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The Big Picture: Judge nixes Citi-SEC settlement

First Citizens United commercial for midterms

Citizens United has only endorsed one nominee for the midterm elections thus far: Sharron Angle.

Via the Las Vegas Tribune:

Citizens United Political Victory Fund says their mission is to assist a conservative candidate who shares Ronald Reagan's vision of reducing the size of government, lowering taxes, cutting spending, promoting traditional family values, and keeping America safe. Their goal for the 2010 election cycle is to elect a candidate who will fight for conservative principles and challenge the agenda of the Obama Administration.

David N. Bossie, President of Citizens United said, "this is a critical race, and that is why it is so important to nominate a true Conservative with the credibility to stand up to Senator Reid's out-of-control spending and big-government ways. Sharron Angle is a strong candidate with impeccable Conservative credentials, and I am proud to endorse her for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate."

That ad at the top, by the way, isn't one Ronald Reagan would endorse at all. Reagan was good buddies with Iran's religious oligarchs -- such good buddies he and his pal Bill Casey swapped some weapons for hostages back in the day.

But then, it's very much in style to twist around what Reagan was about to serve the conservative message. Truth matters less than impression, and so we have Reagan, DemiGod of the teabaggers, overseeing their efforts. Never mind that he gave amnesty to illegal aliens, ignored the Constitution when it didn't fit with his plans, and systematically dismantled Main Street in favor of Wall Street. Forget all that for a minute.

Sharron Angle and Citizens United carefully ignore this fact: Reagan talked to the Soviets. Of course, they already had nukes, so I suppose there wasn't much of an option, eh?

There's nothing much good to say about Reagan, but there's far less to say good about Sharron Angle, and comparing her to him is a joke. Here's the most telling quote I've read about her time in the Nevada state legislature:

"She's very rigid and I have a little bit of trouble understanding her positions," the former lawmaker said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "She's a very difficult person."

Vucanovich explained that her concerns don't just stem from Angle's conservative views, but rather from her uncompromising style of legislating. The characterization appears to grow out of a reputation Angle developed among her colleagues during the years she served in the Nevada state legislature from 1999 to 2005.

"In the building we used to have a joke called 41 to Angle," Democratic assemblywoman Sheila Leslie recently told the New York Times. "She took great pride in voting 'no' for everything. We have some very conservative people in the assembly, but she was the only one voting 'no' on a technical cleanup bill. The lobbyists didn't talk to her, the legislators wouldn't talk to her, because when you vote no on everything no one wants to deal with you."

I'd say that about describes the entire Republican party, wouldn't you? About the only thing worse for Nevada than Sharron Angle would be...hmmmm. I can't think of what that is.

UPDATE: Today brings another example of Angle's apparent inability to grasp facts or imagine taking action on behalf of those she represents. From The Plum Line, this story:

What happened was this: Angle, under fire for saying she disagreed with something Harry Reid did that saved a project involving thousands of local jobs, claimed that what she'd really meant to say was that she opposed the stimulus. The problem, as a flummoxed local reporter pointed out, is that the stimulus had nothing to do with the project in question.

So Harry Reid picked up the phone and asked several banks to release funds to complete a private building project rather than throw 22,000 people out of work. They agreed, and the project was saved. Angle somehow twisted this into an anti-stimulus answer for a project completely unrelated to the stimulus.

The real danger here is that Angle didn't take the 10 minutes to see what the problem was. Instead she served up the knee-jerk tea party answer about smaller government and stimulus failure, which should be a pretty strong indicator of her inability to actually work through a problem and solve it on her own.

But hey, Citizens United thinks she's the Reagan ideal, so there's that, anyway.

(h/t Desert Beacon)

Tonight was a big night in primary-land with some expected, some unexpected, some disappointing, and some cliffhanging results.

Arkansas: Blanche Lincoln squeaks by Bill Halter

Despite Bill Halter's slight lead in the polls, Blanche Lincoln took the lead in votes from the first returns and never gave it back, squeaking through the runoff by a 9,500 vote margin as of this writing, winning the Democratic nomination to run against Republican John Boozman in November.

It appears that voter turnout was down slightly from the May 18th primary. In that race, a total of 324,216 votes were cast. In this one, with 83% reporting, 213,818 votes had been cast. Extrapolation of that result gives me an estimated voter turnout of 257,600 or so. This might not be such a big deal, but there are lingering questions about the integrity of this runoff, given that one county only had two polling places for this runoff instead of the 40 open for the primary. A lawsuit has been filed; voter disenfranchisement alleged.

California message: Rich corporate washout women win

Yep, that's right. Carly Fiorina will run against Barbara Boxer for the US Senate, and Meg Whitman will face Jerry Brown for Governor. Tom Campbell, Chuck Devore, and Steve Poizner were left in the dust. Sarah Palin can finally put a winner (Fiorina) in her column, and we're off to the races. Whitman spent $81 million ($71 million of her own money) on the primary. And they say Republicans are conservative.

On the ballot initiatives, Californians bear-hugged open primaries but sent fair elections packing. Despite a harrowing first few hours of returns, it appears that enough Californians rejected the idea of P,G&E and Mercury Insurance buying custom-built laws to build up their business at taxpayers' expense, but it is not a shoe-in. It is 1:00 AM as I write this, and Prop 17 just flipped to NO 15 minutes ago. Prop 16 flipped at midnight or so. Prop 13 sailed to victory as did Prop 14.

In other news, Rep. Jane Harman overwhelmed challenger Marcy Winograd 59.3%-40.7%.

Seems that anti-incumbent sentiment didn't quite ooze all the way out to California.

Birther takes a bath

Orly Taitz lost big, but it still amazes me that nearly 300,000 California Republicans think she's worthy to run for or hold public office.

Nevada - Harry Reid has a very strange challenger: Sharron Angle

A lot of money went to Angle from the tea party groups in the last few months of the campaign, and with Sue Lowden doing the funky chicken, Angle pulled out the win, more or less guaranteeing Harry Reid his next term in the Senate. Angle isn't your ordinary conservative. She wants to repeal Social Security, Medicare, health care reform, and all regulations hindering offshore drilling. I think there may be some issues with that these days. There's more, but that link goes to a cached version of her website which may change since the live site is offline but for a donation page.

Senator Ensign's good buddy Gov. Gibbons lost his primary bid by 30 points (ouch!) to Judge Brian Sandoval, who will run against Democrat Rory Reid in November.

More on yesterday's primaries here.

There are more stories to tell, including how this Twitterer was born. Election nights are emotional, and tonight was no exception, even for some unnamed "senior White House officials."

Let's see what the Senate does with this after their lobbyists bring them to heel:

BANGALORE: American lawmakers plan to make it less attractive for the country’s multinational giants IBM and GE to expand their workforce in cheaper locations such as India by taxing their income from international markets, and encourage job creation by renewing several expired tax breaks for local R&D.

Last week, the House of Representatives approved the ‘American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act’ on a 215-204 vote, clearing the way for the US Senate to hold final discussions in June. At a time when the unemployment rates in the US are hovering around 9.9%, lawmakers are under tremendous pressure to act against the companies seen as creating jobs overseas even as they lay off workers in the country.

“In this legislation, which is job creating, it closes the loophole which has allowed businesses to ship jobs overseas. Can you believe that we have a tax policy that enables outsourcing? So, if you have one thing to say about this bill to your constituents, you can say that today, you voted to close the loophole to ship US jobs overseas and giving businesses a tax break to do so,” House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi told the lawmakers before the voting process started on Friday last week. “It is not right. It will be corrected today.”

The proposal, expected to cost nearly $112 billion, will be discussed by the Senate during week of June 7 after Congress’ Memorial Day recess.

However, India’s $60-billion outsourcing sector, which counts GE and Citigroup among its top customers, does not see any direct impact.

Dan Coats on The Young Turks from the 2008 Republican National Convention

I'm not sure if it's possible to get a more Republican candidate for Indiana than Evan Bayh, but the GOP isn't going to go down without trying. Former Senator Dan Coats has announced this morning that he will challenge Bayh for the Senate seat in the 2010 Election.

But for all of his high profile--and Dan Coats certainly does have that within the Republican Party--I'm not sure the GOP is really learning the lessons of the tea baggers distrusting the incumbents and politicians when opting to promote Coats for the Senate seat.

To wit, Coats is a member of the C-Street Family, responsible for the failed ushering of Harriet Miers through the Supreme Court confirmation process. I think his quote on Miers, who failed to capture even Republican support shows his contempt for Americans:

She certainly has the capability to be an excellent Supreme Court justice. If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole.

Continue reading »

Cartoon from Walt Handelsman at Newsday (reg. required for some pages).

No one can predict how today will go, there is some hope that since the Senate likes to appear to be the royalty of the Congress, we might avoid some of the circus antics that Saturday in the House brought. It's unlikely anyone will use procedural objections over and over to silence Barbara Boxer or Olympia Snowe.

It's an open thread for what you're seeing in, and thinking about, today's procedures.

Well, it looks like Matthews has picked his candidate and his name is John McCain. Olbermann pokes Tweety in the eye because Matthews went off on State Sen. Kirk Watson, an Obama supporter, who was unprepared for this type of treatment on election coverage.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Olbermann: In defense of Sen. Obama and also in context, can you name one accomplishment of the US Senate in the last seven years?

Matthews: That's a broader question requiring a larger preparation.

Olbermann: Yeah, you don't have an answer to that one either. (Studio laughs)

Matthews: Let me say...but you know what, Keith? They should be able to make some points..

Olbermann: I'm not disagreeing with you on that...In two weeks, Chris ...

Matthews: And I'm not here to defend the US Senate, he's here to defend Barack Obama and he had nothing in his---he had nothing to say. That's a problem.

Olbermann: In two weeks, Chris and I will have complete coverage of the primaries in Ohio and Texas, at which point I'm expecting a written reply to may...

Matthews: Why do you think they call it Hardball?

Olbermann: Alright, but this isn't Hardball, we're doing election results. (more laughter)

Matthews: Well, you know...it's late at night...

You too can be Wyoming's new Senator!

The Wyoming GOP has posted an application for consideration for the US Senate (.pdf) on its site. It looks a little light on qualifications, other than being a Republican.

So that's why Lynne Cheney's name keeps getting tossed in there.

Igor: Gearing up for the November elections, Fox News has quietly morphed their corporate color scheme, replacing nearly all of the red with blue. Meanwhile, this GOP congressman has quietly scrubbed all references to GWB from his campaign website.

First Draft: Where's Trent Lott's porch?

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Wednesday was a good day for science education inthe midwest

newsrack blog: A great, hard-hitting, issue-based ad by Jon Tester, who is challenging Conrad Burns for a seat in the US Senate

Simply Left Behind: A Terminator flip-flop

The Carpetbagger Report: Dobson responds to Kuo revelations...they call it sour grapes....

JC Christian:

As a Republican, I don't think I've ever been prouder of one of our senators than I was today when you rose to address the terrorist amnesty issue. Like you, I don't think the US Senate should condemn the Iraqi Prime Minister for offering amnesty to terrorists who kill our soldiers. Why waste time on it? It's not like our military is staffed with College Republicans...read on