Zsa Zsa's leg

Yeah, this is going to get ugly... She should've retired when Obama was President and Dems had the Senate in 2013-2014

Republican megadonor and philanthropist David Koch is retiring from political activities over ill health, he is 78.

RIP.

R.I.P.

Woah. RIP.

RIP. Don't agree with his policies at all, but I disagree with the way his party treated him in his waning days even more. I do appreciate his ACA vote, he stood up, when others sat down.

RIP to the Queen of Soul. 41 years to the day after Elvis Presley passed away.

Not familiar with UK politics at all, is this true?

Very sad, but not expected. She's apparently in hospice, but as with Barbara Bush, just because you're in hospice doesn't necessarily indicate a long, drawn out battle. I wonder if she's been in hospice for a while, or just recently. When she passes, it'll easily be the biggest musical passing since Whitney or even Michael. It'll be a sad moment, especially for all of her fans like myself.

Did y'all see where he said Ireland is a part of the U.K.? As if we needed another nail in the coffin for U.S. diplomatic relations.

Oops. Forgot.

7th DDP hit for me.

Seems like Sir Creep has some competition in this thread!

John McCain. Bracknell is probably in remission.

Not an absolutely horrible pick other than his position on Presidential indictments.

Trump's new Supreme Court pick will be announced at 9 P.M. Eastern. My bet from the short list is Brett Kavanaugh, but I can see Hardiman being the pick.

Yikes. Even U.S. Media is even covering this. Shep Smith just said her leadership is hanging on by a thread. Do you guys think she'll last long enough to meet with Trump on his visit to the UK?

I really do surprise myself sometimes with how stupid I am.

To be fair, one of the plans the authorities presented was to simply let them wait possibly months with oxygen and supplies while workers found a less dangerous pathway out other than diving. I assume that's when Musk decided he had the time to create a hole? Regardless, I don't think the wait game is a viable option. Still, with a hole I'm not sure they'll be able to get out, 1km seems very high for them to be lifted out.

It's definitely possible, if not likely. If they die I'm sure it'll be from lack of oxygen or the flood from the upcoming storm. I don't think they'll be in there long enough to starve.

Divers have entered the cave for the rescue mission.

The media needs to stop covering this story 24/7 like it will have a happy ending. This is nothing like the Chilean miners incident a few years back. Trying to teach malnourished children to do some diving feats that even professionals struggle to do, let alone novices. Assuming they don't run out of oxygen, which seems to be the most likely scenario ATM, imagine the HELL that coach will go through when he returns home. I'm sure he doesn't want to leave that cave.

Woman climbs statue of liberty in a protest to abolish ICE. No wonder they'll never take us seriously. 21% support abolition of ICE, that's about half of Trump's approval rating

Definitely not a valid replacement for Pelosi when/if she finally steps down. Neither is Joe Crowley anymore . Geez. House Dem leadership is just collapsing. Pelosi's nearing 80 and has been the leader since 2003, yet the only guy willing to challenge her is Tim Ryan. We are truly living in the worst possible scenario.

Didn't want my election coverage posts to clog up the political rants thread, so I think an election coverage thread is necessary since we're in a midterm election year and Presidential candidates will begin announcing later this year and early next year. Admins feel free to merge this back to the rants thread if they feel this isn't adequate. Anyways, tonight's primary elections brought some of the usual and expected results, but in some cases, key races were completely different than what I and most political analysts expected. Ultimately, a theme I saw tonight was a rebellion on both sides against the current national and state administrations where the primaries were held, especially in states like Oklahoma and New York where the current Governors are uniquely unpopular. Let's start. South Carolina (runoff) Not many races tonight, and only one of them, the gubernatorial race, was high profile. This is because South Carolina, like multiple southern states and South Dakota, have a system where if a candidate doesn't receive over 50% of the vote, a separate election is held on a later date. The only race worth discussing is the race for Governor, where Trump-endorsed Governor Henry McMaster failed to clear 50% on June 12th, and went into a runoff with fellow Republican John Warren. This outcome was expected, but the margins were closer than expected. I assume the close result is due to McMaster not actually being elected Governor before. Despite being an incumbent, he only assumed office when Governor Nikki Haley resigned to become the U.S. Ambassador to The U.N.. McMaster, the Lieutenant Governor at the time of Haley's resignation assumed the office due to the line of succession. South Carolina Governor: GOP Primary RO 98% of precincts reporting. Henry McMaster* - 53.3% (Winner) John Warren - 46.7% Mississippi (runoff) Nothing really to see here other than the Republican runoff in the 3rd Congressional District to replace outgoing incumbent Gregg Harper, who is retiring. Because of MS-03's partisan lean, whoever won the GOP primary was almost certain to succeed Harper. Having passed through Mississippi on the drive to the beach, I can testify that Michael Guest signs were on every corner and in every small to medium sized town in MS-03. Surprised he didn't clear 50% initially. The other high profile race in MS was the Democratic runoff for the normally scheduled Senate election, between David Baria and Howard Sherman. IMO, Roger Wicker, the incumbent Republican Senator is much more safe than Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Governor Phil Bryant to replace Thad Cochran, who resigned from ill health. Mississippi Senator: DEM Primary RO 99% of precincts reporting. David Baria - 58.5% (Winner) Howard Sherman - 41.5% MS-03: GOP Primary RO Michael Guest - 65.1% (Winner) Whit Hughes - 34.9% Maryland No big federal primaries here. Chelsea Manning flopped miserably against Ben Cardin in the Democratic Senate Primary, she only got around 6% of the vote (lol). Only other important race was in the 6th District vacated by Rep. John Delaney, who retired to run for President in 2020. His likely replacement is Democrat David Trone, who won the Democratic Primary with 40% of the vote. Although, Democratic Former NAACP Chairman Ben Jealous took the Democratic nod for Governor against popular-moderate-blue-state-governor-number-35, Larry Hogan, who may be familiar to this forum for battling cancer some years ago. Maryland Governor: DEM Primary Ben Jealous - 39.8% (Winner) Rushern Baker - 29.3% Jim Shea - 8.3% Others - 22.5% Oklahoma Unlikely a Democrat will win statewide in Oklahoma, especially since the more electable Republican, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, took the lead in the GOP Primary for Governor, and I personally think he's the favorite to take the nomination now. Despite this, Oklahoma, like South Carolina and Mississippi, requires runoff elections for races where a candidate can't reach 50%. This is definitely a blow to Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb, who won't qualify for the runoff as he only made it to 3rd place. Lamb is the Lieutenant Governor under horribly unpopular Governor Mary Fallin. Oklahoma Governor: GOP Primary Mick Cornett - 29.3% (Runoff) Kevin Stitt - 24.4% (Runoff) Todd Lamb - 23.9% Others - 22.4% New York New York was a big state tonight, 3 incumbent Democrats, yes THREE were at risk of losing their House primaries, with one actually losing, one narrowly surviving, and the other winning by a small, but comfortable margin. On the Republican side, a Roy Moore magnitude disaster was avoided in the 11th District with Representative Dan Donovan defeating his predecessor and convicted felon Michael Grimm by around a 65-35 margin. The only incumbent defeated tonight, and the first Democrat of the cycle to lose renomination, was Congressman Joe Crowley, a prominent Democratic Congressman once speculated as a possible replacement for Nancy Pelosi as the House Democratic Leader. This is giving me flashbacks to tea party Republican Dave Brat's upset against House Majority Leader Eric Cantor back in 2014. Crowley's opponent who defeated him is Justice Democrat and 28-year-old first time campaigner Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'm excited to see Ocasio-Cortez enter Congress, being so far the only Justice Democrat to defeat an incumbent Congressman. NY-09: Democratic Primary Yvette Clarke* - 51.9% (Winner) Adem Bunkeddeko - 48.1% NY-12: Democratic Primary Carolyn Maloney* - 58.8% (Winner) Suraj Patel - 41.2% NY-14: Democratic Primary Joe Crowley* - 42.5% Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - 57.5% (Winner) Utah Nothing to see here in this solidly Republican and mormon state. Mitt Romney defeated a conservative challenger in his Senate race. Colorado Walker Stapleton and Jared Polis, the two favorites from the Democratic and Republican parties respectively, both won their primaries. Likely to win in November, Jared Polis will be Colorado's first gay Governor and will be one of the nation's richest Governors. In CO-06, DCCC favorite Jason Crow easily dispatched Justice Democrat Levi Tillemann despite Tillemann using the DCCC telling him to drop out so Crow could win to his advantage.