u/EighthFirstCitizen

Today at 5:00 PM is the deadline for the Democrat (Bankhead) or the Independent candidate (Bodnar) to drop out. Hopefully one of them does because if so this senate seat is actually very competitive. Otherwise, Kurt Alme, the Republican nominee will probably walk away with it.

A quick summary for those not following this race:
The current Senator, Steve Daines (R), chose not to seek re-election. He made the announcement at the last possible moment in order to clear the primary field for the Trump backed candidate, Kurt Alme (This was also done by Rep. Zinke in the Western House District). This decision ruffled some feathers because there were Republicans who probably would have liked to run in that primary which was basically non-existent this year.

Former University of Montana president Seth Bodnar launched an Independent bid for the Senate backed by former Senator Jon Tester. Their argument is basically that the Democrat's brand is simply too toxic in parts of the state to the point they think people will never vote for one. Even if a policy being supported by the Democrats polls generally well they think association with the national party is overall too much of a drag. Bodnar currently and from the beginning of the race has led the field in fundraising (including small dollar). Bodnar has also snapped up most the endorsements from traditionally left leaning groups in the state.

Because they thought Daines was going to be the opponent with the power of incumbency on his side and the Independent bid by Bodnar, no big name Democrats in the state put themselves forward for the seat. Not to diminish their resumes, but none of the Democrats who ran in the primary had much in the way of name recognition. A former state legislator, Reilly Neil, seemed like the early leader of the dem primary. However a Super PAC funded by the CEO of Hudson River trading took out a massive ad buy in favor of former Air force officer and current life coach Alani Bankhead. Bankhead had personally only raised around $20,000. This ad buy was mostly likely done to boost the Independent candidate's chances. Neil had been on the record saying she would not drop out for Bodnar. Considering the PAC pulled their support for Bankhead immediately after her victory, it does seem likely this is the case. Neil blamed the ad buy on her loss and out of anger endorsed the Republican. (Really though how strong of a candidate were you in the first place if a single big ad buy for the no name with a fraction of the money and time spent on the race can undo you?) Even with the PAC no longer backing her, Bankhead asked her supporters to send her money and said she was staying in the race. Bankhead has raised something like $60,000 now. Former popular Democrat Governor Brian Schweitzer has also come to her corner claiming Bankhead has the legitimacy of a primary and refutes the Tester/Bodnar argument Democrats can't reverse brand negatives and make the arguments to win statewide.

If by tomorrow Bankhead or Bodnar have not dropped out (both claim they are not), this whole episode will be a pretty decent cautionary tale on how to throw away a shot at a US Senate seat for no good reason. Turns out neither the Tester/Bodnar argument or the Schweitzer argument can be properly tested with both in the race. They both just lose. Especially frustrating because Bankhead and Bodnar are not actually that far apart on policy. Bodnar trends a bit more to the center, but both are generally running "affordability and accountability" themed campaigns. The only really big difference is Bankhead is loudly for Medicare for All while Bodnar is quiet on that position and more conservatively pushing for expanding ACA tax credits and increasing Medicaid expansion. Ultimately both positions seeking to keep rural hospitals open in the face of a GOP opponent who wants to close them.

Update: https://www.montanarightnow.com/missoula/no-withdrawals-stage-set-for-montana-u-s-senate-election-in-november/video_576facc7-7cdd-5418-8388-9659540f7980.html Nobody dropped. There is probably a branch in the multiverse somewhere Bodnar or Bankhead still have a path to victory, not sure we happen to be on it though...

Was wondering what strategies people use to deal with these guys. They gave me quite a bit of trouble. This is what I eventually ended up doing, but imagine there's got to be more efficient methods.

I had a Paladin/fighter, a Bard, a ranger/fighter, a cleric (one monk dip), a barbarian/fighter (slings), and a wizard (rogue dip). The forced repositioning really hurt. Their archer was annoyingly good at going straight for the wizard and no matter the AC, not much could survive long against Kaervas. I eventually ended up having someone rush the archer to give the wizard enough breathing room to cast Otiluke's resilient sphere on Kaervas. While Kaervas sat out of the fight I focused the party around killing the others. The wizard with Mordenkainen's sword was the most helpful here. I had to lock Kaervas down a second time with another resilient sphere before finally finishing off all the others. Once the second sphere deactivated, I had the wizard with a bow fire holdfast arrows which locked Kaervas in place. Unfortunately, I had no casts of Mordenkainen's sword left and was basically out of damage spells. I only had a rod of magic missiles and one or two party members that had weapons that could hit him for like 2-3 points of damage at a time. Thankfully, they were ranged weapons. So I set just sat there an annoyingly long amount of time as my wizard kept firing holdfast arrows and his health chipped down by tiny amounts while the bard healed the party up with war chant.

I disagree with a lot of Yglesias's takes, I found this one pretty interesting though. It is kind of insane watching republican candidates cling so tightly to a wildly unpopular president. Even the republicans who are retiring or were bumped off in primaries by more MAGA candidates have been overall pretty mute.

While I do find it comforting watching these GOP candidates try to swim up-river with a Trump branded anvil around their necks; it does make me a little nervous more of the GOP than we might expect has simply decided sowing doubt and contesting elections they lose is the official plan now.

Now I know part of why there's so much struggle to make a deal with Iran is because the US negotiating team is generally incompetent and more focused on personal self enrichment. However, something I've found interesting is the Iranians actually responding seriously to Trump's usually unhinged Truth Social pronouncements. While the mainstream US news outlets do cover Trump's crazy bleats most times it is an active effort to tell people not to take them seriously. The usual responses being something like: "He's only joking. He's not a regular politician, that's just how he communicates. He walked it back with a slightly less crazy bleat. At least he took it down after a few hours. Let's move on to something else."

Whether it's petty attacks on B-list celebrities, Mussolini quotes, or full-blown threats of civilizational erasure, Trump can apparently say whatever with little consequences because there is a massive apparatus built to tell Americans that what he's saying isn't what he's actually saying. This is why one of Trump's usual tactics after losing on an issue is to simply claim victory anyway. A previously pretty safe strategy because in most cases the claim won't receive much serious pushback. Now Trump has actually found himself dealing with people who have great incentive to push back on the president's crazy pronouncements.

The Iranian regime is pretty invested in cementing their own version of reality. Trump's untrue truth's about overwhelming victory over Iran is something they kind of have to push back on to cement their power/create their own propaganda. So beyond the ineptitude of the negotiators, It seems like things are going so poorly because for once the things Trump says are being treated like actual statements of intent (even if Trump has ended up folding on several) and the administration doesn't know how to handle this rarity of Trump's words having meaning.

Just a thought, feel free to disagree and tell me why I’m wrong.

So last year around this time a pregnant feral cat showed up in my barn. I started feeding her and fed the babies after they were birthed. When they were eventually big enough to separate I caught all the babies (kept two and found homes for all the others) and then trapped the mom and had her spayed. She's been living in in the barn ever since where I leave food out for her.
This morning I went out to deposit her usual food and she had three probably four or five week old kittens with her... So called the vet to ask if it was possible the spay failed and he was pretty confident it did not. Considering how long ago we got her spayed and how quickly cats can get pregnant, I'm inclined to agree because I figured she would have birthed a clutch already if it did fail. So I'm wondering if it's known behavior for a spayed cat to adopt or look after another cats babies.

I'm a regular reader of Andrew's Egger's Morning Shots and generally enjoy it. However, today's had one part about the Alito's decision in Callais that I felt deserves some push back:

"Still, there’s a reasonable argument to support Justice Samuel Alito’s conclusion that the way some courts had chosen to apply the VRA over the years had become preposterous—finding that if a state’s population could support a racial gerrymander creating a certain number of majority-minority districts, it was bound by law to do so."

While I'm sure if we were to dig through every court's application of the VRA we can find some examples that are "preposterous," the issue with Callais is Alito's remedy. Even if Alito didn't explicitly kill section 2 of the VRA, he might as well have. The Callais ruling establishes such a high bar for section 2 that it's now basically impossible to apply it at all. Clarence Thomas was actually more honest in his concurrence where he stated it should simply be done away with. Instead what Alito did is more sinister. He more or less turned section 2 into a legal quest for the Golden Fleece. Section 2 can only be applied after sowing a field with fire-breathing oxen and getting past a never-sleeping dragon. That's not reasonable solution to a minority of "preposterous" lower court rulings at all.

More that that, even if Alito was making a good faith effort to curtail problematic applications of section 2, does anyone think republican legislators are genuinely doing that? The glee with which several, like Marsha Blackburn, jumped onto twitter to talk about erasing democratic leaning districts seems to suggest otherwise. Any reasonability to Alito's arguments fly out the window when looking at the impact of millions of primarily African Americans having their voting power diluted. The GOP can claim they're drawing their maps on the grounds of partisan advantage instead of race, but in this case that's in effect a distinction without a difference.

We are supposed to be members of the pro-democracy coalition. Historically speaking, the United States didn't become a "full democracy" until the passage of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965. Those are bedrock pieces of our modern experiment with multi-racial democracy. Alito's decision is the culmination of a long effort to turn back the clock on that experiment. There isn't any reasonability behind that effort, just long standing racial animus that should be roundly denounced.