Some Of Those Mid-Term Results - ICYMI

[toucana]

Two Republican Congressmen who are currently under Federal criminal indictment were re-elected last night.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/07/politics/duncan-hunter-chris-collins-bob-menendez/index.html

Chris Collins (Rep. New York 27th) who was charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and false statements pertaining to insider trading in the stock of an Australian pharmaceutical company in August 2018 kept his solidly Republican Buffalo area seat.

Duncan Hunter (Rep. California 50th) a military veteran from San Diego held his south California seat in spite of being indicted for campaign corruption to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars in charges on a campaign credit card earlier this year. Hunter earned an ironic ‘Husband of the Year’ accolade for his gallantry in blaming his spendthrift wife for his own crimes when he was charged in court.

Rep. Greg Gianforte will win re-election for Montana's at-large House seat, defeating Democratic challenger Kathleen Williams, NBC News projects.Gianforte first took office in June 2017 after winning a special election for the seat.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/07/gop-rep-greg-gianforte-wins-re-election-in-montana-nbc-news.html

Gianforte made national headlines right before that election when he was cited by police for assaulting Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian newspaper. Gianforte later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to community service. Donald Trump recently praised Gianforte at a Montana rally for body-slamming the reporter saying “He’s my sort of guy”.

A Republican brothel owner and reality TV star has won an election for a legislative seat in Nevada's 36th Assembly District in spite of the fact that he died several weeks ago on 16th October.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/nevada/articles/2018-11-07/dead-brothel-owner-wins-election-for-nevada-legislative-seat

Dennis Hof was found dead at his Love Ranch brothel about an hour outside Las Vegas. Hof had spent the four previous days partying with notables from the sex industry and political world celebrating his 72nd birthday. His body was discovered by porn actor Ron Jeremy and a prostitute at the brothel.

Apart from owning a number of Nevada brothels, he also starred in the HBO adult reality series "Cathouse" and wrote a book titled "The Art of the Pimp," akin to Trump's book "The Art of the Deal."

County officials will appoint a Republican to take his place in the seat.

[TheVat]

ICYMI, Dems retook the US House and flipped at least 7 state governorships. And Florida restored ex-felon voting rights. And two red states had very close Senate races, something unimaginable in Texas and Arizona not so long ago. Final tally in Arizona may not be for a week. Anyways, I hope the newbies in the House roll up their sleeves and get right to work on the kitchen table issues they ran on.

Yeah, dead guys can win, in our great country. Heh.

[Serpent]

News blackout is reinstated at our house. The numbers were despairingly close: almost half of the American people are okay with crooks, bigots and fools running their country.

[zetreque]

Looks like the Green Party killed Sinema in Arizona. If they had voted for Sinema, an ex Green Party, instead of their own candidate it looks like she would have won easy.

[TheVat]

It's very close and apparently there a lot of votes in Maricopa County that aren't counted yet. But, yeah, the Green party seems to be "Nadering" elections in an unhelpful way to their goals.

The numbers will always be close, so long as Republicans remain more dedicated to voting in every election. When voter suppression (closing stations, not replacing failing equipment, hiring insufficient staff, "exact match" laws, etc.) measures are dealt with, gerrymandering fixed in several states, Millennials stop sitting out elections and whining about how we have to have cellphone voting RIGHT NOW, and federal law requires ALL workplaces give employees time off (with pay) to vote, you will see those numbers change IMO.

[zetreque]

My favorite site for election results this year was the guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng- ... -and-seats

My final comment is that I am not supporting ANY party until this insane (delusional corrupt etc) president is out and I am especially against anyone supporting republicans given that they support an extreme lunatic that is driving a nail to split the nation. People supporting that (division) alone is disheartening to all future of humanity. Despite the small wins, this election was a chance for me to have hope in humanity but it just confirmed that there is very little hope out there for the near future. I just find it unbelievable that the masses can't see through the smokescreen and facade that is the two party (or any party that isn't just all independents) political system and vote (making the best of it) to at least lessen the insanity. I am very disappointed but grateful that things at least went slightly more balanced between congress.

[SciameriKen]

I'm most disappointed with the Georgia Governor race -- last I saw it was a 75,000 vote difference and there is a chance of a run-off (not sure if the winner had to clear 50% or 51% of the total vote which Kemp has 50.5%.

Still - a race this close where Kemp himself oversaw the election, tried to delay 50K votes a few weeks ago, and then voting machine problems in urban areas caused huge delays and many voters just gave up -- although rural areas wouldn't have this problem. Guess who is in charge of making sure there are adequate polling areas in urban areas? I know here in NY we literally had polling areas 3-4 blocks from each other. This election was stolen.

[Serpent]

This election was stolen.

Like three of the last five presidential ones.

[TheVat]

Why Georgia wouldn't compel Kemp to recuse himself from election oversight is beyond me.

Pretty corrupt.

[zetreque]

I hope those Green Party goers voted for felicity smoak instead of angela green in their absentee ballots. :D
https://www.salon.com/2018/11/06/heres- ... e_partner/

Glad to see 2 native american's win house seats of NM though.

[bangstrom]

Looks like the Green Party killed Sinema in Arizona. If they had voted for Sinema, an ex Green Party, instead of their own candidate it looks like she would have won easy.

I saw this happen many times in New Mexico which is why NM went from a blue state to red. The Greens finally agreed to run candidates only in non-closely contested races which are rare. This is a problem for the Greens.

[zetreque]

I hope those Green Party goers voted for felicity smoak instead of angela green in their absentee ballots. :D
https://www.salon.com/2018/11/06/heres- ... e_partner/

Glad to see 2 native american's win house seats of NM though.

make that 3 Native American women as all 3 house reps for NM.
News is saying they are the first...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N ... s_Congress

The whole state is blue now Bangstrom

[toucana]

A very detailed and grimly amusing round-up by Rachel Maddow from MSNBC of all the GOP apparatchiks that were specially selected by Trump, and who subsequently crashed and burned in the mid-terms.

[zetreque]

A very detailed and grimly amusing round-up by Rachel Maddow from MSNBC of all the GOP apparatchiks that were specially selected by Trump, and who subsequently crashed and burned in the mid-terms.

awful emotionally charged news story. I can use the fact without this woman's attitude. I'm interested any meddling he did for the opposite. The GOP flipping the other senate seats costing incumbent democrats their seat.

And this doesn't account for a rise in angry people at all. This news broadcast is just trump bashing. It sucks

[zetreque]

She forgot to mention that a dead brothel owner won a Nevada assembly seat.

[toucana]

Zetreque wrote:

This news broadcast is just trump bashing. It sucks

That link I posted entirely factual, from start to finish: it's a tabulation of constituencies, voting figures and results where Trump's interventions in matters of candidate selection and promotion went catastrophically wrong and cost the GOP very dearly indeed.

Given that Trump was trying to spin the Tuesday mid-term results as some sort of wonderful "victory", I think it's more important than ever to highlight his incompetence and stupidity in such matters, and to do so with factual references of that type

What's your problem ? Have you become allergic to factual based discussion? Or do you just dislike incisive and intelligent journalism by women like Rachel Maddow ?

[zetreque]

Zetreque wrote:

This news broadcast is just trump bashing. It sucks

That link I posted entirely factual, from start to finish: it's a tabulation of constituencies, voting figures and results where Trump's interventions in matters of candidate selection and promotion went catastrophically wrong and cost the GOP very dearly indeed.

Given that Trump was trying to spin the Tuesday mid-term results as some sort of wonderful "victory", I think it's more important than ever to highlight his incompetence and stupidity in such matters, and to do so with factual references of that type

What's your problem ? Have you become allergic to factual based discussion? Or do you just dislike incisive and intelligent journalism by women like Rachel Maddow ?

My problem is her attitude. She is just feeding political polarity. Trump started it with his delusional arrogance and it just feeds the opposite side to do the same. I'm really starting to hate a lot of the democrats for this reason. Her attitude is no better than Trumps.

[toucana]

For the life of me I do not see how providing a factually based counter-narrative to Trump's delusional twaddle amounts to "feeding political polarity".

The current political divisions within USA exist independently of any attempts by commentators to describe or influence them. "Tell the truth and shame the devil" is a very good maxim to follow in times like these.

To claim that "Her attitude is no better than Trump's" is ridiculous. That's a false relativism with no basis in reality. Donald Trump is a serial liar and serial fraudster who thinks that businesses should be run like those of Mafia crime families, and that countries should be run like TV game shows, with a dramatic and thunderous "You're fired " at the end of every episode.

Trump is a moral imbecile. Rachel Maddow I would suggest, is anything but.

[zetreque]

For the life of me I do not see how providing a factually based counter-narrative to Trump's delusional twaddle amounts to "feeding political polarity".

The current political divisions within USA exist independently of any attempts by commentators to describe or influence them. "Tell the truth and shame the devil" is a very good maxim to follow in times like these.

To claim that "Her attitude is no better than Trump's" is ridiculous. That's a false relativism with no basis in reality. Donald Trump is a serial liar and serial fraudster who thinks that businesses should be run like those of Mafia crime families, and that countries should be run like TV game shows, with a dramatic and thunderous "You're fired " at the end of every episode.

Trump is a moral imbecile. Rachel Maddow I would suggest, is anything but.

You just don't seem to get it then. Do you realize that when she embellishes in her attitude and exaggerates in her wording it just feeds emotion? This is the kind of attitude that drives people even further right. The entire story is unbalanced too. The democrats should have done far better in this time of how bad trump is. It's bad news. It would have been more helpful to talk about some reasons we lost senate seats. It would have been far better if she didn't shame trump supporters by calling them "suckers" and bashing a president they like. Obama didn't do this, Hillary Clinton did. There is a huge difference. Maddow's attitude here is one of the reasons Clinton lost. This doesn't bring people together, it drives them apart.

I AM NOT questioning her fact, I'm questioning how balanced her report is and her attitude.

[zetreque]

A very detailed and grimly amusing round-up by Rachel Maddow from MSNBC of all the GOP apparatchiks that were specially selected by Trump, and who subsequently crashed and burned in the mid-terms.

And even if they weren't moved around by Trump, it's not to say they still wouldn't have crashed and burned.
Take the first story for example, there's absolutely no reason to believe that if Danny and Heller had traded places they still wouldn't have lost as bad.

[toucana]

The Democrats have flipped something like +28 seats in the House, and could conceivably wind up with as many as +35 by some estimates. That is an enormous and historic victory, and one which will hopefully restore some measure of proper political oversight in Congress as of January 2019.

The Democrats were *never* going to take control of the Senate, not with that number of contests taking place in deep Red states where Trump won by double-digit margins in 2016. No one who was following the serious pre-election polling and psephological analyses of those contests had any illusions as to how the Senate elections were likely to turn out. It was only the eternal optimists and hopeless romantics dreaming of a "Blue Tsunami" who thought the Democrats had the slightest chance of taking the Senate as well.

Bearing in mind quite how many of this week's electoral victories in the mid-term House contests were won by female candidates, I find it striking, and highly suspicious that so many male commentators are still determined to try and find some pretext, any pretext, for blaming *women* for the perceived electoral shortcomings or failures of the Democratic party.

[zetreque]

The Democrats have flipped something like +28 seats in the House, and could conceivably wind up with as many as +35 by some estimates. That is an enormous and historic victory, and one which will hopefully restore some measure of proper political oversight in Congress as of January 2019.

Given how bad the administration is, a 50% division between republicans and democrats in the senate and house is a shameful display of humanity. Taking back 28 seats in already democrat leaning districts to barely get beyond 50% is not what I would call an enormous and historic victory.

[TheVat]

A dramatic victory, historically speaking, would be the 1994 Gingrich revolution which gained 54 house seats for GOP and 8 Senate seats. For those who remember that election, or the one in 2010 where Obama lost 64, there might be a view of this as a blue ripple rather than tsunami. Warren Harding IIRC is the record holder, losing 77 house seats.

What does make this smaller turnover historic is the beginning of a restoration of congressional powers to exert lawful checks and restraints on a president who openly disrespects the rule of law and the constitution. And flouts the separation of powers.

I see why Maddow turns some people off, but no one should shoot the messenger when they report a factual basis for finding the POTUS to be incompetent.

[toucana]

Matt Shea - (Republican - Washington State House, 4th District)

Matt Shea, a conservative Washington state lawmaker is under FBI scrutiny over a how-to guide he wrote on killing non-believers and establishing a Christian theocracy.

Five-term Washington state Rep. Matt Shea has been circulating a manual for holy war in the United States, the Seattle Times reported.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/state-lawmaker-matt-shea-defends-advocacy-for-holy-army-as-spokane-sheriff-refers-his-writings-to-fbi/

The four-page document, titled "Biblical Basis for War," goes point-by-point over how a Christian theocratic movement could — and should — exterminate its opposition in a battle to win a hypothetical holy war.

At the outset, Shea's holy army would issue terms of surrender to its enemies. The demands include "stop all abortions," "no same-sex marriage," "no idolatry or occultism," "no communism," and "must obey Biblical law."

If the rest of the country refuses to "yield" to these terms, the document advocates a final solution: "kill all males."

A Rolling Stone article— published last week — details Shea's fantasy of creating a "51st state" with freedom for guns and rule by God. The story goes into depth on Shea's ties to local white nationalist movements.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/matt-shea-washington-state-liberty-744850/

Shea has used his time online to promote far-right conspiracy theories, including the idea that global warming is a conspiracy to "manipulate the public mind."

He also frequently met with and supported rancher Cliven Bundy's uprising against the Bureau of Land Management, which he opposes for the despotic act of charging fees for grazing on federally maintained land.

Matt Shea was re-elected on Tuesday.