JaneAusten

So the head of the NJ Senate conceded his race. The candidate for Gov who has no chance of catching up with provisional ballots still has not conceded. This isn't funny at this point or fair. The only reason he's doing it is to cast doubt and drag it out. I don't know what it will take to get through to people that this party needs to be voted down until they clean up. They are now doing worse gerrymandering in places like Utah where voters voted on an independent redistricting commission and they are ignoring it and doing what they want. Same thing in Ohio. They don't like what the voters want they just ignore it. And the media in this country covers CRT and Wokeness. My optimism in this country is waning. If it was really ever there. GOP keeps the Big Lie alive in New Jersey: Republican candidate refuses to concede race for governor | Salon.com

By the way Jim Acosta from CNN (still detest CNN) ran this segment. Makes you wonder since the right was setting up Va to be another "Stolen" election narrative, would Youngkin have conceded had he not won? The GOP candidate in NY hasn't conceded though he lost by more votes than McAuliffe lost by. I had no idea the "they are stealing another election" narrative was pushed as hard as it was. Funny how when the right wins it's all nice and clean. Acosta: No more whining, sore losers or lies. Just stop the squeal (msn.com)

I believe it's unfair to keep dragging out this "high minority of women" talking point.. Part of the problem is how the right has portrayed the issue. Its intentional. Also you mention that but fail to mention over 70% of Americans believe Roe should stay in place. 1. No where have I heard the right say Legalizing abortion has decreased the number of abortions overall. Women are counseled and educated now because it's legal by physicians, counselors, and in some cases faith members. Also legalizing forms of birth control has been a huge factor as has education. Oh that's right sex education is a no no in schools also. Forget that it has led to lowered teen pregnancies. 2. The right focuses on late term abortions when they represent less than 2% of abortions. That should indicate that women who have to have them are intending to carry the fetus to birth and the rational to have one is dire. Ralph Northam the current Gov of Vi who is also a Child Neurologist said as much and talked about late term abortions on a radio show. OF course the right misrepresented what he said and called him a baby killer. You really think it's easy for a woman and man to decide to end a pregnancy due to severe problems where the babe would not live? You know nothing about this. You say abortions should not be legal after 20 weeks due of pain to the fetus but then on the flip side your said YOU believe a fetus should be carried to term regardless subjecting that same fetus to pain to term, and a tragic death. You believe in science when it comes to information about "pain" to a fetus but not certain death of a babe upon delivery. I guarantee you I know what I am talking about. 3. Nothing presented by the right is going to lessen abortions in fact it will increase them. And who is impacted? Poor women. But that's intentional. It's just another way for our gvmt to punish poor people especially women and women of color by the way who already have the highest mortality rates when it comes to giving birth in the western world. What you have done is demonstrated how hypocritical the argument is and yet again how the women and in many cases the couple must have the gvmt legislate their decision. Your lucky you never had to go through anything like that. With that I am done with this discussion.

Well you missed what I said most which is the majority of abortions don't occur after 20 weeks as it is. So basically what your suggesting is that it needs to be legislated because the small number of women who have to have them need to be monitored to make sure their life is at risk or the situation is dire enough to warrant it. It's not enough to trust the woman to consult with her doctor. That is the part I find offensive. Its not an attack on you it's the entire mindset that if a baby was found to have so many congenital defects that the babe would not live, it should be the gvmt's decision as to whether I should or shouldn't carry the baby to full term. If there is pain beyond 20 weeks to the fetus, the fetus would be in pain for the duration also.

Vitriol against all the democrats? There are a handful, 99% of the party supports the proposals the HEAD of the democratic party proposed. Those I have an issue with are the 6 in the house including reps from NJ, NY, and Ca. Honestly if these folks want to gain something for their constituents that might hit home get the SALT deductions back. Those are 3 of the hardest hit states. The pharma industry gets billions in research funding from the US gvmt. Them crying about how they need to charge more due to drug research falls on deaf ears with me.

I'll refrain from using the term. I had no idea Nina Turner used it. Max was the one who stated moderates are being chased out insinuating the party is too far left, which is not true. THis isn't IMO a stmt about progressives who are a minority. Manchin as offensive as I find him I have less issue with than Gottheimer. Underwood works her tail off, legislates and is a moderate who supported both bills a MODERATE president proposed. So is Sean Casten who represents another swing district here who also had zero issues supporting them. Gottheimer and the other 5 - every one of them was part of No Labels the caucus Lieberman works with.

@max I wanted to respond on a couple things 1. Moderates in the democratic party. Uhm no one is chasing these people out. Biden is a moderate. A MODERATE lost the race in Virginia. Lauren Underwood is a moderate, Joe Manchin, Josh Gottheimer are Corporate democrats. Meaning they answer to their donors. Both accept money from the pharmaceutical industry which is why they are both opposed to allowing Medicare to negotiate drug pricing. Lauren Underwood who represents a swing district in Illinois and actually works in congress has supported both bills. She's a moderate. No one is chasing her out. When Manchin puts his own interests and the interests of the crooked No Labels Caucus(Wall Street are their donors) above the 6th poorest state in the country you better believe he should be called out. Kristin Sinema is a turncoat. You cry for her. She campaigned when she ran on everything she is now opposed to. She can't meet with the PRESIDENT(the head of her own party) because she had to go meet with donors? Spare me. There are 6 corporatists in the house that were holding up everything in terms of legislation. I refuse to call them moderates. 2. MSNBC has lets see Joe Scarborough(not an ally), Stephanie Ruhle(Former rich Wall Street banker), Chuck Todd(no comment). Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid. That's it.

AMEN!!! And I really don't get the "I support abortion for 20 weeks and for situations where a moms life is in danger after 20 weeks @max. This is assuming that there are tons of people getting abortions after 20 weeks. There aren't. What your asking people to legislate is a restriction looking for a problem. There are not millions of abortions every year for women past 20 weeks In fact that number is small which should tell everyone out there that its being done on an exception basis already. It still comes down to lack of autonomy and not trusting that the person carrying their child knows what's best. The state policing reproductive rights frankly is sick.

I have zero issue with folks like you who are anti abortion. What I have issues with is anti abortion folks perpetuating their own beliefs on the rest of us. I also resent the movement lying about things like fetal heartbeats. There is no fetal heartbeat at 6 weeks for example. What is formed is a bunch of cells - there is no HEART. It's an electrical current. My problem has always been about imposing ones beliefs on another. I will admit I had an abortion years ago and trust me when I say it was the most difficult decision I had to make in my life and that was 20 years ago. It's no ones business but my own why and that's how we should keep it. Barry Goldwater was a bit of a kook but he did support one thing I agree with. He was against abortion laws, all of them. Why. Because he said it was a medical procedure between a woman and her doctor. It should not be legislated. This idea that women all over the country are running around having abortions as if it's like going to a cash station is pure garbage. I was in a support group for a long time of women who have had one and no one spoke of it casually. Women can teach children, raise children, but we are not allowed to have autonomy over our own bodies. But a lot of those who are anti abortion also support capital punishment. Even my former church - the catholics - have finally pushed back against that. And I wanted to say how sorry I am about your past experience with sexual abuse. That is absolutely horrid.

@MaxI have to say one last thing. I and a lot of other pro choice women have been told for years we're being hysterical and how SCOTUS would never overturn Roe yet they have been chipping away at it for years. WE SEE IT. Same way as PoC are being told their voting rights are fine as we see in PLAIN SIGHT states across the country stripping away rights. How about no abortion laws and let the decisions be made between a woman and her doctor. Men somehow think that having an abortion is easy peasy and that women don't struggle with that decision. And how nice of your guy to say he's put a law in place to protect women ONLY up to a certain point and then they state is back to telling us what we can and cannot do with our own bodies. I just can't

With all due respect, I never said it wasn't the democrats fault in NJ. But the idea it was somehow because of the same people voting again is not true. And you do know in New Jersey a lot of the same CRT playbook is being used. I live in Illinois which is super blue and we just had a GOP Governor before our current one who did NOTHING. He won for exactly the same reason Murphy s election came close. He also didn't get re-elected. As for abortion rights, that's not fear mongering Max. states all over the country are preparing for Roe to be overturned. My god look what Texas has done so that's not fear mongering it's the truth. 75% of Americans support Abortion rights but all over this country a party run by mostly white men want to strip our rights. Not only that I now hear that loon who wrote that abortion vigilante law is now insisting the court flip marriage equality and all reproductive rights including birth control. This was never about being pro life it was about being pro control. We now have a bought and paid for court whose also going to strip New York of their gun control laws. I guess states rights matter only when you want to strip women of their abortion rights and the voting rights of PoC. CNN is not a liberal ally and MSNBC is garbage also. They have maybe 3 hosts on their entire network that are liberal and Chris Hayes spends much of his time bashing the party itself. I wouldn't generally mind this if it wasn't aimed at escalating hatred of the party's own candidates and not real criticism. Those same outlets you claim are our friend, spent 25 years helping gin up dislike of Hilary Clinton over the guy who actually had the affair and helped peddle the birther lie. They are run by big corporations who prefer the tax breaks they get with the GOP. They and the rest of the media and press corp are not on are side in anyway close to the GOP media ecosystem. You're honestly telling me an internet based show like The Young Turks is the same as having talk radio all over rural America for 30 years spew bile. And the Young Turks are not always an ally anyway. What do I expect from moral republicans? To do what my friend Peter is doing and my late dad would have done. Vote anti GOP all the way down the ballot to propagate change. If you don;t want to vote for a democrat which Peter has said in some races he can't, he'll write in or skip the race. Peter is one of the most conservative people I know - he lives in Indiana and loved Mitch Daniels. Detested Pence and Trump and disagrees with a lot of what the party is doing and has been doing and is not afraid to criticize. But he also knows the only way to inject change is to burn down a lot of what's there. So rather than reach out to latinos is a positive way what is the GOP doing. Their rich donors are buying up spanish radio stations all over the country to create a spanish version of Rush Limbaughs to spew the same "Democrats are communists" garbage thats been broadcast for years. That's not me saying that that's my friend Peter.

I was talking about in general. In fact it's been reported, you should know this, that Murphy got fewer votes than Biden did by a considerable margin and democratic turnout was significantly lower. You live there and I assumed knew that. Virginia did have higher turnout. McAuliffe IMO ran a *hitty and lazy campaign. But I am not going to pretend that CRT is not anything but fear mongering. Someone pulled the term out and turned it into something it doesn't mean because the right wants to gin up hatred to local school boards, as if the board members are not mostly parents of kids themselves. You can certainly have concerns about schools and it's natural at this point with over a year of a pandemic but bringing race into it was the GOP strategy. The democrats don't have a talk radio infrastructure and news networks all over that have been funded by right wing billionaires that the right does. Rush Limbaugh was all over the country on the airwaves for 30 years. And they have purchased spanish radio networks and have been the past several years. The democrats don't have a network of billionaires that have built a party infrastructure(The Koch Network) or media all over the country. It's a problem and has been for years. So lets not pretend this has not been going on. What did Limbaugh do 5 days a week for years on the radio if not gin up hate and fear. I'd be interested in understanding why now over 75% of the GOP believes that 2020 was rigged when less that 30% believed this after Jan 6th? That message is coming from somewhere. And I know very well what the right is doing at school board meetings because it's happening in the district I live in. I don't have kids there but I have been going to school board meetings now as a show of support for the board. No one said the democrats are perfect. I certainly haven't but they are a dysfunctional democratic political party, not a party that no longer believes in democracy. For every issue the democrats have had, not once did anyone try to orchestrate the overthrow of an election. THat includes the president aided by his party infrastructure.

Polling has been problematic for a while across the board. Last thing I read was democratic turnout in NJ was down. As I mentioned to someone else, democrats sadly don't turn out generally as well because that party doesn't work to keep it's base in a constant state of fear as the GOP has done for years. Murphy did a lot of things democrats wanted. Min wage, pot legalization, family leave. Overall dems need to do better to support people who are delivering. Frankly I am not sure why a principled republican should be opposed to these things. I also must say I am surprised you voted for Ciattarelli. The guy is refusing to concede even though he's behind by 65,000 votes. What's next a claim of voter fraud. Is that the playbook you support because that's the playbook the GOP seems to run for every race they lose. They were talking about potential voter fraud in Virginia before election day probably not confident they were going to win. Somehow there was none now since Youngkin won.

Good Question but they did when Trump was in office. One thing FEAR. The GOP keeps their base in a perpetual state of fear - 24 by 7 365 days a year. Notice how democrats did turn out when Trump was in office in all elections. FEAR. IMO January 6th needs to be focused on a lot more. They need to be talking about it regularly and the danger the GOP is to our democracy. The fact that republicans don't believe in it anymore and keep pounding it EVERY DAY. Thats what the GOP has done for 40 years. Willie Horton, Welfare Queens, Immigrants an array of people they have brainwashed their followers in to fear. Now they have moved it to democrats as the enemy not just opponents. Im shocked we as of yet haven't seen more attacks and shootings this year.

@vee I hear you and I partially agree. But messaging and ignoring the culture wars that actually work on voters has been an issue for as long as I can remember. I wish these dems from places like Illinois or New York who know what it's like to play dirty and play for power would educate some of these folks and I don't mean Rahm Emmanuel. Critical Race Theory is an easy one IMO. Say first it's not being taught in grade and public school and it shouldn't be and then pivot to talking about why we should teach full American history warts and all. I never learned the full story of reconstruction, never heard about the Trail of Tears, very little about Jim crow in US History class in High school but I did learn about it. History is messy - it's not all rainbows and sunshine. People are not stupid.

I am normally an optimist but seeing how the press has buried Biden with Afghanistan and then buried the dems in Vi with their cheering of a white nationalist for Governor,(McCauliffe did run a tepid campaign) I don't see him getting one ounce of credit. The bill was passed with GOP support. And the impact of an infrastructure bill won't be felt for a couple of years. I think Biden has done a great job just as Obama did and that includes Afghanistan. Acting like 5% inflation is the same as the 1970's inflation of 25% is garbage. COVID will likely be past us by next year and the press will still find some way to blame the dems for COVID versus the party of NO. Im past at this point believing it's just a messaging problem for the democrats. It's gone on too long to believe it's not deliberate or at a minimum malpractice Is messaging the successes really that hard.

This is a terrible propaganda piece on McCarthy but that's not the worst thing about this. Rep. Kevin McCarthy believes Republicans can seize control of the House next year, but to do so he will have to temper former president Trump - The Washington Post This worst thing is that apparently the Post turned off the comments on this article and deleted the mostly scathing comments that were posted.

Thanks for sharing that @DramatistDreamer. Chicago Tonight is still a show worth watching and generally covers a wide variety of topics. I am actually pleasantly surprised they decided to cover this. This book was getting a lot of buzz in the local chapter of the LOWV a couple of weeks back. There was a long discussion on their facebook page. I think it's an interesting idea. When I read about it initially on that facebook discussion thread, the oil royalty comparison was brought up and while the U of I professor in the video described that program differently, it seems in some ways the closest comparison. I have to do more reading, but it's an interesting idea. And the professor was in agreement about the wealth gap and the need for some sort of assistance. But I disagree with his position that the workers are consumers also so they get the value through their purchase power. There is a case to be made that businesses don't pay enough taxes to account for their fair share. Richard Wolff who some think is a bit of an extremist has been writing about the labor force for the past several years and is convinced the unity they need to be a force in politics again has been reached. I guess time will tell, but the strikes we are seeing, the labor shortage, are all symptoms of no not being lazy but gaining power.

Things are changing and Sinema campaigned on supporting things she now opposes. Swing voters? Lets see if she can win in 2024 without the people who actually helped her win in 2018, Native Americans, Latinos, and Women. If Chuck Schumer who is now Majority Leader did recruit her he certainly is doing a pretty (hitty job now considering he likely had a ton of money thrown at her campaign from the DSCC As for Manchin, he's bought and paid for also and is now indicating a couple making 60 is rich but someone making over 400k can't possibly pay more in taxes. Some of you out there better damn well pay attention to what's going on in the Labor movement in this country because I guarantee regardless of what the Democrats do, things are changing and Reaganomics has been a monumental failure. Just like it was during the Guilded Age which led to Teddy Roosevelt. Manchin is still spewing the same garbage that voters are now rebelling against. No one gets rich off of welfare, no one was sitting home kicking back getting rich on the extra unemployment. People generally want to work. That always has been the case. We'll see what tactics the GOP tries to use to force workers who are striking, not going back to dirt waged jobs back into a poverty level wage job. I love all the stories from the media on how Powell almost ran for president against Clinton, blah blah blah. He also endorsed Barack Obama twice and Hillary Clinton. Oh I forgot he only endorsed Obama because he was black. But it's really odd how I heard NO ONE mention this. And in 1996 there were still a lot of pro choice republicans, one as Governor of the state I live in as was the next Republican Governor who followed him.

Don't fall into it. They are almost as guilty with the endless outrage coverage. From republicans like Chuck Todd and Joe Scarborough to Bernie lovers like Chris Hayes and Ari Melber - they are not your friends and are making money with the endless Trump coverage. Have they spent any time covering the news conferences, speeches or content of what is in the comprehensive legislation that is sitting in congress? How about voting rights. And I am talking about REAL coverage not coverage to generate clicks, fear, and outrage. MSNBC spent a year giving Donald Trump free airtime and covered the same empty podiums CNN did.

AMEN!!!. These networks want people in a constant state of anxiety. How do folks think Fox News has survived for years. The Trump presidency was a bonus for these news shows and for networks like MSNBC and CNN so of course they want to propagate drama. I wish they'd pay more attention to facts versus generating outrage. They might be shocked at how many more people might pay attention.

Time will tell. I wish people would read how long it took for many of the Watergate collaborators to face prison. I am not suggesting the 2 events are comparable but justice takes time. Do I wish we had a more aggressive AG - maybe. But so many of you forget the mess that was made in 4 short years of almost every agency and institution in the federal gvmt to clean up. The DOJ probably one of the worst. Cable TV is garbage and so are a lot of the Sunday shows. I have to laugh when I see Chuck Todd trending on twitter every Sunday(I don't watch Meet the Press) but know why. People are always screaming about how Tim Russert this and that and how Todd is a disgrace. I won't disagree that Todd is a joke but Russert allowed Dick Cheney to come on his show for months regularly peddling propaganda unchallenged for a war that went no where and made Cheney and an awful lot of other people tons of money. And none of those people are in jail are they. And their lies cost thousands of US lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and tore up the Middle East even more than it was. And where is Iraq today and why are we still there? Rather than relying on the propagandists all over TV, support your local school board, run for a local election or at a minimum support the local officials publicly who are doing their jobs, register voters, get involved. We can all do more by doing those things than succumbing to the regular social media and cable TV outrage machines. And you all do realize how desperate our media machines and social media companies are to making QAnon and Trump a thing again. I can't tell you how many people I know who have checked out of the news and such because they are tired of hearing the same garbage over and over.

Yep. There has been cruelty perpetrated on many communities over the past 50 years plus, that a tarnished veneer has been brushed over. Of all the things that stand out to me was the reaction to AIDS in this country and how the Birther lie was perpetrated by the press and mainstream media. People should not be shocked at what we are seeing now. It's been there all along.

The head of the Commission had already stated there will be criminal referrals to the DOJ. This is not the Barr justice dept. These people will be arrested by US Marshall’s