Republicans Govern? "It's A Trap!"

Once again, thank you Stephen Colbert.

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Today's Cartoon - Low Information Nation

Sorry...  we're still in the "anger" stage.

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(Jen Sorensen, www.jensorensen.com)

BONUS:  And then there's Andy Borowitz' "Country On Wrong Track, Say People Who Did Not Vote."

Today's Cartoon And Reads

Love "The G.O.P.'s Long-Term Plan" diagram.

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(Brian McFadden, via gocomics.com)

From E.J. Dionne, Jr., on dealing with the Republican Congress:

[Sen. Mitch] McConnell’s main argument with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and his followers is not about ends but means. McConnell is no less focused than Cruz on bringing down Obama and discrediting Democratic governance, but McConnell needs to be more subtle about it.  [snip]

Solving the country’s economic riddle would be a much better use of their time than investing in the fantasy that McConnell and [Weeper of the House] Boehner will try to make Obama look good. 

Charles Blow looks at the more general mood and methods of the right-wing opposition:

His term must be tarnished; his accomplishments erased. 

Some people blame the president for not cultivating more congressional relationships, across the aisle and even in the Democratic caucus. There may be some truth to that, but not much, I believe. No amount of glad-handing and ego-stroking would compensate for the depths of the opposition. Nor would messaging. 

This is a president who was elected by an increasingly diverse national electorate that some find frightening, a president who is pushing a somewhat liberal agenda that some have found intrinsically objectionable, and a president who is battling some historical personality tropes that many cannot abandon. 

To his opponents, this president’s greatest sins are his success and his self. 

So, if you're listening Democrats, don't repeat the mistakes of the past 6 years by thinking the Republicans are acting in good faith or with good intentions.

Today's Cartoon And Letter We Wish We'd Written

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(Mike Smith, Las Vegas Sun)

And from today's once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle:

To paraphrase the 18th-century philosopher Edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. To all of those who didn’t bother to vote in Tuesday’s elections, thanks for nothing. 

Bob Butler, Adelphi

OK, we're still in the anger stage.

Quote of the Day: Who Has The Power vs. Who Has The Truth

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet midterms to men of understanding. Or as I put it on the eve of another Republican Party sweep, politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. Still, it’s not often that a party that is so wrong about so much does as well as Republicans did on Tuesday."  Paul Krugman, in yesterday's New York Times.  He wraps up the phenomenon of the Republican triumph in the mid-term elections (with a great assist by the media) despite being maliciously wrong about most everything.  Good read and good message to keep in mind.

Post-Election Cartoon Three-fer

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(Steve Benson, Arizona Republic)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Clay Jones, Claytoonz.com)

Dems Fall To Rethugs

It was a big night for the Rethuglicans, who won almost all of the expected contests in their red states, and managed to beat Dem candidates in purple or blue states as well.  The body count was staggering:  losses of incumbent Dem Governorships in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Illinois, and the U.S. Senate flipping to the Republicans with incumbent Dem defeats in North Carolina, Colorado, Arkansas, and (probably) Alaska.  House Rethugs add another 12 seats roughly.

What were presumed to be tight races turned out not to be, like Kentucky where human/turtle hybrid Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell easily won over Alison Lundergan Grimes, and Georgia, where David Perdue avoided a runoff election by defeating Dem Michelle Nunn by getting over 50% of the vote.  Hog castrator Joni Ernst appears to have beaten Dem opponent Bruce "Not Bailey" Braley by a decent margin.  The election results mean we'll have to endure the likes of Gov. Rick "Voldemort" Scott in Florida, Gov. Scott "I'd Like To Buy The World A Koch" Walker in Wisconsin, and new Governors plutocrat Bruce Rauner in Illinois, Charlie "The Fish Tale" Baker in Massachusetts and Larry "Gun Ho" Hogan in Maryland.  Great.

So let the second guessing and finger pointing begin.  For starters, we've often noted the Dems don't talk about their successes, and ceded the field to the Rethugs and their dark money allies.  Maybe it didn't occur to them that an increasingly robust recovery, lower unemployment, lower gas prices, affordable health care, pension funds replenished, etc. might appeal to the voters.  Hand it to the Rethugs, though:  they nationalized the election, diverted attention from their candidates' extreme positions, and managed to play the political press with "gotcha" issues about their opponents.

BONUS:  Jon Stewart's take on the midterms: "...the Democrats’ strategy seemed to be — again, I’m not a political strategist — curling up in a ball and hoping you didn’t kick them in the face too hard?”

BONUS II:  It didn't hurt the Rethuglicans that voter suppression worked in reducing normally low Dem turnout further.

BONUS III:  Both Charlie Pierce and Kos take the President to task (as we do, too) for the numbnut decision to hold off on executive action on immigration until after the election in order to "save" several conservaDem Senate seats.  That didn't turn out so good, did it?