Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 17 July 2010 11:51:20 PM. © Crooks and Liars

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Stand-up comics in their first Tonight Show appearances.

And for your listening enjoyment, The Driftglass / Blue Gal Podcast is here.

Open thread below...

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With ZZ Top

post from Crooks and Liars on 17 July 2010 11:20:06 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Title: Beer Drinkers And Hell RaisersArtist: ZZ Top
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Happy Saturday! Get down.

And remember that our sister site Newstalgia has for its Backstage Weekend Offering, Soft Machine - Live at the Paris Theatre 1972.

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Late Night: Just Like the 90s, Only without the
Grunge Look or the Halfway Decent Economy

post from Firedoglake on 17 July 2010 11:00:44 PM. © Firedoglake

K’thugru:… expect many, many fake scandals; we?ll be having hearings over accusations of corruption on the part of Michelle Obama?s hairdresser, janitors at the Treasury, and Larry Summers?s doctor?s dog. If you don?t believe me, you[...]

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runge-look-or-the-halfway-decent-economy/

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"Tonz O Gunz"

post from field negro on 17 July 2010 11:00:28 PM. © field negro

I was walking to the gym in Center City, Philadelphia a couple of days ago, and I saw something that actually made me feel good: It was two young brothers boxing in the street. As it turns out, they weren't serious with each other, and they were only working on their pugilistic skills.
"But field, why did that make you feel good to see young brothers fighting?"
Because they weren't out and about in the neighborhood trying to pop some other dudes top with an assault rifle. They were learning to use their fists instead of their fingers to settle a score, that's why.

Here in Philly we have a serious gun problem. Damn near all the young bucks are packing or could be packing easier than they can get a bicycle. Getting a hammer is not a problem here in Philly. It's what these young ones do. And the more lethal the weapon the more street cred it gives them. We even try to get folks to turn in their guns with PlayStations here in Philly but thanks to folks like this:

"For example, among those arrested and charged was Akiem Smith, 19, of the 1300 block of South Fourth Street. Smith, who was too young to buy a firearm legally, is accused of trying to use a "straw" purchaser to buy a gun, officials said.

When the attempt failed, Smith reportedly had his mother, whose name was not disclosed, buy a .45-caliber handgun for him, officials said. Officers recovered the gun, which had an obliterated serial number."
(You read that right; his mama tried to get her baby "a .45- caliber handgun." Ahh I tell you, there is nothing like a mother's love.) It won't work.

But the beat goes on. A couple of days ago a bunch of thugs fired on the po po from a van. And they were not shooting at the boys in blue with your standard garden variety guns. No sir, these criminals were loaded for bare with some very sophisticated assault weapons.

"The shooting Thursday night of a police officer in Kensington reverberated with some frightening similarities to the 2008 shooting of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski.
Three men in a vehicle. A powerful weapon - more than one, in this case. A cop shot.

Luckily, in this instance, Officer Kevin Livewell, 30, is doing well and is expected to recover from the wound to his right leg. *[ l-i-ve-w-e-l-l-?]*

Police yesterday displayed the types of deadly, "state-of-the-art" weapons - four assault-type rifles and four handguns - found in a white van and in the streets in the area of Water Street near Indiana Avenue, where Livewell was shot about 8:30 p.m.

They also asked for the public's help in finding the two men who fled the van. One was wearing a dark blue shirt and dark shorts, and the other a white tank top, said Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross. Both were described as Hispanic. Livewell's partner tackled a third man, the van's driver, who was being questioned yesterday by detectives. His identity has not yet been released.

Found in the van were two Bushmaster AR-15 .223-caliber rifles; a Taurus PT 24 .40-caliber pistol; a TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol; and a Glock 9mm pistol."

Now I am no gun expert, but I am smart enough to know that a "Bushmaster" is no joke. And these clowns didn't have one but two of those bad boys. That's the kind of fire power that these thugs run around with on the streets of "Killadelphia". And we are supposed to be intimidated or afraid of two clowns in faux military gear with nigh sticks? Come on now. Let's keep it real.

If folks on the right in this country were more concerned about sensible gun laws than they were a manufactured and imagined threat from an insignificant group of publicity hounds, they would get back a percentage ( a very small one) of the respect that I have lost for them.

But it won't happen. The NRA has too much money and folks have to get elected. Oh well, I hope they will at least spring for flowers for the next police officer's funeral.

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Polling and Political Wrap, 7/17/10

post from Daily Kos on 17 July 2010 11:00:05 PM. © Daily Kos

As summer finally arrives in Southern California (here close to the coastal part of the LA Basin, we were socked in with low clouds for seven consecutive weeks), things are heating up on the campaign trail, as well.

With the obligatory horrible journalistic pun out of the way, let's dive right into the weekend edition of the Wrap...

THE U.S. SENATE

AZ-Sen: GOP primary heats up with high-profile opening debate
The start of the debating season for the trio of Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate popped off in a brutal fashion on Friday night in their first debate. Incumbent John McCain ripped J.D. Hayworth as a profligate spender, which he cited as one of the reasons why Hayworth was shown the door by voters in the 5th district back in 2006. Hayworth, for his part, blasted McCain as a conservative of convenience, even wryly suggesting that McCain should be outfitted with two podiums so that "both sides of him" could participate in the gathering. The beneficiary in the debate may well have been little-known teabagger Jim Deakin, who said both were cut from the same Washington cloth, and was largely spared the McCain-Hayworth barbs. Hayworth, in particular, was relentlessly aggressive as he tried to resurrect his flailing campaign, even going so far as to mock McCain for his unsuccessful 2008 run for the Presidency.

CT-Sen: Blumenthal still rolling in Senate race, says Q Poll
As was briefly alluded to in an update to my story yesterday morning about the vacillating candidacy/non-candidacy of former Congressman Rob Simmons, a new Quinnipiac poll might well explain why he is staying on the sidelines. Not only does Simmons get beat fairly badly in a prospective GOP primary (Linda McMahon takes 52% to Simmons' 25%), but he also gets hammered by Democratic nominee Richard Blumenthal in a prospective November matchup. Blumenthal handles the entire GOP field with relative ease, however. He locks down Linda McMahon by seventeen points (54-37), Simmons by twenty points (55-35), and also puts a hurt on unlikely GOP contender Peter Schiff (58-31). The GOP primary, which may or may not contain an active Simmons candidacy, will take place next month.

WI-Sen: Feingold leads in rather strange Wisconsin Poll
Certainly, some pollsters press leaners and undecideds more than others, but there are some polls that get released that almost make you wonder if casting an undecided vote was somehow encouraged (PDF). Such is the case with a new poll out at the close of the week by the UW Badger poll, which had only slightly more than half of the electorate unwilling to declare their favored candidate. Of those willing to get off the fence and pick a side, incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold had a five-point lead over Republican frontrunner Ron Johnson (33-28). The poll surveyed only 500 adults (and 297 likely voters), so the margin of error on this one is a lofty 5.7%. The other GOP candidate in the field, Dave Westlake, was not surveyed.

THE U.S. HOUSE

ID-01: Labrador down double digits in his own internal polling
Crisitunity over at SSP catches a really interesting campaign tactic, which both of us would like to see explained. The campaign of GOP nominee Raul Labrador has released an internal poll, from northwest GOP pollsters Moore Insight, which shows him trailing Democratic incumbent Walt Minnick by ten points (37-27). Perhaps the holding the incumbent under 50% thing is the big deal here, but with so many GOPers releasing internals showing them ahead of incumbents, or tied, I don't see the mileage in letting people know that a Democratic incumbent in a heavily GOP district is still up by ten points.

NH-01: Republican stimulus hypocrisy! (Episode #9492)
This might be my favorite story of the week, and it comes with a tip of that hat to DavidNYC over at the always excellent Swing State Project, who ran this in his Friday morning "daily digest" over at SSP. It seems like GOP Congressional frontrunner Frank Guinta probably needs to give a stern lecture to former Manchester Mayor...Frank Guinta. As a candidate, Guinta has ripped Democratic proposals like the stimulus package and the cap-and-trade bill. As mayor, however, Guinta complained that the Granite State wasn't getting its stimulus cash fast enough, and he signed onto municipal petitions endorsing such green-friendly stuff as the Kyoto protocols.

Better still: in his bluster over the stimulus funds, he raised such a stink that he was mocked by the woman who may very well be the GOP standard-bearer in his state this year. New Hampshire Attorney General (and U.S. Senate frontrunner) Kelly Ayotte dubbed Guinta a "grandstander" in a year-old email released last week.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

AZ-Gov: Has immigration tussle moved Brewer towards safe November?
It'll be interesting to see if another pollster confirms these numbers, but the same Behavior Research Center poll that showed John McCain boat-racing J.D. Hayworth in the GOP Senate primary also had GOP Governor Jan Brewer up twenty points on her likely November challenger, Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard. The one saving grace for Goddard in the poll is the relatively high undecideds: Brewer leads Goddard by a 45-25 margin, with nearly a third of the electorate still unsure of their choice.

CO-Gov: Poll confirms McInnis now circling the drain
The Denver Post, in the wake of the McInnis plagiarism scandal, contracted SurveyUSA to conduct a poll about the electoral health of the GOP gubernatorial frontrunner. The results, as it turned out, were pretty stunning: only 19% of Colorado Republicans believe McInnis would be the "strongest Republican gubernatorial candidate." Not only did a majority of Colorado GOPers pick someone else, McInnis did not come in first place--that honor went to (for the moment) non-candidate Tom Tancredo, who got 29% of the vote. Remember that it was only a month ago that McInnis was the choice of 57% of Colorado Republicans to be their gubernatorial nominee.

GA-Gov: Barnes gets last-minute help from state's best known mayor
While it is a foregone conclusion that Roy Barnes will be leading the Democratic field for Governor during Tuesday's primary election, the big prize for the former Governor would be the avoidance of a runoff election. This could help. Barnes accepted the endorsement of Kasim Reed, who was elected as the Mayor of Atlanta in late 2009.

NV-Gov: Sandoval holds lead, but Reid gains ground, in MD poll
Republican nominee Brian Sandoval still holds a double digit lead over Democratic Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid in the latest Mason-Dixon poll of Nevada, but that lead has slipped ever so slightly. Sandoval holds a 47-36 lead over the Democrat, which is three points closer than a similar M-D poll taken six weeks ago. That Reid is even that close is something of a miracle: his approval ratings are woeful (29/38), while Sandoval's are actually excellent for this deep into a campaign (45/19). This could give Reid a modicum of hope--despite the climate, there is quite clearly a generic Dem lean here if he can keep Sandoval under 50% with a thirty-seven point difference in their net favorabilities.

OH-Gov: Kasich new ad a noisy attempt to rewrite history
This is good stuff for a weekend: the campaign of Republican gubernatorial nominee John Kasich has launched an ad which attempts to put to rest Kasich's past business affairs as a Wall Street executive. Besides some acoustical issues (why, for the love of all things, is he yelling at us?), there is another small problem for Kasich. The Ohio Democratic Party evidently anticipated this shot, because they skewered it in a devastating web ad which they put on YouTube over one month ago:

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TX-Gov: Perry resolves 2006 ethical lapse, in midst of 2010 lapse
While the Democratic Party is still considering a civil suit over the curious funding apparatus for the petition drive of the Green Party (which almost certainly included the participation of Republicans close to Governor Rick Perry), the Perry campaign settled a lawsuit from his last gubernatorial campaign. Team Perry settled with 2006 Democratic opponent Chris Bell, paying him nearly half a million dollars to settle a lawsuit in which Bell alleged that Perry's campaign deliberately concealed the identity of a million-dollar contribution. At the time, Perry was gaining political yardage by claiming Bell had accepted a seven-figure contribution from a wealthy donor. Perry, as it turned out, had done the exact same thing via well-known GOP donor Bob Perry (no relation). Democrats argued that Perry had run the donation through the Republican Governors Association to conceal its singular source.

WI-Gov: Badger Gov poll more bizarre than Senate poll--GOP leads (?)
The UW Badger poll didn't just poll the Senate race--they also elected to poll the gubernatorial election. They probably shouldn't have bothered--the results were so bizarre that they are only presented here for informational purposes. The poll had either Republican candidate (Scott Walker or Mark Neumann) leading Democrat Tom Barrett by seventeen points. If the margin strikes you as a bit off, the raw numbers will only magnify that feeling--the UW nums say that the GOPers each draw 32%, to 15% for Barrett. Also, as DavidNYC over at Swing State project notes, the poll was in the field for...wait for it...31 days. From JUNE 9th to July 10th.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA

Even the House of Ras cannot disguise the unmitigated disaster that the McInnis campaign in Colorado has become, apparently. They also see movement in the Washington Senate race and the Wisconsin gubernatorial race. Dems will like the vector that one of those races is heading in, at least.

CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 45%, Scott McInnis (R) 43%
CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 46%, Dan Maes (R) 43%
DE-Sen: Christine O'Donnell (R) 41%, Chris Coons (D) 39%**
PA-Gov: Tom Corbett (R) 48%, Dan Onorato (D) 38%
WA-Sen: Dino Rossi (R) 48%, Sen. Patty Murray (D) 45%
WA-Sen: Clint Didier (R) 48%, Sen. Patty Murray (D) 45%
WA-Sen: Sen. Patty Murray (D) 46%, Paul Akers (R) 41%
WI-Gov: Scott Walker (R) 48%, Tom Barrett (D) 44%
WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 43%

(**)--Inadvertently omitted from the Thursday edition of the Wrap

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-Wrap,-7-17-10

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Love Rollercoaster

post from Where's the Outrage? on 17 July 2010 10:36:52 PM. © Where's the Outrage?

I’m going to stay with the Ohio Players. Skin Tight was their first RnB #1. Fire smoked the[...]

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Love Rollercoaster

post from Where's the Outrage? on 17 July 2010 10:36:52 PM. © Where's the Outrage?

I’m going to stay with the Ohio Players. Although Skin Tight was their first RnB #1, and Fire[...]

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State Legislatures: A Challenging Environment for
Democrats

National Public Radio has taken a look at the races for the state legislatures across the country. Overall, they find a challenging environment for Democrats which is especially troublesome given that reapportionment is upon us. The difficult environment[...]

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What To Do In Case Of An "Internet Kill Switch"

With the recent influx of my mailbox and the heart wrenching hopeless nature of some of the messages, I feel that the day has come upon us that this information needs to be given to you.Proposed Internet Kill Switch OpenNIC (a.k.a. "The OpenNIC[...]

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Rep. Barney Frank Gives Review of Financial
Regulation Bill

Yesterday, after the passage of the financial regulation bill, conservative host Charlie Rose had Rep. Barney Frank on his show to explain what had been accomplished in its passage.[...]

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