Morning Must Reads: Sluggers

What did I miss?

Your dessert, first:

Joe Miller declines interviews via handcuff.

(detail)

“And just to make this truly extraordinary, when other media professionals on hand for the event tried to cover the incident, Miller’s private security team tried to prevent them from talking to Hopfinger — and threaten to “arrest” them, too. The guards also said photographs in the public hallway at the public event were prohibited, though this chilling shot was taken anyway.

The right-wing Miller campaign issued a statement blaming Hopfinger for the incident, but neither the campaign nor the bizarre candidate were willing to answer questions about what transpired. Hopfinger, meanwhile, was released from handcuffs when local police arrived, and at this point, no charges have been filed against anyone.

Miller, a fringe lawyer, is running on a platform premised on his alleged love of the Constitution. He may want to re-read that part about the Bill of Rights.”

Sharron Angle raises $14 million, give or take $10 million or so.

“Nevada Republican Sharron Angle announced earlier this week she raised a staggering $14 million between the start of July and the end of September. Observers seized on the impressive total as a sign her challenge to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was gaining momentum.

But what her campaign failed to mention in its announcement was that the bulk of that money has already been spent. In fact, at least a third of it went into fundraising itself.

Despite the impressive total – which was actually $14.3 million – Angle had only $4 million left in the bank as of Sept. 30.

That means Angle’s effectively tied in the money race with Reid, who also had some $4 million cash on hand at the start of October.”

upvote!

Again, I have to make the comparison of Fox New Channel to the Home Shopping Network.

(at least HSN is upfront about the fact they are trying to sell you something)

“Fox News hate-talker Glenn Beck brought on a representative from the group to tout Cornwall’s new DVD, “Resisting the Green Dragon,” which claims the climate change movement is a “false religion,” and a nefarious conspiracy to empower eugenicists and create a “global government.”[...]

The Cornwall Alliance appears to be a creation of a group called the James Partnership, a nonprofit run by Chris Rogers and Peter Stein…Rogers, who heads a media and public relations firm called CDR Communications, collaborates with longtime oil front group operative David Rothbard, the founder and President of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)…[...]

But who is the “driving force” behind CFACT? According to disclosures, CFACT is funded by at least $542,000 from ExxonMobil, $60,500 from Chevron, and $1,280,000 from Scaife family foundations, which are rooted in wealth from Gulf Oil and steel interests.

CFACT and the Cornwall Alliance…share a common fundraising firm, ClearWord Communications Group. ClearWord has helped raise millions of dollars not only for CFACT and Cornwall, but also for infamous polluter front groups like FreedomWorks, the Institute for Energy Research, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “

A majority of people in Tennessee seem to understand that ‘Freedom of Religion’ thing well enough.

“Two-thirds of Tennesseans, 66 percent, ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that Muslims should have the same religious rights as other Americans, compared with only 14 percent who ‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree.’ Only 4 percent say that they ‘neither agree nor disagree.’ …

When presented with the prospect of a hypothetical Islamic community center and place of worship being proposed ‘near where you live,’ poll participants responded similarly. Forty-three percent said that they would ‘neither support nor oppose’ construction, 30 percent said that they would ‘oppose’ or ‘strongly oppose’ construction, and 23 percent said that they would ‘support’ or ‘strongly support’ construction.”

My Jesus can out-Jesus your Jesus any day of the week.

The Other Klein points out that the conventional wisdom of the Beltway crowd doesn’t align with that of us commoners.

(polling results at the link)

“In Washington, the fiscal commission — and the elite consensus — favors sharp spending cuts over tax increases as a way to plug the entitlement hole. In the country, the preference is just the opposite…[...]

Interestingly, this holds true for every single age group. We’re not looking at a situation where the elderly oppose benefit cuts in large numbers, but other demographics are more favorably inclined. In fact, it’s the young who are most steadfastly opposed to benefit cuts.”

So Paul dismisses the Aqua Buddha story as “something off the internet blogs” — even though it was reported by CBS, the Lexington papers, GQ, etc. etc. — and then rushes out a quote from “the Weekly Standard blog” saying Conway ought to apologize?
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What an effing clown.

If I’ve read this Shannon Moore piece on Mudflats correctly, the Alaska Dispatch, for which the arrestee works, is sponsoring a senate debate tonight. That should be sweet.

http://www.themudflats.net/2010/10/18/joe-millers-alaska-militia/

And even then, how ‘us commoners’ identify ourselves doesn’t quite jibe with what we really believe.

“For decades, polls have shown that a plurality of Americans — around 40 percent — consider themselves conservative, while only around 20 percent self-identify as liberals. But a new study from two noted economists casts doubt on what values lie beneath those political labels.

According to research carried out by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, and flagged by Paul Kedrosky at the Infectious Greed blog, 92 percent of Americans would choose to live in a society with far less income disparity than the US, choosing Sweden’s model over that of the US.

What’s more, the study’s authors say that this applies to people of all income levels and all political leanings: The poor and the rich, Democrats and Republicans are all equally likely to choose the Swedish model. [...]

Recent analyses have shown that income inequality in the US has grown steadily for the past three decades and reached its highest level on record, exceeding even the large disparities seen in the 1920s, before the Great Depression. Norton and Ariely estimate that the one percent wealthiest Americans hold nearly 50 percent of the country’s wealth, while the richest 20 percent hold 84 percent of the wealth.

But in their study, the authors found Americans generally underestimate the income disparity. When asked to estimate, respondents on average estimated that the top 20 percent have 59 percent of the wealth (as opposed to the real number, 84 percent). And when asked to choose how much the top 20 percent should have, on average respondents said 32 percent — a number similar to the wealth distribution seen in Sweden.”

I think that freedom to them means the freedom to do whatever the heck they want, how on earth do people get away with this? That journalist should sue.

A simple answer for why the US deficit has gone up.

(with chart!)

“Government spending has continued to rise more or less on its pre-crisis trend. Revenue has plunged, because the economy is deeply depressed.”

Having one’s cake and eating it too.

Rep. Pete Sessions, the firebrand conservative from Texas, has relentlessly assailed the Democratic stimulus efforts as a package of wasteful “trillion-dollar spending sprees” that was ‘more about stimulating the government and rewarding political allies than growing the economy and creating jobs.’

But that didn’t stop the Republican lawmaker from seeking stimulus money behind the scenes for the Dallas suburb of Carrollton after the GOP campaign against the 2009 stimulus law quieted down. [...]

Sessions was hardly alone. Scores of Republicans and conservative Democrats who voted against the stimulus law subsequently wrote letters seeking funds. They include tea party favorites such as freshman Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), as well as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), former presidential candidates.

Like their Republican counterparts, Democratic critics of the stimulus also sent letters seeking funding afterward. Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), one of seven Democrats in the House to vote against the bill, has written letters to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke requesting funds for four broadband-related projects in his state.”

We might be headed for worse water:

From curious capitalist – “Foreclosure-gate”

The banks may have defrauded investors & home owners by pushing fake documents through the court system and illegally handling foreclosures.

The legal battle is likely to take a long time, but it is possible if the banks lose or settle that just to homeowners they lose $30 billion. That’s neglecting the billion & trillion they might owe investors if fraud is proven.

At which points three large banks will be on the verge of collapsing and we’ll be right back at “too big to fail.” While I don’t want to see 10 years of unemployment worsened by this, I get the feeling these people can’t be trusted to run the banks.

If they fail, and there’s a possibility they will, there will not be enough support for a bail out from the public and something revolutionary will occur either in response to government action or from a lack of it.

Previewing the implications of the emerging ‘gridlock is good’ meme.

(today’s must-read, IMHO)

“But, as we will learn next year, gridlock is not neutral. It is corrosive. The policy results that follow are neither centrist nor stable. Rather, stalemate in Washington leads to a slow and steady deterioration of governance — deterioration that is at the heart of our present economic crisis.

To see this requires grasping a simple truth: Even if Congress can’t pass new laws, things don’t stay the same. Instead, the role of government will change profoundly as major shifts in the economy and society affect how policies work. We call this process “drift,” and it is anything but benign.[...]

…more often than not, drift is a quiet, passive-aggressive form of politics. It is not marked by dramatic partisan fights or big signing ceremonies — but by nothing happening. No Deal rather than the New Deal. And because it amounts to reform by stealth, drift can be used to achieve things that few elected officials would openly pursue.

Drift plays favorites. It gives advantages to the organized and vigilant and those who want the government to be less and less involved in shaping American society and responding to social and economic challenges. Drift empowers those who work in the shadows of politics: lobbyists and interest groups and activist networks.

There’s another sense in which gridlock is not neutral: It corrodes public faith in the ability of government to address problems — not least because it’s usually accompanied by plenty of nastiness. This was perhaps Gingrich’s greatest insight: Anything that tied Washington in knots, anything that highlighted petty bickering, anything that fueled public disgust benefited the anti-government party.”

“Democrats have 63 seats in serious danger compared to just four for Republicans.”

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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010_Elections/page?id=10476449
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Celebration is just around the corner!!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/dennis-menaced_508901.html
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Even Dennis “I’m an UFO enthusiast” Kucinich is in trouble.
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“The poll (based on a small but respectable 319 person sample, with a margin of error of 5.6 percent, weighted to eliminate gender bias) shows Kucinich ahead of his opponent, Peter Corrigan, by only 4 percent. The profile of undecided voters suggests they may break for Corrigan by about 3-2. And Corrigan’s 4 percent deficit turns into a 4 percent Corrigan lead when voters are given information on Kucinich’s ties to corrupt local Democratic leaders, and on Kucinich’s support for illegal immigration.”

“Well, if you listen to them publicly, Robert Gibbs today, for example, on the morning talk shows said they’re confident they’re going to hang on to the Senate and the House. Behind the scenes, they are not. They are deeply worried they could lose the House and they are even a bit worried they could lose the Senate,” CBS’ Chip Reid said.”

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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/10/18/cbs_chip_reid_wh_worried_they_could_lose_house_and_senate.html
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If you read the other libtarded sites like TIME.com, one would have the impression it is a lot closer than what it really is.

Why Dems lose on the healthcare debate. They have no clue as to what is really in the law.
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http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/10/18/dem_congressman_slaps_black_opponents_hand_during_debate.html
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All this Dem Congressman can do is slap his challenger’s hand. Unreal.
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The message is one that cannot be defended no matter how hard you try. The law is flawed, was written hastily in order to just pass anything at this time. Too bad we shall all suffer the consequences until it is repealed and a better law put into it’s place.

Extra Dessert: Favre…re’s pecker-dillos ge the Taiwan treatment:
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…GET the Taiwan treatment.

Aqua Buddha? I thought you said Aqua VELVA!

Without a hint of shame or hypocrisy Dowd goes on to denigrate Republican women. From writing to plagiarism to name calling. Dowd now tries to smear women with behavior she has made a career out of doing much to liberals delight.

Blockquote>”We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls, grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant.”

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Dowd on the pope:
“pope, who was christened “God’s Rottweiler”
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Dowd on Americans
“According to Dowd, we are a tribe of unenlightened Islam-haters, who obtusely believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim. All this, she says, is evidence of something I’m sure she knew all along — that Americans lack Obama’s stirring intellect”

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Dowd and some names she has called Palin
“Caribou Barbie, nutty puppy, exquisite battiness, erratic, egoistic, narcissistic personality disorder, grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, loopy, solipsistic meltdown, strange, incoherent, breathless, prickly, thin skinned, country-music melodrama, reckless, ga-ga, crazy like a fox, crazy, casuistry, girlish burbling.

The real radicals are exposed:progressive liberals. It seems once again that Democrats who wan tot get elected/re-elected want to run as moderates/conservatives. The supposedly superior intellect liberals seem to have a hard time understanding that their philosophy is antithetical to America and rejected when presented. America, including many staunch Democrats have realized that the true radicals are on the left.

Democrats abandon House progressives

Grasping to keep control of Congress, Democratic leaders are turning their backs on some of their staunchest supporters in the House and propping up stronger candidates who have routinely defied them on health care, climate change and other major issues.

While the President and his friends on the extreme left continue its foolish efforts to smear the Chamber of Commerce another favorite group closer to home runs unaccountable with taxpayer money.

And yet Charles Rangel still sits in DC.

Us Rep. Charles Rangel’s pet nonprofit, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, controls hundreds of millions in taxpayer cash but defiantly refuses to explain its spending.
The group’s tax forms are incomplete, and it has yet to release its 2009 annual report. Questions are stonewalled.

“The St. Pete Times has a great account of the ascent of Jim Greer, the tarnished former head of Florida’s Republican party.”
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LINK’S WRONG!!! Try this one:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/what-we-didnt-know-before-jim-greers-ascent/1128379

Democrats and liberals in general are so scared and running for the hills that soon we shall see more posts from TIME.com on WMD’s, why Bush II was so out of touch, and how we shall all go to hell in a hand-basket if Republicans get back in control of Congress again.
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Imagine that!!

Looks like the chances the GOP can take the Senate are melting…meeeeelllllting…Oh….NOOOOOO:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/forecasts/senate/washington

I point this out as a sign of encouragement that corporate interests are not, after all, the sensibilities of the American people as a whole…

Hope the same rings true for the House.

Rusty, you are so far off to the right that you are meeting your own ass. If you don’t like us here, go over to FAUX! You wouldn’t know main stream or the truth if you actually saw it which you are here. Truth does have a liberal bias.

Oh, you actually want some real news and not just fiction?

Keep your cake in the frig. You may get to eat it and then you will have no one to blame but Republicans who so far have shown no initiative other than INCREASING the deficit that they hate so much. You right wingers have such short memories that you don’t remember that 90% of the deficit was caused by your heros-Rag-Gun, Bush I, and especially Shrub who doubled it on his watch. Oh, I guess Obama did it all or is it because you have other issues!

Who knows. At least you ain’t in Kayntucky. The corporate stuff is overwhelming Murrays’ ads by about 4 to 1 here.
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In my opinion, she won the debate hands down. She was calm and stuck to her guns, Rossi, was, well, just plain shrill.

I’m convinced that the Collective Committee to Obfuscate American Voters is responsible for the consequences of this election. Who, thanks to the SC, shall remain anonymous.

Well Rusty, to start with there are 200 amendments, that the Democrats should have removed in committee, put in by the party of “NO” so I guess they don’t know what they did either.

Presidents, since Teddy Roosevelt through Nixon, have tried to do something about healthcare as they recognized that healthcare as a privilege of the monied class is the type of thing that can start rebellion. Of course, that was when there were “real” Republicans, not the current party which is homophobic, racially biased, Chamber of Copmmerce based and that sees their God as money.

I would expect with them in total control there would be a move in 2020 to have the Chamber of Commerce select the representativers and senators and designate the president and assistance president. Why waste their money on elections when they know what is best for the country?

FYI, one of the House GOPers, Dave Reichart, might be in trouble here. His ads are sounding pretty shrill, too.
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She’s a “down-the-line liberal”, whatever that is…

Our progressive friends cannot deny this, freeinpa, but expect the usual barrage of expletives and finger pointing. (Bush did it!) This is especially true regarding that monstrosity called HCR and most democrats are treating it like a live hand grenade. They know fully well the folly of this horrible legislation and that “victory dance” is coming back to haunt them. Their scorn for the tea party and American middle class is a classic example of committing political suicide. You reap what you sow and their harvest will be bittersweet, indeed.

To the Repubs

26.5 continued:

…liberal = communist = un-American

“…Obama will go on the Discovery Channel’s ‘Mythbusters.’ It’s not yet known whether he’ll bring along his birth certificate.”
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That’s another myth they can bust.
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The new crash test dummy will be named Buster Obama, I hear. So close to reality.

I guess when one breaks into the big leagues foghorn, one gets what Jackie Robinson gets.
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For the Teabaggers, it’s the American Way…

…gots? …got?
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….!?….

I think that Reichart is making a mistake by appealing only to the base here. It isn’t large enough or inclusive enough even in this district (the 8th) to get him a win.
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Looking for polls on Washingtons’ eighth. That’s one seat, and I think she’s (Delbenet) is closing the gap. Coming from out of nowhere, that is an accomplishment for her…

I gots it!

Beck’s favorite historian:
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http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/47077/history-lesson/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=history-lesson
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David Barton
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Texas fundamentalist. Degree in Religious Education, Oral Roberts Univ.
Professor at “Glen Beck University”
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Thinks doctrine of separation of church and state fraudulent
On panel that created new history standards for Texas schools. Played down Jefferson and played up John Calvin
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Past association with white supremists and Holocaust deniers

http://vruz.tumblr.com/post/361659249/economic-downturn-financial-rescues-and-legacy
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Another chart
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Economic downturn
Tarp, Fannie, Freddie
Stimulus
Wars in Iraq and Iran
Bush era tax cuts
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Gives a good picture of what might have been and the Bush legacy.

freeper: Are you writing that you have never read anything anti-dems from Dowd?
http://www.alternet.org/media/87666
Sorry you haven’t figured out that Dowd is a misanthrope that just generally hates humanity. Take your bias blinders off.

double up vote!

My 18 year old niece, a college student, is an answer to the traditional media meme that young people are not interested in the mid terms. She says there are more like her
She is volunteering for the Murray campaign. Murray met in WaDC with her juvenile arthritis group and my niece was very impressed.
Tonight she is attending a Clinton speech and later this week one by Obama.
She is fired up and ready to go!

free,

Again, I ask:

What is the source of this quote?

free,

What is the source of your quote?