villakram Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 10 hours ago, blandy said: Yes. I wonder if the gallery has changed, though? It seems like the GOP has moved on from Trump. It seems like all these culture war things have fallen out of favour with a lot of people, judging by the mid-term results - Trump backed candidates mostly got trounced, fewer people believed the”steal” lie, wade-Rowe overturned was a handicap. Will people really be impressed by investigations into Hunter? This is less clear than people would like it to be imho. His high profile senate picks got well beaten but otherwise his "team" did good all the way down the repub political ladder. Post election surveys suggest the supreme court abortion decision was an important contribution to voter turnout from the incumbent party. We should also remember that elections like this are the normal course of things with waves being much harder to generate historically. The speaker vote is much tougher to read, e.g., Bannon et al. were very much behind the "rebels", and he is very much part of team MAGA/Trump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted January 9, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted January 9, 2023 51 minutes ago, villakram said: This is less clear than people would like it to be imho. His high profile senate picks got well beaten but otherwise his "team" did good all the way down the repub political ladder. Post election surveys suggest the supreme court abortion decision was an important contribution to voter turnout from the incumbent party. We should also remember that elections like this are the normal course of things with waves being much harder to generate historically. The speaker vote is much tougher to read, e.g., Bannon et al. were very much behind the "rebels", and he is very much part of team MAGA/Trump. Isn’t it true though that Bannon et. al and their network will pin their support to whoever they feel is politically expedient to them? Trump has been a great for vehicle for the last 6/7 years but I can see them getting behind DeSantis/Gaetz or Hawley. Whoever serves their global ethno chaotic madness. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 1 hour ago, villakram said: This is less clear than people would like it to be imho. His high profile senate picks got well beaten but otherwise his "team" did good all the way down the repub political ladder. Post election surveys suggest the supreme court abortion decision was an important contribution to voter turnout from the incumbent party. We should also remember that elections like this are the normal course of things with waves being much harder to generate historically. The speaker vote is much tougher to read, e.g., Bannon et al. were very much behind the "rebels", and he is very much part of team MAGA/Trump. Are you sure? Loads of his House picks and Governor races lost…the MAGA candidates at most levels got beaten in many races it was thought pre election that they win. I remember post election, candidate after candidate that Trump had backed lost. I have no ‘to hand’ facts but I can’t believe his team did “good”. Most moderate Republicans that meant to win at various levels did, the blow out seemed to be the extreme Republicans were the ones who the voters didn’t take to and they were mostly MAGA Trump backed Republicans. If you have data that contradicts this I’d love to see but it didn’t seem that way…The only MAGA winners were in ballots they had no chance to lose mostly, if it was close they generally lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 1 hour ago, nick76 said: Are you sure? Loads of his House picks and Governor races lost…the MAGA candidates at most levels got beaten in many races it was thought pre election that they win. I remember post election, candidate after candidate that Trump had backed lost. I have no ‘to hand’ facts but I can’t believe his team did “good”. Most moderate Republicans that meant to win at various levels did, the blow out seemed to be the extreme Republicans were the ones who the voters didn’t take to and they were mostly MAGA Trump backed Republicans. If you have data that contradicts this I’d love to see but it didn’t seem that way…The only MAGA winners were in ballots they had no chance to lose mostly, if it was close they generally lost. This is a reasonable breakdown. "Former President Donald J. Trump planned to use the 2022 midterm elections as a show of political strength. Georgia voters had other thoughts." https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/us/politics/trump-candidate-endorsement-georgia.html All politics is fundamentally local, e.g., they had no shot in the MI governor race as Whitmer has done a solid job. On the other hand Georgia was a slam dunk as the other races in that state showed and the candidate was on the surface great but was torpedoed by some truly sordid personal life stories. Oz in PA was a weird political transplant, which is always risky, but still lost to a clearly medically compromised opponent. I can't comment on AZ or Nevada, but they were tight races and were mostly lost on those grounds vs obvious candidate issues. Politics is tough. Remember how hard Obama had to work in his post 2008 elections, even with how popular he was. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted January 9, 2023 Share Posted January 9, 2023 1 hour ago, villakram said: This is a reasonable breakdown. "Former President Donald J. Trump planned to use the 2022 midterm elections as a show of political strength. Georgia voters had other thoughts." https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/us/politics/trump-candidate-endorsement-georgia.html All politics is fundamentally local, e.g., they had no shot in the MI governor race as Whitmer has done a solid job. On the other hand Georgia was a slam dunk as the other races in that state showed and the candidate was on the surface great but was torpedoed by some truly sordid personal life stories. Oz in PA was a weird political transplant, which is always risky, but still lost to a clearly medically compromised opponent. I can't comment on AZ or Nevada, but they were tight races and were mostly lost on those grounds vs obvious candidate issues. Politics is tough. Remember how hard Obama had to work in his post 2008 elections, even with how popular he was. Thanks, so reading that his high success rate was mainly down to incumbents in office in strongholds. In the battlegrounds his support added very little benefit, in fact he struggled. It looks like his voice helped in the GOP primaries but in the election may have been different. I think it’s easy for him to support obvious winners to boost his percentages but in the places it needed support it looks like his influence was not there in the elections this time. It’s interesting because we knew at some point his influence would decline but it’s furthered that he doesn’t seem that interested, it’s all couch potato yapping than getting involved both in the midterms and even now for himself for 2024. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted January 10, 2023 Moderator Share Posted January 10, 2023 9 hours ago, villakram said: We should also remember that elections like this are the normal course of things They’re not though are they? The reps results were the worst for the not in power party in a mid term for ages, if not ever. The Normal course is for the oppo to make large gains, is it not? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted January 10, 2023 Share Posted January 10, 2023 I remember back in 2011 (correct me on this?) when the Republicans had issues with the 'tea party' faction who went into the same kind of hijacking without a clear goal like we're seeing from the MAGA-crew now. The whole thing ended in a disaster for the GOP, and then House Speaker Boehner had to drag the same kind of idiots into a room to tell them "Get behind me or I won't be able to do my job." They didn't get behind him and Obama went from strength to strength due to the infighting in the GOP. Long may it continue, the GOP doesn't learn from or own up to any of its mistakes (Trump, abortion, gun-madness, MAGA, qanon etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted January 10, 2023 Share Posted January 10, 2023 3 hours ago, magnkarl said: I remember back in 2011 (correct me on this?) when the Republicans had issues with the 'tea party' faction who went into the same kind of hijacking without a clear goal like we're seeing from the MAGA-crew now. The whole thing ended in a disaster for the GOP, and then House Speaker Boehner had to drag the same kind of idiots into a room to tell them "Get behind me or I won't be able to do my job." They didn't get behind him and Obama went from strength to strength due to the infighting in the GOP. Long may it continue, the GOP doesn't learn from or own up to any of its mistakes (Trump, abortion, gun-madness, MAGA, qanon etc). ... and then Boehner was taken out onto a public podium and stabbed in the face by them (metaphorically!)... Cantor and the Wisconsin chap followed. Mr. McCarthy was the 3rd wheel in that particular trio of hotshots. Hence, the current hostility. Fortunately McCarthy has very little in the sense of principles and will happily blow in whatever way the wind/money takes him. It would be funny if he ended up being "successful" in comparison to those other two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted January 10, 2023 Share Posted January 10, 2023 16 hours ago, blandy said: They’re not though are they? The reps results were the worst for the not in power party in a mid term for ages, if not ever. The Normal course is for the oppo to make large gains, is it not? Rule of thumb is +30, under that is to be sad, over is to be happy, with +40 being the unofficial happy number. ~80 is when all the ridiculous predictions come out about future dominance. Nice 2nd figure on the following page. "The results of the 2022 midterms held true to form, with the opposing party gaining House majority." https://about.bgov.com/brief/balance-of-power-republican-majority-in-the-house/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted January 10, 2023 Share Posted January 10, 2023 2 hours ago, villakram said: Rule of thumb is +30, under that is to be sad, over is to be happy, with +40 being the unofficial happy number. ~80 is when all the ridiculous predictions come out about future dominance. Nice 2nd figure on the following page. "The results of the 2022 midterms held true to form, with the opposing party gaining House majority." https://about.bgov.com/brief/balance-of-power-republican-majority-in-the-house/ I admire your attempts to put a positive spin on things With the state of the economy and the popularity of the president during the midterms a competent opposition party had the opportunity to make huge gains. However the Trumpists dropped the ball for the Republicans and now they are suffering the consequences with their squabbling amongst each other. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted January 10, 2023 Moderator Share Posted January 10, 2023 6 hours ago, villakram said: Rule of thumb is +30, under that is to be sad, Reps gained 9 seats, net. Dems held the senate with 1 net gain and gained various governors etc. Given as your article says the whole thing was further rigged in the Reps favour by redistricting “Republicans controlled line-drawing in far more districts than Democrats and, as a result, gained more seats in the House from redistricting alone.” It was a very bad set of results given the state of play (Presidential ratings etc) for the Reps. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 (edited) This George Santos story just keeps getting better. He's lied about pretty much all his previous life to get into congress, now his own local party wants him to resign but McCarthy won't eject him as he needs his vote in congress. The GOP is pure comedy.. List of lies so far uncovered: He played volleyball and won the championship at a uni he didn't attend He's from a family of holocaust surviving Jews, when he's a catholic and no one can find any Jewish traces in his history He's worked at goldman sachs and citti bank, when both these companies deny this He went from 40k a year to 1 million a year and 'lent' his own campaign 700k - but can't explain where the money is from He's lied about losing employees in the Pulse nightclub mass shooting when he never had a company I wonder how long this lasts until there's a full on civil war in the GOP. Edited January 12, 2023 by magnkarl 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 12, 2023 Moderator Share Posted January 12, 2023 9 minutes ago, magnkarl said: He went from 40k a year to 1 million a year and 'lent' his own campaign 700k - but can't explain where the money is from Gimme an R, gimme a U,....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/11/joe-biden-second-batch-classified-documents "Joe Biden was facing fresh scrutiny over his handling of government secrets on Wednesday after a second batch of classified materials was reportedly found at a location linked to him." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 12, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2023 Santos strikes me as someone who is going to be found dead in a hotel room at some point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted January 12, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2023 13 minutes ago, Chindie said: Santos strikes me as someone who is going to be found dead in a hotel room at some point. Isn't their current trend to throw them out of their hotel room window? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 12, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2023 34 minutes ago, sidcow said: Isn't their current trend to throw them out of their hotel room window? In the hotel room for the ambiguity. Is he a puppet that will be exterminated when his usefulness ends, a mentally ill fantasist who blows his brains out when it all comes crumbling down, or will he go out with a bang on a massive drugs overdose as a hedonist with access to lots of money suddenly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 4 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/11/joe-biden-second-batch-classified-documents "Joe Biden was facing fresh scrutiny over his handling of government secrets on Wednesday after a second batch of classified materials was reportedly found at a location linked to him." It's quite entertaining watching the media turn themselves in knots trying to report on this after their end of the world Trump related reporting. Now before anyone starts... most of the media over here is of the narrative/opinion vs news variety, hence the mirth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted January 12, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2023 52 minutes ago, villakram said: It's quite entertaining watching the media turn themselves in knots trying to report on this after their end of the world Trump related reporting. Now before anyone starts... most of the media over here is of the narrative/opinion vs news variety, hence the mirth. It's not anything close to apples with apples though is it? One nabbed a whole heap of stuff then obstructed any attempt to recover it, the other found a few papers in his loft and shopped himself. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 3 hours ago, villakram said: It's quite entertaining watching the media turn themselves in knots trying to report on this after their end of the world Trump related reporting. Now before anyone starts... most of the media over here is of the narrative/opinion vs news variety, hence the mirth. Garland has assigned a special counsel so at least the DOJ is doing the right thing to start off with. Could never imagine Trump allowing his DOJ to do that. The two situations are different, both bad but Trump’s is far worse to date because of his attitude towards it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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