Day: October 21, 2010
Tell Clarence Thomas to Apologize
We relayed the story of how the deranged tea bagger wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas left a voice mail, out of the blue, for Brandeis University Prof. Anita Hill, asking her to first pray, then apologize for what Hill did WITH said deranged tea bagger wife’s husband.
Now Credo, the socially responsible phone carrier, is hosting a site with a petition asking that Thomas, not Hill, do some apologizing.
While we’re at it, can someone start a petition to add Anita Hill to the Supreme Court?
Twenty years ago, Professor Hill described how the now Supreme Court justice subjected her to descriptions of pornography he had watched, bragged about his own sexual prowess in graphic terms and famously reached for a soft drink in her office and remarked, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?”
Verbatim
I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.
— Former NPR and continuing FOX News commentator Juan Williams, explaining to Bill O’Reilly that he’s not racist, just nervous (in the words of comic Marc Maron). Williams was fired from NPR following his appearance on FOX’s The O’Reilly Factor.
FiveThiryEight Forecasts GOP Taking House 228-207 – Well Over 218 Required for Majority
Putting John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the rest back in charge really is like appointing arsonists as fire marshals. This will be a big win for Wall Street, megabanks, super PACs, foreign corporations, religious extremism — a giant leap backwards for the United States.
Analysis from Nate Silver here.
CA Gov: Ad Catches Whitman Repeating Schwarzenegger’s Talking Points Line By Line
Keep in mind that GOP Gov. Schwarzenegger’s approval rating is just 29 percent. Electing an amateur pol has proved to be a disaster for the state. Whitman, who is also a Republican, has tried to distance herself from him, but the way this ad irrevocably ties her to him is brilliant.
What Meg Whitman Bought with $140 Mil – Over-Exposure and Unpopularity
Whitman, after nearly 14 months of constant broadcast bombardment, may be overexposed in voters’ living rooms. Viewers may be muting her out. She’s also not particularly well liked. A Los Angeles Times/USC Poll last month found the voters’ impressions of her to be only 37 percent favorable, and 47 percent unfavorable. Voters were evenly divided over Brown.
– Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton
Poll: 62% of Californians Don’t Like GOP – Dem Brown Up By 8 in Gov Race, Sen. Boxer up by 5
Most striking, only 55 percent of registered Republicans have a favorable impression of the GOP; 39 percent look on it unfavorably. By contrast, 75 percent of Democrats are favorably impressed with their party.
A new poll from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California finds that Democrat Jerry Brown leads Republican Meg Whitman by eight points — 44 percent to 36 percent — and Sen. Barbara Boxer leads her GOP opponent by five points 43 percent to 38 percent.
The survey also found that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a 29 percent job approval.
Why are California Republicans trailing in a year when the GOP and its tea party base are said to be ascendant in the rest of the country? Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton suggests it is because they are Republicans:
