Never on Sunday? Not for the pundits!
NY Times "as glaciers melt...", for the climate change deniers:
Hanging out the sides of the craft, two scientists sent a measuring device plunging into the water, between ice floes. Near the bottom, it reported a temperature of 40 degrees. It was the latest in a string of troubling measurements showing that the water was warm enough to melt glaciers rapidly from below.
"That’s the highest we’ve seen this far up the fjord," said one of the scientists, Fiammetta Straneo.
Frank Rich:
To my mind, these [self-funding] losers deserve a salute nonetheless. They all had run businesses that actually created jobs (Raese included). They all wanted to enter public service to give back to the country that allowed them to prosper. And by losing so decisively, they gave us a ray of hope in dark times. Their defeats reminded us that despite much recent evidence to the contrary the inmates don’t always end up running the asylum of American politics.
When did "I know how to fire people" become "I know how to create jobs"? More...
The wealthy Americans we should worry about instead are the ones who implicitly won the election — those who take far more from America than they give back. They were not on the ballot, and most of them are not household names. Unlike Whitman and the other defeated self-financing candidates, they are all but certain to cash in on the Nov. 2 results. There’s no one in Washington in either party with the fortitude to try to stop them from grabbing anything that’s not nailed down.
And when did Nelson Rockefeller's "too rich to steal" idea become Enron?
Speaking of pundits, senior policy editor Joan McCarter (aka mcjoan) and I will be on Blog Talk radio tonite at 8 pm ET. It's Virtually Speaking Sundays with Jay Ackroyd, and we'll discuss the election and the policy implications of a divided congress. If my avatar resembles Ned Lamont wirth glasses, that's because it's how we dress in Connecticut.
Dana Milbank on the catfood commission:
The questions are whether Obama is willing to stand up to Pelosi and whether he can weather the consequences of triangulating against the liberals. So far, so good. "Before anybody starts shooting down proposals, I think we need to listen," he said from Seoul, in an implicit rebuke of Pelosi. He also said that he's "prepared to make some tough decisions" and that "we're going to have to take actions that are difficult and we're going to have to tell the truth to the American people."
That's exactly the right message. Here's hoping the no-regrets Democrats and the no-compromise Republicans hear it.
Stand up to Pelosi? You mean stand up to the American voter, Dana. And if you're such a fricking genius on the deficit, you run for Congress on this proposal. PS Nancy was right... she's the most effective House speaker you can name. Her party lost and the Villagers still have to make her the villain.
Best election analysis ever...
Personally, I believe that the argument in Sides' data is an adequate explanation of the outcome inasmuch as one is necessary. But for those who need the grand explanation, the sweeping conclusions drawn from limited data, the themes that allow us to boil elections down to slogans, I humbly submit the following. The 2010 midterm elections were a mandate for the new GOP sorta-but-not-really majority in Washington. The American voter has clearly demanded:
1. Social Security reform that guarantees my current level of benefits, alters someone else's, and cuts everyone's Social Security taxes to boot.
2. A world-class national infrastructure that can be built and maintained without tax dollars.
3. A balanced budget that doesn't sacrifice any of the government programs – especially the sacred military-industrial complex and the various old age benefits – that we like.
4. Clean air without pollution controls, clean water with a neutered and underfunded EPA, and businesses that do socially responsible things without any regulation whatsoever.
5. Consumer goods at Made in China prices that create high-paying jobs in America...
Added from The Day, Ben Davol:
Already talk show hosts and Republican insiders are saying that Senate hopeful Linda McMahon is "not done." And that gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley should eye the 2012 Senate race. Consultants are already busy trolling for the next hedge-fund millionaire in Fairfield County who is bored and wants to hear, "Senator, your table is ready."
In the most Republican year since Hoover, that is almost before electricity but not quite, the pachyderm party rolled to victory across the country but got skunked here is the Nutmeg State. In the Land of Steady habits the Republican Party is becoming adroit at one habit, losing.
Welcome to Sanityville.
