This may inflame the mob more, but we have some good news from Georgia. The second Senatorial election has been called by several sources for the Democrat Jon Ossoff.
With exactly half of the Senators now Democratic, the deciding vote in the many ties to come will go to the Vice President of the U.S., who happens to be Democrat Kamala Harris. That the tying vote comes from the VP will drive Republicans crazy—if they can be crazier than they’re acting now. (n.b. I am not indicting all Republicans. Yes, there are some reasonable ones—ones who are appalled by what’s happening in Washington.)
What a day.
Roller-coaster ride comes to mind– or perhaps a log-chute ride wherein the water looks and smells peculiar.
A day that will live in infamy.
I still hopes it’s an infamy that will live a day.
But I would feel better if the madman was in jail.
I voted one seat at the recent vote on this forum. Never have I been happier at being proved wrong.
Samesies.
I voted two, but it was a lucky guess. I was surprised that Warnock’s margin was greater than Ossoff’s over Perdue. Any ideas? Congratulations to all involved, in particular Stacy Abrams. My sister, a Georgia resident, called Warnock’s victory “the black pastor vs. the white witch” — no offense intended..
The difference, I think, comes down to Perdue being a long time family in power in GA while Loeffler is an Illinois transplant.
I think Ossoff’s being Jewish may have some effect. Anti-semitism is common, especially in rural areas.
But Warnock is black. And that is an issue in (white) rural areas.
I thought that was a possibility to, but if you look at the results county-by-county, Warnock ran about a half a point ahead of Ossoff almost everywhere across the state, in both overwhelmingly blue urban areas and overwhelmingly red rural areas.
I think GBJ is right that it had to do with Perdue being a Georgia native from a well-established political family (the cousin of former two-term Georgia governor, and current Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue), whereas Loeffler is a relative newcomer, who was appointed to her seat, and had never before run for political office.
It may also have had to do with Loeffler being a woman. Or it may have to do with Warnock being older and the well-known pastor of the famous Ebenezer Baptist Church and Ossoff, a 33-year-old relative neophyte.
I’m happy to say I don’t think anti-Semitism or racism played any role in the relatively small number of split tickets in the Georgia senate runoff.
I just want to note that this half-point difference is very close to what the polls estimated. Some people here in a previous thread said split tickets would not happen and that the difference the two candidates was due to polling error. I had argued there that the poll difference was a valid estimate.
That was (partly) me you were talking with. I think we were both right. There was some ticket splitting but it wasn’t enough to overcome the “both or none” prediction I made. 😉
The other part was me. Props for nailing it, Lou.
Happy news on a sad, sad day.
Hallelujah! Congrats again to all you beautiful Blue people. Methinks at least one of you will sleep the sleep of princes tonight!
The “King” is dead, long may he stay that way.
Ok… not nice,
long may he long stay in bed.
and not dead.
The chief gibbon isn’t dead, but is heading for years on remand, then in court, then in solitary. If he’s lucky.
If he’s unlucky, he’ll be sharing a cell with several members of his family. For years. “Cruel and unusual”.
Here’s hoping.
Seriously is that likely to happen? He’s a slippery toad.
As you may know I’m not a US citizen but my concern was about democracy the only political system we have so far as a way to progress.
Hooray, I was wrong!
In your recent poll, I voted Democrats would win 0 of 2. Now I have to eat those words. Yum, yum! Delicious eating.
🤣
I’m happily surprised that the Dems won both seats. If you’d asked me to bet I’d have guess the republicans would hold both. Minority leader McConnell has a better ring to it.
Rather overshadowed by the days news from DC. I’m intrigued to know what will happen regarding the objections to the state votes.
I would hope the riots have dampened the GOPs flame for objecting to the election results. Probably won’t though, they’re beyond hope.
I almost wept for joy when the calls for Ossoff came through. Once again, Decision Desk HQ was the herald, and right again they were, as in November.
The inevitable logic of Trumpism was on full display in the Capitol. And I think it actually may have shocked some key members of the GOP into a recognition of the monstrosity that they’ve enabled, and tried to exploit for their own ends, for the past four years. A reckoning is due—Wisconsin’s Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher was emphatic about this in an interview I heard during the insurrection riot coverage this afternoon—and it’s going to be a very chastening experience for a lot of people in the GOP who were, I think, clueless about what Trumpism is really all about. Those Confederate flags in the trashed congressional chambers said it all…
“(n.b. I am not indicting all Republicans. Yes, there are some reasonable ones—ones who are appalled by what’s happening in Washington.)”
I’d indict any person who has continued as a Republican for the last 4 years and who is not now ready to simply resign at this point. (I did not say ‘join the Dems’.) It’s simply not reasonable to be a Republican–full stop.
Trump certainly got the news channels away from talking about him destroying the Senate majority of his party–sorry, his tribe of dangerous-to-humanity haters of facts and science.
Agreed (although I might have said it more strongly).
This much at least is good news.
Actually excellent news. As Hillary noted, Mitch will soon be senate minority leader.
Ossoff won by more than 1/2 percent, so no automatic recount.
I just find it so disturbing that democracy breeds such ignorance in people. Not just the US…
It does in other democracies, but seems extreme in US. That is the true so-called US exceptionalism, is it not? The only one anyway, whatever their schools teach.
Ignorance from the cradle to the grave, and carefully passed on to your children and grandchildren: After all, it’s even worse in non-democracies. If you are actually taught to believe that a man can get up out of his boat in a lake and walk on the water to shore, and more centrally, to be dead as a fucking doornail for 40 hours, then get up and make mischief for 40 days before ascending somewhere, then surely it’s not surprising that you can be conned into believing anything.
Joe Manchin (D-WV) is more GOP than Democrat, he could be a wild card on votes.
Yes. I don’t think the dems will have an easy ride. Some progressives are suggesting he might switch sides.
I doubt it. Little reason to associate yourself with the sedition party right now.
Exactly. Overnight, the mainstream media are freely applying that word not just to today’s riots, but to the Trump wing of the GOP, which till today had been the lion’s share of the party. With the brand that damaged, Manchin will almost certainly stay put.
Who are those progressives?
Joe Manchin is generally regarded as the least liberal Democrat in the US senate. But he’s a strong Democratic party man. Still, he’s from deep-red West Virginia, so there are some things he simply cannot vote for, for the sake of maintaining his political future.
Majority-leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer well understands this. He knows he can count on Manchin in a pinch to cast the deciding vote on key bills, but he will give Manchin the freedom to vote with the Republicans on contentious issues where his vote isn’t absolutely crucial.
We will have the mid-terms in two years. I think we have two years to solve all the problems.
Possibly the dems have all four years. IIRC 22 out of the 32 Senate seats up for election in 2022 are GOP.
Now, I don’t know how many of those seats are really in play. But after today, maybe more than would otherwise have been the case.
“Reasonable”? Sure, some. But even the reasonable ones have maintained exceedingly low profiles in courage for the entirety of Donald Trump’s term in office. And those chickens are coming home to roost right now.
VP Pence — whom Trump has finally turned on despite his four years of abject, simpering obsequiousness — should assemble the cabinet and invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment for the remaining two weeks of Trump’s term in office, since its abundantly clear Trump lacks the mental wherewithal to continue performing his duties or to desist from inflaming the his base further with additional lies about election fraud.
As a serendipity, it would prevent Trump from issuing any more of his bogus last-minute pardons, including the one he almost assuredly intends to try to grant himself.
“it’s” … chrissake, even with 15 minutes to edit, I didn’t catch that one.
The cabinet? Unfortunately the lunatics are running that asylum.
That seems to be the best course of action, since it could happen very quickly. Trump is very dangerous now.
Pence pardoning Trump would then be a thing.
Plus if you think violent right-wing protestors are showing up in DC now, I can’t help but think that removing Trump via Section 4 wouldn’t make a lot more of them come out of the woodwork.
IMO it’s better if Trump just retreats to Mar-a-Lago and lets Pence make the decision as ‘acting’. That way we get Pence’s less-unhinged decisions combined with an inability to pardon anyone. And given Trump’s penchant for avoiding the Senate approval process, having his own job finished by an ‘acting’ President seems karma-appropriate.
Sure, but what makes you think that Trump can be convinced to leave as a lamb?
And the US government should never take or desist from taking any action out of fear for the reaction of the Trump deadenders. Shore up law enforcement if need be; we are a nation of laws.
Plus, isn’t the GOP supposed to be the self-proclaimed “Law and Order” Party? Let’s see them live up to the title.
+1, especially your 2nd paragraph.
Ossoff’s margin of victory exceeds, if barely, the .5% threshold below which his surprisingly humanoid opponent, David Perdue, would be authorized to request a recount.
We get at least 12 hours of silence from Trump’s Twitter account. (Longer, I suspect because I don’t see him deleting the tweets too quickly…) https://mobile.twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1346970431039934464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Brazil nightly news just (7:20 pm ET) reported that Trump’s twitter account is being taken down for the next 12 hours. [I see JezGrove beat me to it while I was typing. Hats off.}
CNN reported it also.
And Melania’s chief of staff has resigned with immediate effect…
So did her deputy chief of staff. Apparently they’ve got bigger cojones than some Republican senators.
There’s reporting that other resignations may be on the way, too, including National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, and — get this — Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, wife of Mitch McConnell!
That one doesn’t surprise me after Mitch’s impassioned (for him) and very clear rebuke of Trump’s lies last night. That was a mind-boggling speech that would have been unimagineable a month ago.