Primary Night

Not sure what it all means, the results were more mixed than last timea few weeks ago.

Stacey Abrams is the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, which makes her not only the first black major party nominee for governor in the Peach State, but it also makes her the first black woman major party nominee for governor in the US.

Laura Moser lost the Congressional primary runoff in Texas to Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, the DCCC's choice for TX-7.  Fletcher is also a partner in a union-busting law firm, so I am bumming, particularly as it was not even close.

On the other hand, Lupe Valdez, former Dallas County Sheriff, won the Gubernatorial nod from the Democratic Party with an unabashedly populist pitch.

It does seem that there is a general trend this season that favors political newcomers.

My quick take is that these are mixed results, but I am neither a glass half full nor a glass half empty guy, I am an engineer, so I say that your glass is to f%$#ing big.

Tweet of the Day

The lot pic.twitter.com/BWzS6fMNMU

— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) May 17, 2018

Cynthia Nixon is campaigning at a subway platform.

This is the same subway that Andrew Cuomo has been under-funding for years.

This is what they are handing out to would be subway passengers who are wondering why their train is late ……… Again.

Nixon is a long shot, but it does look like she will be putting the kibosh on his Presidential aspirations.

H/t naked capitalism

There Were Primaries Last Night

I'm going to lead with irony.

For your consideration, West Virginia Republican State Senator Robert Karnes, an implacable foe of unions, who said that the teachers' strike in his state, "I can’t say that it will have zero effect, but I don’t think it’ll have any significant effect because, more often than not, they probably weren’t voting on the Republican side of the aisle anyways."

He was turfed out yesterday:

Labor activists, it turns out, know how to get involved on the Republican side of the aisle, too. Karnes was facing a primary challenge from fellow Republican Delegate Bill Hamilton, who beat him, with all the votes counted, 5,787 to 3,749. It was a blowout.

Oh Snap.

It was generally not a good night for former Republicans running as Democrats, anti-abortion politicians:

Tuesday’s primaries featured the crucial state of Pennsylvania plus a smattering of contests in the not-so-crucial states of Nebraska, Idaho, and Oregon.



………

But it’s clear the party is moving in a leftward direction, with even the most mainstream new Democratic candidates on the scene embracing views that would have been extremely daring five or 10 years ago. They are also simply riding positive momentum from the national political environment and — in the specific state of Pennsylvania, though not nationally — from some newly favorable district boundaries.

………

A real sign of the shifting winds of American politics came from the victory of a pair of first-time candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America who knocked off two incumbent state legislators from a well-established Pittsburgh political family.
Both Dom and Paul Costa, the incumbent losers, were on the conservative side of modern Democratic Party politics but also seemingly well-entrenched.
Instead, they lost — to Sara Innamorato, a 32-year-old nonprofit manager and former Apple retail store worker, and Summer Lee, a 2015 graduate of the Howard University School of Law. Their wins are ideological victories for the left but also reflect basic demographic dynamics. Women, and especially younger women and women with college degrees, are the core of the anti-Trump political mobilization, and candidates who can mirror and channel that specific demographic are well-positioned to win Democratic primaries this cycle.

………


By contrast to the Innamorato and Lee wins, Bernie Sanders endorsed Rich Lazer in the PA-5 primary, and Sanders and his Our Revolution organization invested heavily in Gregory Edwards’s campaign in PA-7.

Edwards ended up losing to a former Allentown solicitor named Susan Wild who ran with the support of Emily’s List, which works to get pro–abortion rights Democratic women elected to office. (The third candidate, longtime Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli — an anti-abortion, anti-immigrant Trump supporter — would have been a very awkward fit for the House Democratic caucus.) And Lazer came up short against Mary Gay Scanlon.

………

It’s rare to see an incumbent lieutenant governor attract vigorous primary challenges, but Mike Stack managed to land himself in an unusual sweet spot. Scandals related to his spending and treatment of state employees weren’t bad enough to drive him from office in disgrace but did cost him the confidence of the state party (Gov. Wolf hasn’t endorsed him for reelection) and drew a number of challengers into the race.

The winner is John Fetterman, the heavily tattooed mayor of the small town of Braddock outside Pittsburgh. He was also challenged by Nina Ahmad, a physician and former deputy mayor of Philadelphia. The two challengers were both avatars of competing visions of the future of the Democratic Party, with Fetterman emblematic of a back-to-the-future drive to connect with the white working class and Ahmad representing a vision of a diverse party firmly grounded in the classes of professionals and social service providers.

Fetterman ran for Senate in 2016 as a kind of Berniecrat (though without really garnering support from Sanders himself) and surprised observers by pulling 20 percent of the vote against two much better-known opponents. This won himself a reputation as a charismatic figure and potential rising star.

………

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee does not endorse primary candidates, per se, but it does maintain a roster of Red to Blue program members who are considered the party’s best prospects for flipping seats. It sometimes adds people to Red to Blue before nominations have been settled.

………

But Brad Ashford, who served one term in the US House of Representatives from the Omaha-based second district, has not had it so lucky. Ashford, a moderate who used to be a Republican state legislator and who ran for Omaha mayor as a nonpartisan independent, fits the DCCC recruiting model perfectly.

Local progressives rallied instead behind Kara Eastman, a more conventional liberal who runs a nonprofit called the Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance. In national politics, she secured support from Justice Democrats and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Despite running a platform of single-payer health care and a $15-per-hour minimum wage, Eastman didn’t snag an Our Revolution endorsement (likely because she backed Clinton in 2016) but also didn’t secure support from Emily’s List or NARAL. They overlooked Ashford’s past as an anti-abortion state legislator in favor of his solidly pro-abortion rights record during his two years in the House.

The race was incredibly close (and hadn’t yet been called at press time [It's been called, Eastman won by about 1%]), a fact that doesn’t bode well for the DCCC’s top choices.

I've heard reports that the so-called professionals at the DNC and te DCCC are concerned.

F%$# them.

Also, for those candidates who won despite meddling:  I suggest that they take this personally when the Beltway incompetents come around looking for support in a few months or a few years.

Tweet of the Day

Unveiling slogans of #RealDemocrats for 2018 pic.twitter.com/OAhjtWkHVn

— 🌐IPM 💯🏧💍🌈🚀🚩 (@IPM_Prime) May 9, 2018

It's actually a tweet storm, and here are the a few more images.

The basic thesis is that the Democratic Party electoral motto, at least as put forward by the DNC, DCCC and DSCC, of, "Vote for us, we are marginally less contemptible," is not a way to win hearts and minds.

Capitalizing on the weak points of one's opponent is good tactics, but if you don't go beyond this, you have no strategy

So Not a Surprise

If there is one safe US Senate seat for the Democrats this election cycle, it's California.

But this time around, the not only did the California Democratic Party not endorse Dianne Feinstein, ^* she actually lost to her challenger by a significant margin, though not enough to actually get the endorsement. (Kevin De León beat her 54% to 37%, and he needed 60% for the endorsement)

So, now that she has a viable primary challenge, and the top two finishers will almost certain Feinstein and De León, which given California's jungle primary means that they will face off in the general.

Once again proving that Republicans fear their base, and Democrats hate their base, so given that Feinstein is far more conservative than the state, and De León is not, the establishment has pulled out the stops for Dianne, including an endorsement from Barack Obama.

Not a surprise. Barack Obama has always hadd nicer things to say about conservatives than he ever did about progressives:

Former President Obama is endorsing Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) as she faces a prominent Democratic challenger.
Obama said in a Friday statement that he was giving his "strong endorsement" and calling Feinstein "one of America's most effective champions for progress to the Senate.”

"She’s always been an indispensable leader for California, and we became dear friends and partners in the fight to guarantee affordable healthcare and economic opportunity for everybody; to protect our planet from climate change, and our kids from gun violence," he added.

Feinstein's reelection campaign blasted out the announcement on Friday, noting the two had worked on "shared priorities" when Obama was a senator and during his administration.

Feinstein, 84, has held her the seat since 1992 but is facing frustration from liberals who believe her old-school Senate collegiality is out of touch in the era of President Trump.

The problem is not her , "old-school Senate collegiality," it's her support for the surveillance state, Wall Street, Iraq, the Death Penalty, the Flag Burning Amendment, Internet Censorship, expansion of the H1B program, and her opposition to marijuana legalization that puts her out of step with California voters.

It isn't her "Senate collegiality" that people have a problem with, it's her policies.



^*Full disclosure, I've never met her, but she is my 2nd cousin once removed.

A Noun, a Verb, and Vladimir Putin

The Democrats in the so-called Heartland, the ones that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, are losing patience with the DC party establishment's fixation on Russia:

In battleground states in the middle of the country, some Democrats watched with frustration as their party grabbed headlines last week with a splashy new lawsuit alleging a vast conspiracy between President Donald Trump and Russia.

The Democratic National Committee’s drumbeat of messaging on Trump and his relationship with Russia is wearing thin with some Democrats in purple states — particularly in the Midwest, where people on the ground say voters are uninterested and even turned off by the issue. The suit exposes a gap, they say, between the party’s strategy nationally and what Midwest Democrats believe will win elections in their state.

“The DNC is doing a good job of winning New York and California,” said David Betras, the Democratic county party chair in Mahoning County, Ohio, home to Youngstown. “I’m not saying it’s not important — of course it’s important — but do they honestly think that people that were just laid off another shift at the car plant in my home county give a shit about Russia when they don’t have a frickin’ job?”

Trump and Russia, Betras said, is the “only piece they’ve been doing since 2016. [Trump] keeps talking about jobs and the economy, and we talk about Russia.”

For some people working to elect Democrats in Midwestern swing states, the suit — which threads evidence of a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign, WikiLeaks, Russia, and Trump family members — prompted something akin to an eyeroll.

Same for me.

They aren't talking real issues, Nancy Pelosi has gone full in on this, saying that it's OK for the Dems to back anti-abortion candidates, they aren't talking jobs, or trade, or racism, the corruption of high finance, or apologizing for their own incompetence and telling us how they might fix this, they are talking Russia, .

There is an internal logic to all of this: Admitting your incompetence can get you fired, going after high finance would turn off big dollar donors, which allow for big dollar consultancy fees, etc.

It's simply too lucrative to actually address the real problems of people.

Special Election Tonight

The Republicans won the race for Arizona's 8^th Congressional District:

Republicans won a closely watched special election in Arizona Tuesday, turning back a spirited challenge from a first-time Democratic candidate to keep a U.S. House seat in GOP hands.

The Associated Press called the race on the basis of the Republican’s lead in early voting. Debbie Lesko, a former state lawmaker, had the edge over Hiral Tipirneni, a Democratic physician making her first run for office, by 52.9 percent to 47.1 percent.

It's not an unreasonable showing by the Democrat, Trump won this district by 21%, and the Republicans significantly outspent the Democrats, but you don't get the brass ring for a close 2^nd place finish.

We Cannot Miss You if You Just Won't Leave

Hillary Clinton is going to, "Headline A Major DNC Fundraiser."

If she has given her last hurrah, why is she still trying to accumulate political capital?

If she isn't still considering running in 2020, she wants to play kingmaker.

Make it stop.

Please, just make it stop.

Politics Ain't Beanbag

In the last New York Gubernatorial election, Andrew Cuomo successfully lobbied to get on the ballot line for the Working Families Party. (New York allows a candidate to be listed multiple ballot lines by different parties)

Since then, Cuomo has crapped all over the WFP by, among other things, working to keep the state senate under Republican control, so that he had an excuse to betray Democratic Party values in what is one of the more Democratic states in the union.

Well, the WFP has come to its senses this time, and was signalling that it would endorse Cynthia Nixon for Governor, and Cuomo has pressured a number of large unions to sever their affiliation with the party:

Faced with defections from liberal supporters, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his labor allies are striking back, threatening to sabotage a progressive third party for potentially giving its ballot line to his Democratic rival, Cynthia Nixon.

Two powerful unions allied with Mr. Cuomo announced on Friday that they were withdrawing from the Working Families Party, a small but influential alliance of labor unions and progressive activists.

Other labor leaders aligned with the governor have threatened to create a competing new labor party of their own, as Mr. Cuomo has himself urged labor leaders to stop giving money to liberal community groups backing Ms. Nixon.

By day’s end on Friday, the breakup seemed complete, with the governor’s campaign announcing that it “will not be seeking the endorsement” of the W.F.P. at its convention next month.

It amounts to an old-school political power play by a veteran politician intent on leveraging every advantage of incumbency — even as public polls have him far ahead of Ms. Nixon.

The fight between Mr. Cuomo and Ms. Nixon has emerged as an early flash point in the battle to define the future of the Democratic Party in the age of President Trump: a contest between an accomplished and pragmatic governor who controls the classic machinery of Democratic politics, and an upstart challenger with little track record but white-hot rhetoric of unfiltered liberalism to rally the base.

………

The political maneuvers around the Working Families Party echoed a strategy used in 2014, when Mr. Cuomo was first seeking re-election, but encountered a primary challenge from Zephyr Teachout. The Working Families Party strongly considered Ms. Teachout before reluctantly backing Mr. Cuomo.

………

If the group endorses Ms. Nixon and she loses the Democratic primary to Mr. Cuomo, she could remain on the ballot through November competing for votes, potentially to the benefit of the Republican nominee.

The WFP made the right call, and they should make sure that Nixon is on their ballot line in the general.

They played nice with Cuomo 4 years ago, and he f%$#ed them like a drunk sorority girl.

He was never going to become a liberal, but he has continued to support Republican control of the state senate, which was an explicit promise of his.

You don't negotiate with a tape worm, you remove it.

WFP will experience some pain as a result, but it the alternative is total irrelevance.

When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro ………

In the same day, we have former House Speaker John Boehner joining the board of a pot grower. and Current House Speaker Paul Ryan announcing his retirement.

While a number of reports regarding Ryan's decision to not to run for reelections read are hagiographies full of nonsense phrases like, "Principled Conservative," I think that the evidence points elsewhere:  Specifically, the polling appeared to indicate that he was in for the race of his life against Randy "Iron Stache" Bryce, a union activist and ironworker.

The Democratic primary should get interesting, as in addition to Mr. Bryce, a school teacher and school board member, Cathy Myers is running, and I would expect someone else to jump in before the June filing deadline, particularly since both Bryce and Myers are strongly progressive, and someone is going to try to stand up a centrist squish.

On the Republican side, the now-leading candidate for the nomination, Paul Nehlen, is a Nazi. (Not hyperbole)

Strange times.

Deliberately Missing the F%$#ing Point

The New York Times has a story about how Republicans are using the specter of impeachment to bolster their chances of reelection in what is a difficult cycle.

It's an interesting narrative, but it is profoundly wrong:

As Republican leaders scramble to stave off a Democratic wave or at least mitigate their party’s losses in November, a strategy is emerging on the right for how to energize conservatives and drive a wedge between the anti-Trump left and moderate voters: warn that Democrats will immediately move to impeach President Trump if they capture the House.

What began last year as blaring political hyperbole on the right — the stuff of bold-lettered direct mail fund-raising pitches from little-known groups warning of a looming American “coup” — is now steadily drifting into the main currents of the 2018 message for Republicans.

The appeals have become a surefire way for candidates to raise small contributions from grass-roots conservatives who are devoted to Mr. Trump, veteran Republican fund-raisers say. But party strategists also believe that floating the possibility of impeachment can also act as a sort of scared-straight motivational tool for turnout. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas used his re-election kickoff rally to introduce a video featuring a faux news anchor reading would-be headlines were conservatives not to vote in November.

“Senate Majority Leader Schumer announced the impeachment trial of President Trump,” one of the anchors says.

And when Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, convened about two dozen party strategists in February for a private dinner at a French bistro here, the attendees were surprised when he addressed an issue not included in his formal PowerPoint presentation: the threat of impeachment against Mr. Trump, which he said fired up the party base.

First, Republicans are now now, nor have the EVER been, a small donation party.

Small donors are, at best, icing on the cake.

What this is about is getting Nancy Pelosi to do what she did in 2006, and panic and declare that impeachment is, "Not on the table".

The depressing thing is that it's probably going to work.

No one ever lost money going long on the cowardice of the leadership of the Democratic Party.

The Mainstream Wing of the Democratic Party in a Nutshell

You remember Donna Shalala?

She was in the Clinton cabinet, and then, as president of the University of Miami, she attempted to sabotage a unionization effort by janitors, and now, it appears that she was pulling heavy salaries from the boards of a health insurance company and a real estate developer.

No laws were broken, but this is fundamentally corrupt, and now she is the front runner for a House of Representatives seat in Florida because she is raising big bucks, much of it, I am sure, UnitedHealth and Lennar homes:

Here's a sentence that perfectly explains the state of Democratic politics in 2018: Former Clinton Foundation chief Donna Shalala, who helped lead a major homebuilder during the 2008 housing crash and also made $5 million after sitting on the board of a massive, for-profit health insurance company, is poised to steamroll a crowded field of Democratic competitors in a race for the U.S. House.

Earlier this week, Shalala announced her candidacy for retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's seat representing downtown Miami, Little Havana, and Miami Beach despite the fact that seven Democrats are already battling in the primary, including more than a few solid candidates without huge red flags in their pasts.

Shalala, who declined an interview through campaign operative Fernand Amandi, paints herself as a progressive with deep understanding of how Washington works. But there are big unanswered questions about her time on two corporate boards tied to major crises in American policy.

As Americans debate how to fix a for-profit health insurance system that is both cruel and the most expensive in the developed world, Shalala will have to explain how she profited handsomely from her time on the board of a health-care giant.

After she served as the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary under Clinton, she used that experience to secure herself a gig on UnitedHealth's board. She wound up accumulating more than 61,000 shares of company stock, which she then sold in 2005 for more than $5.3 million. Shalala has not yet taken a public stance on the issue of Medicare for all, but signs suggest she might ultimately endorse the idea. Regardless, she'll have to sell voters on trusting a former health-insurance board member to work against for-profit insurance companies.

Even more troubling, Shalala sat on the board of Lennar Corporation, one of America's largest homebuilders, from 2001 to 2012. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show Shalala earned $113,000 in combined compensation (mostly stock awards) in 2011. To avoid a conflict of interest, the then-University of Miami president left the board in 2012 when Lennar CEO Stuart Miller Was angling to become vice-chair of UM's board. (He became a UM trustee in 2002.) She left UM in 2015 and rejoined the Lennar board two years later.

During the decade Shalala helped lead the company, Lennar played a major role in fueling the global recession. Most obvious, Lennar overbuilt: The mid-2000s housing boom came, in part, because D.R. Horton and Lennar were buying up every tract of land they could and slapping together houses as fast as they could. Miami-Dade County, in particular, got hammered during the Great Recession. A 2009 county report laid bare the obviousness of the overbuilding problem. County economist Robert Cruz wrote that from 2002 to 2007, the county's "vacant and for sale" rate spiked by 52 percent, and a particular construction boom from 2005 to 2007 led to an extremely acute vacancy hike just before the economy crashed.

It's the hypocrisy that rankles.

Between the board engagements, and the speaking gigs to captains of industry as back end payoffs to their political career, is it any wonder that the typical voter does not believe when people like her claim that they will fight for the ordinary person.

More of This

Black leaders in Missouri have refused to sign a letter condemning one of their colleagues criticism of Senator Claire McCaskill:

African American leaders in Missouri are frustrated with what they see as Sen. Claire McCaskill’s lackluster engagement with minority voters.

Frustrated enough that they refused to sign a letter pushing back against comments made last month by Bruce Franks, a prominent black activist and state legislator from St. Louis, who called on McCaskill to “show up” and earn the support of minority voters in her state.

“I’m going to vote for Claire, but Claire is going to have to bring her ass to St. Louis,” Franks said to applause at a town hall he hosted Feb. 17.

In response to Franks comments, McCaskill had asked African American elected officials in Kansas City and St. Louis to sign the letter.

Among those who were approached by McCaskill are U.S. Reps. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City and Lacy Clay of St. Louis, and state Rep. Gail McCann Beatty, the minority leader in the Missouri House.

Each declined to sign.

“I’m 100 percent certain that nobody signed it,” Cleaver said in an interview Wednesday with The Kansas City Star. “We talked about it very seriously and strongly and every one of us said, ‘We’re going to support her, but signing this letter isn’t going to achieve what she wants. It’s just going to make people angry.’ ”

Cleaver said he’s sympathetic to McCaskill’s plight. She’s a Democrat running for re-election in a state Republican President Donald Trump won by nearly 19 points in 2016. He understands she must win over some right-leaning voters to survive.

But as McCaskill works to burnish her reputation as a centrist, Cleaver and other African American leaders said they worry she’ll leave minority voters on the left with the impression that she’s taking them for granted — and it could cost her turnout in the urban centers that are crucial to her base.

I think that they are sick of being characterized as "super-predators" by people who want their votes.

Running against you base to appeal to people who will never vote for you is stupid, and it does not get you any votes, and people who do it do not deserved to be elected.

Nice to see this blow up in Claire's face.

The Process Is Simple, Choose a Rich and Stupid Candidate, Get Him to Make Huge Media Buys, and Profit

I think that I have divined a method to the madness at the DCCC and the DNC.

They push candidates that have nothing to recommend them but money (see Cisneros, Gil) then they boost these candidates, who, having no clue, run poor campaigns where they overspend on expensive media on the advice of consultants, and those consultants get a percentage of the media buy, and walk away with their pockets full, win or lose.

It is the Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it," made manifest.

This explains the latest shenanigans in Minnesota. It's looting by the political consultant class:

Jeff Erdmann of Eagan is a football coach at Rosemount High School who wants to add a term in Congress to his resume.

He hopes to run against first term Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis in Minnesota's 2nd District.

But Erdmann said he faces an obstacle in gaining the DFL Party endorsement in the form of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

………

DCCC officials made it clear money drove their choice to back Craig, he added.

"We didn't talk anything about my background, my success as a teacher, as a coach any of the values that I hold. All they wanted to talk about was where we thought we could get money-wise."

………

In Minnesota's 3rd District in the western suburbs, another wealthy Democrat, Dean Phillips, also won early DCCC backing.

Democrat Adam Jennings is also in the race and hoping for the chance to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen. Jennings said the DCCC wouldn't even speak with him.

"There is kind of an establishment big-money component to all of this, and the more I think about it the more motivated I get to run."

The folks at the DNC and the DCCC hang out with the political consultants, they break bread with them, and in many cases, they marry them, and in a few years, the do a tour as political consultants themselves, and get rich giving bad advice to candidates.

They are deciding this on the basis of what butters their bread best, and not winning elections or getting good people into office.

They are parasites, and you cannot negotiate with a parasite, you can only remove it.

Holland Gets It

The Dutch have defeated expanded spying powers in a referendum:

Dutch voters have narrowly rejected a law that would give spy agencies the power to carry out mass tapping of Internet traffic delivering a setback to Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government.

Dubbed the “trawling law” by opponents, the legislation would allow spy agencies to install wire taps targeting an entire geographic region or avenue of communication, store information for up to three years, and share it with allied spy agencies.

With 89 percent of the vote from a referendum counted on Thursday morning, the “no” vote was 48.8 percent, against 47.3 percent “yes.”

The tapping law has already been approved by both houses of parliament. Rutte’s government had backed a “yes” vote, saying the law was needed to make the country safer, and though the referendum was non-binding Rutte has vowed to take the result seriously

It's the right thing, and I cannot imagine American voters doing the same thing.

Of course, Rutte is under no obligation to do anything about this, so I expect some cosmetic breast beating, and perhaps the creation of a do-nothing commission to study the program, which will allow Holland to spy on its citizens.

Damn.

It's close, but it appears that Dan Lipinski has won the primary in Il-3.

I'm so glad that I do not live there, because I would have to vote with that homophobic right wing rat-f%$# phony Democrat, as the Republicans candidate is a Neo-Nazi Holocaust denier. (disavowed by the establishment party, but Mandy Rice-Davies Applies)

About PA-18

It's appears to be heading to a recount with a margin in the ¼% to ½% range (about 600 votes), with the Democrat leading.

In any case, it appears to be a roughly 20% swing from Trump, so whether or not the Democrat, Connor Lamb, or the Australopithecus, Rick Saccone actually ends up filling out remaining term of  Tim Murphy, who resigned following allegations of sexual improprieties.

Whatever the results, I expect the Democratic party establishment to claim that this shows that they need to make no changes to their strategy, because, as Upton Sinclair noted, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

(Update 24 hours later) Lamb has been declared the winner by a few hundred votes.

No update on the recount.

The DCCC Supports Enslavement of Women

If you oppose women having control over their own bodies, you support their enslavement, and Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) has said that he is fine with supporting candidates who want to strip women of control over their own bodies:

Democrats will not withhold financial support for candidates who oppose abortion rights, the chairman of the party’s campaign arm in the House said in an interview with The Hill.

Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said there will be no litmus tests for candidates as Democrats seek to find a winning roster to regain the House majority in 2018.

“There is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates,” said Luján, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman. “As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America.”

So, you are going to support segregationist candidates in predominantly white districts in Alabama then?

Of course not, but women are expendable to Luján and his ilk.

Dpo not give to the DCCC.

And in the TX-7 Primary

The Democratic side is going to a runoff, with Lizzie Fletcher getting the most votes  with the condemned by the DCCC Laura Moser close behind.

The Emily's List endorsed Fletcher is a union buster lawyer, so even if the DCCC had not released an opposition research dump on Moser, she would have my support.

With the DCCC's war on Moser though, I'm actually interested in what would otherwise be an obscure, Congressional race.

It's highly unlikely that either can win the general:  7% more Republicans turned out than Democrats, and for them, the primary was meaningless, with the incumbent getting 76% of the vote.

Moser's campaign website is here.

Send her money, and tell the Blue Dog loving DCCC to go cheney themselves.

Meanwhile in Italy

It's still unclear, but it appears that neither major coalition has managed to secure a majority, which means that Italian politics are (once again) highly fluid:

Based on votes counted by 0230 GMT, ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition looks set to win the most seats in the lower house of parliament.

It is tipped to get 248-268 seats - below the 316 needed for a majority.

Forming a government may now take weeks of negotiation and coalition-building.

Alternatively, fresh elections could be held in a bid to produce a more decisive result - though there is no guarantee that would happen.

Vote projection figures put the anti-establishment Five Star Movement in second place. It has made significant gains and could emerge as the largest single party, with 216-236 lower house seats.

A centre-left coalition led by the governing Democratic Party stands in third place, with a projected 107-127 seats - its prospects battered by public anger over unemployment and immigration.

Final confirmed results are not expected for several hours.

The collapse of the center-left is not a surprise.

The core tenet of the center-left in the EU is support for the EU, and the EU is fundamentally a conservative neoliberal institution.

Unqualified support of the EU means that the center-left has already destroyed itself, and the voters are finally recognizing this.