Among the many highlights of Mick Jagger’s recent performance on Saturday Night Live was this song, “Tea Party,” written by Jagger and accompanied by Jeff Beck. Our favorite part: “You know Mr. Romney, he’s a mensch,* he plays it straight and fair. Yeah, Mr. Romney, he’s a hard-working man…But don’t ever let him cut your hair.”
* “Mensch” is a Yiddish word that has come to mean a good person, a nice guy, or someone of reliable honor and character.
Dear entire state of North Carolina: Please forward the following message to your customer service department…In the past, I’ve excluded you from my vicious rants about hillbillies largely because—even though you’re squarely in the South—Clay Aiken was born there. However, there aren’t enough Clay Aikens in the world to make me forgive your recent vote in favor of Amendment 1, which puts a statewide ban on same-sex marriage, partnerships, and civil unions.
This was dumb. Why? …your state still allows people to marry their first cousins. I know, I know, if you were to ban those marriages, half the state would be forced to marry their sister or something.
From left, Jacksonville City Council Member Warren Jones, Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown, and some gay rights advocate
Whatever that weird thing is with black churches and gay people is one step closer to being resolved, following an action by the NAACP, which followed an action by Pres. Obama.
Florida is home to the largest city in the country that still offers no protection in housing or hiring based on sexual orientation
The board of the N.A.A.C.P. voted to endorse same-sex marriage on Saturday, putting the weight of the country’s most prominent civil rights group behind a cause that has long divided some quarters of the black community.
The largely symbolic move, made at the group’s meeting in Miami, puts the N.A.A.C.P. in line with President Obama, who endorsed gay marriage a little over a week ago…
Borrowing a term used by gay rights advocates, the resolution stated, “We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
In a statement, Roslyn M. Brock, chairwoman of the 64-member board, said, “We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law.”
Well, Chair Brock, you haven’t — if we’re talking about gay people — until now but let’s not get technical. The important thing is that it’s never too late to do the right thing so welcome to the 21st century!
The Republican Party’s Romneybot 2000 campaign android crashed its semantic processors again — in humans, this is known as a “gaffe” — when it tried to speak without the aid of teleprompters yesterday:
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “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.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
