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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Gee, it seems like only seven. But then, for me it is …
I seem to recall the initial reports on the weaponized anthrax back during the G. W. Bush administration being one of the first postings on this site which, at least in my memory would put you beyond 8 years. I guess my memory is suspect. I seem to recall the anthrax possible attack down in Florida that brought you to my attention.
We launched on January 25, 2005, five days after Bush’s second inaugural.
No problem. I guess my memory is off. What an auspicious date, five days after George W. Bush’s 2nd inaugural. I still remember being depressed to no end at that time. I found it hard to believe George W. Bush won, but is was the incessant warmongering and the pushing of terror, terror, terror that let them win the day back then.
Jan. 20, 2005 — a day that will live in infamy.
I want to say you let me on board in March. And Buck, I thought you and I started together.
Trish, you and I started together on Blogger in December. We switched to WordPress, which took a while and and then we had our first posts at the end of January.
Congrats! I’ve been reading here since fall of 2006 or early 2007. Even though I seldom comment.