By Richard Reeves It may not get much done, but the first session of the 112th Congress, convening in January, will be fun to watch. Related Entries November 3, 2010 Moore: 1, Berlusconi: 0 October 26, 2010 ‘Fable III’ Gives Gamers Gay-for-Play Options
Continue reading …The columnist and radio host, who appears on this site every week, has issued a salty rant over the conservative Democrats and pundits who are already blaming liberals for their party’s losses. If you’re a progressive and find yourself frustrated by the election, be sure to read Sirota’s entire post for cathartic release. In the excerpt below, he explains what, in his view, really happened. David Sirota via Open Left: The facts are painfully apparent. Though hundreds – if not thousands – of people in D.C. are professionally paid to pretend these facts require debate and analysis and parsing and speculation and press releases and pithy Tweets and Sunday Show roundtables and C-SPAN symposia and to-camera cable-TV rants and lengthy thousand-page books, they don’t require any of that. They are simple. They are obvious. They are undeniable: 1. The Democratic Party shit on its base with its policies, as noted above. 2. This demoralized the Democratic base, which responded by not turning out to vote. As CBS News notes, “Hispanics, African Americans, union members and young people were among the many core Democratic groups that turned out in large numbers in the 2008 elections (but) turnout among these groups dropped off substantially, even below their previous midterm levels.” 3. In cause-and-effect style, the result of all this was, as the Washington Post reports, a freshman congressional class that is primarily made up of angry, white, lunatic-conservative assholes. So yes, all of you who are wasting all of our time pretending this isn’t the basic point-A-to-point-B story of the election – and there are a lot of you out there – please, if not for me, then for everyone else: Go fuck yourself. Read more Related Entries November 3, 2010 Blue Dogs Get Taken to the Pound November 3, 2010 Rich Media, Poor Democracy
Continue reading …Getting shellacked in the midterm elections has evidently motivated President Barack Obama to consider his strategy for the next two years, and he’s taking the bold new step of—wait for it—arranging a group huddle with eight big players from the two dominant parties. Sigh.
Continue reading …By Mr. Fish Related Entries November 3, 2010 Blue Dogs Get Taken to the Pound November 3, 2010 Rich Media, Poor Democracy
Continue reading …By Mike Luckovich Related Entries November 3, 2010 Blue Dogs Get Taken to the Pound November 3, 2010 Rich Media, Poor Democracy
Continue reading …At the top of Wednesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric worried: “Can the President and the new speaker find common ground or are we headed for gridlock?” Moments later, she made it clear who would be to blame: “And while the President spoke of seeking common ground with the new majority, presumptive Speaker John Boehner said the GOP victory is a rejection of the Obama agenda.” Later, Couric continued to preemptively blame Republicans for any government stalemate: “We were initially hearing a lot of talk about cooperation and bipartisanship, but it seemed as if, at least the Republicans, in particular, really dug in their heels today and we were hearing a very different tone.” She turned to political correspondent Jeff Greenfield and wondered: “Is compromise unlikely at this point?” read more
Continue reading …On Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith saw Republican goals to limit government spending as antithetical to improving the economy: “How do you unleash the economy and not spend any money, oh, by the way, because that's the other mandate, is don't increase the deficit and don't – don't – 'I don't want one more cent of tax on me.'” Smith put the question to Time magazine Washington deputy bureau chief Michael Crowley, who was equally skeptical: “I think it may be impossible, frankly. What Democrats would like to do is they would say you actually have to spend more money, have the government put money into the economy to get it moving again.” He warned against conservative policies: “Republicans say we're spending too much, maybe cut taxes, but tax cuts aren't free, either, tax cuts increase the deficit. Maybe you could loosen regulations but you saw what happened on Wall Street when things were deregulated. It's really not as simple at this point as doing any of those things without taking a big risk that comes along with it.” read more
Continue reading …James Carville on Thursday appeared on Good Morning America to discuss Tuesday's Republican landslide, but faced no questions about his erroneous prediction that Democrats would enjoy 40 years of dominance. On May 4, 2009, Carville stopped by GMA to tout 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation, his book on the subject. An ABC Graphic hyped, “Democrats 1932-1968, Republicans 1968-2008, Democrats 2008-2048? ” In light of massive GOP victories, Stephanopoulos also could have questioned his friend about
Continue reading …“This is the type of direct democracy people say they want. Sometimes you wonder,” MSNBC's Chuck Todd editorialized after a segment about conservative ballot initiatives that passed into law on Tuesday. Towards the bottom of the 9 a.m. EDT hour of “The Daily Rundown,” reporter Mara Schiavocampo looked at a handful of state ballot initiatives that voters had considered at the polls on Tuesday. Aside from Proposition 19 — the marijuana legalization measure which was rejected by California voters — Schiavocampo noted two conservative ballot questions that passed in Oklahoma: a measure declaring English the official language of the Sooner State and a measure forbidding consideration of Islamic sharia law or international law in rulings made by Oklahoma state judges. Schiavocampo insisted that “critics” — whom she failed to name — dismissed the ballot questions as “cultural wedge issues that were designed to bring conservatives to the polls.” [Video after page break] read more
Continue reading …The Internet is abuzz with reports (and rumors) concerning Harry Reid’s successful attempt to steal Nevada from Sharron Angle. Reid, the re-elected.
Continue reading …