All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tendrin]

This is close in Kentucky. 0.7% spread with Bevin losing. We could be going into a recount with this!

NBC calling it for Beshear. Let's hope that a certain turtle is sweating bullets over his own prospects.

[Theleviathan]

NBC calling it for Beshear. Let's hope that a certain turtle is sweating bullets over his own prospects.

9% of the Kentucky population had been disenfrachised as voters could now have a chance in 2020. Huge win for positivity going into 2020.

[InformationGeek]

Hmmmmmmm....

Trump said last night of Bevin: “If you lose, they're going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. This was the greatest. You can't let that happen to me!” Well ....

EDIT:

We got video!

[Tendrin]

Reportedly, Bevin is not conceding.

https://twitter.com/bfriedmandc/stat...640549376?s=21

Not surprised at all. The margin is small so they'll do everything they can to disqualify voters while hoping a recount narrows the gap enough.

[numberthirty]

On the one hand, it looks like a win.

On the other hand, it was that tight against one of the least popular guys in his party.

[Mister Mets]

NBC calling it for Beshear. Let's hope that a certain turtle is sweating bullets over his own prospects.

Beshear was probably a better candidate than McGrath.

He had won statewide office before as state attorney general. McGrath lost by three points in the state's second most liberal congressional district (it is Kentucky so it was a district Trump won by 16 points, but he did win the state by 30.)

It might've been worse for McConnell if Bevin had narrowly won, and Democrats had a major recruit for the Senate race.

On the other hand, this can encourage others to enter the race, including former and current statewide officeholders.

[worstblogever]

Saw that the Kentucky Libertarian Party's Twitter account boasted about splitting the vote to cost Bevin the victory, and added to Bevin supporters, "Your tears are delicious."

Just... wow.

[worstblogever]

Hmmmmmmm....



EDIT:

We got video!

What does the kiss of death look like?

Answer:

[Tendrin]

Another good night for profile retirements, eh WBE?

[Tendrin]

LOL. Apparently, the lady who flipped off Trump's motorcade won an election.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vir...r-local-office

[worstblogever]

Another good night for profile retirements, eh WBE?

[Gray Lensman]

Saw that the Kentucky Libertarian Party's Twitter account boasted about splitting the vote to cost Bevin the victory, and added to Bevin supporters, "Your tears are delicious."

Just... wow.

Trump has made a few state Libertarian parties remember that they are left wing on many social issues, and not just right wing on economic ones.

Trump's willingness to turn the regulatory state against political adversaries doesn't help him or his supporters with Libertarians either.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” we looked at Bill Armistead, who has cranked up the Wayback Machine in Alabama to take political rhetoric back fifty years whenever possible. Armistead spent most of the first seven years of the Obama presidency campaigning hard for increased Voter ID laws, insisting that voter fraud was rampant, even offering a $1000 bounty to anyone in his state who came forward with an example of it. As you might guess, no one came forward with any. But that's really the tip of the iceberg, as Armistead has hosted various propagandists pushing the Birther Conspiracy around Barack Obama to speak to Alabama Republicans, from Allen West, to airing the "Dreams of My Father" Birther documentary and claiming it was "factual". Armistead also called President Obama a "sociopath", claimed Rev. Al Sharpton was "race-baiting" for campaigning against Alabama's new Voter ID laws, and criticized the Supreme Court for their rulings on gay marriage as an "affront to Christian principles". Armistead stepped down as the head of the party last year, but apparently found work on Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign committee in Alabama, so it remains to be seen if he has any influence on American politics.


It was in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as in 2018, that we published our first two "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiles of the U.S. Senator from Georgia, Johnny Isakson, who for all his supposed "concessions", also has had some of the most anti-gay voting records in Congress during his tenure, has voted repeatedly against womens' issues from their right to choose to equal pay legislation, and has consistently voted against raising the debt ceiling. Isakson met with some controversy where he met with the candidate challenging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for his seat in Nevada, Sharron Angle, and described her speech to the Senate Republican Caucus as the kind of speech “she wouldn’t give to the unwashed back home”, but still won re-election in 2010 through having the luck to have been suddenly hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat and a blood infection. In his long Congressional career, Isakson has voted for displays of the Ten Commandments to be placed on government property, a Constitutional ban on same sex marriage, the Iraq War Resolution, and the 2013 Government Shutdown. Meanwhile, he has voted against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” being repealed , voted against the Franken Amendment (a dedicated assist to defense contractors who want to be able to sexually assault or help cover up the sexual assaults of female employees by Isakson) voted against various equal pay measures as well as Hurricane Sandy relief funding, and since President Obama took office in 2009, has voted against every debt ceiling increase, despite the fact that not doing so would be catastrophic to not just the U.S. economy, but the global economy. As early as August of 2015, Sen. Isakson was calling for investigations into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server, and admitting the end goal of those inquiries was to “end her presidential candidacy”.

Sen. Isakson pledged to support votes on all judicial nominees back in 2005, but since Barack Obama was elected president reneged on that deal, and has blocked not just the nominations of District Court and Circuit Court judges, but now defending how the GOP have chosen to spend over 7 months avoiding hosting confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland as a ninth Supreme Court Justice. Isakson was, of course, re-elected in 2016, after announcing he had Parkinson’s in 2015, the second consecutive re-election campaign where he announced a chronic health problem prior to the vote, which we’re in no way cynical enough to think would be him trying to garner sympathy from the electorate.

That sympathy did not last long after his re-election, in the current state of politics in the country. After how in this term of the Senate, Isakson voted to confirm every member of Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors” and voted for the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act, he turned up at one town hall, and even though he’s a 73 year old man with Parkinson’s, the minute he uttered, “All Lives Matter”, the crowd booed and heckled him out of the building.

We are thrilled to report that in August, Isakson did announce he will be retiring at the end of the year, and thus this will be the last time we will be profiling him. We present to him our finest “good riddance” salutes, and wish him the best with his medical needs.

[babyblob]

I didnt think Bevin would lose but he did. Cant say I am overly upset by that. The Republicans wont he other major races though so I doubt the state is going blue any time soon.

[Tami]

Thanks to Rand Paul, Russian Media Are Naming the Alleged Whistleblower

Standing beside an approving Donald Trump at a rally in Kentucky on Monday night, Republican Sen. Rand Paul demanded the media unmask the whistleblower whose report about the president’s alleged abuse of power dealing with Ukraine sparked impeachment proceedings.

American news organizations resisted the pressure, but—in a 2019 re-play of “Russia, if you’re listening”—Kremlin-controlled state media promptly jumped on it.

Very quickly after Sen. Paul tweeted out an article that speculated in considerable detail about the identity of the whistleblower—with a photograph, a name, and details about the purported political history of a CIA professional—Russian state media quickly followed suit.