Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, January 21, 2010

On staying home

Commentary By Ron Beasley



President Obama and the Democratic Party have let down the country and the base - see here and here. So should the progressive base punish them in 2010?  Ta-Nehisi Coates says no:

That said, I can't say I can get with the "stay home" notion. There's
just too much else at stake. A return of the Bushies simply isn't an
option.

Ezra Klein is not so sure:

The other question relates to the dynamics of the situation. If a
demoralized Democratic base stays home in 2010 and Democrats lose 14
seats in the Senate and 60 seats in the House, is that really so
different, in outcome, than if they keep a bare majority in one or the
other chamber? Maybe. But maybe not. Republicans wouldn't be able to
get anything over Obama's veto. And maybe they'd be able to use the
fact that they're in charge in Congress to take some risks and
compromise with the president on some major legislative achievements.
Divided government does have some advantages.

And what's the alternative? It's hard to imagine that a Democratic
majority that can't act with 59 votes in the Senate and a 40-vote
margin in the House will have the steel to do much if they're left with
53 votes in the Senate and a close minority in the House.

But at the end of the day, this is all speculation. My basic
position is that politics is a marketplace like any other, and
preferences need to be known. If Democrats decide to drop something
this important to the lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings
because they lost a special election in Massachusetts, they should be
punished in the sole way this marketplace allows.

The Democrats were given the White House and larger majorities in both houses of congress than the Republicans ever had and were unwilling or unable to do anything with those majorities.  That said the Supreme Court decision today shows how essential it is that Obama be reelected in 2012.  The question becomes how will staying home in 2010 impact 2012? 



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1 comment:

  1. webapparitionJanuary 21, 2010 at 9:36 AM

    So you think that the American people should play the same f**king games that the corrupt class in DC play? We should reward a bunch of self-serving liars and corporate proxies for their bullsh*t during campaigning and for screwing America after we give them the job?
    Obama gets to be president on promise and hope for America, and then Obama protects war criminals and becomes one himself by doing so and continuing the same policies he critisized and enriching his corporate bosses at the country's expense and we should reward this corruption by voting for him again in 2012 because of more corrupt dipsh*ts on the supreme court? Any more excuses?

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