enlarge

There's something about prostitutes and a greasy publicity-chasing pimp being registered Republicans that feels like vindication. This makes it seem like the Grand Old Party is finally being candid about what they do...and why they do it. Finally a Republican owns up to my characterizations of them! Hooray.

Happy Nevada caucus day!

Open thread below...

DOWNLOADS: (262)

PLAYS: (1288)

Embed

Sharron Angle went on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to promote her new book, ostensibly, but really, it was mostly a long session kvetching about Angle's loss to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

HANNITY: You lost a tough election. That was, for me, one of the harder ones. I wanted him beaten so bad.

ANGLE: Everybody did. You know, I had a 7-year-old boy say to me, I'm so sorry you lost. And I have lots of people coming up. And all I can say is, I'm sorry too. But life isn't about winning or losing, it is about doing the right thing and doing your very best. And I think, that's what we just have to continue to do as people who want to get back to the Constitution. We can't give up, we can't quit. We've got to keep in the game even if we lose one.

HANNITY: Let's talk about, did Harry Reid steal this election? Do you think he stole votes in this election?

ANGLE: Well, in my book, the "Right Angle," I do discuss that a bit. And you may know this, we have a lawsuit after Department of Justice.

HANNITY: About ACORN and the SEIU?

ANGLE: It's actually about Harrah's casino and the SEIU and their involvement and what we feel was not legitimate election conduct.

Of course, Angle was making these claims even before the election, and they were every bit as groundless then, though of course you'll never learn that while watching Hannity.

Neither, for that matter, will you hear any mention of the real reasons Angle lost, beyond her utter nutbaggery -- the primary one being that Republicans tried a stop-the-Latino vote campaign that horribly backfired, along with Angle's obscene demonizing of Latinos in her campaign, followed by her hilarious flip-flopping on the subject. Result: Some 90 percent of Latino voters backed Reid, and he won going away.

It looks like Sharron Angle sees the House of Representatives as an easier win than the US Senate. Today she announced a run for the US House (NV-2) to replace Rep. Dean Heller, who is running for John Ensign's seat in the Senate.

The 2012 elections will be an interesting test for the Tea Party. Assume they'll be well-funded so blanketing districts with ads and propaganda will be no problem. What may be a problem, however, is how they're perceived given the overplayed hands unfolding right now in many states as well as the mainstream Republican Party's frustration with them in the US Congress. Angle's election to the House of Representatives isn't a given, but it will be a bellwether for the Tea Party's viability.

And just imagine the fun she can have with Virginia Foxx and Michele Bachmann if she wins.

Senator John Ensign announced his retirement this afternoon, leaving the door open for Sharron Angle to take another run at the Senate in Nevada.

MSNBC

“I just came to the conclusion that I couldn't put my family through this," said the Nevada senator, who said that he had “fully planned” to run for re-election until coming to the decision to retire last week.

Ensign, whose fast-rising political career was derailed after he admitted to an affair with a campaign aide whose husband served as his deputy chief of staff, said that a pending Senate ethics investigation into his conduct had “zero effect” on the decision not to run for a third term.

Ensign allegedly helped the aide’s husband find a new job, and Ensign’s parents paid the couple $96,000.

"There are consequences to sin and when you’re in a leadership role, those consequences can affect a lot of other people," Ensign said during a press conference announcing his retirement from the Senate.

“At this point in my life, I have to put my family first,” he added.

Oh, how noble. Put his family first, or just unwilling to face public scrutiny in a campaign over his C Street connections, his mistress, or his corruption?

Sharron Angle thinks the media has taken her out of context -- what a shocker!

When CNN caught up with Angle at one of her Las Vegas campaign stops, she complained some of her more controversial statements had been taken out of context. "As you speak, as we're conversationally speaking, sometimes when you pick out words, they're not the best words you could have used," she told CNN in a rare one-on-one interview. "When taken out of context, you can make anybody look like they don't know what they're talking about," she elaborated.

Harry Reid disagrees.

"It's a little hard to take out of context when they say they want to phase out Social Security," Reid responded to CNN. "Her words are what she is. My words are what I am. So I don't think you can run from what you say and what you do."

There's an epidemic of contextual errors these days, it seems. Is Angle saying that she didn't mean it when she talked about "second amendment remedies" with regard to the Obama administration? Or did I misunderstand the context of her reference to "domestic enemies" inside this Administration? What part of "eliminate the Department of Education" did they get out of context? Perhaps Angle can supply some much needed context to her remarks about the unemployed being spoiled, lazy, or 13-15 year old rape victims making the best of a 'bad situation'.

Not to worry, my friends. Sharron Angle promises she'll be a "mainstream Senator". Or did the media get the context wrong on that, too? The only way Sharron Angle would be mainstream is if the river ran right through the Republic of Crazy.

DOWNLOADS: (291)

PLAYS: (2383)

Embed

Warning, voters! According to Sharron Angle, Harry Reid is plotting to steal the Nevada election!:

Harry Reid intends to steal this election if he can't win it outright. As a result, we need to deploy literally dozens of election law attorneys and poll watchers to combat these tactics at a cost of nearly $80,000. That's over and above our current budget. We need to raise $80,000 and we need to do it RIGHT NOW, because even as I am writing this, Harry Reid and his Machine are trying to steal this election. I'm sorry that we have to come to you yet again and ask for you to reach deep and contribute, but we must.

Understand, EVERYTHING we have worked for in the last year could be destroyed by dirty tricks and criminal acts in the next 8 days. As Sharron's first line of defense on these matters I am absolutely committed to making sure this won't happen.

Of course, the Secretary of State subsequently issued a statement noting that that the Angle campaign "fails to cite any evidence of 'vote buying' in the State of Nevada other than reports to their election hotline about representatives of unions." It added, somewhat pointedly:

The statutes involved in this matter carry criminal penalties, and complaints should contain specific information, not conjecture and rumor used in support of a plea for financial contributions, as the foundation of the violation.

In other words: These are serious allegations. If you're going to make them, you need to at least have a smidgen of evidence other than your paranoias.

And these folks -- boy, are they paranoid. Indeed, one would have to call them "conspiracist loons". Consider the organization that Angle is now using to spread the word for volunteers to take part in Nevada "poll-watching":

In 2008, Angle's We the People Nevada PAC contributed $92,000 to the Nevada Action Coalition. The Coalition emerged this month as a player in alleging ballot hijinks by Democrats.

Coalition members recently advertised a "voter fraud" meeting and accused Reid of wanting to rig the race.

"Want to make sure Harry and his buddies don't steal this election?" an Oct. 9 web post read. "Then come to the training next Tuesday. We need lots of watchers, cause you know the dark side has secret plans for this election."

"Want to make sure Harry and his buddies don't steal this election?" an Oct. 9 web post read. "Then come to the training next Tuesday. We need lots of watchers, cause you know the dark side has secret plans for this election."

Last week, the group posted a second warning to members:

"I recieved (sic) a call...about a 'funny' voter machine at Tropicana & Hualapi. Seems when she voted for a Republican candidate the machine 'helped' by changing her vote to a Democrat candidate.

Moral of this Story...Report ANY voter irregularity to the Poll Watcher Hot Line. We need to report all suspicious activity as you know Harry's men are out to steal this election."

Well, just who is the Nevada Action Coalition? Funny you should ask:

NAC bills itself as "a group of ordinary American citizens who work to expose and stop the corrupt political elites that are giving away or selling our sovereignty for their own gains." They endorsed Angle and Republicans down the ballot.

The Coalition claims that the government wants to merge the United States with "the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico and Canada" and designate a section of Kansas City as sovereign Mexican territory, according to its website. It also asserts that Muslim leaders designated a yellow badge for Jews to wear, which was later copied by Hitler in Nazi Germany.

Indeed, you can read the NAC's page devoted to the North American Union conspiracy theory here. The NAC also promotes the utterly specious (and fundamentally racist) "Aztlan invasion" conspiracy theory, as you can see here.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (270)

PLAYS: (2910)

Embed

I dunno, what do you think? Think these guys might be Asian?

Well, anyway, now that Sharron Angle isn't having to make nice before a group of Latino students, she's back to her old Latino-bashing race-baiting ways, as TPM reports:

"Waves of illegal aliens streaming across our border, joining violent gangs, forcing families to live in fear," the announcer says. "And what's Harry Reid doing about it? Voting to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits, tax breaks, and college tuition. Voting against declaring English our national language -- twice. And even sided with Obama and the President of Mexico to block Arizona's tough new immigration law. Harry Reid, it's clear whose side he's on -- and it's not yours."

As with a previous ad, the victims of illegal immigration -- in this case the families living in fear, and kindergarteners who won't grow up in an America where English is the only official language -- all appear to be white, and stand in stark contrast to the dark-skinned criminals illegally coming from the Mexican border.

Greg Sargent astutely observes:

Here's why this is important. As you may recall, when Angle recently came under fire for another immigration ad that pictured swarthy young men sneaking around, she distanced herself from it by claiming that the men in her spot weren't necessarily Latinos.

Angle even suggested her earlier ad was a reference to border security in general, claiming: "Our northern border is where the terrorists came through."

Now that her new ad explicitly shows the Texas-Mexico border, can we assume that her earlier explanation is no longer operative?

I think we can also assume her doubtfulness that the men in her ads are Latino can be declared similarly inoperative.

You know, one can only hope that this kind of ugliness works as well for Angle as that right-wing Latino-voter-suppression effort.

DOWNLOADS: (283)

PLAYS: (3227)

Embed

Those ads by a right-wing front group called "Latinos for Reform" -- urging Latinos no to vote for Democrats in the coming election because they haven't delivered on comprehensive immigration reform -- may not be turning out to be such a hot idea:

But the fever-pitch backlash to this advertisement suggests the message could bring about just the opposite effect, by energizing a Hispanic voting bloc that may have been lethargic with a new and compelling reason to get out and vote — by and large, for Democrats.

From the 2004 to 2008 elections, Hispanics grew in force from 8 percent of the electorate to 12 to 15 percent, depending on the exit poll — roughly equal to President Barack Obama’s margin of victory. Obama carried 76 percent of the Nevada Hispanic vote in 2008.

Electorate growth rates among Hispanics have slowed since. But what hasn’t is their overwhelming enthusiasm for Democrats.

“Hispanics are much more likely to view congressional Democrats favorably than other groups,” said John Tuman, chairman of UNLV’s political science department who also teaches in the Latin American studies department. According to a recent study by UNLV and the Brookings Mountain West think tank, “it’s only among Hispanics in any Mountain West state that you see Democrats having an overall net favorability ranking,” Tuman said.

Yeah, campaigns that smack of overt minority voter-suppression efforts -- particularly since the self-serving hypocrisy of these ads ("Punish Democrats because they haven't been effective in overcoming our longstanding efforts to kill immigration reform") is so transparent -- tend not to go over so well with minority voters.

Even the local Republican paper in Vegas declared the ads "repulsive".

And the sheer phoniness of a guy like Robert de Posada pretending that he favors immigration reform when in fact he's fought it tooth and nail is especially noteworthy. Political Correction:

Disturbingly, de Posada has frequently used race as a wedge issue and driven the narrative that Democrats favor other minority groups over Latinos. For instance, during the contentious confirmation process of Miguel Estrada, which Democrats filibustered because he was seen as "far beyond the mainstream," de Posada was quoted as asking, "Is the message here that the Democratic Party is sending that they have a favorite minority group?" The Associated Press reported that de Posada was frustrated that Estrada's nomination was being held up but "that two black judges have been confirmed to the U.S. Appeals Court." "Any opposition to [Estrada]" de Posada said, was "going to be taking it personally."

Gotta agree with the New York Times:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (305)

PLAYS: (2869)

Embed

Seems that Sharron Angle doesn't want to cop to the naked race-baiting of her "illegal aliens" ads -- especially not when she's in a room full of Latino students.

She was called on the race-baiting this weekend, and she tried two different dodges:

-- Those weren't Latinos in those ads, which really were about security on our northern border.

-- What's the difference between Latinos and Asians anyway? We're all just a big melting pot, right?

No, really. That's what she said.

Jon Ralston at the Las Vegas Sun has the gory details:

Question: Why is it that in all of your commercials you have the image of Latinos? What do you see when you hear, and I quote, “illegal aliens?”

Angle: I think that you’re misinterpreting those commercials. I’m not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through. That’s the most porous border that we have. We cannot allow terrorists; we cannot allow anyone to come across our border if we don’t know why they’re coming. So we have to secure all of our borders and that’s what that was about, is border security. Not just our southern border, but our coastal border and our northern border.

Yeah, who could have gotten the idea those were Latinos in that commercial, eh? Silly of them, really. But then, if you wanted to check for yourself, you might have a problem since Angle was so proud of the ad she took it down from YouTube.

Fortunately, we still have it here:

DOWNLOADS: (1362)

PLAYS: (3586)

Embed

Continue reading »

I'll be here chatting and liveblogging the Reid/Angle debate in the comments. Join me?

(Note: this stream is in Windows Media Format.)

UPDATE: We've switched to the Rossi/Murray debate