Cook’s ratings system is a quick and dirty overview of how competitive a district is. It is based on registered voter advantage, so it can miss a district where a demographic shift hasn’t caught up with registration or where for some reason a portion of the party with the advantage isn’t motivated to turn out, etc.…

I’ve already seen several lawyers accurately note this is just boilerplate, a by-product of the adversarial system and pleading in the alternative. By itself it doesn’t bother me because it is part of the rules as they exist today. I’ve also seen some people claim that even persisting in this view beyond pleadings is…

This is 99 percent boilerplate. No one thought about it much if at all - it literally wouldn’t cross a lawyer’s mind to acknowledge a claim in an answer unless it was strategically advantageous, and no one would feel bad about it.

The funny thing is those calendars sound like something some of the RWNJ would like Sessions and Graham would secretly covet given their fulsome praise of Great Man Putin, just without getting the intent.

It accomplishes “Make America White Again” fantasies having an extended shelf life as a political club. That’s it.

Yeah, but she signed her deal too soon - he was just a blowhard narcissist when she inked the contract, unlike Stormy who had leverage.

Is this a registered voter or census demographic breakdown? I ask because districting is based on census data with a goal of equal populations subject to adjustment based on things like the Voting Rights Act. That criteria doesn’t control for eligibility/citizenship. This doesn’t matter much in homogenous rural areas,…

I have had the same reaction to multiple crockpots - ceramic and metal versions. How noticeable or off- putting it is depends on the dish, but it is definitely there to a point where I am unwilling to invest in either a crockpot or an instant pot because of this issue.

Hopeful that they are no worse than prior generations, and that the ones who have a sincere interest in public service will prove to have amazing impacts I can’t even contemplate at the moment. Hopeful that my students will actually act on the beliefs they espouse fervently in my class and seem to demonstrate with…

Washington is still well above the national average in participation, along with states that take different approaches to encourage voting - Minnesota, Wisconsion (at least before the latest changes to its registration laws), etc.. Oregon has the same structure and is in the top 10 in voter participation. I suspect…

It has historically been terrible outside of the first group of 18-21 year olds to get the vote (which also correlated to the Vietnam War). Overall participation rates have been in decline as a general trend too - we’ve liberalized the franchise, which should be a good thing, but people don’t see voting as part of…

In my experience teaching college kids, the biggest issue is they don’t see the connection between elections and the things they really care about. There are some wonderfully engaged students in that age group, but the knowledge of politics and public policy by most is all abstract rather than practical. They haven’t…

I don’t know what your area is like, but community centers are often great options for lower intensity activities/sports, especially at the introductory level. If you find a good one they’ll probably have swimming, movement, sports and activities that focus on basics and participation (also something AYSO soccer is…

Basically you weren’t a person, who they should show some level of compassion for, but a means to their end of a care-free existence. That line is pretty much what informs the whole world view - it is someone else’s job to put it back, tidy up, take care of it. It isn’t just retail - it is also how a lot of people…

Your stories - and the adorable “Very British Problems” series on Netflix - has convinced me that despite my predominantly German/Eastern European heritage I am spiritually English. Although I’d probably go to the UK and eventually get so fed up with everyone saying sorry to each other constantly I’d wind up beating…

Those are the kind of qualitative details you won’t get in these types of studies. That would require case level data you won’t have for years, if ever, since motivation and planning would likely only come out from guilty pleas or trials.

The blame for the shut-down was on the GOP, but the idea that a shut-down framed as a choice between CHIP and DACA would work for Dems in November was something that only the Dem base could believe. Shut-downs cause anxiety, but this far from an election aren’t likely to be highly motivating in and of themselves.…

Dems have internalized the messaging of the right - we are the party of spineless cavers. Never mind the reality on the ground or an objective assessment of who gets what - it is all about the optics of who blinked first. That’s insane, but in a world in which the WH calls the other side “losers” and claims they are…

Tester said it was about not funding the military through CRs. Of course, if military spending got taken off the table a big chunk of the GOP would be quite happy to never vote for another dime in spending and appropriations, so it is a short sighted position for anyone except a Dem running in Montana.

There’s little to no leverage on DACA for Dems running in tight election races this year (and once it was clear there would be 60 votes the rest of the Senate went by which message would play better for them between being Anti-Trump or pro-CHIP funding, so the final score isn’t surprising). While 70-80 percent of…