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Seven Democrat midterm headaches Bloomberg buried in plain sight; ActBlue’s lawyers all skipped town; WaPo blames phones for empty cribs; NYT thinks the Founders missed a spot; more.
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Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! Your roundup includes: how Bloomberg blurted out that Republicans hold triple Democrats’ midterm cash, then somehow forgot to mention the other six reasons Democrats are losing — including ActBlue’s lawyers all suddenly remembering urgent prior commitments before the DOJ knocks; how the Washington Post solved the global birthrate crisis with one weird trick — apparently we’re tapping screens instead of starting families — using the very correlation-is-causation logic the paper spent six years denouncing as deeply unscientific; and how the New York Times solemnly declared the Founders too optimistic about restraining monarchical presidents, in an essay that somehow forgot Bill Clinton, Donald Trump (twice), and that recent little episode where ungrateful voters purged Joe Biden’s entire party from every branch of government.
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Late last week, Bloomberg ran this unintentionally encouraging report, which unintentionally exposed the three most mastodonic parts of the Democrats’ swelling polycrisis. The headline: “GOP Nears $1 Billion Midterms War Chest, More Than Triple Democrats’ Cash.” In short, it’s the money, but it’s not just the money. Both the hard numbers and hard maps also disfavored Democrats this cycle, even before redistricting. And then there is the growing enthusiasm gap— even as polls and pundits insist against evidence that ‘the political winds’ are at progressives’ backs.
Based on the most recent FEC filings, Republicans and allies have raised an historic $939 million ahead of the November midterms, more than triple Democrats’ $267 million haul. The funding gap, Bloomberg bluntly noted, “gives Republicans a major advertising advantage” in the midterm congressional elections, which is true, but kind of misses the point. It’s like saying that being 50 pounds heavier gives an MMA fighter “a major movement advantage.”
A more meaningful question is: why did the referees ignore the weight classes? Or, more to our point, why do Republicans enjoy a 3-1 funding advantage? What is the reason? Bloomberg avoided this question like it was the hantavirus variant of monkeypox.
The answer is surprising. Consistent with their broader polycrisis, Democrats face more than one midterm headache.
First, if this 3-1 funding mismatch were reversed, the media would be yammering endlessly about an enthusiasm gap. As evidence, consider this chirpy Times headline from October, 2018, a month out from the catastrophic Trump 1.0 midterms:
Democrat party leaders, the Times explained, “believe the financial advantage will give them the resources they need to harness an enthusiasm gap and capitalize on enmity for President Trump headed into Election Day.” Then, in 2018, when Democrats were ahead in fundraising, the Times couldn’t shut up about how this money gap would inevitably produce victories at the polls.
“You don’t buy your way into office,” explained Bob Biersack, a campaign finance expert quoted for the story, “but this kind of money makes victory possible in scenarios where it otherwise might not have been.” They say money is the mother’s milk of politics.
Evidently, Trump’s team learned its lesson in 2018. Outspending the GOP, Democrats retook the House and fired up the twin-engined impeachment machines. The Times knows about that lesson, too. In early February, long before the GOP’s war chest closed in on $1 billion, the New York Timesran this headline:
I could write a whole segment just about the framing difference between the two headlines. When Democrats are ahead, it is exciting; they are surging. But if it’s Republicans, headlines drip with gloomy words like threats and swamps.
Today, with Republicans holding an even bigger cash advantage, no one in corporate media dares to call it a ‘Republican enthusiasm advantage’— even though 8 years ago, they enthusiastically did that for Democrats on much slimmer numbers.
Here’s a helpful infographic from the Times February story (slightly outdated), which really puts the cash mismatch in perspective:
Let’s transition to the next cause of Democrats’ fundraising woes: justice. In 2018, corporate media glowingly reported that “small donations” (in other words: not billionaires!) fueled that year’s Democrat fundraising surge. But nearly all those alleged “small donations” surface through one plucky fundraising platform. You guessed it: ActBlue.
In October, 2018, the Hill reported, “Democrats’ Small-dollar donations explode in the Trump era.” Here’s the money graf:
Well, hello! Regardless of whether you believe, as I do, that many of those ‘small donations’ were fake, for whatever reason, the Democrats still only had a single monopolistic bathhouse (ActBlue) where all their ‘small donations’ bloomed. In hindsight, it might have been better for the Democrats to have decentralized a little.
In other words, Democrats built a single point of failure fundraising system around ActBlue, and now the bathhouse has sprung a leak. Last April, the Week soberly predicted that “the probe puts Democrats at risk of ‘financial death.’”
Now, in 2026, ActBlue sits under a hot DOJ microscope. The DOJ is poised to pounce like a Siamese cat crouching in a bush, waiting for the bird to land. Most of ActBlue’s board and all of its lawyers have quit, like morbidly obese rats toppling off the Titanic’s deck into the sea. Just as suddenly, the “Democrat small‑donor enthusiasm” story has vanished into the 2026 mist, even though polls claim that Democratic voters are just as riled up as in 2018.
Apparently, riled-up voters aren’t necessarily donors. Or, maybe the truth is that only partisan Democrats are riled up, and Democrat-leaning voters are tired, skeptical, and not interested in getting any more text messages from ActBlue.
We might pause to note that USAID —after years of quietly sluicing overseas ‘democracy promotion’ cash that conveniently boosted Democrat causes at home— has been unplugged, and that welfare fraudsters are uneasily edging toward the exits. But we don’t even need to connect those dots, since ActBlue’s misfortunes tell the whole story from corporate media’s own quotes.
🔥 Beyond ActBlue’s legal castration, one also suspects that, whatever real grassroots enthusiasm might have existed, has been further diluted by the Democrats’ losing the redistricting wars, such as the discouraging judicial smackdown in Virginia. Meanwhile, Republican enthusiasm is likely further fueled by ballooning gerrymandering prospects, dwindling numbers of “toss-up” races, and that crazy hat Ilhan Omar always wears. Politico, May 8th:
In February, before Republicans won the mid‑decade redistricting war, the Cook Report concluded there were ‘only 18 toss‑ups, 10 of them Democrat‑held.’ Since then, NPR and Politico both estimated the maps have shifted another 10–14 House seats toward the GOP.
Bloomberg reported that Democratic strategists and partisan reporters now grudgingly concede that the House map is “increasingly friendly to Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress.” BBC and NPR described Republicans as “gaining momentum” after the Virginia and Florida decisions, with GOP campaign chiefs openly talking about being “on the offensive” and election analysts saying Democrats now have “less margin for error” because the battlefield has tilted.
Their desperate hopes for Impeachment 3.0 are soaring away from them like those evil flying monkeys dressed up as elevator attendants in The Wizard of Oz.
As early as February 6th —again, beforethe redistricting wars— the Hill reported, “Cook Political Report unveils 18 toss-up House races for 2026.” Cook analysts told the Hill, “Though their majority is dangerously thin, in some ways, Republicans are starting out in a stronger position than they were in 2018.”
The pandemic damaged Democrats. Cook added, “Almost all of the most competitive House districts moved to the right between 2020 and 2024.” Another covid miracle.
Also back in February, also before redistricting, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) confidently told reporters, “We’re going to defy the historic trend this time, and here’s why.” He explained, “We have a very favorable map that we did not have last time. The tables have flipped. We were defending 16 Republicans in Democrat districts. This time, we have 13 Democrats seated in districts President Trump won. We have 25 Democrats in districts where President Trump came within 5 points of winning. We are going to play offense.”
So, Republicans started with a good map, then made it even better with a series of gerrymandering wins— which are still being counted. For example, Georgia legislators will meet next week for a special session to redraw that state’s maps. Granted, it will be for the 2028 cycle, but it will widen the enthusiasm gap. (Think about it: why would they do it now, right before the 2026 midterms, if it helped Democrats in any way?)
At this point, the only non‑poll advantage to which Democrats can point is a string of small, special‑election wins in low‑turnout, friendly races— nice for the headlines, but it is a pretty slender reed next to a billion‑dollar GOP cash edge and a House map that’s literally been redrawn to favor Republicans.
Before they became the lone ray of light, corporate media admitted the special election wins weren’t definitive data. For instance, in October, Reuters reported, “there is no guarantee that the relationship between special elections and the midterms holds true, with Trump reshaping political norms almost daily.”
Now, let’s tally the GOP’s seven structural advantages, all of them conceded by corporate media and its pet experts:
- The GOP’s massive, historic $1 billion war chest “swamping” Democrats.
- The Dems’ “small-donor enthusiasm” narrative has ingloriously collapsed.
- Redistricting wars that shifted 10-14 seats to the GOP.
- A House battlefield map with few toss‑ups and more D‑held seats at risk.
- Republicans going “on offense” in Trump‑leaning D-districts.
- Democrats’ popularity ratings were stronger in 2018; now they are in the dumpster.
- Democrats’ only tangible positive —special elections— is narrow and fragile.
The money gap, as bad as it is, could be much, much worse. In 2024’s presidential race, Democrats had a clear money advantage (they outspent Republicans by roughly 400 million dollars), yet still lost; a post‑mortem from Tech for Campaignsexplained that Republicans got more impact from less money by maintaining a steadier, always‑on digital presence and smarter platform‑specific allocation, while Democrats followed a boom‑and‑bust pattern around key dates.
Not only that, but Republicans don’t have to spray their billion‑dollar war chest across 435 districts; they can aim it like a fire hose at those 18 Cook toss‑ups plus a couple dozen Democrat incumbents sweating in Trump or near‑Trump districts that the analysts politely label “Leans D.”
To summarize: Republicans have reversed every meaningful 2018 disadvantage, flipping them into advantages for the GOP. And, I’ll wager, given the existential stakes, they’re not done yet. We still have a few months left for big moves before campaign season begins in earnest. It will be a wild ride.
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Yesterday delivered two excellent examples of corrupt media malfeasance that I will now expose with great relish. The first appeared in the Washington Post’s editorial pages, in a report headlined, “A suspicious decline in birth rates points to a new culprit.”
According to WaPo, the ‘new culprit’ of declining birth rates is, and I am not making this up, scrolling. The author argued that studies show couples are spending more time on their devices scrolling cat memes and not enough time together in the sack making kittens. Hence, global declining birthrates. It is a problem, everywhere, all at once.
Like the popular theory that we’re suddenly getting more cancer because we just can’t put down the mocha frappuccinos, this theory of poor self-discipline on our devices —it’s our own fault— allows the progressive deep state to skirt deeply uncomfortable questions about vaccines, birth control, ultra-processed food, and everything else connected to their bank accounts.
But there was a much more entertaining feature of this dumb scrolling-theory-dressed-up-as-elite-intellectual-blather. That was the editorial board’s embrace of correlation evidencing causation, a logical fallacy they just spent six years mercilessly mocking whenever it was applied to healthy athletes collapsing on the playing fields hours or days after getting their covid boosters.
Connecting those dots was downright unscientific. You remember how it was.
Well, that was then, and this is now. The WaPo’s essay explained that global birth rates have been drifting downward for decades, as countries got richer and women became more educated (n.b.: in liberal schools), but somewhere between 2008–2015 the decline accelerated across many very different countries. The author argued that this global inflection coincided with the mass adoption of smartphones and social media, which was also happening in many countries at once.
See now how correlation/causation reallyworks? When the correlation points to an environmental cause —like a brand-new experimental coronavirus vaccine— they shout the critics down while sneering about logical fallacies. Correlation is not causation, dummy! But when they can find some behavior that can be used to paint some devastating cultural disease as self-inflictedor as a personal moral failing, well then, correlation suddenly becomes the gold standard.
In other words, whenever an obvious correlation implicates system‑level actors, corporate media dismisses it as a fallacy and demands sky-high levels of proof before even being willing to discuss the possibility. But when any level of correlation, however unlikely, can be used to pathologize our personal choices and absolve the environment that produced those choices, it is treated as compelling evidence.
Behold the double standard. Behold the parlor trick. Behold the warped, disingenuous, lying media misinformers. Frankly, I reached my lifetime quota of media hypocrisy somewhere around February, 2021. Now I plan to call it out whenever it raises its twisted, ugly face.
This phenomenon is more destructive than just the media protecting its political and financial patrons. It is an opportunity cost problem. Whenever the establishment focuses its efforts on hectoring everybody about their excessive screen time, they are deliberately not focusing on finding the realcauses of a once-in-human-history globalfertility crisis.
🔥 But that wasn’t all. The second terrific example of journalistic malpractice appeared right on the New York Times’ main page, as a quasi-straight news piece labeled “Ideas,” whatever that means, with a headline rhetorically querying, “Were the Constitution’s Authors a Little Too Optimistic?” I’ll give you one guess how the article answered that question. As a hint, the Times thinks everybody is a little too optimistic.
The article’s predictable complaint was that the Constitution failed to predict that “the presidency” —i.e. really, one particular president— could become unaccountably powerful because our two-party system produces disciplined party partisans who refuse to impeach their own presidents. Thus, it argued, impeachments are too hardand are becoming rarer than Arctic polar bears.
In other words, impeachment should be an everyday tool available to corral any runaway presidents with monarchical ambitions —“kings”— but the Constitution provides no meaningful way to stop them if the president’s party controls Congress. (This is another bit of proof of how they’ve given up on the midterm elections and are shifting to changing the rules. But that is a side issue.)
This new threat to democracy, they argued, leaves a helpless nation completely at the mercy of a strong president. This is a bold argument. It resonates only with people who’ve never had a civics class.
In a piece packed with quotations from the Founders —proving the Grey Lady can find the Founders when it wants to— the Times called this new development an unforeseen loophole. The Framers, it explained, “sought to establish a constitutional structure able to constrain a president who aspired to be a monarch.” It quoted Benjamin Franklin, who warned, “The executive will be always increasing here, as elsewhere, till it ends in a monarchy.”
Then, citing unnamed ‘legal scholars,’ the Times stated as a fact that “the second Trump presidency approaches the maximalist view of presidential power that Franklin and other founders feared.” And that was the story’s whole witless theme, wrapped in a single Franklin quote: No kings!
So, of course, the Constitution must go, or at least be heavily revised using a black permanent marker.
🔥 The whole thing was downright silly, from the first paragraph one straight through its contorted conclusion, and is flatly contradicted by plain facts that everyone knows perfectly well, even Portlanders. I can’t believe Times readers lap up this kind of dreck like treats from a cat dish.
First, calling even a strong but term‑limitedand electorally accountable presidency a “monarchy” is retarded. One big difference between presidents and kings is that kings don’t have term limits. Geez. Not only that, but everyone drawing breath has a perfect example of how the Constitution doesprevent presidential overreach.
The situation the Times allegedly fears literally just happened.
Remember Joseph R. “Autopen” Biden? He got drunk on presidential power. Biden mandated that every man, woman, and child take an experimental vaccine. He labeled non-elite Americans as “non-essential.” He called people who wouldn’t take jabs a threat to good Americans. He defied SCOTUS by pushing his student loan forgiveness package through after the Court twice declared it illegal. Et cetera and so on.
Just as the Times predicted, Biden’s party refused to impeach him, even as he popped up out of his hole less often than the Punxatawney groundhog, and even as his increasingly erratic, carefully curated public statements made less sense than instructions for assembling a kid’s tricycle translated from Vietnamese.
But then what happened? When Biden’s term mercifully expired, grateful voters punished the entire Democrat party, purging it from every branch of government and even from lots of state governments. It was a national bloodbath. The party that refused to impeach its own out-of-control president got it in the shorts, good and hard.
Those were constitutional consequences, sometimes called “checks and balances,” a term with which I do not expect the Times to be familiar. (I blame the public schools.) So that was one huge flaw in its argument— actually, presidents aspiring to be kings get voted out, and their co-conspiring party gets punished across the board. Which is worsethan impeachment.
But second, the Times called impeachment “vanishingly rare” in the modern era. What on Earth did it think it was babbling about? If anything, impeachment has become morecommon, not vanishingly rare, having been recently and repeatedly used— against Bill Clinton (once) and Donald Trump (twice).
To be fair, the NYT would probably shoot back that neither Clinton nor Trump was actually removed, because of the two-thirds majority required for conviction in the Senate. But that is a different argument. Worse, it is self-limiting, because, by requiring a two-thirds Senatorial vote to remove a president against the will of the electorate, the Founders obviously wanted conviction to be rare and difficult.
Only by erroneously conflating impeachmentwith conviction could the Times logically make the “vanishingly rare” argument. And only by ignoring the examples of Clinton, Biden, and Trump 1.0 could the paper claim that some new crisis exists. In other words: it was pure misinformation.
Look at it another way. The Founders could have assigned impeachment and conviction to the judicial branch, say to the Supreme Court. That would have made some sense— if impeachment were intended to be like a criminal prosecution. But the Founders placed that power with a hotly political body— Congress. They meant for impeachment —which overrides the electoral choices of the entire nation— to be a political process, not a judicial or criminal process.
At this point, most of you are probably already convinced that the New York Times is a biased, unreliable narrator. But I’ll continue exposing how corporate media perverts lies into truth and promotes misunderstanding over clarity, because the NYT is only the most obvious malefactor. Plus, it’s fun.
Have a terrific Tuesday! Be sure to check back in for tomorrow’s exciting roundup of essential news and caffeinated commentary
Rose Rambles... 