Kari Lake and the Lawyers She Rode in On

 

You might have heard that Kari Lake lost her election, oh, about November of last year, but if you are Kari Lake, you are hearing as it if for the first time just now, when for the second time she has been told that her idea of "proof" that the election was rigged against her just simply wasn't. 

As just a minute's worth of throat-clearing on my part, what if things like machines that didn't work properly or the existence of mail-in ballots or whatever, weren't things that only negatively affected Republican voters, but were conditions that existed for all the voters and under those conditions, there was still just a higher Democratic voter turnout? See, I feel like most complaints from GOP pols and their various conspiracy theorist fluffers is basically Republicans claiming some kind of weird victimhood that they were robbed when no, sometimes candidates just lose for reasons. It's the old idea that only Democrats have agency, therefore, Republicans could not possibly claw their way to an electoral advantage by any sort of nefarious means, but Democrats totally do. 

Eh. 

But anyway, whether Kari Lake learns anything from this loss or not, her lawyers will possibly get a hard lesson, because they aren't just looking at sanctions, but possibly the loss of their law licenses. That is serious business, as in, they will be out of business.  What lawyers will learn from this is--don't perform meaningless signifying electoral challenges if you can't prove voter fraud existed. 

What does Kari Lake learn? Nothing, so long as people think it's just fine and dandy for politicians to lie their asses off about whether they won or lost an election to gin up their fanbase. After all, Trump is still doing it, no matter how many times he's been told he lost (and it's a lot--like, an unbelievable lot).  But I think she looks like a whole horse's ass the more she insists on it instead of moving on to anything else, and well, that's good. As an example for others. 

The Example of Ilhan Omar

 

Swalwell: Finally. So I thought, we're going to hold someone accountable for anti-semitism. Surely it's the author of this tweet. Kanye, Elon. Trump… Don’t come here looking at us for anti-semitism. Look at your own damn mirror pic.twitter.com/dTYVinwsWZ

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 2, 2023

The one thing I loved about my Democratic party today was how they stood up for Ilhan Omar, who didn't do anything but be visibly a Black African Muslimah who said certain uncomfortable things out loud that a certain political party could with all the pettiness in the world deny access to the one committee where someone with her life experiences would be a complete benefit. These supportive people dropped so many receipts about the GOP it was like the trashcan next to an ATM. They cut up and brought up some real tea. They said who the extremists are. They called them out by name, and AOC brought her own persepective as a woman of color also derided and threatened at times by her "colleagues" across the aisle.

She still got bounced from that committee, but I think that the GOP made it clear it aways was about themselves, not her. They lockstep denied their colleague her place among them because it was politically expedient to be petty and bounce her. Not because of something she egregiously did a minute ago--but because of something she erroneously said years ago and had since atoned for. 

They made an example of her to prove their thin power-- that they could reject someone because of her identity. This tells me so much more about who they are than who she is. 

UPDATE: This is a day in her world. Because of her so-called colleagues,. Because the right is comprised of the religious wrong, who don't care if Ilhan Omar stays a living person or not.  That is what this pettiness leads to. No one deserves that. Ever. But this is the GOP in action. 

And We All Got a Little Dumber That Day

 

Greene: Can you tell me how much money went to CRT?
Dodaro: CRT?
Greene: It’s a racist curriculum used to teach children that somehow their white skin not equal to black skin and other things pic.twitter.com/ssFZE7Gxlz

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 1, 2023

This hearing was supposed to be something to do with the waste of Trump-era Covid-19 spending, so I don't know how we got here, but I think it has to do with MTG being an astonishingly stupid bubblehuman who does not have any information outside of culture war propaganda. And for a person who received a PPP loan and got forgiveness, she seems stupid as hell about how funds were wasted since it literally looks like she has first-hand experience. But no, Marge, the large sum of money you think went to CRT didn't and why do you think that, and why do you think that's even what CRT is? 

Critical Race Theory is a college-level legal conversation about how laws can be made to disadvantage populations based on their legal definition. Race is a social construct that can be codified into law--that is to say, people can write words to define the way certain people get to be oppressed. It can be based on immigration status, it can be based on assumed ethnicity, it can be based on religious affiliation--basically people can be told who they are by law, and they don't have a say about their identification. Being "one of the good ones" doesn't even legally save you. 

George Santos is the GOP Poster Child

 

You know there's something wrong with a congressman when they turn down committee assignments. Is that even a thing? George Anthony Devolder Santos has turned down his committee assignments after GOP leadership went to bat justifying him getting them, because he would like to not make waves until he settles all his issues. 

That's amazingly optimistic. He has more issues than National Geographic. Are they going to get settled in a hot minute?

Like, take his treasurer situation. His treasurer just left.  Like, just. Left. His campaign finance statement was filed with a new guy, but at least not the "new guy" whose consent was apparently forged. The new treasurer looks to be Andrew Olson. Hopefully that's a real guy, unlike some of Santos' donors, who may or may not be real people, and may or may not have donated money to his campaign. 

That being said, I would not want to be his treasurer. And what we know of his actual funders, well, they are interesting. Like Andrew Intrader, who has also dumped money into the fight against progressive DA's, which is fun, because the people who are against progressive DAs all claim those people were put up by George Soros because of course they do. And it's true! And there is good reason for it. New approaches regarding fighting crime that are not based in nailing disadvantaged people to the fucking wall for accolades and calling it effective might get better results and be less harmful to the effected communities. 

Obviously, I care more about the possibility that these ghost donors are some kind of influence op to buy old George, who likes money a little bit a lot. They could just be simple graft, but also could be representing foreign money for some purpose. It's clearly worth our time to know and rises to the sort of thing a relatively neutered FEC should look at. 

The guy is endlessly weird, and his pathological lying seems almost funny (except that it extends, very pathologically, into his social life as well, apparently), but it certainly isn't because of what it says about our politics, and especially the politics of a certain political party. To his credit, he seems remarkably taciturn about his various woes and unravelling frauds, unlike a certain former president, who is lashing out in all directions on social media, not knowing from whence his first indictments will come. Santos doesn't know that, either, but at least he isn't being a whiny little turd about it. 

But as to the GOP response? We have Elise Stefanik, letting us know the voters were to blame for voting for the person who deceived them. But how were they to know? And who helped sell them this bill of shoddy goods, Rep. Stefanik? And are you ready to have a chat about it? 

Santos is a symptom, not the whole problem. Trump was a symptom, not the whole problem, too. The problem is dirty money, complacency, cowardice, and loyalty to party over any sense of duty or rectitude. And that certainly isn't getting settled over one election cycle. 

UPDATE: Which leaves out this guy and the evolution of the current GOP--the increasingly nihilistic alt-right aspect. It's sinister that the NY Young Republicans more openly embrace Proud Boys and truck with white supremacy out in the open. How Santos (clearly a performative clod) serves that agenda remains to be seen. But being a gay Brazilian racist clusterfuck certainly is one spin on identity politics for lulz, isn't it? 

There is a Reason Kari Lake Lost

 

"There's not a darn reason we should've lost" -- Kari Lake comes close to admitting defeat pic.twitter.com/ek12xUjENy

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2023

But a recent news story tells us exactly what happened: she did it to herself.  

But according to the Republic, Lake’s loss boils down to the fact that she alienated vast swaths of her fellow Republicans, pointing to a recent analysis of the public voting records to identify the “disaffected voters” who support the majority of candidates from one political party but cast a vote for the opposing party in a specific race.

“The numbers show that while Lake claims she lost because of printer problems or other issues in Maricopa County,” wrote the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl, “she could have won had she not turned off voters in the state’s most populous county who backed a host of other Republican candidates”:

Or long story short:

Kari Lake Lost Because Nearly 40,000 Maricopa County Voters Cast Ballots for Other GOP Candidates, But Not Her

Because maybe she needed the "John McCain Republicans" she was so hot to deride.  Maybe she made it too easy for Katie Hobbs to turn down a debate by acting exactly like the radical that Hobbs wanted to depict her as. And maybe focusing on the last election--2020--cost her 2022 because she wasn't focused on winning, but what to do if she lost. 

And bizarrely, she's still in denial-land. She's still trying to appeal her loss. Her Twitter feed and that of her "War Room" share random data points that don't prove any coordinated fraud, and she sits and bitches about her loss with people like Bannon who shouldn't be touched with a twenty-foot pole and supports Mike Lindell (!?) for RNC chair. Or Harmeet Dhillon. Depending on the day you ask. Anyone but whoever let her lose. But she ran a campaign that doubled down on stupid and is now setting herself up to look like an election denialist kook if she runs for anything else. 

And I say "Good". Better we all understand who we are dealing with so that Ruben Gallego kicks her narrow ass if she runs for Senate. And maybe she is just taking a very dishonest page from her hero, Donald Trump's, book regarding the profitability of crying "rigged". It's a pretty decent dollar--that fake indignation dollar. 

It would be lovely not to ever hear from this crank again. 

Call Them Insurrectionists

 

"In some ways what they are asking for, does actually empower all members, but in this environment, empowering those members means empowering insurrectionists, empowering people that will shutdown the government"- @DavidJollyFL w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/Pnz5ct3Z5Q

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) January 5, 2023

Two years ago, the Trump supporters attending a "Stop the Steal" rally spilled into the Capitol and tried to delay the work of that body. Today, elected members of that body are delaying its work by failing to select a Speaker of the House.  There is considerable overlap between the people who supported the first insurrection and those who are working to diminish the effectiveness and reputation of Congress from within. 

But that's not all. I could note that supporters of the "Anyone but McCarthy" movement include Ginni Thomas and Cleta Mitchell, who were serious supporters of the attempted Trump coup. It doesn't escape my notice that Ali Alexander, the Forest Gump of 1/6 because he was supposedly talking to everybody, is mad as hell about that "harlot", MTG.  He's ready to dime her out for her crimes see if he doesn't (betting he doesn't). 

Matt Gaetz put forward Donald Trump's name for speaker but got no bites--no one joined that wheel-less hearse funeral. That's a blow to folks like Flynn, Bannon and Stone, who have all variously suggested Trump as a potential Speaker of the House. But I don't think he's offering that name seriously--it's a troll. A threat.

I don't have a problem calling the 20 holdouts "insurrectionists" and anti-government government officials is definitely a thing, but I need to put that in context--they have company, and McCarthy isn't better. The Republican party is lousy with bomb-throwers and folks who have turned a blind eye to the events of 1/6, to the results of following and enabling Trump, to the irony of being called upon to lead government while having no faith in government solutions. 

The GOP simply isn't capable of governing. It doesn't matter what Republican gets named for the Speakership, the result will be the same: posturing for the base. Accomplishing nothing lasting. Maybe producing show trials for their base (like the idea of seeking retribution on Dr, Fauci for? Or investigating whatever they think Hunter Biden's laptop is good for.) We saw them give no shits when in the minority over many votes that could have done some good. They won't bring those kinds of votes to the table. 

The GOP has long undermined the idea of good government by being bad at government whenever they get elected. They don't bat an eyelash at undermining faith in our elections or anything else. They treat bipartisanship often as Grover Norquist once characterized it: date rape. They've had an insurrectionist mentality for a long time--it's just now that it's becoming very hard for people to ignore.

He Doesn't Have the Votes

 

So, maybe someone out there felt a bit of momentum for McCarthy when the Phantom of Mar-a-Lago dipped his oar in to endorse his speakership. Whoever felt that, felt wrong, because Lauren Boebert summed up the problems as follows:

"Let’s stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to turn against us — even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off," Boebert said on the House floor Wednesday. "I think it actually needs to be reversed; the president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes, and it’s time to withdraw."

Now, Trump isn't still the president obviously, but he's also demonstrably not the boss of the Freedom Caucus.  He's the leader of the Trumpiest people in the GOP--as long as they agree with him. That's a very interesting thing to know.  Trump is a figurehead, but not a respected one. He can be defied.

Anyway, McCarthy got one favorable vote today: the vote to adjourn after three votes went against him, and he wasted everyone's time to decide to put a pin in it and circle back at eight o'clock eastern standard just to decide that the definition of crazy is doing the same thing multiple times and expecting different results. 

To open up the floor to getting his nose rubbed in it starting noon Thursday? Is this a fetish he has? 

The GOP Speaking Sickness

 

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich on “Never Kevin” Republicans, such at Matt Gaetz, who are unwilling to support Kevin McCarthy:

“I think it’s a psychological problem. These guys can’t count straight. They can’t play tic-tac-toe. They can’t accept victory.” pic.twitter.com/OOnVZq6qYS

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) January 2, 2023

What's the matter, Newt?  Don't you know your own sprogs? They are angry, they want the politics of personal destruction, they are petty and spiteful. They want performative and vindictive destructiveness over functional government. They want to shut down effective government. They want to not be ignored. They aren't interested in getting a win. They want hostages. They want to be seen as dangerous. They want to be depicted as rebels and revolutionaries as a brand. 

There are people in the House of Representatives who are literally delaying the choosing of a speaker and their swearing in and all of that because it's about the brand. Of MAGA Freedom caucus people--I think. To show the power they have as disruptors: to move fast and break things or whatever the disruptor thing is these days. 

And actually, Margorie Taylor Greene knows their movement is stupid and is over it. Which is the most respect I have ever had for her:

The GOP can't do anything yet. Now, to me this suggests that the dysfunction the Republicans have right now is great--total disarray means they can't do things they want to do. But for our being a republic that is functional, this is actually really sad and MTG is actually right that elected people should be able to go do their elected business. 

And her operational point that voting with McCarthy, however imperfect he is, gets Republicans a path to delivering their vision and goals is more institutionalist than I thought she would be and probably no matter what, what the GOP will get. He's the front guy. The available stiff. Her ability to view his speakership as malleable and a deliverable to the Powers that Be (whoever gets leverage) is a sign she isn't to be misunderestimated. 

Anyway, Kevin McCarthy still isn't speaker. Maybe he never will be. We will see. 

I Feel Bad for Fatima Devolder

 

I don't know much about George Santos' mother other than what fact-checkers have had to debunk. Above, I posted a screenshot of two Tweets from George Santos about his mother's passing: that her life was claimed by 9/11 and that she had died in 2016. This doesn't strike me as so necessarily conflicted--of course, people who were near Ground Zero succumbed, even years later, due to disease from the toxic fallout of the rubble. If she contracted cancer from that, however later, it is just as much a case of 9/11 claiming her life as if she had passed when the Towers fell. 

Only--Santos says she was an executive working at a major financial institution, and it appears she was actually a domestic worker or home health aide. So how was she even there? Was she?

We can question whether his need for assistance with the burial matches his bio--and I will say, I believe he had financial problems.  I can see with my own eyes the struggle was real. But why did he have to lie so much about his mother? 

He concocted from nothing at all a story about her family and variously said she was from Belgium, or that her ancestors were Ukrainian Jews with the family name "Zabrovsky". He said his mother fled socialism in Belgium (which is not a socialist country) and also that his Ukrainian Jewish forebears fled the Holocaust because of socialism (because the whole "First they came for the socialists" thing is entirely lost on people whose life of the mind is entirely constructed of fables). 

George Santos, Caucasian, Jew-ish and Black (because he claims Angolan ancestry via his father) never seems to think his own story is good enough. Or that his own mother's story was good enough. He name-checks the Holocaust, 9/11 and even fabricated employees that died in the Pulse shooting as if only major events give meaning to one's life. 

His actual story, as a first-generation American who had a loving mother who protected him even though he was a check-stealing shit back in Rio de Janeiro, was not enough. That he now pretends he made a fortune just a minute ago in something he refers to as "capital introduction" can only make us wonder who introduced this ne'er-do-well to the kind of capital that finances a successful congressional campaign--and investigators are gonna be on it. (I always suspect Russians but Dark Money is a real thing, too.)

His lies about who he is and who she was fall around her--unable to say one word because she isn't alive to say her piece.  But I think she deserved better. Who she actually was should have been enough. 

UPDATE: Is he a chronic liar because he had a brain tumor or did he have a brain tumor because he's a chronic liar? 

3 years ago, he claimed he had a brain tumour and received chemo… pic.twitter.com/fBclHQjrps

— Ravin Boodram (@rvbdrm) December 29, 2022

How the whole hell?  I mean, how the whole hell? 

 

Flies in the Vaseline 2: She Lost

 

Kari Lake at Mar-a-Lago: “I believe we won by 400,000 to 500,000 votes.” pic.twitter.com/VpdpC1qJds

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) December 23, 2022

She got her day in court, and her argument was found to be unpersuasive.  

A state judge on Saturday rejected Kari Lake’s last-ditch effort to overturn her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race, dismissing for lack of evidence her last two claims of misconduct by Maricopa County election officials.

The order by Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, after a two-day trial in Phoenix that ended Thursday, follows more than six weeks of claims by Ms. Lake, a Republican, that she was robbed of victory last month — assertions that echoed the false contention that was at the heart of her campaign: that an even larger theft had stolen the 2020 presidential election from Donald. J. Trump.

Her campaign has said it would appeal, and I would strongly suggest that they not do that, because it seems to me like sanctions would be a-comin' if they wanted to be that hard-headed. (It seems like the problem of trying to undermine faith in democracy is too serious a threat to call what they'd be doing actually "frivolous", but I can't imagine there's anything they have else to bring to the courtroom.)

But look where she has landed herself--if she just graciously thanked her campaign for all they did to support her in a relatively close gubernatorial contest and vow to continue to strive to participate in the civic life of Arizonans, maybe she would not look like the a smacked ass who ran around saying stuff like "They messed with the wrong bitch" and claiming she probably won it by a half million. 

It's a very unfiltered and unattractive look, right?  

I think it was very important for the process that she had been able to have her day in court and wildly not-prove her claims, and hope lessons are learned from this. I don't necessarily know that they will be the right lessons, but damnit, it feels like an educational opportunity.

UPDATED: Motion for sanctions against Kari Lake and her attorneys just dropped.  Lake should wake up--she may try to manipulate public opinion, but the courts are not the same.

The Santos Clause

 

Imagine the wonderland this country is, because only here can a scrappy self-made grifter wake up one day going from bouncing rent checks to being a Wall Street success, achieve a good, solid education, run a charity, never experience discrimination as a gay person (probably because of being straight-married until just before running for office) with an incredible backstory of being descended from Holocaust survivors. 

You can even largely self-fund your campaign for congress, or maybe, just with a lot of Russian oligarch money. 

Yes. A GOP candidate probably backed with Russian oligarch money who does not seem to be the guy he represents himself as. 

People can point fingers at whether the Democrats did enough oppo research or whether the local news media looked hard enough at this guy's campaign, but can we just admit that it's no accident someone like this crops up in the GOP?

Herschel Walker in the House

 

Sometimes when we want to define a thing, we ask "What do you call it when it is at home?" If you wanted to define Herschel Walker (recognizing his pronoun is not that of a "thing" even if he proclaims no understanding of what a pronoun is) , I can tell you readily what to call Herschel Walker when he is at home:

A Texan. 

But the real reason I'm envisioning Walker in his house is because that is where he seems to be envisioning himself. In the basically tied US House (or Senate--hard to say):

In a brief interview with POLITICO on Saturday, Walker seemed to mistake which chamber of Congress he was running for and also appeared to think the outcome of his race would determine control of the Senate.

“They’re not [less motivated] because they know right now that the House will be even so they don’t want to understand what is happening right now,” he said of voters. “You get the House, you get the committees. You get all the committees even, they just stall things within there. So if we keep a check on Joe Biden, we just going to keep a check on him.”

This is a C- effort on a Civics quiz. It's a whole F as far as someone actually running for the Senate goes. As in W. T. F.

 He really does not seem to know what he's running for. And yet, I still think (while I'm optimistic for Warnock) this will be close and it's a shame that Warnock has to be purely exemplary, and a Republican can go ahead and be...this. 

Herschel Walker's Final Pitches

 

As we get closer to run-off erection day in Georgia, I think it behooves us to consider the man, the candidate, the father, the phenomenon, that is Herschel Walker, who said out loud where people could hear that young voters (those under 31) are like immigrants and have no business voting to try and affect things.  That's a weird message to have when young voters could be deciding this election.  

But then again, he's also the person whose campaign decided right on the heels of a shooting at an LGBT nightclub that a transphobic ad was entirely on point. 

The problem I have with all of this isn't that he will probably lose--but that he's a candidate at all and I am forced to say "probably". The Republican party, as currently constituted, gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about the quality of their candidates, only having the quantity to retain some kind of power.

They could run a cardboard standee. It would be less trouble than the actual Herschel. 

The guy lives in Texas, he's got a series of broken homes behind him, and he wants to be a werewolf. 

I am not sure I can even WT enough AFs about this candidacy. I will say the RNC is weak and useless and can't vet or influence winners and lets capricious monied arseholes run weird dark horse bets because why the hell not? Who cares? It's only our democracy. 

It's tragic.

UPDATE: Also, he lives in Texas if I didn't mention it (I mentioned it). He isn't so daft he doesn't know where he lives, right? He just doesn't live where he is running for office. 

Somehow, the RNC and the former president who endorsed him did not pick up on that. Or care. Either/or.

Flies in the Vaseline (UPDATED)

 

It really does look like GOP AZ gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake is not going to pick up enough votes to win the contest. This shouldn't be an actual surprise since election-denying gubernatorial and secretary of state candidates have gone down this cycle all over. But this was the closest contest, in a state where there were actual Cyber Ninjas looking for bamboo ballots not that long ago, so this is the race where I do believe there will be some fuckery. 

Because I do not think Kari Lake will be ignored. Because even though rumor had it that the Trump election-deniers really wanted to start shit over a "close" PA race that never was close, the best shot they have for keeping the election fraud myth alive lies in AZ's supposed "slow" count. (Even though slow is careful. Dotting i's and crossing t's, as it were.) And because the "agents of intolerance" once decried by John McCain are very active in the election-denial movement. 

Kari Lake quite famously said she didn't want the votes of "John McCain Republicans" in more harsh terms. She might have wished she had been a bit more conciliatory, but hindsight is probably not more the strength of her faction of politics than foresight is. 

The people she does align with are the Jericho marchers. These are the sort of folks who, although white-bread Christians, see fit to blow a shofar horn as if they are genuinely acting out of a sense of having been chosen by God, even if this an appropriation of a tradition that is not their own. Their circumambulation suggests a threat, the reverse of people with faith in elections or democracy--to pull down the institution they surround. 

To get even weirder, Ali Alexander thinks he can "will" the election the way he wants via prayer, which, ok, but, you know. Trump lost. Among tons of others. So. His record is bad. 

For my part, I've tried to not talk about Kari Lake, despite her two-facedness regarding drag shows, and her obvious last-minute bid for sympathy by a "white powder incident" at her campaign headquarters which looks like a stunt--buy hey! not more complicated than Little Marco's!  And I almost felt a pang of sympathy for her eagerness to please when she vacuumed a rug for Donald Trump. It reminded me of Annette Bening's character in American Beauty.  She was going to sell this house today. 

I tried not to dismiss her and her odd robotic weird uncanny-valley nonsense as "Scary Flake"--it felt misogynistic. But if she wants to pretend that the election got stolen from her, if she loses by a margin not too dissimilar from the one Trump lost by two years ago, and in the company of Mark Finchem (a kook) and Blake Masters (who looks like he skins puppies because Yankee Candle doesn't come in that scent), well, it's just possible she's trying to be Trump's little darling today, but that won't do shit for her long-term chances at political relevance.

It would be better to go out with her dignity intact (such as it is) and take a run at the useless and badly implicated in 1/6 GOP AZ chair Kelli Ward, amirite? 

But that just like, my opinion. 

And I think it's pretty amusing the way Meghan McCain and Liz Cheney have already dunked on her via Twitter. For some Republican women, her act has already been a bridge too far. 

 

UPDATE: She's been to Mar-A-Lago, she's vowing to fight, she's got people wildly exaggerating about their "voter suppression" (when they still were able to vote!) and maybe her campaign has indicated that they just can't hold back those hardcore fans of hers to Maricopa Co.--fair warning! 

She is absolutely turning out how I thought she would. 

The Red Wave That Wasn't 2: The Deep Blue Berm

 

There's a sign I pass on my way to work, and it is randomly painted with liberal messages--and for a little while, it was a message about the "elephant in the womb" meme: the GOP elephant inside of a uterus. I also passed a handful of "Roevember" signs. (I also too, still see the "trucknutz folks"--but the suburbs outside of Philadelphia are a strange mixture.) There was an uptick in women and youth votes this year, and I definitely think the Dobbs decision had a lot to do with that. 

That democracy and specifically, anti-theocracy and anti-fascism was on the line might be harder to demographically define, but I think that definitely was the case here in PA, where the GOP gubernatorial pick was both an insurrectionist and pretty openly theocratic. Folks didn't necessarily see democracy as a major issue pre-election, per the polls and the pundits, who preferred an "It's the economy!" line. 

But the economy isn't bad--just a bit of inflation? Growth and record-low unemployment, plus an actual reduction in the deficit were great factors going in, and the inflation and especially fuel prices are issues that have to be laid at the feet of the corporations, since we are a capitalist society that hasn't nationalized the refineries--right? 

So, what were folks looking at? What you couldn't ignore--the absurd quality of the GOP candidates. What they stood for. (I wish more voters in Ohio, Florida, and Texas knew to what extent they voted for clowns, but too many of their voters are verily seeing through a funhouse mirror.) 

The Democrats have been performing like normal liberals--and it's been good. They can just keep doing that. The public isn't gonna mind. 

The Red Wave that Wasn't

 

I very carefully treated Tuesday's returns like they weren't even there until now. I wasn't posting last night. I didn't want to hear any news. I don't do prognostication on this blog for a very good, reason--there are ghosts in the machine. and I believe in them. We shouldn't listen to polls too much, because if polls were great, why would we ever have elections? And knowing very well that returns take time, and might be illusory early on, I wanted to say less and less even as some kind of picture shaped up.

But I'm now less reticent in saying--it was a good night. It was a good night especially in Pennsylvania, where Shapiro and Fetterman came through and the State House is blue. I am extremely pleased that Mastriano (1/6 attendee) lost despite the rainbow that his "prophets" thought might foretell his victory:

I mean:

During Mastriano’s speech on pronouns, he sees a rainbow and says God is sending a message pic.twitter.com/EOHc9aSuIX

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 5, 2022

No, hon, this is the sign Lesbian Jesus sends to you to tell you why you lost.  Keep up.

The Big What-if?

 

Trump: I'm going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday November 15 pic.twitter.com/EmpMcqYVt0

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 8, 2022

Ooooohhhhhh! A big announcement, is it? At Mar-a-Lago (the site where, two times, now, multiple boxes containing assorted government paper Trump had no business still having, were carted out--and this is important). The Winter White House. Much Florida Guy energy!

Not to overshadow the important message of the midterms, mind you-but whatever, whatever, whatever could it be? Did he strike oil while rustling up some food in the backyard at Bedminster? Does he have one weird trick for eliminating stubborn grout stains? Has he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin with several important prophecies for our future? Does he want you to know that you can donate your unwanted old vehicle to 1-877-kars 4kids? 

Not to bigfoot J.D. Puffenstuff's (who he does not own, he says) rally, or whatever, but Trump wants you to know you would be safer with him in charge of the nuclear codes because he'd know when to use'em! And also, Nancy Pelosi impeached him twice, which makes her just as much an animal as MS-13. That's serving some serious presidential vibes and doesn't at all sound like a sad self-important has-been about to be indicted for lots of things. He sounds like a sad, self-important has-been about to be indicted for lots of things who got told announcing he was running for the 2024 GOP presidential race would 1) possibly turn out the vote--against the GOP, 2) sever his legal fees being paid by the RNC and 3) end his Save America fundraising grift. 

He doesn't want to announce right now, but maybe--after he knows whether Lee Zeldin will be able to pardon him for anything he's maybe in trouble for in NY--then he might announce. When he's guaranteed that the 1/6 Committee goes away and we see Jim Jordan or (holy jumping jiggery-fuckery) Margarine Tater Grease having the gavel in the Oversight Committee, why, then, wow! His glidepath back to the "dump" feels so much more stable. Very legal and very cool. 

I have all the obvious questions and reservations you might think I have, especially in light of "Putin's chef" admitting screwing about in US elections has been on the menu for a long while and still is. And also, I think about the threat GOP wins might have on the future of support to Ukraine. And what it means to have election denialism become the default, not election security. Not one person, one vote, but one election, hordes of lawyers. 

He has basically already announced that he wants to announce. Our Democracy better batten down its ever-loving hatches. 

DeSantis and the Debts

 

In Pennsylvania, where Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano are contending for US Senate and the governorship, respectively, former president Donald Trump has a nickname for a certain governor of his party up for election in Trump's own current state of residence: he calls him "Ron DeSanctimonious." And why not? Trump is spoiling to run for president in 2024 himself and wants to kneecap other contenders who have forgotten who he is. 

Now, the reason why Trump wants to run for president in 2024 might understandably be construed to be in part his belief that being a political contender will wash away some of his legal woes.  We've known that for more than a minute. He doesn't need to run to prove himself--he has been in the White House. Even if he lost. And was impeached twice....What he does need is to manufacture the kind of pre-emptive immunity he once had when he was in office.

But what he doesn't want is some upstart who came to office on his presumed coattails (today, what should have been an unraveled bolero, if the media and Democratic messaging could get on the same page about his fall from grace) to supplant him. 

And Ron Desantis, who toadied with croaking and sticky-tongued fidelity to win in Florida, has decided to trip the light Olympic and set his cap among the stars, declaring that he's God's gift to politics. 

I love you, Ron.

On behalf of millions of people, never stop fighting for freedom. pic.twitter.com/5wcopo041U

— Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) November 4, 2022

(Casey DeSantis--brainwashed tradwife or religiously-literate brains behind the rattan throne? Also too, don't care.) 

On the nth day, the creator endowed me with an amazing gag-reflex, but I sputtered a little over this one. Sure, it's serving "God created a farmer" energy and also, those various t-shirts from the kind of twee probably mostly foreign labels that appeal to millennial wine moms who decorate their houses with wooden signs with inspirational calligraphy and are advertised on Facebook. 

As far as Trump can see--DeSantis owes him. All the young Republicans do. Which leads me to once again ask--What is the play? Because you can't suck up to Trump if you want to topple him. And you need to finish him to get over him, and no Republican seems to have the taste for it. 

Does DeSanctimonious have the stones? He's ambitious, wants to be liked, and loves to retcon history. He's already earned dictator cred. He's earned the support of bigots and punched down at LGBT people every chance he can get and smeared their allies as "groomers".  He's thumbed his nose at science and history alike. (He's done a lot to reinforce my personal prejudice that the Ivies socially promote unfit conservative students because they would rather not deal with the stink they would raise if flunked for just poor all-around scholarship.)

I think DeSantis might not have the stones. I know Trump thinks he doesn't. But I'd like DeSantis to try it because I am not too sophisticated to watch a little bloodsport. 

What Does Desperate Bitch-hood Sound Like?

 

According to JD Vance, Tim Ryan is planning on "flooding America with illegal aliens and then using American tax dollars to fund gender reassignment surgeries for those aliens" pic.twitter.com/iMOPiEMuxT

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) November 4, 2022

The Democrats are doing a replacement theory because they want to make a transgender army happen, is a thing a stupid venture capitalist ignorant signifying idiot individual wants to say out loud where people can hear.

Of course this is stupid. 

I don't have any more to say about that.  The whole thing is the most stupid ever.  Vance is just not credible. 

Trumpism is Exactly What You Think It Is

 

On the same day it is reported that he received limited immunity to testify in the documents case against Trump, Kash Patel calls for defunding the FBI and DOJ. pic.twitter.com/BQ7mbeV4FJ

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) November 3, 2022

Defund the federal police? So much for law and order! 

Kash Patel is a TrunpWorld creature.  He won't be a very forthcoming witness against Trump. and will likely test the limits of his limited immunity based on the things his toady-ass won't say. 

So what else do we know about TrumpWorld--besides they settled over abusing protesters?  Because the voir dire process kept showing that regular folks hated Trump so much they couldn't sit on a jury. Because they hated him. So much. 

In other TrumpWorld exploits, we see Kari Lake, Qanon flake, campaigning with Bannon. 

The historical references were flying in Arizona on Tuesday night:

Gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake (R) introduces former Trump adviser Steve Bannon as "a modern-day George Washington." pic.twitter.com/Z8Al3yuLxG

— The Recount (@therecount) November 2, 2022

Yuck. The only reason she has her lane is because she can stupidly, smoothly, blandly in a deep mature woman voice tell people maybe Trump won and maybe Democrats eat babies. She is a polished turd who is lying her playing for time ass off. Fuck her entire turd polished face and camera lens.  But more than that fuck Bannon for scraping bottom like this. If you want to be a general of a movement, pick better lieutenants who aren't gobbling imbeciles. 

So what about twits like Bolduc in NH?

NEW: Don Bolduc- only to @NBCNews says the school he accused of using litter boxes for children who identify as animals needs to "prove" the claim wrong.
He tells me a parent and a student told him it was happening and he is "not backing down." pic.twitter.com/s7CLx09uu2

— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) November 2, 2022

Even Joe Rogan relented on this stupidity.  Does Trumpism literally mean sticking with any lie, no matter how dumb? Being a conspiracy dumbass for yucks? Being someone no one should take seriously? 

I mean, maybe? 

After all, TrumpWorld's Michigan candidate is all about the blood libel. That is obviously some signifying bullshit. 

These aren't good candidates for office, they aren't reality-accepting people, they don't have real-world plans. but they are loyal to Trump. And they also live in a completely batshit alternate universe. Which also is sketchy and sometime extremely bigoted. 

If you wanted a good overview of Trumpism--you don't need to look any further than who he inspires.