Frank Chow: Asian- American Political Pundit

We shouldn't be married to politicians. The moment we do, we certainly will be disappointed. Exhibit B: Bernie Sanders NY Daily News interview if I win, it will mean that millions of people now want to be involved in the political process in a way that has not previously existed. Every item that I am talking about on my agenda is, I believe, supported by the majority of the people in this country. My major job is to mobilize the American people to demand that Congress listen to them and their needs rather than just the big money interests. That's how you make change take place. For example, as you know, I've talked about the need to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. Do I believe we can deliver on that? Absolutely, because I believe that millions of young people and their parents understand that that's what we should be doing right now. And I think if Republicans or some Democrats want to vote against it, they will pay a very heavy political price. ...

Well the Mrs. and I voted. After about an hour or so of waiting, we went to the archaic little set up and did the damn thing. I'm now going to try to avoid tv, Twitter and Facebook for much of the day. Hopefully, I'll get some writing done. It all comes down to tonight's results...what I'm feeling is Obama will be reelected and this blog will go back to thwarting ridiculous right-wing conspiracies. I hope that feeling is right. It's much more fun knowing there's a competent man leading the Free World. Here are your highlights: Romney Closes Dirty Nate Silver, he's smart and wonky The last minute tiff between Romney and Christie , don't see any benefit from this whatsoever. It's plain odd. Lots of other issues being voted on today. Gay Marriage! Atrios sums up the day ahead Fired up and Ready to Go! Chow!

Booman : It's really quite amazing how incredibly uninformed or misinformed the electorate was about who they were voting for and what they were likely to do once elected. For one example, people said their number one priority was jobs, but the government has a limited ability to create jobs. And the only tools at their disposal are making direct hires (thereby, expanding the size of government), contracting out work (more stimulus and, therefore, debt), targeted tax cuts (already being done, with the GOP opposing the latest effort to expand them for small businesses), and some tinkering by the Fed. The Tea Party candidates explicitly opposed all these efforts except the targeted tax cuts, and their number one issue is the deficit, which most tax cuts will only exacerbate. More mainstream Republicans also oppose all these solutions. So, basically, people said they want the government to create jobs but they voted in people who don't support using any of the tools the government...

Kevin Drum rants about Democrats throwing a hissy-fit over losing the mid-term elections : Honest to God, stuff like this just makes me want to scream. Why do Democrats panic so badly whenever they lose an election? Why run to the nearest reporter to spout idiocies about Obama not feeling middle class pain or not being an extrovert like Bill Clinton? Bill Clinton! For chrissake, I like and defend the guy, but he was an extrovert who felt people's pain and he lost 54 seats in the 1994 midterm. No one cared if he felt their pain. Likewise, no one cares if Obama feels their pain. They want jobs, not pursed lips and moist eyes. This stuff is so inane, so ego-driven, so self-destructive that it drives me crazy. Why are Democrats such idiots? It comes from years of being spineless. It comes from allowing yourself to be Charlie Browned every time Lucy has the football. It comes from the lack of political will to frame your argument. And it comes from a lot of so-called Democrats being con...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Exclusive - Chris Wallace Extended Interview www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity YES! It's here! Friday motherf-in Friday! This whole week has been a long blur of late nights and disappointing results. Alas the weekend will be a lovely time to relax and regroup. The lady and I had a small anniversary dinner last night at what is becoming our new favorite "stuff our faces" spot; Melanthios . It's like an old Greek woman is toiling hours over each dish. It's honestly some of the most homey, feel good food, I've had in some time. In addition it's across the street from her place, so it's perfect. This weekend we're celebrating the lady's job as she has begun to settle in and her co-workers are gathering together to have drinks and socialize over her awesomeness. Pretty cool. No Redskins this weekend, thank god, I don't think I could take any...

The Blue Dogs, as we progressives predicted, got what was coming to them. The center isn't always the right thing to do. It can in fact be disastrous . Greg Sargent playing off of Joe Klein: Klein's take is that the so-called "centrist" Blue Dog Dems suffered from an ideological aversion to government regulation and spending, which prevented them from recognizing that a bigger stimulus and stronger financial reg reform would have worked better in the real world. As a result, Klein notes, Dems lost big, with those very same Blue Dogs suffering heavy casualties in the process. This is, of course, exactly what many liberals had been predicting would happen for at least a year. Yet Klein couldn't simply say he agreed with them or that they were right. Some hidden set of rules required that he also include a bit of lefty-bashing over some unspecified ideological transgressions that happened at some point. That said, Klein really hit on the core point here. One of the ...

Because people don't show up to vote and then poof, the initiatives that make a great deal of sense are retracted : High-speed rail trains, a mode of transportation America was finally getting serious about, might never leave the station now that Republicans have gained ground nationally. During the last two years, the federal government made more investments in its burgeoning high-speed rail network than ever before. The Obama administration devoted $8 billion in stimulus funds and billions more in the last two budgets to jump-start construction on targeted projects across the country. Gov. Pat Quinn and Illinois lawmakers relished the opportunity; the Quinn administration applied several times for federal funding to support new projects and the General Assembly established the Illinois High Speed Rail Commission so the state could evaluate best-practices for designing and financing its system going forward. Construction on several routes began earlier this fall. All of that p...

"Don't mourn, organize" (h/t to ProgressIllinois ) I am Frank Chow and I approved this message

Paul Krugman is right again : So, we’re already getting the expected punditry: Obama needs to end his leftist policies, which consist of … well, there weren’t any, but he should stop them anyway. What actually happened, of course, was that Obama failed to do enough to boost the economy, plus totally failing to tap into populist outrage at Wall Street. And now we’re in the trap I worried about from the beginning: by failing to do enough when he had political capital, he lost that capital, and now we’re stuck. But he did have help in getting it wrong: at every stage there was a faction of Democrats standing in the way of strong action, demanding that Obama do less, avoid spending money, and so on. In so doing, they shot themselves in the face: half of the Blue Dogs lost their seats. And what are those who are left demanding? Why, that Obama move to the center. The Village will beat this dead horse for the next two years. And the Republicans will benefit from it as the media will ask suc...

What to do today? Anyone out there? Last night was a special Drinking Liberally where we drank, yelled and hung our heads low as the results came in. I had plenty of gin. Plenty. I feel the exact opposite of the day Obama was elected, however I'm not defeated. The Democrats still control the Senate and the Presidency and that is enough (barring some catastrophic event) to block complete insanity. It's now time for progressives to regroup and get back to work. IN THE GREATEST NEWS EVER! The Trans-Atlantic Throwdown Podcast Episode 2 is now up and ready for your listening ears! We hope you enjoy it and don't forget to email us questions or comments at tatpodcast at gmail.com. It's also available on ITunes , THANKS STEVE JOBS! Tonight is Laughing Liberally, bring your hippies selves to the No Exit Cafe for some escapism. Show starts at 8pm. Here are your highlights: Replacing an unpopular party with an even more unpopular party... The DNC got a couple things right, Right ...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy ( h/t Steve Benen) It should mean something and it will. Perhaps not this election, but in 2012 when history needs clearer priorities other than destroying our president . I am Frank Chow and I approved this message

The Media: writing our country's obituary I am Frank Chow and I approved this message

That's what Illinois would get with Mark Kirk . Tomorrow in Illinois we have a chance to vote for progress. Time to kick Kirk to the curb. Vote Alexi for Senate! I am Frank Chow and I approved this message

Gov. Quinn: Common sense, not nonsense from Progress Illinois on Vimeo . Progress Illinois : Throughout the summer and fall, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady has deflected many questions about how he proposes to address Illinois' many challenges, essentially asking voters to send him to the governor's mansion on faith alone. Particularly in regards to the state's budget problems, Brady has been a black box -- no information about his proposals are allowed to seep out. But it's not quite accurate to say we don't know what Brady would do as governor should he be elected to the post next week either. The portrait that has emerged of Brady is one of a profoundly conservative politician whose positions on a host of issues put him far outside the norm of most Illinois voters. With Election Day literally around the corner, we offer this Brady Reader to clarify the Bloomington senator's take on the critical issues. To put it simply, Brady is the wrong can...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy It's tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime! Thank you younger and less vocally talented brother of Michael Buffer. Tomorrow is election day. Grab your boots people and GOTV! We are at the eleventh hour, the final straw, insert your cliche here about it's tiiiiime. No, seriously, I am quite baffled that the majority of Americans expected to vote tomorrow have a case of short term memory loss. Does everyone really think Republicans will offer anything new? How can one conclude they will fare better with the economy than they did eight years prior to '08? It's mind boggling and stupid. Yes I said, I think it's stupid. It's stupid to be apathetic and young at this point and it's stupid to believe Republicans will do anything, but pout, throw temper tantrums and run this country further into the ground . I for one will not be a party to it and the rage from this blog is going to be even stron...

Prepping for the Trans-Atlantic Throwdown reading headlines, listening to tunes and drinking my coffee. Who's going to the Rally 4 Sanity ?! Sterno will be in attendance, so be on the look out for some amazing photography from the event. Seriously Colbert/Stewart should be paying the guy as press. I hope the rally goes well, that people get a good laugh out of it. As Steve M. stated , this rally is more about ratings than anything else. It has, however presented a mirror to our failed media establishment and they don't like what they see. As a comedian I find it amusing how much sway both men have had, perhaps they can restore a bit of sanity... These next four days will determine whether or not our country has honestly lost its collective mind. ActBlue is doing one last blitz for donations. Give if you can. Every bit helps. Alexi for Senate! Feingold for Senate! I am Frank Chow and I approved this message

Kevin Drum comes to a conclusion about the right's obsession with alleged voter fraud : In any case, nobody is suggesting we shouldn't police elections. What I am suggesting is that mountains of evidence demonstrate that the actual incidence of voter fraud is minuscule and nearly always freelance. Nonetheless, every two years Republicans whip up a towering hysteria over the specter of massive organized efforts to steal the election from them. Efforts that quite plainly don't exist. And since no party in its right mind would spend gobs of time and money fighting a tiny problem that affects virtually no actual election results, they must have some other motive for doing this. What might that be? " We are all voter fraud police now ", that's what it's about KEVIN! (eyes pop out of head and onto the Fox News station floor, followed by excessively foaming at the mouth while wearing a flag pin. A flag pin because that's what patriotism is founded on. Flags ...

I was going to talk about my upcoming weekend here as per custom. Instead I was reading an entry by Angry Black Lady at Balloon Juice, put on my headphones and listened to B. Yung . I was blown away. This is what words can do. When B. Yung uses the words "I'm tired," you understand his exhaustion. It resonates with me now as we are four days away from the impending doom of the election. I'm tired of the nonsense. I'm tired of Republicans. I'm tired of the lies and I'm tired of the media reporting "both sides do it." I'm too tired, yet seeing this video inspires me. It reminds me of why I post to this blog and why I voted early yesterday. We have so much that is yet to be done and we can't let our country fail . As Angry Black Lady says, "It’s about people who have risen above the short stick they drew at birth, and it’s about all those people who have yet to achieve their potential." I couldn't agree more. Here are your hig...

Republican House of Pain I am Frank Chow and I approved this message

The Nation : Whether or not voters like it—and polls suggest most do not—America is saddled with a two-party system. Historically, this has required both parties to keep the middle ground in sight. Some of the earliest critics of McCarthyism in the 1950s were Senator Joe McCarthy's fellow Republicans; and when the John Birch Society made its move within the GOP in the early 1960s, rebukes came not just from mainstream party leaders like Richard Nixon and George Romney but from conservative icons Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley. No more. In 2010 Republican leaders have abandoned even mainstream conservatives like Murkowski while welcoming the wrecking crew. Their money, and the money of independent "angels" like the Karl Rove–guided Crossroads GPS, the Chamber of Commerce and the billionaire Koch brothers, may buy victories on November 2. No matter what the final tabulation, however, President Obama and Congressional Democrats should make it clear that there will be no...