What are the key races?
I feel pretty good about Pennsylvania. Non-charismatic GOP candidate with a lot of baggage which, critically, is orthogonal to being a hardcore Republican.
OK, that's easy to google. Politico's big seven are:
Currently R: PA, NC, WI
Currently D: GA, NV, AZ, NH
So yeah, we need to either hold all four of the latter or lose no more than one and flip one of the former. Tall order, but with so many of these rated near-coin flips, I'm ready to put in the work.
The Wisconsin primary is in August. That could be winnable. It's hard to be optimistic about Ohio, but it's worth a try. North Carolina?
The people of Iowa and Kentucky should definitely vote their senators out, but seem strangely reluctant to do so.
In other states the underinformed rubes may make up the margin for Republicans, but in Kentucky 58% for McConnell makes me think a majority knows exactly what it's doing.
It remains remarkable that KY managed to find a Republican so bad he managed to lose his reelection for governor. Imagine being that much worse that McConnell?
Possibly because McConnell's actions don't redound so directly on Kentucky residents. One policy for the country, another for the state (like Dems in MA who voted Baker).
8: Baker skates by on this image as a good manager. He's not. But he is pro choice. The leading Republican candidates to replace him are total Trumpers and the Republican Party is MAGA-in itself out of power.
The KY Governor really went the extra mile though, say what you want about McConnell, he's not saying stuff this stupid.
9: Right - Baker (in some Dems' minds) puts a check on Dem excesses, especially on how state tax money is spent I believe, without threatening the liberal cause writ large; in the same way, Beshear puts a check on GOP excesses and makes the state work a little better for people who are still going to vote Trump.
(And despite having a 33% approval rating, Bevin still only lost by 5,000 votes, 0.4%!)
In NH our Dem Senator is a fountain of bad ideas. She is all about having a federal gas tax holiday and seems to have convinced Biden to go along with it. She's caused a major rift with Latino groups in the party as a result of her support for title 42 and a commercial she filmed standing next to Trump's wall.
She is undermining every other Dem on the ballot and doesn't actually need to do this to win.
12: Baker and our Dem say we have the money for a state gas tax holiday. It's like, come on, fix the damn MBTA. I can't tell you how many people are making car trips right now where they would normally take the T except for the fact that it is dangerous and unreliable.
Moby and Stormcrow - do either of you guys plan to volunteer for Fetterman? I hadn't followed this enough to realize that Oz won the primary in arecount.
CA Dems at least mostly opposed a gas tax holiday, but Newsom wanted to give tax rebates per car, which is almost as bad. It was only through negotiations with better legislative leadership that that concept has just yesterday been officially dropped, and the deal does include a diesel tax holiday. Maybe for the sake of the Teamsters, I'm not sure.
I'm doing GOTV for the Democrats. I'm more worried about Shapiro than Fetterman.
I think the state would quickly become impossible to live in if what's his fuck is governor with a Republican legislature.
16: well, it will probably help Fetterman too!
Yes. But if Shapiro loses, there's close to zero chance a Democrat gets the 2024 electoral college votes from Pennsylvania regardless of the election results.
Any strategy that requires the Democrats to hold at least one House of Congress or the White House in perpetuity is going to result in failure. Probably within the next six years if not the next two and a half. Someone needs to be working to flip purple state legislatures. Except the national crisis never stops and I would guess that out of state volunteers can't do much for smaller, local races.
18: Just trying to say thank you for your service.
19: completely agree. I feel so helpless in a blue state and would like to know what to do, bc I think, out of state volunteers can do harm.
After ten years or so of believing Texas was turning purple, I realized it was wishful thinking, and the next ten years didn't prove me wrong. But Georgia is really coming along, at least.
Someone needs to be working to flip purple state legislatures. Except the national crisis never stops and I would guess that out of state volunteers can't do much for smaller, local races.
Out of state volunteers probably won't help much in a lot of these cases, but money will. Local races are usually low-profile, small-dollar affairs where a little money can go a long way. Choosing which races in other states to prioritize is a challenge, but donating to state parties or legislative campaign committees can be a good approach.
22: see, I would never give money to the MA Democratic Party, Mainly because the real fights are intra-party. A classmate of mine flipped a seat in a Texas. We joked that it was a much better ROI than the guy who ran for statewide office in Arizona.
I do give money to the PA Democratic Party and I very deliberately stay away from intra-party fights. Though the campaign against Summer Lee was bad enough that I almost did send her $.
24: Most of the bad stuff that happens here is done by Democrats since they are a supermajority.
We have 40 State Senators. Only 3 are Republicans (7%j There are around 28 Republicans in the House out of about 160 (17%). T
Out of state volunteers probably won't help much in a lot of these cases, but money will. Local races are usually low-profile, small-dollar affairs where a little money can go a long way.
A certain state legislative candidate has already had some very kind contributions from some of the fine people here, and it makes a big difference to a tight budget.
Sends handwritten thank-you notes for them, which is extremely cool.
27: Wait, what?! Torn between shrugging, pouting, and assuming mine was lost in the mail.
assuming mine was lost in the mail
It is not. LizardBreath happened to be close to the front of the queue! Another batch is in the mail today, and there are still many more to go.
Oh thank goodness. I was feeling terrible thinking I'd ratted you out.
I'm just glad you are happy with a written note. I wanted to send a sticker or a button but I don't have stickers yet and it turns out the buttons are expensive to mail.
Goodness, no. You're supposed to be focusing on running, not on keeping donors happy. But the note was very nice.
Notes I can write while watching Star Wars with my son.
I'm feeling a little burned by having bought into the 2018 Great Slate program, tossing a lot of money that way, and having it basically nosedive into dirt. So 22's "a little money can go a long way" is hard to buy, or hard to buy that a bit of money is ever enough.
35: I'm thinking of giving some money to the Sonia Chang Diaz slate. There's a black liberal running for Plymouth County DAvon the South Shore - near Bristol, the home of the Arapaho lite sheriff.
We've got something of a slate. Its me and six state rep candidates. Three of them are in competitive primaries, trying to knock off a couple of the less appreciated members of the old guard. Plus my primary, which is the only Dem senate primary in the state.
In contrast, there are five senate primaries this year on the other side of the aisle. It seems that their activist base is a lot more effective at fielding candidates than ours is.
I'm feeling a little burned by having bought into the 2018 Great Slate program, tossing a lot of money that way, and having it basically nosedive into dirt. So 22's "a little money can go a long way" is hard to buy, or hard to buy that a bit of money is ever enough.
The Great Slate was US House candidates, right? I never looked that closely into their selection criteria but what I saw from time to time made me a little skeptical. In any case, it's really at lower levels than that that a little money can really have an effect. The challenge is knowing which races are really worthwhile to target, which is tough even for local people with detailed knowledge. (There's usually no polling in races at these levels.) But state legislative elections, especially, are super important all out of proportion to their obscurity, so if you can find a way to prioritize which races to target there you really can have a big effect.
29-30: Sorry, lost my handle for that comment, and am amused at both (highly expected and characteristic!) responses.
I just got in the queue for a handwritten note! You're welcome, Nathaniel.
We finally hit 40!
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Descending into exploratory pedantry as a coping mechanism, but to 12, I'm fascinated when specific policies get named after the top of the code hierarchy, so as to barely identify that policy, just becoming arbitrary labels. "Title 42" is a huge section of the US Code on health and welfare programs which my computer counts, with some strain, as 8.4 million words; Title 42 expulsions are under the authority of 42 USC 265, a 128-word section.
Semi-similarly, there's "42 CFR Part 2", which is the label for the federal privacy rules for mental health and substance use, which are stricter than the HIPAA baseline. 42 CFR is federal regulations implementing law, so it's even huger, although here the short name at least reflects the end as well as the beginning of the full citation: 42 CFR, Chapter I, Subchapter A, Part 2. It's supposed to be shortened to "Part 2", but I think I've also heard "42 CFR" alone.
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Yay for 40!
At some point I'd like to do some sort of virtual event for Unfogged people, hoping I can catch a breath sometime July to make that happen.
41 It's like when people outside of California refer to 5150. We adopt shorthands. I don't understand why we're not calling the expulsions 'section 265' but somehow we aren't.
I was just crabbing about that somewhere -- that numerical shorthand lawyers use for provisions of law is super arbitrary. Might be a section number as codified, might be a section number from the original bill, or a statutory or regulatory title -- there's no way to use that kind of thing as a way to look up the law unless you already know it.
It's still better than the cyclists who use "clipless pedals" to describe a type of pedals with clips.
I'm still trying to contest the ticket I got for parking in a parkway.
Oh boy. I asked for this thread but I am feeling super crazy stupid trying to follow along.
Ragarding OP I think there will be plenty of time to grapple in late November, and I would rather be irrationally optimistic until then.
In our industry it's 21 CFR part 11. A lot of companies who sell us instruments seem to think it's a big deal.
35, 38. I gave to Maciej's list of candidates also. Seemed like a sound idea, and part of his pitch was that funds would support not just the races of his candidates, but that the properly funded race would strengthen local orgs to help D candidates there in the future. Disappointing that so few won, but broadcasting the idea of picking good underfunded local candidates to support seems sound, even if practice is difficult. Are there good sources of candidate lists?
Is there a way to meaningfully register displeasure at stuff like D establishment support for Cuellar in this primary?
|| My Google Pixel XL phone died and can't be fixed. Can anybody recommend an inexpensive Android phone? ||
51: Hi, I'm interested in the same question for the same reason. I'm about to buy a Samsung 5G A13 based on my hasty research, but if someone has thoughts on the subject that have a stronger foundation than my fifteen minutes of googling, I'd like to hear them. I don't care about photo quality, I just want something cheap and fast (like me).
I just maintain device replacement on Google Fi. To keep up my Pixel 3a and get replacements or repairs when it breaks, $5/month plus $49 deductible. The volume buttons have broken and an identical model is on the way right now.
I had a Pixel that annoyed me with very poor battery life in the cold and making me make typos, so I got a Samsung.
I got an S21 because I needed to be able to catch Pokémon easily.
Did I ever tell you guys about the worst thing I ever did? Back whenever Pokemon Go first launched, I downloaded the game and, because I'm incapable of engaging in recreation in a normal way, I went at it like finding pokemons was the key to solving cancer. I did things like canceling dinner with a friend visiting from out of town because I wanted to spend the evening stumbling blindly around the park instead. Anyway, a couple of days after that shameful behavior, I CAUSED A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT* when I saw, I don't remember anymore, an Igglybuff or something, hopping around the intersection. Yes, I played it while I was driving. Yes, I am that person.
I immediately deleted the game,** and that's why I'm never allowed to have a nice phone again.
*Nobody died, except my soul.
**I reinstalled it at the beginning of the pandemic, with a strict rule to only play it while walking, and it was somehow different? All the fun pokemons are on the freeway, I guess.
I don't think you've ever been able to catch Igglybuff in the wild. Just from eggs.
But if you did see one, it means the risking an accident was a reasonable gamble.
56: That was really something when it first launched -- I remember walking on High Street by campus and there were all these groups of excited students running towards nothing.
Now that Larry's is gone, they've nothing left to run towards.
I think it's Jigglypuff, and it is rather cute. It evolves into these things with plants on their heads, which I remember drawing because I've drawn probably hundred of pokemon cards for Rascal, most of which are made up by him but functional enough to play with, but the whole Bulbosaur collection is one that he wanted me to make for real.
Igglybuff is like a baby Jigglypuff. Jigglypuff is common as pigeons.
Really? Boy do I have eggly on my faff.
62: You mean common as Pidgeys.
(I spent something like two years playing obsessively.)
Pidgey is rare lately. So is Jigglypuff, actually. But back in the day, they were everywhere.
So, how hard is it to charge an electric car if you are on the road to someplace absurd in central Pennsylvania? I see the stations on the maps, off interstates, but I guess I wonder if it would be available efficiently.
No rush. Nothing is in stock anyway.
51, 52: I spent an hour in the T-Mobile store today because I had waited until the last possible minute to replace my SIM card before they disconnected my phone (mass network migration happening), and they talked me into getting a Samsung S22 or whatever for $120 if I sacrificed my superior but older phone. About two hours in, this random little phone seems fine, but I hardly use them. My major use cases have dwindled to 2fa, navigation, hotspots, occasional photos & videos, and messaging, so just barely app-driven enough to need a smartphone rather than a basicphone. I am still trying to figure out what to do for music, which I deal with now by not listening to music and thus having a large chunk of my brain indefinitely inaccessible. I cannot condemn this option highly enough.
I just overpay and stick with the iPhone. I get 4.5-5 years out of each.
We got a call yesterday from the summer camp that there was a covid positive case in Rascal's cabin. They offered me the choice of picking him up, having him wear a mask for the rest of camp, or testing him that night and then again this morning. I went with the third, most worthless option, on the premise that he'd be symptomatic right about the time that camp is over anyways, and also he's been vaccinated and had omicron, and I believe that even with the new variant, not many people are getting both old and new omicron.
Anyway, today I texted with my cousin, who also has a kid in the same cabin, and confirmed that she had the same impression that the camp was improvising its response.
I'm really not concerned on any level about the kids' well-being - I'm sure they're having an absolute blast and are perfectly safe. But just as far as being judgey goes: that's pretty crazy not to have thought through how you were going to handle it if someone tests positive for covid, right? (They did not require a negative covid test to show up, and the parent handbook only talked about being sent home if your kid ran a fever - nothing about how they'd handle exposures.) Anyway! I'm sure they're having fun at Camp Granada!
It's great you were able to find them a camp with the same name as the camp in the song.
Ours requires a negative PCR test within 48 hours of arrival. But two of our kids will be in the 90 day post COVID window that PCR is invalid so we have to get a doctor note instead. Two of them never got it and were PCR negative this week so hopefully they make it to the start of camp which is three weeks from now.