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05 Nov 2010 21:32

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Politics: Nancy Pelosi’s next House move, in historical perspective

  • 1998 Newt Gingrich steps down from his House leadership role after a particularly rough midterm; his party was still in the majority
  • 2006 Dennis Hastert leaves his House leadership role after his party lost the majority; he later left the House entirely without much fuss
  • 2010 Nancy Pelosi defies the logic set by previous House speakers and announces that she plans to run for House Minority Leader (oh boy) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 20:14

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Politics: Why MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann decision was a really bad idea

  • Keith Olbermann stepped in it when he donated to a political candidate. What happened next, though, was a really bad precedent for MSNBC that’ll prove more controversial than Olbermann’s original move was. While we don’t think Keith should’ve been donating to candidates immediately after talking to them on TV, we also think the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. It also opens NBC Universal up to double standards, especially if Gawker’s right, and MSNBC doesn’t actually have the standards that NBC News does. Some other points to come out of this whole mess:
  • one Even William Kristol, a conservative commentator who has no reason to support the ideologically opposed Olbermann, had his back, which was really nice of him.
  • two Salon offers up another relevant point: If CNBC were held to the same standards as Olbermann, most of their staff would have to be suspended. Oy vey. source
  • » Correction: An earlier version of this post noted The Nation’s Washington Editor, Chris L. Hayes, no longer doing a replacement MSNBC show because of campaign contributions of his own. This was based on a still-online Wall Street Journal article. Hayes himself denied the allegations: “OK: I’m not filling in on Countdown tonight because I didn’t feel comfortable doing it given the circumstances. My not hosting tonight has *nothing* to do with several donations I made to two friends *before* I ever signed an MSNBC contract.” Thanks to Ilya Gerner and Susan Pruden for tipping us off to this. (And for reading!)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 14:01

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Politics: MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann suspended for campaign donations

  • I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.
  • MSNBC President Phil Griffin • Announcing that Keith Olbermann has been suspended for donating to three political campaigns, one of which happened immediately after he interviewed the candidate (Raul Grijalva of Arizona) on the show. While Olbermann noted that he “did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level,” clearly that wasn’t enough for MSNBC. On Tumblr, me and Mark Coatney (formerly of Newsweek, now of Tumblr) had a little bit of a debate on all this, and while I didn’t come on Keith’s side here for ethical reasons, I honestly thought he was untouchable (and that it wasn’t bad enough to force MSNBC’s hand). Guess not. The mighty fall, too. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 11:52

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Politics: Republicans benefited from Democrats’ inaction on gay rights

  • 31% of gays went GOP, a big increase from 2008 source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 11:17

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Politics: Obvious from a mile away: Bob Etheridge’s career killed by dirty trick

  • lame A few months back, Rep. Bob Etheridge was caught on camera accosting some kid who had “a question” for him. Liberals suspected it was a dirty trick.
  • lamer This week, after all has been said and done and Etheridge lost his seat, Republican operatives basically admit it was a setup designed to make him lose. source
  • » Best part? His opponent who eventually beat him, Renee Ellmers, used the clip in an attack ad against him, but did not have any prior knowledge that it was a trick. Also, we’d like to note that we correctly called this back in June when one of our regular commenters got us into a huge flamewar over the whole incident. We almost forgot about that.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

05 Nov 2010 10:10

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Politics: Wash. Senate: Patty Murray learns something about tight margins

Used to winning by double digits, her victory yesterday was by a slim margin of tens of thousands of votes. Hello, 53rd Democrat! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Nov 2010 20:50

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Politics: John Boehner can’t get behind Mitch McConnell’s “one-term” pitch

  • That’s Senator McConnell’s statement and his opinion. I think the American people want us to focus on their message during the election: stop the spending, get rid of the uncertainty. Let’s get around to creating jobs again and staying focused on what the American people want us to focus on is my number one priority.
  • Likely Speaker of the House John Boehner • Offering a modestly disagreeable tone towards his Senate counterpart, who thinks that it’s best to stonewall the hell out of the Obama administration until they can get another Republican in the White House. (Screw that guy.) Anyway, Boehner doesn’t exactly have a lot nice to say about Obama right now. “There seems to be some denial on the part of the president and other Democratic leaders of the message that was sent by the American people,” he suggests. Perhaps. But what do you expect the guy to do, John, cower in a ball for the next two years like your brother Mitch? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

04 Nov 2010 20:13

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Politics: NPR cuts the crap, translates what the Federal Reserve wrote

  • So to give the economy a kick in the ass—and to pump up inflation a little bit—we decided to go on a shopping spree.
  • A reworded translation of a Federal Reserve statement • Trying to explain what the Federal Reserve really meant when it wrote the phrase “To promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to expand its holdings of securities.” See? This is much easier to read. NPR’s Planet Money used a storytelling tool called “Plain English,” created by Slate, to explain what the Federal Reserve really meant when it announced it was shoving $600 billion into the economy. Ah, jargon. What would we do without you? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Nov 2010 12:52

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Politics: Mitch McConnell: Partisanship or nothing at all. (Whatta jerk!)

  • Know who’s kind of a jerk? That’s right. Mitch McConnell. The Senate Minority Leader, who’s still the minority leader after Tuesday’s elections, isn’t looking to compromise with Obama on anything. He’s digging in his heels. “If our primary legislative goals,” he said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation Thursday, “are to repeal and replace the health spending bill, to end the bailouts, cut spending and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things.” Your primary role is to end gridlock and get things done, and to find ways to reach your goals while working within the system. Not to keep the system stagnant for two whole years until you get what you want. In fact, we’d argue that part of the reason you didn’t do better on Tuesday is because of the gridlock. Obama would be smart to not bend to this guy. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Nov 2010 22:28

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Politics: Post-midterms, Obama gets a big-up from the f-word

  • Obama’s been getting railed upon from all corners for a while now, but we have to admit that he seemed to handle his party’s lack of success yesterday fairly well today. He had a measured response to the questions he got at his press conference today, and didn’t get angry or testy at any point. Which for fans of the president is heartening. Also heartening is this site which has been all over our Facebook today. “What the fuck has Obama done so far?” A lot. A defensive measure so solid that you’d think that the site was produced by Obama’s staff, until you realize that the word “fuck” is right there in the URL. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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