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November 2012 Archives
So the week that began with GOPers expressing great optimism about a quick fiscal deal ends with them looking and sounding like small cornered animals, alternately whimpering and showing their...
Regular readers know that after a tough week of heavy blogging, I often succumb to the temptation of devoting just one teeny tiny post to the deconstruction of the prose...
In my last post on one of TAP's November/December issue essays on a forty-year plan for progressives, I noted that Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson posed a choice between counter-polarization...
Earlier today I noted Ezra Klein's astute observation that Barack Obama has decided not to "negotiate with himself" in the fiscal talks by initially offering anything other than the preferred...
It's a stormy afternoon here on the Central Coast, which is fine blogging weather. And there's even a bit more out there to blog about than has been the case...
I'm not in the habit of paying a lot of attention to writers who are in the business of telling conservatives to do things they won't in a million years...
As consideration of the "constitutional option" of a Senate rules change restricting the filibuster by a majority vote becomes serious, handicapping of individual senators is also getting underway. Thanks to...
Those who argue that America has been drifting into socialism, redistributionism, and confiscatory tax policies aimed at "successful" people in recent decades should be compelled somehow to read the following...
The President's formal opening offer on a fiscal deal to avoid year-end appropriations sequestrations and a full expiration of the Bush tax cuts hit Capitol Hill last night, and congressional...
So Lindsay Graham and Rand Paul got into a bit of an argument on the floor of the U.S. Senate yesterday about the rights of detained terrorist suspects that got...
Before we get into the Daily Kabuki of the fiscal talks, it's worth taking a look at the new evidence TNR's Noam Scheiber dug up about the misplaced confidence that...
Trying to get myself enthused about the day's likely political news diet of fiscal talks and austerity demands. So here's Roxy Music performing "The Thrill of It All" in 1976....
Happy to finish up a 13th post in time for a good post-jet-lag nap, and then maybe that Dexter episode I fell asleep during last night. Here are some final...
Why write about the media lionization of yet another marginal GOP voice speaking truth to the Norquistian Power when you can quote Charles Pierce? It appears that Tom Cole, a...
At the Daily Beast today, David Frum tells this story to illustrate the steady drift of American politics to the Right--and of the Republican Party to a position of open...
The New York Times' former veteran legal Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse has a stimulating post up at The Opinionater site discussing the Supremes' drift away from viewing "the press"...
Anyone living in the large universe of the Obama campaign's email lists during the last year or so undoubtedly noticed the extraordinary volume, and sometimes the unusually casual tone, of...
It's great to be back home and no closer to airplanes than the occasional distant hum of engines. Let's get to some mid-day news-and-views items: * In an important follow-on...
As I noted briefly yesterday, TAP is publishing a large number of essays in its November/December print issue (and rolling them out gradually online) based on the idea that progressives...
The most amusing thing about the fiscal talks as reflected in the VandeHei/Allen Politico "inside account" was immediately identified by Ezra Klein: The austerity crisis talks have hit a peculiar...
In what purports to be a definitive statement of the case against Susan Rice's hypothetical appointment as Secretary of State, a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Anne Bayefsky and Michael...
In a finding that helps explain the infernal influence of people like focus-group-manipulator-supreme Frank Lutz, Gallup has published reactions of Republicans and Democrats to key terms often tossed about in...
The most significant bunch of legal challenges to Obamacare beginning to work their way through the courts involve claims that corporations--some for-profits, some non-profits, some distinctively religious enterprises, some entirely...
I make a lot of derisive comments about Politico here, and for good reason. But there's no doubt they do some things really well, like sniffing around Beltway staff sources...
This could be the news cycle blogger's anthem: Lowell George and Little Feat performing "Willin," in 1977. UPDATE: Yeah, sorry, original post was video of Little Feat performing "Dixie Chicken,"...
Finally home, sitting at the iMac, and getting ready for the first normal work day in more than a week. But here's what is left from sifting through today's news...
One of the odd things about the conservative hysteria over Benghazi and now over Susan Rice's possible future is how many old axes are being ground. Rush Limbaugh compares the...
There are, as you probably know, quite a few progressives who don't particularly fear the so-called "fiscal cliff," mainly because they don't think the most contentious issue, an increase on...
Nate Silver has a remarkable post up today showing that the pro-Democratic proclivities of the tech community and the geographical areas dominated by it have reached really astounding levels that...
Those who have been breathlessly following all the intra-Republican discussions about diversifying the party's appeal beyond white men should take note that all 19 House committee chairmanships announced for the...
I'm at SFO waiting for a long-delayed flight to MRY (flights before and after mine have already been canceled), and with luck may be home for the afternoon blogging blitz....
Since The Nation's Ari Berman probably did more than any other individual writer to draw attention to Republican-backed voter suppression efforts during the 2012 cycle, it's appropriate to turn to...
So unless it's just a publicity stunt (and his friends say otherwise), wingnut blogger and pundit Erick Erickson is mulling a primary challenge to Georgia's U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who...
In a post that begins with confirmation that yes, Mitt Romney will wind up with 47% of the popular vote in the 2012 presidential election, Slate's David Weigel makes a...
We've heard quite a bit now that blaming Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans for the astronomical rise in filibusters is unfair because such tactics were made necessary by Harry Reid's...
To hear most conservatives, Democrats are resisting "entitlement reform" as part of a fiscal "fix" for some combination of three reasons: (1) they fear the wrath of "the left" or...
Since I'm in San Francisco and still trying to get to Monterey, here's Quicksilver Messenger Service performing "Dino's Song" at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967....
I'm still sitting at ATL, waiting for a long-delayed flight to Poppy International in Houston, and then on to SFO and eventually Monterey. Won't get home until tomorrow, and then...
Well, it had to start soon, given the general consensus among Democrats that even a sitting two-term vice president wouldn't have a prayer of beating her in the primaries. So...
As you may have heard by now, a group of naked people showed up in Speaker John Boehner's office to protest the potential impact of automatic spending "sequestrations" on funding...
Perhaps it's a testament to the size and breadth of Barack Obama's victory on November 6, or maybe it's because so many conservatives were stunned by MItt Romney's failure to...
I mentioned late yesterday a new Pew analysis of the under-30 vote in the 2012 elections, suggesting a generational trend to the political Left unlike anything we've seen since the...
It's hardly news any more when conservatives oppose ratification of a treaty reflecting widely shared American values. Concern for U.S. "sovereignty," often based on conspiracy theories about the United Nations...
I'm en route to the Atlanta airport to head back to California, but to the extent allowed by the suspension of the car I am in, here are some mid-day...
If you needed any additional reason to read Jacob Heilbrunn's review of Thomas Ricks' latest book (The Generals: American Military Commanders from World War II to Today) in the November/December...
Of all the conservative raps in circulation, the one I have the most trouble with personally is the anti-anti-racism meme: the idea that white people are being persecuted for the...
Occasionally I'll write something like the last post, raging at the right-wing boilerplate that passes for "moderation" in Washington today, and wonder if I'm more or less credible for having...
The way the whole "fiscal cliff" thing (itself a contrivance based on the Republican view that expiration of the Bush tax cuts and imposition of defense spending cuts would be...
Ran across this video last night, and just had to post it as a fine travel song for a travel day back to California: Golden Earring performing "Radar Love" in...
Since I wrote the last several posts sitting in a mall, I'm certainly aware of the transition from the Thanksgiving to the Xmas season. Few of the folks passing me...
Pew has a big analysis out on the under-30 vote in 2012, and while the basic numbers are well-known by now, there are some fascinating nuggets, including this one: The...
Those of you who are familiar with the formerly-conservative economics writer Bruce Bartlett--who worked in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and held very visible posts at the Heritage...
One of the big mysteries--and sources of progressive angst--during Barack Obama's first term in office was the virtual disappearance of Obama's powerful and technologically enabled supporter network during the long...
Beyond the sexual scandal-mongering and the spurious linkage to the spurious Benghazi issue, the main impact of the Petraeus resignation as director of the CIA is, of course, that the...
It's been obvious--certainly since Speaker John Boehner's op-ed vowing to continue legislative challenges--that conservatives weren't going to let little things like a landmark Supreme Court decision and a national election...
Still in Georgia, and still completing the family circuit, so if posting is occasionally irregular, please forgive me (and blame the dreadfully slow news as well). Here are some mid-day...
As noted earlier, a lot of the supposed compromise, "share-the-pain" proposals kicking around Washington right now as "solutions" to the "fiscal cliff," don't really offer a lot of compromise, unless...
So the GOP drive to do in 2014 what it failed to do in 2012--dominate a favorable landscape to take control of the U.S. Senate--is off to a good start...
Today's overriding political news is about the brave Republicans (a mob of three or four, at this point) who are signaling their defiance of Grover Norquist and a willingness to...
According to Politico's Manu Raju, Republicans are threatening to "shut down" the Senate if Harry Reid proceeds with limits on the use of filibusters as part of the Senate rules...
After the Thanksgiving weekend with its various excesses, seems appropriate to post Neil Young performing "After the Gold Rush" in 1998....
Before I knock off for the evening and hand the keys back over to Ed, I wanted to write about an extraordinarily powerful article I happened to see when I...
To follow up on yesterday's post about the Black Friday Walmart strikes, I wanted to write about an argument that Walmart and its apologists frequently make -- namely, that so...
Highly recommended: this piece by Dan Hancox in today's Salon (it was originally published in The New Inquiry), about the political and economic unrest that Spain is experiencing as a...
Yesterday, I briefly alluded to my belief that two of the Republican "rape guys" from this past election, U.S. senate candidates Richard Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri,...
If you still haven't finished Schadenfreudegasming over the elections, you might particularly enjoy this article from yesterday's Wall Street Journal, about how the Tea Party movement is responding to the...
One of my favorite economists, Dean Baker, frequently makes the point that we don't really have free markets in the country. What we actually have is crony capitalism, which is...
Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia is making headlines today, for his recent comments about the no-tax-increase pledge he once made to powerful wingnut activist Grover Norquist. Chambliss said he's not...
By most accounts, yesterday's worker actions at Walmart have were a rousing success. Organizers say there were strikes at 1,000 stores in 46 states; hundreds of workers walked off the...
Hope those of you who worked today had an easy one, and those of you who (like me) were visiting multiple relatives had as many sinful things to eat as...
The recent intra-Republican wrangling in Iowa about the impact of the quadrennial Ames Straw Poll--soon to be echoed, inevitably, by complaints beyond Iowa about power of the First-in-the-Nation-Caucus--is yet enough...
As observers try to sort out various "compromise" scenarios for both sides in the ongoing fiscal talks, there's one kind of obvious Republican "fallback" position that probably strikes fear into...
Ryan Chittum has an excellent piece on CNBC, which has moved beyond its traditional worship of Wall Street, business executives, and the rich generally to outright fiscal scold advocacy: So...
It's become so common to think of the Great Recession as an event demarcated by rising and (perhaps now) falling unemployment rates that we sometimes have to be reminded that...
This isn't directly related to politics, but since some of you may still be trembling on the threshold of a decision to go out into the commercial wilds of Black...
We haven't heard a lot since the day after the elections from the no-doubt-exhausted numbers-crunching guild, led by the man whose influence was inestimably enhanced by his know-nothing conservative critics:...
After witnessing (though not joining) unbelievable lines of people waiting for tiny discount cards at midnight sales last night, it occurred to me to post this Black Sabbath video from...
Not a lot more news or views to share, as even the chattering classes seem to have taken the day off. But here are a few more items: * Mark...
There is not, as you might guess, a lot of U.S. political news to accompany your Thanksgiving Day feast. But here are a few items: * White House rejects Boehner...
I know I've posted this video before, but it's one of my all-time favorites, and good mood music for this holiday: Fairport Convention performing "Now Be Thankful" in 1970....
Finally landed in the ATL, and for those few of you who haven't vaulted fully into Thanksgiving, here are some remainders of the day: * That terrific trio of GOP...
I'm about to board a plane to Atlanta to visit family members for whom I am eternally grateful. I'm grateful for a lot of things this year (and not just...
Sarah Kliff has an important article in today's WaPo about the extraordinarily low levels of information about the Affordable Care Act among the people most affected: the uninsured. And it's...
As I warned might happen, we had some publication-timing issues with posts this morning (mainly because Movable Type's "schedule" function works strictly when it wants), so sorry about that. As...
Ah, Mark Halperin is at it again. On Morning Joe today, he accused what he likes to call the "Left-Wing Freak Show" of progressive new media outlets of leaping on...
Thanks to the de facto "sixty vote threshold" Republicans imposed on the Senate via abuse of the filibuster, and then the enhanced power the GOP gained in 2010 by winning...
While it is true that the metaphysical foundations of science, just like those of external reality, tend to crumble to bits when you look at them too hard, I would...
Over at the Atlantic Cities, Kaid Benfield has an "urbanist" case for the DC height limit, which might really be an elaborate plot to get Ryan Avent and Matt Yglesias...
Hate to be the first to tell you, but 2016 speculation has already begun, and worse yet, I'm not talking about candidates but about process. In Iowa, Republican Gov. Terry...
Since I'm heading to Atlanta today, here's that city's Mother's Finest performing "Thank You For the Love."...
Many readers, I assume, are already gearing down for the Thanksgiving Weekend, but for those who need a few more news jolts, here you go: * Here's Jeffey Toobin's succinct...
I know this is not exactly hard news, but then again, these days, it's likely this report from New York's Dan Amira may get more attention than hard news: As...
Amidst the frenzy of Black Friday, there's an important labor action occurring that does not--directly at least--involve a union. Yes, it's at America's most famously non-unionized company, Wal-Mart, where a...
In repeated posts about voting suppression, I've tried to constantly note that aside from all the bad laws and deliberately discriminatory policies, one of the most important weapons against voting...
Addressing a subject near and dear to my heart, TNR's Alec MacGinnis politely dismantles an argument from University of North Carolina-Charlotte's Karen Cox that the Republican domination of the Deep...
Given the endless posturing and litmus-test imposing nature of recent Big Fiscal Talks, and the dangerous futility of efforts to overcome the usual tensions through congressional Supercommittees, it's not surprising...
Time to start downsizing the food consumption in anticipation of Thanksgiving Day. But no need for news diet, other than product shortages: * After much thundering, Rep. Allen West concedes...
Even as his son the junior senator from Kentucky signals a possible 2016 presidential run, retiring congressman Ron Paul is demonstrating that even he has some opinions that political exigencies...
Even as much of the MSM buys into the largely phony meme of bitter internecine controversy among Republicans, who are actually united in a more-conservatism-with-tweaks strategy going forward, there's growing...
Without the phenomenon receiving a whole lot of national attention, the partisan polarization that has made national politics so fractious and closely contended has had a very different impact on...
For the cynical-minded, today's front-line reporting from the Struggle for the Soul of the Republican Party can induce bitter laughter: in response to "establishment" talk that Republicans need a clearer...
Moving right along with the theme of the week, here's the Beastie Boys performing "Gratitude."...
* Michael Kinsley conducts a long, insider-y interview with Tina Brown on the demise of the print version of Newsweek. * WaPo's Cillizza designates as the Worst Candidate of 2012:...
If there's a constant theme I've been hitting since Election Day, it's that no one should be fooled by all the "soul-searching" going on in the Republican Party. To the...
One of the enduring problems of U.S. foreign relations has been the tendency to support authoritarian governments in the eternal quest for "stability," sometimes as just a matter of inertia...
As the back-and-forth over the demise of Hostess Brands continues, there's considerable discussion among progressives about how the company's feckless management and its conservative echo chamber is succeeding in blaming...
The continued Republican frenzy over the killings in Benghazi, which has now been going on for more than two months, is pretty obviously motivated by partisan opportunism, linked to the...
Yesterday's failed experiment at a holiday treat to take home to family in Georgia is today's rich chocolatey indulgence. Yum. Here are some mid-day treats for you guys, from another...
A GQ interview with Sen. Marco Rubio is mainly getting attention because of his incoherent answer ("I'm not a scientist, man!") to the question: "How old do you thing the...
Last week I suggested there were some suppressed divisions in the Democratic Party which will eventually emerge, if not sooner then later, and that the shape of the 2016 presidential...
In a numbingly predictable development, a variety of Beltway Republicans are vowing to make sure the Big Boys are in charge next time the GOP has a shot at controlling...
It's fascinating (if somewhat predictable) to watch the rapidly diverging post-election prospects of the two members of the Republican presidential ticket. Mitt Romney is going to disappear from public view...
Much of the weekend political "news" involved serial Republican efforts to bury Mitt Romney far below the surface of future visibility, mainly on grounds that he has created the outrageous...
I'm going to try to stick to seasonal music this week: the Avett Brothers performing "November Blue" in New York in 2008....
One of the offshoots of the Occupy movement is an intriguing project known as Rolling Jubilee. Billing itself as "a bailout of the people by the people," Rolling Jubilee is...
Abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures in the United States, and one of the central political issues of our time. Yet in spite of this, there is...
Shellshocked by the election results, a number of Republican officials are doing the unthinkable, by seeming to move, albeit rhetorically and ever so slightly, to the center. They're insulting their...
Here are some of the more interesting articles and posts I've run across on the internets lately: -- An poignant interview with Philip Roth in the New York Times, on...
The 2012 election gave progressives much to cheer about. In practically every high-profile race where the outcome was at all in doubt,the more progressive candidate won -- from the presidency...
Here's some intriguing news: Elizabeth Warren has vowed that her first priority upon entering the senate this January will be an effort to reform the filibuster. On the first day...
Below is an excellent Daily Show segment on the horrific BBC child molestation scandal. There are two particularly mind-blowing details. One is that in 1990, the late BBC personality and...
This is gratifying; Democratic women have gone to bat for UN Ambassador Susan Rice, defending her against racist, sexist attacks by conservative Republican critics. In case you missed it, as...
You know, if I really had the hang of this news-cycle blogging thing, I'd never do what I just did: write a long, meaty post on a late Friday afternoon....
We are far along now into the post-election season that it's beginning to become possible to sort out Republican reactions to their defeat. It's like peeling an onion, essentially, since...
We at the Washington Monthly were extremely proud to see one of our alumni, Katherine Boo, see such great success for her book about the slums of Mumbai, Behind the...
As expected, there's been a whole lotta talk since Election Day about how a new, exciting future for the Republican Party lies in the hands of its problem-solving, idea-hungry governors,...
So by now most of you have probably heard about Hostess Brands announcing it would begin to shut down its operations, blaming its demise on labor costs and a just-initiated...
A rainy day here on the Central Coast of California, but still beautiful. Here are a few mid-day news bites in another slow day for anything other than symbolic gesturing...
Supplementing the growing conservative fascination with "missing white voters" who cost the GOP the 2012 elections (and whose return, it is implied, could mean better GOP performance among minorities would...
Anyone interested in truly understanding why Democrats won a majority of the national popular vote for the U.S. House but made only small gains against the GOP majority won in...
I don't regard myself as any sort of expert on the Middle East, so it's impossible to ignore the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas that could soon lead...
There's been an awful lot of talk about the impact of the 2012 elections on the ongoing fiscal negotiations in Washington in terms of the additional leverage the president either...
In a post joining the general hilarity over the four-hour briefing that Republican State Senators in my home state of Georgia were treated to in October on the deadly threat...
Saw the new Bond movie. So naturally, had to post this: The Animals performing "Boom Boom" at Wembley Arena in 1965....
The longer we get from Election Day, the more pundits already seem ready to forget what happened and why. Here's today's leftovers, including the top two items of GOP spin:...
I don't usually get into personal scandals involving politicians; they are virtually required by the nature of the game to be hypocrites and often the kind of egomaniacs who live...
I don't know how long Fox News' Kirsten Powers is going to be able to get away with calling herself a "Democrat" or a "feminist." Without question, she's dipped pretty...
By now many of you, I hope, have already read Tim Heffernan's provocative article from the November/December issue of the Monthly about the possible descent of the United States into...
Regular readers know that I am deeply puzzled by the GOP frenzy over what happened in Benghazi. Sure, before the election I can see how it might have been misperceived...
Throat's raw from trying to hit high notes at choir practice last night, so attribute any sudden lapses in posting to coughing fits. Here's what I've got in the way...
I had totally missed Mitt Romney's remark during his now-infamous post-election donor call that he was considering staying in touch with his friends and supporters via a "monthly newsletter" of...
Parties who have just won a big presidential election don't usually have to worry a lot about internal strife. Certainly there's little or no sign of disunity in the election...
Anyone paying attention to the late election cycle had to have become aware at some point that Republicans were obsessed with seeing parallels to the 1980 elections. Obama was cast...
The irony of the U.S. Supreme Court accepting a challenge to the necessity for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act two days after an election characterized by blatant voter...
Over the last few years, two giant multi-national companies, Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors, have managed to gain control of 80 percent of the beer market in the United States. Now...
Much of conservative fiscal policy reminds me of this song title from David Bowie: "Putting Out Fire With Gasoline."...
A real cats-and-dogs day for bloggers. And the random news continues: * Louie Gohmert does it again: nominates Newt Gingrich to become Speaker in closed House GOP Caucus vote. *...
Here's how Pete Kasperowicz of The Hill briefly describes Rep. Ron Paul's "farewell speech" to the House today in recognition of his impending retirement: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) delivered a...
In his brief summary of Jeffrey Leonard's article in the new November/December issue of the Monthly on the imperative of shifting to relatively cheap, clean and plentiful natural gas to...
On a slow (meaningful) news day like this one, it's the perfect time to sample some long-form journalism, as is provided by the new November-January issue of the Monthly, which...
There wasn't anything particularly surprising in the president's first post-election press conference, which focused on fiscal talks, the Petraeus mess, Benghazi, and (briefly) even Syria and climate change. But the...
Man, what a wretched news day! Republicans endlessly raving about Benghazi, the Petraeus mess getting the Celebrity News treatment, and a million phoned-in columns on the fiscal-you-know-what (which I'm calling...
Well, we're discovering that at least one segment of the GOP's conservative "base" has found something to do in reaction to the election results other than engaging in a "struggle...
One of the most obvious--yet somehow easy to forget--facts about comparing elections over time is that age cohorts age. Today's over-65s were yesterday's 40-64s. So when the voting patterns of...
The highly selective nonsense surrounding various claims that "the American people" provided a "mandate" on November 6 for this or that just reached a new peak of absurdity: the idea...
At the Columbia Journalism Review, Brendan Nyhan makes a good point about the pre- and post-election CWs: The media has undergone a strange change of mindset. Immediately before last Tuesday’s...
Two years ago, in an effort that went largely unnoticed by the mainstream press, the Obama administration launched a frontal assault on the giant meat and dairy processing companies that...
After a few hours of contemplating holiday travel, here's where I am: the Ramones performing "I Wanna Be Sedated."...
An odd day of waiting for scandal shoes to drop, and distracted partisan spinners to figure out how it affected their spin. Here are some leftovers: * Don't look now,...
In the wake of successful ballot initiatives in Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana production and consumption, the rest of the country--and the federal government--need to decide what to do. In...
Brother Benen, among others, is enjoying the discomfiture of the Christian Right's leadership in the wake of Election '12, wherein they not only participated in the GOP's presidential and Senate...
Speaking of Paul Ryan: While the inevitable 2016 speculation hasn’t broken out just yet, there’s little doubt the Ryan's is the name we will hear most often from Republicans. He...
Think Progress' Igor Volsky reports these lines from Paul Ryan about how and why he and Mitt lost: In his first interview since losing the election, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)...
My wife came downstairs this morning about 7:00 PDT and asked: "Wonder what your momma would think of you eating cookies and pizza for breakfast?" But I was fresh out...
As a one-time crime policy wonk who drifted into other areas of interest and haven't much kept up, I was startled and pleased by the radical change in conservative attitudes...
If Harry Reid does indeed impose some sort of filibuster reform as part of the Senate's rules at the beginning of the next Congress, he only needs 51 votes to...
An article by The Hill's Russell Berman suggests that the control over the Republican Members of the U.S. House and Senate by Americans for Tax Reform chieftain Grover Norquist via...
So let's get this straight: a woman who is a close friend of CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus and his wife triggers a FBI investigation of threatening emails from another...
For decades, conservative politicians cleaned up at the polls by championing tough-on-crime policies that swelled America’s prison population to gulag-like levels. But in the last few years, outside the view...
Some mood music for the Petraeus Frenzy: Ry Cooder and the Chicken Skin Band perform "Dark End of the Street" in 1977....
Wound up working reasonably hard today--but then again, I am not a veteran. Here are some remainders of the day: * As Brother Benen notes, coal baron and maximum GOP...
To hear John Boehner, Republican spinners and big elements of the MSM the last few days, the election ratified the 2010-2012 status quo, meaning that the Speaker and other GOP...
An underappreciated election night story (at least nationally) was a historic set of victories achieved by California Democrats. An initiative backed by nearly all Democrats raising taxes passed by a...
If you've been longing for a simple but thorough explanation of the fiscal-you-know-what, Kevin Drum obliged today, complete with EZ charts on CBO estimates of the impact of various current-policy...
Don't know if you have the day off, but if you are a veteran, you should. Here are some mid-day morsels for those at work or at home alike: *...
U.S. Representative Steve LaTourette of Ohio, long hostile to the Tea Folk, has penned the classic Politico op-ed blaming said Folk for the failure of Republicans to win back the...
I've already made my negative views known about the relevance of some purported electoral "mandate"--or its absence--on what happens over the next two-to-four years in Washington. But since much of...
A WaPo piece by Eli Saslow that's getting a lot of buzz today profiles a Republican activist in Tennessee named Beth Cox who is wandering through the tasks associated with...
Tropical Storm Sandy left hundreds of thousands of people without power for days longer than necessary for a simple, frustrating reason: America’s power grid is old, decrepit, poorly maintained, and...
Since Veterans Days (actually yesterday) is being observed by the federal government and many state and local governments today (and we'll be on the usual somewhat relaxed holiday schedule here...
[Let me note as a preface that when I say "driven by ideology" I don't mean that in a negative sense, I mean the extent to which Republicans got into...
Will Rogers famously said, "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." But James Fallows, musing on the election, writes: For the first time in my conscious life,...
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy I was watching some Up with Chris this morning (update: posted above) and Hayes about came unglued making...
The military and foreign policy isn't normally my wheelhouse, but this David Petraeus thing is just irresistible. Today the Washington Post reports with some new, truly wretched details: The collapse...
For today a track off the Bastion soundtrack, a game I finished last night: It's a great title if you're into that sort of thing. Excellent story. @ryanlcooper...
Like most liberals, I had some fairly grim thoughts about the shadowy bunch of conservative SuperPACs that were supposedly going to deluge the 2012 race in a sea of money...
Julius Malema, via Wikimedia. The sad product of a racialist polity. The Supreme Court indicated recently it would take up a Voting Rights Act case. Adam Serwer provides some...
One point that remains little-understood about climate change is that it isn't a traditional environmental issue, where we preserve some bit of nature for the sake of its beauty (with...
From the New York Times: Consider the case of Chris Williams, the subject of this Op-Doc video, who opened a marijuana grow house in Montana after the state legalized medical...
In case you haven't seen it, I found this clip of the president losing his famous cool a little quite interesting: Obama is often compared to Spock in his near-total...
Ah, what a week! You've heard about enough from me for a while, so I'll get right on to the day's leftovers: * Petraeus resigns from CIA, citing extramarital affair....
So the U.S. Supreme Court granted cert today in a case in which an Alabama county is challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965....
A dog that definitely did not bark on November 7th was the once-very-intense Republican effort to "wedge" Catholic voters with claims the Obama administration was waging a "war on religion,"...
There's a lot of confusion and cross-talk over the meaning of the initial post-election maneuvering of the president and the House speaker over negotiations to deal with the so-called "fiscal...
As Rich Yeselson mentioned in his post earlier today, and as I've harped on now and then for several years, the biggest single under-discussed aspect of contemporary national politics is...
I really hope readers take the time to absorb the post by Rich Yeselson that went up during the last hour. Aside from offering an acute and historically grounded critique...
Demography isn’t destiny (or else African Americans would still be voting for the party of Lincoln), but parties and candidates must exercise persuasive agency, lest it become so. By that,...
Proponents of filibuster reform know that it's a perfectly logical idea for which the Senate never quite seems ready. But the recent abuse of the device by Republicans, aimed clearly...
Something we started hearing on Election Night and that's now picking up steam as a "silver lining" for the GOP's loss and/or as a source for the new, fresh thinking...
It's really kind of hilarious to watch Republicans working themselves up into the determination to throw the party's nativists (and nativist sentiments) under the bus as the quickest way to...
WaPo's Peter Wallsten tells us the GOP is really getting out the torches and bloodhounds to figure out why the irresistible march to victory that began two years ago broke...
For all kinds of reasons, and none at all, here's the Steve Miller Band with "Living in the USA." Somebody gimme a cheeseburger!...
The Election Post-Mortems aren't over at PA; we'll have more tomorrow, including a post from the always-insightful Rich Yeselson. We may even get around to questioning the future direction of...
Not being a real close observer of the internal politics of Mitch McConnell's cozy club of Senate Republicans, this lede from Politico's Manu Raju caught me by surprise: John Cornyn’s...
Though for some reason television networks haven't bestirred themselves to make it official, Mitt Romney's Florida campaign operation has conceded that the president won Florida, with a majority of the...
Regular readers know that the Washington Monthly has been adamant in arguing that the presidency of George W. Bush should have been a major factor in the 2012 elections, partly...
You may recall that in the September/October issue of the Washington Monthly, George Washington University political scientist John Sides cited research showing that presidential debates are rarely decisive events, though...
Diagnosing the condition of the Republican Party is hard work. I'm a ravening beast, and it's only mid-morning here in California. I'll feed you before hitting my own feed-bag: *...
One thing on which pretty much everyone in both parties who was not on the payroll of a candidate pretty much agreed: the 2012 GOP candidate field was a poor...
It's an obvious corollary to the general consensus in RepublicanLand that more, not less, conservative ideology is the answer to the party's problems, but it's worth noting for the record...
A second notable characteristic of conservative reaction to Tuesday's election results is the iron conviction that Republican pols from Mitt Romney on down did a poor job of articulating why...
By and large, I've been surprised by the relative docility with which conservative voices have accepted their defeat on Tuesday. Once the deal went down, there was relatively little talk...
On Tuesday's election, labor unions, as usual, played a crucial role in electing Democratic candidates. Union members voted for Barack Obama at a rate of 65% to 33%, according to...
As a mood-setter for a day of sorting through electoral implications, particularly for our friends in the GOP, here's White Stripes performing "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground."...
The guest bloggers made today a whole lot easier. Because they supplied so much content, I put off my posts on the GOP, and am officially declaring tomorrow "Whither the...
Already, there have been countless analyses of why the Democrats did so well in this election, and countless claims that this or that group or factor was "decisive." In any...
Kevin Drum writes that he's "unaccountably exhausted" by the election, even though he didn't much doubt the outcome so didn't feel let down and, living in California, didn't even have...
Last night signaled a monumental victory for gay rights. Same-sex marriage laws were passed by ballot referenda in Washington, Maryland and Maine --with Minnesota voting to block a potential gay...
In a little-noticed vote last night, after many failed attempts, Puerto Rico voted to officially join the United States as a full state: The two-part referendum asked whether the...
Have a strange hunger for food I can't eat sitting in front of a computer screen. Guess it'll have to wait. Here's what I've got from the rich menu of...
As I noted below, last night was a great night for women. But though we made significant progress last night, we still have a very long way to go. To...
Last night was, of course, a great victory for Democrats and liberals. It was also a spectacular night for women. Consider these these numbers: -- We now have a record...
In another bit of unfinished business from Election Night, information on state legislative contests is now becoming readily available. And it seems to have been quite a good night...
I'm working on a couple of sober posts on the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, and at some point will get around to the unresolved conflicts...
During the many moments of time-filling on the television networks last night after the presidential outcome was clear, the most popular topic was the lack of a "mandate" flowing from...
Over the weekend, I had an extensive conversation with a longtime Republican operative, a veteran of three GOP White Houses, who insisted, despite all the poll data to the contrary,...
Not a lot changed during my few hours of sleep after our election night coverage ended. AP has called the Nevada Senate race for incumbent Republican Dean Heller (others haven't...
Sorry for the late start, but 'twas blogging pretty late last night. In commemoration of the end of this election cylce, here's The Band performing "I Shall Be Released" in...
Just watched the president's speech, and thought it was a very impressive effort for someone who had to be bone-tired. Critics will call it non-substantive, but it provided about as...
* Hope you pardon me for a pause after the Big Moment. As I said, it's been a long cycle, and I called my parents to make sure they were...
* Quick calls of California, Washington, Hawaii for Obama, Idaho for Romney; no call yet in Oregon. * Chuck Todd on NBC suggesting Obama will win OH and CO, and...
* As we wait for calls in the remaining battleground states, let's note that (per Daily Kos) marriage equality referenda are currently winning in Maryland (narrowly) and Maine (more comfortably),...
* Polls about to close in IA and NV, but NBC has now called NH for Obama. That means unless Mitt wins OH, even sweeping ALL the remaining battleground states...
* Lotta confusing micro-analysis on the tube right now, though CNN (other than Blitzer) is doing a decent job of contextualizing county results in battleground states. Colorado really does look...
* Big news: Massachusetts Senate called for Elizabeth Warren, Indiana Senate race called for Joe Donnelly. Republicans have probably lost the Senate. * Wolf really aiming at low-information voters: "Look...
* Hilarious to watch Wolf Blitzer try to build suspense over polls closing in Arkansas at 8:30. "This is an election where every electoral vote counts." * Truth be told,...
* CNN's Candy Crowley reports from Romney HQ in Boston: they're playing jazz, not looking too happy. Candy says everybody understands Mitt's got to win in nearly every close state....
* WV called for Romney, but here's the biggie from CNN: Obama up three in Ohio according to exits; North Carolina tied! Very bad sign for Mitt; my little birdie...
* When polls closed at 7:00, the nets called Vermont for Obama and Kentucky for Romney. No surprise there. Virginia exits showing tie. * Mourdock running eleven percentage points behind...
* CNN continues to drop big hints, mostly encouraging for Obama (bellwether county in Indiana going for Obama; Romney pollster said to have shown Obama winning Ohio by 5 yesterday)....
On NPR's Talk of the Nation this afternoon, host Neil Conan was asking former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson and me about the role of concession speeches in American politics. As...
Polls just closed in most of Indiana and in Eastern Kentucky. No results just yet. Exit polls are in with the consortium's media clients, and we'll soon see some revealing...
As we anxiously await the election returns in the hours before the polls close and we at last come to the end of this bruising,maddening, exhausting political season, I thought...
Today, some odd "sample ballots" can be found fluttering around Connecticut polling places, featuring two photos with checkmarks next to them: one of Barack Obama, and one of Senate candidate...
As a supplement to Simon's earlier roundup of voting-place irregularities, check out this alarming report from the Philadelphia City Paper: The names of registered Philadelphia voters are not showing up...
It's probably appropriate, if sad, that a relic of the days when three network news anchors stood athwart American political journalism like colossi nicely sums up this year's MSM punditry....
Ah, but it's the perfect ending to the conservative drive to eject Barack Obama from office: a fake news show in Ohio that's an ill-disguised attack ad. This is per...
Let me assent to these posts by Tim Noah, David Dayen, and Paul Waldman. Even if President Obama gets another term by winning the electoral college and losing the popular...
The thing about being an old goat of a political junkie is that you can remember a lot of Election Nights. This is my eleventh presidential election as a registered...
Here's a reminder of just how tough it'll be for Scott Brown to win tonight in Massachusetts. In the January 2010 special election that catapulted him to the Senate, a...
We've been trying to keep you semi-satiated with even more posting than usual, but it's a hungry day, so here are some mid-day treats: * Don't know if it's the...
Here's a brief rundown of the various shenanigans and legal roadblocks that may have dampened turnout thus far in battleground states. Florida Early Voting In response to the interminable lines...
Given the fairly steady diet of talk this morning about this election cycle being petty and avoiding "big issues," here's a huzzah for Greg Sargent's passionate post about the ways...
I really didn't realize it until this morning, but the sheer volume of great new content published at Ten Miles Square yesterday and today is amazing. There's the "stakes of...
Late yesterday Aaron Blake of WaPo's The Fix put out the final version of his Early Vote Tracker by state. You can review the whole thing over there, but what...
There are all sorts of systematic "viewing guides" for following the returns out there this morning (here, here, here and here), but frankly, if you're paying attention to any major...
I mentioned all this yesterday, but as a reminder: Political Animal will be providing pretty extensive election day, election night, and post-election coverage. Tonight, beginning at 6:00 PM EST, I'll...
As Election Day begins, the political situation is a bit clearer than it's been in recent weeks. Something reasonably resembling the status quo is likely to be maintained in Congress....
Let's start Election Day with the great Leonard Cohen performing "Democracy" in 1993....
So it's time to rest up for a heavy 24 hours-plus, animals. Here's what I've got in leftovers from today: * Bill Keller travels to Paul Ryan's alma mater in...
So the final tracking polls from Gallup and ABC/WaPo weighed in today, with large samples and similar internals. Gallup, after showing Mitt up four to six points among LVs in...
Like many of you no doubt, I've been trying to avoid the vast late-autumn harvest of Pure Spin pouring out of TV and computer screens today. Polls, yes. Actual analysis,...
You wouldn't much know it from the national political media (including yours truly), but 44 states (all but Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia) will be holding state...
It's not often that I read a political article outside the Greater Wingnutosphere and issue forth a full Chris Rockian "That ain't right!" But Jonathan Martin's Politico piece today on...
A very quiet pre-election day here in Central California, particularly if you don't watch the tube and get bombarded by the final ballot initiative ads. Yeah, there are some hot...
Kathleen Geier here at PA over the weekend; Brother Benen this morning; and many others have noted with great annoyance the meme that Obama's relative weakness among white voters somehow...
As has been evident since at least 2008 (but was best explained earlier this year by Jonathan Chait), this year's Republican campaign has been based on a big strategic gamble...
Forgive the repetition, but since it continues to be an underreported story, you can argue the most momentous development of the latter stages of this campaign has been the very...
One of the major stories in the end-game of the 2012 presidential elections has been the late decision by the Romney campaign to "play" (via both paid advertising and significant...
It should be a surprise to no one, but it still feels wrong that going into Election Day, one of our two major parties seems to be putting so much...
As a tribute to those battling to exercise their right to vote, here's Mavis Staple performing "We Shall Not Be Moved."...
Montana is among the deepest of red states. Mitt Romney currently enjoys a comfortable lead there, and Nate Silver estimates that he has a 98% probability of winning the state....
The National Journal is reporting that Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin was arrested at least eight times in the 1980s in anti-abortion protests. The crimes he was arrested for include tresspassing...
In less than 48 hours, Election Day will be here. And while quite a few leading lights of the G.O.P. continue desperatelyspinning the fantastic delusion of a Romney landslide, the...
. . . And certainly among the very worst of its kind since Congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided to rename DC's National Airport after Ronald Reagan. A campaign...
This Washington Post story about the financial condition of the Washington Post Co. is illuminating. Unsurprisingly, but worryingly, its newspaper and online divisions are big money losers. Somewhat surprising is...
What's wrong with this picture? Here's New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, earlier this week in his much-praised (by liberals, at least) endorsement of Barack Obama for president: “Our climate...
I'm feeling reasonably sanguine about Obama's chances of winning, but in the last couple of hours I've heard a few things that are making me slightly nervous. I'm not panicking,...
More after the jump....
Has this election season been running longer than Berlin Alexanderplatz, or what? It certainly seems to have been going on forever. The Republican primaries, featuring the clown car of Rick...
As we head into the final weekend before Election Day, the big question on many people's minds is whether Hurricane Sandy will have an impact on the election, and if...
. . . albeit in the not-exactly-crucial demographic of cartoon villains and their amusingly creepy sidekicks. To paraphrase Mia Farrow in The Purple Rose of Cairo, they're fictional, but you...
Hard to believe The Big Day is so near. I usually try to ignore politics altogether on weekends, and will definitely make an effort to recharge batteries tomorrow and Sunday....
Yesterday we all enjoyed Bishop Daniel Jenky's encyclical essentially ordering the people of the Diocese of Peoria to vote for Romney/Ryan on pain of eternal damnation. But at Religion Dispatches...
Today's Cleveland Plain Dealer included an eye-opening op-ed: an endorsement of Mitt Romney by a former Democratic congressman (and city council president) from the Cleveland area, one James Stanton. The...
I don't want to make this California Day at PA, but do want to share a local experience to reinforce my earlier discussion in the post on the Mourdock disaster...
Finally, California's authoritative Field Poll is out with some final findings, and on the ballot initiative that will determine whether the state goes into another, and perhaps terminal, Fiery Budget...
Spending lots of time thinking about Election Night plan and beyond. Thanks to those who made suggestions in the thread yesterday. It's an oddly slow political news day so far,...
It's probably safe to say no publication has more consistently promoted the idea that "George W. Bush is on the ballot" in 2012 than the Washington Monthly. And that goes...
It's safe to say that the entire political universe has tried at one point or another to divine the outcome of the 2012 presidential contest based on hints from early...
Sometimes in a political race where nobody has a clear sense of where things stand, a poll will come out that just makes everybody say: "Whoa, okay, I get it."...
Scratch the surface of almost every projection of a late-developing Romney victory and you will probably find what used to be called "the incumbent rule," the idea that late-deciding voters...
So the October Jobs Report from BLS beat expectations quite a bit, with 171,000 net new jobs (consensus expectation had been 121k), and revisions to the last two monthly reports...
Just four days to go until the longest presidential cycle ever ends. Here's Tammy Wynette and George Jones with today's anthem: "We're Gonna Hold On," performed in 1973....
It was an entertaining day in politics, what with everybody on every side loosening the purse strings on final ad buys and making all those "final arguments," not to mention...
Last week I wrote a post (half-facetious, but only half) saying some unkind things about New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's presumption in demanding that the two presidential candidates accept his...
Just read two very interesting pieces--Jonathan Chait's "case for Obama" column, and John Dickerson's Slate piece on last-minute undecided voters--and reached a somewhat depressing conclusion: the election may hinge on...
We're still in the process of making plans for Election Night and beyond here at PA. I definitely plan to live-blog the results as long as they are in any...
With yet another Republican candidate for high office--Washington congressional candidate John Koster--offering us his pithy thoughts on how it was fine by him to force rape victims to bear the...
Had a fine breakfast of discounted Halloween cupcakes I picked up late last night, in a momentary failure of self-respect. So I'll be eating lite for lunch, but you shouldn't...
I haven't had much to say about the bizarre controversy surrounding Nate Silver's methodology at FiveThirtyEight (a site to which I contributed before the New York Times bought it and...
Better late than never, I suppose, per Politico's John Bresnahan and Manu Raju: Rep. Todd Akin and the Missouri Republican Party are launching a nearly $700,000 TV ad blitz in...
It's that time of the cycle where various people and institutions, for reasons ranging from simple partisanship to conscience to opportunism to irresponsible whim, officially weigh in on candidate preferences....
This report from Michael Barbaro of the New York Times speaks for itself: Lately, Mr. Romney cannot stop talking about how much he wants to work with Democrats. “I will...
This morning's political buzz is interesting: the drumbeat of conservative commentary triumphantly concluding that the election is over with Barack Obama sure to be driven out of the White House...
A little tribute to our would-be corporate masters: "Everything Counts" (plus "Never Let Me Down Again") from Depeche Mode, performing at the Rose Bowl in 1988....
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