We have a 33% turnout for Tuesday's primary in Midland County. That's three times the amount from 2016's primary. There weren't too many heated races to boost things (a tight Democratic congressional primary and a Republican sheriff's race), so it may well be that universal absentee ballots might have been the difference-maker.
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Speaking of things Midland County, we had a saw-that-coming-a-mile-away event; Sanford and Edenville dam owner Boyce Hydro just went into Chapter 11. Given that the lawsuits from all the damaged property downstream will run up more of a tab than Boyce is worth, I'm surprised it too this long to file.
For the non-Midlanders in the Peanut Gallery, those were the dams that famously collapsed in May after a near-record rainfall hit the area; what would have been a 500-year-flood slightly less than the 1987 record-holder for the Tittabawassee got morphed into a what-the-bleep disaster when the under-repaired dams gave way.
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Interesting geopolitics in Beirut today, where French president Macron is trying to tie aid for the mega-explosion of Tuesday to political and constitutional reform of the Lebanese government. Corruption and ineptitude has been producing loud and large protests before the blast, and the leading explanation of a stash of ammonia nitrate being left without safeguards only serves as Opposition Evidence 1 to that ineptitude.
Two problems with that Macron gambit. One is that having the French, the former colonial power, telling the dysfunctional ex-colony to clean up its act will not sit well with the Lebanese, especially Hezbollah, whose both a terror-friendly paramilitary group and the largest Shia party in the country. Having infidel Europeans tell them how to roll is DOA.
Secondly, serious reform will create winners and losers. The losers could well resist violently; civil war is not that far in the Lebanese rear-view mirror. The protesters are hoping for a peaceful Arab Spring-type result, but a butt-ugly civil war like Libya or Syria could well play out.
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Mike DeWine's got da bug. He was ahead of the curve in getting Ohio to take COVID seriously, which saved Ohio from getting hammered as bad as neighboring states this spring. However, Ohio has been hit hard by the secondary surge after lock-downs were relaxed.
He's asymptomatic; he was tested as part of preparing for a presidential visit to Cleveland. He's the second governor to get the bug.
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