ThinkerX Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 4 hours ago, DMC said: Well, it's true there was a Texas Lyceum poll recently that had Abbott only up by two. I've never heard of them before that poll, and they're not rated by 538. Most polls have Abbott up 5-10. Greedy fearmongering then. Still, I have been getting a lot of spam fundraising emails for this or that conservative Texas politician, all of them screaming about how endangered their seat is and pointing out the evil liberal menace threatening the state. I see even more conservative fearmongering on Facebook. The interesting thing about those posts is the massive blowback in the comments - sometimes accounting for half the total (not an exaggeration). As recently as two or three years ago, that simply didn't happen - those the comments were pretty much conservative echo chambers with maybe one dissenting post in a hundred, if that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 11 hours ago, DMC said: Well, it's true there was a Texas Lyceum poll recently that had Abbott only up by two. I've never heard of them before that poll, and they're not rated by 538. Most polls have Abbott up 5-10. That’s still rather tight. Is Abbott beatable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martell Spy Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 Opinion | History Shows the Democrats’ Midterm Doom Isn’t Preordained The president’s party doesn’t always suffer a thumping. But Biden’s still in trouble. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/07/history-democrats-midterms-disaster-biden-trouble-00023175 Much less well remembered are the midterms where the president’s party escaped serious damage. There are, of course, the two elections where they actually gained seats — 1998, thanks to a booming economy and Republican impeachment overreach, and 2002, when the post-9/11 “rally round the flag” sentiment was still high. But many other midterms were effectively a wash. In 1962, just weeks after the successful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy’s Democratic Party only lost four House seats and gained four Senate seats. In 1970, with dissent over the Vietnam War, and with Vice President Spiro Agnew denouncing “radical liberals” and a biased news media, the GOP lost 12 House seats while the Democrats lost three Senate seats — one to Conservative Party New Yorker James Buckley. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter saw Democrats lose 15 House seats and three Senate seats. Meanwhile, 1990 provided the “Seinfeld midterms” where more or less nothing happened. George H.W. Bush’s Republicans lost only seven seats in the House and one in the Senate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted April 7, 2022 Author Share Posted April 7, 2022 3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: That’s still rather tight. Is Abbott beatable? I'd put Beto's chances firmly in the single digits, percentage-wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 Amazon Workers Who Won a Union Their Way Open Labor Leaders’ Eyes The success of an independent drive has organized labor asking whether it should take more of a back seat. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/business/economy/amazon-union-labor.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Business Quote After the stunning victory at Amazon by a little-known independent union that didn’t exist 18 months ago, organized labor has begun to ask itself an increasingly pressing question: Does the labor movement need to get more disorganized? Unlike traditional unions, the Amazon Labor Union relied almost entirely on current and former workers rather than professional organizers in its campaign at a Staten Island warehouse. For financing, it turned to GoFundMe appeals rather than union coffers built from the dues of existing members. It spread the word in a break room and at low-key barbecues outside the warehouse. In the end, the approach succeeded where far bigger, wealthier and more established unions have repeatedly fallen short. “It’s sending a wake-up call to the rest of the labor movement,” said Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union. “We have to be homegrown — we have to be driven by workers — to give ourselves the best chance.” .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 Ooops. Pelosi's positive too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 17 minutes ago, Zorral said: Ooops. Pelosi's positive too. Given that Dem leadership is essentially a bunch of gerontocrats you'd think they'd have been less lax on masking protocols. I get they think they have to pretend that they solved the pandemic, but seeing just how quickly they leaned toward the Trump covid approach has been embarrassing to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 Congratulations to soon to be Justice Jackson! Senate confirms Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson - https://www.npr.org/2022/04/07/1090973786/the-senate-is-expected-to-confirm-ketanji-brown-jackson-to-the-supreme-court-tod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 The arrest of two men trying to infiltrate the Secret Service -- https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/some-more-details-on-that-dc-caper Quote .... There have been a number of minor scandals over the last couple decades involving the Secret Service. This is clearly another. There seems to be a deep institutional rot in the organization. I don’t know quite how else to put it. This isn’t the kind of behavior or judgment you expect from an elite law enforcement agency. Or, maybe you do expect it, but it’s certainly not what you want from an agency entrusted with such critical tasks. Also, I’ve now read through the affidavit supporting the arrest of these two men. Wow. It’s much more elaborate than what I’d understood from the first press write ups. It’s hard for me to imagine this wasn’t the work of some foreign government or a private company working for one. If I’m understanding the account, it goes something like this: There’s an apartment building in Washington, DC many residents of which are members of various federal law enforcement agencies. Not only were these two men impersonating federal law enforcement officers, they had also managed to gain access to or almost be running security for the building. They appear to have heavily wired the building to surveil it. They were also renting or somehow controlling a substantial number of apartments in the building. This is the pool of apartments from which they gave free accommodations to multiple Secret Service officers. (I think all of those were from the uniformed division, not the agents.) WTF, right? So this is a pretty elaborate operation and despite my saying earlier that it didn’t seem that professional and had many loose ends they seem to have gotten a lot of people in various law enforcement agencies to believe they were legit. So it worked for a couple years until a Postal Inspector investigation stumbled upon it investigating an assault on a postal worker. So basically, it worked very well. .... https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/06/fbi-investigation-navy-yard/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61019127 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 Plus Capitol Fox Follow-up: Three fox kits from U.S. Capitol grounds euthanized Their mother was also euthanized and tested positive for rabies By Dana Hedgpeth https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/07/capitol-fox-kits-euthanized/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongRider Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Congratulations to soon to be Justice Jackson! YAY! This makes me so happy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted April 7, 2022 Author Share Posted April 7, 2022 Harris presided over Jackson's confirmation vote, which is cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 Now let's get Thomas booted! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 39 minutes ago, Zorral said: The arrest of two men trying to infiltrate the Secret Service -- https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/some-more-details-on-that-dc-caper https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/06/fbi-investigation-navy-yard/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61019127 Wow, I think I need a tv series about the secret badasses working for the Postal Inspection service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongRider Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 25 minutes ago, DMC said: Harris presided over Jackson's confirmation vote, which is cool. Chuck Shumer misspeaks and calls VP Harris, Madame President. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 55 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said: Given that Dem leadership is essentially a bunch of gerontocrats you'd think they'd have been less lax on masking protocols. I get they think they have to pretend that they solved the pandemic, but seeing just how quickly they leaned toward the Trump covid approach has been embarrassing to watch. America has largely decided it's done with the pandemic. I fear that if we get another bad wave more people will refuse to go back to masks and social distancing than before. Our reaction to COVID provides a good window into how we're going to deal with climate change long term and the results are decidedly not good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 2 minutes ago, LongRider said: Chuck Shumer misspeaks and calls VP Harris, Madame President. The veep is president of the Senate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongRider Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 Just now, SpaceChampion said: The veep is president of the Senate. Woops! Didn't know that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted April 7, 2022 Author Share Posted April 7, 2022 2 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said: The veep is president of the Senate. In addition, it is Senate decorum to always address the presiding officer - who almost always isn't the vice president - as Madame/Mister President. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThinkerX Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said: Wow, I think I need a tv series about the secret badasses working for the Postal Inspection service. Had a few brushes with Postal Inspectors back when I still delivered mail. The one time they booted a contractor on a route adjacent to mine for...well, a slew of things. I got a short interview as part of that, mostly concerning how I was paid. Another time involved massive mail theft on the route - every few months, the troopers would drop off a sack full of mail that had been stolen, opened, and tossed in the ditch. Somebody finally got irked enough to send formal certified letters to the boxes in question, telling them to move into cluster boxes - and much to my surprise, most of them did. Mostly, though, it was bureaucratic BS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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