Pirate's Cove

It was pretty ugly.

• Islamist El-Sayed beat Rogers, but, it was a Dem hold (this is sad)
• Jackson beat Collins, Dem switch
• Andrews beat Moody in SC, that’s a big switch to Dem
• Cooper beat Whatley in NC.
• Brown over Husted in Ohio
• Turek over Hinson in Iowa
• Hamilton over Marshal in Kansas
• Talarico over Paxton in Texas (but, let’s not forget that Texas used to be rather Blue, but, not wacko Blue)
• We do not know about Alaska and Mississippi yet

Democrats picked up 7 Senate seats, and the Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and SC ones are big. Seriously, Texas? How much was the carpetbagger effect, with all those California escapees bringing their leftist politics after they let all the leftist politics? We see the same in NC and SC. And Abbott is probably going to lose the governor’s race in Texas.

Democrats picked up 30 in the House. Many were easily in play, many, like a bunch here in NC, were surprises. But, really, there are 4 reasons

1. This happens quite often during midterms
2. The carpetbagger effect
3. Trump’s tariffs. Good idea, there really should be matching tariffs on what other countries do to the US, in an attempt to lower those tariffs, but, wrong time and wrong execution. Of course, there never seems to be a right time, and rather than implement them Team Trump should have worked on negotiation, and even gotten Congress involved. As the nation was still healing from COVID economic issues, shouldn’t have happened
4. Iran. The Trump admin hit Iran, most likely thinking that it would help with the revolt and the people taking over and replacing the Islamist leaders. When that immediately looked like it wouldn’t happen they should have wrapped it up while that was still possible.

It is hilarious, though, that Democrats love them some low gas prices now, when they’ve shown they hate fossil fuels, and used high gas prices to push climate scam policies under Biden.

Let’s not forget that Obama got obliterated in the 2010 midterms. Lost 7 Senate seats, 63 House seats, 6 governors, and 20 state GAs flipped.

Of course, the GOP did not take advantage in a lot of cases. And there is a 5th reason: the GOP elites did not push hard for some races, such as Texas and SC, or even that hard in Michigan. Did you see the DNC backing off on nutjob, Jew and America hating, Islamist El-Sayed? No. They were all in. They know how to go all in no matter what.

Here in NC the Dems are going to flip the House, but, not the Senate. But, there is an interesting dichotomy

(WRAL) North Carolina voters on Tuesday approved three amendments to the state’s constitution — efforts by state lawmakers to restrict income tax rates and property tax increases, and to make it harder to change state rules on voter identification.

The amendments limit how much local leaders can raise property taxes, limit how much state leaders can raise income tax and ensure a photo ID is required for mail-in ballots. None of the amendments will change any tax rates for 2027, and a photo ID is already required for mail-in ballots under state law.

About 60% of voters approved the property tax amendment. About 62% of voters voted to approve the income tax amendment, and 60% of voters approved the voter ID amendment.

Was that a mistake about voter ID already being required for mail-in, or, a lie? Because the article goes to note later that it wasn’t required, only for in-person. Regardless, Democrats campaigned hard against all three, because they want ID-less voting and want to be able to raise taxes, especially on “the rich”.

Some opponents of the property tax and income amendments cited their potential to hamstring state and local governments’ abilities to raise revenue to cover services that the state won’t — at a time when the cost of services is rising.

Perhaps government could learn to spend what they take wisely, without all the graft, waste, and abuse. Treat it like it is their personal money and get the best value for the buck.

Supporters of the property tax amendment, including Republican lawmakers, said it would protect residents in growing areas from sticker shock when their property is reassessed and their local governments’ effective tax rates also go up.

Like when our property values went up 2.5 times post-COVID, so our property taxes jumped. This might not have passed if gov’t had said “we aren’t going to penalize you property owners for COVID increases, we’ll grandfather you in.”

North Carolina voters have now approved placing into the state constitution a cap on personal and corporate income taxes at no more than 3.5%.

It won’t change anyone’s taxes now but would effectively ban the legislature in the future from raising taxes to even the current tax rate, which is 3.99% for individuals. Some top Democrats have said they’d favor higher taxes on the wealthy, or on corporations, should they retake power in the state.

It’ll soon drop to 3.49%. Again, gov’t can learn to be responsible with the People’s Forcibly Taken Money. Anyhow, obviously GOP politicians were being punished but people also considered themselves for the ballot measures, of which the voter ID one is the one most surprises me.

To wrap up, the Republican Party leaders are idiots, and just do not know how to message well and protect their home court. We’ve seen this most of the 21st Century. Passing the big voting bill, the SAFE Act, would have fired up the Republican voters. But, nope, morons. What can Democrats do now, though? Not much. They’ll play the impeachment and investigation game, but, they do not have the votes in the Senate. Unless they want to nuke the filibuster, which would be dangerous for them when the GOP eventually retakes the Senate, none of their wacko will pass, and Trump will just veto it.

They can’t play the increase the size of the Supreme Court game, because then Trump gets to pick. None of their climate scam stuff will pass. But, they might get some lower case crazy through, because the GOP has too many squishes. Do they learn any lessons, and do the things to win in 2028?