Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Bark louder, little dog.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: There Are Many Good Dems

Thursday Morning Open Thread: There Are Many Good Dems

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Welcome home, Mr. President:

Meanwhile, on the Hill:

My normie Spousal Unit happened to be walking past when I first played this clip on my laptop, and asked ‘Is that guy deliberately imitating Obama?… ‘

Katherine Clark is my rep (replacing Ed Markey). From all reports, she’s good at constituent service, even if she doesn’t generate a lot of headlines. But I’ve also heard that anyone hoping to outsmart her should envision a Go ahead, underestimate me — that’ll be fun! button on her lapel… Cover photo on her website is her & Jeffries smiling together, so I’m pretty sure those two will be working in tandem, whatever happens.

Reader Interactions

107Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Is that guy deliberately imitating Obama?… ‘

    That’s what I thought when I first heard Josh Shapiro.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    My guess is Pelosi will retire as leader and maybe announce that the upcoming term will be her last. The MAGA terrorist’s attack on her husband seemed to shake her to the core, unsurprisingly. It’s infuriating that such an accomplished leader and iconic woman has to weigh her family’s safety in her decision, but this is the world Republican extremists built.

  11. 11.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Betty Cracker: I got that feeling after the attack on her husband.  I think the non-stop harassment from MAGA/Qanon loons and barely veiled, threatening  “jokes” from actual Republican reps have taken a toll and she may decide she is done being in the public eye, at least to the extent she currently is.

  12. 12.

    Kay

    I wasn’t impressed with Jeffries comments on NY. The excuse they have all settled on seems to be to blame Hochul for everything:

    Does New York deserve some blame for the close election? Some people are saying if New York had gone differently, Democrats would have the House clearly.

    It was a tough night for my colleagues and many of our “Red to Blue” candidates, who are up against a tremendously difficult situation, giving what was happening in the context of the gubernatorial election, in the Hudson Valley and in Long Island. Beyond that, I think (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair) Sean Patrick Maloney has best captured the reality of that night. Sean Patrick Maloney should be given a tremendous amount of credit for doing a great job across the country, even putting himself at risk in order to promote the broader Democratic cause.

    Maloney was blaming the New York Post for the losses, a few times. Do you think that New York media had a negative effect on those House races that Democrats lost?

    The results speak for themselves in the context of voter anxiety with respect to public safety. And it’s going to be an issue that Governor Hochul needs to decisively address moving forward sooner rather than later.

    With Jay Jacobs, a lot of people are saying it’s time for change at the top of the Democratic Party. Do you think it’s time for change, on the state level?

    The most important step that we can take is for there to be an after-action report that is fact and evidence based to figure out what the state party did well, what went wrong and how we put ourselves in the strongest possible position heading into the 2024 cycle, where the seats in New York are going to matter significantly.

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: Pelosi also announced plans years ago to give up House leadership now, didn’t she? Of course plans change, but this gives her a way to say this wasn’t a response to terrorism, if she decides to step down.

  14. 14.

    sdhays

    @Betty Cracker: I think she was planning to retire since she was reportedly planning to retire after the 2016 election but stayed on to deal with the Trump threat. The work is never done, but the acute crisis has passed, the Biden is President, and Democrats still control the Senate – the stakes aren’t quite as high for a new leadership team to take over. If I were her, I think I would conclude it’s time.

    The attack on her husband shit all over that. I can see her being worried about seeming to bend to political violence, even if it isn’t true. From everything we know about Pelosi, seeming to back down to violence would be repulsive. I think that would be the wrong reason to stay, but I totally understand it.

  15. 15.

    Matt McIrvin

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: The problem is how not to frame it in a way that encourages more terrorism. If Republican politicians decide that endorsing violence against opponents actually is the way to get wins…

    (and as p.a. said, the election puts McCarthy third in line for the White House, if something happens to the top 2.)

  16. 16.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: From the outside it seems there is plenty of blame to go around. Hochul hardly campaigned at all, Democrats got too ambitious with their redistricting, and several seats we should have won were lost because the candidates didn’t do the necessary work to get elected. That’s what I’m getting from things I’ve read. I’m not surprised they’re going to try to put all the blame on a woman, though.

  17. 17.

    Geminid

    @BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: I’ve been following Hakeem Jeffries ever since he was elected Caucus Chairman four years ago. That is one talented and hardworking man!

    Jeffries is also an excellent communicator, in short, medium and long form. I thought his speech nominating Nancy Pelosi for Speaker in January, 2019 was a masterpiece

  18. 18.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Well, he could have answered like you did. Many factors, etc. Instead he went out of his way to defend two of the people in leadership roles and blame it all on a third. It’s nonsense.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    I could listen to Rep Jeffries speak directly to the American people most every day, and twice on Sundays.

    Glad to see the Dems tightening up their messages and going right at the MAGA GQP!

  23. 23.

    Starfish

    @Josie: It’s okay to choose poorly and choose a better instance as you get to know the space better.

    I have created three different account. The first one was on the big mastodon.social. At the time, it felt like the people were young anime creators, and I did not have much in common with them.

    The second one was counter.social, and a lot of instances block them for blocking other countries completely, so most things are disconnected from counter.social.

    The current one was the other week. It is a bunch of nerds talking tech who post photos of their dogs. It is a better fit.

    To find your better fit, you may be able to look to see who is replying to people you like. You can also look at your Federated time line which will show you people on other instances that people on your instance like. I would not do this on mastodon.social because it is going to be too noisy, and people are posting porn without CW tags even though they shouldn’t.

    The instances that I am most interested in are the regional ones because they do local politics.

  24. 24.

    Greg

    I worry that the nutjobs out there would interpret a retirement as a signal that attacks on member’s families can cause the current boogyman to retire.

  25. 25.

    MisterDancer

    @Betty Cracker: It’s infuriating that such an accomplished leader and iconic woman has to weigh her family’s safety in her decision, but this is the world Republican extremists built.

    This is what matters. Skimming thru some of the Twitter reactions, even “allies” seem obsessed with the political dimensions, and ignore the very real issues of her being a a target of these terrorists. The “people in the House are growing impatient for her announcement” one was so dense it could have swallowed up a black hole.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Pelosi should do whatever she thinks is best for the health of her family, and not give a 2nd thought to whatever other people might think of it.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: The excerpts from the Jeffries interview did not show him blaming Hochul for losses in New York. He did say that the Governor needs to deal with public safety issues “sooner rather than later” which could be interpreted as a slam.

    But I think Jeffries was saying that public safety concerns are not just a matter of Republican hype, and that there are real concerns that should be addressed.

    Jeffries stays in touch with his Brooklyn constituents and he may know what he is talking about. If he does, Jeffries’ words about Hochul might not be an implicit slam so much as good advice, and he is entitled to give it as a Democrat and New York Representative.

  31. 31.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In the last video I have of my mother, she’s 54. It’s 2002. Her childhood friend films her feeding her ageing dog and rebellious cats and she’s laughing, delighting in them.

    A few months later, on 17 November, she suddenly died from a ruptured colon, before my emergency flight from Los Angeles arrived in New Jersey, before I could say goodbye. I was 27.

    The grief I felt was profound and I wondered when it would subside. But it never did. I just got used to it.

    I got used to not talking to her, to not asking for her advice.
    I got used to not heeding her sense of propriety, the importance of church attendance, the insistence that she would not be going anywhere with me if I was dressed like that.
    I got used to not receiving her letters filled with beautiful, thoughtful words.
    I have gotten so used to life without her that it rarely occurs to me that I haven’t said the word “Ma” in 20 years. That’s what I called her. Short for Mami. The word is utterly unfamiliar to me now, like something from another existence.

    Life has reshaped itself around the hole in my heart, a permanent wound that contracts and expands.

    It’s a beautiful piece, not too long, well worth the read.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:

    He blames Hochul and then says he needs an “after action report” to “assess” anything anyone else in leadership did.

    How does that make sense? He doesn’t need any “facts” to blame Hochul but he does to blame the other two? Come on. I wouldn’t bother with the after action report. It seems they’ve all settled on the conclusion anyway.

  33. 33.

    randy khan

    I don’t know how the attack on her husband will affect Pelosi’s decision.  I can see it making her want to step back (although she has to know that stepping back will just diminish the risk a bit, not eliminate it), but I also can see her thinking that the right response is, metaphorically, a middle finger to the people who have threatened her to demonstrate that they won’t cow her.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

     giving what was happening in the context of the gubernatorial election

    He blames Hochul. Then goes on to lavishly praise one of the other leaders and insist he needs a report before he can assess the role of the other, just in case there was any doubt who was at fault- not the other two, that’s for sure! Only Hochul is blamed right out of the box.

  35. 35.

    narya

    I love Jeffries. Two things that have a profound and moving effect on me: seeing NASA, and Congress, full of such an incredible diversity of people! Growing up, it wasn’t that way, as many of us here know, and it really moves me to see so many faces and hear so many voices in the mix. I also think it makes us stronger–us as humans and also us as democrats!

    How much you wanna bet that Nancy has been having private training sessions w/ her successors.

  38. 38.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I agree. It doesn’t bode well for the changes that should take place in the NY Democratic leadership after this complete debacle. I know that what SCOTUS did in AL and what DeSantis did in FL and what Republicans in OH did all had an affect on our ability to retain the House, but Democrats didn’t have control of any of that, while they had complete control of NY redistricting and campaigning for their offices in NY. Especially if it turns out that winning those 4-5 winnable seats in NY that went to R’s would have made the difference in keeping the house heads should roll in the Dem leadership in NY, but if they blame it all on Hochul they won’t.

  39. 39.

    Gin & Tonic

    @OzarkHillbilly: My father died (quickly but not suddenly) when I was 27. I have by now lived past the age he was when he died, and while I don’t consciously think of him or the ways in which I might miss him, he still makes an appearance from time to time in my dreams.

  40. 40.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: I hope you’re right, and the Dem leadership in NY doesn’t try to blame that debacle on her. I also hope they don’t roll back their bail reforms in NY because of this election. I follow Alex K???? (long name I can’t spell) on Twitter, and he tells some real horror stories about people dying in jail because they don’t have $500 bail for a relatively minor offense.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:

    Hochul won. So apparently she “addressed the issue” better than the Democrats who lost.

    Republicans exploited a crime panic in Congressional races and they did it all over the country- Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Only in NY did it resonate to that extent.

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    One thing that makes Pelosi such an incredibly effective leader is her ability to check her ego at the door and focus on the party’s goals, even when people in her caucus are fighting like a sack of meth-addled ferrets and flinging bullshit accusations at her. (This is a quality Pelosi shares with Biden.)

    I like Jeffries, but he doesn’t seem to have that trait, which may be essential to holding a fractious caucus together in a narrowly divided chamber. That said, Jeffries is a better communicator than Pelosi, and maybe he has other ways to build consensus and/or will adjust his style if he gets the gig.

    We’ll see.

  43. 43.

    Emmyelle

    I LOVE Nancy. I also think it is time to step down. I hope she has been secretly grooming her successor. I don’t care who it is, boy, girl, square state, costal state, young, middle aged, I want Nancy’s person.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: I think New York Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs has got to go. And then the state’s Democrats need to get past the backbiting and blamecasting and start working towards 2024.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    It just doesn’t make any sense. Why in the world would they publicly blame the one statewide candidate among the possible people to blame? No normie actually cares about the state party chair and almost no one cares about Dem house campaign leadership outside political junkies. It’s bad politics to blame Hochul. She’s the bigger part of the D brand in NY.

  46. 46.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Jeffries is Caucus Chair, and he’s been helping the Speaker herd those cats for the last two Congresses.This is a process we never see so long as it doesn’t break down, but Jeffries has played an important role here.

  47. 47.

    Amir Khalid

    I’m thinking to get me a new phone to replace the old one, which is getting sluggish at loading my apps and whose battery seems to be showing its age.It will most likely be a lowish-end Vivo or Lenovo but definitely an Android. I do my browsing, online shopping, online banking, and BJ-ing all but exclusively on my home laptop; I can’t abide using small phone-sized screens except for certain apps that only make sense on a phone like GrabCar, WhatsApp, and Food Panda.

    So I have a few questions for the hive mind. How much memory should it have? Do I need a 5G-ready phone? What else should I look for in features?

  50. 50.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Kay: it helps when you have a very prominent democrat (and for him it fits) in the largest media market playing right into that crime mantra.

    thank you very much Eric Adams.

  51. 51.

    Rebelsdad (fka texasboyshaun)

    @Amir Khalid: The newer phones seem to come with a lot of bloatware (esp. on Samsung) that can’t really be deleted, so the OS and mandatory apps take up way more memory than they should (that was my experience with the s21 at least). I would suggest at least 128GB. It fills up  faster than you would think, especially if you take a lot of pictures.

    Having said that, my current phone is an iPhone SE with only 64GB. I use my OneDrive to store anything I don’t need on a regular basis and keep the auto downloads for music and podcasts turned off. I’ve had it for a year now and I’m pretty happy with it (the screen is really small, but that makes it lighter in my pocket and cheaper too-I got it for like $249 at Metro by T-Mobile.)

    I don’t think anyone needs 5G right now. I have it but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference in anything. YMMV.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @Edmund Dantes:

    Right! Him! Adams also learned nothing- he was out with an op ed about the crime wave that is (allegedly) ravaging the city he runs and blaming… Democrats. What?

    And also Cuomo. That fucking fiasco couldn’t have helped Democrats. There’s an entire cast of characters to blame and somehow it ends up all the fault of Hochul, who, you know, WON.

  53. 53.

    Rebelsdad (fka texasboyshaun)

    @Edmund Dantes: Eric Adams is an interesting character, almost a one-trick pony. I hope he doesn’t become noun+verb+CRIME!!!

    I’m certain that if we can just end turnstile-hopping the subways will magically be safer and cleaner. /s

  54. 54.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I think the problem in NY and CA was voter complacency/safety of being protected under a blue shield from the problems of the country re: abortion and election denial. It allowed voter to be more focused on inflation, crime, and other more “traditional” midterm gripes.

    It’s nice to think that there is always something we can do as politicos to fix an issue, but sometimes the voters are gonna do what they’re gonna do. And NY/CA was probably what was waiting us in the rest of the country in a “normal” midterm cycle.

  55. 55.

    topclimber

    @Kay: I don’t read the comment you quoted about Gov. Hochul in the same way. He didn’t say that Hochul should have campaigned more (backward looking), he said she needed to address the public safety issue, bullshitty as it may be (forward looking).

    Hopefully Hochul can build more bridges between AOC’s wing of the party, which correctly criticized Cuomo’s preference to bash them rather than Republicans, and whatever elements of establishment Dems in the NY Party structure are ready to learn a lesson.

  56. 56.

    kindness

    NY media specifically played up the whole crime angle and elections certainly was part of it.  Crime in NYC is way lower than it was in the late 70’s but scaring people, making people angry, and fearful has been a political tool for all eternity.  NY elections would have gone better if the media wasn’t in bed with the Republican party and if that judge had allowed NY’s redistricting to stand.  As it is, that judge said it’s fine that Republicans gerrymander all their states but Democratic led states won’t be allowed to do so.

    We have the same thing here in California (as far as impartial redistricting goes) but out here people still remember how badly Republicans fucked up our state when they had some control, so Democrats won more.  I think taking a morally principled stand knowing you are going to get a pie in your face is stupid.  Such is life I guess.

  59. 59.

    Layer8Problem

    The New York State Democratic Party could stand to have an overhaul. At least where I am there’s a lot of old-school mutual back-scratching and business-as-usual go-along-to-get-along stuff, extending to Republicans sometimes because “hey, it’s just business.” Sheldon Silver, Jeff Klein, and Andrew Cuomo were the big exemplars here.

  61. 61.

    Geminid

    I hardly followed the election campaigns in New York this year. So, much of what I’ve learned is from after-election reporting in media as well as in comments here by New York Democrats.

    I’ll make one observation from 300 miles away, though. New York Republicans were hungry this year, in a way Democrats were not (that was also the case in Virginia last year).

    This seems to me to be a problem impicating all levels, from rank-and-file to top leadership. It needs to be solved at all levels too and I think it can be.

    But I still think the State Chairman should walk the plank. Mr. Jacobs is clearly not irreplaceable, and in my opinion the state party needs a fresh start.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @kindness:

    Their coverage of crime was up 40% in the last year. In areas of PA that receive NY media the public were much more concerned about crime. That’s odd. Crime waves either exist or they don’t. Hearing NY media shouldn’t influence that fact.

    They ginned up a panic. The anxiety is real, it always is with panics- that’s the point of panics, to create anxiety- but the fact that NY media ginned up a panic is real too because the effort by Republicans to exploit the panic was national yet it only really gained huge traction in NY. They should maybe look at that in the “after action report”. Compare to Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania where the GOP used the same exact play but with much less effect. Or don’t bother with an after action report if the intent is only to cover the ass of 99% of the people in power there and blame Hochul.

    You know the last time crime was this high? 2009. You remember the national, lemming-like screeching media coverage of the crime wave then, right? No, because there was none.

  63. 63.

    gvg

    @Kay: It is quite possible that he knows more about some of them than others.  And if the Governor wasn’t campaigning much, well that is a beginners error that is pretty much always an error.  If that is a fact, anyone who knows it and knows politics, could rightly be peeved about it, while not ruling out that there are other problems less obvious that need examining over all candidates.

    I would think an after action report is just standard good sense win or lose anyway. Anything else is complacency and a way to lose next time.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Gin & Tonic: my eldest sister died without warning at the age of 42 (I was 36). It felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Took the wind right out of me and I went to my knees. As the 2 black sheep of the family, we were very close. I still miss her, always will. I wish she could have met my granddaughters, she would’ve loved them as if they were her own.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    The question isn’t whether “anxiety” is real. Of course it’s real.

    Say my husband keeps telling me he’s dying. Every day he has a giant dramatic “I am DYING!” episode and everyone he knows joins in “he’s DYING!”  He’s not dying but they keeps telling me that. It makes me anxious. He’s not dying but I am anxious.

  66. 66.

    topclimber

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes. Should have been Police the Police. Also REfund the police. As in reallocate their funding (small part) and let’s get a refund on the the back the blue bros who keep getting more taxpayer dollars but can’t seem to do a good job with it (big part). This latter problem, has coincidentally risen since they have been called out lately on their racist practices.​

  68. 68.

    Anyway

    @Geminid:

    My take from 120 miles away is that the different flanks of the NY Dem party were so focused on intra-mural/primary battles that they fought the general on auto-pilot. Costly error.

    I caught a lot of the Rethug crime-crime-be-afraid teevee ads while watching the Phillies and I was really concerned about their effect on the PA senate and gov races. The ads were not not about defund-the-police so much as bail and prison reform which is very much an establishment Dem concern.

  70. 70.

    jonas

    @Soprano2: ​
      This pretty much sums up my impression as well. OTOH, here’s a really good summary of what went down across NYS in the election and why Dems underperformed in some races. Hochul actually had pretty decent coattails, especially upstate, but where things got difficult was when Ronald Lauder and Ed Cox (with a major assist by the NY Post) decided to go all in on the out-of-control crime narrative. Hochul and other Dems were thrown back on their heels by that and really had no clear response other than just to change the subject. That’s where Zeldin and other GOP candidates moved into the breech and over-performed in a lot of districts compared to 2018 or 2020.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @jonas:

    She should address it to the extent that it’s real. I wouldn’t overpromise though. Police aren’t going to start following up on bicycle thefts – quality of life property crimes-  no matter how many times they tell the NYTimes that’s what they do and why they need a couple billion more in funding. They dont do that. They never have.

    It may not matter as much. I predict the CRIME! coverage will decrease now that the election is over, much like David Brooks announcing yesterday that the wokeness panic is over.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    He is kind of dramatic about his health, which is excellent. I’m not anxious though because I’m all too well aware of his resting pulse rate :)

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @sab:

    Immigration in the midterms is kind of interesting though. I don’t think opposition to immigrants came in high other than in the wingnut states and border swing states.

    I’m just flat out embarrassed Ohio fell for it. Ohio doesn’t have that many immigrants. It’s not exactly a huge draw – “come to this decling state!” If I’m going to all the trouble of immigrating I’m going elsewhere.  Also, without high skill immigrants the health care powerhouses in Columbus and Cleveland would collapse. Cleveland without the Cleveland Clinic is in a world of hurt.

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    This is great–Porter is amazeballs and I’m happy she’s coming back, with her white board and minivan, to kick some ass.

  78. 78.

    LibraryGuy

    @jonas: I think you’re definitely right about the uncoordinated and unconvincing response to the crime/bail issues being pushed so hard by Republicans. I would agree too with an earlier commenter that there was a definite zeal on the part of Republican voters and candidates to really go after Dems, to which the response seemed less than righteous. Lawn signs yada yada, but I saw many more for R candidates than I did for Dems in my area (19th District). Finally, one thing I heard anecdotally was that Pat Ryan winning the special election earlier sparked some genuine anger in Republicans, and lit a fire under them.

    As for Hochul, I feel like she was being careful in a hard environment to be a strong (woman) candidate in. She was certainly more aggressive on the campaign trail when she ran and won in the 26th Congressional district. Maloney and the state chair Jacobs both seem to have phoned in their jobs rather than focused on why actually winning in NYS was so crucial this cycle. This article on Maloney in Slate (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/sean-patrick-maloney-new-york-red-wave-dccc-house.html) is pretty convincing on his own lack of seriousness about his own race, even after redistricting put him into a head-to-head with progressive Mondaire Jones.

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid: Get a 5G phone. Guessing your rather compact nation has good coverage by now, are there maps you can check? (If you’re out in just 4G territory, common in the California boonies, that’s what you get regardless and the difference can be stark.)

    Phones that take micro SD cards make the built in storage number mostly moot, so get one like that and stuff a 256 or 512 GB card in, should you run low on space. The processor affects speed of operation more than storage, at least until it’s quite low on reserve.

  80. 80.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Lady WereBear:

    Thanks for the link. I finally took the plunge and created a mastodon account there.

    ETA: Now how do I find people? Are folks using the same handles they had on Twitter? I just kinda sorta figured Twitter out, and now have to learn something new. Le sigh.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    @Cameron:

    There just shouldn’t even be a question. He lost his own race. OMG, take some responsibility.

    It wouldn’t even be hard ” here are the factors, one of which is me. My poor performance“. This DENIAL and blame shifting is disturbing and doesn’t bode well for shifting gears.

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid: I got an unlocked S20+ on Swappa about a year after it was announced.  It was basically new with a hardly-used battery.  I like it.  I use it on Google Fi.  Pick a well-reviewed seller and you shouldn’t have problems (it’s my 2nd phone bought there) – I imagine it’s similar with other resellers.

    Mine has 512GB of storage and a 500 GB SD card – I like not having to think about lack of space.  I’m not close to filling either one (I don’t do anything with videos or games).

    In addition to what others have mentioned, wireless charging is nice (I charge mine on a pad when I’m sleeping).

    5G is good to have and you shouldn’t need to pay extra for it if you get a recent model.  Cell radios are always getting better even if you don’t have 5G in your area yet.

    HTH a little.  Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    Eolirin

    @Rebelsdad (fka texasboyshaun): 5G has been the difference between lots of signal dead zones and no signal dead zones for me, in upstate NY, with Tmobile. I’d suggest always getting a 5G phone not for the speeds, which are not always anywhere near the super high speeds certain parts of the implementation get you but just for the better band coverage.

  85. 85.

    Paul in KY

    @kindness: The only point about crime in NYC today vs the bad ole days is that with all the cameras & phones, much more of it gets documented visually.

  86. 86.

    Jowriter

    @Kay: Big nope on this little “explanation.”  As a Maloney constituent I can vouch for the fact that he was MIA, both in the old part of his district where I live and have supported him in 6 elections (he lost this time), and the new territory claimed by the revised map.  Should have been a walk if he had stepped away for a bit from his microphone as DCCC chair and paid attention to the new 17th. He lost by 1%.  Jacobs is an old machine booster, of which there are still too many in NYS.  Time for them to step aside.  This year’s result was positively shameful.  More retail politics by the Dem leadership here would be appreciated.

  87. 87.

    Eolirin

    @Kay: His job was to win races for the entire the House, and he seems to have done a really good job on that front, ffs. His performance and the issues faced in NY were universal across all our candidates. I don’t see any reason to single him out. And if the Govenor race hadn’t been so close, I think we win all the seats we narrowly lost. Also if we had had better maps.

    I don’t blame Hochul exclusively for the race being as close as it was. That was a collective failure of the party here. But the gov race dominated this cycle in NY. All of our statewide races had the same margins, with the women slightly underperforming the men. Even Schumer was down from his usual margin. In a normal year these races were all walks that you didn’t need to focus on. Our pols are not used to the state being competitive. Ever since Pataki has been out the Dems have won the gov race by at least 15 points, usually by 20+. Hochul won by 5.

  88. 88.

    tam1MI

    @Kay: Hochul won. So apparently she “addressed the issue” better than the Democrats who lost.

    It really looks like they are circling the wagons to protect Jacob’s and Maloney, the two men WHO’S JOB IT WAS to deliver wins for Democrats, and who failed to do that job. And then blaming the woman WHO DID HER JOB.

  91. 91.

    Eolirin

    @tam1MI: Hochul won by 5 in a state that the Democratic candidate for Govenor usually wins by 15-20+ and it pulled everyone’s margins down, including Schumer’s who was running against someone almost no one even knew the name of who didn’t really run a campaign. He usually wins by 20+, and only did 3 points better than Hochul, which is really a gender gap more than overperforming. The other male democratic statewide candidate won by as much.

    I don’t think that was entirely or even mostly her fault, but the gov race was what dominated this cycle and it is extremely atypical for the state.

    Because the margins were so small, better campaigning would have made a difference in some places, but in a more normal cycle, it wouldn’t have been necessary. Pat Ryan, Josh Riley and Conole actually ran campaigns and two of the three lost despite that, in large part because of the turnout for the gov race. Maloney may have been able to keep his seat, but we still lose too many here to keep the house.

  92. 92.

    sab

    @Kay: The immigrants in my family (first we have had since the nineteenth century) all immigrated into Ohio for education, and then promptly went elsewhere because of the racism.

  93. 93.

    FastEdD

    I’m in SoCal, so I don’t have much to add on NY, but as others have mentioned, we had (non-partisan) redistricting in our state. Even incumbents like Mike Levin and Katie Porter had to defend mostly new districts. That is why it was so close and so difficult. You may be an accomplished incumbent but now 75% of your voters are new and you need to introduce yourself all over again. In my district we had to fight to replace an odious R with Katie Porter and we succeeded, but she was sent elsewhere and now we have an odious R again. It is frustrating.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    andrew kaczynski
    @KFILE
    A look back on what the GOP state parties in Michigan and Arizona were focusing in 2022.

    Michigan Republicans: Cancel Culture!
    Arizona Republicans: Astronauts are nerdy and ….probably all gay!

  98. 98.

    topclimber

    @Jinchi: ​Uncle Eb can speak for himself, but there was a problem in Dem turnout in California that affected at least a few key races. Thankfully Katie Porter won by 3 percentage points, but the equivalent 2020 margin for Biden in her district was 11. No governor’s race to blame there, but maybe, like in NY, less intensity among women about Dobbs because their states will always (?) protect the right to choose?

    Another sign that California turnout sucked: it did not provide a surge in nationwide votes to offset the GQP total. Said total was in fact right in keeping with the margin of seats they won.

  99. 99.

    evodevo

    @sdhays:   And there’s still her kids and grandkids who are potential targets…Repubs have NO shame and MAGAts have no sane boundaries…

  100. 100.

    JAFD

    @Eolirin: There was interesting Twitter thread (??? – IIRC) comparing the votes of NJ counties in the Philadelphia v NYC media markets.  Seems to have been big spillover effect of coverage and ads.  Will post URL if I find it.

  101. 101.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    The two of them will never be viewed as similar, because they aren’t.

    Nancy is a hell of a leader. She can herd cats and idiots better than most/anyone I’ve ever seen. And as I have had to herd cats and idiots (not anywhere near the same job, other than the herding part!) I can tell you it is a job that requires a different attitude than just being at the head of a group. All that said, these two may both be able to herd well but they are quite different people and will herd differently. And that is as it should be. We need people to herd, because this is a democracy, not a kingdom. We don’t only elect leaders who have large plots of land with huge houses that are hundreds of years old, we elect nominally common people because we, at least nominally, look at people equally. Or at least we are supposed to. Centuries of not doing that is still superimposed upon our what ever and that affects every bit and part of our lives. And we all realize that none of us are equal in every way. We all have skills and some have honed them for decades and move through the work and living like silk and some crash into every single thing. We are different in large and small ways. If Jeffries takes over speaker he will likely do a great job but it will be a different style than Pelosi. It also hopefully will be as good a job, but it will never be done the same.

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