It Happened Last Night

Halley: 2010?s Good, Bad, Ugly
Ordinarily, I don’t like opinion pieces and try to avoid writing them. However, I will qualify this at the beginning as just my opinion. Certainly, the 2010 election provided citizens with plenty to be proud about and reasons to feel encouraged that they may be starting to take back their government. Many state Elections demonstrated that the majority of citizens understood what was happening in Washington and had decided that they were going to make a change. At the same time, other state...

Quick Takes
Sorry I haven't been around much but family medical issues and such... The Republicans didn't do quite as well as expected (including by me) in the Senate. Here are some thoughts: Nevada - The line coming from the Weekly Standard and National Review is that Nevada shows that Candidates matter. That is true, but what does it mean? One of Sharron Angle's problems was that she had a way explaining conservative positions in a way that put them in a bad light, and she made at least one statement that...

GOP watch: Palin's mixed record
“If Sarah Palin, the former Alaska Governor, decides to run for president in 2012, she will now have plenty of help,” the New York Times writes, adding, “Ms. Palin was not on any ballot. But the self-described “Mama Grizzly” had plenty at stake on Tuesday night as she sought to bolster her credentials as the Republican Party’s Most Powerful Kingmaker and the voice of the newly empowered Tea Party movement. Ms. Palin had endorsed dozens of Candidates, including...

TPMDC Morning Roundup
No Clear Path For GOP On Health Care Repeal The Associated Press reports: "Republicans say they'll Repeal and replace President Barack Obama's Health Care law, but tinker and tweak is as far as they're likely to get...Republicans will control the House in January, but they don't have the votes to overcome a Senate Filibuster, much less Obama's Veto on repeal. Plan B, denying funds to carry out the law, could backfire if it escalates to a government shutdown." Obama's Day Ahead President Obama ...

Jerry Brown plunges in to work as governor-elect
(11-03) 17:30 PDT OAKLAND -- Gov.-elect Jerry Brown, warning that Californians sent a message in Tuesday's election that they are "in no mood to add to their burdens" with new taxes, said Wednesday he has begun laying the groundwork for cutting Government costs and repairing the "broken process" of producing a State Budget. Brown, at a news Conference just hours after beating Republican former CEO Meg Whitman 54-41 percent, outlined his immediate agenda as he prepares to return to the job he...

Election Day unkind to many wealthy candidates
Los Angeles -- Dipping into their personal fortunes to finance a political campaign turned out to be a losing investment for several Candidates trying to break into political office. Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman took the biggest gamble, spending $142 million in her losing effort to become California's next Governor, a figure that covers the General Election and her GOP Primary race. In Connecticut, former wrestling entertainment executive Linda McMahon is expected to have spent at...

God & Man; Great Morning Reading
On this cold rainy day: Start here, with Pat Gohn’s How To Grow a Priest. That’s a must-read. Swinging Catholics: and their effect on the election An insightful piece on Mad Men: The Fall of Don Draper Greatest Title Ever: How the Gray Lady became Margaret Dumont; and of course, a good piece, too! The Tea Party Must Learn to “Reagan” the Press: my own piece today at PJM. The Tea Party is off to a good start, but it needs to learn how some bladework, if they want to use...

Exclusive: Fox News Has No Plans To Hire Christine ODonnell As Contributor
The Midterms are over, and while the GOP regained control of the House, the coronation of the Tea Party movement is still up for debate. Sure, a number of Tea Party Candidates won their races, but perhaps the most visible — Delaware Senate Candidate Christine O’Donnell — suffered a rather significant defeat. So what’s next for Ms. O’Donnell? Some are suggesting that, not unlike her endorser Sarah Palin, a Fox News contributor-ship is just around the corner. Not so, ...

Senate Republicans Point Fingers
With Tea Party Candidates in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada leaving Republicans just shy of a Senate majority, "a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said Party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) had foolishly pushed nominees too Conservative to win in politically competitive States," reports Politico. "Movement Conservatives pointed the finger right back at the establishment, accusing the National Republican Senatorial Committee of squandering millions on a California rac...

Election Day unkind to many wealthy candidates
Los Angeles -- Dipping into their personal fortunes to finance a political campaign turned out to be a losing investment for several Candidates trying to break into political office. Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman took the biggest gamble, spending $142 million in her losing effort to become California's next Governor, a figure that covers the General Election and her GOP Primary race. In Connecticut, former wrestling entertainment executive Linda McMahon is expected to have spent at...

L.A. County Decides Who Wins, Who Loses
To view this video you must to have Flash Player 9.0 or later installed. Click to download the most recent version of Flash. It is the only race in the state which has gone into overtime, but that's not why would be Attorney General Steve Cooley decided to take in the Lakers-Kings game Wednesday night. His Campaign Manager said Cooley isn't backing out of an invitation for Donors to join him in a luxury box for the price of $2,500 a ticket. While Cooley counted bucks at the Arco Arena, they're ...

Gloat Fest 2010!
GLENN: This is kind of happy in your face groovy, dope-smoking, hippy music, isn't it? Which I'm sure the dope smoking hippies are happy today. I mean, who wouldn't be? You know, especially when you can just take the word of Nancy Pelosi. She gets it right again. Pat: She is a genius. VOICE: Early returns and the overwhelming number of Democrats who are coming out, we're on pace to maintain the majority in the House of Representatives. Pat: [ Laughter ] O that's rich. [ Laughter ] GLENN: So s...

Prepare for Attack on Science by Newly-Elected Republicans
But she just smiled and turned away. In addition to the drubbing Democrats took last night, it looks like Science and reason got brutalized too. Last night’s Republican victories swept in a cadre of anti-science senators - Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), John Hoeven (R-ND), Pat Toomey (R-PA). Most of the anti-science Candidates are targeting Climate Change as their attack issue du jour, and will likely join forces with the new congressional R...

Prepare for Attack on Science by Newly-Elected Republicans
But she just smiled and turned away. In addition to the drubbing Democrats took last night, it looks like Science and reason got brutalized too. Last night’s Republican victories swept in a cadre of anti-science senators - Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), John Hoeven (R-ND), Pat Toomey (R-PA). Most of the anti-science Candidates are targeting Climate Change as their attack issue du jour, and will likely join forces with the new congressional R...

Israel to cut ties with UNESCO
Published: Nov. 4, 2010 at 8:05 AM An Ultra-Orthodox Jew covers his face with his hat in Rachel's Tomb in the Biblical city of Bethlehem, September 15, 2004. (UPI Photo/Debbie Hill) Jerusalem, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Israel said it will stop cooperating with UNESCO after it designated Rachel's Tomb, a Jewish holy site outside of Bethlehem as a Muslim Mosque, officials said. Danny Ayalon, deputy minister of foreign affairs accused the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ...

Israel to snub UNESCO in shrine dispute
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel says it will snub inspectors from the U.N. body that preserves world heritage sites during their upcoming visit to the West Bank. UNESCO has defined two sites there as Palestinian Mosques. Israel says they are Jewish holy sites as well. Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, said on Thursday that Israel will not cooperate when the UNESCO delegation arrives. He says ties regarding other heritage sites have not changed. The most contentious of the sites...

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: Palestinian's Message Not Anti-Semitic or Divisive
          In recent weeks, the Directors of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico and University of New Mexico Hillel co-wrote a letter to two UNM departments discouraging them from sponsoring Palestinian American Ali Abunimah's appearance this Sunday at UNM. Along with several other campus and community groups, Abunimah's talk is also sponsored by the UNM Student organization Coalition for Peace and Justice in the Middle East.   &nbs...;

The Jewish Saul Bellow
Does Saul Bellow (1915-2005) need an introduction? Nobel Laureate, three-time National Book Award winner, famed for his capacious mind and his profoundly idiosyncratic, sky-reaching prose, a lifelong generator of personal and public Controversy, Bellow was also the unrivaled paragon, during his life and after his death, of American Jewish letters. This, notwithstanding his own caustic quip on the subject in 1969: "This tendency to turn [Bernard] Malamud, [Philip] Roth, and me into the Hart, Scha...

Republican Comeback Plan Worked?
A longish NYT postmortem titled “ Democrats Outrun by a 2-Year G.O.P. Comeback Plan ” attributes Tuesday’s Republican victories to a January 2009 PowerPoint presentation. The presentation was the product of a strategy session held 11 days before Mr. Obama’s inauguration, when top Republican Leaders in the House of Representatives began devising an early blueprint for what they would accomplish in Tuesday’s Election: their comeback. How they did it is the story of on...

Is this the most disappointed Democrat after last night's election?
Guess who won't be Senate Majority Leader in 2011. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid hung on to win Nevada's grueling Senate race yesterday, dashing any hope that Sen. Charles Schumer may have had of taking over the powerful Senate post. The senior New York senator -- who cruised to a third term and declared his own decisive victory shortly after the polls closed -- had been well positioned to become Majority Leader if Reid had lost and Democrats kept control of the Senate. ...

So, that MSNBC coverage last night was pretty bad, huh?
Was it? Actually, let me rephrase: Notwithstanding the fact that it was bad, should it have been better? I’m not sold, although Michael Moynihan does a nifty job of capturing the badness: Watching MSNBC’s nauseating, petty, smug election coverage was like watching a live stream of a Park Slope dinner party. And it made it official. The network, which has adopted a piecemeal strategy of Partisanship—the evening schedule seems to add a liberal firebrand every six months—has now compl

Durbin and Schumer ‘Absolutely’ Support Reid for Leader : Roll Call
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Senate Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) put an end to speculation that either of them might challenge Majority Leader Harry Reid for the top spot after the Party suffered bruising losses in Tuesday’s Midterm Elections. Asked on a Conference Call whether the duo would support the Nevadan for another term as Leader, both said in near unison, “Absolutely.” Durbin and Schumer, the Democrats No. 2 and No. 3 lead...

Harry Reid, D-Nev.: Harry Reid wins
Over the summer, I likened Harry Reid's battle for survival to the Oliver North-Charles Robb Senate race of 1994. The parallels were striking. In '94, Robb was a deeply unpopular Democratic senator seeking Reelection in a Republican-friendly state -- with the national climate poisoned against his Party. Virtually any Republican in the state would have had no trouble beating him -- except the man the GOP nominated, North, whose Iran-Contra baggage was so severe that voters decided to re...

Tea partyers jockey for position in Satan's cauldron
Well, okay:  for position in Washington, DC. While the newcomers will be keeping an eye on the establishment, the Tea partiers who elected them will be keeping an eye on them. A handful of national groups, including FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots, plan to pay close attention to the way the new Congress, and its newest members, vote. Those who don't follow the principles of Limited Government and low taxes risk primary challenges in subsequent Elections, organizers said. In...

Thank Rubio & Paul for Majority Leader Reid
The ill-advised Insurgency against the Republican establishment has clearly cost the GOP control of the Senate. While the victory in the House is very impressive, the serious Republican failure in the Senate can be summarized in three simple words: “Majority Leader Reid” — not only should he not have a Majority, he should not even be in the Senate. While a lot has already been said about throwing away winnable Senate seats in Delaware,Colorado and Nevada, the blame for that failure l...