Birthday Break

Tuesday, August 16, 2022 marks my 51st birthday. I am going to give myself a break from having a blog topic, one which would be appropriate for this site, for this week. A nice break. A Birthday Break.

The 2022 Midterm Elections, Three Months Out

Effective with the date of this blog topic…we are now three months from the general election of the 2022 midterm elections. They are scheduled for Tuesday, November 8, 2022. The following is my current assessment for U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. Governors.

• U.S. House: The 2022 Democrats’s backs are against the wall as the outcome for the 2020 Republicans, who lost, was 213 seats. Majority is 218. In 2020, the U.S. House Republicans lost the U.S. Popular Vote by –3.12 percentage points—an outcome of Democratic 50.81% vs. Republican 47.69%—as their U.S. Popular Vote for U.S. President was a margin of Republican –4.45/Democratic +4.45. (Joe Biden won a Democratic pickup of the presidency as he unseated Republican incumbent Donald Trump. Typically, the percentage-points margins for U.S. President vs. U.S. House run closely to each other. The spread in 2020 was 1.33 percentage points.) Pattern, specifically in midterm elections in which the White House opposition party flips the U.S. House, is this: A net gain of +3.50 to +4 seats with each percentage point nationally shifted. The 2022 Republican would win over the U.S. House with a national percentage-points margin of –1. With Joe Biden’s low job-approval numbers, this will come easily for a pickup-winning Republican Party with likelihood in their favor at the full 100 percent.

• U.S. Senate: In Year #02 of the presidencies of predecessors Donald Trump, in 2018, and Barack Obama, in 2010, the White House opposition party flipped the U.S. House but not the U.S. Senate. The 2022 Republicans should have not a problem, given the current makeup of 50-vs.-50 (current Democratic control because they are the White House party), but they do have a problem: Pennsylvania. In this Open Seat race (retiring Republican incumbent Pat Toomey), the Republican nominee Mehmet “Dr.” Oz is trailing in the polls to the Democratic lieutenant governor John Fetterman. (The Democrats also lead the polls for Governor of Pennsylvania.) If this seat flips, it would move the 2022 Democrats to an outright majority of 51 seats unless the Republicans counter-flip between Arizona (Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly) and Georgia (Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock)…with additional consideration for Nevada (Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto) and New Hampshire (Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan). Given their current 50 seats, of a necessary 51, are already 98 percent from reaching majority, the U.S. Senate should be an easy majority-control pickup for the 2022 Republicans. This is a Tossup.

• U.S. Governors: Republicans already have a majority number of governorships—28 to the 22 for the Democrats—but this is not about a states count. This is about…the majority of The People. Will more people be governed by Republicans or Democrats? It is easier to recognize this with the cumulative number of congressional districts because District of Columbia (a.k.a. Washington, D.C.) is not a state. (The U.S. House, unlike the U.S. Senate, is proportional representation.) There are 435 congressional districts throughout the nation’s 50 states. Democrats currently have majority with 226 to the 209 for the Republicans. The 2022 Democrats are favored to win pickups of both Massachusetts (retiring Republican incumbent Charlie Baker) and Maryland (term-limited Republican incumbent Larry Hogan). That would bring the Democrats to 243 to the Republicans’s 192 congressional districts. According to polls, where Republicans are favored to flip is with Kansas (Democratic incumbent Laura Kelly) and, for now, nothing else with certainty. I don’t necessarily buy into this given the general, national shift—for the 2022 midterm elections—favors the White House opposition Republican Party. A pickup of Kansas would bring the Republicans back up to 196 congressional districts. They would need additional pickup states combining for 22 more congressional districts. I consider Maine (Democratic incumbent Janet Mills) because its 2nd Congressional District—which should end up a 2022 Republican pickup for U.S. House—has realigned to the Republicans. Maine’s 2nd Congressional District was a 2016 Republican pickup for Donald Trump (who also carried it in 2020). It is approximately half the statewide vote. This generally makes the state of Maine competitive. (Due to the differences in Maine’s two congressional districts—its 1st Congressional District is home to Portland—is why Maine was the only 2020 state which did not vote for the same party to carry it for U.S. President and U.S. Senate.) Nevada (Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak) is also in play. Some think New Mexico (Democratic incumbent Michelle Lujan Grisham), which historically votes in presidential elections like Nevada, could also flip because its governor also does not have high approval. If all that were to manifest, the Republicans would be back up to 205 congressional districts. That is not enough. And this leads to the states I recognize—and had previously written and published (Election 2020’s Key Bellwethers: The Rust Belt Trio Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan)—are the current leading bellwether states. The lowest populous of the three would get the Republicans up to 213. Still not enough. So, the Republicans need to flip at least one of the two others which are Top 10 populous states. Since I do not assume the scenario I have illustrated will play out to that exact extent, the 2022 Republicans will likely need to flip both Top 10 states. That, in reality, they need all three. The 2022 Democrats currently lead the polls in both Top 10 states. I rate U.S. Governors a Democratic hold with a likelihood of 60 percent.

Noteworthy: The referenced link dates back to April 2018. And, four years later, it still applies. I may need to write and publish an update about the electoral influence of Top 10 populous states Pennsylvania and Michigan and non-Top 10 state Wisconsin. The United States presidential elections of 2016 and 2020—with both major parties having prevailed—included these three states. (They are the only ones on a streak—four consecutive cycles—and will likely carry again for the prevailing party in 2024.) The midterm elections of 2018, for overall results, included these three Rust Belt states. And, even though Michigan is not on this year’s schedule for U.S. Senate, the overall results—U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. Governors—will include the votes by the citizens in all three states. (The map for the 2022 Republicans flipping the U.S. House will likely include net gains in all three states.) In this period of U.S. history, it may be that our elections are determined by The People in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

‘The Case for Exiting the Democratic Party’

On July 1, 2022, Revolutionary Blackout’s Compton Jay live-streamed for just over two hours numerous video clips chock full of moments—information, really, which includes history—which brings light to why it is a mistake for anyone used to voting for the Democratic Party to continue doing so.

This is well-worth a given week’s blog topic. And, rather than add my two-cents, I would prefer to simply let readers of Progressives Chat view it.

Next week (Monday, August 8, 2022): “The 2022 Midterm Elections, Three Months Out”!

‘The Professional Managerial Class is Enemy #1’

Revolutionary Blackout’s Compton Jay hosted two recent and excellent livestreams which were published to YouTube on Friday, July 8, 2022 and Monday, July 11, 2022.

The first is titled “PMC, DSA, JACOBIN: Educated Elites who DON’T see the Historical Value in The Working Class.”

The second is titled “The Professional Managerial Class is Enemy #1.”

The first video has C.J. play and react to a video discussion from Jacobin. There are plenty of moments which reek of ignorance that even I, as CoolBlue71, had my fun and contributed a comment at the mark of 50 minutes.

The second video has C.J. and Nick Cruse welcome guest Catherine Liu. She is an author and cultural theorist who is also a critic, in part because she is well-aware of the history, of the professional–managerial class.

The two videos combine for just under five hours. While that is a lot of time, they are well-worthy.

Flashback 1982: ‘The Twilight’ Disaster ‘Zone’

This Saturday, July 23, 2022 marks the 40-year anniversary of the tragedy and disaster that occurred on the movie set of Twilight Zone: The Movie.

This occurred during the early-morning hours on Friday, July 23, 1982.

Actor Vic Morrow—an Emmy nominee in the 1960s for the ABC series Combat!—was killed at the age of 53, as were child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, ages 7 and 6, from a helicopter which crashed to the ground where the three were on the scene.

The particular segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, which cast Morrow, was directed by John Landis who, according to Wikipedia, “violated California's child labor laws” by hiring the young actors without “the required permits” and “for a number of labor violations connected with other people involved in the accident, which came to light afterwards.”

The shooting of the film’s scene was in the Indian Dunes in Santa Clarita, California. It was a “night scene which called for Morrow’s character to carry the two children out of a deserted village and across a shallow river while being pursued by American soldiers in a hovering helicopter.”

Video of this tragedy is in included with this blog topic. It may take some readers back in time with recalling however one felt about this back in 1982. I was 10, one month from turning 11, years old. I was too young. But, I remember my father—who turned 50 in 1982—finding this to be so outrageous and stupid and reckless. After I came to understand enough about this accident, I thought John Landis’s freedom and his career should have ended. (The next year, 1983, saw the release of his big-screen comedy, Trading Places, starring Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as the music-video of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”)

Actor Vic Morrow (1929–1982) was survived by two ex-wives, including Emmy-nominated screenwriter Barbara Turner (1936–2016), and two daughters, including Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Jason Leigh (b. 1962). 

Remembering Doris Tate

Sunday, July 10, 2022 marked the 30-year anniversary of the death of Doris Tate.

She was the mother of actress Sharon Tate.

Since I am sure Progressives Chat readers are plenty familiar with the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders, I will not write anything very specific about the details of the heinous crime that was orchestrated by cult leader Charles Manson who instructed four of his followers—Susan Atkins, Charles “Tex” Watson (b. 1945), Patricia Krenwinkel (b. 1947), and Leslie Van Houten (b. 1949)—to directly commit the murders. The victims, along with Sharon Tate, were: Jay Sebring, 35, celebrity hairstylist; Abigail Folger, 25, the coffee heiress; Wojciech Frykowski, 32, an aspiring screenwriter; and Steven Parent, 18, a friend of the grounds caretaker. The following night were the murders of husband and wife Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, the former an executive of a supermarket chain. 

The case, even though more than 50 years in age, and with Manson (1934–2017) and Atkins (1948–2009) now dead, lives in infamy. In fact, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino created an imaginative alternative—one that was controversial but critically well-received—with his 2019 Oscar-winning Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

This is about Doris Gwendolyn Tate. She was born January 16, 1924, in Houston, Texas; was married to a military husband, Paul Tate (1922–2005); and had three daughters: Sharon (1943–1969), Debra (b. 1952), and Patricia (1957–2000). Doris Tate was a woman of courage and character.

Last March, I wrote about and published Remembering the Children, which was about the 1976 to 1977 murders of four known, pre-pubescent victims of the Oakland County Child Killer (singular or plural) in Oakland County, Michigan. That case, which overlapped on the historic timeline with the “Son of Sam” killer, David Berkowitz (b. 1953), from New York City, was never officially solved. (Many, including me, think otherwise.) The Tate–LaBianca murders, by comparison to those two other cases, was solved in a relatively short time, yes, but was also a spectacle. It was sensational—and sensationalized—for its shock. It was also, for many, remote. Growing up in the 1970s, but more memorably in the 1980s, I recall other youths who were removed from this expressing a lacking in their understanding of this case, and of the horrific nature, and what a monster was Manson. Numerous actually expressed a hero-worshipping of Manson and/or perceived him a rock-star-like figure. Perhaps some had thought and felt along those lines because, in reality, they cannot and never will relate. Most people will not die, and they will not survive numerous people who died, because of murder. So, for those who have ever imagined Manson an impressive radical…they were not only mistaken but were unreal.

Doris Tate was realistic. When I look at videos of Doris Tate, I am reminded that she was focused and had fierce determination. She was lucid. She was sharp. And she was real. She had to be. Doris revealed that it took her about three years to accept what had happened to her daughter. That Sharon, who was eight months pregnant and expecting to give birth two weeks later (to a son fathered by her husband, the future Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski), was savagely murdered. That Doris had to come to terms with the details of Sharon’s murder. Doris Tate revealed that she battled depression for a number of years. While she and her husband Paul had two other daughters—Debra (who will turn 70 this November) was 16 and Patricia (who died of cancer at age 42 in 2000) was 11—Doris had to force herself to overcome.

What brought Doris Tate more to the consciousness of the American people occurred in the 1980s. While other surviving family members of those who were also murdered by those Manson Family members stayed out of the public spotlight, Doris had reason to demand attention.

While the Manson Family murderers were initially sentenced to death, after their convictions in 1971, the California Supreme Court, in California v. Anderson, temporarily abolished the death penalty in 1972. After the temporary ban, a new law did not allow the state to retroactively take those individuals who were sentenced to death, before 1972, and carry out those death sentences. This resulted in all five, including Manson, seeing their death sentences commuted to life in prison. 

In 1982, Van Houten—who participated in the murders not at the Polanski–Tate house but at the LaBianca residence—had a petition going for possible parole. This caused Doris to spring into action against not only Van Houten but particularly against the two—Atkins and Watson—she knows were most directly responsible for having murdered her daughter. Perhaps the most memorable moment occurred in 1990 when Doris confronted Watson. By that point, Watson became a priest. He was allowed conjugal visits. He was allowed to marry and produce children. When Watson was at his parole board hearing, Doris appeared and confronted him. While I wanted to embed a video showing Doris speaking out against Watson, YouTube informed me the account owner does not allow it to be embedded elsewhere. I strongly recommend viewing it. Here is its link: Tex Watson meets... Doris Tate.

Doris Tate became an activist. She joined “Parents of Murdered Children.” She helped get the Victims’ Rights Bill (Proposition 8) passed in 1982 California, allowing for the presentation of victim impact statements during sentencing.

Doris Tate’s activism—which includes being founder of COVER (Coalition on Victim’s Equal Rights)—brought more national attention to help make people more aware of how crimes of murder are destructive and devastating; that they have lasting damage.

In 1992, in her last months, she was awarded a “Thousand points of light” special honor, for citizen volunteerism in public service, by then-U.S. president George Bush. It marked Doris’s final public appearance.

After Doris’s death, her youngest daughter Patricia continued appearing at the parole board hearings of other Manson Family murderers until her death in 2000. Over the last 20-plus years, surviving Tate family member—daughter and sister—Debra has continued the battle to help make sure none of the surviving Manson Family murderers succeed at getting paroled. In May 2022, Krenwinkel won a parole recommendation. But, it is likely California governor Gavin Newsom will deny the recommendation and keep Krenwinkel behind bars. (This also previously occurred, in recent time, with Van Houten.)

The below videos are from an episode of ABC’s 20/20. They show Doris Tate visiting a prison to speak to inmates about the crime of murder and how it affects the victims’s survivors. (Side Note: There is a multi-part video published to YouTube in which Doris was interviewed by a writer. It was from 1990 and titled Doris Tate—In Her Own Words. The interviewer, the late Bill Nelson, turned out to be unsavory. It is mostly good because of what was said by Doris. I choose to not to include it.)

A Fourth of July Cooking Session

A Happy Independence Day to All…here at Progressives Chat!

This week’s blog topic will break from routine in observance of the holiday. (My area neighbors are having a good time with their fireworks. So are the…dogs.)

Given this will be a relief from political fare (although, really, there is no fully escaping politics), I decided to make this topic one which may be informative or, then again, perhaps not. (For me, it’s another form of…entertainment.)

Here with the following videos is, what I will title, A Fourth of July Cooking Session…