Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Come on, man.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Republicans in disarray!

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

In my day, never was longer.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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Archives for 2009

A Question

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Ever, in the history of the country, have state Governor’s races not even in a midterm election year, but one year into an administration, been portrayed as a referendum on the President. And this is ignoring the fact that the two Democrats running for national office both won, one of which in a seat that has been in Republican hands for a century and a half, giving national Democrats one more seat than they had yesterday.

Could Chuck Todd explain to me how many votes in Congress for health care reform Chris Christie and McDonnell have? Our media is just hopeless.

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Early Morning Schadenfreude

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So, to review, the wingnuts took a seat that would have been a win for the Republicans, so much so that the seat had not gone to a Democrat since Reconstruction and the Democratic candidates had been getting about 35% of the vote the last few elections, ran the Republican out of the race, brought their own special kind of crazy to town, and the voters rejected them handily.

Even I didn’t expect Owens to win. I seriously hope they pursue this strategy nationwide.

In other news, a Goldman employee has finally lost a job, with Corzine out in NJ. I know nothing about the election there, nor the one in Virginia, but I do know that Terry McAuliffe is not Governor. That is a good thing.

The only really bad thing is the repeal of the gay marriage law in Maine. Other than that, I’d be hard pressed to draw any conclusions from yesterday other than that Sarah Palin is still a loser. I’m sure that won’t stop the right-wing hacks from claiming this has been a bad result for Obama, but let’s face it- everything is good news for Republicans.

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Crist, you know it ain’t easy

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Erick Erickson:

The race has now been called for Democrat Bill Owens.

This is a huge win for conservatives.

[….]

I have said all along that the goal of activists must be to defeat Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the establishment backed GOP candidate.

[….]

For all intents and purposes, NY-23 is a trial run for Florida. And in Florida, the conservative candidate is operating inside the GOP. If John Cornyn and the NRSC do not want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, they better stand down.

How much more of Erickson’s bullshit is the Republican party going to take? The guy is quoted in Politico every freaking day now. Okay, so are Lanny Davis and Doug Schoen, so maybe that’s a bad example. But you see what I mean, right?

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We are all David Broder now

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It looks like the tea bagger lost in NY-23. And you know what happened in the other two races.

There’s not much of a lesson to be learned from a bunch of low turn-out races in an odd year. But if you didn’t already know that running to the center in a state your party lost last time (I’m referring to McDonnell in VA) is smart and running to the far right in a swing district (NY-23) is dumb, this is more evidence.

There was a period under Bush where it became accepted wisdom that Bush had “won the center by moving to the right” (this is pretty close to a verbatim quote from Howard Fineman). I think that era is over.

Update. I am now putting all posts in the category “Good News For Conservatives”, btw.

Update update. Also consider this a late-night open thread.

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The real bellweather bellwether

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As goes the special election in Michigan’s 19th State Senatorial district, so goes the nation.

I remember talking to voters in this district back in 1980, with Jack Germonde and R. W. Apple, at an old diner that only served coffee, donuts, and burgers. You could tell something was in the air. You could tell the Reagan revolution was coming. People were angry. Regular people, gritty people, blue-collar workers with plastic crucifixes on their dashboards.

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Oceans apart

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I found this story to be interesting (and, for me, local):

U. ROCHESTER—In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.

Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world’s oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea.

The new study, published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that the highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of little by little as has been predominantly believed. In addition, such sudden large-scale events on land pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events, says Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester and coauthor of the study.

It brings up a couple points:

  • Does the fact that this is happening so quickly make the theory of plate tectonics more believable to young earthers?
  • Thank God this wasn’t Kenya or they’d be looking for a birth certificate in there.

Update. This is good news for conservatives.

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