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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

The Texas Blue: News

VeepStakes: Show Me State Edition

CNN's Political Ticker thinks Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill might either be courting the Obama VP slot or, perhaps, is being courted for it. I think everyone will be wrong about the VP projections and that it will be someone totally unexpected. Like, why not Bernie Sanders? Or, dare I say it, Teddy Roosevelt? That would be pretty unexpected, huh?

Google's Hilarious Liberal Bias

It has been a rough couple of years for conservative pundits. Unless you're like Fox News and you just don't care anymore, making your case to an unsympathetic public every day must be a real beating. Maybe that's why accusing Google of being unpatriotic is turning into a welcome way to wile away the days when they're bored or just get tired of losing on every issue.

A Dream, Softly Out

Ron Paul will formally terminate his presidential campaign tonight. I think the next step can only be a motivational speaking tour. Or maybe cutting an album. Either way, his supporters will have to do something else between now and November.

The NRCC's Message: We're Not Sure What to Say

Below the break you can see the text of an email circulated by the National Republican Campaign Committee. In it are the makings of the message they will be pushing this election year, which seems to say, "Hey, do you think things are terrible? Well, even though we're responsible for it, we do too!"

Polls, Shmolls

I know I've told you forever that national polls don't matter, often because they are so middling as to be completely undescriptive. However, sometimes some truly startling numbers jump out at you and then, well... listen, all I'm saying is that the new NBC / WSJ poll (condensed here in PDF format) dispels some myths, and there are some eye-popping revelations contained within.

FOX News Gets The Fever

Apparently the producers at FOX News learned the lessons of Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater quite well. Via Sadly, No:

 Stop picking on Obama's Baby Mama!'

Wow. A Princeton Bachelor's, a Harvard J.D., employment at Sidley Austin, the City of Chicago and the University of Chicago only gets a woman a "Baby Mama"? I shudder to think what the producers at FOX News must think of Cindy McCain and Laura Bush.

Secrets, Accusations, and Denials: Is Bush Laying the Grounds for Long-Term Iraq Presence?

Our president dismisses claims that the US is building permanent bases in Iraq; Iraqi leaders tell a different story.

A Terrifying Proposition

The National Journal ponders: what if all of the major news outlets disagreed on something? Prepare yourself, because it is happening. Seems that not everyone can get on the same page about what states will be presidential election battlegrounds. After the accuracy ratings from the Democratic primary predictions, I don't know why these guys are still in the forecasting business.

Techno-Logical

I am fascinated at the technological disparity between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, all the way down to how they manage their organizing tools at the grassroots level.

A Pictoral History of the "Terrorist Fist-Jab"

On the heels of the Fox News ridiculousness in which newly-demoted presenter E.D. Hill referred to Senator Barack Obama's pre-speech fist bump with his wife Michelle as a "terrorist fist-jab" comes a serious undertaking by Media Matters: they used the Google and put together a pictoral history of the mysterious gesture, even capturing Senator Joe Lieberman in the act of the storied fist pound. Pound it, Joe. Pound it.