Democrat wins House seat formerly held by Republican in Louisiana

UPDATE: More analysis of what this means from the Washington Post.

Here's some good news for a Saturday night. The Democrats picked up a House seat tonight in Louisiana.

Democrat Don Cazayoux beat Republican Woody Jenkins in the seat formerly held by Republican Richard Baker. With all but three of the 512 precincts reporting, Cazayoux is ahead by just under 3,000 votes.

The NRCC was, of course, very shady in this race. The GOPers pumped in lots of money to keep the seat, and even ran negative ads featuring Obama and Pelosi. Freedom Watch was also involved in this race. That group's t.v. ad was pulled off the air by a Baton Rouge station -- and the DCCC has filed FEC and IRS complaints against it.

Not a good year to be a Republican anywhere. Read More......

Town ends comical 'Stop' signs like 'Stop! In the Name of Love'

Party poopers. Read More......

The euro is the new black

Who knows how long the trend will continue but for now, the euro is king on the street.

The US dollar bill’s standing as the world’s favourite form of cash is being usurped by the five-year-old euro.

The value of euro notes in circulation is this month likely to exceed the value of circulating dollar notes, according to calculations by the Financial Times. Converted at Wednesday’s exchange rates, the euro took the lead in October.

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Obama wins Guam

But remember, now that Hillary lost Guam, it doesn't count. Read More......

An anti-Hillary backlash?

As the NYT op ed notes, electability cuts both ways. How can any Democrat (read: Hillary) be "electable" if they lose the black vote? And just wait and see how the black vote plummets if Hillary steals the election from Obama after he wins the popular vote and the elected delegates (Click graph to see larger image.)



More from Jack and Jill politics:

You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. You can even see the small dip - about two percentage points - in his popularity among whites that can be attributed to the news cycles about his ex-pastor, and see that it has leveled out and is now on a straight horizontal line (meanwhile, Clinton’s numbers among blacks continue on an extreme downward precipice). The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February.

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This was created a little over a year ago.

And don't miss this bonus video, posted two days ago, that already has several hundred thousands views. It's true, Hillary really is an inspirational figure. Oh, and the video below is a take-off of the famous ad introducing Apple's Macintosh to the world for the first time ever in 1984 - here's Apple's ad so you can appreciate the take-off below.

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Chinese investors lose everything after bubble bursts

What strikes me about this article is the similarities to the US in 1929 after the crash. People in China are losing everything, throwing themselves out of windows and wondering how they will survive. Then there are a few choice comments by typically smug financial types (from Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley) who say "tough luck." It's not that I don't agree to some extent, but hey, look at Wall Street or City bankers in London and see how "tough luck" has worked out for them. Yea, they're really hurting with taxpayer bailouts as they continue to luxurious lifestyles on other peoples money. Hard times, indeed.

The small Chinese investors, much like American investors, have every right to be angry. The Chinese government (like in the US, UK and EU) loved the cash generated by the stock market and the prestige of a fast-growing market was an added bonus. Governments are always much too happy to feed a bubble and then when it goes 'poof' they run for the hills, so yes, the Chinese, the Americans and everywhere else have every damned reason to be angry. It's irresponsible for governments anywhere to promote bubbles and they ought to live with the consequences. Of course, this sad story also helps put the government outrage over the Olympic protests into proper perspective. (Hint, think Saddam Hussein if you want to see the American version of this old distraction.) China has many more problems to come and their stock market crash is only the beginning. Read More......

Slate: "Can we please stop pretending she has a plausible chance to win the nomination?"

Slate:

"Here's a rule I would like every political reporter, campaign official, TV talking head, and politician in the United States to follow. Go ahead and say, if you like, that Hillary Clinton retains a serious chance of winning the Democratic nomination. If you say this, however, you must describe a set of circumstances whereby this could happen. Try not to make it sound like a fairy tale....

"So, please, let's stop pretending there's much suspense about who the nominee will be. As an arithmecrat, I will not consider anyone the winner until a candidate achieves 2,025 delegates. But neither am I obliged to believe Hillary Clinton has a plausible shot. She doesn't."

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It's absurd to suggest that Hillary must win in order to, uh, win

I mean, what moron thought up those rules? It's precisely because Hillary can't win more states, delegates, or popular votes than Obama that MAKES her electable. Don't you see? If she were unelectable, she'd actually win enough states and caucuses to be in the lead. But because she's in second place, that actually proves that she's in first.

Oh, and she ducked sniper fire in Bosnia too. Read More......

National Journal: McCain needs to explain just how long he wants us in Iraq

Ron Brownstein in the National Journal:

Five years ago this week, President Bush exulted beneath a banner that declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. McCain, under any interpretation of his words, is proposing another mission in Iraq--a long vigil--that would extend for decades. With the stakes so high, it's not enough for him to accuse critics of twisting his meaning: He needs to more clearly explain it himself....

[I]f McCain doesn't envision a 100-year American front-line combat presence in Iraq, how long is he willing to keep U.S. forces in that role? So far, all he has said is that the United States should withdraw only if it concludes that the Iraq mission is unachievable or when it has achieved success, which he defines as the establishment of "a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state."

McCain hasn't said how long he would keep fighting to reach that demanding goal. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain's closest Senate allies, recently said he thinks that McCain would maintain current U.S. troop levels in Iraq through his entire four-year presidential term if military commanders recommended that course to maintain stability there.

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CNN poll: 70% disagree with Bush/McCain economics

Obviously they aren't reading Larry Kudlow and the CNBC cheerleaders. Of course, Kudlow only hobnobs with the same spongers who just received hundreds of billions in bailout money, so they don't see the economic difficulties in quite the same way as the rest. Must be nice.

Seven in 10 people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say things are going badly, with only 30 percent saying things are going well.

"It's been 16 years since the public gave the country's condition such a bad rating: January 1992, to be precise, in the last year in office of the last president named Bush," CNN pollster Keating Holland said.

"Seventy percent is a lot worse than two years ago, when 48 percent thought times were bad and the Republicans lost control of Congress," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider added.

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Hillary compares Catholicism & Judaism to white supremacy and jihad

This was posted on YouTube two months ago, but I only just saw it. Imagine had Barack Obama compared Catholicism and Judaism to white supremacy and jihad. Now, I'm not a big fan of vouchers, the subject of Hillary's talk in this video, but using the argument that if we do something for Catholics and Jews, then we'll have to do it for white supremacists and jihadists?



Again, imagine Obama had made the comparison and put all of these "religions" in the same camp. Oh the bitterness and the elitism would fly. I think we just found yet another attack ad the Republicans would run against Hillary in the fall, were she to steal the nomination. Read More......

Clinton (and McCain) attacking Obama (and the Democratic party) over the gas tax gimmick

You really can't get more shameless than Hillary Clinton.

She, like her husband, will screw over the rest of the Democratic party for her own political gain.

The new "Exhibit A" is the gas tax gimmick. This should be a real warning sign to all Democrats.

Clinton had the audacity to challenge other Democrats to join her crusade to basically pour money into the oil companies while draining money from needed highway projects. As Steve Benen noted yesterday, Clinton is already using "the bogus issue to triangulate against congressional Democrats."

Colorado Congressman and Senate candidate Mark Udall called her bluff:

"Senator Clinton claimed yesterday that I either stand with her on this proposal or stand with the oil companies. To that I say: I stand with the families of Colorado, who aren't looking for bumper sticker fixes that don't fix anything, but for meaningful change that brings real relief and a new direction for our energy policy. We can't afford more Washington-style pandering while families keep getting squeezed.

"It is exactly the kind of short-sighted Washington game that keeps us from getting real results to our energy problem. Experts across the ideological spectrum agree that it will increase the deficit, drain money away from Colorado roads and bridges, and hurt the environment, all without actually making prices lower for drivers."

Very, very strong retort from Udall.

We all know Clinton is desperate, just desperate, to win. With the gas tax gimmick and her challenge to fellow Democrats, she's showing she'll throw them under the bus, too.

The first paragraph of the Reuters article says it all:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain hammered Democrat Barack Obama on Friday for refusing to support a proposal to suspend the federal gasoline tax.

Doing the GOP's work for them again. But, she's made it about more than Obama. She's using her campaign to damage all Democrats. If they vote against her loony proposal, it will be used against them in the fall by the Republicans. So now the Clintons are very much taking the entire party down with them. They've done it before. They'll do it again.

Those superdelegates have to make this stop.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Let's not forget that Hillary was a strident opponent of repealing the gas tax when she was running for the Senate in 2000. She looks like an idiot contradicting herself just to win votes, and you can rest assured that the Republicans will add this to the long list of say-anything-do-anything Clinton lies that they throw at us in the fall were she to be the nominee. She doesn't just have baggage, she keeps jamming more inside an already overstuffed bag. Enough already. Oh, and here's the Hillary quote we can expect in the Republican attack ads in the fall:

"And one of my fundamental disagreements during this campaign with my opponent was when he called for the repeal of the gas tax. Now, the gas tax is one of those few taxes that New York actually gets more money from Washington than we send. And we are totally reliant on it to do things like finishing I-86 in the Southern Tier, or the fast- ferry harbor works up in Rochester, as well as the work we need to do here in the city. So you can count on me to support infrastructure, but I'm sorry, Mayor, I can't go with the domed stadium."

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, you may need a quick respite from the political maelstrom. Check out the poem of the week: The Acrobats by Shel Silverstein. It's a fun one.

After you've enjoyed the poem, come back to reality. There are just four more days til the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. I think the question remaining is not whether Obama will get the nomination. That's a done deal. The question is how much damage Clinton and her minions, especially Bill, can wreak upon Obama and the Democratic party.

And, one more time: Those damn pundits don't decide this thing. The Democrats decide it. Doesn't matter how much analysis is provided by the likes of Chris Matthews or Mark Halperin or Jim Vandehei. Doesn't matter. And, if you need to know how absurd this process has become, today's NY Times has a front page article about the "rivalry" between Russert and Stephanopoulos. They've become part of the story...it's absurd.

So. Start. Read More......

Hank Williams Sr, - Move it on over

I never listened to country music before picking up Elvis Costello's "Blue" but those old classics from Hank Williams Sr and George Jones are really great. "Move it on over" sounds much more like an early rock song, but perhaps someone out there knows more about that history. So many great songs by Hank Williams Sr. Check out the video. Read More......

Conservatives thump Labour across UK, win London

And it wasn't even close. Time will tell how modern the "new" Tories are but for now, it's pretty clear people have had enough of (new) Labour. London Mayor Ken Livingston, despite his own bizarre rants, had remained popular but the Tories were much more successful with getting voters to the polls. Livingston lost 53%-47% to current Tory MP Boris Johnson. Read More......