It appears Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has just been reelected governor of Kentucky. And Ohio has voted to add protection of abortion rights to the state constitution. Good news. I understand Beshear ran on protecting abortion rights.
The Mahablog
Politics. Society. Group Therapy.
Legal Abortion and Weed in Ohio! We holier-than-thou Hoosiers are surrounded on three sides by the devil, Illinois, Michigan and now Ohio. Legal weed and abortion at every border, whats a god fearing dogmatist to do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5BhicYduC8
I'm chewing a gummy right now for Ohio. May the ignoramuses among you begin to mellow out and start to understand that hate is not love.
Results in VA, not final, also look good for control of the state legislature.
The presidential polls in battleground states have been alarming but the only poll that matters is the election. Democrats continue to perform well in elections. I understand the GOP is saying that abortion will not be an issue in 2024. I presume the House will pass a resolution making it so.
My intuition says that we're in a good place for 2024. Trump is going to be appealing multiple criminal convictions. The toll is showing on Trump. I think he's going to become more erratic and crazy (for lack of a better word) as we get closer to the election. It's going to become obvious to the non-cultist that Trump is out of his mind. He will be before the last criminal trial is decided.
Second, I have high hopes for the legal cases that should disqualify Trump from any federal office. It's gonna go before the USSC and I'm not sure the conservative court will cripple themselves by enabling a fascist who is in contempt of the Constitution. The "precedent" set by disqualifying Trump isn't dangerous to democracy – it warns the disappointed loser in any election that illegal acts to reverse an election loss can have permanent consequences.
The reason I say the USSC will cripple themselves if Trump is elected is simple and obvious. Trump will not follow any decision by the USSC if he disagrees. The Justice Department would ignore orders by the USSC to enforce their decision if Trump is in power. The Senate Republicans will not remove Trump for high crimes, regardless of what they are.
Re the 14th Amendment: the design of the amendment takes the decision AWAY from the voter when a candidate who was previously sworn to protect the US Constitution has violated that oath by insurrection. The 14th removes the potential candidate from consideration. Deliberately. On purpose. That's for an overt act of insurrection OR by "aid and comfort" to the insurrectionists. I think Trump inspired J6 deliberately, but there's no doubt about "aid and comfort" for the J6 criminals whom Trump has recently called "hostages." I think the Federalist Society knows Trump will go after them if he's elected. What I don't know is if the influence that the FS had to make someone a Supreme Court Justice also gives the FS access to and influence over those Justices.
Re Trump's testimony yesterday… (I know, yesterday is old news.) As I read summaries of the transcript it looks like Trump intended to cause Engoron to blow a fuse and either dismiss Trump from the stand (which the judge did threaten) OR have the judge strike testimony, some of which an appeals court might have decided was admissible. The prosecutor had decided NOT to object to everything Trump said which was not responsive to the question. (I'm not sure if the lawyer questioning Trump ever objected with a "Move to strike." It looks to me like the judge decided that if the prosecution is OK with Trump's case of diarrhea of the mouth the judge can go along with it, too. (If it was a jury trial, the judge would have been required to force Trump to be responsive to questions exclusively but it's not a jury trial. The judge knows what is material and what's BS.)
When Trump appeals, the higher court will be looking at the transcript exclusively. They're going to see hours and hours of Trump violating judicial protocol despite repeated warnings. What the appeals court won't find is any example of judicial overreach. In short, there's not much there to base an appeal on. There will be a lot of crap from Trump to irritate the judges of the appeal court. IMO, as judges they will want to penalize Trump for the lack of respect he showed. The ONLY way Trump's strategy would have worked is if the judge lost his cool and he didn't.
"The presidential polls in battleground states have been alarming"
Well isn't that the point? If the polls were conducted in a manner that actually reflected what most voters think they would most likely show a 50/50 split much like the election of 2020, that wouldn't be alarming at all and wouldn't it give the bobble heads anything to crow about, with nothing to crow about how can they sell over priced pharmaceuticals to pay all those multi-million dollar bobble-head salaries? The last "horrible" poll for Biden about a month ago had the following sample, 55% republican, 25% democrat, 20% independent and can you believe that Stump was beating Biden badly, it was alarming!