Wednesday Morning Post Election Open Links

by | Nov 9, 2022 | Daily Links | 661 comments

Have at it my Glibs and Gliberinas! Give me your surprises, your disappointments, and your I told-you-so’s.

About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

661 Comments

  1. Not Adahn

    Someone is hungover.

    • Count Potato

      You misspelled “everyone”.

  2. Count Potato

    I told you American voters are stupid, but everyone knows that.

    • Not Adahn

      Humans are pack animals with a family structure. As such they can be domesticated.

    • Rat on a train

      They like the current state.

    • rhywun

      Last night’s summary could be, “They are stupider than you ever thought possible.”

      • SDF-7

        That certainly sums it up for me.

    • WTF

      “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

    • AlexinCT

      You are right that there are a lot of dumb voters, but the corruptocracy sees the citizenry as an existential threat, and they have now “fortified” a second election in a row to make sure they override the will of those that want to fix the corruptocracy. I am starting to feel that we will not solve the problem that our government is weaponized and against the citizenry through the ballot box. They will not let that happen.

      • juris imprudent

        You really just don’t accept that your fellow citizens don’t see the world at all like you do?

      • AlexinCT

        I accept that a whole bunch of people are easy to dupe. I also accept that the mandarinate’s grip on practically every institution allows them to program a large number of people. I even accept that so many people never catch on that government never solves any problems, but they all want government to do more. Where I have a hard time is when people experience a world that is falling apart and somehow manage to ignore it to stick to programming.

      • juris imprudent

        You know that world-is-ending bit – that’s the same thing that drives that 24 yo dingbat with Stop The Oil.

      • AlexinCT

        No it is not. That “Stop the oil” thing is absolutely bullshit and would not fly at all if our kids today were thought the basics of physics, chemistry, and economics. They have dumbed down education and made it nothing but indoctrination (see the “Stop the oil” shit). Thomas Sowell is the one that articulated our problem the best:

        The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer – and they don’t want explanations that fail to give them that.

        And while both teams do this shit, one has become a master, especially since they have gone out of their way to subsume every institution that would allow them to maximize the appeals to emotion.

      • juris imprudent

        It is the exact same emotional appeal – the world will end if we don’t do exactly what I say must be done. They see it with climate, you see it with politics.

      • Lackadaisical

        Sorry Alex, I’m not convinced it’s all or even mostly fraud affecting results. I think just that many people are irretrievably team blue. 2024 is gonna kick all our asses.

      • Lackadaisical

        I see a lot of blue seats too. 178 to 199 right now. How is the Senate looking?

        They’re no where near the veto-proof majority they actually need to do anything substantial. They are barely going to have a majority in both houses.

      • Lackadaisical

        Also, compared to past midterms, this is a very mild rebuke of the president and his party. All while we’re having some of the worst economic conditions in awhile, an embarrassment in office and foreign policy disaster. Like I said, it doesn’t bode well for ’24.

      • juris imprudent

        Until Trump steps aside, the Republicans will be burdened with him (even despite the changes he brought to that coalition).

      • AlexinCT

        Lack, I think you are correct that there is a core group of team blue hardcores that will still be cheering team blue as they are lined up against the wall to be shot, yes, but they are not more in numbers, by far, than the team red and independents. The issue is the apathy factor. When ballot harvesting and massive vote-by-mail rackets happen, you create the perfect storm for those precincts where team blue can easily do a shitton of that and get enough of a bump (anywhere from 2-12%) which allows the vote counters to get whatever results they prefer. Especially when they can take their sweet time to work the system.

      • Lackadaisical

        That is a major problem, there was a small window to jettison it after the lockdowns ended. We’re going to be such with mail -in ballots. I agree they’re not secure, I just don’t know that it matters since no one took a stand and forced them to be ended.

        Seems there are 40% of people who are as you describe for the blue side (I think it’s about 35% for red). They seem motivated and in the right positions to do what they want. I fully expect for example that Arizona is fraud, I mean, all the irregularities, plus getting to count your own votes? That’s fucked up. I don’t think you can expand that to every race though, maybe PA? But I’m not sure…

      • AlexinCT

        Some states did put serious guardrails back in place for mail-in ballots. See Florida.

        The problems are all the states that have expanded that, legalized ballot harvesting, and made possible for the rules to be broken in favor of those that do the best job cheating.

      • Michael Malaise

        So the Republicans just need to adapt to the new reality and do the same thing with Mail-Ins and Harvesting.

        Hahaha. I just typed “Republicans just need to adapt.”

    • SDF-7

      I didn’t think the electorate was collectively this stupid.

      A midterm election, 2 years of unconstitutional tyranny, a party leader with the brains of a Jello Pudding Pop — and not only so many of the True Blues dutifully pulled the lever, but obviously enough Independents did that we get these results across the country?

      We.

      Are.

      So.

      Fucked.

      If this is what this crap fest can give us — someone with actual charisma is going to bury the Stupid Party, and then we’re completely scroomed (screwed and doomed for those who haven’t heard that one before).

      I again so wish there was a frontier to get away from these weasels.

      • WTF

        The only option is to retreat to red state holdouts like Florida. Sadly, as the left becomes more powerful, they will not just leave states like Florida alone, they will use FedGov to impose their will.

      • Rat on a train

        Also as Ds continue to ruin their states they will flee to places like Florida and vote for more of the same.

      • Lackadaisical

        I disagree, lots of team red people in Florida from other states. Florida is also one of the few states to out perform for team red. (The other is Texas, afaik) emigres have mostly learned their lesson, at least for this election cycle. I don’t know how durable this change will be. The rest of the country is fucked, and we will be too once Fed gov gets around to us.

      • Michael Malaise

        Ohio, even though her cities be blue has turned reliably red (for now)

      • AlexinCT

        I again so wish there was a frontier to get away from these weasels.

        That there is the problem. Unless we colonize another planet, we are stuck on this globe where the cabal has taken all the levers and mechanisms of power to make sure they can enact their putrid and evil agenda. There will be no peaceful solution it now looks to their machinations. And there is also no where to go.

      • juris imprudent

        And here’s the even uglier reality – that the people willing to band together and fight, they won’t ever establish some liberty-based, leave-people-the-hell-alone kind of govt; it will just be a different tyranny. That’s what humans do. We are a failed experiment because of the instincts of our species.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s why I am rooting for some big rock to hit the planet soon.

      • juris imprudent

        Ah, if I can’t have it my way – then no one can!

      • AlexinCT

        No. If humanity is this broken, then nature should try with some other species.

      • juris imprudent

        Humanity doesn’t think itself broken, and evolution hasn’t rendered a verdict. I doubt evolution will be terribly concerned with our petty political disputes.

      • AlexinCT

        I am sure the dinosaurs didn’t think themselves broken either.

        And again: they problem isn’t politics, even though that’s where the issue is manifesting itself, but with the fact so many people feel that just because they were born, they deserve things, and government should give it to them by taking it from others. No society survives under those conditions. It will devolve into barbarism and brutality as things collapse. A rock hitting the planet and doing a reset is far less brutal than what I see is coming for us.

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, that isn’t the entirety of the human species you are talking about.

        You’re talking about Americans spoiled by our prosperity.

      • AlexinCT

        You’re talking about Americans spoiled by our prosperity.”

        This phenomenon hits the entire modern western world where socialism was adopted as well as the less well off that also went with socialism (see South America).

      • Jarflax

        Nihilism is leftist.

      • DrOtto

        We are so fucked. One of the polls I saw said a Republican majority would like the gov’t to “do more”. So again, a majority really did seem to embrace Big Brother over the last 2 years.

      • hayeksplosives

        I think you guys are all missing a major factor here.

        Ignorant voters tend to be swayed easily by emotion. That’s why so many ads this cycle were emotional appeals and attempts to stoke fear in the electorate.

        Why? Because of women’s suffrage. Once women became a huge new factor in American politics in the early 20th century, it was inevitable that Kollective Karens were going to vote for naive political promises and (this is the big one) vote to wield the power of the state (government) the force they themselves lacked in order to force their will upon others.

        You look at the last several decades of polling by demographics in this country. If women couldn’t vote, we’d have a small state conservative country.

    • juris imprudent

      Link I put up in a comment last night about how even Republican voters are for big govt.

      I would think this community of misfits would get that we in no way represent any kind of significant slice of the American polity.

      • DrOtto

        Goddammit, you beat me by 10 minutes.

      • Pat

        I would think this community of misfits would get that we in no way represent any kind of significant slice of the American polity.

        That’s a given. The difficult thing to believe is that there is apparently literally no overlap whatsoever between some of our crazier theories like, say, not allowing 7 year old kids to unilaterally decide they want their genitals removed, and the general public. I’m used to being weird politically. I’m not used to collective insanity. And I’m somewhat incredulous that a hundred million people or so all flipped a switch one year and permanently embraced ideologies that were nonexistent outside of sociology departments on the most radically left wing political campuses as little as 10 years ago.

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        This. And add to that fact that any mail in voting scheme broke against all the polling done over the last few months.

        Sorry, but I am now convinced that the cheating in ’20 (much of it R sanctified because they hated Trump) was Pandora’s box.

  3. Rat on a train

    I feel lost without links.

  4. Certified Public Asshat

    I’m kind of surprised a lot of us (myself included) got so invested in the outcome.

    Everything still sucks Glibs! Just like before.

    • Not Adahn

      “Hope, that foul and deceitful thing” — Jean Anouilh, Antigone

    • Sean

      No. It sucks just a bit more.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If the car’s being steered over the cliff by maniacs you have no choice but to root for the idiot to be able to grab ahold of the wheel.

    • Nephilium

      At least one of the local levies/bond measures failed. Out of three… at least it was the school funding one.

      Thanks for paying for the parks that I like fellow Cuyahoga county citizens.

      • rhywun

        I can’t find the results for the state’s green boondoggle nor the city’s “equity” agenda.

      • Nephilium

        Both statewide issues here passed easily. Issue 1 was some mealymouthed constitutional amendment directing judges to take public safety into account when setting bail (garbage amendment with no strict guidelines, and is entirely subjective). Issue 2 was a constitutional amendment banning localities from allowing illegal immigrants from voting in any local elections (they are already banned from state and federal elections).

      • rhywun

        Best I can find is landslide YES on the green boondoggle as of late last night.

        Nothing on the city’s three propositions that are aimed at bureaucratizing CRT.

      • Not Adahn

        Whycome you h8 nature and adorable fuzzy animules?

      • dbleagle

        The only ballot measure that lost was taxing current homeowners to fund affordable housing, and it lost be only three percent.
        The measure to expand the planning and zoning commission by adding a Hawaiian cultural expert, and equity expert, a climate change expert, and a zoning expert (plus requisite staffs) I thought would lose since zoning is already impossibly slow and so corrupt it is a rare year w/o multiple Federal indictments for bribery and/or fraud. Nope, it gathered over 70% of the vote.

        We also sent back to the US Senate a complete non-entity. But I can take heart that the LP candidate (1.09%) beat the Green Party candidate (0.9%).

      • dbleagle

        But our non-entity is a (((non-entity))), so we have that going for us.

      • robc

        I couldnt even get wine in liquor stores out of the voters. 50.2% no right now, so still a chance.

        Denver suburbs and Colorado Springs voted Yes. Plus unpopulated counties along the southern border. Rest of state voted no. Calling this one Progressives and Protestants.

      • Nephilium

        Next time I stop at at a grocery or convenience store, I’ll pick up a bottle of wine for you.

        Admittedly, anything over 41 percent ABV needs to be purchased at a state run liquor store, and there’s different licenses for selling beer and wine/cider/mead, and if a bar wants to add a Sunday liquor license to their existing one, it needs local approval…

      • robc

        At least I got a tax cut…state rate went from 4.55% to 4.40%.

        So…yeah.

      • Pat

        The only thing I’m going to miss about Nevada, other than In-N-Out Burger, is our free for all liquor laws. Even when I lived in WA and they finally did away with the state liquor monopoly, the prices were literally double what they are here.

      • Nephilium

        Not being a fan of state run stores, I’ll at least give the Ohio Liquor Department some credit for not being a complete shit show. They set the prices, and will discontinue items from time to time, but they do make it easy to search and find what’s available with an attempt to even show stock levels at the local stores. They’ve also partnered with distilleries to get special edition bottles and the like released here (some requiring a free lottery entry, but still).

      • Gustave Lytton

        Same here largely. Much larger selection at stores too.

      • Michael Malaise

        I contend there should be no such thing as the Ohio Liquor Department.

      • DEG

        Same in NH. Much better here than in PA.

      • DEG

        I contend there should be no such thing as the Ohio Liquor Department.

        You seriously think anyone here thinks there should be?

      • juris imprudent

        That is a perfect example of our little bubble, and how easily it is to slip into one.

      • Michael Malaise

        @DEG Of course not. I just don’t see the point in slight praise for something that in essence, is a trampling of the freedom of economic choice.

      • Nephilium

        Michael Malaise:

        Go try to buy beer in PA, or transport beer across Utah. I agree that it shouldn’t exist, but not being a complete shit show isn’t a ringing endorsement.

      • Gustave Lytton

        The tax hike baked into the WA mess was either a poison pill or make sure the state continued to profit off of liquor.

      • Pat

        Yep, that was the LCB knowing the jig was up and sticking it to those uppity voters on the way out.

      • Gustave Lytton

        The message worked. Demonopolization is pretty much dead in Baja Washington. Just to be sure, OLCC got their hooks into bottle deposits and the phony mj legalization.

    • R C Dean

      Me, too, Asshat. I thought I knew better. I’m not nearly as invested/disappointed as I would have been years ago, but still.

    • SDF-7

      Well, it makes sense to me to be invested. 2021 was a year of sincerely being worried that I would be locked out of my entire field of work because all the corporations would be locked into the OSHA mandate — and what I do is really only done at larger corps these days.

      2022 eased off on that a bit — but thanks to the CDC, I now have to worry about my son being forced to take the shot even though we homeschool — because California, and FYTW.

      And travel restrictions. And the banking sector salivating to present their poop chutes to be fucked and fuck over the rest of us like Canada’s did.

      And all the other shit I’m not going to list — but all of it directly impacting us these past couple of years, physically in some cases — certainly mentally in others. FedGov and all the little tyrants would NOT leave people alone….

      I was sincerely hoping for a smack down just to set some fucking boundaries again — to remind them that they aren’t Caesar and they do need to stay in the limits of their power.

      And we didn’t get it — so I fully expect them to push it again and further… and I do not need that shit the next couple of years (and beyond — because if they can keep these results with all the shit they’ve done, the economy in the toilet and the mood of the country… I seriously don’t know how the hell they’d lose… maybe it was all fortified — but based on 2021, I have zero confidence anyone will do shit if so.

  5. WTF

    Apparently people like record inflation, increasing violent crime, wokeism in every institution, and corruption at the highest levels of government.

    • R C Dean

      All worth it, once we get abortions through the third trimester, paid for by the government.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Inflation has always been a weird one. Republicans are just as, if not more, responsible for inflation than Democrats. They get to claim the high ground though because Democrats would have spent more.

    • juris imprudent

      I’ll say it – I think the specter of Trump fucked over what should’ve been a Republican cake-walk.

      • WTF

        I actually think it’s more a case of everyone votes “TEAM” and the blue team just outnumbers the red team. With maybe a little fortification thrown in in the swing states.

      • Nephilium

        Which means the Republicans chance in the next national election cycle may depend on the humility and intelligence of Donald Trump.

        They’re fucked.

      • rhywun

        Looks like Tish James cruised to reelection so her quest to take down Trump continues for another 4 years. They’ll get him any day now.

      • hayeksplosives

        Yeah, you’re right.

        Thanks for shaking things up a few years ago, Don. Thanks for smacking down Hilldog and overturning some stupid EPA rules. We really did need you at that time.

        But now It’s time to take a bow and go live out your life with Melania and your boy Barron, quietly.

      • dbleagle

        Yup. HE won’t see it that way though.

    • The Other Kevin

      I guess this is what they mean about people voting against their own interests.

    • Lackadaisical

      Hey, really good article last night.

      • WTF

        Thanks! Glad you liked it.

  6. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Hey fat Homer! I so do miss the funny Simpsons.

  7. Grumbletarian

    The country voted for killing babies, the dollar, and the standard of living.

    • WTF

      But the current regime is in the process of losing the dollar as the global reserve currency, and inflationary recession is reducing the standard of living. So I guess the majority wants that.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The majority can’t balance their own bank account, much less see larger economic trends along with their own causes and effects.

      • WTF

        They do seem to be incapable of drawing the connection between the policies they vote for and the results of those policies.

      • rhywun

        Hell, they seem incapable of drawing the connection between the letter they vote for and the policies that represents.

      • juris imprudent

        Muh tribe!

      • juris imprudent

        And just for the record what fucking brilliant policies did the Republicans have on offer?

      • rhywun

        Well, locally – stop the movement towards ending bail was one.

      • Pat

        How many brilliant ideas do you really need when the alternative is, say, 10% annual inflation and pedophile grooming in public schools? Weren’t the donkeys ostensibly elected because Trump was just so awful? It’s odd how that grassroots reaction among voters only works against one party.

      • AlexinCT

        Well said Pat.

      • Jarflax

        The Republicans suck at governing and are prone to stupid and wasteful nonsense. The Democrats are actively hostile to western civilization, promote policies that will inevitably ruin the economic miracle that allows us the luxury of sitting by and kvetching about wasteful nonsense, and regard libertarians as nazis. But yeah, totally equivalent.

      • juris imprudent

        Pat, I think tribe is the bigger thing here.

        Perfect example, my ex who lives in Texas has decided to hate Ron DeSantis (even though she hates Trump even more). I assume this is because of what NPR is telling her – she isn’t a big MSM consumer otherwise. She can’t even articulate a reason and you would think given her TDS and the ‘rift’ between Trump and DeSantis that she’d have at least some positive reaction. She would also disagree that pedophiles/groomers run the schools. You can say she doesn’t see reality – okay, so how exactly do you know you do?

        As for inflation, you have to be as dumb as a Democrat to lay that all at the feet of Biden. The fucking QE extended over a decade and by all variants of monetary economic theory should’ve come home to roost much sooner.

      • Pat

        Of course having a lock on the media certainly doesn’t hurt, but most people have to leave their homes on a daily basis. We’ve got 5 senses. You can tell when things are worse or better, comparatively. If being “not Republican” was a winning strategy in 2020 because voters were ostensibly so fed up with Trump and his merry band, then being “not Democrat” in 2022 should be similar, given quality of life metrics and public opinion polling.

        As for inflation, you have to be as dumb as a Democrat to lay that all at the feet of Biden.

        Not to be a dick or anything, but if the coincidental magic moment had been under Trump’s presidency, I feel reasonably confident you’d have laid it at his feet. And while monetary policy is obviously not set by the president, their policies, particularly their approach to spending, have a large influence on the money supply and Fed policy. I know, I know, Trump must have been worse, but Biden has a nice contribution he can claim for himself as well, particularly if you consider his half century spent in the senate, where the spending actually gets done. In any case, it’s more about voter perception. Reagan whipped Carter on the “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?” line. Higher prices and stagnant wages are typically not a big boost for the president or his party. I get that you’re really committed to not acknowledging it, but it’s fuckin’ weird. Doesn’t have to be fraud or shenanigans, but it’s fucking’ weird.

      • juris imprudent

        Not to be a dick or anything, but if the coincidental magic moment had been under Trump’s presidency, I feel reasonably confident you’d have laid it at his feet.

        You’d be wrong. I’m tired of the fucking myth of the rightful ruler in all of it’s manifestations. I’ve given Trump credit where I felt it due – even with people insanely committed to hating the man. The President controls the economy just about as well as he controls the weather. Or did I miss the tides actually receding under King Obama?

      • PutridMeat

        The President controls the economy just about as well as he controls the weather.

        True, but there’s a huge swath of territory between ‘controls’ and ‘influences’. E.g. appointments to NRLB/labor department that has the power (apparently) to forbid a company moving operations to another state. Or repeated statements like “of course your energy will get more expensive!” and “I will end the fossil fuel industry” have a major impact on how willing people are to invest in long term endeavors. Or pushing back against some spending rather than saying that’s not enough, but we’ll come back for more later! All of these have a profound impact on the economy, even if not immediate and statuatory. It’s clear that we are bound for a crash because of decades old policies regardless of who the president is at some level, but those policies were pursued or pushed back against by presidents and that has an effect, both short and long term. I think it’s pretty naive to fall back to essentially implying that “that president has nothing to do with the economy going south or inflation”, bordering on Sean level “everything is election fraud!” justification (though I’m sympathetic to that position a bit).

      • B.P.

        Well, part of Biden’s election platform was controlling the weather.

      • Raven Nation

        Um, allow me a little grammar (?) clarification I think:

        The country voted for killing babies, killing the dollar, and killing the standard or living.

      • waffles

        much better. praise moloch.

      • Tonio

        But we SaVeD dEmOcRaCy!!1

      • Sean

        You’re not helping.

      • Tonio

        Sorry, I’m extra bitter this morning.

        I just got redistricted into the district of literal gun-grabber (wannabe) Donald McEachin who won handily over his challenger. And my former congresscritter, the loathsome swamp creature Abigail Spanberger, also won re-election.

        And don’t even get me started on Arizona.

      • Rat on a train

        I got redistricted from Wittman to Spanberger. Nice touch adding eastern PW to the district to ensure D victories over those icky counties.

      • Rebel Scum

        It’s going to be a long, dark and cold winter.

    • Sean

      Murder is cool, devaluing, and lowering.

  8. Sean

    I fucking hate people.

  9. Fourscore

    Life goes on.

    I’m glad I’m old. I didn’t change but the country sure has

    • AlexinCT

      I am starting to agree with this Forescore. I hope I too will be dead before this disaster plays out, but I feel horrible for my kid and those that will have to bear the burden of this country becoming a globalist banana republic hell bent on allowing the people of that agenda to kill of billions of humans…

      • Pat

        And the worst part is, we’re going to get organic kale smoothies instead of victory gin.

      • AlexinCT

        Who is this “We” you speak off Kimosabe? I am drinking gin martinis till the bitter end…

    • juris imprudent

      [looks for LIKE button] *appropriates Sean’s avatar*

  10. PutridMeat

    Well, my un-interrupted streak of 36 years of never once voting for a winner continues. Sorry all you non-marxist voters, you’ve fallen victim to the curse of the Putrid Vote.

    • Rat on a train

      I haven’t voted for a loser since I stopped voting.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I might start not voting myself. I always feel kind of dirty after I do it anyway.

      • AlexinCT

        I am sure you can keep telling yourself that Rat, but not voting is also a form of voting. There is no way to be above or disconnected from this shit.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Sort of implies contentment doesn’t it?

      • juris imprudent

        Resignation that it will never change for the better. I’m opting for that from here on out.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I might bring myself to vote for Dave Smith in the next one but that’s just a protest vote.

      • AlexinCT

        It implies a false sense of superiority and security to me. Like a gazelles in a herd that decide to ignore the lionesses coming at them, when others scramble, cause they can’t be bothered, and think that puts them above the fray.

      • Not Adahn

        Nah it involves a true sense of superiority for not voting for which gazelle will be fed to the lionesses next.

      • Rat on a train

        I also unregistered. It’s like double not voting.

      • Pat

        I didn’t vote last time out, nor this time, and didn’t get a voter guide or ballot this year. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be surprised if a ballot with my name on it was cast. I wonder who I went for?

      • Fourscore

        I quit some 40 years ago, after Ron R’s first victory.

        “Freedom’s just another word…”

        Even when your team wins you still lose

    • creech

      Voted for every loser but one (state rep). Had some winners over the years but last presidential candidate I voted for who actually won was way back in ’68 before I matured politically.

    • Lackadaisical

      Have you tried voting for the Marxists? At least you’ll avoid the camps for a few extra years. 😉

      • AlexinCT

        This seems to be the strategy adopted by a lot of people…

      • Lackadaisical

        Just to be clear I don’t actually endorse this stance.

        We should all be ready to kill and die when they finally pull the trigger and come for us. Until then we have to keep telling the truth and fighting back nonviolently however we’re able.

  11. Pope Jimbo

    All Minnesoda statewide offices once again went solidly blue.

    If you look at the maps, the 4 big cities went Blue, the rest of the state was solidly Red.

    My record of never voting for a winner remains unblemished.

    • AlexinCT

      And you will also bear the burden of the choices made by those people that voted for more abuse & crime.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Seems like the rural/urban divide is getting worse and worse.

      Looking at the numbers for Minnesoda, two counties put King Walz over the top. Hennepin (Minneapolis) and Ramsey (St. Paul) both broke 70/30 for Walz and was more than his margin of victory.

      So much for Suburban Women breaking for the GOP.

      • AlexinCT

        Not in those cities. I have not seen that much insanity in a place as i saw in Minneapolis, and I have seen new York, San Fransicko, and Seattle. The fucking nutbaggery in Minneapolis makes the idiocy in those other cities look like genius. and I hear St. Paul is not any better.

    • rhywun

      My Rep. won reelection. Probably it for me, but I didn’t see any results for atty. gen.

  12. Trigger Hippie

    What, no links? Oh yeah, may as well not pretend we’ll talk about anything else.

    Savvy.

    Personally, I’m so damn jaded at this point I’m not feeling anything one way or the other.

  13. Pat

    I must admit, I didn’t think the 11th hour “red mirage” narrative was the one they were going to go with. I figured, give the GOP the house at least to make it look good. I’m already pretty much insufferable, I wonder just how much of a pessimistic, miserable, cynical prick I’d have to become before my prognostications cease being overly optimistic.

    • WTF

      I always figured the GOP would win the house, and the Dems would fraud their way to keeping the senate.

      • Pat

        I figured tossup on the senate. Looks like the donkeys are actually gonna pick up at least one, maybe two there. And the house is almost certainly staying D if the heffalumps didn’t clinch it on election night.

      • AlexinCT

        This was how I saw it as well. The mandarinate will not allow anyone to challenge it through the systems they control.

      • juris imprudent

        They really don’t have to fraud, the people that vote for them legitimately are all they need. Stop believing that there is some groundswell against this – that is disengagement with reality.

      • AlexinCT

        Ignoring mail-in voting and ballot harvesting’s effects, is the disengagement.

      • WTF

        Because people really like rising violent crime, record inflation, trans-indoctrination in schools, destruction of fossil fuels and the economy, etc. etc.

      • juris imprudent

        Because they hate Republicans and their false moralizing bullshit and the absolutely fraudulent promise of fiscal probity. I can characterize the Republicans by a few outlying bits just as easily as you can the Dems.

      • AlexinCT

        Yeah, these people hate republicans, rightly, for being country club assholes that lie, so to counter that, they choose to vote for a true crime syndicate hell bent on destroying humanity. That sounds logical to me….

      • juris imprudent

        Who the fuck said logic had anything to do with this? Once again, are you not familiar with the human species?

      • WTF

        Did we have rising violent crime, record inflation, trans-indoctrination in schools, destruction of fossil fuels and the economy, etc. the last time the GOP was in power? No, we did not. And you may want to say it’s just a coincidence, but policies have actual consequences, and some are worse than others.

      • juris imprudent

        The inflation was coming and the trans-indoctrination was there, it was just under the radar.

  14. Pope Jimbo

    I am amazed that Fetterman and Hobbes won/are winning. Both of them were such horrible candidates.

    Granted Oz was also a horrible candidate, but Lake should have run away with it.

    I wonder if any PA voters will feel duped when they declare Fetterman’s Monster unfit for office and his wife gets to fill out his term? What am I saying? She’ll easily win another term in six years.

    • waffles

      Nonpolitical gf didn’t vote, was dismayed that Fetterman won. Me, I’m impressed with how bad our senate choices were. Unsurprised, but it’s a cold splash of water morning.

      • Lackadaisical

        ‘Nonpolitical gf didn’t vote, was dismayed that Fetterman won.’

        Did you mention that there may be a connection between those two facts?

      • waffles

        Yes, she knows. She doesn’t want to hear it. It’s like blaming the Libertarian party voters I guess.

    • WTF

      The Hobbs win is not quite certain yet, it’s currently 50.86% to 49.14%, from what I could find, unless that’s old news.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      I feel confident in asserting that both of those races are rife with fraud.

      • juris imprudent

        You should feel embarrassed. Everyone needs to get it through their thick fucking skulls – THE VOTES ARE REAL because the average American really does vote as stupidly as can be imagined.

        Tom Cotton and Lindsay Graham weren’t on the ballot this year – but do you seriously doubt they will win re-election? How is THAT possible, except for the massive stupidity and degeneracy of our voting masses?

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        Both of those candidates support the permanent warfare state. Of course they would win.

        I’ll ask you this question, if the government is perfectly willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people with toxic clotshots and risk a nuclear war with Russia over a shithole half a world away, why wouldn’t they be willing to fix elections to save their own asses and feather their nests?

        Sure, there’s plenty of morons who will vote for Pennsylvania Sling Blade, but your expressed confidence in the election system is naïve at best given what you already know about the government’s behavior. The whole thing is a sham.

      • juris imprudent

        support the permanent warfare state. Of course they would win

        Now convince me that is more sane (to the general public) than anything the Democrats pitch (at the edges).

      • Jarflax

        The Democrat’s core issue is ‘fighting climate change.’ In other words ending fossil fuels. You can argue that the trans stuff is at the edges (and I don’t disagree) but the core of their position is that we need to switch to wholly insufficient sources of energy within the next 8 years, and their efforts to do that are already damaging our economy in ways that will accelerate rapidly if not checked. And the permanent warfare state is the most bipartisan of establishment issues. We don’t have good choices, but we have one clear worst choice.

      • juris imprudent

        The Green bullshit is at the activist edge as well; the rank and file aren’t going to live pre-industrial lives. They either discount it, or just don’t realize what’s coming. Once it does, the game will be over.

      • Fatty Bolger

        the rank and file aren’t going to live pre-industrial lives

        Pre-industrial? Nice strawman.

      • Lackadaisical

        ‘They either discount it, or just don’t realize what’s coming. Once it does, the game will be over.’

        Look at Mr. Optimist over here. I don’t believe we’re going to see any anti green pushback. Just like we didn’t see any pushback on COVID hysteria or inflation.

      • Pat

        I think the sort of jingoistic patriotism that leads conservatives to support the warfare state, while naive and misplaced, is more rational and justifiable than sterilizing children, placing cartoon pornography in public elementary school libraries, or requiring someone to provide private health information to board a plane, but we all weigh it up differently I guess.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        It’s not about being more sane, it’s about being more palatable to DC.

        If you oppose the permanent state, you’re fair game for election shenanigans. Seems to me that the eGOP and the DNC have a tacit agreement with the agencies who will turn a blind eye to or even assist with cheating if it suits their interests.

        And that’s not even accounting for corruption in the state courts. Pennsylvania is a total shitshow in that regard.

        Additionally, lot of states didn’t roll back their COVID election accommodations. Those rules were designed to make cheating easier.

        I will admit that doesn’t explain JD Vance, but Ohio and PA are different electoral ecosystems.

      • Drake

        The Arizona race was obviously sabotaged / rigged.

    • Rebel Scum

      Hobbes controls the election so…

      Granted Oz was also a horrible candidate

      Yes, but he is cognizant. Therefor PA voters are more braindead than the person they allegedly elected.

      • Drake

        A sitting Secretary of State should not be able to run for higher office while also overseeing the election. The chaos in Maricopa County sure was convenient since Republicans tend to vote on election day.

    • hayeksplosives

      Yeah, the Donk operatives have been working Arizona non-stop since 2020. Lake had no chance, despite polling.

      I’m surprised the Donks didn’t pay more attention to Nevada. We might end up with a US Senate turnover here. But it’s mandatory mail-in, so it “could be weeks” before we know.

  15. Rat on a train

    How is it races are still pending 12 hours after polls close? Fortification shouldn’t take that long.

    • AlexinCT

      They will get better at it once they have demoralized the opposition and can go back to just doing some fortification here & there to keep the power. Emergency powers provided by the Kung Flu allowed them to shave decades of their reset. That’s why I am sure it was not coincidence nor an accident.

    • Pat

      Except for the races called for Democrats with 2% of precincts reporting, we may not know the results of the election until well after the new congress is seated. That’s normal.

    • Tonio

      And remember that in the old days of manual ballot counting and electromechanical voting machines that we always had results by the next morning, often earlier.

      • Rebel Scum

        Welcome to the new abnormal.

    • juris imprudent

      Well, consider that your local precinct is staffed by all volunteers from the community.

      Now look at the state of volunteerism across the country.

      I’ll let you ponder that a bit, maybe while reminding yourself of all of your voluntary civic engagements.

      • Pat

        Well, consider that your local precinct is staffed by all volunteers from the community.

        Only in those impoverished backwaters who can’t afford to hire consultants from The Center for Technology and Civic Life.

      • juris imprudent

        There were no Zuckbucks this election.

      • Rat on a train

        I’m averaging only one per month. I should do more.

      • juris imprudent

        You’re doing better than average.

      • Rat on a train

        It helps when someone organizes and I am just a body.

    • Rebel Scum

      I expect we will know some results by Christmas.

    • Drake

      Really. They rigged the NJ election last year in a few minutes. Reopen the closed Bergen County results at 2am, add in 40k votes for Murphy, close it back up up, boom – declare the winner.

  16. creech

    1. Bad timing on abortion decision; energizes the pro-abortionists.
    2. Inflation not deemed as troubling as would be high unemployment.
    3. TDS epidemic continues; chicomvirus panic too far in rear mirror.
    4. Whoever does Dem attack ads does a better job than whomever does GOP ads.
    5. Penna. voters are idiots in the general election; Penna. GOP voters are idiots in primaries.

    • Pat

      4. Whoever does Dem attack ads does a better job than whomever does GOP ads.

      IIRC, the Heritage Foundation had to kick in with a million dollar donation in one of the races because McConnell withheld all party financial support. No one is actually as retarded as the GOP pretends to be, it’s just that a solid portion of the GOP is of substantially similar ideology as the rest of the collective left and merely put on a kabuki show every few years to placate their constituents, whom they hold beneath contempt.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        McConnell doesn’t give a shit if the GOP wins. All he cares about is his continued role a leader of the loyal opposition.

      • Rebel Scum

        loyal opposition

        But loyal to who?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The grift…either that or someone has pics of him molesting puppies.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        The DOD and the agencies

      • Not Adahn

        “To love yourself is the greatest love of all.”

        -Some crackhead with a bow in her hair.

      • Drake

        His Chinese wife / controller?

      • hayeksplosives

        ^^^^——THIS. So much more than you even suspect.

      • Pat

        Yeah, McConnell would be among that solid portion.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      1. Reps overplayed their hand on the implications of that decision more than the decision itself.
      2. Most voters don’t think that deeply.
      3. Definitely
      4. People who’s votes are swayed by attack ads shouldn’t vote.
      5. Oz sux

    • Count Potato

      “chicomvirus panic too far in rear mirror”

      That’s some amnesia.

      • R C Dean

        Incredibly, I have heard some laptoppers waxing fucking nostalgic for the lockdown days. They got to spend more quality time with their families, you see.

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        I might punch somebody in the face for saying that around me.

      • Lackadaisical

        It’s true though.

        The lockdowns were not unpopular. Only a small segment of people really suffered for it, the rest felt like they had more free time and more money, either through saving in commutes/locales or government programs. No one has made a solid case connecting this to the current inflation. As others have pointed out, both sides are responsible, hell Rubio is out there bragging that he voted for the PPP. The fact that lockdowns and mandatory vaccination were not a major political turning point is what prompted me to move.

    • juris imprudent

      1. TRIBAL IDENTITY
      [no further explanation really necessary]

    • DrOtto

      #2 begins being taken care of today. Companies have been holding off layoffs till after mid-terms.

    • Pat

      The contrast when the image gallery switches to coach Tara VanDerveer was fucking jarring.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Lol, and can you believe she is bitter!?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        *unzipping*
        *unzipping*
        *right back up*

      • Tonio

        Bitter, wrinkled old crone jealous of younger attractive woman, details at eleven.

    • Rebel Scum

      It’s not a stretch to say she’s hawt.

      • Tonio

        Even by the high bar of LSU coeds.

      • DrOtto

        These mental gymnastics used to make bad puns are going to earn a narrowed gaze.

    • DrOtto

      That coach looks like a young Janet Reno.

      • Not Adahn

        I was thinking that “cleaner” from The Blacklist that used masculine pronouns.

    • Michael Malaise

      “Fuck you, it’s my life.”

      – Nimble little minx

    • Not Adahn

      They get a WNBA wannabe from Stanford to complain about a gymnast from LSU. Sure, why not?

    • Jarflax

      I’m siding with the millionaire hotty over Frau Ferbissina.

      • Lackadaisical

        It was a hard choice for me.

      • Jarflax

        So to speak.

      • Michael Malaise

        Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

  17. Nephilium

    Going to bed last night, I learned that some groups really didn’t plan their ad buys well. I was still getting ads for Ohio elections over 3 hours after the polls closed. I expect a trickle of mailings to come to the house over the next week. Then at least six months of no political ads. On the bright side, it’s looking like Ohio may no longer be a swing state, so the national ad buys may drop off.

  18. Count Potato

    “Judge in Arizona’s biggest county REJECTS Republican bid to keep polls open later after voting machines broke and governor candidate Kari Lake and Senate contender Blake Masters both filed lawsuits

    Midterm polls are closed in Arizona and will not be reopening after a judge denied Republicans’ request to extend voting hours from 7pm to 10pm following malfunctions in 20 percent of voting machines in the state’s largest county Maricopa.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11406331/Judge-Arizonas-biggest-county-REJECTS-GOP-bid-polls-open-later-voting-machines-broke.html

    THERE IS NO CANNIBALISM IN THE ROYAL NAVY!!

    • Nephilium

      Here in Ohio, the law is that if you’re in line at the time the polls “close”, you get to vote. Kind of surprised that’s not the standard in most places.

      • rhywun

        Are they saying that AZ shut down with people still in line?? That’s… unbelievable.

      • Nephilium

        That’s how it reads to me. If that isn’t the case, then why extend the hours unless you’re trying to engage in the very shenanigans that the Dems are accused of?

    • Grumbletarian

      A bunch of mail in ballots don’t get mailed until a couple of days later? Well obviously those people need another week or two to decide who to vote for.

      Elections machines break on election day? Too bad, fuck off.

    • WTF

      NO EVIDENCE OF FRAUD!!!!!!

    • juris imprudent

      THERE IS NO CANNIBALISM IN THE ROYAL NAVY!!

      Voter suppression only works in one direction!

    • Rebel Scum

      The courts are not going to solve the myriad of problems we face…

      • juris imprudent

        Nor is the presidency/governorships.

    • Tonio

      And there is no reason they can’t still fill out paper ballots even if the machines are malfunctioning. Each precinct should be required to have enough paper ballots on hand to accommodate all voters in the precinct as insurance against machine failure, power failure, etc.

      • Count Potato

        They ran out of paper in some parts of PA.

  19. creech

    D.E.G. – wish I was paying off, but it looks like you are. Send the $20 to “Brandywine Valley Civil War Roundtable” at 937 Thorne Dr., West Chester, PA 19382.
    Get ready for a Shapiro presidential bid in 2028 and Fetterman being the next Bernie Sanders in the Senate except much less coherent and effective (a silver lining?)

    • Sean

      I hope he falls down some stairs.

    • DEG

      I’ll cut a check and put it in the mail today.

      Congratulations on winning the bet, and sorry about you being stuck with Shapiro and Fetterman.

      Things aren’t much better in NH. Sununu won due to… non-fraud related shenanigans from what an insider has told me. Looks like a possible blue wave in the state house. The state rep candidate I helped out lost. Republicans might hold onto the state senate. Small bit of good news is that it looks like Keith Murphy is in the state senate. He’s a Free Stater. He’s a huge supporter of the NHLA and Reopen NH.

      • DEG

        Check is in my mailbox waiting for the mailman.

      • slumbrew

        Looks like a possible blue wave in the state house.

        WTF, NH? I know Mass is a loss but I was hoping you’d provide some balance.

      • DEG

        From the last thread, typos and all, in response to a comment that Roe v Wade being overturned was a gift to the Democrats:


        I think that’s what happened in NH, combined with a little appropriate of MAGA rhetoric with sides of Republicans oppose price controls on drugs/Republicans want to take your Social Security away/Republicans want to take your Medicare away.

  20. SDF-7

    ‘Orning ‘ordles — the “And this morning wasn’t shitty enough?” edition:

    Daily Duotrigordle #252
    Guesses: 37/37
    Time: 05:35.43
    https://duotrigordle.com/

    Daily Quordle 289
    8️⃣6️⃣
    7️⃣9️⃣
    quordle.com

    • Grumbletarian

      Daily Quordle 289
      4️⃣7️⃣
      6️⃣3️⃣

    • Pat

      Daily Quordle 289
      8️⃣9️⃣
      7️⃣5️⃣

      Apparently my mind is functioning about as well as a Pennsylvania voter this morning.

      • rhywun

        But better than a Pennsylvania senator.

    • kinnath

      Daily Quordle 289
      9️⃣6️⃣
      7️⃣3️⃣

    • Grummun

      8 6
      7 4

    • whiz

      Daily Quordle 289
      6️⃣7️⃣
      4️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Sean

      Daily Quordle 289
      7️⃣3️⃣
      4️⃣6️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Jarflax

      Daily Quordle 289
      8️⃣2️⃣
      9️⃣3️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Tundra

      Daily Quordle 289
      7️⃣5️⃣
      4️⃣6️⃣

    • Grosspatzer

      Small solace ..

      Daily Quordle 289
      4️⃣6️⃣
      5️⃣2️⃣
      quordle.com

    • Tundra

      Great story.

      Thanks, Holiness.

    • hayeksplosives

      WHO’S A GOOD BOY????

  21. Count Potato

    Progs are always projecting. If they complain about losing democracy, that means they are taking it away.

    • juris imprudent

      What are you saying – there have been plenty of democratic one-party states: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the German Democratic Republic, hell Venezuela!

  22. straffinrun

    For a bunch of people that hate government, you’re pretty upset that people used it exactly the way you knew they would. People will always be people, but this is the game being BS.

    • Nephilium

      It’s professional sports for autists and those who say they don’t like sports. 🙂

      • Rebel Scum

        Well…yes…

      • Sensei

        Exactly. I’m still disappointed, but life will go on.

        Remarkably here in NJ my local squishy Team Blue rep is being replaced by a squishy Team Red rep.

    • juris imprudent

      Thank you.

    • Sensei

      賛成 !

  23. kinnath

    A bright spot in Iowa — Atty General Tom Miller is out. Finally, that fucker is gone.

  24. Pat

    Environmentalism has become a creepy bourgeois cult

    We need to stop calling Just Stop Oil a protest group. Protesters is far too positive a word to describe this strange assemblage of middle-class agitators, with their cut-glass accents and self-parodying bohemian names (shouts out to Indigo Rumbelow), who have been gluing themselves to roads and throwing soup at great works of art in an attempt to end oil and gas production. This thing is a doomsday cult, masquerading as a political campaign. There’s really no denying it any longer.

    Take the case of that 24-year-old woman who climbed up one of the gantries over the M25 this morning, in order to bring all the ignorant, carbon-spewing plebs to a standstill. She posted an unnerving video online. In it, she is fighting back tears. She gives vent to a seemingly sincere apocalyptic terror. ‘I’m here because I don’t have a future!’, she says, in between sobs. She accuses the government of murder, of fuelling a ‘climate crisis’ she seems to be convinced is killing millions, for having the temerity to exploit oil and gas to keep the UK’s lights on.

    That what she’s saying is alarmist nonsense should be obvious to anyone. The truth is almost the inverse of what she is saying. Thanks to economic development, fuelled by cheap and reliable energy, annual deaths worldwide from climate-related disasters have plunged by more than 95 per cent over the past century. She also implies that the floods in Pakistan are the fault of fossil fuels, even though those feted IPCC reports say there is insufficient evidence to show that climate change is making floods more frequent, lengthy or intense. What would be considerably more murderous would be for our government to shun reliable oil and gas supplies as the nation’s pensioners head into a harsh winter, amid sky-high energy prices and talk of blackouts.

    Such blithe disregard for the details reminds us that these people don’t really care about climate change. They’re hysterical about climate change. They’re apocalyptic about climate change. They aren’t taking to the streets, motorways and art galleries because they are convinced of a particular scientific view with regards to the environment and think something really ought to be done about it. They are in the grip of a fact-lite and doom-laden narrative that insists literally billions will die in short order, that the twentysomethings of today might not live to see their dotage, because of our damnable desire to live comfortable and free lives.

    They didn’t used to call them “watermelons” for nothing.

    • juris imprudent

      All the religious elements – judgment, apocalypse, the elect; just throw in hubris from those pagan Greeks.

  25. Tres Cool

    whaddup doh’

    • Nephilium

      DeWine won easily, Vance won the Senate easily. I’m sure Yellow Springs is screaming about Issue 2 passing.

      Other then that, it’s a chilly November morning.

      • Raven Nation

        Someone here from Ohio made a comment a few months ago about despising Vance. I’m not arguing as I really don’t know anything about him (other than Hillbilly Elegy). Just wondering if one (or more) of our Ohioans could explain what’s bad about him. Genuinely curious.

      • Nephilium

        It wasn’t me, sorry. I don’t know much about Vance, but I voted for him as Ryan’s voting record was pretty well the Dems’ party line. I’ll note that Tim Ryan looks to have only won in the urban areas. He didn’t even win the counties where he was a Congressional rep.

      • Michael Malaise

        Vance is a phony? Yale-educated, now a celebrity author, so he’s no longer in touch with the salt of the earth Ohioans he claims to represent?

  26. PutridMeat

    Either the system is corrupt to it’s core (cue Sean) or voters are just… I won’t say stupid…. ignorant? Unable to think through consequences/cause and effect.Or both. Either way, we ain’t voting our way out of this one.

    • straffinrun

      Why would they let you vote your way out of this?

      • Shiny Nerfherder

        👆👆👆

        If you bore witness to what they did with COVID, vaccines, Russiagate, Jan 6, and the Ukraine proxy war over the past two years, how in the hell could you believe that the elections are not fixed?

      • R C Dean

        Ask juris.

        Now, I think plenty of races went to morons, incompetents, and crooks because they actually got more votes. I also think some races were decided by fraud.

      • Count Potato

        People can be stupid.
        People can be dishonest.
        These things are not mutually exclusive.

      • juris imprudent

        Ah, another run at they.

        No I think stupidity is a perfectly adequate explanation.

      • Raven Nation

        Yeah, I’m (mostly?) in JI’s camp here. I listened to some of the pronouncements made by our libertarian thought leaders and wondered what they were drinking.

        Example 1: covid has destroyed faith in our public health officials. Nope. Most of the people I know (yes, anecdotal I know) STILL celebrate Fauci, Brix, & the rest of the morally bankrupt group. Many people I know live in despair that there are no mask mandates right now.

        Example 2: Joe Biden has to grapple with inflation. Nope. Most of the people I know, just KNOW that inflation is partly caused by post-covid supply chain problems and partly caused by Putin.

        Example 3: Biden’s executive actions and/or waffling on energy production are major contributions to skyrocketing energy prices. Nope. Those same people KNOW high energy prices are solely due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    • Sean

      They went from telling us it would be days to know who won here, and then claimed victory on the night of.

    • robc

      “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — Mencken

    • Rebel Scum

      If voting worked they wouldn’t let you do it.

    • Drake

      Yes – both.

  27. Shiny Nerfherder

    Let’s just get on with WW3 then.

  28. Rebel Scum

    Dems love their braindead candidates.

    Democrat John Fetterman has won Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race over Republican opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz, according to reports.

    • DrOtto

      There was no winner in that race, only losers. The R’s should point out they are the stupid party and spell out how well braindead works in the republican party to try and turn Fetterman.

      • juris imprudent

        The people of PA being the biggest losers.

    • Drake

      The two parties knocked out every competent contender in the primaries until it came down to a Turkish carny vs. the Lump.

    • mock-star

      Silver lining: Any one who voted for Fetterman can ever lecture anyone on racism, ever again.

      • mock-star

        first “ever” should be “never”.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Shall I weep for DEMOCRACY!?

    • WTF

      No, but you can weep for the Republic, because it’s well and truly gone forever.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      For democracy, no; for the republic, yes.

  30. DrOtto

    When you end up voting with the idea that “he coulda been worse” during the pandemic like I did, are there really any winners? Last night should hold us till 2024 – the most important election ever!111!eleventyonety1!!111!

  31. PieInTheSky

    I don’t know who won but I hope they take away Sean’s guns

    • Sean

      I bought you your lottery ticket. 🙁

      • PieInTheSky

        Sure and I am grateful.for that. If we ever meet ill buy you a beer…

    • waffles

      In PA we have fairly secure 2A rights. I’m pretty dismal on the idea that “mug gunz” mean anything politically. But they are fun to shoot, so there’s that.

  32. PieInTheSky

    Although as an outsider i would say it is not good for the elephants tjat they fucked this up. Or it is just indicative that tribalism overtook anything else for voting. Not that i would like any of the repubs myself, just it was a case of the opposition should have won

    • Rebel Scum

      One party is determined to bring the country down and the other party is determined to allow it to happen.

  33. Stinky Wizzleteats

    There is no political solution
    To our troubled evolution
    Have no faith in constitution
    There is no bloody revolution

    Meh, the intellectual powerhouse called Sting predicted all this back in 1981.

  34. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Have at it my Glibs and Gliberinas! Give me your surprises, your disappointments, and your I told-you-so’s.

    I didn’t bother voting yesterday or watch the results. I did pay close attention in 2020 and it was clear that both the Dems and the eGOP used banana republic style election rigging. It’s also been clear that no attempt has been made to bolster election integrity.

    It’s naive to think the rigging would have had magically vanished in 2022, rather than being refined, smoothed, and doubled down on. It’s been telegraphed for months they were going to cheat. It’s much easier to blame the “stupid” party or OMB than accept voting is a sham and the whole thing is an illusion meant to keep the population docile and fighting among themselves. Do you think McConnell is disappointed in the outcome? The eGOP is stuffing their and their families’ pockets full our money… yours and mine … and somehow they’re the stupid ones? Of course that doesn’t discount that fact that a significant portion of Americans, not just the government, hate freedom.

    This morning turned out just about as I expected. Withdraw and build systems of support within your community.

    • R C Dean

      “Withdraw and build systems of support within your community.”

      Wisdom.

    • Rebel Scum

      meant to keep the population docile

      But does this happen if roughly half the population thinks elections are a sham?

      • juris imprudent

        I don’t think anywhere near half think elections are a sham. You have nearly half that don’t bother to participate. We aren’t anywhere near energized enough for a civil war.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        But does this happen if roughly half the population thinks elections are a sham?

        Do they? I doubt anywhere close to half of the posters here think elections are a sham. And I’d be surprised if there’s another group of people with a higher level of general skepticism and utter disregard for politicians across both aisles. If you don’t see 50% here, there’s no way you’ll see anywhere close to that in the actual population.

    • pistoffnick

      I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!

  35. robc

    In one spot of “good?” news, the LP candidate did really well in Colorado’s new 8th district. 3.9% right now.

  36. Mustang

    Fuck.

    • R C Dean

      I think that about covers it.

    • Rebel Scum
  37. Mojeaux

    I’m just quietly resigned to this shitshow of a country. I’m tired. I’m pissy about inflation but I can’t do anything, so I just remain tired. Don’t have any hope that we’re going to get anything better than Trump was, which isn’t saying much. So, yeah, just tired and resigned.

    • Trigger Hippie

      The same. Spent a good chunk of last night hanging out with a conservative buddy of mine that I frequently talk politics with because he wanted to watch election results with me. By 11pm, maybe a little after, he was basically ranting and yelling about the likely results. He stared at me in disbelief when I didn’t share his outrage.

      Him: How can you not be raging mad about this?!

      *glances at him with dull eyes and a emotionless shrug*

      Me: Told you this was going to happen. I take no joy in being correct.

      Him: But[insert laundry list of grievances]!

      Me: Yeah, you continue to overestimate the character of the American people and underestimate our willingness to knuckle under. Covid theater should have disabused of that notion.

      • juris imprudent

        Covid theater should have disabused of that notion.

        Nostalgia for Stalin still lingers in Russia.

      • Homple

        The full quote:

        “No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
        …H. L. Mencken

  38. R C Dean

    I was thinking, if I was given a single use time machine and a gun with a single bullet, I might go back in time to kill baby Soros rather than baby Hitler. I’d have to think about it, at least.

    • PieInTheSky

      Neah id still plug mohammed

      • R C Dean

        Excellent point.

      • EvilSheldon

        Don’t martyr religious figures. It never ends well.

      • PieInTheSky

        *before* the fucker was a religious figure

      • Not Adahn

        There would be plenty of times to off him during one of his bandit raids, almost zero chance of timeline contamination.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Rousseau

    • WTF

      Woodrow Wilson

      • SDF-7

        That was my first instinct as well — but thinking about it, TR set the stage… and if wasn’t them, it would have been someone else. Progressivism spun up and out of the perceived excesses of industrialization and monopolization by “robber barons”, Wilson was a top grade asshat — but I suspect the crap would have come anyway, just maybe a little later.

        I’d be more curious if we could time travel and save Kaiser Frederick III from his throat cancer (there was a good shot at it if the British quack favored by his wife wasn’t listened to, iirc). A more moderate Germany that didn’t push the British over to the French and then Russia for the Triple Entente might have kept WW1 from happening / Europe from decimating a generation or two, etc. Less fertile ground for Lenin as well (though Russia would always be screwed up — without WW1, the Tsar might have been able to hold it or transition more peacefully).

      • juris imprudent

        Progressivism spun up at least partly out of religious fervor and the belief in the improvement of man by social forces. Fucking temperance laid the groundwork.

    • Rebel Scum

      Moral problem of killing a baby notwithstanding, there is a quantitative good that could be derived therefrom.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      You’re gonna need more bullets.

    • Michael Malaise

      No one chooses to kill Baby Marx?

      Or at least one of them, like Harpo? He was annoying AF.

      • Not Adahn

        *honks in MM’s face*

      • juris imprudent

        If you take out Rousseau you probably eliminate the influence of Marx.

      • Jarflax

        The philosophical root of Rousseau and Marx is in Plato. I think the ideas that cause all this are inevitable. Envy is the source, and envy is very human. As long as achievement produces positive results, and people have different capabilities there will be a political drive to level things. And it will inevitably gain a veneer of morality as long as there are people who achieve positive results by leveraging their power and position for the envious to point out as ‘proof’ that inequality is oppression.

  39. Lord Humungus

    Welp my skepticism of the red wave was warranted. I still hold out some hope of a slim R majority in the senate. Emphasis on slim.

    And the house – given the current state – will most likely have a slim R majority too.

    Takeaways? Dunno:

    .other than abortion / white woman was probably a bigger factor than anyone guessed.

    .and perhaps Bidens crazy demonization speeches had a bigger impact than anyone guessed – ie some low info voters still believe in the exalted state of the presidency

    .Trump should just walk away from politics

    • Lord Humungus

      oh and the left’s marches through culture and the institutions are bearing their fruit

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      We’ll know next week.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        As far as Trump’s run I mean. I hope the brains to realize this was a repudiation.

      • juris imprudent

        After proclaiming he wasn’t going to get enough credit for the massive red wave, you think he’ll take any blame for the red ripple?

  40. robodruid

    Bad Candidates?
    Bad Education?
    or
    Cheating?

    It does not look like there is going to be a check on any future govt. spending.
    War or hyperinflation seems likely.

    I kept thinking that people who could not afford to drive to the abortion rallies would be more worried about the price of gas. I agree with SSD. But maybe people should start discussing strategic relocation.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      Bad Candidates?
      Bad Education?
      or
      Cheating?

      All of the above

    • juris imprudent

      War or hyperinflation

      Embrace the power of and.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    The “system” has evolved to puke up the absolute worst candidates. And government schools have done their absolute best to eliminate any sort of individualist thinking.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Going against the grain implies disordered thought. Just give him some Adderall and expel him if that doesn’t help.

  42. Count Potato

    As I’ve been saying since 2016, I think a big part of it is the social media crackdown. After Trump won, the government pressured all the platforms to never let that happen again. Which leaves the corporate media which is overwhelmingly Democrat. So they aren’t going to say, “Remember the lockdowns, school closures, mandates, and forcing the vaccines of people? Well, it turns out we were wrong.” So no one is hearing it. That’s the only way someone like Gretchen Whitmer could get re-elected governor.

    • juris imprudent

      You’re forgetting there are people that LIKED the lockdowns, closures and mandates. Just average people – they like being told what to do.

      • Count Potato

        Yes, but those people thought they were doing something good. They weren’t.

      • juris imprudent

        Uh huh, and Nazis thought they were doing good as well. C.S. Lewis comes to mind.

      • Count Potato

        And see how the Germans feel about it now that they know better?

  43. Mustang

    I’m not sure cheating plays a large part. It’s probably happening, but I’m more inclined to believe what Ayn Rand predicted in Atlas Shrugged. There’s not a secret group of geniuses running away, but most people are…unintelligent…and becoming more so. Things are deteriorating because nobody knows or cares enough to know. There’s a drain on common sense, so you get a large group of generally incompetent people running things, like elections, and it looks suspiciously like cheating because a few of us just can’t accept that most people just do…not…care enough to know about things like economics or politicking (in the sense of working with others to accomplish or negotiate something). They vote based on emotion. That’s it. We’ve got several generations now who have basically abdicated control of their emotions to others and now we see the results.

  44. The Late P Brooks

    I watched some youtube car stuff last night. Then I watched Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein (in that order). Then I went to bed and dozed in and out of some John Wayne movie.

    *Did you know there’s some junkyard in Ohio with about forty Cadillac XLRs? The insurance companies will total them for just about anything because there are no parts on the shelf to fix them with.

    • R C Dean

      The Cadillac Corvette. They actually looked like nice cars.

      • slumbrew

        Are those the ones where a broken tail light required disassembling most of the car?

  45. DrOtto

    Question for Juris – I know we are a suspicious lot here, but you seem intent on validating the election process. Do you really think that we have “free and fair” elections? Even if polls going down in contentious races on the one day the machines should work isn’t fraud, isn’t all the other shenanigans that demonstrably does go on with dirty ballot rolls, ballot harvesting, voter ID and mail in voting enough to suggest maybe something isn’t quite on the up and up?

    • Count Potato

      The biggest shenanigan is censorship.

    • juris imprudent

      I’m not quite old enough to remember it first hand, but Nixon’s loss in ’60 was at least partially attributed to ballot boxes being dumped into Lake Michigan (from non-conforming Chicago precincts). Cleveland’s election was highly questionable as well and that’s all without going back to antebellum elections.

      So no, I don’t believe that our election process is without question, now or at some golden time before. That too goes with humans – both civil servants and volunteers – being fucking human (and thus quite corruptible). The obvious problem is only the losing side has an incentive to complain and/or attempt to make it better. And both parties are short-sighted enough to be content when winning (again, all very human behavior). And electorally speaking – this here little chunk of the world is the all time losingest! We never win, ever. At best we tepidly support a majority party, mostly because they’re less bad, not actually good.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Florida’s winning party tightened up election processes. And we see what happened there.

      • Lackadaisical

        I’m not sure what people mean by this.

        There is still mail in ballots, extensive early voting. What prices did they fix?

        Honest question because I don’t know. The only really solid thing is you need ID to vote.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Mostly things that discourage ballot harvesting. For instance, they still have drop boxes, but only voters or immediate family members can drop them off, and the number they can drop at one time is limited. The boxes have to be supervised in person. I think they also required more observers for mail in ballot counting.

        Also, they stopped just mailing ballots to people indefinitely, they have to be requested periodically, and you’re taken off the list if the ballot is returned as undeliverable.

        So, Florida is still among the easiest states to register and vote in. It’s just a little harder to cheat.

  46. Sensei

    Let me lighten the mood with this “water is wet” quote.

    Governance experts, who raised questions about potential conflicts of interest when Mr. Tyson was named CFO, say the recent incident underscores those concerns and casts fresh doubts about how the board will handle potential performance issues given the family control of the company.

    Tyson Foods CFO Arrest Adds to Governance Challenges for Board

  47. The Late P Brooks

    It’s snowing again this morning.

  48. DrOtto

    Pie won, goddammit!

    • PieInTheSky

      I did?

      • DrOtto

        The Hat & the Hair’s Pie. She’s the new governor of Arkansas.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    At least we’ll get to see some show trials for the bosses of Big Oil. That should be fun.

    • DrOtto

      We traded for those Citgo exec’s held in Venezuela for the crimes of capitalism so we could bring them back to the US and try them for crimes of the environment.

  50. Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

    So, question for the far and wide; how did the R do down ballot?

    Oregon turned out about as I expected, what with the mail in ballots and Portlandia, but what are you seeing in the locals?

    • Ownbestenemy

      Rs did well just not the overhyped RED TSUNAMI! Losses is places that were surprises, a couple of surprise pickups. Overall, still shitty for any person that likes the littlest bit of freedom and liberty

    • Rat on a train

      As expected. VA-7 contains 8 complete counties plus Fredericksburg and parts of Albermarle and Prince William counties. All but PW and Fredericksburg voted for Vega.

      • Rat on a train

        Also Spanberger doesn’t live in the district.

    • Lackadaisical

      I think Florida will be sending 21r’s and 7d’s to the house.

      This is in part thanks to redistricting, but generally R’s did very well here.

    • PieInTheSky

      Not knowing anything about the candidates, I saw the name and thought of Wiktor Malinowski

  51. Rufus the Monocled

    Fetterman. Lol.

    Despite what looks like a decent result, so much for the red wave.

    • juris imprudent

      We may be settling into stasis.

  52. kinnath

    Iowa was the purplest of purple states for the last 4 or 5 decades.

    Yesterday, the state went hard over to the red side.

    I imagine we have stayed standing in one place and the rest of the nation has run to the left screaming and waving their arms all along the way.

    • R C Dean

      I vaguely recall Iowa doing some good things for election integrity. Is my recollection correct?

      • kinnath

        Yes. And it swung the state house and senate 180 degrees.

        Tom Miller, one of the most active SJW AGs in the country, was put on a leash after the last election and was defeated yesterday.

      • R C Dean

        It makes an interesting data point for whether we have insecure elections. Tighten up the process, one party wins. Loosen it up, the other party wins. That seems to be the pattern.

      • kinnath

        Florida also tightened up election processes and went hard red too.

        So, that’s proof that elections are being fucked with. If you bleed blue, then you are convinced that Republicans are fucking with the elections to prevent the powerless from having a say in government. If you bleed red, then you are convinced that Democrats are manufacturing votes and steeling elections.

        Take your pick.

      • kinnath

        You can put me solidly in the category of people that think that the people that control the urban areas of the country are actively working to enslave the people living in the rural areas of the country.

      • AlexinCT

        The end goal is top down centralized control for these people…

        Why should you be free?

      • SDF-7

        If you bleed red, then you are convinced that Democrats are manufacturing votes and steeling elections.

        Is that the Iron Law of the current GOP?

      • juris imprudent

        More like if you bleed Orange.

      • Nephilium

        /points at Florida and Ohio

  53. PieInTheSky

    the internet was full of great speeches / interviews by Kari Lake. It seems that, indeed, fine words butter no parsnips.

    Although why would anyone waste good butter on parsnips is beyond me.

    • Sean

      Parsnips are delicious.

      • PieInTheSky

        I didn’t see no parsnips in your food pictures

      • Not Adahn

        He eats them before they get to the plate.

    • R C Dean

      The bigger trend/root cause for AZ going blue is urbanization. The lack of election integrity, and our ruler’s support for/complacency about it, is just an accelerant, in my opinion.

      And yes, there is cheating in AZ, mostly Maricopa/Phoenix. Enough to swing a close election. We have a Soros-front Karen mediocrity as our governor, Allah save us all.

  54. The Late P Brooks

    Which leaves the corporate media which is overwhelmingly Democrat.

    Whoa, whoa, whoa. I have been reliably informed that the entire media infrastructure in this country is controlled by a shadowy cabal of right wing manipulators whose ultimate aim id to bring back slavery.

    • Count Potato

      The greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist.

      • AlexinCT

        Not only that, but to make so many blind to the fact that the road to hell always seems to be paved by good intentions….

        The movement that promises heaven on earth can only deliver hell.

      • juris imprudent

        Good intentions mean I can feel good about myself; results that invalidate that must be rejected!

      • AlexinCT

        And that’s why things are going to go bad. I could tolerate a system where we would try even crazy shit, but when it failed, would roll it back. The problem is that the people straddling us with insane shit double down when their idiotic idea fails miserably. It’s easy to make other people suffer for your stupidity. Any consequence free system like government or academia will sooner than later enact shit that kills millions. See marxism.

      • juris imprudent

        It’s easy to make other people suffer for your stupidity.

        Now THAT is understanding humans. Much better they suffer for my stupidity than I do.

      • AlexinCT

        Marxism’s new man is the hero that willingly suffers for the top people. I.E. insects like ants & bees.

        That’s why I want nothing to do with collectivism.

        And as was pointed out above: the most powerful emotion driving these people is always envy.

    • rhywun

      Getting Nancy off her roost is a worthwhile goal. If that somehow fails… I can’t even.

      • Lord Humungus

        Well if those current CNBC or NBC the Rs got their majority. More of a ripple than a wave.

        But it will stop the Dem stupidity.

      • Lackadaisical

        Only slow. Just think how few RINOs they need to
        Flip to get some bipartisan legislation through.

        Also, Dr. Jill Biden still has a pen and phone.

      • rhywun

        Either of those results is, what, the smallest backlash to the ruling party in midterm history?

        That’s believable. 🙄

  55. Rebel Scum

    This seems appropriate.

    Right now multiple firefighters are battling a massive fire inside a part a Chevron oil refinery in el segundo California officials say its unclear on how the fire ignited as fire spreads

    • AlexinCT

      It’s Cali. Karma is a bitch.

      • juris imprudent

        By golly they’re going to get gas prices that rival Europe!

  56. Ownbestenemy

    Nevada might be the oy surprise for me. Looking like Laxalt will best CMM and the Sheriff will dump Sisolak for governor. Though lots of time between now and Froday, when they have basically said that’s when we will know

    • Pat

      I wouldn’t put any money on it, but I’d certainly be surprised if Cortez-Masto loses to Laxalt.

    • Lackadaisical

      I was hopeful about lake after hearing her speak, but I shouldn’t have been.

  57. PieInTheSky

    Why Albanians come to Britain

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-albanians-come-to-britain/

    Why leave Albania – parts of which are beautiful – for an unprepossessing bedsit in a dispiriting London borough? The experts I sounded out, friends and a friend of a friend, interestingly don’t focus primarily on the economy to explain the exodus – because it really is an exodus of the younger generation. Rather, it’s to do with Albania being a failed state: the absence of the rule of law, the sense that the place is being run by a corrupt coterie for its own benefit, the hopelessness about the prospects for change, the narco-economy. One recent paper put the number who’ve left the country since the advent of Edi Rama, the socialist prime minister, in 2013, at 700,000. If Rama wants to know what’s really behind the exodus of Albanians, he could do worse than look in the mirror

  58. Grosspatzer

    So the latest edition of the circus is done. I don’t see how a red wave would have mattered in the long run since the pachyderms never accomplish anything even when they hold both Houses and the Executive. Maybe the inevitable happens sooner now, might be a good thing.

    • Michael Malaise

      Yeah, voting seems really irrelevant except in very local instances.

      • Lackadaisical

        Every year I buy for myself is another year I can enjoy. I don’t have any delusions about meaningfully rolling things back, but if I can continue to live with minimal molestation I’ll take it.

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Trump should just walk away from politics

    Who will get to him first- a lefty wacko or a NeverTrumper wacko? DEMOCRACY cannot survive under even the merest threat of America being turned into a dystopian Trumpistan. I honestly am surprised nobody has taken a shot at him before now.

  60. Rebel Scum

    In what world is Boebert not handily defeating that soy cunte Frisch?

    • Michael Malaise

      Forget it Jake, it’s Colorado.

    • Q Continuum

      That one is surprising to me as Boebert’s district is rural and has been solid R for decades. Maybe Kung Flu refugees from Denver that brought their Team Blue stupidity with them?

    • Raven Nation

      It’s a weird district. Her strength is in the western part. But the district includes places like Aspen & Vail which, despite conventional wisdom, are pretty liberal. There are also a lot of moderate Republicans in that area that are “embarrassed” by her. Lastly, there’s a large Latino population which, I suspect (although I don’t know for sure) associate her with Trump’s perceived (or real) attitude toward immigration.

      • juris imprudent

        Oregon used to have a real weird district like that, Eugene and a big chunk out to the coast. Absolutely zero centrist – hard left in Eugene and hard right in the out country.

      • Tres Cool

        “..attitude toward immigration.”

        Its been some time since I lived in Tejas, and my experience is anecdotal at best. But the mexicans I knew that worked their asses off and got citizenship the hard way loathed the border-jumpers that came over to immediately get free shit and robust social programs.
        Even the ones that were born here to immigrants had a solid work ethic bordering on workaholic.

      • Raven Nation

        Again, my perception is anecdotal. But almost all the guys who work for my FIL’s company in that area are Mexican immigrants. All of them are legal now and most came legally. But they were were adamantly opposed to Trump even though they were better off economically.

  61. Gustave Lytton

    Yay. Gun control passed. Stoking up increased crime was an easy pivot to gun crime plus the natural guns are icky.

    Permit required to be able to attempt to purchase a firearm including an education component that doesn’t exist.
    Magazine size restrictions that ban most shotguns.

    • Sean

      Sorry.

      • Gustave Lytton

        At least we’re replacing the bicurious gov with the outright dyke.

    • juris imprudent

      I remember the great compromise on shall-issue and universal background checks. That was supposed to settle it. Funny how that worked out, and in which direction.

  62. Q Continuum

    Like I said last night, there is a cold comfort from this result in that I think cheating is not the explanation here. IMO, no one is capable of pulling off fraud of that magnitude across such a wide range of states with such a diverse set of candidates. The cold comfort is that at least the system theoretically works so, again theoretically, voters could be persuaded to vote for sanity.

    The black pill is that if people weren’t convinced to vote differently by:

    1. The intentional destruction of the US energy sector
    2. Erasing the Southern Border
    3. 8% inflation
    4. Mutilating pre-teens’ genitals
    5. 2 years of tyrannical Kung Flu policy
    6. A Chief Executive who is literally losing his mind

    Then nothing outside of world-ending events that directly affect the US (eg: famine, nuclear war, etc.) will convince them to vote differently.

    I don’t know if it’s better or worse that we seem to have a (semi-) reliable election system with an outrageously stupid populace vs. the other way around, but it does give us valuable information about the world around us. The takeaway is probably what should always have been the correct strategy anyway: take care of yourself and loved ones first by building a community that serves as a barrier to the lunacy; if possible, live in locations that are locally freedom-friendly; engage with others politically only when necessary and practice Irish Democracy where possible; prepare, prepare, prepare.

    • Count Potato

      There is both fraud and stupidity.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Seriously. All that.

      Here, infectious disease doctors and paediatricians are screaming for ‘mo masks’. Because ‘OMFG VIRAL SURGE!’

      Canada is literally off the charts off the deep end.

      So now I gotta find a place AWAY from these insane people.

      The USA is goodish but not easy to get in. But working on it.

      • Not Adahn

        Just get the script that “asylum seekers” use to check the right boxes on the “totally legitimate asylum application” interview.

      • Tres Cool

        Id sponsor you, but you being a muppet, the new puppy would likely rip your stuffing innards out.

    • Tres Cool

      The fraud machines didnt get turned on as long as they had a reasonable indication that the (D) were ahead.

    • juris imprudent

      Our general prosperity has allowed the parasitic class to exceed the productive class. The collapse of the productive will cause a massive restructuring. But it ain’t gonna be fun.

    • Semi-Spartan Dad

      IMO, no one is capable of pulling off fraud of that magnitude across such a wide range of states with such a diverse set of candidates.

      That’s the grand conspiracy/puppet master fallacy. You can swing the presidency and senate just by hitting a few key cities. It’s easily possible and was done openly in 2020. Doesn’t require some master scheme and control of all 50 states. If shitholes like Venezuela and Iran can rig elections, surely America’s politicians have the capability to do so.

      It doesn’t even require secrecy. There are whistleblowers and video evidence all over the place. Thousands of people came forward in 2020 to swear affidavits under penalty of perjury about it happening. The vote counts are freely manipulated on live television.

      But people prefer to call it rain.

      • Nephilium

        If that was the case, the House would have swung much more to the Republicans.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        I think this is a faulty proposition that if Y (GOP sweeps house races) doesn’t happen, then X (statewide steals) can’t have happened. We know X is happening. We see this rigging openly taking place in a handful of strongholds that all coincidently end up being key battlegrounds.

        House races are probably being rigged too. I haven’t been following that, so can’t say. It wouldn’t be difficult to do though. What’s another 20 races or so to rig, with minimal security or observers. The manpower to do something like that would be minimal and a lot less effort than the fortification needed for president/senate/gov races.

  63. Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

    This is for Pie-a-la-Sky:

    What there was, like in any poor community, is people living their life dramas out in public. All at the same time, creating a sense of chaos, that tipped into the surreal. Like the cat stuck in a tree branch being squawked at by crows while its owner stands below yelling and tossing rocks at the birds, next to a dog owner, dressed in a bathrobe, loudly demanding their dog get out from under a car jacked up on bricks, while a group of drunks, dressed in traditional Romanian garb including two in full bear outfits, parade around blasting Xmas music and banging on drums, asking for money, while a young man, dressed like he was in the Bronx, helps his older mother, dressed like she was in a Romanian folk tale, into a tiny idling cab that is holding up a young man in a fully tinted BMW who, frustrated, holds down his horn, leans out the window, and yells, which gets the young man guiding his seemingly deaf mom to yell at him, which gets the kid tossing rocks at the bird to stop and watch and yell over to his friends to come watch what looks like it is going to turn into fight, all of which does nothing from stopping the Xmas parade guys dancing right through the whole yelling honking scene, including the very drunk guy dressed as a bear who stops to pick up a rock to also toss at the crow, while the cat continues to howl. Meanwhile, a few yards away, a mother, dressed in leather pants, knee-high boots, and with bleach blond hair, oblivious to it all, supervises her kids, dressed in knock-off Disney snow outfits despite there being no snow, playing on an immaculately clean and neon bright playground set, while texting on a gigantic phone. All punctuated by the constant sound of the kids tossing fireworks into the cement blocks.

    Dangerous no. Chaotic, sure.

    https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-the-world-bucharest

  64. Rebel Scum

    Privilege?

    Maddow hyperventilating:

    “A lot of the far-right in Arizona has been willing to use their open carry privilege as a form of political intimidation…”

    Carrying guns is not “intimidation”.

    • R C Dean

      Plus, its not a privilege.

      • juris imprudent

        But it does reinforce her inferiority complex.

  65. Michael Malaise

    Most people think freedom is overrated.

    • PieInTheSky

      They think it is meaningless not overrated because in their world no one rates it

      • Michael Malaise

        Well, it’s a nebulous term, so I suppose you are correct.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s precisely when the lesson will be thought yet again. When things get good enough that people lose sight of what it takes to have the good times that have fooled them into a sense of invulnerability, and opt to just raid the treasury, is precisely when the dark times follow. At least those dark times promise us some strong men to bring back the good times. And it is not so bad if you are able to ignore the mountain of bodies.,

    • AlexinCT

      Most people will sell their freedoms for clearly false promises of security and free shit.

      • rhywun

        I wonder what free shit I get in return for being required to pay for a new a Bills stadium.

      • AlexinCT

        You are likely not one of those people that fall for the lies…

      • Lackadaisical

        The stadium is the free shit, enjoy.

      • rhywun

        You mean I have to pay for free shit?! But it says “free” right on the label.

      • Lackadaisical

        Okay fine, the stadium will pay for itself, we just have to finance it up front. Think of all the economic growth. 😉

    • Rebel Scum

      People want to be ruled, be destitute, and mutilate children, apparently.

      • R C Dean

        It’s hard to draw any other conclusion from the available data. Revealed preferences are revealed.

  66. Michael Malaise

    I would like to congratulate Mitch McConnell, the real winner of last night.

    • AlexinCT

      So the mandarinate won? I can see that.

      • Michael Malaise

        His consequence-free sinecure continues.

      • AlexinCT

        Did Xi congratulate the cabal yet?

      • hayeksplosives

        He instructed Mitch’s CCP wife to administer the usual reward/threat as is tradition.

  67. KSuellington

    Well, that wasn’t the result I wanted to see. I had zero illusions of any kind of change in Caliunicornia, but I’d have liked to see the lockdown guvs smacked down. Aside from DeSantis, they were all rewarded for helping fuck the economy and liberties. The one bright spot as I see it is that Trump may be a bit more likely to sit out 24. It should be glaringly obvious for more Repub primary voters that he will hand over the Presidency to whoever the Dems cough up. I figured his chances of winning before at under 5%, they are now under 1%. It doesn’t matter in the slightest how much worse the economy gets or inflation gets, he ain’t winning again. This may make a serious run for Trump less likely.

    • creech

      Methinks you underestimate someone’s ego.

    • Michael Malaise

      “This may make a serious run for Trump less likely.”

      I think it actually does the opposite.

      • kinnath

        More stolen elections. Thus, Trump rages on.

      • KSuellington

        I’m not entirely in Juris’ camp here, but I believe he is more correct in that population stupidity plays a far greater impact than “muh stolen elecshunz!,!!” over the last couple cycles. As I’ve said before, I don’t think Trump wants to lose again, even if he would blame it on vote fraud. But that must be in the back of his mind, competing against his narcissistic desire to keep his name in the news. He will certainly declare a run in the next couple weeks, but hopefully he pulls out before the race gets to the first primaries.

    • Grumbletarian

      I had toyed with the idea that Trump might change his state of residence to NY or NJ and then make a deal with DeSantis to support Trump in the 2024 primary in exchange for being his pick for VP. Then Trump gets a chance at a Grover Cleveland second term, and Trump endorses DeSantis in 2028.

      That might piss off all the independent voters though.

    • robodruid

      I sort of agree. I don’t think his bombast will help him during Republican debates.

      • juris imprudent

        All it will take is for one candidate with the balls to say to his face “you’re full of shit”.

  68. Michael Malaise

    Unless there’s a catastrophic violent event, governments only get larger and more controlling over time.

    So we either accept that and live completely locally and invest in our own families, or we take up arms to reset the needle.

    • Tres Cool

      Who let the Fed in here ?

      • juris imprudent

        Psst – you want to infiltrate those who withdraw, get them to trust you, THEN you spring the ‘plan’ on them.

      • Michael Malaise

        If I can make turn one disaffected, lonely Muslim pizza man a domestic jihadist, my life will be complete.

  69. wdalasio

    I didn’t think the outcome would be this pathetic.

    I’m done trying to convince people. I’m now taking on a policy of “I don’t want to hear it.”. If I don’t know that you voted against the regime, I really don’t want to hear your complaints (obviously excepting people too young to vote yesterday). You voted for this. So, no, we’re not commiserating. You’re the Baddy, Hans. And until you’re prepared to admit your culpability, piss off with your complaints. It’s your fault. I think we’ve all been to open to other people seeing the light without admitting their role.

    • Michael Malaise

      I don’t care about anyone but myself (and my family) anymore.

      Look, this is me, pulling the ladder up behind me.

    • Rebel Scum

      I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter.

  70. The Late P Brooks

    Methinks you underestimate someone’s ego.

    And his capacity for honest self-reflection.

    *zilch

  71. Banjos

    I heard three theories: Trump not being on the ballot hurt the Rs, Trump’s candidates were garbage, and McConnell and McCarthy are uninspiring, shit leaders who didn’t properly support many Republican candidates. I think all three of these are true.

    I also want to add that Ds did a great job of targeting under 30 voters, that red states are getting redder and blue states are getting bluer, and New Yorkers enjoy being crime victims. Republicans desperately need new leadership and anyone in a blue state needs to get the fuck out.

    • Michael Malaise

      Who is the leader of the Republican party? This is a serious question.

      • Banjos

        Exactly. The fact you have to ask.

    • PieInTheSky

      New Yorkers enjoy being crime victims. – according to new york twitterers the crime is the result of decades of republican obstructionism. The person had a blue check mark so it must be true

    • R C Dean

      “red states are getting redder and blue states are getting bluer”

      I think there’s also a trend of purple states getting bluer, but I’d like to see some data. The way a midterm election with a lot of headwinds for the ruling Team Blue faction turned into a very weak shift to Team Red strikes me as one data point, since these are elections about where the tossup/undecided/unaligned voters want.

      • R.J.

        Can’t provide data this morning. For Texas, we stayed status quo, which is purple. There was no rightwards drift. At all. The border stayed blue for congressional races, clearly indicating nobody is worries about illegal immigrant there. The positions that were R or D before the election stayed the same afterwards

    • juris imprudent

      Trump on the ballot pulled in votes from people that don’t ordinarily vote. Trump off the ballot pulls in votes of those who don’t want him on the ballot.

      • Count Potato

        “Trump on the ballot pulled in votes from people that don’t ordinarily vote.”

        True.

        “Trump off the ballot pulls in votes of those who don’t want him on the ballot.”

        I don’t see that.

      • juris imprudent

        I think that’s part of the explanation for why the Repubs didn’t do as well as expected. We’ll have to see what the turnout totals look like.

  72. PieInTheSky

    The sweet, sweet allure of elite approval
    ‘Sensible’ and ‘moderate’ conservatives are never going to be accepted or liked

    • PieInTheSky

      goddamn stupid wordpress keeps autoposting shit

      https://edwest.substack.com/p/the-sweet-sweet-allure-of-elite-approval

      Historian Tom Holland once compared social media’s political drift with the hoplite phalanx in classical Greece. Because soldiers were protected on their right by a comrade holding a shield in their left hand, the body of men would inevitably drift to the right as each man sought protection. The same was true of Twitter, he pointed out, except in the opposite direction.

      But the site has clearly had a negative influence on public discourse, and I don’t think conservatives should take comfort from the fact that Twitter users are unrepresentative of the population as a whole. They might be a minority but they’re a very influential one, and the cultural norms you see on the platform inevitably spread out to the general population. Twitter is not real life; it’s real life in 20 years. Or to paraphrase a man who would have been very popular on the site: you might not be interested in the Twitter discourse, but the Twitter discourse is interested in you.

  73. Rufus the Monocled

    Trump should run as a Democrat.

    The ultimate troll move.

    Can you imagine the mindfuckery this would cause?

    Worse part? The Democrats would embrace him probably.

    • juris imprudent

      Eisenhower was courted by both parties in ’52. Hard to imagine that now, except as you say, as a total troll.

  74. The Late P Brooks

    Idle observation:

    The urbanization of the desert (Phoenix, Las Vegas, et c) will begin to reverse under the idiotocracy’s energy policies.

    • PieInTheSky

      solar powered water is needed

    • Pat

      Lake Mead ain’t gonna last forever, and that’s about the end of Las Vegas. That we can’t make solar work even out here in the bleakest desert in North America is just the cherry on the parfait.

      • juris imprudent

        That we can’t make solar work even out here in the bleakest desert in North America is just the cherry on the parfait.

        You know, that would make a really great article.

      • hayeksplosives

        Duly noted. Might be a multi-glib collaboration.

        The seemingly trivial factors get tangled up really quick once you scratch past the surface.

  75. Rufus the Monocled

    Can we ban the world ‘bombshell’?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        With some exceptions of course.

      • robodruid

        Very limited exceptions please.

    • Nephilium

      Of course not!

    • PieInTheSky

      Server Error

      • R.J.

        Hahahahaha! So ironic.

    • Not Adahn

      Gymnast butt is upthread. As are twins.

    • Lackadaisical

      Very nice, #5 ftw

  76. Timeloose

    Well that election sucked. Not much more to say. I voted straight party for the first time ever in a general election.
    My observations on the Fetterman win and the lack of a major Dem purge overall:

    1) Fetterman was essentially billed as an old school democrat who appealed to blue collar / union workers and progressives. Oz was billed a an out of touch millionaire carpetbagger (which he is). The stroke was waived off by most fence sitters and true believers. The stink of Trump as well as a lack of likeability by Oz was enough for the middle to vote against him.
    2) As a whole, the lockdowns and the people responsible are not being blamed by the majority of voters. This was not stressed as much as it should have been by the opposition as Fetterman was LT Gov. at the time
    3) Abortion rights (or the ability of choice around them) is much more of an issue to women (of any age) than most men want to acknowledge. Arguments are not logical but emotional. The right to abortion has been the status quo for the past 40+ years, most women alive have never known any different.
    4) Most people today want to be taken care of and they want this from their government. The rugged individual has been dying in the US since the 19th century.
    5) The American people don’t understand what causes inflation and what role the government has in manipulation it or the economy as a whole.
    6) The Trump effect is not a way to win an election unless you are Trump (in 2016).

    • PieInTheSky

      Server Error – as far as I know in Europe, as many or more women oppose abortion than men

      As a whole, the lockdowns and the people responsible are not being blamed – I think most people support the lockdowns and have little idea the damage they caused, especially the work from home crowd

      Most people today want to be taken care of and they want this from their government – yes. morons.

      The American people don’t understand what causes inflation – yes. morons.

      • Urthona

        Same in the US on abortion.

        That it is men controlling women’s bodies is a political taking point.

      • rhywun

        especially the work from home crowd

        The work from home crowd got a close look at what the education establishment is doing to their children – and they don’t seem to care.

    • Michael Malaise

      Oz was a bad candidate, but the truth is the Team Blue urban vote in Pennsylvania is near-impossible to overcome. No one cares about the stroke or what the fuck he does in the Senate. They just care that he’s a vote for their team.

      Also, Republicans are terrible at propaganda.

      • Urthona

        Eh i know it sounds facetious when I say this but stroke victim who does everything his party wants really is the IDEAL SENATOR.

      • Lord Humungus

        Exactly – dems are lockstep

      • Michael Malaise

        Cohesion is one thing they do well that the R’s can’t grasp. McConnell didn’t fund certain races because of their MAGA-ness, whatever that means. If you’re an Elephant, you should be all-in on Elephants, whether they have big. ears or little ones.

      • Urthona

        Talk to a Democrat and they have the exact opposite opinion. They think Republicans are really united and they are always bickering among themselves.

      • The Other Kevin

        There is a definite rift in the Republican part. I see no such rift in Democrats, besides something minor like Manchin. Especially now. If they’d have lost big I would expect some infighting, but not now.

      • Urthona

        Couldn’t be more backwards from the truth.

        The Republican problem was not their ability to unite behind any red candidate. They all did so reliably and brainlessly in every case.

        The problem was finding Republicans who could cross party lines.

        And actually the same is somewhat true of Democrats.

        These were not divided parties. These were parties that couldn’t find much appeal outside themselves. Other than Desantis.

      • Drake

        Most Republicans just run as the lesser of two evils. Hard to get enthusiasm for evil. Exceptions like DeSantos can win big.

      • Urthona

        I think a better way of putting it might be the Republicans have a “leadership” and not a “unity” problem.

        The reason the Democrat strategy of boosting MAGA candidates worked is Republicans voted in lockstep for whomever they thought they were supposed to vote for.

        They just had the wrong candidates to win in overall elections. Why? You can guess.

      • juris imprudent

        dems are lockstep

        Will I’m not a member of an organized political party, I’m a Democrat Rogers spins in his grave.

      • Timeloose

        The urban blue vote can be broken, but it can’t be done with the candidates we’ve had in the last 8years.

    • Timeloose

      A final summary would be:

      Emotions always trump logic and reason for the general population. Whomever can appeal to the emotions of the most voters the best will likely win.
      Free shit will continue to win elections until there is a consequence of significance than can be clearly blamed on the free shit crowd (famine, financial collapse, major infrastructure failures)
      There is a culture war ongoing and the progressives are winning.

  77. The Late P Brooks

    “I am not a number. I am a free man.”

    “Hahahahahahahahahahaha.”

  78. Urthona

    Red Wave in 2024!!

    • WTF

      I think there’s a greater chance of you actually turning yourself into a pickle.

      • Urthona

        Red Wave in 2026!!

      • Lackadaisical

        Yes, but probably of blood. :/

  79. PieInTheSky

    JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL | WHITE Team vs RED Team SPORTS DAY Festival – Part 1 [ENG SUB]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAcy_NlggV0

    is it racist or sexist to say japanese chicks make weird sounds?

    • Tres Cool

      That’s why I don’t bang asian broads. They squeak and it reminds me too much of a dog’s toy.
      Throws me off my stride.

      • Lackadaisical

        Here I would have just thought most were too skinny for you.

      • Tres Cool

        Oh #AsianBBW is a thing….you just have to look hard enough

      • AlexinCT

        I kind of enjoyed looking for the variations in the various sounds by culture…

  80. KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

    Well, they’ll just have 2 more years to fuck up even more.

    This morning my RV’s a-rockin’, but only on account of the wind. Damn.

    • Mojeaux

      I wanted to tell you– Your description of your next-door neighbor yesterday made me LOL.

      • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

        LOL

        He’s a nice kid

      • Tres Cool

        “mama tasted the honey- now she wants the whole hive!”

  81. The Late P Brooks

    As a whole, the lockdowns and the people responsible are not being blamed by the majority of voters.

    We are extreme outliers. Honest to god, I think the vast majority of people seriously believe it would have been worse without the lockdowns and other heavyhanded measures. Our Public Health Experts are heroes.

    • Lackadaisical

      Correct.

  82. Lord Humungus

    I came back from a mile jog – trying to get healthy again and lose some weight.

    I blame excessive drinking plus eating out more than anything else. Plus I’ve been neglecting my usual aerobic exercising and only concentrating on weightlifting. As for the weights, I’ve also increased them along with some extra sets thrown in. The usual cocktail of amino acids, DHEA, and protein shakes.

    On the antique booth front: sales last month ticked up a little; pretty flat this month. It’s easy to blame the locations – not ideal – but the economy is also at play here.

    • Michael Malaise

      Awesome! It’s true that strong, healthy people are harder to control.

    • Pat

      the economy is also at play here

      Yeah, my business is leisure-adjacent and has been glacial for about the last 6 months. Like you said, there’s other factors too, but it definitely seems to be a trend. I knew I should have started a bar…

      • Michael Malaise

        But you’re an evil business owner who won’t pay know-nothing low-skilled sloths $50 an hour because of “fairness”

    • juris imprudent

      neglecting my usual aerobic exercising

      EF pouts?

      • Tres Cool

        Its not aerobic if she’s on top

  83. kinnath

    It’s the economy stupid . . . .

    Not any more.

    • Fourscore

      “As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move towards a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

      While Mencken was right he missed that we will move from moron to Harris.

      I have said for many years that every Pres is worse than his/her predecessor . Not only the national but the more local elections as well.

    • Michael Malaise

      That’s a Jeep Liberty, so my vote is no.

      • robc

        Someone pointed out that due to a recall, they would install a proper hitch for free.

  84. The Other Kevin

    So the Red Wave turned out to be more of a low flow period for the Republicans. Here are TOK’s Hot Takes.

    1) Scott Adams’ take is that fear is still the best persuader, and the Dems are just better at it. I’m inclined to believe that. For example, my parents are retired, and their life savings is being rapidly eaten away by inflation, yet they’re still terrified that Republicans are going to take away their social security (even though not a single Republican has said so). Most people don’t use logic, they let emotion dictate their lives, and that is as good an explanation of this election as any.

    2) Looks like Trump isn’t as much of a king maker as he thought. I now agree with those of you who think he does more harm than good, and he should shut his yap and step aside.

    3) The Dems dodged a bullet, but true to form they will take this as a mandate and continue their leftward lurch. There were basically no consequences to what they’re doing.

    4) There’s no reason to get rid of Biden before the next election. I doubt they let him run for a second term, but he wasn’t as big a drag on the party as everyone thought. It’s probably more useful to the party that he just rubber stamps whatever they want. I don’t have any hope that even a depression or nuclear war would keep them from putting party before country.

    • Rebel Scum

      Curious thing is how the Dems run on fearmongering while claiming the opposition is fearmongering.

      • juris imprudent

        As was said above the greatest trick the devil ever pulled…

    • Count Potato

      “yet they’re still terrified that Republicans are going to take away their social security (even though not a single Republican has said so)”

      Right, that’s an example how the social media censorship is a huge problem. No one can push back on Democrat bullshit.

  85. prolefeed

    My take on the elections – Team affiliations are remarkably impervious to feedback from reality. My wife and her family are all solid Blue voters – not sure what catastrophic outcomes it would take for any of them to reconsider.

    • Lackadaisical

      When they line you up against the wall for being a wrong thinker they’ll be apologizing for having been related to you. So says history anyway.

  86. hayeksplosives

    I will repaste my controversial comment from upthread:

    I think you guys are all missing a major factor here.

    Ignorant voters tend to be swayed easily by emotion. That’s why so many ads this cycle were emotional appeals and attempts to stoke fear in the electorate.

    Why? Because of women’s suffrage. Once women became a huge new factor in American politics in the early 20th century, it was inevitable that Kollective Karens were going to vote for naive political promises and (this is the big one) vote to wield the power of the state (government) the force they themselves lacked in order to force their will upon others.

    You look at the last several decades of polling by demographics in this country. If women couldn’t vote, we’d have a small state conservative country.

    Women vote with their hormones.

    I’d like to see what the votes would be if cast in a system where the only voters were land-owning family leaders (only one per household, male or female). That’d be interesting. Impossible, but interesting.

    • robodruid

      Mojeaux to the speculative fiction line please.

      Agree with your assessment.

      • hayeksplosives

        I’d like to peek into a parallel universe in which the Gray Council Supreme Court didn’t overturn Roe V Wade.

        Would this year’s election results look different? i’m afraid so.

      • hayeksplosives

        Dammit. Gray Council was supposed to be “strikethrough”.

        Whatever. There are only about 3 Babylon 5 fans here on Glibs anyway.

      • SDF-7

        Huh… I thought there were more than 3 of us.

      • Mojeaux

        I am not touching that with a 10-foot pen.

    • kinnath

      I’ve said repeatedly in the past that all modern problems are the result of women’s suffrage.

      I eventually got tired of being that asshole.

      I don’t, for a minute, think that men as a class make better decisions in the ballot box than women. They just make different kinds of bad decisions.

      • Rebel Scum

        I eventually got tired of being that asshole.

        Feel free to pass the torch to me.

      • prolefeed

        You could play that “what if we disenfranchised that bloc of voters” game many ways. You could get solid Red in the federal government by barring from voting anyone who voted in California in the last 20 years. Or anyone who is black.

        Picking on women seems a bit selective.

      • Lackadaisical

        It would probably work with certain minority groups as well…

        I don’t think the result would be a small conservative government though. Look at spending and war when the red party was in control.

      • robc

        Just say that all modern problems are due to the Progressive Era Amendments.

        It is even more true than just blaming women’s suffrage, and deflects from that. I mean, direct election of senators and income tax (and prohibition) are all objectively worse.

      • hayeksplosives

        Yeah, maybe it was a coming-together of all of those things Post industrialization and post civil war suffering.

        The bored and affluent needed some new windmills to which to tilt.

    • Trigger Hippie

      No vote for me, I guess.

      Tell you what, exempt me from all taxes at all levels of government from the town/city up and I just might get on board.

    • Rebel Scum

      I don’t see anything controversial there.

    • juris imprudent

      I will disagree with you given the existence of the Know-nothing movement long before women’s suffrage. Men are absolutely as susceptible to stupid emotional manipulation, we just deny the hell out of it.

    • Jarflax

      You are correct, but I don’t see a fix for it.

    • wdalasio

      To be fair to women, the introduction of feminism with the concurrent retention of chivalry infantilized them and sort of made this an inevitability. I’ll note the most striking examples of what you’re talking about tend to be college-educated women, the demographic for which the feminism/chivalry dynamic has been most pronounced. They’re simultaneously told they’re hyper-competent and supposed to be put on a pedestal. The result, predictably, is a sense of moral entitlement that divorces responsibility for logical real-world consequences from moral intuition.

  87. The Late P Brooks

    Has Stacey Abrams filed her election fraud lawsuit yet?

    • hayeksplosives

      Has anyone told Hilldog she can quit whining about Russian vote fraud and massive cheating that cost her 2016?

      Hillary, you lost because you’re transparently evil and no one likes you.

      • juris imprudent

        And you ran the worst campaign in American political history.

      • hayeksplosives

        +1 basket of deplorables

    • Fourscore

      The power is in being a broker. There is a huge ensemble of people who make a nice living speculating on the next election. Pundits, lobbyists, media, etc

    • R.J.

      Let’s see if I am in the minority:

      Trump will he held accountable for pushing candidates that could jot win, and were not supported monetarily by him. It could be the chance to knock him out if 2024. God bless the man, he really needs to not run in 2024.

      So here’s the rub. Even if Trump gets knocked out as a Republican candidate, he will run as an independent and spoil any win by the Republicans in 2024. He has a massive war chest and he wishes to use it.

      As such I see no way for a Republican to win in 2024.

      • Urthona

        I don’t think Trump would run as an independent. He’s got a lot of issues but think that’s past the point of pessimism.

        Red Wave in 2024!

      • robc

        He chose not to run on Perot’s party in 2000. I agree, he won’t run as an independent.

      • Lackadaisical

        He will run as a republican and will win the primary. He will lose the general. Biden 2024, unless he actually dies.

      • robc

        DeSantis will win the primary.

      • Lackadaisical

        Not sure how I feel about that.

      • robc

        “Not sure how I feel about that.”

        I will vote for some worthless LP candidate, as usual.

      • Lackadaisical

        Huh. I’ll definitely vote for desantis, I just don’t know if he can win, and I’ll be sad to see him leave the governorship.

        Being against lockdowns=automatically getting my vote. There is no bigger issue to me.

      • Nephilium

        Lacky:

        Unfortunately, not many people feel the same way. FFS, DeWine cruised to both the nomination and retaining the governorship.

      • Urthona

        Two years is really actually a long time away.

        The only real prediction I can make at this point is: Red Wave in 2024!

      • robc

        if the USFL taught us anything, he won’t attempt a futile measure. If he can’t be the “greatest” he won’t try.

      • Urthona

        That’s what I think.

      • robc

        If you study Trump and the USFL it explains almost every action he made as President.

        It is why I refused to vote for him. It was kind of a joke answer, but not really.

      • hayeksplosives

        It’d be nice if Melania could wield the power of the, ahem, “purse” and lock him out of the bedroom until he retires from campaigning, but I fear he could (and would) easily just pick up some free strange wherever and whenever he wants.

        The Art of the Deal.

      • robodruid

        ugh.

      • juris imprudent

        No he won’t run as an independent. Everyone knows that is a non-starter.

      • Rebel Scum

        Let’s see if I am in the minority

        The individual is the smallest minority of all.

  88. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    Well, this is a pickle. My biggest concern remains energy policy. The fuckery at the fed level know no limit and I was hoping for a monkey wrench in the works.

    Locally, it was a solid ass whipping in my county. The repubs lost pretty much every race down to dog catcher. The ballot prop to reduce income tax passed, though.

    Since I don’t have little kids in school or own a house, I’m pretty ambivalent about my area. The mountains and constant sunshine are good enough for me.

    I think we all kind of knew that we weren’t going to vote our way out of this.

  89. Sean

    FWIW, OZ got noticeably more votes than Mastriano and Fetterman got a lot less votes than Shapiro.

    *shrug*

    • Drake

      Funny that I once thought of rural PA as a possible place to escape the craziness of NJ.

      • Sean

        ~1.8 m less votes than 2020 elections.

        Bad candidates/disaffected voters?

        PA state house should be still solid R.

        I’m not worried at a state level.

      • Lackadaisical

        That’s just normal for midterms, isn’t it?

  90. The Late P Brooks

    The Dems dodged a bullet, but true to form they will take this as a mandate and continue their leftward lurch. There were basically no consequences to what they’re doing.

    This. Winner-take-all politics (their specialty) means they have a holy mission to up their efforts to forcibly sodomize the economy and put an end to affordable and dependable energy, as well as private ownership of businesses in general.

    • R.J.

      Correct. And this will continue through two more presidential cycles at least.

    • Urthona

      Red wave in 2024!

      • R.J.

        Sadly no. I must see you again to commiserate and repay you for the drink this summer.

      • Urthona

        Cool cool. Dallas Glibs meet up.

      • R.J.

        I’ll get something in the forums again.

  91. The Late P Brooks

    I’d like to see what the votes would be if cast in a system where the only voters were land-owning family leaders (only one per household, male or female). That’d be interesting. Impossible, but interesting.

    Feudalism!!!1!!1

    • R.J.

      Bill Gates is the biggest US land owner.

      • Urthona

        He seems rather small to me. I think I can take him.

  92. PieInTheSky

    In local news, the US will lend Romania 3 billion to expand our nuclear powerplant

    • Urthona

      You’re welcome.

    • robc

      Can you lend us 3 billion to expand ours?

      • PieInTheSky

        off course not we broke

      • Urthona

        so are we. nice try.

      • Urthona

        The problem with lending people easy money to expand nuclear power plants is that it increases the price of expanding nuclear power plants.

        /economics

  93. The Late P Brooks

    I see Newsom squeaked through for another term.

    Congratulations, Californicators!

  94. The Late P Brooks

    Bill Gates is the biggest US land owner.

    Did he buy up all of Ted Turner’s land?

    • Urthona

      Also he still just gets one vote. My wife (head of our household) would cancel him out.

  95. The Late P Brooks

    Why are gay women so pro-abortion?

    • Urthona

      Because they don’t want breeders having babies.

      • hayeksplosives

        There is truth in that.

    • Shiny Nerfherder

      It kind of comes with the “hating men” thing.

      • Lackadaisical

        They probably have a visceral dislike for the idea of being pregnant… At least I would. But then, some go out of their way to get knocked up so what do I know.

    • Count Potato

      Because feminism.

    • rhywun

      The loudest ones tend to be leftist activists. I doubt you’re getting an accurate representation of the whole clan.

  96. juris imprudent

    This, with that article about the activist left in the Dems (and the author here should read that to understand how it effects both parties) explains a lot.

    Never losing by a significant margin or for a long period of time seems to have been bad for the parties themselves as well. Being banished to electoral purgatory every now and then encourages political groups to reform and change. It encourages them to think about their long-term value proposition, not just how to gain a few thousand more votes in Wisconsin. It forces them to adapt to the needs of average voters. Our political climate has diminished that constructive pressure for both sides.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Yeah… Democrats held the house for four decades before 1995. And usually had a strong Senate majority as well, though it occasionally flipped.

  97. The Late P Brooks

    If I understand correctly, the Democrat in Arizona (for gov) whose name I cannot be bothered to know based her campaign on the Biden ’20 playbook.

    Will this be the new thing? Politicians issuing message-in-a-bottle missives to the faithful from their secure bunkers in undisclosed locations? That would be a logical next step to the ultimate goal of computer-generated artificially “intelligent” overlords.

    • The Other Kevin

      I think this will work for the left more than the right. If the candidate is terrible, keep them out of the public and make excuses why they can’t debate or go out in public. For the left, the mainstream media will “craft a narrative” for the candidate. I don’t know if it will be widespread, but it did work so I’d expect them to try it more often.

  98. UnCivilServant

    You guys had a lot to say while I was in meetings.

    I have more meetings to attend. Maybe I should get a real job.

    Later, glibs.

    • Tres Cool

      “good enough for gov’t work” is a saying that didnt invent itself ya know

      • juris imprudent

        He’s being ambitious.

  99. Sensei

    How Hurricane Sandy transformed the Jersey Shore into ‘a playground for the rich’

    TW – Business Insider and long. It’s true, but the elephant in the room here is federal flood insurance. If you own outright a family “shack” you generally are uninsured for flood. If it’s mortgaged the flood insurance is usually unaffordable on some crappy structure.

    So you sell the shack. Person who buys the shack and wants to finance it says I may as well tear it down and build a raised structure. After going through that you don’t rebuild the shack. You build a three or four bedroom home. All in you are looking at something between $800k and $1.5m depending on where it is.

    Mind you that flood insurance is underpriced and when you claim on it you won’t get what you should on it. It also encourages and subsidizes development that should be borne by the property owner.

    And that is why the Jersey shore is no longer affordable for many people live year round or have a summer “shack”.

  100. B.P.

    Oh look, the markets are down.

    • hayeksplosives

      As I stated before, economic facts are stubborn things.

    • Count Potato

      Crap.

      • hayeksplosives

        No doubt. Not regretting my decision to sell all my Tesla stock last year around this time to buy my NV house and clear all other debt. TSLA down to a record low of $188/share.

        The fact that Musk has publicly embarrassed a bunch of Dems and Woke celebrities means that they will turn weaponized agencies against him. Tesla is a great product, but he won’t bend he knee. He will be made into an example.

    • Rebel Scum

      Clearly this is because Republicans won some elections.

  101. Count Potato

    “Total spending on 2018 midterms: $5.7 billion.
    Total spending estimate on 2022 midterms: At least $16.7 billion.

    You’re not imagining it, there are more ads and texts and paid canvassers than there ever have been in an off-year election.”

    https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1589989592123727875

  102. LJW

    Anyone have any odds on team Red taking the house? Obviously not gonna be as many as they thought but are the odds of talking HOR still in their favor?

    • hayeksplosives

      At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Harry Reid wins the NV senate seat.

    • R.J.

      No. They needed five to have a majority. That’s evaporated down from 7 to 4.

    • kinnath

      CNN is showing that Dems flipped 4 seats and Reps flipped 10 seats. Looks like the trend is for a narrow Republican house.

    • hayeksplosives

      RealClearPolitics is updating often. Realclearpolitics.com

      U.S. SENATE
      Democrats
      48*(+1)
      Republicans
      48(-1)

      U.S. HOUSE
      Democrats
      184(-3)
      Republicans
      202(+3)

      GOVERNORS
      Democrats
      22(+2)
      Republicans
      24(-2)

  103. Lackadaisical

    I’m struggling to understand the results for Senate. Where did the Republicans lose a seat? Is the AP graphic just wrong?

    • Sean

      Toomey -> Fetterlump

      • Lackadaisical

        Ah, shit.

        I somehow wasn’t tracking that.

    • juris imprudent

      PA – the Republican incumbent retired.

    • Tundra

      Says the same on Freespoke and no, I can’t figure it out either.

    • R.J.

      Two pickups last night-both in the far northeast. Democrat wins.

  104. The Late P Brooks

    How could they possibly contrive to make me want this less?

    When it goes on sale in 2023, the EX90 will kick off Volvo’s effort to transition to EV-only sales, which the Swedish automaker says it will reach by 2030. But the electric SUV is also meant to showcase Volvo’s increasing reliance on technology to boost its reputation for safety. And that technology is being supplied by a cadre of high-profile companies — Nvidia, Luminar, and Qualcomm, among others — that aim to transform modern cars into powerful computers.

    Once upon a time, Volvos had a reputation as dependable utilitarian workhorses.

    Why wouldn’t you throw that away?

    • Michael Malaise

      Only about $80k. Why do I have the feeling that the Cathedral is actively working to price the plebes out of new products market?

  105. The Late P Brooks

    U.S. SENATE
    Democrats
    48*(+1)
    Republicans
    48(-1)

    So still tied? That’s better than a one seat landslide for TEAM Blue.

    • creech

      GOP will probably lose all the “still close to calls.” Vance won, but that wasn’t a flip seat. Maybe Nevada flips and that offsets PA loss, so Kamala still gets to break ties.