Will Ohio Voters Buy Republicans' Pitch?

Plus: Gun laws in Oregon, Mamdani's free-daycare expansion, vibrators and selfishness, and more...

Can Republicans just spend their way to success in Ohio? "Republicans have bombarded Ohioans with ads with $19 million spent on competitive races through Oct. 12, intended to sell voters on the tax law that had been called the One Big Beautiful Bill," reports The Washington Post. "But the message is struggling to connect with voters amid anxiety over tariffs and the war with Iran, which have pushed up prices for everyday products. The ad blitz, the most spent on the topic in any state with competitive races, is aimed at bolstering vulnerable GOP candidates in a state that was considered safely Republican for the better part of the last decade."

Republicans in states across the Midwest (and the country) have experimented with distancing themselves from the Trump administration and its agenda; it's hard to know if this strategy will prove successful, or if it's just too little, too late. In Ohio, though, Republican candidates are mostly staying close to Dear Leader.

Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican, is running for U.S. Senate against Democrat Sherrod Brown in what looks to be an extremely tight race; ads claim Husted has "supported ending taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security, plus a $200 million investment in rural hospitals," trying to tie him closely to President Donald Trump's agenda. But it's really not clear whether this type of pitch will be enough to make voters forget about tariffs and inflation, the war in the Middle East and gas prices. A New York Times/Siena poll found that 79 percent of likely Ohio voters disapproved of Trump's handling of gas prices. It's hard to sell people on a tax cut when they're paying a different tax, in the form of tariffs, every time they go to the store; Ohio voters might not be so easily swindled.

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Gun laws in Oregon: In the aftermath of the tragic shooting at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, where a 16-year-old killed three little kids and one teacher, some parents of elementary schoolers there are asking what laws can be changed.

But "Oregon earns high marks from gun safety advocates for its firearms laws," notes The New York Times. "Everytown for Gun Safety, one of the nation's largest gun violence prevention organizations, ranks Oregon 12th in the country for the strength of its laws, citing recent legislation tightening storage requirements, banning untraceable 'ghost guns' and prohibiting devices that can convert semiautomatic firearms into machine guns." Gifting laws are pretty lax, though, and that might be what happened here: The 16-year-old's mother seems to have been the one who purchased the Maverick 88 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, so it's possible she either gifted the gun to her son or that he stole it from her. "Decades ago, Oregon lawmakers made an exception to gun laws that allow parents to give rifles and shotguns to minors. In many areas of the state, as in other parts of the American West and South, it's a rite of passage for a young person to receive a weapon for hunting or target practice."

There's no law that can really prevent theft of weapons, especially when the thief is a teenager living inside the home where the gun is stored, and there's no law that can prevent parents from foolishly gifting guns to teenagers or young adults whom they've misjudged as capable of handling the responsibility. These are terribly unsatisfying realities.

Prosecutors could, of course, attempt to try the parent for the crimes of their teenager. They "could consider charges ranging from reckless endangerment to manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison," continues the Times. "But that would require evidence of more than just a parent's awareness that a child was troubled. Prosecutors would have to establish that the mother disregarded—or, in the case of criminal negligence, failed to recognize—a substantial and unjustifiable risk."

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Scenes from New York: "Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Monday that New York City will expand free child care for 2-year-olds to Staten Island and across the Bronx as the city moves to add 10,000 seats next school year," reports The New York Times. Here's why that won't work:

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QUICK HITS

• Something juicy for you, readers, since I too frequently subject you to my Catholicism. Let's switch it up: "I'd been thinking about turning down the speed on my vibrator for a long time, but I'd considered my affliction personal, not society-wide. Now it was dawning on me that the problem wasn't simply mine. Women are being sold egg-shaped suction devices in the pages of New York magazine, and BookTok influencers pair with sex-toy companies for promotional collabs. Yes, there is a bookmark that doubles as a vibrator," writes Sarah Hepola for The Atlantic. "Does this consumer game of one-upmanship amid the mainstreaming of vibrators even matter? There are too many varieties of women's razors, too, and I don't care. But what worries me is how this points in the direction in which so much of modern life has been barreling: self-pleasure, self-love, self-care, self, self, self.…Like so much of our day-to-day lives, getting off is becoming more efficient, easier, faster. But has it gotten better?"
• "Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America," wrote Elon Musk on X yesterday. "This will be the first of many."
• "Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate arrested last year by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents amid campus protests, appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday in an attempt to prevent his deportation," reports The New York Times. "Khalil, a legal permanent U.S. resident who is married to an American, became an early and high-profile example of President Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses."
• Is California's new billionaire tax a net revenue loser?
• Play the discretionary review computer game! See how far you get as a developer in San Francisco!