So Trump is planning his first campaign rally for Waco on thirtieth anniversary of the siege where a cult leader challenged the authority of the federal government and threatened violence. — Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) March 18, 2023
Water. As I’ve said for many years. The world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40 percent by the end of this decade, experts have said on the eve of a crucial UN water summit. I’ll use the US as an example, though this going to effect almost all countries, some much worse than others, and it wi […]
We were very warm last night. The oak logs were seasoned to perfection as advertised and burned brightly. But we still don’t have power and the school called again today to say that there would be no school on Monday either, which doesn’t sound good. I don’t know how they’re planning to pull off an election because my polling station is in a catholic church that’s smack dab in the middle of the worst hit area in my township, surrounded by fallen power lines.
Putting on my tinfoil antenna, what is the likelihood that the precincts that get power last are heavily Republican?
The municipal library has wifi but I went there today and the connection was so slow that it took me 15 minutes to log into WordPress. They were only staying open until 5 anyway. Normally, they stay open until 9:30pm but promptly at 4:40pm, the librarian started nagging everyone to wrap it up. I was in the middle of processing a video but I bagged it. I have a lot of video and pictures to upload but with the data plan ceiling in my iPad and no wifi to upload, I’m not sure how I’m going to post them. With everyone in the immediate area desperate for a data hit, the few places with a good connection are overwhelmed. We tried Panera today but they’re only serving pasties and coffee and no wifi. Wegmans is generously offering free charging but the wifi was jammed. If I get to starbucks early tomorrow, maybe there’s a chance.
I am being taught Japanese without my consent. Shoot me now.
So, I was going to talk a little bit about infrastructure. You don’t realize how bad American infrastructure is until you meet a visitor from Germany in the gas line saying, “This is incredible. I can’t believe how bad this is. Four days without electricity and everyone is cold!”.
It’s embarrassing.
Beside the antiquated rail system with its switching system that in the best of times failed on a regular basis (never try to make a matinee in NYC via NJ Transit during a rainstorm) to the levee system that dates back to King George III to the miles and miles of overhead power lines, it looks as if the northeast is in a time warp. I’ve always wondered why the cell service was so bad here. This state was the birth place of the telecomm industry and AT&T used to be a big employer here 20 years ago. But even when the weather is great, cell service is horrible with many dropped calls and dead zones. And somewhere in the Rocky Hill area just north of Princeton, there is a no man’s land where cell service drops off to nothing. In my office in my lab building, I was able to get t-mobile data but not voice, Verizon voice but not data and nothing from AT&T even though the AT&T building about a mile up the street was bought by my company and supposedly, the most sophisticated networking system to that date had been installed in the area. It didn’t matter. I used to have to stand in the parking lot to make personal phone calls.
About the time I was laid off, the good citizens of Bridgewater were fighting the installation of a new cell tower near the fire department. It was going to be aesthetically disguised and would have provided much needed service to the area but the local burghers were having none of it. I’m betting they’re kicking themselves this week.
My development was built in 1986 and all of the utilities are buried but the way the power gets into this development is thru the old power lines and right now, there are big, heavy trees leaning in them or those trees have already taken them down. The utilities whine that to bury them all would cost about $1M per mile and that cost would be passed on to customers.
Why is that? What did we get for the money we sent to the federal government? We gave the banks access to all of our money and what did we get in return but a bunch of selfish pricks buying the media and telling us we expect too much in our old age. The money would be better invested in infrastructure. I can’t imagine South Korea putting up with this kind of broadband service. Just think, if the power, broadband and cell had recovered quickly, the frenzy over gas wouldn’t have been so severe. Most of us could have easily worked from home. But since that was impossible and getting paid meant being present, we had millions of people frantic to get to work this week in any way possible.
As for NYC, I feel for the people stuck in high rises without water or light. It’s amazing to me that just 30 blocks north, the city is acting like nothing’s wrong except the Metro is broken in places. But gosh darn it, isn’t it great that Wall Street isn’t inconvenienced and the NYC marathon proceeds as scheduled. It’s good for business, Mike Bloomberg says. Yes, we must all sacrifice on the altar of business.
For some reason, I just can’t see Rudy Giuliani reacting like that to a disaster of this magnitude. Rudy was an authoritarian jerk but the whole city pulled together. In this disaster, the tenants of lower Manhattan are left to fend for themselves while the show must go on in Times Square.
And the suburbanites of New Jersey become urban campers, hemmed in by dangerous fallen power lines and no gas, all because it’s more important to bailout the bankers than bury the power lines. What a waste of money and productivity.
And cancer research takes another blow. I followed this link that jay ackroyd posted at eschaton about the years of work, genetically modified mice and tissue samples that were lost at NYU during the storm. That must be heartbreaking and frustrating for the researchers. I know that my lab partners and I panicked when one of our freezers housing hundreds of protein crystals failed one evening and we scrambled to relocate them as quickly as possible to other buildings. It just occurred to me that the few pharma research labs all over NJ must have been facing the same thing. Meanwhile, one of the heads of the labs is trying to do his work remotely using intermittent wifi access in coffee shops and McDonald’s.
This storm is going to cost the region $50 billion. It’s going to set cancer research back by years. But heaven forbid we force bankers to cut back on bonuses or suffer any losses for the reckless bets they made four years ago so that we can invest in infrastructure. The self identified and mislabeled “job creators” are global now and have moved on from America. As far as they’re concerned, the northeast is Bangladesh and no longer worth the investment. We gave them access to the safe, they took the money and ran.
Update: I just got a message from the school district. Not only will schools be closed, the after school programs that were supposed to be providing extended care for half days that were originally scheduled next week are also canceled. That means a lot of parents are going to be scrambling for child care next week when they need to go back to work.
One other thing, Brooke says she saw the national guard today driving a little convoy of trucks marked “flammable”. I guess it really is that bad. The NYTimes confirms that Brooke wasn’t just seeing things. The pentagon is mobilizing the army to deliver fuel. Also, reader Gayle reports that the NYC marathon is off. It’s on front page of the NYTimes as well.
Update II: I just got a message from AT&T. “In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, we are closely monitoring our network for service disruptions. Our crews are working around the clock to restore service to impacted areas. Please stay safe and thank you for your patience. Sincerely, AT&T.”
Well, that’s nice. It only took them 4 days.
Still no message about them lifting the data plan limits in impacted areas. Do they know that NJ has an unemployment rate above 10% and that maintaining these plans is expensive? I can just imagine a bunch of AT&T executives in a room carefully balancing how little to give way to FEMA before they have to start answering to the shareholders. “let’s send a note. That should do it.”.
It won’t die because troublemakers like the Chris Cilizza at the Washington Post keep bringing it up.
I guess the expectation setting that reporters and party leaders tried recently that if we just let Barack win this year, we’ll get to vote for Hillary in 2016 wasn’t working, especially with women in full panic and fury mode. We could almost hear Pelosi’s syrupy voice saying, “And won’t that be nice for all you ladies? Here’s a biscuit, {{pat, pat on head}}, now go take an old, cold tater and wait.”
To which I say, “Ok, then I’ll skip voting for president this election cycle and wait. You sound so SURE that she’s going to run. I wouldn’t do it in 2016 if I were her. I mean, if she ran in 2012, it would be like running for her second term but in 2016? Ehhhh, I’m just not diggin’ it. She’ll be 68, not that it’s old but at some point, you have to retire just to get a nice afternoon nap once in awhile. And by then, the new generation of voters will not remember the Clinton years. She’ll be like Andropov or Chernyenko, who they also probably don’t remember. So, you know, I’m a skeptic about 2016 but if Nancy says it’s true and she’s not just pacifying us, thinking we’re too stupid or naive to figure things out, well, ok, I’ll call her bluff and wait until 2016 because there is no f^&*ing way I am going to vote for that misogynist in the White House. Nah-gah-happen.”
But there’s a bigger reason why I doubt you could make her take the VP slot in 2012. I don’t think she wants it. And I don’t think she wanted it in 2008, which is probably why she made the pre-emptive move and asked for State first. I’m guessing that Joe Biden was destined for State but the positions got flipped.
And why would she want to pass on VP? Biden, who?? What has he done in the past 4 years? Sure, there may be some women who temporarily (because we would quickly set them straight) might fall for the Hillary as VP gambit as being a big win for women. But as VP, she’s going to be deep-sixed. Unless she rings some concessions from the party and Obama, she will be treated like an ornament, brought out like some shiny, mesmerizing object whenever Obama needs to silence the grumbling of dissatisfied women. Why the hell would she ever sign on to something so utterly beneath her formidable talents and contrary to her personal convictions?
So, if the Washington Post wants to continue playing this game, go right ahead. What it is REALLY saying is that the Republicans have analysed the electorate pretty well, are going to divide and conquer the women’s vote and Obama will start to see his re-election chances slipping away because women are not united for the Democratic party. Thanks for confirming that.
Of course, the party could always go bold and swap out Obama for Hillary. The Republicans have analysed this too. They’re probably guessing that the Democrats don’t have the cojones to do it. So, they’re going to try to win by the skin of their teeth than make a bold move. That means they’re going to pander to every group imaginable and go with no particular Democratic platform in particular. Whisper sweet nothings in the ears of each constituency and hope they don’t compare notes before the election.
And that, dear friends, is the end of the Democratic party as we have known it. They have just mutated themselves out of existence.
Have I got that right? My record has been pretty good in the last 4 years so…
According to Gallup, 47 percent of voters polled are backing Romney, compared to 45 percent who prefer Obama. That’s well within the poll’s margin of error, which is plus or minus 3 percent.
While both men are doing well within their respective parties, the most notable finding came among self-described independents, a swing voting bloc that could very well determine the outcome of this fall’s election. According to Gallup, Romney leads Obama among indie voters by 6 points, 45 percent to 39 percent.
If I might venture a guess, I might imagine, hypothetically, that the “indie” voters are actually former Democratic working class women of a certain age that Obama and the Democrats blew off in 2008. Some of those women went to the right or ended up supporting Sarah Palin. They’re probably more interested in economic issues than birth control and life is about to get a lot tougher on them this summer when gas prices skyrocket.
The Obama 2008 campaign certainly brought out the best in Americans didn't it?
Update from Ugsome:“The way I look at it, the Democrats are so far to the right on women’s issues that the only way the GOP can differentiate itself is with witch burnings and scarlet letters.”
There’s more than a kernel of truth in that sentiment.
r u reddy pointed me to this article in the NYTimes that describes how Obama’s campaign was going to roll out it’s initiative to sweet talk women on March 23 but Rush Limbaugh’s timely little Slutgate rants made them move up their timetable. Why waste this golden opportunity? Obama and Jon Favreau must be peeing themselves over this. They don’t have to do anything for women, not even make any particularly strong statements. All they have to do is open their arms and say, “Come to papa, we understand.”
By the way, has anyone seen this video of the Obama Staff inaugural ball from January 21, 2009? You know, the one where JZ and the staffers sang “I’ve got 99 problems but a bush ain’t one”? Yeah, no double entendre there. The bitch version used to be one of Obama’s traveling campaign theme songs during the primaries. You know, the primaries against his opponent who happened to be a bitch or a sweetie or a honey or some other stupid word:
As Ugsome says, “Cynical. If he’d done squat for women’s rights he wouldn’t have to focus his tender attentions like this.”
Let’s put it this way, the Republicans wouldn’t have turned up the crazy like this if they didn’t sense some weakness in the Democrats on the issue of women. And that weakness goes back to 2008.
All you’re going to get from the Democrats is cynical game playing in an election year. Remember, these are the people who used misogynism against not one but two female politicians in 2008. They know that if Obama has to make a choice, he will sacrifice women to get the evangelical vote.
Don’t think we’re not watching, Democrats. Democratic congresswoman, Chellie Pingree, in Maine wanted to run for Olympia Snowe’s Senate seat but decided against it when a former governor who is running as an independent got the backing of the Democrats. If that slap in the face doesn’t get your attention, nothing will. Even the excuse she was forced to give for the betrayal by the Democrats makes no damned sense because if Olympia Snowe had not decided to resign, she would have been a sure vote for the Republicans when it comes to Supreme Court nominations. So even if Pingree had lost, there would have been no net change in votes. In other words, Chellie Pingree was guilted into leaving the Senate race because the whole responsibility for future Supreme Court nutcases was going to be on her head if she lost to a Republican. Does anyone really believe this steaming pile of horsesh*$? If Obama and the Democrats really wanted to reach out to women for their votes this year, the disaster in Maine was not a good start.
Well, I’m just a single voice in the wilderness and the rest of the women in the left blogosphere are too afraid to challenge their brethren about Obama. The guys will pull the same guilt trip on them and they’ll hold back, the chickenshits. But let me just tell them now that they are going to be responsible for what happens to women if they don’t speak out and demand something from Obama and the Democrats right now, *before* the election. If you make it easy for him, he will owe you nothing. This is a good time to test the commitment of your male blogger colleagues. Either they are with women or they aren’t. Demand that Obama come out and declare his unequivocal support for women to make their own choices without any patronizing language. Demand that he risk pissing off the religious. Demand that he tell extremists where to shove it. Demand that he enthusiastically support women’s equality and reproductive rights. Make him promise that he will put the full force of his office behind enforcement of those rights. Make him get rid of the conscience rule right this minute. And make him swear in public that he will never, ever again cut a deal with any politician to sacrifice women’s rights in order to pass a piece of legislation.
If you can’t make him do those things, then he doesn’t deserve your support. He is either with 53% of the American public or he isn’t. He either needs you and will do everything he can to get you or he’s no good, he’s no good, he’s no good, baby, he’s no good.
And he’s also down in the polls. His approval rating has dropped steeply since last month from 50% to 41%. It’s supposedly due to gas prices but there are also intimations that the public isn’t buying all the rah-rah over the economy. They don’t believe it’s getting better. I’m with them on that. Women are also among the chronically unemployed and they are watching. We are not amused to be the pawns in some political game that has been designed to get Obama votes. He’s on the ropes and he’s looking vulnerable. Now’s the time to get him to commit. Make him pay for every vote. Make him grovel. If you don’t, you’re just a bunch of stupid girls.
And that goes doubly for NARAL, the Feminist Majority and any other bunch of stupid girl activists who have pledged to work for Obama in 2012 without getting anything in return. During Slutgate, I scrupulously avoided signing my name to any useless online petition for those organizations. The last thing I want is to be ashamed of these organizations emailing me to support Obama after he’s used them. He’s no better than Romney and Santorum and he doesn’t deserve your support until he’s willing to sacrifice himself for women. He really needs our votes because he’s lost support among white men. Now is the time to make him put up or shut up. It’s either us or the fundies. By their fruit you shall know them.
Because the president decided to interfere on the side of liberal Catholics in their internal struggle with their rigid, anachronistic, patriarchical church hierarchy, he has inserted the right wing focus group tested “religious liberty” meme into election year politics. It *will* affect women who have to now go around their employer to get birth control, kind of like people who are forced to brown paper bag things that are naughty.
But, of course, this is not going to satisfy the red beanie boys of Vatican Inc. They insist on making their 4th century code of conduct relevant. And who can blame them? Their own adherents don’t follow their teaching on birth control. Overriding them makes them look irrelevant. Religion based on a biblical worldview is already being supplanted by reason. Oh sure, Mary Mother of God church is busy 24/7 but if birth control is any indication, those parishioners are going for something other than moral guidelines. My feeling is that if the bishops push this hardline too hard, they’re going to accelerate their own demise. There’s an envelope out there and they are pushing it.
If EJ Dionne and the other “liberal” Catholics had had the courage of their convictions, they would have told their church to back off. But for them, it is easier on their consciences for women to take another bullet for the team. And predictably, the beanie boys said that the compromise wasn’t good enough:
Reporting from Washington— Catholic bishops say they remain opposed to President Obama‘s plan to require insurers to provide free birth control, even if religiously affiliated employers such as Catholic hospitals and universities aren’t forced to pay for it.
“The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.
The statement, issued late Friday, makes clear that the bishops’ opposition goes beyond the “religious freedom” dispute that had riled Washington in recent weeks. The government’s decision to guarantee women access to contraceptives “remains a grave moral concern,” they said.
A reasonable question would be, whose morals are we talking about? Is the American population required to follow Catholic moral values? Fundamentalist christian moral values? Says who? On what basis? What if you don’t believe the God of their Bible exists and that their moral code doesn’t apply to you? What if you believe in reason and commit to doing what is right instead of what is written?
Well, alright then. Everybody is now clear where the lines are drawn. The bishops are not going to be happy with anything less than a Plan B solution, ie complete capitulation to the Vatican.
Digby wrote a nice summary of Obama’s reasoning. Suffice it to say that he’s following the advice of political strategists who think it’s a bad idea to upset the religious. Upsetting more than half your population? That’s OK. Just give in to the teensy, tiny slivver of a constituency that reports to Rome and everything will be fine.
Now is the time for Obama to treat women like adults capable of making their own decisions on matters of conscience. Now is the time for him to protect their civil rights and to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex. Now is the time for him to act like a leader. I don’t really expect any of this, given his history. But now would be the time to say, “Ok, you didn’t like my compromise so, no deal on any of it.”
Meanwhile, now is the time for the rest of us to get together and promote reason over religion.
There is strength in numbers.
One final thing: Amanda Marcotte does not speak for me, a feminist. I have zero patience with so-called feminists like Amanda Marcotte who is a reliable apologist for everything Obama. She was wrong about John Edwards, she was wrong to support the DNC and Obama the first time around and I’ll be damned if I let her represent me to the rest of the country. I can’t trust her judgement or her motivations. She is writing from a script.
This liberal, feminist Democrat in Exile is appalled and angered by the attitude this president has towards women and has no intention of cutting him a break because the Republicans will be so much worse.
Plus: Better a PUMA/emoprog than a Doormat Democrat. (You’ve got no leverage, asshole.)
According to Dan Balz at WaPo, Ohio may be key to Obama’s reelection. He won’t necessarily lose the presidency if he loses Ohio. It’s just that no one since Jack Kennedy has been able to pull it off. Obama apparently has a problem with white working class and older voters. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with telling Appalachia to go F%^ itself in 2008 or that Pennsylvania voters were bitter, narrow minded racists. Still, a lot of them probably ended up voting for him in 2008 because he ran as a Democrat and the 2008 financial crash scared the bejeesus out of them. So, I’m betting that a lot of them are none too thrilled that he turned out not to be a Democrat after all.
It’s one thing to subvert the dominant paradigm locally. There were some thought provoking referendum items on ballots yesterday and since the debt ceiling debacle in August, voters are starting to get a more complete picture of what the Republican party is all about. Well, except for Virginia. But if the presidential contest comes down to Romney vs Obama, it may be much tougher to call it a victory in advance for the Democrats. If voters want a “change election” and they’re not happy with Obama’s performance so far and they see moderate Mitt as a the guy to send a message to Democrats to clean up their act, well, it would be a shame. Because the legislative races could sweep Democrats into power again and to be saddled with Mitt would just be another missed opportunity.
There are a couple of things I would like to point out to the Obama contingent: 1.) You may have perfectly good reasons for opposing Hillary Clinton. You haven’t persuaded me that they’re really *good* reasons, but I will accept that you have them. But you are just a tiny but vocal contingent and unfortunately, according to pollsters, Hillary is still wildly popular among the dirty, unwashed, insufficiently educated voters you look down on- to your detriment. Just because YOU don’t like her, doesn’t mean the rest of the country cares a flying f%^& what you think. You can take your chances with Obama or reassess your candidates. Sherrod Brown also looks promising. 2.) The idea that the African-American community will have a riot and abandon the party if Obama isn’t renominated is speculative at best, bordering on racist at worst. That attitude presumes that economically stressed people will put their racial preferences before their economic preferences even though the performance of the person up for reelection, and who has blown them off for 4 years, has been poor and made their lives miserable. One thing I think Obama Democrats are overlooking is that half the African-American community is female. With Clinton running, African-American females can’t lose. Identity politics could work here as well. I would vote for her because she’s the better candidate but we can’t overlook the fact that the double X thing is even more historic than the absence of some silly mutation that causes less melanin to be produced in the skin. 3.) You could always go with a primary. True, primaries are expensive but maybe *this* time, you could allow full participation of your base. And while in normal election years primaries haven’t worked in the incumbent’s favor, the last three years have been anything but ordinary. This is a different economic environment than anything we’ve seen since the Great Depression and as we know, organisms that fail to adapt to their environment, don’t make it to pass on their political philosophy to the next generation. But even more importantly, having a primary could reenergize the country and suck the air right out of the Republicans’ offensive. That is, if you have the right people primarying. You would have to get candidates who could make a strong case for an FDR style New Deal set of programs. It could be a way of arguing against the same old bipartisan shtick that Democrats like Obama have been peddling for the past decade.
Just some ideas since the poll numbers don’t appear to bode well for Obama next year and the signs that the party is starting to realize that are all over the place.
The State Department made the list based on a survey of Federal News Radio listeners and in consultation with the non-partisan, non-profit Partnership for Public Service.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department has 44,362 employees and they can take advantage of perks including a student-loan repayment program, a transit subsidy, and a wide array of courses through the Foreign Service Institute, Washingtonian Magazine says.
“We’re making history every day when we come to work. That’s pretty amazing,” Gilberto TorresVela, an economic officer in the Office of Cuban Affairs, tells the magazine. “State’s employees feel that their work makes a difference in foreign affairs, helping to make the world more secure,” the article says.
What did Jon Favreau say about working for Hillary once upon a time? I can’t remember. But I do remember Tina Fey saying “bitches get stuff done”.
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Coming to a workplace near you: Your company lays you off. A new company comes to town and hires you as a contractor working for less pay and fewer benefits and sends you to work – at the company that just laid you off. This is how we treat our STEM graduates who worked for Lilly. And the contracting company is going to skim some profits off of this arrangement with Lilly, at workers’ expense. I’m amazed at how many people in the comment thread are talking about unionizing. You never would have heard that kind of talk from chemists a few years ago. But the American Chemical Society has been conspicuously absent while its professional members have been getting the axe and watching their compensation packages get decimated. Something has to be done.
The funny thing is that this attempt at “in-sourcing” may not be as money saving for Lilly as the outsourcing they were doing to China and India. We knew the outsourcing wasn’t cost effective because it’s hard to keep track of the work and proprietary information half a world away. In-sourcing will have its own set of problems because they’ve taken the scientists who used to be invested in their projects as problem solvers and reduced their participation to hands on workers who perform a series of tasks for a specified amount of money. The problem with producing new drugs isn’t that American STEM workers don’t produce. The problem is that the management hasn’t got a clue about how to do research to make conditions conducive to the discovery of new drugs. Here’s a hint: you can’t do good research with a “flexible” staff. You need to hire people who are willing to go above and beyond what you ask of them, who will stay late to watch a reaction, who will come in on their days off to count cells and start new passages, who are willing to read more papers on new methods. If you take their expertise and try to break it down into little “just in time” bits, not only will you start running into IP issues, necessitating information roadblocks to keep the contract workers from looking at the sciency stuff that makes their work interesting, what you will get is someone who doesn’t feel invested in the project or the company. They’re too busy trying to make ends meet for their families and feeling resentment that they’ve spent so much time slaving away at hard subjects in college just so they could be treated as no better than some high school dropout assembly line worker for about the same pay. At 5:00pm, they’re out of there.
Businesses in Indiana where this is going on are going to take a hit when those same workers have their salaries drastically reduced. They will be buying less in the way of goods and services. And let’s not forget that if the work is only contract, there’s no way these workers can safely plan for the future. That means fewer homeowners, more renters, fewer people invested in their communities, more of the “paradox of thrift”. It could also mean fewer people with health insurance if contract workers have to pay for it themselves with reduced salaries. And that’s going to come back to bite taxpayers in the butt when those same workers suck up precious public health dollars when they get sick. Those are the same STEM workers who were paying a lot of state taxes and helping other people. Now, they become a burden on the state. Everybody loses in this arrangement except the new middleman overseers.
We’re not talking about high school dropouts here. This is the way we treat STEM workers. And if there are readers out there who are entertaining the idea that STEM workers shouldn’t feel entitled to a healthy salary, I suggest they try it themselves. Go check out the requirements for a BS degree in Chemistry or Biology or engineering. We are laying these people off in droves. The ones that aren’t forced into early retirement are cooling their jets while the industry tries to cut corners every way it can, reducing the output of research as a result and creating a vicious circle of more layoffs. The industry MBAs did this to themselves. Let’s stop blaming STEM graduates for being at the mercy of some cost saving management fad. If I hear one more politician parroting the business community’s lies about how they don’t have enough STEM graduates so they can use it as an excuse to import more cheap H1B visa holders instead of treating their current crop of labrats with respect and dignity, I’m going to get a posse of laid off chemists together to occupy their Manhattan offices. Do you hear me, Bill Clinton??
In June, one of the state workers at the Grand Rapids home, Emilie Perttu, 24, reluctantly left her job and took a nurse’s aide position at a hospital for a quarter less than she was making. Ms. Perttu, a single mother of two, started at the veterans’ home as a contract worker for J2S before becoming a state worker last year. She said that after Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, cited the outsourcing plans in his budget for 2012 and 2013, she feared losing her job or having her wages sharply reduced.
The lower wage, she says, has left her strained to cover $675 a month in rent, along with basics like food and child care. So Ms. Perttu collects $400 monthly in food stamps and child care assistance, programs administered by the state but largely financed by the federal government. She has not been able to buy winter coats for her children, she said, and often avoids calls from credit card bill collectors.
For those of you who think your virtue has kept you employed through this recession, don’t get comfy. Once you, the worker, are mandated by law to carry your own health insurance with no competition from a public option or low cost health plan, the companies you work for will feel no obligation to keep you on the payroll. They can lay you off and hire you back as a contractor. Your health insurance becomes *your* problem. This is what you get when you hire a president and Congress that are scared to address cost control, business run amok and hyperbolic TV bloviators who call them socialists.
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And THIS, was the one thing that ended Rick Perry’s presidential aspirations last night:
It wasn’t all of the stupid s%^& he has been saying up until this point. No, it was Perry having a “senior moment”. In fact, if he had just said, “Sean, I was thinking so fast I lost my train of thought. Did that ever happen to you? Can you come back to me on that one?” The crowd would have totally understood his. Republican voters aren’t all concerned with whether the dude is perfect. On the contrary, if he’s just a regular average guy like themselves who occasionally makes mistakes, they are cool with that. He’s human. There were many good reasons to reject Perry up to this point. Mostly it’s all the stupid s%^& that comes out of his mouth when his brain is working optimally. Making a big deal out of a brain freeze *might* just be overkill. It could revive his standing slightly. Republicans might begin to “feel his pain”. You don’t want that. On the other hand, if Fox News starts proclaiming the Perry era over, that’s a different problem.
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I think we can see the Republicans strategy for defeating the 99%. It starts with Karl Rove’s sudden interest in the Massachusett’s Senator’s race between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown. Rove has seen the mojo emanating from Warren. The attempts to paint her as a Harvard elite liberal have failed and she seems to have tapped into a deep vein of discontent among the peasants. They are getting all righteously indignant and look like they might start revolting. We can’t have that. So, we will bombard her from now until election day. It will be unrelenting. It will be like 3 weeks before the election from now until November 2012. We’ll keep her so busy defending herself that she will run out of money and will have to keep tapping the proles for more. And more. Because no matter how much money she has, we always make her spend more. Her supporters will get sick of the constant begging. And that’s why the Citizens United ruling was so outrageous:
This video is a little irritating in its “I’m going to talk really sloooowly for you because you don’t seem to be getting it” approach to its target audience (hint: it’s not us). They could have been snappier and put in a little more humor. But after you’ve seen it, it’s hard to say you don’t understand what the problem is:
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And I am introducing The Plum Line metric today. The Plum Line is described as “a reported opinion blog with a liberal slant — what you might call “opinionated reporting” from the left.” I’d say that is a pretty accurate description. A couple of times per day, Greg Sargent posts a compilation of blog posts from around the web. It is probably safe to assume that these are the writers that Sargent feels are the more authoritative and “serious” voices from online journals and the blogosphere. But how many are women? And what will the numbers tell us? I don’t know yet but a blogger like Sargent who writes for the Washington Post is going to refer to people who have access to information or powerbrokers. So, The Plum Line Metric may give us an indication of how much access and potential influence women have to shape political opinions “with a liberal slant”.
In a perfect world, women should represent half of the writers cited since 1.)they represent half of the population as a whole, 2.)there is no shortage of female bloggers and writers on the internet and, 3.)presumably, they have opinions about how the world should be run that is not identical, but may be complementary to the conventional wisdom of liberal male opinionmakers. So, ideally, the ratio of females cited to males cited should be close to or equal to 1. Does anyone want to argue that allowing one half of the population to assume the responsibility for speaking for the other half of the population will actually express the full range of issues and priorities that that other half feels are important? Right. Moving on. Since the goal is to eventually reach 1 and we are at less than 1 now, let’s put the number of females cited in the numerator and the number of males cited in the denominator. We could use male citations/ female citations, which would be an indication of how many male voices we listen to per female voices, but we run up against the possibility of division by zero and mathematics hasn’t been able to get around that problem yet.
Today’s Plum Line Metric is 0/12 = 0.
This metric is not meant to be a slap down of Greg Sargent. He just happens to have an easy to count compilation at the end of the day. We could also include the Morning Post from The Plum Line. But let’s just stick to the Happy Hour compilation for now and I’ll update it with a cumulative ratio as well. Maybe we can plot it on a graph. We could even go back through the archives for a couple of years to see if there have been any trends or changes. Suggestions are welcome.
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Two things about Joe Paterno. 1.) He’s 84 years old. Even if he hadn’t been fired, he should have been made an emeritus years ago. My god, the man was prematurely decomposing. It would have been better if he hadn’t gotten fired but 2.) He knew that a member of his staff was a relapsed child molester and covered it up. No number of national championships can make that acceptable. None whatsoever:
Yet it was Mr. Paterno who remained the public face of the university. He met with his team Wednesday in a gathering that players described as emotional. Stephon Morris, a junior cornerback, said Paterno was near tears when he told the team he was leaving. “I’ve never seen Coach Paterno like that in my life,” Mr. Morris said. Still, Mr. Paterno’s talk was not all about the turmoil. Mr. Morris said Mr. Paterno’s main message was “Beat Nebraska,” referring to Penn State’s next opponent. When he left, his players gave him a standing ovation.
Yeah, cry me a river. As one of the signs in the accompanying slide show says, “Joe Paterno is NOT a victim”. Well, that’s the last time that student will get season tickets.
There are causes that are worth rioting and smashing car windows. Firing Joe Paterno for abetting a creep who was seen having anal sex with a 10 year old in the Nittany Lions locker room showers is not one of them.
BTW, I lived in “Happy Valley” when I got my first job after graduation. For a former University of Pittsburgh student, football season up there was almost unbearable. Well, there’s nothing much else to do in State College but still, they took it to ridiculous extremes even by obsessed fan standards. Fall weekends were a perfect excuse to get the f%^& out of town and hang out in more sophisticated and cultured venues- like Harrisburg. Yeah, that’s how bad it was.
She was us. But we're still out here even if she has moved on.
I have read a lot of Woe is Us comments and posts around the web in response to Anglachel’s excellent post, Hillary is not Going to Save Us.
“We are doomed. We should just accept Obama’s Reign of Error and unopposed primary run in 2012. We should get used to our batshit crazy Republican overlords. All is lost! The hosts of Mordor have won!”
This is bull $#@%.
You are not reading Anglachel’s post correctly if that is what you think she is saying.
What she is saying, and she can correct me if I’m wrong, is that leaders get power from movements, momentum, a bloc of supporters and a set of principles. Neither Hillary not anyone else can save you if you don’t have a movement to support her or make any attempts to save yourself.
Here’s where I differ with Anglachel: I think Hillary would jump in if she knew there was a tidal wave of people ready to throw their support behind her or some other FDR style Democrat. Obama is very weak. His supporters, as Anglachel says, are numerically small but very vocal. So what? It doesn’t matter how noisy the Stevensonians are. The Democratic party still needs to appeal to all of the other regular working class people out there. And those people aren’t letting themselves be corralled anymore. Witness the reports on the AmericaSpeaks forums that Corrente is reporting. We know what kind of game the handlers are playing. They are trying to present the policy prescriptions as a choice between bad and slightly less bad. Nowhere are the “acceptable to the average guy” policies allowed. And people are letting these agents of the wealthy know that they’re not interested in that. They want to be masters of their own fates, not sheepish pawns in someone else’s fantasy.
But more than that, had Hillary won in 2008, she would be looking at a second term in 2012. It’s nonsense for her to state that she’s out of politics because, well, I don’t know why she would say that. She wouldn’t be too tired to run for her re-election in 2012. So, there’s got to be another reason why she says she’s *planning* to sit it out. As we have seen with many politicians, Hillary included, it is usual with candidates to reject the addresses of the voters whom they secretly mean to accept, when they first apply for her favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time. We should therefore by no means be discouraged by what she has just said, and shall hope to lead her to the oval office ere long.
But why should she, or any FDR style Democrat, accept the hand of a Mr. Collins when what she/he really desires is a Mr. Darcy? We’re not in fighting form for successful courting. What we need to be is an attractive voting bloc, not just a ragtag, disjointed bunch of discouraged disenfranchised working class schlubs. And when I say “working class”, masslib, I am talking about all of the people the Democrats left on the table in 2008, whether they are college educated or not. If you make your income from a paycheck and not investments, YOU ARE WORKING CLASS. Don’t be afraid of the term. Your strength depends on recognizing what you have in common with the people who you once thought were your intellectual inferiors. When the top 10% of the county makes 70% of the wealth generated here, you working people of all professions and condition of dirt under the nails are in the same boat. To the top 10%, you all look like a bunch of stupid losers. It’s YOU against that top 10%.
This is why Sarah Palin is so successful. She has tapped into the anger of the people who have smelled the asphalt. If you want to beat her, you have to join with the road workers. Once you have established that you exist and that you share a common cause and a common set of principles based on Fairness, Dignity and Respect, you will start looking pretty hot to the politician who will fight for the right to carry your banner.
Yes, oh best beloveds, there are such people. The world is ever thus. There are people who will strive to accumulate power and wealth and who will step on the heads of anyone who gets in their way. And there are people who will gird their loins for you and step up. There are good people in the world. Those people are not perfect. No human has ever been born upon the planet who did not have flaws. But there are people who try. They try and sometimes they fail. But they do not give up because civilization hangs together by the slimmest of positive efforts that overcome the negative ones. Without effort to overcome the chaos in favor of establishing a good order for the benefit of all, we as a people would cease to exist. So, we must all be doing something right every single day to hold ourselves together.
That means showing up at public meetings and not allowing others to shout you down. That means sticking up for the working people, even if they are public servants who seem to be benefitting from your taxes. That means rewarding solidarity with your support. That means giving to others when you don’t have much yourself: feeding the poor, buying a gift for a disadvantaged child at Christmas, donating money to classrooms in need. That means helping your friends who have become unemployed through no fault of their own. That means standing up for them when the ignorant and narrow minded call them parasites after all of their years of hard work and taxes for the public good. That means never accepting the fate that others would assign to you. That means women sticking up for themselves and letting go of Roe that has created a false sense of equality and has been used by your enemies to rally the opposition to tear down your rights. That means never giving anyone consent to treat you as an inferior. That means conducting your business in public, transparently, creating your principles and values and inviting others to join you. That means imposing discipline on yourself and others to stick to the point, not be distracted by identity politics. That means insisting on equality for all because the country can use all the help it can get from everyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, education level or any other criteria that separate us from one another.
Do not let them separate you from your friends. Hold hands, get together, brainstorm, meet, plan, do, solve and never, never let the bastards grind you down. Push back forcefully. You don’t have a choice. This is your country. Take it back. Insist on Fairness, Dignity, Respect. Demand a New Deal.
If you build it, she may run. Or someone else will take up the banner. When she told us at the Convention to “Keep Going!”, I think this is what she meant.
Update: For those of you who asked, here is the proposal I wrote in 2008 for going forward. It is preliminary and somewhat out of date. But it’s a starting point for discussion.
Paul Krugman and Anglachel have two important posts up. After you read them, you’ll get a sickening feeling that things are about to get worse. If anyone expected Barack Obama to use his veto pen to stop the Republican Horde from wrecking havoc, they might want to rethink that notion. As Paul says in Freezing Out Hope:
It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.
The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?
What’s even more puzzling is the apparent indifference of the Obama team to the effect of such gestures on their supporters. One would have expected a candidate who rode the enthusiasm of activists to an upset victory in the Democratic primary to realize that this enthusiasm was an important asset. Instead, however, Mr. Obama almost seems as if he’s trying, systematically, to disappoint his once-fervent supporters, to convince the people who put him where he is that they made an embarrassing mistake.
Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.
Hoodwinked? Bamboozled? Is Obama making fun of the Obots? Or did Anglachel accurately assess Obama’s political compass? From Season’s Greetings, she writes:
Obama is not a Reaganite, no matter how much he enjoys fellating the corpse of the Gipper. If he really were a Reaganite, he’d know how to preserve and expand power.
I’ve written before that Obama lacks any sense of or taste for politics, and think I have his political philosophy identified, namely a very patrician Hoover-ish progressivism, but something Krugman wrote today made me have a very bad thought
[…]
What it looks like to me is Obama methodically reversing the desires of the people who voted for him, inverting every virtue and intention they projected on to him. If someone was trying to deconstruct the Democratic Party from the inside – betray its hopes, derail its changes, destroy its legacy – you couldn’t ask for a better example.
Almost like an act of revenge.
I said in Primary Objective that Obama was not mortally unpopular with the base, but I’m having to rethink that claim much more quickly than I imagined given the way he has increased his pissing on the Democrats since the mid-term losses. If he has no loyalty to any part of the party and is eager to walk around with a big “Kick me” sign taped front and back, then it makes no sense for the party to follow him off the cliff. Krugman closes by saying, “It would be much easier, of course, for Democrats to draw a line if Mr. Obama would do his part. But all indications are that the party will have to look elsewhere for the leadership it needs.”
Anglachel urges a primary. Well, that’s to be expected. She’s one of the “shrieking band of paranoid holdouts”. But Krugman writes for a large megaphone. Oh, sure, who listens to Krugman? Obots came –>this<– close to calling him a racist for not kissing Obama’s, er, whatever, when he took office.
But for the good of the country, Obama must be primaried, regardless of the perceived incivility and the probability that the entire op/ed page of the Washington Post will get the vapors. I think even Atrios is coming around:
One thing that’s been true since I’ve been paying attention is that everything The Left does is wrong. By The Left I mean everyone to the left of the basic governing power. Third Parties are bad, sitting out elections are bad, putting pressure on elected reps is bad, protesting is bad, primary campaigns are bad, media criticism might hurt their feefees and is bad, saying mean things about Rush Limbaugh is bad, actually discussing your views honestly is bad, etc. Obviously the failure of The Left to take control and run the country does suggest that it is doing something wrong, but no one ever really offers much constructive advice other than…please STFU.
Is the base going to STFU and graciously commit sepukka in order for politeness to flourish? “Let good table manners reign!”
If the party base and the hung over Obots really have a political philosophy and if they really want the democratic values of the Democratic party to triumph, they’d better join us toot sweet. Because, like it or not, there is only one person *at the present time* who can take on Obama and win. Even if you are still suffering from CDS psychosis, I urge Obots for the sake of UNITY to join with us and push back. Because until you give Obama a serious threat to his political career, he is going to take the party and the country down with him. We have always said that our objection to Obama had nothing to do with his skin color. It has everything to do with his lack of political convictions, his inexperience, his unpreparedness, and his contempt for the voters.
Howard Dean may be the alternate candidate for Whole Foods Nation but Obama knows that Dean poses no legitimate threat to him. He has absolutely zero appeal to the working class. Democrats cannot win in 2012 without the working class. And the reason Obama is not going to push back at the Republicans is because he thinks the working class has abandoned the Democrats to join the Tea Party. This is partially correct. The working class would be more than happy to get behind a Democrat who supports the FDR style programs they love and who shows leadership qualities in the face of adversity.
As long as the Obots won’t even entertain the notion of supporting someone like that for president, Obama will continue to drown Hope in the Potomac. Once you start to roll the idea of a popular primary challenger around in your heads and let Obama know you’re seriously thinking about it, you will start to get the Change! you voted for. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and try it. Start making some noises that you’ve changed your minds and now “she who must not be named” is looking pretty good right about now. Make it sound convincing. Praise her statesmanship, her presence on a world stage, her calm and steely resolve. See what happens.
He doesn’t fear you, Obots. That’s why he’s giving you the finger and brushing your dirt off his shoulders.
The other day, I found this link from Corrente’s post, Who’s Going Rogue?, to what I initially thought was the left coming to its senses. It’s all about the “secret” meetings that Democratic donors are having about the 2012 election season. It turns out that what we had suspected in 2008 was true. Obama had captured the donors and had all of them funnel their money to his campaign instead of outside advocacy groups. Peachy.
Well, those groups have seen what the last two years of Obamaism hath wrought and they’re not going to do THAT again, by golly. No, by neddyjingo, they won’t get fooled again. In 2012, they’re going to give their money to whomever they please and not just solely to Obama:
In meetings this past week, some of the top financiers in the party advanced discussions about building a third-party apparatus to counter that on the Republican side of the aisle. The tone, said one person involved in the talks, was remarkably different from 2008, when the Obama campaign urged donors to funnel money strictly into their coffers. In 2010, similar requests are being made — but they’re not always heeded.
“Those days are other,” said the individual. “It is a really big sea shift. People said we need an outside structure and we are going to do it. It is no longer ‘Will you give us permission to do it, sir.'”
As is often the case in Democratic circles, little consensus was reached over the past week. If anything, the meeting of the Democracy Alliance — a formal community of well-funded, progressive-minded individuals and activists — ended with more lingering questions and promises for future discussions than concrete answers. Among the issues left unresolved were how a third-party group would be structured, what it would cost, and whether it was more effective to decry outside money helping Republicans or to simply match the Republican’s outside money.
“There probably is some kind of need [for a third-party outlet]. The one thing about us though is when we lose we have a lot of meetings. We are not even getting started on the retreats or retrospectives,” said James Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist, during an unrelated breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “There is probably going to be one now, it is just the nature of what it is. Undoubtedly the Democrats will have symposiums and retreats.”
Hurrah! They are finally getting the picture. These donors are not going to let Obama take their money without some kind of pro quo for their quid. They demand satisf… wait… what’s this at the end?
That such money would be available to help Democratic causes is in and of itself a remarkable reflection about the evolution of the party. In 2008, attempts to build an independent arm was essentially axed when the Obama campaign nixed donor giving to outside functions. This go-around, even the president’s team seems to be of the mindset that such a tight restriction on funds is impractical or perhaps disadvantageous.
“One of the things the White House is recognizing as they think about the reelect is it is going to cost a lot of money, which is not to say the last one didn’t,” said one Democracy Alliance attendee. “It will be an expensive campaign though and they will need some help with it.”
Hunh?
Ohhhh, OK, I get it. They still have a crush on Obama. B to the A the R-A-C-K, O-B-A-M-A!
It’s not that they’ll be pushing Obama from the left so much as they will be “perceived” to be pushing Obama from the left. What they will really be doing is the same old thing and funneling all of the cash they will be hauling in from their duped small donors directly into Obama’s re-election campaign.
So, the outside advocacy groups will take our money and shake their tiny fists and wail at the Obama administration and the blue meanie Republicans and then turn around and use the money to help Obama’s re-election campaign.
Sweeeet!
Wait! Let’s back up a minute. This whole scenario depends on the general public sort of already buying into the idea that Obama will not be challenged in his own party. Says who?
Oh, sure, the press will keep beating Hillary over the head with the question of whether she will run in 2012 and she will (carefully) keep denying it. (OMG, Andrew Sullivan says Hillary has finally won him over- as long as she behaves quietly at State and doesn’t make a fuss. Oh, please, what nauseating bilge.) And, heck, it might even be true. But who’s to say that there won’t be some other Democrat or third party candidate who will see all of the disaffected Democrats and working class stiffs that both parties have left on the table and swoop down to grab them? In fact, if ever in the history of the US of A there was a better time for an Independent or primary challenger to win, this would be it.
These donors are stupid. They were stupid in 2008 and they’re just as stupid now. They are falling for the Obama Haka once again. He’s the only one. No one else cares about them but him. No one else dares challenge him. That’s a crock of frog bollocks. There he goes, strutting around like the proverbial cock on the walk and as James Carville says, he’s got no balls. The donors should do an aggressive pat-down on him to find out but they’re too afraid.
And I don’t buy this nonsense that it wouldn’t be genteel or couth for Hillary to challenge him. Does anyone think for one minute that the assholes who ran Obama’s campaign would have given two $#@%s about running HER over? Um, no. We already know they have no scruples when it comes to dirty campaigning. But they expect Hillary to not feel her cheerios and put aside every concern she may have for her country so as to protect Obama’s and the DNC’s sense of propriety?
At this point, it doesn’t matter what the donors think or what Hillary thinks or Obama thinks or the DNC thinks. All that matters is that there are hundreds of millions of Americans right now who see their lifestyles negotiated away by Barack Obama and his Democratic Congress and they are ready to throw Obama out. No, I’m not kidding. It’s only going to get worse in the next two years and his chances of turning this ship around are rapidly fading. By the time 2012 rolls around, his re-election is going to look remote, just like the Democratic Congress’ re-election this November looked remote. We saw it from a mile away. When the Republicans go all Fallujah on Obama’s ass in the next two years, he’s going to start looking like a punching bag and no one wants to vote for four more years of that.
At that point, we will want an uncouth, uncivil. hairy, unibrowed renegade from the left to push Obama out. A left wing version of Atilla the Hun will look like a viable alternative. The left doesn’t produce many of them from its Stevensonian branch, which is why Obama’s retainers should feel really nervous right about now.
It is too late to try to cheer Obama on for a second term. And anyone who attempts to do so should be gagged for being irresponsible and dishonest. He is what he is, which is what we told them he is. He is an opportunistic, Republican lite politician who does not have the experience or the temperament to operate the levers of government to get things done for the vast majority of Americans. We already know this in 2010. An infusion of spine is by no means guaranteed to work and is likely to be shortlived anyway. If he gets re-elected in 2012, what’s going to stop him from reverting to form?
We gave this guy the job and we have evaluated his performance and found him lacking. He is not entitled to a second term. He has to earn it. So far, he isn’t doing that. But the Democratic donors have decided to play it safe and re-elect him even though they don’t like him or his policies, forcing him back on the hapless voters in 2012. And we call Palin voters stupid? Hey, it’s their money. Just don’t ask me to throw my good, hard earned money down that drain too.
Do us all a favor and get Hillary or someone of her political persuasion to run. Just save us all the time and agony of a prolonged death by bipartisanship Obama style. He can’t win in 2012 no matter how many billions you siphon to him on the side. Stick a fork in him, he’s done.
So apparently we had a little election yesterday. Let’s recap the story so far. We had this lovely hopeful Democratic party ready to put the Bush years behind them, roll up their sleeves, and get to work fixing the damage. Much the same way the Clinton’s did in the 90’s. But along the way, a complete unknown with no experience, and no real drive to do anything substantive, including bothering to vote for important policies, who had more funding than all of the well known candidates combined, from wall street, banks, and insurance companies funnily enough, made his way through the primaries, making a pathetic disaster of every debate by losing every one in the worst way, and got selected in a smoke filled back room, without even a roll call vote. Along the way, the base of the party who actually elected another candidate were told to suck it up or leave. Preferably leave. And of course, as most any candidate that wasn’t Bush would do, this guy became President. Then over the next two years he proceeded to do exactly the kinds of things he did in his previous career. Play golf, party, get others to do his work for him, and do pretty much what his backers wanted. Mostly he just golfed and really didn’t give a damn. Apparently, many of the “little people” expected a bit more out of him. Silly little people. And so, they got angry. They still hate the party of Bush, make no mistake about it, but now they hate this new group just as much, and yesterday they sent a little message.
For a good look at the races across the country, the NYT has great interactive maps. The main ones to look at are those for Senate, House, and Governor races. As you can see from those maps, especially the House map, we have a proverbial bloodbath. Especially important for 2012 is the Governor results. Notice that the important battleground states of PA, OH, and FL now have Republican governors. That will become more important for the next cycle because of get out the vote efforts, redistricting, among others.
Core Democratic groups stayed away in droves Tuesday, costing Democratic House candidates dearly at the polls.
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, propelling Mr. Obama and Democratic House candidates to sizable victories. In 2010, turnout among these groups dropped off substantially, even below their previous midterm levels.
Voters under the age of 30 comprised 18 percent of the electorate in 2008 and nearly 13 percent in 2006 but only made up 11 percent of the electorate in 2010. The share of voters from union households dropped from 23 percent in 2006 and 21 percent in 2008 to 17 percent in 2010. African Americans made up 13 percent of the electorate in 2008 but fell to 10 percent in 2010. Such apathy likely cost the Democrats House seats as voters in each of these groups cast ballots for Democratic House candidates by at least 15 point margins.
[…]
Mr. Obama proved to be a major liability in the 2010 election. Fifty-five percent of voters disapproved of the way the president is handling his job, including 58 percent of independents. Of those who disapproved of Obama, 86 percent voted for a Republican House candidate. Even more to the point, 37 percent of voters overall, as well as 37 percent of independents, claimed a reason for their House vote was to express opposition to Mr. Obama.
Voters were no happier with the Democratic-controlled Congress. A whopping 72 percent of voters disapproved of the way Congress is handling its job, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Of those who evaluated Congress negatively, 64 percent preferred a Republican House candidate to a Democratic House candidate in their local race.
It does go on to talk about the mixed message that the voters don’t really like Republican’s either.
After the resounding defeat, Obama gave a call to John Boehner, soon to be the new speaker of the House, to congratulate him:
He phoned the presumptive next House speaker, John Boehner, to offer congratulations. Boehner says the two agreed to work together, even though Republicans have vowed to turn back much of Obama’s agenda.
The Ohio Republican says they talked about working together on the priorities of the American people, and Boehner says he defined those priorities as cutting spending and creating jobs.
Hey, create jobs. Now there’s an idea. Too bad no one thought of that before.
Now brush yourself off, because today begins the Presidential campaign season for 2012.
We’ll keep this short since there is still a lot happening in a few last races, and we’ll update as we learn more, and as others do the inevitable blaming of the Clinton’s or pretending it’s not such a big deal after all. You know they will. Chime in with what you’re seeing outside of the election as well.
This complete rainbow was photographed at 30,000 feet by Lloyd J. Ferraro. "The 'Private Sector' Is Government 'Contracting Out' Its Functions: We live in a society, and getting things done for society is what government is for. Government is society's way to make decisions about society's resources, economy and future. Per […]
The other day, I found this link from Corrente’s post, 
The Confluence 