2018 US Midterm Elections (general thread)

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The US midterm elections are coming up November 6th. In a midterm election all representatives in Congress are up, a third of the Senate, lots of governors, and most all local offices.

This is a general thread for items related to the 2018 midterms. I hope it will be able to survive just these few weeks without the usual hecklers getting it shut down. We shall see.

Will this election be a . . .

The best site for current data, from polls up through the election returns, is RealClearPolitics:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/2018/

For example, the current state of the Senate elections:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... e_map.html

i also hope the election is a massive dinoflagellate-infested algal bloom tsunami.

One of the big senate races is Cruz/O'Rourke in Texas. Not looking good for O'Rourke:



The media and the DNC has desperately tried to make "Beto" O'Rourke into a Kennedy-esque darling, and tried to get people to think he might be Hispanic by using his Hispanic nickname, when in fact Robert Francis O'Rourke is less Hispanic than Elizabeth Warren is Indian.

FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast

FiveThirtyEight House Forecast

As always turnout and money will decide this. So far the dems have had big advantages in these catagories. The Kavanagh hearings did seem to increase conservative enthusiasm. The most anti Trump conservatives were of the opinion Kavanagh was a victim of a democrat and liberal media witch hunt. But on election day Kavanagh will have been on the court a month or so. IMHO it would have been better for Republican chanches if Kavanagh were not confirmed as it is hard to make a martyr out of a guy who won. Another reason the Kavanagh wave might be temporary is that Trump will have had that month to make the anti Trump conservatives angry again.

As for progressive enthusiasm, the Kavanagh confirmation was not a game changer but further confirmation(pun intended) that Trump is an existential threat to everything. It is hard to see how much more ramped up they can get.

RCP Puts the House projection at ...

Democrats 206
Republicans 198
Toss Ups 31

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... e_map.html

Whatever your political persuasion, this is some fine polemical writing. *ouch*

I'll soon have the cold pleasure of voting against Elizabeth Warren, for all the good it will do, alas.

The Blackface Party

Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal, Beto O’Rourke — what’s up with all the ethnic play-acting? Isn’t cultural appropriation supposed to be a bad thing among progressives? Isn’t blackface (and brownface) supposed to be an unforgivable sin? ...

Senator Warren is the main offender of the moment, a significantly-whiter-than-the-average-white-woman white woman who has for years been masquerading as a Native American, telling transparent bumfodder stories about how her parents had to elope because her mother was part Cherokee and part Delaware, an obvious attempt to claim some of that victimhood juice secondhand. She allowed herself to be advertised as a woman of color by Harvard, happy in the coincidence that “her major professional advances — to the University of Pennsylvania and then to Harvard — came after she began formally identifying as Native American, a distant descendant of Cherokee and Delaware tribes,” as the Boston Globe put it.

(She is a woman of color: Pantone 11-0602.)

Warren, previously a mostly obscure academic and an author of dopey self-help books — The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan — needed a little extra kick to stand out from the crowd of sanctimonious white ladies who rest like a dollop of low-fat sour cream atop the nation’s educational institutions. And so she went all in on her fictitious Indian ancestry: You’ll remember the recipe for “Pow-Wow Chow” and other “Indian” dishes plagiarized from the New York Times.

The Cherokee Nation is not buying it, denouncing Senator Warren’s extraordinarily tenuous claim to native ancestry as “a mockery,” “dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens,” “inappropriate and wrong,” etc. “Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage,” Cherokee Nation secretary of state Chuck Hoskin Jr. wrote.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/ ... ace-party/

I anticipate the Dems just barely retaking the House.

As for the Senate, I think the GOP will retain control. We must also keep in mind that three of the Dems up for reelection are conservative Dems (Manchin, Donnelly, and Heitkamp).

Of course, most of the Senate focus is on Texas, Tennessee, and Arizona.

My predictions:
TX: Cruz
TN: Tossup
AZ: Tossup, though Kyrsten Sinema is a conservative Dem.

Trump's job approval soaring to a 44.2% avg. heading into midterms.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... -6179.html

Oct 21, 2018
Trump's approval rating hits all time high of 47% for NBC/WSJ polling.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first- ... ns-n922266

You Think The GOP Is Extreme Now? It’ll Be Worse If They Win In November.

What if the Republicans Win Everything Again?

Birth Control: Will It Become the Ultimate Luxury?

President Trump's approval rating hits new high as Democratic lead shrinks in tight races, poll says

As President Donald Trump makes his way across Red States ahead of the midterm elections, he is choosing to make immigration and the opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh leading issues. (Oct. 19) AP

President Donald Trump's approval rating has reached a new high, even as likely voters favor Democrats by 9 points to lead Congress, a new poll from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found.

The poll found that 47 percent of respondents approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 49 percent disapprove. That is the best he has done in the NBC/WSJ poll since taking office. And it represents a major jump in the president's popularity; the same poll found him with a 39 percent approval rating six months ago.

Although Democrats maintained a sizable lead among likely voters – 50 percent said they would prefer a Democrat-controlled Congress, and 41 percent would like to see the Republicans keep their majority – the poll found that Democrats' advantage disappeared in the most competitive districts. In the hotly contested races, the party preference numbers are closer to even, the Journal reported.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... ZsJKc5jrS0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAIpkdhU9Q

Imagine a Country where a Certain Segment of that Country Lives now in Enough
Existential Misery and Suffering where they are willing to See Lies as Truth False
For any way of Imaginary Escape from Their Seemingly Meaningless Predicament.
True; this is not only a HiStory of Politics; but it is also a History of
Religion and the Philosophy of Misery Loves Suffering in an Inner
Nation that is Shared with others in a Religion of Fear and Hate
Where all things Different become Bizarre; where all things
Fear and Hate and Lies in Misery and Suffering become
the only thing that keeps those who live that way
Moving in any Direction at all. OH! Yes; Welcome
Now to the 21st Century Version of the United
States; Falling but not quite Forgotten; Truly Bizarre as Lies Become Truth False.
Yet Now; There Are Still Some Folks with at least some Measure of Basic Honesty
And Integrity and Character Now who Do Still Believe that Basic Truth is Still more
Important Now than an all out Assault of Lies now for one Selfish Man to Protect his
Butt from really going down much Sooner Now than Later in his Waning Years of Age;
The Greed of Yes; Close to a 2 Trillion Dollar Larger National Debt that will be paid for
Later on the 'Credit Card' of coming Generations if the Nation continues to exist as is at
All For the Value of Welfare Tax Cuts for the Rich; enough for some Prominent Republican
Law Makers to Bail out after that dream of selfishness was achieved; The Down Wrong 'Evil'
of Attempting to Load that Welfare Give Away to the Rich on the Backs of Those Losing their Health
Care; and every effort made still now in smaller ways to make that Happen still. And Oh Lord as of Late
the Vaulting of Arms Sells to Countries of Lowest Achievement for Human Rights in Lieu of Freedom of Speech
in Journalism Where Free Speech Loses its Fingers and is Beheaded in this way by a Most 'Evil' Regime Currently
Existing in This World. And Sure; Labeling those who Seek Asylum in Legal Ways as Rapists and Murderers and even
Terrorists of Middle Eastern way who do not exist among them as the Evidence Clearly shows. And finally as the last
Grease and likely more to Lube the Wheels of Misery and Suffering Living In Fear and Hate More; the Dismantling of
the Identity of 1.4 Million Americans; taking their Basic Rights to Self Determination in the Declaration of Independence
And Attempting to 'Rape' it in full Public View With No Human Basic Decency for the Respect of what Makes this Country
Great; Yes, and It Still Does for Those of US who Still Exercise the Rights to Life and Liberty With the Pursuits of Happiness Now Still Fully
Achieved for
Some of Us
Who are Brave
Enough not only
to Be Free and Happy
but to Respect the Truth
in Basic Measure with Empathy
and Sympathy and Compassion for
Those who are Different from us in the
Fine Art of Cognitive Empathy too that even
Makes us F in Human and Brave enough to Be Human Now.
My Cousin Burned Up in a Helicopter in '69 as an Honest Young
Man who Believed in the United States Declaration of Independence Worth Fighting
For and Dying For. He did not Die for this Bull Crap; Get Out and Vote, like the Truth Depends on it.
Get out and Vote, if You have any Children who you still would Love to See Prosper in Freedom. Get out and
Vote
if you
are
Human
And as Sad as
This State of Affairs
is Now; i Won't Tell you How
To Vote; but let's be Human.
Real Hells Bells Are Ringing And Not Everyone Hears Them.
And yes; That Does Apply to 'A Condition' of 'Those' People Who Are Not Heard Either as US.

Here's How Russia Runs Its Disinformation Effort Against The 2018 Midterms