You're in Timeout!

POSTED BY JHW22

This election is essentially a tantrum for some. People didn't respect the will of the people in 2008 (and that includes Dems who forgot Obama's agenda or freaked that he didn't meet it soon enough) and have wanted to complain for two years without actually doing any work. And tonight that bad behavior was rewarded.

At the same time, this wasn't the tsunami people predicted. We held some great members of Congress and got some gubernatorial wins. So the referendum argument doesn't really hold water.

But if some want to take the Republican wins with pride, that's fine, but remember that your wins come out of hate and rejection. When we voted in 2008, our wins came out of hope and progress.

We still have the White House and we still have the Senate. And we have enough in the House to stay in the game -- because keep in mind, MANY of the policies passed this year were the same policies that Republicans supported before they decided to say no to everything. So when they write bills that Dems agree with, we'll support them. We won't say no to policies we agreed with yesterday simply because we have fewer members today. But we will say no when policies would be bad for America -- and we will have the facts to support our stance.

Party of Fuck No!

POSTED BY JHW22

Jimmy Williams, a lobbyist and a hilarious analyst who has worked for Durbin and Biden was a killer guest on Dylan Ratigan's show today. He was smart and funny and gave me my favorite perspective on a POTENTIAL loss tonight. He said (and I am paraphrasing here):

You can't land a punch if you don't have something to swing at so if the House goes Republican we will finally have a target.

IF the House falls into Republican hands and John "Orange Ya Glad I Didn't Say Banana" Boehner becomes Speaker, then WE have a target (and of course I mean a rhetorical target and not a some sort of gun sight target). For the last two years we have been on offense and defense. We have had to create policy while fending off the nuisances yapping at our feet. But if the House is run by Republican'ts they will actually have to DO SOMETHING. They will have to craft legislation and bring it the floor. And when they do, we will become the party of "FUCK NO!" The difference between their no and our no will be that ours stays consistent with the policies we have supported for the last 2, 4, 6 years. They said no to their own ideas. We will say no to their ideas without having to compromise our principles.

Now, I would much rather the House and Senate stay in Democratic hands and I have hope, but if we lose something tonight, let's make sure we force it to work in our favor.

Election Day

Vote early and often.

Voter Intimidation at Micky D's

Why does this shit always happen in Ohio? Why are they always the troubled state when it comes to elections?

The owner of a franchise in Canton, Ohio enclosed a handbill in employees' paychecks that threatened lower wages and benefits if Republicans don't win on Tuesday...

..."The handbill endorses candidates who have in essence pledged to roll back the minimum wage and eviscerate the safety net that protects the most vulnerable members of our workforce," said Attorney Allen Schulman of Canton law firm Schulman Zimmerman & Associates, which received the documents from an employer who stepped forward. "But it's more than that. When a corporation like McDonald's intimidates its employees into voting a specific way, it violates both state and federal election law..."

The owner of the McDonald's franchise, Paul Siegfried, called it "an error in judgment" and apologized to "those that I have offended...". It's not about offending anyone, douchebag, it's about breaking the law.

Don't expect the wingnuts to go crazy over this.  They're too worried about the ACORN scam du jour even though they've been out of business since April after being framed by Breitbart and accomplices. Registering voters is evil, but intimidating minimum wage workers will go unnoticed in their bizarro world.

Meg Whitman Drowns in Boos at The Women's Conference...

... for failing to agree to a negative campaign ad stoppage with Jerry Brown.



(H/T Huffington Post)

Yeah, well I'M mad as hell, too!

Posted by JHW22

I have been pissed for over a year now. I left sites I was once fairly active on, haven't even peeked at them, because I was so furious at the wasted energy at the sites and the energy they sucked out of me. The vitriol against Dems by Dems, the purity tests and new definitions of liberal or progressive to make "others" of people within our own party accomplished nothing but raised blood pressure and inner-party disgust. We have our own civil war -- our own "tea party" revolt -- in the Democratic party going on it's just that Dems are so f'ing lazy that we don't get special wall to wall coverage.

Or do we?

See, all the anti-administration crap from the left has created the talking points on the right. I am consistently hearing Republicans use the "change" argument in their explanation of Tea Party wins. They are saying that Americans aren't being heard in DC or that the change we got wasn't what we expected. It KILLS me that people who fought change are now saying they didn't get the change they wanted and that the only Americans worth listening to are the fringe right. But WE DID GET CHANGE! We ARE being listened to. We elected a person based on his agenda and he is checking things off that agenda by the day -- no, by the minute. Our President is working his ass off and what have SOME given him? Disrespect, moaning and groaning, bitching and blubbering, demands and irrational expectations and punishments.

Everything from "Kill the Bill" to gay members of the armed services outing themselves to make a point -- yet were not willing to make the point when we had a President who didn't commit to overturning DADT. No, they waited until the President who committed to ending DADT was in office and then held HIS feet to the fire. The President who will overturn DADT is the one not good enough because he didn't do it fast enough.

I have consistently rocked between being angrier at public Republicans like Palin and Boehner or at the private Republicans like my aunts and uncles. But every so often I remember to heap some of my anger on the countless Democrats who have wasted so much damn energy complaining about their own selfish agendas that they have ENABLED and ALLOWED the Republicans to go unchecked for over a year and to give Independents nothing to feel good about in regards to the last 20 months. Republicans run around creating hysteria as SOME Democrats say the President hasn't accomplished anything -- that this wasn't the change they voted for. So what do private Republicans hear? They hear: the President is worse than we thought. What do private Independents hear? They hear: The President isn't doing as much as I thought.

So thanks a lot to all the self-redefined liberal/progressive/Democrats who think you got screwed by the President. Guess what? You didn't. But if you don't get off your pissed asses and vote for Democrats this November then shut the fuck up as you watch the Obama administration face the wasteful scrutiny Clinton faced when Republicans ran the show in Congress. If you care more that we have a Congress that will be better for late night comedians than the American people, then don't vote but then shut the fuck up.

Whether or not you are pissed at Obama or Reid, staying home on election day is pathetic and goes against the very nature of a progressive. DO you want change? Really? What kind? Do you want this kind of change?

Bachmann
O'Donnell
Paladino
Paul
Angle

I was so relieved to hear Vice President Biden on Rachel Maddow last night. I loved hearing him tell Democrats to "Get in gear, man." We need to be fired up and ready to go. And if SOME people are looking to be fired up by someone else instead of getting there on their own [insert Christine O'Donnell joke here], then they are as lazy as the Republicans think they are.

I am going to vote. One reason is because I live in a red state and I don't take the opportunity for granted. I KNOW what it's like to have asshole Republicans not listening to the constituents who approve of Obama. I know what it's like to have a state wanting to repeal the health care law. I know what it's like to live in a state with failing education and hate toward immigrants. So believe me, I will PROUDLY vote and I will PROUDLY vote for the Democrats. In the above-linked interview with Rachel Maddow, Joe Biden quoted Truman:

"I'm not going to give them hell, I'll give them the truth and they'll think it's hell."

The truth is, if Dems stay home in November, we will have to deal will hell in Congress. That's just the way it is.

Republicans Fighting For The Banks

This is what happens when you let the children sit at the grown up's table. For a year now, we've been hearing about the "Obama bank bailout" (started by Bush if you've forgotten) and how Wall Street was propsering while Main Street suffered. President Obama has even gotten the banks to pay back part if not all of the bailout money, but no matter.

And now that the Obama administration is forging ahead with major financial reform, the GOP is crying foul.

President Barack Obama planned to "turn up the pressure for an overhaul of Wall Street regulations" as he met with congressional leaders this morning, including the Democratic and Republican leaders of both the House and Senate.

The Senate is preparing to take up a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations regimen in less than two weeks. Republican leaders have already promised to reject broad changes proposed by Democrats.

So do the Republicans plan on winning in November on a platform of repealing health care reform and protecting the status quo of the banks and Wall Street? God, I hope so.

Dorgan and Ritter and Dodd, Oh My!

Within the last 24 hours we have gotten news of Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter not intending to seek re-election for 2010. And now comes word that Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, whose numbers have been down in the polls and would have had a hard time winning another term, has scheduled a press conference for today in which he is expected to announce his retirement after five terms.

Dodd's seat looks safe as Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal might step in and run a little earlier than his anticipated run against Joe Lieberman in 2012, but I think you'd have to expect to lose a seat in conservative North Dakota when Dorgan steps down.

Is it really looking that bad for the Democrats in 2010? I personally don't think so. I think the teabaggers' numbers don't match their loudness, despite what certain polls say.