IMAGE FROM RNC FUNDRAISING DOCUMENT

No doubt about it. The Democrats will lose some seats in the November mid-term elections. This is because the majority party often does, while the populist, anti-incumbent vitriol out on the hustings is especially toxic even if most Tea Partiers have been outted as upscale white men who should have little to worry about so long as their health insurance plan still covers Viagra scripts. But the Democrats have a secret weapon that I predi…

USA Today published an article two days ago showcasing Ravenswood, West Virginia, as a ghost town due to the loss of industry, something the city of Georgetown has suffered from last year with the closing of the steel mill.

And yes, the article makes note of it.
Whether it’s textiles in the Carolinas, paper in New England or steel in the Midwest, most industrial cities and mill towns “are on pins and needles,” says Donald Schunk, an economist at Coastal Carolina …

Al Weisel, widely known in the blogosphere as Jon Swift, was the best satirist this side of . . . well, Jonathan Swift. Sadly and unexpectedly, Al has left this mortal coil. Only the good die young, as they say, and he was a mere 46.

Al was a tireless supporter of small blogs like Kiko’s House and I was honored innumerable times to have him link to my posts, usually so he could skewer someone with a faux conservative wit so sharp that some of his victims didn’t eve…

I suppose that I’m being less than an advertisement for myself in not being able to add much to the current Liz and Dick Cheney bloviations to the effect that terrorism suspects have no right to attorneys, let alone attorneys who became Department of Justice appointees, although the Founding Father believe and the their nation’s courts have repeatedly ruled that they do.

So about all I can add is that Ms. Cheney and her war-criminal father display a profound contempt for the Ameri…

THERE HAS been no discussion of single payer. The public option has been ditched. President Obama received no Republican support at his nationally-televised health care forum last week. In response, the Democrats must not concede any more in the final lurch toward health reform. Even then, reform is already so watered down that it is likely to fall apart over the next decade. Democrats would be wise to view this moment not with finality, but as the beginning of the journey toward the sanity of s…

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) is throwing yet another tantrum in the US Senate. In the last few days he has literally told his colleagues in the Senate “Tough Shit” on his blocking of extensions for unemployment and COBRA payments, chucked the bird at the media when they asked to speak to him about it, and kicked people off of an elevator claiming it was for Senators only. (See the previous post here)

His latest stunt is to hold his breath even when the Senate President, Harry Re…

No, I don’t.

Still, it comes as no surprise that an awful lot of people apparently do miss Dubya, so much so that a couple of right wingnut organizations are launching a petition campaign. The stated goal is to get a million people to sign two letters, one stating that they miss the 43rd president and another demanding that the 44th president stop blaming him for the country’s problems. The unstated goal is to sell a bunch of t-shirts and other “Miss Me Yet?” parap…

JOINT CHIEFS of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen proved that his recent support for openly gay and lesbian soldiers was no fluke. Earlier this month he said that ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy was the “right thing to do.’’ Mullen said he was “troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie.’’
Last week, Mullen reiterated his views to a soldier at a military town hall who asked about the policy. He intimated th…

The sweet smell of bipartisanship (think of a Cinnabon bun) was in the air at the outset of President Obama’s health-care reform summit yesterday. The table had been changed from U-shaped to O-shaped so that Republicans would have more TV face time in explaining why they have been nakedly obstructionist on the most important legislative initiative of my lifetime.

They did not disappoint.
Republicans, of course, had been deriding the extraordinary event as “p…

The time for playing nice is over. Although it’s only halftime, the scoreboard is clear, the Democrats are in serious danger of losing badly in this year’s midterm elections. The problem? Obstruction. President Barack Obama has run square into the heavily fortified defenses of the Congressional Republicans. When it comes to governing, the GOP has dug in and refused to budge or compromise an inch. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner have constructed a great wall that would make the ancient…

Can America go broke? Nobody believes that. We’re America, the most powerful nation on earth! We have more resources than any nation in history! We are too big to fail!

But, what if we could go broke? What does that mean?

When a person goes broke, he loses everything…his home, car, and assets; anything of value is taken away from him through bankruptcy.

When a business goes broke, banks and creditors sell assets, close doors, and all workers go lo…

Rick Perry stopped in Dallas last night for his final campaign stop before today’s election. The crowd at Dallas County Republican headquarters on North Central Expressway numbered about 100 people, when you take out the journalists and Boy Scouts in attendance. Like Kay Hutchison’s stop in Fort Worth last week at the Railhead Smokehouse, there was a pretty informal atmosphere, not one of those balloon-and-banners affairs with big risers.

Perry spoke from a lectern at the head of …

“Why don’t they just teach what happened?” my friend asked. At our weekly meeting with the guys, I told about attending a workshop for secondary history teachers in northeast Mississippi.

During the morning session, specialists from “Teaching for Change” – a politically progressive, DC-based resource for Kindergarten through 12th grade – regaled participants with a host of activities and methodologies (pedagogy, for those academically inclined) proven to increase stu…

If Americans keep dreaming up these new political movements, I might have to become a political rapper and put what I’ve got to say about them to some beats with rhyming lyrics so you can keep them all straight. The latest one is the Coffee Party, started by a filmmaker who — no surprise here, since its the theme of the moment — was “frustrated” by the dearth of options on the political scene for people like her.

I don’t know how I feel about this Coffee Party ye…

So, what should constitute success for Texas Tea Party candidates tomorrow?

Obviously, victory will be the biggest indicator. I mean, if Tea Party folks can help elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts, you’d think they’d be able to elect at least someone in red state Texas, including Debra Medina, the GOP gubernatorial candidate that is most publicly aligned with Tea Partiers.

But short of victory, what would constitute success?

Well, first, they already …

When I first met Abby* I was around 22-years-old. I was only a year or two older than she is now. She was a cute, outgoing 12-year-old; the younger cousin of a friend I’d had since the age of 15. We were at her younger brother’s baseball game and she begged for a ride in my new sports car. I proudly obliged. 

After the game, she made a point to tell me that she and I should go hang out sometime. With a bit of a shy side myself, I was impressed by her tenacity. I told her we…

Obama wrapped up today’s meeting with some ways the two sides can come together, but he also hinted pretty broadly that any final bill will probably end up being a Democratic plan.

On the agreement side, he stressed the two parties could work out some differences on insurance reforms, allowing small businesses to get insurance coverage through joining a larger group, letting consumers purchase coverage across state lines and reforming malpractice laws.

Even there, I…

CNN polling shows 86 percent of Americans believe “Government is broken.” President Obama’s approval numbers are diving into the 40s, and only Congress is seeing any improvement – moving from single digit approval ratings up into the teens. These and other similar polls are hardly partisan.

History teaches those who listen: centralized authoritarian government is the problem.

Our Founding Fathers knew this, and sculpted the Constitution to give minimum power…

On the corner of Sixth and Market Streets here in Philadelphia, less than a home run’s distance from Independence Hall, archaeologists a few summers ago dug through two centuries’ worth of dirt and rubble to uncover the ancient foundations of the President’s House. On this very spot, between 1790 and 1797, George Washington lived, slept, struggled with his false teeth and conducted his duties as our first president. Further examination of the hallowed ground revealed that Father of Our …

Still not a fan of Sarah Palin, for those keeping score. What is it about her that has the conservative mainstream so ga-ga? Oh, I get it… Republicans still think that Palin is going to be their version of Barack Obama, right!? Obama the country’s first black president, Palin the country’s first women president. Talk about real change.

In all seriousness, the problem with Palin from the start is that she was put in a no win situation when she accepted the McCain Campaign’…

Sunday, March 7, 2010

America, A Broken Home

Like any one of the myriad movies that emerged throughout the 80’s and 90’s, America has fallen prey to smooth talkers who have had nothing but contempt for her. Our once great nation has been hijacked by people who profess a love they claim we cannot fathom, all the while seeking to transform the majesty into travesty.

I can’t count the number of movies where a nanny or a babysitter was invited into the ho…

Fighting Gender Apartheid Laws in Iran
Excerpt:

Madame Secretary Clinton: Where are you on this? For that matter: Christiane Amanpour, your father is Iranian, you grew up in Tehran, you are proudly “ethnic” — where are you on this? How are either of you working to free the women prisoners of Tehran?

To Secretary of State Clinton’s credit, she has issued a video message which repeats the words of her 1995 speech in Beijing: “Human rights are women’s rights, …

San Diego is a beautiful city. The harbor is magnificent, especially the Navy ships at the docks and planes overhead. If your motel is across the harbor from Coronado Naval Air Station, you awake to a distant bugle sounding “attention,” followed by the National Anthem. It surely beats an alarm clock. But San Diego offers other meaningful experiences. If we keep our eyes open, we can learn valuable lessons from many things in the world around us, even highways.

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Saturday, March 6, 2010

Irreconcilable Differences

Convince the people that your opponents are lying about your lies by telling a bigger lie. If that isn’t a bona fide part of the liberal/progressive playbook, it should be. Truth be told, I was too lazy to research the phrase’s existence since I just made it up. If someone beat me to it, please advise in the comments section.

Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly and abundantly clear that Obama an…

Excerpt:

For years now, newly arrived refugees have been contacting me. They write to tell me that they’ve lost nearly everybody they once knew. Their whole world is gone now. Some whisper over the phone. Others write long letters. They ask me how I’ve managed.

I am talking about ideological refugees from feminism, leftism, gay liberation, socialism, and progressivism.

Yesterday, I received a letter from someone in Berkeley. She tells me that, earlier…

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Not Under My Roof
Any rebellious teen has certainly heard those words from their parents. When pushing the limits of authority by demanding rights that do not exist, the authoritarian correctly reminds the offending plaintiff that as long as he pays the bills, he makes the rules. The remedy is that of which every soon-to-be adult dreams; leaving the confines of a perceived totalitarianism in pursuit of their own domain, where they make their own rule…

Democrats continue to bounce between occasional brief attempts at pandering to grassroots America, and their more innate reversion to unrestrained contempt for the beliefs and sentiments of the heartland. In the process, they reveal a willingness to resort to any concocted lie in hopes of fooling enough of the people, enough of the time, to advance their insidious agenda.

In a February 28 interview on ABC, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA) engaged in the sort of doublespeak that …

 
 http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/files/2010/03/chelsea-259×194.jpg
Chelsea King was a 17-year-old California high-school senior. She will always be 17 to those who loved her.

Chelsea went missing from her San Diego area home. Her father found her car near a running trail. In addition to being a college-bound honor student who maintained a 4.2 grade-point average despite carrying four advanced-placement classes, as well as being an accomplished musician, Chelse…

Excerpt:

Everywhere I turn—or so it seems–attacks on Israel and Israelis are in process. The other day, after a long day of writing, I idly, instinctively channel surfed—and there was the infamous Christiane Amanpour grilling Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak. Oh, how this half-British, half-Iranian journalist relished this task. All her questions were hostile and were meant to embarrass or castigate both him personally and Israeli policies in general. CNN’s poor excuse fo…

Dear Mr. Fabiani,

Thank you very much for responding to my Feb. 17 column regarding the public costs associated with the Chargers.

Your essay stated, “we need to put out all the facts for public examination, explore all ideas with open minds to see where they lead, and then allow voters to make the call.”

With that in mind, let us put the facts out there.

You produced two spreadsheets justifying your position that the city will spend ov…