Another two years of a slim trifecta would be nice but you gotta be grateful for what was accomplished while we've had it. And so much of it is in infrastructure, manufacturing, climate spending and healthcare cost reduction that Biden can spend the next two years implementing. https://t.co/aQcrHCcIxZ
— zeddy (@Zeddary) November 14, 2022
.@SenSchumer tells NBC News he'll keep prioritizing confirming judges: “With two more years of a Senate Democratic majority we will build on our historic pace of judicial confirmations and ensure the federal bench better reflects the diversity of America.” https://t.co/GhpBMNsDun
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 13, 2022
really consequential victories, won by people doing largely uncovered, slow, gradual work; unhistoric acts to ensure the growing good of the world https://t.co/9KcN2foWTX
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) November 13, 2022
Very cool.
Further context: 53% of eligible voters voted in the 2018 midterms.
At only 27% voting in 2022 (ages 18-27), lots of upside for Gen Z and young millennials to wield even more power and influence.
— James Connor 🌊🌊 (@toJamesConnor) November 12, 2022
There is a reason he's President while you people talk about politics on TV https://t.co/2tj55Ktxnq
— GavinPoasting (@TonyMoonbeam) November 13, 2022
meanwhile, it turns out that all of them were driven by their priors all along.
— vocational politics stan account 🫳♨️ (@Convolutedname) November 13, 2022
Nancy SMASH:
Pelosi spox: "The Speaker will make an announcement when she makes an announcement. Until then, let’s all enjoy watching Kevin McCarthy lose a speakership his party hasn’t even won in the first place."@Axios https://t.co/YnsoLLu3EK
— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) November 13, 2022
We'll get to hear a lot of about discharge petitions…with just a couple of partisan defections it will be possible to extract a bill held up in committee
— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) November 13, 2022
What's the over/under on a brawl in the House GOP caucus?
— ProofOfBurden (@ProofofBurden) November 14, 2022
This isn’t correct
What we get is the opportunity to play them off each other & not hide behind the other. https://t.co/lxRg9a8cgT
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 14, 2022
Baud
Given that both Manchin and Sinema are up, assuming they decide to run, their actions will be very interesting.
Sinema, of course, is at greater risk of a primary, given how competitive AZ is becoming.
Baud
There never has been. And you could say the same thing about every other bloc. I do hope, however, that young voters have gotten the taste of this voting thing and like it.
Ken
100% certain. Any bets would have to be on what weapons are used, or how many fatalities.
Eunicecycle
@Baud: I think it’s so important to get them in the habit of voting. And that they can see that their votes mattered.
Edmund Dantes
Much as I dislike Manchin. It will be bad to see him go. The chances another Dem wins West Virginia again anytime soon is almost unicorn territory.
Even him pulling off 2024 is going to be insanely hard. He at least makes strategic sense.
Sinema is just a thorn for thorn’s sake.
Qrop Non Sequitur
What happens if Republicans get a slim majority if they can’t agree on a Speaker of the House?
Fair Economist
@Baud: Unless we win the House Sinema has no way to make up for her actions of the past term. She’s got a brutal primary coming.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I would like to see more young voters working on Election Day, too. As actual poll workers.
Happened during the pandemic. Maybe we can talk it up going forward.
Give back to your country. Vote, and make sure others get to vote, too. Volunteer a few days to make your country better.
Baud
I’d like to get data about what Latinos ended up doing. We’ve been subject to two years of stories about how the GOP was making major inroads with Latinos. Aside from Florida, I’d like to see what the data says.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Elizabelle: I volunteer for campaigns all the time. I wouldn’t even know how to go about becoming a poll worker.
Elizabelle
@Fair Economist: I would never, ever, ever trust Sinema again.
Never. She’s shown us she’s the scorpion on the frog’s back. Character counts, and she don’t got it.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Qrop Non Sequitur
The financial services sector needs some representation in Congress, won’t someone think of the money people?
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
Never ever😒
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Eunicecycle: I’ve read that if they vote, they keep on doing it. As you say, it becomes a habit. Also, they tend to stick with the party they first voted for
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
rikyrah
@Baud:
We don’t need a leftist ..just need an actual Democrat,😒
Baud
@rikyrah:
sdhays
Apparently T-rump is announcing in 2 days. For the first time ever, I am now receiving emails from the former guy’s Save America PAC. I assume their mailing list is now just “exists on Gmail”.
I love the idea that he’s going to hoover up a bunch of money (and, of course, sweet, sweet attention) that would otherwise be going to the Walker effort.
Kevin
@Baud: yes. The long time Dem voters would like a word. I mean it’s awesome they showed up but it’s a team game.
Elizabelle
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission with a good overview.
Also, it’s good to work in the primary and off-year election, I have heard, if you want to work during a national election year. They like to see some experience.
FWIW:
Voters
BECOME A POLL WORKER
Qrop Non Sequitur
@sdhays: In addition to money, hopefully he’ll squirrel away R activist attention.
Scout211
@Baud: Here’s some data from Brookings.
Baud
@Kevin: Yeah, all props to young voters, but I worry about sliding into one-neat-trickism, which we have a history of doing.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Elizabelle: Thanks, bookmarked.
Baud
@Scout211: Thanks! We can’t except shifts not to occur over the long term but it’s nice to see that the “Latinos are trending GOP” stories, like so many other pre-election memes, were overblown.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Florida is its own hellhole, in terms of peeling off Latino voters. They’re atypical, it would seem.
sdhays
@rikyrah: The most charitable read on Sinema is that she’s just kind of silly. She burned a lot of bridges for herself for absolutely no reason at all. She could have gotten the same concessions and the same (or better) centrist/maverick reputation and still be solid in her party by just not being flippant and using a few more weasel words to leave herself room to maneuver.
Whatever is going on, she’s now a very weak general election candidate, and Arizona Democrats shouldn’t consider her incumbency a strong factor in her favor.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
There were a number of young people working at my vote center in Los Angeles County. Younger than I had seen in a number of voting cycles. They were very enthusiastic.
It made me feel good to see them participating and helping out.
Geminid
@sdhays: A jackal who watched Sinema from state office through federal characterized Sinema as a “social climber.” That makes sense to me.
It also makes me think she might decline to run again, especially since her chances of surviving a primary challenge from a tough opponent are not so great. She’s already achieved as much status as she’s going to achieve.
Ken
I think it’s like the Pope, they have to keep voting until they have one. I’m not sure whether they can conduct any business without a Speaker. There may be things built into the House Rules that require one. (They could amend the rules, but I can’t see that happening if they can’t even agree on a speaker.)
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: Yeah. I was thrilled to hear a friend’s son worked an election site, alongside his daughter who will be heading to college this fall. Thought that was an awesome father/daughter opportunity.
The son got involved during the pandemic.
FWIW, For Virginia. https://www.elections.virginia.gov/officer-of-elections/
I am putting in an application today. Get that process started.
Baud
@Geminid:
Not so. She could always start commenting here.
Soprano2
I just heard that they are forecasting an inch of snow for our city tonight! It’s way too early for that, I hate winter.
Geminid
@Baud: Well, you’ve never seen Sinema and Taumaturgo in the same room, have you?
Soprano2
@Geminid: I’m sure she could make a bunch of money as a “Fox News Democrat”. Why not do that rather than face a tough primary? She doesn’t strike me as someone who likes to work hard.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: What’s more, the Speaker doesn’t have to be a member of the majority. IOW, it could be a D. I don’t know if winning requires 51% of the House vote or just the most among those running.
Kay
Frank Luntz should suffer some economic hardship for this garbage work, but he won’t. That’s my prediction.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
She might get the same reaction Glenn Greenwald did when he dropped a comment here, as he did a few times.
Elizabelle
@Soprano2:
Or someone who cares about her country or constituents. She, she, she.
She’s a fit for Fox or numerous grifting opportunities. Problem is, if you’ve been watching her, it’s apparent what she is. Not credible.
Brachiator
@Scout211:
Very interesting info. Thanks for the link and summary info.
Last year I read a couple of reports noting that the GOP in some states were more aggressive in trying to appeal to Hispanic and Asian voters, and also in fielding Hispanic and Asian candidates. Democrats need to step up.
It is also good that these reports appear to recognize that Hispanic people are not a monolith.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Sinema has plenty of options. I’ve never seen an ex-Senator who wanted to make good money not make it.
I still think Sinema could clean up with a line of women’s workout apparel. I expect the financial backing would be there for her too. She did venture capitalists some favors.
different-church-lady
This is all very odd. I was told repeatedly there’s no point in voting.
Elizabelle
Anyway, enough on slagging Sinema. She’s presumably there for confirming Biden’s judicial appointments, and voting for Majority Leader, so more power to her for that.
Baud
@Kay:
I looked it up. The GOP high water mark in modern history was 247, in the 114th Congress (2015-2017). They had 246 in the 80th Congress (1947-49). Before that, you’d get into pre-FDR territory.
Anyway
@Geminid:
Lol! Taumaturgo is way more focused in their criticism of the Ds than Sinema’s simpering can’t-pin-me-down responses to D action.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Hey for just 8 bucks you can be Frank Luntz!
Amir Khalid
@Ken:
I imagine a crowd of Congressional news media watching a chimney for a sign of white smoke.
Ken
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I have heard the Speaker must be elected by a majority of those voting, not of the whole House. Unfortunately I don’t think the procedures would allow the Democrats to slip through a fast vote when ten Republicans leave for a bathroom break.
different-church-lady
@Geminid:
You run some really weird dungeon sessions…
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I’m hoping Sinema will once again blaze a trail by becoming the first ex-senator who is eager to monetize senate connections but finds she has none.
Soprano2
Fox puts Tulsi Gabbard on as a “former Democrat”. They don’t care about credibility.
different-church-lady
Boy, Tulsi picked a really perfect time to get on the wingnut train, didn’t she?
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady:
LOL!
Baud
Will there be a post on the Pence interview? The clips look interesting.
mrmoshpotato
I will cheer for any amount of injuries.
Kay
@Baud:
This in particular is so silly and lazy:
Campaigns are real things- he could have looked at some. They ran on both depending on the district or state. How long has he been doing this?
M31
Biden giving a press conference right now
white house link on twitter
Geminid
@Brachiator: Democrats have stepped up in electing Latino candidates. Incoming Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, New Mexico 2nd CD Rep Gabe Vasquez, Colorado 8th CD Rep Yadiel Caraveo(sp?), and Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar are just 4 of them. And I believe incoming Rep Gluesenkamp Perez from Washington state is Latino, at least on her father’s side.
These officeholders are important, one reason being that Latino voters are likely motivated by seeing representation among Democratic electeds.
Brachiator
@Kay:
A recent MSNBC story noted that exit polls indicated that inflation and abortion were the top voter concerns. Things like crime and immigration each came in at around 10 percent.
What the GOP and pundits and some bloggers missed was that concern about inflation did not mean that voters blamed Democrats or believed that Republicans could do better.
Voters believed in women’s reproductive rights and rejected election denialism.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
That’s why I don’t think she has a real future as a fake liberal grifter. She has bad timing. That racket was losing steam well before she jumped on, partly because it was completely saturated.
Brit in Chicago
@Baud: A serious question: how likely is it that today’s 18-29 year-olds will remain progressive (or at least D voters) as they get older? I read once that the party affiliation (and basic political outlook) that someone adopts in their 20s affects their political orientation for the rest of their lives, but I don’t know whether that’s really true, or still true. (And of course no one knows for absolute sure whether it will continue to be true.)
Anyone have any relevant knowledge?
Geminid
@different-church-lady: I’m serious!
Sort of:
M31
Qs about Taiwan, Ukraine, N.Korea. Kind of dumb questions but not yet the low level moronic ones we usually get in the US.
Allowed Biden to talk foreign policy wrt China, and Joe is a smart, engaged guy who says strong but not stupidass things about it.
Ken
I must admit to having some doubts about the Republican’s inflation-fighting plan of… of… banning the use of litterboxes in schools, was it? Or bringing back the sexy green M&M. Help me out.
Spanky
@M31: Can’t get twitter, but WaPo tells me he just had a 3 hour meeting with Xi. I’ll bet that was fun.
Kay
@Brachiator:
Also- what kind of “analysis” doesn’t look at the other side? It’s wacky. It didn’t matter at all to these people what Republicans were running on? It’s a choice between two. It’s not “the Democrat or many imaginary great options which I will not name”
mrmoshpotato
@Soprano2: 🎶Have a holly, jolly Monday!🎶
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Soprano2
@Kay: I wonder if Luntz even noticed how many R’s ran mostly on election denialism and QAnon crap. Also, I kept waiting for a reporter, any reporter, to ask any Republican candidate if they had a concrete plan for how to tame inflation, but as far as I heard they never did. They seemed to take it as gospel that Republicans would be able to make inflation all better.
Spanky
@Spanky: WaPo also tells me Zelensky went to Kherson. Should be an interesting report tonight!
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: Spleenwald has vomited his garbage upon this nearly top 10000 blog? Gross.
M31
omg the comments on the White House twitter link are 100% trolls and losers posting comparisons to Trump gas prices and pictures of Hunter Biden, and questions about why we are sending $$ to Nazis in Ukraine
lol
Soprano2
@mrmoshpotato: Gee thanks……LOL
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady: Hahaha. Twitter still exists this fine, cold Monday morning?
Baud
@M31: But enough about Elon Musk.
Kay
Hugh Hewitt said “voters are afraid to walk, take the bus or drive home”
How do they get HOME, then? I have to know. Have voters remained in one place since they ginned up the crime panic?
Baud
@Kay: To be honest, I thought Luntz was evil but smart and reality based. I guess not.
Soprano2
@Kay: As I said to one sad conservative posting on FB who lamented that evidently the voters like groomers, illegal immigrants and defund the police, “Perhaps it was a bad idea to call every public school teacher a groomer, gin up fake moral panics, and take a major right to bodily autonomy away from women. Maybe those aren’t winning strategies.”
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Indeed he has. You might be pleased to know he wasn’t warmly received by the Jackaltariat.
different-church-lady
@mrmoshpotato: Cole spent a short time suffering under Greenwald’s spell. Mercifully it brloke and I don’t doubt GG showing up here with his patented dickisness had s lot to do with it.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
<Nelson Muntz voice>
Haha!
Baud
@Kay: As you know, the point of such statements is not to be descriptive but to be normative.
bbleh
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @Ken: The Speaker doesn’t even need to be a member of the House.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Who is?
Ken
According to reports on Twitter, they landed a major advertising contract.
With SpaceX.
For all the twitter readers who are in the market for low-orbit launch services.
Lapassionara
I’m waiting for someone’s analysis of the Native American vote. One of the good things about this place (thanks WaterGirl) is it’s support of Native American voter engagement efforts.
mrmoshpotato
@Soprano2: You’re welcome. 😁
Chicago’s forecast is for rain/snow tonight and tomorrow. Excellent! (Not really.)
different-church-lady
@Baud: I’ve met Luntz. My read is more that he’s cynical in a way that makes him think the assholes will alway have the edge in the world, and that creates some significant blind spots.
Spanky
@Ken: Next up, Tesla!
If it can find the cash.
Baud
@Ken:
Synergy!
bbleh
I don’t hang out much on right-wing sites, but from everything I’ve seen during the last few days, Dems are just so much NICER — and also more thoughtful and more restrained — about gloating than the Crazies are. I mean, even when the schadenfreude is so deep you need waders, there’s still very little overt nastiness. I dare say that says something.
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: I’ll always be proud to be part of a group smart enough to hound Greenwald away.
Kay
@Soprano2:
The “groomer” thing. Dear God.
I think it’s super interesting that crime panic voting wasn’t tied to actual crime- it was tied to level of exposure to NY media promoting the crime panic, including in Pennsylvania.
different-church-lady
@bbleh: Well, it makes sense just days after an election where the electorate rejected nastiness.
Kay
@Baud:
A woman who worked for him at the time also posted here. I thought that was also him but no one else did when I floated it as a possibility.
M31
@Baud:
warmly-received-by-the-Jackaltariat list:
H.E.Wolf
Nah, my money’s on Taumaturgo being male. The “I’m a wizard” nym (thaumaturge) has a lot of “I took the muffler off my car!1!!” small-penis energy.
(Plus, it would be spelled Taumaturga if it were a woman’s nym.)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay: Maybe Frank Luntz becomes the new weathervane for ‘always wrong’?
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
Haha, well played.
M31
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Bill Kristol traded his always-wrong decoder ring to Frank Luntz for a bag of magic beans
Layer8Problem
@bbleh: It’s that empathy thing. The right wing hasn’t figured out how to fake that, beyond empathizing with other RWNJs anyway.
Matt McIrvin
@mrmoshpotato: Freddie DeBoer was a front-pager here once!
Kay
So funny. The “discussion” w/Greenwald (or employee, whatever) was around “Accountability Now!” which was he and Jane Hamsher’s grift org. We had the 990 and we were ready :)
mrmoshpotato
And my money’s on Baud being pantsless.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
The polls were fairly accurate, but did not always ask the right questions. And reporters kept falling back on dumb narratives, and the stale and inaccurate conventional wisdom that Republicans are “better” on the economy than Democrats.
Most of all, as always too much media reporting was based on reporters asking hack political pundits what they thought voters wanted instead of going out and asking actual voters what they wanted.
Mike E
Heh, “white smoke” is what the US news media runs on. That, and “crypto”.
Soprano2
@Kay: That was another thing he said that evidently people like crime. *rolleyes
Ken
I’m sure we’ll see plenty of examples tomorrow, if (as many expect) Trump announces he’s running in 2024. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear every Democratic Senator called McConnell to congratulate him on his party’s good fortune.
Baud
@Kay:
He was Andrew Yang before Andrew Yang was cool.
mrmoshpotato
@Matt McIrvin: Well, hot diggity who?
twbrandt (formerly tom)
@M31:
which is why I never look at the replies to a WH tweet. I’d hate to be the person running it.
Matt McIrvin
@mrmoshpotato: I recommend that you continue not knowing.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Haha. Good advice.
NotMax
@Kay
No Labelsetc., etc., etc.
Third Way
etc., etc., etc.
Strange Bedfellows
.
87th time’s the charm!
//
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I saw one clip where it was obvious Pence was pitching himself as the post-Trump party leader. He’s utterly deluded, IMO.
mrmoshpotato
@Mike E:
And crypto. Oh, so that’s why the MSM has crashed and burned. 🖕FTX.
mrmoshpotato
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks for the advice.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Agree. He has no chance. But I would like to see him run in the 2024 GOP primary.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
Narrator: And yet. They fell even further. Red Wave!!
Elizabelle
@NotMax: They could take out the “Bed”, and that would be truth in labeling.
...now I try to be amused
Ya know, UK Conservative John Bercow was elected Speaker of the House with mostly Labour votes because the Tories couldn’t agree on a candidate. Could the House Dems be kingmakers here?
Kay
@Baud:
If you read him (and can get past all the misdirection and weasel words which I can because I read the same tricks every day from other bad lawyers) you realize “core constitutional protections” is important to nail him down on and may not cover many of the core constitutional protections liberals value. Its the first ten.
The plan was they were going to join with Grover Norquist but tell Norquist he couldn’t put any of his economic dogma in place. This is why you don’t hear anything about “Accountability Now!” anymore.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Alright, so we got Dump, Dense, and DeShithead so far for the 2024 bloodsport. Who else? Lil’ Marco gonna subject himself to a national pantsing again? JEB!??
...now I try to be amused
@H.E.Wolf:
I keep wanting to read it as Traumaturgo.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: What do you think of The Crown? We’ve watched 3 episodes and are enjoying it.
Geminid
@Brit in Chicago: I ran into this item over the weekend:
The 25% I get when I subtract the 43% self-identified Dems from the 68% voting for Dems interests me. Some of them may be identifying as Democrats when they are 40 years old.
But in any event, Independents exist and they vote. That one reason why, although I often see Democrats here slagging on Independents, I’ve never seen a successful Democratic purple state or district politician publically disparage Independents as a class. Instead, they usually try to attract their votes by using suspect words like “bipartisanship,” “working across the aisle,” etc.
This drives some Democrats crazy, but it’s how Sharice Davids won in the Kansas 3rd CD and Abigail Spanberger won in the Virginia 7th. And in Alaska, Mary Peltola didn’t just talk bipartisanship; she hired the late Republican Congressman’s staff! But Alaska is a singular state in that over 50% of its voters are Unaffiliated.
I would add that in terms of talent and experience, Mary Peltola is a very impressive addition to the House Democratic Caucus. I think that Peltola will have an impact beyond her one vote.
Baud
@Kay: You don’t hear much from Norquist anymore.
Anyone who thinks they can form a relationship with a far-right ideologue without being the submissive partner is lying to themselves.
Yutsano
@…now I try to be amused: Gah I miss Bercow. One of the longest running speakers. He brokered no nonsense in the House and oh that voice! ORDAHHHH!!!
rikyrah
Once again, I don’t think that this can be forgotten.
I love this reply, because it breaks it down like a fraction.
And, I have to wonder – what will the Supreme Court do with that phucking case on the docket?
gvg
@Baud: Everyone has that habit. It’s human. Comes from being busy and also most of us are pretty simple. Complicated is tiresome but reality doesn’t care.
Burnspbesq
@Baud:
That’s the “do nothing” Congress that Truman ran against successfully,
Fair Economist
Late to the party with this, but I’m thinking we may have seen a Red Wave in combination with a Blue Realignment. All age groups other than 18-29 shifted Republican in this election – more or less as what you’d expect with a midterm – but it was held back by women voting for abortion rights and young people voting about (I assume) guns, contraception, and above all climate action. I think the Red Wave will shift back in 2024 but the Blue Realignment will stick.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think you’ll get your wish, which I share because Pence is a contemptible numpty who deserves every humiliation dumped on his fly-specked head.
One of my many pointless concerns is that the MSM will buy the notion that Pence or DeSantis represent a post-Trump Republican future. I mean, of course they will because that is the most boneheaded framing imaginable.
But both are up to their beady eyeballs in Trumpism, and if that party is going to reject the cult and become something less deranged, all of the Trump clowns gotta go, very much including Pence and DeSantis.
Matt McIrvin
@Brit in Chicago: A summary of some research from Pew:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/
Just eyeballing that chart toward the bottom, it looks as if there’s a lot of stability for individual cohorts, but the Silents and older Boomers did drift rightward as they got old, so it’s complicated. I also think it’s interesting that the cohort differences don’t follow conventional “generational” boundaries at all–it looks like there’s a huge difference among GenXers depending on whether you came of age under Reagan/Bush or Clinton. And the Boomers who started voting under Nixon are way to the left of all the other Boomers.
rikyrah
And, for those right-wingers who are harping about raising the voting age to 21:
Twenty-Sixth Amendment
Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
OverTwistWillie
The last Gallup generic poll was bang on, but the narrative….
The polling zone was flooded by C- students “showing their work”. Maybe they actually believe throwing shit at the wall will change reality. They had faith horse gut de-wormer would cure a respiratory viral infection.
Cameron
@Ken: Unlike the Pope, who is infallible on questions of faith and morals, Republican Speakers are unbelievable on those.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@…now I try to be amused: The Democrats could be kingmakers IF they go all in on supporting a speaker who would actually NOT implement the Hastert rule.
J R in WV
@Soprano2:
Well, of course it would be all better — once the ChristoFascists are in charge the reporters will stop talking about inflation. See? All gone !!!
rikyrah
@Fair Economist:
What do you mean Red Wave will shift back?
Burnspbesq
@Spanky:
I’m not real happy about it, but Tesla is about to get some of my money. Unlike the cars, Powerwall is a best-in-class product that actually does what it was designed to do—save lives in the event of another epic Texas power grid failure.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: Agreed. They were totally looking to cause state-level chaos in 2024.
What Supreme Pizza case are you talking about?
Baud
@Betty Cracker: I’m not sure any other contender for the GOP nomination is as treasonous as Trump, especially with regard to Putin. But I otherwise disagree. I don’t think the media is quite over their infatuation with a reasonable Republican Party.
Cameron
@Elizabelle: Great possible running mate for Trump, though. What a wonderful story it would make: “I was a Green who became a Democrat before I realized I’ve always been a Republican.”
BruceFromOhio
@Elizabelle:
One of the TeensFromOhio was a poll worker this cycle. We haven’t debriefed yet, but it was a proud moment.
Kay
I think the 17-19 drop was due to losing the 2010 midterms and the cuts to education that resulted with the losses at the state level. The cuts would have hit this exact group of kids just as they were coming up to be tested at nine years old.
The best thng about this midterm is not the senate. It’s holding state governments.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: @Kay: article from The Hill: Young women broke hard for Democrats in the midterms
Lot of data in that article.
OverTwistWillie
@mrmoshpotato:
The people vs. Pineapple on pizza.
Geminid
@Yutsano: I really liked Bercow’s response to a Tory who questioned one of his rulings. That is my decision, Bercow said, “and you can LIKE IT! or you can LUMP IT!”
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: I think they meant it won’t be a midterm under a Democratic President, so the usual Republican turnout advantage in those situations won’t be operating (but the effects that turned out our voters will be).
We shall see.
Anonymous At Work
The upside of Manchin and Sinema being egotistical monsters in their own ways is that it prevents cooperation.
BruceFromOhio
@sdhays:
Purely speculative, from out here it looks like she’s getting bad advice from whomever she has selected as trusted voices. But, as commented elsewhere, once a scorpion, always a scorpion.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: I was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy it as much when they started depicting the years I remember most vividly, but it’s riveting so far. The acting and writing continue to be first rate. I think Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce and Lesley Manville are terrific in it. I was afraid Dominic West was miscast, but he’s pulling it off admirably, and Elizabeth Debecki absolutely nails Princess Di’s look and affect.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Funny you should say that, because this is a headline at the Jeff Bezos WaPost this very minute. Opinion Section.
DeSantis would pave the way for a post-Trump GOP return to normal
Writer is Jim Geraghty (of National Review). Not gonna click on this idiocy.
I hate hate hate the WaPost’s new editor, Sally Buzbee. She is wretched. And something has gone really wrong with their editorial board. They’ve had some howlers against Biden.
Of course, unlike the urine-soaked FTF NY Times, they still allow reader comments on most stories.
Fair Economist
@Brit in Chicago:
Studies have shown that individuals rarely change their political orientation during life. When they do, it does tend to be in a conservative direction, but not often enough to change the alignment of a group. However, observationally, age groups do tend to vote more conservative as they age even though tracked individuals stay the same. For example, Kerry swept the youth vote in almost every state in 2004 – even MS – but 40-50 actually leaned R this election. A speculation is that liberals tend to be more politically active when young (possibly because a lot of political activity is in colleges) but the difference with conservatives weakens with age.
Elizabelle
@BruceFromOhio: Yay! What great public service!
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The state-level losses in 2010 were more devastating than most analyses of US politics ever stress. In some cases they basically flipped purple states with reasonably free and fair elections to being Republican-controlled “managed democracies” to the present day. And they were looking to take that nationwide this time around.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Yes, I keep thinking it’s really her! I liked Emma Corrin, but I was never fooled into thinking she was Diana. Josh O’Connor was a better fit for Charles, but West is such a good actor that I’m happy to watch him do whatever. And Pryce is fantastic so far.
hueyplong
One of the many reasons to think the Warnock runoff is critical is that I’m not 100% sure Sinema isn’t a threat to switch parties. It was a little scary hearing Gallego say on TV that Sinema didn’t lift a hand to help any Dem candidate in Arizona and it was worse that he felt like it was important to add the phrase “at any point.”
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: I had my DougJ moment this morning. I’ve taken to guessing the front-page headline when my husband brings the NYT in. This morning I said, “Dems look for candidate to replace Biden.” He said, “No.” Pause. “Biden faces challenge of his decision whether to run” (or something like that, I don’t have it in front of me).
Kay
@Leto:
Thanks. I see the divergence between young women and young men in my practice – young women are more liberal, even young white working class women. It’s just my experience but I would bet on it.
I honestly think it’s part of the reason young white rural men are so angry/lost (and they are, in my view, it’s just a fact whether it’s justified or not). They’re diverging from the women in their social sphere or maybe more accurate to say the women are moving apart.
Ken
@rikyrah: The Federalist Society amicus brief (copied verbatim, including two spelling mistakes, into the Supreme Court majority opinion) will say the state laws are not restricting voting on account of age, but on the established scientific fact that people under
254065 do not have the necessary emotional maturity and life experience to make the careful, considered judgments needed to vote.Also by order of the Court, all state “emotional maturity” laws are re-written to include women. The writers of the state laws neglected this point, but etymologists and wikipedia both agree the word “hysterical” refers to women, so they also lack the emotional stability needed to vote. The Court is happy to re-write all the state laws to correct this error.
R-Jud
@Betty Cracker:
I’m genuinely astonished by the quality of Debicki’s performance, though it is funny every time she stands up next to someone and towers over them. She and Gwendoline Christie (also 6’3″) should be in a movie together, maybe as estranged sisters forced to go on a road trip.
Fair Economist
@rikyrah:
That the age groups that shifted R from ’20 to ’22 will shift back in ’24. We see it most midterms; there is a shift from differential turnout, with the party out of power having an advantage in midterms.
Tony G
@Ken: The various factions of the Republican Party — even the handful of never-trumpets — are all very far to the right. If these people were smart, they would cooperate with each other and work together to achieve their right-wing goals. But, these people are not smart.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Pence could be rudely awakened he tries to raise money. I can think of several potential candidates who might raise the scores of millions required to stage a strong primary campaign, but Pence is not one of them.
Uncle Cosmo
“TraumaTurdo” is my go-to, FWIW.
Matt McIrvin
@Fair Economist: Part of it may be that Republican voters live longer because, on average, they are richer, less likely to be in stress-burdened minority groups who get bad medical care, etc. The country gets less white over time because of relatively young immigrants, but individual older age cohorts get whiter because of differential death rates. And old people who don’t die have the highest turnout rate of anyone.
(And COVID potentially throws a wrench in that, maybe? In the pre-vaccine era COVID was way deadlier to minorities but now that’s flipped upside down.)
Elizabelle
@Kay:
Baud
@Tony G:
So, they’re like Democrats (historically)?
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
They were brutal. If I could change one thing about normie Democratic voters it would be to get them to realize that most of the “bread and butter” things they care about are state law.
Cameron
I noted in the original post that the 18-29 voters negated the >65 voters. I’m a bit curious which of these young sprouts blew away my Old Guy vote for Biden in favor of….whoever.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That’s exactly why I’m worried the MSM will treat whichever hairball the GOP horks up after Trump as a “reasonable Republican.” My point is they shouldn’t. Pence or DeSantis wouldn’t be cartoonishly eager to court Putin, but DeSantis seems very aware of the global hard-right Christian nationalist movement and wants to be a part of it. I assume Pence would too.
BruceFromOhio
@H.E.Wolf:
Oooh, nailed it. Well done!
Jeffro
@Elizabelle:
I signed up back around August and they had so many people sign up, they actually didn’t need me on Election Day(!)
Take THAT, Republicans!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
DeSantis probably wants to lead it. Trump was happy viewing Putin as the spiritual leader of that movement.
OverTwistWillie
@Matt McIrvin:
About 1/2 of state leges are now super majoritarian.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I think some things Democrats did really mattered to young rural women but did not land w/young rural men. Health care for their children, for example. Medicaid expansion and funding. Now obviously young rural men are the fathers of those same children but there’s some kind of deliberate denial going on there and maybe it is “practicality”.
Betty Cracker
@R-Jud: OMG, I’d watch the shit out of that! LOL!
Jeffro
He has the same problem that my RWNJ dad and bro have: they keep conflating what they want to happen with what they predict will actually happen. Side effect of living in a low-info news bubble/propaganda network masquerading as news sources =)
Tony G
@Edmund Dantes: “Sinema is just a thorn for thorn’s sake.” It’s certainly an amazing coincidence that Sinema started her “career” with the Green Party. It’s almost as though the present-day Green Party is a collection of right-wing agitators who cosplay as “progressives”.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I do think Right wingers in Ohio have been able to tap into a very real thing in white rural areas, which is that the young men are a fucking mess. They’re not reaching those men, who mostly don’t vote, they’re reaching their parents. I don’t know why it is or what to do about it – or even if Democrats should attempt to “fix it” but it is real.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Maybe Democrats should take a crack at the “why are young rural white men such a mess?” question because I read Right wingers on it and I know EXACTLY where this is going- they are going to blame young women. It’s their fault.
Suzanne
This is the kind of shade I deeply appreciate.
I also am looking forward to the upcoming Trump/DeSantis/Youngkin/Maybe Some Other Schmuck brawl.
:::insert Michael Jackson eating popcorn HERE:::
Tony G
@Baud: Yeah, the old Will Rogers joke about how he, as a Democrat, did not belong to any organized political party. But, in the current manifestation of the Democratic Party the “progressives” do know how to compromise from time to time with the Democrats who are on the right and in the middle. Maybe they iz learning.
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin: The shift R happens by middle age, which is far too early for differential mortality to be important. Might have something to do with the shift R in elderly voters, although my preferred explanation is dementia.
COVID just hasn’t killed enough people to make a big difference. One million dead; but if you look at differential mortality it’s only about 100,000 more Republicans. That’s just not a big deal compared to Biden 7,000,000 vote advantage.
pat
@Brit in Chicago:
My first vote was for Humphrey and my grandmother was terribly upset.
I think I have never voted for a republican.
So there’s one….
Baud
@Kay:
Because they’re steeped in right-wing culture? Maybe cause and effect are backwards here.
Jeffro
I dunno…my brother is 2 years younger than me, and we both were teens during the Reagan years. He’s a complete RWNJ and I’m…not. =)
I think it’s more whether you tuned in during those years to Limbaugh, followed Fox News, listened to Gingrich, or even thought that putz Glenn Reynolds and his stupid ‘heh’ meant something. Those GenXers quickly learned to put aside their critical thinking skills and let the Republican Noise Machine keep them in line.
New Deal democrat
Very late to this thread, but fwiw, Christopher Bouzy, who has an excellent track record so far this year, still thinks the Democrats are most likely to wind up with 2018 seats in the House, for a 1 vote majority:
https://twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1592149266868625410
Suzanne
@Kay:
Meth, opioids, lack of education?
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: “Young rural white men have been demoralized by wokeness, soy products, trans people and our unprotected borders!”
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I find those stories really curious
63% of Latinos voted for Ds in 2020
While 54% white college educated voters voted D (percentage of D voters among the college educated was 58%)
And yet white college educated voters are considered a solid D block but not Latinos
Which leads me to the conclusion that even the horserace coverage based on stats by our MSM is trash and biased towards a particular demographic.
Vox has the breakup
trollhattan
From crimson California.
This drum needs consistent thumping for the next two years and the issue kept front and center.
Jackie
I think TFG’s Big Announcement tomorrow is…. HE’S RUNNING FOR SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.
Haha – I wish! Just to see Kevin’s reaction – and Mitch’s, for that matter!
Matt McIrvin
@OverTwistWillie: Well, mine certainly is, but it’s bright blue.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Red states will make sure that it is, since we won’t have the numbers in Congress to overturn Dobbs.
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: I have a kind of soft spot for this commenter. They remind me of one of those Ailanthus trees that managed to persevere in hostile urban climates, like the one in A Tree Gows in Brooklyn.
And, if they stick around long enough, I intend to make a miracle of my own. I will transform Taumaturgo into POOF!…a Blue Dog!
Brit in Chicago
@Geminid: Thanks for the reply. That 25% is indeed interesting; I hope your speculation that they will become Democrats is correct (though I’d settle for their just continuing to vote that way!).
WaterGirl
@Baud: Pence is clearly setting up for a presidential run in 2024 and he has a book to sell. Both of which = ugh.
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: There’s been a persistent dream among election-denialist wingnuts that they can get Trump back into the White House before 2025 by making him Speaker of the House and then achieving some kind of simultaneous removal of Biden and Harris. It was always in the realm of political-thriller Weird Tricks but it’s got to look especially remote now. But maybe not to Trump…
Brit in Chicago
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks for the response. At a quick glance it looks encouraging (I’m looking for reasons to hope that the future will be more solidly progressive). I’ll read it more carefully later, but am trying to do some w*rk.
Suzanne
@Geminid:
That was me.
Look, the local and state Dems there all know who she is. She has sucked for a long time. She is not loved. She has been tolerated because she found a way to put together a winning coalition.
I think another Dem can probably do that, too, but probably it’ll have to be a middle-of-the-road moderate type. I love Ruben Gallego as much as everyone else here, but I also think he struggles statewide.
Look at Katie Hobbs…..she might win this gubernatorial race, but it won’t be by much, and her opponent is a psycho. But she is kind of blandly tolerable.
Much rides on how MAGA-y the Republicans are next cycle.
Brit in Chicago
@Fair Economist: Thanks for the reply. That’s a bit less encouraging, but I’d rather be told the truth than what I want to be the truth. (Does that make me old-fashioned? Or just a Democrat?)
Kay
@Suzanne:
It’s more complicated than that, I think. “Education” doesn’t really work as an explanation in this group because the women are also not college. But they’re doing better. One of the things I saw when interest rates were low and with wages up and unemployment down was lots of young single women buying property. They don’t have college degrees but they can make 40- 50-60 w/out a degree if you stick with a manufacturing job for 3 or so years. The “loss of good jobs in the rustbelt” explanation doesnt really work either anymore. Democrats have made investments in the rust belt since 2009 and it’s paid off. They can make 50k at 20 or 22, which is solid middle where I live. If they marry they can have a combined income of at least 100k but they have to stay at a JOB for more than 3 weeks.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: Look, these things are scheduled out, and the schedule says it’s time for post-midterm Biden doom. The fact that the previous act stared foaming at the mouth and throwing tomatoes at the audience doesn’t change the next act on the bill.
Lady WereBear
I have come to think it is is no coincidence that one of the first signs of dementia I’ve seen in people closeup is a passion for Fox News.
They watch it constantly, parrot all the latest lines, and use it for social conversation. It’s like they get a download to get them through the day and their friends are dealing with the same issues, no doubt…
Which means they will get worse…but at least go in with the parental controls and let them watch Animal Planet instead.
It really is better for them.
I would not be surprised if they did focus groups to figure out how to engage such confused people.
Randal Sexton
@Qrop Non Sequitur: For a dozen years or so my wife and I ( on her inspiration) worked as poll workers in California, San Mateo county. My wife was an Inspector, meaning she ran precincts, and I was a Judge. On election week I would insist that everyone address me as ‘Judge Randy’ as befitted my position. Its a rewarding thing to do, but did require some training, and the day was pretty long. For me the 2016 election caused me to switch into trying to get D’s elected. Working that 2016 election was a heartbreaker. Now, if I lived in a in-person voting place I would work polls again — the idea that poll workers are being intimidated INFURIATES me.
Matt McIrvin
@Brit in Chicago: Liberals have been burned on “Demographics will save us” projections so many times that it’s become uncool to even make them. Someone is always going to point to some 25-year-old fascists marching with tiki torches and worry.
But I think that just as an untold story in the current labor shortage is that the Boomers finally retired, I think we’re going to see actual big changes as they (and the people a little older than them) start dying. I know and love a lot of Boomers and late Silents and it’s not a pleasant thing for me to speculate about–and if anything, my own age cohort, the Reagan Youth, are even more reactionary. But the effects of such a huge demographic cohort as the Baby Boom dying off are going to be large. There aren’t nearly as many of us.
Sasha
Question: In the event of a 51-49 Senate, aren’t both Manchin and Sinema irrelevant because both defecting would lead to a 49-49 tie that would be broken by the VP?
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: You can find all his posts in the sidebar under Balloon Juice Posts -> View by Past Author.
Kay
@Suzanne:
There was a little bit of a disconnect here for local Democrats even with Tim Ryan who was “they can’t find good jobs”
I think they can! I think they’re all paying 20 an hour to start. It was weird. We were looking at each other “does he think the economy is horrible or/and that there is no manufacturing here?” :)
Baud
@Sasha: Defecting is not the same as not voting. Defecting results in 49-51 for the bad guys.
MisterForkbeard
@New Deal democrat: Bouzy has been great in general, but he spent the past few days on a high horse yelling at John Ralston and others about how great he is and how he’s better than them.
His 218 prediction to me looks a lot like trying to make himself look good and/or wanting to be right even after it’s probably that he isn’t. And it’s silly. because his overall analysis has been WAY better than almost everyone else’s.
Suzanne
@Kay: I do think drugs and just a generalized lack of maturity/conscientiousness are problems more for young men than for women. Broadly speaking, of course.
Part of the reason college grads seem to be more successful, at least financially, than non-college grads is that finishing college requires at least a modicum of conscientiousness. Showing up more or less on time, most of the time, task completion, basic mental organization. Lots of young men need to get good at this stuff.
different-church-lady
@Sasha: If they abstain, yes, but only one of them could vote against their own party.
MisterForkbeard
@Jackie: Actually, I think Trump is the only politician that could get 220 narcissist Republican congressmen to vote the same way. But he wouldn’t have any idea what to vote for, strategy and messaging would be dictated over Twitter, etc.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: As I recall he had about 18 posts, and the last 17 were him whining about our comments on the first one.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
Traditionally a retiring speaker is made a peer in the House of Lords. Boris Johnson made sure that Bercow was denied that honor.
ETA. Also, I think that the UK Speaker gives up his affiliation with his political party and thus is supposed to be neutral. So Boris Johnson’s denial of a peerage for Bercow was a partisan asshole move.
WaterGirl
@New Deal democrat: I was very sad this morning to see that Jamie McLeod-Skinner lost her house race. I don’t know whether that was a D seat to start with, or R.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sasha: No, it would be 51-49 the other way. FWIW, I doubt that Manchin would ever defect. He considers himself to be a Democrat and has, IIRC, an 89% voting alignment with Biden supported measures.
Elizabelle
Andy Borowitz, satirist, in The New Yorker:
Eolirin
@Kay: Democrats, as a party, aren’t going to support cultural values that place women below men. That’s going to lose them rural working class men.
I think that’s all there is to it. That being said, 54% of young men is what, 10 points higher than older demographics? Now some of that is because young men as a category is less white, but I don’t think it’s all of it. If that 54% were to hold as that group ages up, they’ll lose even men, and then they’ll have no constituency.
Suzanne
I have to say that I’m just floored whenever I read these sob stories about white rural men and their lack of prospects, and it mentions that they’re out of work, and then paragraphs later there’s this line about how they lost their job for calling in to work hung over too many times or whatever. Like….what? I obviously have no idea if this is routine behavior….but I’ve observed it here.
Matt McIrvin
@MisterForkbeard: It sounds to me like the kind of thing where you go out a little on a limb with a “man bites dog” prediction, and if you’re wrong everyone just forgets about it, but if you’re right you look like the biggest genius in the world. So the incentives are in favor of predicting things that are a little shocking.
The Moar You Know
@Geminid: Pence couldn’t even get people to exert any effort at all to execute him on live TV.
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: Nope! 101 posts.
Ascap_scab
@Qrop Non Sequitur: What happens if Republicans get a slim majority if they can’t agree on a Speaker of the House?
This is where the Dems plus a few Reps nominate Liz Cheney as speaker. She won’t be a member, but that is not a requirement in the House. It would be a total Eff Ewe to McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus. Plus some shit might actually get done.
Soprano2
Yep, this would about sum it up. Since that didn’t happen, though, I expect the daily stories on NPR about how bad inflation is to continue. The thing is, inflation is probably going to moderate naturally anyway; if the R’s had taken over Congress, they would have claimed credit for that and all of the press would have agreed. “See how Republicans tamed inflation” would have been in all the stories with zero evidence that it actually happened that way.
geg6
@Brachiator:
The polls were fairly accurate, but did not always ask the right questions.
This is only true if you take out all the GOP junk polling outfits, such as Trafalgar and Rasmussen and some others no one has ever heard of that poll aggregators just lumped in with the actual real pollsters. When you add in all the GOP junk polls, the red wave looked real, not a mirage.
Geminid
@Suzanne: But is Ruben Gallego so very liberal? I know he’s in the Progressive Caucus, but branding aside, I wonder how much he differs on policy from New Democratic Caucus member Greg Stanton. Or Senator Mark Kelly, for that matter.
If Gallego runs, he’ll need to win the votes of Democrats and maybe some Independents to win the nomination, and more Independents in the general election. I think a lot of those voters will not act on preconceived opinion but rather on what Gallego shows them in his campaign. I expect he’ll present himself as Biden/Kelly Democrat, and a feisty one.
leeleeFL
@Soprano2: And Tulsi isn’t even BLONDE! Sinema is advantaged to the hilt!
...now I try to be amused
@Suzanne:
One of my econ professors said that earning a bachelor’s degree was 70% screening (i.e., proving you’re conscientious) and 30% education, though in some majors it could be as high as 40% education.
Soprano2
@Kay: You know there will be very little in-depth coverage of this finding because it doesn’t fit the current press narrative that all of the education losses can be explained by how blue states and cities enacted pandemic measures (even though the losses were spread pretty evenly across the whole U.S., almost as if having a dangerous pandemic affected all kid’s schooling negatively because it affected all kids negatively!).
leeleeFL
@Brit in Chicago: I was floating in We Love FDR Amniotic fluid before I got here 71 years ago! Being a Democrat is a life choice, but it helps if you start young!
Geminid
@WaterGirl: That was a D seat. District Democrats picked McLeod Skinner over incumbent Kurt Schrader in the primary
Steve in the ATL
Speaking of assholes, got this from Bloomberg Law this morning:
TL, DR: Republican EEOC commissioner uses obscure procedure to attack companies’ abortion travel benefit
Suzanne
@Geminid: Eh, he’s pretty progressive and not shy about it. He’s from the district that used to elect Ed Pastor every cycle. One of the two districts that was drawn specifically to be majority-minority under the VRA.
I love him.
Maybe he can tack to the center. Maybe the GOP candidate will be a total crazy lightweight like Blake Masters. Circumstances could shake out in his favor.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I agree, the effects of the 2010 election still loom large over the whole country. It definitely affected Missouri – in 2008 we were still considered a swing state. By 2012 we were firmly in the Republican camp.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl:
Ah. So a nice even 100 complaining about our comments on the first one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne:
Maybe the horse will learn to sing.
The Moar You Know
@Omnes Omnibus: A Senator who has seats on Armed Forces, Appropriations and Energy isn’t going ANYWHERE. The Republicans would love to have him, but they can’t even offer one of those seats let alone all three.
And as you note, he’s a Dem in the only way that matters – voting.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: How many seats did the DSA cost us?
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: I just heard that same crap on 1A from a never-Trump female Republican. I think it’s just so much hard wishing that they could run against someone they can easily demonize rather than “Joe White Guy White Bread Everyone’s Grandpa” Biden. They can’t easily demonize him, which hurts them because that’s how Trump eliminates his competition.
different-church-lady
@geg6:
I don’t have any links to back this up, but it sure seemed to me it was mostly the junk polls that got amplified by the media.
Brachiator
@New Deal democrat:
This is interesting and somewhat encouraging. CNN notes what vote counts are needed for Democrats or the GOP to prevail.
I say, let’s just count the vote and see how it turns out. Enough of predictions.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I think if Doug Ducey decides to run for that Senate seat in 2024, he would be tough to beat.
God help me if Andy Biggs or Paul Gosar tries to take a run at it.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay: Crime panic usually works. Even here.
It seems easy to skew perspective, especially for nonviolent crime. For example, the stories about shoplifting, shelves picked empty, unimaginable losses to the Targets and Walmarts. Compared to the bazillions of dollars lost to workers by wage theft…making people work off clocks, denying overtime, etc. Or a pay rate so meager that workers rely on charity and a demonized safety net to feed their families.
Ripping off workers is super duper and has anyone given a thought to those Waltons?
Geminid
@Eolirin: One thing about young rural white men is that they are low propensity voters. I’ve lived and worked around young rural white males plenty and I think that’s a good thing.
A carpenter friend once told me about listening to three of the country guys on his job complaining about President Obama. After they griped and grumbled for a while, Richard asked them if they voted. None of them did.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Ha! Love it!
Droll and right on the money.
lowtechcyclist
I’ve missed a lot of conversation here (I’ve had to actually be engaged in work this morning, gotta admit I was pretty distracted last week!) so forgive me if this has already been said 43 kajillion times, but:
1) Dana Houle is absolutely right: 51 Senators means neither Manchin nor Sinema can hide behind the other. Either can be vote #50 for a given bill, regardless of what the other one does.
2) Yeppers to this:
@Baud:
I agree with Cole that Manchin’s chances in 2024 are slim and none, and Slim is probably packing his bags as we speak. It would be great if Manchin said to himself, “fuck it, I’ll call it a career at the end of 2024, and for the next two years I’ll vote with the good of the country in mind, and let the other WV Congresscritters worry about protecting WV interests” but I expect those same two chances apply here too. So I expect Manchin will be the same Manchin in the next Congress as he’s been in this one. Maybe even a bit worse, if he really thinks he can pull off another win in WV. Dammit.
Maybe that will start to sink in with her and change her behavior in a positive direction. If not, it looks like AZ Dems are developing a pretty good bench, and should be able to come up with a better candidate who can win in 2024.
3) Youth voting: per the Census Bureau, “among 18- to 29-year-olds, voter turnout went from 20 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2018, the largest percentage point increase for any age group — a 79 percent jump.” So in 2018, 18-29 year olds turned out at about 2/3 the rate of the citizenry as a whole. Their turnout rate was 27% this time, and according to The Hill, it was 31% in battleground states, so they showed up pretty well where it counted. Still a good deal lower than older voters, but historically, under-30s have tended to turn out at around 20%. The overall turnout estimate I’ve seen for this year is 46%. So again, about 2/3 where it counted.
I think the main thing is convincing young voters that they don’t need to be experts on every race to vote; that it’s been true for awhile now that the differences between D and R hold up and down the ladder, and if they know which party they mostly agree with, it’s perfectly reasonable to vote for that party across the board. Tell ’em all too many of their elders do the same, only with less understanding than they have.
4) I worry somewhat that we may be headed toward a situation where both houses of Congress start to flip-flop control in opposite directions. Looks like the hopes of holding the House right now are all but dead, but we’ve got good chances of winning it back in 2024. Meanwhile, assuming Warnock wins on 12/6 and Manchin loses or doesn’t run in 2024, it would just take one other D seat flipping to put the Republicans back in charge of the Senate. I wonder if this has happened anytime in the past 100 years or so.
The main reason this concerns me is climate change. The bills passed in this Congress (huge props to Pelosi and Schumer!) were a very good start, but they’re still just a start that needs to be built on if we’re going to save this crazy planet for our children and grandchildren. And the clock is ticking: if we lose the next four years, that’s not good at all.
I hope we manage to avoid that, by discharge petition or whatever.
lowtechcyclist
@Elizabelle: :-D
Geminid
@Suzanne: I respect your opinion, but most of the voters Gallego will be appealing to don’t know what you know and may not see him the way you see him. And personally, I think the moderate/progressive split among Democrats tends to be exaggerated anyway, at least when it comes to most office holders.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Out here in California the DSA is more fringe than Scientology. And except for some judicial endorsements, their endorsement list was the same as the California Democratic Party.
cain
@Scout211: They probably just went to Texas and Florida for their demographics and polling. Morons.
In a way, the media did us a favor because they got it so wrong – the GOP is now scrambling to figure out what to do – and right now they are blaming Trump and Trump ‘s supporters are not going to be pleased with that – I think we’re going to see a lot of MAGA people going to war with the establishment. A war they won’t win. They probably praying for the Jan 6th commission to do their job while publicly decrying it. lol. What a bunch of two-faces.
New Deal democrat
@Qrop Non Sequitur: “What happens if Republicans get a slim majority if they can’t agree on a Speaker of the House?”
Serious horse trading. If the GOPers truly can’t agree, Dems offer a deal. Dems would have to agree to a GOPer Speaker, and probably McCarthy, but McCarthy would have to offer some serious quid pro quos up front.
First, the right of the Dem minority to force a re-do of the Speaker election – this to protect them if he reneges on any other parts of the deal.
Second, agree to provide enough GOP votes for a clean debt ceiling increase through 2024.
Third, equal seats on committees and requiring at least one Dem vote to issue subpoenaes.
Plus whatever else they can get away with.
Anyway, something like that.
cain
@Kay: I would love to just copy that tweet and then just keep posting it every time he tweets.
Elizabelle
UVa shooter is in custody. He killed 3 UVa football players; two others injured, one in critical condition. Wow.
Per WaPost:
cain
@Soprano2: No, that’s not it at all. They are following the usual wisdom that the President’s party suffers losses on midterm. So it doesn’t matter if they have a plan or not.
Kelly
@WaterGirl: Jamie McLeod-Skinner our candidate OR CD 5 which has been a Democratic seat since 1996. Always been somewhat problematic conservative Democrats. Darlene Hooley won the seat in 1996. She voted against the war in Iraq and had strong support from labor. On the bad side she voted for the awful Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000 and the reduction of the estate tax. Hooley retired in 2009 was replaced by Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. Jamie beat Kurt in the primary. Schrader did not endorse McLeod-Skinner and did endorse the spoiler Gov candidate Betsy Johnson(Nike).
OverTwistWillie
Online progressives have been a dog chasing its tail over the rebel flag and gunrack vote for 20+ years.
Is there any particular reason for this obsession?
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: It is to some degree a mental-health crisis. Together with high suicide rates, “deaths of despair” from drug overdoses, etc.
Kay
@Soprano2:
They’re not even supposed to use NAEP as a year over year comparison but I think the eleven people on Twitter who know that gave up in their doomed crusade to explain those numbers to pundits :)
It’s so tempting to use numbers! Even if they’re out of context and not designed to show what you think they should show! “The numbers don’t lie” – except when they do.
Anyway. Here’s another NAEP number. Even with the math losses from the pandemic, math scores are UP from the 1990s. WHICH MEANS younger people are STILL smarter than we were, as a group.
Ivan X
@Dorothy A. Winsor: well, that was sure as shit true with me. Dukakis 88
Matt McIrvin
@Fair Economist: In that case, it’s encouraging to see that the Millennials have shown no sign as far as I know of a rightward shift as they slide into early middle age.
WaterGirl
@Ascap_scab: Seriously? Except for believing in democracy, Liz Cheney holds opposite views on pretty everything else the DEMs stand for.
Frankensteinbeck
Republicans have finally found a reason behind “Poor Russia!” to oppose Ukraine aid. It may be too exotic to become mainstream even for them, though. The ‘scandal’ they’re passing around is that government money goes to Ukraine, which goes to FTX, which goes back to Democrats as campaign donations.
For those who have no idea what any of this means: FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange. Ukraine was using their service to process cryptocurrency donations from individuals (not the US government) to Ukraine. The head of FTX was a major donor to Democracts in the 30 million range.
Does this add up? Obviously not, especially since the Ukraine’s ‘partnership’ with FTX didn’t include FTX getting any significant amount of money from Ukraine. But wingnuts are yelling ‘money laundering’.
Possibly relevant. FTX’s #2 was a major Republican donor, in the 20 million range. FTX is dead. It collapsed a few days ago when it became public that it was massively corrupt, scamming its users, and didn’t have the money to redeem their crypto. There is a wingnut “Ah ha! See? FTX is no longer needed after the election. That proves it was all a Democrat plot!” theory, too.
Frankensteinbeck
@WaterGirl:
If she doesn’t hold to the dumbass fake ‘Hastert Rule’ that Boehner made up, if she actually lets votes come to the floor that might pass with bipartisan support, I don’t care if she screams on the House floor that I should be boiled down for lard as a Jew. Nancy would get a whole lot of at least decent legislation through.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Cost us OR-5 for one. The self anointed progressive did not beat the Republican.
Also can anyone from NY explain what happened there.
Matt McIrvin
@OverTwistWillie: I think some of them are just fakers. Left online political spaces are highly resistant to someone stomping in spouting MAGA slogans, but if you come in saying “Hillary is a fascist”, “Harris is a cop”, “Marx says arm the working classes”, “gonadal politics is a distraction of the bourgeoisie” you won’t get immediately booted. Someone will give you the benefit of the doubt.
And if they’re not actual trolls they’re useful idiots. Thiel and the Russians have been working to promote horseshoe people like Jimmy Dore and Tulsi Gabbard for ages.
Then you have the old bad boys like Matt Taibbi who go “anti-woke” because someone called them on their sexual adventures, and the people with nostalgia for the FDR coalition who believe we can get the Dixiecrats back again if we just let out a li’l rebel yell once in a while.
A lot of it has misogyny just under the surface, people who want a world where every family can have a manly male breadwinner carrying his lunchbox to the GM plant to support his family on his single income, but it’s because they don’t like women in charge.
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: hahahaha
Suzanne
@Geminid: Whatever. Despite a great outcome last week, Arizona is still a pretty GOP-friendly place. Again, the list of Dems who have on statewide there is short, and yet they show a trend. They’re all very #teamnormal. Gallego has been pretty outspoken in his career so far, which is why many of us like him. Again, not saying that he can’t win, if the circumstances go his way. But if the GOP is smart and sheds this MAGA bullshit, they could do very well.
WaterGirl
@Kelly: Damn. So this isn’t just a loss, but it’s a pickup for the Rs.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, crypto makes everyone’s eyes glaze over.
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck:
That’s a pretty big IF.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: Jaime McLeod Skinner was no Justice Democrat, much less a DSA member.
She’s just a liberal Democrat who lost a purple seat in a tough year. I tend to be supportive of Blue Dog Caucus members, but I thought Schrader was a a bad one* and I won’t criticize the decision the district’s Democrats made. I expect Ms. McLeod Skinner to be our nominee in 2024 and I think she’ll flip that seat back.
* “Bad Blue Dog! Bad Blue Dog!”
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: I feel like that has been explained over and over.
Baud
@Geminid:
I don’t like losers who turn around and ratfuck Dems because they lost, regardless of which end of the ideological spectrum they are on.
Major Major Major Major
Sam Wang and G. Elliott Morris did well!
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Wang didn’t want to eat another bug.
sab
As an Ohioan I note that we could be like Michigan and Illinois and still retain our midwestern cred, but instead we chose to be like Indiana and West Godforsaken Virginia. And WVA, although a neighbor, isn’t midwestern.
I approve Kay’s retirement plans.
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: Our legislature pushed very gerrymandered maps in violation of state law and our courts struck them down and then a judge created maps that were excessively “fair” and Lee Zeldin ran an effective campaign against a female candidate, effectively turning out Upstate and Long Island voters who tasted blood in the water. DSA had nothing to do with it.
brantl
@Elizabelle: Sinema is next year’s Tulsi Gabbard act-alike, no class, no support, no brains.
Baud
@Eolirin:
They should have appealed to the Supreme Court with the independent state legislature theory the GOP is pursuing. But I guess that would look awkward.
brantl
@different-church-lady: I’d pay a lot more to be sure I would never be Frank Kluntz, than that I would be.
Eolirin
@Baud: Hell, if they had just ignored the court like Ohio we’d have the House right now.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: They are already registered. One hurdle jumped.
Kelly
@schrodingers_cat: OR CD 5 voter here. Schrader probably had a better chance of winning due to incumbency. I think the Oregon Democrats failed the redistricting. OR CD 5 is adjacent to OR CD 3. Democrat Earl Blumenauer is winning CD 3 by 130,000 votes. Move the DC 3/5 border less than a mile north and 30,000 of those votes are in CD 5. New district CD 6 is also adjacent to CD 3. Andrea Salinas (D) is winning by just over 4,000 votes. Constitution Party weirdo Larry McFarland has 5,500 votes. Move the north border of CD 6 a mile and another 30,000 CD 3 Democrats are in CD 6.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Geminid: Oregonian neighbor (OR-4) here – you got it right. Too bad, though – the new district skews more rural now, and that gives Rs an advantage. Jamie kept it close. Not certain Pharma Kurt could have done better.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: Yes I have seen the discussion and the many reasons offered from redistricting that was overturned by a Republican judge to effectiveness of the Republican propaganda about crime.
I wanted a local perspective, other than the FP one. If it has been discussed in the comments I probably missed because I am not here as often.
Matt McIrvin
Was just wondering why I smelled pot, then I remembered the still-smoking doobie someone dropped by the parking structure when I went to drop my daughter off at the train station, which I stepped on to put it out. Carry on.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Only you can stop forest fires.
schrodingers_cat
@Kelly: Thanks.
@Eolirin: Thanks for your perspective. Who were the candidates that lost. Did they go through contested primaries?
ETA: I read that Ryan did far worse than Sherrod Brown in Dem leaning areas because he ran against the Democrats. Is that true?
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Did you save that half smoked doobie?
Asking for a friend.
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: We did not have contested primaries, we ran good candidates, everything was very close, and one of our loses was Sean Patrick Maloney, who is basically as mainstream establishment as you can get. No one ran a purity campaign. Well at least for upstate. I haven’t followed the Long Island races.
My district very narrowly pulled it out for Pat Ryan. The others that were close were all losses.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: The ghost of Cuomo’s old fuckery-induced judiciary, combined with brinksmanship by the Dems in charge of redistricting, resulted in a fair NY congressional map. Governor Hochul is rather unpopular, driven largely by NYC crime, which is really a city issue though she does, weirdly enough, have the theoretical power to fire the very unpopular Manhattan DA, which her opponent Lee Zeldin pledged to do. Then, Republicans, energized by a shot at voting out an unpopular governor, turned out in droves. The state & many local D parties are ineffectual and corrupt (NY has been a machine state for a very long time) and did themselves no favors.
Kay
@sab:
The first time I heard Marcy Kaptur say it was probably 2000 – “we have a choice”. She’s where I got it from and it has come true. Particularly resonates in northern Ohio, I think.
Sherrod could still win though, even with the insane GOP margins in counties like mine. He could win if Republicans choose a super-shitty candidate, which is like a coin flip at this point.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, it has been discussed repeatedly in the comments.
This was a great summary of what has been stated over and over.
WaterGirl
@Eolirin:
Sean Patrick Maloney has a lot to answer for.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: That makes sense here in Ohio, since most of our 18-29ers left or plan to leave the state.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: You always have an option of scrolling on or using one of the cutesy pie-filters if you don’t like my comments. And as a frontpager you can ban me for getting on your nerves.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks. So to paraphrase, it was an own goal by the NY Dems.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin: Having rejoined the ranks of car commuters, I’m…impressed(?) at how fragrant it can be stuck in traffic, smelling all the pot smoke. More common than tobacco, that’s for sure.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think part of it is resentment that everything didn’t just fall into place for them like it did for their dad and their grandpa. They thought they were going to get that good job without much effort, and that turned out not to be the case. The young women, OTOH, always knew they were going to have to work for it, so they aren’t resentful about doing that. The men get despondent that it wasn’t easy for them, so they fall into a funk and start doing self-destructive things because they believe they are losers.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Soy products. You nailed it.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
What I don’t understand about legalized pot (the entire state of Michigan now smells like pot) is why it’s SO SMELLY. Why is ALL of it like fresh skunk spray? Can’t the consumers ask for a brand or variety that isn’t as fragrant? I’ve seen the big growhouses in Ohio- they’re serious production for a market, like fruit trees or annual bedding plants. Can’t they make one that smells like grass or hay or something? Mild and pleasant?
Anyway
@Frankensteinbeck:
This is a little misleading – FTX guy’s big contribution was in a Dem primary – against the establishment D candidate. I doubt that he was a donor in the general election.
Steeplejack
@Jeffro:
How have your RWNJ dad and bro coped with the reality of the election?
different-church-lady
@brantl: Just run that idea by Elon and it will probably be in the code by this evening.
sab
@Lady WereBear: Yes. My dad was born into a monied Reblican family and he always claimed he was Republican but he registered as a Democrat and always voted as one until dementia. Then he loved Trump. Dementia fellow travellers. He is 98 now, and the only reason he doesn’t watch Fox is his nurse’s aide makes him watch some home restoration/ redecorating channel.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: It’s probably still there on the concrete walkway to the commuter rail platform, it’s kind of flat though.
Soprano2
@Kay: You can be sure they won’t use NAEP because it doesn’t fit the narrative the press has settled on for these education losses, that pandemic measures and remote schooling caused it all!
sab
@Suzanne: Most blue collar jobs rhese days require drug testing.
Ironist
@Matt McIrvin: Speaking of former front pagers: can it spoken of as to why Cheryl Rofer departed for pastures LGM? Was it amicable?
sab
@Suzanne: A lot of white rural men jobs now go to women. I know several young women machinists.
Soprano2
Not from NY, but what I’ve read suggests that a) the Democrats got too aggressive in their redistricting efforts, which led Republicans to challenge their maps, and b) a Cuomo-appointed Republican judge struck down those maps and substituted his own, which were drawn in a crazy way to benefit R’s, including by putting two D incumbents in the same district. It also sounds like no one in the state party structure did much of anything to campaign for House candidates or help them in any way, the governor didn’t campaign much either. Sounds like they were taking wins for granted. Sounds like a complete fuck-up to me, heads should roll over it IMHO.
Kay
@Soprano2:
The whole thing is amusing coming from the Right because the Right spent 20 years selling online public schools.
The giant charter scandal in Ohio was an online school. Everyone from Jeb Bush to Kasich promoted it. It was a horrible school. It had the lowest scores in the state and eventually collapsed in a giant heap of fraud and theft.
So 20 years of promoting online K-12 education as a cheap replacement for schools and all of a sudden they are INSANELY opposed to remote earning. Okey doke. Clowns. Glad you-all came around to the right side on this.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: vape and edibles. May not necessarily be legal in all legal weed states; they are both legal in CA as we’ve recognized that inhaling anything on fire is just not good for your lungs. Vape is not great in that respect but still better than raw weed.
Neither have much of a smell to them.
I hate the smell too – but around here in San Diego, because of the alternatives, it’s a rare thing to smell it.
Kay
@sab:
Manufacturing jobs were always hard, physical and dirty – a labor union or better health plan doesn’t change the nature of the work. So the kind of romanticism that says “they were good jobs” leads to young men taking them and finding out their parents worked their asses off in hot, dirty, noisy jobs and then staying for 3 weeks.
Jackie
The SC Justice’s wife is stirring up trouble – AGAIN, along with her cohorts in crime:
“Conservative activist Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has reportedly joined a group of conservatives in calling to delay elections for Republican leadership in Congress.
On Monday, Jonathan Swan reported that another group of conservatives was joining in the call to delay leadership elections.”
*****
“In addition to Thomas, the group includes former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, attorney Jenna Ellis and former Sen. Jim DeMint.”
https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-gop-elections/
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Democrats lost five New York seats that Joe Biden carried. They did surprisingly well across the country though. You are blaming Maloney for the one and not giving him any credit for the other.
This whole Maloney dogpile got its start when he did not move from the New York 17th CD to make room for Mondaire Jones. But Maloney lived in the new district and Jones did not, and if Maloney could not win thst district Mondaire Jones definitely would not have.
The beef was started by a constellation of New York Justice Democrats, Working Family Party and DSA members. Personally, I don’t think it’s justified, and and I think it’s a bad idea for other Democrats to take it up.
Suzanne
@sab:
A lot more “man jobs” go to women than in the past, period. I see a lot more women on the construction site — and in the construction office — than I used to.
Part of that is because they can pass the drug tests.
Soprano2
@Kay: We offer good, career-building jobs for young men. They can even get their CDL completely paid for by the city, including paying for the license and license renewal. That’s something they’ll have forever, completely paid for, but we still have trouble hiring young men because it’s also hard, dirty work outside in all kinds of weather, plus you’re subject to random drug testing. Many of them would rather work at the Amazon warehouse because they think it’s going to be easier.
sab
@Steve in the ATL: Didn’t Clarence Thomas get his professional start at EEOC?
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
I wish they’d regulate the THC level too. I read that Uruguay handles pot like that, akin to “proof” for alcohol. They limit it to “17%” or something. I would have preferred starting with more regulation and then loosening it up rather than what we did, which is regulate only the business end and not the product.
I’m not a huge fan of this, but I recognize it’s popular and I know when I’m beat :)
cain
@trollhattan: Hey at least there won’t be road rage.
The Moar You Know
@Jackie: while she is vile and up to her filthy neck in treason, I gotta give her a pass on this. Any Republican would want this delayed. It’s going to be like Game of Thrones on C-Span. The House leadership struggle – assuming that the GOP wins it, which might not happen – is going to be vile and very, very media friendly. The last thing the GOP needs right now.
The GOP Senate is trying to put off Judgment Day, but that is not a thing that can be put off.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Hmmm. Not likely! And then it isn’t and they don’t even last the 90 days to get the health insurance.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Yep. My Democrat husband threw shoes at the tv every time one of his ads ran.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: CA does not regulate as such, but every batch must be tested and the product must be labeled as to not just THC, but ALL cannabinoids, accurately.
It’s really been handled amazingly well out here, every aspect of it, which I was honestly not expecting. CA is a model for the world in how pot legalization can and should be handled.
If Biden can get it off Schedule 1 so that banks can start handling the money, that will be the last step in it being just like any other retail product. Including Federal tax revenues. Can’t happen soon enough.
The police unions are still fighting this very hard. It’s the last thing they want; actually having to do their jobs.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: I engaged with you, gave you an answer, two in fact, and you’re the one who didn’t like it, didn’t think it was good enough.
I can be tired of having the same conversation about NY over and over when there’s nothing we can fucking do about it and NY may cost us the house.
People on balloon juice don’t get banned for getting on our nerves.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Here is anecdata that I nonetheless found interesting. A relative of Mr. Suzanne is a high-level admin at a regional contractor in Denver. She said essentially as soon as weed got legalized in CO, they started running into a lot of trouble with hiring, because fewer candidates could pass a drug test. And their insurance carriers still require drug testing for any employee on the construction site.
Like I said, I also see a lot more women on job sites than I used to. Especially painters, plumbers, all of the interior work.
sab
@Kay: Pot smokers love that smell. Like traditional smokers and tobacco. They actually like that stink.
Kelly
Also worth noting on the Oregon election we had gun control measure 114. 10 round magazine limit, registration with $65 permit fee, mandatory class. Probably brought out a lot of R’s. Also R’s were able to defuse the abortion issue by referring to Oregon’s strong protections of abortion rights. Their vague dissembling about their position on Federal restrictions has been reminiscent of the “settled law” bullshit the R Supreme Court nominees used for many years.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: @sab: Pot smells. Tobacco smells. You’re smoking a plant, it’s smelly. There are non-smelly versions of each available, but they’re not flowers/leaves: lozenges, tinctures, edibles, patches, vaping.
In the states I go to at least they label the THC & CBD content so you can calibrate between different items. So there are gummies available in 5mg, 10mg, 20 etc. A six-pack of beer vs. a bottle of liquor. Bud is also labeled by strength.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@New Deal democrat: Im not too confident in R leadership ability to herd leopards without D help. Maybe we’ll wind up with a functional House even if Rs gain a slight edge.
sab
@Kay: My stepsons have blue collar jobs and always have. Their early jobs we always worried day to day if they would come home with four limbs intact.
Mike in NC
@Jackie: Jim Bob DeMented! There’s a blast from the past. South Carolina wingnut quit the Senate because he couldn’t be the boss of them. Went to run Heritage Foundation until they pushed him out for being too extreme.
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
My first Presidential vote was for Gerald Ford, 1976.
I voted for John Anderson in 1980. People here still get pissed at people who voted for Anderson. For some of us, Anderson was a sort of gateway drug.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Sorta? The failed gerrymander definitely was. But at the end of the day voters got a say and not enough of them liked what they saw.
Anyway
OT – awful news about the three UVA football players killed by a gunman. Tragic for the families.
Geminid
@cain: Some cranky drivers may feel road rage at the cannabis users driving 10 miles below the speed limit.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
And Covid, and Ukraine. She’s at least got that much common sense.
But she’d still have to agree with us on a hell of a lot more than that for her to be someone we’d want as Speaker.
Geminid
@Anyway: Police have the suspect in custody. He’s a former player. Local news reports are that the players had just returned from a field trip to see a play. The suspect caught them in the parking garage where they were getting off a bus.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
You know who cost us that seat, if anyone? The fucking Blue Dog she beat, who refused to endorse her in the general election.
You get pissed at lefties who aren’t team players, and it’s a legit gripe, though you frequently tend to see it when it isn’t there. But if you’re going to criticize Dems who aren’t team players, at least be evenhanded about it.
Geminid
@Kelly: Democrats are stuck with those districts until 2032. In the meantime, do you think Demographic changes will be in their favor?
Soprano2
@Kay: Unfortunately, lots of younger people take the immediate higher wage over the longer term benefits of working for city government. We’re at a disadvantage because we can’t just raise wages; everything has to be OK’d by city council, and they have to know they’ll have the tax revenue to pay the extra wages. Plus, it is harder to get hired here – for one thing you have to pass a credit check; for another, the hiring process actually follows the law. But if you get hired there are a lot of benefits that aren’t money. Health insurance starts immediately, and you start accumulating sick pay hours immediately. You don’t get vacation for 6 months, but when you start accumulating they give you credit for the first six months you worked. At the beginning of the year everyone gets 4 “floating holidays”, which can be used like vacation. You get them regardless of how long you’ve worked here. You have an employer who follows the law, too. I asked one of our analysts who left a higher-paying job with a consultant why he came to work for us, and his answer boiled down to a) I get time off to do things with my kids, and I don’t have to travel, and b) I can have stuff done without worrying as much about the bottom line and whether we’ll be making a profit on any particular job. He’s in his late 30’s and has small kids, so the regular schedule means a lot to him. These are the kind of things lots of young men in their early 20’s don’t always factor in to their decision.
Soprano2
They love having this excuse to stop and search people’s cars. They don’t want to lose it. I think they know that pot isn’t any more dangerous than drinking, but it’s a lot harder to stop someone for drinking and driving without any evidence that they’re doing it first. Now, they can just say “I think I smell pot” and demand to search the car even if it’s bullshit.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Soprano2: In MA, our courts ruled you can’t search a car based on the smell and I believe several other states followed suit.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: Ryan must have run behind Sherrod Brown some because Brown won reelection in 2018 by 260,00 votes (I think). But Ryan probably ran behind partly because he is not Sherrod Brown, who is a unique talent and much better known than Ryan.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
That I totally believe.
I’ve never doubted that women were as smart as menfolk like me, but my attitudes about their physical capabilities had some catching-up to do.
But I’ve become involved with a local theater group that uses another community org’s basketball court to stage its productions, which means we have a load-in and a load-out where we take all the stuff we need to build the stage itself, plus all the props, from a storage facility, then haul it back afterwards. Many of the actors are teens, and they help out.
At first, I’d be telling the girls, “that’s too heavy for you, let me carry that.” After a few times of gently being elbowed aside, I realized I should STFU and let them do what they were doing. But those 15- and 16-year-old girls are right in there with the guys when it comes to lifting and hauling all that crap.
As my kid sister said about four decades ago, “women aren’t as ‘mere’ as they used to be.” No, they damned sure aren’t.
Kelly
@Geminid: Yes, demographics seem likely to change to favor Democrats. Bend is growing fast and trending D. Clackamas County, long time R stronghold in the Portland metro seems to be shifting D. Linn County is R for the foreseeable future. My Marion County will probably shift back and forth. Voted Trump 2016, Biden 2020.
...now I try to be amused
@lowtechcyclist:
If Rosie the Riveter could do it, so can modern women.
Ivan X
@Frankensteinbeck: Thank you for explaining this. I saw this percolating and I’m like what possible “foundation” could there be for this? Now I know, thanks to your summary, and it turns out to have the same “foundation” and coherency as the Hunter Biden laptop story. Why am I not surprised?
sab
@lowtechcyclist: In my mispent yoot I was a stagehand for a community theater group in Michigan. We worked in a nineteenth century opera house with state of their time but primitive by our time backstage mechanics.
We had a flyloft twenty feet above the stage. We had trouble recruiting because everyone was afraid of heights. I was tiny then, 5’5″ and well under 100 lbs. When I started working everyone else thought they could do my job. They were all stronger, but I wasn’t afraid of heights. The tough guy recruits couldn’t get from the ladder to the flyloft.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Sounds like some form of murder would have to be involved.
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
Well, that’s enough to give me pause. But it’s my understanding that there was not much effort put into campaigning in NY, and that’s a big problem.
Major Major Major Major
@Ivan X: much less basis than Hunter’s laptop, which actually exists, or at least the files “on it” do.
Paul in KY
@Sasha: I think if both defect, that makes it 51 – 49 for the Repubs & Traitors.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: Colour me unsurprised at Flobalob’s pettiness.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: Alot of these losers only have losers for male ‘rolemodels’. That sucks and is probably a factor in why they are so lame.
Paul in KY
@The Moar You Know: Yup! They couldn’t even be bothered to build a proper gallows.
Paul in KY
@Ascap_scab: Godzilla! That would be awesome (if we can’t get the majority). I can just see her glaring at the Repubs and rubbing that gavel….
Paul in KY
@…now I try to be amused: That’s why it generally (outside of Ivy League and a few more that are at that level) does not matter what 4 year college you graduated from. A degree from University of Texas is worth the same as one from Prairie View A & M.
Geminid
@Kelly: I think demographic change will help purple district Virginia Democrats too. Jennifer Wexton won the 10th CD by 6% this year, and Abigail Spanberger won the 7th (my district) by 4. Now that they’ve survived their first reelections in the new districts, I look for them both to be winning by 10 points towards the end of the decade. There are a lot of Yankees moving into that part of Virginia. Some are from overseas but that just makes them a different kind of Yankee.
The different dynamic in a Presidential election could make a difference too. Ms. McLeod Skinner might win that seat in 2024 (if she is the nominee). I’ve seen savvy political observers urge Mr. Frisch to take another shot at Boebert next time if he can’t pull out a win now. And Rollins might do well to try and knock out Calvert in the California 41st next cycle if he comes up short..
Elaine Luria will probably try to win her 2nd Virginia CD seat back too. She lost by 4 points, so it will be tough even in a Presidential election, but I think it’s worth a try. Her opponent, Jen Kiggans is no Boebert. But Kiggans is in the House Republican caucus, and they might experience the Mother of All Trainwrecks in the upcoming Congress.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: Your initial reaction was dismissive. Even so, I engaged respectfully. Then you blockquoted the comment Eolirin had addressed to me after I asked my question. A comment I had already responded to.
I would hardly call that engagement.
Kelly
@Geminid: If I thought the Republicans were inclined towards fair play across the USA I’d figure a 4D-2R split of the Oregon house delegation was OK. That’s about the party split for Oregon. Since the R’s are undermining fair voting everywhere they can I’m a bit pissed off.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: If we couldn’t get one of ours, she’d be soooo much better than McCarthy or some other MAGA choad.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: As a BJ regular, will you two please calm down.
ETA otherside is Watergirl
ETA
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Pre-Covid, might have picked it up. Now..not so much…
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: Well, the fantasy was that Biden and Harris would be impeached and convicted… which of course would take an impossible Senate supermajority. But I could see a completely insane Republican House with a solid majority demanding their resignations and the restoration of the Trump Presidency as the price for raising the debt limit. They have no chance of even being able to try that now.
Paul in KY
@Kay: The skunk smell stuff is the good stuff. God made it that way…
Brit in Chicago
@lowtechcyclist: “I’ve never doubted that women were as smart as menfolk like me…”
I grew up with three elder sisters. No one had to tell me that women held up half the sky: I always thought it was a considerable underestimate.
cain
@Kay: Well, once pot gets legalized – then it can be open to labs actually on creating products that doesn’t smell through genetic research etc. Right now you can’t do any of that.
in other words, Monsanto will be sweeping in and the same shit is going to start all over again with pot instead of corn or whatever it is. Big Pot will rise – the important bit will be that we can still grow our plants – I expect a big fight later.
sab
I am staring at my pitbull now, trying to discourage silly barking.
We are glaring. She is bored. Wants to be elsewhere.
….
….
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Oh yeah, the efforts of New York Democrats were deficient, and Maloney must certainly share some of the blame. I think he’s being scapegoated though, and this narrative is being propelled by people with an axe to grind.
Ironically, Maloney is a member of the Progressive Caucus. But for some people, he’s not the right kind of progressive. If he was, they’d defend him instead of making him out to be a villain.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay:
Because we are Democrats and we want a better America, yes. It isn’t just a white male problem. I think a lot of young men from many backgrounds are a mess for similar reasons.
El Muneco
@…now I try to be amused: I thought it was due to that tabloid picture of his wife wearing only a towel with Parliament in the background…
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Matt, you know they know that neither would be convicted. That leaves either them resigning or some unfortunate ‘accident’ happening.
Leslie
What’s the record at BJ for total number of comments on an open thread, anyway?
sab
Watergirl
We know you and schro cat do not like each other. Also too, you are a moderator and she is a regular commenter.
Could you please learn to ignore each other? Blog fans like each of you, and many like both of you.
BruceFromOhio
@sab: “Don’t make me stop this car!”
Perfect ending to an awesome comment thread.
Paul in KY
@Leslie: 700 or so
sab
@BruceFromOhio: Urk. I hate them fighting. It is not amusing to me.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: I think we might have broken the Overton Window with that one. At least, I don’t see people talking about it any more.
StringOnAStick
@Kelly: Bend is definitely growing more blue; we have met a bunch of new residents in the last year, and every single one is liberal D, except the one libertoonian that we tolerate only because we like his partner, who made sure she voted in MI at their other house in 2016 because she thought that was very important, and she did it again this cycle. That’s 15 new D’s, mostly exported from CA, where they have enough to spare.
Betty Cracker
@sab: Aren’t moderators allowed to argue with commenters? If not, I’m out of here! ;-)
But seriously, as long as no one is threatening to use their moderator powers to punch down on someone without said powers (and though I have not read the comments in question, I am confident WG didn’t do that), it’s fair game in my book. Just curious if you see the issue differently.
Citizen Alan
@Tony G: This! I have been saying for the last 2 years that Kristen senima is still a green at heart, and she only ran as a Democrat to damage the Democratic Party from the inside.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: I can agree with that period I’m a genex or who was born in 69 and whose 1st vote was for Bush 1 in 1988. And today, at 53, I’m substantially more liberal than anyone in my age group that I know.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
I thought you were making a ridiculous joke. This is crazy.
Ken
@mrmoshpotato: Increases your sympathy for the writers at the Onion, doesn’t it?
Jowriter
@WaterGirl: You’re right. Maloney was my congressman and not only did he NOT campaign in the new parts of his adopted district; we who have been in his old district since he was first elected in 2012 (now part of the new 17th) saw nothing from him in terms of retail campaigning this year. He was MIA. Though he’s always had something of an aloof and technocratic persona, as DCCC chair this year he was a well-spoken mouthpiece, happy to spend time with media pundits and big donors, at the expense of his own constituents. He just did not make the effort in his own and other strong-D NY districts. It’s awful that New York may now be responsible for the shortfall that puts the House in Republican control.
lowtechcyclist
@Brit in Chicago:
I only grew up with one older sister, but she recently retired from a long career with the U.S. Corps of Engineers. She had a M.S. in engineering geology.
My closest female friends in high school: A. had a long and successful career as a lawyer before retiring, J. was a full professor at one of the “public Ivy” universities, S. was an anaesthesiologist, C. had a Ph.D. in linguistics and is still working in IT…yeah, I never had any doubt that women were as smart as I was.
@sab:
That’s a cool story! Fortunately, heights has never been among my fears, at least not at that level. (A drop of a hundred feet on one side of a hiking trail can make me a bit nervous, I’ll confess. But twenty feet? Nah. I’ll climb higher in trees than that, even now.)
Nora
@Jowriter: I agree. I was in the 19th, then the 17th, then the changed 17th district (all hail new maps), and I never saw Maloney show up for anything in our part of the district. When he was our representative (before my city was moved into the 17th CD), I don’t remember him doing a lot of retail politicking, either, though we did get a lot of mail from him around election time this year.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
And for writers on SNL, Colbert, Seth Meyers, etc.
Ken
@mrmoshpotato: Yes indeed. I can’t find it now, but I saw a tweet that was something like “We’re watching a former KGB agent who seized control of Russia and is making nuclear threats, and a billionaire with his own private rocket fleet who made his money from apartheid-era emerald mines. Why are we all suddenly in a James Bond novel?”
Anyway
@Jowriter:
Thanks for the comment from Maloney’s district. It is perplexing that any comment about Maloney losing the seat is taken as a criticism of his primary contest when we are taking about the general election. The evil DSA did not get in his way in the general. He did that on his own by ignoring his new district and focusing on his role as DCCC chair. Looks like he took his new district for granted and lost. Costly error for the Dems.
H-Bob
@Kay: “bringing back accountability to our Beltway political class”! That’s a laugh — when has the Beltway political class and media pundits ever been held accountable. Even the losers get recycled within 2 or 4 years. It’s the Peter Principle all the way up!
rikyrah
@mrmoshpotato:
Moore vs ——-
Giving the State Legislature the right to overturn the will of the people.
Leslie
@Paul in KY: Whoa.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: Used to be a ‘T-Bogg Unit’ was 500 comments. We might have had one that got close to 2 of those.
PaulB
I’m guessing this Glenn Greenwald thread is pretty close to the record at 932 comments.
JAFD
@Ken: MacPherson’s _The Battle Cry of Freedom_ has story of the Congress elected in 1854, convened in March of 1855 and took 107 ballots to elect a Speaker. Historians think that this election marked the birth of the Republican Party.
(TBCoF is an excellent book, IMHO)
WaterGirl
@PaulB: Bring back Glenn Greenwald to increase traffic on Balloon Juice. //
*not intended as a serious statement, in case the // wasn’t enough.