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You are here: Home / Open Threads / This Is Why We Fight for Every Seat

This Is Why We Fight for Every Seat

by | 130 Comments

This post is in: 

In case you missed my post last night, we got a couple of really important special election wins in Pennsylvania.  One in the PA House and one in the PA Senate.  James Malone (Senate) won in a squeaker and is the first Dem to represent that district since 19-fucking-78!

Dems now have a 102-101 majority in state house.  BlueGuitarist reported that this was a  Harris +16 district, and Ds won by 29 points.

The PA senate flip was Harris -15 in November, so that’s a similar gain to win by one.  Extraordinary!

There are lots of great links in the comments of that thread. 

Fighting and Winning

We have a Wall Street Journal gift link from eclare.  (Wall Street Journal)

It turns out that Rs are starting to worry about one of the special elections  in Florida next week.  (That has to be FL-06.)  SO SAD!

Bullet points for my favorite parts of the article.

  • The poor babies think that “the Democrats and media outlets” – because of course the media is on our side???? – will frame it as a setback for Republicans if the GOP candidate wins by 8 points rather than Waltz’s 30 points.
  • They believe that even if the odious Fine squeaks out a narrow victory, there could be a domino effect – and we would hail it as a repudiation of Trump policies and fundraise off it.  Hell must have frozen over because I agree with the Republicans on this!
  • They also worry that centrist Republicans could feel pressure to distance themselves from the administration headed into the midterms. That would also be SO SAD!

Below is a collection of snippets from the article.  (big thanks to eclare)

WASHINGTON—Republican political operatives have grown concerned about a special election in Florida, with the race for a solidly red House seat emerging as more competitive than expected, creating a potential headache for the GOP two months into President Trump’s second term.

While the party still largely expects candidate Randy Fine, a fiery Florida state lawmaker, to win former Rep. Mike Waltz’s 6th Congressional District seat, the party is rushing ahead of the April 1 election day to reach Republican voters and make sure they turn out. Waltz resigned the seat in the Daytona Beach area to become Trump’s national security adviser.

Trump allies worry a weak showing in the Florida contest would be read—fairly or unfairly—as a referendum on the president’s record headed into the midterm elections in 2026, when control of the Senate and House are on the line. This year’s special House elections, along with other 2025 races, such as a state supreme court race in Wisconsin and the Virginia governor race, are set to be seen as indicators of how the electorate is feeling.

“We have a candidate that I don’t think is winning,” said conservative commentator Steve Bannon on Monday on his show, “War Room,” about the Florida race. “That’s an issue.”

An internal Fine campaign poll found Democratic opponent Joshua Weil closing in, making the race uncomfortably tight, according to people familiar with the polling. A different, recently conducted GOP-led poll found Fine winning comfortably, but underperforming the generic ballot, according to a GOP campaign operative. Waltz won by more than 30 points in November 2024.

Several Republican operatives said they worried that Fine, while endorsed by Trump, didn’t make a strong early push to reach GOP base voters, who might not be paying attention to the House race. Special elections are notoriously low-turnout affairs, making them prone to upsets.

As of mid-March, Fine had raised less than $1 million and had less than $93,000 cash on hand, while Weil had taken in nearly $10 million and had $1.3 million cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Weil has spent much of that money on canvassing and further fundraising, and he aired ads attacking Fine as a radical and dangerous politician.

Fine put ads on TV only last week, a delay that some GOP operatives saw as too late. The spots tied Weil to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.). Fine, who worked in the gambling industry before entering politics, also cut a personal check for $600,000 to boost his campaign this month, according to people familiar with the matter.

During a closed-door House GOP meeting Tuesday, Rep. Ron Estes (R., Kan.), who won his own special election in the early months of Trump’s first term in 2017, sought to remind his colleagues how such contests are different from other races. He said Democrats and media outlets will frame it as a setback for Republicans if the GOP candidate wins by 8 points rather than Waltz’s 30 points, according to people familiar with the private remarks.

Trump took to Truth Social repeatedly in the past two weeks to encourage district residents to vote early for Fine. His son, Donald Trump Jr., recorded robocalls for Fine.

The House split is currently 218 to 213, with four vacancies: Waltz’s and one other are in heavily GOP Florida districts, while two are in solidly Democratic areas. If Republicans were to lose the Waltz seat, the ultimate split would be 219-216 if the other races stayed in their current column.

Most Democrats don’t see the seat as competitive, and big-name party figures have stayed away. Still, if Fine only manages a narrow victory, Republicans worry there could be a domino effect: Democrats would hail it as a repudiation of Trump policies and fundraise off it, while centrist Republicans could feel pressure to distance themselves from the administration headed into the midterms.

Fine’s is one of two special elections taking place on April 1 in Florida. There is also a race to fill the seat of former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz in the Florida Panhandle. Jimmy Patronis, the Trump-backed Republican candidate running for Gaetz’s seat, is expected to win.

The two vacant Democratic seats in Texas and Arizona will also have special elections. Also, there is expected to be another special election after Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) resigns to take on her post as Trump’s U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

This is why we fight for every single seat!  Even for the long shots.

Reader Interactions

130Comments

  1. 1.

    Steve LaBonne

    “Centrist” Republicans LOL. But there do exist vulnerable Republicans and getting them very worried is a valuable pressure point. Pastor Moses can’t afford to have any of them get cold feet about voting for the crap the Freedumb Caucus demands.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    James Malone (Senate) won in a squeaker and is the first Dem to represent that district since 19-fucking-78!

    I’m already disappointed in him. j/k

    and big-name party figures have stayed away.

    That may be helpful.

  3. 3.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Apparently, this doesn’t count as big-name party figures;

    Trump took to Truth Social repeatedly in the past two weeks to encourage district residents to vote early for Fine. His son, Donald Trump Jr., recorded robocalls for Fine.

    From the same article!  slam on FFOTUS?

  4. 4.

    Feckless

    No star attention to special elections?

    So Clooney gets to declare Biden unfit, and dows NOTHING to help the Democrats get elected.  Again

  5. 5.

    Chetan Murthy

    WG, I know others said it already but I had to chime in: that picture of Mont St. Michel yesterday was sublime.  I embiggened it and left it on my desktop for a few hours.  Thank you!

  6. 6.

    RaflW

    Jamelle Bouie wrote a piece today about how the right is all in on believing that opposition to Trump is manufactured, paid for by Soros, etc. These by-elections suggest that they’re whistling past the grave yard.

    I know there are those who believe that we won’t have functional elections in future and that’s why the Trumpers are so confident. I think it’s what Bouie says, and that the effort to defy political gravity is very risky: “as the Greek playwrights teach us, hubris has a way of angering the gods.”

  10. 10.

    RaflW

    Oh, and I didn’t realize that the idiot who added Goldberg to the ‘opsec’ disaster was a Florida man. Sublime.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    Musk about to find out the true meaning of national socialism.

    Tesla Is Allegedly Withholding Wages Of German Employees On Sick Leave

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    I am an old. I retired at 72 yrs old. I served in the USN during Vietnam. I am a citizen, born in this country. And this is the worst time of political bullshit I can recall in my over 3/4 of a century. And worst by a large margin. I’m not sure if conservatives have completely lost the plot but I suspect the answer is absofuckinglutely. I get my Social Security every month because I paid into it for decades. And this bullshit by the “leaders” of the rethuglican party, including the senile president (he is at least on the road to senility, and has easily left the starting blocks some time ago) is way, way out of fucking line. And I have zero idea what we should do, because this looks exceedingly like an overthrow of OUR government.

    Now I’m sure some citizens will think this is a grand idea.

    I’m not one of them.

  14. 14.

    Steve LaBonne

    @RaflW: I hate to say it but I remember a lot of Democrats being in a similar kind of denial in 2010. We know how that worked out. Let’s hope the fascists are going to get their turn.

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @eclare:  Yeah, it is stunning.  We have so many talented photographers on BJ.

    Nope, not Yosemite!

    A little sleuthing tells me its from this post:

    On The Road – Steve from Mendocino – French Basque Country #7

    You should be able to search for that in the search box if you want to go to the post.

  32. 32.

    Trollhattan

    What fresh hell?

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to require proof of citizenship to vote and to prohibit ballot counting after Election Day. If it stands, the order could vastly reshape how elections are run in California and around the United States. The order states that the nation “has not adequately enforced federal election requirements” and directs state election officials to share voter databases and prosecute voter fraud.

     

    It threatens to pull federal funding from states that do not comply. The order is expected to face legal challenges from voting rights groups. UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen warned that the order will disenfranchise millions of voters. Requiring people to show proof of citizenship “would prevent only a tiny amount of noncitizen voter registration but stop millions of eligible voters, who do not have easy access to documents such as passports from registering to vote,” Hasen wrote on his blog.

     

    Most voting in California is done by mail-in ballots, which can be counted if they arrive up to a week after Election Day as long as they were postmarked on-time. Trump and his allies have long targeted vote-by-mail and alleged — without evidence — that millions of noncitizens illegally voted in American elections.

     

    The president also falsely claimed last month that “California just stopped counting” votes. “This is setting the stage for him to continue pushing conspiracy theories around elections,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc. which publishes a dashboard tracking California’s ballot returns for statewide elections. “Everyone makes fun of the fact that he might run for a third term,” Mitchell said. “But if you were writing out the fan-fiction for that, it would start with him fighting states about the administration of elections.”

    Mail-in balloting has been the voting method of choice for the majority of California voters for over a decade. During the COVID-19 pandemic, vote-by-mail was expanded to every county and has remained popular: 80% of California ballots in the 2024 general election were cast using mail-in ballots.

     

    The order’s provision to outlaw post-Election Day ballot tabulation sets up a clash between Trump and California. County officials are given nearly a month to process ballots and millions of ballots in the state are counted in the days and weeks after an election. As long as a mail ballot is postmarked by Election Day, state law allows county elections officials to count those that arrive within the following seven days.

     

    The drawn-out vote counting timeline means tight congressional races in California are often some of the last to be decided, and it has drawn criticism from officials from within and outside California in recent election years. But Democrats in California defend the process as prioritizing voter access and accuracy over speed. “We take pride in the fact that we’re not rushed. We’re not slow, but we’re not in a race,” Secretary of State Shirley Weber said after the 2024 election.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article302805004.html#storylink=cpy

    Voting Rights Act. What’s that?

  33. 33.

    Emily B.

    @Redshift: I am hoping to go to the DC march on April 5, but haven’t found any info about whether any groups are organizing buses from my area (NJ/NYC) to the capital. Nothing yet from my local Indivisible group. Just wondering if anyone has heard anything about transportation to DC?

    If I don’t make it to DC, it’s not the end of the world—I’ll go to a local demonstration instead—but I think the Washington, DC march will probably have more impact.

  34. 34.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Emily B.: To me one of the lessons of 2017 is that it’s important to have big crowds all over the country, not just in DC. But kudos to the folks going to DC and I hope there will be a lot of them.

  35. 35.

    BellaPea

    @Ruckus: I’m with you, my friend. I’m almost 70, and my husband is 77 and also served in Vietnam. We’ve both agreed that this is absolutely the worst nightmare we’ve seen in our lifetimes. And he’s a former Republican who voted for Kamala last November.

  36. 36.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Trollhattan: He doesn’t have any of the claimed power and this is so black and white in the Constitution that I don’t believe Roberts and Amy Coathanger are going to hand it to him. An executive order is not a law, merely a memo to the Federal bureaucracy.

  37. 37.

    Ksmiami

    @RaflW: I’ve been thinking that we need to declare war on Musk et Al, Doge as against everything America stands for.

  38. 38.

    tobie

    Josh Marshall posted that the latest poll has the Republican in FL-06 ahead by only four: 48-44. I don’t place much stock in polls but I will say that most folks I’ve spoken to there have been receptive to considering the Democratic candidate. An astonishing number of residents of the district still don’t seem to know there’s a special election. If you have a spare hour, you can sign up to make calls: https://www.mobilize.us/joshweilforcongressionaldistrict6/

    The few extra dollars I have are going to ACLU and Democracy Docket because civil rights and voting rights are facing full frontal assaults.

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:   Another fan of that incredible violet background Mont St Michel photo.

    Request:  could you add the date link for the original OTR post to your caption? Would be lovely to be able to go back and see what else was in that post.  I wonder a lot what a photo is, and where it was originally posted.

    I am LOVING the daily photos and protest signs.

  42. 42.

    RaflW

    @Trollhattan: It seems like we need to have a National Discourse™ about Executive Orders.

    Election laws are state laws. Each state’s Secretary of State interprets state law on how to administer, tabulate, audit (or not), and report results.

    How the fk a presidential E.O. is supposed to override all of that is beyond me. But I’ve seen at least one outfit already say they are suing.

    More broadly, I just don’t understand how lawyers at BigLaw have fallen for the E.O.s that attack them? IANAL and all that, but if EOs “interpret” existing law, what the heck was Paul, Weiss doing not going to court to litigate the applicability and lawfulness of such a transparently bullshit Order?

  45. 45.

    RaflW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Bobby who?

    Amazing how he’s just vanished from, well, everywhere.

    Certainly the better result than what we’ve got with other wunderkind, Marco “Due Process, Whazzat?” Rubio.

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    @Redshift:  Thank you.   Signed up; easy to come up to DC.

    And:  they are offering De-escalation training (virtual event) on Wednesday, April 2, before the rallies.  One hour commitment, 8 pm Eastern.

    And for whoever asked, here is a list of their partners.  Lot of familiar and well respected groups.  Among them:  Center for Science in the Public Interest, Common Cause, League of Women Voters, SEIU (huge and active union), EMGage (Muslim group), People for the American Way, Consumer Federation of America, even Patriotic Millionaires — never heard of them.

    April 5 rally partners.

    ETA:  It was for Schrodinger’s Cat.  Am sure there will be plenty going on in New England, too.  Hope we get good weather!

  49. 49.

    Redshift

    @Emily B.:

    Just wondering if anyone has heard anything about transportation to DC?

    I’ll see if I can find anything. I’m traveling today, so I may not get to it for a day or two.

  50. 50.

    Belafon

    @Trollhattan: I see this and the stuff he’s doing to Maine as an attempt to squash federalism. It’s more about can they make the states go completely under his thumb as it is the individual action.

  51. 51.

    Steve LaBonne

    @RaflW: Congress does have power to set rules for Federal, though not state and local, elections. But there is no ambiguity at all about the president having no such power.

  53. 53.

    Emily B.

    @RaflW: Josh Marshall makes that point today as well. “An executive order is really just a memo from the president to his staff (in this sense, his staff of two million civil servants) to take certain actions….But presidents have little to no power over election administration.”

    Many journalists don’t seem to understand this, Marshall notes.

    Totally agree with you about Paul, Wuss. I was glad to see these bar associations standing up for the rule of law.

  54. 54.

    WeimarGerman

    Any chance that the FL election can pivot on Mike Walz WALTZ being the complete idiot on the natsec Yeman signal fiasco?

    Bang that drum that these FL GOP idiots are too dumb to elect?

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Emily B.:

    Many journalists don’t seem to understand this, Marshall notes.

     

    They don’t want to understand it. The scary headlines are gold.

  59. 59.

    RaflW

    re: April 5th, if I’m in Colorado — likely but not certain — I’ll try to go to the one in Fairplay, CO. I didn’t know about the last protest that was held there, some folks I’m online-adjacent to went and posted some pics. It looked fun and they lined both sides of Highway 9, which has a pretty good flow of traffic.

  60. 60.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Baud: That may finally work in our favor. A lot of veterans are super pissed about so many veterans being fired from Federal jobs and about the Muskrats fucking with the VA, and now Signalgate is not a good look either.

  61. 61.

    RaflW

    @Steve LaBonne: Would be a curious test case if Congress mandated that all election returns in Federal races be tabulated and reported by 11:59 local time on the day of balloting. I’m sure it’d be an unfunded demand, and how the frunk it’d get done is the sort of fight that racks up lots of lawyer billing as it would wend its way to Roberts Rules of Disorder (aka Scotus).

  62. 62.

    Marcopolo

    Just want to invite all jackals to the April 5 national day of protest nearest to them.  Definitely in all state capitals & probably all large cities.  I’ll be going to the one in downtown St Louis.

    While I don’t imagine they’ll be as large as the Woman’s March, I am sensing that kind of vibe right now.  And if I can wrangle enough of my friends to go I’m hoping to do some Dogebro cosplay firing theater in the crowd.  You know, one person gussied up as Dogebro bigballs walking around asking who here works for the federal gov’t and telling folks who say yes that they are fired.  Then the “fired” folks can say stuff like “but I take care of our nuclear weapons” or “I make sure planes can fly safely” or “I research cures for cancer and we are so so close” “or just “I deliver meals to shut in seniors.”  Anyway the idea is to have fun.

    And don’t forget your local Tesla takedown events.

    have a nice day all!

  64. 64.

    billcoop4

    Just signed up to do the Albany NY (11-1) and Saratoga Springs (4-530) Hands Off! gatherings.

     

    And, therefore, a chance to eat out, too :)

     

    BC

  65. 65.

    tobie

    This is off topic but…I’ve always found Tulsi Gabbard’s affect odd. Impassive is the best word I can find for it. It borders somehow on the mechanical. But in the past two days I’ve seen something else in her deflections and obfuscations: fear. She’s in over head; she doesn’t know how to weasel out. She can’t keep her lies straight.

  67. 67.

    Jackie

    @Steve LaBonne:

    A lot of veterans are super pissed about so many veterans being fired from Federal jobs and about the Muskrats fucking with the VA, and now Signalgate is not a good look either.

    The same veterans insulted by FFOTUS calling them losers and suckers? The same veterans insulted by FFOTUS using the sacred grounds of Arlington National Cemetery for a cheap photo op political ad?

    They still, as a majority voted for FFOTUS. And MAGA.

  68. 68.

    Lobo

    Call Reps:

    House:

    Urge Motions to Recommit:

    For example, imagine forcing every Republican to vote on:

    • Whether Elon Musk should have access to Americans’ private financial data
    • Whether cuts to Social Security violate promises made to seniors
    • Whether Congress should investigate Trump’s business conflicts of interest

    Senators;

    • Oppose all nominations
    • Put holds where you can
    • Filibuster everything
    • Quorum calls

    Make them work for it.

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle:  A lot of the images are from OTR, but not all of them by any means.

    I am happy to do some sleuthing when someone asks about an image that’s special, but its not all cut and dried, and it would add a ton of work for me to track down the origin of all of them.

  70. 70.

    WaterGirl

    @Redshift: I eventually found a place to type in my zip code, but it took some serious poking around to find it, and I’ll bet a ton of folks wouldn’t do that.

    *After I found it and typed in my zip code, I didn’t even know how I had found it. :-)

  73. 73.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Jackie: All we need is to peel off a fairly modest number. Just as with any Republican constituency. There aren’t going to be mass conversions, but we don’t need them to swing close elections.

  74. 74.

    They Call Me Noni

    @Jackie:

    I made Steve’s exact argument on another thread.  There is evidence that veterans are changing their tune now that the leopard is staring them directly in the face and licking his lips.

  76. 76.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl: Thanks.

    I get all my news from BJ, so for a couple of days I was confused as to why they had included Tim in their war chat.

  83. 83.

    Steve in the ATL

    @RaflW:

     

    what the heck was Paul, Weiss doing not going to court to litigate the applicability and lawfulness of such a transparently bullshit Order?

    Their reputation is shot. They will be reduced to hiring from second- and third-tier law schools, such as Yale.

  84. 84.

    Old School

    WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) -The best-known member of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent, according to digital records reviewed by Reuters.

    Edward Coristine is among the most visible members of the DOGE effort that has been given sweeping access to official networks as it attempts to radically downsize the U.S. government.

    Past reporting had focused on his youth – he is 19 – and his chosen nickname of “bigballs,” which became a pop culture punchline. Musk has championed the teen on his social media site X, telling his followers last month that “Big Balls is awesome.”

    Beginning around 2022, while still in high school, Coristine ran a company called DiamondCDN that provided network services, according to corporate and digital records reviewed by Reuters and interviews with half a dozen former associates. Among its users was a website run by a ring of cybercriminals operating under the name “EGodly,” according to digital records preserved by the internet intelligence firm DomainTools and the online cybersecurity tool Any.Run.

  85. 85.

    Soprano2

    @Ruckus: I agree. I’m “only” 64, but I’ve never seen it worse in my lifetime either. I told someone yesterday that I feel like Cassandra whenever I talk about how bad things could get, because people don’t believe me. Most of them have no idea about most of what FFOTUS and Musk are doing to the government or how it’ll affect them – yet.

  86. 86.

    Soprano2

    @Steve LaBonne: Josh Marshall wrote a piece today complaining about how so much of the press treat FFOTUS’s EO’s as if they’re settled law, that they’re saying “now I guess everyone will have to show ID before they vote”. He says it’s bad that they don’t seem to know any better than saying that if FFOTUS writes it on a piece of paper and signs it that it’s the law, when they all should know better.

  89. 89.

    Redshift

    @WaterGirl: Mobilize doesn’t seem to have a direct link to a location search. If you go to https://www.mobilize.us/handsoff it will show you events near you (or whatever it thinks your location is.) If you want a different location, you have to click “filters” and fill in your location and set the organization to Hands Off if it’s not already set.

  91. 91.

    Redshift

    @Soprano2:

    Most of them have no idea about most of what FFOTUS and Musk are doing to the government or how it’ll affect them – yet.

    And that is obviously the plan – they know what they’re doing will be really unpopular, so they’re trying to do it as fast as possible so things are irreparably destroyed before most people directly feel the effects.

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @Redshift: I’m just trying to say that’s too complicated for the average person who thinks they MIGHT go to an event.  It’s a hurdle, and it shouldn’t have to be.

    I know this isn’t under your control, but I do think it’s sad that it’s an obstacle.

  94. 94.

    Kelly

    @Trollhattan: The Oregon Sec of State won’t roll over for Frump’s voting EO. Voter registration is done be County Clerks under Sec of State oversight. Gonna be interesting what Oregon’s “Greater Idaho” county clerks try to get away with.

  99. 99.

    ArchTeryx

    @Steve LaBonne: He’s not treating them as laws. He’s treating them as royal proclamations. If SCOTUS decides that’s what executive orders are, now, we’re pretty much hosed – that’s the WHOLE ball game. He’s now a dictator.

  100. 100.

    sentient ai from the future

    @ArchTeryx: for the voting EO, they only need enough plausibility to challenge ballots and delay counting, so that congress has an avenue to step in.

  101. 101.

    JML

    A great win in PA. We absolutely need to compete everywhere, even the longshot races are worth supporting (so long as the candidate isn’t a gadfly crank embarrassment) at least enough so that they can run a professional campaign. the trick is to be able to get some investment in there without making the local campaign dependent on the national. As someone who worked on campaigns professionally for the better part of a decade, the last thing you need is a cookie-cutter approach.

    I’ve worked on longshots before and had some come home. Most will go down, especially challenger campaigns, but they can also set things up for the future. Maybe it allows a good candidate a second chance at the race, now that they actually understand how to do it (so many first-time candidates don’t really start to figure it out until it’s already over), maybe it raises the PVI so the next candidate gets a more serious look. Maybe it puts enough of a scare into the incumbent that they start being less awful.

    You can’t always know when a wave is coming, but if you’ve got candidates already in place and working hard it’s a lot easier to take advantage of it!

  104. 104.

    cain

    @Kelly: I think those districts are going to be having issues when BLM and others turn to shit and ranchers and farmers start get fidgety.

  105. 105.

    cain

    @ArchTeryx: SCOTUS can’t decide on state election laws or any other. It’s directly in the constitution. We aren’t a direct democracy, we are a republic.

  106. 106.

    Captain C

    @cain: You know, though, there will be 2 dissents in such a case, with one of them using pre-Magna Carta Anglo-Saxon law and the Code of Hammurabi as cites.

  107. 107.

    Kelly

    @cain: Yep, who is gonna mark and sell all the extra timber Frump’s other EO instructs BLM and USFS to sell? Maintain the logging roads?

    Aside: I’ve had a bit of a mental glitch since BLM also came to mean Black Lives Matter.

  110. 110.

    Trollhattan

    @Kelly:

    Fun fact: federal timber sales include the road-building, done by the federal government. It’s included!

  111. 111.

    RevRick

    @Baud: Actually, the 36th Senatorial District has migrated south to its present position from where it was in 1978 due to redistricting. In point of fact, I believe this current location has never been represented by a Democrat, as hasn’t the Congressional District that’s been centered on Lancaster County.

  112. 112.

    Kelly

    @Trollhattan: Yep, but federal engineers plan and supervise the work. Not much new road construction these days but gravel roads in the mountains need a lot of maintenance, also planned and supervised by  federal engineers. If I recall correctly federal roads that cross private land are a freebee for private landowners, probably they even get paid for the right of way.

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: I remember that you play folk music and I was wondering if you are familiar with Turkish folk musician Ibrahim Kalin. He sings, and plays a long-necked lute called a bağlama.

    Kalin’s performance of the song “Sen Beininsin Ben Seninib” is a very calming YouTube hit. It’s worth watching both for the music and the video of Turkiye and its people.

    Like you, Ibrahim Kalin uses music to balance an important day job. You are a hard-charging local journalist, while Kalin is head of Turkiye’s intelligence agency M.I.T.

  114. 114.

    RevRick

    @WeimarGerman: I wouldn’t personalize the issue in that matter. Instead, I would attack the whole GOP as careless, reckless and irresponsible when it comes to national security and make Fine defend the use of the app Signal and the nincompoops who were on the text conversation. If he doesn’t demand their resignation, raise the question of whether he should be trusted with our nation’s security and the wellbeing of our armed forces.

  115. 115.

    Jay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    According to the Lithuanians, the 4 are classed as “missing”, and there is a continuing air and ground search for them. No bodies have been found. No deaths confirmed.

  116. 116.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @WaterGirl: Thanks for the photo, and now, its  location. It wasn’t in any of my guesses, but so beautiful!

    Mont San Michel, with that purple sky, also, tres, tres belle!

    French Basque Country #7

  117. 117.

    Jay

    @Old School:

    Musk Watch reports that in order to skirt the Judge’s order, kicking DOGE from rooting around everybody’s SS files,

    The Trump administration has installed a DOGE operative as the new Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Social Security Administration (SSA) in an apparent effort to evade a federal court order blocking DOGE affiliates from accessing databases containing the sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.

    Popular Information obtained an internal memorandum from Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek announcing Scott Coulter, a DOGE operative previously assigned to NASA and the SSA, as the SSA’s new CIO.

  118. 118.

    Geminid

    @Jay: More recent reports* are that the soldiers and their tank recovery vehicle were located in a swamp. It sounds like the vehicle sank and they drowned.

    * The OSINTDefender account was one of sources reporting this.

  119. 119.

    Jay

    As of 4 hours ago, no update on the Lithuanian Armed Forces site.

    Other than Secretary General Mark Rutte yesterday saying they were dead,

    and Military.com saying

    An Army official familiar with the situation said initial reports suggest the soldiers’ vehicle may have become submerged in a swamp. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, cautioned that search teams are still exploring all possibilities, and the Army has not yet provided a definitive account of the incident.

  120. 120.

    jefft452

    “the party is rushing ahead of the April 1 election day to reach Republican voters and make sure they turn out.”

    Thereby telling all concerned that their candidate has loser stink all over him

    I dont think that gets the turnout that they want

  122. 122.

    Gloria DryGarden

    OT, but of military interest, fyi:

    Pollyanna has just seen a large cargo jet, grey military coloring, flying low, heading north, in NW Georgia, near Rome/ Summerville. 5 minutes ago.

    IN 2.5 years there, he has not seen this before.
    What’s going on?

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    @jefft452: People, especially normies, really like to vote for the winner.  It’s a point of pride to them that the one they voted for won.

    I was calling people in TN for an election a couple of decades ago.  I can’t tell you how many people said “I really like your Democratic candidate, but I think Kerry is going to win so I think I’m gonna have to vote for him.

  125. 125.

    Geminid

    @Gloria DryGarden: Thanks. I really like that video.

    The singer and bağlama* player is an interesting man. After studies in Turkiye and Malaysia, Ibrahim Kalin earned a PhD in Islamic Studies at George Washington University where he studied under a noted Iranian-American scholar. He taught for three years at The College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and then returned to Turkiye to serve in Erdogan’s government.

    When Kalin succeeded Hakan Fidan as head of Turkiye’s intelligence agency M.I.T. in 2023,  he took over Turkiye’s efforts supporting the Idlib-based rebels who toppled Bashir Assad last December. He was the first foreign official to visit Damascus after Assad’s fall.

    Besides his work at M.I.T. and his musical endeavors, Kalin’s gives well-attended lectures where he discusses the role of Islam in the 21st century world.

    * It took me a while to get the hang of typing Turkish letters. I switch my keyboard to “Deutsch” and hold the letter down, then drag my fingertip to the correct letter that shows up on a blue field.

  126. 126.

    Geminid

    @Gloria DryGarden: That cargo plane might have been coming from Fort Bragg near Columbus Georgia. That’s a hundred miles or so to Rome’s south.

    I hope Pollyanna made it through the winter Ok. It was a cold one even down there.

  127. 127.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Geminid: it was cold. Sometimes when I called him, he said it was too cold to talk, he was curled up in his sleeping bag often, for several of the colder weeks.
    he says this is accurate enough.

  128. 128.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Geminid: oh, i could add Deutsch! Cool. I already have it set for English, French spanish. I took German in school, just didn’t get good at it, forgot it all when I went to South America and immersed in spanish.
    interesting info on mr Kalin. Thx

  129. 129.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Geminid: wher do you suppose that cargo plane was going, north of Summerville? Someplace in Tennessee? It was flying low..

    close to its landing? Keeping under the radar, Pollyanna suggests..

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