Showing posts with label Democrats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democrats. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Our Job is Harder

Because building is harder than destroying.

Political Animal:

Beyond that, I am reminded of something Barack Obama wrote way back in 2005 when he was still the junior senator from Illinois.
The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives’ job. After all, it’s easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it’s harder to craft a foreign policy that’s tough and smart. It’s easy to dismantle government safety nets; it’s harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It’s easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it’s harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that’s our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

Monday, August 7, 2017

Myth of the Obama-Trump Voter Exploded

I've been saying it since November: There is no such thing as a person who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 but voted for Trump in 2016.

No. Such. Thing.

Digby:

I know there are no more interesting or important people in the world than the vaunted Trump Voter, but I have long thought that the idea that there exists a substantial subset of Obama-Trump voters. My theory has always been that to the extent they existed, they were basically Republicans who may have voted for Obama because the world was going to hell in a hand-basket and they didn't like Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney for personal reasons.
Ed Kilgore catches up with the latest on this alleged phenomenon:


The defection of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice yesterday from the Democratic to the Republican Party will inevitably fuel tired rhetoric about Reagan Democrats, or white-working-class Americans, or “heartland voters,” leaving the Donkey Party in hordes in protest against its radical bicoastal liberalism. Democrats obviously need to pay attention to voters they’ve recently lost or failed to energize, all over the place, and in various demographic categories.
But the “Trump Democrat” phenomenon may have been a bit oversold. Justice obviously was never much of a Democrat to begin with. And the broader category of “Obama-Trump voters”—those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012, and then for the mogul in 2016—may have been misunderstood as well. Or so reports the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank:

[N]ew data, and an analysis by AFL-CIO political director Michael Podhorzer that he shared with me, puts all this into question. The number of Obama-to-Trump voters turns out to be smaller than thought. And those Obama voters who did switch to Trump were largely Republican voters to start with. The aberration wasn’t their votes for Trump but their votes for Obama.
 
One problem with the much-discussed idea that Obama-Trump voters swung the election is that voters notoriously over-report votes for the election winner after the election. So some Obama-Trump voter didn’t actually vote for Obama, and others didn’t actually vote for Trump. (Some may have even voted for everyone other than Obama and Trump). That reduces the magnitude of the “flip.”
To the extent that Obama-Trump voters were identified as those who voted for the 44th president in either 2008 or 2012, it is important to remember that Obama won pretty big the first time around: according to exit polls, he won 9 percent of self-identified Republicans and 20 percent of self-identified conservatives. He also won independents—a category that includes a lot of people who usually vote Republican—52/44.

But there’s more than incidental evidence that apparent Obama-Trump voters aren’t loyal Democrats who suddenly flipped because Trump was appealing to their material or cultural interests: they supported Republicans down-ballot, too:

The AFL-CIO’s Podhorzer analyzed raw data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, out in the spring, and found that Obama-Trump voters voted for Republican congressional candidates by a 31-point margin, Republican Senate candidates by a 15-point margin and Republican gubernatorial candidates by a 27-point margin. Their views on immigration and Obamacare also put them solidly in the GOP camp.
 
If these voters have been “lost” by the Democratic Party, many of them are probably lost for good.
Milbank concludes: “The party would do better to go after disaffected Democrats who didn’t vote in 2016 or who voted for third parties.” A vote’s a vote, and in a competitive environment it makes no sense for Democrats to write anyone off. But the obsession with “Obama-Trump voters” may be myopic.
There are good philosophical and ideological reasons for figuring out how to address the economic woes of this group of voters. Even if you don't care much for the way they think, they have kids who need a decent chance at a better life. But the idea that they are the electoral holy grail has always seemed to me to be a convenient way to prove some prior assumptions about the 2016 election.

In any case, it's worth wondering if Democrats should be so focused on this group of voters to the exclusion of some others who are at least equally important to mobilize for a 2018 victory. It's not a zero sum game, but it does require that these Trump voters not be elevated to the level of all-important "super-voters." Until the economy is completely falling apart as it was after the last GOP administration, they may not be gettable.
 All Democrats need to do is remove the barriers preventing their natural voters from voting: voter suppression, voter ID laws,  restrictive voting times and places, fiery hoops to jump through to register to vote and felon disenfranchisement.

Do that, dems, and every white voter in the country could go repug and Democrats would still win.

When everybody votes, Democrats win.

Friday, December 30, 2016

Don't Ever Do This. But If You Do ...

This one seems more appropriate than ever this year.


Peppermint flavor, 8 sticks

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The Resistance: A Practical Guide

Organize, organize, organize.
 
A group of former congressional staffers has a message for Democrats dismayed at Donald Trump’s election: act like the tea party.

In an online guide made public Wednesday night, a number of those onetime Hill staffers say that the best way for individuals to derail the policy agenda of Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is to organize locally and badger their own congressional representatives to vote against individual pieces of legislation.

The guide argues that, like the “Tea Party patriots” who found common cause in their unified loathing of President Barack Obama, progressives who oppose Trump should stand against him before all else rather than try to articulate a policy agenda that has no hope of advancing while the GOP controls all three branches of government.

“We believe that the next four years depend on citizens across the country standing indivisible against the Trump agenda,” the authors write in the guide, which is formatted as a live Google document. “We believe that buying into false promises or accepting partial concessions will only further empower Trump to victimize our fellow citizens. We hope that this guide will provide those who share that belief useful tools to make Congress listen.”

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Repugs Care Only About the Economic Issues of Straight, Xian White Men


And their allies are the Blue Dog, surrendering "Democrats" who think the way to the White House goes through those same racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic piece-of-shit white men.
 
* Rebecca Traister writes, “Identity Issues Don’t Distract From Economic Issues — They Are Economic Issues.”
The postelection period has seen an enormous amount of pushback against so-called identity politics — specifically the campaigns for social justice and representation for women and people of color — as a frustrating distraction from the serious economic concerns that affect a broad swath of Americans. If only we could get away from divisive “social issues,” goes this line of thinking, Democrats could win elections and be able to enact progressive economic policies that would help far more people. But the idea that fights over reproductive freedom, sexual assault and harassment, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, criminal-justice reform, and gender and racial bias can be somehow separated from larger progressive economic stances is a fiction. As most people engaged in this argument know perfectly well, economic inequality is deeply wrapped up with gender and racial bias. The impending rollback of social progress in a Trump administration will have a staggering economic impact on this country’s women, especially women of color, and regressive economic policies will take a disproportionate toll on those same populations.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Where Trump Rules Don't Apply

Lucky bastard, living in a blue state.  But those of us hanging on in red states need to put our envy and desperation to work.  There are people like Dylan Orr in Kentucky; they're just not in positions of power.  Yet.

Let's get them there.

This is why I love living in a city like Seattle:
[from an email I received from Seattle’s Labor Standards office]

Our Commitment to
Equity, Inclusion and Openness
 
As Mayor Ed Murray stated last week, Seattle remains a city guided by the values of equity, inclusion and openness. “Seattle is a city that supports women and the LGBTQ community, that welcomes our Muslim brothers and sisters, that embraces immigrants and refugees, and that believes that Black Lives Matter.” 
As the Director of the Seattle Office of Labor Standards, and an openly transgender individual, I assure you that we in the Office of Labor Standards are deeply committed to upholding these values, and ensuring that we continue to be a supportive resource and partner to Seattle’s most vulnerable communities. We will re-double our efforts to advance labor standards through thoughtful community and business engagement, strategic enforcement and innovative policy development with a commitment to race and social justice. 
To our immigrant community partners, Mayor Ed Murray has promised that the City of Seattle will remain a welcoming city, committed to serving all the residents of Seattle regardless of their immigration status. Under a local law passed in 2003, Seattle city employees are NOT allowed to ask about people’s immigration status when providing city services, unless required by law or a court order. We in the Office of Labor Standards are proud to enforce labor standards for all of Seattle’s workers, regardless of immigration status. We also have strong anti-retaliation provisions across all our labor standards ordinances. 
If you have any questions about our work or services, feel free to contact us. We look forward to our continued work ahead. 
In solidarity, 
Dylan Orr
Director, Seattle Office of Labor Standards
We’re circling the wagons, folks. We have to stay strong.
 Right here in Kentucky, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray ran for U.S. Senate as an openly gay Democrat. And nobody cared about his sexuality.

Tiny progress, but I'll take it. And run with it.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Beware the Rage of the Betrayed

Already spineless "Democrats" from Brent Yonts in Western Kentucky all the way up to Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama - SHAME on them! - are playing nice with the Orange Menace.

They'll get us all killed.

We're watching them.  We're taking names.  The tiny dictator is going down, and all the dems who failed to spit in his face are going to pay the price exacted by the voters.

Yes, we’re all supposed to come together after an election, let bygones be bygones, and march forward unified as neither Democrats nor Republicans but patriotic Americans celebrating the triumph of the democratic process. But it’s difficult to link arms when the home of the free embraces the leadership of a racist.

Let the other groups denigrated and threatened by Trump speak for themselves. The women, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, the LGBT community and others who now must walk through the streets of their country for the next four years in shame and fear, knowing that their value as human beings has been diminished by their neighbors. I only speak for myself as an African-American and I speak with the rage of betrayal.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Democracy and Civilization Hanging by One Vote in Kentucky

No, The Gooch never voted Democratic - except, as Joe Gerth noted, for House Speaker, when it really counted - but his defection means that state House dems are one seat away from losing the chamber they've held for almost a century.

FRANKFORT, Ky. - State Rep. Jim Gooch, of Providence, released a statement Monday saying he is switching from the Democratic to the Republican Party.

The makeup of the Kentucky House is now 50 Democrats, 48 Republicans.
And when the repugs take over all of state government - probably sometime this week - it's the Randian Paradise of Kansas for us.  Nuke us now, please.

Friday, November 6, 2015

"Keep Fighting, Beloveds"


Thumbnail

Molly Ivins knew better than anyone what it is like to be a liberal in a deep-red state, and she never gave up.  We can't either.

First, we need to know what we're facing.

Gov. Bevin’s changes likely to be felt immediately

Even before next year’s session of the Kentucky General Assembly convenes, many of Gov. Steve Beshear’s executive orders are now at risk of being immediately rescinded by Matt Bevin once is sworn in on Dec. 8.

Beshear’s executive orders at risk include prevailing wage on construction projects; a $10.10 per hour minimum wage for state employees and contractors; protection of state employees from discrimination in hiring based on sexual orientation and gender identity; and – most significantly – his creation of Kynect and the expansion of Medicaid to those up to 138 percent of the federal poverty rate. Bevin appears likely to rescind most of these, though he at times backtracked during his campaign on a pledge to do away with Medicaid expansion “on day one.”

The hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians who have coverage through Medicaid due to this expansion will be watching Bevin closely to see whether their eligibility will be rescinded with the stroke of a pen – assuming that is legally possible, which is up for debate – or if he will attempt to push for this through the legislative process.

Democrats still have a firewall in the state House… for now

While Bevin becoming governor is a major victory for Republicans and their policy agenda, the big remaining hurdle is the Democrats’ slim majority in the state House. Republicans have long called for so-called “right to work” legislation, tort reform, charter schools, abortion restrictions, fuller privatization of public pensions, and a more regressive consumption-based tax reform in the General Assembly – only to be stymied by Democrats in the House. Though Bevin will now have the bully pulpit of the governor’s mansion, his favored legislation still will face the hurdle of Democrats and House Speaker Greg Stumbo.
Or will he? A serious threat for Democrats over the next two months will be rural conservative House Democrats flipping to the Republican Party, seeing the writing on the wall of their electoral future by having a D next to their name in a region of voters trending solidly Republican. Another threat is Bevin appointing any of these Democratic House members to a position in his administration or a judgeship, which would come along with a hefty boost in their public pension and open up the seat for a Republican to win in a special election. Gov. Beshear tried the same strategy with Republican members of the Senate in order to flip the majority of that chamber, though ultimately failing in that task.

If this happens and the Republicans take over the House, the entire Republican policy agenda likely will pass by this spring. If not, Bevin and his party still have the opportunity to pick up enough seats in next year’s state House elections, delaying their long sought after wish list of policy goals until 2017. Until then, the House remains the Democrats’ only firewall.

Dems to the left, Dems to the right?

Following Tuesday night’s bloodbath, Sen. Ray Jones – the Democratic minority leader of the state Senate – blamed his party’s losses on Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, saying Kentucky Democrats have to further distance themselves from the party’s national leaders. Pressed on this by Rene Shaw of KET, Jones had difficulty differentiating local Democrats and Obama on policy positions outside of coal regulations, highlighting the challenge of how his colleagues could pull off this familiar strategy that has failed so badly in the past two statewide elections.

Other Democrats have taken the exact opposite lesson from this election, saying their candidates’ insistence on villainizing Obama over the past seven years has managed not only to suppress the vote of progressive Democrats, but made the party’s brand so toxic that no attempts by candidates to distance themselves for Obama – like Grimes in 2014 and Conway this year – can work.

This internal debate among Democrats will not be resolved anytime soon, but it will surely shape the direction of the party going forward.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

QOTD: Patriotism

Steve M:

There's a double standard in this country on presumptions of patriotism, whether or not Weigel notices it. Democrats who accuse Republicans of disloyalty to country are merely trying to turn the tables. Republicans who accuse Democrats are reinforcing a well-established group slander.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

How Race-Hate is the Source of Liberal-Hate

I have a very difficult time accepting that white cops' claimed fear of unarmed black men is genuine and not your basic racist motherfucker lie, but Steve M makes a good case for it.  Read the whole thing, which concludes:

I think the evil-black-superman myth is the template for all of this.

I've long felt that, since the days of Reagan, conservatives have thrived by modifying the "Southern strategy" demonization of blacks -- the demons now include Democrats, liberals, college professors, Hollywood stars, feminists, gay people, immigrants, and other groups. The rhetoric frequently circles back to race, of course -- especially, needless to say, while we have a black president -- but the same basic anger is stoked when the top Democrat is Bill Clinton or Nancy Pelosi.

I'm sticking with that theory. Race hate is the root of this, and often enough we get it in pure form. But the right can create other all-powerful evil demons as well. We'll see that again before you know it. And no, I have no idea how to diminish the visceral appeal of the idea that some people are just supernaturally evil.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Hoping Repugs Will Change is Political Suicide

Digby:

The majority of Republicans only want to pass their own policies and somehow force the president to sign them.  They do not want compromise and they do not want moderation.  Democrats, on the other hand, are much more likely to want both.

This isn't brain surgery. As long as this dynamic exists the government will get more and more conservative regardless of what the more pragmatic Republican leaders and the Democratic Party wants.  There is no incentive for the right wing to do anything but hang in there.  They may not get everything they want in one fell swoop, but they'll be getting more of what they want than if they compromise. And they simply do not want "moderation" they want to make a point.

The Democratic plan to deal with this seems to be that a bunch of Republicans will eventually wake up and realize that they have been wrong. Good plan.

Friday, November 7, 2014

Saturday, March 15, 2014

The Difference Between the Parties

The ones trying to stop people from voting would be the repugs, but in case you need more proof, here's Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Konczal’s response to the widely-discussed Adolph Reed essay makes an excellent point:
This [assertion that "the two parties converging in policy"] is the kind of stuff that drives liberals up the wall, and for good reason. The two parties at this point are pushing two very different, ideological visions of the role of the state and the market. Ignore for a second cuts and expansions. Conservatives want to privatize Social Security, while liberals want it to remain a public program. Conservatives want to turn Medicare into a coupon to buy health insurance on exchanges, while liberals want to use Medicare’s footprint to control health-care costs. Liberals see a greater role for the federal government, for instance in absorbing the costs of a major expansion of Medicaid. Conservatives want to turn everything over to the states where it will be easier to starve and replace with private control. These aren’t minor differences.
These battles are clearer if you look at the fighting in the states. States taken over by conservatives have waged an all-out war on workers, reproductive health, and public goods. Meanwhile liberal states and cities have moved to expand paid sick-leave, minimum wages, and reproductive health. Even the so-called culture wars have a hard economic edge. Reed dismisses feminism as a set of fake cultural politics. Yet health-care reform has eliminated “woman” as a pre-existing condition, and minimum wage hikes, which disproportionately benefit women of color, and equal pay are in the forefront.
The divergence between the parties at the national level is atypically large and growing, but is nonetheless inevitably blurred by the necessities of keeping a national governing coalition together. (Consider what Obama’s first term would have looked like with a unicemeral House — not just a better ACA but major climate change legislation and very likely card check as well.) In states, where the cores of the parties have less need to attract moderates, the differences between the parties are yet more stark. As I said in my recent post about PR, I simply don’t buy the idea that the crucial problem is a lack of imagination among progressives. There are plenty of good ideas, some of which are getting traction in states; it’s getting American political institutions that inherently protected the status quo to enact them.  And as Konczal points out, this is hardly a new problem.
 The thing that makes me personally crazy is the label "conservative Democrat." There's no such thing as a conservative Democrat. There are repugs who call themselves Democrats and even register to vote as Democrats, but they always vote for repugs - in the polling booth and in whatever legislative body they may get themselves falsely elected to.

Always have voted repug, always will vote repug.  Calling themselves "conservative Democrats" doesn't change that.

Don't be fooled.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Quote of the Day

Steve M:

Anger is a perfectly appropriate emotion to express at a right wing that won't accept the legitimacy of Democratic and liberal politicians and that describes liberals and Democrats as inhuman monsters bent on America's destruction.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

If the Shutdown Shoe Were On the Democratic Foot

Of course, throughout the Smirky/Darth Interregnum, it was the Democrats who had the power to hold the debt ceiling hostage and demand the repugs oh, say, withdraw from Iraq, cancel the Bush tax cuts and eliminate subsidies to Big Oil.  But they never did.

Next time, they'll know better.

New York Crank at No More Mister Niceblog:
But if the Republicans by some freak accident ever simultaneously control the House, the Senate and the Presidency again in the next half century, here’s what the Democrats ought to do.
First things first: stand up in the Senate and read “The Cat In The Hat,” a Dr. Seuss poem about how “somebody else” wrecks everything, and then talk nonobjectively about nonobjective art and the price of pewter in Pittsburgh, meanwhile letting preferential subsidies run out for major government contractors abnd rich land owners and industrialists.
Second, demand a 99 percent marginal tax bracket for anyone earning over $10,000,000 a year.
Third, stand up in Congress and read “The Sneetches,” a Dr. Seuss poem about a group of critters who have stars on their yellow bellies and therefore think they’re entitled to stuff nobody else has.
Fourth, demand that anyone who has ever registered Republican be forced to surrender his or her firearm, on the grounds that being Republican is a prima facie indicator of insanity.
Fifth, stand up in Congress and read the Dr. Seuss poem about the north going Zax and the south going Zax, who meet  on the Prairie of Prax “nose to nose, face to face,” and refuse to budge for each other.
Sixth, demand that Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Eric Cantor…well the list goes on, but it includes every Tea Party Republican and current corrupt shill for collapsing the government and the economy, John Boehner included. Demand all Tea Party-ites turn themselves into the FBI as the Al Qeada agents they most probably are, and confess to conspiring to destroy the United States for ideological reasons.
Seventh, stand up in Congress and read the Dr. Seuss poem about the “pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them,” another perfect metaphor for John Boehner and other “heads” of the Banana Republicans.
Eighth, institute an excess wealth tax on individuals with assets over $20,000,000. If you have $19,999,999, that’s enough to live very, very comfortably. You don’t need another dollar. Add to that an inheritance tax of 100 percent on all estates larger than $10,000,000.
When the Banana Republicans begin to scream and bleat, declare that you’re willing to negotiate nearly all these issues if they simply give you the Excess Wealth Tax, but that they refuse.
In the end, nothing tastes as bitter as your own medicine.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Attention Red-State Democrats: This is How It's Done


Come to Kentucky, Wendy, and run against Mitch McConnell.  He is TERRIFIED of women bearing giant cans of whoop-ass.

Wonkette:

Were you unable to sleep last night because of the sound of women screaming WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!?!? coming out of the Texas state capitol? It all started when state Sen. Wendy Davis, Wonkette’s unanimous frontrunner for the Legislative Badass of the Year Award, stood on her feet all goddamned day to explain, in little itty bitty words that even Texas Republicans should be able to understand, why Senate Bill 5 — which bans abortion after 20 weeks, requires clinics to be certified as “ambulatory surgical centers,” and a bunch of other steaming donkeyshit — is wrong and stupid and unconstitutional and also wrong and stupid (and unconstitutional). As Yr Wonkette already ‘splained at you, all but five of Texas’s 47 existing clinics would have to close under this new bill.
But then? Oh, there were shenanigans!

As you might imagine, the menfolk of the Texas Senate did not appreciate having to listen to some lady running her mouth off ’bout ladyparts, as, clearly, that’s none of her business. State Sen. Bob Deuell, who is A Doctor and also A Idiot, even mansplained that none of this is even relevant because — we shit you not — pregnancy only results from “accurate intercourse.” Yeah. We can’t believe that shit either. Except that considering today’s Republican Party, we totally can.

But Wendy Davis, who is a superbad badass, just kept yammerin’ and yammerin’ and was all, like, “No, I will NOT yield.” Which is when the menfolk did some outside-the-box thinking (yes, we use that “thinking” word loosely) and decided they’d found a way to shut that whole thing down.

WHAT?!? you say. They just, like, made her stop talking? Why yes they did. Because she dared to discuss other Texas restrictions on abortion, and the menfolk kept saying that discussing abortion restrictions was not “germane” to the discussion of abortion restrictions, and some RIDICULOSE Texas procedural rule says that if the men whine three times and click their heels, they can end a filibuster.

In case you were watching the clock, yes, that was the exact moment that ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.
The audience — and vaginas all across the land — started shouting “BULLSHIT!” so the Texas menfolk had the audience escorted and locked out of the room because lalalalalala, we can’t hear you! Shut up, men are talking!

They then proceeded to discuss, for, like, hours, whether the whining about referencing abortion restrictions in a discussion about abortion restrictions was “germane this” and “germane that” and yes, Jermaine was the worst Jackson, and argle bargle something something yadda yadda MAKE THE MEAN LADY STOP TALKING!

Finally, after they’d consulted themselves and their manual enough to convince themselves that yes, they were quite certain they did not want to hear any more from the little woman, they decided it was time to vote on their heinous bill. And that’s when the dogs of war were REALLY slipped and the crowd went wild. No, seriously, it went motherfucking wild. There was screaming and shouting, even as the very gifted state Sen. Robert Lloyd Duncan begged the crowd to please stop shouting at him and said, “If I can have some order,” to which the crowd basically shouted FUCK YOU AND YOUR ORDER! And when he tried to announce a vote tally — surprise! The menfolk got their way, according to his calculation! — the crowd erupted into chants of “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” and some more general shouting and outrage, while the GOP frantically looked for a parliamentary loophole so they could fool the crowd into leaving, then vote with no one in the chamber.

While the bill did not actually pass by the midnight deadline, the GOP decided it was just a heckuva lot easier to say it did. Congratulations, womens of Texas! You are cordially invited to go intercourse yourselves accurately.

Except wait! After a couple more hours of private conversation in quiet rooms, the GOP decided that maybe stealing a vote right in front of the whole world was not such a good idea, and that it was finally and bitterly willing to admit the official vote was recorded at 12:03 (that’s after midnight, for you clock-challenged Republicans out there). So SB5 is, it turns out, dead as fried chicken. Awww yeah.
As always on Wonkette, the comments are Not. To. Be. Missed. Here are my favorites:
Lizzietish81
Its also super awesome that the people were able to keep this from happening by being involved. Like right there involved. 
StarsUponThars 
Molly Ivins would be so proud.
It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.

The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

from her last column, January 11, 2007: We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there.
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/molly_...

I'd say "RIP, Molly," but somehow I suspect her reply would be "oh hell no, darlin', we've got work to do..."

nmmagyar
So would Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan...

Finally, from Juanita Jean:
“WHO WOULD HAVE EVER DREAMED THAT THE AMERICAN SPRING WOULD HAVE STARTED IN TEXAS?” Margot Nielsen

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

I Give Up. Kentucky Democrats Are Too Fucking Stupid for Words

I don't have any to do justice to this ... this .... aaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhh!

Wonkette:

With Big Hollywood Feminazi Out Of Kentucky Senate Race, Dems Eye Former Miss America Married To Total Felon

Kentucky Democrats, you are awesomesauce. You are respresented by Mitch McConnell, who was the least popular senator in the country until Arizona Senator Jeff Flake stepped on his “friend” Gabby Gifford’s shattered skull to vote against background checks at gun shows, whoops. And yet, when faced with what could possibly be a winnable race, you a) get super ching-chong-chinaman-racist on Mitch McConnell’s Taiwan-born wife, b) do some bullshit eavesdropping that bites you in your fat Kentucky ass, and c) when the Big Hollywood Gaia-worshipper who’s always jawing on about the Patriarchy decides not to run you go courting … a former Miss America with no political experience except being married to a guy who was in politics until he was convicted like 50 times of 50 different things, including defrauding Medicaid like he was Rick Scott or something. Also, she killed someone.
 
We are waiting for Heather French Henry to announce she is not interested in running, at which time Kentucky Dems should approach:
  • Kai the hatchet wielding awesome guy who was so awesome until he beat a man to death.
  • A lesbian.
  • A black lady who deals drugs on welfare.
  • A black lady who doesn’t deal drugs, and isn’t on welfare, and in fact is a respected and high-achieving member of her profession, but is still black.
  • Christine O’Donnell.
Kentucky Dems, whatever would we do without you?

Monday, March 4, 2013

Rationality Breaks Out in Kansas

Hmm. Gov. Bareback Brownback's approval is heading for congressional repug territory; maybe that's given Kansas Democrats a breath of life.

From Firedoglake:
“Drug testing of lawmakers added to Kansas bill . . . [requiring] drug tests of any welfare or unemployment recipient who state officials reasonably suspect is using illegal substances.” A proposal that didn’t make it would have added “state-assisted company owners”.
And:
KS’ Supreme Court “issued a ruling protecting the rights of same-sex couples to both be recognized as the legal parents of the children they are raising together.”