U.S. Senate Results

⭐ Republicans will regain the Senate majority. As of Thursday, November they hold 53 seats.

Unless otherwise indicated, the AP has called these races:

⭐ Arizona. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego is projected to have defeated the execrable Kari Lake.

California. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff is projected to win. Schiff will have won both the general election and a special election to fill the seat of former Sen. Dianne Feinstein, deceased, which is currently held by Laphonza Butler, a "placeholder" appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Schiff will be seated immediately.

Connecticut: Democrat Chris Murphy is projected to win re-election.

Delaware: Democrat Lisa Blunt is projected to win.

Florida: Republican Rick Scott is projected to win re-election.

Hawaii. Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono is projected to win re-election.

Indiana: Republican Jim Banks is projected to win.

Maine: Independent Sen. Angus King is projected to win re-election. King caucuses with Democrats.

Maryland. Democrat Angela Alsobrooks is projected to win over former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin (D) is retiring.

Massachusetts: Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is projected to win re-election.

Michigan: Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin is projected to win.

Minnesota. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is projected to win re-election.

Mississippi: Republican Roger Wicker is projected to win re-election.

Missouri. Republican Road Runner Sen. Josh Hawley is projected to win re-election.

Montana. Republican Tim Somebody-Shot-Me-Sometime Sheehy is projected to have defeated Sen. Jon Tester.

Nebraska. Republican Sen. Deb Fischer has held off a challenge from an Independent candidate.

Nebraska. Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is projected to win re-election. This is a special election.

Nevada: Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is (at long last) projected to win re-election.

New Jersey: Democrat Rep. Andy Kim is projected to win the seat previously vacated by Democrat Bob Menendez, who resigned in disgrace after being convicted on federal bribery & corruption charges. Kim will be the first Korean-American to hold a U.S. Senate seat.

New Mexico. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich is projected to win re-election.

New York. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is projected to win re-election.

North Dakota. Republican Sen. Kevin Kramer is projected to win re-election.

⭐ Ohio. Republican Bernie Moreno is projected to have defeated Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. This is the second pick-up for Republicans Tuesday.

⭐ Pennsylvania. Republican Dave McCormick is projected to have defeated incumbent Democrat Bob Casey, although Casey has not conceded.

Rhode Island: Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is projected to win re-election.

Tennessee: Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn is projected to win re-election.

Texas: Republic Sen. Ted Cruz, the most unpopular U.S. senator, is projcted to win re-election.

Utah. Republican Rep. John Curtis is projected to win the seat currently held by Sen. Mitt Romney (R).

Vermont: Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is projected to win re-election.

Virginia. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine is projected by NBC News to win re-election.

Washington. Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell is projected to win re-election.

West Virginia: Republican Gov. Jim Justice is projected to win the seat currently held by Independent Joe Manchin, who is retiring.

Wisconsin. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is projected to win re-election. Hurrah!

Wyoming. Republican Sen. John Barrasso is projected to win re-election.

U.S. House Results

By 1:30 am ET Tuesday, the AP had called 211 seats for Democrats & 219 seats for Republicans. (A majority is 220 218.)

But bear in mind that Trump is removing some members of the House & Senate to serve in his administration, which could -- at least in the short run -- give Democrats effective majorities.

Gubernatorial Results

Delaware: Democrat Matt Meyer is projected to win.

Indiana: Republican Sen. Mike Braun is projected to win.

Montana. Horrible person Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte is projected to win re-election.

New Hampshire. Republican Kelly Ayotte, a former U.S. Senator is projected to win.

North Carolina. Democrat Josh Stein is projected to win, besting Trump-endorsed radical loon Mark Robinson.

North Dakota. Republican U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong is projected to win.

Utah. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox is projected to win re-election.

Vermont: Republican Phil Scott is projected to win re-election.

Washington: Democrat Bob Ferguson, the Washington State attorney general, is projected to win.

West Virginia: Republican Philip Morrisey is projected to win.

Other Results

Colorado. NBC News projects that the abortions-rights constitutional amendment will pass.

Florida. NBC News projected the abortion-rights state constitutional amendment will fail.

Georgia. Fani Willis is projected to win re-election as Fulton County District Attorney.

Missouri. The New York Times projects that Missouri voters have passed a measure to protect abortion rights.

Nebraska. New York Times: "A ballot amendment prohibiting abortion beyond the first three months of pregnancy passed in Nebraska, according to The Associated Press, outpolling a competing measure that would have established a right to abortion until fetal viability."

***********************************************

The Ledes

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

New York Times: Married to each other for 54 years, two Democratic Missouri poll workers died together in an Election-Day flood.

New York Times: “Law enforcement officials have captured a man who was wanted for murder in rural Tennessee, ending a multistate manhunt in a bizarre case involving a suspicious emergency call, a false identity and a fake bear attack. Sheriff Tommy J. Jones II of Monroe County, Tenn., announced on Sunday that Nicholas Wayne Hamlett, 45, had been taken into custody in Columbia, S.C., more than three weeks after police found a dead body near a bridge on the Cherohala Skyway.... Mr. Hamlett faces first-degree murder charges related to the death of Steven Douglas Lloyd, 34, of Knoxville, Tenn.... Mr. Lloyd’s body was discovered by the police as they responded to a 911 call made on Oct. 18. The caller, who had identified himself as Brandon Kristopher Andrade, told the dispatcher that he had been chased off a cliff by a bear, leaving him injured and partially submerged in the water. When the police arrived at the scene, they found a deceased man with the ID of Mr. Andrade. But the injuries on the body, the sheriff’s office said, weren’t consistent with a bear attack or a fall. And neither the deceased man nor the 911 caller, they determined, were Mr. Andrade. It was a case of stolen identity, and Mr. Andrade’s name had been used on multiple occasions in other fraudulent schemes.”

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

New York Times: “Chris Wallace, a veteran TV anchor who left Fox News for CNN three years ago, announced on Monday that he was leaving his post to venture into the streaming or podcasting worlds.... He said his decision to leave CNN at the end of his three-year contract did not come from discontent. 'I have nothing but positive things to say. CNN was very good to me,' he said.”

New York Times: In a collection of memorabilia filed at New York City's Morgan Library, curator Robinson McClellan discovered the manuscript of a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania as well as other experts authenticated the manuscript. Includes video of Lang Lang performing the short waltz. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Times article goes into some of Chopin's life in Paris at the time he wrote the waltz, but it doesn't mention that he helped make ends meet by giving piano lessons. I know this because my great grandmother was one of his students. If her musical talent were anything like mine, those particular lessons would have been painful hours for Chopin.

New York Times: “Improbably, [the political/celebrity magazine] George[, originally a project by John F. Kennedy, Jr.] is back, with the same logo and the same catchy slogan: 'Not just politics as usual.' This time, though, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and passionate Trump fan is its editor in chief.... It is a reanimation story bizarre enough for a zombie movie, made possible by the fact that the original George trademark lapsed, only to be secured by a little-known conservative lawyer named Thomas D. Foster.”

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

Page Links
Saturday
Sep182010

Woman of the Middle Atlantic

Maureen Dowd: reports on Christine O'Donnell's fascnation with the writings of J.R.R. Tolkein & C. S. Lewis. "We the People in the Ruling Class Elites do think O’Donnell comes across as alarmingly loopy." Dowd writes, "She might have gone a broom too far, though, when she once told Bill Maher that she had 'dabbled into witchcraft' and went on a date with a witch that included 'a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.'”

Here's the "dabbling into witchcraft"/satanic altar segment:

C-SPAN has the 2003 O'Donnell footage on Tolkein's portrayal of women in the Lord of the Rings cycle here. in a video titled "Women of the Middle Earth." I really could not bear to listen.

Here's O'Donnell's speech to the Values Voters. Her remarks about C. S. Lewis' Narnia books begin at 4:40 min. in. Bear in mind, these are remarks she made days ago, not when she was a teenager.


The Constant Weader comments on the practical aspects of O'Donnell's "phantastic philosophy":

We all had childhood fantasies & we all did and said stupid things when we were young. The difference between Christine O'Donnell and us is that we grew out of those fantasies & modified our stupid ideas. Christine O'Donnell, candidate for U.S. Senate, still sees the world in terms of children's books. (Yeah, I know Lewis' & Tolkein's stories are allegories, but the subjects of their allegories & the theologies they espouse are still nonsense.)

O'Donnell probably doesn't have time to date witches (I thought the boy witches were warlocks) anymore, but -- like all extremist conservatives -- she's still deeply into voodoo economics. She favors the flat tax, which reduces the burden on the wealthy & raises the burden on the poor & middle class. She favors a balanced budget amendment yet she has repeatedly pledged "never" to raise taxes & she would reduce capital gains taxes & estate taxes (which she calls "death taxes," of course). Obviously, O'Donnell's proposed tax cuts make balancing the budget essentially impossible. You would think she would know this with the personal financial troubles she has had -- the same trouble millions of Americans have -- with balancing her own budget. She seems unaware that when you've got more outgo than income, you've got a budget deficit. It's, you know, unbalanced.

Still, O'Donnell doesn't mind if we spend more. She thinks it might be a good idea to start a war against Iran. Hard to see an economic downside to that. She does have one "foreign policy" idea to save a little money. She wants us to discontinue funding the United Nations. At least she's consistent, since ignoring the U.N. fits in well with the "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" policy. Many of O'Donnell's wackiest ideas come from her conservative Christian background. Too bad "peace on earth" wasn't one of them.

The number one issue on Americans' minds today is jobs. What's O'Donnell's policy on how to create more jobs? Oh, she doesn't have one. But if you're out of work & get sick, too bad, because O'Donnell wants to "defund, repeal & replace federal health care with free market" care. The private sector has worked so well so far.

Barack Obama may be too "cool" and "disengaged" for Maureen Dowd -- & for me -- but we are all better off with a cold fish politician who is sensible than with a passionate partisan who looks to religiously-oriented children's books to inform her philosophy of governance.

Update: "Dabbling into Witchcraft" Is Not an Excuse to Bail on the Washington Elite:

      Dave Weigel of Slate isn't buying O'Donnell's "I had to go on a picnic" excuse. He says O'Donnell had plenty of time to get to the picnic after taping the shows in Washington. Weigel wonders why the networks didn't allow O'Donnell's Democratic rival Chris Coons to replace her on the shows "because, you know, he's winning the election so far." Via Amanda Terkel of the HuffPost.

Update 2: AP: "Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell is making light of comments she made more than a decade ago when she was in high school about having dabbled in witchcraft." CW: does this make sense? O'Donnell is 41 years old. This would have made her about 30 years of age in 1999 when the show reported aired. Why was she still in high school? ... Here's the video:

Comments Off