Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

An abysmal showing by Democrats in state legislative races on Tuesday not only denied them victories in Sun Belt and Rust Belt states that would have positioned them to advance their policy agenda — it also put the party at a disadvantage ahead of the redistricting that will determine the balance of power for the next decade.

The results could domino through politics in America, helping the GOP draw favorable congressional and state legislative maps by ensuring Democrats remain the minority party in key state legislatures. Ultimately, it could mean more Republicans in Washington — and in state capitals.

By Wednesday night, Democrats had not flipped a single statehouse chamber in its favor. And it remained completely blocked from the map-making process in several key states — including Texas, North Carolina and Florida, which could have a combined 82 congressional seats by 2022 — where the GOP retained control of the state legislatures.

After months of record-breaking fundraising by their candidates and a constellation of outside groups, Democrats fell far short of their goals and failed to build upon their 2018 successes to capture state chambers they had been targeting for years. And they may have President Donald Trump to blame.

“It’s clear that Trump isn’t an anchor for the Republican legislative candidates. He’s a buoy,” said Christina Polizzi, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, on Wednesday. “He overperformed media expectations, Democratic and Republican expectations, and lifted legislative candidates with him.”

Snip.

The biggest disappointment came in the seat-rich state of Texas, Democrats needed nine seats to reclaim the majority after flipping a dozen in the midterms. Though some races remain uncalled, so far Democrats were able to unseat one incumbent and Republicans offset that with another pickup.

Now Texas Republicans, retaining control of the Senate and the governor’s mansion, will have total authority over the drawing of as many as 39 congressional districts in the state. Democrats fear Republicans will pack and crack the rapidly diversifying suburbs to dilute unfriendly voters. Despite targeting 10 districts, Democrats failed to flip a single targeted seat in 2020 on the current map, which was drawn by the GOP roughly a decade ago.

There are plenty of things to worry about with Democrats control (by the skin of their teeth) the White House, the Senate and the House, but federalism provides strong state power as a counterbalance to the federal government.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and researcher who has received almost $20 million from the Department of Energy was arrested Thursday after he allegedly failed to disclose ties to the People’s Republic of China.

Mechanical engineering professor Gang Chen faces charges of wire fraud, failing to file a foreign bank account report, and making a false statement in a tax return, the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston revealed Thursday.

Prosecutors allege the 56-year-old professor, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, has held a number of positions on behalf of the PRC with the goal of promoting China’s technological and scientific capabilities.

They claim he shared his expertise directly with Chinese government officials “often in exchange for financial compensation,” including serving as an “overseas expert” at the request of the Chinese consulate in New York and a member of at least two PRC Talent Programs.

The Department of Energy has given Chen $19 million for research since 2013.

The president didn’t mention violence on Wednesday, much less provoke or incite it. He said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

District law defines a riot as “a public disturbance . . . which by tumultuous and violent conduct or the threat thereof creates grave danger of damage or injury to property or persons.” When Mr. Trump spoke, there was no “public disturbance,” only a rally. The “disturbance” came later at the Capitol by a small minority who entered the perimeter and broke the law. They should be prosecuted.

Actually, I think it’s been firmly established that the entry into the capitol occurred even before Trump stopped speaking.

A senior U.S. intelligence official with knowledge of the attack told The Associated Press that the airstrikes were carried out with intelligence provided by the United States and targeted a series of warehouses in Syria that were being used as a part of the pipeline to store and stage Iranian weapons.

The official said the warehouses also served as a pipeline for components that supports Iran’s nuclear program.

Maybe the Islamic Republic of Iran expects that they can just ask the Biden Administration for highly enriched uranium directly…

Two companies, Google and Apple, each control about half of the smartphone market. So when the two companies made a move against Parler, the conservative social media alternative, it effectively erased its app from existence. Joining the party was a third member of the FAANG Big Tech consortium, Amazon, which deplatformed Parler from Amazon Web Services.

AWS controls a third of the cloud marketplace. Microsoft and Google are in 2nd and 3rd place.

Blocking an app doesn’t permanently kill a social networking service, though it places it at a structural disadvantage, but Apple and Google can flag sites as unsafe through their browsers.

Originally, the social media giant and former favorite platform of President Trump claimed that it was simply a matter of accounts not verifying their information. Twitter claimed that until those accounts did so, they would simply not show upon follower accounts.

Well, the tune has been changed. As most suspected from the beginning, there is actually a widespread deletion of conservative accounts goings on under the guise of them being QAnon related. This has supposedly hit over 70,000 accounts so far.

Let me explain how this works. Basically any small amount that propagated the idea that the election was stolen is going to be lumped in as QAnon and targeted.

I don’t believe in QAnon conspiracies. I do believe the election was stolen.

Gab CEO Pulls Off The Impossible For Trump… INCREDIBLE!

“Gab CEO completely backed up Pres. Trump’s Twitter account before it was deleted & recreated him on Gab! What’s even more impressive is he did this while traffic was up 700% & under attack..https://t.co/F3olVzPpYy

— Liberty Times & Politics #FreeSpeech (@dmills3710) January 13, 2021

There is a large segment of American society, maybe 15-20%, that has not had a president who represents their basic worldview for decades. These folks tend to be white, exurban or rural, believe in religious tradition and cultural conservatism without being regular church-goers, very patriotic, very pro-military, hostile to immigration and free trade, skeptical of big business, big government, and establishment experts, and in favor of entitlement programs and the safety net…

Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan appealed to this demographic to a large extent. Beyond that, the only major national figure I can think of in my lifetime who more or less represented them was George Wallace.

So along comes Trump who appeals to this constituency almost perfectly. Sure, he’s a rich New Yorker, but his outer-borough accent and mentality, scorned by the elite, reminds people that their own regional accents are also scorned by the elite.

This constituency used to be divided between Republicans and Democrats, which is one reason they lacked influence on presidential nominees, but they have shifted to be heavily Republican, which gave them a lot of influence on the nominating process in 2020 [I think he means 2016 here. -LP], and they chose Trump.

Trump, to almost everyone’s surprise, wins. So how do big government, big business, elite experts and so on, i.e., the establishment, react, from his fans’ perspective? Without even giving Trump a chance, they decree that he is illegitimate, that he needs to be resisted, and that his voters are beyond redemption; “this is 1932 in Germany” was not a rare reaction.

So, from these voters’ perspective, the one time in their lifetimes and much longer a president comes around who really speaks to their worldview, the establishment tries to destroy him. Rather than the anti-Trump sentiment persuading them, it makes them stronger supporters, people who see Trump as their weapon against an establishment that disparages them.

He’s more right than wrong.

pic.twitter.com/EoqNAkrPmz

— Sal the Agorist (@SallyMayweather) January 13, 2021

Someone must have pinged @HaroldFordJr during his appearance on @SpecialReport just now and told him that his Mao was showing.

Note Mao's disappearance in the second shot (right). pic.twitter.com/X94LkrUGnQ

— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) January 15, 2021

Timing is everything! pic.twitter.com/O3r1N0XhW7

— Cuomo Watch (@CuomoWatch) January 12, 2021

Funny dog. pic.twitter.com/D5sI1BgxUW

— dr.AAA (@12tmimi) January 8, 2021