DRW50

One of the poisons of Trump is how other people, even people who should know better, take on his idea that they can do anything they want. Mimi Walters was front and center in a notorious selfie last year after the House passed the ACA repeal. Walters and Young Kim were both out there crying voter fraud when they realized they were losing. Others have already said it, but the sheer number of Republicans who have just started crying voter fraud any time they lose, or even think they might lose (like Mia Love in Utah, even though she is likely going to win), is very dangerous.

Thanks for letting us know. I thought she had enough support, but it sounds like she will still have to grind out any "victory" and she will likely pay a huge price with her party. I have never known what she even wanted out of the deal. I'm not sure anyone does. She just seemed to kick the can down the road as long as she could. She's lucky in that there isn't anyone who seems likely to replace her.

I can't even laugh at this because Republicans just say [!@#$%^&*] all the time and it never matters.

Avenatti never had a chance in a POTUS race. He did, however, take up too much oxygen under the idea that liberals needed their own Trump, shout shout shout rage rage rage. I hope that is now over. Speaking of Facebook, while so much press focus has gone on Pelosi, undermining her, pushing her out, there is little mention of Schumer. I know the info was already posted in the articles above. This one just recaps the Schumer part. https://www.businessinsider.com/chuck-schumer-facebook-mark-warner-2018-11 There are problems with Pelosi, but I'm very wary of the motives of many of those in the party who do want to topple her, especially as they seem to have no real plan after the fact. Anyway, one of the more underreported stories from the night, along with gun control advocates having a strong night, is probably that a number of states did fight back to try to keep the ACA going. The main Republican who helped get repeal through the House lost his seat...to an Obama White House alum no less. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/new-jersey-republican-s-defeat-shows-power-of-health-care-issue

I loved it. Everything she said is right. Jean is a horrible mother, and she's shown herself to be a horrible person in the last 3-4 years. I've grown to despise her. Honestly it plays much better than it reads. The story taps into a lot of Sharon's insecurities and vulnerabilities instead of humiliating her, and Letitia Dean has good chemistry with Danny Walters.

I agree, but Trump's comments are the type of glib digs Maher has specialized in for decades. I guess he mostly disagrees when it affects him.

On another note, it amuses me to learn that the cute Josh Harder, who picked off a GOP incumbent in CA-10, helped get Blue Apron started. Blue Apron is one of the big sponsors of far right podcasts like Ben Shapiro. I imagine he's fuming today.

A look at older voters (it mostly focuses on very Republican voters, naturally, although there are a few other articles on the site about this that I didn't read) and why they broke even for Democrats this year. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/13/2018-election-analysis-democrats-republicans-politics-222412

She did a poor job with this at Corrie and only changed the Emmerdale landlords at the very end of her tenure and I think that may have been due to Elizabeth Estensen's age. Either way, I wouldn't expect anything good from her. Hayley is just such a one-note bore. They have also dramatically regressed her, to the point where she struggles to even speak or walk. I have a feeling she was not the superstar with fans they expected her to be, so this is the result - nonstop pity parties. Katie Jarvis is 27, yet Hayley is written as if she was a teenager. It doesn't work. She also has zero chemistry with the real Slaters.

That was an interesting read. A lot of pundits harp on how bad it was for Republicans to lose as much as they did in the midterms since we are in a good economy, prosperous, etc. To many Americans, it is not a good economy. The bubble just doesn't understand that, because they don't want to.

Some very rare Tonight Show footage - eventually the wonderful Zsa Zsa Gabor pops up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbSk4kIcjdI

Sinema led in the polls but I'm still surprised she won. These things often revert to a harder reality on Election Day. Trump did a lot to cause this, but Sinema also seemed to run an extremely disciplined campaign. Kudos to her. McSally has been very calm - I think she will be getting McCain's seat. In other news, the Secretary of State race in AZ is much closer, but the Democrat is currently leading. If she wins that could be a big deal, as 3 different SoS have become governor in Arizona since the '80s. Anyway, I thought this was an interesting 60 Minutes that was recently uploaded. They talk to men in an Indiana town (a big Nixon town) about Watergate. Some things never change. And in other news, Lorne Michaels' new Republican hero, pushed heavily by the media as a star and the new face of the GOP, is yet another bigot. The media won't care - they love bigots. https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/11/snl-gives-another-right-wing-politician-a-spotligh.html

I think he would have been better off staying more in their orbit, and they could have brought in a few other new characters to revolve around Alex. They could have brought back Victoria.

Rebecca Staab was a good actress, which she showed in glimpses (the episode with Beth's funeral has a good performance from her, reading a love letter Beth wrote about Philip), but Jessie was so bland and also saddled into a would-be "supercouple" before she even had a chance to develop in her own right. Simon was just too much - I think they should have stuck with the Spaulding material and not had him involved with Jessie. I also had a hard time seeing him as straight, even though the actor was straight.

I saw that SNL gave a big wet kiss to Dan Crenshaw, having him appear on the show after Pete Davidson made a cheap joke about his eyepatch last week. Lorne Michaels can't help himself. He always has to have a Republican to hang onto for dear life to present his "both sides" bullshit. Never mind that Crenshaw wants to take away the rights of anyone who doesn't look just like him, that he enables extreme hard right conservatism, and that the majority of viewers who continue to watch SNL are people he does not think should have any say over their own bodies or bedrooms. If it makes Lorne feel good and gives an aw shucks media moment, that's what matters. They can kiss my ass. In other news, there is nothing to laugh about with Trump, but I do tend to laugh when I see photos of him with Macron. (I was going to post the picture but nobody deserves to see his face if they don't want to). images .newrepublic.com/899f256ef9ff16ce709d3452b16351e3e12ad8ee.jpeg?w=800&q=65&dpi=1&fm=pjpg&h=533 I really think he has a man-thing for Macron and struggles to hide it, making him look even more irrational and pathetic than he does with all other world leaders.

Once upon a time there was a thin pretense that the GOP leadership was above the conspiracy-mongering and paranoia of their media outlets. Those days are long gone, apparently. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/11/10/arizona-election-senate-ballots-counting-kyrsten-sinema-martha-mcsally-update/1956622002/ The National Republican Senatorial Committee pointed to a report by Fox News that Fontes once defended a man in the "Operation Fast and Furious" gun-running ring during the Obama administration and said Fontes had been caught mixing tainted ballots with legitimate ones. The Arizona GOP said Fontes has misled the public about the voting process. “Adrian Fontes has intentionally circumvented the legislative and judicial process during this election,” said Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Lines. “He is a liberal activist masquerading as an election official, and we cannot trust him to oversee this process. Arizonans have a right to know what liberal parties Fontes is communicating with about this race, and what he is telling them. What is Adrian Fontes hiding?" What they're really fuming about is that Sinema is, for now, anyway, winning a county that is historically Republican. They can't admit that they are doing this - driving voters away - so of course it's all a fraud and a scam.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/democrats-republicans-house.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/09/democratic-republican-majority-house-election-2018-222400 Two post-election looks.

I imagine it's a way to de-gay the show (as CW shows have little interest in gay men - look at the flop that is Riverdale and how horribly they treat Kevin Keller) and it also feels like circling the wagons as the show hasn't done as well as it was expected to do. I barely watched but he seemed alright to me. I guess Sammy will now cheat and be thrown out, or will magically be revealed as bisexual all along.

I think she will be more liberal than she was as a Congresswoman (if she is elected) but probably still very cautious, especially since Arizona is not all that liberal a state. I think it is moving in a more moderate conservative direction (or maybe I should say moving back there as it seemed to be that type of state in Sandra Day O'Connor's era). I think that she was fortunate to run in the Trump era as even though Trump won Arizona in 2016 I don't get the impression that part of the US is hugely fond of him. Sinema has been criticized for years for putting on a mask for voters. Frankly I'm surprised it has worked, but Arizona is a unique state, and McSally doesn't seem especially likeable. One positive is that she has yet to join in with the pot-banging and hysteria about the election, to the anger of Trump and friends. Probably because she is hoping to just be appointed to McCain's seat when Jon Kyl leaves. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/09/sinema-mcsally-arizona-senate-race-982562

It's not surprising, but it's frightening just how willing the GOP is to blatantly wade into any federal race that isn't going their way and now claim it's all rigged against them, and to stop the count or redo the count until they get the result they want. Even in Arizona, which hasn't even had the same reports of problems. They are trying to normalize even more power grabs. And the public, along with the media who hate America anyway, will go right along. I saw that Macron had spoken about needing an EU army to fight the US (along with Russia and China). This has been egged on by Trump, but the EU has been pushing this army idea for a number of years - it's one of many reasons the UK voted to leave, and it's just caused even more division. When I read this article about Macron's latest PR disasters I'm reminded of how similar he is to Trump, just in a more restrained, better-looking package. https://www.ft.com/content/a386762c-e37e-11e8-8e70-5e22a430c1ad

Do you really care what Newt Gingrich says? Does anyone? They just lots his Congressional seat. If the big claim to victory is +1 or +2 on a blood red map and beating people in Texas and Georgia, then they are admitting they have nothing to say. Trump and the media will blame the House for the economy, and everything else, but still, it counts as a win.

It sounds like the woman in charge of ballots in Broward County is very incompetent, and is now going to be used as a scapegoat to justify stopping vote counting. I'm getting such bad 2000 flashbacks. I guess we should have known the universe was telling us something when Brooks Brothers Riot alum Brett Kavanaugh popped up this year. I hope Democrats can stop this from being 2000 all over again. At least they don't seem to be making Al Gore's mistake. And there is no odious Lieberman there to make things worse (last I heard of him he was trying and failing to stop his old foe Ned Lamont from being elected CT governor). In happier news, not that you'll hear the media talk about it, but apparently this is the most seats Democrats have won in the House since Watergate. Here are a lot of tweets from the Mueller rallies. I never thought I'd live in an era when thousands have to turn out to support a special prosecutor. It's one of those things where if you saw it in a TV show you'd hoot. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/8/1811367/-Tweet-Diary-Look-how-big-the-protest-crowd-is-at-the-ProtectMueller-Rally-nationwide

I know the Republicans are going to steal Florida all over again, but until it happens, let me have this reaction to media darling Marco melting down on Twitter like the sad little boy he is.

Populist in Europe often leans toward fascist. Ryan Zinke, another scandal-plagued member of Trump's Cabinet, is likely on the way out. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/08/ryan-zinke-fox-news-956537 Trump picking him for his Cabinet is one of the reasons Jon Tester won reelection (even after Trump and his sons went all over Montana begging voters to reject him).