Brilliant!
Alan Grayson on being targeted by Sarah Palin.
I want him to be President ………… Or I want him to be Howard Dean’s Vice-President.
Whichever.
*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.
OK, so Blanche Lincoln is polling horribly against her Republican opponents, who basically have the name recognition of Cranston Snord†, she is in favor of the banks, and the health insurance companies, and now she is running robocalls accusing her Democratic primary Bill Halter opponent of taking union money:
The Senators phone survey first asks how the constitutient feels about Lt. Gov. Halter. The survey then goes on to ask the constitutient if they are aware that the Lt. Governor has accepted money from unions.
Note that the distinguished lady from Arkansas has taken well over $½ million in labor PAC money in her career, despite the fact that she has been the Senator from Walmart, and now that labor unions are supporting her opponent, they are, of course portrayed as the font of all evil.
Seriously, I understand the desire to support a loyal Democrat who might be a conservative, but given her record on labor issues, healthcare, etc., she’s a disloyal Democrat.
Note that Mr. Halter is on my Act Blue Page, I support Bill Halter for Senate.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, supports Blanche Lincoln: he has formally endorsed her.
*Originally, I was going to say, “With t**s,” but I decided that that is insufficiently sensitive new age guy.
†Who, you ask, is Cranston Snord? And that is, of course, my point.
It appears rather likely that a bill legalizing, and taxing, pot will make it on the ballot in November:
Fourteen years after California decided marijuana could be used as a medicine and ignited a national movement, the state is likely to vote on whether to take another step into the vanguard of drug liberalization: legalizing the controversial weed for fun and profit.
On Wednesday, Los Angeles County elections officials must turn in their count of valid signatures collected in the county on a statewide legalization initiative. The number is virtually certain to be enough to qualify the initiative for the November ballot, according to a tally kept by state election officials.
………
The 10-page California initiative would allow anyone 21 or older to possess, share and transport up to an ounce for personal use and to grow up to 25 square feet per residence or parcel. It would allow local governments, but not the state, to authorize the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana and to impose taxes to raise revenues.
This last bit is particularly savvy.
By virtue of the gridlock in Sacramento, though this gridlock is a function of California voters and the initiative petition process in the first place, the state government is distrusted and despised, but by allowing local governments to license and tax, it would have the advantage of being an immediate benefit to localities.
Here, it’s Helen Philpot, who suggests a classical solution for the problem that is people voting for Bart Stupak, the nominally Democratic anti-abortion grand-stander in Michigan.
By classical, I mean a really old classic, the comedy Lysistrata, which was first performed in 411 BCE:
Bart, if you want to reduce abortions, vote to fully fund family planning and comprehensive sex education. Otherwise, shut the hell up. We don’t care what you think about our wombs.
Women in Michigan should hang a closed sign across their hoo-hoo’s until Stupak is either voted out of Congress or grows a vagina of his own. I mean it. Really.
Brilliant!
If you have the money (I don’t), go to Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page, and throw a few bucks at Connie Saltonstall, who is challenging him in the primary.
He takes the general case, and makes it too specific when he says, “Democrats discover the benefits of taking a stand on health reform.
The reality is that American voters favor audacity, even when the policies are things that they do not support, one need only look at Reagan and Bush, who achieved their popular support despite pushing policies that the American public generally opposed.
The route to electoral success is to tell the Republicans to go Cheney themselves, and then include things in the bill that jam them up with the voters when election time rolls around.
J.D. Hayworth was defeated in 2006 largely because he was one of the most, if not the most, compromised candidates by his ties to Jack Abramhoff.
Well, now he’s on Maddow, and claiming that John McCain’s investigations of the Abramhoff affair in 2004 exonerated him.
What actually happened was that McCain did his best to cover up all the dirt in 2004, because he wanted to run for President in 2008, which meant getting the Republican nomination.
So, now that Hayworth has had his ass kept out of jail by McCain, Hayworth is running a scorched earth primary challenge against him.
Heh.
BTW, Dennis G. at Balloon Juice has the full story, and McCain’s cover-up is a remarkably sordid tale.
Heh.
I wonder when McCain starts leaking stuff from his files tot he press about this.
Heh. Heh.
As you may recall Mr. Monseratte was expelled from the New York Senate after assaulting his girl friend, and now he has lost the election bid to José Peralta in a special election in which he took gay baiting to very ugly places.
Monseratte was running as an independent, because there was no way that the Democratic party would put him on the ticket after he was one of the two State Senators who switched to the Republicans, flipping the chamber briefly, and I’m wondering if it was over gay marriage now.
Hopefully, this is the end of his political career.
David Malpass, a former Bear Stearns economist is running for US Senate seat from New York against Kirsten Gillibrand.
I guess that he had to run, because serial killer Theodore Bundy is dead.
What is his pitch? That, “We need jobs and growth,” and that taxes are too high.
Seriously dude, you used to work for Bear Stearns. The idea that you are going to somehow create jobs, when you were at the epicenter of an epic collapse that you were in part responsible for is simply ludicrous, but he finishes up with this:
We need financial reform legislation but one that gets us toward more jobs and growth, not one that gets us toward more Washington
Does he really think that the voters are stupid enough to hand him the keys to financial reform?
You know, a campaign slogan of, “I know how to stop crime, because I was a criminal,” might sell in Louisiana, but not in New York.
H/t Americablog.
Once Again, Alan Grayson shows why he is on this list, with his response via press release to Sarah Palin.
It’s a PR, so I can quote it in full, and it’s brilliant so I will quote it in full:
On Friday night, Sarah Palin came to Orlando, and attacked Rep. Alan Grayson. This is what she said:
“I got to meet quite a few candidates who are lining up in a contested primary who want to take out Alan Grayson. And I think Alan Grayson — what can you say about Alan Grayson? Piper is with me tonight, so I won’t say anything about Alan Grayson that can’t be said around children. [Good one, Sarah!] But thank you, Florida, for allowing candidates in a contested primary to duke it out over ideas and principles and values, all with the same goal, and that is unseating those who have such a disconnect from the people of America. That’s what the goal is here in this race against Alan Grayson. Please fight hard, and do this for the rest of the country. Fight hard, and send a conservative to Washington, DC.”
Palin, the former half-term Governor, current-nothing and future-even-less, charmed the all-Republican audience with her folksy folksiness and her homespun homespunnery. Atypically, Palin was wearing clothes that she had paid for herself. At the end of the event, she shared her recipe for mooseface pie.
In response to Palin’s attack on Rep Grayson, Grayson actually complimented Palin. Grayson praised Palin for having a hand large enough to fit Grayson’s entire name on it. He thanked Palin for alleviating the growing shortage of platitudes in Central Florida. Grayson added that Palin deserved credit for getting through the entire hour-long program without quitting. Grayson also said that Palin really had mastered Palin’s imitation of Tina Fey imitating Palin. Grayson observed that Palin is the most-intelligent leader that the Republican Party has produced since George W. Bush.
When asked to comment about what effect Palin’s criticism might have, Grayson pointed out, “As the Knave’s horse says in Alice in Wonderland, ‘dogs will believe anything.'” Earlier, as the Orlando Sentinel reported, Grayson said, “I’m sure Palin knows all about politics in Central Florida, since from her porch she can see Winter Park,” which is part of Grayson’s district.
Grayson said that the Alaskan chillbilly was welcome to return to Central Florida anytime, as long as she brings lots of money with her, and spends it. “I look forward to an honest debate with Governor Palin on the issues, in the unlikely event that she ever learns anything about them,” Grayson added, alluding to Politifact’s “liar, liar, pants on fire” evaluation of much of what Palin has said .
Scientists are studying Sarah Palin’s travel between Alaska and Florida carefully. They hope to learn more about the flight patterns of that elusive migratory species, the wild Alaskan dingbat.
Let’s be clear here: I don’t think that every Democratic office holder or candidate talk this way, but I think that it is essential for some Democratic office holders or candidates to talk this way.
Connie Saltonstall, who is running against Bart Stupack in the primary in MI-1.
What can I say, she is not a Nearderthal on abortion, and she didn’t get subsidised rent from the Christofascists known as the family, so she is now on Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.
First, the Dems nominated a guy, Alexi Giannoulias, whose family made its money from the dodgy Broadway Bank, and he was its loan officer during the bubble years.
And now, we have this:
Boston Blackie’s owner hit with bank fraud charges
Nick Giannis a big financial supporter of Alexi Giannoulias
March 11, 2010
By RUMMANA HUSSAIN, ABDON M. PALLASCH and FRANK MAIN Staff ReportersOn the same day Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias tried to shift the spotlight off his family’s struggling bank and onto his opponent’s bank ties, police arrested a major Giannoulias contributor and customer of the family bank as he tried to flee the country ahead of check-kiting charges.
Nick Giannis, owner of the Boston Blackie’s restaurant chain, was caught at the Canadian border with his Greek passport as he was being driven by a man believed to be an employee, sources said.
And it should be noted that one of the reasons that he got the Democratic nomination was that he is a close friend, a basketball buddy, of Barack Obama, though there was not, to the best of my knowledge any endorsement made during the primary.
One of the more significant forces for evil in the United States is that Texas Board of Education, because one of their roles is to approve text books for the state, and as such, because of the size of the market, if it’s approved there, the stupidity that they demand goes everywhere.
Well, the stupidest of the stupid motherf%$#er wingnuts, one Don McLeroy, who has argued that Joe McCarthy was vindicated, that evolution is a fraud, etc., just got beaten in the Republican primary:
The top conservative activist on the powerful Texas Board of Education, who rejects evolution and has pushed for a revisionist right-wing U.S. history curriculum, is on the way out, after a moderate candidate defeated him in a tight primary last week.
For months now, TPMmuckraker has been covering Don McLeroy as a major player in the battle over the drafting of nationally influential history textbook standards by the Texas board.
Note here, this is not the voters of Texas coming to their senses: This is the voters of Texas realizing, belatedly, that people were making fun of them and calling them stupid because of this guy, so they dumped him.
I’m a big fan of Alan Grayson, the Democratic Congressman from Florida’s 8th district; he is intelligent, fearless, and takes moral stands that resonate with the voters.
Needless to say, the Republicans want him gone, and they are looking to take him down in what is a fairly closely divided district.
Well, they may find this difficult, because the latest poll shows Alan Grayson beating all challengers in the Republican primary:
Republicans like a politician who stands up for what he believes — even if he believes the Republican Party is populated by a bunch of “knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.”
The candidate leading the Florida GOP primary to determine who will take on Rep. Alan Grayson, the Democrat who represents the Orlando-based district, is none other than Grayson himself, according to a poll paid for by his campaign. Grayson is a freshman congressman who has drawn scorn from the GOP and has quickly built a nationwide following of progressives.
The poll has Grayson leading the 13 Republicans — among Republicans — with 27.8 percent of the vote. The congressman who mocked the GOP health care plan by saying that it amounts to telling people not to get sick and if they do, to die quickly, received more support than all of the Republican candidates combined.
I have always said that American voters respect a politician who says what he thinks, even if he says that he thinks that you are a c%$#sucker, and here we have documentary evidence.
Harry Reid (D-NV) is polling almost as badly as Blanche Lincoln, but it appears that hi might win because a Tea-Bagger candidate will split the anti-Harry vote:
The race is expected to include at least one Tea Party candidate, Las Vegas business leader Scott Ashjian. And there’s evidence in the Mason-Dixon poll that Reid would benefit, should Ashjian become a serious third candidate in the race (which is a big if). The pollster pitted Reid against a nameless Republican and a nameless Tea Party candidate in a hypothetical matchup. Asked how they’d vote, Nevadans gave Reid a slight edge in three-way race. Reid got 36% of the vote, the GOP candidate 32% and the Tea Party candidate 18%.
I figure that Reid will pick up a few percent on the way to November, and that the Tea-Bagger will fall in the polls, so it gets interesting.
Her poll numbers are in the toilet, and she looks unelectable in the general election, and now Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter has announced that he is running against her in the Democratic Primary, and the AFL-CIO has decided to come out against the Senator from Wal-Mart and the Insurance Companies Arkansas to the tune of a $3 million independent expenditure.
And, yes, I’ve added Mr. Halter to my Act Blue Page as well.
This is one of the cases where it’s a win-win.
We have a pseudo-Democrat who will lose anyway, and by taking her out in the primary, we have a chance a real Democrat taking the seat.
I guess he finally realized that it was moving from long-shot to fiasco:
Harold E. Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman who has sought to parlay his star power and Wall Street connections into a political career in New York, has decided not to challenge Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in the Democratic primary this September, according to friends and advisers.
After traveling the state on a closely watched tour, he told friends that he could prevail but feared that an ugly campaign would leave the winner drained of cash and vulnerable to a Republican challenger at a time when the Democratic Party controls the United States Senate by a slender majority.
“I’ve examined this race in every possible way, and I keep returning to the same fundamental conclusion: If I run, the likely result would be a brutal and highly negative Democratic primary — a primary where the winner emerges weakened and the Republican strengthened,” Mr. Ford wrote in an opinion article to be published in The New York Times on Tuesday.
Don’t let the door hit you on your butt.
This is a good thing for democracy in Columbia.
12 years is too long.
Interestingly enough, they stopped a plebiscite on this not for broad constitutional reasons, but on narrow procedural ones, “on the grounds that a referendum approved by congress ignored checks and balances and because supporters exceeded financing limits during a petition drive”.
The campaign finance violations are no surprise; he is a darling of the moneyed class in Columbia.
One of his top aides, David Johnson, has had repeated accusations of physical violence women acquaintances.
Most recently, a woman was seeking a protective order against him, and state police who were members of the governor’s personal security detail pressured her to drop the proceedings, and the day before the hearing, Governor Paterson talked with her on the phone to convince her to drop the matter:
In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it. The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor’s personal security detail.
Then, just before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer. She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed.
………
Through a spokesman, Mr. Paterson said the call actually took place the day before the scheduled court hearing and maintained that the woman had initiated it. He declined to answer further questions about his role in the matter.
That last paragraph sounds suspicious: How does someone get the phone number of the Governor?
Also note that the State Police have no jurisdiction, and ordinarily do not do this.
So the fat lady has sung, and he is not running for reelection.
Truth be told, the fat lady sung over a year ago, when he was polling behind Dick Cheney, but reality has finally smacked him in the face.
This is a good thing, since the next governor will be hip deep in redistricting, and perhaps New York can make things more fair, particularly in the State Senate, which has been Gerrymandered in favor of Republicans for generations.
The Labor Party has pulled out of government over a proposal to extend the tour of Dutch forces in the region, leaving Christian Democratic Alliance head, and Prim Minister Jan Peter Balkenende no choice but to dissolve government.
What is interesting here is that the troops were supposed to return in 2008, but have remained deployed because no replacements could be found amongst other NATO members, and Labor pulled out as a result.
This means that elections will be held a year ahead of time, probably in May, and that the main issue is likely to be the deployment of Dutch troops to Afghanistan, and given the nature of the electorate in Holland, and Europe generally, I think that the parties who favor immediate withdrawal are likely to gain the upper hand.
This may have political significance to other nations deploying troops to the campaign.
There has been a military coup in Niger:
Niger’s military said it suspended the constitution and dissolved government institutions after overthrowing the regime of President Mamadou Tandja.
The coup was carried out in the name of the Supreme Council for the Restoration for Democracy, military spokesman Abdul Karim Goukoye told reporters at a late-night briefing in an army camp in the capital, Niamey. He didn’t say who had led the coup.
…………
Tandja dissolved parliament in May and assumed emergency powers after the Constitutional Court rejected his call for a referendum to change the constitution to eliminate term limits. In July, he disbanded the court after it ruled a third time against his plans to serve a third term.
Not clear as to who the good guys are in this whole thing, or even if there are any good guys in this whole thing.