A new Suffolk University poll in California shows Jerry Brown (D) with an eight point lead over Meg Whitman (R) in the race for governor, 50 percent to 42 percent.
In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) leads by nine points over Carly Fiorina (R), 52 percent to 43 percent…
A new Public Policy Polling survey also finds Boxer leading by a 52 percent to 43 percent margin and finds Brown leading 53 percent to 42 percent.
Less than a week after two incidents of tea bagger thuggery — a reporter in Alaska was arrested by private security goons hired by tea bagger U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller and, in Florida, a campaign tracker for Democratic Rep. Ron Klein was threatened and intimidated by volunteer leather-clad thugs working for tea bagger Allen West — a Rand Paul tea party supporter was caught on camera last night stomping on the head of Moveon.org activist outside the venue for a debate in the Kentucky U.S. Senate race between Paul and Democratic candidate Jack Conway:
WestOne of the oddest aspects of the 2010 midterms is how swing and right-leaning independent voters seem to be so willing to overlook troubling character flaws in fringe candidates, as long as the candidates repeat the tea party’s false narratives about bailouts, the Stimulus and the size of government.
There is no better example of this in the House races than in Florida’s 22nd District where voters appear set to replace Democratic Rep. Ron Klein with Allen West, a former U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who was relieved of command in Iraq and forced to retire after he pleaded guilty to assaulting a policeman in his custody.
“Frustration and anger overcame his professional ethics and personal values, and he performed what he knew to be illegal and immoral acts,” according to a statement issued by the Army’s Fourth Infantry Division. In other words, he popped off under pressure and tortured a prisoner — just the personality type we need in Congress.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s favorable rating versus the same rating in the same poll [PDF] for Rep. John Boehner. This represents a decline in Boehner’s favorability from last month, when it was 22 percent.
This man [Allen West]. Scary. Frightening. We wouldn’t have a Civil Rights Act. I saw those signs that said, “White Man,” “Colored Man,” “White Woman,” “Colored Woman.” Now we have someone who happens to be African American saying that black people, people of color, African Americans, were better off before the Civil Rights Act. You have a man who represents our dark past. He wants to take us back but we’re not going back. Run, crawl, make it to that ballot box and vote for Ron.
– Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga, campaigning for Ron Klein.
The first black members of the House and the Senate after during the Reconstruction period were Republicans and we’ve got to reconnect the Republican party back to the black community. Because on Sunday the most conservative people in the United States of America sit in black churches.
– Allen West, an African-American tea bagger running against Democratic Rep. Ron Klein in Florida’s 22nd House District. who is apparently oblivious to the fact that the Republican base is seething with hatred toward African Americans.
I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
Kamala Harris, Democrat for California Attorney GeneralResults from the latest Los Angeles Times poll suggest that the Democratic base — particularly women, Latinos and liberals — is coming home and ready to elect Jerry Brown governor and reelected Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, a Republican, holds a narrow lead over Democratic opponent Kamala Harris [@kamalaharris] in the contentious race for California attorney general, aided greatly by voter support on his usually Democratic home turf…
The survey showed that Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, has thus far failed to captivate the Democratic stronghold of Los Angeles County, home to one out of every four registered voters in California and a near must-win for any Democrat running statewide.
Cooley, a veteran prosecutor seen largely as a moderate Republican, has won three D.A. elections in Los Angeles County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost two to one.
In the survey, Cooley held a 42 percent-33 percent advantage over Harris among likely voters in the county. Statewide, he had a 40 percent-35 percent edge among likely voters, according to the survey.
The biggest remaining wild card in the race is a large pool of undecided voters; 17 percent of the likely voters still have not made up their minds, the poll found — a common occurrence in the “down ballot” races. In the governor’s race, by comparison, only 4 percent of likely voters were undecided, according to the poll.
What makes this alarming is not so much the fact that Cooley is a Republican as it is the company he keeps:
It doesn’t bother him that maintaining tax cuts for the top 2 percent of income earners would increase the deficit by $700 billion. In his world, deficit spending is bad if it saves middle class jobs but good if it covers tax cuts for the wealthy.
— St. Petersburg Times editorial titled, “Rubio’s Rigid Ideology,” which ends, “Rubio embraces an inflexible ideology, not practical solutions. The Republican leaves no room for compromise or consensus — and that is what is wrong with Washington.”
Bagman BoehnerYou have to wonder what the tea party rank and file would think about the fact that their own anti-bailout, anti-government candidates are taking donations that are, arguably, derived from the same taxpayer bailouts they despise.
It’s also a shame that swing voters who are ready to put the Republicans back in charge are not aware that those Republicans have not changed one iota in the four years since they were fired by the American electorate. They are still completely in the tank for the mega-corps that want to turn the clock back to the free-wheeling days of the Bush era — to the same unregulated system that led to the economic collapse and the Bush recession.
Here’s how the laundering of the bailout donations works. First, Speaker Wanna-Be John Boehner and the GOP take donations from bailed out corporations:
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
“The man is afraid of the voice of the people and that the people understand and know what he’s doing. He’s trying to stifle the ability of journalists to let the people of America know what’s really going on with their government.”
— “Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House ‘absolutely abhorrent,’” The Wrap reports.
“Not one of them is trained in technical skills. Not one research PhD, as opposed to China, where half the cabinet is science and technology PhDs. We’re led by grifters and fools.”
— Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, on X, on President Trump’s 35-person cabinet.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far… The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
— Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), breaking with President Trump in a direct-to-camera video.
“Donald Trump made over a thousand stock sales and purchases worth between $79m and $270m in July,” The Guardian reports. “His two largest sales were of Amazon and Microsoft stock, selling between $5m and $25m each on 20 July. That same day, he also sold up to $5m worth of Oracle and Costco stock, $500,000 to $1m in Nvidia, and bought up to $5m worth of shares in Intuit and Salesforce, among dozens of other transactions.”
“The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study,” the Associated Press reports.
A new Fox News Poll finds 71% of voters think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the Iran War, including 95% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 43% of Republicans. Sixty percent say U.S. military action against Iran was the wrong decision, while just 37% say it was right.
“The Trump administration last year spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave for federal workers as part of its plan to shrink the government and save taxpayers money, according to a new estimate by a congressional watchdog,” CNN reports.
Reuters has documented at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s leadership – from federal employees and prosecutors to universities and media outlets. The list illuminates the sweeping effort by the president and his administration to punish dissent and reshape the government.
