Last Call

Texas wanting to secede from the United States may be a running joke, but in Spain, nobody's laughing as that country's Catalonia region seems quite serious about declaring independence from the Spanish government.

Separatists in Spain's Catalonia won regional elections on Sunday but failed to get the resounding mandate they need to push convincingly for a referendum on independence.

Catalan President Artur Mas, who has implemented unpopular spending cuts in an economic crisis, had called an early election to test support for his new drive for independence for Catalonia, a wealthy region in northeastern Spain.

Voters handed almost two thirds of the 135-seat local parliament to four different Catalan separatist parties that all want to hold a referendum on secession from Spain.

But they punished the main separatist group, Mas's Convergence and Union alliance, or CiU, cutting back its seats to 50 from 62. That will make it difficult for Mas to lead a united drive to hold a referendum in defiance of the constitution and the central government in Madrid.

"Mas clearly made a mistake. He promoted a separatist agenda and the people have told him they want other people to carry out his agenda," said Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations' Madrid office.

For now, much like Quebec and Canada, the only thing keeping Catalonia in Spain is the fact the separatist parties have yet to unite the region under one party and leader.  Should that change, it would be the economic equivalent of not Texas, but California leaving the union here, a massive blow to Spain's already moribund economy.

We'll see how Spain reacts now that Mas and the separatists are, well, still separate.

They Still Have Learned Nothing

Nearly three weeks after the election, and it's still Benghazi, all the time, with the right.  No better example of this than Col. Mustard, who knows all about racism and will tell you exactly how it works.

I know I sound like a broken record.

Everytime I think the Democratic race card players could not get more vile, more deranged, more patronizingly demeaning to blacks, someone manages to defy even my vivid imagination.

This time, it is the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, which issued a truly amazing screed (h/t Gabriel Malor) claiming that critics of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are motivated by race and sex, as demonstrated by the facts that most are male and a significant percentage come from former confederate states.

Let me clue you in, Bill.  Nothing is more patronizing or demeaning to minorities like myself, particularly African-Americans like myself, than a middle-aged white guy deciding what should be patronizing and demeaning to blacks because you have decided that people like me are simply too ignorant to see your shining truth.

And yes, when a group of white GOP men in Congress, from mostly former Confederate states, decide that a high school valedictorian who is Rhodes Scholar with degrees in International Relations, a Phi Beta Kappa member, a National Security Council member under Clinton, and UN Ambassador under Obama is somehow both incompetent and unqualified to serve as Secretary of State, one has to ask the same questions as the Washington Post's editorial board as to why this is.

You might actually learn something if you choose to truly explore why you're in the wrong, but that level of soul searching is far too difficult.  It's better then to insult anyone asking those questions as "vile and deranged" and somehow pretend that Susan Rice's nomination to the office of Secretary of State is a personal grievance that must be rectified by no less than the President himself, because after all, you're just that important.

You keep on believe that, and we'll keep winning elections.  That seems fair.

Not Too Wild About Harry

The GOP campaign to somehow appeal to Village Centrists and nervous Dems to dump Harry Reid as Senate majority leader is now underway in earnest.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) infuriated Republicans during the campaign with his harsh partisan attacks and now faces the delicate task of mending his relationship with the GOP.

Some Republicans say Reid poisoned his relationship with their party by waging controversial attacks against GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. They were most angered by Reid’s charge that Romney had not paid taxes in ten years, attributing the information to an anonymous source.

"I do think he lost more credibility with Republicans because of his aggressive comments during the campaign,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former leadership aide who served in the Senate and House.

“The make-up of the Senate is almost the same and I think Sen. Reid is likely to produce the same type of gridlock he did before because of his unusually partisan stance," Bonjean added.

Well if a GOP strategist says Harry Reid is causing too many bad feelings, then surely Senate Democrats should drive him out of office in shame.  While they're at it, I'm sure Bonjean is upset that Democrats haven't all jumped party and become 98 Republicans and 2 independents, too.

Somewhere, Harry Reid is laughing his ass off.