Poetic Justice
Buck Banks | Oct. 9, 2026
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.
Verbatim
“One woman at a rally in New Jersey told me last week that she was ‘nauseously optimistic.’ That may capture a lot of people’s last-minute jitters.”
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), quoted by Axios, on what Democrats feel ahead of the midterm elections.
“I think Congress made a mistake not protesting turning the Rose Garden into what looks like the entrance to Liberace’s bathroom.”
— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by The Wrap.
“Boy, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. It feels like a real desperation play to me, because it has got zero basis in the law.”
— Republican election law expert Ben Ginsberg, quoted by Politico, on the Trump administration’s effort to invalidate Alaska’s election results.
Numerati
3,824
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.
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$1.4 billion
“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.”
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-35 points
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.”
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31%
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.
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63% to 38%
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%).”
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So, WTF? Miami-Dade County, at the tippy end of Florida, has been more than 50% minority (Hispanic, black) for four years. I know, because I, as a white Anglo male, have been in the minority that long, and I’ve gotten used to it. My only explanation for this map is that, as usual, assumptions were made without putting feet on the ground here in South Florida.
I know I’m being politically correct here but…Don’t you think that generalizing people of color as being against the GOP is a little presumptuous? I might not know every person of color in the U.S but..I have to say the few I have met are Republican, small business owners and are socially conservative.
Aside this chart is just a projection, not a fact. For all we know; when the time comes, these people could very well be right wing in the end.
I think you’re jumping the shark here, Jon…
Tony, I haven’t jumped the shark, not on this issue, at least — the Republican Party has.
Since 1968, the Republican Party has deployed its “Southern strategy,” using racism to rile its bigoted base into voting for the GOP. The record shows that this strategy has worked very well for them. It started with Nixon, of course. But Reagan did it, too — he opened his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were killed in 1964.
Just last week, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich of Georgia used race baiting in a speech to his home state Republican convention, referring to Pres. Obama as a “food stamp president” (because more people are on food stamps now than ever, which, in reality, is a result of the Bush recession and not, as Gingrich insinuated, because the president wants people to be on food stamps) and claiming Obama is turning the country into Detroit, which is predominantly black.
The demographics of the Republican Party, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly old, white and rural. They are literally dying off.
This problem is particularly acute here in California, where the percentage of GOP voter registration is at a historic 156-year low. The California GOP brought this crisis upon themselves when Latinos here felt the party was attacking them on the issue of immigration the 1994 governor’s race. Californians with Mexican heritage have not forgotten or forgiven the GOP, and are not likely to.
If you look at the map, it’s clear that what has happened to Republicans in California could happen next in Texas, of all places.
The point is, the Republican Party is marginalizing itself with this strategy of castigating people of color, especially considering the changes that are a-coming.