WIN these 10 Senate races, and Democrats need just 12 Republicans to convict on impeachment.
Labor Day is the kickoff. Here’s the goal: 55 senators in the Democratic caucus.
That would leave Democrats just 12 votes short of the 67 needed to convict a president on impeachment.
Skeptics will say that sounds like a hell of a lot of Republicans. Maybe. But we already know more than that privately hate his guts, and a humiliating midterm defeat would turn him from a feared president into a defenseless lame duck.
With Labor Day kickoff approaching, I am focusing on winning these 10 Senate races and building a 55-45 Democratic caucus majority. Let’s go!
- Alaska: Mary Peltola (D) vs. Dan Sullivan (R)
- Georgia: Jon Ossoff (D) vs. Mike Collins (R)
- Iowa: Josh Turek (D) vs. Ashley Hinson (R)
- Maine: Troy Jackson (D) vs. Susan Collins (R)
- Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed (D) vs. Mike Rogers (R)
- Nebraska: Dan Osborn (I) vs. Pete Ricketts (R)
- North Carolina: Roy Cooper (D) vs. Michael Whatley (R)
- Ohio: Sherrod Brown (D) vs. Jon Husted (R)
- South Carolina: Dr. Annie Andrews (D) vs. Darline Graham (R)
- Texas: James Talarico (D) vs. Ken Paxton (R)
yeah, but…
Attribution: DEMOCRATS’ UNITY RIPPED BY INFIGHTING by Paul Duginski, CagleCartoons.com
Apr 13, 2026 The TOWTalk Podcast
Neil talks about how Democrats sabotage their own success.
Republican intra-party feuds don’t get the same media attention but they’ve got potentially fatal blood baths on their hands. Just look at Texas and South Carolina, where nomination losers are trashing the winners.
The Republican Party’s Midterm Nightmare Is Taking Shape
Democrats see an opening in the states where Trump’s policies are hitting hardest.
“The culprits are obvious: the exorbitant cost of living, Trump’s deep unpopularity with the political center and the massive enthusiasm gap Democrats enjoy over Republicans.”
— POLITICO
If conditions continue to deteriorate for Republicans. there’s even a chance Kansas and Mississippi could fall..
today’s history lesson
Quote Origin: Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
Question for Quote Investigator: One of the worst military strategists in history was a Civil War general named Ambrose Burnside (sideburns are named after his whiskers). After a military fiasco called the Battle of the Crater, Abraham Lincoln relieved him of command and supposedly said:
Only Burnside could have managed such a coup, wringing one last spectacular defeat from the jaws of victory.
The phrase “defeat from the jaws of victory” might be a cliché now, but I think Lincoln was one of the first to use it in this powerful quotation. Unfortunately, I am having trouble finding any solid references to this quote from before the 1970s. Can you tell me where I can find it in a Civil War newspaper, or a diary, or some other document from the era?
Reply from Quote Investigator: You have stumbled upon a Lincoln legend based on a false quotation. A fascinating newspaper article from 1971 states that the saying began as a mistake on the cover of the book “From the Jaws of Victory” by Charles Fair:1
The book, described as a “history of the character, causes and consequences of military stupidity, from Crassus to Johnson and Westmoreland,” is written satirically by Fair who said he has taken as his “hero” Gen. Ambrose Burnside of the Union Army during the Civil War.
Burnside, “so versatile in his stupidity as to defy categorization,” pulled such a masterpiece of ineptitude during the Peninsular Campaign, the book’s cover says, it prompted then President Abraham Lincoln to comment: “Only Burnside could have managed such a coup, wringing one last spectacular defeat from the jaws of victory.”
The only thing wrong with that, Fair said, is that Lincoln never said it. Fair said the quote was actually his own, but somewhere along the line Simon and Schuster, New York publishers, got the idea Lincoln had said it. Not only did the “quote” provide the title, Fair said, “We’ve probably created another Lincoln legend.”
Fair’s prediction was accurate. A legend was created by this spurious quotation, and now it is found in history books for adults and children.
How long have people been using the phrase “defeat from the jaws of victory”? The Yale Book of Quotations traces the phrase back to an instance in the New York Times dated March 5, 1891. QI located an 1874 example in the sports section of an Illinois paper. The reporter of a baseball game is sorely disappointed by the performance of a team named the White Stockings:2
The White Stockings yesterday earned their third defeat for the season. They were badly self-whipped, and in this lies their humiliation. Were they fairly defeated after having played a creditable game there would be no censure for them; but when they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory there can be little sympathy for their deserved misfortune.
It is possible that the phrase “defeat from the jaws of victory” was in use during the Civil War, but QI has not found any evidence at this time.
Update History: On March 13, 2025 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated.
1971 September 27, Bennington Banner, “New Book Details General’s Goofs: From the Jaws of Victory” by David Haskell, Page 12, Column 1, Bennington, Vermont. (NewspaperArchive) ↩︎
1874 May 24, The Daily Inter-Ocean, Sporting News: The White Stockings Defeated by the Mutuals for the Second Time, Page 8, Illinois. (GenealogyBank) ↩︎
Attribution: Is Trump the cause of death of GOP? by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com
Ha, PatD, i learned early about him — my uncle and a bunch of cousins lived in Burnside KY, had a houseboat on the Cumberland, spent a big chunk of my summers there. Local townsfolk didn’t talk about him much.
I asked Gemini AI to assess Trump’s post:
Here is Elon’s GROK response
AXIOS: Dems turning more GOP Senate strongholds into midterm battlegrounds
Even in Mississippi: Democrat Scott Colom is on a mission to make the Mississippi seat competitive.
Patd beat me to the history of Defeat from Victory
Lincoln didn’t say it, but probably would have as it perfectly matched his dry wit. First known citation is about 1890
We can’t even blame this one on Shakespeare, but the opposite comes close:
Shakespeare never wrote the exact idiom “jaws of defeat,” but he was absolutely obsessed with using the “jaws” (or “jowl”) of death, ruin, and darkness to describe a narrow escape from a catastrophic situation. Twelfth Night (Act 3, Scene 4): Shakespeare writes, “Into the gates of death, and shame, and hate… snatched one half out of the jaws of death.” A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 1, Scene 1): He uses the phrasing, “Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth… The jaws of darkness do devour it up.”
I’d say the Jaws of Victory line best fits Republicans in Texas.
yep, Jamie, “the jaws of darkness do devour it up.”
Attribution: Trump supper – by Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com
Bari Weiss putting her thumb on the scale again. She personally directed this morning’s CBS News headline about Abdul El-Sayed to be tweaked to specifically mention deleted tweets referencing the September 11 terrorist attacks
Reaction to Supremes meme
Republicans, Trump DOJ press Supreme Court to weaken federal protection against last-minute voter purges
More at link
A good book to ward off antisemitism in the midst of all the Islamophobia. As someone who has actually met a couple with tattoos on their arms, I strongly support the existence of Israel if not its current actions in the middle east. The source of most of the antisemitic quotes are not current. They go back over a century and up to the present day from the KGB.
It’s a fine line to walk as there is so much misinformation and governmental garbage on both sides.
It has been one of those strange mornings. I have been logged out of almost all sites and apps on my computer. It is weird. I have not figured it out yet, there must be a reasonable reason, and the russians did it is not reasonable anymore.
Trump’s impeachment panic meets the midterms👇
BlueB, that sounds like some sort of hyper aggressive browser cache clearing that might have been done in a behind the scenes system update? My Windows updates often do things that piss me off, like restoring default settings that I had purposely changed.
Suited up for today’s podcast with my new TEE
BB
Maybe it is that evil microsoft/apple playing with you. AKA an update.
On this computer microsoft is always playing with the settings. especially my homepage and wallpaper. I just gave up and enjoy the picture they want me to click on. The secret to getting along with modern tech is to mostly ignore it. Sams club has started signing me out everytime I close the browser even though I check the box not to.
Seems to be a Sams Club thing. Nobody else does it.
Jack
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/california-lawmakers-pass-bill-allowing-034635211.html
California lawmakers pass bill allowing people to identify their Jewish ancestry on state forms
The data would enable lawmakers to create policies that address the needs of Jews in the state, said David Bocarsly, CEO of Jewish California, an advocacy group.
Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace, a progressive anti-Zionist group, wasn’t convinced by that argument.
“When it comes to government holding lists of Jews, we do not trust your privacy guardrails,” Levy said at a hearing on the bill.
“Ultimately, it becomes a question of trust: do California Jews have confidence that this form of data collection will support and protect them or will it elevate concerns over the possible harm this sort of counting can do?” he said in an email.
Since the bill would categorize Jewish identity as an ethnicity, it could help the state track hate crimes against Jews, Dollinger said.
Levy said he also disagrees with categorizing Jews as a single ethnic group.
“Latino Jews like myself, as well as other Jews of color, have cultures and experiences different from those of white Jews,” Levy said at the hearing.
*Yep, just like Arab Jews (and Arab Christians and Arab Muslims) are put on a lower tier by Israeli Jews. Israel is an apartheid state.
https://deadline.com/2026/08/matt-bradley-nbc-news-recovering-israeli-settlers-attack-1237062952/
Matt Bradley & NBC News Team “Recovering Well” After Israeli Settlers Attack In West Bank
While interviewing Abdullah, whose home has been occupied by Israeli settlers, a group of masked men in a car with Israeli license plates descended on them with sticks and stones, beating them. One of the attackers could be seen swinging a stick at the cameraman before the camera fell to the ground.
Abdullah is also recovering after being released from the hospital, but her home is still occupied by settlers.
Citing the United Nations, Bradley noted that a recent surge of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank has resulted in recent weeks, resulting in the killings of 76 Palestinians this year, including 18 children.
today’s meme…
HA!
Today in the Diner…
Donald Trump Impeachment & Doug Chapin
Why Dolly Parton Outsmarted Elvis Presley
Thomas Massie Names Epstein Associates
Donald Trump impeachment talk returns as Doug Chapin challenges Tom Emmer. Plus: Thomas Massie’s Epstein list and Dolly Parton’s genius.
Welcome back to the Digital Diner. Today we are digging into the shifting political map, looking closely at how Minnesota DFL candidate Doug Chapin is taking the fight directly to Tom Emmer. It is a perfect example of how protecting Democracy requires getting out on the highway and actually talking to voters. We also break down the absurdity of the narrative on Chicago crime rates, using Elon Musk’s own AI, Grok, to prove the statistics are actually near a 60-year low.
We take a fascinating detour into the entertainment world to compare the career mastery of Dolly Parton against Elvis Presley. Dolly owned her narrative from the Porter Wagoner days onward, while Elvis was held back by Colonel Tom Parker.
Finally, we wrap up with some heavy hits from Capitol Hill, including Thomas Massie reading the unredacted Epstein associate names on the floor, and the dangerous reality of cutting USAID funding for global Ebola prevention.
Live Chat: https://trailmix.cc/chat
Website: https://trailmix.cc
Alerts: https://trailmix.cc/alerts
00:00 Intro & Donald Trump Impeachment
05:00 Doug Chapin Challenges Tom Emmer
15:00 Dolly Parton Outsmarts Elvis
23:00 Grok Debunks Chicago Crime Stats
43:00 Nick Shirley Minnesota Fraud Claims
49:00 Thomas Massie Reads Epstein List
50:00 The Truth About USAID and Ebola
— Human directed and edited. Machine drafted (Gemini Pro).
Massie Drops Epstein Names:
🍽️ From today’s Digital Diner menu
i’d mention GOP-led gun proliferation when discussing violent crime instead of “that’s not so much” in relation to stats over a particular time
these are the people that legalized silencers for crying out loud
Now that it has been made clear that Ontario Wendat in origin, do we need to go back to calling Superior “Gitche Gumee” (spelled gichi-gami in the Ojibwe language)? Also, has anyone called Ontario, Ca to see if they are changing to America, CA or are they seceding to Canada?
Just shocking
Craig
Thumbs Carlile opens this song.
dipshit obviously hates DC and all its residents
still small potatoes compared to the way trumpco is destroying broader society and the framework of our international alliances, if we have any left
Thanks to KareemAbdulJabbar.com for this memory
When I described Dolly as a country clown, I think this is a good example of what I was talking about. Aunt Fanny is a clown not a real person.
meme #2…
I was lucky enough to see Thumbs Carlisle and Roger Miller together. Wonderful intimate show way back when touring acts did such things.
Wendell Berry
https://www.npr.org/2026/09/01/1139228585/wendell-berry-obituary
Henry Olsen on Scully putting the onus on media reporters of poll results to scrutinize the pollsters methods and assumptions
he’s right but also disregarding shallow media sensationalism and internet clickbaiting
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Our daily Digital Diner podcast airs 11-Noon ET on YouTube. ENTER Chatroom Here. WATCH Current Replay Here.
What is Actually Clicking: September 1, 2026
— Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted (Gemini Pro).
These are the stories driving the most traffic right now—not necessarily the stories we think you should read, and not always the most recent. Sign Up Here to receive daily briefs.
I asked ChatGPT how many times Trump has announced strikes plus more threats:
The seven earlier episodes were:
scully talking to peter maer now, assuming an acquaintance of el jefé
talking about covering ‘76 carter race
Anon, where is that Scully interview with Maer? I would like to hear that
satellite radio
bum someone’s sub and use the phone app
is what i do
editing posts has lag so continuing that thought, Maer is promoting a book called “chasing the story”
VOTE COUNTING TONIGHT
Massachusetts is testing whether Democrats really want generational change.
80-year-old Ed Markey faces 47-year-old Seth Moulton, while 71-year-old Stephen Lynch faces 39-year-old Patrick Roath and 77-year-old Richard Neal faces 39-year-old Jeromie Whalen.
Got it, Anon. doing the free sign up thing. listening to them now. Thanks for the heads up
🫡🗽
everything on that channel is good except smerconish
dan abrams is sometimes not always good
also fun to listen to cuomo verbally abuse his trump-apologist sidekick
DR. ANDREWS ON Acosta at 32:40…
Kornacki previews tonight (live at 7:45pm ET)…
I’m liking the numbers out of Michigan. This DDHQ polling average now has El-Sayed ahead by four. Other averages show a smaller Democratic lead, but the important thing is that most recent Michigan polls are now putting El-Sayed ahead.
Republican campaign pollsters must be seeing something similar. Rogers and Vance really turned up the heat today, calling him an “evil crazy con man” who hates Christians.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/31/texas-hospitals-medicaid-funding-chirp/
Texas hospitals expect to lose $27 million a day in Medicaid funding starting Tuesday
When the state’s new fiscal year begins on Tuesday, Texas hospitals expect to lose $27 million a day in additional Medicaid funding.
Starting Sept. 1, the Trump administration will withhold about $9.8 billion in extra funding that helps hospitals cover the difference between Medicaid payments and the actual cost of services.
Essentially, hospitals, which often are paid less than what they spend on Medicaid patients due to outdated payment rates set by the state, are losing out on their additional reimbursement for 2027.
Local governmental entities collect taxes from hospitals — about $4 billion a year, according to the Texas Hospital Association — and under CHIRP, the federal government matches those funds so that Texas hospitals can then use them to cover the actual costs of providing Medicaid services. Hospitals say those CHIRP dollars are critical and if they lose that funding, they will likely have to cut services to patients.
Four million low-income Texans are enrolled in Medicaid, most of them children.
“It is impossible for a hospital to take a huge loss on a Medicaid side of their portfolio and not have that impact services across the board, regardless of what type of insurance a patient has,” said Sara González, a THA vice president of advocacy, public policy and political strategy.
In Houston alone, the impact could mean at least $258 million less for the public healthcare system there known as Harris Health and as much as $1.4 billion less for the region overall next year.
“The impacts would be catastrophic for Texas’ safety-net healthcare system,” said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO of Harris Health. “We are carefully monitoring every dollar and would be forced to make difficult decisions about maintaining critical services if this impasse continues.”
The federal government is withholding these critical dollars because they are calling into question how local jurisdictions in Texas calculate the amount of taxes collected from hospitals.
*The system is being collapsed on purpose. Accelerationism. Dark Enlightenment. But sure, keep having babies.
Impeachment is the hook 🪝
Republicans secretly despise him, so don’t count it out. We dust off the 1973 Roy C vinyl for inspiration.
Polls are closed in MA, Kornacki on the case…
https://newatlas.com/chemistry/food-from-plastic-two-problems-one-cookie/
A protein-rich cookie made from plastic and agricultural waste could help solve two serious problems facing future generations, according to a team presenting results from their NASA-funded project at the Fall Meeting of the American Chemical Society.
“Global food demand is expected to rise 35–56% by the year 2050, and about 30% of the world population will be at risk of hunger in the future,” says Lahiru Jayakody, an applied microbiologist from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in the US.
“The way to address that, I believe, is by using microbes.”
A strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was tweaked to produce the flavoring agent vanillin from ferulic acid. Similarly, a strain of Rhodosporidium toruloides was engineered to chew through ethylene glycol as a carbon source and churn out the vitamin A precursor β-carotene.
By subjecting the mix of waste materials to a process that reduced them to a form that could be easily digested by the microbes, the researchers found they could create a mash of proteins and fats that were theoretically edible. All they had to do then was add some starch, fiber, and a touch of sweetener, and press out a bite-sized snack.
To make it fancy, they squeezed the mix through a 3D printer to make a branded micro-symbol, µ. Short for µBites or “micro-bites.”
Whether there’s even a market for plastic-based foods is also an open question.
Nonetheless, having a library of engineered microbes at the ready might be the very thing NASA needs to meet a variety of future challenges. Including ways to quickly and economically transform waste carbon into food.
So Markey’s already called as winner with less than 5% of the vote in.
Katherine Clark looks like a lock.
Richard Neal isn’t – he and Whalen are in a close one.
Lynch should win.
Nguyen and Koh are neck and neck.
NO MA incumbent is behind a challenger at this point.
BTW, Lauren Bis is an idiot.
Seems like Moulton blew that race in the debate, came across really nasty.
10 Jews, 1,000 Opinions, 1 Abdul El-Sayed
How the Michigan progressive is trying to forge a relationship with the state’s Jewish Democrats, and what it means for the future of the party.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/abdul-el-sayed-asks-michigan-jewish-democrats-forgiveness?utm_campaign=email-post&r=1hfnc&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
well far-libs complain about right wing extremists but don’t elect centrists when given the opportunity
The Centrists have forgotten to be centrists. The left needed to remind them where it is located.
there is no center now, 2 americas
last cycle if i typed “(name of candidate) results”, google would default to the actual tabulations and detailed results top of page, now just links to corporate news services
tech’s getting worse
trying to see how few far-leftists get to have outsized policy influence because most people don’t vote in primaries
If the tight doesn’t continue to wallow in greed and ignorance, the pendulum will swing back eventually and we don’t screw up in some truly ugly fashion. If we do that , none of us may be around to care.
as soon as primaries are over the billionaires open the money taps and flood all channels with negative ads against dems, watch them get destroyed
relying on the proverbial pendulum is magical thinking in the age of orwellian tech
the time of the elves is over
the age of the orc has come
I’ll continue to root for Gandalf for awhile longer.
pinned down in Helm’s Deep over here
Shadowfax will carry him to victory
well frodo eventually peaces out forever cuz he’s sick of everyone’s shit so yeah i guess it’s looking that way
Police Are Spending Opioid Settlement Funds on Flock Cameras
More than a dozen local law enforcement agencies across the country have used opioid settlement money to procure Flock cameras and other AI-powered automated license plate readers (ALPRs), an investigation by Mother Jones has found.
Settlement funds began flowing to states and localities in 2022, after major pharmaceutical companies agreed to resolve thousands of lawsuits over the industry’s role in the opioid crisis. Altogether, state and local governments secured more than $50 billion in funds, to be paid out over 18 years, from the various manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies accused of fueling the deadly epidemic.
A review of meeting minutes, local reporting, state opioid expenditure disclosures, and invoices obtained via public records requests reveals that at least twelve sheriffs’ offices and police departments have since 2024 spent their opioid funds on Flock cameras. Another seven law enforcement agencies used the money to purchase similar ALPR technology from competitors Motorola, Axon, and Verkada.
In sum, Mother Jones found that 19 agencies in ten different states spent more than $920,000 in opioid funds on Flock and other ALPRs, a likely undercount given the inconsistency with which opioid settlement expenditures are tracked and disclosed across states and local jurisdictions.
I’m stuck in Middle Earth left to make the best of it with Sam and Rosie.
beyond that silliness, there are about 5 identifiable threats to free and fair elections, assuming dems win control and that’s a big assumption, the last threat being the rethug controlled houses refusing to seat new members
then the king dissolves parliament and we are toast
to eventually be under the thumb of acting Regent Kushner while they keep the king in techno-medical limbo in perpetuity
like mcconnell if that sounds far fetched
see a lot of you never actually believed the “trump is an existential threat” stuff you were saying because it’s too much to countenance
you think it runs out of steam or “the pendulum swings”
it’s a hope not a guarantee
you said yourself jamie we are in phase 4 of a 5 phase collapse schedule the author of which said no empire escapes
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