Froth Slosh B'Gosh

Ruminating....

Pam Iovino defeats D. Raja in a special election for a South Hills State Senate seat. The district was gerrymandered by Republicans in 2010 to maximize a Republican's chances to win, and has historically been an "R" seat. And while I commend Allegheny County Republicans for nominating an immigrant and a person of color for seat, I have to wonder if the national Republican Party's racism and xenophobia cost Raja the election? Did many Republican or Republican leaning voters not turn out because they weren't willing to vote for an immigrant, or an Indian?

Democrats Flip State Senate Seat

Pam Iovino wins special election!

Just a couple more seats to flip and the state Senate turns blue!

GO VOTE!

So let me tell you about my little town. We have a population of just under 2,500 people. In the 2016 election, 1,748 were registered to vote, and 1,291 did so, an excellent turnout of over 70%! Today I voted just before 4:00pm, well before the after work crowd shows up, and nearly 700 had already voted, and one gentleman was processing a big pile of absentee votes. So it looks like in an off-year election, we're going to have about the same turnout as in a presidential year.

And yes, we were Blue in 2016.

Buyer's Remorse

You thought that Trump and the Republicans actually cared about you. You were wrong. I'm very, very sorry and saddened that you're getting shafted by the politicians you trusted, but we tried to warn you, and you didn't listen.

 

Another Day, Another Scandal

Jeff Sessions is a liar.

At his Jan. 10 Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Sessions was asked by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) what he would do if he learned of any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of the 2016 campaign.

“I’m not aware of any of those activities,” he responded. He added: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”

Of course, we now know that he did, in fact, have at least two encounters, one of which was a private meeting, with the Russian ambassador.  Now, amid calls for his resignation, Sessions announced he was recusing himself from the probe into Russian efforts to influence the election.  As well he should, since he's now a potential target.

Not even two months in, and this is shaping up as the most corrupt administration ever.

As Always, IOKIYAR

I'm old enough to remember when this was grounds for automatic rejection.

Treasury secretary nominee Steven T. Mnuchin defended his ties to offshore business entities and his management of a controversial California bank during a testy confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Speaking before the Senate Finance committee, Mnuchin said businesses in the Cayman Islands and Anguilla revealed in his financial disclosures were not used for his personal benefit but served nonprofits and pensions. A memo compiled by Democratic committee staffers obtained by The Washington Post showed Mnuchin initially omitted some of those entities -- as well as more than $100 million in personal assets -- from his nomination paperwork.

IIRC, presidential appointments were routinely rejected for things as mundane as employing an undocumented immigrant.  Forgetting to declare hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, ties to overseas tax havens, and shady banking practices?  Eh, what can you do?

 

Article VI, Clause 3

I can think of many reasons why an elector would not cast a vote for Trump, but this person's reasoning, while heartfelt, is also plainly unconstitutional.

"I do not see how Donald Trump is biblically qualified to serve in the office of the presidency," he said in his Saturday post. "Of the hundreds of angry messages that I have received, not one has made a convincing case from Scripture otherwise. If Trump is not qualified and my role, both morally and historically, as an elected official is to vote my conscience, then I cannot and will not vote for Donald Trump for president."

Article VI, clause 3 of the Constitution plainly states "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

By bringing biblical qualifications into his reasoning, Art Sisneros is clearly applying a religious test.  While he states he will resign rather than cast a vote for Trump, I wonder how long has he been an elector, and how many times he's applied a religious test for office in violation of the Constitution?

I Wish I Had A Camera

So much to blog about!  There was the FBI's announcement that the e-mail search turned up nothing, the non-assassination attempt on Trump, or the Post-Gazette's cowardly non-endorsement, but something on my way home from work really struck me.

I work in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, primarily in Bethel Park and South Park townships.  Now these areas, especially Bethel Park, are pretty affluent.  So what do I see  at the main intersection?  A Trump supporter with a brown cardboard box sign on a pole reading Vote Trump.  Now this part of Allegheny County has a fairly large population of Republican or Republican-leaning voters, so seeing a Trumpkin there wasn't unusual.  What was unusual was his garb.  He was dressed in a manner that someone who knew nothing of steel working might imagine how a steel worker dresses.  He was wearing some sort of overall, and had what looked like a grey-plastic civil defense helmet from a costume shop atop his head, I guess to emulate a hardhat.  Like I typed earlier, I wish I had a camera! 

I suspect he might have been an out-of-town operative attempting to garner working class votes by pretending to be a steel worker?  Of course, most of the mills are long gone from this area, and as noted, Bethel Park is pretty affluent, it is unlikely to harbor a large number of blue collar workers.

But I guess that's what you get when you have no GOTV operation.  A show, instead of an effort.

Your Asshole Of The Day

Senator Mark Kirk.

Your Asshole Of The Day

Curt Schilling.