Sunday Roundup, Mostly Political

Not too much commentary today, but I found this CBS polling result possibly very significant. Normal people just don’t like the feeling that things are out of control, because it undercuts the basic for some degree of predictability in life. These results probably explain the continuing shift in the GOP direction over the past few weeks—even in Blue States—with another week still to go.

Republicans head into final week with lead in seats, voters feel things are "out of control" — CBS News Battleground Tracker poll
CBS News ^ | October 30, 2022 | BY ANTHONY SALVANTO, KABIR KHANNA, JENNIFER DE PINTO, FRED BACKUS

The election is already underway; millions have voted, and tens of millions more will before Nov. 8. Amid that, eight in 10 likely voters describe things in the country today as "out of control," as opposed to "under control."

That doesn't bode well for the party in power: Republicans are winning those who say "out of control" right now by more than 20 points, though they're often the ones feeling that way to begin with.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...

Out of control? Yeah, could be—this is the sort of thing that starts happening. If you listened to the video it’s clear that there were more than just a few people chanting:

Tom Luongo (Give Deflation a Chance!) @TFL1728

#Ungovernable! See you at the auto show, Barry

The Survival Podcast ⚡️ @TheSurvivalPodc

When you bring your home run hitter off the bench to try to save the mid terms and the crowd of democrats starts chanting “fuck Joe Biden”. 🤣 https://t.co/eaGLDX8CyW

But let’s not gloat. This next is pretty disturbing to me. It’s the same old problem. Trump has good to great instincts. It’s just that he’s not a great judge of people, or maybe not willing to act on his instincts about people, rather than event trends:

Alex (Sasha) Krainer @NakedHedgie

Trump wasn't going to cancel vaccines - he wanted to look into their safety. Gates derailed him - evil.

Liz Churchill ™ 🇨🇦 @liz_churchill7

“So March 2017 in the White House…he (Trump) was considering a Safety Commission to look into the ill effects of…and I said, ‘no, that’s a dead end…’ -Bill Gates https://t.co/ToMqWgyYjG

Next, a story that’s a combination of politics and war. Well, one is just the continuation of the other, so … Anyway, this may explain the talk of UK comms being compromised:

The Sirius Report @thesiriusreport

The optics for Truss just kept deteriorating.

dailymail.co.ukLiz Truss’s personal phone hacked by Putin’s spiesOne source said that the phone was so heavily compromised that it has now been placed in a locked safe inside a secure Government location.

Here are the headers from the story. The hack is said to have occurred at some point while Truss was Foreign Minister:

Liz Truss's personal phone that was hacked by Kremlin agents was so compromised it was locked away in a 'secure location' as experts fear top secret negotiations and private messages may have been leaked

Cyber-spies are believed to have gained access to top-secret exchanges

It is believed they also listened into private conversations with Kwasi Kwarteng

Her phone was heavily compromised and placed inside a locked safe afterwards

And speaking of security matters …

We come to the Paul Pelosi story, which seems to be developing legs. The official narrative is simply too weird for the known facts. Draw your own conclusions, but note that Twitter seems a bit more free already:

Pedro L. Gonzalez @emeriticus

The national security domestic surveillance apparatus is going to be enlarged in the aftermath of the Paul Pelosi attack just because we can’t say Paul is probably gay and this was a 2 am booty call gone awry

Steve Krakauer @SteveKrak

- Why wasn’t there signs of forced entry at Pelosi home? - Who was 3rd person who opened door for the police? - Why was Pelosi holding hammer, and attack only happened after police arrived? - Where is bodycam / security footage? - Why isn’t the press asking these questions?

Harmeet K. Dhillon @pnjaban

My firm served a lawsuit against Paul Pelosi one time in SF after attempting to serve at other residences—Napa, Georgetown. They weren’t home, but staff were, & multiple law enforcement officers were on the perimeter. Break-in is odd given this level of security.

Steve Krakauer @SteveKrak

Meanwhile, read @ShellenbergerMD - and think about why we only hear about certain kinds of social posts by the attacker and not others, and haven’t heard that the guy lives in a house with a Black Lives Matter sign, rainbow flag, and anti-conservative commentary outside. https://t.co/i6BjlWLt8C

Michael Shellenberger @ShellenbergerMD

Neighbors described DePape as a homeless drug addict with a politics that was, until recently, left-wing, but of secondary importance to his psychotic and paranoid behavior. https://t.co/9GK1O0ah5U

You know that, given that Pelosi’s wife is 3rd in line to POTUS the security around that house had to be over the top tight.