When the commercials end, we all win.

heh

I've always wondered how much bank tv stations earn during an election month.

Heitkamp is far more likely to lose than McCaskill.

There is one running in NJ right now talking about how Bob Menendez traveled abroad to sleep with underage prostitutes.

Hugin doubles down on explosive and unproven allegations of Menendez and prostitution with new ad | NJ.com

True

Feel for those poor states that have runoffs for not reaching 50%. They get another month.

lol

The 2020 primary starts Wednesday. Pity the poor folk in Iowa and New Hampshire.

There is a guy I know that is a huge conspiracy theory guy. He believes there is an island off the coast of California in international waters. It is called pedophile island. And the ultra rich fly to this island and there are teen age boys and girls.

Bill Clinton is a name he mentions as a participant. He says Clinton tells his secret sevice to stand down and flies out for a weekend.

I think McCaskill loses. Shoot, the state voted Grientens into the governors office.

It is amazing to me there are people like that out there.

Yeah, everyone knows the Clintons use random pizza parlors for their child sex trafficking.

Yeah wouldn't surprise me to see her lose too. I just know Republicans have been focused on McCaskill's seat since Todd Akin gave her a gift.

These things always have a hint of truth or a "ripped from the headlines" aspect to them. I suspect this fantasy tale that someone started was based on an unfortunately true story that somehow managed to elude wide publicity.

The entire story is awful, but pretty interesting considering that the pedophile piece of this came to light during the investigation into several murders that occurred near where I was born (I would have been around 6 years old when this occurred).

Much Sickness: North Fox Island, Shelden, Grossman, Starchild, Richards, The Franklin Scandal. | catherinebroad

PM that billboard made me want to vomit-glad I don't live anywhere where I have to see it every day,

Isn't the story about Jeffrey Epstein?

Missouri voters: Yes on 2, No on 3 and C

Don't know if this means good news for Rep/Dem but it is good that more people are voting.

A staggering 36 million people have voted early, setting the stage for big midterm turnout - POLITICO

Trump, Hannity and Limbaugh in Missouri tonight. Gives you an idea how important this race is.

And Judge Jeanine too. Really hope the Dems win MO now.

So that big Foxconn deal we had to hear about for months turned out to be a scam.

Did Scott Walker and Donald Trump Deal Away the Wisconsin Governor’s Race to Foxconn? | The New Yorker

The Senate isn't proportional to population. So the Republicans can hold a big advantage with significantly less votes than Democrats. A state like Wyoming gets the same number of Senators as New York despite being 16 times bigger in population.

When it comes to the House, which should be evenly distributed based on populatoin, the maps favor Republicans. They were in control during the 2010 redistricting and heavily gerrymandered. That means that even if Democrat candidates receive 5% more of the vote tomorrow, the Republicans can keep the House.

Basically we have one of the most moronic systems ever conceived to elect our leaders. A system where the ruling party is elected by a minority of the voters because some founding fathers from the South wanted to cling on to slavery.

Thankfully it doesn't apply to me anymore, but you know what's worse? Living in the major media market (Boston) that broadcasts to (the majority of) NH, while not actually having a vote in a contested election!
I assume a 33% increase in early voting says more about access, awareness, and technology than motivation, but I'll be interested to see the final turnout numbers.


I'm still trying to learn the political landscape down here, but NC stuff will be interesting. The gerrymandering has made super weird districts, but I think Mark Harris still "represents the district" more, while Dan McCready is a better candidate for the US House. The local NC Senate race is even more of a shitshow, with the Charlotte Observer saying There are also a couple ballot initiatives the Republicans are pushing hard to hold on to their 2010 gains a little longer... I think the Voter ID law will pass easily, but the attempt to strip the governor of the power to appoint judges until the next election, and the attempt to pack the election board with friendlier people are both toss ups.

You've never studied parliamentary government, huh?

Trump says it should be illegal to vote for anyone other than his supporters.

Where'd you find this quote?

Isn't it in North Carolina where they are trying to strip the power of the governor because a democrat was elected?

It's probably one of mine.

Easy mistake to make.

Uh, I believe the Virginia plan was based upon population because Virginia had one of the larger populations back then. The South was growing faster than the North back then.

The New Jersey plan was one the one that was non-proportional. The Connecticut plan essentially combined the proportional and equal representation ideas into a bicameral legislature.

And now they want to bring in Chinese workers.

Wisconsin is open for business! I sure hope our long Scott Walker nightmare will finally be over tonight.

Anybody else have a candidate for weirdest ballot initiative?

Amendment 9: Florida’s referendum on vaping and offshore drilling - Vox


So we could either ban offshore drilling and vape devices or allow both.

I live in such a weird state.

Triumph made a trip to Texas to speak with Beto and Cruz. It didn't end well for Cruz.

O/U on when Trump will declare voter fraud for losing either the House and/or Senate should it happen?

6 hours? 12 hours?

U 1 hour-he's already been tweeting about it yesterday getting his base ready

I saw it on twitter, but maybe I got taken by a fake account? I can't find it anywhere now.

I wish they would come up with some solution.
One of our manufacturers is HQ'd in Wisconsin. Pays well by all accounts. Needs to hire over 100 production workers and has for over 6months. Literally no applicants.

I mean somewhere in the countyr there has to be an untrained work for willing to work for $18-30/hour right? Lets move them to Wisconsin.

This is what I don’t get...

Democrats complain companies are not paying workers higher wages, but want to open up the border, which brings in more workers for unskilled jobs driving down wages.

Republicans want to close the border. Which would drive up wages (by reducing the amount of unskilled labor), but historically wants cheap labor for business interests.

Either way, my company cut jobs because we could not find qualified workers for jobs earning $75k plus commission. We wound up expanding the existing sales territories.

There is no movement by elected Dems for open borders.

Yes. The legislature (GOP super-majority) has already eliminated several of the Governor's powers. There are other ballot measures on today's ballot to strip more. And with very misleading text.

One measure:
"Constitutional amendment to establish an eight-member Bipartisan Board of Ethics and Elections Enforcement in the Constitution to administer ethics and elections law."

Who wouldn't vote for that, right? Well, there is ALREADY a NINE member bipartisan board with at least one unaffiliated member. The change is to who gets to appoint the board (was governor; would change to legislature). And ensures that the new board would always be a 4-4 partisan deadlock.

What part of the state?

Eagle, Whitewater, Waukesha, Berlin and Osh Kosh

Long lines in most SC polling places today-nice to see. How do things look in your state?

I thought I remembered differently with this committee and the GOP proposal was that the ninth member would be appointed from a different party each year - Democrats in odd years and Republicans in even years. (It shouldn't take but a moment to figure out why the Democrats weren't on board with this idea.)

I would love to see an expert explain why voting machines are so fallible.

A large part of the problem is the people running the machines. Largely volunteer, largely elderly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.da13c07d2960

The most proactive President ever :rolleyes:

Thomkal - where do I send your winnings?

I'm sure I can find some Voter Fraud watchdog somewhere :)

I'm still waiting on that sweet, sweet Soros money.

Preach. Georgia govenor's race has a high chance of hitting run-off, and I have a high chance of running full speed into a brick wall repeatedly.

I engaged in voter fraud today. My first grade teacher that I mentioned earlier checked my ID and had me sign the voter roll. The second lady (at least 80 years old) did NOT check my ID and even said that she trusts the judgement of the my first grade teacher that I am who I say I am.

So you didn't quit teaching to cook meth, but you did quit farming to grow legal weed. You haven't murdered a dozen people, but you did vote without showing proper ID.

Your life is just a never-ending episode of "Breaking Just A Teensy Bit Bad", isn't it, lungs?

Brian Kemp had trouble voting using the voting system he oversees - NBC News


Irony is irony.

The proportional wasn't really proportional though. It hinged on counting slaves (who couldn't vote) as 3/5ths a person.


The issues today with the house deal with gerrymandering which should be illegal. The Senate was always a remarkably stupid idea (Hamilton wrote about this in great detail) that was only put in place to protect slavery.

For all the credit our founding fathers get, they built a system where a minority of the population controls the entire federal government.

The Foxconn thing isn't an issue of "can't find enough people". That's just an excuse. It's really about bringing in Chinese engineers because they're cheaper and you don't have to worry about them leaving because their immigration status is in the company's hands.

This happens in tech all the time. There are plenty of programmers available if you're willing to pay market value for them. But companies would rather pay 30% less for someone on an H1-B visa who they know won't jump ship when a better job offer comes around.

"Shortage of employees" just means the company isn't willing to pay enough to acquire employees.

Early signs (turnout in rural areas, % of voters in FL exit polls approving of Trump) I think are decent signs for Republicans outperforming the polls once again.

DOLA - early numbers pretty disastrous for Donnelly in Indiana, if that holds then the Senate is off the board already

Saw a different side of voter fraud today, right there in person. (details filled in by the stranger in line behind me, who'd known the victim for decades)

Elderly couple, voting in the same precinct for 3+ decades. Today? Husband's registration is fine, wife is told that she moved 75 or so miles away and registered there a few months ago.

After some phone calls & what not, the likely outcome it appeared to be heading toward wasn't so much voter fraud but rather identity fraud.

And that's some dirty @#%#@ shit to pull on an 80ish year old woman who was blindsided by the whole thing.

Yea. Not surprising, though. 538 had a Senate flip at 20% going into today.

Instead of Heisenberg, I'm going to call myself Niels Bohr.

Yup - on the flip side some of the House early numbers are predicting an even bigger move towards D than even 538 had, but those early Indiana senate and Florida numbers are less promising for them.

Based on the math that was presented as left for Florida it looks good if you’re pro-Trump.

Are you getting the feeling that blue wave might actually be a blue ripple?

It has the feeling that it'll be slightly more positive than 2016, but not in any kind of massive, overwhelming way. Florida is a big disappointment. It looks like it'll stay red in both big races. In fact, most of these races look much worse, at this point in time, than I would have hoped. But I'm sure that tomorrow, it'll both be an amazing wave and complete disappointment, depending on where you look.

House still looks ok for Dems, Senate is not. Beto beating Cruz would make it a good night.

538 is still giving Dems a 5 out of 9 chance of taking the house.

Fox has already called the House for the Dems.

Three retirement-age peeps were let to vote without showing ID at my precinct.

When my turn in line came, they demanded to see ID.

Twitter tells me its only to mobilize republicans in California

For a time it was looking sketchy but they have it back up to 7 out of 10 now.

They have nearly a 10% vote advantage out of all voters. That's pretty huge but won't look that way because of gerrymandering.

DOLA: As a Canadian, I don't really get your Senate representation bullshit. Has Senate reform ever really been on the table?

It would take a constitutional amendment to get real reform and the small states would never go for it.

I was thinking the same thing, but more to suppress Dem votes.

I'd suggest this, starting at about 4:10:

Antonin Scalia - On American Exceptionalism - YouTube


What Scalia says here about a true bicameral legislature and prevent centralization of power etc. is on point. Those things are fading in modern America but I am thankful the vestiges of them still remain. Having everything done by popular vote, as is now in vogue, is a profoundly misguided idea and one that was certainly not intended originally in our government.

now it's 9 out of 10

NBC has called Texas for Cruz :( At least Kobach lost the KA Gov race.

At least the Dems will get control of the House.

It'd be impossible today. It was something they had to do to get the southern states to agree to form the country. They were really concerned about slavery being abolished from a simple majority and this was the best way to protect it.

There is nothing exceptional about modern 21st century America.

Yeah real bad idea to give the people what they want. Better to have a minority of the population making the rules.

Huh? States like Virginia wanted representation based on population. They had the largest free population and had the best prospects for growth.

16.3% of the population controls 50 of the 100 seats in the Senate. That's exceptional alright.

Cautiously optimistic that Scott Walker is going down. He won Kenosha County by two percent in 2014 and with 98% in this year, is down seven.

We look to be seeing D's do worse in the south than hoped, but substantially better in the north and upper midwest, even though neither really showed the massive swing that was hoped for.

Virginia is one state that was going to win either way. Having large representation increased their chances of keeping slavery legal while forming a regional partnership with the South did so as well. It's why they agreed to the compromise.

Madison wrote about the thing:

I can buy the idea of a counter-majoritarian Senate, but we also have a counter-majoritarian House and President. We don't have to worry about tyranny of the majority because we've created a system where the minority has all the power.

This. The 2010 GOP wave was GOP +7 and they took 63 seats. The Dems will end with +9 or so and take half as many seats.

Curious to see how Amendment 4 plays out in Florida in 2020

Senate is going to end up 55-45 or something like that. To this uneducated viewer, it does seem like the Kavanaugh vote was killer.

I really wanted the Dem to win governorship in Ohio, doesn't look like that's happening either.

Encouraged by O'Rourke showing in Texas and some of the House results, but that's about it.

I get the concept of a senate but the terms are too long.

Steve King down early in Iowa-that would be a nice win for Dems if it holds. Evers still leading in WI over Walker with about 70% of the vote in.

I expect the GOP is already planning how to ignore it.

Happy with the House. Senate is as expected.

Pelosi looks very plasticky.

Honestly I think Democrats need fresh leadership rather than stick to Pelosi.

They were giving the right to vote back to felons. They would just decide to only give them to people in the Republican districts.

Repeating this lie doesn't make it more true. As I pointed out the last time it was brought up, in 2016 the popular vote for the House of Representatives was 63.2 million Republican, 61.8 million Democrat. The party that got the most votes in the House has been in power. Now it shifts to the Democrats, on the same basis.

It's not about majority vs. minority rule here. It's about having different ways of electing different branches so that a temporary swing in the perspective of the electorate doesn't cause policy to swing as wildly. If it's a permanent one, then they can still enact whatever because they still control who represents them. Ergo, having the Senate originally elected by the state legislatures, only having about a third of them up each time, etc. Nothing about that says 'let's ignore the majority'. It's about avoiding mob-rule type of swings as distinguished from policy desires that persist over time and are therefore indicative of more than the emotions of a particularly transitory time in history.

Back when the Constitution was being drafted, Virginia proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation. Many other states were concerned because they were either hemmed in by other states, Delaware, Rhode Island, etc., or because they were concerned because other states were growing faster than they were (New York). New Jersey had a proposal for a single house legislature based upon each state getting equal representation. This appealed to those states that were opposed to proportional representation.

To break the deadlock, Connecticut proposed a compromise of the two plans, which is what you see today. One difference then, Senators were appointed by the state legislatures, which gave state races a bit more meaning. However, over time, many Senate seats were left vacant because states could not agree on who to send. More and more states began opening up the Senate seats to popular vote, which is what it has turned into today.

Republicans won the House vote by 1.1% yet held 11% more seats than the Democrats. That's not proportional representation.

And no, it won't shift to the Democrats on the same basis. Democrats will likely win the popular vote by 7% yet hold a 4% lead in seats. In comparison, when Republicans won by a 7% margin in 2010, they held 11% more seats.

The House does not have proportional representation as long as gerrymandering is legal.


I understand there are a lot of mental gymnastics to defend having disproportionate representation in the House, Senate, and Executive branch. But wild "mob-rule type of swings" can take place just as easily with a minority ruling party as it can with a majority ruling party.

But you don't have to take my word for why the Senate is how it is. Take the people who were actually there (such as Madison). Equal suffrage for states was predominately pushed by slave states who were concerned about a slavery (which was unpopular) being abolished. It's why there was so much fighting over new states being added because it could potentially sway the balance of power. It was the whole point of the Missouri Compromise.

The Senate is an undemocratic institution that was built as a firewall to protect slavery. You can defend it and feel it's a great way to run a country. But those are facts.