I bet some of you are on fucking pins and needles.

I took the day off work and voted this morning (the polling place was fairly busy, but only had to wait a minute or so to vote) and then went canvassing. It was my fist time going house to house knocking on doors since my unfortunate short stint working for PIRGIM well over 30 years ago. It was about as futile as I expected - hardly anyone was home. I spoke to about 4 people in the 2-3 hours that I walked around. They were all nice and there were 2 people that hadn't voted yet, but said they were definitely going to. One of those 2 didn't know where her polling place was. and I told her and gave directions.

On election meddling, the good news is authority to deal with attacks underway was delegated to Mattis months ago. The bad news is, Cybercom doesn't seem to be doing much.

It's close to 11 PM here and I'm not sure how much longer I can stay awake for election news. When do the first results start trickling in?

Not until 7 pm EST, roughly.

You don't even need to use cyberattacks if you can make sure the electronic voting machines in minority communities are sufficiently shitty.

I have two vivid memories that I keep coming back to:

1. In 2004, when I was still young and cute enough to be naive enough to think there was no way we could re-elect W after witnessing the mess he made. (And specifically, the dawning realization that we had.)

2. In 2016, the moment when I was watching counties in Florida trickle in and they weren't doing what they were supposed to. And it cracked my thick skull for the first time that we might actually be undertaking a godforsaken Trump presidency.

auuuuuuuuuuugh.

In 2016 it was really quite something how early in the evening it was clear that something was very wrong.

It was very clear from the morning news. The Trib showed long, long lines out where I knew nobody would vote for Clinton.

You could have gone door knocking with James Comey today.

I hope he hates himself so hard.

Learning to loathe yourself, it's the greatest loathe of all.

9: I stood in a long, long pro-Clinton line at a polling place that simply doesn't ever have lines. (It was doing a brisk business today, with a dozen-or-so voting booths occupied, but a line only three deep.)

But I'm in a blue state that went overwhelmingly for Clinton. This may explain why she won the popular vote.

7: I was trying to remember when I became so cynical and hopeless, and maybe it goes all the way back to 1984. Up to a few days before the election I really thought Mondale had a good chance, since he so clearly won the debates.

Did he win?

And did we take action on climate change in a timely manner?

The beef wasn't even found.

14: How old were you then?

My main thought around these election times is simply this: we need more polling places in virtually every state. (Or, given that some of you are reporting very short waiting times, only in certain states and/or jurisdictions.)

Here in blue Maryland, wait times have been about an hour a half for the last 3 or 5 election cycles. States need to budget more funding for more polling stations. I get that it costs money and all that, but this is our democracy, no? Find a way.

My wife was working at the polls as an election greeter today. One of the women in line was very upset that people can register on-site on voting day. "They should have to go to city hall like the rest of us!"

Some people really don't care for democracy.

14: For me it was 1980, when Reagan won and some great, great senators got defeated. George McGovern, Birch Bayh and Frank Church got knocked out of the Senate as the Republicans took control.

Reagan was proto-Trump: a buffoon who manipulated the media, but someone who took office at a time when the Republican Party wasn't fully anti-American and when the Democrats maintained control of at least one House of Congress.

Wait -- there's no early voting in New York state?

I think it's more that Trump is full-shithead Reagan.

20: Allowing on-site registration on election day was one of the 2 ballot questions in Maryland today. It will be nice if it passes.

Every state should do it.

18: I was 21. That was the first presidential election I got to vote.

21: I should have figured it out in 1980, but somehow in 1984, I still thought that if I thought a candidate sounded like an idiot, most voters would think that too.

I had no line this morning. Which I guess is good since it's a Republican area. In fact there was a Republican candidate standing right there. I could tell because he was wearing a suit and there was a big truck with a giant sign with the name of such an unimportant candidate that he can't have more than one truck.

All truck and no collision with foreign powers or water sports with prostitutes.

Also when walking in I saw that the instructions require you to show your ID if voting for the first time in this state. But they didn't ask me to show my ID. Voter anti-suppression?

I had a long line this morning because the ballot scanner (forget the brand) got a paper jam and it took the poll workers 10 minutes to figure out how to fix it. By then there was a line of 30 or more people waiting to actually submit their ballots. People were quite patient about it, though.

Which I guess is good since it's a Republican area.

Heh. I think about that sometimes, in terms of who I make election smalltalk with and who I don't. No need to remind maybe-indifferent Republicans that there's an election.

We are in one of the pilot vote expansion counties. Every registered voter was sent a ballot that could be returned to a library (and other public buildings) since Oct 8th. Lots more voting centers opened Oct 22nd. I really felt attached to getting up at 7am, running to the polling place, voting and wearing my sticker. I thought I'd hate the change. But having done it the other way twice now? The old way feels ridiculous. I'm so glad to have it out of the way for weeks already. I just wish that the second I dropped my ballot through the slot, I was instantly removed from all call and mailer lists.

I got very good voter turnout in my two upper level classes - around 60% and 80%. (They got extra credit for bringing me their polling locations/days/hours and saying when/where is most convenient for their schedule, so this isn't representative necessarily.)

I just got a text from NDWA (National Domestic Workers Alliance, I think?) asking me to donate to provide pizza and porto-potties to people standing in the hours-long lines in FL and GA. This might be the point where I break down sobbing.

Somebody give me some good news (or at least let me know who I should donate to for pizza and porta-potties).

Aaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuughhhhhhhh.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

And so now, as with the previous Events Producing Incredbly Bad News, I'm going to bed. I won't sleep soon or easily, but I'll sleep. And then I'll wake to the problem of when I want to find out what happened overnight.

(please, America, please.)

Here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/lovetothelines

37: Thanks. Donated.

Somebody give me some good news

Guam elected a Democratic governor.

That's all I got so far.

So, America. You have these voting machines, which means the results should be known instantly. I make it 6 pm in at least one part of the country, so how'd it turn out?

Not all of our laboratories of democracy have voting machines or close at 6.

It's looking like we might actually break 90% turnout at the predominantly Native precinct I'm poll watching. We've had to send a bunch of people down to the county seat because they hadn't voted since Obama's first run and had been dropped.

Great gotv activists in the community, and the elwxtojudges are all on for seeing how high we can get turnout

I voted early last week, I think for the first time. (The Young Dems had a "Costume Canvass" event on Halloween where we were voted early then went door-knocking in costume. I didn't end up doing the knocking part but I did vote.) It was definitely more convenient, but I do somewhat miss the ritual of going to the local polling place on Election Day.

Am I right that no one will ever conduct exit polls again? Aside from maybe the "what issues do you care about" variety?

For one thing, it means I don't have even any anecdotal evidence to provide about turnout.

They called one race in Kentucky. I don't think it was a surprise.

44: They're doing them again this year, although some media organizations split from the standard pool to do a separate effort. It looks like there's been more effort to downplay their predictive value than in previous years.

Teo, try poll watching next time. It's interesting and you can make a difference.

48: I've considered it. Maybe next time.

We're actually in the process of buying a house and moving to a different part of town which is a lot more diverse both demographically and politically than our current neighborhood. I'm interested in seeing how the polling places might feel different.

The clear winner in my news-avoidance strategy today is this sprawling, hideous, machine-generated (CSS) stylesheet at work, which I have streamlined over the last 7 hours. Task priority ranking before today was in the infinity range. (There are maybe 5 people here who have some idea of how much fun this can be. Automation will guarantee full employment forever.) I don't know what I'll do tonight... mop the filthy, filthy kitchen floor, perhaps?

It is so much better to spend the day working on some kind of campaign than to spend it agonizing and refreshing the lack of news.

We're actually in the process of buying a house

Did I miss news about who would be the other party in that "we" . . . ?

I'm home with the 3 year old right now and utterly unable to stop obsessing. I did pretty good for most of the day though.

Voting as soon as the polls open and then drinking until oblivion sounds nice.

I probably told you off blog I poll watched a precinct on the south edge of Albuquerque in 2004. Different from here.

53: Probably not. It's the same person I've been with for the past couple years, though I haven't mentioned her much here. No major changes of status.

. . . utterly unable to stop obsessing. I did pretty good for most of the day though.

I had a lousy day at work (with an hour to go; I'm on the west coast) and am now hitting the point at which I'm obsessing.

Half-an-hour wait for me this morning, but that was at rush hour (8:15am). I'm excited that my congressional district might flip to blue, but it really shouldn't even be close, given that the GOP dude believes in Bigfoot.

57: Well, congratulations (even if you are selfishly choosing not to gossip on the blog).

59: Honestly, I'd be more worried about somebody who believes in Bigfoot and isn't masturbating to them.

7:

Point 2 is seared in my memory.

I remember waking up the day after the election in 2004 and feeling incredibly down but also hopeful that people would get active in their local Democratic parties and we could rebuild.

I did not feel quite so physically sick when Bush won re-election as I did with Trump.

60: Thanks!

So, from the fivethirtyeight blog, here's what counts as a news update at this point (I'm not mocking, just amused that I'm so anxious to hear something meaningful that I can't look away).

We are up to 41 percent reporting in the Kentucky 6th, and McGrath leads Barr 53 percent to 46 percent. So far, the districts we thought were going to be toss-ups have been toss-ups.

In my home state of Florida, preliminary early exits (which, as we continue to reiterate, are fluid!) show 51 percent of voters approving of the job Trump is doing as president. If this holds, it may portend good things for Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott.

argh.

Bad news

Democrat Joe Donnelly seems to be running in between his 2012 Senate margins and Clinton's 2016 margins. In little Knox County -- which has almost entirely reported -- Donnelly lost it by a touch less than 1 point in 2012, but Clinton lost it by 47. Donnelly currently trails Republican Mike Braun by 30 there. That may augur poorly for Donnelly, though only 10 percent of the vote is in statewide.

Geoffrey, the vote in Indiana's Senate race looks really bad for Donnelly. Is it?

The Republican advantage in rural Midwest counties increased from a 14 percentage point gap in the 2012 presidential election to a 36 percentage point gap in 2016. Early results in Indiana suggest that urban/rural divides could still be quite strong in 2018, reflecting increased geographic polarization. That means Sen. Joe Donnelly will need to do quite well in metropolitan areas if he hopes to hold onto his seat.

I'm glad stories like 66 don't come out until after polls close because it's seems too early to generalize on those returns.

I wonder if I can turn everything off and wait til morning.

What the hell is happening to 538's real-time forecast?!

Nope.

69: I just clicked over to ask the same thing. Just shifted back to 57.2% chance for Ds in the House. Maybe it shifts based on early returns?

It got worse right away.

Now better. I have to stop.

The commentary said it's based on a set of FL house races that came out R. The Senate odds are depressing, though.

You may have noticed that our real-time forecast has moved toward Republicans in the House. It's being too aggressive, in my opinion. The model sees that a bunch of "likely Republican" districts (particularly in Florida) are now 100 percent likely to go red. But there hasn't been the chance for Democrats to clinch many equivalent likely Democratic districts.

YOU OWE ME A WHISKEY, 538 ELECTIONS ANALYST.

It is rather volatile---the Senate forecast changed abruptly from R+4 to R+2. For the House, I think the Democrats just needed to win all of the ones that were Solid D, Likely D, or Lean D, and they haven't lost any of those yet.

Pritzker likely over Rauner in IL for governor is nice. Ugly race.

Lourdes! Quit looking at it or you will drive me bats! I MUST BLOCK

The Florida initiative to allow former felons to vote looks likely to pass.

I was too optimistic. Bigfoot Dude won. Goddamnit.

Indiana feels very deja Vu...

538 is now hosed but the error message feels vaguely dirty: "Error 503 Backend fetch failed"

66 was not wrong, but I stand by "10% is too early".

I just made the mistake of looking at the news. Shit.

82: If by "hosed" you mean glitched or inaccessible, it seems to be working fine for me. If on the other hand by "hosed" you mean bad and depressing, I agree. How did Democrats' odds of taking the House go down to 54 percent?

The Democrats have not lost any in the House that they really needed to win, but they have also not flipped the toss-ups or the ones that were Likely Republican.

In a few other big races (FL Senate, FL Governor, IN Senate) the Republicans are winning, or have won, when they were forecast to lose.

Yes. Even if the Democrats get the House (still more likely than not), the clear message is that open appeals to violence and racism work.

Question 1 in MA has lost.

At least I won't have to look at Keith Rothus's face again.

They probably did this just to get me to visit their site, but Fox News (!) projects Dems will take the House. Is this some kind of ratfuckery?

Basically it looks like not the blowout we were hoping for, but strong enough to give D about +30. Senate was never really on the table although it might be R+2. Some bright spots like NC Supreme court will probably be packing-proof (Dems will get a 5-2 majority, and only 2 seats can be added by Republican legislature). Probably lose to the shitheel racist governors in GA and FL but next election FL will swing hugely D as they pass enfranchisement of convicted felons.

Seeing news about exit polls showing that Heitkamp and Donnelly both had people voting against them because of their votes against Kavenaugh, I am reminded of, and appreciate, CCarp's comments that they would _also_ have lost votes if they had supported him.

Even if the Democrats get the House (still more likely than not), the clear message is that open appeals to violence and racism work.

Yeah, and now centrist Democrats are going to be insufferable about how we should appeal more to violence and racism.

Yes. I think they were both toast no matter what.

95 to 93. Kudos to them for doing the right thing.

The general consensus seems to be yes ratfuckery, to try to depress turnout or make people leave lines in CA.

Beto hasn't decisively lost yet. It's been a horse race so far.

MI looks like it will dramatically expand voter access (easy absentee voting) and will have an independent/nonpartisan (rolling my eyes, but at this point, I'll happily take incremental improvement) rediscticting commission, so that's some good news. The new governor will likely be a De. Also, it's possible Fred Upton will lose, which would be pleasing.

THE NEEDLE HAS SPOKEN and says D House R Senate.

Huh. NYT's Cohn is basically calling House for Dems, while Silver is still only talking 2-in-3. Just saw Lindsay Graham on NBC saying Dems had won the House. Here is the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/06/us/elections/results-house-elections.html

Oh wait it's "not a prediction but a GOP house is outside the margin of error." Fuck you.

Nate Silver:

With Coffman's race having been called as a Democratic pickup and Curbelo looking wobbly, a bit more reason for Democratic optimism now. They haven't won any really tough races yet, but they may win the ones they need to.

That's disappointing compared to what I had hoped for tonight but the flip side is that the long-shot races would have been harder to defend in two years anyway. The "ones they need to win" should also be seats that have more of a chance to stay Democratic.

That's some first-class rationalization you got going there.

I'm well aware of that.

Where is a good place to get info on how various state house races are doing?

Curbelo loses in FL. Dems pick up one suburban VA district, lead by 44 votes in another. NY11 (Staten fucking Island) serious upset shaping up in favor of Dems. Pickup in CO-6.

I'm trying to counter-balance the sinking feeling of dread I have seeing the Senate results tonight and thinking about this article (which I previously posted here).

There's going to be another fucking Florida recount too.

Nate Silver's forecast is back to 7 in 9 for the house. That's a wee bit better; I was going a little off the rails with worry.

Let's take this moment to remember that we have 7 of 9 to thank for the Obama presidency.

106: If the state has a "flagship" newspaper, I'd check their site. Otherwise, check whoever is the agency in charge of elections.

Yes, I could not find state legislatures on any of the major national sites.

108: Yes, the likely loss in the Senate tonight is discouraging---I was hoping the Democrats could hold it even. There are a lot of Republicans who have to run next time, but most of them look unbeatable, unless the economy is terrible.

538 now up to 92% chance of Dem House.

And we have our first supervillain defeat, Kobach loses KS Gov. Now if Steve King could just be upset I can go to sleep reasonably satisfied.

Yeah that's a good one. Both because Kobach is awful and because it's some hope that eventually there's light at the end of the tunnel of the insanity breaking. Kansas is ahead of the rest of the country in how long Republicans have been a complete disaster.

And even though Beto might not make it, it looks like a fair chunk of the needed House seats will be driven by TX pickups that were probably a result of increased turnout for him.

117: Yes, but that's not exactly cheering. A nation-wide version of the kind of collapse in social services Kansas faced would cause a great deal of pain.

NH has a bunch of tiny-ass newspapers, which is charming in its own way but also means none of them apparently have the resources to put together a nice map of how the local legislature races are breaking down.

Admittedly, they each have more local ones than most states have statewide.

1 house seat per 3300 residents, as god intended.

118: I think somebody at 538 is lurking and copying you.

I'm just copying from Josh Marshall so I'm guessing they're cutting out the middleman.
MA question 3 passes, which, er, means it fails, or whatever. Good result.

Was there a MA question 2 or it is like math where you only needed to do the odd-numbered problems?

Allred goes all blue, ousting longtime incumbent Pete Sessions.
(Now if they take that headline they really are stealing from here)

Pete Sessions lost. That cheers me. Not as much as Kansas, but still, cheered.

Now I'm lurking and copying you.

Question 2 was some bullshit advisory thing about should we form a committee to recommend a US constitutional amendment to overturn corporate campaign finance or something. I voted Sure, Whatever.

125: MA did break the pattern with a Question 2---something about studying and recommending a constitutional amendment on money in politics.

I would have taken the headline, but somebody would have noticed.

Looks like Sununu(R) was just reelected as NH gov. Thpppppptttttt.

If Tester wins, I'll feel better by morning.

Yes, and the Republican in Vermont as well, although I think he was pretty heavily favored.

Yes, and the Republican in Vermont as well, although I think he was pretty heavily favored.

132: Isn't that like their 3rd or 4th of them?

Sununu (R)^4

Double voting! Fraud!

A real news station has now also projected House to Dem control. Still don't want to mess with CA turnout.

Speaking of which, very happy to see a likely Democratic House, and not looking forward to hearing Trump scream about voter fraud

Supervillain #2 on the ropes, Scott Walker down significantly with 57% reporting (don't know from where though.)

Hmm, looks like cities are mostly in, so shit for hair might pull it out.

My WI math Twitter seems to think Walker is in bad shape by comparing county results.

NYT projecting popular vote margin of 9.4%, second largest in recent times to only 2008. Fucking travesty that a nearly 10% victory means borderline control of the chamber.

Just think how Slytherin was able to come so close with only 25%.

VA-07 finally called for Spanberger, that should cement the House.

Question 2 passes in MA. Bring on the 28th Amendment!

All networks call House for Dems, 538 calls it 94% chance now.

Voter ID constitutional amendments look to pass in North Carolina and Arkansas. Damn.

And for all the process geeks out there, it looks like ME-2 will go to instant runoff voting as neither candidate has 50%. The independent at 5% projects liberal so re-allocation might push the Democrat (who's currently behind) over the top. Interestingly IRV did nothing to bring the independent anywhere near a victory.

146: Brat was another high-quality villain to see taken out.

How "Instant" is the Maine version of IRV?

Trump will call it a tie, because the Dems took one house but the GOP added seats in the other. Many of the Serious People will agree that it's basically a tie, not a loss for Trump.

I also thought that IRV in Maine did not apply to federal elections, like the House, but clearly that was wrong.

153 is depressingly plausible.

It's ranked-choice so the votes are already tabulated after the first count. I assume it really is instant, push a button and the third place candidates votes are reallocated to second choice vote.

Democratic control of the House means that they are in a position to push media buttons, especially with subpoenas.

For a 50/50 state, Florida sure seems to elect a lot of Republicans.

Chris Collins is leading and CA is still out but it looks like the Republican Indictment Caucus might live on.

And Mikie Sherrill for the win! Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate, for NJ11.

I am lazy, I must confess. But I did knock on some doors, did make some phone calls, for this hard-won victory. Go NJ11!

Next chair of Ways and Means has said he will formally subpoena Trump's tax returns.

PIGMUCK IS BEHIND! I REPEAT, PIGMUCK IS BEHIND! (Only 11% reporting, but still...)

Thanks to JPJ and the other Democrats of NJ-11!

Good for the Ways & Means chair for saying (and presumably doing) that, but I can't imagine that the IRS under Trump will ever hand them over. Maybe this will be our first crisis of the new year.

Governors of Ohio and Connecticut likely going R---damn again.

4 of 6 New England states likely to have R Governors. I blame Tom Brady.

155: 153 is virtually certain. It's not even a lie by current standards. Taking the House is vital (because of investigations) and I am deeply relieved by that. However, it is the second election in a row where pointing at brown people and yelling "rape" has gotten a group of white people to the polls who have usually stayed away without generating a sufficient backlash to counteract. It's an accomplishment that even Lee Atwater failed at. I don't know how to stop it and I'm not longer complacent that "wait for the fucks to die" will happen soon enough to prevent fundamental damage to political culture and institutions.

165.2 to everything.

Steve King losing 47-51! Not sure what percentage in yet.

Because new fucks are born every day.

NY-19 called to Delgado, target of some of the most racist ads this cycle. Take your racist shit outta NY (Collins aside, Rs are generally getting slaughtered in NY).

On the other hand, Ezra Klein says the election is a pure repudiation of Trump and he's got a whole media to himself.

In conclusion, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate will need to be a governor who wants to expand health care coverage and who will pause the campaign to travel back to his state to kill somebody from Honduras while shouting, "This is for what you did to Sister Soaljah!"

NY-27 results have hugely flipped and Collins is now down 13 with 40% reporting. Guess we'll just have to indict some more Republicans.

In other words, Jim Justice.

Also King is now down bigly, 36% reporting losing by 6.5%

175 is good to hear, and it seems that Democrats are doing well elsewhere in Iowa...maybe the Iowa Senate seat can be flipped if 2020 is a good Democratic year.

In other encouraging news, my ice maker, which has been broken for like 4 months because I didn't want to spend $250 to fix it, mysteriously started working again. Maybe it... only makes ice when it's cold outside?

Relevant because I finally decided to get a celebratory glass of scotch.

Interesting trivia- other than all 6 New England states, which multi-district state could be the only other 100% Democrat? Never would have though Iowa.

Republicans concede loss of NY Senate, meaning Cuomo will have to more transparently be an asshole.

I don't know what's going to happen in Wisconsin. It's very much narrowing.

a celebratory glass of scotch.

There will be hell to pay when ajay gets up and tells us we shoudn't call that whiskey "Scotch." In the meantime, though, drink up!

I hesitate to ask, but what are we supposed to call it? And maybe it's "whisky," too?

He was drinking tape.

What the fuck is going on in NY-27? TPM reports that McMurray conceded but NYT has him up 10 points with 50% reporting. Is there an error in the NYT numbers? CNN has Collins up 3 with 72% in.

Fuck Ajay, the label literally says, "True Scotch"

23rd seat flipped, done fucking deal.

Shit IA-04 has now narrowed to a near tie which I assume means antisemitic asshole is going to pull it out.

Whisky is the unique thing you're allowed to call Scotch.

Interesting trivia- other than all 6 New England states, which multi-district state could be the only other 100% Democrat? Never would have though Iowa.

Could also end up being NM, where the most conservative district is currently very close with a slight R lead.

Dems gain 4 trifectas- NY, NM, CO, IL.

Not looking good for Senator McCaskill in MO---behind by 7.5 points with 85% reporting. Presumably the big cities report last, but that still seems like a lot to overcome.

What is going on between NYT and CNN? Similar to NY-27, CNN has IA-04 democrat with 76% reporting but 10k fewer votes than NYT which has 69% reporting. Something about early ballot totals? If I were a Republican I'd get Gateway Pundit on the case screaming fraud.

Rohrabacher with exactly 50% of the early vote. Supposedly that's a bad sign for him.

Polls close in Alaska!

(Most of them, anyway.)

Minimum wage initiatives pass in Missouri and Arkansas.

Huh, looks like the Unfogged timestamps are a few minutes slow.

You're just trying to suppress the huge Alaska vote.

I can't wait for the new era of bipartisanship.

Our US House and gubernatorial races are actually surprisingly competitive this year, but I don't think either is going to turn on the results in Adak.

200: Build the wall, but with lots of poorly latched gates.

I am happy with your posts, because the information that I can get and is very helpful to me. Thank you for sharing this.

I'm curious what the aggregate Senate popular vote is. Republicans picked up seats but it was because Dems had so many to defend- almost certainly they got more total votes. They won, what, 25 and lost 10?

And of course this was the one year we didn't go trick or treat at Elizabeth Warren's house, usually it's her husband handing out candy, but this year she was there and people I know got pictures with her. Should have known she'd be more available when she was running.

I am happy with your posts, because the information that I can get and is very helpful to me. Thank you for sharing this.

Appears the answer to 204 so far is 36.5M Dem, 29.1M Rep.

When it's just me and the spambots it's time to go to bed.

I have like two more gulps before I've finished my bottle of wine.

NH House and Senate flipped blue, so that's nice.

It was French. I'm buying more imported stuff to protest Trump.

Fuck Ajay, the label literally says, "True Scotch"

I don't want Ajay to think I'm hostile toward him because of some ancient, stupid animosities between Catholic and Protestant. So I'll defer to him on the labelling, I guess.

Ajay: is it okay to call Scotch whisky/whiskey Scottish, or just what?

Also, the grocery store had a shitty selection of California reds, but a very nice Boj..(finish French word).

Anyway, I strongly recommend drinking an entire bottle of red wine during election returns.

For 2020 I'm not sure even that will be enough.

Delighted to wake up to the news that we've taken the House, less so about the Senate as I'd expected that, and very disappointed to hear about Beto/Abrams/Gillum losin (but great on restoring the franchise to felons in FL).

Big fuck yous to Trump and Cuomo are cheering.

188: Yes, he did.

+g

217 is that final?

NBC called it.

balls

Hitler has only got one ball.
Göring has two but very small.
Himmler is rather sim'lar,
But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.

The sudden profusion of swearing and despair on my phone suggests that Walker is headed for another term. My sister is cursing out every last non-voter in Milwaukee.

Still though: this feels enough like a normal election (except in Georgia, where the abuses were just so brazen) that I am somewhat reassured: it's a better starting point than "everything is on fire." Jeff Sessions is still Attorney General, though, so there's that fire.

Good night, SP.

It is a good night for the Democrats, but the size of the loss in the Senate just about puts it out of reach for next time, even if we recruit Moby's Presidential candidate from 172.

Really shitty record on Senate races tonight, though.

I understand there were some tough races, but a blue year like this I think we could have expected better. What went wrong?

Specifically, is it Bernie's fault, or Hillary's?

I am not sure anything went wrong---I think they were seats that the Democrats were lucky to have had in the first place. Better Republican candidates would probably have won in 2012 in IN and MO---they just nominated unusually bad ones. That said, it is very unusual historically---at least three opposite-party incumbent Senators will have lost in this midterm election, and the typical number is zero.

227 gets to the heart of the matter.

The Senate candidate in Florida might have been too far to the left for the electorate there, but we had more conservative candidates in other states, and they lost too. Pretty much every close Senate election went the wrong way---a repeat of 2014, basically. I had expected high Republican turnout---they would see the election as defending Trump---and I expect that's a lot of the reason.

The Trump koolaid is really strong stuff, and is very appealing to certain segments. If Tester loses, and he very well might, it's completely about Trump and his politics of resentment. No one actually wants Rosendale, but a bunch of people want to give Trump the win, because he's a winner, and if they can't give him this win he so desperately wants, then maybe they're losers too.

And Trump may not be interested in doing any of the things that are the actual job of being President, but visiting a small population state 4 times to try to settle a personal score -- well he'd do that and more any time.

The senate was always a stretch. This is the worst map any party has ever faced.

And as I've mentioned before, it's very anti- majoritarian, much more than the house.

I'm at the Begich watch party and it's packed. Early results show the race is close. We'll see.

Maybe the problem is that the majority of voters in a lot of states are terrible people who are willing to elect shitheads.

I am now represented by three (3) Muslims, can anybody beat that?

ISTR that the right to label a beverage "Scotch" is defined by multinational treaty.

223: Walker going down after all! There were a bunch of absentee ballots in Milwaukee that came up late in the count.

238 Trump will probably tear that one up after he's done with the INF and START.

The Senate is really bad news. It's going to be tough if we take the presidency in 2020 to get anyone confirmed since it's likely we won't take the Senate back then. Hopefully McConnell kicks it before then.

239 Yes!

Yeah, the Senate losses mean that packing the Supreme Court is likely off the table.

How many House seats have we picked up?

237: I suspect Barry can, for sufficiently broad definitions of "represented".
As can I: my MP, my GLA member, the mayor of my city and two of my three local councillors are Muslim.(The third one is, I am guessing, Catholic).

243: 26 so far.

242: "Yeah, the Senate losses mean that packing the Supreme Court is likely off the table."

Time to pound the table.

237: Me! At least 4 MPs based on surname. (It's a party list system.)

Dems picked up a Senate seat in Nevada so it's not a total wash*. Pulling for Tester.

*Can we bring Harry Reid out of retirement? Dude had his shit together.

Local races not looking great so far, but not all precincts have reported yet.

Reagan was proto-Trump
I think it's more that Trump is full-shithead Reagan.
If that's more than just a joke I'm curious what Moby means by it.

Georgia really feels terrible, since voter suppression is only going to get worse, and it will be harder and harder going forward to get a Democrat in.

A follow-up to my comment here, about Maciej Ceglowski's gloom.

I think my comment held up pretty well! All but one of MC's Great Slate candidates lost, including Scholten in IA-4 to openly-white-supremacist Steve King, which is an absolute gutpunch. (Spreadsheet here.) Jared Golden may yet win in ME-2, but it's razor-thin right now, and the courts might well overturn Maine's Instant Runoff Voting procedure, because fuck democracy.

There are different ways to read this. One--probably the correct way--is that MC's creation of the Great Slate got lots of techies involved and outside their Silicon Valley bubbles, and even more important, helped bankroll grass-roots progressive mobilization in areas that would otherwise have never seen it due to a lack of resources; both effects may well bear fruit in the future (and all these races are up again in only 2 years!).

But if I were MC, it would also be possible to wake up on Wednesday with an epic hangover and think, "Over the last year and a half, I poured my life, and $5m of my and other people's money, into this project and these candidates--and only one of them might perhaps have won. We even lost to the fucking Nazi." I think this is the wrong lesson to take from the Great Slate--after all, King has always been a Nazi; Scholten cut his margin from 22% to 3%, and can try again in 2 years!--but depending on your psychological makeup, it may be tough to resist.

Fine, but why does it matter if Maciej is sad? Aside from him seeming to be an awesome dude, I think it does highlight one aspect of the challenge ahead: a lot of the most necessary work is also the most thankless. I mean, MC himself has gotten tons of love, but the gloom he's feeling is just a taste of what his candidates feel. They all really *did* pour their lives into this, often their savings and careers too. And even if their campaigns bear fruit later on, it's very unlikely that these particular candidates will reap the benefit of any of that.

If America had strong parties (instead of weak parties but strong partisanship), the people doing this hopeless but necessary work could be taken care of. As it is, they'll just be forgotten.

All that said, it's such a relief that at least the Dems took the House.

Oh, forgot MEPs. I have eight of those. One Muslim. So I'm represented by a total of 14 people of whom six are Muslim.

re: 254

It's interesting, I guess, how things change across London. I'm in Ealing Southall, so it's very Punjabi, in terms of political representation.

For me, as far as I can tell, it's: councillors - 1 Jewish, 1 Catholic (I assume), 1 Hindu/Sikh*; mayor - Muslim; GLA member - Hindu/Sikh*; MEPS - same as you.

* it's not entirely clear from the surnames, but I'd assume Hindu, rather than Sikh.

And a Hindu MP.

It looks like Evers pulled it off after all?
And I didn't really mean fuck ajay last night, I was just on a roll of cursing things.

On the strength of +32k margin of Milwaukee absentees.

Shit, I picked the exact wrong moment last night to give up, go to bed, and lie awake for five hours in fear of the Democrats losing everything.

259 But what a relief, right?

I guess it's better to have (not)slept on it and gotten this than to have stayed up and lost.

I am personally having a really tough time with the parts of my head that want to blame inconsequential things I do for the results, along the lines of jinxing your sports team by turning it on to watch.

250: Just that Trump is worse.

262: So no theory of Republican evolution is implied?

Ajay: is it okay to call Scotch whisky/whiskey Scottish, or just what?

Belatedly replying - "Scotch" is an adjective meaning "of or from Scotland". It used to be commonly used in the 19th century - Byron wrote "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers", and that was conventional for the time. You could talk about Edinburgh as a Scotch city or the Dee as a Scotch river or Maxwell as a Scotch physicist. But that sounds antique now - not offensive, particularly, just antique. "Scottish" or, more rarely, "Scots" are the general-purpose adjectives. (Scotch Tape, incidentally, is so-called because the inventor was using "Scotch" as an ethnic slur to mean "miserly". I suppose it might easily have been called Jew Tape instead.)

"Scotch" is now really only used for whisky (and a few foods), and, per the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009, only for whisky which is not only made in Scotland but made in a specific way (matured in oak casks etc).
So all Scotch whisky is Scottish by definition. I suppose that you could have whisky that's Scottish (made in Scotland) but not Scotch (because they don't follow the regulations about maturing etc) but I don't think any actually exists.
Talking about Scottish whisky would be unusual (though correct). Talking about Scottish whisky distillers, or the Scottish whisky industry, would sound normal. And a Scottish whisky lover would probably be a Scot who likes whisky, not someone who likes Scotch whisky.

So - yes, Scotch whisky is Scottish, but people tend to call it Scotch.

And it's "whisky" - "whiskey" is the US and Irish spelling.

Incidentally, is "scotch" used as a generic for "whisky" over in the US, or do Americans literally mean only Scotch when they say scotch?

Nevada being Nevada, the brothel owner is leading his state assembly race. Also he died a few weeks ago.

263.last Holy shit, I did not know that. It's sellotape to me from now on.

Scotch is used for scotch whisky.

264: I haven't heard "scotch" used generically for whisky, no. Whisky is definitely the generic term in use. But I have heard "scotch" used in reference to whisky that isn't actually Scotch, but is in that style. Suntory Yamazaki, for instance.

263: I think he's there because they lost all standards, not the next step in their evolution. They have no ability to say, "this is wrong" separately from "this is liberal."

I haven't read the thread yet, but I just want to say: Fuck Florida.

269: Thanks.

264. Wee wil spel wiskee ani wae wie want! Wi r Mercans!

I think Ted Cruz would have been the next step in the evolution.

There is one place where I ordered whiskey and received Scotch instead, and that place was an AirFrance flight to Paris.

But did you enunciate the 'e' correctly?

OK. Not as bad as I feared after a self-inflicted miserable night's sleep.

I just came home and drank and only got a snippet of news after 14 and half hours at the polls listening to my on co-worker's insipid patter*, My assumption was that Dems would come very close all sorts of places but in the end be short of winning anything meaningful. Happened a lot but at least the House swung. Senate was doomed but hate more that it sets up 2020 as harder. Sure hope Tester and/or Sinema can pull it out.

Best news is Florida felon winning and Kobach and Walker going down.

Old white Americans really are the worst,

*He's a "reasonable" Republican who admits that is biased but thinks CNN is just as bad the "other way".)God kill me now (or maybe better kill me about 1:30 PM yesterday) Also having to watch all those rat-face republicans vote --my Racistfuckwaddar worked pretty well at predicting party registration. I'm maybe not the best suited for a non-partisan voting job...

254: awesome, now we have a new goal to work towards!

El Don getting right to the nitty-gritty:

If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!

Media anticipatory hate: (and some I've seen)

Voting against Kavanaugh mattered for Senators. Pelosi Speaker death watch (contrasted with crickets on lame-ass Schumer t the fucko fuckhead).

It is interesting to see the difference in Muslim representation between the US and UK -- Somali-Americans are already a significant constituency here in Mpls, but we don't have the "deep bench" that places with older Muslim communities might.

Also, three deep red states voting to expand Medicaid was quite good.

I wonder if being a whiny shit cut into Fartenberry's margin?

Or was it only 2 on Medicaid.

Good grassroots things like voting reforms etc. as well

280: Did non-Somalis also vote for these people?

I need to look up whether or not Norwegians count as that.

Anyway, people are going to go around talking this up as a Democratic victory, which is probably necessary, so I'll try to be more with the program. But mostly I think it's only a victory in the sense of living to fight another day.

re: 280

Bearing in mind that ajay and I both live in London. Which is the most ethnically diverse city in the UK, by quite some margin. That said, you'd see solid numbers of Muslim politicians in many UK cities, and in the Midlands and the North West.

The UK has approx. 5% Muslim population, and about 2% of MPs are Muslim. There's a handy summary at the end of: http://muslimnews.co.uk/newspaper/home-news/record-number-muslim-mps-elected/

286: Agree.

The white supremacist core has was reaffirmed if chipped away at a bit.

All the remaining Iowa House Republicans are Nazis and that counts as an improvement.

Will NYC at least get the subway fixed now?

264: I haven't heard "scotch" used generically for whisky, no. Whisky is definitely the generic term in use. But I have heard "scotch" used in reference to whisky that isn't actually Scotch, but is in that style. Suntory Yamazaki, for instance.

This is correct.

Saying "whiskey" in the US is ambiguous. If you're let's say a country music fan we can be sure that it means bourbon or rye. If you are a cultured elite, it's ambiguous. The categories are:
Scotch
Irish whiskey
Bourbon
Rye
Canadian whiskey
Miscellaneous - it SEEMS like we should call the Scotch-style whiskies from Japan and India "Scotch". But doing so is sort of a slip of the tongue.

Edit: There is also the "Tennessee whiskey" category. This is identical to bourbon but it comes from Tennessee.

All whiskey from places other than Kentucky and Tennessee just calls itself "whiskey" or "American whiskey" or "(Name of State) whiskey" and is also identical to those two.

The Senate candidate in Florida might have been too far to the left for the electorate there, but we had more conservative candidates in other states, and they lost too.

I think you mean the Governor candidate in Florida. The Senate candidate in Florida was an 18-year incumbent.

I have never seen whisky from India in my life. I've only seen whisky from Japan during "Lost in Translation.". Where are you drinking?

292: You beat me to the pedantry-punch with the Tennessee whiskey/bourbon distinction, so I will have to satisfy myself with the inferior pedantry of finishing that last sentence,

"...and is also identical to those two..." assuming they are made in the same style with respect to mash content and barrel ageing.

Yeah, not nearly as satisfying.

Is there good Indian whiskey? I have only had one Indian whiskey, and it definitely was not good.

I thought there was an Indian beer in the bar, but it turns out Belgium has funny words.

293: Although I am of course happy about the ex-felon voting result, I am otherwise especially disappointed in Florida b/c not only did they not elect the right guys, they elected two REALLY obviously awful guys -- both Scott and DeWhatsis are just utter shit even if you take away the Republican policy -- over two really good ones. I can't decide which loss feels harder to believe.

Another positive outcome is that Kim Davis in Kentucky was ousted from her post as county clerk.

I thought she was ousted already and became a full-time celebrity on the crazed conservative circuit.

Also isn't she actually a (ancestral) Democrat?

Oh, man. It's too early and I have too much to do to start in on the whiskey just yet (it's a not quite 7:30 am!) but it's an attractive idea.

At my polling place yesterday, 8% of the votes were on provisionals -- all were for the same reason: they got an absentee in the mail, but wanted to vote in person, and hadn't brought the absentee in with them. I'm not sure if those have been counted yet; I can imagine that they might not have been, since that requires checking the records. There were some machine issues here, aiui, and that might also be why our count is so low.

Couple inches of new snow on the ground. Shit ton of stuff to do. Maybe ignoring politics is the only answer for a while.

287. Yeah, Sheffield has 10 Muslim councillors out of 84, which is a higher percentage than the general population (6%). On the other hand they're all of Pakistani extraction, the large enough to be visible Somali and Yemeni communities don't get a look in. Also, no black councillors at the moment, though that's not always the case.

I get the impression that the most optimistic way to look at the American results is to concentrate on local wins. Which implies that D activitists, if not the leadership, have learned something.

Looking at local results it is almost all optimism, outside Ohio, Indiana and Missouri. Democrats won a huge majority in New York State, oddly enough for the first time. Democrats won back the state government in Illinois, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc (unfortunately not Iowa). Democrats expanded their lead in the few things in North Carolina that are not appallingly gerrymandered (State Supreme Court). Democrats seem to have taken complete control of everything in Colorado for the first time. Medicaid expansion won everywhere. Democrats won lots of seats in the Texas legislature and came within 5% not just with Our Beloved Boy Beto, but every other statewide candidate except the governor, completely revitalizing the local party. Democrats never win Florida or Georgia governor anyway. But they did win enfranchisement of over a million disenfranchised people in Florida.

The problem, as usual, is with the terrible design of the federal government, this time the Senate.

I've been trying to understand the psychology of my many fellow Ohioans that voted for Sherrod Brown and Mike DeWine. Is it all just image -- Sherrod Brown is a fighter for the working class, while Richard Cordray is a nerdy braniac? Or is there some logic to it -- people that don't like Trump, but are conservatives and want Ohio to continue to have low taxes, lax regulations, and support fossil fuels?

I think that's it.

Does Ohio have any fossil fuels left?

286: Kevin Drum got the memo.

Tonight Was One of the Great Political Blowouts of Modern History

Medicaid expansion won everywhere.

Not quite everywhere.

Democrats won lots of seats in the Texas legislature and came within 5% not just with Our Beloved Boy Beto, but every other statewide candidate except the governor, completely revitalizing the local party.

The Texas results are really quite wonderful and buoying, although paradoxically the people that made it happen - low-info voters who showed up on Beto's coattails - are mostly just upset that he lost.

Getting them to turn out again is not a foregone conclusion - there's a lot of work and building that needs to happen over the next two years.

305: They have some gas.

305: I think so. Fracking/natural gas anyway. There had been programs encouraging the development of renewable energy and the Republican state legislature eliminated them.

Other possible motivations -- support corrupt charter schools, and want abortions to be illegal.

308: Fortunately he can run for Senate again in 2020!

Is there good Indian whiskey?

The only one I've tried was an Amrut and it was good: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amrut_(whisky)

Further to 307, we were voting on increasing the cigarette tax to pay for the state's portion of expanded Medicaid, which sunsets next July. Big Tobacco spent big, and seems to have won out. I'll bet our legislators will treat this as having been a referendum on Medicaid expansion when debating legislation to avert the sunset.

Most things labelled "whisky" in India aren't actually whisky in any sense and would be called rum anywhere else. Amrut is legit and has an excellent reputation, though I wasn't super impressed with the one dram of theirs I tried. (It was fine, just not something I'd order again. Though it's possible that they poured me the wrong Amrut as it seemed unpeated to me, and they had two on the menu.)

There's also one Taiwanese whisky with a good reputation, Kavalan, which I haven't tried yet. Also apparently Tasmania is the hip impossible-to-buy place for whisky these days.

293: Right you are. Stayed up too late watching the results.

259
Shit, I picked the exact wrong moment last night to give up, go to bed, and lie awake for five hours in fear of the Democrats losing everything.

Similar story here. I went to bed last night around 11, later than planned, when 538 and similar sources were saying that the Democrats had a 90+ percent chance of taking the house. I woke up around 5 AM and couldn't get back to sleep until I confirmed that that's how they had called it.

286
But mostly I think it's only a victory in the sense of living to fight another day.

But, really, isn't that the only kind of victory that matters?

This is me being optimistic, unlike earlier, and/or thinking deep thoughts. Everyone's going to call this a victory except for people who lost their jobs and don't have another one lined up, because that's how politics works. Trump is saying Republicans won the Senate because they gained seats, never mind that they were defending half as many as Democrats. He is calling the House a victory because their winning candidates won with a strategy of demonizing Pelosi, or maybe because they only have a roughly-5-seat margin in the House as opposed to a 60-seat historic landslide, never mind basic facts and reality. It's not reasonable to expect stuff like that. (I guess a week ago it wouldn't have been crazy to hope for Dems winning the Senate, but anyways.) Democrats actually had historically good results in 2006 and 2008, and Republicans in 2010, and they got some of what they wanted but missed out on some of it too. As long as we still have a democracy, we just plan to live to fight another day. So it goes. Absolute victory isn't on the table in a meaningful democracy, just progress.

I hear there's another fight two years from now.

On the contrary! The Democratic presidential primary fight starts now!

Seem that Ned Lamont pulled it out in Connecticut after all. I had thought that race was over and had gone the other way.

It's looking like the Greens spoiled the AZ senate race.

237: Fun game. I do pretty well.

State house: One each African- Irish- and Italian-American
US Representative: Irish-American,
Senate, One African-American, one Latinx

I hadn't noticed before, but they are amazingly stereotypical. Both African-Americans were All American football payers, both Irish-Americans were working class guys who didn't go to college but were presidents of blue collar union locals; the Italian-American also didn't go to college and is self-employed in a traditionally mafia-adjacent industry.

I think Fintan O'Toole is correct in that what's happened is Trump/Trumpism becoming the openly dominant tone of the Republican/conservative movement.

320: yeah, who is that Green candidate?

Are there organizations in Georgia other than Abrams campaign that one should be giving to?

I know nothing that people claim is ironic is ever actually ironic, but Sinema going from being a Green Party activist to an extremely "moderate" anti-Pelosi Democrat and then losing her election narrowly because of the Green Party might actually be ironic.

299: Correct; from what I read today, she was in fact a Dem, but changed her party to one that more fit her 'ideals' , and held off a challenger for County Clerk in 2014. She lost to a Dem in this election. She apparently also wrote a memoir, and her loss will just free her up more more time on the CCC (crazytown conservative circuit). I'm still glad she was voted out.

286 seems right.
I'm going to miss McCaskill and I'm immensely grateful for all the Democrats who gave their all in races they knew to be longshots.

You beat me to the pedantry-punch with the Tennessee whiskey/bourbon distinction

You are now obligated to invent a bourbon based cocktail and name it Pedantry Punch.

On the contrary! The Democratic presidential primary fight starts now!

I know. The mere thought depresses me.

Remind me, before I start freaking out again: What prevents the lame-duck Congress from taking one last whack at repealing the ACA, now that the accountability moment has passed? Anything besides tradition, decorum, and other lovely things we don't have any more?

I think there's a link between California's nonpartisan redistricting and its swing to the left, using NY as a matched pair (yes this is certainly ignoring many key differences). CA departisanized federal redistricting in 2008 and in 2010 gave the new citizen's commission the same job for state legislative districts. The new maps from 2012 not only brought Ds to supermajority in Sacramento, but also made it easier for the Democrats coming in to be more progressive, reflecting their communities. (Grudgingly: possibly term limits also helped the turnover process, old to new guard.)

By contrast, NYS kept protecting incumbents of both parties, including IDC, which seems to match how their politics acts so frozen in time. Although hopefully that broke last night.

So no to "protective" pro-Dem gerrymandering, which I think was tossed out in a thread recently.

Looking ahead: does anyone know if there are bigger barriers in TX to reenfranchising felons via ballot measure than there were in FL?

I wonder if Keith Rothus feels like he should have run commercials saying he was a Nazi instead of ones implying her wasn't?

What prevents the lame-duck Congress from taking one last whack at repealing the ACA, now that the accountability moment has passed? Anything besides tradition, decorum, and other lovely things we don't have any more?

The Senate wouldn't pass it. Are you wondering if the House could pass a bill now for the Senate to take up next year? I don't know what the rules about that are, but it seems unlikely to be possible.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

A "Congress" lasts two years.

Laydeez?

Holy shit, I can't believe how close Abrams got overnight. It is a microscopic portion of the 1.5 million voters Kemp has purged over the past five years.

337: has she conceded yet? I am about to get my teeth cleaned after six months of gnashing. So happy about WI though... that took fucking forever

I don't think she has conceded. The NYT shows her behind by about 65,000 votes. I guess the hope is to get the opponent from 50.4% to below 50%, which would force a runoff.

329
What prevents the lame-duck Congress from taking one last whack at repealing the ACA, now that the accountability moment has passed?

The fact that there most Republicans currently in Congress who got reelected want to survive the next two years. Sure, gerrymandering, short memories, loyalty to donors over voters, etc., but even so a move like that would make the upcoming term miserable for them.

Is there a reason for her to concede? It's not like she lost an actual election.

The fact that Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins don't want to repeal the ACA and Jones won in Alabama. That's it. All the other stuff is irrelevant, McConnell doesn't believe in norms or electoral opinions.

340, 342:

Also the fact that they just got done campaigning on "protecting pre-existing conditions" and that the 2020 backlash would be so bad that the Democrats would probably pass something they'd find even less acceptable than the ACA.

Is anyone really keeping track?

Of those willing to vote Republican.

Also, as a lifelong Texan I can't exaggerate how good it feels to watch the state GOP have the first objectively bad election night since I was a toddler. For the first time in my memory, I feel like Texas isn't a deep Red State.

329. Bills that haven't made it through the entire process (passed by both houses, signed by the President) die at the end of a session.

Above slightly ambiguous Actually "at the end of a Congress" rather than "at the end of a session." At least that's what the NAACP says.

Oh, I've never seen Amrut. I'll have to keep an eye out for it; surely it can be had in London.
Tasmanian whiskey sounds exciting and yes also impossible to get.
Although there's more Japanese whiskey on the export market now than there used to be, there are so many good ones that don't leave Japan. I wish all the Japanese boozes were more available internationally (except maybe beer).

You are now obligated to invent a bourbon based cocktail and name it Pedantry Punch.
Hey, that's a fun assignment. I am rather proud of my first cocktail invention, the Florida Recount (gin, tonic, campari, grapefruit juice, bitters, garnish with grapefruit twist and a dash of lemon dish soap. It's bitter, see?).
I don't have any bright ideas yet for this one, but it's definitely got to have enough ingredients to put an Oxford comma in there.

Associated Press has called Montana Senate for Tester.

That's just great.

I've been in meetings, and just looked at the SOS website, and was going to call it for Tester was well. The counties that are still out are mostly places Jon won well, so unless there's something weird, it'll go his way. God, what a relief!

Everyone gets to claim a piece of any narrow victory, of course, but the Native vote was a big damn deal here.

Age-stated Japanese whisky isn't very available anymore even in Japan. They're trying to build up stocks again, but it just wasn't as popular 10-20 years ago as it is now and they've run out of stock. Friends got me the NAS Suntory Hibiki Japanese Harmony and I really like it. At some point I'll try Nikka from the Barrel if I can locate it. Maybe one day things will become reasonable again...

Yay Tester! Good to win one of the close ones.

The Florida situation is really weird, have they really gotten 8 points more conservative relative to the country in the last two years?

OMG They're calling a run-off for Abrams!!!

I'm too excited to check and see if I'm pwned.

I'M NOT EVEN PWNED!!!

I may be premature, though. I just looked closer and it's not an official link.

I was just about to say Tester is the best news I'll get all week unless something comes from Georgia.

That's the hazards of being first.

So Tester has won 3 Senate elections with under 50% of the vote each time. Thank God for Montana's tradition of free-thinking open-minded conservatism leading to a small but crucial number of open-minded free-thinkers choosing to vote Libertarian.

Damn it.

362 to 358.

354.2: They're making new old people every day.

361 You can also thank Him for letting the Democratic Party prevail in its lawsuit to strike the Green Party candidates from the ballot.

353: Ah, I did not know that, interesting. That would kind of explain things for whiskey, and I guess there isn't enough of a market outside Japan for sake or shochu to export that stuff.

Fivethirtyeight grading: right now, using the results to date, both 538 and NYT are projecting the final Dem swing will be 34-ish. Before the election, the 538 forecast closed with the median forecast being 38-39. Not too shabby really.

Not as good on Senate, but they didn't find 53 R an unlikely scenario.

54 (although maybe it is technically only 53 now because MS will have a runoff)

There's a similar shortage problem with Scotch whisky, the market was very weak in the 80s before taking off more recently (due mostly to hipsters who drink better things and lots of new expensive liquor drinkers in East Asia). But the timing is a bit different, the crisis for

In American Whiskey, there's a similar run on age-stated bourbons with a wheat-heavy mash bill. But most American Whiskey is 10 years old or less, so you can respond to the market faster.

does anyone know if there are bigger barriers in TX to reenfranchising felons via ballot measure than there were in FL?

Felons here aren't completely disenfranchised. I think you can vote once you're completely off probation and off everything.

Saturday Night Massacre happens tonight.

Or at least Sessions was fired.

Mueller better start dropping shit. Like, now.

A quarter of all the US felons disenfranchised for life were in Florida, because it was by far the biggest state with that stringent of a disenfranchisement law and it also has a lot of felons. So that ballot measure passing is quite significant.

Sentencing Project

According to that, the list of states that disenfranchise all felons forever looks like this: Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi.

Virginia still disenfranchises all felons forever unless the governor acts to restore their right to vote, which is now happening on an industrial scale.

Arizona and Nevada disenfranchise people with more than one felony. Some others disenfranchise some but not all felons.

373: I've been picturing that well-placed manila envelopes must have been in the right hands for weeks already.

Alaska Dems got crushed, so the mood is a bit gloomy here today. It's not a huge surprise, since Alaska is often out of phase politically with the rest of the country and there are some idiosyncratic local circumstances that made Republican wins likely.

276: Thanks for trying teo. What are the circumstances?

372: Ted Nugent is still available.

377: Economic downturn due to low oil prices, fiscal crisis due to structural problems with state finances that has meant reduced Permanent Fund Dividends the past couple years, and a crime wave probably driven mostly by the economy and the opioid crisis but that hit right after the passage of a controversial criminal justice reform bill. All of these have improved a bit recently, but they've contributed to a general sense of frustration that plays to Republicans' advantage both because of their perceived strength on some issues and because they're the party out of power.

Thanks.

346: Watching Pete Sessions eat shit is amazing.

372. ACLU Spokesgeek is on form:

He was an egregious violator of civil rights and civil liberties. From his plot to deport Dreamers, remove police and law enforcement accountability, discriminate against trans people, perpetuate and expand senseless enforcement of racist drug laws, use of religion to discriminate against LGBTQ people and undermine reproductive rights, abandon protections for women against violence, and even lie to the Senate to cover up Trump campaign contact with Russian officials, his tenure as the highest chief law enforcement officer was a complete disgrace to our nation's constitutional protections. Sessions allowed the Department of Justice to function as the political arm of the Trump administration to undo fundamental rights that protect each of us, disregarding years of legal precedent and settled law.

382: Still better than whoever replaces him.

The replacement has published an anti-Mueller op-ed.

Canadian whiskey

It's "whisky" in Canada (since we're being pedantic), but Canadians mostly just call it "rye." Unless speaking of Scotch whisky, of course, which is just called "scotch."

In Canada, btw, rye and ginger (Canadian whisky [probably Crown Royal] with ginger ale) is a very popular drink, which is frowned upon by cultured elite types (yes, we do have some of those, at least in metropolitan Toronto...), who object to the cloying sweetness.

I'm pretty sure I've heard Americans use the generic "scotch" for whisky/whiskey. Maybe this is a regional thing? I don't think I've ever heard "Tennessee whiskey" for bourbon, which might also be a regional thing?

Tennessee whiskey (e.g., Jack Daniel's) is definitely different from bourbon. Both are defined, unlike scotch, by process rather than geography, although they do mostly come from Tennessee and Kentucky respectively.

The major Tennessee whiskies actually fit the legal definition of Bourbon, they just choose a different name. That is the definition of Tennessee whisky is that it's straight bourbon made in Tennessee. By Tennessee law, with one grandfathered exception, you also have to charcoal filter following the Lincoln county process. Bourbon does not need to be made in Kentucky, but most of it is. It's a bit weird to me that Kentucky never got the region codified.

Weirdly in both the US and Canada, I think "Rye" does not require it being made from any percentage of actual rye.

Most American Rye whiskey comes from the same giant factory in Indiana.

(Correction: *Canadian* "Rye" can be made of anything, but American Rye has to be over 51% Rye.)

America has a Rye Coder.

By Tennessee law, with one grandfathered exception, you also have to charcoal filter following the Lincoln county process.

And I thought the French were fussy, with their hidebound traditions and their bureaucratic legalese about which sparkling wines deserve to be called "champagne"...

The major Tennessee whiskies actually fit the legal definition of Bourbon, they just choose a different name. That is the definition of Tennessee whisky is that it's straight bourbon made in Tennessee.

Huh, interesting. I didn't know that.

By Tennessee law, with one grandfathered exception, you also have to charcoal filter following the Lincoln county process.

Oddly enough, it appears the one exception is also the only distillery currently located in Lincoln County, Tennessee.

So, anyway, I guess McConnell has stopped the caravan with the same technique he used to end the ebola epidemic.

Magyar slavers?

Resolve. Republican resolve.

He just needed a couple more seats -- didn't even need them to be filled yet, just on the way -- and the danger went right away.

Nikka from the Barrel

Picked up a bottle more or less at random near where we were staying in Kyoto a couple of years ago. It was very nice stuff. I thought I'd get some to take home in the airport duty free but they had a much more limited selection than I expected, so will have to wait for another trip to try again.

They started shipping it to the US this summer.

I haven't seen it in the places here that are good for such things, but will now have to keep my eyes peeled. Nikka Coffey Grain is also nice stuff and has been showing up in our Costco as well as the liquor stores.

"Tennessee whiskey (e.g., Jack Daniel's) is definitely different from bourbon. Both are defined, unlike scotch, by process rather than geography"

Scotch is defined by both process and geography; it's got to be made a certain way and made in Scotland to count.

Right, and apparently the same is true of Tennessee whisky. It's not true of bourbon, though, which is defined only by process even though the vast majority is made in Kentucky. (I guess it does have to be made in the US, but that's a much less restrictive geographical requirement than is common for other liquors.)

Ah, OK. Just to confuse matters further, it seems the Canadians have made bourbon as well... https://www.masterofmalt.com/country-style/canadian/bourbon-whisky/

Perhaps they could borrow the services of some enlightened topless eurocrats.

I drink a lot of bourbon and I look sideways at any bourbon which is not from Kentucky. Though I'm often looking sideways after drinking a lot of Kentucky bourbon anyway.

Please enjoy the AFL-CIO's statement on Scott Walker's defeat:
https://aflcio.org/pressreleases/afl-cio-statement-scott-walker-defeat

405: nice.

We're still counting; two (of 56) counties left. It looks like statewide turnout is going to get to 70%

I think the state house is going to be 60-40 R.

Is that normal?

405: lurid pwned.

Still, just great writing.

We don't even have a normal.

That's pretty high for a mid-term. It may be that students and Natives voted at presidential levels, rather than midterm levels. Tester's race really energized everyone, and while the President's 4 visits didn't change the outcome of that race, I think he probably did hold the legislature for the Rs.

I'm thinking 2020 is going to be really bad here. We're very likely to re-elect our R senator and US house member, and unless something nutty happens* we're probably going to elect an R for governor. My state house rep wants to try for AG; we ought to have a shot at the other tier B seats because the Republicans elected in 16 are performing so poorly in them (Insurance commissioner; supt public instruction; sec of state) but that'll depend on the charisma of the particular individuals who try for those jobs.

* The obvious choice for the Rs is our current AG, who's competent and seems reasonably decent. Neither of which is a plus in R politics, so maybe they'll end up nominating Ryan Zinke, or some sort of marginal Trumpish guy.

It's a bad dynamic where every Republican shithead makes it harder for anybody basically decent to win a primary as everyone decent had left. They should have seen this coming. Maybe they didn't read Bill Bennett's book o' values and blackjack strategies.

402: I had never heard of Canadian bourbon. Would it count as real bourbon, though?

413: neither had I until I googled "Canadian bourbon" out of curiosity! Teo says that bourbon is a process rather than an appellation, so I don't see why you can't make bourbon anywhere in the world and call it bourbon. But apparently the Canadians insist that it's got to be made in the US if you want to call it bourbon in Canada. Maybe that's a new thing; I notice those bottles are all pretty old.

My former boss at the Bod is starting (or was starting, not sure if the business is running) to distill bourbon in the UK. She went to some place in the US (Kentucky or Tennessee) to do the relevant courses in distilling.

||

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/09/scotland-first-country-approve-lgbti-school-lessons

Good news, but really, the first? I'd have assumed the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands must do something similar?
>

414. Jack Daniel's is called "Tennessee Whiskey" because in the US, only Kentucky bourbon is "Bourbon." Maybe Canada follows that rule (because they are so polite, I assume). It's also common for all sorts of food and drink in the EU to have an official "real" version.

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