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Almost 8 Out Of 10 Americans Say Things Are "Out Of Control"; New Poll Finds
Monday, Oct 31, 2022 - 08:05 AM

Steve Watson via Summit News,

A new CBS News Battleground Tracker/YouGov poll has found that a whopping 79 percent of Americans believe the country is “out of control” ahead of the mid term elections.

Just 21 percent responded to the say that they feel things are “under control,” and when that 79 percent were asked which party they will vote for a majority of 58 percent said Republican, with only 34 percent saying they will vote Democrat.

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White Suburban Women Running Back Into GOP's Arms, Leftist Elites Enraged

Thursday, Nov 03, 2022 - 03:00 PM

Heading down the stretch of the 2022 midterm elections, white suburban women - who comprise 20% of the nation's electorate - are swinging back to Republicans in a big way.

A new Wall Street Journal poll finds that white women in the suburbs now favor Republican congressional candidates by a whopping 15% margin -- a jaw-dropping 27-percentage-point move just since August.

The shift has largely been fueled by the group's deepening concerns over inflation and the economy. About 54% say the country is already in a recession while 74% say the economy is heading in the wrong direction. Those numbers are up August readings of 43% and 59%, respectively.

Democrat hopes that the Supreme Court's June overturning of Roe v Wade would spark women to rally around Democratic candidates haven't been realized. The journal found that rising prices are the top concern, with 34% of suburban white women giving it top weight. Abortion comes in third, with just 16% calling it their top priority

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Some black dude beat his wife within an inch of her life. She had him on two separate cameras because this has happened before. He was arrested and released without bail. He got a gun, went back home and shot her in the face in front of their children.

Kathy Hochel murdered her.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by second:
There isn’t an "official" G.O.P. position on Social Security and Medicare. But the Republican Study Committee, the RSC, a caucus of House members that sets the party’s agenda, has released a fairly detailed set of proposals titled “Reclaiming Our Fiscal Future”. https://banks.house.gov/uploadedfiles/budget_fy22_final.pdf

The committee’s proposals center on raising the age at which Americans become eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Its plan calls for increasing the age at which workers can collect full Social Security benefits — which has already risen from 65 to 67 — to 70.

At the same time, the plan would raise the age at which Medicare kicks in to match the Social Security age. Given the Social Security proposal, this means delaying Medicare eligibility by five years, to the age of 70.

The report tries to justify these large benefit cuts — because that’s what they are — by pointing to the rise in life expectancy at age 65 since these programs were created. That is, it argues in effect that our major social benefit programs have become too generous because Americans are living longer.

While average life expectancy for seniors was rising before Covid struck, that rise was very unequal. Gains were much larger for Americans in the upper part of the income distribution — that is, the people who need Social Security and Medicare least.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42920941?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Gains in life expectancy have been much bigger among Americans with a college degree. In fact, life expectancy has actually declined among noncollege whites. And mortality has been diverging among regions, with life expectancy at 65 in some states, mostly red, significantly below the national average and in others, mostly blue, significantly above.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-18.pdf#page=7

So Republican plans to cut Medicare and Social Security would impose widespread hardship, with some of the worst impacts falling on red-state, noncollege whites — that is, the party’s most loyal base.

Why imagine that proposals to deny benefits by raising the eligibility age won’t provoke a backlash?

At least part of the answer is surely the expectation that the right-wing disinformation machine can obscure what the G.O.P. is up to. The Republican Study Committee has released a 153-page report calling, among other things, for denying full Social Security benefits to Americans under 70; that didn’t stop Sean Hannity from declaring the other day that “not a single Republican has ever said they want to take away your Social Security.”
https://banks.house.gov/uploadedfiles/budget_fy22_final.pdf

If Republicans win one or both houses of Congress, they’ll try to achieve their goals not though the normal legislative process but through blackmail. They’ll threaten to provoke a global financial crisis by refusing to raise the debt limit. If Democrats defang that threat, Republicans will try to get what they want by making America ungovernable in other ways. Will they succeed? Stay tuned.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
It should be noted that I don't expect Republicans to fix the problems that Democrats created, particularly in the economic space.

I just want somebody to stop the bleeding, and Democrats have not only proven that they are incapable of doing so, but they are actively opening the wounds wider.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by second:
Meanwhile, according to the latest numbers at Predictit.org, the online betting market, the Republicans are cruising toward control of the House after next week’s midterms and have a growing chance of also winning the Senate.

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Originally posted by second:
Opinion | Why isn’t Trumpism hurting the GOP? Some Democrats see vexing answers.

By Greg Sargent | November 4, 2022 at 11:39 a.m. EDT
6-8 minutes

Something extraordinary just happened: In the space of just this week, a president and an ex-president warned that the opposition poses an existential threat to our political way of life. Joe Biden declared that “MAGA Republicans” have placed democracy “under threat.” Barack Obama warned that if GOP election deniers win in Arizona, “democracy may not survive.”

Yet the ongoing MAGA threat to U.S. democracy, including from Donald Trump himself, isn’t harming Republican chances of winning the House and very plausibly the Senate. Some think Democratic warnings are backfiring: Former Obama strategist David Axelrod suggested vulnerable Democrats don’t want the unpopular Biden to elevate himself in the election’s home stretch.

Why hasn’t the threat to democracy extracted a heavier price from Republicans? Is it true that vulnerable Democrats don’t want Biden to prominently address the topic? If so, should he have stood down, since Democrats themselves think protecting democracy above all requires keeping MAGA Republicans out of power? Could a more forceful case have made this a bigger voting issue?

I raised these questions with a number of senior Democratic strategists and pollsters working on tough House and Senate races. The answers that emerged are complicated, nuanced — and ultimately vexing.

First, it’s critical to note that messages about the threat to democracy mean different things to different voter groups, which means they help Democrats in some ways but not in others.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake has found this mixed picture in extensive work with focus groups. Elevating threats to democracy, political violence and the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Lake tells me, “helps mobilize the Democratic base,” and, importantly, this kicked in at a key moment, when anger over the demise of abortion rights was “receding” in late summer.

This is not a small matter. Threats-to-democracy talk also galvanizes volunteers, who are critical amid soaring polarization and races decided on the margins, says Ezra Levin, co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible.

That’s because a Biden speech about democracy is heard by countless volunteers as a call to action. “By firing them up, he increases the numbers of doors knocked, texts sent and calls made,” Levin told me, which may “amp up turnout in the final days.”

But Lake’s focus groups also find something troubling for Democrats. Swing voters aren’t moved by these topics, Lake says, because they see both parties in a similar light: They think both manipulate democracy to their advantage, and they see the 2020 urban unrest amid police protests as akin to Jan. 6.

“I think both parties do this — I think both sides do this,” Lake quotes many voters as saying. This is particularly pronounced among White swing voters, she says, though some college-educated White swing voters are more troubled by GOP conduct.

Because democracy talk galvanizes the Democratic base while washing out among swing voters, Lake sees it as a net positive. But her focus groups discern another reason swing voters aren’t that worked up: They don’t believe our institutions are under serious strain.

“One thing that diminishes the impact of some of the crises we’re facing is that Americans have historically had tremendous faith in our institutions,” Lake tells me, noting that Americans learn from fourth grade onward to be “institutional optimists.”

If so, perhaps voters don’t connect this moment to America’s long history of democratic backsliding into authoritarian rule and political violence in places like the Jim Crow South, as Jamelle Bouie urges people to do in the New York Times.

Indeed, in focus groups, voters treat GOP talk about overturning elections dismissively, as “behaving like children,” says Lake. While they believe Trump poses a continuing threat, they don’t realize there are “a thousand Trumps on the ballot.”

Making this worse, several strategists told me, is the weight of the economy on people’s lives, which causes voters to be more influenced by immediate conditions, which they blame on the guy in charge.

In short — despite scores of Republicans running for positions of control over election machinery while implicitly vowing to treat election losses as illegitimate, amid new portents of political violence and instability — these voters often don’t see such conduct as an actionable threat.

Democrats, of course, could have made a much more robust effort to warn voters of the threat of “semi-fascism,” as Biden called it.

The argument for this is as follows: Republicans lay down a loud and steady drumbeat about how terrifying the opposition is. But Republicans seize opportunities wherever possible to make noise about the supposed danger Democrats pose, even when it’s imaginary. The noise itself is the point. It sends a message: Something is deeply wrong with the opposition and you should feel disturbed, disoriented and frightened about it.

As Brian Beutler argues, Democrats could theoretically do more to draw national media attention to specific acts of “semi-fascism”: efforts to seize control of voting processes, threats toward election workers, the latest outbreak of Trump lawlessness. The idea here is that even if swing voters aren’t motivated by threats to democracy now, a sustained effort could shift attitudes over time.

But several Democratic strategists noted deep structural factors that work against this happening.

For instance, the national press sometimes covers democracy talk as a sign that Democrats aren’t focused on what voters “really” care about: inflation and the economy. This is hard to dislodge, because news organizations want to tout their own polls saying voters don’t see threats to democracy as important. When the media repeats this, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s worsened by the massive GOP media apparatus, which communicates with the base 24/7, even as Democrats have nothing comparable on their side, strategists noted. And it’s challenging to make abstractions about democracy urgent in voters’ daily lives.

Still, if Democrats do lose the House and the Senate, we’ll look back at the option Democrats didn’t fully try — a more concerted effort to highlight the dangers of MAGA — as the path not taken.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221104180153/https://www.washingtonpost.
com/opinions/2022/11/04/trumpism-gop-democrats-midterms/


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Fact check: Biden’s midterms message includes false and misleading claims
By Daniel Dale, CNN
...
Biden’s pitch has included claims that are false, misleading or lacking important context. (As always, we take no position on the accuracy of his subjective arguments.) Here is a fact-check look at nine of his recent statements.

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As Elections Approach, Biden Spins His Economic Record

The president’s recent comments on Social Security, the deficit and economic growth claim credit where it is not always due.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Only one day to go and the COPE headlines are hilarious!

CNN: On Election Eve, Dems Confront Nightmare Scenario
LAT: Dems Are Glum, But Will Midterms Bring a Nov Surprise?
USA Today: 'Save Our Kids': Suburban Women Move to GOP
Slate: Herschel Walker's Senate Run Not Really About the Senate
NYT: Dancing Near the Edge of a Lost Democracy
The Hill: Republican Hatred and Lies Are Winning In a Landslide
The Grio: Voter Apathy, Suppression Could Lead to GOP Wave

24 hours left.

Tick Tock



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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by second:
Heaven help us.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Cry some more you little bitch.

It's not as if you weren't warned.

We survived 2 years of Biden* with unchecked power. We'll survive 2 years of neutered Biden*.


If I were you, Maureen, I'd be much more worried about polishing up your resume than anything else. Your time as a "journalist" is coming to an end.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by second:
Americans take a stand for decency as the GOP red wave turns to dust, surprising all of us

I'll posit that Americans don’t love it when a political party broadly embraces a bullying figure like former President Donald Trump. They don’t take kindly to candidates who deny election results.

This isn't just a win for Democrats – it's a win for decency

I’m sure Republicans will still find a way to crow about their far-lower-than-expected gains.

More at https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2022/11/09/midterm-elections-de
mocrats-trump-republicans-red-wave/8307501001/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

In the meantime, I fully expect Democrats to honor their promises and finally get around to codifying Roe v. Wade, and enshrine Social Security in perpetuity, raise the minimum wage to $15, and free medical care for all, as well as dismantling the Electoral College in the next two years. /sarcasm

We know you're not going to do any of that. So in the meantime can the House finally get around to passing the unanimous Senate bill to put an end to Daylight Savings Time.

Thanks!

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

In the meantime, I fully expect Democrats to honor their promises and finally get around to codifying Roe v. Wade, and enshrine Social Security in perpetuity, raise the minimum wage to $15, and free medical care for all, as well as dismantling the Electoral College in the next two years. /sarcasm

We know you're not going to do any of that. So in the meantime can the House finally get around to passing the unanimous Senate bill to put an end to Daylight Savings Time.

Thanks!

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Two things you ignore:

1) No Republican Congressman will vote for any of those bills.

2) Democrats can't pass those bills unless they have 66.67% (not 50% plus 1) of Congress on their side. A funny and poorly understood fact: The writers of the Constitution, a majority of whom were slave owners, didn't want the Abolitionists to legislate the end of slavery. With a few clever tricks in writing the Constitution, it became impossible to end slavery (without a Civil War) unless 66.67% of Congress were Abolitionists. All those clever legal tricks that were written into the Constitution to protect slavery are still usable by Congressmen who do not want changes made in the Law in other areas besides slavery.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by second:

Americans take a stand for decency as the GOP red wave turns to dust, surprising all of us

I'll posit that Americans don’t love it when a political party broadly embraces a bullying figure like former President Donald Trump. They don’t take kindly to candidates who deny election results.

This isn't just a win for Democrats – it's a win for decency

I’m sure Republicans will still find a way to crow about their far-lower-than-expected gains.

More at https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2022/11/09/midterm-elections-de
mocrats-trump-republicans-red-wave/8307501001/

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Comprehending the underwhelming performance of the GOP
By Rajan Laad

There was supposed to be a red wave that would put the corrupt, entitled, arrogant Democrats in their place. The GOP was supposed to take the House by an emphatic margin and possibly the Senate, too.

They said it was not a question of if, but when it would happen.

As someone on Twitter rightly observed, at this point, the GOP would be lucky to have a Red Trickle. Even if the GOP takes the House, it will be by a slim margin.

Joe Biden, despite his catastrophic misgovernance, historic unpopularity, and rapidly declining cognitive abilities, could end up with a better midterm record than Democrat stars such as Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

There have been various theories on why it went so wrong.

Postmortem analyses are always easy. You have the results; all you have to do is walk backward and provide reasons. Had the GOP won in a landslide, the very pundits who are certain why they underperformed tonight would have provided another set of reasons.

Let's examine some theories that are being put forth.

Did the narrative of the Red Wave seem like hubris?

At times, rosy expectations can be the mother of all disappointments. The relentless talk of a red wave, which began in conservative media and spread like wildfire, could have had multiple consequences.

Perhaps GOP voters presumed that a victory was inevitable and chose to stay home. Perhaps Democrat voters, thinking their party needs them in times of peril, chose to vote.

Perhaps some voters thought of this talk of the red wave as hubris.

Voters often do not like politicians taking them for granted and second-guessing them.

Perhaps they decided to give the GOP a reality check?

The overturning of Roe v. Wade?

It will never be easy to gauge what impact the overturning of Roe had on the mind of the public, especially women.

Dr. Oz said, "I don't want the federal government involved with that at all. I want women, doctors, local political leaders, letting the democracy that's always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves."

Oz was making a broader point about law-making by consulting all parties involved. Most of the mainstream media claimed that Dr. Oz thinks the decision to have an abortion must be among a woman, her doctor, and local politicians.

Perhaps women truly feared that the Republicans would be involved each time they visited the gynecologist. Perhaps women feared imprisonment for even mentioning abortion. Perhaps they believed the claim that contraception would also be restricted.

Fear tactics often work, irrespective of whether the claims are factual.

Perhaps the Democrats managed to scare people sufficiently.

Was it the media?

The mainstream media are the propaganda arm of the Democrats, while most Republicans get their news from Fox News, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, NewsMax, and various other right-leaning websites.

But what about independents? Perhaps they brought the media narrative that if the GOP wins, there will never, ever be elections in the U.S., and Trump will become a dictator.

End of the Trump era?

Some experts claimed that Trump's choice of candidates was a major reason for the GOP's subpar performance. They cite the loss of Dr. Oz to severely cognitively impaired John Fetterman to demonstrate their point. They feel Trump incorrectly endorsed celebrity Dr. Oz; perhaps a principled conservative and a Pennsylvania local would have served better. They claim that the underperforming of the GOP is proof that Trump's era has passed. They claim he should gracefully step aside and allow Ron DeSantis to be the nominee in 2024. They claim Trump lacks discipline, has too much baggage, and polarizes people with his rhetoric.

So what has Trump's record been so far in the race?

But:

Since Trump descended the escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential campaign, there are many who have been predicting his political demise. Yet he still remains a force to reckon with in the party. It would be a mistake to count Trump out this easily.

Beginning of the DeSantis era?

Ron DeSantis was re-elected in Florida by almost 20 points; it was an emphatic routing of his Democratic opponent.

After DeSantis's victory speech, the crowd chanted, "USA! USA! USA!" and, in a nod to an expected presidential run, chanted, "Two more years!"

The DeSantis wing of the GOP claimed that DeSantis is Trump without the baggage. They say he is disciplined in his message, he is younger, and he has a proven track record of governance during crises such as COVID-19 and Hurricane Ian. Hence, he is a much more viable presidential candidate.

They cite winning among minorities to make the case for his broad appeal. DeSantis is the first Republican gubernatorial candidate since Jeb Bush to win Miami-Dade, the state's largest county, which also has its largest Hispanic population and was once considered a Democrat bastion.

But does a victory in Florida make him a viable candidate all over the U.S.?

What about the point of having no Trump baggage? The Democrats may despise DeSantis, but they haven't gone after DeSantis the way they have targeted Trump. If he becomes the GOP nominee in 2024, they will give him the Trump treatment or perhaps worse. They could dig dirt or invent lies about DeSantis — i.e., create a great deal of baggage for him.

Even worse, President Trump just openly threatened to sling mud at him, saying, "If he did run, I will tell you things about him that won't be very flattering. I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife, who is really running his campaign."

What about DeSantis's endorsements?

DeSantis endorsed Colorado Senate candidate Joe O'Dea and recorded an automated phone call for the campaign, saying, "I've watched Joe from a distance. And I'm impressed." O'Dea went on to lose his race. But Colorado is a liberal state; perhaps O'Dea was going to lose anyway?

In the end, it isn't pundits or experts who will decide the GOP nominee. It is the public who will cast the vote.

What about funding?

It has to be remembered that no candidate can win without a minimum amount of funding. A MAGA victory is as troubling to establishment GOP leaders as it is for Democrats.

It has been documented that for various Senate races, the GOP leadership in Washington — i.e., Mitch McConnell — were not supporting MAGA candidates financially. Perhaps that played a factor in impeding the candidates from pushing their message and the overall narrative.

Did Biden's meddling help?

Biden signed Executive Order 14019 back in March, asking all 600 federal agencies to "consider ways to expand citizens' opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process."

The details of what was actually done remain unclear. Perhaps Democrat voters were surgically mobilized? Perhaps voter identification rules were relaxed?

We will never know because Biden refused to share details about its coordinated efforts to engage in a federal takeover of the administration of elections.

This concealment makes it very suspicious.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

But two years from now, people will still be dying all over the world of hunger, our homeless population will continue to grow, an ever larger portion of the middle-class will fall below the poverty line while they're all still working for a pittance, with 10s of millions of them left without healthcare and wondering if there's even going to be any social security by the time they retire.

Nobody won last night except for the politicians that won last night.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Man... you Dems are losing full states that have been blue since GWB's terrible presidency.

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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Looking a the Cluster F**K its possible Republicans might not win the House or Senate, some might say legit election others might say fraud

So this something from the other thread over the past few days democrats have continued to gain seats during the night while Republicans only gained one


dem 192
gop 210
...looking like a solid win...maybe not...then its

DEMS
199
GOP
211

other news outlets have already updated with


205
vs
211

Each night Democrats are finding votes

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Originally posted by THG:


It is official. The Democrats control the Senate.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:


They've made no gain until we see the results of the Georgia runoff.

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Originally posted by THG:


It is official. The Democrats control the Senate.
T

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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:

If Republicans wanted a Condoleezza Rice or Benjamin Carson to be voices for Black African American Republicanism or 'Black Conservatism' this Herschel Walker idiot was not it . . .

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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Steve Bannon claims a Maga Red Wave Trumper win is coming any moment now...and if not, if the MidTerms become a crap show then maybe blame North Korea or Jimmy Carter or someone else?

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I raised the idea of outlawing mail-in voting with a canny friend. “The Dems would never allow it,” he said, comparing the practice to nuclear weapons. Once they exist, it is impossible to get rid of them. Maybe so, in which case it behooves Republicans to become experts in organizing and deploying mail-in voting for their own candidates.

If nothing else, a little competition in the mail-in ballot sweepstakes would counter the invitation to corruption that follows on the feeling that the fix is in. In the election just past, it seemed, despite media forecasts of a red wave, that a certain complacency was abroad in and about the headquarters of certain contentious races. Gretchen Whitmer never seemed particularly worried about Tudor Dixon, nor did John Fetterman seem worried about Dr. Oz. Of course, Fetterman is a special case. But the point is, I believe, they knew that the fix was in and therefore — to employ another common idiom — that the race was in the bag.

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