Georgia Runoff: Open Thread
Your thoughts below. It should be interesting to see if GOP turnout is depressed, energized, or unaffected by the accusations of fraud and insane attempts to change the presidential election results there.
UPDATE: As I go to bed, it’s looking very much like the Democrats have retaken the Senate thanks to low Republican turnout — almost certainly a function of a certain segment of Republican voters believing Baby Trump’s whining about rigged elections, and staying home.
Reap the whirlwind, motherscratchers.
Will this be the thing that finally causes Republicans to abandon Trump? He asked, knowing the answer is no.
The lessons we learn will depend greatly on the answer to that question.
Patterico (115b1f) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:39 amNo oleander needed: If the Republicans win, it will be because they love President Trump and he loves them back. If they lose, it will be because Georgia Republicans have no faith in Georgia’s rigged elections.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:50 am— The Pythia
Loeffler’s little trucker costume looks like she ran into a Tractor Supply Company with 45 seconds to pick out an outfit. It’s hilarious. I wouldn’t find that endearing at all.
I’m sure Trump voters do not identify Georgia’s leaders like Raffenberger as one of them, and they also can’t find Loeffler appealing. They are simply voting for soldiers for trump, thinking only about the presidential election. She’s promising to vote against the electors tomorrow.
I predict the GOP loses the Senate. Enthusiasm will be ruined. If so, it will make the antics tomorrow seem even more lame-duck.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:50 amBreaking News!
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:56 amPart of Trump’s call with Raffensperger was caught on video.
Biden supporters should be happy to get the government they voted for good and hard.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:57 amA few thoughts on the election:
1. Loeffler has chosen to surround herself in the mantle of Donald J. Trump, and there’s a good chance that she loses to a guy who ought to otherwise beat by 10 points.
2. I don’t know much about Purdue’s race. He seems to be a bit more low key in his Trump support than his GOP colleague has. I’ve been receiving email solicitations from Osoff and they are incrediblly annoying.
3. If both GOP candidates win and win fairly substantially, then once again all of the polling agencies are going to have egg on their faces. I’m not really expecting that to happen, but it can’t be ruled out as a possibility.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:57 amIt doesn’t matter. The voting in Georgia is rigged anyway.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:58 am«Είπατε τω βασιλεί, χαμαί πέσε δαίδαλος αυλά, ουκέτι Φοίβος έχει καλύβην, ου μάντιδα δάφνην, ου παγάν λαλέουσαν, απέσβετο και λάλον ύδωρ»
The Google translate is wildly inaccurate literally, and hilariously accurate in context.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:00 amJust published at the Washington Post:
The report goes on to describe how Covid-19 has massively gummed up the works for the U.S. Post Office. Not that it was a model of efficiency beforehand, but still, the virus spreading through the ranks of its workforce nationwide has really caused setbacks.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:07 amJVW, Osoff is almost a twitter troll. One of the problems with Trump is that opposing him reflexively is easy (and fun!) and therefore the bar is very low right now on Team D.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:08 amI think both Leoffler and Purdue loses handily. I think this is the one the polling may be accurate, as it’s the democratic voters who’s energized and motivated for near-total control of the government.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:12 amI hope loefler loses; she’s corrupt and dishonest and I’ll be happy to see her go away. I have no strong feelings about the race other then that.
Time123 (af99e9) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:19 amOssoff campaign presser this morning made it clear- elect the Ds, you’ll get a stand-along vote an your emergency $2000 Covid aid currently blocked by McConnell’s Senate and a surge in vaccine distribution. Stay w/t current crop of Senate Rs and you’re stuck w/only Turtle Soup on the menu for years come.
Yummy.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:24 amOh boy, fashion critique! Link to her little trucker look??
Dana (cc9481) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:25 amIf Perdue loses, I’d like to see Kamala tweet him: “What’s my name?” (Perdue has been mispronouncing her name during the campaign even though he’s been in the Senate with her for four years.)
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:26 amLink to her little trucker look??
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/04/us/politics/04dc-rally-photo-2/04dc-rally-photo-2-superJumbo.jpg
Only because it’s you who asked, Dana. I consider men commenting on what a woman is wearing to be kind of … [holds out hand palm down and tilts it side-to-side] you know.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:33 amMen commenting on fashion at all, actually. As far as men are concerned, the only statement clothes should make is that the person is not naked.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:37 am@4. Thanks for that link to the video. Priceless! It made my day.
Roger (782680) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:46 amI get nk’s point. It is kinda pathetic to whine about how she’s dressed. To me it’s not just a body covering. It’s a costume that shoes what she thinks of her state. When Trump said ballots from people returning to Georgia were fraudulent, because who would want to come back, he was saying the same thing Loeffler is saying with the costume. (that Georgians don’t know any better).
And I guess we will see if that’s true. I’m guessing Loeffler gets her ass kicked.
Politics has been a little fruity ever since Nixon lost the debate where he didn’t wear makeup.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:05 amshoes=shows
I type with these really limp wrists because I had too many cosmos with my brunch, so the typos are bad
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:07 amAnd I see your point too, Dustin. She is probably the richest person in Congress. She bought the appointment, having donated $3.2 million to Republicans, and don’t quote me but I’ve heard of numbers from $15 million to $23 million of her own money for this campaign. Her prole pose is also … [holds out hand palm down and tilts it from side to side] you know.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:16 amTrump supporters deserve him.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has invoked the Georgia Senate runoffs dozens of times over the past month while raising money for his $100 million-plus “leadership” political committee — but has not reported spending a dime on those races.
Time123 (89dfb2) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:18 amLol, Dustin and nk.
Personally, I think her look should be added to the Barbie Career Dolls line. She not only has the pre-requisite tall, blonde, thin look but from perusing the selection, they haven’t got a Barbie trucker-look yet.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:29 amI am looking forward to Biden jamming radical bills through the Senate 51-50. Nothing says “democracy” quite like partisan advantage and the lack of compromise. It worked so well for Obamacare.
(And off in the distance we hear “Garland!” and “Barrett!”)
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:30 amPolitics has been a little fruity ever since Nixon lost the debate where he didn’t wear makeup.
Or, to put it another way, once the Kennedy machine demonstrated to Dems the virtues of Hollywoodizing elections. It’s been downhill ever since.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:30 amNot that it [the USPS] was a model of efficiency beforehand…
Rubbish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
https://money.cnn.com/2012/02/06/news/economy/postal_service/index.htm
My personal admiration for the hard working Americans at the United States Postal Service is only surpassed by my life-long admiration and support for the men and women at NASA. Only conservatives have tried to kill both.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:30 am@24 The bills can be as extreme as this man allows.
Time123 (89dfb2) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:31 amI don’t live in Georgia, so I can’t vote in Georgia. And I really don’t care who Georgians vote for. It’s their state, it’s their governor, representatives and senators, and their electors. They elect who they elect, and they have to live with who they voted for.
You sleep in the bed you make. That is a motto I have lived by all of my life. You sleep in the bed you make.
Regrets, I’ve had more than a few. But I have always only slept in the bed that I made. Now my sheets are torn and my blanket is coming apart at the seams. It’s a fittingly visual for most of America.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:36 am@25. ‘Downhill Hollywoodizing elections?!??!!
ROFLMAOPIP!
Reaganoptics, baby. Reaganoptics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYeNuISN4Dc
“Sock it to me?!?!” – Richard Nixon, ‘Laugh-In’, NBC-TV, 1968
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:36 amLoeffler and Purdue may be hacks, but their opponents are no great shakes either. I see no reason to choose on the basis of schadenfreude.
If Ossoff were to win, well, he’s not hard left, but Warnock is. I note that Wikipedia has a long list of Ossoff’s moderate positions, but nothing much to say about Warnock’s except to say Planned Parenthood loves him and he hates guns. There’s usually a reason for that.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:41 am@27
Time… if he wants to remain in good standing within the Democratic party, he’ll toe the line for the aggressive agenda. So, I’d argue that your faith with him is misplaced.
whembly (3bda0a) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:44 am30.Loeffler and Purdue may be hacks, but their opponents are no great shakes either. I see no reason to choose on the basis of schadenfreude.
OTOH, 2000 greenback reasons and faster shots in the arm of vaccine make the choice much easier. Unless you’re a Turtle Soup man.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:47 am— Why did the cowboy wear a baseball cap and not a cowboy hat?
— So people will know he’s a real cowboy.
I laughed at the Single Action Shooting Society reenactors who showed up to support the Bundys in their standoff with the Forestry Service in Nevada all dressed up like Tom Selleck.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:48 amI have a package from Toronto to Cincy, and it left Toronto via Canada Post November 11th, hit the New York customs office the 13th, left to ISC New York on the 13th to the normal USPS routing, supposedly left there on the 14th…showed up about 2 hours ago. Now that is some snail mail.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:51 amI predict if Biden pushes radical legislation (which I don’t think he will do, based on his proposals to date), Manchin will switch to the GOP.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:52 amFunny how Democrats bent over backwards to ensure their voting bloc had an easier time to vote via mail during COVID. Wonder why they didn’t bend over backwards for those serving abroad?
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:57 amRemember: it’s NOT a bribe…
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article248281040.html
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:00 amGood points, hoi polloi. I find Biden’s effort (which is just a bit more credible than Trump’s day late one) to hinge receiving a payment on the outcome of the election to be exactly what our founders wanted to avoid.
I worry Trump, Cruz, the rest of them are destroying credibility in efforts to secure elections, or just have rules that don’t pick winners and losers, and Team D will take full advantage to ‘level the playing field’. Now that election fraud is associted with pedophile satanic ritual conspiracies, it will be so easy for beneficiaries of fraud.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:03 amThe reason the Post Office is all messed up right is because of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, Trump’s handpicked saboteur to suppress mail-in voting. Thankfully, the postal workers stymied him and made sure that the ballots moved even if Colonel Klink’s package and my law license renewal did not.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:04 amright *now*
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:05 am14th to 28th, for my sisters Christmas gift (600## to 941##, northern Chicago area to SF,CA).
At first I liked a split decision, with the real Georgians winning (Perdue, Warnock). Now I just lament that either Trump wife amalgam or JB Smoove has to be seated.
urbanleftbehind (f83551) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:06 amYou mean the mail in ballots that the delays that Dejoy implemented at the USPS, those? Do the managers specifically installed by Trump created the situation is just a fact.
Now, you can ignore reality and point at Democrats, but that is just a lie. It wasn’t/isn’t Kemp/Raffenberger either, the blame for your complaint lands at the feet of the people actually responsible.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:06 amAgain, the $2k complaint needs to land at the feet of the person who requested it. That the dems glommed on to it after the fact should make it all the more galling that people are complaining about the dems.
Loeffler and Perdue are for it, as they directly stated. Trump proposed it, as he repeated ad nauseum over the last two weeks.
It’s one of the least dumb things that Trump has proposed. I think that if you want to accomplish that goal there are other, more targeted, ways to go about it, but that isn’t on the table.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:11 amGood lord, I’m defending democrats for bureaucracy, but if it must exist (USPS needs to raise prices and lower services and reorg, that’s just a fiscal reality) then it needs to run competently. Dejoy appears to be intentionally making it less good, but also not actually addressing the core issues. Will the democrats do better, probably not, but if we’re going to run it as a money fire pit, it should be setting fire to our money to capture the heat, not just setting fires to watch it all burn…dancing nekkid around the fire cheering on the orange wee’git.
This isn’t breaking news.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:21 amI think he’s more interested in staying in the good graces of the voters of West Virginia.
But my point is that with a 1 vote majority the agenda isn’t going to be all that aggressive.
We’ll see.
Time123 (af99e9) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:21 am$2000 emergency Covid relief in American pockets and faster vaccine distribution w/t Ds.
Or Turtle Soup and constipated government w/t Rs.
Choose.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:25 amThe New York Times, over the past week, ran favorable profile stories on both Ossoff and Warnock.
Stacey Abrams got quoting some figures last night on Colbert. Also says she doesn’t want people to treat Raffensperger as a hero because she has issues with voting rules he wants to change.
Turnout already before election day well exceeded the record for a runoff.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:29 amObamacare went through on a filibuster-proof 60 votes (220–215 in the House), without once considering the Republican view. Where were those Senate moderates then?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:35 amNot about Georgia, but apparently in Pennsylvania, the Senate Majority leader has refused to seat a Democratic Senator-elect who won by a few hundred votes, on the grounds that *despite the state supreme court saying they should have been legally counted*, they shouldn’t have been, so the officially losing candidate will be seated instead, and he ejected the Lt. Governor from the chamber for objecting.
https://twitter.com/fawfulfan/status/1346536549106663425?s=20
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:36 amFor those of you scoring at home, this is Trump’s 62nd defeat in court to only one inconsequential victory.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:37 amIf the Democrats say that having the bare majority in the Senate will speed these checks (where two more GOP votes sill block them), aren’t they telegraphing an intent to nuke the filibuster completely?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:37 amFor those of you scoring at home
Sorry, I turned out the lights. The party’s over.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:38 amIf the Kamala tie-breaker also applies to leadership and committee assignments, the eleven schnitzel slurpers who object tomorrow losing all of theirs would definitely be a silver lining for me.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:38 amIt IS kind of funny the way Trump keeps beating his own dead horse.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:38 amIf the Kamala tie-breaker also applies to leadership and committee assignments, the eleven schnitzel slurpers who object tomorrow losing all of theirs would definitely be a silver lining for me.
I think that the majority sets the number of seats on each committee, but the minority assigns its members to them. At 51-50, the traditional split is the majority gets ONE more seat, but I expect the Dems will bump that up to 3 or so.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:41 amI doubt that any senators will lose the committee seats their seniority is entitled to, but they may lose seniority with some committee consequences (e.g. last choice).
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:42 amSorry, I overstated. They didn’t seat the officially losing candidate. They seated nobody, the seat is vacant.
The PA legislature refused to seat a legislature whose election was certified under state law, all challenges to which certification have been rejected by the state supreme court.
Pennsylvania has now abandoned the rule of law.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:44 amThat isn’t actually what is happening in the Senate, there are at least 10 (R)’s openly backing it, including these two from GA (Faint’n Lyndsey too). It’s McConnel not allowing it on the floor for a vote.
Will those same senators reverse themselves if the (D)’s win and put the naked bill on the floor? Probably, but ol’ Mitch just isn’t going to let them get the chance if he has options.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (31f414) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:00 pmFunny how Democrats bent over backwards to ensure their voting bloc had an easier time to vote via mail during COVID.
Not just Democrats.
As with all elections of national import from now on, this one likely will be contested for days or weeks thanks to the mail in voting idiocy. But, a perpetual mess (and tossing aside decades of conservative insistence on voting integrity) is a small price to pay to be rid of Trump.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:11 pmThis is a really big deal. It’s clear that Trump made a lot of phone calls, has compromised a lot of folks, and they are not just raising money from demented misinformed lin woods fans.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:12 pmwow this one is amazing
Yeah those damn Biden fans destroying our democracy’s reliability because they want a different outcome. Shame on those guys specifically!
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:14 pmBoth Houses of the US Congress are likewise the sole judge of the qualifications of their members.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:17 pm>Funny how Democrats bent over backwards to ensure their voting bloc had an easier time to vote via mail during COVID. Wonder why they didn’t bend over backwards for those serving abroad?
(a) how horrible, to bend over backwards to ensure that voters have an easier time voting during a pandemic.
(b) is there nay evidence they didn’t bend over backwards for those serving abroad? 18 out of 26K have returned ballots. We don’t know *what* happened to the other 8K, and assuming malfeasance by the elections department based on this seems like it’s prejudice masquerading as analysis.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:18 pmYeah those damn Biden fans destroying our democracy’s reliability because they want a different outcome. Shame on those guys specifically!
Handing him a ton of ways to question election integrity was a genius move.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:19 pmSee, the thing about democracy is that it was designed for people. Not sewer rats.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:19 pmAgain, again, who runs those departments, in GA and USPS. It’s not the dems, so even including them in this space is giving them credit/blame for things they had no control over. It’s a complete red herring.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (31f414) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:22 pmIf team (R), led by Trump, hadn’t convinced team moron to not vote, I’d lay money the outcome of the presidential would have been different. I’d also bet that there wouldn’t be run off in GA now.
This was a complete self own, GA made it easier for people to vote, Trump people are people too, no matter how much I wish it weren’t true.
(I’m going to wake up any minute now and this is actually Feb. 2015, please, please, please, let this nightmare end)Or we can recognize reality when it’s smacking us in the noggin’.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (31f414) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:26 pmSee, the thing about democracy is that it was designed for people. Not sewer rats.
LOL. The thing about democracy is that the Founders specifically didn’t want it as is. That’s why we have a republic with checks and balances and specific rules based on the assumptions that sewer rats will hold power.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:29 pmYou talk about election integrity. But despite massive efforts and hundreds of millions of dollars raised no compelling evidence of any significant fraud had been found.
Time123 (b75ce9) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:32 pm@64, Trump and his supporters don’t need facts to fuel their conspiracy theories as evidenced by their disregard for investigations that show their theories to be wrong.
Time123 (b75ce9) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:34 pmI’m always late to the newest post, but let me add my opinion from the female side of the commentariat:
Radegunda (b6cc34) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:39 pmIt’s okay to criticize a woman’s choice of attire, particularly if she’s wealthy enough (and thin enough) to wear anything she wants. How she chooses to present herself might say something significant about her.
It’s never okay to criticize or ridicule anyone — woman or man — for physical attributes over which the person has no control. Doesn’t matter how deserving of criticism the person might be in other respects.
Also, it’s mean to ridicule someone for a low IQ, which also is not a matter of choice.
Also from the female side of the commentariat: The clothes, make-up, and hair styles of women in politics very frequently becomes the focal point for reporters, members of the media and certainly the public. If one has it together (youth, thin, long blonde hair like Loeffler) she is less of a target (little trucker outfit notwithstanding), but heaven help her if she is short and pear-shaped, post-menopausal and/or with the prerequisite bob cut. The transition for women – from the ornamental to the substantive – has certainly taken its time.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:56 pm65. The constitution was designed to take account of the existence of a limited number of sewer rats. hey figured not more than one third of the officeholders. At least not more than one third all leagued together.
There are so many chokepoints.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:57 pmThere are so many centers of power.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:58 pmThe PA legislature refused to seat a legislature whose election was certified under state law, all challenges to which certification have been rejected by the state supreme court.
If the legislature is the sole judge of its members elections (as the houses of US Congress are), this is part of that rule of law, and the supreme part of it at that.
The US House has several times in my own memory decided a close election by counting the disputed ballots themselves. In one case this decided MY district’s representative (the Dem got it despite trailing in the state’s count; the House leadership discerned votes that no one else could).
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 12:58 pmHow Congress judges its own members’ elections is a far cry from deciding how a state chooses electors, however.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:00 pmI must say, this last year, since March 9th at least, I can’t actually remember wearing a belt. I’m sure I did, but it’s been ath-leisure wear FTW, at least on the bottom. Sometimes you do a video call that requires a fancy shirt.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:01 pmIf we’re talking about weird things…what’s with Biden’s odd choppy slow jog thing he does? You stride confidently, not whatever that thing is. Looks too strange, don’t like it.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:03 pm*despite the state supreme court saying they should have been legally counted*
The legislature may not like that decision if it differed from the law they passed. If the legislature is the final arbiter of elections, constitutionally, the supreme court is overstepping their jurisdiction.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:04 pmKevin – so in principle it’s fine for a state legislative majority which has been ousted by the voters to simply refuse to recognize validly elected legislators from the other party?
if that’s true, then we live in neither a democracy or a republic, we live in a dictatorship clothed in the form of a republic.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:05 pm@75, maybe there’s more to it. But right now it looks like a raw use of power.
Time123 (b75ce9) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:05 pmi recognize that what i described in #80 is not what is happening here. but i also recognize that there is absolutely zero defensible line between what is happening here and what i’ve described in #80, save the *voluntary refusal to use power* of a sitting legislature.
what you’re arguing is tantamount to saying that the will of the people only matters when the legislative dictators deign to allow it to.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:07 pmKevin – so in principle it’s fine for a state legislative majority which has been ousted by the voters to simply refuse to recognize validly elected legislators from the other party?
Your premise is incorrect. The legislature believes that the election was incorrectly counted, by including ballots that the statute expressly declared invalid. That the supreme court of the state thinks otherwise is immaterial — it’s not their call with respect to legislative seats, which have another body constitutionally empowered to judge the case.
Now, the voters may decide that the GOP has slipped the leash, and I’m sure that all left-thinking people are making that case today, but there is nothing inappropriate about the legislature deciding a close election on whatever grounds it sees fit.
You say the margin was hundreds of votes, but there may be a case that it was nothing of the sort AND THE LEGISLATURE HAS THE SOLE AUTHORITY TO MAKE THAT CALL.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:12 pmIn principle, if the legislature has the power to do this, it has the power to conclude that obviously every time a member of the other party is elected it’s due to fraud, and refuse to seat them … and the voters are incapable of doing anything about it because the legislature will simply overrule their votes.
the power of the people is a myth, and if the legislature decides to ignore votes, the people can do nothing about it.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:17 pmif that’s true, then we live in neither a democracy or a republic, we live in a dictatorship clothed in the form of a republic.
A federal suit was filed by the losing candidate (who lost by 69 votes after ballots without a date stamp from one county were added in) on equal protection grounds. The state Senate decided to wait for a ruling on that.
Sorry that doesn’t quite jibe with a dictatorship charge.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:19 pmThat’s not what the State Supreme Court does, they rule on constitutionality of the law, not whether it’s a good/bad idea. Lots of laws are Constitutionally valid, but stupid. The legislature passed the law(s), counties had leeway to implement them, like the curing of ballots. Curing is perfectly legal according to the law they passed, and constitutional based on the State Court, et al. That some counties did/didn’t do it in a way that people don’t like is kinda’ moot. If they wanted a specific set up steps to be done in a certain order, they had the opportunity to do it.
BTW, the PA rep who’s doing this voted for the law that passed, that he’s now complaining about. Do a better job, get a better result.
He has talked mostly about the presidential race, but if there written law didn’t have the loopholes…do a better job.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (31f414) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:19 pmYoung?!
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:24 pmah, beer ‘n ‘pretzels, all that means is that someone needs to file a frivolous lawsuit to provide cover for the arbitrary exercise of political power. that did not help your case at all.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:25 pm*Youth?!
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:25 pm@85: Again, the kind of mess writ large that mail in voting gives us.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:25 pmwhat you’re arguing is tantamount to saying that the will of the people only matters when the legislative dictators deign to allow it to.
When said “will of the people” is found only within a few hundred disputed votes? Yes.
What exactly was the dispute? The election was decided by 69 votes. There were 311 ballots where the required date of mailing was not included by the voter, as the statute required. The state supreme court ruled that the statute did not need to be followed. There is an ONGOING court case regarding those 311 ballots. Until that court case is decided, the State Senate has decided not to seat either candidate.
Why is this unreasonable? Were they to seat one of the candidates and the court decides the other way, they would have no process for redress. I get it that the Democrats are irate — they have a decision they like in the general case and they don’t want to hear anything further. If they had the votes, they would have seated THEIR member without waiting for the courts.
This is a case of who’s ox was gored, I think.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:25 pmPerdue is Nevada Senator Pat Geary congratulating Anthony Vito Corleone on his first communion.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:26 pmIf the legislature is the sole judge of its members elections (as the houses of US Congress are), this is part of that rule of law, and the supreme part of it at that.
I think Kevin M is about right. I blogged about the Pennsylvania situation earlier this fall. The controversy is that a Democrat majority on the PA Supreme Court overturned the vote collection and counting procedure put in place by the GOP-led legislature and signed off on by the Democrat governor, and instead ordered the state to implement the court’s own collection and counting rules which they pretty much made up on the spot (the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the matter when asked to by the legislature). Whether or not the court had the standing to do this, as some commenters suggested at the time, is a different argument; this is most likely a simple matter of the GOP Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader thumbing his nose at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Democrat-appointed majority. It’s yet another childish battle between purportedly co-equal branches of government.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:26 pm….aren’t (Democrats) telegraphing an intent to nuke the filibuster completely?
It won’t happen because there are at least two Democratic Senators who are on the record opposing such a move: Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:27 pm@88: I see, it’s “frivolous” because you say so. The candidate is arguing that ballots lacking a date stamp were added in from one (mostly Dem) county but not from another (much less Dem) county. Yeah, sure sounds frivolous… if you’re a Dem.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:28 pmjvw, kevin, so what you’re saying is the court’s authority to interpret state election law and reconcile it with other state laws is only valid as long as the legislature agrees with its interpretation.
that’s an incredibly dangerous argument. why bother having courts at all, then?
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:29 pmbeer ‘n ‘pretzels: it’s frivolous because the PA supreme court has already ruled on this. the legislature is basically saying the state supreme court has no authority to interpret state election law, which is bonkers.
it’s also frivolous because the US Supreme Court has *already* thrown cases involving this exact legal argument out.
and the whole issue could have been forestalled if the post office were reliably postmarking ballots, which *they aren’t*, which is the whole reason anyone went to court to get an injunction requiring unpostmarked ballots to be counted.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:30 pmIf one’s respect for the court is based on whether the decision makes your political party happy, that’s actually not respect for the court. I wonder how many phone calls Amy Coney has been ghosting these days.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:32 pmWhat “mess”, beer? It was a clean election.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:33 pmThe mess is that people who don’t like the outcome can instill fear uncertainty and doubt about the process and use that FUD which *they themselves have generated* as a basis for ignoring the result, all the while claiming the moral high ground and attacking those who object.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:34 pmThe federal court will dismiss Ms. Ziccarelli’s claims as they’ve already been ruled on the issue, multiple times wrt the various Trump folk claims, in fact both the state SCOTUS, and SCOTUS ruled on this matter.
Also…
Ms. Ziccarelli makes federal constitutional claims in her case. She contends the county’s [Allegheny] tallying of the undated ballots violated equal protection — since similar ballots in Westmoreland County weren’t counted — and that it constituted a due process violation because the votes of her supporters were improperly diluted.
Mr. Brewster countered that the court lacks jurisdiction to overturn a decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which has upheld the counting of the undated ballots. On the equal protection claim, he noted that Ms. Ziccarelli herself had encouraged the board in Westmoreland County not to count the undated ballots there — making her an active participant in the very allegations she’s pursuing.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (31f414) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:35 pmIt’s even worse. In part of the district, these ballots were counted. In another part they were not. The winner’s stronger county counted the ballots, the losers stronger country did not. As Klink points out, each county had discretion. But it should be obvious that more conservative counties are going to toe the line of the law and less conservative counties are going to be more liberal. There is an equal protection argument to be made here.
It is reasonable for a candidate to demand that all precincts in his districts be counted the same way. That way the Will or the People is based on equal access to the polls.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:35 pm@97: That case, regardless of its merits, is less frivolous than your “dictatorship” charge.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:36 pmMs. Ziccarelli herself had encouraged the board in Westmoreland County
Are you saying that she did not make that request of the other county? That would be required if this were to be hypocrisy. Also, did the other candidate demand that Westmoreland County count those ballots? I suspect not.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:37 pminjunction requiring unpostmarked ballots to be counted.
This has nothing to do with postmarks. The stature required that the signature be dated, which all but 311 people in the county complied with.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:39 pmbeer ‘n ‘pretzels: so you’re just fine with a legislature having the power to ignore election results it doesn’t like and therefore the power to keep itself in power perpetually unless it chooses not to. got it. it’s nice to know for certain where you stand on the right of the people to control the government.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:40 pmkevin m, at 105 – thank you for the clarification. i acknowledge the distinction. what was the court’s rationale for saying such ballots should be counted?
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:41 pmIn any event, the Senate did NOT refuse to seat anyone. They simply decided to wait until the matter is settled in law. I get it that some presume that the decisions is preordained, but that does not make the result certain.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:42 pmNo, equal protection has been ruled on.
The time to fix it was before you lost, when all of this has been known since these self-same Republican state house members passed this law in 2019.
You know, plus her insistence that her county not count the votes. If it’s arguable in County X, it’s arguable in County Y, she thought it was influenceable, so she did, she lost the election, and will lose the lawsuit. Again, the SCOTUS has already ruled.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (31f414) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:42 pmToday was the day they seated everyone and actively refused to seat him, that’s what the word means.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (31f414) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:43 pmi acknowledge the distinction. what was the court’s rationale for saying such ballots should be counted?
I know they said it could be CURED, I don’t know if they said it could be ignored. I presume that the ballots were not cured. It is a bit of a mother-may-I clause, but the legislature in all its glory may have had a rational basis for this requirement. Stupid laws are not unconstitutional, and fixing a bad law by making a different bad law isn’t the job of the courts.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:45 pmHere’s some phone-call fallout. Cleta Mitchell, the zealot who is in on Trump’s Election Fraud Hoax, “resigned” from her lawyer job at Foley & Lardner.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:45 pmThere is a difference between NO and MAYBE.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:45 pmjvw, kevin, so what you’re saying is the court’s authority to interpret state election law and reconcile it with other state laws is only valid as long as the legislature agrees with its interpretation.
No, what I am suggesting is that the court shouldn’t be in the practice of modifying a dutifully-passed law by the legislative branch to suit their own preferences or whims. The court’s ruling acknowledged that in normal circumstances the absentee ballot deadlines were likely fine, but that the COVID pandemic magically demands that they be altered ad hoc. If that’s not legislating from the bench then I would be hard-pressed to find a better example. I suggest to you that “the incredibly dangerous argument” is that a democracy organized along the separation of powers should tolerate this usurpation of power by one branch, especially an unelected one.
John Roberts gets a lot of criticism from many on the right because he is famously reluctant to have the Supreme Court intercede in matters that are best dealt with by the legislature. If only the Pennsylvania Supreme Court observed the same sort of humility. Even if the PA court thought that the legislative solution was wrong, their decision came six weeks before Election Day and they could have easily asked the legislature and governor to come up with a new procedure rather than dictating it from the bench.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:48 pmIn particular, if the state legislature is itself set up as the final arbiter of it’s members elections, they may choose to express their disappointment with the state courts in that arbitration.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:52 pmPaul, BI is enforcing subscriptions.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:54 pmThe US SCOTUS ruled on this themselves, or at least actively refused to hear it, and it came to Alito.
Nonsequitor, the legislature had 6 weeks to cure it too.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:55 pmNonsequitor, the legislature had 6 weeks to cure it too.
No, the legislature felt their original law was fine as is and resented the efforts of court Democrats to change it willy-nilly to suit their own partisan purposes.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:57 pm> In particular, if the state legislature is itself set up as the final arbiter of it’s members elections, they may choose to express their disappointment with the state courts in that arbitration.
In which case there is absolutely nothing from them deciding that since everyone knows only a lunatic would vote for the Libertarian party, these election results which purport to show a majority of the chamber to have been elected from the Libertarian party are obviously fraudulent, so none of those legislators can be seated.
Election results only matter if they say so. Otherwise they can be ignored.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:57 pmThe US SCOTUS ruled on this themselves, or at least actively refused to hear it, and it came to Alito.
The Court split 4-4 on whether to hear the case, with Roberts joining Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer to force the tie. This is what I mean about Roberts not wanting to get the Court involved in legislative controversies.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:58 pm@106: aphrael, we’ve both been commenting here well more than a decade. Meaning, I know you’re better than this.
beer ‘n pretzels (3e2618) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:59 pmYou can resent it all you want, but they were informed, had time to change it and fix it. Being a child doesn’t cure the problem. The highest state court and federal court in all the land has ruled.
But again, again, again, this is a red herring, generously an excuse. They refused to seat a member of the opposing party when all the counties in the district have certified the results. It’s over, she lost, the sitting member one, this is as egregious as the attempts tomorrow. Filing nuisance suits that have been ruled on changes nothing, the 2020 election is over.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:02 pmCongress can do this, too. And has. It seated a Congresswoman from my district who had lost by a dozen or so votes in the count and recount, after finding meaning in enough apparently-spoiled ballots to change the result to the majority’s candidate.
You just have to have a good reason.
I will point out in this case they did not say: “The Court is wrong, we are right and we seat the Republican.” They said that the matter of a state legislative election is different that a presidential election and we need to get the court to rule.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:03 pmwon≠one
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:04 pmYou can resent it all you want, but they were informed, had time to change it and fix it.
What action would have fixed it, pray tell? Writing the Court’s preference into law? That’s mighty generous of you.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:04 pmBTW, why does no one think that “Biden says $2,000 checks to ‘go out the door immediately’ if Democrats win in Georgia” isn’t a base attempt to offer money for votes? Suppose Trump had said that?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:07 pmYeah, I noticed, Kevin. Darn, I like ’em. I read the first 4-5 paragraphs before it winked out on me.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:07 pmYeah, suppose that.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:11 pmWhat action would have fixed it, pray tell? Writing the Court’s preference into law? That’s mighty generous of you.
Yeah, I can’t really understand where Colonel Klink is going with his argument.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:12 pm@126 Had Trump said it, that might’ve pushed Democrats to impeach his arse.
Biden get’s different treatment from most because he’s of that protected class*.
*the class I’m referring to is of course…democrats.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:12 pmIn any case, back to Georgia:
I got an email message from Kelly Loeffler complaining that GOP turn-out has been light, and asking me to send in money to help them remedy that. For the life of me I have no idea why that sort of message would go out on the day of the election. I can only hope that they know I don’t live in Georgia and am not an eligible voter, or else I have to wonder why you try to depress your voter base on the day you need them the most.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:14 pmYes, the court specifically stated what the lack was, fix it, 6 weeks to do it, it’s an open book test, and the teacher pointed out where you were wrong. That is specifically why the district and SCOTUS ruled that Laches applies.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:14 pmBTW, why does no one think that “Biden says $2,000 checks to ‘go out the door immediately’ if Democrats win in Georgia” isn’t a base attempt to offer money for votes? Suppose Trump had said that?
It’s called campaigning.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:17 pm@130-
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:18 pmIt’s called campaigning.
Police: Protesters outside Sen. Josh Hawley’s home were ‘peaceful’
Protesters who gathered outside the Virginia home of Republican Sen. Josh Hawley Monday evening were peaceful and they left when police explained they were violating local picketing laws, police said Tuesday. The Missouri senator on Twitter accused the protesters of vandalism and threatening his family.
Officers were called to Hawley’s home in Vienna, a Washington suburb, around 7:45 p.m. after someone reported that there were “people protesting in front of the house.” Officers who responded to the scene found that the “people were peaceful,” said Master Police Officer Juan Vazquez, a spokesman for the Town of Vienna Police Department.
The demonstrators said they went to Hawley’s home because he said he would object when Congress convenes Wednesday to affirm Joe Biden’s election victory.
Vazquez said the protesters had been violating several laws, including a Virginia code about picketing in front of a house, a town ordinance about making noise in front of a home and a littering code. But he said the officers explained the violations and “everyone just left.”
“There were no issues, no arrests,” he said. “We didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
Hawley accused the group of threatening his family.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:22 pm…….
That the guy who won the election has been refused to be seated in an election he won based on the rules that the law the people complaining wrote, and were informed by the state SC, the federal court, all the way to the SCOTUS, were defined, and the remedy was known.
That they didn’t know the federal court would bounce them. They planned to let the feds overrule the state courts, and that didn’t happen, so the rules were the rules and they had the opportunity to fix the rules before. They have an opportunity to fix the rules for the next one, but just refusing to seat the certified winner is unconscionable, it is no different than the sedition congress tomorrow. There is no difference between 69 votes, and 690,000 votes; more is more, it’s binary.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:24 pm@135 Loudly protesting in the middle of the night (with bullhorns) at a residential property is not “peaceful”.
It’s intimidation.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:25 pmSo how does sending in money today get more of a Republican turnout today?
Dana (cc9481) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:31 pmActually, that is peaceful.
Peaceful: not involving war or violence.
OMG a protest that has people being loud…using a megaphone, never, heaven forbid.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:31 pmSo how does sending in money today get more of a Republican turnout today?
Reaganomics. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:35 pmSo how does sending in money today get more of a Republican turnout today?
Beats me. More and more I think campaigns aren’t so much about winning elections as they are about raising money to pay the inflated salaries of campaign organizers.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:38 pm“…rid of Trump”
The never-nevers just don’t get it.
It’s not the man; it’s he messaging he carries. 74-plus million, a growth pattern over the last cycle, says it all. And you know who has read that blip on his radarscope?
Canadian Cruz.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:42 pm@141. You know who said it best, JVW:
“You can’t cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.” – W.C. Fields
😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:45 pm@139 Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:31 pm
Its one thing if it were downtown at a public square, it’s totally another to do it at someone’s residence.
No Colonel, call it out for what this is, it’s anything but peaceful.
I understand that the police really cannot do much as not everything is in black and white. Just because they weren’t breaking laws (they were breaking residential rules fwiw), doesn’t mean they are doing these things in good faith.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:55 pmYou’re right: speech, however objectionable, isn’t violence. That said, protesting at a private residence can be frightening and intimidating to the politician’s family. Minimal if it’s just quiet picketing. More so if there’s shouting and bullhorns. More so still if the shouting includes threats and/or the protesters are open-carrying. So it’s a continuum. But IMO imposing any of it on family members crosses the line into wrong.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:04 pm141. JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 2:38 pm
Some of whom have their own companies and get a cut of the amount of money spent on television commercials.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/06/heyday-television-ads-is-over-political-campaigns-ought-act-like-it
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:11 pmJVW, you’re right about the grift. I don’t have time to find links again but they’re taking in way more then they’re spending. And if it’s to a leadership PAC they can use it in all sorts of ways. Or they can hire ‘consultants’ to spend they money in all sorts of enriching ways.
Time123 (9f42ee) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:12 pmSince this is ostensibly an election thread, and having beclowned myself with every prediction I’ve made since 2016, in for a penny in for a pound, so here goes: Perdue wins by a few, Loeffler takes it in a squeaker.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:20 pmActually, that is peaceful.
Klink moonlights as a CNN chyron writer.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:21 pm(For the record, I want Loeffler and Perdue, as I do all Trump apologists, to lose.)
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:23 pm84. aphrael (4c4719) — 1/5/2021 @ 1:17 pm
I think there’s got to be something to stop that, or else some state legislature would have degenerated into doing things that way long ago.
Of course they did a lot post-1900 to 1960 in not redistricting and in gerrymandering.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:25 pmlurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:20 pm
Well, we were thiking efore November 3 that the Republicans would lose seats, bit that didn’t happen.
It would have been more the reverse (Loeffler doing better than Perdue and both winning) had Trump not made his election fraud claims and pursued them so far and gotten members of Congress to join in, but now i’d have them both winning by a greater margin than Biden and imitating Trump with claims of election fraud.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:29 pmForest for the trees. Josh Hawley’s home should not be in Virginia, it should be in Missouri. It’s in the Constitution.
And, BTW, the new Congress could have refused to sit him for that. 😉
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:30 pmIf that’s the only place where words mean things then sure.
Since it’s not, no. You can lie all you want, you seem to want a lot, but one thing isn’t another thing.
I mean there wouldn’t be an easy way to tell would there, there would be no video of the event. Violent
I was scared. Mostly about the fact that Hawley is trying to subvert democracy to raise money to run for VP when he grows up, but I guess his wife might be afraid…that her husband did all of this then left town the week of. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 3:43 pmWe all know it won’t help get more voters out for today’s vote. She is simply Following trumps lead and running a grift on people too ignorant to understand how they are being used. This has nothing to do with electing someone and what they can do for the American people. This is all about what you can do for the person who wants their hands on the levers of power. Trump has raised millions since the election, and we all know that his first priority is not working for the American people, it’s working for himself to build up his brand. And stay out of jail.
Dana (cc9481) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:01 pmI still can’t predict how he’s going to manage this. Forget state charges, there’s no way anyone has told him that a self pardon is doable. That means he’s got to resign and have Pence do it, but doesn’t that mean he’s a quitter?
That’s threading a needle a bit too finely. What if Pence says he’ll do it and just doesn’t, names a SP instead. Wow, that would be a thing, Pence would go from beige man to Mike and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:13 pmThe Needle is back.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:15 pmI want Loeffler to win and Perdue to lose, but I probably won’t get what I want. Loeffler would only have two years remaining on her term. A divided nation should have divided government for the next coupla years at least.
Ewww, gross.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:37 pmWarnock is running slightly ahead of Ossoff, which I find surprising.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:38 pm“Jon Ossoff” at 6:38 pm EST, 22 minutes before the polls closed, sent a message asking for $10 to help win this election.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:44 pmNot really, one’s running against Loeffler, so a loony tunes Dem looks less loony than the super duper looney lady.
Perdue is just a slightly below par Republican, Ossoff is a beige man Democrat.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:48 pmI got one from Team Treason about 90 minutes before the polls closed:
I might have donated if they’d used more capital letters or promised a 6X or 7X match.
Oh well.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:51 pmBlacks voting as bloc? (I wonder if Herschel Walker and Vernon Jones lied to the red team and went Warnock in the booth)
urbanleftbehind (e5f568) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:55 pmI still can’t see the Dems pulling this out in GA.
It all comes down to whether or not Trumpers showed up. If my wife is right and there are 15% of the (R) voters that are actually (T) voters and actually listened to his words and just won’t support anyone not actually named Trump.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 4:59 pm‘…a grift on people too ignorant to understand how they are being used.’
Reaganomics defined! 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:00 pmFrench’s latest:
French goes on to cite 18 USC Section 241 and Georgia Code Section 21-2-603. My preference is that Biden picks an AG who will enforce the law, with the attitude that no one is above the law. My further preference is that AG [hardass name here] throws the book at Trump. But if there’s a climbdown to be made, at least go after the crimes he committed after Election Day.
Normally, the argument against prosecuting ex-presidents is that it endangers peaceful transfer of power. However, in this case the crime itself endangers peaceful transfer of power. Because of this, it’s appropriate and prudent to charge Trump and his allies on that call with criminal offenses. To avoid further disruption of our government, the part where they kneel in their front yards while getting read their rights and handcuffed and perp-walked for the cameras can be delayed until after the inauguration.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:04 pmCalling Ron Burgundy…
If only we could vote on CNN teleprompter gazers passing gas as news readers. Oh. Right. Ratings.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:05 pmFrench is irrelevant.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:06 pm158.I want Loeffler to win
Priorities:
I want $2000.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:07 pmGood Times 1970s sitcom applause with an “Allright!!!” thrown in for good measure:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-personal-defense-lawyer-says-192552635.html
urbanleftbehind (e5f568) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:10 pmPence Said to Have Told Trump He Lacks Power to Change Election Result
Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said.
Mr. Pence’s message, delivered during his weekly lunch with the president, came hours after Mr. Trump further turned up the public pressure on the vice president to do his bidding when Congress convenes Wednesday in a joint session to ratify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College win.
…….
Even as he sought to make clear that he does not have the power Mr. Trump seems to think he has, Mr. Pence also indicated to the president that he would keep studying the issue up until the final hours before the joint session of Congress begins at 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to the people briefed on their conversation.
One option being considered, according to a person close to Mr. Trump, was having Mr. Pence acknowledge the president’s claims about election fraud in some form during one or more of the Senate debates about the results from particular states before the certification. Mr. Pence will preside over those debates.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:17 pm…….
That must have been a difficult lunch….
I heard during the news a soundbyte of Jon Ossoff on TV saying that if they get elected, they could get the $2,000 checks next week. He said next week. I’m not sure if he only meant get it passed into law. I don’t remember the exact words.
But, first, he won’t be seated that fast. Second, Joe Biden won’t be president for two weeks after tomorrow. Or is he counting on Donald Trump to sign that bill? Which can’t pass that fast since there’s no bill heading for passage they could attach that too. Probably no new Covid relief bill till April.
Anther play to ignorance.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:18 pm@166 Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:04 pm
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:21 pmThere’s a rumor that Merrick Garland my take that AG position. (he recently recused several ongoing cases).
I also agree with this part from French:
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:33 pmDavid French:
It is not correct to read quotation marks into that request. It was more of a pleading anyway. Something like: “I only want 11,780 votes, which is just a small fraction of the votes that are out there that I’m entitled to.”
I think that by “find” Trump meant find votes to throw out.
Trump claimed that there were thousands and thousands of people who went to the voting place on Nov. 3 and were told they couldn’t vote because a ballot had been put in on their name. I wondered if that was a half truth – maybe people who had requested an absentee ballot were told they couldn’t vote.
Continuing with David French:
The claim was that it would be a crime not to report a crime. The crime Trump had in mind was the election theft he claimed had taken place. It was not a threat to sic any prosecutors on them. Thus is spin – which, however, seems to have affected some of the Trump people.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:34 pmOT: Former Biden intern and Ted Kennedy staffer who got hacked gets his trustworthy objective journalist gig back at C-SPAN.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/c-span-steve-scully-return
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:45 pmI heard on the CBS Evening News that there are posts on social media asking people to storm the Capitol building tomorrow. Also a more peaceful demonstration, which Trump s encouraging and may speak at.
There is apprehension that some people may bring guns.
There was also a threat (a few days ago) to crash a plane into the Capitol building on Wednesday, made on an air traffic control frequency. It’s not taken seriously for the obvious reasons that:
1) It is a whole lot easier to say that than to do that and
2) If somebody wanted to do that, they wouldn’t broadcast that.
The voice claimed they would acting in revenge for the killing a year ago of Qassem Soleimani (i.e. in support of Iran, not Trump.)
Still, this is a serious crime in itself, and interfering with air traffic control is considered a potential danger if done differently. What if they started directing traffic?
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:47 pmGOP Likely Needs a Big Georgia Turnout Today
……
The votes cast before Election Day in these Senate runoffs may be more Democratic leaning than those cast before the November general election. Perhaps the most encouraging data point for Democrats is that the Black voter share of the pre-Election Day vote is up a few points from the pre-Election Day Black vote in the general election. Given that Black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats, any increase in the Black share of the electorate is very important.
Democrats probably need a better electorate in the runoff than they got in November, because even though Biden narrowly won, Perdue ran a little under two points ahead of Ossoff in his election, and the combined Republican vote outpaced the combined Democratic vote in the jungle primary special election by about a point. In other words, if the two Senate elections held in November had been conventional contests with a single Democrat facing a single Republican with no runoff, Perdue would have been reelected and a Republican very well could have won the other race, too.
In the general election, about 80% of all votes were cast before Election Day. Joe Biden won this chunk of votes by about six points. Donald Trump won the Election Day votes by 23 points, which got him within a few tenths of a percentage point of winning, but he fell short. If Democrats have done better in the pre-Election Day vote this time, then Republicans either need to win the Election Day vote by more than Trump did, or have the Election Day electorate make up a bigger share of the total votes cast (and still vote heavily Republican).
…….
…….It may be that some Republicans who voted before Election Day in the general election will switch to day-of voting this time, perhaps in response to President Trump’s endless and unfounded complaints about the integrity of the Georgia election — complaints he reiterated in an Election Eve Georgia rally last night. More broadly, the voting patterns and methods of a post-holiday runoff may be different than those of a general election.
This may be an oversimplification, but our sense is that if total turnout runs north of 4 million, and particularly if it’s clearly more than 4 million, the Republicans probably are getting a large enough Election Day turnout to win. If turnout runs south of 4 million, the Democrats may be in good shape given their likely advantage in the votes already cast, which constitute a healthy chunk of the eventual total. Our uncertainty about what the turnout ultimately will be is why we’ve decided to keep both races as Toss-ups.
Rip Murdock (80e6b4) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:49 pm…….
“ aphrael, we’ve both been commenting here well more than a decade. Meaning, I know you’re better than this.”
– beer n pretzels
You changed your handle, then – right? What was it before?
Leviticus (7c76a2) — 1/5/2021 @ 5:52 pmYou changed your handle, then – right? What was it before?
Really? Nope. Same one. As they say, maybe do a little research.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:04 pmMaybe you could link to one of your comments from a year other than 2020 or 2021?
Leviticus (7c76a2) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:09 pmI didn’t find anything earlier than July 1, 2020 under the name beer ‘n pretzels
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:18 pmThe returns are looking bad for Loeffler and Purdue. I’m still not sure who is going to win, but the Democrats are looking better than the GOP, as the latter is suffering from turnout in the red rural counties of GA.
HCI (92ea66) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:19 pmAnd, I owe this effort because…?
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:21 pmThere are a few, like 15.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:22 pmIMO, I think Purdue is in slightly better shape than Loeffler, as the former is a better campaigner than the latter. If one of the two is able to pull off a W, it is Purdue. Still, based on the higher than expected Dem turnout in the blue counties, and the turnout underperformance in many rural red counties, Dems look more and more likely to sweep both Senate races.
HCI (92ea66) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:22 pmI didn’t think Sabato was right when he rated Florida for Trump and Georgia a tossup. I thought how could Trump be stronger in Florida than in Georgia. Florida was the swing state, not Georgia!
But he was right.
:Perdue was stronger than Loeffker and both were stronger than Trump.
Trump told Raffensperger that he had obtained affidavits from candidates saying that was impossible (because presidents always have coattails?)
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:27 pmI stand corrected.
Leviticus (7c76a2) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:29 pmDrumpfy McSchnitzelface knows that all he’ll get out of Lyin Ted’s and Virginian Josh’s antics is some spurious corroboration for his eternal claim that he won by a landslide but had the election stolen from him, but he cannot say that otherwise it won’t work.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:29 pmThere are a few, like 15.
No, I doan theenk so, Senor Comandante. Google is picking up the current sidebar, which accompanies posts old and new, that is all, according to my Ctrl+F on your links.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:37 pm185. Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:22 pm
No, there aren’t.
Those citations of beer ‘n pretzels on old Patterico pages come from later scans by Google on Patterico web pages (the robot knows enough not to update the date of the page) but now it links to a later version of the page that has beer ‘n pretzels among the last ten (at that time) comments left.
It’s always something like ” beer ‘n pretzels on After Mitch McConnell’s “Betrayal,” What Will MAGA…” as part of a Patterico page dated Oct 23, 2007. It didn’t have that in 2007.
You get the same problem when looking on Google for old news stories on something that was mentioned in the news in the last couple of days even if you use a custom date range and exclude the last week or month.
If the web page mentions recent stories, you’ll get a false drop months and even years ago. (You won’t see that when you click on it because it’s gone now.)
You have to wait till it fades from the headlines to see what was said about X or Y on CNN or Fox months or years ago.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:41 pmNot the current sidebar, but the sidebar when that Patterico page was last re-scanned.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:44 pmAnd Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report calls it for Warnock. Loeffler has gone down.
HCI (92ea66) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:47 pm
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1346647684900417536?s=20
HCI (92ea66) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:48 pmGuys, I’ve made many more than 15 comments in years past. I’m not well versed in how to search for them. Again, I don’t owe the effort to anyone here so knock yourself out. I’m sure our host has a way if you’re really obsessed.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:49 pm@193… many are chiming in that’s too early.
Might want to check:
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:53 pmhttps://results.decisiondeskhq.com/
@196 Although DeKalb is running waaaay behind, and those are strong Dems stronghold. Could be a Dems wipeout.
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:57 pmBy the way, at the rally n Georgia yesterday, Trump one time referred to Kelly Loeffler as “Karen” (He got it right other times)
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-rally-speech-transcript-dalton-georgia-senate-runoff-election
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 6:58 pmTrump making a campaon speech for Loeffler:
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:01 pmThat must be true as our president elect said as much. Blacks are not nearly as diverse as the Latins. If Biden said that, you can take that to the bank. Must be true.
Hoi Polloi (139bf6) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:03 pmI’ve seen enough. There’s way too many votes left in Atlanta and counties, which are traditionally deeeeep Dem country.
Dems win both seat.
We have a 50-50 Senate split.
Those who put their faith in Manchin to keep the crazies bottled up with be tested…
whembly (c30c83) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:15 pmBoth the (D)’s have about a 150k margin left in the Atlanta area. (R)’s need to a bigger margin than they currently have. It’s going to be close, but it’s going to be the early/mail in votes that are going to be the difference and I think the (D)’s may just tick it by about 25k and 75k.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:19 pmHa, nk and Sammy are right.
I would say it doesn’t matter, except that the original comment around “more than a decade” strikes me as internet gaslighting.
Leviticus (7c76a2) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:25 pmand I think the (D)’s may just tick it by about 25k and 75k.
“Just 75,000 votes, Brad, that’s all we need. You can find 75,00 votes.”
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:36 pmThe Dems best campaigner was Donald Trump.
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:41 pmGeorgia official says a Perdue or Loeffler loss would ‘fall squarely on the shoulders’ of Trump
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting systems manager, said that if either — or both — of the Republican Senate candidates loses their runoff election, Trump will be to blame.
“I’ll speak outside of my role working for the state. This is a personal opinion that it will fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump and his actions since November 3rd,” Sterling said during a Tuesday evening interview on CNN.
“When you tell people your vote doesn’t count, it’s been stolen, and people start to believe that, and then you go to the two senators and tell them to ask the secretary of state to resign and trigger a civil war inside the Republican Party,” Sterling said. “… All of that stems from his decision-making since the November 3rd elections.”
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:49 pm……
Loeffler and Perdue are both up >2% with almost 90% of the vote reported. If either Dem ends up being declared the winner, massive voter fraud is the only possible explanation. It’s science.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:52 pmThe Dems best campaigner was Donald Trump.
And the best part is that the Republican donors paid for it.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:53 pmDidn’t I read that the over a half a BILLION dollars was spent since Nov. for this runoff?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:56 pmRepublican donors are Fake News. Trump made it perfectly clear in 2016 he doesn’t want (((their))) money.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 7:59 pmTomorrow will feel like a kid’s Christmas. I can’t wait to see the reactions of the two candidates, Pence, McConnell, Cruz, Hawley, and the other nine schnitzel-slurpers, if it looks like Perdue and Loeffler lost. Will it be their epiphany? (Tomorrow is also the real Epiphany.)
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:29 pmDecision Desk calls it for Warnock.
Stop the Steal!!!
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:35 pmAccording to DecisionDesk, the candidate who most closely hitched her wagon to Trump and QAnon nuttiness just lost.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:39 pmTrump could’ve steered around Georgia with his Big Lie about fraud and perhaps helped the GA Republicans win, but it’s always about Trump first.
And The Needle has Ossoff at >95%.
I was about to say somebody should go wake up Linn Wood, but then I remembered this is the result he wanted. To which I’ll add that when I’m rooting for the same candidate as Lin Wood, one of us should re-assess our life.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:44 pmWelcome Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 8:51 pmWelcome Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader.
Because of Trump’s childishness, petulance, selfishness and corruption, Joe Biden will be able to nominate the AG he wants, the AG who could put this piece of smegma in prison.
Loeffler remains “Isakson” until Warnock is sworn in. Will she be in DC tomorrow, I wonder. (Perdue’s seat became vacant two days ago.)
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:02 pmUPDATE: As I go to bed, it’s looking very much like the Democrats have retaken the Senate thanks to low Republican turnout — almost certainly a function of a certain segment of Republican voters believing Baby Trump’s whining about rigged elections, and staying home.
Reap the whirlwind, motherscratchers.
Will this be the thing that finally causes Republicans to abandon Trump? He asked, knowing the answer is no.
Patterico (115b1f) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:07 pmCongrats to those who got what you wished for.
NJRob (7b1885) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:09 pmSo…Donald Trump, and his followers?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (1367c0) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:15 pmCongrats to those who got what you wished for.
I won’t get what I’ve wished for until tomorrow.
Rip Murdock (8bf811) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:20 pmThanks, Rob. I’m going to take as sincere, whether you meant it that way or not.
Purging the Party of Lincoln of its Trumpist cancer won’t happen overnight, but this is a good start.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:30 pmWhat Rip said.
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:31 pmMaybe Pence exercise his Bearded Spock Universe Power to not give Biden a majority.
Then Pelosi exercises her real power as Speaker not to hold a contingent election.
Then either Pelosi, Grassley, or Pompeo is sworn in as President on January 20.
Interesting times.
Biden supporters will get what they voted for good and hard.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:31 pmThe only consolation I’ll get from these Senate runoff losses, is enjoying seeing MAGAworld blow a fuse on Jan 6 when Congress certifies the state EV results confirming the win of Biden/Harris. They’ve already got their scapegoats for the runoff losses, and Trump’s failure to steal the election.
HCI (92ea66) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:41 pmThe repudiation of Trump can’t be good and hard enough.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:41 pmSo, what’s left for Trump to destroy in his last days?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:45 pmNote to the triumphalists: this means nothing about how Georgia goes in the future, it only means that Trump is a boat anchor for anyone he “supports.” And it’s really about time that the Republicans realized it. The man is a walking talking clusterfukk. Everything he takes an interest in withers and dies.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:49 pmSomebody should write about that.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:54 pmBiden supporters will get what they voted for good and hard.
As will petulant Trump supporters who stayed home because The Big Dummy threw a temper-tantrum. Trump has a certain genius for effing things up for everyone, doesn’t he?
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 9:58 pm206. The Dems best campaigner was Mitch McConnell.
FIFY
Glorious.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:00 pmNote to the triumphalists: this means nothing about how Georgia goes in the future, it only means that Trump is a boat anchor for anyone he “supports.”
I still hold out a small degree of hope that sometime after January 20 the spell is at last broken and Trump cultists quietly return to the fold. It would be great to see Brian Kemp win election in 2022, no matter what Donald Trump has to say about the matter.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:01 pmEverything he takes an interest in withers and dies.
Like… the modern ideological conservative movement and =drumroll= Reaganomics!
Glorious!
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:02 pmMy record of prognosticational ineptitude remains unblemished.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:04 pmIf only Trump was the president who left us with a futile war, a Great Recession, a Dem super majority, and a squishy Chief Justice he might win some accolades here.
beer ‘n pretzels (042d67) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:04 pmJVW, you’re better than this.
Do you blame Never Trump for spitting in the face of his supporters making them feel their vote doesn’t matter?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:07 pmBiden supporters will get what they voted for good and hard.
While Trump supporters will be encased in their own armour of virtue. — cf. Agatha Christie, And Then There None
nk (1d9030) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:07 pmJVW,
how is the party going to heal when you have the NeverTrump on this very site demanding the expulsion of all those who don’t bend the knee to spitting on the President?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:08 pm@220 I don’t know if I’ll get what I wished for until I see how the Rs react to this. My hope is that they decide to put some genuine work in for the country instead of blowing smoke at their potential voters, but IDK the likelihood of that.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:11 pmI don’t know if I’ll get what I wished for until I see how the Rs react to this. My hope is that they decide to put some genuine work in for the country instead of blowing smoke at their potential voters, but IDK the likelihood of that.
One of the crazy realities of our political situation is that it is infinitely easier being the minority party than it is being the majority party. Republicans only have to unite around the awfulness of the Biden/Pelosi/Schumer agenda, and that will probably be enough to hold them together. But it’s true that as currently constituted, the party would not be very effective at advancing a legislative agenda of their own. They need to get their act together in the next four years.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:17 pmWith all his fraud allegations, it was Trump who gave Georgians the idea that their votes didn’t matter. Us NeverTrumpers called bullsh-t on his Big Lie.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:21 pm@239. What did ‘Rockefeller Republicans’ do when the party swopped ends on them in ’64? The smart ones stayed nd worked w/t new agenda; the zealots were Buckley’d out. NeverTrumpers are the new Birchers who just can’t accept their decades perched in the tail no longer wags the dog. Nor can they acknowledge their failure which forced a ground-swell change in messaging long in coming. It has little to do w/t man and more to do with the messaging he has carried. The rise to 74-plus million, not a decrease, sys it all.
Biggest winner; the vacuous Kamala Harris; biggest loser: Mitch McConnell.
Grand prize for Americans: $2000 and free-flowing vaccine!
Glorious!
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:22 pmRioting Trump supporters attack the police in DC.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:30 pm“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:31 pm–Lindsey Graham, Destroyed Senator, May 3rd, 2016
Sorry, wrong link.
Here’s the attack on the police line.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:32 pm@241 If only they just united around the things that are awfulness. Instead the minority party tends to fight against everything the majority party is doing, even stuff that they KNOW will be beneficial to the general public. Because God forbid they work together, they might not be able to claim they are the farthest far-whatever that ever ran for office (please don’t primary, must stay in office). Power is a helluva drug.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:32 pmBREAKING: Sidney Powell has the goods on Italy and Obama’s orchestration of the Biden Election Steal!!!!!
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:33 pmJVW, you’re better than this.
No, I’m really not.
Do you blame Never Trump for spitting in the face of his supporters making them feel their vote doesn’t matter?
I think that’s a bit overblown. Yeah, many of us on this site have been pretty critical of the cultish behavior displayed by a lot of Trump supporters, but with only perhaps a few exceptions (happyfeet being a good example) I don’t believe that Patterico, Dana, or I have ascribed that sort of behavior to very many commentators. Do you feel that you have been personally belittled for having supported him? My recollection is that you have been honest enough to admit that President Trump has his shortcomings, which is a lot more than many commenters at (to take but one example) Powerline are willing to acknowledge. Has criticism of Trump here been any more harsh or unforgiving than Trump fans’ criticism of Mitt Romney, John McCain, Jeff Sessions, Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, Susan Collins, George W. Bush, Liz Cheney, or a host of other Republicans who have irked His Majesty along the way?
I know that those people who legitimately think Trump was badly treated (I acknowledge there is a kernel of truth to this) don’t want to hear the “I told you it would ultimately come to this” rejoinders from the rest of us, but I think a lot of us feel like people who witnessed a friend involved in a dysfunctional relationship for years and repeatedly warned our friend that his/her partner was no good and would ultimately break his/her heart. As much as it pains you, we now feel vindicated, and we just wish you would stop trying to tell us that your ex really was a great person behind all of his/her manifest flaws. That’s kind of a dopey analogy, but it’s probably the most apt one I can come up with.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:35 pmMAGA rioters in DC: just following orders
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:38 pmMy party isn’t going to heal with people like this b-tch in it, or those passengers.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:40 pmInstead the minority party tends to fight against everything the majority party is doing, even stuff that they KNOW will be beneficial to the general public.
I don’t know, Nic. I like to think that I take a backseat to no one in my cynicism, but even I don’t really buy into the idea that the minority party opposes the majority party simply for crass political reasons. I know it was highly fashionable in the 90s and 00s to claim that both parties really had the same agenda and there wasn’t an iota of difference between the two of them, but I think ever since the Age of Obama the two parties have coalesced along a pretty stark ideological divide. The Democrats think that government needs to wield more regulatory power and to actively redistribute money among various groups more vigorously than is happening today, and the Republicans think that government needs to pare back its regulatory power and stop trying to rob Peter to pay Paul. So your assertion that the minority party often knows that the majority party’s agenda would be good for the country but opposes it just out of spite simply doesn’t resonate with me.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:42 pmfor example
lurker (d8c5bc) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:44 pmNope, Trump and his cultists and his QAnoners are the New Birchers, only there’s no Buckley this time around.
Erickson:
It’s those very “Birchers” who drove this loss.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:48 pmYou’re kidding right? Here’s the owner of this site attacking me on a personal level and beyond. His words speak for themselves and have forever changed my opinion of him.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:50 pmThat I called Patterico out for these remarks and asked for an apology yet was met with silence tells me all I needed to know.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:51 pmMarching thru georgia and the battle of atlanta. Not to be debbie downer ;but joe manchin dino from west virginia say he will support the filibuster.
asset (91ce6a) — 1/5/2021 @ 10:55 pmI still hold out a small degree of hope that sometime after January 20 the spell is at last broken and Trump cultists quietly return to the fold.
The “Trumpists” were people who ignored politics until politics refused to ignore them. Their jobs went to China or their work was taken by cut-rate competition from Mexico. Eventually they wised up and realized that this wasn’t just happening to them, and it wasn’t happening by accident either. Their mistake was putting their hopes in a con man, but their grief remains, and as long as it remains so will they. The party wants them back in the fold, it has to address their grievances, or they will find someone who will.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:04 pm@252 I’m not saying that either party would agree that the other party’s entire agenda is actually better, but there are certainly bills that either party might put forward that are good for the country that get squashed purely due to partisanship.
There are regulations that are appropriate. Nobody wants fecal matter in their groundbeef or a tire disposal facility next door. There are regulations that are too restrictive, disallowing a farmer from farming an acre of their land because a quarter of that acre is under water for 3 weeks a year is silly. Undoing regulations for the sake of undoing regulations is silly, promising to regulate something due to an imaginary problem is silly. And it should be obvious, but those are the observable behaviors of our parties sometimes. (and I wish the Rs would just deregulate the Ds silly regulations and vice versa, but too often that isn’t what happens.)
I do worry about the wealth disparity. Historically speaking, when you have too great a wealth disparity, you get revolution, so I’m good with Bezos et al eating it a bit more in taxes. I think the tax rollbacks went to far on the very upper end, but I know not everyone agrees with that. I also have concerns about healthcare costs and the impact that high insurance costs or potential non-availability of health insurance could have on invention, innovation, self-employment, and independent contract work, and so have a very chilling long term effect on the economy and the Rs didn’t have any solution to that while the Ds didn’t have a great one. But ultimately, a not great solution is better than none at all, so I’m not particularly offended by that particular redistribution. And I do think the Rs know that and that’s why they didn’t get obamacare repealed, despite all the lights and noise.
Maybe I’m just too cynical about motivations or have too much confidence in the intelligence of our governing class, but I do honestly believe that too many times legislators know that their position is dishonest and harmful, but that partisan considerations outweigh the need to govern in a responsible manner.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:06 pm“I know that those people who legitimately think Trump was badly treated (I acknowledge there is a kernel of truth to this”
__
A ‘kernel of truth’.
lol
harkin (933076) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:06 pm_
“Their mistake was putting their hopes in a con man….”
_
So in their wisdom they decided the solution was to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and openly wished for the Senate to go Democrat to teach those Trumpists a lesson.
harkin (933076) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:10 pm__
What Kevin said at 258 is exactly right. I speak to his supporters on a daily basis as I do with people of all political stripes. His most ardent supporters have felt ignored and abused by the public and the government. They’ve also just watched an entire year of the left supporting riots through BLM and Antifa which then led to political victories. What do you think is next?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:12 pmWell, NJRob, all I can tell you is that I don’t think I would characterize your opinions in the same way in which our host did. But I am not privy to all of the discussions/debates the two of you might have had along the way, so out of respect for him I’ll reserve judgement on his assessment.
But what brought us to this question, and what I am still not understanding, is why you seemed to take offense to my pointing out that Trump’s behavior over the last 60 days has depressed GOP turnout for this runoff election. David Perdue received almost 2.5 million votes in the November election; as things stand right now he’s going to receive maybe 2.25 million tonight. Is it hard to believe that there are 250,000 Georgians who voted for Perdue in November, but who believed all of the nonsense spewed by Trump supporters about how the vote was rigged and the Democrats were going to win by cheating anyway, so they decided not to vote? Osoff is likely going to have about 150,000 fewer votes than he did in November, so even if you factor out some votes due to laziness it looks as though 100,000 Republican voters staying home (or not voting by mail) are going to make the difference tonight.
Then take Kelly Loeffler. As I mentioned at the beginning of this comment thread, she made the curious choice of fully embracing and tying herself to the guy who lost the state to Joe Biden by roughly 12,000 votes. What the hell was she thinking? Who advised her of this ridiculous strategy? She is going to lose to a far left-wing cypher by 50,000 votes. It’s one of the most blatant acts of political suicide that I have seen.
So in Georgia, Trump managed to sabotage Republicans in two ways: he was so toxic that Ms. Loeffler wrote herself out of the election by pledging absolutely and total fealty to him, and he was so destructive in his petulance that he cost Perdue 100,000 votes that he should have had. There were some good things that Trump did along the way, but on his way out the door he is burning down the barn and salting the earth for the GOP. If 2022 comes down to whether or not the candidate bends the knee sufficiently to Donald Trump, then the GOP is screwed for a long time to come.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:15 pmThe “Trumpists” were people who ignored politics until politics refused to ignore them. Their jobs went to China or their work was taken by cut-rate competition from Mexico. Eventually they wised up and realized that this wasn’t just happening to them, and it wasn’t happening by accident either. Their mistake was putting their hopes in a con man, but their grief remains, and as long as it remains so will they. The party wants them back in the fold, it has to address their grievances, or they will find someone who will.
Shorter: Reaganomics.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:20 pmAP has called the race for Warnock.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:21 pm261.“Their mistake was putting their hopes in a con man….”
Welcome to January 20, 1981.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:21 pmI think that’s a bit overblown. Yeah, many of us on this site have been pretty critical of the cultish behavior displayed by a lot of Trump supporters
That’s less Trump and more the Reagan fetish. Few calls for Trump Dimes or Trump added to Mt. Rushmore.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:25 pmJVW,
I appreciate you responding to my remarks. Runoff elections never have the same turnout as presidential elections. That there are well over 4 million votes is absurd. In normal times, there wouldn’t be anywhere close to those numbers.
Why are you deciding Trump is responsible for the lower turnout versus those who decided to remove the President at all costs and then gloated that they were doing so? I think both have a hand in the result. I also think McConnell has a hand in it as he has pretended to be above the fray while not doing what he could to energize Georgian republicans to give him the authority to run the Senate in 2021.
President Trump is gone in 14 days. The same cannot be said of the rest of them.
Loeffler was a terrible candidate and should never have been “appointed” to her position. She was given the spot. It wasn’t earned. Same issue happened in Arizona with the same results. Perhaps some vetting should be done as to who decides these appointments instead of just giving them to the highest bidder or who we think is the most demographically appealing?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:28 pmTrump’s loss in GA is now complete, and this is on Trump. DecisionDesk just called it for Ossoff.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:28 pmNo, I didn’t get what I wanted.
McConnell blew this up by playing games w/voting on $2000 for hurting Americans amidst a pandemic while funneling $ overseas. Too clever by half. Georgia diners ought to be serving turtle soup with and for cracker now for the next few years.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:29 pmAnd in honest times, Warnock would never be elected to dog catcher. But the pravda media don’t care that they elected a racist, anti-American communist who was involved in a sexual abuse scandal at a camp because they only care about the result.
They are government run media without the need to be run by the government.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:31 pm@269. Trump’s loss in GA is now complete, and this is on Trump. Decision Desk just called it for Ossoff.
Except it’s not.
It is wholly on Mitch McConnell.
Glorious. Look for your $2000 by mid-January,’Course you could sen I back to the Treasury in protest.
But you won’t.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:31 pmI have to say, pessimist that I am, I fully expected the Trumpkins to win both of these races.
Given the leadership vacuum of the last four years, I think narrow congressional majorities for Biden (and they don’t get any narrower) are the best outcome right now. More than anything else, we need to restore competent, rational governance right now.
The blue team will have to do everything right, and get lucky too, to hold on in the midterms.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:45 pmBullsh-t. It’s wholly on this president.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:46 pmTrump trashed the GA electoral system for two months. Trump sabotaged a CV19 relief bill when he blurted out “$2,000” after its passage, after months of his silence as to what amount he sought. Trump blindsided McConnell with that political and politicized maneuver. It was Trump who chose to bully a state election official, soliciting electoral fraud.
Few calls for Trump Dimes or Trump added to Mt. Rushmore.
Stop with this nonsense, DCSCA. I know you had fun being a Trump superfan from the left the last four years, but his day is done. And to pretend that Trump cultists weren’t talking about their guy being put on Mt. Rushmore is to have willfully ignored everything that happened since January 20, 2017. A very cursory Internet search bears this out.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:51 pmIt is wholly on Mitch McConnell.
I somehow can’t recall Cocaine Mitch telling everyone that the voting was fixed and that Dems were going to manufacture enough votes to win one way or other. Yeah, I know that media progressives are touting this idea that GOP approval of $2,000 stimulus checks would have made the difference, but that’s just idle speculation designed to promote their wretched policy ideas.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:53 pmLoeffler was a terrible candidate and should never have been “appointed” to her position. She was given the spot. It wasn’t earned. Same issue happened in Arizona with the same results. Perhaps some vetting should be done as to who decides these appointments instead of just giving them to the highest bidder or who we think is the most demographically appealing?
On this I am in emphatic agreement with you, though I would add that on paper Martha McSally certainly seemed like an attractive candidate with her interesting background and her service in the Arizona legislature. But Kelly Loeffler in retrospect was an absolute disaster from the start.
JVW (ee64e4) — 1/5/2021 @ 11:56 pmIt’s not too late for Trump!
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:02 am@276 Even that was ultimately Trump’s fault. The Dems picked up on it totally opportunistically when he proposed it. They would’ve settled for 1200 flat if left alone, with Trump’s “contribution” I bet the final total will be 2600.
Nic (896fdf) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:02 am@274. Except it’s not.
It is wholly on McConnell for playing games.
Accept it. Or remain just another of the new Birchers, outcast and left behind.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:16 amThe odds of Trump pardoning himself after January 6th have only increased.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:17 am@276. Nah. It was one game too many played by the Turtle Man. From the SCOTUS games to the failure of months of foot dragging on lesiglaton, screwing Americans at the holiday time w/programs ending amidst a pandemic; then shafting them by denying the stand alone vote on $2000 whilst pumping $ overseas.
Ol’ Mumbles The Turtle gets the gift of a case of vasoline and is the new minority leader. He’s in the soup; until he’s not- and retires w/his Trump Cabinet wife.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:23 am@275. Trump cultists are a myth of the Reagan Right, JVW.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:25 am@275…but his day is done.
You really don’t get it, JVW. Have hard data on this. It’s not the man, but the messaging he carried and projected. The vote tally supporting it increased, it did not decline from the previous cycle. If you can’t see it– or do and won’t accept it– you’ll be left behind or suffer the Fate of the Birchers. ‘Mt. Rushmore Trumpism’ is a jab at Reagan cultists, JVW. He’s been dead nearly 20 years and the websites craving the Roosevelt-replacement-dime, Ronnie on Mt. Rushmore to go w/t airport and highways thrives.
Besides, anybody who understands the persona of our Captain knows all Trump really wants is what Cuomo got and Susan Lucci chased for years– a sassy, brassy Emmy. 😉
“…the cult of Ronald Reagan also came mostly after his time in office, when his administration was adopted by many conservative and right-wing personalities as being the “last good time” in recent American history.”- source,wikicults.org
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:39 amThe doom bell tolls: Fox calls it for Warnock.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 12:48 ambeer ‘n’ pretzels, thank you.
let me rephrase.
the *power* to exclude legislators based on a pending federal court case, it is claimed, lies in a broad power to seat or not seat legislators for a set of reasons including lack of faith in the integrity of the election. That power is *absolutely essential* to be available for cases of malfeasance. The system couldn’t function wihtout it. But at the same time, this is a reserve power that must be used only in the most dire of emergencies — because otherwise, unless this is to be used only in the most extreme of circumstances, the pattern of mutually assured escalation will guarantee that there will soon cease to be any viable constraint placed on the power. there is no principled line that can be drawn and adhered to, once the dam is broken, and so after a number of iterations we’ll end up at a legislature voting itself to stay in power over the clearly expressed disagreement of the voters.
The situation we are in is *dangerous*. The republic could fall. We are on a fucking precipice and you guys are playing with fire. It is so obviously dangerous that it is very hard for me to avoid jumping to the conclusion that you don’t *want* the fall of the republic.
What the legislature of Pennsylvania did today was pour oil on the fire. And they did it in a way that opens the door to a tit for tat reversal that leads logically to enforced permanent one party domiantion through refusing to seat the other side’s electors. hell, it might even happen first here in california — i doubt it, because the token irrelevant minority party is too helpful to have around — but it’s possible.
They breached a line that has no defensible boundary to legislative dictatorship. And for what? A chance to thumb their nose at the state supreme court? A dispute over the dating of ballot signatures? they wouldn’t care about this if the election weren’t close, which means they’re trying to disenfranchise voters because they don’t like how the voters voted and are flailing around looking for technicalities to use to deny people their votes. they’re breaching this critically important barrier over *that*?
they’ve lost their minds. they are damaging or destroyign important governing norms on the basis of utter lunacy.
And as a result, tit for tat retaliation risks bringing legislative dictatorship into season.
This was a *terrible* action.
aphrael (4c4719) — 1/6/2021 @ 2:39 amLet’s look back over the last 4-5 years.
In 2016, the Republicans held majorities in both the House and Senate, and won the White House.
In 2018, the Republicans lost their majority in the House, but maintained a slim majority in the Senate.
In 2020, the Republicans lost the White House, gained a few seats in the House and barely maintained a plurality in the Senate.
They had it all, then lost it all. Why? Because they went all in with Donald Trump.
What did they accomplish when they had total control of government? Not much, besides passing a tax bill, which favored the wealthy and corporations, and nominating some judges. Meanwhile, the deficit exploded, foreign relations were ruined, and a pandemic raged, killing 350,000+ Americans.
Talk about epic failure. The result was a civil war, not between the states but within the party.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/republicans-turn-on-trump-georgia-loss-455305
Thank you, Donald Trump.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 1/6/2021 @ 3:39 am“Don’t bring an orange to a knife fight.” — Kelly Loeffler & David Perdue
nk (1d9030) — 1/6/2021 @ 5:02 amYou can’t always get what you want.
nk (1d9030) — 1/6/2021 @ 5:08 amYou can’t always get what you want.
But if you try, sometimes,
You get rid of a corrupt, criminal traitor. — The Alternate Rolling Stones
Because if the run-off had a turnout similar to the general the GOP would have won. There’s no reason to believe the never-trump had more impact in the run-off.
Time123 (69b2fc) — 1/6/2021 @ 5:18 amRob, First, I agree that Patterico’s comment to you was insulting and he should apologize. But you’re justifying an evil attempt by the GOP to steal the presidential election on very slim grounds and treating this issue as equivalent no more then slanted attack adds.
If you want to make the case that it is by all means go ahead. But what Trump and the bulk of the GOP are doing here is unprecedented since the reconstruction. There have been symbolic votes, grand standing and tantrums by the fringes, but what we have now is the president pressuring a secretary of state to invalidate their election, a president pressuring the Congress to overrule fairly certified state votes and a large part of the GOP caucus going along with it with a slim minority speaking out against it. To say nothing of the actions and claims of the presidents allies like Lin Wood. There’s really too much to list quickly.
Again, I agree that accusing you of ‘doing evil’ is insulting and you’re owed an apology. But that’s not the same thing as saying your position of supporting the GOP my minimizing what Trump is trying to do isn’t horrible.
I’m saying all this as someone that likes and respects you based on everything I’ve read from you in the last however long. This isn’t intended as a personal or partisan attack and if it comes across that way please attribute it my demonstrated lack of ability as a writer.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 1/6/2021 @ 5:30 amWe’ll never know for sure, but I’ll bet that the Republican turn out in GA would have been huge if they’d been able to run on preventing Biden from putting another liberal in RBG’s empty supreme court seat.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 1/6/2021 @ 6:15 amAlthough still not conclusive, it appears at this point that both seats will go to the Democrats by a sliver of a majority. I’m a bit surprised, because I expected the Trumpists to prevail in spite of Dear Leader’s sowing seeds of doubt about the whole electoral process. As a centrist, ordinarily I would prefer what some call a “divided government” in order to keep the lunatic fringes of both parties in check, but Loeffler strikes me as so slimely–and Perdue not much better–that I find myself not caring if they lose. If anything worthwhile can still be salvaged from the Republican party, perhaps it needs this sobering loss.
Roger (782680) — 1/6/2021 @ 6:28 amA lot of voters don’t even know who McConnell is. And it’s Trump who played games, demanding a low relief check for nine months, then after the bill is passed, saying he demands a high one, saying he will veto, then signing the bill anyway. That’s playing games. Trump always has something or someone else to blame for his failure to get results. He’s willing to ruin the whole country to avoid admitting he failed. That part’s not a game. Hope everyone remains safe today despite Trump’s effort at creating chaos.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 6:42 amRoger:
It needed the loss. The GOP needed to learn that tying yourself to Trump is a mug’s game. You sacrifice your self-respect and still lose.
Appalled (1a17de) — 1/6/2021 @ 6:42 amTrump said, in an attempt to deny it was true:
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-rally-speech-transcript-dalton-georgia-senate-runoff-election
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 6:57 am@290, “First, I agree that Patterico’s comment to you was insulting and he should apologize”
Characterizing something as “horrible” vice “evil” seems to quibble on degree but not on principle. Our host….with emphasis on HOST….made it quite clear his view on what Trump was doing. It seems wisdom would suggest treading gently with regards to whataboutism and minimizing….or trivializing…Patterico’s point. We are here because Patrick wants us to treat his opinions in good faith…meaning here….objectively analyze what Trump is doing. I completely understand frustration boiling over after four years of serially excusing the inexcusable. In face to face exchanges, both sides generally cede some points. I think NJRob should at minimum acknowledge that what Trump is orchestrating is troubling and should stop….otherwise he’s owed nothing..IMO
@202, “I find myself not caring if they lose”
Your comment echoes my sentiments exactly. I wanted Perdue to win but in reality he wasn’t a great candidate and losing a usually solid Republican state like Georgia….will hopefull encourage some serious introspection by the GOP. It’s not catastrophic because the Congressional majorities are so thin, but it’s a pretty good wake up call about the party trajectory. The party needs to get back to ideas, character, and forthright messaging….or else this will be the new normal
AJ_Liberty (a4ff25) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:05 amThe total number of votes cast for both races is almost the same – within 100 votes of each other. That doesn’t mean that only one voter in approximately 20,000 left put a race, but those who omitted one are about equally balanced on which Senate race they omitted.
As of this morning, I heard on the radio, Loeffler was about 85,000 votes behind, with about 17,000 (military?) ballots yet to count, and Perdue was behind by 17,000.
And the military ballots can’t possibly split more than 70-30 in his favor.
The turnout was exceedingly high for a runoff but still more than 10% below the number of votes cast in the November presidential election.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:08 amJVW,
You can see it on here. All the supposed moderates and conservatives rooting for the left and saying the Republican candidate deserved to lose because they supported the party line and the President. Those aren’t Trump voters. Those are NeverTrump. And they are the equivalent of the ones who stayed home and gave the Senate to Chuck Schumer just like they gave the House to Pelosi and the Presidency to Biden.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:08 amAJ Liberty you’re flat out wrong. Period. End stop.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:11 amSo how long until Team Treason starts making baseless fraud allegations and trying to overturn the will of the voters in the run-off elections?
Dave (1bb933) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:11 amRob, do you think Donald Trump is an honorable man of good character and sound judgment?
Try to answer without reference to any other person or group.
Dave (1bb933) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:16 amThanks to Trump’s evil effort to organize a massive fight against transitioning power to President Biden, thanks to Ted Cruz and pals, and thanks especially to Trump’s supporters who justify every evil against the United States of America, Chuck Schumer is the next Senate Majority Leader.
The same folks who defend every awful step in this fight against the voters will deny their responsibility for the GOP’s failure. They will not stop to ask themselves why America trusts the democrats more than the republicans, even as their racist thugs stand by in our capital.
AJ, good comment.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:22 amYes. Answer the challenge! It should be easy.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:22 amHey Dave,
I’ve answered that question multiple times. Sorry you haven’t paid attention.
Trump is an amoral character with no principles. He is self-interested.
He was still tbe President and holding back the leftist onslaught. Now you will get what you asked for.
Everyone remembers in 2016 when we expected Trump to join with the left because we thought he’d fall victim to their siren song by receiving praise from the left and media for doing what they want. Instead, the left spent 4 years attacking the man and pushing his positions more to the right.
Carry on.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:25 am300. Dave (1bb933) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:11 am
I’d say 3 days.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:26 amNJRob, can you justify Trump without reference to the left?
It’s not really good enough to say ‘yeah I know Trump is a bad person, but he is fighting people I think are bad’. At least to meet Dave’s challenge.
He did, NJRob. He failed you. Lefty ideology is an idea. Because of Trump, everyone is fighting to give you more money, paid in the debt of kids, our deficit is nearly infinite, corruption and power are limitless, and immigration order and American exceptional are utterly destroyed by a president who condemns American and defends Russia. Trump *is the left*. The trick this con man pulled was defining himself as against people he outraged, making us afraid of people we are supposed to hate, and pretending that is the left, while he does lefty things.
Obama’s impact on our society was minimal. One lousy half hearted bill that screwed up health insurance, after eight years as the most powerful man in the world. Trump’s impact will be massive. And it will be to the left. Case in point, Georgia!!!! just made Chuck Schumer the majority leader. The left is resurgent. Just two months ago, the left was nowhere near this effective at these kinds of elections.
I know many men who sound like you when it comes to politics and they are great people. I respect you after reading you for years, and recognize I have the same impulses to defend by pointing out my outrage at the other side. Indeed that is all I do these days, complain about Trump and his supporters, instead of offer a candidate I do support (there is none). I hope you have a good and safe day and do not take offense at the hard edges from everyone here who is angry about the damage Trump really has done.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:32 amSee, here’s the deal.
Every morning when I step out my door, I see hundreds of people who are making America great by taking their kids to school and going to work, and I see them again at the end of the day when they are coming back from work and picking up their kids from school.
So why do the schnitzel-slurpers think that it’s Trump who is making America great? Because the schnitzel-slurpers are not those people.
nk (1d9030) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:34 amI’m not rooting for the left. I’m rooting against Trump because he’s incompetent, corrupt, and is actively trying to destroy our system of constitutional government. I’m also rooting against the corrupt and unpatriotic GOP officials that support and enable him.
I view whatever lefty crap Biden accomplishes as a least bad trade off.
But people who think like me didn’t vote from Trump & Prudue/Loefler in in Nov. People who think I’m wrong did. People who probably agree much more with you then with me.
I don’t think those voters are listening to the advice of Nevertrump / anti-Trump pundits. I think they’re listening to Trump and his supporters like Flynn and Wood.
So i figure any change in their behavior between Nov and Jan to be based on info from Trump & Co for more then say, the Bulwork.
Since the number of people who voted GOP went down I think it was because of what Trump said, not Nevertrumpers. I think convincing your base that there’s no point in voting because the system is rigged is bad way to win elections. It appears to be a good way to raise money though. So while it’s bad for the GOP, it’s made Trump and Wood and Co a lot of cash.
Numbers to support my position are below.
In Nov
Trump got 2,461,854
Biden got 2,473,633
Januar
Purdue in the Run Off 2,194,578
Loefler in the Run Off 2,176,048
Ossoff / Warnock each got just over 2.2M votes.
If all the people that supported Trump in the general voted in the run-off the GOP would control the Senate.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:37 amAll Trump really has left to show for after his four years are judges and a better situation with Israel.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:37 amAny major GOP candidate would’ve beaten Hillary. They all polled better in head-to-head match-ups than Trump, yet this party picked an unfit mentally deranged doofus. Any other Republican president would’ve taken this virus seriously and governed more competently, which means we would’ve celebrated that Republican’s reelection last November and probably kept a GOP majority or two in Congress.
In 2016, my party got what it asked it for, and this is the price.
Rooting for Trump to fail is not the same thing as supporting the left.
Perhaps what is to come is medicine that is worse than the disease. But when Trump and his allies are literally trying to install a dictatorship, you have a LOT of work to do to convince me that Biden is somehow worse. And given that Democrats voted for a moderate candidate instead of someone like Bernie, your task becomes significantly harder.
johnnyagreeable (041dc0) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:39 amDustin, I think someone saying Trump is the least bad alternative is a perfectly acceptable answer. But there’s a difference between that and defending & minimizing his corrupt actions
Time123 (f5cf77) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:39 amA lot of voters don’t even know who McConnell is.
A lot do; especially in Kentucky– and now, Georgia.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:40 am286.Let’s look back over the last 4-5 years.
Look back over the last 45 years, instead.
This has been building for decades.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:42 amSomeone once said, “tell me who your enemy is and I’ll tell you who you are”. Trump would have you believe he is the enemy of Antifa burning down a police car, or George Floyd pointing a gun at a pregnant woman to rob her. Nope. He will smile if he sees a story about Antifa destroying something today. His Proud Boys have advertised a strategy of pretending to be Antifa in DC.
So who is Trump’s enemy? It’s guys like David French. And why do Trump’s fans hate guys like French so much? Because of who they are. Worth thinking about as we talk about our inability to offer an independent reason to support Trump.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:47 amI believe that Trump is not only ethically immoral, but politically as well. He was a Democrat when he needed to be and then switched to a Republican when it favored him. He has no political ethos or beliefs.
Once President, he “pushed his positions to the right” because those who had his ear told him to do so.
I could very easily see him doing the exact opposite if the winds were favorable.
He went to the right not out of principle, but because the people fluffing him and sending him money told him to.
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:49 amI disagree. Dave asked for a reason to support Trump that is independent of this contrast with the dastardly left.
You could cite Trump’s intellect, his ability to really come up with solutions, like his health care bill. You could cite Trump’s patriotism, how he puts his country ahead of his own ambition, making sacrifices. You could cite Trump’s heroism, from when he was a young man. Perhaps you could look at the hard work Trump put in, day after day, breaking bread with those he doesn’t agree with to hammer out the hard compromises needed to get anything done with our divided political system.
Or you could cite boogeymen and say at least Trump isn’t those boogeymen. The trap there is that once you have maximum fear of the far left, you will have to accept some terrible corruption of our election process today.
That’s the point of Dave’s exercise. Instead of falling into the comparison trap, is Trump worth anything, in and of himself, as a leader?
It shouldn’t be hard for a Trump supporter to support Trump on these grounds, yet it appears to never happen.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:51 am@315 Hoi, i agree with you 100% here
Time123 (69b2fc) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:52 amBut i can’t think of a single reason to support Biden absent Trump as the alternative and in this election I was a Biden supporter. There may be issues where I support him in the future, mostly likely around free trade, but I doubt it.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:55 am#312
Having endured the barrage of advertising here in Georgia — Mitch wasn’t a big feature. Trump was.
Appalled (1a17de) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:56 am@314. ‘Because of who they are.’
You mean were.
They are now irrelevant.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:58 am@319. Mitch’s games were enough, given the sliver percentages of win/loss. Screwing citizens out of emergency $2000 denying astand alone vote and other silly games of his made enough of a difference. Analysis of the data in the months ahead should tell the story. But it is short-hand easy to just blame Trump– which The Turtle will encourage from his shell BTW- who’ll be gone in two weeks. You know, Trump causes thunderstorms, blizzards and makes cooking sauerkraut stink, too. 😉
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:07 amHave a good day Dustin.
The President is gone in 14 days. The whirlwind we reap now is on those who chose to go in this direction.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:12 amExcellent point
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:13 amHere’s my case for Trump as a leader not based on Lefty fear. Since Trump repels me, this is an exercise in imagination, but does appoint to the three things a GOP person might find positive in Trump’s leadership that have nothing to do with Fake News, he has the right enemies, etc, etc….
Trump recognizes that politics and international relationships are a transactional business, not really rooted in any principle, but a simple drive for power. If you are a middle eastern power — you want more — more money, more security. You probably don’t care much about justice for the Palestinians (whatever that is). If abandoning their cause gets you an arms deal or recognition of your territorial grabs, well, maybe you recognize Israel. It’s free money…
As a corollary to that, it’s pretty stupid to invade everywhere if you aren’t getting something for it. Who wants to be the last person to die for a mistake, particularly if you aren’t getting any oil out of the deal? It’s like old smiling Vlad says, the US is just a country like any other country, and we shouldn’t waste our time or treasure if the US doesn’t benefit. America first! We don’t have to go out spreading Democracy like its Coronavirus or something.
And, in politics…Look, Trump’s good at being loved. You know how easy that makes everyone else’s life? If you make Trump happy, everything’s good. You get to stay put as a leader, and all those guys underneath do what they are told, because that pleases Trump….
Appalled (1a17de) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:15 amNo, NJRob, the congratulations for this loss really go to you, and all other Trump supporters who repeated his lies and made this happen. It truly could not have happened without you.
Patterico (115b1f) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:22 amThe whirlwind you are reaping is for supporting Trump. Had he accepted his loss, this would not have happened. I didn’t even wish for this — you go back and look and you’ll find that in recent weeks I wanted the GOP to win the Senate, and only became indifferent during this recent orgy of anti-democratic bullshit.
But you, you Trump superfans, are directly responsible for this Georgia outcome. Do not try to give credit to me. All of the credit goes to Trump and his superfans.
Patterico (115b1f) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:25 am#321
When an election is this close, you can always find some one thing that was responsible for it. Had Mitch caved on the $2,000, Trump still would have rampaged about the stolen Georgia election, and Lin Wood, Sydney Powell and minions still would have urged people not to vote in the runoff. So my best guess is that the result would have been the same, $2,000 or not.
Appalled (1a17de) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:37 amPatterico, While I know you’re looking at the thread, Please consider your accusation that Rob “Does evil” in the previous thread. I think it’s worth an apology.
Time123 (69b2fc) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:38 amSee. Because I don’t attack the President and give in to the 2 minutes of hate I’m branded a Trump superfan.
Very sad.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:40 amevil
adjective
morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked:
harmful; injurious:
Leviticus (efada1) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:40 amI ain’t afraid of no Biden.
And if I were, a New York sewer is not where I’d go to hide.
nk (1d9030) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:42 amNJRob supports evil. He supports this fraudulent attack on democracy that will happen today, and tries to justify it — as he always justifies evil — by nut-picking some inconsequential challenge by a single dingbat Senator from 2005. That qualifies NJRob as a Trump superfan, and frankly anyone who can’t bring themselves to reject this effort today is someone I will never take seriously again.
Period.
Patterico (115b1f) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:49 amTake responsibility for last night, NJRob. You and all the other Trump fans pushing the “election is stolen” line did it! Own it. Luxuriate in it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:51 amGood point. French wrote an article about how leftists tended to criticize his adoption of an Ethiopian child for “cultural imperialism” and other such things that strike me as really dumb criticisms. However, the attacks from the right were in the nature of calling him a race traitor, cuckold, etc.
Trump seems to actively court the latter type, and that QAnon nutjobs are being elected to Congress is far more frightening to me than a few AOC types.
johnnyagreeable (041dc0) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:51 am315. Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:49 am
I’d say advising him politically, and what they said was his political career depended on being to the right, and keeping his promises. He was also largely inclined that way himself, on several issues, but had never given any of these things much thought.
Interestingly, he was somewhat inclined to letting people out of jail, although he was also for the death penalty and toughness on crime
H was extremely liberal (more than he carried out) on fiscal policy and was similar to some left wing Democrats on trade policy.
He was as far right as you can be on immigration, even though he was inclined to amnesty, because he was told he needed to stick to that for re-election reasons.
He also was told a recession could kill his re-election chances and for that reason wanted to minimize coronavirus lockdowns as much as possible. That included predicting an early end to them, (in the hopes people would keep their businesses going as long as possible) which Dr. Anthony Fauci, who wanted lockdowns also did, in the hopes of getting politicians to agree to them in the first place!
Now one way to avoid coronavirus lockdowns is to get rid of the disease, so he was constantly pushing for cures and vaccines, (which was tempered by semi-competent people around him – only semi because they didn;t really do the best thing and got diverted into putting almost all their hopes on a vaccine) and he probably did better at that than most people who could have had a reasonable prospect of being elected president in 2016.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:02 amSpeaking of you “got you wished for”, Trump and all defenders got what they wished for in the impeachment trial, but I have no doubt that a President Pence would’ve handled CV19 tremendously better than Trump.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:08 amWe all saw Pence in the task force briefings. He actually listened to them. He didn’t plot to downplay the virus for the dubious reason of not wanting Americans to panic, he didn’t seek to “sideline” the doctors so that he could be front and center, he didn’t tell multiple lies every single day. I also have no doubt that, because he would’ve managed it better, he would’ve beat Biden. But I didn’t get what I wished for, you did, NJRob.
Patterico,
I will forgive you because something in your heart has darkened. I hope you see the light someday and ask the Lord for forgiveness. But I will never look at you the same.
Signing off for the next 2 weeks at least.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:18 amDCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:07 am
You know, there are many Democrats who truly believe that, when it comes to thunderstorms.
But Joe Biden, while buying into that, is a moderate on taking steps to heal the planet, so it will mostly be talk, and things that are reversible or not bad.
I mean, in principle, what’s wrong with cars that run on batteries? So they’ll be some more.
They are less polluting locally (I mean real pollutants, not carbon dioxide which is not reaching unhealthy quantities) and require less maintenance.
The only drawback is that they don’t make enough noise to alert people that a car is about to run them over, and that they are not economic, and won’t be unless they can be manufactured to sell for less than $30,000 (according to Jay Leno, that’s the tipping point.) Also, range, but many cars are used only for scheduled trips and once people have them, you can solve the problem of the need for quick recharging, say by swapping batteries.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:19 am.
As Dustin pointed out, Trump has directed the most hostility toward Republicans and conservatives who don’t praise him unconditionally. His fans have done pretty much the same.
Leading up to the Georgia runoff, the main targets of his attacks were the Republican governor and the Republican secretary of state.
His first words at the Jan. 5 rally were saying that “we,” i.e. Trump, actually won the state. He also said, “The one thing I know, if they win I’ll get no credit, and if they lose they’re going to blame Trump.”
Trump doesn’t care about who controls the Senate. He only cares about how the election might affect his ego.
A critical mass of Trump voters in Georgia took the same position. Their fear of Democrats is less intense than their hatred of the GOP for not being servile enough toward Trump.
And it was Trump and some of his top flackers who encouraged the attitude of “why bother to vote anyway?”
Radegunda (b6cc34) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:21 amTrump wasn’t so much holding back the left as making Democrats appear somewhat less frightening, in view of what he was actively emboldening on the right, and less distasteful by comparison with the ugly, selfish, ignorant image he stamped on the GOP.
Trump made a lot of voters think: “If that’s what the GOP or conservatism is now, maybe the Dems aren’t so horrible an alternative for now.”
Radegunda (b6cc34) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:29 amIn my experience, people who feign concern about other peoples’ hearts should take a little time and reflect on their own.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:34 amPaul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:08 am
I don’t agree with that at all, because ehe wouldn;t have had thw wit to break with the consensus, but I do thiink that amore honest and competet president could have handled it better yet.
Trump had enough of a impact to get the neutralizing monoclonal antibodies produced, but he didn’t do enough and he didn’t follow through on his campaign promise to mak them available very quickly, although they did become available after the November election, in limited quantities, and in those quantties they are not being used, and who is to blame for that but Mike Pence? Vaccines also aren’t being used.
Without skepticism. That was part of the problem.
and not spend money. But it was no secret how bad the virus was. People weren’t learning that from Trump. It didn;t matter if he said it was not worse than the flu – statistics there were confusing (they were too high for flu for years)
What he said, which mattered, was what he was being told, that the virus would not spread within the United States.
That was like listening to generals during World War I. Not praiseworthy.
Because he would have lied less, but he also would have done less in the way of pushing for cures and preventions.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:34 am@333, Patterico, thank you for responding to my comment. I understand where you’re coming from, even if I don’t agree that Rob is himself doing evil.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:42 amIt’s all speculative, Sammy, but Pence was actually a governor and Senator who understands things and has actual experience in government.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:49 amAny president would’ve fast-tracked a vaccine. That was a no-brainer.
Nancy Pelosi informed House Republicans that they are bunched too close together at the same time.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 10:12 am345. Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 9:49 am
I don;t think so, Most would have not interfered with the science at all.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 10:13 am“what’s wrong with cars that run on batteries?”
The biggest issue that I can think of is the limited number of countries where the battery raw materials (lithium and colbalt) come from, Congo, Chile, China, Brazil Turkey, and that any instability could lead to critical price shocks. There are also concerns about child labor in some of the mines…like the Congo… as well as water usage and ground water depletion in places like Chile. Also, the preferred electric motors in electric cars use permanent magnets…which require rare earth materials….that are abundant but labor intensive to extract….with China dominating the market. Range and the availability of fast-charging are other practical issues. Don’t get me wrong, I’m for them…but there are supply chain, social, and environmental challenges that need to be considered.
AJ_Liberty (ec7f74) — 1/6/2021 @ 10:16 amTrump and his people arranged to produce and buy large quantities of vaccine well before it was approved and overlapped several phases of trials (while not skipping any steps altogether – but why?)
This was not a no brainer.
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 10:17 amOne of the great myths of the Trump era is that anything Trump managed to do right (including get elected in 2016) would not or could not have been done by anyone else.
Whereas anything that went wrong was because people were being mean to Trump.
Radegunda (b6cc34) — 1/6/2021 @ 10:21 amExactly, Rad.
Paul Montagu (77c694) — 1/6/2021 @ 10:32 amIt’s all speculative and hypothetical, so I don’t like to delve to deeply into what someone might or might not have done in an alternate universe, but when there’s a massive and deadly pandemic out there, someone needs to convince me otherwise that any other reasonable president would not have fast-tracked a vaccine. I’ll even go further and say that any reasonable president would’ve fast-tracked testing, which this unreasoning president not only failed to do but stated “slow the testing down”.
@339. I mean, in principle, what’s wrong with cars that run on batteries?
Review the history of the City of New York. In the early 1900s, the vast majority of ‘vehicles’ – chiefly delivery types- in town were battery/powered electric. It cut down on the horse poop.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 1/6/2021 @ 10:46 amustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 6:42 am
I believe that Trump was actually for the $2,000 payment way back, then he let Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin do his negotiating for him, then, after the bill was passed, he wakes up and asks for $2,000 per person. McConnel agreed to the $600 because the Republicans preferred that to direct aid to state governments. It was understood that Trump would sign any bill that passed Congress. He finally signed it when Republicans told him: Veto it and let us override it!
Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 1/6/2021 @ 2:45 pmTwo elections won by a fraction of a percent result in a Senate where the tie-breaker vote decides things. It’s a mandate!
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:41 pmYou believe that because lies came out of Trump’s mouth. Stop humoring that guy. You’re above it. Trump’s actions were to send a negotiator with instructions that were followed, for several months, with Trump fully in the loop. Actions speak louder.
Dustin (4237e0) — 1/6/2021 @ 7:45 pmThings he touches turn to spit. Even things where he got everything he wanted.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 1/6/2021 @ 8:02 pm