Live Blog: Many ?!*%!? Returns!

I just got home, and Dakinikat is still fighting tooth and nail with her Blackberry, so here’s thread to talk about the election results in your area. Please let us know what’s happening out there.

I found this piece in the Wall Street Journal–don’t know how reliable it is: Democratic Coalition Crumbles, Exit Polls Say.

Amid deep pessimism about the economy, the coalition of voters that gave Democrats control of Congress in 2006 appears to have fractured.

Preliminary exit polls showed that the party lost ground to Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections among women, middle-income workers, whites, seniors and independent voters.

Driving the shift: broad anxiety over the economy, as well as skepticism of big government and opposition to signature Democratic Party policy achievements, such as President Barack Obama’s economic-stimulus package and the health-care overhaul.

The Dems have lost women, as we were expecting:

In 2006, when Democrats took control of the House, the party held a 12-point advantage among women, exit polls that year showed. That lead now appears to have been all but erased.

The shift appears to be even larger among white women. The parties were evenly divided four years ago among white women, but on Tuesday a decisive majority of that group went for the GOP.

And the old folks have dumped the Dems also, according to the article. Read it and weep.

From David Dayen at FDL: Early Exits Look In Line With Polling. Dayen links to an AP story, I won’t use the link, but here’s an excerpt:

Women — who typically lean Democratic and are vital to the party’s fortunes — split their House votes, according to preliminary exit poll results. Men favored Republican candidates.

The tea party made a splash in its first election. About four out of 10 voters endorsed the movement. While a majority of voters said the tea party was not a factor in their House vote, those who did use their ballots to send a message about the tea party were slightly more likely to say they were signaling support of tea partiers than opposition to the movement.

In contrast, voters were more likely to say they were casting votes to express opposition to Obama than to support him. Six out of 10 independent voters disapproved of the job he’s doing.

Voters overall didn’t hold a favorable view of either the Republican or Democratic parties. Overwhelmingly, people at the polls were dissatisfied with the way the federal government is working, and a fourth said they’re angry about it.

I hear Rand Paul won already, and Dan Coates has won in Indiana (my mom will not be happy). What are you all hearing? I’ll add more links as I find them.

Tuesday Reads

Good Morning!!

I’m doing a little surfing for Dakinikat because she’s technologically challenged at the moment.  She’s got a fried hard drive, an ancient computer, and a messed-up Blackberry to work with.   And she’s got a big presentation to make today.  Yikes!

Finally, election day has arrived and all the experts are predicting huge losses for the Democrats.  The predictions are so bad, that I almost wonder if we’re being set up to be surprised if the worst doesn’t happen.  Today pollster Charlie Cook named eleven more House Democrats who may well lose their seats.

On Monday, Cook announced that he was shifting four Democratic-held seats from the “Toss Up” category into the “Lean Republican” category – including incumbent Reps. Dina Titus of Nevada, Harry Teague of New Mexico and Frank Kratovil of Maryland – freshmen who have been high on the GOP target list practically since they arrived in Washington.

Cook also placed the Arkansas 1st District seat currently held by retiring Democratic Rep. Marion Berry, where Democrat Chad Causey is running against Republican Rick Crawford, into the “Lean Republican” field.

The handicapper now lists 29 seats currently held by Democrats in the “Lean Republican” or “Likely Republican” categories. Republicans need to seize at least 39 Democratic-held seats in order to win control of the House.

Cook is predicting losses of 50 to 60 Democratic seats in the House. In the Senate, Cook predicts gains for Republicans of 6 to 8 seats.

While it is becoming increasingly likely that Republicans will hold all 18 of its own seats, Democrats’ prospects in three of their 19 seats have improved in recent days. Sens. Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington now appear to be headed for re-election, albeit by small margins. In the special election in West Virginia, Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin now holds an advantage. Currently there are 57 Democrats, two independents that caucus with Democrats, and 41 Republican Senators. Post-election, Republicans could hold between 47 and 49 seats to 51 to 53 seats for Democrats. This new outlook means that the odds of Republicans winning a majority in the Senate are now non-existent.

Of course, from a liberal’s point of view it won’t matter all that much, since the Senate seems to give the Republicans everything they want anyway. I have to admit that a part of me will be celebrating if Harry Reid loses–even though everything I read about Sharron Angle gives me the heebee jeebees. According to the Washington Post that race is going to go down to the wire.

Cook also predicts gains of 6 to 8 governorships for the Republicans. I sincerely hope Massachusetts won’t be one of the ones they win–even though I’m not at all thrilled with Deval Patrick.

Just to be ornery, I guess, Nate Silver has dreamed up a scenario in which the Dems can still hold onto the House. It’s pretty far-fetched–but go read it and tell me what you think.

Anyway, we won’t have long to wait until we know how bad the Republican tsunami will be. We’ll be following the results here at Sky Dancing tonight.

In a setback to hopes for the repeal of DADT, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the discriminatory policy will continue for now.

A federal judge in California, Virginia A. Phillips, ruled on Sept. 9 that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law violated the equal protection and First Amendment rights of service members, and wrote that it had a “direct and deleterious effect” on the armed services. On Oct. 12, she ordered the military to stop enforcing the law nationwide.

The Defense Department asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to allow the status quo to continue as the case made its way through the courts. It has narrowed its own process for dismissing openly gay people under the policy. [….]

In the order, Judges Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain and Stephen S. Trott wrote that they were expressing no opinion on the eventual outcome of the case. But they said the government’s request to block Judge Phillips’s injunction should be granted out of deference to the judgment of Congress and the military, and in light of the fact that decisions by four other federal circuit courts finding the law not unconstitutional were “arguably at odds” with Judge Phillips’s rulings.

I really don’t see how a law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation could be constitutional. It’s a shame we can’t just get rid of the thing rather than go on wrangling about it while people’s careers are destroyed. Sigh….

Glenn Greenwald has a great piece up about the latest terrorist scare. Why do these always happen right before an election, I wonder?

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that “evidence was mounting” that Al Qaeda and Anwar al-Awlaki–the American citizen that President Obama has targeted for assassination without benefit of probable cause or a trial–were behind the “attempted attacks.”

But today, the NYT wasn’t as definite:

American and Yemeni officials still have little hard evidence about who was involved in the thwarted attack. . . . As for who was behind the plot, evidence remains elusive, though officials believe the bombs bear the hallmarks of Al Qaeda in Yemen’s top bomb maker.

Sorry, but I don’t buy anything the government has to say about terrorism anymore. I’ll believe it when I see it. Anyway, here’s Greenwald’s take:

The reality, as today’s version of the NYT makes clear, is that the U.S. has no idea who is responsible for sending these bombs. So in the dark are they that Homeland Security actually blamed two Yemeni schools that don’t even seem to exist, with the only one remotely similar to it being one sponsored by the State Department. But no matter: within a very short time of the attempted attack’s becoming public, U.S. government officials fanned out to anonymously pin the blame on Anwar Awlaki as the Mastermind, and newspapers then dutifully printed what they were told, even though nobody had any idea whether that was actually true. But when you’re trying to justify the presidential seizure of the power to assassinate your own citizens without a shred of due process, what matters is ratcheting up fear and hatred levels against your targets, not evidence or rationality. Just scream TERRORIST! enough times and maybe everyone will forget how tyrannical is your conduct.

To its credit, even the NYT article originally announcing the administration’s accusations that “evidence is mounting” of Awlaki’s culpability stated: “they did not present proof of Mr. Awlaki’s involvement.” How surprising. That same deficiency is true of the general accusation that Awlaki is involved in Terrorist plots as opposed to merely exercising his clear First Amendment right to advocate the justifiability of anti-American violence in retaliation for the violence Americans bring to the Muslim world. But that complete lack of evidence doesn’t deter huge numbers of people from running around proclaiming Awlaki to be a Terrorist and cheering for the presidentially-decreed death penalty based solely on unchecked government pronouncements, so it’s unlikely that the lack of evidence in this case will deter his being widely blamed as the Mastermind for this attack either.

Since I’m writing this post, I’m going to throw in a little sports news. First, the San Francisco Giants have won the World Series. As long as the Red Sox are out of it, I’ll take that result. From NBC Sports: Who are these guys?

Willie Mays never won a World Series in San Francisco. Neither did Willie McCovey. Or Orlando Cepeda. Or Barry Bonds. Or Juan Marichal or Gaylord Perry. Hall of Famers? The San Francisco Giants have had many. But world championships? None.

Before tonight, anyway. Before a lineup full of role players and aging veterans — and one rookie who may one day join the immortals in Giants history — beat the odds in beating the Phillies and the Rangers and now stand as champions of the baseball world.

Good for the Giants. And another curse falls by the wayside. Perhaps the baseball gods have finally forgiven the Giants for moving out of New York.

And in another strange sports story, Wide Receiver Randy Moss, who was recently traded to the Minnesota Vikings from the New England Patriots, has now been waived by the Vikings after Moss shot off his mouth after the Pats-Vikings game on Sunday.

Moss, who cost the Vikings a third-round draft pick, had only one catch for eight yards against the Patriots on Sunday. In four games for the Vikings, he had 13 catches for 174 yards and two touchdowns. Moss, who was fined $25,000 last week for failing to cooperate with the media and make himself regularly available for interviews, stepped to the lectern after the Patriots game but announced he wouldn’t take any questions. He repeatedly expressed admiration for Patriots Coach Bill Belichick and his former team and criticized the Vikings for not taking enough of his game-planning advice.

The Pats got rid of Moss because all he did was whine about not having a contract for 2011. Then he comes back to New England and goes on a tirade about Vikings coaches and how much he misses the Pats. What a crazed basket case this guy is. Some Pats fans actually want him back. I sure don’t.

OK, I know probably no one else is interested in that story but me. So what news stories and blog posts do you recommend this morning? I look forward to following your links.