2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[N.E. Brigand]

Matt Schlapp's accuser has publicly identified himself, as required by the judge overseeing his case. His name is Carlton Huffmann.

Matt Schlapp.

Has been accused of financial impropriety by the treasurer of CPAC, the annual conservative conference run by the American Conservative Union, which Schlapp heads.

[N.E. Brigand]

I did not realize that many flat-earthers believe that there is no South Pole and that Antarctica is a ring-shaped super-continent that encircles the known world.



(Yes I meant to post to this thread.)

[RoseMorninStar]

And there is no end to the glaciers/it is not possible to get to the end and fall off?

[narya]

Good thing there's no such thing as global warming. If the ring of ice around the edge of the earth melted, all the oceans would drain off the edge.

[RoseMorninStar]

Good thing there's no such thing as global warming. If the ring of ice around the edge of the earth melted, all the oceans would drain off the edge.

Ya, hey.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The flip side of today's voting rights decision by the SCOTUS.

[N.E. Brigand]

The flip side of today's voting rights decision by the SCOTUS.

Looking ahead to 2024, the Cook Political Report just made the following updates in light of today's SCOTUS ruling:

#AL01: from Solid R to Toss Up
#AL02: from Solid R to Toss Up
#LA05: from Solid R to Toss Up
#LA06: from Solid R to Toss Up
#NC01: from Toss Up to Lean D

I'm posting here in the 2022 thread for the same reason you did: Republicans have a 10-seat majority. If all five of these races went Democrat in 2022, the House would be evenly divided and each side would need to make bipartisan concessions in order to secure control. Even if four of these races went Republican in 2022, given that they're all "toss up," that means the candidate would need to appeal to many more moderates in order to win -- and thus the make-up of the House would be more moderate on the Republican side, so Kevin McCarthy wouldn't have needed to give up so much to the hard right to become Speaker. We might never have had the recent debt ceiling crisis.

[N.E. Brigand]

It's been reported by multiple outlets this week that Peter Thiel, whose financial assistance played a big role in securing nominations of J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona, is trying to get a passport from the nation of Malta. He was born in Germany and already has passports from that nation, the U.S., and New Zealand. I assume this has to do with tax benefits, but it does seem at odds with the America-first positions espoused by his candidates.

New York Times: "Peter Thiel Is Latest Billionaire Said to Have Met With Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Thiel apparently had several meetings with Mr. Epstein in 2014, according to records of the disgraced financier reviewed by The New York Times." That would be six years after Epstein's conviction. The Times adds that they can't confirm whether the meetings actually took place, and Thiel's spokesman declined to comment.

Noting this in the thread where Jeffrey Epstein was most recently mentioned: over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that Epstein:

used his knowledge of Microsoft founder Bill Gates's affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova to try and threaten him. Gates had turned down an opportunity to invest in the disgraced entrepreneur’s charitable endeavor, and Epstein was reportedly intent on exacting revenge. ... Epstein encountered Antonova in 2013, long after Gates's affair with her. In 2017, he sent an email to Gates asking for reimbursement for Antonova's tuition to a software coding school that he paid for. At the same time, he alluded to the fact that he knew about Gates's entanglement and hinted that the affair would be exposed if the payment was not made. (Spoiler alert: Gates did not make the payment.)

(The quotes above come from an aggregator site not directly from the (expensively paywalled) WSJ.)

Why did the Virgin Islands' then-First Lady Cecile René Galiber, the wife of Governor John de Jongh, solicit feedback in 2011 from Jeffrey Epstein on proposed territory legislation concerning registered sex offenders? She knew very well that he was one, because Epstein responded about how the legislation would affect him personally.

[RoseMorninStar]

Thiel is another one of those wealthy persons who espouse 'laws are intended for thee.. not for me'.

[N.E. Brigand]

In Pennsylvania, at an event where the state's Republican candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, will appear tomorrow, one of today's presenters showed this image of people who he claims will all be dead withing three months. This is the kind of nuts Republicans are embracing.



I'm having trouble identifying all those expected to be visited by the "Angel of Death." Can anyone help me fill in the gaps (and correct any errors)?

--Top Row: President Joe Biden, Chief Justice John Roberts, Senator Lindsey Graham, former President Bill Clinton, former TV host Chris Matthews, tech executive Bill Gates, unknown, New York Governor Kathy Hochul

--Middle Row: Vice President Kamala Harris, former TV host Brian Stelter, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, TV host Chris Wallace, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Dr. Anthony Fauci, New York Mayor Eric Adams

--Bottom Row: Senator Chuck Schumer, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Congressman Jerry Nadler, TV host Rachel Maddow, unknown, former Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams, unknown

Pretty all these people are still alive, six months after they were expected to have passed on.

[N.E. Brigand]

Opening paragraphs of a new story in the New York Times:



Funny thing: Republicans lead in none of these four swing district races polls conducted by the Times. Would that have been your guess based on the tone of those two paragraphs? Also the article interviews eight voters: two Democrats and six Republicans. None of this isn't to say that Republicans might not do very well in two weeks. But a lot of news articles seems to be going out of their way to help that happen.

One of them, however, is tied, apparently because Democrats chose to redistrict one safe Democratic seat into two Democratic-leaning swing districts. So I just made a small donation to the incumbent Democratic Congresswoman, Dina Titus, of Nevada's first district.

Democrats won all four of these swing district races:

Nevada-1
51.6% -- Dina Titus (D-incumbent)
46.0% -- Mark Robertson (R)

Kansas-3
54.9% -- Sharice Davids (D-incumbent)
42.8% -- Amanda Adkins (R)

New Mexico-2
50.3% -- Gabe Vazuez (D)
49.6"% -- Yvette Herrell (R-incumbent)

Pennsylvania-8
51.2% -- Matt Cartwright (D-incumbent)
48.8% -- Jim Bognet (R)

And yet, as we know, Democrats lost nine seats in the House, thus ceding control to Republicans. The Times focused on the wrong races!

[N.E. Brigand]

As noted here, Raphael Warnock's reelection makes it unlikely that Kamala Harris will set the record for the most tie-breaking votes by a Vice President in the U.S. Senate. She's ranked third, with 26 votes, which is well ahead of the fourth place slot held by George Dallas, who served from 1845 to 1849 and cast 19 tie-breaking votes. It all depends on what happens in the next month and after the 2024 or 2026 elections. She is behind John Adams, second with 29 votes during his tenure as V.P. from 1789 to 1797. John Calhoun's record of 31 votes dates to 1825-1832.

I was wrong. Kamala Harris yesterday tied John Calhoun's record of casting 31 tie-breaking Senate votes as Vice President -- and in less than half the time it took Calhoun.

[N.E. Brigand]

Virginia's House of Delegates is currently in Republican hands. The next regular election is this November.

Earlier this week I saw a couple passing references to Republicans "forcing explicit sexual conduct" on children by posting a sixteen-foot long drawing of a penis labeled "Biden Sucks" just behind the fence in a Little League ball park, but I didn't follow up to see if the story was legit.

It was. One of the Democratic candidates for the Virginia House, Jessica Anderson, explains here. She also has video of Ron Hedlund, a member of the state's Republican executive committee, saying that this is follow up to his earlier project of flying a "Fuck Biden" flag in the same venue. As a bonus, Anderson notes that Hedlund shared video of two children holding the penis sign.

[N.E. Brigand]

I probably should have been posting about 2023 special elections and off-year elections in this thread rather than the 2024 thread, which I guess should be saved for the next quadrennial elections. And thus:

Kentucky's governor, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, is running for reelection this year. I think this ad is effective. But I'm not a Kentucky voter:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Kentucky governor's race could have ramifications for the Senate, though it isn't likely. Kentucky has a law that would require that the governor appoint a Republican if Mitch McConnell were forced to resign (or otherwise left office early), but most think that Beshear would ignore that law and appoint a Democrat and that the law would be held unconstitutional.

[RoseMorninStar]

Wow. What a brave young woman. My heart goes out to her. It's awful that such things happen and that men usually have control over the situation of a young girl who has so little power, coming & going.

[N.E. Brigand]

"A swing of 3,340 votes from Republican to Democrat in the five closest U.S. House of Representative races would have allowed Democrats to hold the House." (source)

Based on the sum of half of the margin in each of these five races [Colorado #3 (Boebert def. Frisch), California #13 (Duarte def. Gray), Iowa #3 (Nunn def. Axne), New York #17 (Lawler def. Maloney), and New York #22 (Williams def. Conole)], I get a slightly higher number ... 3,893. I don't think there's a closer race that I'm overlooking, so presumably there have been some small updates since that calculation finding a 3,340 swing difference was made. In any case, that's a very small number of votes changing House control from Democratic to Republican! Every vote really does count.

(There also were several races that Democrats didn't contest at all, although those are elections they probably would have lost. But you never know.)

- - - - - - - - - -
Meanwhile, the Republicans who control the board of elections in Cochise County, Arizona, have voted to delay certification of votes until at least Friday, when they anticipate receiving "further presentation on the accreditation of the voting machines" from Arizona's Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs (who just won election to be that state's governor). This delay could put the county at risk of having its votes not counted at all, which would actually hurt Republican candidates, because they did well there.

Update: "Two Republican officials in Cochise County, Arizona were indicted for failing to certify the county's 2022 elections on time. The pair face felony counts of conspiracy and interference with an election officer."

[N.E. Brigand]

As noted here, Raphael Warnock's reelection makes it unlikely that Kamala Harris will set the record for the most tie-breaking votes by a Vice President in the U.S. Senate. She's ranked third, with 26 votes, which is well ahead of the fourth place slot held by George Dallas, who served from 1845 to 1849 and cast 19 tie-breaking votes. It all depends on what happens in the next month and after the 2024 or 2026 elections. She is behind John Adams, second with 29 votes during his tenure as V.P. from 1789 to 1797. John Calhoun's record of 31 votes dates to 1825-1832.

I was wrong. Kamala Harris yesterday tied John Calhoun's record of casting 31 tie-breaking Senate votes as Vice President -- and in less than half the time it took Calhoun.

(Edited to add: that July vote was the approval of Joe Biden's nomination of Kalpana Kotagal to sit on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Sen. Joe Manchin voted with all Republicans in opposing Kotagal's appointment (because, he said, "Ms. Kotagal does not represent West Virginia values and would prioritize a partisan agenda over creating commonsense, bipartisan solutions that bring our nation forward"). With Kotagal's appointment, Democrats got a majority of the five seats on the EEOC (for the first time since 2019, I think). This seat had been vacant since November 2022.)

As of today, Kamala Harris leads all Vice Presidents, having cast her 32nd tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

Harris also "holds the record for tie-breaking votes in a single day — she cast four on May 11, 2022, alone" — and "the record for most votes cast in the first year of a vice presidency, with 15. Next on that list was her predecessor, Mike Pence, with seven."

Today the Senate had been tied 50-50 on advancing a judicial nomination, that of Loren L. AliKhan for a seat in the District of Columbia. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia again voted with Republicans against the nomination. If there are no absences, Vice President Harris will have to do this all over again when the actual vote to confirm AliKhan happens.

[N.E. Brigand]

Following up on the story above.

AP: "Wisconsin ethics panel recommends felony charges against Trump committee, lawmaker."

The commission alleges that Trump's fundraising committee and state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Trump ally, conspired in a scheme to evade campaign finance laws to support the Republican primary challenger to [Assembly Speaker Robin] Vos in 2022.

Vos angered Trump after he fired a former state Supreme Court justice whom Vos had hired to investigate Trump's discredited allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Vos launched the probe under pressure from Trump, but eventually distanced himself from the false claims of election fraud and calls to overturn President Joe Biden's win in Wisconsin.

[N.E. Brigand]

AP: "Jury finds former Milwaukee election official guilty of obtaining fake absentee ballots."

Kimberly Zapata "was serving as deputy director at the Milwaukee Election Commission in October 2022 when she used her work-issued laptop to obtain three military absentee ballots using fake names and Social Security numbers, according to a criminal complaint. She sent the ballots to Republican state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, an election conspiracy theorist, two weeks before the state’s gubernatorial and legislative elections. Brandtjen has advocated for decertifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Wisconsin and has espoused conspiracy theories supporting her position."