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Wednesday’s Forum
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39 responses to “Wednesday’s Forum”
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Well, that was fun.
Also, the incoming House oversight chair seems to have his priorities straight:
Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement after Democrats secured a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Following this win, Garcia will become Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, where he has vowed to take on the Trump Crime Family, corporate corruption, DHS and ICE abuses, and the cover-up of the Epstein files. His statement can be found below.
“Lawyer up.”
Even if a Trump pardon would prevent criminal prosecution, civil liability remains and you can still take away their criminal gains.
Besides, it would be fun to see Trump pardoning his cronies for Epstein-related offenses.
(As I have said quite a few times before, I don’t see a way back to normalcy without people going to jail. Which means that “looking forwards, not backwards” is a ship that has sailed a long, long time ago.)
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I don’t see why we can’t look forward to people going to jail.
A Democratic Congress is going to have its legislative priorities held back by Trump, so investigations are the only real thing they can accomplish.
Unless they can pull some amazing trick and we get single-payer healthcare reform labeled as TrumpCare or something. I could settle for that.
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I went to bed early last night and had deliberately avoided checking in on the election up until then. As I went upstairs I said to my wife that I wouldn’t be happy unless we got at least 53 Senate seats (Fetterman will likely switch parties) and a convincing house victory. I woke up when she climbed into bed at midnight and she said, “you’re going to be very happy tomorrow when you wake up”.
I don’t know why, but the first state I looked for when I woke up was Maine. And that result did make me very happy
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Well, Dems pretty much ran the board. While doing other things I reloaded the Times and the Union Leader (NH results) and was quite surprised and weirded out to see NC, SC along with Georgia all blue on the map.
In the state races Dems had a good night, within 2 seats of controlling the state senate, swept the executive counsel, the legislature will take days to sort out. Missed on the governors race, but that was expected. Ayotte was described as “the more likeable” candidate and she is a pretty anodyne personality.
NH is sending all Dems back to DC again.
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Donald Trump has flamed out many, many times in his career. The casinos, the football team, the various bankruptcies, etc. There is a pattern to how he has reacted in the past: he turns on his partners in an epic firestorm of hate and abuse, and then retreats and goes radio silent for several months. He eventually resurfaces and simply moves on from his most recent fiasco. Given the passage of enough time he may refer to it in extremely vague terms but now as part of a great collection of victories.
He followed this pattern to some extent when he lost in 2020, but the very real possibility of prison time and need to fight against that pulled him back in pretty quickly. I don’t know how it will play out this time, as he has two years to go in his presidency and can’t easily walk away, except for one thing: he will lash out at his allies.
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having him be circumspect for a while
Hah! I can’t see that happening. If I had to make a bet (and I wouldn’t put more than a dollar on this) it would be that he spends more and more time in Mar a Lago and his other properties ignoring the country, to the point where we may have some genuine crises because he refuses to act on important matters. The one thing he will spend a lot of attention on is covering up his and his families crimes.
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Well, I’m just blown away.
I was reasonably optimistic that Ken Paxton would go down to Talarico. Mainly due to the true awfulness of Ken Paxton. But when Greg Abbott went down despite his huge stockpile of money, I was genuinely shocked.
Even better defeat is the Lt Governor Dan Patrick. In the Texas system of government, the Gov may run the government but the Lt Gov sets the policy agenda and runs the legislature, often considered a more powerful position.
Having the Attorney General flip is the icing on the cake.
It’s a brave new world here in Texas, a change that hasn’t been seen in over 30 years.
It’s like Moses striking the rock and fresh water flowing freely.
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Musk seems to have considered Texas his personal fiefdom, to the point where, if I understand correctly, he was responsible for a significant majority of all Texas Republican political contributions for statewide or otherwise crucial offices. I wonder what’s going to happen now? One thing: if there is a lame duck session with Abbott, there will be bucketfuls of pro-Musk paybacks in the legislation that comes out of it.
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I really feel that these outcomes demonstrate a thing I’ve seen pollsters say about what the election is actually about is who shows up.
Democrats turned out. Way, way more than the last midterm. Republicans did not. Probably demoralized by the war, and the effect on diesel prices, also data centers, also Epstein, also the alt-right has decided that Trump isn’t Nazi enough or something. So they don’t show up.
The Texas thing may signal a shift in the Mexican-American vote toward Democrats that parallels that shift that took place in California and ended the Pete Wilson era. Those Mexican-American Texans wanted to make it tough for what they saw as freeloaders, but did not want what they got from ICE. Maybe Abbot got tarred with this, too, even though he has historically managed this issue (and this demographic) much better than Trump. (This does not mean I endorse his policies, just that I think he’s pretty darn good at politics.)
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Here in Washington, it looks like the panty-checking “no trans in school sports” initiative is going to pass — it’s awful, but it will largely hurt cisgender girls who will need genital inspections or expensive medical tests to play school sports. Hopefully the harm will be broad enough that enough people will start to take a few lessons that they shouldn’t vote for bullshit*, or that it will get knocked down by our courts. Maybe later ballot drops will change the result, but I’m not very hopeful.
The more insidious “restoring the parent’s bill of rights” initiative is losing. This is a much, much more targeted initiative, which would out trans and queer kids to their parents if they are out at school and a teacher learns of it. I am very relieved this initiative is failing and am surprised it is doing worse than the genital inspection initiative.
Our third big initiative, to repeal the income tax on income over $1M is failing. Hooray, but the income tax seems to violate the plain text of the Washington constitution and I expect the courts to overturn it.
So, mixed bag on local Washington issues. Puts a modest pallor on otherwise good news last night — it’s not that the gross anti-trans message of the Republicans was rejected, they just lost for other reasons, and the anti-trans efforts will continue to be a major tool for them. And a lot of our new Red State Blue Congresscritters indulged in a bit of anti-trans hate themselves to get elected.
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*: I know it’s a very bad initiative, but the vast majority of kids who would have to go through the inspections are going to be straight, cisgender girls, and I can’t shake the feeling that if idiot parents want to subject their cishet kids to gross exams… I just want them to get the consequences they voted for and be repulsed. I know, as a rule of thumb people rarely learn, but without a feedback loop they will never learn.-
There are about 10 MtF athletes in NCAA sports. If they don’t find any in Washington high schools, will they sunset this law? To me this concern about transgender athletes is a non issue; for one thing the number is so small. Why get excited about nothing? Washington state is on the Pacific. Have any of their politicians come out to oppose shark attacks?
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I wonder whether the election results reflect anything more than high prices and loss of purchasing power.
I can see El Taco further exacerbating the situation, since he will now feel any actual improvement on overall economic conditions is a favor to the Democrats.
If things deteriorate further, the Republiqan party will claim it’s because the Democrats took Congress.
Me, I’d recommend 1) junk the filibuster, 2) pass all manner of popular legislation, especially popular in red states, and let El Taco veto it.
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Now here’s a thing:
J.D. Vance:
“The reason we lost is the war,”
“Everyone knows why we lost…. “And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”Give Vance some credit for weaselling at high velocity, and getting it in before Rubio, lol.
I wonder if Hegseth is being lined up to be Scapegoat of War? -
In Mike Duncan’s chapter on the July 1830 revolution in France, he makes the point that the king, Charles X, eventually did make the right decision to the peoples’ demands, but a day or two too late.
When historians tell the history of our times, they may well make the point the US electorate made the right decision, but two years too late.
BTW, if we take the midterm results as a grade the people give to the party in power, then Biden has El Taco beat hollow.
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When historians tell the history of our times, they may well make the point the US electorate made the right decision, but two years too late.
Indeed. MAGA has harmed this country more than anything since the Civil War. Including Pearl Harbor and 911. They’re a virus that has sunk into the DoJ and the Pentagon. They’ve diminished American power and prestige in the world to a degree without equal in US history. They’ve lowered every standard, violated every norm and damaged every institution.
Democrats have to be as above reproach as Caesar’s Wife. EWe need to be the party of ethics, morals, standards of behavior and a determined push-back against the tech overlords and their money. We must not fuck this up, because the country still does not love us or respect us as a party.
HR 1 must be an anti-corruption bill.
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