Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[The Margrave of Azilia]

In the spirit of Prof. Somin, who preaches open borders in season and out of season, I shall again preach open ballots.

What's the difference (if any) between election misinformation and refusing to list candidates on the ballot because they (or their party) didn't get enough signatures?

In light of what happened in North Carolina,

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-07-29/democrats-barenuckle-green-party-off-north-carolina-ballot

the threat of duopoly harassment may have the effect of discouraging people from signing ballot-access petitions for third-parties and independent candidates.

What happened to the secret ballot?

And in states which reject some or all write-in ballots, what's the difference (if any) between voter suppression and throwing away write-in ballots?

[Brett Bellmore]

I've been preaching that for years. "Ballot access" wasn't even a thing until long after our nation was founded; The original right to vote, however restricted it was in who got it, was a right to vote for whoever you wanted. ANYBODY.

You wrote down the name of the person you were voting for, or got a ballot printed by their party, or some civic group you agreed with, and dropped it in the box to be counted.

Then governments started printing ballots 'as a convenience', and not long after realized that this gave them the power to keep people they didn't like off that ballot, preventing them from easily being voted for.

And recently, historically, they've started refusing to allow you to even write somebody in.

"Ballot access" as it works today isn't a violation of your right to run for office, it's a violation of your right to vote. Because it's a right to vote for whoever YOU want, not whoever the government deigns to give you the choice of voting for.

[Martinned]

Not sure how likely it is to make a difference. (Other than in close races where the outside option might tip the result to one main-party candidate rather than the other.)

Open (in the sense of non-partisan) primaries, on the other hand, basically get you the French style of doing elections. That would be a major improvement over the system that is currently used in most major US elections.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

As I understand it, open primaries prevent the parties from nominating the candidates(s) of their choice.

So does government control of the primary process,

The parties should have their own private nomination procedures and have those candidates on the ballot.

“The French style of doing elections”

And what are the demonstrated benefits of this method in France?

Going to France for instruction in politics is like going to England for instruction in cooking.

"Not sure how likely it is to make a difference."

Number one it's worth a try, and number two, if the people really prefer the duopoly parties can say so without having their choices arbitrarily restricted.

[Martinned]

And what are the demonstrated benefits of this method in France?

That the two most popular politicians in the country were on the ballot for the second round, giving voters a meaningful choice in both the first and the second round, allowing them to choose their number 1 preferred candidate in each round without needing to vote strategically.

Going to France for instruction in politics is like going to England for instruction in cooking.

Leaving to one side that London has excellent cuisine, because it has had decades of immigration from all over the world, I'm not sure where you got the idea from that France has a political system that is somehow inferior to the US. I don't know if you've noticed, but there are very few democracies that are more dysfunctional than the US. Iraq maybe, but otherwise even Italy is arguably doing better.

[Davedave]

"I’m not sure where you got the idea from that France has a political system that is somehow inferior to the US."

The bit where they have a single party on the ballot, plus Nazis? And keep only narrowly defeating the out and out Nazis?

FFS, everyone knows the French system is fucked up beyond belief.

[Martinned]

Oh, "everyone knows"...

I'm not sure why an American would look down on another country having "a single party on the ballot, plus Nazis". Because from where I'm sitting, that describes last Tuesday to a T.

Also, I said that they have a functioning democracy, not that the country didn't otherwise have problems. The people get to vote for who they want, and it so happens that a lot of them want a fascist. The system enables them to voice that preference, and that's what democracy is supposed to do.

Of course, what a system of government is also supposed to do is protect human rights, etc. And in that area France could do with some improvement, though again it's miles ahead of the US.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Because from where I’m sitting, that describes last Tuesday to a T."

That's because where you're standing is so far to the left that half the political spectrum looks like Nazis to you.

[Martinned]

I would vote for Macron in a heartbeat if I was French. But from where you're standing I'm sure he's a communist.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, don't you call the Democratic agenda fascist?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, as a technical matter, it IS fascist: Private enterprise gets to keep nominal ownership, so long as they do everything they're told to do. The ACA is a classic example of fascist economics: The insurance companies remain nominally private, but have what they can sell, to who, and for how much, commanded in detail. In effect they've been taken over by the government.

That's fascist economics to a T. Small "f" fascist.

[Ed Grinberg]

Their non-economic agenda is pretty darn fascist too. How about suppression of speech, for starters? (Anyone remember the Disinformation Governance Board?)

[Bob from Ohio]

"don’t you call the Democratic agenda fascist?"

IDK about the agenda, but I do know about its leader:

"Reporter: "Do you think Elon Musk is a threat to national security?"

Biden: "It's worthy of being looked at."

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, Bob, this was a Serious Threat against Elon Musk.

At best it was a joke in bad taste.

You utter tool.

[Nige]

Inappropriate, but not fascist. Fascist was when Trump boasted Colin Kaepernick would never work again, thanks to him.

[Bob from Ohio]

"At best it was a joke in bad taste."

Chilling effect trend.

"WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy on Monday called for an immediate investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia’s stake in Twitter after Elon Musk took over the social media company.
Murphy, D-Conn., who leads a key Foreign Relations subcommittee, sent a letter to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, requesting a review of the financing of Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, some of it from members of the Saudi royal family and the kingdom of Qatar."

[Nige]

Yeah, that's why he shouldn't have said it, just let the appropraite agencies take a look at the national security implications.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sarcastro: "This was a Joke"

Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor

"You heard the President".

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/you-heard-the-president-national-security-adviser-jake-sullivan-confirms-administration-considering-musk-investigation/

The Biden administration began discussing last month whether the U.S. should perform national security reviews on some of Musk’s ventures, including his Twitter deal and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to media reports.

How does it feel to support fascists Sarcastro?

[Sarcastr0]

You want to call Biden a fascist, and me a fascist supporter, go ahead.
Somehow I think that makes you look crazy, not me.

What's your timeline here? Biden orders the government to review Musk's companies. No one leaks this breach of protocol, they just do it. And then Biden talks about it a month later, because threats are best after the thing you threaten has been carried out.

You really didn't think this through, in your rush to call me a fascist-lover.

[Bob from Ohio]

"No one leaks this breach of protocol, they just do it."

Political motivated investigations are ok if secret!

"breach of protocol"! Mere impolite behavior.

[Nige]

Your claim that it would be politically motivated, if it's even happening at all, is, of course, nonsense.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I thought this was "At best it was a joke in bad taste." according to you Sarcastro....

What happened?

[Sarcastr0]

How has anything contradicted that it was a joke, AL?

[Martinned]

Wait, Elon Musk is supposed to get an exemption from national security laws? Or is that a more general exemption that I don't know about? Americans who are in bed with dodgy foreign investors when they buy/own sensitive assets get looked at by the government, that seems pretty obvious to me. In Musk's case it won't be Twitter so much as the satellites.

Calm down everybody.

[Nige]

National security reviews are now fascism? Is this because foreign interference helped Trump win, so now you figure it's best NOT to know whether someone or something is a national security threat in case it might have some benefit for Republicans?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Because from where I’m sitting,"

Stop sitting on your brain. It would work better.

[Frank Drackman]

the Nazis were Socialists, like Bernie Sanders.

[Davedave]

More of those Jewish Nazis? Same as the ones your paymaster invaded Ukraine to get rid of?

[Frank Drackman]

There were Jewish Nazis, 1: Emil Maurice was a cofounder of the SS and served as Hitler's chauffeur. He was a very early member of the Nazi Party, going back to before the Beer Hall Putsch. 2; Erhard Milch was made a field marshal in 1940. His father was a Jewish pharmacist
and my Opa, Howard, master machinist at the Leipzig Messerschmitt plant, fortunately his last name was "Rosenberg" same as Adolph's Poet-Laurette Alfred, so he didn't get hassled, (until the Roosh-uns took over, then he got nothing but hassle)

Frank

[bernard11]

The most important Jewish Nazi - by birth, anyway - was von Manstein.

Why these outlier cases prove anything remains a mystery.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It’s my impression that the open primary leads to a general election ballot where you can choose between two Democrats (California) or between two Republicans (Alaska). Am I correct on this?

If the major-party candidates are too extreme, vote for a third party or an independent…oops, they aren’t on the ballot, too bad.

(But I'm sorry about the English/French joke, exaggeration for the sake of getting a few laughs, but it didn't work)

[not guilty]

A Democrat won the special election for Alaska's single House seat, and she is leading comfortably over two Republican challengers for election to the full term.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

What does the winning candidate need? Majority, plurality?

[not guilty]

As I understand it, Alaska has ranked choice voting, whereby a voter ranks all candidates in order of preference. There were three candidates in the election for the full term, so the second choice votes will need to be tabulated until one candidate reaches 50 percent.

[David Nieporent]

It’s my impression that the open primary leads to a general election ballot where you can choose between two Democrats (California) or between two Republicans (Alaska). Am I correct on this?

Not exactly. It can do that, but there's nothing that forces that to happen. And Alaska's system has the top four, not top two, on the general election ballot.

[StellaLink_the dog]

"open primary" has long been the term for a party primary election in which any qualified voter may vote in the party primary of the voter's choice. That's what we have in Texas. I have heard the non-party primaries, as in California and Alaska, referred to as "jungle primaries."

[David Nieporent]

Yes, thank you. I was not paying enough attention to the way the question was phrased.

[not me]

The reason not to go to France for instruction in politics can be found in the name: "Fifth Republic".

[Martinned]

Did something give you the impression that the 4th Republic was somehow better? Again, I learn so much about France from my American friends!

[Krayt]

Why are open primaries good? They are done, by the powerful, to try to control the opposition's final placement on the general ballot by allowing people to invade and select the crappier of the other side's choices, which is to say, the one more likely to lose.

[Martinned]

Because they stop a party's nomination from being hijacked by extremists.

[ducksalad]

The word "hijack" presupposes some group of people who constitute the legitimate party, and have some moral right to control it. I get the impression you think parties (at least the two major ones) are public institutions, and that there is some kind of centrist majority entitled to determine the nominees.

That's only one of many possible ways to view it.

[Martinned]

No, "hijack" presupposes a system that restricts voters' choices. Political parties with/without primaries can have that effect, but elections could also be hijacked before political parties as we know them existed.

I don't care whether you think of political parties as having some aspects of public law institutions. (And in a two-party system you well might.) The goal of elections is for voters to figure out what they want, and to empower them to elect the candidate that best represents the wishes of the median voter. No election system does that perfectly, but a French-style 2-round system goes some way towards that, while a US-style system often results in the candidate being elected who best represents the views of the median voter for the majority party, which may well be somewhere near the 75th or 25th percentile.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Multiple candidates in a free-for-all primary, narrowed down to two candidates in the general?

Why not multiple candidates in the general? If the voters like what the duopoly offers up, they can vote duopoly.

[Martinned]

Because it shouldn't be possible to win the election with 30% of the vote. Voters' preferences beyond their first preference should be taken into account as much as possible. (Which is why, here in London, we have ballots that ask voters for their first and second preference. That works too.)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You can still have runoffs and ranked choice, without denying parties the right to nominate their own candidates.

[Martinned]

You can, but in, say, a heavily Red state that doesn't really solve the problem of an independent voter having to choose between a Republican who is at the 75th percentile of the state's voters as a whole and a Democratic loon who has no chance of winning. Having a two-party system (notwithstanding naive dreams about write-in candidates) makes all things run-off and ranked choice redundant.

Look at Georgia. Sure, their run-off is an improvement. But they still ended up having to choose between a Republican lunatic and Raphael Warnock, when the median voter would have probably preferred a moderate Republican.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

OK, all joking aside, do the French use open primaries, or do they let each party nominate its own candidate, then hold a runoff if nobody gets a majority the first time? Because if the latter is how they do it, it sounds like something I’d like – assuming the parties and independents have access to the ballot, that is.

If a party nominates the bad kind of extremist, then the thing to do is vote against that party's candidate.

Bear in mind I don't like the government running the parties, I think nominations should be private affairs, and if a dissenting faction in a party doesn't like the candidate they should be able to field a candidate of their own.

[Martinned]

The French let each party figure out their own nomination, but they have many parties. So in this year's presidential election there were 10 vaguely plausible candidates on the ballot. (Dropping the two communists who were too communist to support the main communist candidate.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_French_presidential_election#Results

Given that many (all?) states have laws requiring parties (or at least the Republicans and the Democrats) to have primaries of some sort, and set rules for them, I think the ship has sailed on letting political parties decide their own internal matters themselves.

I sympathise with your view, but I think you can have one of the following but not both:
- A two-party system (which is what you get if you adopt a FPTP election system)
- Freedom for parties to decide their nominee however they like.

I don't really care which way you improve the system. Binning FPTP in favour of something more proportionate and open primaries have many of the same effects.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I haven't worked out the first-past-the-post idea to my own satisfaction, but I disagree with this:

"I think the ship has sailed on letting political parties decide their own internal matters themselves"

Look at all the "politically impossible" things which the government has done - many of them dubious, including government-run primaries themselves - and I don't want to rule out the possibility of further reform. Especially, I don't want to rule out abolishing previous "reforms" like govt-run primaries.

[Martinned]

Context: Here is a useful blog post about the prospects of bringing (public law) judicial review proceedings against a political party under English law: https://davidallengreen.com/2022/08/judicially-reviewing-a-political-party-and-why-tortoise-has-a-point-as-well-as-a-weak-legal-case/

(In this case, the claimant wanted to raise the question - presumably now moot - whether the Conservative Party should have organised its election process so that only actual humans, and preferably only UK citizen humans, have a say in who the next Prime Minister is.)

[Bored Lawyer]

This last US election illustrates the opposite. One party invades the other to pick the more extreme candidate, thought to be easier to beat.

[Martinned]

That sounds as if some weird dynamics are happening, but it also sounds like that "one party" is the majority party, in which case it makes sense that the two final candidates would both be from that party.

[Bored Lawyer]

Wow, I see empiricism really is an Anglo-Saxon thing.

Do a little research.

[Martinned]

I could do that, or I could expect you to, given that you're the one trying to convince me of something, and it's not like I'm being paid to write comments on the internet.

[Bored Lawyer]

Start here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-09/democrats-vindicated-after-boosting-far-right-gop-nominees

[Martinned]

That's an article about campaign spending, not open primaries. (At least insofar as I can read it until I get to the paywall.)

[Bored Lawyer]

Which this last election showed happened repeatedly.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

No, it did not.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You clearly have never looked into what open primaries actually are, or who is allowed to vote in them.

[Martinned]

It's more that I was occasionally a little sloppy in my terminology.

[FivebySixThree]

Hell Democrats want to make union certification votes open to review so that no ballot cast is secret. If you cannot win by appealing to the people they drop back to intimidation and threats.

[Abraczinskas]

Agree, but that's an edge issue that only applies to "spoiler candidates" or Alaska, Maine, and Nevada if the RCV proposition wins again next cycle.

[not guilty]

It seems that Elmer Stewart Rhodes during his testimony in the seditious conspiracy trial is trying to distance himself from the January 6 actions of his Oath Keeper codefendants. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/07/us/politics/oath-keepers-sedition-stewart-rhodes.html Are we to assume that the so-called Quick Reaction Forces armed themselves and assembled coincidentally and spontaneously?

[not guilty]

There has been quite a bit of conjecture at the Oath Keepers' trial about the defendants' anticipation that President Trump should or would invoke the Insurrection Act to trigger the Oath Keepers to spring into action. The Act states at 10 U.S.C. § 252:

Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

Any evidence that the defendants and their fellow Oath Keepers were any part "of the militia of any State" is unsurprisingly absent. In fact, every state prohibits private militia or paramilitary activity. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2018/04/Prohibiting-Private-Armies-at-Public-Rallies.pdf In the absence of facts showing that the Insurrection Act potentially applied to the Oath Keeper defendants, the trial court should not instruct the jury upon the Act.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Are we to assume that the so-called Quick Reaction Forces armed themselves and assembled coincidentally and spontaneously?"

No, I wouldn't assume that. There's quite a bit of room between "coincidentally and spontaneously" and "this particular person ordered it", though.

For all I know he's guilty as hell, but the alternative to him being guilty as hell isn't the whole thing happening by coincidence. It's somebody else being guilty as hell.

[not guilty]

I'm not sure you are clear on why a conspiracy charge is such a useful tool to a federal prosecutor. If there is an antecedent agreement by two or more persons to use force for any of the purposes listed in 18 U.S.C. § 2384 (a question for the jury to determine based on all the evidence, direct and circumstantial), each conspirator is vicariously liable for the overt acts of all other conspirators undertaken in furtherance of that agreement.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not talking about whether they can nail him on a conspiracy charge. Of course they can, conspiracy law is a terrifying weapon.

I'm talking about whether he's actually GUILTY.

[not guilty]

"I’m talking about whether he’s actually GUILTY."

Uh, questions like that are why we empanel juries.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, and making sure they come to the right decision is why we keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit.

He can argue he's not guilty according to the law, but he's barred from arguing that the law itself is unreasonable.

[SRG]

I'm still betting that Rhodes tries jury nullification. He's very knowledgeable about it.

[not guilty]

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, we go to court with the law we have, not with the law we wish we had.

If you doubt that, ask Darrell Brooks (or whatever he contends his name is).

[David Nieporent]

So you're NOT talking about "whether he's actually GUILTY." You're talking about whether you like the law.

[Brett Bellmore]

Conspiracy law in America is pretty ugly, because it allows you to be convicted on the basis of somebody else's proposed crime, and your own legal acts. That you did nothing illegal isn't a defense.

You're a member of an organization. A government informant joins, and starts proposing criminal acts; Say he suggests you rob a bank to finance overthrowing the government.

If you ignore him as a blow-hard, and later buy a gun, you can get convicted on the basis of the informant's proposed plot, and your buying the gun being a predicate act in furtherance of the plot. And never mind that you just bought it because you wanted a gun, and buying the gun was perfectly legal. Predicate acts CAN be legal actions, after all.

Your only real defense here is that the moment ANYBODY in an organization you're part of proposes to do anything illegal, you either throw them out on their ass, or leave the group in a hurry. You can't just blow them off as an idiot, ignore their suggestions, and continue to do your legal stuff.

Now, as I said, for all I know Rhodes is guilty as hell, and all I was disputing was the notion that coincidence was the only alternative to that. But that doesn't mean I have to think there's anything legitimate about the way conspiracy law works in the US, in practice.

[Martinned]

Hey, look, we agree on something!

In case you're interested in the topic, here is the UK Supreme Court judgment in R. v. Jogee and Ruddock v. The Queen (Jamaica) from 2015, when the Supreme Court set the English and Commonwealth Law on Joint Criminal Enterprise straight. (Which was in any case already much less bonkers than American law.)

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2015-0015-judgment.pdf

89. In cases of alleged secondary participation there are likely to be two issues. The first is whether the defendant was in fact a participant, that is, whether he assisted or encouraged the commission of the crime. Such participation may take many forms. It may include providing support by contributing to the force of numbers in a hostile confrontation.
90. The second issue is likely to be whether the accessory intended to encourage or assist D1 to commit the crime, acting with whatever mental element the offence requires of D1 (as stated in para 10 above). If the crime requires a particular intent, D2 must intend (it may be conditionally) to assist D1 to act with such intent. To take a homely example, if D2 encourages D1 to take another’s bicycle without permission of the owner and return it after use, but D1 takes it and keeps it, D1 will be guilty of theft but D2 of the lesser offence of unauthorised taking, since he will not have encouraged D1 to act with intent permanently to deprive. In cases of concerted physical attack there may often be no practical distinction to draw between an intention by D2 to assist D1 to act with the intention of causing grievous bodily harm at least and D2 having the intention himself that such harm be caused. In such cases it may be simpler, and will generally be perfectly safe, to direct the jury (as suggested in Wesley Smith and Reid) that the Crown must prove that D2 intended that the victim should suffer grievous bodily harm at least. However, as a matter of law, it is enough that D2 intended to assist D1 to act with the requisite intent. That may well be the situation if the assistance or encouragement is rendered some time before the crime is committed and at a time when it is not clear what D1 may or may not decide to do. Another example might be where D2 supplies a weapon to D1, who has no lawful purpose in having it, intending to help D1 by giving him the means to commit a crime (or one of a range of crimes), but having no further interest in what he does, or indeed whether he uses it at all.
91. It will therefore in some cases be important when directing juries to remind them of the difference between intention and desire.

[David Nieporent]

Conspiracy law in America is pretty ugly, because it allows you to be convicted on the basis of somebody else’s proposed crime, and your own legal acts.

No, Brett. It does not. To convict someone of conspiracy the government must show that you personally agreed to commit a crime. That's not "somebody else's" crime; that's your own.

That you did nothing illegal isn’t a defense.

#beggingthequestion

If we agree to rob a bank and you'll get the guns and the bank blueprints and I'll buy the ski masks and rent a car, well, buying ski masks isn't a crime, and neither is renting a car. That doesn't mean that I have "done nothing illegal." It means I've engaged in a criminal conspiracy to rob a bank.

If you ignore him as a blow-hard, and later buy a gun, you can get convicted on the basis of the informant’s proposed plot,

No. Well, I mean, it depends what you mean by that. Yes, people get convicted on flimsy evidence in all sorts of cases because jurors have trouble with the concept of reasonable doubt; I've never seen you express concern about that in any other context.

But if you mean that you can be properly convicted on that basis, no. Again: an element of conspiracy is that you agreed to commit a crime. If someone else proposes it and you do nothing to indicate that you are participating, then you can't properly be convicted.

But that's not what you mean. What you mean is that there should have to be magic words to convict someone of conspiracy, and that we have to play dumb and not draw inferences from people's actions.

[Brett Bellmore]

Let me suggest what I think should be a basic rule of conducting elections: Votes should be counted by people who are ignorant of how the election went elsewhere, and thus have no idea how many votes they need to find for their favorite candidate to win. Results should be reported, complete, at the same time everywhere.

This business of having urban areas in a state still counting a couple days after the vote has been reported in the rest of the state, and they know precisely what the count needs to be for somebody to win, is utter bullshit. Even if they actually did everything honestly, why would anybody believe it?

And it doesn't happen in every state, a fair number of states have essentially complete counts on election day. The ones that don't have chosen not to, in some sense, because they have examples of how it can be done, and they don't follow them.

But it happens over and over in the same states, with the same areas reporting long after the rest of the state, and often changing who's in the lead. It's a recipe for suspicion.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, it isn’t a recipe for suspicion. It is a manifestation of suspicion. In jurisdictions long accustomed to cynicism about politics, no one wants to take the chance of leading the way, and then letting folks like Trump on the other side try for an electoral coup.

Agree that a pre-set time for simultaneous release of all results would be a good idea. Practicalities might make it difficult. How long should the interval be, and how difficult would it be to keep known results secret for days or weeks if that is what it took to resolve contested ballot problems?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Also, the answer to the, "Why would anyone believe it," question is because both the balloting and the counting are monitored by the contesting parties.

[Brett Bellmore]

Except when they're not, of course.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A solution in search of a problem.

[Martinned]

with the same areas reporting long after the rest of the state

You mean areas where more people live? And particularly areas full of, well, those people?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, like the places that have just as many resources per capita as anyplace else, and still can't get the job done.

Again, there are states where this doesn't happen, and they even have cities, too!

[SRG]

Yeah, like the places that have just as many resources per capita as anyplace else, and still can’t get the job done.

There may be any number of reasons - and when the state is governed by one party, it is not inconceivable that they can find ways to restrict resources in other-party counties.

Are waiting times typically the same across all the counties in a state?

[Sarcastr0]

Brett has a view of 'the job' not shared by state comptrollers, it seems.

[Brett Bellmore]

You have never figured out that "I don't find that suspicious" isn't a magic incantation that banishes other people's suspicions.

[Sarcastr0]

The burden is not on me. You're the one that keeps pushing reforms to make you feel better.

'I find this suspicious' isn't a magic wand that gets you concessions.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

That's true, but I think he has a valid point about perception of elections, which is crucial if people are going to have faith in democracy. What they really should do is not announce any numbers until they have all the votes counted throughout the state.

There are good, valid reasons why it takes longer to count votes in high population areas, but the perception is bad. And yes I grant that the perception is being driven by false claims of cheating.

[Moderation4ever]

One solution to the problem is creating faster ways to process the data. There is a big difference between processing 5000 ballots and 500,000 ballots. My son lives in a small town with one polling place, I live in an urban area with many polling places. Those polling places must coordinate on election day.

Part of the problem is that people fail to think of the complexity of the voting process and the way it is carried out. Our country has a very diversified election process. This has problems like you mentioned above. People also need to realize that the system also makes any kind of systematic cheating impossible. There is no single point to attack in a cheating process.

[Brett Bellmore]

But, again, we have a number of states where this problem doesn't occur, and it's not like they consist entirely of rural areas, either. It's a solved problem, it's just that some states don't, for whatever reason, care to implement the solutions.

[Reallynotbob]

Good... good... let the preemption flow through you.

Congress should control elections involving federal officers, and also set proper district boundaries. State control of elections is for the birds, right Brett?

[Life of Brian]

Shorter !Bob: "Shut up with your silly expectations of basic transparency and competence -- we have the CONTHTIUSHUNAL RIGHT to do a slow, shitty, opaque counting job!"

[Moderation4ever]

Just to add some additional information I have just received about the effort required to process votes. The city of Madison processed 145K ballots on Tuesday, including same day, early voting, and mail-in ballots. To do this required 107 polling locations in the city staffed by 2561 people. Most of those people were like me and worked only on election day. I hope that will give people some idea of the effort that goes into an election day.

[ducksalad]

Well, the part about complete results, announced without knowledge of what other precincts’ results are, is good in theory. The problem is that in real life, just due to honest screw-ups, there will be places with delays, and the “last common denominator” is going to be something like a week. And it is simply impossible to keep knowledge of the partial totals secret for a week. You’d have to sequester the entire election staff – tens of thousands of people – under conditions stricter than a supermax prison.

The next best thing is to require precincts to publicly announce running counts – like literally standing at the door to the polling place – every hour, as well as reporting them in to the county/state. Even if there is not the slightest bit of distrust, having a lot of people hear and look at the numbers helps to catch mistakes. And if you are one of those believers in a conspiracy, hourly announcements make it harder to cheat: you can't "find" all the votes in one lump at some critical moment without it being obvious.

[Reallynotbob]

My concern about "running counts" would be this: locations using voting machines usually have a pre-qualification and post-qualification procedure using known mixes of dummy ballots. Think of it as checking a scale for zeroing both before and after the measurement. So if running counts involve publishing results before the post-qualification procedure AND there is a problem detected with that machine, then the running count would create avoidable confusion.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The problem is that in real life, just due to honest screw-ups, there will be places with delays,"

The problem, typically, is not places with delays due to honest screw-ups. It's the same places having delays due to honest screw-ups, election after election after election.

And if you're getting honest screw-ups that reliably, why have you not been replaced?

[bernard11]

Well, the part about complete results, announced without knowledge of what other precincts’ results are, is good in theory.

I'm not so sure. First of all, if officials are going to find votes to match a desired total then, if you don't give them the target, they will do the best they can, finding as many as they think they can get away with. Besides, it would be Trumpish stupidity to find the exact number needed.

Second, who goes last? What exactly would be the sequence of events in such a scheme? There's only one cheating precinct, and it contrives to go last? What if there are two? For opposite parties.

Could be fun.

[Stephen Lathrop]

This mid-term election marks a crossing into a new generational watershed in presidential politics. DeSantis, born near the leading edge of the millennial generation, is positioned generationally like Kennedy and Clinton—markedly younger than successful presidential candidates who preceded him. In all likelihood, DeSantis will become the Republican nominee. If he does not, it will probably be because someone else about his own age, or even younger, beats him out.

Trump, as a holdover representative from the leading edge of the baby boomers, is finished. No more baby boomer presidents will be elected, unless someone quite unexpected, born near the tail end of the boomers (1960 or thereabouts) shows up for the contest. It is unlikely that would happen, and less likely that such a candidate could win in 2024.

Also unlikely is that any candidate from generation X will prove competitive, either in 2024, or in any presidential election thereafter. After millennials take over, their generation will consolidate presidential power and hold it for a long time. That is what both the WWII generation, and the baby boomers, did in their turns.

Thus, most likely, Biden will not be the Democrats' nominee for 2024. Democrats will also nominate someone unexpected, and not a boomer. It will likely be someone positioned generationally like Kennedy, Clinton, and DeSantis, near the leading edge of the notably younger millennial generation—destined to provide a continuous supply of candidates for about 30 years.

Expectations should be that the advent of a new generation of political leaders will be accompanied by a discontinuous change in national politics. New younger leaders will seek to reject, not continue, played out political trends. Thus, DeSantis may campaign for a time as an heir to Trumpism, as a political expedient. But in power—if he gets it—DeSantis will not concentrate much thereafter on MAGA issues, or anything else of much concern to baby boomers, or to generation Xers either.

The fascinating question which remains is when the Democrats will realize they too are about to be dragged willy-nilly over the generational divide. After the Rs go younger, Ds will desperately need to pay attention to prospective leaders young enough to compete for millennial allegiance at the polls.

Kennedy and Clinton both came on the scene as unexpected Democratic candidates, because the generational time was right for them to do it. In each case they represented a younger generation already grown exhausted and cynical about politics. Prior to their respective transitions, both the WW II generation, and the baby boomers, had all-but-despaired of seeing its own needs addressed by notably older leaders. Those had long governed to address issues and suit preferences of their own generations, to the neglect of anyone younger. By the time they reached the transitional boundary, that tended to mean the only issue left which geriatric leaders could agree upon was a need to maintain their own fading power—the Pelosi/Biden Democrats in a nutshell.

Interesting times ahead, and likely better ones. There will be some turbulence along the way.

[Martinned]

I think the Democrats are too nice, and Americans' general reverence for The President is too great, to show Biden the door if he wants the nomination another time. That may well end up being their undoing.

(Although it's not obvious, looking at it two years in advance, who else would have a better shot at the D side.)

[DaveM]

Probably not as much a matter of "being nice" as not having a better alternative.

[Martinned]

The only way you get an alternative is if someone shoves the old guy aside and grabs the spotlight. That's what DeSantis did, bless him.

[Frank Drackman]

and like JFK (and LBJ, and Milhouse, and GHWB) Disanto's a Navy Veteran. Would be nice to have an actual Veteran (OK, "W" technically is a Veteran from his TANG service) in the Oval Orifice.
Strange that WJC, DJT, GWB all born within 10 weeks in summer of 46'. Stranger that no POTUS was (or likely will be) born in the 1930's (Dole, Dukakis, McCain didn't even come close) and times running out for getting one from the 50's

Frank

[Nige]

Yeah, everyone respects veterans. Oh, wait, remember the purple band-aids?

[Brett Bellmore]

I largely don't disagree with this.

I'd only note that Biden isn't a boomer. Trump is, just barely, (Born in the first year of the baby boom, 1946.) but Biden was born in 1942, four years BEFORE the baby boom.

The Democrats are in a bit of a pickle here, that the Republicans have escaped: Their current elderly leadership secured themselves by fratriciding the next generation of up and coming political leaders, so there's a big age gap among plausible candidates. You go straight from the senior citizens to people who are unusually young and inexperienced by Presidential standards.

Also, a lot of the otherwise plausible candidates have records that are just too conservative by the standards of the modern Democratic party.

They'll get past that eventually, obviously, but that's why, for instance, you had Biden as nominee in the first place, after beating Bernie Sanders. Everybody younger was much less experienced.

[ducksalad]

"You go straight from the senior citizens to people who are unusually young and inexperienced by Presidential standards."

I thought that too, but then looked at lists of governors and senators sorted by age. The Democrats have a decent sized block of people in their 50's. They all managed to win Democratic primaries and then statewide elections.

And what happened in 2020 was the (relatively) centrist candidates in the presidential primaries collectively winning majorities. A bunch of them made a decision to jump out and back Biden in order to prevent Sanders from winning off a mere plurality.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Their current elderly leadership secured themselves by fratriciding the next generation of up and coming political leaders, so there’s a big age gap among plausible candidates. You go straight from the senior citizens to people who are unusually young and inexperienced by Presidential standards.

During times of generational transition, that is a recurring feature of American presidential politics. Time and again, there has been a transition from a long-established leadership generation, to a new generation so young it necessarily lacks experience. That was the Kennedy election in a nutshell. Clinton's experience level was tiny compared to that of G.H.W. Bush, who was said by some to be the most experienced figure ever to run for President—and that was before he had been 4 years a president.

Also, it is not unusual when generational needs take center stage to find that candidates suited to satisfy them seem to come almost from nowhere. That could happen shortly in the Democratic Party.

Of course, for what it is worth, a Buttigieg–DeSantis contest would be generationally suitable on both sides, even though both are already known quantities. What would be less generationally likely would be nomination for Harris, Whitmer, Newsom, or Klobuchar. All are too old to inspire millennials, or make them believe national politics is about to take up their concerns.

Andy Beshear the Democratic(!) governor of Kentucky is nearly as young as DeSantis, which might count for something. Randall Woodfin, Mayor of Birmingham is both young and notably politically successful, albeit with an inevitably brief career to boast of. The Mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott is even younger, but probably has experience too brief to make him a credible candidate.

To review the accomplishments of young candidates is to recognize that any of them would have to impress more with personal characteristics than with claims to experience or accomplishment. It worked for Kennedy and it worked for Clinton. It would not be surprising if it worked again at a time like this one for someone else that most folks have not been aware of.

I would like to see a few such unknowns take a shot at it. The Democrats do need new blood.

[Gasman]

But, the gerontocracy must live on.

[David Nieporent]

Thus, most likely, Biden will not be the Democrats’ nominee for 2024. Democrats will also nominate someone unexpected, and not a boomer. It will likely be someone positioned generationally like Kennedy, Clinton, and DeSantis, near the leading edge of the notably younger millennial generation—destined to provide a continuous supply of candidates for about 30 years.

Barring health problems, of course Biden will be the nominee for 2024. If this election had actually been the red wave that many had hoped/feared, I suspect he'd have stepped aside. But since it looks like it worked out for the Dems, Biden can't be blamed, and he's going to run.

[apedad]

Maryland Nuclear Engineer and Wife Sentenced for Espionage-Related Offenses

A Maryland man and his wife were sentenced today for conspiracy to communicate Restricted Data related to the design of nuclear-powered warships.

Jonathan Toebbe, 44, of Annapolis, was sentenced today to 232 months, over 19 years, of incarceration. His wife, Diana Toebbe, 46, was sentenced to 262 months, more than 21 years, of incarceration. The Toebbes pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in August 2022.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/maryland-nuclear-engineer-and-wife-sentenced-espionage-related-offenses

It's not clear from this news release why the wife got more time.

Also this might be the first time an espionage case included the words "peanut butter sandwich."

[Commenter_XY]

The foreign government is unidentified. Interesting. Thanks for passing this one along. There is no such thing as encrypted email, it appears.

apedad, I'm experimenting with a few things in the kitchen. No recipe this week. 🙁

[Absaroka]

"There is no such thing as encrypted email, it appears."

Encrypting it doesn't hide the contents from the intended recipient, in this case an FBI agent 🙂

"Jonathan Toebbe began corresponding via encrypted email with an individual whom he believed to be a representative of the foreign government. The individual was really an undercover FBI agent."

This part: "According to court documents, Jonathan Toebbe sent a package to a foreign government, listing a return address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, containing a sample of Restricted Data and instructions for establishing a covert relationship to purchase additional Restricted Data."

makes me think that packages sent to the Russian or Chinese embassy might get opened en route.

[Davedave]

"The foreign government is unidentified."

No, there was no foreign government. The idiots were trying to sell US military secrets, but never found a buyer other than the FBI.

[Paladin_44]

Brazil, I hear.

[Absaroka]

Thanks (also to DMN for the link) ... I didn't see that one coming. Apparently Brazil is pretty intent on having nuke subs.

[David Nieporent]

This provides a few details

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63578924

[Noscitur a sociis]

why the wife got more time.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/submarine-secrets-case-sentencing-toebbe-00066112

Diana Toebbe, who admitted acting as a lookout for her husband, received an enhanced sentence after the judge disclosed during the couple’s combined five-hour sentencing hearing that Diana Toebbe tried to send her husband two letters from jail.

The letters, which were read in court, were intercepted before they could be delivered. In one of them, Diana Toebbe told her husband to flush the letter down a toilet after reading it. She encouraged him to lie about her involvement in the scheme and say she “didn’t know anything about any of this.”

The judge said she lacked genuine remorse and didn’t take responsibility for her actions.

[Brett Bellmore]

Normally I object to sentencing enhancements for "lack of remorse", because they're especially hard on the wrongly convicted, who didn't actually do anything to feel remorseful about.

But I'll make an exception when the evidence for lack of remorse amounts to a confession, too.

A confession of stupidity, really; Who thinks letters to people in jail don't get looked at?

[bernard11]

A confession of stupidity,

Reminds me of a bit of dialogue I remember from some cop show or other:

One detective remarks to another that the crook did something really dumb, which led to his arrest.

The other detective says,

"Look, if they weren't idiots we'd never catch them."

[Brett Bellmore]

It's true: Criminological studies show that most criminals are not very bright, and have bad impulse control. But, yeah, this might be skewed by who gets caught.

[Commenter_XY]

Ok, I'll simply make this observation about the midterm election: Team R blew it.

Now you can all tell me why. 🙂

[apedad]

I read a comment on Reddit that the polls were generally wrong because the Gen Z young adults don't answer phone calls.

And it seems they mainly voted for Ds.

[Nige]

By all accounts the more credible polls weren't wrong - the media just ignored them and predicted a Red Wave and declared Dems In Disarray, for some reason.

[MoreCurious]

The Gen Z people are not the only ones who don't answer phone calls. If you want to contact me (and most of the Boomers I know), send me a text or an email. Otherwise, unless you're my wife or one of my siblings, your call goes directly to voice mail, where I may or may not get around to listening to it.

[Zarniwoop]

I'm early Gen-X (late 1960s) and I don't answer unknown numbers either.

[DaveM]

They didn't blow it everywhere, though, there was a total rout in one state. The better question is why that wasn't repeated elsewhere. The answer to that is obvious, I think: it's not enough to just say the other side is bad, you have to prove that you're good.

Sometimes I think we get lost in the weeds on how politics work. We trot out polls and thousands of words of analysis when in actuality, politics is very fundamental.

[Moderation4ever]

Good point on the failure of Republicans to lay out a plan to address issues. Midterm have historically been referendums on the party in power. In 2022, the Democrats made it a choice election and while they did not win, they limited loses.

[Nige]

The media endlessly talking about polls and races instead of the politicians and their policies and previous performances, if any, really needs to stop, or at least rein itself in a bit.

[Sarcastr0]

Nothing about the general message - hitting financial stuff while the Dems went hard on Dobbs was IMO the right move from both sides.

It was the candidates - the requirement of fealty to Trump from the primaries means you got either lunatics or soulless ambition-monsters as the GOP candidates.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Correct. Republicans could have easily cruised to victory in the senate races in (at a minimum) Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania and won the governors races in the latter two, if they had just nominated the normal candidates out of the primary. And not having crazy people on the top the ballot probably would have gotten a few extra house seats as well.

[grb]

It might help if the GOP wasn’t addicted to lies and nonexistent “issues”. What have we seen recently from them? Critical Race Theory, a rarified discipline at the graduate level of universities, became a boogeyman of terror and panic. Now we have transgender hysteria and litter boxes in the classroom for children identifying as cats. We have the military crippled because it’s somehow gone “woke”. We have an entire party tilting anti-vaxx because its leader thought they could squeeze a few polling point by that national sabotage. And we have the purest bullshit of election fraud, an issue that never survives the slightest scrutiny.

When your ideology’s primary concern is a consumer base that sees politics as entertainment, that’s what happens. You always need a new cartoon show to keep the viewing base happily indignant – the more lurid & nonsensical, the better. But that’s how you blow the easiest opposition midterm election in living memory….

[Sarcastr0]

Thing is, grb, those issues do resonate. Part of it is that the GOP has a decent group that'll get super angry at whatever they're told to be angry at, but they fastened onto schools and trans issues because they found those worked electorally.

It may look like ideology, but it's actually extremely cynical electoralism.

Now, the military thing is not electoral, that is just reactionary. It's the endgame of the sour-grapes anti-institutionalism from the nihilist wing, though it can spill out due to the aforementioned lunatics.

[Bob from Ohio]

"GOP has a decent group that’ll get super angry at whatever they’re told to be angry at"

GOP voters dumb! Follow masters!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You are a prime example of exactly what Sarcastr0 means.

[Zarniwoop]

I don't see you arguing how and/or why Sarc is actually wrong...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"GOP voters dumb!"

They tend to be poorly educated and reside in shambling communities.

[grb]

Look on the bright side, Bob: Donald Trump is on record saying he loves dumb voters!

[not guilty]

The political party controlling the White House has historically not done well in the first round of midterm elections. Democrats here did much better than expected in this week's elections -- likely holding the Senate and coming close in the House.

Backlash against the erosion of abortion rights is one explanation. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/us/politics/abortion-midterm-elections-democrats-republicans.html Three states amended their constitutions to protect abortion rights, and an anti-abortion amendment was defeated in Kentucky. A "born alive" measure is trailing in Montana.

Perhaps the fetus fetishists should have heeded the maxim about being careful what one asks for.

[Michael D]

Just a guess but maybe Trump fatigue. Many of the candidates he endorsed in the primaries struggled or are struggling in the general election. Maybe the independent voters are tired of him.

[DaveM]

"Maybe the independent voters are tired of him."

I know I am. You can say that two times, and mean it.

[Moderation4ever]

Independent voters were tired of Trump in 2020. Also, some Republicans as he underperformed his party in general in that election.

[Nige]

Biden's approval ratings may be low, but he doesn't constantly make everything about himself, which makes him at a minimum more tolerable than the other guy.

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump gets relentlessly hostile media coverage. Insanely hostile for a guy who's highly popular within his major party, actually won a Presidential election, and came close to winning reelection.

Back in 2016, the Shorenstein Center did an analysis of general election coverage of the Presidential race.

Hillary didn't get great coverage from anyone, her best coverage was from the LA Times, at 53-47% hostile, a wash.

But Trump's best coverage was from Fox, 73-27% hostile! It got worse from there, EVERYBODY but Fox gave him more hostile coverage than anybody but Fox had covered her.

By 2020, they found that CBS was running 89-11% POSITIVE coverage of Biden, and 95-5% negative coverage of Trump.

Fox? 59-41% negative for Biden, 58-42% negative for Trump.

It wasn't so much that Trump's coverage got worse, though it did everywhere but Fox. Rather, every outlet but Fox was actively promoting Biden.

Trump's problem is that relentlessly negative coverage has a cumulative effect. He was able to just barely overcome it in 2016 because his opponent was so awful even left-wing outlets couldn't bring themselves to put lipstick on that pig. But faced with a candidate less awful than Hillary, they were up to that challenge.

The real question is, is there any reason at this point to think that ANY Republican nominee, any nominee at all, would not get the Trump treatment? I think probably not: No matter who the Republicans nominate in 2024, they're going to be reported as the new Hitler in most media outlets, and get mixed reviews from Fox.

[Sarcastr0]

For someone who claims to not like Trump, you sure do apologize for him a whole bunch.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't have to like Trump to think this sort of thing is bad for American democracy. The political views of the people dictating the contents of news coverage are systematically different from those of the American people as a whole. Hugely different.

It's not good for a democracy when that happens.

[Nige]

The 'dictators' are almost entirely right-wing billionaires. Some of them might not like Trump, but if so, it's a gentlemen's disagreement between them and the other right-wing billionaires who support him. Yes, it is bad for democracy for right-wing billionaires to own so much of the media, but not because a few of them are split on the Trump issue. They have to at least make a passing effort to report reality and the reality is Trump is an incredibly negative person.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, that's funny: You actually think the nominal owners of the media dictate in detail the contents of the stories.

The 2024 campaign will be in full swing in less than two years. Book mark my prediction: By this time 2 years from now, the Republican nominee will be covered as evil incarnate, regardless of who they happen to be.

[Sarcastr0]

Check out what all the Murdoch media did today, in unison.

It won't work. But don't pretend owners don't get a say.

[Nige]

That's funny, you believe they can't set the tone of coverage if they decide to take an interest.

‘the Republican nominee will be covered as evil incarnate, regardless of who they happen to be.’

Considering the Republican field, that’d be a safe bet, except that the media is likely to bend over backwards to ignore the worst traits and excesses of the conservative candidate, the way they ignored so many of Trump’s blazing red flags, while having a go at the Democrat, just to create ‘balance.’

[Nige]

Seems weird to whine about this now, when his supporters adore it when he's antagonising everyone and anyone, especially the media. He was supposedly a genius manipulator whenever the media covered his latest stupid tweet. He's a troll, trolls are supposed to thrive on provoking negative responses - bit late to complain about it at this stage. Declaring the media the enemy of the people didn't help, in fact was presumably by design. Live by the shitposting, die by the shitposting.

[grb]

What I find funny is how Brett drains away all responsibility from Trump’s words and actions. Sometimes it’s by willful blindness. Shakedown a foreign leader for personal gain? Brett doesn’t see it in the transcript no matter how hard he squints. Demand a state official produce an exact number of phantom votes by unspecified means? Brett does a spot-on Sgt Schultz imitation.

In the case of Trump’s multi-faceted campaign to steal the election he lost, Brett strains theory. Trump can’t be held responsible for – say – demanding Pence perform an unconstitutional act and then denouncing him (Pence) to an angry mob when he doesn’t. Why? Because Trump “believes” he won despite never producing a consistent theory on how from any moment to the next (then or since). Per Brett, that tiny kernel of hypothetical belief buried under layers of huckster blather and crude flimflam excuses everything.

Bottom line? Hours into his presidency Trump was telling grotesque lies about the crowd size at his inauguration. Scarcely a day followed when Trump didn’t indulge himself with some outrage or another. After all, that’s why his fans liked him. They slapped their knees and guffawed every time their hero wiped his lard ass on the nearest civic or political institution. The more juvenile the prank, the more they cheered. Does Brett really believe those antics wouldn’t have been covered if done by an average politician (or normal human being)?

I think he got off easy. A normal pol would have faced weeks of bad coverage for – say – promoting the conspiracy Biden had Seal Team 6 killed. For Trump it was just a typical Tuesday, quickly forgotten when the next day’s outrage succeeded it.

[bernard11]

Two things, Brett.

1. I find it very hard to believe that Trump got 73% hostile coverage from Fox, especially in the general election.

2. Coverage is not independent of behavior. To exaggerate a bit (OK, a lot) Al Capone didn't get very positive media coverage either. Trump's much-vaunted business record is in fact highly dubious, he has some pretty questionable items in his history - Trump University for example - and is not in general an admirable character.

IOW, he deserves a lot of negative coverage.

[bernard11]

Brett,

You are simply misrepresenting the Shorenstein study to make it fit with your own opinions.

[Emphasis added]

A new report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzes news coverage during the 2016 general election, and concludes that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump received coverage that was overwhelmingly negative in tone and extremely light on policy....

The study found that, on topics relating to the candidates’ fitness for office, Clinton and Trump’s coverage was virtually identical in terms of its negative tone. “Were the allegations surrounding Clinton of the same order of magnitude as those surrounding Trump?” asks Patterson. “It’s a question that political reporters made no serious effort to answer during the 2016 campaign...”

Trump’s coverage during the general election was more negative than Clinton’s, running 77 percent negative to 23 percent positive. But over the full course of the election, it was Clinton, not Trump, who was more often the target of negative coverage (see Figure 1). Overall, the coverage of her candidacy was 62 percent negative to 38 percent positive, while his coverage was 56 percent negative to 44 percent positive...

Much of the candidates’ “good press” was in the context of the horserace—who is winning and who is losing and why. At any given moment in the campaign, one of the candidates has the momentum, which is a source of positive coverage. Figure 2 shows the tone of the nominees’ coverage on non-horserace topics, those that bear some relationship to the question of their fitness for office—their policy positions, personal qualities, leadership abilities, ethical standards, and the like. In Trump’s case, this coverage was 87 percent negative to 13 percent positive. Clinton’s ratio was identical—87 percent negative to 13 percent positive.

IOW, speaking politely, your claims are not supported by the report. The media was not in the bag for Clinton.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Harvard Kennedy School"

As valuable as a report written by Hillary herself.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You would prefer a report from Ouachita Baptist, Bob Jones, or Oral Roberts? Maybe Franciscan or Wheaton. Or . . . South Texas College of Law Houston?

[bernard11]

Talk to Brett.

He's the one citing it in support of his claims.

Apparently, the rule on the right is that a study done at Harvard is wonderfully authoritative, so long as it can described as supporting the RW position.

But once it's shown not to support that it's garbage.

Lots of integrity there.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trump’s coverage during the general election was more negative than Clinton’s, running 77 percent negative to 23 percent positive. But over the full course of the election, it was Clinton, not Trump, who was more often the target of negative coverage "

It's a common pattern: The Democratic media identify who they think is the most plausible losing Republican candidate, and go easy on them during the primaries in an effort to create an easy general election win. Then once the primaries are past, they turn on them. In 2016 Democrats actually thought Trump would be easy to beat.

Amazingly, this actually comes as a surprise to some Republican nominees, like McCain, who think the media actually like them, and then are shocked when they turn on a dime after they've become the nominee.

[Nige]

None of that makes sense, except in a 'making up an explanation to fit a personal narrative' sense.

[bernard11]

That's fucking ridiculous, Brett. You are trying to shoehorn the data to fit some paranoid theory you have in your head.

Where Trump got 73% negative coverage, Clinton got 64% negative. Less, but not exactly a cheerleading effort. Besides, there is an important point you overlook. The study treated favorable polling results as positive coverage. (Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but that's what they did.) Clinton heavily outscored Trump on that front, because she generally had the lead. So that, along with the aforementioned general assholery of Trump, makes it perfectly reasonable that his coverage was more negative.

How should the media have covered his mocking of a disabled reporter? Or Trump University?

[Brett Bellmore]

You actually have the admitted strategy this year of the Democrats promoting extreme right-wing Republican candidates in the primaries, thinking they'd be easy to beat. They did it right out in the open, publicly discussed doing it.

And yet I'm paranoid for observing that they do this sort of thing?

[bernard11]

Brett,

You are begging the question.

It was Democratic politicians who did that. So you are trying to prove your claim by conflating the media with Democratic politicians., thereby "proving" the media coverage was tilted. But your claim doesn't hold up, as the study you cited makes clear.

Stop digging.

[Sarcastr0]

Wow, Brett. Even the data that goes against you is actually for you!

They always say the best interpretations of the facts are the unfalsifiable ones!

[David Nieporent]

First, you didn't even bother to read the link. The bulk of the coverage was horserace stuff, and "negative" coverage of horserace stuff — "A new poll shows Trump trailing Hillary in three key states" — is not remotely the same thing as "hostile."

Second, I'll bet the media coverage of Osama Bin Laden was more negative than the media coverage of George Bush. Did that reflect problematic bias? Or simply accuracy? Trump is a sociopath with no redeeming qualities as a human being; of course the coverage of him is more likely to be negative. Any objective coverage of him would be.

[Noorondoor]

They blew it many decades ago when they didn’t stop third world immigration. Tuesday was just the consequences.

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/007534.html

Could they have done better than they did? Sure. But the only way Republicans can ever win is to get nearly all of the white vote. Every year, as whites die off and are replaced by non-whites from the third world, it becomes less and less possible to win.

Outside of South Florida, non-whites vote for the Democrat Party 80/20 or worse. Gen Z is more than half non-white.

[SRG]

So why not work to make your party more appealing to non-whites, then?

[Noorondoor]

They have tried for decades. Ultimately, individual liberty, freedoms, and self reliance only appeals to whites, and even then, only largely to white men. There's a reason why collectivism and corruption runs strong throughout the third world. Non-whites are simply not genetically capable of anything better.

[Sarcastr0]

Only solution is to break off and make a nation of only white men!

[Nige]

Have they tried seasteading?

[Noorondoor]

I do think that is the only way to preserve America, yes.

Otherwise, Brazil is in our future.

[Ed Grinberg]

Funny!

I'd modify Noorondoor's thesis where he talks about genetics. I think it has more to do with culture. If you're raised to believe that it's the government's job to "take care of you," you're not going to vote for the party of "individual liberty, freedoms, and self reliance."
Otherwise Noorondoor is spot-on.

[Noorondoor]

Could be cultural to a degree, but ultimately, genetics informs culture. Has a constitutional republic based on protestant ethics successfully existed anywhere without a majority white population?

Of course, that's not to say that a majority white population is sufficient on its own. Argentina is a basket case, but that's largely due to the Catholic influence there.

[Reallynotbob]

South Africa.
Constitutional republic, 8% White, 78% Christian (58% Protestant).

[Noorondoor]

You consider South Africa to be successful?

[Reallynotbob]

Your goalpost was "successfully existed" so yes.

For your revised goalpost of "successful," the answer is still yes. South Africa has a larger GDP than Ireland and Denmark, and a larger GDP per capita than Ukraine and India. So I'll take "yes" again.

What's your new goalpost, "has native koala bears?"

[Noorondoor]

LOL. Not even worthy of a response.

[SRG]

Ultimately geography is destiny.

[SRG]

There is no major party of “individual liberty, freedoms, and self reliance.” in the US, or indeed anywhere else.

If one judges by history, white Christian-cultured males have been responsible for most of the major atrocities of the 20thC, and maintained slavery in the US for 300 years. So I'm inclined to think that "individual liberty, freedoms, and self reliance.” are merely words bandied about without actually representing anything concrete.

[Moderation4ever]

Not necessary, Noorondoor could move to Russia, it a very white nation, Putin acts like one of those Christians that hates everyone slightly differently. He might like it there.

[Sarcastr0]

Needs more purity - I think a nation of only men out in International Waters will be the sustainable, responsible, heterosexual utopia he seeks.

[Reallynotbob]

I mean, Northern Alaska is pretty close....

[bernard11]

I just looked at Kopel's post on mass murder.

There are some African countries on the list, but they seem to be pikers compared to Europe (and China, of course).

Culture?

[Ridgeway]

Technology + population size.

Although the Khmer Rouge did yeoman's work to overcome both of these challenges.

[Jerry B.]

The Republicans had their own version of TDS, and it didn't work in their favor as much as the leadership thought it would.

[Kazinski]

As a Trump voter I will ascribe it to too much Trump influence in candidate selection.

AZ (still not called), PA, GA (runoff), and NH all were very winnable with better candidates and Trump was decisive in the primaries.

And the one race where Trump did make a decisive difference and his candidate won was Ohio where Vance has shown that he can be independent.

I just thank god the House almost certainly flipped, there are 32 races still undecided and the GOP only needs 7 more seats. If the Democrats get to 51 in the Senate and the Republicans don’t take the house that would be a disaster of biblical proportions where not even Joe Manchin acts as a slight drag on the spending and energy follies.

[Commenter_XY]

Kazinski, I found many of the responses in this entire thread fascinating (I started with: Tell me why Team R whiffed). I don't think we will know 'the answer' on why Team R whiffed for some time (meaning months, perhaps years). Why?

The analogy I would suggest to you comes from finance, SAFEMAX. Safemax is the highest percentage withdrawal rate from a portfolio for a given time period (typically 30 years). Safemax can only be known in retrospect.

The Senate is critical. To me, the Senate is even more important than the House.

[Abraczinskas]

In this cycle, the messaging around election integrity struck a resonant chord where the R candidate made that an issue. Dobbs was always going to motivate suburbs, "trigger" laws put that squarely in the limelight. Lastly, Trump is tiring to defend years after losing as an incumbant. That has downstream effects in voter ID and GOTV efforts which are primary drivers in close calls.

[Moderation4ever]

A few of thoughts on the midterm election of 2022.

I was amused to read in my local paper, The Wisconsin State Journal, that Fox News had played a clip of a Madison poll worker writing on ballots. The clip sent in by a viewer and labeling it suspicious. As the average person knows and the Paper points out, all ballots must be initialed by a poll worker (actually two) before they are given to the voter. The story points out the fact that too many people yelling fraud are not even remotely familiar with election procedures.

The polls in Madison were very busy. I worked a local polling place and noted that we had votes from roughly one third of our precincts registered voters by noon. The voters also were coming in almost continuously. Most election days there are lulls in the voting that give pollworkers time to catch up on administrative tasks, particularly the hourly counts but Tuesday pollworker had to work in the tasks while heavy voting continued.

While the polling place I worked moved people through quickly, there were reported areas with lines over an hour long. There still need to be work done to get this time down. I am retired and can vote when I want, but for working people with families an hour wait is likely too long.

Mail-in and in-person early voting was again heavy, but not as much as 2020. I have said and will continue to say that this method of voting will continue to see heavy use, particularly when the problem of long voting lines continues. People enjoy the convenience of mail-in and early voting. This is despite a number of road blocks put up in Wisconsin in 2022. Road blocks include the elimination of ballot drop boxes and a ridiculous requirement that you can't even hand in your spouse's ballot.

[DaveM]

"As the average person knows and the Paper points out, all ballots must be initialed by a poll worker (actually two) before they are given to the voter."

And,

"People enjoy the convenience of mail-in and early voting."

Isn't it so very odd that in-person voting -- which is more secure on its face, because, well, you are face-to-face -- has such tight controls on the chain of custody of a ballot (two initials, forsooth!), and yet mail-in voting, with its dozens of hand-off points, long, insecure chain of custody, and dependence on handwritten signatures instead of presented forms of ID, is hailed because it's a "convenience".

Make up yer mind, Wisconsin.

[Moderation4ever]

Mail in ballots must be initialed also.

The point I made in the first comment applies here as well. You are unfamiliar with the process and see problems where none exist. Mail-in ballots are every bit as secure as in-person. This has been shown over and over again.

[Noorondoor]

It's certainly a convenience to Democrat Party ballot harvesters. Stacy Abrams and her coterie of parasites can go to inner cities, hand them ballots to fill out, and then bring them to a drop off site.

It's easy to win when you promise people free stuff.

[Moderation4ever]

Got a citation for this fantasy?

[Noorondoor]

I'm not providing a citation that the sky is blue.

[Moderation4ever]

But you find a citation for why the sky is blue, which is more than you can find for your ballot harvesting story.

[Aunt Teefah]

Kinda weird that she wouldn't have gone ahead and "harvested" enough ballots to actually win her race, isn't it?

[MoreCurious]

But wouldn't that have spoiled the whole, dastardly scheme? She and her ballot harvesters understood that by winning everyone would know she stole the election. After all, the point of cheating is not to get caught, right?

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

I think we're gonna need another stereotype...

[Zarniwoop]

Agreed with M4E. I volunteer as a poll worker in Wisconsin as well.

Pretty much every person who gets the vapors claiming "OMG they cheated" is simply displaying forehead-smacking levels of ignorance about how voting procedures work.

You think I'm mistaken? Go volunteer for the next election cycle. Educate yourself from real life, not what Trump bleats to his sheeply believers.

To be sure, there will always be people who hand wave about their wildly ignorant "suspicions" because the guy they liked lost. Good thing actual democracy is better organized than that.

[David Nieporent]

And that was true in 2020 also. Ignorant MAGA types claimed that none of the lawsuits were decided on the merits. Many were decided on procedural grounds, true. But the factual claims of fraud were adjudicated. And courts repeatedly pointed out that the "affidavits" supplied by the Kraken crowd purportedly showing fraudulent activity actually reflected ignorance by the affiants about how the process worked.

[SRG]

too many people yelling fraud are not even remotely familiar with election procedures.

No shit. I recall in 2020 someone talking about "suitcases full of ballots" appearing from under a table when it was the regular storage case and location for ballots that had not yet been counted.

One thing I can say for sure, that there is no shortage of people who knowsnothing about election procedures or the legal process that follows a challenge will scream about fraud, affidavits, etc. thinking they've acquired instant expertise from the University of Gateway Pundit.

[Brett Bellmore]

The real issue in that case was the election workers telling the poll watchers AND the media that they were done for the night, come back in the morning, and then going back to work once they'd left.

And, yeah, one of the reporters present confirmed that IS what they were told.

[Super Scary]

They'll just keep repeating their "that's been debunked!" talking points, despite it being proven later. Like that guy further up saying the CRT is only taught in college. They'll lie to your face because they know you can't do anything about it.

[Moderation4ever]

CRT is only taught in college and usually only in law schools. The fact is that the anti-CRT folks just define whatever they don't like as CRT.

And yes, all the election conspiracy theories do get debunked because they start out with nothing and then go from there.

[bernard11]

Right.

Dare to tell HS students that slavery and segregation were bad things, and the Confederates were not grand noble souls, and you are in trouble.

[SRG]

Do you recall all those lawsuits that successfully presented evidence of fraud? Yeah, me neither.

[David Nieporent]

The real issue in that case was the election workers telling the poll watchers AND the media that they were done for the night, come back in the morning, and then going back to work once they’d left.

And, yeah, one of the reporters present confirmed that IS what they were told.

Nope. That never happened, and you know it. And, yeah, that was confirmed by Kemp and Raffensperger and the rest of the GOP running the elections.

[SRG]

Two years later and they're still repeating the Trumpist claims that didn't pass muster in 60+ courts.

[Nige]

So - no awful splurge of disinformation. There was some stuf about Maricopa County and some suspicious cars videoed driving someplace-or-other, but I don't think much else escaped the gravity well of consipracy circles. Qanon seems to have declined into self-regarding obscurity, Qanon candidates all lost. Plenty of muttering but no outcries about fraud so far, touch wood. Either it has all run out of steam or they're saving it up for 2024, or it can only find form and energy through Trump-as-candidate.

[Martinned]

Qanon candidates all lost

Did they? https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3724433-marjorie-taylor-greene-glides-to-reelection/

[Nige]

Oh yeah. Her. Bleargh. Maybe her constituents are REALLY worried about Jewish space lasers.

[DaveM]

WHY ARIZONA CAN'T COUNT BALLOTS ON TIME

1. Too many mail-in ballots.
2. Too few voting precincts.
3. Too many print-on-demand ballots.

I'm an almost-ex-software guy, and that's why I understand right down to my scarred knuckles and bloody fingernails that COMPLEXITY KILLS process efficiency. Let's break it down:

1. Too Many Mail-In Ballots

Processing mail-in ballots is simply more complex than in-person voting. There are many more steps to go through, many more people, many more hand-off points. Each one of those hand-offs introduces a possible error. Correcting those errors is exponentially harder because of the long chain of custody. I read this morning that less than half of the mail-in ballots in Maricopa County, AZ with errors have been corrected. All that error-correcting takes time and enormous labor costs. Not good.

2. Too Few Voting Precincts

Because of the lockdowns, reportedly 2/3rds of the voting precincts in AZ were shut down, funneling voters into centralized polling locations instead of their local communities. Parallel processing is the key to efficiency. Many, small precincts are enormously faster at counting elections. My state of Virginia, for example, has 2,500+ polling locations for its 6+ million registered voters.

3. Too Many Print-On-Demand Ballots

This is the kiss of death, as far as productivity is concerned. There are nearly 4 million voters in Arizona. It boggles my mind that anyone ever expected to be able to print a ballot for each and every in-person voter on the spot! Have they EVER USED A PRINTER, like ever? There were printing problems at one-quarter of the polling locations in Maricopa County. No surprise, there.

And this is why a state like Virginia, with more voters, can issue an unofficial count within hours, but Arizona cannot. The voting procedure in Arizona is so inefficient that I understand that the counting is expected to last until well past Thanksgiving now.

Oof dah. Now you're into California territory. And that is never a place you want to be when it comes to processing elections. It's a blessing that California is a one-party state, because I don't think they could handle more than one.

Good process matters!

[Brett Bellmore]

This is the sort of thing I mean when I say that having late returns coming in like this isn't inevitable, it is on some level a choice. It's not like it's some bloody secret how to avoid this sort of thing happening!

[grb]

Sure, but a choice by voters – who welcome more options. And a choice that has faced unrelenting scrutiny and never been shown to be any kind of security issue. If voters prefer to trade their options for a better show on Election Night, that’s their choice. If they prefer their options at the cost of a few days wait on exceptional tight races, ditto.

All that’s left is your decision to exploit their decision with hysterical conspiracy-mongering – if that’s what you chose to do. Personally, a few days wait on tight races doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve grown more patient as I’ve gotten old…

[Sarcastr0]

You could spend a bunch of money to keep things swift, but that wouldn't make things more accurate or secure; it's a solution in search of a problem as captcrisis said above.

[Brett Bellmore]

Swift, secure, convenient. Pick two.

Well, the shift to mail in ballots, accomplished using Covid as an excuse, seems to be irreversible. So I guess untrustworthy elections are our future.

[Sarcastr0]

There is no security issue in results not being same-day.

You declaring our democracy illegitimate based on your own fact-free standards is in our future; that's about it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, problems go away like that, just by declaring they don't exist.

It's a bad thing if the people counting the votes know how many votes they need to find for their guy to win. It gives them bad incentives.

Assuring bad incentives and then trying to keep them from being acted on is distinctly inferior to making sure the bad incentives don't exist in the first place.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, problems are absolutely created by declaring they exist.

No, 'bad incentives' are not in and of themselves a problem. Policy decisions based on the idea that everyone is a crook result in a police state. And continue to say some rough things about your own moral compass.

Declaring something illegitimate unless changes are made doesn't mean it is, and it doesn't mean the government is obligated to indulge your delusions.

[SRG]

So don't announce results for a state until all the results are in. That works - and is normal in other places, like the UK. If it takes 3 or 4 days, fine. We have time - unlike the UK!

But your party doesn't seem to want that else they wouldn't have passed laws requiring in-person ballots to be counted first and then mail-in ballots.

[Martinned]

How do you think UK election results are announced?

Once the constituency is counted, all the candidates stand on a stage and the Constituency Returning Officer announces the result. That way, one by one, the results come in all evening and night. (And usually my local area is the last in the country to announce, because it's a mess.)

[Nige]

Always great when you have candidates like Lord Buckethead standing beside the solemn and serious Tory and Labour candidates

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Each constituency in the UK is also about 1/10 the size of in the USA. Counting probably takes rather less time as a result.

[Martinned]

Depends on how many people do the counting, and on whether the voting is with paper ballots. In both countries you can stay up a bit late and find out who's going to be in charge of the country by the time you wake up, but a couple of races here and there will take longer, as will the exact results.

[SRG]

I am British originally. I love how they do it. Surely you don't live in the Orkneys? That always used to be last. Some of my family live in Guildford and that was usually one of the first.

[Martinned]

Tower Hamlets

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/01/tower-hamlets-election-poll-count-poorly-resourced

[bernard11]

It’s a bad thing if the people counting the votes know how many votes they need to find for their guy to win. It gives them bad incentives.

Oh, but it's perfectly innocent when Trumpo calls and asks the SoS to "find" an exact number of votes. Per Brett, anywy.

[Super Scary]

Lmao, that again. May as well bring up "fine people" and "grab by the pussy" while you are at it.

[Nige]

Yes, those are other things Trump said.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Oh, but it’s perfectly innocent when Trumpo calls and asks the SoS to “find” an exact number of votes. Per Brett, anywy."

Nope. Every time you claim that I remind you that he didn't ask the SoS to find anything. He asked for access so that his people could find it.

[Nige]

Not sure why you think this spin is better.

[Davedave]

Brett, are you ever going to tell us how much Putin pays you? I mean, you are getting paid, right? Even you aren't stupid enough to do this for nothing, surely?

[Nige]

Republicans believing their own bullshit about elections being untrustworthy, you mean. Wow, there's no way that could backfire, if a significant percentage decide that if elections are as untrustowrthy as they keep claiming, there's no point in voting.

[Noorondoor]

Not if people deciding that there's no point to the ballot box instead resort to the cartridge box. That would be an ideal scenario.

[Nige]

If they were going to, they would have done it by now. You know who stood up to the might and violence of state power? BLM. You know who sided with the state? First Amendment types.

[Noorondoor]

No, BLM stood up for freebies and no consequences to black criminality. Not to state power.

[Nige]

What do you think the police represent, if not state power? Bootlicker.

[Noorondoor]

They don't actually care about police abuse generally, only police enforcing the laws against blacks.

That's why Trayvon Martin was made out to be a hero, despite his being a garden variety black thug.

[Nige]

They objected to unarmed people being shot, disproportionately blacks, doesn't matter if they're 'thugs' or not. Now, of course, you might not see that as a problem.

[Noorondoor]

"Unarmed" doesn't mean "not dangerous"

When you side with violent thugs, don't be surprised if people don't like you.

[Nige]

Exactly, bear that in mind when you side with cops.

[Life of Brian]

There were printing problems at one-quarter of the polling locations in Maricopa County. No surprise, there.

Is it? The official explanation" from Maricopa County was that the printers "were not producing dark enough timing marks on ballots."

This is just a strange thing to read in this day and age. For the most part, modern printers are ruthlessly good at laying down ink/toner at consistent densities over the life of the consumable. The tweet does also mention that the problem was addressed by adjusting some undefined "printer settings" -- perhaps the printers were running in eco mode and thus not laying down enough toner across the board?

Regardless, that sort of global issue would have been readily apparent in a basic system test beforehand. And if that sort of basic system test wasn't done... well.

[Zarniwoop]

Um, have you ever owned a modern printer?

Never tried to print black&white, but it won't go because the cyan cartridge claims it's empty?

FFS, of every major tech device I've owned, printers suck the most. I'm glad you've lived such a gawdly-blessed life that you've never encountered a printer error, though. Must be nice.

[Life of Brian]

I’m glad you’ve lived such a gawdly-blessed life that you’ve never encountered a printer error, though.

And I'm glad that I'm blessed such that I can distinguish different types of printing malfunctions that arise in differing printing technologies, rather than just saying "well, printers have errors so this makes PERFECT sense, derp!"

Seriously, though, I'm going to credit you with a crumb or two of intelligence and basic situational awareness that would make it clear that (a) voting machines would not use inkjet printers at all; (b) they wouldn't print in color; and (c) even if they did, the situation you outlined couldn't have caused this particular "glitch" because (just as you say) the printer refuses to try to print with an empty cartridge rather than doggedly pressing on and only printing a fraction of the image.

On top of that, your cutesy ink cartridge example doesn't fit the profile of a failure mode that mysteriously applied to a double-digit percentage of the machines in Maricopa County but apparently not a single one across the rest of the state, one that mysteriously wasn't detected when setting up the machines prior to election day, and one that apparently could be cured by adjusting indescript printer "settings."

I'm thus left to conclude you're just here to make random noise because you have no cogent rejoinder to the specific points I made.

[Brett Bellmore]

Looking it up, the printers built into our voting machines here in SC are thermal.

[Life of Brian]

Interesting. Moves more of the incremental cost into the paper (cardstock?), but less complexity than a laser and a nice durable print that won't be spoiled by a random Slushee spill like an inkjet.

I finally found a picture of a failed Maricopa ballot here -- looks more like overall crappy toner adhesion than a problem specific to the timing marks. Seems like the signature of a fuser well past the end of its lifespan. But again, that sort of thing doesn't happen overnight, much less across such a substantial chunk of the machines.

My money is increasingly on them simply not testing the printers after they set them up (much less doing a full end-to-end system test in each polling location), which is a reprehensible rookie move that in the private sector would result in heads rolling. And it's not like they didn't have staff to do it -- the same techs they deployed in the middle of the chaos could have made the rounds beforehand.

[Commenter_XY]

DaveM....Oof dah? Tell me, are you from WI or MN? That is a very distinctive phrase I am familiar with (but I spell it differently). 🙂

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Sammie Ervin IV propitiously removed from his seat on the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Thanks to the voters of NC who saw him for the hog-jowled expert in chicanery, verbicide, and unscrupulous unpublished opinions he was. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-carolina/articles/2022-11-08/2-races-to-set-partisan-control-of-north-carolina-high-court

Because of 2 flips NC's Supreme Court is now under control by Republicans.

[Martinned]

To ride my traditional hobby horse again: If North Carolina wants to have a 3rd chamber of the legislature with veto power over what everybody else does, that's fine, but calling such a thing a "court" is an affront to the English language.

[Bob from Ohio]

The US has the same 3rd house, we call it the United States Supreme Court.

[David Nieporent]

U.S. Supreme Court justices are elected?

[not guilty]

Judge Raymond Dearie, Special Master in the Mar-a-Lago documents lawsuit, on Monday entered an order stating in relevant part:

Pursuant to Paragraph 3 of the Order Appointing Special Master, ECF 91, the undersigned intends to contact the National Archives and Records Administration regarding its practices and guidance documents concerning the categorization of materials under the Presidential Records Act. Any party seeking to be heard in connection with this consultation may submit a letter of no more than three pages by November 10, 2022.

I surmise that this relates to Donald Trump's claim that some of the documents seized are personal records rather than presidential records.

[Sarcastr0]

There will be no GOP civil war.

The media/party leaders will try and push some anti-Trump, get no traction, and then go back to condoning his nonsense.

Cat's out of the bag, and no Murdoch headline is gonna put him back in.

Tucker is still on board; that's a tell.

[Brett Bellmore]

There IS a GOP civil war, but it's a somewhat covert war, which has been going on since the late 90's.

It has to be covert, because most of the GOP's voters are on one side, and the party establishment the other, and the party establishment can't afford to openly go to war with their own base.

I expect at this point that DeSantis will be the nominee; It's his for the taking. He's not ideal from the establishment's standpoint, but he's preferable to Trump, and the voters would accept him in Trump's place. Trump should remain popular with the Republican base if he doesn't go and do something really stupid, but they view him more and more as a popular guy who's had his chance, time for somebody new.

[apedad]

Seems to me the GOP civil war is more about the moralists (pro-life, anti-SSM, anti-immigration, etc.) and the "traditional" GOP (pro-business, small govt, etc.), and not so much establishment v. voters.

And where does the Tea Party fit in?

On the "establishment" side or the voters side?

Or a little of both?

[Sarcastr0]

apedad - I'd argue it's the ideologues versus the 'own the libs' reactionaries who have no ideology.

Small government has left the building. The ideologues just want lower taxes and more deregulation. They have proven willing to compromise on 'big government' since the Moral Majority - small government has been more brand than anything else since then.

Since the reactionaries are into big government in order to own the libs, that's it for actual libertarianism in the GOP.

Notably, most of those who call themselves libertarian seem quite comfy staying with this big government GOP. Telling.

[Noorondoor]

The GOP base is almost universally against immigration period, at least in its current form. The establishment is not. Most Republicans don't want millions of third worlders streaming across our borders every year.

[apedad]

"Although the Trump administration slashed humanitarian pathways and actively sought to reduce immigration from family and diversity green card categories, the number of migrant workers employed in the United States through temporary work visa programs increased during the Trump presidency, to over 2 million. This represents an increase of 13% from the last year of the Obama administration and showcases the reliance of U.S. employers on the programs and the political support for them even by politicians who actively seek to restrict other immigration pathways."

[Noorondoor]

That proves my point.

[Nige]

Is there a country in the world that could survive or thrive without immigration? Even North Korea kidnaps people becuase no sane person would move there willingly.

[Mr. Bumble]

You never cease to amaze.

[Nige]

Mission accomplished.

[Noorondoor]

Yes. Japan. Regardless of nonsense spread about GDP.

[Nige]

The stultifying feudalism of the shogun era? Ok...

[Bob from Ohio]

"survive or thrive without immigration?"

Sweden and Norway and Finland until this century

[Nige]

Oh the vikings carried many a slave back with them.

[Krayt]

Republicans and Democrats both wanted streaming immigrants to do work and to provide a tax base to shoulder Social Security as the inevitable crushing mathematics of its Ponzi scheme problem weigh it down more and more.

Some Republicans (Bush, Jr., Jeb, De Santis, border state govs) went after Latino voters. Then someone came a long who declared them a plague and evil, wrecking all that work.

Protecting domestic workers is a leftist thing, or used to be. Witness Democrats praising Ceasar Chavez nostalgically, even though he was against uncontrolled immigration because it depressed union worker wages.

Those who chuck ideas into the top of echo chambers have played both sides, hehe, like the NPC automata you are.

[Nige]

In the face of massive demonisation and exploitation of immigrant workers, the correct attitude is that all workers are workers, and deservng of rights and protections.

[Brett Bellmore]

And that the ones who aren't legally here deserve them back in their own countries.

[Nige]

No, everyone who works deserves them.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, some people just deserve them someplace else.

[Nige]

Doesn't matter where they are.

[Noorondoor]

Yes, as I said, the parties both wanted this immigration. The people, especially the white people, did not.

[Nige]

I think the voters and the establishment are united inasmuch as they want to be the minority party in control of everything. Establishment Rs seem quite willing to embrace stuff like cat-boxes in schools and anti-trans panic, so I think your notion of civil war is down to a vague notion that there are actual conservative political policies and principles which have largely been left by the wayside in the rush to embrace culture-war issues.

[apedad]

From Reuters:

If McCarthy is the next House speaker, he may find it challenging to hold together his fractious caucus, with a hard-right wing that has little interest in compromise.

Republicans are expected to demand spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation's borrowing limit next year, a showdown that could spook financial markets.

[Nige]

It's been weird to see them campaign on inflation (at least it's an actual issue, in fairness) while promising economic chaos.

[Mr. Bumble]

"economic chaos" already exists and there is plenty of blame to go around.

[Nige]

And Republicans explicitly want to make it worse.

[Bob from Ohio]

"may find it challenging to hold together his fractious caucus"

1 vote majority or 50, with Biden's veto and a senate block [Dem majority or filibuster], House bills are just symbolic anyway.

GOP plurality and Democrat votes will pass spending bills, perhaps after some delays. Everybody wants to spend.

Current House didn't pass anything significant except under reconciliation.

[Bob from Ohio]

"showdown that could spook financial markets"

How many times have we had these "showdowns" in last decade? GOP always caves.

[bernard11]

GOP always caves.

That's one of the few intelligent things they do.

Maybe they get a few calls from friends on Wall Street.

[Martinned]

Why do you think they don’t get rid of the debt ceiling entirely? Because that would cost them a fortune in campaign contributions. At the moment, when Wall Street buys a Congressman, one of the key things they want that politician to do is not to cause the Federal government to default on its loans. Without that possibility, the going rate for a Congressman goes way down.

[Brett Bellmore]

The reason they don't "get rid of the debt ceiling" is that there isn't any debt ceiling in the sense you think.

It's not like the executive branch naturally gets to borrow any amount of money it wants, but Congress keeps passing these stupid laws placing a limit on it.

Constitutionally, the federal government can't borrow AT ALL without specific authorization from Congress. For most of our history, Congress would pass a bill authorizing each individual run of treasury bonds.

Then they got to borrowing so much it was taking up too much time, so they started pre-authorizing borrowing, so they wouldn't have to do anything until the whole pre-authorization had been used up. That's the debt ceiling.

It's like saying, "Abolish your line of credit"; Abolishing the debt ceiling doesn't remove the limits, it puts you back to Congress having to authorize each new borrowing individually.

What you really mean is, "Raise the debt ceiling to infinity." The reason they don't do that is that they might as well announce, "Hey, creditors, we're planning on going on a borrowing spree and then never paying you back in any meaningful way."

So long as they've got the debt ceiling, people can at least fantasize that there are still some limits...

[Sarcastr0]

What you really mean is, “Raise the debt ceiling to infinity.” The reason they don’t do that is that they might as well announce, “Hey, creditors, we’re planning on going on a borrowing spree and then never paying you back in any meaningful way.”

Only crazy people like you would see it that way.

Congress would still be passing budgets. Look at other countries without debt ceilings; their credit is fine.

[bernard11]

This is nonsense. Complete idiotic nonsense.

Abolishing the debt ceiling absolutely would not let the executive borrow as much as it wants. It can still only spend money appropriated by Congress - which it is required to spend.

So Congress would still control spending through the appropriations process. Which is as it should be. Not raising the debt ceiling is like sending your kid o the store to buy groceries and not giving him any money, or a credit card.

What you really mean is, “Raise the debt ceiling to infinity.” The reason they don’t do that is that they might as well announce, “Hey, creditors, we’re planning on going on a borrowing spree and then never paying you back in any meaningful way.”

More stupidity. The debt ceiling should be abolished. If we start to borrow so much as to endanger our credit we'll know about it, and so will potential lenders. The only threat we have right now is the people making a big deal of this. That's the danger to the US credit rating.

Stop spewing nonsense. Find a different website than whatever you are reading for your economic information.

[Brett Bellmore]

Without borrowing, which has to be explicitly authorized by Congress, they can't spend money that Congress appropriates, because they don't have it in the first place to spend it.

[Sarcastr0]

Appropriation means borrowing.

[Martinned]

Well, appropriating more money than is brought in through the taxes also approved by Congress means borrowing.

[Nige]

The 'showdown' is the point.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, because if you take out the opportunity for a showdown, you tell everybody you've given up on even pretending to be fiscally prudent, and creditors will respond accordingly.

[Nige]

There is nothing 'fiscally prudent' about this kind of brinksmanship - it only creates chaos and uncertainty.

[Brett Bellmore]

If McCarthy is the next House speaker, we can put a fork in the GOP Congress, it's done.

[StellaLink_the dog]

Your preferred candidate for speaker is about 33 votes ahead in her race. Better hold your breath.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't actually HAVE a preferred candidate for Speaker, just somebody I really don't like.

[Paladin_44]

I miss Sasha's poetry readings...

[Martinned]

I can't do a video, I'm afraid, but here you go.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[Paladin_44]

Thank you - W.B. Yeats is a favorite of mine.
Cast a cold Eye
On Life. On Death.
Horseman, pass by.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Me too. I enjoyed them. How about more?

[Sarcastr0]

I just finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

I really liked it, though I understand opinions swing all over the map.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I thought it was fun enough but ultimately not much more—entertaining while you’re reading but not anything that sticks with you, and not anything I’d see any particular reason to read again. Certainly no Jonathan Strange & Mr Morrell.

[Sarcastr0]

I very much need to read that book soon!

Piranesi may suffer in the comparison. But to my first-timer view it didn't stick the landing, but the mix of really grounded narrator in a really out-there place, with some urban fantasy elements on the side was a lot of fun.

No, it's not a book that sticks with you; I'm not going to purchase a hard copy like I did for Gateway or The Palace of Dreams.

[Nige]

If you've not read JS&MN, what a treat you have in store. As an option, I would highly recommend the wonderful audiobook read by Simon Prebble.

[Sarcastr0]

I pretty much d like 8 audiobooks for one print book with the way my time goes.

The only question is which to do next (once I clear my plate of that Yale Moral Foundations of Politics course) - DS&MN or Kaiju Preservation Society?

[Nige]

I like John Scalzi well enough, but there is NO comparison, unless you genuinely want something light and quick instead of something huge and immersive.

(Prebble also does most of the narration for Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, so if you like this, consider giving it a go, though, again, HUGE and immersive.)

[Sarcastr0]

Thanks for the advice.

Haven't checked out Baroque Cycle - I found Cryptonomicon to be a slog and kinda wandered away.

[Nige]

Baroque Cycle is somewhat different kettle of fish, but I also quite liked Cryptonomicon, so be warned.

[Zarniwoop]

Concur. I like Stephenson, but there are ways in which he's an author who appeals to a niche set of readers. I'm one of them.

Taht said, the Baroque Cycle takes some effort to get into, but it will probably age better than Cryptonomicon or Snow Crash. Both excellent books, but "sooper smart stuff set 5-10 years from now" always runs the risk of not aging well.

Which is why trying to read Cryptonomicon now just isn't going to have the same flair as it did when it came out: it's now describing the past, and imprefectly. Ooft, parts of the tech-based plot elements are really dated, while the story elements about WWII cryptography are still compelling. Because he was writing that with a fixed set of historical facts the near-future can't match.

[Nige]

I think if you like JS&MN, there's a not insignificant chance you'll like The Baroque Cycle. Not a sure thing, but not insignificant.

[Sarcastr0]

My current cue of fiction audiobooks, some sublime, others ridiculous, some the start of series:

Ancillary Sword
The Black Company
Armor by John Steakley
The Malazan Book of the Fallen
The Warlock in Spite of Himself
Tasha Suri - The Jasmin Throne
 Hench, A Novel
John Gwynne - The Shadow of the Gods
Legends and Lattes - A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes
N. K. Jemisin - The Broken Kingdoms,
Octavia E. Butler - Bloodchild and Other Stories
Becky Chambers - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Alex Pavesi - The Eighth Detective
Vernor Vinge - Children of the Sky
Brandon Sanderson - Warbreaker
Mur Lafferty - Six Wakes
Ninefox Gambit
London Falling

Though I try and do one fiction one nonfiction. Bios of Truman and Ike on the agenda, and some Great Courses as well.

[Nige]

Some good stuff there, some stuff I haven't tried. Let me recommend Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series and Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series. Wildly different types of science fiction, but great audio books.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not fond of audio books; Even after my cataract surgery I'm a fairly fast reader.

Maybe that will change once I retire in a couple years, especially given the gradual decline in my vision. I guess I could see listening to one while gardening.

An audio book nearly killed me once on a long drive; "Wonderful Life" by Gould. Great book, but partway through he embarks on a point concerning statistics that I got instantly, and spends an extended period discussing baseball statistics to illustrate it, which put me right to sleep. Thank goodness for rumble strips!

[Nige]

Bloody hell, Brett! Always pick something fairly exciting for long journeys!

[Nige]

I found it quite a moving meditation on innocence and isolation in a unique and strange setting. Knowing of her own health struggles only adds to the poignancy.

[grb]

I'm in volume three of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet. I recently backpacked the Kungsleden in Sweden (above the Arctic Circle) and ran out of reading material. Every trail stuga has a bookshelf and I finally found something in English : The Story of a New Name. I traded a Walter Mosley mystery for it. Now I'm both finishing the set & watching the HBO series (My Brilliant Friend). How will the story of Lila and Lenu end?

[Nige]

I read the first one, it was an amazing book, dense, vivid, intense.

[Nige]

I've been revisiting some favourites by the recently-late, great Peter Straub, most famous perhaps for writing The Talisman with Stephen King, from his early now-classic horror epics like Shadowland and Ghost Story, to the brilliant Blue Rose mystery trilogy to later works like Mr X and his brilliant short stories and novellas. A masterful writer, he'll be sadly missed.

[Number 2]

I thought you’d find this interesting.

Mercer county, New Jersey, used dominion voting machines this election Day. They all broke down and the county and its municipalities, including Trenton, the state capital, had to resort to paper ballots instead. The cause is yet undetermined. Here is the link:

https://www.nj.com/politics/2022/11/election-day-mess-in-mercer-county-over-ballots-traced-to-coding-issues-investigation-continues.html

[Commenter_XY]

Nothing that happens in the People's Republic of NJ surprises me. State politics are corrupt AF.

[Number 2]

They are not competent enough to be that corrupt. This likely will come down to pure stupidity.

[Ben_]

Voting machines should all be discontinued. Voters deserve trustworthy elections.

[Sarcastr0]

Voting machines are trustworthy. As a bunch of defamation settlements rather underscores.

[Ben_]

No they aren’t.

[Ben_]

Note, in a thread about voting machine failures, Sarcastr0 says voting machines have no problems. Reality doesn’t matter to Sarcastr0.

Dems want to force you to trust who they demand you trust. Dems never, ever listen.

[Reallynotbob]

Ben's the guy who argues with his bathroom scale. Probably built by communist eggheads....

[Sarcastr0]

Did you even noticed you moved the goalposts?

I did!

[Ben_]

No more than you moved them.

[Sarcastr0]

How did I move them?

I went trustworthy->trustworthy.

You went trustworthy->no problems.

No new goalposts.

[Ben_]

You went from trustworthy -> some BS about a defamation lawsuit.

No lawsuit decided all voting machines are trustworthy.

[Sarcastr0]

You think it immaterial that courts have looked at the claims about voting machines and it didn’t go well for those claiming vote tampering?

No lawsuit decided all voting machines are trustworthy See that all? That’s a new goalpost. I never claimed a superlative; I’m not so foolish.

[Ben_]

So you’re saying if a specific event didn’t occur, no event could ever occur.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

"Voting machines should all be discontinued. Voters deserve trustworthy elections."

Which "voting machines?" There are about 100 different types. Many states have gone to paper ballots and optical scanners, and I believe that's the best, most reliable system. ES&S' DS-200 scanner is a masterpiece.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

PA’s cheating Dem’s elected a brain dead Senator and a dead guy. With majority mail-in ballots.

Whereever there are ballot drop boxes, mail-in ballots, and Democrats counting, there will never be free and fair elections.

Compare FL with AZ or MI or WI or PA.

[Zarniwoop]

I'm not surprised the PA voters didn't elect a smarmy dude from New Jersey.

Conspiracy theories about ballot boxes are not required to explain that result.

But if you want to go all-in on the bat-shit crazy, feel free to provide evidence. Put up or STFU....

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How do you think they managed to elect a dead guy?

A whole bunch of mail-in "ballots", that's how.

[Nige]

Because he was still on the ballot and the other guy sucked.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

People who complain about 'electing a dead guy' are profoundly stupid and uninformed.

[SRG]

Or BCD, for short.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

On my mind: congratulations to Professor Laura Lewis and her co-workers at Northeastern University and at Cambridge, who have apparently found a way to manufacture tetrataenite in bulk! Anyone who cares about China's control of most of the rare-earth deposits should be aware of this.

https://news.northeastern.edu/2022/10/17/rare-earths-crisis/?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20221104&utm_term=7479478&utm_campaign=money&utm_id=27660037&orgid=&utm_att1=

Tetrataenite is a material made of alternating atomic layers of iron and nickel. It is highly ferromagnetic, in the same league as the strongest rare-earth-based permanent magnets. This is one of the main reason the rare-earth metals are so essential for the electronics industry and for batteries. But tetrataenite contains only iron and nickel, no rare earths. So our new ability to make it in bulk may (note: MAY, not "will") enable us to avoid using so much of the rare earths, tipping the chemo-economic "balance of power" away from the Chinese government.

Until recently, tetrataenite was only found in very old meteorites, and was beyond our power to manufacture in volume. It's a stable configuration of atoms, but formation in nature takes millions of years. Now, it seems, these guys have discovered that all you really need to do is put some iron and some nickel together in a crucible, add a bit of phosphorous, stick the mixture into a forge, and smelt. What's new here is the use of phosphorous as a synthesizing catalyst.

One point for my libertarian-minded friends to consider: no way could the early work on this compound have been funded in the traditional pure-capitalist way, by persuading people to invest their savings in the hope of gaining short-term profit - or even long-term profit - for themselves. This compound was discovered by astrophysicists and astrochemists studying details of the insides of meteorites, hoping to find some kind of magnetic record which would reveal some of the history of the meteorites and the origin of the solar system. If it had been left to the profit-minded investors, we'd probably still only know that the meteorites contain iron and nickel, not about the surprising magnetic properties you get when the two are stacked in layers in the face-centered-cubic phase.

Another thing to know is, we may be a few steps away from making it useful. There could still be some reason why it might not be suitable for scale-up.

But it's still a very interesting, possibly-Nobel-Prize-level thing.

[Nige]

Does this have the potential to reduce reliance on destructive mining techniques to obtain materials for eletric batteries?

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Yes, and yes.

[Nige]

Oh I hate you for giving me hope.

[Sarcastr0]

Dunno if process perfection is Nobel's arena, but this is amazing news!!

Good job to her, and good job to the DoE grants funding offices!

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

You are right about the Nobel committee and process, but, the explanation of the high magnetic coercivity (that just means that in order to re-magnetize the stuff or re-orient its magnetic direction you need to apply a very strong magnetic field) of the stuff plus the practical impact might be good enough. There are other examples: PCR which is just a method, but which changed the world in too many ways to even begin counting, and, Fritz Haber's method of converting atmospheric nitrogen into fixed nitrogen suitable for fertilizer, and, the development of hybridoma technology which was just a method for making monoclonal antibodies - these were all methods, processes.

I was envisioning a divided Nobel with one part going for the discovery of tetrataenite back in the 1980s, and another part going to these folks at Northwestern (and their collaborators in Cambridge).

[Sarcastr0]

Actually, now that you mention it - the guy who figured out how to tag genetic changes with an iridescent protein creating gene also won for it.

I take back what I said about method; foundational methodology seems something the Nobel folks look at. And good on them for it!

I do think that the theory and practice behind materials synthesis processes is an underfunded area.

[Brett Bellmore]

"One point for my libertarian-minded friends to consider: no way could the early work on this compound have been funded in the traditional pure-capitalist way, "

I rather think the libertarian minded would note that rare earths aren't actually all that rare, and the only reason we need to get them from China in the first place is statist regulations that prevent you from mining them here.

But, yeah, good news anyway.

[apedad]

So you're saying property rights, voluntary exchange, and common-​law liability rules, would do a better job of advancing environmental concerns in lieu of "statist" (nice little, unnecessary pejorative there) regulations?

I'd rather work to prevention things that make someone pay after the damage has been done.

[Sarcastr0]

...Do you want us to have private firms take over parts of Africa like back in the day?

[Brett Bellmore]

Why would we have to take over parts of Africa to mine something that's in the US?

[Nige]

Child labour, usually. Keeps the costs down, also you’re offshoring the environmental destruction because people in the US have pesky rights to object and protest, and you don't even have to pretend to clean up after yourself.

[Ben_]

"…for my libertarian-minded friends to consider: no way could the early work on this compound have been funded in the traditional…"

It’s not zero government versus unlimited government. We could have government that tries to efficiently provide public goods. But Democrats prefer to operate government as an organized crime racket.

[apedad]

Exit Poll: Generation Z, Millennials Break Big for Democrats

Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast their ballots in favor of Democrats 63 percent of the time in the 2022 elections, exit polling data found.

The 18 to 29 age group differed significantly when the age group was broken down by racial demographic, though all racial demographics within the age group preferred the Democrats.

White voters between the ages of 18 to 29, 8 percent of the electorate, had by far the highest support for Republicans but they still supported Democrats over Republicans by a wide margin, 58 to 40 percent.

https://www.breitbart.com/midterm-election/2022/11/09/exit-poll-generation-z-millennials-break-big-for-democrats/

You righties should be happy you'll be dead within the next 10 - 30 years because you are NOT going to be happy in the future.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Isn't that also the most mentally ill generation we've ever had?

[apedad]

Dunno but I do know they're not mentally ill enough to say they want to start a Civil War.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Exercising your sovereign rights is a mental illness!

Sincerely,
apedad & tyrants everywhere

[apedad]

Who's stopping you from fully exercising your "sovereign" rights now?

Good luck with all that.

BTW, you know how you have a humongous beef with the Veterans Administration?

I guarantee you won't have that problem on your side once you've started your Civil War.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why don't you have a beef with an organization that literally killed vets by denying them care so Democrat civil servants could get bonuses?

Those Democrats still got their bonuses and kept their jobs.

They literally killed vets for greedy capitalist profit money and got away with it. Why doesn't that bother you?

[Sarcastr0]

Literally, you say!
Should that count in the Data on Mass Murder by Government in the 20th Century?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Wow, another ignorant bootlicker who has never heard of the VA Vets Secret Waitlist scandal.

[Ben_]

"Why doesn’t that bother you?"

Government workers cashed in and Americans were hurt. That’s their optimal outcome.

[Sarcastr0]

Government workers cashed in, you say? Have you ever spoken to anyone who works for the VA?

Hint: You don't go there for the big bucks, you go there because you want to help veterans.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Hey bootlicker, they were getting bonuses.

They killed vets for bonuses.

And nothing happened to Amy of them.

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe because your take isn't exactly what happened.

Maybe because the chronic underfunding of the VA and what that meant for vets had been reported for *decades* and you ignore that part.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What happened then Sarcastr0?

How does "chronic underfunding" excuse what those people did and then not being held accountable for what they did?

You're a disgusting bootlicker. Your Federal peers can literally kill people and you're out here making excuses for them. It's fucking sick.

[Sarcastr0]

It means that the failures at the VA have a lot of causes, and your hyperfocus on one is just another example of you denying all that keeps you from the reality you've chosen.

That it's a reality that keeps you always angry seems like a personal problem to me.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

VA administrators got bonuses for having short wait lists.

These administrators hid vets on secret wait lists so they could qualify for bonuses.

Many of these vets died.

We found out. The administrators still got their bonuses and couldn't even be fired.

And you excuse this behavior and muddy the waters with tropes and bootlicking dogma.

This is why universal Healthcare and the administrative state is evil. Unaccountable people with unimaginable power over others.

[Sarcastr0]

Just keep repeating the same thing, over and over.

I guess my comment confused you so you returned to default settings.

[OtisAH]

You don’t have a sovereign right to wage war against the United States of America, dimwit.

[Bob from Ohio]

If he wins, he does.

[he won't win]

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You don't have a sovereign right to wage war against the King of England!

[Ben_]

Dems cultivate mental illness. Independent, capable people don’t need government to provide for them.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, poverty is easy and fun to conquer for those of sufficient capability and boostrappiness.

[Ben_]

You intentionally make it worse by making fuel and everything else more expensive for the Earth.

You intentionally make it worse by using up all the resources society has available for education and not delivering an education to poor kids. And delivering a deeply substandard education to almost everyone else.

You intentionally make it worse by importing people who are happy to work hard for US poverty wages. Any American who wants out of poverty has to struggle extra hard and they’ll be lucky to stay even.

[Sarcastr0]

I dispute your causality, and your intentionality, especially since you appear to be blaming inflation experienced *by anyone on Earth* on US Democrats.

Lots of ways schools need fixing; you are in favor of none of them. The GOP's desire to kill public schools means they underfund them and then try to put that on Dems. Looks like it worked on you!

As for your 'importing people' nonsense, NToJ had a great rejoinder to your failure of economics: https://reason.com/volokh/2020/06/09/the-oft-noted-hollowing-out-of-the-middle-class-is-a-metropolitan-phenomenon/?comments=true#comment-8294886

[Ben_]

More expensive is more expensive. Now that the election is over gas prices will rise. Biden will stop draining the SPR and cold weather will mean lots of people need heating oil (in large part because Earth-religion people won’t let natural gas pipelines be built).

Dems resist any change in education and only want larger payroll for less and less teaching. Republicans want to empower families. Democrats want to empower "the system" (regardless of how bad a job it does) and trap children in it.

And some strawman story about the middle class doesn’t change simple supply and demand.

[Sarcastr0]

The breadth of what you think you can blame on American policy shows how loose you're playing with how things actually work.

Dems resist any change in education
I'm old enough to remember who hated Common Core, the last big education reform on the federal level.
It's wild to me you added education to your arguments, since the GOP's education policy is privatize it. Truly gonna be great for the poor then!

Your lump of labor fallacy is fallacious no matter how much false contempt you gin up.

[Ben_]

"Common Core"

Meaningless tweaks to exactly the same system with exactly the same structure and exactly the same personnel and exactly the same facilities. Teachers who were doing an ok job before got saddled with nonsense and paperwork. The rest just continued wasting time and money and called it a new name.

"Lump of labor"

Supply and Demand aren’t real for low-skilled labor, Sarcastr0 assures us. Dems like repeating buzzwords and telling stories.

[Sarcastr0]

Your opinion about Common Core doesn't mean it wasn't objectively a change in education.

You want to end public schooling. This is a really dumb line of attack for you.

And your retreat to the same talking points I and NToJ have roundly wrecked on immigration shows how little you can handle anything that challenges your simplistic outrage.

[David Nieporent]

Supply and Demand aren’t real for low-skilled labor, Sarcastr0 assures us. Dems like repeating buzzwords and telling stories.

Economists like understanding economics. Nativists don't.

Supply and demand are of course real. But the nativist arguments only focus on supply, never demand.

[Ben_]

Dems answer to everything: nevermind the harm we're doing, be afraid of the bogeyman instead!.

Mafia racketeering is their government style.

[Nige]

You want to keep the planet burning and you want to degrade public education until it is no longer functional and it can be turned over to private operators.

[Ben_]

Also you intentionally make it worse by giving poor people a lot more opportunities to be victims of crime.

And you intentionally make it worse by teaching people they should get free stuff instead of helping their fellow Americans and getting a wage in return. That’s an extremely destructive lesson to learn.

[Sarcastr0]

Look up the poverty to prison pipeline, if you think your prison policies actually help poor people.

A social safety net is not teaching Americans they don't need to work - it's keeping them from starving.

And starving people historically are kinda hostile to their current economic system, whatever it may be.

You're a short-sighted reactionary. Shallow and hateful is all you have.

[Absaroka]

"if you think your prison policies actually help poor people."

Ever lived in, say, a bottom-quintile-of-income neighborhood? With the corresponding high crime rates?

I did for a few decades and - anecdote alert - the vast majority of the population that tended to be crime victims instead of perpetrators were pretty OK with crooks going to prison.

When upscale people have a car stolen, what a hassle - they have to call their insurance company and go buy a new one. When downscale people who economized by skipping theft insurance have a car stolen, all of a sudden getting to work is a big problem. That kind of tempers their sympathy for the poor guy who redistributed their income to his drug habit. They grew up facing the same disadvantages he did, after all, and aren't stealing stuff.

[Sarcastr0]

Absaroka - I'm not saying abolish prisons. I'm arguing against this: "you intentionally make it worse by giving poor people a lot more opportunities to be victims of crime."

Criminal justice reform was bipartisan until...about last year. No, it does not mean open all the jails; that's a few loud internet yahoos.

Of course crime burdens the poor more. So does everything.
But look at the messaging about it - the law and order crime fearmongering of the right in the interminable political ads you and I have both seen is not aimed at the poor, it's aimed at the middle class. Though increasingly not just the white middle class, so I guess there is that.

[Absaroka]

The recent spate of DA's who are overly lenient do in fact "make it worse by giving poor people a lot more opportunities to be victims of crime". Those poor, misunderstood burglars/muggers/etc may well be victims of society ... but the people they burgle and mug are victims too - victims of the crooks. This may not be obvious from the viewpoint of a safe suburban neighborhood, but it's pretty obvious from Ground Zero.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know what those DA's have done, though I do know violent crime is not markedly up in cities so far this year (check my Kevin Drum link above to see that) so I question your causality.

I'm not saying those who commit crimes are victims of society who deserve to be let free - I'm saying our criminal justice system needs reform, and currently makes things worse for both them and society.

You're strawmaning me into an excluded middle wherein being in favor of any reform means you must be the most extreme.

Ben is that unnuanced and dumb; you are not. Again, the GOP was in favor of a lot of criminal justice reforms until this past election, a lot of these ideas are not off the rails bleeding heart nonsense.

[Absaroka]

I can't comment on what specific changes *you* have in mind, because you haven't specified them.

But I have encountered a lot of people who advocate for 'criminal justice reform' who really don't seem to understand that crimes have actual victims, and that there really are people who need to be kept away from society.

I'm all for reforms that will *actually* reduce the crime rate - who wouldn't be? But a lot of the activists I see that are all about 'criminal justice reform' don't seem very concerned about crime victims. They want more lenient treatment for crooks, whether that raises the crime rate or not. If you're not one of those people, great!

[Sarcastr0]

Ben was making a wide attacks on Democrats (and how they cause mental illness ::eyeroll::) - that's what I was speaking to. My positions on criminal justice reform are not outside of the mainstream of Democrats, maybe a bit radical even.

I have encountered a lot of people who advocate for ‘criminal justice reform’ who really don’t seem to understand that crimes have actual victims, and that there really are people who need to be kept away from society.
I believe this; there are plenty of sky-eyed idealists out there. But I'm not too worried about them. The Dems don't give their fringe the reins like the GOP does - those who actually wanted to defund the police did not get very far, did they?

I am not concerned about crime victims - I'm concerned about preventing future crime victims from being made. And our prisons are mostly good these days for making lifetime criminals like that's what we pay them to do. Plus once they get out the infrastructure to rejoin society is lacking. And our addict resources are based on knee-jerk nonsense from the crack era and.

I don't much like the focus on the victims that one Conspirator on here has - feels like retributive justice to me.

A lot of what I said above the GOP was into until this year when they sized on law and order in this election. I'm not hopeful for the near future.

[David Nieporent]

Crime is up over the past couple of years — still pretty low by recent historical standards, though — but it is up across the board. It is not a phenomenon of George Soros DAs and the like. It is happening in dark red jurisdictions just as much as Democratic-run urban areas.

[Ben_]

Two Dems, no concern for crime victims from either.

[Sarcastr0]

We care about the facts Ben,

You do not, it seems.

Not even the fact that DMN is very much not a Dem.

[Ben_]

“Look up [some dumb narrative]…"

Tell crime victims about your dumb narratives.

[Sarcastr0]

So no you've stopped engaging.

Sorry I made you think about your facile attacks on Democratic policies.

[Nige]

How about the one where the US prison system does not focus on rehabilitation and consequently has an incredibly high rate of recidivism.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If only there were federal programs and safety nets that were designed to lift people out of poverty...

Weird how they do the opposite.

[Sarcastr0]

Class mobility is getting worse, and that's not on the government.

Poverty keeps people poor all on it's own, BCD.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why aren't those Democrat programs and policies working to lift these chronically poor people out of poverty?

[Sarcastr0]

What programs are those, BCD? What programs are doing that?

The best we have is harm mitigation - being poor doesn't mean you starve or die/go bankrupt due to a preventable health condition. And you have electricity.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The War on Poverty and the Great Society was just "harm mitigation"??

[Sarcastr0]

Name some programs that do more than that.

[Sarcastr0]

What an amazing message to appeal to blue collar workers, Ben!

[Ben_]

You’re saying blue collar workers are mentally ill.

[Sarcastr0]

Dunno about them, but you appear to be reading things that I never wrote.

[David Nieporent]

And yet, weirdly, the MAGA movement is focused on people who need government to provide for them. As Trump said, he loves the poorly educated.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, that's what happens when you let the left control the education system, so I'm not shocked.

And, yeah, I'm kind of glad I'm not going to live enough longer to see how this turns out. My son will, though, so I worry on his behalf.

[apedad]

". . . let the left control . . . :

How magnanimous of you!

If you don't like it maybe you shouldn't "let" us do it.

[Nige]

Maybe it's all the shooting drills.

[Noorondoor]

That are the result of liberal policy, namely, not institutionalizing our mentally ill. Because after all, poor whittle mentawee ill have wights too!

[Reallynotbob]

Deinstitutionalization was Saint Ronald of Regan, you may recall.

[Nige]

Yes, they do. The right to own multiple lead-spitting murder-machines, according to you.

[Noorondoor]

No, not at all. They don't have a right to live free at all, much less with guns.

[Nige]

I'd prefer them just to have access to mental health care, thanks.

[David Nieporent]

That are the result of liberal policy, namely, not institutionalizing our mentally ill. Because after all, poor whittle mentawee ill have wights too!

If they didn't, Trump wouldn't have gotten any votes.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast their ballots in favor of Democrats"

News from 1976.

[Sarcastr0]

Heck 1972 even.

But this time they turned out. For a midterm even!

It's one data point only, so not a trend yet. But something to watch.

[M L]

Married men R +20
Married women R +14
Unmarried men R +7
Unmarried women . . D +37

https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1590426457763106816

[Sarcastr0]

Correlation is not causation.

[Nige]

Republicans launch campaign to force women into marriage.

[Noorondoor]

Not at all. Just remove their vote. The founding fathers thought voting should be limited to white men who owned land. America was a great place back then. Now it's a cultural and economic basket case. QED.

[Nige]

There was the slavery, of course, but I get that's a feature for you.

[Noorondoor]

They should have been returned after emancipation. The ACS had it right.

[Nige]

What? And leave them without an excluded and despised underclass to oppress and exploit? That just wouldn't have been American.

[Reallynotbob]

Shed no tears for Nooron. He'll still have Catholics, women, gays, non-white immigrants, Tejanos, Cubans, overstayed Canadians, the mentally ill, snowflakes, precocious children, and mimes.

[Nige]

Oh dear, some of those are growing demographics. Especially mimes.

[Bored Lawyer]

Perhaps the GOP needs to convince them that they are more likely to be mugged by a criminal let out on bail than denied an abortion.

[Sarcastr0]

Cynical fearmongering FTW, eh?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Cynical fearmongering FTW"

"House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told "Fox New Sunday" he believes "democracy will be ending" if Democrats lose the 2022 midterms.

"I've studied history all of my life. I taught history. And I'm telling you, what I see here are parallels to what the history was in this world back in the 1930s in Germany." Axios, Nov 6, 2022

[Sarcastr0]

Bob with the whattaboutism.

Not that he cares about cynicism.

[Bob from Ohio]

"cares about cynicism"

Your comment implies you do, yet you can't even say" He shouldn't have said that"

The whole Dem campaign was fearmongering, about democracy or abortion.

[Reallynotbob]

Or crime?

Wait, that's the other side.

[Bob from Ohio]

Not denying that. He's the one who thinks its bad only when one side fearmongers, its whataboutism to even bring up his side.

[Nige]

There are fake concerns, and then there are real concerns. That is the difference.

[Sarcastr0]

Awesome reading Bob!

[Bob from Ohio]

You still can't criticize Clyburn.

[Sarcastr0]

I recognize unneeded melodrama when I see it. I also recognize furious deflection, Bob.

Didn't like the old playing field and wanted to move away from it? Too bad. Bored Lawyer is advocating for some afactual fearmongering, and pointing left won't change that.

[Bored Lawyer]

Try living in NY. THere is real fear. Even the NBC interviewer raised it with Hochul.

And my statement is completely true in many parts of the country. In NY, for example, where there is plenty of crime, and abortion is perfectly legal right up to the point of birth.

[Reallynotbob]

But that's a perception vs. reality issue. Homicides are lower in 2022 than 2010, and that was lower than 2000, and that was lower (by far) than 1990.

Other crimes are on the rise but, again, they aren't out of control as a relative matter against prior years. What is very different is the expectation of safety (much higher!) and media focus (much greater). Here's a good discussion from earlier this year:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-stat-reality/

[Sarcastr0]

The fear is real - that's what fearmongering gets you.

The facts about crime are actually false.
https://jabberwocking.com/violent-crime-is-under-control-in-big-cities-with-one-big-exception/

You care about the facts, don't you? Or are you as cynical as Bob?

[Noorondoor]

Which is exactly why I’ve long said single women should not be allowed to vote.

It's very sick when a demographic's chief concern is whether or not they can legally kill their unborn baby so they can slut it up.

[Reallynotbob]

91.5% of in-vitro fertilization treatments are for White women. IVF involves destroying handfuls or dozens of embryos. Interesting you don't give a hoot about those dead White babies...

[Sarcastr0]

There's some real interesting intersectionality work on specifically white women and the pressure to become mothers, as compared to nonwhite women.

[Ben_]

In response, Dems plan to continue to do more and more of the things that alienate them from men and married women.

[SRG]

White voters, college educated: D+3
White voters, no college: R+34

https://apnews.com/hub/politics?utm_source=apnewsnav&utm_medium=navigation

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you saying Republicans tend to be low-achieving, ignorant whites?

Or are the facts saying it?

[Ben_]

So, overall, good news this week.

Democrats lost, but they beat expectations so they think they won. They’ve already made it clear they intend to learn nothing and to continue to push policies motivated by distaste for America and Americans, and by their characteristic avarice and lust for power over others.

A clear majority voted against Democrats, even if you count all the ballots Democrats claim as actual votes by voters. And yet Democrats have no intention to make any changes.

Meanwhile Republicans underperformed and will be trying to understand and improve. The map should be more favorable and there’s a clear lesson to be learned about not fielding celebrity candidates in otherwise winnable matchups.

And on a policy front, we can all look forward to an end to affirmative action next year. Followed by Dem lawbreaking to try to continue it regardless of the laws and the constitution.

[Sarcastr0]

even if you count all the ballots Democrats claim as actual votes by voters.
Trust the Plan.

Republicans underperformed and will be trying to understand and improve.
Yeah, the GOP has been *amazing* at learning and improving since Trump!

This is some serious coping.

[Ben_]

"Yeah, the GOP has been *amazing* at learning and improving since Trump!"

Republicans learned to be the party of working class. It’s cool that you think that’s nothing. Look forward to continuing to lose ground and lose racial voters gradually, a few percent, year after year after year.

[Aunt Teefah]

"Republicans learned to be the party of working class."

Just utter delusion. They are the same party they've always been. They have already said they will use their House majority (if they get it) to force cuts to social security and medicare. And Senate Republicans are currently fighting for the right of big banks to bilk garbage "overdraft fees" out of their poorest customers. https://www.consumerfinancemonitor.com/2022/09/14/republican-senators-send-letter-to-director-chopra-calling-for-change-in-cfpb-tactics/. The claim that they are "the party of the working class" is all aesthetics, no substance.

[Stephen Lathrop]

"Aesthetics," would not be my choice, not while, "chicanery," remains available.

[Aunt Teefah]

True, though they do like co-opting the aesthetics of certain parts of the (white) working class. But it's never been more than paper-thin. The modern GOP is the party of guys who fancy themselves some kind of redneck, despite being a suburbanite who makes $150k/year at the email factory. It's blaring rock-country out of a pickup truck whose bed has never had dirt in it. You get the idea.

[Sarcastr0]

I've learned I'm bad at political predictions, but I heard that story in 2018, 2020, and 2022 so far to no big GOP avail.

It's a good brand! But not a lot of action. Being over the moon at DeSantis' immigration stunts won't get you there. Neither will outlawing abortion in as many states as you can.

Maybe it'll be right some day; it wouldn't surprise me. But that realignment has thusfar been rhetorical. Gotta put in the work!

[Ben_]

Yeah, that stunt really hurt DeSantis. He won in a blowout.

[Reallynotbob]

That's true, but Florida is pretty red these days. Let's see if it translates nationwide.

[Ben_]

A year from now you can tell voters they should care about it instead of listening to voters’ real concerns.

[Sarcastr0]

Dude, you were crowing just last week that the Dems were going to lose BIG this election because of how out of touch they were on inflation.

Moving on to 'In 2024, all that I said about 2022 will come to pass' is learning *nothing*.

[Ben_]

Dems did lose.

[Sarcastr0]

They did incredibly for the party holding the White House in the modern era.

Not cause they did anything great, mind you - because the GOP has a Trump problem.

[Ben_]

Dems can’t learn because they make up and believe narratives instead of observing the world around them.

[Nige]

That's a good one. Write that one down.

[Sarcastr0]

Really loving the word narrative today, it seems, Ben.

Bottom line, by any sane metric the GOP lost something that they shoulda won. You and yours predicted a Red Wave that did not happen.

You should think more about why the GOP didn't deliver despite your certainty.

And not work quite so hard on pretending you actually won. That's a pretty bad make believe narrative!

[Ben_]

Narrative is just a synonym for storytelling. Dems love making up stories about stuff they could never know facts about, like what Trump secretly thinks, or the future weather conditions, or election results that might have happened but didn’t.

Then Dems learn the "knowledge" they made up instead of observing the world and knowing what really happened.

Losing the House of Representatives isn’t a lesson for Dems because instead they’ll tell a story about victory over expectations. A clear majority of voters voting against Democrats isn’t something Democrats can learn from. Democrats won’t listen and will keep policies intended to punish Americans.

[Sarcastr0]

Ben, your side just lost big and you're calling it a win by redefining your "Red Waive" into "We get the House by a tiny majority is the real victory I was talking about!"

You're the one telling stories. And making quite the clown of yourself with your foot stamping 'I'm not telling stories, You're telling stories!!'

Losing the House of Representatives isn’t a lesson for Dems because instead they’ll tell a story about victory over expectations.
Dems have the Presidency; the lesson about the office in the White House in midterms is really well known. Any other lessons you are claiming are you telling more stories.

If you doubt how this went, check out how pissed off every right wing pundit is right now.

[Ben_]

Pissed off "right wing pundits" have the opportunity to learn from what happened. Dems telling themselves stories don’t.

[Sarcastr0]

Wow what a win you are describing. An opportunity to learn!

Exactly what you were crowing about last week!

This isn’t blood in my mouth, it’s victory wine!

[Brett Bellmore]

"Ben, your side just lost big and you’re calling it a win by redefining your “Red Waive” into “We get the House by a tiny majority is the real victory I was talking about!”"

So, you're defining gaining seats as "losing big"? Is that what you're reduced to?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Republicans learned to be the party of working class. "

Republicans have become the part of poorly educated whites, evangelical bigots, and desolate rural and southern communities. I do not observe that those groups work any more than other Americans.

[Nige]

GOP, under Trump, is the party of the non-college educated white middle-to-upper-middle class. That's how they afford all the guns and pick-up trucks.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't find it such good news.

First, it seems likely that Republicans will not have a RINO proof majority in either chamber, even if they do achieve nominal majorities in both. This means that Democrats will largely continue to get their way, perhaps with their worst legislative instincts moderated just a little.

Second, it means a Congress that isn't positioned to do anything to impede executive overreach. Biden, or whoever is pulling the strings, will essentially be ruling like a dictator for the next two years.

Worst case, the Democrats can continue to do their damage, but the nominal Republican majorities will allow them to blame Republicans for everything.

[Ben_]

60 votes in the senate was never a realistic outcome. A few more seats in either chamber probably doesn’t change policy outcomes at all.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, a few more seats in both chambers would make a huge difference in terms of the GOP caucus not having to humor their most left-wing members.

[Ben_]

I don’t think the laws will be different.

[David Nieporent]

Sane people worry about what the GOP would have to do to humor its most far right members. Brett worries about imaginary "left-wing" members of the GOP.

[Frank Drackman]

Don't get the rending of Garments, All you need is a 1 Representative/Senator majority to run things (and fuck them up) look at what the DemoKKKrats have been able to do in under 2 years.

[Aunt Teefah]

So, incredibly, control of the House of Representatives has still not been called. Despite what all the Nate Aluminums on here last week were promising, there apparently was no massive groundswell of public support for the Republicans. In fact, it looks like if a couple races break their way, the Dems could keep control of the House.

The question is, should they want to have control? I would contend that no - that winning a bare majority in the House would be the worst result for the Dems, long-term. We know that there will likely be a recession in the next two years. If there isn't one organically, the Fed has guaranteed that it will cause one, in order to reduce wages and give employers more leverage over their employees. If (when) that happens and the Dems are in power and holding the bag, they will bear the blame, and Trump will probably win in 2024. But if the Reps have control, they will not be able to help themselves from doing unpopular stuff (shutting down the government, trying to cut social security, etc.), and the blame will be shared, making 2024 a toss-up. We shall see.

[Nige]

I know it's not actually in your power or my power to make any of this happen, but I've never been a fan of the 'let's let Republicans make things worse' strategy. Ultmately the cyncism and learned helplessness just puts people off.

[Aunt Teefah]

I'd agree in general, it would be great if the Dems would use the power they are given to actually do things to help their voters (instead of just their donors). But I wouldn't hold my breath on that. And here, it looks like economic collapse in the next two years is all but inevitable, no matter what fiscal policies are implemented. Being seen as "in charge" when that happens - even if just nominally - is a dangerous place to be.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Alas, the perfection of the Republican political art has been and continues to be to create a political wreck on purpose, and then successfully gull the gullible into blaming Democrats. Democrats have proved too inept to defend themselves.

[David Nieporent]

I agree with you. "Heighten the contradictions" is a terrible idea.

Also, GOP control of the House would mean

(a) the end of the 1/6 committee; and

(b) the beginning of an endless stream of Benghaziesqe investigations of every single member of the Biden administration. My guess is that the House Republicans would have to use mail merge to effectively generate all the subpoenas they intend to issue.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The Democrats at the USPS are still finding mail-in ballots for Democrats in key races. Just hold on another few weeks and they'll pull the Democrats across the finish line.

[Aunt Teefah]

The mailman is in on it too?!? This goes even deeper than I thought!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Maricopa County Elections Recorder is on video stating he was delivered 200,000 mail-in ballots after like 9pm on election night. Surely that was USPS delivering them, right? What a bunch of nice mailmen, making deliveries so late in the night!

[Aunt Teefah]

Though I know what you are alleging is probably completely fabricated, I legitimately have no idea what you're even trying to insinuate. Like is there supposed to be something nefarious about a bunch of mail ballots being delivered to the Election Recorder ON ELECTION NIGHT? When else should they have been delivered? What else should've been done with them?

[Nige]

Probability 99.999999%

[Both Sides]

NEWMAN!!!

[Brett Bellmore]

"We know that there will likely be a recession in the next two years. "

Really getting tired of Democrats pretending there hasn't already been one. Going so far as changing the definition of "recession" in order to deny it.

[Martinned]

Two successive quarters of negative real GDP growth, that’s what it’s been for as long as I can remember. And according to the BEA that’s what the US had in Q1 and Q2 this year (but not in Q3, which had positive growth): https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product

Who is arguing with that? AT talked about a possible upcoming recession. That’s definitely not the same as saying there hasn’t been a recession at X point in the past.

[Brett Bellmore]

Who's arguing with that? Basically the entire Democratic party at this point, since Biden didn't care to admit that recession happened.

Though I don't know, now that the election is past maybe they can extract it from the old memory hole.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Katie Hobbs is on timestamped video in the counting rooms, committing a felony.

Why isn't anyone charging her with a crime and harming our Sacred Democracy? It was on the ballot, after all.

[Ben_]

"Why isn’t anyone charging her with a crime and harming our Sacred Democracy?"

Because they only pretend to care about principles in order to launch attacks.

[SRG]

Then the GOP can take her to court and present the evidence. If it's real evidence...

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The GOP can file criminal charges by taking her to court?

lmao wtf r u dumb?

[SRG]

They can challenge the election, schmuck. Or swear an affidavit and get it to the appropriate prosecutors.

[not guilty]

"Katie Hobbs is on timestamped video in the counting rooms, committing a felony."

What, pray tell, is your source of information? What is the statutory citation of the felony you claim was committed?

[Nige]

Can't tell one woman with glasses from another.

[SRG]

One of the stupider state laws found around the country is that car manufacturers have to sell via independent dealers rather than either owning dealerships or selling directly.

Elon Musk has found a neat way around it - open dealerships on tribal lands.

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/tesla-finds-a-workaround-for-state-laws-dealerships-on-tribal-lands/?PSID=CSFB1

[Noorondoor]

Loan sharks have been operating out of tribal lands to avoid state usury laws for years. It's nothing new.

[SRG]

Well, it's new in the car industry. Do you approve?

[Noorondoor]

Yes. Because I don't approve of the state laws that are intended to benefit dealers at the expense of consumers.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, conservative blog has operated for

SIXTEEN (16) DAYS

without using a vile racial slur and for

THREE (3) YEARS

since its most recent imposition of hypocritical, viewpoint-driven censorship.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The other day a white male choked a black woman at a campaign event.

Guess the parties and then who hasn't heard of this event?

[Sarcastr0]

Well whichever side she's on and whatever color she is she should face charges, if the allegations are true.

And you should stop nutpicking.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Lol the black woman should face charges?
You really have heard the story of the conservative black woman getting choked out by the white male Democrat the other day.

Thats why you want her charges. For wrongthink and stepping off the plantation.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, that's why I want her to be charged. Because she is my slave.

Or maybe I read it wrong and posted a pretty normal comment otherwise.

[ragebot]

Riddle me this Batman, how many first world countries allow mail in ballots?

[Ben_]

This is just a trick to get Brett to accidentally reveal that he’s Batman.

[Brett Bellmore]

Pft. Nite Owl, maybe. Never Batman.

[Martinned]

Most of them, I think. How else are people supposed to vote who live in faraway places abroad? (Technically whenever I apply to vote from abroad my government reminds me that I can also authorise someone to vote on my behalf, but I'd rather vote for myself.)

The better question is how many first world countries require people to queue for more than a few minutes to vote?

[mydisplayname]

It is apparently not yet time to discuss per-party dollars per vote. It is also apparently not yet time to discuss per-party per-state total votes ("turnout"). Finally, the majority of those in state offices controlling the voting process are now different, but it's apparently not yet time to discuss that, either.

I say it is apparently not yet time because no legacy media outlet has yet initiated such discussions, electing instead to focus on "seats." Interestingly, though, in the next federal election one party will lack enough dollars-per-vote to stave off statewide totals disfavoring the party... and the vote counting will be controlled by individuals skeptical of the party's typical tactics. Long-game politics are fascinating!

[Martinned]

There might be a delayed reporting (of campaign donations) issue there. At least that's what I was told last week on this blog when I pointed out that the two main candidates for US Senate in Pennsylvania had already spent the GDP of a small country between them.

[Nige]

So Trump wrote something on Truth Social about sending in the FBI to interfere in an election on behalf of Ron DeSantis. Or he's lying about doing so.

[apedad]

Former President Donald Trump has removed all ambiguity about his feelings about Ron DeSantis.

In a searing statement from Trump’s Save America PAC, Trump unleashed on DeSantis as just an “average Republican Governor” propped up by Fox News and related properties.

“NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn’t have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just average — middle of the pack — including COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!”

Trump took to Truth Social to diminish DeSantis’ accomplishment Wednesday.

“Now that the Election in Florida is over, and everything went quite well, shouldn’t it be said that in 2020, I got 1.1 Million more votes in Florida than Ron D got this year, 5.7 Million to 4.6 Million? Just asking?”

“I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering — I know more about him than anybody — other than, perhaps, his wife,” Trump added, per Fox News.

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/571152-donald-trump-trashes-ron-desantis-as-average-republican-governor/

Well...OK! Happy Friday everyone!!!

[Nige]

The Republicans are going to have their hands full if they think they're going to get rid of him easily. They must be praying for his indictment, though he's almost certainly going to declare himself precisely in the hope that it'll protect him. What a mess.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Who should we feel sorry for when Trump points out that DeSantis couldn't cut it in the private sector, sics Roger Stone on DeSantis, and calls DeSantis' wife a hideously ugly pig?

[Nige]

The wife?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Ted Cruz maneuver.

Call the guy’s wife a pig, upgrade to 'hideously ugly' pig when the guy complains, publish photos after the guy ‘draws a line,’ never apologize to the guy or his wife, threaten to 'spill the beans' on the wife’s personal life when the guy demands a retraction, then watch the guy — after pledging not to be a 'servile puppy dog' — kiss your ass and grovel at your feet for years while his children are left to wonder how daddies are supposed to act when someone attacks their mommy.

[Brett Bellmore]

The sensible Republicans that want rid of them have to be praying that he ISN'T indicted, since that would tend to rally pissed off supporters behind him. The best hope of getting rid of him is for him to gradually self-destruct without any incidents that cause such a rally.

Now, if he was convicted of something Republicans, not Democrats, thought wasn't a BS pretend offense, it could hurt him a lot. But the odds of that aren't great.

[Nige]

Like the Fed visit to Mar A Lago energised Reublicans for the mid-terms. No doubt his supporters will be enraged - they're always enraged - it just depends how many of them there actually are.

Republicans will pretend any charge is BS, they have no choice, even R voters who have drifted away from Trump himself will demand it as a loyalty test to a (they hope) fallen king.

[Brett Bellmore]

But you of course have to say that, after leveling so many BS charges that persuaded no one who didn't already hate his guts.

[Nige]

They haven't leveled any charges, and if they do, they will have to stand up in court, but all that will be irrelevant to you.

[dwb68]

The Russian withdrawal from Kherson really did happen, apparently.

https://deepstatemap.live/en#9.75/46.7786/33.0611

I was deeply skeptical that it was a trap.

[John F. Carr]

I am tempted to go along with an argument I saw on Telegram. A while back Russia signaled that it was withdrawing and didn't. Ukrainians beat their heads against a wall looking for the weak spot and took great losses. Later, Russia quietly started withdrawing. Ukrainians once bitten did not aggressively probe or pursue.

[Abraczinskas]

On behalf of Nevada, sorry again.

[Stephen Lathrop]

In a column yesterday in the NYT Paul Krugman made an interesting point I had never heard before. It has to do with what happens when people change their buying patterns. Krugman was talking about supply chain disruptions and inflation.

The point was that when demand increases for some commodity—for instance as it did variously when the pandemic switched consumer spending away from services like restaurant meals, and toward tangible goods like home office furniture—unaccustomed demand for the substituted items pushes prices up quickly. Sellers revalue inventory they already have, and whatever goods are in supply to meet increased demand get marked up right away.

By contrast, sellers of many goods are typically slower to lower prices to offset a decline in demand than they are to raise prices to match an increase. Thus, prices prove sticky for many items which consumers buy less of. Higher prices for some goods, and sticky prices for the others, means higher average prices overall.

Krugman's point, if I understand it correctly, is that the disruption of normal buying patterns can by itself deliver higher average prices, without any implication of an increase in the money supply—no need to suppose without evidence that the pandemic-related price increase has been a classic case of too much money chasing too few goods—or at least not only that.

That matters, of course, because it critiques reasoning that to fight inflation the remedy is to raise interest rates and reduce people's means to make purchases. If what people are doing is just substituting new needs for old ones, using the same money, then that tactic doe not efficiently target the cause of the price increases.

Krugman did not go so far as to insist that present inflationary pressure is all based on purchasing substitutions, nor did he say that the Fed is flat wrong in its present inflation-fighting course. He just made that interesting point which bears on the present situation.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I'm curious about the commenters here who believe all mail in balloting should be abolished. How do you allow armed forces personnel on active duty to vote?