Change of Scenery: Planet of the Apes

By Distributorcap

We all know that all movies undergo thousands of rewrites -- most of them end up having stories by committee (that is why most of them suck). The premise of "Change of Scenery": what if one key scene in a movie was changed - either the dialogue, plot line or visual -- and the change was made by just one person? Just how different would that movie be -- and perhaps how much more relevant to current day America.

**** Please send me suggestions of specific movies you would like to see rewritten and updated (use my email so we can keep the surprise, and I will let you know, because this will work better if I have actually seen the movie). ****

Here was the original change of scenery post which is more relevant that ever:

The first movie that will undergo a key scene change and rewrite is Planet of the Apes (the excellent 1968 original, not the crappy 2001 remake). Planet of the Apes is a classic science fiction movie about three astronauts who crash land on a planet where apes rule and humans are hunted. It was written by Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone) and based on the French novel by Pierre Boulle. The twist ending (which Serling altered from the book) is one of the most famous in all of cinema history. Let's see if we can improve on that.

And now, Planet of the Apes-Rewrite, starring Charlton Heston, Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, and Linda Harrison:

 Taylor: The way you humiliated me? All of you? YOU led me around on a LEASH!
Cornelius: That was different. We thought you were inferior.
Taylor: Now you know better.


You are a menace. A walking pestilence.


Doctor, would an ape make a human doll that TALKS?


Dr. Zauis: Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.


Dr. Zaius: The Forbidden Zone was once a paradise. Your breed made a desert of it, ages ago.


Taylor: A planet where apes evolved from men? There's got to be an answer.
Dr. Zauis: Don't look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find. (change begins here!!!!!)



Taylor: Uh-oh.

"Oh my God... you elected her! You really did it... Damn you all to hell!"

Cooling down the hotbeds

By Capt. Fogg

Every word is a prejudice,

said Nietzsche. That's why one man's pillar of probity is another man's "hotbed" of heresy.

You know these colleges are hotbeds of liberalism!

said the man across the table.

These kids just aren't old enough to be able to tell what they're being taught from the truth. They're not teaching both sides.

He's got an interesting point. High levels of education in our country do seem to be associated with high levels of free thinking and pragmatism and therefore must be caused by it as proved by the cum hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy -- and whereas that's obviously bad and according to the divine doctrine of judging truth by what the less educated are comfortable with, it's therefore quite obvious that opposing viewpoints in other fields this Republican might be ignorant of or disagree with are not being given equal or preferred classroom time or assigned reading: the voice of the people isn't being heard at Harvard.

Disciplines like mathematics, physics, biology, engineering, and medicine? They only teach one side, and that's elitist. Everything has two equal and opposite sides, the right side being, by definition -- right. You know all those things are best left to folksy opinion, anonymous blog comments and to websites run and funded by Republicans who hold forth from country club and yacht club dinner tables all over America.

In history classes, we can be sure courses are not being taught about the secret liberal cabal ruining the world from its headquarters in Kenya, about the danger of subjecting corporations to the law rather than letting them write it, or that those poor women in Salem really were agents of Satan and why universal suffrage doomed the country to divine wrath. Why, even Pythagoras and Newton and Einstein are treated as relatively established authorities and one hardly hears of the four elements or phlogiston or the aether or divine creation as acceptable differences of opinion at those hotbeds any more. And what of alternative cosmologies and opposing views in the sciences and history and literary criticism? Well, in fact they are being talked about and constantly tested, but we do have the other conservative doctrines of "if I don't know, nobody knows" and the inapplicability of past experience to the present time -- and that, dear reader, is that. It's a hotbed.

No, what they should be doing at Columbia or the London School of Economics and Political Science and other centers of liberal propaganda and academic honesty is reciting the catechism that includes such credos as: tax cuts pay for themselves and never, ever cause recessions; massive concentrations of wealth and political power in the hands of a tenth of one percent of the population make for opportunity and "freedom"; and, like a driverless car, the markets will always stay on the road -- and so government should stay out of business practices and move into the pulpit, as God and the Founding Fathers intended.

Face it: universities, public and private, are hotbeds, and that's cold comfort. Hell, why don't we do as that great capitalist prophet, Mao Zedong, did and simply close them down? The people know best!

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature



If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

L'affaire Olbermann

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED HERE: Olbermann will be back on the air on Tuesday.

**********

I don't really have much to say about MSNBC's suspension of Keith Olbermann for contributing money to Democratic candidates. Obviously, it's ridiculous. Here are a few points:

1) As Think Progress has noted, MSNBC, as part of NBC, may soon be taken over by Comcast. The deal is currently awaiting regulatory approval from the FCC. Comcast's COO, Steve Burke, who will be in charge of MSNBC (along with other NBC companies), was a Bush fundraiser.

2) Olbermann supposed broke NBC rules in doing what he did. As Think Progress has also noted, however:

[C]onservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has donated to Republican candidates for Congress while promoting the same candidate on air, but has never been disciplined. Moreover, Gawker notes that MSNBC has been exempt from the formal NBC ethics rules for years. It is still a mystery why MSNBC selectively applied NBC's ethics rules to Olbermann.

3) Scarborough is hardly alone. Another major MSNBC figure, Pat Buchanan, has donated to Republican candidates -- and was, of course, a leading Republican.

4) As Politico has reported, what Olbermann did is pretty common on the cable news networks, whether it's Hannity on Fox News or Begala on CNN. And, of course, Fox News is unabashedly partisan. (Obviously, it behooves MSNBC to hold itself to higher standards than Fox News, but Olbermann is an opinion journalist, a pundit with a TV show, not an anchor or reporter, and we all know where he's coming from politically. We don't expect non-partisanship from him, we don't want non-partisanship from him, so who cares if he donates to political candidates? How does this impact his credibility? (It doesn't, at all.)

5) Suspension -- and, worse, suspension without pay -- seems awfully harsh, not least given what others at the network have done? Why is Olbermann being made an example of? Why is he being treated more harshly than others? One cannot help but suspect some ulterior political motive. As Steve Benen writes, "an indefinite suspension without pay seems way over the top under the circumstances. We are, after all, talking about three checks -- one each for three candidates. As we talked about earlier, the MSNBC host's donations were made in his personal capacity; he disclosed his contributions; and he never encouraged others to support these campaigns." Furthermore, Steve continues, MSNBC claims that such rules are necessary "because political activities may 'jeopardize [employees'] standing as an impartial journalist.' But therein lies the point -- those who watch Olbermann are well aware of his politics. Psst -- no one considers him 'impartial.'" No kidding.

6) MSNBC suspends Olbermann but has no problem putting Buchanan on the air? It's not just that the guy's a crazy pitchfork populist of the far right, it's that he's a WWII/Holocaust revisionist, a racist, a nativist, and a Hitler apologist. How is this acceptable?

7) Even Krazy Bill Kristol thinks MSNBC is in the wrong:

MSNBC's suspension of Keith Olbermann is ludicrous.

First, he donated money to candidates he liked. He didn't take money, or favors, in a way that influenced his reporting.

Second, he's not a reporter. It's an opinion show. If Olbermann wants to put his money where his mouth is, more power to him.

Third, GE, the corporate parent of MSNBC, gives money to political organizations. GE executives and, I'm sure, NBC executives give money. Why can't Olbermann?

Perhaps Olbermann violated NBC News "policy and standards." But NBC doesn't have real news standards for MSNBC -- otherwise the channel wouldn't exist. It's a little strange to get all high and mighty now.

But there's now a Republican House, and perhaps GE is trying to curry favor by dumping Olbermann?

Republicans of the world, show you believe in the free expression of opinion! Tell the crony corporatists at NBC -- keep Keith!

I can't remember the last time I agreed with Kristol -- except for his jab at MSNBC for not having "real news standards." Surely, even as a mostly opinion-oriented network, it can have "real news standards" for some of its programming/content, whatever "real" means. Besides, it is also ludicrous to suggest that there is equivalency between MSNBC and Fox News. Yes, MSNBC is generally liberal in terms of its opinion programming, but it's not nearly as partisan as Fox News, which is effectively an organ of the Republican Party.

Of course, Kristol has a partisan agenda. He always does. As Steve M. of NMMNB explains:

Yeah, right. More like: Republicans of the world, don't let MSNBC actually fire Keith -- what if that starts a media-wide craze for holding political talking heads to higher standards? How do we then keep Karl Rove, whose organization basically replaced the RNC as a fund-raising arm of the GOP, on the air at Fox, not to mention practically all the A-list Republican presidential candidates? How do we justify everything else Fox and its hosts do to enrich the GOP and Republican-linked groups, including the tea party movement (which, last time I looked, was 99% Republican, if not 100%)?

I think Kristol's worried about nothing -- no one ever holds Republicans to standards like this. But I'm sure he's doing this out of group self-interest, not out of any sense of fairness or generosity of spirit.

I agree, but that doesn't make him wrong about Olbermann.

Basically, I have no problem with Olbermann giving money to Democratic candidates, but we should also expose everything Fox News does to support Republican and conservative causes -- remember, for example, when News Corp. gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association? (As Steve Benen wrote prior to the suspension, "[t]here's a reasonable debate to be had over the propriety of media professionals donating to political candidates," just as there is, I would add, over the partisanization of journalism generally, but let's not start by making Olbermann a scapegoat while this sort of thing goes on all the time, especially at Fox News.)

Anyway, if CNN knew what was good for it, it would try to hire Olbermann and Maddow away from MSNBC as quickly as possible and reinvent itself as a reality-based alternative to Fox News. But it won't, of course, and ultimately, I suspect, Olbermann will be back on Countdown sooner rather than later. This is not just a terrible and hypocritical move, after all, but a possibly suicidal one for MSNBC. Thankfully, there are many voices of reason, including some that are usually so unreasonable, rising up in opposition to the suspension and in support of one of our mow important political commentators.

Rachel on Keith

By Creature

Brilliant.

Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again

By Capt. Fogg

Yes, those were the days Archie and Edith Bunker sang about and the man who led us from market crash and credit crunch into full blown depression by blaming the workers instead of the actual causes. Somehow we've forgotten that Archie the lovable, small minded bigot and ignoramus was supposed to be a joke.

I admit it, I went and hid my head in Caribbean sand for a week so I wouldn't have to watch the madness, the hysteria and the lies, or endure the Fox News fits and fables -- or most of all, witness the continuing spectacle of my country eating itself alive out of a desperation to keep doing what always produces everything we're trying to fix. Sooner or later, however, and Hurricane Tomas argued for sooner, one has to come back and face the discord.

It isn't easy. It isn't easy to accept that Americans will support politicians that truly are nowhere near as smart as a fifth grader and that Americans will elect politicians who don't think the government has any business interfering with our "right" to abuse and exploit and segregate other Americans or to accept that Americans will just childishly stay home and let some 20% of the voters put a plutocrat affiliated with a billion dollar medicare scam in the Florida governor's mansion out of contempt for "elitism" and because Obaaaaaaama and the "librils" haven't restored the Bush bubble, the Bush soaring debt, the Bush job loss, the Bush expansion of federal size and power, the Bush redistribution of wealth, the Bush disenfranchisement of voters,  and Bush infringements upon civil rights soon enough to please them. Yes, that's a hell of a long sentence, but how we sank this low is an even longer story and when it comes to telling it, it's not me whose head is buried in the sand.

No, after eight years of job stagnation, job loss, and declining earnings, all we'll be hearing about is about that 9.6% unemployment Obama created without any help from Bush's tax cuts and wars -- and we won't be remembering the 9.5% unemployment in Reagan's first term (nor his tax increases, nor the effect they produced). We'll hear the gloating and bragging about the president's low popularity although Reagan's was lower at the same point in his career. We'll hear about profligate spending, but not a word about the payback with interest that tells a different story. We'll keep hearing about the debt, but not the policies that produced it and how it can only be solved by a policy that has produced the largest government sponsored redistribution of wealth in our history without creating a single new private sector job -- a policy that must be maintained for fear of Communism. Like Archie, we'll keep longing for that romanticized version of a Hobbesian hell with every white man for himself, minorities in the minority, stragglers will be shot and no prisoners taken. We'll keep ignoring reality and we'll keep repeating the slogans as we count our beads, fabricating facts and citing false history when we pay attention to history at all.

Meanwhile the sand is warm and the hurricane is moving out to sea...

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

I knew this would happen

By Carl 

It was only a matter of time after the SCOTUS allowed corporations to have the same rights as individuals that individuals would begin to see their rights stripped. 

Keith Olbermann has been suspended for the high crime of donating a few bucks to some candidates in this election.

Sign a petition, help him get his job back

Iowa voter's fancy themselves above checks and balances

By LindaBeth

Iowa's ousting of several state supreme court judges who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage is a scary day for those who believe an independent judiciary is essential to democracy.

And supporters of removing the judges for making legal decisions that some don't like completely miss the whole point of having judges rule on constitutionality issues in the first place:

“I think it will send a message across the country that the power resides with the people,” Bob Vander Plaats, a Republican who led the campaign after losing the Republican nomination for governor, told a crowd of cheering supporters at an election night party peppered with red signs declaring “No Activist Judges.” “It’s we the people, not we the courts.” 

One of the roles of judges is to protect the minority against the majority, who could strip them of their rights if it were put up to a vote.  In Iowa's case, that's essentially what happened.  Conservatives were able to remove judges, though a huge spending campaign funded largely by non-Iowans, who made a ruling based on the law that conservatives didn't like. This is exactly why judges should not be chosen by election--because judges aren't supposed to be beholden to the people, but to the law. 

(Cross-posted to Speak Truth to Power.)

Pelosi to run for Minority Leader

By Creature

And I'm thrilled. First, because she kicks ass. Second, because it'll piss off what's left of those damn Blue Dogs.

Contemplating and interpreting the midterm election results

By LindaBeth

What did these midterms actually mean? That depends on which data you use, and how you want to spin it.

I want to ponder a few things about the voting results:

The GOP gained 60 seats. Four of them are from Progressive Caucus Democrats, who lost 2% of their (79) members. 28 were Blue Dogs, whose caucus shrank by half. Many of the Blue Dogs were from conservative-leaning districts. And it was the protection of these members' seats that took the progressive teeth out of the health care bill. So we were left with a health bill that few understand, giving the space for Republicans to trump up fear over the bill, and that was less progressive than many Americans wanted. Something to think about...

These midterm results were actually not unusual, as pointed out by Rachel Maddow. In fact, if it is at all unusual, it's because the Democrats didn't lose the Senate too (the House has never flipped parties without the Senate flipping too). Save 3 midterm elections, the president's party has always lost seats in the House during midterm elections going back to the 30s.

The role of the voters:

Independents: Roughly the same percentage of independents voted for Republicans in 2010 as voted for Democrats in 2006 when the House flipped under Bush. But this flip should not be read as support for Republican ideas: only 25% approve of Congress, 53% see the Democrats favorably and 53% see the GOP favorably: no one party is more favorable to the American people than the other right now. And there is no voter consensus on what to do next, either. From Open Left:

Voting Republican was largely a response to being dissatisfied with the economy, regardless of who's actually responsible for the mess or which party is looked at more favorably. Not to mention the White House's awful PR job (what they should have done). (Sidenote: I so miss the teacherly explanations of candidate Obama that seem to have disappeared with President Obama.)

Higher turnout for GOP voters: This is obvious, the “enthusiasm gap,” which I believe resulted from Obama not going far enough on the health and stimulus bills (more than 1/3 of the stimulus was tax cuts, not stimulative spending) and by the aforementioned bad PR by the White House.

Age: NPR Reports: "In 2008, voters under 30 outnumbered, as a percentage of the electorate, voters over 65, 18 percent to 16 percent. Yesterday, only 10 or 11 percent of the electorate was under 30; 25 percent was over 65."

A recent survey shows that only 11% of 18-29 year-olds support the Tea Party. 60% of those over 65 voted Republican.

How the results are being interpreted by the Republicans serves the advancing of their agenda, regardless of what voters actually support. They are presuming that people voted for them and their positions. Republicans took the House but not the Senate, voters have very low approval of Congress, and voters don't favor Republicans over Democrats. Yet Boehner et al. seems to think that voters endorse the Republican platform.

Listening to Boehner's speech election evening was a clear display of hypocrisy. Boehner et al is pledging "no compromise" with Republican beliefs. Yet when Democrats, who in 2008 had in fact been given a mandate, attempted to stick to their beliefs, Democrats were not principled, but were being "partisan." Democrats, were derided for not "compromising" enough (read: caving into GOP demands) and embracing Republican ideas, even though the GOP lost badly in the 2008 election and the Democrats, quite frankly, didn't owe them anything. So with Republicans gaining just the House, we should expect Republicans to use Democratic ideas in the spirit of compromise, right? Not according to Boehner; they will work with the President when he is willing to come over to their side. Otherwise, they will cling to their beliefs, in accordance with what the American people want. That is the argument that is made when elections are misinterpreted.

All the "what the American people want is" talk from Tuesday night reminded me of this gem from The Daily Show last year:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
American Apparently
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

(Watch it here in Canada.)

Winners, losers, and our addiction to the grand narrative

By R.K. Barry

I know a thing or two about politics, and one thing I know is that winners and losers will tell you exactly what the outcome of an election means even if their analysis grossly oversimplifies what really just happened. 

Everybody loves a "big picture" analysis.

Winners will say they won because the electorate, in its infinite wisdom, chose to embrace every plank of their platform and every nuance of every argument they put forward.

They will say that they now have a mandate, that the American people have spoken, and that losers, if they have any respect for the will of the people, need to get behind this newly defined direction for the nation.

Losers lost, they will note, because the electorate rejected, holus bolus, everything for which they stand.

Losers will argue that extraneous forces conspired to deprive them of victory, despite the fact that their main arguments remain valid and worthy of support. They almost always admit that they bear some blame for not adequately communicating their message. If only they had better articulated their vision, voters would have knocked over furniture to get to the polls to support them.

But, as is only fair under the rules of the game, winners get to speak the loudest.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said after the election, "[w]e're determined to stop the agenda Americans have rejected and to turn this ship around. We'll work with the Administration when they agree with the people and confront them when they don't."

Okay, but this does beg a rather significant question: Where was Mr. McConnell after the 2008 election when the Democrats won the presidency, the Senate, and the House by such large margins? Where was he when America spoke so forcefully on that day and what in hell was he doing opposing everything the Obama Administration did to implement the mandate so obviously given to them?

True to form, Republicans have an answer and that answer is to deny that Obama was ever given a mandate. Something else was going on. And that "something," it seems, is offered by Tea Party activist Phillip Dennis in his observation that: 

President Obama and the Democratic majority misread the 2008 election. They envisioned their victory as a mandate to take America to a European-type socialist democracy based on the legislation they have passed or proposed. 

In fact, as far as losers are concerned, winners always misread the intention of the voters who got them elected.

Mr. Dennis continues that Democrats lost the election because they refused to accept the fact that Americans "did not approve of expanded government programs with large price tags such as bailouts, the stimulus bill, Cash for Clunkers, cap and trade and 'Obama care.'"

Well, yes, maybe, sort of, kind of. The truth is that voters vote the way they do for any number of reasons, and no doubt some voters were focused on the things cited by Mr. Dennis, but there is always more to contemplate.

We know, for example, that presidents usually take a hit in the midterm elections perhaps because the results of their first two years of work can never live up to the lofty rhetoric of the campaign trail. And how often do we hear rhetoric loftier than Obama's?

We know that the Republicans did so poorly in '06 and '08, and frequently in places they usually hold, that it was inevitable that seats they lost in these years would be won back sooner rather than later.

We know that when the economy is in the crapper voters take it out on incumbents. Who else are they going to blame? We don't get to vote for Wall Street executives.

We know that Obama pulled a lot of younger people and black voters to the polls and that many of these voters didn't show up on Election Day because Obama was not on the ballot.

We know that the Republicans have been very good at frightening people and vilifying Obama and the Congressional leadership. In many ways, the Dems where just out-campaigned.

We know that Obama and the Democrats disappointed some on their left flank, likely resulting in less enthusiasm from previous core supporters.

We know that a lot of third-party money was spent and that this benefited Republicans disproportionately.

Anyway, it is not my intention to provide a comprehensive assessment of "what happened" to the Democrats, only to make the obvious point that a lot of different things happened.

And, as noted at the top, winners will claim a clear mandate and losers will claim still to have the confidence of the American people while recognizing that they have been sent a message -- and life will go on.

This is the way politics works and the way the media cover it. Complexity is just not that interesting and it is never very sexy to begin every second sentence with "on the other hand."

I don't know what's going to happen over the next two years, before we are visited by another election, but let's stop pretending there is anything simple about the will of the American people.

Even in defeat, Alan Grayson is right

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

House Democrats were swept out of power because party leaders tried to hard to "appease" Republicans on major issues, said a high-profile member Thursday who lost his seat.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Democratic leaders should have been more aggressive and shut Republicans out of the negotiating process, arguing it would have helped them in Tuesday's midterm elections.

"I think that the Democrats are saddened and demoralized by this policy of appeasement," he said on MSNBC, noting that Democrats suffered from low turnout.

Even though Grayson — a liberal firebrand — was defeated Tuesday, he continues to have good standing on the left. He countered the Republican narrative of their midterm victories, that voters repudiated President Obama and his policies by booting Democrats from power in the House.

Of course, there were many other factors in play, such as low turnout among younger voters, Blue Dogs losing largely Republican districts that Dems picked up in the '06 and '08 waves, widespread anti-incumbent sentiment, the lack of a coherent message from Democrats, a seemingly unenthusiastic Obama, and, of course, the still-terrible economy, but Grayson is certainly right to point to this "appeasement."

Democrats should have pursued a more progressive agenda and, instead of cowering before Republican charges of socialism, actually defended what they were doing. Instead, they were consistently on the defensive, running scared as the Republicans launched their fearmongering propaganda at the American people. And, of course, Obama himself could have more progressive instead of consistently attacking his progressive base -- even on Jon Stewart last week he was largely dismissive of progressive concerns. As for what could have been done, it wouldn't have taken much. Obama could have acted to repeal DADT by executive order and Democrats in Congress could have forced a vote on the expiring Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. A little more courage and a little more confidence would have gone a long way.

Don't get me wrong, a great deal was accomplished during Obama's first two years in office, including health-care reform (even without a public option), but it was never clear that Democrats were actually proud of what they were doing. And they never really made a forceful case to the American people that what they did was actually worthwhile, and in the best interests of the country. This allowed Republicans to control the dominant narratives with their lies and distortions.

And what happened? Voters chose the party that they like even less than the one in power, a party of crazy right-wing extremism and an agenda of total obstructionism at a time when the American people need their elected leaders to act aggressively to get the country back on track. That's the embarrassment here. It's bad enough that Republicans won -- flipping the House, narrowing the Dems' Senate majority, and doing well at the state level across the country. What makes it worse is that the Democrats' lost to such an appalling party that should have been beatable (just as Angle and O'Donnell, two of the craziest of the crazies, were beatable).

Anyway, "appeasement" is a strong word, but it applies, at least in some cases. I understand Obama's desire to reach across the aisle so as to be able to say he tried to seek bipartisan solutions and was rebuffed, but he and the Democrats never really got away from seeking cooperation and compromise with an opposition party that had zero interest in bipartisanship. The message was pretty clear early on, and yet the reaching out never seemed to stop. Of course, with the filibuster rule in the Senate, Democrats could do little without 60 votes, and it was hard enough just keeping their own ranks together. And so, in a way, Grayson's assessment is far too black-and-white. But one really must wonder how things would have turned out had the Democrats only been more aggressive in pursuing their agenda and in defending their record before the American people. 

But what's done is done, and it's just too bad Grayson won't be in the House to speak with such force against what is sure to be an overreaching, ideologically extreme, and deeply partisan GOP majority.

California dreamin'

Guest post by J.S. Norquay

J.S. Norquay, which may or may not be his or her real name, is a former midwesterner, documentary filmmaker, and academic who now toils deep inside a large public sector institution in eastern Canada.

California has the third highest unemployment rate in the United States at 12% (Nevada and Michigan are higher). So why did the Republicans' red wave not make it to the Golden State? Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown won big while the Democrats lost just a single House incumbent. The answer should be considered encouraging for Democrats – it was the Latino vote and those of other minorities. As Nate Silver pointed out, the pollsters underestimated the Latino vote in places like California, Nevada, and Colorado. This explains why Harry Reid was behind in the published polls but won comfortably.

One can account for Reid's and Colorado Senator Michael Bennett's victories in part by the fact that they faced Tea Party fruit cakes like Sharon Angle and Ken Buck. But demographic trends suggest California could be the future of America, a place where minorities will play an increasingly important political role, particularly Latinos.

The exit polls from California report that the electorate on Tuesday was 62% white and 38% minority (22 points of which were Latino) compared to a 78-22 ratio nationally. Like elsewhere, California whites voted Republican -- for Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman. (The poll is not broken down by age and race, but it seems likely that a majority of whites aged 18 to 29 voted for both Boxer and Brown).

And the Republican strategic approach to the election didn't matter. As the L.A. Times noted:

California Republicans had multiple reasons for head-shaking on Wednesday. For decades, the state party has squabbled over whether success would come more easily to candidates running as conservatives or those who presented a more moderate face to the state's sizeable bloc of independent, centrist voters. This year they tried both. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina ran a firmly conservative race and Whitman took a more moderate road.

The problem for Latinos, simply put, is Republican attitudes on immigration as reflected in Fiorina's support for Arizona's new anti-immigrant law (Whitman was opposed). Three quarters of California Latinos have an unfavourable view of Republicans. And their share of California's population continues to grow.

California endorsed the state's efforts to curb climate change by rejecting a proposition aimed at rolling them back. In California, Obama's favorability ratings remain strong. Ideologically, the Democrats should be listening to Californians, not trying to make nice with Republicans east of the Sierra Nevadas.

Back here in the east, all the leaves are gone and the sky is gray.

Fatigue, exhaustion

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You'll have to forgive my complete lack of posting the past couple of days. That whole live-blogging thing Tuesday night really knocked me out -- seven hours or so of constant blogging. I'm still not over it.

I'll be back at it soon, and we'll have some great posts from the co-bloggers on Friday, too. So stay tuned -- and keep checking back.

Let me just say this about my predictions/projections: I got the House wrong, badly. Optimistically, I thought the Dems would do a lot better than expected, mainly because of better turnout than expected, and limit the GOP gain to 49 seats. Some extremely close races have yet to be called, but the GOP gain currently stands at 60, pretty much at the high end of the range of reasonable pre-election projections but still below some crazy conservative hopes, as well as below early projections on election night -- it looked for a time like it could be around 70. I should have known better. Youth turnout in particular was bound to be low, and an older, more conservative electorate than the one that voted in '08 ended up propelling Republicans. And I thought a few more Blue Dogs would hold on. They, in particular, did very badly.

With Patty Murray's win in Washington, though, I got the Senate exactly right, a gain of six seats for the GOP. And maybe this was because I was following the Senate much more closely than the House. And I got all the close races right. I get why Democrats in the House would lose in generally Republican districts that they won in '06 and '08, but I didn't see state-wide races going overwhelmingly Republican. I knew Blumenthal would win in Connecticut, as well as Boxer in California, but I also predicted wins for Manchin in West Virginia, Bennet in Colorado, Murray, and, yes, Reid in Nevada. I was tempted to predict a smaller gain because I thought that Sestak had a good shot of beating Toomey in Pennsylvania and that Giannoulias might pull out a win over Kirk in Illinois, but I stuck with six in case one of the others lost (like Reid, a prediction that didn't exactly have my full confidence). But Sestak didn't get the urban turnout he needed in Philadelphia (blacks didn't vote in the numbers they did in '08 either) and Giannoulias was a crappy candidate -- so six it turned out to be. Which isn't really so bad, is it? It's just too bad Feingold lost in Wisconsin. That's a huge loss for the Dems.

Alright, enough. I need sleep.

Take it easy.

Nice going, Rahm

By Edward Copeland 

Not many people can have the claim to fame that Rahm Emanuel now does. He has now managed to ruin the attempts of two Democratic presidents to reform America's miserable health care system and as a result have had both presidents' parties manage to lose their control of the House of Representatives two years later. God help you Chicago if he actually becomes your mayor.

*****UPDATE*****
Apparently, many Obama advisers agree with me and are blaming Rahm for the Election Day losses.

Two anecdotes

By Greg Prince 

I've had so many things on my mind relating to cluster known as the 2010 midterms, but today two independent things, small and insignificant, really brought home to me what happened to the Democrats this year.

First off, coming home from work I had an envelope in the mail addressed to me. It lists "President Barack Obama" and "Democratic Headquarters" as the sender and has in big letters, "Deadline: October 29." Note, today is November 4, two days after the election.

Naturally it's asking me for money to help with the final days of the election.

"A day late and a dollar short" goes a long way toward how the Obama administration has governed, and particularly in how it is managing its relations with the base.

Next anecdote: I was sitting in the jacuzzi at the gym after working out the other evening and there were several elderly gentlemen speaking about the election and a couple of them were just droolingly upset about Obamacare, knowing their pensions and health care are being taken away from them, etc. I tried to engage them for a few minutes, but it really was futile. They have been fed a lot of nonsense by opportunists trying to scare them and sell them stuff. It didn't matter what the facts were, they were scared and livid and, by damn, they voted.

It's easy to talk about how the Democrats have squandered Howard Dean's work with the Fifty State Strategy. It's easy to talk about how independent thinkers and donors and doers have been discouraged in an attempt to centralize and micromanage. It's easy to talk about how the White House strategy is too timid, too aloof, and too willing to compromise. It's been done before, and how it's not speculation, we know the result.

A day late, a millions of dollars short, and the agenda up for grabs for the next two years. Why were the Republicans allowed to control terms of debate? A dispirited base has consequences. Letting the teabaggers lie through their teeth and outright make things up without challenge has consequences.

1. The 2008 electorate was 74% white, plus 13% black and 9% Latino. The 2010 numbers were 78, 10 and 8. So it was a considerably whiter electorate.
2. In 2008, 18-to-29-year-olds made up 18% and those 65-plus made up 16%. Young people actually outvoted old people. This year, the young cohort was down to 11%, and the seniors were up to a whopping 23% of the electorate. That’s a 24-point flip.
3. The liberal-moderate-conservative numbers in 2008 were 22%, 44%, and 34%. Those numbers for yesterday were 20%, 39%, and 41%. A big conservative jump, but in all likelihood because liberals didn't vote in big numbers.

The fall-off in young and minority voters can't be understated. Yes, Sharon Angle is a moron, but Harry Reid will remain a U.S. senator because he got 90% of the Latino vote. Nearly comparable numbers have been reported in California and Colorado which were also relative bright spots for Democrats.

Polls showed before and after the vote that people like Republicans less than Democrats. They voted for them anyway. The election was the Democrats' to lose, and lose they did.

But there are some bright spots. Yes, we had help from the Tea Party, but the Senate held. Many of the worst of the worst Tea Party candidates lost. Sarah Palin's endorsements turned out to be less than golden.

Better still, the remaining House Democrats are, in fact, better Democrats overall. And Senate Democrats, being further from the "magical" sixty, are less dependent on individual senators to allow things to get done, perhaps making it more difficult for individual troublemakers to hold legislation hostage. Time will tell, but there is cause to be cautiously optimistic for the next couple years.

Of course, there's the down side... Election 2012 is now underway.

The emergence of the PEA Party

By Distributorcap

PEA Party = Palin Endorsed Americans

From Nick Wing in the "liberal" rag Huffington Post:

Palin divvied out 57 total endorsements of House, Senate, and governor candidates in the run up to the midterm elections. Ten of these candidates lost their primary battles during rather paltry first few rounds of endorsements, leaving 47 to face voters on election day. Now, with most of the final races finally wrapping up, however, Palin has put forth a rather impressive performance, showing off a ratio of 27 wins to 15 losses (five races such as Alaska Senate and Minnesota Governor, as well as some smaller congressional races are still awaiting official results).

Palin ass-kisser Miller in Alaska is a goner (and she will end up with mortal enemy Lisa Murkowski). But lets go with the current status. Wing claims a record 27-15 for this election. I think Mr. Wing flunked his math SATs. Based solely on his own information Palin's electoral win-loss record is 27-25 with 5 undecided, which is 52%, or about 50/50. As I said, the Alaska Senate is probably a loser for her. So that would make the win-loss a count of 27-26. For argument's sake, I will chalk the 4 remaining races as wins for the half-term quitter, taking her stellar record to 31-26 or 54%. That probably wouldn't even make the playoffs. There is a distinct possibility she could end up with a losing record in an election which the Republicans are probably winning over 60% of all contested races.

Some king maker. More like a shit sandwich maker.

Paul the Octupus -- who is dead -- could have picked as many winners. A pig throwing lipsticks containers at a dartboard would do just as well. Flipping a coin 57 times would be just as likely to end up with the same record. A chart of random numbers could have done better than her.  I would have better luck on the Pass Line with Sharron Angle as croupier.

Despite her mediocre record, the punditoria, (led by old white men who enjoyed an evening of free-flowing testosterone), was falling over themselves in the quest to be the first to call Palin the most influential politician in America. (Never mind the comments about her new boner-inducing hairstyle -- one that I am positive is hiding spiders and snakes). Palin handicapping might be a fun sport for the TV crowd -- but it is kind of hard to take seriously a bunch of "journalists" who treat every tweet and Facebook post from the False Princess as a valuable piece of news. In a very twisted way, it is fun to watch an entire industry fall into a pile of moose dung.

The Palinbaggers have NO idea who or what they voted for or against. They just listen to the whiney voice moron and like the good lemmings they are -- they follow. They would have voted for Eva Braun or LIzzie Borden if she deemed it.  This is a crowd more concerned with sitting at the cool lunch table with the popular girls than with actually fixing the country.

The puditoria might think Palin is the ultimate king maker. To the people living on planet Earth - she's a reality show star who lost the 2008 VP election, quit her elected job as governor for financial gain, and cannot name one Supreme Court case. How is her endorsement of 57 people running for political office supposed to be relevant? If producing testosterone was the only requirement for political expertise -- I bet they could get Marion Jones or Mark McGwire a lot cheaper -- and be just as accurate.  And have a whole lot more brains on the panel.

Sarah Palin is the political world's Zsa Zsa Gabor -- famous for being famous.

Like the brilliant strategy of saying crazy things and then apologizing -- I think using Palin as the mouthpiece of the GOP (PEA bagger verison) is just as ingenious. Folks like Rove, Romney, Barbour and probably even Gingrich pretend to like and respect her because they know she drives intelligent people crazy.

No one understands the attraction -- but it is know that chemical hormones in the bloodstream cause some very bizarre behaviors. They just can't understand the appeal. The Palin-as-rock-star is not much different than Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen - except Lindsay isn't endorsing 57 candidates. But I would bet Sarah and Todd have trashed a few hotel rooms in their day.

I have an idea for the Democrats - hire the Great Palini to endorse candidates -- and then pick the opposite. With a Democratic record of 40% yesterday -- Nanook of the North's impeccable skills at seeing into the future can only mean an improvement for them.

I have said many times I think Sarah Palin is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to the political process of this country -- worse than Bush, worse than Reagan, worse than Nixon -- and even worse than Joe McCarthy. There has never been in the 235 year history of the U.S. someone so utterly worthless becoming so ridiculously famous. She is a phenom -- the ultimare star of selfishness, racism, evil, and ignorance.

In the end, it's not at all clear how much her endorsement helped (or hurt) those candidates, given the fact all of her "peeps" had wall-to-wall Fox propaganda and huge amounts of corporate money backing them up. In all likelihood, they would have won without her endorsement, probably by bigger margins. But she clearly lost the senate. Supporting crackpots like Angle, Buck, Fiorina, Raese, O'Donnell, and Miller would not be something the party powers wanted.

That the pundits seem to overlook.

Election hangover

By Creature

I'll take my happy in small doses this morning. I'm more than pleased that O’Donnell and Angle lost (and that Buck and Miller will most likely join them). I'm pleased that half the Blue Dog Dems are gone. Good riddance. And finally, that Andrew Cuomo will be my governor.

The sad, of course, is plentiful. The House led by Boehner. Ugh. No Feingold. Ugh. And, no Grayson. Ugh.

Overall I think letting the GOP/Fox etc. control the narrative, from day one, was a big problem. I think the optics around the passage of health care, not the actual bill, was a fatal wound as well. And, sure, an economy in the tank didn't help. That said, Dems still control the White House and the Senate so all hope is not lost.

The next few years will be interesting, for sure.

Whither Democrats?

By Carl 

Last night's debacle is over. It actually ended up better than I feared. When I went to bed, MSNBC was projecting a net gain of 80 seats in the House. It ended up less than 60, which means we stole back 20 seats from the jaws of defeat.

So what to make of this difficult election? I thought I'd follow up yesterday's critique of Obama with a critique of Congress.

Let's look back for a moment and see what could have been done better.

First, the legislative agenda was completely screwed up, and for that, we have to blame Pelosi and Reid. There should have been a meeting between Reid, Pelosi and Obama in December of 2008 that set priorities, and I'm betting there was.

But the follow up was sorely lacking and it showed. Reid and Pelosi, but mostly Reid, should have caucused with the Democrats and hammered home a final bill for healthcare reform, the bank bailout and the stimulus package. That they got all this accomplished in the first two years is a testament to the will of Obama's underlings to get him re-elected, but Obama's presidency was never about the first term.

It was about the first two years: the golden moment when he'd own Congress.

I understand the laxity. After all, you had a bulletproof majority in the House and a near-bulletproof majority in the Senate. But near bulletproof is not bulletproof and the second any politician senses an opportunity to grab more power, he or she is going to do so.

It was mission critical for Obama that Senators like Nelson and Lincoln (who thankfully lost last night) and Congresscritters like Bart Stupak be brought into the fold and a unified front be presented to the nation and the Republicans.

Had the people of America seen the bills as pre-packaged law, they would have known that Democrats had things under control and would have felt better about the future. Likely, Dems would have retained both houses comfortably.

But there's more: someone over there needs to take control of getting everyone on message.

Say what you will about the GOP: they may be brutish nasty little fucks, but they're ALL brutish nasty little fucks with the same message.

Here's what should have happened.

The second wave of bank bailouts, a follow up to Bush's short-sighted and selfish money pit, should have been rolled out first. It should have been called or at least characterized "Emergency (Rescue works even better) Liquidity Loans."

"Loans" being the operative word. Then as each bank repaid the Fed, Obama should have held a schmaltzy ceremony with an oversize check made out to Uncle Sam which included the amount loaned and interest. A photo op proving that the economy was getting back on its feet.

People know what a "bailout" means. It means that you have low expectations of getting your money back, that it's a gift.

Next up, tackle the stimulus bill. It has to follow quickly, and the reason these all should have been pre-packaged was to avoid the shambles of Senators trying to get a bigger piece of the pie.

Two points should have been hammered home in the passage of this bill: one, it contained the single largest tax cut in American history ($300 billion) for 95% of Americans, and it was being passed by Democrats, not Republicans. That should have been the centerpiece of the discussion of the bill and not the "shovel-ready projects" nonsense that was featured.

Second, the additional stimulus spending was given to state and local governments to spend on projects most critical to them. "Shovel-ready" to me meant that these were projects that in an already declining economy, those governments had committed to seeing thru. They were critical. Additional funding would allow those projects to expand without the need for local revenue, freeing those to retain teachers and firefighters. They should have been called "critical repairs" or "vital infrastructure," with images of the I-35 collapse played over and over again on the TeeVee.

"Shovel-ready" to other people just sounded like a pile of horseshit waiting to be moved.

The most important political reason this bill needed to be passed quickly was to get the money into the hands of people. The most important political reason to pass it in the fashion I suggested was to force the GOP to oppose a tax cut. Highlight that fact, early and often, and you can run a year later on that opposition. Also, it blunts the Teabaggers' most effective and contrived weapon.

One more point on this bill: the deficits were out of control, it's true. What the Democrats should have pointed out, and much much more forcefully, is that when Obama took over, the national debt stood at $11 trillion and will come in around $13 trillion this year.

When Bush took over, the national debt was $6 trillion. That's right, Bush's tax cuts and war-mongering cost us $5 trillion, with no consummate spike in economic activity (Bush actually ran a negative job growth figure until 2005, despite his enormous expansion of the government AND three tax cuts). This lays the groundwork for two things: one, this spending is necessary and two, we're going to have to adjust taxes to account for it.

Third, healthcare reform. As I pointed out yesterday, it took a year from proposal to passage. THat was too long, for a very important logistical reason: implementation of even the simplest parts took six months.

Had the bill been passed in the fall of 2009, or better still, the spring, Congress would have had real success stories coming out of HCR. Denial of coverage would have been a thing of the past. Children would be allowed to stay on their parents' plans. On those alone, much good would have been reported upon. Think about the economy and how if people could take money they were spending on emergency healthcare and spend it on paying down the mortgage or even finding some way to buy a few nice things, we'd have an economy primed for recovery already.

It would already have encouraged maintaining good health over specialized care, which to me will be the most important element of the bill. A free mammogram is going to be cheaper for everyone than an uninsured's mastectomy. That's just common sense, and that portion of HCR would be in effect already.

The Democratic leadership blew the roll-out of the Obama agenda and as such, deserved the losses they suffered.

But what to do going forward?

Undoubtedly Boehner will try to push thru some of the Teabagger agenda of lowering taxes and cutting spending. He'll fail miserably at it, but some legislation will get thru, and will get stoned in the Senate.

He'll fail because there really isn't much spending to cut and cutting revenues now will only serve to lower an already decrepit tax revenue stream. Something like 60-70% of Federal expenditures are for defense or Social Security and Medicare.

If you'll recall, much of the Teabagger anger was at "keeping government hands off my Medicare!"

Yeah, so Boehner tries it, and he'll see an uprising.

I'm tempted to say to the Dems in the House, sit back and enjoy the show. But there's an opportunity here to mediate the conflict, and to come off as the party of reason between the oligarchists and the populists. This, along with Obama's coattails in 2012, should be enough to recapture the House, if they finally find a message mill who can frame the discussion for them (I'm available, of course).

Keep pointing out that the House was never in this much disarray under Pelosi, that the Congress got more accomplished for the American people and should have earned their trust (for the reasons I mentioned above) but were so focused on doing good work that Democrats forgot we needed to polish up our resumes.

In the Senate, well, I hope they oust Reid as Majority Leader, but I don't see it happening. What Reid needs to do is to hand off the public face of the Democratic leadership to another, more popular Senator. Feinstein's an interesting choice for this, so is Schumer, but my dark horse here is NY's other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand. She has centrist chops, to be sure, but she's photogenic and has shown a capacity to understand and execute orders. Failing that, Patrick Leahy or Amy Klobuchar would make excellent major domos.

Legislatively, there's an opportunity to pull off a surprise: work with Rand Paul. Bernie Sanders, the Socialist from Vermont, surprisingly had a good rapport with Paul's father, Ron and claimed he was able to work with him. Ask Sanders to approach Rand in the same fashion, and the 2012 campaign can be blunted by pointing to Rand Paul's cooperation with Dems.

The Senate under Reid for the next two years will be the Senate under Reid for the past two years: a place where bills go to die (unless they water them down). With a majority party in opposition in the House, this should be a pretty dull Senate session.

I can't recall a situation in recent memory where the Senate was firmly held by one party and the House by the other. This ought to be an interesting two years.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)