If the Senate would do away with the filibuster rule like many of them keep saying should happen then Democrats in Congress could pass whatever climate legislation they pleased...
The current legislative fight is over a bill that is structured to bypass the filibuster. And the climate provisions didn't survive the negotiations because the Democrats in the Senate don't support them unanimously. One objection from the guy who owns a big stake in coal, and they don't have the votes.
That's what legislating with a minimal majority is like, especially since the Republicans are united in lockstep opposition to anything the Democrats try to do. So no, they couldn't just pass whatever they please even with no filibuster to worry about.
The current push to weaken or remove the filibuster is focused on voting rights. And I have to agree with that; the filibuster has a history of being used to protect discrimination, and its current implementation in the rules makes it way too easy to stop anything from getting done. Having two legislative chambers and a president that all have to agree on legislation is already inefficient as designed; we don't need to make it worse by requiring a supermajority in one of those chambers.
Also, just going to add, but simply because Republicans are in the minority, does not absolve them from participating in governance. They all won their respective elections in their home districts ostensibly to govern. They've decided, collectively as a party, to act in near lockstep opposition to passing anything. But there's nothing justified in that position.
There's no reason why a Republican from a state that doesn't depend on fossil fuel extraction couldn't also take up the cause of combating climate change. There's no reason why some Republicans can't join with Democrats once in awhile on major legislation. I'm not expecting them to join on things that break on ideological lines, like tax rates, welfare spending or hot button issues like abortion. But as Ballpointman says above, climate change is a pretty serious looming crisis -- one that ought to unite across ideological lines. In fact, it has done so in other democracies. I think it's wrong and counterproductive for citizens to hold the parties to a double standard on such an issue.
Sorry to revive a dying topic but I couldn't resist posting this. The blatant hypocrisy in politics is what has driven me from identifying with either party. Gerrymandering is apparently only morally reprehensible if it's the 'other guy' that's doing it. I believe I mentioned this fact years ago in this very thread...
Sorry to revive a dying topic but I couldn't resist posting this. The blatant hypocrisy in politics is what has driven me from identifying with either party. Gerrymandering is apparently only morally reprehensible if it's the 'other guy' that's doing it. I believe I mentioned this fact years ago in this very thread...
I don't think that is a fair take. As long as Gerrymandering is legal not making use of it will put you at a severe disadvantage, and Democrats have to use it to offset similar gains on the GOP side. You wouldn't want to be the only side on a divorce without a lawyer either, even if you think you both should be able to resolve things without one.
There is just one party who is trying to introduce federal legislation that would solve or at least make the issue less severe.
Sorry to revive a dying topic but I couldn't resist posting this. The blatant hypocrisy in politics is what has driven me from identifying with either party. Gerrymandering is apparently only morally reprehensible if it's the 'other guy' that's doing it. I believe I mentioned this fact years ago in this very thread...
I don't think that is a fair take. As long as Gerrymandering is legal not making use of it will put you at a severe disadvantage, and Democrats have to use it to offset similar gains on the GOP side. You wouldn't want to be the only side on a divorce without a lawyer either, even if you think you both should be able to resolve things without one.
There is just one party who is trying to introduce federal legislation that would solve or at least make the issue less severe.
And that's not the GOP.
The Democratic Party could have gotten rid of gerrymandering in the 70's and 80's when they had a solid majority but they didn't. I'm pretty sure that's because it was working in their favor back then. I'm old enough to remember details like this. The GOP was railing against gerrymandering back in those days. They got the same crickets that are chirping in the Democrats ears now...
Well, another major US election has passed. Not a presidential election, but a third of the Senate, all of the House, and lots of statewide offices were up.
The results? A split decision. We don't know which party will control either chamber yet, and that'll probably take a few days to fully sort out as more votes get counted.
Over in my corner of things, some results from Washington state:
Senate: Patty Murray (D, incumbent) wins easily. Some late polls had the race close. It wasn't.
House: Six seats to the Democrats, two to the Republicans, two that won't be called until the late-arriving ballots start getting counted (WA votes by mail. Election night returns are all ballots that arrived before election day, and ballots mailed in the last day or two often have a significantly different partisan mix than the earlier votes. Votes get added to the count in one batch per day.)
Those two close races in the House:
8th district (eastern edge of the Seattle metro area, and continuing east to the Cascades): Kim Schrier (D, incumbent) leads Matt Larkin (R) by a 52.7% - 47.0% margin. This one's about in line with what people expected.
3rd district (southwestern corner of the state): Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) leads Joe Kent (R) by a 52.6% - 46.8% margin. If that lead holds, it's a major upset. No pundits saw it coming ... but nobody was polling the race.
For a bit of context, here's the primary results from August (WA uses a system in which the top two finishers advance regardless of party):
Gluesenkamp Perez: 31.0%
Kent: 22.8%
Jaime Herrera Beutler (R, incumbent): 22.3%
Heidi St. John (R): 16.0%
Other Republicans: 3.7%
Other Democrats: 2.2%
Independents and write-ins: 2.0%
The Republican incumbent was ousted for insufficient fealty to Trump. And then this happens in the general election.
On a more local level, the city of Seattle had a ballot proposition to change the voting system for local election primaries. It was a two part question - first "should we change things?", and second "if we change things, what system should we adopt?"
On the first part - the first day's results have it at 49-51. Change might or might not happen.
On the second part, it was a choice between "approval voting" and ranked-choice voting. The former would let voters name as many candidates "approved" as they wish, and then have the top two advance to the general election. The latter would let voters rank all the candidates, and progressively eliminate the lowest finishers until two remain. While RCV can be used to condense the primary and general election into one ("instant runoff" voting), that wasn't on the table here; state law currently forbids local entities from condensing the primary and general elections into one. The result for this question: ranked-choice voting trounced approval voting with a margin of about 75-25. If the change happens, it'll be ranked-choice voting in Seattle.
The Senate is currently Democrat 50 Republican 49; we will not know until 6 December if that becomes 50/50 or 51/49, but either way Democrats retain control of that chamber. 50/50 means control goes to the party represented by the VPOTUS.
The House is currently Democrat 204 Republican 212, but if the elections were all called right now then the Democrats pick up the following seats--AK01, CA06, CA09, CA21, CA27, CA49, ME02, and OR06--while the Republicans would pick up these seats--CA03, CA22, CA27, CA41, and CA45. This would bring the totals to Democrat 212 Republican 217.
The Republican candidates have slim leads--in some cases razor thin--in AZ01, AZ06, CA13, CO03, and NY 22 while the Democrat candidate has a slim lead in CO08. Republicans would have to lose in all of the first 5 districts to fail to have a majority in the House. Not impossible, but unlikely.
At the State level, here is the current breakdown of gubernatorial offices and legislatures; this will likely change to some degree next January. Republicans control 26 governor's offices and 30 legislatures while Democrats control 21 governor's offices and 17 legislatures. In general, Democrats control the Pacific Coast, the Eastern Rocky Mountains, the Northeast, and the Great Lakes States (with the exceptions of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania); Republicans, in general, control everything else.
If you think Republicans in the House, should they control it, will somehow end Social Security and/or Medicare, ask yourself how they could possibly do this when the Senate would not pass such a bill and Biden would never sign it. This topic is not even going to come up on the floor, so why was anyone mentioning it?
Democrats had two years during which they could have updated/amended the immigration laws into whatever form they wanted, but they did not. They had sufficient time to codify Roe into law at the Federal level, but they did not. "But the filibuster in the Senate"--they could have done away with the filibuster at any time but chose not to do so. They could have added seats to the Supreme Court but chose not to do so--the real problem there is that the Court has the authority to disallow a Justice from being seated, a power it has never used.
We will soon have a split Congress. Expect even more bickering and less legislating than usual. Ironically, this is in your best interests--they can't mess anything up if they can't do anything.
If you are concerned that the election did not go your way, then perhaps you should have encouraged those extra 14,000,000 people to show up and vote for Harris. Remember--81 million voted for Biden, but only 67 million voted for Harris.
Also, choosing a no-name nobody as your running-mate was not a good decision, especially when he can't remember when he was in China in 1987 then calls himself a knucklehead during a live debate.
Also, calling half the voting population garbage--not a good idea.
At least the age of big media endorsements, celebrity endorsements, and pollsters is finally coming to an end. Technically, those three groups amount to "election interference". Seriously--stop taking polls and just wait for the votes.
Finally, right now in Washington, D. C. the shredders are going nonstop and IT staff are busily deleting files from phones and computers. A lot of people have to cover their tracks on their way out the door.
In 2020 we had this result (I use _ instead of , as it helps me visually):
Biden: 81_284_666 # this is 51.3%
Trump: 74_224_319 # this is 46.9%
In 2024, aka recently, we had this result:
Harris: 69_109_836 # this is 47.7%
Trump: 73_450_164 # this is 50.7%
So if you compare the numbers, Trump actually lost (!!!) voters. Harris
had a signicantly worse result than Biden, granted, but also had less
time to prepare (and there were probably other mistakes made here,
but I am just looking at the number).
I think from this number we can say that Trump-voters were kind of
more "loyal", even though probably many new registered and voted,
whereas many people who voted for Democrats in 2020, no longer
voted in 2024. Or at the least not for Harris. Biden would most likely
also have had a worse result, so I think Biden would not have been
able to get more votes than Trump here. The ~4 million voters
difference is quite significant really. (It also seems that many did
not vote at all, so neither Harris or Trump would have the raw
majority of all who could vote, right? I also think it is unfair that
those who did not vote get ignored. I fail to see how not voting
means anyone would lose anything in any free society, so whoever
won, only has a bit more than 33% or so, give or take, from the
total eligible ones to vote, e. g. excluding the youth mostly, which
is also not great).
The country still seems very divided and I guess the polarization and
division will remain, in particular when it comes to "controversial
legislation". It seems there will be more chaos than stability, so I
think those who voted from Trump are ok with that and want change,
whatever that effectively means in actual practice.
Mathsorcerer wrote:
> At least the age of big media endorsements, celebrity endorsements, and pollsters is finally coming
> to an end.
Yes, this is interesting, because Allan Lichtman., who has been correct
in his analysis in the last 20 or 30 years, was actually wrong here. He
tried to explain it, but the explanation is strange to me. (You can read
his explanation, he wrote it about 2 days already or so.)
The vote totals currently are a bit misleading as the counts in many states are still far from complete - as of today there's still nearly 3 million votes to count in California alone for instance. Trump will certainly get considerably more votes than in 2020 once they are all in, though it does look as though turn out will be a bit lower overall this time. While it's still too early to be definitive, it does look almost certain that Trump will also end up winning the popular vote as well as the electoral college, which makes this a pretty comprehensive victory for the Republicans by US standards.
The country still seems very divided and I guess the polarization and
division will remain
Unfortunately, yes. Things are not going to get better on this front at any time in the foreseeable future, based on all those videos I saw of people telling even family members "go choke on your turkey this Thanksgiving", "I hope your wife and daughters <have something horrific happen to them>" (you can figure out what they actually said), and so on and so forth. I didn't even take my own divorce (years ago, not recent) as personally or react as badly as some of the wild reactions I was seeing.
> At least the age of big media endorsements, celebrity endorsements, and pollsters is finally coming
> to an end.
Yes, this is interesting, because Allan Lichtman., who has been correct
in his analysis in the last 20 or 30 years, was actually wrong here. He
tried to explain it, but the explanation is strange to me. (You can read
his explanation, he wrote it about 2 days already or so.)
Concur. Legacy Media, pollsters, and celebrities are the aftermath losers in this election. Podcasts were getting Trump millions of views as opposed to interviews with places like 60 Minutes. No need for answers here, but ask yourself when was the last time you watched 60 Minutes. Have you *ever* watched 60 Minutes? I haven't watched it since...probably...1989. Do you know who watches that show? People who are 65+ years old or other legacy media journalists.
*************
The other big winner from the election: Joe Biden. He is now completely free to retire in luxury, doesn't have to play the game any more, and can quietly live out his remaining years in peace.
In 2020 we had this result (I use _ instead of , as it helps me visually):
Biden: 81_284_666 # this is 51.3%
Trump: 74_224_319 # this is 46.9%
In 2024, aka recently, we had this result:
Harris: 69_109_836 # this is 47.7%
Trump: 73_450_164 # this is 50.7%
I am more convinced than ever that the 2020 election was simply not legitimate and the product of widespread fraudulent ballot harvesting. The idea of 81 million votes being cast, far more than any election before or since. Okay, fair enough. The first President in over 100 years to lose a Presidential election and then win again. Okay, unlikely but not impossible. Not only that, but then he becomes the first Republican President to win the popular vote in 20 years. There are so many important data points about the previous election are radically different than the norm and there is no satisfying explanation. To put it into more perspective, Obama in 2012 got 65,915,795 million votes. Clinton in 2016 got 65,853,625 votes. Then in 2020 they suddenly jump up to 80 million. So we go from 65 million, to 65 million, to 81 million, to 69 million.
How does a man go, in the span of two election cycles, from winning a Presidential race, to losing against the highest vote total in the history of this country by far, and then *winning* the *popular* vote, which hasn't been done by his party in decades? Peoples attitudes have not radically changed about the man. Those who disliked him still do, those who like him still do. And the Republican side of the voter roll doesn't look nearly as strange. Trump gained voters from 2016 to 2020, sure. But not nearly as many, and the ones he gained, he kept, whereas nearly all the alleged democratic votes - over 15 million of them!- utterly vanished by the next election.
If the Biden/Kamala circus hadn't been such an unmitigated disaster from any objective metric, I think we would have seen it again. But I don't think a single soul would have believed it this time.
Like I said above, comparisons need to be done once all the votes have been counted. As of today Trump has got 76m votes and Harris 73m and there are still around 3 million votes to be counted. Turnout will end up a bit lower this time, but not by a lot and it shouldn't be that surprising that turnout was high last time given the post-Covid arrangements that made voting easier.
So really all you need to explain the outcome this time compared to 2020 is to consider whether it is reasonable that there was a swing of about 3% from Biden/Harris to Trump. Given the level of concern about the economy and immigration it doesn't seem surprising to me that Trump picked up more support at the margins. He also had a more professional campaign team this time which no doubt helped in getting his message across.
Biden was in Brazil and Harris was....well, actually, I don't think anyone knows where Harris is--I haven't seen any public appearances from her since 11 November when she and Jill didn't even look at each other. So....who, exactly, signed that order allowing Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles to attack Russia? Jill?
Well, guess what?
They just used them, launching against the Bryansk region. Sure, five were shot down and the last was damaged in flight, so the only damage it did was from fragments hitting a building. That isn't the point--the point is that they were fired. Putin already stated that he will view that as a act of aggression from NATO and will respond--and a nuclear response is not out of the question. I doubt he will--Putin may be crazy but he isn't stupid--but he might.
I knew that the Biden Administration, having lost resoundingly, was going to shred documents, delete files, steal money, and burn things down before Trump assumes office, but I didn't think they were going to burn down *everything* by trying to jump-start WWIII.
Source: The Washington Post Trudeau’s top lieutenant resigns over differences on Trump
TORONTO — Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau’s chief lieutenant throughout his tenure as Canada’s prime minister, resigned from his cabinet on Monday, citing differences over how to confront President-elect Donald Trump’s “America First” economic nationalism, threats of tariffs and the prospect of a trade war.
The abrupt resignation is the greatest challenge yet to Trudeau’s leadership. The embattled prime minister, elected in 2015, has seen his popularity nosedive over the past year amid economic torpor, a nationwide housing shortage and voter fatigue. If federal elections were held today, polls project, his Liberal Party would be wiped out.
Freeland, a former journalist, served the past four years as both finance minister and deputy prime minister as one of his most loyal cabinet ministers. She was Trudeau’s first international trade minister; in 2017, he named her foreign minister in a cabinet shuffle intended to prepare the government for the first Trump administration.
In her resignation letter, posted on her X account on Monday morning, shortly before she was scheduled to deliver a fiscal and economic update to Parliament, she notes that Trudeau told her Friday he wanted her out as his finance minister and offered her another cabinet role.
“Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the Cabinet,” Freeland wrote. “To be effective, a Minister must speak on behalf of the Prime Minister and with his full confidence. In making your decision, you made clear that I no longer credibly enjoy that confidence and possess the authority that comes with it.”
For several weeks, Freeland writes, she and Trudeau have been “at odds about the best path forward for Canada,” including on how best to respond to the “grave challenge” posed by Trump’s threats to impose a tariff of 25 percent on Canadian products. Canada sends three-quarters of its exports to the United States; economists project that such levies could plunge the economy into recession.
“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” Freeland writes. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”
Freeland did not elaborate on what she meant by “costly political gimmicks.” But last week, the Globe and Mail reported on a growing rift between the Finance Department and the prime minister’s office over a sales-tax exemption that took effect over the weekend, as well as plans to send $175 checks to Canadians making up to $105,000.
Analysts have called the moves a last-ditch effort to win back voters. The Finance Department had opposed such spending, the Globe and Mail reported, because it would jeopardize Freeland’s pledge to keep the deficit capped at the equivalent of $28.17 billion. The fiscal update introduced in Parliament on Monday projected the deficit for the fiscal year that ended in March at more than $43 billion.
Her resignation appeared to take even allies by surprise.
“Chrystia Freeland is a good friend,” Transport Minister Anita Anand told reporters in Ottawa. “This news has hit me really hard, and I’ll reserve further comment until I’ve had time to process it.”
Critics said Trudeau should step down, too.
“What we are seeing is that the government of Canada itself is spiraling out of control right before our eyes and at the very worst time,” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters. The Conservatives lead Trudeau’s Liberals in the polls by 20 points. The next federal elections must be held by October 2025.
“When the general is losing his most loyal soldiers on the eve of a (tariff) war, the country desperately needs a new general,” Jody Wilson-Raybould, Trudeau’s former justice minister-turned-critic, posted on X.
Trudeau has long said he plans to stay on as leader, even as members of his caucus in recent months have called for him to step down. There’s no formal process to remove him as Liberal Party leader if he doesn’t resign.
As leader of a minority government, he depends on the support of other parties to pass legislation. New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh, who has backed the government, on Monday also called on Trudeau to resign.
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s public safety minister, was sworn in as Freeland’s replacement late Monday afternoon.
Several cabinet ministers have stepped down in recent weeks and said they don’t plan to run in the next federal elections. Housing Minister Sean Fraser also announced his resignation on Monday.
But few cabinet ministers have wielded as much influence or power in Trudeau’s government as Freeland, whom commentators nicknamed the “Minister of Everything.” Some considered her Trudeau’s heir apparent.
She played a key role in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration, earning the respect of then-U.S. trade representative Robert E. Lighthizer, but the ire of Trump: “we don’t like their representative very much.”
Foreign Policy magazine named her Diplomat of the Year in 2018.
The next year, Trudeau named Freeland his deputy prime minister, a title bestowed occasionally but not always, and tasked the Alberta native with helping to bridge divisions between his government and Canada’s restive Western provinces. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Trudeau made her his point person on Canada’s response.
After Trump’s election in November, Trudeau rebooted a cabinet committee on U.S.-Canada relations and put her in charge of that, too. But when the prime minister jetted off to Mar-a-Lago last month to dine with Trump and attempt to dissuade him from imposing tariffs on Canada — entreaties that have thus far failed to push the president-elect to reverse course — he left Freeland at home.
The Trudeau government earlier this year announced the revival of a so-called Team Canada approach to prepare for the U.S. election, dispatching several high-profile officials across the United States to try to build relationships with lawmakers, business leaders and other people close to Trump in the hope of staving off policies that could harm Canadian interests.
But since Trump’s victory, cracks in the team have emerged.
After Trump threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports because of what he calls an “invasion” of fentanyl and migrants from Canada into the United States — a claim for which there is little evidence — several provincial premiers and opposition leaders suggested that Trump had a point and blamed Trudeau.
Political leaders here have been divided on the best way to respond to the tariffs. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has threatened to terminate energy exports to the United States. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has urged Trudeau against considering export taxes on commodities such as uranium and potash.
Ford, a conservative premier who forged a cross-party friendship with Freeland during the pandemic, was asked before a meeting of provincial leaders Monday if he was worried about her resignation. “We all are,” he said.
Please forgive the preceding wall of text, but I felt it was necessary to post this latest news considering all the financial struggles Beamdog has been contending with. I don't know how this so-called "tariff war" will affect vendors who process transactions over the internet, but I hope it doesn't impose an even bigger financial burden on Beamdog than what had happened due to Embracer's failed $2 billion partnership deal with Savvy Games Group. As a result of Embracer's "Restructuring Program" following that failed deal, 25-26 Beamdog employees (and numerous employees of other Embracer-owned gaming companies) were laid off.
Now, it looks like Canada's Prime Minister himself might be out of a job. If that truly comes to pass in the near-future, I think I know just the 2 people to fill the vacant spots of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister: @TrentOster and @CameronTofer. Seriously, this is no joke.
IIRC, Several years ago, there was an act written up that would have given additional resources to gaming companies like Beamdog in their home province where Edmonton is located. Unfortunately, it didn't get passed. Now seems to be a good opportunity to turn things around not only for Beamdog, but for the entire Gaming Industry in Canada.
@TrentOster Sir, you once stated on a Beamdog Livestream and I quote, "I want to drop the curator hat, man." Well, why don't you and Mr. Tofer try the PM and DPM hats on for size? You both seem to have done a pretty good job running your very own game development company despite circumstances beyond your control. Let's see how you two would run your very own country. Thoughts?
Comments
The current legislative fight is over a bill that is structured to bypass the filibuster. And the climate provisions didn't survive the negotiations because the Democrats in the Senate don't support them unanimously. One objection from the guy who owns a big stake in coal, and they don't have the votes.
That's what legislating with a minimal majority is like, especially since the Republicans are united in lockstep opposition to anything the Democrats try to do. So no, they couldn't just pass whatever they please even with no filibuster to worry about.
The current push to weaken or remove the filibuster is focused on voting rights. And I have to agree with that; the filibuster has a history of being used to protect discrimination, and its current implementation in the rules makes it way too easy to stop anything from getting done. Having two legislative chambers and a president that all have to agree on legislation is already inefficient as designed; we don't need to make it worse by requiring a supermajority in one of those chambers.
There's no reason why a Republican from a state that doesn't depend on fossil fuel extraction couldn't also take up the cause of combating climate change. There's no reason why some Republicans can't join with Democrats once in awhile on major legislation. I'm not expecting them to join on things that break on ideological lines, like tax rates, welfare spending or hot button issues like abortion. But as Ballpointman says above, climate change is a pretty serious looming crisis -- one that ought to unite across ideological lines. In fact, it has done so in other democracies. I think it's wrong and counterproductive for citizens to hold the parties to a double standard on such an issue.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/02/gerrymandering-new-york-republicans-democrats/622086/
I don't think that is a fair take. As long as Gerrymandering is legal not making use of it will put you at a severe disadvantage, and Democrats have to use it to offset similar gains on the GOP side. You wouldn't want to be the only side on a divorce without a lawyer either, even if you think you both should be able to resolve things without one.
There is just one party who is trying to introduce federal legislation that would solve or at least make the issue less severe.
And that's not the GOP.
The Democratic Party could have gotten rid of gerrymandering in the 70's and 80's when they had a solid majority but they didn't. I'm pretty sure that's because it was working in their favor back then. I'm old enough to remember details like this. The GOP was railing against gerrymandering back in those days. They got the same crickets that are chirping in the Democrats ears now...
So much has happened since then. I agree with you that the last year or two have been surreal. Maybe even eerie...
The results? A split decision. We don't know which party will control either chamber yet, and that'll probably take a few days to fully sort out as more votes get counted.
Over in my corner of things, some results from Washington state:
Senate: Patty Murray (D, incumbent) wins easily. Some late polls had the race close. It wasn't.
House: Six seats to the Democrats, two to the Republicans, two that won't be called until the late-arriving ballots start getting counted (WA votes by mail. Election night returns are all ballots that arrived before election day, and ballots mailed in the last day or two often have a significantly different partisan mix than the earlier votes. Votes get added to the count in one batch per day.)
Those two close races in the House:
8th district (eastern edge of the Seattle metro area, and continuing east to the Cascades): Kim Schrier (D, incumbent) leads Matt Larkin (R) by a 52.7% - 47.0% margin. This one's about in line with what people expected.
3rd district (southwestern corner of the state): Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) leads Joe Kent (R) by a 52.6% - 46.8% margin. If that lead holds, it's a major upset. No pundits saw it coming ... but nobody was polling the race.
For a bit of context, here's the primary results from August (WA uses a system in which the top two finishers advance regardless of party):
Kent: 22.8%
Jaime Herrera Beutler (R, incumbent): 22.3%
Heidi St. John (R): 16.0%
Other Republicans: 3.7%
Other Democrats: 2.2%
Independents and write-ins: 2.0%
On a more local level, the city of Seattle had a ballot proposition to change the voting system for local election primaries. It was a two part question - first "should we change things?", and second "if we change things, what system should we adopt?"
On the first part - the first day's results have it at 49-51. Change might or might not happen.
On the second part, it was a choice between "approval voting" and ranked-choice voting. The former would let voters name as many candidates "approved" as they wish, and then have the top two advance to the general election. The latter would let voters rank all the candidates, and progressively eliminate the lowest finishers until two remain. While RCV can be used to condense the primary and general election into one ("instant runoff" voting), that wasn't on the table here; state law currently forbids local entities from condensing the primary and general elections into one. The result for this question: ranked-choice voting trounced approval voting with a margin of about 75-25. If the change happens, it'll be ranked-choice voting in Seattle.
The House is currently Democrat 204 Republican 212, but if the elections were all called right now then the Democrats pick up the following seats--AK01, CA06, CA09, CA21, CA27, CA49, ME02, and OR06--while the Republicans would pick up these seats--CA03, CA22, CA27, CA41, and CA45. This would bring the totals to Democrat 212 Republican 217.
The Republican candidates have slim leads--in some cases razor thin--in AZ01, AZ06, CA13, CO03, and NY 22 while the Democrat candidate has a slim lead in CO08. Republicans would have to lose in all of the first 5 districts to fail to have a majority in the House. Not impossible, but unlikely.
At the State level, here is the current breakdown of gubernatorial offices and legislatures; this will likely change to some degree next January. Republicans control 26 governor's offices and 30 legislatures while Democrats control 21 governor's offices and 17 legislatures. In general, Democrats control the Pacific Coast, the Eastern Rocky Mountains, the Northeast, and the Great Lakes States (with the exceptions of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania); Republicans, in general, control everything else.
If you think Republicans in the House, should they control it, will somehow end Social Security and/or Medicare, ask yourself how they could possibly do this when the Senate would not pass such a bill and Biden would never sign it. This topic is not even going to come up on the floor, so why was anyone mentioning it?
Democrats had two years during which they could have updated/amended the immigration laws into whatever form they wanted, but they did not. They had sufficient time to codify Roe into law at the Federal level, but they did not. "But the filibuster in the Senate"--they could have done away with the filibuster at any time but chose not to do so. They could have added seats to the Supreme Court but chose not to do so--the real problem there is that the Court has the authority to disallow a Justice from being seated, a power it has never used.
We will soon have a split Congress. Expect even more bickering and less legislating than usual. Ironically, this is in your best interests--they can't mess anything up if they can't do anything.
Also, choosing a no-name nobody as your running-mate was not a good decision, especially when he can't remember when he was in China in 1987 then calls himself a knucklehead during a live debate.
Also, calling half the voting population garbage--not a good idea.
At least the age of big media endorsements, celebrity endorsements, and pollsters is finally coming to an end. Technically, those three groups amount to "election interference". Seriously--stop taking polls and just wait for the votes.
Finally, right now in Washington, D. C. the shredders are going nonstop and IT staff are busily deleting files from phones and computers. A lot of people have to cover their tracks on their way out the door.
In 2020 we had this result (I use _ instead of , as it helps me visually):
Biden: 81_284_666 # this is 51.3%
Trump: 74_224_319 # this is 46.9%
In 2024, aka recently, we had this result:
Harris: 69_109_836 # this is 47.7%
Trump: 73_450_164 # this is 50.7%
So if you compare the numbers, Trump actually lost (!!!) voters. Harris
had a signicantly worse result than Biden, granted, but also had less
time to prepare (and there were probably other mistakes made here,
but I am just looking at the number).
I think from this number we can say that Trump-voters were kind of
more "loyal", even though probably many new registered and voted,
whereas many people who voted for Democrats in 2020, no longer
voted in 2024. Or at the least not for Harris. Biden would most likely
also have had a worse result, so I think Biden would not have been
able to get more votes than Trump here. The ~4 million voters
difference is quite significant really. (It also seems that many did
not vote at all, so neither Harris or Trump would have the raw
majority of all who could vote, right? I also think it is unfair that
those who did not vote get ignored. I fail to see how not voting
means anyone would lose anything in any free society, so whoever
won, only has a bit more than 33% or so, give or take, from the
total eligible ones to vote, e. g. excluding the youth mostly, which
is also not great).
The country still seems very divided and I guess the polarization and
division will remain, in particular when it comes to "controversial
legislation". It seems there will be more chaos than stability, so I
think those who voted from Trump are ok with that and want change,
whatever that effectively means in actual practice.
Mathsorcerer wrote:
> At least the age of big media endorsements, celebrity endorsements, and pollsters is finally coming
> to an end.
Yes, this is interesting, because Allan Lichtman., who has been correct
in his analysis in the last 20 or 30 years, was actually wrong here. He
tried to explain it, but the explanation is strange to me. (You can read
his explanation, he wrote it about 2 days already or so.)
Unfortunately, yes. Things are not going to get better on this front at any time in the foreseeable future, based on all those videos I saw of people telling even family members "go choke on your turkey this Thanksgiving", "I hope your wife and daughters <have something horrific happen to them>" (you can figure out what they actually said), and so on and so forth. I didn't even take my own divorce (years ago, not recent) as personally or react as badly as some of the wild reactions I was seeing.
Concur. Legacy Media, pollsters, and celebrities are the aftermath losers in this election. Podcasts were getting Trump millions of views as opposed to interviews with places like 60 Minutes. No need for answers here, but ask yourself when was the last time you watched 60 Minutes. Have you *ever* watched 60 Minutes? I haven't watched it since...probably...1989. Do you know who watches that show? People who are 65+ years old or other legacy media journalists.
*************
The other big winner from the election: Joe Biden. He is now completely free to retire in luxury, doesn't have to play the game any more, and can quietly live out his remaining years in peace.
I am more convinced than ever that the 2020 election was simply not legitimate and the product of widespread fraudulent ballot harvesting. The idea of 81 million votes being cast, far more than any election before or since. Okay, fair enough. The first President in over 100 years to lose a Presidential election and then win again. Okay, unlikely but not impossible. Not only that, but then he becomes the first Republican President to win the popular vote in 20 years. There are so many important data points about the previous election are radically different than the norm and there is no satisfying explanation. To put it into more perspective, Obama in 2012 got 65,915,795 million votes. Clinton in 2016 got 65,853,625 votes. Then in 2020 they suddenly jump up to 80 million. So we go from 65 million, to 65 million, to 81 million, to 69 million.
How does a man go, in the span of two election cycles, from winning a Presidential race, to losing against the highest vote total in the history of this country by far, and then *winning* the *popular* vote, which hasn't been done by his party in decades? Peoples attitudes have not radically changed about the man. Those who disliked him still do, those who like him still do. And the Republican side of the voter roll doesn't look nearly as strange. Trump gained voters from 2016 to 2020, sure. But not nearly as many, and the ones he gained, he kept, whereas nearly all the alleged democratic votes - over 15 million of them!- utterly vanished by the next election.
If the Biden/Kamala circus hadn't been such an unmitigated disaster from any objective metric, I think we would have seen it again. But I don't think a single soul would have believed it this time.
So really all you need to explain the outcome this time compared to 2020 is to consider whether it is reasonable that there was a swing of about 3% from Biden/Harris to Trump. Given the level of concern about the economy and immigration it doesn't seem surprising to me that Trump picked up more support at the margins. He also had a more professional campaign team this time which no doubt helped in getting his message across.
Well, guess what?
They just used them, launching against the Bryansk region. Sure, five were shot down and the last was damaged in flight, so the only damage it did was from fragments hitting a building. That isn't the point--the point is that they were fired. Putin already stated that he will view that as a act of aggression from NATO and will respond--and a nuclear response is not out of the question. I doubt he will--Putin may be crazy but he isn't stupid--but he might.
I knew that the Biden Administration, having lost resoundingly, was going to shred documents, delete files, steal money, and burn things down before Trump assumes office, but I didn't think they were going to burn down *everything* by trying to jump-start WWIII.
Trudeau’s top lieutenant resigns over differences on Trump
TORONTO — Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau’s chief lieutenant throughout his tenure as Canada’s prime minister, resigned from his cabinet on Monday, citing differences over how to confront President-elect Donald Trump’s “America First” economic nationalism, threats of tariffs and the prospect of a trade war.
The abrupt resignation is the greatest challenge yet to Trudeau’s leadership. The embattled prime minister, elected in 2015, has seen his popularity nosedive over the past year amid economic torpor, a nationwide housing shortage and voter fatigue. If federal elections were held today, polls project, his Liberal Party would be wiped out.
Freeland, a former journalist, served the past four years as both finance minister and deputy prime minister as one of his most loyal cabinet ministers. She was Trudeau’s first international trade minister; in 2017, he named her foreign minister in a cabinet shuffle intended to prepare the government for the first Trump administration.
In her resignation letter, posted on her X account on Monday morning, shortly before she was scheduled to deliver a fiscal and economic update to Parliament, she notes that Trudeau told her Friday he wanted her out as his finance minister and offered her another cabinet role.
“Upon reflection, I have concluded that the only honest and viable path is for me to resign from the Cabinet,” Freeland wrote. “To be effective, a Minister must speak on behalf of the Prime Minister and with his full confidence. In making your decision, you made clear that I no longer credibly enjoy that confidence and possess the authority that comes with it.”
For several weeks, Freeland writes, she and Trudeau have been “at odds about the best path forward for Canada,” including on how best to respond to the “grave challenge” posed by Trump’s threats to impose a tariff of 25 percent on Canadian products. Canada sends three-quarters of its exports to the United States; economists project that such levies could plunge the economy into recession.
“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” Freeland writes. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.”
Freeland did not elaborate on what she meant by “costly political gimmicks.” But last week, the Globe and Mail reported on a growing rift between the Finance Department and the prime minister’s office over a sales-tax exemption that took effect over the weekend, as well as plans to send $175 checks to Canadians making up to $105,000.
Analysts have called the moves a last-ditch effort to win back voters. The Finance Department had opposed such spending, the Globe and Mail reported, because it would jeopardize Freeland’s pledge to keep the deficit capped at the equivalent of $28.17 billion. The fiscal update introduced in Parliament on Monday projected the deficit for the fiscal year that ended in March at more than $43 billion.
Her resignation appeared to take even allies by surprise.
“Chrystia Freeland is a good friend,” Transport Minister Anita Anand told reporters in Ottawa. “This news has hit me really hard, and I’ll reserve further comment until I’ve had time to process it.”
Critics said Trudeau should step down, too.
“What we are seeing is that the government of Canada itself is spiraling out of control right before our eyes and at the very worst time,” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters. The Conservatives lead Trudeau’s Liberals in the polls by 20 points. The next federal elections must be held by October 2025.
“When the general is losing his most loyal soldiers on the eve of a (tariff) war, the country desperately needs a new general,” Jody Wilson-Raybould, Trudeau’s former justice minister-turned-critic, posted on X.
Trudeau has long said he plans to stay on as leader, even as members of his caucus in recent months have called for him to step down. There’s no formal process to remove him as Liberal Party leader if he doesn’t resign.
As leader of a minority government, he depends on the support of other parties to pass legislation. New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh, who has backed the government, on Monday also called on Trudeau to resign.
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s public safety minister, was sworn in as Freeland’s replacement late Monday afternoon.
Several cabinet ministers have stepped down in recent weeks and said they don’t plan to run in the next federal elections. Housing Minister Sean Fraser also announced his resignation on Monday.
But few cabinet ministers have wielded as much influence or power in Trudeau’s government as Freeland, whom commentators nicknamed the “Minister of Everything.” Some considered her Trudeau’s heir apparent.
She played a key role in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration, earning the respect of then-U.S. trade representative Robert E. Lighthizer, but the ire of Trump: “we don’t like their representative very much.”
Foreign Policy magazine named her Diplomat of the Year in 2018.
The next year, Trudeau named Freeland his deputy prime minister, a title bestowed occasionally but not always, and tasked the Alberta native with helping to bridge divisions between his government and Canada’s restive Western provinces. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Trudeau made her his point person on Canada’s response.
After Trump’s election in November, Trudeau rebooted a cabinet committee on U.S.-Canada relations and put her in charge of that, too. But when the prime minister jetted off to Mar-a-Lago last month to dine with Trump and attempt to dissuade him from imposing tariffs on Canada — entreaties that have thus far failed to push the president-elect to reverse course — he left Freeland at home.
The Trudeau government earlier this year announced the revival of a so-called Team Canada approach to prepare for the U.S. election, dispatching several high-profile officials across the United States to try to build relationships with lawmakers, business leaders and other people close to Trump in the hope of staving off policies that could harm Canadian interests.
But since Trump’s victory, cracks in the team have emerged.
After Trump threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports because of what he calls an “invasion” of fentanyl and migrants from Canada into the United States — a claim for which there is little evidence — several provincial premiers and opposition leaders suggested that Trump had a point and blamed Trudeau.
Political leaders here have been divided on the best way to respond to the tariffs. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has threatened to terminate energy exports to the United States. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has urged Trudeau against considering export taxes on commodities such as uranium and potash.
Ford, a conservative premier who forged a cross-party friendship with Freeland during the pandemic, was asked before a meeting of provincial leaders Monday if he was worried about her resignation. “We all are,” he said.
Please forgive the preceding wall of text, but I felt it was necessary to post this latest news considering all the financial struggles Beamdog has been contending with. I don't know how this so-called "tariff war" will affect vendors who process transactions over the internet, but I hope it doesn't impose an even bigger financial burden on Beamdog than what had happened due to Embracer's failed $2 billion partnership deal with Savvy Games Group. As a result of Embracer's "Restructuring Program" following that failed deal, 25-26 Beamdog employees (and numerous employees of other Embracer-owned gaming companies) were laid off.
Now, it looks like Canada's Prime Minister himself might be out of a job. If that truly comes to pass in the near-future, I think I know just the 2 people to fill the vacant spots of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister: @TrentOster and @CameronTofer. Seriously, this is no joke.
IIRC, Several years ago, there was an act written up that would have given additional resources to gaming companies like Beamdog in their home province where Edmonton is located. Unfortunately, it didn't get passed. Now seems to be a good opportunity to turn things around not only for Beamdog, but for the entire Gaming Industry in Canada.
@TrentOster Sir, you once stated on a Beamdog Livestream and I quote, "I want to drop the curator hat, man." Well, why don't you and Mr. Tofer try the PM and DPM hats on for size? You both seem to have done a pretty good job running your very own game development company despite circumstances beyond your control. Let's see how you two would run your very own country. Thoughts?