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Although I haven't gotten an answer from the Brunner campaign yet on the Patriot Act, I did have a conversation where I made sure that they were aware of my presence on Daily Kos. While I was doing some searching to complete my opposition research concerning Afghanistan, I came across some interesting and ultimately telling items concerning Lt. Governor Lee Fisher and the front page of Daily Kos also shows why former Congressman and Bush Trade Representative Rob Portman cannot be seriously considered a good candidate for Senate. I will save the those bits for last.
("great work again Curtis - you spurred a movement that got picked up by folks all across America - we got hits on major news networks for your work" by admin
(EDIT: All I did was pass this along, go Coug!) - promoted by Curtis Abbey)
Today's retirement announcement by Evan Bayh leaves a big opportunity in 2010. Bayh waited until the last minute to Brett Farve, so we're going to have to scramble to get the 500 signatures necessary to get a Dem on the ballot in Indiana.
You can join the draft Mellencamp movement on Facebook
I've got to hand it to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), he knocks it out of the park on this. Republicans with their phony deficit concerns want to put the blame of their failed Conservative policies on Democrats and President Obama. But the money quote is right here.
"I really don't like being lectured on deficits when you (Sen. Gregg) and many members of your party (Republicans) helped cause the situation we are in right now."
~snip~
"Please, please, spare the lectures on deficit reduction."
In the past year, thanks largely to the Recovery Act and other help from Congress in terms of direct infrastructure and other spending, targeted tax cuts and humongous aide to the states, the economy avoided a complete collapse and a second Great Depression. Thanks largely to that kind of spending, the job loss picture turned around to look like this:
So of course, the United States Senate, Masters of Mediocrity, decides it's time to slow things down a bit. Senate Democrats released a draft plan of their new jobs bill today, and it is rather disappointing. It is missing some pretty critical and important stuff. CNN reports on the genius Senate bill:
Good afternoon evening, Progressive Electorate readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
It is a serious scroll. Decided to table this before I heard about Sen. Shelby's R-AL little announcement. Always a few kinks to work out. But no hurry, #snowpocalypse is about to hit DC again.
Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...
(great diary - well written with needed information - promoted by admin)
You can throw a dart at the left-ideological blogosphere and if you aim it roughly for health care reform, chances are you are going to hit a post about how the Democratic party is violating its own platform with the Senate bill. Horror! Of course, you can look at the right wing lunatic blogosphere and they are screaming about Socialist Communist Kenyan (TM) takeover of health care reform. But I'm planning on examining the claims of this serious violation of the Democratic platform today. After all, Democrats are in power in the White House, the House and the Senate.
First let me introduce you to the 2008 Democratic National Platform. It divides each policy area into subsections. I am going to list them and assign points based on a rather simple idea: I wasn't at the platform discussions. I don't know what was given the most weight and what was given the least. So each goal under the main health care umbrella will get the same amount of points assigned, and each sub-goal within it will divide up those points equally. Sound fair? Ok. We'll find out how the Senate health care bill stacks up against those goals.
From today's meeting between President Obama and Senate Democrats today comes this gem . . . .
"If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression -- we don't tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don't put in place any insurance reforms, we don't mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they're doing now because we don't want to stir up Wall Street -- the result is going to be the same," he said. "I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place."
Middle class Americans, Obama said, "are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don't want to -- we don't want to stir things up here, we're just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don't know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don't know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us."
After last weeks Scott Brown victory, we've had a number of discussions on this board about what went wrong.
Let's not play the blame game here either. h/t to Ministry of Truth
However, I'm a little concerned when I see how much trouble we are in based on news of retirements of House Dems in Arkansas and the announced decision today of Beau Biden to forgo a Senate Run in Delaware
I'm also remembering reading about some other top Dem prospects that decided to stay off the ballots in the 2010 cycle.
So what say you? Should we be more concerned that we were this time last week?
Good afternoon, Progressive Electorate readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
A new analysis of independent exit polls conducted in L.A. County at the November 2008 election indicates significant likelihood that the official vote counts are incorrect. It is indeed possible that the California state constitution was amended to strip marriage rights of some of the state's people as a result of vote counts that were incorrect and possibly even fraudulent.
A "no" vote for Prop 8 meant that you wanted marriage equality. In some places in Los Angeles, the difference between the official vote totals and this study were a not so alarming 2%, but in other places they approached a shocking 18%. Just to clarify, this study is saying that in some places the actual votes that people cast differed from what was recorded by the state by nearly 18%. And Prop 8 passed by a margin of less than 5% of the vote.
Or maybe C Streeter Jon Ensign can come to Harry's rescue again
Add John Ensign's parents to the list of Republicans for Reid.
Michael and Sharon Ensign donated $4,800, the maximum donation, to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid during the third fundraising quarter, according to a report from political newspaper Roll Call.
Too much irony here: A Mason-Dixon poll commissioned ,before the released Obama doesn't sound black comments, shows Reid getting beat pretty easily. Can we host a retirement party for Reid like they had for Strom Thurmond and get him out of the way?
Oh Yeah and in even less surprising news Mark "Big Mac" McGwire admits he was on steroids when he broke home run records. Thanks for clearing that up buddy and giving baseball another black eye. Does admitting use of steroid do anything to improve your image or what people think of America's favorite pastime?
Good afternoon, Progressive Electorate readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
As always, this is a crosspost from Congress Matters and I will refrain from my routine claim that this is the most important news of the day. That would be the what is happening in your own house this time of the year.
UPDATE: THIS WAS A HOAX. I knew it was too good to be true.
DailyKosTV has the video from CSPAN. Last week Seantor Tom Coburn asked that people pray that a Democratic Senator doesn't make it to the vote. His followers did it, but did it backfire?
CALLER: Yeah doctor. Our small tea bag group here in Waycross, we got our vigil together and took Dr. Coburn's instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn't show up at the vote the other night.
How hard did you pray because I see one of our members was missing this morning. Did it backfire on us? One of our members died? How hard did you pray senator? Did you pray hard enough
HOST: Senator Barasso, he was referring to Senator Inhofe, who was not part of the round of voting this morning.
BARASSO: The votes today, they needed 60 votes in favor of the bill. Senator Inhofe is opposed to the bill, and whether he was there or not didn't make any difference. There was no way that Jim Inhofe was going to vote for the bill, the senator from Oklahoma. So that's why he wasn't there this morning.
HOST: Do you know where he was, senator, why he wasn't able to make the vote this morning?
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