2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Just coming here to say that.

[N.E. Brigand]

Ohio voted 53%-44% for Donald Trump over Joe Biden in 2020.

Ohio voted 52%-44% for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Ohio voters overwhelmingly (75%-25%) approved a ballot initiative in 2018 that amended the state's constitution to require fair districts.

In other words, Ohio is a slightly Republican state, and 8-9 of the state's 15 districts should favor Republicans, while 6-7 districts should favor Democrats.

But thanks to Republicans using a variety of delaying tactics to circumvent the law, this is apparently going to be the 2022 Congressional map:



This is utter #%$&^*!!!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think you mean, "this is utter bullshit."

[N.E. Brigand]

Nine-term Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska, was convicted today of "three felony counts for lying to the FBI about a 2016 foreign campaign contribution." The trial was in Los Angeles, some 1,500 miles from Fortenberry's district. The jury deliberated for just two hours. Fortenberry says he will appeal and gave no indication that he would resign from Congress. I believe he's running for reelection this year. His district is overwhelmingly Republican (he won by 22 points two years ago).

(Here's a funny coincidence from the news gods: Ginni Thomas was born in Nebraska.)

After House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy today called for Jeff Fortenberry to step down, Fortenberry announced he is indeed resigning.

Just coming here to say that.

At a rally tonight, former president Donald Trump suggested that Fortenberry was treated unfairly by "being put in jail over a few dollars that he possibly didn’t know anything about."

[N.E. Brigand]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked on Fox News this morning what Republicans' agenda would be if they should take back Congress in the mid-term elections. His reply:

"That's a very good question, and I'll let you know when we take it back."

In other words, the official GOP position is that they're not running on anything.

[N.E. Brigand]

Edit: I have removed the two photos from this post in light of new information, which I am appending to the bottom.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I checked the actual campaign video released by U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel of Ohio (whom I met once many years ago), and people are right to find this image very weird: [...]

Here's another person's photo of the ad on a TV: [...]

Especially as there's another photo of Mandel alone immediately preceding that one, also in uniform in the Middle East, where his much lighter colored hands are also visible. That said, there may be a rational explanation, and if so, I'd like to hear it.

(There are other problems with the ad, starting with the usual selective quotation of Martin Luther King Jr.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

According to Politico reporter Natalie Allison, who shows what is apparently the original photo for comparison, the weird way that Mandel's hands look as compared to his face in the photo in his commercial are the result of a "darkening filter" having been used. Which is weird, but, as I said I'd hoped to learn, a rational explanation.

The other problems with the ad remain (including those that led Mandel to criticize MLK's daughter on the subject of gun control).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Judge appears likely to allow January 6-related candidacy challenge against Marjorie Taylor Greene

Of course, even if Judge Tottenburg rules that the challenge goes forward (and it isn't overturned on appeal) it is very unlikely that the state court judge will rule that Greene should be removed from the ballot. But it is a nice thought.

[RoseMorninStar]

That link isn't working for me V. Is this the correct article?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/politics ... index.html

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yup, I fixed the link.

[N.E. Brigand]

Herschel Walker Claims to Own Companies That Don't Exist

Herschel Walker, a Republican supported by Donald Trump, is a former college and professional footbal star running in Georgia to unseat Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock.

Per that report, he has repeatedly claimed (even as recently as two months ago) to own "a drapery company in South Carolina that employs hundreds of people."

He doesn't. No such company seems to exist.

Walker has further described it as "largest upholstery company in the United States."

Plainly that also is false.

And he's said that he "owns the largest minority-owned food company in the country."

This claim likewise is ridiculously far from true.

[N.E. Brigand]

More from U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker. This was a few weeks ago, but I don't think it was mentioned here:

"At one time, science said man came from apes, did it not? If that is true, why are there still apes? Think about it."

Mind you, only about half of Americans accept the theory of evolution, so this dumb statement is unlikely to hurt Walker's polling.

[N.E. Brigand]

Republicans also won the Lt. Governor and Attorney General races in Virginia, as well as flipping the Virginia House.

And turnout was quite high.

Turnout was so high that the losing candidate, McAuliffe, will end up with more votes than any gubernatorial candidate in Virginia has ever received...

...except for the number of votes received by his opponent, Youngkin.

A lot of people who voted for Biden a year ago voted for Youngkin yesterday.

The problem isn't motivating the Democratic base to vote so much as convincing swing voters to vote Democratic rather than Republican.

Virginia's Republican governor Glenn Youngkin, who won election to that office last November, has vetoed 25 bipartisan bills passed by Virginia's legislature in just his first three months on the job, which is more vetoes than a new Virginia governor has issued in a four-year term going back 20 years.

Virginia's legislature is bicameral: in the same 2021 election where Youngkin prevailed, Republicans won control of the House of Delegates and have a 52-48 majority. Democrats have controlled the Virginia Senate with a 21-19 majority since the November 2019 elections.

Yesterday Governor Youngkin vetoed Virginia's H.B. 573, which, as per the House member who sponsored the bill, "would have granted life-altering medical debt amnesty for thousands of Virginians. In practice this would mean that, after three years, families couldn't be sued for any medical debt–debt they often had no choice in procuring. The statute of limitations would apply to hospitals, debt collection agencies, and the Commonwealth of Virginia."

The bill passed in the House of Delegates by a vote of 83-11 (35 Republicans and 48 Democrats in favor; 11 Republicans and 0 Democrats opposed; 6 Republican abstentions).

The bill passed in the Virginia Senate by a vote of 40-0: all 19 Republicans and 21 Democrats voted for it.

Well done, Virginia voters.

[N.E. Brigand]

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said in a podcast interview today that joining the military is like "throwing your life away" because of vaccination requirements, "woke" training, and other policies she blames on the Biden administration.

Like all members of the House, she is up for reelection this year, and will almost certainly win.

What strikes me is that this is very much like certain comments about the military that Donald Trump is said to have made to aides during his presidency, for instance that only "suckers and losers" joined the armed forces.

[N.E. Brigand]

Charles W. Herbster, "a Republican megadonor and CEO of Conklin Co.," is running for the Nebraska governorship. He has been endorsed by Donald Trump.

According to new reporting, eight women have alleged that Herbster "touched them inappropriately. The women were between their late teens and mid-20s at the time ... and all the incidents occurred between 2017 and this year."

[N.E. Brigand]

Charles W. Herbster, "a Republican megadonor and CEO of Conklin Co.," is running for the Nebraska governorship. He has been endorsed by Donald Trump.

According to new reporting, eight women have alleged that Herbster "touched them inappropriately. The women were between their late teens and mid-20s at the time ... and all the incidents occurred between 2017 and this year."

Herbster's name came up in connection with the January 6th insurrection. He was at Trump's rally that day, and on the evening of the previous day, he posted on Facebook that he was at the White House with a number of Trump allies "joining me in a battle for justice and truth," but a couple weeks later he edited that post to say that he had actually been at Trump International Hotel -- and to remove the name of one of the other "patriots" there: Rudy Giuliani.

Edited to add a quote from the new report about Herbster:

"During an event in 2019, for example, Republican State Sen. Julie Slama confirmed that as she walked by Herbster, he reached up her skirt, without her consent, and touched her inappropriately."

[N.E. Brigand]

In Iowa, former Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer is vying to be the Democratic nominee to challenge U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, this fall. She is the best-known of the potential Democratic candidates and thus generally considered to have the best shot to unseat Grassley. (That said, he's been in office since 1981 and therefore it's fairly likely he'll win an eighth term regardless of who his opponent is.)

Arguing that some of the signatures her campaign submitted were missing dates, Republican activists filed for the State Objection Panel to remove Finkenauer's name from the ballot.

In March, the three-member panel rejected this claim 2-1, leaving Finkenauer on the ballot. The dissenter who would have removed her was Iowa's Republican secretary of state.

Earlier this week, a Republican-appointed state district judge ruled that the panel was wrong and Finkenauer would was not eligible to appear on the ballot.

But today, the Iowa Supreme Court, consisting of six Republicans and one Democrat, ruled unanimously that Finkenauer's name should be restored.

[N.E. Brigand]

"America's Hitler".

Back in 2016, J.D. Vance texted his old college roommate that Donald Trump might one day be remembered that way, according to texts that were released today.

Three days ago, Trump endorsed Vance's candidacy to be the next U.S. senator from Ohio.

[N.E. Brigand]

"America's Hitler".

Back in 2016, J.D. Vance texted his old college roommate that Donald Trump might one day be remembered that way, according to texts that were released today.

Three days ago, Trump endorsed Vance's candidacy to be the next U.S. senator from Ohio.

In those texts, Vance also said that Republicans are "the party of lower-education white people."

[N.E. Brigand]

Vanity Fair has a what I think is an important article for understanding the so-called "New Right" (sometimes abbreviated "NRx," which is short for "neo-reactionary"; among the other terms used are "radical young intellectuals" and "post-leftists" -- the latter acknowledging a horseshoe aspect to some of its members), a movement whose intellectual leader is a former computer programmer (and crypto-white nationalist) named Curtis Yarvin, who is friends with the billionaire tech financier Peter Thiel and two candidates for U.S. Senate that Thiel is funding: venture capitalist and Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance of Ohio (of whom I've written many times) and venture capitalist Blake Masters of Arizona. Vance was just endorsed by Donald Trump (following which Thiel gave another $3.5 million to a PAC supporting Vance; Thiel had previously donated about $10 million to that cause). Trump has yet to endorse in the Arizona race, but he did appear last fall at a fundraiser for Masters.

You may notice that these aren't exactly anti-intellectual salt-of-the-earth figures. I expect to have a lot more to say about this article later, but it will take me some time to fully digest. I recommend reading the whole thing. It's long, and I think at times a little too sympathetic to this movement's supposed motivations, although mostly clear-eyed. It's certainly enough to push me back from my edgier left-wing thoughts, when I get frustrated by how the system seems to be failing democracy and I briefly long, as Sam says to Galadriel, for Joe Biden to make "make some folk pay for their dirty work." But basically there appear to be two choices facing the center and left: work within the system and have faith that democracy can be upheld that way, or take "extra constitutional" steps now to purge Trumpism, because if they achieve power, the New Right definitely plans to install a king.

And I have to believe that right can prevail through regular (if perhaps aggressive) procedures and choose the former. That is to say, in this clip from Under Siege (1992), I agree with Steven Seagal not Tommy Lee Jones. Which, yes, is hugely ironic given how Seagal has become a Russian puppet!



(You might compare also to Tolkien himself, a self-described reactionary or anarchist who nonetheless fought for the system in WWI, who said he would have been an even more dedicated soldier against fascism in WWII, and who despite his support in "On Fairy-stories" for revolt opposed "men with bombs.")

Anyway, here are two important passages.

This is Masters at a campaign rally:

When he took questions at the end, they were mostly the usual ones about the supposedly stolen 2020 election—a view that Masters did not push back on—the border wall, vaccine mandates. One man raised his hand to ask how Masters planned to drain the swamp. He gave me a sly look. “Well, one of my friends [Yarvis] has this acronym he calls RAGE,” he said. “Retire All Government Employees.” The crowd liked the sound of this and erupted in a cheer.

And this is Vance on a right-wing podcast:

“So there’s this guy Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things,” Vance said. ... “So one [option] is to basically accept that this entire thing is going to fall in on itself,” Vance went on. “And so the task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved,” waiting for the “inevitable collapse” of the current order.

He said he thought this was pessimistic. “I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,” he said. “And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” he said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

“And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

This is a description, essentially, of a coup.

“We are in a late republican period,” Vance said later, evoking the common New Right view of America as Rome awaiting its Caesar. “If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”

It was following those comments that the podcast told Vance that he too thought such "extra constitutional" steps were needed.

[RoseMorninStar]

I have not yet read the article you refer to, but ugh, it sounds like the Steve Bannon crowd.. burn it all to the ground and take over.