Sunday Funnies

(as always, click it to big it)

"How were you feeling last Wednesday morning?"

(More answers to this question here.)

The hangover

Not mine, yours.  Or maybe it's theirs.  Those guys -- pardon me, women -- on the other side who beat your team.  They're the ones waking up this morning celebrating victory ... and agonizing about defeat at the same time.

The duopoly does make for simple analogies.

Can we say the blue wave rose up in the cities, swept out to the suburbs and exurbs, but crashed into the crimson dikes in the boondocks?  Yes we can, at least in Deep-In-The-Hearta.

Never forget that rural Texas is where the baboons with their swollen asses all live.  And vote.

They kept Texas red.

After the early and mail ballots were reported and most of the GOP statewide slate (save Governor More Powerful Than Putin) found themselves in much tighter races than has historically been the case -- at least for a generation -- some of my good neighbors assembled just down the road at the Redneck Country Club surely put down their nachos, went to the bathroom, and vomited.

Things improved within the hour, so maybe they didn't go home and turn in early.

That is, as long as they didn't care too much about John Culberson (or Pete Sessions or Konnie Burton or Matt Rinaldi) or any of their judicial pals at the many Harris County Courthouses.

We already know they didn't care too much about Ed Emmett, after all.

Commissioners Court has a blue majority this morning, with Lina Hidalgo and Adrian Garcia replacing Hunker Down and -- in what had to feel like some pretty sweet payback for Senator US Rep. Sylvia -- Jack Morman.

Stan Stanart finally got fired, so did Chris Daniel and Orlando Garcia and every single judge, despite the pleadings of the Houston Chronicle's op-eds.  (The midterms used to be the last refuge for Republican judges; it was always presidential cycles where they washed out before.)  Let's see if Harris Democrats can hold their monopoly for a few years, and more importantly bring some justice -- like ending cash bail -- with it.  Poor Gary Polland just lost half a million bucks' worth of income.

More later.

Election Night updates

All of your regular online resources will be overwhelmed, so hang out with me and your favorite food or beverage.  I'll post something that breaks news, irregularly, once in awhile.

For the obsessive-compulsive in you (and me), keep an eye on the Twitter feed, top right, and the blog feed, also in the column on the right but below the 'endorsements'.  Those will be coming off shortly after the polls close in most of Texas -- looking at you, El Paso -- and Stan Stanart is (supposed) to have the mail and early voting results up on HarrisVotes.com.

The news on the corporate media at the moment has to do with some concerns about all the troubles Georgians are having in trying to vote.  But that's also true across the country.  It just may affect her race more than others.

Meanwhile, here's a good piece on how seriously to take those exit polls, which we should be getting some results from in short order.

More below here throughout the evening.

===============

Update 1: About 7:30 p.m. Central

Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly is losing, fairly badly.  In Florida, Ron DeSantis has pulled ahead of Andrew Gillum and Rick Scott noses in front of Bill Nelson, with 91% counted.  In Kansas, Kris Kobach is losing his bid for the governorship.

In Texas, early returns look good for Beto O'Rourke, Gina Ortiz Jones, and all of the Dallas County Democrats.  Harris County returns are delayed due to a judge's decree holding some polls open late because they opened late this morning.

As of 7:30 p.m., most of the big counties are in except for El Paso and Harris:

SEN: O'Rourke 50.5, Cruz 48.9

GOV: Abbott 54-45

LTGOV: Patrick 49.3, Collier 48.8

AG: Nelson 49.4, Paxton 48.4

AGRIC: Miller 49.4, Olson 48.5

— Texas Election Source (@TXElects) November 7, 2018

Update 2: About 9:20 p.m.

There are a lot of racists in Florida.  Georgia is looking grim for Stacy Abrams.

All of the US Senate races for Democrats are a nightmare.  The House is still moving toward a flip.

Harris County and Fort Bend are blue, with much of Election Day tallies still to count.  But it appears that there will remain no statewide D elected, although so many came so close.

Update 3: 11:30 p.m.

He needed to revitalize one of the weakest Dem state parties in the country; reverse demographic voting trends in one cycle; coattails for down ballot; and defeat a savvy incumbent in a very red state. He appears to have pulled off all of but the last.

— Justin Miller (@by_jmiller) November 7, 2018

Ed Emmett did not hunker down low enough.

Harris County's blue wave washes out county judge, district clerk, county clerk, county treasurer and all GOP judges on the ballot.

— Matt Schwartz (@SchwartzChron) November 7, 2018

I'll have more tomorrow morning.

Election Eve Wrangle

Whatever happened to 'vote your hopes and dreams'?

There will be a blue wave, unless there isn't.  The red firewall will break the azure tsunami, unless Trump's hate spew has punched suburban holes in it.  The US House flips (but maybe not), and the Senate stays in Mitch McConnell's terrapin-like appendages, except maybe for a systematic polling error, a la 2016.

No wonder Team Donkey is experiencing some cognitive dissonance.



Who, or what, gets the blame if the Ds can't get it done tomorrow?  Voter suppression, from Georgia to North Dakota to Texas college campuses like Prairie View A&M and Texas State?  Voting machines flipping straight-ticket votes (to Ted Cruz?)  There will still be plenty of finger-pointing at Russian hackers and Green candidates, I feel certain.  Even if some dropped out of their race and endorsed the Democrat.

[The old Catch-22: "Greens should run in state and local races and build up to presidential races" instead of playing spoiler (sic) every four years.  "Greens should drop out and endorse Democrats because this is the most important election of our lifetime".  You know, since the one two years ago.  That was their fault Democrats lost.  Blah blah.]

There may be some less nefarious, more legitimate reasons the election will be won -- or lost; for example, the strength of women voters.  Notable for the demographers, moderate Republican women who live in suburban America turning out to cast their ballots against Trump and the GOP.  No, wait; it's the youth vote.  That's it *snaps fingers*, the children are our future.  Either is better than blaming the Latinxs, after all.  We're all tired of hearing that.

Hold on a minute: this is a midterm election, and Texas Democrats who haven't elected one of theirs since, you know, Jim Hightower was Ag Commissioner always lose because they can't raise any money for consultants, advisers, pollsters, etc.  Except they did, a shitpot full of dough, in 2018 -- at least those running for Congress; not so much the statewides save Congressman SuperBeto, whose massive Bernie-like ATM machine reversed both the prevailing Texas narrative and the cash flow, doubling the take of Senator Serpent Covered in Vaseline.

The Cult of RFO'R aims for the upset tomorrow evening.  Rumor has it happening.

Hearing from more Texas Republicans tonight that they think @tedcruz is under water. It is Saturday before the election #TXSen #txlege

— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) November 4, 2018

So as President Shitler is fond of saying: we'll see what happens.  I'm ready for it to be over; how about you?  Here's your roundup of lefty blog posts and news from the final week before E-Day.

==================

One unplumbed premise that the midterms might reveal is whether the strength of the Lone Star grassroots has shifted from one major party to the other, either because of 'outsiders' becoming 'insiders' or because there needs to be a "bad guy" to focus on and motivate the base.

Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, says Democrats nationally — and in some parts of Texas — have unleashed the kind of intensity we used to see from the tea party.

“So the question of whether there is still that ability to motivate Republican voters on the other side is the big question going into this cycle,” Henson said.

Henson believes one reason the tea party’s galvanizing force has slipped in local and congressional races is that conservatives no longer have Barack Obama to target. And Donald Trump has taken over the role of chief agitator of conservatives.

Tea party-backed candidates have also been elected. In Texas, the movement has been changed by that success.

“I think once you have people who are part of institutions, it inevitably looks different, because you aren’t banging from the outside,” Henson said. “Like it or not, you are part of the status quo, and you are part of the establishment.”

Perhaps the only competitive statewide contest down the ballot shows signs of GOP panic, as indicted felon/AG Ken Paxton digs in to the deepest pockets of the friends he has left.

In addition to the TV ads, Paxton’s recent campaign finance filings have indicated that Republicans in high places are tuned in to the race in its home stretch. In recent days, the attorney general has received a $282,000 in-kind donation from Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign; more than $350,000 in in-kind contributions from Texas for Lawsuit Reform, the political arm of the tort reform group; and $10,000 each from two of the biggest donors in the Republican Party: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub linked to a picture of Sweaty Beto, which may have been the Halloween costume of the year.

Best Halloween costume- Beto!! 🎃 pic.twitter.com/PriAKrlxpQ

— Carol (@casyr) October 31, 2018

Stirred by Trump's call, armed militia groups head south to welcome the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free intercept the invading (sic) migrant caravan.

Asked whether his group planned to deploy with weapons, McGauley laughed. “This is Texas, man,” he said.

Off the Kuff examined a pair of statewide judicial races.

In Harris County, the Texas Observer foresees a day of reckoning for Republican judges who have held fast to the money bail system, rewarding their friends and penalizing the poor.

Isiah Carey of Fox26 was first with the news that Houston mayor Sylvester Turner's first announced challenger next year will be former Democrat*, now (?) not-Trump Republican, non-DWI-convict and megawealthy trial lawyer -- Rick Perry's defense attorney, for those catching up -- Tony Buzbee.  *Lookie here, from Texpatriate:

(D)espite being the one-time Chairman of the Galveston County Democratic Party, a two-time Democrat nominee for the State Legislature and the once rumored Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor. However, of late, Buzbee has been appointed to the Board of Regents of his alma matter, Texas A&M University, and become a key financial supporter of both Perry and (Gov. Greg) Abbott.

Durrel Douglas at Houston Justice blogged the 2019 Houston City Council District B early line.  And in an excellent explainer, described how the local activist/consultant game -- getting paid to do politics, that is -- is a lot like having the app on your phone for the jukebox down at the local bar.

Socratic Gadfly, returning from a recent vacation, took a look at a major nature and environment issue that fired up up opposition to Trump — the Bears Ears downsizing — and offered his thoughts on the value of the original national monument site versus critics of several angles, and things that could make it even better.

Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher also leavens the politics with some Game of Thrones news.

And Harry Hamid's midnight tale from last week moves ahead to 1 a.m. (with no accounting for Daylight Savings Time and 'falling back' noted).

Sunday Fear Itself Funnies

The only acceptable reasons for not voting:

5th Annual Dia de los Muertos Block Party

This annual block party in the historic Houston community of Magnolia Park honors the neighborhood’s cultural heritage by hosting a fre  family-friendly celebration all can enjoy, highlighting the holiday of Dia de los Muertos and its traditions. In its fifth year, the party is going to be bigger and better than ever!

Enjoy these activities:

• LISTEN to live music from local artists Los Skarnales, Zenteno Spirit, Sister Sister Y Los Misters, Mas Pulpo, mariachis, and more!
• MEET & GREET internationally acclaimed artist Leo Tanguma, whose mural "The Rebirth of Our Nationality" at 5800 Canal St. has celebrated the East End's cultura for decades
• LEARN about the rich history of the Magnolia Park neighborhood in the exhibit "Magnolia Park, Houston's First Barrio"
• PARTICIPATE in traditional Dia de los Muertos altar-building and ofrendas-offering by bringing photocopies of loved ones you want to honor
• SHOP gifts, clothes, and more, from over 60 local vendors including apparel from Magnolia Grown and handcrafted accessories and jewelry from Las Ofrendas
• EAT amazing food from local restaurants including tacos, BBQ, desserts, more
• TAKE PHOTOS with your friends in our photo booth and the lowriders on view, courtesy of the Houston chapter of Texas Lowrider Council

Concessions available for sale by cash or card, and services for concessions offered in English and Spanish. Block party area is accessible to people with limited mobility. No outside food, drink, or coolers allowed. Bring lawn and tailgating chairs!

The Facebook event page, with a short video. A longer video at YouTube of the Selena tribute singer, Jocelyn Gonzalez.  A schedule of the entertainment.

And the Diddies' participation, as part of Barrio Dogs' sponsorship, includes adding our Holly to their altar with the other perros who have gone over the Rainbow Bridge.

Working for better lives for Houston’s homeless animals is full of highs and lows. Finding loving homes for our furry friends is almost euphoric. Seeing them pass over the rainbow bridge after an amazing “adopted” life is bittersweet. We recently lost 2 beautiful former Barrio Dogs, Cleo and Holly. We will honor their lives this weekend at the 5th Annual Dia de los Muertos Block Party where we will have a special altar dedicated to our Barrio Dogs in heaven. Please come out and join us and take a look at our tribute.

Going to be an up-and-down kind of day.

Still Early Voting Wrangle

In breaking developments late last evening in the Texas House Speaker's contest, Rep. John Zerwas of Richmond -- probably the most moderate Republican in the unofficial race for the post -- announced his withdrawal.  Forty House Republicans declared their support for Angleton Republican Dennis Bonnen, who had previously told the Texas Tribune he wasn't running for the job.  There will be more news in the days ahead as Democrats are huddling today to determine their course.

And with that as an opener, the Texas Progressive Alliance wants you to be sure to encourage your like-minded friends to get to the polls this week since we know you've already voted yourself.

Ahead of the midterms, NPR notices that our indicted felon/state attorney general Ken Paxton gets busy chasing ghosts ramping up efforts to "combat voter fraud" (sic).

Voting experts say actual instances of fraudulent ballots knowingly cast are extremely rare, leading to accusations that the effort is intended to intimidate voters.

"I think it's all politically motivated," said Greg Westfall, a Texas lawyer currently representing a Hispanic woman who was charged this month with voter fraud. "If you look at the timing, that's what's breathtaking."

[...]

"The fact that there is this concerted effort in Texas to prosecute these cases to the full extent – particularly against people of color – is supremely troublesome," (Beth Stevens of the Texas Civil Rights Project) said. "And then we know what happens in Texas goes to the rest of the country as a model."

Zenén Jaimes Pérez, the communications director for the TxCRP, said the attorney general's own numbers show that his office was tackling an issue that wasn't a growing problem, as shown by the small number of cases in the many years before the crackdown.

"They have prosecuted an average of around 30 election violations since 2004," Pérez said in an email. "To be sure, the AG started the Election Integrity Initiative in without evidence of increasing elections violations," Pérez said.

Beto O'Rourke's plan to maximize the African American vote in H-Town hit high gear over the weekend, with Say Something appearances by musical artists at EV locations around town, the Souls to the Polls rallies, and other efforts accounted by Justin Miller at the Texas Observer.

Looks like @trvisXX showed up at @BetoORourke early vote stop in Houston: pic.twitter.com/luTeISp1Pw

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) October 28, 2018

Even as another 'Beto as Superman' mural was unveiled in Houston ...

Giant Mural of Beto O’Rourke as ‘Superman’ in Houston. #Texas #TXSen pic.twitter.com/I5SSoDojin

— Antonio (@AntonioArellano) October 28, 2018

... the first, in East Austin and mentioned in this 'scattershot' post from Brains and Eggs, was defaced by MAGA vandals shortly after it debuted.

Rogers’s mural has been defaced phrases like "El Paso gentrifier supports Israel" and "No hero” spray-painted onto the artwork in red and white.

Socratic Gadfly does some number-crunching on the early voting surge and offers a quick hot take on what it might mean for the Cruz-O'Rourke Senate race.

Progrexas carries the piece from the TexTrib about how the statewide judicial candidates will win or lose solely on the basis of their party affiliation.

If anyone is poised to spoil (yet another GOP) sweep, it’s R.K. Sandill, a long-serving Democratic district judge in Harris County who’s consistently outraised his opponent, Justice John Devine. In addition to an impressive cash-on-hand tally, an endorsement from the Houston Chronicle and victories in the Houston Bar Association and Texas Bar Association polls, Sandill faces perhaps the most controversial incumbent on the high court. Before being elected to the high court in 2012, Devine was sued for displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. Devine has also boasted publicly that he was arrested 37 times protesting outside abortion clinics.

See also this post at Brains and Eggs for the 'vulnerable, least discussed' Republican -- Presiding Judge Sharon "Killer" Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals -- if the blue wave crests high enough on November 6.

Rewire writes about how a federal court in Texas -- Judge Reed O'Connor's in the Northern District -- will shape the legal fight under way over transgender rights.

Brandon Formby at the Texas Tribune describes the collision of rural and urban values as the high speed rail line between Houston and Dallas continues to move ahead.

Think Progress has details on far-right activists and militia groups headed to the southern border to stop the caravan of Honduran migrants (that are still a thousand miles away).

Earlier (last) week, the U.S. Border Patrol warned landowners in Texas that they could expect “possible armed civilians” on their property because of the news about the caravan. The exact details of when and where the militia would deploy are unclear, but one militia leader told the Associated Press that they would have upwards of 100 members guarding the Mexico-Texas border.

David Collins added some thoughts to Nick Cooper's (he's the drummer for local band Free Radicals) about the border wall.

Stace at Dos Centavos reflected on his weekend of politics y cultura.

The TSTA Blog resorts to begging teachers to support public education at the ballot box.

Texas Standard updates the story of the city of Houston's legal tussle with Southwest Key, the operators of a proposed child detention facility on the northeast side, in reporting that the city has rejected a settlement offer from the company.

A political sign opposing Prop 2 -- the Houston firefighters' pay parity proposal -- was tastelessly posted at the vacant site where five died and thirteen were injured fighting a terrible motel fire just a few years ago.  Fox26's Greg Groogan captured the reactions of HFD union head Marty Lancton and Mayor Sylvester Turner.

"I don't know how you walk up here and see five flags flying, the thin red line and the 13 that were injured and not understand that this is not the place to show your disdain and your vindictiveness toward Houston Firefighters," said Lancton.

[...]

At City Hall, Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is bankrolling the PAC and leading the fight against pay parity, stopped short of an apology.

"I don't know who put it there. I'm just saying whoever put it there, it's important to be respectful and not just of places, but family members as well," said Turner.

Stephen Willeford, the Sutherland Springs "good guy with a gun", is profiled by Michael J. Mooney in Texas Monthly.

Dallas City Hall has stonewalled a pair of open records requests by Downwinders at Risk regarding a mysterious clean air fund and a Joppa polluter.

Jim Schutze at the Dallas Observer thinks it's great that a rec center was renamed for Santos Rodriguez, the boy who was killed by a Dallas policeman in 1973 (updated by the Militant in this Wrangle from August).

Sanford Nowlin at the San Antonio Current reminds us that some Christians do support progressive liberal ideas and politics.

CultureMap Houston describes how 'Old Spanish Trail', aka old Highway 90 connecting El Paso, San Antonio, and Houston and built over hundred years ago missed its intended history ... but created a new one that's now old enough for us to celebrate all its own, particularly in the Alamo City.

Grits came to Houston and took in a Contemporary Arts Museum collaboration by artists about the justice system (highly recommended).

Both CNBC and The Verge covered the news about the Sam's Club in Dallas which will be a cashier-less operation, similar to the five (so far) Amazon Go stores in Seattle and Chicago.

And Harry Hamid went out for a bottle of wine at midnight, took in the 'Trose scene, and got ready to tell another story.

Overflow to Monday Funnies

The Weekly Wrangle will appear, as it did last week, later today.

(click on the smaller ones for a clearer and larger view) 

Sunday Frightful Funnies

See, you just can't let the monsters scare ya too much.

"Squirrel Hill"

#ShakespeareSunday
"O heart, lose not thy nature, let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom." (Hamlet) pic.twitter.com/zzCEOSSucR

— Lizzie (@lizziecanttweet) October 28, 2018

The latest on the latest

Regarding the #MAGAbomber: briefly a Seminole (no), mentally disturbed (momentarily plausible if you believe Trumpism is a mental disorder, though no professional diagnosis exists), but ultimately just an angry Southern white male who got ripped off on his house and then foreclosed on by Steve Mnuchin's bank during the Great Depression ten years ago.

Cesar Sayoc, the Donald Trump-loving Floridian who was taken into custody in relation to pipe bombs mailed to prominent Democrats, was foreclosed on in 2009 by a bank whose principal owner and chair is now Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.

The documents used to enact the foreclosure were signed by a prominent robo-signer and seemingly backdated. Nonetheless, the evidence was good enough for the famously inattentive Florida foreclosure courts to wave the case through. Years later, Sayoc became a supporter of Trump, who came into office and appointed a treasury secretary who ran the bank that snatched Sayoc’s house.

[...]

In yet another irony, (billionaire Democratic donor and first pipe bomb target George) Soros was one of the investors in the bank that executed the foreclosure on Sayoc’s home.

Details quickly emerged about Sayoc and his apparent devotion to Trump. He drove a van covered in pro-Trump messages. He apparently hadn’t registered to vote until March 2016, pulled off the sidelines by Trump’s messaging. He was a “celebrity” at “Make American Great Again” rallies and protests in South Florida.

Earlier in his life, Sayoc went through a difficult period, and the experience intersects with people allied with his political idol — and some on the other side as well.

I'll leave the rest at that top link to your leisure-time reading.

Sayoc had to declare bankruptcy in 2012, move in with his mother.  That is, when he wasn't living in his van.  The one the FBI hauled off yesterday.

-- Let's not forget to marvel once more at the deftness (or maybe it's daftness) of the conservative agitprop.  Republicans moved the Overton window all the way around to the other side of the house in less than 12 hours -- on the strength of the White House press secretary's statement, mind you -- from #FalseFlags and #FakeBombs to Bernie Sanders, Congressional softball practice shootings, and false equivalencies.  Let's catch this Verge excerpt at the point where Sayoc's exceptional social media trolling becomes the narrative.  (Note that the article was written before confirmation of Sayoc as the pipe bomb mailer, and as such hasn't caught up with the Bernie diversion yet.)

One researcher, Jonathan Albright, counted the number of times that Sayoc replied on Twitter to celebrities and figures with a meme about a Parkland shooting survivor being a “crisis actor” paid by George Soros: 59.

It’s a disturbing irony. Because as authorities continued to discover new mail-bomb targets on Friday, the right wing flooded media channels with suggestions that the bombs themselves were part of a Democratic hoax. It’s a toxic circle: Man falsely enraged by crisis actors allegedly sends bombs; conservative media falsely describes bomb targets as crisis actors.

In a Twitter thread, Albright chronicled how conservatives were able to reach a much wider audience with their hoax claims on Instagram, using various features of the platform. The right wing adopted the hashtag #Soros to share many of these memes, and Instagram helpfully organized the most-engaged posts algorithmically. It auto-populated suggested searches for anyone who began to search for Soros: “soros caravan,” “soros bomb,” “soros jew,” all of which could lead users to further misinformation.

Instagram search results also auto-populated with a bunch of obviously fake Soros accounts, although many of them appear to have been taken down overnight.

On Twitter, a similar phenomenon played out, as Blake Montgomery charted at BuzzFeed. Hashtags, as usual, raced ahead of the truth:

But people on Twitter, including right-wing commentators with name recognition like Ann Coulter, James Woods, and Candace Owens, tweeted that the devices, described as being similar to pipe bombs, were a scheme concocted by Democrats to boost sympathy and turnout before the midterm elections in November. However, there is no evidence to support their claims. And neither the identity nor political affiliation of the perpetrators are known.

Still, #FAKEBOMBSCARE, #FakeBombs, and #FalseFlag — all dedicated to the conspiracy theory — trended alongside #BombScare. Many used #BombScare to tweet the theory as well, but the hashtag itself is not blatantly false like the others. #MAGABOMBER, a hashtag devoted to the idea that the bomber was a right-winger attacking the president’s nemeses, also trended, again with no proof.

In part, this is a now-old story about how social media spreads misinformation in the immediate wake of the crisis. But if Sayoc is indeed the bomber, and these social media accounts belong to him, it suggests something even more disturbing: a person steeped in conservative media, radicalized into violent action — at the same time the same echo chamber, all evidence to the contrary, dismisses a series of attempted assassinations as a hoax.

The platforms have their part to play in reducing the polarization that now consumes us. But as Albright wrote earlier in the week, in a piece about how a false meme spread alleging that Soros had funded the caravan of refugees coming to America, the infrastructure that promotes this misinformation is quite powerful. Whatever captures our attention, if we simply stare at it long enough, becomes real.

-- As to Trump ... well, he's whining about lost momentum for the GOP in the looming midterms.

The would-be terrorist who failed to harm CNN and George Soros did succeed at one thing: ruining President Donald Trump’s week.

Trump had hoped to capitalize on growing Republican enthusiasm in the final weeks of the midterm campaign — stoking fears of a Central American migrant caravan and hoping his Thursday unveiling of a plan to lower prescription drug prices would hold the news media’s attention heading into the weekend.

But even Trump can’t shape the media narrative to his will amid an attempt at mass political assassination and a nationwide manhunt.

“It didn’t get the kind of coverage it should have,” Trump complained on Friday, speaking of his prescription drug proposal. “We’re competing with this story that took place, our law enforcement’s done such a good job, so maybe that can start to disappear rapidly.”

For Trump, the story could not have appeared at a worse time. “The pendulum was swinging back toward the Republicans thanks to the migrant caravan story,” a person close to Trump said. “This story definitely interrupts that positive news cycle for them [and] most definitely favors the Democrats politically.”

One former Trump administration official said the White House is expecting wall-to-wall coverage of the bombing story for three to four more days.

Trump had already vented his frustration on Friday morning, tweeting, “Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!”

What’s worse, Trump’s allies had been speculating without evidence that the failed bombings — which exclusively targeted Trump antagonists — were actually part of a “false flag” leftist plot to make Republicans look unhinged.

[...]

The prospect of right-wing political violence muddies an argument made by Trump and other Republican leaders in recent weeks, ever since demonstrations against Brett Kavanaugh created images of impassioned protesters over-running the Capitol: that Democrats are the party of mob rule, and Republicans the party of law and order.

A former senior White House official predicted right-wing political violence would now become a top campaign issue. “The Democrats now have a message going into Election Day,” the former official said.

Only if they can figure out how to use it to their advantage.  For some reason I'm getting an image of a group of chimpanzees trying to fuck a football.