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Polls In Florida's Sixth District Special Are Scaring Republicans

Polls In Florida's Sixth District Special Are Scaring Republicans

Last Tuesday, a Democrat pulled off an upset win in a deep-red Pennsylvania state Senate seat where President Donald Trump won by 15 percentage points last year.

Add that into the list of other special elections Democrats have overperformed in this year, and it’s clear why Republicans are suddenly sweating the special election in Florida's Sixth Congressional District.

Florida’s Sixth District was vacated by Republican Mike Waltz, who you might now know as the world’s most incompetent national security adviser. Last year, Trump won the district by 30 points—a huge margin—so it shouldn’t be, by any stretch of the imagination, competitive.

And yet …

A poll by St. Pete Polls for news outlet Florida Politics finds that Republican nominee Randy Fine is leading Democrat Josh Weil by a measly four points, 48 percent to 44 percent. That puts a Weil victory within the poll’s margin of error. Even worse for Republicans is that an internal poll from Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s 2024 pollster, finds Fine down 3 points to Weil, according to Axios. The same pollster had Fine up 12 points in February.

But let’s take a breath. Normally, undecided voters end up voting in line with their district/state’s partisan lean, which is R+14 for Florida’s Sixth, according to the Cook Political Report. That means it’s 14 points more Republican than the country as a whole. So, in a normal election, I would expect the Republican would win this seat with roughly 57 percent of the vote to the Democrat’s 43 percent—a spread of 14 points.

That, in itself, would flash some warning signs in GOP hallways. In November, Waltz won the seat with over 66 percent of the vote, in what ended up being a good cycle for Republicans overall.

But this isn’t a normal election. This is a special election in April, in a climate in which rank-and-file Democrats are seething over the state of the nation. Turnout will be the name of the game, and by all indications, Democrats are far more motivated than Republicans.

In the St. Pete/Florida Politics poll, Weil leads among those who have voted, 51 percent to 43 percent. As of Thursday, in early-voting returns, registered Republicans have just a five-point advantage in who has voted so far. The chances of an upset are small, but they do exist—shockingly. And a lot of that could be because, according to that St. Pete’s/Florida Politics poll, 51 percent of the district’s likely voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 45 percent disapprove. Remember, he won by 30 points in November. Given that, it’s not so surprising to see Fine’s anemic early performance.

Uncertainty over this district reportedly played a role in the Trump administration pulling Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.N. ambassador. The nomination had already been languishing as House Republicans were loath to (temporarily) lose her vote, given their razor-thin majority in the chamber.

But pulling Stefanik’s nomination doesn’t solve the GOP’s bigger problem. Its ability to maintain party discipline in the House has been genuinely impressive, and has been driven almost exclusively by Trump’s strong-arm efforts to threaten members who stray with primary challenges. They fear Trump. And Elon Musk, who might fund those challengers if a representative crosses the president.

But what happens if Trump is also alienating voters to such an extent that districts that backed him by 30 points are now competitive?

Put another way, Trump keeps his troops in line because they think his backing will give them the best chance to win reelection in 2026. So what happens if being closely tied to Trump makes it less likely they survive? What good is weathering a Republican primary only to end up getting steamrolled by a Democrat in the general election? It’s quite the conundrum, isn’t it?

The closer the margin in Tuesday’s special election, the bigger that conundrum for Republicans. And if Democrats pull off a big upset?

Then look out.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

West Virginia Worships Trump -- And He's Screwing Its Voters Hard

West Virginia Worships Trump -- And He's Screwing Its Voters Hard

West Virginia is one of the Trumpiest states in the country, with President Donald Trump winning the state by a whopping 42 percentage points in the 2024 election. So you’d think—having delivered for Trump so big—that they’d be winning all sorts of victories.

And yet …

According to the Des Moines Register, Trump’s plan to revive shipbuilding in the United States by charging massive fees for China-linked ship visits to U.S. ports is causing coal inventory to swell, stoking uncertainty in the already embattled agriculture industry as exporters struggle to find ships to send goods abroad.

As a result, West Virginia coal mines are preparing to lay off miners as unsold coal piles up.

But, but, but … Trump loves coal miners!

“After years of being held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals, and Thugs, allowing other Countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous Economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants, I am authorizing my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” he posted on Truth Social just earlier this week.

Despite what Trump says, coal is a dead industry, and he’s doing his part to drive the final nail in its coffin.

“Enacting and implementing those fees could halt exports of U.S. coal within 60 days, putting $130 billion worth of shipments at risk,” Ernie Thrasher, CEO and founder of Xcoal Energy & Resources, wrote in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “The fee structure could add up to 35% to the delivered cost of U.S. coal, making it uncompetitive on the global market. The loss of direct and indirect jobs would be catastrophic.”

Lutnick never responded.

There are fewer than 12,000 coal miners left in West Virginia, so … that sucks for them! But all of those newly unemployed miners can console themselves knowing that trans athletes are being punished.

So what about the state’s other industries—and its children?

As NBC reports:

Jennifer Gilkerson never imagined that her West Virginia farm’s freeze-dried fruits would get caught up in political fights in Washington, D.C. But last Friday, she learned that funding for a U.S. Agriculture Department program that helps schools and food banks buy products from local farmers like her had been cut. Without those federal dollars, Gilkerson no longer expects local schools to be able to buy her freeze-dried fruits, which she has already spent thousands of dollars preparing to produce.

“We’re just in such a state of shock. We just don’t really even know how to respond to all this. We thought that this was sacred and really untouchable,” Gilkerson said. “Everyone thinks all farmers voted for this, but we did not vote for this.”

The school and food bank program isn’t being cut because of “political fights” in Washington D.C. It’s literally central to the GOP agenda. A fight implies that the program got cut because of partisan warfare. This is a policy decision.

And yes, Jennifer, your state voted exactly for this—y’all just thought other people would suffer the brunt of it. But Project 2025 was very clear in its goal to slash all government spending—including the federal dollars that subsidize West Virginia.

“The overall goal should be to eliminate subsidy dependence,” Project 2025 says.

So yes, Jennifer. I don’t know who you voted for, but your fellow West Virginians overwhelmingly voted for this.

Common sense should dictate that if your state is the third most dependent on federal dollars you should maybe vote for the party that supports federal funding. I know, I know, trans this and trans that. But is destroying your entire economy worth the sacrifice for that bigotry?

“This is the economy of rural America. West Virginia is a wholly rural state, and so developing this agriculture economy in the state is extremely important. These farmers pay their property taxes, they’re business owners, a lot of times they’re commissioners or school board members. These are the drivers that keep rural communities alive. So it feels like a divestment in rural communities across the board,” Spencer Moss, executive director of the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition, told NBC.

It’s called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” and it turns out that subsidizing small, rural states is not efficient. Those farmers aren’t paying enough in property taxes to cover expenses, which is why urban and blue-state folks are subsidizing it. But we liberal voters were fine with paying those subsidies because we’re all American, and we’re all in this together!

But if West Virginians thought the federal safety net would have their backs, boy they’re in for some disappointment.

According toPolitico, the Agriculture Department has halted millions of dollars worth of deliveries to food bank leaders in six states, including West Virginia.

Chad Morrison, president of West Virginia’s Mountaineer Food Bank, said it’s “really challenging” to meet West Virginia’s needs.

“We can try to figure out how to make up the gaps, which is a hard lift, or ultimately there’s less food on the table,” he said.

States like West Virginia will be particularly hit by cuts to school lunches, food stamps, and other programs that deliver food to the hungry.

As for health care, West Virginia has 1.77 million residents, and more than 516,000 of them are on Medicaid, which also keeps the state’s rural hospitals afloat.

But hey, almost three-quarters of the state decided that wasn’t important enough to protect with their vote. And Trump certainly doesn’t care about leaving his supporters without health care.

Still, you’d think that the state’s overwhelming support for Trump would somehow translate into some tangible victories, but the news is grim. Trump is more interested in hawking expensive cars for his billionaire buddy Elon Musk, hyping crypto for his bros, fantasizing about ethnically cleaning Gaza, obsessing over Greenland, and golfing. Lots and lots of golfing.

As for his voters, they really shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he didsay, “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote. I don’t care.”

And he proves that every single day.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

How Trump Is Screwing Rural Seniors Who Elected Him

How Trump Is Screwing Rural Seniors Who Elected Him

Donald Trump’s administration is a disaster that is hurting Americans. While Democrats got punished at the polls for trying to improve people’s lives, victorious Republicans are rewarding voters by actively coming up with new and creative ways to hurt them.

Like, who the hell decided that senior citizens have it too easy?

“In an effort to limit fraudulent claims, the Social Security Administration will impose tighter identity-proofing measures — which will require millions of recipients and applicants to visit agency field offices rather than interact with the agency over the phone,” the Associated Press reported. “Beginning March 31st, people will no longer be able to verify their identity to the SSA over the phone and those who cannot properly verify their identity over the agency’s ‘my Social Security’ online service, will be required to visit an agency field office in person to complete the verification process, agency leadership told reporters Tuesday.”

To add insult to injury, the Trump administration plans to slash the number of Social Security field offices.

Multibillionaire and Trump co-President Elon Musk, having promised trillions of dollars in government cuts through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has finally realized he can’t get there without gutting enormously popular entitlement programs like Medicaid and Social Security. After calling Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” Musk has claimed the program meant to keep senior citizens out of poverty is beset by fraud.

“Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s like the big one to eliminate. That’s the sort of half trillion, maybe $600, $700 billion a year,” Musk told Larry Kudlow on Fox Business.

In reality, a 2024 Inspector General report found $72 billion in “improper payments” over eight years (between 2015-2022), or just $9 billion per year. That represents less than one percent of overall payments distributed during that time frame. If Trump really cared about rooting out that abuse, perhaps he shouldn’t have fired all the inspectors general as soon as he took office, as that was literally their job.

While this new in-person requirement will impact all seniors and people with disabilities who receive Social Security payments, it will disproportionately affect those in rural areas. Urban recipients can Uber or take public transportation to their local office. Rural Americans don’t have that convenience.

Take Maine, for instance.

“The Presque Isle field office, the only Social Security office in Aroostook County, is one of the locations that could close, forcing some Mainers to drive hours if they have trouble getting their benefits,” reported local TV station WMTW. “Many offices are already understaffed.”

Aroostook County is at the northernmost tip of Maine and covers 6,800 square miles with just 67,000 residents. It makes sense that the region was covered by an office in Presque Isle, population 8,800, as it is the largest city in the area. Trump won the county with 62 percent of the vote—almost exactly matching Trump’s rural national performance of 64 percent. Unfortunately, we don’t have exit polls combining age and area type, but generally speaking, older rural white people (and this county is 94.5 percent white) are heavily Republican.

Way at the other end of our country from Maine, ginormous Alaska will be relegated to three Social Security field offices. Meanwhile, Musk’s DOGE has already canceled leases on 47 offices—16 of them in red states, just two in blue states, and almost all in rural counties. And that’s likely just the beginning. (For example, the Presque Island office isn’t on that list.)

As with Medicaid, Trump’s latest policies are particularly cruel toward his own supporters. They voted for him to hurt other people, or because of the mistaken belief that Trump could lower grocery prices—and karma is biting them in the ass.

It’s quite remarkable that rural Americans voted for a candidate that promised to slash government waste, given how much they benefit from heavily subsidized rural broadband, nationalized mail service, federally funded health care, and government field offices like these Social Security locations. Now they’re finding out that running the federal government like a business means that they are the “waste” everyone was talking about. It turns out they aren’t as self-sufficient as they thought they were—and that serving these rural denizens is certainly not efficient, as far as Trump and Musk are concerned.

There were 71.6 million Americans on Social Security in 2023, and 5.8 million new additions to its rolls that year. The new edict requires all new beneficiaries, as well as anyone changing their direct deposit information, to visit a field office in person if they cannot verify their identity via an online portal—something that tech-challenged seniors will disproportionately struggle to accomplish. How exactly will the agency, already understaffed before the DOGE massacre, verify all of them in person while simultaneously facing additional staffing cuts of up to 50 percent?

Long wait times, long drives, massive inconveniences … it’s all good, though. They voted to own the libs, and mission accomplished! I’m sure these consequences will be more than worth it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

After Threats And Taunts, Trump Is Begging Denmark For...Eggs

After Threats And Taunts, Trump Is Begging Denmark For...Eggs

Donald Trump is shameless.

He was barely minted as the new president when for some unfathomable reason decided to threaten Denmark over Greenland, demanding the Nordic country sell the semi-desolate island for … reasons. (Likely because it inaccurately looks really bigon a map.)

It was part of a pattern that continues to this day—threatening Canada’s annexation and calling its prime minister “governor,” threatening to retake the Panama Canal, threatening military action against Mexico, and imposing tariffs on allies like Taiwan, Japan, and the European Union.

Now Trump suddenly finds himself in a bind, having promised lower prices on Day 1, yet seeing grocery prices rise even before many of his tariffs have kicked in. And center stage in the grocery drama are eggs, which have skyrocketed in price … if you can even find them.

And it turns out, telling people to “shut up about egg prices” isn’t the best politics.

So he has asked Denmark and other countries for help.

You can hear them laughing from across the Atlantic.

Yle, Finland’s national public broadcasting company, reported that Finland (diplomatically) refused a similar request. Other European countries are off the table because they don’t wash their eggs (which is why in places like Germany and France, eggs aren’t refrigerated in grocery stores). But even if they could export to the U.S., maybe they’d give the middle finger as well.

The Netherlands, one of the few that can, had their license revoked in January. The Trump administration is trying to reverse the licensing issue, but even then, eggs are fragile. Flying them across the Atlantic is not a logistically simple matter.

You know who might have eggs to help out? Canada. Oops.

But Trump’s insufferably bullying behavior shouldn’t lead to an automatic “no” from potential egg exporters. Perhaps they could take a page from Trump’s ritual humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, and force Trump to show up, demand he apologize, interrupt his every word with “YOU DON’T HAVE THE CARDS!” and heap insult upon insult.

Maybe then, and only then, should these countries release eggs into the U.S.

Trump Burps Up Excuses As His 'Policies' Sink The US Economy

Trump Burps Up Excuses As His 'Policies' Sink The US Economy

With the stock market tumbling, a weaker-than-expected jobs report last week, inflation rising, and President Donald Trump holding the threat of even worse tariffs as a sword of Damocles over the economy, he’s stuck trying to explain his inability to fulfill his campaign promise that “Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again.”

And oh boy, it has been quite the ride.

On Thursday, Trump blamed the “globalists” for the stock market’s selloff.

REPORTER: What do you make of the market selloff this week? TRUMP: I think it's globalists that see how rich our country's gonna be and they don't like it.

[image or embed]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 6, 2025 at 4:13 PM

And when in doubt, blame the Jews, which he did again in an interview that aired Friday.

BARTIROMO: Can you give us a sense of whether or not we're gonna get clarity for the business community? TRUMP: The tariffs could go up as time goes by. BARTIROMO: So that's not clarity. TRUMP: For years the globalists have been ripping off the United States.

[image or embed]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 7, 2025 at 9:02 AM


On Monday, his staff blamed “animal spirits,” according to a Politico reporter. And if that makes no sense to you, it’s because it makes no sense, period.

Asked whether a recession was in the cards, Trump couldn’t deny it.

“I hate to predict things like that,” he said. “There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America,” adding later, “It takes a little time, it takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us.”

And how long is “a little time”?

“You can’t really watch the stock market,” Trump said. “If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters.”

That might be the greatest bait and switch in American political campaign history, from “lower prices on Day 1” to “100 years of economic pain.”

Funny enough, this is the same Trump who just a few weeks ago, at an investor conference, said, “Everyone is calling it the—I don't want to say this. It's too braggadocious, but we'll say it anyway, the Trump effect. It's you. You're the effect. Since the election, the stock market has surged, and small business optimism has soared.”

Democrats will be more than happy to call all this “the Trump effect.”

On Sunday night, aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked again about a potential recession and his refusal to answer the question recently. He responded, “All I know is this: We’re gonna take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and we’re gonna become so rich you’re not gonna know where to spend all that money, I’m telling you, you just watch! We’re gonna have jobs, we’re gonna have factories, it’s gonna be great.”

Does anyone want to try and make sense of that? Sure, grocery store shelves are emptied of eggs, but we will have so much money that we won’t know where to spend it! (Which in itself would be inflationary. …)

Never mind, don’t try to make sense of it. It makes none. One thing is for sure, however, and it’s that Trump isn’t particularly concerned about the economic pain Americans are experiencing at his hands. Check out this exchange during that Air Force One gaggle:

Q: What do you say to Americans who have seen their retirements accounts fall in recent day and are getting very nervous about these tariff conversations? TRUMP: Oh, I think the tariffs are going to be the greatest thing we’ve ever done as a country. It’s going to make our country rich again.

Trump can’t even pretend to show a hint of empathy for those affected by his policies. He’s a psychopath gleefully breaking the world economy while pretending there will be some glorious payoff on the other side.

Is it any surprise? Trump never pretended otherwise. He did say on the campaign trail, “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Even MAGA Cultists Are Disgusted By Trump's Tacky Vision Of Future Gaza

Even MAGA Cultists Are Disgusted By Trump's Tacky Vision Of Future Gaza

Have you seen the AI video shared by Donald Trump on his Truth Social site that depicts his bizarre, vulgar plans for Gaza?

As you might expect, liberals are like: WTF? Gaza residents are livid. The Palestinian Authority called it “a serious violation of international law.”

And Muslims who voted for Trump are as stupid as ever.

“Faye Nemer, CEO and Founder of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) American Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, called the video ‘offensive and counterproductive to peace talks’ in a statement to NPR,” the outlet reported. “Nemer, who says she voted for Trump in November, is calling on him to remove the video and issue a ‘reconciliatory statement.’”

And then we all had a good laugh …

What’s more surprising is that even the staunch MAGA minions are unsettled by the video. The replies to Trump’s latest desperate plea for attention are harsh.

On Reddit’s r/Conservative subreddit, the MAGAts were stunned.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Actually infuriating.”

“Hey Mr. President let’s not post AI videos of a utopian Gaz-a-lago. I get that Trump is enthralled by AI and he likely saw this video and went ‘wow, that’s incredible … what a beautiful thing, right?’ but let’s have a little sensitivity.”

“This is the kind of shit that is going to let the Dems win the generic ballot like 54-46 in the mid terms. We knew it was coming at some point, it’s baked in with Trump. Taking petty stupid fights and posts on social media is who he is. The only good thing I can grasp is that idk how much people really care about mean tweets anymore”

“I get that Trump isn't afraid to speak his mind... but how is this Presidential? Let Don Jr post it…”

“If Trump wasn't POTUS and just some investor I'd be all over this, but I would love a little more level of seriousness from the most powerful man in the world.”

Of course, the people voicing rational criticism were accused of being “leftist trolls” and “bots,” so don’t ever underestimate the Trump cult’s ability to rationalize anything and everything. That even extends to their fellow conservatives getting squeamish at Trump’s embrace of idolatry—something the Bible says is supposedly bad.

Responding to Trump on his Instagram post, "Melaniethemortgagechick" posted this:

This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is a humanity issue. I voted for Donald Trump. I did NOT vote for this. Neither did anyone else I know. The lack of humanity, decency, respect has made me regret my vote. We did NOT vote for you to take a graveyard and turn it into an adult play ground. It was to stop the killing and to stop sending Israel our hard earned money. Not to make a mockery of the loss of hundreds of thousands of people who are STILL not even buried yet. Even at war we allow people the right to bury their dead with dignity. Especially when we know that most were not holding guns shooting at our allies.
And the context of the video! Your presidency is supposed to be a legacy, and this video will forever shadow it. Instead of being remembered 100 years from now as one of the greatest presidents, history is going to dictate you making a mockery of a genocide and apartheid.

After being roundly mocked for because she voted for exactly this, "Melaniethemortgagechick" deleted her entire account.

Over at Truth Social, the responses are also … not great for Trump.

“This may be trolling, but many of us your supporters) are scratching our heads over this one! The golden statue of yourself is very disheartening, and the men dressed as woman are exactly what we are trying to get away from! This video is heartbreaking and will make even the biggest DJT supporters question what the F is going on! I don't like it at all! 💔”

The AI-rendered golden statue of Trump is evincing particular disgust over on Trump’s own social media outlet.

“What sort of sick ad is this?! I have been behind you Trump, but this inspiration of a golden God-like statue of you, standing in a metropolis built on the graves of tens of thousands of murdered (mostly) children and women is SICK. You should remove this video and apologise to the Palestinians, and the good people of the world who've watched the genocide for over a year. Besides, this is NOT your land, it belongs to the Palestinian people!!! You're giving yourself a bad name and image. Just get rid of this video. It's SICK SICK SICK.”

“This is just plain wrong!! This video is in very bad taste and just plain horrible!! The gold statue is 100% wrong no matter which way you try to make it come across. This video makes me sick.”

At least one conservative on Truth Social is coming around to where Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the rest of us were last summer.

“Something does not add up here??? Really does not feel that this is something Trump would post!!” the Trump fan wrote. “Wonder if someone is messing with his account??!! I surely hope so!! Very creepy!!”

Yes, creepy! Did anyone find out why Democrats dropped the “creepy” and “weird” attack lines that were resonating so well during the 2024 election season? Anyway, I digress.

One of the most bizarre elements of the video that spurred reactions was the bearded belly dancers, because, you know, AI is weird:

“bearded belly dancers; you dancing with someone other than your wife; this was weird for me and I love you Trump- This should be deleted; not good.”

Oh dear. If this MAGAt is concerned about Trump dancing with someone other than his wife … who wants to tell her?

There will never be a singular moment that will move Trump voters to proclaim, “I SEE THE LIGHT—I SHOULD’VE VOTED FOR KAMALA.” Most will never stop defending their cult leader. They have too much ego invested in him.

But remember, we don’t need them all. Siphoning just 10 percent of Trump voters would shift millions of votes, and swaying 10 percent of nonvoters would add millions more. And that’s what Democrats are looking for in order to defeat Trump: doubts and unease, slowly ratcheting up over the coming year. Death by a thousand paper cuts.

This video cut deeper than anything I’ve seen during this Trump presidency so far. Nothing has outraged his own supporters more. And if this helps them get used to being angry at their Dear Leader, it’ll be easier to get mad at him next time.

And Trump can always be counted on to give them a next time.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Whiskey

Kentucky Is About To Get Screwed By Trump Again

What’s that old definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

Enter Kentucky.

Back in 2018, as then-President Donald Trump did his usual bullying act with Europe, the European Union hit back in a smart and targeted manner, slapping retaliatory sanctions against Trump-supporting industries (e.g., coal, agriculture) and states (e.g., Texas, Florida, Kentucky).

The tariffs cost those industries dearly, yet voters in those states seemingly decided that free and unfettered trade with our allies was too big a price to pay for transgender people having rights or the price of eggs being too high, so they voted for more of that pain last November.

And now in the spotlight is Kentucky’s whiskey industry. Here’s WCPO, an ABC affiliate out of nearby Cincinnati, Ohio:

The threat stems from actions taken by the first Trump Administration in 2018, when the U.S. first slapped 25% and 10% tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports, respectively. European Union officials then imposed a 25% retaliatory tariff on American whiskey exports, which it suspended in 2022.

"We saw tens—if not hundreds—of millions of millions of dollars of impact on exports that the bourbon industry is just recovering from," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said during a Jan. 16 press conference. "A state, again, that voted for Trump by 30 points will get hit incredibly hard."

Eric Gregory, the president of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, an industry group, told WCPO that the 2018 tariffs cost his industry—and hence the state—upwards of roughly $580 million, which is a breathtaking amount. Those EU tariffs were 25 percent. The new tariffs, set to take effect on March 31 if no deal is reached between the U.S. and EU, will be double that: 50 percent. Kentucky distillers export over 95 percent of the world’s bourbon products, with the EU being their biggest export market, according to Gregory.

Want to guess the next-biggest market? Mexico and Canada—Trump’s newest foes.

Bourbon is a $9 billion industry, according to the Kentucky Distillers’ Organization. The group says the local industry employs over 23,100 people and generates $358 million in tax revenue. In other words, these distillers and Kentucky could be in for a world of hurt.

"We're trying to sound the alarms as much as possible that these are good, paying American jobs that are in jeopardy," Gregory told WCPO. "We have been caught up in trade wars that have nothing to do with whiskey."

Except it has everything to do with Trump’s trade wars. Trump started a fight that has already generated a great deal of collateral damage. The smartest trade partners will do what the EU did—retaliate against his own supporters. And given that Trump’s answer to everything right now is “TARIFFS,” expect the pain to go deep.

What’s worse for these guys, domestic consumption of alcohol is down.

“The new Generation Z (isn't) drinking as much. You've got everything from weight loss drugs that deter the effects of alcohol to supply chain issues," Gregory said. "When you look at cutting off a major supply market like the EU with all this bourbon sitting here, that's a recipe for trouble."

"We need President Trump's help to figure out a way to help us get out of this mess that we've been ensnared in,” he added.

Of course, Trump doesn't care. Kentucky could’ve done something about it on Election Day, but they opted for this—and by a massive margin. As the state that also foisted Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell on us (as well as GOP Sen. Rand Paul)—if anyone deserves what’s coming, it may just be Kentucky.

The hope is now that as countries weigh retaliatory tariffs, they take the EU’s lead and focus their retaliations on red states and red-leaning industries as much as possible.

The next four years will suck, but anything that directs the pain at the right people makes it a little more bearable.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Why Red States Will Rue Trump's Plan To Deport Undocumented Immigrants

Why Red States Will Rue Trump's Plan To Deport Undocumented Immigrants

Whether immigration played a significant role in Donald Trump’s presidential victory this November, he and his nascent administration have certainly read the election results as a mandate to deliver on his promises of mass deportations.

Yet talk is easier than action, and if carried out, the costs will be disproportionately borne by red states and areas.

Half of all undocumented immigrants in the country live in Florida, Texas, and California, according to data compiled by the American Immigration Council. But while California will put up every legal roadblock and refuse to assist federal authorities in targeting its own undocumented population, Texas and Florida may gleefully participate.

In Florida, 5% of the population is undocumented, or 1.1 million people, and that doesn’t include immigrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti residing under temporary protected status, which will clearly be targeted by the Trump administration.

If emptied out of all undocumented immigrants, Florida would lose $1.8 billion in tax revenue, while Texas would lose nearly $5 billion, while those same immigrants are mostly ineligible for government benefits. That’s free money for the states.

Then there are the economic consequences—if you remove millions of low-wage workers, everything from agriculture, to construction, to industries like hospitality suddenly become dramatically more expensive. Florida’s 2023 anti-immigrant law, which cracked down on businesses hiring undocumented workers, could end up costing the state over $12 billion a year. Crops are rotting in the field, as farms lack the labor for harvest. Roofing companies, swamped with work after hurricane season, lack workers to patch up homes.

And what happens when demand is greater than supply? Trump is going to have a hard time fulfilling promises of lowering prices when his signature policies (deportation and tariffs) are both highly inflationary.

For industries like agriculture and construction, the cost of mass deportations is so high and obvious that it is downright shocking that they would vote as Republican as they did. Nationally, 64 percent of rural voters—heavily dependent on agriculture—voted for Trump.

The numbers are even more stark in counties classified as “farming dependent” by the United States Department of Agriculture. Of the 444 farming-dependent counties, Trump won 433 of them by an average of 78 perccent. The outliers? They were mostly Black-majority farming counties along the Mississippi River in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

So it’s kind of pathetic watching industry agricultural groups now beg Trump to spare their workers from the very thing they voted for. (These are the same people who are also freaked out about tariffs and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)

There are electoral ramifications as well. Undocumented immigrants are counted by the census and are included for purposes of reapportionment, which impacts the Electoral College. Given that California and New York are expected to lose as many as 7-8 seats to Texas and Florida, a massive shift in the undocumented population would certainly affect these projections. If these projections pan out, a Democratic presidential nominee will need more than just the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to win the White House (unlike today).

The combination of expulsions, self-deportations (as immigrants head back home on their own), and migratory shifts from unsafe red states to sanctuary blue states could very well dramatically reshape the reapportionment math. It will bear watching if Trump disproportionately targets blue states for this very reason, despite the aggressively anti-immigrant governors in Florida and Texas, happy to lend the feds a helpful hand.

Trump’s biggest challenge, of course, is reality. How do you deport 12 million undocumented workers? The United States Border Patrol has less than 20,000 agents as of 2022, and just under 17,000 of those actually patrolling the border.

Where are they going to get the manpower to raid Los Angeles, Houston, Omaha, and Peoria in any appreciable numbers? Some estimates place the cost of deportations at hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

Without state support, the feds will have limited options. “It’s not going to be successful, as long as we have sanctuary cities and states that refuse to allow local and state police departments to work with ICE,” former Trump U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner Mark Morgan told Stateline.

So what is the benefit of a plan that is horrifically expensive, drives prices up for everyone, disproportionately harms rural America and red states, and may actually give blue states a population boost ahead of the 2030 census?

There is a very real chance that Trump’s mass deportation effort accounts to little more than typical Trump bluster and some high-profile raids. But if Texas and Florida lean in hard to help out in their own states, self-deportation back to their homelands and internal migration to safer blue states may very well end up backfiring on Republicans with the only thing they truly care about—their ability to wield power.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Do Kansas And Nebraska Polls Mean More Bad News For Trump?

Do Kansas And Nebraska Polls Mean More Bad News For Trump?

Saturday’s Iowa Selzer poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa 47-44 isn’t the only poll suggesting that something big is happening in our country.

Donald Trump won Iowa in 2020 by an eight-point margin. If Selzer’s numbers hold up, it would make an 11-point swing toward Harris in the state.

In Kansas, the Kansas Speak poll by the Docking Institute at Fort Hays State University found Trump winning the state by a meager 5-point margin, 48-43. Trump won the state in 2020 by 15. If the poll is right, it would mark a 10-point shift, similar to Iowa.

For reference, in 2020 the poll predicted a 14.4 percent Trump victory. He won the state by 14.6 percent.

And Siena recently polled Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District for The New York Times, finding Harris beating Trump 54-42, or 12 points. Nebraska allocates a single electoral vote to the winner of each of the state’s three congressional districts (including its "blue dot" Omaha district), and Joe Biden won it 52-46 in 2020. If the Times is right, that’s a six-point shift to the left in yet another midwestern rural-ish district.

There is something happening in rural America, in exactly the kind of districts that Trump and Republicans are depending as the foundation of their electoral chances.

And it all comes down to women.

“Independent voters, who had consistently supported Trump in the leadup to this election, now break for Harris. That’s driven by the strength of independent women, who back Harris by a 28-point margin, while independent men support Trump, but by a smaller margin,” the Des Moines Register reported, digging into the Selzer poll’s crosstabs. “Similarly, senior voters who are 65 and older favor Harris. But senior women support her by a more than 2-to-1 margin, 63 percent to 28 percent, while senior men favor her by just two percentage points, 47 percent to 45 percent.”

Those Kansas and Nebraska results only make sense if that same dynamic is playing out in the broader midwest.

And if it is? Look out, because this election will look a lot different than everyone has been assuming thus far.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kamala Harris

New Iowa Poll Is 'Canary In The Coal Mine' For Trump

Ann Selzer’s Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register came out Saturday, and it’s a political thermonuclear bomb:

Kamala Harris: 47
Donald Trump: 44

The previous poll had Trump up 47-43 in September, and leading President Joe Biden 50-32 in June.

And this matters far beyond saying “it’s just one poll.”

Selzer is one of the nation's most accurate pollsters, doing the vast majority of her work in her home state of Iowa.

Her track record is impeccable: (Actual results in parenthesis)

2022 Senate: R+12 (R+12)
2020 President: R+7 (R+8)
2020 Senate: R+4 (R+7)
2018 Governor: D+2 (R+3) — a rare miss
2016 President: R+7 (R+9)
2014 Senate: R+7 (R+8)
2012 President: D+5 (D+6)

I remember that 2016 poll like it was yesterday. At the time, Iowa was still considered a battleground state, with Hillary Clinton’s campaign heavily contesting it. When those results came back, we shrugged them off, as they were significantly out of line with other polling showing a close but steady Clinton lead. In hindsight, it was the canary in the coal mine.

And that’s what this is for Donald Trump now. It’s not just the trendlines. Trump won Iowa by eight points in 2020. Even a swing of a few points in a white, rural, midwestern state spells incredible danger for Republican chances across the entire midwest, and even into Nebraska, where independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn is trying to pull off a massive upset to unseat incumbent Republican Deb Fischer in that deep red state. Iowa also has two competitive House races, and if these numbers hold, Democrats could flip both of them on Tuesday.

The internals are downright brutal for Trump and his party.

“Independent voters, who had consistently supported Trump in the leadup to this election, now break for Harris. That’s driven by the strength of independent women, who back Harris by a 28-point margin, while independent men support Trump, but by a smaller margin,” the Register reported.

“Similarly, senior voters who are 65 and older favor Harris. But senior women support her by a more than 2-to-1 margin, 63 percent to 28 percent, while senior men favor her by just two percentage points, 47 percent to 45 percent.”

Harris is crushing it with white, older, rural women.

And who are the most reliable voters, not just in Iowa but the entire freakin’ country? Yeah, those white, older, rural women.

So the polling aggregators? Throw them out. Even Nate Silver admits that the data inputs for them—public polls—are garbage, with “herding” driving risk-averse pollsters into releasing the exact same numbers as their peers.

“Specifically, the odds are 1 in 9.5 trillion against at least this many polls showing such a close margin,” Silver wrote. Yet somehow he refuses to make the next leap—if the data is quite literally impossible, then how can his model still be of any insight given that it is based on that garbage data?

That goes for 538 and all the other aggregators. Throw them out. This is a different kind of election.

As I tweeted on Friday:

This Selzer poll proves my point, and it won’t be the only state in which the final results will be different than what the public polling and the aggregators claim.

I will say this: Harris is looking really good in the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And holy shit, the ground game is driving hard for that final victory.

The sunbelt states are tighter, and Trump has a real chance to win them. We don’t want that. We want to win everything and then some. Like Iowa. And the Texas and Florida Senate races.

So no, none of this is to say that Harris and Senate and House Democrats have it in the bag. We work hard for every last possible vote, everywhere.

But just like in 2016, Selzer has reset the expectations of the race.

Let’s freakin’ finish strong and bring it home.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kamala Harris Delivers Powerful 'Closing Argument' To Huge Ellipse Crowd

Kamala Harris Delivers Powerful 'Closing Argument' To Huge Ellipse Crowd

In front of a massive overflow crowd numbering up to 75,000 people, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her “closing argument” in DC’s Ellipse.

The crowds were straight out of Donald Trump’s fondest fantasies, the kind of crowd he couldn’t garner this year to save his life. (Madison Square Garden’s capacity is 19,500, so he maybe drew a third of Harris’ crowd at his Nazi rally).

You know how Trump always lies about the 50,000 people outside his venues? That might actually be true for Harris in this case. Remember, this is the OVERFLOW.

Harris spoke about Trump’s inability to campaign for anyone but himself, how he aims to divide the country, and his impulse to turn every single detractor into the enemy.

The rally’s location wasn’t an accident. It delivered a message of its own.

Unlike Trump’s airing of grievances and never-ending stream of weird or offensive lies, Harris actually showed up with real issues. “Donald Trump will walk into that office with an enemies list,” she said. “I will walk in with a to-do list.”

She spoke of lowering the cost of child care, making homeownership possible for more people, ending gun violence, and allowing Medicare to cover the cost of home care. Harris promised to sign the bipartisan border bill into law, which got a tepid response from the crowd but is good politics and, quite possibly, good policy. But she followed that up with a full defense of immigrants to a much more enthusiastic audience response.

She promised to restore federal abortion rights.

Harris attacked Trump for his disrespect of our men and women in uniform. “I will always honor, never denigrate, the service and sacrifice of our troops and their families and fulfill our sacred obligation to care for them,” she said. “I will strengthen, not surrender, America’s global leadership. I will stand with our friends because I know our alliances keep Americans safe.”

She said that Trump offers “more chaos,” which is a theme I would love to see stressed even more. People are tired of the Trump circus, even many of his supporters. I suspect that promising some calm in the White House is a winner. She contrasted with Trump’s promises to jail his critics and opponents, offering to be a president for all Americans.

“I will always put country over party and self,” she said. “I love my country with all my heart, and I believe in its promise.” She compared America’s fight for freedom against a petty tyrant to the current fight to prevent another petty tyrant from taking power. I loved this:

She compared America’s fight for freedom against a petty tyrant to the current fight to prevent another petty tyrant from taking power. I loved this: Unlike Trump’s closing statement at Madison Square Garden, she kept things short and sweet. No one left early. No one was insulted in the most vulgar terms.

And in the end, she made people feel good about supporting her, about heading out to do all the GOTV work we need to do to bring this one home. She’s kind, hopeful, unifying, composed, and coherent.

The contrast couldn’t be starker.

I feel good about next Tuesday. Let’s close strong!



Trump's Nazi Nostalgia Rally In Manhattan Backfires Spectacularly

Trump's Nazi Nostalgia Rally In Manhattan Backfires Spectacularly

Donald Trump wanted his Nazi-style rally at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, the media capital of the world. And then he let out his MAGA movement’s ugly all-out bigotry.

It is his campaign’s biggest blunder, and it’s a big one. Even Republicans are freakin’ the f’ out.

On Sunday, I immediately wrote up the “jokes” by MAGA “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe about Puerto Rico being “literally a floating island of garbage, or the one about “Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country." Nothing like mixing lewd ejaculation jokes with racism.

I knew it would send shockwaves through the Boriqua community in key battleground states. And boy, did it ever.

The holy trinity of Puerto Rican stardom—Bad Bunny, J-Lo, and Ricky Martin, with over 315 million combined followers on Instagram alone—have been on a tear, sharing Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan for Puerto Rico side-by-side with the comedian’s racist tirade against the island.

Other Puerto Rican celebrities like Luis Fonsi (16 million Instagram followers) followed suit. This was Bad Bunny’s first time engaging this election.

In fact, Bad Bunny shared Harris’ video four times. He’s pissed.

You know Republicans know they’re in deep shit, and not just because “rally is racist” headlines are now dominating the news (more on that below).

“This joke bombed for a reason. It's not funny and it's not true,” tweeted Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott. “Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans! I’ve been to the island many times.”

Not only is Scott locked in a tough reelection battle, but he’s already had to deal with Trump and his pals alienating the Haitian community, another large and politically active Florida voting bloc.

”Disgusted by @TonyHinchcliffe’s racist comment calling Puerto Rico a 'floating island of garbage,'” tweeted Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar. “This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values.” Except that of course it does. It was literally featured in Trump’s big rally. And Trump sure hasn’t disavowed it (and no, the campaign doesn’t count; he has to apologize for it).

Other Republicans followed suit, like Puerto Rico’s Republican Party chairman, Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez, and New York Rep. Anthony D’Esposito. More will likely join the list in the next 24 hours.

And the headlines, oh the headlines! (These are the headlines as I write this. They are often changed.)

CNN’s entire top half of its homepage on Sunday night: “Trump loyalists spew racist, vulgar attacks at NYC rally.” You know how hard it is for media outlets to say the word “racist.” That’s how racist it was.

The Washington Post: “Trump rally speakers invoke racist tropes in denouncing Harris; Vance defends Trump’s ‘enemies within’ comments.” Glad Jeff Bezos decided to cave to the racists!

The New York Times: “Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally.” OMG, even the Times used the word “racist” to describe racism! Progress!

Univision: “Aliados de Trump insultan a Harris y denigran a los puertorriqueños en evento en el Madison Square Garden.” In English: “Trump allies insult Harris and denigrate Puertoricans.” The story explained that “comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s set was full of vulgar and denigrating supposed jokes, full of racist stereotypes of Latinos, Jews, and Blacks.” (My translation.)

Telemundo: “El comediante Tony Hinchcliffe hace chistes racistas sobre los latinos y Puerto Rico en evento de Trump en el Madison Square Garden.” In English, “Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe makes racist jokes about Latinos and Puerto Ricans.”

Guys, this shit is brutal.

In fact, it’s so bad that people are barely focused on whatever drivel Trump spewed. The entire narrative has been reset.

This is the October surprise: everyone, including the media, finally realizing what the MAGA movement truly is and being unafraid to state it. The “comedian” himself sure as heck sees nothing wrong with his racism and bigotry. And Gimenez, despite criticizing Hinchcliffe, sure went out of his way to praise Trump, the guy whose operation hired Hinchcliffe for the act.

This is who they are.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

JD Vance and Tim Walz debate

Politely Dull Debate Changes Nothing As Election Draws Closer

It was a debate that changed zero minds, no home runs were hit, and no flubs were made.

Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance came out looking like a My Chemical Romance groupie. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was shaky and glitchy. But it wasn’t long before both candidates got in a groove, mostly civil, mostly sticking to the rules.

Some observations:

  • Vance pivoted away from every opportunity to defend Donald Trump, focusing his attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris instead. I bet Trump didn’t love that.
  • Walz focused both on defending the Biden-Harris administration and attacking Trump.
  • Vance leaned heavily into the “Why didn’t Harris fix things the last four years?” narrative that Trump was supposed to deploy during his one debate with Harris. The problem with that line, of course, is that Trump didn’t accomplish all the things he claimed he’d do, like build a wall paid for by Mexico, when he was actually president. Does it matter? Nope. But it’s a safe attack line, and one that is difficult to defend with “Republicans control the Senate and sabotaged the bipartisan border deal.” In politics, if you’re explaining, you’re losing.
  • As you’d expect, Republicans are losing their minds over CBS’ mild fact checks, because they love screaming “Why do they keep pointing out our lies?” Vance himself whined, “The rules were that you were not going to fact-check me.” That’ll be brutally memed and is a top moment from the debate, akin to George H.W. Bush looking at his watch.
  • Media false equivalency at work: Walz misstating exactly when he was in China 35 years ago is totally the same thing as Vance endangering an entire immigrant community in Springfield, Ohio, by lying about them eating their neighbors’ pets.
  • Walz crushed the segment on abortion, with Vance literally admitting that women don’t trust Republicans on abortion. Vance also lied about his past support for a national abortion ban. Fortuitously, the moderators and candidates lingered on the issue for an extended period of time. The issue is so toxic for Republicans that Trump quite literally lost his mind on his Truth Social:

EVERYONE KNOWS I WOULD NOT SUPPORT A FEDERAL ABORTION BAN, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, AND WOULD, IN FACT, VETO IT, BECAUSE IT IS UP TO THE STATES TO DECIDE BASED ON THE WILL OF THEIR VOTERS (THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE!). LIKE RONALD REAGAN BEFORE ME, I FULLY SUPPORT THE THREE EXCEPTIONS FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER. I DO NOT SUPPORT THE DEMOCRATS RADICAL POSITION OF LATE TERM ABORTION LIKE, AS AN EXAMPLE, IN THE 7TH, 8TH, OR 9TH MONTH OR, IN CASE THERE IS ANY QUESTION, THE POSSIBILITY OF EXECUTION OF THE BABY AFTER BIRTH. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

  • The gun segment offered a shockingly civil and substantive discussion on the problem of gun violence. The country would be a lot better off if that was the energy lawmakers in Congress brought to the issue. Also, Walz had the best line in that exchange.
  • Vance quite successfully sold himself as a reasonable, human-like politician, while Walz is naturally nice, which is why he’s so popular nationally. The two wanted to seem nice and reasonable. Problem is, only Walz is that; Vance quite literally got the job by promising Trump he’d overturn the election given the chance.
  • Walz’s defense of the Affordable Care Act was stellar. Vance was boxed in by Trump’s “concepts of a plan” flub. He had some BS lined up about how Democrats fearmonger about a second Trump presidency and how Trump saved the law, but the reality is that Trump was a single vote away from repealing the ACA. Had Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) not unexpectedly flipped, we’d have no ACA today. We don’t need to fearmonger when we have reality showing us what will happen.
  • This gets its own bullet point: Vance claimed Trump saved the ACA. Yes, he really said that.
  • Debate moderators challenged Vance on his undemocratic efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. Vance’s revisionist response was beyond gaslighting. It was a completely different timeline paired with a transition to crying about made up liberal “censorship” as the real danger to democracy. If nothing else, this was more disqualifying than anything else Vance said. And as Vance refused to admit that Trump lost in 2020, Walz nailed him with a hilarious, “That’s a damning non-answer!”
  • I don’t pretend to understand how people perceive candidates. Al Gore smashed George W. Bush in 2000, and people decided they’d rather “have a beer” with Bush. If that test applies in Tuesday’s debate, Walz is quite easily the more likable candidate, far more so than the fast-talking emo makeup-wearing Yale lawyer.
  • If this debate has any impact on the race, it won’t be because of those watching it to the end (political junkies), or an increasingly ridiculous punditry. It will be because of the meme war. And as such, I’m guessing the Zoomers will have a lot more material to mock Vance than Walz.

But really, watch the polling stay exactly the same all the way through Election Day.

Guys, this thing is going to be won on effort. Let’s finish strong!

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kamala Harris

Harris Absolutely Killed In Debate -- And Now We Must Work Even Harder

Vice President Kamala Harris began the debate Tuesday night with a power move—walking right up to a befuddled Donald Trump and shaking his hand. It signaled who was the boss, and she took command of the debate from the start. For 90 minutes, Trump was forced to respond to Harris’ attacks while she ignored his.

In question after question, Harris took hard, focused, and effective swipes at an increasingly agitated Trump. Increasingly rattled, Trump’s voice sped up, louder and louder until he was yelling into his microphone, sounding hysterical, repeating lies like “after birth abortions”—provoking a rare fact-check from the moderators. In fact, more than one.

“I’m not in favor of an abortion ban,” Trump barked, which will set off the right wing after he flopped all over the place on whether he’d vote for the Florida ballot initiative legalizing abortion in the state. (Trump ultimately said he will vote against abortion rights in his state.)

He said he didn’t talk to his vice presidential nominee, which doesn’t speak well for either him, Sen. JD Vance, or the ticket overall. Then he claimed he has been a “leader” on IVF, which will further enrage his evangelical foot soldiers.

And to what end? No one who believes in choice is going to believe Trump is their friend.

Harris hit Trump for sabotaging the bipartisan immigration deal in Congress, and then mocked him for his boring rallies, inviting viewers to actually attend a Trump rally to see for themselves for his nonsense. Trump took the bait, saying crazy things like “Harris pays people for her rallies”—something easily disproved by the eye test.

Moderators couldn’t help but offer a forceful and repeated fact check when he insisted the racist lie that “Haitians are eating dogs and cats”—pushed by his own running mate—is real. Harris burst out laughing. It was next-level unhinged, and will almost certainly feature prominently in post-debate clips.

Trump also attacked the FBI; claimed he was shot because of Democrats, even though his assailant was a registered Republican; insisted Democrats are a threat to democracy; cried that he wasn’t given enough credit for his disastrous COVID response; sputtered Harris is “against the defund the police”; claimed solar farms are a problem because they take desert soil; demanded all sorts of people be prosecuted; claimed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was supposed to bring in the National Guard during his Jan. 6 insurrection; claimed that it was a good thing that Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban is called a “strongman”; yelled “our country has gone to hell” and that he could’ve “let [the country] rot”; and flubbed the name of the top Taliban leader—and flubbed it confidently wrong.

He claimed in nearly every answer that the Biden-Harris administration was the worst in the history of the world. His sophomoric hyperbole doesn’t play in his own rallies anymore, and it certainly wasn’t playing Tuesday night. It was repetitive, rote, tedious, and boring.

And for all the media hysteria about Harris’ policy plans, when asked by moderators about Trump’s Obamacare replacement plan, it was clear he had none. Pressed for a plan, he stuttered, "I have concepts of a plan."

In a just world, Trump’s utter inability to have an answer should be the end of his charmed media coverage and campaign.

He also talked. A lot.

Meanwhile, Harris seemed to be having fun, getting Trump on the ropes and keeping him there.

"Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people," she quipped, sticking the shiv in. "Clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that.”

She ignored his attacks (beyond laughing or looking on bemused—fertile territory for a million TikToks). And by ignoring his attacks and launching her own, Trump couldn’t help but take the bait every single time. She landed hits on his crowd obsession, his anti-choice record, and his love for dictators.

“It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on Day One,” she said. She slammed his desire to give up Ukraine to Russia.

“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv,” she said. “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”

She was human, with personal anecdotes and heartfelt appeals to her work for the American people—a stark contrast to shouting, angry Trump.

And she landed perhaps the best blow of the night when she asked people to pay attention to Trump’s rallies, and how he never talks about what he will do for voters, focused instead on conspiracy theories and personal grievances. Or was it her brilliant soliloquy on Trump’s history of divisive racism?

Trump never made eye contact with Harris. Meanwhile, Harris would look right at Trump when ripping him apart. That, in itself, was as much a power move as her initial handshake.

The moderators, David Muir from "World News Tonight" and ABC News anchor Linsey Davis, were perfect. No nonsense. They followed up when Trump wouldn’t answer a question. They fact-checked Trump’s nonsense multiple times, on everything from abortion to the 2020 election.

Believe it or not, the first debate between Trump and President Joe Biden barely budged poll numbers. The pre-debate narrative was “Trump lies and Biden is old,” and that’s exactly what people saw. It was baked in.

For this debate, it was “Trump lies and Harris doesn’t have any ideas.” And yes, people saw Trump lie, but they also saw him lose his composure, spittle flying as he screamed about dogs and cats getting eaten and other nutso conspiracies.

As for Harris, they saw her in prosecutor mode, knowing her shit, and dominating Trump. She began the night with a power move handshake, and she ended it with another one:

Will it move numbers? Who knows? Voters are weird. But if conservatives truly do hate weakness, they will be profoundly shook at how weak, small, and old Trump looked Tuesday. As of now, they’re trying to blame the moderators. Here is the guy in charge of Trump’s get-out-the-vote operation:

Democrats, we have a great candidate. Now we work hard to bring it home.

Let’s do this.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Citing Trump Site's Lie About Her, Taylor Swift Endorses Harris-Walz

Citing Trump Site's Lie About Her, Taylor Swift Endorses Harris-Walz

We were waiting for this, and the debate was the impetus Taylor Swift needed to finally endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Posting to her 283 million followers on Instagram, Swift wrote:

Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.

Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.

I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.

I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.

With love and hope,

Taylor Swift

Childless Cat Lady

“Childless Cat Lady” is the ultimate slam. Perfect.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mark Robinson

In North Carolina Church, GOP Candidate Says 'Some Folks Need Killing'

Republicans sure know how to pick them, huh?

In an hour-long diatribe in a church, North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson tossed aside the Ten Commandments his ilk want to install in schoolrooms. Rather than “thou shall not kill,” Robinson opined with, “Some folks need killing!”

The New Republiclistened to the whole sermon:

Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.

“Kill them,” Robinson added. “Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful. Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to.”

Calls for murder don’t “sound awful,” they are awful. This is not normal, no matter how much MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump may desperately want it to be so.

This is what we’re fighting against this November.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.