HorsesAss.Org

Hamas is Stalin. No wait, that was Saddam. Iran is Stalin. No, they’re Hitler, except when they’re Idi Amin. Or maybe Henny Youngman, it kind of depends what day. Take my prime minister, please.

France used to be Neville Chamberlain, but now that they have a conservative in charge France is the Pope, and it turns out the Pope is NOT Hitler at all but is actually a good guy, unlike that one chick from Big Brother, who is Cuba. (The country, not the Gooding, Jr., who is like totally cool.)

Canada, watch your back, when I say “bacon” I don’t mean from the back, I mean from the belly, which is where Fat Bastard keeps his babies, just like Hugo Chavez. China used to be Hugo Chavez until Wal-Mart figured out they make excellent cheap stuff if it doesn’t kill you first. They’re kind of like the Ottoman Empire also because they sell cheap furniture.

Japan. Um, Japan.

And let’s talk, Iceland. So icy and landy, they totally cheese me off. We should invade them because if Björk isn’t an existential threat, I don’t know what is. But back to Hamas, if I catch any more libruls talking about even fraking talking to them I am going to totally go nukular on their sorry librul butts.

I mean, look at this dude:

Two years ago, in an interview with James Rubin for Sky News, Sen. John McCain expressed a willingness to negotiate with the terrorist group Hamas — the very group that McCain has been relentlessly using to smear Sen. Barack Obama over the last several weeks.

Rubin has written an op-ed in Friday’s Washington Post about his exchange with McCain, and The Huffington Post has obtained exclusive video. Here’s the key excerpt:

RUBIN: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”

McCAIN: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”

Typical Demon-rat. Our super secret blogger plan, code-named Operation Confuse-a-Cat, has worked to perfection. By voting for that guy in the primaries, we are going to clean his clock in November!

Tomorrow (Friday) evening join Chip Hanauer, Darcy Burner, Major General Paul Eaton (Ret.), members of the Northwest Progressive Institute, Master of Ceremonies Mike West, Jazz guitarist Don Mock, and, um…me for an evening of politics, music, dinner, and maybe a beer or two.

The event is a fundraiser for the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI), an organization dedicated to fighting for progressive values and common sense policies for America and the Pacific Northwest region.

The NPI has been a mover and shaker in the progressive blogosphere around here—frequently working behind the scenes to get things done. I encourage you to take this opportunity to strengthen our movement and get to know some of the people at NPI.

The event starts at 7 PM at the Redmond Town Center Marriott. Tickets are $60 for individuals or $90 for a household.

More details (and advance ticket sales) are available here.

Over at (u)SP, my good friend Eric thinks that in gloating over the ass-kicking his party got in MS-01, I may have lost some perspective.

So much so that even Josh Feit at the Stranger has weighed in, noting the hypocrisy of poo-pooing results in West Virginia while cheering events in Mississippi…

Yeah… thing is… I never poo-pooed the results in West Virginia, because it never occurred to me that a Democratic primary there might say anything about a partisan, Congressional runoff in Mississippi. See, one was a contest between two Democrats, and the other a race between a Republican and a Democrat. So what’s your point?

But Eric continues…

An even more important take-away is that Democrats are winning in red districts by running conservative candidates… So, celebrate away, Democratic friends. Just don’t pretend this is some great advance for liberalism. It’s a reminder that the GOP brand name is in sorry shape, not that these red district Democrats are simpatico with urban liberals.

Huh. I keep re-reading that post of mine that Eric linked to, and for the life of me I can’t see where I made any reference at all to the triumph of liberalism. Perhaps it’s between the lines?

See, the mistake Eric makes is believing his own bullshit about the wide-eyed, radical “nutroots.” I know it must be comforting to believe that liberal bloggers like me are all batshit crazy, but it doesn’t do his side any good to have such an inaccurate psychological profile.

In fact, we are for the most part strikingly pragmatic. I’m perfectly happy to have Southern Democrats like Travis Childers and Heath Schuler in Congress, if that’s the best we can do in those districts, and I could really care less if Dems in Mississippi host NRA barbecues as long as voters in urban districts have the right to place sensible local restrictions on the sale and ownership of the kind of handguns and other weapons most commonly used in violent crimes.

The netroots strategy is also a lot more subtle than Eric or his legacy media counterparts give us credit for, as illustrated by a neat bit of analysis today from Matt Stoller:

Finally the GI bill passed with overwhelming margin of 256 votes in the House, including 32 Republicans. It included a war surtax of one half of one percent on people making over $500k a year to pay for the GI bill, at the behest of Blue Dogs. This might actually be the most remarkable piece of the votes today; conservative Democrats agreeing to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for educational benefits for veterans. Bill Foster and Don Cazayoux both voted well on the new GI Bill and on the Responsible Plan bill with timelines, but were ‘yes’ votes on war funding. So yes, they are conservative, and I expect Childers to be conservative as well. Still, the MS-01, the IL-14 special election result, and the LA-06 special election result – all red seats picked off by Democrats – are devastating Republican discipline in the House.

This war is going to end because it is politically unsustainable. The Senate is going to add the funding back in and the House will make sure the money goes to the war, but recognize how big a deal this is. The Republicans in the House and the Senate are going to utterly collapse this fall, and Democrats will have a mandate to end the war. It’s something Obama has promised to do, and now the political logic there is undeniable.

Sure, I’d love for voters in Mississippi and Louisiana and West Virginia to self-identify as liberals (hell, they already agree with us on almost every major policy issue) but I’m more than happy if they merely call themselves “Democrats.” The purpose of politics is to seize, maintain and exercise power—that’s how we’ll get a progressive domestic agenda enacted, and that’s how we’ll end this goddamn war in Iraq—and we can’t do this without holding a comfortable majority in Congress. And that’s what my gloating over the GOP’s ass-whupping in MS-01 is all about.

Not that recent Democratic victories are entirely devoid of ideology. Eric got one thing right, “the GOP brand name is in sorry shape.” And it’s going to continue to stay that way as long as Republicans like Eric continue to deny that their sullied brand has anything to do with their party’s legacy of failed, ideologically driven policies.

Talk about a loss of perspective.

Via Talk to Action.

The Holocaust? According to Rev. Hagee, we “spiritually dead” Jews got what was coming to us. It was divine intervention.

But no, John McCain doesn’t have a preacher problem.

Rep. Jim McDermott endorsed Barack Obama this morning:

“As Democrats, we are fortunate to have two very talented public servants running to be the nominee of our party, and I have great respect for Senator Clinton. But I believe now is the time to unite behind Barack Obama so we can be in the strongest place possible to win in November.”

See a theme there?

(Yep…this is an Open Thread.)

In recent weeks, Eric Earling has been making the case that Barack Obama has a problem winning votes among “white, hard-working” Americans. Around the time of the Pennsylvania primaries, I and a few others tried to explain to him in the comments that he was mistakenly extrapolating a local trend in a way that doesn’t translate across the entire country. Having lived in several regions of this country (and having grown up mostly in Pennsylvania), I’m rather familiar with the fact that rural Pennsylvania is very, very different from rural Texas or rural Wisconsin or rural Idaho. But now that this erroneous belief has been finding its way into Hillary Clinton’s talking points, some more people are starting to dig into its inaccuracy.

Daily Kos diarist DHinMI posted up on Monday with a series of charts showing the counties where Obama or Clinton won 65% of the vote. The top map is where Obama won 65% of the vote and the bottom map is where Clinton won 65% of the vote:

These maps show that despite Earling’s claim that Obama’s support is coming solely from urban areas, he’s winning overwhelmingly among Democrats in some very rural, very white parts of the country. Obama’s problem, which is stunningly illustrated by the second map above, is with Appalachia, a part of the country with its own unique culture and political history. Josh Marshall discusses it here, and Jonathan Tilove adds to the analysis here, reinforcing my belief that Jim Webb would be an awesome VP choice for Obama.

Going back to the overall point, Greg Sargent looks into the recent Quinnipiac poll to show that the notion that Hillary does better against McCain among working class white voters (those without a college degree) is pure fiction. Hillary and Obama each have their weaknesses among certain subsets of white America, but despite that, both of them are polling ahead of McCain in a head-to-head matchup (and those polls aren’t even factoring in Bob Barr, who’s able to get airtime on the Fox Business Channel). Considering this nation’s past when it comes to racism, it’s easy to get nervous about the prospects of the first African-American candidate to win a major party nomination, but the facts just don’t back up the notion that rural, or even less educated white voters won’t vote for Obama.

Was yesterday’s election a “game changer?” (No…not that one…the one in Mississippi-1, won by Childers.) And what are the implications for Dave Reichert and Doc Hastings? So…let’s say you attend a $33,100 per plate fundraiser. What kind of meal would you expect, and how should it be served? Goldy offers some disturbing possibilities. In any case, is John McCain violating the letter, or just the spirit, of the McCain—Feingold law? Who is to blame for Central Washington losing its nuclear waste to Idaho? Goldy and friends ask the tough questions so that you don’t have to…put down your beer to ask ‘em yourself.

Goldy was joined in political merriment by McCranium’s Jim McCabe, Executive Director of the Northwest Progressive Institute Andrew Villeneuve, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, and EFFin’ Unsound’s Carl Ballard (in the role of Goldy’s Ed McMahon).

The show is 47:08, and is available here as an MP3.

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_may_13_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

At a rally in Michigan this afternoon, Barack Obama surprised the crowd by introducing John Edwards, who proceeded to endorse Obama for the Democratic nomination.

Michigan Messenger was there live blogging, and has an unedited transcript online.

Again, as demonstrated by NARAL earlier today, the Democratic Party and its constituent organizations are rallying together around Obama.  This thing is over.

NARAL/Pro-Choice America surprised its members today by endorsing Barack Obama, prompting more than little angry chatter from rank and file members who support Hillary Clinton, or at the very least thought she deserved better in return for her longtime support.  For its part the Washington chapter remained both diplomatic and neutral:

“We have had the pleasure of having two strongly pro-choice presidential candidates in Senators Obama and Clinton,” said Karen Cooper, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.  “Both have been advocates for the right to choose.  As a state affiliate, NARAL Pro-Choice Washington is remaining neutral at this time,” Cooper added.

In announcing the endorsement, NARAL national president Nancy Keenan explained:

NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC is making our endorsement now because every day that passes, Sen. McCain gets a free ride on the issue of choice. That free ride ends today.

There has been much talk about uncommitted superdelegates moving toward Obama in order to close the nomination process as quickly as possible, and it looks like national organizations like NARAL are adopting the same strategy.  It’s not a knock against Clinton, it’s just an acknowledgment of the political reality.

Blogging Georgetown continues its expose of the King County Conservation Board, the kinda-sorta elected body that’s supposed to “promote the sustainable use of natural resources through responsible stewardship,” but in fact has been hijacked by the pro-builder BIAW crowd.

Last month, I posted details about the ultra-right “property rights” stealth candidate activists that had taken over the majority of the board of the King County Conservation District… As it turns out, the KCD did hire an E.D., a certain Jeffrey Possinger, attorney, former Duval mayor and city council member, and candidate for the 45th District. Oh, and of the GOP, endorsed by the “Citizen Taxpayers Association” the group behind I-933….

And from the Seattle Times on Possinger’s run for the Legislature:

Possinger supports opening more road-maintenance contracts to competition from private enterprise to reduce costs, and he wants to reduce the number of transportation agencies and environmental regulations.

Yeah, that’s right, a guy who runs on eliminating environmental regulations is now the Executive Director of a “Conservation District.”

It is time to either eliminate the KCCD, or elect its members via a proper ballot at a general election the way we do every other elected body.

Following their devastating loss in MS-01, House Republicans introduced their new slogan today, “The Change You Deserve.” Unfortunately for them, what they didn’t realize, “because they are idiots,” is that this is also a registered trademark of Effexor XR, a commonly prescribed anti-depressant.

Effexor, also known as Venlafaxine, is approved for the treatment “of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults.” Its common side effects are very much in keeping with the world the House Republicans have striven to build: nausea, apathy, constipation, fatigue, vertigo, sexual dysfunction, sweating, memory loss, and – and I swear I am not making this up – “electric shock-like sensations also called ‘brain zaps.'”

Or maybe they’re not idiots, and the irony was intended. In which case the GOP might as well just run on the more straightforward slogan: “Depression hurts. Prozac can help.”

I just received an email notifying me that HorsesAss.org has been chosen as the credentialed blog to represent Washington in the State Blogger Corps at the Democratic National Convention in August. From the DNC press release:

“Similar to the record-breaking voter turnout our Party has seen during the primary season, the demand for these coveted blogger positions is yet another indicator of the tremendous interest in this historic Convention,” said Governor Dean. “The Internet has played a critical role in connecting Americans to elected officials and candidates seeking office. The DemConvention State Blogger Corps will continue to foster this dialogue – in all 50 of our states and our territories too – as we head towards this year’s historic election and elect a Democrat to the White House.”

[…] As part of the new DemConvention State Blogger Corps, designed for bloggers covering state and local politics, bloggers will receive unparalleled access to state delegations and the floor of the Convention hall. In a truly unprecedented move, the DNCC will seat these bloggers with their respective delegations during the historic four-day event, providing even greater access for local coverage and perspective. Highlights from these blogs will also be featured on www.DemConvention.com in the lead up to and during the Convention.

HA intends to provide ground level coverage of the official proceedings and the parties and gatherings that go on behind the scenes. To this end my HA co-bloggers Geov Parrish and Darryl Holman plan to join me in Denver for what promises to be the most exciting Democratic National Convention since 1968 (though hopefully, for different reasons.)

The DNCC State Blogger Corps:
[Read more…]

Note to Republicans: be afraid. Be very afraid.

When Democrats won a special election in March for former Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat, an R+6 district the GOP had held for three decades, it was cause for a celebratory fuck you to Republicans who only four years ago taunted D’s with talk of a “permanent majority.” Last week, when the Dems picked up yet another blood-red seat, this time an R+8 Louisiana district the GOP had owned since 1974, Beltway Republicans appeared to turn on each other. But after last night’s Democratic pickup in Mississippi, it looks like the House Republican Caucus may be headed into every man for himself mode.

MS-01, where Democrat Travis Childers just beat Republican Greg Davis 52% to 48%, is an R+10 district that President Bush won with 62% of the vote in 2004, and the former incumbent won with 66% just a year and a half ago. And that’s after the cash-strapped NRCC sunk $1.3 million into the race on top of another million from Freedom Watch and the candidate himself.

The tried and true GOP tactics of race-baiting and fear-mongering just don’t seem to be working this cycle. The R’s saturated the media with the ads tying Childers to Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and yet the Democrat only increased his support since the previous round of voting a few weeks back. Running on a “get out of Iraq” message in a traditionally pro-military Deep South district, Childers earned a comfortable win over a credible and well-funded opponent.

This is what happens when a bitter electorate turns out in record numbers to say enough is enough. If Dems can win in an R+10 district they can win anywhere, a sentiment loudly expressed this morning in The Hill:

The sky is falling on House Republicans and there is no sign of it letting up.

The GOP loss in Mississippi’s special election Tuesday is the strongest sign yet that the Republican Party is in shambles. And while some Republicans see a light at the end of the tunnel, that light more likely represents the Democratic train that is primed to mow down more Republicans in November.

Be afraid, my Republican friends. Be very afraid.

UPDATE [LEE]: I thought I’d link to this quote from Paul Begala in 2006 about Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy since it’s appropriate:

“Yes, he’s in trouble, in that campaign managers, candidates, are really angry with him. He has raised $74 million and spent $64 million. He says it’s a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose. That’s not how you build a party. You win elections. That’s how you build a party.”