A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months…
There have been plenty of “lesbian” state governors in the past, apparently, but this is the first time a “lesbian woman” has prevailed in a race: (NYT):
From the West Coast (Advocate):
Also from the NYT:
Readers: What else have you found as historic firsts?
In other post-election analysis news:
In Democrats love elderly white guys, Florida edition (August 24), I predicted a 56:44 victory for Ron DeSantis in yesterday’s election. Ray, in the comments, predicted a 6 percent margin for DeSantis. How did we do?
The voters, including all of the new ones driven into Florida by Andrew Cuomo and other Lockdown Governors, have spoken. The all-abortion-care-all-the-time campaign of Charlie Crist resonated with only 40 percent of Floridians whose votes were not suppressed. NYT:
Ron DeSantis won by 1.5 million votes, a big improvement over the 50,000-vote margin he had in 2018 over Andrew Gillum.
Charlie Crist gave a “good congratulations to Governor DeSantis on his re-election” (YouTube). Prior to the election, Crist characterized DeSantis as a “fascist” who would “end democracy” in Florida. Is he talking about about the same Ron DeSantis?
Full post, including commentsFrom an immigrant friend on the East Coast:
I drove to my [athletic] club today and listened to NPR to get my pulse up.
Started counting how many times they said “democracy is on the ballot”, “election deniers”, “threat to democracy” and so on
47 times in 50 minutes
What was the period covered by this study? 5:20-6:10 pm. In other words, there was enough time for the righteous listener to wipe the sweat off his/her/zir/their brow after a demanding day of pretend-to-work-from-home and respond to these threats by driving the working-class-subsidized electric car to the still-open polls.
Sadly, the call was not heeded by the righteous in Florida. The candidate who warned of fascism rising and democracy ending if he were to be defeated actually was defeated, even in counties where the majority of voters are registered in his party.
From The Google:
Charlie Crist lost in traditionally Democrat Miami, abandoned by his Latinx brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters, despite having been endorsed by the Miami Herald. It isn’t surprising that Mr. Crist won in Tallahassee, where everyone works for the government or a government-run university. It would be interesting to try to figure out what made Orlando and Fort Lauderdale outliers. Why don’t they love Ron?
Suppose that you are concerned about the end of democracy here in Florida. The New York Times has us covered.
I do like the Science-based “Take a deep breath and then plunge your face into a bowl or sink filled with ice water for 15 to 30 seconds” idea, but I would prefer “Put your head deep into a toilet and close the lid on your back to feel safe, making sure not to compress your breathing straw.”
How are things going back in our former home state? History was made:
The Human Rights Campaign applauded Healey’s win, saying, “as one of our nation’s first lesbian governors, she will not only be a champion of pro-equality policies, but also a role model for the entire LGBTQ+ community.”
The U.S. also has a chance to see its second openly lesbian governor elected on Tuesday. Tina Kotek, Oregon’s Speaker of the House, is running for governor of her state against Republican Christine Drazan and independent candidate Betsy Johnson. Oregon has had a Democratic governor since 1987.
Maybe this new role model can find some common ground with Ron DeSantis? From Healey’s campaign page on immigration:
Maura has been a leading advocate for immigrant rights. As Governor, she will ensure that all Massachusetts families can thrive.
She wants to take care of migrants and the Florida legislature has appropriate funds to help migrants to where go to where they will be welcomed.
Related:
Full post, including commentsDemocrats say that Americans will lose their democratic rights and be subjected to “fascism” if any Republicans are elected to positions of power today. Here’s an example from the Tyrant of Tallahassee’s opponent:
By implication, if Ron DeSantis wins Florida will be plunged into fascism and there won’t be any more democracy in Florida (it is almost gone and could be “saved” only via a Democrat victory). Surely Mr. Crist himself wouldn’t wish to stick around and live in a fascist state, right. Just as those who didn’t want to be subjected to school closures, lockdowns, mask orders, vaccination papers checks had to move to Florida in 2020-2021, won’t those in Florida who love Democracy and oppose fascism have to move to a Democrat-run state, e.g., California, New York, or Maskachusetts?
I assume that the same rhetoric is being ladled out by Democrats in other states. Let’s check in with neighboring Georgia:
Suppose that the hated Republican who has made Georgia unsafe is reelected. Georgians will continue to be “afraid to drop their kids off at school, attend a religious service or even go to the grocery store.” Wouldn’t it be logical for Stacey Abrams to move out of Georgia and into a safe state?
If Republicans, supporters of the January 6 insurrection, are as bad as Democrats say, nobody can be safe after this election in any state where Republicans control either the legislature or the governorship. Any Democrat who is physically able to move, therefore, should immediately flock to comfort in a state where there is no possibility of Republican political influence.
Update: In Charlie Crist’s concession speech, he opened with a “good congratulations to Governor DeSantis on his re-election” (YouTube). Instead of describing his plans to move away from fascism, in other words, he actually congratulated the fascist!
Full post, including commentsFrom the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo:
Kvinder vælg Kvinder. If your Norwegian is a bit rusty, the museum provides an English translation of this 1916 poster:
Related:
I wonder if the Democrats are going to lose even some of their elite support in this week’s election (or maybe we should say “last week’s election” because so many people voted early?). Elites own stock and the S&P 500 is down nearly 2% in nominal terms compared to January 20, 2021 (closed at 3,799; compare to 3,771 today). We don’t have official CPI numbers for October yet, but this is down more than 15% if adjusted by official CPI. If we adjust for inflation in the prices of goods and services that elites buy, e.g., houses, cars, travel, etc., the S&P 500 is down 20-25%.
Democrats have been running the White House, the House, and the Senate. Unless they can claim that a reduction in abortion care for pregnant people at reproductive health centers has resulted in the losses suffered by investors, it will be tough to blame those losses on Republicans.
Speaking of early voting, here’s an epic line in Austin, Texas:
The city of Austin and Travis County, which is essentially the same group of people, is overwhelmingly Democrat (72% Biden and 27% Trump in 2020). Every elected official in Travis County seems to be a Democrat (to the point that most run unopposed by any Republican). Democrats say that Republicans are guilty of voter suppression by making it difficult to vote, but how can Republicans be responsible for the long lines and inconvenience in Austin/Travis County?
(This is not to say that Democrats are incompetent everywhere. I early-voted by biking over to the Abacoa “honors” campus of Florida Atlantic University (next to Scripps and Max Planck) and, thanks to the Democrats who run Palm Beach County, was voting within about 2 minutes after parking the bike. Then it was time for a Cuban sandwich at an outdoor table at the nearby cluster of restaurants in our fake downtown (shops, restaurants, bars, mini golf, escape room; no trash, pit bulls, unhoused people, pit bull poop, sidewalk tents, and the rest of the features that make California cities so vibrant and exciting).)
Full post, including commentsLate-night political thought… If prices are guaranteed to keep spiraling upward due to everything the government spends being indexed (see Can our government generate its own inflation spiral?), might Republicans be better off losing all of the Senate and House races on Tuesday? Even if the Republicans earned majorities in both sides of Congress, Joe Biden would likely veto any legislation that cut spending or removed inflation indexing from spending. So the Republicans have no realistic chance of reducing inflation, any more than the Inflation Reduction Act. If they’re totally out of government, only the Democrats will be blamed for the next two years of inflation and maybe that would help Republicans win the White House as well as Congress in 2024.
A Nobel laureate who is always right agrees with me: “Republicans Have No Inflation Plan” (Paul Krugman, New York Times, 10/27).
If we ignore the government inflation spiral-from-indexing effect, how much pent-up inflation is there? I remarked on the price increase for frozen peas (Peaflation at Publix). On a more recent trip, the supermarket shelves were entirely bare for all brands of frozen peas. The market-clearing price for peas is obviously higher than even the new high-ish prices. Similarly, canned pumpkin was sold out. Our 42-inch-wide built-in fridge is dying. Is a Sub-Zero a ripoff at $14,000? Actually, it is underpriced and should go up further according to Econ 101 because it will take a year (a year!) for them to build and deliver one. The company is giving away fridges right now for way less than the market-clearing price.
Isn’t there a good chance that Americans will become disenchanted with whoever wins in 2022? And some might remember Republicans’ absurd campaign promises. Here’s a medical doctor promising to “fix” inflation, which is as plausible as a Scientologist being significantly helpful at a car accident scene (Tom Cruise video; go about 1 minute in).
Even if Dr. Oz was in possession of an economic policy that would Whip Inflation Now, Joe Biden would surely veto it. Sprinkling a few Republicans into Congress isn’t going to turn around the policies that got the U.S. into this inflationary mess. Will Republicans truly gain by promising to stop inflation and then not stopping it?
Here are the House Republicans implying that voting for them will somehow stop “the highest inflation in 40 years”:
Here’s a promise from the Republican House leader to “lead the way” on inflation:
On the Senate side, here’s Mitch:
But Congress has never been able to cut spending (which spirals upward with inflation automatically). And the Republicans won’t support tax increases. So the deficit spending will continue even if Mitch McConnell and fellow Republicans can win a majority.
Full post, including commentsAbortion care for pregnant people seems to be the principal topic among Democrats running for office in the upcoming election. Examples:
(Certainly the decision to continue incubating Joe Biden’s granddaughter was the biggest economic decision that Lunden Roberts has made so far ($2.5 million tax-free downpayment plus unspecified monthly revenue); note that an abortion can often be sold at a discount to the net present value of the expected child support cashflow so it isn’t necessary to have a baby to profit economically from a baby.)
I’m not an expert on reproductive health care, of which we are informed that abortion care is the most critical component, but I had a thought while viewing Love and Birth at the Musée D’Orsay (Georges Lacombe, circa 1895):
Where is the abortion-care-themed art for Democrats who own Hunter Bidens and want to demonstrate their passion for this most important aspect of reproductive health care?
Separately, a Hero of Faucism at the jammed art museum fights an aerosol virus with a humble surgical mask…. worn over a beard:
A masked Follower of Science in front of a sculpture titled “Redneck and Alligator” (well, maybe it is actually a crocodile scene set in Africa):
Here’s an overview of the converted train station:
The ceiling of the museum restaurant:
This prompted our almost-9-year-old to say “Hey look, there’s a peacock. Dad, you need to give me a shotgun and then…. problem solved.” (Readers: If you are having problems with ornamental peafowl on your estate, let me know and we’ll send the youth over to deal with the birds directly.)
Speaking of problems, like most of Paris, the museum is afflicted with gender binarism:
On the other hand, they do give a lot of floor and wall space to Kehinde Wiley:
Twitter banned Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying, without seeking cash, that the COVID-19 “vaccine” did not prevent infection and transmission (CNN). Let’s look at a politician who asks for money and supports his request by saying that he’s 1% behind in the polls:
Charlie Crist and ActBlue wouldn’t lie to us, surely? The FiveThirtyEight summary of the polls, captured on November 1:
The $5 sought doesn’t seem as though it would help bridge the 8-14-point gap in the polls. More likely, Crist would need the miraculous help of Christ in order for Science (with the explicit promise of mask orders, forced vaccination, school closures, and lockdowns) to prevail.
Why aren’t Crist and ActBlue deplatformed for spreading misinformation, particularly since they seem to be spreading misinformation in order to get money.
Maybe the argument is that Representative Greene was putting lives at risk spreading misinformation about COVID-19 by falsely claiming that the pandemic-ending vaccines would not end the pandemic. But people with less money live shorter lives. Every person who donates to Charlie Crist can expect to live a slightly shorter life as a result. Maybe the sacrifice of lives would be worth it in order to avoid the Nakba of a second DeSantis term. But if there is no practical chance of a Crist victory, lives will be shortened without any compensating benefit.
Full post, including commentsHere’s part of an invitation that I received to an election night party:
The party is here in South Florida, but the host is a lockdown refugee from San Francisco. Some political signs have gone up in our town. There is a lot of enthusiasm for Governor DeSantis and a bit for Congressman Brian Mast (a Republican who is somewhat hostile to civilian gun ownership). Marco Rubio is predicted to win, but I haven’t seen any signs for him (compare to 50+ for DeSantis and a handful for Mast).
Charlie Crist has run a 99% negative campaign. Here’s a recent example:
Twitter unpersoned Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying that the COVID “vaccines” did not prevent infection or transmission. Why is it okay for this Democrat to say that Ron DeSantis has “banned” abortion care for pregnant people when Florida reproductive health care providers are providing abortion care to pregnant people every day? From abortionfinder.org:
If you’re 15 weeks, 6 days pregnant or less, it is legal for you to get an abortion in Florida.
This rule allows for more abortion care than almost anywhere in the European Union (Germany has a 12-week limit, for example.) Doesn’t Crist’s statement at least merit some kind of warning sign to users that the facts are “missing context”?
Despite Crist’s crusade for freedom of the press (undoing DeSantis’s purported “banned books” action) and freedom of speech (undoing DeSantis’s purported “banned saying ‘gay'” action), he apparently has failed to generate excitement among people who live in Jupiter. I have seen no signs for him.
Who else has been invited to an election night party? I can’t remember this much excitement for the typical mid-term election. I wonder if it is because government has become larger and more pervasive and therefore there is now much more at stake than in previous decades. For example, if you have a student loan outstanding the outcome of this election can determine whether you’re going to be $10,000 richer or not. That’s a tax-free bonanza, right? If the election doesn’t go well, the gender studies graduate might have to work a second job to earn $20,000 pre-tax to be equally well off compared to if Democrats prevail and the college debt can be shifted onto the backs of the working class?
Full post, including comments