Free Republic

Harry Joe crunches the numbers and, based on the generic balloting right now, says the House is all but gone for the Democrats: With current polling in conjunction with Bafumi et al.'s paper predicting a Republican national vote between 53.6% and 54.7%, the Republicans could easily gain 50-60 seats from their current 178. Gains of greater than 60 seats also look quite possible. Even in the best case scenario for the Democrats, it would seem that holding the House would be very, very difficult. The whole post is worth reading -- he's not just pulling numbers out of his ass....

The emerging groundswell of what Berkeley Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich recently referred to as the "mad-as-hell" political party reached a tipping point last week in its inaugural national convention in Nashville. Coalescing from a fractious and haphazard collection of right-wing tax-haters, the rapidly evolving Tea Party now includes big-business-hating Democrats and the increasingly powerful independents who are suffering from a significant case of buyer's remorse. Tea Partiers are meeting in homes and church basements from New Jersey to Oregon. In fact, according to the Liberty First PAC website, there are already 10 confirmed Tax Day Tea Party rallies...

FEBRUARY 12, 2010, 9:31 P.M. ET In California, Sen. Boxer Has a Fight on Her Hands GOP Hopes Voter Unease Will Translate Into an Upset Win Over Liberal Democrat By JIM CARLTON SAN FRANCISCO—California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer comfortably sailed to re-election in 2004, thanks to her state's reliable liberal voter bloc, but she faces headwinds this year as Republicans seek to tap the kind of voter sentiment in California that was behind the GOP's upset win in another left-leaning state. The three major Republican candidates vying to unseat Ms. Boxer have been buoyed by Republican Scott Brown's surprise victory...

TOPEKA | Legislation giving Washington D.C. a firm tongue lashing was approved Thursday by the Kansas Senate. The resolution calls on the federal government to “cease and desist” from passing onerous mandates on the states. If passed by the House the resolution would be sent to the President and other federal leaders. It demands that Washington repeal existing mandates and respect Kansas’ sovereignty under the 10th Amendment, which reserves for the states rights not delegated to the federal government. Supporters note that while the resolution can’t force Washington to do anything, it sends a message for Kansans upset with overreaching...

N.Korea Climbs Down Over Anti-Market Reforms A North Korean source has shed more light on an apology by Premier Kim Yong-il on Feb. 5 which apparently acknowledged that the currency reform in late December went disastrously wrong. The source said Kim, not to be confused with leader Kim Jong-il, read out an hour-long statement before village chiefs and other party officials at the People's Palace of Culture in Pyongyang on Monday morning. "I sincerely apologize for having caused great pain to the people by recklessly enforcing the latest currency reform without making sufficient preparations or considering the circumstances," the source...

Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Democrats on who is trusted to deal with the country's problems and have sharply reduced several of President Obama's main political advantages, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The survey paints a portrait of a restless and dissatisfied electorate at the beginning of a critical election year. More than seven in 10 Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing, and as many say they're inclined to look for new congressional representation as said so in 1994 and 2006, the last times that control of Congress shifted. Asked how they would...

Is it me or were the Super Bowl commercials this year unusually ugly, misogynistic, and, worst of all, unfunny? Some of America’s biggest corporations seemed to be trying to play to Teabag America, and the results were as bitter as the teabaggers themselves. Amidst the dreck was a commercial from Audi featuring the “green police.” Here it is:

Whenever you hear a party say our candidates will do fine because midterm elections are just a series of local contests, you know there’s trouble. And we’ve been hearing that from too many Democrats. All politics now is national. The Republican strategy for 2010 has been both conscious and clear for months. The GOP wants Obama to fail and the economy to fail. At every turn they are determined to obstruct. This reached the point a week ago where seven Republicans in the Senate, including John McCain, voted against a bill they had cosponsored -- simply because Obama had endorsed...

Is Toyota Motor Company paying the price today for their executives' failure to support Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign? One might draw that conclusion after examining campaign contribution records on the Federal Election Commission web site.

N.Korea eases market curbs as anger grows: Seoul By Jun Kwanwoo (AFP) – 10 hours ago SEOUL — North Korea is relaxing restrictions on private markets because of mounting anger at a chaotic currency change that worsened food shortages and sparked unrest, South Korea's spy agency said Thursday. "North Korean authorities have been easing restrictions on markets. Such signs have been detected in various places," a spokesman for the National Intelligence Service (NIS) told AFP. "They may not have been able to keep ignoring people's demands." The communist regime had launched a progressive crackdown on street markets in recent years...

Discontent in N.Korea Turns to Anger After Currency Debacle The fallout from North Korea's disastrous currency reform is mounting, with public discontent at skyrocketing prices reportedly growing into serious unrest in places. Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday that an anti-regime mood is growing among people who are prevented from earning a living by a crackdown on the use of foreign currency and closure of open-air markets. Quoting sources in North Korea, the exile radio station said North Koreans now call leader Kim Jong-il simply by his name without using any honorific, which is unprecedented in the North. One Korean Chinese...

As Congress begins picking through President Obama's vast election year budget, many Democratic incumbents and candidates seem to be finding something they love — to campaign against. A Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri denounced the budget's sky-high deficit. A Florida Democrat whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center hit the roof over NASA budget cuts. And an endangered Senate Democrat denounced proposed cuts in farm subsidies. A headline on the 2010 campaign website of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), blares her opposition to Obama's farm budget: ``Blanche stands up for Arkansas farm families,'' it says. Heading into an election season in...

North Korea 'struggling against civil unrest' The revaluation of the won has led to rampant inflation and civil disorder Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor The North Korean dictatorship is struggling to contain civil unrest and runaway inflation caused by a drastic revaluation of its won currency, which is threatening new food shortages in the already hungry nation, according to reports in South Korea. /snip Agents of the People’s Safety Agency (PSA), which is conducting a so-called “Fifty Day Battle” against illegal enterprise, were reported to have been attacked and driven away as they sought out market activity in the city...

N.Korean Finance Chief Sacked Over Currency Debacle Pak Nam-gi, director of the planning and fiscal affairs department of the North Korean Workers The North Korean regime apparently sacked the Workers' Party's Finance Director Pak Nam-gi, letting him take the fall for the failed currency reform late last year. Pak was appointed finance director in July 2007 to oversee North Korea's economic policies and has spent the past few years trying to root out a nascent market economy. "Right now, North Korean officials are busy blaming each other for the failed currency reform and Pak, who spearheaded the revaluation, is believed...

Could we be seeing a major shift come this November midterm election? For the last few days, there has been quiet discussions concerning a shift in the U.S. House of Representatives, so significant that Republicans could take back control one year from now. Personally, I think it is a long shot, but I guessed wrong (Jim was correct) on Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts.

Nate Silver has unveiled his algorithms for rating the chances of each party in this year’s Senate races. This replaces his seat-of-the-pants ratings which seemed to me to be unduly optimistic for his side (the Democrats). Silver’s numbers attempt to show the percentage likelihood of each party winning the seat, taking into account poll results, candidates’ ratings and the likelihood of candidates to win their parties’ nominations

Individual races are starting to be looked at as winnable for the Rebublicans, but let's look at the big picture.Here are some long term trends that ought to have the Democrats really sweating.

In a political year in which voters want to “throw the bums out,” the last thing any candidate should do is run as the bum. That’s why Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, lost his seat in New Jersey in November. It’s why candidates such as Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Republican Dede Scozzafava in New York’s congressional race and, yes, Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts all lost. They ran as bums – slang for incumbent. One can only imagine President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, saying to anyone within shouting distance last Tuesday night: "The people...

WASHINGTON — The remarkable Republican victory in Massachusetts demonstrated convincingly that the deep populist anger fueling the Tea Party movement has migrated from the political fringe to the mainstream, forcing both parties to confront how to channel a growing mood of public resentment to their own ends. Scott Brown’s improbable win was a vivid example of how a candidate with traditional Republican backing — coupled with a strong appeal to activists in the trenches of a grass-roots rebellion — can win even in territory that had been considered out of reach. As the Massachusetts results reverberated on Capitol Hill on...

Feinstein and Boxer have enjoyed Senate Seats they consider as sacrosanct as the Kennedy Senate seat. After the Democrat defeat in Massachusetts, the fear and panic is becoming obvious. Boxer is willing to concede that Democracy is still alive and well in America. "I think every state is now in play," Boxer said Wednesday. "Every race is a choice. ... You have to make the case that you're the one on the people's side, and you have to feel it in your heart, and people have to get it." It is reassuring that still considers that the election process...