DL Open Thread: Thursday, November 24, 2022

Something to give thanks for–while ‘other’ political blogs (are there any?) abandon their readers for Thanksgiving, we here at DL give you top-shelf commentary replete with the snark you’ve come to love. Besides, who wants to watch parades when they could be blogging?  OK, enough vamping.

Georgia Supreme Court Helps Warnock Campaign.  No, not on purpose.  But they issued two rulings yesterday, one good, one bad.  Georgians in some counties (it’s up to the individual county) will now have early voting on Saturday. The Court also reinstated a ban on abortions after six weeks.  I can’t see any way this doesn’t help Warnock.  The counties poised to hold early voting are those in Warnock’s wheel house.  And the abortion ban should remind voters that reproductive rights remain in jeopardy.  Plus, the malevolent presence of Trump on the scene will do Walker no favors.  I’m feeling hopeful…

Rethugs Walk Tightrope On House Investigations.  Things never turn out the way you expect them to.  However, it sure looks like whoever McCarthy and the House R’s decide to go after, the tenuous majority they have sure could be threatened:

Two months before taking power, the new House Republican majority has signaled that its investigative agenda will channel the preoccupations of the former president and his die-hard base of supporters. But it has set this course immediately after a midterm election in which voters outside the core conservative states sent an unmistakable signal of their own by repeatedly rejecting Trump-backed candidates in high-profile senate and gubernatorial races. That contrast captures why the GOP’s plans for aggressive investigations of President Joe Biden may present as much political risk for the investigators as it does for the targets.

The choices confronting GOP leaders on what—and how—to investigate encapsulates the much larger challenge they will face in managing the House. This month’s midterm election left the GOP with a House majority much smaller than it expected. The results also created a kind of split-personality caucus operating with very different political incentives.

Most incoming House Republicans represent districts in Trump country: 168 of them hold seats that Trump won by 10 percentage points or more in 2020. Another three dozen represent more marginal Republican-leaning seats that Trump carried by fewer than 10 points two years ago.

But the GOP majority relies on what will likely be 18 members (when all the final votes are counted) who won districts that voted for Biden in 2020. Eleven of those 18 are in New York and California alone—two states that will likely become considerably more difficult for Republicans in a presidential-election year than during a midterm contest.

I hereby predict that the internecine warfare in that Caucus will be the source of endless amusement in the next two years.

How Colorado Springs Became A Haven For Evangelical Leaders:

Colorado Springs for most of its history was not a particularly religious city. For generations it was a stronghold for a type of Out West Republicanism that prioritized individualism, but in the 1990s the community tried to spur its economy by giving development grants to nonprofit groups willing to relocate to the city. Dozens of evangelical groups moved in, including the hugely influential group Focus on the Family, whose founder, James Dobson, hosted a daily radio show that reached millions.

Soon Colorado Springs was what Pastor Ted Haggard proudly described at the time as “the Vatican of Evangelical Christians.” He built a megachurch called New Life Church that at its height had a congregation of 10,000. He later resigned amid allegations involving a male prostitute.

The newcomers to the city tried to remake the region as their own, at times pressuring schools to do things like get rid of Halloween celebrations, which they saw as occult.

In 1992 local evangelicals wrote a constitutional amendment passed by state voters that protected the right to discriminate in employment or lodging based on sexual orientation.

You’re gonna have to read the rest.  Suffice it to say, I’m glad that my youngest daughter didn’t choose to attend Colorado College, a good school in an intolerant place.

Well, nothing’s gonna top that ‘Dick Delaware’ story by Jason on today’s front page.  Time for me to gracefully bow out.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. As usual, I have been tasked with the most daunting Thanksgiving task of all–deciding which bottle of wine to open next.

What do you want to talk about?