Posts by jason330

The GOP's voter suppression efforts backfired spectacularly. They "flipped a switch with the African American vote," Chanelle Hardy, a vice president at the National Urban League said, rekindling whatever enthusiasm had waned after 2008’s historic Obama win.

“We’d been struggling for many years in our communities with how we make the argument that our parents and grandparents had handed down to us: ‘you must vote, because people fought and died for you to have the right to vote.’ It starts to become a little less motivating the further away you get away from those really visceral memories of what it took to get to the polls,” Hardy said. “But then you bring back a 35 state assault on our ability to vote and it starts getting really reminiscent. All of the things our parents were telling us and our grandparents were telling us become visceral to a new generation.”

Dear potential Democratic candidates for president in 2016, Before you start attending a steak fry, working the Sunday shows, calling fundraisers, hiring consultants, and forming leadership PACs and all that, let me make a suggestion: See that lady in the picture up there? That lady ought to be Speaker of the House. She busts her ass for this party. If you want to lead this party, I suggest you do some serious heavy lifting to make said lady Speaker of the House. That should be the test for any potential nominee. How hard will you work to retake the House? Barack Obama did his duty from 2005 to 2006. He traveled far and wide into every corner of the country from Congressional races to Senate races. All in the service of making a strong House majority, he did his duty. Now the President will have to turn his attentions abroad in the closing years of his term, with the overall goal of passing on to his successor a country that is prosperous and peaceful. That means the onus on winning back the majority is on you…the pretenders. Who is going to get out there for the next two years and work the hardest for Democrats? Better be you.

President Obama won't give in to Republican ransom demands over tax cuts for the wealthy—even if that means going over the so-called fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, 2013. This has got to have John Boehner perplexed. To his right Boehner will have teaparty caucus screaming for an economic Kamikaze dive into austerity oblivion, to his other right he'll have the GOP's big defense contractor money screaming for him to raise the white flag. It should get interesting if this holds.

Mark your calendar and make plans to attend the ADA's Fiscal Cliff Town Hall Forum. Saturday December 8th 10:30am - 11:30am Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Newark 4200 Willa Rd, Newark DE 19711 I'll be on the panel speaking up for progressive small businesses. Joining me will be...

I think that it is a strange choice for John Carney to set himself up as the Democrat with no ideas. It hurt him in his primary against Markell, and now he seems determined to repeat his mistake. I mean, we can assume he'll be facing a Democrat in a primary election at some point, and he will want to have some kind of Democratic brand identity when that roles around, right? And yet, Carney wastes ink in this weekends News Journal telling us that 1) Returns day is awesome 2) People want bipartisanship 3) The debt is the worst thing ever, and 4) He is proud of addressing the debt "crisis" by having voted for a commission report so flawed and lacking that never made it out of committee. Genius! ...

From Brian Selander's Facebook page:

Thank you, Gov. Jack Markell for giving me the chance to serve. I'm sad to leave, but excited to help launch The Whistle with friends and create a compelling sports media destination for the next generation of fans.

In a blunt speech just delivered in Hatfield PA, President Obama directly asked for Americans to put pressure on congress, and called the Republicans out for taking the middle-class tax cuts hostage. From Daily Kos live blog of the event:

9:16 AM PT: Obama says he's counting on Americans to put pressure on Congress to extend the middle-class tax cuts. "I need you to remind members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to not get bogged down in partisan bickering. [...] I want you to call, send an email, to post on their Facebook wall." And he mentions the #My2k hashtag on Twitter. 9:20 AM PT: "I'm going to need folks like you, here in Hatfield and in Pennsylvania and across the country, to get this done." 9:18 AM PT: Here's the hostage line: "It's not acceptable to me and I don't think it's acceptable to you for just a handful of Republicans in Congress to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage simply because they don't want tax rates on upper income folks to go up. Alright? That doesn't make sense." Applause.

Officials are advising residents in three New Jersey towns to stay inside after a freight train and other tanker cars derailed and spilled toxic materials in a southern New Jersey creek on Friday, the Associated Press reports. The advisory was issued in the towns of Paulsboro, West Deptford and East Greenwich Township.

Say your new cat can't get a long with your old cat, or you are 21 and living with your Mom who still treats you like you are ten, or your boyfriend might be gay, and you need some advice, but you'd like that advice delivered in song... Who are you gonna call? Zylstra's "advice music" was a regular stop for me on the internet tubes for a while, but I haven't check in for a while. I'm glad to see that she is still at it.

In your car at, 91.1 FM or online at WDDE.org. It has been live since August, but they are doing a ribbon cutting. So, if you didn't know about it - now you do.

This deal clearly sucks, but when you have blue state Democrats like John Carney and Chris Coons saying, "OMGZ!!! THE DEBT!!! Medicaid is wrecking the country!!" - you lose a lot of your negotiating strength.

Carney via Facebook:

This morning, Rep. Jim Renacci, a Republican from Ohio, and I organized our first bipartisan policy meeting since the election. Our group -- divided evenly among Democrats and Republicans -- meets every other week to brainstorm legislation and try to find common ground. We had great turnout today and took the opportunity to hash out our priorities for the upcoming Congress. If you're not familiar with the group, you can read about it in this short article from 2011.

The Partisan Republican voting record of Renacci is 99%. Keep looking Congressman. Your bipartisanship should be the kind that demands at least some small demonstration of good will by your Republican counterpart.