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General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)
Comments
sources: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/06/1294897/-Daily-Kos-Elections-interactive-maps-of-presidential-election-results-by-legislative-districts , http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/6/1629653/-Daily-Kos-Elections-2016-presidential-results-for-congressional-and-legislative-districts
* State House District 7 - a Working Families Party member
(and non-Dem)(see note below) defeated a Dem, an independent (and former Dem state house member), and a write-in, for a Hartford-area seat. Joshua Malik Hall won with 41%, and 34%, 24%, and 1% went to the other three candidates in order, though vote totals were all in the mere hundreds of votes. Seat was formerly Dem-held.* State House District 68 - a Republican won this formerly Repub-held seat. However, Joe Poletta (R), who defeated Louis Esposito (D) yesterday 78.1% to 21.9% (2444 to 686 votes), formerly ran against former-incumbent Eric Berthel (R) in 2014, wherein Poletta had the Dem, Independent, and Working Families party lines; Poletta (D at the time) lost with 47.4% of the vote while Berthel got 52.6%. Berthel was entirely unopposed in 2016. Not sure what happened here; Poletta says he switched party and worked on Berthel's (successful) campaign for state senate.
Correction: Joshua Hall is a registered Dem and even a former state Democratic Party treasurer, though he was not endorsed by the party for this seat and won it under the WFP ballot line.
https://ctmirror.org/2017/04/25/wfp-wins-hartford-seat-gop-keeps-seat-in-watertown/
pinging @Unknown_Entity because relevant
Ajit Pai's (i.e. Donald Trump's) FCC: killing net neutrality, dinging comedians. Great priorities there.
http://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Blum-walks-out-of-exclusive-interview-with-TV9-421676713.html
(TL;DR Rep. Rod Blum (R-IA-01) walks out of an interview with a local station)
http://www.newson6.com/story/35388179/republican-zack-taylor-elected-to-vacant-oklahoma-house-seat
50.48 percent of the vote to 48.16 percent by Democrat Steve Barnes and
1.36 percent by Libertarian Cody Presley.
this is a seat that went 69-31 Romney and 67-33 for the previous incumbent (R)
Can somebody besides the FBI peeps investigate Trump's links with Russia? Namely, someone he can't just fire.
And then there's the press.
They will vote on the proposal, then open it up for public comment.
We have the first seats changing party control of the year, one for the Repubs back in March (see note at bottom) (which was uncontested by the Dems) and two for the Dems.
The big attraction this week, though, isn't a Tuesday special but a Thursday special -- for Montana's lone at-large U.S. House of Representatives seat. That pits folk singer Rob Quist (D) against California-born businessman Greg Gianforte (R).
Edit: This list previously contained the following item:
[*]Louisiana House District 42: previously occupied by Jack Montoucet (D) who was appointed to be secretary of LA Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries by Gov. John Bel Edwards (D). The seat has a lot of "Dixiecrats" apparently because despite its overwhelming Dem registration advantage it voted overwhelmingly for Romney (like 69%) and Trump (like 77%). No Dems filed for this seat and the election was between two Repubs. John Stefanski (R) won the seat for an R pickup.
However, this actually happened on March 23, not May 23.
On one hand, much of the vote may already be in because of Vote By Mail. This election is not entirely VBM, though, because Montana state legislature Republicans blocked an effort by the (Dem) governor to implement all-VBM for this election -- despite the fact that it might save the state money, state senate majority leader Jeff Essmann (R) literally remarked that "All mail ballots give the Democrats an inherent advantage in close elections". On the other hand, this incident may affect is election-day voters, who (by conventional wisdom) are more Republican-leaning, so if they turn against Gianforte that might be a problem for him.
Gianforte, a businessman and tech millionaire, faces Democratic candidate Rob Quist, a local folk musician.
(Opinion: Based on what I've seen of him, Quist seems quite chill. You'd think that suffering a botched surgery and then going through financial hardship, or even simply that awkwardly high speaking voice, would make him mad, but he seems to show up everywhere with a smile and his guitar. Lately the Repubs have been trying to ding Quist for said financial hardship as well as his past use of marijuana, while Gianforte's already lost a gubernatorial race in part thanks to his infamously trying to fence people off a public access path to a river that runs by his house.
Lately Gianforte's also had trouble answering for his saying that he's "thankful" for the repeal-and-replace effort -- which, besides attempting to throw a bunch of people off of their health insurance, is also a gigantic clustercrap. Seriously, the Repubs have been hating on Obamacare for seven years now, and they've gotten themselves elected promising that they can cover everyone better and for cheaper, and...either reality's catching up with them or they're irresponsible jerks who only know how to flame things for political points and don't actually know how to do anything right. Maybe both.)
He's also due in court sometime between now and June 7, for his assault citation.
South Carolina House District 84: Jennifer Larisey, owner of a local magazine company, is playing offense for Team Blue, against Aiken County chairman Ronnie Young on defense for Team Red. Obama 35% Romney 64%.
Dem primary for New Hampshire House District Merrimack 18: Kris Schultz, a political consultant who’s also worked with statewide church groups, and Marc Lacroix, a physical therapist who’s worked in healthcare management, are vying for the Dem nomination. The winner faces Army veteran Michael Feeley (R). Here’s a local news piece on both Schultz and Lacroix. The general election for the New Hampshire race is July 18, and Team Blue is playing defense in that race. Obama and Clinton both got around 60% in the district.
Meanwhile: https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-bill-could-send-people-to-jail-for-driving-a-woman-to-an-abortion/
in case this gets deleted:
(full size image is horrendously blurry)
NH HD Merrimack 18 Dem primary: political/religious-nonprofits consultant Kris Schultz (D) 119, physical therapist Marc Lacroix (D) 68. Schultz faces Army vet Michael Feeley (R) on July 18.
South Carolina HD84
local magazine owner Jennifer Lariscey (D) - 37.9%
S. Lance Weaver (C) 90 - 3.6%
county councilman Ronnie Young (R) 1,482 - 58.5%
South Carolina SD3
Richard Cash (R) - 3,034 - 81.7%
Write-In - 679 - 18.3%
no Dem ran.
Next Tuesday:
CA-34 runoff - Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D) vs. Los Angeles planning commissioner Robert Ahn (D)
NH SD16 Dem primary: former state executive councilor Jim Normand (D) vs. telecom employee/union member Kevin Cavanaugh (D). winner faces former state sen. David Boutin (R) on July 25, in an evenly-divided district (previous incumbent was Dem).
TN-HD95 on June 15 (thursday). Big ones on June 20: GA-06 runoff, SC-05, SC-HD48, SC-HD70. IA-HD22 on June 27. All of these seats whose races are on the horizon were previously R held except SC-HD70.
After seeing him leave the Paris Agreement in spite of Exxon Mobile saying he should stay, I'm more convinced than ever that net neutrality is done.
Also Exxon-Mobil actually lost a vote to its shareholders who demanded that it actually tell people openly what it knows about climate change. This was like two days before Trump decided to walk out on the Paris Agreement.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/1/1668055/-Three-Major-States-Already-joining-Paris-Accord
https://medium.com/@ClimateMayors/climate-mayors-commit-to-adopt-honor-and-uphold-paris-climate-agreement-goals-ba566e260097