US elections leading up to and including the 2018 midterm elections
In other words regardless if the Democrats won the House the Senate will stay GOP and Congress will not impeach the president
The House impeaches. The Senate convicts or acquits. A 2/3 vote is needed to convict.
Democrats are not going to get a 2/3 majority in the Senate so discussing impeachment is a waste of time. The only hope is the Mueller investigation and it is unclear what his powers are concerning a sitting president
Tuesday Night Is a Bad Sign for GOP Chances in the House
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/08/08/tuesday_night_is_a...
How Much Trouble Is Ted Cruz Really In?
'Hold onto your chips'
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-trouble-is-ted-cruz-really...
Nader is still at it. Good on him!
Beto 2020
Probably the most progressive political figure in the USA today and who has been for the past 50 years
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/opinion/letters/ralph-nader-corporate-speech.html
How can you have a “People’s Budget” without People Power?
Encouraging news for the Democrats. Now if only they could make the same move on the Senate but that appears to be a very long shot, at best. Although with Trump's popularity crashing throw the floor anything is possible.
Forecasting the race for the House
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/hous...
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/hous...
Are Democrats or Republicans Winning The Race For Congress?
An updating estimate of the generic ballot, based on polls that ask people which party they would support in a congressional election.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/?ex_c...
Elissa Slotkin: A CIA Democrat Runs For Congress in Michigan
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/01/slot-s01.html
"Slotkin is one of more than three dozen such candidates - former CIA agents, military intelligence operatives, combat commanders, and high-ranking Pentagon, State Department or National Security Council officials - who have won Democratic Party nominations for Congress in Republican held districts that the Democratic Party leadership has targeted in the 2018 campaign.
This faction was identified by the WSWS six months ago and given the label 'The CIA Democrats'. It represents something entirely new in American capitalist politics: The effective (and entirely friendly) takeover of one of the two big-business parties by a group whose primary allegiance is to the military-intelligence apparatus.
If the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in November, it will be Slotkin and her fellow military-intelligence operatives who will hold the seats that give the Democrats a majority, giving them the balance of power in the House..."
"Slotkin is one of more than three dozen such candidates - former CIA agents, military intelligence operatives, combat commanders, and high-ranking Pentagon, State Department or National Security Council officials - who have won Democratic Party nominations for Congress in Republican held districts that the Democratic Party leadership has targeted in the 2018 campaign.
Who are the other 35?
The Jimmy Dore Show
"Obama endorses 'Medicare for All' - calls it new idea."
The Jimmy Dore Show
"Pelosi sabotages progressive takeover of Congress."
The Jimmy Dore Show
Fighting Debbie Wasserman Schultz and election fraud w Tim Canova
The Jimmy Dore Show
"Stormy Daniels: Trump/Clinton talk about 'our plan."
'It's a big club and you aint in it.'
Big Money Buoys Democratic Senate Super Pac...
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1043579745101926400
"Strange how puff pieces by WaPo and NYT's Bari Weiss on hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman as the Democratic Party's new financial angel make zero mention of his role as one of the Israel lobby's key funders. In fact, Israel is Klarman's key concern."
There's that ugly Israeli elephant in the Dem's 'collusion' room again.
Chris Hedges in Eugene, Oregon, Oct 3, 2018: 'America the Farewell Tour'
"What democratic space we have was not handed to us by the elites..."
https://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/beware-the-pre-election-final-mont...
“Democrats’ advantage in recent polls may not bring the ‘blue wave’ they’re hoping for,” warned a piece on CNBC.com from an economics reporter, and plenty of talking heads and reporters warned the Kavanaugh Supreme Court fight was energizing Republicans and undercutting the Democratic midterm surge. Take all such assessments with a grain of salt.
My point is not that any single poll, article or talking head is wrong. It is simply a reminder that Republicans (and their media allies over at Fox News) have an interest in arguing that Kavanaugh has changed the midterm dynamics no matter whether or not it has. And even the major mainstream electronic and print media have an incentive to raise questions about a so-called Republican surge.
President Trump certainly is trying to use wedge issues to energize his supporters, and there may well be an uptick in GOP enthusiasm after the recent Supreme Court fight. But based on the past, I’m skeptical the Kavanaugh fight will fundamentally change next month’s outcomes.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/12/nate-silver-538s-measurable-3-5-...
""Ending on a necessary note of caution, polling has under forecast how well Democrats will do on the gap by one and a half points or more three times in the last eight House elections. If that happens again, Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight, and others forecasting a #BlueWave could well be right. Democrats could win 225 seats or more, earning commanding control of the House at a level that could see them bleed a few votes from their membership on key legislation and other matters such as articles of impeachment and still claim victory. The most straightforward and defensible reading of the data we have now, a reading that does not adjust or unskew polling in favor of Democrats and does not project that they will somewhat magically win or dozen or so individual seats that the FiveThirtyEight model currently has them behind in, suggests a much fiercer and more closely contested contest for control of 218 seats, or perhaps a few more, by one party or the other."
Actually the chances of the Democrats taking control of the House has grown in leaps and bounds recently and they are now favoured to win it by 85%
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/
dp
I am a little less optimistic. It is possible certainly and would absolutely be true in a fair election. I do not anticipate such an election. Gerrymandering has only increased, suppression has only increased, lectronic voting that is hackable has only increased.
But sure: this may be a last chance for the US to slow the progression down the path they are on. Maybe it will work out -- if it doesn't then you can count on things getting a lot worse and staying that way for some time. I have no confidence in the US at all and certainly not in their ability to hold a free election.
Sorry. Not going to happen. The Democrats may gain seats, but not enough to take the House. Even if Beto O'Rourke wins Texas, the Democrats are still going to lose ground in the Senate, because Heitkamp and McKastill will go down to defeat. Which isn't really a huge loss, considering how often those 2 voted with the Republicans anyways.
The Greens made it onto the final ballot in 3 congressional districts in California. The best possible outcome is for those 3 to be elected and block a majority by either of the Establishment parties. Even that is a long-shot scenario almost beyond the realm of probability.
The Rats Revolt (and vid) - by Chris Hedges
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-rats-revolt/
"How the Rats Re-formed the Congress. A fable by Ralph Nader. 'Protests rise and fall in the ether for the most part. They generally don't ripple out from the core group of concerned people who originate them. Experts on crowds attribute this to little planning, miniscule budgets, poor leadership and the lack of focus which induces protest fatigue among the core before they make an impact.
Indeed, it is only when the elites become afraid of us that there will be any hope of destroying corporate power. Politics, as Nader understands, is a game of fear. The consent of the governed has become a joke. Politicians in the two ruling parties are the agents of corporate exploitation and oppression, the enemies of democracy.
'Congress itself is a clear and present danger to our country,' Nader writes. 'It feasts on raw, global, corporate power and it's oblivious to fateful degradations of life on the planet.' He calls Congress ' a concentrated tyranny of self-privilege, secrecy, exclusionary rules and practices..."
Money talks, and bullshit walks
Money talks, and bullshit walks
Native Americans React to Elizabeth Warren's DNA Test: Stop Making Native People 'Political Fodder' (and vid)
"Native Americans across the country are criticizing Senator Elizabeth Warren's decision to use a DNA test to assert her Native American heritage."
Forecasting the race for the House
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/hous...
Democrats Have A Whac-A-Mole Problem In The Senate
https://abcnews.go.com/politics?cid=mkt_18f18_July18_538_house_clickhere
Doesn't look promising
https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/senate/senate-overview/senate-11-...
GOP Senate and Dem House may be the ultimate nightmare scenario for Trump.
A Dem House can expose him. It can limit him severely. The present situation where the GOP can provide cover would be gone.
A GOP Senate can either be the kind of obstruction that voters in 2020 will want to sweep away (no longer sweeping things under the rug with the House but backing up the President even as the facts are public) or the GOP can bring down Trump in order to save themselves.
A Democrat Senate allows some cover for Trump to continue to claim witchhunt.
A split house and Senate improves the chances that Trump will not only be dumped by the Democrats but by both parties in 2019 or that the GOP itself will crash and burn the following year.
Now if the Democrats take the Senate the GOP will suffer a minor loss, but if the loss happens in 2020 it could be very extensive. The Senators who back Trump being around stinking up the place till 2020 might be the worst news for the GOP.
A split Senate and House will make the GOP have to decide between their interests and Trump's without any kind of cover. The idea that the GOP would want to keep the Senate while losing the House might really be a case of be careful waht you wish for. It may be the path to the most long term damage possible for either Trump or the GOP.
A split House and Senate may also be the easiest ticket to a return to civility if the GOP throw Trump under the bus. This could reduce the partisanship and improve the cahnces that the US public will accept the result.
No matter what -- do not imagine that a split House and Senate is a reduction in problems for the GOP and Trump.
Ask Merrick Garland and Brett Kavanaugh whether it's better for the GOP to control the Senate or lose control of it. Not to mention that while the House impeaches, the Senate tries, and while even the best-case Democratic scenario won't give them enough votes to remove Trump, a Republican-controlled Senate could just decide to ignore the impeachment and dismiss the trial with a procedural vote.
The GOP is on board with Trump now until the bitter end. He's the #1 fundraiser, the big vote driver, the man in touch with the core racist base of the party. That's why all the Republicans who loathed him and got brutally attacked by him in 2016 are now lining up to kiss his ass. The idea of Senate Republicans walking away from Trump is on par with the NDP's "Heroes" campaign to try to get enough Tory MPs to vote against Harper's budget to trigger an early election during his majority government. It's a pipe dream. There could be footage of Trump taking orders from Putin to kill Americans, and his base would shrug it off as "fake news".
The only place to see regretful Republicans denouncing Trump these days is on political shows where the likes of David Frum and Michael Steele try to rehabilitate their own reputations and make everyone forget how enthusiastically they were on board with Bush's war-and-torture agenda.
Ask Merrick Garland and Brett Kavanaugh whether it's better for the GOP to control the Senate or lose control of it. Not to mention that while the House impeaches, the Senate tries, and while even the best-case Democratic scenario won't give them enough votes to remove Trump, a Republican-controlled Senate could just decide to ignore the impeachment and dismiss the trial with a procedural vote.
The GOP is on board with Trump now until the bitter end. He's the #1 fundraiser, the big vote driver, the man in touch with the core racist base of the party. That's why all the Republicans who loathed him and got brutally attacked by him in 2016 are now lining up to kiss his ass. The idea of Senate Republicans walking away from Trump is on par with the NDP's "Heroes" campaign to try to get enough Tory MPs to vote against Harper's budget to trigger an early election during his majority government. It's a pipe dream. There could be footage of Trump taking orders from Putin to kill Americans, and his base would shrug it off as "fake news".
The only place to see regretful Republicans denouncing Trump these days is on political shows where the likes of David Frum and Michael Steele try to rehabilitate their own reputations and make everyone forget how enthusiastically they were on board with Bush's war-and-torture agenda.
This all sounds right to me. Key point: the Republicans in congress will never turn on Trump unless the base rejects him first, and it is hard to imagine what Trump could do to make that happen. Perhaps if he started being too nice to the Libtards, instead of mocking and threatening them, that might do the trick, but as long as he keeps pissing off the people they hate, the deplorables will stick with him.
Ask Merrick Garland and Brett Kavanaugh whether it's better for the GOP to control the Senate or lose control of it. Not to mention that while the House impeaches, the Senate tries, and while even the best-case Democratic scenario won't give them enough votes to remove Trump, a Republican-controlled Senate could just decide to ignore the impeachment and dismiss the trial with a procedural vote.
The GOP is on board with Trump now until the bitter end. He's the #1 fundraiser, the big vote driver, the man in touch with the core racist base of the party. That's why all the Republicans who loathed him and got brutally attacked by him in 2016 are now lining up to kiss his ass. The idea of Senate Republicans walking away from Trump is on par with the NDP's "Heroes" campaign to try to get enough Tory MPs to vote against Harper's budget to trigger an early election during his majority government. It's a pipe dream. There could be footage of Trump taking orders from Putin to kill Americans, and his base would shrug it off as "fake news".
The only place to see regretful Republicans denouncing Trump these days is on political shows where the likes of David Frum and Michael Steele try to rehabilitate their own reputations and make everyone forget how enthusiastically they were on board with Bush's war-and-torture agenda.
This all sounds right to me. Key point: the Republicans in congress will never turn on Trump unless the base rejects him first, and it is hard to imagine what Trump could do to make that happen. Perhaps if he started being too nice to the Libtards, instead of mocking and threatening them, that might do the trick, but as long as he keeps pissing off the people they hate, the deplorables will stick with him.
A few things missing here:
First, the House has authority to conduct investigations and can make the results public. If the GOP controlled both Houses information is subject to rumour only.
This is hugely significant for the GOP as the informaiton coming out in the formal way that it could from the House would expose the Senate Republicans such that their shame would likely result in an extremely poor showing in 2020 that otherwise would not have happened if the Democrats took it by a hair now. The Trump base is not enough on its own to avoid such a calamaty for the GOP if the Independents and non Trump Republicans who have been silenced in the last coule years do not support them. Notice how many more GOP seats are up in 2020.
To say the GOP is on board to the bitter end is really unrealistic since you don't know what the bitter end will be. So long as they can cover hime with House and Senate, this is true. Following loss of the House and public investigations, there is no evidence that they will all stick with Trump. Even if a knot of them do, if half do not then impeachment is secured.
If the Democrats have a narrow victory, impeachment is actually less likely since the GOP will more likely go for it if they hold the chamber than if the Democrats do and they can pretend not to be in control of the decision.
As I said the fundamental choice the GOP would face is either:
1) to lose for a generation in 2020
or
2) to throw Trump overboard
If things are serious enough, with the investigations uncovering much more than is out there now, the Senate GOP will choose their own jobs before Trump. If they do not they would be screwed.
To say the GOP will stick with Trump so long as the base does not desert him is also ridiculous as an assertion: the base is not just one mind. If the base starts to decline, even if a majority support him, the GOP will undertand that they are bigger than the base and the voters are bigger than both. They are not that stupid and many will have careers to attend to on the tenth aniversary of Trump's literal burial. When he is gone no Senate Republican is going to win on his deplorables.
Trump is powerful now but he is a cult. You cannot compare him to a full party apparatus that will go along with him for now but will dump him when he is no longer an asset. Once the House exposes the results of investigations at the level expected, he will not be the asset he claims.
Trump is very strong and will be a force to recon with until the next recession - if not as a result of the investigations. Once the US is in recession (could come within a year or two), Trump will no longer look good to any more than the 20% hard right white nationalists and instead will be the one to blame. The GOP will do anything for power -- that is why they sided with him and that is why they will dump him when he is no longer useful.
..i don't see the parties as being polarized on issues. members of the house and senate have power struggles and vested/personal interests but i have no expectations of polarization. there is much evidence that, after all is said and done, they act in concert on much if not all of the important stuff like war, global corporate dominance and austerity.