Last Call

FOX News:  we report, you decide that we're pretty much crazy.  Crazy all the way to the bank, that is.  Also, dear Current TV owners Al Jazeera English:  Welcome to the neighborhood, love, Lisa Daftari.

The point is they want to differentiate themselves from their sister network, but at the same time, it’s the same thing. They’re having the same type of coverage. They’re apparently expanding to eight cities, including Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan is a large ex-pat community of Muslim-Americans and sleeper cells have been detected. You can Google this, you can find out all this information. So if you’re trying to set yourself apart the Qatari petro-dollars are backing this, you’re still developing in this area where the sleeper cells have been detected. They’re going to have do do much more to prove to me that they’re different from their sister network. 

Paranoid and bigoted much, ma'am?

I mean to be a FOX News contributor, apparently take any statement true to FOX, and replace all the FOX stuff with something liberal.  The reverse seems to hold true:  "So if you're trying to set yourself apart the Exxon petro-dollars backing this, you're still developing in this area where patriot militias and white supremacist groups have been detected."

Any more projection from this one, and she can get a job in your local theater.

Reality Is Clearly On The Obama Payroll

I’m sure the wingers are already trying to unskew this one…

President Obama starts his second term with a clear upper hand over GOP leaders on issues from guns to immigration that are likely to dominate the year, a USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll finds. On the legislation rated most urgent — cutting the budget deficit — even a majority of Republican voters endorse Obama’s approach of seeking tax hikes as well as spending cuts.

The survey underscores the quandary for the GOP as it debates the party’s message in the wake of disappointing losses last November for the White House and in the Senate.
Now just 22% of Americans, nearly a record low, consider themselves Republicans.

Ouch.  I’m actually kind of starting to feel bad for the GOP.  They can’t even find their usual 27% anymore.  And yeah, I’m aware that if Americans think cutting the deficit right now is our most urgent priority over firearms, climate change, and immigration, we need to get that unskewed real damn fast.  We’ve got far bigger issues than the GOP brand meltdown here.

There is bipartisan agreement on this: Dealing with the budget deficit is urgent.
That’s a change. When Obama took office in 2009, during a cascading financial crisis, Americans put deficit reduction in the middle of a list of policy goals in a Pew poll. Now it has risen near the top. Seven of 10 Americans (including not only 81% of Republicans but also 65% of Democrats) say it is essential for the president and Congress to enact major deficit legislation this year.

Just 4% say nothing needs to be done within the next few years.

Umm, two-thirds of Democrats say we need a grand bargain this year to reduce the deficit?  Eff austerity.  We’re taking ourselves out here, guys.

The Battle Of Fourteen

Nate Silver reminds us that the Democrats were very much on track to lose the Senate last November, but they were saved by a convergence of unlikely factors that actually allowed the Democrats to beat the odds and gain two seats.  In 2014, the Dems will need those five seats as a cushion, because the task of not losing six or more (and control of the Senate) to the Republicans is going to be difficult.

The party will face a difficult map again in 2014, however. Twenty-one of the 35 seats up for election are now held by Democrats. Moreover, most the states that will be casting ballots for the Senate in 2014 are Republican leaning: 7 of the 21 Democratic-held seats are in states carried by the former Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, while just one of the Republican seats is in a state won by President Obama.

Democrats could also suffer from the downside to presidential coattails. Most of the seats up for grabs in 2014 were last contested in 2008, a very strong Democratic year. Without having Mr. Obama on the ballot, and with an electorate that is likely to be older and whiter than in presidential years, some Democrats may find that their 2008 coattails have turned into a midterm headwind instead.

Are the conditions favorable enough to make Republicans odds-on favorites to gain six seats and win the Senate majority? Not quite. Six seats are a lot to gain, and Republicans are at risk of nominating subpar candidates in a number of races. But it would not take all that much to tip the balance toward them.

Nate shows West Virginia, with retiring Dem Jay Rockefeller, as a pretty clear GOP pickup.  Four other states:  Montana, North Carolina, Louisiana and South Dakota are tossups, with SD favoring the GOP, Montana and NC slightly favoring the Dems, and Louisiana as a true 50/50 matchup.

But three more states are in striking distance for the GOP:  Alaska, Arkansas, and retiring Dem Tom Harkin's seat in Iowa.  That means a GOP across the board tilt could put the Dems in a real hole, real fast...and the Dems don't have much of a clear shot at any pickups, yet.

For now, the road is going to be long and rough, but the way GOP senators are acting right now, they may completely pull a 2012 again...

What a shame that would be, right?

New tag, he's more than earned it:  Nate Silver.

StupidiNews!

• Georgia officials are investigating a small plane crash last night that killed 5 and injured two more as the Hawker Beechcraft went off the runway in Thomson, Georgia.
• Outspoken British MP George Galloway has quit an Oxford University debate after discovering his opponent was an Israeli.
• Pentagon officials continue to prepare to furlough hundreds of thousands of civilian employees if next week's sequester cuts take effect.
• Bulgaria's Premier Boyko Borissov is expected to resign today following anti-government protests across the EU's poorest nation.
• Two Canadians face a nearly $50,000 fine for modeling a Counter-Strike game map after a Montreal subway station.