US Politics, December 2022: "They're now the working class party, man."

Trump's political career has not been good for any of his longtime henchmen.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZMFX7aXYAElc7i.jpg

Nice pull sleeve

Christ! A highly complex tax fraud case with 17 counts to be proved and the jury deliberated "just over a day" before returning guilty verdicts on all 17!! That's amazing.

I have always loved that particular strip and it is oh so a propos today.

xp Probably because like most things Trump-related there was nothing very subtle or clever about the fraud.

And now the Trump org pays up to ... $1.6 million in fines?

Ah! Well,

yup - probably an overall savings

That civil suit will be loads of fun now.

Oh yeah, forgot about that one. It's hard to keep all these lawsuits straight!

Harris has gotta fire her comms team

NEW -- Doug Emhoff embraces the burden of being the most prominent Jew in American politics.

from me and @EugeneDaniels2 https://t.co/x5JewLXb6I

— Sam Stein (@samstein) December 6, 2022

Tulsi will probably take a shot on live TV tonight

holy shit, Warnock up 57-43

https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/116564/web.307039/#/summary

Don’t post shit like that with 8% of precincts reporting, ffs

This is going to be a close runoff result, perhaps closer than the Warnock +3 rough polling consensus. But you'd still much rather be Warnock (D) than Walker (R) right now. #GASEN

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 7, 2022

Early vote reporting was always going to swing hard to Warnock.

sadly the betting markets already know where the bread is buttered and are already 90/10 Warnock. nary a dollar for me to make now (I forgot to do it earlier)

NATHANIEL RAKICH
DEC. 6, 7:58 PM
Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture. With 40 percent of the expected vote reporting, Warnock leads Walker 55 percent to 45 percent statewide. According to The New York Times, the missing votes are mostly in north Georgia (Republican) and metro Atlanta (Democratic).

GEOFFREY SKELLEY
DEC. 6, 8:04 PM
To echo what Nathaniel just said, we’ve got 22 counties now with 95 percent reporting — mostly solidly red rural counties — and Walker is doing 0.1 percentage points better in margin across all those places than in November. The thing is, he trailed Warnock by about 1 point in the initial vote overall, so he needs that to improve more as we get fuller results.

sorry silby! you are correct

lol the NYT Is doing the stupid needle for this one race

Gonna need a needle in my arm tbh

I've seen enough.

Pat Buchanan wins the Senatorial race

Oconee and Glynn counties, where all the vote has come in and where he's won, Walker has run below his November numbers.

lol The Needle has been "paused" while they "investigate" a "data issue"

I’ve seen enough

*puts out eyes with NYT needle, exeunt led by servanta*

I've seen enough: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) defeats Herschel Walker (R) in the #GASEN runoff, giving Democrats a 51-49 majority in the Senate.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 7, 2022

!

did not think it was gonna be called this early

Was about to post that.

As Wasserman cautions in the tweets after that, he doesn't make official "calls" on behalf of any news orgs, it's just the conclusion that he's drawn from looking at the data. But he's pretty good at it.

decision desk also projected warnock

(does wasserman work for decision desk?)

No, Cook.

To my eye, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) is on track to prevail by 2-4 pts. By the standard of the 2021 runoffs, that's a Democratic blowout. #GASEN

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 7, 2022

Warnock’s only 53, the timing will be good for him to make a presidential run or be a running mate in 2028 when his term expires

Warnock/Fetterman ‘28

Would pay, I dunno, 35 cents to see a primary debate between Warnock, Fetterman, Buttigieg, Sinema, Crist, and Sanders

(and Harris; sorry, thought I'd included her in the list)

Whitmernock

Finally can stop posting this for two years

No one has “taken the lead” or “fallen behind.” The votes were all cast; now we’re just counting in no particular order.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 7, 2022

BREAKING: Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock wins the Georgia Senate runoff, defeating Republican challenger Herschel Walker, CBS News projects. Democrats now hold a Senate majority of 51 seats. https://t.co/MpvceWK91y pic.twitter.com/RvrBw5QW1c

— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 7, 2022

Kinda feel bad for Tommy Tuberville, who is now officially the dumbest motherfucker in the Senate with little chance of relinquishing that title anytime soon.

if Herschel knew how to count he'd be very upset right now!!

Aw, poor Joe

Permitting reform left OUT of NDAA, as expected. Manchin/Schumer/Pelosi/Biden effort to pass energy permitting reform crashes for the second time in three months thanks to opposition from Republicans and progressives

— Joshua Siegel (@SiegelScribe) December 7, 2022

Too bad the House went Republican just as the Democrats picked up the 51st Senate seat. Congressional dysfunction is still assured for two more years. But maybe we'll all finally get to see Hunter's dick pics, so there is that.

Herschel was traded to another state for draft picks

Aimless it's really about the judiciary at this point afaict, which is no small beer

Do we have a Germany thread?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/europe/germany-coup-arrests.html

I'm no political expert, but it remains perplexing how much support Trump and his menagerie of weirdoes still get from purportedly mainstream GOP figures, when it's pretty clear that running more "normal" Republicans would likely win more elections. I'm fine with them fucking it up, I just can't figure it out. Maybe they are literally afraid for their lives?

Oh, not totally unrelated: I was reading about the Great 2022 GOP Cat Litter Scare, and how (I think) Joe Rogan walked back his own support for the stupid rumor. This particular article, though, mentioned that they had followed up with every single school associated with a stupid cat litter rumor, and of course they all denied it and said it was totally stupid and made up ... except one: Columbine. “The district — where Columbine High School is located — has been stocking classrooms with small amounts of cat litter since 2017, but as part of ‘go buckets’ that contain emergency supplies in case students are locked in a classroom during a shooting.” That's just the kind of dark twist this (non) story deserved.