Are there that many people in Oklahoma? I'm going to guess Florida.

I was trying to game that out. Oklahoma City and Tulsa must be... 200-300K MSA? And then the rest is rural? So if the state has a million people, it could easily go 75% Trump I'd think.

Really interesting (and dispiriting) post.

I'll guess Tennessee, without any confidence.

2: 750K to 250K is only a margin of +500K.

I should also admit that, to guess Tennessee, I looked at a map with electoral vote counts (but no results) to get some sense of relative population.

4: Good point. But maybe it could still be tweaked - 1.2 million people and 80% Trump? Etc.

Thumbs up to 3 (and 5).

2: Oklahoma City and Tulsa are quite a bit larger than that, but 75% Republican is too high---West Virginia and Wyoming were only about 70%.

5: Going by population, I would guess TN, KY, or MO but no idea how to rank them in terms of Democratic turnout. I assume the A-A populations are large enough to keep the deep south out of contention.

Great summary. When previously asked this question I believe I had guessed KY, thinking it was at the sweet spot of being very Republican and a medium-sized state. With the exception of Texas bigger states tend to have some purple going on. While it is quite Republican--there is no state that both had more voters than it and voted more, percentage-wise, for Trump, a property the correct answer shares--it's on the lower end of medium-sized.

Stupid sexy Simpsons's paradox.

Tennessee is a state that lots of people have been moving to, and Kentucky and Missouri are not that.

Utah and Oklahoma combine for 9 congressional districts and Tennessee has 9 on its own.

Missouri is almost as big as Tennessee in population, but the rural areas where 80% of people vote Republican are more sparsely populated than the rural areas of Tennessee, in the usual pattern you see moving west. Part of this is a lot of rural Tennessee is Appalachia.

Result: Tennessee is the winner

Is it the case that people are moving to Tennessee and yet not shifting the number of Dems? Ie, are Republicans selectively moving there, or are proportions staying constant?

I always assume Dems are more mobile than Republicans, probably because in Texas, the cliche is that Democrats are moving here from California.

Looks like Tennessee's population increased 8.9% from 2010 to 2020. That's the 17th largest increase.

Tennessee might selectively attract Republicans, because I think it has no income tax. But the rural population is also much more Republican than it used to be.

OP: Has anyone seen the "Cyber Ninjas" or heard if they're making any claims about their findings yet? If even strange and relentlessly partisan people can't find anything, maybe that'll finally kill the "steal" rumor mongering?

My guess was Tennessee thinking I was probably wrong, but pleased to be right.

As I understand it, Tennessee is largely populated by divorced men whose exes live in Texas.

Most states that attract people are just attracting people who need jobs, either than or retirees. I do get the feeling right now that youngish conservative people see the Nashville area as the new Hub of the South and the cool place where they want to be, and youngish non-conservatives do not think this, maybe feeling that way about Atlanta.

Memphis is traditionally the hub for black people in Tennessee. The Memphis metropolitan area also includes counties in Arkansas and Mississippi while the more conservative cities are entirely surrounded by Tennessee.

Tennessee has only 17 8% black population, compared to over 30 in Georgia. Deep South levels of racial polarization, combined with lack of Deep South levels of non-white people, = Appalachia

I saw a claim the ninjas were trying to get access to blue markers for their audit, when standards require only red pens in the audit area since red won't scan so wouldn't have been a valid initial vote. With blue pens they can alter ballots during the "audit" and claim they were miscounted. Basically the entire thing is fraudulent, although the funniest outcome would be if they reported back "yup, nothing here" like the dozens of recent voter fraud inquiries have done.

Anybody have a phone I can borrow? The FBI took mine for a bit.

Since this is the politics post, I'll mention something I was thinking about yesterday. There was a 2016 article, "How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul, that I mull over occasionally. The claim is that post-Watergate there was a generation who were Democrats because they were anti-war, but weren't anti-wealth, or capitalism.

What's more, the new members were antiwar, not necessarily anti-bank. "Our generation did not know the Depression," then-Representative Paul Tsongas said. "The populism of the 1930s doesn't really apply to the 1970s," argued Pete Stark, a California member who launched his political career by affixing a giant peace sign onto the roof of the bank he owned.

...

Over the next 40 years, this Democratic generation fundamentally altered American politics. They restructured "campaign finance, party nominations, government transparency, and congressional organization." They took on domestic violence, homophobia, discrimination against the disabled, and sexual harassment. They jettisoned many racially and culturally authoritarian traditions. They produced Bill Clinton's presidency directly, and in many ways, they shaped President Barack Obama's.

The result today is a paradox. At the same time that the nation has achieved perhaps the most tolerant culture in U.S. history, the destruction of the anti-monopoly and anti-bank tradition in the Democratic Party has also cleared the way for the greatest concentration of economic power in a century. This is not what the Watergate Babies intended when they dethroned Patman as chairman of the Banking Committee. But it helped lead them down that path. The story of Patman's ousting is part of the larger story of how the Democratic Party helped to create today's shockingly disillusioned and sullen public, a large chunk of whom is now marching for Donald Trump.

Yesterday, Yglesias tweeted a statistic that might capture the demographic trends behind that political change.

Lots of data here, but a key point is that the Old Democratic Coalition consisted largely of a social stratum (white high school dropouts) that for practical electorial purposes doesn't exist today.

White voters without a college degree went from 25% of the electorate (and strongly Democratic) to 5% of the electorate (and strongly Republican)

Stupid Democrats representing people that exist.

18:

The story of Patman's ousting is part of the larger story of how the Democratic Party helped to create today's shockingly disillusioned and sullen public, a large chunk of whom is now marching for Donald Trump.

The Democrats' excessive tolerance of unearned wealth is what caused Republicans to turn to Trump. Makes sense to me.

I enjoyed reading the article in 18, but couldn't help noticing the failure to do much with Eisenhower, JFK, George Wallace, Newt Gingrich. After the Civil Rights Act. southern whites just were not available to Democrats in the same way as before, and this was an explicit choice that LBJ made and knew he was making. He wasn't a Watergate baby or a tool of finance, but he understood that we were at a cross-roads, and that the coalition that had elected JFK (and Truman) was not going to be viable, at least not in the near term.

What would the last 3/4ths of the Clinton Admin have looked like without the Talk Radio driven Gingrich 'revolution' -- faux populism at its finest? Different enough that everything in the article about it would change.

I think he's probably right, though, that trends in motion in Dem politics in the 70s have run their course, and a substantial correction is necessary and, most importantly, possible, now. Still have to get the votes of actual human beings though, which is no easy deal.

I agree completely with 21, and that's why I find myself returning to the article (I think it's incomplete as a history and also identifies something important).

Not just necessary and possible, but appears to be underway.

Here is the top raw margin R states in 3030:

Tennessee: 709K
Texas: 631K
Alabama: 592K (I would not have guessed this so high)
Kentucky: 544K
Oklahoma: 516K
Indiana: 487K
Ohio: 476K
Missouri: 466K
Louisiana: 400K

A lot clustered in the half-million vicinity.

In contrast in 2000 it was Texas by over 1.6M nearly three times the next biggest margin which was Georgia, and more than the ant D margin (New York and California were between 1 and 1.5M).

+D raw margin

California: 5.1 M
New York: 2.0 M
Massachusetts: 1.2 M
Illinois: 1.0 M
Maryland: 1.0 M
Washington: 785K
New Jersey: 725K
Virginia: 451K
Colorado: 440K
Oregon: 382K
Connecticut: 366K
DC: 299K (!)
Minnesota: 233K

Here is an interesting map and table that captures the 16 possible trajectories by county 2008 through 2020 presidential elections (DDDD, DDDR, DDRR.....,RRRD, RRRR). (Table by some weirdo who goes by "Minivet")

Overall pattern expected: All D far and away most population--52%--all R far and away the most counties. The R until Trump and D until Biden neck and neck (but much lower numbers 3-4% of pop.).

Rarest was Obama-Romney-Clinton-Trump with one county pop. 568.

26.3: There wasn't even a single McCain county that went for Clinton. Is that right?

(Table by some weirdo who goes by "Minivet")

That table is very interesting (as is the map, but I think the table is a better starting point).

Somewhere (here?) I saw speculation about which TV character who you liked would have voted for Trump. Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights was a popular choice and Ector County where Odessa/Dillon was located* was 73-25 Trump. Buuut, as they may still be in the greater Philadelphia area and in a different milieu who knows? Maybe he was a Trump then Biden. I assume Tami would vote D unless she was part of backlash from being in woke college culture ....

*Although the geography was all messed up with where people were able to drive to, and in particular the land the Tim Riggins bought looked very Hill Country (relatively wet part) and nothing like it for hundreds of miles around Odessa. In general I was very mixed on the show-- the football stuff was for the most part completely whacko (yes I know about Texas HS football from living there but the plays and how the games went were laughable). Also the ages of the character were laughable as the way they portrayed the the HS split.** Other stuff not that compelling either-- DeGrassi level for the kids (Taylor marriage much better). Having also just watched Freaks and Geeks it was a much better HS-based show (and their Michigan county would likely have been Obama-Obama-Trump-Clinton).

**Look at the big brain on me, finding fault with TV show verisimilitude.

Obama-Obama-Trump-Clinton

? (I assume that sequence should end with Biden)

27: Hmm, Table shows 6 McCain-Romney-Clinton- Biden counties w/population 6M but not finding on the map. Too bad we'll never be able to find that Minivet person who can illuminate us.

30: Yes.

And as I think someone pointed on Twitter in the comments, no county voted for the loser in each election. 28 (~6M pop.) voted for the winner in each election (which is the PA, WI, MI pattern at the state level).

GOP propaganda outlet and one-time AP reporter John Solomon is caught up in the Giuliani investigation. He's been running his schtick of catapulting hit pieces into the discourse from his perch at ostensibly non-partisan outlets since 2004.

That's not bad job security.

13: Has anyone seen the "Cyber Ninjas" or heard if they're making any claims about their findings yet?

I think they are doing a full hand recount that is expected to finish by May 14th. Saw an interview where their AZ Senate liaison acknowledged that the first few days had been "slow." They do not seem to be using the UV light thing anymore. They had resisted sharing details of their "process" saying it was proprietary but I think a judge ruled against them.

Aw, you guys!

31: They're light blue on the map. In descending order of population:

Orange, CA
Gwinnett, GA
Cobb, GA
Henry, GA
Anne Arundel, MD
Fort Bend, TX

I think you could sum up all six as richer outer areas of growing metros with a lot of educated professionals? Greater LA, Atlanta, DC, and Houston, respectively.

37> Thanks. I was looking for the wrong color. And yeah, Orange County is a good exemplar of the pattern.

This is too long and nobody should read it. But I wrote it, so I might as well hit "post":

Stoller's history is fine until he starts talking about politics. He makes an important point when he discusses the general adoption of Bork's view of antitrust. It's just that he can't seem to grasp the idea that the Republicans, the voters, the media and the courts all have agency, and all of them influenced the development of antitrust regulation. The Democrats fought and lost -- and sure, eventually, they largely stopped fighting for awhile. You might as well blame Democrats for the decline in unionism, though.

When Stoller talks about Democratic failures in antitrust causing their political demise, he wisely avoids the term "Reagan Democrats." I don't think it would have occurred to anybody in 1980 to suggest that Reagan got Democratic votes (or that John Anderson got Democratic votes) because of the Democrats' indulgence of big business. Likewise, if you're selling the narrative that the Democrats deliberately surrendered on antitrust issues, you had best not mention Michael Pertschuk, Carter's FTC chairman who served on the commission into the Reagan administration.

There is an alternative narrative -- that Pertschuk's nanny state over-reach led to the success of the Bork philosophy -- but that, too, denies agency to Republicans. They won in large measure because of voters' admiration for Big Business (along with Big Military, and Big God). And the Republicans imposed their will, dragging the country further into dysfunction and thereby (as Stoller recognizes) improving their political prospects.

To get a feel for Stoller's political bias, watch how he blames Humphrey's loss on the '60s Democrats who opposed Vietnam -- instead of Humphrey's decision to support the war. Those Democrats were wrong to abandon Humphrey, but their ideological heirs are the Stollers of the world who expect an unattainable level of purity from Democrats. Note Stoller's critique of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank.

Stoller approvingly links a Robert Kagan piece that rebuts Stoller's thesis. Here's Kagan.

We're supposed to believe that Trump's support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies -- his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence.

Stoller also links Andrew Sullivan being stupid and incoherent and wrong -- but wrong in an entirely different way from the way Stoller is wrong.

Here's a laugh-line from Stoller about the renewed interest in traditional interpretations of antitrust:

There are hints of this tradition today, on both sides of the aisle.

Grammar-checkers in word processors need to start flagging the phrase "both sides" the way they do subject-verb disagreement. But credit where due: Stoller did, in 2016, recognize the nascent trend toward a better antitrust policy -- one that, sure, was interrupted by Trump, but that has definitely moved forward with Biden.

I also like the way that Stoller uses the word "neoliberal" -- accurately discussing an actual trend in liberal thinking instead of using it as a synonym for "motherfuckers."

"Get the neoliberal snakes off my Reagan-deregulated plane."

31: Sorry, brain damage.

Not a single county voted for the loser every time. Did I get that right?

51: Correct, but pwned. Time to retire.

42:. Incorrect, but good advice.

BTW, here's an outline of a Simpson's Paradox model for an election result. Vaguely modeled on PA and directional results 2016 -> 2020 but of having one big county and 10 smaller ones is not necessary for it to work. I put it together to see if you could do it with changes in candidate %s and turnout were individually "reasonable." And I think the answer to that is yes.

Initial Election
1 County - 1,000,000 voters
Candidate A 71% Candidate B 29%
10 Counties - 100,000 voters each
Candidate A 30% Candidate B 70%
Total:
Candidate A wins by 20,000 votes, margin 1.0%

Subsequent Election
Turnout remains same in big county, up 20% in smaller counties.
Percentages all go towards candidate A by 1.0% (2.0% overall)
1 County - 1,000,000 voters
Candidate A 72% Candidate B 28%
10 Counties - 120,000 voters each
Candidate A 31% Candidate B 69%
Total:
Candidate A loses by 16,000 votes, margin -0.72%

Of course PA did not end up like that but it did trend that way bit.
In the event, of the 67 counties in PA between 2016-2020:
57 had improved D percentage margin
But of those 57 only 19 had improved D raw margin, the raw margins in 38 moved towards R.
10 Counties* had improved R % *and* R raw margin.

But overall the effect on the total votes was not that significant: Average margin of counites margins moved towards Biden by 2.5% while the total count moved by only 2.0%. So it was evident but not enough to swing it.

*Philly was one of those 10. It had both the biggest % swing towards Trump of any count in PA 4.65% and tied for smallest increase in turnout (6%, other counties ranged 12-20% increase).
Note that for both numbers the influence of Covid and the subsequent lack of students may have been a factor. In fact the other county with only a 6% increase in turnout was Centre County (Penn State).

In PA it was Philly suburbs and exurbs, and Pittsburgh suburbs that really swung it to Biden.

But the rural folks really turned in droves.

I haven't benefited enough from neoliberalism to be able to retire.

36: For instance, apparently there are people claiming the audit has already found 250,000 FRADULENT VOTES! As my AZ data guy* points out they haven't even counted that many yet.

I'm sure it will all be reported as carefully as the Biden Bands meat and Gov't gives Refugees Kamala Harris Children's Book stories were.

*He or someone he follows estimated very early in the post-election counting that the final margin would get to 12,000 (it was several hundred K to the Dems at the time). Final margin was ~ 10,500.

37 - Anne Arundel is Annapolis, so probably the military shift against Trump plays in there as well

39 - Stoller also made a bunch of "it's a workingman's party now!" type noise about the GOP, centered on Hawley, until that got too risible to keep up.

Anne Arundel is Annapolis but I think the increases in population are in the Baltimore suburbs and places where you can commute to DC by parkway or train (Glen Burnie, Linthicum Heights, Odenton, Gambrills, Severn). It's also where Fort Meade is and we know that's been growing.

41: Correct. The only one that voted for Obama, McCain, Clinton, and Trump was Kenedy County in Texas, pop. 416, 2020 vote total 194. (They also voted for Kerry in 2004, so they're 1 for 5.)

The next-rarest combo, McCain/Obama/Trump/Biden, is occupied by Nash County, NC; Warren County, MS; and Chaffee County, CO.

Although the geography was all messed up with where people were able to drive to, and in particular the land the Tim Riggins bought looked very Hill Country (relatively wet part) and nothing like it for hundreds of miles around Odessa.

One of our kids plays sportsball with a kid named Rig/gins Dil/lin/ger, which is just the best parody of what a cowboy football player ought to be named.

When he grows up, his porn name is his real name.

I think implicit above, but the 3 missing combos are all McCain/x/Clinton/x. Only McCain/Romney/Clinton/Biden represented per 37.

Of the 3 missing I can see none that end with Trump but somewhat surprised there is no McCain/Obama/Clinton/Biden. Catching some D trending county at that point.

I guess the problem is there are only 9 McCain/Obama counties in total. Had not realized back then how rare that move had been 2008 -> 2012.

54.last is a large part of why if you think for a minute Rs will give an inch to help Biden govern you have another think coming. (Also see senate/House 2010 -> 2014).

54: Yep, and all nine McCain/Obama counties flipped back to Trump in 2016. The three that then went Biden I listed in 51; the remaining six that went Trump twice are Richmond, NY (Staten!); Darlington, SC; Franklin, KY; Barbour, AL; Conecuh, AL; and Early, GA.

Also makes sense considering zero states were McCain/Obama (2012 electoral map same as 2008 except for NC, IN, and NE-02).

54: Yep, and all nine McCain/Obama counties flipped back to Trump in 2016. The three that then went Biden I listed in 51; the remaining six that went Trump twice are Richmond, NY (Staten!); Darlington, SC; Franklin, KY; Barbour, AL; Conecuh, AL; and Early, GA.

Also makes sense considering zero states were McCain/Obama (2012 electoral map same as 2008 except for NC, IN, and NE-02).

I'm not gonna read that Stoller piece, b/c Stoller [spit]. But I was there in 1988, and I *remember* the Dems moving right after that loss. I remember the founding of the DLC, and reading about the intraparty disputes about moving to the right, and that the left lost those disputes, b/c at the end of the day, if you can't get your people elected, you can't have any impact whatsoever.

I mean, it's like these people have forgotten the absolute *drubbing* the Dems took in the 70s and 80s. Clinton fought a rearguard action to preserve what he could and yeah, he didn't preserve enough, but that's the fault of the electorate he had to work with. Fast-forward 20 years, and a *lot* has changed: a *lot*. So yeah, a lot is possible today, that wasn't possible in 1992. This shouldn't surprise us. And *yeah*, the Dems compromised on a lot of stuff, producing real harm ("end welfare as we know it" ... grrr). And *yeah*, some Dems bought into that whole thing, b/c when you're voting a certain way, you tell yourself stories for why it's OK. And then when people start giving you money for voting that way, it gets hard to change, don't it?

I'm really, really glad that the Dems have moved so far left. And I'm looking forward to further motion. Lots and lots. But I'm not naive enough to think that the Dems could have done these things in the 80s or 90s.

I mean, FFS, Obamacare is the way it is, b/c Holy Joe Lieberman [spit] wanted it thus. Not because Obama was a neolib shill. Hell, the evidence of TFG's attempts to rollback Obamacare should convince that Obama's buying-off so many constituencies was a wise plan. Lotta beaks gettin' wet, lotta beaks gonna be knocked outta joint if TFG manages to end the thing.

Given his obnoxious politics, Stoller is frustratingly smart in his discussions of policy and history -- and he's even good on the benign motives of people promoting bad policies. For a lot of people acting in good faith, neoliberalism really did look good for awhile, and racism and war really are bad. There's a lot of loose talk about the repeal of Glass-Steagall leading to the 2008 recession, but Stoller understands that the real problem with the repeal was that it allowed for the concentration of wealth and power.

If you want to blame Clinton and the neoliberals for 2008 -- which I do -- look to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, the discussion of which is beyond the scope of Stoller's piece.

49. I inadvertently drove past there a while back and when I saw the sign, got alarmed, and refelxively blurted "god bless america I am a US citizen" because my telephone is listening to my gf's amusement in the passenger seat.

AA county's citizens fight against the presence of light rail stops connecting their green lawns and neighborhood character to "those people."

Stoller is good on antitrust, but he's fucking terrible on history.

The genius of the Republicans is that they were in control of all of the key policy-making points in the government in 2008, did a terrible job, and yet got everyone to blame Bill Clinton for their policy failures.

Stoller is frustratingly smart in his discussions of policy and history -- and he's even good on the benign motives of people promoting bad policies.

Which means he's smart enough to know that he's intentionally underplaying the agency of Republicans, and the extent and reasons for popular support of them. As noted above, Reagan Democrats didn't leave because the party wasn't anti-corporate enough for them.

This, to me, makes much of the analysis that folks like him offer nearly useless. If you don't take into account why voters actually made one choice rather than the other, your proposal for how to get them to switch back is going to be speculative at best. We have a huge problem with this in Montana politics. A whole bunch of people voted for Steve Bullock twice for governor, and then voted for Steve Daines instead of Bullock for US senate. No sentient being believes that Daines is more in touch with the economic needs of rural or suburban voters than Bullock. And I mean zero. The differences between Mike Cooney and Greg Gianforte on health care were stark, and nobody voted for Gianforte because they thought Cooney's plans weren't good enough.

There's nothing wrong with going to the mat for rural broadband -- we should do that anyway -- but people are deluding themselves if they think this is going to matter to voters for whom their one true interest, before which everything else pales, is 'owning the libs.'

We can never offer a better 'own the libs' platform. Those voters don't care what our policies are on taxes, health care, or anything else. They don't care whether when they get to know us we don't seem to be actual communists. They all have family members who vote Democratic and don't believe in that Fox shit -- they are not unaware that there is a world outside their cult. They just don't want any part of it. Because it's more fun to believe that Bullock would let AOC take everyone's guns away than to acknowledge the Colin Kaepernick had a point.

And we didn't get here because of Lester Thurow. We are here because of the persistence of white supremacy, and the (overblown, unfortunately) threats to that the libs and demographics represent.

We can never offer a better 'own the libs' platform. Those voters don't care what our policies are on taxes, health care, or anything else. They don't care whether when they get to know us we don't seem to be actual communists. They all have family members who vote Democratic and don't believe in that Fox shit -- they are not unaware that there is a world outside their cult. They just don't want any part of it. Because it's more fun to believe that Bullock would let AOC take everyone's guns away than to acknowledge the Colin Kaepernick had a point.

This.

||

So, here's a little story from the Montana senate today. I have a case pending in Helena against a state agency: they want 7 figures from my client (and/or others). AIHMB, I argued a motion for summary judgment last May, then the judge retired, and then after the election, our lame duck governor appointed a new guy. New guy has to be confirmed by the senate: I doubt this played into it, but one of the things he talked about in his confirmation hearings was issuing rulings in long pending cases, which included my motion, and some much older ones filed by other parties in my case. He ruled against the state in a big way, knocking out 100% of the claims against the other parties and only 99% of the claim against my client. His confirmation, though was in some doubt, because the court in Helena is where political cases get filed, and the chance to appoint a right-wing nutjob to the seat seemed too good to pass up. They had to affirmatively vote to confirm for him to stay on -- if they didn't take a vote, when the session ends (any day now) he'd stop being a judge. The leadership stalled and stalled, and it looked like that is what was going to happen. Finally, this morning, the judiciary committee brought the matter to a vote -- going 7-4 against confirmation. But when this came to the full senate, they only voted 25-25 to accept the committee recommendation, so it failed. Then they ended up voting 27-23 to confirm (that's 8 Republicans joining 19 Democrats to confirm.)

This is going to turn out to have been a big deal when/if this judge ends up striking down some of the more extreme shit the legislature has passed. (There are only 4 district judges in Helena, so each of them play a significant role.)

There's a whole lot our senate minority can't do, but to their very real credit they've been able to get some Republicans to resist going fully cultish on some things.

|>

64: That is a wild, and encouraging story.

And then at around 4 pm, it was all over. They'll be back in January 2023, hopefully with a different composition.

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Read the title- it says past erections, not future.

You can get covid and the clap at the same time.

The CDC would like to remind you that, except short people, you can keep your heads six feet apart during sex and, even before Covid, lots of people wore masks.

AIHMB, I argued a motion for summary judgment last May, then the judge retired, and then after the election, our lame duck governor appointed a new guy.

You can just retire while you have judgments pending? On what basis are the cases then decided? Transcripts of the hearing?

The finest sheep shoulder bones.

The AZ audit will almost certainly result in something that will get some play on Carlson/Hannity. Nothing has broken through yet. Some voting receipts (or the like, but not votes) had been placed in the wrong bag/envelope. The cameras were showing the audit volunteer's faces which was bad I guess. Am sure they will keep trying even if the count itself comes out the same. Sadly it all serves the narrative of rigged/insecure elections which Rs use to pass laws restricting voting(as Florida just did).

And apparently Cyber Ninjas had some whacky security document postulating the potential need to secure the audit from disruption by antifa/BLM. Projection is a helluva drug.

Of the crooked timber of humanity no straight guardrail was ever made.

74: That stuff is something else. It's grownups playing at being cops in an action movie.

And masturbating to the idea of themselves as a hero.

68 to 77

71 Obviously the papers are the most important. At the hearing, we argued it as if there were two broad issues* in contention, and he ruled for me on both of those. He ruled against me on an issue that was in the papers, but I don't remember either of us spending any time on at the hearing, because it was so obvious that we would win on it. Oh well.

* The three issues were (a) what statute of limitations applies; (b) was it equitably tolled; and (c) does the waiver of consequential damages in the contract bar the claim at issue.

Are there rules governing this sort of thing? I know appeal judges (in England and Wales anyway) are very reluctant to second-guess the trial judge's assessment of evidence given under cross-examination for instance, so it's hard to see how a judge could take such a case over based on the papers. Presumably you don't get much of that sort of evidence in summary judgment motions though.

I'm stuck proctoring a final, but my computer won't connect to wifi, so I haven't posted yet. SOOORRRRRR-RRRRYYYY.

80 Right, summary judgment is the opposite of that, since the judge is not allowed to make credibility determinations. It's lawyers arguing about paper.

I'd kind of thought the old judge -- I really liked him -- would issue a ruling before he left, since he announced his retirement nearly 3 months in advance. It took about 6 weeks after he left to do the whole process and get a new judge.

Governor Bullock filled another judicial vacancy last fall, in Great Falls. I wrote a letter of recommendation for my friend, a former Democratic legislator, activist, and board member of the PAC that encourages and supports liberal women who run for office. She was appointed in October, but the senate refused to confirm her this month (which might actually be nearly unprecedented) and the way that works is that she was a judge hearing cases and such one day and then the next she was an unemployed lawyer with a black robe in her closet. No transition period.

The governor has yet to appoint a successor, so all her cases are, for the moment, unassigned. I haven't looked, but my guess is that the chief justice of our supreme court will have appointed a retired judge to go into her chambers and do some quick triage, issue rulings in pending child endangerment cases and the like. He'll have her notes, and I know if he calls her about something, she'll talk to him. (Assuming it's a he.) No one appointed on a temporary basis like that is going to do anything that isn't an emergency, or required on a short timeline. But if she had a criminal trial ready to go next week (I think they voted her down maybe a week ago?) and if it can't be put off, then someone is going to have to step up. This is a reason that decent intelligent legislators don't act this way. But owning the libs is just catnip to our actual legislators, and my friend was the easiest victim. (As noted, the political consequences of keeping the Helena judge are greater than the political consequences of rejecting the Great Falls judge, but they don't even think that deeply.)