Let me say this: I believe, that in a stunning upset, Barrett is going to win this thing. I think Barrett’s going to win… [Walker] didn’t win by an overwhelming margin in 2010, and we know that by all estimates, it’s going to be a higher turnout than 2010. It won’t be as great as 2008. But we also know that those people that will be voting are going to be tilted heavily to Barrett. You know, the other side maxed out with their people in 2010. They had extremely good turnout.
As I pointed out earlier today, Russ knows what he’s talking about here.
Stories to Watch: 10/5/11
Damn it’s beautiful today. Seriously. Now here’s the news…
Any residual reason for the media to give a damn about Sarah Palin dies, as she announces she won’t run for president. Try not to let it get you too down.
Meg at Cognitive Dissonance finds a good piece; Michelle Malkin claims that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are “99%” white — because that’s just such an oh-so clever thing to say. FoxNation.com gets all excited about the observation, runs it as a piece on their site, and chooses a photo that proves Shelly wrong to accompany it. How stupid do you have to be to believe the crap at FoxNation.com? If this is any indication, pretty goddam stupid.
99-percenters have a friend in Russ Feingold. There’s also some support coming from elected dems, but none of the names are extremely surprising.
Chicago traders are assholes.
Senate dems rewrite Obama’s jobs bill, adding a “millionaires’ tax” to embarrass Republicans who vote against it.
Lamest hit job ever: RedState attacks the reporter who started Rick Perry’s “Niggerhead” scandal by revealing “public criminal records in multiple states stretching across 4 time zones.” This crime spree consists in its entirety of bouncing a check, failing to obey a highway sign, and two counts of speeding. That ought to make that whole racism story go away right pronto!
You know how people are always saying that America’s won’t do the jobs migrant workers do? Turns out that’s pretty much on the money.
Finally, is it just me or is Michele Bachmann just slightly more incoherent than normal?
Stories to Watch: 8/20/11
Good show. Good time. I was up way too late though. Now here’s the news…
One-time Tea Party fave Chris Christie has been taking stances lately that are politically incorrect for a one-time Tea Party fave. After saying “crazies” were responsible for rampant Islamophobia and Sharia paranoia on the right, he now says he believes global warming is real and humans contribute to it. This is a man that some on the right still hold out hope will run for president. But in the party’s current basketcase condition, no freakin’ way.
John Huntsman, who is actually running, also does his best to rule himself out as the nominee. Only nuts are allowed.
Liberal activists and union folks are giving GOP lawmakers a hard time at townhalls over the recess. Sound familiar? Yeah, if this is how Republicans want to do politics, this is the way we’re going to do politics. It’s your bed, GOP. Now lie in it.
Disappointing news out of Wisconsin; Russ Feingold says he won’t run for any office in 2012, meaning both the gubernatorial recall and the seat opening with Sen. Herb Kohl’s retirement are out. It’s a real pity, because polling either race was all his.
Karl Rove thinks Sarah Palin will run. I think it wouldn’t make any damned difference and who cares? Of course, Karl’s just running with the Bushies and trying to drum up excitement for anyone but Rick Perry. But, as Howard Finemann points out, Karl played a big part in Perry’s current popularity in the first place. Those neocons, always running around putting out fires that they themselves set.
Finally, do you think Rick Perry’s an idiot? Ronald Reagan’s chief domestic policy adviser Bruce Bartlett invites you to join the club.
Stories to Watch: 8/16/11
Those lemon honey mustard chicken pitas I told you about yesterday? They were awesome. Bonus: I’ve got leftovers. All for me. Now here’s the news…
Lost in the Rick Perry/Ben Bernanke brouhaha is the fact that Perry was clearly just making shit up off the top of his head. Seriously, watch the video. He stammers and hems and haws and tries to remember if Rush Limbaugh ever said anything about monetary policy. Finally, he pulls out something approximating an answer and it is, of course, dead wrong. It may be big news that he casually threw around the word “treason,” but the bigger news is that he had absolutely no idea what the hell he was talking about.
It’s interesting that Perry’s campaign has not apologized or issued a retraction, instead issuing a statement that makes very little sense given the context. Looks like we’ve got another Palin here — a brainless blowhard who won’t take responsibility for the idiotic things that escape when his mouth is open. No matter what crazy-assed thing Rick Perry says, the strategy is to pretend it’s the truest, most profound thing anyone has ever said in the entire history of people saying things. He’ll be putting on his “media victim” costume any minute now.
And, in this edition’s last mention of Rick Perry inanity, he’s come out strongly against a burdensome, big gummint regulation that doesn’t happen to exist.
Another day, another NYT piece pointing out that GOP economic policies are insane. Somebody has to do it and the rest of the media seems to be dropping the ball.
The Weekly Standard is still operating under the delusion that Paul Ryan has a hope in hell of becoming president.
Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are shameless liars. That is all.
Good news/bad news. Bad news first; the Wisconsin electorate is moving away from supporting a recall of Scott Walker, with 50% opposed and 47% in favor. The good news: a majority isn’t required to start a recall and, if Walker wound up facing Russ Feingold, Gov. Walker would lose regardless of how people felt about the process.
Finally, the final two Wisconsin senate recalls will be tonight. I said three yesterday, but I don’t know what I was thinking. It’ll be two dems defending their seats. You can follow the festivities at my Tumblr blog and my Twitter feed. Keep your fingers crossed.
News Roundup for 6/30/11
“It’s almost impossible to break campaign finance laws you say?
Challenge accepted”
-Headline of the Day-
“Johnson $10M Payday Could Raise Red Flags For IRS.”
When Ron Johnson spent $9 million to win Russ Feingold’s senate seat, people saw it as evidence that wealthy frootloops could just buy senate seats with self-funded campaigns. Thank God that’s not true. It turns out that Johnson’s plastics company, Pacur, bought the seat for him. And Ron came out $1 million ahead after all the smoke had cleared.
According to the report, Ron “received a $10 million payment in deferred compensation from his former plastics company, Pacur, weeks after his $9 million self-financed 2010 campaign for Senate came to an end.” Not surprisingly, this is bad. Even with the Citizens United ruling, corporations still can’t give corporate money directly to political candidates.
So Johnson found a way to break an election law in an era when there are virtually no election laws.
What an innovator. (Talking Points Memo)
-Cartoon Time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, you know how your parents don’t like those violent video games? Now you can tell them to shut up and that the Supreme Court agrees with you! Yay!
Click for animation
Remember kids, boobs = bad and 7.62mm minigun = good! (MarkFiore.com)
-Bonus HotD-
“Outside FEC, Stephen Colbert Says His ‘Super PAC’ Is No Joke.”
Still, check out the video of his announcement for the yuks anyway. (Talking Points Memo, with video)
Stories to Watch: 6/17/11
I’m giving serious thought to taking next week off of blogging. Haven’t decided yet, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a vacation from it. Now here’s the news…
Jimmy Carter calls for an end on the War on Drugs. Not the worst idea ever, considering that filling our prisons with nonviolent offenders is both mindbogglingly expensive and obviously not effective.
Bill O’Reilly scores one for conservative consistency; calls for David Vitter to resign in the aftermath of the Weiner resignation. Of course, it’s never going to happen in a million years, but it’s a nice gesture.
Polling shows a majority agree with the statement, “Government should do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people.”
US considers war crimes charges for Syria.
An Alabama Republican state senator and a horrible, horrible racist? Wow. I’m paralyzed with shock.
Russ Feingold’s right; this does not seem like a step in the direction of overriding the Citizen’s United ruling.
Finally, Andy Brietbart makes an ass of himself again. It’s what being a media troll is all about.
LIKE A BOSS
Feingold side eye.
Feingold Joins Wisconsin Recall Fight
An email sent to supporters of Feingold’s group, Progressives United:
Thank you for uniting as a progressive. Wisconsin is depending on us.
“Putting aside the question of whether Feingold is considering a challenge to Walker — it’s unclear whether he’s giving it any serious thought — this is another reminder that events are going to heat up in Wisconsin again in a big way,” writes Greg Sargent.
The Great State of Russconsin
Welcome to Russconsin. When Sen. Russ Feingold lost to Tea Party frootloop Ron Johnson just months ago, it appeared that the Democratic Party’s moment had faded — both in Wisconsin and nationally. Republicans descended on state houses and Washington in a “wave election,” sweeping out Democrats and flipping blue to red. But then something happened. Republicans either forgot or ignored the fact that polling showed they didn’t so much win these contests. Polling showed Democrats had lost. Republicans were swept in as part of a massive protest vote, not as an endorsement of their ideas.
But those Republicans decided, for one reason or another, to behave as if they’d been given a mandate. Perhaps some believed that if people actually saw GOP ideas in action, they’d come to support them — that now was their time to shine. Maybe others thought that the people really did support their policies, but that the polling was somehow missing that fact. Still others had no interest in legislative careers; elected office being a form of activism, they simply wanted the chance to do as much damage as possible to the hated government, mandate or lack thereof be damned.
For whatever reason, Republicans engaged in overreach almost immediately. The populace voted them in on issues of jobs and the economy; instead, the GOP began to strip people of rights, increase unemployment through cuts and layoffs, and to give away anything that wasn’t nailed down to moneyed interests in the forms of tax cuts, subsidies, and privatization. In Wisconsin, as it did nationwide, this got old fast.
In commenting on the special election in New York’s 26th congressional district earlier this week, Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling had this to say; “Congressional Republicans are extremely unpopular and voters think they’re doing an even worse job than the Democrats they put out of office six months ago. That was true in NY-26 and that’s true nationally. Last month we found nationally that 43% of voters thought House Republicans were doing a worse job than the Democrats did while in the majority to only 36% who felt they were an improvement. Even in NY-26, which voted 13 points more Republican than the country as a whole in 2008, 38% of voters think the Republicans are doing a worse job than the Democrats to only 34% who think they’re an improvement. You can talk about Jack Davis all you want but the reality is that if voters thought House Republicans were bringing the improvement they hoped for when they went to vote last November Jane Corwin would have won tonight.”
Republican overreach takes its toll. Which brings us back to Russconsin.
PPP also polled the coming recall of Gov. Scott Walker and found shades of Gray Davis. If a recall election were held today, Walker would lose — decisively. Against his general election opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Wallker would be defeated 50%-43%. Against Russ Feingold, it would be 52%-42%.
50% support a recall, while 47% don’t. But this is a misleading metric, since a much smaller percentage than fifty is needed to trigger a recall. Those numbers guarantee one.
Also up for polling is the seat held by retiring serial-backbencher Sen. Herb Kohl. In that race, Feingold is again the clear frontrunner. Of all the Democrats mentioned as possible candidates Russ does the best, beating GOP frontrunner and former Governor Tommy Thompson by 10 points.
So, seven months after he was voted out of office, former Sen. Russ Feingold can have his pick of elected offices — he’s the state’s political golden boy. Will it be the Governor’s Mansion in Madison, will it be back to work as the junior Senator from Wisconsin, or will it be something else? The world may not be his oyster, but this state certainly is.
Just months into what was supposed to be the Republican Party’s crowning moment, the whole thing is collapsing around their ears.
Welcome to Russconsin.
-Wisco
News Roundup for 5/24/11
I’m just saying you should think about it, Russ
-Headline of the day-
“Poll: Come Back, Russ Feingold!”
Well that didn’t take long. Just seven months after losing to rightwing halfwit Ron Johnson, Russ Feingold is now the favorite to win the seat held by the retiring Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl. According to the report, “In hypothetical contests Feingold leads Tommy Thompson 52-42, Mark Neumann 53-41, JB Van Hollen 53-38, and Jeff Fitzgerald 54-39. He wins independents by at least 9 points in all of the match ups and takes more than 90% of the Democratic vote while keeping the Republican candidates in the 80s within their own parties.”
If you don’t know who all those people are, don’t worry. Suffice it to say that they’re all jerks. Tommy Thompson is probably the one to watch, having been the longest-serving governor of the state. After that though, he kind of went south and led what might very well be the most disastrous presidential campaign of 2008. And that’s why you never heard of him — he was out almost as soon as he got in. The others have enough pro-Walker, anti-labor baggage to be sure targets in attack ads.
Here you go Russ. Just pick right up where you left off. (Weigel)
-Conservatives are just awful-
Top Palin aide Rebecca Mansour — who looks remarkably like Danny DeVito as “The Penguin” — loves her some of that twitter. And it’s there that we begin to find out what conservatives are really like.
See, Mansour has been having a “Twitter correspondence with a web denizen whom she didn’t know, but had come to trust online,” according to Politico’s Ben Smith. And said web denizen was looking to cash in.
“Does Politico pay for exclusives? Cause I’m looking to sell. I have 122 direct messages from Sarah Palin staffer Rebecca Mansour,” the web denizen emailed Smith. Smith told him he’d buy lunch or something, but that was as far as journalistic ethics would allow him to go.
“Sorry, Ben, but it’s going to take more than a happy meal and a hand shake to get me to betray someone’s confidence. Only freshly printed 100 dollar bills help me get over feelings of guilt,” he wrote back, “Would it violate some fake journalistic ethics and standards to get me in contact someone who does pay? I know that the thought of blogging about this is making your panties wet. The topics range from Chuck Hagel to Ricky Hollywood and everything else in between. It’s a fucking blogger’s gold mine.”
Yeah, this guy’s just a wonderful person.
Anyway, Smith wrote back that it was no deal, so web denizen took his tweets to Tucker Carlson, who totally denies paying for the dirt that Smith refused to pay for. Still, it all wound up at Carlson’s Daily Caller, because he offered a better lunch or something.
So we go from jerk #1 to jerk #2 — i.e., Mansour herself. Rebecca hates everybody. Redstate’s Erick Erick is “a total douchebag” (this confirms my suspicions, by the way). Mitt Romney supporters are “wacky as hell.” She was “was thinking more along the lines” of mailing journalist Joe McGinnis “a dead fish.” Even Bristol Palin gets hit with comparisons to Billy Carter and Margaret Thatcher’s “screw up son Mark.”
Then, when confronted with the tweets, she tried to deny them. That proved to be impossible, so she begged that they not be printed. “Can I just appeal to you to leave the Bristol stuff alone?”
Finally, she sent out a statement saying it was all “personal private conversations between myself and someone who I thought was a friend.”
Wow. With the way you talk about people behind their backs, you really think you have friends? (Politico, Daily Caller)
-Bonus HotD-
“Study: Whites say they face more racism than blacks.”
Oh for fuck’s sake… (Raw Story)
