In my previous job I worked monitoring the Congressional Elections, and I was pretty accurate at calling them. Back then though I was actually meeting with the candidates and getting briefings, reading local papers etc. Nowadays I don’t really have time to do that.
There are a few sources you can look at to see how the elections are shaping up. Today I wanted to share one, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Now, I used to be an acolyte of Sabato’s, until he injected himself into the Virginia Senate race a few years back. See, if you are objective, you aren’t actually supposed to be part of the story, only reporting it. None-the-less, while I no longer admire or respect him in that regard, his prognostications have proven to be among the most accurate year after year.
His current prognosis for 2012: GOP +7 Senate, +27 House, +7 Governors.
If I had to guess today I would put it more like GOP +5 Senate, +35 House, +7 Governors. I think some of the Senators may walk out okay, but I think the House is going to take a drubbing. Anyway, after the jump I am including the chart for the Senate as well. Pay special note to the New Mexico 3rd District, which you won’t find, because it is safe Democrat. Not that Adam has a chance of winning the primary anyway, but even if he did he would still get beat like a klansman at the Hop Hop Music Awards.
Nice of you to join the reality based community now that you have no viewers. From CNN’s Shannon Travis:
Here’s what you often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: offensive posters blasting President Obama and Democratic leaders; racist rhetoric spewed from what seems to be a largely white, male audience; and angry protesters rallying around the Constitution….
But here’s what you don’t often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: Patriotic signs professing a love for country; mothers and fathers with their children; African-Americans proudly participating; and senior citizens bopping to a hip-hop rapper.
Last week, I saw all of this during a five-city Western swing as the Tea Party Express national tour made its way across the country. CNN was along for the ride, and I was charged with planning CNN’s coverage for five stops in two states: St. George, Provo and Salt Lake City, Utah; and Grand Junction and Denver, Colorado.
This latest Tea Party caravan kicked off on March 27 in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada. It is scheduled to make 45 stops before rolling into Washington on April 15, not so coincidentally on “Tax Day.”
Together, we beamed out images of the anger and the optimism, profiled African-Americans who are proud to be in the Tea Party’s minority and showed activists stirred by “God Bless America” or amused by a young rapper who strung together rhymes against the president and Democrats.
The CNN Express traveled with the Tea Party Express buses for hundreds of miles, from rally to rally to rally.
Being at a Tea Party rally is not quite like seeing it on TV, in newspapers or online. That’s the reason CNN is covering this political movement — and doing so in ways few others can or choose to do.
It is important to show the colorful anger Americans might have against elected leaders and Washington. But people should also see the orange-vested Tea Party hospitality handlers who welcome you with colorful smiles.
There were a few signs that could be seen as offensive to African-Americans. But by and large, no one I spoke with or I heard from on stage said anything that was approaching racist.
Almost everyone I met was welcoming to this African-American television news producer.
And though speakers railed against the “lame-stream media,” activists and their leaders praised CNN, especially for being the only national media outlet riding along for the post-weekend stops. Some of them e-mailed me after my trip, thanking our crew for fairly giving them a voice.
Let me be the first to say: No shit.
You guys would have seen this all along if you hadn’t been so openly antagonistic. I won’t go to a tea party event only because I live under a bridge and hate crowds, but even I knew that an open-minded person would find just this type of reception at these events. I have news for you, contrary to being a bunch of kooks, the Tea Partiers are nothing more or less than your neighbors.
I went to bed last night up by 10 votes, thinking TAH was the shi’ite, and woke up this morning with Matty O’Blackfive drinking my coffee, beating my dog, and Caro serving him stacks of waffles. I hereby surrender to the paratrooper of love, who beat us quicker than Rosie O’Donnell beat anorexia. Us trying to beat Blackfive is like David Carrdine trying top beat suffocation…like IVAW trying to beat their glue sniffing addiction.
However, I want to congratulate them on their win, because let’s be honest, Blackfive is the BEST there is, and they’ve been very good friends to us. However, at next year’s milbloggies, if we win I am wearing this with a black tie:
OK, let’s start with their new video, much like their video before that, and the video before that…
OK, IED’s are bad, Check.
Purple Hearts, bad, Check.
EFP’s, REAL BAD, Check.
Made in Iran, Check.
Oil goes up $1, Iran gets $1.5 Billion. I don’t know, but am willing to accept as fact, so Check.
Oil and Enemy, Check.
Break that connection by breaking addiction (to FOREIGN oil) Check.
Answer: Clean energy bill. (WHAT????) Will cut our dependence in half. (Where you getting that?)
You know what would cut our dependence all the way down? Using Chariots.
JON SOLTZ, VOTEVETS.ORG: Absolutely, it‘s accurate, Ed. We wouldn‘t put anything out that isn‘t. The United States is the largest oil consumption country in the world. We buy oil through—basically what happens when we buy the oil is it‘s driving the price up. If we cut our production in oil, which the House legislation did, then we lower the price of oil across the board. And then that hurts countries like Iran.
Try to noodle that one through. If we drop supply, the cost will go down. Someone show me that on a supply and demand curve. Go ahead Macro-economists, show me the logic of that statement. If we dump our supply, how the F does the amount of gross funds spent on international oil go down? This can’t possibly be accurate. The only way to lower the cost (and gross proceeds) would be to either a) lower DEMAND, or b) use our own oil to offset the loss of oil imported.
If your family eats 15 bushels of apples every year, and you have 5 trees, how the Fug does chopping down your trees help lower the cost of apples?
Every day VoteVets puts up another poll about Gays in the Military. To them on this issue, the proof is in the polls. OK, fine, reconcile your position with this poll:
Voters support offshore oil drilling more than ever, and most don’t agree with President Obama’s decision to limit where that drilling can be done.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 72% of U.S. voters believe offshore oil drilling should be allowed. Just 12% disagree and oppose such drilling, with another 16% who aren’t sure. This is the highest level of support for drilling found in nearly three years of surveying.
Wind power, solar power, electricity….all good ideas, but none of them is a panacea. And this bill you are pushing will only result in increased costs for oil, which will drive up the cost of every single commodity in the country. And the disparity between the wealthy and the poor will grow. But of course, that is what nanny state supporters VoteVets want, on behalf of their overlords. Mind you, none of this shit helps John Q. Public. Your Ikea furniture, your snuggies, your shake weights, they don’t magically appear on the shelves. And few people ride a big wheel to the store. All those costs go up Jon. And you know who takes it in the shorts for that? Everyone. From the part time employees who will no longer be needed, to the producers of those products on down.
The answer is simple, look at the supply and demand curves, and the sources of the supply. If you want to lower the amount of funds exported to foreign nations, you need to raise the supply produced domestically.
Power plants make electricity out of other forms of energy. Most electricity in the U.S. today comes from converting the heat energy released from burning fossil fuels–coal, natural gas and oil.
So, let’s engage in some VoteVetsian Logic. VoteVets supports Electricity, Electricity is made from Coal, some veterans are miners, Miners die in Coal Mine cave-ins and explosions, VoteVets supports killing Veterans.
Classless and baseless allegation? Your damn right it is, just like every other posting of yours about how the right wants to kill people.
UPDATE: BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Right after I posted this, VoteVets dicksmith put up a poll that they did with lefty pollster Celinda Lake. I hurt my back pretty bad this weekend, so am going home to rest, but I will entirely fisk this piece of shit poll in the near future. If you get a chance, go read the sample and look at the poll questions. It is essentially a push poll, even leading the answers with statements in the question like: Now let me read you some things that some people believe will happen if comprehensive clean energy and climate reform is passed.
Absolutely ridiculous. And check this out:
Telephone numbers for the sample were generated randomly from a military sample and a radius sample drawn from military bases in the United States.
Pray tell how that “military sample” was generated….wasn’t from VoteVets members by any chance was it?
I’ve talked before about my great respect and admiration for Medal of Honor Recipient Peter Lemon. In fact, Mr Lemon was once gracious enough to comment here on a thread. Anyway, as I noted in that first post
The reason I became more interested in his story than in others though is that we’ve been running all these stories about American cowards who have been running away from their voluntary commitment to the Armed Forces, and fleeing to Canada. Well, near as I have been able to determine, Mr Lemon represents the sole living Canadian MoH recipient. Or rather, he was a Canadian. Who knows, since he never once seems to mention Canada anywhere on his website, but rather talks about all the things he has done for this, his adopted country. Somehow I actually feel bad for Canada, they send us Hockey Players and heroes, and we send them cowards and polar bear researchers. That’s a pretty serious trade deficit.
Mr Lemon was recently named an “Oustanding American” by President Obama, and is currently working on a book regarding laughter, and he needs your help:
I’m requesting your help with my new book project. It’s a motivational book using laughter pictures. I need your best laughter photos of family and friends: moms, dads, children, grandkids, grandparents, cousins, college & high school buddies, team members, gatherings, sports enthusiasts, etc.
Please make the exception this one time and forward this email to all your contacts, family, friends, associates and face-book partners. With your help today we can reach folks around the world.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Lemon (then Sp4c.), Company E, distinguished himself while serving as an assistant machine gunner during the defense of Fire Support Base Illingworth. When the base came under heavy enemy attack, Sgt. Lemon engaged a numerically superior enemy with machine gun and rifle fire from his defensive position until both weapons malfunctioned. He then used hand grenades to fend off the intensified enemy attack launched in his direction. After eliminating all but 1 of the enemy soldiers in the immediate vicinity, he pursued and disposed of the remaining soldier in hand-to-hand combat. Despite fragment wounds from an exploding grenade, Sgt. Lemon regained his position, carried a more seriously wounded comrade to an aid station, and, as he returned, was wounded a second time by enemy fire. Disregarding his personal injuries, he moved to his position through a hail of small arms and grenade fire. Sgt. Lemon immediately realized that the defensive sector was in danger of being overrun by the enemy and unhesitatingly assaulted the enemy soldiers by throwing hand grenades and engaging in hand-to-hand combat. He was wounded yet a third time, but his determined efforts successfully drove the enemy from the position. Securing an operable machine gun, Sgt. Lemon stood atop an embankment fully exposed to enemy fire, and placed effective fire upon the enemy until he collapsed from his multiple wounds and exhaustion. After regaining consciousness at the aid station, he refused medical evacuation until his more seriously wounded comrades had been evacuated. Sgt. Lemon’s gallantry and extraordinary heroism, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the U.S. Army.
It looks like I may be spending some time with SGT Lemon at the Wounded Warrior Olympics in Colorado Springs next month, and would really love it if some of you helped him with his book.
Look, I said something the other day and got the shit beat out of me. I accept that. But, you know, you guys are really really unfair at times. And I am referring of course to your uncalled for comments about Matthis and MLK. When I first read Matthis’ diatribe, I finally felt that sense of deja vu set free, like it had been trapped in the back of my cerebrum or cerebellum or whatever it is. Anyway, when I read that, it was a total Eureka moment, at last, I knew who it was that Matthis reminded me of.
And to prove it, I intend to go through MLK’s Wiki page, and show you the similiarities. And shame on you bastards for the mean comments you made. May the Holiest of Holies have mercy on your blighted souls.
MLK: Married Coretta Scott, on June 18, 1953 in Heiberger, Alabama, was married 15 years.
MC: May have banged a 15 year old filipino prostitute, and then got more hookers in Heidelberg.
MLK: led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
MC: shared a cot with a boy on numerous occasions.
MLK: Gave the “I have a Dream” speech.
MC: Lost ability to speak once while having fantasies from hallucinogenic mushrooms.
MLK: Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Congressional Gold Medal in 2004, second in Gallup’s List of Widely Admired People in the 20th century, Time Person of the Year and in 2000, King was voted sixth in the Person of the Century poll by the same magazine King was elected third in the Greatest American contest conducted by the Discovery Channel and AOL.
MC: Army service ribbon, General discharge.
MLK: attended Booker T. Washington High School, entered Morehouse College at age fifteen without formally graduating from high school. In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. King then began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy on June 5, 1955, with a dissertation on “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.”
MC: Dropped out of school to be an indepandant pharmaceutical sales rep out in the woods. Falsified VA GI BIll documents to secure school payments.
MLK: Has a federal holiday in honor of him.
MC: Treats every day like a holiday.
There must be some of you that recognize how seamless this comparison is. I encourage you to add more in the comments section.
I can not stress this enough: THIS COMES WITH A NOT SAFE FOR WORK WARNING. This is Opie and Anthony with that little meaty-breasty zilch Jim Norton, therefore, NAUGHTY LANGUAGE. Just the same, it cheers me up to hear them goof on Olby.
