Peter Thiel calls midterm elections a depressing disaster for the GOP...and rich guys trying to buy Senate seats

Pointed at this by Taegan Goddaed's Political Wire.

The original article is from The Financial Times, but that article is behind a paywall, so another source had to be found..

From The Hill -

Peter Thiel calls midterms ‘not merely disastrous but also depressing’ for GOP 

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel called the Republican Party’s performance in this year’s midterm elections “disastrous” and “depressing” in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute on Tuesday.

“The part of it that’s not merely disastrous but also depressing is just the sense that if we don’t do something different, we’re just gonna be in this Groundhog Day where something like this is going to repeat in 2024, or throughout the rest of this decade,” Thiel said as part of the “A Time for Choosing” speaker series.

[snip]

Thiel spent millions backing Arizona GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters, who was also endorsed by former President Trump and lost his election. He also gave big to Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, another Trump-backed Republican candidate who won his race against Rep. Tim Ryan (D).

[snip]

“If you can’t sort of win in that kind of a context, how are you ever going to win?” Thiel asked, arguing that Republicans failed to put forward a “substantive agenda” and ran a “discombobulated” campaign overall.

Guess $30 million doesn't go as far as it used to.

Let me sum up Thiel's speech in three words -

Boo copulating wah 

("copulating" is a euphemism, subject to replacement by readers)

Sinema weaves a web. Though it may not work out her way.

When Sen. Kyrsten Sinema famously changed her registration and stopped being a Democrat, the political reporters in the MSM went orgasmic in the post-election flurry of  articles that they produced.  Horse race pieces are their strength, and they thought those over...until the next election cycle.  

Most of those articles have been about her change's effects on the Democratic Party here and in DC.

From CNN, dated 12/10 -

How Kyrsten Sinema’s decision makes Democrats’ 2024 Senate map tighter

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema decided to shake up the political world on Friday by becoming an independent. The former Democrat is still caucusing with the party in the Senate, so the Democratic caucus still has 51 members. Now, instead of 49 Democrats and two independents within their ranks, the caucus has 48 Democrats and three independents.

But that simple math hides a more clouded picture for Democrats and for Sinema herself. Sinema’s interests are no longer necessarily the Democrats’ best interests in the next Congress, and the 2024 Senate map became even more complicated for Democrats with Sinema’s decision.

To be clear, Sinema has always been a thorn in the Democrats side during her time in Congress. Over the last two years, Democrats have had to almost always make sure that any bill or nomination had Sinema’s support to have any chance of passing. That’s the math when you have only 50 Senate seats in a 100-seat chamber. A lot of bills and nominations were never voted on without Sinema and Manchin’s backing.

Personally, I believe two things -

1. Regardless of her ballot status in 2024, she already has her post-2024 gig lined up,  My guess is that she'll end as a K Street lobbyist (though her office may not actually be on K Street).for Big Pharma or hedge funds.

2. She'll only keep that gig until 2032 or maybe even 2028.  She seems to have her eye on being on a national ticket, as a candidate for POTUS or VPOTUS.

The one problem with that plan, IMO, is that she will be seen as all but untouchable politically.  Not for her habit  of throwing over the folks who supported her - in the world of DC politics, that's hardly a disqualifier.

Nope, Arizona has become a battleground state, and any ticket she is on will probably get trounced here.

Which will keep her from being considered for any national ticket.

Arizona Legislature 2023: And the first one out of the gate is...

 OK.  They've fixed the lege's website. :)

HB 2001, the first bill before the legislature, has been introduced by Rep. David Cook, a Republican from Globe.

It pertains to rule making by the Arizona Department of Health Services.

It proposes some [ahem] interesting clauses -

36. RULES MADE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES IF ALL OF THE FOLLOWING APPLY: 

 (a) THE RULES REDUCE A REGULATORY BURDEN WITHOUT JEOPARDIZING HEALTH AND SAFETY. 

(b) THE RULES DO NOT INCREASE COSTS TO PERSONS WHO ARE REGULATED BY THE RULE.

(c) BEFORE THE RULES ARE ADOPTED, THE PUBLIC IS GIVEN AT LEAST 18 FIFTEEN DAYS TO COMMENT ON THE RULES.

Hope the war on COVID isn't over, because the war on COVID mitigation efforts sure isn't.

I'll just leave this here, with a one-word comment

Of course, that one word is "Waaahhhh!"

Dear AZ Legislature: Fix your website

I regularly visit the website of the Arizona State Legislature.

This time of year, the visits are mostly to see which bills have been prefiled for the coming session.

Usually, I just see this -

At the top of the page is a dropdown menu to change the session of legislature shown on the website -

When I change that to "2023-Fifty-sixth Legislature..." (an option available at the bottom of the dropdown menu), scroll over "Bills" and click on "Bill Info" when that appears, this appears -

"There has been a critical error on this website"

Gee, ya think?

Time for some 2024 speculation

Yes, the 2022 election is barely in the books and the inevitable lawsuit has been filed but not resolved, but 2024 races have already started.

First, a few caveats:

1. No actual humans were spoken to during the production of this post.  This is purely about me throwing ideas against the wall and seeing what sticks.

2. Any names/people mentioned here are folks who I think may look at running for a particular office but that doesn't mean that I think that all will actually run for that office.

3. Anyone who currently holds an office will be presumed to retain that office, if they actually run for it.  Some will be vulnerable and will lose their offices.

US President:

The 2020 nominees, Joe Biden and Cheeto, are making noises about running (actually, Cheeto has already announced his candidacy).  However, I don't believe that either will actually run in 2024.  They'll both be *old*.  Right now, both are making noises about doing so because of Biden's desire to not to already be seen as a lame duck POTUS and Cheeto's desire to not be seen as incarcerated.

And his ego.  Cheeto's vanity is boundless.  For him, the presidency is less about public service and more about self-aggrandizement. And profit.

US Senate seat from Arizona:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's seat is up for election, and her decision to change her registration to Independent opens up the Democratic primary in a big way,

The Republican primary was already going to be wide open but her move may make it wilder.

Doug Ducey, the current governor in AZ, has long been rumored to be eyeing Sinema's seat.

Mark Brnovich, the current Attorney General in AZ, may have lost the R Senate primary in 2022 and is term-limited as AG, but he doesn't seem to be going away - he's running radio ads catering to rural voters.  He may simply be burning off his budget, but I think that he's keeping his options open.

Paul Gosar and/or Andy Biggs, both are batshit crazy members of Congress.  Assuming they avoid going to prison over their involvement in the insurrection of January 6, 2021.

Kelli Ward, currently the batshit crazy chair of the AZGOP.  Assuming she avoids going to prison over their involvement in the insurrection of January 6, 2021.

An unnamed vassal of a rich guy who's looking to by a Senate seat.  Think: 2024 version of Blake Masters/Peter Thiel.

Other election-denying/anti-democracy Rs may also looking at the seat.

With Sinema's change, the R primary transitions from being the political equivalent of a pro wrestling battle royal to being an outright bar brawl.

If Sinema appears on the ballot, it will have the effect of siphoning votes away from the Democratic nominee, so if the R nominee isn't a batshit crazy ones, they'll win in a walkover; if the R voters pick a crazy nominee in their primary, the race will closer, maybe close enough for the D nominee to win.  For the record, while I consider Ducey and Brnovich to be poor public servants and simply lousy human beings, they're not batshit crazy.

The Democratic primary will be less wide open than the Republican primary but it will be more open than it would have been before Sinema left.

Ruben Gallego, current member of Congress, is the very early favorite here because he was already going to challenge Sinema in the primary when she was still a D.

Greg Stanton, current member of Congress and former mayor of Phoenix, has already made noises critical of Sinema.  From Twitter (pic taken yesterday) -

Other Ds who may be looking at the race -

Kate Gallego, current mayor of Phoenix.  Termed out and will not be in office in 2024.

Regina Romero, current mayor of Tucson.

Raquel Teran, currently in the AZ State Senate and the chair of the Arizona Democratic Party.  In AZ, it's almost a tradition that one doesn't become a state party chair without running for high office.

Kathy Hoffman. currently the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction.  She lost her re-election bid in 2022.

US Congress -

I expect that most of the current officeholders here will retain their office, but three of the Rs will be especially vulnerable - Juan Ciscomani in southern AZ and Eli Crane in Northern AZ because they will be first termers and David Schweikert because he's ethically challenged.

Also, if Ruben Gallego and/or Stanton run for the Senate, it wouldn't be surprising to see 1 or 2 (or more) of the others listed as potentially running for Senate to look at those seats instead.

Arizona Corporation Commission -

Three seats will be on the ballot.  They're currently held by D Anna Tovar and Rs Lea Marquez Peterson and Jim O'Connor.  While I expect that all of them will run for reelection I cannot and will not guess at what the primary fields will look like here.

Kyrsten Sinema makes official something we already knew - she's no Democrat

From Politico -

Sinema switches to independent, shaking up the Senate

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is changing her party affiliation to independent, delivering a jolt to Democrats’ narrow majority and Washington along with it.

In a 45-minute interview, the first-term senator told POLITICO that she will not caucus with Republicans and suggested that she intends to vote the same way she has for four years in the Senate. “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she said.

 In practical terms, there's no real change here - she may be nominally a Democrat, Independent, or whatever, Sinema will always do whatever she sees as immediately benefiting Kyrsten Sinema.

From CNN

Well, that didn't take long - Paul Gosar supplants Andy Biggs as the most embarrassing member of Congress from Arizona

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote that Biggs was back to embarrassing AZ.

Oh wait, it *was* yesterday. :)

It seems that Gosar couldn't allow Biggs to hog all of the notoriety.

From The Hill -

Gosar tweets, then deletes, support for Trump’s Constitution termination statement

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) tweeted and then deleted a post on Wednesday supporting former President Trump’s call for terminating the election rules in the Constitution. 

“I support and agree with the former President. Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure,” he said, accompanied by a screenshot of Trump’s post on Truth Social. 

Ducey goes back on his word about calling a special session of the legislature

[Begin sarcasm]

I'm shocked!  Shocked, I say!

[/End sarcasm]

From Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services via The Payson Roundup, emphasis added by me -

Gov. Ducey won't call special session solely to assure school funding

Lame duck Gov. Doug Ducey said Monday he won't call a special legislative session to deal with problems with school funding before his term ends this month until he gets a promise that lawmakers will deal with some issues on his own agenda.

And that could scuttle any chance of giving schools an immediate assurance they won't have to cut more than a billion dollars from their spending plans by July 1.

[snip]

The governor acknowledged Monday that he had agreed to bring lawmakers back to the Capitol to waive the "aggregate expenditure limit'' if he could be shown that the votes were there. Such a move requires 20 of the 30 senators and 40 of the 60 representatives.

Lawmakers from both parties who support the waiver said last week they have the votes.

But Ducey, whose term is up at the end of the month, said that's not enough.

Ducey will run for Senate in 2024, if only as a fallback in the event that he isn't included on the GOP ticket as the vice presidential candidate.

And R voters should remember his lack of honor when casting their primary votes

It isn't easy for someone to make Kevin McCarthy seem like a sympathetic figure. It turns out that AZ is home to one such someone.

Actually, we have two of those people, Paul Gosar being the second.  

But this isn't about him.

From CNN -

Arizona Republican announces run for House speaker, complicating McCarthy’s path

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the speakership grew more complicated on Tuesday after a hard-right Republican announced his bid for the gavel next month, a move that could set off a messy floor fight and leave their party without a candidate who can win the 218 votes needed to become speaker.

Despite losing the House GOP Conference’s nomination to be speaker last month, Rep. Andy Biggs, the hard-right Arizona Republican and one-time leader of the House Freedom Caucus, announced he will be a candidate for the speakership when the full House votes on January 3.

“I’m running for Speaker to break the establishment,” Biggs wrote on Twitter. “Kevin McCarthy was created by, elevated by, and maintained by the establishment.”

Andy Biggs, putting AZ into the news again.

And again, not in a good way.

If FL designates Mar A Lago as a secure long term care facility, we'll have official confirmation of what Cheeto's up to.

Personally, I think he fully expects to be indicted and convicted for *something* and intends to have his attorneys propose a "but he's nuts and CAN'T go to prison" defense during sentencing.

Of course, to make that work, a doctor will have to testify to his mental condition and any doctor testifying on his behalf will have a credibility issue - Cheeto has a history of having doctors lie about his physical condition when it benefits him.

For the record, I don't believe that he's nuts; just arrogant.

To this end, he has uttered/posted another crazy thing, but one in keeping with his election-denying lies.

From CNN -

Trump calls for the termination of the Constitution in Truth Social post

Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution to overturn the 2020 election and reinstate him to power Saturday in a continuation of his election denialism and pushing of fringe conspiracy theories.

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused “Big Tech” of working closely with Democrats. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

Licensed facilities in FL can be found here.

Does Chapter 11 cover moral bankruptcy or is that covered in another chapter?

Some people are so craven that they are beyond word.

With that in mind, it wouldn't surprise me if he's Cheeto's 2024 running mate.  He's qualified.

From AP -

Infowars host Alex Jones files for personal bankruptcy

Infowars host Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection 

Friday in Texas, citing debts that include nearly $1.5 billion he has 

been ordered to pay to families who sued him over his conspiracy 

theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Houston. His filing 

listed $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities and $1 million to 

$10 million in assets.

The definition of "morally bankrupt" from Merriam-Webster is here.

Not a good week for lawyers

From CNN, dated 12/1 -

First on CNN: Federal judge orders former top lawyers in Trump’s White House to testify in criminal grand jury probe

 

A federal judge has ordered former top Trump White House lawyers to provide additional grand jury testimony, rejecting former President Donald Trump’s privilege claims in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of his effort to overturn the 2020 election, people briefed on the matter said.

Pat Cipollone, the Trump White House counsel, and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, appeared in September before the grand jury in Washington, DC, as part of the Justice Department probe, which is now being overseen by newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith.

Then, on 12/2, from KJZZ -

Judge sanctions legal team for Kari Lake and Mark Finchem

Attorneys for two failed Arizona Republican candidates have been sanctioned by a federal judge for what he said was a series of factual and legal problems in a lawsuit against Arizona election officials.

The original lawsuit was filed in April by attorneys for gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem. 

In Cochise County, ideology trumps public service. Of course, threats of going to jail trump ideology.

Even election-denying ideology.

From CNN -

Rural Arizona county certifies midterm election results after judge’s order

Officials in rural Cochise County, Arizona, on Thursday certified the results of the county’s midterm elections – ending a high-stakes confrontation with state officials over the county’s failure to sign off on election results by the legal deadline.

The 2-0 vote came shortly after a judge ordered the county’s three-member board of supervisors to certify the results by 5 p.m. local time.

[snip]

In Cochise County, Peggy Judd, one of the Republican supervisors who initially voted to delay certification, said Thursday that she was “not ashamed of anything I did” but was voting “yes” in response to the court order. She was joined by the lone Democrat on the Cochise Board of Supervisors, its chairwoman Ann English, in certifying results.

[snip]

The third member of the board, Republican Tom Crosby, did not attend the meeting.

Not sure which is worse - Judd's shamelessness or Crosby's cowardice.

Short Attention Span Musing

 - First up: A mea culpa.  A few days ago, I wrote that the election-denying counties in AZ wouldn't follow through on their threat to not certify the election results.

I was wrong.

From AP -

GOP-controlled Arizona county refuses to certify election

Republican officials in a rural Arizona county refused Monday to 

certify the 2022 election despite no evidence of anything wrong 

with the count, a decision that was quickly challenged in court by the 

state’s top election official.

The refusal to certify by Cochise County in southeastern Arizona 

comes amid pressure from prominent Republicans to reject results 

showing Democrats winning top races.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who narrowly won the 

race for governor, asked a judge to order county officials to canvass 

the election, which she said is an obligation under Arizona law. 

Lawyers representing a Cochise County voter and a group of retirees 

filed a similar lawsuit Monday, the deadline for counties to 

approve the official tally of votes, known as the canvass.

Turns out that for certain people, ideology trumps public service.

- Dear Florida educators,

Move to AZ.  We have our problems (not least of which is that we don't pay public school teachers and administrators anywhere near enough) but we have one advantage over FL: we don't have Ron DeSantis.  

From Politico -

DeSantis-backed school boards begin ousting Florida educators

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis put his weight behind dozens of conservative school board candidates across Florida during the midterms. Now they’re in office — and are purging some educational leaders who enforced Covid-19 mandates.

New board members in two GOP-leaning counties essentially sacked their school superintendents over the span of one week. The ousters were spurred by how the superintendents carried out local policies like efforts to support the rights of parents, an issue inflamed by schools imposing student mask mandates last fall in defiance of DeSantis.

- Apparently, politics is a family enterprise.

From The Hill -

Capito’s son announces run for West Virginia governor

Moore Capito, the son of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), announced his candidacy Tuesday to become governor of West Virginia, running as a Republican to lead the same state his mother represents in the Senate.  

“Join me as I seek my party’s nomination for Governor of West Virginia in ‘24. Together, we can build a West Virginia that makes our young people proud to call home and champions freedom to conduct business how you want,” Moore Capito said on Twitter.

Anyone want to speculate on how long before primogeniture becomes a Republican political plank?

- Cheeto has proven, yet again, that he doesn't care about elections...especially ones that don't go his preferred way.

From Rolling Stone, via Yahoo! -

Trump, Done with Democracy, Calls on Kari Lake to Be

 

‘Installed’ as Arizona’s Governor

Donald Trump on Monday declared the Arizona midterm election “yet another criminal voting operation” and demanded that defeated gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake be “installed Governor of Arizona.”

Much of Lake’s Trump-backed campaign was centered around bolstering unfounded claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 election, and the former TV anchor has lived up to her commitment to only accept election results if she won.