I'm expecting the Republicans to control the House, assuming that Kelly will win and Masto lose, and fearful Sen. Warnock will not be able to repeat his runoff victory.
I'd also predict there will be at least one senator leave Congress during 2023-4 due to health.
I'd predict the 2024 nomination will be between DeSantis and Youngkin.
A quote from John Hinderaker's post-election analysis:
"At this point, Trump is a giant anvil around the neck of the Republican Party. In many areas, likely most, he is absolute poison. To be associated with Trump is to lose. Pretty much everything he has done in the last two years has been not just ill-advised but massively destructive to the Republican Party and to the United States."
My wife, my cousin and I are all uptight about the results of today's election. Of the three of us I may be the most relaxed. As I see it, we've survived Nixon, Reagan, and Trump so far, so we can survive a possible Republican control of Congress for 2 years.
What happens in 2024? Who knows. I wouldn't bet on Biden, Harris, or Trump winning the presidency, although I would bet on the Republicans winning the Senate in 2024 (the map really really favors them--so much so Mr. Thiessen in the Post speculates that if the Republicans pick up 4 Senate seats this year, they'll have a good chance at 60 in 2024--that's disastrous).
But predictions tend to extrapolate the current situation into the future, which may not be true down the road. People will get tired of Trump, and Trump-like pols. I've already seen a post at Powerline blog, the most conservative one I follow, hoping Trum isn't the nominee in 2024.
It's all very interesting.
Kevin Drum delves into the past to get his telescope working. In this case the past is likely >30years. And the lesson is, even with IT, don't judge everything by its looks.
I remember the actual original mo-dem (modulator-demodulator). Never bought one, but used one, very briefly.
For the past 3 national elections I've been fairly optimistic: disappointed in 2016, pleased in 2018 (though I tend to forget Republican gains in the Senate; happy in 2020. My optimism in each case was based on the polls.
Recently the polls have turned against the Democrats so I'm not optimistic for Tuesday (and the days and weeks after, since it may take that long to finally resolve some races). I won't venture predictions on the results.
The Constitution has a provison for holding a new constitutional convention whose powers would be essentially unlimited (just as the original convention far exceeded its authority). A number of states over the years have called for such a convention, and there's been recent discussion of it.
Lyman Stone doesn't connect the two, but his twitter thread on the faults of the 1982 Canadian constitution provide me evidence to argue against a broadbrush revision:
Canada's 1982 constitution is a lulzy document which was passed with little serious consideration and a large number of wild drafting decisions with massive unanticipated consequences.
— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) November 3, 2022
What I learned today.
Interesting thing about Ireland’s university system is it’s very meritocratic and no one really objects to that
— Ronan (@rfitz77) November 2, 2022
I confirmed there's no legacies or athletic admissions in the Irish system. That's for the Irish.
But if you want to study there, here's the site.
Seems there's a controversy in AZ over a group which wants to put watchers over poll drop boxes, armed watchers. The argument against is it's intimidating.
I believe in transparency, but it seems to me the best approach is to put video camera(s) up, so people can watch in real time. The video could be stored and analyzed later if necessary.
SCOTUS considers affirmative action today, the occasion for lots of comments; Three blog posts of note:
Reading "Uncontrolled Spread" by Scott Gottlieb on the US response to Covid19. So far (100pp in) it's good. Gottlieb was on the outside (former Trump FDA director for a couple years) but offering input via Twitter and close enough to people on the inside to be knowledgable.
Those who attack the medical establishment often cite the confusing advice about masks in the early months of the pandemic. Gottlieb says both CDC and FDA relied on their experience in dealing with flu epidemics, assuming that Covid-19 would be like the flu, SARS and MERs. They were tracking respiratory cases using their "syndrome" system, which relied on reports filtering up from Medicare and hospitals, using statistical analysis to try to determine if there was a surge in cases which might mean a new virus. The system had defects--it was after-the-fact--and not precise.
Dr. Birx made much of the failure to identify asymptomatic spread. Gottlieb also notes the problem, with an interesting consequence. Some early cases, which we now recognize as resulting from asymptomatic spread which isn't usual in influencza, were instead explained by fomites--the idea that the virus was deposited on surfaces. This meant the early emphasis on handwashing and cleaning surfaces, and the discouraging of masks.
