69 thoughts on “METAMORPHOSIS: A.I. – S.I. – Xi”

  3. red to blue metamorphosis

    Sep 22, 2026 #109
    Mid-terms are rapidly approaching. Be sure to vote, no matter the obstacles. We need to make this the beginning of the end for the Trump Paradigm. Thanks to Freedom Toast and Cinebot Video for the contribution of this parody video.
    Executive Producers Don Caron and Jerry Pender

  4. no morphing the map per supremes
    from The Guardian Supreme court blocks Trump-backed Missouri congressional map from use in midterms
    The supreme court on Friday turned away an attempt to use a new Missouri congressional map backed by Donald Trump, putting an end to a long-running legal dispute as absentee voting is under way in the midterm elections.
    The justices halted a federal appeals court ruling that would have revived the Republican-friendly map for the November elections, which will determine control of Congress. There were no noted dissents.
    The supreme court instead let stand a decision by the Missouri supreme court, which ruled earlier this month that a citizen petition prevents the new map from being used unless first approved by voters in a November referendum. The decision means Missouri residents will vote under the same congressional districts used in the 2024 and 2022 elections.
    “At this late date, ordering reversion to the 2025 map in the midst of an ongoing election would usher in electoral chaos,” the high court wrote in an unsigned opinion. “The district court and court of appeals should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.”
    Republicans had hoped the new House map – which already was used in the August primaries – could help them win an additional seat as part of a nationwide redistricting battle pushed by Trump to gain an edge in the midterms.
    A panel of the eighth US circuit court of appeals ruled on Monday that switching districts between the primary and general elections would violate the US constitution. The panel directed a district judge to bar Missouri from using anything other than the new map but delayed the order’s effect until next Monday to allow time for an appeal to the supreme court.
    The legal wrangling has caused confusion for more than a million potential Missouri voters – nearly one in four statewide – who were shifted from one district to another, resulting in different candidates on their ballots. Absentee voting began Tuesday under the 2022 congressional districts, though some local election officials had urged voters to wait because of the legal uncertainty.
    Republicans currently hold six of Missouri’s eight House districts. At the urging of Trump and Republican governor Mike Kehoe, Missouri lawmakers last September passed revised districts that were intended to help them win seven seats in the midterms.
    The redistricting significantly reshaped a Kansas City-based district held by longtime Democratic congressman Emanuel Cleaver. It shed parts of Kansas City to neighboring districts with Republican incumbents and stretched the remainder of Cleaver’s fifth congressional district far eastward into rural Republican areas.
    The result was about 59% of potential voters were new to the district, according to an Associated Press estimate. The ripple effects also shifted some voters in most of Missouri’s other congressional districts.
    Cleaver was unopposed in the Democratic primary. Republican state senator Rick Brattin won a six-way Republican primary under the revised districts. They remain the candidates for the general election, even though the district boundaries have reverted to their prior lines.Brattin was a plaintiff, along with Republican congressman Bob Onder and two other voters, in a federal lawsuit that led to the eighth circuit’s ruling and the last two appeals to the supreme court.
    At least 16 lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts related to Missouri’s congressional redistricting. The battle has been the longest and most complex among roughly a dozen states that sought to change their US House districts over the past year.
    Missouri’s new map survived most of the lawsuits, including ones contending that mid-decade redistricting violated the state constitution and that the new districts ran afoul of requirements to be compact . In one case, the Missouri supreme court allowed the new districts to be used while election officials worked to verify petition signatures seeking to put the map to a statewide vote.
    Republican secretary of state Denny Hoskins waited until the legal deadline on 4 August – the day the new districts were used in the primaries – to reject the petition. He asserted referendum petitions aren’t allowed for congressional redistricting.
    The Missouri supreme court ruled on 3 September that the referendum petition was valid. It ordered Hoskins not to use the new map and to instead use the districts adopted in 2022, after the last census. The supreme court let that ruling stand on 8 September. But minutes later, US district judge Stephen Clark issued a conflicting order in favor of the new map.
    The supreme court on 10 September blocked Clark’s order from taking effect. That day, the Missouri supreme court held Hoskins temporarily in contempt for telling local election authorities to use the new map after Clark’s order.
    But that wasn’t the end of the matter. The eighth circuit, hearing an appeal of Clark’s blocked order, ruled in favor of the Trump-backed map Monday. That’s what led to the latest decision from the US supreme court.

  5. Doing some research.
    1969 lottery for draft sequence, aka lottery numbers.
    Anyone remember if you received a letter from draft board or selective service letting you know what your lottery number was?
    That includes something that might be the “Greetings:” letter for 1969.
    Thank you

  10. Blue Avalanche Or Red Undertow?

    Charlie Cook: Trump is “RADIOACTIVE”

    Cook Political Report founder Charlie Cook writes ($) that while “many have long predicted that Democrats will enjoy a ‘blue wave’ election, I think of it more as a ‘red undertow,’ which will pull many Republicans under and significantly trim the margins for many others.”

    Charlie Cook: “Unless you’re politically tone-deaf, you’re by now aware that there are ugly storm clouds ahead for Republicans in this midterm election. A blue wave implies an endorsement or affirmation of Democrats and their policies. But Democrats’ brand is still in tatters from 2021-2025, particularly 2021 and 2022, when they not only had President Biden in the White House but also majorities in the Senate and House. Fortunately for Democrats, this election will in most cases not be about them.

    It will, of course, be mostly about the occupant of the White House. Over the last 90 days, President Trump’s political standing has transitioned from very unpopular to toxic and now to radioactive.“

  17. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-administration-uses-rare-authority-234521611.html

    Trump is canceling nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced on Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives.

    Trump’s Office of Management and Budget described the funding cut as focused on “the most harmful government spending.”

    Most of the cuts are focused on Health and Human Services programs that serve refugees and unaccompanied minors accused of being in the country illegally. The administration says the funds are no longer necessary because illegal border crossings have diminished considerably.

    Trump’s move was condemned by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican in a tough reelection campaign and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

    Collins said in a statement that the action came without warning or consultation. She also said she would work to address with colleagues “these illegal actions.”

    Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”

    Under federal law, Congress has 45 days to review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year and the House out of session through the November election. The Government Accountability Office, which is an arm of Congress, says the maneuver known as a “pocket rescission” is illegal.

    Collins called it the latest attempt by OMB to “undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse.”

    A year ago, Trump issued a pocket rescission for the first time in nearly 50 years by blocking $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block those rescissions, saying that Trump’s authority over foreign affairs weighed heavily in its decision. This year, Trump is targeting domestic spending.

  18. Anti Sherrod Brown ad during the Ohio State game, focusing on transgender.

    Pro Husted ad focused on him being a foster kid to soften his image.

  19. Thanks for reporting that BlueD. This weekend is going to be critical for finding out if the billionaires can stop the blue wave with transgender hate — it worked in 2024 when they spent tens of millions on college football games with the same message. I gotta believe the expiration date has passed. We’ll find out in next week’s polls.

  20. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/26/trump-dismiss-iran-seven-day-peace-deal-hormuz

    Trump rejects Iran’s seven-day peace deal to reopen strait of Hormuz

    US president is said to expect renewed strikes after midterms

    Trump has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms in the US, the newspaper reported.

    Meanwhile, on Friday evening, he published a post on his Truth Social platform with a graphic showing a map with the strait of Hormuz renamed as the “Trump Strait”.

    “They made a proposal but I reject it,” he told reporters at the White House.

    The US president was earlier said to be privately sceptical Iran would meet his demands to dismantle its nuclear programme, according to unnamed US officials cited by the Wall Street Journal.

    Earlier, a US official had ⁠said discussions with Iran through mediators were “positive and constructive” and, on Friday, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had detailed the proposal to reporters outside the UN security council.

    He said the seven-day timeline to open the strait and resume talks could start as soon as the US accepts Iran’s proposal. The initial steps would take about four to five days to complete, the strait would be opened on the sixth day and talks on the nuclear programme would start on the seventh day, he said.

    This would include a protocol to allow UN nuclear inspectors back in to look at Iran’s damaged sites and the stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

    “If there is seriousness on the US side to ⁠come to a deal and reopen the strait of Hormuz, everything is now prepared,” Araghchi said. “Iran has conveyed to the United States, through Qatar [mediators], a concrete seven-day plan. If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened, and normal maritime passage restored within seven days.

    “The choice now rests with the United States. Iran does not accept coercion, threats or intimidation, and Iran will not surrender its sovereign rights under pressure.”

  21. Today in the Diner…
    Susan Collins Scandal & Roger Marshall Game Changer
    Charlie Cook Predicts Midterm Red Undertow

    Susan Collins bribery scandal and Roger Marshall patient arrests are driving a midterm red undertow. We break down the latest GOP campaign crises.

    Charlie Cook is pointing toward a midterm red undertow, and the reasons are playing out in real time. In Kansas, Senator Roger Marshall is desperately dodging his own record of unleashing lawyers to arrest pregnant patients over 50 dollar medical bills. It is the kind of political grift that makes you wonder how these campaigns function at all.

    Up in Maine, Susan Collins faces a massive ProPublica investigation detailing illegal campaign cash and government contracts. Kimberly Strassel and the Wall Street Journal are trying to run damage control, but Democratic challenger Troy Jackson is flooding the zone with receipts. When your own staff is caught coordinating with a felon, the usual Washington spin collapses.

    Down in Florida, Angie Nixon is running a populist campaign without establishment permission or Chuck Schumer money, proving a genuine message still resonates. Throw in Stephen Miller demanding ICE quotas at Omaha packing plants, and the GOP is working overtime to alienate the exact voters they need. The diner is open, grab a booth and let us sort through the wreckage.

    Live Chat: https://trailmix.cc/chat
    Website: https://trailmix.cc
    Alerts: https://trailmix.cc/alerts

    00:00 Intro
    08:26 James Sample Bill of Rights
    10:20 TrailMix Custom Grievances
    19:30 Roger Marshall Kansas Arrests
    24:25 Omaha ICE Raids Stephen Miller
    29:53 Charlie Cook Red Undertow
    34:12 Angie Nixon Florida Campaign
    42:41 Susan Collins ProPublica Story
    47:24 Troy Jackson Maine Senate Ads
    59:45 Sam Cooke Midterm Anthem
    — Human directed and edited. Machine drafted (Gemini Pro).

  22. How much are all of those game day sips & nibbles costing folks? How much to drive somewhere just to tailgate? BBQ? They should hammer that stuff during games.

  25. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/26/donald-trump-oil-deal-with-venezuela

    Then in August, Trump announced that the office of strategic capital (OSC) at the Pentagon, which he has rapidly transformed, would own a third of the second-biggest private Venezuelan oil firm, North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep). Trump said the deal means he’ll soon refill the US strategic petroleum reserve, which dropped to a longtime low after the US invaded Iran.

    But virtually everything Trump and his cabinet have said about the deal is false and misleading, according to the experts and officials who spoke with the Guardian. The Venezuelan law governing oil development does not allow for 100-year deals, or anything longer than 25 years. The OSC isn’t authorized by US law, experts say, to own shares in companies. Moreover, they say, the deal as structured won’t bring new capital to Venezuela’s oil sector.

    And contrary to Trump’s claims, the Venezuelan oil will not help refill the US strategic petroleum reserve any time in the near future.

    There is also a curious figure at the center of the deal: Alejandro Betancourt López, the affable Venezuelan with a complex background who is becoming a partner of the US government as the owner of Nabep.

    Betancourt, 46, went to college in Massachusetts and has homes in Spain, the UK and New York City. He has a history in Venezuela’s energy and oil sector, owns a sunglasses company and once had Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer.

    The Guardian has learned that Venezuelan government officials who are now in charge once hired investigators and hackers to dig into the source of Betancourt’s money.

    Experts are ultimately skeptical the oil deal can hold together. “The deal is like the big beautiful wall that Mexico will pay for,” said former US diplomat John Feeley.

    Though the White House and defense department say it has 35% ownership, the Pentagon told lawmakers on the congressional armed services committee in a written briefing seen by the Guardian it has “warrants” in Nabep: rights to purchase shares, rather than the shares themselves.

    The state department, the administration says, will also have a right to buy 20% of all the oil Nabep pumps, at cost – meaning it should be able to buy it cheaper than the market price.

    “The Departments of State and War have negotiated a historic opportunity to secure US majority control of more than 65bn barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela at zero taxpayer cost,” a Pentagon spokesperson said.

    It’s unclear how the US would buy crude oil, or what the process would be. The state department, for its part, insists: “This is a private deal with a private company. It’s not a deal with the interim government of Venezuela and there was not a political process included in the negotiations.”

  26. What Trump’s Executive Order on 401(K)s Means for Workers Who Hope to Retire

    A new Trump executive order has opened the door for 401(K) holders to invest in private equity, cryptocurrency, and other alternative assets.

    “Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(K) Investors.” It is Orwellian because, in effect, it will allow and indeed encourage more Americans, desperate to put away savings for their retirement, to open themselves up to exploitative and misleading investment advisors, brokers, and asset managers on the false promise that they will get higher returns from so-called “alternative” assets.

    Well, ever since the Clinton/Greenspan gutting of the Glass-Steagall Act and other financial “reforms” (all of which are discussed in my book Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us), we have returned to a “casino capitalism.” But now, under Trump 2.0, the crypto interests and big finance are taking us into territory not seen since the 1920s: crony capitalism on steroids.

  27. There is one major development since the previous check.
    On Friday, September 25, the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily lifted lower-court restrictions on the Trump administration’s expanded SAVE citizenship-verification database. States may therefore use the revamped federal system to check people on their voter rolls before the November election while the litigation continues. The Court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented. The Washington Post
    This matters because it intersects directly with the voter-roll operation we began watching on September 24. The administration has substantially expanded the federal database and encouraged states to use it to identify possible noncitizens. Election officials and voting-rights advocates have raised concerns about erroneous matches involving eligible citizens. The Supreme Court’s order does not itself cancel anyone’s registration or require states to remove voters. It does, however, remove an important legal restriction on use of the federal system only weeks before Election Day. The Washington Post
    So I am adding SAVE database use and any resulting state voter-roll removals or challenges to the particularly important things to watch. The next question is what individual states actually do with the federal matches, especially whether they independently verify them before affecting a voter’s eligibility.

  28. https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/26/politics/whistleblowers-accuse-kennedy-center-officials-halting-repairs

    Whistleblowers are alleging that Kennedy Center officials halted plans earlier this year to repair leaks in the building, which the Trump administration has highlighted as its reason to close the storied arts institution.

    In a letter to Congress Thursday, obtained by CNN, a lawyer representing the anonymous whistleblowers wrote that the Kennedy Center’s director Matt Floca has known about leak issues “for years” and stopped plans for repairs in April, despite receiving $9.3 million dollars in congressional funding for roofing replacement last year.

    Repairs “were not treated as priorities nor as acute risks to public safety,” attorney David Seide said in the letter to congressional committees that oversee the arts center. The whistleblowers claimed that Floca requested and received funding for repairs but “stopped the remediation process from moving forward.”

    The whistleblowers said Floca received the funds through Trump’s hallmark One Big Beautiful Bill Act but he has delayed addressing the repairs since the bill’s passage last year.

  29. https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/25/politics/pentagon-data-personnel-breach

    A data breach at the Pentagon’s vast HR system has exposed Social Security numbers and other personal information of current and former military personnel, raising counterintelligence concerns among national security experts.

    One piece of data accessed by the intruders in some cases was the “occupational specialty” of military service members, according to the letter, which is dated this month. That, when combined with other datasets using identifiers like Social Security numbers, could give foreign adversaries a clearer read on who does what for the US military in various parts of the world.

    “Unauthorized users” gained access to a vulnerable computer server belonging to the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) beginning last October, but it wasn’t until nine months later, in July, that the Pentagon discovered and remediated the issue, according to a letter the center sent to victims of the breach reviewed by CNN.

  31. https://www.votebeat.org/texas/2026/09/26/voter-registration-delay-backlog-online-dps-error/

    Delayed Texas voter applications highlight how difficult it is to register in the state, experts say
    Texas is among eight states that don’t have universal online voter registration.

    A DPS snafu created a backlog of at least 200,000 applications this week.

    Texans with driver’s licenses can use the state Department of Public Safety’s web portal to register to vote or update their voter registration. But that’s the only online option for registration

    Votebeat and the Texas Tribune reported an untimely flaw in that system earlier this week: DPS failed to send counties thousands of voter registration applications and updates submitted through that web portal, dating back to October 2025. The agency blamed the error on a software update. The problem has sparked bipartisan calls for an investigation into what went wrong, and state officials so far have provided few details.

  32. Watch MS NOW’s Together in Texas Live Today at 3 PM ET
    Join MS NOW virtually today for Together in Texas: We the People 2026, an afternoon of powerful conversations with the journalists you trust, top newsmakers, and the MS NOW community. Texas is at the center of the fight for America’s future and the stakes have never been higher.

  33. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/25/trump-aca-health-insurance

    In latest blow to Obamacare, Trump is threatening the entire US health system

    The Trump administration is removing 760,000 people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace on allegations of fraud, officials said on Tuesday – adding to previous efforts to chip away at federally subsidized insurance programs and likely causing some of the lowest-income Americans to forego healthcare, experts said.

    The US government is also investigating about 420,000 people whom they suspect of fraud, and they are putting a six-month enrollment moratorium on new agents and brokers selling Obamacare policies, officials said at a press conference.

    The removed enrollees are a mixture of “phantoms” and “ghosts” as well as people who don’t meet the eligibility requirements of Obamacare, said Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

    “These are not real people,” he said, claiming that expelling them from the ACA marketplace would save the federal government $2.2bn.

    JD Vance, who is leading a federal taskforce on fraud, claimed: “We’re actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them.”

    No details were provided about how many enrollees were fictional, enrolled by fraudulent brokers without their knowledge or expelled because of income restrictions.

  38. Michigan: Multiple new polls now show Abdul El-Sayed with a durable advantage. New York Times/Siena likely-voter poll has El-Sayed leading Mike Rogers 49%–44%. That is reinforced by Suffolk (+7), Big Data Poll (+5), Rasmussen (+3), InsiderAdvantage (+2) and other recent surveys.

  39. New over-the-air channel has popped up: Real America’s Choice

    ~Yeah, right~

    The correspondent (Taylor Mitchell) said it’s been “so nice without the mainstream media there, where she was pushed and told to move out of certain seats on AF1, and everyone was just much kinder.”

    Thousands and thousands of people there to support Dumbass. Hmmm, either she’s lying or she can’t count.

  40. Craig – an enterprising young investigative writer could put together a very interesting work based on Selective Service letters, and forms. Status from 1A to 4F, I bounced from 1A to 2S (student), every term until I was drafted. After the first lottery, 1969, I received a letter showing my draft number, 2 out of draft range. It also had a typewriter *h. At the bottom the *h was that I was already drafted, they just have not gotten around to sending me the Greeting letter. Somewhere since then all the forms and letters have long disappeared. In Basic training we were required to hand in our Selective Service cards and any other correspondence, “you will not need these anymore”.

    The reason I am asking the people if they had received a letter with their draft number from the 1969 lottery is I have learned it was only sent to those who needed to know that the draft did not apply to them. I am trying to confirm this.

    Oh, when I was to be inducted I hightailed it to the Air Force recruiter and said “Hi, I’m yours”. I was made an Air Force recruit in the National Guard until time for my induction and trip to Basic. That kept the Marines and Army from claiming me. At least that is how it was explained to me.

  41. Now, there’s another over-the-air (antenna) channel to try to keep the cult members from being deprogrammed by higher prices for everything: NewsMax 2

  42. https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-european-countries-preparing-citizens-for-crisis-12471422

    Map Shows Which European Countries Are Preparing Citizens for Crisis

    Governments across Europe are increasingly telling citizens to prepare at home for a major crisis like war, extreme weather and cybersecurity threats, with Ireland becoming the latest country to push emergency preparedness guidance directly into households.

    *US: Move along. Nothing to see here.

  46. Ha, Jamie, I thought you’d remember our trail mix escape plan and trigger phrase. I got real close to bidding for one but friend Clay (who was on the podcast yesterday) talked me out of it, and sure enough it was a money pit that eventually went under.

  50. Somewhere, I have a book called With Enough Shovels.

    Someone in Regan’s Department of Defense thought we’d survive nukes with “enough shovels.”

    Dig a hole, jump in, have someone cover it with doors, then throw more dirt on that. Guess someone has to sacrifice themself to play Digger O’Dell and cover everyone else. ”It’s the dirt that does it.”

    *Isn’t the lid of a casket basically a door?

  52. We had a root cellar. It was a hole in the dirt. There was a door. No dirt on top of the door though, which means we could get out but the radioactivity could get in. LoL

  55. I’ve had it on you tube all day as well. Just switching to the big screen for the headliners. Nothing like margo Price having Dave Matthews and Jesse Welles as back up singers!

  56. TRUMP GHOSTS FARM AID: For a guy who has something to say about everything and averaged 64% of the rural vote across three elections, Trump can’t be bothered with Farm Aid. Total silence from the White House as he spends the day firing off dozens of rants online about other stuff.

  61. The fool thinks the stock market numbers are the world. Unfortunately people have bank statements to review monthly, or at least the ones who have them can.

  64. Dear Farm Aid,
    Please don’t let data centers nor JD Vance’s private equity company, AcreTrader, eat up all the farm land. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

    During a state visit, is it normal to fly the visiting country’s flag on the WH?

  67. The first foreign flag to fly above the Presidential residence was the flag of Serbia. July 28, 1918 was an important day for both countries. The United States was fighting alongside its Entente allies during World War I, and Serbia was a critical part of the start of that war. A system of alliances set in place to ensure the freedom of the Serbian people was the catalyst for much of the fighting.

  68. I realize he has sung these songs a thousand plus times, but this is a man of 93 remembering all these lyrics. And we’re stuck with an idiot who can’t pronounce any word over two syllables on a teleprompter. 😑

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