Pretty funny caption on Deadspin, beginning:
Michelle Rhee attempts thought leadership ...
Main point of the story surprised me: I did not know that there's all this hate for Kevin Johnson. (I also did not know the two were married.)
In conclusion, charter schools still seem terrible every time reality intrudes.
... progressives (the term of choice for high-maintenance liberals) ... -- TBogg
Ask someone who has the luxury of distance to gain a little perspective.
TPM:
Buyer's Remorse: Polls Show 3 New GOP Gov's Losing In Do Overs
Last year's midterms elections swept incumbents from office nationwide, as voters turned to newcomers -- often Republican newcomers -- for change.
But just months after election day, three new Midwestern governors -- Wisconsin's Scott Walker (R), Ohio's John Kasich (R), and Michigan's Rick Snyder (R) -- have seen their approval ratings fall to the point that polls show them losing hypothetical do-over elections with the candidates they beat last year. [...]
Alternet (via RM):
New Poll Shows Buyer's Remorse: GOP House Majority in Jeopardy Already
Buyer's remorse is setting in quickly, according to Democratic pollster Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.
GQR polled 50 House districts currently held by Republicans which are expected to be major Democratic targets in 2012. The results indicate that the Republican House majority is already endangered, less than three months into Speaker John Boehner's regime. [...]
WISCONSIN
A short film. Shot entirely on the top of State Street at The Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin - 2.21.11
I am catching up on past episodes of On The Media and I just listened to this six-minute segment from the 17 December 2010 show, in which Bob Garfield interviews Elizabeth Williamson of the WSJ about the story she had co-written two weeks earlier on the then-looming passage of the CALM Act:
That's the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, but you probably already figured that out. President Obama signed it into law 15 December 2010.
Apparently, it won't be enforced for another year (because commercial makers have forgotten how to turn things down?), so keep those mute buttons handy.
Being on the left means perpetual dissatisfaction, as it should be. But important for the soul to savor victories when they come.
(h/t: @digby56)
(related)
[Added] Via @OpheliaBenson, NYT story on the repeal of DADT. Also, full roll call and interactive map here.
[Added2] Runner-up for tweet of the day here.
[Added3] Also in contention:
daveweigel Party right now on John McCain's lawn! #DADT
Here is a 13-minute clip that's quite good. Probably you should not watch it if you're the sort of person who gets butthurt for being called a teabagger. Instead, just do what you always do -- skip watching it, and immediately fire off comments about how much you hate Bill Maher, because he is rude and likes to smoke pot.
Parts I liked best: how he shot down the question "is it because maybe the electorate is farther to the right than you would like them to be?" and his dismissal of the MSM's favorite fetish, Teh Independent Voters. And of course fundie-mocking is always FTW.
He's right about what we're looking for Obama to do, too. (Maybe some of this stuff is starting to get through to the White House?)
(h/t: Twin)
A better headline than I've seen in a while:
A rare instance of incomplete capitulation is the new defiant!
Over on Fred Hiatt's WaPoo op-ed page, they take a quick break from global warming denialism, Krauthammer warporn, and whatever you call that stuff Richard Cohen dribbles out to run a piece by two "Democrats" insisting that if Obama were to pledge right now to be a one-term preznit, "it would grant him much greater leverage with Republicans" and besides, this is "The only way" he can "lead."
Really, the only thing to do in a situation like this is to refer you to Tintin.
Who knew it was possible that anyone could write a worse op-ed than Evan Bayh? (Anyone not admitting to being a Republican, I mean.)
Of course, I say that, and I've probably just guaranteed that Joe Lieberman will be up tomorrow.
A nice line, in and of itself, separate from its context, on the SCLM:
Meanwhile, feckless Democrats continue to act as if they're waiting for the so-called mainstream media to save them: the same worthies that gave us eight years of bogus Clinton scandals, sold Saddam Hussein's imaginary WMD like breakfast cereal, championed invading Iraq as if it were the world's biggest Boy Scout Jamboree, then reacted with horror last year when the Obama White House suggested that Fox News might not be a proper news organization.
I just happened across a reference on Down With Tyranny to Rick Perlstein.
Great line:
When one side breaks the social contract, and the other side makes a virtue of never calling them out on it, the liar always wins. When it becomes 'uncivil' to call out liars, lying becomes free.
Say it again:
When one side breaks the social contract, and the other side makes a virtue of never calling them out on it, the liar always wins. When it becomes 'uncivil' to call out liars, lying becomes free.
Read Rick's piece "How Obama Enables Rush."
(x-posted)
Except for my usual emotional plea of "sure it's only a choice of the lesser of two evils, but less evil is still less evil," I am unable to rebut any of D2's argument.
Given that the Senate did not come out as bad as it seemed like it might, I can only say that I am glad I did not happen across it before the election.
Someday I will belong to a party that thinks paying attention to its (ostensible) base is worth doing on a consistent basis. After the Rapture, most likely.
On the other hand, there is Timothy Egan's "How Obama Saved Capitalism and Lost the Midterms," which if you haven't already heard from me through other channels that you should read, you should.
So ... when do the impeachment hearings start? That seemed to work surprisingly well for the forces of rationality last time.
Yes, you don't like your choices, and yes, you're mad about not having gotten everything you wanted over the past couple of years. But you still do have a choice, and here's a stark illustration of how significant it is:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has to be smiling. With one exception, none of the Republicans running for the Senate — including the 20 or so with a serious chance of winning — accept the scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for global warming.
The candidates are not simply rejecting solutions, like putting a price on carbon, though these, too, are demonized. They are re-running the strategy of denial perfected by Mr. Cheney a decade ago, repudiating years of peer-reviewed findings about global warming and creating an alternative reality in which climate change is a hoax or conspiracy.
[...]
Nowadays, it is almost impossible to recall that in 2000, George W. Bush promised to cap carbon dioxide, encouraging some to believe that he would break through the partisan divide on global warming. Until the end of the 1990s, Republicans could be counted on to join bipartisan solutions to environmental problems. Now they’ve disappeared in a fog of disinformation, an entire political party parroting the Cheney line.
To go to Tarryl Clark, that is.
Excerpt:
It's embarrassing to me and a great many Minnesotans that Michele Bachmann, a politician who is so busy grandstanding and giving interviews on Fox News that she doesn't have time to serve the people who elected her, represents the 6th District in Washington.
Minnesota's 6th District has some of the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the state, but in an interview with the St. Cloud Times, Congresswoman Bachmann was unable to name any "substantive" legislation she had passed.
[...]
P.S. Instead of working to solve problems, Bachmann talks about us as a "nation of slaves" and about the need for smaller government even though she knows better - the biggest part of big government is military spending, Social Security, and Medicare. Which would she do away with? Bachmann's so-called policies are just the old Bush economics that Alan Greenspan characterized as "disastrous." Help Tarryl defeat her by donating today.
Email beginning:
In the face of fierce opposition from the special interests, the House of Representatives passed the DISCLOSE Act earlier this year. This act will shine a light on political expenditures and ensure that shadowy special interests, sham organizations, and dummy corporations cannot mislead voters. I was proud to be the lead sponsor of this important legislation.
We need more people in Congress who are willing to stand up to the special interests rather than with them, and that's why I'm also proud to support Tarryl Clark.
I hope I can count on you to do whatever you can to help her win in November.
Tarryl's opponent took big money from Wall Street then voted against financial reform that will hold the industry accountable; she took hundreds of thousands from big insurance companies and then voted to let them continue to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.
And when it came to the DISCLOSE Act, Tarryl's opponent once again sided with the special interests who seek to influence our elections.
And ending:
P.S. - As you know, Tarryl has raised more money than virtually any other Congressional challenger in the country, but her opponent continues to rake in the cash from her special interest allies and ultra right-wing national base. Help Tarryl grow her grassroots support with a donation today!
Tarryl Clark's opponent, as you may or may not already know, pictured to the right:
We almost got her out last time. Let's do it this time.
When I first saw this Newell post, "Will Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Rallies Hurt Democrats' Election Chances?," I was all set to piss and moan about the Democratic circular firing squad, why Newell should never have left Wonkette, etc.
But a closer read, not to mention clicking the rePubOLITICO link within, indicates it's more like Ben Smith woke up this morning and asked himself, as he does every morning, "What can I write about that is Bad News For Democrats™?" And thus, he went through his iPhone RolodexApp and kept asking people, "How is this day of fun that might actually get few hundred thousand libs interested in doing something useful, like voting, actually the worst thing in the world, for Democrats?" And a couple of saps -- yeah, looking at you, Chris Hayes -- answered him, and clickety-clickety, Ben Smith Won The Morning™! (= got a Drudge link.)
Stop taking Ben Smith's phone calls, everybody. He is part of the problem.
Politico: Unnamed Politico Source Disagrees With Unnamed NYT Sources
It's a very good post, too.
Especially the parts about the invertebrate Dems.
But I repeat myself.
Moar thirty-second spots like this, plz:
Swiped from Digby, via @msubject2change.
See more from the producers: BlueAmericaPac's YouTube channel. And be sure to visit the Blue America website.
