All the Single Ladies 🌻🌻🌻 💙💙💙

Still Waiting: The fat lady hasn’t sung yet and is unlikely to anytime soon because votes are still being counted, frustrating but not unusual.  No red tsunami but when the dust settles Republicans will likely regain control of the House and Democrats will likely (fingers crossed) retain the Senate. The pundits at Fox and a few others on the right who spent the year promising a red tsunami, are now spit balling ways to make sure that future red waves aren’t impeded. Among their suggestions, raising the voting age to 25, their response to the overwhelming number of the 18 to 28 Gen Z group who voted blue, and putting “rings on the fingers” of the 68% of single women who joined them. That last suggestion comes from Fox pundit Jesse Watters who wants single women married off so that they’ll vote the way their husbands tell them to.  Then there’s the Former Guy who before the election said of Republicans that “if they win, I should get all the credit, if they lose, I should not be blamed at all.”  He’s striking out at the FOX owning Murdoch’s and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.  He’s furious that the Murdoch’s have turned on him and irate that DeSantis is being talked up as the Republican heir apparent.  The FG is so upset that last night he claimed that De Sanctimonious owes him because he campaigned for him at “massive rallies” in 2018 and because as president he ordered the FBI and US Attorneys to stop the ballot counting in his and Florida Senator Rick Scott’s races, the ones that they won by the slimmest of margins. So maybe the FG just admitted to some more election fraud?  No comment from either DeSantis or Scott but Republican leaders are now trying to convince the FG to put off the announcement of his 2024 run at least until after the Georgia run off and/or forever. That illegal stuff, that they’re not concerned about.          

The Senate: Three seats remain open, one each in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.  In Arizona, incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly’s lead over Republican challenger Blake Masters now exceeds 100,000 votes.  That’s important because, as in the 2020 presidential election where Biden’s margin of victory shrunk towards the end, the last votes to be counted are likely to lean Republican.  The larger Kelly’s cushion is now, the more likely he will prevail and at this point, most expect that he will emerge victorious.  Well, that’s everyone but Masters, who, taking a page from the FG playbook, is already questioning the legitimacy of the election.  As is Kari Lake, Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate who currently trails the Democrat’s candidate, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, by 27,000 votes.  Given Hobbs’ smaller lead, Lake, who is the FG on steroids, has a better chance of pulling off a victory than Masters, and there’s no question that if she doesn’t win, she’ll call on the Krakens, some Oath Keepers and the Pillow Man to support her “election fraud” claims.  In Nevada, Republican Adam Laxalt is still ahead of Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto but his lead is shrinking, now down to just under 9000 votes. The expectation, or hope, is that Masto will close the gap as more Democratic leaning batches of votes are added to the total, the question is whether enough of those blue ballots remain outstanding to get her to the finish line. Though experts in Nevada say Masto stands a better than not chance of eking out a victory, the outcome in her race is far from certain.  Regardless of who wins, the result of the Nevada race will be very close. That’s because some casino industry workers who traditionally vote blue, harbor resentment against Democrats for COVID related work closures, the reason that incumbent Governor Steve Sisolak is currently trailing his Republican competitor Joe Lombardo by 28,000 votes. If Democrats hold in both Arizona and Nevada, the Georgia run off won’t be about Senate control but about giving Biden breathing room mostly for judges because if the Republicans take over the House there will be little or no substantive legislation passed through 2024. That said, the Georgia fundraising and the campaigning has already begun.  Fresh off his victory over Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s Republican Governor Kemp who had not involved himself in the Senate race is now speaking out on behalf of Hershel Walker and Republican glitterati including Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham are already doing their best, and by best think worst, too.  So a few more weeks of electioneering and maybe even a few more women coming forward to talk about Walker funded abortions, not that the Susan B Anthony anti-abortion group cares, their PAC has already kicked in an additional $1 million for Walker.  Go figure.     

The House:  The race for the House isn’t over yet, 28 races remain undecided. While it remains likely that the Republicans will win enough of the outstanding races to assume control, it remains theoretically possible, though admittedly unlikely, that the Democrats could too as uncounted votes trickle in, especially from those undecided west coast races including those in California where absentee ballots mailed out by election day count even if they aren’t yet in vote counter’s hands. At this point MSNBC’s model is calling for Republicans to win 220 seats, giving them five more seats than Democrats and two more than the 218 needed to assume House control. Democratic House losses in New York could end up the reason for Republicans taking over.  Who’d of thought that at the beginning of this year? Though winning is better than losing, should the Republicans end up with so few seats, Qevin McCarthy, who may or may not win his fractured party’s leadership vote, will find managing his crowd of ne’er do wells impossible. Both Paul Ryan and John Boehner found it beyond challenging and they had larger majorities.  At this time while it’s certain that the Republican caucus will include Georgia’s Margie Q, it’s still not clear whether it will include Colorado’s gun toting high school drop-out Lauren Boebert.  Her race remains too close to call, though she’s retaken and built up her lead over her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch. Bummer.   

The Twitter Verse:  Lots of weird stuff, none of it good happening at Twitter.  More of the Chief Twit’s senior management has exited, voluntarily, some of them concerned that the Twit in Chief who wants to expand into consumer finance is ignoring FTC compliance requirements, those rules that are supposed to protect user privacy and safety.  The new blue check program is going as expected meaning that a lot of the new “verified” blue check accounts are now sending out wacko tweets.  Yesterday one claiming to be from Eli Lily promised free insulin to all while another verified account belonging to Jesus promised salvation, yes that Jesus.  Government agencies use Twitter for official purposes so fake accounts though sometimes funny can also be dangerous and litigious because who thinks that Lily isn’t working on a lawsuit. Also worth mentioning, Musk told employees that bankruptcy is a real possibility, something that can’t possibly be pleasing to them or the banks who just lent Musk $13 billion. How to you spell fraud?