Raptorpat

I was just told that he's not even spending FL taxpayer dollars to traffick migrants/refugees out of Florida. He's using FL taxpayer dollars to traffick migrants/refugees out of Texas. On top of not eliciting the intended reaction (liberal hypocrisy), it just all seems so ripe to blow up right in his face from every angle.

It's now the union's job to sell this agreement to their members before the ratification vote. If the ratification fails, not only are the negotiations back at square one, but the union leaders are effectively handed a vote of "no confidence". It feels similar to the fallout from the entertainment workers' near-strike.

mirror mode

Given all post-Dobbs special elections (discounting Alaska) saw Dem over-performances, alongside the Kansas referendum, and combined with Biden's reversal of fortunes, it seems more like if the elections were today, the Republicans would win a bare majority based only on the fact that FL and OH were allowed to shit all over their congressional maps but NY and Maryland weren't. I can elaborate on any of the non-abortion stuff over in the midterms thread. But take Michigan for example. Their new redistricting commission made an actually competitive congressional map, and competitive statehouse maps for the first time since like the 1980s. On top of that, the top half of the GOP gubernatorial candidate pool got tossed from the ballot all for petitioning fraud or whatever, so they have a comparatively weak top-of-ticket. Now combine that with the fact that the Dems got an abortion protection referendum on the ballot (the court overrode Republican ministerial vetoes over spacing errors, because desperation). If you take that whole cocktail in a post-Dobbs environment with a Kansas-style abortion referendum, it's possibly for a disproportionate crushing. (Also possible that all polling is wrong and nothing matters.)

Though, according to this article, the Senate GOP are claiming he's on his own with this one. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/13/grahams-abortion-ban-senate-gop-00056423 Maybe less an intentional pivot and more a favor to that constituency? idk, but the extent the other Senators are distancing themselves from it, the more it appears to be a gift to the Democrats.

It's to pivot as much dialogue as possible to just ban on what they consider to be "late-term", because that is less unpopular across the board and doesn't completely abandoning their religious allies. Their most engaged activist constituency for decades has been the religious right. This is the one issue they care about (not literally, but it's their #1), and 40 years of squeaky wheel gets the grease. Basically, once it was delegated down to the states, a bunch of statehouse Republicans who will never have to worry about their seats flipping (or losing their GOP majorities) due to gerrymandering immediately pulled the trigger because the only thing they have to worry about is pleasing their partner activists who have been waiting 40 years for this and who decide whether Republicans get primaried. So then the unsafe Republicans and unsafe majorities elsewhere are weighed down by that anchor and suddenly a wild pivot appears.

I'd speculate that the Kansas results and everything else we've seen triggered a real fear amongst those preoccupied with not-losing (more so than those having actual philosophical pro-life principals), leading to a complete policy reset on abortion because they fear the true believers will walk them off a cliff.

My guess is they're flailing because the delegation back to the states immediately backfired due to the complete (and unpopular) free-for-all red state race to ban everything. I think it's an attempt to recalibrate the narrative and messaging to something less unpopular with less than two months until the election. Will it work on it's own? Probably not. The immediate reaction we're seeing is already "on top of" instead of "instead of". Backflip into a backfire most likely.

haooy birthday uwp

happy birthday jeff

happy birthday oldin & fox

and keep in mind there's a delay in revealing how far they've actually pushed

separation anxiety sleep regression

To be fair they are pushing towards Kherson in the South.

The Russian narrative on the collapse in the north.

So as Russia redeployed some troops from the northern front to bolster their defenses in the Kherson region, Ukraine has gone on a massive counteroffensive in the north that has gone completely unresponded to over the past few days. Haven't seen any official maps, but here's a sample:

I guess what I'm saying is that there could be one more GOP undercount, but it could go in the other direction. I don't believe anyone credibly predicted the Kansas referendum, intentionally scheduled alongside a competitive GOP primary, to absolutely blow out in the other direction. It's not so much how many people answer the polls so much as how well the form can predict what the likely voter cocktail will be.

Then the question becomes "are pollsters quantifying the right 'likely' voters?" We've seen a few recent cycles where Trump-leaning voters were seriously undercounted. There's the possibility they haven't yet figured out how to account for that, or that they overcompensate and undercount the other side.

There is a known issue with the menu when accessing a club without joining the club, iunno if it can be fixed without going under the hood.

I figured that one could still use elevation because it's in that gray area where its more of a private forum than it is a social space, and you're still trying to get that one off the ground.

I removed the two main club links, but I left the weeding one there for now. Is the single link still too disruptive?