Abdul El-Sayed

Friday

Cockburn

Were there furries in renaissance times? An expert weighs in

From our US edition

As far as fall traditions go, the renaissance faire is among Cockburn’s favorite. Fair maidens and humble peasants amble around stalls, chewing on turkey legs and spectating jousts as they pretend to be in Auld Europe. Yet in recent years, modern degeneracy has taken hold: now instead of a family day out, renfaire is fun for the whole polycule. Pornified bartenders in Euphoria makeup humiliate horny patrons as they serve them drinks. The Maryland Renaissance Festival is taking steps to stop the rot. The faire is implementing a new dress code that bans “fursuits.” For the blissfully uninitiated: fursuits are full-body costumes worn by the “furry” subculture, which mean the wearer appears to be an anime-style anthropomorphic animal.

furries

Sunday

Ben Clerkin

Meeting Abdul El-Sayed at the Detroit farmers market

From our US edition

The farmers market in Detroit is an unlikely crucible. Certainly Abdul El-Sayed, the freshly (and narrowly) minted Democratic Senate candidate for Michigan, was not expecting it to be one when he went glad-handing in Eastern Market in the hours before the polls closed. But it was clear that the buyers and sellers of fresh fruit and vegetables that he encountered had quietly put him and his policies on the scales and found them both to be a little lightweight. Not that they’d be rude enough to say so to his face. Of course, El-Sayed would go on to win the primary. But his predicted margin of victory – up to 20 points – evaporated as the night turned into a scrappy contest with his rival Haley Stevens, who represented the more mainstream wing of the party.

abdul el-sayed

Thursday

Roger Kimball

The Republican party’s secret weapons

From our US edition

Do the Republicans have a secret weapon they can deploy in the midterms? In fact, I think they have two weapons, one sort-of-secret, the other out in the open but somehow not quite recognized.  “That’s good,” you say, if (faute de mieux) you want the Republicans to win. Midterms, we’ve been told ad nauseam, almost always favor the party out of power. I believe that the last time the incumbent party won in the midterms was in 2002 when George W. Bush, riding the tailwind of public sentiment following the September 11 attacks by our Muslim friends, picked up eight House seats. Many of the most noteworthy Democrat candidates hail from la-la land At the moment, all the polls have the Dems leading by a comfortable margin.

Geoffrey Cain

Who funds the DSA?

From our US edition

On July 18, Hasan Piker – a Twitch streamer who has made millions denouncing capitalism – addressed the national convention of the Democratic party’s student wing in a gray tunic suit of the kind Mao Zedong wore. Days later, a stream resurfaced in which Piker, broadcasting from China, called Mao “one of the great leaders of this world.” His clarification, that there were “a lot of excesses, let’s be real,” is the tone of a man returning a fish that a restaurant served over-salted, not of one contemplating tens of millions dead. Nobody would need to care if the socialists were losing.

Wednesday

Ben Clerkin

Has Abdul El-Sayed just saved Trump?

Just a few hours before Abdul El-Sayed narrowly won the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, he told me that he was going to “beat the shit” out of his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, in the November general election. His tactic, he explained in a Detroit farmers’ market yesterday, would be to “staple his [Rogers’s] sins to his forehead.” What those sins were, El-Sayed wouldn’t say. He has in the past criticized Rogers as a "corporate shill" who prioritized pharmaceutical and corporate interests over Michiganders while in Congress.  November looks likely to be a fight between capitalism and communism In truth, although he did scrape to victory last night, it was El-Sayed who almost had the shit beaten out of him by Haley Stevens, a mainstream Democrat.

michigan

Tuesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Abdul el-Sayed’s nasty streak

From our US edition

On the eve of his final debate with Michigan Democratic Senate rival Haley Stevens, Abdul el-Sayed was busted by Politico for declaring at a recent donor meeting: “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.” A round of tut-tutting ensued as various Democrats denounced Sayed for uttering violent threats. By the time of the debate, which took place last night at the Fox 2 studio in Southfield, Michigan, Sayed was emphasizing that it was Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, not Stevens, that he was talking about.“Thank you for clarifying that you didn’t call me an ogre,” Stevens quipped.