I'm still processing how I feel about all this. But for now, this will be my home base for writing as I figure out the next thing. Follow and subscribe. The plan for now is to keep posts un-paywalled until Election Night. Then time to pay. thepoliticalspectrum.substack.com/p/eric-garci...

Eric Garcia, Independent

On being laid off, what comes next and what you can do.

thepoliticalspectrum.substack.com

Trump’s obsession with demonizing the Somali community is dangerous and reprehensible. Hate to break it to him: Somali Minnesotans are resilient. We will not let Trump intimidate us. Our neighbors have our back.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d ago

Trump tries to start a race war: "The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants ... The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!"

The discourse on antisemitism in the country is such that Mike Rogers can simultaneously attack Abdul El-Sayed *as* antisemitic, as a scary foreign Muslim critic of Israel, and also *with* antisemitism, as a tool of the foreign-born Jewish puppeteer.

Two observations: (1) there’s no way Russia adheres to this deal, and when they can’t, they’ll blame Ukraine, and (2) while this is a lot of diesel, it’s less than a week of the diesel the US consumes. This is about 900m gallons; US consumes about 60B/y.

Catherine Rampell@crampell.bsky.social · 19h ago

Trump announces that the U.S. will buy Russian oil. This is just a few weeks after Trump signed the Lindsey Graham Russia Sanctions bill, which authorized him to place 100% tariffs on countries that are the biggest importers of Russian oil/gas. Are we going to tariff ourselves now?

There is a point at which we’re going to need to have a real conversation about whether to hold rank-and-file officers accountable for facially illegal acts, and the National Guard convo there is going to be very uncomfortable for states who sent their guard members to DC.

DC Council@councilofdc.bsky.social · 20h ago

This is clearly not acceptable

NGL, the fact that Jewish Dems have John Ossoff and JB Pritzker makes me feel better as a counterweight to Josh Shapiro.

one difference with newsom is he doesn't actually hit Rs that hard in person. his social media team does, but they're not him. and in fact when pressed in person he has repudiated them.

sincerity is important here - when I see Gavin Newsom talk about how much Republicans suck, I don't think he actually believes it, I think he's playing a game will Ossoff do everything that needs to be done to impose consequences on these people? I don't know but I do believe he hates them

Ossoff is one of the very few people adequately channeling Evelyn Normielib these days the base doesn't want to hear entreaties to our better natures, they don't want to go high while the other side goes low, they want someone to come on the TV and go "these people are garbage" he's good at it

Bill McKibben@billmckibben.bsky.social · yesterday

Figuring out why Ossoff is so effective is an interesting task. I think he's mastering a kind of stern dignity that is uniquely compelling in contrast to the clownish cruelty of the other side. I think the other person who's kind of hit on the same thing is AOC, though in a different register

Also makes the broad base taxation palatable!

A real welfare state and universal health care require broad taxation, including the middle class. But high end wealth taxation is the kind of tax that protects democracy and the rule of law, and prevents aristocratic dynasties. It keeps us human.

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

Third Halloween book rec since you haints are haunting me for titles: Saskia Nislow's surreal, very tactile and disturbing ritualistic body horror novel Root Rot.

the big difference between beto and talarico is that trump is a lot less popular now. (also paxton's a terrible candidate.)

I was at this event with hasan piker tonight and it’s hysterical to see this manhattan institute doofus sounding his lil alarm as if this is particularly controversial

Pritzker+20, Stratton+13 in the first Illinois poll in ages! All the Dem row office candidates up between 11 and 20 points too. Trump nearly 30 points underwater too. The Illinois GOP is getting put in the contraption next month. citizennewspapergroup.com/news/2026/oc...

The Minnesota Democrats are hoping to win back an ancestrally Democratic district in the heart of the Iron Range in #HD7B next month. It's a Trump+9 district, but elected a Democratic State Rep back in 2022! SLEW RATING: Lean R

Kansas and South Carolina being higher than the Michigan Senate race for SLF(R) spending this week. All in on trying to stop Brown from making a comeback in Ohio

This seems to be a total collapse of ethics review. There is a reason that experienced scientific and medical researchers review studies that involve human subjects. Another safety valve is usually the funding agency, which normally wouldn’t let this through. But, you know…RFK Jr.

Apparently, under normal conditions, a Danish national medical ethics committee would have reviewed it, but since the study won’t be done in Denmark, a group at the University of Southern Denmark did the review instead. Hats off to @melodyschreiber.com for her diligence in covering this story.

This is a disaster. The ethics committee in Denmark that approved the Guinea-Bissau study which will withhold the birth dose of HepB vaccine “had never considered medical studies before but it changed the rules in order to vote on this one”. Four members of the committee have resigned in protest.

Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau

Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers

theguardian.com

The machine did not "go rogue." The machine belongs to and is the responsibility of the people who own it. Hold those people accountable for their goddamn machine.

trump won florida by 13 points, fwiw.

David@davidslosttt.bsky.social · 16h ago

Only 4% of the expected early vote is in but currently Florida is on track for a Trump+8 electorate If you combine that with Hispanic reversion, things could get REALLY weird... but it's still too early to start saying things like that

Top ten most foreboding sentence I've ever read.

That’s not a misprint - more Latino voters have cast a ballot already than did at the same point in the 2024 presidential election.

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 23h ago

Remarkable: As of now, Latino early vote is outpacing where it was at same time in 2024 in both percentages of vote share and in RAW VOTE TOTALS. That's big. Presidential turnout is usually higher than midterms. I obtained new analysis from Dem firm TargetSmart: newrepublic.com/article/2164...

I wrote up my findings on the early vote in a little greater detail here tombonier.substack.com/p/early-note...

Early Notes on Early Votes

Voters of Color Could be Reshaping the 2026 Map

tombonier.substack.com

Tom Bonier@tbonier.bsky.social · 21h ago

That’s not a misprint - more Latino voters have cast a ballot already than did at the same point in the 2024 presidential election.

hard to figure out how this would work; committees are assigned by parties. they'd be denying their constituents full representation. I mean...whatever. keeping Rs from those seats would be good if possible. and probably they won't win so not really an issue...

Polling USA@usapolling.bsky.social · 19h ago

Brian Bengs, Dan Osbron, and Seth Bodnar will hold a virtual press conference to emphasising their committent to decline caucusing with the Democrats or the Republicans

Los Angeles - Mayoral Polling: Raman: 39% Bass: 36%* Manhattan Institute / Oct 1, 2026

Michigan Polling: Governor: 🔵 Benson: 55% 🔴 James: 45% Senate: 🔵 El-Sayed: 53% 🔴 Rogers: 47% Wedgewood / Oct 9, 2026 (MI-SEN model result: DEM 53% - GOP 46%) (MI-GOV model result: DEM 56% - GOP 43%) unitedstatespolling.com/p/democrats-...

Democrats Surge as Republicans Enter the Final Stretch

Republicans still have time to shift the trajectory, but the latest numbers show Democrats continuing to move forward

unitedstatespolling.com

Here's one indie voter in Anchorage, for ex, who started off telling me she was leaning toward supporting Dan Sullivan and then a few minutes into our convo...