It's interesting how varied the role of County Sheriff is from State to State, or even sometimes within a State. They range from being the chief law enforcement officer in their jurisdiction, to having only minimal or ceremonial duties. Only Alaska and Connecticut lack the office altogether. The Northeast, broadly speaking, is where the office is the weakest, often limited to transporting prisoners and court ceremony. The South is where they're most likely to have a law enforcement role that outranks local police in some way. In the West they often have law enforcement responsibility for unincorporated areas, but not for cities.
Since Dems figure to be heavily outspent on ads in the final stretch, might it make sense to allocate some of their own ad budgets to messages that remind voters that the billionaire class is paying for avalanche of Republican ads?
This worked well when Musk was still spending heavily while taking his chainsaw to the federal workforce. (Literally claiming that the future of Western Civilization depended on a judicial election in Wisconsin.) The connections are a little less obvious now, which is why focusing on it is more important. "You're paying more for everything to fund billionaires. They're paying for these attack ads to keep their perks "
The whole reform DA vs. tough on crime DA debate is one of the saddest political stories I know. I was a reform DA supporter and still am, and it is depressing how propaganda won this fight. Most of the arguments I’ve heard against the reform DAs revolve around a mix of anecdotal evidence (“X happened to me! Proof that crime went up!”) and anti-homeless rhetoric often mixed with downright nauseating bigotry against the disabled, as if all homeless people were disabled. (I have legit seen calls to revive institutions. It’s awful reading this shit as an autistic person.)
Now, I am open to altering my position if there are legit statistics and evidence proving crime increases in certain cases. And I freely admit as a resident of the NYC area that I may be biased due to phenomena like homeless people screaming at no one being a common sight. But as of now, I feel this whole debate is just a sad example of how this country mistreats its poor and disabled.
I'm gonna kudos myself cause I nailed 2 of the 3 districts Patrick ended up mentioning: SD-5 and SD-2. I mentioned on Friday, SD-5 covers most of Williamson County (north of Austin) where Talarico is likely counting on a good turnout. SD-2 covers some of Dallas County.
Apparently Patrick mentioned SD-11, which was not on my radar because that district and area has been trending away from us. It covers southeast Harris County, Galveston County, and most of Brazoria County. The seat is open because the incumbent is running for attorney general.
And if you're interested, they also do a breakdown of the legislative races and where they think they are in terms of tossup, likely Dem, likely Rep, etc.: https://capitolinside.com/ranks26-general.html
It's interesting how varied the role of County Sheriff is from State to State, or even sometimes within a State. They range from being the chief law enforcement officer in their jurisdiction, to having only minimal or ceremonial duties. Only Alaska and Connecticut lack the office altogether. The Northeast, broadly speaking, is where the office is the weakest, often limited to transporting prisoners and court ceremony. The South is where they're most likely to have a law enforcement role that outranks local police in some way. In the West they often have law enforcement responsibility for unincorporated areas, but not for cities.
Since Dems figure to be heavily outspent on ads in the final stretch, might it make sense to allocate some of their own ad budgets to messages that remind voters that the billionaire class is paying for avalanche of Republican ads?
This worked well when Musk was still spending heavily while taking his chainsaw to the federal workforce. (Literally claiming that the future of Western Civilization depended on a judicial election in Wisconsin.) The connections are a little less obvious now, which is why focusing on it is more important. "You're paying more for everything to fund billionaires. They're paying for these attack ads to keep their perks "
PA-SEN 2028:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-fetterman-republican-midterms_n_6ab9e637e4b0d1543f54b886?6m
Ugh. John Fetterman is vaguely threatening a party switch.
Not surprising but disappointing.
Just a few weeks after he said he wouldn't. Another stable genius.
Opinion post incoming, so bear with me.
The whole reform DA vs. tough on crime DA debate is one of the saddest political stories I know. I was a reform DA supporter and still am, and it is depressing how propaganda won this fight. Most of the arguments I’ve heard against the reform DAs revolve around a mix of anecdotal evidence (“X happened to me! Proof that crime went up!”) and anti-homeless rhetoric often mixed with downright nauseating bigotry against the disabled, as if all homeless people were disabled. (I have legit seen calls to revive institutions. It’s awful reading this shit as an autistic person.)
Now, I am open to altering my position if there are legit statistics and evidence proving crime increases in certain cases. And I freely admit as a resident of the NYC area that I may be biased due to phenomena like homeless people screaming at no one being a common sight. But as of now, I feel this whole debate is just a sad example of how this country mistreats its poor and disabled.
TX-Lege: So on Friday I posted a link to a story about Lite Gov. Dan Patrick telling some supporters that some of the Republican state senators were in trouble according to polling (https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-the-site-of-2018s/comment/345713592). The original article was behind a paywall, but a little more digging and I found someone who wrote about it from Capitol Inside: https://capitolinside.com/wave924x.html
I'm gonna kudos myself cause I nailed 2 of the 3 districts Patrick ended up mentioning: SD-5 and SD-2. I mentioned on Friday, SD-5 covers most of Williamson County (north of Austin) where Talarico is likely counting on a good turnout. SD-2 covers some of Dallas County.
Apparently Patrick mentioned SD-11, which was not on my radar because that district and area has been trending away from us. It covers southeast Harris County, Galveston County, and most of Brazoria County. The seat is open because the incumbent is running for attorney general.
And if you're interested, they also do a breakdown of the legislative races and where they think they are in terms of tossup, likely Dem, likely Rep, etc.: https://capitolinside.com/ranks26-general.html