Paingod wrote:When discussing the issue of voter ID, it's really important to note that those supporting voter ID laws are trying to legislate against a problem that simply doesn't exist.
Hmm....where have I seen that tactic used before?
HB2 bathroom laws - solving the non-problem of predators stalking women's restrooms
Build a wall - solving the non-problem of "bad hombres" destroying America
Travel bans - solving the non-problem of terrorists from the 7 named countries infiltrating as refugees and killing people
Whenever you are trying to push a law that is plainly discriminatory, and that no reasonable human being with decent morals would support, you have to generate a fake boogeyman to get people to vote against their own moral character.
Montana GOP proposes letting voters vote by mail, then remembers that means a greater turnout and the GOP recommends they not let voters vote by mail. Basically, they'd rather waste $750,000 and restrict mail-in voting to keep voting turnout lower and hopefully deter a Democrat win.
538 is correct. I do worry about the left wing tea party potential over the next few years. The Delaware example in the 538 article is a good one, but it's not the only one - in 2010 and 2012 the Tea Party easily cost the Republicans three senate races that they by all rights should have won. As a result the Republicans *should* have taken the senate majority by 2012, instead of 2014. We'll see how this plays out, but I could easily see the democrats left wing doing the same thing to them over the next couple election cycles.
And I'm not crazy about Manchin either, but he's better than any Republican replacement, and he's pretty much the only shot at a democratic senator from WV.
listen, the Republican party never really recovered and found their footing from the emergence of the Tea Party, from the emergence of the likes of Sarah Palin, that has now manifested in the likes of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump.”
“What is different now is that we have a president who’s known to be unstable,” he continued. “We have a president who’s known to be risky when it comes to matters of national security.”...
...Personally, as a Republican, in the past few weeks I’ve wondered, ‘Is the Republic safer if Democrats take over the House in 2018?’”
“I raised that issue with the leading Republican in D.C. last week and the remarkable thing is he had been thinking exactly the same thing,” Jolly added. “This is a president that needs a greater check on his power than Republicans in Congress have offered.”
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
malchior wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 3:22 pm
Ugh. It is hard to not see someone more extreme picking up that seat. He wasn't going to make it through the primary anyway probably.
Honestly, I think this is mostly good news. It's worth noting that Flake said that he could not "in good conscience take the path" necessary to win the GOP renomination. That seems to reflect what Flake would probably have to do to win the primary battle - be more nasty and more Trumpian. So he would be more likely to support Trump - at least on key, substantive matters - over the next year plus. Now that he's not running for reelection, he's more liberated to oppose Trump. And importantly he + Corker + McCain (plus Collins!) + democrats is enough to really threaten Trump - create a select investigative committee, send probing subpoenas, compel testimony, etc.
Plus making this an open seat race makes it more likely that democrats can pick up the seat in 2018. As you say he was probably going to go down in the primary anyway, but this makes that more certain, and without Flake needing to do Trumpian things in the meantime to have a shot in the primary.
It's a sign that a Republican no long can survive without going all-in on being a race-baiting Trumpster. I hate what the GOP has become, and fear where it's going. Jeff Flake was considered pretty right wing just a few years ago, and although I disagree with him on pretty much everything aside from his opposition to Trump, he at least seems like he has some core decency as a human being. Losing guys like him and Corker while the Roy Moores of the world likely join the Senate is a frightening proposition.
Yeah Flake was going to lose, and I appreciate his speech. But I wish he would have used the primary to keep harping on these themes and go down swinging.
Flake is Mormon, so he's probably more in the Evan McMullin mold than your typical GOP circles. I don't know if the Mormon influence out west is enough to make much of a difference to the party as a whole, but it should be interesting to watch. They're certainly not going to flip Utah to the Dems.
Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:49 pm
Flake is Mormon, so he's probably more in the Evan McMullin mold than your typical GOP circles. I don't know if the Mormon influence out west is enough to make much of a difference to the party as a whole, but it should be interesting to watch. They're certainly not going to flip Utah to the Dems.
ehhh, I wouldn't necessarily take Utah for granted in 2018, as shocking as that sounds. If Romney runs, as has been rumored, he's pretty much a lock to destroy everyone. Otherwise... the Mormons are a religious minority with a history of persecution at the hands of the U.S. government, so there's less of a natural fit for Trumpism there. And if a democrat is running apparently within 5ish points in the Alabama Senate race, where Trump's net approval rating is around +15, it's not hard to imagine a democrat (depending on the candidate) being competitive in Utah, where his net approval is around -3.
Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:21 pm
If there's a place that's going to prove Anti-Trump isn't pro-Democrat, it's Utah.
Why is that? Like I said, it would have to be the right candidate, but if places like Montana and South Dakota can elect democratic senators in the right year, I don't see why Utah would necessarily be different.
Utah has voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1964. Today, about 46 percent of Utah voters are registered Republicans; only 11 percent identify as Democrats. The overwhelming majority of voters in Utah are Mormons, who traditionally skew Republican due to their conservative beliefs in favor of self-reliance and religious freedom and against abortion and gay marriage.
Utah has voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1964. Today, about 46 percent of Utah voters are registered Republicans; only 11 percent identify as Democrats. The overwhelming majority of voters in Utah are Mormons, who traditionally skew Republican due to their conservative beliefs in favor of self-reliance and religious freedom and against abortion and gay marriage.
So has South Dakota, and they have a democratic senator.
Utah has voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1964. Today, about 46 percent of Utah voters are registered Republicans; only 11 percent identify as Democrats. The overwhelming majority of voters in Utah are Mormons, who traditionally skew Republican due to their conservative beliefs in favor of self-reliance and religious freedom and against abortion and gay marriage.
So has South Dakota, and they have a democratic senator.
North Dakota has a democratic senator. South Dakota doesn't anymore.
Utah has voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1964. Today, about 46 percent of Utah voters are registered Republicans; only 11 percent identify as Democrats. The overwhelming majority of voters in Utah are Mormons, who traditionally skew Republican due to their conservative beliefs in favor of self-reliance and religious freedom and against abortion and gay marriage.
So has South Dakota, and they have a democratic senator.
North Dakota has a democratic senator. South Dakota doesn't anymore.
ehhhh, close enough.
Anyway, looks like (conveniently for me) that is also true of North Dakota, so my point stands.
Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 7:52 pm
What about the poor, forgotten East Dakotans?
Minnesota? They smell like rotten fish. I think it's the 10,000 lakes. (9950 of which are puddles). I lived there too.
Oh wait, political thread. When I was there, they jumped back and forth between Dems and Pubs. I had the pleasure of living in Michelle Bachman's district so I was well prepared for Trump crazy.
Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 7:52 pm
What about the poor, forgotten East Dakotans?
Oh wait, political thread. When I was there, they jumped back and forth between Dems and Pubs. I had the pleasure of living in Michelle Bachman's district so I was well prepared for Trump crazy.
the state is pretty reliably Democratic except for that crazy stupid MSP "exurbs" area you're referring to - i grew up in that district. PACKED WITH SNOWMOBILING IDIOTS
Stop what you're doing right now, and look at the political chatter in your Twitter feed. I would put chances near 100 percent that you will soon see examples of both right-of-center trolling, which I'll loosely define here as saying something designed specifically to irritate and/or outrage the sensibilities of the dominant media/entertainment/Democratic culture; and also left-of-center boundary-drawing, in which a moralist will define virtue or acceptability in such a way that a right-of-center person of interest will inevitably find himself on the outside looking in.
...
But reality-checking such arguments kinda misses the point of 2017 politics. The subtext of these tweets is more important than the text. It is Look at those arrogant hypocrites and He's not one of us. Responses like mine above can be thus answered with the classic, Musta struck a nerve!
Once you see major-party political discourse as largely a mutually reinforcing game of Trolls vs. Velvet Ropers, you can't unsee. It's "deplorables" vs. the "politically correct"; a president who crows that "46% OF PEOPLE BELIEVE MAJOR NATIONAL NEWS ORGS FABRICATE STORIES ABOUT ME," and media people who almost dutifully overreact with statements like: "That poll result...is perhaps the saddest moment in this tragic administration's brief and terrible history." It's Roy Moore's 5,000-pound Ten Commandments courthouse sculpture (one of the heaviest acts of trolling this century) vs. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's exclusionary assertion that "extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay" have "no place" in his state.
The Velvet Rope Left is forever policing the boundary between permissible and disqualifying behavior, language, and political positions (luckily for the likes of Bill Maher, those who are good on the latter are granted leeway on the former, particularly when the usually disqualifying language is used against people with bad politics). The Troll Right is forever treating that boundary like an arbitrage opportunity for selling books at CPAC.
...
That just ain't Jeff Flake's style. He criticized birtherism early and often, calling it "ridiculous" and "unfortunate." He said in June 2016 that Trump "ought to apologize" for his statement that the "Mexican heritage" of Federal Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel is "an inherent conflict of interest." He was disgusted by the Access Hollywood tape. Some of this lines up with Flake's real policy differences with Trumpism, such as on immigration, trade, and debt; some of it speaks to his temperamental tendency to criticize his own political team when it goes astray.
But the real dividing line separating Jeff Flake not only from the ascendant Trump/Steve Bannon/populist wing of the Republican Party, but from the purity police in the Democratic Party, may be contained in this sentence last week from George W. Bush: "Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions—forgetting the image of God we should see in each other." Even if Bush had been the perfect messenger—and he most definitely is not—that sentiment these days is in full retreat. Collectivist conflict, in all its belligerent stupidity, is the rule, not the exception. The best that some of us on the sidelines can hope for is that it be as pointless as possible.
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
gilraen wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 11:09 am
Just don't tell it to the Democrats...they are really good at not showing up in the 4th quarter when they think they are winning.
This was my thought as well. While I'm happy about the results I simultaneously scared that they will encourage fewer Dems to vote in 2018 and/or more Reps.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
I share those worries, but at the same time, my read is there is plenty of rage against Trump to propel us through the next few elections at least. 2018 is when the vast majority of voters who haven't had a chance to repudiate 45 at the ballot box yet will get a shot at it.
Colorado will be voting for a new governor next year (current governor is term-limited). One of the candidates, Tom Tancredo, is a Trump/Bannon-kind of Republican and would be an unequivocal disaster for the state if he wins. Now, this will be his 3rd attempt at running for governor, and on his 2nd attempt he didn't even get out of the primaries, so there's hoping (this time around the primaries promise to be even messier).
That's been the general expectation, though there were some hints that he was rethinking that decision late last year. I'm torn in that on the one hand, Orrin Hatch is a shithead, so happy to see him go. On the other hand he's an unpopular shithead, so him running for reelection probably would have been the best chance for a surprise democratic Senate pickup.
Regardless, this opens the door for Romney to cruise to a Senate seat, which is the general expectation. IF Romney surprises everyone and decides not to run, it'll be interesting to see who enters the race.
