Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The willow is too close to the house.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

In my day, never was longer.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Infrastructure week. at last.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / local races 2019/2020 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Good News!

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Good News!

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117Comments

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The Trump campaign has held at least 15 contests since 2018 offering the chance to win breakfast, lunch, or dinner with President Trump. Supporters are enticed to donate to Trump’s campaign with promises of free travel, accommodations, and an “epic” meal with Trump at various locations across the country. An investigation by Popular Information, however, did not uncover evidence that anyone has ever actually won.

    Dangling a meal with the candidate to encourage small-dollar contributions is a common tactic in modern presidential politics. Campaigns are typically eager to publicize these meals because: 1. They show the candidate interacting with average Americans, and 2. They encourage more people to enter the next contest.
    ……………………..
    UPDATE (11/5, 9AM): After the publication of this article, the Trump campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh responded, claiming that “people win the contests each time.” Murtaugh offered no proof to support his claim.

    He reneges on every deal he makes. Even this low hanging fruit. Oh well, nobody is missing out on the cold Quarter pounders and fries anyway.

  5. 5.

    satby

    Good morning everyone! South Bend predictably elected the Democratic candidate, and in a breakthrough the city council (called the Common Council) will for the first time be majority female! Looking at the returns for a lot of the local towns, there were a surprising number of little dots of blue breaking out in red Indiana. Not enough, but still progress.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Expect much ink and even more pixels to be sacrificed in the immediate future attempting to spin that Bevin is a squishy RINO lacking the guts to run as a “real conservative.”

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    @satby

    there were a surprising number of little dots of blue breaking out in red Indiana

    Rs in most of Indiana still discombobulated from that newfangled changing of the clocks thing?

    :)

  9. 9.

    JPL

    Out of the three council members that I supported, two won and the third is in a runoff. The runoff was expected since four were running for that post.

  10. 10.

    Sab

    We got rid of the two Republicans on our non-partisan school board. Anyone who was okay with Kasich’s education cuts doesn’t deserve to be on a school board. I’m glad the other voters in my town agreed.

  20. 20.

    Cermet

    As I said very early morning – its a very good day (and especially for democrats)! Strange, but a good day for the average (stupid) thug voter because they will lose fewer benifits and even gain some back thanks to local dems.

  21. 21.

    JAFD

    Good morning, everyone,

    Survived fourteen hours in ‘The Devil’s Playground’ yesterday (The territory of Newark Fire Dept’s Engine 5 includes the local ice hockey team’s arena, ergo…). Aside from a couple of people saying they were listed as ‘Vote by Mail’ in error (and who got provisional ballots), things went smoothly. But woulda been nice yf smore voters showed up

    In more good news, the county government in Delaware County, Pa flipped for the first time since the GOP took over from the Whigs
    https://www.delcotimes.com/news/local/dems-sweep-all-delco-council-races-in-historic-rout/article_f37d634e-0014-11ea-8fc9-5b45f1b62ada.html
    Have great day, everyone !

    BTW, any Jackals going to Philcon – the Philadelphia Science Fiction Convention (philcon.org) – this weekend ?

  24. 24.

    Kay

    Robert Costa
    @costareports
    ·5h
    My latest: Alarm in the GOP tonight following the Kentucky outcome… Scott Reed tells me “the Republican Party is lacking message discipline, and that needs to be addressed… it seems to be overwhelmed by the drama.”

    They need to be still more subservient to Donald Trump.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Just One More Canuck: Yeah, we’ve been hearing about it for a long time now, haven’t we?

    “It’s coming soon! Any day now! Just one more round of testing! We have just a few more glitches to work out! It’s almost ready!” Come to think of it, is Water Girl a real person? I mean, not even a picture? She could be just a bot.

  26. 26.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    “low hanging fruit”? But it was supposed to be an “epic” meal! Do you know how much thought and preparation goes into hand-selecting at least five Big Macs? Plus, there’s the ketchup! And that’s just for Fat Bastard! [Of course, the “winner” will have to get his own Big Macs. Or maybe get some sliders from White Castle. But at least he’ll get to eat them in the presence of Dear Leader, and bask in His orange glow.

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    Robert Costa
    @costareports
    ·5h
    My latest: Alarm in the GOP tonight following the Kentucky outcome… Scott Reed tells me “the Republican Party is lacking message discipline, and that needs to be addressed… it seems to be overwhelmed by the drama.”

    Chuckles Todd and the FTFTFNYT: “Dems in Disarray!!!!”

  28. 28.

    Chyron HR

    @Kay:

    Machiavellian communications genius Brad Parscale wailed, “How are we supposed to convince Republican senators to keep supporting Trump? They don’t even know what Facebook is!!”

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The Trump campaign has held at least 15 contests since 2018 offering the chance to win breakfast, lunch, or dinner with President Trump. Supporters are enticed to donate to Trump’s campaign with promises of free travel, accommodations, and an “epic” meal with Trump at various locations across the country

    There’s tons of corruption and lying in Trump Inc. but I think this one is bad, even for them. It’s just so incredibly cynical.

    There are lots and lots of state laws on contests and sweepstakes- they are heavily regulated. I don’t know how that works with campaign finance though.

  31. 31.

    Honus

    Somebody below half-sarcastically mentioned Trump’s ability to GOTV for democrats. Turnout in my rural albemarle county Virginia district (Free Union) was nearly 60% in an off-off year election.

  33. 33.

    joel hanes

    Heaping a tiny bit more schadenfreude:

    Loudon County, VA, where flip-Trump-the-bird Brinksman won her supervisor race, is the site of the Washington DC Trump National Golf Club*.
    With this election, the board of supervisors for Loudon County flipped from majority-Republican to decisively-majority-Democratic.

    * this is the golf club in which the Trumpies erected the phony “River Of Blood” lying-about-history monument. It’s also the golf club where one of the first things they did after taking over was to cut down hundreds of mature trees.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_National_Golf_Club_(Washington,_D.C.)

  34. 34.

    Kay

    @SFAW:

    If they had just told the truth- “this is an unpopular governor, it may or may not be a referendum on Trump”. But they didn’t. They couldn’t resist announcing it was a referendum on impeachment, I think because it looked like Bevin would win. The NYTimes stated it as fact in a headline before the race. All people are really asking is that they at least be consistent in their bullshit. They can’t even do that.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    “Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren’t for the goddamned people.”
      – Richard Nixon

    (Actual quote.)

  36. 36.

    Honus

    @SFAW: of course the republicans have and have had great “message discipline” (propaganda). People are finally getting the message and don’t like it.

  37. 37.

    mad citizen

    @NotMax: It cuts across party lines. I arrived in St Louis yesterday from Indiana, looked at my garmin and it was 2 hours ahead of local central time. Guess I need to plug it into the app. There was talk in my elevator the other day that we should never change the clocks. Just let the time be what it is year round.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Nothing says “milking the rubes” like milking the rubes with the same scam time and again and again and again.

  40. 40.

    Jeffro

    It’s almost like Dems across the country were offering good governance or a wholesale rejection of trumpovism or both. Or something.

    Looking forward to all of the snooze media’s “not so hot takes” today. Bevin was a bad candidate, VA demographics, etc etc. sure…but let’s talk about the obvious, too ?

  41. 41.

    RandomMonster

    How can we get Trump to campaign for more Republicans?

    Have Obama say Trump shouldn’t campaign for more Republicans.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @Honus:

    People are finally getting the message and don’t like it.

    Not enough of them — yet — but I remain hopeful. If they weren’t so tribal/racist, and had enough brain cells to rub together, they’d conclude that voting for Rethugs will only impoverish them, and eventually kill them.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    Prepare yourselves for another round of media stories of how Trump’s base is sticking with him.

  45. 45.

    p.a.

    Remember Sally Field’s “you love me…”?
    D Trump: “you loathe me, you really loath me.”

    Not enough self-awareness though.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    This one they wouldn’t necessarily know though- it’s so few “winners”. It never would have occurred to me they weren’t awarding the prize. If I were donating I would just assume I lost.
    We had a big trial here 20 years ago on a scam company that was supposedly awarding a free swimming pool to selected people who called in for a free consult on getting a swimming pool. I was surprised how much state law there was on it. But you could operate the scam a long time before people found out. The reporter in this Trump scam seemed to get suspicious because there were no photographs of the winner’s meals, like there were for the other campaigns.

  48. 48.

    satby

    @Baud: like burrs on a dog.
    But there’s less of his base than there was before. And even if they’re motivated, if our voters are more motivated and turn out, we win in more places; so that’s a good lesson from last night.
    Now to knock Moscow Mitch out!

  49. 49.

    Chris Johnson

    All this comes as a complete (and welcome) surprise to me.

    Not the victories in Kentucky etc. because that simply underscores my sense that people are NOT ‘mostly hateful racist monsters who will happily immiserate themselves just to make a point or hurt some minority somewhere’. I think people were lied to. They believed Democrats would just ship their jobs off to China in the name of globalization, and they were lied to by Trump and Republicans and told that going/staying red and clapping harder would give them everything they wanted.

    And they were lied to, sheerly purely lied to by wealthy fuckers who just took them to the cleaners because the Republican leadership ALSO believed their people were nothing but hate-filled cretins who would believe anything they were told.

    Nope.

    The part that surprises me, really shouldn’t. I’m surprised that I heard NO INKLING of any of this before the election. Not even from places like this. The myth of Republican dominance is that strong? I sure heard nothing about it from any social media or regular media. I mean, fuck ‘battleground states’ like Wisconsin or Michigan or Texas. It’s like, ok let’s have Kentucky. Fucking KENTUCKY of all places. No sign of any of it until the hammer comes down.

    I’m starting to believe in voting again. The thing about gerrymandering and corruption is that it can get overwhelmed by a wave election with numbers beyond what can be cheated away. The thing about a wave election is that when you lie to people bad enough and treat them like complete assholes for long enough and seek to outright kill them by taking away their livelihoods and protections and everything good in their environments, those people can revolt.

    We can make 2020 the ‘fuck them ALL’ election. Let’s!

  51. 51.

    debbie

    @Sab:

    My town passed a $#@# 9 mil school levy to make up for the people living in new, very expensive condos who just got a 15-year extension on their 70% tax abatements. In addition to the other new developments who got a 15-year extension on their 50% abatements. Fuckers.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    @Chris Johnson:

    because that simply underscores my sense that people are NOT ‘mostly hateful racist monsters who will happily immiserate themselves just to make a point or hurt some minority somewhere’. I

    A great many Republican voters are. That’s why Kentucky was close.

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Once again the NYTimes stands out though. While it is true there are lots and lots of white working class who don’t vote – propensity to vote is connected to level of education, which is connected to income, I have never before seen political analysis that counts the pool of nonvoters as a strength for a campaign. Until this year, in the NYTimes. Trump has a secret weapon- it’s people who didn’t vote for him (or anyone) last time.

    Again- they need to be consistent. If we’re no longer looking at people who actually vote but instead looking at “share of the population who might vote for a candidate” that should apply to Trump’s opponent too. It’s just nonsensical to me. They start with “likely voters” as the screen and then do this crazy jump where they say “and also include all white working class” Why bother with likely voters at all if we then dump in nonvoters as a strength, there at the end?

  54. 54.

    Shalimar

    @Honus: Their discipline is still great. They all run from reporters in choreographed lockstep. The problem has been that there is no message that can get them out of the landfill of shit Trump stepped in without admitting he smells. Which he will not allow them to do.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Until this year, in the NYTimes. Trump has a secret weapon- it’s people who didn’t vote for him (or anyone) last time.

    I hadn’t heard about that. They really are garbage.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    because there were no photographs of the winner’s meals,

    That’s the low hanging campaign fruit they couldn’t bring themselves to grab. A couple thousand dollars for vetting, transpo, food, and Voila! A photo op worth hundreds of thousands in free advertising on the front pages of red state newspapers. But they’d have to spend 2 or 3 thousand of “donny’s money” and he ain’t gonna OK that.

  58. 58.

    Shalimar

    Re:Kentucky
    I keep hearing about Kentucky being disastrous for the GOP. I love that take, but it isn’t really true. Republicans did fine except for Bevin. The only other Republican in the state with approval that low is McConnell. There will be pressure on him to retire. It would free up a lot of money for other states, because a random newcomer would win that race easily.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    TrumpsTaxes
    @TrumpsTaxes
    ·Nov 4
    Replying to
    @Redistrict
    Is it safe to extrapolate the sharp rise in youth turnout of 2018 into 2020?
    I can’t imagine all of those young people who loathed Trump enough to vote in a midterm to all of a sudden pump the brakes and stay home in 2020.

    They want consistent extrapolation! Seems reasonable. As long as we’re extrapolating, let’s just go crazy with it and include someone other than potential Trump voters who didn’t vote. Democrats have nonvoters too.

  61. 61.

    SFAW

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    The New York Times is garbage.

    That’s CRAZY talk! That’s almost as crazy as saying that John Kelly is a racist prick.

    [I’m sure I’m not the first person to note that schrodingers_cat was WAY ahead of the curve on Kelly.]

    ETA: s_c beat me here, I see.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I wonder if it’s that or if it’s that he actually hates people and doesn’t like to get near them. There’s something…fussy about Donald Trump. There’s no mingling with the masses. He’s comfortable way up high on the stage at his hate rallies. He doesn’t actually get close to the fans. That would be…icky.

  65. 65.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Chris Johnson:

    Anyway, the thing you need to know about Matt Bevin is that he is such an asshole that a small but significant number of people who genuinely believe Obama was the antichrist and Trump anointed by God still pulled the lever for the other guy.

    — Botswana Starfish Totally Not Blackmailing POTUS (@IRHotTakes) November 6, 2019

    How fucking bad do you have to be to lose a statewide race as the GOP candidate in Kentucky? We’re calling it the Bevin Line.
    Matt Bevin is a genuinely awful human being who managed to alienate enough Kentuckians to actually lose an election in 2019. He managed this despite the strong support of Trump, who showed up in Lexington yesterday to disrupt traffic and generally pollute the airwaves. The GOP won all of the other statewide races by wide margins. Even so, I hold out just a sliver of hope for what will probably be the McGrath-McConnell race next year, as Mitch is nearly as hated as Bevin. Unfortunately, however, Mitch is also a hell of a lot smarter than the departing governor.

    -Robert Farley.

  66. 66.

    JAFD

    More good news.

    The ‘Democrat backed by George Soros’ money’ won the District Attorney race in Delaware County, as well.
    https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/delaware-county-council-race-democrats-republicans-20191106.html

    One of the ‘reserved for minority party’ at-large seats on Philadelphia’s City Council flipped from Republican to Working Families.
    https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/philly-city-council-at-large-kendra-brooks-working-families-party-republicans-20191106.html

    (I lived most of my life in Philadelphia and suburbs, if noone else is going to herald the news from there…)

  67. 67.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    He hates his base. Have you ever seen him interact with them on a personal level? He’s always at a distance, on a stage.

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @JAFD:
    Interesting headlines. I thought you were serious for a second, had to check to see if the Inquirer really pulled that.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    Bevin’s loss phucked up the Villagers

    ” The Democrats better not go to far with impeachment” scolding message that they were itching to push ???

  72. 72.

    Ken

    @Kay: @Baud: It’s economics. Polls are now showing Trump losing by double digits to all the major Democratic candidates. That means the election will not be a horse-race story. So you have to add imaginary voters to Trump’s numbers, or else advertising revenues might drop.

    (Well, unless the horses are 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify, and long-deceased farm animal Mr. Ed.)

  74. 74.

    Ken

    Oh, and let us not forget the poor reporters and political commentators, who deprived of the automatic horse-race narrative would have to think.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    It’s just tacky. The rubes sent in their.coins. And,. they can’t pick one of them to have lunch with Dolt45??
    It is a level of grift that.is just bad.
    Low character

  81. 81.

    gene108

    @JAFD:

    Live in South Jersey.

    Really is nice to see the ‘burbs ditching Republicans.

    It’s been building up, since the Bush, Jr years.

  82. 82.

    germy

    Standing in line for coffee when man in front of me points to my lapel pin & says, “You better be careful. Someone might mistake you for a journalist.”

    In my low, pre-caffeinated voice, I say, “Step away from the badge, sir.” And he does.

    I’m going to own this day, my friends. pic.twitter.com/MbchxiM4uV

    — Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) November 6, 2019

  85. 85.

    randy khan

    I am so proud of my fellow Virginians this morning. Now we get to kill the Republican gerrymanders for the House of Delegates, State Senate and U.S. House completely in 2021. Taking control of the General Assembly was a monumental task because of those gerrymanders, so having a level playing field will be an enormous boon for the Dems.

    Also, and kind of under the radar, Dem control of the General Assembly really increases the chances for the current strategy to ratify the ERA to take the next step, as just one more state is needed to cross the ratification threshold. (Normally, that would put the ERA into the Constitution, and maybe it does, but the amendment required ratification by a certain date, which is long past, so this really would just buy a ticket for the lawsuit to determine whether Congress can limit the time for ratification.)

  86. 86.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @germy:

    Looking forward to Chuck Todd explaining why a Democrat being elected governor of a state Trump won by 30 points is actually bad news for Democrats.

    LOL. This is a happy day. On top of the KY and VA victories, ALL of my preferred candidates in local races won.

    On a somewhat related note, does anyone have pointers to good research or successful programs on getting out the youth vote, including (especially!) Hispanic and working-class youth? I’m putting together a task force to formulate an action plan for 2020 and am looking for quality, data-based guidance. Thanks!

  87. 87.

    Ken

    @randy khan:

    having a level playing field

    I repeat my call from last night for Virginia to gerrymander so blatantly that not one Republican is elected. It may force the Supreme Court to reverse their recent rulings allowing partisan gerrymanders, which will be a net benefit to Democrats since the Republicans need the gerrymander. Also it will rub John Roberts’ face in it.

  89. 89.

    Aleta

    @OzarkHillbilly: I bet the only pang in his heart is that he didn’t think of fraudulent contests years ago. No effort and no one’s the wiser.

    If only they’d filled out fake winner names. (Curses! Foiled again!) Now they’ll have to get some actors up on a rally stage.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    I do think it will be really close in the Trumpier Great Lakes states, but that’s always been rural v urban and about turnout, and it will be again. I also don’t think head to heads v Trump are worthwhile until D’s have a candidate. Bernie relied on those and it was just bullshit then and it’s bullshit now.

  91. 91.

    John S.

    Some media outlets are still not willing to go gentle into that good night with their GOP-friendly narratives.

    WASHINGTON – The Democrats swept Virginia. The Republicans swept Mississippi. And Kentucky is still too close to call.

    Tuesday’s election might have looked like a draw but Democrats emerged feeling victorious as they head into the 2020 elections since most of Tuesday’s marquee matchups were being played on Republican turf.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/11/06/election-2019-bevin-will-not-concede-virginia-democrats-win-and-other-things-we-learned/4173624002/

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @germy:

    I was pleased to see it though because they are a guaranteed corruption scandal. He now looks for the most corrupt people he can find in any sector, apparently. Be Best.

  93. 93.

    JAFD

    Thing about the FTNYT. If you disregard the op-ed page and the ‘national political analysis’, they have a heckovalot of original national, international, and local reporting, nearly all of it reliable. There are a lot of newspapers around, if you discarded the wire-service copy and rewritten press releases from their ‘news hole’, you’d have barely enough left to giftwrap a pen-and-pencil set. (Does anybody give pen-and-pencil-sets as presents these days ??? )

    Meanwhile, the Morning Bach on WQXR was the Prelude and Fugue No. 17, played by the Blue Aurora Saxophone Quartet. Wonders never cease….

  94. 94.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @WereBear: on TV they could edit Trump to look like a real human being. Probably why he baubles in his speeches, his directors just kept Trump talking until Trump accidentally said something normal they could use.

  95. 95.

    danielx

    A very good morning…..Indianapolis incumbent Democratic mayor wins over Republican candidate in 71%-27% victory. Always have mixed feelings about Joe Hogsett because he was an Evan Bayh protegee, but you take your victories where you get them.

  96. 96.

    Raven Onthill

    Meantime, we are still chewing our nails in “blue” Washington State. Thanks to the mail ballot, it may be days before we know how some close elections went.

  97. 97.

    Amir Khalid

    The openly criminal gang currently trading as the “Republican” party is nothing like the Republican party of Abe’s time, is it? It seems to me that as the criminality and gangsterism get wider exposure these days, they are starting to put people off in a way that their compulsive cruelty and malice towards Americans — which they also never bothered to hide — could not. I wonder why that is.

    In other news, my multiFX guitar pedal appears to have lost its marbles. I will try a factory reset, but I’m not optimistic that it will fix things. I may have to get another. Pout. (Because of where I live, this qualifies as a third-world problem. So there.)

  98. 98.

    RAVEN

    @JAFD: I look at it this was, they RMNJ’s bitch and moan about all this shit as much as people here do. I’m going to read what-the-fuck ever I want AND I like Facebook.

  100. 100.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Honus:

    of course the republicans have and have had great “message discipline” (propaganda). People are finally getting the message and don’t like it.

    I remember reading this article written by an evangelical pollster talking about what they found about why the kids are overwhelmingly unbelievers and was the kids were quite familiar with the evangelical message, having had it constantly preached to them by family members and were utterly disgusted by it. Sounds like the GoP built on that success.

  101. 101.

    germy

    Even the Dead Cannot Escape Climate Change

    The dead rise in Louisiana. All it takes is some floodwater.

    People in this low-lying state are typically buried in aboveground vaults—the bane of Charlie Hunter, chief investigator for the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office, who has to hunt down the caskets that get washed away during floods. It’s become a serious part of his job over the past decade.

    The caskets and their surface vaults are sealed airtight, so pressure builds inside them when a hurricane or flash flood covers them in water. Moisture weakens the vault seal, and eventually the water begins to bubble with dead air—the tell-tale sign a casket is ready to pop out of its grave, Hunter said.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/even-the-dead-cannot-escape-climate-change/

  104. 104.

    Original Lee

    @germy: Wow. I guess we get to find out if the smallpox virus can survive in cemeteries long enough to infect people today.

  106. 106.

    Gelfling 545

    The Dem incumbent in our county executive race won a 3rd term & quite handily too in spite of the local paper trying to stir things up. Not unexpected but only 1 CE has previously won a 3rd term. Poloncarz is the guy who won against Chris Collins whose inept single term should have warned everybody about Collins but NY 27 will be NY 27. Interesting thing was that Dixon, the GOP candidate, insisted she was an independent even though virtually all her support $$$ came from the GOP committee. Are Republicans becoming just too toxic to admit affiliation?

  107. 107.

    Aleta

    WaPo, about Lewiston, ME

    Safiya Khalid … had spent the past six months knocking on hundreds of doors in Lewiston, Maine, the city where she arrived as a refugee more than a decade earlier, and where she hoped to be the first Somali American to win a seat on the city council. Suddenly, online trolls from as far away as Alabama and Mississippi were hurling vile abuse at her, telling her that Muslims had no place in American government and she should go back to where she came from.

    “I just couldn’t take it,” Khalid told The Washington Post on Tuesday night. “I was crying so bad. My eyes were completely red.”

    Khalid, a Democrat, was unsettled by the fact that someone had posted her address on social media. But she was also worried that the hate-fueled attacks would become a distraction. So she deleted her Facebook account, asked friends to look out for worrisome comments, and went back to pounding the streets with her leaflets and her clipboard.

    On Tuesday night, she won her race by a significant margin. The victory, she told supporters, showed that “community organizers beat Internet trolls.”

    At 23, Khalid may be the youngest person to ever serve on the Lewiston City Council, as well as the first Somali immigrant. Her win on Tuesday night was one of several historic firsts across the country in local elections. In Virginia, Muslim women were elected to the state senate and the Fairfax County School Board for the first time. Nadia Mohamad, 23, became the first Muslim woman and first Somali elected to the city council in St. Louis Park, Minn., while Chol Majok, a 34-year-old who fled violence in South Sudan, became the first refugee elected to public office in Syracuse, N.Y.

    Though only about 36,000 people live in Lewiston, her campaign drew unwanted national attention as a photo from her high school days was shared thousands of times, and white nationalist blogs invoked fearmongering claims about the first two Muslim women in Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). Every aspect of Khalid’s identity was weaponized, she told The Post, and she was attacked for being black, Muslim, a woman and a refugee. At times, she admits, “I honestly thought, ‘What did I get myself into?’”

    (T)rolls with no apparent connection to Maine were falsely claiming that Khalid wanted to institute sharia law in Lewiston and spamming her campaign’s Facebook page with racist comments and outright threats. Many, the Sun Journal wrote, were “too graphic and inappropriate to be published.”

    Campaign volunteers went into overdrive trying to delete and report the worst of the attacks, but the harassment didn’t stop. Trolls got hold of a photo taken when Khalid was a 15-year-old high school student, which showed her making a goofy face and giving the finger to the camera, and plastered it across social media.

    It was crunchtime for the election, so she didn’t report the threatening messages and harassment to the police, even though she started to get nervous when someone from a neighboring town posted her address on Facebook.
    “I probably should have taken that step,” she said on Tuesday, “but with the election in a few days, I felt like all my energy needed to be at the door with voters.”

  108. 108.

    Uncle Jeffy

    Heading for SF in an hour and will hoist a glass of Kentucky bourbon when we get to our hotel. Would have had a glass last night but emptied our bottle of Woodford Reserve a few weeks earlier in a toast to Moscow Mitch and the snake that bites him

  109. 109.

    Richard Guhl

    The GOP ought to be extremely worried about next year’s election. All around the country there are data points suggesting they’re in deep trouble in suburban areas. Here in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidates won all four seats for County Commissioner and will control the board for the first time since 1981. And that’s with a significant increase in turnout in an off-year election.
    And there’s plenty of evidence in Kentucky of that where turnout was up over 50% and Bevin lost the suburbs of Cincinnati.
    This can spell big trouble for Mcsally in Arizona, Cornyn in Texas, and Tillis in North Carolina, as well as the Georgia Senator seats.

  112. 112.

    germy

    @Kay:

    I was pleased to see it though because they are a guaranteed corruption scandal. He now looks for the most corrupt people he can find in any sector, apparently. Be Best.

    Trump’s spiritual advisor’s husband was the keyboardist for Journey.

    Another impeachable offense.

  113. 113.

    The Moar You Know

    This is so key:

    Since Trump took office, Democrats have flipped governorships in: Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, and now, Kentucky.

    Governors become presidents. And this is “building a bench”, something Dems have forgotten how to do since Howard Dean. Glad to see us rebuilding the party.

  114. 114.

    zzyzx

    @Raven Onthill: Yeah it was a bad day for mass transit in Washington. I really hate Tim Eyman.

    For outsiders, Tim Eyman is a guy who hates any train/bus program so he keeps filing initiatives to destroy the funding. His main trick is to get the entire state to vote on a tax that only affects the Seattle region. Even though Seattle will say “Sure, we’re good with this,” it’s a weaker vote than many others and the rural areas overwhelm it. It’s frustrating.

    The only good thing is that he isn’t careful with his initiatives and many get thrown out in court.

  115. 115.

    Brachiator

    @The Moar You Know:

    Since Trump took office, Democrats have flipped governorships in: Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, and now, Kentucky.

    Governors become presidents. And this is “building a bench”, something Dems have forgotten how to do since Howard Dean. Glad to see us rebuilding the party.

    How can you say that Democrats have forgotten how to do what they actually seem to be doing? And Howard Dean is not magic.

    We should savor the victory and keep moving. One thing that could be noted here is that Democrats are succeeding despite past efforts by the GOP to gerrymander districts so that they have the advantage with respect to state legislatures and can better field candidates for governor.

    And of course, we are seeing the limits of Trump’s hectoring his base.

    Good times.

  116. 116.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    The openly criminal gang currently trading as the “Republican” party is nothing like the Republican party of Abe’s time, is it? It seems to me that as the criminality and gangsterism get wider exposure these days, they are starting to put people off in a way that their compulsive cruelty and malice towards Americans — which they also never bothered to hide — could not. I wonder why that is.

    Very interesting point. The GOP has morphed into the modern day equivalent of the Know Nothing Party:

    The Native American Party, renamed the American Party in 1855 and commonly known as the Know Nothing movement, was an American nativist political party that operated nationally in the mid-1850s. It was primarily anti-Catholic, xenophobic, and hostile to immigration, starting originally as a secret society.

    Of course, these modern Know Nothings are anti-Muslim and anti-Hispanic, but otherwise just as noxious as their 19th century antecedents.

  117. 117.

    Raven Onthill

    @zzyzx: He’s paid to do it, no? Isn’t there a group of very rich people which includes that wealthy guy who more-or-less owns downtown Bellevue who really badly don’t want public transit, probably because they’re a pack of screaming racists, and who doesn’t want to pay less for car tabs?

    It’s like dodging bullets. We’re pretty good at it, but some connect, and who knows how much harm they will do?

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