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Detroit commentator says Obama campaigning for Abdul El-Sayed won’t move Black voters: "We love Obama. I love Obama. But listen, a pig by any other name is still a pig. You can put lipstick on a pig, as they say. It’s a pig." https://t.co/bnDWJG7Nl1
— Bobby LaValley (@Bobby_LaVallley) October 8, 2026
Ed: I wrote more about this in the morning, and this is what I was getting at. Obama showed up at the last minute ten years ago to put lipstick on another pig, and Trump still beat Hillary in Michigan. Obama is the opposite of Trump: personally well-liked but with almost no real influence over voters. Why? Obama lectures and scolds voters, maybe especially black male voters, while Trump speaks their language.
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Daily Mail: Barack Obama is facing a fresh humiliation at his 'eyesore' presidential center with workers slamming the project's bosses and moving to unionize just months after it opened.
In a letter to colleagues this week, staff at the Chicago library said they were organizing a union due to the institute's 'increasing workloads' and benefit rollbacks.
Workers have grown frustrated with leadership at Obama's foundation after their concerns were met with 'vague responses,' according to the letter, first shared by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Issues with workloads and benefits have led to a 'high turnover rate' among employees, with many more 'continuing to leave (and) taking with them their institutional knowledge and expertise,' the letter claimed.
Workers say they were recently told that their healthcare costs would increase, promotions were suspended, and paid time off was reduced, despite also learning they would get no pay increases this winter.
Ed: Hey, who knew Obama converted to the DSA? Seriously, Mike Rogers should flood the zone in Detroit with this story ahead of Obama
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I'm hearing that behind closed doors, James Talarico is showing signs of "vigor" and that "this version of Talarico, intellectually, analytically, is the best Talarico ever."
— Kevin McMahon (@Kevin__McMahon) October 8, 2026
Ed: Okay, this made me laugh out loud. Just wait until the Protection Racket Media insists that Talarico's absence is actually a "cheap fake."
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CNN: Talarico’s 12-day absence from trail becomes fodder for GOP in Texas Senate race
James Talarico has been absent from the campaign trail over the past 12 days as the Texas Senate race enters a critical stretch, prompting Republicans to open a new line of attack on the Democratic nominee.
At a campaign rally in San Antonio Wednesday, Texas attorney general and GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton led the crowd in a chant about his opponent's whereabouts.
"Where is James Talarico?" Paxton prompted the crowd to ask.
Ed: Ah yes, CNN frames this in the "Republicans Pounce™" narrative rather than the "why would a Senate candidate disappear for twelve days in the general election" context. At least CNN noticed Talarico is missing, finally. Republicans pouncing is only my second-favorite journ-o-listing on this story, though...
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Serious question for the people in Texas that identify as journalists -- how does a candidate in one of the country's high profile Senate races disappear for 12 days and you dont notice (unless you are covering)
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) October 8, 2026
Ed: They're covering the story, Sean ... in the Iowahawk/Jim Treacher sense. My favorite journ-o-listing on this story is all the "the campaign says he has the flu and so the science is settled" takes. Also, you have to love "identify as journalists."
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NBC News: The bitter fight over a Texas Senate seat that Democrats believe is within reach for the first time in decades should be ramping up right now.
But in the final push, when campaigns believe most voters are finally tuning in, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico has been off the trail for in-person events in the state for 12 days.
His campaign says he is suffering from the flu and expected to be back in action this weekend.
While he has appeared virtually at a forum, Talarico’s last in-person event in the state was on Sept. 26. He visited New York on Sept. 29 for a private fundraiser and, according to the virtual remarks he gave to the Hispanic Business Council the following day, he returned to Dallas and visited urgent care.
Ed: This is slightly better, but still, no one's asking why a case of the flu would keep a 37-year-old healthy male sidelined for 12 whole days. NBC doesn't seem too interested in getting an answer to that question. Instead, their framing is mainly how inconvenient his absence is for other Democrats.
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This is not going to get better for Talarico. You can’t just go awol for 2 weeks while running for a highly contested and nationalized Senate campaign.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) October 8, 2026
Ed: Not if you're a Republican, anyway. Democrats such as Talarico and Joe Biden get the Sharp As A Tack™ treatment.
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NY Post: Mayor Zohran Mamdani was berated and booed at an Oct. 7 candlelight vigil in Union Square on Wednesday night by anti-Israel protesters who believe he turned his back on Palestinian causes.
Hizzoner, with a candle in hand, was heckled by the angry mob, including some waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, who marched from City Hall to crash the event meant to honor Jewish victims killed by Hamas terrorists — and Palestinians in the subsequent war.
“You coward!” some of the keffiyeh-clad agitators shouted at Hizzoner. “How do you let this happen?”
“Zohran you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” the protesters yelled in unison.
Other chants included “Mayor Mamdani take a stand. Stop the sale of stolen land” and “Shame on you.”
Ed: I'm calling BS on this. It's awfully convenient for Mamdani to now say, 'gee, both sides are angry, so I must be doing something right!' Or alternately: 'This anger demonstrates my courage in defending Jews!' The hecklers may have been honestly unhappy, but I'd bet the organizers made sure to give Mamdani the sound bite that could help pre-empt the criticism he rightly received for his grotesque victim-blaming.
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He is a very evil man. And I mean evil when I say it. Everything about Mamdani is fake and manufactured from his accent to his affect. He is an Islamist in a suit, who tried to come off as thoughtful and moderate so normies can’t really make sense of the movement he is part of. Wake up now or it will be too late.
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) October 8, 2026
He is an Islamist in a suit, who tried to come off as thoughtful and moderate so normies can’t really make sense of the movement he is part of.
Wake up now or it will be too late.
Ed: That's exactly the perception that this demonstration is intended to create. It's all performative nonsense.
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William Otis at Ringside at the Reckoning: Donald Trump drives a lot of us nuts with his crassness, dime-store populism and self-absorption. That’s bad enough, but his indecisiveness in dealing with our mortal enemy Iran is worse, because it’s given us a war we can win and need to win but stand a decent chance of losing because of his inexplicable craving for a “deal” he can’t get and that would be unenforceable if he could.
And with all that, he’s unambiguously better than the alternative. We saw yesterday in Mamdani’s New York City what the alternative looks like. It looks like hate. And it smells of hate. The main object of the hate is America, its history, its culture, and its free markets, both for goods and ideas. But an adjunct of its hate for America is its hate for Israel and Jewish people. This should be a loud warning to any reasonable Democrats who might still be out there (admittedly not many) and certainly to faint-hearted Republicans who are ready, for example, to sit home on election day next month to “send Trump a message.”
News flash: Elections are less about “sending a message,” which Trump won’t hear or will ignore in any event, and more about deciding who holds power. Ignoring who the Democrats are, and who they’ve become and are becoming — and hence what they’ll do when they get power — is worse than juvenile. It’s dangerous.
It’s not like they don’t tell us. They tell us all the time. My case in point is Mamdani’s hateful speech attacking Israel on the anniversary of October 7, no less (post here). The speech was appalling but also revealing, because it showed us that, on a day that any normal person would understand should be devoted to sober remembrance, his remarks were designed mainly as a political indictment (for the eight zillionth time) of — not Hamas, the perpetrator of the October 7 atrocities — but of Israel, the target.
Ed: Bill and Paul are Trump skeptics by nature, but not TDS-afflicted by it either. This is the crux of these midterms, and I'd argue an even bigger issue for 2028. Even if you don't like Trump personally and find his style abrasive, it's hardly the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that Democrats have become a party of radical Marxists and Islamist sympathizers, and it cannot be trusted with power in its current form.
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BREAKING: Fully masked Islamists are now chasing down Zohran Mamdani, and threatening him. You have to laugh at the irony of this. https://t.co/a2IDDv5XWD
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 8, 2026
Ed: To the extent irony exists, sure. It does show that the radical revolutionaries cosplaying with keffiyehs are incapable of rational discourse, even among their own allies who do not demonstrate 100% adherence to The Accepted Narrative.
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NY Post: Firebrand socialist streamer Hasan Piker backed the anti-Israel protestors who heckled Mayor Zohran Mamdani during an Oct. 7 vigil at a Manhattan park — prompting critics to chuckle that the left was “eating itself.”
“The f–k? What the hell is going on in New York City, man?” Piker, 35, said on a livestream Wednesday while watching footage of Mamdani attending a memorial in Union Square organized by Isrealis for Peace.
“This was the vigil? I thought it was the pro-Palestine rally… it was an Israeli rally? Israelis for peace? The f–k? a dumbfounded Piker groaned.
“There ain’t no way that Zohran presented that as the pro-Palestine rally,” Piker added, covering his face with his hands and letting out a long groan. “Oh, that’s disastrous.”
Ed: That's exactly what it was. Israelis for Peace is an activist group that accuses Israel of conducting a genocide in Gaza. The fact that Piker and his Islamist allies can't even accept that allyship speaks volumes about their true motivations in their supposed "anti-Zionism" as opposed to what it truly is – Jew-hatred.
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Minnesota’s fraud and crime crises have exploded under Peggy Flanagan’s watch. The Walz-Flanagan approach has failed Minnesotans. We deserve leaders willing to confront Somali gang violence, not avoid it. Accountability. Safer communities. Leaders who confront problems head-on. https://t.co/wNjBeaJUiX
— Michele Tafoya (@Michele_Tafoya) October 8, 2026
Ed: As I wrote earlier, I'm more optimistic about the MN Senate race. One point I failed to mention is the value of having good and credible candidates in elections, even those that seem out of reach. Mainly, that helps avoid embarrassing situations that can bleed into other races, but it's also important in case events transpire that present real opportunities. Tafoya may or may not win, but she now has a real chance, and Republicans are lucky to have her on the ballot.
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Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness: So, is the West now a teetering modern Gondor?
It too faces both an external threat from a rising communist China of 1.4 billion people that seeks global domination and internal apostasy from a new, nihilistic, anti-Western alliance of socialism and Islamism.
Western borders, with the recent exception of those of the United States, are mostly shattered.
Immigrants and their children together account for more than 30 percent of the population in many Western countries. Thousands of young people from immigrant neighborhoods are currently rioting in the streets of France—attacking churches, indigenous French passersby, and anyone who challenges them. The same sort of violence, once sporadic, now threatens to sweep Europe.
Ed: You knew I could not resist a LOTR reference! I'd say the West is more of a Rohan – a once-vibrant state whose strength has been sapped by the Wormtongues of the Left, whispering defeatism and rejection of greatness into our ears for decades. The Gondor analogy works for me too, but Gondor in the novel was more a case of decline through the lack of legitimate leadership and a drift into collapse. In Rohan, there was much more purpose and malice behind it, with Saruman seeking to seize Rohan through the whispering lies of Wormtongue. YMMV, of course.
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https://t.co/TxBlbAJg5Y
— Daily Gondor 📰 (@DailyGondor) October 8, 2026
Ed: Well ... yeah, that too. If all you ever did was watch the film, you'll miss the context of the joke, but you will still get the point.
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Natan Sharansky is a former Soviet dissident who spent nine years imprisoned as a refusenik. George Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom 20 years ago he was asked - what was the greatest threat to Western Civilization? His answer - "American Academia"
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) October 8, 2026
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Last night's lyric: "Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways.
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