The Irish-American shot-putter who purportedly refused to dip the American flag to the royal box at the 1908 Olympics in London.
If you read about how the federal constitution came about, one thing is crystal clear: it was devised by people who wanted to create a strong federal government and saw the states as obstacles to doing so. The people who believed in states rights and an anemic federal government — the ancestors of today’s Tea Party — were the Anti-Federalists. And they lost. Read More
We’re taught to think of liberal New York City and Republican-ish upstate to understand New York state. But TPM Reader JH notes that in recent years, in national elections, even ‘Upstate’ now appears to be solidly Democratic … Read More
Over the weekend I posted about what to me at least was a surprising fact: New York isn’t now just a consistently Democratic state. At the national level it’s close to the most overwhelmingly Democratic state in the country. More than California and Massachusetts. And Obama currently has his biggest margin there than any state beside Vermont.
A number of TPM Readers chimed in with more details.
TPM Reader JM rightly notes that New York Republicans were always considerably more progressive than their national brethren, even before the Reagan Revolution …
I don’t write much anymore (new job, twins will do that to you) but as a native NYer and former Dem Party official who has lived upstate and downstate I wanted to weigh in why Obama is doing so well in NY. I have seen firsthand how the National Republican Party has destroyed what was left of the NY Republican Party in Manhattan (not that I objected) in the early 2000s. The election of my friend Jonathan Bing to the Assembly in 2002 eliminated the last Republican elected official in Manhattan which was unprecedented. They have not won an office since in part b/c of albatross of the National Republican Party.
I wish I could say that dipping into our slideshow of the 1908 London Olympics is an escape to when sports were purer and simpler. But each generation has its own sports controversies and that was just as true in the summer of 1908 as it is now. Fascinating photos and stories.
NCAA’s announcement on sanctions against Penn State just getting underway.
Chief sponsor of Arizona’s anti-immigration blames gun control and the people who were shot for the Aurora massacre.
Everyone knows that New York is a solidly Democratic state. And no one expects Mitt Romney to contest let alone win it. But I noticed something kind of odd when I was looking at the PollTracker averages this evening on TPM’s Electoral Scoreboard. New York is not only the strongest state for Obama. It appears to be far and away the strongest state for any candidate, with the exceptions of Utah, Vermont and West Virginia. Read More
The picture of James Eagan Holmes, the man accused of killing 12 people and wounding another 59 in a Colorado movie theater massacre, is only starting to emerge.
Here’s what we know now.