Campaign 2022 is ALMOST over....

[Big RR]

It never occurred to me to resent not being able to vote -it has always been a given that you have to be a citizen.

Not entirely; municipal and city governing bodies are not governments per se, but heads of corporate, not state entities. They are granted certain extraordinarypowers by the state, but they are self governing corporate entities, ad there's no real reason to deny non citizens to vote in these elections, other than that's the way it's always been done (and if we adhered to that, we wouldn't have women nor non whites nor non landowners voting). Indeed, municipalities are more akin to homeowners associations which are more or less self governing and generally permit all living there to vote; the same was traditionally true for the new england town associations ( at least for white males) which governed small towns and villages based on the vote of those attending the meeting. There is precedent of no US citizens voting in such corporate elections, and I think a fairly good case can be made to permit this to allow more participation in local government. As I understand it, some state constitutions prohibit this, , but I seriously question why these same states would permit noncitizens to vote in HOA elections, but not when its a municipality.

[Gob]

But my own country - I still think of myself as a Brit despite having spent only 18 years living there - is such a mess these days I may decide to stay here for the rest of my life and even (gasp!) take out citizenship if only so I can cast a vote against Trump in 2024.

What do you think is such a mess here?

When did you last visit?

[ex-khobar Andy]

2016 I think.

Does the name Liz "cheese' Truss ring any bells?"

In some ways her elevation to the PM-ship (autocorrect wanted to make that 'pushup' - I'm sure there is a joke there somewhere but I'll leave that for another day) was more undemocratic than Trump's ascension to the Presidency. And yes, I'm sure that rules were obeyed (except for the Russia thing) but the rules (EC in the USA; Tory Party membership in the UK under which something like 0.1% of the party voters - or 0.05% of all voters selected her); are what need changing.

Brexit might have been directly democratic in that voters actually picked sides but they had false, misleading and often absent true information on which to make the call they did in 2016. The most famous case was the £350 million per week for the NHS from Boris's bus but there was almost zero discussion of the Northern Ireland question or the sheer cost and impracticality of quickly disentangling Britain from 47 years of EC/EEC/EU law.

Margaret Thatcher started that ball rolling with the politically driven privatization of many public entities. The cost and convenience of rail travel is now out of sight and has risen far more than can be accounted for by inflation. And I was proud to work for Southern Water in the 70s: we looked after river health, sewage operations and drinking water. I had my four rivers which I visited 52 times a year each and took water samples and analyzed them in the lab and wrote the report in time to do it all again next week. It was by no means perfect in those days but I see Southern Water now in the news almost weekly for their tendency to just pump raw sewage into the sea when they feel like it.

[Burning Petard]

I will report here upon receipt of my first solicitation for money to go to the 2024 election campaign. Campaign never ends.

snailgate.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I'll give you an example. I used to live in a town called Leighton Buzzard. A off-peak day return ticket to London - 40 miles away - cost me 5 shillings and sixpence in the 1960s. Inflation from 1967 to 2022 is a factor of 16 per WorldData info. So that 5/6 would now be £4.40 if it was just inflation. I just looked it up. The cheapest LB to London one way ticket is now £16 so £32 for a round trip. So rail tickets have increased by a factor of 32/4.4=7.3 more than can be accounted for by general inflation.

[Crackpot]

Anyone have a good election tracker?

[BoSoxGal]

Anyone have a good election tracker?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... setts.html

[BoSoxGal]

I’m thrilled by the unsurprising news that our new Governor is Maura Healey, our first woman Governor and the nation's first openly lesbian Governor.


I can’t believe that Ohio has apparently chosen to elect the lying weasel JD Vance as their Senator. Tim Ryan would have been so much better for the people.

[ex-khobar Andy]

And Walker is ahead of Warnock by a smidge in GA- still 12% of the votes to be counted and so fingers crossed. I want to say that GA gets what it deserves if they vote for Walker but (a) that's unkind and (b) what have the rest of us done to deserve this? And Alabama has apparently selected Sarah Huckabee Sanders as Governor by almost 2:1 over the D candidate. No surprise there except of course Sanders admitted lying for Trump when she was press secretary. But lying is apparently no sort of barrier to high office these days. See also Trump, Boris Johnson, Rick Scott et alii.

[BoSoxGal]

Arkansas Governor elect Sarah Lyin’ Huckabee Sanders will be a Presidential candidate for the GOP down the road, I’ll predict.

[Bicycle Bill]

I will report here upon receipt of my first solicitation for money to go to the 2024 election campaign. Campaign never ends.

snailgate.

I received a text message at 5:32 PM local time from DNC HQ saying, "Polls close in a few hours. (FYI: they close at 8 PM local time)  Please donate $20 now to support important investments nationwide." — and then a link to click to make a donation that will "benefit the Democratic National Committee".

I suppose this would count.

-"BB"-

[Crackpot]

Ohio is barely swing anymore and I only say barely because I’m an optimist. Locally things seem to have gone well Dixon went down and things are looking good for the ballot proposals. A little troubled by the relatively close margin on prop 3 but that can both be blamed on overly confusing wording (another example of the left taking direct aim at thier feet) and outright lies by the opposition.

[Crackpot]

Interestingly at the moment Michigan state senate and house seats are at an even split between D and R (tho most races aren’t yet called) I guess that speaks well for the new redistricting rules

Michigan US house seats look to be going 7-6 Dems though that may shift 1 either direction)

[Gob]

Andy,

Were you equally aggrieved when Gordon Brown got the PM job?

Having worked for two nationalised industries here, I can see the pros and cons if them. But I've never held the belief that the state automatically runs things better than private.

As for Brexit, there were lies on both sides. Have you seen how many project fear predictions have fallen flat in their arses?

Living here I find that life goes on pretty much as normal.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Andy,

Were you equally aggrieved when Gordon Brown got the PM job? No: but Blair and Brown were pretty much a double act from the beginning and we always knew that they had an agreement from the beginning that Brown would take over at some point; and they won three elections while that assumption was out there. Not a pretty means of choosing a successor but way better than the Tory mess which threw up Ms Truss.

Having worked for two nationalised industries here, I can see the pros and cons if them. But I've never held the belief that the state automatically runs things better than private. I don't think I said that: but consternation about the shape of the railways now is pretty common. Even my very conservative relatives say the same.

As for Brexit, there were lies on both sides. Have you seen how many project fear predictions have fallen flat in their arses? I'm sure there were lies on both side. But I think the Brexit guys won that little race 90:10. And the biggest of them all was the Boris Bus thing.

Living here I find that life goes on pretty much as normal.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I am optimistic that Boebert will lose in Colorado - she is behind at the moment but prevailing wisdom appears to be that the votes still to come will be broadly in her favor. Fingers crossed. And the likeliest outcome in Georgia for the Senate seat is that neither of the two main candidates will get the 50% needed for an outright win and there will be a December runoff. And I think that will go to Warnock.

[Sue U]

Here in NJ, looks like a probable loss of 1 Democratic seat in the House, making our delegation 9 Dems and 3 Republicans. The new representative is Tom Kean Jr., and apart from redistricting that made the district more GOP-friendly, his election may be something of a nostalgia vote in respect of his father.

[Crackpot]

At this point Michigans 10th is within 0.5% and about 1200 votes wit approx 99% reporting I highly doubt it will shift Blue but I’m hoping it will (not a fan of John James).

Looks like all the other major elections on my ballot went my way so I survive this and at least take solace that it was so close. (For the most part things haven’t been so the last few years)

[Burning Petard]

I know it is not a very reliable source and I am not sure of my ability to properly interpret the graphs, But . . .

The results Yahoo are reporting for the US Congressional races in Arizona has ALL the voting places that are closest to the Mexico border going Democratic.

What does that mean (if anything) about the issues of immigration and border security?

snailgate

[BoSoxGal]

I know it is not a very reliable source and I am not sure of my ability to properly interpret the graphs, But . . .

The results Yahoo are reporting for the US Congressional races in Arizona has ALL the voting places that are closest to the Mexico border going Democratic.

What does that mean (if anything) about the issues of immigration and border security?

snailgate

I lived in Yuma Arizona for a time, right on the border. A progressive legal aid paralegal I worked with there is married to a border patrol agent. They both descend from families who were crossed by the border, not vice versa. Folks in border communities have a very different experience of border crossers and the migrant ‘crisis’ than the simplistic GQP propaganda accounts for. Some are definitely resentful of folks jumping the line to enter the country, but most also know plenty of immigrants and know how incredibly hard working most are. And they live firsthand the reality that immigrants as a cohort are much more law abiding than any other cohort.