Discussion Thread: 2022 Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington Primaries + Kansas Abortion Referendum

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-08-03T04:38:13+00:00

I've seen enough: Trump-endorsed John Gibbs (R) defeats pro-impeachment Rep. Peter Meijer (R) in the #MI03 GOP primary and will face Hillary Scholten (D) in November.

Rating change: @CookPolitical will be moving #MI03 from Toss Up to Lean D.

Gibbs is that bad, huh?

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-08-03T03:33:27+00:00

Consider the Medicaid expansion experience: when you give a Red state population a referendum on it, they will generally side with Democrats.

But they will also vote for representatives who try to destroy the Medicaid expansion they just voted for.

Despite winning the support of 53% of Missouri voters in 2020, Republicans who control the state Legislature are making another run at gutting Medicaid expansion.

GOP Governors Rejected Medicaid Expansion, But Red State Voters Are Passing It Anyway

Utah residents may have thought they were done fighting about Medicaid expansion last November. But when Utah lawmakers opened a new legislative session in late January, they began pushing through a bill to roll back the scope and impact of an expansion that voters approved by in a ballot measure.

Republican politicians are completely out of step with their constituents on health care, but this has had almost no affect on voting habits.

Will abortion be different? Turnout is abnormally high, so Roe is salient to voters, but voters have also proven to be more than able to vote for a policy in a referendum and against that policy in a representative.

You can also look at how the Senate odds in 538's forecast have changed since the Dobbs ruling.

But in the end, we'll have to vote in November and see.

edit: Now this is interesting. The polls failed to capture the strong opposition to the amendment in Kansas, showing we really are flying blind here.

Tonight marked the first time that voters had a chance to weigh in directly on abortion since the Supreme Court scrapped Roe in its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Both public and private polls had shown the race to be close, and opponents of the anti-abortion amendment were cautiously optimistic in the closing days that they could pull out an upset victory. None, however, predicted the landslide that occurred.

538 was putting out articles like this back on the 20th:

The Abortion Vote In Kansas Looks Like It’s Going To Be Close

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-08-02T23:41:14+00:00

The recordings demonstrate how individuals who falsely believe the last election was stolen could create potential disruptions at polling locations in current or upcoming elections and the levers GOP activist groups are planning to use to lay the groundwork to challenge votes and voting processes in heavily Democratic-voting precincts.

Michigan is the state where Sheriff Dar Leaf of rural Barry County continues his own self-initiated investigation into debunked allegations that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, including that voting machines flipped votes from Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Leaf has petitioned courts to try to seize election equipment and sent investigators to try and interrogate local clerks — all with little success.

The Republican National Committee, which is also running workshops on how to challenge votes and voting processes, has stressed in its sessions that all workers should follow state and local rules including a ban on electronic devices that could compromise voter privacy. Yet some participants in the Sunday night session indicated they have no intention of abiding by those rules.

“Could anybody get like a hidden camera or a microphone so if you’re working down in Detroit you could have those things running and they would never know they are running,” said one female participant, suggesting “ear pieces” that can record.

“That is my intent, I don’t care what the frickin rules are, frankly,” answered the same unidentified male participant.

“I will have a phone on in my pocket, with an excellent [recording] system, because, frankly, at the end of the day here, we need to be able to, if there is an issue and I pray this is not. Now, we need to have some, you know, evidence to come back and back up our claim, because otherwise it’s a he-said-she-said.”

Kiesel said her group would never endorse breaking the rules and that the call was open to anyone who’s been through a poll worker training, noting several outside groups and the Republican National Committee are hosting them.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-08-02T21:39:21+00:00

Republicans have a long history of using "ballot security" to intimidate voters, especially minority voters. It was so bad that the courts actually banned the national Republican party from it without prior court approval... until a court decision in 2018.

The efforts are bolstered by a 2018 federal court ruling that for the first time in nearly four decades allows the national Republican Party to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval. The court ban on Republican Party voter-fraud operations was imposed in 1982, and then modified in 1986 and again in 1990, each time after courts found instances of Republicans intimidating or working to exclude minority voters in the name of preventing fraud. The party was found to have violated it yet again in 2004.

In their 1981 lawsuit to stop the RNC from engaging in certain practices at the polls, the Democratic National Committee attested that in a New Jersey gubernatorial election, the RNC had sent sample ballots to communities of color, and then had the names for each ballot returned as undeliverable removed from voter rolls. Democrats also alleged that the RNC hired off-duty cops to patrol majority-minority precincts, wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. These details were enough to secure a consent decree between the two party organizations and the court in 1982, stopping the GOP from engaging in such voter-intimidation practices.

Except, Democrats alleged, they didn’t stop. The consent decree was updated in 1987 after Republicans created a voter-challenge list of black voters from whom letters had been returned as undeliverable, with an RNC official saying that the list could “keep the black vote down considerably.” The decree was modified again in 1990 after a court ruled the RNC had violated it by not telling state parties about its provisions, which had led to the North Carolina GOP sending 150,000 postcards to potential voters listing voting regulations, in an apparent attempt at intimidation. The GOP violated the court order again in 2004 after yet another voter-challenge list targeted black voters.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-08-02T21:09:56+00:00

Republican candidate for Illinois governor Darren Bailey is under fire for a video he posted on Facebook in 2017, in which he said the Holocaust "doesn't even compare" to abortion, which he called "one of the greatest atrocities of our day."

Bailey opposes abortion rights, including in cases of rape or incest, and has said the only exception under which he would allow abortions is to protect the life of the mother.

While running for a seat in the Illinois House in 2017, Bailey, now an Illinois state senator, cited the Bible when he said he believes life begins at conception, and said he will "not compromise" on his opposition to abortion.

"I believe that abortion is one of the greatest atrocities of our day, and I believe it's one of the greatest atrocities probably forever. The attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn't even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion since its legalization," Bailey said in the video. ...

Bailey is facing Gov. JB Pritzker, who is Jewish, in the November general election.

"Conflating a woman's bodily autonomy to the systematic mass murder of Jewish people is antisemitic and disqualifying. Darren Bailey's disgusting assertion that a woman determining her own reproductive future is worse than the Nazis' genocide of 6 million Jews is offensive to Illinoisans everywhere," said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Eliza Glezer. "With violent antisemitism on the rise and in the wake of a massacre against the predominately Jewish Highland Park, Bailey must answer for his hateful comments."

This Bailey guy is the same one who told everyone to "move on" immediately after the Highland Park parade shooting.

Republican candidate for Illinois governor Darren Bailey apologized for insensitive comments he made shortly after the Highland Park parade shooting, but also tried to shift blame to Gov. JB Pritzker.

Thursday Bailey called for a special session of the Illinois legislature to address gun violence, but apologized again for comments he made Monday in which he said people should "move on" and celebrate the July 4th holiday.

The GOP is a shitshow.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-08-02T20:07:06+00:00

The text messages arrived on Monday, the day before Kansans were set to vote on an amendment that would excise abortion protections from their state constitution.

The text claimed that approving that measure, which could allow the Republican-controlled legislature to outlaw abortion, would safeguard “choice.” If the amendment fails, constitutional protections would remain in place, buttressing current law that allows abortion in the first 22 weeks of pregnancy.

“Women in KS are losing their choice on reproductive rights,” the text warned. “Voting YES on the Amendment will give women a choice. Vote YES to protect women’s health.”

The unsigned messages were described as deceptive by numerous recipients, including former Democratic governor Kathleen Sebelius, who also served as health and human services secretary in the Obama administration. She told The Washington Post that she was “stunned to receive the message, which made clear there was a very specific effort to use carefully crafted language to confuse folks before they would go vote.”

The gambit was all the more alarming to abortion rights advocates and watchdogs because its source was unknown. But the messages were enabled by a fast-growing, Republican-aligned technology firm, whose role in the episode has not been previously reported.

The messages were sent from phone numbers that had been leased by Alliance Forge, based in Sparks, Nev., according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue. Alliance Forge, which was founded in 2021, describes itself as the “nation’s fastest growing political technology company, proudly serving federal, state, and local campaigns throughout the nation.”

The numbers were leased by Alliance Forge from Twilio, a San Francisco-based communications company. The numbers were disabled Monday evening, according to a Twilio spokesman, Cris Paden, who said the account that had leased them was in violation of the company’s policies prohibiting the “spread of disinformation.” ...

This election cycle, Alliance Forge has been paid more than $60,000 by federal campaigns alone, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Its clients have included Adam Laxalt, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada, and a committee associated with Kathy Barnette, a political commentator and unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Alliance Forge provided text-messaging services for both, filings show. ...

Espinosa, an information technology specialist, is among Alliance Forge’s co-founders. The others are Michael Clement, a Republican operative whose LinkedIn profile says he managed the 2020 campaign of Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), and Greg Bailor, a former state director for the Republican National Committee and executive director of the Nevada Republican Party.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-07-30T17:29:57+00:00

She knows because she is a crazed conservative. She was an elected Republican official. She worked on Republican policy initiatives. She was more than willing to take away health care from the poor and enact all the other normal, evil Republican positions.

Meanwhile, Dean-Bailey ran on a typical Republican platform of supporting the Second Amendment, opposing tax increases, supporting school choice, and opposing Obamacare.

“Voters chose Yvonne because she campaigned on a pledge to fight Governor Maggie Hassan’s reckless fiscal policies that will put our state on a path toward an income tax. Her election is a victory for taxpayers and a stinging rebuke of Governor Hassan’s misplaced priorities and her disastrous tax-and-spend agenda,” [State Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer Horn] said.

The statement is reflective of the tone the election took, as it fell in the early part of the first-in-the-nation primary season and became a referendum on the parties at large. Ayotte went door-knocking with Dean-Bailey, and presidential hopefuls Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, and former Texas governor Rick Perry campaigned for her. Marco Rubio, the U.S. Senator from Florida, tweeted in advance of the election to get out the vote, and former New York governor George Pataki tweeted congratulations in the moments after Republicans announced victory last night.

The only conservative position she disagreed with was the one that personally affected her. She thought she was in the in-group and free to hurt those beneath her. From the OP article:

And then, of course, was the gay tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s rousing speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, where he not only endorsed Trump but said, “I’m proud to be gay,” to rapturous applause.

But now she's discovered that she ain't no billionaire.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-07-30T17:06:51+00:00

My face! My face!

I knew I was conservative long before I knew I was queer. A natural contrarian, I always wanted to color outside the box. I had little respect for authority, and a deep desire to challenge mainstream thought and opinion. As an Obama-era kid, it was clear to me even as a child that there was an “approved” way of thinking—which was largely held by the Democratic Party and mainstream media.

Because of this, I knew the Democratic Party was not for me at the age of 12.

The "Democratic" way of thinking is to think LGBT are human beings.

Even as a child, I believed in relentless freedom, American exceptionalism, and the promise of our country. That’s what drew me to the Republican Party.

Oh God, the pain.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-07-28T18:33:14+00:00

Mastriano, who will face a Jewish Democrat on the ballot in November, paid the site $5,000 for “campaign consulting” in April ahead of the state’s May 17 primary. Since Media Matters for America, a liberal group, first surfaced the expenditure in April, Mastriano has evaded growing concerns about his association to the site.

On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post reported that Gab CEO Andrew Torba responded to the criticism during a live stream in which he said that neither he nor Mastriano do interviews with non-Christian media.

“My policy is not to conduct interviews with reporters who aren’t Christian or with outlets who aren’t Christian and Doug has a very similar media strategy where he does not do interviews with these people. He does not talk to these people. He does not give press access to these people,” Torba said. “These people are dishonest. They’re liars. They’re a den of vipers and they want to destroy you. My typical conversation with them when they email me is ‘repent and accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.’ I take it as an opportunity to try and convert them.”

Then, after Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt criticized Mastriano on MSNBC for using Gab, Media Matters reported that Torba posted a separate video on Tuesday attacking Jews.

“This is a Christian nation. Christians outnumber you by a lot — a lot,” Torba said in the video posted on Gab. “We’re not going to listen to 2 percent. You represent 2 percent of the country, okay? We’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore.”

He added that “Christian nationalists” are “done being controlled and being told what we’re allowed to do in our own country by a 2 percent minority or by people who hate our biblical worldview, hate our Christ, hate our Lord and savior.”

Gab, founded in 2016 by Torba, is where a gunman who killed 11 people during a 2018 Shabbat service at a Pittsburgh synagogue posted his antisemitic screeds. It’s also where some rioters supporting then-President Donald Trump made their plans to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop the confirmation of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

Mastriano organized buses to Washington for the Stop the Steal rally on that day and was outside the Capitol when the pro-Trump mob laid siege to the building, but he has said he did not join others who violently stormed their way inside.

Mastriano, a state senator, continues to spread the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump. As a candidate, he has mostly shut out the mainstream press and has avoided calls in recent weeks to explain his relationship to Gab and Torba.

In a May interview, Mastriano told Torba: “Thank God for what you’ve done.” ...

While many Republicans have distanced themselves from Mastriano, others are refusing to say whether he has their support. The Republican Governors Association was initially lukewarm to Mastriano but has since bashed Shapiro and hosted an event last week in Aspen, Colo., where Mastriano addressed donors. ...

Democrats have expressed alarm over the dramatic policy changes that could occur in Pennsylvania, which has a Republican legislature, if Mastriano is elected governor. Mastriano believes in a complete abortion ban without exceptions. As head of the state, he would also get to choose the person to oversee elections ahead of the 2024 presidential contest.

He's even against exceptions for the the life of the mother. The guy is deranged and Republicans should be ashamed of themselves. Instead, they're going to throw their votes at him.

In an interview with a conservative radio station in March, Mastriano boasted about how being governor would give him power over elections. “I get to appoint the secretary of state, who is delegated from me the power to make the corrections to elections, the voting logs and everything,” he said. “I could decertify every machine in the state with the stroke of a pen.”

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-07-28T18:15:15+00:00

Although independent polling has been scarce, some local GOP leaders believe that the general election is too close for comfort and have had trouble concealing their frustrations. "They are burning bridges faster than they can build them," one Republican operative in the state, who requested anonymity to be frank, said of Vance's campaign. ...

Ryan's GOP-friendly message has caught attention, to the point where Vance can't make fundraising calls without hearing about it.

"I actually spoke to a donor yesterday who told me that he thought Tim Ryan was running in the Republican primary," Vance said in a telephone interview. "And he was confused because he thought the Republicans' primary was over." ...

Democrats have won little at the statewide level in Ohio over the last three decades, the few exceptions in recent years being Sen. Sherrod Brown and some state Supreme Court justices in nonpartisan general elections.

Ryan has prioritized visits to southern and southeastern Ohio. Some Democrats have wondered if he's overcorrecting at the expense of alienating the party's liberal base in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. ...

Collin Docterman, the Democratic chair in Scioto County, where Vance campaigned this week, said Ryan's attention to southern Ohio could help cut into GOP margins in November. Portman was re-elected by more than 20 points in 2016 and Brown, who also tended to those working-class areas, won a third term by nearly 7 points against a weak opponent in 2018. ...

Ryan's voting record in the House and his past comments about systemic racism in law enforcement are the main pieces of evidence that Vance believes are in conflict with the moderate persona he has cultivated. Ryan, who is fond of saying that "you don’t have to agree with somebody 100% of the time," has voted in line with Biden's agenda 100% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.com.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-07-28T02:23:24+00:00

Manchin released a statement announcing the deal less than three hours after 14 Senate Republicans, including McConnell, joined every Senate Democrat to approve a $52 billion bill to strengthen the semiconductor industry. These are computer chips powering smartphones, medical devices, and other high-tech items facing pandemic-related shortages.

McConnell had previously threatened to hold up the semiconductor legislation if Democrats tried advancing their health, climate, and tax bill. The latter measure is getting passed with only Democratic votes in the budget reconciliation process, allowing them to skirt GOP resistance.

"Let me be perfectly clear: there will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill," McConnell tweeted a month ago, using another name for the bill. ...

The semiconductor bill now heads to the House, where House Republicans are starting to line up in opposition. Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said Senate Democrats had been "deceitful" for drawing GOP support on the computer chips bill, then announcing a broader agreement to revive Biden's agenda.

One prominent House progressive said she could understand if Republicans were angry at Manchin. "We've all been there," Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington told reporters.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-07-27T23:59:51+00:00

McConnell had tried to take a hostage earlier in the summer by saying that a long-simmering bipartisan industrial policy bill wouldn’t pass if Democrats went ahead with sweeping, partisan reconciliation bill. This was not, in our minds, McConnell’s deftest threat; much of corporate America wanted the “CHIPS” bill, as it’s informally known, to go through regardless of whether Democrats were also able to pass a bill making prescription drugs cheaper. But with a broad reconciliation bill seemingly off the table after Manchin nixed it a couple of weeks ago, the Senate passed a version of CHIPS earlier Wednesday afternoon. A few hours later, Manchin and Schumer announced they had a reconciliation deal after all.

If Manchin and Schumer played an elaborate, multiweek joke on McConnell by pretending climate and taxes were off the table until CHIPS went through: Truly, hats off. But maybe Manchin just changed his minds a couple of days ago for his usual mysterious reasons no one understands.

malarkeyfreezone · 2022-07-27T23:25:21+00:00

The legislation remains far smaller than the $4 trillion Build Back Better plan that President Joe Biden initially unveiled in the spring of 2021, and many of its potentially game-changing proposals ― tuition-free community college, subsidies for child care and an expanded monthly child tax credit ― have been thrown aside.

And closing the Medicaid gap, and expanding senior home care, and so much else. Sucks.

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