Good News. Kentucky re-elected Democratic governor. Virginia flipped house of delegates to Democrats, gaining complete control of state legislature.
Kentucky shows is that even in red states, Democrats have the numbers. This shows how critical showing up and voting is.
GOP/Republicans bad for climate change. They deny it, say it isn't humans, etc. Democrats at least acknowledge we need to do something.
For those outside the US, we have first past the post voting, which inevitably leads to two political parties.
State governments hold a lot of power. They are almost completely over sovereign with certain restrictions and reservations of power by our federal government.
GOP (aka Republicans) = Right to far right. I.e. libertarian, fascist, conservative, Christian nationalist.
Democrat = center right to far left. I.e. conservative, progressive, socialist, neoliberal
Democrats have greater numbers by a good margin, but have lower voter turnout and are disenfranchised electorial due to gerrymandering.
They get paid 274k...DC is expensive, but anyone that can't live very comfortably on that is awful with money. Being awful with money will lose you a TS clearance because it makes you susceptible to bribery by spies. I would think it would also be a disqualifier for a SCOTUS judge for the same reason.
I think maintaining a TS clearance should be a requirement for all positions above a certain level in the federal government. Not because they need access to TS information, but to ensure they are at a lower risk of bribery, adversarial interests, and criminal activity. Getting a TS clearance isn't terribly hard. Just generally have your act together. As long as you aren't a train wreck, a drug addict, a criminal, an untrustworthy asshat, or have connections to adversaries, you will pass adjudication. TLDR: A TS clearance would ensure high level government employees are minimumly functional humans.