Moderating
Not this thread please.
Reading this made this crabby old white guy tear up:
What a world we live in where an enslaved American can have his relative become governor.
I can see some firings and then confirmations rammed through before the end of the year. I don’t see any of the older conservative justices making a sacrifice for the party.
And it makes me feel assured. Putting bills on Trumps desk that goes towards fixing things will only help for the future even if Trump vetos. Wasting the next couple of years on impeachments that are doomed to fail will lead to the pendulum swinging back very soon. This was a mandate to fix the problems that were brought up in the campaigns. Affordability, war, tariffs… Unfortunately I can help but think what is going to get press are multiple articles of impeachment when they don’t have enough votes to convict.
Although the race has not been officially called, Democrat Cindy Holscher is claiming victory in the Kansas gubernatorial race.
If true, it will be the first time that Kansas has elected Democrats back-to-back, as outgoing Democratic Governor Laura Kelly was term-limited after 8 years in office.
It also will mean that this year Kansas and Texas will become the first states in the union to elect four Democratic women governors. Arizona has had the most women governors with five, two Republicans and three Democrats. New Hampshire has also elected four women governors, two from each party.
Impeachment is, indeed, a waste of time. If he does another Jan 6 during his term, then we better do it.
Otherwise, just stymie him and send popular bills.
Using the AP’s current county-by-county numbers for Mississippi, I wanted to calculate an estimate of how many votes Colom could pick up from the four places mentioned in the post above once all precincts are counted (Pctg below is % of precincts counted as of this writing expressed as a decimal).
| County | Colom votes | CHS votes | Pctg | + for Colom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hinds | 61,793 | 17,702 | 0.9 | 4,899 |
| Rankin | 18,513 | 31,654 | 0.9 | -1,460 |
| Lee | 10,052 | 14,447 | 0.9 | -488 |
| Harrison | 27,470 | 29,638 | 0.93 | -163 |
| Total | 2,788 added for Colom |
Lee County = Tupelo, Harrison County = Biloxi
Government can do more than one thing at a time. There are actual committees charged with oversight and justice that can deal with holding people accountable, while everyone else does the important work of restoring our economy to working order.
This was a mandate to fix the problems that were brought up in the campaigns. Affordability, war, tariffs…
…corruption… Go look at the exit polls, the economy was first, the state of democracy second. People are pissed.
About 4 in 10 U.S. voters nationally say the economy is the most important issue facing the country, as most express concern about gas prices and the cost of groceries. About 3 in 10 say the state of democracy is the top issue. Only about 1 in 10 say the same about immigration or health care, and few name foreign policy or crime.
AP Voter Poll: The economy and the state of democracy are voters’ top issues | PBS News
(This is more of a personal reflection of the night and not analysis, just FYI. I did get mod approval to post this, however.
TLDR: My wife and I went to the official Dem watch party here in San Antonio, caught up with the ex-mayor of San Antonio, and generally had a damn good night here in the Heart of Texas. At the very bottom are my thoughts on the actual election.)
Last night was a magical night for a lot of people, including Inna and myself. Inna and I are married and, as the linked-thread discusses, when we met she was a Republican. Not die-hard, not MAGA, but just a, well, a normie who wasn’t Terminally Online and thought that Republicans were good for business and Democrats weren’t. (For those of you who don’t know, Inna was born and raised in the USSR, lived in Kyrgystan for 20 years post-Soviet days, and immigrated to America in 2008. Being able to vote is a right she loves having.)
That thread was nearly four years ago and we’re going as strong as ever.
Last night we went to the Bexar County Democrat Party official watch party, over off Broadway Ave, near the Pearl District (the centerpiece, the Hotel Ellen, is where rich people stay when they stay in San Antonio). It was absolutely packed, with 5 people being highlighted, the top draw being ex-mayor Ron Nirenberg, who was running (as a Dem) for Bexar (pronounced “bear”) County Judge.
(I don’t think it will spoil the story to let you know he won, 66-34 or thereabouts.)
We met two friends of ours, Rayleen and Jared, they got drinks (I got Diet Coke), and the place was absolutely packed, high energy, and thrilling.
Inna had never been to a political rally before, excepting pro-Ukranian rallies here in San Antonio. But those were protests, not campaigns. We tried to go see Trump a month or so ago, but got locked out with about 100 people ahead of us in line.
So we get to the party’s location, a large bar+restaurant with an even larger outdoor sitting area, a quality cover band is playing (regional favorites, they’re good enough to make a living from their work, apparently). Every so often, the band would break, being replaced by speeches from one or more young up and comers (county commissioners and the like). One of the guys gave a good speech, but it was much too long and at least one-third of it was *after* he said the phrase “… and lastly,… “, lol.
Inna, the, er, *former* Republican, nodded and cheered quite a bit at the various hits on billionaires, for women’s rights, for health insurance premium assistance of some, *any*, sort (a touchy subject with us, given her ACA rates went up 50%).
I have personally known Ron for about 15 years now – when he first ran for the city council, we invited him to our home for a National Night Out celebration, where he got to shake hands for a good hour. (More about him later, I guess there is going to be a bit of an analysis section later on.) So I took the three of them to Ron (he’s shaking hands, thrilled to be back in The Game), re-introduced myself and when I saw that he finally remembered me (I haven’t met Ron since pre-COVID, when I had a different wife), I then introduced himself to Inna and our friends. If there was any confusion on Ron’s part re: Inna, he hid it very well. A true pro/
A break comes, with the band playing again. Inna, Rayleen, and another woman from our table decide to go to the stage and dance. Not being a dancer, I decided this wasn’t the time to let *that* bother me, so after taking a short video of the three of them dancing, I joined my wife (the only guy who did so) and we, with the two other women, danced on the floor, the only people doing so, lol. Inna, a woman born and raised in the sexually-repressed USSR, danced *very* close to me, with a few hundred people surrounding, not a care in the world except the excitement and vibes.
A small bit of tea
My ex-wife was there and saw the whole thing. I found out this morning as her FB feed came across mine. And I thought I saw her!
We went back to the table, looked up Kornicki and CNN clips, and called it a night around 9pm because we’re in our fifties, life is good, and one of the great things about being a grown-assed adult is understanding that late bedtimes kinda suck.
Inna and I discussed our votes on the way home, I talked a bit about the 1994 election (which, to me, began to crystallize into national politics that which would become MAGA), and we wound down with a season one episode of *Succession*.
OK, some thoughts on the actual election. MOST OF THIS WILL FOCUS ON BEXAR COUNTY AND TEXAS
Bexar County has 10 State of Texas House districts within it. It was 7D-3R, now it’s 10D-0R.
Ron Nirenberg gave a speech last night which was nothing less than a declaration that politics is his mission, he wants to aim as high as he can, and it’s obvious to even the least-savvy person that this judgeship is but a stepping-stone to the next job. Texas House/Senate? US House/Senate? Governor? I think he may become a force in Texas politics, and lord knows he picked the right year to return.
HEB was selling red-white-blue flower arrangements, so I bought one for Inna.
Dems took the State House. How’d the f*** did that happen?
Lastly… 
It was a great night for Bexar Dems. But the party has to understand that they won not because they offered America a compelling vision, but that the other guys were so fundamentally awful. I mentioned 1994 above, in another post, but that was because Newt Gingrich gave the entire conservative movement that compelling vision, laid out in 10 policy positions that had enough parts so that some of it was broadly popular with the electorate, and in toto, all of it was enough to cement a 20-year focus and measurable goals for the Republican party that was broadly popular with the electorate.
The Dems need to do the same, and soon, and that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
The first thing I did this morning was turn on the news, to make sure that it just wasn’t a nice dream.
This happen to anyone else?
colom has pushed his lead to 65 votes.
should he win he would be the second black senator for miss. blanche bruce was senator from 1875-1881. sen. bruce was born in slavery and was a republican.
and yes, czarcasm, today was the first time in 2 years, i turned on cnn in the morning. just wow. it really did happen.
Government will not be seen to be doing more than one thing at a time. I’m sure other things were happening during the two Trump impeachments but you couldn’t tell. The only thing people will see is a circus and a victory for Trump.
Is the current Senate even in session? Do they plan to re-convene before January?
As for next year, I would expect Majority Leader Booker to invoke the McConnel Rule: lame duck presidents don’t get to make judicial appointments.
Reading this thread from the start after looking at the results this morning has been a joy.
In Arizona every single statewide office was won by a Democrat and both state houses have D majorities for the first time in 60 years. US House, Paul Gosar won reelection handily and two more have the Republican in the lead. Three were won by Democrats and the final three have a Democrat in the lead
Unfortunately, in an end around Governor Hobbs’ vetoes, the legislature put on the ballot eight propositions, legislative and constitutional amendments. Five of them passed. The worst one, 319,
requiring private schools, public schools, and athletic associations to designate every athletic team as male, female, or coed/mixed based on sex and to prevent males from joining female teams. It also prohibits schools and athletic associations from authorizing anyone to use private spaces, like restrooms, not designated for that individual’s sex, defining “sex” as an individual’s biological status as male or female as recorded at birth on an original birth certificate; and authorizing athletes to sue schools and athletic associations that knowingly violate this law.
I was out last evening with some buddies for a burger and a beer. Got home around 8pm CT but was too nervous to turn on the election returns, so I watched something (can’t remember what) until I turned off the TV and went to bed around 11.
Woke up at 3 pm and decided I had to find out what was happening, so I opened this thread, which of course put me at the last post I had read yesterday. As I read through the posts, I became more and more flabbergasted (and happy). And then finally I read whosever post it was that told me that Hamilton had won in Kansas. At that point I turned on MSNOW and CNN.
And I’ve been smiling ever since.
What happens if after all the recounts the Senate vite in Mississippi is tied? Do they flip a coin, draw lors, etc?
I woke up every couple of hours and looked to see if more good results came in.
CNN has it 240-139 for the Ds so far (31-0 flips). So 56 still undecided. I am surprised that it’s so many.
EDIT: bonus fact. Today is the best post-midterm day for the stock market in 44 years
Oil futures dropping 8% certainly helped.