Tag Archives: Red State

The Republican Party’s Dilemma for 2016: Should It Increase Its Hispanic Or White Voting Percentage?

Steven Cohen, at The New Republic, concisely slices and dices the Republican dilemma surrounding Hispanics: Republican elites believe that they can stave off this racialized fissure with bilingual campaign ads and half-hearted appeals to pragmatism. What they ignore is not … Continue reading

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“Republicans make you work for your money, and try to let you keep it.”

This was in The New York Times this past week: “Democrats are for a bunch of freeloaders in this world as far as I’m concerned,” said Gari Day, 63, an Avis bus driver from suburban Detroit. “Republicans make you work … Continue reading

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On the Future of the Republican Party, This Photo of an Empty Conference Room at CPAC Devoted to Minority Outreach Pretty Much Says It All

Via Twitter:  John Hudak‏@JohnJHudak Big problem for GOP. Most important #CPAC2014 panel. Topic: minority outreach. View: largely empty room. pic.twitter.com/LQKQ0QwwVc   11:09 AM – 6 Mar 2014

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Mean Rich

Are mean and rich synonyms? Maybe: __________ One thing I find interesting in this TED talk is that the research results (the wealthier you perceive yourself to be, the meaner you get) can be reversed with simple reminders that there … Continue reading

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“Subhuman Mongrel” and the Two Teds (Nugent and Cruz)

Ted Nugent, if you haven’t yet heard, recently called President Obama an outright subhuman mongrel: I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured … Continue reading

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3,000,000

Wow. This is in The Huffington Post this morning: The Obama administration said Friday that more than 3 million people have now signed up for private plans through the federal and state health insurance exchanges, including more than 800,000 in … Continue reading

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The Mighty Limbaugh Has Struck Out: What Limbaugh Being Dropped From KFI Means

Clear Channel owns both KFI (perhaps the largest radio station west of the Mississippi, broadcasting from Los Angeles and reaching much of California and Nevada) and KTLK (a radio backwater, also based in LA, with a very narrow signal range, … Continue reading

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Hubris, Chris Christie, and Greek Tragedy

Not just Democrats and far-right Republicans, but playwrights and screenwriters, will be jumping all over Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” scandal. Why? Because Chris Christie is caught in a whirlpool of hubris, and the ancient Greeks tragedians have taught us how such … Continue reading

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Limbaugh Dropped from KFI Signals Ongoing Decline of Baby Boom Right

Another conservative canary swoons in the right-wing coal mine. Los Angeles-based KFI (AM640) is probably the largest radio station west of the Mississippi, reaching south to San Diego, north to Fresno, and east to Las Vegas. And effective January 20th, … Continue reading

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Who Exercises in the United States? And What Does It Mean?

Who exercises in the United States? Richard Florida of The Atlantic summarizes some recent research: [E]xercise may treat diseases as effectively as drugs, as one BMJ study recently showed. Everyone knows it, but not everybody does it. Just a month after making those New … Continue reading

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Agreement with Iran

It doesn’t mean peace with Iran, but it’s a first step. And Iran is one of the big reasons I supported so vigorously President Obama’s reelection in 2012. I didn’t want to see a war between the United States and … Continue reading

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What the Elections of Terry McAuliffe and Chris Christie Mean

In an off-year election when the make-up of the electorate is maximally conservative (in terms of turn-out), Terry McAuliffe still won Virginia’s governorship last night. Think about that. He was a deeply, deeply flawed and unattractive candidate running in a … Continue reading

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Republicans Face a Demographic Tsunami in 2016

Ruy Teixeira explains: How bad could 2016 be for Republicans? Pretty bad. Start with the likelihood that minorities, who voted 80 percent for Obama, will increase by 2 points to 30 percent of voters. Add to that the continued growth of heavily … Continue reading

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Fair is Fair: Like Abortion, Slavery Should Be a Matter of Choice, Not Illegal, Says Chisago County Republican Party

It’s the kind of image and message you’d expect to stumble upon at a white supremacist website, and it’s been taken down after outrage about it spread, but the Chisago County Republican Party in Minnesota posted on its Facebook page … Continue reading

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Who Are The Tea Partyers, What Are They Achieving, And Do They Have Staying Power?

In a recent interview with Josh Eidelson at Salon, Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol characterizes Tea Party membership based on her research: [A]pproximately half of all Republican-identifiers who think of themselves as Tea Partyers are a very conservative-minded old group of … Continue reading

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How Republican Debt Default Hostage-Taking Ends (For Now)

If you’re worried that the federal government will default on its debt Thursday, worry no further (if Brian Beutler, writing in Salon this morning, received good intelligence): Boehner communicated to Reid, a top aide told me, that he’d send the Senate … Continue reading

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Could the Debt Default Crisis Turn into Our Reichstag Fire?

Something Chris Hedges wrote back in August of 2010 about our American anti-Enlightenment right (a.k.a the Tea Party) is haunting me a bit this week: The next catastrophic attack, or the next economic meltdown, could be our Reichstag fire. It could … Continue reading

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Are Obamacare Exchanges Failing?

There’s no doubt that the Obamacare exchange websites have had a terrible initial roll-out, but this is different from describing the Obamacare exchanges as a failure, at least based on this portion of an AP story that just came out … Continue reading

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Debt Default Crisis: What Republicans Have Achieved So Far

Four big things, the first of which comes from The Washington Post: Financial experts much prefer a longer-term extension of the debt ceiling, but even a brief extension would ease some of the turmoil that has been brewing on Wall Street. … Continue reading

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The Lowdown on Tea Party Strategy (and Why It’s Doomed to Fail)

If you’re wondering where the Tea Party has gotten the bulk of its political energy, look South. According to a recent academic study, half of all Southern whites are Tea Party supporters. Half. And, as Michael Lind notes in a … Continue reading

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