Open Thread
Monday Open Thread [3.24.14]
![Monday Open Thread [3.24.14]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Rand.Paul_-182x180.png "Monday Open Thread [3.24.14]")
If Rand Paul really really wanted to be President, he could pretty much guarantee his election right now by sticking to a Libertarian foreign policy of non-interference and continue railing against the NSA. If he did that, he would probably defeat Hillary Clinton.
But he has already tarnished his Libertarian credentials in this Ukrainian crisis. Being a true libertarian in the modern GOP takes courage when it comes to foreign policy. The bully Neocons will call you unAmerican, a Hitler lover, and a coward. So it takes real courage to stand up to that. His father had that courage. Rand Paul does not.
Sunday Open Thread [3.23.14]
The always astute Paul Waldman takes to the pages of the WaPo today to diagnose what is wrong with the Sunday Yack Shows. The only reason to watch these shows is to get a handle on the news narrative that is being crafted for the upcoming week. Because the manipulation and laundering of talking points into the reporting narrative *is* what the much vaunted journalistic objectivity looks like from the political reporting machine. This really is a boring exercise — populated with the same old voices, arrayed in spectacularly silly ways — when did it get to be a thing to balance a panel of wingnuts with a journalist? And is there any reason at all for George Will or Peggy Noonan to be on TV still? I get that the Sunday Morning shows are basically Company Town TV, but you’d think that a Company Town with as much people churn as DC has would be able to reach out to more voices.
Saturday Open Thread [3.22.2014]
How about that Dianne Feinstein? Looks like she and her husband are making bank on the closing of some Post Offices. Coincidence? Probably not — her husband’s firms made a good deal of money during the BushCo too:
Between 2001 and 2005, Feinstein vetted and approved $1.5 billion in defense contracts for Perini Corp and URS Corporation – both owned by her husband, Richard Blum. In 2009, Feinstein successfully introduced a bill that routed an additional $25 billion to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), some of it for the purpose of marketing foreclosed property owned by banks that had gone under with the housing and markets crash. In a curious twist, CBRE later received a $108 million FDIC contract to market foreclosed property.
Tuesday Open Thread [3.18.14]
![Tuesday Open Thread [3.18.14]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Biden-240x180.png "Tuesday Open Thread [3.18.14]")
Glenn Thrush has written a pretty neat profile for Politico Magazine on Vice President Joe Biden.
“The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand. I know what I believe. I’m confident in what I know. And I’m gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don’t like it, I understand.”
Vice President Joe Biden and I were riding the Amtrak to Philly on a frigid February day. I had asked about 2016 and whether America was ready, at long last, to elect a guy with such a mouth. There he was, barely cracking double digits in the polls, abandoned by the party big shots, and appearing, beyond all good sense, like he wanted nothing more than another crack at the presidency.
I feel sorry for Joe. For all intents and purposes, a sitting Vice President is the de facto frontrunner for the presidency, especially for the party in power’s primary. But not this time.
Monday Open Thread [3.17.14]
Marc Ambinder: “One undeniable truth: Iraq weakened the U.S. more than anything done since. Maybe Obama overlearned its lessons; maybe we all have. But nothing empowered Vladimir Putin more than America’s squandering of moral standing in the early part of this century.”
Today, Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council (DEFAC) will release the first revenue forecast of 2014. In December, DEFAC added $42 million to incoming revenues, but that still left a hole of about $125 million for Gov. Jack Markell to fill in his budget.
Friday Open Thread [3.14.14]
![Friday Open Thread [3.14.14]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/7c8d57a422afb4f5bee2a631d0d61868/tumblr_mkgaikAq7z1s8wd28o1_500.jpg "Friday Open Thread [3.14.14]")
South Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Dave Feliciano (R), a teabagging Christine O’Donnell wannabe, is challenging Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Said Feliciano: “It’s about time that South Carolina says hey, We’re tired of the ambiguously gay senator from South Carolina. We’re ready for a new leader to merge the Republican Party. We’re done with this. This is what it’s about, all of us coming together and saying, one way or the other, one of us is going to be on that ballot in November.”
Given the homophobia of the right, I bet his poll numbers go up.
Thursday Open Thread [3.13.14]
Are you following the dissapearance of the Malaysian Airways plane? It is remarkable to me that somehow this flight just vanished without a trace — and that it seems that the flight may not have been on the track it should have been. Then there is the WSJ reporting today that the plane was in the air (or at least the engines were running) well past the time currently suspected.
Wednesday Open Thread [3.12.14]
I am up in the wonderful Clarion, Pennsylvania on business today and tomorrow, so my presence here will be limited. But here is a polling fix to sooth the pain of the special election loss down in Florida (which was entirely predictable, as I said yesterday, since it has been a Republican district and seat since the Eisenhower Administration).
PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL BACK UP–A new Bloomberg Poll has President Obama’s job performance rating at 48%, a jump of 6% since December. His favorability rating is nearly the same, at 49%.
DEMS TAKE THE LEAD IN THE GENERIC BALLOT–A new Public Policy Polling survey finds the Democrats lead the generic Congressional ballot, 43% to 40%, after trailing by two points in January.
“One key difference is that Democrats are at least happy with their own party in Congress, giving it a 66/21 approval, while Republicans give their own [party] a negative assessment at 43/48.”
So as the supposedly liberal media carps today about a coming Republican wave in November as predicted by last night’s loss in FL13, keep in mind that two prerequisites to any GOP Wave is presidential approval at or below 40% and a lead in the generic ballot. Neither of which favor the GOP at this point.
Wednesday Open Thread [2.26.14]
![Wednesday Open Thread [2.26.14]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Delaware.Flag_-240x180.png "Wednesday Open Thread [2.26.14]")
Delaware is not sharing its salt with Pennsylvania or New Jersey.
Salt-strapped New Jersey had asked Delaware to share its salt earlier this week, and Delaware said it has enough to last a few more storms, but isn’t willing to share. When asked again if they’d share with neighboring states, {DelDOT Jim] Westhoff told WDEL, “No way.”
LOL. A story about a responsible squirrel and his acorns comes to mind.
Tuesday Open Thread [2.25.14]
“I think we got off that track when we allowed our government to become a secular government, when we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that He wrote the constitution, that’s based on biblical principles.” — Former Rep.Tom DeLay (R-TX), in an interview on Global Evangelical Television. The sound you hear is our Founding Fathers, and most notably Thomas Jefferson, rolling over in their graves.
“Once a child does exist in your womb, I’m not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child’s host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn’t want it.” — Virginia State Sen. Steve Martin (R), quoted by Slate. And that’s how Republicans view women. As receptacles and hosts. Not as humans and mothers.
“There are several possible explanations for why Republicans would not denounce Nugent and his statement in unqualified terms. One is that they aren’t all that offended by what Nugent said. A second is Nugent is on their “team” and therefore needs to be treated with kid gloves. A third explanation is that they fear that in denouncing Nugent they will upset elements of the GOP base. Any of these explanations is an indictment,” – Pete Wehner, Commentary.
Monday Open Thread [2.24.14]
![Monday Open Thread [2.24.14]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Takei-240x180.png "Monday Open Thread [2.24.14]")
Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a pro-discrimination bill last week that gives government sanction to any form of discrimination that a bigot wishes to practice. Now, obviously this law is blatantly unconstitutional and it will not survive its first encounter with a judge, any judge, anywhere. And Governor Jan Brewer (R) vetoed a similar bill last year. So there are hopes that this bill will never take affect as law. But to prod Brewer along, and to punish the bigots who call themselves the Republican legislators, George Takei has sent a message to the people of Arizona.
Sunday Open Thread [2.23.2014]
![Sunday Open Thread [2.23.2014]](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3670/11814910555_90ef5dd649_o.jpg "Sunday Open Thread [2.23.2014]")
This is an eye-candy Open Thread — a very cool infographic featuring visuals for 50 Incredible Natural Phenomena. The magnetic north one might be controversial, but this infographic is not for creationists:
Saturday Open Thread [2.22.2014]
![Saturday Open Thread [2.22.2014]](http://media.theweek.com/img/generic/WSJNetflix.jpg "Saturday Open Thread [2.22.2014]")
Michael Tomasky has taken to the NY Review of Books to speculate about A New Populism in the Democratic Party. He sees signs of the party “soft-shoeing” its way leftward:
For example, the Center for American Progress (CAP), under its new president Neera Tanden, has pushed “middle-class” or “middle-out” economics as the left’s alternative to supply-side, trickle-down economics. The idea of middle-out economics is that the government, instead of investing in the top 2 percent by means of tax and other privileges, should instead invest in the broad middle through a number of left-leaning policy choices from which the bounty would radiate out to all sectors of the society. These would include a much higher minimum wage, paid family leave, and improvement of decaying infrastructure. Obama’s Knox College speech on inequality is one expression of the middle-out view in the way it ties middle-class investment to growth.4 CAP has been pushing the White House to take up these arguments, not the other way around.
John Podesta, CAP’s former president, helped launch a new think tank, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, devoted specifically to issues related to inequality. Podesta is now a White House counselor, which gives these issues respected representation in debates in the Roosevelt Room and the Oval Office.
This is all a welcome shift in emphasis, but of course it doesn’t mean that populist policies are going to become reality anytime soon. There is opposition to them within the Democratic Party and its broader policy solar system. Not nearly as much as there once was; the radical rightward shift of the Republican Party has, perhaps inevitably, moved the Democratic center of gravity leftward. But the opposition to populism continues.
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