You got what you deserve, Republican Party...

[Dark Jaguar]

It makes a big difference not having the fate of what the rest of the country is going to be able to pick decided entirely by a handful of states. I understand your concerns about populism taking hold, but have you noticed how populism works? It's pretty much entirely right-leaning fear mongers, so I really doubt we're going to magically find some sort of ultra left wing "populist" here.

[A Black Falcon]

It's true that most "populists" these days are right wing, though as an aside I find it hard to describe anything Trump or other right-wing nationalists do as "populist", given that when I think of the term I think of left-wing agitators, like the original (in US politics anyway) populists from the early 1900s... but anyway. Just because all of the worst demagogues of recent decades come from the right doesn't mean that's always going to stay that way. Again, I'm not expecting the superdelegate change to have any major consequences, I just think that while there have been reductions in the superdelegates' role before, this time the change probably happened because of Bernie supporters' complaints, thinking that unelected party officials were trying to stop their guy from winning and such... and sure, many were, but that was not why he lost.

It makes a big difference not having the fate of what the rest of the country is going to be able to pick decided entirely by a handful of states.

I might agree with this, but what is the alternative? The problem with having more states compete early is that it's very hard for a small-budget candidate to compete in larger states. This is one reason why all the early states are small, to make things a little bit more fair for all candidates. The more you frontload the primary and caucus calendar, the more that only the top candidates really have a chance.

The other problem is that states do not always listen to national parties and keep trying to increase their influence by moving up in the calendar. This is one reason why some states use caucuses, because they have laws saying when their primary day is which would not be easy to change, but want more influence, so they hold a caucus months earlier. This is an issue that will need solving. More rarely, sometimes states move up regardless of whether the national party wants it on that day or not. This has been an issue in the past.

Really, the whole choosing-candidates issue is really tricky, and I'm not sure what the best solution should be... I know our system is crazy complicated and nobody would design a system like this starting now, but it's really hard to fix these things once set up.

[A Black Falcon]

So is it, for like the 500th time, the final days of the Trump administration? Probably! :p

... it will happen someday, but probably not until 2020 to be realistic... but between the Woodward book and the NY Times anonymous editorial, Trump is even more upset than usual right now and that's good, because nobody doing that kind of damage to our nation should be left alone without any pushback.

[A Black Falcon]

Kavanaugh will be a disaster for our democracy, but there's probably nothing that can be done to stop him because their party has lost it. I know this is not saying anything new, but every day of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings makes this point clearer and clearer.

And on that note:

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/09/06/c...oe-v-wade/

I wonder if Senator Collins actually believes this blatant lie that the Kavanaugh email about abortion "doesn't contradict past statements that he views the landmark abortion decision as 'settled law'', or if she's lying to herself as much as her representatives are to the public...

[Dark Jaguar]

As angry as I get at the democrats for failing to stick by their own supposed principles, the republicans have officially lost the right to ever say they have "integrity" again.

[A Black Falcon]

If only that would happen, but I expect that the moment a Democrat wins for President again they will return to behaving just as they did under Obama... unless their party seriously changes before then, which is possible I guess, though if that does happen it will probably take longer than that.

[Dark Jaguar]

[A Black Falcon]

So surprise surprise (hah), another bad allegation has emerged from Kavanaugh's drunken high school and college days. There comes a point wehre "young and foolish" is not a decent defense anymore, and it starts somewhere around when he most likely committed sexual assault, Republicans...

And yes, some Republicans knew about these allegations, and were hoping to confirm him before they got out because who cares about anything he did? They sure don't seem to... But now that a second allegation IS out, they're still planning on confirming him because they won't back down here. He's still likely to get through, but having multiple allegations now makes it harder. I certainly don't want there to be any more victims of his (though apparently there are rumors of at least one more?), but with how much of a drunk he apparently was it sadly wouldn't be surprising if there were.

But seriously, when someone repeatedly perjures themselves in order to avoid answering questions, how was this not a red flag that you should just find someone likely to be just about as awful a juror on the court, but without the massive amounts of crippling baggage Kavanaugh has? It's kind of weird...

[Dark Jaguar]

Related:



Um, never mind the interviewer with the mind of a 7 year old, this is good stuff.

[Dark Jaguar]

Right now, I just imagine there's trump supports all over who see the UN laughing at Trump, and they're in tears, rending their garments screaming to the heavens "Why, WHY?! Why are they laughing? Please God tell me why!"

[A Black Falcon]

So, the Judiciary Committee probably votes on whether to advance the Kavanaugh nomination tomorrow morning, then to the full Senate afterwards presumably for a vote next week. And despite Dr. Ford's compelling and probably entirely accurate testimony, I still don't know that there actually will be to stop him, because the Republicans are mostly all in in supporting this guy for ... no apparent reason, when other just as far right judges who aren't serial sexual abusers surely would be easy to find... but we'll see, maybe a few of them will grow a spine! (Unlikely, I know.. but possible.)

[Dark Jaguar]

Some more of some more news' news.

[A Black Falcon]

So
1) Have a sham 'investigation' so limited it doesn't find much, and doesn't investigate some of his most obvious lies (about his drinking and such)
2) Vote to confirm if not much is found, as they hope it isn't

That seems to be the current plan the Republicans are following, though yeah, "even if he did it he still should be confirmed" is indeed a thought you'll find some on the right saying, despicably enough. Every time you wonder if they've hit bottom, they find new ways to dig down...

[Dark Jaguar]

They're going to confirm him no matter what, you realize that right? It literally doesn't matter what they find, because well, consider what we already know, as a fact. He lied to congress. There are demonstrable, confirmed lies he already told. They just don't care. They don't care.

Republicans. You don't care.

[A Black Falcon]

Sure, it's highly likely that he will be confirmed regardless of everything, but I think there is still a small chance that the vote fails at the last minute, ACA repeal-style...

[Dark Jaguar]

This is a very interesting video. A lawyer basically points out that the democrats didn't really know what they were doing during questioning, and COULD have gotten better answers if they knew a few things about lawyering.

[Dark Jaguar]

I've contacted my senators, for all the good I think that's going to do. (I mean have you seen these guys? Inhoffe?) But more importantly, everyone else should too, hopefully with candidates that are a little more likely to vote against the republican majority.

[A Black Falcon]

Ughh, he's in, and my senator Collins' support was key. Shame on her! And she did so with a pile of lies of course, perhaps most prominently the conflicting, false claim about how "I believe someone attacked her, but not the person she says she is 100% sure attacked her", as if you can say that and actually say you believe her? Come on, nobody's going to believe that. Either you believe her or not. That she identified Kavanaugh as her attacker years ago, at least from 2012 on, and not only this year is unquestionable, so this is not something she just made up. But no, these people are lying to thesmelves and the public about how "someone attacked her but not the person she knows attacked her", because that stupid lie sounds less bad than "she's lying". Believe women with credible stories, unless they charge someone you want to promote, I guess?

[A Black Falcon]

The closer we get to the election, the more anxious I get about the result... because we SHOULD win, but there's absolutely no guarantee of that, and given how bad the consequences would be for not winning... gah...

[Weltall]

I think the election is going to be disappointing for the Dems because Not Trump is simply not going to be enough and that's been the primary message since he won the Republican nomination. The Ford accusations are being painted as a dropped hail mary and if you're not already believing her story, it is hard not to look at it that way.

I am heartened to see some Democrats taking a different tack and promoting progressive policies in a manner that is not easy to counter. I want Amy McGrath to beat Candy Barr here in Kentucky because she represents what I'm talking about. Trump is in the state stumping for Barr so I hope that means he's in trouble. He sure never needed the help before.

[Dark Jaguar]

To Dems: Be direct and precise with your message. Indicate clearly what you stand for, what you reject, and explain why. This is basic stuff here, but for the love of all that is right in the world, stop pretending to be republicans! There will ALWAYS be a candidate that's more republican than you, and that's the person you're running against.

[A Black Falcon]

Looking at the polling, McGrath does have a chance: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/201...entucky/6/

Here in Maine, there isn't much on the ballot here in district 1 that matters, other than trying to get enough votes out for the Democrat for Governor that hopefully we actually win this time. That's big, but for both Governor and US House, the real fights are up in District 2, which has gone way far right over the course of this decade. From what polling there is, which isn't much, that trend looks likely to continue, but the Democrat for the House seat there, Jared Golden, does have a chance at unseating Poliquin... here's hoping.

We kind of win regardless, though, because finally Paul LePage won't be Governor! I;m sure Shawn Moody, the Republican, would also be awful, but at least in temperament he's no LePage or Trump-style person. I'm looking forward to it. Having an actual Democrat would be better, though... but it'll be a close race.

[Dark Jaguar]

If you aren't fighting global warming, you've betrayed humanity.

[A Black Falcon]

Counterpoint, presaging the Trump Administration's position on global warming pretty much:



Because who cares about the future? It's going to go horribly anyway, so why even try to make it even slightly less horrendous...

It IS going to go very badly, but everything we do will make that bad future a little bit less awful and that could matter a lot. Or a lot bit less awful, if through some miracle the world starts actually taking this seriously...

[Dark Jaguar]

Hillary is actually considering running for president again?

No, No no no no no.

Democrats, don't be morons. Don't do this. It would be political suicide. What gets me is the nerve, this attitude she has that she somehow is owed this. She should step out of the way and allow another candidate to be the first female president. Elizabeth Warren, that's who I would vote for. I mean seriously, of all the possible ways the democrats have to win, they're seriously considering the ONE certain path to failure?

[A Black Falcon]

One week to go... one week before we learn if the US will continue to move towards authoritarianism, or stand up to it. Democracy, or the Republican Party? Because with how they've surrendered to Trump, it's hard to see us having both of those things in the future...

I mean, we SHOULD win, in the US House at least, but will it be by enough to overcome the gerrymandering? Probably... but there are no guarantees. Well, people better vote if they want anything to change! Early voting numbers so far are quite high, which is hopefully a good sign, but I'm sure both sides are seeing high turnout given how polarized things are right now in this country, so I hope enough Dems vote to win the races we need to win.


As for Hillary, I voted for her in the caucus in '16, and supported her in '08 though I wasn't able to get to the caucus that year, but yeah, I think we need someone new next time. I certainly can understand why she'd still want to be President -- after all, she won the popular vote and really should be President now -- but I'm sure we have other candidates who could win without the unfortunate mountain of baggage and sexist lies people believe about her. It would be interesting to see how a different female candidate for President did, on that note; Hillary has so much baggage from the decades the Republicans have spent lying about her that she probably ended up more affected by sexism than others would be.

Regardless of who wins for the Democratic nomination though, Democrats need to continue nominating candidates representative of this country as a whole. Our 2020 ticket really should have a woman for President or VP, we have good candidates.


Oh, and apparently one of the reasons why the stock market is going down right now is because Wall Street thinks that Dems are going to win the House, and less will get done because of the divided government. So yeah, tax cuts for the rich? Dow goes up! Wage increases for minimum wage workers? Dow goes down! Ugh... I'm no economist to say the least, but the economy generally does better when Dems are in power than Republicans, you know.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hillary's baggage is exactly it, plus frankly she spent way too much time trying to appeal to middle America by misrepresenting herself. Don't "appeal to everyone" by compromising your values. Try to show why your values are superior to the opponent's. That's how you win.

[A Black Falcon]

That upside-down world map background Some (More) New uses is interesting stuff, I can't stop looking at it in their videos...

Don't "appeal to everyone" by compromising your values. Try to show why your values are superior to the opponent's. That's how you win.

Sure, yes. But I do understand why politicians say things that more reflect what they think people want to hear than their own core values, they want to win and people do not always reward honesty...

[Weltall]

What we need is not a monolithic policy wonk. People like being promised things. The Democrats, two years ago, were so afraid of doing that. Unicorns and rainbows win elections. Do you think a single Republican vote was lost because they never repealed Obamacare?

[Dark Jaguar]

That upside-down world map background Some (More) New uses is interesting stuff, I can't stop looking at it in their videos...

"Right side up" is an entirely arbitrary choice we've made anyway, one mainly made due to Europe getting to establish the map. It could easily have been "south side up".

[Dark Jaguar]

[A Black Falcon]

That's true, traditional Chinese maps had South as up. Which way you call up could go either way... but still it looks odd, since we're used to seeing maps the other way...

[Dark Jaguar]

The Nightly Show, before it was cancelled, also had the map reversed. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was a big fan of that for letting people see things from a different point of view. I mean, it's either going to be north OR south on the top due to geo-physics not really providing any other good way to orient a map, but which of those two is arbitrary.

[A Black Falcon]

It's election day! Vote.

[Dark Jaguar]

Dems took the house, Reps kept the senate, as was forseen by the Silver Nate.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, things have gone pretty well overall. The Dems took the House with a solid majority, which is great! It was desperately badly needed, and we did it. Fantastic. The exact size of the win isn't clear yet as lots of races haven't finished counting, but it was a definite blue wave and we managed to overcome gerrymandering just enough to win despite it. Dems surely would have won more seats if not for gerrymandering, so we still need to fight it to make things a little bit fairer, though. (Oh, and I see we even won a seat in Oklahoma, surprisingly enough! Not that Kentucky seat though, Weltall... sorry.)

Here, the Democrat won for Governor with over 50% of the vote, which is the first time a Democrat has gotten over 50% in a statewide race since 1988. Yeah, it's been a long time. We only have three statewide elected offices, Governor and the two US Senators, but still it's been a long time. Turnout was very high here in very blue southern Maine; Portland had 69% turnout and voted 78% for Mills, for instance, and turnout was high in lots of other very blue areas too. I believe it, because it took me almost an hour to get in and out of the polling place, quite rarely for this state. It was worth it, though. Oh, and Dems kept the Maine House and took the Senate, so we control the government now and finally will pass medicaid expansion, after all this time.

Of course, the big disappointment this election is the US Senate. Before the election, I was hoping to break even, really; maybe 50-50 on a very good day, but I just didn't think we would win all those red seats, and sadly we didn't. Despite a large majority of voters voting for Democrats for Senate, the Republicans managed to win at least three Democratic Senate seats, and maybe four if Florida stays as it is now. On the other hand though, since this Senate map was so absurdly bad, it's not a bad outcome really; 10 incumbents in states Trump won, and 6 survived and a seventh has a slight chance of making it (though probably not)? That's a decent result. And we won at least one too, in Nevada, plus perhaps another depending on absentees in Arizona. Had Hillary been President, we'd probably be looking at at least twice this many seat losses in the Senate, sadly... so yeah, not a good day in the Senate vote, but it wasn't awful either because of how hard not losing seats was going to be.

Overall it's pretty great... and Trump seems to think so too, since he just fired Jeff Sessions in his latest effort to stop the Mueller investigation. You can't stop the Dems from taking power in two months, Trump, and they'll learn what Mueller found regardless of whether you want them to or not...

[Dark Jaguar]

The races in Oklahoma were closer than expected. Sure, 8 percentage points is a lot in elections these days, but I'm used to seeing dems down in the 30 or less range, so seeing several in the 40s was nice. Gerrymandering here played a part for sure, my own district is a rather bizarre shape, but it is good to see changes like that. Too bad about our governor though...

Oh, and the state question results were pretty solid too. I voted "no" on all of them. That one initiative that's hitting states all over the place for "victim's rights" has some things I like (notifying the victim when their assailant is released I can totally get behind), but there's way too much that changes the assumption of innocence, like the right to refuse outright to speak with the defendant's lawyer. A weaker version of this bill with just the simple protections from already convicted violent offenders would get my vote, but it doesn't matter, it's the one bill that passed. I'm very glad Walmart's law failed. They wanted to remove OK's ban on eye doctors working directly inside stores, so they could get away with taking over that entire medical industry by forcing solo eye doctors out of business, and then of course pressuring the ones that do work in their stores to sell sell sell.

[Dark Jaguar]

Maybe Star Trek was wrong, about literally everything.

[A Black Falcon]

So I've been thinking, should we make a new politics thread? Now that Trump's been defeated, even if that is not a final defeat, it might be time for something past this (so so wrong, because I mean how could America elect Trump?) thread title... not for that reason though, but because the seemingly unstoppable Trump wave has been broken, and the Republican Party got what they deserve: a sweeping electoral defeat because of Trump. It just took two years longer than it should...

[Dark Jaguar]

You honestly think Trump is "defeated" right now? In what universe? A "sweeping" electoral defeat? Maybe you missed how close all these elections were, but the house was won by narrow margins, and the senate is still out of the dem's grasp. No, now isn't the time to relax. Far from it. Don't let this get to your head, there's a lot left to do.

[A Black Falcon]

It really wasn't close in the House, it was only "close" because of gerrymandering. It'll probably end up as a 9-point margin wave, with most likely 39 US House seats won. That's the best outcome for the Democrats since Watergate! And without gerrymandering it'd have been even better, because the 2010 Republican wave which won them 60 seats in the House was only a R+6 wave, significantly below this years' in electoral margin. If we can continue fighting gerrymandering, a fight which has had victories in recent years -- see Pennsylvania, where the court ruling getting rid of gerrymandering helped us win four seats there this year in the House -- the result will get closer to where it should be.

Yes, the Dems lost two seats in the Senate, presuming that Scott holds on in Florida as seems likely (not certain, but likely), but given the historically bad Senate map, that's not a bad outcome at all; indeed, that we only lost two overall shows just how good of a year this was for Democrats. In a normal year we'd have lost a lot more than two with a map this terrible.

Of course there's a lot more to do, but the anxiety and worry about politics for the past few years should be significantly reduced now, at least for me... things are actually getting better. Trump lost, and he knows it: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-po...um=twitter

[Dark Jaguar]

Just because it's likely doesn't mean it isn't a bad outcome to not have the senate. Yes, we knew it was very likely coming, but let's not fool ourselves here. The reason it was likely is because there's still a LOT of republican loyalists out there, thinking things, choosing things, wanting Trump to "win". If you paint this as "let's stop being anxious", whatever momentum we've gained here will ebb away.

I've said before that this is the first presidency that is going to make the rest of the nation age 20 years instead of the president, but that's not a bad thing. You BETTER still be anxious, what happened here is NOT at all a guarantee that Trump will lose the next election. Do not rest, and don't you dare put out the notion that others should. This is why the dems always manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

And also, democrats need to stop declaring victory before elections. All it does, time and again and again and again, is get people to stay home because "oh well, if it's certain what's the point in going there anyway?".

And what do the dems do whenever they say they've "learned their lesson?" They declare their "new" policy by just restating the old strategy again. "This time, WE ARE GOING TO REACH ACROSS THE ISLE AND APPEAL TO MIDWESTERN AMERICA!" You know, code for "We're going to pretend we're republicans and say words like "Heartland" and "folks" over and over again while hiding what we really are after", the same strategy that fails again and again.

There are consequences to undeserved pride and dishonestly representing yourself ABF, and there is a very real chance that Trump will win reelection. The democrats NEED TO ACT ACCORDINGLY, but I'm not seeing that at all from them, so yes, I am still ridden with anxiety.

[A Black Falcon]

And Golden (the Democrat) wins the ranked choice vote for representative from Maine's second district! The second district has gone far to the right over the past decade, unlike this very blue first district, but it's fantastic to see that they still sometimes can vote for a Democrat, even if it took ranked choice to get it. The final 50.5 to 49.5 margin is very close, so Golden will have a tough re-election fight next time I'm sure, but we got the seat for now and that's great.

Of course, Republican and thus ranked-choice-hating Bruce Poliquin is suing to overturn the ranked choice law because they don't like voting systems that make it easier for people to vote and such, but his lawsuit is likely to fail so he'll have to concede eventually. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Considering the law of the land allows for whatever voting choice system someone wants, his suit has no merit. I'm sure he'll trot out the weaknesses of the ranked choice system, but in this case those weaknesses don't come into play when it's against "winner take all". Scored voting does seem like the best system overall, and I think nationwide that's the preferred one, but ranked choice is still an improvement over what we have now, and really a change in voting systems is exactly how we can get more than 2 viable parties.

[Dark Jaguar]

While this was not the point of the video, it is worth noting that Stephen Colbert's call for people to not "bother people at restaurants" misses the point of doing that, which is that protesting someone to their face is a lot more effective, and there's not exactly a lot of other places to meet those people "to their face", and further, it's one thing to say you can't harrass people for their beliefs destructive as they may be, and entirely another when those people and their dumb beliefs are directly changing the way the country and it's laws function, because they are in charge of stuff. No, when someone's an appointed or elected official with dangerous policies based on their dangerous ideas, bother then. Yell at them and call them names while they are just trying to live their lives, because guess what? They are passing laws that bother us when we're just trying to live our's.

[A Black Falcon]

I definitely find that kind of activism uncomfortable, harrassing people isn't nice... but on the other hand the policies they are pushing are terrible, so if people want to peacefully do that they have that right, I guess. But I don't think it's likely to change someone's mind, it may make the protester feel better but won't amount to much on its own...

[Dark Jaguar]

All I know is if Ted Cruz or Mitchy Mitch Mitch Mitchelson sat down next to me in a restaurant, I know I would lose my appetite. Why let them be comfortable?

[A Black Falcon]

Democrats should start talking more seriously about a few voting rights issues:

- First, the Dems have promised to pass a broad voting-rights bill as their first bill. Parts of it are things this Supreme Court would call unconstitutional and it won't pass anyway, but it's a fantastic start.

- Beyond that though, Dems should start talking about changing the size of the US House. The House really is too small; its size was locked a hundred years ago, and each rep represents too many people now. A larger House makes a lot of sense and there is good analysis on this point out there.

- We also need to seriously push for statehood for Puerto Rico. The Republican Party supposedly supports this too, but neither side has been pushing for it nearly as much as we should... statehood or independence, Puerto Rico, which do you want? Puerto Rico isn't an automatic Democratic win electorally, so this should be possible...

- A solution for the city of Washington D.C. also is important. A lot of people live there now, with no federal representation. Because of the extremely Democrat-heavy voting base this is unlikely anytime soon, sadly, but seriously it's not right.

Just because it's likely doesn't mean it isn't a bad outcome to not have the senate. Yes, we knew it was very likely coming, but let's not fool ourselves here. The reason it was likely is because there's still a LOT of republican loyalists out there, thinking things, choosing things, wanting Trump to "win". If you paint this as "let's stop being anxious", whatever momentum we've gained here will ebb away.

Of course there are, but we now know that if anti-Trump voters vote, he loses. As he did this month. And that's a big deal and feels good, as it should.

I've said before that this is the first presidency that is going to make the rest of the nation age 20 years instead of the president, but that's not a bad thing. You BETTER still be anxious, what happened here is NOT at all a guarantee that Trump will lose the next election. Do not rest, and don't you dare put out the notion that others should. This is why the dems always manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Of course I'm anxious, I am all the time about almost everything you know. But as far as politics go things clearly are getting better...

I do disagree a bit with what you say here -- like, sure, it's good to keep the pressure on, but you SHOULD celebrate victory, 'always act like you're behind' even when you're not is too much pressure. There are many real ways that there should be a little less stress now. For example, once the Dems are in charge of the House, Trump's latest nonsense means a bit less, and that'll be a fantastic thing for the world. Of course though, there is always a lot to worry about, and a lot to fight; Trump is still President after all, and the Republicans look likely to control the Senate for a long time because of the built-in advantage small red states have there. Just stopping Trump is great, but actually getting the good policies we desperately need (particularly for the climate!) seems incredibly difficult... so sure, there's plenty to fight for, and of course Trump may win re-election since he proved he can win in 2016, but we won a battle here and that's a thing worth celebrating. Winning this year was incredibly important, and Democrats did just enough to win one part of the government back.

And also, democrats need to stop declaring victory before elections. All it does, time and again and again and again, is get people to stay home because "oh well, if it's certain what's the point in going there anyway?".

Nancy Pelosi said 'we will win'... and then won. I agree that she probably should have said 'we will win when you vote' instead of what she said, but she was right, so it worked out! I doubt that anyone stayed home because she said that, it surely had no negative effect.

And what do the dems do whenever they say they've "learned their lesson?" They declare their "new" policy by just restating the old strategy again. "This time, WE ARE GOING TO REACH ACROSS THE ISLE AND APPEAL TO MIDWESTERN AMERICA!" You know, code for "We're going to pretend we're republicans and say words like "Heartland" and "folks" over and over again while hiding what we really are after", the same strategy that fails again and again.

Well, if we want ANY legislation to pass in the next two years, the only way to do that is working with Republicans. You can make a good case for saying 'no, we should do what the Republicans did and just block everything and pass nothing', but I don't like that idea because Dems should be what we have been, the party who believes in government. Passing good legislation and letting it die in the senate is important and will happen, but if there are any things Dems could get passed that Trump and McConnell would agree to (not that anything comes to mind offhand...) I'm okay with considering them. It's likely they will be way too compromised to be worth supporting, but you never know?

There are consequences to undeserved pride and dishonestly representing yourself ABF, and there is a very real chance that Trump will win reelection. The democrats NEED TO ACT ACCORDINGLY, but I'm not seeing that at all from them, so yes, I am still ridden with anxiety.

Again, sure, Trump can win re-election, but Democrats just got almost as many US House votes in 2018 as Trump got for President in 2016, and that's something nearly unprecedented in American history! He can win, but we can too if Democrats vote. That's a hard thing to organize of course, but there's more hope than there has been in several years, and that's something at least. I'm a natural pessimist but this election has been great... and it's still not over; Democrats are up to a 39 seat gain in the House now over where they were before, with a chance at 40! That's very impressive. Of course it could go the other way; see how Bill Clinton and Obama both won re-election after the Dems got crushed in wave elections in their first midterm, but will Trump change his approach enough to win re-election, or will he just stay focused on his base? Just his base probably isn't enough for him to win again with, because he didn't win the first time with only his base, it took more than that. 538 made a good analysis of that last point recently.

[A Black Falcon]

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/11/26/p...by-golden/

Sore loser Bruce Poliquin thinks that if they just count the votes again, by hand this time, somehow he'll end up the winner. That isn't going to happen, though this hand recount he is demanding could waste a month of peoples' time for no good reason, so there is that.

That's not the crazy part, though. These quotes from a Poliquin spokesman about why this needs to be a hand recount... this is.

"“We have heard from countless Maine voters who were confused and even frightened their votes did not count due to computer-engineered rank voting,” said Brendan Conley, a spokesman for the Poliquin campaign.

“Furthermore, we have become aware that the computer software and ‘black-box’ voting system utilized by the secretary of state is secret. No one is able to review the software or computer algorithm used by a computer to determine elections,” Conley said. “This artificial intelligence is not transparent. Therefore, today, we are proceeding with a traditional ballot recount conducted by real people.”"

Look, of course computers are not always right and can be hacked and such, but there is absolutely no evidence of any foul play in this election. The election was held normally, and Golden won. Poliquin is just upset because he lost and because ranked choice is bad for his party in the future. Fortunately though, neither one of those things is likely at all to change just because he doesn't like them. But we did get some pretty silly quotes about how scary artificial intelligence is, so it's not all bad! Somehow the Excel spreadsheet that they did the final tally on in a livestream is AI now? Who'd have thought... :p

[Dark Jaguar]

Wait, weren't we just promoting recounts when it was the other way around? I say let him have his recount. It's only fair.