We're Lucky to Live in Maryland
For some reason, this throwaway story from the Washington Post has been bugging me for a couple of days.
A guy ran for Attorney General of Maryland and lost by 300,000 votes. The people did not select him to manage the state's legal processes. It wasn't close. The voters of the state wanted Anthony Brown to be Attorney General, and that's who they chose.
But this guy doesn't accept that. The day after the election he sent an email to his supporters that said "many odd and suspicious incidents were reported by poll watchers, and more reports are being gathered today." Uh huh, pretty wild times here in shoot 'em up, Wild West Maryland, where outlaws roam the land.
On the other hand, this just in: The Maryland State Board of Elections said it "works with the local boards of elections to determine whether referral of reported activities to the Office of the State Prosecutor is warranted. At this time, SBE is not aware of any such incidents. Marylanders can be confident in the integrity of the state’s election processes and that any potentially inappropriate activity will be thoroughly investigated."
So if there have been any "odd and suspicious incidents," nobody bothered to tell the election board about them.
What do you think? Do you believe there really were "odd and suspicious incidents," or is this just what Republicans say now? Oh, by the way, the candidate, Michael Peroutka, is a Republican, did I mention that?
Peroutka’s extreme positions on a number of issues would have made it difficult for him to win in a state where Democrats hold a 2-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans. He opposed abortion without exceptions, was against same-sex marriage, said that public schools were part of a socialist plan to indoctrinate children against their parents, and would not disavow his association with the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has categorized as a hate group.Peroutka also once shared debunked conspiracy theories about who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. When Peroutka’s false claims surfaced again earlier this year, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) blasted him, saying, “These disgusting lies don’t belong in our party.”
Peroutka says he will not concede Maryland attorney general race
Yeah, well our outgoing Republican governor Hogan is living in a dreamworld. These disgusting lies are his party. There is nothing else left.
I think what got me is that this guy wants to be Attorney General, of all things. He wants the responsibility to make decisions about prosecuting people for breaking the law. His office would be the contact point between the government and the people, the fulcrum where the force of law is applied to individuals, and yet he does not seem to believe that the laws apply to him, or, we presume (since trashing democracy is a current rightwing fad), those who share his sense of privilege. We have laws about election procedures, with layers of people appointed to implement the procedures and to monitor them, double-check everything, report any irregularities, investigate odd and strange stuff, and nobody reported anything. This guy is pulling whiny victimhood out of ... thin air.
Imagine living in a state where the majority of people actually accept Peroutka's views as normal American life. Your neighbors are walking around thinking that everything is being controlled by secret conspiracies behind the scenes and people like themselves never get a fair deal -- when they vote, dark forces (maybe even BLM and ANTIFA, or at least somebody paid by George Soros) manipulate the ballots and switch their vote to a radical leftist candidate. You can't trust the government, and if you follow the law you're just a big sucker. And so you elect an Attorney General who will enforce the law based on those premises, that everything is rigged against white people and everybody is cheating all the time. Do you think the citizens of such a state can get a fair trial, when government lawyers believe it's okay to lie in court and distort evidence, because they just know that the other side is doing it? Is it possible to enforce the law fairly when you start from these assumptions? There are a lot of states that would have elected this nut to administer the law.
We are lucky to live in Maryland.
64 Comments:
Haters gonna hate, liars gonna lie.......
The GOP faces a small but real prospect that it may not reclaim the House majority despite high pre-election hopes based on the disapproval of President Biden, record inflation and traditional losses for the party that holds the White House. Late Friday, Democrats moved one Senate seat closer to retaining their majority in the chamber as Sen. Mark Kelly won reelection in Arizona. Winning either in Nevada — which was still counting votes — or in Georgia, where a runoff is set for Dec. 6, would allow them to stay in power.
House Democrats also were closely watching uncalled races in those states, as well races as Maine, Oregon, Washington and California, to determine whether they have a pathway to keep the majority. Even if they don’t, as many Democratic aides expect, there is a recognition from both parties that Democratic votes will be critical in a narrow House GOP majority.
“It’s an unworkable majority. Nothing meaningful will get passed,” a dejected aide to a senior House Republican said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss internal tensions.
Outgoing Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) told The Washington Post he knew the evening of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that the GOP would have a difficult time proving to voters they should be in the majority in two years.
“By midnight on January 6, it was obvious that if we continued to sleepwalk down the path of crazy we’d face a rude awakening,” he said. “Instead of facing those facts, the GOP spent the last two years heading in the same direction and actively avoiding any internal reckoning. After Tuesday, we have no choice but to heed voters when they say that ‘the grass is green, the sky is blue, and by the way, you just got your ass handed to you.’ But waking up to that reality is going to be rough.”
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Michael Peroutka is a loser and the Maryland Board of Elections as well as Maryland court system will gladly explain that to him.
Democrats keep Senate majority with win in Nevada
Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez declared winner in Washington's 3rd Congressional District
The seat was previously held by a Republican who lost in the primary after voting impeach former President Trump
The Associated Press has called the House race in Washington state's 3rd Congressional District for Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
Perez currently leads Republican Joe Kent 50.8% to 49.2%, a margin of 4,621 votes, with 70% of votes counted.
The victory for Perez is a Democrat pickup of a seat that has been held by Republicans since 2011.
The seat had been held by Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler who lost in her primary race after being one of the 10 Republicans to vote to impeach former President Donald Trump over his role in the Capitol Hill riot in January 2021.
Gluesenkamp Perez — who co-owns an auto shop with her husband just across the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon — said that as a small business owner who lives in a rural part of the district, she is more in line with voters.
Kent, a former Green Beret who was endorsed by Trump, has called for the impeachment of President Joe Biden and an investigation into the 2020 election.
"What the media says is irrelevant, its another narrative designed to stop voters from ballot curing & to force me to concede - not gonna happen," Kent tweeted around the time of the AP's call.
The results of about two dozen congressional races across the country are still outstanding, and all Republicans need to successfully flip the chamber are seven of them.
So far, after Tuesday’s midterm elections results, Republicans have secured 211 seats of the chamber's 435 members — just shy of a 218-member majority.
Rooftop solar trumps all fossil fuels as renewables smash more records on main grid
The share of renewable energy in Australia”s main grid soared to a new record of 68.7 per cent on Friday, easily beating the previous record of 64.1 per cent set on September 18.
The Australian Energy Market Operator says the new “instantaneous” renewable generation record was set 12:30pm, and was a 4.6% increase from the previous milestone set just a month earlier.
It also appears to be a new record for variable renewable energy – wind and solar – with an instantaneous share of 64 per cent, according to the table below.
On top of that, rooftop solar was producing more than all fossil fueled generation combined, showing the power of household and business consumers. And it is also remarkable that this occurred during a weekday, as such records usually occur on weekends when there is lower demand.
The AEMO data is based on 30-minute trading period, but on a 5-minute period (within that same 30-minute period), a new peak was set at 69.61 per cent at 12.15pm (AEEDT) on Friday, according to data cruncher GPE NemLog2.That was well up from the 65 per cent share set earlier this month.
That pushed the share of coal down to a record low of 29 per cent, also well below the previous minimum of 34 per cent set in September.
At the same time, the output of wind and solar reached a peak of 18,100MW, also well ahead of the previous peak of 16,331MW set o October 15.
The new benchmarks continues a record-breaking spring for renewables in the main grid, reflecting the continuing growth of large scale wind and solar developments, and the popularity of rooftop solar.
At the time of the new benchmark on Friday coal provided just 30 per cent of generation on the main grid, and gas just 1 per cent. Five years ago, the maximum instantaneous penetration of renewables stood at 30 per cent, but it is expected to reach 100 per cent within the next three years.
Australia is heading into summer soon and solar output is expected to increase.
The 2022 midterm election made history with the most wins for openly LGBTQ candidates. At least 340 candidates have won their races, beating the prior record of 336 in 2020. This year also saw 678 out LGBTQ candidates – the most ever – on the general election ballot.
Since the organization Victory Fund began in 1991, it has supported LGBTQ candidates running for office – from helping train people how to campaign and what to do after winning, to offering a network of fellow LGBTQ elected representatives to learn from.
This election, the fund endorsed more than 500 candidates, Victory's Vice President of Political Programs Sean Meloy told NPR. The most it had endorsed previously was around 300.
"Normally, when someone gets in [office], they don't pull the ladder up after," he said about the LGBTQ community. "They're going to say, 'Hey, who's next? Who's going to take over for me? Who else can I get to join me?' I don't think it's a coincidence that we have more LGBTQ candidates running than ever at the same time we have the most LGBTQ people in office," a number which he said is a little over 1,000.
This year saw many candidates running who are underrepresented within the already underrepresented LGBTQ community. "People of color, trans people and non binary people," he said. "And in places where we need those voices, and the mere fact that an LGBTQ person steps forward to run – and then hopefully win – helps change hearts and minds."
There were notable firsts in these elections
There were a number of notable firsts in the winners of the midterms. The country elected its first openly lesbian governors, with Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Tina Kotek in Oregon. In Connecticut, Erick Russell has become the first Black LGBTQ person elected to statewide office in U.S. history. New Hampshire's James Roesener is now the first trans man ever elected to any U.S. state legislature.
Zooey Zephyr, who ran for the Montana House of Representatives, will be the first openly trans person in the state's legislature. She won with almost 80% of the votes, according to Ballotpedia.org.
"I always hesitate to call an election historic, because the attacks on human rights, education, healthcare, public lands, unions, etc. feel perpetual," Zephyr told NPR. "Every election requires our attention because there is always something important worth fighting for, and if we fail to fight to our fullest, there are always groups waiting to strip our rights away."
"I do think given the way in which attacks on lgbtq people have ramped up over the last year has served as a reminder that lgbtq people need to be in the room where the laws are being written," she continued. "300+ anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation introduced last year, over half of which targeted trans people specifically."
Zephyr said that not to be cliché, "but representation matters." Meloy also described the importance of members of the queer community being in the room where decisions are made.
"Until folks in Montana and so many other places see LGBTQ people in office, they're gonna keep beating us up, and they're gonna keep [...] attacking us legislatively," he said. "We're just going to be an amorphous enemy, as opposed to a smiling face that's sitting next to them."
Meloy said their candidates have stepped up because there's never been an LGBTQ person to directly look in the eye of someone who, for example, might be passing a piece of legislation that cuts support for homeless people, who are disproportionately LGBTQ youth.
Alaska voted in its first three LGBTQ politicians to the state legislature: Ashley Carrick for House District 35, Jennie Armstrong for House District 16, and Andrew Gray for District 20.
Ashley Carrick, a bisexual woman, told NPR that she didn't run because she's LGBT, but she is LGBT, and that type of representation is long overdue in Alaska.
"That's a perspective I carry with me as I look towards a future for our state where we promote the long-term best interests of Alaska and its people," she said.
"I'm proud that Alaska went from being one of three states that had never elected an out LGBTQ+ state representative to now having three of us elected at once," Armstrong told NPR. "I feel incredibly encouraged that my fellow Alaskans backed so many candidates that will fight to protect reproductive health care, push back against attacks on LGBTQ+ youth, and support building an inclusive economy where everyone has the opportunity to thrive."
She also expressed her gratitude for the late state Sen. Johnny Ellis, and honored the sacrifice he made by remaining closeted for decades in the state legislature — a reminder of how acceptance in America has changed.
They're well qualified to represent their constituents
Members of the LGBTQ community are uniquely qualified to represent their constituents, Meloy said.
"We intersect with every single other community," he said. "We have millennials, we have scientists, we have union members, we have teachers and we've got folks from every age bracket and every demographic."
He described that LGBTQ people bring a new and unique angle to help make our government look like the people it's meant to represent, and their belief in the fundamental right to privacy carries through all they pursue.
"They have to know when to, you know, when it's safe for them to be themselves in so many places," he said. "I think that that brings an understanding of their community, and I also think it brings a level of empathy for other folks who have been forgotten or actively attacked by the government."
The road ahead
To reach equitable representation, the U.S. needs to elect more than 35,000 additional out LGBTQ people to office, according to Victory Fund.
Meloy said that Millennials and especially Gen Z are identifying as LGBTQ at levels never seen before. He thinks that fact may mean some of the gap will naturally be filled as younger generations run for office.
When LGBTQ people win elections, more members of the community follow them, Meloy added. He hopes that the election of New Hampshire's James Roesener, who just became the first trans man ever elected to a state legislature, will inspire other trans men to run for office. He cited the uptick in trans women candidates after Virginia State Delegate Danica Roem won her race in 2017.
"I think it shows that it's possible, right? And so many underrepresented people in government – women, young people, people of color, LGBTQ people, disabled people – they're always told, 'Oh, you can't do it [...] because it hasn't been done,'" he said. "So breaking that barrier makes that argument – 'No.' Which is a huge starting point."
Any state whose best choice for Attorney General is the sad Obama sycophant could hardly be considered lucky...
The 2022 midterms saw notable conservative gains at one key level of local government: school boards.
Long a relatively staid and unremarkable quarter of the political world, school boards have increasingly become a nexus of debate and strife, particularly as public educational practices have become more and more publicized throughout the country.
A growing number of individual parents and parental groups have begun turning up to school board meetings intent on criticizing board members for controversial curriculums and demanding an end to extreme classroom content such as sexually explicit materials and racially inflammatory lessons.
Board members and educators have often pushed back, asserting their prerogative as educators to determine what children will learn in the classroom. At times, politicians at higher levels of government have stepped into the fray. This week, Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell openly derided the idea of parental oversight of education, claiming that giving parents more control over school material is the equivalent of putting "patients in charge of their own surgeries" and "clients in charge of their own trials."
Yet the parental backlash has continued, with a sophisticated political network organizing to effect policy change beyond letter-writing and protests. On Tuesday, activists hailed several wins on that front as conservative parents and advocates notched multiple wins at school boards around the country.
Moms for Liberty, a group which seeks to "unite parents who are ready to fight those that stand in the way of liberty," reported on its Facebook page throughout the week the "flipping" of multiple school boards, with candidates endorsed by the group at times securing up to four seats on individual school boards.
"Our chapters have been working hard this year vetting the school board candidates in their communities," the group said prior to the election. This year they endorsed over 500 school board candidates, with 270 across 15 states on the Nov. 8th ballot.
Among the states in which the group counted wins were South Carolina, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Florida.
The 1776 Project PAC, which bills itself as "dedicated to electing school board members committed to abolishing [critical race theory] from the public-school curriculum," also pointed to multiple wins on election night for its endorsed candidates.
The group posted on its Twitter account early on Wednesday: "All of our candidates in Brandywine, Michigan have won their elections. We just flipped the Brandywine school board from liberal to conservative."
The group also claimed wins in MARYLAND and Florida.
The victories could signal a seismic shift in local education policy in the United States. Long the province of left-leaning activists and policymakers, local and regional education governance has for years largely been ignored by Republicans and conservatives in favor of higher levels of politics.
Data have demonstrated for years that teaching is overwhelmingly done by Democrats. Analysis several years ago from Verdant Labs showed that based on campaign contributions reported to the FEC, 85% of elementary school teachers were Democrats.
Critics have alleged that the lopsided presence of progressive educators in American school systems has slanted the curriculum in favor of radical concepts such as critical race theory, gender ideology, and other left-wing academic theories, including the highly controversial "1619 Project," which seeks to recenter American history largely on the subjects of slavery and racism.
The latest wave of conservative activists, meanwhile, are vowing to continue fighting against what they view as the pernicious influence of those ideas.
I've seen some circular firing squads in my time observing politics, but never anything like what is going on in the Republican Party right now. Usually it's the Democrats ripping each other apart over an election loss, running around in circles casting blame, rushing to avoid responsibility and otherwise making everything worse. But they look like rank amateurs compared to the GOP, which is in the throes of the angriest political tantrum I've ever seen. I must confess to a full-blown case of schadenfreude over it.
The unexpected run of Democratic victories — they've already held the Senate, will come within a whisker of holding the House and have won a bunch of state-level races too — has shaken the foundations of both MAGA World and what used to be known as the Republican "establishment," although the difference between the two is not readily discernible these days. It's only in times of Trump scandal or electoral catastrophe that we can still glimpse some daylight between them. There's generally a round of hand-wringing and public disavowal from some of their important thought leaders and elected officials until they get word from the base that Donald Trump is still their daddy and they fall back into line.
I'm sure you remember the last time this happened, after the Jan. 6 insurrection when Trump incited his rabid followers to storm the Capitol, with the apparent goal of literally hanging the vice president. Why, for a few days many Republicans were very upset! Even a loyal Trump lackey like South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham said, "Count me out, enough is enough," and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy declared that "the president bears responsibility" for what happened. There were resignations from the Cabinet and angry denunciations by dozens of Republicans who had happily gone along with Trump's Big Lie up to that point.
Then they got yelled at in airports by their MAGA constituents and suddenly a violent assault on their own workplace didn't seem like such a big deal after all.
'Traitor!' Senator Lindsey Graham heckled by Trump supporters at airport - Reuters news
McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago to mend fences and kiss the ring. (No word on whether he brought some of those red Starburst candies Trump loves so much.) Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell resigned himself to Trump once again — even though he had just lost the Senate majority, thanks to those Georgia runoffs a day before Jan. 6 — and everything fell back into place. Trump was the undisputed head of the Republican Party, having cemented his leadership by attempting to stage a coup and getting away with it.
The assumption going into these midterm election was that the party holding the White House would get routed, for all the reasons everyone has already discussed ad nauseam. But it didn't turn out that way. As I and many others have pointed out along the way, Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving — to Democrats.
If Trump had kept his mouth shut and stayed out of the Republican primaries, as Senate Republicans wanted him to, it's entirely likely they would have done better. But then again, their own cowardice and opportunism are as much to blame as he is. They had the chance to make sure that Trump would never run again by convicting him in the second impeachment trial and they whiffed. They're still stuck with him, and the results are as bad as they have been in every major election since 2016.
Recriminations are coming in fast and furious from the right-wing media establishment, starting with the Murdoch empire. The Fox News celebrities haven't all abandoned Trump quite yet — they're no doubt waiting for the smoke to clear before they decide their next moves. But there's a shiny new candidate on the scene who also says he was called by God to lead the nation.
Many in the GOP have turned their lonely eyes to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, hoping he can save the day. That of course has finally uncorked Trump's resentment against the man he sees as his creation, which has reportedly been boiling up for years now. Trump even claimed in a post on his Truth Social platform that he had ordered the FBI and Department of Justice to intervene in DeSantis' very close 2018 election to ensure his win. (Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly, has said that's not true.)
Trump is righteously angry that he's being blamed for all the nutcases he encouraged and endorsed going down to defeat, but even more upset that DeSantis is being held up, in contrast, as the party's only big 2022 success. Let's just say that the gauntlet has been thrown down and the battle between Trump and DeSantis is on. It's not going to be pretty. Trump is already going dirty, apparently spreading rumors about DeSantis' personal life.
Whether or not this will actually spell the end of Trump's stranglehold on the Republican Party remains to be seen. But it's highly unlikely that this loss will result in Trump losing control of the 40% or so of the party faithful who worship him, and that makes him as formidable as ever. All they have to do is start chasing leading Republicans through airports again and he's back in business.
Meanwhile, back in Washington all hell is breaking loose in the Republican caucuses in both houses. Trump is blaming Mitch McConnell for losing the Senate, but somehow Kevin McCarthy (who is said to be on the horn with Trump several times a day) escapes his wrath for failing to produce the eagerly-awaited red wave in the House. Nobody knows whether McCarthy will have the votes for speaker, assuming Republicans finally manage to eke out a majority — probably by just a couple of seats — and the newly empowered Marjorie Taylor Greene Caucus is already flexing its muscles, planning to create chaos at every turn. Even if McCarthy finally gets the gavel, odds are good that he lasts less than half the time of his last GOP predecessor, Paul Ryan.
McConnell is also under fire from some senators who want to use him as the scapegoat — largely to avoid having to blame Trump. A bunch of prominent right-wing senators, including Josh Hawley of Missouri, Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Senate campaign chair Rick Scott of Florida and the aforementioned Lindsey Graham, have weighed in to say that the vote for Minority Leader should wait until after the Dec. 6 runoff election in Georgia between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. It's hard to know which of these ambitious vultures are trying to whip votes for themselves (although Scott almost certainly is) and why they think the Georgia race should be decisive, since Democrats have already won the majority. But it's backstabbing season, and McConnell has a target right between his shoulder blades. On the other hand, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas just came out in support of McConnell, a few days after Cotton announced that he won't run for president in 2024. The games run deep.
As you can see, the Republican Party is in serious disarray. As if that weren't enough, Donald Trump himself says he will make a "major announcement" on Tuesday night to pour more gasoline on the fire. Word is that he will make a "very professional, very buttoned-up" speech, rather than his usual unhinged rally rant, which I have to admit is a savvy move. Trump understands that being unpredictable gets him attention and I can just see all the TV pundits declaring that he is a changed man, more sober and serious after the election debacle.
Who will be the first to declare, "Donald Trump re-established himself as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination tonight"? And who will be the first Republican official to rush to the microphone to endorse him?...
With the midterm elections over, Democrats have found enough Republicans ready to join them in advancing basic LGBTQ rights.
The Senate is expected to vote this week on legislation to codify same-sex marriage and, more importantly, the bill has enough GOP support to pass, HuffPost has learned.
“We have the votes,” a source close to negotiations confirmed Monday.
A bipartisan group of senators has been trying for months to pass a marriage equality bill to protect same-sex and interracial relationships. The House passed its own legislation in July, but that proposal stalled in the Senate, where some Republicans raised concerns that it would stifle religious liberty.
Things got more complicated when, around the same time, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced a surprise deal on a massive tax and climate change bill. Republicans were so mad that Democrats were ready to pass that deal without them that some signaled they would pull their support for a forthcoming same-sex marriage bill.
But with the midterm elections over and Democrats in position to hold the Senate for another two years, it looks like some Republicans are coming back to the table.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the lead Democrat on the forthcoming bill, tweeted Monday that the Senate is “going to get this done.”...
mar·riage | ˈmerij |
noun
1 the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship
2 a combination or mixture of two or more elements:
" why would we call that a marriage?"
Marriage is the "union of two people...in a personal relationship.".
Not all marriages produce children.
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/infertility/index.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/infertility/publichealth.htm
If infertile couples want to raise children, they can adopt.
https://www.adoptuskids.org
https://adoptionnetwork.com
Democrat Katie Hobbs defeats election denier Kari Lake for Arizona governor, AP projects
Democrat Katie Hobbs has narrowly defeated Republican Kari Lake to become the next governor of Arizona, the Associated Press projected, ensuring that one of America’s most prominent 2020 election deniers will not oversee the 2024 vote in the pivotal swing state.
With nearly 98% of precincts reporting, the AP called the race for Hobbs, who led by more than 20,000 votes Monday evening after Arizona officials spent nearly a week tallying every last batch of ballots to determine the winner. Hobbs’s margin of victory over Lake — a former Phoenix news anchor and a particular favorite of former President Donald Trump — was roughly 1 percentage point.
"Democracy is worth the wait," Hobbs tweeted. "Thank you, Arizona. I am so honored and so proud to be your next Governor."
True to form, Lake tweeted her own skepticism of the election results.
Kari Lake
@KariLake
Governor candidate, AZ
Arizonans know BS when they see it.
10:25 PM · Nov 14, 2022
[Hence they voted for Hobbs]
As Arizona secretary of state, Hobbs made national headlines for holding the line against relentless right-wing efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss there.
But in the closing days of the campaign, Lake became the subject of intense national media interest after she overtook Hobbs in the polls. Some Democratic strategists even started to speculate about Lake as a future White House contender.
“If you get a candidate who has the performance skills of a major-market local TV anchor and the philosophy and thinking of Steve Bannon, that’s a potent and dangerous combination,” David Axelrod, a top political aide to President Barack Obama, told Axios last month. “Look at Italy."
Yet Lake is now the seventh Trump-aligned candidate to lose a hotly contested gubernatorial race this year, following similar defeats in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Maine, New York and Kansas.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage
This is Merriam-Webster's definition of marriage
At the lower half of the page, they acknowledge that the definition has been broadened recently to accommodate the gay agenda
Then, they make this statement:
"The definition of the word marriage—or, more accurately, the understanding of what the institution of marriage properly consists of—continues to be highly controversial. This is not an issue to be resolved by dictionaries."
While there are scattered instances of same gender marriage throughout pagan cultures, until recently, the vast majority of people throughout the world and time have considered marriage to be a union of gender diversity. Btw, the usage by vast majority of people throughout the world and time is, by definition, the definition.
btw, when couples are infertile, that is a dysfunctional state. We as society have a goal to help those couples but they are in a marriage, which when healthy functioning is restored will be capable of reproduction. Not so for homosexuals. It's an insult to compare infertile couples to homosexuals, who chose to be in a relationship that can't result in new life.
Herschel Walker, GOP candidate for Senate in Georgia said, "If we was ready for the green agenda, I'd raise my hand right now. But we're not ready right now ... What we need to do is keep having those gas-guzzling cars, 'cause we got the good emissions under those cars."
At the beginning of last week, the general assumption in the Beltway chattering class was that the midterm elections would be a "red wave," leading to Republicans taking over state governments, the Senate and a healthy majority in the House of more than 20 seats. Instead, Tuesday turned out to be an anti-MAGA election. Yes, Republicans will (in all probability) end up with an extremely slim majority in the House, but only thanks to extensive gerrymandering. (Without the Republican pickups enabled by redistricting in Florida and New York, Democrats would have won easily.)
The verdict was clear enough: Voters don't like Republican extremism. Every time they're reminded that the GOP is controlled by a bunch of conspiracy theory-addled jackasses who worship Donald Trump, voters show up and pull the lever for Democrats, even when they don't feel all that great about the Democrats either.
Despite this, here's a safe prediction for what that barely-there House GOP majority, under the so-called leadership of wannabe Speaker Kevin McCarthy, will be doing in 2023: All MAGA nonsense, all the time. The cornerstone of their agenda, if that's even the word, will be to impeach President Joe Biden on made-up charges based on conspiracy theories cooked up in the MAGA swamplands — maybe with a side dose of debt-ceiling antics aimed at demanding steep cuts to the two most popular government programs, Social Security and Medicare. Because if their plan for power, after an election in which they nearly screwed the pooch, is to use that power to remind ordinary Americans of all the reasons they hate Republicans, why not go all the way?
As Heather Digby Parton explained last month at Salon, "a number of GOP officials and political advisers" believe impeachment is "inevitable." Not because Biden has done anything to merit it, mind you. Even the most rabid MAGA morons struggle to sound like they believe their own conspiracy theories about Biden. It's just that McCarthy is a weak leader and cannot contain the fire-breathers in his party like Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. (Who has already tried to introduce articles of impeachment against Biden any number of times.)
One would think that, after a midterm election in which GOP candidates lost dozens of offices they otherwise would have won, the momentum for impeachment Biden would slow down. Most voters hate Republican extremism and they especially hate Trump's childish tantrums, the largest single factor fueling the pressure to impeach Biden. In reality, however, the small margin Republicans will likely have in the House dramatically weakens McCarthy's already fragile control over his caucus. As Areeba Shah reports for Salon, "a slim majority hands significant power to extreme right-wing members." To get anything done, McCarthy will have to beg those folks for votes. They'll be able to extract big concessions from him — such as impeaching Biden over literally nothing.
Still, as he prepares to give into the nastiest people in an already ugly caucus, McCarthy should consider the fate of the man who held his position in the 1990s: Newt Gingrich. After riding a legitimate wave election to big Republican wins in 1994, Gingrich went down the same path that McCarthy is stumbling toward now, and the result was the end of his career as a congressman.
Nowadays, Gingrich is the face of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998, which was based on trumped-up perjury charges over his affair with White House aide Monica Lewinsky. But as historian Nicole Hemmer told Salon, "Gingrich understood that impeachment was a political loser."
As she details in her book "Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s," Gingrich faced a nearly identical problem to the one McCarthy faces now: A Republican House majority that wanted to impeach Clinton, no matter what, and didn't really care if he was actually guilty of anything. Indeed, as Hemmer documents, impeachment pressure started pretty much the minute Republicans swept the 1994 midterms, gaining a whopping 54 seats in the House.
Gingrich, however, was reluctant, especially specially after he forced a government shutdown in 1995, hoping the public would blame Clinton. Instead, as Hemmer notes, Gingrich "lost badly to Clinton during the government shutdown," and then Clinton easily won the 1996 election. The whole gambit backfired, and yet when Gingrich "faced an insurgency in his ranks from his far-right flank," Hemmer explained, he gave in. Impeachment it was.
That would lead to the end of Gingrich's career. Much like this year's elections, the 1998 midterms were supposed to bring big wins for Republicans. Instead, Democrats gained seats, largely because voters were disgusted by the spectacle of hypocritical Republicans impeaching Clinton over a personal failing and turned on the GOP. Gingrich was famously one of the biggest hypocrites, given his long history of adultery, which included an affair with a woman 23 years his junior — during the impeachment.
As Parton notes, Republicans tell themselves it will be different this time, because they think they have a delicious spin to justify impeaching Biden: It's payback for Trump's two impeachments. She quotes Sen. Ted Cruz arguing that "Democrats weaponized impeachment" and "what's good for the goose is good for the gander."
This argument will play well with rabid right-wingers, who love to tell themselves stories about how they and Trump are innocent victims of the "deep state" that is out to get conservative Americans for vague-but-sinister reasons. But Cruz clearly thinks the rest of America is stone-cold stupid, if he actually believes that argument will fly with anyone outside the true-believer Trump base.
Because here's the thing about both of Trump's impeachments: He was guilty. He was caught on tape trying to run an extortion scheme against the president of Ukraine. He incited a riot live on TV, in full view of the entire nation. These are the kinds of crimes that would land most people in prison, and he only got away with them because of his office and his political clout. Republicans barely pretended to have any other reason beyond perceived political expedience for their decision to acquit him in the Senate both times.
Whatever thin excuse Republicans may cook up to impeach Biden, it's unlikely to make much sense to people who don't live in the Fox News Cinematic Universe. Whatever Cruz thinks of the public's intelligence, most people know the difference between trying a guilty man and persecuting an innocent one. Going after Biden for made-up nonsense will likely play out like the impeachment of Clinton did, and perhaps even worse: It will serve as a stark reminder that the Republicans are controlled by the worst people in the country. (And in many cases are the worst people)
But even though we've seen this script play out before, Republicans leaders seem determined to act it out all over again. "Each Republican leader started by trying to co-opt the radicals," Hemmer explained. "Each ended by capitulating to them." They're trapped by the MAGA base for the same reason they're trapped by Trump. As bad as these people are for the party's image, they're also the source of most of their votes and a huge amount of their funding. Republicans can't win with the MAGA nuts, and can't win without them. So even though Kevin McCarthy knows full well that it's a losing proposition to impeach Biden, expect to allow the right-wing zealots to push him right off that cliff.
"Btw, the usage by vast majority of people throughout the world and time is, by definition, the definition."
Decades ago the definition of "computer" was:
"a person who makes calculations, especially with a calculating machine."
Now it is usually considered to be:
"an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program."
Is is an insult to human computers to call machines "computers" because machines are infertile and will never reproduce by themselves.
"Is is an insult to human computers to call machines "computers" because machines are infertile and will never reproduce by themselves."
no, but it is an insult to compare infertile couples to homosexuals, who chose to be in a relationship that can't result in new life
A baby born somewhere on Tuesday will be the world's eight billionth person, according to a projection by the United Nations.
"The milestone is an occasion to celebrate diversity and advancements while considering humanity's shared responsibility for the planet," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
The UN attributes the growth to human development, with people living longer thanks to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine.
It is also the result of higher fertility rates, particularly in the world's poorest countries -- most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa -- putting their development goals at risk.
How many is too many?
Population growth has also magnified the environmental impacts of economic development.
But while some worry that eight billion humans is too many for planet Earth, most experts say the bigger problem is the overconsumption of resources by the wealthiest people.
Joel Cohen of Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Populations told AFP the question of how many people Earth can support has two sides: natural limits and human choices.
Our choices result in humans consuming far more biological resources, such as forests and land, than the planet can regenerate each year.
The overconsumption of fossil fuels, for example, leads to more carbon dioxide emissions, responsible for global warming.
"We are stupid. We lacked foresight. We are greedy. We don't use the information we have. That's where the choices and the problems lie," said Cohen.
However, he rejects the idea that humans are a curse on the planet, saying people should be given better choices.
The UN projects the population to continue growing to about 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and peaking around 10.4 billion in the 2080s.
Other groups have, however, calculated different figures.
The US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimated in a 2020 study that the global population would max out by 2064, without ever reaching 10 billion, and decline to 8.8 billion by 2100.
From around six million in 10,000 BC, the global population leapt to 100 million in 2,000 BC and then to 250 million in the first century AD, according to the French Institute for Demographic Studies.
As a result of the Black Death, the human population dropped between 1300 and 1400, from 429 to 374 million.
Other events, like the Plague of Justinian, which hit the Mediterranean over two centuries from 541-767, and the wars of the early Middle Ages in western Europe, also caused temporary dips in the number of humans on Earth.
From the 19th century on, the population began to explode, due largely to the development of modern medicine and the industrialization of agriculture, which boosted global food supplies.
Since 1800, the world's population has jumped eight-fold, from an estimated one billion to eight billion.
The development of vaccines was key, with the smallpox jab particularly helping zap one of history's biggest killers.
It's not fair to compare gay married couples to straight married couples because you'll never find gay married couples using the services of an abortion center.
"It's not fair to compare gay married couples to straight married couples"
also because there's no such as a "gay married couple"
marriage requires the representation of all genders
"gay married couple" is a fictitious concept created by the lunatic fringe gay advocacy movement
the purpose was political
"marriage requires the representation of all genders"
No problem.
There are gay men marriages and lesbian marriages. Neither one of them kill off their offspring before they're born like some straight couples.
Straight marriages only help "promote life" because they breed kids faster than they kill kids.
It a real shame that many of them can't afford to fully feed the ones they let live. You'd think they'd plan out things like that better, given how big a responsibility it is.
"No problem"
actually, there is one
people are calling homosexual relationships "marriage"
"There are gay men marriages and lesbian marriages."
neither one has gender diversity
"Neither one of them kill off their offspring before they're born like some straight couples."
brilliant observation
if you don't participate in the formation of life, you can't kill the life you helped form
here's another one: if you never have an opinion, you can never be wrong
"Straight marriages only help "promote life" because they breed kids faster than they kill kids."
they a=don't just promote life, they form it
"It a real shame that many of them can't afford to fully feed the ones they let live."
maybe you should chip in, since you're so concerned
in any case, hungry life is preferable to death
en Z certainly brought their A-game to the US midterms last week. Predictions of a “red wave” were thwarted, thanks largely to young people turning up in huge numbers to vote for Democrats. Young women in particular: 72% of women aged 18-29 voted for Democrat candidates according to exit polls. Not hard to figure out why, is it? Do we vote for the forced-birthers or do we vote for the people who might give us a few rights over our own bodies? Hmmm. Still, that question seems to have stumped other demographics: Democrats lost voters aged 45 and older by at least seven points, including a 12-point loss among people over 65.
The fact that young people don’t like them very much hasn’t bypassed the Republican party. Instead of rethinking their policies, however, some of them have decided to rethink the voting age. Over the last few days, a lot of Republicans have been proclaiming that the US ought to increase the legal voting age to 21. (One conservative radio personality even suggested it be raised to 28.) The same people who reckon a 10-year-old girl is mature enough to be forced to carry a baby, reckon a 20-year-old isn’t mature enough to vote.
It’s not just rightwing Americans who want to stop young people from voting, by the way. In the UK, voter ID laws passed earlier this year have some very ageist stipulations: older people will be able to show their travel passes as ID to vote but young people’s railcards and student ID cards won’t be accepted. Labour protested the new rules but didn’t seem to put up much of a fight to stop them going through.
From the UK to the US, the right clearly sees young people as a threat. Liberals, meanwhile, often seem to take them for granted. Gen Z helped deliver a great result for Democrats in the midterms, now it’s time for Democrats to deliver for them.
"The fact that young people don’t like them very much hasn’t bypassed the Republican party"
really? any evidence to back that up?
if so, let's see it
We'll wait....
"Instead of rethinking their policies, however, some of them have decided to rethink the voting age"
define "some"
a half percent?
lower?
say, you're not lying again, are you?
here's a funny fact:
Dems have been saying for the last six years that democracy is broken because Hillary won the "popular vote", and lost the election
now, the number of voters who voted for GOP congressional candidates decisively exceeds the number of voters who voted for Democrap congressional candidates even though the GOP will only take the house barely, if at all
yet, you don't hear any dumbocrap complaints
hypocrisy...it's such a waste of a life...
For many years, the manner in which our country elects its leaders has been a very favorable setup for Republicans. Not only did they win the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections despite getting fewer votes, but they also held the House in 1996 and 2012 despite getting fewer votes. Republicans have regularly won more House seats than their popular vote share would suggest — in large part thanks to their superior control of redistricting.
The 2022 election, though, looks like it will buck that trend.
Republicans appear primed to win the narrowest of House majorities — around 220-215 or 219-216 — despite possibly winning a majority of the votes nationwide and edging Democrats by around three or four percentage points.
If they do ultimately win by around three or four points, it would mean Republicans improved on their margin from the 2020 election by around six or seven points, but they were only able to add about 2 percent of seats, as the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman notes.
This has understandably led to some griping and head-scratching among Republicans who wonder how they’re struggling to win the House despite that swing. But it’s worth putting in context.
The first thing to note is that we have incomplete results. The Cook Political Report’s national popular vote tracker currently shows Republicans winning 51.5 percent of House votes to the Democrats’ 47 percent — a gap of 4.5 points. It’s safe to assume Republicans will win the popular vote by a few points, but that margin will continue to narrow as we get more results from blue-leaning states out west, especially California.
The second point is that the popular vote can be deceiving. That’s especially the case in the battle for the Senate, but it’s also true of the House.
The reason: Some districts don’t feature two major-party candidates, and as a result, those races skew the overall numbers. That’s because having no major-party opponent generally means candidates run up a much bigger margin than they otherwise would.
In the 2022 election, there were many more uncontested House districts held by Republicans (14) than by Democrats (3). And there were another 10 districts in which the GOP had no major-party opponents, compared with just three for Democrats.
Thanks to California’s top-two primary system, there are also another six districts in which Democrats have the votes all to themselves, because the two finalists are both Democrats.
So effectively, there are more than 20 districts in which the GOP could run up the score, compared with a dozen for Democrats. They would be able to run up the score less in races with third-party candidates also on the ballot, but it still skews the numbers in the GOP’s favor, to some degree. (A note: Two uncontested districts held by the GOP are in states that don’t tally votes in uncontested races, which somewhat diminishes the GOP’s advantage on this metric.)
Excluding those districts from the popular vote altogether would also be misleading, given they heavily favor the party that’s actually running a candidate and would be good for the GOP. But it’s safe to assume the GOP wouldn’t be leading by quite as much if every district featured a Democrat versus a Republican.
Yet even accounting for that, the 2022 election is unusual. That’s because it appears as though it will be only the second election since 1994 in which Democrats will win a higher percentage of seats than of the two-party popular vote.
If Democrats lose the popular vote by about three points and win 215 seats, they will have won 48.5 percent of the two-party vote and 49.4 percent of the seats — a gap of about one percentage point in their favor. Here’s how that would compare historically:
How the House popular vote compares to seats won, since 1994
The percentage of the two-party popular vote won by Democrats, and the percentage of seats they won. "Gap" compares the two, with a positive number indicating Democrats won more seats than their vote share would suggest, and a negative number indicating they won fewer.
Year. . . . .Votes. . . .Seats. . . . Gap
1994 46.5% 46.9% 0.4%
1996 50.0% 47.6% −2.4%
1998 49.4% 48.5% −0.9%
2000 49.7% 48.7% −1.0%
2002 47.5% 47.1% −0.4%
2004 48.6% 46.2% −2.4%
2006 54.1% 53.6% −0.5%
2008 55.5% 59.1% 3.6%
2010 46.5% 44.4% −2.1%
2012 50.6% 46.2% −4.4%
2014 47.1% 43.2% −3.9%
2016 49.4% 44.6% −4.8%
2018 54.4% 54.0% −0.4%
2020 51.6% 51.0% −0.6%
When the gap is negative, dems won more votes than seats. When it's positive, they won more seats than votes - which only happed twice since 1994.
this is very fascinating but the truth is: Republicans aren't complaining about the fact that their representation in Congress doesn't match the proportion of people who voted for them
Dems did, even though it's now clear they knew all along how that happens: Hillary ran up the total in a large state where people who would have voted against her had no reason to vote
The Republican party’s “red wave” materialised in the US midterm elections in deep blue New York.
Republicans managed to flip four Democratic Congressional seats in New York state, an accomplishment that should allow them to take control of the House of Representatives.
In a particularly ignominious defeat for the Democrats, Sean Patrick Maloney, the five-term Congressman who chaired his party’s election committee, lost his own seat in a district north of New York City to Republican state assemblyman Mike Lawler.
The Democratic debacle has prompted disbelief among party faithful that New York state, a heartland where they outnumber registered Republicans two to one, was the place where they ended up being so vulnerable.
How sad...Biden's agenda has passed away after just two years. Remember when he came in, Dems were saying he was the second coming of FDR. LOL! Without control of the House, Dems will enact no legislation (except nationalized gay "marriage"). The Hunter and the Big Man story will be fully investigated. RIP, Biden agenda...
It will go down as one of the bitter ironies of the 2022 midterm campaign: One of the few states that actually faced a “red wave” of Republican victories was deep-blue New York.
Democrats could have prevailed had their state party — which was busy deflecting progressive criticism of their conduct — marshaled better infrastructure and financial support for swing-district candidates.
To sour matters further, Democratic losses in the Empire State appear to be pivotal in the narrow majority in the House of Representatives that Republicans are likely to have starting next year. The icing on this rotten cake is that New York Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
On a night of many disappointments, the party’s most egregious own goal was the one scored for Republicans by no one less than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman himself, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. Maloney, whose DCCC role is to elect as many Democrats to the House as possible, not only presided over the loss of four previously Democratic New York districts, but failed to win his own race.
The Senate advanced a bill on Wednesday to codify protections for same-sex marriage, attracting enough Republican votes to overcome the filibuster. Take a moment to consider the breathtaking shift in American attitudes that this represents.
In 2008, President Barack Obama was not willing to embrace same-sex marriage. Now, even the Mormon Church has endorsed the bill. A critical mass of Republicans understand that same-sex marriage is here to stay. Whatever their personal views, they grasp that opposition to it signifies a level of bigotry even many GOP voters are unwilling to tolerate.
The simple political reality is this: Outside deep-red enclaves, Republicans cannot maintain their anti-same-sex marriage stance without marginalizing themselves. It’s part of a slow recognition that their adoption of Christian nationalist positions alienates a substantial portion of voters.
There might be some risk for Republicans embracing same-sex marriage. Right-wing gadflies such as Ben Shapiro have already called to excommunicate Republicans who support same-sex marriage. It’s possible that Wednesday’s vote sets up incumbent Republicans to face primary challengers from Christian nationalists.
And therein lies the problem for the GOP. Republicans face a number of quandaries these days that force them to choose between loyalty to the MAGA cult and general-election viability. Do they reject former president Donald Trump in the primaries and risk him dragging down the party if he runs as an independent in 2024? Do they recruit more non-election deniers for House, Senate and state offices, understanding that those who question the legitimacy of elections are proven losers?
But no question looms larger than how they intend to win office while maintaining the support of Christian nationalists whose views are antithetical to a supermajority of Americans — and this goes beyond same-sex marriage. We saw what support for rigid abortion bans did to Republicans in the midterms. Michigan went entirely blue largely because independent women went overwhelmingly for Democrats to protect abortion rights. But if pro-forced-birth Republicans try to course-correct, dropping proposals for a national ban, they risk offending a large constituency.
As Robert P. Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute, explains in a Substack post, the midterms served as a reminder that “an overwhelming majority of Americans do not favor extreme policies like bans on abortion. Even in a red state like Kentucky, voters rejected an anti-abortion amendment.” He points out that polling has regularly revealed that “nearly seven in ten Americans and six in ten midterm voters say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That is the mainstream view on abortion.”
But it’s far from the mainstream view among elected Republicans. Indeed, Jones writes, “the percentage saying abortion should be illegal in ALL cases has dropped from 23% in 2020 to 11% in late 2022.”
Put differently, Republican officials find themselves held hostage by their most extreme primary voters. Virtually all GOP presidential primary candidates will feel compelled to adopt a strict antiabortion stance to have any hope of winning primaries. Meanwhile, if Republicans win the House majority, it might be impossible for them to resist the urge to put a nationwide abortion ban on the House floor. The next time Republicans are up for election (potentially with more abortion-related measures on the ballot), they might feel the wrath of voters again.
To some extent, rigid opposition to gun reform lands Republicans in a similar place. As voters (even Republicans) warm to reasonable limits on weapons of war, Republicans are caught between the demands of Second Amendment extremists and the desire to avoid being labeled as out of touch with the fears many parents have for their children’s safety.
Republicans are finding out there is a penalty to be paid for cultural extremism, but they have yet to show they are capable of preserving general-election viability. Over the next two years, as MAGA forces double down in the GOP House caucus and Trump fights with primary opponents for the support of the GOP base, Democrats will be delighted to watch Republicans marginalize themselves. During that time, Democrats will look for opportunities to put measures related to abortion and other cultural issues on the ballot in 2024. If that approach worked to drive Democrats to the polls in 2022, there is no reason to think it won’t work again in 2024.
This is what happens when a national political party becomes almost entirely dependent on a group whose views are far out of the American mainstream. One of the great revelations of the 2022 midterms was that Democrats can run on cultural issues and win outside of deep-blue districts and states. They’d be foolish not to try to re-create that success.
"The Senate advanced a bill on Wednesday to codify protections for same-sex marriage, attracting enough Republican votes to overcome the filibuster. Take a moment to consider the breathtaking shift in American attitudes that this represents."
while I don't agree with you guys on the issue, I have to admit, the shift in what's acceptable is amazing
sounds like the tide was turned by protecting the rights of religious organizations
"This is what happens when a national political party becomes almost entirely dependent on a group whose views are far out of the American mainstream."
unfortunately, that describes the Dems
"One of the great revelations of the 2022 midterms was that Democrats can run on cultural issues and win outside of deep-blue districts and states. They’d be foolish not to try to re-create that success."
it only succeeded because of the clown Trump candidates, many of whom received help from jaded Dems
unlikely to be repeated in 2024
Trump's complete failure in 2022 is the beginning of the end of his influence
which is to the chagrin of Dems
Federal Judge Blocks Ron DeSantis' 'Positively Dystopian' Stop WOKE Act
The ruling assailed DeSantis and Florida Republicans for trying to “muzzle its university professors … and cast us all into the dark.”
Declaring it a “positively dystopian” assault on free speech, a U.S. district judge blocked enforcement of provisions of a Florida law banning state university professors from expressing certain opinions on topics related racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination in their classes on Thursday.
The decision means that the leadership of Florida’s state university system cannot punish professors or instructors for violating the prohibition on the expression of eight viewpoints enacted by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and state legislative Republicans under the Individual Freedom Act of 2022.
In a blistering opinion that opens by quoting George Orwell’s classic anti-totalitarian novel “1984,” Judge Mark Walker, appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled that the law violated the First Amendment right of freedom of speech of both professors and students and the Fourteenth Amendment by being unconstitutionally vague.
“In this case, the State of Florida lays the cornerstone of its own Ministry of Truth under the guise of the Individual Freedom Act, declaring which viewpoints shall be orthodox and which shall be verboten in its university classrooms,” Walker wrote.
“[T]he First Amendment does not permit the State of Florida to muzzle its university professors, impose its own orthodoxy of viewpoints, and cast us all into the dark,” Walker concluded.
The case focused on the law’s prohibition on the expression of eight different viewpoints related to race, sex, gender and sexual orientation by state university professors. The law, originally introduced by DeSantis as the Stop WOKE Act, was enacted as part of the governor’s culture war political agenda seeking to bend institutions from state universities, government bureaucracies and in-state corporations to the will of Republican politicians.
The enactment of policies like the Individual Freedom Act stems from a position espoused by the illiberal faction known as National Conservatives, whom DeSantis has linked himself to as he approaches the national political stage, that conservatives must first prioritize crushing liberal control of cultural resources like schools, universities and the entertainment industry, among other things.
One thing standing in their way, as exemplified by Thursday’s decision against the Individual Freedom Act, is the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
In the joint cases of Pernell et. al. v. Florida Board of Governors of the State University System et. al. and Adriana Novoa et. al. v. Manny Diaz, Jr. et. al., a group of state university professors and students filed suit against the board governing the state university system and Diaz, the state education commissioner. The professors argued that they would be forced to self-censor or face punishment up to termination if they were required to abide by the law’s prohibitions on disfavored speech. Two state university students argued that these viewpoint prohibitions violated their First Amendment right to hear their professor’s speech.
While noting that the court’s precedents do allow the state to set educational curriculum, Walker explained that there is no precedent for the State of Florida’s assertion that the state “has an unfettered right to prohibit professors from expressing viewpoints with which it disagrees.”
“Defendants essentially ask this Court to engage in ‘judicial activism,’ since accepting Defendants’ argument would require this Court to substitute binding precedent with Defendants’ policy preference,” Walker wrote in a footnote.
That policy preference would be that “the First Amendment does not protect professors’ in-class speech.”
In ruling in favor of the professors, save for one, and one of the two students, Walker stated that the state had violated their First Amendment rights by imposing unconstitutional viewpoint- and content-based restrictions on their speech.
Just by declaring the eight viewpoints banned by the law to be “repugnant,” the state cannot “do an end-run around the First Amendment … to avoid indoctrination,” in order to “impose its own orthodoxy and can indoctrinate university students to its preferred viewpoint.”
“The IFA is antithetical to academic freedom and has cast a leaden pall of orthodoxy over Florida’s state universities,” Walker wrote. “Neither the State of Florida’s authority to regulate public school curriculum, nor its interest in preventing race or sex discrimination can support its weight. Nor does the First Amendment tolerate it.”
In an August decision, Walker blocked enforcement of the law’s provisions banning private companies from hosting certain discrimination-related trainings.
Enforcement of the law’s higher education provisions are now temporarily suspended pending further appeal. The state is expected to appeal the district court decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
A member of the far-right Oath Keepers testified in her seditious conspiracy trial Wednesday that she joined the group following a “steady diet” of InfoWars conspiracy theories and stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 because she “just got swept up.”
Jessica Watkins, an Ohio military veteran on trial in Washington, D.C., with four other members of the anti-government group, presented herself to the jury as a gullible follower, uninvolved in plans to attack the Capitol.
“It was really stupid, I just got swept up there,” Watkins said, according to CNN.
Prosecutors said Watkins, leader of the Oath Keepers’ subgroup Ohio State Regular Militia, was involved in a military-like stack formation that stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Two of her fellow defendants, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, also have testified in their defense.
Watkins explained how she came to believe the 2020 election was stolen from a daily dose of InfoWars content from host Alex Jones. Jones, who promotes baseless lies to sell diet supplements and fake cures, has been ordered to pay over $1.4 billion to Sandy Hook families.
“That’s probably how I found the Oath Keepers in the first place. I watched it five, six hours a day,” said Watkins, who said she still questions the 2020 election.
She said she often wonders why she went into the building, saying she intended to provide security and medical care during planned protests, but became “another idiot” once she was inside the building and “lost all basic objectivity.”
Watkins also apologized for her treatment of police protecting the building, specifically Metropolitan Police Officer Christopher Owens, USA Today reported.
“He was on the other side of that line, protecting other officers from my dumbass, basically,” Watkins said.
The prosecution is expected to cross-examine Watkins on Thursday.
Key Evangelical Figures Turn On Trump: 'He Used Us'
Evangelical figures who previously supported Donald Trump are backing off now that he’s announced his third bid for the presidency.
“Donald Trump can’t save America,” Mike Evans told The Washington Post. “He can’t even save himself.”
Evans was part of a group of evangelicals who met with Trump at the White House, and at one point gave him an award.
Now, he says he’s done with Trump.
“He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans told the newspaper. “I cannot do that anymore.”
Robert Jeffress, one of Trump’s evangelical advisers during the 2016 campaign and a longtime supporter, said he’s not ready to endorse him again.
“The Republican Party is headed toward a civil war that I have no desire or need to be part of,” Jeffress told Newsweek, adding that he would “happily” support Trump again if he wins the nomination.
That’s not a given, considering Trump’s plunging poll numbers among Republican voters. Jeffress also seemed to subtweet Trump on the day of his 2024 announcement by urging people to buy Mike Pence’s book "So Help Me God."
Jeffress added on Twitter that he still considers Trump “a great friend and our greatest president since Reagan.”
Another onetime faith adviser to Trump, James Robison of Life Outreach International, said in a speech this week that Trump’s ego is getting in the way of the agenda.
“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” Robison said, according to The Washington Post.
He said he told Trump: “Sir, you act like a little elementary schoolchild and you shoot yourself in the foot every morning you get up and open your mouth! The more you keep your mouth closed, the more successful you’re gonna be!”
Robison did not say if he was planning to support Trump in 2024.
Another evangelical figure who previously endorsed Trump was even more blunt, with Washington Times columnist Everett Piper writing that Trump cost the GOP big in the midterms and could hurt them even more in two years.
“The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go,” Piper wrote. “If he‘s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.”
"Some Evangelicals finally figure it out - it took 6 years"
They didn't "figure out" anything. They voted for him because he promised to accommodate their issues, which he did. The alternatives would have been disastrous. All that is no longer true, so it's time to move on.
Trump is not, and never has been, an evangelical. He just was the best choice for them when the Supreme Court was filled with justices that didn't believe in separation clause of the Constitution.
If Hillary had been elected, the Supreme Court would be filled with justices who believe there is a constitutional right to kill kids up to the moment of birth.
You get it now?
You can justify stacking the court with religious ideologues to push your agenda down everyone's throat by any means necessary however you like.
You're only fooling yourself though.
The court's ridiculously low approval rating now isn't an accident. Now that the non-LGBT community has been awakened to authoritarian motivations & inclinations behind the religious right, it will be much harder for Republicans to get voters from Team Normal.
The last round of elections should be a wake-up call for republicans. But most of them still think they can keep shoving through their authoritarian agenda if they just keep the Fat Orange Guy quiet.
The rest of the American public has finally realized the moral superiority claim of the uterus control crowd is merely a salve for their conscience - otherwise they wouldn't have so many "do as I say not as I do" candidates like H. Walker, who like Trump, is clearly unqualified for any responsibilities over any other adults. He is just another tool for you to use to advance your national sex and uterus control.
If you had stuck just to candidates with some kind of moral spine, you may have been able to fool more people for longer, but the gig is up now.
This year we learned that even in red Kentucky, most people don't want the government controlling their bodies.
"You can justify stacking the court with religious ideologues"
they are hardly "religious ideologues"
there is only one that could be called evangelical
what the court is stacked with is originalists who will protect the Constitution
"to push your agenda down everyone's throat by any means necessary however you like."
creating a "right" out off thin air and making up a rationalization that it is somehow implied by the Constitution is pushing your agenda
all the court did with Dobbs is make abortion a matter of the legislative process, they didn't force anything on anybody or any body
You're only fooling yourself though.
"The court's ridiculously low approval rating now isn't an accident."
no, it isn't
the media worked hard on its propaganda
"Now that the non-LGBT community has been awakened to authoritarian motivations & inclinations behind the religious right, it will be much harder for Republicans to get voters from Team Normal."
actually, non-MAGA Republicans did well in this election and will again
most voters in America voted for a GOP representative in the House of Reps
hence, Americans have stopped the Biden agenda dead in its tracks
what are you so happy about?
LOL!
Republicans have retaken the House by a slim margin and Democrats will have an ever-so-slight lead in the Senate.
But with stubbornly moderate Democrats such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Republicans can be fairly confident the upper chamber will not try to advance the most extreme parts of President Biden’s agenda, even if they do increase their majority by one seat in the December runoff in Georgia. And of course, because of the flip in the House, those uber-progressive proposals will never make it up to the Senate. The governor’s houses in Maryland and Massachusetts may have flipped blue, but Republicans knew they were lucky to be holding them in the first place.
Even so, at the topline level it is understandable Republicans are disappointed. With a struggling economy and a sitting Democratic president with approval ratings stuck in the forties, conventional wisdom says they should have picked up thirty to forty seats in the House and easily taken the upper chamber. There was also a hope, realistic at the time even if fantastical now, of taking control of some blue-state governor’s mansions like Oregon that didn’t materialize. Yes, the GOP flipped Nevada, but that was canceled out by Katie Hobbs’s victory over Kari Lake in neighboring Arizona.
But if conservatives can look past the disappointment they feel from overblown expectations, they will see there is plenty of good news. They have control in the House of Representatives and hold the majority of gubernatorial seats. In North Carolina and Ohio, Republicans won all of the Supreme Court races on the ballot, winning and preserving Republican majorities, respectively. Democratic Kansas governor Laura Kelly hung on to her job, but Republicans gained a super-majority in the House to match their existing advantage in the Senate. While Republicans lost chambers in Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania, they gained a super-majority in Iowa and West Virginia and took away one held by the Democrats in Oregon. Overall a good result, if falling short of great.
A look at 2018 and 2022’s exit polls also quantify the narratives about Democrats losing ground with minority voters. Compared to the 2018 midterms, Republicans grew support among all minority groups: +4 among Black voters, +10 among Hispanics and an impressive +17 among Asians. If Republicans can continue to improve on these trends, even at the marginal level, it puts a significant number House districts previously out of reach on the table and solidifies their positing in current swing districts. For example, Florida’s 25th and 26th congressional districts flipped in 2020 as Republicans increased their margins among Hispanics and Democrats were unable to regain power during the midterms.
State-specific exit polls also show encouraging data for the future. Even though Republican Mehmet Oz lost the Senate race in Pennsylvania, he won the vast majority (72 percent) of voters who were focused on inflation. The same was true in Arizona and New Hampshire showing that if Republicans can keep debates focused on economic issues, they have a significant advantage.
President Biden’s victory lap speech last Wednesday likely contributed to the feeling of loss among Republicans. Biden made a prime-time address to talk about the “strong showing” Democrats had and how he saw the results as a vote of confidence in his priorities — an odd conclusion for someone whose party is on track to lose control of the House. His remarks centered around working with Republicans also felt forced given he was using his official capacity to publicly gloat over his opponents.
The speech perhaps felt like salt in the wound for Republicans trying to make sense of what they did wrong, while simultaneously preparing for in-party drama that is sure to follow former President Trump’s prime-time announcement tonight. But Biden’s speech was the most encouraging part of the week. President Biden’s rush to claim victory despite objectively losing power and his belief that such a loss communicated approval of his agenda signals that no real post-mortem will be done on the left. President Biden will use this better-than-expected showing to rebuke his potential challengers who would carry far less baggage and bring more enthusiasm to the Democrats’ 2024 campaign. He will continue to play to the progressive wing of the party, push unpopular, if not flat out economically damaging, policies and engage in the divisive politics the American people have come to loathe.
For Republicans and their 2024 chances, this is where good turns to great.
Republicans are on the verge of declaring "total war" on an issue voters care little about, and one conservative predicted disastrous results.
The GOP majority intends to plunge into deep-dive investigations of President Joe Biden and his family, especially son Hunter Biden, and conservative David Frum wrote a column for The Atlantic detailing his sense of déja vu.
"Back in 1995, there was one thing that probably every voting American knew about President Bill Clinton: He was not a good husband," Frum wrote. "But he won the election of 1992 despite revelations of his improper behavior. At another time, that would have removed the allegations from further politics: The voters had adjudicated. No point relitigating the issue."
"Republicans, however, chose to relitigate it," he added.
The GOP oversold what they had on Clinton and managed to talk themselves into believing the wild conspiracy theories they cooked up about Clinton and his wife, which alienated voters for years.
"They focused on a very particular question," Frum wrote. "Clinton had survived scandal in 1992 in large part because his wife, Hillary Clinton, had joined him on television, publicly forgiven him, and asked his critics to back off. Republicans allowed themselves to speculate on why she had done that. The answer they arrived at was that Hillary Clinton was the central figure in an extensive web of criminality who forgave Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct so that he would protect her financial wrongdoing, up to and including drug smuggling and murder."
Voters weren't interested in the actual evidence of Clinton wrongdoing, and they rejected the wildest claims as false, and Frum suspects they'll do the same when presented with allegations about Biden and his son -- which are a transparent payback for investigations into wrongdoing by Donald Trump and his family.
"What Republicans want instead is an excuse for their enabling of Trump," Frum wrote. "They yearn to spread their fantasy narrative that Biden’s attempts to be a supportive father to an errant son are the moral equivalent of the Trump family’s looting of the U.S. government. Fantasies don’t survive contact with reality, including the democratic reality of elections."
"Unfortunately, fantasies can be generated faster than reality can puncture them," he added. "So off we go with a repeat of an old show — written, directed, and performed by a production company oblivious that it is chasing box-office success by remaking a three-decade-old flop."
A poll released on Tuesday by AARP, an interest group for those aged 50 and older, found a significant age gap in voters’ preferences in the Georgia Senate runoff election between incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and former NFL player Herschel Walker (R).
Warnock leads Walker by 24 percentage points among voters aged 18-49, while Walker leads by 9 points among voters aged 50 or older, according to the poll from AARP Georgia. The two groups differ in their preferences by a total of 33 points.
Voters are more supportive of Walker the older they are, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points among respondents 50 and older.
Respondents aged 65 or older favor Walker over Warnock by 13 points, while that lead shrinks to 4 percentage points among those aged 50-64.
Black voters aged 50 and up differ in preference from their age group overall, however, with Warnock holding an 83-point lead over Walker among such respondents. The margin of error for that group was 4.9 percentage points.
Overall, Warnock leads in the poll of all age groups by 4 percentage points, despite voters aged 50 and older constituting more than 60 percent of likely runoff voters.
“Georgia voters 50 and older are a critical voting demographic that both candidates are competing for in this runoff election,” said AARP Georgia State Director Debra Tyler-Horton in a statement.
"Warnock leads Walker by 24 percentage points among voters aged 18-49, while Walker leads by 9 points among voters aged 50 or older, according to the poll from AARP Georgia. The two groups differ in their preferences by a total of 33 points."
those older than 50 remember the evils of communism
those under 50 don't
mystery solved
"Republicans are on the verge of declaring "total war""
so, investigating Biden is "war"?
you might want to consider how you developed such a warped view
of course, Dems try this kind of thing all the time
they impeached Trump for suggesting Biden was involved with corruption in Ukraine, in an attempt to make questioning Biden illegal
then, they got their PR branch, aka the main-stream media, to print unsubstantiated claims that Russia planted Hunter's laptop
and, hence, anyone suggesting that Hunter's laptop was real was guilty of Russian collusion
"on an issue voters care little about"
really?
enough people have said that if they knew the truth before the 2020 election they would have voted differently, to have changed the result
"The GOP oversold what they had on Clinton and managed to talk themselves into believing the wild conspiracy theories"
few believed any conspiracies theories
"which alienated voters for years"
how many years would that be?
because, as soon as he left, not long after his impeachment, they voted for a Republican
Georgia Supreme Court reinstates six-week abortion ban
"Georgia Supreme Court reinstates six-week abortion ban"
democracy
and life
win
A former longtime girlfriend of Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker has come forward to detail a violent episode with the football star, who she believes is “unstable” and has “little to no control” over his mental state when he is not in treatment.
The woman, Dallas resident Cheryl Parsa, described an intimate and tumultuous five-year relationship with Walker in the 2000s, beginning shortly after his divorce and continuing for a year after the publication of his 2008 memoir about his struggle with dissociative identity disorder (DID), once known as multiple personality disorder.
Parsa, who has composed a book-length manuscript about her relationship with Walker, says she is speaking out because she is disturbed by Walker’s behavior on the campaign trail, which she claims exhibits telltale flare-ups of the disorder she tried to help him manage for half a decade.
“He’s a pathological liar. Absolutely. But it’s more than that,” Parsa, who last had regular contact with Walker in 2019, told The Daily Beast. “He knows how to manipulate his disease, in order to manipulate people, while at times being simultaneously completely out of control.” She said that when she was with Walker, he used his diagnosis as an “alibi” to “justify lying, cheating, and ultimately destroying families.”
Parsa provided a detailed account of a 2005 incident that turned violent after she caught Walker with another woman at his Dallas condo. She said Walker grew enraged, put his hands on her chest and neck, and swung his fist at her. “I thought he was going to beat me,” she recalled, and fled in fear.
Parsa is one of five women who were romantically involved with Walker who spoke to The Daily Beast for this article. All of them described a habit of lying and infidelity—including one woman who claimed she had an affair with Walker while he was married in the 1990s. All five women said they were willing to speak to expose the behavior of the man they now see running for Senate.
a Senator doesn't really have the same opportunity for mischief that a President or governor or district attorney or judge has
the only question is whether he will support the right policies
Walker, although deeply flawed personally, likely will
Warnock won't
"Walker, although deeply flawed personally, likely will"
Oh yeah. Walker was brought by God to lead us to the promised land where werewolves, like he wants to be now, kill vampires, who he formerly wanted to be.
You can hear him make these claims himself.
Of you can pretend he's not an idiot and will "support the right policies" like death to vampires and long live werewolves!
Click the link above.
“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”
- Donald J. Trump
No Rumpie, you don't get to throw out the Constitution because not enough people believed your election lies.
And why did you put "Founders" in scare quotes?
History has shown that people like you - and the stupid people that support and enable you - don't give a damn about elections.
They put you in for their "policies" without any regard to the damage you will do to our democracy.
If right-wingers spent more time reading the history of the holocaust than they did trying to ban it from schools, maybe they would learn something.
But then again, maybe I'm just a naïve optimist.
BOSTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a Texas man with threatening a Boston physician who cares for transgender children.
Thirty-eight-year-old Matthew Jordan Lindner of Comfort, Texas, faces a charge of transmitting interstate threats. He was arrested Friday in Texas by the FBI and is expected to appear in federal court in Massachusetts at a later date.
Authorities say the targeted physician works for a national LGBTQ health education center based in Boston. In August, Jordan allegedly called the center and left a profane and threatening voice message in which he said a group of people were coming for the physician.
Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said that while the threat targeted a specific doctor, it also victimized LGBTQ people and their families.
Over the summer, doctors and other staffers at Boston Children’s Hospital also received violent threats related to its medical care for transgender youth. Authorities noted the threats began after false and misleading claims about the hospital and its work spread online.
Online betting markets are heavily favoring incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) over Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff with two days until the election.
The Democrat’s chances of winning the runoff were at 89.5 percent to Walker’s 10.5 percent as of Sunday afternoon, according to the tracker Election Betting Odds, which culls odds from other popular betting markets.
The site, run by conservatives John Stossel and Maxim Lott, notes Warnock’s lead has climbed 1.4 percent in the last day.
PredictIt and Polymarket both show Warnock at 89 percent. Smarkets, another betting market used by Election Betting Odds, puts Warnock’s odds even higher — at 92.6 percent to Walker’s 8.3 percent.
"Of you can pretend he's not an idiot"
I didn't do that
as part of a legislature, he will either have to work within his caucus or be ineffective
so, while he's not a dream candidate, or even average one
and he's clearly a hypocrite
Republicans in Georgia would be wise to vote for him
"you don't get to throw out the Constitution because not enough people believed your election lies"
and he won't
Republicans rejoice in this statement because he means the end of Trump's political career
Dems are saddened by it because Trump's the biggest reason people vote Dem at this point
"The Republican party is an inherently sadomasochistic organization that should be discouraged by any civilized society said...
BOSTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a Texas man with threatening a Boston physician who cares for transgender children"
please provide a list of Republican officials who supported his guy
we'll wait....
"Online betting markets are heavily favoring incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) over Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff with two days until the election."
hey, it's just like Hillary in 2016
what are the chances?
Over the weekend, Donald Trump effectively demanded the end of America's constitutional democracy. On his Twitter-substitute Truth Social, Trump called for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," escalating his long-standing demands that the 2020 election be overturned in his favor. His call to terminate the constitution earned relatively little mainstream coverage. Trump's anti-democratic views are no longer surprising, plus there's no apparent mechanism for him to get his way on this, both of which likely contributed to the unwillingness to front-page his comments. But it also likely reflects an ongoing, shaky assumption in the Beltway press: That protecting democracy is too abstract of an issue for Americans to be invested.
During the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterms, mainstream election coverage appeared to be guided by the presumption that President Joe Biden's pleas to save democracy were largely being ignored by American voters, that high inflation and gas prices would instead drive them to punish the incumbent party at the polls and hand Republicans dramatic victories. This wasn't just conjecture, either. New York Times polling showed that, while voters did say democracy was under threat, they did not rate saving democracy as a voting priority.
The much-predicted "red wave" did not happen. Straightaway, there were early indicators that Americans would end up putting a higher value on democracy than they had told pollsters they would. Republican candidates who made a big show of supporting Trump's Big Lie, hinting they were open to interfering with the 2024 election, lost their elections at a much higher rate than almost anyone predicted. Aligning a Republican campaign with Trump meant performing an average of five points below non-Trumpy GOP candidates. Most importantly, Democrats won crucial races for governor and senator in states like Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania, shutting down Trump's likeliest path to interfering with the 2024 election.
There are strong signs the trend will continue in Georgia's runoff Senate election between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Georgia voters have been in long lines to vote, setting daily record turnouts, exceeding not only previous runoff elections but also any early voting day in the state's history. More than a quarter of Georgia voters have already shown up at the polls.
Part of that is due to Georgia Republicans passing a law to truncate the early voting calendar, which prominent Democrats like Stacy Abrams have criticized as voter suppression. People have fewer days to vote early now, concentrating early voters into longer lines and higher per-day averages.
Still, these numbers also suggest that the same democracy-protecting urge that shaped the midterm elections is likely in play. It's hard to argue that the runoff between Walker and Warnock will have much impact on those much-ballyhooed "kitchen table" issues. Democrats already have a 50-vote majority in the Senate. A Warnock win would help protect that, but it isn't likely to make a huge difference in the daily operations of the Senate...
again!
...giving Democrats 51 Senate seats.
"hey, it's just like Hillary in 2016"
Actually no. Georgia is now officially purple as it evolves from a red state to blue.
"what are the chances?"
According to AP, the chances are 100% that Warnock defeated Walker
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-walker-warnock-runoff-3d4e4d1ab1760792454e1cbd618ce332
"...Walker’s defeat bookends the GOP’s struggles this year to win with flawed candidates cast from Trump’s mold, a blow to the former president as he builds his third White House bid ahead of 2024...."
"Georgia is now officially purple as it evolves from a red state to blue"
not really
one of the worst GOP candidates in modern times was less than a percent from victory
a decent candidate would smash Warnock
"...the GOP’s struggles this year to win with flawed candidates cast from Trump’s mold, a blow to the former president as he builds his third White House bid ahead of 2024...."
that's not good news for Dems moving forward
now that everyone sees the emperor has no clothes, Dems will need a new issue moving forward
DeSantis, et al are not as pathological as Trump
btw, losing the House is much worse than retaining the Senate is good
Biden and the Squad can no longer expect any woke bills to pass
Warnock, 53, has been on the ballot five times since he first became a candidate for Senate in 2020 to fill the final two years of the late Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term. He won that race in a tight runoff election in January 2021, becoming the first Black senator from Georgia and the first Black Democratic senator from the South.
In his brief time in Washington, Warnock has risen as one of the most impactful voices in the Democratic Party. He is known as a powerful speaker who draws inspiration from iconic civil rights leaders from Georgia, such as the late Rep. John Lewis. Warnock uses his own life’s trajectory to speak about America’s promise.
Warnock was born in Savannah, and he and his 11 siblings grew up in public housing. Their mother had worked as a sharecropper, picking cotton and tobacco as a teen.
Warnock excelled academically and was the first in his family to attend college. He obtained a degree in psychology from Morehouse College, a historically Black men’s school that counts the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. among its esteemed alumni.
Warnock earned a doctorate from the Union Theological Seminary in New York, which led him to leadership positions at prominent Black churches in Birmingham, Baltimore, New York and finally, Atlanta, where he serves as head pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King famously preached during the height of the civil rights movement until his assassination in 1968.
Warnock used the pulpit to advocate for progressive issues, particularly around health care, such as expanding Medicaid. As a politician, he has continued to use soaring rhetoric to fight for voting rights and against racial and economic inequities.
Walker played football and the Georgia voters picked him over the other GOP candidates: Gary Black (Georgia's Commissioner of Agriculture.), Kelvin King (officer in the U.S. Air Force and founded Osprey Management, a construction firm), Latham Sadler (Saddler served as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer and was Director of Intelligence Programs for the National Security Council. Saddler was also a White House Fellow from 2018 to 2019), Josh Clark, and Jonathan McColumn.
Happy holidays everyone!
Remember, a big party in the middle of winter is the reason for the season :)
Check out my blog entry "How To Argue With An American Conservative" and see how conservative talking points don't stand up to scrutiny.
http://fairnessfirst2.blogspot.com/2022/10/how-to-argue-with-american-conservative.html
Happy holidays everyone!
Remember, a big party in the middle of winter is the reason for the season :)
Check out my blog entry How To Argue With An American Conservative and see how conservative talking points don't stand up to scrutiny.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday endorsed former President Donald Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution over false claims the 2020 election was fraudulent in a tweet that he later deleted.
“I support and agree with the former president,” the far-right lawmaker wrote, sharing a screengrab of Trump’s widely condemned Truth Social post. “Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure.”
The tweet was sent from Gosar’s official congressional account. His office did not immediately respond to a request for clarity on why the tweet was deleted.
Over the weekend, Trump attracted bipartisan backlash after he wrote on his social media platform that “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
Trump attempted to take back the remarks on Monday amid growing criticism from Republican allies, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Mike Turner (Ohio). According to Trump, media outlets reporting what he said were spreading “disinformation & lies.”
Gosar was censured and stripped of his House committee assignments last year after he posted a video depicting violence against Democrats. This year, he made headlines after he appeared at a white nationalist conference hosted by Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist organizer who recently had dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Nonetheless, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has said Gosar would get his committee assignments back if Republicans won control of the House in the midterms, which they did by a narrow margin.
Gosar’s tweet was met with swift condemnation from several Democratic colleagues Wednesday.
Reps. Peter Meijer (Mich.) and Don Beyer (Va.) said it was a clear betrayal of the oath of office taken by members of Congress to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.) noted McCarthy intends to restore Gosar’s committee appointments even though he “wants to terminate the Constitution.”
Matt Dixon
Wed, December 7, 2022, 5:47 PM
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A federal grand jury indicted Republican Florida state Rep. Joe Harding on six counts after authorities said he illegally obtained $150,000 in pandemic-related small business loans by allegedly using the names of two dormant companies.
The indictment, unsealed Wednesday night, alleges that between Dec. 1, 2020, and March 1, 2021, Harding used the dormant companies on applications for loans on the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications, including using false bank statements as supporting documentation.
The indictment accuses Harding of using two companies on loan applications: The Vak Shack, which according to its website, sells discounted vacuum sealer bags, and Harding Farms, a 46-acre horse and cattle far facility. Both companies had not been active in Florida from between May 2017 to December 2020.
At the time he filed applications seeking the loans, Harding, 35, created new bank accounts associated with the companies and filed paperwork with the Florida Department of State to reinstate both companies to make them appear as though they were operational, according to the indictment.
Harding told the SBA that The Vak Shack had $420,874 in revenue for the 12 months prior to Jan. 31, 2020, and four employees, while Harding Farms had $392,000 in revenue and two employees.
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