s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAg
Determined to stay positive, it's easy to forecast doom but look at what we accomplished: President Biden & a Democratic House and Senate. Lots were saying that wouldn't happen either, but it did. 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-donal ... in-georgiaHow Donald Trump Could Help Stacey Abrams Win Georgia
SCREW JOB
OPINION
Trump is picking up where he left off in Georgia, doing and saying the same sorts of things that cost Republicans two absolutely crucial U.S. Senate seats in January.
Matt Lewis Senior Columnist Updated Dec. 08, 2021 5:15AM ET / Published Dec. 08, 2021 4:55AM ET
The last time Donald Trump screwed things up for the Republican Party in Georgia—less than a year ago—it cost his party control of the U.S. Senate and the country trillions of dollars (so far). Guess who’s back to offer more “help” to Georgia Republicans? In case you missed it, Trump (who also managed to lose Georgia’s electoral votes during the presidential election to a Democrat for the first time since 1992) is backing former U.S. Senator David Perdue in a primary bid against Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who angered Trump by not helping him overturn the 2020 election results. Trump wants to get even, but a lot of Republicans just want to get ahead. “I would hate to see two good men run against each other,” Eric Tanenblatt, who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Sonny Perdue, told CNN’s Mike Warren in November. “Having watched the Republican Party become the dominant party in Georgia, it’s puzzling to me [that] we would see a sitting incumbent Republican governor be challenged by another Republican.” “My hope is that [Perdue] won’t run,” Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter, a Trump supporter, told Warren at the time. “My hope is that we’ll have just one candidate that we can unify behind.”
Guess what? Party unification isn’t at the top of Trump’s priority list. And keeping Stacey Abrams from becoming governor is, at best, a distant third (right behind getting revenge against his enemies and paving the way for his own 2024 election). Trump is picking up where he left off in Georgia, doing and saying the same sorts of things that cost Republicans not one, but two, absolutely crucial U.S. Senate seats in January. As you might recall, Trump’s talk about his election being rigged convinced some Republicans to simply stay home during the state’s January 2021 runoff contests that would determine which party controlled the U.S. Senate. Trump later conceded this to David Drucker, telling him “They didn’t want to vote, because they knew we got screwed in the presidential election.” Trump also told Drucker that during his rallies in the state, he didn’t stress to voters that Georgia’s voting system was reliable because he “was angry with what happened there.”
Smash-cut to December, and Trump is actively laying the groundwork for a similar outcome. On the heels of Perdue’s announcement, Trump issued a statement saying, “I can’t imagine that Brian Kemp, who has hurt election integrity in Georgia so badly, can do well at the ballot box (unless the election is rigged, of course).” Unless it is rigged? As conservative blogger Allahpundit put it, “Probably the single most disruptive and deleterious thing Trump could do to undermine that [post-primary Republican] reunion would be to push the idea that if Kemp wins then he must have cheated to do so. That’ll delegitimize Kemp’s victory in the eyes of some Trumpers and convince others that Georgia’s elections are too tainted to warrant their involvement. They’ll protest by staying home in the general election. Result: Abrams wins.” This is not some flippant, off-the-cuff remark that Trump said once. Just last week, Trump said that “the MAGA base will just not vote for [Kemp] after what he did with respect to Election Integrity and two horribly run elections, for President and then two Senate seats.” Back in September, Trump told Georgians that Abrams “might well be better” than Kemp as governor. Under normal conditions, an incumbent Republican governor like Kemp would cruise to another nomination, thus avoiding a bruising and divisive conflict before a general election rematch with Abrams (who, a little like Trump, refused to acknowledge the validity of her own close loss in 2018.) In this scenario, Abrams’ candidacy would likely end up in the same quixotic league as Beto O’Rourke’s. In other words, she would drain national funds and suck up attention without winning in a race against a reasonably popular incumbent in a state that still favors Republicans.
But Trump in the mix changes that dynamic dramatically. Keep in mind, if Abrams wins the governorship in Georgia, she instantly becomes a top-tier candidate for president. Republican infighting is the best way to help that outcome along, and this gubernatorial primary is already shaping up to be a heavyweight fight, pitting two statewide elected Republicans against one another. Neither side seems likely to back down, and both sides appear to be well financed (Kemp beat Perdue to the punch, running an ad last month that touted his work “stopping the radical left from defunding the police”). And Perdue and Kemp (via his spokesperson) are already trading blows. One thing seems certain. Whoever wins this brawl will already be bleeding by the time they face off against Abrams. If you’re a Republican who cares about issues (not Trump’s wounded ego), the real shame is that this is all pretty much pointless. Truth be told, Perdue’s rationale for primarying Kemp seems to be wholly concocted. “I’m running for governor to make sure Stacey Abrams is never governor of Georgia,” Perdue declared as he launched his campaign that could elect Stacey Abrams against the guy who just beat Stacey Abrams. To beat her, “we simply have to be united,” Perdue continued, while announcing a bid guaranteed to ensure Georgia Republicans are not, in fact, united. Kemp “cost us two Senate seats,” claimed the guy who literally lost a Senate seat to a Democrat in Georgia, with some help from Trump who also managed to lose Georgia himself.
Any way you look at it, this race is shaping up to be a hot mess. And I’m just scratching the surface. Keep in mind that MAGA fan Vernon Jones, an African American and former Democratic state representative, is also currently running for governor as a Republican, and he’s already out there calling Kemp and Perdue “two peas in a pod!” And keep in mind that this is happening at the same time former NFL star and problematic politician Herschel Walker is the leading Republican in the campaign to win back Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat that Republican Kelly Loeffler lost earlier this year. As if that wasn’t enough internecine drama, Trump (in what many fear is an effort to purge and replace anyone who blocked his attempt to overturn the 2020 election) is also backing a primary challenge to Georgia’s incumbent Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—the man whose only sin was refusing to “find 11,780 votes” for Trump. This is a lot for one state to handle. It’s as if Trump wants to go nuclear in 2024 and he’s testing it now. I guess that makes Georgia Los Alamos. If Trump blows up the state’s Republican Party in the process, it will all be worth it—at least for him. Don’t worry, Donald. They’ll still love you tomorrow—no matter what.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5 ... s-electionGOP braces for brutal primary in Georgia governor's election
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 12/08/21 06:00 AM EST
Republicans are staring down a potentially costly and bitter primary for Georgia governor that will test the GOP’s resolve in one of the most competitive political battlegrounds of the 2022 midterm elections.
As Bananarama said, "More, More, More!" (Official Video)s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAg BILL MITCHELL'S: YourVoice™ Channel, [12/7/2021 3:00 PM]
I personally find it humorous that among the "we can't win because Democrats will just cheat!" crowd, Nov 2nd simply didn't happen. We didn't sweep VA top to bottom. Somehow that didn't count.
Because, of course, they must maintain their hopeless narrative. They are so totally invested in surrender.
We can win, we did win and we will win.
BILL MITCHELL'S: YourVoice™ Channel, [12/7/2021 3:14 PM]
I often find myself wondering what the endgame of the "we can't win" crowd is?
They seem so invested in the negative narrative, and yet, I can't decipher their endgame. Let's say everyone agrees with them and no one votes, then what? We get a 435-seat Democrat majority in the House and 100-0 Democrat majority in the Senate?
And then what?
America is reduced to a smoldering socialist hellhole?
Surrender is not a victory strategy.
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAg https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democra ... e-marshallOPINION Published 18 hours ago
Why Democrats have a brighter future than Republicans
Once Americans see and feel the effects of what Democrats fought for, the polls will change
By Leslie Marshall | Fox News
If you believe the headlines from CNN: "Rising prices and empty store shelves spell danger for Biden and Democrats." Or from Politico: "Biden tries, stumbles, selling his domestic agenda into existence." Or from The Hill: "Troubles pile up for Biden" (so much for the liberal media). Or if you believe the GOP’s message of doom and gloom for the Democrat party, you might expect many of us on the left to be looking for a bridge to jump off of any day now. But I’m not only a Democrat, I’m also a realist. And I believe in facts, more than I do in headlines. Here’s why I think Democrats have a brighter future than Republicans believe they do:
APPROVAL RATINGS
The president’s approval rating is in the 40’s and if history plays out, that would translate to dozens of Democrats losing their seats in the House in the midterm elections next November. After all, Republicans only need to net five seats to take back the House; one in the Senate. But in election terms, the midterms are a lifetime away. And once you have hit rock bottom, there’s only one way to go, and that’s up. And if recent polls are to be believed, Biden’s approval ratings are starting to move in the right direction. Many polls, including our own Fox News poll, show him up from 44 percent to 47 percent since the middle of November.
COVID
Although we are currently seeing (and will most likely see for weeks or months to come), an up tick in Covid cases due to the latest Omicron variant, we are also seeing this latest mutation does not lead to a high number of deaths and hospitalizations. Currently, 72 percent of Americans received at least one shot of a Covid vaccine. By this time next year even more people will be fully vaccinated or will have had a booster shot. As time moves forward, so will we with Covid and it’s variants being a part of our daily lives. That will mean less or loosening of restrictions and mandates and a move toward life more normal as we knew it prior to this pandemic.
COSTS
Gas: According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, gas prices are $3.34 per national average – that’s over a dollar higher than this time last year. But prices are lower than they were just a few weeks ago. In January prices are expected to fall to $3.01 a gallon and will be down to $2.88 or lower next year. So there will be relief at the gas pump.
Goods/Supply Chain: Due to the pandemic, corporations increased prices of goods. And due to supply chain issues, there have also been increases in costs of shipping, like container rates or trucking fees. Once our lives normalize, and we aren’t stuck in our homes shopping like addicts on Amazon, we won’t see or feel such delays or price increases as we are now. Also, with the Biden Administration’s push to Buy American, we hopefully won’t have to rely on a container to bring our goods from overseas because hopefully we will be buying those made right here at home.
AMERICA’S PERCEPTION
I always say that it’s not the reality of what is happening economically or socially in our nation, it’s America’s or the voter’s perception of that reality. The perception (via the polls) shows a lack of confidence, or more so blame, toward this administration for things they aren’t happy with. But when American’s start feeling the results from Democratic legislation that’s been passed or will soon be passed, their lives will change and so will their attitudes. With the Infrastructure Bill, Americans will see noticeable changes in roads, bridges, and broadband. Once the Build Back Better plan passes, and I believe it will, despite Sen. Joe Manchin's declaration on Sunday that he would vote against the bill as written, they will feel relief with more access to and lower prices for child care, prescription drug prices and family leave.
INFLATION
Inflation is real. It’s here to stay, but not forever. You might not like (or believe) the word "transitory;" well, how about the word temporary? The Federal Reserve is already taking aggressive measures to combat inflation. Wall Street must like it because stocks rallied and rose this week. They plan to phase out their large scale bond buying program faster than initially planned. Ending the bond purchases earlier would pave the way for them to raise interest rates next year which will help to combat this inflation.
How about some headlines you aren’t hearing because they’re being overshadowed by the message of gloom and doom from the Republicans and the so-called liberal media?
Infrastructure and Build Back Better loved by Americans. Over 60% support these pieces of legislation
Unemployment drops to 4.2%
As a result of the Biden efforts many businesses were kept afloat during this pandemic
Democrats take a victory lap as they pass Voting Rights Reform
Child Povery cut in half
The above statements are all true, and are all accomplishments of this administration and a majority Democrat House and Senate. Once Americans see and feel the effects of what Democrats fought long and hard for, you’ll see the polls change and who they cast their votes for.
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAg
Well, that's a problem right there...And I believe in facts, more than I do in headlines.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12 ... cting.htmlThe Democratic House majority was supposed to die in redistricting. For months now, pundits and political forecasters have predicted that Republicans could win back the House next year without flipping a single voter. After all, the GOP controls far more state governments than the Democrats, and this is a post-Census year, when states redraw their congressional maps. Republicans boast sole authority over the boundaries of 193 congressional districts, while Democrats command just 94. Given the slimness of Nancy Pelosi’s majority, several analyses projected that GOP cartographers would generate enough new, safe “red” seats to retake the House through gerrymandering alone.
This has been a foundational premise of much of my own commentary. And it’s an assumption that’s animated the progressive movement’s push for a package of democracy reforms that would, among other things, forbid partisan redistricting.
But it’s starting to look wrong.
The new House map is more than half finished. And in many states where maps haven’t been finalized, the broad outlines are already visible. Taken together, the emerging picture is far more favorable for Democrats than most anticipated. As of this writing, it looks like the new House map will be much less biased in the GOP’s favor than the old one. And according to at least one analyst, there is actually an outside chance that the final map will be tilted, ever so slightly, in the Democrats’ favor.
Another spin is the House is becoming less competitive. That is, Democrats will retain (and perhaps even gain) safe seats, but at the expense of up-for-grabs purple seats.The new House map is more than half finished. And in many states where maps haven’t been finalized, the broad outlines are already visible. Taken together, the emerging picture is far more favorable for Democrats than most anticipated. As of this writing, it looks like the new House map will be much less biased in the GOP’s favor than the old one. And according to at least one analyst, there is actually an outside chance that the final map will be tilted, ever so slightly, in the Democrats’ favor.
2022 House Overview: Still a GOP Advantage, but Redistricting Looks Like a Wash
January 4, 2022 David Wasserman @Redistrict
The surprising good news for Democrats: on the current trajectory, there will be a few more Biden-won districts after redistricting than there are now — producing a congressional map slightly less biased in the GOP's favor than the last decade's.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/0 ... rms-526809Michelle Obama and coalition vow to register more than a million new voters
The push for voting reform is intensifying ahead of the 2022 midterms, in which Democrats will fight to maintain their narrow control of the Senate.
By MAEVE SHEEHEY 01/09/2022 03:54 PM EST
Former first lady Michelle Obama said in a letter on Sunday that a coalition of voting rights organizations would register more than a million new voters across the country in the run-up to this year’s midterm elections. Obama, who founded When We All Vote, a campaign to register and organize voters, also said in the letter that the coalition would organize at least 100,000 Americans to contact their senators, urging them to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Election reform legislation is struggling to pass the Senate, as moderate Democrats are reluctant to change Senate rules and push it through.
Obama’s letter, which ran as an ad in the Sunday New York Times, comes at the start of a week when President Joe Biden will travel to Georgia to speak on what the administration views as Republican efforts to suppress the vote. Biden is expected to talk about his support for a filibuster carveout that would allow voting rights legislation to pass the Senate.
The push for voting reform is intensifying ahead of the 2022 midterms, in which Democrats will fight to maintain their narrow control of the 50-50 Senate as Republican-led state legislatures across the country enact restrictive voting laws. In the letter, titled “Fight For Our Vote,” Obama referenced the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. “One year ago, we witnessed an unprecedented assault on our Capitol and our democracy,” she wrote. “From Georgia and Florida to Iowa and Texas, states passed laws designed to make it harder for Americans to vote. And in other state legislatures across the nation, lawmakers have attempted to do the same.” She compared modern voter suppression tactics to “poll taxes, literacy tests, and laws designed to strip away [Americans’] power,” saying that “we must give Congress no choice but to act decisively to protect the right to vote and make the ballot box more accessible for everyone.”
The letter outlined a plan for this year that includes recruiting and training at least 100,000 volunteers through 2022 to register and turn out voters; registering more than a million new voters nationwide; and recruiting thousands of lawyers “to protect voters in the states where the freedom to vote is threatened.” In addition to Obama, the letter was signed by multiple high-profile groups, including Vote.org, the NAACP and the National Urban League.
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAgThis is true ... to a point.The surprising good news for Democrats: on the current trajectory, there will be a few more Biden-won districts after redistricting than there are now — producing a congressional map slightly less biased in the GOP's favor than the last decade's.
Not until we learn to play the game of politics in a way that can compete with how Republicans play it. I'm not saying we have to play it exactly the same, but we need to play a winning hand instead of constantly allowing them to slaughter us. Independents are a fickle bunch, and by and large know next to nothing about politics. They are largely the ones that buy into bothsidesism. So, yeah. We are fucked.
What's with the blanket negativity? Didn't we hear enough doom and gloom in 2020? And what happened? President Biden won and the House and Senate are in Democratic hands. What good would it have been to say oh gosh we're going to lose everything?
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAg Ohio Supreme Court rejects GOP's newly drawn district maps, orders fix in 10 days
The order, issued by GOP Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, was a victory for Democrats who challenged the lines as unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
The two-paragraph order, issued by Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, was a victory for voting rights advocates and Democrats who had challenged the lines as unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
The court sent the maps back to the Ohio Redistricting Commission to take another crack at complying with provisions of a 2015 state constitutional amendment requiring an attempt at avoiding partisan favoritism. Justices also retained jurisdiction over whatever maps the panel comes up with.
Legal arguments in the case centered on whether it was OK for a powerful new redistricting commission, comprised of four lawmakers and three statewide officials, to disregard constitutional language passed overwhelmingly by Ohio voters about avoiding partisan favoritism in maps for 99 Ohio House and 33 Ohio Senate districts.
Republicans argued those sections were not triggered as long as the commission abided by other requirements laid out in the Constitution, such as those requiring districts to be compact, contiguous and of similar population.
x4 What’s My 2022 Midterms Prediction? Glad You Asked!
None other than Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on authoritarians and threats to democracy, said the following on Twitter yesterday:
“Part of GOP psyop is to make you lose hope, to become defeated and not even try to save democracy. “It’s all useless.” It’s an old trick.” Source
The real talk is that most of these articles are basing their predictions on historical precedent. And history shows that a majority of the time, the party of the president in the White House loses a lot of seats, especially in the House, during the midterms.
All that to say, politics does not feel even remotely “normal” to me these days. Does it feel like that for you?
Not to mention that the Democrats have shown INCREDIBLE turnout, not just in the last presidential election (81 million voters!!) but we also broke nearly every record with our turnout in 2018. Will the same forces that animated all that organizing, registering, and voting be in force this year?
Why volunteering for Obama in 2008 gives me hope that we can still save democracy
The first time I got involved in politics in a real way was the 2008 presidential election. A friend of mine convinced me to volunteer to make calls in support of this junior senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.
I must admit, as much as I loved the idea of playing a part in getting the first Black president elected, I thought there’s no way in hell this guy can win. I mean, his middle name is Hussein. No way white people will vote for this guy after 9/11.
Then on my last call of the day, an older woman answered. She sounded older, and she sounded Black. I asked her if she’s registered to vote. She told me it’s her first time and she’s giddy about voting for Obama. I asked her if she knows where she’s going to go to vote. She told me she got the information and she knew the place. It was a church a few miles away. I asked her if she knows how she’s going to get there on Nov. 3, and she admitted that she had no idea.
This is when things got good. I was able to get online despite the fact that Google wasn’t nearly as accessible then as it is today, and I found her polling place. I asked her if anyone could drive her. She told me she didn’t have anyone. Now this is before Uber, and I’m not even sure she would have been able to download an app and manage that anyway.
I asked her how she got around and she told me she used the public bus. I was able to figure out which bus she needed and navigate her to the polling place. She carefully wrote down every piece of direction I gave and thanked me repeatedly before we hung up. It was a small thing, but it felt huge at the time.
It meant that every vote counted. That small acts lead to big outcomes. We know that Obama won in Florida and that it was in large part due to the immense grassroots efforts he mobilized. He worked hard to win that state and volunteers worked hard to help him.
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5jDHZd0JAg
