Are you obsessively following the Georgia runoffs and does it remind you of two months ago? Let us know what you’re drinking thinking.
Will it be two years of nothing reaching the senate floor for votes or two years of filibuster-ing? Stay tuned!
I’m staying up for the World Junior Gold Medal hockey game between Canada and the USA (not that anyone in the USA know they are competing for a Gold Medal tonight or anything).
After what happened in PA and this election today – I’m a bundle of nerves. Trying to find something to watch to keep me from checking results every five minutes.
What’s happening in PA is very very disturbing, and if there was any justice in the world, all those assholes would end up in prison.
I’m half afraid to ask, and definitely too concerned to just go googling…
but, what happened in PA?
Short story is that in their state senate, a Democrat incumbent won a very close race. And on the day the state senators were all supposed to be sworn in, the Republican majority just… didn’t seat this senator. The vote has been certified, a lawsuit challenging the result failed, but they’re still claiming it’s not valid (sound familiar?). So currently the people of that district just have no senator. We’ll have to see how it plays out, but it’s disturbing that the Republicans there are bold enough to just say nope, don’t want to pay attention to the certified election results.
@bigdamnheroes
<sigh>
thanks, but although I knew nothing about this, I can’t exactly say I’m surprised to hear it…
Anyone else remember a while back, I think it was when the tea party was gaining traction, some republican-controlled state legislature was going to pass some heinous legislation, and all the dems agreed to boycott it, and went into hiding, so they couldn’t make a quorum. And the republicans sent out the state troopers to arrest them and drag them in and force a quorum.
And all of the bullshit with McConnell (fuck that guy, he can not die soon or painfully enough.
and of course, the current non-stop, firehose of bullshit…
I mean, is it shocking? No, sure, the Republican party have shown themselves to be devoid of morals, and most have also shown they are either uninterested or actively against the concept of democracy. But is it disturbing? Absolutely.
I think we have to be very careful to not let cynicism take over. We can’t stop being upset at these miscarriages of justice. If you look at how coups have been successful in the past, it relies on a lack of resistance from the public. This often happens when people feel powerless against government corruption, when they start feeling like corruption is inevitable.
sorry, didn’t mean that to come across as trivializing or anything.
I think I’m mostly upset at the establishment dems and such for insisting on playing nice and pretending everything is going to be ok. And I feel that’s a large part of why this sort of stuff keeps happening – because there are no repercussions or accountability.
I don’t want to get too hyperbolic, but at this point, I’m all for building guillotines and lining these assholes up against the wall…
I’m frustrated too, I definitely get it. And I’m sorry if it seemed like I jumped on you – I’m just always checking my own cynicism. For the time being, I still have some faith in our democracy to turn things around (slowly), and I hope we can do that before we’re at guillotine level.
That was over in WI, that the D’s fled to create a lack of quorum…
Iirc, it happened again–maaaybe the other way? out in WA or OR… somewhere like that?
I loathe both Loeffler and Perdue because
1) They’re grifting scum taking advantage of loose insider trading rules using classified info to bail out and/or jump on stock opportunities while the rest of us got fucked. Even Loeffler’s shitbag hubby should have his ass nailed to the wall.
2) Perdue because he’s a big ass chicken who won’t face any hard questions. Anything about his stock trades then he turned tail and ran.
3) Loeffler because she’s to female sports owners as Donald Sterling is to male sports owners.
I hope the GOPers go all Atlanta Falcons and fold up.
Go Warnock and Ossoff!
/whispers/ Go Canada Go.
You’d think he would have learned not to chicken out of debates after living his whole life with that poultry-fied surname.
3) Loeffler because she’s to female sports owners as Donald Sterling is to male sports owners.
And a bit of Marge Schott, because there are enough Karens out there with enough money to own a team.
Whoa…not going to say it…no jinx…no jinx
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/05/georgia-senate-election-results-live-updates/
I am beyond stressed and started drinking around 1pm PST, watching MSNBC is making me feel better but I have been here before and it has not worked out. Drinking a Mirage Vote or Literally Die for good luck.
https://untappd.com/user/ASUJoe/checkin/971717939
I just switched from MSNBC to Fox, just for kicks, and Tucker Carlson just said that Warnock is someone he could at least sit and have a drink with but Ossoff is the biggest fraud he has ever seen running for congress because he has done nothing in his life.
By “nothing” I have to assume he means in comparison to his own rags to riches story which includes, but not limited to, being a trust fund baby who got kicked out of boarding school overseas, inheriting a fortune, and spending every facet of his life perpetuating sexism and racism and promoting white supremacy and white nationalism by any means possible?
Rev. Warnock is a lovely man, but why does Tucker think the good Rev. would want to have a beer with him?
Read: he sees that Ossoff is a younger, more charismatic, and smarter version of what Tucker wishes he could be. Plus, he’s probably bothered that Ossoff is Jewish…because that bigotry isn’t fully a TV bit.
I’d agree to have a beer with Carlson. Primarily to get me within range to do violent things to his head/face.
I was on a work trip, nearly a year ago, that got extended unexpectedly. So, I was in the hotel room by myself, had a six-pack and no internet (that unexpected bit, so I didn’t think to bring my computer…), so I figured I’d turn on the TV for some background noise/entertainment, and drink and read my book. The TV came on at max volume, and it was fucking Tucker Carlson doing his angry/confused shouty bit. And of course, at that moment, the TV remote was being completely unresponsive. power button, mute button, channel change button, volume down button, nothing. After two or three seconds of that, I just unplugged the TV. couldn’t get it working again, but figured it was an acceptable trade-off if I meant I didn’t have to be subjected to that idiot-bigot’s face-hole noises again that night…
Definitely an acceptable trade-off. The hotel is lucky the TV did not wind up in the swimming pool.
I’m definitely obsessively refreshing, and trying hard not to get my hopes up based on early results. It could take a while to get final results again, plus I’m sure Republicans will try every trick in the book. But even if we only take one of the two elections, narrowing their majority will still be helpful.
But also, if we do take them both, I bet Kamala will enjoy being the deciding vote.
Warnock’s seat was called for him. He’ll be the first African American senator to represent GA.
damn!
My anxiety is so high and I’ve been flipping back and forth between CNN and MSNBC all damn day between client sessions. I’m going to be glued to the tv all night.
I’ve got MSNBC on in the background. I think it will be close but that both Republicans will win. I have little faith in my fellow Americans.
Bingo. This is GA we’re talking about. They’ve got a couple centuries’ worth of voter suppression tactics worked out to a fine science.
Everybody just relax–Mitch is still going to be the majority leader, so you’d do well to accept it now and spare yourselves the disappointment.
I would like to not be disappointed but this is America so I try to remember not to get my hopes up during elections.
I always remind myself of the sick panic I felt in 2008 and 2012, even though Obama won soundly both times. Even when the US electorate does the right thing, it’s always truly frightening how real the possibility of choosing the dumpster fire instead is.
So, a bit off topic, I did a little number crunching today after a discussion with my coworker about the differences in the 2016 and 2020 elections. I looked at the totals in 18 states, mostly the swing states and red states a few blue. In most of the red states that Trump won, he gained about 1% of the difference in the extra votes. Except Texas, where he lost 10%. Likewise in the swing states that flipped for Biden. Example : in Arizona Trump won by 10k in 2016. Lost by 90k in 2020. There was a 1m bump if votes in 2020. This pattern held for most southern states, and swing states.
Except Florida. Trump won Florida in ’16 by 112k. In 2020, it was 370k, for a net positive gain of 250k. A 17% jump.
Something is just not sitting right.
You’re looking at differences – what are the raw vote totals in FL? They definitely stepped their voter suppression waaaay up, plus you have to figure all the old retired people there tend to be the ones more scared of covid.
2016, 9m . 2020 11m. They def did their job in keeping the felons from voting.
But it just doesn’t make any sense to me, to lose across the swing states, barely retain what you have in R strongholds, yet a huge bump in fla?
There was a lot of fear-mongering campaigning in Florida targeted towards Cuban Americans specifically trying to tie Biden/Harris to communist Cuba. Like “your parents fled these horrible conditions to give you freedom, don’t let it happen here!”
I wondered how much that had to do with it, especially because Cuban Americans skew more republican in general than many other Latinx Americans.
I do think that’s part of it. I was also getting very pissed off at everyone after the election talking about how Latines voted for trump, but isn’t it so weird that it varied by state. No, no that is not at all weird. Cubans in FL should not be considered the same demographic as Mexicans in CA.
Agreed, Latinx are not a voting monolith. Also some folks are extremely religious (often Catholic, Pentecostal, or Mormon) so even in a group that is more likely to lean democrat, there might be a not small percentage voting republican because of abortion, Jesus, etc.
Yeah, the socialism argument was a big winner w/ Cuban immigrants. They also had some prominent Cuban figures helping the cause.
Pundits and strategists need to grow comfortable with the notion that there isn’t a “Latino/a/x vote”. Perhaps they could start by breaking down voters of color into the many classifications they already do for white voters.
100% this. It’s absurd to look at Latines as a monolith. I’d say even more so than framing Black people as a monolith (which is ridiculous enough), because they’re often immigrants or second generation Americans from entirely different countries with different cultures.
Side note, I realized my use of “Latine” probably seems idiosyncratic. It is a gender neutral alternative to Latinx that has been proposed which is far easier to say (la-teen-eh) and makes more sense from a Spanish speaking perspective. My (half-Argentine) husband likes it, so I go with his take on it.
I can barely handle elections every two years. Two in a three-month period is way too much mishegas for me.