2022 U.S. Congressional (and Other) Elections

[RoseMorninStar]

The wearing of guns for the local tax office not to mention setting up a personal 'Sugar Daddy' business with public funds is more than pretty awful. What you got going on down there in Florida, yov? (not you personally.. just that area of Florida in general).

[Frelga]

Someone on Twitter tried to summarize the Gaetz story, and the only way to do it is to the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire.

[Frelga]

@nytmike

NEW: In the final weeks of the Trump administration, Matt Gaetz, who is under federal investigation for sex trafficking a minor, sought blanket pardons from the Trump White House for himself and congressional allies. w/@maggieNYT @npfandos

[elengil]

Y'know...

I know why he didn't - it didn't personally benefit him (though it well might have!) - but I will give this one spark of credit that the previous POTUS did not, in fact, issue these pardons.

Sometimes credit can be given for not doing the wrong thing even if it is for the wrong reasons.

[RoseMorninStar]

Didn't the former POTUS stop issuing pardons, blanket (oh, what an interesting term in this case) or otherwise due to some other scandal and it would look bad/admission of guilt? I think he had planned to issue them for family members, etc.. Otherwise he likely would have.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Following my usual pattern, I have been skeptical about the possibility of Matt Gaetz actually facing charges but this is ...

Not good for Matt Gaetz

Joel Greenberg, the former tax collector for Seminole County, Fla., had first been charged last summer in a bare-bones indictment that prosecutors repeatedly superseded to add charges of sex trafficking of a minor, stealing from the tax office and even trying to use fraud to get covid-19 relief money while out on bond. In the course of the investigation into his conduct, people familiar with the matter have said, federal authorities came across evidence that Gaetz might have committed a crime and launched a separate investigation into him.
At a status conference in the case Thursday, federal prosecutor Roger Handberg told a judge he expected the case to end in a plea, though negotiations are ongoing. Fritz Scheller, an attorney for Greenberg, asked the judge to set a deadline of May 15 for the two sides to either reach a deal, or move toward a trial in the summer.
Perhaps even more ominous for Gaetz were the comments of Greenberg’s lawyer.

“I’m sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today, all right?” Scheller said. When asked whether Greenberg had introduced Gaetz to underage girls for sex, Scheller admitted he was going to ignore the question.

[RoseMorninStar]

But only depraved liberals do stuff like that, right?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

But only depraved liberals do stuff like that, right?

These kind of comments are really not helpful.

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

[N.E. Brigand]

But only depraved liberals do stuff like that, right?

These kind of comments are really not helpful.

In this case, given the large role that the Q conspiracy theory plays in motivating many of the most vocal conservative activists, I think it's important to note the hypocrisy that the Gaetz case implies. Sexual misconduct, even criminal sexual misconduct, is indeed practiced by those on both sides of U.S. politics, but a not insubstantial portion of the Republican base has become dangerously convinced that not only is it exclusive to Democrats, but that Democrats for that reason need to be violently removed from power.

[N.E. Brigand]

J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, a 2016 memoir that was widely praised for its insight into Appalachian values (and adapted into a 2020 film directed by Ron Howard), has been mooting a run for Senate here in Ohio to replace Rob Portman, who is retiring. Vance is a conservative, but until making various Trumpist comments in the past few weeks, he's been viewed as a moderate. Today Vance tweeted this:

"Establishment Republican apologies for our oligarchy should always come with the following disclaimer: 'Big Tech pays my salary.'"

So it's interesting to read this on Vance's Wikipedia page:

"Peter Thiel has given $10 million to Protect Ohio Values, a super PAC created in February 2021 to support Vance in running for the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Ohio."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

But only depraved liberals do stuff like that, right?

These kind of comments are really not helpful.

In this case, given the large role that the Q conspiracy theory plays in motivating many of the most vocal conservative activists, I think it's important to note the hypocrisy that the Gaetz case implies. Sexual misconduct, even criminal sexual misconduct, is indeed practiced by those on both sides of U.S. politics, but a not insubstantial portion of the Republican base has become dangerously convinced that not only is it exclusive to Democrats, but that Democrats for that reason need to be violently removed from power.

It is fine to point out hypocrisy (or perceived hypocrisy), but not using sarcastic comments. The very first thing the listed Guidelines for Political Discussions says is "Avoid making sarcastic or snide comments of any kind."

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks for pointing me to those guidelines. You know, I'm not sure I ever read them before. It looks like they were posted in a period when I wasn't here for about two weeks, and if I subsequently noticed them at all, I think I just assumed I'd seen them before.

(Wow. Scrolling briefly through my posts here in 2008-2009, I am reminded again how the hack of the Climate Research Unit and the subsequent propagandized use of that stolen material in to argue against the existence of man-made global warming seems in 2009 like a trial run for what the Russians did using Democratic emails in 2016.)

(Also in 2010 I alluded to a mistake I apparently found in the excellent book Tolkien's Legendarium, a 2000 collection edited by Veryln Flieger and Carl Hostetter, but I have no memory of what that could have been, which is frustrating.)

(Huh, I've been reasonably consistent over the past ten years: "Yes, the filibuster can be changed by what Republicans decry as the 'nuclear option'. But I agree the Democrats should have done it anyway. If the Republicans work up the nerve to change it, I won't complain.")

[Voronwë the Faithful]

(Safaris into the messageboard past are always interesting, as I know you know from comments you have made elsewhere. I'm not at all surprised at your consistency; it is what I would expect. I am, however, intensely interested at the mistake is in Tolkien's Legendarium.)

[N.E. Brigand]

New reporting from CNN has what could be good news for Gaetz:

"One of the women who spoke to CNN said she did so in part because the picture of Gaetz as potentially connected to sex trafficking that has emerged in recent days does not align with what she saw. Both women said that they never saw anyone at the parties who appeared to be underage. Neither has spoken with federal investigators, they said."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/14/politics ... index.html

However, the parties in question were, well, a little wild:

The first thing some of the women were asked to do when they got to the house parties in the gated community in suburban Orlando was to put away their cellphones, according to two women in attendance who spoke to CNN in recent days. The men inside, a who's who of local Republican officials that often included Rep. Matt Gaetz, did not want the night's activities documented.

The partygoers, at times dressed in formal wear from a political event they'd just left, mingled and shared drugs like cocaine and ecstasy. Some had sex.
Gaetz, the brash Republican, liked to discuss politics, said one of the women.

He behaved like a "frat type of party boy," she said, sometimes taking pills she believed were recreational drugs.

When I first posted about Gaetz in this thread, I did so in the expectation that he'd end up resigning, which I thought would be relevant for the 2022 elections. But maybe he won't? And even if he does, his is a reliably Republican district, so it's unlikely to matter for the overall results.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not sure that the fact that one woman claimed not to have seen anyone who "appeared to be underage" is of much value, when weighed against the fact that the attorney for Joel Greenberg strongly implied that his client was implicating Gaetz. But time will tell.

Who will resign first, Gaetz or Cuomo? They seem to have about the same level of stubborn arrogance.

[Frelga]

Ah, it's that point in the proceedings when unnamed women appear from an undisclosed location to say that they, personally, have no problem with the defendant, then disappear into ether. Very sharp eyed women, too, to tell the difference between 18 and 17 and a half.

Why is CNN even publishing it?

[River]

Because if you keep reading, Gaetz was observed taking a pill and other guests were observed doing coke and other drugs at that party.

[Frelga]

Is that relevant? Are they charging him with drug offenses? I have passed my limit for tracking this mess.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Democrats who control the Oregon state legislature have just agreed to give Republicans an equal say in how their state is redistricted as a result of the 2020 Census. This probably means that the redistricting panel will deadlock, the Democratic Secretary of State will draw the lines, the Republicans will sue, and courts will decide how the state's Congressional lines are drawn.

Which sounds fair, but only if a similarly-sized Republican-controlled state agrees to the same thing! And since that's not happening, the practical outcome is likely going to be that Oregon Democrats just gave away two Democratic Congressional seats in their five-seat majority in the House of Representatives.

[N.E. Brigand]

Today in Ohio, Steve Stivers, the Republican Congressman who since 2011 has represented OH-15, the district encompassing the western and southern suburbs of Columbus (as well as a number of adjacent rural counties), has announced he's resigning next month to become CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Stivers had been considering a run for the Senate seat to be vacated by retiring Rob Portman, and to that end, he'd raised some $1.3 million in the first quarter of this year, but he says he won't be running in that election after all.

Excepting just two years (2009-2011), the district has been held by a Republican since 1967 and presumably will remain so when Stivers is replaced.