Archive for December, 2012
Democrats for Sigler!
John Sigler’s tenure as the Crown Prince of Crazytown has been an unmitigated disaster for the DE GOP. Therefor, it behooves all clear thinking Dems to help him retain his position in the face of this challenge by the popular (28%!) and uh…charismatic (?)Jeff Cragg. Actually, now that I think about it. I can’t imagine […]
Guns, Me And Steve Newton – Or City Mouse Meet Country Mouse
Steve Newton wrote a post the other day that I’ve been trying to find time to respond. It’s a fascinating post, exposing a world that I was never part of. I couldn’t stop reading it – which is code for you to go read it now. The world in which Steve was raised is so […]
Memo to Pete Schwartzkopf: You’re Not Speaker Yet.
A rookie mistake, or a sign of things to come? Celia Cohen has the story here, and I think it’s an important one. Here’s why. During my time in Dover, the following served as Speaker of the House, the leader of the institution: Lonnie George, Chuck Hebner, Brad Barnes, Terry Spence, and Bob Gilligan. In […]
![Thursday Daily Delawhere [12.20.12]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8479/8280200691_eb710ffd66_z.jpg "Thursday Daily Delawhere [12.20.12]")
Wednesday Open Thread [12.19.12]
“Conservatives often embrace ‘originalism,’ the idea that the meaning of the Constitution was fixed when it was ratified, in 1787. They mock the so-called liberal idea of a ‘living’ constitution, whose meaning changes with the values of the country at large. But there is no better example of the living Constitution than the conservative re-casting of the Second Amendment in the last few decades of the twentieth century.”
“The re-interpretation of the Second Amendment was an elaborate and brilliantly executed political operation, inside and outside of government. Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 brought a gun-rights enthusiast to the White House. At the same time, Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, became chairman of an important subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he commissioned a report that claimed to find ‘clear–and long lost–proof that the second amendment to our Constitution was intended as an individual right of the American citizen to keep and carry arms in a peaceful manner, for protection of himself, his family, and his freedoms.’ The N.R.A. began commissioning academic studies aimed at proving the same conclusion. An outré constitutional theory, rejected even by the establishment of the Republican Party, evolved, through brute political force, into the conservative conventional wisdom.”
First Major Test for Senator Coons – Bad Deal or No Deal ?
With Obama wavering, negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff are heading in a disastrous direction. John Boehner bought some leverage with his “Plan B” — if they pass it in the house, the GOP thinks that they’ll force “moderate” Democrats in the Senate to cave. Clearly no deal is better than a bad deal, but […]
The Polling Report [12.19.12]
![The Polling Report [12.19.12]](http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=steve-benen46D46BF3-061B-D594-18D2-E2810F6E6B58.jpg "The Polling Report [12.19.12]")
“Tradition trumped suspense Monday as members of the Electoral College cast the official, final votes in an exhausting 2012 presidential election, a constitutional formality on President Barack Obama’s march to a second term,” the AP reports. The casting of votes occurred in each of the 50 state capitol buildings and in D.C. In Arizona, the crazy racist birthers there took the opportunity to once again complain that a white man is not president.
“[T]hree of [Arizona’s 11 Electors] said questions remain about whether Barack Obama was born in this country,” Arizona Public Radio reports. Said state GOP Chairman Tom Morrissey: “I’m not satisfied with what I’ve seen. I think for somebody in the president’s position to not have produced a document that looks more legitimate, I have a problem with that.” Birther Arizona elector tells TPM: “Yeah, some people are going to say, ‘Oh, those stupid Arizonans, there they go again.’ But, you know, I’d rather be right than popular.”
In this case, you are neither. I hereby demand that all three produce their original long form birth certificates. I can tell them preemptively that I will find all three illegitimate and demand their immediate deportation to Europe.
![Wednesday Daily Delawhere [12.19.12]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8345/8280201245_f1b252fd4b_z.jpg "Wednesday Daily Delawhere [12.19.12]")
President Obama, You won. Act like it.
I get why the President spent his first term trying to negotiate with the GOP terrorists. I don’t get why he is doing it now. This post is a direct pickup from dkos.
Late Night Video — The Punk Bloggers at Media Matters
I say that with love, of course! Media Matters is one of my favorite media resources — and they’ve put together a delightful compilation of just how much they’ve been able to get under the skin of Fox Noise this year:
Comment Rescue: (Insert name here) of the Green Party for Lt. Gov
I’m a partisan Democrat, but this Geezer comments makes sense:
You Greens should look harder at the lieutenant-governorship as a platform. Sher Valenzuela showed that with a little money, energy and a simple message, a total unknown can campaign for the job independently of the major parties (she all but bolted the GOP by linking herself to Pires). A Green, especially one with a finance background, could sell him/herself as the most effective check on unchallenged power in a one-party state.
Tuesday Open Thread [12.18.12]
Why is this time different? Why are things going to change this time? Andrew Gelman at the Monkey Cage has a thought:
– The event itself is particularly horrifying: an elementary school instead of a high school, more kids getting killed, and the killer using three guns that were just lying around the house.
– Cumulation: each new shooting is added on to what came before, eventually enough people become motivated to act.
– Political timing: no national election for 23 months, now is the time for politicians to act without fear of the gun lobby.
– Political alignment: the Republicans have had so much success getting gun voters to their side that Democrats now have nothing to lose politically by supporting gun restrictions. And, if the Democrats move to restrict guns, savvy Republicans can move toward the center on the issue, confident that their Democratic opposition won’t outflank them on the right.
– The pendulum: to put that last point another way, gun policy has swung so far to the right in recent years that the force of public opinion will tend to pull it back to the center. This latest shooting has given politicians a chance to realize this and act on it.
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