politicaljuice916

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/andrewsullivan/rApM/~3/YgvjI7LXVXc/quote-for-the-day-5.html

Lance Winters

"I said, 'you remember Bristol, what we talk about on the fishing boat, stays on the fishing boat,'" - Sarah Palin, on whether she's made a decision to run for President.

Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton

Lance Winters

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama called on lawmakers Wednesday to overcome the "selfish" norms of politics and "do their...

Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/29/obama-pushes-gop-on-taxes-in-debt-ceiling-talks/

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/lYt7pFITbIw/-WA-Gov:-Inslee-announces,-leads-new-SurveyUSA-poll-

Lance Winters

In what will come as a surprise to absolutely no one (not just because he teased it last week, but because it's been in the works for two or three years), WA-01 Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee formally announced today that he's running for Washington governor. Inslee kicked off his campaign with a speech at a biotech company in Seattle this morning, one that was heavily focused on jobs, especially green jobs (as fitting his environmental credentials) and jobs in new technologies.

SurveyUSA for KING5 (6/24-26, registered voters, 4/27-28 in parentheses):

Jay Inslee (D): 47 (41)
Rob McKenna (R): 44 (48)
Undecided: 9 (11)
^{(MoE: �4.4%)}

Now here's the surprising part: today also gives us the first public poll giving Inslee a lead over all-but-certain Republican opponent Rob McKenna. Previous polls from SurveyUSA and PPP had given McKenna within-the-margin-of-error leads over Inslee, which, frankly, I'd expect at this point, given that McKenna, as Attorney General, is known statewide, while Inslee represents only 1/9 of the state, and also that McKenna has meticulously crafted the image of an old-school moderate Northwestern Republican for himself. (Notwithstanding the way he incinerated that image last year with one quick match-strike when he signed on to the multi-state Republican AGs' anti-HCR suit.)

Particularly surprising is that this poll comes from SurveyUSA, an automated pollster who've historically tended to lean in a pessimistic direction for Dems in Washington despite their best efforts to include cellphone users in the sample when polling the heavily wired state; case in point, their April poll of the race put McKenna ahead by 7. I'm not sure what would explain this big a shift, although a lot of Democratic-leaning locals who haven't thought about the race before probably got their first real exposure to Inslee in the last few weeks as the local media spotlight turned to him in the wake of Chris Gregoire's announcement that she wouldn't seek a third term. Inslee and McKenna are similarly well-liked, with 31/16 and 36/21 favorables respectively; Inslee's overall lead seems to come from a 19-point edge among self-described moderates.

Further down the ballot, we've already got two stories developing today in the race for the Democratic nod to fill the safely-blue suburban seat that Inslee leaves behind. State Rep. Roger Goodman, who filed to run in the 8th against Dave Reichert but who lives (under the current map) in the 1st, said that he'd filed in the 8th out of respect for Inslee but quickly clarified today that he's actually running in the 1st. And Nepal-born tech executive Darshan Rauniyar also announced his bid today; while he hasn't held elective office before, he's been active in the local party organization. They join state Rep. Marko Liias and ex-state Rep. Laura Ruderman.

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Lance Winters

Political news from today's Times and around the Web, plus a look at what's happening in Washington.

Source: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/the-early-word-convicted/

Lance Winters

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann entered the 2012 Republican presidential race Monday with a huge swell of momentum behind her ? thanks to a new Des Moines Register poll that showed her running even with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the Hawkeye State.

Bachmann?s greatest strength in the race is her charisma and quotability. But those same traits have also gotten Bachmann into trouble as she has shown a tendency toward rhetorical missteps during her relatively brief political career. (?Anti-American? views, anyone?)

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=07d77be3c15aa438ec775f3d59d676c1

Rush Limbaugh Obama

Lance Winters

Michele Bachmann took a shot at Mitt Romney, Ken Blackwell is not running for Senate, Tim Pawlenty is going up on Christian radio and Chris Christie has a major victory.

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Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=8bfa64a4c72af4d8c1f38be5d2768ca4

Roosevelts George Bush

Lance Winters

(CNN) - Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California announced Monday that she will not seek re-election next year after serving...

Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/27/breaking-democratic-rep-lynn-woolsey-to-retire/

Alvin Green John Mccain

Lance Winters

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama said after his meeting Monday with the Senate majority leader that they believe "a...

Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/27/obama-deficit-deal-remains-possible/

Michelle Obama Sarah Palin

Lance Winters

Sign up to get Wisconsin recall poll results early!

* * * *

Just as we did back in March, Daily Kos has commissioned Public Policy Polling to conduct surveys on the Wisconsin recall elections. The polls went into the field earlier today.

While we will eventually poll all nine of the districts where recall elections are being held, this time we are starting with the three districts currently represented by Dan Kapanke, Randy Hopper and Sheila Harsdorf.

And just like last time, before we post the results on the blog, on Tuesday evening we will send them out early in an email. You can get that email if you sign up here.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/oywhqaa4LOM/-Were-polling-the-Wisconsin-recalls-again

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Lance Winters

John Mccain Barrack Obama

Lance Winters

Washington (CNN) - Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, questioned the timing of President Barack Obama?s...

Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/26/rogers-obama-playing-politics-with-afghanistan/

George Bush George W. Bush

Lance Winters

Rep. Tim Huelskamp

If there's any class you can rely on for being both mendacious and dumb, I'd say it's the House Republican freshman class. Case in point, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). Despite the fact that McKinsey and Company has been forced to admit that its own study did not provide the evidence it originally purported to, he just keeps on citing it.

"We learned last week that approximately 30% of employers anticipate dropping their health care coverage as a result of this [law]," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) at a press conference with fellow freshmen Republicans on the Hill today. "So more things are coming to light showing this simply was not a good piece of legislation."
TPM followed up with Huelskamp to see if he still supported the study's findings even though McKinsey revised its findings on Monday, noting that the "survey was not intended as a predictive economic analysis of the impact of the Affordable Care Act."

"I believe so, I looked at the information they put back out, I believe the methodology that was used is accurate," he said. "It matches what I hear from small business folks across the state of Kansas."

As always, the facts have a liberal bias, and numerous other studies?designed to be predictive?contradicting McKinsey and folks in Kansas abound. As does actual, real-life experience. Which is nothing compared to a Republican's gut feeling or preferred "facts." Same as it ever was.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/3QkBXH-eh-s/-GOP-House-freshmen-still-citing-faulty-McKinsey-study-on-insurance

Michelle Obama Sarah Palin

Lance Winters

An artist's conception of Dawn between asteroids Vesta and Ceres, courtesy NASA

While the Netroots is winding down from our annual meeting, another exciting encounter is about to unfold hundreds of millions of miles away in the cold, lonely reaches of the asteroid belt. NASA's Dawn spacecraft is nearing Vesta. If all goes well, the unmanned probe will begin beaming back high resolution images of one of the more mysterious objects in our solar system next month.

Principal Mission Investigator Christopher Russell is deservedly bursting with pride and excitement, telling me in part, "I and the Dawn team right now feel like Christopher Columbus and his crew must have felt after putting their faith in their three little ships and finally seeing the American shore ahead." Russell, who invested 15 years of his own life into designing and managing the ambitious mission, added, "Like Columbus we have a very modest expedition conveyed by three little ion engines, but those little engines were quite sufficient for us to make the journey. The moment is profound and it is exciting to be finally at Vesta!"

Vesta seen by Hubble

4 Vesta as it's officially known, is the brightest asteroid as seen from earth and one of the first discovered way back in 1807. Up to now our best photos are blurry, splotchy images showing gross features on the order of tens of miles in size. But little of the fine detail is known. The spacecraft will learn more about Vesta in the next 30 days than we've discovered in the last 200 years combined
The best part is Dawn won't be marooned off Vesta. After examining the enigmatic worldlet up close and personal with a suite of instruments for a year, Dawn will fire up her triple redundant Xenon ion thrusters and head for another equally tantalizing and mysterious object: the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015.

I'm not entirely sure why we should care, but 49 out of the 51 Miss America contestants expressed skepticism over evolution. The contest winner, Miss California, was one of two who did stick up for science (The other was Miss Massachusetts). Maybe next year we should ask the contestants if they prefer Loop Quantum Gravity or String Theory ...
Via Bad Astronomy addressing Arctic ice loss, a new paper published in the American Geophysical Union (.pdf) handily debunks the denier zombie lie that a single average volcano yeilds more CO2 than human activity creates in a year. The actual figures: humans out greenhouse gas volcanoes by a hefty a hundred to one.
Dude, where's my robotic car? In Nevada, they're legal!

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/OZSyL3HuB2A/-This-week-in-science

Michelle Obama Sarah Palin

Lance Winters

The passage of a same-sex marriage bill late Friday night in New York drew considerable national coverage to the Empire State and was broadly touted as a major victory for first term Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

It?s also stoked talk that Cuomo is rapidly transforming himself into a first among equals when it comes to the jockeying for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

?It?s not just that he delivered on a major civil rights issue for the Democratic base in a huge state, it?s how he did it ? winning bipartisan support and sticking with it when it seemed it might fail,? said Democratic consultant Jason Ralston. ?Combine that with his name and his focus on the middle class and he is at the front of the pack for 2016.?

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=30945988f6001f39fa694b7d8b3a4ff5

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/andrewsullivan/rApM/~3/b27chYmkX08/the-view-from-your-window-16.html

Lance Winters

Crafers, Australia. 10.20 am

Sarah Palin Alvin Green

Lance Winters

This is the 20th in a regular Fix series that focuses on the decennial redistricting process in key states. We call it ?Mapping the Future.? The series aims to look forward to how the maps in these states could be drawn and what the best and worst outcomes for each party might be. Today we take on Minnesota. (And make sure to check out the previous installments: Texas, Indiana, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, California, Nevada, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Utah, North Carolina , Wisconsin, Maryland, Michigan, Louisiana, New Jersey and Colorado.)

Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=3dac6912052f98614d3b9674c89e8d0f

Lance Winters

Newt Gingrich says he?s different, Sarah Palin says her tour isn?t over, Jon Huntsman says he would never give money to Harry Reid and Michele Bachmann is launching her campaign on Monday.

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Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=78c99fe47eaef109e2fb2bb8ed3438a2