PEEK

Buzz, perspectives, insight and news from AlterNet

PETA Teams Up With Glenn Beck to Bash Al Gore
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on November 6, 2009 at 5:39 PM.

I know it's easy to get jealous when someone's got an Oscar, a Nobel, and some pretty big job titles on their resume, but really, the Gore bashing has got to end.

The New York Times took a swipe at Al Gore and his new book this week and now Glenn Beck and PETA's Ingrid Newkirk are teaming up. In some ways it is a perfect match between two people who seem to thrive on generating controversy.

Beck chastised Gore for not giving up meat eating altogether (even though he's admitted to cutting back a lot) and told him it was time for soy milk and tofurkey. Then he invited Newkirk on the show to tag team even though Beck admitted that he doesn't agree with a thing PETA says. Although he did give PETA and the NRA a shout out for not catering to special interests (huh?), so I guess Newkirk should feel good about that.

I know that PETA's main task seems to be to get people really pissed off, but I still think it's a shame to see Newkirk sinking so low as to cozy up to Glenn Beck. The truth is though, what they're talking about is actually a tough issue. There's a lot of really good evidence that eating meat -- at least the way we mostly do it in factory farms -- is bad for the planet. If you've ever seen a factory farm (or smelled one) that would probably seem like a no-brainer.

But there's also some good evidence pointing out that growing soy -- at least the way we do it but slashing rainforests and piling on the pesticides -- is actually bad for ecosystems, water, climate and the whole shebang. And some of that soy we area eating (actually in the US 87 percent of it is genetically modified), some of it is being used for biofuel and some of it is being fed to livestock. But mostly all of it is an environmental disaster.

Umbra Fisk from Grist breaks down a lot of the research and writes:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Climate Change: The Grown-Ups Are Back In Charge
Posted by Raquel Brown, The Media Consortium on November 6, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

Senate Democrats in the Environment and Public Works Committee finally squelched Republican boycotts and passed a version of the climate bill Wednesday morning. Last week, Republican senators refused to show up to committee hearings in an attempt to stall the bill. Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo notes that EPW has now set “the stage for other panels to amend the legislation.”

To no one’s surprise, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., immediately complained about the legislation on Fox News. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was the lone Democrat that did not vote, which Inhofe interpreted as a sign that the bill is “dead.”

Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was much more upbeat and argued that the Republican boycott actually marred their credibility. “The absence of the Republicans during the Environmental Protection Agency’s presentation was a clear message that their criticism of the EPA analysis was not a substantive one,” Boxer said. “We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott, we have been able to move the bill.”

Inhofe also condemned Boxer for passing the bill through the committee unconventionally. Aaron Wiener writes for The Washington Independent that “Without a quorum that included at least two Republicans, the committee was unable to open formal debate on amendments to the bill. But passage requires just a simple majority, and Chairman Boxer and the Democratic leadership chose to forgo amendments in order to move the legislation quickly, given that the end of the GOP boycott was nowhere in sight.”  Luckily, now that the bill is moving on to other committees, Inhofe and his Republican EPW colleagues will no longer have much of a say on the bill’s final outcome.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Right-Wing "News" Site Falsely Claims Fort Hood Shooter "Advised Obama Transition"
Posted by Staff, Media Matters for America on November 6, 2009 at 4:03 PM.

WorldNetDaily falsely claimed that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan "advised Obama transition" in the headline of an article by Jerome Corsi highlighting his listing as a "participant" in a report for the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University's Presidential Transition Task Force. However, Corsi himself acknowledges that there is no evidence that "the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition" -- indeed, the Task Force was initiated in April 2008. Moreover, while Hasan was listed as one of approximately 300 "Task Force Event Participants" in the report's appendix, HSPI has reportedly said he was not a "member" of the Task Force, and was listed because he RSVP'd for several of the group's open events.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

On the Lookout for Attempts to Indoctrinate Our Schoolchildren? Try the American Coal Industry!
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on November 6, 2009 at 2:57 PM.

Friends of Coal (FOC) is a front group created by the West Virginia Coal Association. Its mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens about the coal industry” and “provide a united voice” for the industry. To make dirty coal seem appealing, FOC has sponsored or initiated license plates, football games, basketball practices, plane jumps, fishing events, and scholarships.

FOC is now selling coal to children. ThinkProgress obtained the “Let’s Learn About Coal” coloring book, which asks children to unscramble statements about the “advantages” of coal, such as “Than coal other cheaper is fuels” (”Coal is cheaper than other fuels”). Kids also learn that coal is “important” and “provides jobs for lots of people!”:

The FOC Ladies Auxiliary has been handing the coloring book out to children around West Virginia as part of a “Coal in the Classroom” campaign.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

At Least 5 Need Government-Run Health-Care at Bachmann's Angry Protests Against Government-Run Health-Care
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 6, 2009 at 1:27 PM.

I find Dana Milbank annoying. Actually, I think he's the living, breathing incarnation of everything wrong with the Beltway media.

Today's column is just as cynical, superficial and snarky as the rest. The argument he makes is typically obtuse.

BUT, it's directed at those annoying Tea-Baggers, so it amuses me!

Technically, Thursday's GOP-sponsored rally at the Capitol was a "press conference" (a Capitol Police spokeswoman explained that the lawmakers didn't have a permit for a demonstration). The speakers took no questions at this news conference, instead calling, at least a dozen times, for the Pelosi bill's death.

"Remember some of the other battles: Lexington and Concord, Hamburger Hill, Pork Chop Hill?" said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). "We're not going to leave this hill until we kill this bill!"

[...]

But, as with a similar rally by Democrats a week before, unpredictable things tend to happen in the wide-open spaces of the Capitol's West Front. Minutes into the rally, a breeze toppled the American flag from the stage.

More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.

This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. "Join us in defeating Pelosi care!" he exhorted. A few members stole a glance at the stretcher. Boehner may have been distracted as well. He told the crowd he would read from the Constitution, then read the "we hold these truths" bit from the Declaration of Independence.

[...]

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.

Read the whole thing. Might amuse you too.

How Does a Religious Cult Have the Clout to Delay Health Care Vote?
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 6, 2009 at 12:30 PM.

Just when it seemed the stars were aligning for an historic vote tomorrow on health-care reform legislation in the House of Representatives, anti-choice Democrats are balking, saying that the plan would permit the indirect flow of federal dollars to fund abortion.

Led by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., a member of the Capitol Hill religious cult known as The Family, and spurred on by the Catholic bishops, anti-abortion Dems are contesting the fact that some small number of private insurance plans offered via the bill's insurance exchange scheme may offer coverage for abortion -- even therapeutic abortion. Where the federal dollars come in is via the subsidies for which lower-income people would be eligible for buying insurance through the exchange.

Politico's Patrick O'Connor reports on the church's influence at the negotiating table:

Negotiators are working closely with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to finalize language the church can accept. Vulnerable anti-abortion Democrats don’t want to support any bill that the bishops haven’t signed off on.

Last time I looked, abortion was a legal medical procedure in the United States. The changes the church wants would virtually forbid abortion coverage, even for women carrying fetuses without a chance of surviving outside the womb. The church seeks to codify its contempt for women into U.S. law, dooming a woman already facing a tragic pregnancy to compromise her life and health -- mental and physical -- apparently for the sin of having had sex.

As the legislation stands, no federal dollars would directly cover an abortion, and the public plan will offer no abortion coverage. But that's not enough for the men of the cloth.

The question remains, of course, as to whether this is an issue truly of moral conscience, or just a trick for stalling health-care reform. At Michele Bachmann's disinform-athon yesterday on the Capitol steps, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins alleged, untruthfully, that the bill announced last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi covers abortion, as did several members of Congress. The Family Research Council is a Republican-allied group.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

After 5 Weeks, 3 GOP Filibusters and 200,000 Americans Running Out of Bennies, Obama to Sign Unemployment Extension
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 6, 2009 at 12:07 PM.

The good news is, President Obama will sign a measure today to extend unemployment benefits for at least 14 weeks for people out of work. It's money well spent -- it helps struggling people, and the investment tends to be stimulative -- and with new, discouraging job numbers, the timing is right.

"Given the employment situation and the general bang for the buck you get from unemployment insurance, that's probably the most sensible of the stimulative policies to extend," Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said.

The bad news is, it took far too long to get the common-sense bill through Congress. The measure stalled in the Senate for weeks, and while GOP lawmakers dithered, about 200,000 people who are looking for work lost their benefits.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about why Republicans were forcing delays, and Kevin Drum summarized what transpired on the Senate floor yesterday.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

(UPDATED): Orlando High Rise Shooter Arrested
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on November 6, 2009 at 10:27 AM.

UPDATE, via The New York Times:

A 40-year-old man walked into his former workplace in downtown Orlando, Fla., on Friday morning and opened fire, killing one person and shooting five others, the authorities said.

A police SWAT team detained the man, identified as Jason Rodriguez, about three hours later. The police said Mr. Rodriguez had fled the building — the 18-story Gateway Center, a glass-and-granite office building with easy access to the major highways — and went to his mother’s house about an eight-mile drive away.

*****

A mass shooting in an office high-rise in downtown Orlando, Florida has left two dead and six injured. The gunman is still at large, and office workers have barricaded themselves inside. The Orlando Sentinel reports:

Bodies were found on the 12th and 8th floor of Legions Place, a 16-floor building north of Colonial Drive. Only the 12th floor has been cleared. The shooter has not been found, said Deputy Chief Mike Droege of the Orlando Fire Department.

"The building is not secure now," he said. "It's still unfolding."

Seven people were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center. One person complaining about chest pains was taken to Florida Hospital South.

"They have not found the shooter to my knowledge," Drudge added. "They're still clearing floor by floor."

Office workers are still inside. They have barricaded themselves inside and have received little information from authorities on whether it's safe to leave. One woman inside the building said they have been told the shooting possibly took place on the fourth or eighth floor.

"We've got everybody in one office, with the door barricaded with a chest of drawers. There are about 20 of us in here. We're scared," said one woman who is inside the building. She asked her name and that of her business not be used because she fears for her life.

"We're watching TV, trying to see what is going on, but we really don't know. We're scared. We're safe right now, but we're scared," she said.

Officers with assault rifles are looking for a suspect with blue shirt and blue jeans. Many have their weapons pointed at the parking garage.

Read the rest here.

Right-Bloggers React to Fort Hood Exactly as Expected
Posted by Roy Edroso, Alicublog on November 6, 2009 at 10:26 AM.

FIGHTIN' KEYBOARDERS CALLED BACK INTO ACTION. We'll probably be reading a lot of idiotic stuff about Fort Hood, but it'll be hard to top this from Robert Stacy McCain:

The people who want to kill you are not Tea Party protesters or accountants from Saranac Lake, N.Y. They're not Kentucky populists or Belgian radicals. 

Anyone who wants to distract you from real dangers by telling you to fear this week's pet bogeyman -- global warming! creationists! Ron Paul! -- is not your friend. They are fools and liars who cannot be trusted. They are objectively evil.

The only through-line I can detect in this incoherent gush is this: Liberals are trying to distract you so their friend the Arab terrorist can kill you. So don't shit your pants like they want you to -- shit your pants like Robert Stacy McCain wants you to!

There are other contenders. For example, there's Linda Chavez at Commentary, who attempts to portray President Obama's delivery of planned remarks to a Native American affairs conference before announcing the Fort Hood situation as the equivalent of "President Bush’s 'Pet Goat' moment on 9/11." First of all, Obama was, in the face of crisis, taking care of business rather than, as our last President did, shitting his pants; second, how refreshing to hear a conservative acknowledge there was something weird about "President Bush’s 'Pet Goat' moment on 9/11."

There will be plenty of small-time nutcakes making fools of themselves (like Mad Americans Club, which raves "Obama wants to honor these type of actions with a United States Stamp! USPS New 44-Cent Stamp!!! Celebrates Muslim holiday," apparently referring to this), but the more well-known and respectable rightbloggers are soiling themselves as badly as any of those.

The reason's simple, and the same as it was during 9/11: they think soiling oneself is a sign of patriotism, and consider those who pants are not full of shit to be traitors.

Unemployment Hits 10.2 Percent, Economy Sheds 190,000 Jobs
Posted by Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research on November 6, 2009 at 9:17 AM.

The unemployment rate crossed 10.0 percent for the first time since early 1983, hitting 10.2 percent in October. The establishment survey showed the economy losing another 190,000 jobs, with most of the job loss in construction and manufacturing.

The October unemployment rate is still below the 10.8 percent peak reached in December of 1982, but the workforce is considerably older now and in age cohorts where workers are less likely to be unemployed. If the workforce had the same age distribution as in 1982 but current unemployment rates for each age cohort, then the unemployment rate would be more than a percentage point higher. The 10.7 percent unemployment rate for men is 0.6 percentage points higher than the 10.1 percent peak in 1982. This is consistent with the massive job loss in construction and manufacturing.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Report: Hasan Snapped Under Weight of Bullying, Anxiety Over Deployment
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 6, 2009 at 8:36 AM.

It goes without saying that the usual suspects would view the tragic events at Fort Hood as an act of terror inspired by "jihadism." A soldier, a Muslim of Palestinian descent, reportedly shouted "God is great!" before opening fire on soldiers awaiting deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

If one is already inclined to see terrorists lurking beneath one's bed, naturally that's a neat end to the story, and supports whatever simplistic notions about Islam and terrorism one might hold.

Yesterday, as the first sketchy reports started filtering in, I thought that an organized act of political terror was about the least likely scenario to have gone down. (This didn't prevent me from thinking, 'oh, this is not going to go well' when the Major's name was released.)

And as it turns out, unless you're reading Right-wing blogs this morning, it does in fact  appear to be a case of an individual snapping under a variety of stresses.

ABC:

Fort Hood shooting suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, wanted out of the Army after being constantly harassed by others in the military and was called a "camel jockey," his family said.

As Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq, he was suffering from some of the same stresses that he was trained as an Army psychiatrist to treat.

Although the 39-year-old had just been promoted to major in May, his family says he had hired a lawyer to help him get out of the Armed Forces.

"Apparently became very disgruntled in the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan and voiced that to a lot of his colleagues," said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)...

...After the 9/11 attacks, his cousin says he was the target of constant harassment from others in the military. His tormentors called him a "camel jockey," said his cousin, Nader Hasan. He wanted out of the Army, so he paid back his military student loans and hired an attorney.

While the bullying irritated Hasan, Nader Hasan believes his upcoming deployment is what set him off. The cousin said, "My mom is his mom… and we didn't know he was being deployed until we heard it on the news today."

The whole thing is obviously an incredible tragedy. But as Mark Ames -- who wrote the book about this kind of rage-killing -- points out on the front, this was anything but an isolated incident. All kinds of people "go postal."

That this one happened to be a Muslim and a soldier with strong feelings about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only gives those who were already so inclined an opportunity to use a profound tragedy to impugn an entire faith.

Jon Stewart Gets Teary-Eyed Over the Plight of Glenn Beck's Internal Organs
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on November 6, 2009 at 7:27 AM.

New York State Senate to Vote On Marriage Equality?
Posted by Adam Bink, Open Left on November 6, 2009 at 5:19 AM.

After losses like the one in Maine, I always feel like the best way to channel anger is into the next fight. Well, we've got one on our hands. Empire State Pride Agenda just e-mailed out the following:

Marriage equality has been an issue Governor Paterson has long championed and we are thrilled he has called the State Senate back to Albany next Tuesday and put the marriage equality bill on the agenda. We now expect that we will get the respectful debate and vote that we've been waiting for since June.

There is never a wrong time or inconvenient time to debate human rights legislation because it's always the right time. As long as a group of New Yorkers are being denied equal rights, addressing issues like marriage equality must always be a priority. Support for providing equal rights to LGBT New Yorkers has always been bipartisan, and we expect that this bill will be no different.

We look forward to hearing our lives and our families debated on the Senate floor next Tuesday. It's now time that each of the 62 State Senators vote their conscience on this bill that has great implications for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in all parts of the state.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Why Won't the Democratic Leadership Punish Lieberman?
Posted by DavidNYC , Daily Kos on November 6, 2009 at 4:32 AM.

I swear, this is their logic now:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) is unlikely to face retribution if he votes to filibuster the Democratic health care bill, despite renewed calls from outraged liberals for party leaders to punish him by stripping him of his committee chairmanship.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) “needs his vote,” one senior Senate Democratic aide said. “It would be counterproductive.”

They've descended into parody: Reid can't punish Lieberman because he needs his vote, which he won't get. This is nonsensical, even by the baroque standards of the United States Senate. Here's some more nonsense:

A great majority of the time, Sen. Lieberman votes with his caucus,” Manley said. “This may be one time they disagree.”

The one time, huh? What is it about the Senate that makes people descend into such pits of absurdity? At least one staffer tells the sad truth:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Jon Stewart Asks Fox's Chris Wallace How Long He'll 'Sit Shiva'
Posted by Staff, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on November 6, 2008 at 4:27 PM.

Chris Wallace never thought he'd see an African-American becoming president, which is understandable, considering he works at Fox News.

The Winners (and Losers) of Election '08
Posted by Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post on November 6, 2008 at 2:02 PM.

WINNERS:



The Davids - Axelrod and Plouffe: they spearheaded a near flawless campaign.



Katie Couric: her multi-part interview with Sarah Palin was the turning point in how the country saw Palin -- and by extension John McCain. And she did it in a way that left no room for accusations of being unfair or playing "Gotcha!"



Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, Ken Adelman, Chris Buckley, Kenneth Duberstein, et al: crossing party lines to endorse the eventual winner can't hurt the rep.



Saturday Night Live: went from "Is that still on?" to Must See TV (or, at least, Must See on YouTubeTV)



Tina Fey: her take on Palin was pitch perfect; a comedy mugging for the ages. And with Palin's obvious weight loss during the campaign, she ended up looking more and more like her 30 Rock doppelganger.



Sarah Palin: lost an election but there has to be a reality show in her future.



Michelle Obama: smarts, grace, style, charm, and a serious "good mommy" vibe -- she's got the whole package.



The View: went from gal chat to political headline maker.



MSNBC: Keith, Rachel, Chris... they sent a collective tingle went up the leg of progressive viewers everywhere.



The Internet: click here.


[For the losers, click through to the flip]

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Obama's Emerging National Security Team
Posted by Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation on November 6, 2008 at 1:32 PM.

The game of musical chairs is underway as Barack Obama narrows his choices for who he'll appoint to key Cabinet posts. Most of the speculation, naturally, focuses on key economic posts, but there's a steady trickle of leaks and inflating of trial balloons in the national security arena, too.

The New York Times suggests that Obama might want to appoint a secretary of state who is a Republican, "perhaps including Senators Richard G. Lugar of Indiana or Chuck Hagel of Nebraska." In what would be a far, far better choice, the AP reports that John Kerry wants that job:

Several Democrats said Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who won a new six-year term on Tuesday, was angling for secretary of state. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss any private conversations.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Legal Challenges Filed Against Prop 8
Posted by Joe Shaulis, Jurist Legal News and Research on November 6, 2008 at 12:21 PM.

Rights groups filed a writ petition with the California Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking to invalidate a state constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Proposition 8, which was approved by about 52 percent of California voters Tuesday, provides that "[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The writ petition, filed by attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights on behalf of Equality California and six same-sex couples who want to marry, asks the court to stay enforcement of the amendment until the litigation is resolved. The petition alleges that Proposition 8 is not a valid amendment but rather a constitutional revision, which under provisions of the California Constitution must be approved by the state Legislature. In a press release, Lambda Legal attorney Jenny Pizer said:

If the voters approved an initiative that took the right to free speech away from women, but not from men, everyone would agree that such a measure conflicts with the basic ideals of equality enshrined in our constitution. Proposition 8 suffers from the same flaw - it removes a protected constitutional right - here, the right to marry - not from all Californians, but just from one group of us. That's too big a change in the principles of our constitution to be made just by a bare majority of voters.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State: NYT Pictures Show How Things Are Changing
Posted by Paul Rosenberg, Open Left on November 6, 2008 at 12:12 PM.

The New York Times has a set of maps and charts that add some dramatic detail to the nature of Obama's victory--particularly its set of county-level maps.  First up, a county-level map showing the whopping 22% of counties that became more Republican this election than they were in 2004:





One can't help but notice how intensely concentrated these counties are in the Scotch-Irish Appalachian uplands and the Ozarks, along with the nearby regions of Oklahoma, East Texas and Louisiana.   This is, by McPalin's account, the "real America".  It is also, not coincidentally, the most culturally isolated and technologically backward part of the country.  If any part of America is similar to Afghanistan, in its remoteness from the modern world, and resistance to integration with the dynamic swirl of history around it, it is these counties, which portend the future of the GOP as not just a regional party of the South, but a shrinking one even within that region.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Robert Novak is Flat Wrong: Obama's Mandate
Posted by Brian Normoyle, Huffington Post on November 6, 2008 at 11:32 AM.

In the Wednesday edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, conservative columnist Robert Novak claimed Barack Obama's historical election last night was not "a broad mandate from the public" and the ensuing Democratic wave did little to change the political alignment in congress. Given recent history and the evidence of a shifting tide in American politics, I'm hard pressed to find a more inaccurate assessment of the outcome.



George W. Bush and Co. declared a "mandate" from the people shortly after his reelection in 2004 by a mere 35 electoral vote-margin. He did so despite barely eking out a majority with 50.7% of the popular vote over John Kerry's 48.3%. Incidentally, this 2.4% margin of victory was the narrowest win for any elected incumbent seeking reelection since Harrison beat Cleveland in 1888 and it was the smallest victory in all of American history for a war-time Commander in Chief.



Obama sailed over John McCain last night with a clear majority of over 53% of the popular vote and a 6%, 7.4-million vote margin of victory that is over twice that of his predecessor. And with an electoral-vote margin of nearly 200 (over five times that of Bush), Obama's win constitutes not just more than double the "mandate" claimed by Bush, it is an historic landslide by contemporary standards.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bill O'Reilly Shows that Conservatives' Feminist Awakening Was Short-Lived
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on November 6, 2008 at 10:25 AM.

I've been predicting for two months that if/when McCain lost the election, the Republicans who were so keen to use their funhouse version of feminism both to defend Palin against genuinely sexist attacks and to mendaciously attempt to insulate her from legitimate attacks by calling them sexist, would immediately excise the words sexism, misogyny, and feminism once again from their vocabularies and throw Palin under the bus using vicious sexist attacks.

File this under Unhappy to be Right:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

MoveOn Worked Hard to Help Obama Win
Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake on November 6, 2008 at 9:02 AM.

It was only a short time ago that every Democrat in the Senate was trashing MoveOn, refusing to stand up for them as the right tore them apart.  Many of us argued that it was really stupid and irresponsible to help dismantle a critically important part of progressive infrastructure (for which I personally earned a hit-piece from Bill-O, in which he called me a "fascist").

Well, in the 2008 election it looks like MoveOn delivered:

After endorsing President-elect Obama in February, MoveOn.org Political Actions 4.5 million members contributed more than $88 million towards Barack Obamas presidential campaign, the organization announced today. And more than 1 million MoveOn members worked in a trail-blazing field effort in coordination with the Obama campaign.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, MoveOn and its members:

• Contributed more than $58 million directly to Obama's campaign

Raised and spent more than $30 million in independent election efforts

Delivered up to 600,000 battleground state volunteers. 400,000 more volunteers participated from non-battleground states

Added 1 million young members from June to September 2008, and mobilized them online and offline

Registered more than 500,000 new young Obama supporters in battleground states

Let's Take a Moment to Give Howard Dean the Credit He Deserves
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 6, 2008 at 8:22 AM.

As is often the case after an election, there are plenty of lists being published noting the various "winners and losers." If Howard Dean isn't very high on the list of winners, it's a dramatic oversight.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Wednesday touted its 50-state strategy, which sought to expand the party's competitiveness deep into red states, as one of the reasons for Democrats' success on Election Night.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said at the National Press Club that President-elect Barack Obama "was right in 2004, when he said there are no red states and no blue states; there are only American states, and we all share the same values."

"You cannot be a national party if you are willing to write off entire parts of our country," Dean stated. "Based on that pretty straightforward idea, we changed the way our party ran campaigns and reached out to voters."

In a memo, the DNC touted Dean's strategy, which was often maligned at its inception. "Through the 50-state strategy the DNC put paid staff on the ground (2-4 per state) in every state from Alaska to Mississippi, New Mexico to Indiana," the DNC memo said. "When Obama became the nominee there were 183 people on the ground who have been there, been trained, and were working for the nominee. Through the course of this campaign, those staff worked to organize at least 892 field events around McCain-Palin events."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Robert Gibbs (Who Slammed Sean Hannity) Will Be White House Press Secretary
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on November 6, 2008 at 7:57 AM.

Politico's Mike Allen reports today that Robert Gibbs, communications director in Barack Obama's presidential campaign and a key strategist who "helped plan and package" his "rapid move to the national stage," will be named as the Obama administration's White House Press Secretary. Allen adds that the "announcement is likely to be viewed favorably by reporters because Gibbs has unquestioned authority, access and institutional memory."


Watch this earlier showdown between Gibbs and Sean Hannity: