No one said they're the smartest bunch

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Good news out of Arizona

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Let's put Mark Kelly in the Senate

Kelly has maintained a consistent polling lead over Republican Sen. Martha McSally, who was appointed to the seat held by John McCain, who died in 2018.

Because the contest is a special election to finish McCain’s term, the winner could be sworn in as soon as the results are officially certified. Other winners in the November election won’t take office until January.

[...]

If Kelly wins, the timing when he formally takes office could be crucial in determining who replaces Ginsburg. It could eliminate a Republican vote in favor of Trump’s nominee — the GOP currently has 53 seats in the 100-member chamber — or require McConnell to speed up the nomination process.

[...]

Arizona law requires election results to be officially certified on the fourth Monday after the election, which falls this year on Nov. 30. The certification could be delayed up to three days if the state has not received election results from any of the 15 counties.

[...]

“If Mark Kelly comes out on top, HE could block President Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee from being confirmed,” [McSally] wrote.

Democrats in 2018 found success in Arizona, a state long dominated by the GOP, by appealing to Republicans and independent voters disaffected with Trump. The Supreme Court vacancy could shake up the race and could boost McSally’s lagging campaign by keeping those voters in her camp.

  Stars and Stripes

Let's put Mark Kelly over the top.

I think I can see why she's down in the polls

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

*Fox News* poll

Yes.  Let's flip that Senate.

They still haven't figured it out

A group of Republican senators attempted to stop President Trump from ousting U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland this week, though the president removed the now-former diplomat from his post anyway, sources told The New York Times.

[...]

Sondland [and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman] were both key witnesses in House Democrats' impeachment hearings, but the Times says that the group of lawmakers only registered concern about Sondland's ouster, not Vindman's.

  The Hill

Do they really think they have any influence? It's laughable. They kiss his ass and then try to tell him what to do? Anyway, Sondland paid his million dollars for favor and then made the mistake of testifying against Trump. That should tell anybody what they need to know.

And why are they not trying to keep him from firing Lt. Col. Vindman and his brother? That's a much better argument.

According to the paper's sources, the group of GOP senators – Susan Collins (Maine), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Martha McSally (Ariz.) and Ron Johnson (Wisc.) – thought the ousting of Sondland would look bad, especially since he was already in talks senior officials about leaving his post after the conclusion of the Senate impeachment trial.

Oh, that's rich. Susan Collins. Trump knows exactly where all those people are. On their knees before (or maybe behind) him. And, again, Vindman had already indicated his intention to leave in short order. Why are they begging for Sondland's favor? Because he has money he might give them?

However, on Friday, State Department officials informed Sondland that he needed to resign by the end of the day.

Sondland pushed back, reportedly saying that if they wanted him gone on Friday, they would have to remove him. The president then recalled him from his post, effective immediately the newspaper reported.

So Sondland had at least a little moxie. Which is more than can be said for those four GOP clowns. They didn't even ask to talk to Trump directly.

The group conveyed its concerns to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and legislative affairs director Eric Ueland.

Who probably never even told Trump. Why bother?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Aha...

McSally Unendorsement

On this page, a few weeks before he announced it, we endorsed the idea of Gov. Ducey appointing Martha McSally to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of John McCain.

[...]

Her voting record hasn’t exactly mirrored her rhetoric when she’s here, however, such as voting with the White House to move funding from military bases, such as Fort Huachuca, in favor of building a border wall. She’s also voted in favor of cutting medical coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.

Those are policy issues with which we disagree, but disagreeing over policy is how our government should operate. We can respect someone who stays true to his or her principles, even when we disagree over policy.

And then there was last Thursday.

While walking to a conference room, McSally was asked a question by CNN reporter Manu Raju.

“Senator McSally, should the Senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial?”

McSally’s reponse was, to say the least, surprising.

“Manu, you’re a liberal hack. I’m not talking to you.”

Raju’s question was fair, given the Democrats’ push for evidence and witnesses at the impeachment trial of President Trump.

[...]

Again, it’s reasonable to disagree with policy.

What is not reasonable is name-calling like a third-grader on the playground.

McSally herself released a video one of her staffers recorded of the exchange — a recording that started well before Raju asked his question, which makes us think that McSally’s response was preplanned, no matter what Raju was going to ask.

And given that the McSally video was immediately used for fund-raising and to solicit support from the president — it did — we tend to think that was all a campaign ploy. After all, McSally is behind Democrat Mark Kelly in the polls and is lagging behind him in fund-raising, so she needs to do something.

[...]

Appealing to the hardcore 30 percent that supports Trump no matter what evidence turns up, or what even he himself says, may be her only chance for a hail-Mary win over Kelly.

[...]

We thought she was a principled person who would take a position one way or the other and stand up for what she believes is right. Not everyone would agree with whichever side she fell on, but we would respect her holding to her beliefs.

We didn’t expect her to be revealed as a political opportunist, willing to debase herself and dismiss her constituency in the dying hopes of holding on to a seat she couldn’t win on her own.

  Eastern Arizona Courier

Ouch.

Keep counting

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) widened her lead over Rep. Martha McSally (R) in the heated Arizona Senate race after a new round of ballots were tallied in the Democrat's favor late Friday. Sinema more than doubled her lead over McSally with Friday evening's latest tranche of results. The Democrat now leads her GOP challenger by 20,203 votes. Earlier Friday, Sinema led McSally by just 9,163 votes out of nearly 2 million cast — a 0.48 percentage point lead. She now leads her opponent by just over 1 percentage point.

The vast majority of the votes tallied Friday came from Maricopa County, the state's largest county, where there were an estimated 345,000 uncounted votes prior to Friday's evenings results.

[...]

The largest pool of votes likely to favor McSally come from Pinal County, where an estimated 30,000 votes remain untallied.

[...]

Friday's wave of results came the same day a settlement was reached in a Phoenix courtroom that permits rural voters to have extra time to fix issues with their ballots, according to The Associated Press.

The settlement is a compromise in response to a Republican lawsuit that sought to stop urban voters from making those changes on the ballots.

  The Hill

And if Sinema is officially named the winner, I expect to see another GOP lawsuit headed to the Supreme Court on that issue.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.