The Progressive Wing

Brunch for the late nighters…

brunch plate Screenshot 2022-08-14 115658.jpg

OMG. That is making me really hungry!

Me, too. Hey, phatkhat! You and your posse ready to move to civilization? 🙂

YES!

Best wishes in your new home!!!!

From the referenced article above:

It was not a bad Election Day for Democrats in Pennsylvania Tuesday.
John Fetterman won the hotly contested U.S. Senate race. Josh Shapiro handily won the gubernatorial race. In Western Pennsylvania, Summer Lee became the first Black woman in state history to be elected to the U.S. House. Chris Deluzio also was elected to Congress.
U.S. Senate
Fetterman, the former mayor of Braddock and current lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, triumphed over Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician who moved to the state specifically to run for the Senate.
The Associated Press reported early Wednesday that with 93 percent of the vote counted, Fetterman had 2,594, 102 votes to Oz’s 2,443, 607. (All results in every race are unofficial until verified by the state’s 67 county election bureaus.)
The Senate race drew significant national attention because control of the Senate was thought to be largely dependent on which party captured the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Pat Toomey.
Pennsylvania Governor
State Attorney General Josh Shapiro cruised to an easy win over state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican backed by former President Donald Trump and a participant in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
With 93 percent of the vote counted, Shapiro had 2,872,558 votes to Mastriano’s 2,202,364. Mastriano has yet to concede.
U.S. House: 12th District
Democratic State Rep. Summer Lee defeated Plum Borough council President Mike Doyle for the seat. Lee becomes the first Black woman in Pennsylvania to be elected to the U.S. House.
With 95 percent of the vote counted, Lee had 178,799 votes to Doyle’s 141,991.
U.S. House: 17th District
Deluzio, a Democrat from Aspinwall, both were attempting to succeed outgoing Rep. Conor Lamb. He decided against running to retain his House seat in an unsuccessful bid to win the Democratic U.S. Senate race, losing to Fetterman in the May primary.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, Deluzio had 178,323 votes to Shaffer’s 162,764.

One thing I know already.
If not for voters under 30 … tonight WOULD have been a Red Wave.
CNN National House Exit Poll
R+ 13 65+
R+ 11 45-64
D +2 30-44
D +28 18-29#GenZ did their job.
— John Della Volpe (@dellavolpe) November 9, 2022

I am Congressman-Elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost and I will be the first member of Generation-Z in the United States Congress.
WE MADE HISTORY!!! Don’t count young people out. pic.twitter.com/Nd3vr5iPT0
— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) November 9, 2022

🙂 and how!!!!! It wasn’t even close. I have a feeling the Repukes are gonna back off around here. 🙂

Paul ADK

All it takes is ditching the corporate Dems, and running progressives, everywhere. Not all are going to win the first time around, obviously, but the message resonates. A few here, a few there, some now, some later, and that’s how majorities are made.

Sounds like a Berniecrat!

One bite at a time to finish a rather large steak 🙂

Hope so Orl, up here you’ll have to pry their dead bodies out of the state chamber here. A lot of walker clones up here that like to abuse power. Michaels would have been a young version of Cult-45. We dodged a large caliber of bullet yesterday.

The Bernster deserves the Medal of Freedom. 🙂 A lot of that young vote was psyched by him.

+27

I think it was a shame that he was considered a liability for Barnes not to appear with him.

A tactical error by his campaign. Dane- Milw. county loves Bernie might have pulled more votes out of there.

For 15 months, the White House refused to act on Biden’s #Cuba campaign promises due in part to the supplications of fearful Florida Dems who can’t find Hialeah without using Waze.

Thousands of Cuban families on both sides of the Straits paid the price.

All for nothing.
——————————————
This is a simmering problem with the Hispanic vote in this state. The old rich Hispanics are basically RW. The younger ones born here are not. It’s a class deal cos the wealthy can immigrate w/no problem. The other classes? Not so easy, and the poor ones are politically exploited by the FRighties. One of the good things PBO did was opening back up Cuban relations, and getting rid of sanctions. SloMoJoe needs to get going on it. Anywho, T and R x 2, Ms. Benny!! 🙂 I’m still euphoric over Frost and Eskamani. I’ve met her twice now @ the annual Vegan Fest. 🙂

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-08/2022-california-election-governor-newsom-dahle-results

California voters Tuesday handed Gavin Newsom a second term as governor, choosing the incumbent over Brian Dahle, an unfamiliar Republican state senator from Lassen County who struggled to compete with the Democratic political heavyweight.
The race was called by the Associated Press shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m., with Newsom’s early lead over Dahle predicted to grow as more results are tallied in the coming days.
The election solidifies the 55-year-old Democrat’s success at the ballot box. Newsom captured the governor’s office in 2018 with the biggest margin of victory in more than half a century and buried the GOP-led effort to recall him by the same advantage three years later.
After easily defeating Dahle, the socially progressive governor returns for another four years to lead a state on the verge of becoming the fourth-largest economy in the world while simultaneously experiencing record homelessness, a dire shortage of affordable housing, and rising crime.
As he cast his ballot in downtown Sacramento on Tuesday morning, the governor pledged to continue to focus on the problems plaguing the state. He thanked California voters hours later in an election night acceptance speech with his family at his side, saying he was humbled to be elected for another four years.
“We have governors that won their reelections tonight in other states that are banning books, that are banning speech, that are banning abortion and here we are in California moving in a completely different direction,” Newsom said. “That’s a deep point of pride and it’s with that passion that I bring to this second term a resolve to do more to advance that cause of freedom and fairness.”
Tuesday ended an unusually quiet campaign from a governor who vigorously defended himself against the recall effort last year.
President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders all stepped up in 2021 to support Newsom with appearances on the campaign trail and in advertisements, helping the governor’s political team cast his top replacement opponent, Larry Elder, as a Trump-aligned extremist.
This time around Newsom didn’t call in any big name political reinforcements and he seldom acknowledged his opponent. The governor ran only one television advertisement that called out Dahle’s opposition to abortion in May, days after a draft of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade made headlines, and participated in one debate against his opponent.

Newsom better start strongly addressing climate crisis. They have it big time there.

Peltola holds early lead in Alaska House race

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola led in early first-choice returns in Tuesday’s ranked choice election for Alaska’s only House seat, leading Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich.
Peltola embraced the legacy of her Republican predecessor, the late Rep. Don Young, as she sought a two-year term in a race that also included Libertarian Chris Bye.
Under ranked voting, ballots are counted in rounds. A candidate can win outright with more than 50% of the vote in the first round. If no one hits that threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their votes count for their next choice.
Rounds continue until two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes wins. Tabulations rounds would take place Nov. 23.
Peltola, in an ad, referred to the seat as “Don Young’s seat in Congress.” She also had said the race was about “carrying on” Young’s legacy, which she said was about putting Alaska first.
Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, was seeking a political comeback 13 years after she resigned as Alaska’s governor. She brought back her “drill, baby, drill” mantra and said she could use her prominent profile for the benefit of Alaska. Her bid was also endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
While she and Peltola are friendly – Peltola’s time as a state lawmaker overlapped with Palin’s as governor – Palin has railed against the state’s ranked choice voting system and said Alaskans “do not want the destructive democrat (sic) agenda to rule our land and our lives.”
Both she and Begich ahead of the general election had urged voters to “rank the red,” or the Republicans, though Palin told reporters in Anchorage Tuesday that she had to “swallow my pride” in doing so. She also said it went against what she “preached” previously, which was “rage against the machine.”
We have to ask others to support the other Republicans, even though it kind of goes against any competitive bone anybody would have in their body,” she said. Palin said she ranked Begich second on her ballot.
Begich, who earlier in the campaign cast Palin as a quitter and someone chasing celebrity, said a Republican in the seat is better than a Democrat. But in a recent interview, he argued he was the Republican with the momentum, saying he had seen a growth in his support since his third place finish in the special election.
He tried to tie Peltola to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden.
Begich in one ad refers to himself as an “inflation fighter.” He said one way he could do that is by fighting against excess government spending. He said he was interested, if elected, in focusing on economic issues and making the case for Alaska resource development.

Benny

The vaunted red wave never hit the shore in midterm elections

In the closing days of the 2022 campaign, Republicans were in a bullish mood. They believed that after a difficult summer, the momentum of the midterm elections had swung decisively in their direction.
Election night proved to be more problematic. The vaunted red wave never hit the shore.
Republicans remained confident that when all the results were tallied, they would control the House, though likely by a margin that would fall short of their projections. The Senate, meanwhile, was turning out as predicted, with control in the balance and a handful of seats not called and not likely to be for days.
The pattern for the night was set relatively early, as seats Republicans thought they would flip were agonizingly close and some went against their expectations. One was in Virginia, where Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) was reelected; another was in Rhode Island, where Seth Magaziner (D) prevailed. Other races Republicans had expressed confidence in winning were turning out to be more competitive than thought.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Republican challenger Herschel Walker were locked in a tight race in Georgia on Nov. 8 as officials continued to count ballots. (Video: The Washington Post)
Candidate quality also appeared to be a problem for Republicans. In the Georgia Senate race, Democratic incumbent Raphael G. Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker were in a virtual tie all evening. Walker, whose troubled past had dogged him throughout the election, was running several points behind Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who easily won his reelection over Democrat Stacey Abrams. And in Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) was projected to win a hard-fought race for an open Senate seat.
Midterm elections are always a referendum on the president. Try as Biden did to make it a choice between his leadership and that of former president Donald Trump and what he labeled the “MAGA Republicans,” it was in fact more of a referendum on the incumbent administration than anything else. But this has been an unusual election year, one in which some of the normal rules have not applied. If it was a referendum on Biden, it was also a referendum on the Republicans and America itself.
It was the first balloting since rioters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to aid Trump in his quest to overturn the 2020 election results and remain in power. It also was the first election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion that had stood for half a century. And it was the first campaign in which the label “election deniers” was applied to hundreds of candidates around the country — all of them running as Republicans.
For over a decade, change has been the constant in America’s congressional elections, a seemingly never-ending struggle for power in a closely and deeply divided nation. Through these years, congressional elections have turned on anger and dissatisfaction more than on hope and optimism. This year was President Biden’s and the Democrats’ time to feel the voters’ discontent — and the unhappiness was widespread, even as Democrats in some hotly contested races were holding on.
About 7 in 10 voters in these midterm elections said they were either angry or dissatisfied with the state of the country, and slightly more said the country was heading in the wrong direction, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research. About 1 in 3 cited inflation as the most important issue in their vote.
As the first waves of votes were coming in from states around the country, nothing appeared likely to change the prevailing pattern of constant change — in this case putting Republicans on a path to claim a majority in the House, which the odds have favored that outcome all year. The real suspense as the night went on was whether those gains would be big or not so big — and here, Republicans were forced to wait for more results before knowing what the future House would look like.
The recent pattern of change began in 2006, when Democrats scored major gains during George W. Bush’s presidency and took control of the House and Senate. In 2010, under President Barack Obama, they surrendered the House, and in 2014 they lost control of the Senate. In 2018, Democrats reclaimed the House and two years later the Senate. If Democrats were to lose both the House and Senate, Biden would be yet another president who saw control of Congress shift on his watch.
By early Wednesday, the balance of power in the Senate depended on the outcome of competitive contests in a handful of states. With late poll closings out West and expected slow counting of mail-in ballots in some places, a definitive answer to the question of who would be in the majority may not be forthcoming for days or perhaps longer.
By 2 a.m. Wednesday, the only Senate seat to switch party control was in Pennsylvania, where Fetterman was projected to defeat Republican Mehmet Oz to succeed the retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R). Meanwhile, Democrats retained Sen. Maggie Hassan’s seat in New Hampshire, one that Republicans saw as a potential pickup that would signal a banner night for the party.
The House results alone — assuming the Republicans netted the five seats they needed to take control, an outcome Democratic officials were widely expecting — would be enough to shake up Washington, enough to throw Biden and the Democrats on the defensive after two years in which they controlled — barely — the main levers of power in the capital.
For Republicans, with power comes the obligation to govern — and to avoid the voters’ wrath two years hence. The last time they were in control of the presidency, the House and the Senate, which was after Trump was elected president in 2016, they stumbled badly on a pledge to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, squabbled among themselves and were saddled with unhappiness over Trump’s conduct in office. In 2018 they lost the House, and in 2020 the Senate.
Republicans tried to take advantage of prevailing public sentiment about inflation and crime and Biden’s low approval ratings. Republican candidates said they can bring down the cost of living, deal with crime and secure the southern border, but they have provided only scant policy details. Voters have shown time and again that they have limited patience awaiting results.
Preliminary exit polls showed an electorate, at least in terms of its composition, quite similar to that of the last midterm elections, in 2018, when Democrats scored major gains. But in some cases, the margins appeared more favorable to Republicans than they were four years ago.
Though not definitive, older voters were more Republican this year than in 2018. The preliminary exit polls shows signs of slippage for Democrats among Latinos and possibly among Black voters. White women without college degrees were voting even more strongly for Republicans this year than in 2018. But those are national percentages and do not provide state-by-state or district-by-district comparisons.

I know the Progressive House Posse picked up seats. Question is how many? If the GOPukes try to bully them, the Repukes will have to deal with the voters in 2 years.

I would love to see the Dems get the last 3 seats and render Manchin,Sinema a non factor.

Benny

Not reported here but now I will: Justice Dem Greg Cesar won Texas-35! (can’t find a linky- I saw this in WaPo) So Bernie did some good for him and Summer Lee.

+270!

jcitybone

🚶 https://t.co/rhGpqc2m2T
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 9, 2022

A good example is PA. Nonpartisan polls had Fetterman up by 3-4. Bogus Republican polls had Oz winning. Fetterman is ahead by 3 now and will probably end up winning by 4 or 5 when the remaining votes (very Dem) are counted.

Paul ADK

Absolutely! Every polling entity has direct corporate ownership behind it, or is beholden to corporate endowments and foundations. If you can’t get at a sampling of voters? And you can’t, it’s impossible, smart phone technology precludes it. If you can’t the next best thing is 1) keeping your corporate masters happy, by telling them what they want to hear, while 2) discouraging your opposition and affecting the outcome that way.

Money doesn’t talk, it swears. And you’ll certainly never get the truth out of it, willingly. Because the truth is it’s all greedy self interests, there’s nothing for the public good being expressed anywhere anymore. At least not on the grand scale. Because the means of expression all owned and controlled by the oligarchy, and even that which once functioned reasonably has been corrupted.

Benny

We did it. I am honored to be Congresswoman-Elect for IL's 3rd District. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/00Mb7qOKQY
— Delia Ramirez (@Delia4Congress) November 9, 2022

The Dem for my new district is up 3.4 with 88% counted. Most of the local offices went red, sheriff, council, etc. But Maybe they are doing a good job and just got reelected. I don’t know yet, LOL.

That’s an interesting observation about the local races. I voted for the GOPuke re-election of my County School Board Head. She’s done an excellent job, does not care for charter schools, and has done her best for the school kids re: Covid.

Benny

I voted for one for county sheriff but oddly he didn’t win. Less GOP got voted in on the councils. I think my area finally experienced a blue wave.

Update: The race has been called, and his opponent conceded! I looked for info on him, and he’s interesting. He is a meteorologist, and very outspoken about addressing climate change! Wow, the first weatherman in Congress. He’s also big on education, women’s rights, and improving the ACA/letting Medicare negotiate drug prices. That could be better, but I’ll take it. He’s also gay, and advocates for LGBTQ+. OMG, after living in Arkansas for 20 years, and having that slug Rick Crawford for Congressman for 11 of them, If I ever meet Eric Sorensen, I’m likely to hug him!

That’s sounds great! He’ll be among the 14 Dems representing various districts in IL.

jcitybone

If you are looking at the midterm results and concluding that the rest of America is clamoring to be more like Florida, I think you are huffing paint.
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) November 9, 2022

Am I supposed to laugh out loud or what?!

still thinking about that “please hold for the President” call last night 😳😳
Life is wild! Thank you @POTUS
— Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@MaxwellFrostFL) November 9, 2022

Nice that Biden called and didn’t leave it to Pelosi.

Pelosi isn’t happy about another member of the squad – or progressive posse.

Tough titties said Bill’s kitteh. She needs to retire and protect (literally) her old man.

X27000

THIS!!!^^^

This morning at 9:30 Dr. Oz called John Fetterman to concede.
— Joe Calvello (@the_vello) November 9, 2022

Yuck-yuck-yuck! How sweet it is! 🙂 Just read where if Warnock wins the Senate runoff, it will be 51-49. That will negate one of the 2 bought off RWers (Manchin and Sinema).

Need to clone Bernie for VT and have real Bernie go to West Virginia to take on Manchin!

Well, at least he has that much decency. Mastriano hasn’t conceded yet, despite losing by a much higher margin.

Mastriano is also a nutcase Trumpkin. He’ll concede eventually cos The People demand it.

That Dem turnout problem in FL? Yes, it was real – and massive. Luckily for Dems, it didn’t really materialize anywhere else.
Between Dems crushing competitive OH/MI/NH/PA/TX House races but dragging in FL/NY, this is the most uneven midterm I’ve ever seen.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 9, 2022

Republicans wouldn’t be slight favorites to win House control right now if they hadn’t been able to gerrymander far more states than Dems.
And, Dems wouldn’t hold the slight majority today if courts hadn’t struck down GOP gerrymanders in FL, NC, PA and VA in the last 7 years.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 9, 2022

What “Dems” in FL? DWS? It’s the GOPukes vs. the Grassroots. People like Frost winning will begin to put a stop to the da##ed gerrymandering, and all the other BS the GOPukes pull.

I think he is referring to the state house. but I think he’s wrong here. DeSantis remapped all of the districts, and flipped most of them that were blue to red.

GOPukes blew it with my area. It is turning solid Progressive. Anna Eskamani works/serves right in the center of that cesspool: FL House. She just won her 3rd term–handily.

That’s good to hear. It looked like a red night in FL, with a couple of blue dots.

Paul ADK

I can certainly see how hurricane preparation might prioritize over standing in a 4 hour line to vote.

Wherever the vote wasn’t newly restricted, Democrats mostly won.

NBC News now projects that Sen. Ron Johnson (R) has been re-elected in Wisconsin.
To gain control of the Senate now, Republicans would need to win two of the three Democratic-held seats still uncalled: Arizona, Nevada and Georgia (where a 12/6 runoff may be in the offing).
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) November 9, 2022

Should have allowed Bernie to appear with Mandela.