you could call this "What will a 50-state strategy buy?"
Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska and Nebraska. That's it. And even Nebraska gave one of its electoral votes to Barack Obama.
According to the Gallup poll out today, only these 5 states have a statistically significant majority who self-identify as Republicans. Stunning, just stunning. As a former Republican myself, I could certainly see this coming as every rational, intelligent and moral person was pretty much driven screaming from the party.
Ten more states are toss-ups. So much for the permanent Republican majority, I guess!
All told, 29 states and the District of Columbia had Democratic party affiliation advantages of 10 points or greater last year. This includes all of the states in the Northeast, and all but Indiana in the Great Lakes region. There are even several Southern states in this grouping, including Arkansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky.
What does that leave our Republican friends?
In contrast, only five states had solid or leaning Republican orientations in 2008, with Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska in the former group, and Nebraska in the latter.
The most balanced political states in 2008 were Texas (+2 Democratic), South Dakota (+1), Mississippi (+1), North Dakota (+1), South Carolina (even), Arizona (even), Alabama (+1 Republican), and Kansas (+2 Republican).
Welcome to liberal America...
And remember that the political landscape is still shifting further and further left.
The members of Congress I was able to coax into commenting didn't just talk about Limbaugh locution. Alan Grayson, the outspoken member from Orlando, as usual, wasn't mincing words:"Rush Limbaugh is a has-been hypocrite loser, who craves attention. His right-wing lunacy sounds like Mikhail Gorbachev, extolling the virtues of communism. Limbaugh actually was more lucid when he was a drug addict. If America ever did 1% of what he wanted us to do, then we'd all need pain killers."
On the first day of a listening tour on health care, an issue pivotal to the new Congress and his own re-election, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd got an earful Friday.
The first comment came from a furious homeless shelter manager: He and his clients have no coverage, yet insurance giant American International Group got an $85 billion federal loan.
Over 90 minutes, the Democratic senator heard from a string of constituents, who waved their hands, hoping for a chance to describe a struggle to hang onto middle-class lives after losing jobs and affordable health care. A few were angry, others just scared.
On the way out, Dodd embraced one woman who burst into tears as she described losing health coverage for her disabled 2-year-old. Dodd held her until she stopped sobbing.
Dodd says that Tom Daschle, Obama's pick to guide healthcare reform, will be coming to Connecticut to discuss the issue. I say that they better be prepared to get another earful because the incremental changes being proposed will not answer the massive problems we are facing.
Problems like this:
"[the forum] included the president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, a reassuring signal to Connecticut's insurance industry."
Yep! Dodd and Larson think that these people are supposed to be our allies on this issue.
Attorney General Martha Coakley has launched an investigation into whether the state's largest health insurance company and its largest healthcare provider may have illegally colluded to increase the price of health insurance statewide over the last nine years, according to several legal and government sources.
The attorney general sent formal demands for information to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Partners HealthCare late last week, the sources say, calling for a detailed account of their contract negotiations in recent years.
Since 2000, Blue Cross has boosted the rate it pays for medical care by Partners doctors and hospitals by 75 percent, dramatically more than the increases given to most other Massachusetts hospitals. Blue Cross now pays $2 billion a year to Partners, parent company of Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's hospitals.
Why do we put up with this?
I don't want these insurance industries' input into my healthcare in any way, shape or form. This the kind of health care the insurance giants have provided us thus far:
H/t nyceve for the video, where I encourage you to go read the entire piece and watch all the videos:
We all know that during the Bush regime, American citizens never saw the coffins of our fallen heroes coming back from Iraq.
Americans are also shielded from the brutal ugliness of our collapsed healthcare system. The traditional media is ill-informed (what else is new?), and rarely, if ever, give us frank and candid reporting about the grotesque realities of the U.S. healthcare catastrophe. So the BBC picks up the slack.
One last quote from Dodd:
"I hear people talking about a single-payer plan and the like," Dodd said. "That isn't going to happen. It's going to be a combination of public, private."
We already have a failed combination of public and private. We need the proven model of single payer and private practitioners. You want to stay in Congress with these kinds of answers, Senator Dodd?
"That isn't going to happen."
Why not send Senator Dodd a message?
"Single payer IS on the table!"
U.S. Senator Chris Dodd 448 Russell Building | Washington D.C., 20510 Tel: (202) 224-2823 | Fax: (202) 224-1083
Ya might want to mention the problem with his Blue Cross buddies, as well.
So this is what I was alluding to last Friday: Village Voice Media is hurting in this economy like everyone else, and their corporate response is to “suspend” cartoons and (I think) all other syndicated material across the chain, said suspension to last at least through the rest of the first quarter, and quite possibly beyond.
We don't want to see this poor guy become extinct, do we?
as you may remember, the modus operandus of blogroll amnesty day is to link to 5 blogs smaller than your own, thus introducing your readers to new voices.
and may we stop all the stupid jokes right here, right now: yes, there are blogs smaller than yours, no matter who you are.
this year our partner in this endeavor, jon swift, will join us in celebrating this blogtopian-wide holiday all next weekend beginning on saturday.
stay tuned for further updates and a spazzy snazzy new logo...
I have always made it a priority to try and add linkouts in posts and new blogs to my Blogroll as constant ongoing effort to raise the left's overall Google rankings. It is sort of a year round hobby and I really do like the fact that you learn a lot from the collective thoughts of Blogtopia. (Y, SCTP!)
Though, being a little part of the this big ass think tank... I do link up and link down. It is the nature of the beast.
h/t to suburban guerrilla, The ever wrong and eternally warmongering neoconservative Bill Kristol's wingnut welfare provided by the NY Times runs out. I guess they were tired of him making the Times a punching bag?
I wonder what tired, old right wing media gas bag will replace him? Or will they pick a screecher from the over fertilized - and full of it - young republiCON crops?
[update] Sadly, I must note that Kristol will be peddling a monthly pile of crap at the WaPo. If we are lucky he will explode having to hold it in that long. Note to Kristol's friends: Keep a lot of baby wipes handy if get near him, just in case.
Ilona Meagher, of PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within, shares with us, from her Blogspot, the writings of another blogger, a Combat Veteran, Scott Lee, a Gulf War I Veteran , who writes about his experiances with PTS and returning to civilian life after the military and combat experiances and more.
You can not solve the problems until you know what they really are...
Big fun with programmable road signs Source: polizeros.com The fine folks at i-Hacked tell you how to make an ADDCO portable sign say whatever you want. Not that you should because, of course, that would be wrong.
Yeah, there are a couple of people on that list that merit being there, even if they are Reagan Republicans or moderate conservatives, and a couple of other people that might even be considered liberal. Anyways, the rest - the overwhelming majority of them - are a bunch of gas bags and media failures that are influential amongst other gas bags and media failures that liberals don't pay attention too other than to kick for their stupidity on a daily basis.
Barack Obama's inauguration was the formal point at which the reigning ideology in Washington changed from "conservative" to "liberal." We use those terms without apology, as they are used in American political discourse.
Broadly, a "liberal' subscribes to some or all of the following: progressive income taxation; universal health care of some kind; opposition to the war in Iraq, and a certain queasiness about the war on terror; an instinctive preference for international diplomacy; the right to gay marriage; a woman's right to an abortion; environmentalism in some Kyoto Protocol-friendly form; and a rejection of the McCain-Palin ticket.
In recognition of the role played by the media in our national debate, Forbes.com nominates, here, 25 of America's most consequential liberal journalists and media personalities.
Most of the people on that weak list had little to do with driving the last couple of elections and nothing to do with liberalism.
If you play "yes we can" backwards it sounds like "nuke U.S.A." The real reason the right wing thinks he is not American is because they found a message hidden on one of the campaign song album covers: "bur ac i5 code"... They are all certain it is really his until-now unknown evil twin, Barry "the communist" Obama, from Kenya that is currently occupying the White House - just so you know where the name Barry really comes from.
ERrRrRP! Excuse me: The voice in my head now tells me that No Quarter - in conjunction with Red State - will provide proof of all of this right after the 2012 elections.
Palin is fueling the stories she condemns by talking about them instead of ignoring them, said Janis Edwards, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Alabama and an expert on women candidates. One of Edwards' classes monitored Palin's role in a project called "The Palin Watch."
Palin "does seem to have ambitions, and this is one way of staying in the public eye," Edwards said.
The governor's complaints about the media assure continued coverage, said Lisa Burns, associate professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.
"The media interest will wane. I think it already has," Burns said. "I have to wonder if this is something she's doing to keep her name out there."
When your own side is writing stories that are calling you out for your hypocritical attacks on the media you have jumped the shark. And though I must admit, Winky, we did thoroughly enjoy the comedic value you brought to the news cycle in your 15 minutes... Even down to your very last brain-emptying flatulated sputter of hollow charges:
Gallup has the longer explanation of this map. Red no more has the shorter one:
