Politics
- Mitt’s Gray Areas – NYTimes.com
- Voters Have Changed Their Mind about Romney—For the Worse
- CNN Poll: Was politics behind Holder contempt vote? – CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs
- When the GOP elite slips into self-parody – The Maddow Blog
… The multi-millionaire Republican — dodging questions about his controversial shell corporation in Bermuda, hidden cash in the Caymans, and inexplicable Swiss bank account — thought it’d be a good idea to spend the day in the Hamptons, attending several posh fundraisers with the hyper-elite, including an event at David Koch’s home.
I couldn’t make up stuff like this if I tried.
A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. “I don’t think the common person is getting it,” she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. “Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.
“We’ve got the message,” she added. “But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on. I just think if you’re lower income — one, you’re not as educated, two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.”
I’m not sure which of those sentences is the most ridiculous. Let’s call it a tie.
The L.A. Times report quoted another wealthy Romney donor saying, “It’s not helping the economy to pit the people who are the engine of the economy against the people who rely on that engine.” Apparently, asking the rich to pay the same tax rate they paid in the Clinton era is making wealthy people feel put upon. (Matt Yglesias also highlighted “the absurd level of self-regard among the winners in the modern American meritocracy.”)
The New York Times report quoted Ted Conklin, the owner of the American Hotel in Sag Habor, speaking from inside his gold-colored Mercedes, whined that the president “is a socialist.” At his wife’s urging, Conklin then boasted about the Hollywood executive was staying on his 75-foot yacht because his hotel his fully booked.
I don’t generally get nauseous reading the news. There are exceptions….
- Chris Mooney | More Evidence That Republicans Are More Factually Challenged Than Democrats
- Thanks to my friend Scott Thomas for reminding of this:
- Where is the American center? – The Maddow Blog
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Don’t know about you, but I found last night’s string of quotes from President Eisenhower just amazing. By now, very many of us have come of age in an America where that Republican icon would be to the left of any Democrat on the national scene today. But in post-World War II America, President Eisenhower represented the Republican Party and the American center:
- “Workers have a right to organize into unions and to bargain collectively with their employers. And a strong, free labor movement is an invigorating and necessary part of our industrial society.”
- “Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice.”
- “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Do you think of yourself as a centrist? And what policies do you think define the American center in 2011?
- Wednesday, Jan. 26th – msnbc tv – Rachel Maddow show – msnbc.com (the transcript)
- Rachel Maddow: In America Today, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower Would Be Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Senate | News & Politics | AlterNet
- Where is the American center? – The Maddow Blog
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Climate & Climate Politics
- ‘New McCarthyism’ Described by Climate Scientist Michael Mann – ABC News
- Climate change: Global warming is a fact – Achenblog – The Washington Post
- Anecdotal evidence of global warming | The Non Sequitur
- Study: News Outlets Missing Western Wildfires/Climate Change Links | The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media
- US Has Warmest Year-to-Date As Drought Expands | Common Dreams
Science
- New Data on Higgs Boson Is Shrouded in Secrecy at CERN – NYTimes.com
- Essay: THANK GOODNESS – Daniel C. Dennett « Skeptical Science