If Linda McMahon (R-WWE) can close the gap against Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D), Dems should just run for the hills.
White House strenuously denies NYT report that it is considering getting aggressive about winning the midterm elections.
I don’t agree with TPM Reader JB, but wanted to share JB‘s take with all our readers:
I am writing about the post titled “Inspires Confidence” on the TPM Editors Blog.
That’s the ruling by the official arbiter of these things, the National Bureau of Economic Research. After reviewing all of the revised and updated data, the NEBR concludes that the recession lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, making it the longest recession in the period since World War II. The NEBR cautions:
In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month.
For its own analytical purposes, the NEBR would treat any economic downturn subsequent to June 2009 as a separate and unique event from the Great Recession.
I wanted to pick up thread from last week about just what the Dems are thinking on whether or not to push this tax cut vote. TPM Reader NB thinks it’s a matter of character rather than strategic clarity. But I think we’re talking about two sides to the same coin. First, NB …
You say you see a “lack of strategic clarity” in Dem failure to grasp the potential advantage of forcing a vote on the tax question, but I think there is a character issue involved, linked with a fundamental misunderstanding of how attack politics work. As a communications consultant who works with a lot of advocates, we coined the term “beaten dog syndrome” to describe a generation’s worth of Democratic electeds and operatives who have so internalized GOP attacks that the mere suggestion that they are coming cause these people to involuntarily cower. It’s just ingrained, and it’s pathetic.
Here at TPM we’re really interested to figure out just what Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-For the Moment) is up to. Normally, a write-in campaign is a desperate move doomed to failure. But a lot of weird stuff has happened this year. So I’m not ruling anything out. Of most interest to me is that Murkowski’s lines of attack on Tea Partier Joe Miller are garden-variety Democratic attacks — he’ll get rid of Social Security, Medicare, the Department of Ed., etc.
Can we talk more about how House GOP budget chief Paul Ryan wants to phase out Medicare in addition to Social Security? Thank you.
Okay, I’ve got quick thought experiment for you. I’m about to show you a picture. Don’t go below and click yet. I need to prep you first.
When you look at the picture, don’t look at the caption. And just give the picture a quick, momentary glance and give me your first impression of who’s in the picture without giving it too much thought.
Ready? Okay, click this link.
With Pakistan’s battle with social disintegration and extremism now met with historic natural disaster, ousted military ruler Pervez Musharraf is planning a return to the country and a return to politics.
From Hong Kong last week, Musharraf made the case that he speaks for a silent majority of modernizing, young and economically mobile Pakistanis.
He says he has a strong following among Pakistan’s silent majority: the progressive-minded, economically mobile, urban, and urbane younger sections of society. As proof, he points to his 300,000 Facebook followers mainly aged between 18 and 34. “Therefore, I know that it is the youth who are yearning for change,” he said Wednesday.
Congressional Republicans know that the worst thing that can happen to them over the next six weeks is that Democrats in the House hold a vote separating the extension of the middle income and upper income tax cuts. Either just one vote on extending the middle income tax cuts. Or even two votes — but separate votes on each. Now House Republicans are in the field pressing the Dems to hold one, single vote — thus combining all the tax cuts together and blurring the difference.
And the Dems aren’t even on the field.