Friday Open Thread

Filed in National by on March 11, 2011

Welcome to your Friday open thread. Friday is the best of the workdays, because the weekend is coming up. The weekend, brought to you by unions. Thanks, guys! If you have some extra money, think about sending some along to help the recall effort in

This is great news!

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords plans to attend the launch of the space shuttle endeavor on April 19, almost three months after she was shot in the head outside a Tucson, Arizona, supermarket, spokesman C.J. Karamargin said.

Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, is the shuttle mission’s commander.

Gabrielle Giffords is amazing and inspiring. I’ll look forward to the media feeding frenzy over her public appearance.

Wisconsin Republicans might have won the battle in Wisconsin, but they haven’t won the war. Now the focus shifts to legal challenges and to possible recall elections. A new poll shows that at least two of the Republican state senators who are eligible for recall are very vulnerable.

Here are the numbers, sent over by a MoveOn official, in the districts of GOP senators Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper.

When asked if they would vote for Hopper or someone else if a recall election were held right now, 54 percent said they’d vote for someone else, versus only 43 percent they’d vote for Hopper.

In Kapanke’s district, the numbers were even worse: 57 percent said they’d vote for someone else, versus only 41 percent who said they’d vote for Kapanke.

It gets even more interesting. The poll was taken yesterday, before last night’s events, and fifty-six percent of voters in Kapanke’s district, and 54% of voters in Hopper’s district, said if their Senator voted for Walker’s plan, it would make them more likely to vote for someone else. Last night, both Senators did vote for Walker’s rollback of bargaining rights.

Right now volunteers are collecting signatures for recall and they’ve reported they are ahead of schedule. I imagine the vote to end bargaining rights will make the recall efforts accelerate.

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (17)

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  1. jason330 says:

    Do you think that the usual wingnuts will be singing the praises of Democracy after these psychos are Democratically ejected from office through a recall election?

  2. heragain says:

    So-So news from the world of energy safe bulbs. I walked into my living room today to find smoke and a foul odor… like burning wiring. After unplugging everything and sniffing, couldn’t locate source, so evacuated kids and had the fire department out. They couldn’t find anything, either.

    After they left, resumed search, found a lightbulb burned out, then went to the net.

    Apparently, when CFC bulbs blow out they emit a smell & smoke, probably from their mini-transformers and hopefully not releasing any vaporized mercury into the environment.

    Pass the word. I suspect this will become a frequent fire department call, for a while.

  3. heragain says:

    That would be CFL lightbulb. Still kinda shook-up.

  4. liberalgeek says:

    Sorry to hear that heragain. Glad to hear that it turned out OK for you guys.

  5. anon says:

    Snopes to the rescue. It’s a burned-out ballast. Happens in schools and workplaces all the time. It doesn’t mean your house is about to burn down. If you are still shook up, ask a third-grader for reassurance.

  6. anon says:

    Happened to me once when I was taking a certification test in a hotel ballroom with about 100 other people. A large overhead light blew out its ballast, and the ballroom filled with a light haze. The test was offered only once per year though, so we kept going.

  7. anon says:

    Sorry, the third grader thing was unnecessary. I’d delete it if I could.

  8. heragain says:

    Anon, until I identified the cause I couldn’t look it up. When I did, I posted here so no one else would worry.

    I walked into a room with smoke & 4 small children. After I established that no appliances were creating the smoke, I called the fire department in case we had a wall smolder.

    I done good. this was a public service announcement… in case other people hadn’t heard of this.

  9. PSB says:

    equality takes a step backward
    HB235 is sent back to committee in MD state house 🙁

  10. Avagadro says:

    [Crazy Rightwing Teabagz]Jerry Brown working on pension reform proposal
    SacBee: Capitol Alert 3/11/11 David Siders

    Gov. Jerry Brown was working with advisers this morning on a pension reform proposal in his bid to reach a budget deal. “We’re working on pension reform over there in the Department of Finance,” Brown told The Bee between meetings at the Capitol. The Democratic governor is negotiating with a splinter group of Republican senators who have demanded pension, regulatory and other government changes. Brown declined to say what his pension proposal might include. “As much as we can include that will not set at loggerheads all the opposing parties,” he said.

  11. anon says:

    For all of you who think ClearChannel is no big deal I urge you to see these facts. Clear Channel was founded in 1972. Since then they have acquired: 41 television stations, own 1200 radio stations, 770,000 billboards nationwide. I urge you to google: clear channel station in Iowa. Want to know why the repukes are looking to Iowa to win in 2012…check out how many right wing Clear Channel stations there are. They all hear Beck, Hannity, Rush, Levin, Savage and other uber right wing pundits,24/7. What happened at Clear channel (WILM) this morning is of know interest to you? Then you dont understand what the hell is going on right here in Delaware. Two progressives fired. Harmon Carey pushed off air. John Watson on air for 20 years, now resigned to the 9:pm time slot. Glen Beck replaces him. Why did this happen? Because uber right winger Bruce Elliot (formerly of Clear Channel Baltimore Md) took over here. Since then he put himself on air in the am, got rid of Mark Fowser and then Val, and Ted. Fairness in Media is out of the question. So what do we have left that is progressive, only Al Mascitti, statewide! Does that make you think there is a national right wing conspiracy to take the public airways from the people, while installing these loons!

  12. cassandra m says:

    The thing about WILM is that you can stop listening.

    You can organize a boycott of their advertisers — the local ones will surely hear you.

    You can make sure that the local pols stop calling in and furthering the cause (especially the city ones).

  13. anon says:

    Casandra thats your answer! Stop listening! What good does that do for the people who do listen and believe all that propaganda. We are organizing, we are mobilizing. There is a call for a protest next week. But even if we do that…Beck is under contract now. Beck, Rush, Hannity, Levin, Savage…that ought to turn the dimwits in Wilmington to vote republican not democrat. geez. The teabaggers threatened to go after their advertisers, so what did they do…fired two progressives, Harmon and moved John. Thats not a solution. We need a real “Fairness in Media Campaign”.

  14. Joe Cass says:

    Anon, it is a dangerous thing. Lord knows how easily swayed the populace is by the lies spewing from Faux, the step-daddy to clear channel. Post when and where and I’m there.

  15. cassandra m says:

    What good does that do for the people who do listen and believe all that propaganda. We are organizing, we are mobilizing.

    All of the organizing and mobilizing in the world won’t stop the easily misled from being misled. The dimwits in Wilmington won’t vote R especially if the Wilmington leadership that showed up routinely on Watson’s show stop doing that. Leave it to the wingnuts and move on.

  16. anon says:

    Guess which bill this was:

    The vote broke down along party lines with the exception of sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who sided with Republicans and voted against cloture. Not a single member of the GOP broke rank.

    and Harry Reid’s definition-of-insanity response:

    “I am hopeful that moving forward, Republicans put partisanship aside and focus on doing what’s right and fair for the American people.”

    Hint: There is more than one correct answer.

  17. anon says:

    Here’s another hint, from the kabuki script. Obama:

    “I’m going to keep up the fight to pass the reforms in that bill.”

    Remember there is more than one correct answer.