Readers may recall Adam Conover as the genial host of the TV series Adam Ruins Everything where in each episode he debunks popular myths and misconceptions. In one episode on the myths about the Copernican revolution, he used my research into that topic to make his case.

In a new podcast, he channels Jonathan Pie to deliver a blistering attack on Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Bankman-Fried (the founder of the now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX). He discusses the failures of these so-called geniuses and says that they represent much that is wrong with our society, that we tend to uncritically accept the grandiose claims of people with ordinary abilities. He says that there are many people who are frauds like these three, privileged and incompetent, children of wealthy parents who attended Ivy league schools and claim to be able to change the world, when they are merely people who just got lucky at one point in their lives and then were able to fool enough people to buy their bullshit and get fawning coverage from the media and the moneyed classes.

One of the last races for the House of Representatives has been called, that for the single congressional seat in Alaska. Democrat Mary Peltola beat Sarah Palin by 55% to 45%, a larger margin than the 3% margin in the special election held in August. Alaskan elections have an open primary in which people of all parties compete and the top four then move on the general election which is decided by ranked-choice voting of the four candidates. Peltola came close to getting 49% of first preference votes and thus would still have won if the election were decided by a plurality. The details of how the preferential votes were cast can be seen here.
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Once control of the US Senate had been decided in favor of Democrats with the win by Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada that gave them a 50-49 edge, interest in the Georgia run-off election between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and the batty Republican Herschel Walker dropped precipitously. If the Georgia race were still pivotal to control of the Senate, we would have had wall-to-wall coverage. Instead, now one has to seek out news about it.

But we should not think that this makes the race inconsequential. As this article explains, in practical terms there is a big difference between a 51-49 Democratic majority and a 50-50 tied body in which the vice-president breaks the tie in favor of the Democrats.

A 51-49 Senate would give Democrats an outright majority, meaning that [majority leader Chuck] Schumer wouldn’t have to negotiate a power-sharing agreement with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The two parties had to do that two years ago and also in 2001, the last time the Senate was evenly split.

In early 2021, confirmations of new President Joe Biden’s nominees were stalled for several weeks while Schumer and McConnell worked out an agreement on how to split committees and move legislation on the Senate floor. Using the little leverage he had, McConnell threatened not to finalize a deal until Democrats promised that they wouldn’t try to kill the legislative filibuster that forces a 60-vote threshold.
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One of the first things that Republicans are likely to do after they take control of the House of Representatives on January 3rd is to launch investigations into Joe Biden’s son Hunter and whether he used his father’s name and influence in some shady dealings. There is a laptop involved that purportedly has evidence of this. It is being portrayed as either a storm in a teacup or a big deal. These hearings are going to be a rerun of the notorious Benghazi hearings from 2014 to 2016.
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In Arizona, Republicans Kari Lake lost her governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Blake Master lost his senate race to Mark Kelly. Both are ardent Trumpists and as true devotees are now, of course, claiming the election was stolen from them. Lake is refusing to concede but Masters had previously conceded the race.

But in a race for the Arizona state House of representatives, a Republican who won has decided to take an even stronger stand.

In Arizona, Republican Liz Harris won her race for a seat in the state’s House of Representatives – but has pledged not to cast any votes until the entire 2022 election is redone, 12News reports.

“Although I stand to win my Legislative District race it has become obvious that we need to hold a new election immediately. There are clear signs of foul play from machine malfunctions, chain of custody issues and just blatant mathematical impossibilities. How can a Republican State Treasurer receive more votes than a Republican Gubernatorial or Senate candidate?” Harris wrote in a statement.

I have an answer! Maybe people liked the state treasurer more than they liked the gubernatorial and senate candidates? After all, they are separate votes, no?

There is no way that there is going to be a do-over for all the races in Arizona so I wonder how long Harris will stick to her guns, since the above article says,”If Harris follows through on the threat, it could cause some serious problems for her Republican colleagues. They control the Arizona House, but only by two votes.”