I must admit that if I’ve heard of Gail Collins before tonight (or this morning, as it were) I have no recollection of it, but as of now I completely and TOTALLY heart her — although I can only imagine how many death threats the NYT is receiving on her behalf from the Radical Reich.

…a tragedy befell our nation.

I answered 29 out of 33 questions correctly on this Civics Test, for a score of 87.88%. I missed questions 4, 7, 30, and 33. The average score for the month of November as of this writing is 77.6%.

This certainly takes the sting out of a certain verdict by a particular website (discovered via Susie) that passed judgment on this blog yesterday and found it to be at a high school reading level (a judgment that has since been revised based on some mysterious criteria):

(”Civics Test” via Sarah at Corrente)

Gmail now has themes!

Wow, the Republicans are going to have a field-day during her confirmation hearings, pointing out that perhaps the job of defending our nation’s borders should go to someone who isn’t the governor of a state that is home to the kidnapping capital of America and a major corridor for drug smuggling:

Last year alone, Phoenix police reported 357 extortion-related abductions — up by nearly half from 2005 — targeting individuals with ties to Mexican smuggling rings.

In addition, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement police have also recorded cases of kidnappers snatching illegal immigrant day laborers off the street for ransom…

Each year, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled through Arizona from Mexico, most heading on to join relatives living and working in the shadows in towns and cities across the United States.

The desert state also straddles a furiously trafficked corridor for drugs, especially marijuana, more than 400 tons of which were seized last year by the U.S. Border Patrol alone. Profits from the two crimes amount to billions of dollars…

The surge in kidnappings has earned Phoenix the tag of U.S. “kidnap capital” among law enforcement authorities.

And expect a whisper campaign about her sexuality to come into play, too. A similar campaign didn’t have much of an impact here in Arizona, but it also didn’t have the kind of push that Republicans at the national level — looking to put dent after dent in the incoming Obama Administration — are going to give it.

I don’t believe this is going to go well. At all.

I stated here and here that Joe Lieberman wasn’t going anywhere, and 42 assholes have proven my right.

I’d much rather have been wrong; Joe Lieberman is scum. Get used to the Democratic Party’s capitulationist behavior, kids, ’cause it’s not going to change with Barack “Let’s Sing Kumbaya with the GOP” Obama in the Oval Office.

Meanwhile, I’m pleasantly surprised that the voters of Alaska seem to have done the right thing — barely:

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn’t survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. His defeat to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich moves Senate Democrats closer to a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

Stevens’ ouster on his 85th birthday marks an abrupt realignment in Alaska politics and will alter the power structure in the Senate, where he has served since the days of the Johnson administration while holding seats on some of the most influential committees in Congress…

Stevens’ loss was another slap for Republicans in a year that has seen the party lose control of the White House, as well as seats in the House and Senate. It also moves Democrats one step closer to the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters in the Senate. Democrats now hold 58 seats, when two independents who align with Democrats are included, with undecided races in Minnesota and Georgia where two Republicans are trying to hang onto their seats.

Happy birthday, motherfucker! You’re eighty-five years old and your life is in ruins.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Just a couple of thoughts on this:

– Remember when the Obama campaign’s Greg (”Judas”) Craig did a hatchet-job on Clinton when she stated that she had more foreign policy experience than Obama did? Now Obama wants to give her America’s top foreign policy position. As if we needed more proof that Obama ran a dirty campaign and that Greg Craig was full of shit. At least it’s a nice slap in Craig’s face; for months, rumor had it that Craig would be tapped for the position.

– I sense that Joe Biden, a strong supporter of Senator Clinton’s, is behind this. If that pans out, I will dislike him a little less. Just a little.

Earlier I noted that Harry Reid can’t touch Joe Lieberman. And guess what? I was right:

President-elect Barack Obama has informed party officials that he wants Joe Lieberman to continue caucusing with the Democrats in the 111th Congress, Senate aides tell the Huffington Post.

I hope the pro-Obama zealots who’ve routinely proclaimed that he’s an uber-liberal who was just masquerading as a centrist all these months are realizing what asshats they’ve been, but somehow I doubt they’re that intelligent.

Smells like the same old shit to me.

There is absolutely no — zero, zip, nada — NO reason to keep criminals like Robert Mueller, Ben Bernanke, and Michael Mullen; these Republicans are part of the most corrupt band of thugs to ever occupy America’s executive branch of government and they will seek to undermine everything that a Democratic administration could and should want to implement.

Then again, Obama hasn’t really seemed all that interested in being a Democrat, has he? He cares more about being a “centrist” (meaning he wants to play both parties against each other so that neither has any leverage against him).

California’s passage of Proposition 8 certainly got a lot of help from members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Bigots, but African-American and Hispanic bigots were the deciding factor in stripping a minority of their civil rights:

Weston, 44, is one of an overwhelming number – 70 percent – of black voters in California who voted for Proposition 8 and helped secure its passage, according to exit polling conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

African Americans, energized by Barack Obama’s presidential bid, boosted their numbers at the polls this year to 10 percent of the state’s electorate, up from 6 percent in 2004.

“The Obama people were thrilled to turn out high percentages of African Americans, but [Proposition 8] literally wouldn’t have passed without those voters,” said Gary Dietrich, president of Citizen Voice, a nonpartisan voter awareness organization.

Latinos were 18 percent of California’s voters, and through sheer numbers also contributed to Proposition 8’s success. But 53 percent of Latino voters supported the measure, a much lower percentage than black voters. Among white and Asian voters, 49 percent voted for the measure.

I doubt there’s anything that Obama could have done to persuade these constituencies to set aside their religious bigotry, but it would have been nice if he’d tried instead of sending messages via right-wing, anti-gay, pro-Bush gospel singer Donnie McClurkin that it was okay to be a bigot.

I hope all of the Hillary-hating misogynist scum who screamed bloody murder about Clinton being soooo conservative and a Republican in Democrat’s clothing, the ones who had conniptions because SHE WAS A DLC CORPORATE WHORE WHO VOTED FOR THE WAR AND THAT MADE HER A BUSH-LOVING TRAITOR TO THE PARTY AND UNFIT FOR THE WHITE HOUSE are choking to death on the possibility of Rahm Emanuel being Obama’s Chief of Staff and Lawrence Summers serving as Treasury Secretary.

And let’s not forget the rumors that Robert M. Gates, Bush’s current Secretary of Defense, might be kept on by Obama in a display of bipartisanship — which makes so much sense in light of how the American people demonstrated their love of bipartisanship on Tuesday.

(Summers link via Susie)

Update, 11/07/08, 08:00AM
And lookee thar, it’s not just a few DLCers from the Clintons’ circle up for top jobs in the Obama White House, it’s pretty much ALL of the Clintons’ circle. Quick, get Joshua Marshall some smelling salts.

On second thought, leave the fucker on the floor; he does less harm there.

Bush, the first “president” to have an MBA, has certainly done wonders for the economy, hasn’t he?

The number of U.S. residents collecting state unemployment benefits reached the highest level in 25 years, rising by 122,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.84 million in the week ending Oct. 25, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

(Via Think Progress)

Taking Lieberman to the woodshed would put Obama in a very awkward position. After all, why is it not okay for Lieberman to behave in a “post-partisan” manner but perfectly fine for Obama to recruit Republicans for his cabinet?

Reid should have given Lieberman the shaft in 2006, but he chose not to. Too bloody late now, thanks to Obama’s “unity” nonsense; making an example of Lieberman now would undercut Obama’s plan to hold hands with Republicans and sing “Kumbaya” for the next four years.

The McShame campaign has thrown Palin under the bus; McCain staffers are leaking like sieves and backgrounding about Palin’s astounding lack of geopolitical knowledge…

Meanwhile, new revelations about Shopping-Gate have come to light, also leaked by McCain’s crew:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books…

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

Remember when Palin told the Chicago Trib’s Jill Zuckerman how frugal her family was when the scandal first unfolded? I’m sure the Palins are very frugal… except when they’re spending someone else’s money.

(YouTube video via Attaturk at FDL, Newsweek piece via at-Largely)

…of our long national nightmare?

I hope so.

That said, I proudly cast my vote for Cynthia McKinney this morning and then, lacking any other Green candidates on my ballot, held my nose and voted for all down-ticket Dems one last time. I figured what the hell, this is best chance in ages to hurt Arizona’s GOP.

I’m not holding my breath that a Democratic White House and Democratic Congress will be able to undo the damage done to this country and this planet during the last eight years unless both shift radically to the left — something that both Obama and the Dems’ Congressional leadership have been loathe to do.

But despite all of my misgivings regarding Obama and the Democratic Party, I can set aside those doubts and some of my rancor for a moment to say that I’m proud that my country has (FINALLY) elected an African American, a man who is the son of an immigrant. This is a moment of history that we should all take pride in.

Finally, words cannot adequately express how relieved and overjoyed I am that John McShame and Aunt Sarah will not be residing in the White House. Further, I’d like to thank Karl Rove and George W. Bush for doing more damage to the GOP brand than Richard Nixon did.

Time for some champagne and some anti-Republican Party toasts!

AP:

Democrats are picking up another Senate seat from the South: Democrat Kay Hagan has defeated Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina.

Dole had appeared to be headed to re-election, but she’s been hurt by revelations that she’s spent little time in North Carolina in the past year.

I’m sure Dole’s smear campaign against the far-too-Christian-for-this-atheist Kay Hagan didn’t help matters. Nor did Dole’s move to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the late Jesse Helms, who was positively vile towards HIV/AIDS patients.

Just heard that Obama’s grandmother has died; want to speculate on how long it’ll take for an email to whip around the right-wing hate-o-sphere claiming she was murdered or committed suicide for her grandson’s political gain?

It’s going to be a bittersweet day for the Obama family tomorrow, but Repugnicans have never passed by an opportunity to kick an opponent while he’s down. Bastards. Can’t WAIT to see them ground into powder.

Buster