;)
November 13, 2022
Marie: Thank you to all the Democratic candidates & their campaign staffs, to all the harried elections workers & poll workers, to all the Democratic voters who performed their civic duty, no matter how inconvenient or difficult. And a one-handed clap for Sam Alito & the Dancing Supremes for their clueless arrogance in blowing up women's rights -- a motivating factor for Democratic votes.
** Democrats Keep Senate Majority. Hannah Knowles & Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: "Democrats were projected to retain control of the Senate on Saturday, clinching a narrow majority as they showed strength in battleground races in a daunting midterm year that handed President Biden a major victory as he looks to his next two years in office. The final blow to Republican hopes of retaking the chamber came in Nevada, where on Saturday Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) was projected to win reelection, edging past Adam Laxalt (R), a former state attorney general. Cortez Masto's projected win ensures Democrats a 50th seat, with a runoff election still to come in Georgia on Dec. 6. Vice President Harris is empowered to cast tiebreaking votes in the Senate. Control of the House was still up in the air on Saturday, as vote counting continued days after an election in which Democrats overperformed expectations in many contested areas across the country.... In Nevada, Cortez Masto's win was part of a perfect record so far by incumbent senators seeking reelection in the midterms, as voters tilted strongly against upending the established order in the chamber. It was part of a strong showing by Democrats in battleground areas...." The AP's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "The Democratic Party's stunning hold on Senate control will enable President Joe Biden and his allies in the chamber to do something that has been a low-key success: churning out federal judges without the threat of Republican obstruction. The Senate majority, inked by a Democratic win in Nevada, gives Biden a clear runway to continue one of his most consequential pursuits: reshaping federal courts with a diverse array of lifetime-appointed liberal judges, including record numbers of women, minorities, former public defenders and civil rights lawyers. The Senate has confirmed 84 Biden-nominated judges, including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson ... and 25 appeals court judges, confirming judges at a faster rate than ... Donald Trump before the 2022 election."
Nevada Secretary of State. Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: "Democrat Cisco Aguilar is projected to win Nevada's secretary of state race, beating a Republican nominee, Jim Marchant, who sought oversight of Nevada's elections while baselessly denying the results from 2020. It was the latest defeat for GOP candidates who campaigned on ... Donald Trump's false insistence the 2020 election was stolen and would have wielded power over the voting process in 2024. Marchant remained in close competition to oversee voting in a 2024 battleground state, where the current secretary of state -- a Republican -- has defended the integrity of the voting process amid an onslaught of baseless claims. Aguilar, who chairs the board of trustees for a school in North Las Vegas, campaigned on making voting more accessible and said he would 'protect our democracy.'"
Voters Save Democracy. For Now. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "Every election denier who sought to become the top election official in a critical battleground state lost at the polls this year, as voters roundly rejected extreme partisans who promised to restrict voting and overhaul the electoral process. The national repudiation of this coalition reached its apex on Saturday, when Cisco Aguilar, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, defeated Jim Marchant, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Marchant, the Republican nominee, had helped organize a national right-wing slate of candidates under the name 'America First.' With Mr. Marchant's loss to Mr. Aguilar, all but one of those 'America First' candidates were defeated. Only Diego Morales, a Republican in deep-red Indiana, was successful, while candidates in Michigan, Arizona and New Mexico were defeated."
Arizona. Stacey Barchenger of the Arizona Republic: "A pivotal day of vote counting in Arizona on Saturday saw Democratic candidate for governor Katie Hobbs slightly widen her lead over her Republican opponent, though the race was still too close to call. Hobbs, Arizona's secretary of state and a former lawmaker, now leads Kari Lake, the Republican nominee and former television news anchor, by more than 34,000 votes, such a slight change the race was still separated by 1.4 percentage points. County election officials have counted about 2.3 million votes statewide, but another approximately 265,000 are left to tally. Most of those are from counties that house Arizona's population centers...."
Elizabeth Warren, in a New York Times op-ed, in praise of Joe Biden (and progressive policies): "... this electoral success belongs to Mr. Biden, who ignored ivory-tower economists and out-of-touch pundits claiming that bold action to help families was bad politics. Instead, Mr. Biden delivered significant economic progress for working people.... A few lobbyist-friendly Democrats in our own party blocked much of the president's agenda for working families."
Ezra Klein of the New York Times with a theory of now: ";In September, John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck released 'The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy.'... What they found clarifies not just 2020, but 2016 and 2022: Because politics is so calcified, virtually nothing matters, but because elections are so close, virtually everything matters.... The parties are so closely matched that even minuscule shifts in the electoral winds can blow the country onto a wildly different course. And even in a time of profound economic dislocation, American politics has become less about which party is good for your wallet and more about whether the cultural changes of the past 50 years delight or dismay you."
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "... Trump helped Republicans lose the House in 2018 and lose the White House and the Senate after the 2020 elections. Now he seems to have rescued Democrats from the traditional midterm shellacking.... Trump has been poison for his party.... [But] it's not hard to imagine that this revolt against the revolting Trump will die down in a few days.... 'If blackmailing Ukraine, inciting a riot, trying to overturn the election, hoarding classified documents, using overtly racist language for seven years, including at Glenn Youngkin today, was not enough to cause you to walk away from Donald Trump,' the political analyst Ron Brownstein said on CNN Friday, what makes people think Trump is toast now?" ~~~
~~~ Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "The idea that Republican elites could simply swap Trump for another candidate [like Ron DeSantis] without incurring any serious damage rests on two assumptions: First, that Trump's supporters are more committed to the Republican Party than they are to him, and second, that Trump himself will give up the fight if he isn't able to win the party's nomination.... He leads a cult of personality, in which he is an almost messianic figure, practically sent by God himself to purge the United States of liberals (and other assorted enemies) and restore the nation to greatness. He is practically worshiped by a large and politically influential group of Americans, who describe him as 'anointed.'... There is a real chance that Trump, if he loses the nomination, decides to run for president anyway.... Republican elites might be done with Trump, but Trump is not done with the Republican Party." ~~~
~~~ Marie: What all this says to me is something we all knew way back when: Republicans should have dumped Trump, even before the 2016 election. And as Ron Brownstein pointed out, they have had a number of opportunities to do so again. Leave us not forget the Billy Bush tape, the Muslim ban, Trump's refusal to put his assets in a blind trust & many other financial abuses of the presidency*, the support for white supremacists at Charlottesville. Yet Republicans looked away every time. They chose not to be a normal party in the democratic tradition. Now they're paying for that.
Matt Viser & Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "President Biden arrived [in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,] Saturday, the second stop of a week-long foreign trip seeking to reassure the world community that, no matter the political disruptions back home, the United States can still be a reliable global leader. On the heels of a midterm election that gave him better-than-expected results -- yet still could cost his party full control of Congress when final results are in, complicating his goals -- he has used both appearances so far to press that theme and rally other nations. During a speech in Egypt at the COP27 climate conference, Biden touted the United States as the global pacesetter in fighting climate change. And in Phnom Penh for a summit of southeast Asian nations, he immediately began trying to unite other nations to provide a counterweight to the rising economic and military threat that China poses." ~~~
~~~ Katie Rogers & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden told members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Saturday in Cambodia that the United States was committed to deepening 'peace and prosperity throughout the region' by protecting against threats like climate change and the economic fallout of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The president was betting that an in-person appearance at the ASEAN gathering in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, would help reinforce his administration's broad efforts to promote human rights in a country where democracy has been suppressed and to counter China's rise, even as ASEAN countries embrace economic ties with Beijing."
Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus resigned late Saturday, the White House said in a short statement, ending an awkward standoff between the country's top border official and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas asked Magnus to step down on Wednesday but the CBP commissioner refused to go quietly, insisting he would not leave unless asked by the White House. The White House said President Biden accepted Magnus's resignation...."
John Hudson of the Washington Post: "U.S. intelligence officials have compiled a classified report detailing extensive efforts to manipulate the American political system by the United Arab Emirates, an influential, oil-rich nation in the Persian Gulf long considered a close and trusted partner. The activities covered in the report, described to The Washington Post by three people who have read it, include illegal and legal attempts to steer U.S. foreign policy in ways favorable to the Arab autocracy. It reveals the UAE's bid, spanning multiple U.S. administrations, to exploit the vulnerabilities in American governance, including its reliance on campaign contributions, susceptibility to powerful lobbying firms and lax enforcement of disclosure laws intended to guard against interference by foreign governments, these people said."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war against Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Sunday are here: "Ukrainian troops reentering Kherson, one of the first Ukrainian cities to be captured after Russia's invasion, discovered the regional capital without water, heat or electricity, an official who had spoken to residents there told The Washington Post. According to Ukrainian officials, the city's Russian occupiers destroyed Kherson's critical infrastructure as they withdrew, leaving inhabitants without enough to eat or drink. The city's liberation after eight months of Russian occupation -- a major morale boost for all of Ukraine with winter approaching -- was celebrated over the weekend by jubilant residents who greeted Ukrainian soldiers with music and blue and yellow flags.... [President] Zelensky warned residents returning to Kherson to avoid handling objects left behind by the Russians as bomb disposal teams have removed some 2,000 explosive devices in the Kherson region -- 'mines, trip wires and unexploded ammunition.'... Ukrainian forces are on the defensive in the eastern Donetsk region, Zelensky said. 'It's just hell there,' he added, describing the 'extremely brutal battles' that Kyiv's troops are engaged in every day to prevent Russian forces from advancing further into the region, which Putin illegally claimed to annex in September.... Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba thanked Washington for its support months into the conflict during a meeting Saturday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Cambodia with a U.S. delegation that includes President Biden."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Two World War II-era airplanes collided in midair at an air show in Dallas on Saturday, the authorities said, turning the commemorative Veterans Day weekend event into a scene of horror. Six people were killed in the crash, the National Safety Transportation Board said on Sunday. The planes -- a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra -- crashed at about 1:20 p.m. local time, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The crash happened at the Wings Over Dallas air show at Dallas Executive Airport, which is about 10 miles south of downtown Dallas."
Washington Post: "The 77-year-old Iranian refugee whose ordeal inspired the 2004 movie 'The Terminal' died Saturday inside the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, where he had previously lived for 18 years. Mehran Karimi Nasseri died around noon local time of a heart attack, a spokesperson for the Paris airport authority said Sunday. 'He was an iconic, charismatic character. There is a lot of emotion at the airport in the wake of his death.'... In 1988, French authorities stopped him at the Paris airport as he tried to pass through without identity papers, which he said had been stolen. Authorities held him for several days in limbo in a transit zone, and then released him into one of Charles de Gaulle's terminals.Caught in an immigration trap, he soon set up a makeshift home of his own in the airport and lived for many years in Terminal 1.... By 1999, France offered him a residency permit. But he continued to live inside the airport until 2006. After leaving the airport, he appeared to struggle to adapt to outside life."
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Bi-weekly Sunday Sermon (delivered in the local paper this AM):
"It’s too early to do a complete election post-mortem but we can already detect a familiar pattern.
Overall, Republicans painted an unrelievedly dark portrait of the nation. Here in Washington State, the TV ads run against Senator Patty Murray were often shaded in grays and blacks--until her opponent appeared. Then both the screen and its message lightened considerably. Pretty basic advertising it was, much like those beer ads whose cast of fine-looking men and women imply a promise of nothing but good times to come.
Behind the tricks of advertising’s imagery was the standard three-legged Republican stool of criticism: The economy is in the tank, immigration is out of control, and crime is everywhere. Also standard: Their dire claims were mostly unsupported by facts.
Inflation does persist, hovering around eight percent a year. Omitted from Republican ads, though, was any mention that post-pandemic inflation is not limited to the United States. Inflation afflicts the entire world at about the same average rate (statista.com). Also unmentioned was the significant part corporate profit-taking plays in America’s rising prices. In October, California Representative Katie Porter demonstrated to Congress that approximately half of our inflated costs go to corporate profits. No one could disprove her analysis (12news.com),
Republican ads about immigration skipped another inconvenient fact. By last September arrests at the southern border had exceeded two million for the year, a new record for border enforcement (nytimes.com).
Then there’s crime. Want less crime, elect Republicans, they say. But their finger-pointing ads don’t reveal that Republicans control eight of the ten states with the highest violent crime rates (foxcarolina.com). Ironically, Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy’s California district has the highest murder rate in the nation (californialocal.com).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/senate-control-democrats-win/?
Post-mortem now more complete. Masto wins!!!
Confederate elites may be souring on Trump, but the groundlings have not, and likely will not, at least not anytime soon. Rupert Murdoch may believe that he’s the one calling the shots, and believes that if he decides it’s time to switch horses in midstream, the Foxbots will go along with him.
But here’s the thing. Murdoch didn’t make Trump. Fox benefited greatly from sidling up next to the Fat Fascist and singing his praises, but tossing him aside in favor of DeSantolini, Trump Lite, (without the baggage and all the problems) may not work out the way Murdoch hopes it will. The traitors love Trump because of the baggage and the problems.
The problems cement his status as a victim of liberal and media elites, just as they see themselves. Does Murdoch believe the Trumpen proletariat will dump their hero just because he says so? They love Trump because he’s a nasty asshole who tells everyone he hates to fuck off, just like they do. This is tribalism at its most elemental. Murdoch is an Aussie carpetbagger. Sure, they watch Fox, because Fox also hates the people and ideas they hate. But he ain’t Trump.
And DeSantolini is no Trump either. Yes, he’s a scheming, anti-Democratic, fascist prick, but he’s a minor league Trump. The drooling horde don’t care that DeSantolini is a lesser but shinier version without the baggage. Trump killed Roe. He salted the federal judiciary with white supremacist judges. He started the whole Obama birth certificate thing, he’s a bonafide racist, and he called in the heavily armed dogs to take over Washington. DeSantolini applauded all of that bullshit, but shipping immigrants off to Martha’s Vineyard is a Baltimore chop compared to Trump’s Treason Home Runs.
He’s not going anywhere just yet. And Murdoch and the Republican elite wishing it were so ain’t gonna make that happen.
When Fatty augurs in it will be with his own hand on the stick.
Here in Michigan, Democrats flipped the House & Senate to take
complete control of state government for the first time in 40 years.
Our Dem. Gov. won by double digits.
'People are saying' it could be that the 18 to 20something year olds
are voting in greater numbers and voting Democrat.
So how long will it be before the Republicans will be pushing to
raise the voting age to something like 30, or even 21.
It ain't over 'til the fat lady (Lindsay?) sings.
@Forrest Morris: They can try, but they won't succeed. The 18-year-old age is embedded in the Constitution (Amendment 26), and we are a country that couldn't pass an amendment in favor of purple mountains' majesty or amber waves of grain.
AK: Looks like you and Ron Brownstein are on the same page: "What makes you think Trump is toast now?" says Ron.
Well, this morning I smelled some of that toast burning; granted that there will be those faithful to Fatty no matter what but I "gots the feeling" their fealty is falling–––maybe not for awhile but one fine day when the sun is shining just a wee bit left of center, those that need another god to worship will move on and not necessarily to someone credible––-just not Trump.
The fact that we took the Senate gives me such a good sense of that "good sense" of the voters. A little nudge in the promise of democacy.
I am ashamed that I (1) can't keep up with right-wing conspiracy theories and (2) am not nearly as original a thinker as are those who make up the theories.
Earlier this week, Jesse Watters of Fox "News" reviewed the demographics of the election results and concluded, "Single women are breaking for Democrats by 30 points and this makes sense when you think about how Democrat policies are designed to keep women single." He urged men to get married (to women) to solve this problem.
It depresses me to be less creative than Jesse Watters.
Marie: I bet Jesse didn't think that up. His "brain trust" is to blame, I'm sure. But doesn't he have a slappable face? And voice...
In your thank-you note to election workers (with which I heartily concur--) you described Alito and his pals as using "clueless arrogance" in shutting down Roe. I agree it is arrogance, but I think it was "artful, calculated arrogance." The clueless part only applies to some of the Federalist judges, rather like the people who thought we would be "welcomed as heros" to Iraq and Afghanistan, who have played with the the "pro-life" folks for so long, and the rest knew full well what they were doing. Theirs was evil intent. They knew they were messing with women, cuz why not, and they had no intentions of doing anything to help the "saved" babies forced to be born. Neither group has any power. How cynical it all is.
Jeanne, respectfully, I can't agree that women have no power. (I assume you referred to women and babies in "neither group.")
Alitto wrote in his Dobbs opinion words to the effect that women have the vote and can use it to change the laws on abortion. Clearly he was being snarky, given the recent history of legislative entropy throughout most of the US -- even when voters carry rights-related initiatives, some state legislatures feel free to ignore or warp them.
Many women clearly said "hold my beer."
Again this time, and I think for a long time, women showed that their votes made the difference, and not for the first time. Not to say that women are all of one mind, but it seems that they have a pretty good sense of where their interests lie and how to get out the votes to advance them. Wait for the vote analysis to see how that goes.
It has been said here many time that no one can understand why a woman would vote for today's GOP. Maybe more of them are thinking that way.
And ... I can't understand why a man would vote GOP either, but many do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGx7JkFSp4
@Jeanne: I agree with you that the confederate Supremes acted out of cruelty, some of them with calculated cruelty. And it wasn't just against young women. Unintentional fathers, dismayed by the consequences of their actions, are affected, too, sometimes for life. So are whole families, not to mention the old women who lived in a shoe who had so many children she didn't know what to do. Good Catholic girl Amy Phony Barrett, if she's half as smart as she thinks she is, should have figured this out.
Of course the upper-middle-class Supremes don't have to worry so much about their own families because they can always foot the bill for an abortion for a family member, even if it means the expectant mother has to travel to Denmark to get medical services. But even they can't do anything about emergencies where a pregnant woman is in desperate need of care but is physically in a place -- say, Texas -- where she can't get it. No traveling to Denmark then. To that extent, too, the Supremes were both clueless and stunningly cruel.
Patrick: shoulda been clearer-- the concept those people have is that women SHOULD HAVE no power. Like babies, both in utero and not, helpless and innocent. How dare people think women should be in charge of their lives and bodies...One should assume caretaking chores for both those groups of people... Look at what Oz said about politicians being in on decisions for women, and that numbnut in NC who thought a community committee should decide if a rape victim would be allowed to abort the rapist's future baby... It's all nuts. I agree-- we have just seen the power of a woman's vote en masse. Hurray for Michigan! And 12 governors!
Marie: I guess I shoulda been clearer there, too. I really meant more than the confederate nonsupremes. Plainly, a lot of people in the Federal Society have the same thoughts. The same CRUEL thoughts. The "pro-life" folks have killed doctors, as we know; in OUR town, someone fire-bombed Planned Parenthood and our church, Unitarian Universalist, took them in for some months. They then became regional and JUST opened a new branch, so things have definitely changed, but the hard-core folks have not changed their minds. I'm sure security is tight.
Thanks for both your responses-- they all make sense.