Moulitsas Markos, Stupid Liberals Already Blaming Sarah Palin For Shooting Of Gabrielle Giffords

From all accounts U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is a moderate Democrat (or Blue Dog) who recently made very public stands attacking Barack Obama for not securing our borders--not the type of liberal, elitist posing as a politician that could would even be in far-Right crosshairs or even in their afterthoughts. But if you're an idiot douchebag like Moulitsas Markos and all the rest of his lemmings at Daily Kos, why let something liek facts get in the way of smearing Sarah Palin. It's who they are:

Some prominent liberal bloggers wasted little time before politicizing the horrific and tragic shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona on Saturday.


Almost immediately after the nation learned of the shooting of Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others (including a federal judge), a few prominent liberal web writers sought to blame Sarah Palin and other conservatives for the action.


Linking to a map of U.S. House districts that Sarah Palin's pac wanted to "target" during the 2010 mid-term elections -- which sadly included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords' district (among others) -- DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Tweeted, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin."


The liberal blog Firedog Lake also went there.


(Palin has deleted the image from her website, and issued a short statement on the shooting, writing on her Facebook page: "My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice."


Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias Tweeted out several other examples of "violent rhetoric," including Rep. Michele Bachman saying, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous" to block climate change legislation.


A few personal observations...


First, it is sad to see folks immediately politicize such a tragedy. If your first response to such an event is to think of Sarah Palin, something is wrong.


Like it or not, the sort of rhetoric and imagery employed by Palin's PAC is not terribly unusual. Politicians constantly talk about "targeting" voters -- does anyone think they want to shoot them? Political consultants tell politicians to "hunt where the ducks are, " but they certainly don't mean to shoot voters. Ironically, Moulitsas has also previously urged his readers to "target" Giffords and put a "bulls eye" on her district because she "sold out the Constitution..."


To be sure, it is possible for a politician to use words to incite violence, but putting a target on a congressional district is clearly not an example of that.


Our culture is full of rhetoric that uses violent analogies for everyday events. Here is a headline I just pulled up: "Aaron Rodgers in the Eagles' Crosshairs...Literally." (Here's another: Lindsay Lohan in Sheriff's Crosshairs, Calif. Investigators Ask ..." (Clearly, we had better hope nothing happens to the Aaron Rodgers or Lindsay Lohan in the near future).


It's also worth noting that the majority of the most egregious comments were made on Twitter, an outlet that allows folks to Tweet before thinking.

UPDATE: Turns out that one the Dauly Kos's own writers recently wrote a scathing piece attacking Giffords for being "too conservative". Hypocrite much?

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Blue Dog Democrat, Shot At Grocery

Of course, first thoughts are prayers for the Congresswoman, her family and friends (as I write this Rep. Giffords is still alive, after reports had surfaced that she died) and the hope that she pulls through, but that doesn't dismiss the fact there already are victims. Either way, esp. after we find out who the gunman is, look for this to get heavily politicized by the extremists on both sides:

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded Saturday in a shooting at a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store in which at least 11 other people were injured, officials said.\


Darci Slaten, a spokeswoman for University Medical Center in Tucson, said Giffords was undergoing surgery Saturday afternoon for a gunshot wound to the head.


A federal judge from Arizona was among the 11 others shot in the incident, a law enforcement source told CNN.


The shooting happened shortly after 10 a.m. MST, Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jason Ogan said.


Giffords, 40, was holding a constituent meeting at the Safeway grocery store when the shooting occurred, according to a schedule posted on her website.


An FBI spokesman said the agency was sending agents to the scene, and two senior Obama administration officials said the White House is monitoring the situation. They said they believed that a congressional staffer may have been killed.

RELATED: News Organizations Retract Reports Of Rep. Giffords' Death

'Mother,' 'Father' Changing to 'Parent One,' 'Parent Two' on Passport Applications

FOXNews.com:

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says.


“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. "They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’"


A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” The statement didn't note if it was for child applications only.


The State Department said the new passport applications, not yet available to the public, will be available online soon.


Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness.


“We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” she said.


Gay rights groups are applauding the decision.


“Changing the term mother and father to the more global term of parent allows many different types of families to be able to go and apply for a passport for their child without feeling like the government doesn’t recognize their family,” said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council.


Her organization lobbied the government for several years to remove the words from passport applications.


“Our government needs to recognize that the family structure is changing,” Chrisler said. “The best thing that we can do is support people who are raising kids in loving, stable families.”


But some conservative Christians are outraged over the decision.


“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Obama 'moving the center'?!? the joke is on us. Barry will always be a radically-leftist, socialist, elitist who's only interested in serving the interests of the 20% of people in this country who call themselves "liberals".

In Black America, The Depression Rolls On

It's what Black liberals refuse to acknowledge: voting for the '1st Black president' hasn't helped the state of Black America one iota:

The latest snapshot of the American job market, released by the Labor Department on Friday, confirms what most ordinary people already knew without need of a government report: Little is improving quickly or broadly enough to dislodge the anxiety that has taken up long-term residence in many communities.


The unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent in December, from 9.8 percent the month prior. But that had little to do with people actually finding work, and much to do with the jobless simply giving up and halting their searches, dropping out of the statistical pool known as the labor force.


A deeper dive past the headline numbers reveals a reality that ought to trigger national alarm but hasn't for the simple reason that it is already embedded in the country we have unfortunately become: the Divided States of America.


Among white people, the unemployment rate dropped in December to 8.5 percent -- hardly acceptable, but manageable were the government spending more to expand a fraying social safety net and generate jobs. For black Americans, the unemployment rate was 15.8 percent.


Professional economists will not pause for an instant at those figures. It is a truism that the black unemployment rate generally runs double the white one, and yet when did that become acceptable? How can there be so little discussion about a full-blown epidemic of joblessness in the African-American community, as if the commonplace incidence of despair -- and, more recently, reversed progress -- somehow amounts to old news?


"Can you imagine any other group at that level of unemployment and the media dismissing it as not important?" the Rev. Jesse Jackson asked during an interview this week.

Dismal Jobs Report: No End in Sight for Economic Woes

Despite the spin being put out there by the Obama administration, "change" is not a coming:

A deceptively dismal jobs report, combined with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s acknowledgement that it might be another five years before hiring fully recovers, put the final nail in the coffin Friday on the Obama administration’s claim that nearly $1 trillion in stimulus spending has rescued the economy.


Although the headline number is impressive, with unemployment falling from 9.8 percent to 9.4 percent, the number of new jobs created was a big disappointment and far lower than private forecasters had predicted only days ago.


The Labor Department reported just 103,000 new jobs in December, about half the level projected in private consensus forecasts. An earlier report from private payroll company ADP had suggested that hiring might approach the 300,000 mark.


“We’re just not getting the jobs yet. I was really disappointed with these numbers. I was expecting a pretty big number in terms of job creation,” Wall Street Journal editorial board member and senior economics writer Stephen Moore told MSNBC.


“We need to be creating about two to three times more jobs than we are right now to start making real progress in putting Americans back to work,” Moore said.


The total unemployment figure, on which most people focus, fell in large part because nearly a quarter million people simply gave up their job hunts and dropped out of the workforce altogether, according to Bureau of Labor statistics.


There were 1.3 million so-called “discouraged workers” in December, an increase of 389,000 from December 2009, the government reported. Markets sold off on the jobs report following a bullish year-end push higher that seemed to price in a roaring recovery.

Nancy Pelosi Says Dems Lost House Because Of . . . George W. Bush

Bush Derangement Syndrome never ends. But let's hope the idiots are still blaming Bush come 2012 because clearly they still don't get it.

Glenn Beck Explains What’s Up With All Those Dead Birds And Fish

Mediaite.com:

The theme of today’s Glenn Beck seemed to be about trust. Most importantly, the trust that he doesn’t have for the media. To demonstrate this, he found a perfect example in the week’s big media freak out story: all those dead birds and fish. That’s right, Glenn Beck has done what our news media can’t. He’s explained the dead animals!


Shockingly, he didn’t use Kirk Cameron. No, Beck used the magic of the Internet, namely Google. Using the search engine, he discovered that this kind of thing just happens. Fish die out all the time. Massive bird deaths happen about every other year. Nothing unusual. Nothing to fear. Just a fact of nature.


Not the exciting explanation you were hoping for? Sorry.


But Beck did make some good points about the media and trust. Why did all the news broadcasts make us think something was really going on with the birds? Why do newspapers seem to have contradictory reports about the economy on the same front page? Why can’t they just tell us what’s going on? Maybe Beck’s right. Maybe we can’t trust out newspapers and news shows. Maybe we need some other source. But what could it be? Where could it be?


I guess we’ll never know.

Elizabeth Edwards Left Husband John Out Of Her Will

Just desserts:

A week before her death, Elizabeth Edwards filed a will.


She lists her worldly possessions – "furniture, furnishings, household goods, jewelry, china, silverware and personal effects and any automobiles" – and says it'll all be divided among her three children.


Absent in the document dated Dec. 1 was any mention of her estranged husband John Edwards, 57, although he is still living in their home.


John admitted he had an affair in 2006 while Elizabeth's breast cancer was in remission and that he had fathered a child.


Elizabeth, who lost her cancer battle at age 61 on Dec. 7, posted a Facebook note to her followers the day before she died.


"I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope," she wrote. "These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined. The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that."

Bill O'Reilly to Interview Obama for Fox Super Bowl Pre-game

The Left doesn't hate FOX News because it's an "arm of the GOP", they hate FOX because it's the only cable news outfit that really does presents a 'fair & balanced' picture of the news and thus, blows away the competition night in and night out. Despite his radically-leftwing leanings Barry knows this too and that's why he sits down with Bill O'Reilly despite the predictable response coming from his base:

The pro football playoffs begin this weekend, but Fox Sports is already making sure there'll be solid television ratings no matter what teams makes it to the Super Bowl on Feb. 6.


That's because conservative Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly will be interviewing President Obama during the pre-game show, the White House confirmed yesterday.


When other networks broadcast the game in Obama's first two years in office, NBC had host Matt Lauer (2009) conduct the sit-down, while Katie Couric handled it last year for CBS.


O'Reilly , who interviewed Obama during the 2009 presidential campaign believes he gave Obama the toughest interview of anyone during that election. Unclear whether he'll be that tough this time around.

Speaker Boehner: “The State Of Hawaii Has Said President Obama Was Born There. That’s Good Enough For Me”

By speaking up and making it clear where he stands on this Birther nonsense, Speaker Boehner shows that he's steering the GOP in the right direction:

In his first interview since being sworn in as Speaker of the House, John Boehner makes it clear he has no questions about President Obama’s birth, saying “the State of Hawaii has said President Obama was born there. That’s good enough for me.”


In the exclusive interview with NBC’s Brian Williams–set to air tonight on NBC Nightly News–Boehner does not say he’ll tell members of Congress to simply put the matter of the president’s birth aside:


WILLIAMS: I’m curious as to how much responsibility you feel specifically because of something that happened this morning. During the reading of the Constitution, Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey was reading a portion of the document, interrupted by someone who heckled from within the chamber. It was to express doubt over the President’s American citizenship. Provided you believe the President is an American citizen, you’ve got 12 members co-sponsoring legislation that does about the same thing, it expresses doubt. Would you be willing to say, “This is a distraction, I’ve looked at it to my satisfaction. Let’s move on.”


BOEHNER: The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That’s good enough for me.


WILLIAMS: Would you be willing to say that message to the 12 members in your caucus who seem to either believe otherwise or are willing to express doubt and have co-sponsored legislation?


BOEHNER: Brian, when you come to the Congress of the United States, there are 435 of us. We’re nothing more than a slice of America. People come, regardless of party labels, they come with all kinds of beliefs and ideas. It’s the melting pot of America. It’s not up to me to tell them what to think.

John Boehner Assumes Speaker's Gavel

Bipartisanship, it's what the American people want and deserve (btw, you just know Nancy didn't like getting off that damn stage).

Source

Robert Gibbs Resigns

Hard to get away with being so smug, snarky and condescending when the GOP's got some say in matters, so Gibbs takes the coward's way out:

Robert Gibbs is resigning from his role as President Obama's official spokesman in order to speak more effectively for Obama.


"The best service I can provide this president is, for the next couple of years, outside this building," said Gibbs, who announced Wednesday that he would leave his press secretary job in early February. He will then hit the lucrative speaking circuit and become a paid consultant to the Obama reelection campaign.


The resignation of Gibbs is further evidence that the 2012 presidential campaign has already begun and that Obama, who lacks the numerous surrogates of past presidents, needs to deploy Gibbs to the front lines of the public debate. Gibbs will be unchained from the government salary and decorum expected from the press room podium, especially in a White House that has an officially stated disdain for partisan politics. Obama's longtime attack dog can finally bare his teeth.


Gibbs's move also exposes the shortcomings of the room he is leaving, and the decreased political significance of a podium-bound official voice in a raucous virtual age.


On Wednesday afternoon, around the time Republicans exuberantly took over the House, Gibbs arrived at his daily briefing in a charcoal pinstriped suit and blue pastel tie dotted with commas - an appropriate pattern for the famously long-winded spokesman.

Arianna Huffington Facing Legal Battle Over Huffington Post's Origins

Well it's not like her integrity shouldn't already be questioned considering how she's a former conservative once married to a Republican congressman and all, but hey:

When two Democratic political consultants accused Arianna Huffington, in a lawsuit, of cheating them out of credit for their role in launching the Huffington Post, her ultra-dismissive response was meant to imply their claims were based on nothing more than envy. An investigation in the new issue of Vanity Fair suggests that the consultants’ case is not quite as frivolous as Huffington would have you believe — but it also raises new questions about the plaintiffs’ motivation.


The two men, Peter Daou and James Boyce, present some compelling evidence that Huffington’s well-polished account of how Huffpo was conceived — supposedly at a Dec. 3, 2004 gathering of liberal luminaries she’d convened — is, at best, only part of the truth. In fact, in the weeks before that conclave, Daou and Boyce had already pitched Huffington on their idea for a progressive version of the Drudge Report, and she’d responded by looping in Ken Lerer, her eventual Huffpo co-founder. In the days following the Dec. 3 meeting, Daou, Boyce, Huffington and Lerer fleshed out the idea in in-person meetings and email conversations. By Dec. 20, the site had a name (rejected possibilities included “Arianna Says” and “Arianna’s On Fire”), and Daou and Boyce had been instructed to draw up a “refined blueprint and strategic plan” with a promise of six months’ worth of funding. Only after that did Huffington and Lerer cut ties. Six months later, the Huffington Post went live.


In other words, Huffington and Lerer, at a minimum, seriously considered working with Daou and Boyce on something that, in rough outline, resembles the Huffington Post. That much is clear. What’s far from clear is why the two consultants waited six years to claim what they now say is their due. Asked about the Vanity Fair story, a Huffpo spokesman, Mario Ruiz, pointed to the six-year delay as proof of the lawsuit’s weakness:


As we’ve said before, it defies reason and human nature, if they really believed they had created the Huffington Post, that they would wait six years before speaking up. At some point over the last 72 months, they would have contacted us to complain or asked us to credit them somewhere on the site or insisted on getting stock. Something. Anything! But they didn’t, because they know that they have absolutely no claim to ownership.


(Ruiz also said the article “takes apart Boyce and Daou’s case piece by piece, leaving it in tatters.” Read it yourself and draw your own conclusions, I say.)


Daou and Boyce say they had business relationships that prevented them from going public with their beef when they would have liked to. You have to wonder what happened to those business relationships; after all, Huffington is far more of a force in Democratic politics now than she was in 2005.

Bill O’Reilly Debates Legitimacy Of Religion With Avowed Atheist

Mediaite.com:

If you want a surefire way to get under Bill O’Reilly’s skin, make a public display of denouncing religion. David Silverman is president of American Atheists, a group behind two such public displays O’Reilly denounced on tonight’s Factor – then welcomed Silverman onto the program for a debate. You can take a stab at how it went.


“How it went” was two guys with completely incompatible, but rigid, worldviews – neither of which was about to change a bit, despite the other’s conviction. O’Reilly contended the signs from Silverman’s group – one of which pronounced all religions “scams.” Silverman viewed it as merely speaking the truth. O’Reilly thought the word “scam” implied he was a moron for believing in it. Silverman didn’t. Silverman even contended that deep down, O’Reilly must know his beliefs aren’t the real deal:


“You sit here and you’re skeptical every day, and then you go to church and you get on your knees and you pray to an invisible man in the sky – and you don’t think that’s a scam?”


O’Reilly had a point when he disputed Silverman’s position that his views on religion constitute statements of belief, not fact. Silverman had a point when he said O’Reilly insulted him with the line:


“If you think that people go into church and they know that this is a scam and they write money to it – if you believe that, you’re a loon.”


O’Reilly defended himself by noting he only said Silverman would be a loon if he believed that…but Silverman had just finished saying that’s what he believes. Overall, though, despite the rampant disagreement and some snark from both parties, there wasn’t much rancor, and the two produced a fun (if not especially enlightening, beyond showing just how strong beliefs on either side of an issue can be) segment.

Darrell Issa, House GOP Preparing Major Investigations of Obama Administration

Using signing statements to bypass Congress, a radically-liberal agenda that put Obamacare before jobs, quadrupling the debt, tax cheats in his handpicked cabinet, no response to WikiLeaks, the list goes on and on....but investigate The One?!? How dare they!

President Barack Obama and the Democrats will face a newly invigorated House Republican leadership this week with sweeping plans for congressional investigations into a wide range of issues.


Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who will become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when the 112th Congress is sworn in Wednesday, told The Washington Post he plans to lead six major investigations in the first three months of the year. That will call for a grueling schedule, since congressional investigations often take months to bear fruit.


On Issa’s list:


• WikiLeaks' release of classified diplomatic cables
• Recalls at the Food and Drug Administration
• The role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis
• The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's failure to identify the origins of the meltdown
• Alleged corruption in Afghanistan.


Issa is sure to make waves, because he’ll have subpoena power to compel officials to appear before his committee. Among the administration officials he’ll be questioning soon is national security adviser Tom Donilon. Issa specifically wants to know whether the administration has a strategy to stop the dissemination of sensitive information on sites such asWikiLeaks.

Cornelius Dupree Jr.: Another Innocent Black Man Freed From Prison

This just happens way too often: innocent black men serving long stretches of time in prison, getting released from jail thanks to DNA testing. Robbed of their freedom, family and friends for years and yet they don't near the amount of attention as say another missing white girl does. There's a lot of real racism still going on in America and the blatant ignorance surrounding it is disgusting:

A Texas man had his conviction overturned Tuesday, 30 years after being imprisoned on rape and robbery charges, and after having spent more time behind bars than any other inmate in the state later exonerated by DNA evidence.


DNA tests proved Cornelius Dupree Jr. could not have committed the crime and on Tuesday Dallas County Judge Don Adams made it official and overturned his conviction.


"It's a joy to be free again," Dupree said after the court ruling.


Dupree has served more years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit than anyone else in the state who was later exonerated by DNA evidence. Only two other people exonerated by DNA have spent more time in prison in the entire country, the Innocence Project said. Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted prisoners because of DNA testing since 2001, more than any other state.


The judge's decision followed comments from Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins who said the DNA testing shows Dupree "did not commit this crime."


"Cornelius Dupree spent the prime of his life behind bars because of mistaken identification that probably would have been avoided if the best practices now used in Dallas had been employed,” Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said in a press release. "Let us never forget that, as in the heartbreaking case of Cornelius Dupree, a staggering 75% of wrongful convictions of people later cleared by DNA evidence resulted from misidentifications.”


Dupree was paroled six months ago after DNA tests results came back and was declared innocent on Monday, the Innocence Project said. Now, the 51-year-old man's record has officially been wiped clean by a judge.

Check out the Innocence Project, they're doing great things.

How Christine O'Donnell Brought Down The Delaware GOP:

Charles Krauthammer, in stating why he supported Mike Castle instead of Christine O'Donnell in the Delaware Republican primary contest last November, made a point that most Americans would probably refer to as pure and utter common sense: “always support the... most conservative candidate who was electable.” But to far-Right bullies like Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity, et al, either you're all-in or you just don't get to play:

The FBI is investigating whether Christine O’Donnell misused campaign funds during her Senate run. While we wait to find out whether she’s guilty on that count, we already know that she is guilty in another way: for destroying and cannibalizing the Republican Party in Delaware. Despite the media’s continuing fascination with O’Donnell (to the point where even Chris Coons is still asked about her) less attention has been paid to O’Donnell’s negative effect on the down-ticket races in Delaware, or to the fact that the damage she did will last for several election cycles. There has also been no attempt to hold accountable the conservative media figures who endorsed O’Donnell.

O’Donnell had a consistently negative effect on the close down-ticket races in Delaware. Republican Party officials in the state who spoke to FrumForum on and off the record expressed great frustration with the damage she caused. O’Donnell did this in several different ways. She cost the GOP several candidates in the Delaware State House, giving the Democrats a super-majority. She hurt the campaign for the Republican nominee for State Treasurer. She boosted a Democratic party which has been growing stronger in the state, and solidified in the minds of many voters the view that the Republican party was an atavistic and unserious party, which the mainstream had rejected. In a year when Republicans had a wave to take advantage of and the opportunity to grow across the entire country, O’Donnell failed her party and brought it down.

The election results show several close Delaware State House races where Democrats won by incredibly small margins. Not only were the percentages that separated these races very small, they were also small in absolute terms. The closeness of these races speaks to the success of the Democrats’ get out the vote efforts, which were driven largely by motivating voters against O’Donnell.

There were seven State House races where the Democrat won by less than than 1,000 votes. In three of those races, the Republican candidate had been recruited to take on a Democratic incumbent. The power of incumbency is hard to defeat in any election cycle, and a wave election is a rare chance to counter it.  Yet in the races for the 6th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 18th, 32nd, and 41st districts, the GOP candidate lost. The vote margins were very small: 407, 282, 734, 879, 438, 296, and 939 votes respectively.  (The race for the 7th was also close, decided by 1,364 votes.)

Many of the candidates who were recruited to run in this cycle did so with the expectation that Mike Castle would be on the top of the ticket. Not only did the Republicans have a weak candidate on the top of the ticket, Democrats (and independents) were given more motivation to vote against O’Donnell and the entire GOP ticket. Neither Chris Coons nor any of the other Democrats on the ticket were considered exceptionally inspiring among the Democrats. One Republican told FrumForum: “There really was no motivation for Democrats to vote in this election until the O’Donnell thing happened.”

In a year when Republicans made gains in state legislatures across the country, the Republican caucus in Delaware’s State House got smaller, going from 17 Republicans to 15. This has given the Democrats a super-majority in the State House. They can now write revenue related bills without the Republicans if they choose.

In addition to the lost opportunities in the House races, Republicans in Delaware also expressed frustration with the results in the State Treasurer race. The Republicans had nominated State Senator Colin Bonini and he lost to Democrat Chip Flowers Jr. 51% to 49%. Everyone that FrumForum spoke to described Bonini as a candidate who was significantly more conservative than Mike Castle, a candidate who would have likely appealed to Tea Party voters. By losing his State Treasurer election, the Democrats not only won another close race, they also gained an important long-term advantage for candidate cultivation.

Many of Delaware’s highest ranking politicians have previously held the State Treasurer position. Some notable previous holders of that spot include current Democratic Senator Tom Carper and current Democratic Governor Jack Markell. With Delaware’s Senate and House seats both going into the Democratic column, being able to get a Republican into the State Treasurer position was critical for cultivating a conservative candidate who could be competitive in future election cycles.

As a candidate, Bonini clearly had appeal beyond just the conservative base. Bonini and every other Republican running in statewide races managed to get more votes than Christine O’Donnell. This was not enough to overcome the Democrats get out the vote effort though which was sustained by opposition to O’Donnell and led many to vote for Chris Coons and other Democratic candidates on down-ticket races.

In addition to the lost opportunities in 2010, O’Donnell’s run caused damage that will last beyond the midterms. The Republican brand within Delaware has gone from just being unpopular to being toxic.

Republicans who spoke to FrumForum described the Republican party meetings that are attended mainly by senior citizens, as well as Tea Partiers who view college degree holders with disdain. In this environment, professionals and businessmen in Delaware are finding the Democrats to be the more appealing option. One person bluntly stated that the Democrats figured out how to win in Delaware simply by nominating candidates “who are not crazy left-wingers.”

George Will Definitively Declares Sarah Palin “Cannot Be Elected President”

It's what the Left can't stand to hear: a prominent conservative pundit openly spewing on the reality that Sarah Palin is unelectable:

We’re now less than two years away from the next presidential election, which means it’s time for 2012 presidential speculation to begin! The first This Week of the year kicked off the talk with some of the biggest names on the Republican side, and George Will seems to have found through the litany of names what he called “the President’s secret weapon”: Sarah Palin’s inability to be elected.


Asked by Jake Tapper (filling in for Christiane Amanpour) to evaluate the Republican landscape for November 2012, Will began by addressing the fact that Mike Huckabee had performed particularly well in the primaries in 2008– better than Mitt Romney– and then added this salacious tidbit of speculation:


“The President’s secret weapon may be the Republican nominating electorate… There is one person, high in the polls, Sarah Palin, who cannot be elected president because she cannot compete where elections are decided. In the collar counties outside Chicago, Montgomery County outside of Philadelphia– just can’t compete there.”


He went on give some predictions based on the fact that nominees, he explained, tend to win the majority of electoral votes in the Mississippi Valley– giving Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. John Thune, and the suddenly-popular Gov. Mitch Daniels a leg up in that area.

Politiks As Usual: In The News 1/3/11

House GOP Plans Two-Pronged Assault On Health Law

Navy To Investigate Lewd Videos Shown On Carrier

Iranian Woman Sentenced To Death Says She Will Sue German Journalists

A New Coalition Of Black Churches Offers Nothing New

MTV To Air Abortion Special, Media Yawn

Society of Professional Journalists Questioning 'Illegal Immigrant' As An 'Offensive' Term (UPDATED)

Planned Parenthood Launches 'Social Change Initiative' To Parents

NYT: There's No Way To Reduce Deficit And Grow Economy Without Raising Taxes

Obama Signs Health Bill For Sept. 11 Responders

When Leftists Rage Against "Them"

What The Chicago Mayor's Race Says About Black America

Obama Has Nearly Doubled George W. Bush's Golf Rounds

Progolftalk.com:

Just days after 9/11, President George W. Bush was filmed golfing. He spoke briefly with the press about Israeli security and ousting terrorists, then infamously said, “Now watch this drive.” Since then, progressive critics railed on President Bush for his golf habit until he gave up the game for the remainder of his presidency in 2003, saying:


“I don’t want to some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf… And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”


With American forces still in Iraq and Afghanistan, a stalled economy, and a host of other issues, Barack Obama is playing even more golf than the last Commander in Chief.


On Thursday, President Obama played his 56th (or maybe 57th) round of golf since becoming President. In his two years of golf over two terms, President Bush played 32 times. That has not only drawn criticism from political reporters and enemies, but also from people in the golf world.


John Kim, coordinating producer for PGA.com and friend, spoke on Twitter about Obama’s statline.


“Obama golfs more than a PGA producer?!,” Kim asked.


He continued, saying, “[T]he old adage is: those who work in golf never get to play. Guess I need to run for President to hit the links!”

Tim Kaine: No Serious 2012 Primary Clallenge Senn To Obama

Newsmax.com:

The national Democratic Party chairman in the United States says he thinks the chances that President Barack Obama will face a serious primary challenger in 2012 are "virtually nil."


Tim Kaine says there's always the possibility that a fringe candidate could try to mount a challenge. But Kaine says Democrats feel very good about Obama's re-election prospects if, as Kaine puts it, the president keeps doing the job that people elected him to do.


Kaine also told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that he expects to continue as party chairman for another two-year term.

Besides Billary is there anyone who could seriously take on Barry? Hmmm...Pelosi?

Rep.-Elect Allen West Reaffirms On Fox: Liberal Agenda Is Tyrannical, Socialist And Despicable

Wow, I think I've found my newest, favorite congressman:

Representative-elect Allen West from Florida appeared on Fox News Sunday and host Chris Wallace offered him an opportunity to back away from his past comments where he called the Democratic agenda a “left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine.” Instead, West chose to double-down reaffirming his belief that the government for the past two years has in fact been, “tyrannical, socialist, despicable,” because so much of the country’s production has been nationalized.


Wallace was perplexed and wondered if it was really as bad as West described it. Yet West seemed perfectly comfortable with his assessment. Welcome to Congress Mr. West, it looks like you’ll be a fun source of many many more controversial comments to come in the new year.