As MSNBC's Churk Todd pointed out yesterday, in all the pundits' analysis of the results of the midterm elections, everyone has missed the big, magical story that happened:
The caravan has gone missing.
President Trump filled his raucous rallies with frightening tales of a caravan of "hordes of bad people marching toward our southern border," intent on invading our country to do us great harm. He bombarded his crowds with vivid descriptions of "blood-thirsty" MS13 gang members who are "killers." Terrorists from the Middle East. And just the sheer numbers of them "overwhelming your schools, depleting your resources, and damaging your communities."
Where is the caravan now? It seems to have vanished, says Chuch Todd, who goes on to quote some facts. Last Friday, there were 11 mentions of the caravan on "Fox and Friends." On Monday there were 10, and on Tuesday (election day) 9. Since then, they were mentioned once on Wednesday -- and not again since then. Not once. We're saved!
It's a miracle!!! How else can it be explained?
Ralph
PS: But, be wary, Chuck also warns. He says he has a feeling we may hear about them again as the 2020 election draws nigh.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Democrats take control of the House
It's hard for me to feel joy right now, having to accept the defeat of both Beto O'Rourk, in his race against Ted Cruz in Texas, and of Andrew Gillum in his race to be governor of Florida. Both of these men brought a freshness and a spirit of authenticity and compassion and competence to politics.
I'm also sad that, although Stacie Abrams' race for governor of Georgia is still too early to call, she is trailing pretty badly. Maybe she will still pull out a win as the metro Atlanta votes get counted. Abrams is smart, politically adept, knows her way around the Georgia legislature -- and she would be an inspiring first African-American woman ever to be governor of a U.S. state.
However, putting those aside, this was a very good night for Democrats. As of 11:30 Tuesday night, the Democrats have flipped enough seats to take control of the House of Representatives, with some to spare.
The real significance of this is that, come January, Democrats will control the agenda, the budget, and will become chairs of all the House committees. And that means that now they will provide oversight and investigative powers, including subpoena power, over the Trump administration. This is an important constitutionally established function of the House, something Republicans have refused to do with Trump as president.
More about all of this later. Now to bed.
Ralph
UPDATE: With 100% of precincts reporting, the Georgia governor's race now has Kemp with 50.8%, Abrams 48.3%, and Metz 0.9%.
UPDATE #2: Those results do not, however, include all of the absentee ballots nor the provisional ballots. So it is still mathematically possible for Abrams to win; but not very probable.
I'm also sad that, although Stacie Abrams' race for governor of Georgia is still too early to call, she is trailing pretty badly. Maybe she will still pull out a win as the metro Atlanta votes get counted. Abrams is smart, politically adept, knows her way around the Georgia legislature -- and she would be an inspiring first African-American woman ever to be governor of a U.S. state.
However, putting those aside, this was a very good night for Democrats. As of 11:30 Tuesday night, the Democrats have flipped enough seats to take control of the House of Representatives, with some to spare.
The real significance of this is that, come January, Democrats will control the agenda, the budget, and will become chairs of all the House committees. And that means that now they will provide oversight and investigative powers, including subpoena power, over the Trump administration. This is an important constitutionally established function of the House, something Republicans have refused to do with Trump as president.
More about all of this later. Now to bed.
Ralph
UPDATE: With 100% of precincts reporting, the Georgia governor's race now has Kemp with 50.8%, Abrams 48.3%, and Metz 0.9%.
UPDATE #2: Those results do not, however, include all of the absentee ballots nor the provisional ballots. So it is still mathematically possible for Abrams to win; but not very probable.
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Every vote counts.
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
No, I don't mean vote four times. But do vote -- and take three people with you to vote also.
We're facing so much effort to suppress the vote that we must fight in the courts and at the polling places. If you are told your registration is on hold, demand to have a provisional ballot. And then do what's required to clear up any problem.
The problem we face here in Georgia, as well as in some other states , is that the Republican candidate for governor is also the Secretary of State, who is also in charge of the whole election process. He has refused to relinquish control of that during the election he is running in, even though some of his policies have been shot down by federal court challenges.
But we have an 11th hour wrinkle. The office of Georgia Sec. of State has issued a statement less than two days before the election accusing the Democratic Party of having hacked into the election registration system.
What this appears to be is that a cyber-vulnerability was discovered by a group that tests voting systems for just such vulnerabilities. Of course, their method is to try to hack a system to see where it is vulnerable. The difference is the use to be made of this. Legitimate testing is then duly reported to the authorities; it is not used to alter the results.
Somehow Kemp's campaign has twisted this into accusing the Democrats of something nefarious, although there is no evidence they did anything except pass along information that was given to them about the discovered vulnerability. It's unclear what their supposed motive was -- perhaps to make the Secretary of State look incompetent? That wouldn't be too hard. I'll update this as we get new information.
As of late evening Monday, we're told the GBI is investigating; but they have released no statement; neither has the FBI, if they are involved. Stacie Abrams has denounced this as a political stunt on the part of the Kemp campaign -- and that's where it stands unless and until something turns up as evidence against one side or another. Will it affect the vote? Probably any effect will be more or less evenly split -- those who believe the Kemp charge and those who agree with Abrams that it was a political stunt on Kemp's part.
In the meantime, get as many legitimately qualified voters you know to the polls to cast a legal ballot. Let's overwhelm the attempts to suppress and steal this election. After all, we also have gerrymandering to overcome, which takes even more Democratic votes to win congressional races.
Ralph
No, I don't mean vote four times. But do vote -- and take three people with you to vote also.
We're facing so much effort to suppress the vote that we must fight in the courts and at the polling places. If you are told your registration is on hold, demand to have a provisional ballot. And then do what's required to clear up any problem.
The problem we face here in Georgia, as well as in some other states , is that the Republican candidate for governor is also the Secretary of State, who is also in charge of the whole election process. He has refused to relinquish control of that during the election he is running in, even though some of his policies have been shot down by federal court challenges.
But we have an 11th hour wrinkle. The office of Georgia Sec. of State has issued a statement less than two days before the election accusing the Democratic Party of having hacked into the election registration system.
What this appears to be is that a cyber-vulnerability was discovered by a group that tests voting systems for just such vulnerabilities. Of course, their method is to try to hack a system to see where it is vulnerable. The difference is the use to be made of this. Legitimate testing is then duly reported to the authorities; it is not used to alter the results.
Somehow Kemp's campaign has twisted this into accusing the Democrats of something nefarious, although there is no evidence they did anything except pass along information that was given to them about the discovered vulnerability. It's unclear what their supposed motive was -- perhaps to make the Secretary of State look incompetent? That wouldn't be too hard. I'll update this as we get new information.
As of late evening Monday, we're told the GBI is investigating; but they have released no statement; neither has the FBI, if they are involved. Stacie Abrams has denounced this as a political stunt on the part of the Kemp campaign -- and that's where it stands unless and until something turns up as evidence against one side or another. Will it affect the vote? Probably any effect will be more or less evenly split -- those who believe the Kemp charge and those who agree with Abrams that it was a political stunt on Kemp's part.
In the meantime, get as many legitimately qualified voters you know to the polls to cast a legal ballot. Let's overwhelm the attempts to suppress and steal this election. After all, we also have gerrymandering to overcome, which takes even more Democratic votes to win congressional races.
Ralph
Monday, November 5, 2018
Trump's end of campaign message
photo by Associated Press
President Trump has certainly thrown himself into the final few weeks of the campaign for the midterm elections. Polls open in eastern states in about 31 hours from the time of this posting. Some 28 million people have already cast their ballots in early voting. This is almost 10 million more than at a comparable time in the 2014 midterms early voting.
But what is the message that the president is proclaiming -- by tweet and by rally?
"Be afraid." Be very afraid of the Democrats and what they will do if they take control of the House. And perhaps the real message is to himself: Be very afraid of what will happen in 2020 to my prospects for a second term if the Democrats get control of even one House of Congress.
Because that will give them subpoena power and investigative power. And they will expose what Robert Mueller finds -- and they will hold hearings and lay it all out there on CSPAN.
And, given that, what are the issues that Trump is emphasizing? Not the things he could legitimately call the successes of his time in office: an economy that, for the short term anyway, is looking good. Unemployment so low that need for workers is becoming a problem.
The tax cut for corporations and the wealthy didn't do much trickling down for the middle class and working people's wages (netting roughly $120 a month) -- but it sure did please his donors and friends. For example, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson's businesses got a $670 million windfall from the tax cut in the first quarter alone -- set to go over $2 billion for the year. So Adelson has rewarded his Republican friends in Congress with over $100 million in donations for the midterms.
The discrepancy between what Sheldon Edelson got from the tax cut and what his kitchen workers got was somewhere in the range of 1.87 million dollars to 1 dollar.
Let's compare what Trump does seem to think is important to focus on with what people say are the issues that are important to them in how they chose to vote.
A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll asked people just that: what issues are important influences on how you will vote. Here are the results.
Health Care 78%
The Economy 76%
Reducing divisiveness 69%
Taxes 66%
Border Security 59%
It's almost as if Trump turned the chart upside down. His #1 topic to rev up his base crowd is border security and the "hordes" that he sees invading our country -- the bottom of the people's list, border security. Embedded in that, whether the pollsters meant to or not, is racism. A lacerating, xenophobic, rejection of the Other as inferior, violent, diseased. It's an invasion by those "others," not only taking over our way of life, but destroying it. I'm not sure Trump is racist; but he is using racist memes to stir up his base, for crass political purposes, no matter who gets hurt.
And it's not even true. The narrative of the caravan, the "hordes" of people banded together is a dangerous exaggeration created by the Trump administration for political purposes. It's all part of con game to paint these refugees as dangerous and diseased and set on doing us harm --- all to stoke the fear of Trump's political base for political purposes.
As to taxes, he has made the facile promise of a 10% tax cut to the middle class -- with no plan or any hope of getting congress to do that. It's an empty promise for the election; nothing more. And he certainly is doing nothing to reduce divisiveness in our society; rather, he's the Divider in Chief.
As to the economy, he does occasionally mention how well it's doing -- mainly to give himself credit for the trend that began during Obama's term and, in general has failed to fulfill the promise with which Republicans sold their trillion dollar tax cut for corporations and the wealthy. So they keep that one pretty quiet. Instead, Trump trots out the empty promise of a 10% tax cut for the middle class, while Paul Ryan talks about having to cut entitlements because of the huge deficit that has resulted from their other tax cut. It seems there one message for the campaign rallies, an opposite one for congress.
As to the people's #1 choice, Medical Care, at least for the duration of the campaign, most Republicans and Trump himself have stopped promising to overturn Obamacare. Instead, they're making "Medicare for All" the boogey-man. Now they're giving lip service to "saving coverage for pre-existing conditions" and even having the chutzpah to accuse Democrats of endangering it. But Medicare for All? Too expensive; and, even worse, it will lead to Socialism.
Trump's upside-down rhetoric from what people say is most important to them is odd. Or maybe not. What Trump is really selling is fear. And the promise that only he can take care of them. It's the tactic of nascent fascism and the rising dictator. So he's picking issues that he can use most easily to scare people. And making empty promises that he can't keep on things that benefit most Americans.
Will the con work? We'll know soon. This election is the most important one at least since 1968 -- and perhaps ever further back than that. Because this is, in large part, a referendum on democracy itself. Do we want to keep it? If so, then we have to make some changes from the direction we're heading.
We are at a crisis point. We, the voters, will decide.
Ralph
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