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General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)
Comments
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58249ef3e4b01019814dab06
I am, and unfortunately the lack of direct major political discourse about it means I have to dig for it.
Gonna also forward this to friends I know who care about the issue.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/11/1595712/-Despite-harrowing-election-Democrats-make-net-legislative-gain-picking-up-4-chambers-to-GOP-s-3
TL;DR:
* TEAM RED gains Minnesota Senate, Iowa Senate, Kentucky House.
* TEAM BLUE gains New Mexico House, Nevada House, Nevada Senate, Alaska House.
Alaska is probably the one that was on no one's radar, and it's also technically still got a Republican majority on paper, but it's one of those odd cases. Alaska's state legislatures have seen coalitions that cross party lines, and this is exactly what happened.
(Besides, this is why we count New York's State Senate as being in Republican control right now despite having a Democratic majority on paper. A similar weirdness is likely to apply to the Washington State Senate soon, with one Dem caucusing with the Repubs for a Repub-controlled majority.)
That link has a rundown of stuff that happened state by state. Note that some of those states where overall partisan control didn't flip saw changes with regards to whether one party has a veto-proof supermajority, which is another very important threshold. NOTE THAT THIS THRESHOLD VARIES FROM STATE TO STATE -- typical thresholds are two-thirds or three-fifths, but sometimes (e.g. West Virginia) it's just a simple majority (i.e. half). Also, legal requirements may vary based on the type of bill -- in California and Arkansas, budgetary bills require a supermajority of some sort.
If I recall correctly, there are some runoff elections in these two months. I don't remember which state uses what though.
November 2017 elections:
* Virginia - gov and other statewide offices in state government positions, entire state lower house (the House of Delegates).
* New Jersey - gov and other statewide offices in state government positions, entire state lower house (the New Jersey General Assembly).
* and probably some assortment of special elections.
Also Daily Kos Elections is now calculating the 2016 presidential results by congressional district: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/11/1596920/-Daily-Kos-Elections-kicks-off-our-project-to-calculate-presidential-results-for-all-435-House-seats
Presumably they'll later calculate 2016 presidential results by state legislative district as well, like they've done with past results.
I don't agree with this guy's tone, though his perspective on what happened in the Democratic primary -- with regards to allegations that it was "rigged" to favor Clinton -- is interesting to read.
But beyond that, more importantly, at around 3/4 of the way down the page, he reveals what he claims he's seen in the Republicans' oppo research file against Sanders. I don't know how true how much of that is, but then again, we've already seen that the truth is less convincing than whatever someone makes a convincing picture of even if it isn't true...
It's possible that Sanders could have won against Trump. But it's not a complete certainty by any means.
h/t to an HH user for bringing this article to my attention.
It seems, the fundamentals going into this election -- an economic recovery, but an uneven one -- turned out to be the most important piece.
Meanwhile, I'm glad that we will still have Sanders, and Warren, and Merkley, and Kaine, and many other allies in the Senate. We will need their help in these coming four years.
Meanwhile: The U.S. is already seeing climate refugees within its borders, in the form of its own less-well-off.
Another article on the same subject.
Damnit, Bloomberg, your PAC just had to help Toomey, did it?
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/15/1599746/-Despite-Trump-s-win-progressives-scored-victories-on-minimum-wage-marijuana-gun-safety-and-more
I'd type them all up but I'm tired of typing everything up and taking forever to do so.
That said they're missing a bit about Florida's anti-solar Amendment 1 (basically greenlighting utilities to force solar power user to pay more) which failed 51-49. It required 60% to pass.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/sfl-state-federal-election-results-florida-2016-htmlstory.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/sfl-broward-county-election-results-florida-2016-htmlstory.html
That's the stuff we here had on our ballot.
This is erasure.
Trump now has four different factions within his department of deplorables. You got the reactionaries (alt right, Breitbart, Bannon), the Republican establishment (Chamber of Commerce types, the religious right, the party apparatchiks like Priebus, and Neocons), the pro Trump oligarchs (Sheldon Adelson and the Mercer clan), and Trump's family (including son in law Jared Kushner, the unofficial chief of staff).
Oh, bonus fifth faction: Donald Trump himself. He has a track record of encouraging infighting within his campaign, and it's now affecting his administration in waiting, let alone his Presidency.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obama-silicon-valley-20161017-snap-story.html
h/t to my school's alumni on LinkedIn for bringing this article to my attention
Meanwhile, does anyone have a good piece on why national debt and private debt are different?
So I want Ellison over Dean, but if she decides to run, I would back Hogue. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_582c8863e4b058ce7aa86623
I want Becerra, for sure.