Showing posts with label voters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voters. Show all posts

Sunday, November 9, 2014

The Nonsensical Election of 2014

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Many people in the U.S. and around the world are still struggling to understand why a Midterm Election in which only 36% of voters bothered to show up at the polls is being taken as a "Mandate" by the nutty Republicans. If this is just a typical midterm election, then why does it feel as if we've really gone down the rabbit hole this time?

Maybe it's the obvious gloating of the Tea Partiers, who should realize how marginalized they are according to every demographic number, but who thought President Obama should just surrender and impeach himself the day after the election. I guess the fact that Cuckoo-For-Cocoa-Puffs candidates will soon pour into both houses of Congress is giving them the "audacity of hope" that their draconian views are the norm. Why shouldn't they gloat? They turned out the vote, and the Democrats failed miserably.



Maybe we are just outnumbered by the stupids in this country, and we need to accept that.

While cool heads are saying this election was a quirk of red-state geography, gerrymandering, and local elections that pushed hot-button issues, that's no solace to those who voted Blue in a Red State. For instance, in Tennessee it is a fact that a new constitutional amendment to make abortions harder to get failed in the four major cities, thanks to Blue voters. However, it was passed almost as a landslide statewide as if those cities and their Democratic voters didn't even exist. And therein lies a sad truth about why turn-out is so low among Dems in red states - our votes get canceled out, and that leads to voter malaise and low turnout.



We also suffered in Tennessee from a wealthy scandal-proof fence-rider of a Republican governor whose only Democratic opposition was some unknown doofus named, I kid you not, "Charlie Brown." Behold, our state Democratic Party in action. Red state Dems are like orphans in the wilderness these days, and we are outnumbered by crazies.





Same thing in Texas where candidates like Wendy Davis and Letitia Van de Putte couldn't overcome the basic sexism of aging white ranchers, oil men, and the loony misogynist Christians who turned out to vote. What's more astonishing is that women turned out to vote against women candidates too. Another mystery of this election. Where were the "majority" of Dem and Independent women, and why didn't they care?

And then there was Kansas, allegedly a state where the Tea Party had turned their economy upside down, so they were ready to clean house starting with Governor Sam Brownback. Also, Independent Greg Orman was supposed to handily beat the incumbent Senator Pat Roberts, then caucus with the Dems. Except that none of that happened. The polls were all wrong. The people voted for Brownback as if everything was just okey dokey with them. And their absentee Senator, who doesn't even live in Kansas anymore, was re-elected in a landslide. Go figure.

My husband said no one should be suprised that a red state stayed red, but what was all that reporting about? How could everyone be so wrong this time?









Maybe it was delusional on the Dems' part to think states like Georgia or Kentucky - or Texas, a longshot - could be blue in this election, that they would elect a Michelle Nunn or an Alison Lundergan Grimes. But it's just as mysterious that Kentucky re-elected an unpopular guy like Mitch McConnell, while keeping their blue Governor and State Legislature. The popularity of Governors like John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Scott in Florida, and Scott Walker in Wisconsin is a conundrum that cannot be explained easily. Those states had huge "get out the vote" movements, and actually have real Democratic Parties, unlike in Tennessee. Yet it all seemed to make no difference in the end, and I'm sure their Dem voters feel just as puzzled as ever.



Many say that Democratic candidates failed because they "ran away from the President" and from the victory that is Obamacare. But to those of us in Red States who understand swing voters, it seemed logical that the candidates wouldn't want to draw too much attention to Obama or to the unpopular idea of ACA. I think it was a lose-lose situation - damned if they did, damned if they didn't.

Maybe history will explain this election, if we live long enough. Or we can just blame the black President like most of the media. If it really is that simple, and that racist, I just don't want to know.

Maybe we Dems just had too much hope, and got ahead of ourselves, and now we are turning on ourselves and playing the blame game. The fall-out in the Democratic party is already happening. There are calls to throw out Harry Reid as Senate Minority Leader, and toss Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as head of the Democratic Party. The head of the DCCC, Steve Israel, resigned a few days after the election.

All this blaming and firing won't really help us understand the Midterm from Hell, but I guess it will seem like progress. Meanwhile, most Dems are taking time off from the internet, watching Netflix, listening to soothing music and wishing this was all a bad dream.
























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Friday, July 4, 2014

Mississippi GOP and the Cotton-Pickin' Conference Call

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The Mississippi Republican Senate Race is getting weirder by the day. Chris McDaniel lost on the vote count of the run-off, but he won't concede to Thad Cochran. There was a conference call the other day which included members of both campaigns along with national and local reporters, but McDaniel supporters turned it into a circus by equating black votes with bales of cotton. No, really, that happened. And McDaniel keeps saying the black votes are somehow not legal even though it was an open primary, meaning anyone from either party could vote. But the actual laws don't seem to matter much to the Mississippi Tea Party!

Previous Related Posts:
Mississippi Chaos ~ Voter Fraud and Suicide
Mississippi Senate Race Shenanigans
Poutrageous ~ McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran

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The Conference Call:

From the Clarion-Ledger
A conference call set up by the campaign for U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran devolved into a shouting match and then ended, after which time supporters of GOP primary challenger Chris McDaniel chatted for a bit.
California-based blogger Charles C. Johnson posted the call-in number on Twitter and encouraged people to call in and crash the call. He succeeded.
. . . an unidentified male started asking about harvesting cotton and black votes.
. . . (Austin) Barbour (Cochran advisor) tried to continue on, but he was repeatedly cut off by the man. Eventually Barbour and Cochran spokesman Jordan Russell told media that they could be reached by email or cell phone and then hung up.
. . . As word of the debacle spread on Twitter, it quickly became journalists dialing in to see what the commotion was about, only to sit and laugh about the fact that it was over.

From Roll Call
The conference call line did not give the Cochran campaign the ability to mute callers’ lines, so there was no way to force the caller to stop speaking.
“I’m happy to address any question, no matter the lunacy of it,” he said.
But the man on the line, who did not identify himself, could not be placated. Finally, Barbour apologized and announced he was ending the call, telling national press that they had the contact information for the campaign if they had any questions.
. . . Thirty minutes after the call ended, the call line was still open. Someone was using a soundboard of President Barack Obama’s voice saying “Hey! What’s up?” Someone else was playing the audio from the movie “Animal House.”













Chris McDaniel was given time on CNN to denounce the conference call, and instead got all huffy about Cochran's ability to get out the black vote in Mississippi. The problem is, every time he defends his challenge to the vote count he sounds like a racist who thinks black votes aren't valid. There are theories about why McDaniel thinks this is a good idea - he lives in a conservative bubble, all his friends are racist, or he just has a tin ear for politics. Perhaps all of the above?

The point is, McDaniel never seems to understand that Cochran's appeal to black voters worked so well because the Tea Party is inherently racist, and they are all about cutting funding for minority programs. That is the platform on which McDaniel was running, but now he denies that he ever intended to cut anything - a complete lie!

CNN New Day, Transcript 7-4-2014

BOLDUAN: Do you regret that this has gotten so ugly for any part that you've played in this whole race that it's gotten so ugly?

MCDANIEL: Let me tell you what I regret. Here's what I regret. The last two and a half weeks of that campaign, they went out to Democratic communities, predominantly African-American in our state. They called me a racist. They race-baited.

They said if I was elected, I would suppress their right to vote or do away with it. They said if I was elected that welfare would be cut off. They said if I was elected that funding to historically black colleges and universities would be cut off.

I regret any campaign of divisiveness that deals with race in the manner they dealt with it. That was unfair. It's improper, and in so doing, they ran a scare tactic campaign that pushed 42,000 at least Democrats into the Republican primary.

Do I think that's a problem? Absolutely. Because I don't think divisiveness and that type of race-baiting belongs in the Republican Party.

BOLDUAN: You definitely don't like how they run their campaign. That is absolutely clear, Mr. McDaniel.

But for the part that you've played, this is two people running in this race, any regrets you have in how ugly this has gotten?

MCDANIEL: Which examples do you have where we've been ugly?

BOLDUAN: I'm just saying there are two people running in this race. Do you think you've run a completely fair campaign?

MCDANIEL: Help me understand which examples do you have that show I haven't run a clean campaign?

BOLDUAN: I'm asking if there are any regrets now that you're part in one of the ugliest primaries we've seen in a long time.

MCDANIEL: I can't control the Cochran's race baiter, name calling. If you can find an example where we did something like that you let me know and we'll talk about it.



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Saturday, June 28, 2014

Mississippi Chaos: McDaniel Charges Voter Fraud ~ Tea Party Leader Commits Suicide

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Previously Related Posts
Poutrageous: McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran
Mississippi Courthouse Shenanigans

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The chaos over the Republican Senate Run-Off Race in Mississippi continues. Seasoned politician Sen. Thad Cochran was declared the winner last Tuesday, but Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel refuses to concede amidst allegations of some type of voter fraud particularly aimed at Democratic black voters who crossed over for Cochran, although that is legal in Mississippi and this was an open election. In the midst of the election angst, a prominent Tea Party leader who was arrested for spying on Cochran's wife in a nursing home has committed suicide. He had been indicted by a grand jury and was facing a court date later in the summer. Many say he was devastated by the arrest and the effect on his legal career, but it's possible he somehow blamed himself for the loss of the election.

The outrage of the Tea Party in Mississippi isn't going away any time soon. They are going hyperbolic and nearly apoplectic over McDaniel's loss:

This is a win for the establishment, but it’s a win with an asterisk, because it’s so tainted that it might be one of those things where they’re going to be sorry they ever won the runoff in Mississippi.
~ Craig Shirley, a political consultant and the author of two respected biographies of Ronald Reagan, via National Review

This just threw gasoline onto the flames of the civil war. What happened yesterday in Mississippi will resonate for years to come. It will become the battle cry, just like the Alamo. We will remember Mississippi.
~ Richard Viguerie, the author of Takeover: The 100 Year War for the GOP’s Soul

And the McDaniel campaign is looking to find more votes, but local election officials in Mississippi say there is no proven voter fraud, which is refreshing to hear from a mostly Republican state.

From New York Times
The McDaniel camp charged that a partial review of the tallies in Hinds County had turned up nearly 1,000 ballots that were cast by voters who participated in the Democratic primary on June 3 and were ineligible under state law to vote in the Republican runoff. McDaniel aides said supporters were reviewing ballots across the state, although they have met resistance in about half of the counties they have approached.

Pete Perry, the Hinds County Republican Party chairman, said the McDaniel campaign’s claims were “wildly exaggerated.” In the Jackson precinct at Fondren Presbyterian Church, he said, the McDaniel campaign charged that 192 illegal votes had been cast by people who voted in the Democratic primary. But, he said, only 37 Democrats voted there on June 3.

“Instead of making wild accusations which stir up social media with cries of fraud and corruption, it would be much better for all involved — the voters, the candidates, the 500 poll workers in Hinds County — if we let facts enter into the conversation,” Mr. Perry said.


















On Death of Tea Party Leader Mark Mayfield:









A prominent lawyer and leader of the Mississippi Tea Party, who was arrested in connection with photos posted online of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran's bedridden wife, died on Friday of an apparent suicide, the man’s attorney said.
Mark Mayfield, 57, was a founding member of the state's Tea Party and had served as its vice chairman, the organization said.
. . . Police received an emergency call on Friday morning from his wife, saying her husband had just shot himself. Mayfield was found lying on the floor of a garage storage room with a single gunshot wound to his head, according to the police department in Ridgeland, Mississippi.
~ Reuters

Mayfield was one of three men charged with conspiring to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran.
That incident was one of the most explosive events in the Mississippi Senate primary, which Cochran won in a runoff over Tea Party-backed Chris McDaniel on Tuesday. McDaniel has refused to concede the race and suggests that voting irregularities may have helped Cochran win.
Mayfield, 57, an attorney and state and local Tea Party leader, was arrested last month along with Richard Sager, an elementary school P.E. teacher and high school soccer coach. Police said they also charged John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg, but he was not taken into custody because of "extensive medical conditions." All face felony conspiracy charges. Sager also was charged with felony tampering with evidence, and Mary faces two conspiracy counts.
~ USA Today

Regardless of recent allegations made against his character, Mark Mayfield was a fine Christian man who was always respectful and kind. He was one of the most polite and humble men I’ve ever met in politics. He was a loving husband, father, a pillar of his community, and he will be missed. We are saddened by his loss, and we send our thoughts and prayers to his wife, his family and friends.
~ Candidate Chris McDaniel on his friend Mayfield

They killed him. They sent a SWAT team to his office, six officers, just to arrest him.
. . . I'm just crushed. Mark's death just kind of puts an exclamation point on how out of control this has all gotten."
~ Pat Bruce, president of the Madison (MS) County Conservative Coalition, Via Jackson Clarion-Ledger:





“A good man is gone today [because] of a campaign to destroy lives,” Keith Plunkett, a Mississippi GOP operative, tweeted. “To all ‘so called’ Republican leaders who joined lockstep: I WILL NOT REST!”
Plunkett deleted the post after others on Twitter responded negatively and accused him of using a tragedy for political gain.
. . . McDaniel allies have argued that the whole nursing home incident was politicized to get sympathy for Cochran in what became one of the nastiest races in memory.
“The politicization of the incident was beyond the pale,” Plunkett said. “It was an attack on a good man that is well respected. I’ve never met a person that had a bad word to say about him. It’s shocking to those in the state who knew the demeanor and quiet dedication of the real Mark Mayfield. He wasn’t the character he was being cast, and he didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
~ Politico





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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Poutrageous - McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran in Mississipi Run-Off

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Previous Related Post:
Locked-Up - Mississippi Courthouse Shenanigans

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The Republican Senate Run-Off Election in Mississippi has turned into a big deal. Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel had been favored to win, but at the last minute Thad Cochran appealed to black Democratic voters who turned out in record numbers to vote AGAINST McDaniel. And thus began another strange night in American politics.

Cochran won the election, but McDaniel has so far refused to concede the race, and there's talk of a write-in campaign, a third party for Teabaggers, an investigation into the election, and general far-right Poutrage.

Make some popcorn and read what happened.

From Time
McDaniel lost in a runoff to the six-term incumbent Cochran by only about 6,000 votes, amounting to less than 2% of the total count. Many of those who pushed Cochran over the top were either Republicans who’d been unmoved to vote in the initial June 3 primary (in which McDaniel narrowly won but failed to secure the 50% needed to prevent a runoff), or Democrats who were inspired to vote for Cochran to prevent a Tea Party victory for McDaniel.
Turnout in Tuesday’s runoff was higher than in Round One, with about 55,000 more ballots cast, many of them by Democrats for Cochran. McDaniel supporters felt robbed; as their candidate took the stage at his election night watch party, the crowd chanted “Write Chris in!”

From Robert Costa in Washington Post
In a bitter and angry speech to supporters in Hattiesburg late Tuesday, McDaniel refused to concede and said, “we are not prone to surrender.” He cited “voting irregularities” and thundered that the “Republican primary [was] decided by liberal Democrats.”
“We’re not done fighting,” McDaniel vowed.
. . . McDaniel has drawn support from national tea party groups as well as conservative stars, including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Chuck Woolery, the original host of “Wheel of Fortune.”



























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Sarah Palin Word Salad On Facebook
With Friends Like These, Who Needs Liberals?
As we pointed out last week (see: http://t.co/y8T64iZQyR), there were several potentially illegal political games afoot in Mississippi to motivate Democrat voters to “switch” over to the GOP for a day to help save a 42 year Republican member of Congress. On top of that, millions of dollars from out of state liberal billionaires like Mike Bloomberg poured in at the last minute on that same incumbent’s behalf. You have to ask yourself why?
When a primary election is lost fairly, I am all for unifying behind the victor and joining forces to fight in November. When an election is questionable, with potential legal violations, politics MUST be put aside and the irregularities MUST be fully investigated. Regardless of party, we owe it to voters and to democracy within our Republic. The integrity of the vote speaks directly to the integrity of those who serve and the trust we ask the American public to put in our institutions.
I told Chris McDaniel last night that I stand with his effort to get to the bottom of this – he needs to know average, but tremendously concerned, citizens want to make sure the integrity of last night’s results in Mississippi are verified. Voting shenanigans never cease to amaze, but they had better cease altogether for the sake of ethical elections. And any GOP “architect” behind these abhorrent voting shenanigans should be ashamed of this Pyrrhic victory for the establishment.
If we find out it’s true that some of the characters alleged to have masterminded this Mississippi hijacking are the same ones who’ve tried to destroy other Republicans’ careers, they need to be taken to task and only be hired by unethical campaigns. Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us. And if any news organization ignores a free and fair elections issue like this, then whether left-leaning or center right, their silence will speak volumes.
You can read more about this issue from an article last week here:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/18/MS-GOP-Chair-Only-Those-Who-Plan-To-Support-GOP-Nominee-In-November-Should-Vote-In-Runoff

- Sarah Palin


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From "The Marionettes Remain Uncut" by Erick Erickson on Red State
. . . the Mississippi race does crystalize for me the desires of many to start a third party. In essence, tea party activists are the RINOs. A Republican Party campaigning on making the Senate “conservative,” used liberal Democrats to preserve an incumbent Republican and defeat a conservative. The actual conservatives are the outsiders with the GOP establishment doing all it could to preserve its power at the expense of its principles.
. . . Mississippi is a crystalizing election in that sense. Cochran is, for all intents and purposes, a marionette. His strings are pulled by staffers and lobbyists. They drop him onto the stage of the Senate and pull up a string to raise his hand. These puppeteers are so invested in keeping their gravy train going that they will, while claiming to be Republicans, flood a Republican primary with Obama voters to ensure their gravy train continues.

And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. They won fair and square. They changed who the electorate was, which was allowed under the rules.
. . . Unfortunately for the Republican Party the fight continues. And as grassroots activists feel further and further removed and alienated from the party, it will become harder and harder to win. . . . we may just see an irreparable split. Then, and even worse, if party leaders and party base voters cannot reconcile themselves to a common candidate in 2016, God help us.
I continue to oppose a third party. I’m just not sure what the Republican Party really stands for any more other than telling Obama no and telling our own corporate interests yes. That’s not much of a platform.









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Saturday, August 17, 2013

GOP ~ Painful Rebranding on Immigration

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 Using the word ‘self-deportation’ — I mean, it’s a horrific comment to make. It’s not something that has anything to do with our party. But when a candidate makes those comments, obviously it hurts us.
~ Reince Priebus Via Business Insider

Correction, 12:26 p.m. ET: An original version of this story said that Reince Priebus referred to Mitt Romney's comments as "racist." He said it "hurts us." Business Insider regrets the error.
~ Correction from Business Insider

It turns out a spokesman for the Republican National Committee mistakenly confirmed on Friday that chairman Reince Priebus had described the term "self-deportation" as "racist."
The committee's communications director Sean Spicer told TPM on Friday afternoon that a regional spokesperson earlier in the day had mistakenly made the confirmation when he was contacted by a Cornell University law professor and blogger.
~ From Talking Points Memo

Mitt Romney in 2012 ~ Self-Deport Grandma

Well, the answer is self-deportation, which is people decide that they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here. (Audience laughs) And so we’re not going to round people up. [...] Well, yes, we’d have a card that indicates who’s here legally. And if people are not able to have a card, and have that through an e-verify system to determine that they are here legally, then they’re going to find they can’t find work here. And if people don’t get work here, they’re going to self-deport to a place they can get work.
~ Then-Candidate Mitt Romney via PoliticusUSA

Steve King, R-IA ~ Drug Mules with Cantalope Calves

Some of (the Dreamers) are valedictorians — and their parents brought them in. It wasn't their fault. It's true in some cases, but they aren't all valedictorians. They weren't all brought in by their parents.
"For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.
~ Rep. Steve King of Iowa on Newsmax

That description comes from many days down on the border, riding and sitting with the border patrol and without them at night, no night vision, watching the shadows come across the border, picking people up personally with my hands, unloading illegal drugs out of a vehicle with a false bottom under the truck. I mean this is a personal experience and I sit there at night and border patrol agents would come to me one at a time in their civil clothes and talk to me clandestinely…This description is the description from that kind of experience.
~ Rep. Steve King of Iowa

Steve King: The GOP is Under a Spell on Immigration

Last year, almost everybody in my conference would’ve agreed with me on this immigration issue. And this year, it seems as though after the presidential election a spell’s been cast over a good number of Republicans and they seem to think the presidential election was about immigration. I’d ask them, find me that debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama that addressed immigration. I don’t remember it. I can’t find it. The election was about jobs and the economy, not immigration. And yet some Republican strategists and leadership have decided let’s just go ahead and debate immigration for twelve months and then we’ll see if we can solve the problem…
~ Congressman Steve King


 GOP Leaders to King ~ Just Shut Up!

I think Congressman King should go get some therapy for his melon fixation. I think there might be medication for that. I think he's a mediocre congressman with no legislative record and the only time he makes national press is when he comes out and says something offensive about the undocumented or Hispanics.
. . . This is a man who couldn't even get elected senator in Iowa. That's why he's not running there. This is a man whose district has been polled and supports immigration reform in the majority. So, you know, he is -- this is his call to fame.
~ Republican Strategist Ann Navarro on Meet the Press

Since 2006 Republicans have grimaced and hidden in the corners and asked, 'Oh, what are we going to do about these people on talk radio, these people on cable news that are saying these things that are driving off the very swing voters we need to get elected to the White House again?' They don't have guts to speak out against the extremists. Mitt Romney never had the guts to speak out against the most extreme elements in his party. And he lost, in part because he followed extremists down a rabbit hole in Iowa in a caucus process on immigration and he got slaughtered among Hispanic Americans...
~ Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe on MSNBC, via Blue Virginia

There can be honest disagreements about policy without using hateful language. Everyone needs to remember that.
~ John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives

I strongly disagree with his characterization of the children of immigrants and find the comments inexcusable.
~ Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader

Well, of course, it's hurtful. Of course, it hurts. ... Just, not good.
~ Reince Priebus on Steve King's Comments


Rightwingers to Leaders ~ We Don't Need Your Stinking Rebranding!

. . . you have to form a very very strong barrier from people just flowing in like candy. It's no good, you can't have it. We either have a country, or we don't have a country.
~ Donald Trump

The Republican consultants are the ones that are sourcing for this, because they're the ones that believe this. But we've never had a majority of Hispanics or even close. We've never had a majority of blacks. We've never had a majority of transgenders and gays, and we've won. This is hocus-pocus. What a trick! The first big trick that the Democrats succeeded in pulling off was telling the Republicans that they gotta get the independents.
So the Republican candidate, every four years, has a campaign aimed at only 20% of the electorate! You know the sold saw that 40% of the voters are gonna vote Democrat, 40% Republican, and the 20% independent, that's where the election's won. And all these consultants tell these Republican candidates, "I'm the guy that can get you a majority of those Hispanic votes and that's how you win.
~ Rush Limbaugh

Tennessee Republican State Rep Scott DesJarlais was presiding over a Tea Party town hall meeting in Murfreesboro, Tennessee this past week, and was approached by a Hispanic girl, eleven-year-old Josie Molina.
Josie took the mic and, with a trembling voice, said to DesJarlais, “Mr. DesJarlais, I have papers but my daddy doesn’t, what can you do to make sure he can stay?”
Josie’s father is currently in deportation proceedings and she is undergoing therapy to deal with the anxiety.
DesJarlais thanked her for the question but said, “the answer remains the same. We have laws and we should follow those laws.” The pro-Tea Party, mostly anti-immigration crowd cheered loudly in approval to his response.
~ Story via Progressive Populist

So the GOP thinks that we must do something to legalize 11 million Mexican criminals. What doe the GOP think about legalizing 11 million American criminals. I am sure they deserve it more than the Mexican do. After all this is their country and it is not the Mexicans country. I would be happier if you would vote to give amnesty to every US citizen charged with a crime that has not been arrested and convicted.
~ Cactus Jack on Newsmax

I am still looking for the part the deports the 11 million illegal aliens. We need to enforce our immigration laws. What are they going to do with the parents of kids who are illegal aliens? This is crazy. Just deport all of them. That is the law.
~ Charles B. on Time

These establishment RNC bozo's are the last gasp of the Romney campaign. They will be sacked in short order. They do not represent the actual base of republican voters and their position papers are meaningless drivel. Certainly they are irrelevant to those who actually vote in republican primaries. This Rinse Prepube (or whoever) is nobody. He is simply a shill for a few corporate billionaires. He and his politburo prance and strut and deluded themselves that they have power. The establishments greed for cheap labor has got to be crushed. They have no support and they are destroying the republican party..
~ HacimObmed on Time












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Friday, July 19, 2013

The Unraveling of Mitch McConnell

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. . . this is the week that Mitch McConnell lost his iron grip on the Senate Republican caucus.
~ Michael Tomasky on Daily Beast

Mr. McConnell, minority leader of Senate Republicans, became even too obstructive for his own colleagues this week as they sought to end the endless GOP filibusters that have ground Washington to a halt.
It left Mr. McConnell, who so loves the filibuster he once filibustered himself, sidelined.
It is a stunning fall from power for Mr. McConnell, famous for marching his members in lock-step party discipline, and could leave him considerably weakened as he seeks a sixth Senate term, touting his power and influence.
~ Lexington Courier-Journal

From Roll Call
A meeting of Senate Republicans on Wednesday grew tense as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told his members he could have gotten a better deal on nominations than the one negotiated by rank-and-file Republicans.
McConnell’s tone, according to multiple sources, implied that he had been kept in the dark about the talks between some in his own ranks and Democrats. However, those same Republicans say they kept McConnell updated throughout their negotiating process.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., got so frustrated with McConnell’s presentation of events, that he called “bullshit” loud enough for the room to hear, nearly a half-dozen sources said. The heated exchange underscored the “buyer’s remorse” among some Republicans, especially leaders, one senior Republican said on background.

I’m really glad what happened yesterday at lunch, as far as my response, I’m glad that that occurred.
~ Senator Bob Corker, via Roll Call

As a rule, when senators are shouting "bullpucky" -- or perhaps a related word with a similar prefix -- at their own party's leader, it's not a good sign.
~ Maddow Blog

[The Filibuster Deal] will give more momentum to those who want to go to 51 votes, there's no doubt about that," McCain said, adding that the Senate's budget conferees could be told not to discuss the debt limit under a motion to instruct. "That's the way the regular order works around here. You just don't say, 'No, I object to going forward.'"
He also told The Huffington Post in a brief hallway interview last week that the same group of conservative senators had threatened to filibuster debate on gun control legislation. It's not just about regular order, McCain said, but also about how Americans view the Republican Party.
"They had planned, the same people, on filibustering the gun bill and not moving forward with it for debate, and finally it was enough of us that prevailed that we moved forward with debate," McCain said. "Think how the American people would have reacted if we hadn't even agreed to debate the gun bill?"
~ John McCain on Huffington Post



Mr. McConnell lost quite a bit of power . . . His caucus was forced to kneel to the Democrats, and for all his insistence that the filibuster remains a real weapon, he was unable to stop 17 Republicans from setting the weapon down. If these Republicans continue to allow votes on nominees, Mr. McConnell will not be able to block other people President Obama wants on his team. (Of course, that remains a big if, and Mr. McConnell will undoubtedly encourage obstruction.)
The most telling proof of defeat was in the words of three other Republican leaders who also voted against the deal and appeared with Mr. McConnell — John Thune, John Cornyn, and John Barrasso. Each of them said how glad he was to get past this whole messy nominations things so that they could get back to their preferred topic: “Obamacare.”
It’s a “train wreck,” Mr. Thune and Mr. Cornyn said. It’s “unraveling,” Mr. Barrasso said.
~ New York Times

. . . This is killing Mitch McConnell. He simply does not know what he is doing and is worn out. As are the hundreds of GOP strategists who have been shaped by his policies and singing along with Mitch for over two decades.
It's really the end of the road for Mitch. Help me, anyone, interpret what's going on any other way.
~ Ken Camarro on New York Times





The game is on in Kentucky for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Democratic Party.
Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat and the only woman to hold statewide office in Kentucky, announced Monday that she will run for the U.S. Senate next year and challenge McConnell. Grimes, 34, is the Democratic Party's top candidate after actress-activist Ashley Judd decided in March she would not run.
~ USA Today

The Kentucky Senate race is now a tossup. Mitch McConnell is the most unpopular incumbent in the entire country. He is a relic of the past and a symbol of everything that is wrong with Washington. Kentuckians want a change.
~ Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)

Mr. McConnell is fairly unpopular in Kentucky. Public opinion surveys show that, on average, more Kentuckians disapprove than approve of the job he has done in the Senate. Roughly half of the respondents in the four recent partisan polls said they disapproved of Mr. McConnell’s performance.
~ Nate Silver, 538 Blog




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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

#SCOTUS Brings Back Jim Crow


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source: @conormcdonough























































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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

RNC Chair Reince Priebus Announces GOP Autopsy

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When Republicans lost in November, it was a wake-up call. And in response I initiated the most public and most comprehensive post-election review in the history of any national party.
As it makes clear, there’s no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren’t inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; our primary and debate process needed improvement.
. . .  Successful parties learn and grow, and you do the best learning after you lose.
. . . Focus groups described our party as narrow-minded, out of touch, and, quote, "stuffy old men." The report minces no words in telling us that we have to be more inclusive. I agree, and as President Reagan said, our 80% friend is not our 20% enemy.
~ Reince Priebus at the National Press Club, announcing the Republican Party Autopsy

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Quotes from the Autopsy Report:

. . . The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.

. . . One glaring example of our tendency to conduct campaigns on autopilot is spending on TV. Simply put, TV spending is out of control. Outside groups spent approximately $1 billion on TV ads in swing states in the final six months of the 2012 campaign. Despite the extraordinary amount of money that was invested in TV by outside groups in 2012, the final results of the election barely differed from the polls six months earlier. There are lots of arguments for why this is the case, and we don’t believe we lost because of third-party TV ads. However, the pendulum has swung too far when it comes to spending on TV ads.

. . . the number of debates has become ridiculous, and they’re taking candidates away from other important campaign activities. It should be recognized that depending on a candidate’s standing in the polls, some candidates will want to participate in an unlimited number of debates, as early as they can and as often as they can. If some candidates decide to team up with media organizations that seek to sponsor debates, it will be impossible to hold a reasonable number of debates. The media will decide how many debates the party should have — instead of the Party making the decision. In order to have a process that respects a candidate’s time and one that helps the Party win, the Party should create a system that
results in a more rational number of debates.

. . . We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.

. . . Establish a presence in African American communities and at black organizations such as the NAACP. We are never going to win over voters who are not asked for their support. Too many African American voters have gotten in the habit of supporting Democrats without hearing anyone in their community making a case to the contrary.

. . . Bill Calhoun of the Texas GOP added, “Don’t try to get African Americans to become Republicans, but persuade them to vote independently by voting their principles and not party affiliation.” He said  they will be more open to the independent pitch. Calhoun suggested that the RNC or an allied group  consider helping fund a $200,000 program to engage 300,000 African American voters in Texas. There are many opportunities like this for our friends and allies to consider help funding, and these should be explored and publicized.

. . . The Republican Party is one of tolerance and respect, and we need to ensure that the tone of our message is always reflective of these core principles. In the modern media environment a poorly phrased argument or out-of-context statement can spiral out of control and reflect poorly on the Party as a whole. Thus we must emphasize during candidate trainings, retreats, etc., the importance of a welcoming, inclusive message in particular when discussing issues that relate directly to a minority group.

. . . For the GOP to appeal to younger voters, we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view. Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.

. . . We also recommend broadening the base of the Party and inviting as many voters as possible into the Republican Party by discouraging conventions and caucuses for the purpose of allocating delegates to the national convention.

. . . The Republican Party must be the champion of those who seek to climb the economic ladder of life. Low-income Americans are hardworking people who want to become hard-working middle-income Americans. Middle-income Americans want to become upper-middle-income, and so on. We need to help everyone make it in America.
We have to blow the whistle at corporate malfeasance and attack corporate welfare. We should speak out when a company liquidates itself and its executives receive bonuses but rank-and-file workers are left unemployed. We should speak out when CEOs receive tens of millions of dollars in retirement packages but middle-class workers have not had a meaningful raise in years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I'm not sure the word autopsy is the most felicitous, since it generally applies to a corpse. I'm not sure I would have chosen it, but it's out there.
~ Charles Krauthammer

Unless Suggestion #1 is “Fire ‘Reince’ Prebus” then it is useless political hackery.
~ Mr. K on Free Republic

A postmortem and diagnosis from the Medical Team who killed the patient.
~ Zulu on Free Republic

The problem for the Republicans is that they don't understand that they don't understand. No wonder they are twisting in the wind.
~ Dallas G. on Think Progress

You can't ask a leopard to change its spots just as you cannot ask an old, whitehaired humorless Republican to change their views on immigration and civil rights for minorities and LGBT.
Hate. It's what they eat for breakfast by listening to Rush Limbaugh.
~ Brianna A. on Think Progress



Conservative speaker after speaker [at CPAC] told activists there’s nothing wrong with the conservative message.
. . . Isn’t he the same Reince Priebus who as chairman of the Republican National committee presided over a voter-suppression effort in three dozen states aimed at keeping African-Americans from voting?
Priebus talks about outreach to the young. Yet it was his party that opposed issues important to younger voters: marriage equality, abortion rights, gun safety, and is still pushing tax breaks for the rich and Medicare and Medicaid cuts for the middle class and poor.
~ Chris Matthews on Hardball

Elimination of caucuses and conventions would mean nuclear war with the grassroots, social conservatives, the Ron Paul movement and Tea Party Republicans.
Caucuses and conventions clearly give a better idea of what the base of the party wants, and the folks who show up for conventions and primaries are the very same people that the party will call upon to do the work each election cycle," he added. "This is clearly an attempt to get rid of what the base of the party wants.
~ John Tate, a senior Paul advisor who now runs the Campaign For Liberty

Death by dysentery from RINO virus contaminated koolaid ingestion.
~ 44RedHawk via Breitbart

2012 was my last vote for a GOP running for a national office , especially president.
The GOP has left me, just as the democrat party left Ronald Reagan said in the 60's.
It is time to build a vibrant 3rd party of Freedom Loving Conservatives.
With the alternative news on the net and social media it is now possible to make it happen.
~ Freeman Walking via Breitbart

For several months, RNC chairman Reince Priebus has referred to the committee’s report on the state of the party as an “autopsy.” It is an apt description, because the 100-page report has as much chance of reviving the GOP as an autopsy has of reviving a corpse....
. . . the report declares that the GOP is stuck in an “ideological cul-de-sac” and requires “a more welcoming conservatism.” To that end, the report insists that the party “must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform.” (8) It also calls for Republicans to imitate the left’s identity politics, creating a “Growth and Opportunity Inclusion Council” composed of “nonwhites” who are meant to help increase diversity.
. . . the report recommends that Republicans reach out to organizations such as the NAACP--ignoring the fact that the NAACP’s policies are decidedly radical and do not even represent public opinion in the black community on issues such as voter ID and school reform. At the same time, the report implies that the GOP should back away from “Third-party groups that promote purity” (54)--an apparent swipe at the Tea Party.
~ Breitbart

. . . That there is so much beltway thinking at the start of the report, as well as attacks on outside groups like the Club for Growth for daring to make primary challenges, suggests the report is steeped in conventional wisdom and existing establishment thinking without seriously considering that wisdom and thinking could be misguided or simply wrong.
~ Erick Erickson on Fox News

They are trying to close the process so we can’t participate in the caucus system, so that we can’t participate in primaries, so that upstart candidates, the ones that they tell us can never win, can’t even compete. It’s a little bit like putting the genie back in the bottle — it just can’t happen.
~ Matt Kibbe, CEO of Freedomworks

Look at this. Our party's narrow-minded. I know it's the impression, but it's the why that people think that, that is the secret to rebutting this. It's not accepting that as true because it isn't.
"But, Rush, perceptions are reality. You've said it yourself."
Well, that's true, but out of touch, not out of touch. We are in touch with the founding of this country. We are in touch with the greatness of this country and its people. Narrow-minded. See, we oppress people. We're not open. We're not tolerant, see. We're not inclusive.
So we gotta be more tolerant. That means cash in our chips on our core principles. We gotta be more inclusive, and he says he agrees with this. We can be true to our principles without being disrespectful to those who don't agree. When are we disrespectful?
Was it us who ran ads accusing Obama of not caring if some guy's wife died of cancer? Was it us who ran ads about Obama not caring about his dog? Was it us who ran ads accusing Obama of hiding money in the Caymans? Was it us that did all this? The Democrats get away with it.
~ Rush Limbaugh

. . . let me be a sport and tip my cap to the good ideas. I think fewer primary-season debates is a grand idea, chiefly because that means fewer that I’ll have to watch. By about the 15th one last time, I was trying to relax by shoving bamboo shoots under my fingernails.
Of course, the document doesn’t mention the real reason for this suggestion. What the RNC obviously wants to do here is limit middle America’s exposure to the party’s koo-koo-for-cocoa-puffs base. Remember the cheering for the death penalty, the booing of the gay soldier, the catcalls about immigrants? The party and its people were huge losers from all those debates and the attendant publicity. The less America sees of those people, the RNC figures, the better.
It’s also not pointless to want to hire more women and people of color to send out into the field to recruit possible voters and spread the party’s message. Why this is occurring to them only in 2013 is a question. This occurred to Democrats in 1972. Obviously Republicans have been rather happy to be the white party up until now.
~ Michael Tomasky on Daily Beast

The report didn't mention religion much, if at all. You cannot grow your party by distancing yourself from your base, and this report doesn't reinforce the values that attracted me and many other people into the Republican Party in the first place. It just talks about reaching out to other groups.
. . . The social conservatives will quit voting. They'll give up, they'll be despaired. Those are the most loyal people to work for you because they're energized because they believe their cause is something God stands for and that's a pretty good motivator. And you take that away? You diss them? You tell them their issues aren't important anymore? I don't know who you're going to be left with. I think you won't have any troops out there. I don't know how many country club people will go and walk door to door over the taxes issue.
~ Tim Wildman, President of the American Family Association

Specifically, the word "Christian" does not appear once in the party's 50,000-word blueprint for renewed electoral success. Nor does the word "church." Abortion and marriage, the two issues that most animate social conservatives, are nowhere to be found. There is nothing about the need to protect religious liberty, or promote Judeo-Christian values in society. And the few fleeting suggestions that the party coordinate with "faith-based communities" — mostly in the context of minority outreach — receive roughly as much space as the need to become more "inclusive" of gays.
~ Buzzfeed

The report's suggestion that Republicans "learn once again how to appeal to more people, including those who share some but not all of our conservative principles" seems like a no-brainer. But in reality, those people are called RINOs, and are almost automatically disqualified from national races. Priebus' report can't change that reality. Even while the autopsy suggests that "The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself," most of the GOP's brightest stars spent the weekend at the insular Conservative Political Action Conference — to which popular governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bob McDonnell of Virginia were not invited, for the unforgivable crime of compromising with some of their states' many Democrats.
~ Harry Decker, National Memo

. . . a lot (but in fairness, not all) of D.C. and NYC Establishment Republicans are embarrassed to be associated with the hardcore “Religious Right” and “Tea Party Patriots” who say silly things that would have been inappropriate even in 1813. The Establishment Republicans have spent enough time in big cities to know that gay people exist and poor people aren’t operating a coordinated left-wing conspiracy to barely get by. Call it elitist.
This crowd likes to view itself as more sophisticated than its base (and it most certainly is), even though it is more than willing to enable these fringe views by constantly looking the other way and saying things like: “look, I don’t give a sh*t about the social issues, I’m fiscally conservative and pro business, that’s why I’m a Republican.”
First of all, “not giving a sh*t” may be a departure from your base who does happen to give a big sh*t about these issues, but it sure as Hell isn’t a ringing or loving endorsement for the demographics you’re trying to attract to the GOP. When you tuck in your children do you say “Good night sweetie, I really don’t give a sh*t about you, but I love the tax deduction.” Of course not.
~ Americans Against the Tea Party



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