What's in the White House Fiscal Cliff Offer

Actual analysis -- what a concept. From DDay @ FireDogLake. H/t Atrios.

Either the White House has learned that there’s no margin in pre-compromising, or they don’t believe that they will ever get to an actual deal with Republicans, so they might as well put out their optimal policy preference. Either way, they are definitely playing some political hardball so far.

Carly Simon - The Right Thing To Do

Just a song that's been in my head.

The Zombies - This Old Heart of Mine

One of the original British Invasion bands cover a Motown song. Recorded live in France, looks like 1965 or 1966. H/t Hacienda.

Rats. Just found out that embedding is disabled, so click on this link to see/hear the clip.

The Beatles - Girl (Love Version)

How about one more from the Love album...except that this one was not released on the original version, but only as a bonus track last year. The changes are pretty subtle.

The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

A beautiful and very different version, from the 2006 album Love. The end contains a bit of studio chatter introducing the next song, "A Day in the Life."

Cracks in the Solid South

An interesting article in the WaPo about indications of Republican weakness in voting patterns in the South.

Much of the post-election analysis has focused on the demographic crisis facing Republicans among Hispanic voters, particularly in Texas. But the results across other parts of the South, where Latinos remain a single-digit minority, point to separate trends among blacks and whites that may also have big implications for the GOP’s future.

The results show a region cleaving apart along new electoral fault lines. In the region’s center, clustered along the Mississippi River — where Bill Clinton polled most strongly — the GOP remains largely unchallenged and the voting divide between blacks and whites is deepening. Nearly nine of 10 of white voters in Mississippi, for instance, went for Republican nominee Mitt Romney this year, according to exit polls. About 96 percent of black voters in the state supported Obama.

Alabama Shakes - Hold On

Some new music for a change. H/t PK @ NYT.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade, Part 1: The Sea and Sinbad's Ship

One of my favorite pieces of music when I was a kid. Here it's performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as conducted  by Fritz Reiner.

Sam & Dave - I Thank You

Let us give thanks, among other things, for this slice of Stax soul.

Reality Gets Faced

Dan Senor, one of the more prominent advisors in Republican circles in the last few years, reluctantly but more or less clearly speaks the truth: Republicans got blindsided by the election results because their polling sucked.

"There is some kind of systemic crisis today in the world of polling, I think particularly on the right-of-center polling. The modeling was way off," Senor said during an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Rubio Declines to Speculate on Age of Earth

One of the Republican party's leading contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, tells an interviewer that questions about the age of the earth are best left to theologians. From the WaPo.

Gil Evans - Spoonful

A jazz take on Willie Dixon's blues tune.

Laeverick - What Does The Deep Sea Say? (Where Is My Sailor Boy?)

Recorded at the Thomas Fraser Memorial Festival 2012, Burra, Shetland Islands. One of the members of this group is the granddaughter of Thomas Fraser. His story is an interesting one, as the Wikipedia article attests. 

Tommy Roe - Dizzy

Rough morning.

Marcia Grandioso

The band is unfortunately not identified. A classic march.

Rufus Wainwright - Across The Universe

For my cousin.

Trouble in the Old Country

Anti-austerity protests throughout Europe are underway. In democracies such things are not supposed to be necessary because the ballot box allows the people to lead, but, well...maybe they're necessary anyway.

Here's some pics from the Guardian.

The Golden Dawn - My Time

Authentic 60's psychedelia.

Major Harris - Love Won't Let Me Wait

I could link to Krugman again, but I do that enough already. So instead let's honor the memory of Major Harris.

(Ah, what the hell. Here's Krugman too.)

Why the D's Won: The Greg Sargent Version

Greg Sargent ties together a lot of threads on Obama's win but points to one element in particular: the Obama team's ability to create an effective narrative, a story of a president faced with nearly overwhelming challenges but succeeding anyway.

The Obama team long believed that Republicans themselves were contributing to this storyline. By putting up unprecedented roadblocks at a time of national crisis, they may have only reinforced voters’ sense that whatever their disappointment with the recovery, Obama is the one who can ultimately be trusted to fight relentlessly on behalf of their interests. Poll after poll found the GOP brand in tatters. And poll after poll — despite relentless attacks on Obama as out of touch with economic suffering — continued to find strong trust in him to fight for the middle class.

Leonard Cohen - Darkness

Another song from his most recent album, Old Ideas. Who else would come up with a flamenco/blues hybrid?

Krugman on Cliff-Diving

Yeah yeah yeah!

So President Obama has to make a decision, almost immediately, about how to deal with continuing Republican obstruction. How far should he go in accommodating the G.O.P.’s demands? My answer is, not far at all. Mr. Obama should hang tough, declaring himself willing, if necessary, to hold his ground even at the cost of letting his opponents inflict damage on a still-shaky economy. And this is definitely no time to negotiate a “grand bargain” on the budget that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

Get Yer Numbers Right

These two articles together more or less sum up the key point about what happened to Republicans on Tuesday: it's important to remember that if you do a good enough job gathering accurate numbers, you can make an accurate prediction. If not, you can't. Here's an article from the LA Times and one from Talking Points Memo.

November 7, 2012

Yes.

Nate Silver on Colbert

Nate Silver gets the opportunity to explain himself on TV. There's so been so much nonsense written and said about him recently that it's nice to see he still seems sane. I don't think I've ever seen a better example of shooting the messenger, which says something about our current media environment.

The Colbert Report
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nada embraces all distractions

Got nothing today. I understand there's some sort of political event happening in the very near future -- I'd just pay attention to that, if I were you.

George Russell - You Are My Sunshine

Recorded in 1962 - featuring the voice of Sheila Jordan.

Leonard Cohen (with the Webb Sisters) - Come Healing

Live in Helsinki, Finland, about nine weeks ago. This is one of the songs from his most recent album.

Krugman on Romney the Bipartisan Magician

When the man's right, he's right.

So we shouldn’t worry about the ability of a re-elected Obama to get things done. On the other hand, it’s reasonable to worry that Republicans will do their best to make America ungovernable during a second Obama term. After all, they have been doing that ever since Mr. Obama took office.

Classics IV- Spooky

Yeah, I know Halloween was yesterday, but I forgot, okay?!? Get off my back!

And of course, yesterday's post, "Stormy," was originally performed by the Classics IV as the follow-up to this song.