Year: 2011

"They call themselves conservatives but that’s not it, either. They don’t want to conserve what we now have. They’d rather take the country backwards – before the 1960s and 1970s, and the Environmental Protection Act, Medicare, and Medicaid; before the New Deal, and its provision for Social Security, unemployment insurance, the forty-hour workweek, and official recognition of trade unions; even before the Progressive Era, and the first national income tax, antitrust laws, and Federal Reserve."

If you’re a gay American, don’t vote for Newt Gingrich. That’s not a Democratic talking point — that’s reportedly what Newt himself said to a gay man in Iowa Tuesday.

The New York Post reports that former Vice President Dick Cheney was seen at a party recently using an oxygen mask to aid his breathing. A Cheney spokesperson denied the claim. “He’s doing fine,” the rep said.

It is amazing that the GOP decided to assist President Obama in his campaign narrative that GOP is only interested in protecting the rich and obstructing the President, all the while the middle class needs help in a sluggish economy. He has doing good in that regard this fall, as recent polls released yesterday. But now he gets an amazing assist in having his opposition actually perform the role he would have them play, and to perfection.

A new poll! But this is one you take to see where you stand politically on a new political typology developed by (or maybe refined by) the people at the Pew Center for People and the Press. This is meant to get beyond the labels of red and Blue.

Some good framing here. It all depends on President Obama and Harry Reid not blinking. If we know anything about he future based on past experiences, it is that President Obama and Harry Reid will blink.

If the House Republicans allow the middle class tax cut to expire, the House will be in Democratic hands this time next year.

It is usually after confrontations with the horribly ignorant that I despair for this country and the human race. And then I see polls that make me happy and prove me right at the same time. CNN just released its latest public opinion survey with new approval numbers for President Obama. The numbers are 49% approval and 48% disapproval. This is almost identical to the numbers just released by a new ABC/Washington Post poll, that has President Obama at 49% approval vs. 47% disapproval.

Gingrich has come back to Earth polling wise, but he is still competitive.

What unusual distinction is shared by these Christmas-y songs? "The Christmas Song," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Silver Bells," "White Christmas" and, in part, "Sleigh Ride" and "Winter Wonderland"?