December 23, 2016
In today’s UN Security Council meeting, a resolution passed that condemned Israel’s continued settlement activity. This is consistent with what the international community has told Israel for decades. It is consistent with what Reagan said in 1982. It is consistent with the 2004 finding that the settlements are illegal and a hinderance to peace. But of course it was described as Obama stabbing a close ally in the back. And of course Trump vowed that everything is going to change on January 20th.
Being pro-Israel isn’t new, of course. Being anti-Palestinian isn’t new either. So Trump is just aligning himself with many hawkish people that came before him. But I do wonder about the literal Nazis amongst his fans. I’m not claiming Nazis are a big percentage of his base, but they’re there. They’re excited about him. And he’s showing a lot of love to Israel. I wonder how they’re taking it? Especially ones that believe that Jews secretly control the entire world?
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I’ve been analyzing the 2018 race. I’ll go into more detail later, but here’s the top line summary for Democrats:
26 Republican governor seats are up, and a lot of them are up for grabs because of term limits.
Two Republicans Senator seats are up, and while they’re leaning Republican, they are in reach. There’s been a lot of talk about how Democrats are vulnerable, but you can only reach that conclusion if you cook the books. Yes, Democrats have a lot of seats coming up for re-election. But only two are close, and they’re leaning towards the Democrat. So the Senate race is 2 vs 2 right now, despite claims to the contrary.
Flipping the house would require 24 seats to move from Republican to Democrat. Half of those are absolutely winnable because those congresspeople won by less than 10%. That’s the kind of thing that can be wiped out with a 5% swing in the polls.
And then the other half are harder, but still doable. They’re all in the range of 10% to 13%. To put it in context, that’s still just a 5% to 7% swing in the polls. Not as big a deal as the GOP wants people to believe. Even with the extreme gerrymandering currently in effect.
