I've gotten tired of the craziness of Wordpress and have decided to move to Substack. I've already migrated all of my posts over and you can start using it now:
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Montana Sen. Jon Tester is a testament to the pragmatism that infuses the netroots—a conservative Democrat who was eminently electable in light-Red Montana. Today, however, he was chosen for a task broader than his corner of America—heading up the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Senate Democrats are looking at a fantastic 2016—with presidential-year turnout demographics and a map that might put 10 or more Republican seats in play. Yet the extent of our gains will depend in huge part on our ability to turn out our base, and nothing in Tester’s history suggests he has what it takes to inspire that broader participation. Continue reading .@DailyKos: New DSCC chair Jon Tester doesn’t like or think like his party…→
Whenever I’ve written about Claire McCaskill, I’ve always described her as a neoliberal. The purpose of her posturing on today’s Face the Nation is a reminder to her base of mostly white conservative liberals or ex-moderate Republicans, not to lump her in with a possibly rising progressive tide in the Senate. Continue reading Senator Claire McCaskill and Post-Election 2014 Democrats→
WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is under consideration for a leadership position in the Senate Democratic caucus, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
Former Governor Howard Dean was on Meet The Press today. With the exception of the very last sentence in this clip, I am in full agreement with everything he said.
Tuesday’s defeat was bound to be the catalyst for the kinds of events that happen after, well, all defeats. The victor gloats. Usually, the defeated retreat for a bit to reflect on their loss and how to move on. Continue reading Dem Politics: Post-mortem is the new rehab→
As the final Election Day votes are being counted, national attention has focused on the Republicans’ near-sweep of close elections for Senate and governor. But elections for the other congressional branch deserve more scrutiny. Given that Republicans will only win about 52 percent of votes in House races, how are they ending up with 57 percent of seats? Why did Democrats concede control of the House months ago, even when congressional approval is so low?
Democrats had ample reason to fear that this year’s midterm elections would not go well for them, but bad doesn’t begin to describe what happened to them—and the nation—yesterday. Catastrophic is more like it.
Long viewed as an ally by Wall Street, likely 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton has increasingly been taking banks and big business to task while on the campaign trail for Democrats across the country. Continue reading #Clinton Sounding More Like #Warren as 2016 Nears→
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.
The origins of the phrase “American exceptionalism” are not especially obscure. The French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville, observing this country in the 1830s, said that Americans seemed exceptional in valuing practical attainments almost to the exclusion of the arts and sciences. The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, on hearing a report by the American Communist Party that workers in the United States in 1929 were not ready for revolution, denounced “the heresy of American exceptionalism.” In 1996, the political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset took those hints from Tocqueville and Stalin and added some of his own to produce his book American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. The virtues of American society, for Lipset — our individualism, hostility to state action, and propensity for ad hoc problem-solving — themselves stood in the way of a lasting and prudent consensus in the conduct of American politics. Continue reading It’s Time to Rethink American Exceptionalism | David Bromwich ~ The Nation→
As the Editor of AlterNet for 20 years, I have read and seen the entire range of horrendous and growing problems we face as a society and globe virtually every day. It is not just climate change, or ISIL, or Ferguson, or poverty and homelessness, or more misogynistic murdering of women, or the Democrats about to lose the Senate as Obama gets more unpopular. It is much, much more. Every day. It passes by before my eyes. At AlterNet, there are no issue silos—there is just the open faucet of depressing political information coming and going every hour of every day (with the occasional story of success and inspiration).
