1. The media can’t stop themselves from using extreme rhetoric to describe this “blue wave”: “monumental,” “catastrophic,” “historic.” It was, in fact, a pretty typical wipe out of the controlling party in a mid-term election, and certainly not the “extinction level event” Ron DeSantis claimed in the aftermath. Wouldn’t it be nice if reporters, pundits and public figures bothered to learn some history? I guess its more fun to make people fearful and hysterical.
Here are the worst post-WW II losses by a President’s party:
2010 Barack Obama lost 63 House seats (and 6 Senate seats), the largest modern midterm swing.
1946 Harry S Truman lost 56 House seats and 12 Senate seats.
1994 Bill Clinton lost 54 House seats and 8 Senate seats.
1958 Dwight Eisenhower lost 50 House seats and 13 Senate seats.
1974 Gerald Ford lost 48 House seats and 4 Senate seats.
And in 2018, Trump lost 41 House seats.
But that’s peanuts compared to mid-term losses in Congress suffered by earlier Presidents. Grover Cleveland lost 125 seats in 1894! In 1874, President Grant lost 98 seats in the House. Heck, even FDR got clobbered in 1938, losing 72 seats. (cont.)
Many constituencies of discontent seem to have coalesced into a unified front with the objective of destroying the founding principles and proven long-held values of the United States. This intersectional dissent is represented by the BIPOC/LGBTQ+ flags flying seemingly everywhere in place of the Stars and Stripes.
Broadly speaking, these constituencies are deconstructionists, seeking to take apart nearly everything that had made America great and reassemble it in their preferred order. They seem to assume everyone will get along once the capitalist, white, heterosexual, Judeo-Christian, Constitutional, patriarchal society is relegated to the dustbin of history or the reeducation camps.
What are these constituencies and what new reality do they plan to deliver that will make all the evils they’ve experienced in the United States disappear in the rearview mirror of history? [Cont.]
I could have written most of this post two days ago and it would have been exactly the same. But there is always hope and optimism, and I am a sap at heart.
1. Black entrepreneur and pundit Adam Coleman nailed it in his substack. He writes in part,
…When you’re glued into politics, reading blogs, scrolling through social media, you get inundated with niche issues and everyone is trying to convince you that this is the defining problem that will swing an election…And it never really is. These are usually tertiary to the real reason the average person who barely cares about politics got in their car and drove to the polls; kind of like a protest drive since gas prices are relatively high. The country isn’t split between hardcore Democrats and Republicans because clustered in the middle are fickle and swing voters who are reacting to the moment. These are people who selectively vote (even if they predominantly vote for one party) or might vote for both parties. These are regular Americans who pay more attention to their wallets than what some Ivy League economist says about the economy. I once heard someone describe the economy for the average person as a “vibe” versus a reality and I think they’re kind of right…Pretty much every president has low approval ratings, or at least periods of low approval ratings that coincided with midterm elections.Right or wrong, the economic woes of the public will always be put at the feet of the president. If the stock market sucks, it’s the president’s fault. If you can’t afford DoorDash like you used to, it’s the president’s fault.
The midterms are the way for the American public to punish the president in power. Yes, the typical political discussions matter, like quality of candidates etc. However, if people are angry and emotional, they don’t generally make rational decisions. If the reason for them voting is based on spite, do you really have a chance of changing their minds? You can’t fact your way out of shifting an emotional voter.
I kept getting the same irrational response Coleman describes from even more politically engaged friends and relatives, despite the fact that the rate of inflation has come down since the Biden administration, and even though the recent GNP report showed vivid economic growth.
2. What creates a “vibe” that is illusory and manipulative?The news media, of course. (Cont.)
How did I miss THIS story? I guess People Magazine does have its uses: it recently surfaced what EA would headline as a “Now THIS is an Unethical High School Principal!” piece if I had been doing my ethics story research better in 2012. People’s catalyst was a episode of the docuseries “The Curious Case Of…“, and there had been an earlier docuseries on this screwy case in 2023, True Crime Story: Look Into My Eyes.
The bottom line: Dr. George Kenney was a North Port High School in Sarasota County, Florida who got interested in hypnotism, took some courses in the procedure, and decided to hypnotize over 70 people according to the Sarasota-Herald Tribune, including students, athletes and colleagues,to help them cope with problems in their lives, or something. Hypnotism is regarded as therapy, and one has to be licensed to use it on consenting adults unless you have a Vegas act that makes volunteers from the audience think they are chickens or wombats. Hypnosis can be dangerous with subjects who have mental or emotional disorders, so when three of his student subjects died in the spring of 2011, one in a suspicious car crash and two by suicide, Kenney’s hypnosis hobby came under fire. He was never indicted or sued in connection with the three teens’ deaths, but Kenney was charged with two misdemeanors for practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license. He pleaded no contest and resigned as principal in 2012.
You can read the People story from earlier this year here. Meanwhile,
Early voting is, EA holds without doubts, a breach of election integrity, a system that deliberately appeals to the blind, apathetic, knee-jerk partisan voter. The reason should be obvious: the campaign period is a time to learn about the character and positions of candidates, and not infrequently information arises during that period relevant to the voter’s determination of who is worthy of trust and support. In my case, a campaign ad in which a candidate lies or makes a statement that I consider disqualifying will potentially change my vote.
In the current election, two revelations came to light that should, or at least could cause a discerning voter to change his or her mind. One is the accumulating evidence that Rep. Omar engaged in immigration fraud. The other is the New York Times report that Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign deliberately sought to confuse voters by recruiting a second Dan Sullivan—that’s the GOP Senate candidate’s name— to appear on Alaska’s ballot.
When I read this report from the Washington Free Beacon, I was momentarily tempted to officially double-ban the already banned commenter “A Friend” on general ethics principles. This jerk had the gall to keep insisting that the Times is a respectable and reliable source of news and analysis despite Mt. Chimborazo-size heaps of evidence to the contrary. Now, the paper apparently doesn’t care who knows just how stupidly biased it is.
In past years, EA (and its less active and now Dead on the Web predecessor, The Ethics Scoreboard) would issue a list of “The Dirty Dozen” candidates on the ballot in approaching elections that were, by any reasonable measure, unfit for elected office. I always made a point of dividing the election blacklist evenly between Republicans and Democrats; it wasn’t hard, and wouldn’t be hard to do for this election, either. Policy positions usually weren’t the criteria, unless a particular position was especially dangerous or per se revolting. I haven’t checked if advocating “reparations” would get someone on the list; as I recall, no. “Defunding the police” is so idiotic that I now believe it would justify blacklisting, but in the past, my threshold for stupidity was higher: it took something like that GOP moron who asserted that the female body knew that rape wasn’t legit so it would not permit a pregnancy after non-consensual sex.
Here is the list of things that would not get a candidate on the list, as last stated in 2024:
Isolated verbal gaffesthat are plausibly innocent mistakes.
Unsubstantiated accusations, rumors or suppositions.
Embarrassing private photos that pre-date the candidate’s political career.
Any conduct, statement or opinion that was not a crime or that did not cause genuine harm occurring in college or more than two decades ago.
Reversals in policy positions or actions inconsistent with campaign promises, that can reasonable be attributed to changed circumstances, new perspective, justifiable political strategy, or a good faith change in opinion.
Mere associations or friendships with individuals who have shady or questionable reputations.
Almost anything said in a private conversation that has been recorded or allegedly overheard, other than criminal conspiracies and admissions of corruption.
Any inappropriate action or comment for which the candidate apologizes freely, spontaneously, credibly and sincerely.
Representations of unpopular or unsavory clients in a candidate’s legal career.
Misconduct by the candidate’s family members that had not been denied, covered up, or enabled by the candidate.
Or membership in a particular political party. In short, the criteria was ethical, not partisan. In 2024, the “Dirty Dozen” became the “Untrustworthy Twenty,” because the quality of our elected officials and the candidates for office have, amazingly, gotten ethically and intellectually worse. Lauren Boebert was on the list, because she is a screaming embarrassment to democracy, the Founders, her state, the Congress, her sex, height and just about everything else. So was Mitch McConnell and Byron Donalds, President Trump’s favorite black Republican.
However, in 2026 it seems naive to even try to assemble a bipartisan blacklist when one entire political party has made it clear as quartz that its mission is to undermine our government for the foreseeable future, beginning with a repeat of the unethical impeachments and contrived investigations they have employed since 2016 to prevent the elected President of the United States from governing.
The Democratic Party has devolved into an unethical party, top to bottom, and it has corrupted a dangerous number of Americans. In a sane society, a party that has chosen to die on such metaphorical hills as open boarders, “good discrimination,” aka. DEI, the climate change scam, the Epstein files, allowing trans women in women’s sports, refusing to enforce “reasonable” theft, demonizing Israel and Jews, packing the Supreme Court, enforced viewpoint conformity in universities, turning the military into a sensitivity and social justice cult, permitting unassimilatable cultures to flood the country with the results we are seeing in Europe, and more would be trailing the Green Party in membership and support. But this is the Age of the Great Stupid, and Democrats leaped at the chance to be its engine: all the better to gain the power to crush dissent and opposition.
2. She’s right: Anderson is reprimanding her, arguing with her, and acting as if he is personally invested in electing a lying, pro-terrorist, anti-Semite to the U.S. Senate because…well, Trump. CNN doesn’t even try to disguise its bias.
3. This woman was supposed to be a “rising star” in the Democratic Party? How hard is it to say, clearly and precisely, what’s the matter with El-Sayed? “I refuse to endorse a flagrant anti-Semite.” Too tough? So she says, “I haven’t cast my vote yet!”? She’s a babbling fool. Who cares what candidate someone this dim endorses?
4. Democratic State Rep. Karen Whitsett also announced that she is endorsing Mike Rogers, who is running against El Sayed. Good…let’s see if a black woman gets the same treatment as Stevens. Will James Carville call her a “used condom”?
5. Cooper claims that because El Sayed “agreed with her” regarding the PAC’s anti-Semitic ad, there was no reason for Stevens to endorse his opponent. But what Stevens demanded was El Sayed’s public rejection of the ad’s claim that Israel was at fault for the price of groceries. He wouldn’t do that because El Sayed is courting the Jew-hating vote. Why is Anderson Cooper assisting him in this careful tight-rope trip? Because he, and CNN, want the Democrats to win control of the Senate, that’s why.
Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens finally had enough of the anti-Semitic communist who narrowly defeated her in the Democratic Senate primary, Abdul El-Sayed, and endorsed his GOP opponent Mike Rogers over the weekend. That bold act of principle, triggered because Abdul El-Sayed refused to disavow an anti-Semitic campaign ad by an extreme progressive PAC, is causing the now almost completely corrupted Democratic party (and its brainwashed supporters) to expose its ethics rot.
El-Sayed has refused to disavow his previous statements against Israel. He has evaded questions about his support of the Muslim Brotherhood. He tried to bury social media posts about 9/11 suggesting that the U.S. deserved the attacks, and he has a long record of sucking up to open fascist Hasan Piker. Then the Rebellion released its ad that was roundly condemned by Republicans and the endangered species of decent Democrats. When the candidate adamantly resisted, Haley Stevens’ fiancee, announced that he cast his would his vote for Mike Rogers. Even then, Stevens gave El-Sayed a chance to disavow the ad, and his response was to tell her to stay away from a so-called “unity event” featuring, among others, Ethics Villain Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who was substantially responsible for inflicting Joe Biden’s Presidency on the nation.
So she endorsed Rogers, which was the ethical, responsible, courageous and right thing to do.
Now she’s under attack by her own party. Chuck Schumer called her endorsement of Rogers “a despicable betrayal.” Nancy Pelosi called it a betrayal and a “horrific endorsement.” Mayor Mamdani called it a betrayal since he also is in favor of wiping out Israel. Pramila Jayapal called the endorsement “a despicable betrayal,” and “unforgivable.” James Carville, classy as ever, called Haley Stevens “a used condom.” Most of Stevens’s staff resigned in protest, with a public statement essentially saying that if the US needs to put anti-Semites in the Senate to stop Trump, it was worth it. The Michigan Democrat Party has kicked her out.
Integrity is not “in.” This is your Democratic Party in 2026.
I ran across two essays just as I was prepping for a rare, in-person live seminar for young lawyers focusing on basic non-legal, life-competence skills essential to the effective and professional practice of law. One of those is understanding the importance and the power of culture. We all have a responsibility to care for the various cultures we swim in: a bad culture will corrupt us; a good culture will ennoble us and make us more successful and virtuous. If you can’t change a culture, you have to get out. The upcoming election is about, about, other things, what kind of culture our nation will have. People who don’t understand culture (or who don’t make the necessary effort to know what their culture is, like Malcolm Gladwell in his recent book) create problems for everyone, especially themselves.
That infuriating video above prompted a racist substacker named Max Remington (maybe) who describes himself as an “America First, isolationist, unilateralist, shameless nationalist, and post-Christian radical right-winger” to post this long essay. It’s lucid, more-or-less well-written, and provocative, but also displays the logical and ethical fallacies typically embraced by racists who are made stupid by their bias. I know them well: my ex-Marine law school room mate was a racist (and anti-Semite) much like this guy. My room mate got himself killed, but I have another racist friend with similar views, and most of my Greek-American relatives on my mother’s side were racists, including Mom.
In response, another substacker who goes by Sensurround Q Catgirl (or maybe that’s her real name) wrote this essay. Its main theme is that Max “provides absolutely ZERO evidence that race is the cause of the behaviors he’s describing.” “He provides statistics,” Catgirl continues. “He describes experiences. He identifies behaviors he finds objectionable, but then he makes an enormous logical leap from observing behavior to attributing that behavior to race.”
