In Madison, Wiscosnsin – the public sector unions have organized protests at the steps of the capitol to exercise their Democratic right to shut down the Democratic legislative process and subvert the Democratically expressed wishes of the Wisconsin electorate, in order to be sure that the union money flow to the Democratic Party is not interrupted.

First, let’s understand what we’re talking about here. Wisconsin is running a budget deficit because of the fiscal crisis and Republicans are looking to public sector employees to make up the difference. From WSJ: Mr. Walker’s bill would close a projected $3.6 billion shortfall by forcing public employees to pay 5.8% of their salary toward [...]

What seemed likely last fall is now a virtual certainty – the Republicans will retake the Senate majority in 2012. The only way to retain our happily divided government and avoid a rerun of One Party Republican Rule in 2013, will be to re-elect Barack Obama.

This was a speech that had something for everybody. He’s not backing down from health care, but concedes it could be better. And he definitely admitted that a lot of Republican ideas for deficit cutting are on the money. Well, at least Republican ideas circa 2008. Now they want to do a lot more. But [...]

I know many Dems who love him, but I can’t stand the guy. And the fact that he used Edward R. Murrow’s famous sign off to end his show…ugh. From NY Times: In a closing statement on his show, Mr. Olbermann said simply that it would be the last edition of the program. He offered [...]

As Ezra Klein points out in his article today, the CBO is pretty much the only institution in Washington that’s fair and impartial. And let’s remember that they told Dems that their health care bill wasn’t paid for over and over again…until Dems actually found a way to pay for it that made sense. I [...]

Republicans said they were going to do it…and so they did. And 3 Democrats joined them. From The Hill: The House voted on Wednesday to repeal the sweeping healthcare law enacted last year, as Republicans made good on a central campaign pledge and laid down the first major policy marker of their new majority. The [...]

I bet you never thought you’d see those two in the same headline. I’m a bit surprised myself. Bernie should know better. From The Weekly Standard comes the text of the email from Sanders… Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity [...]

If the President gets protection against threats on his life, the same should go for elected officials and government appointees. From CNN: Washington (CNN) – Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pennsylvania, said he will introduce legislation making it a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting [...]

Incredibly eerie in retrospect. Here’s what Gifford said on March 25, 2010… “…for example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district, and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that [...]

The motives of the coward who shot a bunch of people (including Dem Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords) down in Arizona earlier today are not known, but I think we can all agree that campaign literature like this certainly doesn’t help… Yes, I’m talking about Sarah Palin. This was the tweet announcing the ridiculous image above… This [...]

After the self-described “shellacking” Obama and the Dems got in November, the turnaround in this lame duck session has been nothing short of extraordinary. 5 major pieces of legislation were passed during a time when nothing usually gets done. And all of it was bipartisan in one form or another. Let’s run down what they [...]

Claire McCaskill and other centrist Dems appear to be pushing hard next year for some pretty straightforward steps that create more transparency and accountability when the opposition tries to filibuster. And remember…Dems are they’re likely to lose more seats in 2012…so it’s not like this really helps them if they’re in the minority. Here’s more [...]

Specter lost his senate seat, but he has some parting shots for Republican appointed judges. From CNN: “Ignoring a massive congressional record and reversing recent decisions, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito repudiated their confirmation testimony given under oath and provided the key votes to permit corporations and unions to secretly pay for political advertising [...]

Out of an apple? Donar shows you how… More at Political Graffiti.

Big time speech today from the guy who definitely has his eye on the White House. Here’s the video… I’ll offer the transcript below after my analysis. Personally, this feels disingenuous from a guy like Bloomberg who has repeatedly used the government to regulate New York City businesses and consumer behavior six ways to Sunday. [...]

We all (unfortunately) knew the hell she went through the past couple years while battling incurable cancer. The reason I don’t link to that nonsense is out of respect. I’m sure you can understand. Personally, I’m glad her suffering is over, even though I’m so sorry that her children have lost their mother. That’s certainly [...]

Obama is baiting the trap and if the GOP candidate doesn’t take it in 2012, it could spell trouble for the Dems. Last night the President said this… I have no doubt that everyone will find something in this compromise that they don’t like. In fact, there are things in here that I don’t like [...]

Why are Republicans insisting that the tax cuts continue when the election appears to have been a referendum on spending? From CBS: The poll finds that 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year. That roughly matches the proposal put forth by the White [...]