A little over five years ago the principal investigator for NASA’s New Horizons mission, Dr. Alan Stern, visited our corner of cyberspace to brief us on the probe’s design and progress. Now we’re mere months way from our first close-up encounter with distant, mysterious Pluto! But there’s more: the plucky little spacecraft now has several […]
Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Of travel bans and Ebola czars
Jonathan Cohn: Are these calls for closing the borders the product of political opportunism? Xenophobia? In some cases they are. But some of them represent good faith attempts to protect public health, both here and abroad. The editors of the National Review have endorsed a travel ban, for example. In their editorial, they went out […]
Open thread for night owls: Race plays big part in how much home values have recovered nationwide
Standard Oil Co. founder John D. Rockefeller (carrying the cane) escorts his sister-in-law Lucy Spelman through Coit Rd. Station in East Cleveland, en route to Rockefeller’s Forest Hill summer home, 1912. On this date in 1877, John D. Rockefeller, who would live another 60 years, and his business partner at the Standard Oil Company, Henry […]
Public backs Supreme Court on allowing marriage equality to move forward, even in states with bans
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has some really good news on public support for marriage equality—not only does the public as a whole strongly back the Supreme Court’s recent decision to allow same-sex marriages to proceed in 11 states where it had previously been banned, but the court’s decision even has plurality support in […]
Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Coke FRIDAY!
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE… Late Night Snark: Gentle Breeze Edition “Honestly, we could have delved into all the terrible actual answers Rick Scott gave in the debate about his horrifying policies for Florida. But that’s not nearly as fun as him missing four minutes of the debate because his opponent had a fan […]
Politico: Rand Paul says GOP may win 33 percent of African-American vote in 2016
Breaking exclusively on Politico: Sen. Rand Paul tells POLITICO that the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 could capture one-third or more of the African-American vote by pushing criminal-justice reform, school choice and economic empowerment. “If Republicans have a clue and do this and go out and ask every African-American for their vote, I think we […]
Boosted by your donations, campaign to get out the Indian vote in South Dakota showing good results
Dustina Gill has been spending the past five days knocking on doors to get out the Indian vote in South Dakota. Here she is on the Standing Rock rez, once home to the Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull. At the time I finished writing this, more than 8,200 members of the Daily Kos community had […]
Daily Kos Elections ad roundup: Republicans play the Willie Horton card in Omaha
Leading Off: • NE-02: On Friday, the GOP unveiled two new negative ads in this fiercely contested Omaha-area race that instantly achieved serious levels of notoriety. First up is the NRCC’s new throwback spot. A few candidates this year have revisited infamous hatchet-man Lee Atwater’s playbook and run ads hitting their opponents for supporting policies […]
Rep. Joe Wilson: Hamas could bring Ebola across our southern border
Video here. You lie. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina was asked Thursday, during a question-and-answer after a speech, about the threat of Ebola entering the country through the U.S.-Mexico border. Referring to the “hypothetical,” Wilson said, “I’m very concerned. We had people who, I’ll repeat it, the creed of Hamas: We value death more […]
If we win, we can make sure Mitch McConnell never smiles again
Time to wipe that smirk off his face It’s been hard to get motivated for this election. Until recently, the best we could hope for was that Democrats cling to their Senate majority, and gridlock continues for the next two years. At least now, we have a chance to elect a populist progressive in South […]