The right-wing noise machine wants people to think that McCain is some sort of maverick and that Obama is the most liberal Senator. However, VoteView objectively ranks Senators by an optimal classification method using all votes, and says otherwise. Here's how the Presidential candidates rank for the 110th (current) Senate.
110th Senate 10 (tie) Obama
20 (tie) Clinton
94 McCain
In fact, Obama does better than Clinton in every single one of those 7 polls. The more liberal candidate is the more electable one. The choice is obvious.
For each Republican candidate, I rank the Democrats by their margin of victory in the last Rasmussen poll. Edwards is the strongest, followed by Obama, and then Clinton.
The Republicans are working on getting a Proposition on the June 2008 that would award one electoral vote to the winner of each of California's 53 Congressional district, and 2 for the statewide winner. How would this effect California's competitiveness in Presidential elections?
Kerry won California by 9.95 points.
Kerry won 31 Congressional districts by an average of 33.88 points.
Bush won 22 Congressional districts by an average of 18.67 points.
The average Congressional district was won by 27.56 points.
As we can see, the average Congressional district is much less competitive than the state as a whole. A swing of 10 points to the Republicans would give the Republicans only 2 more Congressional districts, while it'd swing the winner of California. Of course, if the Democrat wasn't going to win California, they've already lost the election.
Bush would have gotten 22 electoral votes in 2004. 19 of these Congressional districts voted Republican by at least 11.3 points. Republicans can completely screw over California, and still get those 19 electoral votes.
I'll be interested in seeing how the Illinois netroots handles this. There's no reason that a pro-war, anti-abortion, and anti-stem cell research, carpetbagging beneficiary of gross nepotism should be representing this particular district.
As you can see from his Progressive Punch ratings, Lipinski is particularly bad on the issues of Family Planning, Human Rights & Civil Liberties, Justice for all, and Health Care.
Obviously we need to primary some Bush enablers, and Lipinski is bad on far more than just his support of Bush's wiretapping.
I think we need to inform Pelosi and Reid exactly what we think of their capitulation of the day program. It's so tough standing up to Mr. 25%.
Bush said that the terrorists attacked us because we're free. It looks like the Blue dogs joined the Republicans in working to change that. That'll show the terrorists.
Here we see that 70.6% of the money that the active duty troops gave to Presidential candidates in Q2 was to anti-war candidates (the Democrats + Ron Paul). Only 29.4% was to pro-war candidates (the other Republicans).
The House just voted 280-142 on the amendment to give Bush a blank check for the now bipartisan war.
Democrats were 86-140 against it
Republicans were 194-2 in favor of it.
Roll call
The original 2002 Iraq war resolution passed by a 296-133 margin.
However, there were fewer Democrats, and
Democrats were 81-126 against it
Republicans were 215-6 for it
Sanders voted against it
Roll call
In other words, Democrats aren't any more against the war than in 2002. Pathetic, just pathetic.
It was clear to anyone with a functioning brain that voting to allow Bush to warmonger back in October 2002 was a really stupid idea. There was the largest protest in world history against the Iraq war before it even started. Now, 4 years 4 months later, now that the war isn't so popular any more, the Democrats are offering some tepid criticisms of the war.
I demand that all Democrats immediately condemn a war on Iran. Now. Not 4 years ago when it stops polling so favorable. Now. We need to get a list of who has condemned this war, and kick the rest out of the party, primarying them if necessary. The Democrats failed to take a stand 4 years ago, and we're paying big time for that. They need to take a stand on Iran now, not in 2011.
If Congress votes to allow Bush to attack Iran, we must destroy what is left of the Democratic party. The Democrats need to stop taking us for granted.
Can someone make a list of the Presidential candidates' positions on Iran? We must destroy those who won't condemn this warmongering.
Sorted by net approval, the 3 most popular Senators, and 8 of the most popular 10 are Democrats. The North Dakota Senators are the most popular, followed by Obama.
Similarly the Republicans own the bottom of the list, with 10 of the 13 most unpopular. Burns gets burned by people polled.
Lieberman is 53-43 overall. Democrats disapprove 46-52, while Republicans approve 66-32. He's 49-44 amoung Independents.
Westly has been performing better than Angelides in general election matchups. In recent general election polls:
Westly beats Arnold by an average of 43.5-41
Arnold beats Angelides by an average of 43.5-42
Well, technically the people who said yes are right. If you neglect to look at the impact of long term borrowing on the economy, and just consider the impact of the tax cuts, you find that for instance, the 2003 Bush tax cuts helped the economy by 9 cents per dollar they cost. However, this is pretty awful, the same study found that extending unemployment benefits would have helped the economy by $1.73 per dollar it cost.
Now, lest you think that extending unemployment benefits is some sort of holy grail, spending on the University of California and AC Transit helps the economy by several dollars per dollar spent.
If you live in the East bay, next time you're waiting for an AC transit bus, and it never comes, you can thank Arnold for cutting the AC and UC budgets and Bush for not extending unemployment benefits, because we need to spend that dollar on Bush's tax cuts for the rich to help the economy by that 9 cents that Rasmussen is asking about.
In the October 8th, 2001 CBS poll, Bush had 90% approve, 5% disapprove.
In less than 55 months, Bush has gone from 5% disapproval to 65% disapproval. For some reason this election stealing bastard was once very popular, but he blew it.
An anonymous reader writes "Representative Lamar Smith is sponsoring the Intellectual Property Protection Act. The new bill is designed to give the Justice Department 'tools to combat IP crime' which which are used to 'quite frankly, fund terrorism activities,' according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Among the provisions is lowering the standards for 'willful copyright violation' and increasing the corresponding prison term to 10 years." More information is also available at publicknowledge.org.
As more opposition is growing to the Alito nomination, it's looking like there may be a chance of a fillibuster after all. Since the Republicans have threatened to do the "nuclear option" if that happens, let's examine that.
First we shall look at the proper way to change the Senate rules. From Senate Rule 22, we have
"Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?" And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn -- except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting -- then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.
