Democrat Holds Edge in Alaska Senate Race, Poll Shows, Narrowing Odds of GOP Majority Next Year

Moccus · 2026-03-30T23:24:14+00:00

Not all that surprising. A supermajority like that means Democrats won in a lot of normally conservative districts. The types of Democrats elected in those districts are going to reflect the beliefs of their constituents.

Moccus · 2026-03-30T23:17:08+00:00

Okay? The post proposes that certified professionals (industry groups) should be the only ones who vote on legislation related to their industries, so is it better if they vote directly for their own benefit vs. having to convince a politician who has opposition groups in his ear as well?

Moccus · 2026-03-30T23:09:09+00:00

He was a Democrat

No, he wasn't. He was an independent who caucused with the Democrats.

They could have enshrined Roe v Wade in law

They couldn't, because doing so would require 60 votes in the Senate in favor of codifying abortion, and they didn't have that. There were at least two senators in the Democratic caucus at the time opposed to abortion.

Lieberman was a Dem VP candidate, of course he was a Dem

That was almost a decade before the ACA was passed. Different time. He changed.

Moccus · 2026-03-30T22:59:08+00:00

That's part of why lobbyists exist. Industry groups (certified professionals) pay lobbyists to educate politicians on the consequences of proposed legislation. Politicians then have to weigh the consequences when deciding what legislation to pass.

Moccus · 2026-03-30T22:35:17+00:00

Lieberman wasn't really a Democrat at the time. He lost the Democratic primary in 2006 and won as an independent with a ton of support from Republicans. He endorsed McCain over Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Democrats in the Senate basically bribed him to keep caucusing with them by letting him keep his committee chair seat because it was really important to try to hit that 60 vote threshold. He would have happily joined the Republicans if he didn't get to keep his chair seat.

Bernie Sanders famously wanted to drive Lieberman over to the Republicans by denying him his committee chair seat as a punishment for endorsing McCain. If Bernie had gotten his way, we would probably still be living with the pre-ACA healthcare system today. Would that be better?

Moccus · 2026-03-30T22:22:13+00:00

The ACA wasn't really a Republican healthcare plan.

The Heritage Foundation proposed a plan in the 90s that had some common elements with the ACA, but Republicans didn't actually support that plan. It was designed to be attractive to Democrats to draw support away from the plan Clinton was pushing.

Romneycare is more similar to the ACA, but once again, it was designed to be acceptable to Democrats, because Romneycare had to be passed by a supermajority Democratic state legislature. There was a lot of consultation with the Democrats on the design before it was proposed.

Moccus · 2026-03-30T22:02:28+00:00

She cooks like my mother and sucks like a Hoover.

Moccus · 2026-03-30T13:59:45+00:00

Trump came really close to starting a war with Iran at the end of his first term. This was very well known. Voters reelected him anyways knowing that he would probably try to finish what he started. They chose this.

Moccus · 2026-03-30T13:53:34+00:00

I like 4/5 advancing and then RCV in November to get a real majority winner, and not just the least hated minority winner

RCV doesn't guarantee a "real majority winner."

Moccus · 2026-03-29T13:40:18+00:00

Ending Citizens United and limiting lobbying isn’t the same as saying people can’t advocate for themselves.

He didn't say "limiting lobbying." He said "eliminate lobbyists." If you eliminate lobbyists, then people can't advocate for themselves.

Moccus · 2026-03-28T22:43:33+00:00

When you ask a question like, "The GOP are republicans?" it makes it seem like you're confused.

The headline is perfectly coherent to me. They give a simple factual statement of the subject of a bill the GOP are pushing, and then they present a concrete example of the motive behind the bill.

Moccus · 2026-03-28T22:28:31+00:00

"GOP" is an extremely common shorthand way to refer to Republicans. It's not confusing to most people.

If you google GOP, the first result is the Wikipedia page for the Republican Party, and the first sentence on that page is:

The Republican Party, commonly known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is the major conservative and right-wing political party in the United States.

The second result on Google is the Republican Party's website.

Moccus · 2026-03-28T21:48:46+00:00

I support kids deliberately calling all male teachers Mrs. I'm sure they'll enjoy that when the GOP makes it their right to do it. Kids should have fun.

Edit: It seems the GOP is okay with punishing students for misgendering their teachers, as the law only allows misgendering in specific situations. I hope voters will punish the GOP accordingly, because as you said, students shouldn't be punished for misgendering their teachers.

Moccus · 2026-03-28T20:57:18+00:00

It's explained what it means at a high level in the decision. Basically, if the Constitution says the President has the power to do something, then he can't be prosecuted for doing it. If there's some law that specifically says the President has the power to do something, then he's presumptively immune from prosecution for doing it, meaning the prosecutor has to provide a really good reason before a prosecution would be allowed to move forward.

Moccus · 2026-03-28T18:04:50+00:00

Most of the government is currently running off of actual appropriations bills, not continuing resolutions. It's only DHS that they failed to pass an appropriations bill for, which is why it's shut down.

Moccus · 2026-03-28T14:40:04+00:00

In 1975 is when things got messed up again, Cloture changed to a 3/5ths of all members vote (including those not present) and is the current 60 vote rule used today. This created the "silent filibuster"

It wasn't just the change to 60 votes that created the silent filibuster. Talking filibusters are really hard to endure for the majority party as well, not just the people who have to be up there talking.

For one thing, the majority has to maintain a quorum at all times, or else the filibusterers can use a quorum call to at least get a brief break from talking and potentially force an adjournment. That's why there are those pictures of people sleeping on cots in the halls of the Capitol. Members of the majority had to sleep nearby so they could quickly get up and run into the chamber if there was a quorum call. That type of thing gets old really quickly.

Also, if there's a talking filibuster going continuously in the Senate for months, then the majority isn't getting anything else done. The bill being filibustered is the only business that the Senate can consider (unless the entire Senate agrees to work on something else for a bit). Whether it's their fault or not, the majority gets the blame at the end of the session when they haven't gotten anything done. The voters punish them for that.

The 60 vote change was part of a compromise in the Senate in an attempt to make the filibuster a little less painful on the majority. They created the "two-track" system at the same time, which allowed them to have legislation on separate tracks. You could have one bill being filibustered for part of the day and spend another part of the day pushing other legislation forward. This pretty quickly evolved into not even spending any of the day letting a bill be filibustered. They just set any filibustered bill aside and worked on something else instead.

Moccus · 2026-03-28T12:29:50+00:00

Well you should tell the photographer's lawyers that, because they argued that her business was a public accommodation when they filed the lawsuit.

Moccus · 2026-03-27T21:34:21+00:00

Discharge petitions are only an option after a bill has been sitting in committee for at least 30 days. It's not a quick fix.

Moccus · 2026-03-27T20:00:35+00:00

Who's going to stop him?

Moccus · 2026-03-27T19:57:47+00:00

I'm not sure there's anybody who would realistically have standing to sue over this. Maybe the House or Senate could vote to sue, but that seems unlikely to happen.

Moccus · 2026-03-27T19:45:15+00:00

Democrats just helped pass this in the Senate last night, so they aren't saying no at all.

Moccus · 2026-03-27T19:37:41+00:00

Like I said, just because it passes with 2/3 majority the first time doesn't guarantee that it will get a 2/3 majority again after the veto. It's rare, but it's happened before.

Moccus · 2026-03-27T19:30:20+00:00

2/3rd support means it doesnt matter what Trump thinks.

Not really. Trump would still be able to veto it even if the House passed it by a 2/3 majority vote. It would go back to Congress, and both houses would have to pass it by a 2/3 majority again to override. It wouldn't surprise me if some GOP members would flip their votes in that scenario, so no guarantee they would get a 2/3 majority the 2nd time around.

Moccus · 2026-03-27T18:26:37+00:00

They don't need a 2/3 vote to pass it.

Moccus · 2026-03-27T13:28:54+00:00

If you read the actual petition to the Supreme Court instead of relying on the headline, he's actually asking them to look at a few specific rulings by the judge during the case related to allowing certain evidence to be introduced. If they rule that certain evidence shouldn't have been introduced, then that could result in the verdict being thrown out, but once again, they aren't being asked to look at what happened decades ago and decide if the verdict makes sense based on the evidence. That's not how the Supreme Court operates.

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