It’s looking more and more like the “Blue Wave” really did happen during last week’s midterms, it’s just the Blue Wave took a moment, because every vote had to be counted. It’s looking more and more like the Democratic Party will pick up more than 35 Congressional seats when everything is said and done. Over the weekend, we learned that Republican Dana Rohrabacher – known for his close ties to Russia – had lost his re-election bid and was being replaced by a white dude Democrat. There are still three congressional races still left to be decided, and that’s JUST in California.
Also out west: it’s looking more and more like retiring Republican senator Jeff Flake – who orchestrated the fake FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh, and then voted for Kavanaugh – will be replaced by a Democrat. Her name is Kyrsten Sinema, and she has a slim but substantive lead over Republican Martha McSally in that Senate race.
Meanwhile, the Florida recount is now underway. The state of Florida is trying to recount the votes for governor and the senate seat, plus some congressional seats too. Andrew Gillum has retracted his concession and they’re awaiting the electronic recount. Plus, Broward County – and a few other counties – are still counting absentee ballots and provisional ballots and such. You can read more about it here. Note that every legitimate media outlet is discussing the nuances – there are a lot of absentee ballots, there are a lot of provisional ballots, there are hard copies of people’s Election Day ballots and more. There’s a lot to count, as more than 8 million people cast their ballots in Florida. But to Donald Trump and the Deplorables, somehow “counting votes” equals fraud.
Trying to STEAL two big elections in Florida! We are watching closely!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018
The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018
“Large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere,” meaning, I think, that people sent in their absentee ballots and the #NotMyPresident doesn’t understand how mail works. “Many ballots are missing…” Wait, could the missing ballots be the ones that “showed up out of nowhere”???? “Ballots massively infected” means, to Trump, that we can never forget that brown and black people were somehow allowed to vote, and their melanin “infects” the election. I honestly think that’s what he means.
So basically, the Republican Party’s new platform is voter suppression AND acting like something is really shady about… counting ballots, and counting every vote.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
They can’t win on their merits, so they lie and project and cheat. Again, and again and again.
I’m terrified this is a test run for him contesting 2020 election results that kick him out of office.
Ditto Tiffany. This is the corrupt GOP long game.
I am thinking he will start some dust up with Iran before 2020. He would do anything to show the world he is a tough and “bigly” leader.
I truly believe he is not going to leave the white house willingly. Dictators and wanna-be-dictators don’t just give up power willingly. We need to not only vote his orange ass out of office, but we also need to get a democratic senate and hold the house.
Very much so, a glimpse of things to come.
He may start a dust-up, but it won’t be with Iran. *Nobody* wants to go to war with Iran. Trump seems more hell-bent on starting a civil war here in the U.S.
Fundamental difference between Dem and GOP.
Dems want to make it easier to vote, and want all votes to be counted, even if at the end, they don’t prevail as winners.
GOP wants to make it harder for people to vote, use very exacting criteria so that they can toss out legit votes, and NOT count every vote because they know they don’t have the numbers to win.
cheating (gerrymandering/voter suppression) is the only way they can win these days. all they care about is winning and holding power. they don’t give a rat’s azz if it’s fair or legal.
The common assumption among Republicans is that if everybody votes, especially young people and non-whites and lower income people (who they expect will vote more for Democrats), Republicans will not win so many elections. Basically, the general population tends more toward Democrat than Republican.
This is why the Republicans in the past were most likely to discourage voter registration and are back to doing it big time now. Plan A today seems to be to mess with the vote counts. We have seen vote-shifting from Democrats to Republicans (always in that direction) via those machines since 2004, when they popped up everywhere. Sometimes the timing is off so people see it happen before they leave the booth. This is the first time that I remember there being some official acknowledgement of it, though. They try to say it’s a glitch in old machines. But they’ve been doing it since they were new machines. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
I haven’t trusted vote counts since 2004. Democrats have to win big enough to get past the vote-shifting. Even voting a straight party ticket is no longer protective – voters in Texas who tried that found that, when they reviewed their ballot, their vote for Beto was changed to a vote for Cruz even when they voted straight Democratic.
I find the Arizona Senate race hilarious, only because Republicans claimed McSally had won and were bragging and insulting Sinema for two days.
I’m in AZ and I am SO tired of races being called within a couple hours the night of. We have several elections that were called for Republicans that night and are still being counted. I wish the press would leave results alone until the next day at least.
I have some friends who live in Arizona & are tired of voting Democrats because they got discouraged with the new wave of D candidates (Somali-American, Trans, Muslim & people of colour). I tried to explain to them that, that is a good thing as traditionally, politics has been and still is dominated by old white men & this will hopefully give new perspectives & representation to those who needs it.
@Gingersnap, Yikes! That’s alarming. I’m in a liberal bubble at work (I work in academic/museum setting) but outside of that the biggest problem I see is with other white women having zero respect for themselves, voting against their own self interest and not understanding that the people claiming to be about “family values” are in no way interested in any policies that promote kindness or respect. It’s baffling how people aren’t really listening or watching actions.
I’m in AZ too and yeah, the Republicans were really laying it on thick for like one day before the lead slowly started to go away as more votes came in for Sinema. McSally has done drank the Trump kool-aide. She was always pretty moderate but then they released attack adds against Sinema that claimed she was anti-Trump (which, duh…) and wanted open borders (no she doesn’t…) so I knew McSally would/will go full deplorable if she wins. Fingers still crossed for Sinema! I voted for her.
@ gingersnaps lol at your friends. Can’t say I’m surprised but wow.
Yeah, I was shock that they thought those types of candidates are just ‘token’ candidates, they think that the Democrats are just concern about their image. I was surprised that they thought that way considering that they loathe orange turd.
Projection and Deflection.
Notice his team’s lack of crying out about the GA situation, though. Counting all votes = “Cheating!” Clear conflict of interest = “Nothing to see here.”
I hope Chief Justice Roberts is happy he finally killed the Voting Rights Act like Rehnquist wanted him to. Wonder why we still swept the house, though? Dems getting the last laugh? And the party is just starting!
Hmm, someone is in panic mode…. tick tock motherf@@ker…
Ha ha. Thanks BlueSky fr fr (mofo is one of my most favorite swears). I read an article that he’s headed for a lameduck presidency, so fingers-crossed. I also read (here? no maybe Pajiba) that the author searched for the usual defensive posts from orange die-hards explaining away his horrid fire in California tweets and not going out in the rain in France for the 100 year remembrance ceremonies and not many were around. Like many I keep wondering what it will take…
If politicians like Red Tide Rick and Trump loving DeSantis are so sure they won, then they shouldn’t be panicking about a recount. The election results ended up with them winning by such small amounts of votes, that there should have been a recount to be positive it was correct anyway
I’ve been puzzled by the lack of calls for recounts by many Republicans who lost special elections and general elections by such small amounts. Maybe they just know that a recount will reveal a much bigger margin, because of selective vote hacking and shifting of votes from Democrats to Republicans.
I hope Gillum wins and the fact that this is making Trump insane is just icing on the cake.
He also desperately needs Scott in the Senate, especially if they don’t get McSally in.
If the media isn’t kissing his butt then it’s fake. If republicans aren’t winning then it’s fraud, obviously. This pattern is pathetic and downright scary.
Speaking of infected…
Did Emperor Zero reconfirm that he got STDs on Syphillis Hill and Gonorhea Gorge during the Vietnam War… or, as he called it, his own personal Vietnam?
He’s an infection. He’s like MRSA.
Trump thinks he can tweet and the counting will stop. There are procedures for everything but because he’s an uneducated idiot he has no idea how these things proceed.
I think he rather wants to rile people up to not accept the outcome and start riots, or whatever will get his plan for some sort of civil war started.
Well certainly he got his idiot Matt Gaetz (Florida, when are you firing that DUI mofo?) to scream and bug eye yell at the crowd re recount (someone filmed and posted his performance on Twitter).
My concern is how much of the vote will get recounted by the Thursday deadline. Florida’s people have a right to a voice in their government, but even as both sides agree the likelihood of it being done is poor, the Republicans clearly have a vested interest in stopping it while they’re in the lead.
Why is there a deadline for getting all the votes counted? This is not a gameshow with a timer. People voted, count the votes. Candidate with more votes wins. I once volunteered for a candidate who won by less than a 100 votes. Every vote should count.
Al Franken’s recount for his first election took months. Why in such a hurry in Florida?
I still don’t understand, why there is a deadline to begin with. Nothing will happen until January anyways.
Hallelulah, praise Whoever. The fat schlub won’t be stinking up ceremonies at Arlington with his incoherent babbling.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/white-house-confirms-trump-will-not-visit-arlington-cemetery-veterans-day-rain-expected/
May I just say, in case it’s not apparent, I hate him with every fiber of my being. If only thoughts were actions….
I live in the DC area…the rain was forecast for late afternoon (started around 4:30 in northern Montgomery County). The ceremonies are usually scheduled for around 11ish.
Just like a toddler, he doubles down just to prove “nobody is the boss of me”. Such a waste of oxygen.
I live in Florida and one important thing that happened also was an amendment passed restoring civil rights to convicted felons. This was a huge voter suppression tactic. To get your rights restored was at least a ten year long battle and then, even if you’ve done everything right for these past ten years, the decision to restore rights was completely subjective and at the whim of Scott, Pam Bondi (our horrible [and no longer] republican AG) and I forgot the third person. They routinely denied restoring the rights of deserving, reformed citizens simply because they didn’t feel like it – no reason needed.
As I said, it was really a voter suppression issue as most felons that are denied rights restoration were minorities and liberals/democrats. Even if this recount doesn’t change the current results, I’m very hopeful and I’ll be extremely surprised if Florida isn’t blue come next election.
Just a note – the worst of the worst felons (murderers/child molesters) were not included in the group that make it easier/possible to have their rights restored
This is what people aren’t looking at enough. There will be a potential 1.4 million new voters added to the list and that is going to change the voting landscape in Florida.
Voter suppression is NOT the Republican Party’s *new* platform. Go read about the 2000 presidential election (and, to a less-obvious extent, 2004). They’ve been doing this for a long time.
If you *really* want to make your head explode, read up on Greg Palast’s work. He’s an investigative journalist whose sole focus is voter suppression and election stealing. This guy is no conspiracy theorist–he’s the real deal. I’ve been following his work for nearly 20 years.
http://gregpalast.com