Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Quick Hits: Volume CCCLXIX

 - With Minnesota State Sen. Justin Eichorn (R-Grand Rapids) having resigned last week, his seat in MN Senate District 6 is now up for grabs. Given it's a safe GOP area, there are a good number of Republican candidates looking to vie for the party nod in an upcoming special election. Included among that group is the current mayor of Nisswa who also happens to be a former mutli-term chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota





My friend Jeff Kolb states the obvious since Jenny appears to be utterly obtuse as to the parallels. 




Yet Carnahan dismissed that connection in the video saying that convicted felon Anton Lazzaro was merely a "past Republican donor, who was one of over 30,000 (donors) to the party and gave to Republican candidates all over this country."  Well, unless all the other 30,000+ donors to the MNGOP attended her 2019 wedding to Jim Hagedorn or co-hosted a podcast with her, that rationale ain't gonna cut it. And I'm certain GOP voters in SD 6 will agree. 



- Update: the Democrat party remains a raging dumpster fire


Top Democrats tell us their party is in its deepest hole in nearly 50 years — and they fear things could actually get worse:

  • The party has its lowest favorability ever.
  • No popular national leader to help improve it.
  • Insufficient numbers to stop most legislation in Congress.
  • A durable minority on the Supreme Court.
  • Dwindling influence over the media ecosystem, with right-leaning podcasters and social media accounts ascendant.
  • Young voters are growing dramatically more conservative.
  • A bad 2026 map for Senate races.
  • Democratic Senate retirements could make it harder for the party to flip the House, with members tempted by statewide races.
  • There are only three House Republicans in districts former Vice President Harris won in 2024, a dim sign for a Democratic surge. There were 23 eight years ago in seats Hillary Clinton won.
  • And, thanks to the number of people fleeing blue states, the math for a Dem to win the presidency will just get harder in 2030.


Other that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? 



- If the media reported on Republican presidential administrations like they do Dem presidencies, the headline regarding the latest saga involving Team Trump would be something along the lines of "Democrats pounce on Trump's national security team texting out plans of a military strike.


But in all seriousness, this was a major screw up


Maybe you've seen this already. It seems to be everywhere today so we might as well talk about it. Just over a week ago the Trump administration announced a series of strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.

Planning for the strike had been carried out secretly the week before but in this case something appears to have gone wrong. Mike Watlz, the Trump administration's national security adviser, accidentally added Atlantic journalist and editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat where the strike was being discussed. Today Goldberg wrote about the experience, describing in detail how he was added to the chat and initially thought it was a hoax.


Unfortunately, it was not a hoax. And to his everlasting credit, Goldberg removed himself from the chat as soon as he ascertained that fact. The frightening thing is what if this had gotten into the hands of one of the plethora of lefty journalists infected with TDS to the nth degree? People like that would be willing to go all scorched earth even if it only slightly dinged Trump. 


This incident also underscores a bigger problem in that high ranking government officials are so wary of the susceptibility of telecommunications being intercepted by China that this caused the National Security team to use a messaging app to communicate. Granted it's a totally secure app, but adding someone to the chat who shouldn't be seeing such sensitive information kinda renders that moot. 


In the end, the lesson here is simple: always assume online chats are susceptible. In this case, use code for military operations and then if specifics need to be discussed, meet in person at an undisclosed location. 


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