The Iran War: New Revelation Makes Clear This Thing Isn't Going to End Anytime Soon

There have been three big developments on the Iran front in the last 48 hours or so. If you are someone who is hoping for an end to hostilities with Iran—and we assume that describes nearly all Americans—then you're not going to like this item.

To start, each of the leaders who is playing a key role in the current mess in the Middle East visited New York City last week to speak before the United Nations. First up was Donald Trump, then Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, then Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. They spoke on 3 consecutive days—September 22, 23 and 24—and all three got a less than enthusiastic reception from the U.N. General Assembly. Actually, technically, Netanyahu didn't really get any reception at all, since most of the delegates boycotted his address.

Anyhow, for our current purposes, the speeches are not what is important. What is important is that because all the big movers and shakers were in town, accompanied by their "teams," there was an opportunity to conduct some diplomacy. And someone who is paying close attention might note that since the U.N. is in the U.S., the Americans had home-field advantage. They could bring their very best people to the discussions, and could maybe even press the advantage while the foreign diplomats were feeling a bit like fish out of water. Certainly, that's better than the wonder twins, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, jetting off to the Middle East and squeezing 10-minute diplomatic confabs in between business meetings with Arab emirs who want to "invest" their money with Kushner's firm.

However, as you might guess, the talks did not produce any results. Maybe, because tensions are high, or because the Iranian regime is actually pretty happy with the current state of affairs, or because there's currently no middle ground to be had, the talks would not have been successful even if the U.S. had deployed John Quincy Adams, George Marshall and Ralph Bunche. Or maybe the problem is that the people currently running the State Department are incompetent, and couldn't even negotiate extra pickles for their McDonald's hamburger. Hard to know, since we were not in the room.

What we do know is that on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the Iranian mission to the U.N.—which included his counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi—to leave the U.S. immediately. They were all-but-certain to leave soon anyhow, since the U.N. General Assembly is in recess, and since there was no progress being made in the negotiations. However, Rubio just had to layer on the extra humiliation of casting the Iranians out, like vermin. This is generally not helpful in any diplomatic context, but it's arguably even worse when you are dealing with folks from an honor-shame culture, where saving face is very important. In any case, don't count on there being any more negotiations, much less successful negotiations, anytime soon.

The second development, meanwhile, is "small" in the moment, but is "big" if you take into account Trump's past history. The President was performing one of his rallies last night, and he uncorked a wild claim. He told the crowd that keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power was not the only reason that he ordered an attack on that nation:

We did it in one night with those beautiful B-2 bombers. They left Missouri. They flew both ways, 37 hours. They were refueling. We have the greatest tankers. We have the greatest military in the world. They went from Missouri and then at one o'clock in the morning, with no moon, dark as can be, these unbelievable machines led by the most incredible pilots in the world, they unloaded every single bomb, went right down air chutes into this, uh, drug factories, really. That's what they were doing. They were nuclear and drugs. They were doing drugs, but they were doing the nuclear. These drug factories/nuclear factories were hit so hard.

Because, as everyone knows, the best place to make illegal fentanyl is the same facility where you're also making your nuclear ordnance.

Trump, of course, had never bothered to mention this cause of action prior to last night. There is also no evidence whatsoever that Iran is producing fentanyl, much less exporting it to the United States (or anywhere else in the Western hemisphere). However, one need only recall that "drugs" is Trump's all-purpose excuse for violent action. It's the justification for his border crackdowns, it's the justification for his invasion of Venezuela, it's even (sometimes) been the justification for his Canada tariffs. So, the fact that he's brought this new bit of information to the table is a pretty big "tell" that he's thinking about getting violent with Iran. Again.

And that brings us to the third big development, and the "revelation" we allude to in the headline. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has ordered another aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, to head to the Middle East, along with its support ships. He also deployed an additional 10,000 troops to the region. The Journal adds, "the ships, jet fighters, Marines and sailors will arrive in the region by the end of November."

It doesn't take much to connect the dots here. Trump is going to try to maintain the (abysmal) status quo through the elections, and then once the ballot dust has settled, he's going to resume his war against Iran. There are really only two questions that remain to be answered. The first is whether the Iranians will beat him to the punch this month, either to gain a tactical advantage or to try to hurt the Republicans in the midterms. The second is whether Trump's new round of violence will be another bombing campaign (which is what he has suggested to aides), or if the larger number of troops in the region coupled with a shrinking supply of bombs will result in a ground invasion. Whatever the answers to these questions are, the bottom line is that the Iran War is most certainly going to stretch into 2027, with all of the deleterious consequences that entails. (Z)

The 2026 Election: Trump's Poll Numbers Continue to Be Very Poor

Donald Trump says he doesn't care that his polling numbers are cratering due to the tariffs, the Iran War, the corruption, etc. This is a flat-out lie; there is no chance that someone as vain and as image-obsessed as he is can look at his crummy poll numbers and just roll with the punches.

At this point, every reader of this site knows well that his approval rating is likely somewhere in the high 30s. Not quite the Bush line, but not far off, and not good for a president about to lead his party into a critical midterm election. Actually, it's possible he's below the Bush line; the AP's latest, released yesterday, puts him at 31%. This is the fourth major poll in the last 2 weeks to put him below the Bush line (32%). That said, those polls might be leading indicators, and they might just be outliers. For the record, here's Trump's average among the major aggregators:

Pollster	Approve	Disapprove	Undecided	Net
Ballotpedia	39.0%	60.0%	1.0%	-21.0%
CNN	35.0%	64.0%	1.0%	-29.0%
Decision Desk HQ	38.1%	59.8%	2.1%	-21.7%
FiftyPlusOne	35.0%	62.1%	2.9%	-27.1%
NBC News	39.0%	59.0%	2.0%	-20.0%
Real Clear Politics	38.8%	59.9%	1.3%	-21.1%
Silver Bulletin	37.7%	59.9%	2.4%	-22.2%
The Economist	35.0%	61.0%	4.0%	-26.0%
The New York Times	37.0%	60.0%	3.0%	-23.0%
RacetotheWH	36.4%	61.1%	2.5%	-24.7%
Average	37.2%	60.6%	2.2%	-23.6%

So yeah, he's probably not really in the low 30s yet, but he's certainly making a move on the mid-30s.

Arguably, however, the worst numbers are not the topline results, and instead are found in the crosstabs. Let us imagine that a person really likes how Trump "owns the libs" and also how he's cracking down on immigrants, but that they're also really upset that gas and milk are so expensive. The economy is generally the biggest driver of votes, so someone like that could very plausibly "approve" of Trump, and yet vote against the Republicans in November. That is especially true since it's not his name that will be on the ballot, so a person doesn't necessarily have to cope with the cognitive dissonance of "I still like Trump, but I also want to vote for change."

The point here is that while Trump's overall approval ratings are grim, his approval ratings on the economy are even grimmer, and that might actually be the more important number. We'll take the aforementioned AP poll as an example: Only 26% of respondents approve of his handling of the economy. And he gets virtually no "rescue" from people who are undecided or have no opinion. That's only 1% of the sample; fully 73% have an opinion on the Trump economy, and it's negative. That's absolutely brutal, and while the AP poll was a bit worse for him than most, they all have very similar numbers when it comes to Trump and the economy.

As we have noted many times, including this week, Trump has concluded there's only one solution here, and that is to fire up the base and get them to the polls in force. We wrote about the taxpayer-funded campaign ads he's been running. And yesterday, the White House announced that he has expanded his campaign itinerary for the next month to 17 states. In case readers are interested, they are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. He's going to hit most of the "swingy" Senate states, although not all of them (no Maine or Minnesota, for example). We don't know why he's going to Alabama or Oklahoma, except that he loves to rally before enthusiastic crowds.

Trump is right that the Republicans really need MAGA voters to behave as if he is on the ballot. The problem with his strategy, which we have also pointed out many times, is that when he is this unpopular, his presence is likely to motivate more Democrats and independents to vote against him and the GOP than it will motivate MAGA types to vote for him and the GOP. There are, after all, considerably more of the former than the latter. Whether Trump simply cannot understand the dynamics here, or he can understand them but he's in denial that he could be so unpopular as to actually motivate people to vote against him, we do not know.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is also hitting the road for a whirlwind tour of states. His list is: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. We suspect that Johnson will actually be much more helpful than Trump will. The Speaker is liked/hated/unknown to voters in roughly equal measure, so he's not likely to move the needle much in terms of vote totals. However, when a candidate appears with him, it's an excellent fundraising opportunity. And Johnson lets the candidate keep the money, whereas Trump claims most of the money HE raises for himself and his PACs. Certainly, if we were Republicans running for office, we'd much rather have Johnson for a few hours than Trump. (Z)

The 2028 Election: The Hill Judges the Presidential Fields

We aren't even past the midterms, and already 2028 presidential rankings are popping up. Let's have a laugh by looking at The Hill's ranking of the favorites for the Democratic nomination, along with our comments:

1. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): Exciting the left does not mean winning Black voters in South Carolina.
2. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA): Too woke, slimy, and busy trying to un-say everything he has said for 8 years.
3. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA): If he wins in a landslide next month, then he will indeed be a serious candidate.
4. Kamala Harris: She wants to be president so badly. Unfortunately for her, few others feel the same way.
5. Pete Buttigieg: Were he not married to a man, he would be the second coming of JFK.
6. Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL): An old, establishment, pro-Israel Jewish billionaire. Just what the kids want.
7. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA): He would win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. That's nothing to sneeze at.
8. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): Perfectly competent senator, but is this serious?
9. Rahm Emanuel: The list is getting worse by the minute. A washed-up Chicago pol with a LONG list of enemies?
10. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): Like Van Hollen, a fine senator, but more likely a future Senate majority leader.

We are not impressed with this list. Name recognition impresses media pundits more than it ought to. AOC may well have a bright future, but being the Democratic nominee at 38? Democrats are 0 for 2 with highly experienced and capable women. We don't believe they will try again with a much less experienced one until sometime in the 2030s, at the earliest. Besides, AOC might well decide to run for the Senate instead, where she is probably the favorite rather than a deep underdog in a presidential race.

Missing from this list are several candidates who have more to offer than many of the people on the list. For example:

1. Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY): Democrats have done pretty well with moderate southern governors.
2. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ): Combat veteran, astronaut, and guy who pushes back hard against Trump sounds like a potential winner to us.
3. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ): A telegenic Latino from a swing state could bring Latinos, particularly Mexican Americans, back to the Democrats.

Roy Cooper is another southern (former) governor who would be a plausible candidate were it not for the fact that he is 69. Also, history has a warning for us. Candidates sometimes come out of the woodwork and surprise people. No one saw Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama as top candidates 2 years in advance. There could easily be some dark horse candidate not on anyone's list now, particularly since there is a big election coming up in a month. Nobody could seriously put James Talarico in the top 10 right now, but if he wins in Texas by 5+ points? Lots of people are going to be talking about him then. Don't forget that Barack Obama was elected president while serving his first term in the U.S. Senate.

The Hill also did the same thing for the Republicans. Here we go:

1. J.D. Vance: All of Trump's meanness without any of the charisma. But if Trump endorses him, then maybe.
2. Marco Rubio: Against Vance, he wins the beer test. He is probably the GOP's strongest candidate.
3. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): He's whip smart and very ambitious, but everyone hates him.
4. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL): He's even more fake than Gavin Newsom, and that's not easy.
5. Donald Trump Jr.: See Vance above and square it. Even with dad's endorsement, this is many bridges too far.
6. Tucker Carlson: The America Firsters would swoon and he is more polarizing than Trump, but... maybe.
7. Pete Hegseth: Niall Stanage, who put this list together, has been smoking something and inhaling deeply.
8. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): An intelligent traditional conservative, but that's not what the GOP voters want.
9. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR): Too many Republicans think women belong in the kitchen, and not the WH kitchen.
10. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA): If the fever breaks and Republicans are sick of Trumpism, this could be their man.

Unlike the Democratic field, which is wide open, Vance and Rubio are the clear frontrunners, unless Republicans want to move past Trumpism, in which case Kemp might grab the brass ring. A big factor is Trump. If he endorses anyone, that person gets a big boost. Some of the people missing from the list include:

1. Glenn Youngkin: A potential competitor to Kemp in the "not crazy" lane.
2. Nikki Haley: Another potential competitor to Kemp.
3. Ivanka Trump: More popular and competent than her brother, but again, not a party that's very woman-friendly.
4. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY): If Republican voters really, really decide they want to poke Trump and Trumpism in the eye, then Massie would certainly do that. It's a little nutty, but the prediction markets actually give him better odds than Sanders, Cotton or Hegseth.

Some real long shots are Marjorie Taylor Greene, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).

Again, these rankings are for your amusement only. Don't believe them. There's a long time to go between now and Election Day 2028. (V & Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Can You Get a Job with a B.F.A. in Puppet Arts?

Many universities have at least one or two unusual majors as part of their curriculum. Among the ones that are the most "out there" are Fermentation Sciences (Appalachian State), Turfgrass Science (Penn State), Bagpiping (Carnegie Mellon), Astrobiology (Florida Institute of Technology), Accent Reduction and Modification (University of San Diego), Ecogastronomy (University of New Hampshire), Nautical Archaeology (Texas A&M), Wooden Boat Building (Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building) and The Beatles (Liverpool Hope University).

That said, of all the offbeat majors we've seen, the one that seems least likely to lead to employment is the B.F.A. in Puppet Arts offered by the University of Connecticut. There aren't too many productions using traditional puppetry anymore, now that Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo are dead. And the ones that are—like, say Sesame Street—are probably pretty well staffed. Meanwhile, most animation that was once done by stop-motion is now done by computer. We guess the folks who pursue that degree are crossing their fingers and hoping for a reboot of the show ALF.

It's been a few weeks since we've had a headline theme, due to illness and other issues. But it's back. The last time we did one, we gave these hints: (1) "Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit would have liked this theme, we think" and (2) "[I]f you're still working on the headline theme, we'll give the additional hint that you don't need a Ph.D. to solve it. Literally."

And here is the solution, courtesy of reader M.C. in Newton, MA (who makes clear they are not a Master of Counseling):

This week's headlines all contain a type of degree:

• Republiconvention: J.D. Vance Gets His Chance—Typical law degree in the U.S.
• ElectionWatch 2026: Trump Effectively Concedes D.C. Is About to Get Much Less Friendly For Him—Doctor of Chiropractic
• Fascism 101: Trump Administration Masters the Art of Censorship—More than a Bachelor's, less than a Ph.D.
• Legal Bytes: Supremes Call Out Missouri AG on His B.S., Yet Again—Bachelor of Science
• I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Caveman and Associates—Typical degree at the end of a 2-year course of study
• This Week in Schadenfreude: Even 40 MPH Is a Bit Too Much for Vivek Ramaswamy—Master of Public Health
• This Week in Freudenfreude: BNA May Soon Be DPM—Doctor of Podiatric Medicine

As for the hint, Fahrenheit certainly is a type of degree, though rather different from those in the headlines. I imagine Anders Celsius would also approve, as would William John Macquorn Rankine. William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, would not, as the unit is just "Kelvin" rather than "degree Kelvin" which is commonly written but is incorrect.

Correct. As to the Saturday hint, there was no Ph.D. in the headlines, and so you literally did not need a Ph.D. to solve it. Today's headline adds B.F.A. (Bachelor of Fine Arts) to the list.

Here are the first 60 readers to get it right:

P.Q. in Metuchen, NJ D.L. in Springfield, IL P.R. in Havertown, PA M.S. in Canton, NY T.K. in Manchester, MO E.M. in Jersey City, NJ M.B. in Albany, NY J.N. in Zionsville, IN S.K. in Ardmore, PA M.M. in Dunellen, NJ D.D. in Bucks County, PA H.B. in Santiago, Chile D.C. in Teaneck, NJ T.T. in Conway, AR P.H. in Bozeman, MT M.H. in Council Grove, KS T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts J.F. in Fayetteville, NC T.P. in Kings Park, NY A.F. in Minneapolis, MN R.J.L. in Columbus, IN E.S. in Providence, RI S.P. in Coventry, England, UK R.S. in Milan, OH J.S. in Atlanta, GA N.S. in Los Angeles, CA P.R. in Kirksville, MO P.A. in Redwood City, CA B.R. in Arlington, MA A.F. in Boston, MA

M.W. in Altea, Spain R.P.E.H. in London, England, UK J.W. in Folsom, CA D.B. in Pittsboro, NC P.H. in Ft. Lauderdale, FL K.H. in Albuquerque, NM A.L.C. in Portland, OR R.B. in Richmond, VA M.W. in Marlborough, CT D.H. in Portland, OR L.A.J. in Bourbonnais, IL T.V. in Dinwiddie, VA B.B. in Avon, CT G.K. in Blue Island, IL D.M. in Oakland, CA N.K. in Cleveland Heights, OH A.E. in Lima, OH J.E. in San Jose, CA S.G. in Durham, NC N.P. in Santa Rosa, CA M.C. in Newton J.S. in Wheaton, IL P.W. in Tulalip, WA R.R. in Pasadena, CA M.K. in Bothell, WA M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO D.W. in Fremont, CA E.S. in Cincinnati, OH M.B. in Denver, CO S.F. in Pemberton Borough, NJ

The 60th correct response was received at 5:53 a.m. PT on September 12.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word per headline, and it's in the category Literature. For a hint, we'll tell you that the profile of Mark Cuban, as a potential presidential candidate, was supposed to run today, but we ran out of time and space. Too bad, because it was that item that inspired the theme.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line October 2 Headlines. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Cue Up Your Favorite Proverbs about Pride

To take an example of what we mean by that headline, consider the observation that "Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real." Do you think it aptly describes a president who is known for his fake tan and fake combover, not to mention his fake facts? Or how about "The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance"? Or "In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes"?

It is the latter aphorism, which is credited to John Ruskin, that we particularly had in mind as we were putting this item together. Donald Trump, aided and abetted by his fawning lackeys, has made several high-profile moves meant to promote his own greatness, and to boost his own ego. And they keep blowing up in his face, in spectacular fashion. There were significant developments of this sort on two different fronts this week.

To start, if you were trying to write some sort of slapstick comedy involving a president and his inability to manage a simple task like renovating a reflecting pool, you probably couldn't come up with a script as slapsticky as what has already happened. We have already written about the silly goal that launched the project (make it bluer!), the dubious funding, the no-bid contract awarded to a firm that had no business taking on the project, the failure of the new lining brought on (in part) by driving the presidential limousine over it before it had cured properly, the false accusations of sabotage against that lining and, of course, the out-of-control algal blooms.

Well, in the last week, things have gone even further downhill. To start with, the contractor who screwed up the job (Atlantic Industrial Coatings) admitted, in documents acquired by The New York Times, that the new lining did not fail due to vandalism, but instead to shoddy execution. It's a little weedy, but the White House insisted on an approach that would produce particular results in a very rapid fashion. The firm did not have the expertise to make the unorthodox approach work properly, or else to say to the administration "This is guaranteed to fail."

And that leads us to the next black eye for the administration. The fellow who was charged with vandalizing the pool was former Olympic canoeist Davey Hearn. It's somewhat remarkable that the case got past a grand jury but, in any event, Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia Tod Edelman dismissed the charges against Hearn yesterday. And they were dismissed with prejudice, which means they cannot be brought again, no matter how cranky Trump—or his toady, U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. Jeanine Pirro—gets.

That does not mean that Trump has heard the last of Hearn, however. To start with, the former Olympian has become something of a hero of the resistance, and is headlining various protest actions around the country. This weekend, for example, he'll be part of an event at Hains Point in D.C. Further, he is also planning to sue the Trump administration for malicious prosecution. Maybe Hearn can get a piece of that sweet, sweet $1.776 billion weaponization fund, since the forces of the government were most certainly weaponized against him.

At the moment, the White House appears to have given up on this boondoggle, as the administration either doesn't have any clue as to how to move forward, or else doesn't have the energy/interest. As a result, the Lincoln Reflecting Pool is currently fenced off and empty. And it has also become exactly what Trump wanted: A monument to his "leadership." This picture is all over social media right now:

We thought it might be AI-generated, or something like that, but it's definitely real. The most common caption: "Everything Trump touches dies."

And helping to make that point is our second, related news item from the week. As readers will recall, the Kennedy Center is awash in red ink right now. Trump says that putting his name back is the only way to save it. Pretty much everyone else says that Trump's having added his name is what caused the problem in the first place. Yesterday, CNN published a story based on documents it was able to obtain; those documents strongly support the latter interpretation of events.

Once Trump resumed being president, and started mucking around with the Kennedy Center, revenues cratered. The venue's deficit was $16 million in 2025, and is going to grow to something like $23 million this year. It has run through most of its reserve fund, and needs the rest for necessary capital improvements. Further, in something of an irony, donation pledges to the Kennedy Center are down by more than 100%. That brings to mind Trump's claim that he's caused prescription prices to drop more than 100%, which is impossible. But in this case, it's true.

Since donation pledges are ongoing, a person might commit to giving $500 a year every year, starting in 2022 (i.e., Joe Biden, year 2). The value of the pledges that have been canceled this year is far greater than the value of the pledges that have been made since Trump re-took office. And so, Trump has seen the venue lose well north of 100% of the pledge money brought in during his second term. The extent to which that is "the economy" versus "I hate Trump" is unknown, although the type of people who have the extra cash to support a fine arts venue usually aren't the type to be at risk of missing rent if gas goes up by twenty cents a gallon.

The Iran War, as we note above, is an epic disaster for Trump. But we cannot also forget the many and varied lesser disasters that also dot his résumé. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: California Acts to Legalize Balcony Solar Panels

There was a time, roughly 10 years ago, that the only major political party in the entire world that indulged in climate-change denialism was the United States' Republican Party. At that time, we figured that eventually the GOP would have to bow to reality, the way that they eventually had to get on board with the ozone layer being a problem. Since then... results have been mixed. Certainly, some Republicans accept that there is indeed a problem, and something needs to be done. However, Trumpism is not only all-in on denialism, but it has influenced right-wing populist movements in other nations, such that there are now major climate-change-denial parties in places like Brazil, Argentina and several of the Balkan states. On the whole, the planet has probably moved further from global consensus, rather than closer.

Maybe, once skin cancer becomes epidemic, and buying fire/flood insurance for your house becomes completely impossible, the right-wing populists will fall into line. Donald Trump will likely be dead by then, so it's a possibility. However, our view is that the greatest reason for hope is not "C'mon, the Republicans can't keep this up forever," as it was 10 years ago. No, the greatest reason for hope these days is that the market has spoken, and green energy is increasingly a more attractive option, economically, than fossil fuels.

There were a few pretty big stories this week along these lines, but the one that is most obviously relevant to U.S. politics comes out of California, where aspiring presidential candidate Gavin Newsom just signed into law a bill allowing the state's residents to use plug-in solar panels, also known as "balcony" solar panels. This technology allows a user to hang panels on their balcony (hence the alternate name), or place them in their yard, or to put them into other spots that get sunlight. The panels are then plugged into an inverter, and provide electricity for the residence.

This is still a fairly new technology, and governments are still figuring out how to manage it (only 10 states have approved the devices so far). So, there are some issues to be wrinkled out. California, being California, slapped some pretty serious regulatory limits on the panels; they can only produce a maximum of 1.2 kW, and any installation has to undergo an inspection (at a cost of $100 to $800) before it can be put into use. Also, the legislation signed yesterday sunsets in 2031, and so would have to be extended if it is going to remain in place, long-term.

That said, the benefits of these panels, even if they are in the formative stages, are obvious. Not everyone lives in a residence with an exterior roof, and many of those who do are not able to actually utilize that roof. The balcony panels, by contrast, can be placed in many other locations. On top of that, a full rooftop installation is quite expensive (five figures), and usually has to be financed, in one way or another. The balcony panels are much cheaper ($300 to $2,200). Also, these devices do not appear to have been drawn into the cultural/partisan wars, and so have support on both sides of the political aisle, at least at the moment. The California bill was passed by a near-unanimous majority of Democratic and Republican votes, and the first state to legalize the panels was actually... Utah.

So, there may just be hope for the planet yet. Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

Today's Senate Polls

Today is all white, not unlike the voters who will cast their ballots for the GOP this election. That said, the Democrat is ahead in each of the polls, which decreases the odds that any one of the polls has it wrong. In case it interests anyone, most of the pollsters here (the exception is Wedgewood) are a Republican house and a Democratic house working together. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Iowa	Josh Turek	49%	Ashley Hinson	47%	Sep 24	Sep 28	Beacon + Shaw
Maine	Troy Jackson	50%	Susan Collins*	47%	Sep 20	Sep 22	Fabrizio + Anzalone
Maine	Troy Jackson	52%	Susan Collins*	48%	Sep 27	Oct 01	Wedgewood Polls
Texas	James Talarico	51%	Ken Paxton	49%	Sep 24	Sep 28	Beacon + Shaw

* Denotes incumbent

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