2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

where did this information allegedly come from?

i don't know

Yeah, wtf? The KKK has central databases of personal information sitting around? Some KKK ass would actually provide a credit card or some other identifying info to that (anonymous?) org for monthly membership dues or something? Like "oh, just charge the hood to my account, you know where to find me, it's John Cornyn, C-O-R ... yeah, like the US senator."

Since they have a long, long history of engaging in conspiracy to murder, commit arson and similar felonies, I should think that the KKK would be leery of infiltration and would like to have some unfuckwithable knowledge of who they are admitting into the organization. Since it is a quasi-national organization, they'd probably want to have some way of identifying out-of-state members, too.

Awful lot of .ru email addresses in those data dumps.

Ha, you ever browsed vk.com? It's like the Facebook for American Nazis.

(I mean, I've only got like 50 friends on there, not like I'm a regular or anything.)

i don't trust "Anon" much so i have a baseline skepticism

People have gotten a lot of shit wrong under the banner of Anonymous. I'll be really happy if some journalist fact-checks this stuff and finds it to be true. Just not holding my breath.

same

I just noticed Madeline Rogero is on that list, which means it is patently bunk.

yup
http://www.wbir.com/story/news/2015/11/02/mayor-rogero-scoffs-claims-kkk-ties-calls-them-defamatory/75040018/

Even the suggestion that are four current GOP senators in the Klan deserves some skepticism -- were there ever that many at once in the past? I mean, Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, were there others?

Doesn't the Council of Conservative Citizens kinda mitigate the need for belonging to the Klan?

CCC?

Even the suggestion that are four current GOP senators in the Klan deserves some skepticism -- were there ever that many at once in the past? I mean, Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, were there others?

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, November 2, 2015 3:50 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i would not be surprised if 3/4 or more of the entire southern congressional delegation circa 1920-1940 were klansmen tbh

Nope, sorry. Just doxxed their email addresses and nothing shows up.

Even the suggestion that are four current GOP senators in the Klan deserves some skepticism -- were there ever that many at once in the past? I mean, Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, were there others?

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive),

Hugo Black. Robert Byrd. Black's SCOTUS nomination was in jeopardy as a result.

So who do we blame for Dems lack of success in elections yesterday in Kentucky, Virginia, and elsewhere? In Virginia, Dems won seats they were expected to win, but just didn't get the additional seat they needed to win control of the VA Senate. I thought the Kentucky governor race was supposed to have been much closer.

Bevin’s top economic priority is making Kentucky a Right To Work state.

The voter turnout numbers everywhere were low...

Above takeaways from a Washington Post article...

yeah downballot, off-year and uh "outstate" elections (as we city people call them) are bad and getting worse.

Pierce:

There are a couple of lessons that the Democratic Party can take from yet another ass-kicking, this in a freakish off off-year election. (The results in Virginia, where Democrats hoped to overturn the state senate, were particularly painful, and not much of a testimony to Governor Terry McAuliffe's influence.) The first one is an old lesson, but one the party has yet to learn. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has to go, and she has to take her approach to building the party with her. How many times does Howard Dean's 50-state strategy have to be vindicated before the Democratic Party admits that he was right, and that Rahm Emanuel (and DWS) were wrong? Pay attention. These elections are where your next Louie Gohmerts and Joni Ernsts come from. If you want to kill crackpot politics in the cradle, this is where you have to do it.

The second lesson is one more apropos to the set of circumstances surrounding this election. (And, yes, I also am suspicious of the fact that no poll showed Bevin leading prior to the election and yet he won going away. There seems to be one of these in every election now, and the Republican almost always wins it.) Please stop running retreads, what we here in the Commonwealth call "the Coakley Factor." I'm sure Jack Conway is a swell fella, but, like Coakley in Massachusetts and Tom Barrett in Wisconsin, this is the second statewide race he'd lost in five years, and the last one he lost was to Rand Paul. In addition, how can a major political party not exploit the fact that the elite of the opposing party dislikes their candidate? Nominate strategically and then campaign strategically and then vote strategically. The Republicans do all these things at once, and the Democrats seem incapable of doing any of them.

otm

it's kind of shocking that dems are so stubbornly bad at this

as Pierce points out, there are specific people/policies in the Dem party to blame

I need to start checking more for those Pierce articles. I think that's the second longish quote of his I've seen on these boards. Seems v informative

he can get repetitive but he posts 3-4x a day so its worth checking up on

I'm all for the 50 states approach, and dropping Wasserman Schultz, but one also has to consider this, regarding getting back control of the House--

Whenever the Democrats next control the House, it’s likely that their majority will include hardly any seats from Appalachia and the Deep South, which would be a change from any of their previous House majorities. The seats Democrats are likely to target in the future are in places like suburban Philadelphia, Greater New York and New Jersey, suburban Denver, Greater Chicago, Northern Virginia, Las Vegas, Minnesota’s Twin Cities and other suburban areas. These are districts where the number of college graduates is generally higher than the national average and where there are below-average numbers of white evangelicals. It is not outlandish to suggest Carson or Trump would perform poorly in these places.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/how-democrats-could-win-the-house-213318#ixzz3qYEUwSR2

Dems are in part of Northern VA, but parts that are more exurban, and farther from DC, lean Republican now but have sizable numbers of folks who are Dems or who have gone that way

Pierce has flourishes I dislike – his prose is steeped in Mencken – but he's my favorite columnist.

what is rong w/ Mencken's prose, if you please?

Nothing if done well.

Was reading some glass half full articles about Dems success in the New Jersey legislature, Pennsylvania courts, a few mayor elections here and there, suburban Denver...

I mean , in addition to that Politico one.

a victory in Politico

Yeah PA Dems swept the three open seats on the state Supreme Court, and flipped it. I guess this is good news for the next round of redistricting in 2021; they are the tie-breaking vote on an always deadlocked bi-partisan legislative redistricting commission.

Kevin Drum--

I don't want to go all Pollyanna on you, but the basic result of yesterday's elections is that conservatives won big in the South, while liberals did OK everywhere else. Losing Kentucky was a kick in the gut, but I can't work up a lot of surprise when Democrats lose ground below the Mason-Dixon line. It's unfortunate, but it's hardly big news.

Obama To Reject Keystone XL Pipeline In 11:45 ET Statement

I know people were arguing that the oil was gonna get moved anyway, regardless of the pipeline, but that NYT article makes it sound like as long as oil stays below $65/barrell (it's currently at $50) then the oil will stay in the ground

because the cost of moving it by rail would result in a net loss

Environmentalists though are not happy with the released Pacific Trade deal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-far-reaching-trade-deal-would-lower-tariffs-on-meat-cars-and-drugs/2015/11/05/8e720580-83dc-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_no-name:homepage/story&wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202

The Sierra Club blasted the environmental chapter, calling it ‘rife with polluter giveaways that would undermine decades of environmental progress, threaten our climate and fail to adequately protect wildlife because big polluters helped write the deal.’”

“I know that past trade agreements haven’t always lived up to the hype. That’s what makes this trade agreement so different, and so important,” Obama wrote in a blog post.

haha gtfo. hopefully congress can still kill this

Im concerned that all the smoke signals of opposition to TPP are just from the people who can get away with voting against it because the votes will always be there for corporate welfare

Pierce:

​Shortly after the president spoke, I got a call from my friend Randy Thompson, whose lovely farm in Humphrey, Nebraska, was targeted by TransCanada as part of the death-funnel's route, and who worked harder than anyone against the pipeline simply because he was fed up with being pushed around.

"It's unbelievable that we were able to do this," Thompson said. "It's like watching the biggest bully on the school grounds getting his nose bloodied. It's very gratifying."

So was the Keystone announcement timed to take the sting out of the TPP unveiling?

Of course it was.

remarkabaly hopeful that for every celebration i'm seeing of kxl's defeat, there's a reminder that the battle against tpp is still ongoing

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/appeals-court-deals-blow-to-obamas-immigration-plans.html?mabReward=CTM&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=Sunday%20Book%20Review®ion=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article

Conservative 5th Circuit in a 2 to 1 decision written by a Reagan appointed judge...Ugh

Louisiana governor's race ad

Democrat John Bel Edwards going on the air over the weekend with the most provocative attack ad of the year. A female narrator notes that Edwards served as an Army Ranger in the 82nd Airborne Division before noting that Vitter missed a 2001 House vote honoring 28 slain soldiers at roughly the same time that he took a call on his cell phone from the D.C. Madam. “David Vitter chose prostitutes over patriots,” a female narrator says. “Now the choice is yours.”

Tough choice, tbf.

Vitter's response ad:

Vitter is up today with a television ad that shows him sitting with his wife and kids around a kitchen table.
“Fifteen years ago, I failed my family but found forgiveness and love,” the senior senator says to camera. “I learned that our falls aren’t what define us, but rather how we get up, accept responsibility and earn redemption. Now Louisiana has fallen on hard times … And as your governor, I’ll get up every day to fight for you.”

And as your governor, I’ll get it up every day to fight for you.”

For years conservative Louisianans have ignored Vitter's hypocrisy because he voted in Congress the way they want, I am curious what the difference is now:

With the runoff just 11 days away, public polls put the Republican senator down anywhere from 11 points to 20 points. Early voting has already started

I bet he might still win.