Picaro
Picaro's JournalWhy was there a belief that this district was winnable?
The 6th District in Georgia has been in Republican hands for over 40 years. According to reports I've read it is a wealthy district that responds to a message of tax cuts, reduced regulation etc. This is the standard Republican message.
Ossoff came within 3.8% of winning in a district that elected Tom Price by a margin of over 23%.
Why are so many now rending their garments and gnashing their teeth because Ossoff lost by a small margin?
I'm with Howard Dean. I think this bodes well for the future.
Please, everyone chill out.
Multiple sources are representing this is an unusual crushing defeat
Multiple sources are representing this as an unusually crushing defeat. One of NPR's guests said it this morning. I also read it in the Dallas morning news. As usual, the narrative is being skewed.
I saw the numbers last night and I kept wondering how this could be a crushing defeat in a district that's been in republican hands for 40 years.
The margin of victory yesterday, by the way, was 3.8%. In that district this was a remarkably close race. It would've been really nice if Jon Ossoff could have won but from the very beginning it was very unlikely that he was going to win.
I contributed quite a bit of money to his race and like everybody else on Democratic Underground I'm extremely disappointed.
But to put things in perspective, when Tom Price ran in 2016 he beat Rodney Stooksbury by 23.2%.
I'm sure if I went back and looked at the other results they would be just as lopsided.
We need to not accept the narrative that is being established. We're gaining on them and in their back yards.
There are plenty of states in the same boat
I really haven't gone out and done any research on which states have electronic voting machines and no paper trail but I can tell you one thing… Georgia is not the only state. I vote on electronic voting machines with no paper trail every time I vote in North Texas. I live in Plano Texas. That has been the situation since at least the year 2000 and probably before then. I worked early voting in Collin county in 2001. We had (and still have) electronic voting machines and there was no paper trail that any voter could get to.
I'm sure you could have printed out things from the backend. But there was no vote receipt that anybody ever received.
Like so many things in United States you can't find a close analog in any other country.
The idea of having private, for-profit companies who keep their source code secret and won't even share it with the governing bodies that govern voting is by every standard… Simply insane.
We've had more than a couple elections where the result didn't seem to match the polling.
We know for a fact at this point that the Bush and Gore election was fraudulent. You had an unholy combination of voting machines that yielded questionable results, a ferociously partisan Secretary of State, a deliberately confusing ballot, hanging chads that confused antiquated optical scanners...
And then you had the Supreme Court essentially rule by made up legal reasoning that Bush is going to be the president.
Later on we saw two elections in Wisconsin (election and recall election) of Scott Walker that look pretty damn fishy. In each case, something happened in Waukesha County and in each case Scott Walker miraculously won.
In Ohio. due to the starkly partisan machinations of Ken Blackwell, Bush won over Kerry and we got 4 more years of Dubya. In Ohio, two tried and true methods were used--mass elimination of registered voters from the rolls AND simply not having enough polling locations or working voting machines in minority heavy urban areas.
The Republicans like it this way and will resist all attempts to change it.
Occasionally, the sheer insanity of having private companies that declare their machines and the software proprietary intellectual property overwhelms me.
The raw, unvarnished truth is that our elections and their outcomes have been suspect for decades. If we have another squeaker with Handel narrowly edging out Ossof there won't be any good way to validate the results.
It has lately become conventional wisdom that exit polls are no longer reliable so I'm not sure anyone bothers now. I've never seen any compelling reasining for why exit polls are no longer valid but our media (and most of the citizenry) have accepted this so the point is no longer argued.
Ya gotta point
But I agree with one of the other posters. I think pence would be way better at pushing the current extreme Republican agenda.
Still an idiot
I've found myself in agreement with some of the right wing pundits recently. But not guy.
But this fool remains a fool.
He consistently sounds like a fascist.
We've had one incident of violence from someone on the left out of how many? He wants to secede? Which states would be seceding?
Or is it the conservatives seceding from those less conservative?
Another WTF moment from the right wing.
Irrelevant
Newt is and has been irrelevant for many years.
He sets the gold standard for hypocrisy. The only one that is close is Chris Christie.
I'm sure some of the right wing are prepared to paint the entire left wing as insane violent extremists, but this was one man that clearly had some mental and emotional problems.
This is no more a liberal/progressive problem than Timothy Mcveigh/Dylan Roof (?) and a host of others are the fault of mainstream Republicans.
Excellent post
My theory is that without Russia providing ongoing operating capital Trump was essentially broke. The run for the Presidency was a ploy to keep the machine in motion so the bills wouldn't come due.
The Russians offered to keep the money flowing given the campaign. Even though his margins from all these premium properties were razor thin if there were any profits at all.
Take Doral for example. Trump buys it, sink millions into a "renovation" of the golf and the club. The Doral tournament which is what made the club standout in an area choked high end golf club stayed for one year after the renovation/redesign and then cut Donald loose. There were two reasons: the PGA doesn't share the stage and ; the tournament pros hated the new Doral. The PGA moved the tournament to Mexico City. I would love to see the books for that single property. Would bet it isn't pretty.
Trump's businesses are, in the aggregate, very complicated--by design.
They are also very real estate and brand heavy. Of the two, the more liquid is the brand. Real estate can seem very impressive, but the value depends on many variables that cannot be controlled. The one thing that is controllable is purchase price. We know Mar a Lago was a great buy, but what about the others? And when you look at the cost of all the improvements at any of his properties (the ones that Trump International actually own) when you add up the costs of improvements and the ongoing operating costs how in the black is Trump?
Since we cannot see his books or tax returns we can only speculate. My theory is that he is close to insolvent and may have made a devil's deal with the Russians.
That would explain defending Putin, ongoing meetings with Russians by his staff, declaring NATO to be obsolete during the campaign, his hiring of Manafort and then Flynn... The list is alarmingly long.
Most of it makes sense only if you view it from the context of someone that is in massive debt to the Russian oligarchs. Then it starts to snap into place.
It is terrifying too. If my theory is correct then Trump will do almost anything to avoid having the full bill come due. That includes selling America to Russia.
Trump has delivered big time for Putin
Trump has done everything that Putin has wanted. He has tacitly approved of the annexation of Crimea and doesn't seem all that opposed to Russian intervention in Ukraine. He has, even when prompted, been unwilling to criticize Putin in any way. In fact, he has repeatedly defended Putin.
He has sown division within the NATO alliance by making a speech that explicitly failed to express the United States reaffirmation of Article V of the NATO alliance.
He and his proxies have also floated the idea of terminating the current Russian sanctions even though Russia has not done anything that would merit the cancellation of those sanctions.
Please don't lose sight of the how Trump and his minions have supported Putin and Russia.
It has been explicit and ongoing.
Could Putin and Trump fall out of love? Please follow the money. That is the only thing Trump cares about.
On this I agree with Trump
This seems to be a continuing and developing phenomenon. I sometimes find myself in agreement with people that are firmly on the right wing.
George Will. Now Trump.
The House AHCA bill is not just mean, but incredibly mean. It is cruel. Most importantly, it is stupid.
The Senate is now writing a Senate bill in secret. The chances are that it will also be mean but incredibly cruel.
When even Trump begins to trash talking the House bill and expresses, however simply, that he hopes the Senate bill will not be so mean in what direction can the Senate turn?
If they make it too nice they know the Freedom Caucus will kill it.
But what if Trump is finally understanding that if any healthcare bill is to survive to make it to his desk that that bill has to have Democratic support? Wouldn't that be amazing?
The simple fact is that if Trump is to deliver on his campaign promise of a repealing the ACA and replacing it with something better he will have to work with Democrats. It won't happen any other way.
That means that whatever the Senate comes up with will have to eliminate many of the key provisions of the draconian House AHCA bill including bringing back preexisting conditions, lifetime insurance maximums, and getting rid of the the ACA Medicaid expansion.
The key question is can Trump let himself be this politically smart? Is he beginning to realize that the Republican party is essentially a dry hole?
We will see. I personally believe Trump is one of the dumbest people that has ever occupied elective office of any level much less the Presidency.
I still think this will not end well.
Surely the apocalypse is at hand...
First the Cubs win the World Series and now I often find myself in agreement with George Will. Surely this means the coming of the end of days.
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Name: Ernie FergusonGender: Do not display
Hometown: Plano, TX
Home country: USA
Current location: Plano, TX
Member since: Thu Apr 30, 2009, 11:22 AM
Number of posts: 1,520
