2022 Midterms

[beanman12345]

I’m surprised anybody believes lefties are feminist when they flip on a dime to demand husbands take control of their wife’s behavior. Women are getting too uppity for progressives, watch out.

I'm surprised you're able to communicate online with anyone at all with the complete lack of basic reading comprehension you display on this forum. It's not what was said and Thomas should recuse.

[Ivanstone]

A lot could happen by December -- McConnell could decide this race is worth saving for some reason and empty the RNC coffers of the few pennies Trump didn't steal -- but it really doesn't look great for the Republican abortion provider.

He’d try to win it for two reasons:
1 - McConnell is here to win. It’s his only political belief.
2 - It’s doubling down on his investment in Sinema. She’s more useful in a 50-50 Senate.

[Rasulis]

Here I thought CO-3 (Boebert district) is a GOP win. Turns out the drama continue.

Lauren Boebert in Danger as Thousands of Votes for Opponent Could be Fixed

Every year in Colorado, thousands of ballots are reportedly rejected for issues related to signature verification, such as a missing signature or a discrepancy in the signature. Local officials then alert voters of the issue, giving them a week time to fix the problem and make their vote count.

The process, which is done in 23 other state besides Colorado, is called "ballot curing."

There's no way of knowing right now how many votes might have been rejected this year, or whom these votes might have been cast in favor of, as the ballots remain close until the signature issues are resolved. But, on a national average, a majority of mail-in ballots are sent by Democrats.

According to the Secretary of State's Office, 21,838 ballots were rejected for signature verification in 2020. Nationwide, more than 560,000 were rejected. The Secretary of State's Office doesn't count how many votes were fixed.

Apparently, Boebert is aware of this. Because she was asking for donations for a recount. She is winning at the moment. So, there is no reason for her to request a recount. In the event of automatic recount (difference of less than 0.5%), the state pays. She is anticipating that the cured ballots would push Frisch ahead of her in excess of the 0.5% margin.

[Edge-]

There are apparently a lot of folks volunteering for ballot curing across the country, which is great. Like, enough that they don't need more volunteers from what I've heard.

Which is great, everyone should be able to have their vote counted and they should absolutely be able to correct any mistakes that would have caused their ballot to be rejected (like the signature not exactly matching).

[Endus]

I’m surprised anybody believes lefties are feminist when they flip on a dime to demand husbands take control of their wife’s behavior. Women are getting too uppity for progressives, watch out.

"Why does the law permit immediate family of sitting justices engage in potentially criminal conduct without it being an ethics breach for the justice to rule on related matters" is a far cry from "husbands should control their wives". Wildly fucking dishonest misrepresentation, dude, even for you.

[Shadowferal]

A Warnock win in GA would give the Dems a real majority in the Senate.As for Boebert;

Boebert still expressed confidence she would eke out a victory. “Of course, I expect to win.”

But Republicans say she didn’t do enough to insulate herself from backlash from voters in her district. Indeed, a GOP source says she was advised to spend more of her campaign cash late in the cycle.

Asked if she believes Republican leaders gave her enough support, Boebert said, “I am my support.”

A mandatory recount is triggered in Colorado if the margin of the vote is .5% or less, though candidates can also choose to pay for a recount if they want. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told CNN’s Kate Bolduan Friday afternoon that with thousands of ballots still to be counted, “it’s too early to tell” if there will be one.

[beanman12345]

Here I thought CO-3 (Boebert district) is a GOP win. Turns out the drama continue.

Lauren Boebert in Danger as Thousands of Votes for Opponent Could be Fixed



Apparently, Boebert is aware of this. Because she was asking for donations for a recount. She is winning at the moment. So, there is no reason for her to request a recount. In the event of automatic recount (difference of less than 0.5%), the state pays. She is anticipating that the cured ballots would push Frisch ahead of her in excess of the 0.5% margin.

They had the Culinary union down in NV helping cure ballots for Cortez Mastro. I hope they have a lot of people helping volunteer in CO. I think enough people want her to lose that they are getting enough help but i just hope they do.

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Please dont take the word of the contrarian pundit or podcaster you're copy pasting from.

Do their own homework challenge 2022!

https://www.thebulwark.com/about-us/
Founded in 2018 by Sarah Longwell, Charlie Sykes and Bill Kristol, The Bulwark focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.
We put country over party.
We know that we’re all in this together.

It's the never trump neocon website. I think Edge knows this though.

[Edge-]

Please dont take the word of the contrarian pundit or podcaster you're copy pasting from.

I'm not, I just have a bad memory sometimes.

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We keep focusing on national elections, but honestly it looks like some of the worst news for Republicans - especially after their decades-long campaign to take over states - is at the state level.

Michigan going fully to Democrats, for example. Also, Colorado's results which...I'll let Republican Rep. Colin Larson describe it - https://www.cpr.org/2022/11/14/color...ection-losses/

“Honestly I think Colorado Republicans need to take this and learn the lesson that the party is dead. This was an extinction-level event,” said Republican Rep. Colin Larson. “This was the asteroid that ended the reign of the dinosaur, and in this case, the dinosaur was the Republican party.”

This was, apparently, despite Republicans putting up more diverse, moderate candidates and not going full MAGA, apparently.

“Frankly, it couldn't be much worse,” said Dick Wadhams, the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party. Wadhams largely blamed demographic shifts and the national Republican brand.

“And I think we put up very strong candidates who were worthy of consideration by all Colorado voters and yet they were soundly rejected in favor of Democratic candidates,” Wadhams said. “So I don't know what it's gonna take for this to come back the other way.”

It seems like they're pinning the losses on Coloradans long memories, though -

Larson said he thinks it’s going to take a seismic shift to turn things around and said both the local and national party must fully repudiate former President Donald Trump, the January 6th insurrection, and election denialism. He believes only then would enough voters in the state even consider Republicans as a “serious viable option.”

“January 6th, we just thought it had fallen from most people’s minds,” he said. “That just was not the case. They weren’t willing to look past the party.”

Now worth noting that Colorado was already "held" by Democrats to begin with, but Republicans had hoped to make gains there.

They did not make gains there, and now Democrats in Colorado can more safely pursue their own agenda without as much of a need to compromise to get Republican votes.

[fwc577]

Please dont take the word of the contrarian pundit or podcaster you're copy pasting from.

Do their own homework challenge 2022!

https://www.thebulwark.com/about-us/
Founded in 2018 by Sarah Longwell, Charlie Sykes and Bill Kristol, The Bulwark focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.
We put country over party.
We know that we’re all in this together.

As a Wisconsin Democrat, Charlie Sykes is a good dude. Yes, he’s conservative but in this day in age, that practically makes him a raging libtard fuckhead according to other Wisconsin right-wing talk show hosts.

[Gestopft]

TheHill has a good point. Hershel "your money's on the dresser" Walker has a problem in the runoff: Kemp.

"But Kemp's not running. He already won."

Exactly. Walker basically tied when people showed up to vote for governor and other offices. Now, the guy who said America is the greatest country in the United States, no really he said that, has to run on his own merits, and nothing else.

"But that's true for his opponent."

Yes, but Democrats seem to have the edge in motivation this time around. If nothing else, I think Georgia Democrats have a point they want to prove. I could be wrong -- blue already holds the Senate, there might be lower motivation because of that. But I don't think so.

Let me try it this way:
1) More people voted for Kemp, than Walker.
2) More people voted for Warnock, than Abrams.
3) More people voted for Raffensperger than Walker.
4) The gap in all of these is about 200,000 out of 2,000,000 votes, rounding aggressively.

Based on this evidence, I think people went to the polls to vote straight-ticket R. I think people voted for Walker, well, accidentally. "Oh well, I'm already here voting for Kemp, I might as well vote for that idiot too". Here's an extensive Rolling Stone article that says the same thing.

A lot could happen by December -- McConnell could decide this race is worth saving for some reason and empty the RNC coffers of the few pennies Trump didn't steal -- but it really doesn't look great for the Republican abortion provider.

Ever since a runoff was announced, the Warnock campaign has been continuing to pump money into online ads, but I've barely seen anything if even anything at all on the other side yet (keeping in mind that a good 90-95%% of the Conservative/GOP ad strategy was to be "anti-Warnock" rather than "pro-Walker,").

[Breccia]

Republicans had hoped to make gains there.

Morgan Freeman: They did not make gains there

And everyone is agreeing with this.

Candidates who backed overturning Trump loss are rebuffed

Lies and conspiracy theories about elections burrowed deeply into the 2022 Republican field, with nearly one-third of the party’s 85 candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general embracing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.

About half of those won — almost all of them incumbents, except for candidates such as Kris Kobach, a member of Trump’s 2016 voter fraud commission who won the race for attorney general in Kansas, and Chuck Gray, a Wyoming state representative who ran unopposed for secretary of state in that heavily Republican state.

More significant are the outcomes in the six states that clinched Joe Biden’s win in 2020 and where Trump and his allies disputed his loss.

In most of those states, as in most of the country, the secretary of state is the top election official while the governor and attorney general often play key roles in voting rules and certifying election results.

On Tuesday, Trump lost bids to install supporters in three more of those pivotal states. In Pennsylvania, Mastriano would have had the power to appoint a secretary of state to oversee voting, but he was routed in the governors race by Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro. In Wisconsin, Trump’s pick for governor, Tim Michels, lost to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, dooming Republican dreams of disbanding or significantly overhauling the state’s bipartisan election commission.

In Michigan, Karamo and DePerno had been key players in spreading misinformation about Trump’s loss in 2020. Along with Tudor Dixon, the party’s nominee for governor who repeated Trump’s election lies, they provided a drag on the GOP ticket that contributed to Democrats capturing full control of the statehouse for the first time in decades.

In two other competitive states — Minnesota and New Mexico — GOP candidates for secretary of state who echoed Trump’s election lies lost badly, performing worse than the top of their respective tickets.

“There are more of us pro-democracy Americans who are not Democrats — who look at the Republican Party and say ‘That is not for me’ — and that was borne out last night,” said Jeff Timmers, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

I disagree with the "meteor strike" analogy. Election denial and other forms of Trump cult behavior are around, but they just took a beating.

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I've barely seen anything if at all for Walker yet.

So you're in Georgia, then? Damn, nice to have an agent in the field, so to speak. What's the word from local news sources?

Also, heh, I guess Walker has other problems he needed to spend his money on. Too far? That might be too far.

[D3thray]

I'll do you one better. Explain to me in detail, with workable examples from history to support your positions, what benefits you see coming from "conservative ideology". I'm not expecting an essay, by "detail" I just mean specific concepts laid out openly and their expected outcomes, and the historical examples to justify such a position, because I'm not gonna accept bullshit like "if we give money to the rich, it will trickle down and help the poor, too". Since, y'know, history's proven that doesn't work.

Go on; convince me there's something laudable in the core there. You want to wring your hands that we're "disparaging" it, convince us we're wrong to do so. I've asked before, and the answers I've gotten are why I "disparage" it.

Oh, and incidentally, don't take the "orphan-crushing machine" bit above as directed towards conservativism specifically; that metaphor represents capitalism. Neoliberals like the orphan-crushing machines just fine, too.

I mean it doesn’t work in practice because consumption only rises with increasing income to a point. But that applies more to individuals than companies or businesses. Money not being spent is effectively not there as it pertains to economic activity anyway so honestly the piles of currency the billionaires are sitting on (that they don’t actually have) serve as inflationary pressure on the value of said currency.

A bit in the weeds, but it’s more complicated than ‘trickle down doesn’t work’. The bottom up approach has its own pitfalls i.e. deflation of currency.

[Edge-]

The bottom up approach has its own pitfalls i.e. deflation of currency.

Are there actual examples of this?

[tehdang]

Feel free to present the conservative ideas an ideology that don't cause the problems I listed. I'm perfectly willing to hear you out. If you actually have a solution that doesn't cause those problems and generally makes things better for everyone, I'd love to know more. I'm just not entertaining the (provably false) ideas that removing welfare programs/social safety nets, removing or reducing taxes on the rich, reducing regulations on big businesses, and Trickle Down Economics actually help society. Because they don't.

But if there are things OTHER THAN THOSE that you believe are key to conservatism that I'm somehow missing, please enlighten me. Or don't. It's your time, I don't want you to feel like you're wasting it if you think it would be a waste to try and explain them to me.

I'd direct you to more novel-length considerations of conservative opposition to liberal or progressive thoughts. If economics is your jive, the past three decades of conservative economists and the classics. If more center-stream political ideology, then the thinkers and writers on that. I doubt any small dissertation on the flaws and fallacies in what you currently believe is true (and provably true, in your opinion) would be sufficient. Thomas Sowell and Walter E Williams are the most approachable from the progressive ideology. Sowell particularly because he started believing as you do about welfare programs and social safety nets, as well as excessively progressive tax structures and special taxes on corporations, but eventually turned and rejected them.

I entertain your views as giving you the benefit of sincerely holding them in good faith, but I wager I hold the same opinion of yours as you might of mine.

If this is what you got out of my post then you're continuing the trend ...

You continue the trend of absurdly rejecting the obvious implications of things you write whenever they become damaging to the argument you wish to make. But your unwillingness to follow the logic of your stands is a personal choice that you can continue to reiterate in various forms.

I'm surprised you're able to communicate online with anyone at all with the complete lack of basic reading comprehension you display on this forum. It's not what was said and Thomas should recuse.

I'm surprised people even state this husband-wife marital culpability, given how quickly it fails on its face and people go running towards the exits. Thomas can't allow his wife to have separate political opinions, or if he allows her to have them, then he can't allow her to voice them and still continue his judicial career. Congratulations progressives, you've played yourselves.

[Endus]

I mean it doesn’t work in practice because consumption only rises with increasing income to a point.

That point is at like the equivalent of $80,000 for a single person (more for families), however. At current dollar values. If that's the baseline for a burger flipper or grocery bagger and wages scale up from there, that's great, frankly. How is that "not working"?

Money not being spent is effectively not there as it pertains to economic activity anyway so honestly the piles of currency the billionaires are sitting on (that they don’t actually have) serve as inflationary pressure on the value of said currency.

A bit in the weeds, but it’s more complicated than ‘trickle down doesn’t work’. The bottom up approach has its own pitfalls i.e. deflation of currency.

This is what I mean by "statements that have no basis in reality and have no supporting evidence ever provided in their defense by conservatives".

Expansion of the money supply only happens with monetary policy changes, not billionaires hoarding wealth. When we talk about addressing wealth inequality, we're not talking about increasing the money supply, we're talking about a more effective/equitable distribution of the money supply. While lessening poverty might increase demand-pull inflation on consumer goods, that's dependent on whether production can keep pace (if it can, no inflation), and can be pretty readily counteracted with better fiscal policy anyway. Plus, if you're seriously going to point to failures of the free market as an argument against making things better for those in need, you should note you're actually pointing to failures of the free market and making an argument for regulation.

[Breccia]

I'm surprised people even state this husband-wife marital culpability

It's you. You're the one saying that.

[Gestopft]

So you're in Georgia, then? Damn, nice to have an agent in the field, so to speak. What's the word from local news sources?

Also, heh, I guess Walker has other problems he needed to spend his money on. Too far? That might be too far.

Can't say much about local news as pay far too little attention; I can just tell you what ads I am (or am not) seeing on TV and online.

[Draco-Onis]

The bottom up approach has its own pitfalls i.e. deflation of currency.

People at the bottom spend money right away because unlike billionaires they don't have the luxury of keeping the money. I don't think you know what deflation is unless you have a real world example of this? There's no shortage of the bottoms up approach either.

[Gestopft]

I'm surprised people even state this husband-wife marital culpability, given how quickly it fails on its face and people go running towards the exits. Thomas can't allow his wife to have separate political opinions, or if he allows her to have them, then he can't allow her to voice them and still continue his judicial career. Congratulations progressives, you've played yourselves.

Are you really going to pretend to be so dense you don't understand the concept of "conflict of interests?"

[Endus]

I'd direct you to more novel-length considerations of conservative opposition to liberal or progressive thoughts. If economics is your jive, the past three decades of conservative economists and the classics. If more center-stream political ideology, then the thinkers and writers on that.

This is just passing the buck.

No. You claimed there was a defensible ideological core to conservativism. We're expecting you to provide said explanation. Even a short description with references would be plenty; I've got a lot of posts where I've one the same kind of thing, if you want a model. Specific references, mind you, not "someone must've wrote something somewhere and somewhen but I couldn't tell you who, or where, or when, go find it yourself". That's not an answer. It's a handwave.

I'm surprised people even state this husband-wife marital culpability, given how quickly it fails on its face and people go running towards the exits. Thomas can't allow his wife to have separate political opinions, or if he allows her to have them, then he can't allow her to voice them and still continue his judicial career. Congratulations progressives, you've played yourselves.

Again, you're lying. Nobody's arguing Thomas should control his wife's speech. They're stating he should recuse himself from certain rulings due to obvious personal bias. Why can't you address the argument honestly? Conflict of interest isn't remotely difficult to grasp and all justices except the Supreme Court are obliged to recuse under such conditions. Of course, a justice on the Supreme Court could literally do all their work drunk and get deep in hock to multiple criminal lenders facing trial in their courts, because there are literally no ethical standards for SCOTUS justices, and that's a problem.