Karma

As crazy as it sounds I'm loving this story about the White House and Bill Clinton trying to get Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race at the behest of Charlie Crist.

Why you ask?

Because it was obvioiusly leaked by and afterwards pushed by Charlie Crist himself.

See when you start playing with footsie with a RAT like Crist this is the kind of shit that happens. I love that folks now see just how royally the White House and national Democrats have fucked up the race down here and that they all now have a lot of egg on their face. I love that up until Tuesday and maybe even after they will have to answer uncomfortable questions about it.

Kendrick Meek deserved a hell of a lot better and people like me will not forget.

Keith's Special Comment

POTUS On The Daily Show

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Barack Obama Pt. 1
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Barack Obama Pt. 2
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This was in my opinion a great interview. Jon Stewart pressed President Obama on issues from the left and he didn't ask any softball questions. I thought President Obama knocked the interview out of the park though and my favorite part was when he leaned in like he was about to whup some ass over that "timid" comment lol

Pretty Weak

The DNC has taken some initiative and made a web ad about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's comment that the single most important thing for Republicans to accomplish if thy take the Senate is to insure that President Obama is a one term president. Here it is.



I like that they are contiuing to highlight the comment but the approach seems to be exactly wrong.

Why in hell are all of the people in the ad smiling? The point should have been that people are fucking hurting and suffering right now and the Republicans only give a shit about making sure President Obama isn't reelected.

Imagine for a moment the ad showed people standing in the unemployment line to make the jobs point, someone at their desk with a pile of bills in front of them to make the tax relief point, gas prices going up to make the energy point, A parent with a kid who looks sick with a thermometer and the whole nine to make the health care point and played somber music through out. And then at the end played villainous music when they get to the picture of Mitch McConnell and the statement he made. Hell even better if you could find a picture of McConnell laughing or smiling or just enjoying himself.

Imagine how much harder that would hit people in the gut when they watched it.

To be honest watching this video didn't move me at all. But hey, maybe I'm not the demographic they are going after.

If Nothing Else He's Consistent

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What Stewart did to McCain in this clip.....

lol

So Let Me Get This Straight....

Shirley Sherrod saying she came to overcome her biases against white people is EXACTLY like Juan Williams saying he sees anyone in an airport dressed like a muslim as a potential terrorist.

 Oooooo Kkkkkkkk

Gotta love conservative logic

I Should Play The Lottery

The parties share blame for the current fiscal situation, but federal budget statistics show that Republican policies over the last decade, and the cost of the two wars, added far more to the deficit than initiatives approved by the Democratic Congress since 2006, giving voters reason to be skeptical of campaign promises.

Calculations by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent fiscal experts show that the $1.1 trillion cost over the next 10 years of the Medicare prescription drug program, which the Republican-controlled Congress adopted in 2003, by itself would add more to the deficit than the combined costs of the bailout, the stimulus and the health care law.

NYT

Just the other day I was saying Democrats should contrast the Medicare Benefit Republicans passed with their health care reform. I should be doing this for a living lol

MMF, Making Money Fast

The U.S. government’s bailout of financial firms through the Troubled Asset Relief Program provided taxpayers with higher returns than they could have made buying 30-year Treasury bonds -- enough money to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission for the next two decades.


The government has earned $25.2 billion on its investment of $309 billion in banks and insurance companies, an 8.2 percent return over two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That beat U.S. Treasuries, high-yield savings accounts, money- market funds and certificates of deposit. Investing in the stock market or gold would have paid off better.


When the government first announced its intention to plow funds into the nation’s banks in October 2008 to resuscitate the financial system, many expected it to lose hundreds of billions of dollars. Two years later TARP’s bank and insurance investments have made money, and about two-thirds of the funds have been paid back. Yet Democrats are struggling to turn those gains into political capital, and the indirect costs of propping up banks could have longer-term consequences for the economy.


“From the perspective of the taxpayers getting their money back, TARP has been a great success,” said Todd Petzel, chief investment officer at New York-based Offit Capital Advisors LLC, which has more than $5 billion of assets under management. “But there are other costs as the government made it possible for the banks to pay back TARP. Those costs can turn out to be larger, and their legacy could last longer.”

Bloomberg

I know its late in the game but this pretty much proves my point about why Democrats should have been running away from TARP (as well as other accomplishments) instead of away from it. Most people don't even know that TARP didn't cost a gazillion dollars but instead came in at $309 billion. And it WORKED! We still have a viable banking system, the stock market didn't implode, and now to top it off the government is pulling in 8.2% in profit.

Unfortunately most Democrats bought into the media narrative and some polling and instead of explaining to voters what actually happened just tried to avoid the topic all together. Now with two weeks out its hard to say this is a game changer but there IS still a chance to get out there and beat the drum that TARP worked, their vote or their support for it was warrated, and Republicans had and have NO alternative that would have saved our banking system.

It will be interesting to see if any Democrat has the ball to point this out in the next two weeks. One thing is for sure in my mind, they all SHOULD!

Two Devastating Attack Ads....From Democrats!

Somebody is learning....

Simple Logic = Simple Attacks

This is a point that is easily made but rarely heard.

If:

Right now the number one priority is jobs.

And:

Republicans don't believe that government can do anything to create jobs.

Then:

Why would you want Republicans in charge right now?

This works on so many levels its not funny. And yelling "Tax Cuts" doesn't diminish this attack. Its just stupid that no Democrat has been willing to defend the government's capacity to both directly create jobs and provide conditions that are more conducive to creating job growth.

So scared of their shadow that they have no clue what resonates with regular people....and what doesn't.

Ads Like This One

I swear I hadn't even see this ad from Scott Murphy before my last post but it should be somewhat of a blue print for ALL Democrats this cycle who aren't in very red districts.



The only improvement in my opinion would be linking his opponent to the full GOP caucus. Some folks will see this ad and think "Well Chris Gibson can't do that much damage". But if the point is made that the ENTIRE GOP caucus is calling for this and if they take over because Gibson is voted in then it can happen its much more of a motivation for people to not only not vote for him but also to get to the polls and help Scott Murphy and the Democrats keep repeal from happening.

Still the ad is strong and I bet in the end it will be effective for one major reason. Now Gibson can't just demonize the health care bill. NOW Gibson has to explain why he wants to take all those things from the voters in his district.

Yeah, good luck with that!

Home Stretch Campaign Ideas

I'll admit it, Im bored as hell. I'm also concerned watching the polls and watching people run some pretty inept campaigns against Republicans who should be pretty easy to attack. So I decided to do a kind of stream of consciousness post about some ideas floating around my head that maybe could help if anybody would actually listen/read.

First off lets all acknowledge that the GOP by in large runs circles around the Democrats when it comes to ads. I think part of it is that Democrats simply don't believe they can win with ads that strike the same kind of tones that Republicans use. It doesn't make sense since they continue to lose to those same Republicans but never the less it does appear to be a fact.

Another factor seems to be the "we're above that" mindset. I have this mentality. I care about integrity and character in governance, but in campaigning its "by any means necessary". I personally don't do moral victories. If on November 2nd you have less votes than the Republican once against you then you have failed plain and simple.

And then there are some people who are simply still using campaign advisors from the 90s and thus running Dem campaigns from the 90s. Don't know how many people noticed but Dems didn't do so hot during the 90s when it came to campaigning.

So some of these suggestions will be a sort of "if you can't beat them, join them" type situation. Others will be simple but effective contrasts that not many people are using.

First off its time to play offense. Fuck any attacks on you personally or policy wise. Don't even acknowledge them. If anything use every attack on you to turn back and attack your opponent. Right now not many Dems are running on health care reform which is stupid for several reasons. Here is maybe the most important, there are provisions in health care reform that people LOVE. You look at any polling on the issue and yes the numbers are still leaning in favor of the folks who don't like health care reform in general, but whenever different aspects of health care reform are polled people tend to like them quite a bit.

So how do you use that to your advantage? Well you use the old GOP trick of "X voted against tax cuts Y many times". You take the most popular parts of reform and you say "(insert GOP candidate's name here) says they would have (or did) voted against banning health insurance companies from denying coverage because of preexisting conditions, say they would have voted against ending lifetime caps on insurance coverage, says they would have voted against allowing kids to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26" and so on and so forth.

Right now there are high risk pools set up already in a lot of states because of health care reform. Im pretty sure there are numbers available of how many voters have signed up to get insured under those pools. Use those numbers to talk about how your GOP opponent would have or did vote against those folks getting coverage.

And you can use this approach to just about any piece of legislation that passed during the first two years of President Obama's term. With financial regulation reform you can say they voted or would have voted against protections for consumers. With the credit card bill you can say they voted or would have voted against unjustified interest rate increases. If you live in a state where a large part of your constituency cares about the environment you can say they voted oagainst curbing emissions standards.

And so on and so forth.

This puts them in some what of a pickle because now they have to defend those votes or hypothetical votes lest they lose their base. And bigger than that, THEY are stuck having to explain the legislation rather than the Dem candidate having to do so.

Another idea to steal is the demonizing of leaders. We have heard "Reid/Obama/Pelosi" so many times in the last three years that its like elevator music at this point. But the GOP has some pretty scary characters like Jim Demint and James Inhoffe and John Boehner too. Better yet the fact that they have been all voting en masse on all this legislation makes it MUCH easier to define GOP candidates as potential puppets.

The best part is you can show that any Republican who dared step out of line and vote for something the rest of the caucus voted against, even stuff that their constituents supported, got primaried and usually defeated. There are numerous examples of Republicans with solid conservative voting records who got voted out for just this kind of thing. And it didn't take a bunch of votes, it only usually took one or two like TARP. So the message is that if you vote for this person you aren't voting for your self interest, you are voting for another reliable Republican vote. And you can ask them which votes they would have crossed the aisle on.

Trust me, there wont be any. And the added bonus is the media has to cover those kinds of questions.

Speaking of TARP, I know the conventional wisdom is its so toxic that Dems cant use it at all in campaigning but I disagree at least on one substantial point. Senators and Representatives are sent to Washington not for the easy votes but the hard ones. And while voters may be mad about TARP its pretty apparent that it worked. So the appropriate attack is "What would you have done?" Republicans have no answer for this question. Unfortunately Democrats have run from the issue so fast that they can't capitalize on it.

So I'm saying talk about TARP, acknowledge it was unpopular, but also acknowledge it worked. And then ask your opponent either in an ad or a debate what they would have done to preserve the banking system? How would they have protected people's retirements? How would they have kept people from losing everything since they would have voted no or did vote no against TARP?

Remember, they key is to not get distracted by defending your own vote or hypothetical vote. The key is to stay on the attack at all times and keep coming back to "Ok, what would you have done?" The voters deserve to know after all.

And then you have all these contrasts to be played up, one in particular that would appeal to seniors is so obvious as to be ridiculous that it isn't being used more.

When Republicans held Congress and the Presidency they passed the Medicare Drug Benefit bill which created the donut hole which has been a nightmare for seniors. When Dems had the same they passed the health care reform bill which closes the donut hole and in the mean time sends out checks to help seniors afford their medications. Its really simple. Do you want people who create problems or the people who fix them?

And you can do this with all manner of legislation. Dems want to pass the Dream Act to address immigration, Republicans want to pass "papers please" laws like Arizona. Republicans literally have already tried to privatize Social Security while Dems want to preserve it. And the list goes on and on.

The records are obvious and Republicans have not changed their stances on any of this stuff. Again, make THEM answer the hard questions while you keep firing them off.

And then there is the Tea Party.

Here is the easiest way to deal with "Tea Party" candidates. Take the most extreme, scariest stances of the Tea Party and hang your opponent with them. Guys like Marco Rubio have to answer for the Tea Party when they want to repeal the 17th amendment taking away voters right to vote in their Senators. Every single crazy idea that the Tea Partiers have ever advocated should now be tattooed to every GOP candidate claiming their mantle. If they disagree with the Tea Party let THEM say so and then watch the fall out. If they say they want a balanced budget amendment then ask where they specifically will cut spending to balance the budget and what the federal government should do in catastrophic events like Katrina or if a state is about to shut down its public services because of budget shortfalls. Do they want police officers taken off the streets? Maybe no fire fighters either?

Make THEM answer for it.

Oh and finally because they are going to be voting in lockstep use Paul Ryan's road map to once again put Republicans on the defensive. Right now it appears to implement his plan, which happens to be the ONLY Republican plan floating around, would mean about a 23% budget cut to stuff like education and cancer research. Are GOP candidates willing to cut that much from those areas? Well there is one way to find out.

ASK THEM!

These last 15 days or so should be all about attack attack attack. Not personal attacks because most of them aren't really effective. The best attacks in my opinion are the ones where the candidate can not answer or can't give a good answer to what they have done or what they will do. I know many will avoid the press like the plague this last half a month trying to ride out the storm with as little opportunity to make gaffes as possible. Well that's good, it gives Democrats more room to just keep throwing out statements and questions about them that will go unanswered and create uneasiness with the electorate. And as long as its grounded in something real like actual legislation and or issues important to their district or state then it WILL resonate with voters. Hell right now Marco Rubio should be having to answer every day why he supports deep water drilling off the coast of Florida but honestly Kendrick Meek while talking up his own bona fides on the environment hasn't done enough to push the media to question Rubio on the issue. Hell every ad should be from here on out should be focused on hitting him on some far right stance he himself has taken personally or that his caucus has taken in the last two years. Does he believe climate change is man made? Hell lets find out!

President Obama kind of fucked the message up yesterday by saying he thinks Republicans will cooperate with him after the midterms. No way to unring that bell so just ignore it. Instead the focus should be scaring voters into believing (probably truthfully) that a vote for any Republican this year is a vote against getting anything done. Its a vote for going back to all the fuckups they had before Dems took over. Its a vote for another puppet that will never vote against their own caucus even when the issue directly affects their constituents back home.

Its a vote for another DeMint puppet.

A few weeks out the prospects for Dems holding the house look pretty bleak and the hold on the Senate looks to be weaker. There's really only one thing to do this point and that is radically change the focus of these elections. The only folks who can do this are the individual Dems running and their campaign folks. If these elections about what Dems have done over the last two years solely then we probably lose. If the elections are however about what Republicans have done and will do going forward then the bleeding won't be that bad.

That's where we are at and I hope some of these Democrats start to realize that.

As Usual Hit Dogs Holler

If Dems don't ride this issue all the way to election day, they are fucking crazy.

Highway Robbery

Hide Ya Wife, Hide Ya Kids, They Taxin ERRYBODY Out Here!

Ok so Christine O'Donnell is in fact nuttier than squirrel shit but I'm a sucker for Antione Dotson references LMAOOOO

Progressive Hypocrisy On Kendrick Meek

This may be the most insulting post in the progressive community about the Senate race with Kendrick Meek that I have read and that's saying something. Effectively it says the only use Democrats have for Meek is to get the niggers out to vote for Alex Sink.

Think I'm lying? Go read the shit yourself.

As a member of the dailykos community I'm fucking livid that the founder actually thought it was a good idea to write and publish that post. What, exactly, in THEE FUCK does he think it will accomplish??? Does he think its just for informational purposes??? Does he think it will somehow help Kendrick Meek or Alex Sink to portray Meek as a fucking puppet just used to draw "colored folk" to the polls for Sink?

Man I swear the fucking HYPOCRISY of the progressive community in this race already had me ready to blow a gasket and then I have to read THAT shit?!

Here's whats so fucking ironic. How much money did "progressives" throw at Bill Halter to primary Blanche Lincoln??? Do you think Bill Halter is actually a progressive? Do you think he actually had a shot to win the general?

You're fucking kidding yourself on BOTH counts.

Basically Markos and his buddies recruited a slightly less offensive Blue Dog to try to beat Lincoln and still ended up getting their asses handed to them. And flushing millions of dollars down the fucking drain while they were at it.

But what have they done for a real life, dyed in a wool progressive who has been consistent in support for everything any progressive would ever hope for like Meek? Oh they gave him their ass to kiss. Look around for some act blue accounts for Meek from the big time progressive bloggers. No seriously, fucking google that shit if you have to.

Where are they? Where's the got damn money for a REAL progressive? Right now Meek is getting outspent tremendously, of that there is no doubt. And in the primary he had to deal with a muthafucka who spent more than $20 million dollars. But you know what? Even though he may in fact not win, he is still a viable candidate even after all that.

Now imagine what he could have done with all that fucking money that got shipped off to Arkansas for some bullshit.

And to top it off these arrogant asshole "progressives" evidently want Meek to drop out so that they can get Crist in the Senate who would be a worse fucking Lieberman than Lieberman himself.

But who does Markos et al rail against all the time? Blue Dogs. Shit Crist isn't even a Blue Dog, he's a fucking Republican through and through.

So after this bullshit ass post from Markos himself you decide for yourself what the motivation is behind the progressive community never having supported Meek from day one even though he has championed everything we supposedly stand for. Decide for yourself why Crist has SO much backing from some Democrats and so called progressives here and nationally. And ask yourself where Meek would be if all those folks had backed him like they backed Halter in the primary.


Fuck this shit, I'm out.

The GOP's Rich Iott Problem

I am not normally one who automatically agrees with guilty by association charges. But because this is politics I think this picture should be shown prominently around the country. This is the new GOP, one that will embrace a guy to run for Congress who dresses up like a Nazi on the weekends. This isn't some "fringe" candidate, he was on their "Contenders" list of up and coming Republicans.

When you think about it many Republicans think all Muslims should have to denounce and reject radical Muslims even if they had nothing to do with them. Well its funny because I guarantee you won't hear of many Republicans denouncing and rejecting this guy. The American Taliban at work yet again.

If any Democrat doesn't raise this in their race, well then I have to wonder if they really want to win this year or not. Plain and simple.

Everone Loses

This is a great great ad...

Everyone Loses from Bill Simmon on Vimeo.

Crazy Train

In some ways I wish Rachel Maddow would get tougher with these idiots who come on her show and try to over talk her. But in the end her staying calm is what makes them look just that much crazier.

The Cost Of Sitting Out The Midterms

The headline pretty much says it all.

Republican Pledge to Cut $100 Billion May Hit Education, Cancer Research

By the way, its breast cancer awareness month. You would think Democrats would seek to link the two.

Out Of Touch

Memo to Republicans: If you are going to try to make the case that Democrats are out of touch with working class families, you might want to have a clue about the minimum wage.

Dumbass

This Isn't Racist At All...

I know that President Obama's approval with Latinos and Hispanics has fallen but I can't believe they are going to sit idly by and allow themselves to be demonized like this. Maybe they will but I just don't believe it. This shit is beyond the pale.

EXACTLY!

I didn't post on Rick Sanchez because it was pretty apparent to me that he crossed the line and that he would be fired. Not because he called Jon Stewart a bigot as many headlines suggested, but because he strongly implied that Jews run the media.

There's some shit you just can't say.

But one thing that irked me was people trying to find a way to salvage Sanchez's message. As if the point he was making about Jon Stewart and some "elitist liberals" being bigots was some how profound.

The problem is he never even made a case for Stewart being a bigot. The sum of the evidence he produced to support his claim was that Stewart made fun of him.

:-/

Yeah, the nerve of Stewart being a comedian...and stuff.


So it was funny and yet accurate to hear Stephen Colbert's definition of bigot last night on his show.

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They Don't Speak For The Majority Of Us

Here's Gallup on President Obama's polling for September:

With his public approval solidly below 50% in September, it follows that less than a majority in most key demographic subgroups approve of the job the president is doing. His staunchest supporters remain blacks (91%), self-identified Democrats (79%), and self-identified liberals (75%)

Just keep those numbers in mind the next time Jane, Cenk or Glenn are on TV bashing Obama or there's another shiny new column in the mainstream media about how the "left" is dissappointed in Obama.

The truth is overwhelmingly Democrats AND self described liberals still have President Obama's back. Just because a few loud mouths who fashion themselves the voice of "the left" keeps saying we have beef, doesn't make it so. Of course it would be nice if the media would use this polling to make that very point.

Of course that would mean they were actually doing their job though.

Free Market Solutions!

OBION COUNTY, Tenn. - Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won't respond, then watches it burn. That's exactly what happened to a local family tonight.

A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.

The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning.

Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay.

The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck.

This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.

Source

Yep, because these folks didn't pay $75 they lost their home, THEIR HOME, as firefighters just watched it burn to the ground.

And that my friends is what you call "compassionate conservatisim".

(h/t Thinkprogress)

Rand Paul Doesn't Give A Damn About Deficits

Rand Paul proves yet again that he is one of the biggest frauds out there when it comes to fiscal responsibility. The only problem is we can't be sure voters are listening especially when the media gives him a free pass.

Tom Coburn, International Asshole Of Mystery

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THE MOST UNDERREPORTED STORY IN WEEKS

With everyone focusing on the economy and jobs this elections season how did this happen without any discernable outrage or even much media play???

At issue is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund, which should have been one of the most popular programs in Congress. A key component of the Recovery Act, the fund subsidizes jobs with private companies, nonprofits, and government agencies, and has single handedly put more than 240,000 unemployed people back to work in 32 states and the District of Columbia.
Governors, including Mississippi's Haley Barbour (R), have sung its praises, and urged its extension. In July, CNN called the TANF Emergency Fund "a stimulus program even a Republican can love."
Except, Republicans didn't love it. Senate

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) led the floor fight this week, and was even willing to accept a compromise: instead of a year-long extension that Democrats had requested, Durbin sought a three-month extension, at a cost of just $500 million, in order to keep the fund alive through the end of the year. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) refused to allow it.

"The majority has known this program was going to expire at the end of this month all year and has taken no steps to reauthorize this important social safety net program," said Enzi, who blocked Durbin's request for "unanimous consent" for a reauthorization.

Enzi either isn't very bright or he hasn't been paying attention. Dems first tried to reauthorize the TANF Emergency Fund in March, but Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) blocked it. Dems tried again earlier this month, but Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked it. Dems tried again this week, but Enzi blocked it.

Over 240,000 people put back to work and we let this program die? WHAT IN THE FUCK MAN??? And nobody made a stink?? Nobody went on national Tee Vee to scream and shout about it??? President Obama didn't use his weekly address to call the Republicans out for this?

Look, I'm voting and I'm voting Democrat November 2nd, but dammit guys help a brotha out here. There's got to be SOMETHING you are willing to fight for especially when its a winning issue. Do you think if folks knew that this program was just defunded by Senate Republicans that they wouldn't hold it against them? If so give me the name of your weed dealer because obviously your kush is better than mine.

And the media who already doesn't engender much confidence has totally dropped the ball on this one. Its a wildly successful jobs program. Unemployment is still unbearably high. People are living off unemployment benefits and welfare just getting by because they can't find work. And none of the news stations think this is a big story?

Man I don't even know what to say...