This week, Donald Trump addressed the fears many are having over artificial intelligence by sending out a message: "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!"

Many people's reaction to this was simple: "OK, so it's official then... we're screwed." Plenty of other scathing comments appeared online, with our favorite being: "You didn't know there was a 'b' in the word dumb."

Graveyard humor aside, though, as we get closer and closer to the midterm elections the Democrats are feeling better and better about their chances to retake control of the House of Representatives and possibly even the Senate too. Republicans are beginning to panic, which is also a good sign. The possibilities of upsets in Senate races in very red states is growing by the day. Republicans are now worried about their chances in once-ruby-red states like Kansas -- which hasn't elected a Democrat to represent them in the Senate since 1932. Iowa, Nebraska, and even South Carolina are also looking somewhat shaky for the GOP. And that's in addition to the states they were already worried about, which include Texas, Maine, Ohio, and Alaska.

One of the big reasons Republicans are in such a panic is the fact that Donald Trump's war of choice in Iran has taken a turn for the worse. Last week, the Houthis in Yemen captured strategic islands that will allow them to take potshots at oil tankers trying to exit the Red Sea heading south. A major pipeline in Saudi Arabia was taken out of commission by a drone attack, too. The world oil market took note, and prices have been skyrocketing ever since. The price of diesel fuel hit an all-time high last week of $5.85. Today, the average price nationwide for diesel is a whopping $6.44. That all happened in a little over one week. Gasoline prices haven't spiked quite as much, but they are approaching $4.50 a gallon again, and in a few days they could top the wartime high they reached a few months ago. We wrote about this earlier this week, calling all these battlefield developments an "early October surprise," because it could prove to be so crucial in the midterm elections.

Even some conservative voices are now speaking out. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted her frustration on social media this week:

All right, $8.49 for diesel in California. Let me tell you something. It's $6.59 in Georgia. I don't care if it's Georgia or California. It's way too high. This is ridiculous.

Look, everything you buy -- your food, your supplies, all of your goods -- gets delivered by diesel. The war in Iran has got to stop. This is Trump's fault. This should not be this high. It needs to end. Ridiculous.

The House even passed another resolution to end the war in Iran, and this time seven Republicans voted for it. The Pentagon is lying about the amount of damage Iranian strikes have caused, and possibly even the number of deaths the war has caused in the U.S. military, too.

Trump doesn't care. At all. He has stopped even pretending that there will be an end to his war of choice any time soon. He's even stopped making belligerent threats against the Iranians. He seems bored with the whole misadventure, but ignoring it isn't going to make it go away -- or bring the price of diesel down. Which is why more and more voters are eager to register their disgust with Republicans.

Trump, not satisfied with only one geopolitical fiasco at a time, picked a trade-war fight with Canada -- just in time to remind everyone how much they hate Trump's tariffs. Canada is being pushed into the welcoming arms of the European Union, while Trump rants and raves. This could all cost the GOP several states in the midterms (the states that do the most business with Canada and will thus be hurt the most by Trump's petulant idiocy).

Trump and JD Vance hit the campaign trail this week, but what was most telling was the states they went to first. Trump headed to North Carolina, where the Democrat is now favored to win the Senate race. Vance headed to Kansas -- which, again, should not even be competitive, but is. Vance has started using a rather pathetic message to voters: "give us another chance." No, really, that's actually what he's saying now:

There's a lot of good that's been done, but there's a lot of work left to do. Don't give power to the people who cause the problems that we're fixing. Give us another chance, or give us another couple of years, to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years.

This has a very "rejected boyfriend" vibe to it, you will note. The only other message Republicans seem to be running on is that Democrats are all communists.

Cracks are appearing in the GOP, as more and more Republicans try to distance themselves from an unpopular president who started a very unpopular war which has sent the price of gas and diesel skyrocketing. One GOP House member in Florida openly broke from Trump on the subject of immigration this past week, releasing an ad telling him:

Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.... The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.

Another Republican in the House, Thomas Massie, introduced a resolution to impeach Pete Hegseth. Because of the rules of the chamber, this forced Speaker Mike Johnson to start the big before-the-election House vacation a day early (which avoided a vote on the resolution until after the election). And he also had to deal with a fight that happened in his own office between two of his members, one of whom (Andy Harris) wanted a vote before the election on a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax, and one of whom (Sam Graves) pointed out that Harris had sent out a tweet in 2022 ripping into Joe Biden for suggesting exactly the same thing. Here's how the fracas devolved from there:

"This is fucking war!" [Representative Andy] Harris raged, banging on the desk. He made his way in a huff to the door before being talked back by [Speaker Mike] Johnson.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) then confronted [Representative Sam] Graves to defend Harris.

"Why do you have to come at him personally?" Higgins snapped at Graves. "You disrespectful fool!"

Higgins and Harris reportedly stomped out of the meeting.

The bill did not get a vote, in the end.

There were three notable defections in conservative ranks this week, starting with a former governor of Kansas endorsing the Democratic candidate for Senate in his state:

Former Kansas Gov. Bill Graves said Sen. Roger Marshall, a fellow Republican, "has walked away from Kansas people," so he's throwing his support behind "breath of fresh air" Democrat Adam Hamilton in the state's U.S. Senate race.

. . .

"I was successful for my tenure in Kansas because I tried to do the right thing for Kansas people," continued Graves, who served as governor from 1995-2003 after serving as secretary of state. "And it just feels like Roger has gotten lost in the swamp here in Washington and has walked away from Kansas people. And Adam Hamilton is a breath of fresh air. He is a remarkable candidate that has the potential to be a great... bring people together in Washington. And I could not resist supporting him. So Roger lost my support. Adam gained my support. And that's the way the political process works."

Even more astonishing was George Will writing a column endorsing (without actually using the word) the Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina:

This year, South Carolinians can demonstrate political independence by electing Democrat Annie Andrews. She is a 45-year-old mother of three and a pediatrician who likes children and wants to be in the U.S. Senate.

The third of these stunning defections is only for a state office, not the U.S. Senate, but it is just as astonishing because of the source. None other than Karl Rove said he was going to be voting for a Democrat for the state official that controls oil and gas development. This was because the Republican running (Bo French) is an unashamed and proud racist, as he proved to the world this week on social media (more on this sordid story in a bit). Here's what Rove had to say:

The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches -- and not only in Texas. Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a "heritage America" composed of white descendants of the original European settlers. There are "just asking questions" Jew-haters, misogynists who worship hypermasculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking clicks for profit, and religious bigots who won't differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.

These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I'll have no part of it. This November, I'll vote for only the second Democrat in my life. The first was Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock in 1994, because I thought he would work with Republicans. The second will be Mr. French's opponent, Jon Rosenthal. The GOP's stables need a cleaning. This is a good place to start.

Once again, this is Karl Rove writing that.

Donald Trump got some bad legal news this week, as a judge continued to block him from slapping his name on the Kennedy Center (more on this in a moment), while the Supreme Court ruled that Trump's plan to have the U.S. Postal Service decide who gets a ballot delivered and who doesn't is not going to take place before the midterm election. Trump, of course, threw a hissy fit in both instances. Trump's hand-picked new chair of the Federal Reserve board went ahead and raised interest rates this week too, but Trump threw less of a hissy fit over this political defeat.

What else? It was revealed this week that Donald Trump Junior had a lavish, private-island party thrown for him to celebrate his recent wedding, and apparently it was all paid for by a Russian oligarch. That sound you hear off in the distance is Ronald Reagan, rolling over in his grave.

And to close on, the contractor who did the work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool admitted this week that their company was responsible for all the damage to the liner -- not vandals, as Trump feverishly claimed. Which everybody with a brain knew anyway, but it was good to get confirmation of the fact.

 

Some Democrats are already making some good political hay out of the Republican House bugging out early this week, which is a good sign. Hang the "do-nothing Congress" label around their necks!

We have an Honorable Mention award for a Cleveland city council member who proposed renaming Lake Erie to "the Gulf of Cleveland" this week. Council Member Kris Harsh gave a passionate (and hilarious) speech explaining why he was proposing the name change, which included him referring to "our dear orange leader in D.C.," and admitting that it was in reality a lake, not a gulf, but brushing this objection aside with: "Who cares? Listen to me very carefully and jot this down. Words don't matter."

But our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award this week goes to Representative Joyce Beatty, who is leading the fight against Trump's infantile petulance over not being able to rename the Kennedy Center for himself.

Beatty is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center's board of trustees, which is what gave her standing to bring the lawsuit that forced Trump to remove his name from the outside of the building (and everywhere else, too). The board met this week, and because Trump appointed himself to chair this board, the two had the opportunity to speak directly to each other. Here's how it went, according to Beatty:

"Let me just make it simple: It was the most unprofessional thing that I have ever witnessed or been a part of," [Representative Joyce] Beatty said. "[Donald Trump] went into name-calling, from everything from trying to say that I was an obstructionist, I was dumb."

"He said, 'I think you're incompetent.' And I said, 'I know you're incompetent,'" Beatty continued. "I was not going to let him call me awful things."

. . .

"He said he was going to hold me responsible if something fell out of the ceiling and killed someone, and I told him, I said, 'You're already killing people. We're at war. We also have people who are starving. You're doing this,'" Beatty said. "And then he wanted to talk about how great he was with developing, and he didn't know anything about me, but I had never done anything. This was the biggest thing I had done. So I reminded him that he had more bankruptcies than anybody in the room."

. . .

"I think it would be unthinkable for someone to hear a president using the language he used," Beatty told Collins. "He threw a tantrum. It was like an immature child. I wouldn't even want to put this on a child. It was just being very -- in my opinion -- very immature, shouting, calling names."

The legal battle had several developments this week (in addition to the board meeting). First, a judge again ruled against Trump slapping his name on the building or onto the grounds surrounding the building (which he wanted to name the "Trump Plaza"). When the board met, they had initially planned on voting to close the Kennedy Center down for two years, and they were going to decide on the wording of the phrase they were planning on adding to the building (all of which praised Trump by name). Because of the judge's ruling, they didn't vote on the name-change.

This sent Trump into a frenzy, which is why the screaming match happened. So the board decided to just close the doors and kick the public out anyway -- which happened within hours of the meeting.

Trump is now openly threatening to just tear the Kennedy Center down if they don't let him slap his name on it. Nothing shows Trump's infantile petulance more than this entire fiasco, when you stop and think about it.

Later in the week, a photo was released showing Trump through the windows of a plane reviewing a huge printout that had the letters: "...dy Center DEMOLIS..." visible. It's pretty obvious the rest of it spelled out: "Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED."

So Beatty went back and got the judge to issue another emergency ruling, this one mandating that any work -- including any demolition -- on the Kennedy Center be reported to him 30 days before it took place.

This is all due to the fact that Beatty has a seat on the board and was strong enough to fight back with all the legal (and verbal) tools she could. If anyone's name gets added anywhere in or on the Kennedy Center at some future point, Beatty should be the one honored, not Trump.

Which is why we're honoring her this week with the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award. We have personally been to the Kennedy Center more times than we can count, and we look forward to visiting it in the future and not seeing Donald Trump's name on it -- for which we will be able to thank Joyce Beatty.

[Congratulate Representative Joyce Beatty on her House contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

 

Happily, it was another one of those weeks when no Democrat disappointed us. Dan Osborn, who is running against a Republican senator in Nebraska, got caught making some rather blunt statements about Trump voters (while dropping lots of F-bombs), but Osborn is not a Democrat (he is an Independent) and is thus not eligible for the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award.

 

Volume 857 (9/18/26)

This week, we're not going to offer up discrete talking points; instead, we're just going to go off on a rant. Mostly because there were just too many examples to talk about, and because it's so easy to connect them all rhetorically to each other.

This is offered up to Democrats, for whenever a media personality asks them about some "radical" or "extremist" Democratic politician. The mainstream media has mostly been using a very skewed double standard to talk about the issue, because it is rare indeed to hear any Republican asked a similar question. Which is what inspired the following rant.

 

The complete amorality of the Republican Party

You know what? I am sick and tired of hearing about how the Democratic Party has so-called "extremists" in its ranks. Because I really would like it if the media didn't use their typical double standard when deciding which stories to highlight. If they truly wanted to expose some real extremists, they should look no further than the Republican Party.

And I won't even mention Donald Trump -- the amoral leader of what has become a thoroughly amoral party. Trump's flaws in this regard are pretty well-known. Instead I'd like to shine a light on all the other loathsome extremists in the GOP ranks.

Republicans are supporting an accused domestic abuser for a House seat. He's been accused of breaking his daughter's collarbone. She was two years old at the time. He's been accused of throwing a pan of hot water on his wife, who is now divorcing him. But none of that is apparently disqualifying for today's Republican Party, who is still backing Max Miller for re-election.

Then there's the guy running for Senate in North Carolina, who just held a rally and invited a guy who is a twice-convicted sexual predator of children -- a child-rapist, in other words -- to give his blessing by offering up a prayer for the crowd. This is beyond disgraceful, it is downright disgusting -- that a candidate for the United States Senate would give a child-rapist a platform and a microphone for any reason at all.

But the Republican Party didn't even blink. Because they have no morals left at all.

In Texas, the GOP has a candidate for the House named Brendon Herrera who has not only said some of the most offensive and detestable things about women voters that can even be imagined, but who also has appeared in videos goose-stepping to a marching song from Nazi Germany and testing out a Nazi-era submachine gun (which he called the "original ghetto blaster." He's also said things like: "We should abolish old people," just for fun.

Here's what Speaker of the House Mike Johnson -- who likes to portray himself as a devout Christian guy -- had to say about Herrera recently: "Herrera has been out running a very effective campaign.... Right now, he's running as a very serious candidate for Congress and a very thoughtful guy." A very serious and thoughtful Nazi sympathizer, in other words, is just fine and dandy for today's GOP.

They have lost their moral compass. They have lost all sense of morality, plain and simple.

In Florida, a Republican candidate for the state legislature was one of the guys who marched with the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia. Remember the guys chanting: "Jews will not replace us"? He was one of them. Florida Republicans have been either backing him or silent about his belonging to a neo-Nazi organization.

Republican politicians are also fine with hiring people who are Nazi sympathizers. Representative Mike Collins had a chief of staff who participated in a group chat with two of the most prominent antisemites and White nationalists around, as well as hiring an intern who had shared images online of himself in full K.K.K. robes, as well as a swastika and the phrase "White Power." A top campaign aide to Senator Jon Husted used to use a photo of a Nazi SS soldier as his Facebook profile photo.

Then there's Bo French, who is running for a statewide office in Texas. He was just in the news for posting a racist comment about students at the University of Texas. When confronted with the racism, French doubled down and used it to fundraise. Even before he made his racist post this week, he's known for saying things like calling for "the rounding up of all Muslims," and: "OK boys, it's time to go round up all the Chinese and send them packing!" He's also said that America should be like Rhodesia was (which was just as bad as apartheid South Africa).

French is so odious that a few -- a very few -- Republicans have spoken out against him. French is so offensive that Karl Rove just announced he would be voting -- for only the second time in his life -- for the Democrat running against French.

But most Republicans, in Texas and elsewhere, remained silent. Because they have no morals left at all -- winning elections is the only thing that matters. It doesn't matter how repulsive or disgusting, as long as the candidate has an "R" next to their name, most Republicans just don't care about anything else.

French isn't the only Republican saying truly offensive things about Muslims, though. There is Representative Randy Fine, who posted on social media, "If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one." Representative Andy Ogles posted: "Muslims don't belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie. Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back."

This isn't even a full list, mind you. There are other examples that are just as bad, some of them from Donald Trump himself.

Personally, I remember when the Republican Party struck a very sanctimonious pose for the public, proclaiming themselves the only party with strong morals and values. They denounced Democrats as having no strong ethics at all. They'd accuse Democrats of being "moral relativists," meaning their morals shifted depending on the circumstance.

Boy, those were the days, eh?

At this point, it's hard to even call the Republicans "moral relativists," because it sure looks like the party just has no morals at all anymore.

So yeah, I would invite members of the media to start highlighting the rampant extremism within the Republican Party -- often going hand-in-hand with racism or misogyny or even White nationalism -- as a balance to all the stories they run about so-called extremists in the Democratic Party. It really shouldn't be too hard for them to do so, because there are so many of them to choose from. And these aren't just people with new economic ideas, these are odious hate-filled bigots. Every Republican should be asked about whether they support such people in their ranks, because so far there has been a deafening silence from them about any of it.

The Republican Party has become amoral, through and through.

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground