Congratulations, Democrats! You did what pretty much happens in a good chunk of mid-terms
(Fox News) Democrats reclaimed control of the House of Representatives Tuesday night after eight long years out of power, dealing a major setback to President Trump’s legislative agenda — but Republicans were able to expand their narrow Senate majority and, with it, preserve the ability to confirm crucial judicial nominees.
The split decision on Capitol Hill follows one of the most intense and chaotic midterm campaign seasons in recent memory, in which President Trump barnstormed the country for GOP candidates and powerful Democrats, including predecessor Barack Obama, did the same for the other side.
For his part, Trump was able to help prevent a total Democratic takeover in Congress, and he avoided a repeat of President Obama’s first midterm elections in 2010, when his party lost 6 seats in the Senate and 63 in the House.
Retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., said in a statement that “history had repeated itself” Tuesday night, noting that since 1862, the president’s party has lost an average of 32 House seats during the midterms. After Tuesday’s elections, Democrats appeared poised to gain approximately two dozen seats in the House, while Republicans looked to net at least two Senate seats.
At the moment, Democrats have 219 seats and the GOP has 193, with a few still pending. 218 is needed for House control.
In the Senate, it’s sitting at 51-45 GOP, with the Republicans picking up at least two extra seats. Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp were two of the Democrats who lost, as did Joe Donnelly (D) in Indiana. A few others may occur, or not. Some races are too close at this time, like between McSally (R) and Sinema (D) in Arizona (how Arizonans vote for a woman, Sinema, who hates Arizonans, is unbelievable). And it is super close between Democrat Jon Tester and Republican Rosendale in Montana.
And you have Romney winning the GOP held seat in Utah. Magic underwear for everyone!!!
What now?
Pelosi and top Democrats have vowed to open a series of investigations into the White House upon reclaiming the House, including probes into Trump’s unreleased personal tax returns, alleged collusion with Russia, and potential ethics violations by administration officials.
Prominent firebrands including Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff, and Jerry Nadler are slated to be elevated to lead the House Financial Services Committee, Intelligence Committee, and Judiciary Committee, respectively. With control of those and other key committees, Democrats will have the legal authority to issue subpoenas to compel Republicans and others to provide documents or appear at hearings — and to seek contempt proceedings if they don’t comply.
“We will be able to get answers the Republicans were unwilling to pursue,” Schiff told CNN in October. “Records that the Republicans wouldn’t ask for.” (Pelosi has said that trying to obtain Trump’s tax returns would be “one of the first things we’d do.”)
Schiff added that he would place a “very high priority” on determining whether the Trump Organization had laundered money through Russia.
It’s going to be investigation-palooza, which will just fire Trump up even more. Watch him take a page out of Obama’s playbook and stonewall and ignore the investigations. Even the uber-leftist NY Times Editorial Board thinks Democrats should be really careful, and start with pushing policies. Ones that are not uber-leftist. That they should avoid impeachment (good luck with this, they will hold all sorts of crazy hearings). And that they should not go crazy with subpoenas. Good with this, too.
Here in NC
NC Voter ID Amendment looks like it's going to easily pass. You can bet a lawsuit will be filed by Thursday by those who want illegal voting https://t.co/H878fXfgiV
— William Teach2 ??????? #refuseresist (@WTeach2) November 7, 2018
As of this morning, with 99% reporting, it is sitting at 56% approve. You also have Marcy’s Law, which is about victim’s rights, which will pass with 62%. NC Democrats were 100% against it, and offered up some weak excuses, which mostly boiled down to “hate anything GOP pushes.” All six of the amendments offered by the GOP majority look to pass.
In Washington state the carbon tax initiative looks like it will fail
If Democrats ever want to fight climate change at the national level, they’ll need help from state-level progressives first. Blue states will need to function as “laboratories of democracy,†trying out creative new climate policies and finding their faults before their debut on the national stage.
On Tuesday, Democrats didn’t get that help.
Though progressives cruised to victory in Washington State—Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, easily won reelection—by late Tuesday night, voters appeared almost certain to reject Initiative 1631, a ballot question that would have established the nation’s first carbon tax. With 64 percent of the vote counted, 56 percent of voters opposed the measure—enough of a rout that The Seattle Times declared it defeated. The Associated Press has yet to call the race.
Even liberals weren’t buying this scam. But, hey, fortunately we have California!
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California voters have approved a measure requiring all eggs sold in the state to come from cage-free hens by 2022.
— Juliet Williams (@JWilliamsJourno) November 7, 2018
We did our part here. We kept our House seats that were up and flipped a senate seat red. I just can’t understand how, with the economy, jobs, safety and other great things happening in and to this country, anyone can vote to cripple that. The silver lining to this is that the Dems will now expose themselves as the job killing, economy killing and sovereignty killing hacks they truly are guaranteeing that Trump wins a second term easily.
TRump is perfectly pleased that the Dems took the House, as his only concern is himself. They will be the foil he blames for the coming recession (unless he resigns first).
He’s pleased because the Demos will make asses of themselves for the next 2 years and making flipping the House easy.
Blah, blah, blah. We’ve been hearing this since Trump won the nomination and just the opposite has happened. Nice that he found that magic wand that Obama says didn’t exist.
“…the Dems will now expose themselves as the job killing, economy killing and sovereignty killing hacks they truly are…”
I don’t think that was ever in doubt. All of their national leaders have made this point very clear since the Bush Administration.
The sad fact is, the USA is very close to banana republic territory where every change of power results in arrests of political opponents and overturning all their acts. The Senate Democrats did it in small scale by attacking Kavanaugh. The message was, “don’t you dare accept an appointment from Trump or we will destroy you”. House Democrats have all gone on record saying they intend to do just that for the next 2 years, even impeaching Trumps 2 supreme court justices
They can impeach anybody they want, but that’s all that will happen. Trial is in the Senate, as is appointment and confirmation.
I think the Demos will be stunned at how impotent they really are. This election was a lot like Pearl Harbor, just as the Nips “sunk a lot of old scrap iron”, so the election cleaned a lot of Whigs out of the House.
The word for the next 2 years will be brinkmanship.
That razor-thin margin gives them titles and little else. The Senate will kill most of it and, between the superannuated hippies and the airhead Lefties, the next 2 years will be comedy gold. Not to mention the fact that a bad flu season and a few convictions, and the House is eminently flippable
Remember also, the only thing that flipped it for the Demos was a crooked judge in PA, so, just as The Donald kept the Senate and expanded it, he’ll do the same for the House in ’20.
I did my part, helping Representative Andy Barr (R-KY 6) defeat the odious Amy McGrath.
Another point is that the main reason the House was up for grabs at all was about 100 Whigs were either defeated or, in most cases, bailed out early.
We also lost several Whigs in the Senate, mostly retirement.
Even better.
And several important state houses – TX, OH – were kept R.
That much betterer.
The wins and losses everywhere were by very narrow margins. Any reasonable person would have to concede that it was just luck that determined some of these outcomes. And the demographic shift is decidedly heading all in one direction. Virginia, for example didn’t change our minds and abandon being conservative because e think communism is better. We were invaded by people fleeing high taxes and job-crippling regulations in NY, NJ, PA, and MD. And those people kept voting democrat. Further, we were invaded by hundreds of thousands of aliens (people from other countries). I swear to you that in norther Virginia Walmarts, you will not hear English spoken. Nor will you hear mostly Spanish. if you want a taxi or Uber, your driver will be some sort of Ethiopian, Somali, or other East African (not “African-American). Whether or not you think those people can vote, they add their numbers to the electoral college and redistricting maps and DO get represented in Congress, diluting the votes of the native citizens. Virginia cannot return to being a Red state without some form of genocide (and I am NOT recommending that). And what has happened to Virginia can happen anywhere. There are no Republican “safe havens”.
All the 7 candidates backed by Don won! Including the 3 “underdogs”! Polls for the 999,999 th time were bad!
I did not think there was any way the Republicans could keep the House, Paul Ryan made sure of that. Trump may find it easier to do business with the Dems that the Ryan Republicans.
Dream on.
The plus in this is that Ryan and about 100 of his Whig friends are gone, so, when Trump flips the House in ’20, no more traitors.
We get judges, they get Pelosi
Actually the Dems got the House.
Barely.
It took a crooked PA judge redistricting the state to suit himself and Paul Ryan and friends starving the local R candidates of support, and the “majority” is still razor-thin.
If Jeffery thinks Trump is selfish, watch how little real work the Demo House does. Lots of press conferences, lots of investigations that go nowhere, but real legislation, forget it.
PS I see our village idiot finally slinked back when nobody was around. Eating all those buttercups must have taken forever.
Dear Little Buttercup,
We were meaning to ask, how does tRump’s c@ck taste, sweetie? Like mushrooms?
Any and all legislation will have to go through the House. If tRump wants to accomplish anything other than by EO, he’ll have to work with Dems.
In the meantime they will provide him the oversight that the neutered House GOP didn’t. When he fires Mr. Mueller, the House will spend days interviewing Mueller in public about all he’s found.
tRump will refuse to turn over his tax records to the House (investigating using the US Presidency for personal enrichment; it’s in our Constitution), fomenting a Constitutional crisis. He’s a tax cheat and has deals with foreign governments.
He has a short window of time before the new House convenes. You can see he’s panicked.
You actually think someone thats been audited every year for the last 50 years is a tax cheat? Do you think Trump cares that he has to work with democrats? He WAS A DEMOCRAT. He wants to get stuff done. He really doesn’t care that much about politics other than YOU and people like you have made him care.
Do you not think that if Mueller had found anything AT ALL it would not have been leaked by now given how trump farts and its front page news in 20 minutes??
Do you think he will fire Mueller? He could. Its within his right but he knows as does everyone else including democrats that they have found ZERO….why would he fire him and stir up a brand new 2 year investigation when the democrats are already going to investigate everything and anything for two years.
He is an international business man building in several countries of course he has dealings with foreign countries.
His tax records will come from the IRS not himself. They like you know have copies. The house can subpoena the IRS to hand them over and voilla….there you go.
Panicked? Nah I think he is pissed and he doesn’t play well with others.