Last Call For Absolutely Tory Bull

UK Prime Minister called out the Labour party and forced new elections in order to complete Brexit, and that's exactly what the UK will get as the Tories ran rampant in Thursday's elections.

The Conservatives are set to win an overall majority of 86 in the general election, according to an exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky News.

The survey taken at UK polling stations suggests the Tories will get 368 MPs - 50 more than at the 2017 election - when all the results have been counted.

Labour would get 191, the Lib Dems 13, the Brexit Party none and the SNP 55.

The Green Party will still have one MP and Plaid Cymru will lose one seat for a total of three, the survey suggests.

The first general election results are due before midnight, with the final total expected to be known by Friday lunchtime.

In the exit poll, voters are asked to fill in a mock ballot paper as they leave the polling station indicating how they have just voted.

The exit poll was conducted by Ipsos Mori at 144 polling stations, with 22,790 interviews.

Exit polls have proved to be very accurate in recent years. In 2017 it correctly predicted a hung Parliament, with no overall winner, and in 2015 it predicted the Conservatives would be the largest party.

It's shaping up to be a bloodbath, even worse than when Theresa May won.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said if the exit poll figures are broadly correct then Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister Boris Johnson will get the backing he needs in Parliament to take the UK out of the EU next month.

It would be the biggest Conservative victory since 1987 and Labour's worst result since 1935, the poll suggests, with the party forecast to lose 71 seats.

But it will not become clear whether the exit poll is accurate until the results start rolling in during the early hours of Friday.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the government will move quickly to "get Brexit done" before Christmas by introducing legislation in Parliament, if it is returned to power.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell told the BBC the exit poll was "extremely disappointing" for Labour if it was correct.

"I thought it would be closer. I think most people thought the polls were narrowing," he added.

If these results are anywhere close to accurate, the EU will be gutted.  Brexit will almost certainly happen before the end of the year, and you can kiss the National Health Service goodbye as well.

A brutal new era of British austerity is on tap, and when it becomes painfully clear that Johnson and his party have no idea how to manage the split from Brussels, it will be shockingly ugly.

And what of Labour and Jeremy Corbyn?

He's done.  He's resigning this week.  This is the equivalent of Tulsi Gabbard winning the Democratic nomination and getting utterly smashed in 2020, with Pelosi losing the House.  The United Kingdom will not stay united much longer, I fear.  Scotland all but voted to leave the UK today as well.

Stay tuned.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Dems are getting smart, getting tough, and getting real about taking back state legislatures in 2020, finally getting their act together with a multi-state, multi-million dollar projects to flip battleground states like Michigan and NC back to blue at the local level.

Two groups, Arena and Future Now Fund, are planning to spend $7 million to try to flip GOP-controlled state legislatures in Florida, Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina.

“If you look at where the important states are, the places most people are watching are the Electoral College to secure the White House,” said Daniel Squadron, co-founder of the Future Now Fund. “But the truth is that when you talk about the impact of 2020, electoral control of the state legislatures is critical.”

The organizations said their funding represents “the largest coordinated-side commitments to date in North Carolina, Michigan and Florida for the 2020 cycle.”

Under former President Barack Obama, Democrats lost more than 1,000 state and congressional seats. The devastating losses left many Democratic activists and insiders believing that they needed to do more to focus beyond the White House.

“That’s the lesson the radical right has taught us over the last 45 years,” said Ravi Gupta, co-founder of Arena. “So much of what is going on depends on the states.”

Arena and Future Now Fund are expecting to place more than 100 staffers in the four targeted states, hold five-day training academies for 150 aides in each of them, and provide funding to candidates and related groups. Most of their funds will be raised at the grassroots level, the liberal groups said.

Leaders for the groups said they chose those four states in particular for the joint project for several reasons: They think Democrats are poised to win them back, and that each state has faced voter rights or redistricting issues, such as gerrymandering in North Carolina.

They also want to address specific issues in those places, including low teacher pay in Arizona and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. And they are looking to take power in the states ahead of redistricting following the 2020 Census. The GOP prioritized its redistricting efforts to great success after the last Census, and the two groups are looking to emulate those results.

Frankly this is a project that should have started in 2008.  And I see Michale Bloomberg and Tom Steyer having both collectively spending close to $200 million on their ego runs for President when they could have instead pitched in just half of that total and made an enormous impact for Democrats.

Of course, Steyer and Bloomberg don't really care about local Democrats, so they wont lift a finger.

I'm just sad that it took so long for Dems to get their crap together on this.

The Last Days of Bevinstan

Outgoing GOP Gov. Matt Bevin left office at midnight on Tuesday, and Gov. Andy Beshear is now chief executive of the Bluegrass state, but Bevin didn't leave without a boatload of controversial pardons.

The family of a man pardoned by Gov. Matt Bevin for a homicide and other crimes in a fatal 2014 Knox County home invasion raised $21,500 at a political fundraiser last year to retire debt from Bevin’s 2015 gubernatorial campaign.
The brother and sister-in-law of offender Patrick Brian Baker also gave $4,000 to Bevin’s campaign on the day of the fundraiser, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance database.

A photo of Bevin attending the July 26, 2018, fundraiser at the home of Eric and Kathryn Baker in Corbin was published six days later in a local paper, the News Journal.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Jackie Steele, who prosecuted Patrick Baker and other defendants for the 2014 death of Donald Mills, told The Courier Journal on Wednesday it would be an “understatement to say I am aggrieved” by Bevin’s pardon.
Steele identified Patrick Baker as the brother of Eric Baker, who hosted the Bevin fundraiser at his Corbin home.

The Friday order was one of 428 pardons and commutations Bevin issued since his narrow loss in November to Democrat Andy Beshear, who was sworn into office Tuesday.
The beneficiaries include one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.

Steele noted Baker served two years of a 19-year sentence on his conviction for reckless homicide, robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with evidence.

Steele, who, like Bevin, is a Republican, also cited the fact that two of Baker’s co-defendants are still in prison. "What makes Mr. Baker any different than the other two?" he asked.

Answering that question, he said he believes Baker was pardoned while the others remain locked up because Baker’s family has given generously to Bevin. State records show that Victoria Baker, who lives at the same Corbin address where the fundraiser was held, donated $1,000 in 2015 and that Kathryn Baker gave another $500 to Bevin’s reelection in March.

In a pardon order Friday, Bevin said Baker had made “a series of unwise decisions in his adult life” and that his drug addiction “resulted in his association with people that in turn led to his arrest, prosecution and conviction for murder.”

Bevin wrote that the evidence supporting Baker’s conviction is “sketchy at best. I am not convinced that justice has been served on the death of Donald Mills, nor am I convinced that the evidence has proven the involvement of Patrick Baker as a murderer.”

Good to know that twenty-five grand or so will get a loved one off the hook for murder in Kentucky.

Well, if you're the right kind of person, that is.

Not going to miss Matt Bevin at all.

StupidiNews!

• GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to hold a vote to acquit Donald Trump after he is impeached when a majority of senators believe the trial has "run its course".
• Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is expected to settle out of court in his sexual assault trial for $25 million.
• The House has passed a Defense Authorization Act bill that gives Donald Trump his Space Force in exchange for paid family leave for all federal workers.
• The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee has advanced a bill to put additional economic sanctions on Turkey over Ankara's military action in Yemen, the bill faces a certain Trump veto.
• Senate Judiciary lawmakers in both parties blasted Big Tech in blaming crypto tech for the rise in child pornography and demanding that companies provide access to any data with a warrant.