I give him credit for continuing to make public appearances. It sure seems like everyone hates his fucking guts.
You need to be super careful about attacking Ted Cruz with a beer can or with insults. In fact, if you call his dad a commie or his wife ugly, he's likely to campaign for you.
GOP's Stefanik backs Trump '24 as other Republicans decline
By LISA MASCARO
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — No. 3 House Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik is endorsing Donald Trump for president in 2024, becoming the highest-ranking congressional leader Friday to publicly back the former president, even as he's being widely blamed by other Republicans for failures in the midterm elections.
Stefanik, of New York, has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential contender on an emerging Trump ticket. The former president has promised a Tuesday event at his private Mar-a-Lago club that is widely expected to be an announcement of his intentions to run again for the White House.
“It’s very clear President Trump is the leader of the Republican party,” Stefanik said in a statement.
“I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President in 2024,” she said. “It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America, who has a proven track record of conservative governance.”
But Stefanik is an outlier among leading Republicans who are mostly reluctant to see Trump jump in the presidential race as his MAGA-styled candidates — MAGA is shorthand for Trump's 2016 “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — are being blamed for the GOP's setbacks in the midterms.
Republicans had been expecting a midterm “red wave” that would give them big wins in races for governors, Congress and beyond this week in a rebuff of President Joe Biden and the Democratic agenda.
Instead, Republicans made only modest gains in the House and lost a crucial Senate seat in Pennsylvania when Democrat John Fetterman defeated Trump-backed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
With votes still being counted as of midday Friday, control of the House and Senate remained too early to call.
Stefanik easily won her own reelection to another two-year term from New York, and is expected to cruise to her spot as chair of the House Republican Conference in Tuesday’s internal party elections. If Republicans win the majority, hers would become the 4th ranking leadership position.
She launched her career as a more moderate conservative voice and as one of the youngest members of the House, is seen as a rising star in Trump's orbit. She has not tamped down talk of a potential vice presidential nod.
Stefanik and Trump remain close and work together, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. She helped raise money and backing for several newly elected members of Congress.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,547
She's angling to be his running mate, me thinks....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,428
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
She's angling to be his running mate, me thinks....
Stefanik? I hope she is because there's no way in hell. I do enjoy seeing people who devote themselves to Trump get nothing back.
I'm thinking Tulski Gabbard is angling for a VP run...but with who? Two week's ago, I was thinking Trump/Gabbard, but maybe Desantis/Gabbard.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
She's angling to be his running mate, me thinks....
Stefanik? I hope she is because there's no way in hell. I do enjoy seeing people who devote themselves to Trump get nothing back.
I'm thinking Tulski Gabbard is angling for a VP run...but with who? Two week's ago, I was thinking Trump/Gabbard, but maybe Desantis/Gabbard.
At least Stefanik got the#3 position, so she did advance. But she has it now and should dump him,, unless she is afraid to lose the MAGA caucus before leadership elections.
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,428
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,428
Florida's Scott takes on McConnell in bid for Senate leader
By BRIAN SLODYSKO and MARY CLARE JALONICK
49 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he will mount a long-shot bid to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, opening the latest front in an intraparty battle between allies of McConnell and former President Donald Trump over the direction of the GOP following a disappointing showing in last week's midterm elections.
The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president was expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican's campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party's approach to reclaiming a Senate majority.
"If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me," Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in leadership elections on Wednesday.
Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell's handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus. The leadership vote was scheduled for Wednesday morning, though it could be postponed if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz succeeds with his effort to delay it until after a Georgia runoff election in December.
A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who are hoping their clout will grow after the outcome of races in Georgia, where former NFL star Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a conservative challenger.
Yet it appears unlikely that their numbers could grow enough to put McConnell's job in jeopardy, given his deep support within the conference. And Trump's opposition is hardly new, as has been pushing for the party to dump McConnell ever since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming the former president for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Still, it represents an unusual direct challenge to the authority of McConnell, who is set to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history if he wins another leadership term.
“We may or may not be voting tomorrow, but I think the outcome is pretty clear," McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “I want to repeat again: I have the votes; I will be elected. The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”
Scott was one in a small group of senators who wrote a letter to the Republican caucus over the weekend asking for a delay in this week's leadership elections “to have serious discussions within our conference as to why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024.”
Republican senators debated the path forward during their regular party lunch on Tuesday. Inside the room, roughly 20 senators spoke. Scott and McConnell traded what colleagues said were “candid” and “lively” barbs, sparring over the midterms, the quality of the GOP candidates who ran and their differences over fundraising. Senators made their individual cases for the two men.
Some members directly challenged Scott in McConnell’s defense, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who questioned the Florida senator’s management of the NRSC, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
Scott “disagrees with the approach that Mitch has taken in this election, and for the last couple of years he made that clear,” said Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has called for a delay and to oust McConnell. “Senator McConnell criticized Senator Scott’s management of the NRSC. I imagine we’ll hear more of that tomorrow.”
Among the many reasons Scott listed for mounting a challenge is that Republicans had compromised too much with Democrats in the last Congress — producing bills that President Joe Biden has counted as successes and that Democrats ran on in the 2022 election.
“I believe it’s time for the Senate Republican Conference to be far more bold and resolute than we have been in the past,” Scott said in the letter, sent to colleagues as the GOP meeting was still going on. “We must start saying what we are for, not just what we are against.”
But as the leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee following a disappointing election, Scott is also an imperfect vessel to achieve the aims of frustrated Republicans and Trump.
“If you’re going to make this about assessing blame for losing an election, I don’t know how the NRSC chairman gets off the hook,” said North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer. "I think that would be the obvious problem he would have.”
The feud between Scott and McConnell has been percolating for months and reached a boil as election results trickled in showing there would be no Republican Senate wave, as Scott predicted, according to senior Republican strategists. They and others interviewed about the feud were not authorized to discuss internal issues by name and insisted on anonymity.
Operatives for the two men have traded barbs for more than a year over the handling of Senate Republican political strategy — or, in the view of some, the lack thereof.
The feuding started not long after Scott took over the party committee in late 2020, which many in the party viewed as an effort to build his national political profile and donor network ahead of a potential presidential bid in 2024. Some were irked by promotional materials from the committee that were heavy on Scott’s own biography, while focusing less on the candidates who are up for election.
Then came Scott’s release of an 11-point plan early this year, which called for a modest tax increase for many of the lowest-paid Americans, while opening the door for cutting Social Security and Medicare, which McConnell swiftly repudiated even as he declined to offer an agenda of his own.
Staffers from Scott’s Senate committee moved into triage mode almost immediately, reaching out to Republican campaigns across the country to gauge their frustration while offering messaging help, according to senior Republican strategists with direct knowledge of the situation who viewed it as an “unforced error.”
“A strategic disagreement" is how Scott has characterized their divergent views.
In August, McConnell undercut Scott during a Senate GOP lunch. Shortly after Scott had made a request for committee donations from Republican senators, McConnell addressed the room and told the Senators to instead prioritize giving to Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC controlled by longtime McConnell allies, according to two people familiar with the discussion.
Last week, McConnell's super PAC cut Scott out of their efforts to boost turnout in the Georgia runoff, with the super PAC teaming up with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s political operation instead.
The decision was driven in part by the fraying trust in Scott’s leadership, as well as poor finances of the committee, which was $20 million in debt, according to a senior Republican consultant.
For some Senate Republicans, however, the feud is irrelevant to their decision to support Scott.
“We got to have a plan for the American public and if we don't we can expect much more of the same,” said Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, who is supporting Scott's challenge of McConnell.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,428
Mormon church voices support for same-sex marriage law
By SAM METZ
55 mins ago
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it would back proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages, marking the latest show of support for the measure from conservative-leaning groups.
The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God's commandments. Yet it said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn't infringe upon religious groups' right to believe as they choose.
“We believe this approach is the way forward. As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of religious freedom together with the rights of LGBTQ individuals much can be accomplished to heal relationships and foster greater understanding,” the church said in a statement posted on its website.
Support for the Respect for Marriage Act under consideration in Congress is the church's latest step to stake out a more welcoming stance toward the LGBTQ community while holding firm to its belief that same-sex relationships are sinful. Still, its stance toward LGBTQ people — including those who grow up in the church — remains painful for many.
Patrick Mason, a professor of religious studies at Utah State University, said the church's position was both a departure from and continuation of its past stances — respecting laws yet working to safeguard religious liberty and ensuring they won't be forced to perform same-sex marriages or grant them official church sanction.
“This is part of the church’s overall theology essentially sustaining the law of the land, recognizing that what they dictate and enforce for their members in terms of their behavior is different than what it means to be part of a pluralistic society,” he said.
The faith opposes same-sex marriage and sexual intimacy, but it has taken a more welcoming stance to LGBTQ people in recent years. In 2016, it declared that same-sex attraction is not a sin, while maintaining that acting on it was.
The bill, which has won support from Democrats and Republicans, is set for a test vote in the Senate Wednesday, with a final vote as soon as this week or later this month. It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, with Justice Clarence Thomas issuing a concurring opinion indicating that an earlier high court decision protecting same-sex marriage could come under threat.
The legislation would repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed. It would also protect interracial marriages by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin." It makes clear that the rights of private individuals and businesses wouldn’t be affected.
Utah’s four congressmen — who are all members of the church — each voiced support for the legislation earlier this year.
The church’s public stance is a stark contrast from 14 years ago, when its members were among the largest campaign contributors in support of California’s Prop. 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman in response to cities such as San Francisco granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Troy Williams, the executive director of Equality Utah, said it was “thrilling” to see the church part of the coalition in support of the legislation.
“Despite differences we may have, we can always discover common ground on laws that support the strengthening of all families,” Williams, who grew up a church member, said.
The faith opposes laws that would make it illegal for churches to not allow to same-sex couples to marry on their property. But it has supported state-based efforts to pass laws that prohibit employment and housing discrimination as long as they clarify respect for religious freedom.
The Respect for Marriage Act neither fully codifies the U.S. Supreme Court decision that enshrined a federal right to same-sex marriage nor details all religious liberty concerns of those who object to it.
Faith groups see it as vehicle for passing religious liberty protections they haven't been able to in the past, said Tim Schultz, the president of the 1st Amendment Partnership.
Schultz's organization is advocating for religious liberty on behalf of a coalition concerned with that subject — a coalition that includes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"Same-sex marriage has achieved broad appeal in our culture in significant part because it hasn’t trampled on people who believe in traditional marriage," he said.
___
Associated Press News Editor Brady McCombs contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Fight over election tally threatens Arizona certification
By BOB CHRISTIE
Yesterday
PHOENIX (AP) — The two Republicans who control the elected board in a rural Arizona county have sued their own elections director to force her to conduct a greatly expanded hand-count of ballots cast in the Nov. 8 elections, a standoff that could affect certification of the results.
They want Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra to hand over the roughly 12,000 ballots cast on Election Day to the county recorder, an elected Republican. The elected county prosecutor warned the private lawyers representing the two GOP board members that taking ballots without authorization could subject their clients to felony charges.
At a raucous board meeting Tuesday, several members of the public berated the two Republicans on the three-member board for pursuing the hand-count and seeking to pay for the case with county funds. One called a board member a “demagogue” who is "making a disgusting sham" of the democratic process.
The push to hand-count ballots in the Republican-heavy county in the state’s southeast corner, which is home to the iconic Old West town of Tombstone, gained impetus from false claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies of widespread fraud and voting machine conspiracy theories in the last presidential contest. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in 2020 or during this year’s midterm elections.
Nevertheless, the conspiracy theories have spread widely and prompted heated public meetings in mostly rural counties throughout the West amid calls to ditch voting machines in favor of paper ballots and full hand-counts. The controversies nearly delayed certification of primary results earlier this year in one New Mexico county and have fed an ongoing legal battle over a full hand-count in a Nevada county.
Republicans in Arizona lost the major races in this year’s election, including for U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state. Arizona’s evolution into a political battleground has angered many conservatives in a state traditionally seen as staunchly Republican. In Cochise County, the Republican candidates for those posts won by wide margins.
The Republicans' lawsuit, filed late Monday, comes a week after a judge blocked the board from hand-counting all ballots cast during early voting but also gave them space to pursue a wider hand-count. The judge said state law allows the county to expand the small hand-count used for the official audit that is designed to confirm the accuracy of vote-counting machines, provided it's done randomly.
After the ruling, Republican board member board Peggy Judd proposed an expansion of the hand-count to as many as 99% of the Election Day ballots, although that proposal has now been slightly trimmed. The lawsuit filed by attorneys for Judd and the other GOP board member, Tom Crosby, said they hope to hand-count four races on all ballots from 16 of the county's 17 vote centers.
Their lawsuit against the county elections director says she refused their order to either conduct the expanded count herself or hand the ballots over to Republican county Recorder David Stevens so he can do the tally. It seeks an order compelling her to turn over the ballots.
Upping the stakes, the lawsuit contends the Republican board members have concluded that the expanded hand-count is “necessary to ensure completeness and accuracy before certifying the election.” The county's certified results must be received by the secretary of state no later than Nov. 28.
That means time is short to get a court ruling, pull about 12,000 Election Day ballots from the director's possession and gather the more than 200 volunteers Stevens has said he is ready to do the hand-count. Another 32,000 ballots were cast early.
If the county misses the certification deadline, the secretary of state's office or a candidate could go to court and ask a judge to force the board to certify the results. The deadline is in state law, and election rules based on that law say county officials must certify and cannot change the results.
The Pima County judge who heard heard the previous case because local judges declared a conflict will also consider the new lawsuit. Judge Casey McGinley set a daylong hearing for this coming Friday.
The lawsuit also says Republican County Attorney Brian McIntyre “has made clear that he will prosecute any attempt by the Board and Recorder to exercise their lawful authority to take custody of the ballots to complete an expanded hand-count themselves.”
McIntyre has repeatedly told the board in recent weeks that their efforts would be illegal, as has Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the state's top elections officer and Democratic governor-elect. Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, however, issued an informal opinion backing the board.
An attorney for Marra said Tuesday her client had not been formally served but that she was just beginning to review the lawsuit. A formal response would likely come soon.
Marra conducted the required hand-count audit on Saturday, as did other counties across the state. Those audits choose a sample of both Election Day and early ballots. Bipartisan teams of volunteers provided by the chairs of the county Democratic and Republican parties count four races — five in a presidential election year.
Marra's certification to Hobbs' office says two batches of early ballots and two batches of Election Day ballots from two vote centers were counted, totaling 2,202 ballots. The hand-count results matched the machine count exactly.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
What a POS opportunist. "Rejected crazy?" Too bad you didn't as well, you fucking schmuck. Lest anyone forget, Christless Chrissy was POOTWH before POOTWH was POOTWH. From Letter From An American:
The party’s losses in the midterms appear to have opened the door for Trump's opponents to toss him under the bus. According to Jonathan Swan at Axios, at this morning’s annual meeting of the Republican governors, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie got “huge applause” from the room full of hundreds of politicians, consultants, and wealthy donors when he blamed Trump for three cycles of losses for the Republican Party. Christie said voters “rejected crazy.”
GOP clinches House, likely with 221 seats. Election went almost exactly as predicted, many professional forecasters had house at 225 R, and senate 50/50, despite the plethora of crazy arse prediction of gaining 60 seats.
GOP clinches House, likely with 221 seats. Election went almost exactly as predicted, many professional forecasters had house at 225 R, and senate 50/50, despite the plethora of crazy arse prediction of gaining 60 seats.
Let’s see if the repubs can pass meaningful legislation or just be a party of grievances and addressing those really serious issues like Hunter’s laptop.
Comments
FUCKING LOL
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
www.headstonesband.com
OK, now i understand inverted chords.
WASHINGTON (AP) — No. 3 House Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik is endorsing Donald Trump for president in 2024, becoming the highest-ranking congressional leader Friday to publicly back the former president, even as he's being widely blamed by other Republicans for failures in the midterm elections.
Stefanik, of New York, has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential contender on an emerging Trump ticket. The former president has promised a Tuesday event at his private Mar-a-Lago club that is widely expected to be an announcement of his intentions to run again for the White House.
“It’s very clear President Trump is the leader of the Republican party,” Stefanik said in a statement.
“I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President in 2024,” she said. “It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America, who has a proven track record of conservative governance.”
But Stefanik is an outlier among leading Republicans who are mostly reluctant to see Trump jump in the presidential race as his MAGA-styled candidates — MAGA is shorthand for Trump's 2016 “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — are being blamed for the GOP's setbacks in the midterms.
Republicans had been expecting a midterm “red wave” that would give them big wins in races for governors, Congress and beyond this week in a rebuff of President Joe Biden and the Democratic agenda.
DONALD TRUMP
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Instead, Republicans made only modest gains in the House and lost a crucial Senate seat in Pennsylvania when Democrat John Fetterman defeated Trump-backed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
With votes still being counted as of midday Friday, control of the House and Senate remained too early to call.
Other Republicans are calling for the party to move on from the Trump era.
Stefanik easily won her own reelection to another two-year term from New York, and is expected to cruise to her spot as chair of the House Republican Conference in Tuesday’s internal party elections. If Republicans win the majority, hers would become the 4th ranking leadership position.
She launched her career as a more moderate conservative voice and as one of the youngest members of the House, is seen as a rising star in Trump's orbit. She has not tamped down talk of a potential vice presidential nod.
Stefanik and Trump remain close and work together, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. She helped raise money and backing for several newly elected members of Congress.
__
Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I really hope he picks her.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
hmmm, maybe just to keep her #3 spot. Could see that going to the adultress ....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/politics/kevin-mccarthy-trump-support/index.html
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
I'm thinking Tulski Gabbard is angling for a VP run...but with who? Two week's ago, I was thinking Trump/Gabbard, but maybe Desantis/Gabbard.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Neither Lake nor Gabbard should be a heart beat away but the GOP put Palin up there at one point so there you go.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Tuesday that he will mount a long-shot bid to unseat Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, opening the latest front in an intraparty battle between allies of McConnell and former President Donald Trump over the direction of the GOP following a disappointing showing in last week's midterm elections.
The announcement by Scott, who was urged to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president was expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long-simmering feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican's campaign arm this year, and McConnell over the party's approach to reclaiming a Senate majority.
"If you simply want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me," Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in leadership elections on Wednesday.
Restive conservatives in the chamber have lashed out at McConnell's handling of the election, as well as his iron grip over the Senate Republican caucus. The leadership vote was scheduled for Wednesday morning, though it could be postponed if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz succeeds with his effort to delay it until after a Georgia runoff election in December.
FLORIDA
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A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who are hoping their clout will grow after the outcome of races in Georgia, where former NFL star Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a conservative challenger.
Yet it appears unlikely that their numbers could grow enough to put McConnell's job in jeopardy, given his deep support within the conference. And Trump's opposition is hardly new, as has been pushing for the party to dump McConnell ever since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming the former president for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Still, it represents an unusual direct challenge to the authority of McConnell, who is set to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history if he wins another leadership term.
“We may or may not be voting tomorrow, but I think the outcome is pretty clear," McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “I want to repeat again: I have the votes; I will be elected. The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”
Scott was one in a small group of senators who wrote a letter to the Republican caucus over the weekend asking for a delay in this week's leadership elections “to have serious discussions within our conference as to why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024.”
Republican senators debated the path forward during their regular party lunch on Tuesday. Inside the room, roughly 20 senators spoke. Scott and McConnell traded what colleagues said were “candid” and “lively” barbs, sparring over the midterms, the quality of the GOP candidates who ran and their differences over fundraising. Senators made their individual cases for the two men.
Some members directly challenged Scott in McConnell’s defense, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who questioned the Florida senator’s management of the NRSC, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
Scott “disagrees with the approach that Mitch has taken in this election, and for the last couple of years he made that clear,” said Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has called for a delay and to oust McConnell. “Senator McConnell criticized Senator Scott’s management of the NRSC. I imagine we’ll hear more of that tomorrow.”
Among the many reasons Scott listed for mounting a challenge is that Republicans had compromised too much with Democrats in the last Congress — producing bills that President Joe Biden has counted as successes and that Democrats ran on in the 2022 election.
“I believe it’s time for the Senate Republican Conference to be far more bold and resolute than we have been in the past,” Scott said in the letter, sent to colleagues as the GOP meeting was still going on. “We must start saying what we are for, not just what we are against.”
But as the leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee following a disappointing election, Scott is also an imperfect vessel to achieve the aims of frustrated Republicans and Trump.
“If you’re going to make this about assessing blame for losing an election, I don’t know how the NRSC chairman gets off the hook,” said North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer. "I think that would be the obvious problem he would have.”
The feud between Scott and McConnell has been percolating for months and reached a boil as election results trickled in showing there would be no Republican Senate wave, as Scott predicted, according to senior Republican strategists. They and others interviewed about the feud were not authorized to discuss internal issues by name and insisted on anonymity.
Operatives for the two men have traded barbs for more than a year over the handling of Senate Republican political strategy — or, in the view of some, the lack thereof.
The feuding started not long after Scott took over the party committee in late 2020, which many in the party viewed as an effort to build his national political profile and donor network ahead of a potential presidential bid in 2024. Some were irked by promotional materials from the committee that were heavy on Scott’s own biography, while focusing less on the candidates who are up for election.
Then came Scott’s release of an 11-point plan early this year, which called for a modest tax increase for many of the lowest-paid Americans, while opening the door for cutting Social Security and Medicare, which McConnell swiftly repudiated even as he declined to offer an agenda of his own.
Staffers from Scott’s Senate committee moved into triage mode almost immediately, reaching out to Republican campaigns across the country to gauge their frustration while offering messaging help, according to senior Republican strategists with direct knowledge of the situation who viewed it as an “unforced error.”
“A strategic disagreement" is how Scott has characterized their divergent views.
In August, McConnell undercut Scott during a Senate GOP lunch. Shortly after Scott had made a request for committee donations from Republican senators, McConnell addressed the room and told the Senators to instead prioritize giving to Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC controlled by longtime McConnell allies, according to two people familiar with the discussion.
Last week, McConnell's super PAC cut Scott out of their efforts to boost turnout in the Georgia runoff, with the super PAC teaming up with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s political operation instead.
The decision was driven in part by the fraying trust in Scott’s leadership, as well as poor finances of the committee, which was $20 million in debt, according to a senior Republican consultant.
For some Senate Republicans, however, the feud is irrelevant to their decision to support Scott.
“We got to have a plan for the American public and if we don't we can expect much more of the same,” said Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, who is supporting Scott's challenge of McConnell.
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it would back proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages, marking the latest show of support for the measure from conservative-leaning groups.
The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God's commandments. Yet it said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn't infringe upon religious groups' right to believe as they choose.
“We believe this approach is the way forward. As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of religious freedom together with the rights of LGBTQ individuals much can be accomplished to heal relationships and foster greater understanding,” the church said in a statement posted on its website.
Support for the Respect for Marriage Act under consideration in Congress is the church's latest step to stake out a more welcoming stance toward the LGBTQ community while holding firm to its belief that same-sex relationships are sinful. Still, its stance toward LGBTQ people — including those who grow up in the church — remains painful for many.
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Patrick Mason, a professor of religious studies at Utah State University, said the church's position was both a departure from and continuation of its past stances — respecting laws yet working to safeguard religious liberty and ensuring they won't be forced to perform same-sex marriages or grant them official church sanction.
“This is part of the church’s overall theology essentially sustaining the law of the land, recognizing that what they dictate and enforce for their members in terms of their behavior is different than what it means to be part of a pluralistic society,” he said.
The faith opposes same-sex marriage and sexual intimacy, but it has taken a more welcoming stance to LGBTQ people in recent years. In 2016, it declared that same-sex attraction is not a sin, while maintaining that acting on it was.
The bill, which has won support from Democrats and Republicans, is set for a test vote in the Senate Wednesday, with a final vote as soon as this week or later this month. It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, with Justice Clarence Thomas issuing a concurring opinion indicating that an earlier high court decision protecting same-sex marriage could come under threat.
The legislation would repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed. It would also protect interracial marriages by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin." It makes clear that the rights of private individuals and businesses wouldn’t be affected.
Utah’s four congressmen — who are all members of the church — each voiced support for the legislation earlier this year.
The church’s public stance is a stark contrast from 14 years ago, when its members were among the largest campaign contributors in support of California’s Prop. 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman in response to cities such as San Francisco granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Troy Williams, the executive director of Equality Utah, said it was “thrilling” to see the church part of the coalition in support of the legislation.
“Despite differences we may have, we can always discover common ground on laws that support the strengthening of all families,” Williams, who grew up a church member, said.
The faith opposes laws that would make it illegal for churches to not allow to same-sex couples to marry on their property. But it has supported state-based efforts to pass laws that prohibit employment and housing discrimination as long as they clarify respect for religious freedom.
The Respect for Marriage Act neither fully codifies the U.S. Supreme Court decision that enshrined a federal right to same-sex marriage nor details all religious liberty concerns of those who object to it.
Faith groups see it as vehicle for passing religious liberty protections they haven't been able to in the past, said Tim Schultz, the president of the 1st Amendment Partnership.
Schultz's organization is advocating for religious liberty on behalf of a coalition concerned with that subject — a coalition that includes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"Same-sex marriage has achieved broad appeal in our culture in significant part because it hasn’t trampled on people who believe in traditional marriage," he said.
___
Associated Press News Editor Brady McCombs contributed to this report.
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PHOENIX (AP) — The two Republicans who control the elected board in a rural Arizona county have sued their own elections director to force her to conduct a greatly expanded hand-count of ballots cast in the Nov. 8 elections, a standoff that could affect certification of the results.
They want Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra to hand over the roughly 12,000 ballots cast on Election Day to the county recorder, an elected Republican. The elected county prosecutor warned the private lawyers representing the two GOP board members that taking ballots without authorization could subject their clients to felony charges.
At a raucous board meeting Tuesday, several members of the public berated the two Republicans on the three-member board for pursuing the hand-count and seeking to pay for the case with county funds. One called a board member a “demagogue” who is "making a disgusting sham" of the democratic process.
The push to hand-count ballots in the Republican-heavy county in the state’s southeast corner, which is home to the iconic Old West town of Tombstone, gained impetus from false claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies of widespread fraud and voting machine conspiracy theories in the last presidential contest. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in 2020 or during this year’s midterm elections.
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Nevertheless, the conspiracy theories have spread widely and prompted heated public meetings in mostly rural counties throughout the West amid calls to ditch voting machines in favor of paper ballots and full hand-counts. The controversies nearly delayed certification of primary results earlier this year in one New Mexico county and have fed an ongoing legal battle over a full hand-count in a Nevada county.
Republicans in Arizona lost the major races in this year’s election, including for U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state. Arizona’s evolution into a political battleground has angered many conservatives in a state traditionally seen as staunchly Republican. In Cochise County, the Republican candidates for those posts won by wide margins.
The Republicans' lawsuit, filed late Monday, comes a week after a judge blocked the board from hand-counting all ballots cast during early voting but also gave them space to pursue a wider hand-count. The judge said state law allows the county to expand the small hand-count used for the official audit that is designed to confirm the accuracy of vote-counting machines, provided it's done randomly.
After the ruling, Republican board member board Peggy Judd proposed an expansion of the hand-count to as many as 99% of the Election Day ballots, although that proposal has now been slightly trimmed. The lawsuit filed by attorneys for Judd and the other GOP board member, Tom Crosby, said they hope to hand-count four races on all ballots from 16 of the county's 17 vote centers.
Their lawsuit against the county elections director says she refused their order to either conduct the expanded count herself or hand the ballots over to Republican county Recorder David Stevens so he can do the tally. It seeks an order compelling her to turn over the ballots.
Upping the stakes, the lawsuit contends the Republican board members have concluded that the expanded hand-count is “necessary to ensure completeness and accuracy before certifying the election.” The county's certified results must be received by the secretary of state no later than Nov. 28.
That means time is short to get a court ruling, pull about 12,000 Election Day ballots from the director's possession and gather the more than 200 volunteers Stevens has said he is ready to do the hand-count. Another 32,000 ballots were cast early.
If the county misses the certification deadline, the secretary of state's office or a candidate could go to court and ask a judge to force the board to certify the results. The deadline is in state law, and election rules based on that law say county officials must certify and cannot change the results.
The Pima County judge who heard heard the previous case because local judges declared a conflict will also consider the new lawsuit. Judge Casey McGinley set a daylong hearing for this coming Friday.
The lawsuit also says Republican County Attorney Brian McIntyre “has made clear that he will prosecute any attempt by the Board and Recorder to exercise their lawful authority to take custody of the ballots to complete an expanded hand-count themselves.”
McIntyre has repeatedly told the board in recent weeks that their efforts would be illegal, as has Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the state's top elections officer and Democratic governor-elect. Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, however, issued an informal opinion backing the board.
An attorney for Marra said Tuesday her client had not been formally served but that she was just beginning to review the lawsuit. A formal response would likely come soon.
Marra conducted the required hand-count audit on Saturday, as did other counties across the state. Those audits choose a sample of both Election Day and early ballots. Bipartisan teams of volunteers provided by the chairs of the county Democratic and Republican parties count four races — five in a presidential election year.
Marra's certification to Hobbs' office says two batches of early ballots and two batches of Election Day ballots from two vote centers were counted, totaling 2,202 ballots. The hand-count results matched the machine count exactly.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections
Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.
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The party’s losses in the midterms appear to have opened the door for Trump's opponents to toss him under the bus. According to Jonathan Swan at Axios, at this morning’s annual meeting of the Republican governors, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie got “huge applause” from the room full of hundreds of politicians, consultants, and wealthy donors when he blamed Trump for three cycles of losses for the Republican Party. Christie said voters “rejected crazy.”
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Coming to the defense of insurrectionists? Going to be a shitshow
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana