Did not pass: Legalize and tax online and mobile gambling
... Based, but sadly no Genshin impact for California.
Shit! we forgot an election thread for the midterms. Here it is now.
- Thread starter Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)
- Start date
... Based, but sadly no Genshin impact for California.
Dude, you do realize the reason I hate the Chinese government is because they aborted my siblings, and my parents had me. I would be much happier to be born later on instead of in a world with climate change.
Granted I may not be born at all, but now I am here I have annoying obligations to my friends and family that I help.
Under the election spending rules we have in the UK the spending per candidate would be legally limited to £479,136.18 ($567,176.97), as you can only spend £8700 per canddiate plus £0.06 per registered voter in the area they're trying to be elected in. If we modify this limit to account for the fact that there's about 112 times as many voters in Georgia as a UK parliamentary constituency, the basic £8700 becomes £974,474, for a total of £1,444,910 per canddiate. (That's $1,706,872.40)
So far Warnock has spent $75,959,811 and Walker has spent $32,061,100.
Well I certainly mean the human experience would be worse, if nothing else. The counterfactual analysis that it would be an overall good for people and the environment thing if we stopped using fossil fuels a century ago is poorly thought through.
To be fair, he's been Kryptonite for a long time. Sometimes the poison take a while before the show any effects
Right now it's looking like the Dems keep the Senate, even without Georgia which is going to a runoff. Now it might change through some wierd shift in Clark Co mail in ballots but apparently most outlets are calling it for Cortez Masto now. Something I didn't think I'd be seeing Tuesday night.
www.nbcnews.com
Cortez Masto defeats Laxalt in Nevada, handing Democrats control of the Senate
The outcome follows days of protracted mail-in ballot counting, with the results hinging largely on Clark County, the state’s most populous.
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And honestly, a better Candidates then Trump, who Republicans voted for in droves despite being brain damaged or having dementia or whatever the fuck is going on in his head. Calling Fetterman brain damaged seems disingenuous here considering that's clearly not the issue.
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Fuck yeah, I don't have to care about Georgia's special edition.Right now it's looking like the Dems keep the Senate, even without Georgia which is going to a runoff. Now it might change through some wierd shift in Clark Co mail in ballots but apparently most outlets are calling it for Cortez Masto now. Something I didn't think I'd be seeing Tuesday night.
Cortez Masto defeats Laxalt in Nevada, handing Democrats control of the Senate
The outcome follows days of protracted mail-in ballot counting, with the results hinging largely on Clark County, the state’s most populous.
You're just jealous because Trump didn't invite you to have a cup of covfefe with Tim Apple.
Welp. The Democrats keep control of the Senate.
The overall pattern for the mid-terms is normally that the ruling party loses seats to the opposing party. While this happened in the House it did not happen in the Senate; one of the seats in fact flipped TO the Democrats, although the extra election in Georgia might change things around.
In other words, this is an outstanding result for the Democrats. As someone that most certainly prefer them to the Republicans this pleases me.
Why exactly they did a good election is probably a multitude of reasons and analysing what factors were the most determinant I leave to the political pundits, but one thing that has already been brought up is that the candidates endorsed by Trump did poorly and the republican DeSantis that he opposed did an extraordinarily good election. From this my analysis is that people are tired of Trump. As someone that hates the man, this makes me happy.
I wonder what the result of the investigations into him will be now (the Jan 6 insurrection and his handling of nuclear weapons secrets). I naturally think that if a former president has committed a crime then they should be prosecuted no matter if it hurts the party they represented, but I could see that representatives of that party would think differently (though they shouldn't). This could be a way to distance themselves from the person people don't like any more, though they obviously should vote according to whether they consider his actions punishable, not whether it is strategic.
However I am now realizing I am treating this as if this will go to the Senate, even though Trump is no longer in office. I don't know how the process actually works, so these last two paragraphs might have been pointless.
The overall pattern for the mid-terms is normally that the ruling party loses seats to the opposing party. While this happened in the House it did not happen in the Senate; one of the seats in fact flipped TO the Democrats, although the extra election in Georgia might change things around.
In other words, this is an outstanding result for the Democrats. As someone that most certainly prefer them to the Republicans this pleases me.
Why exactly they did a good election is probably a multitude of reasons and analysing what factors were the most determinant I leave to the political pundits, but one thing that has already been brought up is that the candidates endorsed by Trump did poorly and the republican DeSantis that he opposed did an extraordinarily good election. From this my analysis is that people are tired of Trump. As someone that hates the man, this makes me happy.
I wonder what the result of the investigations into him will be now (the Jan 6 insurrection and his handling of nuclear weapons secrets). I naturally think that if a former president has committed a crime then they should be prosecuted no matter if it hurts the party they represented, but I could see that representatives of that party would think differently (though they shouldn't). This could be a way to distance themselves from the person people don't like any more, though they obviously should vote according to whether they consider his actions punishable, not whether it is strategic.
However I am now realizing I am treating this as if this will go to the Senate, even though Trump is no longer in office. I don't know how the process actually works, so these last two paragraphs might have been pointless.
I have to think if Trump actually broke the law, he'd be in prison already. "They" hate him. The Media. The Establishment. The FBI and the Deep State.
There may be a chicken and egg issue here. Did Trump candidates under perform because people hate Trump, or because Republican elite hate Trump and would rather back a Republican in Alaska, who, in their ranked voting system... was running against another Republican than back Trump nominated candidates. I do hope Mitch McConnell is replaced ASAP. R&R as a Senator, a party leader... heck I hope his dog comes to hate him.
Republicans ran on three things, taking away abortion, fucking with trans kids and gas being up.
The supreme Court's decision to allow bans on abortion was the rock that destroyed the Red Wave before it got to shore. Republicans been fighting to ban abortion for decades but when they finally were able to the issue was far less popular, to the point when Kansas put an abortion band up to vote, even though the law was purposely confusingly written, even though Trump won that state by 10 votes the law was hugely unfavored by the population and was not passed. I knew it when it happened that the Republicans fucked over their midterms by allowing roe to be overturned
Republicans seem to be attacking trans kids to galvanize their conservative voters, but it seems less effective than the southern strategy, which hopefully maybe a good sign for trans rights.
Last was rising oil prices, many conservatives thought this would win them the midterms easily but one important factor a lot of analysis didn't consider and the main reason why I feel it didn't factor in as much. Oil companies are fucking despised at this point. From environmental damage, to the aforementioned rising gas prices which many people are viewing as purposely jacking up the price to make more money rather than any serious shortage. Especially doesn't help with more stories about record profits from oil companies. Some have even gone so far as to say oil companies purposely jacking up prices so Republicans can gain office. Which may not actually be far off but that can be a debate for later. People still blame Biden but many people just see it as oil companies being jerk asses and Democrats by comparison are much more about fighting oil companies.
This is my take why this didn't go so well for republicans.
The supreme Court's decision to allow bans on abortion was the rock that destroyed the Red Wave before it got to shore. Republicans been fighting to ban abortion for decades but when they finally were able to the issue was far less popular, to the point when Kansas put an abortion band up to vote, even though the law was purposely confusingly written, even though Trump won that state by 10 votes the law was hugely unfavored by the population and was not passed. I knew it when it happened that the Republicans fucked over their midterms by allowing roe to be overturned
Republicans seem to be attacking trans kids to galvanize their conservative voters, but it seems less effective than the southern strategy, which hopefully maybe a good sign for trans rights.
Last was rising oil prices, many conservatives thought this would win them the midterms easily but one important factor a lot of analysis didn't consider and the main reason why I feel it didn't factor in as much. Oil companies are fucking despised at this point. From environmental damage, to the aforementioned rising gas prices which many people are viewing as purposely jacking up the price to make more money rather than any serious shortage. Especially doesn't help with more stories about record profits from oil companies. Some have even gone so far as to say oil companies purposely jacking up prices so Republicans can gain office. Which may not actually be far off but that can be a debate for later. People still blame Biden but many people just see it as oil companies being jerk asses and Democrats by comparison are much more about fighting oil companies.
This is my take why this didn't go so well for republicans.
Estimates of the excess deaths linked to climate change range from ~250,000 annually to the millions by next decade. Not to mention the wholesale flooding of countries in the global south, drastically lower life expectancy of urban people linked to pollution and poor air quality, increased likelihood of wildfires and other natural disasters, etc.
This isn't 'counterfactual'. It's already happening.
In the House, at my last count, 21 races remain undecided.
Dems have 203, and Republicans have 211. It's 218 to hold a majority. So Dems would need 15 of those 21, whereas Republicans would only need 7.
In those 21, Dems lead in 11, and Republicans lead in 10.
However, some of those margins are razor thin (<1%).
There's a good map here. It's interactive, you can hover over each uncalled grey seat and see the current tally.
Dems have 203, and Republicans have 211. It's 218 to hold a majority. So Dems would need 15 of those 21, whereas Republicans would only need 7.
In those 21, Dems lead in 11, and Republicans lead in 10.
However, some of those margins are razor thin (<1%).
There's a good map here. It's interactive, you can hover over each uncalled grey seat and see the current tally.
It really isn't surprising that those races are tight. There are plenty of races where they have still not counted all the votes (like CA 20) but they have counted enough to declare a winner; the races that remain undecided are those that are tight enough that they'll have to count all or close enough to all votes to do so.
Also, Alaska's lone seat is likely to go Republican if the current percentage points stands, since even though the Democratic candidate is far ahead (47.3 %) of the two Republican alternatives (26.6 and 24.2 %) they have a preferential voting system.
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Any "what would have happened if..." question is counterfactual analysis. That's what counterfactual means. Implying that millions of fewer people would be dying from climate related deaths if we weren't burning fossil fuels is counterfactual analysis. Your suggestion is that all else being equal, we'd be better off if we hadn't been using fossil fuels for the last century, but if we hadn't used fossil fuels, all else wouldn't be equal. It's bad analysis. On top of that, it's unclear that's even true, as a warming climate could just as much increase arable land away from the equator and prevent some of the millions of annual cold-related deaths. You're trying to isolate the use of fossil fuels from the civilization building consequences of their use, focusing on a single side effect of those fossil fuels, and still only considering the downsides.
That's not quite accurate. Republicans who are paying attention were hopeful to have even a coin flips chance of taking the Senate until like the last two weeks before the election, and the high hopes at the end didn't come from any particular policy, it came purely from poling data. This election didn't swing for Republicans for the reason it was never really going to swing for Republicans: it was a hard map this year for Republicans. Only a third of the Senate is elected at a time, so while the Senate was 50:50, Republicans were defending 5 more seats that Democrats, and the seat in PA was disadvantaged from the start, as the incumbent Republican retired, and incumbency is the biggest advantage in politics. That is, right now, the only seat that flipped. Some of these races like Georgia and Nevada that are razor thin are races against Democratic incumbents. It's a sign in Republicans' favor that the races ended that close.
Now, if we look ahead to 2024, the Senate's gonna flip. Democrats have to defend 23 seats to Republicans' 10, where as many as 8 of those 23 could be in danger, and the bluest state Republicans have to defend is Texas.
More notably, Republican candidates pushed by the Democratic Party did poorly. Doug Mastriano in PA was not a good candidate, nor even a particularly active candidate. Chances are, left to his own devices, he would have lost in the primary. Democrats spent more money on ads calling Mastriano "too conservative" and "anti-abortion" in the primary season than any Pennsylvania Republican spent on themselves the entire election cycle. The mid-term anti-Democratic sentiment was not missing this year, but Democrats cynically and successfully managed to channel that ire into blowing up the Republican primaries.
There's a mix of information there.
-Excess Deaths: Human deaths from natural disasters have plummeted over the course of the 20th/21st century, even as the human population has increased. It's something like a 98% reduction.
-Life Expectancy: Human life expectancy has skyrocketed over the same time period, and it's a trend that's true of every continent on Earth.
-Air Quality: 10 million people die every year due to indoor air pollution from not having clean fuel, so while I'm not disputing the problem of air pollution, I think in a lot of ways, this is literally case of "pick your poison."
This isn't an argument against climate change being an issue (which it is), or that we have to get off fossil fuels (which we have to), or that climate change is having a deletrious effect right now (which it is), or that LEDCs are more vulnerable than MEDCs (which they are), but if we're dealing with counterfactuals (say the Industrial Revolution never occurred), then the facts are that there'd be far fewer humans, living far poorer lives. By literally any measure of human wellbeing, humanity's never been doing better in the period we're living in now.
That's not a good argument to use.
Yes, technically, an increase in temperature could cause some areas to become more arable, but other areas are going to become less arable, and everything I've read on the subject indicates a net loss. There's also the fact that agriculture developed in a period of climatic stability that climate change could jeprodize. Furthermore, the people who lose access to arable land (i.e. what's already happening in Africa) are going to have to go somewhere. Even if one takes the position that doesn't matter (and I'll give you the credit of assuming that you agree that it does), then even from a purely selfish point of view, how do you feel like dealing with a refugee crisis of up to a billion climate refugees?
There's countless downsides to fossil fuels - air pollution, global warming, finite resource, ecological destruction, etc.
Even if climate change wasn't an issue, there'd still be plenty of reasons to transition to alternate energy sources.
Downside is that the planet's arguably never been doing worse since humans climbed down from the trees either, so again, pick your poison.
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Trump is a sinking ship and the rats are deserting him, and he's made lots of enemies, but he's still very much one of the elite. The elite do not want a precedent for members of the elite to be held responsible for their actions. If Trump gets locked up for crimes he committed as PotUS, then when the GOP get in next time Biden and any Dem president since him face the same, whether or not they've committed any crimes.
Hell, Trump was breaking the law before he got the power of being/having been PotUS. It's more or less guaranteed that any given super-rich person does. The rich aren't suddenly going to grow a conscience and stop treading on the little people.
OTOH, if it looks like he'll win again, half of his enemies will go back to licking his boots, that's normal politics.
The American justice system has the primary, if not sole, purpose to protect people like Trump from all the people they've harmed.
Some truth to this (example: Obama and Bush are now besties rather than Obama see Bush punished for war crimes: Trump never really wanted HRC "locked up") but man they keep trying. Twice impeached? People around Trump being persecuted out the wazzoo? 2 impeachments? They were telling their rank and file the Jan 6 trials would likely end with the committee recommending criminal charges against Trump? By way of comparison, they really loved Richard Nixon a lot!
As I just wrote, in Trump's case, it sure doesn't appear to be so.