Open thread for night owls: 'Free market' and real freedom |
- Open thread for night owls: 'Free market' and real freedom
- Economics Daily Digest: Public unions meet the conservative guillotine
- Carly Fiorina to head latest GOP women's outreach PAC. Is there a demon ewe ad coming?
- Top Texas Republican probably very jealous of Rick Perry's hair
- Doctors, nurses condemn Hobby Lobby ruling, call for immediate action
- Supreme Court has plenty more chances to continue War on Women
- The GOP's new best friend, for now
- Deep thinker Jonah Goldberg on why women's health care is stupid and wrong
- Spotlight on Green News & Views: CO2 above 400 ppm for three months running, ocean plastic missing
- Cartoon: The supreme film critic
- Target executives kindly ask you to leave your guns at home
- House GOP cuts spending on policy staff, boosts spending on PR and spin
- McDaniel vs. Cochran battle still raging
- Here's that Hobby Lobby slippery slope in action
- Midday open thread: Georgia gun law produces confrontation on first day, Tim Howard International
- Republican Greg Abbott: Just 'drive around' to 'ask every facility whether they have chemicals'
- Rep. Tom Cotton uses Hobby Lobby ruling to attack Mark Pryor's faith
- If single women vote, Democrats win. But in a midterm year, that's a big If.
- Koch teams up with Fox employees
- Hobby Lobby decision not likely to be the end of birth control coverage litigation
- Things that impact the battle for the US House don't include Benghazi, or Repeal
- Cartoon: Bulletproof blankets
- Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: New PPP poll unexpectedly brings good news for Mark Schauer
- Daily Kos Radio is LIVE at 9am ET!
- Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday
- Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: World Cup edition
| Open thread for night owls: 'Free market' and real freedom Posted: 02 Jul 2014 08:30 PM PDT 
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—CWA's Larry Cohen: 'This is not democracy!'
 If the Civil Rights Act was before the Congress today, it would not pass, it would probably never make it to the floor for a vote.— @repjohnlewis On today's Kagro in the Morning show, Belgium sucks. Greg Dworkin says that's an anecdote, not data. We didn't overlook either of the top two "most overlooked races." And nobody's quite ready to look past Hobby Lobby. Joan McCarter joins us in pondering WTF about Belgium. Hobby Lobby won't be the last birth control case, nor the end of the War on Women. O'Reilly's in-house stalker baits "Beyoncé Voters." The White House issues report on Medicaid expansion. Target comes up with a gun policy. Open carry protesters say they'll ignore it. Day One of GA's "guns everywhere" law brings us a draw-down between two open carriers. Gun "success" story is underwhelming.   | |||
| Economics Daily Digest: Public unions meet the conservative guillotine Posted: 02 Jul 2014 05:24 AM PDT  Click here to subscribe to Roosevelt First, our weekday morning email featuring the Daily Digest. The Wage War for Public Workers' Unions (MSNBC) Harris v. Quinn shows Supreme Court conservatives want to "weaponize the First Amendment" against public unions, says Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren. The Supreme Court Doesn't Care for Caregiving Workers (HuffPost) Roosevelt Institute Fellow Annette Bernhardt writes that the Harris decision is just the latest example of how our public policy treats caregiving as second-class work. Are the Authoritarians Winning? (NYRB) Authoritarianism is gaining traction as democracies falter, writes Michael Ignatieff, but Roosevelt Institute Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz's new white paper offers a comprehensive solution to the liberal state's fiscal crisis. (Note: This article is behind a paywall.) How Bad Policy is Making the Great Recession's Damage Permanent (WaPo) Austerity and low inflation are holding back productive capacity, writes Matt O'Brien, and unless they're willing to take more risks, some countries may never fully recover. 5 Ways Wall Street Continues to Sandbag the Economy, and How to Fix It (Prospect) To set the economy back on track, Democrats must stop propping up the financial sector and undertake a massive public investment program, argues Robert Kuttner. Low-Wage Workers' Newest Ally Is a Washington Bureaucrat (The Nation) Zoe Carpenter talks to David Weil, the new director of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour division, about his plans to enforce and improve standards in the workplace. New on Next New Deal The Supreme Court's One-Two Punch Against Women's Health: McCullen and Hobby Lobby Rulings against the contraceptive mandate and buffer zone laws will create more barriers between women and basic health services, argues Roosevelt Fellow Andrea Flynn.  | |||
| Carly Fiorina to head latest GOP women's outreach PAC. Is there a demon ewe ad coming? Posted: 01 Jul 2014 11:53 AM PDT  Carly Fiorina "We have studied the successful campaigns and movements that have applied targeted and personal grassroots efforts to stimulate positive action," the memo said. "They focus on real interactions; door-to-door and person-to-person contacts, and not just television advertising."Okay ... so they'll be campaigning a little. And? Speaking to S.E. Cupp, Fiorina had this to say about the message: I think in some cases we just have to take on the facts. There are plenty of laws in place today that a woman can look to if she's truly discriminated against at work, where she's actually earning less for the same job as her male counterpart.If Paycheck Fairness is nothing but an empty gesture, how come y'all are so opposed to it? Surely the party that took dozens of show votes to repeal Obamacare can make time for one vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act if it's just a token that won't harm Republican interests in any way. But, of course, it's not. It's not a magic bullet, but it would help women uncover and address discrimination, filling gaps in those "plenty of laws in place today" that are not doing enough to reduce the wage gap. And that, not its purported ineffectiveness, is why Republicans are so dead-set against the Paycheck Fairness Act. So basically, this latest in the long string of Republican PACs trying to reduce their deficit with women is the same old story. And as usual, the only real Republican hope for closing the gender gap in 2014 is low turnout among the Democratic base.  | |||
| Top Texas Republican probably very jealous of Rick Perry's hair Posted: 02 Jul 2014 06:50 PM PDT  Just wait until they see Rick Perry's new glasses ... Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson (R) told the Austin American Stateman that Gov. Rick Perry's (R) decision, based on back pain, to stop wearing cowboy boots was just a "feeble excuse."Sorry, Jerry. Rick Perry is no west coaster. Not now, not ever. He's all yours, baby.  | |||
| Doctors, nurses condemn Hobby Lobby ruling, call for immediate action Posted: 02 Jul 2014 10:44 AM PDT  Most medical providers have basically been on the sidelines in the big reproductive healthcare fight of the modern era—abortion. Maybe because it's too politically charged for them to really engage in, since fewer and fewer providers are actually involved in providing that critical service, or it just hasn't seemed relevant to their professional lives. But now the Supreme Court has started to creep onto their territory, and they are not happy. The 5-4 decision was immediately criticized by the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association (PDF), the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists for allowing employers to meddle in the exam room.As Justice Ginsburg noted in her scathing dissent, the ruling opens up the possibility for endless challenges from employers who have "religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah's Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?] … Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today's decision." That's just one of the things healthcare providers are worried about now, says Paul Keckley, managing director in the healthcare practice at Navigant. "I think it's a bigger deal than just Hobby Lobby and Conestoga, and I think this is going to follow a theme that will be carried through the next couple of years, or certainly the next two election cycles." Maybe this ruling will be the impetus for these provider groups to recognize the threat to their free practice of medicine inherent in the Republican Party. Maybe they'll now see just how critical it is to fight for their own right to provide every kind of medical care to the women they treat.  | |||
| Supreme Court has plenty more chances to continue War on Women Posted: 02 Jul 2014 09:30 AM PDT  "I hope it's a harbinger of good things, an indicator that people of good faith like the Greens and the Hahns can and should stand up for what the believe in," Chuck Hurley, vice president and chief counsel for The Family Leader, told CBS News.He doesn't have to hope. He's got five Supreme Court justices who put more stock in belief than in science. After this ruling, it's hard to doubt that they'll side with religious non-profits the next time around, who say that the exemption they received from the administration to the contraceptive mandate—an exemption granted in a misguided attempt to appease the bastards—isn't enough. They say that merely signing a piece of paper to attest that they qualify for the exemption is a religious burden. Several nonprofits—such as the Colorado order of nuns the Little Sisters of the Poor—say this accommodation doesn't settle their concerns. […] The Little Sisters' case, along with several others, are currently in various courts of appeal. Federal appeals courts have already rejected challenges from two nonprofits —the Michigan Catholic Conference and Catholic Family Services, and the University of Notre Dame—meaning the Supreme Court could take up the nonprofits' case as early as its next term.In fact, in another stunningly bad part of the overall awful opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the accommodation for religious non-profits is a possible alternative for the administration in the case of for-profits: "HHS itself has demonstrated that it has at its disposal an approach that is less restrictive than requiring employers to fund contraceptive methods that violate their religious beliefs." It's almost as if Alito didn't know that this very approach has been challenged. But you can be sure that if the administration tries to expand it to for-profits, Alito will be there to slap it down somehow in a Little Sisters ruling, or in one of the 82 pending challenges to this mandate that will eventually find its way to the Court. Those 82 challenges, brought by both for-profit and non-profit employers, represent a hell of a lot of female employees. The War on Women has barely gotten started.  | |||
| The GOP's new best friend, for now Posted: 02 Jul 2014 04:50 PM PDT It's been a rough stretch for the GOP lately. They thought Obamacare would collapse, but instead it beat expectations. They thought Cliven Bundy would become a symbol of Obama's overreach, but instead he became a symbol of right-wing prejudice. They thought their new Benghazi panel would lead to Obama's impeachment, but instead found themselves grumbling when one of the key Benghazi suspects was arrested. They didn't even bother to think about House Majority Leader Eric Cantor until it was too late. And when they swung into action to save their friend Sen. Thad Cochran, they had to turn to the very same African-American Democrats whose votes they've spurned for decades because their own base had abandoned them. But now that their best buddy Hobby Lobby has achieved victory in its pursuit of religious liberty, the worm has finally turned, right? After all, liberty is a word even liberals should support, right? So clearly conservatives should hug their new best friend Hobby Lobby tight and close and bask in the warmth of all its freedom-loving glory. Except, as David Corn and Molly Redden of Mother Jones report, it turns out Hobby Lobby are major funders of right-wing minister Bill Gothard who turns out to have a little problem: Gothard made national news in March when he resigned from the Institute after a website posted the accounts of more than 30 women who accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. One of his accusers said he molested her when she was 17. In a statement he issued in April, Gothard noted, "God has brought me to a place of greater brokenness than at any other time in my life…I have asked the Lord to reveal the underlying causes and He is doing this." Gothard further stated, "My actions of holding of hands, hugs, and touching of feet or hair with young ladies crossed the boundaries of discretion and were wrong."Well, maybe that's a little bit too much freedom for the GOP to be associated with. So what now? Well, I hear Speaker Boehner is planning a lawsuit in the not-too-distant future ... that should give Republicans something to get excited about.  | |||
| Deep thinker Jonah Goldberg on why women's health care is stupid and wrong Posted: 02 Jul 2014 01:37 PM PDT  Jonah Goldberg, livin' the dream This gets us to why I think the ruling's majority essentially agreed with the protesters. If I like to dress up as a character from Game of Thrones on weekends, pretending to fight snow zombies and treating my mutt like she's a mystical direwolf, that's none of my employer's business. But if I ask my employer to pay for my trip to a Game of Thrones fan convention, I am asking him to make it his business. If my employer refuses, that may or may not be unfair, but it's his right. If, in response, I go to the convention and have the government force my employer to pay for my travel, that only makes things worse. It not only makes my private pursuits my boss's business, it makes them the business of taxpayers and a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington.Well if you say it like that, sure it makes sense. "A woman and her doctor making personal decisions about that woman's health care without employer intervention is a lot like dressing up as fictional characters and going to conventions, in that it's patently silly. Now if you'll excuse me back here in the real world, an invisible sky-man that you can't hear has told me that I will descend after death into a lake of burny-ouchy fire if I don't line item these two pills off of your next insurance contract." "Also, Hodor." And this is why we usually do not pay any attention to Jonah Goldberg.  | |||
| Spotlight on Green News & Views: CO2 above 400 ppm for three months running, ocean plastic missing Posted: 02 Jul 2014 03:30 PM PDT  White Ibises    You can find more rescued green diaries below the sustainable squiggle.  | |||
| Cartoon: The supreme film critic Posted: 02 Jul 2014 02:50 PM PDT | |||
| Target executives kindly ask you to leave your guns at home Posted: 02 Jul 2014 08:11 AM PDT  The leadership team has been weighing a complex issue, and I want to be sure everyone understands our thoughts and ultimate decision.This is a good start. Let's hope other retailers follow suit.  | |||
| House GOP cuts spending on policy staff, boosts spending on PR and spin Posted: 02 Jul 2014 01:50 PM PDT Since Republicans took control of the U.S. House in January 2011, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has led a cost-cutting effort that has trimmed staff for House committees by nearly 20%, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But the number of committee staff responsible for press and communications work has increased by nearly 15% over the same period, according to House spending records.Hard to blame them, I guess. If you were in their shoes, wouldn't you want to do everything in your power to let people know about everything you've accomplished on their behalf? Actually, on second thought, that doesn't make a lot of sense, given that they've accomplished nothing. But on third thought, this is the GOP we're talking about: To them, doing nothing is an accomplishment. So it makes sense to hire staff to brag about it. Plus, if your primary investigations are focused on Benghazi and the IRS, there really isn't much to investigate, certainly not enough to justify expanding actual investigative staff. So you might as well invest in spinners—because you're going to need them.  | |||
| McDaniel vs. Cochran battle still raging Posted: 02 Jul 2014 01:10 PM PDT  McDaniel is flatly accusing Cochran of having stolen the election—"My opponent stole last week's runoff election," he says in a new fundraising email—and is still working to overturn the results of the election. McDaniel's big problem: He doesn't have a compelling legal theory for why the results should be overturned or why Cochran should be disqualified. The latest attempt by McDaniel allies to establish just such a theory is to claim that Cochran illegally bought votes, an accusation Cochran's campaign denies: Blogger Charles C. Johnson of GotNews.com is reporting that Stevie Fielder says the Cochran campaign told him to offer black voters in the Meridian area $15 each to vote for Cochran in the June 24 GOP primary runoff against state Sen. Chris McDaniel.Johnson's report includes text messages allegedly exchanged between Fielder and the campaign concerning envelopes filled with cash for pro-Cochran GOTV efforts. Russell, the Cochran spokesman, says that Fielder was paid $300 by the Cochran campaign, and acknowledged that the campaign does pay field "volunteers" with cash stuffed in envelopes, but said it was for voter contact, not vote buying. Russell also disputed Johnson's report by noting that Johnson had paid Fielder for his story. According to Dave Weigel, conservatives are warming to the idea of a serious McDaniel challenge to the results—he reports FreedomWorks has declared the election to be "a federal crime." But hot air and fundraising pitches are just hot air, and the key question remains: What is Chris McDaniel going to do about his claim that the election was stolen, aside from using it to raise money from suckers? 1:29 PM PT: Meanwhile, the Cochran campaign holds a press conference, it devolves into this:  Cochran campaign conf call turning into a mess. Questioner: "If black people were harvesting cotton, why is it OK to harvest their votes?"— @jonathanweisman  | |||
| Here's that Hobby Lobby slippery slope in action Posted: 02 Jul 2014 11:35 AM PDT  Who could have predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court was going to empower religious organizations to start screaming for federal exemptions to everything they find icky? Pretty much everyone, actually, saw that coming and here's the first of it. A group of faith leaders, including an Obama supporter, has asked the administration to allow them to continue to discriminate against the gays in their hiring practices. Their call, in a letter sent to the White House Tuesday, attempts to capitalize on the Supreme Court case by arguing that it shows the administration must show more deference to the prerogatives of religion.The leaders state that without the religious exemption to the executive order on federal contractors, "this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity and religious freedom." They base their argument on both the new political reality of Hobby Lobby and on the fact that the Senate-passed Employment Non-Discrimination Act includes such an exemption for religious organizations. The difference between ENDA and the pending executive order is that the latter applies only to federal contractors, not to all employers with more than 15 employees. The White House hasn't released the order yet, and didn't comment on the issue to The Atlantic's Molly Ball, who reported this story.  | |||
| Midday open thread: Georgia gun law produces confrontation on first day, Tim Howard International Posted: 02 Jul 2014 12:00 PM PDT
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| Republican Greg Abbott: Just 'drive around' to 'ask every facility whether they have chemicals' Posted: 02 Jul 2014 10:44 AM PDT  Republican Greg Abbott  When Greg Abbott's handlers actually allow him to talk to the press, his usual response is "no comment." Now you'll understand why, once you read these jaw-dropping remarks: Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, under fire for blocking public access to state records documenting the location of dangerous chemicals, said Texans still have a right to find out where the substances are stored — as long as they know which companies to ask.That's just awesome. Think about all the unnecessary regulations we could eliminate if only we adopted Abbott's way of thinking!
Unfortunately, Abbott's wise plan didn't prevent the deadly fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, last year that killed 15 people and injured more than 160. But really, those folks should have just driven around some more to learn about the dangerous chemicals in their neighborhood. Abbott, who's running for governor against Democrat Wendy Davis, might want to check in on the chemicals in his part of town, too, because some nasty ones are clearly getting into his water supply. Please give $3 so that Wendy Davis can drive around and stop this idiocy.  | |||
| Rep. Tom Cotton uses Hobby Lobby ruling to attack Mark Pryor's faith Posted: 02 Jul 2014 10:12 AM PDT Oh look, a Republican says he's got more Jesus than you. In an interview with KNWA in Fayetteville, Rep. Tom Cotton commented on Sen. Mark Pryor's faith in response to a question about the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. Cotton was asked what the ruling meant. Here's his response:Pryor, it should be noted, is among the more God-promotin' members of the Senate, and was attacked last December by the NRSC after Pryor ran an ad explicitly about his faith; apparently he wasn't a legitimate Christian, for some reason, and back then it was Cotton who was chastising the NRSC for such an "offensive" attack on Pryor. But that was then and this is now, six months closer to the actual election. It seems an equally nasty argument to make, so I don't know why Cotton would—oh, who the hell am I kidding, four-fifths of conservatism is based directly on claiming that other people's religions are wrong and yours is right because God says so. Of course Cotton is going to claim he understands faith and the other guy doesn't, that's the whole point of the Hobby Lobby ruling, right? Oh, bonus points for tying your explanation about your strong faith that governs how you live every day to the demand that your fellow Americans be deprived of health insurance that "infringes" on your religious belief that they shouldn't get any. Really stuck the landing on that one. Pryor has asked for an apology. We'll see if he gets one.  | |||
| If single women vote, Democrats win. But in a midterm year, that's a big If. Posted: 02 Jul 2014 09:12 AM PDT  The party is using advanced data-gathering techniques to identify unmarried women, especially those who have voted in presidential elections but skipped midterms. By mail, online, phone and personal contact, Democrats and their allies are spreading the word about Republicans' opposition in Washington — and state capitals like Raleigh — to pay equity, minimum wage and college-affordability legislation, abortion and contraception rights, Planned Parenthood and education spending. [...]Just about every time Republicans launch one of these ladies-outreach PACs, they say "women don't just care about abortion! that's how we're going to get them," which turns out to be code for "we're going to say we're talking about economic issues when really we just mean 'repeal Obamacare.'" Democrats, on the other hand, actually have more than one thing to talk about, as the plans cited above make clear. And the Supreme Court, as Markos noted Tuesday, helped those efforts with the Hobby Lobby decision, which spans a social issue and a pocketbook one—birth control can be expensive, but unplanned pregnancy is even more so. And both are especially hard to afford when Republicans are blocking a minimum wage increase. And that is why, if Democrats can get the word out about what Republicans are doing and motivate the base, they'll win.  | |||
| Koch teams up with Fox employees Posted: 02 Jul 2014 09:00 AM PDT  At least 15 Fox News hosts and contributors have recently campaigned with two political organizations created and heavily funded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. Many of those same Fox News personalities have also defended the Kochs from attacks and praised their political efforts on-air. [...] According to a Media Matters review, the following Fox News personalities have participated in AFP and AFPF events since 2012: Guy Benson, Tucker Carlson, Monica Crowley, Jonah Goldberg, Greg Gutfeld, Mary Katharine Ham, Mike Huckabee, Laura Ingraham, Andrew Napolitano, Sarah Palin, Charles Payne, Dana Perino, John Stossel, Cal Thomas, and Juan Williams.Thanks to limited disclosure requirements, it's unclear whether and how much money these individuals received for their boosterism, but given the 9 figure sums that the Kochs are dumping into the political process, it seems like a pretty easy bet that they distributed some of that to their friends at Fox. I guess it's not entirely surprising that so many employees from a conservative news channel would also be cogs in a conservative political machine like the one that the Koch brothers run, but it is yet another reminder of just how intimately involved the Kochs are in everything on the right—and just how small their "talent" pool is that they have to draw on Fox, and that Fox has to draw on them.  | |||
| Hobby Lobby decision not likely to be the end of birth control coverage litigation Posted: 01 Jul 2014 03:08 PM PDT  More than half the states have "contraceptive equity" laws on the books that require most employers whose health insurance covers prescription drugs to also cover FDA-approved contraceptives as part of that package. Unlike the ACA, those laws do not require that coverage to be available without deductibles or co-pays. […]Some of those states have exemptions for non-profit religious organizations, like the federal law, with just Arizona and Illinois expanding them beyond expressly religious entities. However, Hobby Lobby and other firms that self-insure aren't subject to state insurance laws, because they're not buying state-regulated insurance. Other companies, though, which don't self-insure do have to abide by that state law. But there aren't just state protections, and here is one of the glaring problems with the decision—women are singled out. And this: But [self-insuring companies] are still likely subject to a ruling issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the year 2000 that employers that fail to cover contraception as part of their health insurance benefit package are discriminating against women in violation of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act. That law was itself an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.The employees of Hobby Lobby and other companies that take advantage of the exemption could sue their employers, charging gender discrimination. The litigating is far from over on this one.  | |||
| Things that impact the battle for the US House don't include Benghazi, or Repeal Posted: 02 Jul 2014 07:30 AM PDT House generic congressional ballot, Jan 2013 - June 2014  Democrats started 2013 with the halo glow of the Obama re-election and dominant Democratic victories in the Senate. That lead whittled down with Obama's approval numbers over the year, until October 2013, when the Republicans shut down the government. At the height of the shutdown, Democrats enjoyed a nearly seven-point lead in the generic congressional ballot, numbers that would give us House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But alas, Democrats ceded all those gains when the administration was unable to launch Healthcare.gov in working order. For Republicans whose key tenet is "government is broken," it was an unforced error, and one from which Democrats haven't fully recovered. But the GOP's bump didn't last long, and faded as the website finally worked. And they faded and sat in the high 30s until the first two weeks of April. The good news from the ACA seemed to galvanize both sides initially, though Democrats got the bigger and more lasting bump from news that 8 million Americans had signed up, surpassing even the optimistic projections of 7 million. So Republicans tried to change the subject from repeal, because that was no longer politically expedient. There was Cliven Bundy, and we know how that turned out. Then lots of screaming about the Benghazi Select Committee, but the GOP continued their downward trajectory. Bergdahl didn't change matters, and now the Republicans are stuck just shy of 40 percent. Note what HASN'T changed any numbers—the relentless millions that Koch and his friends have spent hammering Democrats. The Kochs started spending heavily late last year, so they can't even take credit for the early-2013 Democratic slide. That appears to be more voter fatigue than anything else. And the GOP's high-water mark over the past 18 months has been 42 percent, and they've spent most of that time in the 30s. Are those the numbers of a party that fancies itself the majority? Of course not. Whatever advantages the GOP has this fall, it has them because of the cycle's expected voter profile. There is no broad clamoring for GOP leadership in this country. Quite the opposite, actually.  | |||
| Posted: 02 Jul 2014 06:50 AM PDT click to enlarge  | |||
| Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: New PPP poll unexpectedly brings good news for Mark Schauer Posted: 02 Jul 2014 05:00 AM PDT  Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning. Sign up here. • MI-Gov, -Sen: PPP's new Michigan survey is at once very similar to most polls we've seen from the state lately and also quite different. In the Senate race, PPP sees Democrat Gary Peters leading Republican Terri Lynn Land 41-36, the same margin that almost every other firm has come up with over the past few months, and in fact identical to the score PPP itself found back in April. However, their gubernatorial numbers are much more optimistic for Democrat Mark Schauer than any he's had in a long time. PPP has Schauer tied at 40 apiece with GOP Gov. Rick Snyder, which is not only an improvement from Snyder's 43-39 lead last time but also the first time (apart from one outlier Clarity poll) that Schauer hasn't trailed in over a year. So what gives? Well, as longtime observers know, Michigan is home to a lot of crummy pollsters, so it's hard to trust a lot of the data that comes out of the Wolverine State. It's also worth noting that Michigan is the first and so far only state that the DGA has seriously contested early on, spending $1.9 million to date and reserving $6 million more in fall TV time. The RGA has run ads here, too, but they've relied on incredibly dumb spots that make a stupid pun based on Schauer's last name. And Snyder's advertising has just been bewildering. So perhaps this race is closer now that it's been for a while, or perhaps PPP just came up with a very Democratic-friendly sample. If you dig further down, you'll see that Democrats have a wide 48-34 lead on the generic legislative ballot, which would likely be enough for the party to retake the state House if it holds—and if it's accurate. Accuracy is the big question, of course, so let's see what other polls look like in the weeks ahead. Hopefully we'll get some reliable ones.  | |||
| Daily Kos Radio is LIVE at 9am ET! Posted: 02 Jul 2014 05:30 AM PDT  Daily Kos Radio's Kagro in the Morning show podcasts are now available through iTunes. It. Is. Joan. McCarter. Day. If you still have questions about why you need to listen... well, I can't even... Listen LIVE at 9:00 ET, here: The Daily Kos Radio Player Can't see the live stream and/or podcast players in these posts? Do you use NoScript or something similar to control Javascript? Want to? Remember to enable Libsyn and Shoutcastplayer, and you'll see our players every morning! Want to help support the show without cracking your wallet?  An average of 60,000 people download Kagro in the Morning each day. So how would some of you like to give Stitcher a try? Here's our KITM archive on Stitcher, where you can get started right now! Same great content, just a different platform serving it up. And just maybe, a couple dollars come our way! Miss our last LIVE show? You can catch it here: Need more info on how to listen? Find it below the fold.  | |||
| Posted: 02 Jul 2014 05:18 AM PDT  From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE… An Open Letter to America Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]  | |||
| Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: World Cup edition Posted: 02 Jul 2014 04:30 AM PDT  Some beautiful soul made @TimHowardGK the Secretary of Defense on Wikipedia. #accurate  — @JadeReindl After losing 2-1 to Belgium on Tuesday, the U.S. men's national team will be left to contemplate its future; after years of steady improvement, there are hints U.S. men's soccer has hit a plateau. But one American left the tournament with a strong argument for his international quality: Goalkeeper Tim Howard.Benjamin Morris: By now I've studied nearly every aspect of Messi's game, down to a touch-by-touch level: his shooting and scoring production; where he shoots from; how often he sets up his own shots; what kind of kicks he uses to make those shots; his ability to take on defenders; how accurate his passes are; the kind of passes he makes; how often he creates scoring chances; how often those chances lead to goals; even how his defensive playmaking compares to other high-volume shooters.More politics and policy below the fold.  |
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