Reports from the Boston Globe indicate that the Massachusetts Secretary of State will send a letter to the US Senate on Wednesday informing them that Scott Brown has been elected. The results may not be official for several weeks but it is possible that he could be seated this week

Just to give us a fresh thread to discuss the future. I’ll keep updating the election thread Coakley has conceded. AP calls it for Brown CNN calls it for Brown Looks like a 100k plus victory. Just to put it in perspective, the last time the GOP held a Senate seat was 1979. The last time they took over a formerly Democratic seat it was 1946 The question now is when Brown will take office. Under Massachusetts...

Looks like a margin of around 100,000 or so for Brown, depending on Boston vote. Associated Press calls it for Brown MSNBC confirms Coakley concession Update at 6:20/9:20 This thing may just be over Right now with 66% in Brown: 757,885 Coakley: 668,881 A lead of 89,000 votes In Boston we have over half the vote in and if the current trend continued then Coakley could only gain another 20,000 or so. Even if the...

Report just aired on MSNBC is saying that the Coakley camp is reporting very bad turnout for Coakley and that the only issue is how much she will lose by. This is from a top Democratic official. Could we actually have the race called at closing ?

Reports are for higher than expected turnout today. Conflicting reports as to whether this is confined to the Boston area (which would help Coakley) or is even statewide (which would balance things out). However this could be a good sigh for Coakley.

This is no criticism of U.S. military and humanitarian relief aid in the first week after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that flatten half of Haiti last Tuesday. God knows their intentions were sound. No one seems in charge. Not the Haitian government which was feeble before the quake and totally crippled beginning with the first after shocks. Not the United Nations blue-helmeted security forces shaken to the...

This gives a whole new meaning to “Kill a Commy an infidel for Christ.”

In jolly old England, a radio disc jockey is being criticized for playing the Van Halen classic “Jump” as police stopped traffic and tried to prevent a woman from jumping off a bridge. Here’s the account as reported by a London newspaper. I’m not the most politically correct person on the planet but this behavior by a smart-ass disc jockey is irresponsible. Fortunately, the woman survived...

According to “The Whiteboard” at Politico44, the President’s State of the Union address will be January 27, a week from Wednesday, with his proposed budget offered the following Monday, February 1.

Jake Tapper, via Digby:

Sometimes I really envy our elite class, because it’s so easy for them to answer questions like this. All they have to do is pull out a slip of paper from their bag of self-serving bromides.

Greg Sargent uncovered this story:

As a former military, I have naturally been impressed by and have publicized the lead role taken by the U.S. military in bringing humanitarian assistance and relief to devastated Haiti. Of course, the U.S. military are not alone in performing such efforts. Many other countries, and their military, and many other governmental and non-governmental civilian and private organizations are also providing invaluable...

“TPS” stands for Temporary Protected Status, and it is routinely given to foreign nationals whose home countries are experiencing an extreme crisis of some kind, either a natural disaster or civil war or unrest.

I’m a print guy. Only my mother thought I was handsome enough to turn to television for a career. Which is my way of backing into television coverage in Haiti. But first some perspective and a dose of history. A strange phenomena occurred when television in its infancy offered wall-to-wall coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dallas in November 1963. People were glued to their sets that miserable...

I’ve run out of adjectives to characterize this kind of behavior, so I am just going to blog it and let it speak for itself.

Liberal Democrats are becoming more vocal in their efforts to can super majority rule in the U.S. Senate which now calls for three-fifths or 60 senators to kill a filibuster. It reminds me of an old farm adage that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Or for you younger city folks, watch out what you wish for. My assessment is that liberals are becoming frustrated with the Senate rules because...

The ambassador’s name is Raymond Joseph, and he seized the initiative at the start of an interview with Rachel Maddow to deliver this rebuke to Pat Robertson:

Two simple suggestions…and why I make them here.

Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Why is it whenever there is a natural or man-made tragedy, Evangelical preacher Pat Robertson uses his television podium to claim God is punishing us for tolerating abortions and homosexuality and in the devastating ruins of Haiti a “pact to the Devil.” Risking God striking me with a bolt of lightening for saying this: Mr. Preacher Man, you are a disgrace to your religion and blinded by your perceived...

Here’s some video of the aftermath of the earthquake. Truly catastrophic: Here’s a video that tells you how you can help earthquake victims: Here’s a rescue from the top of a toppled building: These three were CBS News raw videos. Some videos from other sources: The earthquake leaves a town in dust: Sky News’ initial report:

Haiti has been struck by another terrible natural disaster. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has had many prior political, economic and climatic disasters. The U.S. and other nations quickly will respond with the normal flurry of humanitarian aid. Then we inevitably leave without making this nation any better able to meet the next disaster or even able to adequately conduct its affairs on a regular...

Obviously at this point any speculation about the death toll in the Haitian earthquake is just that, speculation. But reports from the Haitian government are talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths. In the past speculation about tolls this high have often turned out to be overstated but in this case given that the quake shattered a city of several million people there is a good chance that they numbers...

This is the third post on today’s big news in the Netherlands, the release of the Davids Commission report on its investigation into the Dutch government’s decision-making process and policies during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. My previous posts were based on my own translations of Dutch reports in the Dutch newspaper the NRC Handeslblad. In translating politically sensitive documents and articles...