Why is everyone so mean?? US Politics: September 2022

the TV ads

thing is, those are mostly older people watching, right? and those same people fondly remember those classic herschel walker touchdowns, which were also on tv

I just saw the recent polling on the GA Senate race and it's a dead heat

guy watching tv: god. remember when tv was good
other guy watching tv: yeeeeeep

There is almost nothing that could change the minds of people who are going to vote for Herschel Walker.

I just saw the recent polling on the GA Senate race and it's a dead heat

i saw that too and had a negative reaction, comparing it to Warnock's defeat of Loeffler in the run-off. i don't remember much about Loeffler's candidacy, and whether she had any obvious gaffes or scandals that were too much in a statewide election. compared to that, running neck-to-neck with Walker seems like a disappointment because he is so clearly not a good person to be in charge of anything at all.

But I forgot that it wasn't a normal election, it was a special election run-off:

https://i.imgur.com/UBm8yBY.png

another Republican, Doug Collins (lol) got nearly 20% of the votes. Loeffler received 26%. Warnock won with a plurality of 33%. i don't know, it's tempting to think "Combine Collins and Loeffler and you get 46% republicans to only 33% for warnock", and it would suggest that the inherent GOP-advantage is stronger that it might appear, so Warnock in a dead heat with football man herschel walker is a good sign.

but then...you can also add up all those other democratic/gop candidates who grabbed small percentages of the overall vote, and it becomes 48.39% democratic to 49.37% gop (i left out the libertarian/green/independents), which is pretty much a wash as well.

in summary, i don't know what the heck is going on here, but it's deep into the fourth quarter and "i'm not sure if i'm comfortable with this going into overtime"

To mix sports metaphors, it is, and always has been, a jump ball. Turnout is everything.

i know i've made this dumb joke before, but if herschel walker does win, i hope he tries to pull some tricky legislation maneuver and it's called the Statue of Liberty play because absolutely no one saw it coming

the margin between Perdue and Ossoff was also very close.

the only thing i remember about the XFL was that, instead of a kickoff, the ball was placed in the middle and players from each side would race to the middle of the field.

On Warnock's side, you have to take into account that he is now an incumbent Senator, and very well-regarded. Also, there will not be the host of Democratic niblings that there were in 2020-21.

national attention is on Warnock/Walker but the Abrams/Kemp rematch will be the main driver of turnout in Georgia

Whatever else, Ossoff is the only cute male member of the Senate.

another Republican, Doug Collins (lol) got nearly 20% of the votes. Loeffler received 26%. Warnock won with a plurality of 33%.

These were the special election results, not the run-off results though. Run-off was just Warnock v. Loeffler iirc.

aw man, i get an F in civics for today, but that's ok!

yep, the run-off 51-49% Warnock/Loeffler

Meanwhile ffs ... "Religious liberty" is now an all-purpose "freedom to discriminate" blanket

BREAKING: US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas rules that requiring employers to provide coverage for PrEP drugs (preventing the transmission of HIV) violates the religious rights of employers under federal law (RFRA). pic.twitter.com/d85C3izqSF

— Chris “Subscribe to Law Dork!” Geidner (@chrisgeidner) September 7, 2022

More on that ruling

There are so many bombs sewn into this ruling.

1. O'Connor says members of the Preventive Services Task Force—which requires insurers to provide preventive coverage, including vaccines and cancer screenings—are appointed illegally. Which may render their mandates unlawful. https://t.co/LZCZhZSgS1

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) September 7, 2022

'cause there's that one little part in the Old Testament, really the only part of the bible that matters

What religion is against treating disease?

If you're gay, you're the disease.

the only question left at this point is whether a Democratic congress and executive will ever be bold enough to simply ignore all of these utterly batshit rulings

Ah, yes, here it is:

O'Connor accepts that it "encourages homosexual behavior, drug use, and sexual activity"—a contested claim backed by no empirical evidence.

But he says that if the plaintiffs believe it, the courts must accept it—they can't question its "correctness."

That is just wrong on so many levels. Morally, ethically, legally. Fuck these Federalist Society drones.

it's just weird that health insurance policies can be cherry-picked like this

It's the employees' insurance, not the bosses'

Almost like it's a bad idea for health insurance coverage to be totally at the whim of employers ...

"Religious liberty" is now an all-purpose "freedom to discriminate" blanket

Not trying to be that guy here, but was it ever not this? Has the concept ever *not* been tied to doing a legal end run around anti-discrimination laws? I don't think we needed a new concept to describe not discriminating against people b/c of their religion, that's simple 1A

Well, there was Employment Division v. Smith, in which Antonin Scalia (the inspiration for the current crop of fanatics on the Court) happily decided that Native religious beliefs did not protect one from being discriminated against and/or prosecuted for using peyote.

well, we mean Real religions

good point! it's not even "all-purpose," it's explicitly christian

I don't know enough about the history of the judicial application of the Establishment Clause to have a sense of its evolution, but certainly my perception is that high-profile cases have shifted from the public sphere — is X display or demonstration of faith permissible in school/a courthouse/etc — to the private sphere, with the question mostly being "Can government tell me I can't discriminate against these people if my religion tells me too?" Not that there haven't always been both questions, but the balance seems to have shifted.

Tells me to, I mean.

Is there a religion that tells you to discriminate?

As a Suppressive Person I can confirm there is at least one.

A ha ha

The "religion" that pays.

Goddamn these clowns:

The Hunter Biden industrial complex is in boom times with little sign of a recession. Conservative groups frequently fundraise off of him. Fox Nation has a four-part docu-series on him hosted by Jeanine Pirro. There is ample Hunter Biden merchandise too. T-shirts, mugs, laptop stickers, sweatshirts, hats, and even a doll in online shops on Etsy, Redbubble, Amazon, Zazzle and more. Many of them include lurid photos from the hard drive that have been published by outlets but not independently verified by POLITICO. Some counter Hunter Biden fan pages have cropped up on the left, but without the same reach.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/06/breitbart-hunter-biden-film-00055040

It's the relentlessness that gets to me. It's not just that their ideas are demonstrably bad and stupid, it's that they never let them go, they never stop. Ever. I think I saw today that a Michigan group filed *another* suit to overturn the 2020 election. Two years later! Or that rogue Texas judge who just again and again keeps fucking with health care on a huge scale. Or the judicial terrorists trying to take away state election powers. Or Hillary, or Hunter, or Obama. They just keep at it, over and over again.

"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!"

Yeah, I wonder if the Hunter obsession is some kind of misguided payback for all the heaps of Kushner ridicule.. who was objectively corrupt in his nepotistic business dealings.

They were previously obsessed with Obama's half brother and Roger Clinton (and Chelsea) and Billy Carter, nothing new under the sun.

Everyone hates Kushner. The Hunter thing is just ... I don't know, some combination of projection and hubris and just being assholes and probably creepily envious, too.

I mean, the President's beloved son is a crackhead who enjoys taking dick pics - the most reasonable upright opposition would be feasting upon that.

Also they’ve gotten so used to being able to control the media narrative that they couldn’t stand to see THE LAPTOP not become some oversized scandal lording over everything the way ACID WASHED E-MAILS was

(granted, this is because Hunter isn’t the one running, nor was he ever gonna get some big government position the way Kushner did, so it’s not really much of a story. I don’t want to imply that the media actually learned anything from 2016)

Thank god the hollywood liberal elites didn't bother to make a horrible film about Kushner begging in Qatar

I don’t know. I’d like to see Nathan Fielder in a dramatic role.

Michael Cera could pull it off as well

But... why are those evil liberals treating the Trumps like crimes were somehow against the law? :-)

Touch this glowing orb for a chance for 2 billion dollars.

Fielder: oh. ...okay

Middle East peace. That’s kind of a hot button issue.

What the almighty fuck pic.twitter.com/E48tzttAMA

— Roy Edroso (@edroso) September 6, 2022

Generic Ballot (National)

Dem 48%
Rep 44%

8/29-9/1 by Marist College (A)
1151 RV

Arf arf! Have a nice day!

Poll #160378 #ElectionTwitter

Source: https://t.co/6QOFArNb4u

— Stella (@stella2020woof) September 8, 2022

arf arf!!

I wonder what that split would need to be for the Dems not to lose the House. A lot bigger than that I bet.

arf!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/89/GordonShumway.png/220px-GordonShumway.png