ChiGoose

I think that if we took a root cause analysis to unwanted pregnancies and addressed those issues, we would dramatically reduce the number of abortions without endangering the lives of women.

The reason they say that it is it easier to spread misinformation that abortions 8 months in are elective than it is to explain the nuances of why someone would have to have an abortion at that stage. So instead of spending several minutes explaining the nuances of pregnancy healthcare, liberal politicians find it easier to phrase it as keeping the government out of healthcare decisions.

Just want to point out that this is a fallacy. You'll have a hard time finding people who are in favor of allowing a healthy pregnancy to be aborted at term. The nuance and complexity comes around how abortion laws interact with other aspects of healthcare such as miscarriages and fatal fetal diagnosis. A bit more simple, ask yourself: how many people are going to go through all of the pains and difficulties of pregnancy for 8.5 months and then suddenly decide that they don't wan the baby?

And if that's true, it's a complete failure by the GOP. The House and Senate should have been in the bag for them.

I'm still combing through the data, but at this point, this appears to be an underperformance by the GOP. They'll probably take the House but the Senate is still in question at this point.

That won't happen until we kill our First Past the Post electoral system.

Here's what I'm looking at as someone admittedly hoping for a good night for the Dems. I am still going through the data so it may change quickly.

I'm finally starting to really tune in and it's looking like the GOP will pick up the House and is a slight favorite in the Senate. However, at this point, they seem to be underperforming the fundamentals. Will post a chart of races I'm tracking in a bit for anyone who is staying up.

Depends on the date range. https://www.cfr.org/blog/2022-midterm-congressional-elections-numbers?amp “Going back to Harry Truman’s presidency, the president's party has lost, on average, twenty-nine House seats in each president’s first midterm election.” I’m sure it varies if you change the ranges and Bush was the exception by gaining seats after 9/11, but the President’s party generally does very poorly in the midterms.

It’s driven by the fundamentals. All things being equal, the out-party gains about 30 house seats and 4 senate seats in the midterms. Throw in Biden’s approval and inflation, and this should be a GOP bloodbath.

Who is the market for Chuck Todd? I cannot figure out who actually likes him and why he is still on tv.

You’re probably right, but at least that means the most fiscally strong governor we’ve probably ever had her remains in Illinois.

There is a sleeper candidate in the Midwest who just won re-election. It’s Big Boi Season!

Woof. That’s rough, buddy. Tonight’s our anniversary so it’s a convenient way to get away from the noise. You can order deep dish pizza delivered anywhere in the country. My wife and I sponsor a hole at our family golf tournament in Rochester where we mail the winner some deep dish. It’s a big hit. However, the true Chicago style is Tavern style. Unfortunately, both are inferior to WNY pizza. When I’m back in Rochester, I always make sure we get TK’s in Fairport one night.

Best thing you can do for the election returns today is turn off the TV for the next ~2 hours. As invested as I am in this, I’m going out to dinner with my wife tonight and don’t plan on turning on the returns until about 9pm ET.

When the president leaves office, they lose possessory rights to government documents. The documents are sent to NARA for safe-keeping. They may, however, retain access rights and can view the documents at a NARA facility. They may also negotiate with NARA to have documents moved to presidential museums and such. A good example is that when Obama left office, his non-classified documents were transferred from DC to a NARA facility here in Chicago. He doesn’t have them in his possession, but they are nearby. He likely will negotiate to have some of them displayed in his presidential museum when it is finished. His classified documents remain in a NARA facility in DC. And even if presidents can retain possessory rights to documents, at no point has Trump or his lawyers argued in the courts that they obtained NARA permission for him to retain possession of the documents. This is about as slam-dunk as it gets.

This seems like a safe bet. Dems ain't taking a Senate seat in Kentucky tonight.

I see I missed an opportunity to invest in Reynolds Wrap stock before everyone went out and made themselves tinfoil hats.

I would not put faith in exit polls on election night. The only exception being Jon Ralston in Nevada. That's it. If you see exit poll analysis that isn't Jon Ralston's coverage in Nevada, just ignore it.

Trump illegally possessed government documents, refused to return them, and then lied when he claimed to return them all. And still, the FBI search would likely have not been known if Trump himself hadn't blurted it out because he's a narcissist with the emotional temperance of a toddler. If anyone other than the former president had done what he did, they'd already have been indicted. But yes, carry on with your ignorance.

Probably the GOP. The question is by how much. If they net fewer than 30 House seats and 4 senate seats, then that is an underperformance and a silver lining for the Dems (for what it’s worth). Any more shows strong GOP gains.

Well, you see, you can’t seat a judge in an election year and that’s why we can’t even interview Garland. Also, you can seat a judge whenever you want, so we need to get Amy Coney Barrett on the court in a matter of weeks.

Not only that, but it'll mean that basically no justices get confirmed for the next two years because the GOP only believes in power. They will leverage that power to keep as many vacancies as possible (no matter the harm) in case they win the White House in 2024.

I understand it's not technical. I just don't think the government should restrict the ability for people to vote because of bad faith actors. I don't think the SCOTUS leak is relevant but I am hoping that the Chief Justice makes the investigation report public. It shouldn't have been leaked and whoever did it should be held accountable. If you think poll workers are partisan, I would encourage you to volunteer to be one next time around and actually pay attention to how things work. It's a good experience and will dispute many of the myths around how things work. Even be an election judge for the GOP if you'd like (or whatever party). I did that one year and it was pretty cool. And I am usually the first to push back on anecdotes, but yesterday a friend of mine who is organizing poll watchers for the local Dems called me. He had been sent the credentials via email but he works for the government, so he wasn't allowed to print them at work. I had him send the files to me and I printed them and dropped them off at his house later. He probably could have just printed them and gotten away with it (it's just a handful of pages) but since that was against the rules, we came up with a plan that involved an extra hour and a half of driving around because he didn't want to break the rules. I think that example is FAR more illustrative of election workers than the myth that they are all partisans trying to rig the election for their party.

I personally just don't believe that the government should bend over and impede the exercise of the franchise because of bad faith actors and poor journalism. I also reject the notion that poll volunteers are partisan. There are strict rules governing what can be done and said in a polling location and there is oversight and checks on the process. These are good people volunteering as part of their civic duty and should be applauded, not demeaned. Frankly, many states have no problems with pre-canvassing mail-in ballots before election day and then getting all of the ballots counted on election day. Those states should be the ones we emulate. Going back to everybody just voting on one day because we are worried that gullible people will believe falsehoods about the election is cowardly and impedes the ability of people to vote.