President Obama’s Press Conference Today

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President Obama will be conducting his first Press Conference with the White House Press Corps since March 6, 2012. As every reporter talking about this will remind you. It is scheduled to start today at 1:30 EST. There's lots to cover -- the Fiscal Cliff, new cabinet appointments, an immigration policy that seems to be coming out of mothballs, *compromise* (and *bipartisanship*), 2013 agenda, Joe Biden's appearance on Parks and Recreation tomorrow night and the ever popular saga of General Petraeus' mistresses and wannabes. Feel free to use this thread to live blog what you see or hear from the President today.

Wednesday Open Thread [11.14.12]

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On Facebook, I got into a little fight with a friend of a friend who of course is a little upset that his chosen candidate did not win. And of course, like most conservative idiots, he is now contemplating treason by talking of secession of his state from the United States. Now, of course, most conservative idiots are uneducated, and thus it is not surprising that they don't know that the issue, or question, of secession has long been settled. Indeed, we as a country fought a Civil War over that question and hundreds of thousands died after the Confederate states seceded from the Union and the Northern States said "Oh no didn't." And as a result of the Northern victory, or the victory of the United States over the traitorous Confederacy, the notion that a state can leave the US on its own volition died a bloody death. This friend of a friend also mentioned that the election results were somehow not valid since only the cities and suburbs voted for Obama while vast swaths of sparsely inhabited land voted red. This guy obviously thought we vote by square acreage. To illustrate the point that more Americans live in cities and suburbs, we have a great map from Princeton.

Loudell needs to fire Rasmussen once and for all

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If WDEL's Allan Loudell (who I like and respect) ever interviews Don Rasmussen again, he will knowingly be taking part in journalistic fraud.
“But the most entertaining fall-out will be the recriminations of pollsters and polling generally in the wake of Romney’s 330+ electoral vote win next Tuesday." — Don Rasmussen
Real political polling is about dispassionate math and rigor. Rasmussen's product is about trying to prop up a corrupt and corrosive political ideology. Allan, take the card out of the Rolodex . There are plenty of legitimate pollsters to interview.

Mandate — With the GOP Taking the Blame for Failure

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I'm talking about the fiscal cliff discussion -- which I've decided to call the fiscal con, from a renaming effort that NPR had for this thing. The WaPo and Pew took a poll asking people what their expectations are on the outcome and who would be at fault for the failure of any talks. By a margin of 51% to 38%, those polled do not think that the fiscal cliff discussions will be productive. And if they fail, the folks polled will point the finger at the GOP 53% to 29% (10% blaming both sides equally). Even better -- majorities seem to understand what is at stake for themselves and for the country.

John Scalzi Has A Few Words for the White Folk Freaking Out Over 4 More Years

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What I really wish I could do is to ignore Fair Use and just repost the entire damn thing here. But to refresh, John Scalzi is the author of my Favorite Political Blog Post of All Time, and runs the blog Whatever, where he hold forth taunting the untauntable. Scalzi has provided some thoughts on the election, specifically directed to the white people in End Stage Freakout over the President's win. Go over right now and read his entire post -- Some Quick and Final Post-Election Notes to Some But Not All White Men.

What should liberals do now to help keep the President on track?

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I took a lot of shit around here because I pissed and moaned about how the President handled himself in his first term. (Apparently pissing and moaning is not considered constructive.) My point was that Republicans only understand boxing gloves and I wanted more boxing gloves from the President. More Muhammad Ali and less Jackie Robinson. Anything less, I argued, was a misreading of his enemies (yes, I said enemies) in the GOP. But the President had a feckless Senate that couldn't get enough of pretending that the Republicans called all the shots and there was no real mandate, or whatever... water under the bridge. That's ancient history. What do we do now? Today. What should I do in the next 5 minutes, to help Mr. Obama follow through and have a successful 2nd term in office? I'm honestly asking.