2018 mid-term election

Trump Tweets

"When will Bill Nelson concede in Florida? The characters running Broward and Palm Beach voting will not be able to “find” enough votes, too much spotlight on them now!"
 
The Brower county official in charge of voting will probably not be around for long.
I have no quarrel with that. No evidence of fraud, but there seems to have been quite a bit of pure incompetence, so she should go. When it comes to basic competence, I don't give a damn about party labels. Note that over the post 48 Hours most of her defenders have gone silent.
 
ANy bets as to when we get a meltdown from Jerry Farwell Jr and the rest of the American Taliaban over Sinema, the first Bi sexual being elected to the US Senate?
You know it's coming.
 
dudalb said:
ANy bets as to when we get a meltdown from Jerry Farwell Jr and the rest of the American Taliaban over Sinema, the first Bi sexual being elected to the US Senate?
You know it's coming.
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Of course it's coming. They're as predictable as Trump tweeting something stupid.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
The way I see it, McCain saved their bacon. There was no consensus about what to do about healthcare beyond repeal. All those years of complaining, but no actual solution. Some wanted minor tweaks, some wanted the terrible system from before the ACA, and some had no ideas whatsoever. I doubt they could put anything meaningful into place after a repeal, and for all it's flaws, the ACA was a response to a real problem in this country.
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And even better, the legislative process they used was "Eh, let's just take a chainsaw to this major part of the economy, what could go wrong?" instead of, you know, actually looking into what possible effects the legislation they scribbled up would have. I've seen what happens when people just start wrecking things because they can, and it's usually ugly.
 
Regarding ranked voting, it looks like we'll see a legal challenge:

U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, has a filed a lawsuit in federal court that seeks to block state election officials from conducting the nation's first ranked-choice voting tabulation in a federal race.

The lawsuit asserts that Maine's ranked-choice voting law violates the U.S. Constitution in multiple ways. Among the claims: It does not award winners who obtain a plurality — or the most votes — but rather a majority by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

"What bothers is me is that we do not know if this vote-counting process is legal under the United States Constitution," Poliquin told reporters at the State House in Augusta. "My job is to make sure I uphold and defend the Constitution."
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Linky.

To be honest, I have reservations. They are only using it for the national legislative seats, which seems an odd place to start. I also don't like their ballot design. This (pdf warning) is their official instruction on it.
 
dudalb said:
ANy bets as to when we get a meltdown from Jerry Farwell Jr and the rest of the American Taliaban over Sinema, the first Bi sexual being elected to the US Senate?
You know it's coming.
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With a couple of Muslim women in the House and an openly gay black Governor, she might get a pass given that they're unlikely to understand what a bisexual is anyways, after all she was married to a man at one stage.
 
dudalb said:
The Brower county official in charge of voting will probably not be around for long.
I have no quarrel with that. No evidence of fraud, but there seems to have been quite a bit of pure incompetence, so she should go. When it comes to basic competence, I don't give a damn about party labels. Note that over the post 48 Hours most of her defenders have gone silent.
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She's in a tough position with a tough job and has tough restrictions imposed by rules that the Republicans made in the state. She was set up to fail, because Republicans really don't like accurate vote counts and don't like it when all voters get a voice.
 
thaiboxerken said:
She's in a tough position with a tough job and has tough restrictions imposed by rules that the Republicans made in the state. She was set up to fail, because Republicans really don't like accurate vote counts and don't like it when all voters get a voice.
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She's supposed to be doing her job. She isn't supposed to be wasting time making sure every legitimate vote gets counted.

Why, that could lead to mob rule!
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Regarding ranked voting, it looks like we'll see a legal challenge:

Linky.

To be honest, I have reservations. They are only using it for the national legislative seats, which seems an odd place to start. I also don't like their ballot design. This (pdf warning) is their official instruction on it.
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From a standpoint of the Constitution and precedence, I don't see how his suit has a leg to stand on. His argument is that the rank by choice ballot is a violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause. That seems a stretch as all the voters had a choice and no one was denied the choice. But given the nature of how partisan judges can be, nothing would surprise me.
 
Belz... said:
In case anyone had doubts, McConnell is one giant douche bag.

I'd really like to see the skeletons in this guy's closet.
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To anyone who hasn't read the article, it has references to an op-ed that McConnell wrote where he supposedly calls for "bipartisanship". (Of course, in that very same article he talks about "far left" democrats... so he couldn't even make it to the end of the article without exposing his own extreme partisanship.)

Out of curiosity I took a look at the comments attached to the op-ed piece. Being on Fox news I expected 99% of the comments to be "Boo democrats Yay republicans", but in the first dozen or so I scrolled through only one was anti-Democrat. Do left-wingers make it a point of trolling the fox news web site or are there actually a lot of people pissed off at him?
 
Segnosaur said:
To anyone who hasn't read the article, it has references to an op-ed that McConnell wrote where he supposedly calls for "bipartisanship". (Of course, in that very same article he talks about "far left" democrats... so he couldn't even make it to the end of the article without exposing his own extreme partisanship.)

Out of curiosity I took a look at the comments attached to the op-ed piece. Being on Fox news I expected 99% of the comments to be "Boo democrats Yay republicans", but in the first dozen or so I scrolled through only one was anti-Democrat. Do left-wingers make it a point of trolling the fox news web site or are there actually a lot of people pissed off at him?
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Trump's Twitter feed may act like they Eye of Sauron for the Trumpists. Without his scan they fall silent.
 
dudalb said:
ANy bets as to when we get a meltdown from Jerry Farwell Jr and the rest of the American Taliaban over Sinema, the first Bi sexual being elected to the US Senate?
You know it's coming.
Click to expand...
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's not the first bisexual person elected to the Senate.

ETA: ;)
 
I see the guy who posted that he was happy he would not have to see anymore of that jackass Sinema has not been around for his crow dinner.
 
dudalb said:
I see the guy who posted that he was happy he would not have to see anymore of that jackass Sinema has not been around for his crow dinner.
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Maybe the guy who crowed about Mia Love's "loss" will do the same? (It was Trump in his crazy rant about people who didn't "take the embrace" and subsequently lost.)

Love is within several hundred votes and the mail-in ballots seem to be falling in her favor. By the end of the week, she's likely facing a recount but will have the lead. Since one less Dem seat in the House won't hurt and since embarrassing that Loser, Trump is more important, I'd just as soon have an Anti-Trump Black Republican Congresswoman (from Utah, no less!) in Washington. He loses Hatch and can't really start naming parks and highway sections after the new guy, yet, so the net gain/loss is significant. As a doyen of the GOP, Hatch's support was significant. New guy? Not so much. But having another anti-Trump congress critter, is worth losing one blue seat.

Go Mia! Anchor Babies for Congress!
 
Dems picked up 2 more seats in the House today for a net gain of 32. It's now 227 Dems vs 200 GOP. Trump must be ready to blow his top. Damn, I wish I could see it happen in slow mo!

ETA: Eight seats remain open with Dems leading in 5.
 
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KDLarsen said:
There's a photo collage of the newly elected representatives from each party doing the rounds, and it really sums up the state of the parties these days:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/14/congress-diversity-democrats-republicans-photo

Republicans are all white males, with a single female exception, while Democrats are a healthy mix of men and women of various enthicity.
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Yeah, but the GOP has that pirate guy. That's gotta be good for five or six diversity points.
 
I never know whether people know this or not, so I'll just say it, and you can then judge me for being clueless at your leisure ;)

'that pirate guy' is a former Navy Seal who lost his eye to an IED on deployment in Afghanistan.
 
Worm said:
I never know whether people know this or not, so I'll just say it, and you can then judge me for being clueless at your leisure ;)

'that pirate guy' is a former Navy Seal who lost his eye to an IED on deployment in Afghanistan.
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Yes, an opponent or columnists stupidly made fun of him for the "look" and got his rhetorical ass handed to him. A bit of pearl-clutching but the commenter deserved it for being so tone deaf that he didn't take time to find out the back story or worse, found it out but didn't care.

So, yeah.... I was parodying said idiot. Hoped that was apparent.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Yes, an opponent or columnists stupidly made fun of him for the "look" and got his rhetorical ass handed to him. A bit of pearl-clutching but the commenter deserved it for being so tone deaf that he didn't take time to find out the back story or worse, found it out but didn't care.

So, yeah.... I was parodying said idiot. Hoped that was apparent.
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Minor SNL character Pete Davidson made a joke about Crenshaw on Weekend Update that didn't sit well with anyone. The next week, he apologized and then Crenshaw came on to mock Davidson.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Yes, an opponent or columnists stupidly made fun of him for the "look" and got his rhetorical ass handed to him. A bit of pearl-clutching but the commenter deserved it for being so tone deaf that he didn't take time to find out the back story or worse, found it out but didn't care.

So, yeah.... I was parodying said idiot. Hoped that was apparent.
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That was on Saturday Night Live. Got a lot of press. The comedian (Pete Davidson) later invited the one-eyed politician (Dan Crenshaw) onto the show so Davidson could apologize and Crenshaw could roast Davidson.
 
WilliamSeger said:
Minor SNL character Pete Davidson made a joke about Crenshaw on Weekend Update that didn't sit well with anyone. The next week, he apologized and then Crenshaw came on to mock Davidson.
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Great job all around SNL. :rolleyes:

Not only was the SNL blowup a huge boon to Crenshaw’s campaign and public image, but it also totally blotted out any memory of the fact that the former Navy SEAL is linked to far-right conspiracy group “Tea Party,” which popularized the Pizzagate conspiracy. On August 31, Newsweek reported that Crenshaw and four other GOP nominees were or had been administrators on a popular Facebook group that bolstered the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, pushed Pizzagate, and provided a comfortable home for racist chit-chat.

When Newsweek contacted Crenshaw about the group he was listed as an administrator and had posted two of his campaign movies to the group, Crenshaw told the publication he’d “never actively managed or interacted with that page.” He then removed himself from the group.
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Update on Maine:

Democrat Jared Golden defeated Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin in Maine's 2nd District House race -- flipping the seat after the state calculated its ranked-choice voting results.

It's the first time in the nation's history a federal race has been decided by ranked-choice voting.

...

The tabulation came hours after a judge denied Poliquin's request for a temporary restraining order. The Republican had called into question the constitutionality of the ranked-choice voting process, which Maine's voters approved in a 2016 referendum and used for the first time this year.

...

"It is now officially clear I won the constitutional 'one-person, one-vote' first choice election on Election Day that has been used in Maine for more than one hundred years. We will proceed with our constitutional concerns about the rank vote algorithm," Poliquin said in a statement.
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Linky.
 
WilliamSeger said:
""It is now officially clear I won the constitutional 'one-person, one-vote' first choice election on Election Day that has been used in Maine for more than one hundred years."

It's also now officially clear that the new system worked as intended.
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If he wanted to complain, he should have done so months ago (some time BEFORE the election.

After all, the rules were set in place years ago to have a ranked ballot, and that's how people voted when they cast their ballots. If voters knew their 2nd/3rd place votes in a ranked ballot weren't going to matter they may have voted differently.
 
Blue Wave continues

Today, the Democrats picked up another seat. In Orange County of all places. Katie Porter wins the 45th making it a gain of 34 seats. 6 other seats have yet to be decided. Democrats lead in 5 of them.
 
acbytesla said:
Today, the Democrats picked up another seat. In Orange County of all places. Katie Porter wins the 45th making it a gain of 34 seats. 6 other seats have yet to be decided. Democrats lead in 5 of them.
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About that:

picture.php
 
acbytesla said:
Today, the Democrats picked up another seat. In Orange County of all places. Katie Porter wins the 45th making it a gain of 34 seats. 6 other seats have yet to be decided. Democrats lead in 5 of them.
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Very likely the Dems wll come near to maxing out what was projected to be their ceiling.
 
It was inevitable. Urban/Rural has always been the big divide in America, not the other things we chatter on about. The "Suburbs" have always been the swing demographic.

There are no Red States and Blue States. America is a huge sea of sparsely populated Red with scattered islands of densely populated Blue. The country side still votes red in the most liberal state in the Union and the cities still vote Blue in the most conservative.

Suburbs are the last great expanse of people who haven't aligned with a tribe yet.
 
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