Heretofore, the GOP plan for the 2010 midterm election has appeared to be the gnat in the oil, the constant irritant to any attempt by the Democratic majority to fix the giant clusterf&^k brought to them by the Bush/Cheney administration. They didn't have to be specific; they didn't have to have solutions. All they had to do is say no to anything and everything. Then, effectively paralyzing the majority party from actually getting to the solutions promised to the American people, they can point to the other side of the aisle and say they were ineffectual and didn't help the average Joe and glide right back into the majority again.

And it might have worked, if it wasn't for those pesky Villagers. Because, if you've lost David Gregory and he's actually asking follow up questions to pin you down to an actual answer, well, you've lost a big advocate for your propaganda and spin.

Watch as Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Pete Sessions hem and haw and try to launch a load of platitudes rather answer Gregory's questions. And then--be still my heart--Gregory actually calls them on their obfuscation and tells them they didn't answer the question. ThinkProgress:

GREGORY: I think what a lot of people want to know is, if Republicans do get back in power, what are they going to do?

SESSIONS: It’s quite simple that Americans do know the agenda that is before us. They understand what the President and the speaker stand for, and they understand what Republicans stand for. Republicans…very strong, standing with the American people back home. [...]

GREGORY: Congressman, congressman, that’s a pretty gauzy agenda so far. I mean, what specifics — what painful painful choices are Republicans prepared to make? … How do you [balance the budget]? Tell me how you do it. Name a painful choice that Republicans are prepared to say we have to make.

SESSIONS: Well first of all, we have to make sure as we look at all we spend in Washington, D.C., with not only the entitlement spending, but also the bigger government we cannot afford anymore. We have to empower the free enterprise system.

GREGORY: Congressman, these are not specifics, voters get tired of that.

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Dear Sam Feist, CNN Political Director Jim Walton, President CNN Worldwide:

I have to ask, where's my CNN gig?

I mean, you've made the decision to hire Erick Erickson of RedState, so clearly, you've understood that bloggers reach out to many politically engaged Americans and tap into a market for an cable outlet that is struggling to compete.

Smart move. Bloggers are outside the Beltway cocktail circuit. We're informed, we can get to the heart of the issue quickly and we're not afraid to be confrontational at times, which makes for good television.

But Erick Erickson? With all due respect, why?

Because I don't know if you've watched the news in the last few years, but there are few less in touch with the pulse of America than Erickson. We have a Democratic president, Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and overwhelming support for Democratic--nay, for liberal solutions. The country isn't center-right, no matter how many times Rush Limbaugh or Lou Dobbs tells you it is (oh wait, is that a sore spot for you? Sorry.). Americans have pretty much told Washington that we tried the conservative way and we didn't like the results. It's disheartening that so few in the media seemed to have picked up on that message, and it's clear you didn't, since you hired a reactionary conservative like Erickson.

So I come back to where's my gig? I think I'm as likely a choice as Erick Erickson and in many ways, a better business choice. I'm educated, articulate, snarky, and unafraid to defend my political stances, all traits you need and want in a television commentator. Moreover, I'm committed to facts and context and I'm capable of having a discussion with someone with whom I disagree without pulling facts from my posterior region, insulting them or wishing them harm or death, something you'll NEVER see from Erickson (did you even read his blog before hiring him?).

So unlike Erick, I actually can speak for a large majority of Americans--instead of a waning, increasingly irrelevant bunch of fringe players easily manipulated by astroturf organizations seeking to benefit corporations over Americans and I can do it in a civilized manner, something this country has also said they'd like to see more of.

I'd say that I'm cuter than Erick Erickson (television is a visual medium, after all), but I recognize that's a pretty subjective statement. Maybe you feel that conservative, puffy, middle-aged, bloviating, angry, privileged white men are underrepresented on your channel. I come from a website with at least as much traffic and influence as RedState (not to put too fine a point on it, but RedState isn't even on the list), if not more (Erick keeps his traffic stats close to the vest--the easier to puff up your counts that way), and we've managed to achieve that without corporate funding, unlike RedState, so I do bring an audience share with me as well.

But most importantly, I've been on the right correct side of issues far more often than Erickson. Hell, I've been correct more often than ALL of your conservative commentators put together. Go ahead. Line up my posts next to Erickson's and let's see who really reports facts and who just catapults the propaganda.

Wait a second, Messrs. Feist and Walton, let's look at your statement about Erickson's hire:

"Erick's a perfect fit for John King, USA, because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington, but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach," said Sam Feist, CNN political director and vice president of Washington-based programming. "With Erick's exceptional knowledge of politics, as well as his role as a conservative opinion leader, he will add an important voice to CNN's ideologically diverse group of political contributors." [CNN's Political Ticker, 3/16/10]

So by your own admission, you WANT to reach crazy, factually-challenged, threatening conservatives in a country that is struggling with some of the nastiest, most bigoted and most violent rhetoric seen in decades. Interesting.

Well, actually, if that's the kind of audience you're seeking, maybe I'm not the right person for the job.

However, if you ever get serious about actually wanting a fact-based and ideologically diverse group of contributors--rather than the lip-service you pay it now, you can always reach me through this site.

Sincerely,

Nicole Belle

Way to go! (A similar Justice Department investigation in 2002 led to guilty pleas from top international manufacturers of computer DRAM.) Now, if only the DoJ would go after the cable companies, we'd have a Democratic majority in perpetuity...

A home electronics retail store has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Hitachi Ltd. and several subsidiaries, accusing the electronics manufacturers of colluding to fix prices in the U.S. optical disc drive (ODD) market.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also claims the disc drive manufacturers used trade organization forums to meet and discuss agreements to keep prices of CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives in products like the Sony PlayStation 3 and PCs artificially high.

[...] Samsung, which has received subpoenas from the DOJ, said it had "no comment regarding price fixing on optical drives." Officials at Hitachi and Toshiba could not be reached for comment.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal last fall, Hitachi and Toshiba also received subpoenas regarding the probe into ODD price fixing.

An investigation was launched last October by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) into the market for optical disk drives for anticompetitive conduct. The DOJ subpoenaed Sony Optiarc America, which at the time said it intended to cooperate fully with the DOJ and other agencies in this inquiry."

According to one published report, the investigations goes well beyond just Sony, and involves other electronics manufacturers.

Sometimes I think the smartest thing we could do is to push for a national news boycott. Imagine if people had to judge what happens on the basis of how it affects their lives - and not how the media chooses to interpret it. Here's a good example -- for the past week, all we've heard is how the Democrats will lose the majority. As Tim Kaine explains, not so likely:

Democrats' chances of holding on to a congressional super-majority following the 2010 midterm elections have taken a hit in the last month, but their party's chairman thinks it will be the Republicans left scrambling in the fall.

"There's a huge, corrosive civil war within the Republican party that I think will continue to be a factor that will work in our favor in 2010," Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who also presides over the Democratic National Committee, told CBS' "The Early Show."

On Wednesday, surprise retirement announcements came from two longstanding Democratic Senators, Connecticut's Chris Dodd and North Dakota's Byron Dorgan – a development that threatens the Democrats' chances of maintaining 60-40 filibuster-proof majority over Republicans. (The Democrats actually control 58 seats, with two independents caucusing with them).

And last month, the party suffered a defection to the GOP by freshman Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith.

But aside from the recent buzz about potential Democratic losses, Republicans face the real problem, according to Kaine. In the Senate, two Democrats will retire but six Republicans will join them. In the House, GOP retirements outpace Democrats 14 to 10.

"Retirements are really on the other side," Kaine said.

There are also hotly contested primaries in some Republican districts that may hurt party unity.

After Rep. Roy Blunt, leader of the supposed House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, suggested Thursday that Republicans won't offer a health care plan of their own, Minority Leader John Boehner insisted one was still in the works.

Of course, the Republican plan as in 1993 is to stop health care reform at all costs to prevent an enduring Democratic majority. Bill Kristol, who told Republicans 16 years ago that there was "no crisis" justifying health care reform then, now simply calls on his party to "kill it." With spinmeisters Frank Luntz and Alex Castellanos supplying the talking points that a supposed "government takeover of health care" is "too much, too fast, too soon," obstructionists like Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe boasted his party would "stall" President Obama's health care initiative to ensure a "huge gain" in the 2010 election. In a nutshell, the GOP is proposing to extend the status quo for a nation gripped by a collapsing health care system.

Here, then, is the Republican 10-Point Plan for Health Care:

1. 50 Million Uninsured in America
2. Another 25 Million Underinsured
3. Employer-Based Coverage Plummets Below 60%
4. Employer Health Costs to Jump by 9% in 2010
5. One in Five Americans Forced to Postpone Care
6. 62% of U.S. Bankruptcies Involve Medical Bills
7. Current Health Care Costs Already Fueling Job Losses
8. 94% of Health Insurance Markets in U.S Now "Highly Concentrated"
9. Dramatic Decline in Emergency Room Capacity
10. Perpetuating Red State Health Care Failure

For the details and data behind each, continue reading.

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But everyone should understand: the difference between 58, 59, 60 senators is just fairly illusionary, because we still have to work on a bipartisan basis with whatever we get done.

Sigh. Remind me again, wasn't it Harry Reid and the Senate leadership that told us little people to be patient, because they could do all sorts of stuff once they got the majority--investigations, special prosecutors, accountability?

Now he wants us to believe it's all illusionary...

Is it okay to start questioning whether we really have someone who understands what it means to be the Majority Leader?

I know that we're supposed to be healing and reaching across the aisle and being all post-partisan with our upcoming Obama presidency, but I, like Rachel Maddow, need to be seriously talked down with the news that President-Elect Obama has counseled Harry Reid and the Democratic Party to not kick turncoat Joe Lieberman out of the caucus in the next congress.

Steve Clemons from The Washington Note tries to explain how there are ways to at least send a message to Holy Joe by removing his chairmanships to critical committees.

UPDATE: Think Progress has a new report out today showing how Holy Joe, who once proclaimed that he was "a Democrat with a 35-year record of fighting for progressive causes" has lost his way. And BraveNewFilms has a new site and video called "Joe Lieberman Must GO"

The Pew Research Center’s latest report notes, “Trends in the opinions of America’s youngest voters are often a barometer of shifting political winds.” If so, the winds are at Democrats’ backs, and will be for a quite a while. While young people shifted to the Democratic Party a bit in the 1990s, the bottom fell out for the GOP and younger voters during Bush’s presidency.

In 1992, Republicans enjoyed a slight edge in party identification among 18-29 year olds, 47% to 46%. Four years later, Democrats claimed a six-point edge, 50% to 44%. By the time of the 2000 election, Democrats’ lead had expanded slightly to eight points, 49% to 41%.

And voters under the age of 30 have been making a beeline from the Republican Party ever since. In 2004, Democrats’ lead among young voters’ party ID expanded to 11 points, 51% to 40%. And in 2008, the margin became a landslide — Democrats 58%, Republicans 33%.

What’s striking is not just the one-sided nature of young voters’ preferences, but the speed with which the change occurred. As recently as the 2002 midterms, voters aged 18 to 29 split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. In the 2006 midterms, they backed Democrats, 63% to 33%. Between 2004 and 2008, the party ID shift has more than doubled in Dems’ direction.

The change is also broadly based. From the Pew report:

In fact, the Democrats’ advantage among the young is now so broad-based that younger men as well as younger women favor the Democrats over the GOP — making their age category the only one in the electorate in which men are significantly more inclined to self-identify as Democrats rather than as Republicans.

While more women voters in every age group affiliate with the Democratic Party rather than the GOP, the gap is particularly striking among young women voters; more than twice as many women voters under age 30 identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party as favor the Republican Party (63% vs. 28%).

Talk about your emerging Democratic majority.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks interviewed Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA06) about what the Democratic majority in Congress is planning to do to get us out of Iraq.

Lynn Woolsey: I'll tell you one of the things -- and you're just going to hate this -- because I hate it. But, there's this sense that we don't have the votes to do what we need to do, the right things to do, so we're not going to do anything, virtually. And what I say is, okay well if our troops, our wonderful troops over there say, "Well, you know, this is really hard and I don't know we can win this battle, so I think I won't do it." I just think we are looking at this so wrong. And I think the people of this country...89 percent of Americans polled are saying that our economy is directly related to our involvement in Iraq. I mean, they get it. We shouldn't be there in the first place. It's bringing our country down and our economy down. So I would think that the reason they made us the majority party anyway was so that we would do something about it.

The entire interview is available here. I'm out of words to express my disgust. Hopefully, you aren't and you can contact your congresscritter and remind them that even if they're calculating on you not voting for another Republican majority, there is always a "write in the blank" option on the ballot. That includes all incumbent Republicans. There isn't a safer action for Congress to make, given the polling of how Americans feel about the war and yet, they don't feel they can get the votes. Unbelievable. How about this as a reason? We can't afford this anymore.

Bush was asked at a White House press conference last week if he would consider a “goodwill mission to restore the country’s good name abroad.” The president said, “That’s what I do during my presidency. I go around spreading goodwill and talking about the importance of spreading freedom and peace.”

Apparently, he meant it. Yes, the president is planning some road-trips.

President George W. Bush’s diplomatic passport will acquire a slew of new country stamps during his final year in office as he tries to rebuild the U.S.’s international standing and create a foreign-policy legacy beyond Iraq.

The president plans trips to the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America, which would make 2008 his busiest year abroad. While his major domestic initiatives may get stalled by a Democratic majority in Congress and the gridlock caused by election-year politics, he still has an opportunity to exert his influence overseas. […]

While the president will strive to strengthen alliances, it won’t come at the expense of continuing to prosecute the war on terror, said Jim Jeffrey, the deputy White House national security adviser.

“We want to be well-perceived in the world,” Jeffrey said in an interview. “But more importantly, we want to formulate policies that will protect the American people.”

With all due respect to the White House, maybe we’ll be “well-perceived in the world” if the president stays home and changes his policies, instead of traveling abroad and keeping his existing policies?