, elected Reform councilors being thrown out of the party for disobeying Kemkaran's dictats or leaving on their own.
When Reform hasn't been fighting it out amongst themselves, the change they've delivered in Kent County has either been so insignificant people didn't notice it or the wrong kind of change. But they did have time to declare a immigration state of emergency! (To be fair parts of Kent are landing zones for migrant boat crossings.)
This set the stage for a by-election in the seat of Cliftonville which was vacant after the sitting Reform councilor went to prison for threatening to kill his wife. Reform won this seat in 2025 with 40% of the vote, Labour 22% and the Tories who were defending this seat with 20%. The Tories and Reform combined took 60% of the vote meaning this is a very right leaning seat....at least it was until last night when the Greens won this seat with 38.8% of the vote. Reform's votes share dropped to 33.1%, Labour's vote more than halved. And turnout last night was up over 500 votes so you couldn't say the Greens won because people stayed home.
There were signs that an upset could be brewing because both Labour and the Greens were talking up their chances here in the past couple of days and there's been more and more evidence that some of the angry at the status quo voters are moving away from Reform to the Greens. Also this part of Kent Council has been gentrifying due to its proximity to London, but it doesn't change the fact that Reform was favored here until they weren't.
Oh and Kemkaran didn't eat some humble pie and acknowledge Reform needed to win back the trust of voters in Kent County that they've lost. No, instead she blamed voters who voted for the Tories instead of tactically for Reform.
Thanks for the great report! Two things stand out to me: (1) I'm feeling hopeful that the Greens may replace fake Labour and do some good things in the UK; (2) Refuk seems aptly named and incompetent like Trump.
Not linking actual posts by them because they don’t deserve the extra clicks and they deserve the absolute worst for the rest of their lives for what they’ve done and how stupid they are, but this matters more than we know.
There is no forgiveness, no welcoming, they deserve scorn and ridicule for the rest of their lives. This only helps us going into the midterms though when people who have more followers than cable news watchers finally get it.
The veil has been lifted and they realize that they are the idiots, they are who is blind, they are the ones with “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, they are the sheep being led by the wolf that they accused all of us of being for the last decade.
Joe Rogan guest: This war shit bugs me. I feel so stupid. Because when they were doing their no war thing, that was a big deal to me. No more wars, fuck yes, focus on the country, why are we blowing up children in other countries for oil? It's literally the opposite now. How many Iranian schoolgirls did Trump blow up?
Tim Pool
@Timcast
After reading all the replies to my tweets I have come to realize that I have been wrong about everything
Trump is demonic and a Mad King, I should have seen it sooner.
I was blind.
I apologize and hope that moving forward you will still consider reposting me on X and buying my coffee
Alex Jones
@RealAlexJones
I have made it very clear that I no longer support Trump and I’m very thankful to him for making it clear that I have nothing to do with him. The new Trump is a rotting husk of the old Trump.
I hope 47 enjoys Mark Levine being his spirit animal..
Megyn Kelly: “After 14 years inside Fox News, I’m exposing what viewers refuse to see—how the network morphed from news into a propaganda machine designed purely to cheerlead wars, worship Trump, and feed you manufactured rage instead of facts.”
We still don't need to see that vile tripe here. The portions of those tweets containing the antisemitic conspiracy theories should be removed.
Dragonfire5004 is correct, though, that these people should not be forgiven or welcomed into our party. Their tweets make it clear that the real reason they're turning on Trump is that their hatred of Jews is stronger than their support of MAGA.
I think it's fine to expose those folks for who they are, but the fact that they are mad at Trump in major part because they're Jew-haters making classic false claims about Jewish power should be stated up front as a disclaimer.
Respectfully, I don’t see anything wrong with saying Israel is controlling everything even if I disagree with it. If saying that now constitutes anti-semitism when they did actually lead the US into war in the Middle East, how should one criticize that fact without being considered anti-Semitic? Would replacing that with “Nehtanyahu” work better? I’m open to swapping out the word if so.
If I’m being honest though as someone who tries dutifully to not promote hate and has censored past posts that I do consider to be anti-Semitic, this whole debate of anti-semitism has become so completely muddied for myself as to what each person considers to be anti-Semitic. There has to be an acceptable way to criticize the reality of the war on Iran and how it came to be.
Israel did not lead the US into war. Claiming that it did eliminates all agency that the Trump Administration had in deciding to join them. Trump could very easily have told Israel "no"; Israel might still have attacked Iran anyway but America would've stayed out in that case.
And don't forget how the ceasefire came to be - it was America that agreed to it, and basically forced Israel to honor it. The power dynamics make it clear that Israel is the junior partner in this relationship. Claiming that they led us into the war is absurd.
And Michaelflutist is correct above, that anyone claiming that "Israel controls everything" is a Jew-hater making false claims about Jewish power.
In the end, the war was Trump's choice, and the tweets are obviously antisemitic since Israel doesn't "control everything" or the U.S. government and is just recycled Protocols of the Elders of Zion bullshit. Pool and Jones are notorious antisemites.
However, Israel had a huge role in driving the U.S. into the war:
Netanyahu making a "hard sell" in the situation room:
Mazzetti, Mark; Barnes, Julian E.; Pager, Tyler; Wong, Edward; Schmitt, Eric; Bergman, Ronen (2 March 2026). "How Trump Decided to Go to War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"The president said he understood the risks of an attack, but he conveyed to Mr. Carlson that he had no choice but to join a strike that Israel would launch"
Stein, Chris (3 March 2026). "US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel's plan to launch attack, Rubio says". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"US House speaker: Israel's determination to strike Iran left Trump with a 'very difficult' decision". The Times of Israel. Associated Press. 3 March 2026. ISSN 0040-7909. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"For Israel's Netanyahu, Trump grants wishes, but his support carries risks". The Washington Post. 8 March 2026. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"Netanyahu made clear his desire to attack Iran's ballistic missile program in the coming weeks. The prime minister said Israel would be willing to strike Iran with or without U.S. involvement, though he wanted Trump to green-light the operation, the people said. Netanyahu's determination to initiate hostilities led Trump to believe an Israeli attack was inevitable and that the best course of action was to involve U.S. military power to ensure its success, said two people familiar with this thinking."
I’ve changed it in the post even if I don’t fully agree with it and forgive me for prolonging this discussion, but is the actual claim about Israel the part that’s anti-Semitic? Or is it just the fact of who it comes from that makes it so? Like if let’s say a Jewish Democrat said Israel controls everything and led the US to war, is that still considered anti-Semitic? Or if someone says Nehtanyahu controls everything, is that anti-Semitic?
I know you’re Jewish and this issue is a personal and passionate one for you, so I’d value your insight here. As far as I was aware all of the above would’ve been considered within the bounds of acceptability even if it’s absolutely untrue and you don’t agree with it. If I’m wrong then I’ll adjust. I’m trying to do right here in the future and I know “J*** control everything” is anti-Semitic, but does that extend to anything about Israel in control of anything? Where is the proper line here?
The actual claim about Israel controlling everything is the part that's antisemitic, because Israel is being used as a proxy for Jews. The same is true of saying that Netanyahu controls everything.
Exactly. dragonfire5004, most of us here have no more use for Netanyahu than we do for Trump, and there are many similarities between them, not least being in power to keep out of court and possibly prison, but claiming he, Israel or the Jews control or run the U.S. is classic antisemitism and absurd. Trump likes Netanyahu and may choose to do some things he suggests, but that doesn't mean he's in control of the U.S.
Btw, what issue are you saying is personal to me? Jew-hatred? Would you say "I know racism is personal to you" to a Black man or "I know sexism is personal to you" to a woman? Isn't bigotry actually personal to the bigot?
I’m sorry, I thought you said you were Jewish at one point, which makes the accusation more personal? Anti-semitism is unacceptable to anyone. I just know as a LGBTQ person, others saying homophobic things affect me more than the average person. If that’s not the case here, then I withdraw my statement.
Man. What the fuck. If you can't understand why "Israel is controlling everything" is antisemitic, then you definitely don't belong here. I honestly don't care that you seem so befuddled by this. You are clearly incapable of discussing this topic in an acceptable way.
Either never say a word on this subject here again or never come back here again. Frankly, I think I'm being too nice, but it's your choice.
Understood. If you want me to leave I will. I don’t understand why this warrants that, since I didn’t say that exact quote, but shared it from someone else, but I’ll respect your decision. Maybe though instead of not caring why I’m confused as an autistic person with neurological disabilities, you can instead educate me into being a stronger ally on this so I can do better in the future.
Other users have kindly done so for me and now I know why it’s considered anti-Semitic. I can do other things with my free time than post in the comments here and share with others politics and election news. Im no one special, anyone can do what I do, so they’re free to post all the stuff I find. But both Michael and Kildere explained so this will be my last post on this and I will remove any talk about Israel in future posts. I honestly wasn’t aware and apologize to all offended.
All of these people are going to support Trump by the midterms this fall lmao. This is Megyn Kelly's like fourth break with Trump since he said she was on her period while moderating the 2016 primary debate.
Maybe maybe not. What's different this time is Trunp is entering lame duck territory and coupled with already overt unpopularity that can be an insurmountable anvil. People forget W Bush was a relatively popular President and very popular with Republicans until those last two years, and then they all gradually jumped off the Titanic and acted like they never knew the guy.
I mean more that none of these people have learned a single lesson. These are some of the most evil and stupid dregs living today, and they will remain that way when their next Great Leader emerges. They just don't like seeing Trump be weak.
Even if they probably will come back to touting Rs for the midterms, it’s notable how different the internal divisions within MAGA are now when they were essentially non-existent in 2018. I think people underestimate how burned a lot of young conservatives feel about Trump 2.0. So many young conservatives disgusted by the Epstein stuff and the Iran war that they’re openly promising to vote Dem this year or sit out. That is big. We see horrible Republican turnout as it is popping up more and more. This isn’t coincidental anymore.
As a weathervane, these kinds of responses are useful, but ultimately these people are clout chasing sociopaths who only care about enriching themselves.
The subscription model is a bit nuts, if I want access to everything I was previously using for free, I need to pay $400 annually. I understand that a project like this requires full-time employees and money, but this is pushing it.
New Jerseyans begin to wonder if even Jeff Van Drew could be vulnerable in midterms
Flipping a district that a Republican so easily carried in 2024 would take a cataclysmic year for the GOP. But there are signs that 2026 might be just that.
“Even Van Drew’s race is going to be competitive,” said Chris Venis, a veteran New Jersey Republican operative who just launched a super PAC, the National Policy Action Committee, that he says may work to boost Van Drew’s reelection. “This year even R-leaning districts must be prepared.”
Van Drew’s campaign is not sweating it. His campaign manager Ron Filan noted that the district isn’t much more heavily Republican than Kean’s in party registration, despite Van Drew’s huge margins there in the last two elections. And he pointed out that Van Drew’s 2024 opponent, Joe Salerno, spent $1.7 million against him.
“The rhetoric that the Democrats want to come after Jeff and target him and do it is something they say year in and year out, and every year we’ve proven them wrong on that,” Filan said.
Really? I don't think the 2022 redraw made the district that much redder. Sure, it added Bayville and took away blue areas in Gloucester County, but it only shifted a few points to the right. Van Drew won by 8 in 2018.
Besides some suburban areas, South Jersey has been shifting pretty continuously to the right since 2016, so I don't really think Van Drew is more than mildly vunerable.
"Flipping a district that a Republican so easily carried in 2024 would take a cataclysmic year for the GOP. But there are signs that 2026 might be just that."
Music to my ears. If Van Drew loses re-election this year, it's possible similar state legislative seats can flip across the country.
At the bad place Reporter Timmy Facciola says
“NEW: Republicans are running Jackie Mary Auringer in NY-18, per an FEC filing.
Sharanjit Thind met the signature threshold ahead of the deadline, but then filed a declination to cede the ballot to local party leaders.
They’re all in on Auringer”
https://x.com/TimmyFacciola_/status/2041893526313570780?s=20
Although I am not a New Yorker, I thank you for keeping us Democrats updated on Congressional Seats.
Who is Auringer? A quick Google search says “beauty pageant queen” - is this accurate? Any more info?
Can’t find anything beyond the facebook post you probably saw, which includes a link to the right wing substack called daily eagle that mentions her “unsuccessful shot at Miss Florida Teen USA back in 2020” and says she has an instagram with no political content.
Facebook comments and article mostly right wing weirdness.
Probably someone from Pat Ryan’s campaign will try to assess accuracy of claims of a photo of her hugging Roger Stone and anonymous poster who says remembers her as bully at their middle school and high school.
AI and data center price fueled inflation, along with the Trump Administration raising prices by forcing coal plants to stay online (with the excuse being the energy needed by said data centers) has finally awoken the electorate to the importance of utility commission elections, particularly in purple and red states. People are sick of helping to pay for big tech's rent seeking for the purpose of more AI slop.
The fact that so many States are giving the centers tax incentives on top of the drain on water and electrical resources makes the insult more egregious! Michigan has plenty of water to spare, but not the electricity. The fact that Republicans in our State House pushed through tax incentives for these low employment centers just to attract new industry to the State is a slap in the face to the rest of the tax paying public, and does nothing for the local tax base for schools. With the expected short lifespan of these centers, they will never carry benefits for the tax base of Michigan!
Yeah, I’m totally fine with data centers in theory (even without AI the cloud economy necessitates them) but the absurd kickbacks and incentives are what we really need to after
Agreed. They should carry their own water.
And finance the development of renewable energy sufficient to cover, say, twice their needs, as well as any necessary grid updates.
If AI is a worthy investment, the money should be there.
Isn't this the "government picking winners and losers" stuff that Republicans used to rail against? (I remember when they wouldn't shut up about Solyndra...)
Trump seems unduly focused on Indiana, perhaps egged on by Jim Banks. Of course, his ego is also damaged, as he was told no. My concern is that when hardline and less hardline Republicans tangle, sometimes the hardliners come out ahead, which happened in my county where the moderate Republicans were thrown out in favor of a hardline bunch.
I get what you are saying. The Republican Party of Michigan went completely off the wall when MAGA seized power here. I would note that the Moderates seized back a lot of the positions and primary contests back at their recent convention. Becoming more Main Street pro reasonable business minded again. More like the Millican and Romney branch as opposed to the Conspiracy nuts that were running it. Sometimes the electorate needs to feel the consequences of crazy, just like we are seeing on the National Level now. I actually hope what just happened in Michigan is a harbinger of a less insane opposition Party Nationally in their next cycle, so we can right the Ship of State without the extremists! Live and Learn!!!!!! Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Maybe Republicans can swing back towards the center, once this bunch goes down to defeat.
Linda Rodgers is my State Senator, I won't lie that I'm tempted to vote for her in the Republican primary.
If the district is unwinnable by a Democrat, go for it.
Sometimes I wish I lived in an open-primary state.
The problem with crossing into the other party's primary, at least in Indiana, is that one then loses standing in the Democratic party if one wishes to serve as an officer in the local party, run to be a convention delegate, or run for office as a Democrat. While a county chair can vouch for a person who has crossed over and returned, it adds steps to the process.
This is striking. In Maine, five longtime Republicans have ditched their party label and will instead be running as Independents. The DownBallot has previously commented other instances of this. Are we seeing the beginnings of a trend? Will others conclude that the "Republican" label has been irreparable harmed by Trump – made toxic to a growing majority of voters?
https://bsky.app/profile/mainenewsroom.com/post/3miz3unwdoo2w
I suppose if there was ever a time that third parties or independents might gain some traction in the US, now would be it. Is there any information out there about voter registration with the Libertarian, Constitution or other parties?
I wonder after the toxicity of the Republican Party brand is destroyed in the next election, if it will morph into a new Party called Independent. These Politicians would have to appeal to the Middle if they were to get elected on that brand, since so many voters are already there.
Eh, my interpretation of that video on Bluesky is that these Republicans are trying to fool the voters in their districts by having the 'I' next to their name despite being strongly conservative.
The districts they're running in are all Democratic-leaning - winnable to Republicans in a 2010-style wave but normally electing Democrats. In a year like this, Democrats shouldn't have anything to be concerned about here.
Good points.
Exactly what Kevin Kiley is up to in CA-06. A handful of uninformed voters may fall for these stunts, but probably not enough to swing an election.
Minnesota's official GOP chapter was known as the Independent-Republicans of Minnesota from 1975 to 1995; the change was made to try to distance the Minnesota GOP from the national GOP during a time when the latter's brand was damaged by Watergate and the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Notably, Republicans have never won Minnesota in a presidential election since they added "Independent" in their official name, nor have they won Minnesota in a presidential election since dropping "Independent" from their official name.
Just to clarify on Phoenix's electric company, they have two, Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project. In the metropolitan area, SRP services about 40% of customers, is self governed, and tends to have lower electricity rates. SRP and APS split most of the cities including Phoenix.
The corporation commission controls rate setting by APS and Southwest Gas (which used to be APS owned), but not SRP.
The larger, older cities run their own water departments, but many newer and outlying areas have private, expensive water service.
Yes, my sister lives in Scottsdale and has APS.
My millionaire, Republican cousin lives in the Scottsdale area (Schweikert's district) and I'm hopeful that she'll have a Democratic representative starting in January!
Thank you for this!
This POS is running for Mississippi's LG seat. Yes, the guy that helped pass the 15-week abortion ban that became the Dobbs decision.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/michael-watson-vows-to-improve-relationships-at-the-mississippi-legislature-if-elected-lieutenant-governor/
Fuck that guy.
That is good news for the people of Arizona and hopefully for the two Ds running for the energy commission. And it is also good news for green energy in America. Trump in his continuing stupidity to destroy America has done everything he could to block or destroy green energy.Individuals, state, and local governments must take up green energy to fill the Trump gap. One thing needed in Indiana is to stop HOAs from blocking those of us who want to put on rooftop solar or balcony solar.
CA-14:
https://weareprogressives.org/congressional-progressive-caucus-pac-endorses-rev-frederick-haynes-for-tx-30/
Ignore the URL, it appears to be a mistake on their end. The Congressional Progressive Caucus endorses State Sen. Aisha Wahab for this seat.
This had me recheck some of the other congressional caucus committee endorsements from the past month (since the TX primaries):
Dems:
-CAPAC: Julie Won (NY-07)
-CHC: Bobby Pulido (TX-15), Katy Padilla Stout (TX-23), Johnny Garcia (TX-35) – all for round two
-NewDems: Shannon Bird (CO-08), Denise Powell (NE-02), Cait Conley (NY-17), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), Elaine Luria (VA-02) – this has been commented before
-DWC: Connie Chan (CA-11), Audrey Denney (CA-01), Lauren Babb Tomlinson (CA-06) – I'm honestly pretty surprised by the Chan endorsement, feels like a tacit Pelosi nod
Repubs:
-HFC: Dave Flippo (NV-02)
-Repub Women: Jessica Steinmann (TX-08)
I also look at the FEC candidate contributions from the various committees, for distributions they might make without announcing a press release. I can't remember who else I'm tracking that's missing from the public lists, but a few from the Repub committees that don't post endorsements on a website:
-RSC: Clay Fuller (GA-14) – for the special
-Main Street: James Gallagher (CA-01), Eric Flores (TX-34)
-CHC (the Repub conference one): Alex Mealer (TX-09), Tano Tijerina (TX-28)
Thanks for posting these! I'll have to look up what CAPASA (Asia-Pacific something, I believe) and HFC are abbreviations of.
HFC has to be House Freedom Caucus on the GOP side.
Oops, meant *CAPAC, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, you had it. (CAPASA is the related Staff Association.) And Zack has the Freedom Caucus one.
After revelations of a sex scandal, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX 23) announced that he would not seek reelection. New evidence of earlier abusive behavior has led the San Antonio Express-News to call on Mike Johnson to demand his immediate resignation. Given the Republicans' slim majority in the House and Johnson's lack of principle, that it not likely to happen. https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/editorial/article/tony-gonzales-resign-22198208.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZXhwcmVzc25ld3MuY29tL29waW5pb24vZWRpdG9yaWFsL2FydGljbGUvdG9ueS1nb256YWxlcy1yZXNpZ24tMjIxOTgyMDgucGhw&time=MTc3NTgzNDcxNDk1NQ%3D%3D&rid=ZmY0NjE1YTgtZWE4OC00MGE5LWE0ZWEtM2M4NTk4MjY0MGRj&sharecount=Mw%3D%3D
Maybe they can negotiate a twofer with the dem rep from Florida who misused her campaign $ leaving too
It's really hard to see the extent of our deep and extensive wins across the country in Trump 2.0 and NOT feel excited for the midterms. All the results post-2024 have been much better than expected. I'm trying to temper expectations, but it's hard not to get your hopes up that, say, Iowa's gubernatorial and Senate races are winnable this year when all the counties bordering Iowa in western Wisconsin had the biggest swings left from both 2024 and 2025. It's not just rural areas in the Midwest either--Dems just had the best rural showing in northwest Georgia in modern memory.
If we can get back to Obama 2012 showings in rural and hispanic areas and exceed Biden's 2020 suburban margins in many places, we could really see a wave that frankly I don't think anyone is ready for. Knock on wood.
Knocking on all the wood, I'm with you
I'm a little nervous we'll see a reverse 2022 -- it was all but assured there would be a red wave until there wasn't. Could just be me being paranoid though. I know Dobbs played a big role in that -- hopefully a reverse Dobbs effect won't occur that hurts us.
Caution and tempered expectations are good, but there's several key differences from now and 2022:
1. Dobbs lit a fire under our asses in such a way that it's impossible to see the Roberts Court hand down a similar decision animating Republicans in a comparable way.
2. Republicans nominated meme jackass candidates in so many winnable seats that it ended up screwing them. They lost net gubernatorial and Senate seats because of it. Maine is really the only big primary that seems like a recruiting disaster, but I'm optimistic about either Platner and Mills beating Collins regardless. Collins seems to have really worn out her welcome after 30 years in DC. Michigan is somewhat less worrisome than it was, hoping we get McMorrow there. But even then, none of our candidates are comparable to the likes of Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz, Blake Masters, Kari Lake, or Doug Mastriano. Republicans seem on track to nominate worse candidates on the whole with the likes of people like Ken Paxton and Vivek Ramaswamy.
3. We are the high-turnout party now. That also helped us mitigate a massacre in 2022. I don't see how Republicans turn that around in six months after years of their voters not turning out when Trump isn't on the ballot.
All good points. Will keep in mind.
in re: point 1, if Callais basically neuters what's left of the VRA it could have an effect on motivation, though sadly I don't see it having an impact of the same magnitude as Dobbs
But Callais wouldn’t really motivate Republicans in 2026 in anywhere near the same way that Dobbs motivated Dems in 2022. That’s why comparisons to a reverse 2022 are generally flawed.
Oh I misunderstood you, I thought you were talking about motivators for Dems.
Number 3 doesn't get discussed enough. It's a huge advantage. (It's also why Democrats held up well for the most part in special and off-year elections during Biden's term.)
That's a valid concern, but we could all see from a ways out that 2022 wasn't going to be a red wave. Some of the election night results were a little surprising, but there weren't many, if any, real shocks. Throughout 2022, almost everything that could've gone wrong for Republicans did, and that hasn't been the case for us. I'm not certain it'll be a blowout for us and I'm prepared to be disappointed on a number of key races, but I think cautious optimism is warranted.
It seemed like the GOP (as well its media enablers and bad-faith pollsters like Frank Luntz and Robert Cahaly) tried to talk a red wave into happening, and it didn't.
The better-quality data never really portended one.
I had several bizarre dreams this week and one of them was Democrats narrowly taking the house with 219 seats and a number still left to call a day after the election. I don't think this will be the case but I never forget that my 2016 nightmare that came true ugh.
I'm noticing progressive orgs and leaders are endorsing more candidates than they used to. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm on the left. I'll give a few links to groups to show posters here what I mean:
- https://ourrevolution.com/progressive-champions/ <-- Our Revolution. I barely saw them endorse 2024/2025. Now they have numerous candidates. (Not pictured -- Bob Brooks, Brian Poindexter, Adam Hamaway, and the re-election bid of Sen. Jeff Merkley -- who were endorsed on social media.)
- https://workingfamilies.org/candidates/ <-- Working Families Party
- https://ballotpedia.org/Endorsements_by_Bernie_Sanders <-- Bernie endorsements so far. Not listed yet -- Brian Poindexter and Claire Valdez.
- https://justicedemocrats.com/candidates/ <-- Justice Democrats. They endorsed 0 challengers in 2024. They've endorsed numerous this cycle.
- https://weareprogressives.org/#endorsements <-- Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC
(Some of the groups focused on the forbidden issue endorsed too -- not listing them as I don't want to risk breaking the rule on that, but they tend to endorse left-wing candidates.)
Curious to know what posters here think. Also curious to see people's opinions on the candidates being endorsed -- any really good ones? Any bad ones? Cases where you'd prefer a different candidate be endorsed?
I do think Justice Dems have a way too top-down/national endorsement process that doesn't consult grassroots progressive orgs in the districts themselves, which doesn't capture the resistance those orgs had stated toward candidates like Allam and Abughazaleh (and at least some resistance I've heard toward Bush and Chakrabarti plus the maybe somewhat different disputes over Valdez, but TBD how those turn out). I think it's a pretty big and frustrating flaw that I wish they considered more heavily. If they don't have the bandwidth to do that, then they don't need to endorse.
Our Revolution - I'm unfamiliar with Wala Blegay's progressive credentials. I was assuming Harry Dunn was the consensus progressive pick in that race. What is she like?
Working Families - I think Michael commented this a few weeks ago, but it's interesting to see the split between Working Families and Zohran Mamdani in the Reynoso-Valdez race. Also, I'm concerned about the endorsement of Rep. Alma Adams given that she takes corporate PAC money.
I think Sanders, the Justice Dems, and the CPC definitely have the best endorsements, and would say the Justice Dems overall have the best.
https://walablegay.com
Here's her issues. Mentions of M4A and climate justice. She seems good.
Re: Reynoso -- the Queens Dems endorsed him on the down-low recently and there's some controversy there given the corruption of the NY Dems. Article in City and State NY about it:
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/04/reynoso-quietly-secures-queens-dems-endorsement-ny-7/412637/?oref=csny-category-lander-river
"Volunteers aligned with the county party have been gathering signatures for Reynoso over the last month, meaning he’s appearing on petitions with other more centrist, Queens Dems-backed candidates, such as Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar."
If you know anything about Rajkumar, you can see why this isn't a good look for him to progressives. (She was Jumaane Williams' centrist challenger, and she was close to Eric Adams to boot. She also tried to primary Brad Lander before he ran for mayor.)
Your previous post linking all the endorsements by progressive orgs was wonderful, informative & helpful. You're making my job easier. Thanks Techno00. If you ever make it to Santa Fe the first few rounds are on me!
I think it's fine to list the endorsements of organizations focused on Israel, Palestine and other Middle Eastern countries, without comment, but I understand the risk of others replying by focusing on those issues, so I'm guessing the mods would support your decision not to mention them or their endorsements, although they might mention some in digests.
Biggest GCB lead from this pollster and lowest Republican support number. Trend for those without twitter:
Aug 2025: 47-47
Sept 2025: 46-45 R
Oct 2025: 46-44 R
Dec 2025: 48-44 R
Jan 2026: 47-46 D
Feb 2026: 47-45 R
Mar 2026: 46-46
Apr 2026: 49-44 D
https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/2042618050025820416
📊 Generic Ballot by RMG Research
🟦 Democrats: 49% (+3)
🟥 Republicans: 44% (-2)
——
Among Very Enthusiastic voters (most likely to turn out): Democrats lead 53% to 44%
@NapolitanNews
| April 6-9 | 2,000 RV
I wonder if RMG adjusted their methodology because they were a huge outlier showing Trump above water into early this year (showimg better numbers than even Rasmussen) and suddenly he's down like the others.
It was odd because I expected Trafalgar/Insider Advantage to produce made up garbage but historically RMG is a decent pollster.
I don’t have any clue how a pollster got a sample with Republicans leading on the generic ballot in February.
It could always have been an outlier.
Republicans +4 a month after the NJ/VA elections last November, lmao.
Just no way those two worlds are even on the same planet.
Some UK news I wanted to bring you because as we were (hopefully) sleeping, the Greens snatched a seat on the Kent County Council from Reform in a by-election that suddenly became hotly contested when it wasn't supposed to be.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxde5e4rngo
Background: Reform won 57 out of the 81 seats on the council at last year's local elections. Since Kent County Council is the most powerful council Reform holds Nigel Farage gloated that Kent would be a preview of how Reform would run the UK if they were elected to government at the next election with the party's council head Linden Kemkaran being ticketed for both a parliamentary seat and a cabinet position if everything went right for Reform.
Fast forward to today, Reform's stewardship of Kent County has been both turbulent and chaotic with Reform members of the council fighting it out in the background, elected Reform councilors being thrown out of the party for disobeying Kemkaran's dictats or leaving on their own.
https://youtu.be/Q3l65xc7_Ks?si=SfJAnnpSUP7xMgAD
When Reform hasn't been fighting it out amongst themselves, the change they've delivered in Kent County has either been so insignificant people didn't notice it or the wrong kind of change. But they did have time to declare a immigration state of emergency! (To be fair parts of Kent are landing zones for migrant boat crossings.)
https://youtu.be/U_eoPYwqoEU?si=tRxIw6xtPyXP5bU6
This set the stage for a by-election in the seat of Cliftonville which was vacant after the sitting Reform councilor went to prison for threatening to kill his wife. Reform won this seat in 2025 with 40% of the vote, Labour 22% and the Tories who were defending this seat with 20%. The Tories and Reform combined took 60% of the vote meaning this is a very right leaning seat....at least it was until last night when the Greens won this seat with 38.8% of the vote. Reform's votes share dropped to 33.1%, Labour's vote more than halved. And turnout last night was up over 500 votes so you couldn't say the Greens won because people stayed home.
There were signs that an upset could be brewing because both Labour and the Greens were talking up their chances here in the past couple of days and there's been more and more evidence that some of the angry at the status quo voters are moving away from Reform to the Greens. Also this part of Kent Council has been gentrifying due to its proximity to London, but it doesn't change the fact that Reform was favored here until they weren't.
Oh and Kemkaran didn't eat some humble pie and acknowledge Reform needed to win back the trust of voters in Kent County that they've lost. No, instead she blamed voters who voted for the Tories instead of tactically for Reform.
https://x.com/LeaderofKCC/status/2042577716956807446
Thanks for the great report! Two things stand out to me: (1) I'm feeling hopeful that the Greens may replace fake Labour and do some good things in the UK; (2) Refuk seems aptly named and incompetent like Trump.
🌍 GRN: 38.8% (+26.7)
➡️ RFM: 33.1% (-7.0)
🌳 CON: 15.2% (-4.5)
🌹 LAB: 10.4% (-11.6)
🙋 Ind: 1.3% (New)
🔶 LDM: 1.2% (-1.9)
Green plus Labour plus Lib Dem at 50.4%, up from 37.2. Big swing away from hard conservatives despite dissatisfaction with Labour.
Not linking actual posts by them because they don’t deserve the extra clicks and they deserve the absolute worst for the rest of their lives for what they’ve done and how stupid they are, but this matters more than we know.
There is no forgiveness, no welcoming, they deserve scorn and ridicule for the rest of their lives. This only helps us going into the midterms though when people who have more followers than cable news watchers finally get it.
The veil has been lifted and they realize that they are the idiots, they are who is blind, they are the ones with “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, they are the sheep being led by the wolf that they accused all of us of being for the last decade.
https://x.com/HQNewsNow/status/2042351215929897216
Joe Rogan guest: This war shit bugs me. I feel so stupid. Because when they were doing their no war thing, that was a big deal to me. No more wars, fuck yes, focus on the country, why are we blowing up children in other countries for oil? It's literally the opposite now. How many Iranian schoolgirls did Trump blow up?
Tim Pool
@Timcast
After reading all the replies to my tweets I have come to realize that I have been wrong about everything
Trump is demonic and a Mad King, I should have seen it sooner.
I was blind.
I apologize and hope that moving forward you will still consider reposting me on X and buying my coffee
Alex Jones
@RealAlexJones
I have made it very clear that I no longer support Trump and I’m very thankful to him for making it clear that I have nothing to do with him. The new Trump is a rotting husk of the old Trump.
I hope 47 enjoys Mark Levine being his spirit animal..
https://x.com/krassenstein/status/2042399414107443372
BREAKING: Megyn Kelly on MAGA:
Megyn Kelly: “After 14 years inside Fox News, I’m exposing what viewers refuse to see—how the network morphed from news into a propaganda machine designed purely to cheerlead wars, worship Trump, and feed you manufactured rage instead of facts.”
Candace Owens responds to Trump’s meltdown:
“It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home.”
You can post the tweets about MAGA people finally seeing the light without also posting the ones that promote antisemitic conspiracy theories.
That's probably why dragonfire prefaced by saying none of the posts would be linked to avoid extra attention towards them.
We still don't need to see that vile tripe here. The portions of those tweets containing the antisemitic conspiracy theories should be removed.
Dragonfire5004 is correct, though, that these people should not be forgiven or welcomed into our party. Their tweets make it clear that the real reason they're turning on Trump is that their hatred of Jews is stronger than their support of MAGA.
I think it's fine to expose those folks for who they are, but the fact that they are mad at Trump in major part because they're Jew-haters making classic false claims about Jewish power should be stated up front as a disclaimer.
Respectfully, I don’t see anything wrong with saying Israel is controlling everything even if I disagree with it. If saying that now constitutes anti-semitism when they did actually lead the US into war in the Middle East, how should one criticize that fact without being considered anti-Semitic? Would replacing that with “Nehtanyahu” work better? I’m open to swapping out the word if so.
If I’m being honest though as someone who tries dutifully to not promote hate and has censored past posts that I do consider to be anti-Semitic, this whole debate of anti-semitism has become so completely muddied for myself as to what each person considers to be anti-Semitic. There has to be an acceptable way to criticize the reality of the war on Iran and how it came to be.
Israel did not lead the US into war. Claiming that it did eliminates all agency that the Trump Administration had in deciding to join them. Trump could very easily have told Israel "no"; Israel might still have attacked Iran anyway but America would've stayed out in that case.
And don't forget how the ceasefire came to be - it was America that agreed to it, and basically forced Israel to honor it. The power dynamics make it clear that Israel is the junior partner in this relationship. Claiming that they led us into the war is absurd.
And Michaelflutist is correct above, that anyone claiming that "Israel controls everything" is a Jew-hater making false claims about Jewish power.
In the end, the war was Trump's choice, and the tweets are obviously antisemitic since Israel doesn't "control everything" or the U.S. government and is just recycled Protocols of the Elders of Zion bullshit. Pool and Jones are notorious antisemites.
However, Israel had a huge role in driving the U.S. into the war:
Netanyahu making a "hard sell" in the situation room:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html
Mazzetti, Mark; Barnes, Julian E.; Pager, Tyler; Wong, Edward; Schmitt, Eric; Bergman, Ronen (2 March 2026). "How Trump Decided to Go to War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"The president said he understood the risks of an attack, but he conveyed to Mr. Carlson that he had no choice but to join a strike that Israel would launch"
Stein, Chris (3 March 2026). "US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel's plan to launch attack, Rubio says". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"US House speaker: Israel's determination to strike Iran left Trump with a 'very difficult' decision". The Times of Israel. Associated Press. 3 March 2026. ISSN 0040-7909. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"For Israel's Netanyahu, Trump grants wishes, but his support carries risks". The Washington Post. 8 March 2026. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 10 March 2026.
"Netanyahu made clear his desire to attack Iran's ballistic missile program in the coming weeks. The prime minister said Israel would be willing to strike Iran with or without U.S. involvement, though he wanted Trump to green-light the operation, the people said. Netanyahu's determination to initiate hostilities led Trump to believe an Israeli attack was inevitable and that the best course of action was to involve U.S. military power to ensure its success, said two people familiar with this thinking."
"Driving the U.S. into the war" is too strong by a lot. Convincing Trump to attack would be more accurate. But yours is a fair comment.
The mods will strongly disagree that there's nothing wrong with making antisemitic claims about an Israeli power over the U.S. that doesn't exist.
I’ve changed it in the post even if I don’t fully agree with it and forgive me for prolonging this discussion, but is the actual claim about Israel the part that’s anti-Semitic? Or is it just the fact of who it comes from that makes it so? Like if let’s say a Jewish Democrat said Israel controls everything and led the US to war, is that still considered anti-Semitic? Or if someone says Nehtanyahu controls everything, is that anti-Semitic?
I know you’re Jewish and this issue is a personal and passionate one for you, so I’d value your insight here. As far as I was aware all of the above would’ve been considered within the bounds of acceptability even if it’s absolutely untrue and you don’t agree with it. If I’m wrong then I’ll adjust. I’m trying to do right here in the future and I know “J*** control everything” is anti-Semitic, but does that extend to anything about Israel in control of anything? Where is the proper line here?
The actual claim about Israel controlling everything is the part that's antisemitic, because Israel is being used as a proxy for Jews. The same is true of saying that Netanyahu controls everything.
Exactly. dragonfire5004, most of us here have no more use for Netanyahu than we do for Trump, and there are many similarities between them, not least being in power to keep out of court and possibly prison, but claiming he, Israel or the Jews control or run the U.S. is classic antisemitism and absurd. Trump likes Netanyahu and may choose to do some things he suggests, but that doesn't mean he's in control of the U.S.
Thank you for educating me. I appreciate it.
Btw, what issue are you saying is personal to me? Jew-hatred? Would you say "I know racism is personal to you" to a Black man or "I know sexism is personal to you" to a woman? Isn't bigotry actually personal to the bigot?
I’m sorry, I thought you said you were Jewish at one point, which makes the accusation more personal? Anti-semitism is unacceptable to anyone. I just know as a LGBTQ person, others saying homophobic things affect me more than the average person. If that’s not the case here, then I withdraw my statement.
Man. What the fuck. If you can't understand why "Israel is controlling everything" is antisemitic, then you definitely don't belong here. I honestly don't care that you seem so befuddled by this. You are clearly incapable of discussing this topic in an acceptable way.
Either never say a word on this subject here again or never come back here again. Frankly, I think I'm being too nice, but it's your choice.
Understood. If you want me to leave I will. I don’t understand why this warrants that, since I didn’t say that exact quote, but shared it from someone else, but I’ll respect your decision. Maybe though instead of not caring why I’m confused as an autistic person with neurological disabilities, you can instead educate me into being a stronger ally on this so I can do better in the future.
Other users have kindly done so for me and now I know why it’s considered anti-Semitic. I can do other things with my free time than post in the comments here and share with others politics and election news. Im no one special, anyone can do what I do, so they’re free to post all the stuff I find. But both Michael and Kildere explained so this will be my last post on this and I will remove any talk about Israel in future posts. I honestly wasn’t aware and apologize to all offended.
All of these people are going to support Trump by the midterms this fall lmao. This is Megyn Kelly's like fourth break with Trump since he said she was on her period while moderating the 2016 primary debate.
Maybe maybe not. What's different this time is Trunp is entering lame duck territory and coupled with already overt unpopularity that can be an insurmountable anvil. People forget W Bush was a relatively popular President and very popular with Republicans until those last two years, and then they all gradually jumped off the Titanic and acted like they never knew the guy.
And his collapse was really not until after the midterms, too.
I mean more that none of these people have learned a single lesson. These are some of the most evil and stupid dregs living today, and they will remain that way when their next Great Leader emerges. They just don't like seeing Trump be weak.
Even if they probably will come back to touting Rs for the midterms, it’s notable how different the internal divisions within MAGA are now when they were essentially non-existent in 2018. I think people underestimate how burned a lot of young conservatives feel about Trump 2.0. So many young conservatives disgusted by the Epstein stuff and the Iran war that they’re openly promising to vote Dem this year or sit out. That is big. We see horrible Republican turnout as it is popping up more and more. This isn’t coincidental anymore.
And disgusted that Trump isn't more antisemitic.
As a weathervane, these kinds of responses are useful, but ultimately these people are clout chasing sociopaths who only care about enriching themselves.
Agreed.
They brought the NYT 2018 midterm live poll back for the redraw amendment. This is incredible!
https://x.com/ChazNuttycombe/status/2042574620323139632
FOUR HOURS UNTIL WE ARE LIVE.
https://projects.statenavigate.com/25-26/states/va/polling/amend-26.html
But you gotta pay $12
The subscription model is a bit nuts, if I want access to everything I was previously using for free, I need to pay $400 annually. I understand that a project like this requires full-time employees and money, but this is pushing it.
NJ-02 rep Jeff Van Drew may be vulnerable. He won 58-41 in 2024…
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/10/new-jerseyans-begin-to-wonder-if-even-jeff-van-drew-could-be-vulnerable-00865295
https://archive.ph/n1FWB
New Jerseyans begin to wonder if even Jeff Van Drew could be vulnerable in midterms
Flipping a district that a Republican so easily carried in 2024 would take a cataclysmic year for the GOP. But there are signs that 2026 might be just that.
“Even Van Drew’s race is going to be competitive,” said Chris Venis, a veteran New Jersey Republican operative who just launched a super PAC, the National Policy Action Committee, that he says may work to boost Van Drew’s reelection. “This year even R-leaning districts must be prepared.”
Van Drew’s campaign is not sweating it. His campaign manager Ron Filan noted that the district isn’t much more heavily Republican than Kean’s in party registration, despite Van Drew’s huge margins there in the last two elections. And he pointed out that Van Drew’s 2024 opponent, Joe Salerno, spent $1.7 million against him.
“The rhetoric that the Democrats want to come after Jeff and target him and do it is something they say year in and year out, and every year we’ve proven them wrong on that,” Filan said.
Worth noting Van Drew flipped the district in 2018 as a Democrat. Who's to say that can't happen again?
Idk if he would have won as a Dem under the current lines in 2018.
Really? I don't think the 2022 redraw made the district that much redder. Sure, it added Bayville and took away blue areas in Gloucester County, but it only shifted a few points to the right. Van Drew won by 8 in 2018.
Yeah, but he was a fairly conservative Democrat. So he overperformed the Democratic baseline by a lot that year, even with the wave.
Yeah, he had a very strong personal brand as a state legislator if memory serves, which carried over into running for Congress.
Think Mannion, but more conservative. He was probably the only Democrat who could’ve won that seat that year.
Besides some suburban areas, South Jersey has been shifting pretty continuously to the right since 2016, so I don't really think Van Drew is more than mildly vunerable.
So have Hispanic voters in South Florida and South Texas, but posters here keep talking about how they may flip again, too.
I think the dynamics there are rather different.
"Flipping a district that a Republican so easily carried in 2024 would take a cataclysmic year for the GOP. But there are signs that 2026 might be just that."
Music to my ears. If Van Drew loses re-election this year, it's possible similar state legislative seats can flip across the country.