1.
I’m all about the midterms right now so for my fellow Kansans, according to Politico, Gov. Laura Kelly is Democrats' most vulnerable incumbent on the ballot this year. Republicans cleared the field for state Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who is hoping to ride the national trend — and tap into Kansas' GOP lean — and oust Kelly after just one term.
On the upside, and according to the Kansas Reflector, Republican Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate and the daughter of GOP presidential nominee Alf Landon, endorsed Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s campaign for reelection. Kelly is up against Republican Derek Schmidt whose endorsements include former President Donald Trump, former U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Gov. Jeff Colyer.
While Schmidt will be working hard to do away with autonomy and the right to abortion for women, Kelly said, “We saw on August 2 that overwhelming majority of Kansans believe a woman’s right to make private medical decisions should rest with her and not politicians.” In her first term, Kelly injected fiscal austerity into state government to produce a $1.5 billion surplus and a $1 billion rainy-day fund. In a recent debate with Schmidt, Kelly asked, “Everybody in this room remembers what this state looked like four years ago. Are we better off under Brownback than we are now?”
I would say a resounding yes. Go to the polls in Roe-vember, Kansans!
2.
Hey all you libertarians out there. You do know that socially libertarians lean left but economically lean right. But when you lean right economically you screw the working class, so it’s not so much fabulous freedom and liberty for the common schmoe, now is it? It was Ronald Reagan that uttered to "believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”
What libertarians do best is to elect Republicans. If there’s an issue of the wealthy and powerful vs the poor and powerless, libertarians side with the former every time. Conservatives have always opposed the public sphere and have done all they can to privatize everything. You don’t think if we get a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate they won’t try to privatize Social Security? It's extremely difficult to squeeze any personal profit from public services—public education, public parks, public libraries, public transportation, USPS—but those on the right will try. These are things people want and pay for with taxes, which libertarians want to do away with, but the simple truth is we all participate and benefit from this kind of socialism, and it’s all to provide necessities of life for a civil society.
And, as we slide into the midterm elections, there are the titans of profit like Charles Koch backing election deniers with millions of dollars. According to the Guardian, Koch Industries, which is controlled by multibillionaire Charles Koch, boasts a corporate Pac that has donated $607,000 to the campaigns or leadership Pacs of 52 election deniers since January 2021, making Koch’s Pac the top corporate funder of members who opposed the election results, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign spending. In addition, the Super Pac Americans for Prosperity Action to which Koch Industries has given over $6m since January 2021, has backed some election deniers with advertising and other communications support, as well as a few candidates Donald Trump has endorsed who tried to help him overturn the 2020 election, or raised doubts about the final results.
And just so you know, besides Koch’s Pac, the other top corporate Pacs were those of Home Depot and Boeing that respectively ponied up $593,000 to 44 members and $520,000 to 27 members.
On the bright side, Politico reports that turnout in this year’s special elections suggests that since Dobbs, rural voters are less motivated to cast ballots than others.That could spell potential trouble for the GOP if the trend continues to the midterms in November, because rural voters, who overwhelmingly supported former President Donald Trump, are a key constituency for Republican candidates.
3.
And this Herschel Walker guy. Republicans will back ANYONE who will keep a Democrat from winning. The Guardian reported that Dana Loesch, a conservative commentator and the former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, didn’t even bother trying to put a spin on Walker’s actions. After calling women who have abortions “skanks”, she just flat-out said the only thing she cares about is Republicans gaining power. “Winning is a virtue,” Loesch proclaimed. “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”
Republicans will vote for this moron even after his own son, Christian, tweeted “I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability, but how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man. He decided to give us the middle finger and air out all of his dirty laundry in public, while simultaneously lying about it.” He went on to say, “Family values people: He has four kids, four different women. Wasn’t in the house raising one of them. He was out having sex with other women. Do you care about family values?” Well, duh…obviously not.
US Senate Republicans chairperson Rick Scott said, “Republicans stand with him, and Georgians will stand with him, too.” Because that’s who they are. And the Bulwark reported that Henry Olsen, a fellow at the inaptly named “Ethics and Public Policy Center,” and erstwhile pundit for the Washington Post, assures us this morning that Walker’s “alleged hypocrisy on abortion likely won’t matter,” because elections “are about choices, and those choices are often decidedly imperfect,” and politics “is too important these days for questions of character to matter.”
All of this is to say that voting next month is crucial in keeping a semblance of sanity in Congress and in the various governors’ races across the country. JUST. VOTE. BLUE.
In states where the GOP has made it much tougher to get out the vote, here are some handy guidelines for Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana.
4.
Meanwhile in Arizona we have Blake Masters for Senate - Arizona's True MAGA Candidate. Speaking to Tucker Carlson, he uttered “It all goes back to the Democrats trying to destroy the family. You know, whatever the issue is that the Dems are shrieking about today — maybe it’s COVID, maybe it’s climate change, maybe it’s systemic racism — ultimately their goal is to separate, to drive a wedge between children and their parents. For the Left it’s about creating this new red guard, right? Training this new generation of activists who are going to go and try and erase our history, and destroy our country.” And on the Jeff Oravitz show: “Well, we know what a good piece of border legislation looks like — we’ve got to triple the size of border patrol, finish President Trump’s wall, re-implement Remain In Mexico, mandatory e-verify. I’m a tech guy, so I want technology to help us lock that border down, right? Infrared cameras to map every inch so we can tell where the tunnels are and blow ‘em up. We know what to do. The problem is we lack the political will. You know, the Democrats don’t want to seal the border. Quite the opposite — they want the open border, and too many Republicans get squeamish about it, right? They don’t want to be called racist.”
Uhhhhhh, vote for Mark Kelly, please.
5.
Now, this is presidential. President Biden on Thursday pardoned all people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law and said his administration would review whether marijuana should still be a Class 1 drug like heroin and LSD.
6.
We subscribe and unsubscribe from the various streaming platforms all the time but we’ve been back on Hulu for a while now and we stumbled onto a truly great TeeVee show. The Guardian calls it Television So Good It Might Kill You.
The show is The Bear and it stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto playing a world-class chef who takes over his deceased brother’s sandwich shop in Chicago. The first episode was so insane, stressful, and fast-paced we almost didn’t go back for the second episode. We’re glad we did. Joel Golby of the Guardian review linked above went on to say the bizarre class system in the world of food; snobbishness pitched against the basic human desire of hunger; hierarchy and respect; mob debt and toxic masculine rage; caulk. It remembers to be funny, too – a cold open where Richie tries to fit a T-shirt over an inflatable hotdog is a particular highlight – and plays the heartfelt beats with just the right balance of fat and acid: none of that American corn-syrup saccharinity.
Check it out…worth getting Hulu for a month to binge. (Also, Reservation Dogs is on Hulu, which is a MUST)
My next post will be from outside the Americas, so stay tuned.
And now…
Common sense? So little of this on the right! Vote Blue!
I have to admit… Your cartoons move me! Great job youngster! Oh yea… Can you get rid of K. Sinema? She sucks big time and is full of crap!!