Weekend Open Thread

   

"Forest Whitaker" - Bad Books

I love this song.  First thing I've heard in the last couple of months that really grabbed me. 

"You started a job that you hate when you're sober and hate even more when you're not."

- More onanistic triumphalism -- I will note that the popular vote is now at 51-48 as per my prediction and Obama is up by 3.2 million votes.  When all the votes are counted, there is a decent chance that Romney will end up with an highly poetic 47% of the vote. 

- This is an incredibly wise post by Rich Yeselson at Political Animal about the difficulty for the Republican Party of engaging in ideological retooling without undermining their reactionary and tribal base.  Also at Political Animal is this great piece by Ed Kilgore regarding the absolute imperative for the Democrats of improving off-year turnout in elections.  Read them both.  They are far superior to almost any of the half-assed post voting reflections you will see in your daily rag or the talking head shows. 

- Why do I find this a bit shocking? Really, you're a congressional leader and the President calls and you don't take it because you are asleep?

- Might I just note that were Ashley Judd to run for the Senate and beat Mitch McConnell it would be the single greatest aesthetic improvement in the history of legislatures of any time and place.  I have already explained to my wife that I will be quitting my job and working for her campaign full time.

What's on your minds?

Comments

[nancy]

Ashley Judd. As I said earlier on twitter...Yessssss. I thought she lived in Tennessee. But this would be so fascinating and New South Dixiecrat Punky.

Go ma'am. My 80-something Mama will be right there with ya gal. Sign her up. She'll be ready to go with all of her Kentucky hillfriends, who have had had had it with Mitch. Women of all ages of KY will unite. Good fun. Promise.

[Linkmeister]

What Axelrod/Plouffe/Messina et. al. had better do is keep Obama for America's databases and systems up, running, and updating for two more years. We want to take the House back in 2014, and we'll also have to defend a dozen tough Senate seats.

[low-tech cyclist]

There's an argument going on in the Ed Kilgore thread about what happened in 2010. Several things seemed obvious to me at the time:

1) The netroots had been a major part of the 2006 and 2008 pushes that got us, first, Congressional majorities, then Congressional supermajorities.

2) After the 2008 election, Obama basically told us lefties to sit down and shut up so we wouldn't throw a monkeywrench in his trying to deal with Congress.

(Worst advice ever for all concerned, but by and large we took it. We largely turned back into spectators of the political process in 2009, and it showed. Hopefully Obama understands now that if he wants to get a deal in the center, he needs people pressuring Congress from the left, so that he visibly represents the center. If he's at the left endpoint of visible debate, he'll have to give stuff away that he didn't want to.)

3) The stimulus just wasn't big enough - AND he boxed himself in, leaving no story to tell about how he'd wanted a bigger one, but the Repubs blocked it. So when the job situation was actually getting worse in the summer and early fall of 2010, Obama and the Dems had no story to run on.

I doubt that enough politically active progressives failed to vote to make a difference in 2010. And certainly we weren't out there busting our butts in GOTV efforts that fall, but you still need a story to tell, to motivate the unmotivated. Our side didn't have one.

In 2014, that should all be different, unless Obama agrees to an austerity-first 'grand bargain' that chokes off the recovery. The recovery should be picking up steam. We should have tens of millions of newly insured Americans who are very happy about Obamacare. (I only hope we've got enough doctors and nurses to care for all these newly insured people.) And if Rolling Jubilee actually takes off (I'm sure gonna chip in!), a lot of mostly working-class Americans may get some real evidence that those of us on the left really are interested in making their lives better in tangible ways.

But that ground game needs to be maintained, and we lefties need to become an active political force. I remember reading awhile back - I can't remember where - that whenever Congress does something that upsets the right, their phones ring off the hook. But practically the only time lately that something similar happened on the left was during the Pass The Damned Bill push of early 2010.

We need to have that ground game going in 2014 so that we can get more of our people to the polls than has been the norm for a midterm, and in the meantime we need to lean on Congress so we get the sorts of outcomes that give us something to sell, a story to tell, two years from now.

P.S. I confess I had no idea who Ashley Judd was until I Googled her. But if she can knock Mitch McConnell out of his Senate seat, that would be wonderful.

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

Ashley Judd does live in Tennessee, but she is a very famous U Kentucky alum and booster (which may hurt her with the state's rabid Louisville fans).

Linkmeister,

I was looking at the Senate lineup for 2014 and it really is quite daunting once again -- this time we have 20 seats up while the Republicans have 13 -- and the Republican seats, at least at this juncture, strike me as totally safe. The only one who could possibly be vulnerable is the most moderate member of their caucus, Susan Collins. Right now, I think Mary Landrieu and David Pryor are probably dead and Mark Begich may be as well. We have to fight like hell for Kay Hagan, who I think has a better chance than the other three.

Landrieu and Pryor do have big family names and are pretty adept politicians, but I think the trends in those two states make them far more likely to lose than to win.

l-t c,

Ashley Judd is not only stunningly lovely, but quite intelligent and politically involved. She is married to a Scottish race car driver (with the improbable name of Dario Franchitti) who has won the Indianapolis 500 three times and competed in NASCAR as well.

She is a noted U Kentucky athletics booster appearing frequently at basketball and football games and posing provocatively in a U Kentucky hockey shirt for the team's schedule.

I am not sure how she will play in large swaths of the state though. She is childless and indicated once that it was wrong for humans to breed.

[nancy]

Remember the "Atlas Shrugged" guy who corresponded with Fallows about closing his business if the president were to be reelected? There's more to the exchange, followed by a batch of fine comments. This one should leave 'Shrugged' in splutters -- in its entirety :

Look. I know why you posted that email. I get it. Your readers get to relish in the hathos (thanks, Sully, for that nonword). You get to contrast it to the email of the much more thoughtful, much more grammatically persuasive tech company honcho. You get to appear to have taken the high road by giving space for a dissenter.

But it needs to be said: that was some weapons-grade bullshit.

The runniest part is the premise that he (if he is who he says he is) will quit. The fallacy that the wealthy will just stop being productive if they are too heavily taxed is one that needs to be called out loudly and often. (I'm about to start writing to this troll directly.) Really? You're really going to just give up ALL your income because you have to pay an extra three cents on the dollar - above the first quarter million you make? Good. Do that. That will really demonstrate your refined sense of leadership.

But here's the heart of the turd that needs to be called out even more often and in a deafening roar. You, Mr. Tech Company Owner of such great import, are not - I repeat - NOT Atlas. This whole individualism myth you're so invested in is the legacy of people WHO OWNED OTHER PEOPLE. There is no such thing as independent financial wealth. No. Such. Thing.

You drive a nice car, right? Audi? Benz? Maybe a Tesla? (Unlikely.) That's your rich-guy-totem; that's how you let the world know how much of a big shot you are when you're just going out for a burger. But think for a second about that car. You can have all the money in the world, but what good does it do your over-compensative driving desires if the following people decide to "shrug": the people who mine the ore for your car's metal components, the people who process the ore into consumer grade alloys, the people who machine the metal into parts for your car, the people who assemble those parts, the people who extract the oil that fuels your car, lubricates its moving parts, and makes up its plastic components, the people who refine the oil, the people who install the components, the people who program, assemble, and install the electrical components, the people who test its fuel efficiency, driving performance, and accident safety, the people who design, build and maintain the roads you drive on, the people who work at the gas station, the people who produce the electricity that keep all of these functions happening, the teachers who shape all of these people into functioning adults, the healthcare professionals who keep them alive, the janitors who keep the hospitals they go to clean and safe, the farmers who grow the food that sustains everyone in this whole project, the people who make the heavy equipment for the farmers... Have I made my point? Atlas is everyone who allows you to enjoy the luxuries of wealth.

If there is a parasite class, its made up of people who "own capital" and "manage" and "earn" profits from the people who do real, hard, sweaty, nasty, monotonous work every day, and then after counting the profits they've reaped from the work of all those other people have the gall to complain about how hard they have it. And it's interesting that you claim to be from the tech industry. It's interesting because that is an industry that is second only to the financial "industry" in terms of pure, unabashed parasitism. Oh, you don't think so? You think you've created whatever it is you produce in some vacuum of innovation? Well, in fact the only reason that the US tech industry as we know it exists is because of corporate socialism. The government uses tax payer dollars to fund R&D via the Pentagon. They pour billions and billions of dollars into lots of cool shit. Most of it doesn't really serve a purpose, or if it does, the purpose was already being served by technologies that are far more advanced than what the rest of the world has. But when that cool shit serves a new purpose and also happens to be marketable to consumers, the government gives the technology away to the tech industry, which then manufactures its products in Asia, ships them back to the US, at which point the tax-paying American public pays for it once again. That's right. We fund the research. We create the demand. We pay retail price. You get the profit. It's a pretty sweet deal for you and your ilk. Yeah. Ilk. I can use that word too, and I swing a hammer in a factory that competes with Chinese labor, so come at me.

You have neither a leg to stand on nor a crutch to lean on. I sincerely hope you're a man of your word. Shrug. Do it. I dare you. Go to western Colorado, grind your own flour, split your own wood, dig your own grave, you heroic individual, you. The rest of us will continue busting our asses at real jobs that matter, paying taxes that significantly limit our ability to pay for things like food and unreasonably high rent for our small apartments, getting by with minimal healthcare and generally doing all the things that you take for granted. Or maybe one day we'll have had enough of people like you. And we'll shrug. And you'll see that we don't, in fact, need shareholders or executive boards to tell us how to put food on our tables, roofs over our heads, how to teach one another, how to care for one another.

You are afforded the life you have by the consent of those you hold in contempt. I advise you to not tempt us with the catharsis of withholding it.

Disrespectfully,
A Working, College-Attending, Volunteer-Tutoring, Tax-Paying, Civically Engaged, Higher-Information-Than-Thou-Hast, Member and Probable Leader of the Generation That Does Away With Your Bullshit

[paula]

Wow, nancy, would you consider a run in 2016?

[kathy a.]

:)

go, florida! finally counted, and the electoral count goes up accordingly.

we do need a strategy for GOTV in 2014 -- and using some existing infrastructure is a great idea. but i can't be the only one who can hardly bear to think of dealing with as much email and so many appeals as this past year, on a constant basis.

not only did the rovian superpacs fail to deliver a good return on investment, but the NRA picked losers, while Planned Parenthood supported winners. emily's list had a fabulously successful run this time, too.

seems to me that we ought not consider the NRA so mighty; maybe we can actually make a start on sensible gun control measures. also, news flash: the Ladiez have some opinions about the role of government in their private parts, as well as other issues.

[kathy a.]

there is still ballot-counting going on. even in my own county, there are still 105,000 ballots to count. LA county has close to 800,000 left. not sure, but i expect there is a backlog in other of the bigger counties of CA.

bigger news in AZ, which still has hundreds of thousands of votes uncounted, including races that are heavily contested.

[kathy a.]

did anyone mention this before? rove complains that obama won by "suppressing the vote," which means (in rove-speak) talking about how romney's plans would only help the rich.

hmmmm. this, from the boy genius of the party that brought us birthers, actual voting restrictions, and an entire parade of policies designed to diminish the rights and dignity of those who are not rich white straight male evangelicals. he's having a bad week.

[low-tech cyclist]

After blowing a few hundred million dollars of rich wingnuts' money and getting nothing for it, I envision a conversation between them and Rove somewhat like that between Margaret Dumont and Groucho Marx in the opening scene in A Night at the Opera:

Dumont: Mr. Driftwood, three months ago, you promised to put me into society. In all that time, you've done nothing but draw a very handsome salary.

Groucho: You think that's nothing? How many men do you think draw a handsome salary?

Rove had better be as slick a talker as Groucho, and he'd better hope the rich wingnuts are as gullible as the dowagers Margaret Dumont played in the Marx Brothers movies were, to talk his way out of this one.

[kathy a.]

excellent takedown of romney. [via balloon juice]

rove may be going for a trump level of amazingness. today he says his superpac will forge ahead.

[beckya57]

I have to confess to being an evil person. I have been enjoying all of the GOP agony way, way too much. They're definitely having a Night of the Long Knives. Who's today's scapegoat? Romney, Christie, Rove, Hurricane Sandy, Nate Silver, or just plain ol' reality? Stephen Colbert's "The facts have a liberal bias" line has never been more applicable. All the grumbling about whether or not to reach out to Hispanics, as though trotting out Marco Rubio and not obstructing an immigration bill can make up for years of demonizing brown people--that's been (grimly) amusing too. And now Kristol has dared to say that maybe, just maybe, the rich should pay a tiny bit more in taxes! Do you all think we've reached the point where the easy story for lazy political reporters will be "REPUBLICANS in disarray"? (Ha ha!) I know we'll all be back to the hard work of governing, House obstruction and trying to get Dems to vote in 2014 soon, but damn this is fun for right now.

[kathy a.]

also, the angst about how to better "communicate" with women. fellas -- you communicated well enough. we totally understood your positions, then ran the other way.

[Sir Charles]

becky,

I can't help but agree -- total fun.

kathy,

I love how they keep going back to this being an issue of the messenger rather than the message. Talk about delusional. (I particularly like the notion that in the heart of every Hispanic beats a "Moral Majority" type if only the GOP would lose the pesky immigration issue.

I just took a glance at CNN's vote totals and noticed that Obama has now cracked 62 million, is beating Romney by 3.3 million votes, and that things stand at 51-48 in the popular vote percentage.

[Joe S]

I think we're all jumping up and down prematurely. It was great to win, and it was a watershed, but really tough work has yet to begin. If I had to compare our situation to a World War II analogy, I'd say we just won the Battle of Kursk. We turned back the last important total offensive of movement conservatism, but we still have a long time to go before actually winning progressive goals (just as the Russians had two years of additional, extremely bloody fighting). The GOP has gerrymandered most of the midsized swing states and will probably hold the House until 2020. Most of the important governorships outside of the deep blue states are in Republican hands. We have 8 years of stalemate by my calculation.

[big bad wolf]

i fear joe s has accurately assessed the situation. still, we are alive!

ltc, i know you love groucho. it's wrong to compare any character he played to rove.

[beckya57]

Joe, your points are well-taken, I think we know that there is still much, much more work to do. However I also think we're entitled to a laugh now and then.

[nancy]

Joe -- Every party has a pooper, that's why we invited you...

Of course, you're correct.

Paula -- I didn't author that wonderful screed to Fallows. (I think that must be what you meant by a 'run in 2016'). I wish.

Plus, I love Groucho. Always. When he's what you're kid wants to watch on a sick day when he's seven, as mine did, you can take heart. Monkey Business as I recall :) Hilarity ensued. Still does. Best eyebrows evah. :)

[Sir Charles]

Joe,

I think we are all just taking our moment -- with the understanding that nothing is ever permanently won, especially with this crowd on the other side.

Having said that, I am enjoying watching it dawn on them that they are outnumbered. Maybe not in the off year elections -- already 2014 looks a bit daunting -- but when the bulk of the citizenry gets out to vote, they know that they are going to have an increasingly difficult time mustering either a popular or electoral majority and it seems to be freaking them out. They now understand that 2008 was not a one-off event, but likely a trend.

[Joe S]

Nancy, bbw, and Sir C, I have to wonder if the conservative reaction against feminism is going to save us in the midterms. Since these governors and their transvaginal ultrasounds are up in 2014, we may get a higher share of white women than in 2010. We can't possibly do worse than 2010.

[beckya57]

Hope you're right about that, Joe, that would certainly be poetic justice. What I really want to know is whether the vaunted Obama ground game is going to be in operation for that election as well. I think that would help a lot. Even though Obama wouldn't be up for re-election (of course), what he can or can't do for the remainder of his term will be drastically affected by what happens in 2014.

Anybody want to take my bet that if one of the right-wing SCOTUS justices dies during Obama's term that the GOP will filibuster any Obama appointment more or less forever? I just can't see them giving up that 5th vote that has brought them so much power. Harry Reid, I'm looking at you: this is as good a reason as any to get rid of the filibuster.

[kathy a.]

i hope arrangements are already being made to keep the obama network running. one thing i've noticed since 2010 is that other organizations and politicians have really improved their outreach, too -- and i think everybody knows we need to keep it up for 2014.

becky -- i do not think it would be very likely to see a fillibuster on scotus nominations for basically ever. i think that the rank unseemliness of hobbling a co-equal branch of govenment would weigh against extended fillibusters for at least some GOP senators.

[beckya57]

Hope you're right, kathy, and the results of this election, both presidential and in the Senate may be causing some of the GOP senators to re-think the all-obstruction all-of-the-time strategy. They're going to have to convince me that they've learned this, however. Getting rid of Mitch "our primary goal is to ensure Obama is a one-term president" McConnell as minority leader would be a good start. The tax/debt negotiations should also be revealing. I just can't envision them giving up that 5th seat without a huge fight, though. If this does happen I hope Obama will suppress his bipartisan urges and think more about who would be a good (moderately liberal) appointment, rather than about appeasing the GOP.

[kathy a.]

roe v. wade. griswold v. virginia. reproductive rights are in the balance, among other things. it may have caught the attention of some that concern over those rights was huge during this election.

[beckya57]

Don't forget the upcoming Civil Rights Act case. I'm getting the impression the 5 right-wingers are dying to gut the CRA, which would be ironic--and infuriating--after all the voter-suppression crap we saw in the election. I think the case for extending the CRA to all of the states, not just the South, is a lot stronger than the one to get rid of it. Scott Lemieux at LGM thinks the Court may use the excuse that it singles some states out to justify weakening it. I hope he's wrong, but he often predicts them pretty accurately.

[oddjob]

Ashley Judd beating Miss Mitch??

God, I don't even know what to think! I have no idea whether Ashley would be a competent senator or not, but it certainly would be a pleasure to have him gone!

[oddjob]

Disrespectfully,
A Working, College-Attending, Volunteer-Tutoring, Tax-Paying, Civically Engaged, Higher-Information-Than-Thou-Hast, Member and Probable Leader of the Generation That Does Away With Your Bullshit

That was a work of art... :)

[kathy a.]

well. i think that the big court ought to just save some trouble all around and decide that cert was improvidently granted on the CRA. (isn't that delicious language, "certiorari was improvidently granted"? but that is the traditional language, when they mean, "whoops. nevermind.")

oddjob -- my dear, "miss mitch"? i heart you.

[oddjob]

Anybody want to take my bet that if one of the right-wing SCOTUS justices dies during Obama's term that the GOP will filibuster any Obama appointment more or less forever?

I will not. If the Senate Dems. have any sense they'll do something at the beginning of the next session to prevent such a maneuver, but it remains to be seen whether the Dems. in the Senate have the will to be that ruthless.

:(

[oddjob]

my dear, "miss mitch"? i heart you.

One reads unsubstantiated rumors from time to time.

[kathy a.]

who needs an unsubstantiated rumor, when the title just fits so nicely?

[big bad wolf]

joe, i think that is an excellent point. it may be that, if the republicans continue to bash women they are in more trouble than we think in 14. my daughter's friends (she's 12) were talking around school before the election about how the repubs treated women badly. if that is the perception, the repubs may struggle any time we get any reasonable turnout.

oddjob, i don't care if ashley is a terrible senator if she rids us of mitch. i feel bad about feeling that way, but they've pushed me there. here in texas we elect judges, which is a hideous thing that this MA boy has never gotten used to. the reality is that there are some terrible unqualified Dem judges and judicial candidates and some good Repub judges and judicial candidates. until this year, i either voted for the better qualified R or abstained. this year they all went down on my ballot. and i was apparently not the only one. it was with one or two exceptions a sweep for the Dems. we just elected some bad to mediocre judges, but so be it---if you associate with the party of racism, sexism, and homophobia, mere legal skills shouldn't save you.

i'll bet against a scotus filibuster in the first half of this term.

[kathy a.]

i've been meaning to pass along this map of how the US would look of the states were viewed by size of votes.

[oddjob]

Pennsylvania's judges also are elected.

[oddjob]

this map

Interesting to check out its interactive feature. Half of estimated eligible voters in Texas voted and less than 40% in Arizona. I wonder how many of those who didn't vote would have voted for the Dems?

[oddjob]

An electric car (that has mostly been a money-pit production problem so far) has won Motor Trend's Car of the Year award for 2013.

I remember seeing a documentary about this car sometime in the last year on some PBS channel or other. It also mentioned that the car shows tons of promise, but has been mostly a production frustration so far.

[oddjob]

"In a searching analysis of the history and politics behind the Emancipation Proclamation, Louis P. Masur describes one of the underappreciated consequences of Lincoln's decree - the impact it had on whites: ..."

[nancy]

I have to wonder if the conservative reaction against feminism is going to save us in the midterms.

I think that is the flaw in their "thinking". What they stand for isn't anti-"feminism" [read FemiNazi in some parts of GOPland]. It is flat-out unapologetic, condescending and indelible misogyny, delivered with special sneering and cold-blooded insult. They can trot Cathy McMorris Rodgers out all they want on CNN, which they did over the weekend, to try to put a not-completely-hateful Apple-Pie face on stage, but the damage is done done done. bbw, If their message filtered down to your daughter and her friends, I'm encouraged.

These people are still operating in a pre-Title IX world. Ain't gonna work.

Also, in some places women are especially sensitive to being told they need to accept the risk of being forever "barefoot and pregnant". You know, places where they once were. Looking at you Mitch and Rand.

[big bad wolf]

oddjob, it turns out almost everybody's judges are elected. i grew up a sheltered MA boy who thought there was something like merit involved. twenty five years in the federal system have taught me that right-wing judges are a pain and a danger, but most federal judges of whatever ideology are really smart. i cannot say that about the elected state judges i have now observed in three states.

[Crissa]

Well, the Tesla of this year supposedly fixes some of the overheating problems of the prior ones. But when they work... Such a pretty car. And I don't just mean the Lotus body, but how it moves.

[paula]

nancy---"I didn't author that wonderful screed to Fallows. (I think that must be what you meant by a 'run in 2016'). I wish."
Yeah, I realized that after I wrote the comment. That's what happens when you pop in and out of this conversation, without reading the whole thread. I wish you could claim it, too!
Trying to follow this insane Marx Bros comedy involving Petraeus/Allen/FBI/two jealous groupies, as it unfolds. We are, indeed, led by morons. I'm sure the blame will fall on Obama.