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Comments
Anyway, election results tonight:
Dems comfortably held the light blue 133rd state house seat around Bethlehem, PA.
Dems lost the Massachusetts state senate "Worcester & Middlesex" seat (MA state lege seats have names instead of numbers), apparently because an indie candidate from the Dem candidate's hometown (specifically the longest-serving city councilor in said hometown) played major spoiler; this is supported by the Repub only winning about what Romney got in 2012). Republicans will now have 8/40 seats in the state senate.
No results yet in the D vs D race in California's 51st assembly district but I think Wendy Carrillo has a lead early in the tallying.
In Georgia, several D vs. D races seem to have produced progressive women as victors, including Nikema Williams, Bee Nguyen, and Jen Jordan. I think Nguyen ran against a fellow progressive, but Williams (endorsed by unions and the Sierra Club) beat an opponent endorsed by the FOP and the Chamber of Commerce, while Jordan won in a landslide against a fellow Dem who a few years ago said some really homophobic things online. (Like "homosexuality is a sin" homophobic. He apologized for it, and says that he's been working on reconciling what he felt his faith told him, with a more informed perspective, or something like that.)
Most importantly with Jen Jordan's win in the 6th senate district, it officially cements the fact that Dems have broken the Republican supermajority in the state senate.
Atlanta mayoralty is up in the air -- Dem Keisha Lance Bottoms has a few-hundred-vote lead over centrist/conservative independent Mary Norwood, pending the numbers getting properly checked and probably some absentee/provisional ballots (not sure if they do that).
(Tangential amusement: Current Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed was elected by a similarly thin margin in 2009, so someone commented that "Atlanta is repeating 2009", to which someone else replied "I can't take Lil Jon being popular again", at which point someone else discovered that Lil Jon had actually retweeted someone else celebrating Bottoms's election victory: https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1721033/68576240#comment_68576240 )
In Iowa, Dems fail to flip Cedar Rapids mayoralty (in second loss for Repub-turned-Dem city councilor Monica Vernon, who previously ran for Congress), but i hear a strong progressive won the district 5 seat in the city council, ousting a centrist/moderate-liberal incumbent.
I'm sorry; I burst out laughing at this picture.
http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/12/pa_lawmaker_to_colleague_im_a.html
Maps of Atlanta mayoral election results: it's downright stunning how much race, affluence, and preference in this runoff election correlate.
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1720805/68578795 - correlation with affluence
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/1720805/68579973 - correlation with race. someone ran the numbers and came up with a "98%" correlation (not sure if r or r^2)
The links show compilations of tweets which are embedded on both pages. I could post the tweets separately bit it'd be messier.
So apparently asking someone to "become a surrogate" is the new right-wing way to say that you want to have sex with them? wut
otherwise i think this takes the cake for 2017 strangest reason to resign
https://westbrook2018.com/
I'm not familiar with Justice Democrats and I feel a little loath to get involved in an ideological fight in a primary, but...isn't Dr. Hiral Tipirneni already running in that district? I hadn't heard about Brianna Westbrook yet, and granted, I know very little about either candidate (found out about both today).
Edit: Apparently they're not the only two: There's a third Dem named Judith McHale.
By far the most notable one is for the Alabama U.S. Senate seat. At-least-twice-disgraced former state supreme court judge Roy Moore (R) faces former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones (D), whose main claims to fame are successfully prosecuting, in the late 1990s, the two then-surviving Klansmen who hadn't yet been prosecuted for their role in bombing a church and killing four black girls in 1963, and indicting the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bomber. Polls have basically predicted everything from a tie to a double-digit win in both directions, so basically no one has any good read on this race. Alabama is well-known for being very red (i.e. leaning heavily to the Republicans) in presidential races, but a lot of Republicans have expressed dissatisfaction with their candidate. Moore last won a competitive race against a Democrat by about 51%-48%, back in 2012 (a prior race in 2003? (I think) got him about 54%). Possible factors influencing the current election:
Alabama is also holding two special primary elections at the same time, one Dem primary in state senate district 26, which is a big chunk of Montgomery, and one Repub primary in state house district 4, which is areas southwest/west of Huntsville.
Finally, there is a special (general) election in Iowa's state senate district 3, which is a heavily Republican district forming an arc around the eastern side of Sioux City. Past special elections in Iowa have seen Dem overperformances (compared to presidential results) that may allow the Dems to pick up this seat, so it is not a certain hold for the Republicans.
Anyway, here are the results. I'll save the big one for last.
primary elections
OK-SD27 (R): state rep. Casey Murdock (R) wins the primary; he goes on to face small business owner and military spouse Amber Jensen (D) in the general election on February 13, 2018.
AL-SD26 (D): Montgomery city councilman David Burkette (D) and state rep. John Knight (D) were the top-two finishers in a primary election where no one got 50%, so they will face each other in a primary runoff on February 27, 2018. The winner of that runoff will face D.J. Johnson (R) on May 15, 2018, in this Montgomery-based district.
AL-HD04 (R): businessman Tom Fredricks (R) and marketing rep. Parker Duncan Moore (R) were the top-two finishers, like above, and the runoff will also be on February 27. The winner of that runoff will face Juanita Allen Healy (D) on May 15 as well, in this northern Alabama district that partly encompasses Decatur, west of Huntsville.
general elections
IA-SD03: school superintendent Todd Wendt (D) overperformed both Obama and H. Clinton but still fell short in this district that I think is a rural arc surrounding Sioux City. He lost to state rep. Jim Carlin (R) by a 45%-55% margin.
AL-Sen: Here's the big one.
Attorney Doug Jones (D) has defeated former judge Roy Moore (R) for the U.S. Senate seat representing Alabama. Jones defeated Moore with a margin of about 49.9% to 48.4%, with 1.7% going to write-in candidates, of which there were five (two Republicans, one Libertarian, and two independents).
The last time Alabama elected a Democrat to the Senate was 1992 (that was Richard Shelby, who switched party to R and is still in the Senate) and the state has not been represented by a Dem since 1997 (that was the late Howell Heflin, who didn't run for re-election and was succeeded by now-AG Jeff Sessions).
The seat's next regular election is in 2020, so it is actually not something the Republicans can pick back up next year.
Some useful information about the race:
a bio on Doug Jones: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/doug-jones-alabama.html
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-doug-jones-won-alabama
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/for-many-alabama-voters-the-lesser-of-two-evils-is-still-roy-moore
RANDOM OBSERVER: You know, I'm not sure how Roy Moore could possibly make himself look any worse.
ROY MOORE: Hold my beer, once more.
Because on top of the sexual abuse stuff, he went on to say that the country was greatest when slavery was still around, and then in a twofer he goes on to remind everybody that he's no friend to LGBT people while simultaneously saying that Putin is right (in his stance on same-sex marriage, which is consistent with Moore's record but still pretty dumb given what a boogeyman Putin's been portrayed as over the last year*), and maybe some other stuff I'm forgetting.
Now that that's done, though, here comes the net neutrality repeal. Yay...
* To clarify, I'm not a fan of Vladimir Putin or anything, and I definitely wouldn't want to live in a country run by him. I simply don't believe that he's as big a threat as people make him out to be, because if you go by how #TheResistance describes him then you imagine he's this all-powerful puppet master who's controlling the destiny of the entire planet. I think that's an exaggeration, and the theories of him being the deciding factor in the presidential election are a real stretch in my opinion.
Anyways, the thing is like trolls on facebook probably didn't influence that many people (though I wouldn't know since I'm not on facebook and facebook is the new religion or whatever) into actually changing their mind. That thing where they genuinely organized a protest was weird, but like I'm pretty sure people have done worse over the internet.
Putin's got so many of his own issues to deal with that he's screwing up* that I'm surprised this is the angle the liberal machine decided to run with (as opposed to whatever is hidden in those Deutche Bank accounts).
For goodness sakes America I'm actually kind of mad the one good thing you did this year was not elect Roy Moore as opposed to defeating Ajit Pai.
*IIRC annexing Crimea led to a seriously expensive water shortage
*He's pulling his forces out of Syria at the most random point, and this whole tryst has probably really hurt him back home (the death of that Russian diplomat to Turkey, for one) whilst not really helping him out in terms of his relationship Assad.
Does Putin get as far as same-sex [anything] for him to consider marriage a thing?
That's not "the angle the liberal machine decided to run with" because there basically is no "liberal machine". Not sure if you've heard the proverb that getting Democrats (and by extension, liberals and progressives) to agree on something is like "herding cats".
There's basically a bunch of individual organizations with some overlaps between membership, as well as varying amounts of ideological disagreements.
Amongst people I hang around, I largely don't see people claiming that Putin is anything more than (1) a douchebag leader of the "strongman" variety (a trait he shares with other leaders who have reputations for disregarding human rights, the rule of law, political dissent, and general decency; and naturally, they all hate these things), (2) leader of some efforts to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election through misinformation, and (3) probably has pretty capable cyber-criminals among his allies. He's not generally regarded as a "mastermind" of sorts.
The Republican Party had been fanning the flames of bigotry and intolerance for decades, long before Putin himself was a thing, and now our country is reaping the consequences of these actions.
I've spent too much time on Twitter, I guess; usually when I talk about them it's on there, hence the hashtag.
Anyhoo, they're people who hate Trump (good), who want to resist Trump (good), and generally speaking believe everything Hillary Clinton and her supporters have to say, including everything about Russia stealing the election in order to install Trump due to having "kompromat" on him (this is where they and people like me differ).
That might be unfair. That might be a stereotype. But there are lots of people fitting that stereotype who put #TheResistance or #Resist in their tweets.
People further left than that, who don't subscribe to the "Trump/GOP bad, Hillary/Democrats all good" view, have gotten into the habit of referring to people who just want to stop Trump without worrying about anything else as "#TheResistance".
Yep.
True, and it's not like it was for lack of trying to stop Pai and the other two dicks who want to repeal net neutrality. People contacted the FCC, they contacted their members of congress, they protested, they did everything they could.
A couple of years ago that worked with Tom Wheeler. This time it isn't; Wheeler caved to public pressure, but Pai seems to give zero fucks.
And also:
Maybe the damage can be undone?
I think I'm going to wallow in my disappointment with this whole thing for a bit before getting back on my "Everything is terrible but also mostly kind of fine!" horse.
I'm sorry to admit this but my only hope right now is really "We still don't take cues from America right? UK? EU? Someone?"
>accuse Iran of trying to cause destabilization in the Middle East with super-vague evidence
Solid plan, guys
but seriously though is every Republican presidency going to start with "We need more war we swear!"Why is America so obsessed with starting everybody off with a mountain of debt right out of school.
They don't need to please college kids. Those people vote overwhelmingly Democratic anyway, so fuck them.
Hell, they don't actually need to please middle-class voters that much either, that's why middle-class tax cuts are going to expire after several years, while corporate tax cuts will be permanent.
This genuinely just seems mean for no reason (there's no way that'll cover the deficit caused by not taxing the people with almost all the money).
ikr, I'm always surprised by the costs of higher education there. Also it can't be motivating knowing that by the time you graduate you'll still have much to pay off, without the certainty that you'll be using your degree.
I've sometimes thought that maybe the time is ripe for non-university certifications.
The 2017 Democratic party is a reflection of their biggest donors.
Which are giant corporations. Which aren't mean for no reason...they're mean because they really, really, really want to make as much money as they possibly can, and this overrides whatever sense of basic human decency they might have once had.
ETA: I'm not saying that this is uniquely the Democrats' fault, mind you. I know that this came up because the GOP tax plan was brought up, and I know that there are plenty of Democrats opposing that. But if any Democrats are okay with things like letting middle-class tax cuts expire while corporate tax cuts stay in effect, that's why.
It is SO ridiculous to me how the government prioritizes military spending above pretty much everything. Recently they added, what, 80 billion dollars to the military budget? How many people's health care could that increase alone pay for? How many people's college education? How much in the way of repairs to the country's infrastructure?
Thinking about that just makes me more pissed off when I think about how those things were described as "pie in the sky" pipe dreams last year, and continue to be described that way today by certain parties.
Not to mention that the Dems have actually become arguably more progressive, in terms of willingness to propose and discuss progressive policy ideas, since the 2016 election.
I hope you are aware of how pointless your reply looks when you have to amend it with "this would be relevant if there are [X] who [Y]".
It could be that I just kind of take it as a given that Republicans are going to be terrible on this stuff, whereas Dems are supposed to be better than they are (clarification: I don't mean that as "better than Republicans", which they do qualify as, I mean that as "Democrats are supposed to be better than Democrats currently are") and the fact that they still have a long way to go upsets me more than Republicans just being Republicans. To the point where my knee-jerk reaction when I hear about Congress doing something wrong is to think "Goddamn it, Dems" and maybe say something to that effect before really looking at the details.
Credit where it's due: I'm not aware of any Dems who are in favour of the net neutrality repeal and there are plenty who are against the repeal. And some surprising people have supported the Medicare For All bill (Cory Booker, for one, is very surprising to me). And yes, opposition to the GOP tax bill. Some of them have opposed aiding the Saudis in their decimation of Yemen.
Blame where it's due: there are still people high up in the party who are against raising the minimum wage, who are only content with keeping Obamacare instead of trying for something better, and if you want to talk about taxes then Obama chose to sign a bill extending the Bush tax cuts, so they aren't always great on that either.
"The Vandal and the Mosque: A New Chapter of Forgiveness in Arkansas"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/reader-center/mosque-vandal-arkansas.html?_r=0
I know that the Murdoch love is a classic Michael Wolff move but the other bits sound like they could make it a real story of the girl who wasn't the prettiest who made it when she didn't intend to who just happened to be Donald Trump.
Not that you should take what Michael Wolff says seriously, really. To be honest, he might think he's a Dan Humprey, but he's not.