The Fireside Chat for December 3rd, 2011 (VIDEO)

I'm sorry, but did that Obama Black Friday Email "annoy" or "exasperate" any of you??

Damn villagers, again.

Look, I love Erza. Read him all the time. But like the rest of us, he can occasionally be full of shit:

Guess who tweeted this: “This Black Friday, take 10% off all purchases of...gear with code 10%TURKEYDAY”

Wal-Mart? Best Buy? A hedge fund trying to unload Greek bonds?

Nope. That was the official Twitter account of President Barack Obama — excuse me, President @BarackObama. And it’s not the first time Obama’s 2012 campaign has sounded more like a commercial for Al’s Used Car Lot.

Last month, “Barack Obama” e-mailed me with the subject line “Last chance at dinner.” “Because you and I don’t have a lot of chances to have dinner together,” he — or, more accurately, a campaign staffer claiming to be him — wrote, “I hope you’ll take advantage of the one that’s coming up this fall.” Then he asked me to donate some money so I could be entered into a raffle to have dinner with him.

Another e-mail, again from Obama, carried the subject line, “If I don’t call you.” Again, the upshot was you could donate money to be entered into a dinner raffle. But as Garance Franke-Ruta noted at the Atlantic, the e-mail writers at the Obama campaign had taken one of the most distinctive voices in American politics and left him sounding like a plaintive boyfriend.

All of this is, of course, a fundraising effort. And it’s working. The Obama campaign has received donations from more than 1,000,000 individuals, and 98 percent of those donations were for $250 or less. Some of those donations, to be sure, are Obama schwag. When you buy a hat or a shirt, technically, you’re donating to the campaign, and the campaign is sending you a token of its thanks. But it’s hard to argue with the results: at this point in the 2008 race, the Obama campaign had fewer than 400,000 donors. “This is what a grassroots campaign looks like,” the campaign brags in an infographic celebrating the million-donor mark.

But there’s something tawdry about it. This isn’t transformational politics. This is, almost definitionally, transactional politics. You give me money for my campaign, I give you a beer koozie with Vice President Joe Biden’s face on it.

I asked the Obama campaign about that seeming disconnect, but didn’t get much back. “We don’t talk specifics about merchandise because we don’t talk specifics about fundraising in general,” Katie Hogan, the campaign’s deputy press secretary, told me.

In a sense, these e-mails and tweets — and the annoyed, exasperated reactions many of their supporters have had to them — perfectly encapsulate one of their biggest challenges going into 2012: resolving the yawning chasm between the sort of politics America wanted from the Obama campaign and the sort of politics, the Obama administration has found, work in Washington.

All this was a preamble to a moderately decent piece highlighting the President's accomplishments while in Office, and the difficulties of changing the culture in Washington. (File under No shit, Sherlock).

But I want to ask, were any of you annoyed or exasperated by that Obama Email? Or were you like me, swimming around the site seeing if there was anything you'd like to buy.

This is what concerns me about my Hometown. This is another instance of the damn bubble again, and it confirms what we all know. It's not just the Presidents who live in it. Nine times out of ten, its the people in the Washington cocktail circuit who live in it. These are the people writing the columns, making the policy and talking to each other about the rest of us...all without the benefit of the rest of us being a part of the conversation.

Simply put, Ezra. I know of exactly ZERO people who were annoyed or exasperated by the President's fundraising efforts, and I'm betting I talk to a lot more actual Obama Supporters than you do. I know of exactly ZERO people from among the Liberal "disappointed" set who were annoyed or exasperated.

Now, I don't know of any one who bought anything either.  My guess is they looked, they shopped around a little, then trashed the email, and went back for a nap during the Frisco-Baltimore game.

And "tawdry" who the hell said anything about tawdry??

This is not something actual Obama Supporters are talking about, sorry Ezra.  This is all in your head.

Who exactly are these people Ezra is talking about--...

...ooooh, that's right. A bunch of Washington DBs talking to other Washington DBs.

Sorry, this one got on my nerves.

"Hello, Scranton..." (aka the President's Speech in Scranton, PA) (VIDEO)

And Lawrence's commentary, complete with an interview with Jay Carney, the President's Press Secretary:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Fireside Chat for November 24th, 2011 (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for November 19th, 2011 (VIDEO)

And now a Republican "Ruh-Roh" moment brought to you by the Washington Post and Small Donors...

Watch out now...

Even with low approval ratings and an uncertain path to reelection, President Obama is exceeding expectations in one area: His campaign is doing far better at attracting grass-roots financial support this year than his GOP rivals or his own historic effort in 2008, according to new contribution data.

The sheer scale of small donations, totaling $56 million for Obama and his party, has surprised many Democratic strategists and fundraisers, who feared that a sour economy would make it difficult for Obama to raise money from disenchanted and cash-strapped voters.

President Obama’s reelection campaign and DNC together raised $70 million in the third quarter of 2011. Outside of fundraising, the president is ramping up support for his reelection with his visits and talk about focusing on the economy.

A Washington Post analysis shows that nearly half of his campaign contributions, and a quarter of the money he has raised for the Democratic Party, has come from donors giving less than $200. That’s much higher than it was four years ago, and far beyond what the best-funded Republicans have managed.

Sonofagun...guess that "Satan Sandwich" is gettin' a bit tastier...

From The Hill:

The bipartisan debt-limit deal, famously called a “Satan sandwich” by a prominent Democrat this summer, is looking more heavenly to the left.

Republicans crowed after striking the agreement with President Obama, while congressional Democrats cried foul. Despite the White House’s endorsement of the bill, 95 House Democrats voted against it.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the Budget Committee, subsequently said Republicans called Obama’s bluff. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he got 98 percent of what he wanted in the deal.

Three months later, members of both parties are looking at the deal much differently.

A GOP lawmaker who requested anonymity told The Hill that “it’s the 2 percent that’s killing [Boehner] … I’ve never understood why we thought 12 people could come up with a solution any better than we could.”

With the supercommittee deadlocked, the sequestration cuts of $1.2 trillion are now likely to be triggered. Those reductions would hit national security programs, but not call for structural reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and/or Social Security.

Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services committees were wary of putting defense cuts in the trigger, but Democrats essentially said the GOP would have to choose between tax increases or cuts to the military. Republicans opted for the latter, despite major concerns expressed by House Armed Service Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.).

Now, in sharp contrast to this summer, Democrats say they are in the driver’s seat. They note that Republicans are already vowing to torpedo the sequestration cuts to the Defense Department, something Democrats say they will not go along with.

Many Democrats would prefer the sequestration cuts over a deal that would make major reforms to entitlement programs.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who voted against the debt deal on Aug. 1, is openly rooting for the super-panel to fall short.

“I hope that they cannot reach an agreement,” Nadler told Capital New York.

Nadler favors major cuts to the military — which could happen in 2013 if Congress cannot pass a deficit-reduction bill.

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who dubbed the debt deal a “Satan sandwich,” has tempered his critique.

He, along with dozens of congressional Democrats and Republicans, has called for the supercommittee to “go big” and find deficit savings in the $3 trillion to $4 trillion range. Part of that savings, Cleaver has made clear, should come from the expiration of the Bush tax rates.

There's more, but you get the idea.

Jonathan Chait explains the SuperCommittee Jujitsu in a way that most of us will enjoy...

My favorite bit is Hensarling's little warning to his colleagues.  I think this is the first time I've heard a Republican publicly acknowledge that they might not win the White House.

By the way, you know Chait's moved to New York Magazine, right?

Recent coverage of the supercommittee budget negotiations has trumpeted the fact that some Republicans have agreed, in theory, to increase tax revenue. But this isn’t any kind of compromise, and Democrats would be crazy to take this so-called “concession,” even if it came attached to no spending cuts at all.

The Republican offer is a response to the fact that Democrats hold all the leverage. At the end of 2012, the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire. If that happens, tax rates would return to Clinton-era levels, and revenue would increase by $3.7 trillion over a decade. That would solve the medium-term deficit problem without cutting a single dollar in spending.

Of course, it would also effectively hike taxes on the middle class, which Democrats oppose, or claim to oppose. But if those tax cuts expire in a way that allows Democrats to avoid the blame, they could have a win-win.

It’s the flip side of the situation they faced at the end of 2010, the last time the tax cuts were set to expire. Democrats couldn’t afford to yank the economy off life support before the 2012 elections, and so agreed to extend the cuts in exchange for extending some stimulative measures like payroll tax breaks and unemployment insurance.

Now that the tax cuts have been extended through 2012, the Democrats can afford to hang tough. They can make the election a choice between the Republican vision of keeping Bush-era tax rates on the rich and slashing retirement programs, and the Democratic vision of higher levels of retirement spending financed by higher taxes on the rich. That’s a very favorable contrast for the Democrats. And if the two parties fail to reach an agreement, the tax cuts disappear automatically. The bottom line: The expiration of the tax cuts poses a huge threat to the GOP.

Republicans understand this problem, and their offer before the supercommittee is a tactical effort to reduce the potential risk. The GOP is offering to increase tax revenue slightly above current levels – about $250 billion over a decade – in return for locking in the Bush tax cuts permanently. And they are only offering this in return for Democrats agreeing to cuts in entitlement spending and privatization of Medicare.

I’d be willing to consider a deal that cut entitlements in return for higher revenue. But the GOP deal wouldn’t produce higher revenue — it’s merely a hedge. Jake Sherman and Manu Raju report that Jeb Hensarling, an arch-conservative on the supercommittee, has made exactly this case to his colleagues:

“In a 20-minute presentation Tuesday, Hensarling told his House Republican colleagues that it was in their interest to cut a deal now since Obama could keep the White House, and Republicans should look at the proposal as avoiding a huge rate hike in 2013, when the Bush tax cuts expire. The usually rambunctious House Republican Conference gave Hensarling a standing ovation.”

Republicans are publicly framing this offer as a concession, in return for which they must get tax reform and entitlement cuts. But if Democrats really want to cut a deal, they need to demand higher tax revenue without locking in the Bush tax cuts.

It is certainly true that many House conservatives are freaking out at the supercommittee Republican offer, insisting that the party can never allow taxes to go even one cent higher under any circumstances. But this is merely the expression of the party’s anti-tax fanaticism – they are so dogmatically committed to the anti-tax cause that they won’t even buy what’s essentially an insurance policy to protect against a huge possible tax hike. The split within the GOP is not a split between anti-tax fanatics and deficit hawks. It’s a split between anti-tax fanatics who understand how to protect their interests and anti-tax fanatics who are too uncompromising to do even that.

The Fireside Chat for November 12th, 2011 (VIDEO)

What heroism can look like... (VIDEO)

Yes, even here on a political blog, the Penn State Scandal's icy claw can reach in. But this was too good not to share.



To stand against the winds of adversity. To speak against the mob.  Man, that's something.

This may be Veteran's Day, and there may be bolder, more life-threatening, more life-changing kinds of heroism than this, but in terms of what it means to be an American? You'll find few better examples.

And bear in mind, apparently the kid wearing the Dorsett jersey (not a good thing in my mind since I'm a Redskins fan) is a cousin of Dorsett's. All the cheap shots thrown his way? The kid didn't blink. Good for him. I hope he runs for office, because despite his nefarious Dallas Cowboys connection, he may just get my vote..

Randi Rhodes' Interview with John Nichols of the Nation Magazine on Tuesday's elections (AUDIO)

"That's exactly what I said. Let Detroit go Bankrupt..." (VIDEO)

The Daily Show Interview with Bill Clinton (VIDEO)

Part 1:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Part 2:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Part 3:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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But before everyone gets all happy about Bubba's return to the stage, I have to point out another example of Bill's temper getting the better of him...this time in print:

In his new book, Bill Clinton writes, as Politico puts it, that he was "mystified that Democrats last year would have agreed to Republican demands to extend the Bush era tax cuts without insisting on a simultaneous increase in the federal debt limit." That Obama — what an amateur! But yesterday, Clinton recanted his criticism, telling an audience at the New York Historical Society, "I was wrong."

Clinton — being interviewed by his daughter Chelsea Clinton — said he recently received a clarifying email from Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling, who also worked in the Clinton White House. Sperling, Clinton recounted, assured him that, “Oh, we tried.” The Democrats’ efforts, according to Clinton’s account of what Sperling told him, were thwarted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who threatened to filibuster the entire package if an increase in the debt limit was included. Clinton said he incorrectly believed that Senate rules would not have allowed a filibuster of this type of fiscal measure.

Usually this is something you would try to find out before penning a criticism of a fellow Democratic president. Bill, you're worth a bazillion dollars — maybe spring for a research assistant next time.

The Story of Broke (VIDEO)

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) explains the Occupy Wall Street Movement (VIDEO)

What if...?? (VIDEO)

60 Minutes: The Jack Abramoff Interview... (VIDEO)

Also known as the Lobbyist's playbook...



UPDATED 4:10pm, Pacific:

There was more, and I'm putting it all down here.

How to use Congressional Hearing to destroy people...




The Culture of Corruption:




And just to remind you, an emphasized segment detailing the murky-language "perfect" tactic:




And what of Jack's time in Prison?

Best Sacha Baron Cohen character...ever (VIDEO)

The Fireside Chat for November 5th, 2011 (VIDEO)

Guest starring Joltin' Joe Biden!!

The post where I introduce you to Imran Khan, and tell Pakistan to bite me.

There's a Politican named Imran Khan. He's attracting big crowds, getting a lot of attention, and he may be bad news.

First off, it seems he may be getting financial support from the ISI, but more importantly:

The real key to Khan's popularity lies in his public stance against U.S. foreign policy, and what he describes as Washington's interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. He has consistently condemned drone strikes against militants in Pakistan's tribal belt, and argued that Pakistan's alliance with the United States is the main reason why the country is now facing a Taliban insurgency. Khan was careful on Sunday to indicate that he would be open to continued ties with the United States if he came to office, but only on Pakistan's terms. This is a heartening message for millions of Pakistanis who are still reeling from the audacity of the unilateral U.S. raid against Osama bin Laden's compound in May, which many saw as a brash violation of Pakistan's national sovereignty and an act of betrayal by a so-called ally. If this tactic succeeds, Khan will not be the first Pakistani politician to convert anti-Americanism into votes.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Also, reeling from the audacity of the unilateral U.S. raid against Osama bin Laden's compound in May, which many saw as a brash violation of Pakistan's national sovereignty and an act of betrayal by a so-called ally? Bite me, Pakistan.  Your Military and Intelligence command hid target number one and refused to cooperate in his capture, so we went in and got him.  @#$% you.

One would think Mr. Khan also knows how to add, and will get into office, look at the amount of funding we're giving him and make his actual decision from there.

It's very possible that he'll still dial back the Pakistani-American relationship. Then again, we seem to be anxious to dial it back ourselves.

I hope Mr. Khan understands that should there be another High Value Target in his country, alliance or no, we're still taking him out, and there's incredibly little Pakistan can do about it, except maybe get off a lucky shot.  (Remember Pakistan scrambled fighters to intercept our Raid Team's Choppers, but by the time we got there, they were already outta there, and UBL was dead.

Yes, Pakistan has nukes...but so does another country that's veeeery close to them...and we like them better.