Friday Open Thread
TGIF! It’s a planet-wide edition of your open thread.
Jim Inhofe declares himself #1!
Inhofe suffered his latest indignity at the hands of Rolling Stone, which awarded him the 7th spot on its list of the “planet’s worst enemies.”
Inhofe took this as a slight. “I should have been number one,” he told KFAQ radio in Tulsa, “I guess [Warren] Buffet has a lot more money so he went first.”
Inhofe also aired his grievances in an interview with the Tulsa World. “My first response was I should have been number 1, not number 7,” he said. “I am serious about that. I have spent now literally years on this thing, and it has been a long, involved thing.”
Something to be proud of, I’m sure.
Nuclear annihilation of the earth is less imminent:
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced today that it would push their Doomsday Clock back one minute — to six minutes to midnight — in recognition of President Obama’s efforts to combat nuclear proliferation and climate change. Scientists concerned the world was spiraling toward nuclear disaster first introduced the clock in 1947 and it has only been adjusted 18 times since. The group of scientists — which includes 19 Nobel laureates — hailed Obama’s “pragmatic” foreign policy:
A key to the new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government’s orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of Obama. With a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach, not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the U.S. government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years.
Obama really is the anti-Bush when it comes to foreign relations.
Tags: Open Thread
Did I say this already? I have such a respect for Mike Matthews right now it is not even funny. Remember how long he dealt with Anonone?
Attention everyone, prepare yourselves for the 2010 62 District Strategy and Cattle Call, which I will post this afternoon. If you get inside tips about who is running for the Senate and the House, be ready to post them.
Agreed with your 12:05 statement DD.
I wonder if Bush would have waited until 2 days before a close special election to go campaign for the repub candidate?
Oh, agreed with your 12:05 statement, DD. Am I back in the echo chamber now?
No, A1, so long as you are a valued commenter here at Delaware Liberal, no one can ever possibly say we are an echo chamber.
The firebaggers claim a scalp:
No..they didn’t ‘claim’ it…that’s Silver’s snide.
Are you going look to Nate to blame FDL on a Mass Senate loss too? (god forbid Brown takes it on Tuesday). My, my that Jane Hamsher is quite the cudgel. [btw ~ The general animous from Silver stems from FDL’s Marcy Wheeler, Jon Walker and David Dayen’s slaying his crappy policy analysis.]
A look at the numbers in the Arkansas district fight looks more like a DEM National Party FAIL doesn’t it? John McCain won the district 54%-44% against Barack Obama in 2008. You would think that there would have been more help there from national for their Rep. wouldn’t you?
Maybe Snyder’s fundraising is the true indicator of his lost enthusiasm for a 2010 run:
Ark-02 D (Snyder)$7,625
Griffin, Tim $130,305
“Get a genuine Progressive Democratic candidate or two in red state districts to come close or win an election and maybe someone will begin to notice. You better believe the business community will become aroused, and not in a good way.”
comment: http://elections.firedoglake.com/2010/01/14/exclusive-arkansas-democrat-vic-snyder-trailing-tim-griffin/#comment-51
The DEMs should have been trying harder to get Snyder support. Silver is a bit lop-sided on this one.
There is no doubt that Tim Griffin is the scum of the earth.
He also ironically figures in the one FAIL of Silver’s 2008 analysis in this quirky story “http://www.themudflats.net/2009/03/17/intrigue-in-bristol-bay-i-want-tim-griffins-frequent-flier-miles/
“Griffin was Nate Silver’s Achilles heel…Alaska was the only state Silver couldn’t predict”
Great comment Nancy. The DNC has sucked under Obama’s DLC pick Tim Kaine. Bring back Howard Dean.
I don’t read conservative blogs like Firedoglake. FDL push polled on Snyder, strengthening Griffin.
I agree Tim Kaine is a disaster as head of the DNC and Howard Dean was great, and successful. I hope they bring Howard Dean back.
I don’t think FDL is a conservative blog. Could be wrong here, but they’re pretty dogmatic liberal, IIRC.
FDL used to be liberal until they teamed up with Grover Norquist to push Rahm Emmanuel conspiracy theories, using rightwing frames and started pushing out Democratic candidates in favor of Tim Griffin, one of the chief wrongdoers in Bush’s prosecutor purge.
That is a crock, UI. They aren’t pushing for Griffin or any other Republican. When Kos said “Kill the Bill – no public option – no mandate – he and others WERE WORRIED THAT 2010 would be disasterous based on the way the HRC was shaping up. Do you no longer read DKos because Kos wants to save the DEMs too?
The polling on Snyder was accurate and not a push poll…
Hamsher today:
“If Snyder felt it was time to retire based on that poll, it was because it showed he was running 17 points behind his opponent, and not because we asked a question of 600 people in the district. And if the poll was truly inaccurate, I’m sure the DCCC could spring for the cash to run another one to disprove it.
Seven term congressmen know how to ask for that kind of thing. They don’t retire over polls they know to be invalid.
Far more likely is that the poll confirmed what Snyder already knew. When Parker Griffin switched parties, his staff downloaded all of the DCCC’s polling first. Everyone on the Hill was wigging out about it. All the talk about the “inevitability” of the health care bill passing was, we assumed, a desperate bid to jam it through before anyone found out how badly this insurance industry/PhRMA bailout was hurting the Democrats.
The White House has been assuring everybody that once the bill was passed, they’d do a massive “sell job” on the health care bill that would turn everything around. But if they had the power to do it, one wonders why they weren’t doing so already. Clearly Snyder didn’t think that was going to happen, or he would’ve stuck around.”
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/15/writing-about-politics-is-hard/
AMEN – Why wasn’t the WH and DCCC already in his red-leaning camp with funding drives etc.?
She adds:
“If Nate Silver suggests that anyone is trying to “scare vulnerable Democrats into retirement,” Weigel should link to that article, because in the one he references, Nate doesn’t say that. He says “perhaps it will impress Snyder into not voting for a health care bill at all.”
Perhaps Weigel has missed it, but we have been pushing to block the passage of the Senate bill for quite some time, and what he refers to as “push polling” is actually the reality of the bill. SurveyUSA is a wholly reputable polling firm (per the self-same Nate Silver, one of the reasons we chose them). They wrote the questions to try and fairly ascertain what we wanted to know: would voting for the mandate hurt Democrats in 2010? Which, by the way, is not something we would like to see happen.”
Mike and Nancy, the political spectrum is circular, not linear. FDL has gone SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO far to the left that they are now exactly the same as the teabaggers, so much so that they have formally aligned themselves with Norquidst and the teabaggers.
And Nancy, FDL push poll on Synder. Please stop to read the press releases you get before you push them out.
I am trying to understand what FDL is trying to accomplish, but I’m not getting it.
Let’s face it, if a Republican pollster asked this question (Under one proposal, if a person does not carry health insurance from a private insurance company, they would be fined up to 2% of their income. Is this fair, or unfair?) Liberals/Dems would be screaming foul.
This is really what’s bothering me. If we want to criticize Obama’s/Dem’s policies do we really have to take a page out of the Republican playbook? I’d hoped we were better than that.
By the way, McJoan is reporting that Bloomsberg interview with DCCC Chair Van Hollen says that they can win HCR with 51 and will do it with reconciliation if –horrors– Brown takes the Senate on Tuesday.
Then the HCR can get cleaned up a bunch. No more limiting access to abortion, no more mandates without a robust public option etc etc. It may take a few more months but it will be worth it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPg2UfFaCh9c&pos=9
The polling company is respected, used by Silver himself and wrote the poll – not FDL. You people are mere wagon-circlers over here. D’OH. That will go a long way to ironing the ugly DLC creases in the DEM Party dress.
Take a page out of teh Republican handbook….gee where would we start with that one…maybe when the centrists gleefully and greedily opened their shops back up on K Street after 2006? Are you kidding me? The whole story of the problem with how the DEMs are handling HCR is about lobbyists. Favoritism. Back room deals. And a shit pile result that is being sold as good policy but without costs being controlled, no independent in their right mind is going to be voting DEMs into majorities any time soon.
FDL is pointing that out. The Kos front pagers are pointing that out. Atrios is pointing that out. Why, even DL is pointing that out.
FDL used to be liberal until Delaware Liberal became establishment.