Year: 2012
Wisconsin Dems Seek Accountability for ALEC – the American Legislative Exchange Council – and its Corporatist Agenda
Earlier this week on Current TV’s “The War Room,” host Jennifer Granholm interviewed a Wisconsin legislator who is sponsoring legislation that would hold the American Legislative Exchange Council accountable to voters for the first time:
Good Question, Breitbart
“Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death?”
— Andrew Bretibart, responding on Twitter to conservatives and others who criticized his tweets immediately after the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy. In the tweets, Breitbart called Kennedy, a “big ass motherf@#$er,” a “prick,” and a “special pile of human excrement.”
Andrew Breitbart Dead at 43 – Coroner Says Death Due to ‘Unexpected Natural Causes’
Jeez, we hate to speak ill of the dead — even when the newly deceased was an infamous right-wing racist provocateur who worked relentlessly to destroy the American democratic republic and replace it with a corporate plutocracy — so here are the few facts that are known now:
According to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, Andrew Breitbart died “unexpectedly from natural causes” shortly after midnight at the UCLA Medical Center last night. He was 43.
Apocalypse Redux: Romney Did Not Win Michigan – Tied with Santorum in Delegate Count
Headlines early yesterday suggested that Mitt Romney had avoided an apocalypse by winning the primary in Michigan, the state where he was born and where his father was governor. But by the end of the day, the official count produced a different verdict.
Support for Marriage Equality Rises to 59% in California, an 11 Point Increase from Prop 8 Vote Four Years Ago
A new survey from the Field Poll — the gold standard for polling in California — finds that approval of gay marriage has risen to 59 percent. This is a 6.7 point increase from 2009, when support in the same poll was 52.3 percent.
Disapproval has dropped to 34 percent, from 47.7 percent three years ago.
The new numbers also suggest an even more dramatic, double-digit increase in support from just four years ago, when voters passed Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to rescind marriage rights for gays.
Romney, the Financial Genius, Gets Less Bang for His Buck than Santorum
$10.40
What the Mitt Romney campaign and his PAC, Restore Our Future, paid for each vote cast for their guy in Michigan, according to Electablog. Romney’s funding sources poured a total of $4.27 million into the state, while Rick Santorum’s supporters spent $2.27 million, or about $6 per vote. Nine out of ten Romney ads were negative, but they netted him 32,393 more votes than Santorum, or 3%.
Declaration of Independence: More Maine Voters are Undeclared Than Members of Any One Party
335,154
Number of voters in Maine, where Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) announced she will not seek another term, who are registered to vote but are “undeclared” for any party. An additional 294,586 are registered as Democrats, 256,520 as Republicans, and 31,064 are members of the Green party. Snowe was facing a tea party challenger in the Republican primary.
How to Talk to Republicans: Dem Gov. O’Malley Excoriates Gov. ‘Vaginal Probe’ McDonnell – in His Face
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
In this segment from Friday’s “Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, Maddow marvels at the abrupt change in fortunes of Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, a tea-party rock star who until recently was on the Beltway punditocracy’s short list for the GOP vice presidential nomination. That prospect has become unlikely in light of the central role McDonnell has played in passing legislation that would require state-enforced vaginal probes of women seeking abortions in Virginia.
You should watch the whole segment, but if you only have a few seconds, fast-forward to about minute 4:00. There you will witness a rare moment in which a Democrat — Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland — pummels an elected tea party Republican, mano a mano, about the bait and switch his faction pulled on independent voters in 2010, when they campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs and the economy but, once elected, governed on anti-women, anti-gay, anti-middle class, pro one-percenter agendas.
The full transcript of the RMS segment follows, but here is the excerpt of O’Malley’s statement:
