Greetings, everybody. Today's Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. Live long and prosper because apparently, that's mandatory today.
My calendar says it's Star Trek Day, Ants On A Log Day, World Ampersand Day, Another Look Unlimited Day, International Literacy Day, and World Physical Therapy Day. So beam yourself somewhere interesting, snack on some ants on a log, read something worth reading, use an ampersand correctly for once, and stretch a little — your physical therapist will appreciate the effort even if your ampersand usage never improves.
Today in History:
1380: Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols at the Battle of Kulikovo, halting their advance.
1565: A Spanish expedition establishes the first permanent European settlement in North America at present-day St. Augustine, Fla.
1664: The Dutch surrender New Amsterdam to the British, who rename it New York.
1883: The Northern Pacific Railway's transcontinental line is completed at a ceremony in Gold Creek, Mont., with former President Ulysses S. Grant driving in the final spike.
1888: The body of Annie Chapman, Jack the Ripper's second victim, is found in London.
1892: An early version of the Pledge of Allegiance, written by Francis Bellamy, is first recited in classrooms nationwide.
1900: A Category 4 hurricane devastates Galveston, Texas, killing an estimated 8,000 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the nation's history.
1921: Sixteen-year-old Margaret Gorman wins the Atlantic City pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; organizers later dub her the first Miss America.
1923: The Navy loses seven destroyers in a mass grounding at Honda Point, Calif., the worst peacetime disaster in its history.
1934: The ocean liner SS Morro Castle catches fire off the New Jersey coast en route from Havana to New York, killing 135 people.
1941: German forces begin the roughly 900-day Siege of Leningrad during World War II.
1966: Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek premieres on NBC.
1991: The Republic of Macedonia declares independence from Yugoslavia after a referendum approved by about 96 percent of voters.
Birthdays today include: Patsy Cline, country singer ("Crazy," "Walkin' After Midnight"); Peter Sellers, actor and comedian (Dr. Strangelove, The Pink Panther); Pink, singer and songwriter ("So What," "Just Give Me a Reason"); Martin Freeman, actor (The Hobbit, Sherlock). If today's your birthday too, happy birthday from all of us here.
* * *
Labor Day weekend is behind us now. Christmas is 108 days out, the year has 115 days left on the clock, and — the number that actually matters — the midterms arrive in 56 days. That's where my focus is today.
Miranda Devine at the New York Post sums up why that clock should worry Democrats:
Democrats last week voted against a resolution in the House condemning socialism, playing beautifully into Newt Gingrich's framing of the election as a choice between "big government socialism and weird values, or a Republican Party focused on creating a better future for every American."
God bless Newt, whose political assessments are invariably spot on. Miranda, for her part, is not exaggerating the vote, either. The final tally ran 220-192 — Democrats didn't split on this; they buried themselves in it. Only eight crossed the aisle. That's not exactly a selling point for their being restored to power.
Oh, granted, the resolution also carried language backing the SAVE America Act — voter ID, citizenship-only voting — which gave some Democrats an excuse to vote no on procedural grounds rather than principle. Fine. Explain that nuance to a voter in a 30-second attack ad this fall. Good luck. I mean, with the vast majority of both parties supporting the Save Act, even that excuse ain't cutting it.
Devine goes on to catalog the issues that don't mesh with where the country actually stands:
Whether it's rejecting voter ID, abolishing prisons, defunding police or allowing men to play in women's sports, they seem to be on the wrong side of popular opinion on just about everything. All they have on their side is Trump derangement and the increasingly implausible ruse that they represent a "return to normalcy."
We heard that about Joe Biden, and his presidency was the opposite of normal. No doubt Dems and their street militias are planning the sort of color revolution chaos that worked so well for them in 2020's "summer of love." Then, Biden offered the illusion of relief from the chaos he falsely blamed on Trump. But Americans are unlikely to be fooled twice.
Islamo-leftists Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Senate candidate, and their campaign buddy, the odious dog-torturing Twitch-streamer Hasan Piker, are symbolic of the off-putting anti-American weirdness that has gripped the Democratic Party and turned them into a rather grotesque joke.
"Return to normalcy," from the party currently fielding a mayor who can't call an antisemitic stabbing what it is, a Senate candidate cut from the same cloth, and a Twitch streamer sidekick whose dog has better instincts about him than half his fanbase does. If that's the brand, the branding department should be fired, not re-elected, and likely will be.
That's the choice voters get to make in November. And for all the bravado Democrats — and the true believers over at the Democratic Socialists of America — keep projecting, our own Rick Moran notes something worth remembering, just this morning:
In 2024, many polls showed the Democrats regaining control of the House and maintaining control of the Senate. Instead, the GOP hung on in the House as the Democrats gained only one seat and the GOP won four seats in the Senate.
The presidential race was a joke, polling-wise. Donald Trump won all seven battleground states. Long-standing conservative polling firm Trafalgar Group frequently showed Trump ahead across all or nearly all swing states in their final surveys prior to Election Day. But not one single pollster predicted the sweep, and few predicted Trump's win in the popular vote.
Yeah, I know, the past doesn't guarantee prologue, not every time. But let's be honest: the trend across the last few elections has moved steadily away from the left, no matter how loudly the pollsters keep insisting otherwise from inside their own echo chamber. Democrats, bless them, appear determined to run the exact same overconfidence playbook that so gloriously face-planted last cycle. Twitchy caught the party's official account declaring that a "blue wave" has arrived this past August — based almost entirely on Democrats in deep blue states beating other deep blue state Democrats in their own primaries.
Spoiler alert: That's not a wave. That's a family reunion where everyone congratulates themselves for winning musical chairs, then acts shocked when the neighbors who weren't invited, don't much care who won. While the basement dwellers and the Chinese bots dominating Facebook and Twitter, these days, scream continuously about that blue wave, they’re the only ones who believe it, and I have my doubts about even them.
Oddly, the Lindsay Clancy case may be an influence as well. It's no secret that the ones wearing the pink shirts with "We Are Lindsay," out in front of the Courthouse in Plymouth are overwhelmingly Democrat, and even farther left. Those protests don't exactly make the case of normalcy, at least by the lights of most Americans.
Uh huh. I'm waiting for Democrats to suggest that tragedy was merely a post-delivery abortion. I'm sure that will go over bigly.
More than granted, 56 days is plenty of time for Republicans to fumble this, and it's historically a lousy environment for whichever party holds the White House, so nobody serious should be measuring drapes just yet.
But here it is: In normal election years, the Democrats tend to hope for an electorate with a short memory. But even that rubric isn’t going to work for them this time. The Democrat party’s entire closing argument amounts to "trust us, we're normal now," while simultaneously running candidates and a Twitch-streaming mascot that turn that claim into a punchline before the ink's dry, the burden of proof lands on them, not the skeptics, and certainly not the GOP. I mean, this is normal?
After the supposedly shocking wins for MAGA in 2024, where the voters pretty stoutly disagreed with the left's definition of “normal”, wishful polling isn't exactly a guarantee of Democrat victory on November 4 (Or for California, December 17 [/snark]).
Do not, however, look to the polling data for any indication of any of this, for reasons that Rick Moran goes into in his piece. Specifically, as he calls them, “reluctant responders.”
Argue if you will that this does not equal a GOP victory. But honestly, adding all of that up does not paint a blue-dominated picture come November, either. It just doesn’t.
Thought for the Day: The final score doesn't care how confident you sounded before the game.
VIP members: It's your turn to shine. Let's hear your comments, because your voice matters.
Take care today, gang. Let's plan on you stopping by tomorrow. See you then.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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