Brace yourselves.
We’ve entered that stage at which Decisions Must Be Made.
With a mere 25 days to go, GOP calculations are aimed at “avoiding the unthinkable,” according to Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York. York doesn’t have much hope for the Republicans keeping the House, but the Senate might be another story. “GOP strategists have to choose some races for particular focus in the final weeks of the campaign,” writes York. “What standard should they use?”
There’s this standard, for example:
Obviously, the first priority is to push hard in races that are close and where the Republican candidate has a good chance to win. One under-discussed example of that is Minnesota, where Republican Michelle Tafoya is running a strong campaign against deeply flawed Democratic candidate Peggy Flanagan. A Republican victory there would take away a current Democratic seat and make it much harder for Democrats to win control of the Senate. Victories to keep Republican seats in two other extremely close states, Iowa and Maine, would make it harder still.
And then York hits the reader with this standard:
Finally, Republicans might want to think of one other aspect of unthinkability. Every now and then, there is a candidate who is so unsuited for the Senate and the nation that it would be a disservice not to defeat him. In 2026, one could argue that that candidate is Abdul el Sayed, who is defending a Democratic seat in Michigan.
Senate hopefuls El-Sayed and his Republican challenger Mike Rogers debated each other last night—and wowza. “Personal attacks, Israel, and terrorism define Michigan’s caustic Senate debate” is the Examiner headline:
The barbs were unrelenting, such that, at one point, upon returning from a commercial break, the moderator said “that in 30 years of doing debates, I’ve never seen it continue during the commercial, but it did.”
Throughout the debate, Rogers — as expected — claimed that el Sayed, through people who have contributed to his campaign and family members including his biological mother, is tied to U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“You’re going after my mom,” El-Sayed responded in one of the highlights of the hostile evening. Asked whether Israel or Iran has been more dangerous to the U.S., El-Sayed dismissed the question as “hypothetical” (it is most certainly not) and equivocated that “both of them have proven dangerous in their own way.” The Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman observes of this reply:
The answer marks the latest example of El-Sayed, who has struggled with historically Democratic Jewish voters in Michigan, downplaying Islamic terrorism.
The two Michigan candidates “agreed on virtually nothing.”
Hot Air has all the barbs, big moments and bon mots.
The usually unflappable GOP moderate Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, is outraged and demanding an apology after her progressive challenger Troy Jackson accused her of making money from the Iran war. Also on the campaign—or rather mysteriously MIA from said trail—is Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico, who hasn’t been seen in public for 12 days.
According to the 37-year-old’s campaign, he’s laid up with the flu. PJ Media’s Stephen Krusier slyly suggests that laying low might be a better option for Talarico than actively campaigning.
Meanwhile, New Hampshire senatorial candidate John Sununu wants to save Social Security from insolvency. For proposing measures to steady the entitlement, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal observes, Sununu is being accused of pushing granny off the cliff. Gimlet Eyed: “Democrats talk affordability. They really want impeachment,” is USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell’s headline this morning.
An ICE officer shot and injured a man described as a “criminal illegal alien” Thursday night. A migrant boy, age five, was unharmed in the back of the automobile. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is working to calm the situation—NOT. “Mamdani grandstands over ICE shooting of gangbanger ‘criminal illegal’ migrant as violent protests erupt in Bronx” is the New York Post headline:
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani furiously called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished, blasting the federal agency as “rotten to its core” — after agents shot a criminal illegal migrant and alleged gangbanger in the Bronx Thursday.
Mamdani said he even tried to negotiate the release of the criminal — who has already been arrested twice in the city — with President Trump.
We are learning more about the rape allegations at Cornell. CBS News has obtained hundreds of pages of documents that shed light on Jane Doe’s allegations, the Cornell police investigation, and responses of some of the accused Chi Phi fraternity members. The New York Post has screenshots of text messages between Jane Doe and seven men accused in the case. The messages could further cloud the case:
“I don’t think we should feel any shame for the part. our body our choice asf,” [Jane Doe] added, before alluding to other people getting involved in the sex she had with Ingalls and Newell.
“yall were both super out of it and they should have taken it on themselves to leave. at the end of the day you, matt, and i were in your bed and they didn’t need to get up on that,” she wrote, finally consoling Newell again.
Controversial New York AG Tish James, incidentally, was injected into the Cornell case when Governor Kathy Hochul appointed her to investigate the incident, is facing a challenger for her job. Apparently, James’ debate with her rival did not go well:
New York Attorney General Letitia James was ambushed by her well-prepared, locked-in GOP opponent, Saritha Komatireddy, who hammered the incumbent Dem over New York’s bail laws, the rise of antisemitism and massive amounts of Empire State medicaid fraud.
While Komatireddy labeled James a “political hack” for her prosecution against President Trump, the Democrat had few answers to her opponents’ attacks besides repeatedly labeling her a “Trump puppet.”
“Could New York Elect a Republican Attorney General?” asks The Free Press. The tease: “Saritha Komatireddy hopes that New York City’s dysfunction of homelessness, subway violence, and locked-up store shelves will help her topple Letitia James, one of Trump’s biggest enemies.”
President Trump is probably too busy this year to take umbrage at the Norwegian Nobel Committee once again passing over him for the Peace Prize. The winner is Navi Pillay, a South African human rights lawyer and international. She is a supporter of the debunked (but seemingly indestructible) idea of Israeli genocide and a judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to which the United States—wisely—does not belong.
“Two States. Two Children. Two Fights Over Gender” in City Journal details the struggles of two families, one in Massachusetts, one in Florida:
Every day, American parents face the challenges that come with a child telling them that he or she identifies as transgender. But how that challenge is handled varies wildly depending on where the parents live. In some states, schools socially transition children in secret or even take children from parents. In others, parental rights are respected. Two such stories show how big of a difference that can make. …
My daughter needed her mother and father. She needed professional help. She needed time. And she got what she needed because our state respects parents’ basic rights. The Kutzkos’ daughter needs the same things, but Massachusetts has stopped her from getting them. Two years later, her parents are still fighting for their rights, and there’s no guarantee they’ll prevail.
I hope they do. I hope their daughter gets the love and help she needs before it’s too late. And I hope that our leaders do whatever it takes to save our children.
Highly Recommended: “Oct. 7 Is Still Testing Us,” by Matthew Continetti at Free Expression:
No, Hamas’s greater ambition was to challenge the very premises of Western civilization—our collective ability to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, truth from falsehood.
Oct. 7 was a moral test. All too many have failed it.
The flags of the Palestinian Authority and of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, could be seen amid pro-Hamas crowds from Times Square to Trafalgar Square. Pro-Hamas activists occupied campuses and harassed Jewish students. Antisemitic hate crimes spiked in places where Jews had long enjoyed freedom and safety.
The divergence was astonishing. As Israel responded with purpose, resolution and force, Western societies began buckling under domestic and international pressures to reward evil and punish self-defense.
