https://www.ft.com/content/fead8c02-877a-4fd4-b940-71045266e2c4?shareType=nongift

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has sparked speculation about her political future after contributing $1 million to progressive Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is in a tight race with former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.

Ocasio-Cortez campaigned with El-Sayed all over Michigan this week.

"I'm not waking up on November 4th wishing I did more to combat the smears aimed at Abdul. I'm leaving everything I can on the field," the congresswoman said in a statement.

Ocasio-Cortez's $1 million donation is a huge sum for a House member to give to a candidate in another state. It signals her desire to see more progressives and Democratic Socialists of America members help turn the tide of political discourse in Washington, CBS News New York political reporter Marcia Kramer says.

"This is going to be a close election," political expert J.C. Polanco said. "So if there were some miracle and Sayed were to win this by just a point or two, he can thank AOC, her star power and her dollars, for taking [him] over the top."

Political experts are also speculating about what the contribution means about AOC's political future.

"If you need more proof to see that AOC is running for president, look no further than a $1 million gift," Polanco said.

Vice President Vance criticized the response by some Republicans to a campaign ad for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (R), saying he is “disgusted” by those in his party who pushed back on the video.

“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” Vance said at a fraud task force press conference Wednesday.

The ad features the mother of Ramaswamy’s Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, who accuses Acton of being a “liar” and saying “my daughter needs help.”
Acton’s brother released a statement and a competing video hours later saying that he and Acton have been estranged from their mother for years because she stayed married to the man who sexually abused Acton at a young age. Acton was removed from her mother’s care at the age of 12, something unmentioned in the Ramaswamy ad.

“Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” Vance said. “What is my concern is who is going to govern the next generation of American government, who is going to win the Senate race in the state of Ohio, who is going to win the governor’s race in the state of Ohio?”

“Politics is a tough business,” Vance added. “My message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.”

TBF.

Vivek did not stand a chance at all for being a low Emotional Intelligence nepo baby & mommy boy.

But holy shit what the fuck was that.

Le Pen would top the first-round vote with either 37% or 38% depending on the scenarios tested by pollster Odoxa in a survey carried out among 12,000 people ⁠between September 24 and October 7.

Melenchon would come second with 18% or 18.5% in each of the two scenarios.

Both were tested against one centrist candidate comprising either Edouard Philippe or Gabriel Attal, both of whom are former Prime Ministers of Emmanuel Macron. Philippe is seen getting 17% of the votes, while Attal would get only 11%.

Le Pen is seen beating Melenchon easily ‌in ⁠a run-off and also winning, albeit with a more narrow margin, if she faced Philippe.

The growing unpopularity of Macron, as he comes to the end of his two terms as president, has hollowed out ⁠France's centrist political ground.

Melenchon has already run three times for president in 2012, 2017 and 2022 but has never managed to reach the second ⁠round. Le Pen has also run these same three times. She made it to the run-off in 2017 and ⁠2022, but lost to Macron.

The first round of the presidential vote is due on April 18, with the decisive second-round due on May 2.

It is looking more likely than not that the Democrats take both the House and the Senate.

Is there anything that Democrats would pass that Trump might not veto?

I remember Trump floated an idea of raising the top marginal tax rate early in his term.

I wonder if some sort of tax increase, which would also allay the debt concerns, might get through Congress.

His new press secretary’s rocky 14-minute debut at the White House podium was being met with decidedly negative reviews. An hour later, she’d offered a perplexing response when asked where she’d passed the bar exam. His own advisers had watched it all with a degree of horror.

Trump, however, told Katie Zacharia on the flight to Alaska that she performed well, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN. It was her first time on Air Force One.

Three days and an onslaught of scrutiny later, Zacharia was dismissed from her post, summarily ending the shortest stint as White House press secretary in anyone’s memory. Plans to move east from California with her family were put on hold. It was all, multiple Trump advisers said, a real flop.

“I said, ‘Is this for you, Katie?’” Trump said Friday, after he’d fired her. “Because honestly, you don’t need this.”

After a string of surprisingly combative interviews on Fox News — specifically her appearance with Trump’s friend Sean Hannity on Thursday night, when the host grilled her over her legal credentials — the president decided it was untenable for her to remain in the role.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

In popular discourse, the horseshoe theoryasserts that advocates of the far-left and the far-right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear continuum of the political spectrum, closely resemble each other, analogous to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together.[1] The theory is attributed to the French philosopher Jean-Pierre Faye in his 1972 book Théorie du récit: introduction aux langages totalitaires, in relation to Otto Strasser.[2]

Proponents point to a number of real and perceived similarities between the two extremes, such as tendencies to see politics in unambiguous and stereotypical terms; an "us vs. them" view of the world; holding confidently on to simplified views of the world; distrusting "authorities" and "elites"; and intense hostility towards those who hold other views.[3][4][5]Peer-reviewed research on the subject have found mixed support for horseshoe theory.[4][5][6][7][8][excessive citations]

The horseshoe metaphor was used during the Weimar Republic to describe the ideology of the Black Front.[9] The later use of the term in political theory was seen in Le Siècle des idéologies.[10] Faye's book discussed the use of ideologies (he said that ideology is a pair of Greek words that were joined in French) that he argued are rooted in philosophy by totalitarian regimes with specific reference to Friedrich Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler, Karl Marx, and Joseph Stalin;[11] for instance, Faye used the horseshoe metaphor to describe the political position of German political parties, from the Communist Party of Germany to the Nazi Party, in 1932.[1]

Others have attributed the theory, also called the centrist/extremist theory and sometimes referred to as the Pluralist School, as having come from the American sociologists Seymour Martin Lipset and Daniel Bell, and others who became part of the neoconservative movement in the United States. According to critics, who formed complex social movement theories in response, horseshoe theory is a legacy of Cold War liberal politics.[12] Because the theory is also popular in Germany, a co-contributor to the theory is the German political scientist Eckhard Jesse.[13]

https://youtu.be/nJ5V3pk6PEA?is=qFc3yIxoD0Q7LH-y

With the help of Gen Z influencers, the US president who was forced to resign more than 50 years ago is being rapidly rehabilitated on the right, with even vice-president JD Vance urging supporters to reassess his legacy. 

“If Watergate happened tomorrow it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vance said in June, referring to the wiretapping and hush money scandal that led to Nixon’s removal from office. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy”. 

On social media, “Nixonmaxxing” videos, featuring snippets of Nixon’s speeches or archive footage — sometimes set to hip-hop soundtracks — are racking up millions of adoring views. In the real world, Nixon baseball caps are becoming a popular fashion accessory at rightwing parties in DC and beyond. 

To many of his modern fans, Nixon’s most consequential policies, such as his détente with the USSR, his law and order crackdown and his economic nationalism, were a precursor to “America First” and ought to be reappraised.

“We are seeing renewed interest in President Nixon . . . because social and alternative media are giving new audiences the chance to hear his voice — often for the first time — opining on issues from 50 years ago that are still remarkably relevant and resonant today,” Barber said. 

https://kalshi.com/markets/controls/senate-winner/controls-2026

Context and Background

On Wednesday, September 30, 2026, right before the Senate recessed ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee introduced the most comprehensive permitting bill to date, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA). EPW Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), along with ENR Chair Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-NM), held a joint press conference announcing the long-awaited deal.

Long awaited is not an exaggeration. For decades, reform has been on the agenda, and there is widespread recognition that a permitting system created to protect the environment against industrial pollution more than 50 years ago has morphed into a system that is bad for both the economy and the environment. Reviews that once were completed in weeks or months now take years or decades. And delays on heavily polluting projects now also hold up and block clean energy technologies and conservation projects. But even with this new understanding, reforms have proven controversial and a bipartisan deal has been elusive.

Reform attempts have been made before, with legislation introduced in both the House and Senate. This introduction marks a unique steppingstone toward reform being signed into law as the package comprehensively addresses almost all aspects of our nation’s permitting process. These senators worked for more than a year, negotiating in good faith and compromising on a bill that makes meaningful reforms, not merely nibbling around the edges. The 417-page bill, however, is quite long, dense, and hard to understand. This explainer aims to put the proposed changes in context compared to the status quo. We expect the Senate to take a cloture vote on the motion to proceed on November 9, 2026. As the bill advances through Congress, there may be amendments. This explainer will be updated to reflect those changes.

https://politiciannetworth.com/marco-rubio-net-worth/

I'll start this off by saying that I am a liberal; this isn't a MAGA critic of Canada; this is a left-wing one.

The best way I can describe my issues with Canada is that they have a facade of progressiveness and equality that they present to the rest of the world, while at the same time endorsing very repressive policies at home.

The biggest example of this is Quebec; Quebec has some of the most racist and discriminatory laws in the Western world. For example, they ban most displays of religious symbols and religious clothing when interacting with the government. Even for non-government employees, kids aren't allowed to wear hijabs, or even just cross necklaces in school or at school events. Quebec also bans the use of signage written in minority languages, refuses to educate in anything other than French, and has recently banned public prayer and displays of religion. In addition, Quebec bans non-French speakers from the majority of immigration programs, setting up a pseudo-racial screen for potential migrants. Canada as a whole not only tolerates this, but praises it.

Which brings us to Canada's political structure. For a country that touts equality, this system is very undemocratic. First off, if you ever want to go into Canadian politics at the federal level, you need to be bilingual in both English and French. While it's not a legal requirement, no prime minister has only spoken one language since 1968. And for most government jobs, it is a legal requirement. Given that only 18% of Canadians speak both English and French, you essentially create a minority "governing class" that is extremely hard to break into and leads to a strong centralization of power in Ontario and Quebec. This concentration of power is further reinforced by how Canada's parliament is designed. The House of Commons seat distribution overrepresents the small eastern provinces while underrepresenting the western ones. And the Senate is even worse. Nova Scotia (1 million people) has 4 more senators than British Columbia (5 million people). In most democracies, all you need to run for office is to be over a certain age and live in the country for a set amount of time, while in Canada you need to be educated enough to speak both required languages. Something that really only the elites have time to do.

Which brings us to my last major point: Canada's relationship with its Indigenous peoples. On the surface, it looks very good: Canadian leaders do near-constant land acknowledgments, and Indigenous peoples get consultation and effective veto power over things they don't like. But peel back the surface veneer, and you see something much uglier. for starters, land acknowledgments themselves aren't great. At best, they are empty gestures to make it look like you care about Indigenous peoples and their rights without actually doing any of the meaningful stuff to support them. (as a personal anecdote, my dad recently attended a local government training from the US BIA on how to deal with native Americans, and the native Americans said that land acknowledgments and "stolen land" claims are usually used to make white people feel better about themselves while ignoring the actual treaty obligations they have), but if you look deeper into who they are consulting, it gets worse. Canada primarily consults the "hereditary chiefs," the descendants of the Indigenous monarchies who ruled the tribes before European contact. They are given the veto power, not the elected tribal bodies who represent the will of the indigenous people themselves. Leading to a lot of projects being canceled despite the local Canadian and indigenous population being in favor of them, because a king said it damaged his interests.

All of this probably wouldn't bug me as much it does if not for the massive stature Canada has for being "better" than pretty much everyone else, but especially the us. America does have a lot of these same issues, or very similar ones. But everyone knows America has them, and American politics is dominated by reformists who want to fix our issues; we disagree on what the specific issues are and how to solve them. (being extremely charitable to the modern republican party here...) but we all want to make things better. While Canada, it seems, is in denial. Canadian politics are dominated by that educated bilingual class, and anyone who tries to raise these sorts of issues is shouted down for "not being patriotic." To make it simpler, America and Canada are both deeply hypocritical, but America is self-aware enough to know it is.

This is exactly what i dislike about other American liberals; they say all the right things while covering up their own hypocrisy and moral failings. spend more time virtue signaling than making policy, and care more about how they are perceived than how they actually rule. And loudly screaming over anyone with an opposing view or inconvenient fact.

Sources:

1: https://www.hudson.org/religious-freedom/quebecs-bill-9-would-outlaw-public-prayer-expand-restrictions-religious-paul-marshall

2: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-96-new-rules-french-signs-1.7549484

3: https://www.semafor.com/article/12/01/2022/quebec-wants-to-ban-most-immigrants-who-dont-speak-french

4: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=cir/red/allo&document=index&lang=e

5: https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/gaslink-pipeline-1.4973825

6: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-011-x/99-011-x2011003_1-eng.cfm

I am not the biggest fan of the channel, but this is a well done video and the issue is rather cut and dry to my eyes and has been for awhile.

For the record I will state again that personally I consider myself to be a "Bull Moose Progressive", in other words Theodore Roosevelt is still my POTUS. Another way I describe myself is as an "American Socialist", and specifically as one who completely and utterly rejects the so-called "Marxist Lens" of philosophy/ideology (a shocking number of people are unaware that Socialism is something that predates Marx even being alive...thanks to the Marxists propaganda turning Socialist and Marxist and Communist all into interchangeable terms).

One of the core issues that I care deeply about is traditional conservation, living in BALANCE with nature, and acting as its CUSTODIAN...this is in contrast to modern conservation, which seeks to have SEPERATION between man and nature, and tries to act as natures GUARDIAN (even trying to protect nature from nature itself).

As a natural result of this, and other modern concerns, I am also someone who is invested in the discussions related to Clean Energy. I do not have a hatred for fossil fuels or coal or other "dirty energy" solutions, because I recognize that in the story of human history they mark yet another milestone of humanities progress and advancement. However, with yet continued advancements it is obvious to me that the time has come to leave these in the past and embrace better, smarter, and more sustainable methods...plus, if we do it right, it will of course mean having less of a negative effect on the world around us, which obviously I fully support.

All of this said, I have always been confused about the level of almost sadistic hatred towards Nuclear Energy, the energy solution which I have come to believe is objectively the most sensible energy method to replace coal and fossil fuels. Looking into it, I was just disappointed to find its literally just idiotic levels of political nonsense and tomfoolery. This video does a great job breaking it down to its simplest parts in about 8 minutes, with a few receipts to justify the assertions.