JaneAusten

I often wonder what happened to real conservatives. My dad was one and even voted for Reagan, finally realizing that Reagan was no conservative with ballooning deficits and infiltration on issues he felt gvmt had no business being in. My dad also loved FDR. I am amazed how any woman, PoC, LGBTQ could support those who feel we are no better than scum on the bottom of their shoe, only live to serve them, only live to be a baby machine, and the list goes on. Small gvmt unless it's handing out welfare to corporations, giving billionaires massive tax breaks, while pitting we serfs against one another for crumbs while secretly supporting those evil illegals because you know, they are their slave labor, because that's how they view all of us. When did conservatism become a bloating military industrial complex, private prison complex - oh right its about greed and enriching their rich friends which is why endless wars continue and we keep jailing people. Who do people think is running those baby camps on the border? Not the US gvmt but Jeff Sessions private prison shareholder friends. This says it all . https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/12/republican-conservatives-re-define-lgbtq-identities-roll-back-rights/ When do the real conservatives stand up and say stay out of my personal life. Modern conservatism is a farce and joke.

They got so many complaints they changed their headlines, of course not before it went click crazy. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/us/wisconsin-power-republicans.html

You should feel good they still have Rubio another worthless nothing.

Burke is a longtime alderman from Richard Daley Sr. admin days. He also runs a law practice specializing in property tax appeals and if you know anything about one of the big scandals in Illinois, it centers around property taxes, which are a mess in Illinois partially due to people like Burke. Yes he represents trump but unless he's somehow involved in some of the Trump deals(which is possible), not sure if there is a connection. We'll see. But this could center around his involvement in moving the 100 million dollar workers compensation fund to Rahm Emmanuel's office. Burke has been overseeing the fund and has been unwilling to disclose the identity of recipients and payouts. Movement to Emmanuel's office also removed oversight by the City of Chicago inspector General.

Guess what the NYT did. Not shocking

And McCarthy gets awarded for this with a minority leadership position. While democrats are fighting over Pelosi who helped win them the house back

Hard to believe you are African American when you support Jim Crow style voter suppression. The only thing that was missing in Georgia, where the GOP candidate for Governor was running his own election, purged 500k voters from the rolls(70% African American) and hid hundreds of functional voting machines in a warehouse, using the lack of equipment to close hundreds of precincts in primarily poor and African American areas, is having armed white men patrolling African American neighborhoods with guns with hoods on. Oh wait that happened also except the hoods are gone.

Sherrod Brown doesn’t represent me and Marceline can likely share a lot more about him, but an interesting topic the last few days about comments Brown made about the Abrams race in Georgia. I have to say he didn’t let weasel Chuck Todd get away with his usual finger wagging at democrats for using the word “stolen”. I bring this up because there was a battle on social media the past couple of days at why and why not the term #stolenelection may or may not be appropriate when referring to the election. A debate between Richard Hasen and Charles Pierce. Me, Brown is right and Abrams is right. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/georgia-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp-election-not-stolen.html https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25224334/sherrod-brown-stolen-election-georgia-brian-kemp-chuck-todd/

@max That is a completely reasonably position to take and you'd be surprised to find out I think how many people actually agree with the fact that the democratic party cleared the table in a sense for Hilary. We won't ever know how competitive a race it might have been had Warren, Biden, and perhaps a couple of others like IMO more serious contenders like Deval Patrick or Beshear would faired.

After democrats won a wave election due to healthcare and the flop of a taxcut, anyone who believes John Kasich would have any kind of place on a democratic ticket is - I don't have any words for it. Republicans like him are the reason many in the GOP in 2016 voted for Trump. He has no new ideas - the same policies that lost 16 GOP establishment candidates the primary to Trump. and he certainly has his hands in place in terms of voter suppression in Ohio. I wonder what demographic the majority of those 2 million voters dropped off the Ohio voter rolls were.

@alphanguy74 I can’t answer you if you fail to realize Why. Bernie lost. All this stupid rigging narrative the Bernie folks bought into is BS. The 2008 primary was much nastier. Hillary got 4mil more votes in 2016 and like it or not Bernie won not one southern state. You seem to think someone can win a primary while ignoring the people in states across the south and think the rust belt are the only important states? There’s a big difference between a primary and GE and sorry in that case that 6 to 12 percent is an influential number of voters. Barack Obama understood that. He campaigned in the south during the primary and won The Carolinas, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc while losing Ohio and Pa. he also won those 2 states in the GE. He understood how to build a coalition.

You missed my point. Bernie lost the democratic primary because he ignored the south and referred to minorities as low information voters. You have to win a primary before you can run in a general election. And you cannot win a primary without the black vote particularly women. They are the base.

It's not uncommon. There are lots of voter education efforts here in Cook County and even so, people are still confused. I read a couple of months back that the League of Women Voters who are nonpartisan, were prohibited from conducting voter registration efforts and voter education in Florida by Rick Scott. We all know why

New maps coming in North Carolina for 2020 elections let’s hope. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/north-carolina-gerrymandering-lawsuit-anita-earls.html And truly amazing. Orange County a bastion of Reaganism no longer has ANY republican representation. Let that sink in. And New Jersey has been left with 1. California has basically made the GOP non existent in state offices, now they have done the same for federal offices.

Nope. First he voted for Trump which IMO will make him a democratic non starter. There are too many people in the party, particularly the party base BLACK WOMEN who will never vote for him. Like Bernie, he'll ignore the south and refer to the base as low information voters. And someone who supports coal? No thanks. The country is changing and finally we are seeing the roots of the changes take hold. Focusing on Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and yes North Carolina which will have new maps with a fair court, is where the focus should be, That said I don't hate this guy. He stood behind the teacher walkout in WV and was an integral part I understand in getting them a better deal.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg need to resign or at a minimum step down from their current positions.

@Max Thanks Max. I appreciate your response First, not one person will argue about the histories of the 2 individuals you mentioned. Byrd denounced his role many years before he died. I guess I am not sure why those histories keep getting dragged out when pointing out racism in the Democratic party. We all know what happened with the Southern Strategy. Lee Atwater confessed his complicity in it in an interview when he was dying and it's influence in the GOP. 2008 was a very nasty campaign for the democrats. Actually IMO it was more Bill than Hillary. I won't give them a pass. But as a white person it's not up to me to decide if the Clinton team should be given a pass. For example I still will never vote for Joe Biden for president due to Anita Hill. But lots of people have given him a pass. That's each person's individual decision. As for the GOP, I would like to know what policies they embrace or claim to that you support. My dad was a republican but jumped ship after Reagan(and he wasn't a huge Reagan fan - deficits). If it's about smaller gvmt, that's a lost debate. We've turned a lot of work over to private defense contractors and private prison contractors, both of whom rake us over the coals in terms of costs. Our federally run prisons cost significantly less per prisoner than the private prison contractors, and we now stay engaged militarily, many times serving crimes against humanity such as in Yemen, to keep the Lockheed Martin profits rolling. I'm searching for one area of privatization that has worked. I can't find any. And you talk about these guys supporting standard GOP policies. Max no one voted for Peter Roskam to get rid of the SALT and limit property tax deductions. I can confirm many people in his district including many republicans calling and complaining when this went on. So why didn't he listen? The same happened in New Jersey, NY, California. THey could have all FOUGHT to keep these deductions in place for their voters so why didn't they? That led me to the point that Paul Ryan is to blame not Trump. As for Medicare for all, the Koch funded study also showed non governmental healthcare would cost even more than the billions cited from the article you referenced over the next 10 years. Taxes go up? How many employers do you think would be more than willing to put more into the social security tax if it frees them from having to provide healthcare themselves. It also frees employees who are no longer required to be indebted to an employer due to healthcare. And it also allows us to be equally competitive with international businesses, since most countries provide gvmt healthcare. As for trickle down, this economic failure has been tried many times over the past 100 plus years, and where and when has it succeeded? Kansas cut taxes to bare bones under Brownbeck, road and schools crumbling to the point where the voters finally demanded new legislators who actually increased taxes and overrode Brownbeck's veto. If you want to point to the Clinton's, the economy was booming then partially due to tax increases Bush put in place and the tech boom fueled a good part of that. But as to where we are today, I believe Neoliberalism has led to where we are and where the world is today. It's led to massive wealth inequality across the liberal democratic world and the rise of nationalism is a reaction to this. Add in corruption as what happened in Brazil as well. We are seeing wages increase a tad, but it doesn't account for increased costs in gasoline, healthcare, mortgage rates, etc.. And it has done nothing to improve the wage gap, it's only gotten larger. The Oligarchs want us peasants fighting over scraps so they can continue to rape and pillage our tax dollars for themselves. Their taxcuts go no where except back into their own pockets. The only way taxcuts work is by giving them to the middle class who spends the extra money they have, fueling our consumer driven economy.

So someone making 100k a year has to pay 7k a year for insurance. What about if it’s a family? Does a family of 4 pay 28%? Networks are exactly what the diff insurance plans are. As we talk the answer is one source like Medicare, one source that negotiates and handles all the pricing. i just don’t believe the free market works in terms of healthcare unless it’s HEAVILY regulated and the Insurance industry would hate that.

Universal background checks is supported by 95% of Americans. I'd start there. And I am all for regulating the AR15 first. But I think what needs to happen is pass Universal Background checks, and initiate a study and hearings on gun reform by congress and gather FACTS and then come up with a comprehensive gun reform package. This idea of just spewing out ideas and passing legislation written by lobbyists needs to go away, and we need to pass FACT BASED legislation. I am hoping the influx of some new voices in congress, scientists, engineers, medical professionals, all pushing for gun reform, will help lead us back into that direction. Without the mandates we are back to insurance companies being able to charge astronomical rates to people like me with PEC's and people over 50. I'm all for that if those with PEC's or anyone who insurance companies discriminate against based on age are allowed access to a public option. Lowering the age for Medicare which was one item discussed would have solved a lot of this. Frankly people who are so in love with the idea of a free market should love gvmt healthcare. It opens up the job market. Medicare is wildly popular. And it gets employers out of the business having to worry about providing healthcare to their employees. The other thing it does. It frees up employees who feel locked into staying with an employer because of healthcare provisions. I'm frankly flabbergasted why more so called freedom loving no regulation voters don't want this.

The other side as you call it was the Pelosi led house which passed the ACA with a PUBLIC OPTION. What killed it? The senate's Joe Liebermann.

I guess my point was how big a price would any of these people paid at the polls if they strongly held to their convictions and reran. Costello announced he was not running and Charlie Dent left. But I think my point is that maybe some of these folks would have gotten beaten anyway. Their own tax bill was a flop, Americans apparently in swing districts, districts filled with more educated republicans like in the Illinois 6th knew the bill hurt them. What reason did people like Roskam,, Randy Hultgren in Illinois, Faso in New York, MacArthur in New Jersey, the many GOP congresspeople in California support a bill they knew would hurt their constitutents and drive up the deficit to astronomical amounts. Trump is a disgusting pig and no, aligning themselves with him would have hurt them more(Hultgren was actually at. Trump rally in Illinois before the election, a candidate Trump supported and he lost). But there is a deeper issue I don’t see a lot of republicans or former republicans acknowledge. That this started years ago, For all the faults democrats have, and there are many as the endless chastising by the media tells us, I still don’t believe the insurgency is anywhere near as bad as what the Tea Party did. For all the crowing about how the democrats can’t go far left, very few of them won races. And Before I hear about Beto and Gillum,and Abrams, these folks are not far left, they support common sense policies. And yes Medicare for All is a common sense policy even supported by 55% of republicans. Or maybe the compromise becomes giving people a public option to purchase. And I haven’t heard one of them, including Beto who’s from El Paso, talk about open borders. And reforming ICE is not radical, it’s a necessity, especially since now ICE is claiming they are not responsible for their employees for sexual abusing detainees, because their situations are not like they are in prison(prisoners are protected), so it must be mutual consent. Why should they they be mad at Trump. He’s doing what he always does, makes it about him. Even one of those articles you posted indicates Ryan refused to bring their bill to a vote. And that piece Carl posted from The NY Times was excellent and showed the disarray with the GOP and how disciplined the democrats have been this time, and Pelosi deserves a lot of that credit. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell deserve much of the blame. And before people start crowing about the senate, it’s likely the senate might gain 2 seats. Is that supposed to be a huge success for the best map they’ve had in over 100 years. They lost Montana, Ohio, and Michigan we’ll see how republicans next election do in places,like Colorado and Maine and Arizona and Iowa.

How the heck would you know they were anti Trump Republicans. Did Costello step up once to denounce Trump? Did any of the rest of them support protecting the Mueller investigation? If they did they should be mad at Paul Ryan for refusing to bring that legislation to a vote. Peter Roskam was one of the people called out. His district is close to me and was a suburban red district. But many of these districts have been turning purple. The biggest problem with Roskam was no town halls in 8 years, no dialogue with constituents, he helped craft a taxbill he knew would hurt people in his district a lot( limitation of prop tax deduction and removal of SALT deductions) and then lying about supporting PEC’s when many in the district knew it was a, lie. Maybe they should question how their party turned into this (it started with the TEA party) and why they didn’t do something sooner. I always felt Boehner cowtowed to the Tea Party too much, and honestly he could have passed legislation easily if he used a coalition of moderate republicans and moderate democrats.

Rich people get away with murder literally. The rich crooks run this country and every other. Heck the US allowed the Saudi's to go scot-free after they killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and managed to push off the murders on Afghanistan and Iraq. Ask yourself why.

Those are really important items and are overlooked by those only focusing on races. Texas is likely now working on solidifying and building their ground game for 2020 and hopefully getting more democratic precinct captains and committee people elected across the state. The same applies to states like Georgia and hopefully Florida. I keep hearing even now how terrible the democratic ground game is in Florida and seriously WHY still? I would say one of the items people in red states should focus on are redistricting referendums.Taking that role out of the hands of those in power and making it either computer driven or done by a bipartisan commission. I'd like to see it here in Illinois but not until I see some red state folks taking that initiative first. Wisconsin would be a good starting point as would Kansas.

I have no use for any of the media or press highlighting this. They were complicit in spreading this lie, pushing Obama to the point where he had "show his papers" and giving this lie about a sitting president oxygen. They can all f-off. I think a lot of people are missing and don't understand the importance of picking up those governorships as it relates to the convention. 7 is a big fricking deal and in places like Wisconsin and Kansas especially. And both Walker and Kobach arrogant enough to think they'd win. Walker got a recount law passed after the last recount that ended up biting him in the *ss. He couldn't ask for a recount because of it. Karma And Kobach the arrogance. This article says it all. https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/election/article221350970.html