Oops: New Senator Picks Ghostwriter Behind Rick Perry’s Extremist Book As Chief of Staff

Oops: New Senator Picks Ghostwriter Behind Rick Perry’s Extremist Book As Chief of Staff: Senator-elect Ted Cruz (R-TX) is no stranger to fringe ideas. He authored an unconstitutional plan to nullify the Affordable Care Act. His first campaign ad touted his work helping Texas to execute an “illegal alien.” And he published an article last January claiming that the United Nations and billionaire George Soros are engaged in a [...]/p

The Right-Wing Media Bubble Cocoons Republicans from Adapting to the New Political Landscape | Alternet

The Right-Wing Media Bubble Cocoons Republicans from Adapting to the New Political Landscape | Alternet
"Republicans are responding to their recent losses not by moderating their rhetoric or rethinking their policy preferences, but by retreating deeper into the conservative bubble -- and hardening it lest any objective reality intrude."

Tea Party Refuses to Accept Reality, Opts for Desperation

Tea Party Refuses to Accept Reality, Opts for Desperation
"By the way, there's a reason Tea Party Nation is one of the few tea party groups to snag the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center. They're extreme and extremely hateful. They also seem to have a problem with reality-based living."

For Scott Walker, Walls Are Closing In

For Scott Walker, Walls Are Closing In
"According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the last player in the Walkergate case is his right-hand man, Tim Russell, who just reached a plea deal with prosecutors over his alleged embezzlement of funds from a veterans group."

War On Women Continues: Arkansas Lawmakers Seize Opportunity To Push Anti-Choice Legislation

War On Women Continues: Arkansas Lawmakers Seize Opportunity To Push Anti-Choice Legislation: Voters across the country rejected radical anti-choice legislation in this month’s election, and far-right candidates whose campaigns centered on denying women abortion access overwhelmingly lost their races. But that doesn’t mean anti-choice activists are giving up the War on Women quite yet. Republican lawmakers in Arkansas are already looking ahead to the new year, when [...]/p

The Millennial Generation: Our Liberal Future

The Millennial Generation: Our Liberal Future
"How doomed are conservatives? Pretty doomed, if you look carefully at the Pew Research Survey’s close analysis of the youth vote in the 2012 elections. The Republicans’ long-term dilemma has generally been framed in racial terms, but it’s mainly a generational one. The youngest generation of voters contains a much smaller proportion of white voters than previous generations, and those whites in that generation vote Republican by a much smaller margin than their elders. What’s more, younger voters supported President Obama during the last two election cycles for reasons that seem to go beyond the usual reasons — social issues like gay marriage and feminism, immigration policy, or Obama’s personal appeal — and suggest a deeper attachment to liberalism. The proclivities of younger voters may actually portend a full-scale sea change in American politics."

Mitt Romney '47 percent watch': 47!

Mitt Romney '47 percent watch': 47!
"So what drama is left? Well, if Obama surpasses 51 percent, he'll be just the fourth president in the last 100 years to do so twice, and the last since Ronald Reagan. That shouldn't be a problem given what's left to be counted."

Glenn Beck Has the Paranoid Conspiracy World Cowering with "Agenda 21" | Alternet

Glenn Beck Has the Paranoid Conspiracy World Cowering with "Agenda 21" | Alternet
"When the Corporate Elite tells us we need to be afraid of something, they almost always expect to make some money off our fear."

How FOX News Is Destroying the GOP | Alternet

How FOX News Is Destroying the GOP | Alternet
"So yes, those are conspicuous handcuffs the GOP is wearing: Fox News has hijacked the party's communications apparatus and is pushing the type of paranoid,  blame-the-voter rhetoric that loses elections, and the type of rhetoric Romney's now being blamed for. But the GOP can't turn it off. In fact, most Republicans can't even work up enough courage to ask Fox News to turn down the volume.

Unwilling to acknowledge the GOP's future poses a long-term media problem (the topic is not to be discussed ), Republicans pretend they have a short-term Romney one."

Can We Help the Would-Be Secessionists Pack?

Can We Help the Would-Be Secessionists Pack?
"The Tea Party folks -- to no one's great surprise -- are not taking their electoral defeat at the hands of a black man lying down. They're threatening to pack up their soccer ball and take it home."

Putting Lipstick on a Pig: 4 Messes that Sink the GOP's Dreams of Regaining the Presidency | Alternet

Putting Lipstick on a Pig: 4 Messes that Sink the GOP's Dreams of Regaining the Presidency | Alternet
"In a nutshell, how does a party of insular, rigid true believers, thrusting warlike middle fingers towards modernity, talk itself into modernizing just because it lost one election? Aside from putting lipstick on a pig, where’s the miraculous (earthbound) agency that modernizes angry, resentful Tea Partiers whose outrage targeted the very diverse, younger, secular crowds now crowning the future?"

The War On Women Is a Class War | Alternet

The War On Women Is a Class War | Alternet
"Last week the voters delivered their verdict on what has come to be known as "the Republican War on Women": They're against it."

Virginia GOP Official: Obama Will Go To Hell

Virginia GOP Official: Obama Will Go To Hell: Virginia Republican party official Bob FitzSimmonds is by no means a fortune teller, but he feels confident guessing that President Obama is going to hell. In a Facebook posting, FitzSimmonds, who is a close associate of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, speculated that Obama would live a long life but when he died at 90, [...]/p

Racist Reagan Operatives Behind New Robocall Calling for Obama's Impeachment

Racist Reagan Operatives Behind New Robocall Calling for Obama's Impeachment
"Make no mistake. These are the people who carry the heart and the torch of today's Republican Party. They are not edge cases, but mainstream Republicans doing mainstream Republican things. They have ties to Karl Rove and the neocon right, and ties to Pat Buchanan and the hardcore racist right.

Reagan built that."

It's The "Jobs Cliff" Stupid...

Beware of con men bearing slogans. The oldest trick in the book is for conservatives -- cons -- to create hysteria around something, and then get all of us to give them billions of our tax dollars to fix the problem they've gotten us all hysterical about.

Drudge Goes All in With "Secession" Meme as the Republican War on the Constitution Escalates | Alternet

Drudge Goes All in With "Secession" Meme as the Republican War on the Constitution Escalates | Alternet
"There is no greater oxymoron in America's political discourse than the “Constitutional conservative"."

How Republicans Stole the Election... Again

How Republicans Stole the Election... Again
"Except that’s not quite true, Mr King, and you know it. The American people didn’t vote for a Republican House, the Republicans didn’t actually win the House, and therefore there is no mandate. 53,952,240 votes were cast for a Democratic House candidate compared to 53,402,643 cast for a Republican; in other words, over half a million more Americans voted for Democratic House candidates than for Republican candidates. Republicans received less than half of the vote for members of the House of Representatives, and even lost seats in the House this election. Yet Republicans still took 55 percent of the seats in the House. In effect, they had to steal the House. Here’s how:"

Dear Secessionists, Go For It, Please | Common Dreams

Dear Secessionists, Go For It, Please | Common Dreams
"Interestingly, it turns out most red states aremoochers and welfare queens who take more than they give in federal funds. We wish them godspeed, and good luck with their budgets."

Obama Swept States With The Most Educated Workforces And The Highest Paid Teachers

Obama Swept States With The Most Educated Workforces And The Highest Paid Teachers: Barack Obama fared well across the country Tuesday night, winning 332 electoral votes en route to a second term as president. Nowhere did he perform better, however, than in states that place the highest emphasis on education. Of the 10 most educated states, measured by the percentage of residents over 25 years old who have [...]/p

Brief Rundown of Just How Big a Victory Tuesday Was for Democrats

Brief Rundown of Just How Big a Victory Tuesday Was for Democrats
"After being told for six months how close the race was, turns out, No. No it wasn't. How big of a win was it? In the end, it wasn't even close. President Obama won BOTH the Electoral College AND the Popular Vote... and not just by a little, but by A LOT... 126 Electoral votes and nearly 3 Million in the Popular Vote"

Thanks, teabaggers, for gifting us the Senate!

Thanks, teabaggers, for gifting us the Senate!
"So we can safely assume that if the teabaggers didn't exist, Republicans today would be enjoying a 53-47 Senate majority. Instead, they face a 10-seat 55-45 deficit."

5 Fraudulent Election Claims by Religious Right Leaders Exposed | Alternet

5 Fraudulent Election Claims by Religious Right Leaders Exposed | Alternet
"The religious right took a drubbing at the polls yesterday as voters rejected not only Mitt Romney but also some of the most extreme Republican candidates, even those in races that should have been easy Republican victories."

Republican Party is going to have to leave their proverbial bubble to remain viable

The Republican Party is going to have to leave their proverbial bubble to remain viable. Facts matter. Terrific breakdown of election night. The national results were predicted by fact-based models while the right wing media failed as usual.

Six Congressional Races Where GOP Extremism Lost

Six Congressional Races Where GOP Extremism Lost: The 2012 House and Senate races were to a significant degree about the GOP’s shift to the far right of the American historical norm — assaults on the fundamentals of the social safety net unseen since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, unprecedented attempts to restrict women’s reproductive freedom, and near-theological devotion to lowering tax [...]/p

Karl Rove, the Biggest Loser | Alternet

Karl Rove, the Biggest Loser | Alternet
"Mitt Romney wasn’t the only big loser last night. For  Karl Rove,  the coup de grace came in the hour just before midnight"

OBAMA'S BIG NIGHT - The Atlantic

OBAMA'S BIG NIGHT - The Atlantic
"In the end, it wasn't particularly close. Assuming his late leads hold in Florida and Ohio, Obama will have lost just two states from his 2008 sweep, Indiana and North Carolina. Every other swing state -- from Ohio, Iowa and New Hampshire to Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Nevada -- fell for Obama. The Democratic-leaning states Romney tried to put on the board, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, never came close."

Nate Silver: Obama Has 86.3 Percent Chance of Winning Election | Alternet

Nate Silver: Obama Has 86.3 Percent Chance of Winning Election | Alternet
"Silver explained why his forecast shows Obama winning ina recent column . “Friday’s polling should make it easy to discern why Mr. Obama has the Electoral College advantage. There were 22 polls of swing states published Friday,” Silver writes. “Of these, Mr. Obama led in 19 polls, and two showed a tie. Mitt Romney led in just one of the surveys, a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida"." Now get out there and VOTE!!!!! The higher the turnout the harder it is to steal. Remember republicans have not won a presidential election (except by cheating Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004) since 1988. (Silver's final 2008 presidential election forecast accurately predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia (missing only the prediction for Indiana). He also correctly predicted the winners of every U.S. Senate race.)

5 Signs Romney is Getting Desperate | Alternet

5 Signs Romney is Getting Desperate | Alternet
"The polls, though, continue show a solid lead for President Obama, particularly in the Electoral College race. And that means it’s time for the Romney-Ryan campaign to get desperate--which is exactly what they’ve been doing."

Romney's big miscalculation on the Jeep-to-China lie

Romney's big miscalculation on the Jeep-to-China lie
"By now there's no real doubt that Mitt Romney's lies about Chrysler and General Motors moving jobs from the United States to China thanks to the auto bailout hurt rather than helped him."

Office of Eric Cantor's Democratic Opponent Vandalized With "Baby-Killer," "Nigger-Lover" | Alternet

Office of Eric Cantor's Democratic Opponent Vandalized With "Baby-Killer," "Nigger-Lover" | Alternet
"A notably ugly election just keeps getting uglier"

Bomb Scares, Belligerent Tea Partiers and Last-Minute Disenfranchisement – This Election Is Already Ugly | Alternet

Bomb Scares, Belligerent Tea Partiers and Last-Minute Disenfranchisement – This Election Is Already Ugly | Alternet
"We're seeing all the right-wing nonsense about our elections bear fruit."

Mitt Hits the Panic Button | Alternet

Mitt Hits the Panic Button | Alternet
"Of course, the state polls say something else, and state polls are what really count.  Obama is ahead , if marginally, in almost every swing state. This means that Obama can afford to lose in a few states he’s currently winning, while Romney has to win every single state he’s currently winning plus steal a bunch of states from Obama, especially Ohio, where he’s never fared well. Some recent polls even show Obama leading Virginia and Florida, both of which Romney needs. These numbers have made Nate Silver confident enough to  bet $1,000 that Obama wins (his model gives Obama a 79 percent chance of victory at the moment)."

PERRspectives: Elderly Will Be Hit Hard by Romney's Medicare, Medicaid Plans

PERRspectives: Elderly Will Be Hit Hard by Romney's Medicare, Medicaid Plans
"As the Congressional Budget Office and a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study confirmed, the Romney-Ryan plan to "voucherize and privatize" Medicare will invariably lead to much higher health care costs for future recipients. But today's elderly voters will feel a double sting under President Romney as well. After all, his pledge to "kill Obamacare dead" will erase hard-won drug benefits and health services those over 65 have gained under the Affordable Care Act. And as it turns out, Romney's proposal to slash Medicaid spending by more than a third over the next decade and give what remains as block grants to the states could jeopardize nursing home care for millions of American seniors."