Boehner refuses to ban earmarks, like the Teabaggers asked for

Civil war's a comin'.

BAIER: The guys in line to be Chairman [of the Appropriations Committee], they're big fans of earmarks.

BOEHNER: There's gonna be an earmark moratorium, it's pretty clear.

BAIER: Why not an outright ban?

BOEHNER: Only because some things that people call earmarks here wouldn't classify as an earmark to the American people.

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Bush fundraiser to take over MSNBC as network applies double-standard to Olbermann

This has turned into quite a big mess for MSNBC.

I think we may need to give MSNBC the same lecture we give Obama. Stop sucking up to the right - they're never going to like you. And stop ticking off your base - they're all you've got. Read the rest of this post...

Kerry Eleveld on Obama and the elections

From Kerry Eleveld in the Advocate:

The turnout and voting patterns were a symptom of the fact that during his first two years in office, President Barack Obama and his White House delivered nothing short of a true progressive’s most fiendish nightmare: He governed from the middle but failed to enlist enough GOP help to tag them with partial responsibility. Then he simultaneously left the substance of his centrist policies to be framed by the right, who naturally painted his initiatives as dangerously liberal and even socialist in nature.

The result of that toxic formula is that progressives didn’t get much of they wanted and yet the population as a whole has been left to believe that America has jumped off the liberal deep end.

In short, Obama didn’t govern as a progressive but was painted as one. Therefore, progressives didn’t get what they voted for and yet the rest of the country was led to believe the “progressive” agenda had pushed us down a dark path to nowhere.

Here’s lesson 1: If you’re going to let yourself be characterized as a liberal, you damn well better be one; otherwise the base that elected you won’t turn up at the polls to get your back once you’ve given a bad name to everything they believed in but never actually got.

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Where's the leverage: Ratigan, Greenwald & Uygur on Progressive options

In response to this post-election think-fest, "What to look for next", commenter ezpz points us to an excellent Dylan Ratigan Show segment. It's a great "whither progressives" discussion between Glenn Greenwald, Cenk Uygur, and host Dylan Ratigan.

If you're asking the same questions I am (and approaching the same decisions), this is end-to-end good:



Dylan is especially smart in this, and provides a nice set of numbers. (Count on a CNBC guy to bring his numbers to the table.) And Glenn is solidly on-point as well.

I'm feeling strangely optimistic this morning. This feels like a turning point (though I'm still waiting for the Lame Duck to quack). Feingold and Grayson now have options, more than they had before. And I think after the Lame Duck, it may not be a question of what, but how. Feels like freedom.

"Where's the leverage?" Hint to progressives: You already know.

(And for fans of a peek ahead, the next Dem with mitts on the crown is Clinton. The machine is already in place. This is another discussion we should be having before the silly season starts.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

Dan Savage to Alan Grayson: Run again from another district

From Dan Savage's Slog:

So it looks like you're out—hell, it looks like you got your ass handed to you. That sucks. The country needs you, Congress needs you, Dems need you.

I'm guessing you've met Jay Inslee. Jay is a member of the House of Representatives from Washington state. Jay has represented Washington's 1st Congressional District since 1999. But Jay was first elected to Congress in 1992 from Washington state's 4th Congressional District. Jay lost that seat in the Republican Revolution of 1994. Turns out Jay was too liberal for Washington state's 1st Congressional district. (Jay didn't think people should be able to send their pre-schoolers to daycare with guns.)

Washington state's 4th Congressional district is way over on the east side of our state—it's rural, red, conservative, and crazy (gun crazy, hate crazy, and just plain crazy crazy). Washington state's 1st Congressional district is over here on the west side of the state—it's urban and suburban, liberal, and pretty sane. Jay's in Congress now because he moved.

You lost, Alan—tuns out you were way too liberal, and way too outspoken, way too sane, for your district. So do like Jay did and move. And run. And get your ass back into Congress. We need you.

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MSNBC suspends Olbermann for donating to Democrats, but it's okay for Scarborough to donate to Republicans

WTF? They just pulled Olbermann off the air for donating to Democrats, but their other on-air host, Joe Scarborough, donated to Republicans and that's okay with MSNBC.  (You'll recall that MSNBC has banned Markos from the network as well.)

In the past, MSNBC has defended Scarborough's donations to Republicans:

A spokesperson for NBC, Jeremy Gaines, replied to questions sent to Scarborough. "Yes, he did make a donation to Derrick Kitts. Kitts is an old friend of Joe's. Joe hosts an opinion program and is not a news reporter."

Well Olbermann isn't a news reporter either. So other than Scarborough donating to a Republican, and Olbermann donating to Democrats, what's the difference? Read the rest of this post...

Obama needs to finally admit he was wrong to oppose outside groups

From Reid Wilson at National Journal (article doesn't seem to be online, or is behind a firewall):

The elections also marked a decisive change in the influence of outside money and the ability of large donors to write individual checks for millions of dollars. Thanks to a Supreme Court decision last January, money flowed to outside organizations, many of which do not have to report their donations. This let Republicans close a financial gap that would otherwise have left them at a big disadvantage. These groups, with such names as American Crossroads, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Future Fund, are not subject to the contribution limits affecting political action committees. Millions more dollars will flood the 2012 elections; the groups are already planning for this.

Again, the issue raises a different challenge for Democrats. They have to overcome Obama’s opposition to channeling support through outside groups. Although the unions proved effective at driving turnout this year, there was no liberal answer to American Crossroads and the other conservative groups. Obama’s team urged major donors not to write checks to outside organizations in 2008, a decision that weakened their efforts this year. The few liberal groups that have gotten off the ground have failed to raise anywhere near as much money as their conservative counterparts.

We posted Mike Lux's analysis of the problem about a month ago:

Independent group messages have far more credibility and clout than those from party and candidate committees -- even groups with generic-sounding names no one has heard of. Republican strategists like Rove got this early, and went about methodically organizing a network of corporate money to get involved in independent expenditure ads in swing races all over the country. But the Obama White House, sure of its fundraising ability and organizing genius, has consistently sent the signal to Democratic donors to not support outside efforts. They did it after they won the primary in 2008; they did it when they set up OFA to operate solely inside the DNC in 2009; they did it during the health care fight when they felt HCAN was being a little too independent in pushing for a public option, sending a clear signal to donors not to give to them at crucial times during the fight; they did it when ACORN had some bad publicity, very quickly making the decision to distance themselves and let them die even though no group has registered more voters or turned out more people in the last 10 years than ACORN.

I have been fighting this battle inside Democratic strategy circles for 15 years now, but the problem is worse with the current team at the White House. The folks running the Obama political operation have always believed they could control the message and the resources of the party better than anyone else, and that they didn't need or want to empower outside progressive groups. Now embattled House and Senate candidates are paying the price, and it is a bitter price to have to pay. The groups that do have resources that are pro-Democratic -- labor, MoveOn, Emily's List, the trial lawyers -- are doing their best to stem the tide. But corporate money in the post-Citizens United era is swamping us, and unlike in some cycles in the past (2004, 2006), wealthy progressive donors were sent signals not to engage, or just not cultivated at all, and the result is that we are being badly outspent.

One final note on all this: the irony of outside progressive groups being blamed for not doing enough to help the Democrats when the White House has been complaining about the "left of the left" and the "professional left" for many months -- and de-motivating donors the whole time -- should not be lost on anyone. You can't attack progressives for being too strident and then wonder why they aren't doing more and still have much credibility.

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Sarah Palin complains about invasion of her privacy on first episode of her reality show

Sam Stein at Huffington Post:

The first episode of Sarah Palin's new show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," has been placed online and it starts with what is now a familiar lament about the intrusiveness of the press from the former Alaska Governor.

Putting aside the debate over McGinniss' ethics -- as well as the more particular disputes over whether his rental of the house next door was physically intrusive -- there is a certain irony to Palin's lament. She's complaining about her loss of privacy, after all, while being filmed for a reality TV series.

It's illustrative of Palin's larger relationship with the press. The outlets to which she grants access provide the most favorable coverage, whether it be her analyst gig on Fox News or her Alaska-themed show on TLC. Those that probe a bit deeper are brandished as unreasonable.

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Rachel Maddow on how FOX & the right wing noise machine create a lie

This segment by Rachel Maddow is extremely well done. Watch how the GOP noise machine created an entire lie out of thin air: the notion that the President's visit abroad is going to cost $200 million a day. It's insane. It's a lie. And it's all the rage on FOX. (H/T Alvin at Pam's House Blend.)



More from Media Matters on the $200m a day lie. The White House weighs in too. (In the future, the White House might not want to quote Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell when they're trying to dispel a lie. Morrell himself is a known liar.) Read the rest of this post...

Civil war breaks out inside Senate GOP

Politico, via Markos:

Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party’s failure to capture the Senate.

With tea party-backed candidates going down in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, depriving Republicans of what would have been a 50-50 Senate, a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states.

Movement conservatives pointed the finger right back at the establishment, accusing the National Republican Senatorial Committee of squandering millions on a California race that wasn’t close at the expense of offering additional aid in places like Colorado, Nevada and Washington state, where Democratic Sen. Patty Murray holds a narrow lead as the votes continue to be counted.

Markos has a further analysis in another post showing how the Tea Party cost the Republicans control of the Senate. Read the rest of this post...

151,000 jobs added in October: More than expected as unemployment stays at 9.6%

The October jobs numbers are out. Unemployment stayed at 9.6%, but there was better than expected job creation:

U.S. employment increased more than expected last month as private companies hired workers at the fastest pace since April, offering more signs of an up-tick in a sluggish economy.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 151,000 in October, the first increase since May, as a 159,000 jump in private employment more than offset a 8,000 drop in government payrolls, the Labor Department said on Friday. In addition, the government revised payrolls for August and September to show 110,000 fewer jobs lost.

Economists had expected payrolls to increase 60,000 last month, with private employment rising 75,000.

We need more of this, obviously. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

That was one heckuva week, huh?

I heard a report on NPR this morning about the GOP presidential primary. Ugh. I'm not ready for that. The focus on Sarah Palin is going to be even more intense. We'll know her every move. Thanks again, John McCain, for inflicting her on all of us. Although, she's really doing a number on the GOP.

The President is leaving for his trip to Asia today. He's on his way to Mumbai, after a stop tonight in Ramstein, Germany. He's also going to Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. He'll literally travel around the world. The right-wingers, led by Michelle Bachmann are already spreading blatant lies about this international trip. That's par for the course. I hope the media learns that she and her ilk just flat out lie and can't be trusted.

The October job numbers are due out around 8:30 a.m. today. Obama will make remarks on that development before he leaves. Read the rest of this post...